"Thee'd better!" With a yell, one of the men leaped up and clung to the neck of the plunging mare—then was dashed to the ground between her feet. The poor wretch uttered one groan and no more. John sprang out of his carriage, caught the mare's head, and backed her.
"Hold off!—the poor fellow is killed, or may be in a minute. Hold off, I say."
If ever these men, planning perhaps their first ill deed, were struck dumb with astonishment, it was to see the gentleman they were intending to rob take up their comrade in his arms, drag him towards the carriage-lamps, rub snow on his face, and chafe his heavy hands. But all in vain. The blood trickled down from a wound in the temples—the head, with its open mouth dropping, fell back upon John's knee.
"He is quite dead."
The others gathered round in silence, watching Mr. Halifax, as he still knelt, with the dead man's head leaning against him, mournfully regarding it.
"I think I know him. Where does his wife live?"
Some one pointed across the moor, to a light, faint as a glow-worm. "Take that rug out of my carriage—wrap him in it." The order was at once obeyed. "Now carry him home. I will follow presently."
"Surely not," expostulated Lord Ravenel, who had got out of the carriage and stood, shivering and much shocked, beside Mr. Halifax. "You would not surely put yourself in the power of these scoundrels? What brutes they are—the lower orders!"
"Not altogether—when you know them. Phineas, will you drive Lord Ravenel on to Beechwood?"
"Excuse me—certainly not," said Lord Ravenel, with dignity. "We will stay to see the result of the affair. What a singular man Mr. Halifax is, and always was," he added, thoughtfully, as he muffled himself up again in his furs, and relapsed into silence.