A Master of Craft Part 16

For want of anything better, he handed the astonished driver his tobacco-pouch, and waved him to the house. The lad descended from his perch and ran to the door just as d.i.c.k Tipping, giving vent to a sharp cry, was rus.h.i.+ng out. The cry acted on the skipper like magic, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the whip, he gave the horse a cut in which was concentrated the fears of the last fortnight and the hopes of his future lifetime.

The animal sprang forward madly just as d.i.c.k Tipping, who had pushed the driver out of the way, rushed out in pursuit. There was a hard white road in front and it took it at a gallop, the vehicle rocking from side to side behind it as Flower played on it with the whip. Tipping was close behind, and the driver a good second. Flower, leaving the horse to take care of itself for a time, stood upright in the carriage and hurled cus.h.i.+ons at his foremost pursuer. The third cus.h.i.+on was long and limp, and, falling on end in front of him, twined itself round his swift-moving legs and brought him heavily to the ground.

"He's winded," said Flower, as he saw the coachman stop and help the other man slowly to his feet; "shows what a cus.h.i.+on can do."

He clambered onto the seat, as a bend in the road shut the others from his sight, and gathering up the reins, gave himself over to the joyous feeling of his new-found liberty as they rushed through the air. His ideas of driving were elementary, and his mode of turning corners was to turn them quickly and get it over; but he drove on for miles without mishap, and, the horse having dropped to a steady trot, began to consider his future movements.

"They'll be setting the wires to work, I expect," he thought, soberly. "What a comfortable old world this must have been before they invented steam and telegraph. I'll go a little bit farther, and then tie it up to a tree."

He made what he considered an endearing noise with his mouth, and the startled animal at once bounded forward with the intention of getting out of hearing. A gentle incline favoured the pace, which was now so considerable that the skipper, seeing another craft approaching him, waved his hand towards it warningly.

"I wonder who ought to get out of the way?" he said, thoughtfullly; "I s'pose the horse knows."

He left it to that able quadruped, after giving it a little bang on the flank with the b.u.t.t end of the whip to keep its faculties fresh. There was a frenzied shout from the other vehicle, a sudden violent stoppage, with the cras.h.i.+ng of wood, and Flower, crawling out of the ditch, watched with some admiration the strenuous efforts of his n.o.ble beast to take the carriage along on three wheels.

"Look what you've done!" roared the driver of the other vehicle, foaming with pa.s.sion, as he jumped out and held his plunging horse by the head. "Look at my gig, sir! Look at it!"

Flower looked, and then returned the courtesy.

"Look at mine," he said, impressively; "mine's much the worst."

"You were on the wrong side of the road," shouted the other.

"I was there first," said Flower; "it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't tried to get out of my way. The course I was on I should have pa.s.sed you easily."

He looked up the road. His horse, trembling violently, was standing still, with the wreck of the carriage behind it. He stooped mechanically, and picking up the whip which was lying in the road said that he would go off for a.s.sistance.

"You stay here, sir," said the other man with an oath.

"I won't," said the skipper.

His adversary made no reply, but, having by this time soothed his frightened horse, took his whip out of its socket and strode towards him with the b.u.t.t raised over his head. Flower arranged his own whip the same way, and both men being new to the weapon, circled round each other two or three times waiting for a little instruction. Then the owner of the gig, whose temper was rising every second, ran in and dealt the skipper a heavy blow on the head.

The blow dispelled an idea which was slowly forming there of asking the extent of the damage, and, if it were not too much, offering to make it good. Ideas of settlement vanished; ideas of honour, morality, and even escape vanished too; all merged in the one fixed idea of giving the other man a harder blow than he had given.

For a minute or two the battle raged fairly equally; both were securing a fair amount of punishment. Then, under a heavy blow from Flower, his foe went down suddenly. For a second or two the skipper held his breath with fear, then the other man raised himself feebly on his knees, and, throwing away his whip, staggered to his feet and, unfastening the reins, clambered unsteadily into his gig and drove off without a word.

The victorious skipper looked up and down the lonely road, and shaking his head sadly at the n.o.ble steed which had brought him into this mess, tenderly felt his bruised and aching head, and then set off as fast as his foot would permit up the road.

He looked about eagerly as he went for a place of concealment, fully aware of the inability of a lame s.h.i.+pmaster to outdistance horseflesh. Hedges and fields bounded both sides of the road, but half a mile farther along, on the right-hand side, the field stretched away upwards to meet a wood. Towards this wood Captain Flower, having first squeezed himself through a gap in the hedge, progressed with all speed.

He sat on the trunk of a fallen pine to regain his breath, and eagerly looked about him. To his disappointment he saw that the wood was of no great depth, but was a mere belt of pines running almost parallel with the road he had quitted. With the single idea of getting as far away from the scene of his crime as possible, he began to walk through it.

The wood was very still, and the shade grateful after the heat of the sun. Just beyond, the fields were s.h.i.+mmering in the heat, and he p.r.i.c.ked up his ears as the unmistakable sound of wheels and hoofs came across the silent fields. He looked round wildly, and seeing a tiny cottage standing in a bit of a clearing, made towards it.

A little old man twisted with rheumatism rose as he stood at the open door and regarded him with a pair of bloodshot, but sharp, old eyes, while an old woman sitting in a Windsor-chair looked up anxiously.

"Can I come in?" asked Flower.

"Aye," said the old man, standing aside to let him pa.s.s.

"Hot day," said the skipper, taking a seat.

"No, 'tain't," said the old man.

"Not so hot as yesterday," said Flower, with a conciliatory smile.

"It's 'otter than it was yesterday," said the old man. "What ha' you done to your face?"

"I was climbing a tree," said Flower, with a laugh, "and I fell down; I've hurt my foot, too."

"Served you right if you'd broke your neck," said his amiable host, "climbing trees at your time o' life."

"Nice cottage you've got here," said the persistent Flower.

"I wish you 'ad to live in it," said the old man.

He took a proffered cigar, and after eyeing it for some time, like a young carver with a new joint, took out a huge clasp-knife and slowly sawed the end off.

"Can I sleep here for the night?" asked Flower, at length.

"No, you can't," said the old man, drawing at his cigar.

He smoked on, with the air of a man who has just given a very clever answer to a very difficult question.

"We ain't on'y got one room besides this," said the old woman solemnly. "Years ago we used to have four and a wash-place."

"Oh, I could sleep on the floor here," said Flower, lightly. "I'll pay you five s.h.i.+llings."

"Let's see your money," said the old man, leaning forward.

Flower put the sum in his hand. "I'll pay now," he said, heartily.

"The floor won't run away," said the other, pulling out an old leathern purse, "and you can sleep on any part of it you like."

Flower thanked him effusively. He was listening intently for any sounds outside. If the Tippings and the man in the gig met, they would scour the country-side, and almost certainly pay the cottage a visit.

"If you let me go upstairs and lie down for an hour or two," he said, turning to the old man, "I'll give you another half-crown."

The old man said nothing, but held out his hand, and after receiving the sum got up slowly, and, opening a door by the fire-place, revealed a few broken stairs, which he slowly ascended, after beckoning his guest to follow.

"It's a small place," he said, tersely, "but I daresay you've often slept in a worse."

Flower made no reply. He was looking from the tiny cas.e.m.e.nt. Through an opening in the trees he saw a couple of figures crossing the field towards the wood.

"If anybody asks you whether you have seen me, say no," he said, rapidly, to the old man. "I've got into a bit of a mess, and if you hide me here until it has blown over, I'll make it worth your while."

"How much?" said the old man.

Flower hesitated. "Five pounds for certain," he said, hastily, "and more if you're put to much trouble. Run down and stop your wife's mouth quietly."

"Don't order me about," said the old man, slowly; "I ain't said I'll do it yet."

"They're coming now," said Flower, impatiently; "mind, if they catch me you lose your five pounds."

"All right," said the other. "I'm doing it for the five pounds, mind, not for you," added this excellent man.

He went grunting and groaning down the narrow stairs, and the skipper, closing the door, went and crouched down by the open cas.e.m.e.nt. A few indistinct words were borne in on the still air, and voices came gradually closer, until footsteps, which had been deadened by the gra.s.s, became suddenly audible on the stones outside the cottage.

Flower held his breath with anxiety; then he smiled softly and pleasantly as he listened to the terms in which his somewhat difficult host was addressed.

"Now, gaffer," said the man of the gig, roughly.

"Wake up, grandpa," said d.i.c.k Tipping; "have you seen a man go by here?--blue serge suit, moustache, face and head knocked about?"

"No, I ain't seen 'im," was the reply. "What's he done?"

Tipping told him briefly. "We'll have him," he said, savagely. "We've got a mounted policeman on the job, besides others. If you can catch him it's worth half a sov. to you."

He went off hurriedly with the other man, and their voices died away in the distance. Flower sat in his place on the floor for some time, and then, seeing from the window that the coast was clear, went downstairs again.

The old woman made him up a bed on the floor after supper, although both he and the old man a.s.sured her that it was unnecessary, and then, taking the lamp, bade him good-night and went upstairs.

Flower, left to himself, rolled exultingly on his poor couch, and for the first time in a fortnight breathed freely.

"If I do get into trouble," he murmured, complacently, "I generally manage to get out of it. It wants a good head in the first place, and a cool one in the second."

CHAPTER XVI.

He was awake early in the morning, and, opening the door, stood delightedly breathing the fresh, pine-scented air.

The atmosphere of the Blue Posts was already half forgotten, and he stood looking dreamily forward to the time when he might reasonably return to life and Poppy. He took a few steps into the wood and, after feeling for his pipe before he remembered that Miss Tipping was probably keeping it as a souvenir, sat on a freshly-cut log and fell into a sentimental reverie, until the appearance of a restless old man at the door of the cottage took him back to breakfast.

"I thought you'd run off," said his host, tartly.

"You thought wrong, then," said Flower, sharply, as he took out his purse. "Here are two of the five pounds I promised you; I'll give you the rest when I go."

The old man took the money and closed his small, hard mouth until the lips almost disappeared. "More money than sense," he remarked, cordially, as the skipper replaced his purse.

Flower made no reply. Some slices of fat bacon were sizzling in a pan over the wood-fire, and the pungent smell of the woods, mixed with the sharpness of the morning air, gave him an appet.i.te to which, since his enforced idleness, he had been a stranger. He drew his chair up to the rickety little table with its covering of frayed oil-cloth, and, breaking a couple of eggs over his bacon, set to eagerly.

"Don't get eggs like these in London," he said to the old woman.

The old woman leaned over and, inspecting the sh.e.l.ls, paid a tribute to the hens who were responsible for them, and traced back a genealogy which would have baffled the entire College of Heralds--a genealogy hotly contested by the old man, who claimed a bar sinister through three eggs bought at the village shop some generations before.

"You've got a nice little place here," said Flower, by way of changing the conversation, which was well on the way to becoming personal; "but don't you find it rather dull sometimes?"

"Well, I don't know," said the old woman. "I finds plenty to do, and 'e potters about like. 'E don't do much, but it pleases 'im, and it don't hurt me."

The object of these compliments took them as a matter of course, and after hunting up the stump of last night's cigar, and shredding it with his knife, crammed it into a clay pipe and smoked tranquilly. Flower found a solitary cigar, one of the Blue Posts' best, and with a gaze which wandered idly from the chest of drawers on one side of the room to the old china dogs on the little mantel-shelf on the other, smoked in silence.

The old man brought in news at dinner-time. The village was ringing with the news of yesterday's affair, and a rigourous search, fanned into excitement by an offer of two pounds reward, was taking the place of the more prosaic labours of the country side.

"If it wasn't for me," said the old man, in an excess of self-laudation, "you'd be put in the gaol--where you ought to be; but I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for the five pounds. You'd better keep close in the house. There's some more of 'em in the wood looking for you."

Captain Flower took his advice, and for the next two days became a voluntary prisoner. On the third day the old man reported that public excitement about him was dying out, owing partly to the fact that it thought the villain must have made his escape good, and partly to the fact that the landlord of the Wheatsheaf had been sitting at his front door shooting at snakes on the King's Highway invisible to ordinary folk.

The skipper resolved to make a start on the following evening, walking, the first night so as to get out of the dangerous zone, and then training to London. At the prospect his spirits rose, and in a convivial mood he purchased a bottle of red currant wine from the old woman at supper, and handed it round.

He was still cheerful next morning as he arose and began to dress. Then he paused, and in a somewhat anxious fas.h.i.+on patted his trousers pockets. Minute and painful investigation revealed a bunch of keys and a clasp-knife.

He tried his other pockets, and then, sinking in a dazed fas.h.i.+on into a chair, tried to think what had become of his purse and loose change. His watch, a silver one, was under his pillow, where he had placed it the night before, and his ready cash was represented by the s.h.i.+lling which hung upon the chain.

He completed his dressing slowly while walking about the room, looking into all sorts of likely and unlikely hiding-places for his money, and at length gave up the search in disgust, and sat down to wait until such time as his host should appear. It was a complication for which he had not bargained, and unable to endure the suspense any longer, he put his head up the stairway and bawled to the old man to come down.

"What's the matter now?" demanded the old man as he came downstairs, preceded by his wife. "One would think the place belonged to you, making all that noise."

"I've lost my purse," said Flower, regarding him sternly. "My purse has been taken out of one pocket and some silver out of the other while I was asleep."

The old man raised his eyebrows at his wife and scratched his chin roughly.

"I s'pose you've lost my three pounds along with it?" he said, raspily.

"Where's my purse?" demanded the skipper, roughly; "don't play the fool with me. It won't pay."

"I don't know nothing about your purse," said the other, regarding him closely with his little bloodshot eyes; "you're trying to do me out o'my three pounds--me what's took you in and 'id you."

The incensed skipper made no reply, but, pa.s.sing upstairs, turned the bed-room topsy-turvy in a wild search for his property. It was unsuccessful, and he came down with a look in his face which made his respected host get close to his wife.

"Are you going to give me my money?" demanded he, striding up to him.

"I've not got your money," snarled the other, "I'm an honest man."

He started back in alarm, and his wife gave a faint scream as Flower caught him by the collar, and, holding him against the wall, went through his pockets.

"Don't hurt him," cried the old woman; "he's only a little old man."

"If you were younger and bigger," said the infuriated skipper, as he gave up the fruitless search, "I'd thrash you till you gave it up."

"I'm an honest man," said the other, recovering himself as he saw that his adversary intended no violence; "if you think I've stole your money, you know what you can do."