HOW THEY FOUGHT ROUND THE PEAT-RICK.
For generations past Gorsthwaite Moor had been a meeting place for
gamblers from the little manufacturing towns that encroached on the
furthest limits of the heath. Town-bred they were, for the most part,
stunted and sickly-bodied; they spoke the uncouth, hybrid Yorkshire of
the streets, not the rich Doric of the moor-folk. But here and there
you would find moor-reared men among them, a poacher may be, or one of
the fast-dying race of moor-squireens. The police knew well enough that
never a fine Sunday went by without adding its quota to the countless
games of pitch-and-toss that had already been played on the moor;
they had known it for years past, but had never been able to make a
successful raid. The moor ran down sharply to the valley on every side,
and outposts stationed at the edges could command every way of access,
recognized or otherwise, to their open-air gambling haunt. Periodically
the detectives pitted their ingenuity against that of the gamblers,
and periodically they found, on reaching the middle of Gorsthwaite
Moor, an innocent company of workingmen, engaged in no more illegal
occupation than the smoking of very black clay pipes. The pickets knew
their business far too well to admit of surprises; their rule was, to
pass the one word "stranger" to their comrades, whenever an unknown
figure appeared below; no matter if the figure were that of a woman or
child--the word was passed along just the same, and operations were
suspended until the intruder had got out of sight.
Treachery among their number was the only thing they had to fear, and
it was a standing wonder to Griff--who made himself free of every
out-of-the-way society afforded by the moors--that none of them had
ever sold their secret.
Joe Strangeways, whenever he was not employing his Sabbath in getting
most royally drunk at the Bull, was sure to be found at the meetings
on Gorsthwaite moor; and on the Sunday following Lomax's fight with
the preacher at the edge of Whins Quarry, it fell to Joe's lot to
guard the approach to the moor on the side overlooking Gorsthwaite
Hall. Involuntarily his eyes took stock of his enemy's house; the day
was clear and bright, and he could see the smoke curling up from the
Hall chimneys, as if the mile that lay between were but a few score
yards. The quarryman's heart was still sore within him; he would not
let himself forget how Griff Lomax had filched his wife from him; he
remembered that he had sworn vengeance on him, and that his only steps
in this direction, up to the present, had given Lomax exactly the thing
he most wanted.
"If only I warn't so dull-witted like," muttered Joe, "I might think o'
summat. But the beer doan't seem to help a chap, an' my fine gen'leman
ower yonder, what plays at running a farm an' reckons to be fine an'
condescending to us plain-natured devils, smiles i' my face fro' nooin
to neet. I've thowt, whiles, o' waiting on th' moor for him after dark,
an' spoiling his pretty mug wi' th' heft of a good stout crowbar; but a
mon hes to keep sober for that sort o' game--an' he's ower big, ony way
ye tak him."
He paused in the midst of his reflections to watch a black dot on
the landscape. The dot grew bigger, and moved in a bee-line between
Gorsthwaite Hall and himself. Soon he could see that it was a man's
figure, and presently he recognized Lomax. A sudden inspiration ran
athwart Joe Strangeways' muddled brain. He rammed his pipe hard into
the left corner of his mouth, thrust both hands deep into his pockets,
and gave a prolonged growl of satisfaction. Then he slouched across the
heather to where his companions were gaming.
"Well, Joe?" said a little man, with a red nose and ferret eyes, who
had the air of being in some sort a leader among them. "What art 'a
coming away for now? Tha's not watched thy time."
"I've come, Dave Jefferson, to tell ye there's one on th' way ye'll
noan be ower glad to see," said the quarrymaster, slowly.
The pence and the halfpence disappeared like magic. An air that refuted
suspicion crept over the faces of all present.
"Then why didn't tha pass t' word, yer lumbering fool?" said the little
man, whose temper was altogether disproportionate to his size. "Mebbe
tha'd like to go round by Thornborough town t' next time, an' come to
tell us an hour or two after t' magistrates have given us the straight
tip for gaol?"
Joe squirted his tobacco-quid, with careless accuracy, at a bumble-bee
that was sipping the heather in front of him.
"If tha thowt twice afore tha spoke, Dave, tha'd be a likelier lad; an'
happen tha'd be likelier still if tha never spoke at all. It's noan a
stranger 'at's coming; it's a chap ye think a powerful deal on, some on
ye."
"An' who may that be, Mr. Strangeways?" queried Jefferson, ironically.
"Tha'rt grown mighty sharp all on a sudden; for it takes a more nor
ordinary sharp feller to fool Dave Jefferson."
"That's as may be. It's Griff Lummax that's creeping, sly as a fox, up
th' hillside."
Three of the poaching set that foregathered at the Dog and Grouse were
on the moor that afternoon, and Jack o' Ling Crag spoke up for his
absent friend.
"If that's all tha hes to tell us, Joe, tha mud as weel gang back th'
way tha came. He's a proper set up chap, is Mr. Lummax, an' it's noan
his breed that peaches on a mate."
"Oh, ay, he's a grand un!" echoed Joe, with beery derision. "He prigged
my wife, he did; an' a man that 'ull do that, 'ull do owt."
"He did thy wife a sarvice, anyhow, I'm thinking," snapped Will
Reddiough.
They all laughed at that, and their laughter braced up Joe's wits to
further effort.
"Well, seeing's believing," he muttered.
"Eh? Speak out, mon, if tha's getten owt to say."
The little group was pressing close about him now; the sulkiness of his
tones seemed to give added weight to his innuendo.
"I war passing th' Bull one neet a while back----" began Joe.
"Nay, lad, nay," put in Jack o' Ling Crag, with a mellow chuckle.
"_Passing_, did'st say? It's not oftens _tha_ passes by a public, Joe."
"An' I thowt as I'd turn in for a glass o' bitter," went on the
quarrymaster, doggedly, not heeding the interruption. "There war no
one i' th' back room, an' I stood waiting i' th' passage till somebody
should come to sarve me. I heärd voices i' th' front bar, an' I fell to
listening to 'em. One war Griff Lummax's, an' he war agate wi' telling
all about these here sprees up o' Gorsthet Moor. I crept a-tip-toe
an' peeped in at th' door; an' I see'd 'at t' other chap war a police
inspector. Well, Lummax, he said as how he hed fooiled th' lot on ye,
an' that it 'ud be an easy job to land ye all i' quad. Is that enow for
ye, or mun I wend back th' way I came, an' say niver a word to this
Lummax chap?"
The poaching trio was silent, and the rest looked ominously black.
"Is this gospel truth?" said Jefferson, at last.
"Gospel truth, so help me God!" Joe answered.
Griff Lomax, meanwhile, had topped the rise, and was sauntering easily
towards them. They watched him cross the two hundred yards of heather
that divided them; they listened to his cheery "Good-day," but answered
never a word. He felt that there was trouble in the air.
"What the deuce is the matter with you all? Do you think I'm a spy, or
what?" he laughed.
That emphasizing of what lay uppermost in the mind of each was an
unlucky move for Griff.
"Mebbe that's about the size of it," growled Jefferson.
Lomax paused awhile. Then--
"What's all this nonsense about?" he demanded sharply.
Jefferson, in his turn, halted before speaking.
"Joe Strangeways slipped into t' Bull, Mr. Lomax, a neet or two back,
without your hearing him. Ye'd best hearken to what he has to say."
"I will. Speak up, Strangeways."
Joe shifted under his enemy's steady gaze. Then, with his eyes on the
ground, he repeated his story. Every one watched Griff's face.
"Well," said Jefferson, "what have ye to say to yon?"
"Say? That it is a damned lie!" retorted Lomax, coolly.
"Are ye for denying that t' inspector chap war wi' ye in t' Bull that
night?"
"He was."
The three poachers crept a little apart; they were loth to hear young
Lomax condemn himself so openly.
"Then what have ye to say for yourseln?"
Griff, once he was roused, was stubborn as a mule. He kicked against
little Jefferson's domineering tone, and he resented the facile way in
which these comrades of his had given their verdict against him at a
word from a man like Strangeways.
"Nothing; I've nothing to say," he repeated. "There's plenty that I
could say, but nothing that I will; so put that in your pipe, Dave
Jefferson, and smoke it till you're sick."
A low murmur rose from the company--only the poachers were silent.
"That means fighting, I fancy," said Lomax, after another long pause.
"There are twenty-two of you, so far as I can count, and that's rather
long odds. But it happens that you have three sound men amongst
you." He stopped to look the three poachers square between the eyes.
"You, Will Reddiough--and you, Jack o' Ling Crag--and you, Ned
Kershaw--you'll all take an honest man's word against a cur's like
Strangeways here. Have I dealt fair by you in the past?"
Those three purloiners of their neighbours' game warmed to the man's
pluck.
"Ay, that ye hev, Mr. Lummax."
"I tell you this is all a lie, and I'll prove it when we've had a taste
of good hard blows. Come over here, you three, and we'll fight the lot
of them. They're a weakly crew at best, and they ought never to show
themselves on a moor."
They hung irresolute for a second or two. Then their love of Griff,
right or wrong, their instinctive response to his appeal against
town-bred folk, above all, their zest for adventure, settled the
question. They crossed to Griff's side, and the nineteen gamesters felt
slightly less eager for the fray than they had been a moment ago. Lomax
took advantage of their hesitation to throw a rapid glance about him:
he saw, not ten yards on his left, the peat-rick which he had built up
a few days ago, and which his farm-man was to cart away at the end of
the week; and he framed his plan of action on the spot.
"Come with me," he cried. "You have sticks, all of you; so have I. Take
a side a-piece of that peat-rick, and I'll look after the front. _And
hit hard_: we have our work cut out."
The hesitation in the enemy's camp was over. No sooner had Griff and
his three allies set their backs to the peats, than they were in the
thick of it. Most of the nineteen had sticks, and the rest came on with
their fists, trusting to run in under guard.
_Thwack, thwack, thwack_ sounded Griff's heart-of-oak on three separate
skulls, and he was left free for a breathing space.
"How goes it behind?" he called, with a laugh that had the true
fighting ring in it.
"Fine, sir, fine," answered Will Reddiough, in between two resounding
blows; and "Beautiful!" cried Jack o' Ling Crag, with his big mouth all
a-grin and his crisp grey hair on end with excitement.
Sixteen of the attacking party fell back in disorder; the other three
were left on the ground as a barricade for Lomax. A second wild rush,
in the middle of which Griff could make out the master-quarryman's
square-set figure, and a naked knife-blade in his hairy red hands.
Strangeways jumped with a yell on the three prostrate bodies, and
his blade caught a dancing sun-shaft as he drew it back to strike.
Quick almost as the sun-shaft itself, Griff's stick went out, and took
the knife, and whirled it high up in the air. The stick made another
circuit, and the barricade was increased to the number of four. But
it was his last stroke. Jefferson, close behind Joe Strangeways, took
Griff neatly between the eyes, and down he went like a log on top of
the other four. A wild yell came from those in Jefferson's rear, but
Will Reddiough and the rest had their hands too full to be able to
glance behind them. Strangeways grunted a curse, and picked up himself
and his knife from the heather.
"By Hell, I'll settle accounts between us!" he muttered.
Gabriel Hirst felt his sins weigh heavily on him that afternoon. He had
gone up the stream-side to the miller's, but had turned before coming
in sight of the house. The deep hollow of the sky seemed, as of old,
to be full of God's vengeance: as of old, the vengeance was all for
him--for him, the chiefest of sinners. He had striven to murder his
friend; save for that accident of the tree, he was at this moment a
murderer; how dare he draw near to Greta--beautiful Greta, warm, human,
all-sufficing--with the brand of Cain on his brow? He cursed himself
for ever telling his love. He turned every single act, every thought
and desire of his life, into blackest sins, with all his old-time
ingenuity. He saw--physically saw--a Devil with flaming eyes, who stood
in his path and mocked him on to the wrestling for which his arms were
no longer strong. He leaped up the hillside, with the pauseless spring
of the hunted, and went out on the moors to pay his full tribute of
remorse. For Gabriel Hirst was a man who could be well trusted to
ensure his own punishment.
"'Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: and in sin hath my mother
conceived me,'" he wailed at last.
He had travelled far across the moor, and his strength was spent, and
the tears were running apace down his hollowed cheeks.
The sound of shouting came from near at hand. He lifted his face, that
showed pitiful as a child's, and looked across the gorse. He saw four
men with their backs to a peat-rick, and a crowd of others rushing to
the attack. He heard the rattle of sticks, and a clear, wild laugh
that could come from none but Griff. The childishness smoothed itself
out of his face, and his mouth grew firm. He forgot that he was a
miserable sinner, forgot that he had been like to drop with weariness,
forgot everything in earth or sky, except the rain of body-blows. The
old moor-blood, swift and hot, was awakened; not for nothing had his
forebears, like Griff's own, been reared through long centuries on the
peaty uplands. He ran towards the peat-rick, and as he ran he found
time to think that now he could wipe out that blood-stain once for all:
Griff Lomax, his friend, was fighting against odds up there, and he
would save him. Another flash, and he saw that God had given him one
more clear chance, that the Almighty had stooped to work directly on
his behalf. So, with a jumble of sheer fighting instinct, a sense of
God's personal intervention, and an itch for the squaring of accounts,
he rushed into the thick of it; but the moor instinct was uppermost.
Strangeways had his knife a shade too close to his enemy's heart, and
Griff could not move a muscle to defend himself. But Strangeways got
no further: he felt a pair of big, vice-like hands at his throat,
and he thought his time was come. The preacher flung him back, half
strangled, and picked up a stick lying at his feet, and laid about him
merrily. They fell like acorns in a gale, till Gabriel Hirst shouted to
Reddiough and the rest to leave their peat-rick. They rushed forward
elbow to elbow, and those who were left of the nineteen broke and fled,
crying for quarter. Then Gabriel Hirst cried, "Stop!" And the three
poachers and the one man of God looked into each other's faces, and
gripped each other's hands, and went to see what was amiss with their
fallen comrade.
Lomax was sitting up on his elbow by this time.
"What is it, old fellow?" asked the preacher, fondling his hand in a
silly, motherly way.
"A bit dazed--nothing at all--have we licked the beggars?"
"Licked 'em all to fits, sir; an' a grand fight it war," spoke up Will
Reddiough.
Griff laughed at that, and got on to his feet. His victims had, one by
one, done the same; for Griff's blows were hard, but their skulls were
harder still. Then, after awhile, the defeated band came slinking back
in twos and threes, and Lomax leaned against the peat-rick while he
said his say.
"I _have_ something to tell you now. First of all, my best thanks for
as merry a picnic as I am likely to have for many a long day to come.
You're not a bad lot, take you all in all, but you can't make up your
minds quick enough, and you get hit while you're thinking. Next, Joe
Strangeways--he's not here, by the way--Joe Strangeways was quite right
about my being in the Bull with the stranger, and I've no doubt he
listened at the keyhole. The stranger had got a notion into his head
that I knew a good deal about these pleasant Sunday afternoons on the
moor, and he came to Marshcotes expressly to pump me. Well, I told him
a lot--but it was all wrong, every word of it. I put him as far off the
track as I could, and I set him homewards with a glass of good Scotch
whisky inside him. Now, do you believe me, or don't you?"