Jim Davis / Masefield, John, 1878-1967

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jim Davis, by John Masefield
#4 in our series by John Masefield

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: Jim Davis

Author: John Masefield

Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7369]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on April 22, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JIM DAVIS ***




Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Eric Casteleijn, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










Jim Davis

_By_

John Masefield

For Judith






CHAPTER I

MY FIRST JOURNEY


I was born in the year 1800, in the town of Newnham-on-Severn, in
Gloucestershire. I am sure of the year, because my father always told
me that I was born at the end of the century, in the year that they
began to build the great house. The house has been finished now these
many years. The red-brick wall, which shuts its garden from the road
(and the Severn), is all covered with valerian and creeping
plants. One of my earliest memories is of the masons at work, shaping
the two great bows. I remember how my nurse used to stop to watch
them, at the corner of the road, on the green strip by the river-bank,
where the gipsies camped on the way to Gloucester horse-fair. One of
the masons was her sweetheart (Tom Farrell his name was), but he got
into bad ways, I remember, and was hanged or transported, though that
was years afterwards, when I had left that countryside.

My father and mother died when I was still a boy--my mother on the day
of Trafalgar battle, in 1805, my father four years later. It was very
sad at home after mother died; my father shut himself up in his study,
never seeing anybody. When my father died, my uncle came to Newnham
from his home in Devonshire; my old home was sold then, and I was
taken away. I remember the day so very clearly. It was one sunny
morning in early April. My uncle and I caught the coach at the top of
the hill, at the door of the old inn opposite the church. The coachman
had a hot drink handed up to him, and the ostlers hitched up the new
team. Then the guard (he had a red coat, like a soldier) blew his
horn, and the coach started off down the hill, going so very fast that
I was afraid, for I had never ridden on a coach before, though I had
seen them every day. The last that I saw of Newnham was the great
house at the corner. It was finished by that time, of course, and as
we drove past I saw the beautiful woman who lived there walking up and
down the lawn with her husband, Captain Rylands, a very tall, handsome
man, who used to give me apples. I was always afraid to eat the
apples, because my nurse said that the Captain had killed a man. That
was in the wars in Spain, fighting against the French.

I remember a great deal about my first coach-ride. We slept that night
at Bristol in one of the famous coaching inns, where, as a great
treat, I had bacon and eggs for supper, instead of bread-and-milk. In
the morning, my uncle took me with him to the docks, where he had some
business to do. That was the first time I ever really saw big ships,
and that was the first time I spoke with the sailors. There was a
capstan on one of the wharves, and men were at work, heaving round it,
hoisting casks out of a West Indiaman. One of the men said, "Come on,
young master; give us a hand on the bar here." So I put my hands on to
the bar and pushed my best, walking beside him till my uncle called me
away. There were many ships there at the time, all a West Indian
convoy, and it was fine to see their great figureheads, and the brass
cannon at the ports, and to hear the men singing out aloft as they
shifted spars and bent and unbent sails. They were all very lofty
ships, built for speed; all were beautifully kept, like men-of-war,
and all of them had their house-flags and red ensigns flying, so that
in the sun they looked splendid. I shall never forget them.

After that, we went back to the inn, and climbed into another coach,
and drove for a long, long time, often very slowly, till we reached a
place near Newton Abbot, where there was a kind woman who put me to
bed (I was too tired to notice more). Then, the next morning, I
remember a strange man who was very cross at breakfast, so that the
kind woman cried till my uncle sent me out of the room. It is funny
how these things came back to me; it might have been only yesterday.

Late that afternoon we reached the south coast of Devon, so that we
had the sea close beside us until the sun set. I heard the sea, as I
thought, when we reached my uncle's house, at the end of the twilight;
but they told me that it was a trout-stream, brawling over its
boulders, and that the sea was a full mile away. My aunt helped to put
me to bed, but I was too much excited to sleep well. I lay awake for a
long, long time, listening to the noise of the brook, and to the wind
among the trees outside, and to the cuckoo clock on the landing
calling out the hours and half-hours. When I fell asleep I seemed to
hear the sea and the crying out of the sailors. Voices seemed to be
talking close beside me in the room; I seemed to hear all sorts of
things, strange things, which afterwards really happened. There was a
night-light burning on the wash-handstand. Whenever I woke up in the
night the light would show me the shadow of the water jug upon the
ceiling. It looked like an old, old man, with a humped back, walking
the road, bowed over his cudgel.

I am not going to say very much about my life during the next few
years. My aunt and uncle had no children of their own, and no great
fondness for the children of others. Sometimes I was very lonely
there; but after my tenth birthday I was at school most of my time, at
Newton Abbot. I used to spend my Easter holidays (never more than a
week) with the kind woman who put me to bed that night of my journey.
My summer and winter holidays I spent with my uncle and aunt in their
little house above the trout-stream.

The trout-stream rose about three miles from my uncle's house, in a
boggy wood full of springs. It was a very rapid brook, nowhere more
than three or four feet deep, and never more than twenty feet across,
even near its mouth. Below my uncle's house it was full of little
falls, with great mossy boulders which checked its flow, and pools
where the bubbles spun. Further down, its course was gentler, for the
last mile to the sea was a flat valley, with combes on each side
covered with gorse and bramble. The sea had once come right up that
valley to just below my uncle's house; but that was many years
before--long before anybody could remember. Just after I went to live
there, one of the farmers dug a drain, or "rhine," in the valley, to
clear a boggy patch. He dug up the wreck of a large fishing-boat, with
her anchor and a few rusty hoops lying beside her under the ooze about
a foot below the surface. She must have sailed right up from the sea
hundreds of years ago, before the brook's mouth got blocked with
shingle (as I suppose it was) during some summer gale when the stream
was nearly dry. Often, when I was a boy, I used to imagine the ships
coming up from the sea, along that valley, firing their cannon. In the
winter, when the snow melted, the valley would be flooded, till it
looked just like a sea, and then I would imagine sea-fights there,
with pirates in red caps boarding Spanish treasure galleons.

The seacoast is mostly very bold in that part of Devon. Even where
there are no cliffs, the land rises steeply from the sea, in grassy
hills, with boulders and broken rock, instead of a beach, below
them. There are small sandy beaches wherever the brooks run into the
sea. Everywhere else the shore is "steep-to"--so much so that in many
places it is very difficult to reach the sea. I mention this because,
later on, that steep coast gave me some queer adventures.



CHAPTER II

NIGHT-RIDERS


When I was twelve years old, something very terrible happened, with
good results for myself. The woman near Newton Abbot (I have spoken of
her several times) was a Mrs Cottier, the wife of a schoolmaster. Her
husband used to drink very hard, and in this particular year he was
turned out of the school, and lost his living. His wife left him then
(or rather he left her; for a long time no one knew what became of
him) and came to live with us, bringing with her little Hugh Cottier,
her son, a boy of about my own age. After that, life in my uncle's
house was a different thing to me. Mrs Cottier was very beautiful and
kind; she was like my mother, strangely like, always sweet and gentle,
always helpful and wise. I think she was the dearest woman who ever
lived. I was always proud when she asked me to do something for
her. Once, I remember (in the winter after Mrs Cottier came to us),
she drove to Salcombe to do her Christmas shopping. It came on to snow
during the afternoon; and at night-time the storm grew worse. We put
back supper, expecting her to come in at any minute, but she did not
come. The hours went by, and still she did not come, and still the
storm worsened. The wind was not very high, but the air was full of a
fine, powdery, drifting snow; the night seemed full of snow; snow fell
down the chimney and drifted in under the door. My uncle was too lame
with sciatica to leave his bed; and my aunt, always a woman of poor
spirit, was afraid of the night. At eight o'clock I could stand it no
longer, so I said that I would saddle the pony, and ride out along the
Salcombe road to find her. Hugh was for going in my place; but Hugh
was not so strongly built as I, and I felt that Hugh would faint after
an hour in the cold, I put on double clothes, with an oilskin jacket
over all, and then lit the lantern, and beat out of the house to the
stable. I put one or two extra candles in my pockets, with a flint and
steel, and some bread and meat Something prompted me to take a hank of
cord, and a heavy old boat-rug; and with all these things upon him old
Greylegs, the pony, was heavy-laden.

When we got into the road together, I could not see a yard in front of
me. There was nothing but darkness and drifting snow and the gleam of
the drifts where the light of the lantern fell. There was no question
of losing the road; for the road was a Devon lane, narrow and deep,
built by the ancient Britons, so everybody says, to give them
protection as they went down to the brooks for water. If it had been
an open road, I could never have found my way for fifty yards. I was
strongly built for a boy; even at sea I never suffered much from the
cold, and this night was not intensely cold--snowy weather seldom
is. What made the ride so exhausting was the beating of the snow into
my eyes and mouth. It fell upon me in a continual dry feathery
pelting, till I was confused and tired out with the effort of trying
to see ahead. For a little while, I had the roar of the trout-stream
in my ears to comfort me; but when I topped the next combe that died
away; and there I was in the night, beating on against the storm, with
the strange moaning sound of the wind from Dartmoor, and the snow
rustling to keep me company. I was not exactly afraid, for the snow in
my face bothered me too much, but often the night would seem full of
people--laughing, horrible people--and often I would think that I saw
Mrs Cottier lying half-buried in a drift.

I rode three miles or more without seeing anybody. Then, just before I
reached the moor cross-roads, in a lull when the snow was not so bad,
I heard a horse whinny, and old Greylegs baulked. Then I heard voices
and a noise as of people riding; and before I could start old Greylegs
I saw a party of horsemen crossing my road by the road from the sea to
Dartmoor. They were riding at a quick trot, and though there were many
horses (some thirty or forty), I could see, even in that light, that
most of them were led. There were not more than a dozen men; and only
one of all that dozen carried a lantern. Something told me that they
were out for no good, and the same instinct made me cover my lantern
with my coat, so that they passed me without seeing me. At first I
thought that they were the fairy troop, and that gave me an awful
fear; but a moment later, in the wind, I felt a whiff of tobacco, and
of a strong, warm, sweet smell of spirits, and I knew then that they
were the night-riders or smugglers. After they had gone, I forced old
Greylegs forward, and trotted on, against the snow, for another
half-mile, with my heart going thump upon my ribs. I had an awful fear
that they would turn, and catch me; and I knew that the night-riders
wanted no witnesses of their adventures in the dark.

About four miles from home, I came to an open part of the road, where
the snow came down in its full fury, there being no hedge to give a
little shelter. It was so thick that I could not get Greylegs to go
on. He stood stock-still, and cowered, though I beat him with my hank
of cord, and kicked his ribs. It was cruel of me; but I thought of Mrs
Cottier, with her beautiful kind face, lying in a drift of snow, and
the thought was dreadful to me. I got down from the saddle, and put my
lantern on the ground, and tried to drag him forward, but it was
useless. He would not have stirred if I had lighted a fire under
him. When he had the instinct to stand still, nothing would make him
budge a yard. A very fierce gust came upon me then. The snow seemed to
whirl upon me from all sides, so that I got giddy and sick. And then,
just at the moment, there were horses and voices all about me, coming
from Salcombe way. Somebody called out, "Hullo," and somebody called
out "Look out, behind"; and then a lot of horses pulled up suddenly,
and some men spoke, and a led horse shied at my lantern. I had no time
to think or to run, I felt myself backing into old Greylegs in sheer
fright; and then some one thrust a lantern into my face, and asked me
who I was. By the light of the lantern I saw that he wore a woman's
skirt over his trousers; and his face was covered by one of those
great straw bee-skeps, pierced with holes for his eyes and mouth. He
was one of the most terrible things I have ever seen.

"Why, it's a boy," said the terrible man. "What are you doing here,
boy?"

Another man, who seemed to be a leader, called out from his horse,
"Who are you?" but I was too scared to answer; my teeth were rattling
in my head.

"It's a trick," said another voice. "We had best go for the moor."

"Shut up," said the leader, sharply. "The boy's scared."

He got down from his horse, and peered at me by the lantern light.
He, too, wore a bee-skep; in fact, they all did, for there is no
better disguise in the world, while nothing makes a man look more
horrible. I was not quite so terrified by this time, because he had
spoken kindly.

"Who are you?" he asked. "We shan't eat you. What are you doing here?"

As well as I could I told him. The leader strode off a few paces, and
spoke with one or two other men; but I could only catch the words,
"Yes; yes, Captain," spoken in a low, quick voice, which seemed
somehow familiar. Then he came back to me, and took me by the throat,
and swayed me to and fro, very gently, but in a way which made me feel
that I was going to be killed.

"Tell me," he said, "I shall know whether you're lying, so tell the
truth, now. What have you seen to-night?"

I told him that I had seen a troop of horsemen going through the snow
towards the moor.

"That settles it, Captain," said another voice. "You can't trust a
young chap like that."

"Shut up," said the man they called Captain; "I'm master, not you."

He strode off again, to speak to another man. I heard some one laugh a
little, and then the Captain came back to me. He took me by the throat
as before, and again shook me. "You listen to me," he said,
grimly. "If you breathe so much as one word of what you've seen
to-night--well--I shall know. D'ye hear? I shall know. And when I
know--well--your little neck'll go. There's poetry. That will help you
remember--

  'When I know,
  Your neck'll go
  Like so'"

He gave a sharp little twist of his hand upon my Adam's apple.

I was terrified. I don't know what I said; my tongue seemed to wither
on its stalk. The Captain walked to his horse, and remounted. "Come
along, boys," he said. The line of horses started off again. A hand
fell upon my shoulder, and a voice spoke kindly to me. "See here," it
said, "you go on another half-mile, you'll find a barn by the side of
the road. There's no door on the barn, and you'll see a fire
inside. You'll find your lady there. She is safe all right. You keep
your tongue shut now."

The speaker climbed into his saddle, and trotted off into the
night. "Half a mile. Straight ahead!" he called; then the dull
trampling died away, and I was left alone again with Greylegs. Some
minutes passed before I could mount; for I was stiff with fright. I
was too frightened after that to mind the snow; I was almost too
frightened to ride. Luckily for me the coming of the night-riders had
startled old Greylegs also; he trotted on gallantly, though sometimes
he floundered into a drift, and had to be helped out.

Before I came to the barn the snow stopped falling, except for a few
aimless flakes, which drifted from all sides in the air. It was very
dark still; the sky was like ink; but there was a feel of freshness (I
cannot describe it) which told me that the wind had changed. Presently
I saw the barn ahead of me, to the right of the road, spreading a red
glow of fire across the way. Old Greylegs seemed glad of the sight; he
gave a whinny and snorted. As well as he could he broke into a canter,
and carried me up to the door in style.

"Are you safe, Mrs Cottier?" I called out.

"What! Jim!" she answered. "How good of you to come for me!"

The barn, unlike most barns in that country, was of only one story.
It may have been a farmhouse in the long ago, for it had larger
windows than most barns. These had been stuffed with sacks and straw,
to keep out the weather. The door had been torn from its place by some
one in need of firewood; the roof was fairly sound; the floor was of
trampled earth. Well away from the doorway, in the centre of the barn,
some one had lighted a fire, using (as fuel) one of the faggots
stacked against the wall. The smoke had long since blown out of
doors. The air in the barn was clear and fresh. The fire had died down
to a ruddy heap of embers, which glowed and grew grey again, as the
draughts fanned them from the doorway. By the light of the fire I
could see Mrs Cottier, sitting on the floor, with her back against the
wheel of her trap, which had been dragged inside to be out of the
snow. I hitched old Greylegs to one of the iron bolts, which had once
held a door-hinge, and ran to her to make sure that she was unhurt.

"How in the world did you get here?" I asked. "Are you sure you're not
hurt?"

She laughed a little at this, and I got out my stores, and we made our
supper by the fire. "Where's old Nigger?" I asked her; for I was
puzzled by seeing no horse.

"Oh, Jim," she said, "I've had such adventures."

When she had eaten a little she told me her story.

"I was coming home from Salcombe," she said, "and I was driving fast,
so as to get home before the snow lay deep. Just outside South pool,
Nigger cast a shoe, and I was kept waiting at the forge for nearly
half an hour. After that, the snow was so bad that I could not get
along. It grew dark when I was only a mile or two from the
blacksmith's, and I began to fear that I should never get
home. However, as I drove through Stokenham, the weather seemed to
clear a little, so I hurried Nigger all I could, hoping to get home in
the lull. When I got to within a hundred yards from here, in the
little hollow, where the stunted ashes are, I found myself among a
troop of horsemen, who stopped me, and asked me a lot of
questions. They were all disguised, and they had lanterns among them,
and I could see that the horses carried tubs; I suppose full of
smuggled lace and brandy and tobacco, ready to be carried inland. Jim,
dear, I was horribly frightened; for while they were speaking together
I thought I heard the voice of--of some one I know--or used to know."

She stopped for a moment overcome, and I knew at once that she was
speaking of her husband, the schoolmaster that was. "And then," she
continued, "some of them told me to get down out of the trap. And then
another of them seized Nigger's head, and walked the trap as far as
the barn here. Then they unharnessed Nigger, and led him away, saying
they were short of horses, but would send him back in a day or two.
They seemed to know all about me, where I lived, and everything. One
of them took a faggot from a wall here, and laid the big fire, with
straw instead of paper. While he lit it he kept his great bee-skep on
his head (they all wore them), but I noticed he had three blue rings
tattooed on his left ring-finger. Now, somewhere I have seen a man,
quite recently, with rings tattooed like that, only I can't remember
where. I wish I could think where. He was very civil and gentle. He
saw that the fire burnt up well, and left me all those sticks and
logs, as well as the flint and steel, in case it should go out before
the snow stopped. Oh, and he took the rugs out of the trap, and laid
them on the ground for me to sit on. Before he left, he said, very
civilly, "I am sure you don't want to get folks into trouble,
madam. Perhaps you won't mention this, in case they ask you." So I
said that I didn't want to get people into trouble; but that it was
hardly a manly act to leave a woman alone, in an open barn, miles from
anywhere, on a night like to-night. He seemed ashamed at this; for he
slunk off, saying something about 'only obeying orders,' and 'not
having much choice in the matter.' Then they all stood about outside,
in the snow, leaving me alone here. They must have stayed outside a
couple of hours. About a quarter of an hour before you came I heard
some one call out, 'There it is, boys!' and immediately they all
trotted off, at a smart pace. They must have seen or heard some
signal. Of course, up here on the top of the combe, one could see a
long way if the snow lulled for a moment."



CHAPTER III

THE MAN ON THE MOUND


It was very awesome sitting there by the firelight in the lonely barn,
hearing the strange moan of the snow-wind. When Mrs Cottier finished
her story we talked of all sorts of things; I think that we were both
a little afraid of being silent in such a place, so, as we ate, we
kept talking just as though we were by the fireside at home. I was
afraid that perhaps the revenue officers would catch us there and
force us to tell all we knew, and I was dreadfully frightened when I
remembered the captain in the bee-skep who had shaken my throat and
given me such a warning to be silent. When we had finished our supper,
I told Mrs Cottier that perhaps we could harness old Greylegs to the
trap, but this she thought would never do, as the drifts on the road
made it such bad going; at last I persuaded her to mount old Greylegs
and to ride astride like a boy, or like so many of the countrywomen in
our parts. When she had mounted I took the old pony by the head and
led him out, carrying the lantern in my hand.

When we got outside we found, to our great surprise, that the sky had
cleared--it was a night of stars now that the wind had changed. By the
"blink" of the snow our road was quite plain to us, and the sharp
touch of frost in the air (which we felt all the more after our
bonfire in the barn) had already made the snow crisp underfoot. It was
pleasant to be travelling like that so late at night with Mrs Cottier;
I felt like a knight who had just rescued a princess from a dragon; we
talked together as we had never talked before. Whenever we climbed a
bad combe she dismounted, and we walked together hand in hand like
dear friends. Once or twice in the quiet I thought I heard the noise
of the excisemen's horses, and then my heart thumped in my throat;
then, when I knew myself mistaken, I felt only the delight of being of
service to this dear woman who walked by me so merrily.

When we came to the foot of the combe, to the bridge over the
trout-stream, she stopped for a moment. "Jim," she said, drawing me to
her, "I shall never forget to-night, nor the little friend who rode
out to help me; I want you, after this, always to look on me as your
mother--I knew your mother a little, years ago. Well, dear, try to
think of me as you would of her, and be a brother to my Hugh, Jim: let
us all three be one family." She stooped down and kissed my cheek and
lips.

"I will, Mrs Cottier," I said; "I'll always be a brother to Hugh." I
was too deeply moved to say much more, for I had so long yearned for
some woman like my mother to whom I could go for sympathy and to whom
I could tell everything without the fear of being snubbed or laughed
at. I just said, "Thank you, Mims." I don't know why I called her
"Mims" then, but I did, and afterwards I never called her anything
else; that was my secret name for her. She kissed me again and stroked
my cheek with her hand, and we went on again together up the last
steep bit of road to the house. Always, after that, I never thought of
Mrs Cottier without feeling her lips upon my cheek and hearing the
stamp of old Greylegs as he pawed on the snow, eager for the stable
just round the corner.

It was very nice to get round the corner and to see the lights of the
house a little way in front of us; in a minute or two we were
there. Mrs Cottier had been dragged in to the fire to all sorts of
comforting drinks and exclamations, and old Greylegs was snug in his
stable having his coat rubbed down before going to sleep under his
rug. We were all glad to get to bed that night: Hugh and my aunt were
tired with anxiety, and Mrs Cottier and I had had enough adventure to
make us very thankful for rest.

Before we parted for the night she drew me to one side and told me
that she had not mentioned the night-riders to my uncle and aunt while
I was busy in the stable, and that it might be safer if I, too, kept
quiet about them. I do not know how she explained the absence of
Nigger, but I am sure they were all too thankful to have her safely
home again to bother much about the details of her drive.

Hugh and I always slept in soldier's cot-beds in a little room looking
out over the lane. During the night we heard voices, and footsteps
moving in the lane beneath us, and our dog (always kennelled at the
back of the house) barked a good deal. Hugh and I crept from our bed
and peered through the window, but it opened the wrong way; we could
only look down the lane, whereas the noise seemed to come from just
above us, near the stable door; unluckily, the frost had covered the
window with ice-flowers, so that we could not see through the
glass. We were, however, quite certain that there were people with
lights close to our stable door; we thought at first that we had
better call Mrs Cottier, and then it flashed through my mind that
these were the night-riders, come to return Nigger, so I told Hugh to
go back to bed and forget about it. I waited at the window for a few
moments, wondering if the men would pass the house; I felt a horrible
longing to see those huge and ghastly things in skirts and bee-skeps
striding across the snow, going home from their night's prowl like
skulking foxes; but whoever they were they took no risks. Some one
softly whistled a scrap of a tune ("Tom, Tom, the piper's son") as
though he were pleased at having finished a good piece of work, and
then I heard footsteps going over the gap in the hedge and the
crackling of twigs in the little wood on the other side of the lane. I
went back to bed and slept like a top until nearly breakfast time.

I went out to the stable as soon as I was dressed, to find Joe
Barnicoat, our man, busy at his morning's work; he had already swept
away the snow from the doors of the house and stable, so that I could
not see what footmarks had been made there since I went to fetch
Greylegs at eight the night before. Joe was in a great state of
excitement, for during the night the stable had been broken open. I
had left it locked up, as it always was locked, after I had made
Greylegs comfortable. When Joe came there at about half-past seven, he
had found the broken padlock lying in the snow and the door-staple
secured by a wooden peg cut from an ash in the hedge. As I expected,
Nigger was in his stall, but the poor horse was dead lame from a cut
in the fetlock: Joe said he must have been kicked there. I was
surprised to find that the trap also had come home--there it was in
its place with the snow still unmelted on its wheels. I helped Joe to
dress poor Nigger's leg, saying that it was a pity we had not noticed
it before. Joe was grumbling about "some people not having enough
sense to know when a horse was lame," so I let him grumble.

When we had dressed the wound, I turned to the trap to lift out Mrs
Cottier's parcels, which I carried indoors. Breakfast was ready on the
table, and Mrs Cottier and Hugh were toasting some bread at the
fire. My aunt was, of course, breakfasting upstairs with my uncle; he
was hardly able to stir with sciatica, poor man; he needed somebody to
feed him.

"Good morning, Mims dear," I cried. "What do you think? The trap's
come back and here are all your parcels." I noticed then (I had not
noticed it before) that one of the parcels was very curiously
wrapped. It was wrapped in an old sack, probably one of those which
filled the windows of the barn, for bits of straw still stuck in the
threads.

"Whatever have you got there, Jim?" said Mrs Cottier.

"One of your parcels," I answered; "I've just taken it out of the
trap."

"Let me see it," she said. "There must be some mistake. That's not one
of mine." She took the parcel from me and turned it over before
opening it.

On turning the package over, we saw that some one had twisted a piece
of dirty grey paper (evidently wrapping-paper from the grocer's shop)
about the rope yarn which kept the roll secure. Mrs Cottier noticed it
first. "Oh," she cried, "there's a letter, too. I wonder if it's meant
for me?"

We untied the rope yarn and the paper fell upon the table; we opened
it out, wondering what message could be written on it. It was a part
of a grocer's sugar bag, written upon in the coarse black crayon used
by the tallymen on the quays at Kingsbridge. The writing was
disguised, so as to give no clue to the writer; the letters were
badly-formed printer's capitals; the words were ill-spelled, and the
whole had probably been written in a hurry, perhaps by the light of
our fire in the barn.

"Hors is laimd," said the curious letter. "Regret inconvenuns axept
Respect from obt servt Captin Sharp."

"Very sweet and to the point," said Mrs Cottier. "Is Nigger lame,
then?"

"Yes," I answered. "Joe says he has been kicked. You won't be able to
drive him for some time."

"Poor old Nigger," said Mrs Cottier, as she unwrapped the
parcel. "Now, I wonder what 'Respect' Captain Sharp has sent me?"

She unrolled the sacking, and out fell two of those straw cases which
are used to protect wine-bottles. They seemed unusually bulky, so we
tore them open. In one of them there was a roll, covered with a bit of
tarpaulin. It contained a dozen yards of very beautiful Malines
lace. The other case was full of silk neckerchiefs packed very
tightly, eleven altogether; most of them of uncoloured silk, but one
of green and another of blue--worth a lot of money in those days, and
perhaps worth more to-day, now that such fine silk is no longer woven.

"So this is what we get for the loan of Nigger, Jim," said Mrs
Cottier. "We ought, by rights, to give these things to the revenue
officer."

"Yes," I said, "but if we do that, we shall have to say how they came,
and why they came, and then perhaps the exciseman will get a clue, and
we shall have brought the night-riders into trouble."

It was cowardly of me to speak like this; but you must remember that I
had been in "Captain Sharp's" hands the night before, and I was still
terrified by his threat--

  "When I know,
  Your neck'll go
  Like so."

"Well," said Mrs Cottier, looking at me rather sharply, "we will keep
the things, and say nothing about them: but we must find out what duty
should be paid on them, and send it to the exciseman at
Dartmouth. That will spare our consciences."

After breakfast, Mrs Cottier went to give orders to the servant, while
Hugh and I slipped down the lane to see how the snow had drifted in
our little orchard by the brook. We had read somewhere that the Red
Indians often make themselves snow-houses, or snow-burrows, when the
winter is severe. We were anxious to try our hands at making a
snow-house. We wanted to know whether a house with snow walls could
really be warm, and we pictured to ourselves how strange it would be
to be shut in by walls of snow, with only one little hole for air,
seeing nothing but the white all round us, having no window to look
through. We thought that it would be wonderful to have a snow-house,
especially if snow fell after the roof had been covered in, for then
no one could know if the dweller were at home. One would lie very
still, wrapped up in buffalo robes, while all the time the other
Indians would be prowling about in their war-paint, looking for
you. Or perhaps the Spaniards would be after you with their
bloodhounds, and you would get down under the snow in the forest
somewhere, and the snow would fall and fall, covering your tracks,
till nothing could be seen but a little tiny hole, melted by your
breath, through which you got fresh air. Then you would hear the
horses and the armour and the baying of the hounds; but they would
never find you, though their horses' hoofs might almost sink through
the snow to your body.

We went down to the orchard, Hugh and I, determined to build a
snow-house if the drifts were deep enough. We were not going to plunge
into a drift, and make a sort of chamber by wrestling our bodies
about, as the Indians do. We had planned to dig a square chamber in
the biggest drift we could find, and then to roof it over with an old
tarpaulin stretched upon sticks. We were going to cover the tarpaulin
with snow, in the Indian fashion, and we had planned to make a little
narrow passage, like a fox's earth, as the only doorway to the
chamber.

It was a bright, frosty morning: the sun shone, the world sparkled,
the sky was of a dazzling blue, the snow gleamed everywhere. Hoolie,
the dog, was wild with excitement. He ran from drift to drift,
snapping up mouthfuls of snow, and burrowing down sideways till he was
half buried.

There was a flower garden at one end of the orchard, and in the middle
of the garden there was a summer-house. The house was a large, airy
single room (overlooking the stream), with a space beneath it,
half-cave, half-cellar, open to the light, where Joe Barnicoat kept
his gardening tools, with other odds-and-ends, such as bast,
peasticks, sieves, shears, and traps for birds and vermin. Hugh and I
went directly to this lower chamber to get a shovel for our work.

We stood at the entrance for a moment to watch Hoolie playing in the
snow; and as we watched, something caught my eye and made me look up
sharply.

Up above us, on the side of the combe beyond the lane, among a waste
of gorse, in full view of the house (and of the orchard where we
were), there was a mound or barrow, the burial-place of an ancient
British king. It was a beautifully-rounded hill, some twenty-five feet
high. A year or two before I went there it had been opened by the
vicar, who found inside it a narrow stone passage, leading to an inner
chamber, walled with unmortared stone. In the central chamber there
were broken pots, a few bronze spear-heads, very green and brittle,
and a mass of burnt bones. The doctor said that they were the bones of
horses. On the top of all this litter, with his head between his
knees, there sat a huge skeleton. The vicar said that when alive the
man must have been fully six feet six inches tall, and large in
proportion, for the bones were thick and heavy. He had evidently been
a king: he wore a soft gold circlet round his head, and three golden
bangles on his arms. He had been killed in battle. In the side of his
skull just above the circle of gold, there was a great wound, with a
flint axe-blade firmly wedged in the bone. The vicar had often told me
about this skeleton. I remember to this day the shock of horror which
came upon me when I heard of this great dead king, sitting in the dark
among his broken goods, staring out over the valley. The country
people always said that the hill was a fairy hill. They believed that
the pixies went to dance there whenever the moon was full. I never saw
the pixies myself, but somehow I always felt that the hill was
uncanny. I never passed it at night if I could avoid it.

Now, when I looked up, as I stood with Hugh watching the dog, I saw
something flash upon the top of the barrow. In that bright sun, with
all the snow about, many things were sparkling; but this thing gleamed
like lightning, suddenly, and then flashed again. Looking at it
sharply, I saw that there was a man upon the barrow top, apparently
lying down upon the snow. He had something in his hand turned to the
sun, a piece of glass perhaps, or a tin plate, some very bright thing,
which flashed. He flashed it three times quickly, then paused, then
flashed it again. He seemed to be looking intently across the valley
to the top of the combe beyond, to the very place where the road from
Salcombe swings round to the dip. Looking in that direction, I saw the
figure of a man standing on the top of the wall against a stunted
holly-tree at the curve of the road. I had to look intently to see him
at all, for he was in dark clothes, which shaded off unnoticed against
the leaves of the holly. I saw him jump down now and again, and
disappear round the curve of the road as though to look for
something. Then he would run back and flash some bright thing once, as
though in answer to the man on the barrow. It seemed to me very
curious. I nudged Hugh's arm, and slipped into the shelter of the
cave. For a few moments we watched the signaller. Then, suddenly, the
watcher at the road-bend came running back from his little tour up the
road, waving his arms, and flashing his bright plate as he ran. We saw
him spring to his old place on the wall, and jump from his perch into
the ditch. He had some shelter there, for we could see his head
peeping out above the snow like an apple among straw. We were so busy
watching the head among the snow that we did not notice the man upon
the barrow. Something made us glance towards him, and, to our surprise
and terror, we saw him running across the orchard more than half-way
towards us. In spite of the snow he ran swiftly. We were frightened,
for he was evidently coming towards us. He saw that we saw him, and
lifted one arm and swung it downwards violently, as though to bid us
lie down.

I glanced at Hugh and he at me, and that was enough. We turned at
once, horribly scared, and ran as fast as we could along the narrow
garden path, then over the wall, stumbling in our fright, into the
wood. We did not know why we ran nor where we were going. We only felt
that this strange man was after us, coming in great bounds to catch
us. We were too frightened to run well; even had there been no snow
upon the ground we could not have run our best. We were like rabbits
pursued by a stoat, we seemed to have lost all power in our legs.

We had a good start. Perhaps without that fear upon us we might have
reached the house, but as it was we felt as one feels in a nightmare,
unable to run though in an agony of terror. Getting over the wall was
the worst, for there Hugh stumbled badly, and I had to turn and help
him, watching the man bounding ever nearer, signing to us to stay for
him. A minute later, as we slipped and stumbled through the scrub of
the wood, we heard him close behind us, crying to us in a smothered
voice to stop. We ran on, terrified; and then Hugh's foot caught in a
briar, so that he fell headlong with a little cry.

I turned at once to help him up, feeling like the doe rabbit, which
turns (they say) against a weasel, to defend its young ones. It sounds
brave of me, but it was not: I was scared almost out of my wits.



CHAPTER IV

THE HUT IN THE GORSE-BUSHES


The man was on us in three strides, with his hand on our collars,
frightening us out of any power to struggle. "You young fools," he
said, not unkindly. "Why couldn't you stop when I waved to you?"

We did not answer, nor did he seem to expect us to answer. He just
swung us round with our faces from the house, and hurried us, at a
smart run, down the road. "Don't you stir a muscle," he added as he
ran. "I'm not going to eat you, unless you drive me to it."

At the lower end of the wood, nearly half a mile from our home, the
scrub was very thick. It seemed to be a tangle of briars, too thick
for hounds--too thick, almost, for rabbits. Hugh and I had never been
in that part of the wood before, but our guide evidently knew it well,
for he never hesitated. He swung us on, panting as we were, along the
clearer parts, till we came to a part where our way seemed stopped by
gorse-bushes. They rose up, thick and dark, right in front of us. Our
guide stopped and told us to look down. Among the gnarled gorse-stems
there seemed to be a passage or "run" made by some beast, fox or
badger, going to and from his lair.

"Down you go," said our guide. "There's lots of room when you
try. Imagine you're a rabbit."

We saw that it was useless to say No; and, besides, by this time we
had lost most of our terror. I dropped on to my knees at once, and
began to squirm through the passage. Hugh followed me, and the strange
man followed after Hugh. It was not really difficult, except just at
the beginning, where the stems were close together. When I had
wriggled for a couple of yards, the bushes seemed to open out to
either side. It was prickly work, but I am sure that we both felt the
romance of it, forgetting our fear before we reached the heart of the
clump.

In the heart of the clump the gorse-bushes had been cut away, and
piled up in a sort of wall about a small central square some five or
six yards across. In the middle of the square some one had dug a
shallow hollow, filling rather more than half of the open space. The
hollow was about eighteen inches deep, and roughly paved with shingle
from the beach, well stamped down into the clay. It had then been
neatly wattled over into a sort of trim hut, like the huts the
salmon-fishers used to build near Kings-bridge. The wattling was made
fairly waterproof by masses of gorse and bracken driven in among the
boughs. It was one of the most perfect hiding-places you could
imagine. It could not be seen from any point, save from high up in one
of the trees surrounding the thicket. A regiment might have beaten the
wood pretty thoroughly, and yet have failed to find it. The gorse was
so thick in all the outer part of the clump that dogs would leave its
depths un-searched. Yet, lying there in the shelter one could hear the
splashing babble of the brook only fifty yards away, and the singing
of a girl at the mill a little further up the stream.

The man told us to get inside the shelter, which we did. Inside it was
rather dark, but the man lit a lantern which hung from the roof, and
kindled a fire in a little fireplace. This fireplace was covered with
turf, so that the smoke should not rise up in a column. We saw that
the floor of the hut was heaped with bracken, and there were tarpaulin
boat-rugs piled in one corner, as though for bedding.

The man picked up a couple of rugs and told us to wrap ourselves in
them. "You'll be cold if you don't wrap up," he said.

As he tucked the rugs about us I noticed that the ring-finger of his
left hand was tattooed with three blue rings. I remembered what Mrs
Cottier had said about the man who had lighted her fire in the barn,
so I stared at him hard, trying to fix his features on my memory. He
was a well-made, active-looking man, with great arms and shoulders.
He was evidently a sailor: one could tell that by the way of his walk,
by the way in which his arms swung, by the way in which his head was
set upon his body. What made him remarkable was the peculiar dancing
brightness of his eyes; they gave his face, at odd moments, the look
of a fiend; then that look would go, and he would look like a
mischievous, merry boy; but more generally he would look fierce and
resolute. Then his straight mouth would set, his eyes puckered in as
though he were looking out to windward, the scar upon his cheek
twitched and turned red, and he looked most wrathful and terrible.

"Well, mister," the man said to me, "would you know me again, in case
you saw me?"

"Yes," I said, "I should know you anywhere."

"Would you," he said, grinning. "Well, I was always the beauty of the
bunch." He bit off a piece of plug tobacco and began to chew
it. By-and-by he turned to Hugh to ask if he chewed tobacco. Hugh
answered "No," laughing.

"Ah," said the man, "don't you learn. That's my advice. It's not easy
to stop, once you begin."

He lay back in his corner, and seemed to pass into a sort of
day-dream. Presently he looked up at us again, and asked us if we knew
why we were there. We said that we did not.

"Well," he said, "it's like this. Last night you" (here he gave me a
nudge with his foot) "you young gentleman that looks so smart, you
went for a ride late at night, in the snow and all. See what came of
it. There was Others out for a ride last night, quite a lot of
'em. Others that the law would be glad to know of, with men so scarce
for the King's navy. Well, to-day the beaks are out trying to find
them other ones. There's a power of redcoats come here, besides the
preventives, and there they go, clackity clank, all swords and horses,
asking at every house."

"What do they ask," said Hugh.

"They ask a lot of things," said the man. "'Where was you last night?'
That's one question. 'What time did you come in last night?' That's
another. 'Let's have a look at your horse; he looks as though he'd bin
out in the snow last night.' Lots of things they ask, and if they got
a hold of you, young master, why, you might have noticed things last
night, and perhaps they might pump what you noticed out of you. So
some one thinks you had best be out of the road when they come."

"Who is some one?" I asked.

"Just some one," he answered. "Some one who gets more money than I
get." His mouth drew into a hard and cruel line; he lapsed into his
day-dream, still chewing his plug of tobacco. "Some one," he added,
"who don't like questions, and don't like to be talked about too
much."

He was silent for a minute or two, while Hugh and I looked at each
other.

"Oh, I'm not going to keep you long," said the man. "Them redcoats'll
have done asking questions about here before your dinner time. Then
they'll ride on, and a good riddance. Your lady will know how to
answer them all right. But till they're gone, why, here you'll
stay. So let's be comp'ny. What's your name, young master?" He gave
Hugh a dig in the ribs with his boot.

"Hugh," he answered.

"Hugh," said the man: "Hugh! You won't never come to much, you
won't. What's _your_ name?" He nudged me in the same way.

"Jim," I said.

"Ah! Jim, Jim," he repeated. "I've known a many Jims. Some were good
in their way, too." He seemed to shrink into himself suddenly--I can't
explain it--but he seemed to shrink, like a cat crouched to spring,
and his eyes burned and danced; they seemed to look right into me,
horribly gleaming, till the whole man became, as it were, just two
bright spots of eyes--one saw nothing else.

"Ah," he said, after a long, cruel glare at me, "this is the first
time Jim and I ever met. The first time. We shall be great friends, we
shall. We shall be better acquainted, you and I. I wouldn't wonder if
I didn't make a man of you, one time or another. Give me your hand,
Jim."

I gave him my hand; he looked at it under the lantern; he traced one
or two of the lines with his blackened finger-nails, muttering some
words in a strange language, which somehow made my flesh creep. He
repeated the words: "Orel. Orel. Adartha Cay." Then he glanced at the
other hand, still muttering, and made a sort of mark with his fingers
on my forehead. Hugh told me afterwards that he seemed to trace a kind
of zigzag on my left temple. All the time he was muttering he seemed
to be half-conscious, almost in a trance, or as if he were mad: he
frightened us dreadfully. After he had made the mark upon my brow he
came to himself again.

"They will see it," he muttered. "It'll be bright enough. The
mark. It'll shine. They'll know when they see it. It is very good. A
very good sign: it burns in the dark. They'll know it over there in
the night." Then he went on mumbling to himself, but so brokenly that
we could catch only a few words here and there--"black and red,
knowledge and beauty; red and black, pleasure and strength. What do
the cards say?"

He opened his thick sea-coat, and took out a little packet of cards
from an oilskin case. He dealt them out, first of all, in a circle
containing two smaller circles; then in a curious sort of five-pointed
star; lastly, in a square with a circle cutting off the
corners. "Queer, queer," he said, grinning, as he swept the cards up
and returned them to his pocket. "You and I will know a power of queer
times together, Jim."

He brightened up after that, as though something had pleased him very
much. He looked very nice when he looked pleased, in spite of his eyes
and in spite of the gipsy darkness of his skin. "Here," he said,
"let's be company. D'ye know any knots, you two?"

No; neither of us knew any knots except the ordinary overhand and
granny knots.

"Well, I'll show you," he said. "It'll come in useful some day. Always
learn what you can, that's what I say, because it'll come in useful.
That's what the Irishman said. Always learn what you can. You never
know; that's the beauty of it."

He searched in his pockets till he found a small hank of spun-yarn,
from which he cut a piece about a yard long. "See here," he said.
"Now, I'll teach you. It's quite easy, if you only pay attention. Now,
how would you tie a knot if you was doing up a parcel?"

We both tried, and both made granny knots, with the ends sticking out
at right angles to the rest of the yarn.

"Wrong," he said. "Those are grannies. They would jam so that you'd
never untie 'em, besides being ugly. There's wrong ways even in doing
up a string. See here." He rapidly twisted the ends together into a
reef-knot. "There's strength and beauty together," he said. "Look how
neat it is, the ends tidy along the standing part, all so neat as
pie. Besides, it'd never jam. Watch how I do it, and then try it for
yourself."

Very soon we had both mastered the reef-knot, and had tried our hand
at others--the bowline, the figure of eight, the Carrick-bend, and the
old swab-hitch. He was very patient with us. He told us exactly how
each knot would be used at sea, and when, and why, and what the
officers would say, and how things would look on deck while they were
in the doing. The time passed pleasantly and quickly; we felt like
jolly robbers in a cave. It was like being the hero of a story-book to
sit there with that rough man waiting till the troops had gone. It was
not very cold with the fire and the boat-rugs. We were heartily sorry
when the man rose to his feet, with the remark that he must see if the
coast were clear. Before he left the hut he glared down at us. "Look
here," he said, "don't you try to go till I give the word. But there,
we're friends; no need to speak rough to friends. I'll be back in a
minute."

The strange man passed out of the hut and along the rabbit-run to the
edge of the gorse. We heard his feet crunch upon the snow beyond,
rustling the leaves underneath it; and then it was very, very quiet
again, though once, in the stillness, we heard a cock pheasant
calling. Another pheasant answered him from somewhere above at the
upper part of the wood, and it occurred to both of us that the
pheasants were the night-riders, making their private signals.

"We've had a famous adventure to tell Mother," said Hugh.

"Yes," I said; "but we had better be careful not to tell anybody
else. I wonder what they do here in this hut; I suppose they hide
their things here till it's safe to take them away."

"Where do they take them?" asked Hugh.

"Away into Dartmoor," I said. "And there there are wonderful places,
so old Evans the postboy told me."

"What sort of places?" asked Hugh.

"Oh, caves covered over with gorse and fern, and old copper and tin
mines, which were worked by the ancient Britons. They go under the
ground for miles, so old Evans told me, with passages, and steps up
and down, and great big rooms cut in the rock. And then there are bogs
where you can sink things till it's quite safe to take them up. The
bog-water keeps them quite sound; it doesn't rot them like ordinary
water. Sometimes men fall into the bogs, and the marsh-mud closes over
them. That's the sort of place Dartmoor is."

Hugh was very much interested in all this, but he was a quiet boy, not
fond of talking. "Yes," he said; "but where do the things go
afterwards--who takes them?"

"Nobody knows, so old Evans said," I answered; "but they go, they get
taken. People come at night and carry them to the towns, little by
little, and from the market towns, they get to the cities, no one
knows how. I dare say this hut has been full of things--valuable lace
and silk, and all sorts of wines and spirits--waiting for some one to
carry them into the moor."

"Hush!" said Hugh; "there's some one calling--it's Mother."

Outside the gorse-clump, at some little distance from us, we heard Mrs
Cottier and my aunt calling "Hugh!" and "Jim!" repeatedly. We lay very
still wondering what they would think, and hoping that they would make
no search for us. They could have tracked us in the snow quite easily,
but we knew very well they would never think of it, for they were both
shortsighted and ignorant of what the Red Indians do when they go
tracking. To our surprise their voices came nearer and nearer, till
they were at the edge of the clump, but on the side opposite to that
in which the rabbit-run opened. I whispered to Hugh to be quiet as
they stopped to call us. They lingered for several minutes, calling
every now and then, and talking to each other in between whiles. We
could hear every word of their conversation.

"It's very curious," said my aunt. "Where-ever can they have got to?
How provoking boys are!"

"It doesn't really matter," said Mims; "the officer has gone, and the
boy would only have been scared by all his questions. He might ha^e
frightened the boy out of his wits. I wonder where the young monkeys
have got to. They were going to build snow-huts, like the Indians.
Perhaps they're hiding in one now."

We were, had she only known it; Hugh and I grinned at each
other. Suddenly my aunt spoke again with a curious inflection in her
voice.

"How funny," she exclaimed.

"What is it?" asked Mrs Cottier.

"I'm almost sure I smell something burning," said my aunt "I'm sure I
do. Don't you?"

There was a pause of a few seconds while the two ladies sniffed the
air.

"Yes," said Mrs Cottier, "there is something burning. It seems to come
from that gorse there."

"Funny," said my aunt. "I suppose some one has lighted a fire up in
the wood and the smoke is blowing down on us. Well, we'll go in to
dinner; it's no good staying here catching our death looking for two
mad things. I suppose you didn't hear how Mrs Burns is, yesterday?"

The two ladies passed away from the clump towards the orchard, talking
of the affairs of the neighbourhood. A few minutes after they had
gone, a cock pheasant called softly a few yards from us, then the
gorse-stems shook, and our friend appeared at the hut door,

"They're gone, all right," he said; "swords, and redcoats and
pipe-clay--they're gone. And a good riddance too! I should have been
back before, only your ladies were talking, looking for you, so I had
to wait till they were gone. I expect you'll want your dinner, sitting
here so long? Well, cut and get it."

He slung the boat-rugs into a corner, blew out the lantern, and
dropped a handful of snow on to the fire. "Cut," he continued. "You
can go. Get out of this. Run and get your dinners." We went with him
out of the hut into the square. "See here," he continued, "don't you
go coming here. You don't know of this place--see? Don't you show your
little tracks in this part of the wood; this is a private house, this
is--trespassers will be prosecuted. Now run along and thank 'ee for
your company."

As Hugh began to squirm along the passage, I turned and shook hands
with the man. I thought it would be the polite thing to do to say
good-bye properly. "Will you tell me your name?" I asked.

"Haven't got a name," he answered gruffly. "None of your business if I
had." He saw that I was hurt by his rudeness, for his face changed:
"I'll tell you," he added quickly; "but don't you say it about
here. Gorsuch is my name--Marah Gorsuch."

"Marah," I said. "What a funny name!"

"Is it?" he said grimly: "It means bitter--bitter water, and I'm
bitter on the tongue, as you may find. Now cut."

"One thing more, Mr Gorsuch," I said, "be careful of your fires. They
can smell them outside when the wind blows down from the wood."

"Fires!" he exclaimed; "I don't light fires here except I've little
bleating schoolboys to tea. Cut and get your porridge. Here," he
called, as I went down on my hands and knees, "here's a keepsake for
you."

He tossed me a little ornament of twisted silver wire woven into the
form of a double diamond knot, probably by the man himself.

"Thank you, Mr Gorsuch," I said.

"Oh, don't thank me," he answered rudely: "I'm tired of being
thanked. Now cut."

I wriggled through the clump after Hugh, then we ran home together
through the wood, just as the dinner-bell was ringing for the second
time.

Mrs Cottier asked us if we had not heard her calling.

"Yes, Mims," I said, "we did hear; but we were hidden in a secret
house; we wondered if you would find us--we were close to you some of
the time."

My aunt said Something about "giving a lot of trouble" and "being very
thoughtless for others"; but we had heard similar lectures many times
before and did not mind them much. After dinner I took Mims aside and
told her everything; she laughed a little, though I could see that she
was uneasy about Hugh.

"I wouldn't mention it to any one," she said. "It would be safer
not. But, oh, Jim, here we are, all three of us, in league with the
lawbreakers. The soldiers were here this morning asking all sorts of
questions, and they'd two men prisoners with them, taken at Tor Cross
on suspicion; they're to be sent to Exeter till the Assizes. I'm
afraid it will go hard with them; I dare say they'll be sent abroad,
poor fellows. Every house is being searched for last night's work: it
seems they surprised the coastguards at the Cross and tied them up in
their barracks, before they landed their goods, and now the whole
country is being searched by troops. And here are we three innocents,"
she went on, smiling, drawing us both to her, "all conspiring against
the King's peace--I expect we shall all be transported. Well, I shall
be transported, but you'd have to serve in the Navy. So now we won't
talk about it any more; I've had enough smuggling for one day. Let's
go out and build a real snow-house, and then Jim will be a Red Indian
and we will have a fight with bows and arrows."



CHAPTER V

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE "SNAIL"


It was during the wintry days that Mrs Cottier decided to remove us
from the school at Newton Abbot. She had arranged with the Rector at
Strete for us to have lessons at the Rectory every morning with young
Ned Evans, the Rector's son; so when the winter holidays ended we were
spared the long, cold drive and that awful "going back" to the school
we hated so.

Winter drew to an end and the snow melted. March came in like a lion,
bringing so much rain that the brook was flooded. We saw no more of
the night-riders after that day in the snow, but we noticed little
things now and then among the country people which made us sure that
they were not far off. Once, when we were driving home in the evening
after a day at Dartmouth, owls called along the road from just behind
the hedge, whenever the road curved. Hugh and I remembered the
pheasants that day in the wood, and we nudged each other in the
darkness, wondering whether Mr Gorsuch was one of the owls. After that
night we used to practise the call of the owls and the pheasants, but
we were only clever at the owl's cry: the pheasant's call really needs
a man's voice, it is too deep a note for any boy to imitate well; but
we could cry like the owls after some little practice, and we were
very vain when we made an owl in the wood reply to us. Once, at the
end of February, we gave the owl's cry outside the "Adventure Inn,"
where the road dips from Strete to the sands, and a man ran out to the
door and looked up and down, and whistled a strange little tune, or
scrap of a tune, evidently expecting an answer; but that frightened
us; we made him no answer, and presently he went in muttering. He was
puzzled, no doubt, for he came out again a minute later and again
whistled his tune, though very quietly. We learned the scrap of tune
and practised it together whenever we were sure that no one was near
us.

As for the two men taken by the troops, they were let off. The
innkeeper at South Poole swore that both men had been in his inn all
the night of the storm playing the "ring-quoits" game with the other
guests and as his oath was supported by half-a-dozen witnesses, the
case for the King fell through; the night-riders never scrupled to
commit perjury. Later on I learned a good deal about how the
night-riders managed things.

During that rainy March, while the brook was in flood all over the
valley, Hugh and I had a splendid time sailing toy boats, made out of
boxes and pieces of plank. We had one big ship made out of a long
wooden box which had once held flowers along a window-sill. We had
painted ports upon her sides, and we had rigged her with a single
square sail. With a strong southwesterly wind blowing up the valley,
she would sail for nearly a mile whenever the floods were out, and
though she often ran aground, we could always get her off, as the
water was so shallow.

Now, one day (I suppose it was about the middle of the month) we went
to sail this ship (we used to call her the _Snail_) from our side
of the flood, right across the river-course, to the old slate quarry
on the opposite side. The distance was, perhaps, three hundred
yards. We chose this site because in this place there was a sort of
ridge causeway leading to a bridge, so that we could follow our ship
across the flood without getting our feet wet. In the old days the
quarry carts had crossed the brook by this cause-way, but the quarry
was long worked out, and the road and bridge were now in a bad state,
but still good enough for us, and well above water.

We launched the _Snail_ from a green, shelving bank, and shoved
her off with the long sticks we carried. The wind caught her sail and
drove her forward in fine style; she made a great ripple as she
went. Once she caught in a drowned bush; but the current swung her
clear, and she cut across the course of the brook like a Falmouth
Packet. Hugh and I ran along the causeway, and over the bridge, to
catch her on the other side. We had our eyes on her as we ran, for we
feared that she might catch, or capsize; and we were so intent upon
our ship that we noticed nothing else. Now when we came to the end of
the causeway, and turned to the right, along the shale and rubble
tipped there from the quarry, we saw a man coming down the slope to
the water, evidently bent on catching the _Snail_ when she
arrived. We could not see his face very clearly, for he wore a grey
slouch-hat, and the brambles were so high just there that sometimes
they hid him from us. He seemed, somehow, a familiar figure; and the
thought flashed through me that it might be Mr Gorsuch.

"Come on, Hugh," I cried, "or she'll capsize on the shale. The water's
very shallow, so close up to this side."

We began to run as well as we could, over the broken stones.

"It's no good," said Hugh. "She'll be there before we are."

We broke through a brake of brambles to a green space sloping to the
flood. There was the _Snail_, drawn up, high and dry, on to the
grass, and there was the man, sitting by her on a stone, solemnly
cutting up enough tobacco for a pipe.

"Good morning, Mr Gorsuch," I said.

"Why, it's young sweethearter," he answered. "Why haven't you got your
nurses with you?" He filled his pipe and lighted it, watching us with
a sort of quizzical interest, but making no attempt to shake hands. He
made me feel that he was glad to see us; but that nothing would make
him show it. "What d'ye call this thing?" he asked, pointing with his
toe to the _Snail_.

"That's our ship," said Hugh.

"Is it?" he asked contemptuously. "I thought it was your mother's
pudding-box, with some of baby's bedclothes on it. That's what I
thought it was."

He seemed to take a pleasure in seeing Hugh's face fall. Hugh always
took a rough word to heart, and he could never bear to hear his mother
mentioned by a stranger.

"It's a good enough ship for us," he answered hotly.

"How d'ye know it is?" said the man. "You know nothing at all about
it. What do _you_ know of ships, or what's good for you? Hey?
You don't know nothing of the kind."

This rather silenced Hugh; we were both a little abashed, and so we
stood sheepishly for a moment looking on the ground.

At last I took Hugh by the arm. "Let's take her somewhere else," I
said softly. I bent down and picked up the ship and turned to go.

The man watched us with a sort of amused contempt. "Where are you
going now?" he asked.

"Down the stream," I called back.

"Drop it," he said. "Come back here."

I called softly to Hugh to run. "Shan't!" I cried as we started off
together, at our best speed.

"Won't you?" he called. "Then I'll make you." He was after us in a
brace of shakes, and had us both by the collar in less than a dozen
yards. "What little tempers we have got," he said grinning. "Regular
little spitfires, both of you. Now back you come till we have had a
talk."

I noticed then that he was much better dressed than formerly. His
clothes were of the very finest sea-cloth, and well cut. The buttons
on his scarlet waistcoat were new George guineas; and the buttons on
his coat were of silver, very beautifully chased. His shoes had big
silver buckles on them, and there was a silver buckle to the flap of
his grey slouch hat. The tattoo marks on his left hand were covered
over by broad silver rings, of the sort the Spanish onion-boys used to
sell in Dartmouth, after the end of the war. He looked extremely
handsome in his fine clothes. I wondered how I could ever have been
afraid of him.

"Yes," he said with a grin, when he saw me eyeing him, "my ship came
home all right. I was able to refit for a full due. So now we'll see
what gifts the Queen sent."

We wondered what he meant by this sentence; but we were not kept long
in doubt. He led us through the briars to the ruins of the shed where
the quarry overseer had formerly had his office.

"Come in here," he said, shoving us in front of him, "and see what the
Queen'll give you. Shut your eyes. That's the style. Now open."

When we opened our eyes we could hardly keep from shouting with
pleasure. There, on the ground, kept upright by a couple of bricks was
a three-foot model of a revenue cutter, under all her sail except the
big square foresail, which was neatly folded upon her yard. She was
perfect aloft, even to her pennant; and on deck she was perfect too,
with beautiful little model guns, all brass, on their carriages,
pointing through the port-holes.

"Oh!" we exclaimed. "Oh! Is she really for us, for our very own?"

"Why, yes," he said. "At least she's for you, Mr
What's-your-name. Jim, I think you call yourself. Yes, Jim. Well,
she's for you, Jim. I got something else the Queen sent for Mr
Preacher-feller." He bent in one corner of the ruin, and pulled out
what seemed to be a stout but broken box. "This is for you, Mr
Preacher-feller," he said to Hugh.

We saw that it was a model of a port of a ship's deck and side. The
side was cut for a gun-port, which opened and shut by means of
laniards; and, pointing through the opened port was a model brass
nine-pounder on its carriage, with all its roping correctly rigged,
and its sponges and rammers hooked up above it ready for use. It was a
beautiful piece of work (indeed, both models were), for the gun was
quite eighteen inches long. "There you are," said Marah Gorsuch. "That
lot's for you, Mr Preacher-feller. Them things is what the Queen
sent."

We were so much delighted by these beautiful presents that it was some
minutes before we could find words with which to thank him. We could
not believe that such things were really for us. He was much pleased
to find that his gifts gave so much pleasure; he kept up a continual
grin while we examined the toys inch by inch.

"Like 'em, hey?" he said.

"Yes; I should just think we do," we answered. We shook him by the
hand, almost unable to speak from pleasure.

"And now let's come down and sail her," I said.

"Hold on there," said Marah Gorsuch. "Don't be too quick. You ain't
going to sail that cutter till you know how. You've got a lot to learn
first, so that must wait. It's to be Master Preacher-feller's turn
this morning. Yours'll come by-and-by. What you got to do, first go
off, is to sink that old hulk you were playing with. We'll sink her at
anchor with Preacher-feller's cannon."

He told Hugh to pick up his toy, and to come along down to the water's
edge. When he came near to the water, Marah took the old _Snail_
and tied a piece of string to her bows by way of a cable. Then he
thrust her well out into the flood, tied a piece of shale (as an
anchor) to the other end of the string, and flung it out ahead of her,
so that she rode at anchor trimly a few yards from the bank. "Now," he
said, "we'll exercise great guns. Here (he produced a powder-horn) is
the magazine; here (he produced a bag of bullets) is the
shot-locker. Here's a bag of wads. Now, my sons, down to business.
Cast loose your housings, take out tompions. Now bear a hand, my lads;
we'll give your old galleon a broadside."

We watched him as he prepared the gun for firing, eagerly lending a
hand whenever we saw what he wanted. "First of all," he said, "you
must sponge your gun. There's the sponge. Shove it down the muzzle and
give it a screw round. There! Now tap your sponge against the muzzle
to knock the dust off. There! Now the powder." He took his powder-horn
and filled a little funnel (like the funnels once used by chemists for
filling bottles of cough-mixture) with the powder. This he poured down
the muzzle of the gun. "Now a wad," he said, taking up a screw of
twisted paper. "Ram it home on to the powder with the rammer. That's
the way. Now for the shot. We'll put in a dozen bullets, and then top
with a couple more wads. There! Now she's loaded. Those bullets will
go for fifty yards with that much powder ahind 'em. Now, all we have
to do is to prime her." He filled the touch-hole with powder, and
poured a few grains along the base or breech of the gun. "There!" he
said. "Only one thing more. That is aim. Here, Mr Preacher-feller,
Hugh, whatever your name is. You're captain of the gun; you must aim
her. Take a squint along the gun till you get the notch on the muzzle
against the target; then raise your gun's breech till the notch is a
little below your target. Those wooden quoins under the gun will keep
it raised if you pull them out a little."

Hugh lay down flat on the grass and moved the gun carefully till he
was sure the aim was correct. "Let's have a match," he said, "to see
which is the best shot."

"All right," said Marah. "We will. You have first shot. Are you ready?
All ready? Very well then. Here's the linstock that you're to fire
with." He took up a long stick which had a slow match twisted round
it. He lit the slow match by a pocket flint and steel after moving his
powder away from him. "Now then," he cried, "are you ready? Stand
clear of the breech. Starboard battery. Fire!"

Hugh dropped the lighted match on to the priming. The gun banged
loudly, leaped back and up, and fell over on one side in spite of its
roping as the smoke spurted. At the same instant there was a lashing
noise, like rain, upon the water as the bullets skimmed along upon the
surface. One white splinter flew from the _Snail's_ stern where a
single bullet struck; the rest flew wide astern of her.

"Let your piece cool a moment," said Marah, "then we will sponge and
load again, and then Jim'll try. You were too much to the right, Mr
Hugh. Your shots fell astern."

After a minute or two we cleaned the gun thoroughly and reloaded.

"Now," said Marah, "remember one thing. If you was in a ship, fighting
that other ship, you wouldn't want just to blaze away at her
broadside. No. You'd want to hit her so as your shot would rake all
along her decks from the bow aft, or from the stern forrard. You wait
a second, Master Jim, till the wind gives her bows a skew towards you,
or till her stern swings round more. There she goes. Are you ready?
Now, as she comes round; allow for it. Fire!"

Very hurriedly I made my aim, and still more hurriedly did I give
fire. Again came the bang and flash; again the gun clattered over;
but, to my joy, a smacking crack showed that the shot went home. The
shock made the old _Snail_ roll. A piece of her bow was knocked
off. Two or three bullets ripped through her sail. One bored a groove
along her, and the rest went over her.

"Good," said. Marah. "A few more like that and she's all our own. Now
it's my shot. I'll try to knock her rudder away. Wait till she
swings. There she comes! There she comes! Over a little. Up a
little. Now. Fire." He darted his linstock down upon the priming. The
gun roared and upset; the bullets banged out the _Snail's_ stern,
and she filled slowly, and sank to the level of the water, her mast
standing erect out of the flood, and her whole fabric swaying a little
as the water moved her up and down.

After that we fired at the mast till we had knocked it away, and then
we placed our toys in the sheltered fireplace of the ruin and came
away, happy to the bone, talking nineteen to the dozen.



CHAPTER VI

THE OWL'S CRY


For the next month we passed all our afternoons with Marah. In the
mornings the Rector gave us our lessons at Strete; then we walked home
to dinner; then we played with our gun and cutter, or at the sailing
of our home-made boats, till about six, when we went home for
tea. After tea we prepared our lessons for the next day and went
upstairs to bed, where we talked of smugglers and pirates till we fell
asleep. Marah soon taught us how to sail the cutter; and, what was
more, he taught us how to rig her. For an hour of each fine afternoon
he would give us a lesson in the quarry office, showing us how to rig
model boats, which we made out of old boxes and packing-cases. In the
sunny evenings of April we used to sail our fleets, ship against ship,
upon the great freshwater lake into which the trout-brook passes on
its way to the sea. Sometimes we would have a fleet of ships of the
line anchored close to the shore, and then we would fire at them with
the gun and with one of Marah's pistols till we had shattered them to
bits and sunk them. Sometimes Marah would tell us tales of the
smugglers and pirates of long ago, especially about a pirate named Van
Horn, who was burned in his ship off Mugeres Island, near Campeachy,
more than a hundred years back.

"His ship was full of gold and silver," said Marah. "You can see her
at a very low tide even now. I've seen her myself. She is all burnt to
a black coal, a great Spanish galleon, with all her guns in her. I was
out fishing in the boat, and a mate said, 'Look there. There she is!'
and I saw her as plain as plain among all the weeds in the sea. The
water's very clear there, and there she was, with the fishes dubbing
their noses on her. And she's as full of gold as the Bank of
England. The seas'll have washed Van Horn's bones white, and the bones
of his crew too; eaten white by the fish and washed white, lying there
in all that gold under the sea, with the weeds growing over them. It
gives you a turn to think of it, don't it?"

"Why don't they send down divers to get the gold?" asked Hugh.

"Why!" said Marah. "There's many has tried after all that gold. But
some the shacks took and some the Spaniards took, and then there was
storms and fighting. None ever got a doubloon from her. But
somebody'll have a go for it again. I tried once, long ago. That was
an unlucky try, though. Many poor men died along of that one. They
died on the decks," he added. "It was like old Van Horn cursing
us. They died in my arms, some of 'em. Seven and twenty seamen, and
one of them was my mate, Charlie!"

I have wandered away from my story, I'm afraid, remembering these
scraps of the past; but it all comes back to me now, so clearly that
it seems to be happening again. There are Marah and Hugh, with the sun
going down behind the gorse-bank, across the Lea; and there are the
broken ships floating slowly past, with the perch rising at them; and
there is myself, a very young cub, ignorant of what was about to come
upon me. Perhaps, had I known what was to happen before the leaves of
that spring had fallen, I should have played less light-heartedly, and
given more heed to Mr Evans, the Rector.

Now, on one day in each week, generally on Thursdays, we had rather
longer school hours than on the other days. On these days of extra
work Hugh and I had dinner at the Rectory with Ned Evans, our
schoolmate. After dinner we three boys would wander off together,
generally down to Black Pool, where old Spanish coins (from some
forgotten wreck) were sometimes found in the sand after heavy weather
had altered the lie of the beach. We never found any Spanish coins,
but we always enjoyed our afternoons there. The brook which runs into
the sea there was very good for trout, in the way that Marah showed
us; but we never caught any, for all our pains. In the summer we meant
to bathe from the sands, and all through that beautiful spring we
talked of the dives we would take from the spring-board running out
into the sea. Then we would have great games of ducks and drakes, with
flat pebbles; or games of pebble-dropping, in which our aim was to
drop a stone so that it should make no splash as it entered the water.
But the best game of all was our game of cliff-exploring among the
cliffs on each side of the bay, and this same game gave me the
adventure of my life.

One lovely afternoon towards the end of the May of that year, when we
were grubbing among the cliff-gorse as usual, wondering how we could
get down the cliffs to rob the sea-birds' nests, we came to a bare
patch among the furze; and there lay a couple of coastguards, looking
intently at something a little further down the slope, and out of
sight, beyond the brow of the cliff. They had ropes with them, and a
few iron spikes, and one of them had his telescope on the grass beside
him. They looked up at us angrily when we broke through the thicket
upon them, and one of them hissed at us through his teeth: "Get out,
you boys. Quick. Cut!" and waved to us to get away, which we did, a
good deal puzzled and perhaps a little startled. We talked about it on
our way home. Ned Evans said that the men were setting rabbit snares,
and that he had seen the wires. Hugh thought that they might be after
sea-birds' eggs during their hours off duty. Both excuses seemed
plausible, but for my own part I thought something very different.
The men, I felt, were out on some special service, and on the brink of
some discovery. It seemed to me that when we broke in upon them they
were craning forward to the brow of the cliff, intently listening. I
even thought that from below the brow of the cliff, only a few feet
away, there had come a noise of people talking. I did not mention my
suspicions to Hugh and Ned, because I was not sure, and they both
seemed so sure; but all the way home I kept thinking that I was
right. It flashed on me that perhaps the night-riders had a cave below
the cliff-brow, and that the coast-guards had discovered the
secret. It was very wrong of me, but my only thought was: "Oh, will
they catch Marah? Will poor Marah be sent to prison?" and the fear
that our friend would be dragged off to gaol kept me silent as We
walked.

When we came to the gate which takes you by a short cut to the valley
and the shale quarry, I said that I would go home that way, while the
others went by the road, and that we would race each other, walking,
to see who got home first. They agreed to this, and set off together
at a great rate; but as soon as they were out of sight behind the
hedge I buckled my satchel to my shoulders and started running to warn
Marah. It was all downhill to the brook, and I knew that I should find
Marah there,--for he had said that he was coming earlier than usual
that afternoon to finish off a model boat which we were to sail after
tea. I ran as I had never run before--I thought my heart would thump
itself to pieces; but at last I got to the valley and saw Marah
crossing the brook by the causeway. I shouted to him then and he heard
me. I had not breath to call again, so I waved to him to come and then
collapsed, panting, for I had run a good mile across country. He
walked towards me slowly, almost carelessly; but I saw that he was
puzzled by my distress, and wondered what the matter was.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's the rally for?"

"Oh," I cried, "the coastguards--over at Black Pool."

"Yes," he said carelessly, "what about _them?_"

"They've discovered it," I cried. "The cave under the
cliff-top. They've discovered it."

His face did not change; he looked at me rather hard; and then asked
me, quite carelessly, what I had seen.

"Two coastguards," I answered. "Two coastguards. In the furze. They
were listening to people somewhere below them."

"Yes," he said, still carelessly, "over at Black Pool? I suppose they
recognized you?"

"Yes, they must have. We three are known all over the place. And I ran
to tell you."

"So I see," he said grimly. "You seem to have run like a
tea-ship. Well, you needn't have. There's no cave on this side
Salcombe, except the hole at Tor Cross. What made you run to tell
_me?_"

"Oh," I said, "you've been so kind--so kind, and--I don't know--I
thought they'd send you to prison."

"Did you?" he said gruffly. "Did you indeed? Well, they won't. There
was no call for you to fret your little self. Still, you've done it;
I'll remember that--I'll always remember that. Now you be off to your
tea, quick. Cut!"

When he gave an order it was always well for us to obey it at once; if
we did not he used to lose his temper. So when he told me to go I got
up and turned away, but slowly, for I was still out of breath. I
looked back before I passed behind the hedge which marks the beginning
of the combe, but Marah had disappeared--I could see no trace of
him. Then suddenly, from somewhere behind me, out of sight, an owl
called--and this in broad daylight. Three times the "Too-hoo, too-hoo"
rose in a long wail from the shrubs, and three times another owl
answered from up the combe, and from up the valley, too, till the
place seemed full of owls. "Too-hoo, too-hoo" came the cries, and very
faintly came answers--some of them in strange tones, as though the
criers asked for information. As they sounded, the first owl answered
in sharp, broken cries. But I had had enough. Breathless as I was, I
ran on up the valley to the house, only hoping that no owl would come
swooping down upon me. And this is what happened. Just as I reached
the gate which leads to the little bridge below the house I saw Joe
Barnicoat galloping towards me on an unsaddled horse of Farmer
Rowser's. He seemed shocked, or upset, at seeing me; but he kicked the
horse in the ribs and galloped on, crying out that he was having a
little ride. His little ride was taking him at a gallop to the owl,
and I was startled to find that quiet Joe, the mildest gardener in the
county, should be one of the uncanny crew whose signals still hooted
along the combes.

When I reached home the others jeered at me for a sluggard. They had
been at home for twenty minutes, and had begun tea. I let them talk as
they pleased, and then settled down to work; but all that night I
dreamed of great owls, riding in the dark with bee-skeps over them,
filling the combes with their hootings.



CHAPTER VII

THE TWO COASTGUARDS


The next morning, when Hugh and I came to Strete for our lessons, we
found a lot of yeomen and preventives drawn up in the village. People
were talking outside their houses in little excited groups. Jan
Edeclog, the grocer, was at the door of his shop, wiping his hands on
his apron. There was a general rustle and stir, something had
evidently happened.

"What's all the row about, Mr Edeclog?" I asked.

"Row?" he asked. "Row enough, Master Jim. Two of the coastguards, who
were on duty yesterday afternoon, have disappeared. It's thought
there's been foul play."

My heart sank into my boots, my head swam, I could hardly stand
upright. All my thought was: "They have been killed. And all through
my telling Marah. And I'm a murderer."

I don't know how I could have got to the Rectory gate, had not the
militia captain come from the tavern at that moment. He mounted his
horse, called out a word of command, and the men under him moved off
towards Slapton at a quick trot.

"They have gone to beat the Lay banks," said some one, and then some
one laughed derisively.

I walked across to the Rectory and flung my satchel of books on to the
floor. The Rector's wife came into the hall as we entered. "Why, Jim,"
she said, "what is the matter? Aren't you well?"

"Not very," I answered.

"My dear," she cried to her husband, "Jim's not well. He looks as
though he'd seen a ghost, poor boy."

"Why, Jim," said the Rector, coming out of the sitting-room, "what's
the matter with you? Had too much jam for breakfast?"

"No," I said. "But I feel faint. I feel sick. Can I go to sit in the
garden for a minute?"

"Yes," he answered. "Certainly. I'll get you a glass of cold water."

I was really too far gone to pay much heed to anything. I think I told
them that I should be quite well in a few minutes, if they would leave
me there; and I think that Mrs Evans told her husband to come indoors,
leaving me to myself. At any rate they went indoors, and then the cool
air, blowing on me from the sea, refreshed me, so that I stood up.

I could think of nothing except the words: "I am a murderer." A wild
wish came to me to run to the cliffs by Black Pool to see whether the
bodies lay on the grass in the place where I had seen them (full of
life) only a few hours before. Anything was better than that
uncertainty. In one moment a hope would surge up in me that the men
would not be dead; but perhaps only gagged and bound: so that I could
free them. In the next there would be a feeling of despair, that the
men lay there, dead through my fault, killed by Marah's orders, and
flung among the gorse for the crows and gulls. I got out of the
Rectory garden into the road; and in the road I felt strong enough to
run; and then a frenzy took hold of me, so that I ran like one
possessed. It is not very far to Black Pool; but I think I ran the
whole way. I didn't feel out of breath when I got there, though I had
gone at top speed; a spirit had been in me, such as one only feels at
rare times. Afterwards, when I saw a sea-fight, I saw that just such a
spirit filled the sailors, as they loaded and fired the guns.

I pushed my way along the cliffs through the gorse, till I came to the
patch where the coast-guards had lain. The grass was trampled and
broken, beaten flat in places as though heavy bodies had fallen on it;
there were marks of a struggle all over the patch. Some of the near-by
gorse twigs were broken from their stems; some one had dropped a small
hank of spun-yarn. They had lain there all that night, for the dew was
thick upon them. What puzzled me at first was the fact that there were
marks from only two pairs of boots, both of the regulation pattern.
The men who struggled with the coastguards must have worn moccasins,
or heelless leather slippers, made out of some soft hide.

I felt deeply relieved when I saw no bodies, nor any stain upon the
grass. I began to wonder what the night-riders had done with the
coastguards; and, as I sat wondering, I heard, really and truly, a
noise of the people talking from a little way below me, just beyond
the brow of the cliff. That told me at once that there was a cave,
even as I had suspected. I craned forward eagerly, as near as I dared
creep, to the very rim of the land. I looked down over the edge into
the sea, and saw the little blue waves creaming into foam far below
me.

I could see nothing but the side of the cliff, with its projecting
knobs of rock; no opening of any kind, and yet a voice from just below
me (it seemed to come from below a little projecting slab a few feet
down): a voice just below me, I say, said, quite clearly, evidently
between puffs at a pipe, "I don't know so much about that." Another
voice answered; but I could not catch the words. The voice I should
have known anywhere; it was Marah's "good-temper voice," as he called
it, making a pleasant answer.

"That settles it," I said to myself. "There's a cave, and the
coastguards are there, I'll be bound, as prisoners. Now I have to find
them and set them free."

Very cautiously I peered over the cliff-face, examining every knob and
ledge which might conceal (or lead to) an opening in the rock. No. I
could see nothing; the cliff seemed to me to be almost sheer; and
though it was low tide, the rocks at the base of the cliffs seemed to
conceal no opening. I crept cautiously along the cliff-top, as near to
the edge as I dared, till I was some twenty feet from the spot where I
had heard the voice. Then I looked down again carefully, searching
every handbreadth for a firm foothold or path down the rocks, with an
opening at the end, through which a big man could squeeze his
body. No. There was nothing. No living human being could get down that
cliff-face without a rope from up above; and even If he managed to get
down, there seemed to be nothing but the sea for him at the end of his
journey. Again I looked carefully right to the foot of the
crag. No. There was absolutely nothing; I was off the track somehow.

Now, just at this point the cliff fell Inland for a few paces, forming
a tiny bay about six yards across. To get along the cliff towards
Strete I had to turn inland for a few steps, then turn again towards
the sea, in order to reach the cliff. I skirted the little bay in this
manner, and dropped one or two stones into it from where I stood. As I
craned over the edge, watching them fall into the sea, I caught sight
of something far below me, in the water.

I caught my breath and looked again, but the thing, whatever it was,
had disappeared from sight. It was something red, which had gleamed
for a moment from behind a rock at the base of the cliff. I watched
eagerly for a moment or two, hearing the sucking of the sea along the
stones, and the cry of the seagulls' young in their nests on the
ledges. Then, very slowly, as the slack water urged it, I saw the red
stem-piece of a rather large boat nosing slowly forward apparently
from the cliff-face towards the great rock immediately in front of
it. The secret was plain in a moment. Here was a cave with a
sea-entrance, and a cave big enough to hide a large, seagoing fisher's
boat; a cave, too, so perfectly hidden that it could not possibly be
seen from any point except right at the mouth. A coastguard's boat
could row within three yards of the entrance and never once suspect
its being there, unless, at a very low tide, the sea clucked strangely
from somewhere within. Any men entering the little bay in a boat would
see only the big rock hiding the face of the cliff. No one would
suspect that behind the rock lay a big cave accessible from the sea,
at low tide in fair weather. Even in foul weather, good boatmen (and
all the night-riders were wonderful fellows in a boat) could have made
that cave in safety, for at the mouth of the little bay there was a
great rock, which shut it in on the southwest side, so that in our bad
southwesterly gales the bay or cove would have been sheltered, though
full of the foam spattered from the sheltering crag.

I had found the cave, but my next task was to find an entrance, and
that seemed to be no easy matter. I searched every inch of the
cliff-face for a foothold, but there was nothing there big enough for
anything bigger than a sea-lark. I could never have clambered down the
cliff, even had I the necessary nerve, which I certainly had not. The
only way down was to shut my eyes and walk over the cliff-edge, and
trust to luck at the bottom, and "that was one beyond me"--only Marah
Gorsuch would have tried that way. No; there was no way down the
cliff-side, that was certain.

Now, somebody--I think it was old Alec Jewler, the ostler at the Tor
Cross posting-house--had told me that here and there along the coast,
but most of all in Cornwall, near Falmouth, there had once been
arsenic mines, now long since worked out. Their shafts, he said, could
be followed here and there for some little distance, and every now and
again they would broaden out into chambers, in which people sometimes
live, even now. It occurred to me that there might be some such
shaft-opening among the gorse quite close to me; so I crept away from
the cliff-brink, and began to search among the furze, till my skin was
full of prickles. Though I searched diligently for an hour or two, I
could find no hole big enough to be the mouth of a shaft. I knew that
a shaft of the kind might open a hundred yards from where I was
searching, and I was therefore well prepared to spend some time in my
hunt. And at last, when I was almost tired of looking, I came across a
fox or badger earth, not very recent, which seemed, though I could not
be certain, to broaden out inside. I lay down and thrust my head down
the hole, and that confirmed me. From up the hole there came the reek
of strong ship's tobacco. I had stumbled upon one of the cave's
air-holes.



CHAPTER VIII

THE CAVE IN THE CLIFF


My heart was thumping on my ribs as I thrust and wriggled my body down
the hole. I did not think how I was to get back again; it never once
occurred to me that I might stick in the burrow, and die stifled
there, like a rat in a trap. My one thought was, "I shall save the
coastguards," and that thought nerved me to push on, careless of
everything else. It was not at all easy at first, for the earth fell
in my ears from the burrow-roof, and there was very little room for my
body. Presently, as I had expected, the burrow broadened out--I could
kneel erect in it quite easily; and then I found that I could stand up
without bumping my head. I was not frightened, I was only very
excited; for, now that I stood in the shaft, the reek of the tobacco
was very strong. I could see hardly anything--only the light from the
burrow-mouth, lighting up the sides of the burrow for a yard or two,
and a sort of gleam, a sort of shining wetness, upon the floor of the
shaft and on its outer wall. I heard the wash of the sea, or thought I
heard it, and that was the only noise, except a steady drip, drip,
splash where water dripped from the roof into a pool on the floor. For
a moment I stood still, not certain which way to go. Then I settled to
myself the direction from which I had heard the voices, and turned
along the shaft on that side.

When I had walked a few yards my nerve began to go; for the gleam on
the walls faded, the last glimmer of light went out. I was walking
along an unknown path in pitchy darkness, hearing only the drip, drip,
splash of the water slowly falling from the roof. Suddenly I ran
against a sort of breastwork of mortared stones, and the shock almost
made me faint. I stretched my hand out beyond it, but could feel
nothing, and then downward on the far side, but could feel nothing;
and then I knocked away a scrap of stone from the top of the wall, and
it seemed to fall for several seconds before a faint splash told me
that it had reached water. The shaft seemed to turn to the right and
left at this low wall, and at first I turned to the left, but only for
a moment, as I soon saw that the right-hand turning would bring me
more quickly to the cliff-face from which I had heard the voices.
After I had made my choice, you may be sure that I went on hands and
knees, feeling the ground in front of me. I went forward very, very
slowly, with the wet mud coming through my knickerbockers, and the
cold drops sometimes falling on my neck from the roof. At last I saw a
little glimmer of light, and there was a turning to the left; and just
beyond the turning there was a chamber in the rock, all lit up by the
sun, as clear as clear. There were holes in the cliff-face, one of
them a great big hole, and the sun shone through on to the floor of
the cave, and I could look out and see the sea, and the seagulls going
past after fish, and the clouds drifting up by the horizon. Very
cautiously I crept up to the entrance to the chamber, and then into
it, so that I could look all round it.

It was not a very large room (I suppose it was fifteen feet square)
and it looked rather smaller than it was, because it was heaped almost
to the roof in one or two places with boxes and kegs, and the various
sea-stores, such as new rope and spare anchors. In one corner of it
(in the corner at which I entered it) a flight of worn stone steps led
downwards into the bowels of the earth. "Aha!" I thought; "so that's
how you reach your harbour!" Then I crept up to one of the piles of
boxes and cautiously peeped over.

I looked over cautiously, for as I entered the room I had the eerie
feeling which one gets sometimes at night; I felt that there was
somebody else in the room. Sure enough there was somebody else--two
somebodies--and my heart leaped up in joy to see them. Sitting on the
ground, tied by the body to some of the boxes over which I peered,
were the two missing coastguards. Their backs were towards me, and
their hands and feet were securely bound; but they were unhurt, that
was the great thing. One of them was quietly smoking, filling the cave
with strong tobacco smoke; the other was asleep, breathing rather
heavily. It was evidently a pleasant holiday for the pair of them. No
other person was in the room, but I saw that on the far side of the
chamber another gallery led on into the cliff to another chamber, and
from this chamber came the sound of many voices talking (in a dull
quiet way), and the slow droning of the song of a drunken man. I shut
my eyes, and lay across the boxes as still as a dead man, trying to
summon up enough courage to speak to the coastguard; and all the time
the drunkard's song quavered and shook, and died down, and dragged on
again, as though it would never end. Afterwards I often heard that
song, in all its thirty stanzas; and I have only to repeat a line of
it to bring back to myself the scene of the sunny cave, with the bound
coastguard smoking, and the smugglers talking and talking just a few
paces out of sight.

  "And the gale it roar-ed dismally
  As we went to New Barbary,"

said the singer; and then some one asked a question, and some one
struck a light for his pipe, and the singer droned on and on about the
bold Captain Glen, and the ship which met with such disaster.

At last I summoned up enough courage to speak. I crawled over the
boxes as far as I could, and touched the coastguard. "Sh!" I said, in
a low voice, "Don't make a sound. I've come to rescue you."

The man stared violently (I dare say his nerves were in a bad way
after his night in the cave), he dropped his pipe with a little
clatter on the stones, and turned to stare at me.

"Sh!" I said again. "Don't speak. Don't make a sound."

I crept round the boxes to him, and opened my knife. It was a strong
knife, with very sharp blades (Marah used to whet them for me), so
that it did not take me long to cut through the "inch-and-a-half-rope,"
which lashed the poor fellow to the boxes.

"Thankee, master," the man said, as he rose to his feet and stretched
himself. "I was getting stiff. Now, let's get out of here. D'ye know
the way out?"

"Yes," I said, "I think I do. Oh, don't make a noise; but come this
way. This way."

Very quietly we stole out by the gallery by which I had entered. We
made no attempt to rouse the sleeping man; he slept too heavily, and
we could not afford to run risks. I don't know what the coastguard's
feelings were. As for myself, I was pretty nearly fainting with
excitement. I could hear my heart go thump, thump, thump; it seemed to
be right up in my very throat. As we stepped into the gloom of the
gallery, the smugglers behind us burst into the chorus at the end of
the song--

  "O never more do I intend
  For to cross the raging main
  But to live at home most cheerfull-ee,
  And thus I end my traged-ee."

I felt that if I could get away from that adventure I, too, would live
at home most cheerfully until the day of my death. We took advantage
of the uproar to step quickly into the darkness of the passage.

Just before we came to the low stone breastwork which had given me
such a shock a few minutes before, we heard some one whistling a bar
of a tune. The tune was the tune of--

  "Oh, my true love's listed, and wears a white cockade."

And to our horror the whistler was coming quickly towards us. In
another second we saw him stepping along the gallery, swinging a
lantern. He was a big, strong man, evidently familiar with the way.

"Back," said the coastguard in a gasp. "Get back, for your life, and
down that staircase."

The man didn't see us; didn't even hear us. He stopped at the stone
breastwork, opened his lantern, and lit his pipe at the candle, and
then stepped on leisurely towards the chamber. Our right course would
have been "to go for him," knock him down, knock the breath out of
him, lash his wrists and ankles together, and bolt for the
entrance. But the coastguard was rather upset by his adventure, and he
let the minute pass by. Had he rushed at the man as soon as he
appeared; but, there--it is no use talking. We didn't rush at him, we
scuttled back into the chamber, and then down the worn stone steps cut
out of the rock, which seemed to lead down and down into the bowels of
the earth. As we hurried down, leaping lightly on the tips of our
toes, the quaver of the tune came after us, so clearly that I even
made a guess at the whistler's identity.

When we had run down the staircase about half-way down to sea-level we
found ourselves in a cave as big as the church at Dartmouth. It was
fairly light, for the entrance was large, though low, and at low water
(as it was then) the roof of the cave mouth stood six feet from the
sea. The sea ran up into the cave in a deep triangular channel, with a
landing-place (a natural ledge of rock) on each of the sides, and the
sea entrance at the base. The sea made a sort of clucking noise about
the rocks; and at the right inland it washed upon a cave-floor of
pebbles, which clattered slightly as the swell moved them. The roof
dripped a little, and there were little pools on both the landings,
and the whole place had a queer, dim, green, uncanny light upon it;
due, I suppose, to the deep water of the channel. I saw all these
things afterwards, at leisure; I did not notice them very clearly in
that first moment. All that I saw then was a large sea-lugger, lying
moored at the cavemouth, some few feet lower down. She was a beautiful
model of a boat (I had seen that much in seeing her bow from the top
of the cliff), but of course her three masts were unstepped, and she
was rather a handful for a man and a boy. We saw her, and made a leap
for her together, and both of us landed in her bows at the same
instant, just as the man with the lantern, peering down from the top
of the stairs, asked us what in the world we were playing at down
there.

The coastguard made no answer, for he was busy in the bows; I think he
had his knife through the painter in five seconds. Then he snatched up
a boat-hook (I took an oar), and we drove her with all our strength
along the channel into (or, I should say, towards) the open sea and
freedom.

"Hey," cried the man with the lantern, "chuck that! Are you mad?" He
took a step or two down the staircase, in order to see better.

"Drive her, oh, drive her, boy!" cried the coastguard.

I thrust with all my force, the coastguard gave a mighty heave, the
lugger slid slowly seawards.

"Hey!" yelled the smuggler, clattering upstairs, dropping his lantern
down on us. "Hey, Marah, Jewler, Smokewell, Hankin--all of you!
They've got away in the boat."

"Now the play begins," said the coastguard. "Another heave, and
another--together now!"

We drove the lugger forward again, so that half her length thrust out
into the sea. We ran aft to give her a final thrust out, and just at
that moment her bow struck upon the rock at the cave mouth: in the
excitement of the moment we had not realised that one of us was wanted
in the bows to shove her nose clean into the sea. The blow threw us
both upon our hands and knees in the stern sheets; it took us
half-a-dozen seconds to pick ourselves up, and then I realised that I
should have to jump forward and guide the boat clear of all outlying
dangers. As I sprang to the bows there came yells from the top of the
stairs, where I saw half-a-dozen smugglers coming full tilt towards
us.

Some one cried out, "Drop it, drop it, you fool!" Another voice cried,
"Fire!" and two or three shots cracked out, making a noise like a
cannonade. The coastguard gave a last desperate heave, I shoved the
bows clear, and lo! we were actually gliding out. The coastguard's
body was outside the cliff in full sunlight, giving a final thrust
from the cliff wall. And then I saw Marah leap into the stern sheets
as they passed out of the cave; he gave a little thrust to the
coastguard, just a gentle thrust--enough to make him lose his balance
and topple over.

"That's enough now," he said, with a grim glance at me. "That's enough
for one time."

He picked up the coastguard's boat-hook (the man just grinned and
looked sheepish; he made no attempt to fight with Marah) and thrust
the boat back into the cave with half-a-dozen deft strokes. Another
smuggler dropped down into the stern sheets, looked at the coastguard
with a grin, and helped to work the lugger back into the cave. A third
man threw down a sternfast to secure her; a fourth jumped into the bow
and began to put a long splice into the painter which we had cut. We
had tried and we had failed; here we were prisoners again, and I felt
sick at heart lest those rough smugglers should teach us a lesson for
our daring. But Marah just told the coastguard to jump out.

"Out you get," he said, "and don't try that again."

"I won't," said the coastguard.

"You'd better not," said another smuggler. That was all.

We were helped out of the lugger on to the ledge above the channel,
and the smugglers walked behind us up the stairs to the room we had
just left. The other coastguard was still snoring, and that seemed
strange to me, for the last few minutes had seemed like hours.

"Better bring him inside, boss," said one of the smugglers. "He may
try the same game."

"He's got no young sprig to cut his lashings," said Marah. "He'll be
well enough." So they left the man to his quiet and passed on with
their other prisoners into the inner room.



CHAPTER IX

SIGNING ON


The inner room was much larger than the prison chamber; it was not
littered with boxes, but clean and open like a frigate's lower
deck. It was not, perhaps, quite so light as the other room, but there
were great holes in the cliff hidden by bushes from the view of
passing fishermen, and the sun streamed through these on to the floor,
leaving only the ends of the room in shadow. The room had been
arranged like the mess-deck of a war-ship; there were sea-chests and
bags ranged trimly round the inner wall; there was a trestle table
littered with tin pannikins and plates. The roof was supported by a
line of wooden stanchions. There were arm racks round the stanchions,
containing muskets, cutlasses, and long, double-barrelled pistols. As
I expected, there were several bee-skeps hanging from nails, or lying
on the floor. I was in the smugglers' roost, perhaps in the presence
of Captain Sharp himself.

The drunken smuggler who had sung of Captain Glen was the only
occupant of the room when we entered: he sat half asleep in his chest,
still clutching his pannikin, still muttering about the boatswain. He
was an Italian by birth, so Marah told me. He was known as Gateo.
When he was sober he was a good seaman, but when he was drunk he would
do nothing but sing of Captain Glen until he dropped off to sleep. He
had served in the Navy, Marah told me, and had once been a boatswain's
mate in the _Victory_; but he had deserted, and now he was a
smuggler living in a hole in the earth.

"And now," said Marah, after he had told me all this, "you and me will
have to talk. Step into the other room there, you boys," he cried to
the other smugglers: "I want to have a word with master here."

One of the men--he was the big man who had raised the alarm on us; I
never knew his real name, everybody always called him Extry--said
glumly that he "wasn't going to oblige boys, not for dollars."

Marah turned upon him, and the two men faced each other; the others
stood expectantly, eager for a fight. "Step into the other room
there," repeated Marah quietly.

"I ain't no pup nor no nigger-man," said Extry. "You ain't going to
order me."

Marah seemed to shrink into himself and to begin to sparkle all
over--I can't describe it: that is the effect he produced--he seemed
to settle down like a cat going to spring. Extry's hand travelled
round for his sheath-knife, and yet it moved indecisively, as though
half afraid. And then, just as I felt that Extry would die from being
looked at in that way, he hung his head, turned to the door, and
walked out sheepishly according to order. He was beaten.

"No listening now," said Marah, as they filed out. "Keep on your own
side of the fence."

"Shall we take Gatty with us?" said one of the men.

"Let him lie," said Marah; "he's hove down for a full due, Gatty is."

The men disappeared with their prisoner. Marah looked after them for a
moment. "Now," he said, "come on over here to the table, Master Jim."
He watched me with a strange grin upon his face; I knew that grin; it
was the look his face always bore when he was worried. "Now we will
come to business. Lie back against the hammocks and rest; I'm going to
talk to you like a father."

I lay back upon the lashed-up hammocks and he began.

"I suppose you know what you've done? You've just about busted
yourself. D'ye know that? You thought you'd rescue the pugs"--he meant
coastguards. "Well, you haven't. You have gone and shoved your head
down a wasp's nest, so you'll find. How did you get here, in the first
place? What gave you your clue?"

"I saw the coastguards up above here yesterday," I answered, "and I
thought I heard voices speaking from below the brow of the cliff, so
then I searched about till I found a hole, and so I got down here."

"Ah," said Marah, "they will be round here looking for you, then. I'll
take the liberty of hiding your tracks." He went in to the other room
and spoke a few words to one of the other smugglers. "Well," he said,
as he came back to me, "they'll not find you now, if they search from
now till glory. They'll think you fell into the sea."

"But," I exclaimed, "I must go home! Surely I can go home now? They'll
be so anxious."

"Yes," said Marah, "they'll be anxious. But look you here, my son;
folk who acts hasty, as you've done, they often make other people
anxious--often enough. Very anxious indeed, some of 'em. That's what
you have done by coming nosing around here. Now here you are, our
prisoner--Captain Sharp's prisoner--and here you must stay."

"But, I _must_ go home," I cried, the tears coming to my eyes.
"I _must_ go home."

"Well, you just can't," he answered kindly. "Think it over a
minute. You've come here," he went on, "nosing round like a spy;
you've found out our secret. You might let as many as fifty men in for
the gallows--fifty men to be hanged, d'ye understand; or to be
transported, or sent to a hulk, or drafted into a man-o'-war. I don't
say you would, for I believe you have sense: still, you're only a boy,
and they might get at you in all sorts of ways. Cunning lawyers
might. And then you give us away and where would _we_ be? Eh,
boy? Where would we be? Suppose you gave us away, meaning no harm, not
really knowing what you done. Well, I ask you, where would _we_
be?"

"I wouldn't give you away," I said hotly. "You know I wouldn't. I
never gave you away about the hut in the woods."

"No," he said, "you never; but this time there's men's necks
concerned. I can't help myself--Captain Sharp's, orders. I couldn't
let you go if I wanted to; the hands wouldn't let me. It'd be putting
so many ropes round their necks." By this time I was crying. "Don't
cry, young 'un," he said; "it won't be so bad. But you see yourself
what you've done now, don't you?"

He walked away from me a turn or two to let me have my cry out. When
my sobs ceased, he came back and sat close to me, waiting for me to
speak.

"What will you do to me?" I asked him.

"Why," he answered, "there's only one thing _to_ be done; either
you've got to become one of us, so as if you give us away you'll be in
the same boat--I don't say you need be one of us for long; only a trip
or two--or, you'll have to walk through the window there, and that's a
long fall and a mighty wet splash at the bottom."

I thought of Mims waiting at home for me, and of the jolly tea-table,
with Hoolie begging for toast and Hugh's face bent over his plate.
The thought that I should never see them again set me crying
passionately--I cried as if my heart would break.

"Why--come, come," said Marah; "I thought you were a sailor. Take a
brace, boy. We're not going to kill you. You'll make a trip or two.
What's that? Why it's only a matter of a week or two, and it'll make a
man of you. A very jolly holiday. I'll be able to make a man of you
just as I said I would. You'll see life and you'll see the sea, and
then you'll come home and forget all about us. But go home you'll not,
understand that, till we got a hold on you the same as you on us."

There was something in his voice which gave me the fury of despair. I
sprang to my feet, almost beside myself. "Very well, then," I
cried. "You can drown me. I'm not going to be one of you. And if I
ever get away I'll see you all hanged, every one of you--you first."

I couldn't say more, for I burst out crying again.

Marah sat still, watching me. "Well, well," he said, "I always thought
you had spirit. Still, no sense in drowning you, no sense at all."

He walked to the door and called out to some of the smugglers, "Here,
Extry, Hankin, you fellows, just come in here, I want you a moment."

The men came in quickly, and ranged themselves about the room,
grinning cheerfully.

"'Low me to introduce you," said Marah. "Our new apprentice, Mr Jim
Davis."

The men bowed to me sheepishly.

"Glad to meet Mr Davis," said one of them.

"Quite a pleasure," said another.

"I s'pose you just volunteered, Mr Jim?" said the third.

"Yes," said Marah; "he just volunteered. I want you to witness his
name on the articles." He produced a sheet of paper which was scrawled
all over with names. "Now, Mr Jim," he said, "your name,
please. There's ink and pen in the chest here."

"What d'ye want my name for?" I asked.

"Signing on," he said, winking at me. It's only a game."

"I won't set my name to the paper." I cried. "I'll have nothing to do
with you. I'd sooner die--far sooner."

"That's a pity," said Marah, taking up the pen. "Well, if you won't,
you won't."

He bent over the chest and wrote "Jim Davis" in a round, unformed,
boyish hand, not unlike my own.

"Now, boys," he said, "you have seen the signature. Witness it,
please."

The men witnessed the signature and made their clumsy crosses; none of
them could write.

"You see?" asked Marah. "We were bound to get you, Jim. You've signed
our articles." "I've done nothing of the kind," I said. "Oh! but you
have," he said calmly. "Here's your witnessed signature. You're one of
us now."

"It's a forgery!" I cried.

"Forgery?" he said in pretended amazement. "But here are witnesses to
swear to it. Now don't take on, son"--he saw that I was on the point
of breaking down again at seeing myself thus trapped. "You can't get
away. You're ours. Make the best of a bad job. We will tell your
friends you are safe. They'll know within an hour that you will not be
home till the end of June. After that you will be enough one of us to
keep your tongue shut for your own sake. I'm sorry you don't like
it. Well, 'The sooner the quicker' is a good proverb. The sooner you
dry your tears, the quicker we can begin to work together. Here,
Smokewell, get dinner along; it's pretty near two o'clock. Now, Jim,
my son, I'll just send a note to your people." He sat down on a chest
and began to write. "No," he added; "_you_ had better write. Say
this: 'I am safe. I shall be back in three weeks' time. Say I have
gone to stay in Somersetshire with Captain Sharp. Do not worry about
me. Do not look for me. I am safe.' There; that's enough. Give it
here. Hankin, deliver this letter at once to Mrs Cottier, at the
Snail's Castle. Don't show your beautiful face to more'n you can
help. Be off."

Hankin took the letter and shambled out of the cave. Long afterwards I
heard that he shot it through the dining-room window on a dart of
hazelwood while my aunt and Mrs Cottier were at lunch. That was the
last letter I wrote for many a long day. That was my farewell to
boyhood, that letter.

After a time Smokewell brought in dinner, and we all fell-to at the
table. For my own part, I was too sick at heart to eat much, though
the food was good enough. There was a cold fowl, a ham, and a great
apple-pasty.

After dinner, the men cut up tobacco, and played cards, and smoked,
and threw dice; but Marah made them do this in the outer room. He was
very kind to me in my wretchedness. He slung one of the hammocks for
me, and made me turn in for a sleep. After a time I cried myself into
a sort of uneasy doze. I woke up from time to time, and whenever I
woke up I would see Marah smoking, with his face turned to the window,
watching the sea. Then I would hear the flicker of the cards in the
next room, and the voices of the players. "You go that? Do you? Well,
and I'll raise you." And then I would hear the money being paid to the
winners, and wonder where I was, and so doze off again into all manner
of dreams.



CHAPTER X

ABOARD THE LUGGER


When I woke up, it was still bright day, but the sun was off the
cliffs, and the caves seemed dark and uncanny.

"Well," said Marah, "have you had a good sleep?"

"Yes," I said, full of wretchedness; "I must have slept for hours."

"You'll need a good sleep," said Marah, "for it's likely you'll have
none to-night. We night-riders, the like of you and me, why, we know
what the owls do, don't we? We sleep like cats in the daytime. They'll
be getting supper along in about half-an-hour. What d'you say to a
wash and that down in the sea--a plunge in the cove and then out and
dry yourself? Why, it'd be half your life. Do you all the good in the
world. Can't offer you fresh water; there's next to none down below
here. But you come down and have a dip in the salt."

He led the way into the next room, and down the stairs to the
water. The tide was pretty full, so that I could dive off one ledge
and climb out by the ledge at the other side. So I dived in and then
climbed back, and dried myself with a piece of an old sail, feeling
wonderfully refreshed. Then we went upstairs to the cave again, and
supped off the remains of the dinner; and then the men sat about the
table talking, telling each other stories of the sea. It was dusk
before we finished supper, and the caves were dark, but no lights were
allowed. The smugglers always went into the passages to light their
pipes. I don't know how they managed in the winter: probably they
lived in the passages, where a fire could not be seen from the sea. In
summer they could manage very well.

Towards sunset the sky clouded over, and it began to rain. I sat at
the cave window, listlessly looking out upon it, feeling very sick at
heart. The talk of the smugglers rang in my ears in little snatches.

"So I said, 'You're a liar. There's no man alive ever came away, not
ever. They were all drowned, every man Jack.' That's what I said."

"Yes," said another; "so they was. I saw the wreck myself. The lower
masts was standing."

I didn't understand half of what they said; but it all seemed to be
full of terrible meaning, like the words heard in dreams. Marah was
very kind in his rough sailor's way, but I was homesick, achingly
homesick, and his jokes only made me more wretched than I was. At last
he told me to turn in again and get some sleep, and, after I had
tucked myself up, the men were quieter. I slept in a dazed,
light-headed fashion (as I had slept in the afternoon) till some time
early in the morning (at about one o'clock), when a hand shook my
hammock, and Marah's voice bade me rise.

It was dark in the cave, almost pitch-dark. Marah took my arm and led
me downstairs to the lower cave, where one or two battle-lanterns made
it somewhat lighter. There were nearly twenty men gathered together in
the cave, and I could see that the lugger had been half filled with
stores, all securely stowed, ready for the sea. A little,
brightly-dressed mannikin, in a white, caped overcoat, was directing
matters, talking sometimes in English, sometimes in French, but always
with a refined accent and in picked phrases. He was clean shaven, as
far as I could see, and his eyes glittered in the lantern-light. The
English smugglers addressed him as Captain Sharp, but I learnt
afterwards that "Captain Sharp" was the name by which all their
officers were known, and that there were at least twenty other Captain
Sharps scattered along the coast. At the time, I thought that this man
was the supreme head, the man who had sent Mrs Cottier her present,
the man who had spoken to me that night of the snow-storm.

"Here, Marah," he said, when he saw that I was taking too much notice
of him, "stow that lad away in the bows; he will be recognising me
by-and-by."

"Come on, Jim," said Marah; "jump into the boat, my son."

"But where are we going?" I asked, dismayed.

"Going?" he answered. "Going? Going to make a man of you. Going to
France, my son,"

I hung back, frightened and wretched. He swung me lightly off the
ledge into the lugger's bows.

"Now, come," he said; "you're not going to cry. I'm going to make a
man of you. Here, you must put on this suit of wrap-rascal, and these
here knee-boots, or you'll be cold to the bone,'specially if you're
sick. Put 'em on, son, before we sail." He didn't give me time to
think or to refuse, but forced the clothes upon me; they were a world
too big. "There," he said; "now you're quite the sailor." He gave a
hail to the little dapper man above him. "We're all ready, Captain
Sharp," he cried, "so soon as you like."

"Right," said the Captain. "You know what you got to do. Shove off,
boys!"

A dozen more smugglers leaped down upon the lugger; the gaskets were
cast off the sails, a few ropes were flung clear. I saw one or two men
coiling away the lines which had lashed us to the rocks. The dapper
man waved his hands and skipped up the staircase.

"Good-bye, Jim," said some one. "So long--so long," cried the
smugglers to their friends. Half-a-dozen strong hands walked along the
ledge with the sternfast, helping to drag us from the cave. "Quietly
now," said Marah, as the lugger moved out into the night. "Heave, oh,
heave," said the seamen, as they thrust her forward to the sea. The
sea air beat freshly upon me, a drop or two of rain fell, wetting my
skin, the water talked under the keel and along the cliff-edge--we
were out of the cave, we were at sea; the cave and the cliff were a
few yards from us, we were moving out into the unknown.

"Aft with the boy, out of the way," said some one; a hand led me aft
to the stern sheets, and there was Marah at the tiller. "Get sail on
her," he said in a low voice.

The men ran to the yards and masts, the masts were stepped and the
yards hoisted quietly. There was a little rattle of sheets and blocks,
the sails slatted once or twice. Then the lugger passed from the last
shelter of the cliff; the wind caught us, and made us heel a little;
the men went to the weather side; the noise of talking water
deepened. Soon the water creamed into brightness as we drove through
it. They set the little main topsail--luggers were never very strictly
rigged