THE HUNTED AND THE HUNTER.
All the drunkenness had gone out of Captain Danny. Gripping my arm,
he steered me rapidly through the knots of loafers, up Market Strand
into the crowded Fore Street, across it and up the hill towards open
country, taking the ascent with long strides which forced me now and
again into a run. Twice or thrice I glanced up at his face, for I
was scared, and badly scared. His mouth worked, and I observed small
beads of sweat on his shaven upper lip; but he kept his eyes fastened
straight ahead, and paid no heed to me.
At the head of the street the town melted off into a suburb of
scattered houses, modest domiciles of twenty-five pounds or thirty
pounds rentals, detached, each with its garden and narrow
garden-door, for Falmouth in those days boasted few carriage-folk.
He paused once hereabouts, in the roadway between two walls, and
stood listening, while his right hand trembled on his stick; but
presently gripped my arm again and hurried me forward, nor halted
until we reached the summit, and the open country lay before us, with
the Channel and its long horizon on our left. Here, in a cornfield
on the very knap of the hill, and some two hundred yards back from
the road, stood the shell of an old windmill, overlooking the sea--
deserted, ruinous, without sails, a building many hundreds of years
older than the oldest house in Falmouth, serving now but as a
landmark for fishermen, and on Sundays a rendezvous for courting
couples. At the stile leading into the cornfield, Captain Coffin
released me, climbed over, hurried up the footpath to the windmill,
and, having satisfied himself that the building was empty, motioned
me to seat myself on the side where its long shadow pointed down
across a bank of nettles, and beyond the edge of the green young
barley sheeting the slope towards the harbour.
"Brooks," he began--but his voice rattled like a dried pea in a pod,
and he had to moisten his under-lip with his tongue before he could
proceed--"Brooks, are you in any way a superstitious kind o' boy?"
"That depends, sir," said I, diplomatically.
"After all these years, too," he groaned, "an' agen' all likelihood
o' natur'. But you saw him--hey? You heard what he said, an' that
cussed song, too? Sang it, he did; slapped it out at the top of his
voice in a public tavern. I tell you, Brooks--knowin' what _he_
knows--a man must have all hell runnin' cold in him to sing them
words aloud an' not care who heard."
"Why, he sang but a line of it," said I, "and that harmless enough,
though dismal."
"Is that so, lad--is that so?" Captain Danny put out a hand like a
bird's claw and hooked me by the cuff. "Wasn' there nothing in it
about Execution Dock; nothing about ripe medlars--'medlars a-rottin'
on the tree'? No?"--for I shook my head. "Well, then, I could be
sworn I heard him singin' them words for minutes, an' me sittin' all
the while wi' the horrors on me afore I dared look in his damned
face. An' you tell me he piped but a line of it?" His eyes searched
mine anxiously. "Brooks," he went on, in a voice almost coaxing,
"I'd give five hundred pound at this moment if you could look me in
the face an' tell me the whole scare was nothing but fancy--that _he_
wasn't there!"
His grasp relaxed as I shook my head again. Despair grew in his
eyes, and he pulled back his hand.
"I'll put it to you another way," said he, after seeming to reflect
for a while. "Suppose there was a couple o' men mixed up in an ugly
job--by which I don't mean to say there was any real harm in the
business; leastways not to start with; but, as it went on, these two
men were forced to do something that brought them within reach o' the
law. We'll put it that, when the thing was done, the one o' this
pair felt it heavy upon his mind, but t'other didn' care no more than
a brass button; an' the one that took it serious--as you might say--
lost sight o' the other for years, an' meantime picked up with a
little religion, an' made oath with hisself that all the profits o'
the job (for there were profits) should come into innocent hands--
You catch on to this?"
I nodded.
"Well, then"--he leant forward, his palm resting amid a bed of
nettles. He did not appear to feel their sting, although, while he
spoke, I saw the bark of his hand whiten slowly with blisters--
"well, then, you can't go for to argue with me that the A'mighty
would go for to strike the chap that repented by means o' the chap
that didn'. Tisn' reasonable nor religious to think such a thing--is
it now?"
"He might punish the one first," said I, judicially, "and keep the
other--the wicked man--for a worse punishment in the end. A great
deal," I added, "might depend on what sort of crime they'd committed.
If 'twas a murder, now--"
"Murder?" He caught me up sharply, and his eyes turned from watching
me, to throw a quick glance back along the footpath, then fastened
themselves on the horizon. "Who's a-talkin' of any such thing?"
"I was putting a case, sir--putting it as bad as possible.
'Murder will out,' they say; but with smaller crimes it may be
different."
"Murder?" He sprang up and began to pace to and fro. "How came that
in your head, eh?" He threw me a furtive sidelong look, and halted
before me mopping his forehead. "I'll tell you what, though: Murder
there'll be if you don't help me give that devil the slip."
"But, sir, he never offered to follow you."
"Because he reckoned I couldn' run--or wouldn', as I've never run
from him yet. But with you in the secret I must give him leg-bail,
no matter what it costs me. And, see here, Brooks: you're clever for
your age, an' I want your advice. In the first place, I daren't go
home; that's where he'll be watchin' for me sooner or later. Next,
our plans ain't laid for startin' straight off--here as we be--an'
givin' him the go-by. Third an' last, I daren't go carryin' the
secret about with me; he might happen on me any moment, an' I'm not
in trainin'. The drink's done for me, boy, whereas _he_'ve been
farin' hard an' livin' clean." Captain Coffin, with his hands deep
in his pockets, stared down at the transport at anchor below, and
bent his brows. "I can't turn it over to you, neither," he mused.
"That might ha' done well enough if he hadn' seen you in my company;
but now we can't trust to it."
He took another dozen paces forth and back, and halted before me
again.
"Brooks," he said, "how about your father?"
"The very man, sir," I answered; "that is, if you would trust him."
"Cap'n Branscome tells me he's one in a thousand. I thought first o'
Branscome, but there's folks as know about my goin' to him for
navigation lessons; an' if Glass got hold o' that, 'twould be a hot
scent."
"Glass?" I echoed.
"That's his d--d name, lad--Aaron Glass; though he've passed under
others, and plenty of 'em, in his time. Well, now, if I can slip out
o' Falmouth unbeknowns to him, an' win to your father--on the
Plymouth road, I've heard you say and a little this side of
St. Germans--"
"You might walk over to Penryn and pick up the night coach."
Captain Coffin shook his head as he turned out his pockets.
"One shilling, lad, an' two ha'pennies. It won't carry me. An' I
daren' go home to refit; an' I daren' send _you_."
"I could take a message to Captain Branscome," I suggested; "an' he
might fetch you the money, if you tell him where to look for it."
"That's an idea," decided Captain Coffin, after a moment's thought.
He unbuttoned his waistcoat, dived a hand within the breast of his
shirt, and pulled forth a key looped through with a tarry string.
This string he severed with his pocket-knife. "Run you down to the
cap'n's lodgings," said he, handing me the key, "an' tell him to go
straight an' unlock the cupboard in the cornder--the one wi' the
toolips painted over the door. You know it? Well, say that on the
second shelf he'll find a small bagful o' money--he needn't stay to
count it--an' 'pon the same shelf, right back in the cornder, a roll
o' papers. Tell him to keep the papers till he hears from me, but
the bag he's to give to you, an' you're to bring it along quick--
_with_ the key. Mind, you're not to go with him on any account; an'
if you should run against this Glass on your way, give him a wide
berth--go straight home to Stimcoe's--do _anything_ but lay him on to
my trail by comin' back to tell me. Understand? There, now, hark to
the town clock chimin' below there! Six o'clock it is--four bells.
If you're not back agen by seven I shall know what's happened an'
take steps accordin'. An' _you'll_ know that I'm on my way to your
father by another tack. 'What tack?' says you. 'Never you mind,'
says I. If the worst comes to the worst, old Dan Coffin has a shot
left in his locker."
I took the key and ran. The alley where Captain Branscome lodged lay
a gunshot on this side of the Market Strand; and while I ran I kept--
as the saying is--my eyes skinned for a sight of the enemy.
The coast, however, was clear.
But at Captain Branscome's door a wholly unexpected disappointment
awaited me. It was locked, and I had not hammered on its shining
brass knocker before a neighbouring housewife put forth her head from
a window in the gathering dusk, and informed me that the captain was
not at home. He had gone out early in the afternoon, and left his
doorkey with her, saying that he was off on a visit, and would not
return before to-morrow afternoon at earliest. For a moment I was
tempted to disobey Captain Danny's injunctions, and fetch the money
myself, or at least make a bold attempt for it; but, recollecting how
earnestly he had charged me, and how cheerfully at the last he had
assured me that he had still a shot in his locker, I turned and
mounted the hill again, albeit dejectedly.
The moon was rising as I climbed over the stile into the footpath,
and, recognizing my footstep, the old man came forward to meet me,
out of the shadow on the western side of the windmill, to which he
had shifted his watch.
My ill-success, depressing enough to me, he took very cheerfully.
"I was afraid," said he, "you might be foolin' off for the money on
your own account. Gone on a visit, has he? Well, you can hand him
the key to-morrow, with my message. An' now I'll tell you my next
notion. The St. Mawes packet"--this was the facetious name given to
a small cutter which plied in those days between Falmouth and the
small village of St. Mawes across the harbour--"the St. Mawes packet
is due to start at seven-thirty. I won't risk boardin' her at Market
Strand, but pick up a boat at Arwennack, an' row out to hail her as
she's crossin'. She'll pick me up easy, wi' this wind; but if she
don't, I'll get the waterman to pull me right across. Bogue, the
landlord of The Lugger over there, knows me well enough to lend me
ten shillin', an' wi' that I can follow the road through Tregony to
St. Austell, an' hire a lift maybe."
I could not but applaud the plan. The route he proposed cut off a
corner, led straight to Minden Cottage, and was at the same time the
one on which he was least likely to be tracked. We descended the
hill together, keeping to the dark side of the road. At the foot of
the hill we parted, with the understanding that I was to run straight
home to Stimcoe's, and explain my absence at locking-up--or, as Mr.
Stimcoe preferred to term it, "names-calling"--as best I might.
Thereupon I did an incredibly foolish thing, which, as it proved,
defeated all our plans and gave rise to unnumbered woes. I was
already late for names-calling; but for this I cared little.
Stimcoe had not the courage to flog me; the day had been a holiday,
and of a sort to excuse indiscipline; and, anyway, one might as well
suffer for a sheep as for a lamb. The St. Mawes packet would be
lying alongside the Market Strand. The moon was up--a round, full
moon--and directly over St. Mawes, so that her rays fell, as near as
might be, in the line of the cutter's course, which, with a steady
breeze down the harbour, would be a straight one. From the edge of
Market Strand I might be able to spy Captain Coffin's boat as he
boarded. Let me, without extenuating, be brief over my act of folly.
Instead of making at once for Stimcoe's, I bent my steps towards
Market Strand. The St. Mawes packet lay there, and I stood on the
edge of the quay, watching her preparations for casting off--the
skipper clearing the gangway and politely helping aboard, between the
warning notes of his whistle, belated marketers who came running with
their bundles.
While I stood there, a man sauntered out and stood for a moment on
the threshold of the Plume of Feathers. It was the man Aaron Glass,
and, recognizing him, I (that had been standing directly under the
light of the quay-lamp) drew back from the edge into the darkness.
I had done better, perhaps, to stand where I was. How long he had
been observing me--if, indeed, he had observed me--I could not tell.
But, as I drew back, he advanced and strolled nonchalantly past me,
at five yards distance, down to the quay-steps.
"All aboard for St. Mawes!" called the skipper, drawing in his plank.
"All but one, captain!" answered Glass, and, disdaining it, without
removing his hands from his pockets, put a foot upon the bulwark and
sprang lightly on to her deck.