The Brown Mask | Page 3

tell, some item to add to the accumulated glory of the road.
"Ay, it's a merry life," said the man who had had doubts about the bishop's company, "and the only drawback is that it comes to an end when you're at the top of your success. The dealers in blood-money never hunt a man down until he's worth his full price."
"And isn't that the best time to take the last ride?" exclaimed Gentleman Jack. "Who would choose to grow old and be forgotten? What should we do sitting stiffly in an armchair, wearing slippers because boots hurt our poor swollen feet? What should we be without a pair of legs strong enough to grip the saddle or with eyes too dim to recognise a pretty woman, lacking fire to fall in love, and with lips which had lost their zest for kissing?"
"But we come to that last ride before we lack anything--that's the trouble," was the answer.
"Not always," said another man. "Galloping Hermit was feared on all the roads before I had stopped my first coach, and he is still feared to-day." The speaker was young, and he mentioned the name of the notorious highwayman with a kind of reverence.
"They say he's the devil himself, and that's why he's never been taken," said another. "Did any of you ever see him?"
"Once." And they all turned quickly towards the man who spoke. "My mare had gone lame, and I had dismounted in a copse to examine her, when there was the quick, regular beat of hoofs at a gallop across the turf. I was alert on my own account in a moment, crouching down amongst the undergrowth, for with a lame animal I could have made but a poor show. There flashed past me a splendid horseman, man and beast one perfect piece of harmony. The moon was near the full. I saw the neat, strong lines of the horse, the easy movement of the rider, and I could see that the mask which the man wore was brown. This happened two years ago, out beyond Barnet."
"And without that brown mask no one knows him." said the man who had first spoken of him. "He has been met on all the roads, north, south, east and west--never in company, always alone. He never fails, yet the blood-feasters have watched for him in vain. Truly, he disappears as mysteriously as the devil might. He may go to Court. He may be a well-known figure there, gaming with the best, a favoured suitor where beauty smiles. He may even have been here amongst us at the 'Punch-Bowl' without our knowing it."
"It is not impossible," Gentleman Jack admitted, smiling a little at the others' enthusiasm.
"I envy him," was the answer. "We seem mean beside such a man as Galloping Hermit."
"I do not cry 'Yes' to that," said Gentleman Jack, just in time to prevent an outburst from the landlady, who appeared to fancy that the quality of her entertainment was being called in question. "The brown mask conceals a personality, no doubt, but before we can judge between man and man we must know something of their various opportunities. Were he careful and lucky, such a man as my bishop would be hard to run to earth. Galloping Hermit is careful, for only at considerable intervals do we hear of him. The road would seem to be a pastime with him, rather than a life he loved. For me, the night never comes that I do not long to be in the saddle, that I do not crave for the excitement, even if there be no spoil worth the trouble of taking. This man is different. He is only abroad when the quarry is certain. True, success has been his, but for all that the fear of Tyburn may spoil his rest at night, and when he gets there we may find that the brown mask conceals a coward after all."
"Had you seen him that night as I did you would not say so," was the answer.
"I like speech with a man before I judge his merits," said Gentleman Jack, rising from his chair and flicking some dust from his sleeve. He appeared to resent such slavish admiration of Galloping Hermit--perhaps because he felt that his own pre-eminence was challenged. It pleased him to think that his name must be in everyone's mouth, that his price in the crime-market must for months past have been higher than any other man's, and he was suddenly out of humour with the frequenters of the "Punch-Bowl." He threw a guinea to the landlady, told her to buy a keepsake with the change, and passed out with a careless nod, much as though he intended never to come back into such low company.
The landlady stood fingering the guinea,