_Colin's attempt to liberate Fanny's father from the madhouse, with the
adventures that befell him thereupon._
When Colin had taken leave of his friends, and passed out of his
mother's house, he found the night, as he thought, peculiarly adapted
for his purpose. The air was dark and troubled, vexed with contending
winds, which blew, as it seemed, now from one quarter of the heavens,
and then again from its opposite, while drops of rain occasionally
came on the blast, succeeded by momentary showers of hail. Though
summer-time, the weather felt as though it had suddenly changed to that
of March, so cold and ungenial was the blast.
He pursued his way for some distance along a dark lane, fenced high with
thick hawthorn on each side, and traversed by deep ruts, here and there
containing puddles of water, which reflected some little light as they
caught the sky, and deceived him with the idea that something white was
lying in his road. From this lane he crossed a stile and several fields,
as offering the most direct route to the back part of the grounds
around the doctor's house. When arrived there, he stopped outside the
plantation, in order to assure himself that no person was about. Nothing
living stirred at that hour. He forced his way through a thorny gap
in the fence, and soon found himself at that north-east corner of the
yard-wall which he had particularly specified. He now uncoiled his rope,
and cautiously threw up that end of it to which a grappling-hook was
attached. After a few efforts it caught firm hold, and, as the distant
clock struck ten, he ascended to the top of the wall; though, as he
fancied this elevation would bring him in relief against the sky, he
crouched as closely as possible, in order to avoid being seen, should it
unluckily so chance that any individual of the establishment was about.
“Are you there?” asked Colin, in a low but earnest voice, as he peeped
down into the yard.
“Yes,'” answered one from below, in a similar tone. “All right. Make
haste!”
Colin's heart leaped within him for joy. Now was he well rewarded for
all his pain and trouble:--to think that he had succeeded at last,
notwithstanding all his mother's and Fanny's fears! Hastily he drew
up the hempen ladder after him, and, sitting upon the top of the wall,
fixed it on the other side, in order to enable James Woodruff to ascend.
“Put your feet in, and hold by the sides,” said Colin, as he saw dimly
that the figure was coming up.
“Yes, yes,” replied he. “Stop there till I get safe to the top.”
And in the next minute, when the body was half above the wall, Colin
received a heavy blow on the head from a short bludgeon, accompanied
by a fierce exclamation and an oath, that if he did not surrender that
instant his brains should be blown out! Regardless of the height of the
wall, he instantly dropped, and, though half stunned, and sprained in
the leg besides, he endeavoured to make off. The fellow who, it was now
evident, had been stationed in the yard on purpose to draw him into this
trap,--poor Woodruff had been kept in his cell,--was afraid to risk
his limbs or his neck by following Colin's example; but, instead of
so doing, he began to bawl lustily for assistance. Colin heard two
blunderbusses fired, and afterwards the crash of pursuers through the
plantations behind him. Conscious that the injury he had received from
the fall would prevent him from escaping them by flight, he raised
himself up against a gate-post, with his arms close against his sides.
In this situation he had the pleasure, two minutes afterwards, of both
hearing and seeing a couple of stout fellows rush past within a yard of
him, one of whom, by his voice and language, Colin recognised to be Mr.
Palethorpe. Within a short period, having “lost scent,” they returned,
and lingered a few moments about the gate, as though irresolute which
way to take. During this brief interval he plainly overheard the
following conversation.
“Dang him, I wish we'd hit him! It would have saved us all this
trouble.”
“Ay, ay, and hit him I will,” replied Palethorpe, “if I can once get
sight of him. Meesis was quite right, you see, in what she overheard him
say--a young vagabone! She told me afore I came out, if I _did_ get
a shot at him, to pepper him well; and so I will. If we kill him in
trespass and burglary, I think the law will stand at our backs. Dang
him!--we lost sound of him somewhere here about, and I should not wonder
if he 's crept under some of these bushes. I'll fire in, and chance it.”
No sooner said than done. Off went the blunderbuss into the thick
underwood, for the moment making the spot whereon they stood as light
as day, and illuminating Colin's figure as brilliantly as though he had
stood beneath the flaring light of a gas-burner. Luckily the two men
stood with their backs towards him, or he must inevitably have been
detected. The report over, they listened; but a few frightened birds,
blindly flapping their wings amongst the trees, were all that could
be heard. Palethorpe loaded again, and then made a proposal, which
was agreed to by his companion, that they should take a circuit of the
plantation, and then get on to the road.
The opportunity thus afforded to Colin was made the best use of by him,
and he endeavoured to steal off in the direction of his mother's house.
But, when he had cleared the plantation fence, he again heard his
pursuers beating about in the road between him and that place, so that
he deemed it most advisable to take the direction of Whinmoor. In that
direction the coast seemed clear; and, accordingly, keeping closely
under the darkness of the hedge-side, he set off at his best speed.
For the period of three quarters of an hour or more he pursued his way
unobstructed; and as at the expiration of that time he had reached
the Leeds and York highway, about a mile beyond which the old farm was
situated, he began to congratulate himself upon his escape. Here he
slackened his pace in order to recover breath and strength, both of
which were well-nigh exhausted by his previous exertion.
As he rose to the top of a gentle hill, which the highway crossed, the
sound of a horse's hoofs upon the hard road, though at a considerable
distance, struck his ear. It came from the direction in which he had
come, and seemed to be getting nearer. Was it any one pursuing him? His
fears told him it must be so. Instead, therefore, of pursuing the road
any farther, he leapt the fence, and hurried by a shorter cut over the
fields in the direction of Miss Sowersoft's house. As he advanced the
gusty wind again and again brought along with it the sound of violent
galloping. It was gaining rapidly upon him; but he was now nearer the
house, and the horseman, if destined to the same place, would, he knew,
be obliged to keep the beaten road, which would take him nearly a mile
farther than that which Colin himself had taken. As he crept quietly
into the farm-yard he perceived a light in one of the lofts. The door
was open, and a waggon stood beneath. Abel and old George were loading
it with hay, for the purpose of sending it during the night to York; in
order to be in that city sufficiently early on the following morning.
There was no time to lose; and to stay at the farm to be taken prisoner
would be quite as bad as though he had allowed himself to be taken at
first. He therefore walked boldly up, and briefly told them that while
he was at Bramleigh a plot had been laid by Palethorpe to entrap him;
that he had threatened to shoot him if he could catch him; that it
was with the greatest difficulty he had escaped; and that even now he
believed they had sent some one on horseback to pursue him.
All this being to their own knowledge pretty characteristic of the
aforesaid Palethorpe, they did not hesitate in agreeing to Colin's
proposal that he should get into the waggon, have the hay-trusses piled
around and over him, so as not to exclude the air, and in this manner
to convey him to York. In order to bind them the more strongly to their
promises of strict silence and secrecy, Colin gave Abel one of his
guineas, to be afterwards divided between the two. He then jumped into
the waggon, and in a few minutes was very effectually put out of
sight. In a few minutes afterwards a horseman dashed into the yard, and
demanded of them whether Colin had come home. Abel denied that he was
under any roof there; and, after undergoing a strong test of his powers
of equivocation, contrived, very much to Colin's satisfaction, to
persuade the pursuer to go home again.
Some time afterwards the horses were tackled on, the waggon began to
move, and a tedious journey of more than six hours' duration brought
them within the old walled city of York, at about seven o'clock in the
morning.
Having deposited his waggon in the marketplace, Abel now invited Colin,
who had made his way out of the vehicle when some two miles off the
city, to accompany him to a public-house. This request the lad complied
with; and, while making his breakfast obtained ink and paper from the
landlord, and wrote a short letter to his mother, and another to Fanny,
explaining the circumstances which had led to his absence and flight,
and promising to write again as soon as he had resolved in what place he
should settle for the present, as he did not consider it safe to remain
permanently, even at the distance he then was. These he gave in charge
to Abel, who vowed to deliver them both safe and speedily. He then
inquired of Colin whether he did not intend to go back again?
“Not till I know that everything is safe,” replied the youth, “or else
it would have been useless to come here.”
“Then what do you intend to do? or where does 't mean going?” again
asked the man.
“I am quite undecided yet,” remarked Colin; “but I shall find out a
place somewhere, depend upon it.”
“Well, lad,” said Abel, “if I could do aught for thee, I would; but I
mean leaving our missis's myself as soon as I can. I 'll either list, or
go to Lunnun very soon, for it's beggarly work here.”
The thought struck Colin,--should _he_ go to London? He had money, very
luckily sufficient to keep him awhile; and, so far off, he would be
safe enough. When there, as he dared not return to Bramleigh to pay his
promised visit to Kiddal Hall, he could write to the Squire, and tell
him what had happened, which would do quite as well; and doubtless
enable him, with Mr. Lupton's assistance, not only very shortly to
triumph over his persecutors, but give him sufficient power to effect
successfully that great object, the attempt to achieve which had so
unexpectedly led to his present unpleasant situation.
He finally took his leave of Abel in the market-place, and then rambled
alone and thoughtfully about the town, until within an hour or two of
mid-day.