Part 4

Martin lifted his glass as though to admire its colour in the lamp-light. “Go then, my friend,” he said smoothly. “Oh, go by all means! Only blame yourself, not me, for aught that may happen in the course of a day or so. You’d make a pretty figure in the cart, Roger, and ’twould need a double rope to hold your body.”

“Damn you!” roared Roger, swinging up his hand, but Martin’s eyes, watching him intently, and the smile flickering still upon his lips, the big man swung round once more and pointed to me. “You’re makin’ a sweet song o’ hangin’, Martin,” he muttered. “You’re sayin’ what your precious gentleman may do or mayn’t, as the case may be. Peach on me, you mean—if so be I don’t wait for him, and if so be I don’t do as I’m told. Only, don’t you be forgettin’, that ’twas him as told us to hold up old Skinflint’s coach, and nab the lad there. And that’s robbery by the King’s highway,—and get that into your head, and keep it there. And, by God, Martin, if he’s got his claws on me, I’ve got my claws on to him from this night forth; and if he talks of hangin’, there’s others—ay, there’s others. You, Martin, and old Mag here, and him.”

“Pish, man,” said Martin, coolly, though his look was livid. “Who’d listen to you? Who’d believe you? Old Gavin Masters—eh? He loves you, Roger. He has confidence in you.”

Roger stood cursing to himself, demanding finally, “And the lad here,—what’s he goin’ to do with the lad?”

“How in the devil’s name does it concern you, Galt?” cried Martin, with sudden flaming anger. “You’ve done your share of the work and you’ll be paid for it.”

“Ay, but you answer me! What’s to be done with the lad? Hark ’ee, Martin, I’m sick to death of the whole crew of ye. And of none more than yourself, unless it’s himself. I’ve done my work on the roads, and there’s a few the poorer for it; but I’ve never done aught of a kind with this. Kidnappin’ an’ maybe murder at the finish.”

“What d’ye mean?” Martin asked, drawing back his chair, to be out of reach of Roger Galt’s rising rage, as the drink worked within him.

“What’s he goin’ to do with the lad there?” Roger growled. “Get him out of the way—oh, ay, I know that, and can guess for why. From the looks of him! But how’s he goin’ to rid himself of him? Ship him overseas with Blunt, or what? Martin, I’ll have no hand in aught that don’t give the lad a chance for his life,—d’ye hear me? Who’s he? Dick Craike’s lad as ever was! And they did for Dick Craike—ay, they did, they did, years agone.”

Martin, starting up, screeched out, “Shut your fool’s mouth! You’re drunk, Roger Galt. The lad’s to be kept here, till he comes. He’ll be here to-night. Tell him what you’ve said to me! Tell him! Get the lantern and give me the keys, Mother Mag. We’ll lock the lad away upstairs; when the master comes he’ll not be wanting him taking his ease here like a gentleman!”

_Chapter IX_. _Mr. Charles Craike_

Directing me with a gesture to rise and follow, Martin opened the door into the hall. The woman, taking the lantern, lit it from the fire with a twig. A moment I hesitated, preferring to remain with big Roger Galt, who was inclined to make my cause his own, to following the sinister Martin and old Mother Mag, but Roger had lurched to a chair, and sat there glowering and muttering to himself without further regard for me. Moreover, Martin, observing my hesitation, plucked a pistol from his pocket, and cocking it, swore with a bitter oath to blow out my brains unless I followed him. Roger still paying no heed, I slouched out into the hall.

The woman crept before me; Martin followed with the pistol pointing at my head; the lantern showed me presently a dark wooden stairway. It was rotten and riddled with decay; it creaked dismally beneath us; the balusters were broken; as I set my hand against the wall to steady me, going up after the slowly climbing light, I touched grime and cobwebs; the startled rats came squeaking and tumbling down the stair. Presently we reached the head of the stair—I have said that the house was two stories only in height; Mother Mag unlocked a door before me, and the cold air blowing in from the glassless window of the room struck on my face. The crone, standing aside for me to enter the room, leered and mumbled at me as I passed in, urged forward by the prodding of Martin’s pistol. I heard the rats scurrying over the floor before me. The wind blowing out the sacking before the window, the moonlight illumined the room,—it was big and bare as the room below it, but the rafters were high above me. A narrow wooden bedstead, with a pile of rags upon it, was propped against the wall; there was no other furniture save a three-legged stool. An open hearth with a rusted iron brazier stuck in it was at the farther end of the room. Martin, stepping in, demanded of the woman, “You’re sure the fellow will be safe here?”

“You should know, my dear,” the woman tittered, holding to the doorway.

He strode to the window, plucked aside the sacking and tried the iron bars; satisfied then stepped over to the hearth, asking, “What of the chimney? Could he climb it?”

“If he should try,” Mag answered, laughing shrilly, “he’d only stick there and choke for soot. More, it’s near blocked with the bricks fallen in it. I heard ’em tumble in a gale two year back, and thought the Stone House was all comin’ down about my ears. Ay, but you knows the Stone House well as I do, Martin, and for why are you askin’?”

“For why, Mother Mag,” he snarled. “You should know for why. Not the devil, your master, could save you from—you know from whom—if he comes, and finds the young dog missing. Ay, and he knows enough to stretch that scraggy neck of yours, well as big Roger Galt’s below. Look to it, Mother Mag,—d’ye look to it!”

She cowered and mumbled to herself; he, poking his head forward to look up the chimney, brought down a shower of soot upon him, and, cursing foully, he drew back, and made for the door.

“You’ll lie here for the night,” he said to me. “You’ll be safe and snug here for the night. Don’t be trying to break out and get away, for I’ll be within hearing of you the night through. Out of this, Mother Mag.”

“What’s your purpose with me?” I asked, dully. “Why was I brought here?”

“You’ll know,” he answered, laughing his hateful laugh. “You’ll know. But I’m paid only to catch and cage you, not to answer questions.”

“If it’s only pay,” said I, “a word from me to Mr. Bradbury—”

“Bah, I’d not trust Bradbury living, and Bradbury lying in the road when we left him looked more like a corpse than Mother Mag there. Lie down and sleep, you’ll get nothing from me,” and pulling the door to with a crash, he left me.

I ran instantly to the window, and dragged back the sacking; the bars of iron, set there, I took it, for defence in the old days, were bedded firmly in the stone; there was no hope for me to crawl between them. The recurrent light of the cloud-harried moon showed me the nature of my prison; the dust lay thick upon the rotting floor; the oaken panels were riddled by the rats, and dropping in decay from the stone walls; the black, cobwebbed rafters, were high above me. I believed that a trap-door in the ceiling opened beneath the roof; I could hear the rats scurrying over my head. I turned back to the window; and the moon showed me the cobbled courtyard, the high stone wall, the rim of the bowl, in which the house lay, rising blue-black beyond; boughs tossing in the wind upon the rim; through the wild crying of the gale overhead, its battering on the house, I thought I heard the distant drumming of the sea. Again I tried to wrench the bars apart; their red rust had run into the stone and mortar and set them there only the more firmly; though I tested each bar with the full strength of my arms, none shifted. Could I but force them sufficiently apart for me to wriggle through, the drop to the ground would be dangerous but not impossible for me. Staring upwards then I could see nothing of the roof owing to the thickness of the wall and the depth of the window. No, I was held securely; when I tried to peer up the chimney, I found it blocked as Mother Mag had said; the door of thick oak, though mouldering, was clamped with iron. I took it that the house had been built years since, maybe in the troublous times of Charles the Martyr—built stoutly for protection against marauders in that lonely hollow of the moorlands. On the thick high wall about the courtyard I believed that I could discern rusting iron spikes. And knowing myself held fast in a prison chosen for me by my Uncle Charles—surely by him—and guarded by his rogues, I must have despaired but for my hope that Mr. Bradbury might have survived the attack upon the coach, and would not rest till he found and rescued me. I recalled his apprehension when we were overtaken by the darkness, and his play with the pistols before our disaster. I remembered seeing him flung out from the door of the coach, and the red discharge of his pistols, as they struck the road. How had the astute Mr. Bradbury come thus to underestimate his man, Charles Craike, with consequences disastrous to himself and likely to prove disastrous to me?

I was in no mood for lying down on the wretched pallet. I tore off my cravat and bound it about my broken head. I was sick and weary, but I feared to sleep, lest they come upon me silently in the dark, and make an end of me. And I knew that he, whose name they would not utter before me, but who was surely Charles Craike, was expected at the house that night; I determined to overcome my heavy weariness, and stay awake awaiting his coming. I heard their voices, as I stood by the bed. Roger growling yet, and Martin laughing his mocking laugh, while they sat waiting in the room below, whence came that thin smoke rising through the rotting floor. I knelt down then, and with my hands I widened the breach in the rotting wood, hoping to hear what passed between these rogues, and what they plotted against me. The light shone soon more clearly; a chink in the ceiling below was visible; surely I had only to lie down and press my ear against the breach to hear their very words.

I was deterred from my purpose by a sudden cry from the gate, and the loud baying of a hound at the rear of the house. Starting up, I stole to the window, and drawing back the sacking, set me to watch who came. I heard the doors below me open and clash; presently I saw the lantern shine through the dark, for the clouds held the moon, though it seemed rapidly to approach to a break between cloud and cloud. Overhead the wind went wailing; it beat against the house, as though to tumble it to ruins; I stood shivering, for the bitter cold of the night and for my terrors; the strip of sacking bellied out like a sail as I clung to it. And to the crying of the wind he came.

The moon broke through the clouds; the wet cobbles of the court below me gleamed like a pool of silver water. He came riding swiftly to the house, leaving Mother Mag to secure the gate; I saw him sitting stiffly upon a great black horse, a black cloak flapping all about him. A gust swept his hat from his head, but his hand caught it; his silver-white hair was blown out in disorder. He looked up, as he drew in before the door; momentarily I saw a proud and baleful face; cut like a piece of fine white ivory. I saw the very shining of his eyes, as moonlight and the lamplight from the house played fully on him; and on the instant, indeed, I understood from that cruel face—like, yet so much unlike, my father’s—none whom this man hated or feared might hope for mercy from him.

And thus for the first time I looked upon my Uncle Charles Craike of Rogues’ Haven.

_Chapter X_. _Scruples of Roger Galt_

As the gentleman entered the house, I slipped back to the bed, purposing, when I was assured that he would not come directly to my room, to test whether I could hear through the break in the ceiling of the room below and the parting of the flooring under my feet what should pass among my enemies. I heard him enter the room; I heard Mother Mag’s return to the house and the clashing of the doors, as she made all fast. I dropped down then, and lying prone, found that by pressing my ears against the parting in the floor I could hear distinctly. And I found the gentleman berating Roger by the fire.

“Mark you, my man, I’ll have no more of this,” he was declaring, in clear, authoritative tone. “You’ll serve me when I will, or how I will, or take the consequences.”

“Mr. Charles Craike,” growled Roger, “I tell you I’ll not endure too much from you or any other man. I’ll serve you when I will, and as it suits me. Set the runners on to me—ay, set them—it won’t be the first time by a many as I’ve shown ’em a clean pair of heels. I’ve an affair of my own callin’ me miles from here; I should have been off long since.”

“Peace, fool!” said Mr. Craike, contemptuously.

“And listen to me,” Roger blustered, “if you’d peach on me, I know enough to pull you down.”

“My good Roger Galt,” said my uncle, laughing easily. “I’m not questioning that you’ve served me as well this night as you’ve served me on any other occasion. And I’ll pay you well, as I’ve paid you always. Where’s the boy, Martin?”

“Fast up above,” Martin replied.

“And Bradbury?”

“Lying in the road like a dead man when we left him.”

“I trust,” said Mr. Craike, piously, “that you’ve done him no hurt beyond repair.”

“No more than he did himself,” said Martin, laughing. “He’d a pair of barkers with him, when the coach pulled up. He fell out into the road; his pistols fired; and he lay there in the mire.”

“And you took the boy and have him safely here. Ay, ay.”

“Would you see him?” Martin asked.

“Oh, not I! What’s he like, though?”

“As like his father,” Roger broke in heavily, “as one barker’s like its pair.”

“His father! Ay! His father was passionate—lacked discretion; the boy’s the offspring of his father’s folly,” with a laugh at which I raged silently, understanding the slur he put upon me.

“And what now of the lad?” Roger persisted. “What would you do with him, now he’s here?”

“Friend Roger Galt, you’re asking too much of me and my affairs!”

“Ay, ay, but what’s the answer? You’ve kidnapped him; would ye ship him overseas? That I’ll not quarrel with; he’d have a chance for his life, and he’d fare none so ill, for a rope’s end’s well for a lad.”

“Maybe that is my purpose,” my uncle said, coldly.

“But no more than that!” cried Roger Galt. “By God, Mr. Craike, I’ll not have him done to death by Mart and Mother Mag or any other of your rogues. I’ll not!”

“He’s so commended himself to you,” my uncle sneered.

“He’s like his father. Your brother Dick treated me kind as a lad. He’d give me a guinea when you’d have no more for me than a fine word.”

“And you’d stand a friend to his bastard, eh?”

“I’m none too sure as the lad’s base-born,” said Roger, stoutly. “He’s something of the look of Mary Howe about him, as well as the looks of you Craikes. And Mary Howe was not the lass to listen to the talk of Dick Craike, or any man, unless a ring and a book went with it. No, it’s because the boy’s born a Craike you’ll not have him meet old Edward.”

“Silence!” Mr. Craike’s command cut through the air like a whip. “I’m accountable to no man, Galt, for what I do. You presume to preach to me—you, my hang-dog; you’ve threatened me a while since. Threatened! Would any take your word for aught?”

“Any knowing you, Mr. Craike.”

“Have it so, then! Match yourself against me. At least this is assured your hanging for a highwayman; are you so confident that you will lay me by the heels? Come! Are you so confident—knowing me?”

But Roger Galt answered only with a string of oaths.

“You’re not so confident,” my uncle said, coolly. “You bluster only, Roger, when the drink’s in you. And when you’re sober—seldom, Roger—you’re no fool; you’re ready to serve me, knowing I pay. Your interests are mine, friend Roger.”

“Ay, that’s well enough. But what of the boy, now you’ve got him in this ken?”

“The boy,” said Mr. Craike, “will come to no hurt at my hands. Have it so, if you will! He does not come yet to my father’s house; have that so! He goes overseas with Ezra Blunt, when the rogue makes port. He’ll go overseas and be set ashore to work his way home as he may. He’ll suffer no worse; but he’ll not make Rogues’ Haven in these two years to be. And till Blunt is here, Mother Mag and you, Martin, look to it that the fellow lie snugly at the Stone House. And if Bradbury live,—God rest him, body and soul—and raise the hue and cry, look to it that no one find the fellow here. Keep him fast, keep him hidden—d’ye hear me?—fast and hidden! I’ve your wage with me, Roger, though not yours yet, Martin, or yours, Mother Mag. Hark to the chink of the coin, Roger! Did you ever empty such saddle-bags?—Why, what the devil—?” for the hag had screeched out shrilly.

“What’s fallin’? What’s fallin’?” cried Mother Mag. “Where’s the dust all fallin’ from?”

“Rats gnawin’ through,” said Roger. “The ken’s haunted with ’em.”

“Or the boy? What’s he doing this while?” Mr. Craike demanded, furiously.

Instantly I started up, and dusted my breeches and jacket; I lay down on the bed, as Martin came rushing up the stairs. But I made no pretence of sleep when he pulled the door open, and flashed the lantern on me. I sat up and stared at him. He swung the lantern over me; observing the dust yet upon me, and the length of my body marked in dust upon the floor, he muttered, “So you’ve been eaves-dropping, you dog—hey, you dog?”

I answered him boldly, though my heart beat the devil’s tattoo within my breast, “Ay, I’ve heard every word, my friend. And say this from me to my kinsman, Charles Craike—as he has not the courage to face me here—that for all I’ve suffered and am to suffer from him here, he’ll pay me yet. If further hurt come to me; if I am put aboard Blunt’s ship, I’ve friends—not Mr. Bradbury alone—who’ll never rest till he’s laid by the heels. Ay, and tell him this from me: that for his foul lie against me and my mother, I’ll have a reckoning yet from him and his.”

_Chapter XI_. _Events at the Stone House_

To be sure, I passed the most dismal of nights locked in the upper room of the Stone House. Whether Martin had had the courage to bear my message to Charles Craike I could not tell; I heard the mumble of their voices in the room below, but I did not set my ear again to the breach in the flooring-boards. I heard the doors creak and crash presently, and, slipping to the window, I saw the gentleman mount and ride away. I lay down then on the bed, spreading my greatcoat over the miserable rags; and when Martin and Mother Mag climbed the stairs, and entered the room, that the fellow might satisfy himself of my safety, and further test the security of bars and chimney, I lay there paying them no heed, nor did they speak to me. But the woman brought me a pitcher of water, and bread and meat upon a platter, of which I was glad, for I was fainting with hunger; she set my supper down upon the floor, and they left me, locking the door upon me.

I ate my supper, and surveyed my fortunes. Indeed, they were of the poorest. My one hope was that Mr. Bradbury was no more than stunned by his fall; and would take prompt steps to find and rescue me. Else, I must be held a prisoner in the Stone House, till the seaman Blunt made port. I was then to be put aboard his ship and taken overseas. My uncle’s assumption was—unless he purposed more particularly to instruct Blunt regarding the disposal of me—that I could not possibly return during his father’s lifetime; though by entail I might be master of Rogues’ Haven, I took it that the gentleman by then would be in complete enjoyment of his father’s private fortunes, and would set me at defiance, if ever I returned; but I believed that Charles Craike would so plan it that I should never return. Lying on the miserable bed, hearing the winds blow drearily about the house, I writhed at the thought that the man who had done my parents bitter hurt should have me in his toils. Was there hope from Roger Galt, gentleman of the road, hating Charles Craike? Though Galt might fret under the yoke, Craike was surely his master.

Awhile I heard the folk of the house stirring below me; once I heard the stairs creak, and believed that Martin or the woman crept up to my door. Indeed, I fancied that I caught the sound of breathing by the door; I lay still, wondering whether they would come upon me secretly in the dark, and make an end of me. But it seemed that the man or the woman came only to be assured that I was not endeavouring to break gaol; as satisfied, the watcher crept presently down the stairs.

But would they yet come upon me in the dark? At the thought I rose and set the stool, with pitcher and platter, against the door; the crash, if the door were opened, would surely rouse me. I could not lie awake all night; I could not for the weariness clouding my brain. I fell at last asleep; yet, such was the influence of my fears upon me that I woke repeatedly, believing that my enemies were in the room. At first I woke only to see moonlight leap white and spectral through the window, as the sack flapped in the wind; then to lie quaking in the darkness, hearing the gale, which was violent the night through; always when I woke I heard it hammering on the house; I heard the rats scurry, and bounce, and squeak beside my bed.

No one came in the night. I was awake by daybreak, and rose to stare out on drear grey fog; the gale had abated. All about the house the dank fog lay in the hollow; I could not see as far as the stone wall from my window. Looking about the mouldering room, I set my thought upon the trap-door through the ceiling; it was clouded with dust-weighted cobwebs, and clearly had not been opened for many years. I believed that I could raise it, and reach the roof; had there been more furniture within the room, I might have climbed to it; the bedstead would not reach half-way, and by its rottenness would crash under my weight.

But the inmates of the Stone House were now astir. I heard the working and splash of a pump, the sound of an axe, the clatter of heavy boots on the cobbles. I heard muttering and movement in the room below me. Hungry and impatient, and less afraid now that the day was come, I waited until, at last, Mother Mag and a young man climbed the stairs and entered the room. The fellow seemed of gipsy blood,—black, towsled hair poking about his ears, his eyes dark and furtive, his skin copper-red,—as ill-looking a rogue as Martin. He wore leather breeches, leggings, and hobnails, a fustian jacket over a ragged shirt; he had silver rings in his ears. He was clearly of a lithe strength; he carried a blackthorn, and he eyed me with a surly and vengeful look, as if he would use his cudgel on me for any pretext I might afford him.

Mother Mag, poking her skinny fingers at me, croaked, “You can come downstairs, young master. You can wash you at the pump, if you will wash. When you’ve fed, you’ll be free to walk the court, if you will. But don’t try to run away! Don’t try,”—and laughed shrilly, and pointed at the young man.

He grinned at me, flourished his blackthorn suggestively, and gripped my wrist as if to demonstrate his strength; his fingers clasped on my flesh like a steel trap. But he said not a word, as, nodding, I followed the woman down the stairs; he came after, pressing my heels.