CHAPTER XXIITHE PRESS-GANG
Tohasten back to the inn and secure a couple of horses was the work of but a few minutes. Then Ethan and Richard Dale started in pursuit of the gentleman of the road.
“He’s making his way toward the highway to London,” said Ethan as their mounts dashed bravely along the dark road. “And as I suppose he knows every cross-path and turn of the way there is not much hope of our overtaking him.”
“I’m afraid not,” answered Dale.
“But we’ll after him for all that,” said Ethan. “We must take advantage of every chance to recover the dispatch.”
But it was as the boy feared. Master Dirk Hatfield knew all the roads and cross-paths, even in the darkness, and, like a fox, his first efforts were devoted to winding and doubling upon his trail. But they felt that he washeaded for London, and so pressed on in that direction.
They reached the capital late one afternoon, and sent the horses to a person whom their owner had indicated.
“Now,” said Ethan, after this had been attended to, “I think the first thing that we should do is to get a change of costume—something less noticeable than we are now wearing.”
“I have been thinking of that,” said Dale. “This scarlet coat makes me a marked man, and that is not good for one who does not desire to be observed.”
They sought out the district down near the water-side where they knew there would be slop-shops whose proprietors would be only too glad to turn an honest penny and keep silent. They came upon such a place within a few moments after entering the quarter frequented by the seamen who came into that port. There were old clothes in great variety hung about the door upon pegs, and a long-bearded, hook-nosed man prowled up and down, his sharp eyes ever alert for customers.
“Oh,” said he, rubbing his hands together as they paused before the place. “How do youdo, Jack? Soldier, I am glad to see you, my son. Just step inside. If it is clothing you want, or jewelry, you have come to the right place. I have a stock, my dears, that can’t be matched in London.”
“For badness, I suppose you mean,” said Ethan, as they followed him in.
The hook-nosed man laughed and jagged the boy playfully with his elbow.
“Jack-tars,” said he, “always like their joke. But I enjoy it, my son; for I understand your fun.”
He looked at them from under shaggy brows, with eyes that twinkled with cunning.
“It is not jewelry you want?” he said.
“No,” answered Ethan.
Again the man laughed.
“I knew it,” he said. “It is clothing—clothing such as most citizens of London wear—clothing that will pass you in the crowd along with the thousand and one others and will cause no man to look at you twice.”
He leered at them knowingly; and Dale said,
“You are a wise man, friend; so let us see these garments of which you speak.”
The man promptly spread many suits of more or less worn clothing before them.
“Youth,” spoke he, sagely, as they were selecting, “is ever desiring a change. They are not satisfied with the dull life they lead—and so go into the navy, or army. And,” with a chuckle of malice, “they grow tired of that very soon, as a rule; and then they come to me, change their clothes and slip away.”
“You think us deserters, then,” said Ethan.
“My son, I think nothing. I take your money and give you the goods you buy. I never question my customers. But,” with one dirty finger laid alongside his nose, “I sometimes hazard a guess.”
They selected the garments which they preferred, and a few moments later they had donned them.
“We’ll leave the others,” said Ethan, as he paid the bill. “You can do what you like with them.”
“You are very kind,” smirked the hook-nosed man. “And I thank you much.”
He followed them outside and stood watching them as they went down the street.
“A knave, or I never saw one,” remarkedDale with a backward glance over his shoulder.
“I think you are right,” said Ethan. “I suppose most of these water-side characters are alike; they’d sell any one if the price were high enough.”
They turned a corner, out, as they supposed, of the man’s view; a little further on Ethan suddenly grasped Dale’s arm.
“Look there,” he whispered, his face paling with sudden excitement.
“What is it?” asked the ex-master’s mate of the Lexington.
“Under the shed, there by the pastry cook’s. The horse, I mean.”
Dale gazed at the large, coal-black beast hitched to a post and munching a feed of corn out of a small tub.
“Dirk Hatfield’s horse,” cried the sailor.
“The same,” said Ethan. “And where the horse is the master cannot be far away.”
“In the cook’s shop,” said Dale, eagerly.
“As like as not. Let us go in.”
They crossed toward the glass fronted shop; through the window they saw a neatly appointed place whose counters were filled withthe flaky products of its ovens; a white-capped, round faced man presided over it; and at a table, knife and fork in hand and napkin tucked under his shirt collar, sat the worthy Master Hatfield, attacking with gusto a smoking dish of pigeon stew. As the two Americans stalked in, he gave them a glance; but their change of dress saved them from recognition. They took seats, and the white-capped man served them with food, all the time continuing the conversation which he had been holding with the highwayman.
“Yes,” he was saying, “the king’s ships are in a bad way indeed for lack of men. They say the frigate Serapis is almost unmanned.”
“Too bad,” growled the gentleman of the road, who though his hand was constantly raised against the law and its officers was a stout Briton at heart. “How do we expect to beat the French and the Yankees if our ships can’t put to sea?”
“You speak truth,” said the pastry cook. “And the impudent Yankees need a beating badly. Their insolence in crossing the oceanin their cockle-shells and attacking English ports is more than can be borne.”
The man puffed his round cheeks with indignation and rattled the plates with vigor. Dirk Hatfield paused in his assault upon the pigeon stew long enough to reply:
“Oh, but they’ll get their trouncing before long, mark me. English tars and English ships rule the sea; it’s not for the Yankees to hoist a flag without British permission, and their colored rags will soon be trailed in the dirt of their decks, and Britannia queen of them all, as is her place.”
“Are you up from the water-side, friends?” asked the cook, as Ethan and Dale calmly ate of the dishes he had placed before them, and watched the highwayman cautiously.
“No,” answered Ethan; “from Plymouth.”
The highwayman lifted his head and gave the boy a long look of interest.
“Are the press-gangs out, there, as in London?” asked the proprietor.
“I’ve heard that they were busy there,” said Ethan.
“It’s the same all over the kingdom, I suppose.”
Neither of the Americans replied; and in a few moments Hatfield spoke up.
“Plymouth is a brisk little place; it is no great size, indeed, but many things happen there.”
“Right,” said the pastry cook; “the fleets sail from there very often.”
“It’s not by sea alone that Plymouth is brisk,” continued the gentleman of the road; “but by land as well. And the country between that town and London offers many opportunities to a man of parts.”
“Ay. I’ve heard it said often that it was a most excellent farming section.”
“Good strokes of business are to be done thereabouts,” continued Hatfield. “My last visit there,” and he slapped the breast of his coat with a chuckle, “promises to pay me a pretty penny, indeed.”
“The luck was with you, then?” cried the pastry cook with innocent interest.
“It was,” laughed Hatfield. “It was very much with me, sir.”
“He still has the dispatch,” whispered Ethan to Dale.
“In his breast pocket,” returned thesailor, in the same low tone. “But he is armed.”
“If we take him suddenly we’ll have the advantage for all that.”
The pastry cook and the highwayman continued their talk; the two Americans had their heads together, thrashing out the situation.
“It’s dark without,” said Ethan at last, guardedly. “We’ll take him unawares when he is about to mount his horse.”
Dale now and then glanced with much interest into the street through the glass of the doors. He leaned forward at length and spoke to the proprietor.
“Your place,” said he, “appears to attract much attention, sir.”
The man seemed greatly pleased and smiled broadly.
“I have often marked that,” he said. “It increases business, sir, to make one’s shop bright and attractive.”
“You have much custom among the sailors in the district, I suppose?”
The pastry cook pursed up his mouth and shook his head doubtfully.
“No,” he said, “I think not. The grog shops attract them most.”
“I have noticed,” said Dale calmly, his gaze once more directed toward the street, “that there are many sailors about just now, and they all, somehow, seem to feel much interest in this place.”
AN ANGRY LOOK CAME INTO HATFIELD’SEYES
A number of seamen with cutlasses belted at their sides were to be seen across the way; two or three stood at the window; and as Dale spoke their leader, evidently a boatswain, opened the door and swaggered in. The proprietor advanced with an uneasy smile.
“Good-evening, sir,” said he, with a bow.
“How do you do?” returned the other. As he said this he glanced at the shop’s three patrons with an air of calm inspection. The powerful figure of Dirk Hatfield seemed to attract him, and he coolly advanced to his side.
“Sailor, I think,” he said.
“Wrong,” said the gentleman of the road, looking up from his meal.
“I think not,” persisted the man-of-war’s-man quietly.
An angry look came into Hatfield’s fierceeyes; he laid down his knife and fork, leaned back in his chair and growled out,
“Well, my man, you are a pert lad enough: but be careful how you speak to a gentleman. You are in danger of having your face spoiled if you talk like that.”
The sailor laughed. He swung one leg over the corner of the table at which the other sat and tapped with one finger tip upon the butt of a pistol.
“I’m not much afraid of that—my man,” he said.
The pastry cook leaned over Ethan and whispered, “There is a door in the rear that leads through the kitchen and into a small court.”
The young American looked at the man in surprise; then he felt Dale touch his sleeve, and turned toward him.
“Look outside there,” whispered the ex-master’s mate.
Ethan did as requested; to his surprise he saw the hook-nosed bearded man, of whom they had bought the clothing a short time before, conversing, with much gesticulation, with the seamen without.
“He’s a crimp,” said Dale, in a whisper, “and has betrayed us. The place is surrounded by a press-gang.”
“A press-gang!” Ethan stared at his companion.
“Yes,” said Dale, with set face; “and as I have had one experience with this sort of gentry before, I don’t care for another.”
“The rear door, gentlemen, the rear door,” whispered the pastry cook. “Here they come.”
A half dozen seamen crowded into the shop; the boatswain, who still sat nonchalantly upon the corner of the table, said, briefly:
“You’ll find over there the two we are after, lads.”
He jerked his thumb toward the Americans as he spoke. The hook-nosed man stood in the doorway and grinned with satisfaction. The highwayman still lay back in his chair; his teeth showed, wolf-like, and his strong hands gripped the edge of the table.
“The paper,” whispered Ethan. His face was white as he leaned toward Dale and uttered the words. Once more the longed-for dispatch was almost within his reach, and once more it was about to elude him.
“Don’t think of that now,” said Dale, guardedly. “It is impossible for us to recover it here. Let us escape first, and help Hatfield to escape if we can. We can gain possession of the dispatch later, if all is well.”
The sailors now advanced upon the two.
“Do ye strike your colors, shipmates?” asked an old gunner with a laugh. “The king needs men too badly to have likely young chaps such as you run off like this.”
He was about to lay hands upon Dale when Ethan struck him a quick, heavy blow that sent him reeling. Dale was up in an instant, and as the men of the press-gang sprang forward, planted blow after blow among them with telling effect. A rush of additional seamen came through the door; Dirk Hatfield was upon his feet, also, by now; his heavy pistol barked sullenly among the crowd and then rose and fell with battering force as he used it hammer like. Ethan found himself shoulder to shoulder with the man for an instant.
“When the lights go out,” he said, “make for the rear door.”
Hatfield nodded understandingly, striking out viciously all the while.
A number of candles had been overturned in the struggle; now only a single branch illuminated the room. Ethan, with a quick pass, knocked this over, also, and the shop was instantly plunged into darkness.
“Now,” cried the young American.
He and Dale gained the door in the rear; but the highwayman’s nasty temper played its part here, and he paused to deal a shower of blows upon the boatswain, whom he had seized by the throat just as the light was extinguished.
Ethan and Dale plunged into the little court at the back of the place and found a single seaman guarding it with drawn cutlass. A quick rush together disposed of him, and in a moment they were upon the street, lurking in the shadows, and hearkening to the fierce conflict that raged within the room which they had just left.
This lasted but a few moments, however; then the press-gang appeared, dragging in the midst of them the grim figure of the highwayman.
“Caught!” breathed Ethan, despairingly.
“Master Hatfield,” said Dale in a low voice, “has stopped his last traveler for many a long day, and is now in a fair way toward serving his king upon the sea.”