|
Chapter 5
The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the butt-ends of
their loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to
rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the
kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering
lament of "Gracious goodness gracious me, what's gone - with the -
pie!"
The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring;
at which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was
the sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at
the company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in
his right hand, and his left on my shoulder.
"Excuse me, ladies and gentleman," said the sergeant, "but as I
have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver" (which he
hadn't), "I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the
blacksmith."
"And pray what might you want with him?" retorted my sister, quick
to resent his being wanted at all.
"Missis," returned the gallant sergeant, "speaking for myself, I
should reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine wife's
acquaintance; speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done."
This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr
Pumblechook cried audibly, "Good again!"
"You see, blacksmith," said the sergeant, who had by this time
picked out Joe with his eye, "we have had an accident with these,
and I find the lock of one of 'em goes wrong, and the coupling
don't act pretty. As they are wanted for immediate service, will
you throw your eye over them?"
Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would
necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer
two hours than one, "Will it? Then will you set about it at once,
blacksmith?" said the off-hand sergeant, "as it's on his Majesty's
service. And if my men can beat a hand anywhere, they'll make
themselves useful." With that, he called to his men, who came
trooping into the kitchen one after another, and piled their arms
in a corner. And then they stood about, as soldiers do; now, with
their hands loosely clasped before them; now, resting a knee or a
shoulder; now, easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door to
spit stiffly over their high stocks, out into the yard.
All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I
was in an agony of apprehension. But, beginning to perceive that
the handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got
the better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a
little more of my scattered wits.
"Would you give me the Time?" said the sergeant, addressing himself
to Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified
the inference that he was equal to the time.
"It's just gone half-past two."
"That's not so bad," said the sergeant, reflecting; "even if I was
forced to halt here nigh two hours, that'll do. How far might you
call yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I
reckon?"
"Just a mile," said Mrs. Joe.
"That'll do. We begin to close in upon 'em about dusk. A little
before dusk, my orders are. That'll do."
"Convicts, sergeant?" asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way.
"Ay!" returned the sergeant, "two. They're pretty well known to be
out on the marshes still, and they won't try to get clear of 'em
before dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?"
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody
thought of me.
"Well!" said the sergeant, "they'll find themselves trapped in a
circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If
you're ready, his Majesty the King is."
Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather
apron on, and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its
wooden windows, another lighted the fire, another turned to at
the bellows, the rest stood round the blaze, which was soon
roaring. Then Joe began to hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and
we all looked on.
The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general
attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of
beer from the cask, for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to
take a glass of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, "Give him
wine, Mum. I'll engage there's no Tar in that:" so, the sergeant
thanked him and said that as he preferred his drink without tar, he
would take wine, if it was equally convenient. When it was given
him, he drank his Majesty's health and Compliments of the Season,
and took it all at a mouthful and smacked his lips.
"Good stuff, eh, sergeant?" said Mr. Pumblechook.
"I'll tell you something," returned the sergeant; "I suspect that
stuff's of your providing."
Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, "Ay, ay? Why?"
"Because," returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder,
"you're a man that knows what's what."
"D'ye think so?" said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh. "Have
another glass!"
"With you. Hob and nob," returned the sergeant. "The top of mine to
the foot of yours - the foot of yours to the top of mine - Ring
once, ring twice - the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your
health. May you live a thousand years, and never be a worse judge
of the right sort than you are at the present moment of your life!"
The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for
another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality
appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took
the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about
in a gush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of
the wine that he even called for the other bottle, and handed that
about with the same liberality, when the first was gone.
As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge,
enjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for
a dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They had not
enjoyed themselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was
brightened with the excitement he furnished. And now, when they
were all in lively anticipation of "the two villains" being taken,
and when the bellows seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to
flare for them, the smoke to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to
hammer and clink for them, and all the murky shadows on the wall to
shake at them in menace as the blaze rose and sank and the red-hot
sparks dropped and died, the pale after-noon outside, almost seemed
in my pitying young fancy to have turned pale on their account,
poor wretches.
At last, Joe's job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped.
As Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of
us should go down with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt.
Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and
ladies' society; but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe
said he was agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We
never should have got leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe's
curiosity to know all about it and how it ended. As it was, she
merely stipulated, "If you bring the boy back with his head blown
to bits by a musket, don't look to me to put it together again."
The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr.
Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he were quite as
fully sensible of that gentleman's merits under arid conditions, as
when something moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and
fell in. Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in
the rear, and to speak no word after we reached the marshes. When
we were all out in the raw air and were steadily moving towards our
business, I treasonably whispered to Joe, "I hope, Joe, we shan't
find them." and Joe whispered to me, "I'd give a shilling if they
had cut and run, Pip."
We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather
was cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness
coming on, and the people had good fires in-doors and were keeping
the day. A few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after
us, but none came out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight
on to the churchyard. There, we were stopped a few minutes by a
signal from the sergeant's hand, while two or three of his men
dispersed themselves among the graves, and also examined the porch.
They came in again without finding anything, and then we struck out
on the open marshes, through the gate at the side of the
churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us here on the
east wind, and Joe took me on his back.
Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little
thought I had been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men
hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we
should come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it
was I who had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was
a deceiving imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound
if I joined the hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both
imp and hound in treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?
It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on
Joe's back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches
like a hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman
nose, and to keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us,
extending into a pretty wide line with an interval between man and
man. We were taking the course I had begun with, and from which I
had diverged in the mist. Either the mist was not out again yet, or
the wind had dispelled it. Under the low red glare of sunset, the
beacon, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the
opposite shore of the river, were plain, though all of a watery
lead colour.
With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe's broad shoulder, I
looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I
could hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once,
by his blowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by this
time, and could dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a
dreadful start, when I thought I heard the file still going; but it
was only a sheep bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked
timidly at us; and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and
sleet, stared angrily as if they held us responsible for both
annoyances; but, except these things, and the shudder of the dying
day in every blade of grass, there was no break in the bleak
stillness of the marshes.
The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery,
and we were moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a
sudden, we all stopped. For, there had reached us on the wings of
the wind and rain, a long shout. It was repeated. It was at a
distance towards the east, but it was long and loud. Nay, there
seemed to be two or more shouts raised together - if one might
judge from a confusion in the sound.
To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under
their breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment's
listening, Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who
was a bad judge) agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that
the sound should not be answered, but that the course should be
changed, and that his men should make towards it "at the double."
So we slanted to the right (where the East was), and Joe pounded
away so wonderfully, that I had to hold on tight to keep my seat.
It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words
he spoke all the time, "a Winder." Down banks and up banks, and
over gates, and splashing into dykes, and breaking among coarse
rushes: no man cared where he went. As we came nearer to the
shouting, it became more and more apparent that it was made by more
than one voice. Sometimes, it seemed to stop altogether, and then
the soldiers stopped. When it broke out again, the soldiers made
for it at a greater rate than ever, and we after them. After a
while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one voice calling
"Murder!" and another voice, "Convicts! Runaways! Guard! This way
for the runaway convicts!" Then both voices would seem to be
stifled in a struggle, and then would break out again. And when it
had come to this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too.
The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down,
and two of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked
and levelled when we all ran in.
"Here are both men!" panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom
of a ditch. "Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild
beasts! Come asunder!"
Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being
sworn, and blows were being struck, when some more men went down
into the ditch to help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately,
my convict and the other one. Both were bleeding and panting and
execrating and struggling; but of course I knew them both directly.
"Mind!" said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged
sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: "I took him! I give
him up to you! Mind that!"
"It's not much to be particular about," said the sergeant; "it'll do
you small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself.
Handcuffs there!"
"I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more
good than it does now," said my convict, with a greedy laugh. "I
took him. He knows it. That's enough for me."
The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old
bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all
over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they
were both separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep
himself from falling.
"Take notice, guard - he tried to murder me," were his first words.
"Tried to murder him?" said my convict, disdainfully. "Try, and not
do it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only
prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here -
dragged him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you
please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again,
through me. Murder him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I
could do worse and drag him back!"
The other one still gasped, "He tried - he tried - to - murder me.
Bear - bear witness."
"Lookee here!" said my convict to the sergeant. "Single-handed I
got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could
ha' got clear of these death-cold flats likewise - look at my leg:
you won't find much iron on it - if I hadn't made the discovery that
he was here. Let him go free? Let him profit by the means as I found
out? Let him make a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no,
no. If I had died at the bottom there;" and he made an emphatic
swing at the ditch with his manacled hands; "I'd have held to him
with that grip, that you should have been safe to find him in my
hold."
The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his
companion, repeated, "He tried to murder me. I should have been a
dead man if you had not come up."
"He lies!" said my convict, with fierce energy. "He's a liar born,
and he'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let
him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it."
The other, with an effort at a scornful smile - which could not,
however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set
expression - looked at the soldiers, and looked about at the
marshes and at the sky, but certainly did not look at the speaker.
"Do you see him?" pursued my convict. "Do you see what a villain he
is? Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That's how he
looked when we were tried together. He never looked at me."
The other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his
eyes restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a
moment on the speaker, with the words, "You are not much to look
at," and with a half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that
point, my convict became so frantically exasperated, that he would
have rushed upon him but for the interposition of the soldiers.
"Didn't I tell you," said the other convict then, "that he would
murder me, if he could?" And any one could see that he shook with
fear, and that there broke out upon his lips, curious white flakes,
like thin snow.
"Enough of this parley," said the sergeant. "Light those torches."
As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went
down on his knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the
first time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back on the brink
of the ditch when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at
him eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and
shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might
try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to
me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look
that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he
had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have
remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive.
The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or
four torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It
had been almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon
afterwards very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four
soldiers standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we
saw other torches kindled at some distance behind us, and others on
the marshes on the opposite bank of the river. "All right," said
the sergeant. "March."
We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a
sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. "You are
expected on board," said the sergeant to my convict; "they know you
are coming. Don't straggle, my man. Close up here."
The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate
guard. I had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the
torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to
see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably
good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence
here and there where a dyke came, with a miniature windmill on it
and a muddy sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the other
lights coming in after us. The torches we carried, dropped great
blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying
smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness.
Our lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and the
two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in
the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because of their
lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we had to
halt while they rested.
After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden
hut and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they
challenged, and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut
where there was a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright
fire, and a lamp, and a stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low
wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle without the machinery,
capable of holding about a dozen soldiers all at once. Three or
four soldiers who lay upon it in their great-coats, were not much
interested in us, but just lifted their heads and took a sleepy
stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant made some kind of
report, and some entry in a book, and then the convict whom I call
the other convict was drafted off with his guard, to go on board
first.
My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in
the hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or
putting up his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully
at them as if he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly,
he turned to the sergeant, and remarked:
"I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent
some persons laying under suspicion alonger me."
"You can say what you like," returned the sergeant, standing coolly
looking at him with his arms folded, "but you have no call to say
it here. You'll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear
about it, before it's done with, you know."
"I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can't
starve; at least I can't. I took some wittles, up at the willage
over yonder - where the church stands a'most out on the marshes."
"You mean stole," said the sergeant.
"And I'll tell you where from. From the blacksmith's."
"Halloa!" said the sergeant, staring at Joe.
"Halloa, Pip!" said Joe, staring at me.
"It was some broken wittles - that's what it was - and a dram of
liquor, and a pie."
"Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?"
asked the sergeant, confidentially.
"My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know,
Pip?"
"So," said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner,
and without the least glance at me; "so you're the blacksmith, are
you? Than I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie."
"God knows you're welcome to it - so far as it was ever mine,"
returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. "We don't know
what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for
it, poor miserable fellow-creatur. - Would us, Pip?"
The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man's
throat again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and
his guard were ready, so we followed him to the landing-place made
of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which
was rowed by a crew of convicts like himself. No one seemed
surprised to see him, or interested in seeing him, or glad to see
him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word, except that somebody in
the boat growled as if to dogs, "Give way, you!" which was the
signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the torches, we saw
the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like
a wicked Noah's ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty
chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like
the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken
up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches were flung
hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with
him.
< BackForward >
|
