“Ah, Peter! is that you?” said the driver. “Just get in, and I’ll put you and your dog and your wares down wherever you may wish to stop.”
“Thank you for your offer, Dick Herring—for I know you by your voice,—but my legs are well accustomed to carry me; and they’ll do so as long as I need their services, I hope.”
“Oh, nonsense, man; there’s a storm brewing, and you’ll be wet to the skin, if you keep to your legs; but just do you get in, and I’ll whisk you along to your journey’s end in no time,” answered Dick Herring.
“That’s kind of you, Dick, anyhow,” said Peter; “but as to the storm, I don’t feel as if one was coming, and I’m not often deceived.”
“Just now you are, though, depend on’t, mate. Come, step in, I want to do you a service, and it isn’t the like of me that would do you a harm,” said Herring, in a persuasive tone.
Peter, who was in reality very tired from his long walk, was glad to have a lift, and his doubts as to Herring’s intentions, which from certain circumstances known to him he entertained, having been quieted, he stepped up to the cart to get in. In an instant he felt himself lifted up by strong arms, and placed on a seat next to another man who had not before spoken, and the cart drove on at a rapid rate.
In vain he begged that poor old Trusty might be lifted in with him. “The dog has four legs, and can run as fast as the horse; we can’t stop for him,” said the man, in a gruff and feigned voice, though Peter thought that he recognised it as that of a notorious smuggler living not far off.
“I told you, Peter, that I’d whisk you along pretty quickly over the road, and I am doing so, you’ll allow,” observed Herring, in a tone which the blind man did not like, but he said nothing. He was, however, after some time, convinced that they had gone much farther than the two miles which he calculated would take him to the inn where he had proposed sleeping. He became aware, too, that the cart had altered its direction, by the feeling of the wind on his face. On they went at a rapid rate for some time, when Peter inquired why they were conveying him from the place to which he wished to go.
“We’ve a good reason, Master Peter,” answered Dick Herring, in a still more disagreeable tone than before; “you know a thing or two more than you ought to know, and we intend to keep you out of harm’s way for a day or two; and that’s the fact, if it pleases you to know it.”
Peter was aware that expostulation was useless, so he resigned himself to his fate, believing that Herring, though a daring smuggler and utterly lawless, would do him no personal harm. He felt the cart go up and down several rough places, and he was certain that it doubled several times, and had made a full circuit more than once. The object of the smugglers, it was evident, was to mislead him and to make him suppose that he had gone a long distance. He kept his own counsel, however, and in a short time the cart stopped, and he was told to get out. He called Trusty to come and lead him, but no Trusty came.