‘I am going to take your mistress down to my sister in Hampshire. I shall want the mare for her, but I’ll throw her up before me on the roan until we’re out of sight. We stop as soon as possible to mount her, and I fear me, John, you will have to walk back to Richmond. You’ll tell Mr Robin what I’ve done, and get him out of the place as soon as may be. Let him know I have his sister safe, and be urgent with him to fly.’ He paused; John nodded. ‘As to my chaise: – You’ll send it on to my Lady Enderby’s. I’d best give you a note for my man.’ Out came tablets: Sir Anthony scrawled a few lines, and gave them to John. ‘You are to be understood to have carried a message to me. Naturally I don’t stay with my Lady Lowestoft when Mr Merriot is not there to play host. I’ve told my man that I may break my journey at the house of a friend, a little out of the way, so there will be naught to wonder at when I don’t join my chaise at the stage to-night. It’s clear?’
‘Ay, sir.’ John bestowed grudging praise. ‘You’ve a fine head on your shoulders, sir.’
‘I don’t aspire to my Lord Barham’s genius, but I believe I have my wits. As for your mistress – why, you may trust her to me. If she has woman’s clothes with her bring them to Dartrey in Hampshire as soon as may be. She’s done with this masquerade.’
‘H’m!’ said John. ‘Mistress Prue has a will of her own, sir, I’d make bold to tell you.’
‘I know it full well, my man. But I too have a will.’
John did not doubt this: the large gentleman looked as though he would carry all before him. Well, it was a man worthy of Miss Prudence, and certain, she would come to no harm while she was in his charge. John said no more, but sat still under the trees, awaiting the coming of the coach.
There was not long to wait. The clip-clop of the horses plodding stolidly along was heard, and the creak and rumble of the coach. Came a scrape of steel beside John: Sir Anthony’s sword was out, and Sir Anthony’s hand was tight on the bridle. John took a good grip on his cudgel, and awaited the word of command.
‘Take them in a charge,’ Sir Anthony said, and pulled the muffler up over his mouth.
The coach rounded the bend in the road; Sir Anthony drove in his heels hard, and the big roan bounded forward, snorting indignantly. The mare, fidgeting all this time, needed no spur to follow suit; together the two horsemen came thundering down upon the staid equipage journeying so placidly along.
John followed the large gentleman’s lead as best he might, but he had to admit he lacked that consummate horsemanship. Ahead of the chestnut mare a few paces Sir Anthony came down the centre of the road in a cloud of dust. It seemed as though he must crash full into the horses drawing the coach. So at least the coachman thought. This unfortunate individual had a sudden vision of two horsemen bearing down upon him at a mad, runaway pace, and instinctively dragged his own startled horses up, and tried to get to the side of the road. On and on came the first horseman, nearer, and perilously nearer. Then, even as the frightened men on the box thought collision inevitable, the roan, held so far on a straight course by an iron hand and an insistent knee, swerved off to the right, and was forced back almost upon his haunches, and held rigidly.
The coach horses were plunging in fright; the coachman had all he could do to hold them. Seeing Sir Anthony swing to the right of the coach, John, all the time on his heels, wrenched the mare to the left. Sir Anthony’s sword flourished horribly near the men on the box; instinctively the one nearest to it shrank from it, throwing himself sideways against his companion, who lurched, still pulling at his reins, towards John.
The vicious tug brought one of the horses up on its hind legs; confusion reigned between the traces; John brought the nervous mare in close, rose in his stirrups, and struck hard and true. The coachman crumpled where he sat, and came sliding to the floor of the box; his companion caught desperately at the loose rein as the horses plunged forward. The animal that had reared up became entangled in one of the traces, and the confusion was complete.
Inside the coach Prudence’s two gaolers were taken entirely by surprise. Such an unheard of thing as an attack on a vehicle of the Law, in daylight, and only a few miles out of town did not occur to them as a reason for this sudden stop and commotion.
The apologetic man opposite Prudence, who had abstained carefully from looking at her till now, brought his eyes round to her, and said with inspiration: ‘Ah! We’ve gone over a pig. That’ll be it.’
Prudence said nothing at all, but her hand slid to that innocent-looking cane beside her, and closed round its head. She still leaned back in her corner, and there was nothing either in her pose or in her expression to tell her captors that every nerve and muscle in her body was taut and ready.
‘That’s no pig, Matthew!’ said the leader of the two. ‘We’ve run into another coach belike.’ He got up
as he spoke, and let down the window. Even as he thrust his head out a great roan horse seemed to spring up from nowhere, and a huge man astride it bent in the saddle and wrenched open the coach door. The result was inevitable. The officer of the Law lost his balance, caught at the door frame to save himself, and received a blow from Mr Merriot which sent him sprawling head foremost down on to the road.
No sooner had she caught a glimpse of the large figure astride the roan than all Prudence’s air of languor left her. The sword was out of the stick in a flash, and the carved handle caught the chief officer shrewdly between the shoulders. She did not pause to see what befell this unfortunate; she had given him all that was needed to send him tumbling out of the coach. She had one foot on the floor of the coach, and one knee on the seat, and swooped round upon poor Matthew almost before his companion’s misfortunes had reached his intelligence. He gasped out ‘Lordy, Lordy!’ and clapped a hand to his pocket. And there it stayed, for as he turned his head to face his prisoner he found the point of a peculiarly murderous-looking sword about an inch from his nose. Mr Merriot’s arm was drawn back in readiness to thrust; Mr Merriot’s grey eyes were fixed on him with an expression in them which made Mr Matthew goggle with dismay.
‘Put your hands up! Quick, or I thrust home through your gullet,’ said Prudence tersely.
The apologetic gentleman had never had such an experience in all his life. His arrests had never been interfered with in this unpleasant fashion, and he did not know what to do. There was a pistol in his pocket, but his hand had not reached it, and with that sword-point so close he had no intention of groping further for it.
The point touched his throat. ‘Hands up!’ Prudence said, and made as if to shorten her arm for the thrust.
Matthew’s hands were raised in shaking haste; Matthew’s eyes were riveted to Mr Merriot’s face, and Matthew’s lips formed the words: ‘Don’t now, sir! don’t. It’s – it’s a hanging matter, and there was no offence meant to your worship. It was all dooty, sir!’
Sir Anthony’s great bulk blocked the door as he sprang lightly up into the coach. He was a fearsome figure, with the muffler concealing the lower half of his face, his hat drawn over his eyes, and the heavy cloak making him to look even larger than he really was. Matthew began to tremble violently, and rolled a beseeching eye from him to Prudence.
‘Right pocket. A pistol,’ Prudence said, still holding the sword to Matthew’s throat.
There was a deep low laugh, which sounded like a death-knell to poor Matthew; the gigantic newcomer bent and slipped a hand into the pocket indicated. The pistol was soon stowed away in that voluminous greatcoat; to Matthew’s relief the sword point was slightly withdrawn.
Sir Anthony’s voice was full of amusement. ‘Now, fellow, I’m afraid we must truss you up a little,’ he said. ‘Your muffler’s the very thing.’ The shapely hand divested Matthew of his muffler and neckcloth without ceremony. He offered no resistance. He was twisted round, and in a trice his wrists were bound tightly behind his back with his own neckcloth, and Mr Merriot was winding the muffler round his ankles in a most efficient manner. He was dumped down upon the back seat, and the next moment both the giant and Mr Merriot had jumped down from the coach.
Prudence pushed the sword back into its stick and looked round wonderingly. The chief gaoler was lying bound at the side of the road; the coachman was groaning and swearing on the floor of the box, as he came to his senses; his mate was clinging desperately to the reins, with a noble attention to duty, and trying, unsuccessfully, to keep one eye on his horses and the other on John, who sat astride the mare, the roan’s rein in his bridle hand, and a pistol in the other. The coach-horses appeared to be hopelessly entangled in the traces, and the coachman, by the looks of it, would be unable to do anything but hold his head for some time to come.
Sir Anthony hoisted his second captive into the coach and shut the door on him. Under the brim of his hat his eyes were dancing. The one unhurt and unbound man would have his hands full with the frightened horses for quite a considerable time.
Sir Anthony moved to the roan’s side, and swung himself up, taking the bridle from John. He gathered it up short in his left hand, and reached down his right to Prudence. ‘Put your foot on mine,’ he said, ‘and up with you!’
She flung her coat up first, sent her sword-stick spinning into the ditch, and stretched up her hand to clasp Sir Anthony’s. She came neatly up into the saddle before him, and got her leg over without fuss. A strong arm girdled her about, and the roan, stamping and sidling, was given his head. In a few minutes they were in the spinney, trotting briskly through, then out in the open fields, with the road lost to sight.