Free The Highwayman Came Riding by Lydia M Sheridan Page B

intriguing line of thought was brought to an abrupt halt as the coach
once more stopped, this time in the light spilling from the open doorway of
Appleby Manor. By dumb luck it chanced to shine through the coach window and
Mrs. Kendall and the Countess finally saw, in all their snowy white glory, the
very low décolletage of their daughters’ attire.
    “Jeanne!” her mother snorted terribly. “Your bosom!”
    For the moment, the Grey Cavalier was forgotten.
     
    *****
     
    This
most recent incarnation of the Grey Cavalier was the first in thirty years.
Napoleon had been dispatched for the second, and everyone hoped, last time, the
villagers of Oaksley perhaps most of all. The local economy had been shattered
by poor crops, cattle disease, and the return of men from the war with no jobs
in sight. The reappearance of the Cavalier was seen as a welcome diversion at
first, and a lifeline after that.
    The first robbery was in April. By May, children played Highwayman,
filching black stockings from their mothers’ mending baskets and denuding the
local fowl of feathers for their hats.
    By June, the entire county was in the throes of a vulgar passion for the
engaging scamp. Young girls swooned and giggled, wearing ribbons of grey as a
token of their gallant hero. Young men, anxious to be all the crack, tied
their cravats in unsightly knots they proudly dubbed The Highwayman’s Fall. A
few even went as far as to stick large grey plumes in their curled beavers.
    In July, though the debate had not been settled as to whether he was
truly the Cavalier’s shade or simply a talented opportunist, the villagers had
ceased to care. Shopkeepers, quick to capitalize on the revitalized legend,
had begun to turn a healthy profit. Parents, devouring every morsel of news
about the popular fellow in the newspapers, forgot to complain about the
shocking influence he had brought to bear upon their offspring. And the
clergy, the staid Church of England Vicar Ramsdell and the hugely popular, but
papist, Father Flannery, saw the prosperity of their flock, the renewed spirit
of hope, and the money flowing into the church’s coffers, and kept their
sermons focused on the goodness of charity, rather than the evils of theft.
    By August, the tiny village of Oaksley had become the most popular
tourist attraction north of London. Even a few of the swells in the highest
reaches of the Ten Thousand had abandoned their usual jaunt to Brighton to
spend a few days touring the area inhabited by the most beloved highwayman
since Claude Duvall.
     
    *****
     
    And thus it was one fine September morning that the Honorable Frederick
Dalrymple strolled out of the village’s only inn. The sign proclaimed it The
Lady and the Scamp and sported a pleasing depiction of a woman kneeling before
a corpse in a gibbet. It caused him to wince slightly, as if the sight made
his breakfast repast of steak, eggs, and ale roil in his stomach. However, Mr.
Dalrymple was made of stern stuff. After managing to escape the overweening
ministrations of his valet, the painting of a decaying corpse was child’s play
to him. He was come to learn about the local hero, and learn he would.
However, he was nonetheless unprepared for the glories of a High Street devoted
to nothing but the celebration of a thief.
    The local worthies, on the other hand, were also unprepared for the
London dandy.
    They were most unused to the sight of a tall blond man, lean though
well-muscled, picking his way daintily down the cobblestones in coat and
trousers of a delicate lavender hue and a waistcoat of the palest jonquil.
When he frowned at the sun and unfurled a precious parasol, even Squire
Appleby, widely known as the kindest man in the parish, couldn’t repress a
snicker. The less said about the Douglas twins and their prowess with
spitballs, the better.
    Mr. Dalrymple grandly ignored the rabble, tipped his hat to the pretty
girls on the corner, and tripped up the street, regarding the populace with