Chapter 9: Good Samaritans.
During the short passage to the coach house I had been trying to consider my course: but my state of famishment and the agitation into which I had been thrown had bereft me of all power of consecutive thought; so that when the gentleman called upon me, in no gentle tones, to give an account of myself, I stood like a stock fish before him. Then I was amazed to feel my legs giving way under me; I stretched forth my arms in an instinctive attempt to steady myself, and, clutching at empty air, fell heavily forward on to the stone floor.
When I came to myself, I saw a kind, motherly face bending over me, and was aware of a hot taste in my mouth.
"Are you better now?" said the lady, in tones the like of which I had seldom heard.
I smiled, and she held a spoon to my lips, and I swallowed its contents--a mixture of rum and milk, I think--as obediently as a baby.
"Poor boy! he must have been starving," said the lady.
"And what right had a fellow to be starving with a crown piece in his pocket?" said the gentleman behind.
"He will explain by and by," replied the lady. "He must not be vexed tonight, James. I have made up a bed in the loft, and Martha is preparing some food.
"Can you walk, my poor boy?" she asked me.
"I am quite well, ma'am," I said, staggering to my feet. "I don't know what came over me."
She told me that I had fainted, which surprised me mightily, though when I came to reflect it was not much to be wondered at, seeing that never in my life before had I been for more than four hours without food.
"The gentleman asked me to explain--" I began, remembering what had preceded my fall.
"Never mind about that now," said the lady. "You will go to bed, and when you have had some food you will sleep, and you can tell my husband all about it in the morning."
And then she directed the two stablemen who were standing at the door to help me up the ladder into the loft of the coach house. A bed, spread with linen as good as ever I lay on, was arranged at one end; and, dropping on to this, I was asleep immediately. They told me next morning that the mistress had herself brought up the posset which her servant had prepared; but, finding me in such deep slumber, had carried it away again, saying that sleep was as good as food to me then.
The sunlight, streaming in at the little window above my bed, wakened me early. I was at first perplexed at my unfamiliar surroundings, but, recollecting at length the happenings of the previous day, I got up and descended the stairs. At the door of the coach house one of the men I had already seen was swilling the wheel of a big coach with pails of water, whistling the while. He grinned when he saw me, and said:
"Mistress said you was to go straight to kitchen when you waked, and fill your stomick."
"I am mighty hungry, to be sure, but I should like to wash first," I replied.
"Why, you do look 'mazing grimy," he said with another grin. "Do ye feel better this marnin'? You went into a faint like as I never did see--a real female faint it was. I reckon as how you be overgrowed, young man."
"Where shall I find the pump?" I asked, restive under this reference to my unhappy attire.
"Ho, Giles!" he called, "take the young man to the poomp."
At this cry, Giles, in whom I recognized the second man whose skull I had threatened to crack, appeared from round the corner of the coach house. His face also wore a grin.
"Ay, true now, you do want the poomp," he said. "Come, and I'll show 'ee. It do make a young feller weak-like when he overgrows his strength. There was my sister Jane's Billy, to be sure, shot up like a weed, he did, was for ever falling into fits, and a bit soft in his noddle, too, poor soul.
"Here's the poomp; be 'ee strong enough to draw for yourself, think 'ee, or shall I do it for 'ee?"
I was strongly tempted to catch the fellow by the middle and give him a back throw which would enlighten him as to my physical aptitude; but I forbore, and allowed him to pump for me, which he did with great willingness, discoursing the while on the infirmities of all his kin. Refreshed by my ablutions, I was nothing loath to follow him to the kitchen, where a red-faced little dumpling of a cook set before me such a breakfast as would have made Mistress Pennyquick stare.
"Eat away," she said, setting her arms akimbo and eying me up and down as I ravenously began my meal. "Lawks! I don't wonder ye fainted if 'tis true, as they say, that ye hadn't had bite or sup for a week. You've a big body to keep a-goin', to be sure; overgrowed your strength seemingly. The likes of me don't faint."
And at this Susan the housemaid, who had just come in, giggled, and put her hand over her mouth, and I felt as if my ears had rims of fire. Would they never have done with their personal allusions? Mentally I cursed Job and Bill and Topper very heartily, and as heartily wished that my inches were a little less.
Luckily I was not born without a certain sense of humor. It had deserted me under stress of what I had gone through during the last two days, but when my cavities had been well filled with Martha's excellent viands, I was suddenly able to see myself as I must appear to others, and I astonished the servants by laying down my knife and fork, leaning back in my chair, and emitting a long ripple of laughter.
"Goodness alive!" exclaimed Martha. "Giles said a' was a natural, and I believe a' spoke true."
"No, no," I spluttered. "My noddle's sound enough. I think; 'tis only that--that I'm overgrown!"
And with that I laughed again, and my merriment was infectious, for the round little cook laughed until she dropped exhausted into a chair, and the housemaid uttered shrill little titters from behind her hands, bending forward at each explosion, opening her hands to take a peep at me, and then "going off," as they say, again.
In the midst of this hilarity there sounded suddenly a jangling and creaking of wires in the neighborhood of the ceiling, followed by a clang.
"Measter's bell!" cried Susan, and, smoothing her apron, and settling her countenance to a wonderful demureness and sobriety, the little rascal tripped away. She was back in a minute.
"Measter wants to see tha," she said.
I got up and followed her from the room and up the stairs, comfortable in body and mind, for sure, I thought, such cheerfulness was of good augury: the master of such happy servants could not be a very terrible man. Susan showed me into a large and well-furnished room, where, though it was summer time, a big fire was crackling merrily in the grate. On one side of it sat the master in a deep chair, smoking a pipe of tobacco; on the other the kind mistress was knitting. She smiled at me as I approached, and I knew that she was not thinking of my strange garb. The master hummed and hawed, as if in embarrassment how to address me; then, in a jovial tone intended to set me at my ease he said:
"Had a good breakfast?"
I assured him that I had never made such a meal in my life.
"That's right. Now, we want you to tell us your story in your own way; but mind, no beating about the bush."
I had already resolved to tell just so much as was necessary, without naming names, so I began:
"I was on my way to Bristowe, sir, and two nights ago, being overtaken by the rain, I sought shelter in a decayed barn near the roadside, and slept among some hay. Before morning three men came in whom I soon discovered from their speech to be poachers. They found me, robbed me of my money--not a vast sum--and forced me to exchange garments with them."
Here the flicker of a smile crossed the gentleman's face.
"They left me tied hand and foot, and when I released myself I was in such a taking at the scarecrow figure I must cut that I shunned the sight of men, and kept to the fields. But I had not eaten since noon of the day of my misadventure, and, being desperately hungry, I entered your gate to beg a meal, purposing to pay for it by some service for you."
"Hum! What then of this crown piece which you confessed was yours? Why need ye starve with that in your pocket?"
"To that, sir, I have no answer, save that I would not spend it till the last extremity."
"Hum! How old are you?"
"Somewhat past seventeen, sir."
"Just the age of our Roger," said the lady.
"And what's your name?"
At this I hesitated. I could not be more than thirty miles from Shrewsbury, and if I told my name perchance it might travel back, and I was in no mind to have my mischances retailed in the town. The gentleman saw my hesitation.
"Well, well," he said, "no matter for that. You have run away, eh?"
"No, sir. I have no relatives, and I came with full consent of my friends."
"And what think you to do at Bristowe? Have you friends there?"
"No, sir. I purposed to find employment on a ship."
"The old story!" quoth the gentleman with a grunt. Then, with a shrewd look at me, he said: "Contra mercator, novem jactantibus austris."
"Militia est potior," I said, capping his tag from Flaccus' first satire, without reflecting whereto he was luring me.
"I knew it!" he cried, waving his pipe triumphantly at his wife. "And you haven't run away from school?"
"Indeed I have not, sir. I left school some months ago."
The lady smiled at his crestfallen look. It was plain that, in talking over myself and my situation, he had declared with the positiveness which I found was part of his character, that I had fallen into some trouble at school and fled the consequences.
There was a brief silence; then he said:
"You spoke of work. What can you do?"
"Little enough, sir," I replied. "But I lived for some years on a farm, and could do something in that kind."
Husband and wife glanced at each other, and the gentleman said:
"Well, well, go downstairs now; presently I will send for you again."
I went down, and found my way, by the back of the house, the door standing open, into the garden. I had not taken more than half a dozen paces down the middle path when a big dog of the retriever kind came barking towards me. Stooping down, I patted his head and tickled his ears, a thing which all animals love, and then went on, the dog trotting by my side in most friendly wise.
And at a turn of the walk I came without warning upon the girl who had interposed to save me from a thrashing and had then gone scornfully away, thinking me a liar. The consciousness of my ridiculous appearance rushed upon me in a flood, and, having but small experience of womankind save as represented by Mistress Pennyquick and our maids, I must stand stock still, red to the roots of my hair.
The girl had been walking towards me, swinging by its riband a garden hat, for the air was hot. The dog ran to her, with a bark that might have been of reassurance. She stopped, and, with a pretty shyness far short of embarrassment, said:
"Are you better now, poor man?"
I mumbled something, I know not what, and she smiled and passed on.
Then I felt I would have given anything to live that moment again.
"Dolt! Fool! Jackass!" I called myself. "What a baby she must think me! 'Poor man!' she said. Good heavens! Does she think I am forty?"
And thus fuming at my tongue-tied awkwardness, I went along the path.
I walked up and down for some time, and was still pacing along with my back to the house, when I heard a light footstep behind me, and for a foolish moment fancied it was the girl whose aspect and kind words had lately put me in such a commotion. But on turning about, I felt relief and disappointment mingled (the disappointment was, I think, the greater) to see that it was only Susan.
"Measter wants tha," she said.
I stepped along in silence beside her, she taking three steps for my one, and giggling to sicken a man.
"Tha'lt never get a sweetheart," she said by and by.
"Oh! and why not?" I asked.
"'Cos tha'rt such a great big feller," she said.
"What in the name of all that's wonderful has that to do with it?"
The minx looked archly up into my face.
"Tha'rt too high for a maid to kiss," says she.
To this I made no answer, being no whit inclined to bandy words with this pert young housemaid. And so we came to the house.
"We have been considering your case," said the master, when I again stood before him. "Are you still set on going to Bristowe?"
"Truly, sir, I have seen nought to change my mind."
"You know you are miles out of your road?"
"'Tis through coming over the fields," I said.
"Well, if you are bent upon it, I will furnish you with money enough to take you there, and trust to you to repay me in good time."
"'Tis good of you, sir," I said, guessing, and not wrongly, I think, at whose persuasion he made that offer.
Then I was silent. The name "charity brat," bestowed on me years before by Cyrus Vetch, still rankled in my soul, and though, now that I look back upon it, there was nothing that need have wounded my pride in accepting the proffered loan, I was loath to be beholden to any man. Maybe my feeling on this point was complicated with another of which I was as yet hardly conscious; but certain it is that, after standing silent for a brief space, I said suddenly:
"I thank you heartily, sir, but I had liever earn the money."
"Pish, lad!" cried the gentleman. "'Tis easy to see you are not of laboring rank, and as for the money, I shall not break if I never see it again."
That was the worst argument he could have devised. My pride was up in arms now, in good sooth, and I said firmly:
"With your leave, sir, I will earn what money I need."
"Didst ever see such an obstinate youth?" said he testily, turning to his wife. "Well, as you will. I warrant you will soon sing another tune. Go and see my steward, one of the men will take you to him, and tell him what you know of husbandry; 'tis no more, I warrant, than you have learned out of Vergil's Georgics.
"Stay," he added, as I turned to go, "we must have a name for you. You can not be a mere cipher in my estate books."
"Call me Joe, sir," I said, he thinking me of my friend Punchard.
"Joseph in the house of bondage," says he with a laugh, "Well, Joe it shall be."
I was some paces towards the door when remembrance came to me.
"May I have my crown piece, sir?" I said, turning back.
"God bless the boy! Here, take it; 'tis the same that jumped from your pocket. And now I bethink me, those poachers' tatters sit very ill on your long carcass.
"We must find something better suited to his frame, mistress."
"We will have, a clothier from Bridgenorth," said the lady.
"I trust you will be very happy with us the short while you stay, Joe," she added with her gentle smile, and I went from the room with my heart very warm towards her.
Chapter 10: The Shuttered Coach.
Thus I entered on a period which I look back upon, after fifty years, as one of the happiest in my life. The steward, Mr. Johnson, an active, silent man, employed me alternately in practical work upon the estate--felling trees, repairing fences, and so. forth--and in keeping his books, for which latter duty my service with Mr. Vetch had in some sort fitted me. For a week I saw nothing of my master, and caught but fugitive glimpses of the members of his family. I suspected, and rightly, as it turned out, that he was deliberately keeping out of my way, but receiving careful reports of me from Mr. Johnson.
His name, I learned, was James Allardyce, and his rank was something above that of a yeoman. He was choleric in temper and hasty in judgment, but the soul of kindness and generosity, and the servants loved him. The boy I had felled was his only son, just home from the school at Rugby; and his niece, Mistress Lucy, as everyone called her, had but lately become a member of his household. She was an orphan. Her father had been a planter with large estates in Jamaica, and on his death she had been brought to England at his wish by an old nurse, and delivered into the care of her mother's brother. She had another uncle, it was said--a squire, her father's brother, who lived somewhat north of Shrewsbury. 'Twas Susan who told me this; she was a chatterbox, and would have talked all day to me had I not discouraged her, and then she said I gave myself airs.
But it was from Roger Allardyce I learned things so surprising that I wonder I did not betray myself. About a week after I came to the Hall (so the house was called) I was returning early one morning from bathing in a stream that crossed the estate, when I met the boy face to face. He was striding along, whistling, with his towel over his shoulder, and gave me a look aslant as he passed, then halted and called after me: "I say, Joe!"
I turned at once, and knew that he bore me no malice for the blow I had dealt him at our first meeting.
"I say," he repeated, "how did you manage to keep your crown piece when those poacher fellows bagged your money?"
I could not forbear smiling at this blunt manner of holding out the olive branch. I told him of my fight with the man called Topper.
"Wish I had seen it," he said, laughing heartily. "And I wish it had happened a day or two before, for if you had been settled here then you could have plied your fists to some better purpose."
I asked him to explain.
"Why, a lubber of a fellow rode over from Shrewsbury; he's a cousin of mine, more's the pity, and a king's officer, by George! There were two other officers with him, and they had been drinking, and they insisted on coming in, and stayed ever so long playing the fool. Father was in Bridgenorth, and Giles with him, and the other men were not at hand, and we had to put up with their tomfoolery, which soon drove mother and Lucy from the room: but if you had been there we could have contrived to fling them out between us."
"I would have done my best," I said.
"How is the water?" he asked.
"Fresh, with a wholesome sting," I replied, and then, giving me a friendly nod, he went on to his bath.
Here was strange news, I thought, as I returned to the house. I could have no doubt that the obnoxious visitors were Dick Cludde and his friends: for it was hardly possible that three other king's officers should have ridden out of Shrewsbury in this direction on the same day. If Cludde had come once he might come again, and should he catch sight of me my story would not only be known to my employer, but would be spread all over Shrewsbury--a thing I could not contemplate with satisfaction. It crossed my mind that 'twould be safer to leave Mr. Allardyce and seek employment with some other yeoman; but from this course two reasons deterred me: first, the liking I had taken for him and his family; second, an obstinate reluctance to allow Dick Cludde in any way to alter my plans. It would not be difficult, I reflected, for one in my humble position to avoid him should he come to the house, and if I needs must meet him, I should even welcome the occasion for bundling him out neck and crop if he proved a troublesome visitor.
My resolution was strengthened a few days afterwards. Since the morning when Roger Allardyce had first addressed me, a friendship had sprung up between us, with a rapidity only possible to boys. We bathed together of mornings; he would come and chat to me when I was at my work; and the hours of work being over, he would lug me into a little outhouse he kept as his own, and show me his treasures--guns, and fishing tackle, a breastplate worn by his grandfather in the Civil War, an oak-apple from the tree in which King Charles had hidden after the battle of Worcester. He treated me as his equal, and once, when I alluded to my dependent position, his curiosity, which with excellent well-bred delicacy he kept in check, got the better of him, and he begged me to tell him all about myself, swearing never to reveal it to a soul. But I cleaved to my determination; all I would tell him was what he knew already, that I was a penniless orphan bent on making my way in the world.
Well, one evening, when I returned from my work in the fields, I found him waiting for me with excitement plainly writ on his open face. He dragged me to his outhouse, and having shut the door, said:
"I say, Joe, there's a storm brewing, and we may need your fists. You remember I told you about my cousin riding over from Shrewsbury? Well, his father came today--Sir Richard Cludde, a big red-faced bully of a man. He's Lucy's uncle, you know; her father was his brother, and they quarreled, and hadn't seen each other for twenty years. But now he declares that he is Lucy's legal guardian; his brother died suddenly and left no will, and he came today to claim her as his ward. Father wouldn't hear of it; but told him Lucy had been brought here by the express command of her father, and he refused to give her up. The squire was in a terrible rage: 'tis said he has fallen on evil times, and is set on getting a hold on Lucy's property in Jamaica, and making a match between her and his son Dick--the lubber I told you of. There was an angry scene 'twixt him and father, you could have heard him roaring all over the house, and he went away in a towering passion, swearing that we'd not heard the last of it, and he'd go to law, and he'd beat us even though it cost him his last penny, and more to the same effect. Father makes light of it, but I know he is uneasy: he has been several times of late to see his lawyer in Bridgenorth, and 'tis by no means clear how the law will decide. There will be trouble, for Sir Richard is an obstinate man, and I'm glad you are here, for we are not going to let Lucy leave us, and if he comes one day to take her by force we'll make a fight for it, Joe. And I'll tell you what: you must teach me how to use my fists. Shall we begin now, Joe?"
I smiled at his eagerness, and though I was tired after my day's work I would not disappoint him, but stripped off my coat, and then and there began his instruction in what my old friend the captain called the noble art of self defense. He proved an apt pupil, and I a conscientious teacher, pleasing myself with the thought that by making him expert in boxing I was maybe gathering interest on Dick Cludde's crown piece. And being then of the age when romantic ideas get some hold upon a boy's mind, I flattered myself also that by staying on at the Hall I became in some sort a defender of fair Lucy Cludde, who was far too good, I vowed, for that pudding-headed lubber Dick.
After this Roger and I became faster friends than ever. We had constant sparring matches and some practice also with singlestick and foils; and Mr. Johnson would let me off sometimes of an afternoon to go a-fishing with the boy. Before I had been a month at the Hall there were few likely streams for miles around that I did not know. All this time I had seen very little of the other members of the family. Mr. Allardyce was putting me to probation, inquiring of my diligence from Mr. Johnson, and hearing somewhat of me from his son. As for Mistress Lucy, I deliberately avoided her. I had cut anything but an heroic figure at our two meetings, and though I was ready to engage in mortal fray as her champion, the recollection of my abashment before her caused me to hold aloof. She and Roger would sometimes go riding together, and I thought with a bitter envy that, but for the misfortune that had befallen me, I might have made one of the party, though in truth I remembered, a moment afterwards, that but for this same misfortune I should very likely never have seen her.
Thus matters went on for upwards of a month. My wages, which I had scrupulously saved, amounted to something above twenty-five shillings--enough to pay my way to Bristowe. There was no reason why I should remain longer at the Hall, and indeed I was beginning to grow restive under my servitude, light as it was, and to think more and more eagerly of my interrupted purpose. One day, therefore, I sought an interview with Mr. Allardyce, and told him that having now enough money for my needs I wished to leave his service and set forth on my way. He laughed and said:
"I wondered how long 'twould go on. You are still bent upon your travels, then?"
I assured him that such was the case, thanked him for his kindness, and asked to be allowed to go on the following Monday: it was then Friday.
"Well, Joe," says he, "I won't stay you. Mr. Johnson has given me good reports of you, and as for Roger, he is never tired of singing your praises. According to him, you are a past master in exercises of arms, and I confess I had hopes you would give up your scheme and return to your friends and take the position you were clearly bred for: then Roger and you might have been companions still. But 'twas not to be; very well; on Monday we shall bid you our adieux, and we shall look to see you someday when you have made a name for yourself--which to be sure will not be Joe."
I was up early next morning, and was going off for my customary swim when, on crossing a stile, I saw a figure draw back into a coppice bounding the field. Thinking it was Roger who had been before me, I called to him, but receiving no answer, and wondering who could be abroad at that early hour--for the men of the estate were engaged in their duties elsewhere--I sprang down and strode off to the coppice, moved by some little curiosity. But though I walked to and fro among the trees for some time, I saw no one, and concluding that it was probably some poacher returning home from his night's work I went on to the bathing place, resolved to give a hint to Mr. Johnson.
Roger joined me presently, with a glum face.
"Oh, I say, Joe," he said, "this is deuced bad news. Father says you are leaving us on Monday."
"Yes, I have been here long enough," I said.
"Of course, I didn't expect you to work here forever, but I did think you would change your mind and remain friends with me."
"We shall always be friends, you and I, I hope," I said, "but it will be on a different footing. I could not work here forever, as you say: and if I mean to do anything in the world 'tis time I set about it. Maybe five years hence I shall return, and you will not be ashamed to own me for a friend."
"Ashamed! When was I ever ashamed? Why, we think a world of you, father and mother and Lucy, too. When father told us last night, they were sorry, yet glad, too, I own. Mother said she was sure you would get on, and I know you will, but all the same I wish you were not going. I say, tell me your real name, and if you have a bother with your people I'll go and see them, I swear I will, and persuade 'em to forgive you."
How surprised he would have been, I thought, if I had told him that the people whom I had not wronged, but who had done me wrong, were relatives of his own! But I would not tell him, and when we had finished our swim and were returning to the house, he declared that he also would leave home; there was no fun in being a yeoman, he said: and if a fellow like Dick Cludde could be an officer in the king's navy, so could he--or in the army, and he would persuade his father to let him go, by George he would! And he asked me to write to him, so that he might know where to find me when his great plan came to execution.
On Monday morning at half-past seven, after a good breakfast, I was at the gate, girt and equipped for my journey. The poachers' garments had, of course, long been discarded, and I was clad in the suit of serviceable homespun obtained for me from Bridgenorth in the first days of my service, and now but little the worse for wear. All the family was at the gate to bid me farewell, even Mistress Lucy, in her riding habit, for she was wont to go for an hour's canter on fine mornings, before breakfast at half-past eight. The adieux were said; all wished me well; Mr. Allardyce, as a parting shot, said that I should always find a job on his estate if I fell in with more poachers, or if my fortunes at Bristowe did not turn out to my liking; and then, my heart warm with their kindness, I set off up the road.
Six or seven miles lay between me and the highroad to Bristowe through Worcester and Gloucester, but I knew of a short cut four miles from the Hall, which would bring me into the road at the turnpike at Deuxhill, some way farther south, and save a good three miles of the road. I had learned of this short cut in the course of my fishing expeditions with Roger; it was the nearest way to the Borle Brook, where our angling had ever the best success--a narrow track striking off to the right, very rutty and rough, bordered by hedges, and uphill but not steep.
I had tramped three miles or more, at a good pace, when I heard galloping horses behind me, and the rumble of wheels. Turning about, I saw a coach drawn by three horses, with a postilion on the leader, approaching at a great rate, jolting and swaying in a manner that bespoke desperate haste.
I stood aside to let it pass, holding my nose against the whirling dust cloud it raised, and giving it but a glance as it rattled by. The shutters were up; I could not see whether it held anybody; and when it had passed I again took the middle of the road, wondering idly what necessity there might be for so great speed. Only a minute or two afterwards I heard a light patter close at my heels, and looking back without stopping, I was surprised to see the big black retriever which belonged to Mistress Lucy, and with which, since my first meeting with him in the garden, I had been on friendly terms. The dog uttered a low bark when he recognized me, fawned upon me, and then set off running ahead. I noticed now that the beast left a thin trail of blood on the ground. He had not run far when he stopped, turned round, and barked as if to invite me on, not waiting, however, to see whether I responded.
For a moment I was too much taken up with wondering by what mishap the dog had been wounded to connect his appearance, and his evident wish to urge me on, with the coach that had lately passed. But then the connection struck upon me in a flash, and I began to run with all my might. The dog had doubtless accompanied his mistress on her morning ride; he could only have been wounded in defending her; she must have been waylaid, and, thought linking itself with thought, I guessed that Sir Richard Cludde had taken this means of asserting his claim to her guardianship, and the man I had seen in the coppice a few days before was an emissary of his. Without a doubt she was now a prisoner in the coach, being carried against her will to Shrewsbury.
The road here ran steeply downhill, and the coach was out of sight round a bend. Without pausing to consider the chances of overtaking it, I leapt rather than ran forward, soon outstripping the dog, which had done his best, poor beast, but was now well-nigh exhausted. I flung away my staff, that encumbered me, and tore headlong down the hill, till, coming to the bend, where the road sloped upwards, I caught sight once more of the coach, no more than half a mile ahead of me. This surprised me, for neither the ascent nor my speed could account for its nearness, and I wondered, as I pounded after it, whether I had after all been mistaken.
But the matter was explained when I came to the inn that stood at the point where my short cut branched off. I saw wheel tracks to the right, crossed by similar tracks back again to the road, and I guessed that the postilion had intended to drive his horses down the byroad, but having found it too rough or too narrow had been compelled to return, even at the cost of loss of time in backing.
My heart leapt with exultation; the kidnappers were not making for Shrewsbury after all; they purposed driving southward, with what design I could not guess, nor did I stop to consider, for in a twinkling I saw a possibility of intercepting them. Dashing into the inn, much to the amazement of the innkeeper, who had sometimes served Roger and me with a pot of ale as we returned from fishing, I told him my suspicions in quick, breathless gasps, and bade him send to Mr. Allardyce for assistance, and to follow me, if he could, along the byroad to Deuxhill. The man was not too quick-witted, and I could have beaten him for his slowness to comprehend the urgency of the affair. But some glimmering of it dawning upon him, he promised to borrow a horse from Farmer Grubb close by, he having none of his own, and to send a messenger back to the Hall. Without further parley I left him, and set off along the byroad, scarce giving a glance to the poor dog limping painfully towards the inn.
Chapter 11: I Hold A Turnpike.
Could I reach the turnpike in time? I wondered. I had lost perhaps three minutes at the inn. The coach must already have reached the crossroads, and was now, without doubt, speeding southward on a course parallel with my own, but downhill, whereas the byroad, though shorter, was for the most part uphill, and so rough that I risked spraining my ankle on a stone or in a rut.
And even supposing I gained the turnpike before the coach, would the keeper be persuaded to close his gates against a three-horsed vehicle on the highway? I knew the man, and luckily had done him a slight service which perchance he would be willing to repay. Once, when Roger and I had gone to the Borle Brook to fish, we came upon a little girl some five years old sitting by the brink, weeping bitterly. One foot was bare, her little shoe was floating down the stream, she had lost herself, and was so frightened that it was long before we could make out from her sobbing answers to our questions that she was daughter to the turnpike man. Then Roger rescued her shoe, and I set her aloft on my shoulder, to her great contentment, and she was laughing merrily when we reached the turnpike, and gave her into the hands of her distracted mother. Remembering this, I raced on at my best speed, resolved, if only I arrived in time, to turn this little incident to account.
It did but add to my anxiety that the highroad was nowhere visible to me as I ran, so that I could not measure my progress with that of the coach, but was forced to go on at the same break-neck pace, not daring to moderate it in any degree. And I could almost have cried with vexation when that plaguey stitch in the side seized me, and I had to stand a while to recover my breath. Then I raced on again, desperately anxious to make up for the lost time. My work upon the Hall estate, and my exercise with Roger, had kept my body in good condition: yet to run for four miles or more at a stretch with the mind in a ferment would tax any man, and by the time I came in sight of the turnpike I was fairly overdone, dripping with sweat--'twas a sunny day in July--and trembling in every limb.
And then I heard, or fancied I heard, the rattle of the coach on my left, and I picked up my heels and scampered along the last half-mile at a pace which, in other circumstances, I should have deemed impossible, the loose stones flying from beneath my feet.
I emerged upon the highroad, threw a glance over my left shoulder, and gave a great gasp of relief when I spied the coach plunging down the road, but nearly a mile distant. I had had no clear notion of what I was going to do beyond attempting to keep the gate closed, and now I realized with a sinking heart that, even if I should succeed therein, the coach could scarcely be delayed long enough for help to arrive. But certainly that was the first step, and I dashed straight into the keeper's cottage, the door of which stood open, and found Mistress Peabody, his wife, paring potatoes at the table, her little girl by her side.
"Where is Peabody?" I blurted out.
"Sakes alive!" cried the woman, "but you did give me a start. Whatever be amiss?"
What more I said I know not, but at my demand that she should refuse to open the gate for the coming coach the poor bewildered soul dropped her potatoes and declared she could never do it; 'twould cause terrible trouble with Peabody, and maybe bring about his dismissal by the justices, and where he was she did not know, and she had told him many a time he would get into a coil if he left his duty and went so often to the King William a-fuddling himself with--
"For God's sake, woman," I broke in, exasperated, "take the child into the garden and leave it to me."
I fairly pushed her out at the back door, the little girl clinging to her skirts, terrified at my appearance and the fierceness of my words. I shut the door upon them, whipped the key of the gate from its nail on the wall, flung it into the pan of water among the potatoes, and then, a desperate expedient coming into my mind, sauntered leisurely out of the front door, picking up as I passed a stick of wood from among a heap with which the child had been playing on the floor.
I climbed the gate, and sat upon the topmost bar, with my feet on the third. Then, having pulled the broad brim of my hat down over my eyes, I took out my clasp knife (it had been given me a few days before by Roger as a memento) and began to whittle the stick, whistling a doleful tune.
The coach was by this time within a hundred yards of me.
"Gate! gate!" shouted the postilion, but I paid no heed. There was now a man on the box; I suppose he had been picked up at the crossroads. He joined his cry to the postilion's, and together they roared "Gate!" with many imprecations of the kind that men who deal with horses have at command.
But I still went on whittling my stick, not without some feeling of insecurity, for the coach was approaching at a furious speed, and it seemed impossible that the postilion could draw up in time to prevent the horses from dashing themselves against the barrier. He accomplished that feat, however, and the leading horse came to a standstill within little more than a foot of me; I could feel its hot breath on my hand. Like the other two, it was covered with foam, and their sides were heaving like a bellows.
"Gate!" roared the postilion, looking in at the open door, and receiving no reply he turned his head towards me and demanded with an oath to know where the turnpike keeper was.
"He bin gone out," I said, in the broadest Shropshire accent I could muster.
"The mischief he is! Who be in charge of the gate then?"
Sputtering with wrath the postilion cursed me and demanded to know what I meant by sitting a-top when travelers wished to pass through. I assumed the vacant grin that rustics wear, and said:
"The toll be tuppence, measter."
"Here it is," says the man, flinging the coins on the ground, "and be hanged to you."
I descended from my perch (the man abusing me for my slowness), picked up the money, and went into the cottage as if to get the key.
"Be quick about it," roared the postilion after me.
"Coming, measter," I replied, sitting on the table, out of his sight. In a little he cried to me again:
"What be doin' of? Stir your stumps, I say."
"Coming, measter," says I, knocking my knife against the potato pan to signify bustle. The man's language grew more and more violent as the minutes passed and still I did not reappear, until, having consumed as much time as I thought becoming, I went to the doorway, and said, in the manner of stating a simple fact of no importance,
"Key binna hangin' on nail, measter. The nail be proper plaace for it: can ya tell me where to look?"
My drawling tone seemed to incense the man to the verge of apoplexy. Hurling abuse at me, he ended with a threat to horsewhip me within an inch of my life if I did not instantly find the key and open the gate. At this I shrank back, putting up my hands to guard my head with great affectation of terror, and withdrew once more into the cottage. As I did so, I heard the shutters on the far side of the coach let down, and a voice demanding the reason of the delay.
"The pudding-headed scut cannot find the key, sir."
"Tell him," said the voice in a louder tone (and I tingled as I recognized it)--"tell him that if he keeps us waiting another minute we will break the gate down."
I laughed inwardly at this foolish threat. The gate was a stout barrier, that would do more damage than it could receive from any attempt of theirs.
"Bring out the key, rascal," roared the postilion again.
"An' you please, measter," says I, appearing in the doorway, "I be afeared the key bin lost."
Then the man on the box scrambled down, and ran into the cottage. With him I hunted in every nook and corner of the room, and there being no sign of the key we went out, and to the other side of the coach, and there I heard the coach door open, and the voice cried:
"Hold the leader, Jabez; and you, Tom, go to the wheelers' heads. I'll blow in the cursed lock with my pistol."
Slipping back so that I might not be seen, I peeped through the window and saw Cyrus Vetch, pistol in hand, moving towards the gate. Here I was in a wretched quandary. I glanced anxiously up the road: there was never a sign of Mr. Allardyce or any other pursuer. To blow in the lock would be the work of a second: then nothing I could do would prevent the coach from passing through and getting clean away.
I was ready to despair when a possible means of checkmate flashed into my mind. Vetch was within a yard of the gate; his two men were at the horses' heads, to hold them when the report of the pistol came; their eyes were fixed on their master. As lightly as I could (my boots being heavy, as the long service required of them demanded) I darted through the doorway, my right hand clasping my knife, hid behind my back. Running to the side of the horse nearest me I set to a-hacking with all my strength at the leathern trace. Thank Heaven my knife was new and unblunted! But I had not succeeded in cutting the leather through when the pistol cracked and the lock burst. The startled horses immediately began to rear and plunge, so violently that the single man at the wheelers' heads could not hold them. Vetch ran to assist him; none of them had noticed that the violence of the horses' straining had completed my unfinished work: the trace snapped in two.
Pulling itself free the horse swung round, and plunged more violently than before, keeping the man Tom employed and serving also to screen me from view. Now was my opportunity. I wrenched open the shuttered door, and saw a man leaning with his body out of the other door, watching the movements of Vetch. And between us, shrinking back on the seat, was Mistress Lucy. She turned her head as I pulled the door open, and holding on to it to preserve my balance, for the coach was being swerved this way and that by the frantic horses, I whispered:
"'Tis I, Mistress Lucy: jump out!"
And quick as thought--'tis a blessing when a woman's wits are keen--she made one spring for the roadway, by a hair's breadth eluding the grasp of Dick Cludde, who had turned about at my whisper. I caught the girl as she touched the ground, and, pulling her away from the wheel, just in time to save her foot from being crushed by it, I seized her hand, and dragged her--willing captive!--towards the doorway. I pushed her into the cottage, with a roughness for which I afterwards asked her pardon, and hastened in after her.
Before I could close and bolt the door I heard a crash and a cry of pain, and caught a glimpse of Cludde, who, in leaping from the coach, had fallen awry and lay sprawling in the dust. Then I shut him from sight and ran to the other door, by which Mistress Peabody had gone into the garden. This I slammed and barred, dashing afterwards to the window to do the like with it. Luckily it was already fastened, and I was hastily drawing the shutters over it, when Vetch, his face livid with passion, came up to it, drove his pistol through the glass, and threatened to shoot me if I did not instantly unbolt the door.
I have always had reason to thank Heaven that my brain is quickest and my resolution most cool at the moments of greatest stress. Vetch had fired his pistol through the lock of the turnpike gate; being busy with the horse he had certainly not had time to recharge it, nor to get another; so I thought that I might safely defy him. Whispering to Mistress Lucy to find some hiding place in the cottage out of view from the window, I stood with my hand on the shutter, and said:
"What will you do if I yield?"
The answer was the heavy pistol, hurled straight at my head. It struck my temple and fell with a crash to the floor. I gave back a little, half stunned by the blow, and Vetch seized that moment to smash another pane of the window, preparing to leap on the sill and into the room, But I had sufficient strength to anticipate him. Throwing my whole weight on the shutter I drove it into its place, taking a certain pleasure in the knowledge that I had at least bruised the fellow's knuckles. Then I dropped the bar into its socket, and in the half darkness called to Mistress Lucy that all was well.
Immediately there began a heavy battering on the door, but not so heavy but that through it I heard Cludde order his men to splice the broken trace. 'Twas lucky it was so, for had all four of them come with one mind to force my frail defences, the brief siege would, I fear, have had but a sorry end. The door was a stout one, and finding it resisted their blows, Vetch and Cludde soon desisted, and I supposed that they had withdrawn altogether. But after a short interval, a violent crash on the back door, which was of much slighter timber, warned me that I must still be prepared to fight against heavy odds.
I looked round for Mistress Lucy: she was standing beside an oaken clothes press, the largest article of furniture in the room.
"Help will come, I hope," I said to her; "if not, I can keep them at bay, and I will."
A moment after I had spoken, I heard a shout from the road. The blows upon the door ceased; I caught the sound of scurrying feet, and running to the window, I unbarred the shutter and opened it so that I might glance out. The coach was moving: the postilion was in the saddle, the other man was on the box. It passed through the gate: the horses were lashed to a gallop, and the equipage disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust. Flinging the shutter wide, I craned my neck out of the broken panes and looked in the other direction. Not half a mile away three horsemen were pressing a gallop towards us.
"You are safe," I said, turning to the girl.
She came eagerly to my side, and in another minute the horsemen--the innkeeper and two men whom I did not know--leapt from their saddles when I hailed them, and came to ask if all was well.
Chapter 12: I Come To Bristowe--And Leave Unwillingly.
The presence of the innkeeper and his friends--a neighboring farmer and one of his sons: another son had ridden to acquaint Mr. Allardyce at the Hall of the kidnapping--relieved me of a certain embarrassment I felt, now that the stress and excitement were over. As yet Mistress Lucy had spoken scarce a word; but she had looked at me with great kindness, and I knew that she was but waiting for an opportunity to thank me for the service I had rendered her. With the shy awkwardness of my age I wished to avoid this, and so I willingly related to the innkeeper all that had occurred, and had barely ended when Peabody came back in haste from Glazeley, where I fear he had been fuddling himself as his wife had suggested. To him the story had to be told over again, I meanwhile itching to get away before Mr. Allardyce could arrive.
When I announced my determination to proceed at once on my journey there was a great outcry from the men: would I not wait and see the Squire and be suitably rewarded? Mistress Lucy herself, who had remained in the cottage while we conversed outside, came to the door at this point of our discussion, and with bright color in her cheeks beckoned me and asked whether I would not stay until her uncle's arrival. But my mind was made up.
"You are in safe hands," I said, "and I have far to go."
"I shall not forget what you have done for me--Joe," she said, and for the second time gave me her little hand. I could say nothing, but when I was once more upon the road I thought of her kind look and manner, and glowed with a deep contentment.
I had not walked above a mile when I heard a galloping horse behind me, and Roger's clear voice calling me by name. I halted, and he sprang from the saddle and caught me by the hand.
"By George! 'twas mighty fine of you, Joe," he cried, with kindling eyes. "I'll break Dick Cludde's head for him, I will, if ever I see him again. Who was the other villain? Lucy says there were two."
"'Twas--" I began, but suddenly bit my lip; if I named Cyrus Vetch my own secret, which I had so carefully guarded, would soon be known, and I was resolved (maybe without reason) that they should not know me as Humphrey Bold until I had done somewhat to win credit for the name. "'Twas a long weasel-faced fellow," I said, after so slight a pause that it escaped Roger's perception.
"And weasels are vermin," cried Roger, "and he has killed Lucy's dog! But come, Joe, what nonsense is this! Father insists that you shall come back; he declares this trudging to Bristowe is sheer fooling, and had already got half a dozen fine schemes in his head for you. Mount behind me, man: the mare will carry you though you are a monster; come back and we'll be sworn brothers."
I confess the boy's generosity touched me, and the offer was tempting; but I steeled my soul against it, and, strange as it may seem, 'twas the remembrance of Mistress Lucy that put an end to all wavering. Once I had had no higher aim than to win Captain Galsworthy's praise; now I felt--but dimly--that I would endure the toils of Hercules to win a lady's favor. 'Twas the budding of young love within me--and I never knew that a lad was any the worse for it.
So I thanked Roger as warmly as I might, but held to my purpose against all his reasons. The boy was impulsive and quick tempered, and finding me obdurate after ten minutes' battery of argument, he flung away in a huff, got up into the saddle, and bidding me go hang for an obstinate mule he galloped back to the turnpike.
And so I set my face once more for the south. Missing my staff, which I had thrown away in my haste, I cut myself a large hazel switch from a copse by the roadside, promising myself a stouter weapon when I should arrive at a town.
My heart was light: had I not begun to pay Dick Cludde interest on his crown piece? I was inexpressibly glad that I had been able to defeat his outrageous scheme, and thinking of this, I wondered why he had driven southward instead of to his father's house beyond Shrewsbury. My conjecture was that, knowing what a hue and cry Mr. Allardyce would raise if he believed his niece had been conveyed thither, the Cluddes had arranged to remove her to a distance until the legal matter then pending should have been decided in their favor. I remembered hearing Dick once speak of some relatives at Worcester, and in all likelihood that had been his destination.
To have encountered me within so few miles of Shrewsbury must have mightily surprised him. He had known of my intention in setting out; 'twas common talk in Shrewsbury; and, having passed me at Harley near two months before this, must have supposed (if he thought of me at all) that I had long since reached my destination. What he would infer now I did not trouble to consider, and as he was to have rejoined his ship about this time, I did not expect any news of my adventure would be carried back to Shrewsbury. It crossed my mind that he might possibly seek to waylay me on the road and take vengeance for his discomfiture, but reflecting that he would scarcely suppose my journey, interrupted for so long, would be resumed at once, I was in nowise disquieted; only I resolved again to buy a stout cudgel, to have a weapon in case of need.
By noon I arrived at Bewdley, where, being mighty hungry, I made a good dinner of beef and cabbage at an inn. When I started again, I had the good luck to get a lift in a farmer's gig, which carried me for several miles, so that I reached Worcester without difficulty that night. After a sound sleep at the Ram's Head I sallied out, bought a fine staff of knobby oak at a shop in the High Street, and after viewing the outside of the cathedral (the doors were not yet open), a building that surpassed in beauty anything that I had before seen, I set off for Gloucester.
No mischance, nor indeed any incident of note, befell me during the remainder of my journey. I passed the next night in a wagon, swaddled in a load of fresh mown hay, the driver with rustic friendliness inviting me to keep him company on his dark journey. On the third night after my departure from the Hall I trudged, weary and footsore, into Bristowe, and sought a bed at the White Hart in Old Market Street, this tavern having been recommended to me by the friendly hay-cart man.
Next day, when I went out to view the city of which I had heard so much, I was struck with wonderment, not merely at its size, wherein it dwarfed Shrewsbury and all the towns through which I had passed, but at its noise and bustle. Shrewsbury was a sleepy old town, where life went on very placidly from day to day, and the sight of these busy, though narrow, streets with their many fine buildings and their swarms of people, the dogs drawing little carts of merchandise, the river with its bridges, the floating basin with many tall ships, the quays thronged with sailors and lightermen, filled me not only with wonder, but with a sense of loneliness and insignificance.
Among all these folk, intent upon their various occupations, what place was there for me, I wondered? I got in the way of a line of men on the quay side carrying large bales which I presumed had been unloaded from a ship there moored. One of them hustled me violently aside, another made a coarse jest upon me, and, raw and inexperienced as I was, bewildered by the strangeness of it all, I felt a sinking at the heart, and questioned for the first time whether I had been wise in forsaking the scenes I knew and venturing unbefriended into this outpost of the great world.
I was standing apart, gazing at the shipping, when an old, weather-beaten sailor, smoking a black pipe, came up and accosted me.
"Lost your bearings, matey?" he said in a very hoarse voice, which yet had a tone of friendliness.
No doubt I looked foolish, for I knew no more than the dead what he meant.
"Lor' bless you," he went on, "I knows all about it. 'Tis fifty year since I made a course for that 'ere port from Selwood way, and I stood like a stuck pig--like as you be standing now. Be you out o' Zummerzet, like me?"
I told him I came from Shrewsbury.
"Never heard tell of it," he said, "but seemingly they grow high in those parts. And what made ye steer for Bristowe, if I might ask?"
Mr. Vetch had warned me against confiding in strangers; but there was something so honest in the old seaman's look that I, who have rarely been wrong in my instinctive judgment of men, determined to trust him, and told him so much of my story as I thought necessary.
The result was that he took me under his wing, so to speak. He spent the whole morning with me, explaining to me the differences in build and rig between the vessels lying there, telling me a great deal about the duties of a seaman and the ways of life at sea. He counseled me very earnestly to give up my design and seek an employment on shore.
"Sea life bean't for the likes of you," he said. "I don't know nothing about lawyers, saving them as they call sea lawyers, and they're rogues; but you'd better be a land lawyer than go to sea. 'Tis all very well for them as begin as officers, but for the men the life bean't fit for a dog. Aboard ship you'd meet some very rough company--very rough indeed. I don't pretend to be better nor most, but there be some terrible bad ones at sea. Of course it depends mostly on the skipper, but even where the skipper's a good 'un--and there be good and bad--he can't have his eyes everywhere, and I've knowed youngsters so bad used on board that they'd sooner ha' bin dead. Not but what you mightn't stand a chance, being a big fellow of your inches."
What the old fellow said did not in the least shake my resolution. The only effect of it was to turn my inclination rather in favor of the merchant service than the king's navy, to which I had inclined hitherto. In a king's ship I might certainly share in some fighting, which has ever great attractions to a healthy boy; but then I should have little chance of seeing the world unless specially favored by circumstances, for the ship might be kept cruising about, looking for the French who never came. Whereas in a merchant ship I might see India, and even China, and my new friend told me fine stories of the fortunes to be made in those distant parts by the lucky ones, besides which I felt a longing to see strange and far-off lands and peoples for the mere pleasure of it. To take service with an East Indiaman most hit my fancy, and when the sailor told me that London and Southampton were the ports for the East India trade, I began to think of working my passage to one or the other of them.
John Woodrow, as he was named, advised me not to be in a hurry, and when I explained that my little stock of money would be exhausted in a few days by the charges at the inn where I had put up, he recommended me to a widow living towards Clifton, who would give me board and lodging for a more modest sum. My anxieties on this score being removed, I resolved to follow Woodrow's advice, and not be in too great haste to take my first plunge. He promised to let me know of any decent skipper who might be sailing to Southampton or London if, when I had had a few days to think things over, my mind remained the same.
Next day a great king's ship of three decks came into the river, and I passed the whole morning in gazing at her, watching what went on upon her deck, and the boatloads of mariners that came ashore from her, envying the officers, and wavering in my design to join a merchant vessel. The vessel was named, as I found, the Sans Pareil, and though I had little French (the dead tongues being most thought of at Shrewsbury), I knew the words meant "the matchless," and certainly she outdid all the other ships around her.
The only vessel, indeed, that any way approached her was a large brig which, as my friend Woodrow had told me the day before, was a privateer that was being fitted out by certain gentlemen and merchants of Bristowe for work against the French. The Bristowe merchants had suffered great losses from the depredations made on their ships by French corsairs. Many a vessel loaded with a rich freight of sugar, or tobacco, or other produce of the colonies, had fallen a prey to the enemy, who swooped out of St. Malo or Brest, as Woodrow said, and snapped up our barques almost within sight of their harbor. 'Twas not to be wondered at that those who had suffered in this way should make reprisals.
The Sans Pareil had such a fascination for me (never having seen a king's ship before) that I was only awakened to the passage of time by the crying out of my stomach. I had promised Mistress Perry, the widow with whom I had taken up my abode, that I would return punctually at noon for my dinner, and now the church clocks (no less than my hunger) told me it was long past that hour. She would be mightily vexed, and the joint would be burned black, and I neither wished to offend her nor to eat cinders. So I now hurried away as fast as my legs would carry me, and soon came to the footpath leading to Clifton.
As I turned the corner by Jacob's Well, I stepped hastily aside to avoid a man who was coming fast in the opposite direction. He also moved at the same moment, and, as I have often known to happen at such sudden encounters, the very movements made to prevent the collision brought it about. We both moved to the same side, and jostled each other, and I, being the more weighty of the two, gave him a tough shoulder and well nigh upset him.
"Clumsy h--" he was beginning, but he got no further, and 'twas well he did not, for if he had uttered the word "hound" that had all but come to his lips he would scarce have gone on his way without my mark upon him. But he did not say it, being indeed startled out of his self possession. No doubt he had as little expected to see me as I to see him: it was Cyrus Vetch.
We both turned after jostling each other. The impulse seized me to take him by the neck and drub him for his rascally dealing with Mistress Lucy--and to settle at the same time some little private scores of my own. But he was in truth so pitiful a creature, and looked so scared, that I let him alone; besides I felt that I might one day have a greater account to pay off, to which settlement Dick Cludde must be a party.
He on his side, to judge by his pale cheeks, expected a rude handling, and when he found that I made no movement towards him, a look of relief crossed his countenance, followed by an expression which at the moment I was unable to fathom. Then, as by mutual consent, and without having exchanged a word, we turned our backs on each other and went our several ways.
As I expected, the joint of beef was done to shreds, and Widow Perry rated me soundly for being so late, asking me whether I expected her dog to keep turning the jack till doomsday. ('Twas a strange custom of the Bristowe housewives to employ dogs for turning their roasting jacks). With all humility I expressed contrition, and vowed amendment, and I kept my word. While I ate my dinner my thoughts were busy with my late encounter with Vetch, and I wondered what he was about in Bristowe, and whether Dick Cludde was still with him. I did not doubt they were in a desperate rage with me, and if they should be here together I was pretty sure they would take some means of avenging themselves; but confident of my strength and my skill of fence the prospect gave me rather a pleasant expectancy than any alarm.
So three days passed--days which I spent for the most part with Woodrow the old mariner, plying him with questions innumerable about shipping and life at sea, and learning many things by my own observation. I saw no more of Vetch, nor did anything give me cause of uneasiness. On the second day Mistress Perry, indeed, threatened a slight discomfort by wishing me to share my room with a new lodger she had just taken; but she gave in when I flatly refused to bed with a stranger, and grumblingly accommodated the man--a rough-looking sea dog--in a little closet off the stairs.
On the third afternoon, when I returned to the quay after my dinner, Woodrow told me he had found a skipper who would sail for Southampton at the end of the week, and was willing to take me as ship's boy. He assured me that I could hope for nothing better to begin with, and the voyage would be long enough for me to try my sea legs, and, as he believed, to cure me of my fancy for a sea life. I was to visit the skipper at the Angel tavern that evening, and if he liked my figurehead, as Woodrow put it, the matter could be settled there and then.
Accordingly, about seven o'clock, I met Woodrow at the corner of the Bridge, by the Leather Hall, and accompanied him to the Angel in Redcliffe Street, where he presented me to his friend, Captain Reddaway. After the usual jocose allusions to my height, to which I was now fairly inured, the skipper asked me a great many questions about navigation, feigned a vast surprise at my ignorance, and supplied the answers himself, to impress me, I suppose, with his own stores of knowledge.
Then the two mariners settled down over their pipes and beer to a conversation in which I was not expected to take a part; indeed, it consisted chiefly of reminiscences of voyages they had made together, and, though entertaining enough at first, by and by became insufferably tedious. For politeness' sake they included me in the conversation from time to time by waving their pipes at me, and I did not like to risk hurting the feelings of my new employer by showing how wearied I was, or by leaving them; so that it was not till near ten o'clock that I managed to escape, and then only because they had both fallen asleep.
The night was warm, and my lungs being filled with the reek of their strong tobacco I determined to walk down by the river before returning to my lodging, in the hope of getting a breath of fresh air blowing in from the sea. The river side was deserted and silent; the lights of the vessels at anchor increased the darkness around; and I was walking slowly along, wondering which of the lamps hung on Captain Reddaway's vessel, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by a group of men who seemed to have sprung from nowhere. Before I knew what was happening, much less make any movement of defence, I was being dragged by rough hands to the edge of the quay. I shouted lustily for help, only to receive a crack on the head from one of the men, while another clapped his hand across my mouth. I wriggled desperately, tripped up one fellow, and used my feet to some purpose on the shins of another; but there were so many of them that I was soon overpowered, and was quite helpless in their hands when they lugged me down the steps into a boat that lay moored below.
Throwing me into the bottom they pulled off; in a few minutes they came under the quarter of a large vessel in midstream; I was hauled up the side, and, more or less dazed with my rough handling, heard without understanding a loud voice giving orders. In two minutes I was lying bound hand and foot in the fore part of the vessel, and there I remained, exposed to the open sky, until morning dawned.