Eve: A Novel

by S. Baring-Gould

The warder was so seriously hurt that he was at once placed on a gate and carried on the shoulders of four of the constables to Beer Alston, to be examined by Mr. Coyshe and the ball extracted. This left only three to guard the prisoner, one of whom was the warder who had sprained his ankle, and had been running with that foot bare, and who was now not in a condition to go much farther.

‘There is nothing for it,’ said Joseph, who was highly elated, ‘but for us to go on to Morwell. We must lock the chap up there. In that old house there are scores of strong places where the monks were imprisoned. To-morrow we can take him to Tavistock.’ Joseph did not say that Jane Welsh was at Morwell; this consideration, doubtless, had something to do with determining the arrangement. On reaching Morwell, which they did almost at once, for Martin had been captured on the down near the entrance to the lane, the first inquiry was for a safe place where the prisoner might be bestowed.

Jane, hearing the noise, and, above all, the loved voice of Joseph, ran out.

‘Jane,’ said the policeman, ‘where can we lock the rascal up for the night?’

She considered for a moment, and then suggested the corn-chamber. That was over the cellar, the walls lined with slate, and the floor also of slate. It had a stout oak door studded with nails, and access was had to it from the quadrangle, up a flight of stone steps. There was no window to it. ‘I’ll go ask Miss Barbara for the key,’ she said. ‘There is nothing in it now but some old onions. But’—she paused—’if he be locked up there all night, he’ll smell awful of onions in the morning.’

Reassured that this was of no importance, Jane went to her mistress for the key. Barbara came out and listened to the arrangement, to which she gave her consent, coldly. The warder could now only limp. She was shocked to hear of the other having been shot.

A lack of hospitality had been shown when the constables and warders came first, through inadvertence, not intentionally. Now that they desired to remain the night at Morwell and guard there the prisoner, Barbara gave orders that they should be made comfortable in the hall. One would have to keep guard outside the door where Martin was confined, the other two would spend the night in the hall, the window of which commanded the court and the stairs that led to the corn-chamber. ‘I won’t have the men in the kitchen,’ said Barbara, ‘or the maids will lose their heads and nothing will be done.’ Besides, the kitchen was out of the way of the corn-chamber.

‘We shall want the key of the corn-store,’ said Joseph, ‘if we may have it, miss.’

‘Why not stow the fellow in the cellar?’ asked a constable.

‘For two reasons,’ answered Joseph. ‘First, because he would drink the cider; and second, because—no offence meant, miss—we hope that the maids’ll be going to and fro to the cellar with the pitcher pretty often.’