With Wolfe in Canada Part 15

"Luck's against us," the skipper said bitterly. "Down with the sail, lads. This time it is all up with us."

The sail was lowered, and the lugger lay motionless in the water, until the cutter came up and lay within fifty yards of her. A boat was at once lowered, and an officer was rowed to the lugger.

"So we have caught you, my friends, at last," he said, as he sprang on board.

"You wouldn't have done it, if it had not been for the frigate," the skipper said.

"No; I will say your craft sails like a witch," the officer replied. "I wish we could have done it without her. It will make all the difference to us. The frigate will get the lion's share of the prize. What is the value of your cargo?"

"Two hundred kegs of brandy," the skipper replied, "and fifteen hundred pounds' worth of lace and silks."

"A good prize," the officer said. "Not your own, I hope, for you have made a brave chase of it."

"No," the skipper answered. "Fortunately, I only took a very small share this time. It's bad enough to lose my boat; I own two-thirds of her."

"I am sorry for you," the officer said, for he was in high spirits at the success of the chase, and could afford to be pleasant. "Here comes a boat from the frigate. You played them a rare trick, and might have got off, if it hadn't been for that lucky shot of ours.

"I see you were just getting out a stern chaser," and he pointed to the gun. "It is well for you that you didn't fire it, as you can't be charged with armed resistance."

"I wish I had fired it, for all that. It might have been my luck to cripple you."

"It would have made no difference if you had," the officer replied. "The frigate would have overhauled you. With this wind she would sail five feet to your four."

The boat from the frigate now came alongside.

"How are you, Cotterel?" the officer said, as he stepped on board. "That was a lucky shot of yours; but I think it's lucky for the lugger that you hit her, for the captain was so savage, at that trick they played him, that I believe he would have sunk her when he came up to her again. I heard him say to the first lieutenant, 'I won't give her a chance to play me such a trick again.'"

"What orders have you brought?" the other asked.

"We are outward bound, so you are to put a crew on board and take her into port; but, as we are very short of hands, we will relieve you of the prisoners."

All on board the lugger were at once ordered into the frigate's boat, and were rowed off to the ship. On gaining the deck, they were drawn up in line, and the captain and first lieutenant came up. The good humour of the former had been restored by the capture of the lugger.

"Hallo!" he said, looking at the bandaged heads and arms of some of the men, "so you have been having a fight trying to run your cargo, I suppose. That will make it all the worse for you, when you get on sh.o.r.e. Now, I might press you all without giving you a choice, but I don't want unwilling hands, so I will leave it to you. Which is it to be--an English prison for two or three years, or a cruise on board the Thetis?"

The greater part of the men at once stepped forward, and announced their willingness to volunteer.

"Who have we here," the captain asked, looking at the three countrymen.

"They are pa.s.sengers, sir," the skipper of the lugger said, with a half smile.

A few questions brought to light the facts of the surprise while the cargo was being landed.

"Well, my lads," the captain said, "you are in the same boat with the rest. You were engaged in an unlawful enterprise, and in resisting his majesty's officers. You will get some months in prison anyhow, if you go back. You had better stay on board, and let me make men of you."

The countrymen, however, preferred a prison to a man o' war.

James Walsham had been turning over the matter in his mind. He had certainly taken no part in the fray, but that would be difficult to prove, and he could not account for his presence except by acknowledging that he was there to warn them. It would certainly be a case of imprisonment. Surely, it would be better to volunteer than this. He had been longing for the sea, and here an opportunity opened for him for abandoning the career his mother intended for him, without setting himself in opposition to her wishes. Surely she would prefer that he should be at sea for a year or two to his being disgraced by imprisonment. He therefore now stepped forward.

"I do not belong to the lugger's crew, sir, and had nothing to do with running their cargo, though I own I was on the spot at the time. I am not a sailor, though I have spent a good deal of time on board fishing boats. Mr. Horton, whom I see there, knows me, and will tell you that I am a son of a doctor in Sidmouth. But, as I have got into a sc.r.a.pe, I would rather serve than go back and stand a trial."

"Very well, my lad," the captain said. "I like your spirit, and will keep my eye on you."

The three countrymen and four of the French sailors, who declined to join the Thetis, were taken back to the cutter, and the Thetis at once proceeded on her way down channel. James had given a hastily scribbled line, on the back of an old letter which he happened to have in his pocket, to the men who were to be taken ash.o.r.e, but he had very little hope that it would ever reach his mother. Nor, indeed, did it ever do so. When the cutter reached Weymouth with the lugger, the men captured in her were at once sent to prison, where they remained until they were tried at a.s.sizes three months afterwards; and, although all were acquitted of the charge of unlawful resistance to the king's officers, as there was no proof against any of the six men individually, they were sentenced to a year's imprisonment for smuggling.

Whether Jim's hurriedly written letter was thrown overboard, or whether it was carried in the pocket of the man to whom he gave it until worn into fragments, James never knew, but it never reached his mother.

The news that James was missing was brought to her upon the day after the event by Mr. Wilks. He had, as usual, gone down after breakfast to report how Aggie was getting on, with a message from his mother that her charge was now so completely restored that it was unnecessary for her to stay longer at the Hall, and that she should come home that evening at her usual time. Hearing from the girl that James had not returned since he went out at nine o'clock on the previous evening, the old soldier sauntered down to the beach, to inquire of the fishermen in whose boat James had gone out.

To his surprise, he found that none of the boats had put to sea the evening before. The men seemed less chatty and communicative than usual. Most of them were preparing to go out with their boats, and none seemed inclined to enter into a conversation. Rather wondering at their unusual reticence, Mr. Wilks strolled along to where the officer of the revenue men was standing, with his boatswain, watching the fishermen.

"A fine morning, lieutenant."

"Yes," the latter a.s.sented. "There will be wind presently. Have you heard of the doings of last night?"

"No," Mr. Wilks said in surprise, "I have heard nothing. I was just speaking to the fishermen, but they don't seem in as communicative a mood as usual this morning."

"The scamps know it is safest for them to keep their mouths shut, just at present," the officer said grimly. "I have no doubt a good many of them were concerned in that affair last night. We had a fight with the smugglers. Two of my men were shot and one of theirs, and there were a good many cutla.s.s wounds on each side. We have taken a score of prisoners, but they are all country people who were a.s.sisting in the landing; the smugglers themselves all got off. We made a mess of the affair altogether, thanks to some fellow who rushed down and gave the alarm, and upset all the plans we had laid.

"It is too provoking. I had got news of the exact spot and hour at which the landing was to take place. I had my men all up on the cliff, and, as the fellows came up with kegs, they were to have been allowed to get a hundred yards or so inland and would there have been seized, and any shout they made would not have been heard below. Lieutenant Fisher, with his party from the next station, was to be a little way along at the foot of the cliffs, and when the boats came with the second batch, he was to rush forward and capture them, while we came down from above. Then we intended to row off and take the lugger. There was not wind enough for her to get away.

"All was going well, and the men were just coming up the cliff with the tubs, when someone who had pa.s.sed us on the cliff ran down shouting the alarm. We rushed down at once, but arrived too late. They showed fight, and kept us back till Fisher's party came up; but by that time the boats were afloat, and the smugglers managed to get in and carry them off, in spite of us. We caught, as I tell you, some of the countrymen, and Fisher has taken them off to Weymouth, but most of them got away. There are several places where the cliff can be climbed by men who know it, and I have no doubt half those fishermen you see there were engaged in the business."

"Then the smuggler got away?" Mr. Wilks asked.

"I don't know," the lieutenant said shortly. "I had sent word to Weymouth, and I hope they will catch her in the offing. The lugger came down this way first, but we made her out, and showed a blue light. She must have turned and gone back again, for this morning at daylight we made her out to the east. The cutter was giving chase, and at first ran down fast towards her. Then the smugglers got the wind, and the last we saw of them they were running up the Channel, the cutter some three miles astern.

"I would give a couple of months' pay to know who it was that gave the alarm. I expect it was one of those fishermen. As far as my men could make out in the darkness, the fellow was dressed as a sailor. But I must say good morning, for I am just going to turn in."

Mr. Wilks had been on the point of mentioning that James was missing, but a vague idea that he might, in some way, be mixed up with the events of the previous night, checked the question on his lips; and yet he thought, as the officer walked away, it was not probable. Had James been foolish enough to take part in such a business, he would either have been taken prisoner, or would, after he escaped, have returned home. He had evidently not been taken prisoner, or the officer would have been sure to mention it.

Much puzzled, he walked slowly back to the fishermen. Some of the boats had already pushed off. He went up to three of the men, whose boat, being higher up than the rest, would not be afloat for another quarter of an hour.

"Look here, lads," he said. "My young friend Jim Walsham is missing this morning, and hasn't been at home all night. As none of the fishing boats put out in the evening he cannot have gone to sea. Can any of you tell me anything about him?"

The men gave no answer.

"You need not be afraid of speaking to me, you know," he went on, "and it's no business of mine whether any of the men on the sh.o.r.e were concerned in that affair. The lieutenant has just been telling me of last night; but hearing of that, and finding Jim is missing, I can't help thinking there is some connection between the two things. Nothing you say to me will go further, that I can promise you; but the lad's mother will be in a terrible way. I can't make it out, for I know that, if he had anything to do with this smuggling business, he would have told me. Again, if he was there and got away, he would naturally have come straight home, for his absence would only throw suspicion upon him."

"Well, Mr. Wilks," the youngest of the sailors said, "I don't know nothing about it myself. No one does, so far as I know, but I have heard say this morning as how he was there or thereabouts; but don't you let out as I told you, 'cause they would want to know who I heard it from."

"You can rely upon my silence, my lad, and here's half a guinea to drink my health between you. But can't you tell me a little more?"

"Well, sir, they do say as how it war Mr. Jim as came running down into the middle of them on the beach, shouting the alarm, with the revenue men close at his heels. I don't say as it were he--likely enough it weren't--but that's the talk, and that's all I have heared about the matter. How he came for to know of it, or how he got there, no one knows, for sartin he has had nought to do with any landings afore. He was a lot among us, but I know as he never was told about it; for, though everyone would have trusted Jim, still, seeing how he was placed, with his mother up at the Hall, and the squire a magistrate, it was thought better as he shouldn't be let into it. Everyone on the sh.o.r.e here likes Jim."

"But if he was there, and he hasn't been taken prisoner--and I am sure the lieutenant would have told me if he was--why shouldn't he have got home?"

"We didn't know as he hadn't got home, did us, Bill?" the fisherman appealed to one of his comrades.