Corporal Sam and Other Stories Part 12

The portrait is a profile of a young man, somewhat noticeably handsome, in a high-necked coat and white stock collar.]

'It is none of our family, though it came to us near on a hundred years ago. It came from America. A young gentleman sent it over from Philadelphia to my grandmother, with a letter to say he was married and happy, and would always remember her. Perhaps he did; and, again, perhaps he didn't. That was the last my grandmother heard of him.

'But it wasn't made in America. It was made in the War Prison, over yonder at Princetown, where they keep the convicts now. I've heard the man that drew and cut it out was a French sergeant, with only one arm. He had lost the other in the war, and his luck was to be left until the very last draft. He finished it the morning he was released, and he gave it to the young American--Adams, his name was-- for a keepsake. The Americans had to stay behind, because their war wasn't over yet.

'It came to my grandmother in this way: She was married to my grandfather that owned this very farm, and lived in this very house; and twice a week she would drive over to the prison, to the market that used to be held there every day from before noon till nightfall.

Sometimes my grandfather drove with her, but oftener not. She could take care of herself very well.

'She sold poultry and pork, eggs and b.u.t.ter, and vegetables; lard sometimes, and straw, with other odds and ends. (The prisoners used the straw for plaiting bonnets.) Scores of salesmen used to travel to the prison every day, from Tavistock, Okehampton, Moreton, and all around the Moor: Jews, too, from Plymouth, with slop-clothing.

But in all this crowd my grandmother held her own. The turnkeys knew her; the prisoners liked her for her good looks and good temper, and because she always dealt fair; and the agent (as they called the governor in those days) had given orders to set aside a table and trestles for her twice a week, close inside the entrance of the market square, on the side where the bettermost French prisoners lived in a building they called the Petty Caution.

'But with the prisoners, though many a time her heart melted for them, she was always very careful, and let it be known that she never smuggled tobacco or messages even for her best customers. After a while they got to understand this, and (though you may think it queer) liked her none the less. The agent, on his part, trusted her--and the turnkeys and the military officials--and didn't respect her the less because she never told tales, though they knew she might have told many.

'This went on, staid and regular, for close upon three years; and then, one fine October evening, my grandmother, after reaching home with her little cart, unharnessing and bedding up the donkey in his stable, walked out to the orchard, where my grandfather was looking over his cider apples, and says she to him,--

'"William, I've a-done a dreadful deed."

'My grandfather took off his hat, and rubbed the top of his head.

"Good Lord!" he says. "You don't tell me!"

'"I've helped a prisoner to escape," says she.

'"Then we'm lost and done for," says my grandfather. "How did it come about?" And with that he waited a little, and said, "Damme, my dear, if any other person had brought me this tale I'd have tanned his skin." For I must tell you my grandfather and grandmother doted on one another.

'"I know you would," said my grandmother, dismally. "And I can't think how the temptation took me. But the poor creatur' was little more'n a boy--and there were a-something in the eyes of him--"

She meant to say there was a-something that reminded her of her own eldest, that she had lost a dozen years before.

'I don't know whether my grandfather understood or whether he didn't.

But all he said was, "However did you contrive it?"

'"It came," she said, "of my takin' they six white rabbits to market.

I sold mun all; and when they were sold, and the hutch standin'

empty--" My grandmother pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.

'"You drove him out in the rabbit hutch?" asked my grandfather.

'"With a handful of straw between him and the bars," she owned.

"He's n.o.bbut a boy. You can't think how easy. And the look of him when he crep' inside--"

'"Where is he?" asked my grandfather.

'"Somewheres hangin' about the stable at this moment," she told him, with a kind o' sob.

'So my grandfather went out to the back. He could not find the prisoner in the stable, but by-and-by he caught sight of him on the slope of the stubble field behind it. The poor lad had taken a hoe, and was pretending to work it, while he edged away in the dimmety light.

'"Hallo!" sings out my grandfather across the gate; and goes striding up the field to him. "If I were you," says he, "I wouldn't hoe stubble; because that's a new kind of agriculture in these parts, and likely to attract notice."

'"I was doin' my best," twittered the prisoner. He was a delicate-lookin' lad, very white just now about the gills.

"I come from Marblehead," he explained, "and, bein' bred to the sea, I didn't think it would matter."

'"It will, you'll find, if you persevere with it. But come indoors.

We'll stow you in the cider-loft for to-night, after you've taken a bite of supper. And to-morrow--well, I'll have to think that out,"

said my grandfather.

'For the next few hours he felt pretty easy. He and his wife had a good reputation with the agent, who would take a long time before suspecting them of any hand in an escape. The three ate their supper together in good comfort, though from time to time my grandfather p.r.i.c.ked up his ears as though he heard the sound of a gun. But the wind blew from the south-west that night, and if a gun was fired the sound did not carry.

'When supper was done my grandmother made a suggestion that the lad, instead of turning out to the cider-loft, should sleep in the garret overhead; and my grandfather, after a look at the lad's face, shut his lips, and would not gainsay her, though--as in bed he couldn't help reminding her--it would be difficult to pa.s.s off a visitor in the garret, with two blankets, for a housebreaker.

'As it happened, though, they were not disturbed that night. But my grandfather, for thinking, took a very little sleep, and in the morning he went up to the garret with the best plan he could devise.

'"I've been turnin' it over," he said, "and there's no road will help you across the Moor for days to come. You must bide here till the hue-an'-cry has blown over, and meantime the missus must fit up some disguise for you; but you must bide in bed, for a man can't step out o' this house, front or back, without bein' visible from all the tors around. So rest where you be, and I'll just dander down along t'wards Walkhampton, where the Plymouth road runs under Sharpitor, an' where I've been meanin' to break up a taty-patch this long time past. There's alway a plenty goin' and comin' 'pon the road, an'

maybe by keepin' an eye open I'll learn what line the chase is takin'."

'So my grandfather shouldered his bidd.i.c.k and marched off, down and across the valley, marked off his patch pretty high on the slope, and fell to work. Just there he could keep the whole traffic of the road under his eye, as well as the fields around his house; and for a moment it gave him a shock as he called to mind that in the only field that lay out of sight he'd left a scarecrow standing--in a patch that, back in the summer, he had cropped with pease for the agent's table up at the War Prison. To be sure, 'twasn't likely to mislead a search-party, and, if it did, why a scarecrow's a scarecrow; but my grandfather didn't like the thought of any of these gentry being near the house. If they came at all they might be minded to search further. So he determined that when dinner-time came he would go back home and take the scarecrow down.

'The road (as I said) was always pretty full of traffic, coming and going between Plymouth and the War Prison. There were bakers'

wagons, grocery vans, and vans of meat, besides market carts from Bickleigh and Buckland. My grandfather watched one and another go by, but made out nothing unusual until--and after he had been digging for an hour, maybe--sure enough he spied a mounted soldier coming up the road at a trot, and knew that this must be one of the searchers returning. In a minute more he recognised the man for an acquaintance of his, a sergeant of the garrison, and by name Grimwold, and hailed him as he came close.

'"Hallo! Is that you?" says the sergeant, reining up. "And how long might you have been workin' there?"

'"Best part of an hour," says my grandfather. "What's up?"

'"There's a prisoner escaped, another o' those d.a.m.ned Yankees," says the sergeant. "I've been laying the alarm all the way to Plymouth.

You ha'n't seen any suspicious-lookin' party pa.s.s this way, I suppose?"

'My grandfather said very truthfully that he hadn't, but promised very truthfully that he would keep an eye lifting. So the sergeant wished him good-day and rode on towards Two Bridges.

'For the next twenty minutes nothing pa.s.sed but a tax-cart and a market woman with a donkey; and a while after them a very queer-looking figure hove in sight.

''Twas a man walking, with a great sack on his shoulders and two or three hats on his head, one atop of another. By the cut of his jib, as they say, my grandfather knew him at once for one of the Plymouth Jews, that visited Princetown by the dozen with cast-off clothes for sale, and silver change for the gold pieces that found their way sometimes into the prison as prize-money. Sometimes, too, they carried away the Bank of England notes that the Frenchmen were so clever at forging. But though, as he came near, the man had Jew written all over him, my grandfather couldn't call to mind that he'd ever seen this particular Jew before.

'What is more, it was plain enough in a minute that the Jew didn't recognise my grandfather; for, catching sight of him aloft there on the slope, first of all he gave a start, next he walked forward a few steps undecided-like, and last he pulled up, set down his bundle like a man tired, and looked behind him down the road. The road was empty, so he turned his attention to my grandfather, and after looking at him very curiously for half a minute, "Good-morning," says he.

'By this time my grandfather had guessed what was pa.s.sing in the man's mind, and it came into his own to have a little fun.

'"Good-morning, stranger," said he, through his nose, mimicking so well as he could the American manner of speaking.

'"How long have you been at work there, my man?" asks the Jew, still glancing up and down the road.

'"A long time," answers my grandfather, putting on a scared look, and halting in his words. "This piece of ground belongs to me"--which was true enough, but didn't sound likely; for he was always a careless man in his dress (the only matter over which he and my grandmother had words now and then), and to-day, feeling he had the whip-hand of her, he had taken advantage to wear an old piece of sacking in place of a coat.

'"Oh, indeed," says the Jew, more than dubious, and thinking, no doubt, of the three guineas that was the regular reward for taking an escaped prisoner.

'"It's the tarnal truth," says my grandfather, and fell to whistling, like a man facing it out. But the tune he chose was "Yankee Doodle!"

This, of course, made the Jew dead sure of his man. But he was a lean little wisp of a man, and my grandfather too strongly built to be tackled. So the pair stood eyeing one another until, glancing up, my grandfather saw three soldiers come round the corner of the road from Plymouth, and with that he dropped his bidd.i.c.k and turned like a desperate man.

'The Jew saw them too, and almost upon the same instant.

"Help, help!" he yelled, and leaving his bag where he had dropped it, tore down the road to meet the soldiers, waving both arms and still shouting, "Help! A prisoner! A prisoner!"