“Where’s your warrant, Mr. Gaoler? ‘Old birds are not to be caught with chaff.’ Now, then, your warrant for my apprehension, and I am the man to go with you. Come, show me the warrant at once; or, you no sooner lift your hand against me than I will show you what resistance is, and you shall take the consequences of an assault upon my person.”
The fellow stood with his brawny limbs displayed before them, and his two fierce, rough-coated, short, flap-eared dogs wagging their stumps of tails, and looking earnestly in their master’s face, to see if he gave the signal for them to attack either, or both the gaoler and the constable. It was clear that they must go upon another tack.
The shepherd gave a shrill whistle to his dogs, and on they dashed, driving the sheep towards the fold.
They proceeded directly along the shingled hardware to the beach, or rather to the shore of the river-side, which in those parts much resembles the sea-shore. The revenue cutter’s boat was then going across the stream of the Alde; they hailed it, and the officer in command ordered his men to return.
It was young Barry who came on shore from the boat, and he immediately walked a little way apart with the gaoler, who explained to him the nature of his business; and painful as its connexion with Margaret Catchpole made it to Barry, his sense of duty compelled him to render the assistance required. Accordingly, they were soon seated in the stern of the boat, and were rowed by his men towards the spot, where, on the main shore, Laud and Margaret stood, anxiously watching the approach of a boat from a vessel on the sea.
There they stood, not only unconscious of approaching danger, but congratulating themselves upon the prospect of a termination of all their troubles. Joyfully did they watch the boat coming over the billows of the sea, not seeing the other boat approaching them from the river. A few minutes more, and they would have been beyond the reach of gaolers and of prisons.
Neither Laud nor Margaret saw them until they came down upon them, headed by the gaoler, whose voice Margaret instantly recognized. With a wild shriek that made the welkin ring, she rushed into the sea, and would at once have perished, had not Laud caught her, as a wave cast her back upon the beach and suddenly deprived her of sense and speech.
He stood across the seemingly lifeless body of that devoted girl, and with a pistol in each hand cocked, and presented to the foremost men, the officer and the gaoler, he exclaimed, “Let us go—we are not defrauding the revenue—you have no business with us!”
“You may go unhurt,” replied the gaoler, “if you will deliver up the body of Margaret Catchpole. I must and will have her in my custody.”
“If you do, Mr. Ripshaw, it shall be at the peril of your life, or the cost of mine. The first man who approaches to touch her shall be a corpse, or he shall make me one.”