The Toll-Gate (29 page)

"They'll recall him from Bow Street, and send another in his stead!"

"That wouldn't fadge! Any stranger will now be suspect by Coate! I hoped he might take fright, and run for it, but he's a mighty cool customer, and he means to stand fast. That seems to mean that he knows nothing can be brought home to him. Well! Without me, it's possible Stogumber may discover that cavern, and what it contains. But with me, he may be able to arrest Coate also; and I fancy he won't quarrel with me over the means I took to bring that about!"

CHAPTER XIV.

FINDING it impossible to turn the Captain from his purpose, Mr. Babbacombe allowed himself to be diverted presently into talk of old campaigning days, and an exchange of news about erstwhile companions in arms. Dusk fell, and the two friends still sat on either side of the fire, fortified by tankards of Sopworthy's best ale, and only occasionally interrupted by calls from the gate. By the time the daylight had quite gone, and the Captain went out to hang lamps on the gate, Mr. Babbacombe had begun to think of his dinner. It seemed to him a pity that John could scarcely accompany him to the inn, to share it; but when he learned that John had dined at midday he was quite aghast, and perceived that he had had, until that moment, a very incomplete conception of the rigours endured by gatekeepers.

"And I think," said John, "you'd best stay here, Bab, and have supper with me. There will be Ben too—if the little wretch comes home in time!—but you won't mind that! I'll give you eggs, and ham, and sausages, and some excellent coffee. The thing is, I am determined to visit the Manor this evening, and I can't leave this place under Ben's charge after dark: he's scared, and won't stay here alone. If the Squire's groom is unable to come to relieve guard, you could remain here till I come back, couldn't you?"

"What, mind the pike?" exclaimed Mr. Babbacombe. "No, I'll be damned if I do!"

"Oh, you needn't do that! Ben will attend to any calls, and I daresay he won't mind, if he knows you're here to protect him."

"Protect him from what?" demanded Mr. Babbacombe.

"Nothing—but he can't be brought to believe that. Damn the brat, I wonder what mischief he's up to? I must go up to attend to Beau. And, now I come to think of it, I never fed the hens, or the pig!"

With these conscience-stricken words, he seized a bucket, into which had been emptied various scraps of food, and went out into the garden. Mr. Babbacombe heard him at the pump a few minutes later, and he came in almost immediately, saying, as he dried his dripping hands on a towel: "I suppose the hens had picked up all they wanted in the garden, for they've gone to roost; but the pig always seems to be starving! You know, Bab, when I started gatekeeping here I'd no notion how much work there was to do! What with the gate, and Beau, and those curst hens, and the pig, and the brat, and keeping my clothes in order, I never seem to have a moment in which to be idle! Confound you, don't laugh! If Ben don't come in soon, you shall have a taste of gatekeeping, for I won't neglect my horse just because you're too high in the instep to take over my duties for me! Besides, I want Beau here, not half a mile away!"

But at this moment the errant Ben slid into the kitchen from the office, his sharp countenance schooled to an expression of almost angelic innocence. One stocking had descended in rucks about his ankle, and was generously smeared with blood from a badly grazed leg; a rent in his shirt allowed a glimpse of a skinny chest; and every portion of his anatomy, unprotected by clothing, seemed to have attracted grime.

"Disgusting!" said his mentor, after a brief but comprehensive survey. "Take that shirt off, and get under the pump! No, don't go without the soap, woolly-crown! And if I see one speck of dirt on you when you come in, I'll send you to bed in the pigsty!"

In any ordinary circumstances, so exquisitely humorous a threat would have drawn from Ben its meed of his broadest grin, but he had by this time perceived Mr. Babbacombe. His mouth fell open, and his eyes widened to their fullest extent. Having taken that elegant gentleman in thoroughly, he gave utterance to his feelings with brevity and simplicity. "Coo!" he said reverently.

The Captain's lips twitched, but he said severely: "Just so! Be off and make yourself tidy directly! This gentleman can't bear dirty boys!"

"Coo, he is a swell cove!" said Ben, accepting reluctantly the bar of soap thrust into his hand. "What's he come here for, gov'nor?"

"He's a friend of mine. Now, shake your shambles! I want to go up to Huggate's barn!"

"He ain't come to take you away?" Ben cried, with swift suspicion.

"No, no!" the Captain said, pushing him through the door. "He's come to supper with us!"

"Yes, but I don't think I have!" protested Mr. Babbacombe, who had been regarding his friend's protégé with disfavour. "And if you think I mean to spend the evening here with that horrid brat—why, I'd as lief spend it with a Portuguese muleteer!"

"Nonsense! He's quite a good lad. Did you never fall out of a tree yourself, and go home with a torn shirt, and dirt all over you? Besides, the poor little devil's been orphaned!"

"What are you going to do with him?" demanded Mr. Babbacombe, looking at him with misgiving.

"Damned if I know!" confessed John. "I'm bound to look after him, of course. Might hand him to Cocking to train: he's got a way with horses, and will make a splendid groom when he's older."

"I should think Cocking will enjoy that!" said Mr. Babbacombe sardonically.

But when Ben reappeared presently with a well-scrubbed face, and in his other shirt, he admitted that he was not so repulsive an urchin as at first sight he had thought him. Encouraged by this moderate praise, the Captain informed Ben that if Joseph Lydd did not come to the toll-house that evening, Mr. Babbacombe would stay to keep him company while he himself went out for an hour. Ben looked dubious, but the Captain said: "And he's a soldier, too, so you needn't be afraid he would let anyone carry you off! If anyone tried to, he would draw his pistol, and shoot him!"

"No, I dashed well would not!" said Mr. Babbacombe. "What's more, I won't be dragged into this business!"

"Won't stand by me?" John said. "Bab!"

"Well, what I mean is—— No, confound you, Jack, I'm not queer in my attic, if you are!"

"You come and see my horse, old fellow!" said John soothingly. "Cut some ham, Ben, and put the sausages in the pan! I'm only going as far as the barn."

Half an hour later, when they re-entered the kitchen, Mr. Babbacombe wore the look of one resigned to his fate, and there was a decided twinkle in the Captain's eye. They were greeted by the pleasant aroma of sausages sizzling over the fire, and the intelligence that Joseph Lydd had passed through the gate not five minutes earlier, driving the gig.

"Driving the gig?" John said. "Where was he bound for? Did he tell you?"

"No. He asked me where you was, and I told him you was up at the barn, and he said as he'd be back presently. And I didn't say nothing to him about the swell cove," added Ben, with conscious rectitude.

"That's the dandy! Don't you say anything to anybody about the swell cove! Did Lydd leave any message for me?"

But Joseph had apparently not seen fit to entrust a message to Ben. With his assurance that he would be back presently, John had to be satisfied. Leaving Mr. Babbacombe to superintend the cooking of supper, he went off to make himself presentable, and to speculate upon the nature of the errand that could have taken Lydd, driving the gig, towards Crowford at such an hour. The doctor, as John knew, lived five miles to the east of the gate; he could think of no other person who might be wanted at the Manor.

He had just arranged his cravat to his satisfaction when the gig returned. He heard Ben go out, and followed him, trying to perceive, in the darkness, who was the man seated beside Lydd. A low-brimmed hat, and a dark cloak, were the only things he could distinguish, until the man turned a little, to look at him, and he saw the gleam of white bands. At the same moment, Joseph spoke.

"You're wanted up at the Manor, Mr. Staple. But I got to drive the Reverend back to Crowford presently."

"I'll come," John replied curtly. "Open the gate, Ben!"

He did not wait to see this order obeyed, but strode back into the toll-house, where he found Mr. Babbacombe, in his shirt-sleeves, wincing from the savagery of eggs, spitting furiously in boiling fat.

"Bab—I'm sorry, indeed I am!—but I must leave you in charge here!" he said. "The Squire's groom has just gone past the pike, with the Vicar, driving him to Kellands. I'm needed there—and even if Joseph had not told me so I must have gone! I fear it can only mean that the Squire is dying."

Mr. Babbacombe removed the eggs from the fire, and tenderly licked the back of one scalded hand. "If that's so, dear boy," he remarked mildly, "it don't seem to be quite the moment for you to be paying him a visit. No doubt you know best, but I shouldn't do it myself."

"I think you would. Joseph will come to relieve you if he can, but he will be obliged to remain at the Manor until the Vicar leaves. Ben will attend to the gate, but you'll get very few calls. I'll return as soon as I may—but I might be some time."

"Very well," said his long-suffering friend, returning the pan to the fire. "It's to be hoped Ben likes eggs: there are six here, and I never want to see one again!"

"Poor Bab! What a way to treat you! But you will shake the dust of this place from your feet tomorrow, so take heart!" John said, sitting down to pull on his boots.

"Ah!" said Mr. Babbacombe. He saw that Ben had come back into the kitchen, and said imperatively: "Here, boy, come and finish cooking these eggs!"

Ben took the pan, but gave it as his opinion that the eggs were fried hard.

"Then turn 'em out, or fry some more!" recommended Mr. Babbacombe.

John lifted his saddle from the top of the beer-barrel, where he had laid it when he brought it down from the barn, and went out into the garden, accompanied by his friend. Mr. Babbacombe stripped off the rug from Beau's back, but no sooner had John set the saddle in place than he ejaculated: "Chirk! I must warn Ben," and went back into the kitchen.

"If," said Mr. Babbacombe, when he presently reappeared, "you're expecting a visit from your High Toby friend, how should I receive him? I don't wish to be backward in any attention, but the truth is, Jack, I never entertained a highwayman before, and I can't but feel that if he did not find me acceptable he might prefer my watch and my money to my company."

"No such thing! He's an excellent fellow! But I've told Ben to go quietly out to him, when he hears his signal, and to tell him how it is. It won't do to let him in while you're here: he would dislike it—and me too, for having told you about him."

Mr. Babbacombe paused in the act of tightening a girth. "Do you mean to say I'm not to meet the fellow? No, that's too shabby!" he said indignantly. "What the devil am I going to do with myself while you're away?"

"Play cassino with Ben!" said the Captain, unhitching his bridle from the fence.

Ten minutes later, he was dismounting in the stable yard at the Manor, and handing Beau over to Joseph, who said apologetically: "I'd have come back if I could, sir, but the master don't understand as how you can't leave Ben, and he would have me fetch Parson."

"It doesn't signify: I've left a friend of mine at the toll-house. Was it your master who sent for me?"

"Ay, and mighty anxious he is you should come, gov'nor. Mr. Winkfield says as he's been fretting outrageous, all on account of this letter I had to fetch in Sheffield. But it come by today's mail, and it seems like he's ready to slip his wind now he's got it, for nothing would do but he must have Parson sent for, and you too." He peered up at John's face in the faint moonlight, and added pleadingly: "If you could set his mind at rest, sir, so as he'll go easy——"

"You may be sure I will. I'll go up to the house immediately. Where are Coate and young Stornaway?"

"Mr. Henry's still abed, and Coate's eating his dinner. There's no fear you'll see either of 'em."

The Captain strode up the path to the side of the house. The door into the flagged passage was not locked, and a lamp was burning on the chest against the wall. John laid his hat and whip down beside it, and went along the passage to the narrow stairs. At the top, he met Winkfield.

The valet greeted him with relief, and with less than his usual impassivity. It seemed for a moment as though he wished to make some kind of a communication. He started to speak, but faltered, and broke off, saying, after a pause: "I think, sir—I think I had best take you to my master directly!"

"Please do so! Joseph tells me he has been fretting, and you may be sure I'll use my best endeavours to soothe him."

"Yes, sir, I'm sure—— Only it seems as if he's almost taken leave of his senses! If I'd guessed—but he never told one of us! If you should not like it, I hope you'll pardon me! Indeed, I'd no notion what was in his head!" Winkfield said, opening the dressing-room door, and ushering John into the room.

"Why should I dislike it?" John asked, a puzzled frown in his eyes. "I collect that he is dying—is he not?"

"I don't know that, sir. I didn't think to see him live the day out, but—but he's in wonderful spirits now! As you'll see for yourself, sir!"