CHAPTER XXXI.
THE GIANT OF THE HEATH
There is, or at least there used to be, along the back of Hounslow Heath, a lane, which leaves the great Western road on the right-hand side, and goes off alone. The soil is very poor and thin, and nothing seems to flourish much except the hardier forms of fir, and the vagrant manner of mankind. The winter winds and the summer drought sweep over or cranny into it; and a very observant man is needed to find much to talk about.
But wherever a man or woman is, and whatever may be the season, one earnest cry arises in the bosom, and it is for beer. Those nobler beings who oust their British nature with foreign luxury, and learn to make belief of joy in the sour grape or the stringent still, are apt to forget, as perverts do, the solidity of the ancient creed. If a good or evil genius had stood by Sir Cumberleigh Hotchpot, or even Downy Bulwrag, and whispered, “Have a firkin there of treble X, or Indian Pale,” there might be now no chance for Bill to tell the things he had to tell.
When Tompkins, with his cart half full of Sallies piled like flower-pots, pulled up again at the wayside inn, he found it dark and lonely. The four jolly gardeners were gone home, or at any rate gone somewhere; Teddy, the landlord, was fast asleep by the kitchen fire, and would so remain till roused by the music of the frying-pan; they kept no barmaid, and the man who generally lounged about the stable was gone to have his lounge out somewhere else.
“Good-night, ’Liza,” Bill shouted up the staircase, on the chance of the landlady hearing his voice; but instead of any answer her step was heard, and she turned the corner on him with her shawl and bonnet on.
“I couldn’t leave it so,” she said; “I don’t know what come over me. But after you was gone my heart fell all a pitter-pattering. And such bad ideas come into my head – I never did! I could no more sleep this blessed night, without knowing more about that there business, than I could stand on my head and strike the hours like a clock. I may be a fool for it, and have to go before the Justices; but ease my mind somehow I must.”
“’Liza Rowles,” replied Selsey Bill, standing nearly two feet above her, but looking down with true deference, “if you feels that sort of thing, who am I to go again it? You are bound to have summat in your own mind, as was never put there for nothing, ma’am; and if it comes to that, why, so has I.”
“Do you mean to say, Bill,” asked Mrs. Rowles with awe, not of his height, for she was used to that, but of his thoughts coming just to her level, “that you has had queer ideas too, about what the little girl was a-telling me?”
“You have put it, ’Liza, in the very words as I should have put it in, if the Lord give me the power. But I leaves all that to my wife now. She can fit it up to meanin’, and no mistake.”
“Very well, Bill, there’s no more to be said. Off I goes with you, and you drives round by Struck-tree Cottage, as we calls it; not that we means to make tantrups, you know; but just to see how it looks, and ease our minds.”
Mrs. Rowles cast a glance at the high step of the cart, for she was not so tall as she was tender; and Selsey Bill cast a glance at her, balancing in the fine poise of his mind, whether or no he should venture to offer, as it were, to lift her. But he saw that it would not be just to his wife, who might come some day to hear of it – for you never can tell what those women will let out, – so he whipped forth his knife, and cut the cord which bound a dozen Sallies into one spire, and fetching out a basket, set it down upon the rim; so that Mrs. Rowles (though of good weight and measure) taking that for her first rung went up without a groan.
“You take next turn towards Harlington, and go along quiet as you can, Bill;” these were her orders, when she had settled down with a clean sack beneath her on the driving-board. “And now shall I tell you what I believe? It may be wrong, of course; we all are liable to horrors. You feels that yourself, Bill, though a man with such a family get’th more opportunities, so to say?”
“And a wife,” answered Bill; “her comes first to begin with.”
“In course, her comes first in the regular way. A good and faithful wife, and the mother of seventeen. But without such luck as that, I knows what men is; and I say to you, Bill Tompkins, that they differs very much. I makes the very best of them, as is the duty of a woman, and leads to their repentance, when they has it in them. But most of them has not, without a word against my Teddy. And I say that this Lord Hopscotch here – if such is his name, being very doubtful – is up to some badness, having no belief of any one down this way to right it. Therefore you take that corner, Bill, and go on slowly till I tell you when to stop. Mind, I don’t say I know what it is; but I can guess. We have had a many gay doings down this way, for all it looks so innocent, and perhaps for that same reason.”
“What can ’em want with more childers, if that way inclined?” But the quiverful Bill dropped his essay on that subject; for there is much more bashfulness among poor people, than among their betters, on such topics of discourse.
Presently they came to a dark, quiet elbow of the road, or rather of the track across the turf; for they had passed all stones and hedges now, and the wheels went softly upon the grass and peat. A clump of Scotch firs, bowed by the west winds, overhung the way, and made it sombre as the grave. About a hundred yards before them was a low square building, on the verge of the heath, and surrounded with bushes and something that looked like a wooden palisade.
“That’s where it is. That is Struck-tree Cottage; the lightning come down and scorched the old oak.” Mrs. Rowles spoke in a whisper, as if herself afraid of it. “You see there’s a light in the parlour, Bill. That’s where the villains is, I do believe, and the poor lady locked away upstairs, maybe. Now you go forrard, and just peep in. They’ll never be capable of suspecting nothing; and everything will be black to them outside.”
It was quite dark now, without moon or stars. Spanker and the cart, which was painted brown, could scarcely be descried even twenty yards away, and the Sallies were of unpeeled osier. Bill handed the reins to his sister-in-law, and got down in his usual lanky style. Although he was a very hard-working fellow, nothing could drive him into quick jerks; for his joints were loose, and were often heard to creak, when the wind was in the east, and the air too dry.
“But if them cometh at me?” he asked with proper prudence, and a sense of his importance to three crowded rooms at home. “Why, I ain’t got so much as a stick to help me?”
“No fear, little Billy. Guilty conscience makes a coward. You need not let them see you. And if they do, why, they’ll take you for the Giant of the Heath – the old highwayman as was hanged in chains, not a hundred yards from here. My father seed him often; and when he fell down, he took to walking through the fuzz.”
“Oh Lor’, no more of that ’Liza! All my teeth be gone a-chatterin’. Give us a sack at any rate, if I meets he.”
Mrs. Rowles, who was not very happy herself, handed him a spare sack from the cart; and Bill Tompkins, with many glances right and left, and heartily wishing himself at home, set forth towards the cottage, walking very slowly, and carefully shunning every stick and stone that was visible on the brown, inhospitable earth. As he passed beneath the shattered tree, he looked up with a shudder at the jagged fork, and naked stubs, and contorted limbs, expecting the dead highwayman to clank his ghostly chains. Then he stole on with more courage, for he was tolerably brave, at least as regarded fellow-beings in the flesh.
When he came to the fence, a low palisade of fir, he just lifted his long legs over it, without casting about for any gate or door. As he groped along the fence towards the house, he discovered a gate which appeared to be locked, and observing that the palisade was much higher there, he very wisely lifted this gate from its hinges, and left room for himself to slip through at the back, if pursued, and obliged to retreat in a hurry. Then he made his way stealthily through some low shrubs to the corner of the cottage, and considered things.
It was quite a small building, with only four windows in front, and a door with a little porch between them. Two windows were on the ground floor, and two above; the windows of the downstair rooms had outer shutters, or rather framed blinds of lattice-work, such as carpenters call “louvres.” These were closed and fastened; but from the one on the right of the porch a strong light came through the interstices of the blind, and streamed in narrow slices on the misty gloom outside. The horizontal laths were turned at such an angle, that a man of common stature could only see the floor between them; but Selsey Bill was almost a giant, and hearing loud voices in that lower room, he approached the window stealthily, and standing on tiptoe, applied one eye to the top of the framework of the blind, where he found a wide slit between the beading and first lath. Through this he could see nearly all that was inside, for the curtains hung back at the end of the pole. Also he could hear pretty well what was said, for the window-glass was thin, and the ceiling low.
There were only two men in the room, both lounging in shabby armchairs near the fire, and smoking, yet not looking peaceful. Tompkins was surprised at this, because he could never have his own black pipe, with the cheapest and strongest tobacco to puff, and his own bit of fire to dry his sodden feet, without feeling as if he could stand anything from any one, even to the theft of his very last halfpenny by his youngest boy Bob, who was bound to know better, with so many rascals in front of him. And these rich gentlemen (for so they seemed) were smoking a fine blue curly cloud, such as a poor man can only put his nose to, when the putty is gone from the glass between him and his true superior.
Bill became deeply curious now. That gentlemen of such tip-top style, too grand almost for the world to carry, drinking rare stuff like the sun through church windows, and smoking (as if it was so much dirt) cigars such as Bill knew by memory – for he had picked up a pretty fair stump sometimes – that they should be hob-nob in this little room (no better than his own Uncle Tompkins had), yet not at all hob by nob soft and pleasant, and looking fit to fly at one another, for two peas – all this must mean something as was natural for police, if only they could be persuaded to do more than flap their white gloves in view of tricks that were nobby. Mr. Tompkins applied a dry rasp to his lips with his knuckles, well fitted for that operation, which had many times saved the mouth from evil issue. Then he listened and gazed intently; as no man can do, who has had his powers spoiled by the higher education.
“Then it quite comes to this,” said the gentleman whose face was in full view to Bill, though by no means a fair view; “that you mean to throw me over, after all my risk, and take the fair spoil for yourself. I have known a good many cool things in my time; but this by long chalks is the coolest.”
“Take it at that same temperature,” answered the larger and younger man, who was lolling back, with the roof of his system exposed to Bill, who perceived therein a likeness to the back of a yellow Skye dog who has not been combed very lately; “you have let yourself in for it, for the sake of filthy lucre; and, alas! it proves that I was entirely misinformed. Make the best of it, old man. You have rushed into a scrape. There is too much proof, I fear, that it is all your own doing. The law will be down upon you, and where is your defence? There is one way, and only one, to hush it up. The girl must marry one of us, after what has happened. She has not got a sixpence, and she is wild with rage. Disappoints me there, after all my mother’s lessons. Don’t think you could tame her, Pots; but feel sure that I could. Then here I step in, like the deuce from a machine, and magnanimously offer to make amends for my mistake. And instead of being grateful, you set to and slate me! Consider what a lot of that I shall have from the mother.”
“You can stand anything,” said the other, with a sigh; “but I am not as tough as I used to be; and a row in the papers brings the duns in by the dozen. The girl is as sweet a woman as ever looked through a bridle. And I had set my heart upon her, when I thought she would have money. But I could not marry her like this, and be laughed at ever afterwards, for eloping with a pauper. Can’t you take her back to-night, and nobody the wiser? Then perhaps I can have her, in the proper course of things.”
“Impossible, you thick old Pots. She has not tasted bit or sup for four and twenty hours; and her face it is a show, as the old women say. No, it must be reeled straight off this time. You can hear her moaning now; that old woman is a fool, and the little girl a rogue, who would betray us, if she could. But we are all right here; and to-morrow the fair Kitty will accept me as her deliverer. We shall make short work of it, and you retire blameless.”
The other man began to growl, but Bill stopped not to hear him. His righteous soul was wild already, and his mercy flowed unstrained. Now and then there had come, as from an upper window, the sound of low sobbing, and the weariness of woe, when some human creature finds the whole world set against it, yet cannot get out of it to seek a better. Bill stepped quietly round the little porch, and stood beneath the window whence the sound appeared to come.
The window was over the kitchen, as it seemed, and the sill was about twelve feet from the ground. But the kitchen blind was down, and the firelight dull within. Tompkins laid his sack along the kitchen window-sill, and stepping on it softly, could just reach the stone at the bottom of the bedroom window. With a little groping he contrived to get one foot upon the branch of a pear-tree, which was trained against the house, and lifting his tall frame warily, he got his chin upon the level of the window-sill above. The whole aperture was barred with stout wire-netting; but the lower sash had just been lifted to throw something out, something white like an eggshell, that flew by as Bill drew back.
“Oh, you won’t have it, won’t you?” said a cross and cracky voice; and Bill saw by the light of a guttering tallow-candle, an old woman going towards a young one who lay on a low iron bed with brass knobs at the corners. “Well, you knows your own business best, and pretty airs you gives yourself. I tell you there ain’t nothing in it, but new-laid egg and good sherry wine, and you see me mix it up yourself. A pretty one you’ll be to go to church to-morrow, wi’out a bit of colour in your cheeks, or a bit of victuals in you. Cry, cry, cry, all the blessed day long, ’stead of being proud to stand up with a rich gentleman! My patience with you are pretty well worn out, and a pretty dance you led me all last night! But I’ve got something in the kitchen as will force you for to swallow, something come a purpose this very day from Lunnon, and directions with it for the fractious folks. Now I try you fair once more, miss, if miss it is; and after that I try you foul, you see if I desn’t.”
But the lady, who lay with her face to the wall, and a mass of curly hair shining down her black dress, would not even look round, or make any reply, but just lifted one elbow, and then let it fall again.
“Very well! We’ll see. Just you wait ten minutes, while I has a bit to eat myself; and then we’ll try the little tickler. Nobody to thank but yourself, you know. If ever there was a cantankerous, sulky, self-willed young minx, and ungrateful to boot – ”
The wicked old woman, went muttering from the room, leaving the window still open, and the candle flaring and smoking on the chest of drawers, but locking the narrow door behind her with a rusty squeak of key.
“Now or never,” thought Bill, who would have liked, deeply respectful as he was to the fair sex, to have taken that old hag by the throat. With one hand he got a good grasp of the sill, while he passed the other through the wire grating, and raised the sash a little higher, to attract attention. But the fair prisoner was too far gone in distress and despair to heed any light sound, or even a creak and rattle.
“Miss, Miss, if you please, young Miss!” Bill put his mouth, which would open as wide as almost any cottage window, as far in as ever it would go (for the wire was much in his way) and blew his voice in. But whether it was from the “wealth of her hair” – as all our best writers express it – or the action of the throat upon the ears (which may have been sobbed into deafness), there she lay like a log, and as if no Bill Tompkins had his heart throbbing only for the benefit of hers.
“Rat they women!” thought Bill to himself. “If you want ’em to hear, can’t make ’em do it. If you wants to keep a trifle from ’em, cut both your feet off, and walk upon your fanny-jowls. Here goes, neck or nort!”
He had pulled out a big wall-nail with a heavy shred attached, and choosing a wide space of the wire-netting, he flung it so cleverly at the head oppressed with sorrow, that the owner jumped up, and looked about, and rubbed the eyes thereof.
“Hush, miss, hush, for the Lord’s sake hush!” whispered Bill, as if the first effect of feminine revival must be the liberation of the tongue; “it’s only me, miss, – Bill Tompkins from Sunbury. Please to come nigher, miss, till I tell you.”
“I don’t understand. I seem lost altogether. They have locked me up here, and they may kill me, before I will do a single thing they want of me. What are you come for? And what makes you look at me? There is nobody to help me – not a person in the world.”
“Lor’ bless me, if this don’t beat cock-fightin’!” As she tottered towards the window, with both hands upon her head, the light of the candle shone into her dazzled eyes, weak and weary as they were with floods of tears; and she waved her fingers over them with a strange turn of the palm (which was deeply cupped), a turn quite indescribable, a bit of native gesture which was most attractive, and certain to be known again, though it might have seemed to pass unnoticed. “Miss, if I ever see two ladies in my life, you be Miss Kitty, our Kit’s sweetheart!”
“What is the good of a sweetheart to him? Don’t tell me anything, I can’t bear it. I was going to his funeral – his funeral, yesterday; and they put me in a carriage for the purpose; and they lost their way, so they said, and they brought me here. And instead of going to his funeral, I am to marry some one else. But I won’t do it. I’ll never marry any one but Kit; and Kit is dead, and gone to heaven.”
“The d – d liars! Did they tell you that?” cried Tompkins, as if that would never be my destination. “Our Kit, miss, is as alive as you be; though he have had a bad time of it, and be gone to Ludred now. We expects him home next week, we does. And proud he would be, Miss, to see you there afore him. There never were such a chap to carry on about a gal, leastways beg pardon, Miss, I means a fine young lady.”
He was talking thus, because she could not speak; which he had the human kindness to perceive. “Is it true?” she was able to ask at last; and he answered —
“True as Gospel. S’help me Taters, miss, it is!”
Then she knelt for a moment, to thank the Lord. But Bill said – “No time now, miss. Out of this you comes, this very minute, and home with me to Sunbury. Can’t get out of window. Took good care of that. Come out of door, and slip downstairs.”
“But she has locked me in,” cried Kitty, “and there are two dreadful men downstairs. I don’t care what they do to me now, now I know what you have told me. Go away, while you can. They will kill you.”
“Just you go to that there door, and drive back the catch with this here knife. It’s nothing but a gallows staple; and a rap with the butt end will send it back, ten to one it will, miss. Put your handkercher over the lock, while you does it, and back it goes, if I know them locks. Have the can’le handy, to see where to hit. Then down to front door, and away to our cart. But don’t lose my knife, for the Lord’s sake. A sensible gal has always got two pockets.”
Kitty, with her strength revived by spirit, took the big knife with an iron butt, and easily drove back the bolt, for the staple was an open one. Then Bill descended, without any noise, while she slipped gently down the stairs, and in the porch he met her. The front door had been bolted, but she drew back the bolt, and Bill took her hand, and she stood outside.
“Halloa! What’s up?” cried a voice from inside, for the catch had closed again with a loud snap.
“Run, miss, run; while I stop these chaps,” shouted Bill, and she ran like a hare from a dog. For a moment or two Bill was able to hold the brass knob of the lock against the two from within; but presently it slipped from his hand, and the door flew open, and two men prepared to rush out. But Tompkins threw his sack at full length over the head of the foremost; and striking wildly down he came on his knees, and the other fell across him. Bill made off, like a shot, while they cursed one another; and before they were afoot again, he had slipped through the opening of the unhinged gate and pulled it after him. Then using his long legs rather slackly, but to great effect through the length of their stride, he took the struck tree for his landmark, and without thought of the ghost, soon had Kitty at his side, and they made off, hot foot, for the cart and Mrs. Rowles.
“Here you be, here you be!” shouted that good lady; “mind the ruts. The villains are after you.”
This was too true. Though they might not have owned that description of themselves, two hasty men, without even a hat on, were rushing about, bewildered by the darkness and their own excitement, and taking the wrong way more often than the right. They fell among the furze, and got patterns on their faces, and showed no gratitude to Nature for one of her best gifts. But presently they spied the white nose of Spanker, which was hanging down with wonder if he ever should get home; and then they saw two figures in a hustle by the cart, and one was being helped in by the long stretch of the other.
“Stop thieves!” cried Sir Cumberleigh, who was dreadfully out of breath; and therefore perhaps he let the other form go first to stop them.
Then Bill turned round and faced them, and he said – “You get away! You ain’t got no right with this young leddy. And so help me God, I’ll smash you, if you offers for to touch her.”
He advanced with his great fists revolving like a windmill, that being our accepted view of the “art of self-defence.”
But Mrs. Rowles cried, “No, Bill!” while the other stood amazed at the height of his antagonist and his uncouth look; “don’t soil your hand with him. Clap this upon his poll.”
Before Downy could guess what was meant, he was basketed. A big taper Sally, full of sharp stubs inside, was clapped down upon his yellow head, and fixed there staunchly, by a heavy rap from Bill’s great hand upon its bottom. Roars of pain and stifled oaths issued from it faintly, and the wearer fell down upon the grass and rolled, like a squirrel in his wheel, or a dogfish in an eel-cruive.
“Little one for t’other!” cried the clever landlady; and in half a second Hotchpot was in the same condition.
“Good-night, Gen’lemen both,” shouted Bill, as he drove off. “You goes to trap Miss Kitty, and you gets trapped, by Miss Sally.”
Mrs. Rowles laughed so loudly at this piece of wit, that her husband vowed he heard her plainly at the Crooked Billet.