About fifty people (some of them women) were sitting about a hollow in the ground, which I guessed to be a sort of smokeless fireplace or earth-oven. Everywhere else, all over the hollow of the camp, which must have been a full three hundred yards across, were various kinds of farm-stock, mostly cattle, though there were many picketed horses, too. At first I thought that I had climbed into a camp of gipsies, which gave me a scare; for gipsies then were a wild lot, whom wise folk avoided. Then, as I glanced about, I saw a sentry standing not thirty yards from me, but well above me, on the rampart top. He was no gipsy he was an ordinary farmer's lad, with the walk of a ploughman. His sleeves, which were rolled back, showed me a sun-burnt pair of arms, such as no gipsy ever had. What puzzled me about him was his heavy double-barrelled pistol, which he carried in his right hand, with something of a military cock, yet as though awed by it. He was not over sure of that same pistol. I could see that he confounded it in some way with art-magic.
Then I remembered what the old soldier had said the night before about club men. This camp must be a camp of club men, I thought. They had come there to protect their stock from the rapine of our vile pillagers, who had spread such terror amongst the farmers the day before. Perched up on the combe, with sentries always on the look-out, they could see the Duke's raiders long before they came within gunshot. If an armed force had tried to rush the camp, after learning that the beasts were shut up within it (which, by the way, no man could possibly suspect until he saw them from the rampart top), the few defenders clubbed together there could have kept them out without difficulty; for there was only one narrow entrance to the camp, so constructed that any one entering by it could be shot at from three sides, if not from all four. I looked about me carefully from my hiding-place, till I decided that I could get a better view from another part of the fern clump. I began to wriggle through the thick, sweet-scented stalks, towards the heart of the camp, going with infinite care, so as not to break down the fern into a path. I hoped to make no more stir among the fern-tops than would be made by one of the many pigs scattering about in the enclosure.
While I was crawling along in this way, I suddenly heard a curious noise from an intensely thick part of the fern in front of me. It was a clinking noise, followed by a sort of dry rasping, as though a very big person were gritting his teeth very hard. It stopped suddenly, but soon began again. I thought that it must be some one mending harness with a file, or perhaps some old sheep or cow, with the remnants of a bell about her neck, licking a stone for salt. As was in an adventure, I thought that I would see it out to the end; for I was enjoying my morning. In spite of the want of breakfast I felt very like a red Indian or a pirate, creeping through the jungle to the sack of a treasure train. So I wormed on towards the noise. As I came near to it, I went more cautiously, because in one of the pauses of the noise, I heard a muttered curse, which told me that the unseen noise-maker was a man. If I had been wise I should have stopped there; for I had learned all that I came out to learn. But I was excited now. I wished to see everything, before creeping away unseen to make my report. Perhaps I wished to see something which had nothing to do with the club men, a private main of cocks, say, or a dog, or bull-baiting, carried on with some of the squire's creatures, but without his knowledge. I had a half wish that I might have something of the kind to report; because in my heart I longed to say nothing to any of the Duke's party which might lead to the ruin of these poor people who were trying so hard to protect their property.
A few feet further on, I was wishing most heartily that I had never left my room in London. It was like this. In the very heart of the fern clump, where the ferns were tallest, a little spring bubbled out of the ground, at the rate, I suppose, of a pint of water in a minute. The ferns grew immensely thick there; but someone had thinned out a few of the roots from the ground, leaving the uprooted plant with the ferns still living, to form a rough kind of thatch above a piece of earth big enough for a man's body. In the scented shade of this thatch, with the side of his face turned towards me, a big, rough, bearded man sat, filing away some bright steel irons which were riveted on his ankles. He swore continually in a low whisper as he worked, not even pausing in his curses when he spat on to the hollow scraped in the irons by his file. He was the fiercest looking savage of a man I have ever seen. His face had a look of stern, gloomy cruelty which I shall never forget. His general appearance was terrible; for he had a face burnt almost black by the sun (some of it may have been mud) with a nasty white scar running irregularly all down his left cheek, along the throat to the shoulder. He was not what you might call naked, a naked man, such as I have seen since in the hot countries, would have looked a nobleman beside him. He wore a pair of dirty linen knickerbockers, all frayed into ribbons at the knees, a pair of strong hide slippers bound to his ankles by strips of leather, a part of a filthy red shirt without sleeves, a hat stolen from a scarecrow, nothing else whatever, except the mud of many days' gathering. His shirt was torn all down the back in a great slit which he had tried to secure by what the sailors call “Bristol buttons,” i.e. pieces of string. The red flannel hung from him so as to show his back, all criss-crossed with flogging scars. I knew at once from the irons that he was a criminal escaped from gaol; but the criss-crossed scars taught me that he was a criminal of the most terrible kind, probably one who had shipped into the Navy to avoid hanging.
I took in a view of him before he saw me. His image was stamped on my brain in less than ten seconds. In the eleventh second, I was lying on my back in the gloom of the fern-growth, with this great ruffian on my chest, squeezing me by my windpipe. I cannot say that he spoke to me. It was not speech. It was the snarling wild beast gurgle which passes for speech in the slums of our great cities, as though all the filth of a low nature were choking in the throat at once. He was on me too quickly for me to cry out. I could only lie still, cackling for breath, while the fierce face glowered down on me. I understood him to say that he would have my windpipe out if I said a word. I suppose he saw that I was only a very frightened boy; for his clutch upon me relaxed, after a few awful, gasping moments. When he loosed his hold, his great hand pawed over my throat till he had me by the scruff of the neck. He drew me over towards the spring, as one would draw a puppy. Then, still crouching in the fern, he hurried me to a single stunted sloe-bush which grew there. “Go down, you,” he said, giving me a shove towards the bush. “Down th' 'ole.”
Just behind the sloe-bush, under a fringe of immense ferns, was an opening in the earth, about eighteen inches high, by two feet across. It was like a large rabbit or fox earth, except that the mouth of it was not worn bare. I did not like the thought of going down th' 'ole; but with this great griping fist on my nape there was not much sense in saying so. I wormed my way in, helped on by prods from the file. It was a melancholy moment when my head passed beyond the last filtering of light into the tomb's blackness, where not even insects lived. After a moment of scrambling I found that the passage was big enough for me to go on all fours. It was a dry passage, too, which seemed strange to me; but on reaching out with my hand I felt that the walls were lined with well laid stones, unmortared. The roof above me was also of stone. You may wonder why I did not shoot this ruffian with my pistol. You boys think that if you had a pistol you would shoot any one who threatened you. You would not. When the moment comes, it is not so easily disposed of. Besides, a filthy, cursing pirate on your throat checks your natural calm most strangely.
The passage led into the swell of the rampart for about twenty yards, where it opened into a dimly lighted chamber about four feet high. A little blink of light came through a rabbit hole, at the end of which I saw a spray of gorse with the sunlight on it. I could see by the dim light that the chamber was built of unmortared stones, very cleverly laid. The floor of it was greasier than the passage had been, but still it was not damp. On one side it had a bed of heather stalks, on the other there was something dark which felt like cold meat. The man came grunting in behind me, clinking his leg-irons. After groping about in a corner of the room he lighted a stinking rushlight by means of a tinder box.
CHAPTER XX. THE SQUIRE'S HOUSE
“There,” he said, not unkindly, “there's a nice little 'ome for yer. Now you, tell me wot you were doing spying on me. First of all, 'ave you any money?” He did not wait for me to answer, but dug his hands into my pockets at once, taking every penny I had, except a few shillings which were hidden in my belt. He did not see my belt, as I had taken to wearing it next my skin, since I began to follow the wars. I feared from the greed which showed in all his movements that he vas going to strip me; but he did not do so, thinking, no doubt, that none of my clothes would fit his body.