Part 20 (2/2)
”Money, and be d-d to you, or here goes!” replied the bearded man, without the slightest touch of the dialect of the people whose chin-tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs he had a.s.sumed. Our hero saw at once that this prepared ruffian was not to be trifled with, and that an instant's delay might cost him his existence; therefore, he immediately produced from his bosom the packet entrusted to him by Sir George Devereaux.
As the robber reached to s.n.a.t.c.h it, Twm's wits were at work; a.s.suming the dialect and foolery which he knew pa.s.sed among the English for Welsh, ”Here wa.s.s the money, look you now, but G.o.d tam! it wa.s.s not mine, but you shall haf it in the tifel's name, only let master see I wa.s.s praave, and show fight for it, look you, and not gif it up like a craaven.” With that he gave it into the fellow's hand, saying, ”Now, her begs, and solicits, and entreats you to be so kind a.s.s to shoot some holes in hur cott lappets, just a pounce or two, look you, to prove hur hard fight and praavery.”
”Aye, with the greatest pleasure in life!” cried the ruffian, laughing.
Here Twm put off his coat in an instant, and threw it over a bush on the roadside. When the robber fired at it, Twm leapt up, laughing with idiotic glee, crying, ”Got pless hur for a praave marksman! that was a n.o.ble pounce, look you! But now another pounce for tother lappet, and I wa.s.s have great praise for praavery!”
So the foot-pad, apparently amused, fired again, and Twm leapt and laughed as before, exclaiming, ”That was another nople pounce, look!” He now ran to the bush, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up his coat, put it on, seemingly as delighted with its perforations as a warrior of his vaunted scars. ”Now, one pounce more through my hat, look you, and all will be right!” added he, appealingly.
”Why, as to that!” replied the robber, commencing to break open the parcel with great eagerness, ”I have no more pounces, as you call them, to give you.”
”But I have!” thundered our hero, holding a pistol in each hand to the robber's breast, ”return the packet and garnis.h.!.+” continued he, ”or I will pounce your rascal prains apout the road, look you-and that wa.s.s not goot for your health, look you, this fine morning.”
The robber was no bad judge of circ.u.mstances, so immediately returned the packet. ”Garnis.h.!.+” roared Twm, laughing, and holding the pistols nearer to his head; ”I must have a new suit for the one you pounced for me, look you now!” The robber handed him a heavy purse, with a couple of splendid watches, exclaiming ”the devil's luck to you with them!” on which Twm s.n.a.t.c.hed off his false beard, as he laughingly said, ”So much for a shallow knave whose length of beard is greater than his brains!” No sooner was the beard removed, than Twm saw a deep scar on his left jaw, which cleared all doubt as to the ident.i.ty of his antagonist.
”Never was Tom Dorbell so humbugged before!” cried the baffled ruffian, as he tore his hair up by the roots in resentment against Fortune, that allowed such an inauspicious day to dawn on him.
”What! Tom Dorbell, the Gallant Glover?” queried Twm, with amazement.
”The same,” growled the knight of the road, ”till my luck turned; but now I am n.o.body.”
”By that blus.h.i.+ng witness on your jaw-bone, I perceive we once met before,” quoth Twm, jeeringly; ”I think, on the other side of Reading. I think, too, that, in token of friends.h.i.+p, we exchanged horses on that occasion, a Welsh pony for a gallant grey; and, I think, also, but perhaps I am mistaken, that I threw thee a long purse full of something _that uncle Timothy gave I to market for him at Reading_.”
By the well mimicked simplicity of the latter words, the freebooter knew him at once, and laughing in his turn, vowing that he was now satisfied that he was outdone by no common 'un, ”but a d-ned clever fellow, whoever thee bee'st” Quick as the fox who hears the hounds and hunters long before the sound can reach indifferent ears, Tom Dorbell started-gave a hasty farewell, dashed through the hedge, over a field, and was soon out of sight.
The Gallant Glover's well-trained ears had heard the sound of horses'
feet, and, taking all things into consideration, he had thought it best to decline any fresh interview with travelling humanity until he had recovered his serenity of mind, and was in a position to enforce any demands it might please him to make.
As the approaching horse and rider neared him, Twm perceived the latter to be a wounded man, evidently so much disabled as to be scarcely capable of sitting on his horse. With courteous but hurried accents, the stranger addressed our hero, lifting his hat as he spoke.
”Your pardon, sir; if you are armed and inclined to act a brave and generous part, you have now an opportunity of doing so.” Twm declared his readiness. The stranger dismounted, with pain; ”Take this horse,”
cried he, ”ride forward as fast as you can, and a quarter of a mile on you will find a couple of robbers rifling a coach. Other a.s.sistance may arrive-on! on, sir! in heaven's name! the party a.s.saulted are of no common rank or estimation-profit and reputation will attend their liberator, and”-Twm was out of hearing before he could finish his sentence.
Never did a young medical pract.i.tioner, called on an emergency to the bedside of a wealthy patient, whom he never thought to have the honour to approach, ride forth with a more excited imagination. Fire flashed from the stones, ground to powder by his horse's hoofs, and brief was the gallop that brought him in sight of the scene of villainy.
The first object that struck his view were three or four horses, with their harness cut, one dead, and the others struggling on the road-side, while the centre was occupied by an un-horsed coach. As he came nearer, he distinctly made out a man at each door of the vehicle, their feet resting on the steps, while their heads, and the greater portion of their bodies, were invisible, implying their activity in the work of depredation. So intently devoted were they to this grand undertaking, that Twm's approach seemed either unnoticed or mistaken, perhaps, for the wounded and unharmed gentleman's, who had apprised him of this nefarious business. With that happy forethought given by indulgent Providence to the self-dependent, and which forms one of the grand ingredients in the chalice of success, our hero turned his horse from the thundering road to the soundless green beside it, and silently gained upon his object.
He arrived within twenty paces of the coach, when the green altogether ceased. Dismounting with the alacrity of the occasion, silent as the mole, and swift as the greyhound, he made a rush forward, and, contrary to his expectation, he found himself, unchallenged or unnoticed, close to the coach. He heard one of the amiable threatening instant death to his ”Lords.h.i.+p's reverence” unless his watch accompanied his purse into the hands of his ”solicitors.”
The opposite worthy was equally polite to a lady, after his own fas.h.i.+on, declaring that he had shot one of her s.e.x lately for less provocation than she had shown, in withholding his fair demands, which was merely all her cash and jewels.
Twm's instantaneous action was to catch the nearest gentleman by the ankles. With a powerful drag backwards, his feet were jerked off the coach-steps, and his full face literally _sc.r.a.ped_ an ungentle acquaintance with their iron edges, in its rapid descent to the frosty road, which was flooded with his blood.
”Hollo! where are you, Bill?” enquired his active partner, thinking that he had merely lost his footing and falling accidentally.
”Here!” cried Twm, firing at the word, when the robber fell backward from his perch, a lifeless corpse. Before he could recover himself, our hero was grappled at the throat by the powerful hands of the first robber. In the struggle, Twm managed to strike him twice with his discharged pistol on his blood-covered face; but the strong ruffian's tenacious grip tightened notwithstanding; and our tale must have terminated here, with the death of its hero, but for an unexpected relief.
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