Begumbagh Part 22

"Which we shan't be, Sir John, if you help me to get this stone back in its place."

He set the lamp on one of the chests and lent a hand, when the stone dropped tightly into its place; and we dragged a couple of chests across, side by side, before turning to young Mr Barclay, who lay there on his side as if asleep.

"Now," says Sir John, as he laid his hand upon the young man's collar and dragged him over on to his back, "I think we had better hand this fellow over to the police."

"The doctor, you mean, sir. Look at him."

I needn't have bade him look, for Sir John was already doing that.

It was a doctor that I fetched, and not the police, for Mr Barclay lay there quite insensible, and smelling as if he had taken to eating opium, while Ned Gunning had so awful a cut across his temple that he would soon have bled to death.

The doctor came and dressed the rascal's wounds as he was laid in my pantry; but he shook his head over Mr Barclay, and with reason; for two months had pa.s.sed away before we got him down to Dorking, and saw his pale face beginning to get something like what it was, with Miss Virginia, forgiving and gentle, always by his side.

But I'm taking a very big jump, and saying nothing about our going across to the house opposite as soon as it was daylight, to find the door open and no one there; while the state of that bas.e.m.e.nt and what we saw there, and the artfulness of the people, and the labour they had given in driving that pa.s.sage right under the road as true as a die, filled me with horror, and cost Sir John five hundred pounds.

Why, their measurements and calculations were as true as true; and if it hadn't been for me missing that paper--which, of course, it was Edward Gunning who stole it--those scoundrels would have carried off that golden incubus as sure as we were alive. But they didn't get it; and they had gone off scot-free, all but our late footman, who had concussion of the brain in the hospital where he was took, Sir John saying that he would let the poor wretch get well before he handed him over to the police.

But, bless you, he never meant to. He was too pleased to get Mr Barclay back, and to find that he hadn't the least idea about the golden incubus being in the cellar; while as to the poor lad's sorrow about his madness and that wretched woman, who was Ned Gunning's wife, it was pitiful to see.

The other scoundrels had got away; and all at once we found that Gunning had discharged himself from the hospital; and by that time the house over the way was put straight, the builder telling me in confidence that he thought Sir John must have been mad to attempt to make such a pa.s.sage as that to connect his property without consulting a regular business man. That was the morning when he got his cheque for the repairs, and the pa.s.sage--which he called "Drinkwater's Folly"--had disappeared.

Time went on, and the golden incubus went on too--that is, to a big bank in the Strand, for we were at Dorking now, where those young people spent a deal of time in the open air; and Mr Barclay used to say he could never forgive himself; but his father did, and so did some one else.

Who did?

Why, you don't want telling that. Heaven bless her sweet face! And bless him, too, for a fine young fellow as strong--ay, and as weak, too, of course--as any man.

Dear, dear, dear! I'm pretty handy to eighty now, and Sir John just one year ahead; and I often say to myself, as I think of what men will do for the sake of a pretty face--likewise for the sake of gold: "This is a very curious world."

STORY THREE, CHAPTER ONE.

IN A GOWT.

Looks ominous, don't it, to see nearly every gate-post and d.y.k.e-bridge made of old ships' timber? Easy enough to tell that, from its bend, and the tree-nail holes. Ours is a bad coast, you see; not rocky, but with long sloping sands; and when the sea's high, and there's a gale on sh.o.r.e, a vessel strikes, and there she lies, with the waves lifting her bodily, and then letting her fall again upon the sands, shaking her all to pieces: first the masts go, then a seam opens somewhere in her sides, and as every wave lifts her and lets her down, she shivers and loosens, till she as good as falls all to pieces, and the sh.o.r.e gets strewn with old wreck.

Good wrecks used to be little fortunes to the folk along sh.o.r.e, but that's all altered now; the coastguard look-out too sharp. Things are wonderfully changed to what they were when I was a boy. Fine bit of smuggling going on in those days; hardly a farmer along the coast but had a finger in it, and ran cargoes right up to the little towns inland.

The coast was not so well watched, and people were bribed easier, I suppose; but, at all events, that sort of thing has almost died out now.

Never had a brush with the coastguard or the cutter in my time, for we were all on the cut-and-run system: but I had a narrow escape for my life once, when a boat's crew came down upon us, and I'll tell you how it was.

We were a strong party of us down on the sh.o.r.e off our point here at Merthorpe, busy as could be; night calm, and still, and dark, and one of those fast-sailing French boats--_cha.s.se-marees_, they call them-- landing a cargo. Carts, and packhorses, and boats were all at it; and the kegs of brandy, and barrels of tobacco, and parcels of lace were coming ash.o.r.e in fine style; I and another in a little boat kept making trips backwards and forwards between the sh.o.r.e and the _cha.s.se-maree_, landing brandy-tubs--nice little brandy-kegs, you know, with a VC--_Vieux Cognac_--branded on each.

I don't know how many journeys I had made, when all at once there was an alarm given, and as it were right out of the darkness, I could see a man-of-war's boat coming right down upon us, while, before I quite got over the first fright, there was another in sight.

Such a scrimmage--such a scamper; boats scattering in all directions; the French boat getting up a sail or two, and all confusion; whips cracking, wheels ploughing through the soft sand, and horses galloping off to get to the other side of the sandbank. We were close aside the long, low _cha.s.se-maree_, in our bit of a skiff thing, when the alarm was given, and pushed off hard for the sh.o.r.e, which was about two hundred yards distant, while on all sides there were other boats setting us the example, or following in our wake; in front of us there was a heavy cart backed as far out into the sea as she would stand, with the horses turned restive and jibbing, for there was a heavy load behind them, and the more the driver lashed them, the more the brutes backed out in the shallow water, while every moment the wheels kept sinking farther into the sand.

I saw all this as the revenue cutter's boats separated, one making for the _cha.s.se-maree_, and the other dashing after the flying long-sh.o.r.e squadron; and as I dragged at my oar, I had the pleasure of seeing that we must either be soon overhauled, or else leap out into the shallow water, and run for it, and I said so to my companion.

"Oh, hang it, no," he cried; "pull on. They'll stave in the boat, and we shall lose all the brandy."

I did pull on, for I was so far from being loyal, that I was ready to run any risk sooner than lose the little cargo we had of a dozen brandy-kegs, and about the same number of packages; but there seemed not the slightest prospect of our getting off, unless we happened to be un.o.bserved in the darkness. However, I pulled on, and keeping off to the right, we had the satisfaction of seeing the revenue boat row straight on, as if not noticing us.

"Keep off a little now," I whispered, "or we shall be ash.o.r.e."

"No, no--it's all right," was the reply; "we are just over the swatch;"

which is the local term given to the long channels washed out in the sand by the tide, here and there forming deep trenches along the coast, very dangerous for bathers.

"They see us," I whispered; when my companion backed water, and the consequence was, that the boat's head turned right in-sh.o.r.e, and we floated between the piles, and were next moment, with shipped oars, out of sight in the outlet of the gowt.

Now, I am not prepared to give the derivation of the word "gowt," but I can describe what it is--namely, the termination, at the sea-coast, of the long Lincolnshire land-drains, in the shape of a lock with gates, which are opened at certain times, to allow the drainage to flow under the sand into the sea, but carefully closed when the tide is up, to prevent flooding of the marsh-lands, protected by the high sea-bank, which runs along the coast and acts the part of cliffs. From these lock-gates, a square woodwork tunnel is formed by means of piles driven into the sh.o.r.e, and crossed with stout planks; and this covered water-way in some cases runs for perhaps two hundred yards right beneath the sandbank, then beneath the sand, and has its outlet some distance down the sh.o.r.e; while, to prevent the air blowing the tunnel up when the sea comes in, a couple of square wooden pipes descend at intervals of some fifty yards through the sand into the water-way; at high water, when the mouth is covered, and the lock-gates closed, the air comes bellowing and roaring up these pipes as every wave comes in; and at times, when the tunnel is pretty full, the water will, after chasing the air, rush out after it, and form a spray fountain; while, as the waves recede, the wind rushes back with a strange whistling sound, and a draught that draws anything down into the tunnel with a fierce rush.

But there was another peculiarity of the hollow way that was strangely impressed upon my memory that night--namely, its power of acting as a vast speaking-tube, for if a person stood at one of the escape-pipes and whispered, his words were distinctly audible to another at the other pipe some fifty yards off, who could as easily respond.

Well, it was into the mouth of the gowt tunnel that we had now run the boat, where we were concealed from view certainly; and thrusting against the piles with his hands, my companion worked the boat farther into the darkness, until the keel touched the soft sand.

"That's snug," he whispered: "they'll never find us here."

"No," I said, as a strange fear came upon me. "But isn't the tide rising?"

"Fast," he said.

"Then we shall be stopped from getting out."

"Nonsense!" he said. "It will take an hour to rise above the tunnel-mouth, and if it did, we could run her head up higher and higher.

Plenty of fresh air through the pipes."

"If we're not drowned," I said.

"There, if you want to lose the cargo, we'll pull out at once, and give up," he said.

"But I don't," I replied; "I am staunch enough; only I don't want to risk my life."

"Well, who does?" he said. "Only keep still, and we shall be all right."

The few minutes we had been conversing had been long enough for the tide to float the boat once more, and this time I raised my hand to the root and thrusting against the tunnel-covered, weed-hung, slimy woodwork, soon had the boat's keel again in the sand, so as to prevent her being sucked out by the reflux of the tide. At times we could hear shouts, twice pistol-shots, and then we were startled by the dull, heavy report of a small cannon.

"That's after the _cha.s.se-maree_," whispered my companion; "but she sails like a witch. She's safe unless they knock a spar away."

"I wish we were," I said, for I did not feel at all comfortable in our dark hole, up which we were being forced farther and farther by the increasing tide; while more than once we had to hold on tightly by the horrible slimy piles, to keep from being drawn back.

"Just the place to find dead bodies," whispered my companion, evidently to startle me.

"Just so," I said coldly. "Perhaps they'll find two to-morrow."

"Don't croak," was the polite rejoinder; and then he was silent; but I could hear a peculiar boring noise being made, and no further attempts at a joke issued from my friend's lips.

"Suppose we try and get out now?" I whispered, after another quarter of an hour's listening in the darkness, and hearing nothing but the soft rippling, and the "drip, drip" of water beyond us; while towards the mouth came the "lap, lap" of the waves against the sides of the tunnel, succeeded by a rushing noise, and the rattling of the loose mussels cl.u.s.tering to the woodwork, now loudly, now gently; while every light rustle of the seaweed seemed to send a shiver through me.