The Plague of Ghosts and Other Stories

A merry, reckless, roaring soul had been Sir Geoffrey, and if it was
said of him that in ten years he had never gone sober to bed, yet was
it confessed that he was a pleasant, humorous gentleman in his cups,
just as he was a pleasant, humorous gentleman in all the other
traffics that made up his rascally life. If he lost his money at the
tables, he did so with an amiable smile in his handsome eyes and a
jest on his lips. If at intervals, more or less regular, he would beat
his wife, periodically kick his servants down stairs, and
systematically grind the faces of his tenants, yet all these things he
did, at least, with an engaging joviality of demeanour.

In short, he was a very affable, charming scoundrel, and all England
was agreed that he richly deserved his end. And yet, the humour of the
thing--and it was just such a jest as Sir Geoffrey would have relished
had it been less against himself--lay in the fact that although none
of the rascally things he had done could be considered by the law of
England reason enough for hanging him, the crime for which he was
hanged--that of highway robbery--was the one crime it had never
occurred to him to commit.

The thing had fallen out in this wise:

Sir Geoffrey, riding Londonwards, from his home near Guildford, one
evening in late March, had been held up on Wandsworth Common by a
cloaked figure on a huge grey mare. The failing light had gleamed from
the barrel of a pistol, and the highwayman's tone had been one that
asked no arguments, admitted of no compromise. But Sir Geoffrey in the
course of his blustering career had become a useful man of his hands.
One blow of his heavy riding-crop had knocked aside the highwayman's
pistol, another had knocked in the highwayman's head and tumbled him
headlong from his saddle.

Sir Geoffrey was master of the situation, and, mightily pleased by it,
he bethought him of the spoils of war, which were his by right of
conquest. Without a qualm--nay, with a laugh and the lilt of a song on
his lips--Sir Geoffrey had dragged the stricken tobyman into the
shelter of a clump of trees, and exchanged his own spavined horse for
the fellow's splendid mare, on which he had blithely pursued his road.

But before he had gone a couple of miles he had caught the sounds of a
numerous party galloping behind and rapidly gaining on him. Now Sir
Geoffrey's conscience--if so be he owned one--was at rest. He had done
no wrong, leastways no wrong that should make him fear the law, and so
he rode easily, never thinking of attempting to outdistance the party
which came on behind--a thing he might easily have done had he been so
inclined, bravely mounted as he was.