Highway Pirates; or, The Secret Place at Coverthorne

"I'm not going to tell my uncle," was the reply. "All I asked was what made you leave."

"Well, sir," continued the lad, "the master's been so queer of late, I believe he bears ill-will towards me for something, and that some day he'll do me an injury."

By dint of many questions we at length got out of Tom something like a connected account of his troubles. The story as he told it was so disjointed, and at times so incoherent, that I shall make no attempt to repeat it in his own words, but rather give the sum and substance of the narrative which was laid before us when we at length came to the end of our inquiry.

Soon after his brother's death the servants had noticed some change in Mr. Nicholas's manner and behaviour, which they regarded as the effect of his sudden bereavement. He became preoccupied and silent, and of an evening would lock the door of his sitting-room and stay there far into the night, though hitherto he had been very regular in his habits, and had almost invariably retired to bed soon after ten. One afternoon Tom had gone on an errand to Tod's Corner, and being delayed did not return till late. It was nearly eleven when he reached the farm. He saw a light in the parlour as he approached the house, and on entering went at once to inform his master of the result of his mission.

Proceeding to the sitting-room, he found the door standing ajar, and the room unoccupied. The lamp was burning on the table, beside it was a large brass-bound box, and a spirit decanter and glass stood hard by. Tom lingered, note in hand, then determined to leave the message where his master would be sure to see it on his return. To do this he approached the table, but had hardly done so when Mr. Coverthorne burst into the room in a towering rage.

"Who told you to come here?" he shouted, seizing Tom by the throat, as though with the intention of strangling him. "I'll teach you to come prying and meddling about my house when you ought to be in bed, you rascal!"

Nicholas Coverthorne, as any one could have told at a glance, was a powerful man, and the wonder was that in his blind rage he did not do the lad some injury before the latter had time to explain that he had merely stepped inside the room a moment before to deliver his message.

"You've been prying into the drawers and cupboards after tobacco, or anything you could find, that's my opinion," cried his master. "If so, you'd better speak the truth before I find it out for myself."

Tom, equally astonished at this unreasonable outburst, and at the fact of his honesty being called in question – a thing which had never occurred before – was for the time at a loss to find words in which to excuse himself, a fact which seemed to increase all the more his master's suspicions. At length, after a long wrangle and many threats, he was dismissed to bed, whither he gladly betook himself, having by this time arrived at the conclusion that his master had either drunk too much brandy or was losing his reason.

A few days later Mr. Coverthorne sent for the lad, and told him to go to the cottage of the hind and bring back an answer to some inquiry about the sheep.

"If I'm not in the parlour when you return," Mr. Coverthorne had said, "step inside, and wait there till I come back."

In obedience to his orders Tom went to the hind, and returning entered the parlour, only to find that his master was not there. The room presented an exactly similar appearance to what it had done on the occasion of his previous visit: the lamp was lit, and beside it was the brass-bound box, while a little further along was the tray with glass and decanter. Cap in hand, the boy remained standing just inside the door, wondering how long he would have to wait. It was while thus employed that his attention became attracted towards a curtain which covered the bay window at the end of the room. Almost in the centre of the drapery, which was old and faded, was a hole, and behind this something sparkled in the ray of the lamp. It did not take Tom long to discover that this something was an eye peering at him from behind the screen. Startled at the knowledge that he was being watched, the lad was about to run from the room and raise an alarm of robbers, when the curtain was flung aside, and with a laugh Mr. Coverthorne stepped out into the room, and asked the boy in a jocular manner what he was staring at. Nicholas was not given to joking with any man, least of all with his servants, and this erratic behaviour served to strengthen in Tom's mind the impression that his master was certainly going mad.

"Ever since that time I've seen him a-watching, watching me wherever I goes and whatever I does," concluded the boy. "Once he told me what he'd do to any one as couldn't mind their own business, though I'm sure I've not been prying into other folk's affairs. He follows me about; he's got a grudge against me for something – I can see it in his evil eye – and some day he'll pay it off. I won't stay there any longer; I'm going for a soldier."

It was in vain that we tried to dissuade Tom Lance from his purpose, and induce him to return to Stonebank. He stubbornly refused to listen to our arguments. It was evident that he had been some time making up his mind, and was now doggedly determined to carry out his purpose. Finding it impossible to do anything else, we wished him good luck, at the same time giving him a shilling and some loose coppers, which was all the money we had in our pockets.

Having found the doctor's parcel, we returned to the pony carriage, and drove some little distance on our homeward way without speaking. It is probable, however, that the thoughts of both of us were busy with the same subject.

"I wonder if your uncle is going out of his mind," I said at length.

"More likely some deep dodge of his, I fancy," returned Miles. "Don't you see that he arranged that second visit of Tom's to the parlour just to judge what he'd done the time before? If the lad was inquisitive and had pried about once, he'd probably do so again. Still, what's the meaning of it all I've no idea."

CHAPTER VI.

A MAD PRANK

Time has been called "the great healer;" and as the term ran on Miles gradually regained a measure of his former high spirits, and became more his old bright self again. The thought, however, that at the end of the half he would leave school and we should part, perhaps for ever, hung over us like a cloud, rendered all the heavier and darker by the consciousness on my friend's part that his prospects in life had undergone a great change, and that his future was uncertain.

"It's all very well," he burst out one day, "for Uncle Nicholas to say that he would rather have the matter settled amicably. As I said before, he means to get the whole estate before he's finished."

"Old villain!" I answered; "I hate his very look! I hope, if he does go to Coverthorne, that the ghost will haunt him, and drive him away again. Did it sing any more after I left?"

"I don't know," answered Miles abruptly, as though the subject was one to which he did not care to refer. "I don't think I've been inside the room since we were there together. I suppose I'm a coward, but I don't mind owning that that unearthly row gives me the creeps, and I daresay it would you too if you were to hear it as I have, sometimes, when passing down the passage at night."

We did not pursue the subject any further. Indeed, the thought may have occurred to me that my own courage had ebbed away rather fast the last time I had listened to those strange sounds; and such being the case, I could hardly afford to rally my friend on his superstitious fears.

The days came and went; the trees put on their glorious autumn tints, and then gradually grew bare and lifeless, while we boys went on with our accustomed round of school life, labouring at our desks, and larking with unbounded stock of animal spirits in the playground. I can recollect no event of any particular consequence having happened during this time, except that one day Miles received a letter from home which contained news of interest to us both. In those times, before the introduction of the penny post, letters were less frequent and more highly prized than they are to-day; and I think I can see my friend now as he came down the schoolroom waving above his head the oblong packet sealed with a yellow wafer.

"For me!" he cried. "Hurray! now I shall hear what's been happening in our part of the world."

He flung himself down on the end of a bench, tore open the packet, and for some moments was absorbed in reading its contents. Suddenly I saw the expression of his face change, his mouth opened, and his eye ran more rapidly from line to line.

"Phew! Well, I never!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" I asked; "anything to do with your uncle Nicholas?"

"No; it's about old Lewis," he answered. Then, after scanning the letter rapidly to the end of the page, he let it fall and raised his head. "I say," he began, "what d'you think's happened? Why, there's been a fight down at Rockymouth between the smugglers and the preventive men; quite a serious affair – two fellows badly injured."

"Was old Lewis one of them – that man whom we saw hiding in your copse, and in whose boat we went fishing?"

"Yes, rather: he seems to have been the leading spirit, and has got into worse trouble than the rest, poor beggar! As far as I can understand from my mother's account, it must have happened in this way. One of the land gang was bribed, and turned informer, so by that means the coastguard knew the exact time and place of the run. It happened in that same little cove where we used to go and bathe. The spirit was landed, and the carriers were just shouldering their tubs to make off inland, when an armed party appeared on the beach and ordered them to surrender. Then there was a pretty how-de-do! Some of the gang threw down their loads and tried to bolt. Most of these got away in the darkness. But the old hands, enraged at the thought of losing the stuff just as it had come into their possession, showed fight. One of the preventive men was knocked down with a bludgeon, the rest drew their cutlasses, and blood was shed on both sides. Lewis, raging like a madman, whipped out a pistol and fired it, though fortunately without doing any harm, and the next moment he was stretched senseless on the shingle with a blow on the head given with the flat of a steel blade. In the end, of course, the coastguard got the best of it. Some of the smugglers made off when they saw the day was going against them, but the rest were overpowered, handcuffed, and dragged off to the watchhouse. Some of them have already been sent to jail, but Lewis has been sent to Welmington to await trial at the assizes. He was recognized as the leader of the party, and as the man who fired the pistol; and to use weapons like that against the king's men is a serious offence. Mother says she thinks he will be transported. It's a crying shame," concluded the speaker, after a moment's pause. "What difference can it make to the king, or to anybody else, if those men buy and sell a few ankers of brandy? They don't injure or rob anybody, and the men who come meddling and interfering with them deserve to be roughly handled. I believe I should have shot at them myself if I'd been in Lewis's place."

Knowing the peculiar views of the coast-bred boy on the subject of defrauding the revenue, and the little likelihood of inducing him to change them, I made no attempt to argue the matter, but stood for a moment recalling to my mind the sight I had witnessed of the two stooping figures crossing the field in the gray twilight of the summer dawn.

"It's dreadful to think of his being transported to the other side of the world," I said. "It must be sad for him to think that he may never see Rockymouth again, where he has lived so long – ever since he was a boy, except the time he spent away as a sailor in the navy."

"Well, it's fortunate that he didn't shoot straighter, or he would have swung for it," remarked Miles bluntly; "though I believe some of those fellows would as soon be hung as transported. I'm glad none of our Coverthorne men appear to have been in it," he added. "It's a wonder they weren't; but perhaps if any of them did lend a hand, they were among those who escaped."

He laughed as though it were more of a prank than a crime; then picking up the sheets of paper which had fallen from his hand, he went on reading his letter.

Boys may remain always much the same in their tastes and dispositions, but, as I have said before, school life and customs have undergone great changes since my day. In consequence of having no properly organized outdoor sports, we found methods of our own for letting off steam, some of which were about as sensible as the antics of a kitten or the mad gallop of a young colt. Boys who wished to establish and keep up a reputation for hardihood and daring were prone to perform some reckless feat, and then dare others to follow their example. Ben Liddle, the acknowledged chief of the "Eagles," was much given to this sort of thing, and a dozen or more of his escapades occur to my mind as I write.

It so happened that this term Miles and I slept in a dormitory of which Liddle was "cock;" an arrangement which might have been unpleasant for us had it not been for the fact that the majority of the boys were "Foxes," and formed a mutual defensive alliance, so that Liddle stopped short of actual violence, knowing that anything of the kind would raise a hornet's nest about his ears. Nevertheless, he was always passing slighting remarks about us, and hinting that we were lacking in pluck and daring; which taunts on one or two occasions nearly brought about a free fight between the rival parties.

The weeks went by; we were close to the end of the half, and boys had commenced to talk of holidays and home, when one night Liddle came up to bed with something under his coat.

"Look here," he said; "I found this in a field this afternoon."

The article which he held up was an ordinary rope halter. He waved it triumphantly in the air, and then flung it into a box by the side of his bed.

"What on earth d'you want with that old thing?" cried one of his followers, laughing; "it's no use to you. What made you bring it home?"

"You know that horse of old Smiley's that he's turned out to graze in that big field – the second beyond the brook? Well, I'm going to make him give me a ride. I've bet Maggers two to one in half-crowns that I'll ride him bareback twice round the field without being thrown."

Seated on the next bed, winding an old turnip-shaped silver watch, was a fellow named Rigby. Though professedly a stanch "Eagle," he seemed lately to have grown rather jealous of Liddle, and to covet for himself the post of leader. Whenever Liddle attempted to impress us with some fresh act of bravado, Rigby either made light of it or tried to outdo it by the recital of some still more brilliant piece of mischief which he had either been guilty of in the past or was prepared to attempt some time in the future. As might be expected, nothing could have been more calculated to vex and provoke Liddle, who, we could see, often found it difficult to restrain himself from vindicating his outraged vanity by pounding with clenched fists the person of his presumptuous follower.

"Pooh!" said Rigby. "When d'you expect you're going to ride a horse round that field? They can see it from the house, and you'd have some one after you within five minutes. I'll bet you'll never try it."

"What'll you bet?" demanded Liddle, bristling up in a moment.

"I won't bet anything on such a stupid thing. I know you won't do it."

"I'll do it any time you like to mention."

"Well, do it now," answered Rigby, suggesting what he considered to be impossible.

"All right; I will," returned Liddle recklessly. "Wait till the lights have been put out and the coast is clear, and I'll go and ride the nag to-night. But look here, my boy," continued the speaker, with a malicious twinkle in his eyes: "if I go you'll have to come too, as a witness, or Maggers won't believe I've won my wager."