CHAPTER 5
The apparition of a file of soldiers
ringing down the butt-ends of their loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the
dinner-party to rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering
the kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of
“Gracious goodness gracious me, what’s gone—with the—pie!”
The sergeant and I were in the kitchen
when Mrs. Joe stood staring; at which crisis I partially recovered the use of
my senses. It was the sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking
round at the company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his
right hand, and his left on my shoulder.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said
the sergeant, “but as I have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver”
(which he hadn’t), “I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the
blacksmith.”
“And pray what might you want with him?”
retorted my sister, quick to resent his being wanted at all.
“Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant,
“speaking for myself, I should reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine
wife’s acquaintance; speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done.”
This was received as rather neat in the
sergeant; insomuch that Mr Pumblechook cried audibly, “Good again!”
“You see, blacksmith,” said the sergeant,
who had by this time picked out Joe with his eye, “we have had an accident with
these, and I find the lock of one of ‘em goes wrong, and the coupling don’t act
pretty. As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over
them?”
Joe threw his eye over them, and
pronounced that the job would necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and
would take nearer two hours than one, “Will it? Then will you set about it at
once, blacksmith?” said the off-hand sergeant, “as it’s on his Majesty’s
service. And if my men can beat a hand anywhere, they’ll make themselves useful.”
With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the kitchen one after
another, and piled their arms in a corner. And then they stood about, as
soldiers do; now, with their hands loosely clasped before them; now, resting a
knee or a shoulder; now, easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door to
spit stiffly over their high stocks, out into the yard.
All these things I saw without then
knowing that I saw them, for I was in an agony of apprehension. But, beginning
to perceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so
far got the better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a
little more of my scattered wits.
“Would you give me the Time?” said the
sergeant, addressing himself to Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative
powers justified the inference that he was equal to the time.
“It’s just gone half-past two.”
“That’s not so bad,” said the sergeant,
reflecting; “even if I was forced to halt here nigh two hours, that’ll do. How
far might you call yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I
reckon?”
“Just a mile,” said Mrs. Joe.
“That’ll do. We begin to close in upon ‘em
about dusk. A little before dusk, my orders are. That’ll do.”
“Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle, in
a matter-of-course way.
“Ay!” returned the sergeant, “two. They’re
pretty well known to be out on the marshes still, and they won’t try to get
clear of ‘em before dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?”
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with
confidence. Nobody thought of me.
“Well!” said the sergeant, “they’ll find
themselves trapped in a circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now,
blacksmith! If you’re ready, his Majesty the King is.”
Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and
cravat off, and his leather apron on, and passed into the forge. One of the
soldiers opened its wooden windows, another lighted the fire, another turned to
at the bellows, the rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then
Joe began to hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on.
The interest of the impending pursuit not
only absorbed the general attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew
a pitcher of beer from the cask, for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to
take a glass of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, “Give him wine, Mum.
I’ll engage there’s no Tar in that:” so, the sergeant thanked him and said that
as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it was equally
convenient. When it was given him, he drank his Majesty’s health and
Compliments of the Season, and took it all at a mouthful and smacked his lips.
“Good stuff, eh, sergeant?” said Mr.
Pumblechook.
“I’ll tell you something,” returned the
sergeant; “I suspect that stuff’s of your providing.”
Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh,
said, “Ay, ay? Why?”
“Because,” returned the sergeant, clapping
him on the shoulder, “you’re a man that knows what’s what.”
“D’ye think so?” said Mr. Pumblechook,
with his former laugh. “Have another glass!”
“With you. Hob and nob,” returned the
sergeant. “The top of mine to the foot of yours—the foot of yours to the top of
mine—Ring once, ring twice—the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health.
May you live a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort
than you are at the present moment of your life!”
The sergeant tossed off his glass again
and seemed quite ready for another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his
hospitality appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took
the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a gush
of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine that he even
called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the same liberality,
when the first was gone.
As I watched them while they all stood
clustering about the forge, enjoying themselves so much, I thought what
terrible good sauce for a dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They
had not enjoyed themselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was brightened
with the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively
anticipation of “the two villains” being taken, and when the bellows seemed to
roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke to hurry away in
pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them, and all the murky shadows on
the wall to shake at them in menace as the blaze rose and sank and the red-hot
sparks dropped and died, the pale after-noon outside, almost seemed in my
pitying young fancy to have turned pale on their account, poor wretches.
At last, Joe’s job was done, and the
ringing and roaring stopped. As Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to
propose that some of us should go down with the soldiers and see what came of
the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and
ladies’ society; but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was
agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got
leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe’s curiosity to know all about it and
how it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, “If you bring the boy back with
his head blown to bits by a musket, don’t look to me to put it together again.”
The sergeant took a polite leave of the
ladies, and parted from Mr. Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he
were quite as fully sensible of that gentleman’s merits under arid conditions,
as when something moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in.
Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and to
speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in the raw air
and were steadily moving towards our business, I treasonably whispered to Joe,
“I hope, Joe, we shan’t find them.” and Joe whispered to me, “I’d give a
shilling if they had cut and run, Pip.”
We were joined by no stragglers from the
village, for the weather was cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing
bad, darkness coming on, and the people had good fires in-doors and were
keeping the day. A few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us,
but none came out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the
churchyard. There, we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from the
sergeant’s hand, while two or three of his men dispersed themselves among the
graves, and also examined the porch. They came in again without finding
anything, and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the gate at the
side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us here on the
east wind, and Joe took me on his back.
Now that we were out upon the dismal
wilderness where they little thought I had been within eight or nine hours and
had seen both men hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if
we should come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who
had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving imp, and
he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the hunt against him.
Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in treacherous earnest, and had
betrayed him?
It was of no use asking myself this
question now. There I was, on Joe’s back, and there was Joe beneath me,
charging at the ditches like a hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble
on his Roman nose, and to keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us,
extending into a pretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were
taking the course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist.
Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had dispelled it. Under the
low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the mound of the
Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain, though all of a
watery lead colour.
With my heart thumping like a blacksmith
at Joe’s broad shoulder, I looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I
could see none, I could hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than
once, by his blowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time,
and could dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful start,
when I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a sheep bell. The
sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at us; and the cattle, their
heads turned from the wind and sleet, stared angrily as if they held us
responsible for both annoyances; but, except these things, and the shudder of
the dying day in every blade of grass, there was no break in the bleak
stillness of the marshes.
The soldiers were moving on in the
direction of the old Battery, and we were moving on a little way behind them,
when, all of a sudden, we all stopped. For, there had reached us on the wings
of the wind and rain, a long shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance
towards the east, but it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more
shouts raised together—if one might judge from a confusion in the sound.
To this effect the sergeant and the
nearest men were speaking under their breath, when Joe and I came up. After
another moment’s listening, Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle
(who was a bad judge) agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the
sound should not be answered, but that the course should be changed, and that
his men should make towards it “at the double.” So we slanted to the right
(where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had to hold
on tight to keep my seat.
It was a run indeed now, and what Joe
called, in the only two words he spoke all the time, “a Winder.” Down banks and
up banks, and over gates, and splashing into dykes, and breaking among coarse
rushes: no man cared where he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it
became more and more apparent that it was made by more than one voice.
Sometimes, it seemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. When it
broke out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate than ever, and we
after them. After a while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one voice
calling “Murder!” and another voice, “Convicts! Runaways! Guard! This way for the
runaway convicts!” Then both voices would seem to be stifled in a struggle, and
then would break out again. And when it had come to this, the soldiers ran like
deer, and Joe too.
The sergeant ran in first, when we had run
the noise quite down, and two of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces
were cocked and levelled when we all ran in.
“Here are both men!” panted the sergeant,
struggling at the bottom of a ditch. “Surrender, you two! and confound you for
two wild beasts! Come asunder!”
Water was splashing, and mud was flying,
and oaths were being sworn, and blows were being struck, when some more men
went down into the ditch to help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my
convict and the other one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and
struggling; but of course I knew them both directly.
“Mind!” said my convict, wiping blood from
his face with his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “I
took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!”
“It’s not much to be particular about,”
said the sergeant; “it’ll do you small good, my man, being in the same plight
yourself. Handcuffs there!”
“I don’t expect it to do me any good. I
don’t want it to do me more good than it does now,” said my convict, with a
greedy laugh. “I took him. He knows it. That’s enough for me.”
The other convict was livid to look at,
and, in addition to the old bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised
and torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they
were both separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from
falling.
“Take notice, guard—he tried to murder
me,” were his first words.
“Tried to murder him?” said my convict,
disdainfully. “Try, and not do it? I took him, and giv’ him up; that’s what I
done. I not only prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him
here—dragged him this far on his way back. He’s a gentleman, if you please,
this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder
him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag him
back!”
The other one still gasped, “He tried—he
tried—to—murder me. Bear—bear witness.”
“Lookee here!” said my convict to the
sergeant. “Single-handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I
done it. I could ha’ got clear of these death-cold flats likewise—look at my
leg: you won’t find much iron on it—if I hadn’t made the discovery that he was
here. Let him go free? Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make
a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at the
bottom there;” and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his manacled
hands; “I’d have held to him with that grip, that you should have been safe to
find him in my hold.”
The other fugitive, who was evidently in
extreme horror of his companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I should
have been a dead man if you had not come up.”
“He lies!” said my convict, with fierce
energy. “He’s a liar born, and he’ll die a liar. Look at his face; ain’t it
written there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.”
The other, with an effort at a scornful
smile—which could not, however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into
any set expression—looked at the soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and
at the sky, but certainly did not look at the speaker.
“Do you see him?” pursued my convict. “Do
you see what a villain he is? Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes?
That’s how he looked when we were tried together. He never looked at me.”
The other, always working and working his
dry lips and turning his eyes restlessly about him far and near, did at last
turn them for a moment on the speaker, with the words, “You are not much to
look at,” and with a half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my
convict became so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him
but for the interposition of the soldiers. “Didn’t I tell you,” said the other
convict then, “that he would murder me, if he could?” And any one could see
that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon his lips, curious white
flakes, like thin snow.
“Enough of this parley,” said the
sergeant. “Light those torches.”
As one of the soldiers, who carried a
basket in lieu of a gun, went down on his knee to open it, my convict looked
round him for the first time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe’s back on the
brink of the ditch when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him
eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had
been waiting for him to see me, that I might try to assure him of my innocence.
It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my intention, for
he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But
if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have remembered
his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive.
The soldier with the basket soon got a
light, and lighted three or four torches, and took one himself and distributed
the others. It had been almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and
soon afterwards very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers
standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches
kindled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite
bank of the river. “All right,” said the sergeant. “March.”
We had not gone far when three cannon were
fired ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear.
“You are expected on board,” said the sergeant to my convict; “they know you
are coming. Don’t straggle, my man. Close up here.”
The two were kept apart, and each walked
surrounded by a separate guard. I had hold of Joe’s hand now, and Joe carried
one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to
see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now,
mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dyke
came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When I looked
round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The torches we carried,
dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too,
lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our
lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners
seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets.
We could not go fast, because of their lameness; and they were so spent, that
two or three times we had to halt while they rested.
After an hour or so of this travelling, we
came to a rough wooden hut and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut,
and they challenged, and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut
where there was a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a
lamp, and a stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an
overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen
soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in their great-coats,
were not much interested in us, but just lifted their heads and took a sleepy
stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant made some kind of report, and some
entry in a book, and then the convict whom I call the other convict was drafted
off with his guard, to go on board first.
My convict never looked at me, except that
once. While we stood in the hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully
at it, or putting up his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully
at them as if he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned
to the sergeant, and remarked:
“I wish to say something respecting this
escape. It may prevent some persons laying under suspicion alonger me.”
“You can say what you like,” returned the
sergeant, standing coolly looking at him with his arms folded, “but you have no
call to say it here. You’ll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear
about it, before it’s done with, you know.”
“I know, but this is another pint, a
separate matter. A man can’t starve; at least I can’t. I took some wittles, up
at the willage over yonder—where the church stands a’most out on the marshes.”
“You mean stole,” said the sergeant.
“And I’ll tell you where from. From the
blacksmith’s.”
“Halloa!” said the sergeant, staring at
Joe.
“Halloa, Pip!” said Joe, staring at me.
“It was some broken wittles—that’s what it
was—and a dram of liquor, and a pie.”
“Have you happened to miss such an article
as a pie, blacksmith?” asked the sergeant, confidentially.
“My wife did, at the very moment when you
came in. Don’t you know, Pip?”
“So,” said my convict, turning his eyes on
Joe in a moody manner, and without the least glance at me; “so you’re the
blacksmith, are you? Than I’m sorry to say, I’ve eat your pie.”
“God knows you’re welcome to it—so far as
it was ever mine,” returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. “We
don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to death for
it, poor miserable fellow-creatur.—Would us, Pip?”
The something that I had noticed before,
clicked in the man’s throat again, and he turned his back. The boat had
returned, and his guard were ready, so we followed him to the landing-place
made of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed
by a crew of convicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or
interested in seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a
word, except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, “Give way, you!”
which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the torches, we
saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a
wicked Noah’s ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the
prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the
boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the
ends of the torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it
were all over with him.
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