Читать книгу Botany Bay - James Norman Hall - Страница 4

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There had been a heavy frost during the night, and the sun shone in a pale-blue wintry sky. It was bitter cold, but I walked briskly through the squalor and misery of St. Giles, along Oxford Street to the frozen stillness of Hyde Park, where patches of snow lay on the grass, and the trees stood gaunt and half-dead in the grip of the frost. The long, narrow lake, ice-covered, glittered in the sunlight; the waterfowl had taken refuge in their little ornamental houses, and sat with feet tucked under them on beds of straw. Leaving London behind, I followed the Uxbridge Road, through Ealing, and came at last to Southall, where Oakley had directed me to turn north.

A narrow lane, deep-rutted and hard as iron under the frost, led me through the village of Northolt, and I was tempted to stop for dinner at the inn where several carriers’ wagons were drawn up. Since all the folk were indoors and no one had noticed me, it seemed best to continue on to Wood End, a village of no more than half a dozen houses, where I was to turn west and make my way across country to Mrs. Garth’s place. The lane I now followed, bordered by hedges of thorn, was scarcely more than a cart track, so narrow that two wagons could not have passed. I followed it for half a mile without passing a single house, and the sun was in my eyes when I came to the gateway Oakley had described, between two fir trees that gleamed with ice crystals in the level light.

The farm was as small as it was lonely, and I could see that it was an orderly, well-kept place. A hundred paces back from the lane was a stone cottage with a low, thatched roof, and the farm buildings beyond looked as neat and substantial as the dwelling.

I knocked, and waited for some little time before the door was opened by a woman who stood in the entry way eyeing me coldly. She might have been in her late twenties, or early thirties. Her eyes were dark blue, under level brows, her colour fresh and glowing, and her figure, considerably above the average height, would have served as a model for a statuary.

“Mrs. Garth?” I asked, raising my hat.

“Aye,” said she, regarding me with the same frosty look. “What d’ye wish?”

“I was directed to you by Tom Oakley. He asked me to meet him here.”

“I know no Tom Oakley.”

“But he told me to come to your house,” I replied.

“What he may have told ye is your affair, and his. It’s none of mine,” said she.

She stepped back, ready to close the door, eyeing me in the same hostile manner. There was nothing for it but retreat.

“Then I wish you good evening,” I said.

Her only reply was to shut the door and slide the bolt.

The moon, round, yellow, and at the full, was rising as I retraced my steps in the narrow lane. I had a couple of shillings in my pocket, but it would be a weary walk back to Northolt, where I planned to spend the night. If Oakley were hereabout, he would guess, perhaps, where necessity had taken me. I was puzzled by the woman at the farmhouse and wondered if I could have mistaken the name given me by Oakley. What an Amazon, I thought, as suspicious as she was strong and handsome.

I had gone no great distance when I heard the sound of a horse’s frost nails ringing on the frozen road. It was Oakley’s mare, coming on at a fast easy canter. He pulled up at sight of me.

“What the devil!” he said. “Where bound, Hugh?”

“Where bound? From Mrs. Garth’s, to be sure! She’s never heard of you. She looked ready to set the dog on me!”

Tom laughed heartily. “Staunch old Nellie! Cautious is the word with her. Ye might have been a constable for aught she knew. About-face, lad! Ye look half-froze.”

He dismounted stiffly and walked at my side, leading the mare. When we turned in at the gate, Mrs. Garth gave the pair of us a welcome as warm as mine had been cold half an hour before.

“Tom,” said she, “when ye wish to meet friends at my house, I’ll thank ye for word in advance.”

“I thought to be here before him, Nellie. Would there be a bite of supper for a pair of starved travelers?”

“There might,” said Garth, with a smile. She ushered us into her warm kitchen, and a quarter of an hour later we tucked into a hearty meal, a cold joint with bread and cheese and home-brewed ale to go with it. I felt more at home in this place than I had since leaving America. It was just such a kitchen as one finds among the farmers and small planters of Maryland: clean, cozy, glowing with comfort and good cheer. The great spit in the fireplace, on which fifty pounds weight of beef might have turned, the spotless floor, the shining pots and pans, the hams, sides of bacon, and strings of onions hanging from the beams, all showed the well-managed farm and household where thrift and simple abundance were matters of course.

While we were at table the door opened, and the lad who had taken Oakley’s mare came in. He looked at me with shy wondering eyes as he went to the fireplace to warm his hands.

“Ye’ve rubbed her down well, Nat?” asked Tom.

The boy nodded.

“And put the heavy blanket on her?”

“Aye.”

“Ye can trust him with the horses,” said Garth. “They know him as well as yourself.”

Nat was a waif of fourteen, whom Garth had found starving in Covent Garden Market, some years before. A widow, with no child of her own, she centred all the love of her generous heart upon this boy, who, though not precisely simple-minded, had the trustful, confiding nature of a child of five. When Mrs. Garth rescued him from the London streets, Nat had been cuffed from pillar to post for as long as he could remember, but under her cherishing care he had forgotten that evil existed in the world. He worshiped his foster mother, followed her about with his soft brown eyes, and would spring to do her bidding almost before her wish was expressed.

Not a word was said during the evening of the purpose of my coming here. Presently Mrs. Garth went to her own chamber; Oakley lighted a candle and led the way up a steep flight of stairs, to a garret under the thatch. There were two narrow beds in the place, some articles of clothing hanging on pegs, and a chest of drawers. Oakley seated himself on one of the beds.

“Well, Hugh, how do ye like my countryseat?” he asked.

“A snug spot,” I replied. “Do you come here often?”

“Whenever I’m working this side of London.” He gave me a steady searching look. “Now that ye’ve had time to sleep on the matter, how does it strike ye? There’s no call for haste, if ye wish to weigh it further... ?”

“I made my decision at the Black Swan. I’m your man, if you’ll have me.”

“Have ’ee? That I will!” he replied heartily. “Call it settled, then.” He paused. “Here’s what I’ve in mind: ye’ve heard, maybe, of a young Mr. Baxter, him that won the ten thousand pounds in a night, at Brooks’s.”

“I can’t say I have.”

“No matter for that. He’s at Bath at this present moment, taking the waters by day, and all the rhino in the place by night. My scout tells me he’s like to leave for London around this day week. So far he’s won a bag of guineas would break a horse’s back. If his luck holds, we’ll ease him of it as sure as my name’s Oakley.”

“How’ll we know when he’s to leave Bath?”

“Trust my cruiser for that. I’ll have word, with all the particulars, well in advance.” He drew out a handsome watch, in a gold hunting case, and wound it slowly. “Now, lad, I’m for bed. I’ve ridden a good thirty miles since morning.” He pressed the stem of the watch, and it sounded ten soft, clear chimes. “Have a look, Hugh. I took that, with a bonus of fifty guineas, from the biggest thief in the Kingdom.”

“A thief?”

“Aye,” said Oakley with a grin. “But he robs by law, from inside the Admiralty Victualing Board. How the rogue hated to part with his watch!”

“You don’t fear to carry it?”

“Not now. I’ve had it christened. Look!”

I glanced at the maker’s name: “Ducour Frères, Paris.”

“It strikes the French chimes now,” Tom remarked. “But Basset & Harvey made it. Their name’s off as clean as ye wipe a slate.... Well, lad, I’m for bed,” and a moment later he was fast asleep.

After my wretched hand-to-mouth existence in London, the peace and homely comfort of Garth’s farm made the place a haven indeed to me. Oakley was away a good part of the week, and I returned to the life of a countryman with a keenness of interest and pleasure that won me Mrs. Garth’s friendship from the first day. I took over the outside chores, milking the cow, feeding the pigs, cutting firewood and the like, and ate Garth’s excellent meals with the appetite of a harvest hand. She was no woman to pour out her history to a stranger, but I learned a good deal about her life during the days that followed. She came of farming folk in the West of England, and had lived there until the time of her marriage. Since her husband’s death, some years before, she had managed this farm herself, going twice a week with her horse and cart to carry produce to Covent Garden Market. She asked nothing of her neighbours save to be left in peace, and I gathered that she had but one close friend in this part of the country, a Mrs. Windle who lived half a mile distant, and whom I once saw for a moment. It was plain that she had a hearty liking for Mrs. Windle, as warmly returned by her neighbour. For the most part, Nat was her only companion. The relationship between the boy and his foster mother was something to touch the heart of a looker-on. Few words passed between them in the course of a day: they seemed to have no need for much speaking. To be together was all either needed for that content which is something deeper than happiness.

One evening when Oakley was absent and Nat had gone to bed, Nellie opened her mind to me freely about Tom. He had first come to her place two years before, she said, with three horses he wished to put out to grass.

“I struck a bargain with him, Tallant, for I was willing enough to put by a bit of extra money. I boarded and cared for the horses, and let him the garret at five shillings a week, for the times he said he’d be coming this way on his business. He’d be in and out of the place, sometimes a day or two in the week, and again we’d not see him for a fortnight; but it came to be a kind of home to him in the end. We took to him, Nat and me, straight off, and looked forrard to his coming. I never doubted he was a dealer in fine horses, for they was the main part of his talk and I could see the love he had for ’em, but one day he says to me: ‘Nellie, ye’re an honest law-abiding woman, and I can’t abide to carry false colours in this house. Ye’d best know the truth about me. I’m a highwayman, and I think shame to myself for not having spoke before. Say the word and I’ll take my nags and clear out.’

“ ‘I esteem ye none the less for that,’ said I, ‘but if I’d known when ye first came here, I’d not have harboured ye for so much as a day.’

“ ‘Then ye wish me to go?’ said he.

“ ‘I haven’t said it yet,’ I told him. ‘I’ll think about it and let ye know for certain when ye next come.’

“And so I did, and the more I thought, the less I liked the notion of sendin’ him about his business. Nat thought the world and all of him; I knew the lad would miss him sore, and so would I, for the matter of that. Afore I was married I’d lost a brother as like Tom as two men could be, not of the same blood. Well, I thought and I pondered, and the end of it was that, when he came again, I said: ‘Tom, bide here and welcome as long as ye please, but Nat’s never to know the trade ye’re in, and I wish to know no more of it than ye’ve told me already.’ And that’s how it’s been since. There’s times I’ve been worried and anxious, as though he was my own kin, for fear he was catched; and I’ve worried more for Nat’s sake, for if Tom was took, they’d have me up for harbouring, and where would the lad be then?”

I had thought of the same thing more than once. Though I knew that Mrs. Garth received nothing from Oakley save the money for rent and pasturage and feed, I had little doubt as to how she would stand in the eyes of the law.

She regarded me with a grim, anxious smile. “And now I’ve a pair of ye to harbour! And what’ll come of it, in the end ... Tallant, I don’t doubt but ye’ll make the best of companions for Tom; he needs just such a man as yerself to stand back to back with him. But mind what ye do! Ye don’t belong in that trade, and Tom knows it as well as myself. Whatever have ye took to it for?”

“It’s not one I mean to follow for long,” I replied, and then I told her something of my life up to this time, of my miserable existence in London, and of my plans for a return to Canada as soon as I had money enough for a passage. “That’s understood between us,” I added. “Tom has taken me in, not so much because he needs me, but to help me over a bad stretch of road.”

“Mind it’s not the end of the road, young man! I wish ye was well beyond it, on the kind of road ye should be traveling.”

“Never fear. I shall be, before many weeks.”

“And ye’re for America again? Sometimes I’ve teased myself with the notion of going there. What like of a country will it be where ye came from—all wilderness and savage Indians?”

“Far from it,” I replied. “You’d see fine settled valleys, the land cleared long since, with fat cattle and sheep grazing in the pastures, and arable land richer than could be found in the whole of England. You could buy a farm five times the size of yours for a fifth of what would be paid for this. I’d like well to coax Tom to come, for he’d thrive there, on his own fine acres, as a breeder of horses. There’s no great towns and no miserable starved creatures such as you see everywhere in England. The black slaves fare better than the half of London.”

“I’d like well to go there,” said Garth, musingly, “and who knows? Mebbe I will, some day. But egg Tom into it if ye can. ’Twould be a heavy load from the heart to know him safe, and settled into an honest life. If he stays in England, I see the end as plain as I see his mare yonder in the pasture.”

Tom came back on the Saturday noon with the news we’d been waiting for. Mr. Baxter was London bound from Bath and had spent the previous night at Reading. He was not traveling by post chaise but in his own carriage, with his own horses, and making a leisurely journey of it. Oakley had learned from his cruiser that Baxter would leave Reading about two o’clock this same afternoon.

“Reading is forty miles from London,” he said, “and I know exactly how he means to come. We’ll be off, Hugh, when we’ve polished off Nellie’s dinner, comfortable-like, and jog south-along to Heston. It’s thereabout we’ll meet him, and, by the Lord, he’ll be well worth waiting for!”

“His luck’s held, then?” I asked.

“No, but ours has, or call me out. This I know: He dropped all but three hundred guineas before he left Bath, and he’ll drop what’s left afore ever his horses’ hoofs touch pavement. My cruiser has spied out his company. There’ll be none but himself inside, with the coachman and a third on the box beside him. Hugh, if ye’re set for Canada, ye can go to London to-morrow to take passage, though I’ll be the last to urge haste upon ye.”

The winter afternoon was half spent when Oakley and I set out. He rode his favourite mare, Rosamond, and my mount was a spirited sorrel. It was a delight to be on a horse’s back once more. Garth stood in the doorway, looking glumly after us as we cantered down the lane leading to the highway. Little I dreamed, then, where that road was to take us. It was the first leg of a journey of better than fourteen thousand miles, that was to fetch us up at Botany Bay.

I felt no prickings of conscience, no misgivings, as we rode on at a smart pace through the gathering winter dusk. I was reminded of raids I had made, with Loyalist comrades, into enemy territory during the American War: there was the same heightened sense of expectancy, of adventure with risk attached, the same quickening of the blood. As for Tom, I could see how keenly he relished the prospect of the work before us: it was like food and drink to a man of his spirit.

Night had fallen by the time we reached the place where we were to wait: a small thicket thirty paces from the highroad, two miles to the west of Heston. The air was crisp and bracing and the winter stars sparkled in a cloudless sky. Here we dismounted, looked to the priming of our pistols, and fastened handkerchiefs over the lower part of our faces.

“Lad, how’s the pulse?” asked Tom.

“Steady,” said I, “but racing a bit.”

“And that’s just as it should be,” said Tom. “There’s times when I relish the waiting, with action just to come, as the best part of it—if the waiting’s not too long,” he added, with a grin.

“They couldn’t have passed?” I said.

“Never ye fret for that; we’re in good time.... Now, Hugh, all’s clear?”

“Yes. I’m to handle the coachman and anyone with him on the box.”

“Right. And I’ll attend to Mr. Baxter and the company inside, if he has company. Mind ye this! We must be prepared for what we find. The best of cruisers may be wrong in the advance tips. There’s three we know of to come, but Baxter may have changed his companions on the way.”

We had waited about twenty minutes when we heard the clatter of a heavy coach which had just breasted the rise, a quarter of a mile distant.

“By God! Here they are!” said Tom, gleefully. “Mark ye, Hugh! Spare to shoot if ye can, but take no chances. It’s us or them.”

We mounted and stood fast. The coach was coming on at a brisk eight-mile clip, but it was drawn by four horses instead of the two expected, and we made out a postboy riding the off horse of the leading pair.

“Now!” said Tom, and we spurred for the road.

“Stand for your lives!” Tom called, and there was no nonsense in the quality of that clear hard voice. We were alongside in five seconds. The coachman stood and hauled back with all his strength on the reins. The postboy was a lad of fourteen or thereabout. I seized him by the collar and yanked him from his horse, covering the coachman at the same time. The boy cowered on the ground, without an ounce of spirit in him; no more had the coachman, for he yelled, “Never shoot, sir! I yield!” Meanwhile Tom was at the window of the coach. “One here, lad,” he called to me. “Hold fast as ye are, and it’s done in three minutes!”

We had not looked for such luck as this. In a wink, Tom had the one fellow inside standing in the road with his arms raised. Meanwhile, I had the coachman and the post boy standing beside him, covering the three whilst Tom sprang into the coach. He leaped out a moment later with a heavy bag of soft leather which he quickly attached to Rosamond’s saddle. “Look sharp! Watch the road!” he called whilst he was at this work. By this time I was convinced that the fellow from inside was not Baxter, but his servant, perhaps, for the man put up not even a show of resistance. What neither of us knew, then, was that Baxter, with a friend, had hired saddle horses in Reading for the last part of the journey. They had halted briefly somewhere on the way, but came galloping up just as Tom was ready to mount. In the exchange of shots that followed, I downed Baxter’s horse, and he was thrown headlong, but the half-ounce ball from his companion’s pistol caught me full in the left shoulder and all but unseated me. Tom saw I was hit and was alongside in three seconds, steadying me in the saddle as he turned and fired at Baxter’s companion. Then it was a hard gallop for home, and with Baxter wanting a mount, his friend made no attempt to follow us. We rode fast for a matter of three miles, going by a roundabout way, and at last halted in a thicket of firs where Tom bound up my wound and staunched the flow of blood as best he could. The ball had missed the bone, but had torn loose the muscles under my left arm. We reached Garth’s place in the small hours, and while she washed and dressed the wound, Oakley spilled out young Baxter’s winnings on the bed and counted it back into a canvas bag. We had taken three hundred and twenty-two guineas, in gold coin. Tom hid the bag under his shirts in the wardrobe, and, as we had not been followed, and were a good twelve miles from the scene of the holdup, we slept soundly.

Garth kept her misgivings to herself, but I could see that she was more than uneasy during the week that followed. Young Baxter came of a notable family; furthermore, he was a proud determined fellow, and the fact that two men had gotten the better of his party of five rankled with him. A hue and cry was raised and a reward of five hundred pounds offered for the capture of the highwaymen. After lying low for three days, Tom was bound to go to London for news. He returned early in the evening, and he and Nellie came up to the attic where I lay.

“How goes it, Hugh?” he asked. “No fever, eh?”

“None,” I replied. “Nellie is the best of nurses, but she won’t let me go downstairs.”

“Ye’ll rest where ye are, young man, till I give the word,” she said. “Now, Tom, what have ye heard?”

“We’ve slit a hot haggis, as the Sawneys say,” Tom replied. “Young Baxter swears he’ll not touch cards again till the pair of us are stretched. He’s out with a party of his own raising, and there’s handbills posted in all the taverns. Hugh, d’ye wish to hear what fashion of man ye are?”

He drew one of the bills from his pocket and read: “ ‘Tall, wide-shouldered fellow, probably in his early twenties. Would weigh around fourteen stone. Almost certainly wounded as he was seen to reel in the saddle when Mr. Baxter’s pistol was fired. Riding a sorrel horse with four white stockings.’ ”

“What of yourself?” I asked.

“ ‘Smallish, strong-made man, with a North Country accent, quick and active in his movements. Might be thirty years old. Riding a handsome bay mare.’ ”

Oakley smiled as he put the bill back in his pocket.

“Save for the wound, there’s men by the dozen, by the score, will answer both descriptions. No, we’re safe enough. ’Twas the devil’s own luck that Baxter winged ye, but the price is small to pay for the taking. Better than three hundred guineas for five minutes’ work! Beats groomin’ nags, don’t it?”

“Ye’s best find a safer place to hide it in than the wardrobe,” said Garth.

“Pooh, Nellie! Where’s the need? We’re as safe here as in a church. Baxter’s men are chasing their noses through the country in every direction but this. Some say we’re in town; some think we’ve a hideout down Wiltshire way. Trust my cruiser. He’ll know in good time if ever they get on the scent.”

One morning, when my wound was nearly healed, I rose to find Tom saddling one of his horses to ride in for a day with some of his cronies who gathered at the Black Swan. Nellie had left at dawn for Covent Garden Market with two hundredweight of potatoes and a fat hog to sell.

The day was warm and fine; when I had eaten my breakfast, which Nellie had set out on the kitchen table, I went about the chores. I opened the fowl house and sprinkled corn for the birds in the barnyard. The ducks made for the horse pond, trotting in single file, increasing their pace comically as they neared the water. The turkey cock lowered his wings, strutted for a moment while they trailed the ground, and gobbled defiantly. The sound carried me back to the forests of Maryland, where I had stalked many a wild gobbler.

The chores finished, I went for a walk, returning just as Garth and Nat drove in, an hour before noon. She handed me the Morning Herald I had asked her to buy, and I went to the kitchen to read it. Nat was leading old Davy away for his bait of oats when his mother called to him.

“Come into the house, Nat, when ye’ve fed Davy; I’ll have ye take a basket of eggs down to the inn. Tell Mr. Judd I want a shilling’s worth of salt.”

The lad set off a few moments later, and a fateful errand it was for the members of the Garth household. I will now speak of what happened at the Wood End Inn, asking leave to describe an event I did not witness, but learned of, later, from Nellie and poor Nat, who played, in all innocence, a most tragic part.

Arriving at the inn, Nat went into the taproom where the landlord’s assistant was drawing ale for half a dozen travelers whose horses stood outside. They were dressed like countrymen, but all were armed with pistols, under their coats. Their leader, a man of about twenty-five, paid the score, and, on second thought, ordered the pots to be filled again. Nat set down his basket and stood looking on. His small figure caught the young man’s eye.

“Come here, lad,” he said.

Nat went to him readily.

“You live hereabouts?”

“Yes, sir. My mother’s farm is just up the lane.”

“What’s your name?”

“Nat, sir, Nat Garth.”

“And a fine lad you are, Nat. Now then, maybe you can help me. Come, think hard: have you heard no one speak of a wounded man here in the countryside?”

“Oh yes, sir,” said Nat, eagerly, happy to be of service. “Mr. Tallant was hurt. He’s lying at our cottage.”

“You don’t tell me! And who’s Mr. Tallant?”

“He’s a friend of Tom Oakley’s, sir.”

“Well, now, think of that! And what like of a man is Mr. Tallant—a big, tall, strapping fellow?”

Nat nodded, vigorously. “He’s that tall he has to duck his head to come in at the door.”

“There! I’ll be bound he’s the man I’m looking for, Nat. I’ve the best of news for him. Mr. Tallant will call it lucky that I found you. He’s at your mother’s house, you say?”

“Yes, sir. He was in the kitchen readin’ the paper when I left the house.”

“Then here’s a shilling for you, to show us the way there.”

Meanwhile, at Garth’s house I had taken my newspaper and climbed the stairs to our attic room, now warmed a little by the midday sun. Lying on my bed, I glanced idly through the news. Presently I laid the paper aside and fell into a doze.

I was awakened from my nap by the sound of loud voices and of a violent struggle in the room below. For a moment I lay bewildered; then I heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs at a run. I started up, still half asleep, as the door burst open and three men rushed into the room, pistols in their hands. One of them, I felt pretty sure, was Baxter.

“Surrender, in the King’s name!” he ordered.

One of his companions seized my useless arm and gave it such a wrench that, heedless of the pistols, I swung about and gave him a heavy blow on the jaw. He went down with a crash; the pistol flew out of his hand and was discharged as it struck the floor. At the same instant I received such a blow on the head, from behind, that I was knocked senseless; when I came round I was lying on my bed, bound hand and foot. The sunlight of midafternoon streamed into the small window. Baxter was sitting on Tom’s bed, a pistol in his hand, his bag of guineas beside him, and two of his men stood in the doorway.

“Headache, Tallant?” he asked. “They’ll cure that for you in Newgate.”