The next stage was over a desolate, treeless heath, where the elements had their own way against us more than ever, and our vehicle seemed actually to shrink and shudder from the force of their onslaught. All of a sudden, I was thrown forward against the opposite window by the stoppage of the postchaise. At first I thought a horse had fallen; but immediately afterwards the window next to Mr. Long was violently pushed down from without, and a something black and small, which was a pistol, was protruded into the carriage.
"Your money or your life! Come, be quick, curse you, and don't keep gentlemen waiting in the wet," said a rough voice. "Be quick, I say." A volley of oaths accompanied this unpleasant request.
"I have only a couple of guineas with me," cried Mr. Long, quietly, "and you will not make it more by swearing."
"That's a lie!" remarked the voice very uncivilly, "for you're a parson, you are, and they've always money enough. Ain't he a parson, postboy? Didn't you say so, when. I asked you who you'd got inside there? Come here, won't yer?"
At these words, one of the wretched postboys, shivering and dripping, came forward to the window, and stammered out, "Really, gentlemen, I couldn't help it; he swore as he'd blow out my brains, if I didn't tell; so I told him as one was a clergyman, I believed, but the other two——"
"My name is Townshend," interrupted the Bow Street runner, with great distinctness. "If you had happened to know that, boy, and had informed these gentlemen of the circumstance, I am sure they would never have stopped us, unless, indeed, it was to inquire after my health." At the same time he thrust his broad face out of the window into the light thrown by a lantern carried by one of the robbers; for there were several dim forms on horseback, as I could now perceive. If a blunderbuss had been exhibited instead, it could not have caused one-half of the panic which the sight of his features occasioned; each robber turned his back at once, as though to prevent the recognition being mutual, and spurred away into the darkness, leaving nothing but the dismounted postboy to evidence that they were not mere phantoms of the night.
"Get to your saddle, and make you up for lost time," said the Runner sternly; and when this mandate had been obeyed, and we were once more on our way, he added, "That postboy sold us; I saw him whispering to a man on horseback in the inn-yard while I was taking some drink in the back-parlour; he was never asked any question when the chaise was stopped. That was Jerry Atherton, too, who put his shooting-iron in at that window; I should know his voice though a mob were shouting with him. A man who wishes to do something of which the consequences are so very serious, should not only wear crape, but keep his mouth shut."
"We have to thank you very much, I am sure," said Mr. Long. "It was a great providence for us that you were with us."
"Very likely, sir," returned Mr. Townshend, grimly; "but not for Jerry, nor yet for the postboy."