CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRSTThe Attack on the TowersThat night the Towers was heavy with an atmosphere of gloom. The Squire had remained the whole evening sunk in his chair, not reading, or smoking, speechless, his head bent upon his breast. He had heard from his lawyer that all efforts to transfer the mortgage had as yet proved fruitless: nobody wanted a bond on barren land. The next day but one was Christmas, and the Squire brooded on the melancholy thought that it would be the last Christmas he would spend in his old home. Occasionally he glanced at the motto inscribed above the lintel of the door:Trevanion, whate'er thy Fortune be,Hold fast the Rock by the Western Sea.What a mockery the old legend seemed! He had held fast; now he felt as though some inexorable power were unclenching his nerveless fingers. And the bitterness of his mood was intensified by the foreboding that the old house, and his last rood of land, would go, as all the rest had gone, into the hands of the man who had disgraced his name, and who bore him implacable enmity.Dick went to bed early, sick at heart, unable to endure the mute misery upon his parents' faces. He meant to rise before it was light, for a purpose which, he sadly felt, he might never accomplish again. It had been his custom for several years to carry to the Parsonage on Christmas Eve a basket of fish of his own catching, as a present to his good friend the Vicar. It was a poor gift, but he had not the means to offer anything better, and Mr. Carlyon was always pleased with it, regarding the spirit in which the simple offering was made.About an hour before dawn he wakened Sam, and after nibbling a crust, the two boys set off. Experience had taught them that this was the best time to fish at so late a season of the year. The air was damp and raw, with scarcely any wind, and as they issued from the house they shivered, and buttoned their coats high about their necks."We must go to the Beal for some tackle, Sam," said Dick. "That will warm us before we go down to the boat.""Iss. I wish it were to-morrer. Pa'son's dinner will be summat to cheer a poor feller up, these wisht and dismal times. Do 'a think, now, Maister Dick, as we'll ever hev a real Christmas randy up at Towers, same as they do hev at Portharvan?""I'm afraid not, Sam. I'm afraid we shan't spend another Christmas at the Towers.""Well, then, you and I had better go for sojers or sailors. I'm afeard I bean't high enough for a sojer. But sailors get prize-money, old Joe says, and I'd like that, 'cos then I could buy a thing or two for Maidy Susan—and Mistress, too: I wouldn' forget she. Maybe I'd get killed, fightin' the French, but dear life! it wouldn' matter much: we hain't got many friends. I don't s'pose Maidy Susan 'ud fall more 'n two tears, or maybe three.""None at all, I should think," said Dick."Oh, I don't think so bad o' she as that. When I seed her yesterday she said she wished I could go to Dower House to-night. Maister John be goin' to a randy at Portharvan; he'll kiss his young 'ooman under the mistletoe, I reckon.""And Susan wants you to go to the Dower House and kiss her, I suppose?""Now that's too bad, Maister. We bean't neither of us so forward as that. Maidy said she'd like me to go up-along and gie un some o' my merry talk, but jown me if my tongue 'ud run merry wi' things so bad up to home.""You couldn't go: Father would never allow it. You'll have to be satisfied with the Vicar's nuts and candy, Sam."They came to their den at the end of the Beal, and remained there for some little time arranging their tackle in the wan glimmer preceding the dawn. Then they emerged, and climbed up beside the big boulder to take a look at the sea, over which a thin mist hung."Isn't that theIsaac and Jacob?" said Dick, pointing to a vessel tacking to make the fairway between the cliff and the reef."Iss, sure. Tonkin be come home wi'out a cargo, seemin'ly, unless he hev run it a'ready."They watched the lugger creeping slowly toward the harbour. The tide was on the ebb, and there was not enough depth of water upon the reef to allow the vessel to head straight for the jetty. As she crept into the fairway Dick was struck with the unusual appearance of her deck. Amidships it was almost clear except for two or three men; but, herded under the low bulwarks on the weather side, out of sight from the harbour, were a score or more of men whom he recognised by slight indications in their dress to be foreigners. Almost instinctively Dick slipped behind the boulder, pulling Sam with him."That's very curious," he whispered, standing so that he could see without being seen.On the lee side of the vessel, he noticed arms, legs, and here and there a red-capped head protruding from beneath tarpaulins, thrown with apparent carelessness on the deck. Two or three heads also appeared in the hatchway, suggesting that other men were on the companion below. But what struck Dick most of all was the fact that although Nathan Pendry held the tiller, there lolled against the bulwarks near him a stranger whose hat and coat were manifestly Cornish, but whose lower garments were as unmistakably of foreign cut. He was a short, stout man, and he held a pistol, which was pointed at the helmsman.Dick was so much fascinated and wonderstruck by this extraordinary spectacle that for a few moments he neither spoke nor stirred."Be it Boney at last?" whispered Sam, his eyes wide with alarm."No, no: Boney would bring thousands. But I can't make it out. We'll run home, Sam, and tell Father."Creeping round the boulder, and dipping their heads as long as there was any chance of being observed from the lugger, they set off at a breakneck run for the Towers. Dick dashed up to the Squire's room, and knocked at the door."Come in," said the Squire. He was awake—had indeed lain sleepless almost all night, thinking miserably of his affairs."Father," said Dick, entering, "Tonkin's lugger has just put in with a gang of Frenchmen on board. Pendry is at the helm; there's a fellow standing over him with a pistol. I didn't see Tonkin.""What on earth does that mean?" cried the Squire, starting up. "Get me my boots, Dick; I'll pull on some clothes, and go up on the roof to take a look at them."In a few minutes the Squire, Dick, and Sam were behind the parapet of the principal tower, the Squire with his telescope in his hand. Lofty as their perch was, the jetty and the lower part of the village were not in sight, being concealed by the contour of the hill. But they could see the upper houses and the cliffs beyond; the church tower and the red roof of the Parsonage away to the left; and almost every yard of ground between the hilltop and the Towers."Shall I ring bell, Maister?" asked Sam."No; wait a little. We don't want to make ourselves a laughing-stock. There's nothing in Polkerran to make it worth any Frenchman's while to—Ha! I see it all. 'Tis a trick of Mildmay's, the sly dog. Do you see, Dick? He has disguised himself and his men as Frenchmen, and pounced on Tonkin's lugger with a fine crop aboard. Ha! ha! The neatest feat I ever heard of.""I'm rather doubtful about that, sir," said Dick. "The faces I saw weren't Cornish.""It would be a poor disguise if they were. You may be sure I'm right, and we shall have Mildmay coming up to breakfast by-and-by with a fine tale of tubs. I slept badly, Dick; I'll return to my bed for an hour or two."Dick remained with Sam on the roof. He was not at all convinced that his father was right. It was difficult to conceive what object a band of Frenchmen could have in attacking so small a village, yet he felt sure that they were Frenchmen, and that their visit was not an ordinary smuggling affair. After a long look through his spy-glass he said to Sam:"There's no smoke, no sound of firing—-no noise at all. We can't see anything here, Sam; let us take a run to the Beal again."But at that moment he saw a man rise over the crest of the hill; immediately behind him came others. They were armed with muskets and cutlasses, and advanced rapidly and in a manner that suggested a definite goal."Off to the turret and pull the bell, Sam!" cried Dick. He rushed downstairs to his father's room again."Thirty or forty armed men are marching from the village, sir," he said. "I think they're coming to attack us.""Bless my soul, what fools they must be!" said the Squire with a mirthless laugh. "There's nothing here worth firing a shot for. Ah! there's the bell. We'll see if 'tis more effective than last time we rang it. And we'll give them a warm reception, my boy, by George we will! Go and bring Reuben to me."So crowded was the next hour, and so conflicting were the accounts given subsequently, in all honesty, by actors in the drama, that the writing of a clear and coherent narrative is a matter of some difficulty. Mr. Carlyon diligently questioned everyone who could throw a light on the separate incidents, and out of this material compiled a long chapter for his history of the parish. But the prolixity of his style, and his habit of interrupting his narrative with classical parallels and references to abstruse authors, render his book quite unsuitable to the present age, and make it necessary to treat his manuscript as the modern historian treats his sources.When theIsaac and Jacobwas moored alongside the jetty, the tarpaulins that covered the deck were thrown aside, the men whom they had concealed sprang to their feet, and, joined by others who swarmed up the companion way, rushed ashore behind their leader, Jean Delarousse of Roscoff. There were but two or three of the Polkerran folk visible. A large number of the fishers were five or six miles away, having affairs of their own to attend to. The majority of the population were still abed. A dozen miners, due for the day shift in an hour's time, were breakfasting. Only the smoke rising into the air from the chimneys of their cottages gave sign of life.The few men who were out and about fled incontinently to their homes at sight of the fifty determined Frenchmen, armed with muskets, cutlasses, and pistols, advancing across the few yards of open space that separated the jetty from the nearest houses. It was evident that the invaders had prearranged their operations. Twelve of their number separated from the main body and went off hastily in couples, three to the right, three to the left, until they reached the last dwelling in either direction. Then doubling up the hills to right and left, they posted themselves around the village in a half circle, at intervals of about a hundred yards. Their object manifestly was to prevent any villager from breaking through, and carrying news of the raid into the country beyond. The Dower House and the Towers were naturally not included in the cordon.While this movement was being carried out, Delarousse led the rest of his force straight to the Five Pilchards. The door was already open; the miners usually paid an early visit to the inn before they started for their work. Delarousse on entering was confronted by an elderly woman of shrewish aspect, who stood like a dragon behind the shining taps."Ze Towers, vere Trevanion live—it is zat big house on ze cliff?" he asked.Mrs. Doubledick nodded. Fright bereft her of speech."Vere is Doubledick?" asked the Frenchman.The answer was a shake of the head; whereupon Delarousse, ejaculating "Ah, bah!" returned to his followers, who were collected about the entrance, and led all but six of them up the hill. Like a prudent general, he took care to secure his communications.Though he presumed that Mrs. Doubledick's shake of the head signified ignorance of her husband's whereabouts, in this he was in error. Doubledick had returned home late at night, unaware of the impending crisis in his affairs. His wife gave him Mr. Polwhele's message, and he anticipated a very pleasant interview with the riding-officer on his return from circumventing the smugglers. Rising early, he happened to see from his bedroom window the crowd of Frenchmen swarming from the lugger, and without waiting to finish dressing, he ran down to the taproom, pulled up a trap-door behind the bar, and descended into the capacious cellar beneath, having strictly charged his wife not to reveal his whereabouts. He was shaking with fear, rather of possible consequences which his imagination foresaw than of immediate bodily harm. Delarousse could scarcely fail to discover before long that Doubledick had given him misleading information, and he was a man whose wrath it was not wise to face.Between thirty and forty Frenchmen, strong, hardy fellows, marched rapidly up the hill behind their leader, whose agility was remarkable in one so corpulent. They had just risen upon the crest when the clang of a bell struck upon their ears."En avant, mes gars!" cried Delarousse. "Courez, à toutes jambes!"And being on fairly level ground, they broke into a double.The Squire, being now convinced that the Towers, as the most conspicuous dwelling-house in the neighbourhood, was the object of the Frenchmen's raid, displayed none of that indecision and vacillation which so often beset him in the matters of every-day life. He was now keen, alert, and ready, as became a man who had served in the King's navy. He smiled grimly as he saw the Frenchmen hasting towards him, as yet half a mile away. "A pack of fools!" he thought; "but 'tis hard that I should be molested when on the brink of ruin."In a few sharp, decisive words he bade Dick and Reuben close and bolt the doors and shutters, and haul against the former such heavy articles of furniture as they could move in the few minutes at their disposal. Meanwhile he himself collected several old muskets that were at hand, with powder and slugs, in some cases relics of ancient trophies of arms treasured by the family. If he could hold the enemy at bay even for a short time, their project would be ruined, for the alarm bell and the sound of shots would arouse the whole countryside, and unless the invaders were supported by other vessels, they must soon retire to the lugger. At the first glance he had seen that they were not French regular soldiers, and concluded that their landing was not the foretaste of a general invasion, but merely a chance filibustering raid.In the turret Sam was pulling the bell-rope with short, quick jerks. His brain was in a whirl. The advance of the Frenchmen was hidden from him, but looking out of the narrow window in the opposite direction, he spied, less than a minute after the first clang, Joe Penwarden hurrying along towards the Towers as fast as his old legs would carry him. Running to the opposite side of the chamber, where a door admitted to the house, he yelled down the stairs:"Maister, here be old Joe a-comin'. Let un in by the back door.""Run, Dick," said the Squire, "you're quickest. An addition to the garrison is welcome."Dick flew to the back door, whither Sam had summoned Penwarden through the turret window. During these few seconds the strokes of the bell were very irregular, but they did not cease."What is it, Maister Dick?" said the old man, as Dick closed and barricaded the door behind him."A gang of Frenchmen are running to attack us. They landed from Tonkin's lugger about ten minutes ago. Go to Father, Joe; he's in the front room over the porch. I'm going to the roof to see what they are doing."He leapt up the stairs three at a time, and emerged on the leads of the tower, whence, sheltered by the parapet, he could observe the enemy in safety. They were now within two or three hundred yards of the house. Dick was surprised that there was no sign of pursuers from the village. Now that the feeling between his family and the people was less acute, he had expected that the bell would already have summoned a concourse of fishers, miners, and men of all occupations. He was surprised, too, that the alarm was not echoed by the new bell which had recently been rigged up in the Dower House. Surely at such a moment personal feuds might well be forgotten, and private enemies unite to beat off a public foe. But between the Towers and the hill not a man was to be seen except the advancing Frenchmen. At the Dower House there was no sign of life or movement, a strange circumstance that set him wondering. Why was not John Trevanion alarmed at a French raid? Was it possible that he knew of it beforehand, approved it, had even arranged it? Having failed in some of his schemes hitherto, had he now joined hands with alien filibusters to deal his cousin a crowning stroke?As his eyes ranged round, Dick suddenly caught sight of a large vessel looming in the mist in a straight line with the head of the Beal. Its shape was very indistinct and blurred, but there was a certain familiarity in its aspect, and a sudden conviction flashed upon Dick that it was the same vessel as he had seen twice before in unusual and mysterious circumstances. Surely it must be the notorious privateer, theAimable Vertu, owned by Jean Delarousse. Why it should have come to an insignificant place like Polkerran, when it might have gained rich prizes on the high seas, was a question that puzzled him greatly, unless Trevanion had made an alliance with the Frenchman.The Squire's dispositions to meet the threatening attack were as good as could be devised, having regard to the short breathing-space allowed him, and to the nature of his situation. A large rambling building like the Towers could not be held for any length of time by a slender garrison of five. There were half-a-dozen points at which it could be assaulted simultaneously—the front door facing the village, the back door facing the sea, the stable-yard, the offices, the rooms and passages in the ruined portion. But the principal tower, flanking the porch, was in passable repair, and it was there that the Squire had determined to make a final stand. It contained two or three rooms approached by a stone staircase springing from near the front door. Mrs. Trevanion was sent by her husband to the topmost room. He posted himself, with Reuben and Penwarden, in the room over the porch, where the window-shutters had been loopholed, no doubt by some former owner of the Towers, though the Squire had never given the matter a thought. Dick he sent to the back of the house, instructing him to call Sam to his help if he saw fit."Neither for fire nor battle does the bell summon aid," he said bitterly. "Sam may as well save his energies."His final instruction was that if the Frenchmen broke in, as seemed only too probable, they should all retreat to the tower, the entrance to which from the staircase was protected by a heavy, iron-studded oaken door. Believing that the invaders' object was loot and not slaughter, he scarcely anticipated personal damage, but supposed that the garrison would be allowed to remain in the tower unmolested while the rest of the house was sacked.Delarousse, panting a little from his exertions, was as much alive to the risks and perils of his enterprise as the Squire could be. Success or failure hung upon minutes. But he had not earned his reputation as a daring and resourceful privateer undeservedly. His object was a very simple one. It was not bloodshed or rapine, but merely the seizure of the man who had grievously wronged him—John Trevanion, or, as he had known him in Roscoff, Robinson. Doubledick, to feed his private malice, had declared that John Trevanion lived in the Towers—the largest house upon the cliff. The Frenchman's little knowledge of the country had been gained solely by observation from the sea, and by the faint glimpses he had obtained on that dark and rainy night when he evaded the pursuit of the dragoons. He remembered that the house at whose door he had seen his enemy was nearer the top of the hill than the Towers; but he had no reason to doubt Doubledick's statement that the latter was now the residence of John Trevanion, and no one had told him that there were other Trevanions who had no dealings with John. It was therefore his whole-hearted belief that the Towers sheltered his bitterest foe which inspired his attack upon a man who had never injured him.Utterly possessed by his purpose, he wasted no time in a vain summons to surrender. The bell was still clanging overhead. He had taken precautions to prevent interference from the village, where the absence of so many men on the scene of the expected run favoured his design. But he was not to know but that the summons might draw armed men from every corner of the neighbourhood beyond the village, and his blow must be struck at once. Accordingly he made straight for the porch, and finding, as he had expected, that the door was fast closed, he put his pistol to the lock, and with one shot shattered it to splinters. But the door was held also by bolts and crossbars resting in staples, and further secured by a sideboard placed against it by Dick and Reuben, so that the breaking of the lock availed him nothing. Brought thus to a check, he stood for a few moments within the porch among his men to consider his next step.Meanwhile the Squire at the last moment had hurried to the top of the tower, with a double object: to observe the movements of the enemy more clearly than was possible through the loophole of a shuttered window, and to scan the surrounding country for any sign of assistance. No one was at present in sight. The air was heavy; the wind was off shore; and in all probability the sound of the bell had not even reached Nancarrow's farm, the nearest house except the Parsonage, much less Sir Bevil Portharvan's place, two miles farther away.He had given instructions before leaving Penwarden that the French were not to be fired on until they opened hostilities. With his wife in the building, he was determined not to draw upon himself by any premature act the reprisals of so formidable a gang of desperadoes. Now that the Frenchmen were within the porch, they were immune from musket fire, and he began to wonder whether his prohibition was not a mistake. As soon, however, as he heard the report of Delarousse's pistol, with a rapidity that might have surprised those who had only known him of late years, the Squire seized a large block of loose stone that formed part of the half-ruined parapet, and toppled it over on to the roof of the porch below. It fell upon the tiles with a tremendous crash, scattering fragments in all directions, and bounded off on to the gravel path. Though none of the Frenchmen was struck by the stone itself, or even by the splinters of the tiles, it was sufficiently alarming to drive them from the porch, and they scurried instantly into the open. Two muskets flashed upon them from the loopholes above; one man was hit by a slug, and hopped away on one leg, assisted by his comrades. At the same moment the bell ceased to clang. Hearing the shots, Sam rushed down the stairs to take his part in the fray. The whole body of Frenchmen had now withdrawn out of range, and the Squire saw the little stout man, their leader, carefully scanning the building, with the object, no doubt, of finding a weak spot to attack. Only two minutes had elapsed since the enemy made the first move.Alarmed at the sudden silence of the bell, from which he concluded that its clanging had achieved its object, Delarousse despatched one of his men to the high ground northward to report the approach of any armed force. Meanwhile he himself made a rapid circuit of the Towers, keeping, if not out of range, at least beyond easy-hitting distance. The back entrance seemed to him a vulnerable point, and the more promising, because it was not commanded by the tower, but only by the small window at which Dick was stationed. His ill-success at the front door made him resolute to go the shortest way to work at the back. He sent half-a-dozen men across the open stable-yard into the half-ruined stable to haul down one of the stout balks of wood that supported the roof, for use as a battering-ram. This movement was concealed from Dick by the angle of the building.While his men were gone about this errand, Delarousse, impatient of the loss of time, took it into his head to summon the garrison to surrender. He trotted back to the front of the building, set his legs apart, and, lifting his eyes to the top of the tower, shouted a loud "Hola!" The Squire showed his head above the parapet, but did not reply."Hola!" repeated the Frenchman. "Trevanion! Render Trevanion; zen I go.""A trick!" thought the Squire. "He thinks I'm worth a ransom!""Trevanion!" cried Delarousse again. "Ze ozers I not touch.""I'll see what they say," shouted the Squire. "Anything to gain time," he thought.Going to the door opening on the staircase he called for Dick."This fellow wants me, Dick," he said. "Goodness knows why! I suppose he imagines some rich imbecile will buy me back. If I surrender myself, he promises to spare the rest. Just run and see what your mother says: my old bones don't take kindly to those stairs."Before Dick returned Delarousse lost patience and shouted for an answer. The Squire kept out of sight."Mother says you must not think of it for a moment," said Dick, running up again. "I knew she would.""To tell the truth, so did I," replied his father. "But we have gained two or three minutes. Now to decline as civilly as possible—though he might at least Mounseer me, I think."As soon as his head reappeared above the parapet, Delarousse shouted:"Eh bien! You render Jean Trevanion?"Father and son looked at each other. Dick's face expressed surprise mingled with relief; a strange smile sat upon the Squire's countenance."We give up nobody," he called down firmly. "Do your worst."Dick thrilled with filial pride. It was a lesson in chivalry that he never forgot. A word from his father, he could not doubt, would have sent the Frenchmen in hot haste to the Dower House; but that word the Squire could not speak, even though John Trevanion was his worst enemy.Delarousse spat out an oath, shook his fist at the impassive gentleman above him, and toddled off to the back, disappearing behind the outhouses."We'll see what the rascal is after now," said the Squire quickly, and followed Dick down the stairs.For a minute or two the further proceedings of the assailants were hidden from view. Then the watchers saw, coming round the corner from the stables, four men bearing a stout twelve-foot post. Delarousse, immediately behind, urged them on with voluble utterance and vigorous play of hands."A battering-ram!" said the Squire. "I think, Dick, 'tis time to give them a warning."Dick lifted his musket and fired through a loophole upon the men rushing forward. There was a cry from below; the effect of the shot could not be seen through the smoke; it was answered by a score of bullets pattering on the shutters. The Squire placed his musket to a second loophole. It was impossible to take aim; he fired at random; and another sharp cry seemed to tell that his slug had gone home. A babel of shouts arose. Peeping through the loopholes they saw that one of the four men bearing the post lay on the ground; he had let fall his end of the battering-ram. At the same moment there came the distant crackle of a fusillade. The sound goaded Delarousse to fury. He rushed forward to lift the dropped end of the post. But just as he was stooping, there was a loud shout from his left. He turned his head, without rising from the ground, and what he saw, in common with the spectators above, was three men half pushing, half dragging a fourth towards the leader of the party. Delarousse remained in his stooping posture, as though transfixed with amazement, while a man might count four. Then, springing to his feet, he rushed headlong towards the approaching group, drawing a pistol as he ran.[image]"DELAROUSSE RUSHED HEADLONG TOWARDS THE APPROACHING GROUP."Up to that moment the fourth man had been passive in the hands of the three; but as soon as he caught sight of Delarousse leaping towards him, he jerked himself violently from the grasp of his captors, felled first one, then a second, with sledgehammer blows from right and left, and, slipping from the hands of the third, dashed with extraordinary speed along by the stable wall in the direction of the village. In ten seconds he was out of sight, and the whole band of Frenchmen, yelling fiercely, some discharging their pistols, turned their backs upon the Towers and doubled after the fugitive.Dick darted from the room, and up the stairs to the roof, Sam hard upon his heels, the Squire following at a pace that belied his melancholy allusion to his old bones. Penwarden also, hearing Sam's jubilant shout at the raising of the siege, left his post at the front, and clambered up after the others, muttering "Dear life! what a mix-up the world is!" Leaning over the parapet, the four watched the strangest chase that ever was seen. The fugitive came to the wicket-gate leading out of the grounds, and took it with a flying leap, with the crowd of Frenchmen in full cry behind him. Some, like Delarousse himself, bore a burden of flesh and forty years; others were younger and slimmer, and these, impelled by the furious cries of their leader, leapt the gate in turn, the last of them catching his foot in the top and coming sprawling to the ground.Their quarry, crossing a strip of land that still belonged to the Squire, came to the fence recently erected around the grounds of the Dower House. It was six feet high, a formidable obstacle to a man of his bulk and years. He clutched the top of it, heaved himself up, rolled across it sideways, and disappeared on the other side, wrenching the tail of his coat from the hands of the foremost Frenchman. In a trice the pursuer scrambled up after him, threw himself over, and also disappeared. Of the other members of his party, some scaled the obstacle with more or less facility; others, baulked by it, ran to right and left to find a path. Delarousse, whose stature and build forbade any athletic feat, yet disdained to leave the direct course, and called to two of his men to hoist him up. For an instant he sat swaying on the top of the fence; then he too dropped like a falling sack. Of all the thirty odd Frenchmen there were now only two or three to be seen.But in a minute or two the hunt again came fully into view from the lofty tower. The fugitive sped along with amazing swiftness, making a straight line for the Dower House. Behind him, strung at intervals over two fields, poured the impetuous Frenchmen. One or two were close at his heels; the rest followed, each according to his ability."They've catched un!" cried Sam, his eyes dilated with excitement. "No, be-jowned if they have. Got away! Yoick! Yo-hoy! Now then, Frenchy! Ah, I thought ye'd do it, now you've smashed yerself. No, he's up again! Halloo!"The side door of the Dower House stood half-open. The fugitive drew nearer and nearer to it; the pursuers seemed to make still more violent exertions to overtake him before he reached it. A few yards more! Ah! he was inside: the door was closing. But before it was quite shut, the first pursuer flung himself forward and thrust his musket within. To close the door was now impossible. For a few seconds the Frenchman appeared to be engaged in a fierce trial of strength with the persons inside. Two or three of his companions joined him; they threw themselves together upon the door; it yielded; and they dashed into the house.CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECONDJohn Trevanion in the ToilsWith the aid of imagination's magic boots we skip now from the Towers to the village, and see what was happening there.TheIsaac and Jacoblay alongside the jetty, in charge of half-a-dozen Frenchmen who lolled lazily about the deck. Nathan Pendry, who had steered the vessel into harbour, reclined, the picture of scowling discontent, against the bulwarks. Below, in the dark, reeking hold, trussed like fowls, lay Isaac Tonkin, Simon Mail, and two more of the most respected smugglers of Polkerran.It appeared from Tonkin's story, told many a time in after years to the breathless company in the parlour of the Three Jolly Mariners, that on arriving in Roscoff to purchase his Christmas cargo, he had been sought out by Jean Delarousse, whose customer he had formerly been. The Frenchman did not complain of Tonkin's desertion, nor did he seek a renewal of their trade relations; his sole object was to persuade the Cornishman, by means of a heavy bribe, to deliver John Trevanion into his hands. Tonkin had his grievance against Trevanion. He felt sore at having had to play second fiddle to the younger man in recent smuggling transactions. But being an honest fellow, and loyal in grain, he rejected Delarousse's offer with indignant scorn, and refused to believe what he understood of the tale poured into his ears in broken English, of a long course of deceit and fraud by which, as Delarousse alleged, Trevanion had enriched himself at his partner's expense. The Frenchman had appeared to take his refusal in good part, and Tonkin, having freighted his lugger, put to sea on his return voyage, intending to run his cargo at the creek in the small hours of Friday morning as arranged.TheAimable Vertu, Delarousse's privateering craft, lay in Roscoff harbour. Tonkin was only a mile or two at sea, when he noticed that the privateer was coming up astern. This circumstance at first gave him no concern; Delarousse was doubtless setting forth on one of his forays. But soon he began to suspect, from the course held by the larger vessel, that he was being chased, or at least dogged. TheIsaac and Jacobwas a very swift vessel, and, laden though she was, her master hoped to be able to maintain his lead until nightfall, and then to escape under cover of the darkness. But he was not long in discovering that his lugger was no match in speed for the privateer. The short dusk of the December evening was closing down upon the sea when theAimable Vertucame within range. The lugger's armament consisted of one small carronade; the Frenchman had a broadside, which at a single discharge would have shattered the lesser craft to splinters. When, therefore, Tonkin was hailed and bidden to heave-to, he chose the sensible, indeed the only practicable, course, and obeyed. Delarousse and a boarding party took possession of the lugger; in spite of vigorous protests, Tonkin and his crew were bound and laid by the board, and, room having been made for them in the hold by the removal of several tubs, they were carried below. The two vessels then in company continued on their course for the English coast.Favoured by the light mist that hung over the Channel during the night, the privateer escaped discovery by any English cruisers or revenue-cutters that might have been in the neighbourhood. When, however, she approached the rugged Cornish coast, the mist became a danger, and Delarousse had Tonkin fetched from below, and ordered him to pilot the vessels into Polkerran harbour. This the humiliated mariner flatly refused to do, persisting in his refusal in spite of the entreaties, curses, and menaces of his captor. He was carried back by ungentle hands to his noisome lair, and Pendry, a man of less backbone, proved to be more amenable to the Frenchman's commands. Under his skilful pilotage, the lugger safely made the harbour, the privateer standing some distance out at sea, to watch events.Now Tonkin, as has already been said, was a man of enormous strength, and as the pages of this history have shown, of great courage and resolution also. Nor was he lacking in prudence or common-sense; witness his ready surrender of the lugger when refusal would have meant his being blown out of the water. The same common-sense restrained him from struggling against impossible odds, both when he was trussed up, and afterwards when the vessel was manned by fifty or sixty well-armed Frenchmen. But so soon as he felt the lugger lightly graze the jetty, and knew by the rush of hurrying feet on deck that the great majority of his captors had gone ashore, he began to strain at his bonds. The Frenchmen had done their work of trussing capably enough, and, in the case of ninety-nine men out of a hundred, no doubt there would have been no danger of its being undone. But Tonkin's muscles were hard as iron; he had the strength of a horse. After a few minutes' straining, the rope about his wrists gave way; to release his legs was then easy. Delarousse having gone through his pockets before trussing him, he was without a knife, and had to loosen with his hands the ropes wherewith his comrades were tied. As soon as the first man was liberated, he set to work on the bonds of another, and within a few minutes after Tonkin had released himself, all the men were free.Until the lugger reached the harbour, a number of the Frenchmen had clustered on the companion, and at its foot. When the time came for them to dash ashore, they scrambled in hot haste through the hatchway on to the deck, not thinking to batten down the hatch. As soon, therefore, as Tonkin was free, he rapidly planned how to escape from the hold with his men, when they had recovered the full use of their partially numbed limbs. He first felt about in the darkness for articles that would serve as effective weapons, and discovered a marlinspike, the hammer he used for driving spigots into the tubs, and several balks of timber that were employed for preventing the tubs from rolling. Each man armed himself. Long experience of smuggling had taught them to move quickly without noise, and, led by Tonkin, whose agility seemed in no wise lessened by his bulk, they swarmed swiftly through the hatchway.The men left in charge of the vessel were leaning over the bulwarks, smoking, and envying their comrades at the inn, who, finding that the villagers showed no disposition to interfere with them, had seized the opportunity to refresh themselves at the expense of the innkeeper. Before the idle spectators on the deck could turn and form up to meet the rush, Tonkin and his men were upon them. A few swift, sharp strokes of the fishers' nondescript weapons, and the Frenchmen were lying senseless on the deck.Without the loss of a moment the Cornishmen leapt the bulwarks and scampered along the jetty. They were half-way to the inn before the careless sentinels in the parlour heard their footsteps and ran out to see what was happening. Forming in front of the door, they brought their muskets to the shoulder and delivered a scattered volley; but surprise, haste, and strong liquor combined to spoil their aim, and none of the fishers was hit except Simon Mail, who dropped his spike with a yell and sat down on the cobbles,hors de combat. The Frenchmen had no time either to reload or to retreat. The fishers, burly men all, charged straight at them and struck four to the ground, the other two taking to their heels and starting to run up the hill towards their leader. But as if by magic the neighbourhood of the inn was suddenly alive with figures. The fishermen and miners, who had remained hitherto cowering in their cottages, rushed out the moment they could do so safely. The fugitives were caught and held; a fierce crowd surrounded the others; and in a few minutes all six, bruised and battered, lay in a row against the inn wall.Meanwhile Tonkin had dashed into the inn, pulled up the trap-door leading to the cellar, and descended into the depths. Doubledick, whom the sound of shots had caused to shake like a jelly, heard the heavy clump of the fisher's boots, and shrank behind a large tun in a corner of the cellar. Unaware of his presence, Tonkin hastened to the opposite corner, where, in a cunningly contrived recess, lay a store of firearms and ammunition, kept there for use against the King's officers when required. It was now to be turned to a more legitimate purpose. Tonkin seized as many muskets as he could carry, and hurried with them up the ladder, sending down for more those of his men who were not occupied with the Frenchmen. By the time these latter were secured, arms had been served out to the fishers who had escaped from the lugger, and to the most likely of the others. Then a compact body of thirty well-armed men followed Tonkin up the hill.In order to trace clearly the course of events in that crowded hour of Polkerran's history, it becomes necessary to glance at what had happened at the Dower House.John Trevanion had become so accustomed to the smuggling operations, and it was so much a part of his policy to keep himself in the background in these matters, that it did not occur to him to rise early in order to learn what luck had attended the run which he had expected to take place at the creek, during the night or in the small hours of that morning. Having a perfectly easy conscience, and the comfortable expectation that he would be richer by two hundred pounds when he awoke, he slept as placidly as a child, and did not become aware that anything unusual was occurring until a repeated rapping at the door by Susan Berry, startled out of her wits, at length penetrated his slumbering intelligence."All right," he called drowsily. "What's the time?""I don't know, sir," cried poor Susan through the door. "Please, sir, there be a passel o' men firing shots at the Towers.""Nonsense!" said Trevanion."'Tis gospel truth, sir. There be hundreds o' men shoutin' and hollerin', and Cook be fainted dead away in kitchen.""Fling cold water on her, Susan. There's nothing to be afraid of. They're shooting rabbits, I've no doubt."Trevanion's thought was that the smugglers had been checkmated at the creek, and then, in their fury, had attacked the Towers, believing that their discomfiture was due to an alliance between the Squire and the revenue officers. His chagrin at the loss of his expected profits was not so profound as his delight in the thought that the enmity he had so carefully fostered was bearing such rich fruit. Far be it from him to interfere. But being now effectually awakened, he bade Susan to return to the kitchen, dressed quickly, and went to an upper window whence he could see something of what was going on. The Towers was, however, too far away, and the air too misty, for him to observe the operations so closely as he would have liked, and, curiosity and malicious pleasure overcoming his prudence, he determined to set forth and watch from a more convenient standpoint the mischief which he hoped was afoot. But wishing not to attract attention, he forbade his household to leave the premises, issued by the back door, and slunk round the inside of one of his high fences.He had advanced about half-way to the Towers when he was startled to hear shots behind him, from the direction of the village. The sound brought him to a sudden halt, and a sickening misgiving seized him. Had the firing begun in the village, there is little doubt that he would have at once suspected the attack of which he had long been secretly in dread. But the fact that the Towers was being assaulted, so soon after the run was to have taken place, had thrown him off his guard. Now, in a flash, he remembered what Doubledick had said about his interview with Delarousse, and the misleading information given to the Frenchman. At the time, and since, he had been somewhat sceptical of the innkeeper's veracity, but he began to think that his statement had, after all, been true. At any rate, it was the Towers that was in danger; the Dower House was at present safe; and after a brief pause of hesitation, he turned about and hurried back in the direction of his own house.But he had scarcely taken half-a-dozen steps when, from behind a bush close by, there rose a red-capped figure, and Trevanion looked straight at the muzzle of a firelock. He stopped, and before he could collect his wits, two other figures joined the first. "C'est lui!" cried one of the Frenchmen. They were three of the sentries whom Delarousse had placed around the village, and were hastening to rejoin their leader in advance of the band now dashing up the hill. Trevanion was so much taken aback as to be incapable of resistance. All that he did when the men roughly seized him was to protest that a mistake had been made. "Ah! ah!" said one of his captors. "On ne s'en trompe pas; pas de tout." The other two each took one of Trevanion's arms, and marched him at a great pace through a gate in the fence towards the Towers, the third man bringing up the rear. What happened when Trevanion and Delarousse came face to face has already been related.Maidy Susan, when Trevanion had left the house, showed herself strangely callous to the sad plight of Cook. Convinced that the Corsican Ogre had at last effected his long-threatened landing, she wondered in her simple soul why her master had not ordered the alarm bell to be rung, and the men servants to seize their arms and sally forth to defend their country. She peeped in at the kitchen, saw that Cook had recovered sufficiently to fan herself and scream, and then ran upstairs to watch what was going on. Only a minute or two afterwards, Trevanion broke from his captors and fled, the yelling Frenchmen in full cry behind."'Tis he! 'Tis Boney!" cried Susan.She clutched at the casement frame for support, then suddenly flew downstairs like a young deer. It was she who held the door open, she who was forced back by the onrush of the infuriated Frenchmen. She crouched behind the door until the last of them, Delarousse himself, passed, then sped to the top of the house and began frantically to pull the bell-rope. Meanwhile the men whom Trevanion had been at such pains to drill had fled towards the village, and fallen into the hands of Delarousse's sentries.Trevanion darted along the passage and up the stairs like a fox seeking cover from the hounds. He flung himself into his room, slammed and bolted the door, caught up a pistol, and stood, panting from haste and terror, in the middle of the floor. He heard the loud and rapid tramp of his pursuers drawing near."Keep out, or I'll shoot you!" he cried.The Frenchmen laughed him to scorn. He was one; they were many. They set their shoulders to the door; the timbers cracked, gave way; a bullet whizzed harmlessly over their heads; and bursting into the room, they seized their victim and dragged him out and down the stairs again. Delarousse met them at the foot. Gasping for breath, he ordered some of his men to bind Trevanion's arms behind his back and take him down to the lugger, others to set fire to the house."Ah! scélérat!" he bellowed. "Tu es à moi!"Scarcely had the words left his lips when one of his band, who had been wounded by a shot from the Towers, hurried in with the news that a party of men were in pursuit of them. Confiding Trevanion to the charge of four of his most trusty followers, Delarousse collected the rest, and led them to the front of the house, which the newcomers were said to be approaching. At the end of the drive, where it branched from the road, was Tonkin with his company of fishermen and miners.Tonkin had led his men up the hill with more haste than discretion. When they reached the top they were blown, and for some minutes had to moderate their pace. They could not see from the road what was happening behind the fences, and had come midway between the Dower House and the Towers, at the same time as Trevanion arrived abreast of them in the opposite direction. But the spectators on the tower had seen them. The moment Trevanion entered his door, the Squire, with Dick, Sam, and Penwarden, hurried down the stairs."Hang it, Dick, they're Frenchmen!" cried the Squire, his fighting blood roused. "We must clear the rascals out."On reaching the ground he dispatched Sam to tell Tonkin that the Frenchmen were now going in the other direction, and hurried on with the others, intending to join the fishers at the Dower House. He arrived in time to see Tonkin's men fire a volley at the Frenchmen at the windows. Little damage was done; Delarousse did not return the fire. He had achieved the object of his raid, and had no desire to enter into useless hostilities. Having taken stock of the enemy, he withdrew his men into the house, which was already filling with pungent smoke.Tonkin halted his men for a moment in order to recover breath. It looked as if he would have to take the house by storm, a difficult task in the face of odds. But he was a man of bulldog courage, if no tactician. Smarting with the indignity he had suffered, and without stopping to think that Delarousse might have no designs except against Trevanion, he ordered his men to reload, and prepared to lead them to the attack.Delarousse, however, had taken advantage of the momentary lull to withdraw his men through a long window in the wall of the house facing the village. The result was that when Tonkin, after so much delay as was necessary for his men to regain their breath and prime their muskets, led them at the charge up to the house and broke through the door, he found the house deserted, and the enemy in full retreat down the hill. He rushed after them, eager to overtake them before they reached the village. Some of his men had noticed that the house was on fire, but in their excitement none stayed to extinguish the flames, nor even to warn or assist the person who was still ringing the bell.By this time the Squire, with Dick and Penwarden, skirting the grounds of the house, had joined Tonkin's party, and was hurrying with them down the hill. The Frenchmen had more than a hundred yards start, and on the descent proved to be as fleet of foot as their pursuers. On reaching the first of the houses, Delarousse was met by the rest of his cordon, who, now that the matter had come to a fight, saw that they could employ themselves more usefully than in keeping guard. Now the Frenchmen turned at bay, and checked the pursuit with a scattered volley."Empty your muskets, then charge the ruffians!" shouted the Squire, taking command as of right.The Cornishmen responded with a cheer. A shower of slugs flew through the air, but the Frenchmen having scattered, and many of them being protected by the angles of houses on the winding road, only one or two were hit. There was no time for either party to reload. The pursuers dashed forward, wielding cutlasses, and their muskets as clubs. The pursued stood to meet the charge; there were a few moments of hand-to-hand conflict; Tonkin's burly figure was conspicuous in the thickest of the fray, wielding his musket like a flail; but the numbers of the Frenchmen prevailed, and the Squire recalled the men, to re-form them and charge again. From this point there was a straggling fight down the hill to the neighbourhood of the inn. The Squire, with Dick, Penwarden, and Tonkin close about him, led a series of rushes against the retreating enemy, whose numbers were always sufficient to give them check.On coming to the inn, which was within a short distance of the jetty, Delarousse saw with alarm that his escape had been cut off. This was not due to any prevision on Tonkin's part. He had been too eager to follow up the Frenchmen to consider ultimate contingencies. But his defect as a tactician was supplied by a man whom no one had hitherto suspected of any capacity in that direction, and who enjoyed henceforth, to the day of his death, a very exalted reputation in Polkerran on the strength of this one achievement.Pennycomequick, the cobbler, perceiving that the Frenchmen on the lugger were apparently stunned, hastily got together a little party of men and boys, boarded the vessel, clapped the Frenchmen under hatches, and then punted out some distance from the jetty, towing the boats that had lain drawn up on the little beach. No one as yet knew that the Frenchmen had not sailed all the way from Roscoff in the lugger; theAimable Vertuin the offing was concealed by the mist that still shrouded the sea. Finding himself thus cut off from communication with his vessel, Delarousse, who had released the men trussed up by Tonkin, with ready resource flung himself into the inn, and ordered his company to reload and occupy the windows. The Squire, now as keen as when he had been a young lieutenant, saw instantly that, the superiority in force being with the Frenchmen, the possession of the inn gave them an additional advantage which would render an attack hazardous to the last degree. He called a halt, to consider the next move.At this moment the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard from round the corner leading to the hill, and Mr. Carlyon rode down."What's all this, Trevanion?" he cried."A pack of rascally Frenchmen have raided the place, Vicar," answered the Squire, "and are now holding the inn.""Bless my life! What impudent scoundrels!"He dismounted, nimbly for a man of his years."Give me a gun," he cried. "Here, you—I forget your name—get on my horse and ride to Truro as fast as you can and bring all the able-bodied men and any old soldiers you can find there. You, Benjamin Pound, go round to Doubledick's stables, take a horse, ride to Portharvan, and ask Sir Bevil from me to call out the yeomanry.""Please, yer reverence, I can't ride a hoss," said the young fisher addressed."Can't ride! You must, or find someone who can. Off with you, or you shan't come to my dinner to-morrow. Bless my soul! Raiding on the day before Christmas! Can't we turn 'em out, Trevanion?""Impossible, Vicar, unless we're prepared to lose half our men. And then we'd fail. One man behind a wall is equal to four outside.""What did Doubledick mean by letting the villains into the inn? How did they come here? I don't see any vessel."Tonkin was explaining the circumstances when, down the stairs beside the inn wall, came Doubledick, pale, dishevelled, and covered with dust. Becoming alarmed for his safety when the inn was invaded by the Frenchmen, he had made his way out by a secret passage leading up the slope into a house abutting on the stairway. He came up to the group silently and unobserved, and listened to Tonkin's explanations and the further account given by the Squire of the attack on the Towers and the subsequent pursuit and capture of John Trevanion. Then he pressed forward to the Vicar's side."Ah! yer reverence," he said with unction, "'tis a judgment, 'tis indeed. It do cut me to the heart to say so, but Maister John be the wicked cause of this affliction.""What do you mean, Doubledick?" asked the Vicar, with a sidelong glance at the Squire."Do 'ee mind, sir, that night a while ago when the sojers wer ridin' about country arter a runaway prisoner? Well, I own 'a was for a little small time in my inn; I'd never seed un afore, and didn' know he wer a runaway till 'twas too late to gie un up." (Doubledick, it will be observed, was not over-scrupulous as to his facts.) "While he was here, Maister John came down from Dower House and seed un, and they hollered at each other in the French lingo till my ears wer drummin'. Ah! 'twas then I first had my mispicions o' Maister John.""Cut your story short, man," said Mr. Carlyon impatiently."Well, then, yer reverence, when I went over to France, the Frenchy telled me as how Maister John, Robinson by name, wer his partner for ten year, and robbed him right and left. Ah! he was a clever rogue, too, keepin' in the background so as our Polkerran men shouldn' see un when they wented over to—to sell fish. And Delarousse swore to me, 'a did, that he'd take vengeance on him, and now he be come to do it, sure enough. If I may make so bold, I'd say let the Frenchy take Maister John and leave us in peace. I don't want to see my inn riddled wi' shots and crumbled about my ears.""Iss, and so say I," cried Tonkin. "Delarousse telled me the self-same story, but I didn' believe un; no, I couldn' believe as Maister John were sech a 'nation rogue. I must believe it, now Doubledick hev telled us all. Let un go, sir, and be-jowned to un."Fierce cries of approval broke from the crowd, but the Squire held up his hand for silence."Let me have a word, neighbours," he said. "We're Cornishmen, every man of us, and good subjects of King George. We can't allow a French raiding party to arrest a man on English soil, whatever his character may be. 'Tis flat treason; what do you say, Vicar?""I agree with you. As a magistrate, neighbours, I say we must do our duty.""I won't go agen Squire and pa'son," cried Tonkin. "I stand up for King Jarge.""King Jarge for ever!" shouted the crowd."Well, then," said the Vicar, "we'll hold our ground here until the yeomanry come up, and then we'll storm the inn. God save the King!"At this moment Dick pushed his way through the crowd."The privateer is under weigh, sir," he cried, "and standing in for the harbour."All eyes were turned towards the sea. TheAimable Vertu, which had been lying off the headland, almost concealed by the mist, was steering for the fairway, evidently with the intention of coming to the assistance of the landing-party."Where's Mr. Mildmay?" cried the Squire. "'Tis for him to capture that rascally privateer."Doubledick looked conscious; Tonkin and his fishers exchanged glances, and thought of the cargo in the hold of theIsaac and Jacob."We can do it, sir," cried Dick suddenly. "She must pass beneath that big rock at the head of the Beal. It doesn't stand steady, and a good push would hurl it over into the fairway. Let the vessel come in, and then block up the channel; she'd be caught then.""A capital notion," said the Vicar. "Off with you, Dick; take two or three men with you. Have a care not to throw yourself over too."Dick hurried off with a few of the younger men. When they arrived at the landward end of the Beal, the privateer was slowly threading her course through the fairway towards the jetty, a man in the chains sounding busily. She crept in, and had come within a hundred yards of the jetty when Dick and his companions reached the boulder. They heard the rattle of her anchor; she swung broadside to the village, and the spectators on shore saw a formidable row of guns grinning from her portholes. Dick and his companions set their shoulders to the rock.The door of the inn meanwhile had opened, and Delarousse appeared, holding aloft a musket, to which a white cloth was attached as a flag of truce."I vill speak viz you," he said, pointing to the Squire, whom he recognised."Shall I parley with the rascal?" asked the Squire of Mr. Carlyon."Yes. We wish to avoid bloodshed, but it must be unconditional surrender, Trevanion."The Squire stepped towards the inn, meeting Delarousse half-way."You speak French, monsieur?" said the latter courteously."Not a word, sir," replied the Squire."Ah! C'est dommage! I speak English, bad, monsieur. I make a meestake: I demand pardon. I not know ze house vas to you; pardon ze meestake, monsieur.""We'll say no more about that, sir," said the Squire. "I am willing to believe you had no wish to attack me. But this is an act of war, sir. You must at once set your prisoner free, and surrender, every one of you.""Ah, no, monsieur," returned the Frenchman with a smile. "I haf to say your demand is ridicule. I make vun sign: bah! ze shot from my vessel zey strike ze village all to pieces. Voyez! Ze boats come now for me. You stop me? No."The Squire turned and looked in the direction of Delarousse's outstretched hand. Two boats had been lowered from the deck of the privateer, and, filled with men armed to the teeth, were now pulling for the jetty. It was clear that under the vessel's broadside no attempt to check this fresh invasion could be successful."You see?" continued the Frenchman, who had watched the expression on the Squire's face. "I not quarrel viz ze people here; mon Dieu, no! Zey are my friends; viz zem I haf excellent affairs, zey profit us both. Ze man zat injure me, I haf him. Vat avantage of resistance? None. Zen I depart: all is finish vizout—vizout combat sanguinaire.""Your proposal——" began the Squire, but at this moment a dull splash was heard from the direction of the Beal. Dick and his assistants had displaced the rock, which rolled over the edge, bounded on to the ledge whence Dick had made his dive, and then plunged almost into the middle of the fairway. Even at that distance a few feet of it could be seen projecting above the surface."Sacré nom d'un chien!" cried Delarousse, startled out of his equanimity. "Vat is zis?""Some of my men have blocked up the fairway with a large rock," replied the Squire. "It is now impossible for your vessel to clear the harbour.""But zis is perfidy, monsieur!" cried the furious Frenchman. "Ve speak as parlementaires; zere is arrest of hostilities; ma foi! zis is ze perfidy of English.""Not at all, sir. The men had already gone to do their work; I could not stop them. You see your position, sir. I advise you to consult with your men and surrender at discretion."They parted. Delarousse, livid with anger, returned to the inn; the Squire rejoined his party."We have the rascals," said Mr. Carlyon gleefully."I axe yer pardon, sir," said Tonkin, "but don't 'ee think we'd better let the Frenchies go in peace arter all? They guns 'ud knock the village to dust, and there's the women and childer to think of.""Ah! that's true," said the Vicar, and taking Mr. Trevanion aside, he began to discuss the matter with him. While they were still earnestly talking, there was a shout. They broke apart, and turning, saw that Delarousse had solved the problem in his own way.The inn fronted the jetty, but on its southward side a narrow lane ran between the blind walls of the pilchard fishers' salting-houses. The further end of this was nearer by a few yards to the sea. Rendered desperate, the Frenchman saw in the conversation between the two gentlemen an opportunity for making a dash. He ordered four of his men to throw open a low window giving on the lane, and to rush John Trevanion as quickly as possible down to the jetty, while he maintained his position with the rest at the front windows. Then, as soon as he was informed that the four men had arrived at the end of the lane, he gave the word for all to follow. Before the besiegers were aware of this sudden movement, the Frenchmen had gained a start of more than fifty yards."After them, my men!" cried the Squire, when he saw them rushing from behind the wall of the salting-house towards the jetty.The whole party poured in pursuit. But by the time they reached the shoreward end of the jetty, John Trevanion had been lowered into the first of the privateer's boats. The second had towed back a number of the craft which Pennycomequick had removed from the shore, the lugger itself, however, with the cobbler and his helpers aboard, still lying in the harbour on the inner side of the reef. Into these boats Delarousse and his men leapt, and pulled off swiftly to the privateer. They had no sooner left the jetty than a puff of smoke issued from one of the vessel's portholes; there was a roar, and a round shot crashed into the planking, smashing several yards of it, and sending up splinters almost into the eyes of the Squire."'Tis no good, Trevanion," cried the Vicar. "We shall all be slaughtered if we line up and fire at them. They've got your cousin, and we can't help it.""But they can't get out of the fairway, and there's no water on the reef," said the Squire. "If only Mildmay were here!"He was soon to see that he had not reckoned with the seamanship of Jean Delarousse. The first of the boats pulled at full speed towards the fairway, receiving from the deck of the privateer a sounding-line as she passed. From the second boat Delarousse climbed to the deck of his vessel. The pilot crew, having sounded and measured the width of the channel between the fairway and the cliff, signed to their captain that he might proceed. It seemed to Dick impossible that the vessel should win through, and he watched with unstinted admiration the Frenchman's skilful seamanship. Delarousse ordered the anchor to be tripped, and the vessel moved slowly towards the fairway, close-hauled on the starboard tack. When she reached the rock, she seemed to graze the cliff as she passed into the narrow channel; but with Delarousse himself at the helm she passed safely through. Then, there being a fair wind on her starboard quarter, Delarousse hauled up his courses, mainsail and foresail, and threw his foreyard aback. The check on the ship's way gave him time to take aboard the boat, which had been moored to the rock, the rest of his crew having already clambered up the side from the other boats. These were then cast adrift; the foreyard filled, and theAimable Vertustood out to sea.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
The Attack on the Towers
That night the Towers was heavy with an atmosphere of gloom. The Squire had remained the whole evening sunk in his chair, not reading, or smoking, speechless, his head bent upon his breast. He had heard from his lawyer that all efforts to transfer the mortgage had as yet proved fruitless: nobody wanted a bond on barren land. The next day but one was Christmas, and the Squire brooded on the melancholy thought that it would be the last Christmas he would spend in his old home. Occasionally he glanced at the motto inscribed above the lintel of the door:
Trevanion, whate'er thy Fortune be,Hold fast the Rock by the Western Sea.
Trevanion, whate'er thy Fortune be,Hold fast the Rock by the Western Sea.
Trevanion, whate'er thy Fortune be,
Hold fast the Rock by the Western Sea.
What a mockery the old legend seemed! He had held fast; now he felt as though some inexorable power were unclenching his nerveless fingers. And the bitterness of his mood was intensified by the foreboding that the old house, and his last rood of land, would go, as all the rest had gone, into the hands of the man who had disgraced his name, and who bore him implacable enmity.
Dick went to bed early, sick at heart, unable to endure the mute misery upon his parents' faces. He meant to rise before it was light, for a purpose which, he sadly felt, he might never accomplish again. It had been his custom for several years to carry to the Parsonage on Christmas Eve a basket of fish of his own catching, as a present to his good friend the Vicar. It was a poor gift, but he had not the means to offer anything better, and Mr. Carlyon was always pleased with it, regarding the spirit in which the simple offering was made.
About an hour before dawn he wakened Sam, and after nibbling a crust, the two boys set off. Experience had taught them that this was the best time to fish at so late a season of the year. The air was damp and raw, with scarcely any wind, and as they issued from the house they shivered, and buttoned their coats high about their necks.
"We must go to the Beal for some tackle, Sam," said Dick. "That will warm us before we go down to the boat."
"Iss. I wish it were to-morrer. Pa'son's dinner will be summat to cheer a poor feller up, these wisht and dismal times. Do 'a think, now, Maister Dick, as we'll ever hev a real Christmas randy up at Towers, same as they do hev at Portharvan?"
"I'm afraid not, Sam. I'm afraid we shan't spend another Christmas at the Towers."
"Well, then, you and I had better go for sojers or sailors. I'm afeard I bean't high enough for a sojer. But sailors get prize-money, old Joe says, and I'd like that, 'cos then I could buy a thing or two for Maidy Susan—and Mistress, too: I wouldn' forget she. Maybe I'd get killed, fightin' the French, but dear life! it wouldn' matter much: we hain't got many friends. I don't s'pose Maidy Susan 'ud fall more 'n two tears, or maybe three."
"None at all, I should think," said Dick.
"Oh, I don't think so bad o' she as that. When I seed her yesterday she said she wished I could go to Dower House to-night. Maister John be goin' to a randy at Portharvan; he'll kiss his young 'ooman under the mistletoe, I reckon."
"And Susan wants you to go to the Dower House and kiss her, I suppose?"
"Now that's too bad, Maister. We bean't neither of us so forward as that. Maidy said she'd like me to go up-along and gie un some o' my merry talk, but jown me if my tongue 'ud run merry wi' things so bad up to home."
"You couldn't go: Father would never allow it. You'll have to be satisfied with the Vicar's nuts and candy, Sam."
They came to their den at the end of the Beal, and remained there for some little time arranging their tackle in the wan glimmer preceding the dawn. Then they emerged, and climbed up beside the big boulder to take a look at the sea, over which a thin mist hung.
"Isn't that theIsaac and Jacob?" said Dick, pointing to a vessel tacking to make the fairway between the cliff and the reef.
"Iss, sure. Tonkin be come home wi'out a cargo, seemin'ly, unless he hev run it a'ready."
They watched the lugger creeping slowly toward the harbour. The tide was on the ebb, and there was not enough depth of water upon the reef to allow the vessel to head straight for the jetty. As she crept into the fairway Dick was struck with the unusual appearance of her deck. Amidships it was almost clear except for two or three men; but, herded under the low bulwarks on the weather side, out of sight from the harbour, were a score or more of men whom he recognised by slight indications in their dress to be foreigners. Almost instinctively Dick slipped behind the boulder, pulling Sam with him.
"That's very curious," he whispered, standing so that he could see without being seen.
On the lee side of the vessel, he noticed arms, legs, and here and there a red-capped head protruding from beneath tarpaulins, thrown with apparent carelessness on the deck. Two or three heads also appeared in the hatchway, suggesting that other men were on the companion below. But what struck Dick most of all was the fact that although Nathan Pendry held the tiller, there lolled against the bulwarks near him a stranger whose hat and coat were manifestly Cornish, but whose lower garments were as unmistakably of foreign cut. He was a short, stout man, and he held a pistol, which was pointed at the helmsman.
Dick was so much fascinated and wonderstruck by this extraordinary spectacle that for a few moments he neither spoke nor stirred.
"Be it Boney at last?" whispered Sam, his eyes wide with alarm.
"No, no: Boney would bring thousands. But I can't make it out. We'll run home, Sam, and tell Father."
Creeping round the boulder, and dipping their heads as long as there was any chance of being observed from the lugger, they set off at a breakneck run for the Towers. Dick dashed up to the Squire's room, and knocked at the door.
"Come in," said the Squire. He was awake—had indeed lain sleepless almost all night, thinking miserably of his affairs.
"Father," said Dick, entering, "Tonkin's lugger has just put in with a gang of Frenchmen on board. Pendry is at the helm; there's a fellow standing over him with a pistol. I didn't see Tonkin."
"What on earth does that mean?" cried the Squire, starting up. "Get me my boots, Dick; I'll pull on some clothes, and go up on the roof to take a look at them."
In a few minutes the Squire, Dick, and Sam were behind the parapet of the principal tower, the Squire with his telescope in his hand. Lofty as their perch was, the jetty and the lower part of the village were not in sight, being concealed by the contour of the hill. But they could see the upper houses and the cliffs beyond; the church tower and the red roof of the Parsonage away to the left; and almost every yard of ground between the hilltop and the Towers.
"Shall I ring bell, Maister?" asked Sam.
"No; wait a little. We don't want to make ourselves a laughing-stock. There's nothing in Polkerran to make it worth any Frenchman's while to—Ha! I see it all. 'Tis a trick of Mildmay's, the sly dog. Do you see, Dick? He has disguised himself and his men as Frenchmen, and pounced on Tonkin's lugger with a fine crop aboard. Ha! ha! The neatest feat I ever heard of."
"I'm rather doubtful about that, sir," said Dick. "The faces I saw weren't Cornish."
"It would be a poor disguise if they were. You may be sure I'm right, and we shall have Mildmay coming up to breakfast by-and-by with a fine tale of tubs. I slept badly, Dick; I'll return to my bed for an hour or two."
Dick remained with Sam on the roof. He was not at all convinced that his father was right. It was difficult to conceive what object a band of Frenchmen could have in attacking so small a village, yet he felt sure that they were Frenchmen, and that their visit was not an ordinary smuggling affair. After a long look through his spy-glass he said to Sam:
"There's no smoke, no sound of firing—-no noise at all. We can't see anything here, Sam; let us take a run to the Beal again."
But at that moment he saw a man rise over the crest of the hill; immediately behind him came others. They were armed with muskets and cutlasses, and advanced rapidly and in a manner that suggested a definite goal.
"Off to the turret and pull the bell, Sam!" cried Dick. He rushed downstairs to his father's room again.
"Thirty or forty armed men are marching from the village, sir," he said. "I think they're coming to attack us."
"Bless my soul, what fools they must be!" said the Squire with a mirthless laugh. "There's nothing here worth firing a shot for. Ah! there's the bell. We'll see if 'tis more effective than last time we rang it. And we'll give them a warm reception, my boy, by George we will! Go and bring Reuben to me."
So crowded was the next hour, and so conflicting were the accounts given subsequently, in all honesty, by actors in the drama, that the writing of a clear and coherent narrative is a matter of some difficulty. Mr. Carlyon diligently questioned everyone who could throw a light on the separate incidents, and out of this material compiled a long chapter for his history of the parish. But the prolixity of his style, and his habit of interrupting his narrative with classical parallels and references to abstruse authors, render his book quite unsuitable to the present age, and make it necessary to treat his manuscript as the modern historian treats his sources.
When theIsaac and Jacobwas moored alongside the jetty, the tarpaulins that covered the deck were thrown aside, the men whom they had concealed sprang to their feet, and, joined by others who swarmed up the companion way, rushed ashore behind their leader, Jean Delarousse of Roscoff. There were but two or three of the Polkerran folk visible. A large number of the fishers were five or six miles away, having affairs of their own to attend to. The majority of the population were still abed. A dozen miners, due for the day shift in an hour's time, were breakfasting. Only the smoke rising into the air from the chimneys of their cottages gave sign of life.
The few men who were out and about fled incontinently to their homes at sight of the fifty determined Frenchmen, armed with muskets, cutlasses, and pistols, advancing across the few yards of open space that separated the jetty from the nearest houses. It was evident that the invaders had prearranged their operations. Twelve of their number separated from the main body and went off hastily in couples, three to the right, three to the left, until they reached the last dwelling in either direction. Then doubling up the hills to right and left, they posted themselves around the village in a half circle, at intervals of about a hundred yards. Their object manifestly was to prevent any villager from breaking through, and carrying news of the raid into the country beyond. The Dower House and the Towers were naturally not included in the cordon.
While this movement was being carried out, Delarousse led the rest of his force straight to the Five Pilchards. The door was already open; the miners usually paid an early visit to the inn before they started for their work. Delarousse on entering was confronted by an elderly woman of shrewish aspect, who stood like a dragon behind the shining taps.
"Ze Towers, vere Trevanion live—it is zat big house on ze cliff?" he asked.
Mrs. Doubledick nodded. Fright bereft her of speech.
"Vere is Doubledick?" asked the Frenchman.
The answer was a shake of the head; whereupon Delarousse, ejaculating "Ah, bah!" returned to his followers, who were collected about the entrance, and led all but six of them up the hill. Like a prudent general, he took care to secure his communications.
Though he presumed that Mrs. Doubledick's shake of the head signified ignorance of her husband's whereabouts, in this he was in error. Doubledick had returned home late at night, unaware of the impending crisis in his affairs. His wife gave him Mr. Polwhele's message, and he anticipated a very pleasant interview with the riding-officer on his return from circumventing the smugglers. Rising early, he happened to see from his bedroom window the crowd of Frenchmen swarming from the lugger, and without waiting to finish dressing, he ran down to the taproom, pulled up a trap-door behind the bar, and descended into the capacious cellar beneath, having strictly charged his wife not to reveal his whereabouts. He was shaking with fear, rather of possible consequences which his imagination foresaw than of immediate bodily harm. Delarousse could scarcely fail to discover before long that Doubledick had given him misleading information, and he was a man whose wrath it was not wise to face.
Between thirty and forty Frenchmen, strong, hardy fellows, marched rapidly up the hill behind their leader, whose agility was remarkable in one so corpulent. They had just risen upon the crest when the clang of a bell struck upon their ears.
"En avant, mes gars!" cried Delarousse. "Courez, à toutes jambes!"
And being on fairly level ground, they broke into a double.
The Squire, being now convinced that the Towers, as the most conspicuous dwelling-house in the neighbourhood, was the object of the Frenchmen's raid, displayed none of that indecision and vacillation which so often beset him in the matters of every-day life. He was now keen, alert, and ready, as became a man who had served in the King's navy. He smiled grimly as he saw the Frenchmen hasting towards him, as yet half a mile away. "A pack of fools!" he thought; "but 'tis hard that I should be molested when on the brink of ruin."
In a few sharp, decisive words he bade Dick and Reuben close and bolt the doors and shutters, and haul against the former such heavy articles of furniture as they could move in the few minutes at their disposal. Meanwhile he himself collected several old muskets that were at hand, with powder and slugs, in some cases relics of ancient trophies of arms treasured by the family. If he could hold the enemy at bay even for a short time, their project would be ruined, for the alarm bell and the sound of shots would arouse the whole countryside, and unless the invaders were supported by other vessels, they must soon retire to the lugger. At the first glance he had seen that they were not French regular soldiers, and concluded that their landing was not the foretaste of a general invasion, but merely a chance filibustering raid.
In the turret Sam was pulling the bell-rope with short, quick jerks. His brain was in a whirl. The advance of the Frenchmen was hidden from him, but looking out of the narrow window in the opposite direction, he spied, less than a minute after the first clang, Joe Penwarden hurrying along towards the Towers as fast as his old legs would carry him. Running to the opposite side of the chamber, where a door admitted to the house, he yelled down the stairs:
"Maister, here be old Joe a-comin'. Let un in by the back door."
"Run, Dick," said the Squire, "you're quickest. An addition to the garrison is welcome."
Dick flew to the back door, whither Sam had summoned Penwarden through the turret window. During these few seconds the strokes of the bell were very irregular, but they did not cease.
"What is it, Maister Dick?" said the old man, as Dick closed and barricaded the door behind him.
"A gang of Frenchmen are running to attack us. They landed from Tonkin's lugger about ten minutes ago. Go to Father, Joe; he's in the front room over the porch. I'm going to the roof to see what they are doing."
He leapt up the stairs three at a time, and emerged on the leads of the tower, whence, sheltered by the parapet, he could observe the enemy in safety. They were now within two or three hundred yards of the house. Dick was surprised that there was no sign of pursuers from the village. Now that the feeling between his family and the people was less acute, he had expected that the bell would already have summoned a concourse of fishers, miners, and men of all occupations. He was surprised, too, that the alarm was not echoed by the new bell which had recently been rigged up in the Dower House. Surely at such a moment personal feuds might well be forgotten, and private enemies unite to beat off a public foe. But between the Towers and the hill not a man was to be seen except the advancing Frenchmen. At the Dower House there was no sign of life or movement, a strange circumstance that set him wondering. Why was not John Trevanion alarmed at a French raid? Was it possible that he knew of it beforehand, approved it, had even arranged it? Having failed in some of his schemes hitherto, had he now joined hands with alien filibusters to deal his cousin a crowning stroke?
As his eyes ranged round, Dick suddenly caught sight of a large vessel looming in the mist in a straight line with the head of the Beal. Its shape was very indistinct and blurred, but there was a certain familiarity in its aspect, and a sudden conviction flashed upon Dick that it was the same vessel as he had seen twice before in unusual and mysterious circumstances. Surely it must be the notorious privateer, theAimable Vertu, owned by Jean Delarousse. Why it should have come to an insignificant place like Polkerran, when it might have gained rich prizes on the high seas, was a question that puzzled him greatly, unless Trevanion had made an alliance with the Frenchman.
The Squire's dispositions to meet the threatening attack were as good as could be devised, having regard to the short breathing-space allowed him, and to the nature of his situation. A large rambling building like the Towers could not be held for any length of time by a slender garrison of five. There were half-a-dozen points at which it could be assaulted simultaneously—the front door facing the village, the back door facing the sea, the stable-yard, the offices, the rooms and passages in the ruined portion. But the principal tower, flanking the porch, was in passable repair, and it was there that the Squire had determined to make a final stand. It contained two or three rooms approached by a stone staircase springing from near the front door. Mrs. Trevanion was sent by her husband to the topmost room. He posted himself, with Reuben and Penwarden, in the room over the porch, where the window-shutters had been loopholed, no doubt by some former owner of the Towers, though the Squire had never given the matter a thought. Dick he sent to the back of the house, instructing him to call Sam to his help if he saw fit.
"Neither for fire nor battle does the bell summon aid," he said bitterly. "Sam may as well save his energies."
His final instruction was that if the Frenchmen broke in, as seemed only too probable, they should all retreat to the tower, the entrance to which from the staircase was protected by a heavy, iron-studded oaken door. Believing that the invaders' object was loot and not slaughter, he scarcely anticipated personal damage, but supposed that the garrison would be allowed to remain in the tower unmolested while the rest of the house was sacked.
Delarousse, panting a little from his exertions, was as much alive to the risks and perils of his enterprise as the Squire could be. Success or failure hung upon minutes. But he had not earned his reputation as a daring and resourceful privateer undeservedly. His object was a very simple one. It was not bloodshed or rapine, but merely the seizure of the man who had grievously wronged him—John Trevanion, or, as he had known him in Roscoff, Robinson. Doubledick, to feed his private malice, had declared that John Trevanion lived in the Towers—the largest house upon the cliff. The Frenchman's little knowledge of the country had been gained solely by observation from the sea, and by the faint glimpses he had obtained on that dark and rainy night when he evaded the pursuit of the dragoons. He remembered that the house at whose door he had seen his enemy was nearer the top of the hill than the Towers; but he had no reason to doubt Doubledick's statement that the latter was now the residence of John Trevanion, and no one had told him that there were other Trevanions who had no dealings with John. It was therefore his whole-hearted belief that the Towers sheltered his bitterest foe which inspired his attack upon a man who had never injured him.
Utterly possessed by his purpose, he wasted no time in a vain summons to surrender. The bell was still clanging overhead. He had taken precautions to prevent interference from the village, where the absence of so many men on the scene of the expected run favoured his design. But he was not to know but that the summons might draw armed men from every corner of the neighbourhood beyond the village, and his blow must be struck at once. Accordingly he made straight for the porch, and finding, as he had expected, that the door was fast closed, he put his pistol to the lock, and with one shot shattered it to splinters. But the door was held also by bolts and crossbars resting in staples, and further secured by a sideboard placed against it by Dick and Reuben, so that the breaking of the lock availed him nothing. Brought thus to a check, he stood for a few moments within the porch among his men to consider his next step.
Meanwhile the Squire at the last moment had hurried to the top of the tower, with a double object: to observe the movements of the enemy more clearly than was possible through the loophole of a shuttered window, and to scan the surrounding country for any sign of assistance. No one was at present in sight. The air was heavy; the wind was off shore; and in all probability the sound of the bell had not even reached Nancarrow's farm, the nearest house except the Parsonage, much less Sir Bevil Portharvan's place, two miles farther away.
He had given instructions before leaving Penwarden that the French were not to be fired on until they opened hostilities. With his wife in the building, he was determined not to draw upon himself by any premature act the reprisals of so formidable a gang of desperadoes. Now that the Frenchmen were within the porch, they were immune from musket fire, and he began to wonder whether his prohibition was not a mistake. As soon, however, as he heard the report of Delarousse's pistol, with a rapidity that might have surprised those who had only known him of late years, the Squire seized a large block of loose stone that formed part of the half-ruined parapet, and toppled it over on to the roof of the porch below. It fell upon the tiles with a tremendous crash, scattering fragments in all directions, and bounded off on to the gravel path. Though none of the Frenchmen was struck by the stone itself, or even by the splinters of the tiles, it was sufficiently alarming to drive them from the porch, and they scurried instantly into the open. Two muskets flashed upon them from the loopholes above; one man was hit by a slug, and hopped away on one leg, assisted by his comrades. At the same moment the bell ceased to clang. Hearing the shots, Sam rushed down the stairs to take his part in the fray. The whole body of Frenchmen had now withdrawn out of range, and the Squire saw the little stout man, their leader, carefully scanning the building, with the object, no doubt, of finding a weak spot to attack. Only two minutes had elapsed since the enemy made the first move.
Alarmed at the sudden silence of the bell, from which he concluded that its clanging had achieved its object, Delarousse despatched one of his men to the high ground northward to report the approach of any armed force. Meanwhile he himself made a rapid circuit of the Towers, keeping, if not out of range, at least beyond easy-hitting distance. The back entrance seemed to him a vulnerable point, and the more promising, because it was not commanded by the tower, but only by the small window at which Dick was stationed. His ill-success at the front door made him resolute to go the shortest way to work at the back. He sent half-a-dozen men across the open stable-yard into the half-ruined stable to haul down one of the stout balks of wood that supported the roof, for use as a battering-ram. This movement was concealed from Dick by the angle of the building.
While his men were gone about this errand, Delarousse, impatient of the loss of time, took it into his head to summon the garrison to surrender. He trotted back to the front of the building, set his legs apart, and, lifting his eyes to the top of the tower, shouted a loud "Hola!" The Squire showed his head above the parapet, but did not reply.
"Hola!" repeated the Frenchman. "Trevanion! Render Trevanion; zen I go."
"A trick!" thought the Squire. "He thinks I'm worth a ransom!"
"Trevanion!" cried Delarousse again. "Ze ozers I not touch."
"I'll see what they say," shouted the Squire. "Anything to gain time," he thought.
Going to the door opening on the staircase he called for Dick.
"This fellow wants me, Dick," he said. "Goodness knows why! I suppose he imagines some rich imbecile will buy me back. If I surrender myself, he promises to spare the rest. Just run and see what your mother says: my old bones don't take kindly to those stairs."
Before Dick returned Delarousse lost patience and shouted for an answer. The Squire kept out of sight.
"Mother says you must not think of it for a moment," said Dick, running up again. "I knew she would."
"To tell the truth, so did I," replied his father. "But we have gained two or three minutes. Now to decline as civilly as possible—though he might at least Mounseer me, I think."
As soon as his head reappeared above the parapet, Delarousse shouted:
"Eh bien! You render Jean Trevanion?"
Father and son looked at each other. Dick's face expressed surprise mingled with relief; a strange smile sat upon the Squire's countenance.
"We give up nobody," he called down firmly. "Do your worst."
Dick thrilled with filial pride. It was a lesson in chivalry that he never forgot. A word from his father, he could not doubt, would have sent the Frenchmen in hot haste to the Dower House; but that word the Squire could not speak, even though John Trevanion was his worst enemy.
Delarousse spat out an oath, shook his fist at the impassive gentleman above him, and toddled off to the back, disappearing behind the outhouses.
"We'll see what the rascal is after now," said the Squire quickly, and followed Dick down the stairs.
For a minute or two the further proceedings of the assailants were hidden from view. Then the watchers saw, coming round the corner from the stables, four men bearing a stout twelve-foot post. Delarousse, immediately behind, urged them on with voluble utterance and vigorous play of hands.
"A battering-ram!" said the Squire. "I think, Dick, 'tis time to give them a warning."
Dick lifted his musket and fired through a loophole upon the men rushing forward. There was a cry from below; the effect of the shot could not be seen through the smoke; it was answered by a score of bullets pattering on the shutters. The Squire placed his musket to a second loophole. It was impossible to take aim; he fired at random; and another sharp cry seemed to tell that his slug had gone home. A babel of shouts arose. Peeping through the loopholes they saw that one of the four men bearing the post lay on the ground; he had let fall his end of the battering-ram. At the same moment there came the distant crackle of a fusillade. The sound goaded Delarousse to fury. He rushed forward to lift the dropped end of the post. But just as he was stooping, there was a loud shout from his left. He turned his head, without rising from the ground, and what he saw, in common with the spectators above, was three men half pushing, half dragging a fourth towards the leader of the party. Delarousse remained in his stooping posture, as though transfixed with amazement, while a man might count four. Then, springing to his feet, he rushed headlong towards the approaching group, drawing a pistol as he ran.
[image]"DELAROUSSE RUSHED HEADLONG TOWARDS THE APPROACHING GROUP."
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[image]
"DELAROUSSE RUSHED HEADLONG TOWARDS THE APPROACHING GROUP."
Up to that moment the fourth man had been passive in the hands of the three; but as soon as he caught sight of Delarousse leaping towards him, he jerked himself violently from the grasp of his captors, felled first one, then a second, with sledgehammer blows from right and left, and, slipping from the hands of the third, dashed with extraordinary speed along by the stable wall in the direction of the village. In ten seconds he was out of sight, and the whole band of Frenchmen, yelling fiercely, some discharging their pistols, turned their backs upon the Towers and doubled after the fugitive.
Dick darted from the room, and up the stairs to the roof, Sam hard upon his heels, the Squire following at a pace that belied his melancholy allusion to his old bones. Penwarden also, hearing Sam's jubilant shout at the raising of the siege, left his post at the front, and clambered up after the others, muttering "Dear life! what a mix-up the world is!" Leaning over the parapet, the four watched the strangest chase that ever was seen. The fugitive came to the wicket-gate leading out of the grounds, and took it with a flying leap, with the crowd of Frenchmen in full cry behind him. Some, like Delarousse himself, bore a burden of flesh and forty years; others were younger and slimmer, and these, impelled by the furious cries of their leader, leapt the gate in turn, the last of them catching his foot in the top and coming sprawling to the ground.
Their quarry, crossing a strip of land that still belonged to the Squire, came to the fence recently erected around the grounds of the Dower House. It was six feet high, a formidable obstacle to a man of his bulk and years. He clutched the top of it, heaved himself up, rolled across it sideways, and disappeared on the other side, wrenching the tail of his coat from the hands of the foremost Frenchman. In a trice the pursuer scrambled up after him, threw himself over, and also disappeared. Of the other members of his party, some scaled the obstacle with more or less facility; others, baulked by it, ran to right and left to find a path. Delarousse, whose stature and build forbade any athletic feat, yet disdained to leave the direct course, and called to two of his men to hoist him up. For an instant he sat swaying on the top of the fence; then he too dropped like a falling sack. Of all the thirty odd Frenchmen there were now only two or three to be seen.
But in a minute or two the hunt again came fully into view from the lofty tower. The fugitive sped along with amazing swiftness, making a straight line for the Dower House. Behind him, strung at intervals over two fields, poured the impetuous Frenchmen. One or two were close at his heels; the rest followed, each according to his ability.
"They've catched un!" cried Sam, his eyes dilated with excitement. "No, be-jowned if they have. Got away! Yoick! Yo-hoy! Now then, Frenchy! Ah, I thought ye'd do it, now you've smashed yerself. No, he's up again! Halloo!"
The side door of the Dower House stood half-open. The fugitive drew nearer and nearer to it; the pursuers seemed to make still more violent exertions to overtake him before he reached it. A few yards more! Ah! he was inside: the door was closing. But before it was quite shut, the first pursuer flung himself forward and thrust his musket within. To close the door was now impossible. For a few seconds the Frenchman appeared to be engaged in a fierce trial of strength with the persons inside. Two or three of his companions joined him; they threw themselves together upon the door; it yielded; and they dashed into the house.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
John Trevanion in the Toils
With the aid of imagination's magic boots we skip now from the Towers to the village, and see what was happening there.
TheIsaac and Jacoblay alongside the jetty, in charge of half-a-dozen Frenchmen who lolled lazily about the deck. Nathan Pendry, who had steered the vessel into harbour, reclined, the picture of scowling discontent, against the bulwarks. Below, in the dark, reeking hold, trussed like fowls, lay Isaac Tonkin, Simon Mail, and two more of the most respected smugglers of Polkerran.
It appeared from Tonkin's story, told many a time in after years to the breathless company in the parlour of the Three Jolly Mariners, that on arriving in Roscoff to purchase his Christmas cargo, he had been sought out by Jean Delarousse, whose customer he had formerly been. The Frenchman did not complain of Tonkin's desertion, nor did he seek a renewal of their trade relations; his sole object was to persuade the Cornishman, by means of a heavy bribe, to deliver John Trevanion into his hands. Tonkin had his grievance against Trevanion. He felt sore at having had to play second fiddle to the younger man in recent smuggling transactions. But being an honest fellow, and loyal in grain, he rejected Delarousse's offer with indignant scorn, and refused to believe what he understood of the tale poured into his ears in broken English, of a long course of deceit and fraud by which, as Delarousse alleged, Trevanion had enriched himself at his partner's expense. The Frenchman had appeared to take his refusal in good part, and Tonkin, having freighted his lugger, put to sea on his return voyage, intending to run his cargo at the creek in the small hours of Friday morning as arranged.
TheAimable Vertu, Delarousse's privateering craft, lay in Roscoff harbour. Tonkin was only a mile or two at sea, when he noticed that the privateer was coming up astern. This circumstance at first gave him no concern; Delarousse was doubtless setting forth on one of his forays. But soon he began to suspect, from the course held by the larger vessel, that he was being chased, or at least dogged. TheIsaac and Jacobwas a very swift vessel, and, laden though she was, her master hoped to be able to maintain his lead until nightfall, and then to escape under cover of the darkness. But he was not long in discovering that his lugger was no match in speed for the privateer. The short dusk of the December evening was closing down upon the sea when theAimable Vertucame within range. The lugger's armament consisted of one small carronade; the Frenchman had a broadside, which at a single discharge would have shattered the lesser craft to splinters. When, therefore, Tonkin was hailed and bidden to heave-to, he chose the sensible, indeed the only practicable, course, and obeyed. Delarousse and a boarding party took possession of the lugger; in spite of vigorous protests, Tonkin and his crew were bound and laid by the board, and, room having been made for them in the hold by the removal of several tubs, they were carried below. The two vessels then in company continued on their course for the English coast.
Favoured by the light mist that hung over the Channel during the night, the privateer escaped discovery by any English cruisers or revenue-cutters that might have been in the neighbourhood. When, however, she approached the rugged Cornish coast, the mist became a danger, and Delarousse had Tonkin fetched from below, and ordered him to pilot the vessels into Polkerran harbour. This the humiliated mariner flatly refused to do, persisting in his refusal in spite of the entreaties, curses, and menaces of his captor. He was carried back by ungentle hands to his noisome lair, and Pendry, a man of less backbone, proved to be more amenable to the Frenchman's commands. Under his skilful pilotage, the lugger safely made the harbour, the privateer standing some distance out at sea, to watch events.
Now Tonkin, as has already been said, was a man of enormous strength, and as the pages of this history have shown, of great courage and resolution also. Nor was he lacking in prudence or common-sense; witness his ready surrender of the lugger when refusal would have meant his being blown out of the water. The same common-sense restrained him from struggling against impossible odds, both when he was trussed up, and afterwards when the vessel was manned by fifty or sixty well-armed Frenchmen. But so soon as he felt the lugger lightly graze the jetty, and knew by the rush of hurrying feet on deck that the great majority of his captors had gone ashore, he began to strain at his bonds. The Frenchmen had done their work of trussing capably enough, and, in the case of ninety-nine men out of a hundred, no doubt there would have been no danger of its being undone. But Tonkin's muscles were hard as iron; he had the strength of a horse. After a few minutes' straining, the rope about his wrists gave way; to release his legs was then easy. Delarousse having gone through his pockets before trussing him, he was without a knife, and had to loosen with his hands the ropes wherewith his comrades were tied. As soon as the first man was liberated, he set to work on the bonds of another, and within a few minutes after Tonkin had released himself, all the men were free.
Until the lugger reached the harbour, a number of the Frenchmen had clustered on the companion, and at its foot. When the time came for them to dash ashore, they scrambled in hot haste through the hatchway on to the deck, not thinking to batten down the hatch. As soon, therefore, as Tonkin was free, he rapidly planned how to escape from the hold with his men, when they had recovered the full use of their partially numbed limbs. He first felt about in the darkness for articles that would serve as effective weapons, and discovered a marlinspike, the hammer he used for driving spigots into the tubs, and several balks of timber that were employed for preventing the tubs from rolling. Each man armed himself. Long experience of smuggling had taught them to move quickly without noise, and, led by Tonkin, whose agility seemed in no wise lessened by his bulk, they swarmed swiftly through the hatchway.
The men left in charge of the vessel were leaning over the bulwarks, smoking, and envying their comrades at the inn, who, finding that the villagers showed no disposition to interfere with them, had seized the opportunity to refresh themselves at the expense of the innkeeper. Before the idle spectators on the deck could turn and form up to meet the rush, Tonkin and his men were upon them. A few swift, sharp strokes of the fishers' nondescript weapons, and the Frenchmen were lying senseless on the deck.
Without the loss of a moment the Cornishmen leapt the bulwarks and scampered along the jetty. They were half-way to the inn before the careless sentinels in the parlour heard their footsteps and ran out to see what was happening. Forming in front of the door, they brought their muskets to the shoulder and delivered a scattered volley; but surprise, haste, and strong liquor combined to spoil their aim, and none of the fishers was hit except Simon Mail, who dropped his spike with a yell and sat down on the cobbles,hors de combat. The Frenchmen had no time either to reload or to retreat. The fishers, burly men all, charged straight at them and struck four to the ground, the other two taking to their heels and starting to run up the hill towards their leader. But as if by magic the neighbourhood of the inn was suddenly alive with figures. The fishermen and miners, who had remained hitherto cowering in their cottages, rushed out the moment they could do so safely. The fugitives were caught and held; a fierce crowd surrounded the others; and in a few minutes all six, bruised and battered, lay in a row against the inn wall.
Meanwhile Tonkin had dashed into the inn, pulled up the trap-door leading to the cellar, and descended into the depths. Doubledick, whom the sound of shots had caused to shake like a jelly, heard the heavy clump of the fisher's boots, and shrank behind a large tun in a corner of the cellar. Unaware of his presence, Tonkin hastened to the opposite corner, where, in a cunningly contrived recess, lay a store of firearms and ammunition, kept there for use against the King's officers when required. It was now to be turned to a more legitimate purpose. Tonkin seized as many muskets as he could carry, and hurried with them up the ladder, sending down for more those of his men who were not occupied with the Frenchmen. By the time these latter were secured, arms had been served out to the fishers who had escaped from the lugger, and to the most likely of the others. Then a compact body of thirty well-armed men followed Tonkin up the hill.
In order to trace clearly the course of events in that crowded hour of Polkerran's history, it becomes necessary to glance at what had happened at the Dower House.
John Trevanion had become so accustomed to the smuggling operations, and it was so much a part of his policy to keep himself in the background in these matters, that it did not occur to him to rise early in order to learn what luck had attended the run which he had expected to take place at the creek, during the night or in the small hours of that morning. Having a perfectly easy conscience, and the comfortable expectation that he would be richer by two hundred pounds when he awoke, he slept as placidly as a child, and did not become aware that anything unusual was occurring until a repeated rapping at the door by Susan Berry, startled out of her wits, at length penetrated his slumbering intelligence.
"All right," he called drowsily. "What's the time?"
"I don't know, sir," cried poor Susan through the door. "Please, sir, there be a passel o' men firing shots at the Towers."
"Nonsense!" said Trevanion.
"'Tis gospel truth, sir. There be hundreds o' men shoutin' and hollerin', and Cook be fainted dead away in kitchen."
"Fling cold water on her, Susan. There's nothing to be afraid of. They're shooting rabbits, I've no doubt."
Trevanion's thought was that the smugglers had been checkmated at the creek, and then, in their fury, had attacked the Towers, believing that their discomfiture was due to an alliance between the Squire and the revenue officers. His chagrin at the loss of his expected profits was not so profound as his delight in the thought that the enmity he had so carefully fostered was bearing such rich fruit. Far be it from him to interfere. But being now effectually awakened, he bade Susan to return to the kitchen, dressed quickly, and went to an upper window whence he could see something of what was going on. The Towers was, however, too far away, and the air too misty, for him to observe the operations so closely as he would have liked, and, curiosity and malicious pleasure overcoming his prudence, he determined to set forth and watch from a more convenient standpoint the mischief which he hoped was afoot. But wishing not to attract attention, he forbade his household to leave the premises, issued by the back door, and slunk round the inside of one of his high fences.
He had advanced about half-way to the Towers when he was startled to hear shots behind him, from the direction of the village. The sound brought him to a sudden halt, and a sickening misgiving seized him. Had the firing begun in the village, there is little doubt that he would have at once suspected the attack of which he had long been secretly in dread. But the fact that the Towers was being assaulted, so soon after the run was to have taken place, had thrown him off his guard. Now, in a flash, he remembered what Doubledick had said about his interview with Delarousse, and the misleading information given to the Frenchman. At the time, and since, he had been somewhat sceptical of the innkeeper's veracity, but he began to think that his statement had, after all, been true. At any rate, it was the Towers that was in danger; the Dower House was at present safe; and after a brief pause of hesitation, he turned about and hurried back in the direction of his own house.
But he had scarcely taken half-a-dozen steps when, from behind a bush close by, there rose a red-capped figure, and Trevanion looked straight at the muzzle of a firelock. He stopped, and before he could collect his wits, two other figures joined the first. "C'est lui!" cried one of the Frenchmen. They were three of the sentries whom Delarousse had placed around the village, and were hastening to rejoin their leader in advance of the band now dashing up the hill. Trevanion was so much taken aback as to be incapable of resistance. All that he did when the men roughly seized him was to protest that a mistake had been made. "Ah! ah!" said one of his captors. "On ne s'en trompe pas; pas de tout." The other two each took one of Trevanion's arms, and marched him at a great pace through a gate in the fence towards the Towers, the third man bringing up the rear. What happened when Trevanion and Delarousse came face to face has already been related.
Maidy Susan, when Trevanion had left the house, showed herself strangely callous to the sad plight of Cook. Convinced that the Corsican Ogre had at last effected his long-threatened landing, she wondered in her simple soul why her master had not ordered the alarm bell to be rung, and the men servants to seize their arms and sally forth to defend their country. She peeped in at the kitchen, saw that Cook had recovered sufficiently to fan herself and scream, and then ran upstairs to watch what was going on. Only a minute or two afterwards, Trevanion broke from his captors and fled, the yelling Frenchmen in full cry behind.
"'Tis he! 'Tis Boney!" cried Susan.
She clutched at the casement frame for support, then suddenly flew downstairs like a young deer. It was she who held the door open, she who was forced back by the onrush of the infuriated Frenchmen. She crouched behind the door until the last of them, Delarousse himself, passed, then sped to the top of the house and began frantically to pull the bell-rope. Meanwhile the men whom Trevanion had been at such pains to drill had fled towards the village, and fallen into the hands of Delarousse's sentries.
Trevanion darted along the passage and up the stairs like a fox seeking cover from the hounds. He flung himself into his room, slammed and bolted the door, caught up a pistol, and stood, panting from haste and terror, in the middle of the floor. He heard the loud and rapid tramp of his pursuers drawing near.
"Keep out, or I'll shoot you!" he cried.
The Frenchmen laughed him to scorn. He was one; they were many. They set their shoulders to the door; the timbers cracked, gave way; a bullet whizzed harmlessly over their heads; and bursting into the room, they seized their victim and dragged him out and down the stairs again. Delarousse met them at the foot. Gasping for breath, he ordered some of his men to bind Trevanion's arms behind his back and take him down to the lugger, others to set fire to the house.
"Ah! scélérat!" he bellowed. "Tu es à moi!"
Scarcely had the words left his lips when one of his band, who had been wounded by a shot from the Towers, hurried in with the news that a party of men were in pursuit of them. Confiding Trevanion to the charge of four of his most trusty followers, Delarousse collected the rest, and led them to the front of the house, which the newcomers were said to be approaching. At the end of the drive, where it branched from the road, was Tonkin with his company of fishermen and miners.
Tonkin had led his men up the hill with more haste than discretion. When they reached the top they were blown, and for some minutes had to moderate their pace. They could not see from the road what was happening behind the fences, and had come midway between the Dower House and the Towers, at the same time as Trevanion arrived abreast of them in the opposite direction. But the spectators on the tower had seen them. The moment Trevanion entered his door, the Squire, with Dick, Sam, and Penwarden, hurried down the stairs.
"Hang it, Dick, they're Frenchmen!" cried the Squire, his fighting blood roused. "We must clear the rascals out."
On reaching the ground he dispatched Sam to tell Tonkin that the Frenchmen were now going in the other direction, and hurried on with the others, intending to join the fishers at the Dower House. He arrived in time to see Tonkin's men fire a volley at the Frenchmen at the windows. Little damage was done; Delarousse did not return the fire. He had achieved the object of his raid, and had no desire to enter into useless hostilities. Having taken stock of the enemy, he withdrew his men into the house, which was already filling with pungent smoke.
Tonkin halted his men for a moment in order to recover breath. It looked as if he would have to take the house by storm, a difficult task in the face of odds. But he was a man of bulldog courage, if no tactician. Smarting with the indignity he had suffered, and without stopping to think that Delarousse might have no designs except against Trevanion, he ordered his men to reload, and prepared to lead them to the attack.
Delarousse, however, had taken advantage of the momentary lull to withdraw his men through a long window in the wall of the house facing the village. The result was that when Tonkin, after so much delay as was necessary for his men to regain their breath and prime their muskets, led them at the charge up to the house and broke through the door, he found the house deserted, and the enemy in full retreat down the hill. He rushed after them, eager to overtake them before they reached the village. Some of his men had noticed that the house was on fire, but in their excitement none stayed to extinguish the flames, nor even to warn or assist the person who was still ringing the bell.
By this time the Squire, with Dick and Penwarden, skirting the grounds of the house, had joined Tonkin's party, and was hurrying with them down the hill. The Frenchmen had more than a hundred yards start, and on the descent proved to be as fleet of foot as their pursuers. On reaching the first of the houses, Delarousse was met by the rest of his cordon, who, now that the matter had come to a fight, saw that they could employ themselves more usefully than in keeping guard. Now the Frenchmen turned at bay, and checked the pursuit with a scattered volley.
"Empty your muskets, then charge the ruffians!" shouted the Squire, taking command as of right.
The Cornishmen responded with a cheer. A shower of slugs flew through the air, but the Frenchmen having scattered, and many of them being protected by the angles of houses on the winding road, only one or two were hit. There was no time for either party to reload. The pursuers dashed forward, wielding cutlasses, and their muskets as clubs. The pursued stood to meet the charge; there were a few moments of hand-to-hand conflict; Tonkin's burly figure was conspicuous in the thickest of the fray, wielding his musket like a flail; but the numbers of the Frenchmen prevailed, and the Squire recalled the men, to re-form them and charge again. From this point there was a straggling fight down the hill to the neighbourhood of the inn. The Squire, with Dick, Penwarden, and Tonkin close about him, led a series of rushes against the retreating enemy, whose numbers were always sufficient to give them check.
On coming to the inn, which was within a short distance of the jetty, Delarousse saw with alarm that his escape had been cut off. This was not due to any prevision on Tonkin's part. He had been too eager to follow up the Frenchmen to consider ultimate contingencies. But his defect as a tactician was supplied by a man whom no one had hitherto suspected of any capacity in that direction, and who enjoyed henceforth, to the day of his death, a very exalted reputation in Polkerran on the strength of this one achievement.
Pennycomequick, the cobbler, perceiving that the Frenchmen on the lugger were apparently stunned, hastily got together a little party of men and boys, boarded the vessel, clapped the Frenchmen under hatches, and then punted out some distance from the jetty, towing the boats that had lain drawn up on the little beach. No one as yet knew that the Frenchmen had not sailed all the way from Roscoff in the lugger; theAimable Vertuin the offing was concealed by the mist that still shrouded the sea. Finding himself thus cut off from communication with his vessel, Delarousse, who had released the men trussed up by Tonkin, with ready resource flung himself into the inn, and ordered his company to reload and occupy the windows. The Squire, now as keen as when he had been a young lieutenant, saw instantly that, the superiority in force being with the Frenchmen, the possession of the inn gave them an additional advantage which would render an attack hazardous to the last degree. He called a halt, to consider the next move.
At this moment the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard from round the corner leading to the hill, and Mr. Carlyon rode down.
"What's all this, Trevanion?" he cried.
"A pack of rascally Frenchmen have raided the place, Vicar," answered the Squire, "and are now holding the inn."
"Bless my life! What impudent scoundrels!"
He dismounted, nimbly for a man of his years.
"Give me a gun," he cried. "Here, you—I forget your name—get on my horse and ride to Truro as fast as you can and bring all the able-bodied men and any old soldiers you can find there. You, Benjamin Pound, go round to Doubledick's stables, take a horse, ride to Portharvan, and ask Sir Bevil from me to call out the yeomanry."
"Please, yer reverence, I can't ride a hoss," said the young fisher addressed.
"Can't ride! You must, or find someone who can. Off with you, or you shan't come to my dinner to-morrow. Bless my soul! Raiding on the day before Christmas! Can't we turn 'em out, Trevanion?"
"Impossible, Vicar, unless we're prepared to lose half our men. And then we'd fail. One man behind a wall is equal to four outside."
"What did Doubledick mean by letting the villains into the inn? How did they come here? I don't see any vessel."
Tonkin was explaining the circumstances when, down the stairs beside the inn wall, came Doubledick, pale, dishevelled, and covered with dust. Becoming alarmed for his safety when the inn was invaded by the Frenchmen, he had made his way out by a secret passage leading up the slope into a house abutting on the stairway. He came up to the group silently and unobserved, and listened to Tonkin's explanations and the further account given by the Squire of the attack on the Towers and the subsequent pursuit and capture of John Trevanion. Then he pressed forward to the Vicar's side.
"Ah! yer reverence," he said with unction, "'tis a judgment, 'tis indeed. It do cut me to the heart to say so, but Maister John be the wicked cause of this affliction."
"What do you mean, Doubledick?" asked the Vicar, with a sidelong glance at the Squire.
"Do 'ee mind, sir, that night a while ago when the sojers wer ridin' about country arter a runaway prisoner? Well, I own 'a was for a little small time in my inn; I'd never seed un afore, and didn' know he wer a runaway till 'twas too late to gie un up." (Doubledick, it will be observed, was not over-scrupulous as to his facts.) "While he was here, Maister John came down from Dower House and seed un, and they hollered at each other in the French lingo till my ears wer drummin'. Ah! 'twas then I first had my mispicions o' Maister John."
"Cut your story short, man," said Mr. Carlyon impatiently.
"Well, then, yer reverence, when I went over to France, the Frenchy telled me as how Maister John, Robinson by name, wer his partner for ten year, and robbed him right and left. Ah! he was a clever rogue, too, keepin' in the background so as our Polkerran men shouldn' see un when they wented over to—to sell fish. And Delarousse swore to me, 'a did, that he'd take vengeance on him, and now he be come to do it, sure enough. If I may make so bold, I'd say let the Frenchy take Maister John and leave us in peace. I don't want to see my inn riddled wi' shots and crumbled about my ears."
"Iss, and so say I," cried Tonkin. "Delarousse telled me the self-same story, but I didn' believe un; no, I couldn' believe as Maister John were sech a 'nation rogue. I must believe it, now Doubledick hev telled us all. Let un go, sir, and be-jowned to un."
Fierce cries of approval broke from the crowd, but the Squire held up his hand for silence.
"Let me have a word, neighbours," he said. "We're Cornishmen, every man of us, and good subjects of King George. We can't allow a French raiding party to arrest a man on English soil, whatever his character may be. 'Tis flat treason; what do you say, Vicar?"
"I agree with you. As a magistrate, neighbours, I say we must do our duty."
"I won't go agen Squire and pa'son," cried Tonkin. "I stand up for King Jarge."
"King Jarge for ever!" shouted the crowd.
"Well, then," said the Vicar, "we'll hold our ground here until the yeomanry come up, and then we'll storm the inn. God save the King!"
At this moment Dick pushed his way through the crowd.
"The privateer is under weigh, sir," he cried, "and standing in for the harbour."
All eyes were turned towards the sea. TheAimable Vertu, which had been lying off the headland, almost concealed by the mist, was steering for the fairway, evidently with the intention of coming to the assistance of the landing-party.
"Where's Mr. Mildmay?" cried the Squire. "'Tis for him to capture that rascally privateer."
Doubledick looked conscious; Tonkin and his fishers exchanged glances, and thought of the cargo in the hold of theIsaac and Jacob.
"We can do it, sir," cried Dick suddenly. "She must pass beneath that big rock at the head of the Beal. It doesn't stand steady, and a good push would hurl it over into the fairway. Let the vessel come in, and then block up the channel; she'd be caught then."
"A capital notion," said the Vicar. "Off with you, Dick; take two or three men with you. Have a care not to throw yourself over too."
Dick hurried off with a few of the younger men. When they arrived at the landward end of the Beal, the privateer was slowly threading her course through the fairway towards the jetty, a man in the chains sounding busily. She crept in, and had come within a hundred yards of the jetty when Dick and his companions reached the boulder. They heard the rattle of her anchor; she swung broadside to the village, and the spectators on shore saw a formidable row of guns grinning from her portholes. Dick and his companions set their shoulders to the rock.
The door of the inn meanwhile had opened, and Delarousse appeared, holding aloft a musket, to which a white cloth was attached as a flag of truce.
"I vill speak viz you," he said, pointing to the Squire, whom he recognised.
"Shall I parley with the rascal?" asked the Squire of Mr. Carlyon.
"Yes. We wish to avoid bloodshed, but it must be unconditional surrender, Trevanion."
The Squire stepped towards the inn, meeting Delarousse half-way.
"You speak French, monsieur?" said the latter courteously.
"Not a word, sir," replied the Squire.
"Ah! C'est dommage! I speak English, bad, monsieur. I make a meestake: I demand pardon. I not know ze house vas to you; pardon ze meestake, monsieur."
"We'll say no more about that, sir," said the Squire. "I am willing to believe you had no wish to attack me. But this is an act of war, sir. You must at once set your prisoner free, and surrender, every one of you."
"Ah, no, monsieur," returned the Frenchman with a smile. "I haf to say your demand is ridicule. I make vun sign: bah! ze shot from my vessel zey strike ze village all to pieces. Voyez! Ze boats come now for me. You stop me? No."
The Squire turned and looked in the direction of Delarousse's outstretched hand. Two boats had been lowered from the deck of the privateer, and, filled with men armed to the teeth, were now pulling for the jetty. It was clear that under the vessel's broadside no attempt to check this fresh invasion could be successful.
"You see?" continued the Frenchman, who had watched the expression on the Squire's face. "I not quarrel viz ze people here; mon Dieu, no! Zey are my friends; viz zem I haf excellent affairs, zey profit us both. Ze man zat injure me, I haf him. Vat avantage of resistance? None. Zen I depart: all is finish vizout—vizout combat sanguinaire."
"Your proposal——" began the Squire, but at this moment a dull splash was heard from the direction of the Beal. Dick and his assistants had displaced the rock, which rolled over the edge, bounded on to the ledge whence Dick had made his dive, and then plunged almost into the middle of the fairway. Even at that distance a few feet of it could be seen projecting above the surface.
"Sacré nom d'un chien!" cried Delarousse, startled out of his equanimity. "Vat is zis?"
"Some of my men have blocked up the fairway with a large rock," replied the Squire. "It is now impossible for your vessel to clear the harbour."
"But zis is perfidy, monsieur!" cried the furious Frenchman. "Ve speak as parlementaires; zere is arrest of hostilities; ma foi! zis is ze perfidy of English."
"Not at all, sir. The men had already gone to do their work; I could not stop them. You see your position, sir. I advise you to consult with your men and surrender at discretion."
They parted. Delarousse, livid with anger, returned to the inn; the Squire rejoined his party.
"We have the rascals," said Mr. Carlyon gleefully.
"I axe yer pardon, sir," said Tonkin, "but don't 'ee think we'd better let the Frenchies go in peace arter all? They guns 'ud knock the village to dust, and there's the women and childer to think of."
"Ah! that's true," said the Vicar, and taking Mr. Trevanion aside, he began to discuss the matter with him. While they were still earnestly talking, there was a shout. They broke apart, and turning, saw that Delarousse had solved the problem in his own way.
The inn fronted the jetty, but on its southward side a narrow lane ran between the blind walls of the pilchard fishers' salting-houses. The further end of this was nearer by a few yards to the sea. Rendered desperate, the Frenchman saw in the conversation between the two gentlemen an opportunity for making a dash. He ordered four of his men to throw open a low window giving on the lane, and to rush John Trevanion as quickly as possible down to the jetty, while he maintained his position with the rest at the front windows. Then, as soon as he was informed that the four men had arrived at the end of the lane, he gave the word for all to follow. Before the besiegers were aware of this sudden movement, the Frenchmen had gained a start of more than fifty yards.
"After them, my men!" cried the Squire, when he saw them rushing from behind the wall of the salting-house towards the jetty.
The whole party poured in pursuit. But by the time they reached the shoreward end of the jetty, John Trevanion had been lowered into the first of the privateer's boats. The second had towed back a number of the craft which Pennycomequick had removed from the shore, the lugger itself, however, with the cobbler and his helpers aboard, still lying in the harbour on the inner side of the reef. Into these boats Delarousse and his men leapt, and pulled off swiftly to the privateer. They had no sooner left the jetty than a puff of smoke issued from one of the vessel's portholes; there was a roar, and a round shot crashed into the planking, smashing several yards of it, and sending up splinters almost into the eyes of the Squire.
"'Tis no good, Trevanion," cried the Vicar. "We shall all be slaughtered if we line up and fire at them. They've got your cousin, and we can't help it."
"But they can't get out of the fairway, and there's no water on the reef," said the Squire. "If only Mildmay were here!"
He was soon to see that he had not reckoned with the seamanship of Jean Delarousse. The first of the boats pulled at full speed towards the fairway, receiving from the deck of the privateer a sounding-line as she passed. From the second boat Delarousse climbed to the deck of his vessel. The pilot crew, having sounded and measured the width of the channel between the fairway and the cliff, signed to their captain that he might proceed. It seemed to Dick impossible that the vessel should win through, and he watched with unstinted admiration the Frenchman's skilful seamanship. Delarousse ordered the anchor to be tripped, and the vessel moved slowly towards the fairway, close-hauled on the starboard tack. When she reached the rock, she seemed to graze the cliff as she passed into the narrow channel; but with Delarousse himself at the helm she passed safely through. Then, there being a fair wind on her starboard quarter, Delarousse hauled up his courses, mainsail and foresail, and threw his foreyard aback. The check on the ship's way gave him time to take aboard the boat, which had been moored to the rock, the rest of his crew having already clambered up the side from the other boats. These were then cast adrift; the foreyard filled, and theAimable Vertustood out to sea.