"We'll find the shepherd there, think you?"
"Y ... y ... yes, your Honour!"
"Harkee, Master Mittachip. I'll run no risk. That d——d highwayman must be desperate to-night. We'll adhere to our original plan, and let the shepherd take the letters to Wirksworth."
"You ... you ... you'll not let them bide to-night where they are, Sir Humphrey?"
"No, you fool, I won't. They are but just below the surface, under cover of some bramble, and once those fellows come scouring round the hut, any one of them may unearth the letters with a kick of his boot. There's been a lot of talk of a reward for the recovery of a packet of letters! ... No, no, no! I'll not risk it."
Sir Humphrey Challoner had thought the matter well out, and knew that he ran two distinct risks in the matter of the letters. To one he had alluded just now when he spoke of the probability—remote perhaps—of the packet being accidentally unearthed by one of the scouring parties. Any man who found it would naturally at once take it to Squire West, in the hope of getting the reward promised by her ladyship for its recovery. The idea, therefore, of leaving the letters in their hiding-place for awhile did not commend itself to him. On the other hand, there was the more obvious risk of keeping them about his own person. Sir Humphrey thanked his stars that he had not done so the day before, and even now kept in his mind a certain superstitious belief that Beau Brocade—wounded, hunted and desperate—would make a final effort, which might prove successful, to wrench the letters from him on the Heath.
CHAPTER XXVII
JOCK MIGGS'S ERRAND
Master Mittachip had tried to utter one or two feeble protests, but Sir Humphrey had interrupted him emphatically,—
"The rascal may hope to win his pardon through the Gascoyne influence, by rendering her ladyship this service. Where'er he may be at this moment, I am quite sure that his eye is upon me and my doings."