But he was not allowed to finish his sentence; for Mrs. Barbara Croyland, who was most unfortunately matutinal in her habits, now came out with a shawl for her fair niece, and was uncomfortably civil to Sir Edward Digby, inquiring how he had slept, whether he had been warm enough, whether he liked two pillows or one, and a great many other questions, which lasted till young Radford made his appearance at the door, and then, with a pale face and sullen brow, came out and joined the party on the terrace.
"Well," said Mrs. Barbara--now that she had done as much mischief as possible--"I"ll just go in and make breakfast, as Edith must set out early, and Mr. Radford wants to get home to shoot."
"Edith set off early?" exclaimed Zara; "why, where is she going, my dear aunt?"
"Oh, I have just been settling it all with your papa, my love,"
replied Mrs. Barbara. "I thought she was looking ill yesterday, and so I talked to your uncle last night. He said he would be very glad to have her with him for a few days; but as he expects a Captain Osborn before the end of the week, she must come at once; and Sir Robert says she can have the carriage after breakfast, but that it must be back by one."
Zara cast down her eyes, and the whole party, as if by common consent, took their way back to the house. As they pa.s.sed in, however, and proceeded towards the dining-room, where the table was laid for breakfast, Zara found a moment to say to Sir Edward Digby, in a low tone, "Was ever anything so unfortunate! I will try to stop it if I can."
"Not so unfortunate as it seems," answered the young baronet, in a whisper; "let it take its course. I will explain hereafter."
"Whispering! whispering!" said young Radford, in a rude tone, and with a sneer curling his lip.
Zara"s cheek grew crimson; but Digby turned upon him sharply, demanding, "What is that to you, sir? Pray make no observations upon my conduct, for depend upon it I shall not tolerate any insolence."
At that moment, however, Sir Robert Croyland appeared; and whatever might have been Richard Radford"s intended reply, it was suspended upon his lips.
CHAPTER X.
Before I proceed farther with the events of that morning, I must return for a time to the evening which preceded it. It was a dark and somewhat dreary night, when Mr. Radford, leaving his son stupidly drunk at Sir Robert Croyland"s, proceeded to the hall door to mount his horse; and as he pulled his large riding-boots over his shoes and stockings, and looked out, he regretted that he had not ordered his carriage. "Who would have thought," he said, "that such a fine day would have ended in such a dull evening?"
"It often happens, my dear Radford," replied Sir Robert Croyland, who stood beside him, "that everything looks fair and prosperous for a time; then suddenly the wind shifts, and a gloomy night succeeds."
Mr. Radford was not well-pleased with the homily. It touched upon that which was a sore subject with him at that moment; for, to say the truth, he was labouring under no light apprehensions regarding the result of certain speculations of his. He had lately lost a large sum in one of these wild adventures--far more than was agreeable to a man of his money-getting turn of mind; and though he was sanguine enough, from long success, to embark, like a determined gambler, a still larger amount in the same course, yet the first shadow of reverse which had fallen upon him, brought home and applied to his own situation the very commonplace words of Sir Robert Croyland; and he began to fancy that the bright day of his prosperity might be indeed over, and a dark and gloomy night about to succeed.
As we have said, therefore, he did not at all like the baronet"s homily; and, as very often happens with men of his disposition, he felt displeased with the person whose words alarmed him. Murmuring something, therefore, about its being "a devilish ordinary circ.u.mstance indeed," he strode to the door, scarcely wishing the baronet good night, and mounted a powerful horse, which was held ready for him. He then rode forward, followed by two servants on horseback, proceeding slowly at first, but getting into a quicker pace when he came upon the parish road, and trotting on hard along the edge of Harbourne Wood. He had drunk as much wine as his son; but his hard and well-seasoned head was quite insensible to the effects of strong beverages, and he went on revolving all probable contingencies, somewhat sullen and out of humour with all that had pa.s.sed during the afternoon, and taking a very unpromising view of everybody and everything.
"I"ve a notion," he thought, "that old scoundrel Croyland is playing fast and loose about his daughter"s marriage with my son. He shall repent it if he do; and if d.i.c.k does not make the girl pay for all her airs and coldness when he"s got her, he"s no son of mine. He seems as great a fool as she is, though, and makes love to her sister without a penny, never saying a word to a girl who has forty thousand pounds.
The thing shall soon be settled one way or another, however. I"ll have a conference with Sir Robert on Friday, and bring him to book. I"ll not be trifled with any longer. Here we have been kept more than four years waiting till the girl chooses to make up her mind, and I"ll not stop any longer. It shall be, yes or no, at once."
He was still busy with such thoughts when he reached the angle of Harbourne Wood, and a loud voice exclaimed, "Hi! Mr. Radford!"
"Who the devil are you?" exclaimed that worthy gentleman, pulling in his horse, and at the same time putting his hand upon one of the holsters, which every one at that time carried at his saddle bow.
"Harding, sir," answered the voice--"Jack Harding; and I want to speak a word with you."
At the same time the man walked forward; and Mr. Radford immediately dismounting, gave his horse to the servants, and told them to lead him quietly on till they came to Tiffenden. Then pausing till the sound of the hoofs became somewhat faint, he asked, with a certain degree of alarm, "Well, Harding, what"s the matter? What has brought you up in such a hurry to-night?"
"No great hurry, sir," answered the smuggler, "I came up about four o"clock; and finding that you were dining at Sir Robert"s, I thought I would look out for you as you went home, having something to tell you.
I got an inkling last night, that, some how or another, the people down at Hythe have some suspicion that you are going to try something, and I doubt that boy very much."
"Indeed! indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Radford, evidently under great apprehension. "What have they found out, Harding?"
"Why, not much, I believe," replied the smuggler; "but merely that there"s something in the wind, and that you have a hand in it."
"That"s bad enough--that"s bad enough," repeated Mr. Radford. "We must put it off, Harding. We must delay it, till this has blown by."
"No, I think not, sir," answered the smuggler. "It seems to me, on the contrary, that we ought to hurry it; and I"ll tell you why. You see, the wind changed about five, and if I"m not very much mistaken, we shall have a cloudy sky and dirty weather for the next week at least.
That"s one thing; but then another is this, the Ramleys are going to make a run this very night. Now, I know that the whole affair is blown; and though they may get the goods ash.o.r.e they wont carry them far. I told them so, just to be friendly; but they wouldn"t listen, and you know their rash way. Bill Ramley answered, they would run the goods in broad daylight, if they liked, that there was not an officer in all Kent who would dare to stop them. Now, I know that they will be caught to-morrow morning, somewhere up about your place. I rather think, too, your son has a hand in the venture; and if I were you, I would do nothing to make people believe that it wasn"t my own affair altogether. Let them think what they please; and then they are not so likely to be on the look-out."
"I see--I see," cried Mr. Radford. "If they catch these fellows, and think that this is my venture, they will never suspect another. It"s a good scheme. We had better set about it to-morrow night."
"I don"t know," answered Harding. "That cannot well be done, I should think. First, you must get orders over to the vessel to stand out to sea; then you must get all your people together, and one half of them are busy upon this other scheme, the Ramleys and young Chittenden, and him they call the major, and all their parties. You must see what comes of that first; for one half of them may be locked up before to-morrow night.
"That"s unfortunate, indeed!" said Mr. Radford, thoughtfully.
"One must take a little ill luck with plenty of good luck," observed Harding; "and it"s fortunate enough for you that these wild fellows will carry through this mad scheme, when they know they are found out before they start. Besides, I"m not sure that it is not best to wait till the night after, or, may be, the night after that. Then the news will have spread, that the goods have been either run and hid away, or seized by the officers. In either case, if you manage well, they will think that it is your venture; and the fellows on the coast will be off their guard--especially Mowle, who"s the sharpest of them all."
"Oh, I"ll go down to-morrow and talk to Mowle myself," replied Mr.
Radford. "It will be well worth my while to give him a hundred guineas to wink a bit."
"Don"t try it--don"t try it!" exclaimed Harding, quickly. "It will do no good, and a great deal of harm. In the first place, you can do nothing with Mowle. He never took a penny in his life."
"Oh, every man has his price," rejoined Mr. Radford, whose opinion of human nature, as the reader may have perceived, was not particularly high. "It"s only because he wants to be bid up to. Mr. Mowle thinks himself above five or ten pounds; but the c.h.i.n.k of a hundred guineas is a very pleasant sound."
"He"s as honest a fellow as ever lived," answered Harding, "and I tell you plainly, Mr. Radford, that if you offered him ten times the sum, he wouldn"t take it. You would only shew him that this venture is not your grand one, without doing yourself the least good. He"s a fair, open enemy, and lets every one know that, as long as he"s a riding-officer here, he will do all he can against us."
"Then he must be knocked on the head," said Mr. Radford, in a calm and deliberate tone; "and it shall be done, too, if he meddles with my affairs."
"It will not be I who do it," replied Harding; "unless we come hand to hand together. Then, every man must take care of himself; but I should be very sorry, notwithstanding; for he"s a straightforward, bold fellow, as brave as a lion, and with a good heart into the bargain. I wonder such an honest man ever went into such a rascally service."
The last observation of our friend Harding may perhaps sound strangely to the reader"s ears; but some allowance must be made for professional prejudices, and it is by no means too much to say that the smugglers of those days, and even of a much later period, looked upon their own calling as highly honest, honourable, and respectable, regarding the Customs as a most fraudulent and abominable inst.i.tution, and all connected with it more or less in the light of a band of swindlers and knaves, leagued together for the purpose of preventing honest men from pursuing their avocations in peace. Such were the feelings which induced Harding to wonder that so good a man as Mowle could have anything to do with the prevention of smuggling; for he was so thoroughly convinced he was in the right himself, that he could not conceive how any one could see the case in any other point of view.
"Ay," answered Mr. Radford, "that is a wonder, if he is such a good sort of man; but that I doubt. However, as you say it would not do to put oneself in his power, I"ll have him looked after, and in the meanwhile, let us talk of the rest of the business. You say the night after to-morrow, or the night after that! I must know, however; for the men must be down. How are we to arrange that?"
"Why, I"ll see what the weather is like," was Harding"s reply. "Then I can easily send up to let you know--or, what will be better still, if you can gather the men together the day after to-morrow, in the different villages not far off the coast, and I should find it the right sort of night, and get out to sea, they shall see a light on the top of Tolsford Hill, as soon as I am near in sh.o.r.e again. That will serve to guide them and puzzle the officers. Then let them gather, and come down towards Dymchurch, where they will find somebody from me to guide them."
"They shall gather first at Saltwood," said Mr. Radford, "and then march down to Dymchurch. But how are we to manage about the ship?"
"Why, you must send an order," answered Harding, "for both days, and let your skipper know that if he does not see us the first, he will see us the second."
"You had better take it down with you at once," replied Mr. Radford, "and get it off early to-morrow. If you"ll just come up to my house, I"ll write it for you in a minute."
"Ay, but I"m not going home to-night," said the smuggler; "I can have a bed at Mrs. Clare"s; and I"m going to sleep there, so you can send it over when you like in the morning, and I"ll get it off in time."
"I wish you would not go hanging about after that girl, when we"ve got such serious business in hand," exclaimed Mr. Radford, in a sharp tone; but the next moment he added, with a sudden change of voice, "It doesn"t signify to-night, however. There will be time enough; and they say you are going to marry her, Harding. Is that true?"
"I should say, that"s my business," replied Harding, bluntly, "but that I look upon it as an honour, Mr. Radford, that she"s going to marry me; for a better girl does not live in the land, and I"ve known her a long while now, so I"m never likely to think otherwise."
"Ay, I"ve known her a long time, too," answered Mr. Radford--"ever since her poor father was shot, and before; and a very good girl I believe she is. But now that you are over here, you may as well wait and hear what comes of these goods. Couldn"t you just ride over to the Ramleys to-morrow morning--there you"ll hear all about it."
Harding laughed, but replied the next moment, in a grave tone, "I don"t like the Ramleys, sir, and don"t want to have more to do with them than I can help. I shall hear all about it soon enough, without going there."
"But I sha"n"t," answered Mr. Radford.