CHAPTER XV
THE OUTLAW
Beau Brocade drew rein on the spur of the hill. He had galloped all theway from the forge, out towards the sunset, then on, ever on, over gorseand bracken, on red sandy soil and soft carpet of ling, on, still on!
Overhead, on the blue-green dome of the evening sky, a giant comet, madeup of myriads of tiny, rose-tipped clouds, formed a fairy way, everdiminishing, ever more radiant, pointing westwards to the setting sun,where orange and crimson and blue melted in one glorious mist of gold.
Out far away, the distant Tors glowed in the evening light, like greatbarriers to some mystic elusive land beyond.
Jack o' Lantern had responded to his master's mood. The reins fallingloosely on his neck, needing neither guide nor spur, save the excitementof his own mad career, he had continued his wild gallop on the Heath,until a sudden jerk of the reins brought him to a standstill on the veryedge of a steep declivity, with quivering flanks and sensitive nervesall a-tremble, even as the last ruddy glow died out in the western sky.
One by one the myriads of rose-tipped clouds now put on their greycloaks of evening. From the rain-soaked ground and dripping branches ofbramble or fern, a blue mist was rising upwards, blending deep shadowsand tender lights in one hazy monotone.
Gradually every sound died out upon the Heath, only from afar cameintermittently the mournful booming of a solitary bittern, astray fromits nest, or now and then the sudden quaking of a tuft of grass, atremor amidst the young fronds of the bracken, there, where a melancholytoad was seeking shelter for the night.
Awesome, silent, majestic, the great Moor was at peace. The passions,the strife, the turmoil of mankind seemed far, very far away: furtherthan that twinkling star which peeped down, shy and solitary, fromacross the rolling billows of boundless universe.
Beau Brocade stretched out both arms, and sighed in an agony of longing.Fire was in his veins, a burning thirst in his heart, for something hedared not define.
How empty seemed his life! how wrecked! how hopelessly wasted!
Yet he loved the Moor, the peace, the solitude: he loved the sunset onthe Heath and every sound of animal life in this lonesome vastness.
But to-night!...
One smile from a woman's lips, a glow of pride in her eyes, just onecluster of snow-white roses at her breast, and all the glories of Naturein her most lavish mood seemed tame, empty, oh! unutterably poor.
Nay! he would have bartered his very soul at this moment to undo thepast few years. To be once more Jack Bathurst of His Majesty's regimentof Guards, before one evening's mistake ruined the whole of his life. Aquarrel over a game of cards, a sudden blind, unreasoning rage, a blowagainst his superior officer, and this same Jack Bathurst, the dandyabout town, the gallant, enthusiastic, promising young soldier, wasdegraded from his military rank and thrown, resourceless, disgraced,banished, upon a merciless world, that has neither pity nor pardon forfailures or mistakes.
But, quite unlike the young Earl of Stretton, Jack Bathurst indulged inno morbid self-condemnation. Fate and he had thrown the dice, and he hadlost. But there was too much of the untamed devil in him, too muchspirit of wild adventure, to allow him to stoop to the thousand and oneexpedients, the shifts, the humiliations which the world holds in storefor the broken-down gentleman.
Moneyless, friendless, with his career irretrievably ruined, he yetscorned the life of the outcast or the pariah, of that wretched fragmentof humanity that hangs on the fringe of society, envying the pleasuresit can no longer share, haunting the gambling booths or noisy brothelsof the towns, grateful for a nod, a handshake, from some other fragmentless miserable than itself.
No! a thousand times no!
Jack Bathurst looked the future that was before him squarely in theface, then chose the life of the outlaw with a price upon his head.Aye! and forced that life to yield to him its full measure of delights:the rough, stormy nights on the Moor! the wild gallops over gorse andbramble, with the keen nor'-wester lashing his face and whipping up hisblood, and with a posse of soldiers at his heels! the devil-may-care,mad, merry existence of the outlaw, who cuts a purse by night, andcarries his life on his saddle-bow!
That he chose and more! for he chose the love of the poor for milesaround! the blessings spoken by suffering and patient lips upon the nameof the highwayman, of Beau Brocade, who took from the rich at risk ofhis life in order to give to the needy.
And now at even, on Brassing Moor, when a lonely shepherd caught sightof a chestnut horse bearing a slim, masked figure on its back, or heardin the distance a young voice, fresh as a skylark, singing somehalf-sad, half-lively ditty, he would turn his weary eyes in simplefaith upwards to the stars and murmur gently,--
"God bless Beau Brocade!"
Perhaps He had!
The stars knew, but they did not tell!