KIDNAPPED
What had happened was a strange series of coincidences. Early that day
the crew of the "Ben-my-Chree," in the mountain solitude where they
found freezing and starving safety, had sent one of their number back to
Sulby village to buy a quarter of meal. Teare was the man chosen for the
errand, and having compassed it, he was stealing his way back to the
mountains, when he noticed that great companies of people were coming
from the direction of Ramsey. Lagging behind the larger groups on the
road was a woman whom he recognized as his wife. He attracted her
attention without revealing himself to the people in front. She was
returning from the Deemster's inquest, and told what had occurred there:
that Dan, the Bishop's son, had surrendered, and that the indictment to
the Court of General Jail Delivery had been made out not only in his
name, but in the names of the four men and the boy of the
"Ben-my-Chree."
Teare carried back to the mountains a heavier burden than the quarter of
meal. His mates had watched for him as he plodded up the bank of the
Sulby River with the bag on his back. When he came up his face was
ominous.
"Send the lad away for a spell," he muttered to old Billy Quilleash, and
Davy Fayle was sent to cut gorse for a fire.
Then the men gathered around Teare and heard what had happened. The
disaster had fallen which they foresaw. What was to be done? Crennell,
with a line from a psalm, was for trusting in the Lord; and old
Quilleash, with an oath, was for trusting in his heels. After a pause
Teare propounded his scheme. It centred in Dan. Dan with his confession
was their sole danger. Once rid of Dan they were as free men. Before his
confession of guilt their innocence was beyond his power to prove or
their power to establish. On his way up from the valley Teare had hit on
a daring adventure. They were to break into the castle at Peel, take Dan
by force, bring him up to the mountains, and there give him the choice
of life or death: life if he promised to plead Not Guilty to the
indictment, death if he adhered to the resolution by which he had
surrendered.
The men gathered closer about Teare, and with yet whiter faces. Teare
gave his plan; his scheme was complete; that night they were to carry it
out. Paton Gorry was the jailer at Peel Castle. The lad Davy was the old
sumner's godchild. Davy was to go forth and smuggle Gorry's keys out of
the guard-room. If that were found impossible--well, Paton was an old
man; he might be put quietly out of harm's way--no violence--och! no,
not a ha'p'orth. Then Corkell was son-in-law of the watch at Peeltown,
and hence the watch must take the harbor-master to the "Jolly Herrings,"
in Castle Street, while they themselves, Teare, Quilleash, Crennell, and
Corkell, took the "Ben-my-Chree" from her moorings at the mouth of the
harbor. On the west coast of St. Patrick's Isle they must bear down and
run the dingey ashore. Then Dan must be seized in his cell, bound hand
and foot, and brought aboard. With a fair wind--it was blowing
east-sou'east--they must set sail for Ramsey Bay, put about at Lague,
anchor there, and go ashore.
"That'll lave it," said Teare, "to raisonable inf'rence that Mastha Dan
had whipped off to England by the Whitehaven packet that sails at
midnight from the quay."
This done, they were to find a horse, strap the fettered man to its
back, fetch him into the mountains in the dark hours of the night, and
at daybreak try him solemnly and justly on the issue they had hit upon
of life or death. No violence! Aw, no, all just and straight! If so be
that the man was hanging them, they'd do him justice man to man, as fair
as the backbone lies down the middle of a herring. Deemster's justice
couldn't be cleaner; no, nor as clean. Aw, yes, no violence!
It was an intricate plan, involving many risks, presupposing many
favorable chances. Perhaps it was not a logical computation of
probabilities. But, good or bad, logical or illogical, probable or
improbable, easy of accomplishment or full of risk and peril, it was the
only alternative to trusting in the Lord, as Crennell had suggested, or
in their heels, as Quilleash had preferred. In the end they took it, and
made ready to act on it.
As the men arrived at their conclusion Davy Fayle was returning with an
armful of withered gorse for a fire. The first move in that night's
adventure was to be made by him. "Lave the lad to me," whispered
Quilleash, and straightway he tackled Davy. Veracity was not conspicuous
in the explanation that the old salt made. Poor Mastha Dan had been
nabbed, bad cess to it, and jiggered up in Peel Castle. He would be
hanged sarten sure. Aw, safe for it, if some chaps didn't make an effort
immadient. They meant to do it, too. Ay, that very evenin'! Wouldn't
they let him help? Well, pozzible, pozzible. They wasn't no objection to
that. Thus, Davy fell an eager victim to a plan that was not propounded
to him. If saving Mastha Dan from the dirts that had nabbed him was the
skame that was goin', why, nothin' would hould him but he would be in
it. "Be aisy with the loblolly-boy and you have him," whispered old
Billy behind the back of his hand, as he spat a long jet from his quid.
Relieved of doubt as to their course of action, they built a fire and
warmed themselves, and with water from the river below they made cold
porridge of the meal, and ate and drank, and waited for the night. The
darkness came early--it was closing in at four o'clock. Then the men
smothered their fire with turf and earth and set out for Peeltown. Their
course was over Colden, and between Greeba and Beary, to the breast of
Slieu Whallin, and then down to St. Patrick's Isle by the foot of
Corrin's Hill. It was twelve miles over hill and dale, through the
darkness and the muggy air of the winter's night. They had to avoid the
few houses and to break their pace when footsteps came their way. But
they covered the distance in less than four hours. At eight o'clock they
were standing together on the south of the bridge that crosses the Neb
River at the top of Peel Harbor. There they separated. Corkell went off
to the market-place by a crooked alley from the quay to find the watch
and dispose of him. When the harbor-master had been removed, Corkell was
to go to the "Ben-my-Chree," which was moored in deep water at the end
of the wooden pier, open the scuttle on the south, and put the lamp to
it as a signal of safety to Quilleash, Teare, and Crennell above the
bridge on the headland opposite. They were then to come aboard. Davy
Fayle took the south quay to St. Patrick's Isle. It was now the bottom
of the ebb-tide, and Davy was to wade the narrow neck that divided the
isle from the mainland. Perhaps he might light on a boat; perhaps cross
dry-shod. In half an hour he was to be on the west of the castle, just
under a spot known as the Giant's Grave, and there the four men were to
come ashore to him in the dingey. Meantime he was to see old Paton Gorry
and generally take the soundings. Thus they parted.
Davy found the water low and the ford dry. He crossed it as noiselessly
as he could, and reached the rocks of the isle. It was not so dark but
he could descry the dim outlines of the ruined castle. A flight of steps
ascended from the water's edge to the portcullis. Davy crept up. He had
prepared to knock at the old notched door under the arch, but he found
it standing open. He stood and listened. At one moment he thought he
heard a movement behind him. It was darkest of all under these thick
walls. He went on; he passed the doorway that is terrible with the
tradition of the Moddey Dhoo. As he went by the door he turned his head
to it in the darkness, and once again he thought he heard something
stir. This time the sound came from before him. He gasped, and had
almost screamed. He stretched his arms toward the sound. There was
nothing. All was still once more.
Davy stepped forward into the courtyard. His feet fell softly on the
grass that grew there. At length he reached the guard-room. Once more he
had lifted his hand to knock, and once more he found the door open. He
looked into the room. It was empty; a fire burned on the hearth, a form
was drawn up in front of it; a pipe lay on a bare deal table. "He has
gone down to the cell," Davy told himself, and he made his way to the
steps that led to the dungeon. But he stopped again, and his heart
seemed to stand still. There could now be no doubt but some one was
approaching. There was the faint jingle as of keys. "Paton! Paton!" Davy
called, fearfully. There was no answer, but the footsteps came on. "Who
is there?" he cried again, in a tremulous whisper. At the next instant a
man passed in the darkness, and Davy saw and knew him. It was the
Bishop.
Davy dropped to his knees. A moment afterward the Bishop was gone
through the outer gate and down the steps. His footsteps ceased, and
then there were voices, followed by the plash of an oar, and then all
was silence once more, save for the thick boom of the sea that came up
from the rocks.
Davy rose to his feet and turned toward the steps that led down to the
door of the dungeon. A light came from below. The door was open also,
and, stretching himself full-length on to the ground, Davy could see
into the cell. On the floor there was a lantern, and beside it a bundle
lay. Dan was there; he was lying on the stone couch; he was alone.
Breathless and trembling, Davy rose again and fled out of the old castle
and along the rocky causeway to a gullet under the Giant's Grave. There
the men were waiting for him.
"The place is bewitched," he said, with quick-coming breath; and he told
how every door was open, and not a soul was in the castle except Dan.
The men heard him with evident terror. Corkell had just told them a
similar story. The watch and the harbor-master had both been removed
before he had gone in search of them. Everything seemed to be done to
their hands. Nothing was left to them to do but simply to walk into the
castle and carry out their design. This terrified them. "It's a fate,"
Corkell whispered; and Crennell, in white awe of the unseen hand that
was helping them, was still for trusting in the Lord. Thus they put
their heads together. Quilleash was first to recover from superstitious
fears. "Come, lay down, and no blather," he said, and stalked resolutely
forward, carrying a sack and a coil of rope. The other men followed him
in silence. Davy was ordered to stay behind with the small-boat.
They found everything as the lad had left it: the notched door of the
portcullis was open, the door of the guard-room was open, and when they
came to the steps of the dungeon the door there was also open. A moment
they stood and listened, and heard no sound from below but a light,
regular breathing, as of one man only. Then they went quietly down the
steps and into the cell. Dan was asleep. At sight of him, lying alone
and unconscious, their courage wavered a moment. The unseen hand seemed
to be on them still. "I tell thee it's a fate," Corkell whispered again
over Quilleash's shoulder. In half a minute the sleeping man was bound
hand and foot, and the sack was thrown over his head. At the first touch
he awoke and tried to rise, but four men were over his prostrate body,
and they overpowered him. He cried lustily, but there was none to hear.
In less time than it takes to tell it the men were carrying Dan out of
the cell. The lantern they left on the floor, and in their excitement
they did not heed the parcel that lay by it.
Over the courtyard, through the gate, along the ledge under the
crumbling walls, they stumbled and plunged in the darkness. They reached
the boat and pushed off. Ten minutes afterward they were aboard the
"Ben-my-Chree" and were beating down the bay.
Dan recognized the voices of the men, and realized his situation. He did
not shout again. The sack over his head was of coarse fibre, admitting
the air, and he could breathe through it without difficulty. He had been
put to lie on one of the bunks in the cabin, and he could see the
tossing light of the horn lantern that hung from the deck-planks. When
the boat rolled in the strong sea that was running he could sometimes
see the lights on the land through the open scuttle.
With a fair wind for the Point of Ayr, full sail was stretched. Corkell
stood to the tiller, and, when all went smoothly, the three men turned
in below, and lighted a fire in the stove and smoked. Then Davy Fayle
came down with eyes dull and sick. He had begun to doubt, and to ask
questions that the men could not answer. What for was Mastha Dan tied up
like a haythen? And what for the sack? But the men were in no humor for
cross-examination. No criss-crossing! The imperent young idiot waistrel,
let him keep his breath to cool his porridge. To quiet the lad the men
plied him with liquor, and at the second draft he was reeling drunk.
Then he laughed a wild laugh, and sang a mad song, and finally stood up
to dance. It was a grim sight, but it was soon ended, and Davy was put
to sleep in another of the bunks. Then two hours passed, and there was
some growling and quarreling.
Crennell and Teare went up on deck. Quilleash remained below, sitting
before the stove cleaning with oil and a rag a fowling-piece that Dan
had brought aboard at the beginning of the herring season. Sometimes he
crooned a Manx carval, and sometimes whistled it, as he worked, chewing
his quid meantime, and glancing at intervals at Dan's motionless figure
on the bunk:
With pain we record
The year of our Lord
Sixteen hundred and sixty and sayven,
When it so come to pass
A good fishing there wass
Off Dooglas, and a wonderful sayson.
There was no other sound in the cabin, except Davy's heavy breathing and
the monotonous beat of the water at the boat's bow. Dan lay as quiet as
the dead. Never once had he spoken or been spoken to.
The boat was flying before the wind. The sky had cleared, and the stars
were out, and the lights on the shore could be plainly seen. Orrisdale,
Jurby, and the Rue went by, and when Bishop's Court was passed the light
in the library window burned clear and strong over the sea. Toward ten
o'clock the lighthouse on the Point of Ayr was rounded, and then the
boat had to bear down the Ramsey Bay in tacks. Before eleven they were
passing the town, and could see the lights of the Cumberland packet as
she lay by the quay. It was then three-quarter tide. In half an hour
more the lugger was put about at Port Lague, and there Dan was taken
ashore by Teare and Crennell. Quilleash went with them, carrying the
fowling-peace.
Corkell and Davy Fayle, who had recovered from his stupor, were to take
the "Ben-my-Chree" back into Ramsey Bay, to drop anchor under Ballure,
and then to rejoin their companions at Lague before twelve o'clock. This
was to divert suspicion, and to provoke the inference, when the
fishing-boat would be found next morning, that Dan had escaped to
England by the Whitehaven packet.
The "Ben-my-Chree" sailed off with Corkell and Davy. Teare went in
search of a horse, Quilleash and Crennell remained on the shore at Lague
with Dan. It was a bleak and desolate place, with nothing to the south
but the grim rocks of the Tableland Head, and with never a house to the
north nearer than Folieu, which was half a mile away. The night was now
bitterly cold. The stars were gone, the darkness was heavy, and a
nipping frost was in the dense atmosphere. But the wind had dropped, and
every sound sent a dull echo through the air. The two men waited and
listened. Thus far all had gone well with them, but what remained to do
was perilous enough. If Corkell and the lad happened to be seen when
coming from the boat, if Teare were caught in the act of borrowing a
horse without leave, then all would be over with them. Their suspense
was keen.
Presently there came up to them from the bay, over the dull rumble of
the waves on the shore, a quick creaking sound, followed by a splash and
then a dead roll. They knew it was the anchor being slipped to its
berth. Soon afterward there came from the land to the south the sharp
yap of dogs, followed at a sharp interval by the heavy beat of a horse's
hoofs on the road. Was it Teare with the horse? Was he pursued? The men
listened, but could hear no other noise. Then there came through the
dense air the muffled sound of a bell ringing at the quay. It was the
first of three bells that were rung on the Cumberland packet immediately
before it set sail.
The horse behind drew nearer, the bell in front rang again. Then Teare
came up leading a big draft mare by the bridle. He had been forced to
take it from the stable at Lague, and in getting it away he had aroused
the dogs; but he had not been followed, and all was safe. The bell rang
a third time, and immediately a red light crept out from the quay toward
the sea, which lay black as a raven below. The Cumberland packet had
gone.
At that moment Corkell and Davy Fayle returned, Corkell holding Davy by
the neck of his guernsey. The lad had begun to give signs of a mutinous
spirit, which the man had suppressed by force. Davy's eyes flashed, but
he was otherwise quiet and calm.
"What for is all this, you young devil?" said Quilleash. "What d'ye
mean? Out with it, quick! what tricks now? D---- his fool's face, what
for does he look at me like that?"
"Dowse that, Billy, and bear a hand and be quiet," said Crennell.
"The young pauper's got the imperence of sin," said Quilleash.
Then the man lifted Dan on to the back of the big mare, and strapped him
with his covered face to the sky. Never a word was spoken to him, and
never a word did he speak.
"Let's make a slant for it," said Teare, and he took the bridle. Corkell
and Crennell walked on either side of the horse. Quilleash walked
behind, carrying the fowling-piece over his left shoulder. Davy was at
his right hand.
The journey thereafter was long and heavy. They took the path that is to
the north by Barrule and Clag Ouyre and runs above Glen Auldyn and winds
round to the south of Snaefell. Ten miles they plodded on in the thick
darkness and the cold, with only the rumbling rivers for company, and
with the hidden mountains making unseen ghosts about them. On they went,
with the horse between them, taking its steady stride that never varied
and never failed, even when the rivers crossed the path and their own
feet stumbled into ruts. On and on, hour after hour, until their weary
limbs dragged after them, and their gossip ceased, and even their
growling and quarreling was no more heard. Then on and still on in the
gruesome silence.
Under the breast of Snaefell they came into the snow of two days ago,
which had disappeared in the valleys but still lay on the mountains, and
was now crisp under their feet. It seemed, as they looked down in the
darkness, to pass beneath them like short, smoky vapor that dazed the
eyes and made the head giddy. Still higher, the sound of running waters
suddenly stopped, for the rivers were frozen and their voices silenced.
But the wind blew more strongly as they ascended the chill heights.
Sometimes at the top of a long rise they stopped to breathe the horse,
and then, with no sound above or around except the shrill sough of the
wind in the gorse, their courage began to fail. Ghostly imaginings would
not be kept down.
"Did you ever hear the Lockman!" said Crennell beneath his breath.
"I never come agen him," said Quilleash. "When I see anything at night
on the mountains I allis lave it alone."
The other men shuddered, and forthwith began to whistle right lustily.
Sometimes they passed a mountain sheep-pen, and the sheep being
disturbed, would bleat. Sometimes a dog at a distant house would hear
them and bark; and even that, though it was a signal of danger, was also
a sort of human companionship on the grim mountain-side.
It was a dreary walk, and to Dan, bound hand and foot on the horse, it
was a painful ride--a cold one it could not be, for the awkward motion
brought warmth. The night wore on, and the air grew keener; the men's
beards became crisp with the frost.
At length the silent company rounded Snaefell to the north of
Cronk-y-Vane and Beinn-y-Phott. Then Teare at the horse's head twisted
about. "Do we take the ould mine-shed for it?" he asked.
"Ay," said Quilleash.
Their journey was almost ended. The sky over the sea behind them was
then dabbled with gray, and a smell of dawn was coming down from the
mountains.