The Broad Highway

Evening had fallen, and I walked along in no very happy frame of

mind, the more so, as the rising wind and flying wrack of clouds

above (through which a watery moon had peeped at fitful intervals)

seemed to presage a wild night. It needed but this to make my

misery the more complete, for, as far as I could tell, if I slept

at all (and I was already very weary), it must, of necessity, be

beneath some hedge or tree.

As I approached the brow of the hill, I suddenly remembered that

I must once more pass the gibbet, and began to strain my eyes for

it. Presently I spied it, sure enough, its grim, gaunt outline

looming through the murk, and instinctively I quickened my stride

so as to pass it as soon as might be.

I was almost abreast of it when a figure rose from beneath it and

slouched into the road to meet me. I stopped there and then, and

grasping my heavy staff waited its approach.

"Be that you, sir?" said a voice, and I recognized the voice of

Tom Cragg.

"What are you doing--and there of all places?"

"Oh--I ain't afeared of 'im," answered Cragg, jerking his thumb

towards the gibbet, "I ain't afeard o' none as ever drawed

breath--dead or livin'--except it be 'is 'Ighness the Prince

Regent."

"And what do you want with me?"

"I 'opes as theer's no offence, my lord," said he, knuckling his

forehead, and speaking in a tone that was a strange mixture of

would-be comradeship and cringing servility. "Cragg is my name,

an' craggy's my natur', but I know when I'm beat. I knowed ye

as soon as I laid my 'peepers' on ye, an' if I said as it were a

foul, why, when a man's in 'is cups, d'ye see, 'e's apt to shoot

rayther wide o' the gospel, d'ye see, an' there was no offence,

my lord, strike me blind! I know you, an' you know me--Tom Cragg

by name an' craggy by--"

"But I don't know you," said I, "and, for that matter, neither do

you know me."

"W'y, you ain't got no whiskers, my lord--leastways, not with you

now, but--"

"And what the devil has that got to do with it?" said I angrily.

"Disguises, p'raps!" said the fellow, with a sly leer, "arter

that theer kidnappin'--an' me 'avin' laid out Sir Jarsper Trent,

in Wych Street, accordin' to your orders, my lord, the Prince

give me word to 'clear out'--cut an' run for it, till it blow'd

over; an' I thought, p'raps, knowin' as you an' 'im 'ad 'ad words,

I thought as you 'ad 'cut stick' too--"