Proclaims that whosoe’er is long a sinner,
Can only be by it of woe a winner.”
Oriental.
KESTERTON FAIR was always held about the middle of November, and a large number of cattle, bred and fed on the various farms in that highly-cultivated district, were, as usual, gathered there for public sale. On the afternoon of that day, a party of four suspicious-looking fellows sat boozing on strong ale in the kitchen of a small public-house, which stood by the roadside between Kesterton and Nestleton Magna, and near a long tract of plantation known as Thurston Wood. They were habited in velveteen, fustian, and corduroy, wore hair-skin caps, and bore the usual marks of that class of leafing, poaching, lawless vagabonds, who, fifty years ago, were sadly plentiful in all rural districts, and are not by any means extinct to-day. They were holding a secret confabulation, and judging by their low tones and watchful glances it was evident that they were desirous of avoiding observation. The principal spokesman was an ill-favoured looking fellow, whose broad, whiskerless face betokened the bully and the brute. His name was Bill Buckley, commonly known as “Fighting Bill,” and the terror of the country side.
“There’s seeafe to be a good chance te-neet,” said the desperado; “the worst on’t is ’at there’s ower monny chances at yance, an’ if we tackle mair than we can manage, we may happen to get nowt. And Kasper Crabtree, o’ Kesterton Grange, is at the fair, an’ he’s sellin’ a lot o’ beeasts, an’ ’ll carry a looad o’ swag, you may depend on’t.”
“Ah sud like te throttle him,” said another, professedly a besom-maker, named Dick Spink, a resident in the unsavoury regions of Midden Harbour. “He set his big dog at me while ah was cuttin’ some besom shafts in his wood; ah’ll hev it oot with ’im when ah’ve chance.”
“That’s right, Dick,” said Buckley; “t’ chance is come, an’ thoo’ll get booath revenge an’ a hundred gold guineas beside.”
After a little more conversation in the same strain, in which the third and fourth showed themselves to be of the same murderous mind, the rascals left the house, and made their way to the cover of Thurston Wood, to lie in wait for the doomed victim of their cupidity and malice. They knew that the old farmer rode on a grey pony, and when the shadows of night gathered round, and the town clock of Kesterton struck nine, they took their station by the roadside, under the shade of a large hawthorn hedge, and waited for the chance of carrying out their wicked intent.
By and bye, footsteps were heard approaching. Somebody was walking on the high road, whose steps as they neared the shelter of the robbers were suddenly silent, as if the new-comer had stood still. After a few moments’ pause, Bill Buckley stepped from his hiding-place to reconnoitre, and came suddenly in contact with Black Morris, who had not stood still, as they imagined, but had merely transferred his walk to the grassy border of the road, and hence had come upon them unobserved.