"Sick folk, eh?" said the riding-master, with a brusque laugh.
"Sick folk don"t usually sit up till past two in the morning ready dressed. Hadn"t we better stow that kind of talk, ma"am?"
"You had better," Mrs Tresize answered composedly, "hitch your horse"s bridle to the staple you"ll find on the left, and step inside--that is, if you are not in too great a hurry." Here she turned for a look behind her. "My goodness!" she cried with a well-feigned start, "if you haven"t scared the doctor into fetching a gun!"
Mr Rattenbury stared past her into the pa.s.sage. "Doctor Unonius?" he exclaimed, catching his breath in surprise.
"At your good service, Mr Rattenbury, though you have given us a shock, sir. May I ask what keeps you afoot to-night? Not a run of goods, I hope?"
Mr Rattenbury stared at him. If any one man in the whole countryside bore a reputation of simple probity, it was Doctor Unonius.
Impossible to connect him with tricks to defraud the Revenue!
And yet had not the young riding-officer distinctly seen Landaveddy show and anon eclipse a light, and in such a fashion that it could only be interpreted as a signal.
"There has been a run, and an infernally daring one," said Mr Rattenbury; "in Lealand Cove, not half an hour ago. And the deuce of it is we had warning of it all along."
"Warning?" echoed Mrs Tresize, with a touch of anxiety in her voice.
"Yes, ma"am. It was known to us--though I"ll not tell you how--that Truman, the Grampound butcher, was acting freighter for a pretty large run, and for a week now two of my fellows have been at Grampound keeping an eye on him. I sent over a relief this very afternoon, and the relieved men brought back the report that Truman had scarcely quitted his house for a week. They left at four o"clock. It was dusk, and he"d lit a couple of candles in his shop, and was seated there reading a newspaper. Another thing put us off.
The boat chartered was the _Bold Venture_, with Cornelius Roose on board. Cornelius--as I dare say you have heard, doctor--is the cleverest spotsman on this coast; but he was never yet known to risk a run unless he had his brother John to help ash.o.r.e. So we kept a sharp eye on John Roose, and unbeknown to him, as we thought.
Well, to-night he attends a prayer-meeting at Polruan, that"s five miles east of home, and starts back at ten o"clock, our men shadowing him all the way. Goes quietly to bed he does, and just as I"m thinking to do the same, be shot if Cornelius hasn"t beaten up with a foul wind, dodged the cutter, and nipped into Lealand Cove, where somebody has two score of pack horses waiting--"
"Pack horses?"
"Yes, the old game. It hasn"t been played before in my time, and my men had almost forgotten the trick of it. The horses need training, you see, and we reckoned the trained ones had all died out."
"Horses?" repeated Doctor Unonius. "Then that accounts for the noise I heard--"
"Eh?" queried Mr Rattenbury sharply.
"A sound of galloping, as it were. I opened the window to look, but could see nothing.
Mrs Tresize caught her breath. "Yes, yes," she put in, "Doctor Unonius opened the window. You wouldn"t charge _him_ with making signals, I hope?"
"But--" began Doctor Unonius and Mr Rattenbury together. The doctor was about to say that, the road being hidden from this downstairs window, it followed that the window could not be seen from the road.
But the riding-officer had the louder voice and bore him down.
"But," he objected, "the light was shown from an _upstairs_ window, ma"am."
"To be sure," the widow squared her chin and glanced at Doctor Unonius defiantly--"and what should the doctor be doing here except attending on the sick? And where should my poor maid Tryphena be lying at this moment but upstairs and in bed with the colic?"
The doctor, on a sudden confronted with this amazing lie, cast up his hands a little way, and so, averting his eyes, turned slowly round to the fireplace. His brain swam. For the moment he could scarcely have been more helpless had some one dealt him a blow in the wind.
His nature so abhorred falsehood that he blushed even to suspect it.
To have it flung at him thus brazenly--
As he recovered his wits a little he heard the widow say,--
"And as for the horses, they never came this way."
"Is that so?" Mr Rattenbury swung round upon the doctor.
"They--they certainly did not pa.s.s along the road outside," said Doctor Unonius, speaking as in a dream. "The noise of galloping turned off at some distance below the house, and seemed to die away to the northward."
"Then I"ve made a cursed mess of this," said the riding-officer, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his hat. "Your pardon, ma"am! and if you won"t forgive me to-night, I"ll call and apologise to-morrow."
CHAPTER VII.
He was gone. They heard the clatter of his horse"s hoofs down the road, and listened as it died away.
Neither spoke. Mrs Tresize stood by the table, and so that, glancing sideways across her left shoulder, her eyes studied the doctor"s back, which he kept obstinately turned upon her. He had put up a hand to the chimney-shelf and leaned forward with his gaze bent on the embers.
"Doctor?"
"Ma"am?" after a long pause.
"Do you really reckon smuggling so very sinful?"
"It is not a question of smuggling, ma"am."
"Oh, yes, it is!" she insisted. "Once you get mixed up in that business you have to deceive at times--if "tis only to protect others."
"I can understand, ma"am," said the doctor, after another pause, "that to dabble in smuggling is to court many awkward situations.
You need not remind _me_ of that, who am fresh from misleading that young man. It was--if you will pardon my saying so--by reason of his trust in my good faith that you escaped cross-questioning."
"I"ll grant that, and with all my heart. But, since deceiving him goes so hard against the grain with you, he shall know the truth to-morrow, when he comes to apologise. Will that content you?"
"It will be some atonement, ma"am. As for contenting me--"
"You mean that I have given you a shock? And that to recover your esteem will not be easy?"
She asked it with a small, pathetic sigh, and took a step towards the fireplace, as if to entreat his pardon. But before he could be aware of this his attention was claimed by a sound without. The latch of the back door was lifted with a click, and, almost before he could face about, steps were heard in the pa.s.sage. The door of the best kitchen opened a foot or so, and through the aperture was thrust the head of Tryphena--of Tryphena, who by rights should be lying upstairs, victim of a colic.
"Missus!" announced Tryphena, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "The kegs be stowed all right in the orchet--all the four dozen. But here"s Butcher Truman, teasy as fire. Says he"s been robbed o" fifty pounds on the way an" can"t pay the carriers! An" the carriers be tappin"
the stuff an" drinkin" what"s left, an" neither to hold nor to bind but threat"nin" to cut the inside of en out--an" he"s here, if you plaze, to know if so be you could lend a few pounds to satisfy "em.
I told en--"
"Show him in," commanded Mrs Tresize, with a creditable hold on her voice; for, to tell the truth, she was half hysterical.
Tryphena withdrew, and pushed the strangest of figures through the doorway. Butcher Truman had discarded the shawl from his head and shoulders, or perchance it had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the infuriated carriers. For expedition, too, he had caught up his feminine skirt and petticoat and twisted them and caught them about his waist with a leathern belt, over which they hung in careless indecorous festoons, draping a pair of corduroy breeches. But he still wore a woman"s bodice, though half the b.u.t.tons were burst; and a sun-bonnet, with strings still knotted about his throat, dangled at the back of his shoulders like a hood. He was a full-blooded man, slightly obese, with a villainous pair of eyes that blinked in the sudden lamp-light.
He was dangerous, too, between anger and terror. But Mrs Tresize gave him no time.
"Ah, good-evening, Mr Truman! There has been some mistake, I hear; but it"s by the greatest good luck you came to me. Here is your missing property, eh?" She smiled and held out the bag.
Butcher Truman stared at it. "Send I may never--" he began; and with that his gaze, travelling past the bag, fell on Doctor Unonius.
"_You?_" he stuttered, clenching his thick fists. "_You?_ . . .
Oh, by--, let me get at "im!"
But Mrs Tresize very deftly stepped in front of him as he came on menacing.