I wondered when I was to get breakfast; but I knew Lord Grey well enough
to know that he was not a man to go willingly without food for more than
a few hours at a time. Breakfast I should have presently, nor would it
be skin-boiled beef, smelling of singed hair. So I mounted my cob with
a good will. The first trooper rode by my side, the other waited for a
moment to examine the feet of Lord Grey's charger. He trotted after
us, leading the riderless horse, some fifty yards behind us. We trotted
smartly through Axminster, where we set the dogs barking. People sprang
from their beds when they heard us, fearing that we were an army coming
to fight. We cantered out of the town over the river, heading towards a
hilly country, which had few houses upon it. I looked back after leaving
Axminster, to see if Lord Grey wanted me. He had mounted his horse
somewhere in the town; but he was now a couple of hundred yards behind
us, riding' with a third man, whom I judged to be Colonel Foukes, by his
broad white regimental scarf. After we had gone a few miles, we came to
a cross-roads where my guide bade me halt to wait for orders. The others
had pulled up, too. I could see Lord Grey examining a map, while his
horse sidled about across the road. The trooper who had been riding with
him, joined us after a while, telling us to take the road to our right,
which would take us, he said, towards Taunton. We were to keep our eyes
skinned, he said, for any sign of armed men coming on the high-road from
Honiton, so as to threaten our left flank. The gentlemen were going to
scout towards the sea. At eight o'clock, if we had seen no trace of any
armed force coming, we were to make for Chard, where we should find the
Duke's army. We were to examine the roads for any signs of troops having
passed recently towards Taunton. We were to enquire of the country
people, if troops were abroad in that countryside, what troops they
might be, how led, how equipped, etc. If we came across any men anxious
to join the Duke we were to send them on to Chard or Ilminster, on the
easterly road to Taunton. We were to ride without our green boughs, he
said; so before starting on our road we flung them into the ditches.
Lord Grey waved his hand to us, as he turned away with his friend. We
took off our hats in reply, hardly in a soldierly salute; then we set
off at a walk along the Taunton road. It is a lonely road leading up to
the hills, a straight Roman road, better than any roads laid in England
at that time; but a road which strikes horror into one, the country
through which it runs is so bleak.
By about six o'clock (according to one of the troopers, who judged by
the height of the sun) we were in a clump of firs high up on a hill,
looking over a vast piece of eastern Devon. We had scouted pretty
closely all round Honiton, examining the country people, without hearing
of any troops. We were now looking out for some gleam upon a road, some
rising of dust over a hedge, some scattering of birds even, any sign
of men advancing, which might be examined more closely. The morning was
bright; but the valleys had mist upon them, which would soon turn to the
quivering blue June heat-haze. The land lay below us, spread out in huge
folds; the fields, all different colours, looked like the counties on a
map; we could see the sea, we could see the gleam of a little river. We
could see Axminster far to the east of us; but the marching army was out
of sight, somewhere on the Chard high-road. After scanning pretty well
all around us, I caught sight of moving figures on the top of one of the
combes to south of us. We all looked hard at the place, trying to make
out more of them. They were nearly a mile from us. They seemed to be
standing there as sentries. At first we thought that they must be people
with Lord Grey; but as we could see no horses we decided that they could
not be. One of the men said that as far as he'd heard tell like,
the combe on which they stood was what they call a camp, where soldiers
lived in the old time. He didn't know much more about it; but he said
that he thought we ought to examine it, like, before riding on to some
inn where we could breakfast.
The other man seemed to think so, too; but when we came to talk over
the best way of doing our espials, we were puzzled. We should be seen at
once if we went to them directly. We might be suspected if we approached
them on horseback. If the men went, they might be detained, because, for
all that we knew, the combe might be full of militia. So I said I had
better go, since no one would suspect a boy. To this the men raised a
good many objections, looking at each other suspiciously, plainly asking
questions with their raised eyebrows. I thought at the time that they
were afraid of sending me into a possible danger, because I was a
servant attached to the Duke's person. However, when I said that I would
go on foot, taking all precautions, they agreed grudgingly to let me go.
I crept along towards this combe on foot, as though I were going bird's
nesting. I beat along by the hedges, keeping out of sight behind them,
till I was actually on the combe's north slope, climbing up to the old
earthwork on the top. I took care to climb the slope at a place where
there was no sentry, which was, of course, not only the steepest bit of
the hill but covered with gorse clumps, through which I could scarcely
thrust my way. Up towards the top the gorse was less plentiful; there
were immense foxgloves, ferns, little marshy tufts where rushes grew,
little spots of wet bright green moss. Yellow-hammers drawled their
pretty tripping notes to me, not starting away, even when I passed close
to them. All the beauty of June was on the earth that day; the beauty of
everything in that intense blue haze was wonderful.
The top of the combe was very steep, steeper than any of the ascent,
because it had been built up like an outer wall by the savages who once
lived there with their cattle. I could see just the bare steep wall
of the rampart standing up in a dull green line of short-grassed turf
against the sky, now burning with the intense blue of summer. One hard
quick scramble, with my fingernails dug into the ground, brought my head
to the top of the rampart, beyond which I could see nothing but
great ferns, a forest of great ferns, already four or five feet high,
stretching away below, into the cup of the camp or citadel. I did not
dare to stand up, lest I should be seen. I burrowed my way among the
ferns over the wall into the hollow, worming my way towards the edge of
the fern clump so that I could see. In a minute, I was gazing through
the fern-stems into the camp itself; it was a curious sight.
About fifty people (some of them women) were sitting about a hollow
in the ground, which I guessed to be a sort of smokeless fireplace or
earth-oven. Everywhere else, all over the hollow of the camp, which
must have been a full three hundred yards across, were various kinds of
farm-stock, mostly cattle, though there were many picketed horses, too.
At first I thought that I had climbed into a camp of gipsies, which gave
me a scare; for gipsies then were a wild lot, whom wise folk avoided.
Then, as I glanced about, I saw a sentry standing not thirty yards from
me, but well above me, on the rampart top. He was no gipsy he was an
ordinary farmer's lad, with the walk of a ploughman. His sleeves, which
were rolled back, showed me a sun-burnt pair of arms, such as no gipsy
ever had. What puzzled me about him was his heavy double-barrelled
pistol, which he carried in his right hand, with something of a military
cock, yet as though awed by it. He was not over sure of that same
pistol. I could see that he confounded it in some way with art-magic.
Then I remembered what the old soldier had said the night before about
club men. This camp must be a camp of club men, I thought. They had come
there to protect their stock from the rapine of our vile pillagers, who
had spread such terror amongst the farmers the day before. Perched up
on the combe, with sentries always on the look-out, they could see the
Duke's raiders long before they came within gunshot. If an armed force
had tried to rush the camp, after learning that the beasts were shut up
within it (which, by the way, no man could possibly suspect until he
saw them from the rampart top), the few defenders clubbed together there
could have kept them out without difficulty; for there was only one
narrow entrance to the camp, so constructed that any one entering by it
could be shot at from three sides, if not from all four. I looked about
me carefully from my hiding-place, till I decided that I could get a
better view from another part of the fern clump. I began to wriggle
through the thick, sweet-scented stalks, towards the heart of the camp,
going with infinite care, so as not to break down the fern into a path.
I hoped to make no more stir among the fern-tops than would be made by
one of the many pigs scattering about in the enclosure.
While I was crawling along in this way, I suddenly heard a curious
noise from an intensely thick part of the fern in front of me. It was a
clinking noise, followed by a sort of dry rasping, as though a very big
person were gritting his teeth very hard. It stopped suddenly, but soon
began again. I thought that it must be some one mending harness with
a file, or perhaps some old sheep or cow, with the remnants of a bell
about her neck, licking a stone for salt. As was in an adventure,
I thought that I would see it out to the end; for I was enjoying my
morning. In spite of the want of breakfast I felt very like a red Indian
or a pirate, creeping through the jungle to the sack of a treasure
train. So I wormed on towards the noise. As I came near to it, I went
more cautiously, because in one of the pauses of the noise, I heard a
muttered curse, which told me that the unseen noise-maker was a man. If
I had been wise I should have stopped there; for I had learned all that
I came out to learn. But I was excited now. I wished to see everything,
before creeping away unseen to make my report. Perhaps I wished to see
something which had nothing to do with the club men, a private main
of cocks, say, or a dog, or bull-baiting, carried on with some of the
squire's creatures, but without his knowledge. I had a half wish that I
might have something of the kind to report; because in my heart I longed
to say nothing to any of the Duke's party which might lead to the ruin
of these poor people who were trying so hard to protect their property.
A few feet further on, I was wishing most heartily that I had never
left my room in London. It was like this. In the very heart of the fern
clump, where the ferns were tallest, a little spring bubbled out of
the ground, at the rate, I suppose, of a pint of water in a minute. The
ferns grew immensely thick there; but someone had thinned out a few of
the roots from the ground, leaving the uprooted plant with the ferns
still living, to form a rough kind of thatch above a piece of earth big
enough for a man's body. In the scented shade of this thatch, with
the side of his face turned towards me, a big, rough, bearded man sat,
filing away some bright steel irons which were riveted on his ankles. He
swore continually in a low whisper as he worked, not even pausing in his
curses when he spat on to the hollow scraped in the irons by his file.
He was the fiercest looking savage of a man I have ever seen. His face
had a look of stern, gloomy cruelty which I shall never forget. His
general appearance was terrible; for he had a face burnt almost black by
the sun (some of it may have been mud) with a nasty white scar running
irregularly all down his left cheek, along the throat to the shoulder.
He was not what you might call naked, a naked man, such as I have seen
since in the hot countries, would have looked a nobleman beside him. He
wore a pair of dirty linen knickerbockers, all frayed into ribbons at
the knees, a pair of strong hide slippers bound to his ankles by strips
of leather, a part of a filthy red shirt without sleeves, a hat stolen
from a scarecrow, nothing else whatever, except the mud of many days'
gathering. His shirt was torn all down the back in a great slit which
he had tried to secure by what the sailors call “Bristol buttons,” i.e.
pieces of string. The red flannel hung from him so as to show his back,
all criss-crossed with flogging scars. I knew at once from the irons
that he was a criminal escaped from gaol; but the criss-crossed scars
taught me that he was a criminal of the most terrible kind, probably one
who had shipped into the Navy to avoid hanging.
I took in a view of him before he saw me. His image was stamped on my
brain in less than ten seconds. In the eleventh second, I was lying on
my back in the gloom of the fern-growth, with this great ruffian on my
chest, squeezing me by my windpipe. I cannot say that he spoke to me. It
was not speech. It was the snarling wild beast gurgle which passes for
speech in the slums of our great cities, as though all the filth of a
low nature were choking in the throat at once. He was on me too quickly
for me to cry out. I could only lie still, cackling for breath, while
the fierce face glowered down on me. I understood him to say that he
would have my windpipe out if I said a word. I suppose he saw that I was
only a very frightened boy; for his clutch upon me relaxed, after a few
awful, gasping moments. When he loosed his hold, his great hand pawed
over my throat till he had me by the scruff of the neck. He drew me over
towards the spring, as one would draw a puppy. Then, still crouching in
the fern, he hurried me to a single stunted sloe-bush which grew there.
“Go down, you,” he said, giving me a shove towards the bush. “Down th'
'ole.”
Just behind the sloe-bush, under a fringe of immense ferns, was an
opening in the earth, about eighteen inches high, by two feet across.
It was like a large rabbit or fox earth, except that the mouth of it was
not worn bare. I did not like the thought of going down th' 'ole; but
with this great griping fist on my nape there was not much sense in
saying so. I wormed my way in, helped on by prods from the file. It was
a melancholy moment when my head passed beyond the last filtering of
light into the tomb's blackness, where not even insects lived. After a
moment of scrambling I found that the passage was big enough for me to
go on all fours. It was a dry passage, too, which seemed strange to me;
but on reaching out with my hand I felt that the walls were lined with
well laid stones, unmortared. The roof above me was also of stone. You
may wonder why I did not shoot this ruffian with my pistol. You boys
think that if you had a pistol you would shoot any one who threatened
you. You would not. When the moment comes, it is not so easily disposed
of. Besides, a filthy, cursing pirate on your throat checks your natural
calm most strangely.
The passage led into the swell of the rampart for about twenty yards,
where it opened into a dimly lighted chamber about four feet high. A
little blink of light came through a rabbit hole, at the end of which
I saw a spray of gorse with the sunlight on it. I could see by the dim
light that the chamber was built of unmortared stones, very cleverly
laid. The floor of it was greasier than the passage had been, but still
it was not damp. On one side it had a bed of heather stalks, on the
other there was something dark which felt like cold meat. The man came
grunting in behind me, clinking his leg-irons. After groping about in a
corner of the room he lighted a stinking rushlight by means of a tinder
box.