The Highwayman's Footsteps

by Nicola Morgan

  The words were familiar but I could not at first place them. Then I recollected: they were the words Bess had spoken during her fever, as I left her.

  “But Annette was not the only one who heard my father promise to return. She was not the only one who saw him press his face in Bess’s hair before galloping away to the west.

  “Tim, the idiot stable boy, listened too. In the crazy darkness of his mind, he thought Bess was his. Ugly Tim, Mad Dog Tim, Scarecrow Tim, Hollow-head and Rat Boy, those were some of the names they called him. He lived in the darkness, hating the light, blinking with white and empty eyes if he came out into the light of day. How could he think Bess would love him in return? I hate him. I hate him. If he lived now, I would hunt him down. I would shoot him dead, dead like a rat in a gutter. How could he think…?”

  Her knuckles were white, her lips tight in the firelight, her face pale against her tumbling black hair. Again her hand went to the chain around her neck.

  “My mother watched the winding road through her window, the road where he would come. He did not come at dawn. He did not come in the cold March noon. He did not come in the afternoon, even when the sun sank into the russet sky, and Bess must have been beside herself with worry now. He had told her that he would return, but this time perhaps she did not believe him. Then at twilight, finally, a redcoat troop came marching, marching along the very road that he would take.

  “Annette knew Bess waited for him, knew why her face was white as she served the hungry soldiers their meat and ale downstairs, silent as she tried to ignore their mauling, pawing hands, their crude, coarse jibes. Annette saw whey-faced Tim, the idiot stable boy, go crawling to them like a cringing dog but she did not hear his words. Later, when it was too late, a terrible regret haunted Annette, as she tormented herself with thoughts of how she could have silenced Tim, somehow, or warned Bess.

  “Perhaps she could have prevented it; perhaps not. But at the time, she did not understand. So she listened helplessly as the soldiers went into her sister’s chamber. She could only hope they would not harm her. Little did she know…

  “Then Annette, fearful now, tried to send word to someone who could warn my father, the highwayman, but the landlord saw what she planned. He locked her in her room, pleased at the thought that the man who had taken his other daughter’s virtue would now meet a fitting end.

  “No one knows what those soldiers did to my mother. No one will ever know. But some things we know. We know that they tied her to the end of her bed, gagging her viciously, so viciously that, when her parents found her later, the sides of her mouth were lacerated. We know that they tied a musket to her, the muzzle digging into her breast, tied it so tightly that the shape of the barrel made a long, ugly bruise on her flesh.

  “She must have struggled in silence as the soldiers watched for her lover through the windows. She must have twisted her fingers desperately until one rested on the trigger. What thoughts went through her mind as she waited and as she watched the ribboning road in the moonlight, the road that he would take? How brave she was! What terrible fear must have filled her heart as she waited there, with no one knowing what she planned?

  “Did she think then of his words? I think she did: ‘Watch for me by moonlight. I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way.’

  “The moonlight lit the bare and winding road that night. Annette watched from her window too. She stared at the moors, eyes wide, thinking of her sister, wondering what was in her mind, not knowing what was in her heart. She heard the horse’s footsteps ringing through the ghostly air. She wanted to scream. Afterwards, she wished she had, though perhaps it would have done no good.

  “There he was! Galloping towards them. When would they shoot? He was perhaps out of range; Annette could not tell, did not know of such things. She held her breath, shut her eyes, could not bear to watch. She heard the shot, one shot only, shattering the moonlit air, and opened her eyes to see the crows fly up with a fearsome noise. But the highwayman did not fall. Clattering to a halt, he paused for a mere moment and then wheeled around and was gone, galloping away, waving his rapier defiantly at the wind. Safe! He was safe. Annette’s heart sang and she wanted to shout her joy to the moon.

  “Something stopped her. Some premonition perhaps.

  “Why was there only one shot? Why did only one soldier shoot?

  “Moments later, a terrible scream tore the air. And another. Annette’s body froze, her blood turning to ice, a strange moan creeping from her throat. Her face grew grey and she sank to her knees as she listened to the noise from Bess’s room. Rousing herself, needing to know what awful event had caused her mother’s screams – why the continued wailing, why her father’s anguished yell, and the shouting and confusion – she scrambled to her feet.

  “Numbly, she ran down the corridor towards her sister’s room.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Bess took another drink of ale from her mug, and continued her tale.

  “The door was open, the room crowded with people. Moonlight slanted still through the casement window and onto a terrible, terrible sight. My mother, her black hair cascading down, her head bowed, was slumped over the scarlet mess that was now her breast. There was the gun, still strapped to her, its barrel pressing into her blood-drenched flesh. The soldiers stood foolishly, away from the bed, some by the window, some still watching vainly for their intended victim, others gripping their muskets, looking at each other as though wondering what they should do. What could they do? Everything had been done. Everything they could ever do, they had done.

  “Not till dawn did my father hear what had happened and they said his face grew grey when he heard how Bess, his beautiful Bess, Bess the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, had watched for her love in the moonlight and died in the darkness there. And when he heard, when he understood that she had paid with her life to warn him of the redcoats’ presence, he roared his curse to the sky. Then my father turned his horse and galloped blindly, madly, for many miles and many hours, until in the cold noon he reached once more the end of the road which ribboned the moors. And there he shouted his defiance as he rode towards them, brandishing only his sword, and at the last moment they shot him, shot him at last, shot him down on the highway. They shot him down like a dog on the highway and they laughed as he lay dying in his scarlet blood on the highway.”

  Bess looked at me and when she saw the tears in my eyes she smiled. “The story is not quite finished. Annette, and others who saw him as he lay dying there, with the soldiers running towards him, said he shouted his love to the sky, his love for Bess, his black-eyed Bess, the landlord’s red-lipped daughter. But before he died, they also say he whispered his curse again into the dusty road. With his last gasping breaths, he cursed the men who had done this and he vowed to haunt them. Folk say he does. They say a highwayman haunts these moors and that if you have evil in your heart he will find you and settle his curse on your head too.”

  I shivered at that, thinking of the ghostly figure I thought I had seen on the moors.

  Bess continued, “Don’t be afraid. I do not believe it myself. And besides, they have said such things for much longer than the seven years since my father died.”

  What should I say to her story? Perhaps I need say nothing. I looked at her. Telling the story had seemed to compose her. She looked strong once more, her eyes bright but dry, her lips red now in the warmth of the fire. Then she spoke again. “They killed Tim, the mad stable boy.”

  “The redcoats?”

  “No. Friends of Bess and Annette’s. Perhaps Annette set them to do it. They tied him up and hung him by his neck from a tree. He was two hours in the dying, they did it so carefully.” There was raw spite in her voice.

  I stared into the flames, taking this in, and I knew I was glad that he had died in such a way. What is justice if it does not feel right, if it does not echo the evil? Justice should be passionate and hard and fiery. There must be balance, a sense of rightness. The
stable boy had acted without honour and he had caused two deaths. It was proper that he should pay.

  But would my father, if he had been sitting in judgement over him in his court, have sentenced the boy to hang? No, the law would say that the stable boy had been right. And my father was on the side of the law. What was right? Was it what felt right or what the law said was right? Was the law always right? Even if it did not feel right? I did not know. It was too confusing and too new a thought.

  I pushed such difficult matters away. “Did you live here, with your father?” I wanted to think of them here.

  “At first we lived in Scarborough, in lodgings. Aggie lived with us. She cared for me, believing that I needed a woman’s attentions. But he cared for me too, and taught me to read and write, even to read Latin and Greek and to know the paths of the planets. He taught me music and dancing too, though I confess that dancing was not my favourite pastime. My father was high-born, the youngest son of a Scottish landowner, educated at Edinburgh University, destined for the church, but he had turned away from all that and come south for a life of adventure. He had not thought to stay here for long before travelling further south, but he fell in love with my mother. Then he would not leave. And, of course, I was born. And so, we stayed.

  “He was also a dancing master, entering all the wealthy houses in the area under the guise of teaching the young ladies and gentlemen to dance. They had no notion of how many secrets he learned about their lives. Certainly, they did not suspect that their elegant dancing master by day was the man who robbed their carriages by night.

  “Perhaps a year before he died, he rented this cottage and a small piece of land. The landowner asked no questions. My father did him a service – he kept footpads and common thieves away. Many folk knew what my father did, how he put food on our table, how he paid for my clothing. They kept their silence because they respected him. He defended the weak, the poor and the downtrodden. Always he stood for what he believed to be right, and he taught me to do so too. And now, people know that they will receive the same from me. They know I can handle a pistol and a horse. Perhaps they suspect that I have followed in my father’s footsteps. That I am a highwayman. But if anyone were to ask, I have a different story.”

  She paused, and although I knew she was going to tell me whether I said anything or not, I asked her what her story was. How did people think she had money for food or for shoeing her horse, or for any of the other necessities of life?

  “I say I am a ballad seller. And indeed, I have sold many ballads,” she said with a degree of pride. “There is a printer in Scarborough who buys them from me willingly. I have even sung them myself, on occasion, to earn the more.”

  I had heard of such things, although I had never had cause to listen to one sung. I knew that uneducated folk were willing to pay to hear the ditties and rhymes of the ballad sellers. A happening such as a hanging provided rich material. Once, I had heard my father sneering to one of his friends that no one who could not write in the languages of Homer and Cicero should be allowed to pen anything in the English language.

  “It is a way of passing a winter’s night when I have gold in my purse and no need to ride after a prize.”

  “May I hear one?”

  “No, you may not. No doubt you have been schooled to look down on the ill-written ditties of the ballad sellers.” She looked at me and I did not need to answer.

  I turned my eyes away.

  “I was telling you how I came to be here. My father came to this place when he wanted to be alone, when he needed to lie low. I came to live here with Aggie after my parents died. But Aggie did not like the moors – she considered them lonely places fit only for bogles and ghosts. But she stayed for me. And for my mother and father, because she promised me she would. She died a year ago.”

  Bess’s face toughened as she said this, her jaw rigid as she struggled to keep her voice level. I marvelled at how strong she must be: to bear what she had borne, to live on her own, still to smile sometimes, to fight for her survival and not to sink into the weakened torpor of the poor.

  Even though she was from high-born blood, yet she had lost her status now. She was destined to be for ever either poor or a felon. There would be no way back to gracious society. I pitied her, denied her rightful station in life. But then I thought: she would no more wish to be gilding the ballrooms of gentlefolk or keeping high company than I would wish to be a swineherd. Perhaps even less so. She was as happy with her lot as my brother and sisters were with theirs.

  I tried to imagine them here, in this simple smoke-filled room. My brother would look around in sneering contempt, while making some trite comment on the weather. My sisters would hold their breath as they wondered how to place their smelling salts in front of their noses at the same time as holding high their skirts, in unfeigned horror at the dirt on the rough, stone-flagged floor. No, I thought with a smile, my sisters would likely be swooning.

  How easy their lives were. How easy mine had been. How little they knew.

  I did not know what to say. I had suffered nothing by comparison to her. Yet she was stronger by far than I. Or perhaps it was her suffering that had made her strong?

  Perhaps it is what we endure that shapes us for the better?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “I am sorry,” I said. “You have had a hard life and…” but she brushed aside my silly words with a flick of her wrist. I fell silent. Anything I might say would seem empty, though there were many thoughts which I could not voice. Confusing thoughts.

  She stood up, stretching slowly, carefully. “I am going outside to wash. Then we should sleep. There is much to do in the morning. We must cut logs and we need food, in case the weather worsens again. And then, perhaps, we should get you a horse.”

  My face gave no sign that I had understood. Had I understood? Did she mean me to stay? Or did she think she could be rid of me only if I had a horse on which to make my departure?

  “A horse?” I said, sounding foolish, but then I never did know for certain what to say with Bess. She was too unpredictable, too different from any person I had known. And even though she was more lowly born than I, yet I felt that somehow she knew far more. She had an air about her, a knowingness which seemed almost like wisdom. But how could she know more than I? Only a girl, and brought up by a villain and a woman of low birth – how could she know more, even if her father had once been from a family of wealth? How could she make me feel as though she was in some way above me, when she was not above me in status? Status is something we are born with, is it not? Is it not given to us as part of God’s natural order?

  “Yes, a horse. You will be of little use without a horse. I know you can handle horses – I have watched you. You have been well taught.” I did not need her to tell me that. But I was glad this had not slipped her attention.

  “And where shall we find a horse?” I asked. “Do you intend to steal one?”

  “I would not steal horses,” she said, harshly. “It is too risky. And it is wrong. We will go to Scarborough – I know a man who will find us a horse.”

  Right to steal money, wrong to steal a horse; right to kill a redcoat; right to kill a crazy idiot; wrong to kill a highwayman. Right or wrong to steal flour from the army? Right or wrong to steal a purse of gold from a rich man? Wrong to steal but right if the thief gives the money to the poor?

  These thoughts spun in my mind and I suddenly became aware that Bess was asking me a question.

  “Well?” She stood in front of me, a rough cloth in her hand and a bowl to carry water in.

  “What?”

  “Well, do you wish to stay?”

  I struggled to keep the smile from my face, to maintain my composure. “I thought you did not require my help.”

  “Did I say I required your help? I do not recall it. I asked if you wished to stay. I can manage very well on my own. I have done so for the past year.”

  “I would be pleased to stay,” I said, as calmly as I co
uld. This was not the moment to make a clever comment or to argue with her. Inside, my heart was singing. For the first time since I had left my home, I could grasp the future, though weakly. I could not know what would happen, but if I was not alone I believed that I could face it. Bess knew what she was doing; I did not. But I could learn. And I thought that a life with Bess, confusing as she was, was better by far than a life on my own, on the run, always afraid, always hungry.

  I felt as though I was on the edge of something, something exciting. I had thrown away my old life and comforts, and I was more than willing to learn new ways.

  “As a companion,” she said, bluntly. “You shall not share my bed.”

  The heat rose from my neck to my temples and I could think of nothing to say except to splutter, “Of course. Of course not.” Before I turned away, I saw her face. A thin shiver of a smile, that was almost not a smile at all, disappeared as fast as it had come.

  That night, when eventually we lay on our beds – or her in her bed and I on the floor by the fire on a blanket that did little to soften the flagstones beneath – with the embers of the fire spitting and crackling gently, I had a strange new feeling: that I had never been so happy as I was that moment. I thought that nothing could ever make me frightened again.

  How foolish we are sometimes.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Early next morning, we argued about who was to ride her horse. It pleases me to say that I won, though I would not show my pleasure in front of her. She was clearly not well, pale and tight-mouthed when she arose stiffly from her bed, wincing as she lit the fire to boil water for an oatmeal gruel. I guessed that her head pained her, for she kept pressing her fingers to her temples. My suggestion that we wait till the following day met with her firm refusal, however. In truth, her fever had passed, but she was weak from it. This weakness was the first reason I would not ride the horse.