“They didn’t put me in the ditch, sir,” said I; “I got there out of their way, sir. Don’t let ’em get at me, please, sir. They’re a-goin to settle me if they ketches hold on me, as you might have heard them say if you was close enough.”
“Well, I thought I heard something of the sort,” replied the game-keeper—for such the reader has, of course, made out the man with the shaggy coat and the gun to be;—“but what are you tryin’ to get away from ’em, that’s what I want to know? What is it that they threaten to settle you for?”
“’Cos I’ve bowled ’em out, sir. I didn’t mean to do it—leastwise, I didn’t think that that was what I was a-doin’ when I did it—but I bowled ’em out, and they’re arter me to settle me ’cos they thinks as I’m goin’ to split on ’em.”
“Bowled ’em out in what? What game have they been up to? Poaching?”
“Wuss than that, sir,” I replied, a new fit of trembling assailing me as a picture of the awful white hand rose before me. “They’ve been up to murder.”
“What!”
“Murder, sir. They’ve got the man wot they murdered in the cart with ’em; he’s tied up in a sack. I seed his hand. That’s how I came to bowl ’em out”
The cart was not yet so far away but that in the silence of the night the noise made by its wheels could be faintly heard. The gamekeeper was in a state of tremendous excitement, which was momentarily increased by his indecision as to what was best to be done. His first idea was to run after the vehicle; indeed, he had taken a dozen strides before he saw the uselessness of such a proceeding.
“Got the murdered man’s body in the cart, young ’un—you’re sure of that? You saw it, you say?”
“I saw its hand. I cut a hole in the sack to see what was in it, and the hand fell out on mine.”
“I’m afraid it’s true as he tells it,” said the perplexed gamekeeper, half aloud, “it sounds true, but blessed if I know what to do.” Then, turning to me, said he—
“Since you know all about ’em, you can tell me where they are bound for, boy.”
“For London, sir—for Chicksand Street, Camberwell, sir—that’s where Mr. Belcher lives, sir.” “How do you make that out?” returned the man, suspiciously; “that last’s a lie, anyhow. They’re a-goin’ right away from London.”
“Yes, sir, but they’re coming back,” I explained. “They’ve on’y turned round on the road; they was a-goin’ to look arter me ’cos I slipped over the back of the cart. They’re sure to be back directly, sir. Pray don’t let ’em ketch me.” “Coming back, are they? o—oh, that rather alters the look of the case. What you mean to say is, that when they find that you have given ’em the slip, they’ll turn about again.”
“No doubt on it, sir.”
“Then if they’ll only be good enough to put off coming back for about seven minutes, I think we can arrange a meetin’ with ’em,” observed the gamekeeper, delighted at the prospect of circumventing two such scoundrels.
Still keeping hold of my hand he jumped the ditch again, and entered at the gap in the hedge which brought us into a sort of plantation. Here he took a little whistle from his pocket, and blew twice on it in a peculiar manner, and after repeating the signal it was replied to in the same sort, by some one evidently some distance away.
“Tom’s over in the Briars, I hoped he wasn’t so far off,” spoke the gamekeeper, and once more he blew the whistle twice sharply and impatiently, so that Tom in the Briars might understand that he had better be quick.
No answer came to the last whistle, and it was evident from my friend’s impatient stepping this way and that, and listening first with his left ear and then with his right as it were, that he was in a tremendous fidget lest the men in the cart should win the race.
“I’ll have a slap at ’em if I have to do it single,” muttered he, “if they won’t stop the horse, I’ll bring him up lame.” And he handled his gun determinedly.
In a little while, however, his quick ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps through the wood, and the next moment two great dogs came trotting up to where we were standing, speedily followed by Tom. The dogs seemed disposed to treat me as “varmint,” and to that end one of them proceeded to possess himself of a mouthful of my trousers, but the keeper kicked him off and he slunk to the rear.
“Now,” said the gamekeeper, number one, “just you tell Tom here what you’ve told me—no more and no less—and be quick about it.”
No more and no less I repeated to Tom, what I had previously stated to his companion.
“You’re sure they’ll come back, youngster?” said Tom.
“Certain—unless there’s another road they can go to London by,” I replied.
“Then we shall nab ’em, for there ain’t no other road,” answered Thomas, the gamekeeper.
“Hark!” said I, “they’re coming back, I think.” My ears were quick enough to detect the approach of the men I held in such terror.
“That’s the cart, sure enough. How shall we manage?”
“You keep in the shade ready for a spring out when you’re wanted, and I’ll stop ’em,” replied Tom, hurriedly.
“And the dogs!”
“Ah! confound the dogs, I forgot them, they’ll make a mess of it if we don’t mind. Here! I’ve got it. You want taking care of too, young ’un, and we’ll kill two birds with one shot. Sit down here.”
I sat down.
“Duke! Slot! mind him.” And one on either side of me the dogs crouched down with a move-if-you-dare expression in their eyes, it was quite unnecessary for them to repeat.
All these little arrangements did not take so long to make as they do to write, no, nor a quarter the time. Nevertheless, time sufficient had elapsed to enable the brown mare to lessen by at least half the distance that parted us when I first heard her returning. It was plain, that, unable to discover me, my master dreaded the worst, and he was making up for lost time at the mare’s top speed. Under any circumstances, to get back to London and home was of the first importance.
From where I was sitting I could obtain an indistinct glimpse of the road through the hedge, and I saw the figure of one of my friends stalk to the middle of the road, and there drop down on one knee right in the path of the horse who came tearing along. The clatter of hoofs and wheels seemed so close that I thought, to be sure, the man in the road must be trampled over, when with awful suddenness a flash of light lit up the dark road, followed immediately by the loud report of a-gun.
My first thought was that my friends had adopted no less certain means of arresting the villains in the cart than by shooting them, or at least that they had shot the mare as Joe had hinted that he would; but the dogs being for a moment mazed by hearing the gun, I ventured to raise my head a little, and then the sight that met my gaze was one of a very lively kind. The brown mare rearing her highest, and frightened out of her wits by the flash and the explosion, (just indeed as Master Tom hoped it would happen,) and fighting hard against the grip that one of the gamekeepers had on her bit, the other gamekeeper with his gun in one hand and his lantern in the other, with the light thrown full on the faces of the affrighted sweeps, one of whom, Ned Perks, I think, handled the whip, thong in hand, and swore a string of terrible oaths that if the man who held the mare’s head did not leave go, he would smash his brain-pan. Mr. Belcher affected coolness.
“What game’s this, mates,” he exclaimed, with an attempt at a laugh, “if you must play at highwaymen, you might find somebody to stop better off than a couple of chimbley-sweeps. Take yer-selves off now, afore yer gets into trouble. Leave go her head, you sir! She’ll be atop of yer else.”