Part 41 (1/2)

”They'll never get the Captain,” he shouted, tossing his cap in the air, ”and, saving your ladys.h.i.+p's presence, we was all fools to think they would.”

Patience had said nothing when the smith first brought the news. She smiled kindly and somewhat mechanically at the exuberance of his joy, but when honest John once more left her, to glean more detailed account of the great man-hunt on the Heath, she turned to her brother, and falling on her knees she buried her fair head against the lad's shoulder and sobbed in the fulness of her joy as if her heart would break.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A PAINFUL INCIDENT

A few hours later, when hunters and watchers had had a little rest, came the rude awakening after the hour of triumph.

Jock Miggs, still trussed and pinioned, had been hauled out of the pound. Master Inch, the beadle, resplendent in gold-laced coat and the majesty of his own importance, had taken the order of ceremony into his own hands.

His Honour, Squire West, would be round at the Court House about noon, and Inch, still smarting under the indignity put upon him through the instrumentality of the highwayman, had devised an additional little plan of revenge.

Sir Humphrey Challoner had emphatically declared that the beadle should be publicly whipped for having dared to lay hands on the Squire of Hartington's person. Master Inch remembered this possible and appalling indignity, which mayhap he would be called upon to suffer, and therefore when the bolts of the pound were first drawn, disclosing the swathed-up bundle of humanity which was supposed to be the highwayman, the beadle shouted in his most stentorian, most pompous tones,-

”To the pond with him!”

The soldiers-most of them lads recruited from the Midland counties, and a pretty rough lot to boot-were only too ready for this additional bit of horseplay.

'Twas fun enough to sit an old scold in the ducking-stool, but to carry on the same game with Beau Brocade, the notorious highwayman, who had defied the four counties and set every posse of soldiers by the ears, would be rare sport indeed.

With a shout of joy they seized Jock Miggs by the legs and shoulders, and with much laughter and many a lively sally they carried him to the shallow duck-pond at the further end of the green. Very sadly, and with many an anxious shake of the head, the village folk followed the little procession, which was headed by the Sergeant and pompous Master Inch.

At the moment when the unfortunate shepherd was being swung in mid-air, preparatory to his immersion in the water, one of the soldiers laughingly dragged away the coat which swathed poor Miggs's head and shoulders, and was near suffocating him.

”We don't want 'im to drown, do we?” he said, just as his comrades dropped the wretched man straight into the pond.

Immediately there was a loud cry from beadle and spectators,-

”Lud love us all! that bain't Beau Brocade!”

And one timid voice added,-

”Why! 'tis Jock Miggs, the shepherd!”

The beadle nearly had a fit of apoplectic rage. That cursed highwayman surely must be in league with the devil himself. The soldiers were gasping with astonishment, and staring open-mouthed at the dripping figure of Jock Miggs, who with unruffled stolidity was quietly struggling out of the water.

”Lordy! Lordy! these be 'mazing times,” he muttered in his vague, fatalistic way as he shook himself dry in the suns.h.i.+ne, after the manner of his own woolly sheep-dog.

”Oho! ho! ha! ha! ha!” came in merry chorus from the crowd of village folk, ”look at Jock Miggs, the highwayman!”

The soldiers, were absolutely speechless. Master Inch, the beadle, had said emphatically,-

”d.a.m.n!”

Truly there was nothing more to be said: those who were inclined to be superst.i.tious felt convinced that the devil himself had had something to do with this amazing subst.i.tution.

That it was Beau Brocade who had been captured on the Heath last night none of those who were present at the time doubted for a single instant.