A frock of dark green, edged with a narrow silver lace, and buttoned from the throat to the middle, gave due effect to an upright mien, a broad chest, and a slender but rounded waist, that stood in no need of the compression of the tailor. A short riding-cloak, clasped across the throat with a silver buckle, hung picturesquely over one shoulder, while his lower limbs were cased in military boots, which, though they rose above the knee, were evidently neither heavy nor embarrassing to the vigorous sinews of the horseman. The caparisons of the steed--the bit, the bridle, the saddle, the holster--were according to the most approved fashion of the day; and the steed itself was in the highest condition, and of remarkable beauty. The horseman's air was erect and bold; a small but coal-black mustachio heightened the resolute expression of his short, curved lip; and from beneath the large hat which overhung his brow his long locks escaped, and waved darkly in the keen night air. Altogether, horseman and horse exhibited a gallant and even a chivalrous appearance, which the hour and the scene heightened to a dramatic and romantic effect.
"Ha! Lovett."
"How are you, my merry men?" were the salutations exchanged.
"What news?" said Ned.
"Brave news! look to it. My lord and his carriage will be by in ten minutes at most."
"Have you got anything more out of the parson I frightened so gloriously?" asked Augustus.
"No; more of that hereafter. Now for our new prey."
"Are you sure our noble friend will be so soon at hand?" said Tomlinson, patting his steed, that now pawed in excited hilarity.
"Sure! I saw him change horses; I was in the stable-yard at the time. He got out for half an hour, to eat, I fancy. Be sure that I played him a trick in the mean while."
"What for?" asked Ned.
"Self and servant."
"The post-boys?"
"Ay, I forgot them. Never mind, you, must frighten them."
"Forwards!" cried Ned; and his horse sprang from his armed heel.
"One moment," said Lovett; "I must put on my mask. Soho, Robin, soho! Now for it,--forwards!"
As the trees rapidly disappeared behind them, the riders entered, at a hand gallop, on a broad tract of waste land interspersed with dikes and occasionally fences of hurdles, over which their horses bounded like quadrupeds well accustomed to such exploits.
Certainly at that moment, what with the fresh air, the fitful moonlight now breaking broadly out, now lost in a rolling cloud, the exciting exercise, and that racy and dancing stir of the blood, which all action, whether evil or noble in its nature, raises in our veins; what with all this, we cannot but allow the fascination of that lawless life,-- a fascination so great that one of the most noted gentlemen highwaymen of the day, one too who had received an excellent education and mixed in no inferior society, is reported to have said, when the rope was about his neck, and the good Ordinary was exhorting him to repent of his ill- spent life, "Ill-spent, you dog! 'Gad!" (smacking his lips) "it was delicious!"
"Fie! fie! Mr. -------, raise your thoughts to Heaven!"
"But a canter across the common--oh!" muttered the criminal; and his soul cantered off to eternity.
So briskly leaped the heart of the leader of the three that, as they now came in view of the main road, and the distant wheel of a carriage whirred on the ear, he threw up his right hand with a joyous gesture, and burst into a boyish exclamation of hilarity and delight.
"Whist, captain!" said Ned, checking his own spirits with a mock air of gravity, "let us conduct ourselves like gentlemen; it is only your low fellows who get into such confoundedly high spirits; men of the world like us should do everything as if their hearts were broken."
"Melancholy ever cronies with Sublimity, and Courage is sublime," said Augustus, with the pomp of a maxim-maker.
[A maxim which would have pleased Madame de Stael, who thought that philosophy consisted in fine sentiments. In the "Life of Lord Byron," just published by Mr. Moore, the distinguished biographer makes a similar assertion to that of the sage Augustus: "When did ever a sublime thought spring up in the soul that melancholy was not to be found, however latent, in its neighbourhood?" Now, with due deference to Mr. Moore, this is a very sickly piece of nonsense, that has not even an atom of truth to stand on. "God said, Let there be light, and there was light!"--we should like to know where lies the melancholy of that sublime sentence. "Truth," says Plato, "is the body of God, and light is his shadow." In the name of common-sense, in what possible corner in the vicinity of that lofty image lurks the jaundiced face of this eternal bete noir of Mr. Moore's? Again, in that sublimest passage in the sublimest of the Latin poets (Lucretius), which bursts forth in honour of Epicurus, is there anything that speaks to us of sadness? On the contrary, in the three passages we have referred to, especially in the, two first quoted, there is something splendidly luminous and cheering.