The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📖

ascended a flight of worn stone steps into the churchyard, and so—by a way of tombs and graves—came at last to the great square church-tower, into which I was incontinently thrust, and there very securely locked up.

CHAPTER XLIV

THE BOW STREET RUNNERS

It was toward evening of the next day that the door of my prison was opened, and two men entered. The first was a tall, cadaverous-looking individual of a melancholy cast of feature, who, despite the season, was wrapped in a long frieze coat reaching almost to his heels, from the pocket of which projected a short staff, or truncheon. He came forward with his hands in his pockets, and his bony chin on his breast, looking at me under the brim of a somewhat weather-beaten hat—that is to say, he looked at my feet and my hands and my throat and my chin, but never seemed to get any higher.

His companion, on the contrary, bustled forward, and, tapping me familiarly on the shoulder, looked me over with a bright, appraising eye.

“S’elp me, Jeremy!” said he, addressing his saturnine friend, “s’elp me, if I ever see a pore misfort’nate cove more to my mind an’ fancy—nice an’ tall an’ straight-legged—twelve stone if a pound—a five-foot drop now—or say five foot six, an’ ‘e’ll go off as sweet as a bird; ah! you’ll never feel it, my covey—not a twinge; a leetle tightish round the windpipe, p’r’aps—but, Lord, it’s soon over. You’re lookin’ a bit pale round the gills, young cove, but, Lord! that’s only nat’ral too.” Here he produced from the depths of a capacious pocket something that glittered beneath his agile fingers. “And ‘ow might be your general ‘ealth, young cove?” he went on affably, “bobbish, I ‘ope—fair an’ bobbish?” As he spoke, with a sudden, dexterous motion, he had snapped something upon my wrists, so quickly that, at the contact of the cold steel, I started, and as I did so, something jingled faintly.

“There!” he exclaimed, clapping me on the shoulder again, but at the same time casting a sharp glance at my shackled wrists —“there—now we’re all ‘appy an’ comfortable! I see as you’re a cove as takes things nice an’ quiet, an’—so long as you do—I’m your friend—Bob’s my name, an’ bobbish is my natur’. Lord!—the way I’ve seen misfort’nate coves take on at sight o’ them ‘bracelets’ is something out-rageous! But you—why, you’re a different kidney—you’re my kind, you are what do you say, Jeremy?”

“Don’t like ‘is eye!” growled that individual.

“Don’t mind Jeremy,” winked the other; “it’s just ‘is per-werseness. Lord! ‘e is the per-wersest codger you ever see! Why, ‘e finds fault wi’ the Pope o’ Rome, jest because ‘e’s in the ‘abit o’ lettin’ coves kiss ‘is toe—I’ve ‘eard Jeremy work ‘isself up over the Pope an’ a pint o’ porter, till you’d ‘ave thought—”

“Ain’t we never a-goin’ to start?” inquired Jeremy, staring out of the window, with his back to us.

“And where,” said I, “where might you be taking me?”

“Why, since you ax, my covey, we ‘m a-takin’ you where you’ll be took good care on, where you’ll feed well, and ‘ave justice done on you—trust us for that. Though, to be sure, I’m sorry to take you from such proper quarters as these ‘ere—nice and airy—eh, Jeremy?”

“Ah!—an’ wi’ a fine view o’ the graves!” growled Jeremy, leading the way out.

In the street stood a chaise and four, surrounded by a pushing, jostling throng of men, women, and children, who, catching sight of me between the Bow Street Runners, forgot to push and jostle, and stared at me with every eye and tooth they possessed, until I was hidden in the chaise.

“Right away!” growled Jeremy, shutting the door with a bang.

“Whoa!” roared a voice, and a great, shaggy golden head was thrust in at the window, and a hand reached down and grasped mine.

“A pipe an’ ‘baccy, Peter—from me; a flask o’ rum—Simon’s best, from Simon; an’ chicken sang-widges, from my Prue.” This as he passed in each article through the window. “An’ I were to say, Peter, as we are all wi’ you—ever an’ ever, an’ I were likewise to tell ‘ee as ‘ow Prue’ll pray for ‘ee oftener than before, an’ —ecod!” he broke off, the tears running down his face, “there were a lot more, but I’ve forgot it all, only, Peter, me an’ Simon be goin’ to get a lawyer chap for ‘ee, an’—oh, man, Peter, say the word, an’ I’ll have ‘ee out o’ this in a twinklin’ an’ we’ll run for it—”

But, even as I shook my head, the postboy’s whip cracked, and the horses plunged forward.

“Good-by, George!” I cried, “good-by, dear fellow!” and the last I saw of him was as he stood rubbing his tears away with one fist and shaking the other after the chaise.

CHAPTER XLV

WHICH CONCERNS ITSELF, AMONG OTHER MATTERS, WITH THE BOOTS OF THE SATURNINE JEREMY

“A bottle o’ rum!” said the man Bob, and taking it up, very abstracted of eye, he removed the cork, sniffed at it, tasted it, took a gulp, and handed it over to his companion, who also looked at, sniffed at, and tasted it. “And what d’ye make o’ that, Jeremy?”

“Tasted better afore now!” growled Jeremy, and immediately took another pull.

“Sang-widges, too!” pursued the man Bob, in a ruminating tone, “an’ I always was partial to chicken!” and, forthwith, opening the dainty parcel, he helped himself, and his companion also.

“What d’ye make o’ them, Jeremy?” he inquired, munching.

“I’ve eat wuss!” rumbled Jeremy, also munching.

“Young cove, they does you credit,” said the man Bob, nodding to me with great urbanity, “great credit—there ain’t many misfort’nates as can per-jooce such sang-widges as them, though, to be sure, they eats uncommon quick ‘old ‘ard there, Jeremy—” But, indeed, the sandwiches were already only a memory, wherefore his brow grew black, and he glared at the still munching Jeremy, who met his looks with his usual impenetrable gloom.

“A pipe and ‘bacca!” mused the man Bob, after we had ridden some while in silence, and, with the same serene unconsciousness of manner, he took the pipe, filled it, lighted it, and puffed with an air of dreamy content.

“Jeremy is a good-ish sort,” he began, with a complacent flourish of the pipe, “a good-ish sort, but cross-grained—Lord! young cove, ‘is cross-grainedness is ekalled only by ‘is per-werseness, and ‘cause why?—‘cause ‘e don’t smoke—(go easy wi’ the rum, Jeremy!) there’s nothin’ like a pipe o’ ‘bacca to soothe such things away (I got my eye on ye, Jeremy!)—no, there’s nothin’ like a pipe o’ ‘bacca. Look at me—I were the per-wersest infant that ever was, till I took to smokin’, and to-day, whatever I am, I ain’t per-werse, nor yet cross-grained, and many a misfort’nate cove, as is now no more—‘as wept over me at partin’—”

“They generally always do!” growled Jeremy, uncorking the rum-bottle with his teeth.

“No, Jerry, no,” returned the other, blowing out a cloud of smoke; “misfort’nates ain’t all the same—(arter you wi’ that bottle!)—you ‘ave Cryers, and Laughers, and Pray-ers, and Silent Ones, and the silent coves is the dangerousest—(arter you wi’ the bottle, Jeremy!)—now you, my covey,” he went on, tapping my hand gently with his pipe-stem, “you ain’t exactly talkative, in fact—not wishin’ no offense, I might say as you was inclined to be one o’ the Silent Ones. Not as I ‘olds that again’ you—far from it, only you reminds me of a young cove as ‘ad the misfort’n to get ‘isself took for forgery, and who—arter me a-talkin’ and a-chattin’ to ‘im in my pleasant way went and managed to commit sooicide—under my very nose—which were ‘ardly nice, or even respectable, considerin’—(arter you wi’ the bottle, Jeremy!)”

Jeremy growled, held up the bottle to the failing light of evening, measured its contents with his thumb, and extended it unwillingly towards his comrade’s ready hand; but it never got there, for, at that instant, the chaise lurched violently—there was a cry, a splintering of glass, a crash, and I was lying, half stunned, in a ditch, listening to the chorus of oaths and cries that rose from the cloud of dust where the frightened horses reared and plunged.

How long I remained thus I cannot say, but, all at once, I found myself upon my feet, running down the road, for, hazy though my mind yet was, I could think only of escape, of liberty, and freedom—at any price—at any cost. So I ran on down the road, somewhat unsteadily as yet, because my fall had been a heavy one, and my brain still reeled. I heard a shout behind me—the sharp crack of a pistol, and a bullet sang over my head; and then I knew they were after me, for I could hear the patter of their feet upon the hard road.

Now, as I ran, my brain cleared, but this only served me to appreciate the difficulty of eluding men so seasoned and hardy as my pursuers; moreover, the handcuffs galled my wrists, and the short connecting chain hampered my movements considerably, and I saw that, upon this straight level, I must soon be run down, or shot from behind.

Glancing back, I beheld them some hundred yards, or so, away, elbows in, heads up, running with that long, free stride that speaks of endurance. I increased the pace, the ground flew beneath me, but, when I glanced again, though the man Bob had dropped back, the saturnine Jeremy ran on, no nearer, but no farther than before.

Now, as I went, I presently espied that for which I had looked —a gate set in the midst of the hedge, but it was closed, and never did a gate, before or since, appear quite so high and insurmountable; but, with the desperation of despair, I turned, ran at it, and sprang, swinging my arms above my head as I did so. My foot grazed the top bar—down I came, slipped, stumbled, regained my balance, and ran on over the springy turf. I heard a crash behind me, an oath, a second pistol barked, and immediately it seemed that a hot iron seared my forearm, and glancing down, I saw the skin cut and bleeding, but, finding it no worse, breathed a sigh of thankfulness, and ran on.

By that leap I had probably gained some twenty yards; I would nurse my strength, therefore. If I could once gain the woods! How far off were they?—half-a-mile, a mile?—well, I could run that easily, thanks to my hardy life. Stay! what was that sound behind me—the fall of flying feet, or the throbbing of my own heart? I turned my head; the man Jeremy was within twelve yards of me—lean and spare, his head thrust forward, he ran with the long, easy stride of a greyhound.

So it was to be a question of endurance? Well, I had caught my second wind by now. I set my teeth, and, clenching my fists, lengthened my stride.

And now, indeed, the real struggle began. My pursuer had long ago abandoned his coat, but his boots were heavier and clumsier than those I wore; but then, again, my confining shackles seemed to contract my chest; and the handcuffs galled my wrists cruelly.

On I went, scattering flocks of scampering sheep, past meditative cows who started up, puffing out snorts of perfume; scrambling through hedges, over gate and stile and ditch, with eyes upon the distant woods full of the purple gloom of evening, and, in my ears, the muffled thud! thud! thud! thud! of the pursuit, sometimes seeming much nearer, and sometimes much farther off,