Beau Brocade, Baroness Emmuska Orczy [great book club books TXT] 📗

touch their vaunted hero of romance. I could get him hanged, sir, within a week. A cordon of soldiers round this Heath, my word to swear his identity, and … But there!” he added with a jovial laugh, “‘tis no concern of yours is it, sir? You were kind enough to promise me your advice. This is one of my alternatives, the score I’d wish to settle; there’s still the business I could offer the rogue.”

Sir Humphrey had looked the young man squarely in the face whilst he uttered his threat, but had seen nothing there, save the merriest, the most light-hearted of smiles.

“I can scarce advise you, sir,” said Bathurst, still smiling, “unless I know the business as well.”

“Well, sir, you know of old Lady Rounce, do you not? the meanest, ugliest old witch in the county, eh? Well! she is on her way to London, and carries with her a mass of money, wrung from her miserable tenants.”

“Faith, sir! you paint a most entrancing picture of the lady.”

“Now, an that rascal Beau Brocade were willing to serve me, he could at one stroke save his own neck from the gallows, enrich himself, right the innocent and confound a wicked old woman.”

“And how could this galaxy of noble deeds be accomplished at one stroke, sir?”

“Her ladyship’s coach will pass over the Heath to-night. It should be at the cross-roads soon. There will be all the old harridan’s money and jewels to be got out of it.”

“Of course.”

“And also a packet of love-letters, which doubtless will be hidden away in the receptacle beneath the seat.”

“Letters?” queried Bathurst. “Hm! I doubt me if love-letters would tempt a gentleman of the road.”

“Nay, sir,” replied his Honour, now dropping his voice to a confidential whisper, “these are letters which, if published, would compromise an artless young lady, whom old Lady Rounce pursues with her hatred and spite. Now I would give a hundred guineas to any person who will bring me those letters at the Moorhen to-morrow. Surely to a gentleman of the road the game would be worth the candle. Lady Rounce carries money with her besides, and her diamonds. What think you of it, sir?”

“‘Tis somewhat difficult to advise,” said Bathurst, meditatively.

“Ah well!” said Sir Humphrey with affected indifference, “‘tis really not much to me. On the whole perhaps I would prefer to deliver the rascal into the hands of my friend Squire West at Brassington. Any way, I have the night to think the matter over; ‘tis too late now to wait for that lout, John Stich. I would have preferred to have had your advice, sir. I dare say ‘tis difficult to give. And you a stranger too. I would have liked to save a young girl from the clutches of that old witch, Lady Rounce, and if Beau Brocade rendered me that service, I’d be tempted to hold my tongue about him … He should have the hundred guineas to-morrow and have nought to fear from me, if he brought me those letters. If not … well! ... well! ... we shall see … The old gallows here have long been idle … we shall see … we shall see … Good-day to you sir… proud to have met you … No … I’ll not wait for John Stich. Is this your horse? ... pretty creature! ... Good-day, sir … good-day.”

His Honour was extremely condescending and pleasant. He bowed very politely to Bathurst, patted the beautiful chestnut horse, and showed no further desire to talk with John Stich.

Bathurst, with a frown on his handsome face, watched the Squire of Hartington’s burly figure disappear round the bend in the road.

“I wonder now,” he mused, “what mischief he’s brewing. He seemed to me up to no good. I suppose he guessed who I was.”

While he stood there watching, John Stich quickly entered the forge from the rear.

“I was in the cottage, Captain,” he said, “my mother was serving the ladies with some milk. But just now I saw Sir Humphrey Challoner walking away from the forge. I feared he might see you.”

“He did see me, honest friend,” said Jack, lightly. “His Honour and I have just had a long and animated conversation together.”

“Great Heavens! the man is furious with you, Captain!” said the smith, with genuine anxiety in his gruff voice, “he saw you distinctly on the Heath last night. He may have recognised you to-day.”

“He did recognise me.”

“And may be brewing the devil’s own mischief against you.”

“Oh, ho!” laughed the young man, with a careless shrug of the shoulders, “against me? ... Well! you know, honest John, I am bound to end on the gallows…”

“Sooner or later! Sooner or later!” he added merrily, noting John’s look of sorrowful alarm. “They’ve not got me yet, though there are so many soldiers about, as that piece of underdone roast-beef said just now.”

“You’ll not tell me what Sir Humphrey Challoner spoke to you about?”

“No, friend, I will not,” said Jack, with a look of infinite kindness and placing a slender white hand on the smith’s broad shoulder. “You are my friend, you know, you shoe and care after my horse, you shelter and comfort me. May Heaven’s legions of angels bless you for that. Of my life on the Heath I’ll never tell you aught, whatever you may guess. ‘Tis better so. I’ll not have you compromised, or implicated in my adventures. In case … well! ... if they do catch me, you know, friend, ‘tis better for your sake that you should know nothing.”

“But you’ll not go on the Heath to-night, Captain,” pleaded the smith, with a tremor in his voice.

“Aye! that I will, John Stith,” rejoined Bathurst, with a careless laugh, which now had an unmistakable ring of bitterness, “to stop a coach, to lift a purse! that’s my business … Aye! I’ll to the Heath, friend, ‘tis my only home you know, ere I find a resting-place on the gallows yonder.”

John sighed and turned away, and thus did not hear the faint murmur that came of a great and good heart over-full with longing and disappointment.

“My beautiful white rose! ... how pale she looked … and how exquisitely fair! ... Ah! me … if only … Jack! Jack! don’t be a fool!” he added with a short, deep sigh, “‘tis to late, remember, for Beau Brocade to go galloping after an illusion!”

Chapter XIV

The Fight in the Forge

John Stich ventured no further opposition, well knowing the reckless spirit which his own quiet devotion was powerless to keep in check; moreover, Lady Patience, closely followed by the ever-faithful Betty, had just entered by the door that gave from the yard.

“I was wondering, honest Stich,” she said, “if my coach were yet in sight. Meseems the horses must have had sufficient rest by now.”

“I’ll just see, my lady,” said John.

At first sound of her low, musical voice, Bathurst had turned to her, and now his eyes rested with undisguised admiration on her graceful figure, dimly outlined in the fast-gathering shadows. She too caught sight of him, and sorely against her will a vivid blush mounted to her cheeks. She pulled her cloak close to her, partly to hide the bunch of white roses that nestled in her belt.

Thus there was an instant’s silence pause, during which two hearts, both young, both ardent, and imbued with the spirit of romance, beat—unknown to one another—in perfect unison.

And yet at this supreme moment in their lives—supreme though they themselves knew it not—neither of them had begun to think of love. In her there was just that delightful feeling of feminine curiosity, mingled with the subtle homage of a proud woman for the man who, in her presence, and for her sake, had proved himself brave, resourceful, full of invention and of pluck: there was also an unexplainable sense of the magnetism caused by the real personality, by the unmistakable vitality of the man. He lived, he felt, he thought differently to any one else, in a world quite apart and entirely his own, and she felt the magic of this sunny nature, of the merry, almost boyish laugh, overlying as it were the undercurrent of disappointment and melancholy which had never degenerated into cynicism.

But in him? Ah! in him there was above all a wild, passionate longing! the longing of an intensely human, aching heart, when it is brought nigh to its own highest ideal, and knows that that ideal is infinitely beyond his reach.

The broken-down gentleman! the notorious hero of midnight adventures! highwayman! robber! thief! what right had he even to look upon her, the perfect embodiment of exquisite womanhood, the beautiful realisation of man’s tenderest dreams?

Perhaps at this one supreme moment in his reckless career the wild adventurer felt the first pang of humbled pride, of that pride which had defied existing laws and built up a code of its own. He understood then all at once the stern, iron-bound rule which makes of man—free lord of creation though he be—the slave of those same laws which he himself has set up for his own protection.

Beau Brocade, the highwayman, closed his eyes, and no longer dared to look on his dream.

He turned to his horse, and with great tenderness began stroking Jack o’ Lantern’s soft, responsive nose.

The next moment Stich, who had been busy with his work, looked up in sudden alarm.

“The soldiers!” he said briefly, “all running … the Sergeant’s at the head o’ them, and some of the shepherds at their heels.”

At first Patience did not understand where the actual danger lay.

“My brother!” she gasped, terrified.

But a look from Bathurst reassured her.

“Absolutely safe,” he said quickly and decisively, “a hiding-place known to no one but me. I give your ladyship my word of honour that there is not the remotest danger for him.”

She felt all her terrors vanishing. But these few words spoken to comfort her went nigh to costing Bathurst dear. In those few brief seconds he had lost the opportunity of jumping on Jack o’ Lantern’s back and getting well away before the soldiers had reached the entrance of the forge, and had effectually barred his chance of escape.

As it was, he had only just undone the halter, and before he had time to lead Jack o’ Lanter out, the voice of the Sergeant was heard quite close to the doorway, shouting breathlessly,—

“Forward! quick! Arrest that man!”

“My sword, John! for your life!” was Bathurst’s ready answer to the challenge.

Stich darted to a corner of the forge. Lady Patience gave a quick, short gasp, she had suddenly realised that for some reason which she could not quite fathom, the manwho had so pluckily saved her brother from the soldiers an hour ago, was now himself in imminent danger.

Jack snatched the sword eagerly which the smith was holding out to him, and resting the point of the blade on the ground before him, he tested with evident satisfaction the temper of the steel. Not a moment too soon this, for already the Sergeant, running, panting, infuriated by the trick played upon him, had appeared in the doorway, closely followed by two of his men.

Caught like a rat in a hole, Jack was prepared to fight. Perhaps at bottom he was glad that circumstances had not compelled him to show a clean pair of heels before this new danger to himself. Alone, he might have liked to flee, before her, he preferred to fight.

“Odd’s my life!” he said merrily, “‘tis my friend, the Sergeant.”