"You should cut them off, sir--you should cut them off!" cried Mowle, addressing Captain Irby, "or, by Jove, they'll be over the hill above Brook Street; and then we shall never catch them, amongst all the woods and copses up there. They'll escape, to a certainty!"
"I think not, if I know my man," answered Captain Irby, coolly; "and, at all events, Mr. Mowle, I must obey my orders.--But there he comes over the hill; so that matter's settled. Now let them get out if they can.--You have heard of a rat-trap, Mr. Mowle?"
Mowle turned his eyes in the direction of an opposite hill, about three-quarters of a mile distant from the spot where he himself stood, and there, coming up at a rapid pace, appeared an officer in a plain grey cloak, with two or three others in full regimentals, round him, while a larger body of cavalry than any he had yet seen, met his eyes, following their commander about fifty yards behind, and gradually crowning the summit of the rise, where they halted. The smugglers could not be at more than half a mile's distance from this party, and the moment that it appeared, the troops from the side of High Halden and from Cuckoo Point began to advance at a quick trot, while Captain Irby descended into the lower ground more slowly, watching, with a small glass that he carried in his hand, the motions of all the other bodies, when the view was not cut off by the hedge-rows and copses, as his position altered. Mowle kept his eyes upon the body of smugglers, and upon the dragoons on the opposite hill, and he soon perceived a trooper ride down from the latter group to the former, as if bearing them some message.
The next instant, there was a flash or two, as if the smugglers had fired upon the soldier sent to them; and then, retreating slowly towards a large white house, with some gardens and shrubberies and various outbuildings around it, they manifested a design of occupying the grounds with the intention of there resisting the attack of the cavalry. A trooper instantly galloped down, at full speed, towards Captain Irby, making him a sign with his hand as he came near; and the troop with whom Mowle had advanced instantly received the command to charge, while the other, from the hill, came dashing down with headlong speed towards the confused multitude below.
The smugglers were too late in their manœuvre. Embarrassed with a large quantity of goods and a number of men on foot; they had not time to reach the shelter of the garden walls, before the party of dragoons from the hill was amongst them. But still they resisted with fierce determination, formed with some degree of order, gave the troopers a sharp discharge of firearms as they came near, and fought hand to hand with them, even after being broken by their charge.
The greater distance which Captain Irby had to advance, prevented his troop from reaching the scene of strife for a minute or two after the others; but their arrival spread panic and confusion amongst the adverse party; and after a brief and unsuccessful struggle, in the course of which, one of the dragoons was killed, and a considerable number wounded, nothing was thought of amongst young Radford's band, but how to escape in the presence of such a force. The goods were abandoned--all those men who had horses were seen galloping over the country in different directions; and if any fugitive paused, it was but to turn and fire a shot at one of the dragoons in pursuit. Almost every one of the men on foot was taken ere half an hour was over; and a number of those on horseback were caught and brought back, some desperately wounded. Several were left dead, or dying, on the spot where the first encounter had taken place; and amongst the former, Mowle, with feelings of deep regret, almost approaching remorse, beheld, as he rode up towards the colonel of the regiment, the body of his friend, the Major, shot through the head by a pistol-ball. Men of the Custom-House officer's character, however, soon console themselves for such things; and Mowle, as he rode on, thought to himself, "After all, it's just as well! He would only have been hanged--so he's had an easier death."
The young officer in the command of the regiment of dragoons was seated on horseback, upon the top of a little knoll, with some six or seven persons immediately around him, while two groups of soldiers, dismounted, and guarding a number of prisoners, appeared a little in advance. Amongst those nearest to the Colonel, Mowle remarked his companion, Birchett, who was pointing, with a discharged pistol, across the country, and saying, "There he goes, sir, there he goes! I'll swear that is he, on the strong grey horse. I fired at him--I'm sure I must have hit him."
"No, you didn't, sir," answered a sergeant of dragoons, who was busily tying a handkerchief round his own wounded arm. "Your shot went through his hat."
The young officer fixed his eyes keenly upon the road leading to Harbourne, where a man, on horseback, was seen galloping away, at full speed, with four or five of the soldiers in pursuit.
"Away after him, Sergeant Miles," he said; "take straight across the country, with six men of Captain Irby's troop. They are fresher. If you make haste you will cut him off at the corner of the wood; or if he takes the road through it, in order to avoid you, leave a couple of men at Tiffenden corner, and round by the path to the left. The distance will be shorter for you, and you will stop him at Mrs. Clare's cottage--a hundred guineas to any one who brings him in."