Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

by R. D. Blackmore

“That’s where it is. That is Struck-tree Cottage; the lightning come down and scorched the old oak.” Mrs. Rowles spoke in a whisper, as if herself afraid of it. “You see there’s a light in the parlour, Bill. That’s where the villains is, I do believe, and the poor lady locked away upstairs, maybe. Now you go forrard, and just peep in. They’ll never be capable of suspecting nothing; and everything will be black to them outside.”

It was quite dark now, without moon or stars. Spanker and the cart, which was painted brown, could scarcely be descried even twenty yards away, and the Sallies were of unpeeled osier. Bill handed the reins to his sister-in-law, and got down in his usual lanky style. Although he was a very hard-working fellow, nothing could drive him into quick jerks; for his joints were loose, and were often heard to creak, when the wind was in the east, and the air too dry.

“But if them cometh at me?” he asked with proper prudence, and a sense of his importance to three crowded rooms at home. “Why, I ain’t got so much as a stick to help me?”

“No fear, little Billy. Guilty conscience makes a coward. You need not let them see you. And if they do, why, they’ll take you for the Giant of the Heath—the old highwayman as was hanged in chains, not a hundred yards from here. My father seed him often; and when he fell down, he took to walking through the fuzz.”

“Oh Lor’, no more of that ’Liza! All my teeth be gone a-chatterin’. Give us a sack at any rate, if I meets he.”

Mrs. Rowles, who was not very happy herself, handed him a spare sack from the cart; and Bill Tompkins, with many glances right and left, and heartily wishing himself at home, set forth towards the cottage, walking very slowly, and carefully shunning every stick and stone that was visible on the brown, inhospitable earth. As he passed beneath the shattered tree, he looked up with a shudder at the jagged fork, and naked stubs, and contorted limbs, expecting the dead highwayman to clank his ghostly chains. Then he stole on with more courage, for he was tolerably brave, at least as regarded fellow-beings in the flesh.

When he came to the fence, a low palisade of fir, he just lifted his long legs over it, without casting about for any gate or door. As he groped along the fence towards the house, he discovered a gate which appeared to be locked, and observing that the palisade was much higher there, he very wisely lifted this gate from its hinges, and left room for himself to slip through at the back, if pursued, and obliged to retreat in a hurry. Then he made his way stealthily through some low shrubs to the corner of the cottage, and considered things.

It was quite a small building, with only four windows in front, and a door with a little porch between them. Two windows were on the ground floor, and two above; the windows of the downstair rooms had outer shutters, or rather framed blinds of lattice-work, such as carpenters call “louvres.” These were closed and fastened; but from the one on the right of the porch a strong light came through the interstices of the blind, and streamed in narrow slices on the misty gloom outside. The horizontal laths were turned at such an angle, that a man of common stature could only see the floor between them; but Selsey Bill was almost a giant, and hearing loud voices in that lower room, he approached the window stealthily, and standing on tiptoe, applied one eye to the top of the framework of the blind, where he found a wide slit between the beading and first lath. Through this he could see nearly all that was inside, for the curtains hung back at the end of the pole. Also he could hear pretty well what was said, for the window-glass was thin, and the ceiling low.

There were only two men in the room, both lounging in shabby armchairs near the fire, and smoking, yet not looking peaceful. Tompkins was surprised at this, because he could never have his own black pipe, with the cheapest and strongest tobacco to puff, and his own bit of fire to dry his sodden feet, without feeling as if he could stand anything from any one, even to the theft of his very last halfpenny by his youngest boy Bob, who was bound to know better, with so many rascals in front of him. And these rich gentlemen (for so they seemed) were smoking a fine blue curly cloud, such as a poor man can only put his nose to, when the putty is gone from the glass between him and his true superior.

Bill became deeply curious now. That gentlemen of such tip-top style, too grand almost for the world to carry, drinking rare stuff like the sun through church windows, and smoking (as if it was so much dirt) cigars such as Bill knew by memory—for he had picked up a pretty fair stump sometimes—that they should be hob-nob in this little room (no better than his own Uncle Tompkins had), yet not at all hob by nob soft and pleasant, and looking fit to fly at one another, for two peas—all this must mean something as was natural for police, if only they could be persuaded to do more than flap their white gloves in view of tricks that were nobby. Mr. Tompkins applied a dry rasp to his lips with his knuckles, well fitted for that operation, which had many times saved the mouth from evil issue. Then he listened and gazed intently; as no man can do, who has had his powers spoiled by the higher education.