elias sat upon a rock and so remained a long while with his head between his hands. then he got up and walked slowly homeward; while minnie merle, despite the fact that she was far too early for her appointment, proceeded steadily toward wistman’s wood. presently, with a light, sure foot, she entered the old forest and passed where auburn autumn foliage rustled under the wan light. the wind sighed here and there in the stunted timber, then died off and left the place breathless, awake, watching as it seemed.
there was a familiar tree whose boughs, heavily draped with grey lichen and metallic-coloured mosses, made amongst them a comfortable sort of couch. the low branches scarcely sprung above the rocky earth, and many a deep cleft and cranny lay beneath the withered boles. here the wood-rush flourished, and the briar, and the little corydalis shared sunny corners with the snake on summer days. where minnie now climbed, that her head might rise above the low crowns of the wood, ivy and whortleberry grew, and polypody ferns extended along the limbs of the tree. about each dwarf, p. 159bleared and hoary, moved festoons of ash-coloured lichen, like ghostly dryads grown old. the arms of the trees were bedded with centuries of decayed vegetation, their trunks were twisted into the shape of fossil beasts; yet life was strong in them; yearly they broke their amber buds; yearly they blossomed and bore fruit.
gazing about her and wondering from whence her mysterious lover would appear, minnie was suddenly startled to see a huge creature moving in the night. it came toward her, magnified by the moon. supposing it some wandering ox from the herds of half-wild cattle that roamed the moor, she was glad of her elevated security; but the object proved a horse, and on it a man sat—the man she loved best in the world. nicholas was also very early, and, well pleased to find it so, his sweetheart prepared to leap out of her refuge and run to him, when something made her hesitate and she waited a moment and watched her lover dismount.
he carried a curious long parcel under his arm, and the girl wondered what manner of gift this might be. then, within twenty yards of her hiding-place, nicholas merle, having consulted a big watch, proceeded to a curious occupation that first puzzled the watcher, then froze her young limbs with an awful chill not born of cold.
first, tethering his horse on the high ground above p. 160the wood, the man lighted a lantern, set his pistols at his elbow on a stone, and turned to the long parcel he had brought with him. from this he unwound some rope and produced a spade and a short, heavy pick. he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and sought a place for digging. presently a hollow between two great slabs of granite met his view, and carefully thrusting away the briars, ferns and honeysuckle that draped this spot, he set to work and began deepening it with his tools. a mound quickly grew at hand, and a long, narrow hole began to yawn between the shelves of stone. he toiled with all his might and feared not to sing at his labour. then, as he lifted his voice, the words he uttered told his deed to the girl who, above in the ancient oak, looked down through a screen of red leaves. she shook so that the dry foliage rustled all about her, but nicholas merle’s own melody filled his ear and he sang the historic song of another he once had watched mimicking the same business that now engaged him in earnest:—
“a pickaxe, and a spade, a spade,
for and a shrouding sheet:
o! a pit of clay for to be made
for such a guest is meet.”
then the girl in the tree grasped the friendly limbs and cowered close and set her teeth to save p. 161herself from fainting and falling, for she knew that she watched the digging of her own grave. she struggled with herself to think what she should do; but to solve that problem was easy enough. her life depended upon the sheltering tree. the pistol that glittered at merle’s elbow was waiting for her young heart.
half an hour before their appointed time of meeting merle finished his labours, hid his tools, trailed the weeds over his work and then, putting on his coat, blew out the lantern and sat down to wait his cousin’s arrival. and presently, while minnie watched and wondered how long his patience would keep him in wistman’s wood, and how long her strength would bear the ordeal of this terror under nightly cold, she saw another shape, and a tall man’s form suddenly heaved up out of the darkness.
he approached the other, and spoke. then the girl felt her fears almost at an end, for it was elias bassett. he had indeed turned his face homeward, but could not find it in his heart to obey minnie.
“late work and strange work, neighbour,” said the keeper. “i’ve bided hidden an’ watched you this hour, an’ yet i be so much in the dark as when i comed. who are you, and what do you here?”
“i mind my business, and do you the like, if you are a wise man!”
p. 162“why! ’tis nicholas merle! i thought you had gone home to your wife.”
the other rose and elias saw his teeth flash white under the moon.
“you rash fool, are you so weary of living that you come here to hunt for your death? yes, nick merle—a name that if you were a northern clown instead of a westerner, would make you shake in your shoes. you know too much, my good clod. you had been wiser to leave this wood alone to-night, for leave it again you never will.”
“yet that grave was not dug for me, i suppose?”
“no, since you are curious. but i can find room for two in it.”
he snatched up a pistol and fired point-blank. bassett felt a fiery stab in his shoulder; then he dashed in and closed. the men rolled together upon the ground, but handicapped by his wound, the keeper had little chance. his grip relaxed, his head fell back, and the other, who knew that he had hit him, supposed the man was dead. merle dragged his foe to the grave, and rolled him in without ceremony; then, seeing that elias moved, hearing that he moaned, the rascal turned to get his second pistol and make an end of the matter. but the pistol was in another hand. minnie had seen her old suitor slain, as she supposed, and a great grief for the moment banished personal fear. p. 163in that moment she acted, leapt quickly to the boulders beneath her hiding-place, crept near the battle unseen, and, as her cousin returned and stood erect, she confronted him with his own weapon raised and cocked.
“brave heart!” he cried. “you had come to my rescue, dear minnie, but, thank heaven, i was one too many for this blackguardly footpad myself. he had traced me, how i know not, and wanted my watch. but he’ll need the time no more. he sleeps, and no stroke but the stroke of doom will waken him again. give me my pistol, dear heroine!”
“nay,” she said. “i am not deceived. i know my life is in my hand, and i am not going to put it into yours. come an inch nearer and i will shoot you, for you are a murderer, and worse than a murderer.”
the man fell back. he had himself taught minnie to shoot with small arms, and he knew that she was a good pupil.
“sit down and let us talk,” he said.
“with that poor man groaning his life out there—for me? go—go now. if i was not a weak fool, i would shoot you in cold blood.”
he reflected rapidly, then so acted that he might deceive her into his reach, and surprise the weapon from her before she could use it.
p. 164“you will live to regret this dreadful error, minnie merle. no man or woman wrongs me without suffering for it. there is some treachery here; but i will be even with my enemies. i always am.”
he went slowly toward his horse and she hung back and let him lead the way.
“little did i think when i taught you how to use that toy that you would one night turn it against your faithful lover,” he said with deep sorrow in his voice.
“i have seen you dig my grave,” she answered. “you are not worthy to live. go, because i have loved you.”
he slowly mounted into his saddle, very slowly gathered his heavy hunting-crop that hung hitched to the holster; then, as quick as lightning, he hit out with the heavy handle, trusting to strike the girl on the head and bring her down before she could fire.
minnie started backward, and, to her horror, the jerk of her movement, although it saved her life from the blow, exploded the pistol. now, defenceless, she prepared to fly, but the man’s laugh of triumph was broken by a horrid scream of pain from his horse. the ball had struck it high on the neck and the great brute reared up and became unmanageable. so sudden was the action that merle came off. a second more and he would have rolled into safety; but, at the moment of his collapse, even as p. 165he fell, the frantic creature kicked out and a steel-plated hoof, with the strength of a flying chain-shot, crashed into his head behind the ear and cut away half his skull. under the moon oozed forth the brains that had plotted minnie’s death, and she turned shuddering, while the great horse, with a cry almost human, galloped into the night.
bassett lived, as minnie soon discovered. his wound still bled, but she tore her linen, stanched the flow and supported him upon the way until his strength gave out again and he sank down upon the moor, while she fled forward for succour.
* * *
the name of bassett warms devon hearts to-day, and it was the generation that followed elias that wrote their worthy patronymic large upon the earth and blazoned it in history. yet the sons of minnie, and her grandsons and great-grandsons, loved best in their annals that tragedy of the highwayman, their mother’s cousin—young nick, as he is called—and the story of his efforts to prevent them from coming into the world by sending their mother out of it. they have waxed high in the land, and men have blessed them; yet their joy in sir elias bassett, lord moreton, is not greater than that they take in plain elias, the statesman’s grandfather. men made a riddle about minnie merle and her grave—a jest that sets three generations laughing; but p. 166of late this joke has hidden within the pages of old, curious journals. there, indeed, many such-like strange matters shall be met with. long they lie forgotten, buried in an ancient chronicle, tombed for centuries under the lumber of a muniment chest, until bidden to rise and live again.
