A husky giant of a man, who seemed to be directing the work, yelled to us from the side of the road, to ask if we'd seen any men as we rode along.
‘Not a soul,’ I said.
‘They haven't any souls,’ said the foreman, with bitter humour. ‘Sold ’em to the Devil a while back. You mean you didn't see a man at all – not even the one with flaming red hair you could warm your hands at?’
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘I think that one was in the Wool Pack Inn last night,’ said Kit.
‘Very likely! Drunk again, I s'pose. Good day to you!’ He turned away and began, swearing horribly, to urge his men to greater efforts.
We rode on. ‘Turning in about a mile,’ I said; ‘we must watch for it.’
‘And the pot-hole – they said we'd pass that first.’
We crossed a ridge which hid the mine from view, and saw in front of us a certain drawing apart of the hills, which suggested that the dales, though not yet visible to us, were beginning to form themselves between the heights. We soon saw the pot-hole – a kind of pit in the earth ten yards to the left of the track. Its sides were of grey limestone, with the edge all fringed with beautiful mosses and clusters of bell-heather.
‘Pretty,’ said Kit. We'd both dismounted and led our horses closer. They seemed reluctant to come.
‘Pretty?’ I echoed. ‘Think so?’ I picked up a loose stone and tossed it down. There was complete silence while I counted ‘One, two, three, four…’ Then there was a tiny, far-away plonk as the stone struck water.
Kit shuddered. ‘Let's be getting on.’
We remounted, but we'd been riding barely a minute when a strange thing happened. I was in front, as usual, and I could have sworn that there was no living thing larger than a bird between us and the horizon. I turned my head to call something to Kit, and when I looked again there were four men standing across the track just ahead.
They made no effort to get out of our way. ‘Half a moment, lad!’ called one of them, flinging up his arm, and I saw that it was the fellow with the mane of filthy red hair who had been one of the company at the Wool Pack the night before.
We'd heard plenty about miners on our journey with Tom Boyd. Why the ale-wife and her husband hadn't added a warning about them to their other advice I don't know – unless it was that, depending on them for so much of their trade, they did not care to speak against them.
When I saw Red-head blocking our path, I needed no further warning. ‘Look out!’ I yelled to Kit. ‘Ride round!’ I set the example by swinging the gelding sharply to the right. But the men had chosen the spot for their ambush very skilfully, out of their deep knowledge of the moor. There was a scummy morass on the left hand of the track, which, as I had seen at a glance, was quite impassable to a horse, though a man could no doubt have waded through it. On the other side the ground was rough and hummocky, with a rivulet winding out of the morass between deep, peaty banks.
The gelding floundered. He struggled gamely. With time and without interference we should have got by. As it was, the red mane appeared suddenly beside me and an immense bare arm shot out to grasp the bridle.
I had drawn our precious pistol and cocked it. I fired now, but it was like shooting from a seesaw or a swing. From what Red-head shouted, I fancy I grazed his shoulder and hurt him considerably, but I didn't succeed in disabling him. He still held tight to the rearing horse, while with his other arm he clasped me round the waist in a great bear-hug and lifted me clean out of the saddle.
But Kit was through.
Quick-witted, and with a natural prejudice against doing what I told her, she'd ignored my advice to ride round. Instead, she dug her heels into the surprised mare and shot into those miners like a skittle-ball, hurling them right and left. Then, reining in at a safe distance, she looked round for me.
‘Ride on!’ I bawled before my captor extinguished me with a foul hand across my mouth.
Again Kit ignored my advice. She argued afterwards that there was no help she could hope to fetch, and in those circumstances she wasn't going to leave me. That the fate of England might hang on it did not occur to her. I'm flattered to know that, for the moment, she was thinking more of my fate.
So she rode back. Heroine or idiot? I don't know. I suppose she thought that if she'd knocked them flying once, she could knock them flying again. The black mare came thundering down all right, but this time something quite different must have happened, because before she knew what had stopped her, Kit found herself breathless on her own two feet, with her arm twisted behind her back in a grip which allowed for no argument. I looked at her dismally. I was held in a similar grip myself, and I knew it was useless to lash out at the man's shins or flail the air with my free arm.
‘What do you want?’ I gasped indignantly, though it was only too clear.
Red-head had scattered our money on the ground and was sorting it into four neat piles. Arithmetic was not his strong point, and he shuffled the coins several times before he could divide them to his satisfaction.
‘We'll split this now!’ he growled.
‘You got more!’ one of his friends accused him.
‘’Course I got more! Whose notion was it? ’Sides, I got shot at and wounded!’ He patted his shoulder gingerly. A crimson stain had certainly joined the numerous other stains on his ragged shirt.
‘No sense in quarrellin' over the money,’ said the man who was holding me. ‘There'll be plenty for all when we sell the horses. And them saddles ought to fetch something.’
‘What about the lads?’ asked someone.
Red-head smiled slowly and looked round at the others, as if to take their opinions first.
‘Take away their pop-gun and let 'em go, suggested Kit's captor. ‘They can't hurt us.’
‘Tie 'em up first, so's it'll take 'em some time to get free. Best be on the safe side.’
Red-head chuckled. ‘You're right, Jack. Best be on the safe side. Always a careful one! Well, so am I. I don't mean to swing for horse-stealing, and I say, let's be on the safest side of all.’
It was all too clear what that meant. For the next ten minutes we had to stand there, facing each other in blank despair, and listening to their long wrangle. Was it safe to let us go, carrying our story to the sheriff? If not, and we had to be quietened, how could it best be done? I suppose I ought to say this for the miners – none of them seemed to fancy the task of slitting our throats.
‘No need, no need at all,’ said Red-head jovially. ‘Not when there's that nice handy hole away back along the road.’ There was a rather shocked silence at this, and I saw that the other men avoided my eyes. ‘What could be neater?’ went on Red-head, feeling his grazed shoulder again. There was an angry twinkle in his eyes, which were small like a bull's. ‘We bury the boys – without having to harm a hair o' their heads. We'll scarcely need to lay a finger on ‘em. Just a gentle push, like you might give your mate in fun… and there you are. And there they are, as you might say. No fuss, no questions, no coroner… As for the nags – well, if anyone asks about them, we found ‘em straying on the fell, and we took charge of ‘em because we felt afraid something must have happened to the owners!’
He was a persuasive man, Red-head, a born leader, and he soon won his friends to his plan. I opened my lips to speak, to make all sorts of promises and pleadings, and to tell them that Kit was a girl. But I caught a warning look in her eyes, and knew that she was forbidding me to say it. After that there was nothing to do but to pray silently for some miracle.
‘Come on,’ said Red-head. ‘Jack, you walk along in front a bit, and watch out, just in case one o' these pedlars comes along when we don't want him.’
We waited a moment, then started behind him. Red-head held a bridle in each fist. The other two men brought up the rear, frog-marching us behind the tails of our own horses.
‘You shouldn't have come back,’ I muttered.
‘There wasn't anything else I could do,’ she said. Then she added: ‘Do y
ou think – do you think it'll hurt us much?’
I tried to comfort her. She said afterwards I talked with as much assurance as if I'd been thrown down pot-holes as a regular part of my education.
I talked desperately. Talking helped. It saved us from thinking quite so much.
We trudged on in the grip of our captors. I can remember every tiny detail of that brief walk. I can still see, in my mind's eye, the glossy hindquarters of the gelding in front of me, swinging rhythmically as one leg stepped past the other. I can see the coarse tail swishing, the neat hooves coming down so daintily, leaving each time a perfect print in the soil. I can see the eagle which sailed majestically across the steel-grey sky.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘an eagle!’
‘Yes,’ said Kit.
We still couldn't realize, somehow, that our lives were over, and nothing like that mattered any more.
I remember where some blocks of limestone came cropping out of the grass, carved into strange shapes by the wind and rain. They told me that we were now within a hundred yards of the pot-hole. Just over this next hump, down in the dip beyond….
It was then we heard the miner named Jack, who had gone in front, running towards us and shouting to Red-head. We could see nothing ourselves, for the horses blocked our view, but we heard plainly what he said.
‘Look out! Someone coming! Whole party o' men on horseback!’
‘How near?’ Red-head demanded.
‘Just back there – and riding fast. Come on; we'd best run for it!’
‘Ride for it!’ said Red-head, scrambling on to the mare. He jerked her head round savagely, and turned her off on to the open moor. Jack mounted the gelding and galloped after him. Seeing themselves deserted, our two captors let go and went racing helter-skelter on the track of their friends.
‘Thank God!’ said Kit weakly. The miracle had happened.
We heard other voices, faint in the distance, crying ‘Stop!’ We heard the snap of pistols and the whine of bullets. Then came the rumble of hoofs as our unknown rescuers galloped nearer.
Our joy was quickly dashed. ‘Look!’ I groaned, as the first horseman came over the skyline. ‘Sir Philip!’
23. Terrible with Banners
HE never glanced our way. He and his party were far too intent on the rough ground under them and the dwindling figures of the fugitives.
They swept across our line of vision, not a furlong from us. I heard Sir Philip shout back across his shoulder:
‘They don't look like the boys!’
‘It's the horses all right, sir!’ answered the man riding next behind him. I recognized him as Mr Armthwaite's groom. Mr Armthwaite did not appear to be in the cavalcade. I suppose he had felt he was too old for such a strenuous cross-country expedition.
We watched them all vanish over the brow of the fell. I took Kit's arm and urged her to run.
‘Come on! They'll never catch those brutes, but it'll keep them busy for a little while. Let's get away while we can.’
We raced away, passed the ill-omened spot where we had been ambushed, reached the forking of the ways, and took the right-hand track.
‘We'd better look out for a good place to hide,’ I panted. ‘We'll be getting down into the dale soon. There may be a wood.’
‘What shall we do?' wailed Kit. ‘We've no money, no food, no horses nothing! What shall we do?’
‘Don't know. Don't worry. Let's be thankful we're not down that pot-hole. Now, if only we can dodge Sir Philip, we'll have had our share of good luck for this morning.’
Kit snorted. ‘What about the bad luck?’
Thinking it over later, I couldn't feel that we'd honestly had bad luck. It wasn't chance that the colliers had robbed us: the whole thing had been planned after Red-head's visit to the inn, when he heard of the valuable horses in the stable which we were proposing to ride across the mountain next day. And I'm afraid it wasn't chance that Sir Philip had appeared hot on our trail: with money to spend on fresh horses, and a tongue in his head to question people on the road, it was inevitable that he should pick up our scent again sooner or later. That he should come into sight when he did had certainly been good fortune. We'd never imagined we should owe our lives to Sir Philip Morton. I'd have liked to see his face if he ever learnt that, by coming five minutes later, he could have been rid of us and the dangerous knowledge we possessed, without trouble to himself!
Our road was beginning to slope steeply downwards, and a valley spread at our feet. On either side of us the fells rose, green with short turf and grey with shale. It was one of those limestone dales in which, unless there are handy crags and caves, there is no cover. The grass is like velvet and wouldn't hide a beetle. There are no trees but an occasional thorn. There isn't even – in these upper reaches of the dale – a stream to cut a way between banks. All the water is underground, bubbling away through pot-hole and cavern, till miles farther down it springs to light as a full-grown river. And you can't climb out of the dale, not quickly anyhow, because the sides go up at an angle like a high-pitched roof, with occasional terraces of sheer limestone precipice just to make matters more difficult.
There was only one thing to do. Keep on at a steady jog-trot and hope to get into different country before Sir Philip overhauled us. He must know we weren't far ahead – he would have asked at the Wool Pack, and probably at the Virgin Mine as well – and I didn't think the false scent would hold him back for long. We might have half an hour. Or at any moment now we might hear the echo of hoof-beats rolling backwards and forwards between the limestone ramparts which imprisoned us.
‘Oh dear,’ said Kit, ‘I've got a stitch.’
‘Kneel down and put your chin on your knee.’
‘Ah… yes, that's better. All right now.’
We trotted on. Our valley was widening. It was about to enter a bigger valley. We could see fresh hills several miles in front, with a road climbing their sides. There were farms and barns, tiny cubes of grey stone, often fringed with a wind-break of firs. Down in the trough of the new, big valley were oak-woods, probably bordering a river.
‘Stick it,’ I encouraged her. ‘Another mile or so, and we'll be all right.’
If we could reach those woods, we'd be safe from Sir Philip. That was all I cared about for the moment. What we'd do after that I didn't stop to wonder. One step at a time was plenty.
We reached a better road, running cross-wise to the rough track we had been following for so long. Instinctively we turned to our left, downhill. We were in the big valley, and only half a mile away the road ran into the gloom of the trees. There were no houses near, which was fortunate. We didn't want to be seen.
‘Not much farther,’ I grunted. ‘All right?’
‘Ye-es!’ Kit was looking pale. I saw she was running with half-closed eyes, and occasionally she stumbled over her own feet. She couldn't keep this up much longer.
The wood crept nearer. On this sunless day it looked sombre and forbidding, but to us it was a haven of refuge. A quarter of a mile now…
Kit stopped running and walked stiffly, holding her side. ‘Have to – take it – easy – for a – bit,’ she gasped. I turned my head anxiously. I was expecting to see our pursuers at any time now, but there was no sign of them on the road behind.
‘All right,’ I said grudgingly, and slipped my arm round her waist. She was nearly exhausted, and we fairly tottered for that last stretch. As soon as we reached the fringe of the wood she wanted to drop. I wouldn't let her. I was afraid she might do something silly, like fainting. Well, she could if she wanted to, but not just there by the roadside in full view.
‘You must keep up for another minute,’ I told her, and I dragged the poor girl through a dense thicket, a stream, and a clump of bracken before I let her collapse on a fallen log. ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but there's no sense in spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar. Now we've got here we might as well make sure they won't find us.’
Kit managed to smile. ‘I forgive you, you be
ast. I – I'll be better in a few moments. Do you think we're all right here?’
‘Unless they get a hundred men and beat the woods from end to end.’ I cocked an eye at the tree-tops. ‘If need be, we shall have to climb.’
‘I can do that. Listen!’
‘What?’
‘I thought I heard voices. There again – hark!’
I listened. There were voices, uncomfortably near, but not behind us. More to the left. Then came the loud whinny of a horse, which increased my alarm. I had thought we were well away from any place to which horses would be likely to penetrate.
‘They've soon caught us up,’ she hissed.
‘If it is our old friends.’ I tried to persuade myself it wasn't, but I had little ground for hope. There wasn't so many people on the road in these parts. Of course it might be men felling timber, and the horses might be there for haulage.
‘Stay here,’ I whispered. ‘I'm going to creep along a bit and see who it is.’
I slipped away into the bracken. The voices weren't coming any nearer, but, on the other hand, they weren't receding. The speakers couldn't be far away.
As soon as I came out of the bracken on the other side I stepped almost on to the high road. I realized to my disgust that it had taken a sharp bend just after we left it, and that all the time I had been dragging Kit (as I thought) into the trackless heart of the wood, we had actually been moving almost parallel with the road we wanted to leave.
Half a dozen horses were grazing under the trees, and I saw at once, with a heart-bound of relief, that these heavy, humdrum creatures did not belong to Sir Philip and his friends. A couple of wagons were drawn up at the roadside, and it was from behind these that the voices came. I heard every word.
‘Lo, with a band of bow-men and of pikes,
Brown bills and targeteers, four hundred strong,
Sworn to defend King Edward's royal right,
I come in person to your majesty –’
Cue for Treason Page 18