Beau Brocade | Page 9

heard him laughing, at the red coats, maybe.
Nay! my lord, I beg you have no fear, your letter is in her ladyship's
hand now, I'll lay my life on that."
"I had to trust someone, my lord," he said after awhile, as Lord Stretton
once more relapsed into moody silence. "I could do nothing for your
lordship single-handed, and you wanted that letter to reach her ladyship.
I scarce knew what to do. But I did know I could trust Beau Brocade,
and your secret is as safe with him as it is with me."
Philip sighed wearily.
"Ah, well! I'll believe it all, friend John. I'll trust you and your friend,
and be grateful to you both: have no fear of that! Who am I but a
wretched creature, whom any rascal may shoot by Act of Parliament."
But John Stich had come to the end of his power of argument. Never a
man of many words, he had only become voluble when speaking of his
friend. Philip tried to look cheerful and convinced, but he was chafing
under this enforced inactivity and the dark, close atmosphere of the
forge.
He had spent two days under the smith's roof and time seemed to creep
with lead-weighted wings: yet every sound, every strange footstep,
made his nerves quiver with morbid apprehension, and even now, at
sound of a tremulous voice from the road, he shrank, moody and
impatient, into the darkest corner of the hut.
Chapter IV
Jock Miggs, the Shepherd
"Be ye at home, Master Stich?"

A curious, wizened little figure stood in the doorway peering cautiously
into the forge.
In a moment John Stich was on the alert.
"Sh!" he whispered quickly, "have no fear, my lord, 'tis only some fool
from the village."
"Did ye say ye baint at home, Master Stich?" queried the same
tremulous voice again. "I didn't quite hear ye."
"Yes, yes, I'm here all right, Jock Miggs," said the smith, heartily.
"Come in!"
Jock Miggs came in, making as little noise, and taking up as little room
as possible. Dressed in a well-worn smock and shabby corduroy
breeches, he had a curious shrunken, timid air about his whole
personality, as he removed his soft felt hat and began scratching his
scanty tow-colored locks: he was a youngish man too, probably not
much more than thirty, yet his brown face was a mass of ruts and
wrinkles like a furrowed path on Brassing Moor.
"Morning, Mr. Stich... morning," he said with a certain air of vagueness
and apology, as with obvious admiration he stopped to watch the broad
back of the smith and his strong arms wielding the heavy hammer.
"Morning, Miggs," retorted John, not looking up from his work, "how's
the old woman?"
"I dunno, Mr. Stich," replied Miggs, with a dubious shake of the head.
"Badly, I expec'... same as yesterday," he added in a more cheerful
spirit.
"Why! what's the matter?"
"I dunno, Mr. Stich, that there's anything the matter," explained Jock
Miggs with slow and sad deliberation, "but she's dead... same as
yesterday."

Involuntarily Philip laughed at the quaint fatalistic statement.
"Hello!" said Miggs, looking at him with the same apathetic wonder,
"who be yon lad?"
"That's my nephew Jim, out o' Nottingham," said John, "come to give
me a hand."
"Morning, lad," piped Miggs, in his high treble, as he extended a
wrinkled, bony hand to Stretton.
"Lud, John Stich," he exclaimed, "and one'd know he was one o' your
family from the muscle he's got."
And gently, meditatively, he rubbed one shriveled hand against the
other, looking with awe at the fine figure of a man before him.
"A banging lad your nephew too," he added with a chuckle; "he'll be
turning the heads of all the girls this side o' Brassington, maybe."
"Oh! I'll warrant he's got a sweetheart at home, eh, Jim lad?--or maybe
more than one. But what brings ye here this day, friend Miggs?"
The wizened little face assumed a puzzled expression.
"I dunno..." he said vaguely, "maybe I wanted to tell ye about the
soldiers I seed at the Royal George over Brassington way."
"What about 'em, Miggs?"
"I dunno...I see a corporal and lots of fellers in red... some say there's
more o' them...I dunno."
"Ha!" said Stich, carelessly. "What are they after?"
"I dunno," commented Miggs, imperturbably. "Some say they're after
that Chap Beau Brocade. There was a coach stopped on the Heath 'gain
last night. Fifty guineas he took out of it, he did..." And Jock Miggs
chuckled feebly with apparent but irresponsible delight. "Some folk say

it were Sir Humphrey Chanlloner's coach over from Hartington, and no
one's going to break their hearts over that! he! he! he!... but I dunno,"
he added with sudden frightened vagueness.
"Be they cavalry soldiers