“To Davenham Priory, the gipsy camp.”
“The gipsies are your friends?”
“They are.”
“I am alone.”
“You are safe.”
“You pledge your word that all shall be on the square? You will not mention to one of that canting crew what I have told you?”
“With one exception, you may rely upon my secrecy.”
“Whom do you except?”
“A woman.”
“Bad! never trust a petticoat.”
“I will answer for her with my life.”
“And for your granddad there?”
“He will answer for himself,” said Peter. “You need not fear treachery in me. Honour among thieves, you know.”
“Or where else should you seek it?” rejoined Turpin; “for it has left all other classes of society. Your highwayman is your only man of honour. I will trust you both; and you shall find you may trust me. After breakfast, as I said before, we will bring the matter to a conclusion. Tip us your daddle, Sir Luke, and I am satisfied. You shall rule in Rookwood, I’ll engage, ere a week be flown; and then—but so much parleying is dull work; let’s make the best of our way to breakfast.”
And away they cantered.
A narrow bridle-path conducted them singly through the defiles of a thick wood. Their route lay in the shade, and the air felt chilly amidst the trees, the sun not having attained sufficient altitude to penetrate its depths, while overhead all was warmth and light. Quivering on the tops of the timber, the horizontal sunbeams created, in their refraction, brilliant prismatic colourings, and filled the air with motes like golden dust. Our horsemen needed not the sunshine or the shade. Occupied each with his own train of thought, they silently rode on.
Davenham Wood, through which they urged their course, had, in the olden time, been a forest of some extent. It was then an appendage to the domains of Rookwood, but had passed from the hands of that family to those of a wealthy adjoining landowner and lawyer, Sir Edward Davenham, in the keeping of whose descendants it had ever after continued.
A noble wood it was, and numbered many patriarchal trees. Ancient oaks, with broad gnarled limbs, which the storms of five hundred years had vainly striven to uproot, and which were now sternly decaying; gigantic beech-trees, with silvery stems shooting smoothly upwards, sustaining branches of such size, that each, dissevered, would in itself have formed a tree, populous with leaves, and variegated with rich autumnal tints; the sprightly sycamore, the dark chestnut, the weird wych-elm, the majestic elm itself, festooned with ivy, every variety of wood, dark, dense, and intricate, composed the forest through which they rode; and so multitudinous was the timber, so closely planted, so entirely filled up with a thick matted vegetation, which had been allowed to collect beneath, that little view was afforded, had any been desired by the parties, into the labyrinth of the grove.
Tree after tree, clad in the glowing livery of the season, was passed, and as rapidly succeeded by others. Occasionally a bough projected over their path, compelling the riders to incline their heads as they passed; but, heedless of such difficulties, they pressed on. Now the road grew lighter, and they became at once sensible of the genial influence of the sun. The transition was as agreeable as instantaneous. They had opened upon an extensive plantation of full-grown pines, whose tall, branchless stems, grew up like a forest of masts, and freely admitted the pleasant sunshine. Beneath those trees, the soil was sandy and destitute of all undergrowth, though covered with brown, hair-like fibres and dry cones, shed by the pines. The agile squirrel, that freest denizen of the grove, starting from the ground as the horsemen galloped on, sprang up the nearest tree, and might be seen angrily gazing at the disturbers of his haunts, beating the branches with his fore-feet, in expression of displeasure; the rabbit darted across their path; the jays flew screaming amongst the foliage; the blue cushat, scared at the clatter of the horses’ hoofs, sped on swift wing into quarters secure from their approach; while the particoloured pies, like curious village gossips, congregated to peer at the strangers, expressing their astonishment by loud and continuous chattering.
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