“I fancy I heard the neighing of a horse in this direction?” continued the leader of the little troop. “If the fellows who plundered the courier hadn’t been footpads, we might have hoped to encounter them—”
“You forget, major,” rejoined the sergeant, “that Master Cunliffe’s horse was taken from him. May be the captain of the robbers is no longer a footpad, but mounted?”
“No—no,” rejoined the officer, “the neighing we heard, was only from some farmer’s hack running loose in the pastures. Forward! we’ve already lost too much time. If this be Jarret’s Heath, we must be near the end of our errand. Forward!”
Saying this, the leader of the band, close followed by the treble file of troopers, dashed forward along the road—their accoutrements, and the hooves of their horses, making a noise that hindered them from hearing the scornful, half involuntary laugh sent after them from the cavalier concealed under the shadow of the hut.
“Another king’s courier for Scarthe!” muttered Holtspur, as he headed his horse once more to the road. “No doubt, the duplicate of that precious despatch! Ha! ha! His Majesty seems determined, that this time it shall reach its destination. An escort of six troopers! Notwithstanding all that, and the bravado of their leader, if I had only coughed loud enough for them to hear me, I believe they’d have, scampered off a little faster than they are now going. These conceited satellites of royalty—‘cavaliers,’ as they affectedly call themselves—are the veriest poltroons: brave only in words. Oh! that the hour were come, when Englishmen may be prevailed upon to demand their lights at the point of the sword—the only mode by which they will ever obtain them! Then may I hope to see such swaggerers scattered like chaff, and fleeing before the soldiers of Liberty! God grant the time may be near! Hubert, let us on, and hasten it!”
Hubert, ever willing, obeyed the slight signal vouchsafed to him; and, spreading his limbs to the road, rapidly bore his master to the summit of Red Hill; then down its sloping declivity; and on through the fertile, far-stretching meadows of the Colne.
Volume Two—Chapter Five.
The Saracen’s Head stood an exact half-mile from the Colne river and the end of Uxbridge town. To reach it from the latter it was necessary to cross over the quaint old bridge—whence the place derives its name.