Highway Robbery (3 page)

‘If the master comes back and catches you, we’ll all get a good hiding,’ I said. ‘And you must swear on your mother’s grave that you won’t tell anyone about what you just bought.’

‘Why?’ said Pigtail.

‘Because I shouldn’t have let you,’ I said.
‘And if you tell other people, they’ll all want to come and hold Her Grace, and then I’ll have to fight them off, and the master will come looking for you and he’ll put you in prison.’

The girls went off looking worried, and I fingered the second penny loaf in my pocket. To eat it or not to eat it, that was my dilemma, sir. I doubt if it’s one you ever came up against. The thing is, if I ate it, there was no more evidence, and if the girls told tales, then it was their word against mine. But if I ate it, then I wouldn’t have it to eat later, and there was no telling how long it would be before my gentleman came back. I decided to save it, at least for the moment.

THE GENTLEMAN HAD
been gone a long time by now, and I was beginning to be anxious for him to come back. I watched the pigs and chickens foraging around in the icy mud and wondered what they could possibly find to eat in that mess.

The street was empty for a while after the girls had gone away, and then a couple of farmers came along, driving some sheep to the butcher’s, and then a man in a firewood wagon, which was making heavy weather of the mud, and then a washerwoman with a massive bundle tied up in a grimy sheet. They all looked at the horse and at me, but no one stopped or spoke. Soon after that, though, a man came along and he took a great interest in me and the horse. I saw him looking at us as he came along the street, and when he drew level, he stopped walking and stood looking.

I didn’t like the cut of him, sir, from the time I first laid eyes upon him. When you
live on the street, you get to know a lot about people. It’s a question of survival. And this man looked shifty to me. He crossed to my side of the street, as I had guessed he would, but for a long time he didn’t say a word. He just walked round the horse, looking her up and down and over and under and through and through.

‘Who does it belong to?’ he said at last. He wasn’t that old, but he’d already lost most of his teeth and his speech wasn’t all that clear.

‘None of your business,’ I said.

He glared at me so hard that I feared he might aim a blow at me. I knew it wouldn’t cost him a second thought. He was no stranger to violence, that fellow.

‘How much you asking for it?’ he said.

Well, I don’t mind telling you, sir, that his question made me stop and think. It hadn’t really occurred to me before, despite what I had said to the two girls, but that mare was certainly worth a lot of money.

The man was watching me thinking, and I wished I could come up with a smart
answer, but I was stuck fast in a conflict between the prospect of money and loyalty to the gentleman rider. How much was she worth? That was what I was thinking. An awful lot more than the guinea I’d been promised, that much was certain.

‘You’re tempted, aren’t you?’ He stepped closer to me as he said it, and glanced quickly up and down the street.

I wouldn’t like you to get the wrong impression, sir. I might be poor but I’m not a thief. All I’m saying is that the prospect of a large amount of money couldn’t be passed over without due consideration.

‘Indeed I’m not,’ I said, but I knew my words lacked conviction and I’m sure old Toothless knew it too.

‘Hmm,’ he said, and went about inspecting the mare all over again, though I very much doubt there was anything about her he hadn’t seen on his first go round.

I looked at her too, with eyes wide open now and with numbers in my mind growing bigger and wilder by the moment. The kind of money the mare might fetch could lift a lad like me out of poverty, sir. Set me up in my own little business, perhaps. Selling pies or muffins around the markets. Or shining boots like yours, sir. I’m sure that you can understand why I was engaged in such a fierce battle with my conscience.

Old Toothless turned to observe a cart that was trundling slowly towards us, and I
turned to look at it too. It was loaded with turnips and carrots and guarded by two burly farmers, one in front at the horse’s head and the other sitting behind. Both of them carried cudgels.

When I turned back, Toothless had disappeared. There hadn’t been time for him to get to the end of the street and I guessed he must have turned into one of the alleyways. My dreams of money had gone with him but I was glad that it was over, and that the dreadful temptation had been removed.

THE FARMERS STOPPED
to admire the mare. They were both nearly as broad as they were tall, with bulging forearms and heavy shoulders.

One of them had a great head of hair like a haystack but none at all on his chin. The other was practically bald on top but had a gingery beard which grew right down on to his chest. It was so thick, a family of wrens might have been nesting in it. I thought that if you turned his head upside down, he would probably look exactly like his friend.

‘Ee, but she’s a grand mare,’ he said, and gave her such a hefty slap on the neck I was afraid she’d fall down.

Haystack gave her a pat on the rump. ‘Who does she belong to, then?’ he said.

You know, sir, it never occurred to me for an instant to mistrust those two. Maybe it was the slow, solid way they moved, or the hard days of work stored up in their muscles, or maybe it was just their eyes, blue as the summer sky and filled with nothing but wonderment.

So I told them about the gentleman and his wild ride into town, and I told them about the promise of the golden guinea, and I told them as well about old Toothless and his sneaky attempts to buy the mare.

‘He was wasting his time there, wasn’t he?’ said Haystack. ‘Good honest lad like you. He’d get nowhere with that game.’

That made me feel good, sir. It almost made me believe that I had never even considered old Toothless’s proposition.

‘Never trust a bloke like that, anyroad,’ said Wrenbeard. ‘Sure as not he’d have some sharp lad waiting round the next corner ready to rob the money straight back off you.’

Those farmers might have been slow, but they certainly weren’t as stupid as they looked. I thought I knew every street trick in the book, but I hadn’t thought of that one.

They had a small barrel lashed to the side of their wagon, and since they had stopped, they took the opportunity to pour a drink of water from it. They gave me a dipper of it as well, which was welcome. The mare grew very excited when she got a scent of it.

‘She’s thirsty, God bless her,’ said Haystack. When you think of it, she was bound to be, wasn’t she, sir, after such a long hard gallop. But it hadn’t occurred to me, being as how I’m so ignorant when it comes to horses. There wasn’t enough for
her in their little barrel, but they had a bucket for their own horse, and Haystack went off with it in search of a pump. When he came back, the mare plunged her nose in until her nostrils were completely under the water.