Merry-Garden and Other Stories Part 18

"I do," said the doctor. "The man I would warn you against is a man you'd be ten times apter to trust; and that is your partner, Deiphobus Geen.

I understand he's away from home just now; but--reward or no reward--when he returns I advise you to watch that fellow closer than any of the Preventive men: for to my certain knowledge he had ample warning of what was to happen, and I leave you to judge if 'twas by accident he let his friend Dan'l, here, run into the trap."

Tummels made a motion to draw out a musket from under the straw where Dan'l lay. "If I thought that," he growled, "I'd walk straight over to Porthleah, wait for him, and blow his scheming brains out."

"You'd be a bigger fool, then, than I take ye for," answered the doctor quietly, "and I know you've but wits enough for one thing at a time.

Your business now is to keep Dan'l hidden till you can smuggle him out of the country: and if Dr. Martyn or I can help, you may count on us, for I hate such foul play as Deiphobus Geen's, and so, I believe, does my a.s.sistant."

With that the doctor took his leave of Dan'l and was driven home by Tummels, William Sleep remaining to stand guard: and next day, according to promise, Dr. Martyn was told the secret and trusted with the case.

II.

Sure enough, Dr. Martyn turned out to be most clever and considerate; a man that Dan'l took to and trusted from the first. His one fault was that when Dan'l began to converse with him on religious matters, he showed himself a terrible free-thinker. The man was not content to be a doctor: night after night he'd sit up and tend Dan'l like a nurse, and would talk by the hour together when the patient lay wakeful. But his opinions were enough to cut a religious man to the heart.

Dan'l had plenty of time to think over them, too. From daybreak (when the young doctor took his leave), till between ten and eleven at night (when he came again) was a terrible lonely while for a man shut in an empty house and unable to move for pain. As the days wore on and his wound bettered, he'd creep to the door and sit watching the fields and the ships out at sea and William Sleep moving about the slope below. Sometimes he would spend an hour in thinking out plans for his escape; but his money had gone with the lugger, and without money no plan seemed workable.

Sometimes he'd think upon the girl Amelia Sanders. But that was crueller pain; for if he could not even escape, how on earth was he to get married?

So he fell back on thoughts of religion and in making up answers to the doctor's terrible arguments; and these he would muster up at night, tackling the young man finely, till the two were at it like a pair of wrestlers. But when Dan'l began to grow flushed and excited, and stammered in his speech, the talk would be turned off somehow to smuggling, or sport, or natural history--in all of which the doctor had a hundred questions to ask. I believe these discussions worked the cure faster than any ointments or lotions: but Dan'l used to say afterwards that the long days came nigh to driving him mad; and mad they would have driven him but for a small bird--a wheatear--that perched itself every day on the wall of the court and chittered to him by the hour together like an angel.

Tummels, all this while, kept quiet at Porthleah, like a wise man, and sat watching Phoby Geen like a cat before a mousehole. Phoby had turned up at the Cove in the _Nonesuch_ on the fourth day after the lugger was lost, and at once began crying out, as innocent as you please, upon the mess that Dan'l had made through his wrongheadedness. Also the crew of the _Nonesuch_ couldn't make out where the plan had broken down. But Tummels, piecing their information with what Dr. Chegwidden had told him, saw clearly enough what trick had been played. Also by pumping old Bessie Bussow (who had already been pumped by Phoby) he learned that Phoby knew of Dan'l's return to the Cove and disappearance into hiding.

Tummels scratched his head. "The fellow knows that Dan'l is alive," he reasoned. "He knows, too, there's a price on his head. Moreover he knows my share in hiding the man away. Then why, if he's playing honest even now, doesn't he speak to me? . . . But no: he's watching to catch me off my guard, in the hope that I'll give him the clue to Dan'l's hiding."

Thus Tummels reasoned, and, though it went hard with him to get no news, he decided that 'twas safer to trust in no news being good news than, by making the smallest move, to put Phoby Geen on the track. In this he did wisely; but he'd have done wiser by not breathing a word to Amelia Sanders of where he'd stowed her sweetheart. For what must the lovesick woman do--after a week's waiting and no news--but pack a basket and set out for St. Ives, under the pretence of starting for Penzance market?

She carried out the deception very neatly, too; actually went into Penzance and sold two couple of fowls, besides eggs of her own raising; and then, having spent the money in a few odds-and-ends her sweetheart would relish, slipped out of the town and struck away north.

What mischief would have followed but for a slant of luck, there's no knowing: for Master Phoby had caught sight of her on the Helston Road (where he kept a watch), pushed after her hot-foot, worked her through the market like a stoat after a rabbit, and more than half-way to St. Ives (laughing up his sleeve), when his little design went pop! and all through the untying of a shoe-lace!

On the road after you pa.s.s Halsetown there's a sharp turn; and, a little way farther, another sharp turn. For no reason that ever she discovered, 'twas just as she pa.s.sed the first of these that her shoe-string came untied, and she sat down by the hedge to tie it; and here in tying it she broke the lace, and, while mending it, looked up into Phoby Geen's face-- that had come round the corner like the sneak he was and pulled up as foolish as a sheep.

In my experience a woman may be a fool, but 'tis within limits.

Amelia Sanders, looking Phoby Geen in the face, went on tying her shoe; and, while she looked, she saw not only how terrible rash she had been, but also--without a guess at the particulars--that this man had been at the bottom of the whole mischief and meant to be at the bottom of more.

So, said she, very innocent-like--

"Aw, good-afternoon, Mr. Geen!"

"Good-afternoon!" responded Phoby. "Who'd ever ha' thought to meet you here, Miss Sanders?"

"'Tis a tiring way from Porthleah to St. Ives, Mr. Geen."

"Or from Porthleven, for that matter, Miss Sanders."

"Especially when you walk it on tippy-toe, which must be extra-wearisome to a body on feet shaped like yours, Mr. Geen."

Phoby saw that he was fairly caught. "Look here," said he roughly, "you're bound on a randivoo with Dan'l Leggo, and you can't deny it."

"I don't intend to," she answered. "And you be bound on much the same errand, though you'd deny it if your face could back up your tongue."

"Dan'l Leggo has a-been my partner in business for five years, Miss Sanders. Isn't it nat'ral enough I should want to visit and consult him?"

"Nothing more natural," answered the girl cheerfully. "I was just wonderin' where they'd hidden him: but since you know, my trouble's at an end. You can show me the way. Which is it, Mr. Geen--north, south, east, or west?"

Phoby understood that she was laughing at him. "Don't you think, Miss Sanders," he suggested, "that 'twas pretty rash of you to give folks a clue as you've a-done to-day, and everybody knowing that you've been asked in church with Dan'l?"

"I do," said she. "I've behaved foolish, Mr. Geen, and thank you for reminding me. He won't thank a _second_ partner for putting him in a trap," she went on, speaking at a venture; but her words caught Phoby Geen like a whip across the face, and, seeing him blanch, she dropped a curtsey. "I'll be going home, Mr. Geen," she announced. "I might ha'

walked farther without finding out so much as you've told me; and you may walk twenty miles farther without finding out half so much."

He glowered at her and let out a curse; but the girl was his match, though timmersome enough in an ordinary way.

"Iss, iss," she said scornful-like; "I know the kind of coward you are, Mr. Phoby Geen. But I bless this here corner of the road twice over; first because it has given me a look into your sneaking heart, and next because 'tis within earshot of Halsetown, where I've a brace of tall cousins living that would beat you to a jelly if you dared lift a hand against me. I'm turning back to ask one of them to see me home; and he'll not deny me, as he'll not be backward to pound every bone in your ill-shapen body if he hears what I've to tell."

Phoby Geen glowered at her for half a minute longer, and then snapped his fingers.

"As it happens," said he, "you're doing me a cruel injustice; but we needn't talk of that. A man o' my savings--though you've sneezed at 'em-- doesn't want to be searching the country for two-hundred-and-fifty pound."

He swung on his heel and walked off towards St. Ives. Amelia Sanders watched him round the next bend, and turning, began to run homewards for dear life, when, just at the corner, she fell into the arms of Tummels.

"A nice dance you've led me," grunted Tummels, as she fought down her hysterics. "I've been pulling hot-foot after the man all the way from Penzance. I tracked him there; but you and he between you gave me the slip in the crowd. 'Tis the Lord's mercy you didn' lead him all the way to Stack's Folly: for if I'd a-caught up with him there I must have committed murder upon him."

"Oh, take me home!" sobbed Amelia Sanders.

"Take you home? How the d.i.c.kens be I to take you home?" Tummels demanded.

"I've got to follow that villain into St. Ives if he goes so far, and stick to him like a shadow."

So Amelia Sanders trudged it back to Porthleven, calling herself every name but what she was christened: and Phoby Geen trudged it fore to St.

Ives, cursing his luck, but working out a problem in his wicked little mind. At the top of the hill over the town he stood quiet for a minute and snapped his fingers again. Since 'twas near St. Ives that Dan'l lay in hiding, what could the hiding-place be but Stack's Folly! Tummels had hidden him: Tummels' brother-in-law rented the farm of Stack's Folly and kept the keys of the house. Why, the thing fitted in like a child's puzzle! Why hadn't he thought of it before?

None the less he did not turn aside towards the great desolate barrack, though he eyed it as he went down the slope between it and the sea.

He had not yet begun to think out a plan of action. He wanted Dan'l disposed of without showing his hand in the business. As it was, the girl (and he cursed her) had guessed him to blame for the loss of the lugger.

Was it more than a guess of hers? He couldn't say. He had told her at parting that he was walking to St. Ives on business. On a sudden thought he halted in the main street and turned to walk up towards Tregenna, the great house overlooking the town. Its owner, Squire Stephens, was an old client of his.

Squire Stephens was at home, and Phoby Geen sat closeted with him for an hour and more. Nothing was talked of save business, and when the Squire mentioned Dan'l Leggo and the price on his head, Phoby waved a hand mute-like, as much as to beg off being questioned.

Twilight was falling as he took the road back to Porthleah; and Tummels, who had been waiting behind a hedge above the town, dogged him home through the dusk and through the dark.

Phoby's call on the Squire had begun and ended with business.

The _Nonesuch_ had made another trip to Roscoff, and he had one hundred and fifty pounds' worth of white cognac to dispose of, all sunk--for Mr.

Pennefather had put on a sudden activity--off Old Lizard Head. He had reason to believe that the Preventive men were watching his usual routes inland. Since the accident to Dan'l he had felt, in his cunning way, a new watchfulness in the air.

The day after his journey to St. Ives, the _Nonesuch_ sailed again for Roscoff. At the last moment he decided not to command her this trip; but turned the business over to his mate, Seth Rogers--a very dependable man, though not clever at all. So away she went, leaving the Cove empty but for himself only and Bessie Bussow and Tummels, that lived in a freehold cottage on his savings and didn't draw a regular wage, but only took a hand in a run when he chose. Moreover, Tummels had never sailed for years past but in the _Black Joke_, and the _Black Joke_ was taken and her crew in prison or in hiding.

Phoby would lief enough have seen Tummels' back. For the job he meditated the man was not only worse than useless, but might even spy on him and carry warning. His plan was to get the sunk crop of brandy round to St.

Ives, deliver it to Squire Stephens, and, at the same time, under cover of the business, make sure of Dan'l's being at Stack's Folly, and treat with him, under threats, to give up claim upon his sweetheart. To this end, one night while Tummels was sleeping, he unmoored the _Fly_ tender--a twenty-foot open boat carrying two sprit-sails, owned by him and Dan'l in common, and used for all manner of odd jobs--worked her down to Old Lizard Head single-handed, and crept up to the sunk crop of brandy.

Back-breaking work it was to heave the kegs on board; but in an hour before midnight he had stowed the lot and was steering for St. Ives with a stiffish breeze upon his port quarter. The weather couldn't have served him better. By daylight the _Fly_ was rounding in for St. Ives Quay, having sunk her crop again off the mouth of a handy cave on the town side of Treryn Dinas; and Phoby Geen stepped ash.o.r.e and ordered breakfast at the George and Dragon before stepping up to talk with Squire Stephens.

In the meantime, Tummels, waking up at four in the morning, as his custom was, and taking a look out of window, missed the _Fly_ from her moorings, which caused him to scratch his head and think hard for ten minutes.

Then he washed and t.i.tivated himself and walked down to the Kiddlywink.

"Hullo, Tummels!" said Bessie Bussow, hearing his footstep on the pebbles, and popping her old head out of window, nightcap and all. "What fetches you abroad so early?"