A Rogue by Compulsion by Victor Bridges (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📖

crevice just long enough to lie down in at full length.

I can't say it was exactly comfortable, but penal servitude has at least the merit of saving one from being over-luxurious. Besides, I was much too interested in watching the steady thickening of the mist outside to worry myself about trifles. With a swiftness which would have been incredible to any one who didn't know the Moor, the damp clammy vapour was settling down, blotting out everything in its grey haze. Except for the dripping brambles immediately outside I could soon see absolutely nothing; beyond that it was like staring into a blanket.

I lay there quite motionless, listening very intently for any sound of my pursuers. Only the persistent drip, drip of the rain, however, and the occasional rustle of a bird, broke the silence. If there were any warders about they were evidently still some way from my hiding-place, but the odds were that they had postponed searching the wood until the fog lifted.

For the first time since my leap from the wall I found myself with sufficient leisure to review the situation. It struck me that only a very hardened optimist could describe it as hopeful. I had made my bolt almost instinctively, without stopping to think what chances I had of getting away. That these were meagre in the extreme was now becoming painfully clear to me. Even if I managed to slip out of my present hiding-place into the still larger woods of the Walkham Valley, the odds were all in favour of my ultimate capture. No escaped prisoner had ever yet succeeded in retaining his liberty for more than a few days, and where so many gentlemen of experience had tried and failed it seemed distressingly unlikely that I should be more fortunate.

I began to wonder what had happened to Cairns, the man whose dash from the ranks had been responsible for my own effort. I knew him to be one of the most resourceful blackguards in the prison, and, provided the civil guard's first shot had failed to stop him, it was quite likely that he too had evaded capture. I hoped so with all my heart: it would distract quite a lot of attention from my own humble affairs.

If he was still at liberty, I couldn't help feeling enviously how much better his chances of escape were than mine. In order to get away from the Moor it was plainly necessary to possess oneself of both food and clothes, and I could think of no other way of doing so except stealing them from some lonely farm. At anything of this sort I was likely to prove a sorry bungler compared with such an artist as Cairns. He was one of the most accomplished cracksmen in England, and feats which seemed impossible to me would probably be the merest child's play to him.

Still it was no good worrying over what couldn't be helped. My first job was to get safely into the Walkham woods; after that it would be quite time enough to think about turning burglar.

I sat up and looked out into the mist. Things were as bad as ever, and quite suddenly it struck me with considerable force that by lying low in this fashion I was making a most unholy idiot of myself. Here I was growing cold and stiff, and wasting what was probably the best chance I should ever have of reaching Walkhampton. In fact I was playing right into the hands of the warders.

With an impatient exclamation I jumped to my feet. The only question was, could I find my way out of the wood, and if I did, how on earth was I to strike the right line over North Hessary? It was quite on the cards I might wander back into Princetown under the happy impression that I was going in exactly the opposite direction.

For a moment I hesitated; then I made up my mind to risk it. After all the fog was as bad for the warders as it was for me, and even if I failed to reach the Walkham Valley I should probably find some other equally good shelter before it lifted. In either case I should have the big advantage of having changed my hiding-place.

Buttoning up my slop, I advanced carefully through the dripping brambles. One could see rather less than nothing, but so far as I could remember the main Tavistock road was on my right-hand side. This would leave North Hessary away to the left; so turning in that direction I set my teeth and took my first step forward into the darkness.

I don't suppose you have ever tried walking through a wood in a fog, but you can take my word for it that a less enjoyable form of exercise doesn't exist. I have often wondered since how on earth I managed to escape a sprained ankle or a broken neck, for carefully as I groped my way forward it was quite impossible to avoid all the numerous crevices and overhanging boughs which beset my path.

I must have blundered into about fourteen holes and knocked my head against at least an equal number of branches, before the trees at last began to thin and the darkness lighten sufficiently to let me see where I was placing my feet. I knew that by this time I must be getting precious near the boundary of the wood, outside which the warders were now doubtless posted at frequent intervals. So I stopped where I was and sat down quietly on a rock for a few minutes to recover my breath, for I had been pretty badly shaken and winded by my numerous tumbles.

As soon as I felt better I got up again, and taking very particular care where I was treading, advanced on tiptoe with a delicacy that Agag might have envied. I had taken about a dozen steps when all of a sudden the railings loomed up in front of me through the mist.

I put my hand on the top bar, and then paused for a moment listening breathlessly for any sound of danger. Except for the faint patter of the rain, however, everything was as silent as the dead. Very carefully I raised myself on the bottom rail, lifted my legs over, one after the other, and then dropped lightly down on to the grass beyond.

As I did so a man rose up suddenly from the ground like a black shadow, and hurling himself on me before I could move, clutched me round the waist.

"Got yer!" he roared. Then at the top of his voice—"Here he is! Help!
Help!"

CHAPTER II A BICYCLE AND SOME OVERALLS

I was taken so utterly by surprise that nothing except sheer strength saved me from going over. As it was I staggered back a couple of paces, fetching up against the railings with a bang that nearly knocked the breath out of me. By a stroke of luck I must have crushed my opponent's hand against one of the bars, for with a cry of pain he momentarily slackened his grip.

That was all I wanted. Wrenching my left arm free, I brought up my elbow under his chin with a wicked jolt; and then, before he could recover, I smashed home a short right-arm punch that must have landed somewhere in the neighbourhood of his third waistcoat button. Anyhow it did the business all right. With a quaint noise, like the gurgle of a half-empty bath, he promptly released me from his embrace, and sank down on to the grass almost as swiftly and silently as he had arisen.

I doubt if a more perfectly timed blow has ever been delivered, but unfortunately I had no chance of studying its effects. Through the fog I could hear the sound of footsteps—quick heavy footsteps hurrying towards me from either direction. For one second I thought of scrambling back over the railings and taking to the wood again. Then suddenly a kind of mischievous exhilaration at the danger gripped hold of me, and jumping over the prostrate figure on the ground I bolted forwards into the mist. The warders, who must have been quite close, evidently heard me, for from both sides came hoarse shouts of "There he goes!" "Look out there!" and other well-meant pieces of advice.

It was a funny sort of sensation dodging through the fog, feeling that at any moment one might blunder up against the muzzle of a loaded carbine. The only guide I had as to my direction was the slope of the ground. I knew that as long as I kept on going uphill I was more or less on the right track, for the big granite-strewn bulk of North Hessary lay right in front of me, and I had to cross it to get to the Walkham Valley.

On I went, the ground rising higher and higher, until at last the wet slippery grass began to give way to a broken waste of rocks and heather. I had reached the top, and although I could see nothing on account of the mist, I knew that right below me lay the woods, with only about a mile of steeply sloping hillside separating me from their agreeable privacy.

Despite the cold and the wet and the fact that I was getting devilish hungry, my spirits somehow began to rise. Good luck always acts on me as a sort of tonic, and so far I had certainly been amazingly lucky. I felt that if only the rain would clear up now and give me a chance of getting dry, Fate would have treated me as handsomely as an escaped murderer had any right to expect.

Making my way carefully across the plateau, for the ground was stiff with small holes and gullies and I had no wish to sprain my ankle, I began the descent of the opposite side. The mist here was a good deal thinner, but night was coming on so rapidly that as far as seeing where I was going was concerned I was very little better off than I had been on the top of the hill.

Below me, away to the right, a blurred glimmer of light just made itself visible. This I took to be Merivale village, on the Tavistock road; and not being anxious to trespass upon its simple hospitality, I sheered off slightly in the opposite direction. At last, after about twenty minutes' scrambling, I began to hear a faint trickle of running water, and a few more steps brought me to the bank of the Walkham.

I stood there for a little while in the darkness, feeling a kind of tired elation at my achievement. My chances of escape might still be pretty thin, but I had at least reached a temporary shelter. For five miles away to my left stretched the pleasantly fertile valley, and until I chose to come out of it all the warders on Dartmoor might hunt themselves black in the face without finding me.

I can't say exactly how much farther I tramped that evening. When one is stumbling along at night through an exceedingly ill-kept wood in a state of hunger, dampness, and exhaustion, one's judgment of distance is apt to lose some of its finer accuracy. I imagine, however, that I must have covered at least three more miles before my desire to lie down and sleep became too poignant to be any longer resisted.

I hunted about in the darkness until I discovered a small patch of fairly dry grass which had been more or less protected from the rain by an overhanging rock. I might perhaps have done better, but I was too tired to bother. I just dropped peacefully down where I stood, and in spite of my bruises and my soaked clothes I don't think I had been two minutes on the ground before I was fast asleep.

* * * * *

Tommy Morrison always used to say that only unintelligent people woke up feeling really well. If he was right I must have been in a singularly brilliant mood when I again opened my eyes.

It was still fairly dark, with the raw, sour darkness of an early March morning, and all round me the invisible drip of the trees was as persistent as ever. Very slowly and shakily I scrambled to my feet. My head ached savagely, I was chilled to the core, and every part of my body felt as if