Beau Brocade Part 20

How empty seemed his life! how wrecked! how hopelessly wasted!

Yet he loved the Moor, the peace, the solitude: he loved the sunset on the Heath and every sound of animal life in this lonesome vastness.

But to-night!...

One smile from a woman's lips, a glow of pride in her eyes, just one cl.u.s.ter of snow-white roses at her breast, and all the glories of Nature in her most lavish mood seemed tame, empty, oh! unutterably poor.

Nay! he would have bartered his very soul at this moment to undo the past few years. To be once more Jack Bathurst of His Majesty's regiment of Guards, before one evening's mistake ruined the whole of his life. A quarrel over a game of cards, a sudden blind, unreasoning rage, a blow against his superior officer, and this same Jack Bathurst, the dandy about town, the gallant, enthusiastic, promising young soldier, was degraded from his military rank and thrown, resourceless, disgraced, banished, upon a merciless world, that has neither pity nor pardon for failures or mistakes.

But, quite unlike the young Earl of Stretton, Jack Bathurst indulged in no morbid self-condemnation. Fate and he had thrown the dice, and he had lost. But there was too much of the untamed devil in him, too much spirit of wild adventure, to allow him to stoop to the thousand and one expedients, the shifts, the humiliations which the world holds in store for the broken-down gentleman.

Moneyless, friendless, with his career irretrievably ruined, he yet scorned the life of the outcast or the pariah, of that wretched fragment of humanity that hangs on the fringe of society, envying the pleasures it can no longer share, haunting the gambling booths or noisy brothels of the towns, grateful for a nod, a handshake, from some other fragment less miserable than itself.

No! a thousand times no!

Jack Bathurst looked the future that was before him squarely in the face, then chose the life of the outlaw with a price upon his head.

Aye! and forced that life to yield to him its full measure of delights: the rough, stormy nights on the Moor! the wild gallops over gorse and bramble, with the keen nor'-wester lashing his face and whipping up his blood, and with a posse of soldiers at his heels! the devil-may-care, mad, merry existence of the outlaw, who cuts a purse by night, and carries his life on his saddle-bow!

That he chose and more! for he chose the love of the poor for miles around! the blessings spoken by suffering and patient lips upon the name of the highwayman, of Beau Brocade, who took from the rich at risk of his life in order to give to the needy.

And now at even, on Bra.s.sing Moor, when a lonely shepherd caught sight of a chestnut horse bearing a slim, masked figure on its back, or heard in the distance a young voice, fresh as a skylark, singing some half-sad, half-lively ditty, he would turn his weary eyes in simple faith upwards to the stars and murmur gently,-

"G.o.d bless Beau Brocade!"

Perhaps He had!

The stars knew, but they did not tell!

CHAPTER XVI

A RENCONTRE ON THE HEATH

Master Mittachip, on his lean nag, with his clerk, Master Duffy, on the pillion behind him, was on his way to Bra.s.sington.

Sir Humphrey Challoner had not returned to the Moorhen after his visit to the forge until the sun was very low down in the west. He had bidden the attorney to await him at the inn, and Master Mittachip had not dared to disobey.

Yet the delay meant the crossing of the Heath along the bridle path to Bra.s.sington, well after the shadows of evening had lent the lonely Moor an air of awesome desolation. There were the footpads, and the pixies, the human and fairy midnight marauders, who all found the steep declivities, the clumps of gorse and bracken, the hollows and the pits, safe resting-places by day, but who were wont to emerge from their lair after dark for the terror and better undoing of the unfortunate, belated traveller.

Then there was Beau Brocade!

Master Duffy too was very timid, and clung with trembling arms to the meagre figure of the attorney.

"Nay! Master Duffy!" quoth Mittachip, with affected firmness, "why do you pry about so? Are you afraid?"

"Nay! nay! Master Mittachip," replied the clerk, whose teeth were chattering audibly, "I am ... n ... n ... not af ... f ... f ... fraid."

"Tush, man, you have me near you," rejoined Mittachip, boldly. "See! I am armed! Look at my pistols!"

And he leant back in the saddle, so as to give Master Duffy a good view of a pair of huge pistols that protruded ostentatiously from his belt.

Yet all around the air was still, the solitary Heath was at peace, even the breezy nor'-wester, that had bl.u.s.tered throughout the day, seemed to have lain down to rest.

Far out eastwards, the moon, behind a fast dispersing bank of clouds, was casting a silver radiance that was not yet a light, but only a herald of the glittering radiance to come.

The Moor was silent and at peace: only at times there came the sound of a gentle flutter, a moorhen perhaps within its nest, or a belated lizard seeking its home.

Whenever these slight sounds occurred, Master Mittachip's hands that held the reins trembled visibly, and his clerk clung more closely to him.

"What was that?" said the attorney in an awed whisper, as his frightened ears caught a more distinct noise.

"W ... w ... why don't you draw your p ... p ... pistols, Master Mittachip?" murmured Duffy, in mad alarm.

The noise was hushed again, but to the overwrought nerves of the two men in terror, there came the certain, awful perception that someone was on the Heath besides themselves, someone not far off, whom the mist hid from their view, but who knew that they were travelling along the bridle path, who could see and perhaps hear them.

"Truth to tell, Master Duffy," whispered the attorney, whose teeth too had begun to chatter. "Truth to tell, it's no use my drawing them ...

they ... they are not loaded."

Master Duffy nearly fell off the pillion in his fright.

"What?"

"There's neither powder nor shot in them," continued Master Mittachip, ruefully.

"Th ... th ... then we are lost!" was Master Duffy's e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of woe.

"Eh?-what?" quoth Mittachip, "but your pistols are charged."

And his pointed elbow sought behind it for the handles of two formidable weapons, which were stuck in Master Duffy's belt.

"N ... n ... nay!" whispered the clerk, who now was blue with terror.

"I dared not carry the weapons loaded.... I trusted to your valour, Master Mittachip, to protect us."

"What was that?"

Again that noise! this time a good deal nearer, and it seemed to Master Mittachip's affrighted eyes as if he saw something moving on the bridle path before him. But he would not show too many signs of fear before his own clerk.

"Tush, man!" he said with as much boldness as he could command. "'Tis only a lizard in the gra.s.s mayhap. We'll ride on quite boldly. We can't be far from Bra.s.sington now, and no footpads would dare to attack two l.u.s.ty fellows on horseback, with pistols showing in their belts! ...

Lord!" he added with a shudder, "how lonely this place appears!"

"And that rascal, Beau Brocade, haunts this Heath every night, I'm told," murmured Master Duffy, who felt more dead than alive.

"Sh! sh! sh! speak not of the devil, Master Duffy, lest he appear!..."

"Hark!!!"