Court of Foxes by Christianna Brand Read Free Book Online

footman, I suppose? — one day a major domo? Is that a page’s ambition?’
    ‘Who — I? A major domo! I — I mean, my lord,’ corrected Jake hurriedly, ‘that that is not my ambition. I want to be something quite — well, quite different.’
    ‘Come tell me then. Perhaps,’ said the Earl, his eyes on the door, only half listening, ‘I might help you to it.’
    Jake laughed. Accustomed to the company of indulgent elders, the man, as a man, had no terrors for him; and as for his rank — after all, thought Jake grinning to himself, he’s only my future brother-in-law. And he liked him; no sly, insinuating blade, handing out bribes for a peep through a lady’s window, skulking in the shadow of bouquet-bearing footmen — but a real man (even though he might look somewhat womanish and dress a trifle over-foppish) who carried his own flowers and paid his own court honestly, riding up boldly to his lady’s door: and sat his horse like a king what was more — Jake was sensitive to good horsemanship; back home in the Cotswold country all the family had been bred to the saddle: were as much at home on a horse as on their own feet. He grew confidential, drawing a little closer. ‘I don’t think your lordship could help me in my ambition.’ And he leaned forward, almost whispering, his eyes bright with dreams of excitement and daring. ‘I want to be a highwayman,’ he said.
    If the Earl looked a little startled, at least, unlike less intelligent adults, he did not burst into derisive laughter. ‘What, ride the High Toby? You’ve been reading too much of the Weston brothers and Sixteen String Jack.’
    ‘They say he wears a fine brocade suit laced with silver, and eight ribbons at each knee of his breeches. And at his execution, sir, a highwayman may commonly have as many as half-a-dozen fine ladies to sup with him in the prison, the night before he dies—’
    ‘And so he dies,’ said Lord Tregaron. He smiled rather wryly. ‘If you’re so hot after the women, young sir, there are other ways of dining with them than by inviting them to Newgate.’ And he laughed and put on a quizzical air. ‘But, come, I may yet be of use to you after all. We have a fine mob of just such villains operating from a lair close by to my home in Carmarthenshire. Y Cadno — The Fox — they call their leader, from the name of the hamlet where they have their den — a chapel and a smithy, no more, which in Welsh is called Cwrt y Cadno, that is to say The Court of the Fox or The Den of the Fox.’ He laughed again. ‘Shall I commend you to these gentry with a few handsome words of reference?’
    ‘You smile, my lord; but one day—’
    ‘One day you will swing from the Three-Legged Tree, my boy, if you cling to such visions as these; with friends paid to hang upon your legs as you dangle there, strangling, and so the sooner put an end to your agony. Who cares for the plaudits of a silly crowd? — that hears them only through ears muffled with laudanum (if he’s fortunate) and clasping his own shroud and coffin — if he’s rich. Do you know the average length of a highwayman’s life? Twenty three years — and that’s putting it high, I assure you. Isaac Darkin they accounted successful and famous, and he died before he was twenty-one. McLaine, the hero of them all was but twenty-six. Though I confess,’ he added, ‘that The Fox outlives most of his contemporaries and must by now, by five or six years at least, have outstayed his time.’ But there came a step upon the stairs and he raised his head sharply, all else forgotten. ‘Is that your lady?’
    But it was the waiting woman. ‘Oh, my lord — she’s a little discomposed, as is but natural; lying down upon her bed and begs you will excuse her… Later, perhaps? If your lordship would call again this evening? She’ll receive you this evening, my lord, and — and I know you will be made happy…’ She turned and scuttled out again, pausing only for one of her