The Half-moon Beach.
Dodging about between the village and the Red Court Farm, went Miss
Thornycroft. Her mind was not at rest. The day on which she had
expected her guests--or rather, one of them--had passed. It was on
Saturday; here was Monday passing, and nobody had come. Each time the
omnibus had arrived from Jutpoint, the young lady had not been far
off. It had not brought anybody in whom she was interested. Forty-five
minutes past three now; ten minutes more, and it would be in again.
She was beginning to feel sick with emotional suspense.
But, for all this dodging, Miss Thornycroft was a lady; and when the
wheels of the omnibus were at length heard, and it drew up at the
Mermaid, she was at a considerable distance, apparently taking a cold
stroll in the wintry afternoon. One passenger only got out; she could
see that; and--_was_ it Robert Hunter?
If so, he must be habited in some curious attire. Looking at him from
this distance, he seemed to be all white and black. But, before he had
moved a step; while he was inquiring (as might be inferred) the way to
the Red Court Farm; the wild beating of Mary Ann Thornycroft's heart
told her who it was.
They met quietly enough, shaking hands calmly while he explained that
he had been unable to get away on Saturday. Miss Thornycroft burst
into a fit of laughter at the coat, partly genuine, partly put on to
hide her tell-tale emotion. It was certainly a remarkable coat; made
of a smooth sort of white cloth, exceedingly heavy, and trimmed with
black fur. The collar, the facings, the wrists and the back pockets
had all a broad strip. He turned himself about for her inspection,
laughing too.
"I fear I shall astonish the natives. But I never had so warm a coat
in my life. I got it from the professor."
"From the professor!"
Mr. Hunter laughed. "Some crafty acquaintance of his, hard up,
persuaded him into the purchase of two, money down, saying they had
just come over from Russia--latest fashion. Perhaps they had; perhaps
they are. The professor does not go in for fashion, but he cannot
refuse a request made to him on the plea of unmerited poverty, and all
that. I happened to be at his house when he brought them home in a
cab. You should have heard Mrs. Mac."
"I should have liked to," said Mary Anne.
"First of all she said she'd have the fellow taken up who had beguiled
the professor into it; next she said she'd pledge them. It ended in
the professor making me a present of one and keeping the other."
"And you are going to sport it here!"
"Better here than in London; as a beginning. I thought it a good
opportunity to get reconciled to myself in it. I should like to see
the professor _there_ when he goes out in his."
"They must have taken you for somebody in the train."
"Yes," said Mr. Hunter. "I and an old lady and gentleman had the
carriage to ourselves all the way. She evidently took me for a lord;
her husband for a card-sharper. But I think I shall like the coat."
Opinions might differ upon it--as did those of the old couple in the
train. It was decidedly a handsome coat in itself, and had probably
cost as much as the professor gave for it; but, taken in conjunction
with its oddity, some might not have elected to be seen wearing it.
Mr. Hunter had brought no other; his last year's coat was much worn,
and he had been about to get another when this came in his way.
"And what about Susan?" Miss Thornycroft asked.
"Susan is in Yorkshire. Her aunt--to whom she was left when my mother
died--was taken ill, and sent for her. I do not suppose Susan will
return to London."
"Not at all?"
Mr. Hunter thought not. "It would be scarcely worth while; she was to
have gone home in March."
Thus talking, they reached the Red Court Farm. When its inmates saw
him arrive, his portmanteau carried behind by a porter, they were
thunderstruck. Mr. Thornycroft scarcely knew which to stare at most,
him or his coat. Mary Anne introduced him with characteristic
equanimity. Richard vouchsafed no greeting in his stern displeasure,
but the justice, a gentleman at heart, hospitably inclined always,
could do no less than bid him welcome. Cyril, quiet and courteous,
shook hands with him; and later, when Isaac came in, he grasped his
hand warmly.
There is no doubt that the learning he was a connexion of Anna
Chester's (it could not be called a relative) tended to smooth
matters. As the days passed on, Mr. Hunter grew upon their liking; for
his own sake he proved to be an agreeable companion; and even Richard
fell into civility--an active, free, pleasant-mannered young fellow,
as the justice called him, who made himself at home indoors and out.
Never, since the bygone days at Katterley, had Robert Hunter deserved
the character; but in this brief holiday he could but give himself up
to his perfect happiness. He made excursions to Jutpoint; he explored
the cliffs; he went in at will to Captain Copp's and the other houses
on the heath; he put out to sea with the fishermen in the boats; he
talked to the wives in their huts: everybody soon knew Robert Hunter,
and especially his coat, which had become the marvel of Coastdown; a
few admiring it--a vast many abusing it.
Miss Thornycroft was his frequent companion, and they went out
unrestrained. It never appeared to have crossed the mind of Mr.
Thornycroft or his sons as being within the bounds of possibility that
this struggling young engineer, who was not known to public repute as
an engineer at all, could presume to be thinking of Mary Anne, still
less that she could think of him; otherwise they had been more
cautious. Anna Chester was out with them sometimes, Cyril on occasion;
but they rambled about for the most part alone in the cold and frost,
their spirits light as the rarefied air.
The plateau and its superstition had no terror for Mr. Hunter, rather
amusement: but that he saw--and saw with surprise--it was a subject of
gravity at the Red Court, he might have made fun of it. Mary Anne
confessed to him that she did not understand the matter; her brothers
were reticent even to discourtesy. That some mystery was at the bottom
of it Mr. Hunter could not fail to detect, and was content to bury all
allusion to the superstition.
He stood with Miss Thornycroft on the edge of the plateau one bright
morning--the brightest they had had. It was the first time he had been
so far, for Mary Anne had never gone beyond the railings. Not the
slightest fear had she; for the matter of that, nobody else had in
daylight; but she knew that her father did not like to see her there.
In small things, when they did not cross her own will, the young lady
could be obedient.
"I can see how dangerous it would be here on a dark night," observed
Robert Hunter in answer to something she had been saying, as he drew a
little back from the edge, over which he had been cautiously leaning
to take his observations. "Mary Anne! I never in all my life saw a
place so convenient for smuggling as that Half-moon below. I daresay
it has seen plenty of it."
Before she could make any rejoinder Mr. Kyne came strolling up to them
in a brown study, and they shook hands. Robert Hunter had dined with
him at the Red Court.
"I was telling Miss Thornycroft that the place below looks as if it
had been made for the convenience of smuggling," began Robert Hunter.
"Have you much trouble here?"
"No; but I am in hopes of it," was the reply. And it so completely
astonished Mr. Hunter, who had spoken in a careless manner, without
real meaning, as we all do sometimes, that he turned sharply round and
looked at the supervisor.
"I thought the days of smuggling were over."
"Not yet, here--so far as I believe," replied Mr. Kyne. "We have
information that smuggling to an extent is carried on somewhere on
this coast, and this is the most likely spot for it that I can
discover. I heard of this suspicion soon after I was appointed to
Coastdown, and so kept my eyes open; but never, in spite of my
precautions, have I succeeded in dropping on the wretches. I don't
speak of paltry packets of tobacco and sausage-skins of brandy, which
the fishermen, boarding strange craft, contrive to stow about their
ribs, but of more serious cargoes. I would almost stake my life that
not a mile distant from this place there lies hidden a ton-load of
lace, rich and costly as ever flourished at the Court of St.
James."[2]
[Footnote 2: This was just before the late alteration in the Customs'
import laws, when the duty on lace and other light articles was large:
making the smuggling of them into England a clever and enormously
profitable achievement, when it could be accomplished with impunity.]
Robert Hunter thought the story sounded about as likely as that of the
ghost. The incredulous, amused light in his eye caused Mary Anne to
laugh.
"Where can it be hidden?" she asked of the supervisor. "There's no
place."
"I wish I could tell you where, Miss Thornycroft."
Anything but inclined to laugh did he appear himself. The fact was,
Mr. Kyne was growing more fully confirmed in his opinion day by day,
and had come out this morning determined to do something.
Circumstances were occurring to baffle all his precautions, and he
felt savage. His policy hitherto had been secrecy, henceforth he meant
to speak of the matter openly, and see what that would do. It was very
singular--noted hereafter--that Robert Hunter and this young lady
should have been the first who fell in his way after the resolution to
speak was taken. But no doubt the remark with which Mr. Hunter greeted
him surprised him into it.
"But surely you do not think, Mr. Kyne, that boat-loads of lace are
really run here!" exclaimed Robert Hunter.
"I do think it. If not in this precise spot,"--pointing with his
finger to the Half-moon beach underneath--"somewhere close to it.
There's only one thing staggers me--if they run their cargoes there,
where can they stow it away? I have walked about there"--advancing to
the edge cautiously and looking down--"from the time the tide went off
the narrow path, leading to it round the rocks, until it came in
again, puzzling over the problem, and peering with every eye I had."
"Peering?"
"Yes. We have heard of caves and other hiding-places being concealed
in rocks," added the supervisor, doggedly; "why not in these? I cannot
put it out of my head that there's something of the sort here; it's
getting as bad to me as a haunting dream."
"It would be charming to find it!" exclaimed Mary Anne. "A cave in the
rocks! Ah, Mr. Kyne, it is too good to be true. We shall never have so
romantic a discovery at Coastdown."
"If such a thing were there, I should think you would have no
difficulty in discovering it," said Mr. Hunter.
"I have found it difficult," returned Mr. Kyne, snappishly, as if
certain remembrances connected with the non-finding did not soothe
him. "There's only one thing keeps me from reporting the suspicions at
head quarters."
"And that is--?"
"The doubt that it may turn out nothing after all."
"Oh, then, you are not so sure; you have no sufficient grounds to go
upon," quickly rejoined Mr. Hunter, with a smile that nettled the
other.
"Yes, I have grounds," he returned, somewhat incautiously perhaps, in
his haste to vindicate himself. "We had information a short time
back," he continued after a pause, as he dropped his voice to a low
key "that a boat-load of something--_my_ belief is, it's lace--was
waiting to come in. Every night for a fortnight, in the dark age of
the moon, did I haunt this naked plateau on the watch, one man with
me, others being within call. A very agreeable task it was, lying
_perdu_ on its edge, with my cold face just extended beyond!"
"And what was the result?" eagerly asked Mr. Hunter, who was growing
interested in the narrative.
"Nothing was the result. I never saw the ghost of a smuggler or a boat
approach the place. And the very first night I was off the watch, I
have reason to believe the job was done."
"Which night was that?" inquired Miss Thornycroft.
"This day week, when I was dining at the Red Court. I had told my men
to be on the look-out; but I had certainly told them in a careless
sort of way, for the moon was bright again, and who was to suspect
that they would risk it on a light night? They are bold sinners."
The customs officer was so earnest, putting, as was evident, so much
faith in his own suspicions, that Robert Hunter insensibly began to go
over to his belief. Why should cargoes of lace, and other valuable
articles, not be run? he asked himself. They bore enough duty to tempt
the risk, as they had borne it in the days gone by.
"How was it your men were so negligent?" he inquired.
"There's the devil of it!" cried the supervisor. "I beg your pardon,
young lady; wrong words slip out inadvertently when one's vexed. My
careless orders made the men careless, and they sat boozing at the
Mermaid. Young Mr. Thornycroft, it seems, happened to go in, saw them
sitting there with some of his farm-labourers, and, in a generous fit,
ordered them to call for what drink they liked. They had red eyes and
shaky hands the next morning."
"How stupid of my brother!" exclaimed Mary Anne. "Was it Richard or
Isaac?"
"I don't know. But all your family are too liberal: their purse is
longer than their discretion. It is not the first time, by many, they
have treated my fellows. I wish they would not do so."
There was a slight pause. Mr. Kyne resumed in a sort of halting tone,
as if the words came from him in spite of his better judgment.
"The greatest obstacle I have to contend with in keeping the men to
their duty on the plateau here, is the superstition connected with
it. When a fellow _is_ got on at night, the slightest movement--a
night-bird flying overhead--will send him off again. Ah! _they_ don't
want pressing to stay drinking at the Mermaid or anywhere else. The
fact is, Coastdown has not been kept to its duty for a long while. My
predecessor was good-hearted and easy, and the men did as they liked."
"How many men do you count here?"
"Only three or four, and they can't be available all together; they
must have some rest, turn on, turn off. There's a longish strip of
coast to pace, too; the plateau's but a fleabite of it."
"And your theory is that the smugglers run their boats below here?"
continued Robert Hunter, indicating the Half-moon beach.
"I think they do--that is, if they run them anywhere," replied Mr.
Kyne, who was in a state of miserable doubt, between his firm
convictions and the improbabilities they involved. "You see, there is
nowhere else that privateer boats can be run to. There's no
possibility of such a thing higher up, beyond that point to the right,
and it would be nearly as impossible for them to land a cargo of
contraband goods beyond the left point, in the face of all the
villagers."
There was a silence. All three were looking below at the scrap of
beach over the sharp edges of the jutting rocks, Miss Thornycroft held
safe by Mr. Hunter. She broke it.
"But, as you observe, Mr. Kyne, where could they stow a cargo there,
allowing that they landed one? There is certainly no opening or place
for concealment in those hard, bare rocks, or it would have been
discovered long ago. Another thing--suppose for a moment that they do
get a cargo stowed away somewhere in the rocks, how are they to get it
out again? There would be equal danger of discovery."
"So there would," replied Mr. Kyne. "I have thought of all these
things myself till my head is muddled."
"Did you ever read Cooper's novels, Mr. Kyne?" resumed Miss
Thornycroft. "Some of them would give you a vast deal of insight into
these sort of transactions."
"No," replied the officer, with an amused look. "I prefer to get my
insight from practice. I am pretty sharp-sighted," he added with
complacency.
Robert Hunter had been weighing possibilities in his mind, and woke up
as from sudden thought, turning to the supervisor.
"I should like to go down there and have a look at these rocks. My
profession has taken me much amidst such places: perhaps my experience
could assist you."
"Let us walk there now!" exclaimed the supervisor, seizing at the
idea--"if not taking you out of your way, Miss Thornycroft."
"Oh, I should be delighted," was the young lady's reply. "I call it
quite an adventure. Some fine moonlight night I shall come and watch
here myself, Mr. Kyne."
"They don't do their work on a moonlight night. At least," he hastened
to correct himself; with a somewhat crestfallen expression, "not
usually. But after what happened recently, I shall mistrust a light
night as much as a dark one."
"Are you sure," she inquired, standing yet within them on the plateau,
"that a cargo was really landed the night you speak of?"
"I am not sure; but I have cause to suspect it."
"It must be an adventurous life," she remarked, "bearing its charms,
no doubt."
"They had better not get caught," was the officer's rejoinder,
delivered with professional gusto; "they would not find it so charming
then."
"I thought the days of smuggling were over," observed Mr. Hunter:
"except the more legitimate way of doing it through the very eyes and
nose of the custom-house. Did you know anything personally of the
great custom-house frauds, as they were called, when so many officers
and merchants were implicated, some years ago?"
"I did. I held a subordinate post in the London office then, and was
in the thick of the discoveries."
"You were not one of the implicated?" jestingly demanded Mr. Hunter.
"Why, no--or you would not see me here now. I was not sufficiently
high in the service for it."
"Or else you might have been?"
"That's a home question," laughed Mr. Kyne. "I really cannot answer
for what might have been. My betters were tempted to be."
He spoke without a cloud on his face; a different man now, from the
one who had betrayed his family's past trouble to Justice Thornycroft.
Not to this rising young engineer, attired in his fantastic coat,
which the supervisor always believed must be the very height of _ton_
and fashion in London; not to this handsome, careless, light-hearted
girl, would he suffer aught of that past to escape. He could joke with
_them_ of the custom-house frauds, which had driven so many into
exile, and _one_--at least, as he believed--to death. On the whole, it
was somewhat singular that the topic should have been again started.
Miss Thornycroft took up the thread with a laugh.
"There, Mr. Kyne! You acknowledge that you custom-house gentlemen are
not proof against temptation, and yet you boast of looking so sharply
after these wretched fishermen!"
"If the game be carried on here as I suspect, Miss Thornycroft, it is
not wretched fishermen who have to do with it; except, perhaps, as
subordinates."
"Let us go and explore the Half-moon beach below," again said Robert
Hunter. Mr. Kyne turned to it at once: he had been waiting to do so.
The engineer's experience might be valuable. He had had somewhat to do
with rocks and land.
It was a short walk as they made their way down to the village, and
thence to the narrow path winding round the projection of rock. The
tide was out, so they shelved round it with dry feet, and ascended to
the Half-moon beach. They paced about from one end of the place to the
other, looking and talking. Nothing was to be seen; nothing; no
opening, or sign of opening. The engineer had an umbrella in his hand,
and he struck the rocks repeatedly: in one part in particular, it was
just the middle of the Half-moon, he struck and struck, and returned
to strike again.
"What do you find?" inquired Mr. Kyne.
"Not much. Only it sounds hollow just here."
They looked again: they stooped down and looked; they stood upon a
loose stone and raised themselves to look; they pushed and struck at
the part with all their might and main. No, nothing came of it.
"Did you ever see a more convenient spot for working the game?" cried
the supervisor. "Look at those embedded stones down there, rising from
the lower beach: the very things to moor a boat to."
"Who do you suspect does this contraband business?" inquired Robert
Hunter.
"My suspicions don't fall particularly upon any one. There are no
parties in the neighbourhood whom one could suspect, except the
boatmen, and if the trade is pushed in the extensive way I think, they
are not the guilty men. A week ago (more or less) they ran, as I tell
you, one cargo; I know they did; and may I be shot this moment, if
they are not ready to ran another! That's a paying game, I hope."
Ready to run another! The pulses of Mr. Kyne's hearers ran riot with
excitement. This spice of adventure was intensely charming.
"How do you know they are?" asked Robert Hunter.
"By two or three signs. One of them, which I have no objection to
mention, is that a certain queer craft is fond of cruising about here.
Whenever I catch sight of her ugly sides, I know it bodes no good for
her Majesty's revenue. She carries plausible colours, the hussey, and
has, I doubt not, a double bottom, false as her colours. I saw her
stern, shooting off at daybreak this morning, and should like to have
had the overhauling of her."
"Can you not?"
"No. She is apparently on legitimate business."
"I thought that her Majesty could search any vessel, legitimate or
illegitimate."
Again Mr. Kyne looked slightly crestfallen. "I boarded her with my men
the last time she was here, and nothing came of it. She happened by
ill-luck to be really empty, or we were not clever enough to unearth
the fox."
The reminiscence was not agreeable to Mr. Kyne. The empty vessel had
staggered him professionally; the reception he met with insulted him
personally. Until the search was over, the captain, a round, broad
Dutchman, had been civil, affording every facility to the revenue
officers; but the instant the work was done, he ordered them out of
the ship in his bad English, and promised a different reception if
they ever came on it again. That was not all. The mate, another
Dutchman, was handling a loaded pistol the whole time on full cock,
and staring at the superintendent in a very strange manner. Altogether
the remembrance was unpleasant.
The tide was coming up, and they had to quit the strip of beach while
the road was open. Mr. Kyne wished them good morning and departed on
his own way. Robert Hunter turned towards the plateau again, which
surprised Miss Thornycroft. "Just for a minute or two," he urged.
They ascended it, and stood on the brow as before, Robert Hunter in
deep thought. His face, now turned to the sea, now to the land, wore a
business-like expression.
"We are now standing exactly above the middle of the rocks on the
Half-moon beach below," he remarked presently, "just where they had a
hollow sound."
"Yes," she replied.
"And the Red Court, as you see, lies off in a straight line. It is a
good thing your father lives there, Mary Anne."
"Why?"
"Because if suspicious persons inhabited it, I should say that house
might have something to do with the mystery. If Kyne's conclusions are
right--that smuggled goods are landed on the beach below, they must be
stowed away in the rocks; although the ingress is hidden from the
uninitiated. Should this be really the case, depend upon it there is
some passage, some communication, in these rocks to an egress inland."
"But what has that to do with our house?" inquired Mary Anne,
wonderingly.
"These old castles, lying contiguous to the coast, are sure to have
subterranean passages underneath, leading to the sea. Many an escape
has been made that way in time of war, and many an ill-fated prisoner
has been so conducted to the waves, and put out of sight for ever.
Were I your father, I would institute a search. He might come upon the
hoarding-place of the smugglers."
"But the smugglers cannot get to their caverns and passages through
our house!"
"Of course not. There must be some other opening. How I should like to
drop upon the lads!"
Mr. Hunter spoke with animation. Such a discovery presented a tempting
prospect, and he walked across the plateau as one who has got a new
feather stuck in his cap. In passing the Round Tower, he turned aside
to it, and stepped in through the opening. He found nothing there that
could be converted into suspicion by the most lively imagination. The
worn grass beneath the feet was all genuine; the circular wall,
crumbling away, had stood for ages. Satisfied, so far, they crossed
the railings on their way home.
Mr. Thornycroft was in the dining-room writing a note; Richard, who
had apparently just stepped in to ask a question, held a gun; Cyril
lay back in an easy-chair, reading. When Mary Anne and their gentleman
guest burst in upon them with eager excitement, the one out-talking
the other, it was rather startling.
"Such an adventure! Papa, did you know we probably have smugglers on
the coast here?"
"Have you ever explored underneath your house, sir, under the old
ruins of the castle? There may be a chain of subterranean passages and
vaults conducting from here to the sea."
"Not common smugglers, papa, the poor tobacco-and-brandy sailors, but
people in an extensive way. Boat-loads of lace they land."
"If it be as the man suspects, there may be often a rare booty there.
There may be one at this very moment; I would lay any money there is,"
added Robert Hunter, improving upon the idea in his excitement. "Mr.
Richard, will you bet a crown with me?"
The words had been poured forth so rapidly by both, that it would seem
their hearers were powerless to interrupt. Yet the effect they
produced was great. Cyril started upright, and let his book drop on
his knees; Mr. Thornycroft pushed his glasses to the top of his brow,
an angry paleness giving place to his healthy, rosy colour; while
Richard, more demonstrative, dashed the gun on the carpet and broke
into an ugly oath. The justice was the first to find his tongue.
"What absurd treason are you talking now? You are mad, Mary Anne."
"It is not treason at all, sir," replied Mr. Hunter, regarding Richard
with surprise. "It is a pretty well ascertained fact that contraband
goods are landed and housed in the rocks at the Half-moon. It will be
loyalty, instead of treason, if we can contrive to lay a trap and
catch the traitors."
Richard Thornycroft moved forward as if to strike the impetuous
speaker. It would seem that one of the fits of passion he was liable
to was coming on. Cyril, calm and cool, placed himself across his
brother's path.
"Be quiet, Richard," he said, in a tone that savoured of authority;
"stay you still. Where did you pick up this cock-and-bull story?" he
demanded with light mockery of Robert Hunter.
"We had it from the supervisor. He has suspected ever since he came,
he says, that this station was favoured by smugglers, and now he is
sure of it. One cargo they landed a few days ago, and there's another
dodging off the coast, waiting to come in. He intends to drop upon
that."
"It is a made-up lie!" foamed Richard. "The fellow talks so to show
his zeal. I'll tell him so. Smuggled goods landed here!"
"Well, lie or no lie, you need not fly in a passion over it," said
Mary Anne. "It is not our affair."
"Then, if it is not our affair, what business have you interfering in
it?" retorted Richard. "Interpose your authority, sir, and forbid her
to concern herself with men's work," he added, turning sharply to his
father. "No woman would do it who retains any sense of shame."
"Miss Thornycroft has done nothing unbecoming a lady," exclaimed Mr.
Hunter, in a tone of wonder. "You forget that you are speaking to your
sister, Mr. Richard. What can you mean?"
"Oh, he means nothing," said Mary Anne, "only he lets his temper get
the better of his tongue. One would think, Richard, you had something
to do with the smugglers, by your taking it up in this way," she
pursued, in a spirit of aggravation. "And, indeed, it _was_ partly
your fault that they got their last cargo in."
"Explain yourself," said Cyril to his sister, pushing his arm before
Richard's mouth.
"It was a night when we had a dinner party here," she pursued. "Mr.
Kyne was here; the only night he had been off the watch for a
fortnight, he says. But he left orders with his men to look out, and
Richard got treating them to drink at the Mermaid, and they never
looked. So the coast was clear, and the smugglers got their goods in."
Cyril burst into a pleasant laugh. "Ah, ha!" said he, "new brooms
sweep clean. Mr. Superintendent Kyne is a fresh hand down here, so he
thinks he must trumpet forth his fame as a keen officer--that he may
be all the more negligent by-and-bye, you know. None but a stranger,
as you are, Mr. Hunter, could have given ear to it."
"I have given both ear and belief," replied Robert Hunter, firmly;
"and I have offered Mr. Kyne the benefit of my engineering experience
to help him discover whether there is or is not a secret opening in
the rocks."
"You have!" exclaimed Justice Thornycroft. He glared on Robert Hunter
as he asked the question. From quite the first until now he had been
bending over his note, leaving the discussion to them.
"To be sure I have, sir. I have been with him now, on the Half-moon,
sounding them; but I had only an umbrella, and that was of little use.
We are going to-morrow better prepared. It strikes me the mystery lies
right in the middle. It sounds hollow there. I will do all I can to
help him, that the fellows may be brought to punishment."
"Sir!" cried the old justice, in a voice of thunder, rising and
sternly confronting Robert Hunter, "I forbid it. Do you understand? _I
forbid it_. None under my roof shall take act or part in this."
"But justice demands it," replied Mr. Hunter, after a pause. "It
behoves all loyal subjects of her Majesty to aid in discovering the
offenders: especially you, sir, a sworn magistrate."
"It behoves me to protect the poor fishermen, who look to me for
protection, who have looked to me for it for years; ay, and received
it," was the warm reply, "better than it behoves you, sir, to presume
to teach me my duty! Richard, leave me to speak. I tell you, sir, I do
not believe this concocted story. I am the chief of the place, sir,
and I will not believe it. The coast-guard and the fishermen are at
variance; always have been; and I will not allow the poor fellows to
be traduced and put upon, treated as if they were thieves and rogues.
Neither I nor mine shall take part in it; no, nor any man who is under
my roof eating the bread of friendliness. I hope you hear me, sir."
Robert Hunter stood confounded. All his golden visions of discoveries,
that should make his name famous and put feathers in his cap, were
vanishing into air. But the curious part was the justice's behaviour;
that struck him as being very strange, not to say unreasonable.
"It is not the first time, sir, that the coast-guard have tried it
on," pursued Mr. Thornycroft. "When the last superintendent was
appointed, Dangerfield, he took something of the sort in his head, and
came to me to assist him in an investigation. 'Investigate for
yourself,' I said to him. '_I_ shall not aid you to tarnish the
characters of the fishermen.' It may be presumed that his
investigation did not come to much," was the ironical conclusion;
"since I heard no more about the smugglers from him all the years he
was stationed here."
"And you think, sir, that Mr. Kyne is also mistaken?" cried Robert
Hunter, veering round.
"What I think, and what I do not think, you may gather from my words,"
was the haughty reply. "I tell you that no man living under my roof
shall encourage by so much as a word, let alone an act, anything of
the sort. Mr. Kyne can pursue his own business without us."
"If it were one of my own brothers who did so, I would shoot him
dead," said Richard, with a meaning touch at his gun. "So I warn him."
"And commit murder?" echoed Robert Hunter, who did not admire this
semi-threat of Richard's.
"It would not be murder, sir; it would be justifiable homicide,"
interposed the justice, rather to Robert Hunter's surprise. "When I
was a young man, a guest abused my father's hospitality. My brother
challenged him. They went out with their seconds, and my brother shot
him. That was not murder."
"But, papa, that must have been a different thing altogether," said
Mary Anne, who had stood transfixed at the turn the conversation was
taking. "It----"
"To your room, Miss Thornycroft! To your room, I say!" cried the
passionate justice, pushing her from him. "Would _you_ beard my
authority? Things are coming to a pretty pass."
It was a stormy ending to a stormy interview. Confused and terrified,
Mary Anne Thornycroft hastened up and burst into tears in her
chamber. Richard strode away with his gun; Cyril followed him; and the
justice bent over his writing again quietly, as though nothing had
happened.
As for Robert Hunter he felt entirely amazed. Of course, putting it as
the justice had put it, he felt bound in honour not to interfere
further, and would casually tell Mr. Kyne so on the first opportunity,
giving no reason why. Pondering over the matter as he strolled out of
doors uncomfortably, he came to the conclusion that Mr. Thornycroft
must be self-arrogant, both as a magistrate and a man: one of the
old-world sort, who jog on from year's end to year's end, seeing no
abuses, and utterly refusing to reform them when seen.