Baring-Gould Sabine
Eve
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TAKEN!
We must go back in time, something like an hour and a half or two hours, and follow the police and warders after they left Morwell, to understand how it happened that Martin fell into their hands. They had retired sulky and grumbling. They had been brought a long way, the two warders a very long way, for nothing. When they reached the down, one of the warders observed that he was darned if he had not turned his ankle on the rough stones of the lane. The other said he reckoned they had been shabbily treated, and it was not his ankle but his stomach had been turned by a glass of cider sent down into emptiness. Some cold beef and bread was what he wanted. Whereat he was snapped at by the other, who advised him to kill one of the bullocks on the moor and make his meal on that.
‘Hearken,’ said Joseph; ‘brothers, an idea has struck me. We have not captured the man, and so we shan’t have the reward.’
‘Has it taken you half an hour to discover that?’
‘Yes,’ answered Joseph simply. ‘Thinking and digesting are much the same. I ain’t a caterpillar that can eat and digest at once.’
‘I wish I’d had another glass of cider,’ said one of the constables, ‘but these folk seemed in a mighty haste to get rid of us.’
‘There is the “Hare and Hounds” at Goatadon,’ said Joseph.
‘That is a long bit out of the road,’ remonstrated the constable.
‘What is time to us police!’ answered Joseph. ‘It is made to be killed, like a flea.’
‘And hops away as fast,’ said another.
‘Let us get back to Tavistock,’ said a warder.
‘Oh, if you wish it,’ answered Joseph; ‘only it do seem a cruel pity.’
‘What is a pity?’
‘Why, that you should ha’ come so far and not seen the greatest wonder of the world.’
‘What may that be?’
‘The fat woman,’ answered Joseph Woodman. ‘The landlady of the “Hare and Hounds.” You might as well go to Egypt and not see the pyramids, or to Rome and not see the Pope, or to London and not see the Tower.’
‘I don’t make any account of fat women,’ said the warder, who had turned his ankle.
‘But this,’ argued Joseph, ‘is a regular marvel. She’s the fattest woman out of a caravan – I believe the fattest in England; I dare say the very fattest in the known world. What there be in the stars I can’t say.’
‘Now,’ said the warder, who had turned his stomach, ‘what do you call fat?’ He was in a captious mood.
‘What do I call fat?’ repeated Joseph; ‘why, that woman. Brother, if you and I were to stretch our arms at the farthest, taking hold of each other with one hand, we couldn’t compass her and take hold with the other.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said the warder emphatically.
‘’Tain’t possible a mortal could be so big,’ said the other warder.
‘I swear it,’ said Joseph with great earnestness.
‘There is never a woman in the world,’ said the warder with the bad ankle, ‘whose waist I couldn’t encircle, and I’ve tried lots.’
‘But I tell you this woman is out of the common altogether.’
‘Have you ever tried?’ sneered the warder with the bad stomach.
‘No, but I’ve measured her with my eye.’
‘The eye is easy deceived as to distances and dimensions. Why, Lord bless you! I’ve seen in a fog a sheep on the moor look as big as a hippopotamus.’
‘But the landlady is not on the moor nor in a fog,’ persisted Joseph. ‘I bet you half-a-guinea, laid out in drink, that ‘tis as I say.’
‘Done!’ said both warders. ‘Done!’ said the constables, and turning to their right, they went off to the ‘Hare and Hounds,’ two miles out of their way, to see the fat woman and test her dimensions.
Now this change in the destination of the party led to the capture of Martin, and to the wounding of the warder who complained of his stomach.
The party reached the little tavern – a poor country inn built where roads crossed – a wretched house, tarred over its stone face as protection against the driving rains. They entered, and the hostess cheerfully consented to having her girth tested. She was accustomed to it. Her fatness was part of her stock-in-trade: it drew customers to the ‘Hare and Hounds’ who otherwise would have gone on to Beer Alston, where was a pretty and pert maid.
Whilst the officers were refreshing themselves, and one warder had removed his boot to examine his ankle, the door of the room where they sat was opened and Martin came in, followed by Watt. His eyes were dazzled, as the room was strongly lighted, and he did not at first observe who were eating and drinking there. It was in this lonely inn that he and Walter were staying and believed themselves quite safe. A few miners were the only persons they met there.
As Martin stood in the doorway looking at the party, whilst his eyes accustomed themselves to the light, one of the warders started up. ‘That is he! Take him! Our man!’
Instantly all sprang to their feet except Joseph, who was leisurely in all his movements, and the warder with bare foot, without considering fully what he did, threw his boot at Martin’s head.
Martin turned at once and ran, and the men dashed out of the inn after him, both warders catching up their guns, and he who was bootless running, forgetful of his ankle, with bare foot.
The night was light enough for Martin to be seen, with the boy running beside him, across the moor. The fires were still flickering and glowing; the gorse had been burnt and so no bushes could be utilised as a screen. His only chance of escape was to reach the woods, and he ran for Morwell.
But Martin, knowing that there were firearms among his pursuers, dared not run in a direct line; he swerved from side to side, and dodged, to make it difficult for them to take aim. This gave great facilities to the warder who had both boots on, and who was a wiry, long-legged fellow, to gain on Martin.
‘Halt!’ shouted he, ‘halt, or I fire!’
Then Martin turned abruptly and discharged a pistol at him. The man staggered, but before he fell he fired at Martin, but missed.
Almost immediately Martin saw some black figures in front of him, and stood, hesitating what to do. The figures were those of boys who were spreading the fires among the furze bushes, but he thought that his course was intercepted by his pursuers. Before he had decided where to run he was surrounded and disarmed.
The warder was so seriously hurt that he was at once placed on a gate and carried on the shoulders of four of the constables to Beer Alston, to be examined by Mr. Coyshe and the ball extracted. This left only three to guard the prisoner, one of whom was the warder who had sprained his ankle, and had been running with that foot bare, and who was now not in a condition to go much farther.
‘There is nothing for it,’ said Joseph, who was highly elated, ‘but for us to go on to Morwell. We must lock the chap up there. In that old house there are scores of strong places where the monks were imprisoned. To-morrow we can take him to Tavistock.’ Joseph did not say that Jane Welsh was at Morwell; this consideration, doubtless, had something to do with determining the arrangement. On reaching Morwell, which they did almost at once, for Martin had been captured on the down near the entrance to the lane, the first inquiry was for a safe place where the prisoner might be bestowed.
Jane, hearing the noise, and, above all, the loved voice of Joseph, ran out.
‘Jane,’ said the policeman, ‘where can we lock the rascal up for the night?’
She considered for a moment, and then suggested the corn-chamber. That was over the cellar, the walls lined with slate, and the floor also of slate. It had a stout oak door studded with nails, and access was had to it from the quadrangle, up a flight of stone steps. There was no window to it. ‘I’ll go ask Miss Barbara for the key,’ she said. ‘There is nothing in it now but some old onions. But’ – she paused – ’if he be locked up there all night, he’ll smell awful of onions in the morning.’
Reassured that this was of no importance, Jane went to her mistress for the key. Barbara came out and listened to the arrangement, to which she gave her consent, coldly. The warder could now only limp. She was shocked to hear of the other having been shot.
A lack of hospitality had been shown when the constables and warders came first, through inadvertence, not intentionally. Now that they desired to remain the night at Morwell and guard there the prisoner, Barbara gave orders that they should be made comfortable in the hall. One would have to keep guard outside the door where Martin was confined, the other two would spend the night in the hall, the window of which commanded the court and the stairs that led to the corn-chamber. ‘I won’t have the men in the kitchen,’ said Barbara, ‘or the maids will lose their heads and nothing will be done.’ Besides, the kitchen was out of the way of the corn-chamber.
‘We shall want the key of the corn-store,’ said Joseph, ‘if we may have it, miss.’
‘Why not stow the fellow in the cellar?’ asked a constable.
‘For two reasons,’ answered Joseph. ‘First, because he would drink the cider; and second, because – no offence meant, miss – we hope that the maids’ll be going to and fro to the cellar with the pitcher pretty often.’
Joseph was courting the maid of the house, and therefore thought it well to hint to Barbara what was expected of the house to show that it was free and open.
The corn-room was unlocked, a light obtained, and it was thoroughly explored. It was floored with large slabs of slate, and the walls were lined six feet high with slate, as a protection against rats and mice. Joseph progged the walls above that. All sound, not a window. He examined the door: it was of two-inch oak plank, and the hinges of stout iron. In the corner of the room was a heap of onions that had not been used the preceding winter. A bundle of straw was procured and thrown down.
‘Lie there, you dog, you murderous dog!’ said one of the men, casting Martin from him. ‘Move at your peril!’
‘Ah!’ said the lame warder, ‘I only wish you would make another attempt to escape that I might give you a leaden breakfast.’ He limped badly. In running he had cut his bare foot and it bled, and he had trodden on the prickles of the gorse, which had made it very painful.
‘There’s a heap of onions for your pillow,’ said Joseph. ‘Folks say they are mighty helpful to sleep – ’ this was spoken satirically; then with a moral air – ’But, sure enough, there’s no sleeping, even on an onion pillow, without a good conscience.’
As the men were to spend the night without sleep – one out of doors, to be relieved guard by the other, the lame warder alone excused the duty, as he was unable to walk – Barbara ordered a fire to be lighted in the great hall. The nights were not cold, but damp; the sky was clear, and the dew fell heavily. It would, moreover, be cheerful for the men to sit over a wood fire through the long night, and take naps by it if they so liked. Supper was produced and laid on the oak table by Jane, who ogled Joseph every time she entered and left the hall.
She placed a jug on the table. Joseph went after her.
‘You are a dear maid,’ he said, ‘but one jug don’t go far. You must mind the character of the house and maintain it. I see cold mutton. It is good, but chops are better. This ain’t an inn. It’s a gentleman’s house. I see cheese. Ain’t there anywhere a tart and cream? Mr. Jordan is not a farmer: he’s a squire. I’d not have it said of me I was courting a young person in an inferior situation.’
The fire was made up with a faggot. It blazed merrily. Joseph sat before it with his legs outspread, smiling at the flames; he had his hands on his knees. After having run hard and got hot he felt chilled, and the fire was grateful. Moreover, his hint had been taken. Two jugs stood on the table, and hot chops and potatoes had been served. He had eaten well, he had drunk well. All at once he laughed.
‘What is the joke, Joe?’
‘I’ve an idea, brother. If t’other warder dies I shall not have to pay the half-guinea because I lost my bet. He was so confounded long in the arm. That will be prime! And – we shall share the reward without him! Beautiful!’
‘Umph! Has it taken you all this time to find that out? I saw it the moment the shot struck. That’s why I ran on with a bad foot.’
CHAPTER XXXIX.
GONE!
Neither Jasper, Barbara, nor Eve appeared. Mr. Jordan was excited, and had to be told what had taken place, and this had to be done by Jasper. Barbara was with her sister. Eve had recovered, and had confessed everything. Now all was clear to the eyes of Barbara. The meeting on the Raven Rock had been the one inexplicable point, and now that was explained. Eve hid nothing from her sister; she told her about the first meeting with Martin, his taking the ring, then about the giving of the turquoise ring, finally about the meeting on the Rock. The story was disquieting. Eve had been very foolish. The only satisfaction to Barbara was the thought that the cause of uneasiness was removed, and about to be put beyond the power of doing further mischief. Eve would never see Martin again. She had seen so little of him that he could have produced on her heart but a light and transient impression. The romance of the affair had been the main charm with Eve.
When Jasper left the squire’s room, after a scene that had been painful, Barbara came to him and said, ‘I know everything now. Eve met your brother Martin on the Raven Rock. He has been trying to win her affections. In this also you have been wrongly accused by me.’ Then with a faint laugh, but with a timid entreating look, ‘I can do no more than confess now, I have such a heavy burden of amends to make.’
‘Will it be a burden, Barbara?’
She put her hand lightly on his arm.
‘No, Jasper – a delight.’
He stooped and kissed her hand. Little or nothing had passed between them, yet they understood each other.
‘Hist! for shame!’ said a sharp voice through the garden window. She looked and saw the queer face of Watt.
‘That is too cruel, Jasp – love-making when our poor Martin is in danger! I did not expect it of you.’
Barbara was confused. The boy’s face could ill be discerned, as there was no candle in the room, and all the light, such as there was – a silvery summer twilight – flowed in at the window, and was intercepted by his head.
‘Selfish, Jasp! and you, miss – if you are going to enter the family, you should begin to consider other members than Jasper,’ continued the boy. All his usual mockery was gone from his voice, which expressed alarm and anxiety. ‘There lies poor Martin in a stone box, on a little straw, without a mouthful, and his keepers are given what they like!’
‘Oh, Jasper!’ said Barbara with a start, ‘I am so ashamed of myself. I forgot to provide for him.’
‘You have not considered, I presume, what will become of poor Martin. In self-defence he shot at a warder, and whether he wounded or killed him I cannot say. Poor Martin! Seven years will be spread into fourteen, perhaps twenty-one. What will he be when he comes out of prison! What shall I do all these years without him!’
‘Walter,’ said Jasper, going to the window, and speaking in a subdued voice, ‘what can be done? I am sorry enough for him, but I can do nothing.’
‘Oh, you will not try.’
‘Tell me, what can I do?’
‘There! let her,’ he pointed to Barbara, ‘let her come over here and speak with me. Everything now depends on her.’
‘On me!’ exclaimed Barbara.
‘Ah, on you. But do not shout. I can hear if you whisper. Miss, that poor fellow in the stone box is Jasper’s brother. If you care at all for Jasper, you will not interfere. I do not ask you to move a finger to help Martin: I ask you only not to stand in others’ way.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Go into the hall, you and Jasper, instead of standing sighing and billing here. Allow me to be there also. There are two more men arrived – two of those who carried the winged snipe away. That makes four inside and one outside; but one is lamed and without his boot. Feed them all well. Don’t spare cider; and give them spirits-and-water. Help to amuse them.’
‘For what end?’
‘That is no concern of yours. For what end! Hospitality, the most ancient of virtues. Above all, do not interfere with the other one.’
‘What other one?’
‘You know – Miss Eve,’ whispered the boy. ‘Let the maidens in, the housemaid certainly; she has a sweetheart among them, and the others will make pickings.’
Then, without waiting for an answer, the queer boy ran along the gravel path and leaped the dwarf wall into the stable yard, which lay at a lower level.
‘What does he mean?’ asked Barbara.
‘He means,’ said Jasper, ‘that he is going to make an attempt to get poor Martin off.’
‘But how can he?’
‘That I do not know.’
‘And whether we ought to assist in such a venture I do not know,’ said Barbara thoughtfully.
‘Nor do I,’ said Jasper; ‘my heart says one thing, my head the other.’
‘We will follow our hearts,’ said Barbara vehemently, and caught his hands and pressed them. ‘Jasper, he is your brother; with me that is a chief consideration. Come into the hall; we will give the men some music.’
Jasper and Barbara went to the hall, and found that the warder had his foot bandaged in a chair, and seemed to be in great pain. He was swearing at the constables who had come from Beer Alston for not having called at the ‘Hare and Hounds’ on their way for his boot. He tried to induce one of them to go back for it; but the sight of the fire, the jugs of cider, the plates heaped with cake, made them unwilling again to leave the house.
‘We ain’t a-going without our supper,’ was their retort. ‘You are comfortable enough here, with plenty to eat and to drink.’
‘But,’ complained the man, ‘I can’t go for my boot myself, don’t you see?’ But see they would not. Jane had forgotten all her duties about the house in the excitement of having her Joseph there. She had stolen into the hall, and got her policeman into a corner.
‘When is it your turn to keep guard, Joe?’ she asked.
‘Not for another hour,’ he replied. ‘I wish I hadn’t to go out at all.’
‘Oh, Joe, I’ll go and keep guard with you!’
Also the cook stole in with a bowl and a sponge, and a strong savour of vinegar. She had come to bathe the warder’s foot, unsolicited, moved only by a desire to do good, doubtless. Also the under-housemaid’s beady eyes were visible at the door looking in to see if more fuel were required for the fire.
Clearly, there was no need for Barbara to summon her maids. As a dead camel in the desert attracts all the vultures within a hundred miles, so the presence of these men in the hall drew to them all the young women in the house.
When they saw their mistress enter, they exhibited some hesitation. Barbara, however, gave them a nod, and more was not needed to encourage them to stay.
‘Jane,’ said Barbara, ‘here is the key. Fetch a couple of bottles of Jamaica rum, or one of rum and one of brandy. Patience,’ to the under-housemaid, ‘bring hot water, sugar, tumblers, and spoons.’
A thrill of delight passed through the hearts of the men, and their eyes sparkled.
Then in at the door came the boy with his violin, fiddling, capering, dancing, making faces. In a moment he sprang on the table, seated himself, and began to play some of the pretty ‘Don Giovanni’ dance music.
He signed to Barbara with his bow, and pointed to the piano in the parlour, the door of which was open. She understood him and went in, lit the candles, and took a ‘Don Giovanni’ which her sister had bought, and practised with Jasper. Then he signed to his brother, and Jasper also took down his violin, tuned it, and began to play.
‘Let us bring the piano into the hall,’ said Barbara, and the men started to fulfil her wish. Four of them conveyed it from the parlour. At the same time the rum and hot water appeared, the spoons clinked in the glasses. Patience, the under-housemaid, threw a faggot on the fire.
‘What is that?’ exclaimed the lame warder, pointing through the window.
It was only the guard, who had extended his march to the hall and put his face to the glass to look in at the brew of rum-and-water, and the comfortable party about the fire. ‘Go back on your beat, you scoundrel!’ shouted the warder, menacing the constable with his fist. Then the face disappeared; but every time the sentinel reached the hall window, he applied his nose to the pane and stared in thirstily at the grog that steamed and ran down the throats of his comrades, and cursed the duty that kept him without in the falling dew. His appearance at intervals at the glass, where the fire and candlelight illumined his face, was like that of a fish rising to the surface of a pond to breathe.
‘Is your time come yet outside, Joe dear?’ whispered Jane.
‘Hope not,’ growled Joseph, helping himself freely to rum; putting his hand round the tumbler, so that none might observe how high the spirit stood in the glass before he added the water.
‘Oh, Joe duckie, don’t say that. I’ll go and keep you company on the stone steps: we’ll sit there in the moonlight all alone, as sweet as anything.’
‘You couldn’t ekal this grog’ answered the unromantic Joseph, ‘if you was ever so sweet. I’ve put in four lumps of double-refined.’
‘You’ve a sweet tooth, Joe,’ said Jane.
‘Shall I bathe your poor suffering foot again?’ asked the cook, casting languishing eyes at the warder.
‘By-and-by, when the liquor is exhausted,’ answered the warder.
‘Would you like a little more hot water to the spirit?’ said Patience, who was setting – as it is termed in dance phraseology – at the youngest of the constables.
‘No, miss, but I’d trouble you for a little more spirit,’ he answered, ‘to qualify the hot water.’
Then the scullery-maid, who had also found her way in, blocked the other constable in the corner, and offered to sugar his rum. He was a married man, middle-aged, and with a huge disfiguring mole on his nose; but there was no one else for the damsel to ogle and address, so she fixed upon him.
All at once, whilst this by-play was going on, under cover of the music, the door from the staircase opened, and in sprang Eve, with her tambourine, dressed in the red-and-yellow costume she had found in the garret, and wearing her burnished necklace of bezants. Barbara withdrew her hands from the piano in dismay, and flushed with shame.
‘Eve!’ she exclaimed, ‘go back! How can you!’ But the boy from the table beckoned again to her, pointing to the piano, and her fingers; Eve skipped up to her and whispered, ‘Let me alone, for Jasper’s sake,’ then bounded into the middle of the hall, and rattled her tambourine and clinked its jingles.
The men applauded, and tossed off their rum-and-water; then, having finished the rum, mixed themselves eagerly hot jorums of brandy.
The face was at the window, with the nose flat and white against the glass, like a dab of putty.
Barbara’s forehead darkened, and she drew her lips together. Her conscience was not satisfied. She suspected that this behaviour of Eve was what Walter had alluded to when he begged her not to interfere. Walter had seen Eve, and planned it with her. Was she right, Barbara asked herself, in what she was doing to help a criminal to escape?
The money he had taken was theirs – Eve’s; and if Eve chose to forgive him and release him from his punishment, why should she object? Martin was the brother of Jasper, and for Jasper’s sake she must go on with what she had begun.
So she put her fingers on the keys again, and at once Watt and Jasper resumed their instruments. They played the music in ‘Don Giovanni,’ in the last act, where the banquet is interrupted by the arrival of the statue. Barbara knew that Eve was dancing alone in the middle of the floor before these men, before him also who ought to be pacing up and down in front of the corn-chamber; but she would not turn her head over her shoulder to look at her, and her brow burnt, and her cheeks, usually pale, flamed. As for Eve, she was supremely happy; the applause of the lookers-on encouraged her. Her movements were graceful, her beauty radiant. She looked like Zerlina on the boards.
Suddenly the boy dropped his bow, and before anyone could arrest his hand, or indeed had a suspicion of mischief, he threw a canister of gunpowder into the blazing fire. Instantly there was an explosion. The logs were flung about the floor, Eve and the maids screamed, the piano and violins were hushed, doors were burst open, panes of glass broken and fell clinking, and every candle was extinguished. Fortunately the hall floor was of slate.
The men were the first to recover themselves – all, that is, but the warder, who shrieked and swore because a red-hot cinder had alighted on his bad foot.
The logs were thrust together again upon the hearth, and a flame sprang up.
No one was hurt, but in the doorway, white, with wild eyes, stood Mr. Jordan, signing with his hand, but unable to speak.
‘Oh, papa! dear papa!’ exclaimed Barbara, running to him, ‘do go back to bed. No one is hurt. We have had a fright, that is all.’
‘Fools!’ cried the old man, brandishing his stick. ‘He is gone! I saw him – he ran past my window.’
