In an instant my lord had whipped out of the carriage, sword in hand, with his coat torn up the back from the vigour with which my lady pulled at it in her fright. Determined, nevertheless, to sell his life dearly, and ready, to do him justice, for a fight at any odds, right or wrong.
The mounted servant, crying "Thieves!" and "Murder!" turned his horse, and rode away at a gallop; while the footman who carried the blunderbuss, shaking himself clear of Mistress Rachel, dropped on his knees, and begged pitifully for life.
His fellow, however, being of a bolder nature, snatched the weapon out of his hand to point it full in John Garnet's face, and pulled the trigger like a hero.
It only flashed in the pan; somebody had been tampering with the firearms at the last stopping-place. The assailant was in no real danger but from Lord Bellinger's naked steel. That nobleman made at him fiercely enough; and though Katerfelto answered rein and spur, as if well-trained in such hand-to-hand conflicts, John Garnet might have been obliged to use fatal means in self-defence, but that half-a-dozen figures sprang like magic from amongst the trees; a cloak was thrown over my lord's head, while he was dragged to the earth; the servants were securely gagged and bound; my lady and Mistress Rachel compelled with hideous threats to keep silence; and the original aggressor found himself at liberty to rifle the carriage unmolested, and take what he required.
Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Lith. London.
WESTWARD-HO!
There was no difficulty in finding the warrants. With these, and the hundred guineas he had lost, safe in his pocket, John Garnet turned Katerfelto's head towards the down, pausing one moment to thank the gipsies for their timely aid, and impress on them the necessity of mercy towards their captives. In that moment Waif's hand clasped his own, and Waif's voice murmured in his ear:
"My tribe have done you good service, leave the rest to me. I do not say farewell, for it would break my heart to think we should not meet again!"