“What is it?” Tom Drum asked.
“Soldiers?” whispered Bernard.
“No. A carriage. Look—a lantern coming this way. Off the road, gang. This is a stroke of luck, indeed.”
“Get off the road—we’re going to take the carriage,” Bernard told Polly as she trotted up.
Chapter Fifteen
Hijack
The light of the carriage came through the dark wood. It looked so little and the darkness all around so big. An owl hooted, and far off its mate returned a lonely cry. Jack’s heart was beating with fear and excitement, brought on by danger. He slid off Lord Henry’s horse onto the ground, landing in a pile of leaves. He scrambled away, relieved to be off the uncomfortable saddle. He realized how these men were drawn to danger, as a gambler is drawn to cards. The excitement, the thrill—they were irresistible.
Jack found a hiding place among the exposed roots of a tree and burrowed into it. He still had a view of the road but could duck down easily. Moonlight glimmered through the trees, catching the tops of the tall, silvery trunks but hardly reaching the leafy floor. There was a distinct click of a pistol. Lord Henry urged Red Ruby onto the road.
“Stand and deliver!” he shouted.
“Whoa!” The driver of the carriage slowed his horses. “Who are you?” he called.
“Henry Vane,
The very same
Highwayman of glorious fame.”
“Glorious? Notorious is more like it,” grumbled the driver of the coach. He opened a little window by his feet and called inside. “We are to be robbed, sire. It is Lord Henry Vane, the polite one, so please—no pistols. He requires only a little money, as a toll.”
“Pray—whose coach is this?” Lord Henry inquired.
“Sir Bufton Hart,” said the coachman. “The magistrate.”
Lord Henry called loudly, “Sir Bufton. Please step out of the carriage.”
The door opened and a portly little gentleman stepped down. “I have nothing! No money,” he said in a wheedling voice. “Just two shillings. And a few papers. No use to you, I’m afraid. But have what I have. With my blessing.” He held out the coins.
“Have what I have?” asked Lord Henry cannily.
“Why, yes, Lord Henry. Have it all. There really is nothing else.” He smiled, and this was no doubt the truth, for gentlemen traveling at night sometimes made sure they had little to rob.
“Sir! I wouldn’t dream of taking your last two precious shillings,” Lord Henry told him, pretending great offense. “Do you take me for a scoundrel?”
“Why no, sir. You are a gentleman.”
“The gentleman’s master, some say. Have it all, you say?”
“Oh, yes!” Again Sir Bufton held out the two shillings.
“In that case,” said Lord Henry with a twinkle in his eye, “I’ll take the carriage.”
“The carriage? Oh, no, you can’t have that! I must get home. I have far to travel. I cannot walk …”
“Then you shall ride. Poll!” called Lord Henry. “Hide your face and bring out your steed.”
Jack helped Polly cover her face with her scarf, and then she went through the woods with her stubborn gray pony.
“We’ll do a swap,” said Lord Henry. “You take the pony. We’ll take the carriage. You! Coachman! Help your master on this nag. And hand young Poll the reins.”
The coachman and the magistrate looked at the tired old pony, then back to the carriage and two horses.
“Impossible!” objected the gentleman. “I have far to go tonight. This beast is old and tired.”
“On your way!” Lord Henry barked. His face changed: he was suddenly dangerous, his lip curled, his eyes fierce. “Unless you prefer that we tie you to a tree? We shall leave your carriage and horses at the sign of the Plump Muffin, by Middle Temple. Now be off!”
The magistrate hurriedly climbed onto the pony and set off into the forest with the coachman walking in front. Darkness closed about them, and soon all that could be heard was a far off “Come on! Bah! Go! Go! Hup! Hup!”
Jack rode in the coach while Polly drove. It was comfortable after the horse—but not that comfortable. He bounced around on the hard seat. If only there was a seat belt. He found a leather strap to hold on to and wedged himself in the corner. The carriage had a close, damp, tobacco smell. Bottles in a little side pocket clinked every time they went over a pothole. The wooden seat, with its threadbare covering, and the panels all around the coach creaked and groaned. The wheels ground the gravel on the road. Traveling in a coach was noisier than he’d ever imagined.
After an hour or so, Jack was numb and his arm was tired from holding on. He was relieved when they stopped. He heard voices outside.
“Stand and deliver!” shouted a gruff voice. “Your money or your life!”
At first he thought Lord Henry was robbing another coach. Or perhaps it was a joke. Then he realized: THEY were being robbed! Before he could move, the door opened and a pistol was roughly put against his temple.
“Get down, now!”
“It’s a boy!” said a voice.
“Polly,” said Jack. “Where’s Lord Hen—”
“Quiet!” growled the robber.
“They’re ahead,” Polly told him in a trembling voice.
“Shut up,” cried another robber.
Now Jack wished that he’d never come over to this time. He stumbled out of the coach, the gun at his head. His legs shook. His mouth was dry. He looked up at the moon, bright and high above them, lighting the landscape all around. He saw the faces of the men: they were rough and murderous.
“Empty your pockets!”
Jack fumbled with the strange clothes he was wearing. He couldn’t find any pockets. Underneath he still wore his jeans. But in those he had nothing of interest to these robbers. A house key. A twenty-cent piece, a ragged piece of paper from the supermarket.
“Where are you going?” asked one of the men.
Jack didn’t have time to answer. Suddenly there was a great thundering of hooves all around them, and the man was knocked flying by a horseman charging between them. Jack dived to the ground. Polly bit the man who was holding her and ran away as another horseman rode between them. There was a sudden BANG! and, in the confusion, someone grabbed Jack and pulled him to the other side of the coach. Dirty Dick held him down.
“Lord Henry Vane!” shouted a familiar voice. “Who are you?”
“John Squires,” came the answer, no longer rough and bold—now he was scared. “We didn’t know it was you, my lord.”
“And your man?”
“Will Goodfellow.”
“Low-down, good-for-nothing Tobies!” fumed Lord Henry. “How dare you! You’re a disgrace to the profession! No manners! No decency! For goodness sake, man, when you rob a coach: be polite. You don’t hold a pistol to the head of a mere boy! Ask first!”
“Yessir!” said one of them.
“Now be on your way!”
“Thank you, sir, thank you.” The robbers quickly rode off into the trees. In a few moments they had disappeared into the darkness.
Lord Henry sighed as he tucked away his pistols. “You get all sorts of riffraff near London,” he told Jack. “Finchley Common has become quite dreadful.”
After this, Jack sat up in the driver’s seat with Polly. They both felt safer. Above them, clouds passed slowly over the moon.
“That was nasty,” Polly said tight-lipped. “They’d have shot us for a penny, them two.”
“They very nearly did!” Jack reminded her. “At least you know Lord Henry isn’t going to kill you.”
Polly considered this. “Well, he hasn’t killed anyone yet. But did you see last night, when he fired his pistol in the air? Twirling it around, like a showman? Imagine if it had hit a passenger? Then we’d have had a problem.”
Soon they reached Highgate, a village on a hill to the north of London. From here, they looked down Highgate Hill toward the city of London and the River Thames, looping li
ke a silver snake in the moonlight.
“Stop! Stop!” cried Jack. He stood up in the driver’s seat and gazed at the city in the distance. It was so small. The lights twinkled in the darkness. Here and there small fires burned. “I’ve been here before,” Jack told Polly. “It’s near where I live.”
In front of them, the road went straight down the hill, past a great lowing and grunting from sheep and pigs and cows that were all in pens ready for the trip to the London market.
Tom Drum rode up with another black cloak and blanket. “Best cover up,” he said, tossing them up to Jack. “It’s getting cold.”
They set off down the hill to the valley below. “This is the Hollow Way,” Jack told Polly. “And about here—or there—or near here anyway, is where I live, and the school is over there somewhere.” It was difficult to see—there were only dark fields where his school should be—and it made Jack feel giddy imagining the changes that had taken place—or that would take place.
And then they came to London itself. Flaming torches were fixed high up on street corners, and lanterns shone warmly in the windows. In some places, groups of men huddled around braziers of fire, keeping warm in the cool night. So many houses were crowded together and there were open drains in the street. Near the center, people were selling roast meat and pies, calling out their produce. As the highwaymen and the children on the coach picked their way through the twists and turns of the narrow alleys and streets, unfamiliar sounds filled the air.
There were the shouts of men inside the inns and taverns. There was music too, mostly singing or the raw scraping of a fiddle. They saw an argument in the street between two ragged women bawling at each other. Dogs barked. Dogs howled. Dogs slipped silently down side streets. When nine o’clock struck, the city’s bells chimed, one and then another and then another. For a full five minutes the air near and far was full of the sound of ringing. And just when they thought it was finished, another one would start.
“It is the best place,” said Polly, smiling as if caught in a wonderful dream. “There’s nowhere like it. I love it!”
They reached the river, saw the lanterns of the boatmen moving on the dark water, and heard their cries and the splash of oars. Lord Henry muttered that they had gone too far and they turned back.
He finally found the Plump Muffin—an inn near Middle Temple—and disappeared inside while Jack and Polly and the other highwaymen waited in the street. A round woman appeared beside Polly a few minutes later and directed them to the mews, where she could leave the carriage with a man named Thomas. “’E’s got barnacles on ’is nose,” she said mysteriously.
They found Thomas (whose skin was indeed strangely blistered) and left the carriage with him. Then they went into the Plump Muffin to find Lord Henry. There was a warm and stuffy atmosphere inside the tavern; tobacco smoke and wood fires and cakes and ale all mingled together. The tavern was only half full. A row of little alcoves lay at the end, with benches around each table, enough to seat eight people. Dirty Dick went to a hole in the wall where they served the ale.
“Lord Hen has gone to make inquiries,” he told the others, slopping down a jug of ale and some pewter tankards. He poured the foaming brown liquid and took a slurp. “What is he up to?” he asked, mystified.
“I’m in the dark,” said Bernard.
“He is following his heart,” said Tom Drum. “Lady Marchwell is to be married tomorrow. He is going to tell her that he loves her.”
“Oh, he loves her!” said Pete. “I thought something funny were going on.”
“And then what?”
“Well, maybe she is going to say, ‘Renounce your wicked ways and I will consent to be your bride.’”
“Or—‘Go away and never come back!’” laughed Dirty Dick.
“But he’s got to try,” Jack said, springing to Lord Henry’s defense. “Otherwise he’ll never know. And he might regret it for the rest of his life.”
“Hey,” Tom Drum pointed his tankard at Jack, “the boy is wise!”
“Wiser than his years!” agreed Bernard, raising his tankard in a toast.
Dirty Dick laughed. “He’ll make a fool of himself, Henry Vane, pandering to a lost lady love. She’ll be married tomorrow—and not to some good-for-nothing Toby.”
* * *
Jack felt tired. The exertions of the night and the warm air in the tavern combined to weigh down his eyelids. He found himself watching the candle wax dripping down the pewter holder …
“Jack!” Lord Henry was shaking his shoulder. Time had passed and the tavern was almost empty.
“What?”
“Come with me. Now. We shall be back within the hour.” Lord Henry winked at the others.
“Good luck, my lord! We shall be here, should you need assistance in your quest,” said Tom Drum. He downed the last of his ale and prepared to grab another.
Jack climbed off the bench and followed Lord Henry, who was already striding out of the tavern, his black boots ringing on the broad oak floor.
“What can I do?” Jack asked when they were outside.
“I have a plan,” said Lord Henry eagerly. “A grand plan, but elegant too: I want you to appear before Lady Marchwell tonight! As an angel.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Divine Messenger
“Me? A what?” Jack was incredulous. “An angel. I know where she lives. It is on the river and easy to reach. I even know her bedroom. But, were I to appear in her bedroom, I should surely be thrown out, for she will not tolerate my presence. In any case, the bedroom window is too small, and I would get stuck—which would be undignified for a heroic lover such as myself! So my plan is for you to appear. Jack, listen, you have fair golden hair, and the pearly skin of a creature from heaven. You look like an angel! You only lack wings. If you were to appear with a letter from me and wings, she would be charmed—she would see it as a vision to astonish.”
“You—want—me—to—have—wings?” Jack was amazed and horrified.
“Of course … not. Not if you don’t want to.”
Jack looked at the pleading face of Lord Henry. He was making those big puppy eyes at him again. “But why do you think this will help?”
“Because you have charm, Jack. I believe you can speak to her heart, persuade her to listen. Persuade her thus: that I shall mend my ways. I will do whatever she wants. And I shall honor her. Come on.”
“Wait!” Polly came running out of the tavern. “I want to come. Please, can I come? I’ll help you. I’ll do anything you ask.”
Lord Henry looked annoyed. “I didn’t ask—,” he began.
“I know—but I want to help.” She gazed up at him and took his hand. She could also turn on the charm, and it wasn’t in Henry’s heart to turn her away.
“Come on, then,” he said, giving in. “I have a boatman waiting.”
Polly winked at Jack. He was happy to have her come along, but he was still worried about Lord Henry’s plan. He wanted to help Henry, but this felt like a very complicated way to tell someone that you loved them. As they walked toward the Thames, through a series of little alleys with houses teetering over them, Jack could only think that this must be how people declared their love in the eighteenth century.
They reached the river and a boat was waiting. It was small and open and usually used for quick crossing from one bank to the other. The boatman was wrapped in a blanket, but he threw it off when they arrived and set to work. His face was deeply lined, but under his pitiful clothes he was sinewy and strong. He said nothing but rowed hard, and they were soon heading upstream through the silvery moonlit water, past Westminster Abbey and Parliament, out to the large houses beyond. As they went, Lord Henry explained his plan to Jack and Polly.
In half an hour they came within sight of the landing stage of a house with gardens running down to the river. The boatman stowed his oars and they glided silently to the wooden jetty.
“We shall be back in twenty minutes,” Lord Henry told the boatman in a l
ow voice. He stepped off the craft. “Wait by the willow tree. If you hear a sharp whistle, then prepare the boat quickly, for we shall want to board and be off directly and at speed.”
“Well,” said the boatman slowly, “there is an extra charge for departure at speed.”
“I’ll pay double,” Henry told him briskly.
The boatman agreed and slipped away, leaving the three of them on the jetty. Lord Henry was carrying a sack that he must have stowed in the boat when he first hired it.
“What have you got there?” asked Jack suspiciously.
“Come. I’ll show you.” Lord Henry walked through an arch at the end of the jetty, into a beautiful walled garden. Jack and Polly followed. The house beyond was framed by two tall trees. It was old and large with a dozen or so little windows. A vine, now bare of leaves, twisted over one end of it.
“Here.” Lord Henry opened the sack and carefully brought out a pair of beautiful white swan’s wings. They almost shone in the moonlight. “Aren’t they something? I got them from a lady friend at the Drury Lane Theatre.”
“I can’t—,” began Jack.
“You really will look like an angel!” Polly laughed and clapped her hands.
“You will,” said Lord Henry beaming with pleasure at Polly’s reaction. “Why—even better, you could be Cupid. The messenger of the god of love. She will adore that! Here, put this white smock on first. Now, this strap belongs here and this attaches here …”
“I feel stupid,” said Jack. He tried to think of a reason for not doing this, but he couldn’t. He said he’d help Henry, and he had always thought that loyalty was important.
“You look heavenly,” said Henry. “You are indeed my divine messenger. Angel Jack.”
Polly was enjoying the fun, grinning at Jack and admiring him. At least, she was until Lord Henry turned and said, “Now you, Polly.” Her smile disappeared. “You said you would do anything.”
“I did,” she said guardedly, her eyes narrowing.
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