A Search For A Secret Volume Ii Part 13

"What are we to do with him, Schoolmaster?"

"We must leave him at Parker's, where we got the cart. He can't be taken any farther. I will ask him." And he stopped the cart, and told the wounded man, who was conscious now, what they intended to do, and asked if he could suggest anything better.

He shook his head.

"He is a good fellow; he will make you comfortable, never you fear."

The man seemed now to want to ask a question, and The Schoolmaster leaned over him to catch the words.

"Did you take anything?"

The man hesitated a little.

"Well, mate, truth is I did. I grabbed a watch and chain, and a diamond cross, which were laying handy on the table."

The wounded man looked pleased.

"I am glad of that; they will think it is only a common burglary. I don't think the woman will ever tell."

"I don't think she will," the other said, carelessly. "I expect it was too much for her, and Bill threw her over mortal hard. I thought it a pity at the time, but I don't know now that it was not for the best. The old fool, why did she give us all that trouble, when one word would have settled the whole business."

"Do you think we are safe?" the wounded man asked.

"Safe! aye; we are safe enough. We shall drive into the place the same side we went out, and no one will suspect us honest countrymen of being London cracksmen."

Nor would any one have done so.

After pa.s.sing through Canterbury, they had taken disguises from the bottom of the cart, and even had it been light no one would have guessed they were not what they seemed--countrymen going into early market. The shorter one was in a shooting jacket and gaiters, and looked like a farmer's son; the other had on a smock-frock and a red handkerchief round his neck, and with his big slouching figure looked exactly like a farm labourer.

They drove along at a steady pace for another two hours. They had some time since left the main road, to avoid the towns of Sittingbourne and Chatham, and they were now in the lanes and byways skirting Rochester.

The man called Bob was a native of Chatham, and knew all the country well. It was nearly six o'clock, and was still pitch dark, and since they had left Canterbury they had not met a single person.

In a short time they entered the highroad again, about a mile on the London side of Rochester, and turned their tired horse's head back again in the direction of that town. They kept along this till the lights of Rochester were close to them, and then turned again from the main road down a narrow lane, and stopped at a house about a hundred yards from the road.

The morning was beginning to break now, not giving much light, but sufficient to show that it was a small house standing in a yard, which the sense of smell, rather than sight, at once told to be a tanyard.

There was a gate in the wall, which was unfastened, for it yielded easily when one of the men got down from the cart and pushed it; he then led the horse and cart in, and closed the gate after them, and then knocked at the door of the house with his hand. In a minute or two a man's head appeared at an upper window.

"Is it you, boys?" he asked.

"All right, Parker; make haste and come down as quickly as you can."

The door was soon opened, and a man came out--a big man, with a not dishonest face, respectably dressed, and evidently the master of the place.

"So you are come back?" he said. "I don't want to ask any questions, but have you done well?"

"No," was the answer; "as bad as bad can be. Our mate has got hurt--badly hurt, too."

"Where is he?"

"In the cart."

The man gave a long whistle.

"The devil he is! This is a pretty kettle of fish, upon my word. What is to be done?"

"He must be left here, Parker,--that's the long and short of it. There is not the least fear of his being traced here; we have never seen a soul since we left Canterbury."

"I don't suppose there is much fear," the man said gruffly; "but if he should be, I am done for."

"Not a bit of it, Parker; you have only to show the receipt we gave you, and stick to the story we agreed upon, and which happens to be true.

Three men called upon you, and said that they wanted to hire a light cart for a day, and that they heard you let one out sometimes. You told them that as you did not know them, you could not trust the horse with strangers, and so they left thirty-five pounds in your hands as security,--that they brought back the cart in the morning, and said one of their number had fallen out and got hurt, and that you agreed to let him stay for a day or so till he got well; and that you did not find, till the other two men had left, that the one who remained had been wounded by a bullet."

Here a slight groan from the cart called their attention to it.

"But what on earth am I to do with him?"

"Put him up in one of the garrets. You don't keep a servant; there will be no one to know anything about it; and as for the pay, there is twenty-five pounds left in your hands, after taking the ten pounds for the hire of the trap--that will be enough for you, won't it?"

"Aye, aye," the man said. "I am not thinking of the money. I would not do it for ten times the money if I had the choice; as I have not, I would do it whether I am paid or not. The first thing is to get him upstairs."

Accordingly the three men lifted him out of the cart, and carried him as carefully as they could upstairs, and laid him on a bed. The tanner then summoned his wife, a respectable-looking woman, who was horrified at the sight of the pallid and nearly lifeless man upon the bed.

"Oh, William!" she said, bursting into tears, "and so it has come to this! Did I not agree to stop with you only on the condition that you had nothing more to do with this business beyond taking care of things, and keeping them hid till all search for them should be over? and did you not give me your solemn oath that you would do nothing else?"

"No more I have, Nancy," the man said; "no more I have, girl. I have had nothing to do with this job. I don't know what it is, or where it came off, no more than a babe, though no doubt we shall hear all about it soon enough. But here the man has come home in our cart, and here he must be, unless you want him put out into one of the sheds."

"No, no, William; we must do what we can for him, but that is little enough. He looks dying, and he ought to have a doctor. But what can we say to him?--how can we explain how he got hurt?--who can we trust? Oh, William, this is a bad business!" and the woman wrung her hands despairingly.

The wounded man made a slight movement, as if he would speak.

"What is it, mate?" the man called The Schoolmaster said, leaning over him.

The wounded man murmured, with a great effort, the words--

"Dr. Ashleigh, Canterbury."

"Dr. Ashleigh, of Canterbury," the tanner said, when the other repeated the words aloud. "I have heard of him as a clever man and a kind one; but how can we trust in him more than another?"

The wounded man tried to nod his head several times to express that he might be trusted.

"You are quite sure?" the tanner asked.

Strong and positive a.s.sent was again expressed.

"You know him?"

"Yes, yes."