"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 scout 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 l.u.s.tily, 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.
G.o.d, 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 mora.s.s 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! G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 c.u.mBERLAND
CHAPTER x.x.x
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 a.s.sailed 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 pa.s.sionate 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Bra.s.sing 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, Ca.s.sandra-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."