“STAND and DELIVER!"

Southland Times, Issue 23852, 24 June 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

“STAND and DELIVER!"

"Ho, there! Stand and deliver!” Young Jeremy, perched high on the driving-box, hurriedly reined in his four spirited horses as he found himself gazing into the pistol muzzle. of a masked and mounted highwayman. Jeremy was Squire Murlin’s stable-boy, and when the usual coachman had fallen ill, the lad had been called upon to drive his master for a while. Right well he had acquitted himself, too; but in these olden days a ■ surprise holdup in some lonely spot at sunset was ho rarity.

Squire Murlin’s red irritable face popped out of the'window in annoyance at the delay, and went pale at sight of the menacing figure Which Confronted him. Tremblingly he produced his purse of golden guineas but the other checked him. “Nay, I want not thy purse, sir squire; give m the black bag which rests beside thee,” commanded the highwayman, who, Jeremy noticed, was slightly built and spoke in a surprisingly soft voice.

But. the levelled horse-pistol brooked no'argument, and though he looked ' curious, the squire obeyed quickly enough. His unwelcome visitant swiftly opened the bag and drew out an old silverbuckled shoe, only to replace'it at once with a sigh of relief, Next ' instant the fine, chestnut mare was wheeled about and the “knight of the road” vanished among the wayside thickets with a receding thud-thud of hoofs, leaving Jeremy a-gape. Why should Squire Murlin be carrying about with him so carefully an ordinary old shoe, and why should the highwayman be content to steal that and nothing more? •'Get thee on to a fresh horse, boy, and seek out a company of the king’s men. Let them ride apace and lay yonder insolent knave by the heels!” fumed Jeremy’s master when, shortly afterwards, the coach reached the safety of Conway Court, the beautiful home to which the squire had. recently moved. Staying only to tend his tired coach-horses, the boy mounted and departed on his errand. Luck was with him, for he had barely covered a mile before a compact troop of horsemen swung into view, clattering along the turnpike road, and he soon recognised - them as king’s men, part of whose task it was to hunt down' highway robbers. At their head rode a broad-shoul-dered, strong-faced man who smiled curiously when Jeremy delivered to him Squire Murlin’s message.

"So the squire hath been held up and robbed at pistol point!” he murmured. “And justly he deserves it, I warrant! Still, ’tis our duty to catch this bold highwayman if we can. Forward, men!” The king’s men broke into a gallop and disappeared into the deepening dusk. Hardly had they gone than Jeremy discerned a solitary rider break from coVer some distance away on the heath which flanked the road. Ohly for a moment was the figure visible, but it was enough. ' . , “The highwayman. again, I declare!” quoth Jeremy, his eyes alight with ekeitement. “Methinks I may outdo the king’s men yet'”

So saying, he rode to the edge of the wood and tethered his steed. Silent almost as a cat, he crept on foot through the trees, and presently was rewarded by the discovery of his quarry resting in a grassy dell and examining the stolen sil-ver-buckled shoe.

Near by stood the chestnut mare, with the long horse-pistol thrust into the ' saddle holster. Carefully the boy measured the distance with his eye, then a couple of agile bounds took him to the horse’s side.

Before the startled creature could shie away, Jeremy had wrenched free the pistol and swung round. “How now, sir highwayman—!’’ he began, but his voice died away in a gurgle of amazement,

1 The “highwayman,” now no longer masked, had started up in alarm, three-cornered hat falling off in the action, and stood: revealed as a fair blue-eyed girl scarcely older than Jeremy himself! “I am Fay Conway,” she told the bewildered stable-boy after a while. “My father, Sir Denis, went abroad a year agone, and I fear some ill > hath -befallen him. During his absence Squire Murlin claimed that my father owed him'a large debt, and in payment he took Conway Court, casting me out homeless and penniless. But in: a secret room at the court where, father kept all his important papers, there. is a document proving that he owed the squire naught!” , "But the shoe ?” put in Jeremy. “Alas,” was the reply, “none but my father knew the secret of the hidden room, and he inscribed the clue to it only inside a shoe he used to wear. Squire Murlin found this, and tried to solve the clue and destroy the document! For safety he carried the shoe with him wherever he went, so I had to turn highwayman in order to recover it!” “Then ’tis needful to find this document first, or Conway Court is lost to thee for ever,” added the boy, who, despite the strangeness of her tale, felt instinctively that Fay Conway was telling the "truth. He took the old shoe, and in the last glimmer of daylight examined the words cut into the inner sole. “Three upon one, and two are warm,” ran the clue, and on the 'spur of the moment ’ Jeremy hit upon an explanation. “Three chimney-pots on one chim-ney-stack; perchance two of them are ‘warm’ from the fires beneath, and the other is false, concealing

the entrance to a stairway in the thickness of the wall, leading down into the secret room,” he suggested eagerly. “Hide thee here till the morrow, and I will surely bring thee the paper!” Early next morning 'it was quite a simple matter for the boy to slip inside his master’s ill-gotten residence and ascend unseen to the roof. His theory of the chimneypots proved perfectly correct. The third pot on the largest stack was a cunningly contrived entrance to a stairway separated from the main flue on the inside by a strong partition.

Lowering himself into the wide mouth, Jeremy quickly found his way into the secret chamber which

the squire had sought in vain. As the boy was crossing the ■ stableyard a little later, with the required paper tucked' .safely under his jacket, Squire Murlin’s harsh voice rang out. “What, boy, dost thou trample inside njy house with muddy stable boots!”

The other had evidently seen him leave a few moments previously. Striding forward, the ill-tempered squire gripped Jeremy by the shoulder and shook him vigorously. The document slipped from its hid-ing-place and fluttered to • the ground. Squire Murlin snatched at it, but Jeremy smartly tripped him. Just then a body of horsemen pounded into the yard. “Sir Denis Conway!" almost wailed the lad’s master, scrambling up. “News of thy villainy reached me abroad, and I returned to. lay my complaint before the king, who sent me with a body of his men to exact a reckoning with thee,” declared Sir Denis sternly. “This lad, however, set us after a highwayman whom we tracked down but an hour agone, only to find ’twas my own daughter! Here, too, I perceive is the document proving that thy claims for debt are false.” With the document in Sir Denis’s hand to prove it, the rascally Murlin could not but admit the justice of the assertion.

“I give you one hour to be gone from Conway Court,” said Sir Denis. “And see to it that you are never again found prowling in these parts, or it will go hard with thee.” The crestfallen squire was glad to slink away, for Sir Denis generously allowed him .to go without heavy punishment. As for Jeremy, he found a new and happy post as coachman in chief to Fay Conway and her father at their restored home!