Jim Davis/Chapter XVIII

CHAPTER XVIII TRACKED

It was very dark in the drawing-room under the stairs, and rather stuffy, for the only light and air admitted came through a little narrow crack, about six inches long, and half an inch across at its broadest. There was a strong smell of mice, among other smells; and the mice came scampering all over me before I had lain there long. I lay as still as I could, because of what Mrs Dick had said, and by-and-by I fell asleep in spite of the mice, and slept until it was dark.

I was awakened by the rolling back of the stairs. As I started up, thinking that I was captured, I saw Mrs Dick standing over me with a candle in her hand.

"Hush, Jim," she said. "Get out quickly. Don't ask any questions. Get out at once. You can't stay here any longer."

"What has happened?" I asked. "Where is your husband? Has your husband come home?"

"Yes," she said. "And you must go. They're coming after you. You were seen in the lugger with an axe in your hands. A man who passed you on the road after, saw you in the lugger. He was with the soldiers, and now he's given an information. Mary, the girl, heard it down at the magistrate's, where the inquest is. And so you must go. Besides, I want the drawing-room for my Dick. He has come back, and they'll be after him quite likely. He was seen, they say. So he must lie low till we've arranged the alibi, as they call it. Everybody has to have an alibi. And so my Dick'll have one, just to make sure. Mind your head against the stair."

I crawled out, rubbing my eyes.

"Where shall I go to?" I asked.

"Oh," she said. "Until we find out, you had better go in the stable, in among the feed in the box, or covered up in the hay."

When she had settled her husband safely into the drawing-room, she bustled me out of doors into the stable, which stood in the yard at the back of the inn. She put me into a mass of loose hay, in one of the unused stalls.

"There," she said. "They'll never look for you there. Don't get hay-fever and begin to sneeze, though. Here's your parcel for you. It wouldn't do to leave that about in the house, would it?"

She wished me good night and bustled back to the inn, to laugh and jest as though nothing was happening, and as though she had no trouble in the world.

I lay very quietly in my warm nest in the hay, feeling lonely in that still stable after my nights in the lugger among the men. The old horse stamped once or twice, and the stable cat came purring to me, seeking to be petted. The church clock struck nine, and rang out a chime. Shortly after nine I heard the clatter of many horses' hoofs coming along the road, and then the noise of cavalry jingling and clattering into the inn yard. A horse whinnied, the old horse in the stable whinnied in answer. A curt voice called to the men to dismount, and for some one to hold the horses. I strained my ears to hear any further words, but some one banging on a door (I guessed it to be the inn door) drowned the orders.

Then some one cried out, "Well, break it in, then. Don't come asking me."

After that there was more banging, an excited cry from a woman, and a few minutes of quiet.

I crept from my hiding-place to the window, so that I might see what was happening. The whole yard was full of cavalry. A couple of troopers were holding horses quite close to the door. By listening carefully, I could hear what they were saying.

"Yes," said one of them; "I got a proper lick myself. I shan't mind if they do get caught. They say there's some of them caught in a boat."

"Yes," said his mate; "three. And they do say we shall find a boy here as well as the other fellow. There was a boy aboard all night. And he's been tracked here. He's as good as caught, I reckon."

"I suppose they'll all be hanged?" said the first.

"Yes," said the other. "Won't be no defence for them. Neck or nothing. Hey?"

Then they passed out of earshot, leading their horses. I was so horribly scared that I was almost beside myself. What could I do? Where could I go? Where could I hide? The only door and window opened on to the courtyard. The loft was my only chance. I snatched up my parcel, and ran to the little ladder (nailed to the wall) which led to the loft, and climbed up as though the hounds were after me.

Even in the loft I was not much better off. There was a heap of hay and a few bundles of straw lying at one end, and two great swing-doors, opening on to the courtyard, through which the hay and straw had been passed to shelter. It was plainly useless to lie down in the straw. That would be the first place searched. I should be caught at once if I hid among the straw. Then it occurred to me that the loft must lead to a pigeon-house. I had seen a pigeon-house above and at one end of the stable, and I judged that the loft would communicate with it. It was not very light, but, by groping along the end wall, I came to a little latched door leading to another little room. This was the pigeon-house, and as I burst into it, closing the door behind me, the many pigeons rustled and stirred upon their nests and perches. It was darker in the pigeon-house than in the loft, but I could see that the place was bigger than the loft itself, and this gave me hope that there would be an opening at the back of it away from the yard. I had not much time, I knew, because the troopers were already trying to open the stable-door below me. I could hear them pounding and grumbling. Just as I heard them say, "That's it. The bar lifts up. There you are"—showing that they had found how to open the door—I came to a little door at the back, a little rotten door, locked and bolted with rusty cobwebbed iron. Very cautiously I turned the lock and drew the bolts back. The latch creaked under my thumb for the first time in many years. I was outside the door on a little, rotten, wooden landing, from which a flight of wooden steps led downward. I saw beyond me a few farm-buildings, a byre, several pigsties, and three disused waggons. Voices sounded in the stable as I climbed down the steps. I heard a man say, "He might be in the loft. We might look there." And then I touched the ground, and scurried quickly past the shelters to the outer wall.

Happily for me, the wall was well-grown with ivy, so that I could climb to the top. There was a six-foot drop on the far side into a lane; but it was now neck or nothing, so I let myself go. I came down with a crack which made my teeth rattle, my parcel spun away into a bed of nettles, and I got well stung in fishing it out. Then I strapped it on my back and turned along the lane in the direction which (as I judged) led me away from the sea. As I stepped out on my adventures, I heard the ordered trample of horses leaving the inn-yard together to seek elsewhere. The lane soon ended at a stile, which led into a field. I saw a barn or shed just beyond the stile, and in the shed there was a heap of hay, which smelt a little mouldy. I lay down upon it, determined to wake early, and creep back to the inn before anybody stirred in the village.

"Ah, well," I said to myself before I fell asleep, "in a week's time they will be here to take me home. Then my troubles will be over."

I remember that all my fear of the troops was gone. I felt so sure that all would be well in the morning. So, putting my parcel under my head as a pillow, I snuggled down into the hay, and very soon fell asleep.

I was awakened in the morning by the entrance of an old cart-horse, who came to smell at the hay. It was light enough to see where I was going, so I opened my knapsack and made a rough breakfast before setting out. Overnight I had planned to go back to the inn. In the cool of the morning that plan did not seem so very wise as I had thought it. I was almost afraid to put it into practice. However, I went back along the lane. With some trouble, I got over the tall brick wall down which I had dropped the night before. Then I climbed up to the pigeon-house, down the loft-ladder, into the inn-yard, to the broken back door of the tavern. The door hung from one hinge, with its lower panels kicked in just as the soldiers had left it. The inn was open to anybody who cared to enter.

I entered cautiously, half expecting to find a few soldiers billeted there. But the place was empty. I went from room to room, finding no one; Mrs. Dick seemed to have disappeared. One of the rooms was in disorder. A few broken glasses were on the floor; a chair lay on its side under the table. I went upstairs. I tapped at the outside of the drawing-room. No answer there; all was still there. I listened attentively for some sound of breathing; none came. No one was inside. I went all over the house. No one was there. I was alone in the "Blue Boar," the only person in the house. I could only guess that Mr and Mrs Dick had been arrested. To be sure, they might have run away together during the night. I did not quite know what to think.

In my wanderings, I came to the bar, which I found in great disorder; the bench was upset, jugs and glasses were scattered on the floor, and the blinds had not been pulled up. Although I had some fear of being seen from outside, I pulled up the blinds to let in a little light, so that I might look at the coaching-map which hung at one end of the bar. When I passed behind the bar to trace out for myself the road to London, I saw an open book lying on a shelf among the bottles. It was a copy of Captain Johnson's Lives of the Highwaymen and Pirates, lying open at the life of Captain Roberts, the famous pirate Whydah. Some one must have been reading it when the soldiers entered.

I looked at it curiously, for it was open at the portrait of Roberts. Underneath the portrait were a few words written in pencil in a clumsy scrawl. I read them over, expecting some of the ordinary schoolboy nonsense.

"Captain Roberts was a bad one. Jim. Don't come back here. The lobsters is around." That was all the message. But I saw at once that it was meant for me; that Mrs Dick, knowing that I should come back, had done her best to leave a warning for me. "Lobsters," I knew, was the smugglers' slang for soldiers; and if the lobsters were dangerous to me it was plain that I was wanted for my innocent share in the fight. I looked through the book for any further message; but there was no other entry, except a brief pencilled memorandum of what some one had paid for groceries many years before, at some market town not named.