Varley's Cottage, which place George Crofton and his confederates had
fixed upon as their rendezvous, was a spot of ill repute for miles
around, and one which no inhabitant of the district would willingly go
near by day, much less after dark. A grim tragedy centred round the
spot. Some quarter of a century previously the cottage had been the
home of a certain gamekeeper, Varley by name, who had made himself
specially obnoxious to the poachers of the district. One night he was
shot dead on his own threshold and his cottage fired in two places.
The crime was never brought home to any one, neither was the cottage
ever rebuilt. But of all this neither Clara Brooke nor Margery, being
newcomers in the neighbourhood, knew anything.
The elder woman hurried feverishly onward, the younger leading the
way. Scarcely a word passed between them. Presently they reached the
stile through which Margery had followed the two men, and crossing it,
took a winding footway through the fields. They went swiftly and
silently, walking not on the path itself but on the soft grass which
bordered it. Not a creature did they see or hear, and before long the
path began to dip to a hollow, then came some straggling patches of
brushwood, and presently they were in the spinney itself, with trees
and a thick undergrowth on both sides of them. Margery led the way as
by a sort of instinct, only pausing for a second now and again to
listen. To Clara, the adventure, with its darkness, its silence, and
its mystery, had all the complexion of a nightmare. Again and again
she had to ask herself whether it were indeed a reality.
"We are nearly there now, mum," said Margery presently in a whisper.
"Do you wait here among the trees, while I creep forward and try and
find out what they be about." So saying, the girl stole forward, and
was at once lost to view.
The young wife waited with a heart that beat high and anxiously. The
moments seemed terribly long till Margery returned, although in
reality she was not more than three or four minutes away. Clara
trembled so much that she could not speak.
"There's four of 'em now, mum," said the girl. "I could see them quite
plain through the crack in the shutter, and from what I could make
out, there's more to come. O mistress, I wouldn't go near 'em if I was
you; they're a desperate bad lot, and if they found you there, nobody
can tell what might happen."
Of a truth, Clara might well hesitate, and it was only the thought
that some new and unforeseen danger might possibly at that very moment
be closing like a net round the husband she loved so devotedly that
nerved her to the task she had set herself to do. "Margery," she said
after a brief silence, "where you can go with safety I can surely go.
I must see and listen to these men for myself.--Now, attend to this.
Should I be discovered by them, or should anything happen to me, you
will fly as for your life and warn your master."
"I understands, mum, never fear," was the girl's earnest response.
Then the two crept together through the trees, almost as silent as the
shadows of which they seemed to form a part, and presently Clara found
herself under the walls of the ruined cottage. Margery guided her to
where a rickety shutter still guarded a small square window, from
which, however, the glass had long since disappeared. Through a chink
in this, the interior of the room, such as it was, was plainly
discernible. Two old-fashioned lanterns threw a dim weird light over
the scene. Clara's eyes sought instinctively for the face of Crofton
before taking any note of the others; it may be that some faint hope
had all along lingered in her breast that Margery had been mistaken.
But if that were so, the hope at once died out. George Crofton himself
was before her. He was the only one of the party that was seated, and
his seat consisted of nothing more than a pile of loose bricks, with
part of the stone shelf of the mantel-piece laid across them. He was
smoking, as were also two of the others, and seemed deep in thought.
The rest of the party were utter strangers to Clara; they talked in
low tones among themselves, and, much to her surprise, she saw that
one of them was in the garb of a clergyman.
Scarcely had Mrs. Brooke noted these things, when a low whistle
sounded from somewhere outside. Crofton sprang to his feet, and all
were instantly on the alert. The whistle was answered by another from
within, and then one of the men left the cottage carrying a lantern.
Clara and Margery sank noiselessly back into the undergrowth of bush
and bramble by which the cottage on three sides was surrounded.
When, two or three minutes later, Clara ventured to resume her post of
observation at the window, she found that the party inside had been
augmented by two fresh arrivals. The men had now grouped themselves
round Crofton in various attitudes of attention, listening to the
instructions he was evidently impressing upon them. Whatever the
objects of this strange company might be, there could be little doubt
that George Crofton was the leader of it. One man, who bent forward a
little, had made an ear-trumpet of his hand, and it might be for his
benefit that Crofton now pitched his voice in a higher key than he
had previously done. Clara hardly breathed as she strained her senses
to catch the words that fell from his lips.
What she heard, gradually piecing the plot together in her own mind as
Crofton issued his final orders to the men, was enough to blanch the
heart of any woman with terror and dismay. The train to Cummerhays was
to be attacked and robbed; some great treasure--Clara could not make
out of what nature--was to travel by it to-night, which these
desperadoes had determined on making their own. As a preliminary step,
the signalman at Cinder Pit Junction was to be seized, bound, and
gagged, his box taken possession of, and the telegraph wires cut. A
member of the gang who answered to the name of Slinkey, and who
understood the manipulation of points and signals, would install
himself in the box. Then, when the train came up on its way to
Cummerhays, passing the box at a speed of about twenty miles an hour,
by a reversal of the points it was to be turned by Slinkey on to the
branch leading to the collieries. As a matter of course, the driver
would bring his train to a stand as speedily as possible, and then
would come the opportunity of the gang. It was well known that, except
at holiday times, passengers and officials together by this train
rarely numbered half a score people. It would be strange if
half-a-dozen desperate men, armed with revolvers, could not so far
intimidate the driver, the guard, and a few sleepy passengers as to
have the whole train at their mercy. Five minutes would suffice to
successfully achieve the object they had in view, after which the
train might go on its way again as if nothing had happened.
Such were the chief features of this audacious scheme, as gathered by
Clara from Crofton's instructions to the others. Of course, each man
had known beforehand what he was expected to do, and what passed at
the cottage was merely a sort of final rehearsal of the scene that was
to follow.
Crofton now looked at his watch and announced that it was time to
start. The lanterns were extinguished, and the men filed silently out
of the cottage, half of them taking one road and half another. Clara
and Margery had but just time to draw their shawls over their heads
and crouch on their knees amid the brushwood, when three of the men
passed within as many yards of them. When all was silent again, they
stood up. Never on any previous occasion when danger threatened her
husband had Clara felt so utterly helpless as she did now. What could
she, one weak woman, do to confound the machinations of six armed and
desperate men?
"O Margery," she cried, seizing both the girl's hands in the extremity
of her distress, "there seems no help either in heaven or on earth. We
are lost--lost!"
The faithful girl could only kiss with a sob the hands that held her
own. "What be they going to do, mistress?" she asked a moment or two
later. She had not been able to see and hear what had passed in the
cottage, as Clara had done.
"They are going to seize and bind your master, and then they are going
to stop and rob the train. O Margery, if there was but some way by
which the train could be warned in time! Think, think; is there
nothing we can do?"
"Why, o' course there is, mum," answered the girl with one of her
uncanny chuckles. "You just let me run home as fast as my legs'll
carry me and get three or four singles--them things, you know, that
Muster Geril used to fasten on the rails when the fog was bad in
winter. I know how to fasten them, 'cos I watched Muster Geril do it
one day when I took him some to the box. Then I'll take the short cut
across the fields to where the line turns sharp round more'n half a
mile away from the box, and I'll fix the singles there.--But what am
I to tell the driver, mum, when he stops the train?"
"Tell him there are half-a-dozen men with revolvers who are going to
stop and rob the train, just beyond your master's box. After that, he
will know what it will be best to do." She could have flung her arms
round Margery's neck and kissed her, such a weight had the girl's
words lifted off her heart.
"But what about pore Muster Geril, mum?" urged Margery.
Ah, what indeed! Clara shivered as though an icy wind had struck her.
She had not failed to notice that her husband had never been mentioned
by name by Crofton, who had spoken of him to the others as though he
were an utter stranger. Could it be possible he was unaware that
Gerald filled the position of signalman at Cinder Pit Junction. It was
possible, but by no means probable; but in that faint chance lay her
only hope of her husband's safety. In that case, should he and Crofton
not encounter each other, the rest of the gang would merely regard
Gerald in the light of an ordinary railway servant; and although he
might chance to be assailed and maltreated by them, that would be but
a minor evil in comparison with the other, and one which an hour or
two at the most would set right. These thoughts passed through her
mind far more rapidly than she could have given them utterance in
words. The only question now was, had she time to warn her husband
before the attack took place? The gang were on their way already:
could she overtake them, pass them unseen, and reach the signal-box
before they did? The chance was a desperate one, but she must attempt
it--no other course was open to her.
"Come!" she said, grasping Margery by the hand. "Let us hurry--let us
hasten! While you go and fix the signals, I will go and warn your
master, only pray heaven I may not be too late!"
With scarcely a word more they sped swiftly back along the starlit
fields; but when they reached the stile, Clara said: "Is there no
nearer way to the signal-box than going round to it by the high-road?"
"There's a way through the fields, that cuts off a big corner. I've
walked it onst; but I dunno, mum, as you could find it in the dark."
"I must try," answered Clara desperately. Every second was precious.
The near cut in question was through a second stile somewhat farther
on. At this point, after a few last words, the two parted, each going
a separate way.
Clara's way led her through more fields; but the track was so faint
that she was utterly unable to distinguish it, and had to trust to her
vague local knowledge that she was going in the right direction. In a
little while she surmounted a rising ground, and then, to her utter
dismay, she saw, from the position of the signal lamps in the valley
below, that she had wandered a full quarter of a mile too far to the
right of them. It was a thousand chances to one now that Crofton and
his crew would be there before her.
Anguish lent wings to her feet, and she flew down the slope like a
creature pursued by the Furies. She could see the lighted window of
the signal-box shining in the distance, a faint yellow disc. The next
thing she knew was that she had reached the boundary of the line, but
at a point still some distance from the box. It now became needful to
exercise more caution than she had hitherto done, lest she should be
seen by any of the gang, who were doubtless somewhere near at hand.
The line at this point was bounded by a wooden fencing put up to
prevent the straying of cattle, close to which, on the field-side,
grew a thin straggling hedge. Under the shelter of this hedge Clara
now stole softly and cautiously forward, with eyes and ears
preternaturally on the alert. Step by step she drew nearer without
being disturbed by a sight or a sound, till at length she faced the
box with its lighted window where it stood on the opposite side of the
line. Then with a heart, the pulsing of which sounded like a low
drumming in her ears, she parted the bushes and peered through.
For a moment or two a mist dimmed her eyes, and all she could discern
was that there was some one inside the box. Then the mist cleared
away, and she saw that the man standing there with one hand resting on
a lever was not her husband, but the man Slinkey, whose sinister face
she had seen through the broken shutter. Gerald was nowhere to be
seen. She had come too late!