Dorrien of Cranston

Concerning a Midnight Ramble

“Quiet, Roy, old man! Don’t lift up that beautiful voice of yours, or your gallant grandparent will be for abolishing you altogether on the ground that you disturb his slumbers.” It seemed hard to restrain the affectionate creature’s delighted barks over the restoration to his master and temporary liberty. The dog pranced and squirmed; springing up at his master, and whining in suppressed glee. Then he would career up and down the sward, his white ruff gleaming in the moonlight. His master, however, strolled leisurely on. Leaving the ornamental water on his left, he turned out of the drive into a narrow secluded path through the shrubbery, which soon led him into the heart of one of the home coverts. The pathway lay in gloom overshadowed by black firs; the moonlight throwing a pale band across it here and there, when a gap occurred in the trees. Tangled bushes grew on either side right up to the pedestrian’s shoulder, and the air was heavy with a moist fungus-like odour, exuding from the dewy earth and luxuriant vegetation.

“Flap-flap.”

Away went a couple of startled cushats from their dark roost in the firs, followed by a dozen more, the flapping of their wings resounding like pistol-shots in the stillness of the covert. Then a faint rustle in the brake, as of a prowling stoat or weasel making off with stealthy glide. Rabbits scurried off down the path, and Roy, tremulous with excitement, looked up in his master’s face with an appealing whine, though he knew perfectly well that the least movement towards giving chase would be sternly checked. Suddenly the stroller stopped, and, as he gazed straight in front of him, a faint whistle of astonishment escaped his lips. What did he see?

Only a light.

He had reached a point where the ground fell away in front. Some thirty yards further the covert ended, and beyond lay the open fields. From where he stood the light was visible, and might be half a mile away. Seen through the focus of the narrow covert path it twinkled in the distance, looking like an ordinary candle placed in the latticed window of a cottage – which, in fact, it was.

But whatever it was, after gazing at it in astonishment for a few moments, the stroller turned and began to retrace his steps. As he did so the moon slowly soared over the tree-tops, flooding the narrow footpath with light. Suddenly Roy lifted his head, and uttering a quick, short bark, started off from his master’s side, growling ominously.

The path, being in moonlight, enhanced the blackness of the undergrowth. Roland, gazing eagerly in the direction of the cause of his dog’s alarm, could discern nothing in the cavernous gloom.

“Poachers,” he decided uneasily, with a rapid thought of the long odds against him in the event of his conjecture proving a true one; for only a large and daring gang of such marauders would venture to raid into the Cranston home coverts.

The dog’s rage increased. With every hair of his thick coat bristling and erect, he darted forward into the darkness, baying furiously; and in a moment the snap-snap of his jaws, together with a continuous and savage snarling, proclaimed him to be at very close quarters with something or somebody, who had the greatest difficulty in warding off his attack.

“Cawl the dorg off, master,” adjured a thick, gruff voice, not untinged with trepidation.

With some difficulty Roland complied, and in obedience to his peremptory mandate to come out and show himself, there stepped into the moonlight a powerful, thickset ruffian, armed with a cudgel. Mightily astonished, he recognised in the swarthy and scowling features no less a personage than Stephen Devine, the poacher, whom if he had thought of at all it would have been as in Battisford Gaol, doing a month’s hard labour, less about ten days already served.

“Didn’t expect to see me, eh, master?” said the fellow, with a grin, the other not breaking silence.

“Right you are – I didn’t. And now, may I ask, what the devil are you doing here?”

“Thort I was safe in quod, didn’t ’ee, young Squire?” rejoined Devine, advancing a step nearer, with the same evil grin. Roy, who had been crouching at his master’s feet, keeping up a running fire of growls, sprang up at this move, and with his fangs fixed would have made at the intruder, but found himself held by main force.

“Down, Roy! Quiet, sir! I think you’ll be safe in that institution again by this time to-morrow,” answered Roland. “Meanwhile, how the deuce did you get out of it to-day?”

“Haw-haw! Mr Turner ’e paid my fine and got me out. ’E’s a genelman, ’e is. ’E said I ort to be at home, lookin’ after my darter.”

“H’m! A fool and his money are soon parted. However, it’s a thousand pities the cash should be so utterly thrown away. Thrown away, because to-morrow you’ll return to your old quarters. For trespassing here, you understand.”

“Haw-haw! Oh, no, I won’t, sir – not I. You’ll say nuthin’ about to-night – not you?”

“No? And why not?”

“Because,” answered the fellow, lowering his voice, but speaking in an insolent tone – “because I should have such a nice little story to tell their warshups the beaks, and the laryers, and the parties wot comes to see poor coves tried. I should be able to tell how young Squire Dorrien wasn’t above steppin’ down to my cottage o’ nights to keep my gal company like, while her poor old dad’s in trouble. I could tell ’em how I went to get a breath o’ fresh air the night I come out o’ quod, and as how I see young Squire Dorrien a steppin’ along in the dark to see my gal. I could tell as how I follered him until he cotched sight of the bit of light my gal had stuck in the winder to let him know her old dad’s come home again, and young Squire wouldn’t be adsackly welcome that night – and as how ’stonished he looked when he seed it? Fine gal, my Lizzie, ain’t she, Squire?”

“Devilish fine girl! Since you ask my opinion, you’ve got it frankly, and for what it’s worth. And so that’s the little story you are going to amuse the court with, is it?”

“That’s the little story, Squire. No two mistakes about it,” retorted the other, with an impudent leer. “And strike me blind, but it’ll be worth doin’ another month for the fun o’ seein’ the old Squire’s face when I’m a-tellin’ of it.”

Roland laughed quietly, contemptuously – and there was something in his laugh that seemed to undermine the other’s self assurance.

“You may tell your story, Devine – and then – ”

“And then, Squire?”

“And then – you may go and be damned.” The perfect nonchalance of this reply was disconcerting in the extreme. The growing uneasiness which it inspired in the poacher found vent in bluster.

“Blast and blind me!” he snarled. “You don’t seem to care over-much. Yer don’t seem to have heard of Gipsy Steve. But there’s them here as has, and there’s them elsewhere as has, and to their cost. So mind me, Master Squire Dorrien, I say, and you’ll hear more o’ me yet.”

Roland slowly emitted a puff of smoke, and watched it mounting in blue circles upon the damp night air. Then he answered with sneering calmness:

“You were perfectly right in saying I didn’t seem to care over-much. I don’t – and for these among other reasons. In the first place, you won’t tell that story, because, if you do, it isn’t another month you’ll find yourself in for, but several years. Libel, with a view to blackmailing, means penal servitude in this country, remember. In the next place, if you do tell it your daughter will go into the witness-box and deny the whole thing on oath – for even granted the truth of your discovery, I needn’t remind a man of your ’cuteness that she would rather see you hung than give a word of evidence likely to damage me.”

He paused for a moment, noting with a sneer the fury depicted in his listener’s convulsed features.

“Lastly,” he went on, “such a tale told by a person of your well-known respectability, friend Gipsy Steve, wouldn’t affect me in the slightest degree, since nobody would believe a word of it, or at the worst would pretend not to. By the way, Devine, were you ever in the States?”

The start, and the sudden lividness of the other’s countenance plainly visible in the moonlight, were answer enough. With a slight smile Roland went on.

“Ah, I see you have been there. And that being the case you have an advantage over those who have not – that of knowing who’s got the drop. I’ve got the drop on you, friend Stephen Devine, and I mean to keep it. So you shall be in quod to-morrow, and will have an opportunity of entertaining the Bench with your little romance next Petty Sessions.”

The poacher was shrewd enough to recognise the force of every one of Roland’s assertions. So he changed his tone to the inevitable one of the beaten rough. He cringed.

“Don’t be ’ard on a pore feller, Squire. I only wanted to try your grit – and it’s real grit it is. And yer won’t ’ave a pore cove up afore the beaks jest as ’e’s out o’ quod, will yer, Squire. I won’t give you any more trouble – I swear I won’t. Blind me if I do! Say you won’t ’ave me run in, Squire!”

Roland, who could hardly restrain his laughter, eyed the fellow for a moment contemptuously.

“Well, Devine, I’ll let you down easy this time, but don’t let me catch you loafing round here again. And don’t let me hear that you’ve made any capital or mischief out of this in any sort of way,” he added significantly.

“Carn’t ye spare a sovereign or two, Squire? I’m mortal ’ard up,” whined the poacher.

“Not a red cent. Now off you go, left foot foremost. March!” He was determined the other should never have it in his power to say he had given him money, were it but the price of a pint. “And no tricks, friend Gipsy Steve. Clear right away. Why, the dog here would throttle you in a minute at a word from me – and I’m not sure I hadn’t best let him do it – but he’d be certain to get a knock or two over the job, so that it’s hardly worth while.”

“Good-night, Squire,” said Devine sullenly, as he took himself off.

Roland watched the retreating form of the poacher for about fifty yards, and turned to resume his way homewards. With Roy by his side he had no fear of foul play at the hand of the baffled and exasperated ruffian, and his mind was free to think over the recent encounter. Turner’s motive in releasing Devine was clear, and if the curate turned out to be worth powder and shot he would be even with him yet. And the poacher’s release was not an unmixed evil – at any rate so it seemed at that moment; for, with this low rascal’s voice still fresh in his ears, he felt more than ever inclined to break free from the besetting temptation: as to which it was a case of “needs must” – unless he chose to retain that execrable blackguard in his pay – a thing that he would rather hang himself than do. It struck him, however, that during the short time since his return he had made two enemies, Devine and Turner – the last more powerful for evil, being his own social equal, and because as a parson any mischief he might work would be set down to motives of Christian duty.

Once out of sight, the poacher turned round and shook his fist in the direction of the man who had so thoroughly turned his flank.

“Wait a bit, master!” he snarled through a volley of curses. “Just wait a bit, and blast me dead if I don’t cut that fine cock’s-comb of yours one of these days. And if I don’t, call me a blanked sodger!”

Whether he did or did not earn that martial appellation will hereinafter appear.

Chapter Twelve.

“The Skegs.”

“Father, I’m going down to Minchkil Bay to look up some of your ancient mariners.”

“Are you, dear?” said the rector, glancing up with a pleased smile at Olive, as she stood in his study door attired for walking, and making the sweetest possible picture in contrast to the somewhat solemn and ecclesiastical fittings of the old room. “And are you going alone?”

“Yes, I am. Margaret says she has more than she can do this afternoon, and, besides, those dear old fishermen are my speciality, so I intend to get the credit of keeping them in the way wherein they should go.”