The Splendid Spur/Chapter 10

either I am mad or dreaming,” thought I: for that the fellow had not heard our noise was to me starkly incredible. I stepp'd along the deck toward him: not an inch did he budge. I touch'd him on the shoulder.

He fac'd round with a quick start.

“Sir,” said I, quick and low, before he could get a word out—“Sir, we are in your hands. I will be plain. To-night I have broke out of Bristol Keep, and the Colonel's men are after me. Give me up to them, and they hang me to-morrow: give my comrade up, and they persecute her vilely. Now, sir, I know not which side you be, but there's our case in a nutshell.”

The man bent forward, displaying a huge, rounded face, very kindly about the eyes, and set atop of the oddest body in the world: for under a trunk extraordinary broad and strong, straddled a pair of legs that a baby would have disown'd—so thin and stunted were they, and (to make it the queerer) ended in feet the most prodigious you ever saw.

As I said, this man lean'd forward, and shouted into my ear so that I fairly leapt in the air—

“My name's Pottery—Bill Pottery, cap'n o' the Godsend—an' you can't make me hear, not if you bust yoursel'!”

You may think this put me in a fine quandary.

“I be deaf as nails!” bawl'd he.

'Twas horrible: for the troopers (I thought) if anywhere near, could not miss hearing him. His voice shook the very rigging.

“... An' o' my crew the half ashore gettin' drunk, an' the half below in a very accomplished state o' liquor: so there's no chance for 'ee to speak!”

He paus'd a moment, then roared again—

“What a pity! 'Cos you make me very curious—that you do!”

Luckily, at this moment, Delia had the sense to put a finger to her lip. The man wheel'd round without another word, led us aft over the blocks, cordage, and all manner of loose gear that encumber'd the deck, to a ladder that, toward the stern, led down into darkness. Here he sign'd to us to follow; and, descending first, threw open a door, letting out a faint stream of light in our faces. 'Twas the captain's cabin, lin'd with cupboards and lockers: and the light came from an oil lamp hanging over a narrow deal table. By this light Captain Billy scrutinis'd us for an instant: then, from one of his lockers, brought out pen, paper, and ink, and set them on the table before me.

I caught up the pen, dipp'd it, and began to write—

Thus far I had written without glancing up, in fear to read the disappointment of my hopes. But now the pen was caught suddenly from my fingers, the paper torn in shreds, and there was Master Pottery shaking us both by the hand, nodding and becking, and smiling the while all over his big red face.

But he ceas'd at last: and opening another of his lockers, drew forth a horn lantern, a mallet, and a chisel. Not a word was spoken as he lit the lantern and pass'd out of the cabin, Delia and I following at his heels.

Just outside, at the foot of the steps, he stoop'd, pull'd up a trap in the flooring, and disclos'd another ladder stretching, as it seem'd, down into the bowels of the ship. This we descended carefully; and found ourselves in the hold, pinching our noses 'twixt finger and thumb.

For indeed the smell here was searching to a very painful degree: for the room was narrow, and every inch of it contested by two puissant essences, the one of raw wood, the other of bilge water. With wool the place was pil'd: but also I notic'd, not far from the ladder, several casks set on their ends; and to these the captain led us.

They were about a dozen in all, stacked close together: and Master Pottery, rolling two apart from the rest, dragg'd them to another trap and tugg'd out the bungs. A stream of fresh water gush'd from each and splash'd down the trap into the bilge below. Then, having drained them, he stay'd in their heads with a few blows of his mallet.

His plan for us was clear. And in a very few minutes Delia and I were crouching on the timbers, each with a cask inverted over us, our noses at the bung-holes and our ears listening to Master Pottery's footsteps as they climb'd heavily back to deck. The rest of the casks were stack'd close round us, so that even had the gloom allow'd, we could see nothing at all.

“Jack!”

“Delia!”

“Dost feel heroical at all?”

“Not one whit. There's a trickle of water running down my back, to begin with.”

“And my nose it itches; and oh, what a hateful smell! Say something to me, Jack.”

“My dear,” said I, “there is one thing I've been longing these weeks to say: but this seems an odd place for it.”

“What is't?”

I purs'd up my lips to the bung-hole, and—

“I love you,” said I.

There was silence for a moment: and then, within Delia's cask, the sound of muffled laughter.

“Delia,” I urg'd, “I mean it, upon my oath. Wilt marry me, sweetheart?”

“Must get out of this cask first. Oh, Jack, what a dear goose thou art!” And the laughter began again.

I was going to answer, when I heard a loud shouting overhead. 'Twas the sound of someone hailing the ship, and thought I, “the troopers are on us!”

They were, in truth. Soon I heard the noise of feet above and a string of voices speaking one after another, louder and louder. And next Master Pottery began to answer up and drown'd all speech but his own. When he ceas'd, there was silence for some minutes: after which we heard a party descend to the cabin, and the trampling of their feet on the boards above us. They remain'd there some while discussing: and then came footsteps down the second ladder, and a twinkle of light reach'd me through the bung-hole of my cask.

“Quick!” said a husky voice; “overhaul the cargo here!”

I heard some half dozen troopers bustling about the hold and tugging out the bales of wool.

“Hi!” call'd Master Pottery: “an' when you've done rummaging my ship, put everything back as you found it.”

“Poke about with your swords,” commanded the husky voice. “What's in those barrels yonder?”

“Water, sergeant,” answers a trooper, rolling out a couple.

“Nothing behind them?”

“No; they're right against the side.”

“Drop 'em then. Plague on this business! 'Tis my notion they're a mile away, and Cap'n Stubbs no better than a fool to send us back here. He's grudging promotion, that's what he is! Hurry, there—hurry!”

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Ten minutes later, the searchers were gone; and we in our casks drawing long breaths of thankfulness and strong odours. And so we crouch'd till, about midnight, Captain Billy brought us down a supper of ship's biscuit: which we crept forth to eat, being sorely cramp'd.

He could not hear our thanks: but guess'd them.

“Now say not a word! To-morrow we sail for Plymouth Sound: thence for Brittany. Hist! We be all King's men aboard the Godsend, tho' hearing nought I says little. Yet I have my reasoning heresies, holding the Lord's Anointed to be an anointed rogue, but nevertheless to be serv'd: just as aboard the Godsend I be Cap'n Billy an' you plain Jack, be your virtues what they may. An' the conclusion is—damn all mutineers an' rebels! Tho', to be sure, the words be a bit lusty for a young gentlewoman's ears.”

We went back to our casks with lighter hearts. Howbeit 'twas near five in the morning, I dare say, before my narrow bedchamber allow'd me to drop asleep.

I woke to spy through my bunghole the faint light of day struggling down the hatches. Above, I heard a clanking noise, and the voices of the men hiccoughing a dismal chant. They were lifting anchor. I crawl'd forth and woke Delia, who was yet sleeping: and together we ate the breakfast that lay ready set for us on the head of a barrel.

Presently the sailors broke off their song, and we heard their feet shuffling to and fro on deck.

“Sure,” cried Delia, “we are moving!”

And surely we were, as could be told by the alter'd sound of the water beneath us, and the many creakings that the Godsend began to keep. Once more I tasted freedom again, and the joy of living, and could have sung for the mirth that lifted my heart. “Let us but gain open sea,” said I, “and I'll have tit-for-tat with these rebels!”

But alas! before we had left Avon mouth twenty minutes, 'twas another tale. For I lay on my side in that dark hold and long'd to die: and Delia sat up beside me, her hands in her lap, and her great eyes fix'd most dolefully. And when Captain Billy came down with news that we were safe and free to go on deck, we turn'd our faces from him, and said we thank'd him kindly, but had no longer any wish that way—too wretched, even, to remember his deafness.

Let me avoid, then, some miserable hours, and come to the evening, when, faint with fasting and nausea, we struggled up to the deck for air, and look'd about us.

'Twas grey—grey everywhere: the sky lead-colour'd, with deeper shades toward the east, where a bank of cloud blotted the coast-line: the thick rain descending straight, with hardly wind enough to set the sails flapping; the sea spread like a plate of lead, save only where, to leeward, a streak of curded white crawled away from under the Godsend's keel.

On deck, a few sailors mov'd about, red-eyed and heavy. They show'd no surprise to see us, but nodded very friendly, with a smile for our strange complexions. Here again, as ever, did adversity mock her own image.

But what more took our attention was to see a row of men stretch'd on the starboard side, like corpses, their heads in the scuppers, their legs pointed inboard, and very orderly arranged. They were a dozen and two in all, and over them bent Captain Billy with a mop in his hand, and a bucket by his side: who beckon'd that we should approach.

“Array'd in order o' merit,” said he, pointing with his mop like a showman to the line of figures before him.

We drew near.

“This here is Matt. Soames, master o' this vessel—an' he's dead.”

“Dead?”

“Dead-drunk, that is. O the gifted man! Come up!” He thrust the mop in the fellow's heavy face. “There now! Did he move, did he wink? 'No,' says you. O an accomplished drunkard!”

He paus'd a moment; then stirr'd up No. 2, who open'd one eye lazily, and shut it again in slumber.

“You saw? Open'd one eye, hey? That's Benjamin Halliday. The next is a black man, as you see: a man of dismal color, and hath other drawbacks natural to such. Can the Æthiop shift his skin? No, but he'll open both eyes. See there—a perfect Christian, in so far as drink can make him.”

With like comments he ran down the line till he came to the last man, in front of whom he stepp'd back.

“About this last—he's a puzzler. Times I put him top o' the list, an' times at the tail. That's Ned Masters, an' was once the Reverend Edward Masters, Bachelor o' Divinity in Cambridge College; but in a tavern there fell a-talking with a certain Pelagian about Adam an' Eve, an' because the fellow turn'd stubborn, put a knife into his waistband, an' had to run away to sea: a middling drinker only, but after a quart or so to hear him tackle Predestination! So there be times after all when I sets'n apart, and says, 'Drunk, you'm no good, but half-drunk, you'm priceless.' Now there's a man” He dropp'd his mop, and, leading us aft, pointed with admiring finger to the helmsman—a thin, wizen'd fellow, with a face like a crab apple, and a pair of piercing grey eyes half hidden by the droop of his wrinkled lids. “Gabriel Hutchins, how old be you?”

“Sixty-four, come next Martinmas,” pip'd the helmsman.

“In what state o' life?”

“Drunk.”

“How drunk?”

“As a lord!”

“Canst stand upright?”

“Hee-hee! Now could I iver do other?—a miserable ould worms to whom the sweet effects o' quantums be denied. When was I iver wholesomely maz'd? Or when did I lay my grey hairs on the floor, saying, 'Tis enough, an' 'tis good'? Answer me that, Cap'n Bill.”

“But you hopes for the best, Gabriel.”

“Aye, I hopes—I hopes.”

The old man sigh'd as he brought the Godsend a point nearer the wind; and, as we turn'd away with the Captain, was still muttering, his sharp grey eyes fix'd on the vessel's prow.

“He's my best,” said Captain Billy Pottery.

With this crew we pass'd four days; and I write this much of them because they afterward, when sober, did me a notable good turn, as you shall read toward the end of this history. But lest you should judge them hardly, let me say here that when they recovered of their stupor—as happen'd to the worst after thirty-six hours—there was no brisker, handier set of fellows on the seas. And this Captain Billy well understood: “but” (said he) “I be a collector an' a man o' conscience both, which is uncommon. Doubtless there be good sots that are not good seamen, but from such I turn my face, drink they never so prettily.”

'Twas necessary I should impart some notion of my errand to Captain Billy, tho' I confin'd myself to hints, telling him only 'twas urgent I should be put ashore somewhere on the Cornish coast, for that I carried intelligence which would not keep till we reached Plymouth, a town that, besides, was held by the rebels. And he agreed readily to land me in Bude Bay: “and also thy comrade, if (as I guess) she be so minded,” he added, glancing up at Delia from the paper whereon I had written my request.

She had been silent of late, beyond her wont, avoiding (I thought) to meet my eye: but answer'd simply,

“I go with Jack.”

Captain Billy, whose eyes rested on her as she spoke, beckon'd me, very mysterious, outside the cabin, and winking slily, whisper'd loud enough to stun one—

“Ply her, Jack”—he had call'd me “Jack” from the first—“ply her briskly! Womankind is but yielding flesh: 'am an amorous man mysel', an' speak but that I have prov'd.”

On this—for the whole ship could hear it—there certainly came the sound of a stifled laugh from the other side of the cabin door: but it did not mend my comrade's shy humour, that lasted throughout the voyage.

To be brief, 'twas not till the fourth afternoon (by reason of baffling head winds) that we stepped out of the Godsend's boat upon a small beach of shingle, whence, between a rift in the black cliffs, wound up the road that was to lead us inland. The Godsend, as we turn'd to wave our hands, lay at half a mile's distance, and made a pretty sight: for the day, that had begun with a white frost, was now turn'd sunny and still, so that looking north we saw the sea all spread with pink and lilac and hyacinth, and upon it the ship lit up, her masts and sails glowing like a gold piece. And there was Billy, leaning over the bulwarks and waving his trumpet for “Good-bye!” Thought I, for I little dream'd to see these good fellows again, “what a witless game is this life! to seek ever in fresh conjunctions what we leave behind in a hand-shake.” 'Twas a cheap reflection, yet it vex'd me that as we turn'd to mount the road Delia should break out singing—

“Why, no,” said I, “I don't think it”: and capp'd her verse with another—

“Jack, for pity's sake, stop!” She put her fingers to her ears. “What a nasty, creaking voice thou hast, to be sure!”

“That's as a man may hold,” said I, nettled.

“No, indeed: yours is a very poor voice, but mine is beautiful. So listen.”

She went on to sing as she went, “Green as grass is my kirtle,” “Tire me in tiffany,” “Come ye bearded men-at-arms,” and “The Bending Rush.” All these she sang, as I must confess, most delicately well, and then fac'd me, with a happy smile—

“Now, have not I a sweet voice? Why, Jack—art still glum?”

“Delia,” answer'd I, “you have first to give me a reply to what, four days agone, I ask'd you. Dear girl—nay then, dear comrade”

I broke off, for she had come to a stop, wringing her hands and looking in my face most dolefully.

“Oh, dear—oh, dear! Jack, we have had such merry times: and you are spoiling all the fun!”

We follow'd the road after this very moodily; for Delia, whom I had made sharer of the rebels' secret, agreed that no time was to be lost in reaching Bodmin, that lay a good thirty miles to the southwest. Night fell and the young moon rose, with a brisk breeze at our backs that kept us still walking without any feeling of weariness. Captain Billy had given me at parting a small compass, of new invention, that a man could carry easily in his pocket; and this from time to time I examin'd in the moonlight, guiding our way almost due south, in hopes of striking into the main road westward. I doubt not we lost a deal of time among the by-ways; but at length happen'd on a good road bearing south, and follow'd it till daybreak, when to our satisfaction we spied a hill in front, topp'd with a stout castle, and under it a town of importance, that we guess'd to be Launceston.

By this, my comrade and I were on the best of terms again; and now drew up to consider if we should enter the town or avoid it to the west, trusting to find a breakfast in some tavern on the way. Because we knew not with certainty the temper of the country, it seem'd best to choose this second course: so we fetch'd around by certain barren meadows, and thought ourselves lucky to hit on a road that, by the size, must be the one we sought, and a tavern with a wide yard before it and a carter's van standing at the entrance, not three gunshots from the town walls.

“Now Providence hath surely led us to breakfast,” said Delia, and stepp'd before me into the yard, toward the door.

I was following her when, inside of a gate to the right of the house, I caught the gleam of steel, and turn'd aside to look.

To my dismay there stood near a score of chargers in this second court, saddled and dripping with sweat. My first thought was to run after Delia; but a quick surprise made me rub my eyes with wonder—

'Twas the sight of a sorrel mare among them—a mare with one high white stocking. In a thousand I could have told her for Molly.

Three seconds after I was at the tavern door, and in my ears a voice sounding that stopp'd me short and told me in one instant that without God's help all was lost.

'Twas the voice of Captain Settle speaking in the taproom; and already Delia stood, past concealment, by the open door.

“... And therefore, master carter, it grieves me to disappoint thee; but no man goeth this day toward Bodmin. Such be my Lord of Stamford's orders, whose servant I am, and as captain of this troop I am sent to exact them. As they displease you, his lordship is but twenty-four hours behind: you can abide him and complain. Doubtless he will hear—ten million devils!”

I heard his shout as he caught sight of Delia. I saw his crimson face as he darted out and gripp'd her. I saw, or half saw, the troopers crowding out after him. For a moment I hesitated. Then came my pretty comrade's voice, shrill above the hubbub—

“Jack—they have horses outside! Leave me—I am ta'en—and ride, dear lad—ride!”

In a flash my decision was taken, for better or worse. I dash'd out around the house, vaulted the gate, and catching at Molly's mane, leapt into the saddle.

A dozen troopers were at the gate, and two had their pistols levell'd.

“Surrender!”

“Be hang'd if I do!”

I set my teeth and put Molly at the low wall. As she rose like a bird in air the two pistols rang out together, and a burning pain seem'd to tear open my left shoulder. In a moment the mare alighted safe on the other side, flinging me forward on her neck. But I scrambled back, and with a shout that frighten'd my own ears, dug my heels into her flanks.

Half a minute more and I was on the hard road, galloping westward for dear life. So also were a score of rebel troopers. Twenty miles and more lay before me; and a bare hundred yards was all my start.