The Smuggler Part 20

"If it is, I'll blow his brains out," said Ned Ramley, motioning to the rest to make their way into the room behind.

"Ay, you had best, I think, Neddy," said Galley Ray, in a quiet, considerate tone, answering his rash threat as coolly as if she had been speaking of the catching of a trout. "You'll have him here all snug, and may never get such another chance. 'Dead men tell no tales,'

Neddy. But, get back--'tis a horse, sure enough! You can take your own time, if you go in there."

The young man retreated; and bending down her lips to the boy's ear, the old witch inquired in a whisper, "Is t'other door locked, and the window fast?"

"Yes," said the boy, in the same tone; "and the key hid in the sacking."

"Then if there are enough to take 'em," murmured Gaily Ray to herself--"take 'em they shall!--If there's no one but Mowle, he must go--that's clear. Stretch out that bit o' sail, boy, to catch the blood."

But before the boy could obey her whisper, the door of the hut was thrown open; and instead of Mowle there appeared the figure of Richard Radford.

"Here, little Starlight!" he cried, "hold my horse--why, where are all the men? Have they not come?"

The old woman arranged her face in an instant into the sweetest smile it was capable of a.s.suming, and replied, instantly, "Oh dear, yes: bless your beautiful face, Mr. Radford, but we didn't expect you to-night, and thought it was some of the Custom-House blackguards when we heard the horse. Here, Neddy!--Major!--It's only Mr. Radford."

Ere she had uttered the call, the men, hearing a well-known voice, were entering the room again; and young Radford shook hands with several of them familiarly, congratulating the late prisoners on their escape.

"I found I couldn't come to-morrow morning," he said, "and so I rode down to-night. It's all settled for to-morrow, and by this time Harding's at sea, He'll keep over on the other side till the sun is low; and we must be ready for work by ten, though I don't think he'll get close in before midnight."

"Are you quite sure of Harding, Mr. Radford?" asked the Major. "I thought you had doubts of him about this other venture."

"Ay, and so I have still," answered Richard Radford, a dark scowl coming over his face, "but we must get this job over first. My father says, he will have no words about it, till this is all clear, and after that I may do as I like. Then, Major, then----"

He did not finish the sentence; but those who heard him knew very well what he meant; and the Major inquired, "But is he quite safe in this business? The old woman thinks not."

Young Radford mused with a heavy brow for a minute or two, and then replied, after a sudden start, "But it's no use now--he's at sea by this time; and we can't mend it. Have you heard anything certain of him, Galley Ray?"

"No, nothing quite for certain, my beauty," said the old woman; "but one thing I know: he was seen there upon the cliffs, with two strange men, a-talking away at a great rate; and that was the very night he saw your father, too; but that clear little cunning devil, my boy, Nighty--he's the shrewdest lad that ever lived--found it all out."

"What did he find out?" demanded young Radford, sharply.

"Why, who the one was, he could never be sure," answered the beldam--"a nasty-looking ugly brute, all tattooed in the face, like a wild Indian; but the other was the colonel of dragoons--that's certain, so Nighty says--he is the shrewdest boy that----"

Richard Radford and his companions gazed at each other with very meaning and very ill-satisfied looks; but the former, at length, said, "Well, we shall see--we shall see! and if he does, he shall rue it. In the meantime, Major, what we must do is, to have force enough to set them, dragoons and all, at defiance. My father has got already a hundred men, and I'll beat up for more to-morrow.--I can get fifty or sixty out of Suss.e.x. We'll all be down with you early. The soldiers are scattered about in little parties, so they can never have very many together; and the devil's in it, if we can't beat a handful of them."

"Give us a hundred men," said Ned Ramley, "and we'll beat the whole regiment of them."

"Why, there are not to be found twenty of them together in any one place," answered young Radford, "except at Folkestone, and we shan't have the run within fifteen or sixteen miles of that; so we shall easily do for them; and I should like to give those rascals a licking."

"Then, what's to be done with Harding?" asked Ned Ramley.

"Leave him to me--leave him to me, Ned," replied the young gentleman, "I'll find a way of settling accounts with him."

"Why, the old woman was talking something about it," said the Major.

"Come, speak up, old brute!--What is it you've got to say?"

"Oh, I'll tell him quietly when he's a going," answered Galley Ray.

"It's no business of yours, Major."

"She hates him like poison," said the Major, in a whisper, to young Radford; "so that you must not believe all she says about him."

The young man gave a gloomy smile, and then, after a few words more, unceremoniously turned the old woman out of her own hovel, telling her he would come and speak to her in a moment. As soon as the hut was clear of her presence, he proceeded to make all his final arrangements with the lawless set who were gathered together within.

"I thought that Harding was not to set off till to-morrow morning,"

said one of the more staid-looking of the party, at length; "I wonder your father lets him make such changes, Mr. Radford--it looks suspicious, to my thinking."

"No, no; it was by my father's own orders," said young Radford; "there's nothing wrong in that. I saw the note sent this evening; so that's all right. By some contrivance of his own, Harding is to give notice to one of the people on Tolsford Hill, when he is well in land and all is safe; and then we shall see a fire lighted on the top, which is to be our signal, to gather down on the beach. It's all right in that respect, at least.

"I'm glad to hear it," answered the other; "and now, as all is settled, had you not better take a gla.s.s of grog before you go."

"No, no," replied the young man, "I'll keep my head cool for to-morrow; for I've got a job to do in the morning that may want a clear eye and a steady hand."

"Well, then, good luck to you!" said Ned Ramley, laughing; and with this benediction, the young gentleman opened the cottage door.

He found Galley Ray holding his horse alone; and, as soon as she saw him, she said, "I've sent the boy away, Mr. Radford, because I wanted to have a chat with you for a minute, all alone, about that blackguard, Harding;" and sinking her voice to a whisper, she proceeded for several minutes, detailing her own diabolical notions, of how young Radford might best revenge himself on Harding, with a coaxing manner, and sweet tone, which contrasted strangely and horribly, both with the words which she occasionally used, and the general course of her suggestions. Young Radford sometimes laughed, with a harsh sort of bitter, unpleasant merriment, and sometimes asked questions, but more frequently remained listening attentively to what she said.

Thus pa.s.sed some ten minutes, at the end of which time, he exclaimed, with an oath, "I'll do it!" and then, mounting his horse, he rode away slowly and cautiously, on account of the thick fog and the narrow and stony road.

No sooner was he gone, than little Starlight crept out from between the cottage and a pile of dried furze-bushes, which had been cast down on the left of the hut--at once affording fuel to the inhabitants, and keeping out the wind from a large crack in the wall, which penetrated through and through, into the room where young Radford had been conversing with the smugglers.

"Did you hear them, my kiddy?" asked the old woman, as soon as the boy approached her.

"Every word, Mother Ray," answered little Starlight. "But, get in, get in, or they will be thinking something; and I'll tell you all to-morrow."

The old woman saw the propriety of his suggestion; and, both entering the hovel, the door was shut. With it, I may close a scene, upon which I have been obliged to pause longer than I could have wished.

CHAPTER IV.

The man who follows a wolf goes straight on after him till he rides him down; but, in chasing a fox, it is always expedient and fair to take across the easiest country for your horse or for yourself, to angle a field, to make for a slope when the neighbouring bank is too high, to avoid a clay fallow, or to skirt a shaking moss. Very frequently, however, one beholds an inexperienced sportsman (who does not well know the country he is riding, and sees the field broken up into several parties, each taking its own course after the hounds) pause for several minutes, not knowing which to follow. Such is often the case with the romance writer also, when the broken nature of the country over which his course lies, separates his characters, and he cannot proceed with all of them at once.

Now, at the present moment, I would fain follow the smugglers to the end of their adventure; but, in so doing, dear reader, I should (to borrow a shred of the figure I have just used) get before my hounds; or, in other words, I should too greatly violate that strict chronological order which is necessary in an important history like the present. I must, therefore, return, by the reader's good leave, to the house of Mr. Zachary Croyland, almost immediately after Sir Edward Digby had ridden away, on the day following young Radford's recently related interview with the smugglers, at which day--with a sad violation of the chronological order I have mentioned above--I had already arrived, as the reader must remember, in the first chapter of the present volume.

Mr. Croyland then stood in the little drawing-room, fitted up according to his own peculiar notions, where Sir Edward's wound had been dressed; and Edith, his niece, sat at no great distance on one of the low ottomans, for which he had an oriental predilection. She was a little excited, both by all that she had witnessed, and all that she had not; and her bright and beautiful eyes were raised to her uncle's face, as she inquired, "How did all this happen? You said you would tell me when they were gone."

Mr. Croyland gazed at her with that sort of parental tenderness which he had long nourished in his heart towards her; and certainly, as she sat there, leaning lightly upon her arm, and with the suns.h.i.+ne falling upon her beautiful form, her left hand resting upon her knee, and one small beautiful foot extended beyond her gown, he could not help thinking her the loveliest creature he had ever beheld in his life, and asking himself--"Is such a being as that, so full of grace in person, and excellence in mind, to be consigned to a rude, brutal bully, like the man who has just met with deserved chastis.e.m.e.nt at my door?"

He had just begun to answer her question, thinking how he might best do so without inflicting more pain upon her than necessary, when the black servant I have mentioned entered the drawing-room, saying, "A man want to speak to you, master."

"A man!" cried Mr. Croyland, impatiently. "What man? I don't want any man! I've had enough of men for one morning, surely, with those two fools fighting just opposite my house!--What sort of a man is it?"

"Very odd man, indeed, master," answered the Hindoo. "Got great blue pattern on him's face. Strange looking man. Think him half mad," and he made a deferential bow, as if submitting his judgment to that of his master.

"Well, I like odd men," exclaimed Mr. Croyland. "I like strange men better than any others. I'm not sure I do not like them a _leetle_ mad--not too much, not too much, you know, Edith, my dear! Not dangerous; just mad enough to be pleasant, but not furious or obstreperous.--Where have you put him?"