Her heart beat to suffocation in the thought that at any moment the other door might be dashed open, and some ruffian suddenly come in and s.n.a.t.c.h away her precious treasure. What a mercy it was that she had thought of secreting it like this! Here it was under her hand. She was already wrapped in her cloak; her precious package was in her arms, she was about to run down the little stairs again, when, to her horror, she heard rough voices in the parlour below, and the sound of oaths as the men called one to another in their hasty search.
""Tisn"t here! There"s nothing here worth laying hands on. They must have hid it somewhere. Let"s be off upstairs. Here"s another staircase.
Let"s see where that leads to!"
Charlotte darted back into her room again, and drew the little bolt across it. But that would only give her a moment"s respite, she knew.
One or two heavy blows would bring the door crashing inwards; and what then? She could not fly out by the other one, down the main staircase, without encountering the man on guard at the hall-door. The sight of her precious package would be certain to attract their instant attention, and they had threatened with death all who strove to resist their project of robbery.
But if she were to give up the valuables? Then she might well escape.
They had no personal quarrel with her; and n.o.body had told her to const.i.tute herself the guard of the family property. For one brief instant, Charlotte hesitated; then, with a snort of contempt at her own cowardly thought, she dashed open the window, threw her precious package down into the garden beneath, and herself vaulted lightly after it.
She had performed this feat occasionally before, in the days of her tom-boy pranks with her brothers, but she had not often practised such a leap of late, and the darkness made it more difficult. She was conscious of a sharp thrill of pain in her foot as she reached the ground, but, striving not to think of this, she caught up her bundle and fled; a light instantly flashing from the window of the room she had quitted, showed her that she had only just made her spring in time.
With a heart that thumped so loud in her ears as to deaden all other sound, Charlotte sped onwards as fast as the injured foot would allow over the rough ground that separated her home from that of her friends.
But, in a few moments, she was certain that she was pursued. She heard angry, threatening voices in the garden behind her. Glancing back she saw flashing lights, and through the still night air came the sound of curses, which bespoke very real disappointment. Evidently, the men had heard of the cash-box to be found in Mr. Honeyman"s house, and were enraged that it was not forthcoming.
"Somebody has taken it and made off!" cried a stentorian voice. "After him, men!--scatter, and scour the place. He can"t have got far! Blow out his brains if he resists. That money I will have. I don"t come all this way on a fool"s errand!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: Suddenly, close above her, the steps came to a dead stop.
_Page 145._]
Charlotte heard, and instantly was aware of flying footsteps in many directions, some coming her way. What could she do? Try as she would her progress was not rapid. The distance to the Feas" house, so short on ordinary days, now seemed endless. There were no trees to give cover.
That windswept island was bare of any save stunted bushes, and even of these there were none to serve her purpose. If the moon should shine out she would instantly be seen. She was not certain that some of those fierce shouts did not mean that she had been seen already.
Breathless and terrified, but still clutching her treasure tightly, Charlotte made for a great hole in the bank that she had known from childhood. Into this friendly, yawning chasm she crept, pushing her bundle before her, and here she crouched in darkness, covered by the folds of her sombre cloak, expecting almost moment by moment to feel a rough hand pulling her forth, or the threat of a bullet through her brain if she did not instantly give up her treasure.
Footsteps came nearer and nearer. She shrank closer and closer into her hole. She felt her flesh creep as the ground shook beneath the heavy tread; it was all she could do to keep from uttering a cry. The horror of that approaching discovery was so very real to her.
Suddenly, close above her, the steps came to a dead stop. She had been discovered! She knew she had! Her senses almost forsook her. It was a moment that she never forgot. Then a voice spoke, a rough, raucous voice:
"You"d best come back. It"s no good staying here. They"re coming out from that other house with lights and servants. They"ve got wind of something up, and the sooner we get off with what we"ve found the better."
A sudden rebound of feeling made Charlotte almost cry aloud. And as she strained her ears to hear, the heavy tread of feet shook the ground once more, now in full retreat. A few minutes later, limping in her gait, her face as white as death, her dress covered with sand, her hands still grasping the bundle that held the treasure, Charlotte almost fell into Mr. Fea"s fatherly arms, and told him all her tale.
"I don"t know what Mr. Honeyman will say when he hears how near his little girl went to losing her life for the sake of some valuables," he said, as he led her into the house; "but one thing I know: he will be mighty proud of having such a heroine for a daughter."
"If he doesn"t think I was only a little goose," panted Charlotte, beginning to look like herself. "But, oh, I am glad those wretches have not got the things! And are you sure they have hurt n.o.body?"
That was the end of Charlotte"s personal exploit with the pirates; but there were many exciting days to follow, for in trying to get their vessel away quickly, they put out on a stormy night, and were driven ash.o.r.e in the bay called Calf Sound, not far from the houses of Mr.
Honeyman and Mr. Fea. There, after much effort and some little stratagem, the crew was finally captured, and Gow met his richly deserved fate and perished on the gallows.
MARY BRIDGES
"Eleanor! Sister! There be days when I know not how to bear it. I feel that I shall do something desperate."
"Nay, hush, Mary! hush! why shouldst thou speak so wildly? We must be patient! Things will not always be so black!"
"Patience, patience! I am sick to death of the word! We have borne with these odious men about the house, till sometimes I feel that I can bear it no longer. And now that our father hath gone, and Robert with him, I feel that the house is scarce a safe place for our mother or ourselves."
"Come, come, Mary, thou dost go something too far!"
"I trow not. Those b.l.o.o.d.y, hateful men of Kirke"s, what do they care how they frighten or annoy those who are forced for a time to shelter them?
The maid servants dare never be alone for an instant. They never know but that one of those half-tipsy fellows will not come lurching in upon them. And listen, "twas only just now that I met one of them, smelling so vilely of beer and spirits that it made me sick to go near him, wandering up the stairs into our part of the house; and when I bid him begone to his own quarters, what thinkest thou the wretch did?"
"He did not hurt thee?" quoth Eleanor, with sudden solicitude.
The eyes of the younger girl flashed fire.
"Had he laid a finger upon me, methinks I would have slain him as he stood!" she cried.
"Oh, hush, Mary! hush! hush!" pleaded Eleanor. "It is not good in these times to speak such rash words."
"A pretty pa.s.s things have come to if sisters may not speak freely together in their own home!" flashed out Mary, whose quick temper was easily aroused, and whose pent up indignation of weeks was coming upon her like a flood. "No, the creature did not dare lay hands upon me. I gave him a look--that was enough; but he vowed with many a vile oath that he would kiss me ere he did my bidding. If I had shown one mite of fear, Eleanor, I verily believe that he would have been as good as his word."
The fair Eleanor shivered with a sense of keen disgust. She had not her sister"s courage and readiness and masterful looks and ways. Suppose she had met one of these men upon the stairs, and he had spoken thus to her, would she have been able to escape the hated salute? It turned her sick to think of it--albeit in those days kisses were given and received much more commonly than has since become the fashion between men and women, youths and maidens. Mary read her sister"s thoughts, and cried out:
"Yes, yes, that is how I feel! Suppose it had been thou! Suppose insult were offered to thee,--or to our mother,--who is there to defend you?
Oh, why was I not born a boy that I could set these surly knaves in their place? Robert should not have gone and left us, when our father was called hence too. It is not right or fitting; and with all these fearful things going on around us. It is enough to make one turn against the King, when he makes use of such vile instruments!"
"Oh, hush, Mary! hush! have a care! It is not safe to talk in that reckless fashion. Who knows but that there may be some meddling spy prowling about? And they say men and women are sent to prison and to death for such small offences now."
"Ah, yes, it is the cruelty, the horrid cruelty we see perpetrated on every hand that makes me so desperate. Think of that man Kirke, feasting and laughing on the balcony overlooking the place where his victims were being hanged and dismembered! think of it, Eleanor! and calling for music for them to "dance to" when their poor bodies twitched and swayed on the gibbets; eating and drinking and making merry when human lives were pa.s.sing from the world in all that agony and shame!"
"Thou shouldst not listen to such stories, Mary, it does no good; and it does but make life seem unbearable sometimes."
"And then, after Sedgemoor!" cried Mary, without heeding; "I heard another thing of him there. Did they tell it thee too, Eleanor? There was a man about to die--without trial--without condemnation--just strung up as so many were on the trees by the moor"s edge, at the bidding of that man of blood! He was one of many; and the bystanders said that he was the fleetest runner of any on the country side, and could run with a galloping horse. Colonel Kirke asked him if that were true; and he said he had done it. Kirke asked if he would like to do it again to save his life; and he caught eagerly at the proffered hope. He ran with the horse, he kept up the whole course, he returned breathless, exhausted, but full of hope of the promise of life, and what does that monster of cruelty and injustice do?--just has him swung up with the rest, ere the poor wretch can find breath to plead for the promised pardon! Oh, it makes my blood boil--it makes my blood boil! I have been loyal to the King"s cause all this while; but how can we help loathing and despising a monarch who will use such tools as that?"
"Perhaps he does not know," faltered Eleanor.
"Not know!" echoed Mary, in scorn. "It is because he knows all too well their temper that he sends them here! Hast heard what men are whispering now?--that soon there will be an a.s.size in the west to try all those who have been concerned in this rebellion; and they say that His Majesty will choose for the judge the most cruel, the most notoriously evil, the most pa.s.sionate and ungoverned of all the judges on the bench, and that his name is Jeffreys. And people say if once he come hither, no man in Taunton, nor in the west country will ever forget his coming. We shall have such a deluge of blood as has never run in England before."
"Oh, Mary, what fearful tales thou dost get hold of!"
"They are fearful; but they are true. That is what makes them so terrible," answered Mary. "Oh, how I hate and detest cruelty and l.u.s.t of blood! Art thou not glad, Eleanor, that even Kirke himself could not cozen or threaten any Taunton man into acting as executioner to those poor wretches taken on the field of Sedgemoor? They had to send to Exeter or elsewhere to get a man to do that b.l.o.o.d.y work. Fancy cutting the poor wretches down ere they were quite dead, and cutting out their hearts, and flinging them on the fire, whilst the Colonel made merry at his window, and the music drowned the curses of the crowd and the cries of the victims or their friends! Methinks we have gone back to the days of the Druids and their human sacrifices. Oh, how can the King permit it? It is enough to drive the whole nation to hate him!"
"And yet we do not want a usurper to rule over us, even if the lawful King be such an one as His Majesty is now. Thou art not foolish enough to wish that the Duke of Monmouth had been victorious, Mary?"
"N-no, I suppose not! I love not usurpers; and our father hath always averred that it is an open question whether the Duke is the son of the late King Charles. No man seems able to say for certain what is his parentage, albeit he was treated like a son; and there be those who swear that the King did marry his mother in secret, and that he is rightful heir to the crown."
"Mary, Mary, thou dost not believe all those foolish stories that thou hast heard pa.s.sing about? Men are always ready to believe that which they desire to believe. But the Duke of Monmouth, if the late King"s son at all, has no claim upon the crown. Had it been otherwise he would have been acknowledged as heir; for every man likes his son to reign in his place. Our father thinks that the Duke is the son of one of the Sydneys; he says he is so strangely like him; and the King never called him son, though he was so fond of him, except when he presumed too far."
"Oh, I know, I know," answered Mary restlessly, "I have heard it all argued a thousand times over. No, I do not want the Duke of Monmouth or any other pretender; but I long for a King who can show mercy and kindness and generosity; not a man full of the most bitter and vindictive spite, who chooses as his tools and instruments those to whom cruelty is a delight!"
It was no wonder that Mary Bridges" soul was stirred within her at this time. She was the second daughter of Sir Ralph Bridges, of Bishop"s Hull, near Taunton, and when she was a young girl of some fourteen summers, the whole district was stirred into violent excitement and violent emotion by the sharp outbreak of rebellion under the Duke of Monmouth.