titus n. owl

"I cannot bear to see you wasting the best years of your life toiling away, back bent over your work, hair gone grey with the factory-dust, grown old before your time," he would say to you as the two of you walk home from your jobs at some sort of dull grim Industrial Revolution thing.  "Two such masterminds as we ought to strike out for ourselves.  You may say what you will about the glories of Industry, Commerce, et al., but I see the utility of Entrepreneurship.  Be what you make of yourself!  I've a fool-proof plan, you see."  He explains the scheme to you with grandiose phraseology and deceptive turns of phrase, but you get the gist of it, which is that he shall attend all manner of glitzy parties, classy gambling dens and society events, ingratiating himself to the upper crust and sussing out the particularly rich and stupid, and you shall rob them.  It is unclear whether he intends to assist in the physical robbery, and you have a vague uneasy feeling that you're getting the short end of the stick, but he convinces you anyway.

All is well for a while, and it turns out that he does, in fact, assist in the physical robbery - seems to enjoy it, actually, although he acts terribly bored and blasé about the entire thing if he's called on it - and the two of you are soon enough sitting on a pretty little sum.  Yet when it all falls apart, and it inevitably does, it is you who are arrested and he who disappears without a trace, leaving you feeling more than a little bitter and abandoned.  But before you are brought to trial, the gaoler releases you.  You haven't the slightest idea why until you pass a cryer hawking broadsheets which explain in lyrical format with accompanying woodcut illustration (which makes him look far more romantically handsome than he is) that the Gentleman Highwayman has confessed all - the man they'd caught before was an innocent bystander, a mere decoy - his wild adventurous tale told in full - and he is to be hanged today.

At noon.

Which was at least twenty minutes ago, by the first watch you find.

You run full-tilt to Tyburn, where you find with a flush of relief that they'd made the mistake of asking him if he'd any last words.  You fight your way to the front of the crowd and he sees you; his bombastic speech falters for the barest instant, then he smiles at you reassuringly - never a care in this world or the next - and finishes his statements to a roar of applause from the gathered audience.

A moment later the drums start, and the world goes silent except for that dread tattoo.

He refuses the mask.

He complains to the hangman that the rope is too tight the first time he puts it on, eliciting one small, final smattering of laughter from the assembly.

He never takes his eyes off yours or loses his slight smile.

Then the drums stop, and up he goes, trying not to kick - but there's not enough starch in the world to keep an upper lip stiff through a hanging.

For a moment you're frozen, unsure of what to do.

Then you do something very brave, and somewhat heroic, and incredibly stupid.

And because the crowd, bloodthirsty as they are, are even more thirsty for mayhem and a poke in the eye of the law, it works.

Somehow you save him, and get away in the press of people, half-carrying and half-dragging him and hoping you weren't too late, but of course this is a story with a happy ending, and you weren't too late, and he is fine after a while (though not as soon as he wants you to believe).  He tells you he never doubted you for a moment - he knew if he got you sprung you'd spring him too - he'd the utmost faith in your abilities as a man of action - and he keeps going until you're red at the ears and ducking your head, though he never actually says "thank you." 

"There was," he says, "the most amazing view from up there.  I had never before appreciated how small this country is.  Far too cozy for me, I think.  We should emigrate.  There's more of a chance for advancement for the self-starting man in the Americas..."