CHAPTER XXVII
JOCK MIGGS'S ERRAND
Master Mittachip had tried to utter one or two feeble protests, but SirHumphrey had interrupted him emphatically,--
"The rascal may hope to win his pardon through the Gascoyne influence,by rendering her ladyship this service. Where'er he may be at thismoment, I am quite sure that his eye is upon me and my doings."
Mittachip shuddered and closed his eyes: he dared not peer into the darkscrub beside him, and drew his horse in as close to Sir Humphrey's as hecould.
"If you're afraid, you lumbering old coward," added his Honour, "go backand leave me in peace. I'll arrange my own affairs as I think best."
But the prospect of returning to Brassington alone across this awfulHeath sent Master Mittachip into a renewed agony of terror: though hisnoble patron seemed suddenly to have become uncanny in this inordinatelust for revenge, he preferred his Honour's company to his own, andtherefore made a violent effort to silence his worst fears. The Moorjust now was comparatively calm: the shouts of the hunters and theyelping of the hound had altogether ceased; perhaps they had lost thescent.
Another half-hour's silent ride brought them to the spur of the hill,along the top of which ran the Wirksworth Road, and as they left thesteep declivity behind them, their ears were pleasantly tickled by thewelcome and bucolic sound of the bleating of sheep.
"Your friend the shepherd seems to be at his post," quoth Sir Humphreywith a sigh of satisfaction.
They were close to the point where on the previous night Lady Patience'scoach had come to a halt, and the next moment brought them in sight ofthe shepherd's hut, with the pen beyond it, vaguely discernible in thegloom.
Sir Humphrey gave the order to dismount. Master Mittachip, feeling moredead than alive, had perforce to obey. They tied their horses looselyto a clump of blackthorn by the roadside and then crept cautiouslytowards the hut.
It suited their purpose well that the night was a dark one. The moonwas not yet high in the heavens, and was still half-veiled by a thinfilm of fleecy clouds, leaving the whole vista of the Moor wrapped inmysterious grey-blue semitones.
"You have brought the lanthorn," whispered Sir Humphrey, hurriedly.
"Y ... y ... y ... yes, your Honour," stammered Mittachip.
"Then quick's the word," said his Honour, pointing to a thick clump ofgorse and bramble quite close to the shed. "The letters are in the verycentre of that clump, and only just below the surface. Do you creep inthere and get them."
There was nothing for Master Mittachip to do but to obey, and that withas much alacrity as his terror would allow. His teeth were chatteringin his head, and his hands were trembling so violently that he was sometime in striking a light for the lanthorn.
Sir Humphrey suppressed an oath of angry impatience.
"Lud preserve me," murmured the poor attorney, "if that highwaymanshould come upon me whilst I am engaged in the task! ... You ... you'llnot leave me, Sir Humphrey?..."
"I'll lay my stick across your cowardly shoulders if you don't hurry,"was his Honour's only comment.
He watched Mittachip crawling on his hands and knees underneath thebramble, and his deep stertorous breathing testified to the anxietywhich was raging within him. A few moments of intense suspense, andthen Master Mittachip reappeared from beneath the scrub, covered withwet earth, still trembling, but holding the packet of letterstriumphantly in his hand.
Sir Humphrey snatched it from him.
"Quick! find the shepherd now! Don't waste time!" he whispered, pushingthe cowering attorney roughly before him. "One feels as if every bladeof grass had a pair of ears on this damned Heath!" he muttered under hisbreath.
Jock Miggs, the shepherd, had counted over his sheep, closed the gate ofthe pen, and was just turning into the hut for the night, when he washailed by Master Mittachip.
"Shepherd! hey! shepherd!"
Miggs looked about him, vaguely astonished.
Since his adventure of the previous night, when he had been made to playa tune for mad folks to dance to, he felt that nothing would seriouslysurprise him.
When therefore he felt himself seized by the arm without more ado anddragged into the darkest corner of the hut, he did not even protest.
"Did you wish to speak with me, sir?" he asked plaintively, rubbing hisarm, for Sir Humphrey's impatient grip had been very strong and hard.
"Yes!" said the latter, speaking in a rapid whisper, "here's MasterMittachip, attorney-at-law, whom you know well, eh?"
"Aye, aye," murmured Jock Miggs, pulling at his forelock, "t' sheepbelong to his Honour Oi believe."
"Exactly, Miggs," interposed Master Mittachip, spurred to activity by avigorous kick from Sir Humphrey, "and I have come out here on purpose tosee you, for it is very important that you should go at once on toWirksworth for me, with a packet and a note for Master Duffy, my clerk."
"What, now? This time o' night?" quoth Jock, vaguely.
"Aye, aye, Miggs ... you are not afraid, are you?"
Sir Humphrey had taken up his stand outside the hut, leaving Mittachipto arrange this matter with the shepherd. He had leaned his powerfulframe against the wall of the shed, and was grasping hisheavily-weighted riding-crop, ready and alert in case of attack. Thedarkness round him at this moment was intense, and his sharp eyes vainlytried to pierce the gloom, which seemed to be closing in upon him, buthis ears were keenly alive to every sound which came to him out of theblackness of the night.
And all the while he tried not to lose one word of the conversationbetween Mittachip and the shepherd.
"That's true, Jock," the attorney was saying. "Well! then if you'll goto Wirksworth for me, now, at once, there'll be a guinea for you."
"A guinea!" came in bewildered accents from the worthy shepherd, "Lordy!Lordy! but these be 'mazing times!"
"All I want you to do, Jock, is to take a packet for me to my house inFulsome Street. You understand?"
But here there was a pause. Miggs was evidently hesitating.
"Well?" queried Mittachip.
"Oi'm thinking, sir..."
"What?"
"How can Oi go on your errand when Oi've got to guard this 'ere sheepfor you?"
"Oh, damn the sheep!" quoth Master Mittachip, emphatically.
"Well, sir! if you be satisfied..."
"You know my house at Wirksworth?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"I'll give you a packet. You are to take it to Wirksworth now at once,and to give it to my clerk, Master Duffy, at my house in Fulsome Street.You are quite sure you understand?"
"I dunno as I do!" quoth Jock, vaguely.
But with an impatient oath Sir Humphrey turned into the hut: matterswere progressing much too slowly for his impatient temperament. Hepushed Mittachip aside, and said peremptorily,--
"Look here, shepherd, you want to earn a guinea, don't you?"
"Aye, sir, that I do."
"Well, here's the packet, and here's a letter for Master Duffy at MasterMittachip's house in Fulsome Street. When Master Duffy has the packetand reads the letter he will give you a guinea. Is that clear?"
And he handed the packet of letters, and also a small note, to JockMiggs, who seemed to have done with hesitation, for he took them withalacrity.
"Oh! aye! that's clear enough," he said, "'tis writ in this paper thatI'm to get the guinea?"
"In Master Mittachip's own hand. But mind! no gossiping, and noloitering. You must get to Wirksworth before cock-crow."
Jock Miggs slipped the packet and the note into the pocket of his smock.The matter of the guinea having been satisfactorily explained to him, hewas quite ready to start.
"Noa, for sure!" he said, patting the papers affectionately. "Mum's theword! I'll do your bidding, sir, and the papers'll be safe with me,seeing it's writ on them that I'm to get a guinea."
"Exactly. So you mustn't lose them, you know."
"Noa! noa! I bain't afeeard o'
that, nor of the highwaymen; and BeauBrocade wouldn't touch the loikes o' me, bless 'im. But Lordy! Lordy!these be 'mazing times."
Already Sir Humphrey was pushing him impatiently out of the hut.
"And here," added his Honour, pressing a piece of money into theshepherd's hand, "here's half-a-crown to keep you on the go."
"Thank 'ee, sir, and if you think t' sheep will be all right..."
"Oh, hang the sheep!..."
"All right, sir ... if Master Mittachip be satisfied ... and I'll leavet' dog to look after t' sheep."
He took up his long, knotted stick, and still shaking his head andmuttering "Lordy! Lordy!" the worthy shepherd slowly began to wend hisway along the footpath, which from this point leads straight toWirksworth.
Sir Humphrey watched the quaint, wizened figure for a few seconds, untilit disappeared in the gloom, then he listened for awhile.
All round him the Heath was silent and at peace, the plaintive bleatingof the sheep in the pen added a note of subdued melancholy to the vastand impressive stillness. Only from far there came the weird echo ofhound and men on the hunt.
His Honour swore a round oath.
"Zounds!" he muttered, "the rogue must be hard pressed, and he's notlike to give us further trouble. Even if he come on us now, eh, you oldscarecrow? ... the letters are safe at last! What?"
"Lud preserve me!" sighed the attorney, "but I hope so."
"Back to Brassington then," quoth Sir Humphrey, lustily. "Beau Brocadecan attack us now, eh? Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed in his wonted boisterousway, "methinks we have outwitted that gallant highwayman after all."
"For sure, Sir Humphrey," echoed Mittachip, who was meekly following hisHonour's lead across the road to where their horses were in readinessfor them.
"As for my Lady Patience! ... Ha!" said his Honour, jovially, "herbrother's life is ... well! ... in my hands, to save or to destroy,according as she will frown on me or smile. But meseems her ladyshipwill have to smile, eh?"
He laughed pleasantly, for he was in exceedingly good temper just now.
"As for that chivalrous Beau Brocade," he added as he hoisted himselfinto the saddle, "he shall, an I mistake not, dangle on a gibbet beforeanother nightfall."
"Hark!" he added, as the yelping of the bloodhound once more woke thesilent Moor with its eerie echo.
Mittachip's scanty locks literally stood up beneath his bob-tail wig.Even Sir Humphrey could not altogether repress a shudder as he listenedto the shouts, the cries, the snarls, which were rapidly drawing nearer.
"We should have waited to be in at the death," he said, with enforcedgaiety. "Meseems our fox is being run to earth at last."
He tried to laugh, but his laughter sounded eerie and unnatural, andsuddenly it was interrupted by the loud report of a pistol shot,followed by what seemed like prolonged yells of triumph.
Master Mittachip could bear it no longer; with the desperation ofintense and unreasoning terror he dug his spurs into his horse's flanks,and like a madman galloped at breakneck speed down the hillside into thevalley below.
Sir Humphrey followed more leisurely. He had gained his end and wassatisfied.