Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories/The Highwayman
XIII.—THE HIGHWAYMAN
"EDIE," said the dean, "don't you think we might stop here for tea?"
The hill in front of them was long. Dean Waterson could not see the top of it because the road twisted, but he knew it was long because he had looked it out beforehand on the cyclist's map which he carried. It was also steep.
"Oh, Uncle John!" said Edie.
Her voice expressed disappointment. She was very eager to catch a glimpse of the unknown land beyond the hill. The steepness did not affect her.
"Let us go on a little further," she pleaded.
But the dean was determined. He dismounted and laid his bicycle on the side of the road. He had already ridden much further than he wanted to. The duties of a dean are not a good preparation for a cycling tour in company with an energetic girl of eighteen years old. Dean Waterson was over fifty, and the calves of his legs, though shapely, were soft.
"The view here," he said, "is very fine."
Edie looked round. Her uncle was right about the view. They had climbed a hundred feet or so, and the narrow water of Killary Bay lay below them. Behind it rose the mountains, green, purple, and glorious. Far out to the west, half veiled in a sunlit haze, was the Atlantic. The dean took off his hat and wiped his forehead. Then he dusted his legs carefully. Knee breeches, buttoning tightly, and black cloth gaiters are not the best wear in the world for cycling. It was the first day of a carefully planned tour, and the dean was already regretting that he had undertaken it. He blamed himself for not staying quietly at home. Be blamed Edie for riding faster than any lady ought to ride. He blamed his sister for sending this very inconvenient niece to spend a summer holiday with him.
Edie unpacked the tea things from their satchel and set the kettle to boil on its little spirit stove. Then she looked round her with a sigh of deep appreciation. A summer term in Trinity Hall and honour lectures in Modern Literature, with an occasional tea-party in "The Elizabethan" by way of recreation, lead to a full enjoyment of a cycling tour in Connemara.
"How splendid it must have been for those old knights," she said, "who used to 'ride through the world redressing human wrongs.' Wouldn't you have liked to live then, Uncle John?"
The dean was not sure. The old knights rode on horses and not bicycles, and so, presumably, hills did not trouble them. Yet their life must have been physically laborious.
"Of course," said Edie, "you'd have been an abbot, not a knight. I should have been a knight, and when I begged for hospitality at your monastery I should have told you my adventures. I wish we could have an adventure now, Uncle John, but I suppose we shan't."
"The kind of thing you have in your mind," he said, "is most unlikely to happen now. Dragons are almost extinct."
The dean had a pretty wit. His jokes often won the applause of Canons after dinner. The allusion to dragons was in quite his happiest vein, and just suited to the intelligence of Edie. Unfortunately she did not seem to appreciate it.
"I don't suppose that we shall even meet a highwayman," she said.
A heavy vehicle, pushing two jaded horses in front of it, came creaking and groaning down the hill. A "shoe" brake, pressing hard against one of the back wheels, gave a kind of hoarse shriek now and then. The driver sat hunched up on the front seat, the reins hanging loosely from his hands. Beside him, and in three rows behind him^ sat tourists, obviously tired and hungry but trying to look at the view before them with intelligent appreciation. Nothing could be less romantic than their appearance. Nothing could have suggested the adventurous joys of knights errant or the depredations of highwaymen less than this char-à-banc. Edie turned from it with disgust. Her kettle boiled. A few minutes later she handed a cup of tea to her uncle and pressed him to help himself to some crumbly fragments of biscuits from a paper bag.
The dean, who was very thirsty, drank three cups of tea, then after a short apology to Edie, he lit his pipe. He rarely, so he assured her, smoked except in his study in the deanery. But on a cycling tour certain liberties are permissible, and there was no one, except Edie, to see him. A minute later he took the pipe out of his mouth and put it into his pocket. As a dean he was bound to uphold the reputation of the clergy for propriety of behaviour, and there was a man coming down the hill. The dean gazed at him with some astonishment. He was unusually tall, very thin, and, though plainly quite young, wore a beard. He was running down the hill, dragging a bicycle with him. This was curious. If the man were in a hurry, why did he not ride the bicycle? If he were not in a hurry, why did he run? The stranger himself offered an explanation. He stopped abruptly, glanced at the dean's bicycle, and then dropped his own.
"Punctured," he panted, "both wheels—quite flat—must get on—return it all right—excuse me."
He picked up the dean's bicycle as he spoke, mounted it quickly and sped down the hill. He looked over his shoulder as he went and shouted something. Only two words were audible—"My wife."
The dean gazed after him in silent amazement until he disappeared. Then he opened his mouth and said:
"Well, I'm."
He had been thirty years in Holy Orders, and during that time he had never once sworn. Even under the emotional excitement of this moment he had sufficient self-command to stop before uttering the third word.
"Uncle John," said Edie. "He's a highwayman, and he's stolen your bicycle. I'll go after him and get it back."
Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. An adventure of a very thrilling kind was offering itself quite unexpectedly. She pulled on her gloves and ran to her bicycle.
"Edie," said the dean, "come back at once. I can't allow you"
But Edie was not to be turned from her purpose. She fumbled for a moment in her tool bag, drew out a repair outfit and laid it on the ground.
"You mend those punctures, Uncle John, and then come after me. I'll get the bicycle, and keep it till you turn up."
The dean struggled to his feet. He was stiff and tired, but he made a brave effort to reach his niece before she mounted her bicycle. He was late by half a minute. She waved her hand to him as she rushed down the hill. This time, being absolutely alone, the dean completed the sentence he had begun before. The utterance of the forbidden word gave him a curious glow of satisfaction. It even seemed to restore his spirit and energy. He picked up the repair outfit which his niece had left him, and turned to the discarded bicycle.
The dean understood, theoretically, how to mend a punctured tyre. He had even done it once, with help. But his hands were soft and the cover of the stranger's tyre was particularly stiff. He broke both his thumb nails and covered himself with dust from head to foot, but he failed to detach it. After working hard for a quarter of an hour, he swore again, loudly. As he did so be became aware that he was overheard. An elderly lady, holding a bicycle, was standing beside him frowning heavily. Her face was naturally adapted for the expression of stern disapproval. It was thin, heavily lined, pale, and there was a well-marked moustache above her lip. She looked at the dean through pince-nez which were perched on the bridge of a hooked nose.
"I stopped," she said, "to see if I could be of any assistance to you. But after hearing the expression you have just used, I shall not." She stopped abruptly. The dean stood up and began to apologise. She interrupted him at once.
"How dare you speak to me," she said, "when you've stolen my husband's bicycle?"
"If," said the dean, "that young man who passed here half an hour ago is your husband, I must inform you, madam, that he has stolen my bicycle."
The lady pointed a finger at the machine, which lay upturned on the road.
"Appearances are very much against you," she said. "I shall ride on at once to the nearest police barrack. If you clear your character later on, I shall, of course, be very glad. But, judging from the language I've just heard you use, I think it quite likely that you are a common thief."
She mounted her bicycle as she spoke, and rode down the hill. The dean stared after her. He was very much irritated by her remarks. It is the duty of the clergy, especially of the higher clergy, bishops, archdeacons, and deans, to rebuke the laity for doing wrong, and even at times, to threaten them with unpleasant consequences. In this case the natural order of things had been reversed. A lay person, a woman, had rebuked the dean and actually spoken of delivering him over to the secular power on a charge of theft. This was most disquieting. Coming on top of the other annoyances of the day, the long ride, the loss of his bicycle, and the flight of his niece, it upset the dean's temper completely. He kicked the punctured bicycle angrily, and set off walking down the hill.
He walked two miles and then he met a policeman, a rosy-faced, cheerful young man, whose natural gentleness of disposition had evidently not been soured by his intercourse with the criminal classes. He saluted the dean respectfully.
"Begging your reverence's pardon for asking," he said, "but might it be you that found another gentleman's bicycle on the side of the road?"
The gaunt lady had evidently carried out her threat and complained to the police. This was the constable's polite way of approaching a delicate subject.
"There was a lady beyond at the barrack," he went on, "that was saying to the sergeant"
The dean interrupted him.
"Did you see a young man," he said, "about an hour ago, a tall young man with a thin beard, riding a bicycle with a nickel-plated acetylene lamp and a luggage carrier?"
"I did not," said the constable, "but"
"That young man has stolen my bicycle," said the dean, "and must be arrested at once."
The constable scratched his head.
"William Clancy," he said, "the same that does be doing odd jobs for the gentlemen when they are fishing, was telling me a while ago that he seen a young man of the sort, and says he"
"Then go and arrest him at once," said the dean.
The constable took off his cap and scratched his head again.
"It wasn't long after," he said, "when there came a young lady on a bicycle—a fine girl she was—riding as if the devil was after her—saving your reverence's presence—and says she to me, 'Did you see a young man,' says she, 'and him on a bicycle with a nickel-plated lamp on the front and a?'"
"My niece," said the dean.
"She might," said the constable, cautiously. "Anyway I didn't see the man she was after, and so I couldn't tell her which way he was gone."
"And which way did she go?"
"They were telling me," said the constable, "that she took the turn before you come to Glen-a-Gimla, like as if she was heading for Maam; but from what William Clancy was telling me it was in the direction of Westport that the young man went, so it's not likely that she got him."
"Thanks," said the dean, "I must hurry on. I shall have to telegraph"
"Maybe now," said the constable, "it might be as well for you to know about the other lady, the one that came into the barrack and told the sergeant that you'd found a bicycle that might be the one that her husband had lost."
"No, thank you," said the dean, "I don't in the least want to hear about her."
"She's there this minute," said the constable.
"Where?"
"In the post office, sending telegrams."
The dean hesitated. The constable, forgetting the respect due to the Church, winked.
"I wouldn't say," he said, "that she's in just what you'd call a sweet temper. She was bad enough at the beginning, but when the sergeant told her there was a fine-looking young girl out after the man she was looking for, she got mad entirely."
"That young lady," said the dean, severely, "is my niece; and she wasn't after the man."
"She might not; but it looked mighty like as if she was."
"Not in the way you mean; nothing would be further"
"What the sergeant said to me after," said the constable, "was that them old ones when they're foolish enough to marry young men—and from what William Clancy told me that fellow might have been her son—must expect the like and nobody'd pity them."
"This," said the dean, "is outrageous and scandalous. I won't have my niece's name"
"The sergeant told me," said the constable, "that what the old lady wanted was to off after the two of them, and off she'd have been, only that he disremembered whether it was the young man that went to Westport and the young lady to Maam; or the young lady to Westport and the young man to Maam; or whether the two of them went the one way and which way it was. The talk she went on with when she heard that had the sergeant's temper riz so that he went very near telling her to take the road to Louisburgh."
"I wish he had," said the dean vindictively.
"It could be," said the constable with fine impartiality, "that it would have been better if he had. She'd have been out of your reverence's way then; but the way things is at the present time I don't know but what you'd be better not meeting her. She has it in for you about the bicycle, saying you stole it, though anybody'd know your reverence wouldn't do the like; and when she hears that the young lady that's after her husband is your niece"
"I forbid you to mention my niece again," said the dean peremptorily. He turned his back on the constable and walked in a rapid and dignified way towards Leenane. He was not clear in his own mind about what he meant to do when he got there; but he was quite determined not to stand any longer in the middle of the road listening to scandalous suggestions about his niece. The constable hesitated. Duty was calling him in two different directions. There was a derelict bicycle somewhere on the road of which he ought to take possession. There was also a probability of a serious breach of the peace when the grey-haired lady met the dean in the post office. He decided in the end to go back to Leenane. Being very much the better walker of the two, he soon overtook the dean.
"The young man," he began, in an easy conversational tone, "had a notion that there was a bag belonging to him that had been put into the brake at Letterfrack in mistake, and he wanted it back."
The constable walked on the right of the dean, respectfully, about a yard behind. The dean, in order to give the impression that he was not listening, turned his head to the left and stared angrily at the bay.
"He was terribly anxious about the bag, so he was," said the constable, "for when he found that it wasn't in the hotel, he took it into his head that it was gone on to Westport on a car along with a gentleman who wanted to catch the night mail for Dublin."
The dean twisted his shoulders as well as his head towards the side of the road, and walked as quickly as it is possible to walk sideways.
"It was on account of that that he went on to Westport, hoping to overtake the car, and I wouldn't say but he might have come up with it somewhere on this side of Eriff, for from that William Clancy told me, he was riding fast."
They turned the last corner of the road, and came in sight of the hotel and the post office. The dean, with a sense of relief, turned his head straight and looked in front of him.
"It's herself right enough," said the constable.
It was. The grey-haired lady was standing in the middle of the road talking with considerable animation to the young man who had taken the dean's bicycle.
"I'm blessed," said the constable, "if she hasn't got him after all. And the young lady has missed him, which is what doesn't surprise me, seeing she went the wrong road after him."
The dean pulled himself together with an effort, smoothed his apron carefully, and walked on in a dignified way.
"I wouldn't wonder now," said the constable, "but she might be asking him who the young lady was. She has all the look of it."
The young man caught sight of the dean and stepped forward. He held his cap in one hand, with the other he led the stolen bicycle.
"I owe you an apology," he said politely, "a very sincere apology. The fact is, that a bag of ours, a bag containing my wife's evening dress"
"This is my bicycle," said the dean, stiffly.
"Certainly," said the young man.
"Eusebius!" said the lady.
"Yes, my dear."
"Allow me," said the dean, "to resume possession of my own bicycle."
"Not till you give my husband his," said the lady.
"The whole thing is a trifling misunderstanding," said the young man. "I was in pursuit of the bag. Yes, yes, by all means take your bicycle. My dear, I cannot possibly refuse—after all I was in the wrong. But under the circumstances I am sure, sir, that you will understand"
"My niece took the road to Maam, didn't she?" said the dean to the constable.
"And it turns out, I needn't have gone," said Eusebius, "for the bag was at Letterfrack all the time."
The dean had one foot on the step of his bicycle and was hopping rapidly along the road. He always had a difficulty in mounting.
"My wife rode after me," said Eusebius, raising his voice, "to tell me that the bag was found shortly after I left Letterfrack. Please allow me to apologise. Why are you in such a hurry? Surely"
The dean was in the saddle, gathering speed at every turn of the pedals.
"He's after the young lady," said the constable, "that was after you. A fine young lady she was as any you'd see."
He watched the dean as he spoke. Eusebius continued to his wife the apology he had meant to make to the dean.
"I can't think how I came to do it," he said. "The sight of his bicycle lying on the side of the road tempted me, I suppose. I meant to have it back in ten minutes. I knew the char-à-banc couldn't be far in front of me. I"
"Be jabers, but he has her," said the constable, who was watching the dean. "It's herself that's coming down the hill towards him. I'd know her out of a thousand."
Edie dismounted breathlessly in front of the dean.
"Oh, Uncle John!" she said. "You've got it back safe. And I rode miles and miles after the man. I tracked him along the road by the marks of his tyres in the dust; until all of a sudden I noticed that there weren't any tracks. Then I came back intending to start afresh. I should not have let him escape. How did you catch him?"
"Edie," said the dean, "I understand—that is to say I imagine—that these people, Eusebius and his wife, are going back to Letterfrack. They are most objectionable people. We shall stop here for the night so as to avoid falling in with them again."
"Certainly, Uncle John," said Edie. "But oh! wasn't it glorious? Just as you said that we should have no adventures this one happened. I never knew anything so splendid. Just fancy! A real highwayman! Perhaps to-morrow we shall meet another. Don't you hope so?"
"If we do," said the dean, "we shall go straight home without finishing our tour."