The Lifeboat Part 13

Soon the three were coursing over the downs like hares. It was difficult running, for the ground was undulating and broken, besides being covered in a few places with gorse, and the wind and rain beat so fiercely on their faces as almost to blind them.

About a mile or so beyond the ruins of Sandown Castle there is an old inn, called the "Checkers of the Hope," or "The Checkers," named after, it is said, and corrupted from, "Chaucer's Inn" at Canterbury. It stands in the midst of the solitary waste; a sort of half-way house between the towns of Sandwich and Deal; far removed from either, however, and quite beyond earshot of any human dwelling. This, so says report, was a celebrated resort of smugglers in days gone by, and of men of the worst character; and as one looks at the irregular old building standing, one might almost say unreasonably, in that wild place, one cannot help feeling that it must have been the scene of many a savage revelry and many a deed of darkness in what are sometimes styled "the good old times."

Some distance beyond this, farther into the midst of the sandhills, there is a solitary tombstone; well known, both by tradition and by the inscription upon it, as "Mary Bax's tomb."

Here Long Orrick resolved to make a stand; knowing that no shout that Rodger might give vent to could reach the Checkers in the teeth of such a gale.

The tale connected with poor Mary Bax is brief and very sad. She lived about the end of the last century, and was a young and beautiful girl.

Having occasion to visit Deal, she set out one evening on her solitary walk across the bleak sandhills. Here she was met by a brutal foreign seaman, a Lascar, who had deserted from one of the ships then lying in the Downs. This monster murdered the poor girl and threw her body into a ditch that lies close to the spot on which her tomb now stands. The deed, as may well be supposed, created great excitement in Deal and the neighbourhood; for Mary Bax, being young, beautiful, and innocent, was well known and much loved.

There was, at the time this murder was perpetrated, a youth named John Winter, who was a devoted admirer of poor Mary. He was much younger than she, being only seventeen, while she was twenty-three. He became almost mad when he heard of the murder. A little brother of John Winter, named David, happened to be going to the Checkers' Inn at the time the murder was committed and witnessed it. He ran instantly to his brother to tell him what he had seen. It was chiefly through the exertions of these two that the murderer was finally brought to justice.

John Winter rested neither night nor day until he tracked the Lascar down, and David identified him. He was hanged on a gallows erected close to the spot where he murdered his innocent victim. On the exact spot where the murder took place Mary's grave was dug, and a tombstone was put up, which may be seen there at the present time, with the following inscription upon it:--

ON THIS SPOT, AUGUST THE 25TH 1782, MARY BAX, SPINSTER, AGED 23 YEARS, WAS MURDERED BY MARTIN LASH, A FOREIGNER, WHO WAS EXECUTED FOR THE SAME.

Poor John Winter left the country immediately after, and did not return until thirty years had elapsed, when the event was forgotten, and most of his old friends and companions were dead or gone abroad. His little brother David was drowned at sea.

This Mary Bax was cousin to the father of John Bax, who figures so conspicuously in our tale.

At the tomb of Mary Bax, then, as we have said, Long Orrick resolved to make a stand. Tommy Bogey had, by taking a short cut round a piece of marshy ground, succeeded in getting a little in advance of Orrick, and, observing that he was running straight towards the tombstone, he leaped into the ditch, the water in which was not deep at the time, and, coursing along the edge of it, reached the rear of the tomb and hid himself there, without having formed any definite idea as to what course he meant to pursue.

Whatever the intentions of the smuggler were, they were effectually frustrated by an apparition which suddenly appeared and struck terror alike to the heart of pursuer and pursued. As Long Orrick approached the tomb there suddenly arose from the earth a tall gaunt figure with silver hair streaming wildly in the gale. To Tommy, who crouched behind the tomb, and Rodger and Orrick, who approached in front, it seemed as if the spirit of the murdered girl had leaped out of the grave. The effect on all three was electrical. Orrick and Rodger, diverging right and left, fled like the wind in opposite directions, and were out of sight in a few seconds, while Tommy, crouching on the ground behind the tomb, trembled in abject terror.

The spirit, if such it was, did not attempt to pursue the fugitives, but turning fiercely towards the boy, seized him by the collar and shook him.

"Oh! mercy! mercy!" cried poor Tommy, whose heart quaked within him.

"Hallo! Tommy Bogey, is it you, boy?" said the spirit, releasing the lad from a grasp that was anything but gentle.

"What! old Jeph, can it be _you_?" exclaimed Tommy, in a tone of intense surprise, as he seated himself on the tombstone, and wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead with the cuff of his coat.

"Ay, it _is_ me," replied the old man, sadly, "although I do sometimes doubt my own existence. It ain't often that I'm interrupted--but what brings ye here, lad, and who were these that I saw running like foul fiends across the sandhills on such a night as this?"

"They were Supple Rodger and Long Orrick," replied Tommy, "and a foul fiend is one of 'em, anyhow, as you'd have found out, old Jeph, if ye'd bin at home this evenin'. As for bein' out on sich a night as this, it seems to me ye han't got much more sense to boast of in this respect than I have. You'll ketch your death o' cold, old man."

"Old man!" echoed Jeph, with a peculiar chuckle. "Ha! yes, I _am_ an old man, and I've bin used to such nights since I wos a _young_ man.

But come away, lad, I'll go home with ye now."

Old Jeph took the boy's hand as he said this, and the two went over the moor together--slowly, for the way was rough and broken, and silently, for the howling of the gale rendered converse almost impossible.

It is not to be supposed that Tommy Bogey had such command over himself, however, as altogether to restrain his curiosity. He did make one or two attempts to induce old Jeph to explain why he was out in such a stormy night, and on such a lonely spot; but the old man refused to be communicative, and finally put a stop to the subject by telling Tommy to let other people's business alone, and asking him how it happened that Long Orrick came to make an attempt on his house, and how it was he failed?

Tommy related all he knew with alacrity and for a time secured old Jeph's attention, as was plain from the way in which he chuckled when he heard how his enemy had been outwitted; but gradually the narrative fell on uninterested ears, and before they regained the town the old man's countenance had become grave and sad, and his mind was evidently wandering among the lights--mayhap among the shadows--of "other days."

CHAPTER NINE.

UNBUSINESSLIKE PROCEEDINGS IN "THE OFFICE"--PEEKINS GROWS DESPERATE AND TAKES REFUGE IN THE "THREE JOLLY TARS."

Mr Denham stood in front of his office fire with a coat-tail, as usual, under each arm; his feet planted on two little roses that grew on each side of a large bouquet which flourished perennially on his rug, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He had just arrived at Redwharf Lane, and looked quite fresh and ruddy from the exercise of walking, for Denham was a great walker, and frequently did the distance between his house and his office on foot.

Mr Crumps sat shivering in his own room, looking the reverse of ruddy, for Crumps was old and his blood was thin, and there was no fire in his room. It is but justice to say, however, that this was no fault of Denham's, for the apartment of his junior partner did not possess a fireplace, and it could not be expected that a fire should be lit, _a la_ Red Indian, on the middle of the floor. At all events Crumps did not expect it. He was not, therefore, liable to disappointment in his expectations. He contented himself, poor old man, with such genial gusts of second-hand warmth as burst in upon him from time to time from Denham's room when the door was open, or poured in upon him in ameliorating rivulets through the keyhole, like a little gulf-stream, when the door was shut.

"The letters, sir," said Peekins, the meek blue tiger in b.u.t.tons, entering at that moment and laying a pile of letters on the table.

Had Peekins been a little dog without a soul, capable of wagging his tail and fawning, Denham would have patted him, but, being only a boy in blue with a meek spirit, the great man paid no attention to him whatever. He continued to gaze at the ceiling as if he were reading his destiny there. Perhaps he would have looked as blank as the ceiling had he known what that destiny was to be; but he did not know, fortunately (or unfortunately, if the reader chooses), hence he turned with a calm undisturbed countenance to peruse his letters after the boy had retired.

We do not say that Denham was a hard man; by no means; he was only peculiar in his views of things in general; that was all!

For some time Denham broke seals, read contents, and made jottings, without any expression whatever on his countenance. Presently he took up an ill-folded epistle addressed to "Mister Denham" in a round and rather rugged hand.

"Begging," he muttered with a slight frown.

"`Dear Uncle' (`eh!' he exclaimed,--turned over the leaf in surprise, read the signature, and turned back to the beginning again, with the least possible tinge of surprise still remaining), `I'm sorry' (humph) `to have to inform you that the _Nancy_ has become a total wreck,'

(`indeed!') `on the Goodwin Sands.' (`Amazing sands these. What a quant.i.ty of wealth they have swallowed up!') `The cargo has been entirely lost,'--(`ah! it was insured to its full value,') `also two of the hands.' (`H'm, their lives wouldn't be insured. These rough creatures never do insure their lives; wonderfully improvident!') `I am at present disabled, from the effects of a blow on the head received during the storm.' (Very awkward; particularly so just now.) `No doubt Bax will be up immediately to give you particulars.'" (Humph!)

"`The cause of the loss of your schooner was, in _my_ opinion,' (Mr Denham's eyebrows here rose in contemptuous surprise), `_unseaworthiness of vessel and stores_.'"

Mr Denham made no comment on this part of the epistle. A dark frown settled on his brow as he crumpled the letter in his hand, dropped it on the ground as if it had been a loathsome creature, and set his foot on it.

Denham was uncommonly gruff and forbidding all that day. He spoke harshly to old Mr Crumps; found fault with the clerks to such an extent, that they began to regard the office as a species of Pandemonium which _ought_ to have smelt sulphurous instead of musty; and rendered the life of Peekins so insupportable that the poor boy occupied his few moments of leisure in speculating on the average duration of human life and wondering whether it would not be better, on the whole, to make himself an exception to the general rule by leaping off London Bridge at high water--blue-tights, b.u.t.tons, and all!

Things continued in this felicitous condition in the office until five in the afternoon, when there was a change, not so much in the moral as in the physical atmosphere. It came in the form of a thick fog, which rolled down the crooked places of Redwharf Lane, poured through keyholes, curled round the cranes on the warehouses, and the old anchors, cables, and buoys in the lumber-yards; travelled over the mudflats, and crept out upon the muddy river among the colliers, rendering light things indistinct, black things blacker, dark places darker, and affording such an opportunity for unrestrained enjoyment to the rats, that these creatures held an absolute carnival everywhere.

About this period of the day Mr Denham rose, put on his hat and greatcoat, and prepared to go. Peekins observed this through a private scratch in the gla.s.s door, and signalised the gladsome news in dumb-show to his comrades. Hope at once took the place of despair in the office, for lads and very young men are happily furnished with extremely elastic spirits. The impulse of joy caused by the prospect of Denham's departure was so strong in the breast of one youth, with red hair, a red nose, red cheeks, large red lips, blue eyes, and red hands (Ruggles by name), that he incontinently seized a sheet of blotting-paper, crumpled it into a ball, and flung it at the head of the youngest clerk, a dark little boy, who sat opposite to him on a tall stool, and who, being a new boy, was copying letters painfully but diligently with a heavy heart.

The missile was well aimed. It hit the new boy exactly on the point of the nose, causing him to start and prolong the tail of a y an inch and a quarter beyond its natural limits.

This little incident would not have been worth mentioning but for the fact that it was the hinge, so to speak, on which incidents of a more important nature turned. Mr Denham happened to open his door just as the missile was discharged and saw the result, though not the thrower.

He had no difficulty, however, in discovering the offender; for each of the other clerks looked at their comrade in virtuous horror, as though to say, "Oh! how could you?--please, sir, it wasn't _me_, it was _him_;"

while Ruggles applied himself to his work with an air of abstraction and a face of scarlet that said plainly, "It's of no use staring in that fashion at me, for I'm as innocent as the unborn babe."

Denham frowned portentously, and that peculiarly dead calm which usually precedes the bursting of a storm prevailed in the office. Before the storm burst, however, the outer door was opened hastily and our friend Bax stood in the room. He was somewhat dishevelled in appearance, as if he had travelled fast. To the clerks in that small office he appeared more fierce and gigantic than usual. Peekins regarded him with undisguised admiration, and wondered in his heart if Jack the Giant-Killer would have dared to encounter such a being, supposing him to have had the chance.

"I'm glad I am not too late to find you here, sir," said Bax, puffing off his hat and bowing slightly to his employer.

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Denham, "step this way."

They entered the inner office, and, the door being shut, Ruggles internally blessed Bax and breathed freely. Under the influence of reaction he even looked defiant.

"So you have lost your schooner," began Denham, sitting down in his chair of state and eyeing the seaman sternly. Bax returned the gaze so much more sternly that Denham felt disconcerted but did not allow his feelings to betray themselves.

"The schooner _has_ been lost," said Bax, "and I am here to report the fact and to present these letters, one from the seamen's missionary at Ramsgate, the other from your nephew, both of which will show you that no blame attaches to me. I regret the loss, deeply, but it was un--"

Bax was going to have said unavoidable, but he felt that the expression would have been incorrect, and stopped.

"Finish your remark," said Denham.