Edith The Captive ; Or, The Robbers of  Epping Forest.
By James Malcolm Rymer.
Illustrated by G. F. Sargent.
John Dicks, Publisher. 1861.

Chapter XLIX.
The Oxford Mail. - Stand And Deliver.
Occupying a place exactly in the middle of the road, so that if the mail coach had continued its course it must have come into collision with him, stood Captain Heron.
And the manner in which he stood was enough to strike consternation into anyone who, for the first time, so saw him.
By a particular touch of Daisy�s rein and a word to her, Captain Heron could get her at any time to rear on to her hind feet and paw the air with her fore feet; and that was what she did now, in the middle of the roadway, right in front of the Oxford mail.
And as the moonlight - not very strong or bright - fell with a white sort of misty halo about Captain Heron and his horse, they both looked something more than mortal.
"Stand and deliver, Oxford mail !"
For the third time these words rang in the ears of the affrighted coachman and guard.
It was more from an involuntary movement than because he resisted to obey the mandate, that the coachman drew his reins hard and close, and stopped the mail coach.
"Why, William, it�s a highwayman !" said the coachman.
A shriek from inside of the coach in a female voice responded to these words, and Captain Heron then called out aloud in the same strange, monotonous chanting kind of voice in which he had already spoken. "Resistance is death ! Stand and deliver, Oxford mail !"
With two bounds, Daisy was by the side of the coach, and then bending down in his saddle so as to look in, Captain Heron said politely, "Ladies and gentlemen, I will trouble you for your purses, watches, and jewelry !"
Two more screams came from inside the coach, and then a man�s voice said, "Why, you are the most impudent fellow I ever heard of !"
"Always was !" said Captain Heron, "Quick ! Quick now, if you please !"
"Now, William," said the coachman, "that�s it !"
"I have him !"
"Oh, indeed !" cried Captain Heron, as he stooped still lower on the neck of Daisy, and darted with her round the back of the coach to the other window.
Bang ! went the guard�s blunderbuss, with the report of a small field-piece.
William had placed the butt-end of the blunderbuss against his stomach when he fired it, and the tremendous recoil of the weapon sent him a complete summersault over the top of the coach, and down, partially, on Captain Heron, whose adroit movement to the other window had not been observed by the guard.
"You should be careful, William," said Captain Heron, "or you will do yourself or someone else an injury with that stupid blunderbuss."
"Murder !" yelled William. "There�s two of �em and they are both alike!"
"No !" said the coachman.
"Yes, I�ve blowed one of �em all to bits, and here�s the other ! Oh ! Oh !"
William rolled over the haunches of Daisy to the ground, when Daisy saluted him with a kick that sent him rolling over into a ditch by the side of the road.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said Captain Heron again, as if nothing had happened, "I will trouble you to be quick, as my time may be valuable."
A couple of purses were handed at once to him, and one watch.
"Young man ! young man !" said an old lady, who was in the coach, "you will come to a bad end."
"Very likely, my dear madam. Now, sir, if you please, your watch and money !"
A stout, red-faced man sat next the coach door, and he had given nothing ; but, with his little round eyes, he kept glaring at Captain Heron in silence.
"Come, sir, quick !"
"My dear sir, I have nothing - nothing !"
"Stuff !"
"Don�t believe him, Mr. Highwayman," cried a sharp, female voice.
"I don�t, madam."
"If you will give me back my purse, Mr. Highwayman," added the sharp female voice, "which has only ten guineas in it, I will get you ever so much more."
"It�s a bargain, madam."
"Then make Mr. Cheesewright give you his black pocket-book."
"The - hem !" said the stout, red-faced man. "How dare you, madam ? How dare you ? It�s robbery, madam !"
"Come, come, sir !" said Captain Heron, "we know that !"
"But it�s robbery of her - of her ! She is as bad as you - quite - quite !"
"And what are you, Mr. Cheesewright ?" said the sharp female voice again. "Did you not show me your black pocket-book, to convince me how much money you had ; and did I not see your name inside the cover of it, when you, a perfect stranger to me, asked me if I would go to Cheltenham with you next week, meeting you in St. Martin�s-le-Grand ?"
"Monster ! Wretch ! Villain !" shouted a portly looking female, who was on the opposite side of the coach, and who immediately grappled Mr. Cheesewright by the throat with one hand, and flinging his hat out at the coach window with the other, commenced tearing out his hair by the handful.
"Murder ! murder ! murder !"
"Yes, I�ll teach you to offer to take people to Cheltenham - I will !"
"My dear - don�t ! It is not true !"
"Am I not your lawful wife ? St.-Martin�s-in-the-Fields, you villain ! The Reverend Askew Jones, and my certificate in my pocket ! Oh, Mr. Cheesewright, Mr. Cheesewright, I�ll lead you a life for this !"
"My dear madam, " said a faint, polite kind of voice, "you are leading me a life, too, for your elbow is right in the middle of my face."
"Never mind !"
"Oh, that�s all very well ! But -"
"I warn you all," said Captain Heron, "if you will fight and squabble with each other, instead of handing me my booty, why, I must get help."
"On we go ! Ha ! ha !" shouted the coachman at this moment. "All right, William !"
The guard had contrived to scramble out of the ditch, and on to the coach again. He had possessed himself of his horn, and he gave a long, squealing blast upon it, as the coachman at the same moment lashed his horses to a gallop.
Off went the Oxford mail again.
But this did not  seem to make much difference to Captain Heron.
Keeping his hand upon the side of the coach window, he set Daisy to a light gallop, so that he easily kept up with the coach ; and as he did so he gave utterance to a strange, sharp sound like a bird, and then a prolonged whoop, like some gigantic owl.
A couple off shots were fired at him, from someone outside the coach, and he called out, "Wait a bit ! I will owe them to you !"
Then a bullet from a pistol fired from the inside of a coach grazed his neck, and he added, "Thank you, sir, inside ! I will soon attend to you !"
The coach at that moment swerved on one side fearfully.
The coachman swore and the guard shouted. The inside passengers screamed in alarm, and several of the outsides began to drop off into the road, like over ripe chestnuts from a tree.
"Easy ! easy !" cried out Captain Heron.
"Yes, Captain !" shouted half a dozen voices.
"Now !"
The off-wheels of the coach were run up on to a bank by the roadside. The vehicle swayed to and fro for a moment.
With a crash, it turned over.
The luggage on the roof got detached by the concussion, and was strewn right across the road.
"Let go the leaders !" cried Captain Heron.
"Yes, Captain !"
"Now the wheelers !"
"All right, sir."
"All clear ?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Off they go, then !"
There was a clatter of horse�s feet, a loud, springing lash of a whip, and all the four horses� of the Oxford mail, which had been set at liberty by Captain Heron�s men, galloped off towards Oxford.
The coachman was in the midst of a thorn hedge, on the other side of the road.
The guard was lying in the midst of the luggage from the roof, with a box on his back, which he could easily have shaken off ; but, firmly believing it to be the coach, he never made the effort so to do.
"Now, my men," said Captain Heron, "to your work !"
Screams, cries, oaths, and groans, issued from the inside of the coach.
Captain Heron sat motionless on Daisy, about a dozen paces off , while his band now set to work with diligence. He only spoke once to them, in the way of giving directions.
"Since," he said, "it has come to this, and we have had all this trouble, you must pay yourselves. Be careful that no one escapes you."
The upper side of the coach was surrounded by the band, and the door being opened, the passengers were dragged out, one after the other, and subjected to a vigorous examination of pockets.
The stout red-faced man looked the picture of misery, and his black pocket-book fell an easy prey to the robbers.
His better-half had fainted, and was placed on the road-side bank, where he was told to attend to her.
"Ah," he said, as he looked at Captain Heron ; "If you would only rob me of Mrs. Cheesewright as well as of my black pocket-book !"
These words were evidently far better to restore a fainting person than the best vinegar, the most pungent essences, or the most spiritual sal volatile ; for no sooner did Mrs. Cheesewright utter them, than his wife sprang to her feet, and fixed her hands to his throat with a yell of rage.
"Come, come !" said Ogle, "forget and forgive !"
Ogle accompanied this advice by what he meant to be a gentle nudge with his elbow, but it unfortunately had the effect of sending both Mr. and Mrs. Cheesewright into the ditch, where the guard had already had a not very salubrious bath.
But this involuntary immersion in the green and stagnant water seemed to have a very mollifying effect, for in a moment they both crawled out, looking quite calm and peaceable.
"That�s all !" said one of the robbers now, as he looked into the coach, after dragging out by the legs a villainous looking man who pretended to be crying.
"Dear sirs," said this man, "I beg you will believe that I am poor - very poor ; but yet I hand out with pleasure my money - and this watch - and I take off this ring from my finger - and then you have all - all !"
The poor outside passengers, who had not run away, fared no better in the hands of the robbers than the insides. The coachman, being rescued from his painfully prominent position in the hedge, had a good round sum of money taken from him.
"All done ?" asked Captain Heron.
"Yes, Captain."
"Then I want to know to whom I was indebted for two shots from outside and one from in."
"I can tell you about the outside," said a man who had taken the whole affair very coolly. "It was a bagman, as they call themselves, who fired at you, and he has made off."
"Very well ; I will take your word. And now, as to the shot from inside?"
"It was not me !" said the man who had been last taken out of the coach.
"Search him !" said Captain Heron.
A pistol was found in his coat pocket.
"Then it was you !"
"No. Somebody has placed the pistol there, I assure you, my dear sir."
Captain Heron held up the pistol.
"If any one will say this is his, he shall have it, and I will forgive him the shot ; but if any one so claims it, and I find out it is not his, I claim my turn of a shot at him !"
No one spoke.
"You see, then, my dear sir, that it is yours!"
"No, no ! the real owner is afraid to claim it !"
"But I have said he has nothing to fear."
"It belongs to him ! I saw him !"
This man pointed to a quiet-looking personage who had been dragged out of the coach, and who had not said a word, or made the least opposition to being searched and robbed.
"Friend," said this person, "now thou art a perverter of the truth."
"You know it was you ! You are called the fighting Quaker of Moorfields ! You know it was you !"
"Yea, verily, I have journeyed in this vale of affliction forty and seven years, and it hath not yet been my lot to hear so desperate a - hum ! - as that in all my life !"
Captain Heron still held up the pistol.
"Will any one give evidence ?"
"I will !" said the sharp-voiced female who had got Mr. Cheesewright into trouble. "The Quaker gentleman had nothing to do with it. It was that man !"
"Yea, damsel," said the Quaker, "thou art comely to look upon, and thy speech is good."
"Now, sir," said Captain Heron to the true owner of the pistol, who slunk back, looking white and cadaverous, - "now, sir, it is not that you fired at me - for that you had a perfect right to do - that I am wroth at ; but at your trying - thinking there was danger - to fix it on an innocent man !"
"Mercy !"
"I am going to return your shot !"
"Oh, no, no !"
"I am indeed. But I will give you just a chance for your life. You shall run while I count nine, and at the tenth count I will fire at you ! So now be off !"
"Murder ! I can�t run !"
"Very good ; then I shoot you at once where you are. I cannot help it, if you can�t run."
The fellow was off in a moment at a good speed, yelling as he went, "Murder ! murder ! Help ! thieves ! highwaymen ! Murder ! murder !"
Captain Heron laughed, and fired a pistol in the air ; when, fully believing that it was at him, the terrified wretch plunged headlong into  a hedge, and fought his way through it, and rolled over into a deep gully, or water-course, on the other side.
Captain Heron placed his whistle to his lips, and blew a long, wailing blast.
Another moment, and the mail coach and its disconsolate passengers were alone in the Oxford Road, and not a robber was to be seen.