The Broad Highway | Page 9

lad!" retorted he whom they called Joel, redder in the face than ever.
"Ay, that ye must!" chorused the others.
"I only axed 'wot an' wheer."
"Only axed, did ye?" repeated Joel scornfully,
"Ah," nodded the other, "that's all."
"But you're always a-axin', you are," said Joel gloomily.
"W'ich I notice," retorted the man Tom, blowing into his tankard, "w'ich I notice as you ain't never over-fond o' answerin'."
"Oh!--I ain't, ain't I?"
"No, you ain't," repeated Tom, "nohow."
Here the red-faced man grew so very red indeed that the others fell to coughing, all together, and shuffling their feet and giving divers other evidences of their embarrassment, all save the unimpressionable Tom.
Seizing the occasion that now presented itself, I knocked loudly upon the floor with my stick, whereupon the red-faced man, removing his eyes slowly and by degrees from the unconcerned Tom, fixed them darkly upon me.
"Supposing," said I, "supposing you are so very obliging as to serve me with a pint of ale?"
"Then supposin' you show me the color o' your money?" he growled, "come, money fust; I aren't takin' no more risks."
For answer I laid the coins before him. And having pocketed the money, he filled and thrust a foaming tankard towards me, which I emptied forthwith and called upon him for another.
"Wheer's your money?"
"Here," said I, tossing a sixpence to him, "and you can keep the change."
"Why, ye see, sir," he began, somewhat mollified, "it be precious 'ard to know who's a gentleman, an' who ain't; who's a thief, an' who ain't these days."
"How so?"
"Why, only a little while ago--just afore you--chap comes a-walkin' in 'ere, no account much to look at, but very 'aughty for all that--comes a-walkin in 'ere 'e do an' calls for a pint o' ale--you 'eard 'im, all on ye?" He broke off, turning to the others; "you all 'eard 'im call for a pint o' ale?"
"Ah--we 'eard 'im," they nodded.
"Comes a-walkin' in 'ere 'e do, bold as brass--calls for a pint o' ale--drinks it off, an'--'ands me 'is 'at; you all seen 'im 'and me 'is 'at?" he inquired, once more addressing the others.
"Every man of us," the four chimed in with four individual nods.
"'Wot's this 'ere?' says I, turnin' it over. 'It's a 'at, or once was,' says 'e. 'Well, I don't want it,' says I. 'Since you've got it you'd better keep it,' says 'e. 'Wot for?' says I? 'Why,' says 'e, 'it's only fair seein' I've got your ale--it's a case of exchange,' says 'e. 'Oh! is it?' says I, an' pitched the thing out into the road an' 'im arter it--an' so it ended. An' wot," said the red-faced man nodding his big head at me, "wot d'ye think o' that now?"
"Why, I think you were perhaps a trifle hasty," said I.
"Oh, ye do, do ye?"
"Yes," I nodded.
"An' for why?"
"Well, you will probably remember that the hat had a band round it--"
"Ay, all wore away it were too--"
"And that in the band was a buckle--"
"Ay, all scratched an' rusty it were--well?"
"Well, that tarnished buckle was of silver--"
"Silver!" gasped the man, his jaw falling.
"And easily worth five shillings, perhaps more, so that I think you were, upon the whole, rather hasty." Saying which, I finished my ale and, taking up my staff, stepped out into the sunshine.
CHAPTER IV
I MEET WITH A GREAT MISFORTUNE
That day I passed through several villages, stopping only to eat and drink; thus evening was falling as, having left fair Sevenoaks behind, I came to the brow of a certain hill, a long and very steep descent which (I think) is called the River Hill. And here, rising stark against the evening sky, was a gibbet, and standing beneath it a man, a short, square man in a somewhat shabby coat of a bottle-green, and with a wide-brimmed beaver hat sloped down over his eyes, who stood with his feet well apart, sucking the knob of a stick he carried, while he stared up at that which dangled by a stout chain from the cross-beam of the gibbet,--something black and shrivelled and horrible that had once been human.
As I came up, the man drew the stick from his mouth and touched the brim of his hat with it in salutation.
"An object lesson, sir," said he, and nodded towards the loathsome mass above.
"A very hideous one!" said I, pausing, "and I think a very useless one."
"He was as fine a fellow as ever thrust toe into stirrup," the man went on, pointing upwards with his stick, "though you'd never think so to look at him now!"
"It's a horrible sight!" said I.
"It is," nodded the man, "it's a sight to turn a man's stomach, that it is!"
"You knew him perhaps?" said I.
"Knew him," repeated the man, staring at me over his shoulder, "knew him--ah--that is, I knew of him."
"A highwayman?"
"Nick Scrope his name was," answered