Bladys of the Stewponey - Sabine Baring-Gould (top 100 novels txt) 📗

and her brow was bedewed with sweat. Blows were being rained on the door.

“It will engage them ten minutes to break it in,” said Stracey in a whisper; “and by that time this will be built and smothered with sand, and I on my way underground to Drakeslowe.”

“O George! I am afraid to stay.”

He cursed her.

“Are you going to risk my precious life because of your fears?”

“If only I could escape as well.”

“You can do so when you have covered up the mouth. Then go out at the little door—they have not discovered that—and run up the red ladder. What in the devil’s name is that?”

A sound, different from that which came from the door, reached their ears and alarmed them. Thud, thud, thud! A dead and muffled sound.

“Nan, run, whilst I build up.”

With eager hands Stracey, who was down the hole, built up with stones in order to close the opening of the passage.

Nan sprang back in quivering alarm.

“George! they have found the door too tough. One of them has a pick, and with it he is digging through. Hark!”

A click; then a crash of broken glass.

“There! there!” gasped Nan; “he is widening the window. The rock wall is thin just there. He cannot fail to dig his way in on us directly.”

“Nan!” said Stracey, “my life depends on you. Here!” he handed a pistol through the gap that remained unclosed; “take this barking iron and shoot him through head or heart.”

“O George!”

“My blood is on your head if you do not. If I am taken, then with my last breath I will curse you, Nan.”

“But George!”

“Nan, if you really love me, and have not set your fancy on another, if you are true to me, as you have so often protested, prove it to me now.”

She accepted the pistol, cocked it, and ran to the spot where she could see the man, a constable, who was driving his pickaxe in at the window, and ever and anon was shouting encouragingly to his fellows:

“We’ll be on them in a minute. I can smell the fire already.”

The opening was still too small to admit the passage of a human body, but the man had wrenched out the framework and broken the glass, and was rapidly enlarging the orifice.

“Cease; or I will fire!” cried the girl, presenting her weapon.

The constable stopped, and looked in. He replied in mocking words, that to her were unintelligible. She could see his round head and big body against the sky, but could distinguish no features.

“Desist; or I shoot.”

“By heavens, a wench!” he said with a laugh.

She touched the trigger. The pistol exploded. Nan saw the man straighten himself, remain stationary for a moment, then reel over.

A yell of dismay and rage rushed in at the opening—the cry of those who were assaulting the cave—at the sight of their comrade, who fell headlong with a bullet in his forehead.

“That will occupy them for some minutes,” laughed Stracey. “Well done, Nan; give me back my pistol.”

“I have thrown it away.”

“Let it lie. Close up; I am ready.”

“George! Kiss me first. Kiss me before we part. It will be for ever. And I know you will soon find someone else. I have killed that man.”

“A plague on your sentiment!” answered Stracey, withdrawing his head, without granting her request, and he jammed the last stone into its place.

Then Nan used the shovel with good effect, and in a few minutes had buried the entrance under sand. Not content with this, she cut the binding withy of the faggots, and strewed the contents over the spot. Then she upset the stack upon the loose sticks, and proceeded to cut or untie all their bonds, so that it would not be possible for those who were in pursuit to remove them in bundles, but only piece-meal, stick by stick.

This occupied Nan a considerable time, but she did not for a moment turn her thoughts to her own safety till she had done everything in her power, and in fulfilment of what she regarded as her duty, to effectually disguise the place of Stracey’s retreat.

The men outside had again got to work, and were redoubling their efforts to effect an entrance. Of them, however, none would venture at the window, lest he should be picked off in the same manner as his fellow.

The door was too strongly barred to be driven in; but by means of a pickaxe the assailants were cutting through the sandstone outside so as to disengage the frame of the door, and enable them to draw it outwards.

In a quarter of an hour this was effected. The heavy oak door, no longer held in place by a rebate of stone, fell forward with a crash, and the constables withdrew the now useless bars, and burst into the cavern with a shout.

Nan had in the meantime shut and fastened the door of communication with the inner chamber; this impediment could not detain them long, but it would furnish her with sufficient time to effect her escape by the postern, and to run up the ladder, cut in the face of the cliff, which communicated with the top of the Edge and the open downs, over which she might fly, and find concealment in nooks known only to a few.

To this door she sped. It was locked. She put her hands to her temples. Her brain was whirling. Where was the key? She felt in her pocket. She turned herself on all sides. Oh! where was the key?

Then with horror and despair she recalled where it was, and knew that it was beyond her reach. George Stracey alone retained possession of the key, so that he might obtain admission to Meg-a-Fox Hole whenever he pleased. That key he ever carried about his person.

That key he had with him, when he bade her escape by the postern door. Yet he had not given it her. She had not thought to ask for it. Had he purposely carried it away with him and left her to her fate, knowing that he could have saved her had he willed?

No! no! no! In her true generous heart she repelled this thought; nevertheless a vein of gall broke in her heart as she allowed that he, in his supreme solicitude about his own safety, had not given sufficient thought to her to remember that he carried with him the means of affording her the opportunity of escape.

Nan sank on the little rock-hewn bench, laid her face in her hands and wept.

Next minute rude hands were on her, and she heard shouts of—“Where is Stracey? What have you done with him?”

“He is not here,” answered Nan, recovering composure.

“Who then shot Thomson?” was asked.

“I did that. Yonder lies the pistol on the floor.”

“Secure her,” said the magistrate, who had entered. “She has killed an officer of the Crown whilst in discharge of his duty.”

“By heaven!” exclaimed a constable, “it is well that Luke Hangman is in Kinver, to measure her for the cravat.”

Chapter 24.

AT THE ROCK FOOT

Erect, rigid, stood Mother Onion beside the corpse of her son extended at the foot of Holy Austin Rock. Her face was livid, strained and knotted in muscle with the cramp of excitement and resentment that held her soul. Her harsh features were strongly illumined by the setting sun. They seemed to be chiselled out of marble—an orange marble—not moulded in flesh, and chiselled by an unskilful workman. But her eyes gleamed with lightning flashes.

Luke Hangman lay extended his length at her feet, on his back, his arms outspread, and his mouth half-open. That he was dead could not for a moment be doubted, nor did his mother entertain a hope to the contrary.

There surged up in her heart a rage against Bladys, to whom she attributed his death, like the bore in the Severn—it rolled through her, invading every sense, flushing her every vein.

A ring of spectators had formed. Jarrock had come down from the rock holding Bladys by the arm to prevent her from attempting escape.

The inhabitants of the occupied prong of sandstone issued from their burrows. Scarce a denizen was left behind. Even a half-paralysed woman had scrambled from her bed, drawn herself to the verge of the cliff, and hung her head, benimbed with the frills of a great nightcap, over the edge, looking down on what took place below, unwilling to miss seeing and hearing whatever might occur. Children, unable to thrust themselves in between their elders, climbed portions of the rock to overtop them, or ensconced themselves high aloft in the forks of overhanging Scotch pines. Holy Austin, who had been at a little distance, hurried up with two companions, with whom he had been in conversation. One was the Evening Lecturer and the other Squire Folliot. Seeing Bladys held by the executioner’s assistant, he at once went to him, and demanded her release.

This gave fresh occasion for the excitement of the bereaved woman. With extended hand and outstretched finger she pointed to Bladys.

“See! See!” she shrieked; “that is the murderess. I give her in charge. I accuse her. She thrust my son, her husband, over the precipice. She killed him. Last week we burnt a woman at Shrewsbury for poisoning her husband. Now we shall have another execution.”

Gasping for breath, she placed one hand on her bosom, whilst still indicating Bladys with the other.

“That woman at Shrewsbury we strangled at the stake before the flame touched her. But she, she shall burn and feel all the anguish of the fire. The law allows it. The law makes no provision for strangling. That is the pure grace of the executioner. It is as he wills it. He may let her dance in the fire if it pleases him. Abraham Jarrock will be the hangman now; and he will do as I say.”

“Nay; reckon not on me,” called Jarrock.

Now the old schoolmaster stood forward.

“Woman,” said he, in authoritative tones, “your sorrow has perverted your reason. Satis eloquenti� sapienti� parum. We respect and we pity you. Let us now raise and bear away the dead man to Kinver, where an inquest will be held on his death.”

“He shall not be removed. Here he lies, and here stand I. Here he stays till I am assured that she who killed him is to be conveyed to gaol. Where is a constable? Where is a Justice of Peace?”

“This is arrant folly,” said Holy Austin. “But that you are to be commiserated, we would not endure it.”

“Not endure it! It is truth. I will swear it. Where is a constable? Bring me a justice here, and I will take oath.”

“Here is a magistrate—Squire Folliot.”

“Let him draw nigh. Let him swear me!” screamed the frantic woman.

Then, as someone stooped to raise the body, she thrust him fiercely away.

“No! none shall touch him. As he goes to burial so shall the murderess go to the stake—earth to earth here,” pointing to her son, “and ashes to ashes there,” indicating Bladys. “I will throw myself down. I will clasp him with my arms. None shall separate us till I know that justice will be done him and me, and that this murderess will be conveyed to gaol.”

Then an elderly, stout gentleman, in drab smalls and gaiters, thrust his way through the crowd.

“I am a magistrate, madam, and if you can show real cause against that young person, I shall not be slack in performing my duty. Has anyone a New Testament here?”

“I have one, sir,” answered the Evening Lecturer, extending a book through the ring of spectators. Mr Folliot