Beau Brocade

"A dreadful indignity," moaned the attorney.

"Nay! but Squire West was most distressed, and his apologies were profuse! Indeed he seemed to feel it as much as if it had happened to himself."

"Aye! but not in the same place, I'll warrant! Odd's life, I had no notion how much a turnip could hurt when flung into one's eye," added his Honour, with one of those laughs that never boded any good.

"A most painful incident, Sir Humphrey!" sighed Mittachip, brimming over with sympathy.

"'Twas not the incident that was painful! Zounds! I am bruised all over. But I'll have the law of every one of those dolts, aye! and make that fool West administer it on all of them! As for that ape, the beadle, he shall be publicly whipped. Death and hell! they'll have to pay for this!"

"Aye! aye! Sir Humphrey! your anger is quite natural, and Squire West assured me that that rascal Beau Brocade, who played you this impudent trick, cannot fail to be caught. The hunt is well organised, he cannot escape."

As if to confirm the attorney's words, there rose at this moment from afar a weird and eerie sound, which caused Master Mittachip's shrivelled flesh to creep along his bones.

"What was that?" he whispered, horror-struck.

"A blood-hound, the better to track that rascal," muttered Sir Humphrey, savagely.

The attorney shivered; there had been so much devilish malice in his Honour's voice, that suddenly his puny heart misgave him. He took to wishing himself well out of this unmanly business. The horror of it seemed to grip him by the throat: he was superstitious too, and firmly believed in a material hell; the sound of that distant snarl, followed by the significant yelping of a hound upon the scent, made him think of the cries the devils would utter at sight of the damned.

"The dog belongs to one of Squire West's grooms," remarked his Honour, carelessly, "a savage beast enough, by the look of him. Luck was in our favour, for our gallant highwayman had carried Lady Patience's plaint inside his coat for quite a long time, and then left it on his Honour's table … quite enough for any self-respecting blood-hound, and this one is said to be very keen on the scent… Squire West tried to protest, but set a dog to catch a dog, say I."

Master Mittachip tried to shut his ears to the terrible sound. Fortunately it was getting fainter now, and Sir Humphrey did not give him time for much reflection.

His Honour had stopped for awhile listening, with a chuckle of intense satisfaction, to the yelping of the dog straining on the leash, then when the sound died away, he said abruptly, —

"Are we still far from the hut?"

"No, Sir Humphrey," stammered Mittachip, whose very soul was quaking with horror.

"We'll find the shepherd there, think you?"

"Y … y … yes, your Honour!"

"Harkee, Master Mittachip. I'll run no risk. That d – d highwayman must be desperate to-night. We'll adhere to our original plan, and let the shepherd take the letters to Wirksworth."

"You … you … you'll not let them bide to-night where they are, Sir Humphrey?"

"No, you fool, I won't. They are but just below the surface, under cover of some bramble, and once those fellows come scouring round the hut, any one of them may unearth the letters with a kick of his boot. There's been a lot of talk of a reward for the recovery of a packet of letters! … No, no, no! I'll not risk it."

Sir Humphrey Challoner had thought the matter well out, and knew that he ran two distinct risks in the matter of the letters. To one he had alluded just now when he spoke of the probability – remote perhaps – of the packet being accidentally unearthed by one of the scouring parties. Any man who found it would naturally at once take it to Squire West, in the hope of getting the reward promised by her ladyship for its recovery. The idea, therefore, of leaving the letters in their hiding-place for awhile did not commend itself to him. On the other hand, there was the more obvious risk of keeping them about his own person. Sir Humphrey thanked his stars that he had not done so the day before, and even now kept in his mind a certain superstitious belief that Beau Brocade – wounded, hunted and desperate – would make a final effort, which might prove successful, to wrench the letters from him on the Heath.

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, something must happen 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.