CHAPTER XXII.
I trust the reader remembers well the description before given of the little village of fishermen's cottages at Ale, and of the way in which the road, after separating into two, in order to send off a branch to Ale Manor House, proceeded to the entrance of the village, and there dwindled into a narrow path, for want of room between the steep banks to reach the seaside in its original breadth. Smeaton passed the turning of the road towards the Manor, though evidently with some reluctance; for he paused an instant before he made up his mind, and then rode on more slowly. Five hundred yards onward brought him to the spot where it was necessary to dismount; but, before he had completely reached it, two men came out from under the shadow of the bank, and stood directly in his way. The moonlight enabled him to see, however, that they bore the ordinary garb of the fishermen of the place, which, I need hardly tell the learned reader, was very different from the fishermen's garb of the present day, and much more marked and picturesque. From these men he apprehended no opposition, even if they were not of the very party which had liberated him; and he was soon saluted in a civil tone, with the words--
"Good night, sir. You know you cannot ride down here. We thought it was some of the soldiers."
Smeaton dismounted, and gave his horse to his servant to hold; and, walking forward a little way with the two men, he explained to them his desire to obtain shelter in the village, and concealment from everybody for a time.
At first there seemed some hesitation in their replies; and the young nobleman began to fancy that the danger in which he stood, and which might pursue him even there, made them look upon him as an unwelcome guest; but, when he frankly put the question whether they were afraid to receive him, one of them replied with a laugh--"Lord bless you, no, sir. All the soldiers in Exeter should not take you out from amongst the men of Ale. Unless they brought cannon against us, they could do nothing in this village. We would beat them out with hand-spikes. It is not that at all. You are right welcome to all that we can do for you; but they say you are a lord; and you'll find the best house in the place but a poor hole for such a one as you."
"But, my good friend, I am a soldier," replied Smeaton; "and, when I tell you that I have slept for a month together upon the bare ground, you will easily judge that one of your houses will be quite as good as a palace to me. All I want is shelter and concealment for a little time."
"That you shall have, sir," replied the other man, who was somewhat older; "and, as for concealment, we have got plenty of places where the devil himself would not find you. We sometimes let the custom-house people come and search just for the fun of the thing; and yet, somehow or another, we contrive to supply the whole country round with Bohea, which never paid toll to King or Queen either."
"From what I saw to-night," said Smeaton, "you must have horses amongst you also; and my two beasts are in some degree an embarrassment to me, unless I can stable them somewhere."
"You will have to stable them on the downs, sir," said the younger man; "for there are no such things as stables in Ale. But, stay a bit; I think I can manage it. Farmer Tupper will take them in, I dare say; he knows how to hold his tongue. As to horses for ourselves, Lord bless you, when we want them, which is not above once a-month, we borrow them of our neighbours. Many a good farmer, and gentleman too, finds his horses not fit for much work on the day after the new moon. But then, what does he care? Every now and then he finds a pound of tea for his wife, or a bundle of Flemish hosiery for himself, lying at his door or on his window-sill; and he thinks himself well paid for his horses' night-work. Here, my man--Master Higham--you get down and go with your master. I'll lead the horses across the down to Tupper's farm; but take off the bags first. Grayling, you had better take the gentleman to your house, for you have more room, and my wife had a babby yesterday morning; so there is a fine squalling. Bless its little heart! It has got a pipe like a boatswain's whistle."
Thus saying, he led away the horses, leaving his companion with the young nobleman and his servant, the latter of whom seemed, during his stay at Ale Manor, to have become very intimate with all the good fishermen of the village. Before walking on, however, Smeaton judged it better to take immediate precautions for guarding against surprise, and inquired whether a lad could not be hired to watch the road, and give early notice of the approach of any party of soldiers. The old fisherman, Grayling, laughed.
"Lord bless you sir, you don't know us," he said. "Don't you trouble yourself at all about it. No soldier or anything else comes within three miles of us without our knowing it. 'Tother night, when they came to the Manor, we were all ready for them if they had come on. You were ready for then, too, it seems, though how you got out of their way we do not know. I had a great mind to give the fellows who came down to the bay looking for you a drop of salt water to drink for poking their noses into Ale; and some of our men could scarcely be prevented from doing it, but it would only have made a noise; and so it was better let alone. However, you can rest quite as safe here as if you were a hundred miles out at sea. They shan't catch you in Ale, I'll answer for it. So come along, sir."
In a few minutes more, Smeaton and his servant were introduced into the fisherman's cottage, the lower story of which, consisting of a room on either side and a good wide passage between them, was encumbered with a variety of articles belonging to the man's craft or mystery, some of which were not of the most pleasant odour. Salted fish, sails, nets, fishing-lines, spars, oars, boat-hooks, barrels of tar, tallow candles, and a number of things which I cannot describe, were huddled together in the rooms and in the passage, exhaling a smell, as I have said, more powerful than fragrant, which was considerably assisted by a quantity of smoke issuing forth from the room on the left-hand side. There, at the cheek of the fire; as they termed it, sat the old man's old wife, with two or three young dolphins; her grand-children, playing about as merrily as if it had been noon. To her the fisherman introduced his guest, and whispered a word in her ear which instantly made her clamber up a steep little staircase which came down without guard or balustrade, not into the passage, but into the middle of the very room where she had been sitting. The floor above, I may mention, contained four rooms, and was nearly double the size of the floor below, which is only to be accounted for by the fact of the house being built against the steep side of the hill, which left not more than eight-and-twenty feet of flat ground between its base and the river.
The good lady not returning immediately, the fisherman himself went up after her, and found her, like all ladies when visited by an unexpected guest, in a great and setting-to-rights bustle.
"Pooh, pooh!" said the old man; "don't make such a piece of work, mother. He is quite a plain gentleman, and has been a soldier. He must have the back room too; for there he'll be snuggest."
"But suppose you want to get the tea out, Jack?" said the old lady. "Why, the bed is just over the hiding-hole."
"All the better," replied the man. "He may have to hide there before we have done with him. It is not the first time, I think, mother, that we have hid a man there; and so we must do now, if it is needful. Here, we'll put the chest for a seat at the foot of the bed. You bring the table out of 'tother room. Then it will all look mighty comfortable. But we must get him some supper before he goes to bed; and I'll broach that little keg I brought in last time."
"I hope he'll pay for what he has," said the old lady; "for we cannot afford to be giving away the things for nothing."
"There, there, don't be a fool," rejoined her husband. "Madam Culpepper will take care we are none the worse for it; and we all of us owe her much more than that comes to."
When they descended the stairs they found Smeaton playing with the children, who were in high glee; but his servant was no longer with him.
"I have sent my man up to the house," he said. "He can stay there without danger to himself, for to-night at least; and he may be of service to me."
The old man seemed startled, and not well pleased.
"You know best, sir," he said gruffly; "but--"
"But what, my good friend?" interrogated Smeaton. "You seem not to like my having done so."
"Why, sir, if he tells Sir John that you are down here, it may be a bad business," replied Grayling. "Mayhap you do not know Sir John as well as we do."
"I think I do," rejoined Smeaton, with a smile; "and, for that reason, I told the man not to say where I am, but merely to let them know I had been rescued and had ridden away. I have left him to tell his own tale; but I can trust him; and, depend upon it, Sir John will know nothing of the matter."
"Well, well. That is all right," responded the fisherman, his look brightening. "If he sees Mrs. Culpepper first, she'll tell him what to do."
A sudden light broke upon Smeaton's mind. "Pray was it Mrs. Culpepper," he said, "who directed you to come to my rescue?"
The old man laughed.
"You are quite under a mistake, sir," he said. "None of us came to your rescue. We know nothing about it. Ask any man in the place, and he'll tell you the same. There has not been one of them a couple of hundred yards from the place to-night."
A sly smile contradicted his words, and Smeaton, comprehending the truth, answered laughingly:
"Nevertheless, Master Grayling, there is a great streak of scot, or some black stuff, all the way down your cheek."
"The devil there is!" cried the man, starting up, and walking with the candle to a little looking-glass that hung against the wall. "Here, mother, give us a tuft of oakum." And, having got what he demanded, he rubbed his weather-beaten cheek hard, and then threw the oakum into the fire.
"It is a rule here, sir," he said, "never to speak of anything that we do beyond the cross-road; and it is a good rule too; so neither you nor any one else will get anything out of us, ask what questions you will. Sir John is a keen hand, and he tried it more than once at first; but he could make nothing of it, for we all know that a man's greatest enemy is his own tongue. You could not make that little child there blab, I'll be bound. But I dare say you know that Mrs. Culpepper has a brother and two nephews living over at Keanton; good solid men they are, who know how to held their tongues too, and that is all I shall say upon the subject. So now, sir, if you like to have a glass of Geneva and some broiled fish, we'll have our supper."
Smeaton explained that he had supped already, and the old man, lighting a fresh candle, conducted him up the stairs to his bed-room. When they were in it and the door shut, he put down the light and said: "You won't be very comfortable here, sir, but you'll be very safe, and I'll tell you how to manage. But, mind you, I'm going to put myself a bit in your power; so you must keep my secret as well as I'll keep yours. That window there looks up the hill; but nobody can come down that way, and from it you can see all the way up the path by what they call the blind man's well. Then look here. Underneath that bed, three of the planks lift up, altogether. They play upon a pivot; so you have nothing to do but put your knife under, and lift them as I do now. There, you see, is the top of a ladder, going down into our storehouse, as we call it, though old mother Grayling will call it my hiding-hole. If you get notice that anybody is coming, you have nothing to do but to go down there, shut the trap after you, and push in the bolt. Light enough enters through the chinks for you to see in the day-time; but don't take a candle in, and mind you don't tumble over the bales and other things."
"Is it cut in the rock?" asked Smeaton.
"Oh, dear no," replied the man. "You see it is the corner made by this floor sticking out above the other. It looks just like the rest of the house outside, and may be dug a bit down into the ground; for there are two steps up to get out below. But that was done before my time."
"Then one can get out from below?" asked Smeaton.
"To be sure," answered the man. "How could we get the goods in else? You'll soon see the door on the inside, though nobody can't see it on the out; and, should any people come looking after you, and you want to get away to sea, that's the best way. You shall always find a boat ready, and men to jump into her too, and we'll take care that the way is clear for you. So now, good night, sir."
"Stay a minute," said Smeaton. "I might have to go in great haste, and not be able to pay you, at the moment, either for your services or my entertainment. I should like to do so now, therefore, and also for the hire of a boat to take me to France."
"No, no, sir. As to all that," returned the man, "you must speak to my old woman. She is ready enough to take money--so don't give her too much of it; and, for the boat, you can pay the men who take you. That is all fair. What I have to do is, to see that they are ready, if I don't go myself, which is likely. Good night, sir. You'll see the old woman to-morrow, sure enough."
Thus saying, he went away, and closed the door, and Smeaton, seating himself at the table, gave himself up to thought.
He was not long in determining his course, and what the result of his reflections was, may be judged by some words which he spoke aloud, as one is apt to do when hesitation gives place to reflection.
"He is only to be fought with his own weapons," he said. "I owe it to her, to myself, and to others. Yet, if possible, she must be mine before we go. The occasion will justify the precipitancy."
After again pausing in thought, for a minute or two, he approached the little window, opened it, and looked out. Finding that the distance from the sill to the ground was not above five or six feet, he quietly let himself down, and walked, though with much difficulty, owing to the steepness of the hill, to the little path which led up to the well. Opposite the well, he paused; and, striding across, so as to rest his right foot upon the opposite brim, he applied the key Van Noost had given him to that part of the chiselling in the rough stone-work which he fancied must conceal the key-hole. He had some difficulty in finding it, however; but, at length, succeeded. Van Noost was a clever artificer. The key turned even more easily than that from which it had been modelled, and Smeaton, satisfied that he could command access to Emmeline at any time he pleased, locked the door again, and returned to his chamber at the cottage. Then, exploring his saddle-bags, he brought forth from them a little round case, very generally used by notaries of that time, which contained some sheets of writing-paper, pens, and an ink-bottle; and, seating himself at the table, he wrote a rapid letter to Lord Stair, explaining the circumstances in which he was placed.
"It is now more than a week, my lord," he said, "since I wrote to your lordship, requesting you to use your influence, with the government in order to obtain my formal recognition as an English subject, and offering to comply with every proper form that may be required in such a case. I stated to you that I had inviolately adhered to the promise I gave you not to meddle in any shape with political matters, but that, nevertheless, I understood measures had been taken for arresting me, notwithstanding the assurances I had received from your lordship, Since I wrote the above letter, which, I fear, can never have reached you, I have every reason to believe that a scheme has been devised for driving me into the hands of parties opposed to the existing government.
"I was induced this morning by Sir John Newark to go over to a house called Mount Place to return the visit of its owner, and found a number of gentlemen with him, though I had been led to believe he would be alone. As I discovered at once that they were discussing questions of much political importance, I took my leave and retired, not having been, in the whole, two minutes in the house. I then rode on to my mother's property of Keanton, where I had previously sent the good man, Van Noost, whom you know, in order to keep him out of danger. He was amusing himself, at the moment of my arrival, in casting leaden globes to replace some others which had been blown or knocked off the pinnacles of the house; but before I had been ten minutes at Keanton, the place was taken possession of by a party of soldiers, and I and Van Noost were apprehended upon warrants previously issued, to which General C----, from a misapprehension of what the poor statuary was doing, added a charge of casting bullets for the purposes of civil war. Given into custody of one Captain Smallpiece and a party of horse, I and my fellow prisoner were taken to an inn, where the officer determined to remain for the night, although I expressed my desire to proceed to Exeter. The peasantry had previously shown themselves inclined to resist my apprehension, and here a large body of men found means to introduce themselves into the inn, and to overpower the troopers, who were mostly drunk. In the affray, Captain Smallpiece was in the act of shooting Van Noost, who had taken no part whatever in the struggle; and, to save the poor man's life, I was obliged to knock the officer down. Feeling that such a chain of circumstances--some of which were evidently accidental, though some were brought about for the purpose of involving me in the rash schemes of others--would form a very dangerous kind of evidence against me, and knowing the peril of being one of the first persons proceeded against in troublous times, I took advantage of the opportunity of making my escape, with the resolution of writing immediately to your lordship; a resolution which I now execute. Every word of the statement here given is true, upon my honour as a gentleman and a soldier. Since I have been here, I have held no communication with any one on political affairs. I have taken no part in any disturbances or any schemes whatever; but the assurance given me by your lordship, that I should not be molested, has been grossly violated by the authorities here, as if it was their object and intention to drive me into the arms of the disaffected. Nothing shall do so, if I can by any means avoid it; and it is my intention immediately to return to France. If I am prevented from doing so, however, by any active pursuance of the sort of persecution to which I have been subjected, and I find my earnest desire to remain tranquil, and to take no part in any political affairs whatever, thus frustrated, I must of course follow those measures which I judge requisite for my own safety."
He added a few words more, in regard to the general object of his letter, took a copy of it, and addressed it to the Earl in London. After having done so, he retired to rest, and slept as tranquilly for some hours as if the course of the preceding day had been calm and smooth.