"Mr. Gale," replied his lordship, taking off his hat, "let me present you to Lady Bellinger. If you are of the church militant, reverend sir, you should have been here an hour or two ago; you might have seen some fine sport, and taken a turn at it yourself, to the tune of 'Wigs on the Green.' It's too late now, but I think we could have told a different story could I have found something like a man to back me up!"
If levelled at his servants, the taunt fell harmless. Their wits were still abroad, but they felt comforted and reassured to learn that the second highwayman was but a parson after all!
"Have you met with an accident, my lord?" asked Gale, with a clumsy bow, "ill-usage, or misadventure of any kind? Command my services, I beg, on behalf of yourself and her ladyship."
"The moon! the moon!" exclaimed Lady Bellinger, much to the Parson's disturbance, who thought she had gone mad. "It's over the tree! It's eleven o'clock! Don't stop another minute! Let us drive to the inn at once, and try to forget, only I never shall forget this dreadful night!"
So my lord and the servants, with the powerful assistance of their new auxiliary, got the heavy coach once more into motion, my lady so far remembering the parson's existence, as to entreat that he would ride close beside the wheel, and, if need be, defend them with his life!
The procession soon reached its destination, the same inn at which John Garnet had dined. Driving into the yard without its full complement of horses, the servants in a high state of excitement, everybody talking at once, it was obvious the coach had been attacked by a highwayman. The old ostler smiled and winked, the landlord smiled and looked at his wife, the wife smiled and shook her head, the cook smiled, the scullions smiled, everybody seemed interested and well pleased, more particularly when it transpired that the assailant, having taken what he wanted, had made his escape uninjured by so much as a scratch. None seemed astonished when his lordship, inquiring eagerly for particulars as to the robber and his grey horse, mentioned that the only clue he had obtained to his identity was the name of Galloping Jack. The landlord, of course, knew nothing. A landlord never does know anything. The ostler, on cross-examination by the stupidest of Lord Bellinger's footmen, had no recollection of any grey horse in particular. So many grey horses were put up in their stables, coming and going to Marlborough market and what-not? How was he to distinguish which was which, while the maids, preparing my lady's chamber, and airing my lady's bed, furnished Mistress Rachel with so marvellous an account of Galloping Jack, his exploits and enormities, that the waiting gentlewoman could not mention his name without a shudder, connecting him, by some inexplicable process of reasoning, with all the myths and terrible personages she had ever heard of, such as St. George and the Dragon, Blue-beard, and Herod of Jewry, surnamed the Great.
But Abner Gale, who accepted his lordship's invitation to supper, and cracked a bottle with him afterwards, though he prudently excused himself from playing cards, had a clear remembrance of the noted grey horse, whose speed and endurance were once the topic of every market-table and every drinking-bout in his own country. From Lord Bellinger's description of the animal on which his assailant was mounted; and which, by all the rules of gaming, my lord considered his own property, the Parson gathered that it could be none other than the famous grey, and that its rider must have been the celebrated highwayman, whose features were always masked, but whose figure was so well known at all fairs, races, cock-fights, and other sporting or social gatherings in the West. Parson Gale, indeed, had only seen the horse once, and then for an instant, dismounted, as it was led off to the stable, but his admiring eye had taken its whole frame in at a glance, and he could recall its make-and-shape, its points and action, as vividly as those of his own good nag that he had ridden many scores and hundreds of miles.
"I always understood the man was hanged," murmured the Parson, as he laid his head on his pillow, "but I should know the horse among ten thousand!"