My Lady’s Trick
Poem by Sarah Das Gupta
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(The London Road 1805)
The stagecoach left the inn yard, the team of grey horses, a dashing sight. Their hooves rang out on the flinty road, as the greys pulled the heavy load. The snow blew across the winter fields, it drifted against the bare hedgerows. Outside passengers were huddling, cold as the coach horn sounded loud and bold. As the London coach had left Rochester, My Lady and her maid had settled down. Wrapped in white fur with a velvet hood, she looked as an elegant lady should. The coach was entering a thick, snowy forest. The guard’s blunderbuss was fully loaded. Suddenly a shot rang out, clear and loud. They heard a voice strong and proud.
‘Stand and deliver!’ the masked man commanded. The guard’s right arm, hung limp and useless. The passengers shivered outside in the snow, ambushed in a forest with nowhere to go! The Highwayman was a fashionable dandy, his cream breeches showed no creases at all. His crimson waistcoat was made to measure, Not like a thief, more a gentleman of leisure. My Lady handed over her diamond necklace. Gold sovereigns, rings, bracelets, all part of the plunder. Maids, servants, underlings, he graciously spared, as for their few pennies, he hardly cared. The thief galloped off in a spray of snow. The gentlemen strangely recovered their nerves. ‘He’ll hang at Tyburn,’ one shouted aloud, a sentiment echoed by the rest of the crowd. Arriving in London, they all had their story, My Lady was as calm and composed as ever. For the paste stones stolen she cared not a heck, her diamonds were safe, around her maid’s neck!
Sarah Das Gupta is a retired English teacher from Cambridge, UK, who taught in India and Tanzania. She started writing last year after an accident that limited her walking to crutches. Her work has been published in over 150 magazines and anthologies from many different countries. She has Best of the Net and Dwarf nominations in 2023.