And while the one "captain" rode out to welcome the other, Hal remembered what the yeoman at Scardiff had told him of the highway robbers; he scanned the villainous faces of these men, and was thankful in his heart that Anne Hazlehurst had not ridden their way; and then he thought of her on the road ahead, and looked again at the coach, and at the horses of the newcomers.
By the time the two former companions in arms had finished their first salutations, Hal had formed his plan. He called Kit back to him, and said:
"If thy friend hath a mind to put himself and his company in my service for three days, there shall be fair pay forthcoming."
"I know not how Rumney will take to honest service," replied Kit, doubtfully. "But leave the handling of the matter to me—and the fixing of the pay, too." And he rode back to the robber captain, who with his band had remained awaiting Kit's return at the place where they had stopped, some distance from Hal and Anthony. The villagers, now joined by the constable himself, stood gaping before the ale-house, exchanging a curious inspection with the questionable-looking newcomers.
Kit and Captain Rumney whispered together for a long time, gravely and mysteriously. Rumney was at first of a frowning and holding-off disposition; looked askance at Hal several times, and shook his head skeptically, as if he could see no advantage in what was proposed. Kit, as his face and gestures showed, waxed eloquent and urgent. There were moments when wrathful looks and words passed between the two, and old matters were raked up, and recriminations cast. But in the end, Rumney showed a yielding countenance, and Kit came back to Hal in triumph. The rate of hire being within Hal's limits, the robber captain rode up, at Kit's motion, and was introduced to Hal as to Sir Valentine Fleetwood.
Hal, on viewing this new ally more closely, mentally set him down as good for two or three days' fidelity if tactfully dealt with. Rumney, on his part, looked Hal over searchingly, with half closed gray eyes, as if to see what might be made out of him. The rascal had a fawning manner that might become insolent, or threatening, or cruel, upon the least occasion.
Rumney now went back to his men, and briefly acquainted them with what he had done,—a disclosure whose only outward effect was to make them gaze with a little more interest at Master Marryott. At this time, Hal was questioning the constable regarding the coach. He learned that, when bogged in mire during a prolonged rain, it had been abandoned by its former owners, who had taken to horseback and left it with the ale-house keeper in lieu of other payment of a large score run up while they were storm-stayed. Hal promptly bought it from the landlord, with what harness belonged to it, and with all the carriers' gear that remained about the stables.
At Hal's order, Rumney now had his men hitch their horses to the great vehicle, and thereupon remount, so that the animals might serve at once to bear and to draw. Master Marryott put Kit Bottle in charge of the robbers and the coach, with instructions to follow at the best possible speed, and then spurred off, with Anthony Underhill, in hope of overtaking Mistress Hazlehurst.
It was his intention to catch her if he could do so without entering any inhabited place or putting himself at risk of a second capture. Should he find himself approaching any such place or risk, he would wait for, or return to, Kit and the robbers. With his so greatly augmented force of fighting men, he could overawe or rout such a crowd as he had met at Clown; and, should the necessity arise, he might even offer a hopeful resistance to Roger Barnet's party. But against a general hue and cry, or an effectual marshalling of magistrate's officers and servants, either or both of which Anne might cause in front of him, he could not long contend. Hence the speed at which he now urged his horse in pursuit of her.