CHAPTER XXVIIJOCK MIGGS'S ERRANDMaster Mittachip had tried to utter one or two feeble protests, but Sir Humphrey 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 this moment, 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 dark scrub beside him, and drew his horse in as close to Sir Humphrey's as he could."If you're afraid, you lumbering old coward," added his Honour, "go back and leave me in peace. I'll arrange my own affairs as I think best."But the prospect of returning to Brassington alone across this awful Heath sent Master Mittachip into a renewed agony of terror: though his noble patron seemed suddenly to have become uncanny in this inordinate lust for revenge, he preferred his Honour's company to his own, and therefore made a violent effort to silence his worst fears. The Moor just now was comparatively calm: the shouts of the hunters and the yelping of the hound had altogether ceased; perhaps they had lost the scent.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 the steep declivity behind them, their ears were pleasantly tickled by the welcome and bucolic sound of the bleating of sheep."Your friend the shepherd seems to be at his post," quoth Sir Humphrey with a sigh of satisfaction.They were close to the point where on the previous night Lady Patience's coach had come to a halt, and the next moment brought them in sight of the shepherd's hut, with the pen beyond it, vaguely discernible in the gloom.Sir Humphrey gave the order to dismount. Master Mittachip, feeling more dead than alive, had perforce to obey. They tied their horses loosely to a clump of blackthorn by the roadside and then crept cautiously towards the hut.It suited their purpose well that the night was a dark one. The moon was not yet high in the heavens, and was still half-veiled by a thin film of fleecy clouds, leaving the whole vista of the Moor wrapped in mysterious 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 of gorse and bramble quite close to the shed. "The letters are in the very centre of that clump, and only just below the surface. Do you creep in there and get them."There was nothing for Master Mittachip to do but to obey, and that with as much alacrity as his terror would allow. His teeth were chattering in his head, and his hands were trembling so violently that he was some time in striking a light for the lanthorn.Sir Humphrey suppressed an oath of angry impatience."Lud preserve me," murmured the poor attorney, "if that highwayman should come upon me whilst I am engaged in the task! ... You ... you'll not 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 the bramble, and his deep stertorous breathing testified to the anxiety which was raging within him. A few moments of intense suspense, and then Master Mittachip reappeared from beneath the scrub, covered with wet earth, still trembling, but holding the packet of letters triumphantly in his hand.Sir Humphrey snatched it from him."Quick! find the shepherd now! Don't waste time!" he whispered, pushing the cowering attorney roughly before him. "One feels as if every blade of grass had a pair of ears on this damned Heath!" he muttered under his breath.Jock Miggs, the shepherd, had counted over his sheep, closed the gate of the pen, and was just turning into the hut for the night, when he was hailed 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 play a tune for mad folks to dance to, he felt that nothing would seriously surprise him.When therefore he felt himself seized by the arm without more ado and dragged into the darkest corner of the hut, he did not even protest."Did you wish to speak with me, sir?" he asked plaintively, rubbing his arm, for Sir Humphrey's impatient grip had been very strong and hard."Yes!" said the latter, speaking in a rapid whisper, "here's Master Mittachip, attorney-at-law, whom you know well, eh?""Aye, aye," murmured Jock Miggs, pulling at his forelock, "t' sheep belong to his Honour Oi believe.""Exactly, Miggs," interposed Master Mittachip, spurred to activity by a vigorous kick from Sir Humphrey, "and I have come out here on purpose to see you, for it is very important that you should go at once on to Wirksworth 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 Mittachip to arrange this matter with the shepherd. He had leaned his powerful frame against the wall of the shed, and was grasping his heavily-weighted riding-crop, ready and alert in case of attack. The darkness round him at this moment was intense, and his sharp eyes vainly tried to pierce the gloom, which seemed to be closing in upon him, but his ears were keenly alive to every sound which came to him out of the blackness of the night.And all the while he tried not to lose one word of the conversation between Mittachip and the shepherd."That's true, Jock," the attorney was saying. "Well! then if you'll go to 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 in Fulsome 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 sheep for 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: matters were progressing much too slowly for his impatient temperament. He pushed 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 Master Mittachip's house in Fulsome Street. When Master Duffy has the packet and 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 Jock Miggs, who seemed to have done with hesitation, for he took them with alacrity."Oh! aye! that's clear enough," he said, "'tis writ in this paper that I'm to get the guinea?""In Master Mittachip's own hand. But mind! no gossiping, and no loitering. 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, he was quite ready to start."Noa, for sure!" he said, patting the papers affectionately. "Mum's the word! 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 Beau Brocade 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 the shepherd'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 leave t' dog to look after t' sheep."He took up his long, knotted stick, and still shaking his head and muttering "Lordy! Lordy!" the worthy shepherd slowly began to wend his way along the footpath, which from this point leads straight to Wirksworth.Sir Humphrey watched the quaint, wizened figure for a few seconds, until it disappeared in the gloom, then he listened for awhile.All round him the Heath was silent and at peace, the plaintive bleating of the sheep in the pen added a note of subdued melancholy to the vast and impressive stillness. Only from far there came the weird echo of hound and men on the hunt.His Honour swore a round oath."Zounds!" he muttered, "the rogue must be hard pressed, and he's not like to give us further trouble. Even if he come on us now, eh, you old scarecrow? ... 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 Brocade can attack us now, eh? Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed in his wonted boisterous way, "methinks we have outwitted that gallant highwayman after all.""For sure, Sir Humphrey," echoed Mittachip, who was meekly following his Honour's lead across the road to where their horses were in readiness for them."As for my Lady Patience! ... Ha!" said his Honour, jovially, "her brother's life is ... well! ... in my hands, to save or to destroy, according as she will frown on me or smile. But meseems her ladyship will 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 himself into the saddle, "he shall, an I mistake not, dangle on a gibbet before another nightfall.""Hark!" he added, as the yelping of the bloodhound once more woke the silent 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 listened to the shouts, the cries, the snarls, which were rapidly drawing nearer."We should have waited to be in at the death," he said, with enforced gaiety. "Meseems our fox is being run to earth at last."He tried to laugh, but his laughter sounded eerie and unnatural, and suddenly 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 of intense and unreasoning terror he dug his spurs into his horse's flanks, and like a madman galloped at breakneck speed down the hillside into the valley below.Sir Humphrey followed more leisurely. He had gained his end and was satisfied.CHAPTER XXVIIITHE QUARRYSome few minutes before this the hunted man had emerged upon the road.As, worn-out, pallid, aching in every limb, he dragged himself wearily forward on hands and knees, it would have been difficult to recognise in this poor, suffering fragment of humanity the brilliant, dashing gentleman of the road, the foppish, light-hearted dandy, whom the countryside had nicknamed Beau Brocade.The wound in his shoulder, inflamed and throbbing after the breakneck ride from the Court House to the Heath, had caused him almost unendurable agony, against which he had at first resolutely set his teeth. But now his whole body had become numb to every physical sensation. Covered with mud and grime, his hair matted against his damp forehead, the lines of pain and exhaustion strongly marked round his quivering mouth, he seemed only to live through his two senses: his sight and his hearing.The spirit was there though, indomitable, strong, the dogged obstinacy of the man who has nothing more to lose. And with it all the memory of the oath he had sworn to her.All else was a blank.Hunted by men, and with a hound on his track, he had—physically—become like the beasts of the Moor, alert to every sound, keen only on eluding his pursuers, on putting off momentarily the inevitable instant of capture and of death.Early in the day he had been forced to part from his faithful companion. Jack o' Lantern was exhausted and might have proved an additional source of danger. The gallant beast, accustomed to every bush and every corner of the Heath, knew its way well to its habitual home: the forge of John Stich. Jack Bathurst watched it out of sight, content that it would look after itself, and that being riderless it would be allowed to wend its way unmolested whither it pleased, on the Moor.And thus he had seen the long hours of this glorious September afternoon drag on their weary course; he had seen the beautiful day turn to late, glowing afternoon, then the sun gradually set in its mantle of purple and gold, and finally the grey dusk throw its elusive and mysterious veil over Tors and Moor. And he, like the hunted beast, crept from gorse bush to scrub, hiding for his life, driven out of one stronghold into another, gasping with thirst, panting with fatigue, determined in spirit, but broken down in body at last.By instinct and temperament Jack Bathurst was essentially a brave man. Physical fear was entirely alien to his nature: he had never known it, never felt it. During the earlier part of the afternoon, with a score of men at his heels, some soldiers, others but indifferently-equipped louts, he had really enjoyed the game of hide-and-seek on the Heath: to him, at first, it had been nothing more. It was but a part of that wild, mad life he had chosen, the easily-endured punishment for the breaking of conventional laws.He knew every shrub and crag on this wild corner of the earth which had become his home, and could have defied a small army, when hidden in the natural strongholds known only to himself.But when he first heard the yelping of the bloodhound set upon his track by the fiendish cunning of an avowed enemy, an icy horror seemed to creep into his very marrow: a horror born of the feeling of powerlessness, of the inevitableness of it all. His one thought now was lest his hand, trembling and numb with fatigue, would refuse him service when he would wish to turn the muzzle of his pistol against his own temple, in time to evade actual capture.The dog would not miss him. It was practically useless to hide: flight alone, constant, ceaseless flight, might help him for a while, but it was bound to end one way, and one way only: the scent of blood would lead the cur on his track, and his pursuers would find and seize him! bind him like a felon, and hang him! Aye! hang him like a common thief!He had oft laughed and joked with John Stich about his ultimate probable fate. He knew that his wild, unlawful career would come to an end sooner or later, but he always carried pistols in his belt, and had not even remotely dreamt of capture.... Until now!But now he was tired, ill, half-paralysed with pain and exhaustion. His trembling hand crept longingly round the heavy silver handle of the precious weapon. Every natural instinct in him clamoured for death, now, at this very moment before that yelping cur drew nearer, before those shouts of triumph were raised over his downfall.Only ... after that ... what would happen? He would be asleep and at peace ... but she? ... what would she think? ... that like a coward he had deserted his post ... like a felon he had broken his oath, whilst there was one single chance of fulfilling it ... that he had left her at the mercy of that same enemy who had already devised so much cruel treachery.And like a beast he crept back within his lair, and watched and listened for that one chance of serving her before the end.He had seen Sir Humphrey Challoner and Mittachip ambling up the hillside. He tried not to lose sight of them, and, if possible, to keep within earshot, but he was driven back by a posse of his pursuers, close upon his heels, and now having succeeded in reaching the road at last, he had the terrible chagrin of seeing that he was too late; the two men were remounting their horses and turning back towards Brassington."Methinks we have outwitted that gallant highwayman after all," Sir Humphrey was saying with one of those boisterous outbursts of merriment, which to Bathurst's sensitive ears had a ring of the devil's own glee in it."What hellish mischief have those two reprobates been brewing, I wonder?" he mused. "If those fellows at my heels hadn't cut me off I might have known..."He crept nearer to the two men, but they set their horses at a sharp trot down the road: Jack vainly strained his ears to hear their talk.For the last eight hours he had practically covered every corner of the Heath, backwards and forwards, across boulders and through morass; the hound had had some difficulty in finding and keeping the trail, but now it seemed suddenly to have found it, the yelping drew nearer, but the shouts had altogether ceased.What was to be done? God in heaven, what was to be done?It was at this moment that the plaintive bleating of one or two of the penned-up sheep suddenly aroused every instinct of vitality in him."The sheep!..." he murmured. "A receipt and tally for some sheep!..."Fresh excitement had in the space of a few seconds given him a new lease of strength. He dragged himself up to his feet and walked almost upright as far as the hut.There certainly was a flock of sheep in the pen: the dog was watching close by the gate, but the shepherd was nowhere to be seen."The sheep! ... A receipt and tally for some sheep! ... In Sir Humphrey Challoner's coat pocket! ..."Oh! for one calm moment in which to think ... to think!"The sheep!..." This one thought went on hammering in the poor tired brain, like the tantalising, elusive whisper of a mischievous sprite.And with it all there was scarce a second to be lost.The hound, yelping and straining on the leash, was not half a mile away; the next ten or perhaps fifteen minutes would see the end of this awful man-hunt on the Moor. And yet there close by, behind those clumps of gorse and the thickset hedge of bramble, was the clearing, where just twenty-four hours ago he had danced that mad rigadoon, with her almost in his arms.Instinctively, in the wild agony of this supreme moment, Beau Brocade turned his steps thither. This clearing had but two approaches, there where the tough branches of furze had once been vigorously cut into. Last night he had led her through the one whilst Jock Miggs sat beside the other, piping the quaint sad tune.For one moment the hunted man seemed to live that mad, merry hour again, and from out the darkness fairy fingers seemed to beckon: and her face—just for one brief second—smiled at him out of the gloom.Surely this was not to be the end! Something would happen, somethingmusthappen to enable him to render her the great service he had sworn to do.Oh! if that yelping dog were not quite so close upon his track! Within the next few minutes, seconds even, he would surely think of something that would guide him towards that great goal:her service. Oh! for just a brief respite in which to think! a way to evade his captors for a short while—a means to hide! a disguise! anything.But for once the Moor—his happy home, his friend, his mother—was silent, save for the sound of hunters on his trail, of his doom drawing nearer and nearer, whilst he stood and remembered his dream.It was madness surely, or else a continuance of that fairy vision, but now it seemed to him, as he stood just there, where yesterday her foot had plied the dear old measure, that his ear suddenly caught once more the sound of that self-same rigadoon.It was a dream of course. He knew that, and paused awhile, although every second now meant life or death to him.The tune seemed to evade him. It had been close to his ear a moment ago, now it was growing fainter and fainter, gradually vanishing away: soon he could scarce hear it, yet it seemed something tangible, something belonging to her: it was the tune which she had loved, to which her foot had danced so gladsomely, so he ran after it, ran as fast as his weary body would take him, to the further end of the clearing, whither the sweet, sad tune was leading him with its tender, plaintive echo.There, just where the clearing debouched upon the narrow path which leads to Wirksworth, he overtook Jock Miggs who was slowly wending his way along, and who just now must have passed quite close to him, blowing on his tiny pipe, as was his wont."The shepherd! ... Chorus of angels in paradise lend me your aid now!"With a supreme effort he pulled his scattered senses together: the mighty fever of self-defence was upon him, that tower of strength which some overwhelming danger will give to a brave man once perhaps in his lifetime. The veil of semi-consciousness, of utter physical prostration, was lifted from his dull brain for this short brief while. The exhausted, suffering, hunted creature had once more given place to the keen, alert son of the Moor, the mad, free child of Nature, with a resourceful head and a daring hand. And for that same brief while the great and mighty power whom men have termed Fate, but whom saints have called God, allowed his untamed spirit to conquer his body and to hold it in bondage, chasing pain away, trampling down exhaustion, whilst disclosing to his burning eyes, amidst the dark and deadly gloom, the magic, golden vision of a newly-awakened hope.CHAPTER XXIXTHE DAWNA while ago, in an agony of longing, he had cried out for a moment's respite! for a disguise! and now there stood before him Jock Miggs in smock and broad-brimmed hat, with pipe and shepherd's staff. His pursuers, headed by the yelping dog, were still a quarter of a mile away. Five minutes in which to do battle for his life, for his freedom, for the power to keep his oath! The plan of action had surged in his mind at first sight of the wizened little figure of the shepherd beside the further approach to the clearing.Beau Brocade drew himself up to his full height, sought and found in the pocket of his coat the black mask which he habitually wore; this he fixed to his face, then drawing a pistol from his belt, he overtook Jock Miggs, clapped him vigorously on the shoulder, and shouted lustily,—"Stand and deliver!"Jock Miggs, aroused from his pleasant meditations, threw up his hands in terror."The Lud have mercy on my soul!" he ejaculated as he fell on his knees."Stand and deliver!" repeated Beau Brocade, in as gruff a voice as he could command.Jock Miggs was trying to collect his scattered wits."B ... b ... but ... kind sir!" he murmured, "y ... y ... you wouldn't harm Jock Miggs, the shepherd ... would you?""Quick's the word! Now then...""But, good sir ... Oi ... Oi ... Oi've got nowt to deliver..."Jock Miggs was pitiful to behold: at any other moment of his life Bathurst would have felt very sorry for the poor, scared creature, but that yelping hound was drawing desperately near and he had only a few minutes at his command."Naught to deliver?" he said with a great show of roughness, and seizing poor Jock by the collar."Look at your smock!""My smock, kind sir?...""Aye! I've a fancy for your smock ... so off with it ... quick!"Jock Miggs struggled up to his feet, he was beginning to gather a small modicum of courage. He had lived all his life on Brassing Moor and it was his first serious encounter with an armed gentleman of the road. Whether 'twas Beau Brocade or no he was too scared to conjecture, but he had enough experience of the Heath to know that poor folk like himself had little bodily hurt to fear from highwaymen.But of course it was always wisest to obey. As to his old smock..."He! he! he! my old smock, sir!" he laughed vaguely and nervously, "why...""I don't want to knock the poor old cuckoo down," murmured Bathurst to himself, "but I've just got three minutes before that cur reaches the top of the clearing and ... Off with your smock, man, or I fire," he added peremptorily, and pointing the muzzle of his pistol at the trembling shepherd.Miggs had in the meanwhile fully realised that the masked stranger was in deadly earnest. Why he should want the old smock was more than any shepherd could conceive, but that he meant to have it was very clear. Jock uttered a final plaintive word of protest."Kind sir ... but if Oi take off my smock ... I sha'nt be quite d ... d ... decent ... sir ... wi' only my shirt.""You shall have my coat," replied Bathurst, decisively."Lud preserve me! ... Your coat, sir!""Yes! it's old and shabby, and my waistcoat too.... Now off with that smock, or..."Once more the muzzle of the pistol gleamed close to Jock Miggs's head. Without further protest he began to divest himself of his smock. The process was slow and laborious, and Jack set his teeth not to scream with the agony of the suspense.He himself had had little difficulty in taking off his own coat and waistcoat, for earlier in the day, before he had been so hard pressed, the pain in his shoulder had caused him to slip his left arm out of its sleeve.Moreover, the excitement of these last fateful moments kept him at fever pitch: he was absolutely unconscious of aught save of the rapid flight of the seconds and the steady approach of dog and men towards the clearing.Even Jock Miggs, who up to now had been too intent on his own adventure to take much heed of what went on in the gloom beyond, even he perceived that something unusual was happening on the Moor."What's that?" he asked with renewed terror."A posse of soldiers at my heels," said Beau Brocade, decisively, "that's why I want your smock, my man, and if I don't get it there'll be just time to blow out your dull brains before I fall into their hands."This last argument was sufficiently convincing. Miggs thought it decidedly best to obey; he helped his mysterious assailant on with his own smock, cap and kerchief, and not unwillingly attired himself in Beau Brocade's discarded coat and waistcoat."A pistol in your belt in case you need it, friend," whispered Bathurst, rapidly, as he slipped one of the weapons in Miggs's belt, keeping the other firmly grasped in his own hand.There was no doubt that the hound was on the scent now: the men had ceased shouting but their rapid footsteps could be heard following closely upon the dog, whose master was muttering a few words of encouragement.Anon there came a whisper, louder than the rest,—"This way!..."Then another,—"There's a path here!""Be gy! this confounded darkness!""Steady, Roy! steady, old man! Eh? What?""This way!""Can't you find the trail, old Roy?"And the gorse was crackling beneath rapid and stealthy footsteps. There was now just the width of the clearing between Beau Brocade and his pursuers."This way, Sergeant. Roy's got the trail again."Neither Jock Miggs nor yet Beau Brocade could see what was going on at the further end of the clearing. The dog, wildly straining against the leash, was quivering with intense excitement, his master hanging on to him with all his might.Miggs, scared like some sheep lost among a herd of cows, was standing half-dazed, smoothing down with appreciative fingers the fine cloth of his new apparel, terrified every time his hand came in contact with the pistol in his belt.But Beau Brocade had crept underneath a heavy clump of gorse and bramble, and with his finger on the trigger of his weapon he cowered there, ready for action, his eyes fixed upon the blackness before him.The next moment the outline of the hound's head and shoulders became faintly discernible in the gloom. With nose close to the ground, powerful jaws dropping and parched tongue hanging out of its mouth, it was heading straight for the clump of gorse where cowered the hunted man.Beau Brocade took rapid aim and fired. The dog, without a howl, rolled over on its side, whilst Jock Miggs uttered a cry of terror.Then there was an instant's pause. The pursuers, silenced and awed, had stopped dead, for they had been taken wholly unawares, and for a second or two waited, expecting and dreading yet another shot.Then a mild, trembling voice came to them from the darkness."There 'e is, Sergeant! Just afore you—standing ... see!..."The Sergeant and soldiers had no need to be told twice. Their pause had only been momentary and already they had perceived the outline of Jock Miggs's figure, standing motionless not far from the body of the dead dog.With a shout of triumph Sergeant and soldiers fell on the astonished shepherd, whilst the same mild, trembling voice continued to pipe excitedly,—"Hold 'un tight, Sergeant! Jump on 'im! Tie 'is legs! Sure, an' 'tis he, the rascal!"Jock Miggs had had no chance of uttering one word of protest, for one of the soldiers, remembering a lesson learnt the day before at the smithy, had thrown his own heavy coat right over the poor fellow's head, effectually smothering his screams. Another man had picked up the still smoking pistol from the ground close to Miggs's feet."Pistols!" said the Sergeant, excitedly. "The pair o' them too," he added, pulling the other silver-mounted weapon out of Miggs's belt, and the black mask out of the pocket of his coat: "and silver-mounted, be gy! ... And his mask! ... Now, my men, off with him.... Tie his legs together—off with your belts, quick! ... and you, Corporal, keep that coat tied well over his head ... the rascal's like an eel, and'll wriggle out of your hands if you don't hold him tight.... Remember there's a hundred guineas reward for the capture of Beau Brocade."Poor old Miggs, smothered within the thick folds of the soldier's coat, could scarce manage to breathe. The men were fastening his knees and ankles together with their leather belts, his arms too were pinioned behind his back. Thus trussed and spitted like a goose ready for roasting, he felt himself being hauled up on the shoulders of some of the men and then borne triumphantly away."We've gotten Beau Brocade!""Hip! hip! hurray!"And so they marched away, shouting lustily, whilst Beau Brocade remained alone on the Heath.The excitement was over now. He was safe for the moment and free. But the hour of victory seemed like the hour of death; as the last shouts of triumph, the last cry of "Hurrah!" died away in the distance, he fell back against the wet earth; his senses were reeling, the very ground seemed to be giving way beneath his feet, a lurid, red film to be rising before his closing lids, blotting out the darkness of the Moor, and that faint, very faint, streak of grey which had just appeared in the east.God, to whom he had cried out in his agony, had given him the respite for which he had craved. He was safe and free to think ... to think of her ... and yet now his one longing seemed to be to lie down and rest ... and rest ... and sleep...Many a night he had lain thus on the open Moor, with the soft, sweet-scented earth for his bed, and the tender buds of heather as a pillow for his head. But to-night he was only conscious of infinite peace, and his trembling hands drew the worthy shepherd's smock closer round him.His wandering spirit paused awhile to dwell on poor Miggs in his sorry plight.... Ah, well! the morning would see Jock free again, but in the meanwhile...Then all of a sudden the spirit was back on earth, back to life and to a mad, scarce understandable hope. His hand had come in contact with a packet of letters in the pocket of Miggs's smock.Far away in the sky the eastern stars had paled before the morning light. One by one the distant peaks of the Derbyshire hills emerged from the black mantle of the night, and peeped down on the valley below, blushing a rosy red. Upon the Heath animal life began to be astir—in the morass beyond a lazy frog started to croak.Beau Brocade had clasped the letters with cold, numb fingers: he drew them forth and held them before his dimmed eyes."The letters!..." he murmured, trembling with the agony of this great unlooked-for joy. "The letters!..."How they came there, he could not tell. He was too weary, too ill to guess. But that they were her letters he could not for a moment doubt. He had found them! God and His angels had placed them in his hands!Ah, Fortune! fickle Fortune! the wilful jade and the poor outlaw were to be even then after all. And 'twas Beau Brocade, highwayman, thief, who was destined in a few hours to bring her this great happiness."Will she ... will she smile, I wonder..."He loved to see her smile, and to watch the soft tell-tale blush slowly mounting to her cheek. Ah! now he was dreaming ... dreams that never, never could be. He would bring her back the letters, for he had sworn to her that she should have them ere the sun had risen twice o'er yon green-clad hills. And then all would be over, and she would pass out of his life like a beautiful comet gliding across the firmament of his destiny.A moment but not to stay.In the east, far away, rose had changed to gold. From Moor and Heath and Bogland came the sound of innumerable bird-throats singing the great and wonderful hymn of praise, hosanna to awakening Nature.The outlaw had kept his oath; he turned to where the first rays of the rising sun shed their shimmering mantle over the distant Tors, and in one great uplifting of his soul to his Maker he prayed that sweet death might kiss him when he placed the letters at her feet.PART IVH.R.H. THE DUKE OF CUMBERLANDCHAPTER XXXSUSPENSEThroughout the whole range of suffering which humanity is called upon to endure, there is perhaps nothing so hard to bear as suspense.The uncertainty of what the immediate future might bring, the fast-sinking hope, the slowly-creeping despair, the agony of dull, weary hours: Patience had gone through the whole miserable gamut during that long and terrible day when, obedient to Bathurst's wishes, she had shut herself up in the dingy little parlour of the Packhorse and refused to see anyone save the faithful smith.And the news which John Stich brought to her from time to time was horrible enough to hear.He tried to palliate as much as possible the account of that awful battue organised against Beau Brocade, but she guessed from the troubled look on the honest smith's face, and from the furtive, anxious glance of his eyes, that the man whom she had trusted with her whole heart was now in peril, even more deadly than that which had assailed her brother.And with the innate sympathy born of a true and loving heart, she guessed too how John Stich's simple, faithful soul went out in passionate longing to his friend, who, alone, wounded, perhaps helpless, was fighting his last battle on the Heath.Yet the trust within her had not died out. Beau Brocade had sworn to do her service and to bring her back the letters ere the sun had risen twice o'er the green-clad hills. To her overwrought mind it seemed impossible that he should fail. He was not the type of man whom fate or adverse circumstance ever succeeded in conquering, and on his whole magnetic personality, on the intense vitality of his being, Nature had omitted to put the mark of failure.But the hours wore on and she was without further news. Her terror for her brother increased the agony of her suspense. She could see that John Stich too had become anxious about Philip. There was no doubt that with an organised man-hunt on the Moor the lonely forge by the cross-roads would no longer be a safe hiding-place for the Earl of Stretton. The smithy was already marked as a suspected house, and John Stich was known to be a firm adherent of the Gascoynes and a faithful friend of Beau Brocade.During the course of this eventful day the attention of the Sergeant and soldiers had been distracted, through Bathurst's daring actions, from Stich's supposed nephew out o' Nottingham, but as the beautiful September afternoon turned to twilight and then to dusk, and band after band of hunters set out to scour the Heath, it became quite clear both to Patience and to the smith that Philip must be got away from the forge at any cost.He could remain in temporary shelter at the Packhorse, under the guise of one of Lady Patience's serving-men, at anyrate until another nightfall, when a fresh refuge could be found for him, according as the events would shape themselves within the next few hours.Therefore, as soon as the shadows of evening began to creep over Brassing Moor, Stich set out for the cross-roads. He walked at a brisk pace along the narrow footpath which led up to his forge, his honest heart heavy at thought of his friend, all alone out there on the Heath.The weird echo of the man-hunt did not reach this western boundary of the Moor, but even in its stillness the vast immensity looked hard and cruel in the gloom: the outlines of gorse bush and blackthorn seemed akin to gaunt, Cassandra-like spectres foreshadowing some awful disaster.Within the forge Philip too had waited in an agony of suspense, whilst twice the glorious sunset had clothed the Tors with gold.Driven by hunger and cold out of the hiding-place on the Moor which Bathurst had found for him, he had returned to the smithy the first night, only to find John Stich gone and no trace of his newly-found friend. His sister, he knew, must have started for London, but he was without any news as to what had happened in the forge, and ignorant of the gallant fight made therein by the notorious highwayman.The hour was late then, and Philip was loth to disturb old Mistress Stich, John's mother, who kept house for him at the cottage. Moreover, he had the firm belief in his heart that neither Bathurst nor Stich would have deserted him, had they thought that he was in imminent danger.Tired out with the excitement of the day, and with a certain amount of hope renewed in his buoyant young heart, he curled himself up in a corner of the shed and forgot all his troubles in a sound sleep.The next morning found him under the care of old Mistress Stich at the cottage. She had had no news of John, who had wandered out, so she said, about two hours after sunset, possibly to find the Captain; but she thrilled the young man's ears with the account of the daring fight in the forge."Nay! but they'll never get our Captain!" said the worthy dame, with a break in her gentle old voice, "and if the whole countryside was after him they'd never get him. Leastways so says my John.""God grant he may speak truly," replied the young man, fervently; "'tis shame enough on me that a brave man should risk his life for me, whilst I have to stand idly behind a cupboard door."The absence of definite news weighed heavily upon his spirits, and as the day wore on and neither John Stich nor Bathurst reappeared, his hopes very quickly began to give way to anxiety and then to despair. Philip always had a touch of morbid self-analysis in his nature: unlike Jack Bathurst, he was ever ready to bend the neck before untoward fate, heaping self-accusation on self-reproach, and thus allowing his spirit to bow to circumstance, rather than to attempt to defy it.And throughout the whole of this day he sat, moody and silent, with the ever-recurring thought hammering in his brain,—"I ought not to have allowed a stranger to risk his life for me. I should have given myself up. 'Twas unworthy a soldier and a gentleman."By the time the shadows had lengthened on the Moor, and Jack o' Lantern covered with sweat had arrived riderless at the forge, Philip was formulating wild plans of going to Wirksworth and there surrendering himself to the local magistrate. He worked himself up into a fever of heroic self-sacrifice, and had just resolved only to wait until dawn to carry out his purpose, when John Stich appeared in the doorway of his smithy.One look in the honest fellow's face told the young Earl of Stretton that most things in his world were amiss just now. A few eager questions, and as briefly as possible Stich told him exactly how matters stood: the letters stolen by Sir Humphrey Challoner, Bathurst's determination to re-capture them and the organized hunt proceeding this very night against him."Her ladyship and I both think, my lord, that this place is not safe for you just now," added John, finally, "and she begs you to come to her at Brassington as soon as you can. The road is safe enough," added the smith, with a heavy sigh, "no one'd notice us—they are all after the Captain, and God knows but perhaps they've got him by now."Philip could say nothing, for his miserable self-reproaches had broken his spirit of obstinacy. His boyish heart was overflowing with sympathy for the kindly smith. How gladly now would he have given his own life to save that of his gallant rescuer!Obediently he prepared to accede to his sister's wishes. He knew what agony she must have endured when the letters were filched from her; he guessed that she would wish to have him near her, and in any case he wanted to be on the spot, hoping that yet he could offer his own life in exchange for the one which was being so nobly risked for him.Quite quietly, therefore, and without a murmur, he prepared to accompany Stich back to Brassington. At the Packhorse a serving-man's suit could easily be found for him, and he would be safe enough there, for a little while at least.John Stich, having tended Jack o' Lantern with loving care, took a hasty farewell of his mother. While his friend's fate and that of his young lord hung in the balance he was not like to get back quietly to his work."The Captain may come back here for shelter mayhap," he said, with a catch in his throat, as he kissed the old dame "good-bye"; "you'll tend to him, mother?""Aye! you may be sure o' that, John," replied Mistress Stich, fervently."He'll need a rest mayhap, and some nice warm water; he's such a dandy, mother, you know.""Aye! aye!""And you might lay out his best clothes for him; he may need 'em mayhap.""Aye! I've got 'em laid in lavender for him. That nice sky-blue coat, think you, John?""Aye, and the fine 'broidered waistcoat, and the black silk bow for his hair, and the lace ruffles for his wrists, and..."Stich broke down, a great lump had risen in his throat. Would the foppish young dandy, the handsome, light-hearted gallant, ever gladden the eyes of honest John again?
CHAPTER XXVII
JOCK MIGGS'S ERRAND
Master Mittachip had tried to utter one or two feeble protests, but Sir Humphrey 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 this moment, 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 dark scrub beside him, and drew his horse in as close to Sir Humphrey's as he could.
"If you're afraid, you lumbering old coward," added his Honour, "go back and leave me in peace. I'll arrange my own affairs as I think best."
But the prospect of returning to Brassington alone across this awful Heath sent Master Mittachip into a renewed agony of terror: though his noble patron seemed suddenly to have become uncanny in this inordinate lust for revenge, he preferred his Honour's company to his own, and therefore made a violent effort to silence his worst fears. The Moor just now was comparatively calm: the shouts of the hunters and the yelping of the hound had altogether ceased; perhaps they had lost the scent.
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 the steep declivity behind them, their ears were pleasantly tickled by the welcome and bucolic sound of the bleating of sheep.
"Your friend the shepherd seems to be at his post," quoth Sir Humphrey with a sigh of satisfaction.
They were close to the point where on the previous night Lady Patience's coach had come to a halt, and the next moment brought them in sight of the shepherd's hut, with the pen beyond it, vaguely discernible in the gloom.
Sir Humphrey gave the order to dismount. Master Mittachip, feeling more dead than alive, had perforce to obey. They tied their horses loosely to a clump of blackthorn by the roadside and then crept cautiously towards the hut.
It suited their purpose well that the night was a dark one. The moon was not yet high in the heavens, and was still half-veiled by a thin film of fleecy clouds, leaving the whole vista of the Moor wrapped in mysterious 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 of gorse and bramble quite close to the shed. "The letters are in the very centre of that clump, and only just below the surface. Do you creep in there and get them."
There was nothing for Master Mittachip to do but to obey, and that with as much alacrity as his terror would allow. His teeth were chattering in his head, and his hands were trembling so violently that he was some time in striking a light for the lanthorn.
Sir Humphrey suppressed an oath of angry impatience.
"Lud preserve me," murmured the poor attorney, "if that highwayman should come upon me whilst I am engaged in the task! ... You ... you'll not 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 the bramble, and his deep stertorous breathing testified to the anxiety which was raging within him. A few moments of intense suspense, and then Master Mittachip reappeared from beneath the scrub, covered with wet earth, still trembling, but holding the packet of letters triumphantly in his hand.
Sir Humphrey snatched it from him.
"Quick! find the shepherd now! Don't waste time!" he whispered, pushing the cowering attorney roughly before him. "One feels as if every blade of grass had a pair of ears on this damned Heath!" he muttered under his breath.
Jock Miggs, the shepherd, had counted over his sheep, closed the gate of the pen, and was just turning into the hut for the night, when he was hailed 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 play a tune for mad folks to dance to, he felt that nothing would seriously surprise him.
When therefore he felt himself seized by the arm without more ado and dragged into the darkest corner of the hut, he did not even protest.
"Did you wish to speak with me, sir?" he asked plaintively, rubbing his arm, for Sir Humphrey's impatient grip had been very strong and hard.
"Yes!" said the latter, speaking in a rapid whisper, "here's Master Mittachip, attorney-at-law, whom you know well, eh?"
"Aye, aye," murmured Jock Miggs, pulling at his forelock, "t' sheep belong to his Honour Oi believe."
"Exactly, Miggs," interposed Master Mittachip, spurred to activity by a vigorous kick from Sir Humphrey, "and I have come out here on purpose to see you, for it is very important that you should go at once on to Wirksworth 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 Mittachip to arrange this matter with the shepherd. He had leaned his powerful frame against the wall of the shed, and was grasping his heavily-weighted riding-crop, ready and alert in case of attack. The darkness round him at this moment was intense, and his sharp eyes vainly tried to pierce the gloom, which seemed to be closing in upon him, but his ears were keenly alive to every sound which came to him out of the blackness of the night.
And all the while he tried not to lose one word of the conversation between Mittachip and the shepherd.
"That's true, Jock," the attorney was saying. "Well! then if you'll go to 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 in Fulsome 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 sheep for 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: matters were progressing much too slowly for his impatient temperament. He pushed 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 Master Mittachip's house in Fulsome Street. When Master Duffy has the packet and 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 Jock Miggs, who seemed to have done with hesitation, for he took them with alacrity.
"Oh! aye! that's clear enough," he said, "'tis writ in this paper that I'm to get the guinea?"
"In Master Mittachip's own hand. But mind! no gossiping, and no loitering. 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, he was quite ready to start.
"Noa, for sure!" he said, patting the papers affectionately. "Mum's the word! 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 Beau Brocade 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 the shepherd'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 leave t' dog to look after t' sheep."
He took up his long, knotted stick, and still shaking his head and muttering "Lordy! Lordy!" the worthy shepherd slowly began to wend his way along the footpath, which from this point leads straight to Wirksworth.
Sir Humphrey watched the quaint, wizened figure for a few seconds, until it disappeared in the gloom, then he listened for awhile.
All round him the Heath was silent and at peace, the plaintive bleating of the sheep in the pen added a note of subdued melancholy to the vast and impressive stillness. Only from far there came the weird echo of hound and men on the hunt.
His Honour swore a round oath.
"Zounds!" he muttered, "the rogue must be hard pressed, and he's not like to give us further trouble. Even if he come on us now, eh, you old scarecrow? ... 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 Brocade can attack us now, eh? Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed in his wonted boisterous way, "methinks we have outwitted that gallant highwayman after all."
"For sure, Sir Humphrey," echoed Mittachip, who was meekly following his Honour's lead across the road to where their horses were in readiness for them.
"As for my Lady Patience! ... Ha!" said his Honour, jovially, "her brother's life is ... well! ... in my hands, to save or to destroy, according as she will frown on me or smile. But meseems her ladyship will 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 himself into the saddle, "he shall, an I mistake not, dangle on a gibbet before another nightfall."
"Hark!" he added, as the yelping of the bloodhound once more woke the silent 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 listened to the shouts, the cries, the snarls, which were rapidly drawing nearer.
"We should have waited to be in at the death," he said, with enforced gaiety. "Meseems our fox is being run to earth at last."
He tried to laugh, but his laughter sounded eerie and unnatural, and suddenly 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 of intense and unreasoning terror he dug his spurs into his horse's flanks, and like a madman galloped at breakneck speed down the hillside into the valley below.
Sir Humphrey followed more leisurely. He had gained his end and was satisfied.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE QUARRY
Some few minutes before this the hunted man had emerged upon the road.
As, worn-out, pallid, aching in every limb, he dragged himself wearily forward on hands and knees, it would have been difficult to recognise in this poor, suffering fragment of humanity the brilliant, dashing gentleman of the road, the foppish, light-hearted dandy, whom the countryside had nicknamed Beau Brocade.
The wound in his shoulder, inflamed and throbbing after the breakneck ride from the Court House to the Heath, had caused him almost unendurable agony, against which he had at first resolutely set his teeth. But now his whole body had become numb to every physical sensation. Covered with mud and grime, his hair matted against his damp forehead, the lines of pain and exhaustion strongly marked round his quivering mouth, he seemed only to live through his two senses: his sight and his hearing.
The spirit was there though, indomitable, strong, the dogged obstinacy of the man who has nothing more to lose. And with it all the memory of the oath he had sworn to her.
All else was a blank.
Hunted by men, and with a hound on his track, he had—physically—become like the beasts of the Moor, alert to every sound, keen only on eluding his pursuers, on putting off momentarily the inevitable instant of capture and of death.
Early in the day he had been forced to part from his faithful companion. Jack o' Lantern was exhausted and might have proved an additional source of danger. The gallant beast, accustomed to every bush and every corner of the Heath, knew its way well to its habitual home: the forge of John Stich. Jack Bathurst watched it out of sight, content that it would look after itself, and that being riderless it would be allowed to wend its way unmolested whither it pleased, on the Moor.
And thus he had seen the long hours of this glorious September afternoon drag on their weary course; he had seen the beautiful day turn to late, glowing afternoon, then the sun gradually set in its mantle of purple and gold, and finally the grey dusk throw its elusive and mysterious veil over Tors and Moor. And he, like the hunted beast, crept from gorse bush to scrub, hiding for his life, driven out of one stronghold into another, gasping with thirst, panting with fatigue, determined in spirit, but broken down in body at last.
By instinct and temperament Jack Bathurst was essentially a brave man. Physical fear was entirely alien to his nature: he had never known it, never felt it. During the earlier part of the afternoon, with a score of men at his heels, some soldiers, others but indifferently-equipped louts, he had really enjoyed the game of hide-and-seek on the Heath: to him, at first, it had been nothing more. It was but a part of that wild, mad life he had chosen, the easily-endured punishment for the breaking of conventional laws.
He knew every shrub and crag on this wild corner of the earth which had become his home, and could have defied a small army, when hidden in the natural strongholds known only to himself.
But when he first heard the yelping of the bloodhound set upon his track by the fiendish cunning of an avowed enemy, an icy horror seemed to creep into his very marrow: a horror born of the feeling of powerlessness, of the inevitableness of it all. His one thought now was lest his hand, trembling and numb with fatigue, would refuse him service when he would wish to turn the muzzle of his pistol against his own temple, in time to evade actual capture.
The dog would not miss him. It was practically useless to hide: flight alone, constant, ceaseless flight, might help him for a while, but it was bound to end one way, and one way only: the scent of blood would lead the cur on his track, and his pursuers would find and seize him! bind him like a felon, and hang him! Aye! hang him like a common thief!
He had oft laughed and joked with John Stich about his ultimate probable fate. He knew that his wild, unlawful career would come to an end sooner or later, but he always carried pistols in his belt, and had not even remotely dreamt of capture.
... Until now!
But now he was tired, ill, half-paralysed with pain and exhaustion. His trembling hand crept longingly round the heavy silver handle of the precious weapon. Every natural instinct in him clamoured for death, now, at this very moment before that yelping cur drew nearer, before those shouts of triumph were raised over his downfall.
Only ... after that ... what would happen? He would be asleep and at peace ... but she? ... what would she think? ... that like a coward he had deserted his post ... like a felon he had broken his oath, whilst there was one single chance of fulfilling it ... that he had left her at the mercy of that same enemy who had already devised so much cruel treachery.
And like a beast he crept back within his lair, and watched and listened for that one chance of serving her before the end.
He had seen Sir Humphrey Challoner and Mittachip ambling up the hillside. He tried not to lose sight of them, and, if possible, to keep within earshot, but he was driven back by a posse of his pursuers, close upon his heels, and now having succeeded in reaching the road at last, he had the terrible chagrin of seeing that he was too late; the two men were remounting their horses and turning back towards Brassington.
"Methinks we have outwitted that gallant highwayman after all," Sir Humphrey was saying with one of those boisterous outbursts of merriment, which to Bathurst's sensitive ears had a ring of the devil's own glee in it.
"What hellish mischief have those two reprobates been brewing, I wonder?" he mused. "If those fellows at my heels hadn't cut me off I might have known..."
He crept nearer to the two men, but they set their horses at a sharp trot down the road: Jack vainly strained his ears to hear their talk.
For the last eight hours he had practically covered every corner of the Heath, backwards and forwards, across boulders and through morass; the hound had had some difficulty in finding and keeping the trail, but now it seemed suddenly to have found it, the yelping drew nearer, but the shouts had altogether ceased.
What was to be done? God in heaven, what was to be done?
It was at this moment that the plaintive bleating of one or two of the penned-up sheep suddenly aroused every instinct of vitality in him.
"The sheep!..." he murmured. "A receipt and tally for some sheep!..."
Fresh excitement had in the space of a few seconds given him a new lease of strength. He dragged himself up to his feet and walked almost upright as far as the hut.
There certainly was a flock of sheep in the pen: the dog was watching close by the gate, but the shepherd was nowhere to be seen.
"The sheep! ... A receipt and tally for some sheep! ... In Sir Humphrey Challoner's coat pocket! ..."
Oh! for one calm moment in which to think ... to think!
"The sheep!..." This one thought went on hammering in the poor tired brain, like the tantalising, elusive whisper of a mischievous sprite.
And with it all there was scarce a second to be lost.
The hound, yelping and straining on the leash, was not half a mile away; the next ten or perhaps fifteen minutes would see the end of this awful man-hunt on the Moor. And yet there close by, behind those clumps of gorse and the thickset hedge of bramble, was the clearing, where just twenty-four hours ago he had danced that mad rigadoon, with her almost in his arms.
Instinctively, in the wild agony of this supreme moment, Beau Brocade turned his steps thither. This clearing had but two approaches, there where the tough branches of furze had once been vigorously cut into. Last night he had led her through the one whilst Jock Miggs sat beside the other, piping the quaint sad tune.
For one moment the hunted man seemed to live that mad, merry hour again, and from out the darkness fairy fingers seemed to beckon: and her face—just for one brief second—smiled at him out of the gloom.
Surely this was not to be the end! Something would happen, somethingmusthappen to enable him to render her the great service he had sworn to do.
Oh! if that yelping dog were not quite so close upon his track! Within the next few minutes, seconds even, he would surely think of something that would guide him towards that great goal:her service. Oh! for just a brief respite in which to think! a way to evade his captors for a short while—a means to hide! a disguise! anything.
But for once the Moor—his happy home, his friend, his mother—was silent, save for the sound of hunters on his trail, of his doom drawing nearer and nearer, whilst he stood and remembered his dream.
It was madness surely, or else a continuance of that fairy vision, but now it seemed to him, as he stood just there, where yesterday her foot had plied the dear old measure, that his ear suddenly caught once more the sound of that self-same rigadoon.
It was a dream of course. He knew that, and paused awhile, although every second now meant life or death to him.
The tune seemed to evade him. It had been close to his ear a moment ago, now it was growing fainter and fainter, gradually vanishing away: soon he could scarce hear it, yet it seemed something tangible, something belonging to her: it was the tune which she had loved, to which her foot had danced so gladsomely, so he ran after it, ran as fast as his weary body would take him, to the further end of the clearing, whither the sweet, sad tune was leading him with its tender, plaintive echo.
There, just where the clearing debouched upon the narrow path which leads to Wirksworth, he overtook Jock Miggs who was slowly wending his way along, and who just now must have passed quite close to him, blowing on his tiny pipe, as was his wont.
"The shepherd! ... Chorus of angels in paradise lend me your aid now!"
With a supreme effort he pulled his scattered senses together: the mighty fever of self-defence was upon him, that tower of strength which some overwhelming danger will give to a brave man once perhaps in his lifetime. The veil of semi-consciousness, of utter physical prostration, was lifted from his dull brain for this short brief while. The exhausted, suffering, hunted creature had once more given place to the keen, alert son of the Moor, the mad, free child of Nature, with a resourceful head and a daring hand. And for that same brief while the great and mighty power whom men have termed Fate, but whom saints have called God, allowed his untamed spirit to conquer his body and to hold it in bondage, chasing pain away, trampling down exhaustion, whilst disclosing to his burning eyes, amidst the dark and deadly gloom, the magic, golden vision of a newly-awakened hope.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE DAWN
A while ago, in an agony of longing, he had cried out for a moment's respite! for a disguise! and now there stood before him Jock Miggs in smock and broad-brimmed hat, with pipe and shepherd's staff. His pursuers, headed by the yelping dog, were still a quarter of a mile away. Five minutes in which to do battle for his life, for his freedom, for the power to keep his oath! The plan of action had surged in his mind at first sight of the wizened little figure of the shepherd beside the further approach to the clearing.
Beau Brocade drew himself up to his full height, sought and found in the pocket of his coat the black mask which he habitually wore; this he fixed to his face, then drawing a pistol from his belt, he overtook Jock Miggs, clapped him vigorously on the shoulder, and shouted lustily,—
"Stand and deliver!"
Jock Miggs, aroused from his pleasant meditations, threw up his hands in terror.
"The Lud have mercy on my soul!" he ejaculated as he fell on his knees.
"Stand and deliver!" repeated Beau Brocade, in as gruff a voice as he could command.
Jock Miggs was trying to collect his scattered wits.
"B ... b ... but ... kind sir!" he murmured, "y ... y ... you wouldn't harm Jock Miggs, the shepherd ... would you?"
"Quick's the word! Now then..."
"But, good sir ... Oi ... Oi ... Oi've got nowt to deliver..."
Jock Miggs was pitiful to behold: at any other moment of his life Bathurst would have felt very sorry for the poor, scared creature, but that yelping hound was drawing desperately near and he had only a few minutes at his command.
"Naught to deliver?" he said with a great show of roughness, and seizing poor Jock by the collar.
"Look at your smock!"
"My smock, kind sir?..."
"Aye! I've a fancy for your smock ... so off with it ... quick!"
Jock Miggs struggled up to his feet, he was beginning to gather a small modicum of courage. He had lived all his life on Brassing Moor and it was his first serious encounter with an armed gentleman of the road. Whether 'twas Beau Brocade or no he was too scared to conjecture, but he had enough experience of the Heath to know that poor folk like himself had little bodily hurt to fear from highwaymen.
But of course it was always wisest to obey. As to his old smock...
"He! he! he! my old smock, sir!" he laughed vaguely and nervously, "why..."
"I don't want to knock the poor old cuckoo down," murmured Bathurst to himself, "but I've just got three minutes before that cur reaches the top of the clearing and ... Off with your smock, man, or I fire," he added peremptorily, and pointing the muzzle of his pistol at the trembling shepherd.
Miggs had in the meanwhile fully realised that the masked stranger was in deadly earnest. Why he should want the old smock was more than any shepherd could conceive, but that he meant to have it was very clear. Jock uttered a final plaintive word of protest.
"Kind sir ... but if Oi take off my smock ... I sha'nt be quite d ... d ... decent ... sir ... wi' only my shirt."
"You shall have my coat," replied Bathurst, decisively.
"Lud preserve me! ... Your coat, sir!"
"Yes! it's old and shabby, and my waistcoat too.... Now off with that smock, or..."
Once more the muzzle of the pistol gleamed close to Jock Miggs's head. Without further protest he began to divest himself of his smock. The process was slow and laborious, and Jack set his teeth not to scream with the agony of the suspense.
He himself had had little difficulty in taking off his own coat and waistcoat, for earlier in the day, before he had been so hard pressed, the pain in his shoulder had caused him to slip his left arm out of its sleeve.
Moreover, the excitement of these last fateful moments kept him at fever pitch: he was absolutely unconscious of aught save of the rapid flight of the seconds and the steady approach of dog and men towards the clearing.
Even Jock Miggs, who up to now had been too intent on his own adventure to take much heed of what went on in the gloom beyond, even he perceived that something unusual was happening on the Moor.
"What's that?" he asked with renewed terror.
"A posse of soldiers at my heels," said Beau Brocade, decisively, "that's why I want your smock, my man, and if I don't get it there'll be just time to blow out your dull brains before I fall into their hands."
This last argument was sufficiently convincing. Miggs thought it decidedly best to obey; he helped his mysterious assailant on with his own smock, cap and kerchief, and not unwillingly attired himself in Beau Brocade's discarded coat and waistcoat.
"A pistol in your belt in case you need it, friend," whispered Bathurst, rapidly, as he slipped one of the weapons in Miggs's belt, keeping the other firmly grasped in his own hand.
There was no doubt that the hound was on the scent now: the men had ceased shouting but their rapid footsteps could be heard following closely upon the dog, whose master was muttering a few words of encouragement.
Anon there came a whisper, louder than the rest,—
"This way!..."
Then another,—
"There's a path here!"
"Be gy! this confounded darkness!"
"Steady, Roy! steady, old man! Eh? What?"
"This way!"
"Can't you find the trail, old Roy?"
And the gorse was crackling beneath rapid and stealthy footsteps. There was now just the width of the clearing between Beau Brocade and his pursuers.
"This way, Sergeant. Roy's got the trail again."
Neither Jock Miggs nor yet Beau Brocade could see what was going on at the further end of the clearing. The dog, wildly straining against the leash, was quivering with intense excitement, his master hanging on to him with all his might.
Miggs, scared like some sheep lost among a herd of cows, was standing half-dazed, smoothing down with appreciative fingers the fine cloth of his new apparel, terrified every time his hand came in contact with the pistol in his belt.
But Beau Brocade had crept underneath a heavy clump of gorse and bramble, and with his finger on the trigger of his weapon he cowered there, ready for action, his eyes fixed upon the blackness before him.
The next moment the outline of the hound's head and shoulders became faintly discernible in the gloom. With nose close to the ground, powerful jaws dropping and parched tongue hanging out of its mouth, it was heading straight for the clump of gorse where cowered the hunted man.
Beau Brocade took rapid aim and fired. The dog, without a howl, rolled over on its side, whilst Jock Miggs uttered a cry of terror.
Then there was an instant's pause. The pursuers, silenced and awed, had stopped dead, for they had been taken wholly unawares, and for a second or two waited, expecting and dreading yet another shot.
Then a mild, trembling voice came to them from the darkness.
"There 'e is, Sergeant! Just afore you—standing ... see!..."
The Sergeant and soldiers had no need to be told twice. Their pause had only been momentary and already they had perceived the outline of Jock Miggs's figure, standing motionless not far from the body of the dead dog.
With a shout of triumph Sergeant and soldiers fell on the astonished shepherd, whilst the same mild, trembling voice continued to pipe excitedly,—
"Hold 'un tight, Sergeant! Jump on 'im! Tie 'is legs! Sure, an' 'tis he, the rascal!"
Jock Miggs had had no chance of uttering one word of protest, for one of the soldiers, remembering a lesson learnt the day before at the smithy, had thrown his own heavy coat right over the poor fellow's head, effectually smothering his screams. Another man had picked up the still smoking pistol from the ground close to Miggs's feet.
"Pistols!" said the Sergeant, excitedly. "The pair o' them too," he added, pulling the other silver-mounted weapon out of Miggs's belt, and the black mask out of the pocket of his coat: "and silver-mounted, be gy! ... And his mask! ... Now, my men, off with him.... Tie his legs together—off with your belts, quick! ... and you, Corporal, keep that coat tied well over his head ... the rascal's like an eel, and'll wriggle out of your hands if you don't hold him tight.... Remember there's a hundred guineas reward for the capture of Beau Brocade."
Poor old Miggs, smothered within the thick folds of the soldier's coat, could scarce manage to breathe. The men were fastening his knees and ankles together with their leather belts, his arms too were pinioned behind his back. Thus trussed and spitted like a goose ready for roasting, he felt himself being hauled up on the shoulders of some of the men and then borne triumphantly away.
"We've gotten Beau Brocade!"
"Hip! hip! hurray!"
And so they marched away, shouting lustily, whilst Beau Brocade remained alone on the Heath.
The excitement was over now. He was safe for the moment and free. But the hour of victory seemed like the hour of death; as the last shouts of triumph, the last cry of "Hurrah!" died away in the distance, he fell back against the wet earth; his senses were reeling, the very ground seemed to be giving way beneath his feet, a lurid, red film to be rising before his closing lids, blotting out the darkness of the Moor, and that faint, very faint, streak of grey which had just appeared in the east.
God, to whom he had cried out in his agony, had given him the respite for which he had craved. He was safe and free to think ... to think of her ... and yet now his one longing seemed to be to lie down and rest ... and rest ... and sleep...
Many a night he had lain thus on the open Moor, with the soft, sweet-scented earth for his bed, and the tender buds of heather as a pillow for his head. But to-night he was only conscious of infinite peace, and his trembling hands drew the worthy shepherd's smock closer round him.
His wandering spirit paused awhile to dwell on poor Miggs in his sorry plight.... Ah, well! the morning would see Jock free again, but in the meanwhile...
Then all of a sudden the spirit was back on earth, back to life and to a mad, scarce understandable hope. His hand had come in contact with a packet of letters in the pocket of Miggs's smock.
Far away in the sky the eastern stars had paled before the morning light. One by one the distant peaks of the Derbyshire hills emerged from the black mantle of the night, and peeped down on the valley below, blushing a rosy red. Upon the Heath animal life began to be astir—in the morass beyond a lazy frog started to croak.
Beau Brocade had clasped the letters with cold, numb fingers: he drew them forth and held them before his dimmed eyes.
"The letters!..." he murmured, trembling with the agony of this great unlooked-for joy. "The letters!..."
How they came there, he could not tell. He was too weary, too ill to guess. But that they were her letters he could not for a moment doubt. He had found them! God and His angels had placed them in his hands!
Ah, Fortune! fickle Fortune! the wilful jade and the poor outlaw were to be even then after all. And 'twas Beau Brocade, highwayman, thief, who was destined in a few hours to bring her this great happiness.
"Will she ... will she smile, I wonder..."
He loved to see her smile, and to watch the soft tell-tale blush slowly mounting to her cheek. Ah! now he was dreaming ... dreams that never, never could be. He would bring her back the letters, for he had sworn to her that she should have them ere the sun had risen twice o'er yon green-clad hills. And then all would be over, and she would pass out of his life like a beautiful comet gliding across the firmament of his destiny.
A moment but not to stay.
In the east, far away, rose had changed to gold. From Moor and Heath and Bogland came the sound of innumerable bird-throats singing the great and wonderful hymn of praise, hosanna to awakening Nature.
The outlaw had kept his oath; he turned to where the first rays of the rising sun shed their shimmering mantle over the distant Tors, and in one great uplifting of his soul to his Maker he prayed that sweet death might kiss him when he placed the letters at her feet.
PART IV
H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND
CHAPTER XXX
SUSPENSE
Throughout the whole range of suffering which humanity is called upon to endure, there is perhaps nothing so hard to bear as suspense.
The uncertainty of what the immediate future might bring, the fast-sinking hope, the slowly-creeping despair, the agony of dull, weary hours: Patience had gone through the whole miserable gamut during that long and terrible day when, obedient to Bathurst's wishes, she had shut herself up in the dingy little parlour of the Packhorse and refused to see anyone save the faithful smith.
And the news which John Stich brought to her from time to time was horrible enough to hear.
He tried to palliate as much as possible the account of that awful battue organised against Beau Brocade, but she guessed from the troubled look on the honest smith's face, and from the furtive, anxious glance of his eyes, that the man whom she had trusted with her whole heart was now in peril, even more deadly than that which had assailed her brother.
And with the innate sympathy born of a true and loving heart, she guessed too how John Stich's simple, faithful soul went out in passionate longing to his friend, who, alone, wounded, perhaps helpless, was fighting his last battle on the Heath.
Yet the trust within her had not died out. Beau Brocade had sworn to do her service and to bring her back the letters ere the sun had risen twice o'er the green-clad hills. To her overwrought mind it seemed impossible that he should fail. He was not the type of man whom fate or adverse circumstance ever succeeded in conquering, and on his whole magnetic personality, on the intense vitality of his being, Nature had omitted to put the mark of failure.
But the hours wore on and she was without further news. Her terror for her brother increased the agony of her suspense. She could see that John Stich too had become anxious about Philip. There was no doubt that with an organised man-hunt on the Moor the lonely forge by the cross-roads would no longer be a safe hiding-place for the Earl of Stretton. The smithy was already marked as a suspected house, and John Stich was known to be a firm adherent of the Gascoynes and a faithful friend of Beau Brocade.
During the course of this eventful day the attention of the Sergeant and soldiers had been distracted, through Bathurst's daring actions, from Stich's supposed nephew out o' Nottingham, but as the beautiful September afternoon turned to twilight and then to dusk, and band after band of hunters set out to scour the Heath, it became quite clear both to Patience and to the smith that Philip must be got away from the forge at any cost.
He could remain in temporary shelter at the Packhorse, under the guise of one of Lady Patience's serving-men, at anyrate until another nightfall, when a fresh refuge could be found for him, according as the events would shape themselves within the next few hours.
Therefore, as soon as the shadows of evening began to creep over Brassing Moor, Stich set out for the cross-roads. He walked at a brisk pace along the narrow footpath which led up to his forge, his honest heart heavy at thought of his friend, all alone out there on the Heath.
The weird echo of the man-hunt did not reach this western boundary of the Moor, but even in its stillness the vast immensity looked hard and cruel in the gloom: the outlines of gorse bush and blackthorn seemed akin to gaunt, Cassandra-like spectres foreshadowing some awful disaster.
Within the forge Philip too had waited in an agony of suspense, whilst twice the glorious sunset had clothed the Tors with gold.
Driven by hunger and cold out of the hiding-place on the Moor which Bathurst had found for him, he had returned to the smithy the first night, only to find John Stich gone and no trace of his newly-found friend. His sister, he knew, must have started for London, but he was without any news as to what had happened in the forge, and ignorant of the gallant fight made therein by the notorious highwayman.
The hour was late then, and Philip was loth to disturb old Mistress Stich, John's mother, who kept house for him at the cottage. Moreover, he had the firm belief in his heart that neither Bathurst nor Stich would have deserted him, had they thought that he was in imminent danger.
Tired out with the excitement of the day, and with a certain amount of hope renewed in his buoyant young heart, he curled himself up in a corner of the shed and forgot all his troubles in a sound sleep.
The next morning found him under the care of old Mistress Stich at the cottage. She had had no news of John, who had wandered out, so she said, about two hours after sunset, possibly to find the Captain; but she thrilled the young man's ears with the account of the daring fight in the forge.
"Nay! but they'll never get our Captain!" said the worthy dame, with a break in her gentle old voice, "and if the whole countryside was after him they'd never get him. Leastways so says my John."
"God grant he may speak truly," replied the young man, fervently; "'tis shame enough on me that a brave man should risk his life for me, whilst I have to stand idly behind a cupboard door."
The absence of definite news weighed heavily upon his spirits, and as the day wore on and neither John Stich nor Bathurst reappeared, his hopes very quickly began to give way to anxiety and then to despair. Philip always had a touch of morbid self-analysis in his nature: unlike Jack Bathurst, he was ever ready to bend the neck before untoward fate, heaping self-accusation on self-reproach, and thus allowing his spirit to bow to circumstance, rather than to attempt to defy it.
And throughout the whole of this day he sat, moody and silent, with the ever-recurring thought hammering in his brain,—
"I ought not to have allowed a stranger to risk his life for me. I should have given myself up. 'Twas unworthy a soldier and a gentleman."
By the time the shadows had lengthened on the Moor, and Jack o' Lantern covered with sweat had arrived riderless at the forge, Philip was formulating wild plans of going to Wirksworth and there surrendering himself to the local magistrate. He worked himself up into a fever of heroic self-sacrifice, and had just resolved only to wait until dawn to carry out his purpose, when John Stich appeared in the doorway of his smithy.
One look in the honest fellow's face told the young Earl of Stretton that most things in his world were amiss just now. A few eager questions, and as briefly as possible Stich told him exactly how matters stood: the letters stolen by Sir Humphrey Challoner, Bathurst's determination to re-capture them and the organized hunt proceeding this very night against him.
"Her ladyship and I both think, my lord, that this place is not safe for you just now," added John, finally, "and she begs you to come to her at Brassington as soon as you can. The road is safe enough," added the smith, with a heavy sigh, "no one'd notice us—they are all after the Captain, and God knows but perhaps they've got him by now."
Philip could say nothing, for his miserable self-reproaches had broken his spirit of obstinacy. His boyish heart was overflowing with sympathy for the kindly smith. How gladly now would he have given his own life to save that of his gallant rescuer!
Obediently he prepared to accede to his sister's wishes. He knew what agony she must have endured when the letters were filched from her; he guessed that she would wish to have him near her, and in any case he wanted to be on the spot, hoping that yet he could offer his own life in exchange for the one which was being so nobly risked for him.
Quite quietly, therefore, and without a murmur, he prepared to accompany Stich back to Brassington. At the Packhorse a serving-man's suit could easily be found for him, and he would be safe enough there, for a little while at least.
John Stich, having tended Jack o' Lantern with loving care, took a hasty farewell of his mother. While his friend's fate and that of his young lord hung in the balance he was not like to get back quietly to his work.
"The Captain may come back here for shelter mayhap," he said, with a catch in his throat, as he kissed the old dame "good-bye"; "you'll tend to him, mother?"
"Aye! you may be sure o' that, John," replied Mistress Stich, fervently.
"He'll need a rest mayhap, and some nice warm water; he's such a dandy, mother, you know."
"Aye! aye!"
"And you might lay out his best clothes for him; he may need 'em mayhap."
"Aye! I've got 'em laid in lavender for him. That nice sky-blue coat, think you, John?"
"Aye, and the fine 'broidered waistcoat, and the black silk bow for his hair, and the lace ruffles for his wrists, and..."
Stich broke down, a great lump had risen in his throat. Would the foppish young dandy, the handsome, light-hearted gallant, ever gladden the eyes of honest John again?