I beg you have no fear, your letter is in her ladyship's hand now, I'll lay my life on that."
"I had to trust someone, my lord," he said after awhile, as Lord Stretton once more relapsed into gloomy silence. "I could do nothing for your lordship single-handed, and you wanted that letter to reach her ladyship. I scarce knew what to do. But I did know I could trust Beau Brocade, and your secret is as safe with him as it is with me."
Philip sighed wearily.
"Ah, well! I'll believe it all, friend John. I'll trust you and your friend, and be grateful to you both: have no fear of that! Who am I but a wretched creature, whom any rascal may shoot by Act of Parliament."
But John Stich had come to the end of his power of argument. Never a man of many words, he had only become voluble when speaking of his friend. Philip tried to look cheerful and convinced, but he was chafing under this enforced inactivity and the dark, close atmosphere of the forge.
He had spent two days under the smith's roof and time seemed to creep with lead-weighted wings: yet every sound, every strange footstep, made his nerves quiver with morbid apprehension, and even now at sound of a tremulous voice from the road, shrank, moody and impatient, into corner of the hut.
CHAPTER IV
JOCK MIGGS, THE SHEPHERD
"Be you at home, Master Stich?"
A curious, wizened little figure stood in the doorway peering cautiously into the forge.
In a moment John Stich was on the alert.
"Sh!" he whispered quickly, "have no fear, my lord, 'tis only some fool from the village."
"Did ye say ye baint at home, Master Stich?" queried the same tremulous voice again. "I didn't quite hear ye."
"Yes, yes, I'm here all right, Jock Miggs," said the smith, heartily. "Come in!"
Jock Miggs came in, making as little noise, and taking up as little room as possible. Dressed in a well-worn smock and shabby corduroy breeches, he had a curious shrunken, timid air about his whole personality, as he removed his soft felt hat and began scratching his scanty tow-coloured locks: he was a youngish man too, probably not much more than thirty, yet his brown face was a mass of ruts and wrinkles like a furrowed path on Brassing Moor.
"Morning, Mr Stich ... morning," he said with a certain air of vagueness and apology, as with obvious admiration he stopped to watch the broad back of the smith and his strong arms wielding the heavy hammer.
"Morning, Miggs," retorted John, not looking up from his work, "how's the old woman?"
"I dunno, Mr Stich," replied Miggs, with a dubious shake of the head. "Badly, I expec' ... same as yesterday," he added in a more cheerful spirit.
"Why! what's the matter?"
"I dunno, Mr Stich, that there's anything the matter," explained Jock Miggs with slow and sad deliberation, "but she's dead ... same as yesterday."
Involuntarily Philip laughed at the quaint, fatalistic statement.
"Hello!" said Miggs, looking at him with the same apathetic wonder, "who be yon lad?"
"That's my nephew Jim, out o' Nottingham," said John, "come to give me a hand."
"Morning, lad," piped Miggs, in his high treble, as he extended a wrinkled, bony hand to Stretton.
"Lud, John Stich," he exclaimed, "any one'd know he was one o' your family from the muscle he's got."
And gently, meditatively, he rubbed one shrivelled hand against the other, looking with awe at the fine figure of a man before him.
"A banging lad your nephew too," he added with a chuckle; "he'll be turning the heads of all the girls this side o' Brassington, maybe."
"Oh! I'll warrant he's got a sweetheart at home, eh, Jim lad? — or maybe more than one. But what brings ye here this day, friend Miggs?"
The wizened little face assumed a puzzled expression.
"I dunno..." he said vaguely, "maybe I wanted to tell ye about the soldiers I seed at the Royal George over Brassington way."
"What about 'em, Miggs?"
"I dunno.... I see a corporal and lots of fellers in red .... some say there's more o' them ... I dunno."
"Ha!" said Stich, carelessly, "What are they after?"
"I dunno," commented Miggs, imperturbably. "Some say they're after that chap Beau Brocade. There was a coach stopped on the Heath 'gain last night. Fifty guineas he took out of it, he did...." And Jock Miggs chuckled feebly with apparent but irresponsible delight. "Some folk say it were Sir Humphrey Challoner's coach over from Hartington, and no one's going to break their hearts over that! he! he! he! ... but I dunno," he added with sudden frightened vagueness.
"Be they cavalry soldiers over at the Royal George, Miggs?" asked John.
"I dunno ... I seed no horses ... looks more like foot soldiers ... but I dunno. The Corporal he read out something just now about our getting twenty guineas if we shoot one o' them rebels. I'd be mighty glad to get twenty guineas, Master Stich," he said reflectively, "but I dunno as how I could handle a musket rightly ... and folks say them traitors are mighty desperate fellows ... but I dunno..."
Then with sudden resolution Jock Miggs turned to the doorway.
"Morning, Master Stich," he said decisively. "Morning, lad! ... morning."
"Morning, Miggs."
However, it seemed that Jock Miggs's visit to the forge was not so purposeless as it at first appeared.
"He! he! he!" he chuckled, as if suddenly recollecting his errand. "I'd almost forgot why I came. Farmer Crabtree wanted to know, Master Stich, if you'm got the wether's collar mended yet?"
"Oh, yes, to be sure," replied the smith, pointing to a rough bench on which lay a number of metal articles. "You'll find it on that there bench, Jock. Farmer Crabtree sold his sheep yet?"
Jock toddled up to the bench and picked up the wether's collar.
"Noa!" he muttered, "not yet, worse luck! And his temper is that hot! So don't 'ee charge him too much for the collar, Master Stich, or it's me that'll have to suffer."
And Miggs rubbed his shoulder significantly. Stich laughed. Philip himself, in spite of his anxiety, could not help being amused at the quaint figure of the little shepherd with his wizened face and gentle, vaguely fatalistic manner.
Thus it was that no one in the forge had perceived the patter of small feet on the mud outside, and when Jock Miggs, with more elaborate "Mornings" and final leave-takings, once more reached the doorway, he came in violent collision with a short, be-cloaked and closely-hooded figure that was picking its way on very small, very high-heeled shoes, through the maze of puddles which guarded the entrance to the forge.
The
