The Highwayman

by F. M. Parker

  “I understand.”

  “Then let’s go and see what those fellows are carrying that makes them travel in the dark.”

  Thorne led to a giant oak with its branches overhanging the road. They stood behind the thick trunk of the tree and waited in the pale dawn light. Thorne pulled his neckerchief over his mouth and nose and then drew his pistols. Patrick imitated him.

  Two men took form riding their horses at a trot. When they were two horse lengths from the oak, Thorne leapt into the road with his pistols drawn.

  “Stand and deliver,” he shouted.

  At Thorne’s sudden appearance and cry, one of the horses reared and tossed its rider to the ground. It bolted off along the road. The second man reined his spooked mount tightly and managed to control it.

  Patrick jumped into the road and pointed his pistols at the man still mounted. Thorne checked Patrick and seeing that he had the man under his weapon, stepped close to the man on the ground and prodded him with his boot.

  “Get up. You’re not hurt. Go over there and stand with your friend. You’ll not be harmed if you do what we say.”

  The man clambered to his feet. Limping, he moved to the side of his companion and faced toward Thorne.

  “Both of you throw your wallets and purses on the ground,” Thorne ordered in a harsh voice. “Be damn quick about it.”

  The men dug for their wallets and coin purses and tossed them at Thorne’s feet.

  “Cover both of them,” Thorne directed.

  Patrick brought a pistol to bear on each man. “Don’t move,” he ordered in a gruff, manly voice.

  Thorne swiftly searched the clothing of the two. He found a wad of bills shoved down into the boot of the man on the horse.

  “Shame on you,” Thorne said in a light tone and obviously pleased with the discovery of the money.

  “Up behind your friend,” Thorne gestured with his pistol at the thrown rider.

  The man astride hoisted the other upon the horse.

  “Now I want to hear you riding like hell out of here. And don’t slow.” Thorne struck the rump of the horse with the barrel of a pistol and the animal sped away at a run.

  Patrick loosened his fierce grip upon the butts of his pistols and watched the running horse charging away along the road. Throne and he had robbed two men. But the time span during which that act had been carried out was wrong. From the moment he jumped into the road beside Thorne until now had condensed to but an instant.

  “Let’s go,” Thorne said as he gathered up the wallets and purses from the ground. “We want to be miles from here in an hour.”

  Patrick hastily holstered his pistols. He fell in beside Thorne and they went with quick steps into the woods to their horses. With Thorne setting their course, they rode off at a right angle to the road.

  “How do you feel about all this?” Thorne asked.

  “I’m not sure. It was all so quick. Like a dream maybe.”

  “It did go fast. Just as well for your first time. There’ll be others that’ll go much differently. In ways you won’t like.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “A beautiful woman singing a lovely song, now that makes a grand feast for both eyes and ears,” Thorne said to Patrick without taking his eyes off the performer on the stage.

  “I surely agree with that,” Patrick said mesmerized by the woman’s singing and the outstanding quality of the music of the orchestra that accompanied her.

  They were in choice seats in the Theatre Royal on Haymarket Street in London. Two more successful robberies had been carried out and Thorne had suggested they spend a night in London to celebrate. Patrick had said that he would like to see a play. Thorne had agreed with the suggestion for he too liked the theatre and that he knew the very one they should attend. They donned their best clothing and rode on horseback to the city.

  “Do you think she’s beautiful?” Thorne asked.

  “She surely is.”

  The play ended. The performers came out onto the stage and lined up to take their bows to hearty applause, to which Thorne and Patrick added substantially. The curtain fell.

  Thorne leaned toward Patrick. “Would you like to meet her?”

  “Yes. Sure. How come you know her?”

  “We’re friends and have been for quite a time. Come with me.”

  They walked out into the lobby and there turned to the side and went down a passageway toward the rear of the theatre. As they came within sight of the dressing rooms, they saw the woman standing and listening to two gentlemen. She was bestowing a pleasant, though slightly bored, smile upon both men, and from that Patrick judged they were telling her how beautiful she was, and probably how much they enjoyed her performance, all of which she must have heard before.

  Her eyes fell upon Thorne and her smile brightened to one of sparkling delight. She brushed past the two men as if they didn’t exist.

  “Jason,” she exclaimed happily as she hastened up to him. “I was so very glad to see you in the audience.” She clasped both of his hands and pressed them to her bosom, two white mounds half exposed in the open top of her low cut bodice.

  “I couldn’t stay away any longer for you are just too beautiful. And I must say your singing was splendid.”

  “Thank you, Jason.” The woman put her brilliant, gray eyes on Patrick. “Who is this handsome, young fellow with you?”

  “This is Patrick Scanlan. Patrick, this is Evangeline Dimond. He likes plays as I do and so we came together to see you perform.”

  Evangeline held out a slender hand. Patrick shook it gently and feeling the fine bones beneath their covering of smooth skin. He caught the delicate scent of perfume. He judged her age at about twice his.

  “You are an elegant lady,” Patrick said.

  “Really now, Patrick. You are quite a gentleman. I hope we can be friends.”

  She looked back to Thorne and their eyes held. No words were spoken, but much was said.

  “Will you have dinner with me?” Thorne asked Evangeline.

  “Most gladly for I’m always famished after a show.”

  They turned in unison to Patrick.

  He knew they were going to ask him to join them. He also knew Evangeline was Thorne’s woman, and that he would be a third spoke in a two spoke wheel. He spoke before they could. “I’ll eat later. I want to go down to the docks and check the price of shares in some of the trading ships.”

  “Very well,” said Thorne, and his expression showing he knew what Patrick had done for him. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the farm.”

  Evangeline again extended her hand to Patrick. Which he gladly clasped and held for a moment. He found pleasure in touching such a gorgeous woman.

  Thorne offered his arm to Evangeline. She hooked her arm through his in a possessive manner. As they moved away, Evangeline looked over her shoulder and gave Patrick a mischievous wink and a smile.

  Patrick liked her, liked her very much. She and Thorne seemed made for each other.

  *

  Thorne appeared at the farm shortly after noon on the day following the theatre. He lifted his hand and called out a pleasant greeting to Patrick as he rode past to the barn. Shortly he emerged from the barn and came toward the house with a spry, jaunty stride. Patrick liked this Thorne much better than the one with the black mood. He gave credit for the change to Evangeline.

  “How about we make some big money?” Thorne said as he came to a stop near Patrick.

  “I’m ready when you are for I need a lot of money to buy shares in a ship, and a fortune to buy a whole ship.”

  “I have the schedule of a coach and six that’ll be carrying a large sum of money from a bank in Tyburn to one in London. It’ll also be carrying passengers and they should be good pickings. Let’s go inside the house and look at the map.”

  As Patrick followed Thorne across the yard and into the house, he wondered how much of the information Thorne possessed had come from Evangeline.

  At the table in the dining room w
ith the map spread in front of them, Thorne pointed at a symbol for a road. “This is the Bayswater Road that runs between Tyburn and London. I know this stretch well and we’ll stop the stage about here. There are thick woods all around and we can use that if we have trouble. Look the map over carefully so that know all the surrounding roads and can find your way back here without my help. We’ll eat supper together and talk about this in more detail then.”

  *

  The stagecoach drawn by six horses, three teams of two each, came into Patrick’s view on Bayswater Road. His heart began to bang more loudly for the time was near when they would be in danger as they waylayed the stagecoach. He slid down from his high perch in a crotch of a tree near the dirt road that was wide enough for two wagons to pass each other. He hastened to Thorne sitting on leaves and leaning against a large boulder and warming himself in the late morning sun.

  “The stage is in sight about half a mile away and coming at a trot. It should be here in four or five minutes.”

  Thorne rose to his feet and went to the edge of the road and looked in the direction of the stagecoach. The road, lined with woods, ran straight for nearly half a mile. The stagecoach was not yet in sight from his position on the ground. He checked the road in the opposite direction. It lay empty.

  He motioned to Patrick. “Time to set the barricade.”

  With each carrying an end of the thick log they had brought earlier from the woods, they carried it onto the road and placed it crossways.

  “That’ll make the driver stop his teams,” Thorne said. “He won’t be able to see this section of the road until he tops that last rise. Then by the time he gets the coach stopped, he’ll be right here where we want him. Since they’ll be carrying money, there’ll be a guard. He’ll be in the front box with the driver. Guards are hired for their skill with weapons and readiness to fight and so he is the one that’s most likely to cause us trouble. I’ll watch him and the driver. You cover the passengers. If one of them starts acting like he’s getting ready to fight, put a warning shot close past his ears. Now let’s get back out of sight.”

  The stagecoach crested the rise and the two men seated in the high driver’s box in front spotted the log blocking the road. The teamster reared back and pulled mightily on the reins and sawed the iron bits cruelly back and forth in the horses’ mouths to bring the animals to a quick stop. The second man lifted a shotgun into a position ready for firing. Rocking and lurching on its leaf springs, the stagecoach came to a halt with the iron-shod front hooves of the lead team skinning bark from the side of the log.

  Thorne came out onto the road with both pistols aimed at the man with the shotgun. Patrick was by his side with weapons pointed at the windows of the coach.

  “Drop the shotgun on the ground,” Thorne ordered the guard.

  The guard swung the barrel of his shotgun toward Thorne.

  “Hold it, damn you!” Thorne barked and on the verge of firing his pistols. “Don’t try to get tricky with me. Hold it by the barrel.”

  With a sour expression, the guard swapped ends of the shotgun and tossed it down.

  “Now your pistol with just two fingers.’’

  The guard lifted the tail of his coat and slowly drew out a pistol and flung it down.

  “And you, throw down your gun too,” Thorne indicated the driver by moving one of his pistols to point at him.

  The driver hastily obeyed.

  “Now throw down the strong box. And don’t tell me that you don’t have one. Hurry it!”

  The guard hoisted an iron box up from the boot and dropped it down with a heavy thud upon the ground.

  “Now get down here.”

  The guard climbed down over the front wheel to the ground, with the driver close behind.

  “Now everybody out of the coach on this side and one at a time.”

  Three men filed out of the coach. The last one turned and held out his hand to the woman that followed to help her down. As she came through the door, her dress, fluffed with petticoats, caught the latch on a polished wooden music box on the seat. The lid popped open and began to play a waltz. She reached back and snapped the lid closed, and stepped onto the ground.

  “Throw your weapons down,” Thorne ordered the passengers. “Slow and easy.”

  Thorne directed Patrick. “Shoot anybody that doesn’t obey,”

  Patrick kept a wary eye on the passengers as they fished under their coats for weapons. Three pistols plopped into the dust of the road.

  “Collect their valuables. Use one of the men’s hats. Leave the woman her wedding ring,”

  “Yours.” Patrick said and indicated the man with the biggest hat.

  He shoved one of his guns into its holster and caught the hat the man threw to him. Patrick ignored the man’s obvious anger for he wasn’t going to let anyone rattle him. He moved past the people and they dropped wallets and purses holding coins and two watches and a ring into the hat.

  With a look that wished Patrick dead, the woman placed her purse into the hat. Patrick thought the woman with her clear skin and well formed face would have been pretty if she hadn’t been so bitter at being robbed.

  “Now search them to see if they’ve been honest with us.” Thorne said and gave a low chuckle at the mockery in the comment.

  Patrick went through the men’s clothing and found additional money on one of them.

  “Madame, give my comrade the money you have hidden in your clothing.”

  The woman stared belligerently at Thorne. “I have no money, damn you.”

  “Yes, I truly am damned, madam. But just the same, if you don’t give us the money, we’ll search you down to your skin.”

  “You will not go through my clothes.”

  “Yes, we will,” Thorne assured her. “Shall I tell my companion to start now?”

  “Give them the money,” said the husband. “They have the pistols and can do whatever they want.”

  “No!” cried the woman.

  “Blanche, give them the money!” the husband ordered.

  The woman gave the man a look of misery. She hiked up her dress, dug through her petticoats and extracted a sheaf of bill from under a garter. She flung the money at Patrick. Who plucked it out of the air.

  “How much is there?” Thorne asked.

  Patrick swiftly riffled through the bank notes and noting the numbers engraved on them. “With just a quick look, I’d say something over a thousand pounds.”

  “That’s all the money we have in the world. We’ll starve without it. You’re both devils” The woman swept hostile eyes over both Throne and Patrick.

  “Well, at least I may be,” Thorne replied. He spoke to Patrick. “Take the shotgun and blast the lock off that strong box. Watch out for ricochets.”

  Patrick placed the hat on the ground and took up the shotgun. Pointing the two barrels down at the lock on the strongbox, he pulled the triggers. The double charge exploded with an ear splitting boom. The lock ripped loose from the hasp, bounced off the ground and went skipping into the ditch beside the road.

  Patrick opened the lid and peered inside. The strongbox was full of canvas pouches and packets of banknotes. He took up one of the canvas pouches and checked inside. It was full of gold coins.

  “Well what’s in the box?” Thorne called impatiently.

  Patrick looked at Thorne. “It’s full of gold coin and paper money. There must be thousands of pounds.”

  “Well. Well. So there’re thousands of pounds.”

  He turned to the woman. As he regarded her, the hard, wary look in is eyes softened and his tense body relaxed somewhat.

  “Since you are such a brave lady, I’ll give you your money if you’ll dance one waltz from the music box with me.”

  “What! What did you say?” gasped the woman in startled disbelief.

  “A dance for your money.”

  The woman locked her hands together in front of her. “I’ll not dance with a thief,” she proclaimed and giving Thorne a withe
ring look.

  “Come now, a dance for the length of one tune from the music box in exchange for a thousand pounds,” Thorne said. “That’s a fair enough price. Even with a devil thief.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Blanche,” said the husband. “Dance with him. He has our money and we need it.”

  “It’s already ours so why should I?” The woman cast challenging eyes upon her husband.

  “Do it, for God’s sake,” ordered the husband.

  Patrick stood motionless like the other men and waited the woman’s response. She switched her sight back and forth between her husband and Thorne. Patrick began to think she would tell both men to go to hell. He liked her strength, thought he agreed with her husband that to not dance would be very foolish.

  Finally her bleak face settled on Thorne. “All right,” she said.

  “You,” Thorne spoke to the husband. “Wind the music box and set it out here where we can hear the music plainly.”

  The man hastily did as ordered, and then moved back to his original position.

  “You two, get over there with the passengers,” Thorne directed the driver and guard. When the two were in place, Throne spoke to Patrick. “Keep you pistols on all of them.”

  Thorne holstered his weapons. He stepped to the music box and opened the lid and the strains of music flowed out over the road and into the woods. He bowed to the woman, straightened and held out his hands to her.

  “My name is Claude Duvall. May I have this dance?”

  She came reluctantly to him. He swept her into his arms and with a smooth, gliding step guided them off into a waltz on the grassy side of the road.

  Patrick was surprised that Thorne had told who he was. But then upon second thought, he had given away nothing for he was Jason Thorne to all other people. He wondered if Thorne was building a legend about the highwayman who was a gentleman and never used violence.

  Patrick knew that with Throne occupied with the woman, this was a dangerous time and so he concentrated on the five men under his pistols, trying to read their faces to detect a coming attack upon him. Even so now and again, he couldn’t resist casting a short look at the dancers. Once when he brought his attention back on the men, he found the guard coiled as if ready to leap upon him. Patrick shook his head and aimed one of the pistols directly at the man’s face.