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

his left arm out of its sleeve.

Moreover, the excitement of these last fateful moments kept him at fever pitch: he was absolutely unconscious of aught save of the rapid flight of the seconds and the steady approach of dog and men towards the clearing.

Even Jock Miggs, who up to now had been too intent on his own adventure to take much heed of what went on in the gloom beyond, even he perceived that something unusual was happening on the Moor.

“What’s that?” he asked with renewed terror.

“A posse of soldiers at my heels,” said Beau Brocade, decisively, “that’s why I want your smock, my man, and if I don’t get it there’ll be just time to blow out your dull brains before I fall into their hands.”

This last argument was sufficiently convincing. Miggs thought it decidedly best to obey; he helped his mysterious assailant on with his own smock, cap and kerchief, and not unwilling attired himself in Beau Brocade’s discarded coat and waistcoat.

“A pistol in your belt in case you need it, friend,” whispered Bathurst, rapidly, as he slipped one of the weapons in Migg’s belt, keeping the other firmly grasped in his own hand.

There was no doubt that the hound was on the scent now: the men had ceased shouting but their rapid footsteps could be heard following closely upon the dog, whose master was muttering a few words of encouragement.

Anon there came a whisper, louder than the rest,—

“This way!...”

Then another,—

“There’s a path here!”

“By gy! this confounded darkness!”

“Steady, Roy! steady, old man! Eh? What?”

“This way!”

“Can’t you find the trail, old Roy?”

And the gorse was crackling beneath rapid and stealthy footsteps. There was now just the width of the clearing between Beau Brocade and his pursuers.

“This way, Sergeant. Roy’s got the trail again.”

Neither Jock Miggs nor yet Beau Brocade could see what was going on at the further end of the clearing. The dog, wildly straining against the leash, was quivering with intense excitement, his master hanging on to him with all his might.

Miggs, scared like some sheep lost among a herd of cows, was standing half-dazed, smoothing down with appreciative fingers the fine cloth of his new apparel, terrified every time his hand came in contact with the pistol in his belt.

But Beau Brocade had crept underneath a heavy clump of gorse and bramble, and with his finger on the trigger of his weapon he cowered there, ready for action, his eyes fixed upon the blackness before him.

The next moment the outline of the hound’s head and shoulder became faintly discernible in the gloom. With nose close to the ground, powerful jaws dropping and parched tongue hanging out of its mouth, it was heading straight for the clump of gorse where cowered the hunted man.

Beau Brocade took rapid aim and fired. The dog, without a howl, rolled over on its side, whilst Jock Miggs uttered a cry of terror.

Then there was an instant’s pause. The pursuers, silenced and awed, had stopped dead, for they had been taken wholly unawares, and for a second or two waited, expecting and dreading yet another shot.

Then a mild, trembling voice came to them from the darkness.

“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 Migg’s figure, standing motionless not far from the body of the dead dog.

With a shout 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 Migg’s feet.

“Pistols!” said the Sergeant, excitedly. “The pair o’ them too,” he added, pulling the other silver-mounted weapon out of Migg’s belt, and the black mask out of the pocket of his coat: “and silver-mounted, by 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 lustily, 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 of the darkness of the Moor, and that faint, very faint, streak of grey which had just appeared in the east.

God, 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 Migg’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 morass 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! God 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, theif, 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 pass 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: The Duke of Cumberland

Chapter XXX

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 any one 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 th eman whom she had trusted with her whole heart was now in peril, even more deadly than that which had assailed 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 passionate longing tois 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 circumstance 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 teh 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 Bathurt’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