"I beg you, my lord, come away from the door, it isn't safe, not really safe," urged John Stich again and again.
"Then why will you not tell me who took my letter to Stretton Hall?" said the boy with feverish impatience.
"My lord…"
"Some stupid dolt mayhap, who has lost his way … or … perchance betrayed me…"
"My lord," pleaded the smith, "have I not sworn that your letter went by hands as faithful, as trusty as my own?"
"But I'll not rest an you do not tell me who took it. I wish to know," he added with that sudden look of command which all the Strettons have worn for many generations past.
The old habitual deference of the retainer for his lord was strong in the heart of John. He yielded.
"Nay, my lord, an you'll not be satisfied," he said with a sigh, "I'll tell you, though Heaven knows that his safety is as dear to me as yours – both dearer than my own."
"Well, who was it?" asked the young man, eagerly.
"I entrusted your letter for Lady Patience to Beau Brocade, the highwayman – "
In a moment Philip was on his feet: danger, amazement, horror, robbed him of speech for a few seconds, but the next he had gripped the smith's arm and like a furious, thoughtless, unreasoning child, he gasped, —
"Beau Brocade!! … the highwayman!!! … My life, my honour to a highwayman!!! Are you mad or drunk, John Stich?"
"Neither, my lord," said John with great respect, but looking the young man fearlessly in the face. "You don't know Beau Brocade, and there are no safer hands than his. He knows every inch of the Moor and fears neither man nor devil."
Touched in spite of himself by the smith's earnestness, Philip's wrath abated somewhat; still he seemed dazed, not understanding, vaguely scenting danger, or treachery.
"But a highwayman!" he repeated mechanically.
"Aye! and a gentleman!" retorted John with quiet conviction. "A gentleman if ever there was one! Aye! and not the only one who has ta'en to the road these hard times," he added under his breath.
"But a thief, John! A man who might sell my letter, betray my whereabouts!.."
"A man, my lord, who would die in torture sooner than do that."
The smith's quiet and earnest conviction seemed to chase away the last vestige of Philip's wrath. Still he seemed unconvinced.
"A hero of romance, John, this highwayman of yours," he laughed bitterly.
Honest John scratched the back of his curly black head.
"Noa!" he said, somewhat puzzled. "I know nought about that or what's a … a hero of romance. But I do know that Beau Brocade is a friend of the poor, and that our village lads won't lay their hands on him, even if they could. No! not though the Government have offered a hundred guineas as the price of his head."
"Five times the value of mine, it seems," said Philip with a sigh. "But," he added, with a sudden return to feverish anxiety, "if he was caught last night, with my letter in his hands…"
"Caught!!! Beau Brocade caught!" laughed John Stich, "nay, all the soldiers of the Duke of Cumberland's army couldn't do that, my lord! Besides, I know he wasn't caught. I saw him on his chestnut horse just before the Corporal came. I heard him laughing, at the red coats, maybe. Nay! my lord, I beg you have no fear, your letter is in her ladyship's hand now, I'll lay my life on that."
"I had to trust someone, my lord," he said after awhile, as Lord Stretton once more relapsed into gloomy silence. "I could do nothing for your lordship single-handed, and you wanted that letter to reach her ladyship. I scarce knew what to do. But I did know I could trust Beau Brocade, and your secret is as safe with him as it is with me."
Philip sighed wearily.
"Ah, well! I'll believe it all, friend John. I'll trust you and your friend, and be grateful to you both: have no fear of that! Who am I but a wretched creature, whom any rascal may shoot by Act of Parliament."
But John Stich had come to the end of his power of argument. Never a man of many words, he had only become voluble when speaking of his friend. Philip tried to look cheerful and convinced, but he was chafing under this enforced inactivity and the dark, close atmosphere of the forge.
He had spent two days under the smith's roof and time seemed to creep with lead-weighted wings: yet every sound, every strange footstep, made his nerves quiver with morbid apprehension, and even now at sound of a tremulous voice from the road, shrank, moody and impatient, into corner of the hut.
CHAPTER IV
JOCK MIGGS, THE SHEPHERD
"Be you at home, Master Stich?"
A curious, wizened little figure stood in the doorway peering cautiously into the forge.
In a moment John Stich was on the alert.
"Sh!" he whispered quickly, "have no fear, my lord, 'tis only some fool from the village."
"Did ye say ye baint at home, Master Stich?" queried the same tremulous voice again. "I didn't quite hear ye."
"Yes, yes, I'm here all right, Jock Miggs," said the smith, heartily. "Come in!"
Jock Miggs came in, making as little noise, and taking up as little room as possible. Dressed in a well-worn smock and shabby corduroy breeches, he had a curious shrunken, timid air about his whole personality, as he removed his soft felt hat and began scratching his scanty tow-coloured locks: he was a youngish man too, probably not much more than thirty, yet his brown face was a mass of ruts and wrinkles like a furrowed path on Brassing Moor.
"Morning, Mr Stich … morning," he said with a certain air of vagueness and apology, as with obvious admiration he stopped to watch the broad back of the smith and his strong arms wielding the heavy hammer.
"Morning, Miggs," retorted John, not looking up from his work, "how's the old woman?"
"I dunno, Mr Stich," replied Miggs, with a dubious shake of the head. "Badly, I expec' … same as yesterday," he added in a more cheerful spirit.
"Why! what's the matter?"
"I dunno, Mr Stich, that there's anything the matter," explained Jock Miggs with slow and sad deliberation, "but she's dead … same as yesterday."
Involuntarily Philip laughed at the quaint, fatalistic statement.
"Hello!" said Miggs, looking at him with the same apathetic wonder, "who be yon lad?"
"That's my nephew Jim, out o' Nottingham," said John, "come to give me a hand."
"Morning, lad," piped Miggs, in his high treble, as he extended a wrinkled, bony hand to Stretton.
"Lud, John Stich," he exclaimed, "any one'd know he was one o' your family from the muscle he's got."
And gently, meditatively, he rubbed one shrivelled hand against the other, looking with awe at the fine figure of a man before him.
"A banging lad your nephew too," he added with a chuckle; "he'll be turning the heads of all the girls this side o' Brassington, maybe."
"Oh! I'll warrant he's got a sweetheart at home, eh, Jim lad? – or maybe more than one. But what brings ye here this day, friend Miggs?"
The wizened little face assumed a puzzled expression.
"I dunno…" he said vaguely, "maybe I wanted to tell ye about the soldiers I seed at the Royal George over Brassington way."
"What about 'em, Miggs?"
"I dunno… I see a corporal and lots of fellers in red … some say there's more o' them … I dunno."
"Ha!" said Stich, carelessly, "What are they after?"
"I dunno," commented Miggs, imperturbably. "Some say they're after that chap Beau Brocade. There was a coach stopped on the Heath 'gain last night. Fifty guineas