Part 14

“Say, mate, where are you bound for?” he asked, in a rough but good-humoured fashion.

“Farmer Purcell’s, at the Garth Farm,” said the driver.

“Sorry to stop you,” cried the other, standing aside; “I thought as I would hail you as you passed, for if so be as you had been going my way I should have made bold to ask you for a passage.”

His excuse was an absurd one, since it was evident that our little trap was as full as it could be, but my driver did not seem disposed to argue. He drove on without a word, and, looking back, I could see the stranger sitting by the roadside and cramming tobacco into his pipe.

“A sailor,” said I.

“Yes, maister. We’re not more than a few miles from Morecambe Bay,” the driver remarked.

“You seemed frightened of him,” I observed.

“Did I?” said he, drily; and then, after a long pause, “Maybe I was.” As to his reasons for fear, I could get nothing from him, and though I asked him many questions he was so stupid, or else so clever, that I could learn nothing from his replies. I observed, however, that from time to time he swept the moors with a troubled eye, but their huge brown expanse was unbroken by any moving figure. At last in a sort of cleft in the hills in front of us I saw a long, low-lying farm building, the centre of all those scattered flocks.

“Garth Farm,” said my driver. “There is Farmer Purcell himself,” he added, as a man strolled out of the porch and stood waiting for our arrival. He advanced as I descended from the trap, a hard, weather-worn fellow with light blue eyes, and hair and beard like sun-bleached grass. In his expression I read the same surly ill-will which I had already observed in my driver. Their malevolence could not be directed towards a complete stranger like myself, and so I began to suspect that my uncle was no more popular on the north-country fells than he had been in Stepney Highway.

“You’re to stay here until nightfall. That’s Mr. Stephen Maple’s wish,” said he, curtly. “You can have some tea and bacon if you like. It’s the best we can give you.”

I was very hungry, and accepted the hospitality in spite of the churlish tone in which it was offered. The farmer’s wife and his two daughters came into the sitting-room during the meal, and I was aware of a certain curiosity with which they regarded me. It may have been that a young man was a rarity in this wilderness, or it may be that my attempts at conversation won their goodwill, but they all three showed a kindliness in their manner. It was getting dark, so I remarked that it was time for me to be pushing on to Greta House.

“You’ve made up your mind to go, then?” said the older woman.

“Certainly. I have come all the way from London.”

“There’s no one hindering you from going back there.”

“But I have come to see Mr. Maple, my uncle.”

“Oh, well, no one can stop you if you want to go on,” said the woman, and became silent as her husband entered the room.

With every fresh incident I felt that I was moving in an atmosphere of mystery and peril, and yet it was all so intangible and so vague that I could not guess where my danger lay. I should have asked the farmer’s wife point-blank, but her surly husband seemed to divine the sympathy which she felt for me, and never again left us together. “It’s time you were going, mister,” said he at last, as his wife lit the lamp upon the table.

“Is the trap ready?”

“You’ll need no trap. You’ll walk,” said he.

“How shall I know the way?”

“William will go with you.”

William was the youth who had driven me up from the station. He was waiting at the door, and he shouldered my gun-case and bag. I stayed behind to thank the farmer for his hospitality, but he would have none of it. “I ask no thanks from Mr. Stephen Maple nor any friend of his,” said he, bluntly. “I am paid for what I do. If I was not paid I would not do it. Go your way, young man, and say no more.” He turned rudely on his heel and re-entered his house, slamming the door behind him.

It was quite dark outside, with heavy black clouds drifting slowly across the sky. Once clear of the farm inclosure and out on the moor I should have been hopelessly lost if it had not been for my guide, who walked in front of me along narrow sheep-tracks which were quite invisible to me. Every now and then, without seeing anything, we heard the clumsy scuffling of the creatures in the darkness. At first my guide walked swiftly and carelessly, but gradually his pace slowed down, until at last he was going very slowly and stealthily, like one who walks light-footed amid imminent menace. This vague, inexplicable sense of danger in the midst of the loneliness of that vast moor was more daunting than any evident peril could be, and I had begun to press him as to what it was that he feared, when suddenly he stopped and dragged me down among some gorse bushes which lined the path. His tug at my coat was so strenuous and imperative that I realized that the danger was a pressing one, and in an instant I was squatting down beside him as still as the bushes which shadowed us. It was so dark there that I could not even see the lad beside me.

It was a warm night, and a hot wind puffed in our faces. Suddenly in this wind there came something homely and familiar—the smell of burning tobacco. And then a face, illuminated by the glowing bowl of a pipe, came floating towards us. The man was all in shadow, but just that one dim halo of light with the face which filled it, brighter below and shading away into darkness above, stood out against the universal blackness. A thin, hungry face, thickly freckled with yellow over the cheek bones, blue, watery eyes, an ill-nourished, light-coloured moustache, a peaked yachting cap—that was all that I saw. He passed us, looking vacantly in front of him, and we heard the steps dying away along the path.

“Who was it?” I asked, as we rose to our feet.

“I don’t know.”

The fellow’s continual profession of ignorance made me angry.

“Why should you hide yourself, then?” I asked, sharply.

“Because Maister Maple told me. He said that I were to meet no one. If I met any one I should get no pay.”

“You met that sailor on the road?”

“Yes, and I think he was one of them.”

“One of whom?”

“One of the folk that have come on the fells. They are watchin’ Greta House, and Maister Maple is afeard of them. That’s why he wanted us to keep clear of them, and that’s why I’ve been a-trying to dodge ’em.”

Here was something definite at last. Some body of men were threatening my uncle. The sailor was one of them. The man with the peaked cap—probably a sailor also—was another. I bethought me of Stepney Highway and of the murderous assault made upon my uncle there. Things were fitting themselves into a connected shape in my mind when a light twinkled over the fell, and my guide informed me that it was Greta. The place lay in a dip among the moors, so that one was very near it before one saw it. A short walk brought us up to the door.

I could see little of the building save that the lamp which shone through a small latticed window showed me dimly that it was both long and lofty. The low door under an overhanging lintel was loosely fitted, and light was bursting out on each side of it. The inmates of this lonely house appeared to be keenly on their guard, for they had heard our footsteps, and we were challenged before we reached the door.

“Who is there?” cried a deep-booming voice, and urgently, “Who is it, I say?”

“It’s me, Maister Maple. I have brought the gentleman.”

There was a sharp click, and a small wooden shutter flew open in the door. The gleam of a lantern shone upon us for a few seconds. Then the shutter closed again; with a great rasping of locks and clattering of bars, the door was opened, and I saw my uncle standing framed in that vivid yellow square cut out of the darkness.

He was a small, thick man, with a great rounded, bald head and one thin border of gingery curls. It was a fine head, the head of a thinker, but his large white face was heavy and commonplace, with a broad, loose-lipped mouth and two hanging dewlaps on either side of it. His eyes were small and restless, and his light-coloured lashes were continually moving. My mother had said once that they reminded her of the legs of a woodlouse, and I saw at the first glance what she meant. I heard also that in Stepney he had learned the language of his customers, and I blushed for our kinship as I listened to his villainous accent. “So, nephew,” said he, holding out his hand. “Come in, come in, man, quick, and don’t leave the door open. Your mother said you were grown a big lad, and, my word, she ’as a right to say so. ’Ere’s a ’alf-crown for you, William, and you can go back again. Put the things down. ’Ere, Enoch, take Mr. John’s things, and see that ’is supper is on the table.”

As my uncle, after fastening the door, turned to show me into the sitting-room, I became aware of his most striking peculiarity. The injuries which he had received some years ago had, as I have already remarked, left one leg several inches shorter than the other. To atone for this he wore one of those enormous wooden soles to his boots which are prescribed by surgeons in such cases. He walked without a limp, but his tread on the stone flooring made a curious clack-click, clack-click, as the wood and the leather alternated. Whenever he moved it was to the rhythm of this singular castanet.

The great kitchen, with its huge fireplace and carved settle corners, showed that this dwelling was an old-time farmhouse. On one side of the room a line of boxes stood all corded and packed. The furniture was scant and plain, but on a trestle-table in the centre some supper, cold meat, bread, and a jug of beer was laid for me. An elderly manservant, as manifest a Cockney as his master, waited upon me, while my uncle, sitting in a corner, asked me many questions as to my mother and myself. When my meal was finished he ordered his man Enoch to unpack my gun. I observed that two other guns, old rusted weapons, were leaning against the wall beside the window.

“It’s the window I’m afraid of,” said my uncle, in the deep, reverberant voice which contrasted oddly with his plump little figure. “The door’s safe against anything short of dynamite, but the window’s a terror. Hi! hi!” he yelled, “don’t walk across the light! You can duck when you pass the lattice.”

“For fear of being seen?” I asked.

“For fear of bein’ shot, my lad. That’s the trouble. Now, come an’ sit beside me on the trestle ’ere, and I’ll tell you all about it, for I can see that you are the right sort and can be trusted.”

His flattery was clumsy and halting, and it was evident that he was very eager to conciliate me. I sat down beside him, and he drew a folded paper from his pocket. It was a _Western Morning News_, and the date was ten days before. The passage over which he pressed a long, black nail was concerned with the release from Dartmoor of a convict named Elias, whose term of sentence had been remitted on account of his defence of a warder who had been attacked in the quarries. The whole account was only a few lines long.

“Who is he, then?” I asked.

My uncle cocked his distorted foot into the air. “That’s ’is mark!” said he. “’E was doin’ time for that. Now ’e’s out an’ after me again.”

“But why should he be after you?”

“Because ’e wants to kill me. Because ’e’ll never rest, the worrying devil, until ’e ’as ’ad ’is revenge on me. It’s this way, nephew! I’ve no secrets from you. ’e thinks I’ve wronged ’im. For argument’s sake we’ll suppose I ’ave wronged ’im. And now ’im and ’is friends are after me.”

“Who are his friends?”

My uncle’s boom sank suddenly to a frightened whisper. “Sailors!” said he. “I knew they would come when I saw that ’ere paper, and two days ago I looked through that window and three of them was standin’ lookin’ at the ’ouse. It was after that that I wrote to your mother. They’ve marked me down, and they’re waitin’ for ’im.”

“But why not send for the police?”

My uncle’s eyes avoided mine.

“Police are no use,” said he. “It’s you that can help me.”

“What can I do?”

“I’ll tell you. I’m going to move. That’s what all these boxes are for. Everything will soon be packed and ready. I ’ave friends at Leeds, and I shall be safer there. Not safe, mind you, but safer. I start to-morrow evening, and if you will stand by me until then I will make it worth your while. There’s only Enoch and me to do everything, but we shall ’ave it all ready, I promise you, by to-morrow evening. The cart will be round then, and you and me and Enoch and the boy William can guard the things as far as Congleton station. Did you see anything of them on the fells?”

“Yes,” said I; “a sailor stopped us on the way.”

“Ah, I knew they were watching us. That was why I asked you to get out at the wrong station and to drive to Purcell’s instead of comin’ ’ere. We are blockaded—that’s the word.”

“And there was another,” said I, “a man with a pipe.”

“What was ’e like?”

“Thin face, freckles, a peaked——”

My uncle gave a hoarse scream.

“That’s ’im! that’s ’im! ’e’s come! God be merciful to me, a sinner!” He went click-clacking about the room with his great foot like one distracted. There was something piteous and baby-like in that big bald head, and for the first time I felt a gush of pity for him.

“Come, uncle,” said I, “you are living in a civilized land. There is a law that will bring these gentry to order. Let me drive over to the county police-station to-morrow morning and I’ll soon set things right.”

But he shook his head at me.

“E’s cunning and ’e’s cruel,” said he. “I can’t draw a breath without thinking of him, cos ’e buckled up three of my ribs. ’e’ll kill me this time, sure. There’s only one chance. We must leave what we ’ave not packed, and we must be off first thing to-morrow mornin’. Great God, what’s that!”

A tremendous knock upon the door had reverberated through the house and then another and another. An iron fist seemed to be beating upon it. My uncle collapsed into his chair. I seized a gun and ran to the door.

“Who’s there?” I shouted.

There was no answer.

I opened the shutter and looked out.

No one was there.

And then suddenly I saw that a long slip of paper was protruding through the slit of the door. I held it to the light. In rude but vigorous handwriting the message ran:—

“Put them out on the doorstep and save your skin.”

“What do they want?” I asked, as I read him the message.

“What they’ll never ’ave! No, by the Lord, never!” he cried, with a fine burst of spirit. “’Ere, Enoch! Enoch!”

The old fellow came running to the call.

“Enoch, I’ve been a good master to you all my life, and it’s your turn now. Will you take a risk for me?”

I thought better of my uncle when I saw how readily the man consented. Whomever else he had wronged, this one at least seemed to love him.

“Put your cloak on and your ‘at, Enoch, and out with you by the back door. You know the way across the moor to the Purcells’. Tell them that I must ’ave the cart first thing in the mornin’, and that Purcell must come with the shepherd as well. We must get clear of this or we are done. First thing in the mornin’, Enoch, and ten pound for the job. Keep the black cloak on and move slow, and they will never see you. We’ll keep the ’ouse till you come back.”

It was a job for a brave man to venture out into the vague and invisible dangers of the fell, but the old servant took it as the most ordinary of messages. Picking his long, black cloak and his soft hat from the hook behind the door, he was ready on the instant. We extinguished the small lamp in the back passage, softly unbarred the back door, slipped him out, and barred it up again. Looking through the small hall window, I saw his black garments merge instantly into the night.

“It is but a few hours before the light comes, nephew,” said my uncle, after he had tried all the bolts and bars. “You shall never regret this night’s work. If we come through safely it will be the making of you. Stand by me till mornin’, and I stand by you while there’s breath in my body. The cart will be ’ere by five. What isn’t ready we can afford to leave be’ind. We’ve only to load up and make for the early train at Congleton.”

“Will they let us pass?”

“In broad daylight they dare not stop us. There will be six of us, if they all come, and three guns. We can fight our way through. Where can they get guns, common, wandering seamen? A pistol or two at the most. If we can keep them out for a few hours we are safe. Enoch must be ’alfway to Purcell’s by now.”

“But what do these sailors want?” I repeated. “You say yourself that you wronged them.”

A look of mulish obstinacy came over his large, white face.

“Don’t ask questions, nephew, and just do what I ask you,” said he. “Enoch won’t come back. ’e’ll just bide there and come with the cart. ’Ark, what is that?”

A distant cry rang from out of the darkness, and then another one, short and sharp like the wail of the curlew.

“It’s Enoch!” said my uncle, gripping my arm. “They’re killin’ poor old Enoch.”

The cry came again, much nearer, and I heard the sound of hurrying steps and a shrill call for help.

“They are after ’im!” cried my uncle, rushing to the front door. He picked up the lantern and flashed it through the little shutter. Up the yellow funnel of light a man was running frantically, his head bowed and a black cloak fluttering behind him. The moor seemed to be alive with dim pursuers.

“The bolt! The bolt!” gasped my uncle. He pushed it back whilst I turned the key, and we swung the door open to admit the fugitive. He dashed in and turned at once with a long yell of triumph. “Come on, lads! Tumble up, all hands, tumble up! Smartly there, all of you!”

It was so quickly and neatly done that we were taken by storm before we knew that we were attacked. The passage was full of rushing sailors. I slipped out of the clutch of one and ran for my gun, but it was only to crash down on to the stone floor an instant later with two of them holding on to me. They were so deft and quick that my hands were lashed together even while I struggled, and I was dragged into the settle corner, unhurt but very sore in spirit at the cunning with which our defences had been forced and the ease with which we had been overcome. They had not even troubled to bind my uncle, but he had been pushed into his chair, and the guns had been taken away. He sat with a very white face, his homely figure and absurd row of curls looking curiously out of place among the wild figures who surrounded him.

There were six of them, all evidently sailors. One I recognized as the man with the earrings whom I had already met upon the road that evening. They were all fine, weather-bronzed bewhiskered fellows. In the midst of them, leaning against the table, was the freckled man who had passed me on the moor. The great black cloak which poor Enoch had taken out with him was still hanging from his shoulders. He was of a very different type from the others—crafty, cruel, dangerous, with sly, thoughtful eyes which gloated over my uncle. They suddenly turned themselves upon me and I never knew how one’s skin can creep at a man’s glance before.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Speak out, or we’ll find a way to make you.”

“I am Mr. Stephen Maple’s nephew, come to visit him.”

“You are, are you? Well, I wish you joy of your uncle and of your visit too. Quick’s the word, lads, for we must be aboard before morning. What shall we do with the old ’un?”

“Trice him up Yankee fashion and give him six dozen,” said one of the seamen.

“D’you hear, you cursed Cockney thief? We’ll beat the life out of you if you don’t give back what you’ve stolen. Where are they? I know you never parted with them.”

My uncle pursed up his lips and shook his head, with a face in which his fear and his obstinacy contended.

“Won’t tell, won’t you? We’ll see about that! Get him ready, Jim!”

One of the seamen seized my uncle, and pulled his coat and shirt over his shoulders. He sat lumped in his chair, his body all creased into white rolls which shivered with cold and with terror.

“Up with him to those hooks.”

There were rows of them along the walls where the smoked meat used to be hung. The seamen tied my uncle by the wrists to two of these. Then one of them undid his leather belt.

“The buckle end, Jim,” said the captain. “Give him the buckle.”

“You cowards,” I cried; “to beat an old man!”

“We’ll beat a young one next,” said he, with a malevolent glance at my corner. “Now, Jim, cut a wad out of him!”

“Give him one more chance!” cried one of the seamen.

“Aye, aye,” growled one or two others. “Give the swab a chance!”

“If you turn soft, you may give them up for ever,” said the captain. “One thing or the other! You must lash it out of him; or you may give up what you took such pains to win and what would make you gentlemen for life—every man of you. There’s nothing else for it. Which shall it be?”

“Let him have it,” they cried, savagely.

“Then stand clear!” The buckle of the man’s belt whined savagely as he whirled it over his shoulder.

But my uncle cried out before the blow fell.

“I can’t stand it!” he cried. “Let me down!”

“Where are they, then?”

“I’ll show you if you’ll let me down.”

They cast off the handkerchiefs and he pulled his coat over his fat, round shoulders. The seamen stood round him, the most intense curiosity and excitement upon their swarthy faces.

“No gammon!” cried the man with the freckles. “We’ll kill you joint by joint if you try to fool us. Now then! Where are they?”

“In my bedroom.”

“Where is that?”

“The room above.”

“Whereabouts?”

“In the corner of the oak ark by the bed.”

The seamen all rushed to the stair, but the captain called them back.

“We don’t leave this cunning old fox behind us. Ha, your face drops at that, does it? By the Lord, I believe you are trying to slip your anchor. Here, lads, make him fast and take him along!”

With a confused trampling of feet they rushed up the stairs, dragging my uncle in the midst of them. For an instant I was alone. My hands were tied but not my feet. If I could find my way across the moor I might rouse the police and intercept these rascals before they could reach the sea. For a moment I hesitated as to whether I should leave my uncle alone in such a plight. But I should be of more service to him—or, at the worst, to his property—if I went than if I stayed. I rushed to the hall door, and as I reached it I heard a yell above my head, a shattering, splintering noise, and then amid a chorus of shouts a huge weight fell with a horrible thud at my very feet. Never while I live will that squelching thud pass out of my ears. And there, just in front of me, in the lane of light cast by the open door, lay my unhappy uncle, his bald head twisted on to one shoulder, like the wrung neck of a chicken. It needed but a glance to see that his spine was broken and that he was dead.

The gang of seamen had rushed downstairs so quickly that they were clustered at the door and crowding all round me almost as soon as I had realized what had occurred.

“It’s no doing of ours, mate,” said one of them to me. “He hove himself through the window, and that’s the truth. Don’t you put it down to us.”

“He thought he could get to windward of us if once he was out in the dark, you see,” said another. “But he came head foremost and broke his bloomin’ neck.”

“And a blessed good job too!” cried the chief, with a savage oath. “I’d have done it for him if he hadn’t took the lead. Don’t make any mistake, my lads, this is murder, and we’re all in it, together. There’s only one way out of it, and that is to hang together, unless, as the saying goes, you mean to hang apart. There’s only one witness——”

He looked at me with his malicious little eyes, and I saw that he had something that gleamed—either a knife or a revolver—in the breast of his pea-jacket. Two of the men slipped between us.