Next day the escape of Jean Delarousse, smuggler and privateer, was the
talk of the countryside. The dragoons had called at the Towers and
roused the Squire from bed, supposing that he was a magistrate and would
assist them. Then they rode for several miles across the moor until
they came to Sir Bevil Portharvan's house. That gentleman promised to
raise the hue and cry next day, and called up his servants to ask if any
of them had seen a carriage cross the moor that evening. The groom
declared that as he rode back from an errand in Truro he had seen a
moving light some distance to the left, concluding that it probably
proceeded from a belated carrier's cart on the way to Polkerran. On
this the troopers galloped back, and seeing a light in the Dower House
they called there and acquainted John Trevanion with their errand. He
guessed at once that the fugitive had been in the carriage which had
turned into his drive, and inwardly cursed his ill-luck in missing the
opportunity of laying by the heels a man whose recapture would have
rejoiced him; but having reasons of his own for not disclosing his
knowledge of the man, he forbore to mention the earlier incident, and
contented himself with wishing the pursuers success. When they had gone
he cloaked himself and followed them down the hill, being but a few
hundred yards behind Dick, whom he did not see in the darkness and the
twists and turns of the road.
There was not a man in the village but suspected that the Frenchman had
got away on Tonkin's lugger; but not one of them would have said a word
to betray him. Delarousse was not an enemy, but a friend with whom they
had profitable dealings. When Sir Bevil rode down and questioned
Doubledick and others, it was clear to him from their manner that they
would give no information; and guessing, when he heard that Tonkin had
sailed early that morning, that the Frenchman had gone with him, he was
rather relieved than otherwise, for, like all the gentry around, he
bought his liquor cheap, and was never depressed when the revenue
officers were outwitted.
Two days passed. Sam Pollex reported that there was a subdued air of
excitement in the village. Mr. Polwhele, the riding-officer, was seen
speaking to Penwarden, and the revenue cutter, which had been absent for
some time, once more anchored in the little harbour. Mr. Mildmay did
not come ashore: he seldom did so during the smuggling season; but one
of his men trudged up the hill to Penwarden's cottage, and did not
return. These facts made Dick tingle with excitement: but the Squire
had forbidden him to go near the smugglers again, so that he was unable
to keep watch for the run which he, like everyone else in Polkerran,
expected to take place.
On the third morning, when Dick was tramping over the cliff with his gun
towards a cleft where he had heard that a pair of choughs had nested, he
saw Penwarden smoking on the bench beside his cottage door.
"Morning to 'ee, Maister Dick," he said.
"Good morning, Joe. You look very spry," replied Dick genially.
"Well, and I feel spry, to be sure. Haven't 'ee heard?"
"Heard what?"
"Why, how we brought up the smugglers wi' a round turn last night."
"Did you? Tell me about it, Joe. I wish I had seen it, but Father
won't let me out of the house at night now."
"Why for, maister?"
"Because I got home very late the other night, and he's afraid I shall
get my head broken, I think, now that the folks are so set against us."
"'Tis a very wise commandment of the Squire. Well, I'll tell 'ee. Never
was they so flambustered afore. When I seed _Isaac and Jacob_ goin' off
so merry t'other morning, I guessed she wouldn't come back empty, the
wind favourin' and all. So what do I do but put on my considerin'
cap----"
"That means a pipe and a bowl of rum, doesn't it?" said Dick with a
laugh.
"I won't say but it do. Thinks I, now where will they try to run their
cargo? Tonkin went off in a 'nation hurry, and the reason o't you know
as well as I, but we won't speak o' that. There warn't time for him to
fix up with the shoremen, leastways with many of 'em, afore he went, so
thinks I, Zacky won't try to carry his kegs inland. What then? Why,
she'd sink 'em somewheres off the coast, and let 'em lay till he gets a
chance o' liftin' 'em. I've knowed a crop o' goods lay for a month
afore they could be lifted."
"Doesn't it spoil the spirits?" asked Dick.
"It do, if the tubs lay too long. Then the spirits be stinkibus and fit
for nothing. Howsomever, they'll sink 'em, thinks I, and what's to be
the place? Well, I mind that ten year or more ago they dropped a big
crop just beyond St. Cuby's Cove, and got 'em clean away in two nights,
while Mr. Curgenven was playin' cat and mouse miles down the coast.
Says I to myself, that's the very place."
"But how did you know it ten years ago?"
"By one or two things I noticed when I went a-rambling at foot of
cliffs; trifles I could hardly tell 'ee of. That's the very place, says
I, so I has a little talk with Mr. Polwhele, and he made it known to Mr.
Mildmay, and betwixt us we hitched up a pretty scheme to circumvent 'em.
And I was right, and wrong too, as you'll see.
"Well, we sent over to Plymouth for a half-troop of dragoons, and put
them in Penruddock's empty farmhouse on the moor yonder. They came
quiet last night, and not a soul knowed about 'em. You see, 'twas only
my calcerlation as Tonkin wouldn't try a run, and 'twas best to be on
the safe tack, as you may say. Wi' the dragoons on shore, and Mr.
Mildmay at sea, we reckoned we'd spoil their game, whether 'twas sinkin'
or runnin'. When 'twas dark, we brought the sojers down to shore, and
put 'em among the rocks on each side of where I thought 'twould happen.
I had a sort o' suspicion that the smugglers had a hiding-place
somewhere along shore thereabouts, though I'd never been able to find
it."
"What made you suspect that?"
"Because we grappled for the sunk crop two days arter 'twas sunk, but
'twas gone; yet 'twas more than a week arterwards afore the stuff was
carr'd into the country, so it must ha' been hid somewhere. Well, we had
waited some hours, and the cutter had sailed away down the coast to put
'em off the scent, when just afore six bells we heard the creakin' o'
the lugger's gear, and I knowed I was right. At the same time the
fellers come creepin' round the cliff from the village. 'Twas to be a
run arter all. Our plan was to let 'em get warm to work, and not pounce
on 'em till we'd seed where their hiding-place was. Mr. Mildmay meant to
fetch about and come on 'em from seaward, while the sojers took 'em from
landwards.
"Drown it all, 'twas ruined--ruined, I say; but 'twas not so bad as that
neither--'twas almost ruined, by a sappy landlubber of a sojer. The
unloadin' was goin' on as merry as you please when this soft stunpoll of
a chap let out a sneeze fit to blow yer gaff off. 'Twas all up then; no
good waiting for Mr. Mildmay; the smugglers' look-outs heard the tishum
and gave the alarm. Mr. Polwhele blew his whistle for the attack, and
we pounced out from our lairs, sojers and tidesmen, and dashed upon 'em
from two sides at once.
"Some of 'em dropped their tubs like hot taters, and slipped off in the
darkness. But the rest stood their ground like men, and there was a
tidy little tumble, pistols cracking, cutlasses flashing----"
"How could they flash in the dark?" said Dick.
"You could hear 'em if you couldn't see 'em, and I don't care who the
man is, I call that flashin'. There was some pretty wounds dinted on
both sides, but as 'ee med think, the sojers' swordplay was a trifle
more learned than the free-traders', and arter some time we King's men
got the better o't, and they couldn't stand against us no longer. But
that sneeze: why couldn't the feller clap it under for five minutes
more? We catched nine of the smugglers, and laid them tied hand and
foot on the beach. But the rest got away, and drown it all, Tonkin was
one of 'em. I knowed un by his size, and a sojer and I and some more
had him betwixt us, but he let out with those sledge-hammer fists of
his, spun a sojer this way and a tidesman that, and by long and short
broke his moorings and swam out to the lugger. If that sneeze hadn't
come so soon Mr. Mildmay would have been there with the cutter, and we
should ha catched the whole crew. But 'twas not to be. By the time the
cutter fetched up, the lugger was well out to sea, and we lost her. But
we've got the nine men, who'll have to choose betwixt gaol and the
King's service, and I've chalked the broad arrow on twenty-four tubs,
which be now half-way to the King's store at St. Ives."
"And did you discover the hiding-place?"
"Chok' it all, we did not. Maybe there's no such thing. But 'twas a
proper tit-for-tat for the knock they give me, and I reckon 'twill be
some time afore they fly their colours again."
"'Tis the biggest haul you've ever made, isn't it?" asked Dick.
"We've got more tubs afore, but never so many men. I'm a deal more
cheerful in my mind than I used to be. We are doing the King's work
better in these parts than 'twas done in Mr. Curgenven's time, and I
hope them above will remember it."
Dick went on. He was pleased for the old man's sake that he was so well
succeeding in his duty; but at the same time was full of misgiving as to
the hatred his energy would breed among the village folk.
When he returned later in the day from a vain quest for the choughs, Sam
Pollex told him that the village was seething with rage, and everybody
was asking what had become of Doubledick. He was not among the nine men
who had been carted to Plymouth; search had been made for his dead body
on the shore; it was known that he had been among the tub-carriers, but
nobody had seen him since the fight.
The mystery was solved at nightfall. The inn-keeper, dressed as a
peaceable fisherman, trudged into the village with a fat goose on his
back, and declared with a wink that he had been on a short visit to his
friend Farmer Nancarrow, five miles distant. His cronies knew that
Doubledick had adopted this course as a blind to the revenue officers if
they made an inquisitive visit to his inn. However strong their
suspicions, they could not proceed against him with any chance of
success. They were in the same difficulty in regard to Tonkin, whom
none could swear to, his face having been blackened. Nor could it be
proved even that it was his lugger which had brought the cargo. When
the _Isaac and Jacob_ came into the harbour next day and was boarded by
the revenue officers, it contained nothing but a few hundredweight of
fish; and though grappling operations were conducted in St. Cuby's Cove,
and for some distance on each side of it, no discovery of sunken tubs
was made.
It was a fact, often remarked on in after days by the Polkerran folk,
that the only spectator on the jetty when Tonkin's lugger put
in--exclusive of the revenue officers, a toothless old fisher, Ike
Pendry's sweetheart, and a handful of children--was Mr. John Trevanion.
He seemed to be in the top of good humour; joked with Mr. Mildmay, gave
the old fisher a plug of tobacco, favoured Marty Bream with an admiring
glance, and chucked the children under the chin. When the lieutenant's
examination was concluded, and Tonkin came ashore, a free man, but under
suspicion, Mr. Trevanion had a word for him too, asked to see his catch,
and bought some of the finest of the fish. Then with a nod to Mr.
Mildmay he strolled with easy gait up the hill.
That Tonkin himself, an hour or two later, should carry his fish to the
Dower House was natural enough, but it was not perhaps quite so natural
that, having delivered them to Susan for transmission to the cook, he
should have been asked to step into the house and taken to the master's
own room. Nor was it likely, when he was let out at the front door by
Mr. Trevanion an hour later, that the conversation which had passed
between them in the interim had for its subject nothing but fish.
Nobody in Polkerran knew of this visit, or some intelligent person might
have suspected that it had a connection with a remarkable change that
came about in the villagers' manner of regarding Monsieur Jean
Delarousse. Hitherto they had looked upon him as a keen man of
business, with whom it was as safe as it was honourable to have dealings
of a free-trade nature. But from that day they cherished a sour
distrust of him; they resolved to do business with him no longer, and to
transfer their custom to another merchant of Roscoff, whose name is of
no importance in this history. In this transference they followed the
lead of Tonkin, blindly--all but Doubledick, who swam with the current,
indeed, so far as outward appearances went; but in the privacy of his
own cunning mind, buzzing still with the recollection of what he had
heard through the keyhole of his parlour door, indulged in speculations
of a very tantalising nature, and wondered what Maister John's little
game was.
Whether the relation of cause and effect existed between this meeting of
Trevanion and Tonkin, and an event that took place a few hours later at
the Towers, is a matter on which the reader may presently form his own
conclusion.
Dick had gone to bed a little earlier than usual, tired out after a long
tramp over the moor in search of wild fowl. His room faced the sea, and
he had left his window open, as his practice was except in stormy
weather. In the dead of night he suddenly found himself awake, and
wondered why, for he had not been dreaming, nor was he conscious of
having heard a sound. But in a few seconds he was aware of an unusual
smell, that appeared to be wafted through the window on the sea breeze.
It was the smell of burning wood. He leapt out of bed, ran to the
casement, and looked out over a row of outhouses that extended for some
yards from the dwelling towards the cliff. One glance was sufficient.
The tool-house at the furthermost end was on fire.
Quickly pulling on his breeches, he ran to the adjoining room, occupied
by Sam, hauled the snoring boy from his bed, shook him vigorously, and
cried--
"The tool-house is on fire! Run to the turret and pull the bell.
Quick! The breeze is off the sea, and we shall have the whole place in
a blaze."
Then he rushed to Reuben's room on the lower floor, wakened the old man,
and told him to fill every bucket he could find with water from the
well. Lastly, he ran to his parents, breaking the news gently so as not
to terrify his mother. By this time the alarm bell was clanging its
quick strokes out into the night.
Dick ran out of the house to the well-head near the dismantled stables,
where Reuben already had two buckets filled and was still pumping
vigorously. He caught up the buckets, hurried to the conflagration, and
flung the water on the flames. But it was clear that they had got such
a hold upon the shed that to extinguish them with water laboriously
pumped from the well would be impossible. The wind was steadily
carrying the fire toward the main building, and unless the blaze could
be checked within a few minutes, the old place was doomed.
To fetch more water would, Dick saw, be a waste of time. What could be
done? Between the burning tool-shed and the dwelling-house was a long
wooden structure that contained the brew-house and a shed in which
Reuben kept vegetables, grain for the pigs, and other materials. Dick
remembered that the brew-house, though substantially built, was
worm-eaten, and, like the rest of the Towers, had not been repaired
within memory. Acting on an idea which had suddenly struck him, he ran
at full speed to the scullery, brought thence a rope and, returning,
made his way with it through the smoke into the brew-house, and attached
it firmly to one of the stout timbers supporting the roof.
The Squire had now come upon the scene.
"We must pull down the brew-house, Father," cried Dick. "'Tis the only
chance to prevent the flames from spreading."
Together they hauled upon the rope. The timber did not give an inch.
They summoned Reuben to assist them, but the oak, worm-eaten though it
was, resisted their united efforts.
"Once more! Pull all together," cried Dick in despair. The post did
not move.
"Ha, Squire!" shouted a voice behind, "I see what you are about. 'Tis a
good notion. Give me a hold."
"Polwhele, 'tis you. We'll be glad of your arm."
"Did you ride, sir?" cried Dick eagerly.
"I did," replied the riding-officer. "Egad! I see your meaning. My
horse is hitched to the fence. I'll bring him in a second."
He ran off, returning soon with his horse, which pranced and snorted
when it came within the smoke and heat. Mr. Polwhele and Dick knotted
the rope to the animal's collar, while the Squire covered its eyes with
his coat. They turned its head away from the flames, and smote its
flanks. It started forward, almost escaping from the grasp of Mr.
Polwhele, who held it by the bridle. The post, already weakened by the
previous straining, gave at last, and a portion of the roof fell in with
a crash. The same operation was performed on a similar post in the
opposite corner. This was brought down at the first pull, and all that
remained of the brew-house was a heap of laths, beams, tiles, and broken
utensils.
They proceeded then to smother the ruins with water and earth, paying no
heed to the blazing tool-house. After some twenty minutes the flames
began to subside; they poured more water, as quickly as it could be
drawn, on the glowing ruins, and had the satisfaction of seeing that the
demolition of the brew-house had been effective. The fire spread no
further; the Towers was saved.
Panting and perspiring with their exertions, the four men stood for a
while in silence, watching the gradual dwindling of the flames.
"That bell may stop," cried Mr. Polwhele suddenly. "'Tis well pulled,
whoever is doing it, but to little good, it seems. 'Pon my soul, I'm
the only man that has come to its call."
"Ah! You see how things are with me," said the Squire bitterly. "Not a
soul cares whether the Towers burns to the ground, and I and mine in it.
I remember, forty years ago, when the place took fire, the bell brought
the whole village to our help. Now they'll lie abed and laugh to think
I'm homeless."
"'Tis a disgrace and a scandal," cried the riding-officer, "and I'll
tell them so. The idiots, to suppose you would inform on them! I'll
set that right, Squire; I blame myself for not doing it before, but I
believed they would come to their senses."
"You will waste your breath, Polwhele. Don't attempt it for me. I
could tell you one way to dash their enmity, but that's impossible."
"What is it?"
"Send John Trevanion where he came from. 'Tis he that is poisoning
folks' minds against us; yes, 'tis he."
At this point Dick returned from the house, whither he had been to stop
the ringing of the bell. Sam came with him.
"Now, young Sam," said his father wrathfully, "'twas you that started
this blaze, I'll be bound, wi' yer mischief and jiggery. I'll leather
'ee, that I will."
"Be choked if I did!" was Sam's indignant cry. "Why do 'ee say it,
Feyther? You think because I break a dish now and again that I do all
the mischief, but I don't care who the man is, I hain't been nigh
tool-house or brew-house this mortal day."
"Then who did it? Tell me that."
"I can't tell what I don't know, but if I med put a meanin' to it, I'd
say 'twas done by the same hands as cut our lines and set our boat
adrift, be drowned to 'em."
"By heaven, I see it!" cried the Squire, smiting one fist with the
other. "'Tis part of the scheme, Polwhele. They will stick at nothing.
Penwarden caught young Tonkin cutting Dick's lines, as you know, and I
thrashed him. They avenge him by firing my house. I'll clap them in
jail; unpopular as I am, the justices can't refuse to punish such a
crime."
"You've no proof, Squire," said Mr. Polwhele. "You can't arrest the
whole village on suspicion. And now I think of it, if it is as you say,
there is no need to suppose your cousin is at the bottom of it. You
have no proof."
The Squire was silent. Mr. Polwhele's view was no doubt that which
would be taken by the majority of people. Mr. Trevanion was conscious
of the weakness of his position, and regretted that in his impulsiveness
and resentment he had spoken so freely. The only facts upon which his
conviction of his cousin's venomous treachery depended were the purchase
of the mortgages and the subsequent fencing-in of the acquired property,
and neither singly nor in combination were these strong enough to
justify his accusation before reasonable people.
"Well, well," said the Squire at last, "I may be wrong. I say no more
about it. But this persecution has gone far enough, and 'tis time it
was stopped, though how to stop it I know no more than the dead."
"I'll see what I can do, Squire. The Towers is saved, and glad I am of
it. 'Tis to be hoped the wretches will try their tricks no more."
He mounted and rode away, the Squire having warmly thanked him for his
assistance. The four inmates of the Towers then returned to their beds.
"You did well, Dick," said the Squire as they parted. "'Twas a good
thought of yours to pull down the posts; without it we might have been
burnt out. We'll hold fast to the old place a while longer, my lad."
To his wife he related all that had happened, and mentioned what Mr.
Polwhele had said about his suspicion of John Trevanion.
"I've no proof, that's true; but in my heart I know it; time will show
whether I'm right or wrong."