'O Mr. 'ighwayman!' says she, weepin'
doleful as she tipped me 'er purse an' the shiners, ''ow could ye do
it?' 'Ma'm,' I says, wipin' my eyes wi' my pistol--and--'ma'm, I don't
know--but do it I must!' An' I rode away quite down-'earted." Here he
turned to regard me with his wry smile.
Thus we held on, by field paths and narrow muddy tracks until the moon
was down and I was stumbling with weariness. At last, my strength
almost spent, we entered a wood, a dismal place where a mournful wind
stirred, where trees dripped upon me and wet leaves brushed my face
like ghostly fingers, while rain-sodden underbrush and bracken clung
about my wearied limbs. Through this clammy dreariness I followed my
tireless companion until suddenly his dim form vanished and I was
groping amid damp leaves; but through this dense thicket came his hand
to seize and drag me on until I found myself in a place of utter
darkness.
"Stand still!" he commanded.
A moment after I heard him strike flint and steel and presently he
lighted a candle-end by whose welcome beam I saw we stood in a roomy
cave. And an evil place I thought it, full of unexpected corners,
littered with all manner of odds and ends and divers misshapen
bundles. Having set down the candle, the highwayman drew a dingy
blanket before the cave mouth and turned to scowl at me, eyeing my
shrinking person over from dripping hat to sodden boots; and well
might I shrink, for surely few waking eyes have beheld such a wild and
terrifying vision as he presented, his battered face, his garments
mired and torn, his hands hidden in the pockets of his riding-coat.
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