Chapter Eight.
Good Advice from a Strange Quarter—Midnight and Anxiety.
The state of my mind at this moment must have been akin to that of a snake-charmed bird. I felt utterly, abjectly helpless. Had the apparition taken a knife out and proceeded to kill us, I do not think I should have lifted a hand or uttered a cry, except a frightened moan like a person in a nightmare.
He stood and looked down at us long and earnestly. A strangely haggard, but not an evil face, black beard of a week’s growth perhaps, and short dark hair hardly seen for the napkin that bound his head instead of a hat or cap.
We found voice at last, both at the same time. “Oh, sir,” we said, beseechingly, “do not kill us!” He started as we spoke the last two words, started as if stung, and gazed behind him with quick dramatic action, his black eyes all ablaze for the moment. So have I often since seen a hunted wolf look when at bay.
The first words he spoke betrayed him to be a foreigner.
“Kill!” he said, “what for I kill you? You alone? All alone?”
“Yes,” we replied, “yes, sir, quite alone.”
“’Tis goot. Do not fear me. Where go you to-morrow day? What you do here?”
I glanced at him for a moment before I spoke, and the truth flashed across my mind. This was the terrible convict we heard the soldiers say was abroad on the moor. He was not in convict dress, and though his coat was in rags, his boots were good. We learned from him, afterwards, that he had exchanged clothes, strange though it appeared, with a scarecrow. There was some humour here, though sadly blended with deepest pathos.
No, this man might rob, but he would not kill us. He was in trouble like ourselves. So we told him we were running away from school.
He looked at us again, and I saw he believed us. “Angleese, I not speak much. I am Español. I am a convict. Do not fear. I have never kill one. No—no—no.”
He sat down beside the candle and took out a knife and a turnip.
Something told me the poor fellow was famishing. I jumped up and went to my bag, and placed bread and bacon in his hand. He ate ravenously and thanked me. Perhaps it was only fancy, but I thought I saw tears in his eyes.
While he ate, much to our astonishment, a little black mouse ran down his sleeve, and sat on the back of his left hand, which he took care to keep still. The creature ate hungrily of the crumbs he gave it, and when finished, he held out his little finger, around which the mouse entwined both its little arms, while it licked it as lovingly as a dog would have done. Then, at a sign from the convict, it once more retreated.
I am sure, even now, that it was his love for the gentle wee mouse that made Jill and I take to this man, and believe what he told us. Briefly, his story was this:
“Many years ago, one, two, ten perhaps, I am cast away on this shore. My mate and me alone live. We trabel much. We seek for friend. No find. Then we come to big town, Cardeef, you call it. Here we find goot friend. We go seek for ship then to take us to Cadeeth. It is night. All my money in my belt. Bad men come out, kill my mate. I hear voices, footsteps. I run up to my mate. I pull out the ugly knife. I am caught there. I am taken to preeson, tried before justice—justice, ha! ha! I not kill my poor mate. All same. No one speak my language well. I not can speak Angleese den. I get angry, wild, mad. They put me away to preeson. Twenty year they say. But now I am free. They never get me more. I die first.”
“And the mouse?” said Jill.
“That is my preeson mate. I think ’tis the speerit of Roderigo, my friend, in dat little mouse. The warder want to kill him. Den I say, I escape or die. You may believe me. ’Tis all true. What for I tell little chaps like you lie. I have good friend at home. I will tell all dere. The Español Government will make de Angleese restitute. But dey cannot bring back Roderigo.”
“Did you love Roderigo very much?”
“He was best of friend. All same as brother. Yes, I love him. And you? What you do?”
Then, boy-like, we told this man all our terrible tale. We expected him to be visibly affected; perhaps, convict though he was, to shrink from us.
He certainly was visibly affected, but in a way we little expected. He laughed outright.
“For ten long year,” he said, “I never laugh before.”
The little mouse came down his sleeve again and sat on his wrist to wash his face and blink at the candle. The convict pointed to it with a forefinger and laughed again.
“Even Roderigo,” he cried, “is much amoose. Ha, ha, ha! Ah, boys,” he added, almost immediately getting serious; “you have a home. Go back to dat home. Go back, I say, go back. I speak as an all unworthy friend.”
“But they will hang us for piracy.”
“Do not make me laugh more. It does not become rags and grief to laugh. See, I am widout money, and naked, still I laugh. Poor boys, go back!”
I considered for a moment, then abruptly changed the subject.
“How do you expect to get away? We saw soldiers to-day on the moor. They were talking about you, and said you could not escape.”
His face grew darker and sadder.
Then, with all a boy’s generous abandon, I pulled out my purse and showed him my money. Even little Roderigo—Jill afterwards declared—paused in the act of washing his ears and gazed at the glittering coins.
“This is all we have,” I said.
“You unwise boy! I might take all. I will not refuse de offer of kindness. See, I take two. No more. This has save my life.”
He dipped a finger and thumb into the coins in my palm and took two sovereigns, and I put away the rest. He sat a long time silent after this. Then he got up, and going out, soon returned with an armful of ferns, which he placed in a corner.
“I sleep now,” he said. “To-morrow day we talk.”
Strange that now we felt no fear of this strange being. We slept soundly and well, and daylight was streaming into the cave when we were aroused. The convict had lightly touched me on the shoulder.
He was smiling, and looked now neither so haggard nor so terrible as on the evening before.
“No warm breakfus,” he said, smiling. “Soldiers have pass ’long de highway. Think you they seek for de convict to put in preeson, or de pirate boys to hang? Eh?”
We both trembled. But the keen air of the hill gave us an appetite and we did not miss the tea.
“Now we talk,” said the convict. “I have been think.”
“And,” I said, firmly, “I have also been thinking. It may not be so bad as we thought. They may not want to hang us. But they would disgrace and laugh at us, and I am a soldier’s son. I will not go back. Would you, Jill?”
“Assuredly not.”
“Den what else you do?”
“Go to sea before the mast.” The convict laughed again before he replied—“Boys, I speak as your friend. Do not be fools. Go to sea? What? Who take you? Though I have been long in preeson, I know all de law. At sea what can you do? No dings. No capitan will have runaways. Suppose you do hide, what you calls stowaway. Den they make you for to work—”
“We don’t mind that.”
“Stop till I speak. Dey bring you back to de same port. Ha, ha!”
It had never struck us before in this light. Not that we intended to stow away, but little goslings that we were, we fancied we had only to make our way to a seaport and choose a ship, and that any captain would be delighted to have us without asking any questions.
This convict was speaking sense, but he had already cast down our idols and banished every morsel of sentiment from our situation.
I could have cried with vexation.
I almost hated the poor fellow now. Why could he not have left us to go on a little longer in the flowery lane of our romance? Presently he spoke again.
“You have to me been a friend. Now to you I will be a friend. I will go to your aunt.”
“No, no, no.”
“Stop, my friend. I will tell her what you do wish me to speak. No dings more. Shall I go?”
“Tell her,” I said, “that we are well and happy. No, tell her we are wretched. No, no. Jill, what shall we tell her?”
“Well,” said Jill, with his old smile, “you can’t say we’re jolly. Just say we won’t come back. That we want to get a ship to go to mother.”
“No, Jill, not like that, a ship to go to sea. They will not take us without aunt’s leave—then, we must get it.”
“Ah!” cried the convict, “dat is sensibeel now. You speak like one young man. I go to-night. You stay in de cave. Do not be seen. I will quickly return.”
“But you will not bring Aunt Serapheema!”
I felt angry at the time for speaking thus, but I could not help it. To have been dragged back now would have broken both our hearts, of this I am convinced.
“No,” said the convict. “As I am a good Catholic—no.”
This was enough for me. I took out once more my little writing-case, and feeling more happy and hopeful now, I wrote a long letter to auntie. It might have been but a repetition of the last, but it breathed even more emphatically than before our firm determination not to return till we had been to sea, adding that if this dream—that is the very word I used—were denied to us, we would work for our daily bread with the sweat of our brow.
It may have been a foolish boyish letter, and I dare say was, but it spoke our feelings, and no letter can do more than that.
This I entrusted to our friend the Spaniard, and he put it in his breast.
We kept close to the cave all that day, and several times heard voices in the distance, but no one came near us.
At night, as soon as the stars shone out, the convict left us, and we now felt very lonely indeed, but made the best of it, eating a hearty supper and talking till long past midnight.
As I write, poor Auntie Serapheema’s diary lies before me, and as the following entry refers to Jill and me, I take the liberty of transcribing it in full.
“July 25, 18—. Last night, being the fourth since the disappearance of the dear foolish boys, and just as Sarah was bringing the Book, there came a knock to the hall door. Poor Mattie and I both started. Every knock makes us start now. It was only Robert, but he came to say a strange man wanted to see me on business. I made Sarah re-light the lamp in the drawing-room and retire. He stood near the mantelpiece as I entered, and bowed with almost stage politeness. I could see at once he was a foreigner. Englishmen are not urbane. He was clean shaved with the exception of the moustache, which was long and tinged with grey like his hair—also long. His eyes were very dark and piercing, and he looked altogether interesting and like a man who had come through some grievous sorrow. He handed me the bill of the reward of 50 pounds for the dear lads. ‘Yes, it was I who offered it,’ I said. Speaking in broken English, he told me I must take the bills in to-morrow, and issue others saying the lads were found. He knew where they were, and could arrange for me to meet them. ‘Where?’—‘At Bristol.’—‘No, nearer?’—‘Not a mile,’ he said. Did he want the reward then? I said this to try him. He did not speak. He appeared about to faint. I made him sit down, and caused Sarah to bring wine and a little food. While he ate he handed me a letter from my most foolish of lads. I watched him while he refreshed himself. Strange to say, a little mouse he called Roderigo came from his sleeve and sat in his hand, and he fed it. It then retired. I knew then I had a strange being to deal with, but I also felt I could trust him. But he would give me none of his own history; yet if he had asked me then for the whole of the money I would have handed it over. He only asked for twenty pounds to carry out his plans on the morrow. Yes, in answer to his question, he could sleep under my roof and welcome. Would I forgive him if he retired soon. Yes, again; he looked tired and was so polite. He said, was I the boys’ eldest sister. I am often taken to be very young. While we talked Mattie came in. I was surprised to see the child turn red and white by turns as he looked at her. Then she advanced and held out her hand. She said, ‘I am glad you have come.’ I said, ‘What do you say, child?’ Her reply was a strange one as she gazed from my face to the man’s. ‘Is that not—oh, I cannot call you to name. But I saw you—and oh, it must have been in a dream.’ She looked half in a dream now, and I was about to call Sarah, fearing she might be ill, when she smiled, and was soon after talking with the mysterious stranger as if they had long known each other. She marvelled much at the little mouse. He called it his friend, his mate, his brother, and though she laughed, she seemed to understand him.
“This morning he went away, and soon returned improved in habiliment. Poor fellow, he does not look well off. Now he has gone, and to-morrow I start for Bristol. But though Mattie would fain come, I must go all alone. That is the agreement.”
Here the extract ends.
On the day after the Spaniard left us, nothing occurred till near evening, when we were much frightened by the sudden appearance at the cave mouth of a huge dog. We thought it was a bloodhound, and that we were to be tracked thus, or our friend the Spaniard. The dog gave one startled look and retired, and presently, on venturing to look through the bushes, we found, much to our relief, he was running behind a man on horseback.
Nothing happened all that night, and next day we felt very uneasy as hour after hour went by and our new friend never returned. What could have occurred? False I felt he would not prove. But was he re-taken or dead? Oh, that would indeed have been dreadful.
The time went wearily, wearily on. We never ventured out of the cave, lest we might be seen, for once again we saw soldiers pass and repass.
When the evening star appeared shining bright and clear over the valley far beneath us, we felt more safe. Then the bats went wheeling past and past, and the mournful cry of the brown owl sounded drearily over the moor again.
We thought we should pray for our friend. We did this, lit our candle, and read from the Book, as dear auntie always called it. While we were yet reading we heard the distant sound of wheels, and speedily put the light out lest it might betray us.
We were badly frightened again when the carriage stopped down on the bridge. We ran inside the cave, for we had come out to look, but just then we heard the owl’s cry three times repeated, and this was the signal.
We got our bag and ran down the brook-side, and there stood the Spaniard—for he spoke—but so changed we did not know him.
We were so happy then. And we had more questions to ask than the faithful man could easily answer.