A RENCONTRE ON THE HEATH
Master Mittachip, on his lean nag, with his clerk, Master Duffy, on the pillion behind him, was on his way to Brassington.
Sir Humphrey Challoner had not returned to the Moorhen after his visit to the forge until the sun was very low down in the west. He had bidden the attorney to await him at the inn, and Master Mittachip had not dared to disobey.
Yet the delay meant the crossing of the Heath along the bridle path to Brassington, well after the shadows of evening had lent the lonely Moor an air of awesome desolation. There were the footpads, and the pixies, the human and fairy midnight marauders, who all found the steep declivities, the clumps of gorse and bracken, the hollows and the pits, safe resting-places by day, but who were wont to emerge from their lair after dark for the terror and better undoing of the unfortunate, belated traveller.
Then there was Beau Brocade!
Master Duffy too was very timid, and clung with trembling arms to the meagre figure of the attorney.
"Nay! Master Duffy!" quoth Mittachip, with affected firmness, "why do you pry about so? Are you afraid?"
"Nay! nay! Master Mittachip," replied the clerk, whose teeth were chattering audibly, "I am ... n ... n ... not af ... f ... f ... fraid."
"Tush, man, you have me near you," rejoined Mittachip, boldly. "See! I am armed! Look at my pistols!"
And he leant back in the saddle, so as to give Master Duffy a good view of a pair of huge pistols that protruded ostentatiously from his belt.