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Beau Brocade
Beau Brocade

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Beau Brocade

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Язык: Английский
Год издания: 2017
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John Stich made no comment on the Corporal's profession of faith.

"We'll talk about all that some other time, Corporal," he said at last, "but I am busy now, you see…"

"No offence, friend Stich… Odd's life, duty you know, John, duty, eh? His Majesty's orders! and I had them from the Captain, who had them from the Duke of Cumberland himself. So you mind the Act, friend!"

"Aye! I mind it well enough."

"Everyone knows you to be a loyal subject of King George," added the Corporal in conciliatory tones, for John was a power in the district, "and I'm sure your nephew is the same, but duty is duty, and no offence meant."

"That's right enough, Corporal," said John Stich, impatiently.

"So good-morrow to you, John Stich."

"Good-morrow."

The Corporal nodded to the young man, then turned on his heel and presently his voice was heard ringing out the word of command, —

"Attention! – Right turn – Quick march!"

John Stich and the young man watched the half-dozen red-coated figures as they turned to skirt the cottage: the dull thud of their feet quickly dying away, as they wound their way slowly up the muddy path which leads across the Heath to Aldwark village.

CHAPTER III

THE FUGITIVE

Inside the forge all was still, whilst the last of the muffled sounds died away in the distance. John Stich had not resumed work. It was his turn now to stare moodily before him.

The young man had thrown the bellows aside, and was pacing the rough earthen floor of the forge like some caged animal.

"Tracked!" he murmured at last between clenched teeth, "tracked like some wild beast! perhaps shot anon like a dangerous cur behind a hedge!"

He sighed a long and bitter sigh, full of sorrow, anxiety, disappointment. It had come to this then! His name among the others – the traitors, the rebels! and he an innocent man!

"Nay, my lord!" said the smith, quietly, "not while John Stich owns a roof that can shelter you."

The young man paused in his feverish walk; a look of gentleness and gratitude softened the care-worn expression on his face: with a boyish gesture he threw back the fair hair which fell in curly profusion over his forehead, and with a frank and winning grace he sought and grasped the worthy smith's rough brown hand.

"Honest Stich!" he said at last, whilst his voice shook a little as he spoke, "and to think that I cannot even reward your devotion!"

"Nay, my lord," retorted John Stich, drawing up his burly figure to its full height, "don't talk of reward. I would gladly give my life for you and your family."

And this was no idle talk. John Stich meant every word he said. Honest, kind, simple-hearted John! he loved those to whom he owed everything, loved them with all the devotion of his strong, faithful nature.

The late Lord Stretton had brought him up, cared for him, given him a trade, and set him up in the cottage and forge at the cross-roads, and honest Stich felt that as everything that was good in life had come from my lord and his family, so everything he could give should be theirs in return.

"Ah! I fear me," sighed the young man, "that it is your life you risk now by sheltering me."

Yet it was all such a horrible mistake.

Philip James Gascoyne, eleventh Earl of Stretton, was at this time not twenty-one years of age. There is that fine portrait of him at Brassing Hall painted by Hogarth just before this time. The artist has well caught the proud features, the fine blue eyes, the boyish, curly head, which have been the characteristics of the Gascoynes for many generations. He has also succeeded in indicating the sensitiveness of the mouth, that somewhat feminine turn of the lips, that all too-rounded curve of the chin and jaw, which perhaps robs the handsome face of its virile manliness. There certainly is a look of indecision, of weakness of will about the lower part of the face, but it is so frank, so young, so insouciant, that it wins all hearts, even if it does not captivate the judgment.

Of course, when he was very young, his sympathies went out to the Stuart cause. Had not the Gascoynes suffered and died for Charles Stuart but a hundred years ago? Why the change? Why this allegiance to an alien dynasty, to a king who spoke the language of his subjects with a foreign accent?

His father, the late Lord Stretton, a contented, unargumentative British nobleman of the eighteenth century, had not thought it worth his while to explain to the growing lad the religious and political questions involved in the upholding of this foreign dynasty. Perhaps he did not understand them altogether himself. The family motto is "Pour le Roi." So the Gascoynes fought for a Stuart when he was King, and against him when he was a Pretender, and old Lord Stretton expected his children to reverence the family motto, and to have no opinions of their own.

And yet to the hearts of many the Stuart cause made a strong appeal. From Scotland came the fame of the "bonnie Prince" who won all hearts where'er he went. Philip was young, his father's discipline was irksome, he had some friends among the Highland lords: and while his father lived there had as yet been no occasion in the English Midlands to do anything very daring for the Stuart Pretender.

When the Earl of Stretton died, Philip, a mere boy then, succeeded to title and estates. In the first flush of new duties and new responsibilities his old enthusiasm remained half forgotten. As a peer of the realm he had registered his allegiance to King George, and with his youthful romantic nature all afire, he clung to that new oath of his, idealised it and loyally resisted the blandishments and lures held out to him from Scotland and from France.

Then came the news that Charles Edward, backed by French money and French influence, would march upon London and would stop at Derby to rally round his standard his friends in the Midlands.

Young Lord Stretton, torn between memories of his boyhood and the duties of his new position, feared to be inveigled into breaking his allegiance to King George. The malevolent fairy who at his birth had given him that weak mouth and softly rounded chin, had stamped his worst characteristic on the young handsome face. Philip's one hope at this juncture was to flee from temptation; he knew that Charles Edward, remembering his past ardour, would demand his help and his adherence, and that he, Philip, might be powerless to refuse.

So he fled from the county: despising himself as a coward, yet boyishly clinging to the idea that he would keep the oath he had sworn to King George. He wished to put miles of country between himself and the possible breaking of that oath, the possible yielding to the "bonnie Prince" whom none could resist. He left his sister, Lady Patience, at Stretton Hall, well cared for by old retainers, and he, a loyal subject to his King, became a fugitive.

Then came the catastrophe: that miserable retreat from Derby; the bedraggled remains of a disappointed army; finally Culloden and complete disaster; King George's soldiers scouring the country for rebels, the bills of attainder, the quick trials and swift executions.

Soon the suspicion grew into certainty that the fugitive Earl of Stretton was one of the Pretender's foremost adherents. On his weary way from Derby Prince Charles Edward had asked and obtained a night's shelter at Stretton Hall. When Philip tried to communicate with his sister, and to return to his home, he found that she was watched, and that he was himself attainted by Act of Parliament.

Yet he felt himself guiltless and loyal. He wasguiltless and loyal: how his name came to be included in the list of rebels was still a mystery to him: someone must have lodged sworn information against him. But who? – Surely not his old friends – the adherents of Charles Edward – out of revenge for his half-heartedness?

In the meanwhile, he, a mere lad, became an outcast, condemned to death by Act of Parliament. Presently all might be cleared, all would be well, but for the moment he was like a wild beast, hiding in hedges and ditches, with his life at the mercy of any grasping Judas willing to sell his fellow-creature for a few guineas.

It was horrible! horrible! Philip vainly tried all the day to rouse himself from his morbid reverie. At intervals he would grasp the kind smith's hand and mutter anxiously, —

"My letter to my sister, John? – You are sure she had it?"

And patient John would repeat a dozen times the day, —

"I am quite sure, my lord."

But since the Corporal's visit Philip's mood had become more feverish.

"My letter," he repeated, "has Patience had my letter? Why doesn't she come?"

And spite of John's entreaties he would go to the entrance which faced the lonely Heath, and with burning eyes look out across the wilderness of furze and bracken towards that distant horizon where lay his home, where waited his patient, loving sister.

"I beg you, my lord, come away from the door, it isn't safe, not really safe," urged John Stich again and again.

"Then why will you not tell me who took my letter to Stretton Hall?" said the boy with feverish impatience.

"My lord…"

"Some stupid dolt mayhap, who has lost his way … or … perchance betrayed me…"

"My lord," pleaded the smith, "have I not sworn that your letter went by hands as faithful, as trusty as my own?"

"But I'll not rest an you do not tell me who took it. I wish to know," he added with that sudden look of command which all the Strettons have worn for many generations past.

The old habitual deference of the retainer for his lord was strong in the heart of John. He yielded.

"Nay, my lord, an you'll not be satisfied," he said with a sigh, "I'll tell you, though Heaven knows that his safety is as dear to me as yours – both dearer than my own."

"Well, who was it?" asked the young man, eagerly.

"I entrusted your letter for Lady Patience to Beau Brocade, the highwayman – "

In a moment Philip was on his feet: danger, amazement, horror, robbed him of speech for a few seconds, but the next he had gripped the smith's arm and like a furious, thoughtless, unreasoning child, he gasped, —

"Beau Brocade!! … the highwayman!!! … My life, my honour to a highwayman!!! Are you mad or drunk, John Stich?"

"Neither, my lord," said John with great respect, but looking the young man fearlessly in the face. "You don't know Beau Brocade, and there are no safer hands than his. He knows every inch of the Moor and fears neither man nor devil."

Touched in spite of himself by the smith's earnestness, Philip's wrath abated somewhat; still he seemed dazed, not understanding, vaguely scenting danger, or treachery.

"But a highwayman!" he repeated mechanically.

"Aye! and a gentleman!" retorted John with quiet conviction. "A gentleman if ever there was one! Aye! and not the only one who has ta'en to the road these hard times," he added under his breath.

"But a thief, John! A man who might sell my letter, betray my whereabouts!.."

"A man, my lord, who would die in torture sooner than do that."

The smith's quiet and earnest conviction seemed to chase away the last vestige of Philip's wrath. Still he seemed unconvinced.

"A hero of romance, John, this highwayman of yours," he laughed bitterly.

Honest John scratched the back of his curly black head.

"Noa!" he said, somewhat puzzled. "I know nought about that or what's a … a hero of romance. But I do know that Beau Brocade is a friend of the poor, and that our village lads won't lay their hands on him, even if they could. No! not though the Government have offered a hundred guineas as the price of his head."

"Five times the value of mine, it seems," said Philip with a sigh. "But," he added, with a sudden return to feverish anxiety, "if he was caught last night, with my letter in his hands…"

"Caught!!! Beau Brocade caught!" laughed John Stich, "nay, all the soldiers of the Duke of Cumberland's army couldn't do that, my lord! Besides, I know he wasn't caught. I saw him on his chestnut horse just before the Corporal came. I heard him laughing, at the red coats, maybe. Nay! my lord, I beg you have no fear, your letter is in her ladyship's hand now, I'll lay my life on that."

"I had to trust someone, my lord," he said after awhile, as Lord Stretton once more relapsed into gloomy silence. "I could do nothing for your lordship single-handed, and you wanted that letter to reach her ladyship. I scarce knew what to do. But I did know I could trust Beau Brocade, and your secret is as safe with him as it is with me."

Philip sighed wearily.

"Ah, well! I'll believe it all, friend John. I'll trust you and your friend, and be grateful to you both: have no fear of that! Who am I but a wretched creature, whom any rascal may shoot by Act of Parliament."

But John Stich had come to the end of his power of argument. Never a man of many words, he had only become voluble when speaking of his friend. Philip tried to look cheerful and convinced, but he was chafing under this enforced inactivity and the dark, close atmosphere of the forge.

He had spent two days under the smith's roof and time seemed to creep with lead-weighted wings: yet every sound, every strange footstep, made his nerves quiver with morbid apprehension, and even now at sound of a tremulous voice from the road, shrank, moody and impatient, into corner of the hut.

CHAPTER IV

JOCK MIGGS, THE SHEPHERD

"Be you at home, Master Stich?"

A curious, wizened little figure stood in the doorway peering cautiously into the forge.

In a moment John Stich was on the alert.

"Sh!" he whispered quickly, "have no fear, my lord, 'tis only some fool from the village."

"Did ye say ye baint at home, Master Stich?" queried the same tremulous voice again. "I didn't quite hear ye."

"Yes, yes, I'm here all right, Jock Miggs," said the smith, heartily. "Come in!"

Jock Miggs came in, making as little noise, and taking up as little room as possible. Dressed in a well-worn smock and shabby corduroy breeches, he had a curious shrunken, timid air about his whole personality, as he removed his soft felt hat and began scratching his scanty tow-coloured locks: he was a youngish man too, probably not much more than thirty, yet his brown face was a mass of ruts and wrinkles like a furrowed path on Brassing Moor.

"Morning, Mr Stich … morning," he said with a certain air of vagueness and apology, as with obvious admiration he stopped to watch the broad back of the smith and his strong arms wielding the heavy hammer.

"Morning, Miggs," retorted John, not looking up from his work, "how's the old woman?"

"I dunno, Mr Stich," replied Miggs, with a dubious shake of the head. "Badly, I expec' … same as yesterday," he added in a more cheerful spirit.

"Why! what's the matter?"

"I dunno, Mr Stich, that there's anything the matter," explained Jock Miggs with slow and sad deliberation, "but she's dead … same as yesterday."

Involuntarily Philip laughed at the quaint, fatalistic statement.

"Hello!" said Miggs, looking at him with the same apathetic wonder, "who be yon lad?"

"That's my nephew Jim, out o' Nottingham," said John, "come to give me a hand."

"Morning, lad," piped Miggs, in his high treble, as he extended a wrinkled, bony hand to Stretton.

"Lud, John Stich," he exclaimed, "any one'd know he was one o' your family from the muscle he's got."

And gently, meditatively, he rubbed one shrivelled hand against the other, looking with awe at the fine figure of a man before him.

"A banging lad your nephew too," he added with a chuckle; "he'll be turning the heads of all the girls this side o' Brassington, maybe."

"Oh! I'll warrant he's got a sweetheart at home, eh, Jim lad? – or maybe more than one. But what brings ye here this day, friend Miggs?"

The wizened little face assumed a puzzled expression.

"I dunno…" he said vaguely, "maybe I wanted to tell ye about the soldiers I seed at the Royal George over Brassington way."

"What about 'em, Miggs?"

"I dunno… I see a corporal and lots of fellers in red … some say there's more o' them … I dunno."

"Ha!" said Stich, carelessly, "What are they after?"

"I dunno," commented Miggs, imperturbably. "Some say they're after that chap Beau Brocade. There was a coach stopped on the Heath 'gain last night. Fifty guineas he took out of it, he did…" And Jock Miggs chuckled feebly with apparent but irresponsible delight. "Some folk say it were Sir Humphrey Challoner's coach over from Hartington, and no one's going to break their hearts over that! he! he! he! … but I dunno," he added with sudden frightened vagueness.

"Be they cavalry soldiers over at the Royal George, Miggs?" asked John.

"I dunno … I seed no horses … looks more like foot soldiers … but I dunno. The Corporal he read out something just now about our getting twenty guineas if we shoot one o' them rebels. I'd be mighty glad to get twenty guineas, Master Stich," he said reflectively, "but I dunno as how I could handle a musket rightly … and folks say them traitors are mighty desperate fellows … but I dunno…"

Then with sudden resolution Jock Miggs turned to the doorway.

"Morning, Master Stich," he said decisively. "Morning, lad! … morning."

"Morning, Miggs."

However, it seemed that Jock Miggs's visit to the forge was not so purposeless as it at first appeared.

"He! he! he!" he chuckled, as if suddenly recollecting his errand. "I'd almost forgot why I came. Farmer Crabtree wanted to know, Master Stich, if you'm got the wether's collar mended yet?"

"Oh, yes, to be sure," replied the smith, pointing to a rough bench on which lay a number of metal articles. "You'll find it on that there bench, Jock. Farmer Crabtree sold his sheep yet?"

Jock toddled up to the bench and picked up the wether's collar.

"Noa!" he muttered, "not yet, worse luck! And his temper is that hot! So don't 'ee charge him too much for the collar, Master Stich, or it's me that'll have to suffer."

And Miggs rubbed his shoulder significantly. Stich laughed. Philip himself, in spite of his anxiety, could not help being amused at the quaint figure of the little shepherd with his wizened face and gentle, vaguely fatalistic manner.

Thus it was that no one in the forge had perceived the patter of small feet on the mud outside, and when Jock Miggs, with more elaborate "Mornings" and final leave-takings, once more reached the doorway, he came in violent collision with a short, be-cloaked and closely-hooded figure that was picking its way on very small, very high-heeled shoes, through the maze of puddles which guarded the entrance to the forge.

The impact sent Jock Miggs, scared and apologetic, stumbling in one direction, whilst the grey hood flew off the head of its wearer and disclosed in the setting of its shell-pink lining a merry, pretty, impudent little face, with brown eyes sparkling and red lips pouting in obvious irritation.

"Lud, man!" said the dainty young damsel, withering the unfortunate shepherd with a scornful glance, "why don't you look where you're going?"

"I dunno," replied Jock Miggs, with his usual humble vagueness. "Morning, miss … morning, Master Stich … morning."

And still scared, still in obvious apology for his existence, he pulled at his forelock, re-adjusted his hat over his yellow curls, took his final leave, and presently began to wend his way slowly back towards the Heath.

But within the forge, at first bound of the young girl's voice, Stretton had started in uncontrollable excitement.

"Betty!" he whispered, eagerly clutching John Stich's arm.

"Aye! aye!" replied the cautious smith, "but I beg you, my lord, keep in the background until I find out if all is safe."

Mistress Betty's saucy brown eyes followed Jock Miggs's quaint, retreating figure.

"Well! you're a pretty bit of sheep's wool, ain't ye?" she shouted after him, with a laugh and a shrug of her plump shoulders.

Then she peered into the forge.

"Lud love you, Master Stich!" she said, "how goes it with you?"

In obedience to counsels of prudence, Stretton had retired into the remote corner of the forge. John Stich too was masking the entrance with his burly figure.

"All the better, Mistress Betty," he said, "for a sight of your pretty face."

He had become very red, had honest John, and his rough manner seemed completely to have deserted him. In fact, not to put too fine a point upon it, the worthy smith looked distinctly shy and sheepish.

She looked up at him and laughed a pleased, coquettish little laugh, the laugh of a woman who has oft been told that she is pretty, and has not tired of the hearing. John Stich, moreover, was so big and burly, folks called him hard and rough, and it vastly entertained the young damsel to see him standing there before her, as awkward and uncomfortable as Jock Miggs himself.

"Am I not to step inside, Master Stich?" she asked.

"Yes, yes, Mistress Betty," murmured John, who seemed to have lost himself in admiration of a pair of tiny buckled shoes muddy to the ankles – such ankles! – which showed to great advantage beneath Betty's short green kirtle.

An angry, impatient movement behind him, however, quickly recalled his scattered senses.

"Did her ladyship receive a letter, mistress?" he asked eagerly.

"Oh, yes! a stranger brought it," replied Betty, with a pout, for she preferred John's mute appreciation of her small person to his interest in other matters. However, the demon of mischief no doubt whispered something in her ear for the further undoing of the worthy smith, for she put on a demure, mysterious little air, turned up her brown eyes, sighed with affectation, and murmured ecstatically, —

"Oh! such a stranger! the fine eyes of him, Master Stich! and such an air, and oh!" added little madam with unction, "such clothes!"

But though no doubt all these fine airs and graces wrought deadly havoc in poor John's heart, he concealed it well enough under a show of eager impatience.

"Yes! yes! the stranger," he said, casting a furtive glance behind him, "he gave you a letter for my lady?"

"La! you needn't be in such a hurry, Master Stich!" retorted Mistress Betty, adding with all the artifice of which she was capable, "the stranger wasn't."

But this was too much for John. There had been such a wealth of meaning in Betty's brown eyes.

"Oh! he wasn't? was he?" he asked with a jealous frown, "and pray what had he to say to you? There was no message except the letter."

But the demon of mischief was satisfied and Betty was disposed to be kind, even if slightly mysterious.

"Oh, never mind!" she rejoined archly, "he gave me a letter which I gave to my lady. That was early this morning."

"Well? … and?"

But matters were progressing too slowly at anyrate for one feverish, anxious heart. Philip had tried to hold himself in check, though he was literally hanging on pretty Mistress Betty's lips. Now he could contain himself no longer. Lady Patience had had his letter. The mysterious highwayman had not failed in his trust, and the news Betty had brought meant life or death to him.

Throwing prudence to the winds, he pushed John Stich aside, and seizing the young girl by the wrist, he asked excitedly, —

"Yes? this morning, Betty? … then … then … what did her ladyship do?"

Betty was frightened, and like a child was ready to drown her fright in tears. She had not recognised my lord in those dirty clothes.

"Don't you know me, Betty?" asked Philip, a little more quietly.

Betty cast a timid glance at the two men before her, and smiled through the coming tears.

"Of course, my lord … I …" she murmured shyly.

"'Tis my nephew Jim out o' Nottingham, mistress," said John, sternly, "try and remember that: and now tell us what did her ladyship do?"

"She had the horses put to, not an hour after the stranger had been. Thomas is driving and Timothy is our only other escort. But we've not drawn rein since we left the Hall!"

"Yes! yes!" came from two pairs of eager lips.

"And my lady stopped the coach about two hundred yards from here," continued Betty with great volubility, "and she told me to run on here, to see that the coast was clear. She knew I could find my way, and she wouldn't trust Timothy as she trusts me," added the young girl with a pretty touch of pride.

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