CHAPTER IX
MY CAREER AS A HIGHWAYMAN
I left the cottage from the rear and struck slantwise across the fieldsto reach the shelter of the trees and undergrowth that covered the slopedown to the road. I ran hard so as to shake irresolution out of my mind,for I found myself half wishing that Mistress Waynflete had pleaded withme at first instead of trying to thrust me out of my plan. After all thehighwayman's was hardly my calling in life. So I ran hard, saying tomyself that it must be done, and the sooner it was over the better. Then Ilaughed. With my rusty old birding-piece I was as ill-equipped forhighwaymanship as I was for farming with my Georgics. "Stand and deliver,"quoth I to myself, "or I'll double your weight with swan-shot." Were theunknown horseman a resolute man armed with a hair-trigger, I was as goodas done for.
Arrived in the shelter of the wood, I began picking my way through thethick undergrowth towards the road. Fallen branchlets snapped beneath myheedless feet and the sounds rang in my ears like pistol-shots. A saucyrobin cocked his care-free eye on me from the top of a crab-tree, and Icould have envied him as I stumbled by. It was perhaps fourscore yardsthrough, and half-way I stopped to listen. Yes, there came to my ear theslow trot-ot-ot of hoofs on the hard road. I went on again until, throughthe leafless tangle, I began to get glimpses of the highway. My fate wasdragging me on. In a month's time my shrivelling carcase might be swingingin chains on the top of Wes'on Bank, an ensample to evil-doers. Thethought made me shiver, and I jerked out a broken prayer that my intendedvictim might turn out some fat, unarmed farmer, as easy a prey as anover-fed gander. Then I cursed myself for a fool. No man can mortgage pastpiety for present sin. Who was I that I should be allowed to steal on goodsecurity?
Trot-ot-ot. Trot-ot-ot. He was within easy shot now, and I stopped tomake sure of my rickety old weapon. A dragoon's musket would not haveneeded such constant care. "Life turns on trifles," said MistressWaynflete.
In lifting my eyes from the priming to move on again, something in theline of vision made me start. On my left, less than a dozen paces from me,there lay on the ground, on a clean patch beneath a conspicuously-forkedhawthorn, a man's jacket and plumed hat.
A lion playing with a lamb would not have given me pause more abruptly. Istole silently up to them. They were fine but somewhat faded garments,modish and even foppish, and, so far as I could distinguish anypeculiarity, military in appearance, and evidently belonged to a person ofsome quality. Nor had they been flung there in haste, for the coat wasneatly folded and the hat disposed carefully on top of it. How long hadthey been there? I picked up the hat, and there was still the gloss ofrecent sweat on its inside brim.
This, however, was no time for idle problems, a very urgent one being onhand. Forward I crept to the side of the road, and, lying flat down on theground, pushed the stock of my gun on to the short grass, and peepedcautiously to my right down the hill. I was about thirty or forty yardsfrom a bend in the road, and had intended to be much less, but mydiscovery and my confused, half-conscious thinking about it, had deflectedme a little from my course.
Trot-ot-ot. He would be in sight in a few seconds. Trot-ot-ot, plainerthan ever, and there he was. The moment that he was in full view I made anastonishing discovery, and saw an astonishing sight.
The discovery was that the solitary horseman, walking his powerful greywith a slack rein, and lost in thought, was Master Freake.
The sight was the rush of three men from their lurking-places in thebrushwood. Two of them were soldiers, and Brocton's dragoons at that, asample of the town-sweepings Jack had complained of. One seized the reins,the other held a carbine point-blank at the horseman's head.
These were plainly deserters or freebooters, acting after their kind, andthey had picked up a strange partner during their foray. He wore a yokel'ssmock much too big for him, and yet not big enough to hide his bespurredriding-boots. On his head he had a dirty tapster's bonnet, and his facewas completely hidden by a rudely-cut crape vizard. This singular personwas evidently the leader of the gang. He threatened Master Freake with aglittering, long-barrelled pistol, and in gruff, curt tones ordered him todismount on pain of instant death.
Here was a strange overturn to be sure. Here again fate had rudely upsetmy plans, and no fat purse would there be for me in this coil. However,though I would have robbed Master Freake willingly enough, my blood beingup and he a manifest Hanoverian, I was not going to see Brocton's ruffiansrob him, much less kill him. The purse must wait, and when I took it--fortake it I must--God would perchance balance one thing against the other.
All that I had seen and thought took place in a mere fraction of time,and even before Master Freake had pulled up, I was creeping like a ferretfrom bush to bush to get nearer. Then, just as in his quiet, measuredtones he was asking what they wanted, I burst out into the wood, shouting,"Forward, my men, here the villains are!" With the words, I fired myhandful of swan-shot clean into the group, and then charged at themyelling, in boyish imitation of a knight of old, "Happy is he thatescapeth me."
The two dragoons instantly fled with yelps of pain and terror, and thehorse, squealing with fright, began to rear and plunge madly about theroad. Black Vizard turned on me, his pistol rang out, and the bullethissed by my ear. I sprang at him with clubbed gun, and struck hard forhis head, but caught him on the neck as he too turned to flee. He wentdown, spinning and sprawling, in the road, right under the plunging horse.With a squeal that curdled my blood, she rose in the air, kickingviciously. Her hoofs came down with sickening thuds on the squirming man'sskull, cracking it like an egg-shell. His body twitched once or twice, andthen settled into the stillness of death.
I seized the horse's rein and soothed her. She let me pat her neck andrub her nose, and soon stood quiet, her neck flecked with foam, her flanksreeking with sweat. Master Freake, who had not spoken a word, dismounted,and I led the mare into the wood and hitched her reins over a bough. ThenI returned to the man I had saved, and found him looking calmly down onthe man I had killed. The black vizard was now soaking in a horrid pool ofblood and brains. I stooped, and with trembling fingers moved it aside andrevealed the features of the dead man. It was the pimple-faced Major.
I turned to my intended victim, and found him looking calmly andimpassively at me.
"Master Wheatman of the Hanyards, unless I am mistaken," he said.
"Your servant, sir," said I, rather sourly. But for that dead rascal atour feet I could beyond a doubt have plucked him like a chough, and here Iwas, still penniless.
"Master Wheatman, I am not a man of many words, but what I say I standby. I am your very grateful debtor for a very fine and courageous action.Three to one is long odds, but you won with your brains, sir, as much asby your bravery. Your shout was an excellent device, happily thought on."
He held out his hand. I shook it heartily and then burst out laughing,and laughed on till tears stood in my eyes. And this was the end of myhighwaymanship!
"Since the danger is, thanks to you, over, Master Wheatman," he said, "Iwould e'en like to share your mirth--if I may."
"Sir," I replied, "I am laughing because I have saved you from robbers."
"But why laugh?"
"Because I set out ten minutes ago to rob you myself."
Master Freake gazed casually up and down the hill, and then, fixing hisquiet grey eyes on me, said whimsically, "I am a man of peace, andunarmed; the road is of a truth very lonely, and I have considerable sumsof money on me."
"Yes, I'm quite vexed. This fire-faced scoundrel has upset my plansfinely. I may not get as good a chance for hours."
Now it was his turn to laugh. "Master Wheatman," he said, "you are notthe stuff highwaymen are made of. As you are in need of money, you need itfor some good purpose, and I shall--"
He stopped short. As we stood, he was facing the wood from which therobbers had burst on him, while I had my back on it. As he stopped, hisstrong, calm face changed, and his eyes were fixed on something in thewood. Wonder, amazement, delight, awe--not one, but all
of these emotionswere visible in his face. He looked as one who sees a blessed spirit. Iturned. It was Margaret, leaning, pale and spent and breathless, againstthe trunk of a tree, looking and shuddering at the dread object in theroad.
I bounded up to her and touched her on the arm. "All's well, MistressWaynflete," said I. "I am as yet no gallows-bird."
"But--" Her eyes were still staring wide on the road, and she trembledviolently, so I stepped between her and the ghastly sight, and said,"Courage, dear lady. The dead man is your father's worst enemy, MajorTixall, and yon horse killed him, not I."
By this, Master Freake had come nearer to us, and I turned to greet him.
"Madam," said I, "this is my friend, Master Freake, whom I set out torob." To him I added, "This is Mistress Waynflete, whom I have the honourto serve."
He bared his head and bowed. "And whom I hope to have the honour ofserving too."
I looked at him curiously. All other emotions had faded from his facenow, but it was clear that her peerless and now so helpless beauty hadappealed home to him.
"Sir," she said, recovering herself with a great effort, "I am pleased tomake your acquaintance. And now,"--speaking to me,--"since you have givenme a great fright and made me behave like a milkmaid rather than asoldier's daughter, perhaps you will tell me what has happened, and howit"--she looked over my shoulder--"comes to be lying there. I heard shotsand shrieks that turned me to stone. What has happened?"
"Master Wheatman," said our new acquaintance, taking my words out of mymouth, "is hardly likely to give you a reasonably correct account. Allowme to be the historian of his fine conduct." He told the story withovermuch kindness to me, and as he told it the colour came back to herface, and she was herself again. While he was telling it, I noticed forthe first time, or rather for the first time gathered its meaning, thatshe had run out after me without the domino, and in the biting air shemight easily catch a chill. So while Master Freake was making a finesprose about me, much more applicable to Achilles or the Chevalier Bayard,I slipped off and fetched the hat and coat. He was just concluding hisstory on my return, and without interrupting him, I clumsily thrust thehat on her head and flung the coat over her shoulders.
"Master Freake," she said, in her sweetest bantering tones, "my servant,as he absurdly calls himself, is really an artist in helping people. Itold him this morning that his native shire was his conjurer's hat, whenhe fetched ham and eggs out of it for poor hungry me. Now he observes thatI am coatless and a-cold, and lo, a hat is on my head and a coat on myshoulders. It is marvellous and nothing short of it. Nay, I shall shun himas one in league with the powers of darkness if there's much more of it.If I be saved, you remember Master Slender,"--this in a sly aside tome,--"I'll be saved by them that have the fear of God."
"Ingrate!" I cried, half angry and yet wholly delighted; "what of marvelor devilment is there in picking up a hat and coat one has found lyingunder a tree?"
"Major Tixall's," said Master Freake.
"Ass that I am, of course they are. Steady, Mistress Margaret, while I gothrough the pockets. The odds are we shall find something useful incheckmating my Lord Brocton."
In this I was wrong, for there was not a single scrap of writing in anyof them. I did, however, fish out two small but heavy packets, wrapped inpaper. They were easily examined, and each contained a roll of ten guineas.
"The hire of the two rascals," explained Master Freake.
"Really, Mistress Margaret," said I, "there's something in what you saidjust now. I do have his nether highness's own luck. I came out forguineas, prepared to rob for them, and here's twenty of the darlings lyingready for me to pick up. Now we can go ahead in comfort."
Through all this talk I was turning over in my mind what account, if any,we were to give Master Freake of our being here. If I had had only myselfto consider I should have trusted him without hesitation. He was the sortof man that inspires confidence, his grave, serene, intelligent facehaving strength and steadfastness written in every line of it. But I hadMistress Waynflete to consider, and if any appeal was to be made for hisassistance, she must make it. I'm afraid that I hoped she wouldn't, sinceI was jealous of any interference in my temporary responsibility for herwelfare.
"Master Freake," I said, "some account will, I suppose, have to be givenof yon ruffian's death. The two runaways are scarcely likely to appear aswitnesses, so, for Mistress Waynflete's sake, I must ask you, should anexplanation become necessary, to conceal my share in the matter."
"The manner of his death is fortunately quite obvious, and if it werenot, any account I choose to give of it will pass unquestioned."
"Then it will be easy for you, I hope, to forget me when giving it. Andnow, madam, I think we must be moving."
"Before you go," said Master Freake, "let me say again that if I can helpyou, you have only to ask. You, Master Wheatman, because your twofoldsignal service is something it would shame me for ever not to be allowedto return, and you, madam, because," he paused, and the curious raptexpression came over his face again, "because you are very beautiful andneed help. Your father's politics will make no difficulty, so far as I amconcerned."
"You know my father?" she asked, surprised.
"Know of him. My Lord Brocton was boasting last night of his capture--andof other things," he lamely concluded.
"Is he boasting this morning?" I asked.
"I have not seen him," he said, "but Mistress Dobson told me she thoughthe'd been rooks'-nesting and had fallen off the poplar."
"I met him again," said I, "and did not like his conversation."
"Master Wheatman means," explained Mistress Waynflete, "that he saved mefrom my Lord Brocton's clutches at the imminent risk of his own life." Shestretched out her hands and touched the holes in my coat with her white,slender fingers. "My lord's rapier made these," she said.
"An inch to the left, my friend," quoth Master Freake, "and you'd havebeen as dead as mutton. His lordship, it seems, is busily piling up a bigaccount with both of us. Well, in my own way, I'll make the rascal pay asdearly as you have in yours. If you will be pleased to accept my help,madam, I will do all I can for you. There are, fortunately, other meansthan carnal weapons of influencing such persons as Lord Brocton."
"Like Master Wheatman, sir, you are too good to a poor girl." She said itgratefully and humbly, and indeed so she felt, but no man could listen toher meek words without pride.
"I'm glad I turned footpad, in spite of you," said I to my dear mistress.
"I can never thank you enough," was the simple reply. "It was wicked inme to accept the sacrifice, but in God's good providence it was not madein vain."
"Then I come into the firm," said Master Freake smilingly, and when,catching the meaning of his metaphor, she smiled brightly back at him, andheld out her hand, he bowed over it formally, but very kindly, and kissedit. She blushed prettily, and then, after a moment's hesitation,stretching it out to me, said, "But I must not forget the originalpartner." I took the splendid prize in my rough, red, farmer's hand, andkissed it reverently. The touch of my lips on her sweet, smooth flesh mademe tremble, and I knew the madness was creeping over me, but I gritted myteeth, and our eyes met again. The blush had gone, but not the smile. Itwas not now, however, the smile of a frank maiden but of an inscrutableand dominating woman. I knew the difference, for instinct is more thanexperience, and I chilled into the yokel again and wondered.
"In one sense, at any rate," said Master Freake, "I am the seniorpartner, and as such may, without presumption, speak first. I must go onto Stone, but that will, I think, be best for our purpose. As I view thesituation, two things are requisite, first that you, Master Wheatman,should get Mistress Waynflete in advance of all the royal troops, and soout of danger, and secondly that we should learn precisely what has becomeof Colonel Waynflete."
"Exactly," I agreed. "The action of Lord Brocton in sending the Colonelnorth instead of south, or at least of lodging him in jail at Stafford, isinexplicable. True, his plan separates father
and daughter, which is whathe wants, but either of the other methods would have served equally wellfor that."
Of course I said nothing of the other idea that was haunting my thoughts,the idea that Brocton was scheming to get rid of the Colonel altogether.In his lust and anger he might not stick at that, and any kind ofencounter with the enemy would serve his turn. The rascals under him wereworthy of their commander, a fact of which we had already ample proof.
"It looks crooked, I confess," was his reply, "but there is this to besaid for it, that the Duke is following north along with the bulk of hisarmy, and, I hear, intends to make Stone his head-quarters."
"That seems absurd," said I, "but of course he knows best."
"The movements of the Prince's army are uncertain. The plan of theirleaders is never to say where the next halt will be. They will be to-day,I know, in or near Macclesfield, and I learn that it is possible they mayturn off for Wales, where they believe they will find many recruits. Thefarther north the Duke can safely go, the better placed he will be forchecking them if they do that, and his advance guard is posted atNewcastle. The question is, how are you to get there first and withoutbeing taken?"
"By travelling the by-roads," said I. "We'll go through Eccleshall."
"How long will it take you to get there?" he asked.
"About three hours," said I, "if Mistress Waynflete can stand the pace."
"Very good," he replied. "I will join you there, and do my best to gethorses for you in the meantime, and bring them along with me."
"That's splendid," said I, "but I'd rather we met outside the village.Not more than a mile and a half beyond it on the Newcastle road there's alittle wayside ale-house called the 'Ring of Bells,' at the foot of asteep hill, with a large pool ringed with pines, known as Cop Mere, infront of it. It's a lonely place and will serve better. Small place asEccleshall is, I shall skirt round it, and so get to the 'Ring of Bells.'You cannot miss it if you ride through the village on the Newcastle road.Whoever's there first will await the other."
"Then in about three hours we'll meet at the 'Ring of Bells,' and I hopeI shall bring good news of the Colonel. Believe me, dear lady, short offoul play on Brocton's part, and we have no reason to suspect that, yourfather will be all right. Plain John Freake is not without influence. Asfor the ruffian lying dead in the road, think no more of him."
So saying he unhitched his horse, led her into the road, and mounted. Hebowed and smiled, said cheerily, "A pleasant walk to the 'Ring of Bells,'"and cantered off.
I stepped between madam and the dead man. "We've found a good friendthere, Mistress Waynflete. Now we'll put the hat and coat as we foundthem, save for the guineas, and go back to the cottage for your domino."
She gave them to me, and stepped out briskly towards the cottage. Ifolded up the coat, put the hat on it, looked again at the still, stiffhorror in the road, soaking in its own blood, and silently followed her.