Highway Robbery Read Free Page B

could I stop them, after all? And that fine gentleman wasn’t going to give me no guinea for losing his horse, was he? But still I couldn’t agree to it. I was allpuffed up and full of my own virtue, after what those two farmers had said about me. Besides, I hadn’t forgotten about that smart lad, who was probably waiting round the corner. I was resolved not to give up that horse without a fight.
    ‘I won’t let you have her,’ I said. ‘Not for thirty shillings and not if you were to offer me thirty guineas.’
    I tightened my grip on the reins, gritted my teeth and got ready for the blows that I was certain would come next. But yet again the heavens smiled upon me. For the second time that day I felt thunder coming up through my feet, then heard the clatter of hooves approaching along the road, then the jingle of bridles, the delighted calls ofa young child round the corner, the squawk of a chicken that moved too slowly. Then they came thundering into view: a dozen of the king’s soldiers in all their finery. They didn’t come as fast as the gentleman on his black horse had done, but it was clear that they had been riding hard because their horses were lathered with sweat and there was so much steam rising from them that it looked as if the soldiers had brought their own cloud along with them, in case they needed rain.
    I pulled the mare closer in towards the houses at the side of the street, to give the soldiers more room to pass by, and as I did so, I noticed that Toothless and Muddybreeks had vanished justas silently as they had first appeared. I confess I wished that I could vanish so easily because, as I’m sure you know, sir, street beggars and soldiers do not make natural allies. But I couldn’t vanish and I couldn’t prevent them from noticing me, either. Although they had the whole road to themselves now, they did not pass by. They stopped, all of them, and stood in a horseshoe around me, for all the world like a bristling scarlet fence.

C HAPTER S EVEN
    THE BLACK MARE shifted restlessly and snatched at her bit, and it seemed to me that she was as anxious as I was. The soldiers’ horses pawed the ground and tossed their heads impatiently. One of the soldiers got down and handed the reins of his horse to another.
    ‘Whose horse is this?’ he asked me.
    I swear a dozen different answers jumped into my head, but since I couldn’t decide which one to use I let them all get away again, and I said nothing at all. The soldierbent down in front of me until his hard grey eyes were level with mine.
    ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked, very slowly.
    I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so afraid.
    ‘I do, sir,’ I said.
    ‘I do, Captain,’ he said.
    ‘I do, Captain ,’ I repeated.
    ‘Whose horse is this?’ he asked again.
    ‘It belongs to a gentleman,’ I said, deciding that it was safest to be honest about it. ‘And he has promised me a guinea if I hold her until he comes back.’
    The captain straightened up and began to walk round the mare in a very similar manner to the two crooks. She gave a great sigh, as if she was exhausted with being examined. The captain lifted her feet and peered at her shoes, then he looked at the cloak and at the saddle underneath it.

    ‘She’s not for sale, sir,’ I said.
    ‘ Captain ,’ he corrected me.
    ‘She’s not for sale, Captain, sir,’ I said.
    ‘What a shame,’ he said. ‘She’s a very fine animal.’
    I was as proud to hear that as if she had been my own, and I found that, despite myself, I was beginning to like this soldier.
    ‘She is indeed, Captain,’ I said.
    ‘But tell me more about her owner,’ he said. ‘What does he look like?’
    ‘As tall as you, sir, Captain, sir. Or verynearly. And he has big black moustaches and long, curly black hair.’
    ‘I see,’ said the captain. ‘And was he carrying anything with him, do you remember?’
    ‘A saddlebag, Captain. That’s all, as far as I remember.’
    ‘Good lad,’ said the