Nothing happened. ‘Do I dismount, and open it for myself?’ enquired the Captain. ‘No, I’ll be damned if I do! Gate, I say! Gate! Turn out, there, and be quick about it!’
The door in the centre of the gatehouse opened a little way, and a feeble glimmer of lantern light was cast across the road. ‘Well, come along!’ said the Captain impatiently. ‘Open up, man!’
After a moment’s hesitation, this summons was obeyed. The gatekeeper came out into the road, and revealed himself, in the light of the lantern he carried, to be of diminutive stature. The Captain, looking down at him in some surprise, as he stood fumbling with the gate-tickets, discovered him to be a skinny urchin, certainly not more than thirteen years old, and probably less. The lantern’s glow revealed a scared young face, freckled, and slightly tear-stained. He said: ‘Hallo, what’s this? Are you the gatekeeper?’
‘N-no, sir. Me dad is,’ responded the youth, with a gulp.
‘Well, where is your dad?’
Another gulp. ‘I dunno.’ A ticket was held up. ‘Frippence, please, your honour, an’ it opens the next two gates.’
But the Captain’s besetting sin, a strong predilection for exploring the unusual, had taken possession of him. He disregarded the ticket, and said: ‘Did your dad leave you to mind the gate for him?’
‘Yessir,’ acknowledged the youth, with a somewhat watery sniff. ‘Please, sir, it’s frippence, and –’
‘Opens the next two gates,’ supplied the Captain. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ben,’ replied the youth.
‘Where does this road lead to? Sheffield?’
After consideration, Ben said that it did.
‘How far?’ asked the Captain.
‘I dunno. Ten miles, I dessay. Please, sir –’
‘As much as that! The devil!’
‘It might be twelve, p’raps. I dunno. But the ticket’s frippence, please, sir.’
The Captain looked down into the not very prepossessing countenance raised anxiously to his. The boy looked frightened and overwatched. He said: ‘When did your dad go off?’ He waited, and added, after a moment: ‘Don’t be afraid! I shan’t hurt you. Have you been minding the gate for long?’
‘Yes – no! Dad went off yesterday. He said he’d be back, but he ain’t, and please, sir, don’t go telling no one, else Dad’ll give me a proper melting!’ begged the youth, on a note of urgent entreaty.
The Captain’s curiosity was now thoroughly roused. Gatekeepers might have their faults, but they did not commonly leave their posts unattended except by small boys for twenty-four hours at a stretch. Moreover, Ben was badly scared; and to judge by the furtive glances he cast round he was scared by something besides the darkness and his loneliness.
The Captain swung himself to the ground, and pulled the bridle over Beau’s head. ‘Seems to me I’d better stay and keep you company for the night,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Now, where am I going to stable my horse?’
Ben was so much astonished that he could only stand staring up at the Captain with his mouth open and his eyes popping. The Captain knew that the generality of country gatehouses had small gardens attached to them with, often enough, rough sheds erected for the storage of hoes, swap-hooks, and wood. ‘Have you got a shed?’ he demanded.
‘Ay,’ uttered Ben, still gazing, fascinated, at this enormous and fantastic traveller.
‘What’s in it?’
‘Cackling-cheats.’
The Captain recognized the language. His troop had contained several of the rogues of whom his Grace of Wellington, in querulous humour, had more than once asserted that his gallant army was for the most part composed. ‘Hens?’ he said. ‘Oh, well, no matter! Take me to it! Is it big enough for my horse?’
‘Ay,’ said Ben doubtfully.
‘Lead the way, then!’
Apparently Ben felt that it would be unwise to demur, which he seemed much inclined to do, for after giving another gulp he picked up his lantern, and guided the Captain to a wicket-gate behind the toll-house.
The shed proved to be surprisingly large; and when the lantern was hung up on a protruding nail its light revealed not only a collection of fowls, perched on a roost, but also some straw, and a truss of hay in one corner. There were unmistakable signs that Beau was not the first horse to be stabled there, a circumstance which John found interesting, but which he thought it wisest not to comment upon. Ben was regarding him with a mixture of awe and suspicion, so he smiled down at the boy, and said: ‘You needn’t be afraid: I shan’t hurt you. Now, my cloak’s too wet to put over Beau here: have you got a blanket to spare?’
‘Ay. But if Mr Chirk was to come – But I dessay he won’t!’ said Ben. ‘Coo, he is a big prancer!’
He then took the saddlebag which John had unstrapped, and went off with it. When he returned it was with a pail of water, and a horse blanket. He found that the Captain, having shed his coat, was rubbing Beau down, and he at once collected a wisp of straw, and set to work on the big horse’s legs. He seemed to have decided that his uninvited guest, though alarmingly large, really did mean him no harm, for he looked much more cheerful, and volunteered the information that he had set the kettle on to boil. ‘There’s some rum left,’ he said.
‘There won’t be presently,’ replied John, watching the boy’s fearless handling of his horse. The mild jest was well-received, a friendly grin being cast up at him. He said casually: ‘Do you work in a stable?’
‘Some days I does. Others it’s all sorts,’ replied Ben. ‘Mr Sopworthy hires me mostly.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Buffer, at Crowford. Blue Boar,’ said Ben, beginning to wipe the stirrups with a piece of sacking.
‘Innkeeper?’ hazarded John.
‘Ay.’
‘Does your dad keep a horse?’
The wary look came back into Ben’s face. ‘No.’ He eyed John sideways. ‘That horse-cloth ain’t me dad’s. It – it belongs to a friend. He comes here sometimes. Maybe he wouldn’t like you using of it, so – so you don’t want to go saying anything about it, please, sir! Nor about him, acos – acos he don’t like meeting no strangers!’
‘Shy, is he? I won’t say anything,’ promised John, wondering if this were perhaps the man of whom Ben was afraid. He was by this time convinced that some mystery hung about the toll-house, with which, no doubt, the disappearance of its custodian was connected; but he was wise enough to keep this reflection to himself, since it was plain that Ben, in the manner of a colt, was uncertain of him, ready to shy off in a panic.
When Beau had been covered with the blanket, and left to lip over an armful of hay, Ben led the Captain up the garden to the back of the toll-house, where a central door opened into a small kitchen. The house, as John quickly saw, was of the usual pattern. It consisted of two tolerable rooms with another between them, which had been divided into two by a wooden partition. The rear half was the kitchen, and the front the toll-office. The kitchen was small, over-warm, and extremely untidy. Since it was lit by a couple of dip-candles in tin holders, an unpleasant aroma of hot tallow hung about it. But the Captain knew from past experiences in the more primitive parts of Portugal that the human nose could rapidly accustom itself to even worse smells, and he entered the room without misgiving. Ben shut and bolted the door, set down the lantern, and produced from the cupboard a black bottle, and a thick tumbler. ‘I’ll mix you a bumper,’ he offered.
The Captain, who had seated himself in the Windsor chair by the fire, grinned, but said: ‘Much obliged to you, but I think I’ll mix it myself. If you want to make yourself useful, see if you can pull off these boots of mine!’ This operation, which took time, and all Ben’s strength, did much to break the ice. It seemed to Ben exquisitely humorous that he should tumble nearly heels over head, clasping a muddied top-boot to his chest. He began to giggle, forgetting his awe, and looked all at once much
younger than John had at first supposed him to be. He disclosed, upon enquiry, that he was going on for eleven.
Having found a pair of pumps in his saddle-bag, John mixed himself a glass of hot rum and water, and sat down again with his legs stretched out before him, and his boots standing beside the hearth to dry. ‘That’s better,’ he said, leaning his fair head against the high back of the chair, and smiling sleepily across at his host. ‘Tell me, are we likely to be called out very often to open that gate?’
Ben shook his head. ‘No one don’t come this way after dark much,’ he said. ‘’Sides, it’s raining fit to bust itself.’
‘Good!’ said John. ‘Where am I going to sleep?’
‘You could have me dad’s bed,’ suggested Ben doubtfully.
‘Thank you, I will. Where do you think your dad may have gone to?’
‘I dunno,’ said Ben simply.
‘Does he often go away like this?’
‘No. He never done it afore – not like this. And he ain’t gone on the mop, because he ain’t no fuddlecap, not me dad. And if he don’t come back, they’ll put me on the Parish.’
‘I expect he’ll come back,’ said John soothingly. ‘Have you got any other relations? Brothers? Uncles?’
‘I got a brother. Leastways, unless he’s been drownded, I have. He was pressed. I shouldn’t wonder if I was never to see him no more.’
‘Lord, yes, of course you will!’
‘Well, I don’t want to,’ said Ben frankly. ‘He’s a proper jobbernoll, that’s what he is. Else they wouldn’t never have snabbled him. Me dad says so.’
If Ben possessed other relatives, he did not know of them. His mother seemed to have died some years before; and it soon became apparent that he clung to his father less from affection than from a lively dread of being thrown on the Parish. He was convinced that if this should befall him he would be sent to work at one of the foundries in Sheffield. He lived near enough to Sheffield to know what miseries were endured by the swarms of stunted children who were employed from the age of seven in the big manufacturing towns; and it was not surprising that this fate should seem so terrible to him. There was only one worse fate known to him, and this, before long, he was to confide to John.
While he talked, and John sat sipping his rum, the wind had risen a little, bringing with it other sounds than the steady dripping of the rain. The wicket-gate for the use of travellers on foot creaked and banged gently once or twice, and when this happened Ben’s face seemed to sharpen, and he broke off what he was saying to listen intently. John noticed that his eyes wandered continually towards the back-door, and that the noises coming from the rear of the house seemed to worry him more than the creak of the gate. A gust of wind blew something over with a clatter. It sounded to John as though a broom, or a rake, had fallen, but it brought Ben to his feet in a flash, and drove him instinctively to John’s side.
‘What is it?’ John said quietly.
‘Him!’ breathed Ben, his gaze riveted to the door.
John got up, and trod over to the door, ignoring a whimper of protest. He shot back the bolts, and opened it, stepping out into the garden. ‘There’s no one here,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘You left a broom propped against the wall, and the wind blew it over, that’s all. Come and see for yourself!’ He waited for a moment, and then repeated, on a note of authority: ‘Come!’
Ben approached reluctantly.
‘Weather’s fairing up,’ remarked John, leaning his shoulders against the door-frame, and looking up at the sky. ‘Getting lighter. We shall have a fine day tomorrow. Well? Can you see anyone?’
‘N-no,’ Ben acknowledged, with a little shiver. He looked up at John, and added hopefully: ‘He couldn’t get me, could he? Not with a big cove like you here.’
‘Of course not. No one could get you,’ John replied, shutting the door again, and going back to the fire. ‘You may bolt it if you choose, but there’s no need.’
‘Yes, ’cos he might come to see me dad, and I mustn’t see him, nor him me,’ explained Ben.
‘Lord, is he as shy as all that? What’s the matter with him? Is he so ugly?’
‘I dunno. I never seen him. Only his shadder – onct!’
‘But you’ve rubbed his horse down for him, haven’t you?’
‘No!’ Ben said, staring.
‘Wasn’t that his blanket that you brought me for Beau?’
‘No! That’s Mr Chirk’s!’ said Ben. ‘He’s a –’ He stopped, gave a gasp, and added quickly: ‘He’s as good as ever twanged, he is! You don’t want to go telling nobody about him! Please, sir –’
‘Oh, I won’t breathe a word about him! Are all your friends so shy?’
‘He ain’t shy. He just don’t like strangers.’
‘I see. And does this other man – the one you’re afraid of �� dislike strangers too?’
‘I dunno. He can’t abide boys. Me dad says if he was to catch me looking at him he’d have me took off to work in the pits.’ His voice sank on the word, and he gave so convulsive a shudder that it was easy to see that coal-pits were to him a worse horror than foundries.
John laughed. ‘That’s a fine Banbury story! Your dad’s been hoaxing you, my son!’
Ben looked incredulous. ‘He could have me took off. He’d put a sack over me head, and –’
‘Oh, would he? And what do you suppose I should do if anyone walked in and tried to put a sack over your head?’
‘What?’ asked Ben, round-eyed.
‘Put a sack over his head, of course, and hand him to the nearest constable.’
‘You would?’ Ben drew an audible breath.
‘Certainly I would. Does he come here often?’
‘N-no. Leastways, I dunno. After it’s dark, he comes. I dunno how many times. Onct, there was two on ’em. I woke up, and heard them, talking to me dad.’
‘What were they talking about?’
Ben shook his head. ‘I didn’t hear nothing but just voices. I got right under me blanket, ’cos I knew it was him.’
By this time it seemed fairly certain to John that the gatekeeper’s disappearance was connected in some way with Ben’s mysterious bugbear; and it seemed still more certain that he was engaged upon nefarious business. What this might be John had not the remotest conjecture, and it was plainly useless to question Ben further. He got up, saying: ‘Well, it’s high time you were under your blanket again. If anyone shouts gate, I’ll attend to it, so you show me where your dad’s bed is, and then be off to your own.’
‘You can’t open the gate!’ said Ben, shocked. ‘You’re a flash cove!’
‘Never mind what I am! You do what I tell you!’
Thus adjured, Ben escorted him into the toll-office, from which access to the two other rooms was obtained. One of these, where Ben slept on a truckle-bed, contained stores, but the other was furnished with some degree of comfort, the bed even being provided with cotton sheets, and a faded patchwork quilt. The Captain, having no fancy for the gatekeeper’s sheets, coolly stripped them off the bed, rolled them into a bundle, and tossed them into a corner of the room. He then stretched himself out on top of the blankets, pulled the quilt over himself, and blew out the candle. For a few minutes, before falling asleep, he wondered what he was going to do if the gatekeeper did not return that night. The proper course, which would be to report the man’s absence, would seem unpleasantly like a betrayal of Ben; yet no other presented itself to him. But the Captain was never one to meet troubles halfway, and he very soon stopped frowning over this problem. After all, it was probable that before morning the gatekeeper would be back at his post. Stale-drunk, too, thought John, setting little store by Ben’s assurance that his dad was not one to go on the mop.
Three
The Captain slept soundly, and awoke to daylight, and the sound of voices. On getting up, and looking out of the li
ttle latticed window, he saw that Ben was holding open the gate for a herd of cows to pass through, and exchanging courtesies with the boy who was driving them. A fine autumn day had succeeded the night’s downpour, and the mist still lay over the fields beyond the road. A glance at the watch which he had laid on the chair beside the bed informed John that it was half past six. He strolled into the toll-office just as Ben shut the gate, and came in.
With the daylight the worst of Ben’s fears were laid to rest. He looked a different boy from the hag-ridden urchin of the previous evening; walked in whistling; and greeted the Captain with a grin.
‘Your dad not back?’ John asked.
The grin faded. ‘No. Likely he’s piked.’
‘Run away? Why should he?’
‘Well, if he ain’t piked, p’raps he’s gorn to roost,’ temporized Ben. ‘’Cos when he loped off, he told me to mind the gate for an hour, and he’d be back. What’ll I do, guv’nor?’
This question was uttered, not in a tone of misgiving, but in one of cheerful confidence. Ben looked enquiringly up into John’s face, and John realized, ruefully, that his small protégé was reposing complete trust in his willingness and ability to settle the future satisfactorily for him.
‘Well, that’s a problem which seems to hang in the hedge a trifle,’ he said. ‘We shall have to talk it over. But first I want a wash, and breakfast.’
‘I got some bacon cut, and there’s eggs, and a bit of beef,’ offered Ben, ignoring the first of the Captain’s needs as a frivolity.
‘Excellent! Where’s the pump?’
‘Out the back. But –’
‘Well, you come and work it for me,’ said John. ‘I want a towel, and some soap as well.’
Considerably surprised (for the Captain looked quite clean, he thought), Ben collected a piece of coarse soap, cut from a bar, and a huckaback towel, and followed his guest into the garden. But when he discovered that the Captain, not content with sousing his head and neck, proposed to wash the whole of his powerful torso, he was moved to utter a shocked protest. ‘You’ll catch your death!’ he gasped.