A PERILOUS RIDE.
Although so much had passed since Joan’s arrival at the farmhouse, it
had all taken place within the space of a few minutes. She herself, and
Ann and Tregenna, had all been at too great tension of the nerves to be
dilatory either in speech or action.
When, therefore, Tregenna felt the touch of Joan’s hands on his belt,
he saw, at the same moment, the figure of Gardener Tom at a very short
distance away, between them and the bridge. He was going down the hill,
presumably in search of his comrades; but his lameness prevented his
getting along very fast.
Tregenna was about to speak, when Joan uttered, very low in his ear, a
warning “Sh—sh,” and pointed upwards, in the direction of a road that
went past the farm and over the hill behind it.
Understanding without any words that she thought it prudent to return
to Hurst by a different and less direct way than the road by which
they had come, he turned the horse’s head at once in the direction she
indicated.
They rode for some distance in silence. The drizzling rain had now
almost ceased, and the moon was showing fitfully behind ragged, driving
clouds. Their way lay at first along a very bad road, which had the
merit of being open to the fields on either side, so that they were
sure at least that they could not be attacked without warning. They
thus remained for some time in sight of the farmhouse; but though Joan
watched the building as well as she could in the feeble and fitful
moonlight, she could make out no sign of any creature stirring near it,
until for a moment, as they neared the top of the hill, the moon shone
out for an instant brightly on the valley at their feet.
Then a low cry escaped her lips.
“There is a horse coming out from the farm stables,” said she, “and
going down the hill towards the bridge. Ay, and there is a second and a
third. But one of the three is mounted; and the others are led by the
rider of the first.”
“Well,” said Tregenna, noticing the alarm in her tone. “And what think
you that portends?”
“Why, ’tis that Ann has saddled them and is leading them forth, for
what purpose, unless it be to attack us on our way to Hurst, I cannot
imagine. I would now we had kept the straight, short road, and risked
passing the searchers. Now I fear they may come up with us, since they
will be mounted, and will lie in wait.”
The suggestion was not a pleasant one. But Tregenna was at first rather
incredulous.
“Surely,” said he, “she would not have let us go forth unmolested,
if she had meant ill by us! And they would not touch your father’s
daughter, villains though they be. You and he are both too well known,
and too much respected even by the wrong-doers.”
“Nay, sir, I fear you exaggerate our powers and our position. These men
do truly show us some respect, in return for my father’s labors among
them. But the least thing will turn them from kindness to savagery.
And Ann is in that respect but little better than they, I fear.”
“She is a most extraordinary woman!”
“You may well say that. The more extraordinary, the more one knows of
her. She can be as tender as a woman ought to be, as I have proved many
a time, when I have besought her kindness for the poor and sick in her
neighborhood or in ours. But she can also be as fierce as the fiercest
man, as you, sir, have, I believe, already proved.”
“Ay, that have I. And truly I think her fierceness is more to be
depended on than her kindness. She hates me for having, as she
considers, humbled her in the fight t’other day. And I am much inclined
to think she would never have suffered me to go forth from the
farmhouse alive, had you not most happily come to my rescue.”
As he uttered these last words, in a tone which betrayed the depth of
his feeling, he was conscious of a tremor which ran through Joan’s arms
and communicated a thrill to his own frame.
“You now see, sir,” said she, quickly, “that I did well to warn you
against accepting her invitation to Rede Hall!”
“It was more than I deserved that you should concern yourself with me
and my folly!”
“Nay, sir, if ’twas a folly, I understand that you felt bound, in the
exercise of your duty, to commit it. But now that you have learnt so
much of their secrets as you have done to-night, I greatly fear they
will make a strong effort to make your knowledge of no avail. It was
with that fear in my mind I did suggest we should go by a less direct
way than the one by which we came. You must now, sir, take that path to
the left, and get down to the marsh, which we must cross on the way to
the shore. Where will your boat be in waiting for you?”
“Down in a little creek near the cliff’s end. But I will not let you
accompany me so far. I am but endangering your safety. Let me descend
when we reach the foot of this hill. Trust me, I shall be able to
reach the shore without encountering the ‘free-traders.’ And for your
kindness I can never sufficiently thank you.”
“If you must thank me, sir, I must do something to merit your thanks:
I must see you in safety on your own element,” replied Joan, lightly.
“What! And then return alone to Hurst? Nay, indeed, Miss Joan, I’ll not
suffer that.”
“Then, sir, you must pass the night under my father’s roof. He will be
pleased to have you. He was abroad when I left home, visiting a sick
woman. But he will be home again by this, and will, I am sure, receive
you with a hearty greeting.”
“You are both all goodness, all kindness. I know not how to thank you!”
His voice trembled, and when he had said these words there was silence
between them.
Prosaic as their conversation had been since they left the farmhouse,
there was an undercurrent of deep feeling in both their hearts which
lent a vivid interest to their commonplace words. To Tregenna there
was thrilling, sweetest music in every tone of the voice of this
young girl, who had exposed herself so undauntedly to danger in the
determination to save him from the results of his own daring. While to
Joan, careful as she was to speak stiffly and even coldly, there was a
secret delight in the knowledge of the real peril from which she had
saved her handsome companion.
He was, however, loth to accept her invitation to stay at the
Parsonage, fearing that he might, by so doing, bring the vengeance of
the smugglers on the heads of both father and daughter. She made light
of this fear; but finally, at her urgent entreaties, he agreed to go
home with her in the first place, and to take Parson Langney’s advice
as to going further that night or not.
Hardly had this been settled between the two young people, when the
horse they rode pricked up his ears, rousing the attention of his
riders.
They had now left the open fields, and were passing through a wild
bit of country where knots of trees, well-grown hedges, and clumps of
bramble made it difficult for them to see far in any direction, and
formed, moreover, safe hiding-places where an enemy might lie in ambush
unperceived and unsuspected.
In the distance, before them a little to the left, lay the marshes,
with the white vapor rolling over them from the sea.
Tregenna reined in the horse to reconnoiter. Trees on the right, a
hedge on the left of the miry road. Not a living creature to be seen.
In the copse, however, there was a rustling and crackling to be heard,
which might be the result of the night-wind, or might not.
“Let us draw back,” said Joan, in a whisper “and go straight down to
the marsh and up to Hurst that way!”
Tregenna assented, and was in the very act of turning the horse, when
there was a shout, a hoarse cry, and a man sprang out from the copse:
the next moment the lieutenant’s bridle was seized by Ben the Blast,
who was no horseman, and who chose, therefore, to do his part of the
work on foot. At the very moment, however, that he sprang out from his
ambush, a couple of horsemen appeared, the one behind, the other in
front of Tregenna; while a third, galloping up the road, joined his
comrades, and, presenting a pistol at the lieutenant, shouted to his
comrades to shoot him down.
The newcomer was Jack Price, whose tears and maudlin protests at the
farmhouse had excited the derision of his comrades.
“Hold your hands!” shouted Tregenna back. “Do you not see whom I
have with me? There is none here, I am very sure, would harm Parson
Langney’s daughter?”
“Nay,” cried out one of the horsemen, whom, by the voice, Tregenna knew
to be Tom; “we’ll not harm her. But thou shalt not shelter thyself
behind a woman’s petticoats!”
But before he could finish his speech Tregenna had deftly disengaged
himself from the clasp of Joan’s arms, and springing to the ground
struck Ben the Blast such a violent blow with the muzzle of one of
his pistols that that burly ruffian released his hold on the horse’s
bridle. Then, before any one had time to stop him, or even to realize
his intention, Tregenna thrust the reins into Joan’s hands, and bidding
her “Hold on! Ride on quickly!” gave the horse a smart cut which sent
him galloping forward clear away from the throng.
Then, springing to the side of the road, he put his back against a
tree, drew his cutlass, and prepared to make the best defense he could.
Jack Price, with a fearful oath, rode at him, but missed his aim with
the knife he held, and narrowly escaped being dismounted, as the horse
swerved on nearing the tree. Robin Cursemother, who was one of the
mounted ones, took warning by this, and swung himself off his horse.
In truth, none of them were more efficient as horsemen than kegs of
their own contraband spirits would have been; and Gardener Tom, who
kept his saddle on account of his lameness, contented himself with a
passive share in the business, by standing in the road with his pistol
cocked, waiting for a chance of aiming at Tregenna without risking the
maiming of his own comrades.
Meantime, however, Robin had attacked the lieutenant fiercely in front,
while little mean-faced Bill Plunder, creeping through the brushwood,
struck at him from behind.
Tregenna, thus attacked by the two, defended himself with vigor,
and had dealt an effective blow at Bill’s shoulder, when a strange
diversion occurred.
There was the sound of a galloping horse’s hoofs, of the splashing and
churning up of the mud and water in the road. The next moment Joan’s
horse dashed into the midst of the group, causing the animal Jack Price
rode to start off at a smart pace; and Joan herself, alighting in the
very midst of the fray, made straight for Tregenna, heedless of the
knives and pistols with which the smugglers were armed, and of the vile
curses which assailed her ears.
“Go back, go back!” cried he.
“I’ll not go back!” retorted Joan, as she still came on, and daringly
thrust aside the arm of Jack Price, who had by this time dismounted in
his turn. “I’ll not see you murdered before my eyes. If they will kill
you, they shall kill me too!”
And she sprang through the group and reached Tregenna, while the
smugglers, for the moment disconcerted, hung back and looked at her.
“And you, Tom, I’m amazed to see you taking part in an attack like
this, half a dozen men against one! Oh, shame on you, shame!” cried she.
Robin Cursemother recovered from his discomfiture before the others.
“’Tis easy to talk!” said he, roughly. “We mean no harm to you,
mistress, but we have accounts to settle with this fellow, and that
to-night. If so be he’s your friend, you should have taught him better
manners than to interfere with us. So now, mistress, off with you, and
leave him to us!”
But for answer Joan crept a step nearer to Tregenna, who touched her
arm gently.
“Go, Miss Joan, go,” said he, earnestly. “I can hold my own with these
fellows, believe me!”
“Curse you! You shall not bear that boast away with you,” said Robin,
fiercely.
And he made a lunge at Tregenna.
Joan uttered a faint cry as she caught sight of the gleaming knife
in the smuggler’s hand, turned quickly, and flung her arms round
Tregenna’s neck.
“Off with you, away with you! We’ll not touch you, mistress, but you
must leave him to us!” cried Gardener Tom, reining in his horse behind
the pair, and seizing Joan’s mount by the bridle.
“Touch him if you dare!” cried Joan, fiercely, as she turned her head,
panting, and looked full in Tom’s face.
“Why, what call have you to tell us to let him go, mistress? He’s a
stranger, he is, and naught to you!”
“Oons, mistress, if so be you can make out he’s aught to you, we’ll
let him go!” roared Ben the Blast, in his thick, hoarse voice, which
seemed to carry whiffs of sea-fog wherever he went. “Come, now, what is
he to thee?”
For one moment Joan hesitated, while Tregenna in vain tried to
disengage her arms, and whispered to her to go, to leave him. But she
would pay no heed to his protests. In answer to Ben, her voice, after a
moment’s pause, rang out clearly—
“You will let him go, you say, if I tell you what he is to me? Well,
then, you must let him go. For I tell you—he’s—he’s the man I love!”
For a moment there fell a silence upon the rough men. There was
something in the tones of the maidenly voice which reached even the
hearts of the smugglers, and awed them for an instant into quietness.
The horses stamped, splashing up the mud; the wind whistled in the
trees; but the men, for the space of a few seconds, were still as mice.
Then Tom, the most easily moved, the least hardened amongst them,
leaned down from his horse, and touched Tregenna, not ungently, on the
shoulder—
“Off with you then, master, and get out of sight and out of hearing
before we change our minds!” said he in a low and somewhat mocking
voice.
Tregenna took the hint. Lifting Joan on to the saddle of her father’s
horse, he swung himself into it in a twinkling, and digging his heels
into the animal’s flanks, urged him forward without a moment’s delay,
in the direction of Hurst.
There was an outbreak of oaths and curses, bloodcurdling to hear. And a
pistol was discharged after them, without, however, doing any harm.
But luckily for the lieutenant and the lady, this incident had already
bred a quarrel among the smugglers; and before the fugitives were out
of earshot, they heard the unmistakable sounds of a conflict which kept
the “free-traders” occupied until Hurst was reached by the parson’s
horse and his riders.
Then, slackening his pace when they entered the straggling village
street, Tregenna, whose heart was full, turned so that he might catch
a glimpse of the face of his companion. They had ridden thus far in
complete silence.
“What shall I say to you?” whispered he, in a vibrating voice, as he
bent his head to be near hers.
But the answer came back cold and clear, with a light laugh that
chilled him to the soul:
“What shall you say? You had best say nothing, sir. I said what I did
say but to save your life!”