“Perfectly well, sir,” replied the chief constable.
“The greatest thief-taker, though I say it,” continued Coates, “on record. I inherit all his zeal — all his ardor. Come along, sir. We shall have a fine moon in an hour — bright as day. To the post-house! to the post-house!”
Accordingly to the post-house they went; and, with as little delay as circumstances admitted, fresh hacks being procured, accompanied by a postilion, the party again pursued their onward course, encouraged to believe they were still in the right scent.
Night had now spread her mantle over the earth; still it was not wholly dark. A few stars were twinkling in the deep, cloudless heavens, and a pearly radiance in the eastern horizon heralded the rising of the orb of night. A gentle breeze was stirring; the dews of evening had already fallen; and the air felt bland and dry. It was just the night one would have chosen for a ride, if one ever rode by choice at such an hour; and to Turpin, whose chief excursions were conducted by night, it appeared little less than heavenly.
Full of ardor and excitement, determined to execute what he had mentally undertaken, Turpin held on his solitary course. Everything was favorable to his project; the roads were in admirable condition, his mare was in like order; she was inured to hard work, had rested sufficiently in town to recover from the fatigue of her recent journey, and had never been in more perfect training. “She has now got her wind in her,” said Dick; “I’ll see what she can do — hark away, lass — hark away! I wish they could see her now,” added he, as he felt her almost fly away with him.
Encouraged by her master’s voice and hand, Black Bess started forward at a pace which few horses could have equalled, and scarcely any have sustained so long. Even Dick, accustomed as he was to her magnificent action, felt electrified at the speed with which he was borne along. “Bravo! bravo!” shouted he, “hark away, Bess!”
The deep and solemn woods through which they were rushing rang with his shouts, and the sharp rattle of Bess’s hoofs; and thus he held his way, while, in the words of the ballad,
Fled past, on right and left, how fast,
Each forest, grove, and bower;
On right and left, fled past, how fast,
Each city, town, and tower.
CHAPTER 6
BLACK BESS
Dauphin. I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! He bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
Shakespeare: Henry V., Act III.
Black Bess being undoubtedly the heroine of the Fourth Book of this Romance, we may, perhaps, be pardoned for expatiating a little in this place upon her birth, parentage, breeding, appearance, and attractions. And first as to her pedigree; for in the horse, unlike the human species, nature has strongly impressed the noble or ignoble caste. He is the real aristocrat, and the pure blood that flows in the veins of the gallant steed will infallibly be transmitted, if his mate be suitable, throughout all his line. Bess was no cock-tail. She was thorough-bred; she boasted blood in every bright and branching vein:
If blood can give nobility,
A noble steed was she;
Her sire was blood, and blood her dam,
And all her pedigree.
As to her pedigree. Her sire was a desert Arab, renowned in his day, and brought to this country by a wealthy traveller; her dam was an English racer, coal-black as her child. Bess united all the fire and gentleness, the strength and hardihood, the abstinence and endurance of fatigue of the one, with the spirit and extraordinary fleetness of the other. How Turpin became possessed of her is of little consequence. We never heard that he paid a heavy price for her; though we doubt if any sum would have induced him to part with her. In color, she was perfectly black, with a skin smooth on the surface as polished jet; not a single white hair could be detected in her satin coat. In make she was magnificent. Every point was perfect, beautiful, compact; modelled, in little, for strength and speed. Arched was her neck, as that of the swan; clean and fine were her lower limbs, as those of the gazelle; round and sound as a drum was her carcase, and as broad as a cloth-yard shaft her width of chest. Hers were the “pulchræ clunes, breve caput, arduaque cervix,” of the Roman bard. There was no redundancy of flesh, ’tis true; her flanks might, to please some tastes, have been rounder, and her shoulders fuller; but look at the nerve and sinew, palpable through the veined limbs! She was built more for strength than beauty, and yet she was beautiful. Look at that elegant little head; those thin, tapering ears, closely placed together; that broad, snorting nostril, which seems to snuff the gale with disdain; that eye, glowing and large as the diamond of Giamschid! Is she not beautiful? Behold her paces! how gracefully she moves! She is off! — no eagle on the wing could skim the air more swiftly. Is she not superb? As to her temper, the lamb is not more gentle. A child might guide her.
But hark back to Dick Turpin. We left him rattling along in superb style, and in the highest possible glee. He could not, in fact, be otherwise than exhilarated; nothing being so wildly intoxicating as a mad gallop. We seem to start out of ourselves — to be endued, for the time, with new energies. Our thoughts take wings rapid as our steed. We feel as if his fleetness and boundless impulses were for the moment our own. We laugh; we exult; we shout for very joy. We cry out with Mephistopheles, but in anything but a sardonic mood, “What I enjoy with spirit, is it the less my own on that account? If I can pay for six horses, are not their powers mine! I drive along, and am a proper man, as if I had four-and-twenty legs!” These were Turpin’s sentiments precisely. Give him four legs and a wide plain, and he needed no Mephistopheles to bid him ride to perdition as fast as his nag could carry him. Away, away! — the road is level, the path is clear. Press on, thou gallant steed, no obstacle is in thy way! — and, lo! the moon breaks forth! Her silvery light is thrown over the woody landscape. Dark shadows are cast athwart the road, and the flying figures of thy rider and thyself are traced, like giant phantoms, in the dust!
Away, away! our breath is gone in keeping up with this tremendous run. Yet Dick Turpin has not lost his wind, for we hear his cheering cry — hark! he sings. The reader will bear in mind that Oliver means the moon — to “whiddle” is to blab.
OLIVER WHIDDLES!
Oliver whiddles — the tattler old!
Telling what best had been left untold.
Oliver ne’er was a friend of mine;
All glims I hate that so brightly shine.
Give me a night black as hell, and then
See what I’ll show to you, my merry men.
Oliver whiddles! — who cares — who cares,
If down upon us he peers and stares?
Mind him who will, with his great white face,
Boldly I’ll ride by his glim to the chase; Give him a Rowland, and loudly as ever Shout, as I show myself, “Stand and deliver!”
“Egad,” soliloquized Dick, as he concluded his song, looking up at the moon. “Old Noll’s no bad fellow, either. I wouldn’t be without his white face to-night for a trifle. He’s as good as a lamp to guide one, and let Bess only hold on as she goes now, and I’ll do it with ease. Softly, wench, softly — dost not see it’s a hill we’re rising. The devil’s in the mare, she cares for nothing.” And as they ascended the hill, Dick’s voice once more awoke the echoes of night.
WILL