Three weeks thence I accompanied Mr. Bradbury on the journey down from London to my grandfather’s house. Mr. Bradbury had sent off a letter to Mr. Craike announcing that he purposed to visit him, and to present his grandson to him. He had received only a few lines of a letter in reply, penned, he believed, not by the old man but by his son Charles,—to the effect that Mr. Bradbury’s information astounded Mr. Edward Craike, but that he consented to receive Mr. Bradbury and the young gentleman when it should be convenient for them to journey down to Craike. Mr. Bradbury seemed ill-pleased with the nature of the letter; he took pains to impress on me the desirability of my commending myself to my grandfather’s favour and affection.
From Mr. Bradbury’s first admission to me, on our journey up to London, that he had no liking for Charles Craike, and that his purpose was to prevent his inheriting his father’s fortune, he had stressed repeatedly my uncle’s certain chagrin atmy appearance in Craike House and his inevitable hostility to me. Already, indeed, I hated my Uncle Charles, and was ardent to avenge on him my parents’ sufferings at his hands; else, I had only a natural curiosity in these kinsfolk of mine, and a lively interest in the prospect of adventure. “Rogues’ Haven”—so the country folk named Craike House; Mr. Bradbury would tell me only that the name resulted from rustic curiosity and from the eccentricities of my grandfather’s servants; the gentleman’s very reticence concerning my kinsmen, the stock from which they were sprung, and the sources of their wealth, intrigued me the more.
Mr. Bradbury had treated me handsomely at his fine house in London; a country lad, I had enjoyed the wonders and diversions of the Town. He had put me into the hands of his tailor; so that now I was dressed, if not as fastidiously, at least with a fashion equal to his own. I had not ceased to admire my blue cloth coat, silver-buttoned and braided, or my white breeches, or to appreciate the ease of silken stockings on my legs and fine linen on my body. Now wrapped warmly in greatcoat and shawls I sat with Mr. Bradbury in his coach, driven through the night towards Craike House. We should have arrived at our destination on the second afternoonof our journey, but delayed by a cast shoe, here were we now seated still in the coach, stiff and weary; I felt my stomach sinking from the lack of a meal; and the dark was come. Ay, the night was come with a rough gale from the sea; the mud from the wet roads obscured the glass; this mattered nothing, for the night was inky black with clouds wind-driven. We were out, Mr. Bradbury told me, on a wild and lonely stretch of road, and not more than nine miles from our destination. But when the lash of rain washed clear the carriage-glass, and the light of the lamps flashed on his face, I saw him anxious and his eyes alert; I understood his concern, which I had remarked throughout our journey, over a little oaken box by his side. I had assumed that it contained documents; now that it was open on his knees, I saw that it held a pair of pistols; he was looking at the priming of them as the light allowed him. I cried out, to be heard above the roll of the wind and the rumble of the wheels, “What d’ye fear, sir? Highwaymen?”
He cried back, “A mere precaution, Mr. Craike. I’m always cautious on these roads,—lonely and dark, and no one within hail.”
“Pray let me handle one,” I called; but he answered, smiling, “Nay, my dear sir, I’ll not trust you with ’em, if you’ll allow me. For youmight easily be pistoling one of your own folk, not knowing.”
“Have no fear, sir, I’ve had the handling of a pistol ere this,” I assured him. But, smiling that odd smile of his, he answered nothing.
Now it seemed that Mr. Bradbury’s coachboy knew the road well—the gentleman having travelled over it often before; for, without direction from his master he drove on as steadily through the dark as the roughness of the way and the weariness of the horses would allow. Ay, and the wildness of the night—the great wind from the sea; we were travelling near to the coast; once when Mr. Bradbury let down the glass to peer out, the salt tang and the reek of mud flats was borne in on the chill air. I realised that Mr. Bradbury’s apprehension grew with the darkness and the storm. When he drew up the glass and sat down, he did not lie back on his cushions or muffle his shawl about his ears; he leaned towards the window, staring forth into the dark, seeming, too, by his impatient wave of his hand when I would have spoken, to be listening intently. I strained my ears to hear, but for the time heard nothing save the rumble of wheels, and the rushing of the wind; afar a thunderous sound as the beating of the sea, no more, until the wind was cut from us in a dip of the road, as if wedrove among great trees, or between high hedgerows; then it seemed I heard the pounding of hoofs upon the road, as if the riders were at no great distance in the rear. The sound was indistinguishable, when presently we swept out into the open country; and the wind had its way with us once more. As we drove on apace, Mr. Bradbury remained intent by the window; committing myself to Providence and Mr. Bradbury, I lay back on my cushions. Indeed, I attached little import to the sounds; I was dull with weariness and hunger; I had been travelling for nigh two days. I had spent the worst of bad nights through the suffocation of a deep feather bed at the inn in which we had lodged for the night. I tell you the desire for sleep prevailed over uneasiness at the loneliness of our way and sounds of riders through the night; or my excitement at the thought of presentation to my kinsfolk. I lay back; pulled my greatcoat about me, and slept. From time to time, the jolting of the coach, as the wheels dipped in the ruts or struck on stones, would rouse me; always I saw dully that Mr. Bradbury sat stiffly by the window, and that his left hand strayed towards the case of pistols open on the seat beside him.
I was awakened by the crash and splintering of glass. As I started up, I was flung backwards bythe shock of plunging horses and reeling coach; half-dazed, I believed that I heard hoarse voices above the roaring wind. I believed that the door of the coach was dragged open; that Mr. Bradbury sought to hold it; failing, swung round and gripped his pistols; but at that instant the coach reeled, and he was flung out into the road; I saw the flashes of his discharging pistols as he fell.
The coach came to a standstill. I remember crying out, and leaping to my feet, to spring down into the road to Mr. Bradbury. I remember then only a flash of light—no more.
I remember that once an itinerant showman, passing through Chelton, essayedMazeppa; none the less, the sorry performance took my fancy. Now, when I became conscious, I had a sense that I was borne forward so through the night bound upon a horse; my next sensation, after the throbbing of my head, was the friction of the saddle beneath me. I realised at last that I was, indeed, held upon the horse; not cords, but the strong arm of the rider held me before him in saddle; he was riding with me at a great speed through the night. I must have cried out, for I recall his hoarse voice in my ear, “Keep your mouth shut, my lad, or ’twill be the worse for you!”—and the grip of his arm tightened about me.
Now I was no light burden, and I was stoutly built for a stripling; even so, he carried me easily, and when my head cleared and my strength came back, the grip of his arm held me securely. I must needs sit before him helpless, though the saddle galled me sorely; my brows throbbed, andmy mind was dark with apprehensions. To be sure my coming to Rogues’ Haven must have been dreaded by my uncle; and to be sure this was some trick of his to prevent my presentation to my grandfather; but what should be the end of this adventure, and to what fate would my enemies consign me? I told myself that surely, if they had planned to make an end of me, they would have done so immediately on the taking of the coach, and not have borne me off in this mysterious manner through the night.
And what of Mr. Bradbury? Had he died in his fall? Had they done him further violence? I had grown to have a high regard for the gentleman, yet I fear my immediate concern for his fate was chiefly that he should be alive to bring me speedy aid. Lying passive in the grip of that strong arm, I believed that one other horseman bore us company; I could hear hoof-beats and the jingle of accoutrements; once, as the moon flashed through the racing clouds, I caught a glimpse of a dark rider a little ahead. My captor pushed his horse forward at scarcely less speed, though the moon, ere the clouds hid it, revealed to me that we were riding over rough country. I saw the boughs of gnarled and twisted trees toss to the stormy heaven; I saw a waste of rock and furze before me; I believed that we were yet atno great distance from the coast, for the salt was upon my lips, as though the gale sweeping up bore scud with it. Momentarily we paused upon an upland; such was the force of the wind that it seemed the horse must be rolled over with us; then, with the wind blowing at our backs, we struck away inland.
The blow had torn my scalp; the blood was wet upon my brows; my head was racked with the movement of the horse beneath us; my body cruelly galled. All this was nothing to the ever-increasing terror of the thought—what would they do to me, now that they had me captive? Once I cried out, “What’s your purpose with me, in God’s name?” but the sole answer was the tightening of the grip upon me. Bending back my head, I tried to make out in the dark what manner of man was holding me; save for the shoulders, the thick neck, and the great head, I could discern nothing; I heard his jeering laughter above me. How long, how far we rode, I could not conjecture; the time seemed endless for my pains and terrors. Ever the thought tormented me—what would they do with me? Put me aboard some ship to carry me overseas? No, for it seemed that they were bearing me away from the coast, and mounting slowly to wild and rugged country; would they hold me prisonerthere, or murder me out of the ken of folk? And, if Mr. Bradbury lived, how would he endure defeat by Charles Craike, through whose agency surely I came to be in this plight?
We were riding at last over more level country from the increasing swiftness of our flight; we slackened speed going among trees; I heard the rushing of the wind through their complaining boughs. We mounted a low hill, and swiftly descended. Again the moon was clear; I believed that we were going down into a cup in the moors; that rocks and woods were all about us. And ahead at last I saw a light flicker like a will-o’-the-wisp,—a spark of light that increased to the square shining of a window—a greenish light; the moon breaking again from the clouds I saw that we rode down to a house alone in this lonely hollow of the moors. We rode soon over level ground; we reached a high stone wall; the rider ahead of us had leaped down and was unlocking an iron gate; we passed through, and the gate crashed to behind us. At a walk now we clattered over cobbles up to the front of the house; I saw the green shining off the curtained window from the grey front of moonlit stone. It was a house of two stories in height, a drear grey house, grey-roofed and over-topped by chimney stacks; looking up I believed that I sawiron bars before the unshuttered windows. My captor roared out, “Hallo, there!” as we pulled up before the door; and gripping me by my collar lowered me to the ground, dropping down after me, and lugging me with him into the porch. The door opened with a clash and clatter like the iron-bound door of a prison. And blinking for the light from a lantern, I saw peering out a crone, bent nigh double, one skinny claw holding up the lantern, so that it shone upon her shrivelled livid face, her red-lidded, pale green eyes, on her grey hair wind-blown, and the blue shawl she clutched at her throat. I saw her looking malevolently at me, and heard her tittering laughter, as my captor thrust me past her into the house.
The door clashed after us. He lugged me through a dark stone hall, and brought me into the green-curtained room; so thick was the air with the smoke of peat and the reek of an oil-lamp that in a moment my eyes were blinded; and I was coughing, choking.
When my sight cleared, I found myself in a long, low grey room—grey from the smoke and the stone walls. It was lit by a curious hanging lamp of iron, black with soot and oil; a fire of peat smouldered on the deep hearth; for furniture the room had in it a long table black with age, and grease, and oil dribbling from the lamp; heavy black chairs were set on either side of the hearth and at the table, and a black press standing against the wall, its brass fittings green and corroded. The brass candlesticks upon the chimney-piece were green and corroded, too; the curtain drawn before the window was green and moth-eaten; the floor was sanded; the rafters above were black with soot and dusty cobwebs. My captor pulling me forward,—as the old woman waited by the door presently to admit the other rider—dropped me like a sack of meal on to a chair; and straddled before the fire, stretching his arm cramped by the weight of me all that while in saddle.
Blinking up at him I saw him for a huge fellow;he must have stood six feet in height, and was of a great breadth of shoulder and depth of chest. As his sleeve slipped back from his hairy forearm I saw its swelling muscles, and understood ruefully the ease with which he had held me. His face was handsome in a rough, bold way, though coarse and besotted; his chin and jaws were blue-black from the razor; his hair black and curling; his eyes blood-shot from drink. He wore a battered brown hat, a rough, brown riding coat, with leather breeches and mud-splashed riding boots; his soiled cravat was held by a brooch of flashing red stones. Looking up at him, understanding the strength of the man, for something of good humour in his coarse drunken face I did not fear him, as I feared the crone, whose evil green eyes had glittered at me when my captor thrust me into the house. He grinned down at me, and growled, “So you’re well enough for the time, eh, young sir?”
“Well enough but what’s your purpose with me? Why have you brought me here?”
“When you know that,” said he, “you’ll know as much as I do. Nay, you’ll know more.”
“You mean that you’re hired for this? You’re only the servant of an enemy of mine, whose interest it is to keep me out of Rogues’ Haven?”
“Rogues’ Haven! So you’ve caught the name?”
“To be sure I know the name,” I answered boldly for the good humour of the fellow. “And know the reason for it. And think I know the name of your principal.”
“Oh, ho! Though he plays his game in secret. You’ll be knowin’ more’n it’s safe for you to know, young sir. And”—with a sudden gesture towards the door—“if you’ll take a word from me, you’ll be wiser, if you keep your mouth shut.”
While yet I blinked at him, I heard the old woman once more unlock the door to admit the big fellow’s companion, who presently entered the room. I saw him for a lean, cadaverous, young man of no great height; his high-crowned hat, his coat, his buckskins, the laces at his throat dandified; he was jauntily flicking his top boots with his riding switch, and his spurs were jingling. An ill-looking fellow,—I marked his pale sneering lips and the sinister light of his green eyes; I feared him as an enemy even as I feared the crone with the blue shawl about her black rags, her evil eyes peering at me, and her jaws working, as she hobbled after him.
“So-ho, Martin, here we are, all safe and snug,” cried the big man from the hearth. “Findus the tipple in that cupboard of yours, Mother Mag, and then I’ll be packing.”
“You’ll be staying here, my friend Roger,” said Martin, coolly, dropping into a chair by the table. “You’re to wait until he comes.”
“I tell you I’ll have my drink and be off,” Roger growled, scowling at him. “Who the devil are you to be givin’ me orders? I’ve an affair twenty miles off as ever was by break o’ day.”
“Yet you’ll be staying,” the young man insisted quietly. “I’m giving you his orders, not mine. What’s it to me whether you go or stay?”
“I’m damned, if I’ll wait!” Roger asserted.
“You’re damned, if you go,” sneered Martin, his eyes flashing up suddenly like two wicked green gems. “Get him the drink, Mother Mag, and he’ll be staying—not risking his neck by going.”
I saw the red blood rush to Roger’s face. I heard him growl and mutter to himself; he straddled still across the hearth. Laughing hoarsely then he cried out, “Ay, the drink, Mother Mag—the drink,” and turning his back on Martin, kicked savagely at the fire.
While I sat blinking at them, and wondering whether it should be my Uncle Charles expected at the house, and what bearing his arrival shouldhave upon my fortunes, the hag, taking a key from the jingling ring at her side, unlocked the press; and out of its recess drew a bloated bottle of violet-coloured glass; hugging this to her, she set out four thick, blue goblets, and poured into them some dark spirit or cordial, pausing ere she filled the fourth to point her skinny fingers at me, and then peer at Martin, as if to gather from him whether I was to drink with them.
He replied curtly, “Ay, pour him a dram,—half a glass—Mother Mag; he looks about to croak,” and sneered at me.
Roger, swinging round from the fire, took up his glass and tossed off the contents; snatching the bottle then from Mother Mag he filled up a glass which he handed to me, growling, “Drink it down, lad! it’ll put heart into you.” The woman, with a shrill cry, leaped like a cat upon him, seeking to snatch the bottle from him; holding it above her reach and fending her off from me, he refilled and drained his glass, and set the bottle down once more. She clutched it to her, set in the stopper, and poked it away in the cupboard, all the while chattering to herself and mouthing like some gibbering ape. Taking her own glass then, with so palsied a hand that she surely spilt half the contents, she hobbled to the hearth and crouched down by it, alternatelylicking her fingers and sipping her grog,—her green eyes glinting at Roger and me.
I tasted the liquor in the glass, and finding it a spirit that burnt my very lips, I did not drink it, but handed the glass back to Roger, who, muttering “Your health, young master,” drained it for me. Martin sat drinking slowly; Roger, as warming from the stuff, began to stamp impatiently to and fro over the stone floor. Pausing at last by Martin, he demanded, thickly, “What hour’s he like to be here? How long am I to wait in this stinkin’ den?”—at which Mother Mag cackled sardonically, choked and spat, lying back against the chimney-piece red-eyed and gasping.
“He did not say what hour,” Martin answered, indifferently. “How should he know what hour the coach would come, or we be here? Sit down by the fire, man. Get your pipe; there’s tobacco in the jar on the shelf.”
“Am I to be kept here all night, when by break o’ day I should be about my business?”
Martin lifted his glass as though to admire its colour in the lamp-light. “Go then, my friend,” he said smoothly. “Oh, go by all means! Only blame yourself, not me, for aught that may happen in the course of a day or so. You’d makea pretty figure in the cart, Roger, and ’twould need a double rope to hold your body.”
“Damn you!” roared Roger, swinging up his hand, but Martin’s eyes, watching him intently, and the smile flickering still upon his lips, the big man swung round once more and pointed to me. “You’re makin’ a sweet song o’ hangin’, Martin,” he muttered. “You’re sayin’ what your precious gentleman may do or mayn’t, as the case may be. Peach on me, you mean—if so be I don’t wait for him, and if so be I don’t do as I’m told. Only, don’t you be forgettin’, that ’twas him as told us to hold up old Skinflint’s coach, and nab the lad there. And that’s robbery by the King’s highway,—and get that into your head, and keep it there. And, by God, Martin, if he’s got his claws on me, I’ve got my claws on to him from this night forth; and if he talks of hangin’, there’s others—ay, there’s others. You, Martin, and old Mag here, and him.”
“Pish, man,” said Martin, coolly, though his look was livid. “Who’d listen to you? Who’d believe you? Old Gavin Masters—eh? He loves you, Roger. He has confidence in you.”
Roger stood cursing to himself, demanding finally, “And the lad here,—what’s he goin’ to do with the lad?”
“How in the devil’s name does it concern you,Galt?” cried Martin, with sudden flaming anger. “You’ve done your share of the work and you’ll be paid for it.”
“Ay, but you answer me! What’s to be done with the lad? Hark ’ee, Martin, I’m sick to death of the whole crew of ye. And of none more than yourself, unless it’s himself. I’ve done my work on the roads, and there’s a few the poorer for it; but I’ve never done aught of a kind with this. Kidnappin’ an’ maybe murder at the finish.”
“What d’ye mean?” Martin asked, drawing back his chair, to be out of reach of Roger Galt’s rising rage, as the drink worked within him.
“What’s he goin’ to do with the lad there?” Roger growled. “Get him out of the way—oh, ay, I know that, and can guess for why. From the looks of him! But how’s he goin’ to rid himself of him? Ship him overseas with Blunt, or what? Martin, I’ll have no hand in aught that don’t give the lad a chance for his life,—d’ye hear me? Who’s he? Dick Craike’s lad as ever was! And they did for Dick Craike—ay, they did, they did, years agone.”
Martin, starting up, screeched out, “Shut your fool’s mouth! You’re drunk, Roger Galt. The lad’s to be kept here, till he comes. He’ll be here to-night. Tell him what you’ve said to me!Tell him! Get the lantern and give me the keys, Mother Mag. We’ll lock the lad away upstairs; when the master comes he’ll not be wanting him taking his ease here like a gentleman!”
Directing me with a gesture to rise and follow, Martin opened the door into the hall. The woman, taking the lantern, lit it from the fire with a twig. A moment I hesitated, preferring to remain with big Roger Galt, who was inclined to make my cause his own, to following the sinister Martin and old Mother Mag, but Roger had lurched to a chair, and sat there glowering and muttering to himself without further regard for me. Moreover, Martin, observing my hesitation, plucked a pistol from his pocket, and cocking it, swore with a bitter oath to blow out my brains unless I followed him. Roger still paying no heed, I slouched out into the hall.
The woman crept before me; Martin followed with the pistol pointing at my head; the lantern showed me presently a dark wooden stairway. It was rotten and riddled with decay; it creaked dismally beneath us; the balusters were broken; as I set my hand against the wall to steady me, going up after the slowly climbinglight, I touched grime and cobwebs; the startled rats came squeaking and tumbling down the stair. Presently we reached the head of the stair—I have said that the house was two stories only in height; Mother Mag unlocked a door before me, and the cold air blowing in from the glassless window of the room struck on my face. The crone, standing aside for me to enter the room, leered and mumbled at me as I passed in, urged forward by the prodding of Martin’s pistol. I heard the rats scurrying over the floor before me. The wind blowing out the sacking before the window, the moonlight illumined the room,—it was big and bare as the room below it, but the rafters were high above me. A narrow wooden bedstead, with a pile of rags upon it, was propped against the wall; there was no other furniture save a three-legged stool. An open hearth with a rusted iron brazier stuck in it was at the farther end of the room. Martin, stepping in, demanded of the woman, “You’re sure the fellow will be safe here?”
“You should know, my dear,” the woman tittered, holding to the doorway.
He strode to the window, plucked aside the sacking and tried the iron bars; satisfied then stepped over to the hearth, asking, “What of the chimney? Could he climb it?”
“If he should try,” Mag answered, laughing shrilly, “he’d only stick there and choke for soot. More, it’s near blocked with the bricks fallen in it. I heard ’em tumble in a gale two year back, and thought the Stone House was all comin’ down about my ears. Ay, but you knows the Stone House well as I do, Martin, and for why are you askin’?”
“For why, Mother Mag,” he snarled. “You should know for why. Not the devil, your master, could save you from—you know from whom—if he comes, and finds the young dog missing. Ay, and he knows enough to stretch that scraggy neck of yours, well as big Roger Galt’s below. Look to it, Mother Mag,—d’ye look to it!”
She cowered and mumbled to herself; he, poking his head forward to look up the chimney, brought down a shower of soot upon him, and, cursing foully, he drew back, and made for the door.
“You’ll lie here for the night,” he said to me. “You’ll be safe and snug here for the night. Don’t be trying to break out and get away, for I’ll be within hearing of you the night through. Out of this, Mother Mag.”
“What’s your purpose with me?” I asked, dully. “Why was I brought here?”
“You’ll know,” he answered, laughing his hateful laugh. “You’ll know. But I’m paid only to catch and cage you, not to answer questions.”
“If it’s only pay,” said I, “a word from me to Mr. Bradbury—”
“Bah, I’d not trust Bradbury living, and Bradbury lying in the road when we left him looked more like a corpse than Mother Mag there. Lie down and sleep, you’ll get nothing from me,” and pulling the door to with a crash, he left me.
I ran instantly to the window, and dragged back the sacking; the bars of iron, set there, I took it, for defence in the old days, were bedded firmly in the stone; there was no hope for me to crawl between them. The recurrent light of the cloud-harried moon showed me the nature of my prison; the dust lay thick upon the rotting floor; the oaken panels were riddled by the rats, and dropping in decay from the stone walls; the black, cobwebbed rafters, were high above me. I believed that a trap-door in the ceiling opened beneath the roof; I could hear the rats scurrying over my head. I turned back to the window; and the moon showed me the cobbled courtyard, the high stone wall, the rim of the bowl, in which the house lay, rising blue-black beyond; boughstossing in the wind upon the rim; through the wild crying of the gale overhead, its battering on the house, I thought I heard the distant drumming of the sea. Again I tried to wrench the bars apart; their red rust had run into the stone and mortar and set them there only the more firmly; though I tested each bar with the full strength of my arms, none shifted. Could I but force them sufficiently apart for me to wriggle through, the drop to the ground would be dangerous but not impossible for me. Staring upwards then I could see nothing of the roof owing to the thickness of the wall and the depth of the window. No, I was held securely; when I tried to peer up the chimney, I found it blocked as Mother Mag had said; the door of thick oak, though mouldering, was clamped with iron. I took it that the house had been built years since, maybe in the troublous times of Charles the Martyr—built stoutly for protection against marauders in that lonely hollow of the moorlands. On the thick high wall about the courtyard I believed that I could discern rusting iron spikes. And knowing myself held fast in a prison chosen for me by my Uncle Charles—surely by him—and guarded by his rogues, I must have despaired but for my hope that Mr. Bradbury might have survived the attack upon the coach, and wouldnot rest till he found and rescued me. I recalled his apprehension when we were overtaken by the darkness, and his play with the pistols before our disaster. I remembered seeing him flung out from the door of the coach, and the red discharge of his pistols, as they struck the road. How had the astute Mr. Bradbury come thus to underestimate his man, Charles Craike, with consequences disastrous to himself and likely to prove disastrous to me?
I was in no mood for lying down on the wretched pallet. I tore off my cravat and bound it about my broken head. I was sick and weary, but I feared to sleep, lest they come upon me silently in the dark, and make an end of me. And I knew that he, whose name they would not utter before me, but who was surely Charles Craike, was expected at the house that night; I determined to overcome my heavy weariness, and stay awake awaiting his coming. I heard their voices, as I stood by the bed. Roger growling yet, and Martin laughing his mocking laugh, while they sat waiting in the room below, whence came that thin smoke rising through the rotting floor. I knelt down then, and with my hands I widened the breach in the rotting wood, hoping to hear what passed between these rogues, and what they plotted against me. The lightshone soon more clearly; a chink in the ceiling below was visible; surely I had only to lie down and press my ear against the breach to hear their very words.
I was deterred from my purpose by a sudden cry from the gate, and the loud baying of a hound at the rear of the house. Starting up, I stole to the window, and drawing back the sacking, set me to watch who came. I heard the doors below me open and clash; presently I saw the lantern shine through the dark, for the clouds held the moon, though it seemed rapidly to approach to a break between cloud and cloud. Overhead the wind went wailing; it beat against the house, as though to tumble it to ruins; I stood shivering, for the bitter cold of the night and for my terrors; the strip of sacking bellied out like a sail as I clung to it. And to the crying of the wind he came.
The moon broke through the clouds; the wet cobbles of the court below me gleamed like a pool of silver water. He came riding swiftly to the house, leaving Mother Mag to secure the gate; I saw him sitting stiffly upon a great black horse, a black cloak flapping all about him. A gust swept his hat from his head, but his hand caught it; his silver-white hair was blown out in disorder. He looked up, as he drew in before thedoor; momentarily I saw a proud and baleful face; cut like a piece of fine white ivory. I saw the very shining of his eyes, as moonlight and the lamplight from the house played fully on him; and on the instant, indeed, I understood from that cruel face—like, yet so much unlike, my father’s—none whom this man hated or feared might hope for mercy from him.
And thus for the first time I looked upon my Uncle Charles Craike of Rogues’ Haven.
As the gentleman entered the house, I slipped back to the bed, purposing, when I was assured that he would not come directly to my room, to test whether I could hear through the break in the ceiling of the room below and the parting of the flooring under my feet what should pass among my enemies. I heard him enter the room; I heard Mother Mag’s return to the house and the clashing of the doors, as she made all fast. I dropped down then, and lying prone, found that by pressing my ears against the parting in the floor I could hear distinctly. And I found the gentleman berating Roger by the fire.
“Mark you, my man, I’ll have no more of this,” he was declaring, in clear, authoritative tone. “You’ll serve me when I will, or how I will, or take the consequences.”
“Mr. Charles Craike,” growled Roger, “I tell you I’ll not endure too much from you or any other man. I’ll serve you when I will, and as it suits me. Set the runners on to me—ay, set them—it won’t be the first time by a many asI’ve shown ’em a clean pair of heels. I’ve an affair of my own callin’ me miles from here; I should have been off long since.”
“Peace, fool!” said Mr. Craike, contemptuously.
“And listen to me,” Roger blustered, “if you’d peach on me, I know enough to pull you down.”
“My good Roger Galt,” said my uncle, laughing easily. “I’m not questioning that you’ve served me as well this night as you’ve served me on any other occasion. And I’ll pay you well, as I’ve paid you always. Where’s the boy, Martin?”
“Fast up above,” Martin replied.
“And Bradbury?”
“Lying in the road like a dead man when we left him.”
“I trust,” said Mr. Craike, piously, “that you’ve done him no hurt beyond repair.”
“No more than he did himself,” said Martin, laughing. “He’d a pair of barkers with him, when the coach pulled up. He fell out into the road; his pistols fired; and he lay there in the mire.”
“And you took the boy and have him safely here. Ay, ay.”
“Would you see him?” Martin asked.
“Oh, not I! What’s he like, though?”
“As like his father,” Roger broke in heavily, “as one barker’s like its pair.”
“His father! Ay! His father was passionate—lacked discretion; the boy’s the offspring of his father’s folly,” with a laugh at which I raged silently, understanding the slur he put upon me.
“And what now of the lad?” Roger persisted. “What would you do with him, now he’s here?”
“Friend Roger Galt, you’re asking too much of me and my affairs!”
“Ay, ay, but what’s the answer? You’ve kidnapped him; would ye ship him overseas? That I’ll not quarrel with; he’d have a chance for his life, and he’d fare none so ill, for a rope’s end’s well for a lad.”
“Maybe that is my purpose,” my uncle said, coldly.
“But no more than that!” cried Roger Galt. “By God, Mr. Craike, I’ll not have him done to death by Mart and Mother Mag or any other of your rogues. I’ll not!”
“He’s so commended himself to you,” my uncle sneered.
“He’s like his father. Your brother Dick treated me kind as a lad. He’d give me a guinea when you’d have no more for me than a fine word.”
“And you’d stand a friend to his bastard, eh?”
“I’m none too sure as the lad’s base-born,” said Roger, stoutly. “He’s something of the look of Mary Howe about him, as well as the looks of you Craikes. And Mary Howe was not the lass to listen to the talk of Dick Craike, or any man, unless a ring and a book went with it. No, it’s because the boy’s born a Craike you’ll not have him meet old Edward.”
“Silence!” Mr. Craike’s command cut through the air like a whip. “I’m accountable to no man, Galt, for what I do. You presume to preach to me—you, my hang-dog; you’ve threatened me a while since. Threatened! Would any take your word for aught?”
“Any knowing you, Mr. Craike.”
“Have it so, then! Match yourself against me. At least this is assured your hanging for a highwayman; are you so confident that you will lay me by the heels? Come! Are you so confident—knowing me?”
But Roger Galt answered only with a string of oaths.
“You’re not so confident,” my uncle said, coolly. “You bluster only, Roger, when the drink’s in you. And when you’re sober—seldom, Roger—you’re no fool; you’re ready to serve me, knowing I pay. Your interests are mine, friend Roger.”
“Ay, that’s well enough. But what of the boy, now you’ve got him in this ken?”
“The boy,” said Mr. Craike, “will come to no hurt at my hands. Have it so, if you will! He does not come yet to my father’s house; have that so! He goes overseas with Ezra Blunt, when the rogue makes port. He’ll go overseas and be set ashore to work his way home as he may. He’ll suffer no worse; but he’ll not make Rogues’ Haven in these two years to be. And till Blunt is here, Mother Mag and you, Martin, look to it that the fellow lie snugly at the Stone House. And if Bradbury live,—God rest him, body and soul—and raise the hue and cry, look to it that no one find the fellow here. Keep him fast, keep him hidden—d’ye hear me?—fast and hidden! I’ve your wage with me, Roger, though not yours yet, Martin, or yours, Mother Mag. Hark to the chink of the coin, Roger! Did you ever empty such saddle-bags?—Why, what the devil—?” for the hag had screeched out shrilly.
“What’s fallin’? What’s fallin’?” cried Mother Mag. “Where’s the dust all fallin’ from?”
“Rats gnawin’ through,” said Roger. “The ken’s haunted with ’em.”
“Or the boy? What’s he doing this while?” Mr. Craike demanded, furiously.
Instantly I started up, and dusted my breeches and jacket; I lay down on the bed, as Martin came rushing up the stairs. But I made no pretence of sleep when he pulled the door open, and flashed the lantern on me. I sat up and stared at him. He swung the lantern over me; observing the dust yet upon me, and the length of my body marked in dust upon the floor, he muttered, “So you’ve been eaves-dropping, you dog—hey, you dog?”
I answered him boldly, though my heart beat the devil’s tattoo within my breast, “Ay, I’ve heard every word, my friend. And say this from me to my kinsman, Charles Craike—as he has not the courage to face me here—that for all I’ve suffered and am to suffer from him here, he’ll pay me yet. If further hurt come to me; if I am put aboard Blunt’s ship, I’ve friends—not Mr. Bradbury alone—who’ll never rest till he’s laid by the heels. Ay, and tell him this from me: that for his foul lie against me and my mother, I’ll have a reckoning yet from him and his.”
To be sure, I passed the most dismal of nights locked in the upper room of the Stone House. Whether Martin had had the courage to bear my message to Charles Craike I could not tell; I heard the mumble of their voices in the room below, but I did not set my ear again to the breach in the flooring-boards. I heard the doors creak and crash presently, and, slipping to the window, I saw the gentleman mount and ride away. I lay down then on the bed, spreading my greatcoat over the miserable rags; and when Martin and Mother Mag climbed the stairs, and entered the room, that the fellow might satisfy himself of my safety, and further test the security of bars and chimney, I lay there paying them no heed, nor did they speak to me. But the woman brought me a pitcher of water, and bread and meat upon a platter, of which I was glad, for I was fainting with hunger; she set my supper down upon the floor, and they left me, locking the door upon me.
I ate my supper, and surveyed my fortunes.Indeed, they were of the poorest. My one hope was that Mr. Bradbury was no more than stunned by his fall; and would take prompt steps to find and rescue me. Else, I must be held a prisoner in the Stone House, till the seaman Blunt made port. I was then to be put aboard his ship and taken overseas. My uncle’s assumption was—unless he purposed more particularly to instruct Blunt regarding the disposal of me—that I could not possibly return during his father’s lifetime; though by entail I might be master of Rogues’ Haven, I took it that the gentleman by then would be in complete enjoyment of his father’s private fortunes, and would set me at defiance, if ever I returned; but I believed that Charles Craike would so plan it that I should never return. Lying on the miserable bed, hearing the winds blow drearily about the house, I writhed at the thought that the man who had done my parents bitter hurt should have me in his toils. Was there hope from Roger Galt, gentleman of the road, hating Charles Craike? Though Galt might fret under the yoke, Craike was surely his master.
Awhile I heard the folk of the house stirring below me; once I heard the stairs creak, and believed that Martin or the woman crept up to my door. Indeed, I fancied that I caught thesound of breathing by the door; I lay still, wondering whether they would come upon me secretly in the dark, and make an end of me. But it seemed that the man or the woman came only to be assured that I was not endeavouring to break gaol; as satisfied, the watcher crept presently down the stairs.
But would they yet come upon me in the dark? At the thought I rose and set the stool, with pitcher and platter, against the door; the crash, if the door were opened, would surely rouse me. I could not lie awake all night; I could not for the weariness clouding my brain. I fell at last asleep; yet, such was the influence of my fears upon me that I woke repeatedly, believing that my enemies were in the room. At first I woke only to see moonlight leap white and spectral through the window, as the sack flapped in the wind; then to lie quaking in the darkness, hearing the gale, which was violent the night through; always when I woke I heard it hammering on the house; I heard the rats scurry, and bounce, and squeak beside my bed.
No one came in the night. I was awake by daybreak, and rose to stare out on drear grey fog; the gale had abated. All about the house the dank fog lay in the hollow; I could not see as far as the stone wall from my window. Lookingabout the mouldering room, I set my thought upon the trap-door through the ceiling; it was clouded with dust-weighted cobwebs, and clearly had not been opened for many years. I believed that I could raise it, and reach the roof; had there been more furniture within the room, I might have climbed to it; the bedstead would not reach half-way, and by its rottenness would crash under my weight.
But the inmates of the Stone House were now astir. I heard the working and splash of a pump, the sound of an axe, the clatter of heavy boots on the cobbles. I heard muttering and movement in the room below me. Hungry and impatient, and less afraid now that the day was come, I waited until, at last, Mother Mag and a young man climbed the stairs and entered the room. The fellow seemed of gipsy blood,—black, towsled hair poking about his ears, his eyes dark and furtive, his skin copper-red,—as ill-looking a rogue as Martin. He wore leather breeches, leggings, and hobnails, a fustian jacket over a ragged shirt; he had silver rings in his ears. He was clearly of a lithe strength; he carried a blackthorn, and he eyed me with a surly and vengeful look, as if he would use his cudgel on me for any pretext I might afford him.
Mother Mag, poking her skinny fingers at me,croaked, “You can come downstairs, young master. You can wash you at the pump, if you will wash. When you’ve fed, you’ll be free to walk the court, if you will. But don’t try to run away! Don’t try,”—and laughed shrilly, and pointed at the young man.
He grinned at me, flourished his blackthorn suggestively, and gripped my wrist as if to demonstrate his strength; his fingers clasped on my flesh like a steel trap. But he said not a word, as, nodding, I followed the woman down the stairs; he came after, pressing my heels.
As we reached the hall, Martin appeared in the doorway of the long room; seeing him, yellow-skinned and malevolent, I detected still a resemblance in build and feature to the gipsy lad; and believed them kinsmen, though Martin aped the appearance of a gentleman, and the rustic was rough and ragged, and reeked of the stable. Martin gave me no greeting; I followed Mother Mag through the hall into a great kitchen, damp, close, and cheerless, but for the peat smouldering on the hearth. Rashers were frying in a pan; provision of bacon, smoked fish and ropes of onions hung from the sooty rafters.
“Would ye wash?” Mother Mag asked, leering at me.
“To be sure, I’d wash, thank ’ee,” said I.
She took down a coarse towel from a peg and flung it to me; she pointed to soap upon the bench, “You can wash at the pump,” she said. “Bart’ll go with you. Don’t ’ee go tryin’ to run, young master, now don’t ’ee. For you’ll never get to the wall; and you’ll never climb if you run so far—” and, unlocking the door, pointed, laughing, at the hound chained at the foot of the steps.
The hound, leaping up, bayed at me; Bart, clattering down the steps, struck at it with his cudgel; it leaped and bayed at him, plunging as though it would snap its chain. He uttered not a word, seeming to take delight in the torment of the savage brute, and beating it back at last into the kennel; though, when I descended, it sprang at me, and, but for my jumping aside, it would have borne me down. Mother Mag laughed shrilly from the door; Bart said not a word or yet a word while he mounted guard over me at the pump. I took it that the fellow was dumb, but, as I plied the towel, I said carelessly, to test him, “How long am I to be held in this ken, lad?” He answered nothing, only swung his cudgel, grinning at me. I took a hasty look about me; the stone wall was built high about the cobbled yard; away from the house were low stone out-buildings; beyond the wall I could see trees dimly through the thinning fog.
I said then, “You’re paid to keep me here. Whatever you’re paid, my friends will pay you more. D’ye understand me? If you’ll take a message to Mr. Bradbury, whom I think to be at Rogues’ Haven—”
With black and menacing look he gripped my arm, and pointed back to the house. So I must needs tramp back to my prison; though I was tempted to make a dash for freedom, when he loosed my arm, I was debarred by the sight of Martin standing, pistol in hand, by the steps. He, sweeping off his hat with a mocking bow, as I returned, my endurance left me. While the hound raved at me, I cried furiously to Martin, “I warn you all you’ll pay for this. I’ve other friends than Bradbury, who’ll never rest till they’ve found me. By the Lord, you’ll rue the day!”
“Brave words,” he sneered. “Blunt’ll make port this day or to-morrow. And you’ll lie snug enough, till you’re set aboard.”
I passed by him into the kitchen. Mother Mag had set bread and bacon and a mug of ale on the table for me. I sat down and ate hungrily, while the three watched me from the fireside, saying not a word to me, and the great hound bayed yet without the door.
Now, the four days I passed at the Stone House I was like to die for weariness and suspense. The routine was unbroken. I ate my breakfast in the kitchen with the woman and the two men watching me; for an hour thence I was free to exercise myself in the courtyard; all the days the grey fog hung dank in the hollow, and the cobbles were wet and slippery. The silent Bart was always within reach of me; Martin watched me from the door, and the hound raved by the steps. Thence I was locked in my room for the remainder of the morning; again brought down for dinner, again to exercise in the courtyard; finally to be locked in my room for the night. At dark, Mother Mag brought me my supper of bread and water; ere midnight, Martin surveyed my room, to be assured that I was not attempting to break out. I saw nothing of Roger Galt all this while. I assumed that he had ridden away from the Stone House; through the parting in the floor I could hear of a night only the mumblings of Martin and Mother Mag; Bartnever bore them company. From the certain likeness among the three, I came to believe them all of the one evil brood; the age of the hag, I thought, should make her their grandame, though Martin treated her and Bart with the sneering insolence which he displayed towards me. I knew that they expected daily the arrival of Captain Ezra Blunt, who, I gathered from Martin, was master of the brig,Black Wasp,—whether he was trader, smuggler, or pirate of the American coasts I did not learn, but rather assumed, and dreaded all the more the life awaiting me aboard.
But of Mr. Bradbury all this while? Was he dead? Or was he searching for me, and on that lawless coast finding officers of the law poor assistance to him? Would he yet come to the Stone House, and would he come in time?
Now, the grey afternoon of the fourth day, I was looking drearily out of my window, when I heard a voice calling from the gate. Mother Mag, hobbling from the house, admitted Roger Galt; he rode up, mounted on his great horse; by the flush of his reckless face and by his rolling in saddle, he had been drinking deeply. Spying me at the window, he essayed to flourish his hat, and almost fell from his horse in thisendeavour. I heard him presently wrangling with Martin in the room below, the deep booming of his voice, the smash of a glass, as if he had failed to pour himself a dram, or had slung a goblet at Martin’s head. But I paid little heed to him, for my acute interest in the fellows whom Mother Mag admitted on Roger’s heels into the courtyard. Twenty or more,—sunburned seamen in loose breeches, rough jackets and red caps, a cutlass at every man’s belt; a few country folk, men and women, driving a train of laden pack-horses. Smugglers! I knew then the use of the Stone House, lonely and near the sea, and guessed how the silks and laces and brandies and what-not were secreted in its old cellars for distribution through the countryside. There rode with these folk a rakish red-faced fellow on a cob; his blue cloak, blown back in the wind, showed me his blue coat ornate with gold lace and buttons, his white breeches poked into high, mud-stained boots; he had a black hat thrust down upon his brows. All these folk, entering the yard with much sound and clatter, passed about the house, and out of view, Mother Mag following and calling for Bart. I heard from beyond the house, presently, the rolling of barrels over cobbles, the voices of the smugglers, and the baying of the hound. SoBlunt was come, with his seamen and his smuggled goods; so I was soon to be handed over to him to be shipped overseas. Trembling, I waited by the window, till the grey afternoon gave place to dusk and dark, with a cold wind blowing, ever gaining strength and ever crying out around the house, as though to share in the ever-swelling tumult of the smugglers. For the quiet of the Stone House was at an end; it seemed that Captain Ezra Blunt—if the fellow with the copper-red face were Blunt—and his folk would spend a gay night ashore.
When the rolling of the barrels and the trampling of the horses ceased, I heard the company clatter into the kitchen,—Mother Mag’s voice was shrill as a fiddle-string over their laughter and the baying of the hound. Their leader left them soon to join Martin and Roger in the room below me; lying with my ear to the crack in the floor, I heard Martin address him as “Blunt.” It appeared that Galt was now lying drunk by the fire, for said Martin, “Our friend here’s been unloading an earlier cargo of yours, Mr. Blunt. Don’t mind him! Sit you down and taste a dram!”—and I heard the clink of glasses, and Blunt’s voice at first so low that I could not make out his words.
“Will you be making back to theBlack Waspto-night?” Martin asked. “Mr. Craike would have a word with you at the Haven.”
I believed that Blunt answered that he had already met Mr. Craike. Martin proceeded, “Don’t let these men of yours get too drunk, then. You know what you’re to take away with you.”
“Ay, ay,” Blunt answered. “Young Craike.”
“Howe’s his name,” Martin asserted. “We’ve kept him safe for you. So don’t let your men get too drunk!”
“Oh, they’ll be sober enough by dawn,” Blunt answered easily. “If not, you and Bart can give me a hand down to the ship with him. Galt’s very drunk.”
“He’s always drunk nowadays,” said Martin. “Don’t trouble about him. But Mr. Craike surely gave you to understand that the lad was to be got aboard in the dark. He must have told you of the old fool Bradbury, and the hunt he’s making. Gavin Masters is backing him. There’s talk over at the Haven of runners down from London. We’ll be having ’em here, if Masters sets his wits to work. We’ll get the lad away now, if you’re wise and willing, Blunt.”
“I’m not willing,” Blunt answered angrily. “I’m weary to death. I’ll have supper and a bottle or more from old Mag’s cupboard, beforeI stir this night. Damn Craike! What’s Craike to me?”
“Your master,” Martin snarled; then, as though apprehensive of my listening, he lowered his voice; Blunt following suit, I heard them muttering together; and, drearily, I rose and sat down on the bed. I was to be taken out of the Stone House that night, and be set aboard Blunt’s ship,Black Wasp, and that under the very nose of Mr. Bradbury and his folk. Unless they came that night! I lifted my hands to heaven then, and prayed that they might come to the house in time, or intercept my captors on the way down to the sea. But I sat in the dark for hours, and none came nigh me; below, the carousal rose to tumult.
I heard their voices roaring a chanty; I heard drunken laughter; once I heard the sounds of strife, smash of bottles, clash of steel, fierce cries; this uproar ceasing presently, the uproar and the singing continued far into the night. All the while the wind rolled about the Stone House; when I peered out, I saw the moon, now at the full, cloud-chased; the light alternated swiftly with dark in the room, as the wind blew the sacking to and fro. Ever the smugglers rioted within, and the wind was riotous without.
Other folk came to the house in the night; atevery cry at the gate I would leap to my feet, hoping against hope that Mr. Bradbury and the searchers after me were there; peering out, I saw in the moonlight only seamen come, bringing still the smuggled cargo from the ship, and country folk with teams to carry it away for distribution; the sounds of discharge and loading from the courtyard were added to the sounds of carousal in the house itself.
Not till long after moonrise did Mother Mag bring me my supper; this night, she brought a mug of steaming spirits with bread and meat; when she had set it down, she giggled shrilly at me; caught at my sleeve with her skinny claw, and cried, “Eat and drink, young master,—drink while your grog’s hot! You’re to travel far this night, and it’s bitter cold. Drink!”
Her eagerness warned me, of course, against the grog. I answered, “I’m not thirsty. I’ll not drink. Leave it there!”
She mouthed at me, and shook her fist at me; but, going out, paused at the door to shriek at me, “Whether you drink or no, master, you’re going from here to-night. Going, and never coming back!” Dragging the door to with a crash, she descended the stair.
As the night wore on, the clamour dulled; the roisterers were surely drunken or wearied; few seemed astir. I heard the mumble of voices still from the room below me; occasionally the shred of a chanty from the kitchen; at times, the clatter of shoes over the cobbles of the yard, and the outcry of the hound. But ever the wind blew through the night, seeming to cry to me concerning great waters storm-tossed, whereon I should be sailing after this night to the port of no return. Night drew toward the hour before dawn; the moon was long since lost in massing clouds packed high against the heaven by the wind. Lord, how the wind battered at the house, making new clamour when the clamour died below; always it cried to me of storm-tossed waters,—I had this sense upon me, even when my overwrought mind growing dull, I fell asleep upon the bed, and I had the sense still in my dreams. But suddenly I woke with a start and a cry, to understand that pebbles were pattering through the bars and falling into the room, and that avoice was muttering below the window, “Young Craike,—hey, young Craike!” I snatched the sacking back, and in the grey dawn saw a dark figure perched upon a ladder, his head a foot or so below the sill.
“Galt!” I whispered.
“Hist! They may have heard the stones. Lord, how you slept! D’ye hear them stirring?”
“No! No! Help me!”
“Can you slip through the bars?”
“No, they’re set too close and firm.”
He muttered, “Bart’s sleepin’ on the stair and Martin’s in the hall. The woman’s got the key. Can you reach the roof by the chimney?”
“Blocked with brick!”
“No other way?”
“A manhole in the ceiling. If I could only reach it.”
“If you can only break out of that room, I’ll take you out of this. My horse is saddled, waiting. I forgot those bars.”
I pressed my face down against the bars and whispered, “If you could raise the ladder, we could pass it through the bars. It’d get me to the trap-door. There’s sure a way out through the old roof. And a coil of rope, if there’s one at hand. Tie that to the ladder.”
Grunting he descended; presently I saw him setting a barrel below the window, and fixing a coil of rope to a rung of the ladder. He climbed on to the barrel, gripped the ladder, and raised its head towards the window. I caught the ladder, tilted it, and presently, rejoicing, had it in the room, with no more sound than the wind should hide from the drunken rogues below. Setting the ladder against the wall, and hitching the coil of rope about my arm, I climbed, and to my joy reached easily the trap-door above me. Exerting all my strength, I strove to force the trap-door upwards. Lord, the shower of dust that descended, as the door lifted, blinded me; broken slate or brick fell with the dust, and the crash on the floor seemed fit to wake the dead. But, blindly struggling upwards, and gripping a rafter, I pulled myself from the ladder, and squeezed under the half-opened trap into the loft above my room.
An instant I lay in the dust and litter, exhausted,—the rats went scurrying all about me; I heard the flapping of birds under the roof. Struggling to my shaking knees, I forced the trap back into its place, and without pausing to listen whether the fall of rubbish into the room had roused the house, I groped forward through the blackness, my hope being that I should find a trapopening on the roof itself, or that, with the rottenness of the slates and the timbers I might break through, and coiling my rope about a chimney, lower myself sufficiently to drop to the ground. But as yet all was dark about me; a thick litter of dust and feathers lay under my feet; groping still, I touched the slanting roof, but thrusting with my hand found it yet set firmly for all the decay of the years; I believed that I heard hoarse voices without the house, or the growling of the wind upon the roofs. Creeping forward still, I rejoiced to feel a cold draught of air blow upon me, and to see pale light through many chinks. Loose slates, rotten wood, surely a decaying patch in the roof, I dared to stand erect then, though fearing that the mouldering, worm-eaten rafters would give way beneath me, and I should crash into one of the upper rooms of the Stone House.
And as I lurched up, with a crash and splintering of slates, I broke through the rotten roof; I was nigh the chimney stack; I could see the leaden gutters below me,—birds flew out in a whirl. I could see Roger Galt standing by his horse away from the house; I could hear the outcry of the hound,—none of the folks save Roger seemed astir. I wriggled out from the hole in the roof, though at first the slates crackedlike thin ice beneath me; and I began slowly to creep towards the chimney stack, finding my hold in the breaks of the slates and the thick growths of moss stuck closely to them. The roof held me; but, ere I reached the chimney, the light was strong; had anyone come out of the Stone House I must have been clear to view, though the sound of the wind hid the rasping of my body over the slates. And slowly, with the wind beating upon me as if to cast me down, I brought the rope about the chimney, and, securing it, let myself slide down gradually to the gutter; gripping rope and gutter, I lowered myself over the edge. On the instant, the hound broke into furious clamour; a cry sounded below me; Martin was roaring, “Bart! Blunt! Come here! Damn you—here!”
I was swinging now down the rope; at the end of the length I was little below the gutter. At the alarm I lost my grip, and fell—by some chance into a pile of bales of smuggled stuffs that they had left lying under the wall; though the breath was knocked out of my body, and I lay there gasping an instant, I was unhurt. I started up; dropped from the bales on to the cobbles, and was staggering off; but, coming in a rush from the house, the rogues were upon me. Martin and Bart had gripped me; struggling wildly, I wasborne backwards; on the instant came Roger Galt, riding thunderously upon them. His riding-whip cracked upon Bart’s head; his horse nigh trod Martin down; Roger’s great hand gripped my collar, and swung me up before him.
Martin was screeching, “Galt! You’ll hang for this! Galt! Damn you! Stop!” His pistol cracked after us, as Roger, turning his horse, set him at full speed from the house. After us they came pell-mell,—Martin and Blunt and his crew; I heard shots and their roaring voices. The gate was barred against us; swinging back under the wall, Roger Galt suddenly put his horse to it, and with a shock that almost drove my senses from me, the horse brought us safely over.
We were away then at a gallop, and the clamour from the Stone House was dying on the wind.