Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

"Why, Sir," answered the man, "this is part of my beat, and as soon as I had got some supper down at the village, as it is not fair to take a gentleman's money without doing something for it, and as I am rather accustomed to a walk on a moonlight night, I might as well just come out to see that all is safe. I can guess what brought you here, for Ned, the groom, told me you had taken his horse and were off like a shot."

"Hush," said Ned Hayward, "don't speak so loud, my good fellow; I have earthed him amongst those trees in the pit there, but I could not dig him out, for I was afraid he would escape one way while I was hunting him the other."

"Ah! ah! you have got him, then?" said Gimlet, "then, that's a piece of luck. If he swings it will be no bad job; a bloody-minded scoundrel!"

Ned Hayward was somewhat surprised to hear his friend Wolf qualify by so unsavoury an epithet a gentleman, whose friend and companion he had very lately been; the young officer, however, knew a good deal of the world and the world's ways, and he was not at all inclined to honour the ci-devant poacher for so sudden a change of opinion. His first thought was, this man must be a scoundrel at heart, after all, to abuse a man whom he has been consorting with in this manner, without any motive for so doing, except the simple fact of a change in his own avocations. If he thought young Wittingham a very respectable person two or three hours ago, when he himself was only Wolf the poacher, I do not understand why he should judge him a bloody-minded villain, now that he himself has become Stephen Gimlet, second keeper to Sir John Slingsby. This does not look like honesty.

A second thought, however, upon all he had seen of the man's character, the frankness, the hardihood, even the dogged determination he had shown induced Captain Hayward to say to himself, "The fellow can't know who it is;" and as thought is a very rapid thing, he replied with a perceptible pause, "Yes, I have got him, safe and sure, and if you'll help he cannot get away. You guess who he is, I dare say, Stephen?"

"O, to be sure, Sir," answered Gimlet; "it is that young scoundrel, Harry Wittingham. Bad's the crow and bad's the egg," he continued, without knowing he was using a Greek proverb, "I suppose it can be no one else; for I heard from the old housekeeper down in the town, that he swore like fury that he would have vengeance on his father if he laid the information against him before Sir John."

"Humph!" said Ned Hayward; "but then," he thought, "l am rather hard upon the man too. The idea of any one in cold blood firing a shot at his own father is certainly enough to rouse the indignation and disgust even of men who would wink at, or take part in, lesser crimes to which they are more accustomed. Come, Stephen," he continued aloud, "now you are here, we may do better than I could alone. Let us see what is to be done."

"O, we'll soon manage it, Sir," answered Wolf, "I know every bit of the pit well enough; there is but one place he can go to with his horse, and but one road up the bank. He can round the inside of the pit two ways, sure enough, but what we had best do is, to go in till we can see what he is about, and then have a rush upon him together or separate, or out him off either way."

Captain Hayward agreed in this view of the case, and after a few more words of consultation, the horse was fastened to a scraggy hawthorn tree, and stooping down as low as possible to conceal their approach, Captain Hayward and his companion advanced along the cart-road down into the pit. The moment after they began to descend, the bank on the right cast a shadow over them, which favoured their operations, and Gimlet, taking the lead, crept silently along a path which had once served for the waggons that carried the sand out of the pit, but was now overgrown with grass and hemmed in with bushes, shrubs, and trees of forty or fifty years growth. No moonlight penetrated there, and all was dark, gloomy, and intricate. Now the path turned to the right, now to the left, then proceeded straight forward again, and then began to mount a little elevation in the surface, or floor, as the miners would call it, of the pit itself, still thickly surrounded by green shrubs, through which, however, the slanting beams of the moon were shining over the edge of the pit. Stephen Gimlet's steps became even still more quiet and cautious, and he whispered to Ned Hayward to walk lightly for fear the fugitive should catch a sound of their approach, and make his escape. Each step occupied several seconds, so carefully was it planted; the slight rustling of the leaves, catching upon their clothes, and each falling back upon a branch, which, pushed aside as they passed, was dashed back upon those behind, made them pause and listen, thinking that the object of their eager pursuit must have caught the sound as well as their own nearer ears. At length Stephen Gimlet stopped, and putting back his hand, helped his companion aloof for an instant, while he leaned forward and brought his eyes close to a small hole between the branches. Then, drawing Ned Hayward forward, he pointed in the same direction in which he had been looking, with his right finger, and immediately laid it upon his lips as a token to be silent. Ned Hayward bent his head and gazed through the aperture as his companion had done. The scene before him was a very peculiar one. In broken beams, filtered, as we may call it, by the green leaves and higher branches, the moonlight was streaming upon a small open space, where the ground rose into a swelling knoll, covered with green turf and moss. There was one small birch-tree in the midst, and a hawthorn by its side, but all the rest was clear, and on the right hand could be seen, marked out by the yellow sand, the cart-road which led to the moor above. Standing close to the two little trees was a horse, a fine, strong, powerful bay, with a good deal of bone and sinew, long in the reach, but what is unusual in horses of that build, with a chine and shoulder like those of a wild boar. Close to the horse, with the bridle thrown over his arm, and apparently exceedingly busy upon something he was doing, stood a tall, powerful man, whose face, from the position in which he had placed himself, could not be seen; his back, in short, was towards Ned Hayward and his companion, but from under his left arm protruded part of the stock of a gun, which a moonbeam that fell upon it, showed as plainly as the daylight could have done. From the position in which he held the firelock it seemed to Ned Hayward as if he were attending to the priming, and the moment afterwards the click of the pan showed that the supposition was correct.

At the same time this sound met his ear the young gentleman was drawn gently back by the hand of his companion, and the latter whispered, "That's Harry Wittingham's horse, I'd swear to him amongst a thousand, but that's not Henry Wittingham himself, of that I'm quite sure."