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13. SUDDENLY HOLWOOD STOOPED AND PRESSED HIS LIPS TO
HER BROW.
What would he not now have given had the past been different?
Had it been possible now to go back and reconsider his conduct?
How happy he could have been in a humble dwelling by the seaside
with his simple, beautiful, loving wife, and this glorious child to take
to his arms as his own flesh and blood, and for whom to scheme
and build castles in the air.
But over eighteen years ago he had taken a wrong direction, and
to retrace his steps was now impossible.
'Please, sir, you have dropped your key.'
14. 'Bless my soul,' exclaimed he, rousing himself, 'it will become
choked with sand.'
'There is no sand here, only small gravel.'
He proceeded to stoop. But this was a slow and painful process,
attended with strainings and creakings. Winefred forestalled him.
She had picked up the key and presented it to him, lying across her
rosy palm, before his person had described a right angle.
'Winnie,' said Holwood in a low tone, 'will you do me a pleasure? I
am a man of principle—in the abstract. I subscribe to schools for the
education of children in the elements of morality. It is to me a
shocking thought that a young person of your age, and sex, should
not invoke the blessing of heaven upon the author of your being.
Would you like to possess a watch—a Geneva watch?'
He drew from his fob a delicate timepiece of gold, with a gold
face.
'This,' said he, 'is a watch that I no longer have occasion for, as I
possess a gentleman's repeater that belonged to my father, and
which I value accordingly. Would you like to have this bauble? It is a
lady's watch.'
'I am not a lady.'
'Only a little grindstone and shammy leather wanted, perhaps. But
no more of this. Will you accept this from an entire stranger,
unknown to you by name, but a Patron of Virtue. Include,
henceforth, the name of your father in your devotions.'
The girl flushed with pleasure and surprise.
15. She put forth her hand—then withdrew it again.
'I cannot pray for my dear father, but I will ask God to bless my
poor father.'
'Poor!—hem—yes, poor—in Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire.'
He thrust watch and chain into her hand, caught up his beaver,
and walked hastily away, that is to say as hastily as it is possible to
walk over a beach of sliding rounded cobble stones.
Her poor father! Poor—not in income, comforts, waistcoats, and
hats—but poor in all that makes life rich, love surrounding, and
within trust and strength, and self-respect.
Had he remained another moment facing his child, had she seen
the tears flow over his cheeks, then, as surely as she discerned the
chalcedony or the agate in the moistened pebble, so surely would
she have seen in the weeping man—one not wholly worthless, not
one altogether flint.
16. D
CHAPTER X
A RIFT
elighted with her watch, Winefred curled herself up behind
the mass of rock so as to be sheltered from the cutting east
wind, that in comparative comfort she might watch the movement of
the hands, hearken to the ticking, open the case and observe the
swing of the balance wheel; even try the key timorously whereby the
watch was to be wound, and ascertain in which direction to turn it.
The wonder, the pleasure, afforded by this watch surpassed
previous experience.
A hand danced the seconds on a subsidiary circle upon the dial.
Further exploration revealed an interior where all was dainty
mechanism, a diamond on which the pivot worked, a hair-spring of
incredible delicacy, and minute wheels of surpassing smallness. The
study served to fill the girl's mind with astonishment.
At the beginning of this century watches were not in such general
use as they are now; they were costly, and possessed by the rich
alone. The farmer had to content himself with the clock, the labourer
with the sun, and at night with the cockcrow.
Winefred was roused from her dream of delight by voices, and
peering round the hunch of chalk that sheltered her, perceived the
chief officer of the preventive service and one of the gaugers. They
17. were in close conference and did not observe her. Mr. Holwood had
disappeared some time ago behind a headland.
'We shall nab the whole lot,' said the officer. 'They may show fight,
probably they will, as they are numerous and desperate, because we
have hemmed them in so close of late that they have not been able
to free their goods. We have watched Lyme so closely that there has
been no chance for them to run a cargo there. It all goes into that d
——d hole of Beer, which it is next to impossible to keep in your eye
day and night. And with its freestone quarries and burrows into
every hillside, there is a veritable underground labyrinth, in which
could be stowed liquor enough to supply the toping squires and
merchants of the west for a dozen years. There is no tracking them
there, they are in at one rat-hole and out at another, and verily, the
Creator seems to have had smugglers in view when this coast was
called up. But we shall draw the net on them this time and bag
every Jack with their cargoes. I have sent for the military; there will
be too many for us unaided to tackle. They purpose bringing kegs
and bales to Heathfield Cross on Thursday night, and wagons will be
in waiting to load them for Honiton, Lyme, and Dorchester. They will
cross at the creek over against Hawkes-down, slip through Axmouth,
then up the hollow way, and so to the Cross. I have made my
arrangements to catch them whilst lading the conveyances, and if
they smell us and drop their goods and run, the military will close up
the roads in rear, and they will have no way of escape save that of
plunging over the cliffs and perishing in the waters like the swine in
the country of the Gadarenes. They will not do that; better be nailed
and made to serve in His Majesty's navy than break their necks.'
'High time we should catch them,' said the man. 'They have grown
saucy.'
18. 'They have grown desperate,' retorted the officer. 'They have been
accumulating cargoes, and have been unable to dispose of them.
Now they must do it—and so——' He snapped his hands.
'It is no fault of ours,' observed the underling, 'if they have been
able to run in such a lot. It is this coast does it. That of Cornwall is
bad, but nothing to this. The chalk and the channel are against us.
Smooth seas and fogs and a coast as full of holes as a hedge beside
a warren—what can be done?'
'Well,' said the officer, 'keep your counsel now. Do not trust even
your own men. Some of them may have been tampered with—
stranger things than that have happened.'
'Well, sir, I suppose they have leaky vessels among them.'
'To be sure they have. Were it not so, I should not have been
forewarned of this.'
'You can rely on me, sir.'
'I know I can.'
And the men walked away.
Winefred heard no more, owing to the grinding of the pebbles
under their feet, but she had heard sufficient.
It was as she had surmised. She had been employed to convey a
message connected with a smuggling enterprise, and the secret had
been betrayed by one of the confederates.
19. She was annoyed at having been involved by Rattenbury in a
proceeding with which she had no sympathy; she was troubled at
the danger that menaced him and his son Jack, who, she was
confident, would not act upon the advice she had tendered. But,
further, she saw that if the captain were taken, she and her mother
would probably lose the home they had just got into.
Winefred had no decided opinions relative to the morality of
smuggling. The atmosphere on that coast was charged with it. Her
grandfather had been engaged in the contraband trade all his days,
and her mother's brother had lost his life in an affray with the
preventive men. On this account her sympathies were ranged with
those who broke the law, and it was manifestly to her interest to
exert herself to protect them in the danger that menaced. But she
did not relish the trade that was being so largely carried on in the
neighbourhood. It was surreptitious, it ranged with housebreaking
and arson. And, as her mother held, it brought no luck on those
engaged in it. She had been shown a pint mug with which the
guineas had been measured out among the sharers in a successful
run. They had not troubled to count the gold. Yet not one coin had
remained with her grandfather, and he, to whom many of these pints
of gold had been allotted, had died penniless. It was not from any
deep moral principle that Winefred was opposed to smuggling, but
partly because she thought no luck attached to it, and therefore it
must be wrong, mainly because it was not an open and daylight
profession, and she had a natural aversion from every thing that was
not manifest and straightforward.
Winefred did not leave her hiding-place till she could do so
unobserved; till one man had ascended the path to the station, and
the other had taken the beach way to Lyme Regis.
20. Then she came from behind the rock.
She resolved not to mount the track that led up the slope, as it
passed the cottages of the coastguard, and under the circumstances
she deemed it advisable to give them a wide berth.
Her only other way of reaching the captain's cottage was
circuitous. It lay along the beach, and she would have to double
Haven Head and ascend the combe by which she and her mother
had mounted on that eventful evening when they were first
introduced to the reader.
There was no way up the cliffs between these points; they rise as
a white precipitous wall three hundred feet. But she knew the strand
—every reef, indentation, every buttress of chalk, and every cave.
She had paced it a hundred times pebble-hunting.
On this occasion she did not look further for stones; she had cares
that weighed on her mind and occupied her thoughts.
So she tramped along till she reached a doubly familiar spot.
Immediately aloft stood the cottage she had occupied from infancy.
A hedge had skirted the edge of the crags as a protection, and she
had been prohibited from going beyond that hedge, even from
climbing it.
Now, on looking up, she was startled to observe a displacement of
the rock and a dislocation in the hedge. The cliff had parted from
the down and taken as it were a step seaward, and was slightly
lurching. The hedge was discontinuous, and she could see that a rift
had formed that shore deep into where their garden had been.
21. Winefred was so surprised at what she saw that, regardless of
risk, she resolved to examine the phenomenon closely.
Instead of treading at the very margin of the retreating tide,
where the larger shingle ceased and gravel began, she advanced to
the foot of the rocks, and now saw that the cleft descended from the
summit to the very base. An entire shoulder or mass had separated
from the main body, and was parted from it by a chasm clean cut as
by a knife. Not only so, but the portion that had detached itself had
sunk. Winefred was surprised at what she saw, and being of an
inquisitive disposition, and regardless of danger, she ventured close
to the mouth of the chasm. It was torn through the chalky
superincumbent beds and through the subjacent standstone, and a
portion of turfy down had moved seaward, but had done so without
any violent oscillation, for it had not been so shaken as to break into
fragments and strew the shore with dislodged masses. On the
contrary, it had parted from the mainland with a minimum of
violence, and it was in sinking that it had detached itself.
Winefred first peered into the rift, then cautiously entered it, and
looked up at the white walls barred with strata of flints, some of
which were snapped across by the disruption.
No stones were falling. No further movement was perceptible.
With beating heart the girl not only entered the chasm but pursued
her course up it.
The sky above showed as a white silk ribbon. Abundance of light
flowed in from the mouth and from above, but the air was chill and
the smell damp and earthy.
22. The bottom was encumbered with fallen blocks of chalk, white as
lumps of sugar, and over these Winefred scrambled fearlessly. A belt
of what is locally termed 'fox-earth' showed above the floor, and
from it distilled water in tears.
She could distinguish a cavern—one of those subterraneous
reservoirs which in the calcareous beds had received and held the
water that percolated down through the pervious rock till it had itself
been drained by the water filtering to a still lower level.
Winefred climbed with hands and feet over a mound of refuse,
then down the side, and found that the rift still penetrated farther
and lost itself in darkness. It was obvious that the cleavage had
been incomplete, the block that had parted from the down had not
completely effected its insulation, or there would assuredly have
been a streak of light at the farther end.
Winefred was familiar with cliffs, clefts, and caves; they presented
to her no terrors, were invested with no mystery; but she was
scarcely aware of the actual risk she underwent. Such phenomena
may be safely investigated after they have definitely settled
themselves, but hardly whilst in process of formation. Nevertheless
she advanced, and now she saw that the chasm had a limit, and that
this limit was composed of a slide of rock and flint and earth from
above forming a sharp incline, up which it would be feasible to
scramble and possibly by this means to attain to the surface of the
down. This would save Winefred a long circuit; moreover, the
adventure offered the zest of novelty, and she was hungry.
Before proceeding, however, she peeped into the cavern. It was
apparently extensive, penetrating some way, but dwindling in size as
it receded. The floor was level and dry. Then Winefred began to
23. mount the rubble shoot. The fallen chalk and earth had to a large
extent dropped powdery, so that her feet sank, but here and there
she came on cores of hard stone and then on beds of flint caked
together. She passed a discoloured vein cut in section, where water
charged with iron had run and had stained the rock.
As she continued toilfully to work her way upwards she observed
how complete the dislocation of the beds had been. The
stratification of flints was not continuous on both walls. The bed of
silicious nodules on one side was repeated on the other at a depth
of ten to fifteen feet, showing that the cleavage had been brought
about by sinkage.
The silence in the cleft was absolute save for an occasional
downpatter of dry earth or pebbles, but there was no considerable
fall whilst Winefred was there.
The ascent was laborious, nevertheless the girl prosecuted her
attempt with resolution, and was finally successful in attaining the
turf, but in a condition so soiled that she knew she would be scolded
by her mother.
When Winefred was at the surface she saw that for some distance
beyond where she had come out, the turf was torn, as cloth might
be ripped by a sharp tug.
The chasm was in process of extension, and eventually would
stretch across the entire headland and detach it altogether.
Now she saw why her mother's cottage had given way. It had
been planted on that portion of the crag which had subsided. But
the subsidence had been uneven, one-sided, so that what remained
24. of the house was on an incline, and a lateral crack from the main rift
had reached and thrown down one of the walls.
In places the turf looked like a pane of glass that had been struck
by a cricket ball. It was starred with radiating fractures.
The girl leaned over and looked down the gulf out of which she
had emerged. It seemed of prodigious depth and utterly dark.
The lips were not above fifteen feet apart at top, the wall on the
land side descended perpendicularly, whereas that on the farther
side was slightly inclined.
Only at the extreme end of the chasm where she had mounted
was it possible to climb to the top, and it was obvious that the rent
was gradually but surely prolonging itself.
25. J
CHAPTER XI
A PROPOSAL
ane Marley was at the kneading trough, with her sleeves
tucked up, and her hands in the dough, when a shadow thrown
upon her made her look up, and she saw Olver Dench at the
window. He nodded to her through the window, came to the door,
opened and entered without ceremony.
'How do you find yourself this morning, mistress?' asked the
ferryman, seating himself.
Jane made a gesture indicative of impatience.
'The captain is out,' she answered curtly.
'I have not come to see the captain.'
'The house is not a show-place like Colyton Castle.'
'I have not come to see it.'
'Then you have no business here.'
'That is an uncivil address to an old friend.'
'I do not recognise any friend.'
This silenced him for a while.
26. He observed her, with her sleeves rolled above her elbows, her
fine moulded arms, her handsome, if somewhat stern, face, the full
lips, the fine sweep of the jaw, the copious, dark hair with warm
glints in it, the ripe complexion, and he thought what a good-looking
woman she was.
She continued to knead the dough, in total disregard of his
presence, and the sun entering through the latticed window played
over her arms, the dimpled, rosy elbows her swelling bosom, over
which the breast-piece of her white apron was pinned at the
shoulders, and it flamed occasionally on her pouting lips.
Then, after a considerable pause, Olver Dench began once more.
'I have come here, Jane, not on the captain's affairs, but on
yours.'
'Mine, you will favour me not to trouble about.'
'When I say yours, I really mean those of your child.'
At once she was interested. He saw that. Her arm remained
stationary for a moment, the hands plunged in the dough. Then she
resumed work with increased energy. She tossed her head and said,
'My child is under my care, and her affairs in no way demand your
meddling.'
'That is just as you will,' said Dench with assumed indifference.
'But I would bid you bear in mind that you are at present under the
roof of one of the most fanciful, humorous, and shortest-tempered
of men. He will welcome you to-day, and if you offend him turn you
out of doors to-morrow. He is headstrong, and has brimstone in him,
27. by George! and you have sparks enough in you to make a
conflagration probable. Unless you knuckle under to him, he will
thrust you and Winefred forth—and you will be once more as you
have been—homeless. Did you ever hear tell of the visit made him
one day by two gaugers who wanted to overhaul the place? He
received them, seated on a keg, with a pistol in his hand. Masters,
said he, this little cask is full of gunpowder, come near by another
step and I will discharge my pistol into it—and we three will march
together. They made for the door. That is your man; wilful,
desperate, overbearing. If you cross his will in any particular he will
send you to the right-abouts. That will not matter for such as you,
but it will be bad for Winefred.'
He perceived by her heightened colour, by her quickened
breathing, that he had touched Jane where most sensitive.
'Do you know, mistress, why Captain Job has taken you both into
his house?'
She made no other answer than a shrug of the shoulder.
'I will tell you: I will lift a corner of the crust and let you see what
is the meat in the pie. Was not your father, Topsham Marley,
associated with him in most of his ventures? What did he gain by
that? Did he leave you comfortably off? I always heard tell that there
was money to bury him, but nothing over. Your brother Philip, he
was with him also. What profit came to him out of the partnership?
When Philip thought that he was pulling the chestnuts out of the fire
for Job—he getting the burns and none of the nuts—Philip and he
came to words and they parted company, and Philip started on his
own account. He was at once betrayed and shot. Take my word for
it, certain big men with large dealings will not allow the little men to
28. succeed. The iron pot breaks all the cloam pipkins that float on the
same water.'
'You do not dare to tell me that the captain caused my brother's
death?'
'I do not say that I know he did. All that I pretend to say is that I
was not the only man who noticed the curious coincidence. No
sooner did Philip start on his own bottom than he was put out of the
running. It is a singular thing, if you are interested in such matters,
to observe how the wholesale dealers go free, and how the little
retailers get nabbed. What profit had Topsham, what had Philip out
of their ventures? Did your brother leave anything? I reckon it was
the same tale with Philip, the son, as with Topsham, the father—
enough to bury him and not a penny over. Now look at Job
Rattenbury. He has bought and is fitting out a cutter for his son
Jack, and is going to set him up as a gentleman. He does not spare
money where Jack is concerned. Cash seems as plentiful with the
captain as elderberries on the undercliff. He has made a fortune
where others have failed. Some have sown, but all the harvest goes
into his barns. If right were done all round, your father ought to
have died a rich man, and your brother would have been alive this
day, and you and your child not be homeless and destitute.'
'As to Philip,' said Jane in a quivering voice, 'it is well known he
was killed in a scuffle with the preventive men.'
'Yes. But how did they know when and where to drop upon him?
And why, if they did come on him, did they shoot him instead of
running him into prison?'
29. He was silent now for a while, to allow what he had said to sink in
and produce the desired effect. He watched the woman's face; the
muscles were working, and her cheek glowed. Her eyes he could not
see.
After a long pause he proceeded, 'It is rough on us men that we
should get, not kicks only, but leaden bullets put into us, and he all
the ha'pence; but it is a crying iniquity that his son Jack should be
brought up to be a gentleman and your Winefred should be left a
beggar. Answer me this. Did not your father and brother endure the
labours, the buffeting of wind and wave, the risk from the gaugers?
What for? That Jack should have a spick-and-span painted cutter
with gilt figure-head, and spout Latin grammar. He will rattle the
guineas in his pocket, and when Winefred holds out her hand will
cast a copper into the dirt and bid her bend and pick it up.'
Jane's whole frame trembled.
'So it is—the widow and the orphan are robbed, we underlings
must not complain that we are badly served. But it makes me mad
to hear how he swells and brags over what he is going to make of
his boy Jack. And there are you and your Winney have to curtsey
and say, Thank you, sir, when he offers you a crust of bread and
pulls a bit of his thatch over your heads of a November night. We
should combine to get our rights; combine against wrong and
robbery.'
'How can we combine?'
'I will tell you. The captain is a rich man. I know it. He admits it.
Whence came all his money? From the sweat and blood of men like
your father, brother, and me. I also worked under him once, but I
30. would not endure the injustice. Glad I was to get out of the concern
and take a ferryboat, and thankful I am when I get a score of
passengers to put across in the day. Look you, Jane; if that ferry
were worked the way he does the other business, at the end of the
day he would say to me, "Here, Olver, is one ha'penny, but nineteen
pence ha'penny goes into my pocket, and I'm going to lay it out in
picture-books for my Jack."'
'How can we combine?' she asked again.
'I'll make you a proposal,' said Olver, but he spoke hesitatingly,
and seemed reluctant to deliver it till he had further worked on the
mother's passions, and blinded her with anger and envy. 'I say that
what the captain has accumulated ought of rights to be divided into
four equal parts. I allow that he has a claim to one-quarter, but I
have to another—that I do assert; and then, if you had what
properly belongs to you, the two remaining quarters should be
yours, as the shares of your father Topsham, and your brother Philip,
who was not married, and so his share comes to you—for Winefred.'
He paused, cleared his throat, and set a hand on each knee.
'Now, Jane, I bargain that you and I combine to secure our lawful
property, of which we have been defrauded. Lord! what thieves go
to prison and what rogues run free! It makes my bile run over to
think that his nipper Jack should be toasting in the bar whilst we sit
on the doorstep in the cold. We must put our heads together. There
is naught done without combination.'
'How—what is to be done?'
31. 'That is just the secret. Can you guess why the captain houses you
and the girl? It is because he knows that he has wronged the widow
and the fatherless, and his conscience gives him a pinch now and
again. He thinks to hush it by allowing you such scraps as he would
cast to a dog, Towler, if he kept one—which he don't. Jane'—Olver
spoke slowly, and with his eye fixed on her—'Jane, you are on the
spot, and I looks on it as the wonderful ways of Providence bringing
you here. You keep your eye wakeful, and keep an eye in the back
of your head also. You discover where he hides his piles of money.
Hidden it is somewhere, sure as I sit here. Now, Jane, I want us not
only to put our heads together but to join hands.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, if you find that out for me, and help with the partition, I'll
make you my wife, and then you and the kid will have a home of
your own.'
'Your wife!'
'Ay—I knew what you would say. But where he's gone is a long
way off, round the other side of the world, and he has married a
Spanish woman there, with sugar plantations and slaves, and they
have a fine family. He'll never show his face in England. He daren't, I
tell you. So we may as well——'
'You!'—the woman turned and faced him, in a flame of scorn. Her
eyes sparkled, she breathed passionately through her rigid nostrils,
her bosom heaved. 'You—you dare propose this to me?'
He stood up.
32. 'Why not? I speak for your advantage.'
'For my advantage—to be with you—head to head, hand to hand
—with you!' She quivered with fury, her very hair bristled. 'You? If I
had you between tongs, I would throw you into the ashpit. Leave
this house!'
Olver's face turned plum colour.
'Jane! Will you dare try it on without me?'
'Leave this house,' she cried, pointing to the door with her hand
covered with strings of dough.
'Jane,' said he, 'I have said and let you know more than I ought.
But I warn you to beware lest you take a step in this matter
independent of me. Take care how you hunt and beat the thickets
without me. I am not a man to be trifled with. If I find that you are
going behind my back, I will tread you and your brat into the earth,
as though you were snails.'
33. O
CHAPTER XII
BY NIGHT
n her return to Rattenbury's cottage, Winefred was thrown
into a dubious condition of mind. She had purposed to confide
everything to her mother, to tell her about the present of the watch
and of what she had overheard. But on coming into her mother's
presence she saw that the time was unpropitious.
She knew her mother so intimately that she was aware that the
communication must be deferred. Mrs. Marley was one of those
persons who, when possessed by an idea, and that one of an
exciting nature, are incapable of attending to any other, or on whom
the communication of another of agitating nature completely
unhinges the reasoning faculties and produces an irrational explosion
of feeling. Winefred saw at a glance that something must have
occurred during her absence which had upset her mother.
She therefore merely inquired where Captain Rattenbury was, and
was told curtly that he was out—a fact sufficiently obvious. Job had
informed her mother that he would not be home till the morrow, but
Jane Marley did not think to give this information to Winefred. Not
knowing this, the girl said no more, determined to caution the
captain on his return.
She went into the back kitchen and to the larder cupboard and
provided herself with food, her mother saying nothing nor noticing
34. what she was about, nor did the ticking of her watch attract
attention.
Thus the hours of the short November afternoon slipped away,
and Mrs. Marley seated herself at the side of the fire knitting, with
her gown turned up over her knees lest it should scorch and with
her arms still bare, glancing in the firelight. Winefred occupied a
stool, and fell to studying her mother's countenance and listening for
the footfall of the captain or his hand on the latch. She was in no
little anxiety. The day was Thursday, and the attempt to disperse the
goods to their several destinations would be made that night, and a
few hours must determine the fate of the smugglers.
She saw that a storm was raging in the interior of her mother that
troubled her wild soul and tossed her feverish blood. But Mrs. Marley
was clearly indisposed to allow her daughter to know what had
aroused it.
The expression of the woman's face was now angry, then hard
and remorseless, flushes of passion swept across it, and then all
colour deserted it. At moments her eyes were as though exploding
into fireworks, and at the next were dull and lifeless.
Every word of Dench had been as fulminating powder in her soul.
Till the interview with him she had entertained no suspicion against
Rattenbury; she had recently regarded him with gratitude for having
received her and Winefred into the cottage, and she was an
impulsive woman, strong in her feelings, whether in liking or in
hating. But now, all at once, his conduct appeared to her in a new
light. He was no longer a benefactor, he was an oppressor, who had
grievously wronged her father and procured the death of her
35. brother, and was rendering to her a tardy and wholly inadequate
compensation.
She did not stay to inquire whether the words of the ferryman
were justified, whether the charges he made were founded in fact. It
sufficed her to see that there was probability in the assertions, and
womanlike she accepted them as unassailable. She had been
robbed, her child robbed, and all for the sake of Jack Rattenbury,
that he might be cockered up and transformed into a gentleman. A
smouldering fire of rage against both father and son consumed her
heart—a sense of injury ate into her soul and filled her with gall.
Suddenly she started, turned fiercely on Winefred and said, 'Why
do you stare at me? Go to bed; it is time. Disturb me no further.'
She was a woman that would be obeyed, to be turned from her
purpose by no reasoning, amenable to no persuasion. Of this
Winefred was so well aware that she did not attempt opposition. She
at once rose from her stool and noiselessly crept to the little room
that had been arranged for her under the stair.
But, although, in obedience to her mother, Winefred went to bed,
she could not sleep.
There could exist no doubt that the captain had been betrayed,
and that, unless forewarned, his capture was inevitable. The
coastguard and the military would draw together along every road
and lane and enclose them as in a battue. When he should come in
there would still be time to warn him, unless he arrived very late.
Where was he? Who could say? It was unlikely that he should have
told her mother. He might have gone to Lyme to see after the carts,
36. or to Beer to make the final arrangements for the transport of the
casks from their hiding-places to Heathfield.
She turned the problem over in her brain and sought a solution.
Suppose that Rattenbury did not return that night, by what means
was he to be communicated with, how was the danger that
menaced to be averted?
He had saved her life, he had sheltered her, she was bound to do
everything in her power to save him. Of that she had not the
smallest doubt, and her resolution was formed to do her utmost,
even in despite of her mother, should she offer opposition.
After an hour Jane Marley fastened the house door and retired to
her room.
She would not have run the bolt had she anticipated that
Rattenbury would return that night. Her action convinced Winefred
that he had told her mother not to expect him back.
What could she do?
She listened to the ticking of the clock and awaited the striking of
the hours. When ten o'clock sounded, then she was well aware that
not another minute must be lost.
Noiselessly she crept out of bed and clothed herself; she
hearkened whether her mother stirred, but heard no sound. On
tiptoe, her shoes in her hand, she stole over the kitchen floor, and
with caution and slowly drew the bolt.
The moment the door was open, a rush of cold air fanned the
embers on the hearth into a glow; but she hastily passed outside,
37. shut the door behind her and breathed freely. She was, at any rate,
safe now from obstruction by her mother. Even if the latter had
heard her, pursuit would be in vain; she could easily elude it among
the thickets and in the dark.
She drew on her shoes. All within was still, she had not been
overheard, her mother had not been roused.
Her heart beat furiously, and she was frightened at her
undertaking. It was not that she was alarmed at being abroad and at
night, but she was well aware of the magnitude of the issues
dependent on her action.
If she failed—the goods would be confiscated, the band broken
up, and the captain imprisoned for a lengthy period. At his age he
might not live till his term expired.
The stars twinkled, a crescent moon shone, there was frost in the
air.
Winefred had formed her plan, and she knew her way. She had to
ascend from the undercliff to the down, and the chalky path lay
before her as though phosphorescent.
There would have been complete stillness but for the mutter and
fret of the sea and the piping of the wind.
The smugglers would certainly have preferred less light and more
noise, a howling wind, a blinding fog, and a booming sea.
Above every sound Winefred could hear the throbbing of her
heart.
38. She was now upon the down, where the turf was short, strewn
with flints bleached by sun and rain. She crossed it, and descended
into a deep, lateral combe, through which a trickle ran into the river.
Here were trees, but they were bare of leaves. Beyond stood the
crest of Hawksdown with its earthworks thrown up, none knew by
whom, but haunted, in the opinion of the people, by a ghostly
warrior with a fire-breathing dog. She was now among fields, and in
a tangle of lanes, but she knew her direction, and although the ways
twisted, she made as straight as was possible for the crest of the
opposite hill, and for a while skirted a fir plantation that lay like an
ink blot on her left. She was not able wholly to escape the shadows
of the pines, for she was forced to enter by a gate, the hedge being
too thick and thorny for her to scramble over it. In the gloom she
became uneasy, alarmed, thinking that eyes were watching her, and
that mysterious beings lurked among the branches, ready to leap
upon her. To her excited imagination it was as though there came to
her whisperings from among the bushes. She walked faster, turning
her head from side to side, and sometimes looking over her
shoulder.
At the beginning of the present century 'free trade' was in repute
among the daring and adventuresome along the coast. Smuggling
was a passion, like poaching. Those who were engaged in it rarely
abandoned it. It was gambling for enormous stakes—the profits
were great, but, on the other hand, so were the risks. If now and
then a cargo was run and sold, and the profits measured out in pint
mugs, on another occasion an entire cargo was confiscated. Not only
was freedom jeopardised, but life as well. Neither 'free trader' nor
coastguard was nice in the matter of shedding blood.
39. Smuggling methods were infinitely varied. The game was a
contest of wits as well as of pluck, and in that lay much of its charm.
The spice of danger attending it attracted the young men instead of
deterring them from it.
In order to obtain information relative to the trade, so as to be
able to 'nab' those who prosecuted it, the Government had paid
spies in the English and the foreign ports. It sought to undermine
the integrity of those combined together in the trade, and to
encourage treachery. So well aware of this were smugglers that no
mercy was shown to the man who was detected in clandestine
communication with the preventive service men. He was sometimes
dashed over the cliffs, sometimes taken out in a boat and literally
beaten to death with a marline-spike before his body was committed
to the waves.
There was something to be urged in extenuation of English
smuggling. Customs-duties were first imposed in England for the
purpose of protecting the coasts against pirates who made descents
on unprotected villages and kidnapped men and children to sell
them as slaves in Africa, or who waylaid merchant vessels,
plundered and then scuttled them.
But when all such danger had ceased, and the pirates had been
swept from the seas, the duties were not only continued to be levied
but were made more onerous.
It was felt that there had been a violation of compact on the side
of the Crown, and bold spirits entertained no conscientious scruples
in setting at naught the law of contraband. The officers of the Crown
instead of pursuing, capturing and hanging Algerine pirates,
proceeded to seize and consign to prison native seamen.
40. It was in this light that the matter was viewed by the water-dogs
around the coast; nor was this confined to them, the opinion was
shared by magistrates, country gentry, and parsons. Three classes of
men were engaged in the business. First came the 'freighter'—the
man who entered on it as a commercial speculation. He engaged a
vessel, purchased the cargo, and made the requisite arrangements
for the landing. Then came the 'runner,' who conveyed the goods on
shore from the vessels; and lastly the 'tub-carriers,' who transported
the kegs on their backs slung across their shoulders.
Captain Job Rattenbury had at one time been a 'runner,' but he
was now a 'freighter,' and to be that a man must be a capitalist.
Winefred had reached the Roman Road, the Fosse way that ran
from one end of England to the other, and, by the light of the stars,
being chalk-paved, it gleamed like a belt of silver.
But on it was observable something creeping like a slug in the
uncertain light.
The girl watched it as it approached.
That which she saw was a train of tub-carriers. With audacity, and
with a prospect of success due to this very audacity, the train was
advancing along the high road, contrary to the wonted tactics of the
free traders, but in reliance on the guard of the coast watching the
shore, and the lanes leading from it.
There were over a score of men in the line, and all had blackened
their faces. They were moving a large amount of run goods from the
hiding-holes of Beer, for dispersion among the taverns and
gentlemen's houses that were expecting consignments.
41. Winefred watched the black mass worm itself along uphill. She
held back at first in the darkness of the hedge. It was her purpose to
start forward to arrest Captain Job as soon as he came abreast of
her. Several men went by. Two—four—eight, it was not possible for
her in the feeble light to distinguish one from another, and the faces
of all were black.
'Who goes? Halt!'
Instantly the advancing line stopped, and one stepped forward,
strode towards Winefred, who had moved and attracted attention,
and said, 'Who is there?'
'Captain Rattenbury! O Captain—where is he?'
'Who asks?'
'It is I—Winefred. You have been betrayed.'
42. I
CHAPTER XIII
OUT OF THE SNARE
n a moment Winefred was surrounded by men. There was
something alarming in their appearance, with blackened faces.
One, a tall, vigorous fellow, apparently young, stood forward and
questioned her.
'What! Winefred Marley?'
'Yes—I want to speak to Captain Rattenbury. Where is he?'
'He is not here. I am his son.'
'Jack!—You! Your father has been betrayed. I overheard the officer
from Lyme arranging to take you all. He has sent for the soldiers. He
knows that you are to meet the carts at Heathfield Cross.'
'When did you hear this?'
'To-day—some hours ago—on the beach, below the station. I was
behind a rock, and they did not see me.'
'Why did you not speak of this before?'
'Your father was not at home, or I would have done so. I waited,
expecting every hour to see him come in. Now I have run away
whilst mother is asleep.'
43. 'You are a brave, good girl,' said the young man. He turned to the
men. 'What is to be done?' he asked.
'We must go back,' said one or two.
'You must not go back,' exclaimed Winefred. 'Indeed you must
not; the soldiers are on the road from Musbury.'
'Then forward.'
'That will not do. The coastguard in force are watching at
Heathfield Cross.'
The men were silent.
After some consideration, in a dead silence, Jack said, 'There is
but one course open. We must creep along the lanes to Hay and
Buckland, and stow our goods wherever we can.'
'Do you think that possible? I suspect that they are drawing in
from east and west, and have taken the precaution to stop all the
earths to the north.'
Winefred knew by the voice that the man who spoke was David
Nutall, to whom she had taken the captain's letter.
'I know they will have done that,' she said. 'I heard them say as
much. They intended drawing a net round you, and leaving you no
way of escape save over the cliffs into the sea.'
Again an anxious silence ensued.
Then one asked: 'Jack! how about the undercliff? Has not your
father got runs and rat-holes there that would contain us all?'
44. 'No,' answered the young man. 'He is too wary for that. He knows
that the very first place that would be searched would be his
cottage.'
'There is something in that. Then there is no help for it; we must
drop our goods—there in yonder plantation I advise—and get away
singly as best we may.'
'We shall be caught and detained till the whole of this bit of
country has been put through the sieve, and if they find the tubs—
we are done for.'
'It is a bad job.'
'I vote we fight rather than lose our goods.'
'There are too many. We should be overpowered.'
'I do not relish losing everything without making an effort to break
through.'
'I can tell you what to do,' said the girl, 'and also where you may
conceal everything.'
'Where is that?'
'To-day I saw that the cliff has parted under mother's cottage. The
rock is torn in half, and I climbed the crack from the beach to the
top. Where I went up you can go down. The crack is quite new and
is narrow. At the end it is choked with earth and stones. If you have
ropes you can lower the kegs and then steal away by the coast, and
by water to Beer. Then let the soldiers and the rest draw together;
they will take neither you nor what you are carrying. They will not
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