“The devil!” ejaculated John.
“It’s all rug!” Ben said consolingly. “Mr. Sopworthy told Farmer Huggate as mums the word, ’cos I heard him.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” said John, somewhat taken aback.
“Ay, ’cos of Miss Nell.”
“Because of—What did he mean by that?”
“I dunno,” said Ben, uninterested.
John did not pursue the subject; and, the grating of cartwheels coming to his ears a few minutes later, went out to attend to his duties. A heavily laden tumbril, drawn by an enormous cart-horse, was slowly approaching from the direction of the village, the driver strolling beside his horse. At sight of John, he called out: “Open up, mate, will ’ee? There ain’t nothing to pay: I got a load o’ manure.”
John lifted a hand, in token that he had heard the request, but addressed himself to a stocky, middle-aged man who was seated on the bench outside the toll-house, purring at a short clay pipe. “Hallo!” he said. “Aught I can do for you?”
“Thank ’ee, I’m just having a bit of a set-down on this here bench of yours—if so be as you’ve no objection?”
“You’re welcome,” John said, going to open the gate.
“Fine day!” remarked the driver of the tumbril, with great affability. “Newcomer, ain’t you? It weren’t you opened to me when I was along last week—leastways, I disremember that it was.”
“That’s right,” John replied, his eyes on the tumbril. “What’s your load?”
“Why, I telled ye! Manure!”
“I know you did, but it looks to me like lime.”
“Lord bless us, wherever was you reared?” exclaimed the driver, with a fine show of astonishment. “Lime’s manure, cully, all right and tight!”
“Yes, and also it ain’t exempt from paying toll!” retorted John, grinning at him. “What kind of a knock-in-the-cradle do you take me for, dry-boots? You hand over the half of a fiddle!”
“How was I to know you was a downy one?” demanded the driver, philosophically accepting defeat. “I thought you was a cawker.”
“You go and milk a pigeon!” recommended John, handing him a ticket, and accepting in exchange three greasy coins.
He shut the gate again behind the cart, and walked back to the house. The man on the bench, removing the pipe from between his teeth, said: “I dessay you get a good few coves trying to chouse you out of the toll.”
John laughed. “Yes, when they think I’m a greenhead.”
“Been at the gate long?”
“I’m only taking charge of it while the true man’s away. Gatekeeping’s not my trade.”
“I suspicioned it weren’t. What might your calling be, if I’m not making too bold to ask?”
“Trooper,” John replied briefly. He had come to a halt a few paces from the bench, and was looking down at the stocky man, wondering who and what he might be. He had the accent of a Londoner, but the wide-brimmed hat he wore, the short, full coat of frieze, and the gaitered legs suggested that he might well be a bailiff, or a farmer. “Native of these parts?” he asked.
The man shook his head. “Never been in this here county afore. It’s too full of hills for my taste. I’m here on a matter o’ business. There’s a certain party as I’m acting for as has a fancy to buy a property hereabouts, if he could find what might suit him. I seen one or two, Buxton-way, but I dunno as any of ’em are just what I’m after, and the prices certainly ain’t. You know of anyone wanting to sell a decentish place, with a bit o’ land, not too dear?”
“No, but I’m not a native either.”
“Ah, pity! What’s your monarch—if you ain’t this cove?” enquired the man, with a jerk of his thumb up at the fascia-board.
“Jack Staple. What’s yours?”
“Stogumber—Gabriel Stogumber.” He glanced round, as Ben came out of the toll-house, and said: “Hallo! Didn’t I see you at the Blue Boar this morning? What are you a-doing of here?”
“I lives here!” said Ben indignantly.
“Oh, you lives here! Beg parding, I’m sure, Master Booberkin!”
“He’s Brean’s son,” interposed John. “I’m his cousin.”
“Oh, that’s how it is, is it?” said Mr. Stogumber, looking from one to the other. “To be sure, I did think you was too young to be his pa, and yet again too old to be his brother. How do ye like it in these parts? You seen a bit of service, I dessay?”
“Ay, several years.”
“I should think it must seem a dull sort of a place,” observed Mr. Stogumber. “I’m from Lunnon meself, and it looks to me like nothing ever happens here, nor ever will. I been setting on this here seat close on half an hour, and I seen one dung-cart go through the pike. Meself, I like a bit o’ bustle—mail-coaches, and stages, and such. It’s all according to taste, o’ course. By the way they all stare at me in the village, back yonder, it’s easy to guess you don’t see a stranger here above once in ten years.”
This slur cast upon his birthplace aroused Ben’s pugnacity, and he at once began to enumerate all the unexpected vehicles which had passed the pike during the foregoing twelve months; and to reckon up on his fingers every newcomer to the district, from a bagman, detained in Crowford by a heavy fall of snow, to Mr. Coate, the Squire’s guest. Mr. Stogumber, apologizing with exaggerated humility for his error, added that Ben had forgotten to include his large cousin in the list. “And I’m sure he’s big enough for two,” he said. “What part of the country do you come from, Mr. Staple?”
“Hertfordshire,” responded John.
“Now, that’s a part I do know,” said Mr. Stogumber.
He then proceeded to discourse amiably on this topic. His manner was that of a naturally loquacious man, willing to fall into conversation with any stranger, but it appeared to John that the casual questions which fell from time to time from his lips were all directed to one end: he wanted to know the exact locality of John’s home, and what he had been doing since his supposed discharge from the Army. He seemed interested also in the whereabouts of the official gatekeeper, but Ben, bored by his idle chat, had drifted away, and John was able to evade his questions. He suspected Mr. Stogumber of being an informer, and thought that it would not be long before he received a visit from the trustees. But Mr. Stogumber, taking his leave presently, was still very affable, and said, somewhat surprisingly, that he expected to remain in the district for a day or two, and would no doubt see John again.
The rest of the day passed without incident. Nightfall brought on a slight recurrence of Ben’s dread of his father’s unknown visitor, but since the Captain had thoughtfully provided himself with a pack of playing-cards during his expedition to Tideswell he was very soon diverted by being initiated into the mysteries of casino. The Captain, good-naturedly instructing an eager if not very apt pupil, was glad to see that sundry sounds from outside the house went unnoticed. But just as Ben, with a squeal of triumph, succeeded in lurching him, an owl hooted from somewhere close at hand, twice. This brought the boy’s head up in a flash. He sat listening intently, and when the cry sounded again, jumped up from his chair, and ran to the door, shooting back the bolts, and pulling it open. John heard the creak of the wicket-gate into the garden, and a minute later soft, swift footsteps.
“’Evening to you, bantling!” said a crisp voice. “Is all bowman?”
“Ay! Me dad ain’t here, but it’s all rug!” Ben said eagerly. “Can I take Mollie? Can I, Mr. Chirk?”
He stood back, to allow a thin man in a long coat with several shoulder capes to enter the kitchen. Mr. Chirk stepped over the threshold, and checked, his keen, bright eyes staring at Captain Staple, who had not risen from his chair, but sat idly shuffling the cards, and looking with considerable interest at the newcomer. Mr. Chirk, a wiry man of medium height, wore, besides his great-coat, a wide brimmed and greasy hat, a muffler knotted about his throat, and a pair of spurred boots. The coat was stained and frayed, and the boots showed slight cracks, but he contrived in s
pite of these defects to give the impression of being a trim figure.
“Come in!” John invited him.
“What’s this?” There was a note of menace in the voice; Mr. Chirk shot a quick, suspicious look at Ben.
“It’s only Jack: he’s a Trojan! He’s got a bang-up prancer, too. A big, rum prancer, he is, but he don’t know how to shake hands for a carrot, not like Mollie. Oh, Mr. Chirk, can I show Jack the way Mollie—”
“Stubble it!” said Chirk briefly.
“Ay, but—”
“Dub your mummer, will you?” Chirk growled. “If Ned’s away, I’ll brush!”
“Don’t lope off on my account!” said John, putting the pack of cards on the table, and rising to his feet. “Go and stable the mare, Ben!”
Chirk, whose right hand had sought a pocket lost in the folds of his coat, stepped back a pace. His hand came up with a jerk, a serviceable pistol in its grasp. “Stand fast, cull!” he said softly. “Seems to me young bottlehead here has been talking a trifle too free!”
“I ain’t, I ain’t!” asseverated Ben, distressed to perceive that his most valued friend was displeased with him. “I ain’t whiddled nothing, only as how Mollie shakes hands for a carrot! You don’t want to brush, Mr. Chirk! Honest, he’s a bang-up cove, else I wouldn’t ha’ dubbed the jigger! And we got some rum peck and booze, Mr. Chirk! There’s a round o’ beef, and a whole cheese, and——”
“Ben, go and stable the mare!” interrupted the Captain. “You can put up your pistol, friend: I’m not a police-officer! God save the mark, do I look like one?”
Mr. Chirk’s left hand had shot out to grasp Ben by the shoulder, but it relaxed its grip. “I’m bound to say you don’t,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the Captain’s face, and his pistol levelled. “Maybe you’re a swell-trap: I dunno that. What might you be doing here, if you ain’t a trap?”
“That’s a long story. Let the boy go!” said the Captain, walking over to the cupboard which served the toll-house as a larder, and collecting from its depths the beef which Mrs. Skeffling had roasted on the spit that morning, and a large cheese. Setting these on the table, he glanced at Chirk, on whose lean countenance a smile was hovering, and said: “You’ll find a loaf of bread in the bin over there.”
Chirk slipped the pistol back into his pocket. “You’re a cool hand, ain’t you?” he remarked curiously.
The Captain, emerging from the cupboard again with a jar of pickles and a pipkin of butter, said: “Do you expect me to break into a sweat because you point a gun at me? I’ve been hoping you might come here sooner or later.”
“Oh, you have, have you?” said Chirk. “And why—if I’m not making too bold to ask?”
“Well, as far as I can discover,” said John, holding a large jug under the spigot of his new barrel of beer, and watching the ale froth into it, “you may be the only person who can tell me where Ned Brean may have gone to.”
“Ain’t he here?” demanded Chirk.
“No, and hasn’t been, since Friday evening.”
“Well, may I be stuck in the nitch!” exclaimed Chirk, considerably astonished. “What should have taken him to lope off?”
“Don’t you know?”
Chirk shook his head. “Don’t young Ben know?”
“No. He went out, telling Ben he would be back in an hour or so, and he hasn’t been seen or heard of since.”
“Strike me lucky!” said Chirk blankly. “Wonder what his lay is? He ain’t one as suffers from windmills in the head neither. Nor he wouldn’t pike on the bean without he took Ben along with him—leastways, not to my way of thinking.”
The Captain laid a plate and a knife and fork before him. “Help yourself! Is he fond of Ben?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” temporized Chirk. “He’s a hard sort of a cove, if you take me, but he done his duty by the boy, so far as he was able.” He picked up the carving knife, but lowered it again, looking in a puzzled way at his host. “I don’t know where Ned is, nor what lay he’s on, and another thing I don’t know is what your lay is! And nor I don’t know what the likes of you are doing in this ken, because from the way you talk you’re a nib-cove!”
“Oh, I’m here by accident!” replied John, pouring the beer into two mugs. “I came to the pike on Friday night, and found Ben alone, and scared out of his wits, so as I had had enough of the weather, and he was afraid to be alone, I racked up for the night—thinking that his father would very likely return before morning. But he didn’t, so here I am still.”
“So here you are still!” agreed Chirk, looking at him very hard. “I suppose you’re minding the gate, what’s more!”
“That’s it.”
“Well, if it is, you must be dicked in the nob!” said Chirk frankly.
John grinned at him. “No, I’m quite sane. I’ve several reasons for remaining here. Besides, I don’t know what the devil to do about the boy. He’s scared of being sent to work in Sheffield, if his father don’t return, and I’ve promised he shan’t be thrown on the Parish.”
“Scared of that, is he?” Chirk gave a short laugh. “Ay, he might well be! That’s the way I started, when my old dad tipped off. By the time my mother had buried him decent we were properly dished-up. A couple of hordes—what you call shillings, Mr. Nib-Cove!—a groat, and three grigs was all she had left in the stocking. So I went to work in a factory. Not here: up north, it was. Just about Ben’s age, I must ha’ been. Three years I stayed, and I ain’t forgotten, though I’m turned forty now, nor I never will, not if I reach fourscore! I loped off when my mother went to roost.”
“Was that when you took to the bridle-lay?” John asked.
“A peevy cove, ain’t you?” Chirk said. “What d’ye want to do? Cry rope on me? Who told you I was on the bridle lay?”
“Who told you I was a green ’un?” retorted John.
Chirk smiled reluctantly, and applied himself to the beef. “Danged if I know what you are!” he said. “But I wasn’t a rank-rider all them years ago. Lordy, when you get to be that you’re top-o’-the-trees! I started on the dub-lay, and worked my way up.”
“Is it worth it?” John asked curiously.
Mr. Chirk smiled a little wryly. “It’s all according to the way you look at it,” he replied. “You might be lucky, and end up with the dibs in tune, but I ain’t met many as did. It’s a free life, and if you’ve a taste for excitement there’ll be plenty o’ that. The chances are you’ll go up the ladder to bed—at York Gaol, with a Black-coat saying prayers, and the nubbing-cheat ready to top you. It’s well enough when you’re young, but when you get to my time o’ life, and maybe have a fancy to settle down—well, that’s where the rub comes, and no remedy! If I could lay my hands on a bit o’ balsam—and I don’t mean a truss with six or seven goblins in it, and a couple o’ diamond rings which turn out to be Bristol stone!—no, some real mint-sauce: a monkey, in some old gager’s strong-box, or even a couple o’ plums: why, I don’t know but what I wouldn’t turn to pound dealing! A tidy little farm, maybe. But I’m not a lucky cove: never have been!”
John got up to refill the ale-jug. “What’s Bream’s lay?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
John laughed. “A stupid question, Mr. Chirk! You wouldn’t tell me, if you did. But I want to find the man.”
“Hark ’ee!” said Chirk. “If you was thinking, because I stable the mare here now and then, and maybe have a bite o’ supper with Ned, he’s a fence, or a baggage-man, you’re going beside the cushion! He ain’t—not to my knowledge! This ain’t my beat, and I don’t come here in the way o’ business. What brings me here is another matter: private, you may say! If you’re willing I should leave the mare for an hour, well! If you ain’t—well again! I’ll brush!”
“Oh, quite willing!” John said. “I’m even willing to believe you don’t know what may have befallen Brean, or where to get news of him—if you tell me so, man to man.”
Chirk looked at him with narrowed, search
ing eyes. “What’s in your mind?” he asked abruptly.
“Who is the man who visits Brean secretly, after dark? The man Ben is afraid of?”
Chirk pushed his chair back from the table. “What’s this? Trying to gammon me, gov’nor? You’ll catch cold at that!”
“No, it’s the sober truth. That’s what had Ben in such a sweat of fear, the night I came to this place. Some stranger he’s never seen, nor been allowed to see. Brean pitched him a Canterbury tale to keep him from spying on the pair of them: told him if this mysterious visitor saw him he’d send him to work in the pits. If a tree so much as rustled out there—” he jerked his head towards the back-door—“the boy turned green with fear.”
“Sounds to me like a bag o’ moonshine!” said Chirk incredulously. “Why, he went off, happy as a grig, to put Mollie through her tricks! He’s not scared!”
“Oh, not now! I told him no one could harm him while I was here, and he believed me.”
A gleam of humour lit Chirk’s eyes, as they ran over his host. “I should think he might,” he agreed. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Wonder why the bantling never said a word to me about it? Him and me’s good friends, and he tells me most things. Ned’s a hard man, like I said, and he’s not one to take notice of brats, even when they’re of his own get. A monkey’s allowance is what he gives Ben: more kicks than ha’pence!”
“How long is it since you were here last?” John asked.
“Matter of three weeks.”
“I’ve a shrewd suspicion it’s happened since then. A pity! I had hoped you might know something. I’ve a notion there’s something devilish queer afoot here, but what it is, or how Brean came to be mixed up in it—if he is—I can’t guess. I shouldn’t think it could be what you call pound dealing, however: this visitor of his seems to be uncommonly anxious he shan’t be seen, or recognized.”
Chirk dived a hand into his pocket, and drew forth a snuff-box. It was a handsome piece, as its present owner acknowledged, as he offered it, open, to John. “Took it off of a fat old gager a couple o’ years back,” he explained, with engaging frankness. “Prigged his tatler, too, but I sold that. I’m a great one for a pinch o’ merry-go-up, and this little box just happened to take my fancy, and I’ve kept it. I daresay I’d get a double finnup for it, too,” he added, sighing over his own prodigality. “It’s worth more, but when it comes to tipping over the dibs there ain’t a lock as isn’t a hog-grubber. Now, look ’ee here, Mr. Nib-Cove——”
The Toll-Gate Page 11