The Captain, thinking of the Squire, smiled reluctantly. “I suppose he wouldn’t.”
“Besides,” said Chirk, stripping his greatcoat from Mollie’s back, and shrugging himself into it, “while we was about it, it would have been a crying shame not to have made a regular sweep of it! Don’t you go napping your bib over that young weasel, Soldier, because the only difference twixt him and Coate was that he was hen-hearted, and Coate weren’t!” He hoisted himself into the saddle. “I daresay the cob won’t founder under you, if you throw your leg acrost him,” he observed, handing this sturdy animal’s bridle to John. “ ’Least, not before we get back to the Redbreast, though I wouldn’t ask him to carry you further, me being a merciful man.”
“Did you have any trouble with Stogumber?” asked John, mounting the cob.
“Not to speak of, I didn’t, excepting how to get him over a hedge, him not being in the habit of it. If it’s all one to you, Soldier, we’ll take him back by way of the road.” He said over his shoulder, as the mare moved forward: “He ain’t a bad cove—for a trap! Him and me got talking while we was waiting for you and Stornaway, and I’m bound to say he’s got a lot of useful ideas in his noddle. We got it settled all right and tight how I come to be mixed up in this business, and a rare Banbury story it is! ’Cos the Redbreast don’t want it known what my lay is, and no more I don’t neither.” He looked over his shoulder again. “Lordy, to think I’ll be setting up respectable, with Rose, before the cat can lick her ear! When the Redbreast told me how much gelt them chubs in Lunnon will pay down for getting the chests back, it made me feel pretty near as queer as Dick’s hatband, ’cos I wasn’t expecting it, nothing like it, I wasn’t! Seems they pays ten percent, which is very handsome of ’em, I will say. And I owes it all to you, Soldier, which is why I sent Stornaway to roost, not being able to think of nothing else I could do for you!”
This made John laugh; and he was still chuckling when they rejoined Stogumber by the cavern-mouth. That gentleman, receiving his mount from him, said austerely that he was happy to see him in such high gig, and had little doubt that he would find something to amuse him, even if he were on his way to the gallows. “Which, from what I seen of you, is where you’ll find yourself one of these days!” he added, climbing laboriously into the saddle, and groping for his stirrups. “And I ain’t going to pull this nag over any more banks, so mark that!”
“No, no, we’ll follow the road!” John said soothingly. “Let’s be off! I don’t know for how long we were in the cavern, but it seems an age since I entered it. I left Ben to mind the gate, too, so I daresay I am quite in his black books by this time.”
But when they came within sight of the toll-gate there was no sign of Ben. An animated group was gathered about the immaculate person of Mr. Babbacombe, and it included, besides a spare man in his Sunday blacks, a burly farmer, driving a cow with her calf; a groom in charge of a gig; Rose Durward; and Nell. Most of these persons appeared to be engaged in acrimonious discussion, but the approach, beyond the gate, of a cavalcade, consisting of three riders and two led horses, caused them to abate their strife. They all turned to see who could be coming to the pike in such force.
“What the devil’s the matter?” demanded the Captain, dismounting, and pulling open the gate to allow Stogumber and Chirk, who was leading Stornaway’s horse, to pass.
An outraged cry broke from the man in black. “Just as I thought! How dare you open that gate, fellow? How dare you, I say?”
“Why shouldn’t I open the gate?” asked John. “I’m it’s keeper!”
“Oh, no, you are not!” declared the spare man furiously. “You’re an impostor and a rascal! And as for that impudent counter-coxcomb there, it’s very plain to me that he’s a court-card, or worse!”
“Then let me tell you, you nasty, distempered old freak,” struck in Rose, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed, “that it’s very plain to me that you’re a vulgar, uncivil make-bait, and if no one else will slap your Friday-face for you, I will!”
“Oh, Rose, pray hush!” begged Nell, between amusement and dismay. “For heaven’s sake, John—!”
“I’ll slap his face for you, Miss Durward, and glad to do it!” offered the farmer. “What call has he to come here, poking his Malmsey-nose into what ain’t none of his business? Threepence for every head of horned cattle! that’s what it says on the board, and threepence I paid the gentleman! What’s more, I’ll pay him threepence more if there’s any one of you can find a horn on the calf’s head!”
“Damn you, Jack, I knew I should catch cold if I let you bamboozle me into staying here!” said the harassed Mr. Babbacombe. “Where the devil have you been? No, never mind telling me! What ought this fellow to be charged for his calf? I’ll be hanged if I know! You can’t get away from it: not a sign of a horn on its head!”
“Quibbling! Mere quibbling!” cried the spare man. “You’re in a plot to cheat the tolls! Don’t tell me!”
“I do believe as he’s an Informer!” said the farmer, staring very hard at the spare man. “Let’s take and pitch him in Bob Huggate’s duck-pond, gov’nor!”
At this point, the Captain, who had so far failed to make himself heard, intervened. Pushing the gate wider, he addressed himself to the farmer. “You be off, with your horned cattle!” he said. “I won’t charge you for the calf, though I daresay I’m wrong.”
“You are wrong!” asserted the spare man, dancing with fury. “My name is Willitoft, sir! Willitoft!”
“Well, don’t take on about it!” recommended Chirk, hitching the bridle of Coate’s horse to the gate post. “No one ain’t blaming you if it is!”
Rose, who had been gazing at him for the last few minutes as though she doubted the evidence of her eyes, exclaimed faintly: “It is you! Whatever are we coming to?” and sat down suddenly on the bench behind her.
“Willitoft!” repeated the spare man. “I represent the Trustees of the Derbyshire Tolls!”
“Oh, lord!” ejaculated the Captain ruefully. “Now the cat’s in the cream-pot!”
“Yes, fellow, it is! Indeed it is!” said Mr. Willitoft. “How dare you let these persons through the pike without payment? Two led horses as well! Three ruffians—ruffians, I say!—and———”
“Give them a couple of tickets, Bab!” said the Captain.
“You keep your tickets for them as may need ’em!” interposed Stogumber, who was still bestriding the landlord’s cob. “I’m employed on Government business, and I don’t pay tolls, not in any county!”
“I don’t believe you!” declared Mr. Willitoft, bristling with suspicion. “You’re a hardened scoundrel! I knew you for a rogue the instant I laid eyes on you!”
“Ho!” said Stogumber. “You did, did you? Then p’raps you’ll be so obliging as to cast your wapper-eyes over that afore you says something as you’ll be sorry for!”
Mr. Willitoft, reading the information inscribed on the grubby sheet of paper handed down to him, looked very much taken aback, and even a little daunted. In a milder tone, he exclaimed: “Bow Street! God bless my soul! Very well, I demand no tax from you! But this fellow here is another matter!” he added, looking with disfavour at Chirk.
“He ain’t neither,” said Stogumber. “He’s working for me.”
“Miss Nell,” said Rose, in a hollow voice, “I am going to have a Spasm! I can feel it coming on!”
“Oh, don’t do that!” said John, who, having tethered his horses, had limped up to them. He took Nell’s hands, and held them in his firm, comforting clasp. “My poor girl!” he said gently. “I wish I might have been beside you when it happened!”
“You know, then? I came to tell you, and to ask you what I should do now. Just at the end, he knew me, and smiled, and, oh, John, he winked at me, and with such, a look in his eye!”
“Did he? What a right one he was!” John said warmly. “He made up his mind he would live to accomplish one task, and, by Jove, he did accomplish it! You mustn’t grieve, my darling: he knew all was well, and he was glad to be done with his life.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling her, sir,” agreed Rose. “Not even Mr. Winkfield wished him to drag on longer! Oh, for goodness’ sake, sir, whatever is my Jerry doing, as bold as brass? Such palpitations as it’s giving me I shall very likely go off in a swoon!”