In this dilemma, the three miscreants made straight towards a farm-house at which they occasionally received hospitality in their lawless expeditions, and which bears the name of "Smuggler Farm" to this day; but they knew not that all hearts had been raised against them by their late atrocities, and that the very tenant of the farm himself was now one of the foremost in pursuit. Rushing in, then, with no farther ceremony than casting the door open, they locked and barred it, just as some of the peasantry were closing in upon them; and then, hurrying to the kitchen, where the farmer's wife, his sister, and a servant was collected, Ned Ramley, who was the first, exclaimed, "Have you no hide, good dame?"
"Hide!" replied the stout farmer's wife, eyeing him askance--"not for such villains as you! Give me the spit, Madge; I've a great mind to run him through." Ned Ramley drew a pistol from his pocket; but at that moment the window was thrown up, the back door of the house was cast open, and half-a-dozen of the stout yeomanry rushed in. The smugglers saw that resistance would be vain; but still they resisted; and though, in the agitation of the moment, Ned Ramley's pistol was discharged innocuously, he did not fail to aim it at the head of young William Harris, who was springing towards him. The stout farmer, however, instantly levelled him with the ground by a thundering blow upon the head; and the other two men, after a desperate struggle, were likewise taken and tied.
"Lucky for you it was me, and not my father, Master Ramley," said William Harris. "He'd have blown your brains out; but you're only saved to be hanged, anyhow.--Ay, here he comes!--Stop, stop, old gentleman! he's a prisoner; don't you touch him.--Let the law have the job, as the gentleman said."
"Oh, you accursed villain--oh, you hellish scoundrel," cried old Harris, kept back with difficulty by his son and the rest. "You were one of the foremost of them. But where is the greatest villain of them all?--where's that limb of the devil, young Radford?--I will have him! Let me go, Will--I will have him, I say!"
Ned Ramley laughed aloud: "You wont, though," he answered, bitterly; "he's been gone this half hour, and will be at the sea, and over the sea, before you can catch him.--You may do with me what you like, but he's safe enough."
"Some one ride off and tell the officer what he says!" cried the farmer. But when the intelligence was conveyed to Sir Henry Leyton, he was already aware that some of the men must have made their escape unobserved; for his servant had met Cornet Joyce and the party of dragoons by the way, and with the aid of a number of farm servants from Iden Green and its neighbourhood, the wood had been searched with such strictness, that the pheasants, which were at that time numerous there, had flown out in clouds, as if a battue had been going on. He mistrusted Ned Ramley's information, however; knowing that the hardened villain would find a sort of pride in misleading the pursuers of young Radford, even though taken himself. Riding quickly across to the farm, then, together with Mowle and the Cornet, he interrogated the men separately, but found they were all in the same story, from which they varied not in the least--that Richard Radford had crept out by the hedges near the wood, and had gone first to a place where a horse was in waiting for him, and thence would make straight to the sea-side, where a boat was already prepared. Instant measures to prevent him from executing this plan now became necessary; and Leyton directed the Cornet to hasten away as fast as possible in pursuit, sending information from Woodchurch to every point of the coast where the offender was likely to pass, spreading out his men so as to cover all the roads to the sea, and only leaving at the farm a sufficient guard to secure the prisoners.
On hearing the latter part of this order, however, Farmer Harris exclaimed, "No, no, sir; no need of that. We've taken them, and we'll keep them safe enough. I'll see these fellows into prison myself--ay, and hanged too, please God! and we'll guard them sure, don't you be afraid."
Leyton looked to Mowle, saying, "I must abide by your decision, Mr. Mowle." But the officer answered: "Oh, you may trust them, sir, quite safely, after all I hear has happened. But I think, Mr. Harris, you had better have just a few men to help you. You've got no place to keep them here; and they must be taken before a magistrate first, before they can be committed."
"Oh, we'll keep them safe enough," replied the farmer. "We'll put them in Goudhurst church, till we can send them off, and, in the meantime, I'll have them up before Squire Broughton. My son's a constable, so they are in proper hands."
"Very well," answered Leyton; "in this case I have no right to interfere; but, of course, you are responsible for their safe custody."