It seemed an unpromising beginning, but John Garnet's courage rose with the exigencies of his position. He pulled a purse from his pocket, and counted down on the table one hundred guineas, piece by piece, with a good-humoured smile.
"No doubt," said he, "your lordship will give me my revenge at some future time. I shall leave the horse in charge of your lordship's servants to-morrow morning. I can pledge you my word he is as good as he looks."
"What do you call him?" asked the other, carelessly.
"Katerfelto," answered John Garnet, taken by surprise, and blurting out the word that first occurred to him, because it would have seemed so strange to hesitate at the name of his own horse.
Lord Bellinger started. "Do you know Katerfelto?" said he. "I have always believed that man must be the devil in person!"
"I got the horse with that name," answered John Garnet, "and his new owner can alter it at pleasure; but as I must be a-foot, literally a-foot, early to-morrow morning, I will now take my leave, and wish your lordship good-night."
So, with many profound bows, the pair separated, and the loser, to his extreme disgust, heard Lord Bellinger's door carefully locked on the inside.
To have lost a hundred guineas after supper was bad enough, but to yield possession of the best horse he ever owned, and pursue Lord Bellinger into the West on foot, or by the tardy progress of a stage-waggon, was not to be thought of.
He never intended permanently to part with either, or John Garnet would have been more loth to risk his horse and to pay up his gold. The money must be recovered, and Katerfelto, as he now determined to call the animal, must be retained at all hazards. Pondering these matters deeply, the unlucky card-player only waited till the lights were out and the hotel became quiet, to put his plans in execution. An hour after midnight he had drawn off his boots, and satisfied himself that his lordship's door was securely fastened. He must find another opportunity of taking by violence that which he now despaired of gaining by artifice; and he stole out to the stable, there to saddle his horse and effect his escape. Though by no means satisfied with his night's work, he did not consider he had entirely wasted time or money. In the course of conversation, he had made himself acquainted with Lord Bellinger's intended movements, and could prepare for a bold stroke. "If I had been more fortunate with the cards," he thought, "I might have improved my acquaintance sufficiently to join them as a travelling-companion, perhaps accompanying my lord and my lady in their coach. It would have been easier then to effect my purpose, though I do not think I could have found it in me to make love to her ladyship any more than to her waiting-maid. But I never held a card! That hundred guineas I paid down on the table I must have back again, as surely as I do not mean to part with my good grey horse. There is only one way. I must seize the warrants, and recover my money with the strong hand. Some unknown highwayman may bear the blame, and if I can get off, I will lose no time in gaining the West Country, and warning the honest squires of Devon and Somerset that they are in danger. Nothing venture, nothing have! I'm in it now, over shoes, over boots! Let me think. Highway robbery. It's an ugly word, and a hanging matter, but so is high treason; and if every neck that risks the noose must be stretched, why, as I heard those player fellows sing last winter—
"I wonder there ain't better companie
Under Tyburn tree!"
Thus meditating, John Garnet, who had made himself acquainted with the geography of the hotel and its surroundings, proceeded noiselessly to the stable, not without anxious glances toward the East, where that forerunner of morning, the false dawn, was already visible.
A true horseman, he had identified himself so completely with his steed, and busied himself so earnestly about its wants, that Katerfelto neighed with pleasure to acknowledge the friendly presence as he approached its stall thus stealthily and in the dark. While he hurried to the horse's head, that he might silence this untoward greeting, a slim figure rose from below the manger and glided like a phantom to the door. John Garnet was no less prompt than resolute. In an instant he had seized this shadowy intruder by the throat. Outcry and escape were alike impossible; but his hand opened as if it grasped a red-hot iron, when a half-stifled voice, that he remembered only too well, murmured, "Hold! do not hurt me. I am here to serve you. I will follow you to the end of the world."
"Waif!" he exclaimed, in an accent that, smothered as it was, denoted the very extremity of surprise; but even while he spoke, the figure slid through the dark stable out into the night.
For a few seconds John Garnet was persuaded that he must be dreaming—the meeting had been so sudden, so unexpected, and so soon over. When he realised the fact, his surprise amounted to dismay. That this impracticable gipsy-girl should have followed him, watched him, and made herself acquainted with his movements, seemed a fatal climax to the disasters of the night. For one disheartening minute he thought of riding back to London, returning Katerfelto to his former owner, and abandoning the whole project. Then he reflected, that under any circumstances he must make his escape before daylight, and so saddled his horse with what alacrity he might. Dawn was breaking as he led the animal out of the court-yard softly and at a walk, though its tramp was smothered in the snores of a stalwart ostler who slept in a loft above, for protection of the stables, and a red streak of sunrise bound the eastern horizon, to which he looked back on emerging from a belt of coppice that skirted the high-road a mile from the inn. Bold as he was, Katerfelto shied at an object moving in the brushwood, while a slim boyish figure sprang out, laid its hand on the horse's shoulder, and looked wistfully up in the rider's face.
Waif—for it was none other—attired as a country lad, and only the more beautiful for her disguise, seemed to anticipate no less affectionate a greeting than she was prepared to offer. But already she knew every change of the face she had studied so fatally, and her own fell, while she marked the displeasure that settled on the brows and about the lips she loved.
"Speak to me," she murmured, "for pity's sake. I tracked you so patiently, and followed you so far!"
"Waif, why are you here?" he asked, while his heart smote him to think of the distance travelled by that slender form, those shapely delicate limbs.
"I could not bear you to go away," replied the girl, laying his hand to her heart and pressing her cheek against Katerfelto's warm shoulder. "I could not live without you; and for the matter of that, you could not live without me. If I had let you go by yourself, every mile you rode was a mile towards your grave."
They were pacing on together, Waif walking at his stirrup with a free untiring step, that the good horse must have fairly broken into a trot to leave behind. John Garnet looked at her with an astonishment in which there was no little interest and admiration.
"What mean you?" said he, "and how came the Doctor to let you go?"
"I never asked the Patron's leave," was her answer, "because, if he had forbidden me, I should have lain down to die. No; when you rode out of London, I was scarcely half an hour behind. The Patron must have been very angry when he found me gone. What do I care? I care for nobody but you. I knew where to get these clothes well enough. Do you like me in them? I might have had a horse from our people before I had done a day's journey, but I thought I could be nearer you on foot, and I've walked all the way. I'm not tired. I'd walk as far again only to hear your voice."
John Garnet was in utter perplexity. Such a phase in his affairs he had never contemplated, yet there seemed something so ridiculous in his position, bound on a political adventure thus attended, that he could not forbear a laugh.
"Nonsense, my lass!" said he kindly enough. "You must go back; indeed you must. I won't have you come a step farther. You ought never to have followed me at all."
The tears were in Waif's dark eyes, and she raised them to his face with the pleading, reproachful look of a dog that you chide when he knows he is doing right.
"Not follow you!" she repeated. "How am I not to follow you, when you are going into danger? I can share it even if I cannot keep it off; and you tell me I must go back to London! You cannot mean it. I don't think you quite understand."
"That's the truest word you have said yet," was his answer; "but I do understand that, for your own sake, you ought not to be here now. Still, if you persist in accompanying 'a beggar on horseback,' you ought to have your share of the saddle, till we get down."
With these words, he took her by the hand, and braced his foot in the stirrup to afford a purchase for her ascent. In one bound she stood on his instep, light and buoyant as a bird; in another, she was seated before him with her arm round his neck, and her comely smiling face very near his own. It might have been the exertion, or the novelty of the position, or something he whispered, with his lips close to hers, that turned Waif crimson, and then deadly pale. She seemed more out of breath now, clinging to the rider, than she had been awhile ago walking beside his horse. Katerfelto, in obedience to his master's hand, broke into a canter; before she spoke another word, they were nearing a hamlet, of which the smoke was visible above the trees, when she made shift to ask in a trembling voice if she might not be set down, and taken up again when they had passed through? For answer, John Garnet laughed, and increasing his pace, dashed along the street at a gallop. When he relapsed once more into a walk, the startled villagers had been left two miles behind.
Waif's nerves were of the firmest, and she had now recovered some of her self-possession, no easy matter for a woman who finds herself seated on the same horse with the man she loves. Her heart beat fast indeed, and the colour came and went in her cheek; but she could review the situation calmly, and resolved that now was the time to explain all she had done, all she intended to do in John Garnet's behalf. Even those women, whose station renders them slaves of custom, like other slaves, assume the wildest freedom when they have elected to throw off the yoke; but this gipsy-girl, an unsophisticated child of nature, had no scruples to vanquish, no social laws to break, found nothing to restrain the ardent expression of her feelings, save the innate delicacy of a proud and loving heart.
It was not, therefore, without such a blush and downward glance, as few men could have withstood, and none, perhaps, less firmly than John Garnet, that she announced her resolution.
"I shall hold by you to the last. I shall never desert you till you have performed your task in safety. It is right you should know it. But—but—I cannot expect to accompany you like this. Only promise that you will not try to leave me behind, and never fear, but I can find my way from place to place, and be at hand when I am wanted, without shaming you by my presence. The gipsy-girl is proud to give her life for you, though you may blush to acknowledge one of my people as your friend!"
"Blush!" repeated John Garnet, and perhaps because their faces were so near together, the blushing seemed all on the other side. "I would never blush to own a true friend; and Waif, my pretty lass, you have proved yourself more than a friend to-day. You say that I am in danger; I know well enough that I soon shall be; but my head is out of the halter as yet, and I see not how you could help if it were in!"
"Out of the halter!" said Waif. "How little you fear and how little you seem to care! Do you think I was not listening at the door when Abner Gale came to the Patron thirsting for the man's blood who took his brother's life? You know not our people, John Garnet, nor the gifts that nature bestows on us, instead of hearth and home, bed and board, gold and silver, houses and land. Do you believe the gipsy can forget a path once trod, a voice once heard, a face once seen? I was dancing in Taunton Fair, when Abner Gale, one of your priests, as you call them, tossed me a bit of silver, with a coarse laugh and a brutal jest. The gipsy has no feelings to wound, no character to sustain, no honour to defend, but she has the instincts and the memory of a dog for friend or foe! Parson Gale had better have bitten his tongue through and kept his silver in his pocket. I know his home, his habits, his haunts, his vices, as I know my own ten fingers. I listened because I hated him. But when I heard more, I listened on, because—because I loved you!"
It was wrong, no doubt, scandalous, shocking, if not entirely without excuse; but something in the proximity of those two young faces again made the girl blush deeper than before.
"There are no secrets too close for the Patron," continued Waif, "and as you have seen, people come from far and near to consult his art. This man's errand was to discover your hiding-place and hunt you down to death. He gave the Patron money—golden guineas—I heard them jingle. He was in earnest—bitter earnest, and so am I!"
"But what said the Patron?" asked her listener. "I thought he was my friend."
"The Patron is every man's friend," answered Waif, "who is willing to do him service, or to pay him gold. He promised to betray you when the moon was full, but that very night he sent you out of London on his own affairs, and I followed close, lest evil should befall, for I knew you were journeying to the West."
Laughing lightly, he asked if that was a dangerous quarter, and whether the Wise Men, who came there from the East, were ancestors of her own?
But Waif scorned to enter on the subject of genealogy with one who could neither believe nor understand her claims to a descent co-eval with the earliest history of man. Her tone was grave and almost stern, while she looked him steadfastly in the face, and proceeded with her warning.
"When a stag goes down to the water, where an enemy waits to take away his life, the voice of a child, or the wave of a woman's hand, is enough to turn him back into the moor. Abner Gale lives in the very country to which you are bound. I know the man, John Garnet, and I will save you from his vengeance, though I swing for it—there! Now will you let me come with you and help you as best I can?"
John Garnet did not hesitate long. True, he was unable to stifle certain scruples, while he reflected on the dangers into which this wilful girl was running of her own accord, on her loss of character, if indeed she had any character to lose, and the inconvenience he would himself experience in accounting for such a travelling companion, however well disguised; above all, on the advantage he was taking of a professed devotion, that exchanged, as he could not but admit, the pure gold of sincere affection for a baser metal, compounded of gratitude, vanity, and self-indulgence. But men have seldom far to seek for an excuse when they would do that which is pleasant and convenient rather than right; so John Garnet persuaded himself that to make this beautiful girl an assistant of his schemes, and comrade in his dangers, was an act of self-denial and loyalty vouching for his fealty to the exile whom he called his lawful king.
"Agreed!" said he; "and, now, Waif, if you are really to help me, I must tell you my plans."
He never forgot this ride through the summer's afternoon. The yellow light that glimmered in copse and dingle. The glare on the white road they travelled. The distant lake that gleamed like a sheet of silver—the brook at his feet, that brawled and gurgled and broke into bubbles of gold. The bloom of wild flowers, the song of birds, the murmur of the breeze, the lowing of kine, the deep rich meadows, the stretching uplands, and, over all, that sunny haze which veiled without hiding the distance, and added its crowning grace to the beauties of a landscape that became fairer and fairer, the further he journeyed towards the West.
Katerfelto paced proudly on, while John Garnet poured in a willing ear the details of his journey, and the manner in which he proposed to turn the tables on an adversary who had despoiled him of his money, and could lay claim to his horse. It was difficult to make her understand how the stake could have been lost.
"For," said Waif, "the Patron bids the cards come out just as he likes. It seems so easy, if a man has only the use of eyes and hands! This lord must be very clever with his fingers, cleverer even than you!"
"It's not all cleverness," he answered, impatiently. "There's such a thing as luck, and I never held a card all night."
Waif stared and made a motion with her slender fingers, the import of which it was impossible to misunderstand.
"But that would have been dishonourable," protested John Garnet.
"Dishonourable!" repeated Waif. "Why? When you sit down, you do not mean to be beat. It is only a trial of skill, like a race or a wrestling-match. Let the best man win. Why is it dishonourable?"
Despairing to explain to this untutored mind the code of fair-play as practised amongst so-called men of honour, John Garnet proceeded to discuss the means by which, in a few hours, he hoped to equalise the chances of Fortune, and reimburse himself for his previous losses. Of his scheme Waif greatly approved, holding, nevertheless, to her first opinion, that it would have been wiser to win by fraud than to lose by ill-luck, but promising her hearty assistance in all parts of the plan he proposed to carry out.
Thus conversing, they arrived at the outskirts of a country town; and here, before John Garnet could suggest that he should alight and lead the horse on foot, thus to avoid the remarks that might be provoked by its double burden, Waif glided like water from the saddle, slipped through a tangled hedge by the way-side, and disappeared. In vain, standing high in his stirrups, he peeped and peered over the obstacle; in vain he galloped to the gate, and searched and traversed the whole meadow, calling her loudly by name. The girl had vanished; and riding thoughtfully into the town, her late companion, for the second time since daybreak, wondered whether he was under the spell of some unholy witchcraft, or was really awake and in his right mind.
"Ah! them was good times for we! I often wish as we'd Galloping Jack back again."
The speaker, a lame old ostler, clattering about his stable-yard in wooden clogs, with a bucket in each hand, addressed himself to an unseen individual at the taproom window, who blew out large clouds of tobacco-smoke in reply.
"He was free, he was!" continued the ostler, "as free with a guinea as you and me with a shilling. I'll wager a quart as he was a gentleman born, right or wrong. Such gold lace as he wore! and such horses as he rode, to be sure!"
The old man seemed lost in admiration of the memories called up by Galloping Jack.
"What's gone with him?" asked the unseen smoker in the taproom.
"What's gone with 'em all?" said the other, angrily. "A nightcap and a nosegay, I doubt, like the rest. But he loved his perfession, did Galloping Jack; an' many's the pleasant ride he took across the Down, and what not, afore he mounted his wooden horse on Tyburn Hill."
"We'll hope it never came to that," replied the other, with something of amusement in his tone.
"Ah! I'm afeared it's past hoping and praying for too," said the ostler. "But it's a gentleman's trade," he added, reverting to his own professional view of the highwayman's calling; "a gentleman's trade—I've always said so. Look what cattle they can afford to keep!"
"You're a judge of such matters, I suppose," observed the smoker in the taproom.
"Man and boy," answered the other, "I've been about horses nigh fifty year. If I don't know a good nag when I see 'un, master, well, I'd better give out, an' take on with some likelier trade."
"That's the right sort you dressed over awhile ago," continued the smoker, leaning out of window, and showing a tall, active frame, surmounted by a swarthy face, with the eager expression of a hawk.
The ostler set his bucket down, and winked.
"You're a judge," said he, "you are, and so you ought. There's a many passes through your hands, Master Cooper, but I never see you with such a nag as this here. He's a cut above you, everyway—he is."
"That's a good one!" answered the dark man, with a boastful laugh. "Why, Ike, you old fool! I tell you I owned that very horse myself, and I gave him—gave him away as a present to a friend of mine."
"But how came Galloping Jack to part with him?" asked the ostler, much interested. "I knowed the horse, bless ye, as well as the horse knowed me, when he came into the yard not two hours back; but he's in the hands of a real gentleman now, and as pretty a rider as ever drew a rein through his fingers. There was something about his seat as put me in mind of Jack, too, and something in the way he carried his hands; but I can't call to mind seeing Jack without a mask on. Speak up, Master Cooper: it couldn't be the man himself, could it now? I never heerd as he'd swung for sure."
"Who knows!" answered the other, with a harsh laugh. "You water your horses, and mind your own business, Ike, and I'll tell the drawer to give you a pot of ale when you come into the house."
Now John Garnet, sitting after dinner at an open window above the stable-yard, overheard the foregoing conversation, and resolved straightway to take advantage of his own likeness to the missing hero, whose horse he had so strangely appropriated. Katerfelto seemed well known in these parts as the property of Galloping Jack, and, indeed, an animal of such remarkable beauty was sure to be recognised by anyone concerned with horses who had ever seen it before. If the rider's figure, too, resembled the highwayman, who had been in the habit of concealing his features in a mask, it was quite possible that he, John Garnet, riding the best horse in England, might, so long as it suited his purpose, be mistaken for the enterprising person known on the Great Western Road as Galloping Jack.
At a glance he perceived how such a confusion of characters would facilitate a project he had been maturing all day—a project that, after a few hours' rest and refreshment at the wayside inn, it seemed quite practicable to carry out before nightfall. To rob a coach single-handed, that contained four well-armed men, of whom he had reason to suppose one at least would fight to the death, seemed a bold stroke; but while he looked to the loading of his pistols, the fitting of his saddle, the feeding and bridling of his horse, and all the details on which his very life depended, he entertained but little fear for the result. His plan, though desperate in its nature, was not without discretion. He had ridden for two days ahead of Lord Bellinger's carriage, and had now turned back on his track. By sunset he calculated that the travellers would arrive at a solitary clump of trees he had marked in the lonely plain, on Marlborough Downs. Here he might conceal himself, shoot one of the horses, as it passed, and leaping out, stun my lord with the butt-end of his pistol. The servants, he hoped, would be so panic-stricken, that in the confusion he might possess himself of the papers he required, and rely on Katerfelto's speed to make his escape. All this he had confided to Waif, and now Waif was not forthcoming, though she had promised him assistance, of some mysterious nature she seemed unwilling to explain. Well, he must do it single-handed, that was all, and let Galloping Jack bear the blame.
The landlord looked after him with approval as he rode out of the inn yard an hour before sunset. His wife and her maids lavished admiring glances on the handsome coat and graceful seat of this comely horseman; while old Ike, drawing his hand down Katerfelto's firm smooth quarters, blessed him as he went. Golden opinions had the stranger won from each and all; yet each and all, if examined on oath, would have sworn they believed him to be a man who earned his daily bread by crimes that the law punished with death. Who but a highwayman would order so costly a dinner, such choice wine, and leave both almost untouched? Who but a highwayman would bow to the very kitchen scullion like a courtier, while he scattered a handful of silver in her dirty apron, or fling a guinea (his last guinea) at old Ike's head, whilst the ostler held the stirrup for him to get on. They looked meaningly in each other's faces as he disappeared, riding steadily towards the endless down, and old Ike, with the tears standing in his eyes, clattered back to his brooms and stable-pails, muttering, "He always wur free-handed, an' now he's gone his ways again for good, an' I sha'n't never see him no more!"
John Garnet rode slowly on at a pace that should husband Katerfelto's powers. The sun was already set when he arrived at the clump of trees where he meant to lie in ambush; but he passed it, unwillingly enough, and affected to proceed on his journey; for lonely as seemed the wide expanse of down, its solitude was broken by a motionless figure, to all appearance intently on the watch.
His business admitted of no observers. After a moment's hesitation he turned on his track, and rode straight to the figure, as if to ask his way.
In the twilight, he made out a tall dark man, who might have been a shepherd but for want of sheep and sheep-dog, and who never moved a limb while he approached.
"My friend," said the horseman, "I have forgotten something at the inn I left an hour ago. If you will take a message back you shall have a crown-piece for your pains."
The other pointed to the London road. "I can earn a crown-piece without walking three miles for it," said he, "and so can you, Master Garnet, if you'll stay where you are."
John Garnet fairly started at the sound of his own name.
"Who the devil are you?" he exclaimed, "and what are you doing here?"
"I am here on your business," was the unexpected answer. "You're about a tough job, sir, and you'll do it, never fear, but not single-handed."
"I don't know what you mean," replied the other; adding, after a moment's consideration, "did I not see you this afternoon smoking in the taproom of the inn?"
"Very like," said the man, composedly. "I've seen you many more times than ever you've seen me. Why, now, you look quite astonished that a gentleman can be put down by a plain man! Well, it's no use beating about the bush, I'm here to look after you because Thyra bade me come."
"Thyra!" repeated John Garnet, with an air of sudden enlightenment: "what, Waif do you mean? Why you must be Fin Cooper."
"That's my name in your patter," said the gipsy; "now I'll tell you my business. Stay, all that will keep: I hear the roll of wheels. In ten minutes the coach we are both looking for will be plodding up the hill. Go in with a will! Do it your own way, there'll be plenty to help when the time comes. Take what you want, and leave us, Romanies, the pickings. There's half a score here that go share and share alike."
John Garnet had little time to demand an explanation, or indeed to make up his mind. Already he could distinguish Lord Bellinger's coach labouring slowly up a slight ascent, crowned by the clump of trees before mentioned. He withdrew himself into their shelter, and scanned, as well as the failing light permitted, the strength of the party he had determined to attack. It happened that the servant whose duty it was to ride ahead from stage to stage had fallen to the rear; and this accounted for his missing that fore-runner, on whom he had calculated to warn him that his prey was drawing near. This increased the defending force to five; including my lord, a coachman, and two footmen; of whom one carried a blunderbuss, and was impeded moreover by the charge of Mistress Rachel.
Of his own auxiliaries he knew nothing. Wherever the half-score mentioned by Fin Cooper were concealed, not a man but the tall gipsy had yet shown himself, and he seemed unarmed by so much as a stick. Nevertheless, the coach was close upon them now. Lady Bellinger's peevish tones might already be heard from the inside.
Unseen in the black shadow of the trees, he took a pistol from his holsters—Katerfelto standing like a rock—and sighted the near wheeler. Simultaneously with the report of the weapon and two female shrieks, the animal fell dead, shot through the brain, bringing down its coach-fellow across its body, in a confused turmoil of snortings, plungings, and broken harness.
In an instant my lord had whipped out of the carriage, sword in hand, with his coat torn up the back from the vigour with which my lady pulled at it in her fright. Determined, nevertheless, to sell his life dearly, and ready, to do him justice, for a fight at any odds, right or wrong.
The mounted servant, crying "Thieves!" and "Murder!" turned his horse, and rode away at a gallop; while the footman who carried the blunderbuss, shaking himself clear of Mistress Rachel, dropped on his knees, and begged pitifully for life.
His fellow, however, being of a bolder nature, snatched the weapon out of his hand to point it full in John Garnet's face, and pulled the trigger like a hero.
It only flashed in the pan; somebody had been tampering with the firearms at the last stopping-place. The assailant was in no real danger but from Lord Bellinger's naked steel. That nobleman made at him fiercely enough; and though Katerfelto answered rein and spur, as if well-trained in such hand-to-hand conflicts, John Garnet might have been obliged to use fatal means in self-defence, but that half-a-dozen figures sprang like magic from amongst the trees; a cloak was thrown over my lord's head, while he was dragged to the earth; the servants were securely gagged and bound; my lady and Mistress Rachel compelled with hideous threats to keep silence; and the original aggressor found himself at liberty to rifle the carriage unmolested, and take what he required.
There was no difficulty in finding the warrants. With these, and the hundred guineas he had lost, safe in his pocket, John Garnet turned Katerfelto's head towards the down, pausing one moment to thank the gipsies for their timely aid, and impress on them the necessity of mercy towards their captives. In that moment Waif's hand clasped his own, and Waif's voice murmured in his ear:
"My tribe have done you good service, leave the rest to me. I do not say farewell, for it would break my heart to think we should not meet again!"
It is only fair to state that Lord Bellinger writhed and struggled with a vigour not to have been expected from his attenuated frame, much to the delight of his captors, who were inclined to treat him more leniently than if he had submitted, like his footman, without show of resistance. This champion they kicked and belaboured to some purpose, while they pinioned his fellow-servant, from whose readier hands they had wrested the harmless blunderbuss, and threatened him in frightful language if he ventured to stir a finger. To my lady, though insisting that she should retain her seat in the carriage, they behaved with extreme politeness. She was afterwards heard, indeed, to protest that the robber-chief, as she called Fin Cooper, seemed a perfect gentleman; that he had a distinguished air, and for a black man—though, in a general way, she could not abide black men (Lord Bellinger being as black as a crow)—was by no means ill-looking.
Mistress Rachel, too, while frightened and hysterical, as behoved her station, clung persistently to the arm of a stout gipsy, who mounted guard over her person, entreating him, in piteous terms, to respect her youth, and, above all, to protect her from the insults of his comrades; lavishing on him tender glances, and contrasting his assured demeanour with the cowardice of her late admirer, whose very teeth chattered for dismay. My lord, in the meantime, with a swarthy fellow at each limb, lay helpless on his back, cursing volubly, but losing neither presence of mind nor temper. Indeed, when he had sufficiently relieved his feelings by such ebullitions, and perceived that no violence was offered to Lady Bellinger or her maid, the situation seemed to strike him as ludicrous, and, bursting into a laugh, he called on the gipsies to release him, promising, on his honour, that no further resistance should be offered by himself, or his servants, to the continuation of their frolic.
Fin Cooper took him at his word. Exchanging a few short sentences with Waif in his own Romany language, unintelligible to the captives, he raised Lord Bellinger to his feet and restored the rapier which had been wrested from that struggling nobleman.
"You are a Gorgio Raia," said he, "and I but a Romany Chal. Nevertheless, there is honour among thieves, and I'll trust yours if you'll trust mine." "I cannot speak your language," answered his lordship; "but your manners are those of a perfect gentleman. Pray select from my coach whatever articles you fancy, except her ladyship, my wife, whose health does not admit of her taking exercise on foot, and I would venture to suggest that, in rifling the sword case, no violence be used. It contains three bottles of excellent Chambertin, which it would be a pity to break. I can only regret that I am not better prepared to entertain so large a party."
"You're made of the right stuff," answered Fin Cooper; "and another time you'll know that a Romany Chal means a gipsy lad, and a Gorgio Raia a nobleman of the Gentiles. We'll drink your health, my lord, never fear, and give yourself and your lady a share, if you'll condescend to wet your lips on the same cup with us. Now, pals," he added, turning to the gang, "take what you want and let us be off. High Toby's a good game for the winner, but it's best to play it out before the moon gets up."
The gipsies then proceeded to appropriate the contents of the coach, exchanging grins and smiles and whispered congratulations in their own language on the value of their prize.
Only Waif stood aloof, gazing into the darkness, where the grey horse and his rider had long ago disappeared.
Presently a scream from my lady announced that some tawny hand was laid on her jewel-case. "My diamonds!" she exclaimed; and tears of real distress rose in her eyes, as she raised them to Fin Cooper's face. "Oh! sir! I beseech you, let me keep my diamonds. For pity's sake, do not send me back into the great world naked and ashamed, without so much as a clasp of brilliants to fasten round my neck!"
"I do believe as her ladyship would rather lose her maid than her jewels," whispered Rachel, with a glance at her swarthy guardian, that intimated no great disinclination to be retained as a pledge instead.
My lord laughed. "I would play you for the set, and welcome," said he. "But though you will find a pack of cards in every pocket of the coach, the devil a guinea have I left to stake. It's a pity," he added, "for just now I'm in a vein of luck. Only last night I won five games running of our friend on the grey horse, though it seems to be his turn now!"
"Galloping Jack is hard to beat at any game he chooses to play," answered the gipsy, in whose ear Waif had whispered a few hurried words. "Nevertheless, win or lose, he's far enough by this time. It takes a bird of the air to catch Jack when he gets his spurs into the grey."
"Confound him!" said his lordship heartily, reflecting that, by all the rules of fair-play, this enterprising highwayman was now riding into safety with his money on his horse. "Drink up your liquor, my good friends, and let us make some arrangements for the future. I presume you do not wish us to remain unsheltered on the downs all night?"
"Not an inch will I stir without my diamonds!" exclaimed his wife. "Mind that, my lord. If they go into captivity, I go too!"
"And I humbly hope, as is my bounden duty, to attend your ladyship," added Mistress Rachel, trying hard to blush, while she stole another look in her guardian's gipsy face.
Fin Cooper scratched his handsome black head in some perplexity. Of all incumbrances, the last he would have chosen was a lady of quality, with her waiting gentlewoman. How was he to get them to the tents? What was he to do with them when there? If retained as hostages they would give more trouble than they were worth; and such a speculation promised no great profit, for Lord Bellinger's easy indifference seemed to infer neither high ransom nor prompt payment. Fin would rather have foregone jewels, lady, and lady's-maid, than be hampered with all three.
Again he consulted Waif, and, after the interchange of a few brief sentences in their own language, of which my lord, listening intently for all his assumed carelessness, could only catch the words "fakement" (a piece of work), "fashono" (fictitious), and "balanser" (a pound sterling), cleared his brows, and made a profound bow to her ladyship, with all the politeness of a dancing-master.
"The Romany in his tent," said he, "can be courteous as the Gorgio in his castle. If the Rawnie (lady) sets such store by her gew-gaws, let her keep them and welcome! When she walks in her jewels among the great ones of the earth, she will think not unkindly of the Romany raklo (the gipsy lad) who wished her good luck and good speed on Marlborough Downs."
He had learned from Waif, whose experience while in the Patron's service taught her many a strange secret, that the diamonds were but paste, and, with characteristic promptitude, seized the opportunity of affecting a princely magnificence at trifling cost.
Her ladyship, who must have known, while she obstinately ignored, the truth, was disappointed beyond measure. In her own circle many romantic stories were told of the courtesy shown by highwaymen to ladies of gentle birth. She expected no less than to redeem her jewels by some such harmless gallantries as those practised in a game of forfeits, and would have felt little disinclination to dance a rigadoon by moonlight on the level turf with this well-made gipsy for a partner. It seemed a bad compliment that he should give her up the best share of his booty, and never so much as ask to kiss her hand in return.
My lord burst out laughing, and offered his snuff-box. "By St. George," said he, "you must be the king of the gipsies himself. A man who presents a lady with a set of diamonds, and makes no more to-do than I would about a bunch of flowers, ought to sit on a throne; and, excuse my freedom, in an unpatched pair of breeches. May I ask the gentleman's name to whom her ladyship is so deeply indebted, and whose generosity is only equalled by the simplicity of his dress?"
The gipsy's black eyes shot a cunning glance in his lordship's face. Its expression was so good-humoured and mirthful, that it was obvious no insult could be intended; and the slender hand that had stolen like lightning to a knife in his girdle was as quickly withdrawn.
"They call me Fin Cooper," said he, frankly, "in the patter of the Gorgios; but if your lordship ever condescends to visit our camping-ground, ask for Kaulo Vardo-mescro (Black Cooper), and you shall receive a brother's welcome in the tents. Prala (brother), there is my hand upon it!"
With a gravity that was in itself ridiculous, the pair shook hands; while my lady, in tones of extreme impatience, demanded "how much longer they were to remain on the open down, and what was to be done next?"
Again there was a whispered consultation among the gipsies, and again Waif was called into council. Fin Cooper then addressed his prisoners with a calm dignity, such as Lord Bellinger had many times seen attempted unsuccessfully in the legislative chamber to which he belonged.
"My lord," said he, "and especially my lady, it gives me great uneasiness that I should be obliged to cause you inconvenience. My brothers, however, will not hear of your being released till they have gained two hours' start. By that time," he added, looking up at the stars, "it will be nearly eleven o'clock. You will find a good inn, not three miles from this spot, where I will take care that beds and supper are prepared. You will, I hope, be comfortably lodged before midnight. In the meantime, it will be necessary to secure your acquiescence by binding you hand and foot. Excuse the liberty, my lord and my lady, it is but for a couple of hours."
"And who is to unbind us when eleven o'clock strikes?" asked her ladyship, in tones of exceeding disquiet.
"Unless you leave somebody on purpose!" added Mistress Rachel, with a titter.
"I don't see the necessity," observed my lord, tapping his snuff-box; "you have trusted my honour once to-night, why not put me on my parole again?"
Fin Cooper pondered. It seemed a good jest enough to leave the party he had captured huddled together on the open down, tied hand and foot, as it were, in imaginary fetters by Lord Bellinger's word of honour alone; but how if his lordship, treating the whole affair also as a jest, should turn the tables, and proceed to raise the country in pursuit directly his captors had withdrawn? On whose side would the laugh be then?
It speaks well, both for gipsy and nobleman, that Fin's hesitation was of no long continuance.
"I think the Gorgio means fair," he whispered to Waif, "for all he wears a clean shirt on his back. Am I a fool to trust him, my sister, or is he fool enough to respect my trust? We could hardly, without hurting them, tie them up so tight but that they might release one another in the space of two hours; and this job will look quite black enough as it stands, without cruelty. It's highway robbery, Thyra, and, I fear, something like what the Gorgios call high treason to boot! You are wise, my sister, and know these Gentiles well; counsel me what to do."
Waif reflected for a moment ere she answered, gipsy-like, by a parable.
"Do you remember, brother," said she, "how one night in the apple-water country, on the banks of the Wye, we took a rooster off his perch, and brought the poor dazed chiriclo (bird) into our empty barn by the light of a single lanthorn? How Mother Stanley bade us lay the fowl's bill against the bare boards, and draw from it a line of white chalk to the far edge of the threshing-floor? and how the helpless creature never so much as lifted its beak from the spot to which it believed itself tied? Brother, you speak the truth when you say I know the Gorgios. They are like that foolish barn-door fowl. This Raya here is a game-cock of their choicest breed. At his own time, in his own way, he will strut, and fight, and crow as lustily as the best chanticleer of them all; but tie him up in his word of honour, and he will no more stir an inch out of that imaginary circle than Aunt Stanley's fowl moved from the line of chalk on our barn floor. I have spoken brother, let us go hence."
The gipsy turned to his prisoner. "My lord," said he, "I will trust your lordship's word. You shall promise, as a gentleman, not to stir in your own person, nor to permit one of your people to leave this spot, till two hours of the night are fairly past. On this understanding your whole party shall at once be set free, and the Romanies will take their leave, humbly wishing your lordship good-night."
"You'll give me back my watch," said Lord Bellinger, feeling in his empty fob, with a shrug of his shoulders, "or how shall I know when the time is expired, and we may put the horses to?"
Fin Cooper laughed. He liked a man who never threw a chance away, while at the same time he knew the value of a heavy gold watch set in diamonds.
"Look well at that fir-tree, my lord," said he, pointing upwards; "when the moon, now rising, has cleared the second branch from the top two hours will have elapsed, and you can depart."
"If you know the time so exactly without a watch," replied his lordship, "you can have no use for mine. However, it's a pretty keepsake enough, and you're welcome to it. But harky'e, my friend, one word before you go. Is there no chance of our being beset by other gentlemen of your profession? You've left nothing for them to take, 'tis true, except the clothes on our backs; but the disappointment might make them harder to deal with than you have been yourselves. You couldn't afford us a guard, could you? That pretty boy, for instance," glancing at Waif, who shrank hastily behind the others, "and a couple of stout fellows, in case there should be a fight."
Nobody but Mistress Rachel seemed disappointed at the gipsy's answer.
"It is needless," he said; "our patrin will hold you unharmed, as if your coach was surrounded by an escort of Light Horse."
"Your patrin? What is that?" asked my lord.
"The sign that none of our people will pass unnoticed," said the gipsy; "that not one of the profession dare disregard, from the best galloping gentleman on the road to the poor cly-faker who pulls an old woman's petticoat off a hedge. I will set it for you at once."
Thus speaking, he drew his knife from the sheath, and cut three crosses, side by side, in the turf, north, south, east, and west of the party. This done, the word was given to march; and in less than a minute these strange assailants, who seemed to have the facility of deer and other wild animals in availing themselves of any irregularity in the ground, had disappeared from the surface of the downs, though a moon already nearly full was shining brightly above the horizon.
My lord looked after them in silence as they vanished. Then, turning to his wife, observed, with a meaning smile, "They have left you your diamonds, my dear. I wonder where they learned to know brilliants from paste?"
Her ladyship, an image of outraged dignity, was sitting bolt upright in the back of the coach.
"Their leader is a perfect gentleman," she replied, "and would no more rob a lady of her trinkets than he would allude to her misfortunes. There are noblemen of position who might take example by the gracious manners and high bearing of this mysterious gipsy."
The taunt, if meant for such, was lost on her husband. "Two hours," he yawned; "two hours all but five minutes at the best. How shall we get through two mortal hours? There is moonlight—that's a comfort; and our friends have left us the cards. I will sit in the coach, and play your ladyship a game at picquet."
"What shall we play for?" said my lady.
"For love!" said my lord, and began to deal.
Threading like a herd of red deer the slight undulations of the down, it took the gipsies but a few minutes to withdraw from the scene of their late outrage. In less than an hour they had approached their own camping-ground, where the tents were already pitched by wives and comrades, the kettles already singing over the twinkling fires of their bivouac. They travelled fast, at a long swinging trot, shifting their bundles from one to another as they went. Fin Cooper and Waif remained in rear of the party, the former arguing that it was the post of danger, and, on this consideration, though she seemed unwilling to lag behind the others, insisting that the girl should bear him company.
Waif was anxious and preoccupied, strangely unlike herself. The black Vardo-mescro had not failed to notice the change, nor was it in his nature to keep silence when aroused. Looking suspiciously in his companion's face, he sang a scrap of an old Romany ditty, that may be thus rendered:—