Beau Brocade by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (hardest books to read .txt) 📖

oh, noble sir! We… we are poor men!...”

“Poor-spirited men, you mean?” quoty Beau Brocade, giving the trembling figure a quick, vigorous shake. “Now then! off that nag of yours! Quick’s the word!”

But even before this word of command Master Mittachip, dragging his clerk after him, had tumbled, quaking, off his horse. They now stood clinging to each other, a miserable bundle of frightened humanity.

“Come!” said Beau Brocade, looking down with some amusement at the spectacle. “I’m not going to hurt you—I never shoot at snipe! But you’ll have to turn out your pockets and sharp too, an you want to resume your journey to-night.”

He had seized Master Duffy by the collar. The clerk was an all too-ready prey for any highwayman, and stooping from his saddle, Beau Brocade had quickly extracted a leather bag from the pocket of his coat.

“Oho! guineas, as I live!”

“Kind sir,” began Duffy, tremblingly.

“Now, listen to me, both of you,” said Beau Brocade, trying to hide his enjoyment of the scene under an air of great sternness. “I know who you are. I know what work you’ve been doing this afternoon. Extorting rents barely due from a few wretched people, for your employers as hard-hearted as yourselves.”

“Kind sir…”

“Silence! or I shoot! Besides, ‘twere no use to tell me lies. The people about here know me. They call me Beau Brocade. I know them and their troubles. I happened to hear, for instance, that you extracted two guineas from the Widow Coggins, threatening her with a process for dilapidations unless she gave you hush-money.”

“‘Twas not our fault, kind sir…”

“Then there was Mistress Haddakin, from whom you extracted fifty shillings for a new gate, which you don’t intend to put up for her: and this, although she has only just buried her husband, and had a baby sick at home. You put on finer airs with the poor people than you do with me, eh?”

“‘Tis not our money, sir,” protested Master Mittachip, humbly.

“Some of it goes into your own pockets. Hush-money, blood-money, I call it. That’s what I want from you, and then a bit over for the poor-box on behalf of your employers.”

He weighed the leather bag which he had taken out of Master Duffy’s pocket.

“This’ll do for the poor-box. Now I want the five pounds you extorted from Widow Coggins and Mistress Haddakin. The poor women’ll be glad of it on the morrow.”

“I haven’t a penny more than that bagful, sir,” protested Master Mittachip. “My employers took all the money from me. ‘Twere their rents I was collecting. I swear it, sir, kind sir! on my word of honour! And I am an honest man!”

“Come here!”

And Beau Brocade reined his horse back a few paces.

“Come here!” he repeated.

Mittachip was too frightened to disobey. He came forward, limping very perceptibly.

“Why do you walk like that?” asked Beau Brocade.

“I’m a feeble old man and rheumatic,” whined Mittachip, despondently.

“Then ‘twere better to ease the load out of your boot, friend. Sit down here and take it off.”

And he pointed to a piece of boulder projecting through the shallow earth.

But this Master Mittachip seemed very loth to do.

“Kind sir…” he protested again.

“Sit down and take off the right boot!” repeated Beau Brocade more peremptorily, and with a gay laugh and mock threatening gesture he pointed the muzzle of his pistol at the terror-stricken attorney.

There was naught to do but to obey: and quickly too. Master Mittachip cursed the rascally highwayman under his breath, and even consigned him to eternal damnation, before he finally handed him up his boot.

Beau Brocade turned it over, shook it, and a bag of jingling guineas fell at Jack o’ Lantern’s feet.

“Give me that bag!”

“Sir! kind sir!” moaned Master Mittachip, as he obediently handed up the bag of gold to his merciless assailant. “Have pity! I am a ruined man! ‘Tis Sir Humphrey Challoner’s money. I’ve been collecting it for him… and he’s a hard man!”

“Oh!” said Beau Brocade, “‘tis Sir Humphrey Challoner’s money, is it? Nay! you old scarecrow, but ‘tis his Honour himself sent me on the Heath to-night. Oho!” he added, whilst his merry, boyish laugh went echoing through the evening air, “methinks Sir Humphrey will enjoy the joke. Do you tell him, friend—an you see him in the morn—that you’ve met Beau Brocade and that he’ll do his Honour’s bidding.”

He counted some of the money out of the bag and put it in his pocket: the remainder he handed back to the astonished lawyer.

“There!” he said with sudden earnestness, “I’ll only make restitution to the poor whom you have robbed. You may thank your stars that an angel came down from heaven to-day and cast eyes of tender pity upon me, so that I care not to rob you, save for those in dire want. You may mount that nag of yours now, and continue your journey to Brassington. No turning aside, remember, and answer me when I challenge your good-night.”

Master Mittachip and his clerk had no call to be told twice. They mounted with as much agility as their trembling limbs would allow. Truly they considered themselves lucky in having saved some money out of the clutches of the rogue, and did not care to speculate on the cause of their good fortune.

A few minutes later their lean horse was once more on its way, bearing its double burden. At first they had both looked back, attracted—now that their terror was gone—by the sight of that tall, youthful figure on the beautiful thoroughbred standing there on the crest of the hill and gradually growing more and more dim in the fast-gathering mist.

The bridle path at this point dips very suddenly and a sharp declivity leads thence, straight on to Brassington.

Beau Brocade’s sharp eyes, accustomed to the gloom, watched horse and riders until the mist enveloped them and hid them from his view. Then he called loudly,—

“Good-night!”

And faintly echoing came the quaking reply,—

“Good-night!”

After that there was silence again. The outlaw was alone upon the Heath once more, the Heath which had been his home for so long.

For him it had no cruelty and held no terror: the tall gorse and bracken oft sheltered him from the rain! Wrapped in his greatcoat, he had oft watched the tiny lizards darting to and fro in the grass, or listened to the melancholy cry of moorhen or heron. The tiny rough branches of the heather had been a warm carpet on which he had slept on lazy afternoons.

The outlaw found a friend in great and lonely Nature, and when he was aweary he laid his head on her motherly breast, and like a child found rest.

Chapter XVII

A Faithful Friend

How long he stood there on the spur of the hill he could not afterwards have told. It may have been a few seconds, perhaps it was an eternity.

During those few seconds or that eternity, the world was re-created for him: for him it became more beautiful than he had ever conceived it in his dreams. A woman’s smile ahd changed it into an earthly paradise. A new and strange happiness filled his being, and set brain and sinews on fire. A happiness so great that his heart well nigh broke with the burden of it, and the bitter longing for what could never be.

The cry of a moorhen thrice repeated at intervals roused him from his dreams.

“John Stich,” he murmured, “I wonder now what brings him out to-night!”

And with a final sigh of deep regret, a defiant toss of the head, Beau Brocade turned Jack o’ Lantern’s head northwards whence the cry had come.

There a rough track, scarce perceptible amongst the bracken, led straight up to the forge of John Stich. Horse and rider knew every inch of the way, although for the moment the fitful moon still hid her light behind a bank of clouds, and the mist now enveloped the Moor in a thick mantle of gloom.

Soon the sensitive ears of the highwayman, accustomed to every sound, had perceived heavy foot-steps on the unbeaten track, and presently a burly figure detached itself from the darkness beyond and came rapidly forward.

“Odd’s my life! but it’s friend John!” said Beau Brocade, with a great show of severity. “Zounds! but this is rank insubordination! How dare you follow me on the Heath, you villain, and leave your noble guest unprotected? What?”

“His lordship is safe enough, Captain,” said the smith, who at sight of the young man had heaved an obvious sigh of relief, “and I could not rest until I’d seen you again.”

“Faith! you can’t do that in this confounded mist, eh, John?” quoth Bathurst, lightly. But his fresh young voice had softened with a quaint tenderness, whilst he looked down, smiling at the upturned face of his devoted friend.

“Well! what about my friend, the Sergeant and the soldiers, eh?” he added gaily.

“Oh! the Sergeant is too sick to speak,” rejoined the smith, earnestly, “but the men vow you’re a rebel lord. Those that were fit walked down to Brassington directly after you left: one man, who was wounded in the arm, started for Aldwark: they’ve gone to get help, Captain; either more soldiers, or loafers from the villages who may be tempted by the reward. They’ll scour this Heath for you, from Aldwark to the cross-roads, and from Brassington to Wirksworth, and …”

“And so much the better, friend Stich, for while they hunt for me his lordship will be safe.”

“But have a care, Captain! they’re determined men, now, for you’ve fooled them twice. Be gy! but you’ve never been in so tight a corner before.”

“Pshaw!” quoth Beau Brocade, lightly, “life is none too precious a boon for me that I should make an effort to save it.”

“Captain…” murmured Stich, reproachfully.

“There, friend John,” added the young man, with that same touch of almost womanly tenderness, that had endeared him to the heart of honest Stich, “there! there! have no fear for me! I tell thee, man, they’ll not get me on this Heath! Think you the furze and bracken, the heron or peewit would betray me? Me, their friend! Not they! I am safe enough!” he continued, while a strange ring of excitement made his young voice quiver. “Let them after me, and leave her brother in peace! And then, John! when he is safe … perhaps I may see her smile once more! ... Heigh-ho! A fool am I, friend! a fool, I tell thee! fit for the gallows-tree outside thy forge!”

John said nothing: he could not see Jack’s face in the gloom, and did not understand his wild, mad mood, but his faithful heart ached to hear the ring of bitter longing in the voice of his friend.

There was a moment’s pause, whilst Bathurst made a visible effort to control his excitement. Then he said more calmly,—

“Here, John! take this money, friend!”

He dived in the pocket of his big caped coat and then placed in John’s hand the two bags of money he had extracted from Master Mittachip and his clerk.

“I’ve just got it from a blood-sucking agent of Sir Humphrey Challoner’s; ‘tis money wrung from poor people, who can ill afford it.”

“Aye! aye!” quoth John, with a sigh.

“I want two guineas to go to Mistress Haddakin, who has just lost her husband: the poor wretch is nigh to starving. Then thirty shillings are for the Widow Coggins, up Hartington way: those blood-suckers took her last shilling yesterday. Wilt see to it, friend John?”