For a moment I was too much taken up with wondering by what mishap the dog had been wounded to connect his appearance, and his evident wish to urge me on, with the coach that had lately pa.s.sed. But then the connection struck upon me in a flash, and I began to run with all my might. The dog had doubtless accompanied his mistress on her morning ride; he could only have been wounded in defending her; she must have been waylaid, and, thought linking itself with thought, I guessed that Sir Richard Cludde had taken this means of a.s.serting his claim to her guardianship, and the man I had seen in the coppice a few days before was an emissary of his. Without a doubt she was now a prisoner in the coach, being carried against her will to Shrewsbury.
The road here ran steeply downhill, and the coach was out of sight round a bend. Without pausing to consider the chances of overtaking it, I leapt rather than ran forward, soon outstripping the dog, which had done his best, poor beast, but was now well-nigh exhausted. I flung away my staff, that enc.u.mbered me, and tore headlong down the hill, till, coming to the bend, where the road sloped upwards, I caught sight once more of the coach, no more than half a mile ahead of me. This surprised me, for neither the ascent nor my speed could account for its nearness, and I wondered, as I pounded after it, whether I had after all been mistaken.
But the matter was explained when I came to the inn that stood at the point where my short cut branched off. I saw wheel tracks to the right, crossed by similar tracks back again to the road, and I guessed that the postilion had intended to drive his horses down the byroad, but having found it too rough or too narrow had been compelled to return, even at the cost of loss of time in backing.
My heart leapt with exultation; the kidnappers were not making for Shrewsbury after all; they purposed driving southward, with what design I could not guess, nor did I stop to consider, for in a twinkling I saw a possibility of intercepting them. Dashing into the inn, much to the amazement of the innkeeper, who had sometimes served Roger and me with a pot of ale as we returned from fishing, I told him my suspicions in quick, breathless gasps, and bade him send to Mr. Allardyce for a.s.sistance, and to follow me, if he could, along the byroad to Deuxhill. The man was not too quick-witted, and I could have beaten him for his slowness to comprehend the urgency of the affair. But some glimmering of it dawning upon him, he promised to borrow a horse from Farmer Grubb close by, he having none of his own, and to send a messenger back to the Hall. Without further parley I left him, and set off along the byroad, scarce giving a glance to the poor dog limping painfully towards the inn.
Chapter 11: I Hold A Turnpike.
Could I reach the turnpike in time? I wondered. I had lost perhaps three minutes at the inn. The coach must already have reached the crossroads, and was now, without doubt, speeding southward on a course parallel with my own, but downhill, whereas the byroad, though shorter, was for the most part uphill, and so rough that I risked spraining my ankle on a stone or in a rut.
And even supposing I gained the turnpike before the coach, would the keeper be persuaded to close his gates against a three-horsed vehicle on the highway? I knew the man, and luckily had done him a slight service which perchance he would be willing to repay. Once, when Roger and I had gone to the Borle Brook to fish, we came upon a little girl some five years old sitting by the brink, weeping bitterly. One foot was bare, her little shoe was floating down the stream, she had lost herself, and was so frightened that it was long before we could make out from her sobbing answers to our questions that she was daughter to the turnpike man. Then Roger rescued her shoe, and I set her aloft on my shoulder, to her great contentment, and she was laughing merrily when we reached the turnpike, and gave her into the hands of her distracted mother.
Remembering this, I raced on at my best speed, resolved, if only I arrived in time, to turn this little incident to account.
It did but add to my anxiety that the highroad was nowhere visible to me as I ran, so that I could not measure my progress with that of the coach, but was forced to go on at the same break-neck pace, not daring to moderate it in any degree. And I could almost have cried with vexation when that plaguey st.i.tch in the side seized me, and I had to stand a while to recover my breath. Then I raced on again, desperately anxious to make up for the lost time. My work upon the Hall estate, and my exercise with Roger, had kept my body in good condition: yet to run for four miles or more at a stretch with the mind in a ferment would tax any man, and by the time I came in sight of the turnpike I was fairly overdone, dripping with sweat--"twas a sunny day in July--and trembling in every limb.
And then I heard, or fancied I heard, the rattle of the coach on my left, and I picked up my heels and scampered along the last half-mile at a pace which, in other circ.u.mstances, I should have deemed impossible, the loose stones flying from beneath my feet.
I emerged upon the highroad, threw a glance over my left shoulder, and gave a great gasp of relief when I spied the coach plunging down the road, but nearly a mile distant. I had had no clear notion of what I was going to do beyond attempting to keep the gate closed, and now I realized with a sinking heart that, even if I should succeed therein, the coach could scarcely be delayed long enough for help to arrive. But certainly that was the first step, and I dashed straight into the keeper"s cottage, the door of which stood open, and found Mistress Peabody, his wife, paring potatoes at the table, her little girl by her side.
"Where is Peabody?" I blurted out.
"Sakes alive!" cried the woman, "but you did give me a start.
Whatever be amiss?"
What more I said I know not, but at my demand that she should refuse to open the gate for the coming coach the poor bewildered soul dropped her potatoes and declared she could never do it; "twould cause terrible trouble with Peabody, and maybe bring about his dismissal by the justices, and where he was she did not know, and she had told him many a time he would get into a coil if he left his duty and went so often to the King William a-fuddling himself with--
"For G.o.d"s sake, woman," I broke in, exasperated, "take the child into the garden and leave it to me."
I fairly pushed her out at the back door, the little girl clinging to her skirts, terrified at my appearance and the fierceness of my words. I shut the door upon them, whipped the key of the gate from its nail on the wall, flung it into the pan of water among the potatoes, and then, a desperate expedient coming into my mind, sauntered leisurely out of the front door, picking up as I pa.s.sed a stick of wood from among a heap with which the child had been playing on the floor.
I climbed the gate, and sat upon the topmost bar, with my feet on the third. Then, having pulled the broad brim of my hat down over my eyes, I took out my clasp knife (it had been given me a few days before by Roger as a memento) and began to whittle the stick, whistling a doleful tune.
The coach was by this time within a hundred yards of me.
"Gate! gate!" shouted the postilion, but I paid no heed. There was now a man on the box; I suppose he had been picked up at the crossroads. He joined his cry to the postilion"s, and together they roared "Gate!" with many imprecations of the kind that men who deal with horses have at command.
But I still went on whittling my stick, not without some feeling of insecurity, for the coach was approaching at a furious speed, and it seemed impossible that the postilion could draw up in time to prevent the horses from dashing themselves against the barrier. He accomplished that feat, however, and the leading horse came to a standstill within little more than a foot of me; I could feel its hot breath on my hand. Like the other two, it was covered with foam, and their sides were heaving like a bellows.
"Gate!" roared the postilion, looking in at the open door, and receiving no reply he turned his head towards me and demanded with an oath to know where the turnpike keeper was.
"He bin gone out," I said, in the broadest Shropshire accent I could muster.
"The mischief he is! Who be in charge of the gate then?"
Sputtering with wrath the postilion cursed me and demanded to know what I meant by sitting a-top when travelers wished to pa.s.s through. I a.s.sumed the vacant grin that rustics wear, and said:
"The toll be tuppence, measter."
"Here it is," says the man, flinging the coins on the ground, "and be hanged to you."
I descended from my perch (the man abusing me for my slowness), picked up the money, and went into the cottage as if to get the key.
"Be quick about it," roared the postilion after me.
"Coming, measter," I replied, sitting on the table, out of his sight. In a little he cried to me again:
"What be doin" of? Stir your stumps, I say."
"Coming, measter," says I, knocking my knife against the potato pan to signify bustle. The man"s language grew more and more violent as the minutes pa.s.sed and still I did not reappear, until, having consumed as much time as I thought becoming, I went to the doorway, and said, in the manner of stating a simple fact of no importance,
"Key binna hangin" on nail, measter. The nail be proper plaace for it: can ya tell me where to look?"
My drawling tone seemed to incense the man to the verge of apoplexy. Hurling abuse at me, he ended with a threat to horsewhip me within an inch of my life if I did not instantly find the key and open the gate. At this I shrank back, putting up my hands to guard my head with great affectation of terror, and withdrew once more into the cottage. As I did so, I heard the shutters on the far side of the coach let down, and a voice demanding the reason of the delay.
"The pudding-headed scut cannot find the key, sir."
"Tell him," said the voice in a louder tone (and I tingled as I recognized it)--"tell him that if he keeps us waiting another minute we will break the gate down."
I laughed inwardly at this foolish threat. The gate was a stout barrier, that would do more damage than it could receive from any attempt of theirs.
"Bring out the key, rascal," roared the postilion again.
"An" you please, measter," says I, appearing in the doorway, "I be afeared the key bin lost."
Then the man on the box scrambled down, and ran into the cottage.
With him I hunted in every nook and corner of the room, and there being no sign of the key we went out, and to the other side of the coach, and there I heard the coach door open, and the voice cried:
"Hold the leader, Jabez; and you, Tom, go to the wheelers" heads.
I"ll blow in the cursed lock with my pistol."
Slipping back so that I might not be seen, I peeped through the window and saw Cyrus Vetch, pistol in hand, moving towards the gate. Here I was in a wretched quandary. I glanced anxiously up the road: there was never a sign of Mr. Allardyce or any other pursuer.
To blow in the lock would be the work of a second: then nothing I could do would prevent the coach from pa.s.sing through and getting clean away.
I was ready to despair when a possible means of checkmate flashed into my mind. Vetch was within a yard of the gate; his two men were at the horses" heads, to hold them when the report of the pistol came; their eyes were fixed on their master. As lightly as I could (my boots being heavy, as the long service required of them demanded) I darted through the doorway, my right hand clasping my knife, hid behind my back. Running to the side of the horse nearest me I set to a-hacking with all my strength at the leathern trace.
Thank Heaven my knife was new and unblunted! But I had not succeeded in cutting the leather through when the pistol cracked and the lock burst. The startled horses immediately began to rear and plunge, so violently that the single man at the wheelers" heads could not hold them. Vetch ran to a.s.sist him; none of them had noticed that the violence of the horses" straining had completed my unfinished work: the trace snapped in two.
Pulling itself free the horse swung round, and plunged more violently than before, keeping the man Tom employed and serving also to screen me from view. Now was my opportunity. I wrenched open the shuttered door, and saw a man leaning with his body out of the other door, watching the movements of Vetch. And between us, shrinking back on the seat, was Mistress Lucy. She turned her head as I pulled the door open, and holding on to it to preserve my balance, for the coach was being swerved this way and that by the frantic horses, I whispered:
""Tis I, Mistress Lucy: jump out!"
And quick as thought--"tis a blessing when a woman"s wits are keen--she made one spring for the roadway, by a hair"s breadth eluding the grasp of d.i.c.k Cludde, who had turned about at my whisper. I caught the girl as she touched the ground, and, pulling her away from the wheel, just in time to save her foot from being crushed by it, I seized her hand, and dragged her--willing captive!--towards the doorway. I pushed her into the cottage, with a roughness for which I afterwards asked her pardon, and hastened in after her.
Before I could close and bolt the door I heard a crash and a cry of pain, and caught a glimpse of Cludde, who, in leaping from the coach, had fallen awry and lay sprawling in the dust. Then I shut him from sight and ran to the other door, by which Mistress Peabody had gone into the garden. This I slammed and barred, dashing afterwards to the window to do the like with it. Luckily it was already fastened, and I was hastily drawing the shutters over it, when Vetch, his face livid with pa.s.sion, came up to it, drove his pistol through the gla.s.s, and threatened to shoot me if I did not instantly unbolt the door.
I have always had reason to thank Heaven that my brain is quickest and my resolution most cool at the moments of greatest stress.