TRACKED
It was very dark in the drawing-room under the stairs, and rather
stuffy, for the only light and air admitted came through a little
narrow crack, about six inches long, and half an inch across at its
broadest. There was a strong smell of mice, among other smells; and
the mice came scampering all over me before I had lain there long. I
lay as still as I could, because of what Mrs Dick had said, and
by-and-by I fell asleep in spite of the mice, and slept until it was
dark.
I was awakened by the rolling back of the stairs. As I started up,
thinking that I was captured, I saw Mrs Dick standing over me with a
candle in her hand.
"Hush, Jim," she said. "Get out quickly. Don't ask any questions. Get
out at once. You can't stay here any longer."
"What has happened?" I asked. "Where is your husband? Has your husband
come home?"
"Yes," she said. "And you must go. They're coming after you. You were
seen in the lugger with an axe in your hands. A man who passed you on
the road after, saw you in the lugger. He was with the soldiers, and
now he's given an information. Mary, the girl, heard it down at the
magistrate's, where the inquest is. And so you must go. Besides, I
want the drawing-room for my Dick. He has come back, and they'll be
after him quite likely. He was seen, they say. So he must lie low till
we've arranged the alibi, as they call it. Everybody has to have an
alibi. And so my Dick'll have one, just to make sure. Mind your head
against the stair."
I crawled out, rubbing my eyes.
"Where shall I go to?" I asked.
"Oh," she said. "Until we find out, you had better go in the stable,
in among the feed in the box, or covered up in the hay."
When she had settled her husband safely into the drawing-room, she
bustled me out of doors into the stable, which stood in the yard at
the back of the inn. She put me into a mass of loose hay, in one of
the unused stalls.
"There," she said. "They'll never look for you there. Don't get
hay-fever and begin to sneeze, though. Here's your parcel for you.
It wouldn't do to leave that about in the house, would it?"
She wished me good night and bustled back to the inn, to laugh and
jest as though nothing was happening, and as though she had no trouble
in the world.
I lay very quietly in my warm nest in the hay, feeling lonely in that
still stable after my nights in the lugger among the men. The old
horse stamped once or twice, and the stable cat came purring to me,
seeking to be petted. The church clock struck nine, and rang out a
chime. Shortly after nine I heard the clatter of many horses' hoofs
coming along the road, and then the noise of cavalry jingling and
clattering into the inn yard. A horse whinnied, the old horse in the
stable whinnied in answer. A curt voice called to the men to dismount,
and for some one to hold the horses. I strained my ears to hear any
further words, but some one banging on a door (I guessed it to be the
inn door) drowned the orders.
Then some one cried out, "Well, break it in, then. Don't come asking
me."
After that there was more banging, an excited cry from a woman, and a
few minutes of quiet.
I crept from my hiding-place to the window, so that I might see what
was happening. The whole yard was full of cavalry. A couple of
troopers were holding horses quite close to the door. By listening
carefully, I could hear what they were saying.
"Yes," said one of them; "I got a proper lick myself. I shan't mind if
they do get caught. They say there's some of them caught in a boat."
"Yes," said his mate; "three. And they do say we shall find a boy here
as well as the other fellow. There was a boy aboard all night. And
he's been tracked here. He's as good as caught, I reckon."
"I suppose they'll all be hanged?" said the first.
"Yes," said the other. "Won't be no defence for them. Neck or
nothing. Hey?"
Then they passed out of earshot, leading their horses. I was so
horribly scared that I was almost beside myself. What could I do?
Where could I go? Where could I hide? The only door and window opened
on to the courtyard. The loft was my only chance. I snatched up my
parcel, and ran to the little ladder (nailed to the wall) which led to
the loft, and climbed up as though the hounds were after me.
Even in the loft I was not much better off. There was a heap of hay
and a few bundles of straw lying at one end, and two great
swing-doors, opening on to the courtyard, through which the hay and
straw had been passed to shelter. It was plainly useless to lie down
in the straw. That would be the first place searched. I should be
caught at once if I hid among the straw. Then it occurred to me that
the loft must lead to a pigeon-house. I had seen a pigeon-house above
and at one end of the stable, and I judged that the loft would
communicate with it. It was not very light, but, by groping along the
end wall, I came to a little latched door leading to another little
room. This was the pigeon-house, and as I burst into it, closing the
door behind me, the many pigeons rustled and stirred upon their nests
and perches. It was darker in the pigeon-house than in the loft, but I
could see that the place was bigger than the loft itself, and this
gave me hope that there would be an opening at the back of it away
from the yard. I had not much time, I knew, because the troopers were
already trying to open the stable-door below me. I could hear them
pounding and grumbling. Just as I heard them say, "That's it. The bar
lifts up. There you are"--showing that they had found how to open the
door--I came to a little door at the back, a little rotten door,
locked and bolted with rusty cobwebbed iron. Very cautiously I turned
the lock and drew the bolts back. The latch creaked under my thumb for
the first time in many years. I was outside the door on a little,
rotten, wooden landing, from which a flight of wooden steps led
downward. I saw beyond me a few farm-buildings, a byre, several
pigsties, and three disused waggons. Voices sounded in the stable as I
climbed down the steps. I heard a man say, "He might be in the
loft. We might look there." And then I touched the ground, and
scurried quickly past the shelters to the outer wall.
Happily for me, the wall was well-grown with ivy, so that I could
climb to the top. There was a six-foot drop on the far side into a
lane; but it was now neck or nothing, so I let myself go. I came down
with a crack which made my teeth rattle, my parcel spun away into a
bed of nettles, and I got well stung in fishing it out. Then I
strapped it on my back and turned along the lane in the direction
which (as I judged) led me away from the sea. As I stepped out on my
adventures, I heard the ordered trample of horses leaving the inn-yard
together to seek elsewhere. The lane soon ended at a stile, which led
into a field. I saw a barn or shed just beyond the stile, and in the
shed there was a heap of hay, which smelt a little mouldy. I lay down
upon it, determined to wake early, and creep back to the inn before
anybody stirred in the village.
"Ah, well," I said to myself before I fell asleep, "in a week's time
they will be here to take me home. Then my troubles will be over."
I remember that all my fear of the troops was gone. I felt so sure
that all would be well in the morning. So, putting my parcel under my
head as a pillow, I snuggled down into the hay, and very soon fell
asleep.
I was awakened in the morning by the entrance of an old cart-horse,
who came to smell at the hay. It was light enough to see where I was
going, so I opened my knapsack and made a rough breakfast before
setting out. Overnight I had planned to go back to the inn. In the
cool of the morning that plan did not seem so very wise as I had
thought it. I was almost afraid to put it into practice. However, I
went back along the lane. With some trouble, I got over the tall brick
wall down which I had dropped the night before. Then I climbed up to
the pigeon-house, down the loft-ladder, into the inn-yard, to the
broken back door of the tavern. The door hung from one hinge, with its
lower panels kicked in just as the soldiers had left it. The inn was
open to anybody who cared to enter.
I entered cautiously, half expecting to find a few soldiers billeted
there. But the place was empty. I went from room to room, finding no
one; Mrs. Dick seemed to have disappeared. One of the rooms was in
disorder. A few broken glasses were on the floor; a chair lay on its
side under the table. I went upstairs. I tapped at the outside of the
drawing-room. No answer there; all was still there. I listened
attentively for some sound of breathing; none came. No one was
inside. I went all over the house. No one was there. I was alone in
the "Blue Boar," the only person in the house. I could only guess that
Mr and Mrs Dick had been arrested. To be sure, they might have run
away together during the night. I did not quite know what to think.
In my wanderings, I came to the bar, which I found in great disorder;
the bench was upset, jugs and glasses were scattered on the floor, and
the blinds had not been pulled up. Although I had some fear of being
seen from outside, I pulled up the blinds to let in a little light, so
that I might look at the coaching-map which hung at one end of the
bar. When I passed behind the bar to trace out for myself the road to
London, I saw an open book lying on a shelf among the bottles. It was
a copy of Captain Johnson's _Lives of the Highwaymen and
Pirates_, lying open at the life of Captain Roberts, the famous
pirate Whydah. Some one must have been reading it when the soldiers
entered.
I looked at it curiously, for it was open at the portrait of
Roberts. Underneath the portrait were a few words written in pencil in
a clumsy scrawl. I read them over, expecting some of the ordinary
schoolboy nonsense.
"Captain Roberts was a bad one. _Jim_. Don't come back here. The
lobsters is around." That was all the message. But I saw at once that
it was meant for me; that Mrs Dick, knowing that I should come back,
had done her best to leave a warning for me. "Lobsters," I knew, was
the smugglers' slang for soldiers; and if the lobsters were dangerous
to me it was plain that I was wanted for my innocent share in the
fight. I looked through the book for any further message; but there
was no other entry, except a brief pencilled memorandum of what some
one had paid for groceries many years before, at some market town not
named.