The two men now clung trembling to one another; not ten paces from them there came the sound of a horse's snorting, then suddenly a voice rang out clearly through the mist-laden air,-

"h.e.l.lo! who goes there!"

"The Lord have mercy upon us!" whispered Mittachip.

"It must be Beau Brocade himself," echoed the clerk.

The next moment a horse and rider came into view. Master Mittachip and his clerk were too terrified even to look. The former had jerked the reins and brought his lean nag to a standstill, and both men now sat with eyes closed, teeth chattering, their very faces distorted with fear.

Beau Brocade had reined his horse quite close to them, and was peering through his black mask at the two terror-stricken faces. Evidently they amused him vastly, for he burst out laughing.

"Odd's my life! here's a pretty pair of scarecrows! ... Well! I see you can stand, so now let's see what you've got to deliver!"

At this Master Mittachip contrived to open his eyes for a second; but the black mask, and the heavily cloaked figure looked so ghostlike, so awful in the mist, that he promptly closed them again, and murmured with a shudder.-

"Mercy, oh, n.o.ble sir! We ... we are poor men!..."

"Poor-spirited men, you mean?" quoth Beau Brocade, giving the trembling figure a quick, vigorous shake. "Now then! off that nag of yours!

Quick's the word!"

But even before this word of command Master Mittachip, dragging his clerk after him, had tumbled, quaking, off his horse. They now stood clinging to each other, a miserable bundle of frightened humanity.

"Come!" said Beau Brocade, looking down with some amus.e.m.e.nt at the spectacle. "I'm not going to hurt you-I never shoot at snipe! But you'll have to turn out your pockets and sharp too, an you want to resume your journey to-night."

He had seized Master Duffy by the collar. The clerk was an all too-ready prey for any highwayman, and stooping from his saddle, Beau Brocade had quickly extracted a leather bag from the pocket of his coat.

"Oho! guineas, as I live!"

"Kind sir," began Duffy, tremblingly.

"Now, listen to me, both of you," said Beau Brocade, trying to hide his enjoyment of the scene under an air of great sternness. "I know who you are. I know what work you've been doing this afternoon. Extorting rents barely due from a few wretched people, for your employers as hard-hearted as yourselves."

"Kind sir..."

"Silence! or I shoot! Besides, 'twere no use to tell me lies. The people about here know me. They call me Beau Brocade. I know them and their troubles. I happened to hear, for instance, that you extracted two guineas from the Widow Coggins, threatening her with a process for dilapidations unless she gave you hush money."

"'Twas not our fault, kind sir..."

"Then there was Mistress Haddakin, from whom you extracted fifty shillings for a new gate, which you don't intend to put up for her: and this, although she has only just buried her husband, and had a baby sick at home. You put on finer airs with the poor people than you do with me, eh?"

"'Tis not our money, sir," protested Master Mittachip, humbly.

"Some of it goes into your own pockets. Hush money, blood money, I call it. That's what I want from you, and then a bit over for the poor box on behalf of your employers."

He weighed the leather bag which he had taken out of Master Duffy's pocket.

"This'll do for the poor box. Now I want the five pounds you extorted from Widow Coggins and Mistress Haddakin. The poor women'll be glad of it on the morrow."

"I haven't a penny more than that bagful, sir," protested Master Mittachip. "My employers took all the money from me. 'Twere their rents I was collecting. I swear it, sir, kind sir! on my word of honour! And I am an honest man!"

"Come here!"

And Beau Brocade reined his horse back a few paces.

"Come here!" he repeated.

Mittachip was too frightened to disobey. He came forward, limping very perceptibly.

"Why do you walk like that?" asked Beau Brocade.

"I'm a feeble old man and rheumatic," whined Mittachip, despondently.

"Then 'twere better to ease the load out of your boot, friend. Sit down here and take it off."

And he pointed to a piece of boulder projecting through the shallow earth.

But this Master Mittachip seemed very loth to do.

"Kind sir..." he protested again.

"Sit down and take off the right boot!" repeated Beau Brocade more peremptorily, and with a gay laugh and mock threatening gesture he pointed the muzzle of his pistol at the terror-stricken attorney.

There was naught to do but to obey: and quickly too. Master Mittachip cursed the rascally highwayman under his breath, and even consigned him to eternal d.a.m.nation, before he finally handed him up his boot.

Beau Brocade turned it over, shook it, and a bag of jingling guineas fell at Jack o' Lantern's feet.

"Give me that bag!"

"Sir! kind sir!" moaned Master Mittachip, as he obediently handed up the bag of gold to his merciless a.s.sailant. "Have pity! I am a ruined man!

'Tis Sir Humphrey Challoner's money. I've been collecting it for him ... and he's a hard man!"

"Oh!" said Beau Brocade, "'tis Sir Humphrey Challoner's money, is it?

Nay! you old scarecrow, but 'tis his Honour himself sent me on the Heath to-night. Oho!" he added, whilst his merry, boyish laugh went echoing through the evening air, "methinks Sir Humphrey will enjoy the joke. Do you tell him, friend-an you see him in the morn-that you've met Beau Brocade and that he'll do his Honour's bidding."

He counted some of the money out of the bag and put it in his pocket: the remainder he handed back to the astonished lawyer.

"There!" he said with sudden earnestness, "I'll only make rest.i.tution to the poor whom you have robbed. You may thank your stars that an angel came down from heaven to-day and cast eyes of tender pity upon me, so that I care not to rob you, save for those in dire want. You may mount that nag of yours now, and continue your journey to Bra.s.sington. No turning aside, remember, and answer me when I challenge your good-night."

Master Mittachip and his clerk had no call to be told twice. They mounted with as much agility as their trembling limbs would allow.

Truly they considered themselves lucky in having saved some money out of the clutches of the rogue, and did not care to speculate on the cause of their good fortune.

A few minutes later their lean horse was once more on its way, bearing its double burden. At first they had both looked back, attracted-now that their terror was gone-by the sight of that tall, youthful figure on the beautiful thoroughbred standing there on the crest of the hill and gradually growing more and more dim in the fast-gathering mist.

The bridle path at this point dips very suddenly and a sharp declivity leads thence, straight on to Bra.s.sington.

Beau Brocade's sharp eyes, accustomed to the gloom, watched horse and riders until the mist enveloped them and hid them from his view. Then he called loudly,-

"Good-night!"