CHAPTER XXV.
Falsehood in him was not the useless lie
Of boasting pride or laughing vanity:
It was the gainful, the persuading art, etc.
CRABBE.
On with the horses--off to Canterbury,
Tramp, tramp o'er pebble, and splash, splash thro' puddle;
Hurrah! how swiftly speeds the post so merry!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Here laws are all inviolate: none lay
Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear;
Here--" he was interrupted by a knife,
With "D---your eyes! your money or your life!"
Don Juan.
Misfortunes are like the creations of Cadmus,--they destroy one another!
Roused from the torpor of mind occasioned by the loss of her lover at the
sudden illness of the squire, Lucy had no thought for herself, no thought
for any one, for anything but her father, till long after the earth had
closed over his remains. The very activity of the latter grief was less
dangerous than the quiet of the former; and when the first keenness of
sorrow passed away, and her mind gradually and mechanically returned to
the remembrance of Clifford, it was with an intensity less strong, and
less fatal to her health and happiness than before. She thought it
unnatural and criminal to allow anything else to grieve her, while she
had so sacred a grief as that of her loss; and her mind, once aroused
into resistance to passion, betrayed a native strength little to have
been expected from her apparent character. Sir William Brandon lost no
time in returning to town after the burial of his brother. He insisted
upon taking his niece with him; and, though with real reluctance, she
yielded to his wishes, and accompanied him. By the squire's will,
indeed, Sir William was appointed guardian to Lucy, and she yet wanted
more than a year of her majority. Brandon, with a delicacy very uncommon
to him where women (for he was a confirmed woman-hater) were concerned,
provided everything that he thought could in any way conduce to her
comfort. He ordered it to be understood in his establishment that she
was its mistress. He arranged and furnished, according to what he
imagined to be her taste, a suite of apartments for her sole
accommodation; a separate carriage and servants were appropriated to her
use; and he sought, by perpetual presents of books or flowers or music,
to occupy her thoughts, and atone for the solitude to which his
professional duties obliged him so constantly to consign her. These
attentions, which showed this strange man in a new light, seemed to bring
out many little latent amiabilities, which were usually imbedded in the
callosities of his rocky nature; and, even despite her causes for grief
and the deep melancholy which consumed her, Lucy was touched with
gratitude at kindness doubly soothing in one who, however urbane and
polished, was by no means addicted to the little attentions that are
considered so gratifying by women, and yet for which they so often
despise, while they like, him who affords them. There was much in
Brandon that wound itself insensibly around the heart. To one more
experienced than Lucy, this involuntary attraction might not have been
incompatible with suspicion, and could scarcely have been associated with
esteem; and yet for all who knew him intimately, even for the penetrating
and selfish Mauleverer, the attraction existed. Unprincipled, crafty,
hypocritical, even base when it suited his purpose; secretly sneering at
the dupes he made, and knowing no code save that of interest and
ambition; viewing men only as machines, and opinions only as ladders,--
there was yet a tone of powerful feeling sometimes elicited from a heart
that could at the same moment have sacrificed a whole people to the
pettiest personal object: and sometimes with Lucy the eloquence or irony
of his conversation deepened into a melancholy, a half-suppressed
gentleness of sentiment, that accorded with the state of her own mind and
interested her kind feelings powerfully in his. It was these
peculiarities in his converse which made Lucy love to hear him; and she
gradually learned to anticipate with a gloomy pleasure the hour in which,
after the occupations of the day, he was accustomed to join her.
"You look unwell, uncle, to-night," she said, when one evening he entered
the room with looks more fatigued than usual; and rising, she leaned
tenderly over him, and kissed his forehead.
"Ay!" said Brandon, utterly unwon by, and even unheeding, the caress,
"our way of life soon passes into the sear and yellow leaf; and when
Macbeth grieved that he might not look to have that which should
accompany old age, he had grown doting, and grieved for what was
worthless."
"Nay, uncle, 'honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,' these surely
were worth the sighing for?"
"Pooh! not worth a single sigh! The foolish wishes we form in youth have
something noble and something bodily in them; but those of age are utter
shadows, and the shadows of pygmies! Why, what is honour, after all?
What is this good name among men? Only a sort of heathenish idol, set up
to be adored by one set of fools and scorned by another. Do you not
observe, Lucy, that the man you hear most praised by the party you meet
to-day is most abused by that which you meet to-morrow? Public men are
only praised by their party; and their party, sweet Lucy, are such base
minions that it moves one's spleen to think one is so little as to be
useful to them. Thus a good name is only the good name of a sect, and
the members of that sect are only marvellous proper knaves."
"But posterity does justice to those who really deserve fame."
"Posterity! Can you believe that a man who knows what life is cares for
the penny whistles of grown children after his death? Posterity, Lucy,--
no! Posterity is but the same perpetuity of fools and rascals; and even
were justice desirable at their hands, they could not deal it. Do men
agree whether Charles Stuart was a liar or a martyr? For how many ages
have we believed Nero a monster! A writer now asks, as if demonstrating
a problem, what real historian could doubt that Nero was a paragon? The
patriarchs of Scripture have been declared by modern philosophy to be a
series of astronomical hieroglyphs; and, with greater show of truth, we
are assured that the patriot Tell never existed! Posterity! the word has
gulled men enough without my adding to the number. I, who loathe the
living, can scarcely venerate the unborn. Lucy, believe me that no man
can mix largely with men in political life, and not despise everything
that in youth he adored! Age leaves us only one feeling,--contempt!"
"Are you belied, then?" said Lucy, pointing to a newspaper, the organ of
the party opposed to Brandon: "are you belied when you are here called
'ambitious'? When they call you 'selfish' and 'grasping,' I know they
wrong you; but I confess that I have thought you ambitious; yet can he
who despises men desire their good opinion?"
"Their good opinion!" repeated Brandon, mockingly: "do we want the bray
of the asses we ride? No!" he resumed, after a pause. "It is power, not
honour; it is the hope of elevating oneself in every respect, in the
world without as well as in the world of one's own mind: it is this hope
which makes me labour where I might rest, and will continue the labour to
my grave. Lucy," continued Brandon, fixing his keen eyes on his niece,
"have you no ambition,--have power and pomp and place no charm for your
mind?"
"None!" said Lucy, quietly and simply.
"Indeed! yet there are times when I have thought I recognized my blood in
your veins. You are sprung from a once noble, but a fallen race. Are
you ever susceptible to the weakness of ancestral pride?"
"You say," answered Lucy, "that we should care not for those who live
after us; much less, I imagine, should we care for those who have lived
ages before!"
"Prettily answered," said Brandon, smiling. "I will tell you at one time
or another what effect that weakness you despise already once had, long
after your age, upon me. You are early wise on some points; profit by my
experience, and be so on all."
"That is to say, in despising all men and all things!" said Lucy, also
smiling.
"Well, never mind my creed,--you may be wise after your own; but trust
one, dearest Lucy, who loves you purely and disinterestedly, and who has
weighed with scales balanced to a hair all the advantages to be gleaned
from an earth in which I verily think the harvest was gathered before we
were put into it,--trust me, Lucy, and never think love, that maiden's
dream, so valuable as rank and power: pause well before you yield to the
former; accept the latter the moment they are offered you. Love puts you
at the feet of another, and that other a tyrant; rank puts others at your
feet, and all those thus subjected are your slaves!"
Lucy moved her chair so that the new position concealed her face, and did
not answer; and Brandon, in an altered tone, continued,--
"Would you think, Lucy, that I once was fool enough to imagine that love
was a blessing, and to be eagerly sought for? I gave up my hopes, my
chances of wealth, of distinction,--all that had burned from the years of
boyhood into my very heart. I chose poverty, obscurity, humiliation; but
I chose also love. What was my reward? Lucy Brandon, I was deceived,--
deceived!"
Brandon paused; and Lucy took his hand affectionately, but did not break
the silence. Brandon resumed:--
"Yes, I was deceived! But I in my turn had a revenge, and a fitting
revenge; for it was not the revenge of hatred, but" (and the speaker
laughed sardonically) "of contempt. Enough of this, Lucy! What I wished
to say to you is this,--grown men and women know more of the truth of
things than ye young persons think for. Love is a mere bauble, and no
human being ever exchanged for it one solid advantage without repentance.
Believe this; and if rank ever puts itself under those pretty feet, be
sure not to spurn the footstool."
So saying, with a slight laugh, Brandon lighted his chamber candle, and
left the room for the night.
As soon as the lawyer reached his own apartment, he indited to Lord
Mauleverer the following epistle:
"Why, dear Mauleverer, do you not come to town? I want you, your
party wants you; perhaps the K--g wants you; and certainly, if you
are serious about my niece, the care of your own love-suit should
induce you yourself to want to come hither. I have paved the way
for you; and I think, with a little management, you may anticipate a
speedy success. But Lucy is a strange girl; and, perhaps, after
all, though you ought to be on the spot, you had better leave her as
much as possible in my hands. I know human nature, Mauleverer, and
that knowledge is the engine by which I will work your triumph. As
for the young lover, I am not quite sure whether it be not better
for our sake that Lucy should have experienced a disappointment on
that score; for when a woman has once loved, and the love is utterly
hopeless, she puts all vague ideas of other lovers altogether out of
her head; she becomes contented with a husband whom she can esteem!
Sweet canter! But you, Mauleverer, want Lucy to love you! And so
she will--after you have married her! She will love you partly from
the advantages she derives from you, partly from familiarity (to say
nothing of your good qualities). For my part, I think domesticity
goes so far that I believe a woman always inclined to be
affectionate to a man whom she has once seen in his nightcap.
However, you should come to town; my poor brother's recent death
allows us to see no one,--the coast will be clear from rivals; grief
has softened my niece's heart; in a word, you could not have a
better opportunity. Come!
"By the way, you say one of the reasons which made you think ill of
this Captain Clifford was your impression that in the figure of one
of his comrades you recognized something that appeared to you to
resemble one of the fellows who robbed you a few months ago. I
understand that at this moment the police are in active pursuit of
three most accomplished robbers; nor should I be at all surprised if
in this very Clifford were to be found the leader of the gang,
namely, the notorious Lovett. I hear that the said leader is a
clever and a handsome fellow, of a gentlemanlike address, and that
his general associates are two men of the exact stamp of the
worthies you have so amusingly described to me. I heard this
yesterday from Nabbem, the police-officer with whom I once scraped
acquaintance on a trial; and in my grudge against your rival, I
hinted at my suspicion that he, Captain Clifford, might not
impossibly prove this Rinaldo Rinaldini of the roads. Nabbem caught
at my hint at once; so that, if it be founded on a true guess, I may
flatter my conscience as well as my friendship by the hope that I
have had some hand in hanging this Adonis of my niece's. Whether my
guess be true or not, Nabbem says he is sure of this Lovett; for one
of his gang has promised to betray him. Hang these aspiring dogs!
I thought treachery was confined to politics; and that thought makes
me turn to public matters, in which all people are turning with the
most edifying celerity. . . ."
Sir William Brandon's epistle found Mauleverer in a fitting mood for Lucy
and for London. Our worthy peer had been not a little chagrined by
Lucy's sudden departure from Bath; and while in doubt whether or not to
follow her, the papers had informed him of the squire's death.
Mauleverer, being then fully aware of the impossibility of immediately
urging his suit, endeavoured, like the true philosopher he was, to
reconcile himself to his hope deferred. Few people were more easily
susceptible of consolation than Lord Mauleverer. He found an agreeable
lady, of a face more unfaded than her reputation, to whom he intrusted
the care of relieving his leisure moments from ennui; and being a lively
woman, the confidante discharged the trust with great satisfaction to
Lord Mauleverer, for the space of a fortnight, so that he naturally began
to feel his love for Lucy gradually wearing away, by absence and other
ties; but just as the triumph of time over passion was growing decisive,
the lady left Bath in company with a tall guardsman, and Mauleverer
received Brandon's letter. These two events recalled our excellent lover
to a sense of his allegiance; and there being now at Bath no particular
attraction to counterbalance the ardour of his affection, Lord Mauleverer
ordered the horses to his carriage, and attended only by his valet, set
out for London.
Nothing, perhaps, could convey a better portrait of the world's spoiled
darling than a sight of Lord Mauleverer's thin, fastidious features,
peering forth through the closed window of his luxurious travelling-
chariot; the rest of the outer man being carefully enveloped in furs,
half-a-dozen novels strewing the seat of the carriage, and a lean French
dog, exceedingly like its master, sniffing in vain for the fresh air,
which, to the imagination of Mauleverer, was peopled with all sorts of
asthmas and catarrhs! Mauleverer got out of his carriage at Salisbury,
to stretch his limbs, and to amuse himself with a cutlet. Our nobleman
was well known on the roads; and as nobody could be more affable, he was
equally popular. The officious landlord bustled into the room, to wait
himself upon his lordship and to tell all the news of the place.
"Well, Mr. Cheerly," said Mauleverer, bestowing a penetrating glance on
his cutlet, "the bad times, I see, have not ruined your cook."
"Indeed, my lord, your lordship is very good, and the times, indeed, are
very bad,--very bad indeed. Is there enough gravy? Perhaps your
lordship will try the pickled onions?"
"The what? Onions!--oh! ah! nothing can be better; but I never touch
them. So, are the roads good?"
"Your lordship has, I hope, found them good to Salisbury?"
"Ah! I believe so. Oh! to be sure, excellent to Salisbury. But how
are they to London? We have had wet weather lately, I think!"
"No, my lord. Here the weather has been dry as a bone."
"Or a cutlet!" muttered Mauleverer; and the host continued,--
"As for the roads themselves, my lord, so far as the roads are concerned,
they are pretty good, my lord; but I can't say as how there is not
something about them that might be mended."
"By no means improbable! You mean the inns and the turnpikes?" rejoined
Mauleverer.
"Your lordship is pleased to be facetious; no! I meant something worse
than them."
"What! the cooks?"
"No, my lord, the highwaymen!"
"The highwaymen! indeed?" said Mauleverer, anxiously; for he had with him
a case of diamonds, which at that time were on grand occasions often the
ornaments of a gentleman's dress, in the shape of buttons, buckles, etc.
He had also a tolerably large sum of ready money about him,--a blessing
he had lately begun to find very rare. "By the way, the rascals robbed
me before on this very road. My pistols shall be loaded this time. Mr.
Cheerly, you had better order the horses; one may as well escape the
nightfall."
"Certainly, my lord, certainly.--Jem, the horses immediately!--Your
lordship will have another cutlet?"
"Not a morsel!"
"A tart?"
"A dev--! not for the world!"
"Bring the cheese, John!"
"Much obliged to you, Mr. Cheerly, but I have dined; and if I have not
done justice to your good cheer, thank yourself and the highwaymen.
Where do these highwaymen attack one?"
"Why, my lord, the neighbourhood of Reading is, I believe, the worst
part; but they are very troublesome all the way to Salthill."
"Damnation! the very neighbourhood in which the knaves robbed me before!
You may well call them troublesome! Why the deuce don't the police clear
the country of such a movable species of trouble?"
"Indeed, my lord, I don't know; but they say as how Captain Lovett, the
famous robber, be one of the set; and nobody can catch him, I fear!"
"Because, I suppose, the dog has the sense to bribe as well as bully.
What is the general number of these ruffians?"
"Why, my lord, sometimes one, sometimes two, but seldom more than three."
Mauleverer drew himself up. "My dear diamonds and my pretty purse!"
thought he; "I may save you yet!"
"Have you been long plagued with the fellows?" he asked, after a pause,
as he was paying his bill.
"Why, my lord, we have and we have not. I fancy as how they have a sort
of a haunt near Reading, for sometimes they are intolerable just about
there, and sometimes they are quiet for months together! For instance,
my lord, we thought them all gone some time ago; but lately they have
regularly stopped every one, though I hear as how they have cleared no
great booty as yet."
Here the waiter announced the horses, and Mauleverer slowly re-entered
his carriage, among the bows and smiles of the charmed spirits of the
hostelry.
During the daylight Mauleverer, who was naturally of a gallant and
fearless temper, thought no more of the highwaymen,--a species of danger
so common at that time that men almost considered it disgraceful to
suffer the dread of it to be a cause of delay on the road. Travellers
seldom deemed it best to lose time in order to save money; and they
carried with them a stout heart and a brace of pistols, instead of
sleeping all night on the road. Mauleverer, rather a _preux chevalier_,
was precisely of this order of wayfarers; and a night at an inn, when it
was possible to avoid it, was to him, as to most rich Englishmen, a
tedious torture zealously to be shunned. It never, therefore, entered
into the head of our excellent nobleman, despite his experience, that his
diamonds and his purse might be saved from all danger if he would consent
to deposit them, with his own person, at some place of hospitable
reception; nor, indeed, was it till he was within a stage of Reading, and
the twilight had entirely closed in, that he troubled his head much on
the matter. But while the horses were putting to, he summoned the
postboys to him; and after regarding their countenances with the eye
of a man accustomed to read physiognomies, he thus eloquently addressed
them,--
"Gentlemen, I am informed that there is some danger of being robbed
between this town and Salthill. Now, I beg to inform you that I think it
next to impossible for four horses, properly directed, to be stopped by
less than four men. To that number I shall probably yield; to a less
number I shall most assuredly give nothing but bullets. You understand
me?"
The post-boys grinned, touched their hats; and Mauleverer slowly
continued,--
"If, therefore,--mark me!--one, two, or three men stop your horses, and I
find that the use of your whips and spurs are ineffectual in releasing
the animals from the hold of the robbers, I intend with these pistols--
you observe them!---to shoot at the gentlemen who detain you; but as,
though I am generally a dead shot, my eyesight wavers a little in the
dark, I think it very possible that I may have the misfortune to shoot
you, gentlemen, instead of the robbers! You see the rascals will be
close by you, sufficiently so to put you in jeopardy, unless indeed you
knock them down with the but-end of your whips. I merely mention this,
that you may be prepared. Should such a mistake occur, you need not be
uneasy beforehand, for I will take every possible care of your widows;
should it not, and should we reach Salthill in safety, I intend to
testify my sense of the excellence of your driving by a present of ten
guineas apiece! Gentlemen, I have done with you. I give you my honour
that I am serious in what I have said to you. Do me the favour to
mount."
Mauleverer then called his favourite servant, who sat in the dickey in
front (rumble-tumbles not being then in use). "Smoothson," said he, "the
last time we were attacked on this very road, you behaved damnably. See
that you do better this time, or it may be the worse for you. You have
pistols to-night about you, eh? Well, that's right! And you are sure
they're loaded? Very well! Now, then, if we are stopped, don't lose a
moment. Jump down, and fire one of your pistols at the first robber.
Keep the other for a sure aim. One shot is to intimidate, the second to
slay. You comprehend? My pistols are in excellent order, I suppose.
Lend me the ramrod. So, so! No trick this time!"
"They would kill a fly, my lord, provided your lordship fired straight
upon it."
"I do not doubt you," said Mauleverer; "light the lanterns, and tell the
postboys to drive on."
It was a frosty and tolerably clear night. The dusk of the twilight had
melted away beneath the moon which had just risen, and the hoary rime
glittered from the bushes and the sward, breaking into a thousand
diamonds as it caught the rays of the stars. On went the horses briskly,
their breath steaming against the fresh air, and their hoofs sounding
cheerily on the hard ground. The rapid motion of the carriage, the
bracing coolness of the night, and the excitement occasioned by anxiety
and the forethought of danger, all conspired to stir the languid blood of
Lord Mauleverer into a vigorous and exhilarated sensation, natural in
youth to his character, but utterly contrary to the nature he had imbibed
from the customs of his manhood.
He felt his pistols, and his hands trembled a little as he did so,--not
the least from fear, but from that restlessness and eagerness peculiar to
nervous persons placed in a new situation.
"In this country," said he to himself, "I have been only once robbed in
the course of my life. It was then a little my fault; for before I took
to my pistols, I should have been certain they were loaded. To-night I
shall be sure to avoid a similar blunder; and my pistols have an
eloquence in their barrels which is exceedingly moving. Humph, another
milestone! These fellows drive well; but we are entering a pretty-
looking spot for Messieurs the disciples of Robin Hood!"
It was, indeed, a picturesque spot by which the carriage was now rapidly
whirling. A few miles from Maidenhead, on the Henley Road, our readers
will probably remember a small tract of forest-like land, lying on either
side of the road. To the left the green waste bears away among the trees
and bushes; and one skilled in the country may pass from that spot,
through a landscape as little tenanted as green Sherwood was formerly,
into the chains of wild common and deep beech-woods which border a
certain portion of Oxfordshire, and contrast so beautifully the general
characteristics of that county.
At the time we speak of, the country was even far wilder than it is now;
and just on that point where the Henley and the Reading roads unite was a
spot (communicating then with the waste land we have described), than
which, perhaps, few places could be more adapted to the purposes of such
true men as have recourse to the primary law of nature. Certain it was
that at this part of the road Mauleverer looked more anxiously from his
window than he had hitherto done, and apparently the increased
earnestness of his survey was not altogether without meeting its reward.
About a hundred yards to the left, three dark objects were just
discernible in the shade; a moment more, and the objects emerging grew
into the forms of three men, well mounted, and riding at a brisk trot.
"Only three!" thought Mauleverer, "that is well;" and leaning from the
front window with a pistol in either hand, Mauleverer cried out to the
postboys in a stern tone, "Drive on, and recollect what I told you!--
Remember!" he added to his servant. The postboys scarcely looked round;
but their spurs were buried in their horses, and the animals flew on like
lightning.
The three strangers made a halt, as if in conference; their decision was
prompt. Two wheeled round from their comrade, and darted at full gallop
by the carriage. Mauleverer's pistol was already protruded from the
front window, when to his astonishment, and to the utter baffling of his
ingenious admonition to his drivers, he beheld the two postboys knocked
from their horses one after the other with a celerity that scarcely
allowed him an exclamation; and before he had recovered his self-
possession, the horses taking fright (and their fright being skilfully
taken advantage of by the highwaymen), the carriage was fairly whirled
into a ditch on the right side of the road, and upset. Meanwhile
Smoothson had leaped from his station in the front; and having fired,
though without effect, at the third robber, who approached menacingly
towards him, he gained the time to open the carriage door and extricate
his master.
The moment Mauleverer found himself on terra firma, he prepared his
courage for offensive measures; and he and Smoothson, standing side by
side in front of the unfortunate vehicle, presented no unformidable
aspect to the enemy. The two robbers who had so decisively rid
themselves of the postboys acted with no less determination towards the
horses. One of them dismounted, cut the traces, and suffered the
plunging quadrupeds to go whither they listed. This measure was not,
however, allowed to be taken with impunity; a ball from Mauleverer's
pistol passed through the hat of the highwayman with an aim so slightly
erring that it whizzed among the locks of the astounded hero with a sound
that sent a terror to his heart, no less from a love of his head than
from anxiety for his hair. The shock staggered him for a moment; and a
second shot from the hands of Mauleverer would have probably finished his
earthly career, had not the third robber, who had hitherto remained
almost inactive, thrown himself from his horse, which, tutored to such
docility, remained perfectly still, and advancing with a bold step and a
levelled pistol towards Mauleverer and his servant, said in a resolute
voice, "Gentlemen, it is useless to struggle; we are well armed, and
resolved on effecting our purpose. Your persons shall be safe if you lay
down your arms, and also such part of your property as you may
particularly wish to retain; but if you resist, I cannot answer for your
lives!"
Mauleverer had listened patiently to this speech in order that he might
have more time for adjusting his aim. His reply was a bullet, which
grazed the side of the speaker and tore away the skin, without inflicting
any more dangerous wound. Muttering a curse upon the error of his aim,
and resolute to the last when his blood was once up, Mauleverer backed
one pace, drew his sword, and threw himself into the attitude of a
champion well skilled in the use of the instrument he wore.
But that incomparable personage was in a fair way of ascertaining what
happiness in the world to come is reserved for a man who has spared no
pains to make himself comfortable in this. For the two first and most
active robbers having finished the achievement of the horses, now
approached Mauleverer; and the taller of them, still indignant at the
late peril to his hair, cried out in a stentorian voice,--
"By Jove! you old fool, if you don't throw down your toasting-fork, I'll
be the death of you!"
The speaker suited the action to the word by cocking an immense pistol.
Mauleverer stood his ground; but Smoothson retreated, and stumbling
against the wheel of the carriage, fell backward; the next instant, the
second highwayman had possessed himself of the valet's pistols, and,
quietly seated on the fallen man's stomach, amused himself by inspecting
the contents of the domestic's pockets. Mauleverer was now alone; and
his stubbornness so enraged the tall bully that his hand was already on
his trigger, when the third robber, whose side Mauleverer's bullet had
grazed, thrust himself between the two.
"Hold, Ned!" said he, pushing back his comrade's pistol. "And you, my
lord, whose rashness ought to cost you your life, learn that men can rob
generously." So saying, with one dexterous stroke from the robber's
riding-whip, Mauleverer's sword flew upwards, and alighted at the
distance of ten yards from its owner.
"Approach now," said the victor to his comrades. "Rifle the carriage,
and with all despatch!"
The tall highwayman hastened to execute this order; and the lesser one
having satisfactorily finished the inquisition into Mr. Smoothson's
pockets, drew forth from his own pouch a tolerably thick rope; with this
he tied the hands of the prostrate valet, moralizing as he wound the rope
round and round the wrists of the fallen man, in the following edifying
strain:--
"Lie still, sir,--lie still, I beseech you! All wise men are fatalists;
and no proverb is more pithy than that which says, 'What can't be cured
must be endured.' Lie still, I tell you! Little, perhaps, do you think
that you are performing one of the noblest functions of humanity; yes,
sir, you are filling the pockets of the destitute; and by my present
action I am securing you from any weakness of the flesh likely to impede
so praiseworthy an end, and so hazard the excellence of your action.
There, sir, your hands are tight,--lie still and reflect."
As he said this, with three gentle applications of his feet, the moralist
rolled Mr. Smoothson into the ditch, and hastened to join his lengthy
comrade in his pleasing occupation.
In the interim Mauleverer and the third robber (who, in the true spirit
of government, remained dignified and inactive while his followers
plundered what he certainly designed to share, if not to monopolize)
stood within a few feet of each other, face to face.
Mauleverer had now convinced himself that all endeavour to save his
property was hopeless, and he had also the consolation of thinking he had
done his best to defend it. He therefore bade all his thoughts return to
the care of his person. He adjusted his fur collar around his neck with
great sang froid, drew on his gloves, and, patting his terrified poodle,
who sat shivering on its haunches with one paw raised and nervously
trembling, he said,--
"You, sir, seem to be a civil person, and I really should have felt quite
sorry if I had had the misfortune to wound you. You are not hurt, I
trust. Pray, if I may inquire, how am I to proceed? My carriage is in
the ditch, and my horses by this time are probably at the end of the
world."
"As for that matter," said the robber, whose face, like those of his
comrades, was closely masked in the approved fashion of highwaymen of
that day, "I believe you will have to walk to Maidenhead,--it is not far,
and the night is fine!"
"A very trifling hardship, indeed!" said Mauleverer, ironically; but his
new acquaintance made no reply, nor did he appear at all desirous of
entering into any further conversation with Mauleverer.
The earl, therefore, after watching the operations of the other robbers
for some moments, turned on his heel, and remained humming an opera tune
with dignified indifference until the pair had finished rifling the
carriage, and seizing Mauleverer, proceeded to rifle him.
With a curled lip and a raised brow, that supreme personage suffered
himself to be, as the taller robber expressed it, "cleaned out." His
watch, his rings, his purse, and his snuff-box, all went. It was long
since the rascals had captured such a booty.
They had scarcely finished when the postboys, who had now begun to look
about them, uttered a simultaneous cry, and at some distance a wagon was
seen heavily approaching. Mauleverer really wanted his money, to say
nothing of his diamonds; and so soon as he perceived assistance at hand,
a new hope darted within him. His sword still lay on the ground; he
sprang towards it, seized it, uttered a shout for help, and threw himself
fiercely on the highwayman who had disarmed him; but the robber, warding
off the blade with his whip, retreated to his saddle, which he managed,
despite of Mauleverer's lunges, to regain with impunity.
The other two had already mounted, and within a minute afterwards not a
vestige of the trio was visible. "This is what may fairly be called
single blessedness!" said Mauleverer, as, dropping his useless sword, he
thrust his hands into his pockets.
Leaving our peerless peer to find his way to Maidenhead on foot,
accompanied (to say nothing of the poodle) by one wagoner, two postboys,
and the released Mr. Smoothson, all four charming him with their
condolences, we follow with our story the steps of the three _alieni
appetentes_.
