"No, Sir Humphrey," stammered Mittachip, whose very soul was quaking with horror.

"We'll find the shepherd there, think you?"

"Y ... y ... yes, your Honour!"

"Harkee, Master Mittachip. I'll run no risk. That d--d highwayman must be desperate to-night. We'll adhere to our original plan, and let the shepherd take the letters to Wirksworth."

"You ... you ... you'll not let them bide to-night where they are, Sir Humphrey?"

"No, you fool, I won't. They are but just below the surface, under cover of some bramble, and once those fellows come scouring round the hut, any one of them may unearth the letters with a kick of his boot.

There's been a lot of talk of a reward for the recovery of a packet of letters! ... No, no, no! I'll not risk it."

Sir Humphrey Challoner had thought the matter well out, and knew that he ran two distinct risks in the matter of the letters. To one he had alluded just now when he spoke of the probability-remote perhaps-of the packet being accidentally unearthed by one of the scouring parties. Any man who found it would naturally at once take it to Squire West, in the hope of getting the reward promised by her ladyship for its recovery.

The idea, therefore, of leaving the letters in their hiding-place for awhile did not commend itself to him. On the other hand, there was the more obvious risk of keeping them about his own person. Sir Humphrey thanked his stars that he had not done so the day before, and even now kept in his mind a certain superst.i.tious belief that Beau Brocade-wounded, hunted and desperate-would make a final effort, which might prove successful, to wrench the letters from him on the Heath.

CHAPTER XXVII

JOCK MIGGS'S ERRAND

Master Mittachip had tried to utter one or two feeble protests, but Sir Humphrey had interrupted him emphatically,-

"The rascal may hope to win his pardon through the Gascoyne influence, by rendering her ladyship this service. Where'er he may be at this moment, I am quite sure that his eye is upon me and my doings."

Mittachip shuddered and closed his eyes: he dared not peer into the dark scrub beside him, and drew his horse in as close to Sir Humphrey's as he could.

"If you're afraid, you lumbering old coward," added his Honour, "go back and leave me in peace. I'll arrange my own affairs as I think best."

But the prospect of returning to Bra.s.sington alone across this awful Heath sent Master Mittachip into a renewed agony of terror: though his n.o.ble patron seemed suddenly to have become uncanny in this inordinate l.u.s.t for revenge, he preferred his Honour's company to his own, and therefore made a violent effort to silence his worst fears. The Moor just now was comparatively calm: the shouts of the hunters and the yelping of the hound had altogether ceased; perhaps they had lost the scent.

Another half-hour's silent ride brought them to the spur of the hill, along the top of which ran the Wirksworth Road, and as they left the steep declivity behind them, their ears were pleasantly tickled by the welcome and bucolic sound of the bleating of sheep.

"Your friend the shepherd seems to be at his post," quoth Sir Humphrey with a sigh of satisfaction.

They were close to the point where on the previous night Lady Patience's coach had come to a halt, and the next moment brought them in sight of the shepherd's hut, with the pen beyond it, vaguely discernible in the gloom.

Sir Humphrey gave the order to dismount. Master Mittachip, feeling more dead than alive, had perforce to obey. They tied their horses loosely to a clump of blackthorn by the roadside and then crept cautiously towards the hut.

It suited their purpose well that the night was a dark one. The moon was not yet high in the heavens, and was still half-veiled by a thin film of fleecy clouds, leaving the whole vista of the Moor wrapped in mysterious grey-blue semitones.

"You have brought the lanthorn," whispered Sir Humphrey, hurriedly.

"Y ... y ... y ... yes, your Honour," stammered Mittachip.

"Then quick's the word," said his Honour, pointing to a thick clump of gorse and bramble quite close to the shed. "The letters are in the very centre of that clump, and only just below the surface. Do you creep in there and get them."

There was nothing for Master Mittachip to do but to obey, and that with as much alacrity as his terror would allow. His teeth were chattering in his head, and his hands were trembling so violently that he was some time in striking a light for the lanthorn.

Sir Humphrey suppressed an oath of angry impatience.

"Lud preserve me," murmured the poor attorney, "if that highwayman should come upon me whilst I am engaged in the task! ... You ... you'll not leave me, Sir Humphrey?..."

"I'll lay my stick across your cowardly shoulders if you don't hurry,"

was his Honour's only comment.

He watched Mittachip crawling on his hands and knees underneath the bramble, and his deep stertorous breathing testified to the anxiety which was raging within him. A few moments of intense suspense, and then Master Mittachip reappeared from beneath the scrub, covered with wet earth, still trembling, but holding the packet of letters triumphantly in his hand.

Sir Humphrey s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him.

"Quick! find the shepherd now! Don't waste time!" he whispered, pushing the cowering attorney roughly before him. "One feels as if every blade of gra.s.s had a pair of ears on this d.a.m.ned Heath!" he muttered under his breath.

Jock Miggs, the shepherd, had counted over his sheep, closed the gate of the pen, and was just turning into the hut for the night, when he was hailed by Master Mittachip.

"Shepherd! hey! shepherd!"

Miggs looked about him, vaguely astonished.

Since his adventure of the previous night, when he had been made to play a tune for mad folks to dance to, he felt that nothing would seriously surprise him.

When therefore he felt himself seized by the arm without more ado and dragged into the darkest corner of the hut, he did not even protest.

"Did you wish to speak with me, sir?" he asked plaintively, rubbing his arm, for Sir Humphrey's impatient grip had been very strong and hard.

"Yes!" said the latter, speaking in a rapid whisper, "here's Master Mittachip, attorney-at-law, whom you know well, eh?"

"Aye, aye," murmured Jock Miggs, pulling at his forelock, "t' sheep belong to his Honour Oi believe."

"Exactly, Miggs," interposed Master Mittachip, spurred to activity by a vigorous kick from Sir Humphrey, "and I have come out here on purpose to see you, for it is very important that you should go at once on to Wirksworth for me, with a packet and a note for Master Duffy, my clerk."

"What, now? This time o' night?" quoth Jock, vaguely.

"Aye, aye, Miggs ... you are not afraid, are you?"

Sir Humphrey had taken up his stand outside the hut, leaving Mittachip to arrange this matter with the shepherd. He had leaned his powerful frame against the wall of the shed, and was grasping his heavily-weighted riding-crop, ready and alert in case of attack. The darkness round him at this moment was intense, and his sharp eyes vainly tried to pierce the gloom, which seemed to be closing in upon him, but his ears were keenly alive to every sound which came to him out of the blackness of the night.

And all the while he tried not to lose one word of the conversation between Mittachip and the shepherd.

"That's true, Jock," the attorney was saying. "Well! then if you'll go to Wirksworth for me, now, at once, there'll be a guinea for you."

"A guinea!" came in bewildered accents from the worthy shepherd, "Lordy!

Lordy! but these be 'mazing times!"

"All I want you to do, Jock, is to take a packet for me to my house in Fulsome Street. You understand?"

But here there was a pause. Miggs was evidently hesitating.