Dick Cheveley Part 3

"Have you examined the keg, men," said the squire, "to ascertain if it contains spirits?"

"No, your wors.h.i.+p, we would not venture to do that, seeing that t'other day when one of the coastguard broached a keg to see whether it had brandy or not he got into trouble for drinking the spirits."

"For drinking the spirits! He deserved to be," exclaimed Sir Reginald.

"However, that is not the point. Bring the keg here, and if you broach it in my presence you need have no fear of the consequences. There can be little doubt that we shall be able to convict this fellow, and send him to gaol for twelve months. I wish it to be understood that I intend by every means in my power to put a stop to the proceedings of these lawless smugglers, who have so long been carrying on this illegal traffic with impunity in this part of the country."

Jack Cope, who had kept a perfectly calm demeanour from the time he had been brought up to the table, smiled scornfully as Sir Reginald spoke.

He said nothing, however, as he turned his glance towards the door. In a short time a revenue man appeared carrying a keg on his shoulders.

"Place it on the table," said Sir Reginald. "Can you swear this is the keg you took from the prisoner?" he asked of the constable.

"Yes, your wors.h.i.+p. It has never been out of our custody since we captured it," replied the man.

"And _I_, too, can swear that it is the same keg that was taken from me!" exclaimed the bold smuggler in a confident tone.

"Silence there, prisoner," said Sir Reginald, "You are not to speak until you are desired. Let the cask be broached."

A couple of gla.s.ses and a gimlet had been sent for. The servant now brought them on a tray. One of the officers immediately set to work and bored a couple of holes in the head and side of the cask. The liquid which flowed out was bright and sparkling. The officer pa.s.sed it under his nose, but made no remark, though I thought his countenance exhibited an odd expression.

"Hand it here," said Sir Reginald. "Bah!" he exclaimed, intensely disgusted, "why, it's salt water."

"I told you so, your wors.h.i.+p," said Jack Cope, apparently much inclined to burst into a fit of laughter. "You'll believe me another time, I hope, when I said that I had gone down to the seaside to get some salt water for one of my children; and I think you'll allow, your wors.h.i.+p, that it is salt water."

"You are an impudent rascal!" exclaimed Sir Reginald, irritated beyond measure at the smuggler's coolness. "I shall not believe you a bit the more. I suspect that you have played the officers a trick to draw them away from your companions, and though you escape conviction this time, you will be caught another, you may depend upon that; and you may expect no leniency from me. Set the prisoner at liberty, there is no further evidence against him."

"I hope, Sir Reginald, that I may be allowed to carry my keg of salt water home," said the smuggler demurely. "It is my property, of which I have been illegally deprived by the officers, and I demand to have it given to me back."

"Let the man have the keg," said Sir Reginald in a gruff voice. "Is there any other case before me?"

"No, your wors.h.i.+p," replied his clerk.

And Jack Cope carried off his cask of salt water in triumph, followed by the officers and the other persons who had entered the hall.

I had observed that Jack Cope had eyed my father and me as we were seated with the baronet, and it struck me that he had done so with no very pleasant expression of countenance.

"These proceedings are abominable in the extreme, Mr Cheveley,"

observed the justice to my father. "We must, as I before remarked, put an effectual stop to them. You have a good deal of influence in your parish, and I must trust to you to find honest men who will try and obtain information, and give us due notice when a cargo is to be run."

"I fear the people do not look upon smuggling as you and I do, Sir Reginald," observed my father. "The better cla.s.s of my paris.h.i.+oners may not probably engage in it, but the _very_ best of them would think it dishonourable to act the part of informers. I do not believe any bribe would induce them to do so."

"Perhaps not, but you can place the matter before them in its true light. Show them that they are acting a patriotic part by aiding the officers of the law in putting a stop to proceedings which are so detrimental to the revenue of the country. If they can be made to understand the injury which smuggling inflicts on the fair trader, they may see it in a different light from that in which they at present regard it. The Government requires funds to carry on the affairs of the nation, and duties and taxes must be levied to supply those funds. We should show them that smuggling is a practice which it is the duty of all loyal men to put a stop to."

"I understand your wishes, Sir Reginald, and agree with you that energetic measures are necessary; and you may depend upon my exerting myself to the utmost."

"My great object, at present, is to capture the 'Saucy Bess.' The revenue officers afloat will, of course, do their duty; but she has so often eluded them that my only hope is to catch her while she is engaged in running her cargo. I will give a handsome reward to any one who brings reliable information which leads to that desirable result."

"I am afraid that, although one or two smugglers may be captured, others will soon take their places; as while the present high duties on spirits, silks, and other produce of France exist, the profit to be made by smuggling will always prove a temptation too strong to be resisted,"

observed my father. "If the smugglers find that a vigilant watch is kept on this part of the coast they will merely carry on their transactions in another part."

"At all events, my dear Mr Cheveley, we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we have done our duty in removing what I consider a disgrace to our community," observed Sir Reginald. "As to lowering the duties, that is what I will never consent to. I shall always oppose any scheme of the sort while I hold my place in Parliament. I feel that I am bound to preserve things as they are, and am not to be moved by the brawling cries of demagogues."

"Of course, Sir Reginald, you understand these things better than I do.

I have never given my mind to politics, and have always been ready to record my vote in your favour, and to induce as many as possible of my paris.h.i.+oners to follow my example."

All this time I had been sitting on the tenter-hooks of expectation, wondering if my father would again refer to the subject which had induced him to pay a visit to the baronet.

"I must wish you good morning, Sir Reginald," he said, rising. "You will, I feel sure, not forget your promise regarding my son d.i.c.k, and if Captain Grummit cannot take him, I trust that you will find some other captain who does not insist on his mids.h.i.+pmen having so large an allowance."

"Of course, my dear Mr Cheveley, of course," said the baronet, rising; "although it did not strike me as anything unreasonable. Yet I am aware how you are situated with a numerous family and a comparatively small income; and, believe me, I will not lose an opportunity of forwarding the views of the young gentleman. Good morning, my dear Mr Cheveley, good morning," and nodding to me, he bowed us out of the hall.

"I hope Sir Reginald will get me a berth on board some other s.h.i.+p," I said to my father, as we walked homeward. "He seems wonderfully good-natured and condescending."

"I don't feel altogether satisfied as to that point," answered my father, who knew the baronet better than I did.

CHAPTER THREE.

The crusade against the smugglers--Sir Reginald's measures--The "Saucy Bess"--My father's sermon, and its effects in different quarters--Ned and I visit old Roger Riddle--Mr Reynell's picnic and how we enjoyed it--Roger Riddle tells the story of his life--Born at sea--The pet of the s.h.i.+p--Stormy times--Parted from his mother--His first visit to land--Loses his parents.

Day after day went by and nothing was heard from Sir Reginald Knowsley about my appointment as a mids.h.i.+pman. Aunt Deb took care to remark that she had no doubt he had forgotten all about me. This I shrewdly suspected was the case. If he had forgotten me, however, he had not forgotten the smugglers, for he was taking energetic steps to put a stop to their proceedings, though it was whispered he was not always as successful as he supposed.

Whenever I went to the village I heard of what he was doing, yet from time to time it was known that cargoes had been run while only occasionally an insignificant capture was made, it being generally, as the saying is, a tub thrown to a whale.

The "Saucy Bess" appeared off the coast, but it was when she had a clean hold and no revenue officer could touch her. She would then come into Leighton bay, which was a little distance to the westward of the bar, and drop her anchor, looking as innocent as possible; and her hardy crew would sit with their arms folded, on her deck, smoking their pipes and spinning yarns to each other of their daring deeds, or would pace up and down performing the fisherman's walk, three steps and overboard. On two or three occasions I caught sight of them from the top of a rocky cliff which formed one side of the little bay, and I acknowledge that I had a wonderful longing to go on board and become better acquainted with the st.u.r.dy looking outlaws, or rather, breakers of the law. As, however, I could find no boat in the bay to take me alongside, and as I did not like to hail and ask them to allow me to pay them a visit, I had to abandon my design.

My father was busy in his way in carrying out the wishes of the baronet.

He spoke to a number of his paris.h.i.+oners, urging them to a.s.sist in putting a stop to the proceedings of the smugglers, and endeavouring to impress upon them the nefarious character of their occupation. More than once he got into the wrong box when addressing some old sea dog, who would curtly advise him to mind his own business, the man he was speaking to probably being in league with the smugglers. He said and did enough indeed to create a considerable amount of odium against himself. He went so far as one Sunday to preach a sermon in which he unmistakably alluded to smuggling as one of the sins certain to bring down condign punishment on those engaged in it.

Sir Reginald Knowsley, who had driven over, as he occasionally did, to attend the service, waited for my father in the porch, and complimented him on his sermon. "Excellent, Mr Cheveley, excellent," he exclaimed, "I like to hear clergymen speak out bravely from the pulpit, and condemn the sins of the people. If the smugglers persist in carrying on their nefarious proceedings, they will now do it with their eyes open, and know that they are breaking the laws of G.o.d and man. I was delighted to hear you broach the subject. I expect some friends in a few days, and I hope that you will give me the pleasure of your company at dinner. I have some capital old port just suited to your taste, and I will take care to draw your attention to it. Good-bye, my dear Mr Cheveley, good-bye; with your aid I have no doubt smuggling will, in a short time, be a thing of the past;" and the squire walked with a dignified pace to his carriage and drove off, not regarding the frowning looks cast at him by some of his fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers.

As I afterwards went through the churchyard I pa.s.sed several knots of persons talking together, who were making remarks of a very different character to those I have spoken of on the sermon they had just heard.

They were at no pains to lower their voices even as they saw me.

"I never seed smuggling in the Ten Commandments, an' don't see it now,"

remarked a st.u.r.dy old fisherman, who was looked upon as a very respectable man in the village. "What has come over our parson to talk about it is more than I can tell."

"The parson follows where the squire leads, I've a notion," remarked another seafaring man, who was considered an oracle among his mates.

"He never said a word about it before the squire took the matter up.

Many's the time we've had a score of kegs stowed away in his tool-house, and if one was left behind, if he didn't get it I don't know who did."

On hearing this I felt very much inclined to stop and declare that my father had never received a keg of spirits, or a bribe of any sort, for I was very sure that he would not condescend to that, though I could not answer for the integrity of John Dixon, our old gardener, who had been, on more than one occasion, unable to work for a week together; and although his wife said that he was suffering from rheumatics, the doctor remarked, with a wink, that he had no doubt he would recover without having much physic to take.

Some of the men were even more severe in their remarks, and swore that if the parson was going to preach in that style, they would not show their noses inside the church. Others threatened to go off to the methodists' house in the next village, where the minister never troubled the people with disagreeable remarks.

I did not tell my father all I had heard, as I knew it would annoy him.

It did not occur to me at the moment that he had introduced the subject for the sake of currying favour with Sir Reginald, indeed I did not think such an idea had crossed his mind.