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 stitch 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 circumstances, 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 God'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 passed 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 pass
through. I assumed 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 passed 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 passing 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 assist 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 Dick 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 passion, came up to it, drove his
pistol through the glass, 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.
Vetch had fired his pistol through the lock of the turnpike gate;
being busy with the horse he had certainly not had time to recharge
it, nor to get another; so I thought that I might safely defy him.
Whispering to Mistress Lucy to find some hiding place in the
cottage out of view from the window, I stood with my hand on the
shutter, and said:
"What will you do if I yield?"
The answer was the heavy pistol, hurled straight at my head. It
struck my temple and fell with a crash to the floor. I gave back a
little, half stunned by the blow, and Vetch seized that moment to
smash another pane of the window, preparing to leap on the sill and
into the room, But I had sufficient strength to anticipate him.
Throwing my whole weight on the shutter I drove it into its place,
taking a certain pleasure in the knowledge that I had at least
bruised the fellow's knuckles. Then I dropped the bar into its
socket, and in the half darkness called to Mistress Lucy that all
was well.
Immediately there began a heavy battering on the door, but not so
heavy but that through it I heard Cludde order his men to splice
the broken trace. 'Twas lucky it was so, for had all four of them
come with one mind to force my frail defences, the brief siege
would, I fear, have had but a sorry end. The door was a stout one,
and finding it resisted their blows, Vetch and Cludde soon
desisted, and I supposed that they had withdrawn altogether. But
after a short interval, a violent crash on the back door, which was
of much slighter timber, warned me that I must still be prepared to
fight against heavy odds.
I looked round for Mistress Lucy: she was standing beside an oaken
clothes press, the largest article of furniture in the room.
"Help will come, I hope," I said to her; "if not, I can keep them
at bay, and I will."
A moment after I had spoken, I heard a shout from the road. The
blows upon the door ceased; I caught the sound of scurrying feet,
and running to the window, I unbarred the shutter and opened it so
that I might glance out. The coach was moving: the postilion was in
the saddle, the other man was on the box. It passed through the
gate: the horses were lashed to a gallop, and the equipage
disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust. Flinging the shutter
wide, I craned my neck out of the broken panes and looked in the
other direction. Not half a mile away three horsemen were pressing
a gallop towards us.
"You are safe," I said, turning to the girl.
She came eagerly to my side, and in another minute the
horsemen--the innkeeper and two men whom I did not know--leapt from
their saddles when I hailed them, and came to ask if all was well.