Cope struck at the air with his hand.
The captain added his entreaties. His presence was unnecessary; with so much depending on him he had no right to accept the risk; he should be informed of every movement where he was. Cope, in a paroxysm of anger, shouted for him to be silent.
“You, too, mock my infirmity!” he cried tremulously. “Nay!—that’s all past, d’ye hear? That’s past months ago; this is my hour of mocking. What d’ye think I’ve endured, smiling and bowing and soft, waiting for this day? I’m going up yonder to laugh now, d’ye hear me?—to laugh in my turn! I’m going to click triggers instead o’ clogs, hear you?—to make ’em march to their own tune of Johnny Cope, mark well! If I’d but a trumpeter to play it! Raikes I hold in my finger, Moon’s locked inside his own doors, and a dozen I’ve marked over yonder shall be in this square in a quarter of a day from now; remains the big man.... Their furnaces? I’ll make their furnaces such a place o’ dread with swinging bodies....” He became inarticulate, and soon, suddenly dropping his voice a little, he cried, “Up! Why are we talking here? Up!”
On the fourteenth day of August, of the year 1779, at half-past three in the afternoon, they hoisted and pushed and carried Jeremy Cope up Wadsworth Scout to where the horses waited on the Causeway.
CHAPTER XIV.
ONE WAY IN, NONE OUT.
THE Causeway, creeping round the foot of the High Moor three miles into Back o’ th’ Mooin, takes a long and gradual rise over the lift of the plateau that is called Holdsworth Head. The leagues of purple heather, that the weeks of continued heat had parched to a pale lilac hue, give place at this point to scarred and broken ground. Gorse and yellow bents spread north up the High Moor, and to the south, close to the road, lie the old coal workings. The bellpits, conical cavities ten or twelve feet deep, choked with ling and bracken, are scattered among innumerable hillocks of grey shale. That afternoon, over the hillocks farthest from the Causeway, where the heather began again, signs of recent disturbance were visible. The ground was newly turned, and a triangular peak of shaft-timbers showed. The older shale-heaps reflected the hot sunlight in a pale and greasy grey.
The scarlet chain wound slowly over the distant edge, approached the foot of the long rise, and halted. Its turbulent black following pushed out a wing on either hand. Two small figures, the one on a brown horse and the other on one so white that it showed as definitely as if it had been cut out of paper, seemed to be engaged in an altercation. The former dismounted; the dispute appeared to be about changing horses. The other made a furious gesture, and the first mounted his own horse again. A strong party detached itself and advanced up the road, its bayonets fixed and glittering in the sun like tiny sparks.
A black-topped stone post marked the beginning of the workings, and at this post the advance party halted again. The officer in charge held a drawn sword; the sword flashed and pointed, and the party broke up into disorder. The scarlet coats scattered and began to appear and disappear and reappear among the shale-heaps of the bellpits; the place was perfect for an ambuscade. The black wings of the following away down the road extended farther out, but did not advance.
It took twenty minutes to beat the workings as far as the distant shaft-timbers. At the end of that time the party reassembled in the road. The scrubby gorse at the foot of the High Moor was three hundred yards away; it was not searched. One or two stragglers had now detached themselves from the black wings, and their heads and shoulders bobbed and disappeared in the heather.
Cope sat insecurely on the white horse. He had brought the stirrup-irons over the saddle, where he held them one on either side with his hands. His legs barely reached the saddle-flaps. He neither spoke to nor looked at the officer on the brown horse, and his head was thrust forward between his narrow shoulders and his lids fluttered with a little regular movement. The officer in charge of the advance party returned and saluted his superior.