CHAPTER XXIII
RETALIATION
The public-house that had been chosen by the leaders of thepress-gang in Monkshaven at this time, for their rendezvous (or'Randyvowse', as it was generally pronounced), was an inn of poorrepute, with a yard at the back which opened on to the staithe orquay nearest to the open sea. A strong high stone wall bounded thisgrass-grown mouldy yard on two sides; the house, and some unusedout-buildings, formed the other two. The choice of the place wasgood enough, both as to situation, which was sufficiently isolated,and yet near to the widening river; and as to the character of thelandlord, John Hobbs was a failing man, one who seemed as if doomedto be unfortunate in all his undertakings, and the consequence ofall this was that he was envious of the more prosperous, and willingto do anything that might bring him in a little present success inlife. His household consisted of his wife, her niece, who acted asservant, and an out-of-doors man, a brother of Ned Simpson, thewell-doing butcher, who at one time had had a fancy for Sylvia. Butthe one brother was prosperous, the other had gone on sinking inlife, like him who was now his master. Neither Hobbs nor his manSimpson were absolutely bad men; if things had gone well with themthey might each have been as scrupulous and conscientious as theirneighbours, and even now, supposing the gain in money to be equal,they would sooner have done good than evil; but a very small sum wasenough to turn the balance. And in a greater degree than in mostcases was the famous maxim of Rochefoucault true with them; for inthe misfortunes of their friends they seemed to see somejustification of their own. It was blind fate dealing out events,not that the events themselves were the inevitable consequences offolly or misconduct. To such men as these the large sum offered bythe lieutenant of the press-gang for the accommodation of theMariners' Arms was simply and immediately irresistible. The bestroom in the dilapidated house was put at the service of thecommanding officer of the impress service, and all otherarrangements made at his desire, irrespective of all the formerunprofitable sources of custom and of business. If the relativesboth of Hobbs and of Simpson had not been so well known and soprosperous in the town, they themselves would have received moremarks of popular ill opinion than they did during the winter theevents of which are now being recorded. As it was, people spoke tothem when they appeared at kirk or at market, but held noconversation with them; no, not although they each appeared betterdressed than they had either of them done for years past, andalthough their whole manner showed a change, inasmuch as they hadbeen formerly snarling and misanthropic, and were now civil almostto deprecation.
Every one who was capable of understanding the state of feeling inMonkshaven at this time must have been aware that at any moment anexplosion might take place; and probably there were those who hadjudgment enough to be surprised that it did not take place soonerthan it did. For until February there were only occasional cries andgrowls of rage, as the press-gang made their captures first here,then there; often, apparently, tranquil for days, then heard of atsome distance along the coast, then carrying off a seaman from thevery heart of the town. They seemed afraid of provoking any generalhostility, such as that which had driven them from Shields, andwould have conciliated the inhabitants if they could; the officerson the service and on board the three men-of-war coming often intothe town, spending largely, talking to all with cheery friendliness,and making themselves very popular in such society as they couldobtain access to at the houses of the neighbouring magistrates or atthe rectory. But this, however agreeable, did not forward the objectthe impress service had in view; and, accordingly, a more decidedstep was taken at a time when, although there was no apparentevidence as to the fact, the town was full of the Greenland marinerscoming quietly in to renew their yearly engagements, which, whendone, would legally entitle them to protection from impressment. Onenight--it was on a Saturday, February 23rd, when there was a bitterblack frost, with a north-east wind sweeping through the streets,and men and women were close shut in their houses--all were startledin their household content and warmth by the sound of the fire-bellbusily swinging, and pealing out for help. The fire-bell was kept inthe market-house where High Street and Bridge Street met: every oneknew what it meant. Some dwelling, or maybe a boiling-house was onfire, and neighbourly assistance was summoned with all speed, in atown where no water was laid on, nor fire-engines kept in readiness.Men snatched up their hats, and rushed out, wives following, somewith the readiest wraps they could lay hands on, with which toclothe the over-hasty husbands, others from that mixture of dreadand curiosity which draws people to the scene of any disaster. Thoseof the market people who were making the best of their wayhomewards, having waited in the town till the early darknessconcealed their path, turned back at the sound of the ever-clangingfire-bell, ringing out faster and faster as if the danger becameevery instant more pressing.
As men ran against or alongside of each other, their breathlessquestion was ever, 'Where is it?' and no one could tell; so theypressed onwards into the market-place, sure of obtaining theinformation desired there, where the fire-bell kept calling out withits furious metal tongue.
The dull oil-lamps in the adjoining streets only made darknessvisible in the thronged market-place, where the buzz of many men'sunanswered questions was rising louder and louder. A strange feelingof dread crept over those nearest to the closed market-house. Abovethem in the air the bell was still clanging; but before them was adoor fast shut and locked; no one to speak and tell them why theywere summoned--where they ought to be. They were at the heart of themystery, and it was a silent blank! Their unformed dread took shapeat the cry from the outside of the crowd, from where men were stillcoming down the eastern side of Bridge Street. 'The gang! the gang!'shrieked out some one. 'The gang are upon us! Help! help!' Then thefire-bell had been a decoy; a sort of seething the kid in itsmother's milk, leading men into a snare through their kindliestfeelings. Some dull sense of this added to utter dismay, and madethem struggle and strain to get to all the outlets save that inwhich a fight was now going on; the swish of heavy whips, the thudof bludgeons, the groans, the growls of wounded or infuriated men,coming with terrible distinctness through the darkness to thequickened ear of fear.
A breathless group rushed up the blackness of a narrow entry tostand still awhile, and recover strength for fresh running. For atime nothing but heavy pants and gasps were heard amongst them. Noone knew his neighbour, and their good feeling, so lately abused andpreyed upon, made them full of suspicion. The first who spoke wasrecognized by his voice.
'Is it thee, Daniel Robson?' asked his neighbour, in a low tone.
'Ay! Who else should it be?'
'A dunno.'
'If a am to be any one else, I'd like to be a chap of nobbut eightstun. A'm welly done for!'
'It were as bloody a shame as iver I heerd on. Who's to go t' t'next fire, a'd like to know!'
'A tell yo' what, lads,' said Daniel, recovering his breath, butspeaking in gasps. 'We were a pack o' cowards to let 'em carry offyon chaps as easy as they did, a'm reckoning!'
'A think so, indeed,' said another voice.
Daniel went on--
'We was two hunder, if we was a man; an' t' gang has niver numberedabove twelve.'
'But they was armed. A seen t' glitter on their cutlasses,' spokeout a fresh voice.
'What then!' replied he who had latest come, and who stood at themouth of the entry. 'A had my whalin' knife wi' me i' my pea-jacketas my missus threw at me, and a'd ha' ripped 'em up as soon aswinkin', if a could ha' thought what was best to do wi' that d----dbell makin' such a din reet above us. A man can but die onest, andwe was ready to go int' t' fire for t' save folks' lives, and yetwe'd none on us t' wit to see as we might ha' saved yon poor chapsas screeched out for help.'
'They'll ha' getten 'em to t' Randyvowse by now,' said some one.
'They cannot tak' 'em aboard till morning; t' tide won't serve,'said the last speaker but one.
Daniel Robson spoke out the thought that was surging up into thebrain of every one there.
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p; 'There's a chance for us a'. How many be we?' By dint of touchingeach other the numbers were counted. Seven. 'Seven. But if us seventurns out and rouses t' town, there'll be many a score ready to gangt' Mariners' Arms, and it'll be easy work reskyin' them chaps as ispressed. Us seven, each man jack on us, go and seek up his friends,and get him as well as he can to t' church steps; then, mebbe,there'll be some theere as'll not be so soft as we was, lettin' thempoor chaps be carried off from under our noses, just becase our earswas busy listenin' to yon confounded bell, whose clip-clappin'tongue a'll tear out afore this week is out.'
Before Daniel had finished speaking, those nearest to the entrancemuttered their assent to his project, and had stolen off, keeping tothe darkest side of the streets and lanes, which they threaded indifferent directions; most of them going straight as sleuth-houndsto the haunts of the wildest and most desperate portion of theseafaring population of Monkshaven. For, in the breasts of many,revenge for the misery and alarm of the past winter took a deeperand more ferocious form than Daniel had thought of when he made hisproposal of a rescue. To him it was an adventure like many he hadbeen engaged in in his younger days; indeed, the liquor he had drunkhad given him a fictitious youth for the time; and it was more inthe light of a rough frolic of which he was to be the leader, thathe limped along ( always lame from old attacks of rheumatism),chuckling to himself at the apparent stillness of the town, whichgave no warning to the press-gang at the Rendezvous of anything inthe wind. Daniel, too, had his friends to summon; old hands likehimself, but 'deep uns', also, like himself, as he imagined.
It was nine o'clock when all who were summoned met at the churchsteps; and by nine o'clock, Monkshaven, in those days, was morequiet and asleep than many a town at present is at midnight. Thechurch and churchyard above them were flooded with silver light, forthe moon was high in the heavens: the irregular steps were here andthere in pure white clearness, here and there in blackest shadow.But more than half way up to the top, men clustered like bees; allpressing so as to be near enough to question those who stood nearestto the planning of the attack. Here and there, a woman, with wildgestures and shrill voice, that no entreaty would hush down to thewhispered pitch of the men, pushed her way through the crowd--thisone imploring immediate action, that adjuring those around her tosmite and spare not those who had carried off her 'man',--thefather, the breadwinner. Low down in the darkened silent town weremany whose hearts went with the angry and excited crowd, and whowould bless them and caress them for that night's deeds. Daniel soonfound himself a laggard in planning, compared to some of thosearound him. But when, with the rushing sound of many steps and butfew words, they had arrived at the blank, dark, shut-up Mariners'Arms, they paused in surprise at the uninhabited look of the wholehouse: it was Daniel once more who took the lead.
'Speak 'em fair,' said he; 'try good words first. Hobbs 'll mebbelet 'em out quiet, if we can catch a word wi' him. A say, Hobbs,'said he, raising his voice, 'is a' shut up for t' neet; for a'd beglad of a glass. A'm Dannel Robson, thou knows.'
Not one word in reply, any more than from the tomb; but his speechhad been heard nevertheless. The crowd behind him began to jeer andto threaten; there was no longer any keeping down their voices,their rage, their terrible oaths. If doors and windows had not oflate been strengthened with bars of iron in anticipation of somesuch occasion, they would have been broken in with the onset of thefierce and now yelling crowd who rushed against them with the forceof a battering-ram, to recoil in baffled rage from the vain assault.No sign, no sound from within, in that breathless pause.
'Come away round here! a've found a way to t' back o' behint, wherebelike it's not so well fenced,' said Daniel, who had made way foryounger and more powerful men to conduct the assault, and hademployed his time meanwhile in examining the back premises. The menrushed after him, almost knocking him down, as he made his way intothe lane into which the doors of the outbuildings belonging to theinn opened. Daniel had already broken the fastening of that whichopened into a damp, mouldy-smelling shippen, in one corner of whicha poor lean cow shifted herself on her legs, in an uneasy, restlessmanner, as her sleeping-place was invaded by as many men as couldcram themselves into the dark hold. Daniel, at the end farthest fromthe door, was almost smothered before he could break down the rottenwooden shutter, that, when opened, displayed the weedy yard of theold inn, the full clear light defining the outline of each blade ofgrass by the delicate black shadow behind.
This hole, used to give air and light to what had once been astable, in the days when horse travellers were in the habit ofcoming to the Mariners' Arms, was large enough to admit the passageof a man; and Daniel, in virtue of its discovery, was the first toget through. But he was larger and heavier than he had been; hislameness made him less agile, and the impatient crowd behind himgave him a helping push that sent him down on the round stones withwhich the yard was paved, and for the time disabled him so much thathe could only just crawl out of the way of leaping feet and heavynailed boots, which came through the opening till the yard wasfilled with men, who now set up a fierce, derisive shout, which, totheir delight, was answered from within. No more silence, no moredead opposition: a living struggle, a glowing, raging fight; andDaniel thought he should be obliged to sit there still, leaningagainst the wall, inactive, while the strife and the action weregoing on in which he had once been foremost.
He saw the stones torn up; he saw them used with good effect on theunguarded back-door; he cried out in useless warning as he saw theupper windows open, and aim taken among the crowd; but just then thedoor gave way, and there was an involuntary forward motion in thethrong, so that no one was so disabled by the shots as to preventhis forcing his way in with the rest. And now the sounds came veiledby the walls as of some raging ravening beast growling over hisprey; the noise came and went--once utterly ceased; and Danielraised himself with difficulty to ascertain the cause, when againthe roar came clear and fresh, and men poured into the yard again,shouting and rejoicing over the rescued victims of the press-gang.Daniel hobbled up, and shouted, and rejoiced, and shook hands withthe rest, hardly caring to understand that the lieutenant and hisgang had quitted the house by a front window, and that all hadpoured out in search of them; the greater part, however, returningto liberate the prisoners, and then glut their vengeance on thehouse and its contents.
From all the windows, upper and lower, furniture was now beingthrown into the yard. The smash of glass, the heavier crash of wood,the cries, the laughter, the oaths, all excited Daniel to theutmost; and, forgetting his bruises, he pressed forwards to lend ahelping hand. The wild, rough success of his scheme almost turnedhis head. He hurraed at every flagrant piece of destruction; heshook hands with every one around him, and, at last, when thedestroyers inside paused to take breath, he cried out,--
'If a was as young as onest a was, a'd have t' Randyvowse down, andmak' a bonfire on it. We'd ring t' fire-bell then t' some purpose.'
No sooner said than done. Their excitement was ready to take theslightest hint of mischief; old chairs, broken tables, odd drawers,smashed chests, were rapidly and skilfully heaped into a pyramid,and one, who at the first broaching of the idea had gone for livecoals the speedier to light up the fire, came now through the crowdwith a large shovelful of red-hot cinders. The rioters stopped totake breath and look on like children at the uncertain flickeringblaze, which sprang high one moment, and dropped down the next onlyto creep along the base of the heap of wreck, and make secure of itsfuture work. Then the lurid blaze darted up wild, high, andirrepressible; and the men around gave a cry of fierce exultation,and in rough mirth began to try and push each other in. In one ofthe pauses of the rushing, roaring noise of the flames, the moaninglow and groan of the poor alarmed cow fastened up in the shippencaught Daniel's ear, and he understood her groans as well as if theyhad been words. He limped out of the yard through the now desertedhouse, where men were busy at the mad work of destruction, and foundhis way back to the lane into which the shippen opened. The cow wasdancin
g about at the roar, and dazzle, and heat of the fire; butDaniel knew how to soothe her, and in a few minutes he had a roperound her neck, and led her gently out from the scene of her alarm.He was still in the lane when Simpson, the man-of-all-work at theMariners' Arms, crept out of some hiding-place in the desertedoutbuilding, and stood suddenly face to face with Robson.
The man was white with fear and rage.
'Here, tak' thy beast, and lead her wheere she'll noane hear yoncries and shouts. She's fairly moithered wi' heat an' noise.'
'They're brennin' ivery rag I have i' t' world,' gasped out Simpson:'I niver had much, and now I'm a beggar.'
'Well! thou shouldn't ha' turned again' thine own town-folks, andharboured t' gang. Sarves thee reet. A'd noane be here leadin'beasts if a were as young as a were; a'd be in t' thick on it.'
'It was thee set 'm on--a heerd thee--a see'd thee a helping on 'emt' break in; they'd niver ha' thought on attackin' t' house, andsettin' fire to yon things, if thou hadn't spoken on it.' Simpsonwas now fairly crying. But Daniel did not realize what the loss ofall the small property he had in the world was to the poor fellow(rapscallion though he was, broken down, unprosperousne'er-do-weel!) in his pride at the good work he believed he had seton foot.
'Ay,' said he; 'it's a great thing for folk to have a chap for t'lead 'em wi' a head on his shouthers. A misdoubt me if there were afelly theere as would ha' thought o' routling out yon wasps' nest;it tak's a deal o' mother-wit to be up to things. But t' gang'llniver harbour theere again, one while. A only wish we'd cotched 'em.An' a should like t' ha' gi'en Hobbs a bit o' my mind.'
'He's had his sauce,' said Simpson, dolefully. 'Him and me isruined.'
'Tut, tut, thou's got thy brother, he's rich enough. And Hobbs 'lldo a deal better; he's had his lesson now, and he'll stick to hisown side time to come. Here, tak' thy beast an' look after her, formy bones is achin'. An' mak' thysel' scarce, for some o' them fellyshas getten their blood up, an' wunnot be for treating thee o'er wellif they fall in wi' thee.'
'Hobbs ought to be served out; it were him as made t' bargain wi'lieutenant; and he's off safe wi' his wife and his money bag, anda'm left a beggar this neet i' Monkshaven street. My brother and mehas had words, and he'll do nought for me but curse me. A had threecrown-pieces, and a good pair o' breeches, and a shirt, and a daresay better nor two pair o' stockings. A wish t' gang, and thee, andHobbs and them mad folk up yonder, were a' down i' hell, a do.'
'Coom, lad,' said Daniel, noways offended at his companion's wish onhis behalf. 'A'm noane flush mysel', but here's half-a-crown andtuppence; it's a' a've getten wi' me, but it'll keep thee and t'beast i' food and shelter to-neet, and get thee a glass o' comfort,too. A had thought o' takin' one mysel', but a shannot ha' a pennyleft, so a'll just toddle whoam to my missus.'
Daniel was not in the habit of feeling any emotion at actions notdirectly affecting himself; or else he might have despised the poorwretch who immediately clutched at the money, and overwhelmed thatman with slobbery thanks whom he had not a minute before beencursing. But all Simpson's stronger passions had been long ago usedup; now he only faintly liked and disliked, where once he loved andhated; his only vehement feeling was for himself; that cared for,other men might wither or flourish as best suited them.
Many of the doors which had been close shut when the crowd went downthe High Street, were partially open as Daniel slowly returned; andlight streamed from them on the otherwise dark road. The news of thesuccessful attempt at rescue had reached those who had sate inmourning and in desolation an hour or two ago, and several of thesepressed forwards as from their watching corner they recognizedDaniel's approach; they pressed forward into the street to shake himby the hand, to thank him (for his name had been bruited abroad asone of those who had planned the affair), and at several places hewas urged to have a dram--urgency that he was loath for many reasonsto refuse, but his increasing uneasiness and pain made him for onceabstinent, and only anxious to get home and rest. But he could nothelp being both touched and flattered at the way in which those whoformed his 'world' looked upon him as a hero; and was notinsensible to the words of blessing which a wife, whose husband hadbeen impressed and rescued this night, poured down upon him as hepassed.
'Theere, theere,--dunnot crack thy throat wi' blessin'. Thy manwould ha' done as much for me, though mebbe he mightn't ha' shown somuch gumption and capability; but them's gifts, and not to be proudon.'
When Daniel reached the top of the hill on the road home, he turnedto look round; but he was lame and bruised, he had gone alongslowly, the fire had pretty nearly died out, only a red hue in theair about the houses at the end of the long High Street, and a hotlurid mist against the hill-side beyond where the Mariners' Arms hadstood, were still left as signs and token of the deed of violence.
Daniel looked and chuckled. 'That comes o' ringin' t' fire-bell,'said he to himself; 'it were shame for it to be tellin' a lie, pooroud story-teller.'