Round the Fire Stories

It was a job for a brave man to venture out into the vague and invisible dangers of the fell, but the old servant took it as the most ordinary of messages. Picking his long, black cloak and his soft hat from the hook behind the door, he was ready on the instant. We extinguished the small lamp in the back passage, softly unbarred the back door, slipped him out, and barred it up again. Looking through the small hall window, I saw his black garments merge instantly into the night.

“It is but a few hours before the light comes, nephew,” said my uncle, after he had tried all the bolts and bars. “You shall never regret this night’s work. If we come through safely it will be the making of you. Stand by me till mornin’, and I stand by you while there’s breath in my body. The cart will be ‘ere by five. What isn’t ready we can afford to leave be’ind. We’ve only to load up and make for the early train at Congleton.”

“Will they let us pass?”

“In broad daylight they dare not stop us. There will be six of us, if they all come, and three guns. We can fight our way through. Where can they get guns, common, wandering seamen? A pistol or two at the most. If we can keep them out for a few hours we are safe. Enoch must be ‘alfway to Purcell’s by now.”

“But what do these sailors want?” I repeated. “You say yourself that you wronged them.”

A look of mulish obstinacy came over his large, white face.

“Don’t ask questions, nephew, and just do what I ask you,” said he. “Enoch won’t come back. ‘E’ll just bide there and come with the cart. ‘Ark, what is that?”

A distant cry rang from out of the darkness, and then another one, short and sharp like the wail of the curlew.

“It’s Enoch!” said my uncle, gripping my arm. “They’re killin’ poor old Enoch.”

The cry came again, much nearer, and I heard the sound of hurrying steps and a shrill call for help.

“They are after ‘im!” cried my uncle, rushing to the front door. He picked up the lantern and flashed it through the little shutter. Up the yellow funnel of light a man was running frantically, his head bowed and a black cloak fluttering behind him. The moor seemed to be alive with dim pursuers.

“The bolt! The bolt!” gasped my uncle. He pushed it back whilst I turned the key, and we swung the door open to admit the fugitive. He dashed in and turned at once with a long yell of triumph. “Come on, lads! Tumble up, all hands, tumble up! Smartly there, all of you!”

It was so quickly and neatly done that we were taken by storm before we knew that we were attacked. The passage was full of rushing sailors. I slipped out of the clutch of one and ran for my gun, but it was only to crash down on to the stone floor an instant later with two of them holding on to me. They were so deft and quick that my hands were lashed together even while I struggled, and I was dragged into the settle corner, unhurt but very sore in spirit at the cunning with which our defences had been forced and the ease with which we had been overcome. They had not even troubled to bind my uncle, but he had been pushed into his chair, and the guns had been taken away. He sat with a very white face, his homely figure and absurd row of curls looking curiously out of place among the wild figures who surrounded him.

There were six of them, all evidently sailors. One I recognized as the man with the earrings whom I had already met upon the road that evening. They were all fine, weather-bronzed bewhiskered fellows. In the midst of them, leaning against the table, was the freckled man who had passed me on the moor. The great black cloak which poor Enoch had taken out with him was still hanging from his shoulders. He was of a very different type from the others – crafty, cruel, dangerous, with sly, thoughtful eyes which gloated over my uncle. They suddenly turned themselves upon me and I never knew how one’s skin can creep at a man’s glance before.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Speak out, or we’ll find a way to make you.”

“I am Mr. Stephen Maple’s nephew, come to visit him.”

“You are, are you? Well, I wish you joy of your uncle and of your visit too. Quick’s the word, lads, for we must be aboard before morning. What shall we do with the old ‘un?”

“Trice him up Yankee fashion and give him six dozen,” said one of the seamen.

“D’you hear, you cursed Cockney thief? We’ll beat the life out of you if you don’t give back what you’ve stolen. Where are they? I know you never parted with them.”

My uncle pursed up his lips and shook his head, with a face in which his fear and his obstinacy contended.

“Won’t tell, won’t you? We’ll see about that! Get him ready, Jim!”

One of the seamen seized my uncle, and pulled his coat and shirt over his shoulders. He sat lumped in his chair, his body all creased into white rolls which shivered with cold and with terror.

“Up with him to those hooks.”

There were rows of them along the walls where the smoked meat used to be hung. The seamen tied my uncle by the wrists to two of these. Then one of them undid his leather belt.

“The buckle end, Jim,” said the captain. “Give him the buckle.”

“You cowards,” I cried; “to beat an old man!”

“We’ll beat a young one next,” said he, with a malevolent glance at my corner. “Now, Jim, cut a wad out of him!”

“Give him one more chance!” cried one of the seamen.

“Aye, aye,” growled one or two others. “Give the swab a chance!”

“If you turn soft, you may give them up for ever,” said the captain. “One thing or the other! You must lash it out of him; or you may give up what you took such pains to win and what would make you gentlemen for life – every man of you. There’s nothing else for it. Which shall it be?”

“Let him have it,” they cried, savagely.

“Then stand clear!” The buckle of the man’s belt whined savagely as he whirled it over his shoulder.

But my uncle cried out before the blow fell.

“I can’t stand it!” he cried. “Let me down!”

“Where are they, then?”

“I’ll show you if you’ll let me down.”

They cast off the handkerchiefs and he pulled his coat over his fat, round shoulders. The seamen stood round him, the most intense curiosity and excitement upon their swarthy faces.

“No gammon!” cried the man with the freckles. “We’ll kill you joint by joint if you try to fool us. Now then! Where are they?”

“In my bedroom.”

“Where is that?”

“The room above.”

“Whereabouts?”

“In the corner of the oak ark by the bed.”

The seamen all rushed to the stair, but the captain called them back.

“We don’t leave this cunning old fox behind us. Ha, your face drops at that, does it? By the Lord, I believe you are trying to slip your anchor. Here, lads, make him fast and take him along!”

With a confused trampling of feet they rushed up the stairs, dragging my uncle in the midst of them. For an instant I was alone. My hands were tied but not my feet. If I could find my way across the moor I might rouse the police and intercept these rascals before they could reach the sea. For a moment I hesitated as to whether I should leave my uncle alone in such a plight. But I should be of more service to him – or, at the worst, to his property – if I went than if I stayed. I rushed to the hall door, and as I reached it I heard a yell above my head, a shattering, splintering noise, and then amid a chorus of shouts a huge weight fell with a horrible thud at my very feet. Never while I live will that squelching thud pass out of my ears. And there, just in front of me, in the lane of light cast by the open door, lay my unhappy uncle, his bald head twisted on to one shoulder, like the wrung neck of a chicken. It needed but a glance to see that his spine was broken and that he was dead.

The gang of seamen had rushed downstairs so quickly that they were clustered at the door and crowding all round me almost as soon as I had realized what had occurred.

“It’s no doing of ours, mate,” said one of them to me. “He hove himself through the window, and that’s the truth. Don’t you put it down to us.”

“He thought he could get to windward of us if once he was out in the dark, you see,” said another. “But he came head foremost and broke his bloomin’ neck.”

“And a blessed good job too!” cried the chief, with a savage oath. “I’d have done it for him if he hadn’t took the lead. Don’t make any mistake, my lads, this is murder, and we’re all in it, together. There’s only one way out of it, and that is to hang together, unless, as the saying goes, you mean to hang apart. There’s only one witness – ”

He looked at me with his malicious little eyes, and I saw that he had something that gleamed – either a knife or a revolver – in the breast of his pea-jacket. Two of the men slipped between us.

“Stow that, Captain Elias,” said one of them. “If this old man met his end it is through no fault of ours. The worst we ever meant him was to take some of the skin off his back. But as to this young fellow, we have no quarrel with him – ”

“You fool, you may have no quarrel with him, but he has his quarrel with you. He’ll swear your life away if you don’t silence his tongue. It’s his life or ours, and don’t you make any mistake.”

“Aye, aye, the skipper has the longest head of any of us. Better do what he tells you,” cried another.

But my champion, who was the fellow with the earrings, covered me with his own broad chest and swore roundly that no one should lay a finger on me. The others were equally divided, and my fate might have been the cause of a quarrel between them when suddenly the captain gave a cry of delight and amazement which was taken up by the whole gang. I followed their eyes and outstretched fingers, and this was what I saw.

My uncle was lying with his legs outstretched, and the club foot was that which was furthest from us. All round this foot a dozen brilliant objects were twinkling and flashing in the yellow light which streamed from the open door. The captain caught up the lantern and held it to the place. The huge sole of his boot had been shattered in the fall, and it was clear now that it had been a hollow box in which he stowed his valuables, for the path was all sprinkled with precious stones. Three which I saw were of an unusual size, and as many as forty, I should think, of fair value. The seamen had cast themselves down and were greedily gathering them up, when my friend with the earrings plucked me by the sleeve.

“Here’s your chance, mate,” he whispered. “Off you go before worse comes of it.”

It was a timely hint, and it did not take me long to act upon it. A few cautious steps and I had passed unobserved beyond the circle of light. Then I set off running, falling and rising and falling again, for no one who has not tried it can tell how hard it is to run over uneven ground with hands which are fastened together. I ran and ran, until for want of breath I could no longer put one foot before the other. But I need not have hurried so, for when I had gone a long way I stopped at last to breathe, and, looking back, I could still see the gleam of the lantern far away, and the outline of the seamen who squatted round it. Then at last this single point of light went suddenly out, and the whole great moor was left in the thickest darkness.

So deftly was I tied, that it took me a long half-hour and a broken tooth before I got my hands free. My idea was to make my way across to the Purcells’ farm, but north was the same as south under that pitchy sky, and for hours I wandered among the rustling, scuttling sheep without any certainty as to where I was going. When at last there came a glimmer in the east, and the undulating fells, grey with the morning mist, rolled once more to the horizon, I recognized that I was close by Purcell’s farm, and there a little in front of me I was startled to see another man walking in the same direction. At first I approached him warily, but before I overtook him I knew by the bent back and tottering step that it was Enoch, the old servant, and right glad I was to see that he was living. He had been knocked down, beaten, and his cloak and hat taken away by these ruffians, and all night he had wandered in the darkness, like myself, in search of help. He burst into tears when I told him of his master’s death, and sat hiccoughing with the hard, dry sobs of an old man among the stones upon the moor.

“It’s the men of the Black Mogul,” he said. “Yes, yes, I knew that they would be the end of ‘im.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Well, well, you are one of ‘is own folk,” said he. “‘E ‘as passed away; yes, yes, it is all over and done. I can tell you about it, no man better, but mum’s the word with old Enoch unless master wants ‘im to speak. But his own nephew who came to ‘elp ‘im in the hour of need – yes, yes, Mister John, you ought to know.

“It was like this, sir. Your uncle ‘ad ‘is grocer’s business at Stepney, but ‘e ‘ad another business also. ‘E would buy as well as sell, and when ‘e bought ‘e never asked no questions where the stuff came from. Why should ‘e? It wasn’t no business of ‘is, was it? If folk brought him a stone or a silver plate, what was it to ‘im where they got it? That’s good sense, and it ought to be good law, as I ‘old. Any’ow, it was good enough for us at Stepney.

“Well, there was a steamer came from South Africa what foundered at sea. At least, they say so, and Lloyd’s paid the money. She ‘ad some very fine diamonds invoiced as being aboard of ‘er. Soon after there came the brig Black Mogul into the port o’ London, with ‘er papers all right as ‘avin’ cleared from Port Elizabeth with a cargo of ‘ides. The captain, which ‘is name was Elias, ‘e came to see the master, and what d’you think that ‘e ‘ad to sell? Why, sir, as I’m a livin’ sinner ‘e ‘ad a packet of diamonds for all the world just the same as what was lost out o’ that there African steamer. ‘Ow did ‘e get them? I don’t know. Master didn’t know. ‘E didn’t seek to know either. The captain ‘e was anxious for reasons of ‘is own to get them safe, so ‘e gave them to master, same as you might put a thing in a bank. But master ‘e’d ‘ad time to get fond of them, and ‘e wasn’t over satisfied as to where the Black Mogul ‘ad been tradin’, or where her captain ‘ad got the stones, so when ‘e come back for them the master ‘e said as ‘e thought they were best in ‘is own ‘ands. Mind I don’t ‘old with it myself, but that was what master said to Captain Elias in the little back parlour at Stepney. That was ‘ow ‘e got ‘is leg broke and three of his ribs.

“So the captain got jugged for that, and the master, when ‘e was able to get about, thought that ‘e would ‘ave peace for fifteen years, and ‘e came away from London because ‘e was afraid of the sailor men; but, at the end of five years, the captain was out and after ‘im, with as many of ‘is crew as ‘e could gather. Send for the perlice, you says! Well, there are two sides to that, and the master ‘e wasn’t much more fond of the perlice than Elias was. But they fair ‘emmed master in, as you ‘ave seen for yourself, and they bested ‘im at last, and the loneliness that ‘e thought would be ‘is safety ‘as proved ‘is ruin. Well, well, ‘e was ‘ard to many, but a good master to me, and it’s long before I come on such another.”

One word in conclusion. A strange cutter, which had been hanging about the coast, was seen to beat down the Irish Sea that morning, and it is conjectured that Elias and his men were on board of it. At any rate, nothing has been heard of them since. It was shown at the inquest that my uncle had lived in a sordid fashion for years, and he left little behind him. The mere knowledge that he possessed this treasure, which he carried about with him in so extraordinary a fashion, had appeared to be the joy of his life, and he had never, as far as we could learn, tried to realize any of his diamonds. So his disreputable name when living was not atoned for by any posthumous benevolence, and the family, equally scandalized by his life and by his death, have finally buried all memory of the club-footed grocer of Stepney.