He gets over more ground in a day than they do in a week — ho, ho!”
“That’s all over now,” said Coates, peevishly. “He has cut his own throat — ridden his famous mare to death.”
The countryman almost choked himself, in the attempt to bolt a huge mouthful. “Ay — indeed, measter! How happened that?” asked he, so soon as he recovered speech.
“The fool rode her from London to York last night,” returned Coates; “such a feat was never performed before. What horse could be expected to live through such work as that?”
“Ah, he were a foo’ to attempt that,” observed the countryman; “but you followed belike?”
“We did.”
“And took him arter all, I reckon?” asked the rustic, squinting more horribly than ever.
“No,” returned Coates, “I can’t say we did; but we’ll have him yet. I’m pretty sure he can’t be far off. We may be nearer him than we imagine.”
“May be so, measter,” returned the countryman; “but might I be so bold as to ax how many horses you used i’ the chase — some half-dozen, maybe?”
“Half a dozen!” growled Paterson; “we had twenty at the least.”
“And I ONE!” mentally ejaculated Turpin, for he was the countryman.
BOOK 5
THE OATH
It was an ill oath better broke than kept — The laws of nature, and of nations, do Dispense with matters of divinity In such a case.
Tateham.
CHAPTER 1
THE HUT ON THORNE WASTE
Hind. Are all our horses and our arms in safety?
Furbo. They feed, like Pluto’s palfreys, under ground. Our pistols, swords, and other furniture, Are safely locked up at our rendezvous.
Prince of Prigs’ Revels.
The hut on Thorne Waste, to which we have before incidentally alluded, and whither we are now about to repair, was a low, lone hovel, situate on the banks of the deep and oozy Don, at the eastern extremity of that extensive moor. Ostensibly its owner fulfilled the duties of ferryman to that part of the river; but as the road which skirted his tenement was little frequented, his craft was, for the most part, allowed to sleep undisturbed in her moorings.
In reality, however, he was the inland agent of a horde of smugglers who infested the neighboring coast; his cabin was their rendezvous; and not unfrequently, it was said, the depository of their contraband goods. Conkey Jem — so was he called by his associates, on account of the Slawkenbergian promontory which decorated his countenance — had been an old hand at the same trade; but having returned from a seven years’ leave of absence from his own country, procured by his lawless life, now managed matters with more circumspection and prudence, and had never since been detected in his former illicit traffic; nor, though so marvellously gifted in that particular himself, was he ever known to nose upon any of his accomplices; or, in other words, to betray them. On the contrary, his hut was a sort of asylum for all fugitives from justice; and although the sanctity of his walls would, in all probability, have been little regarded, had any one been, detected within them, yet, strange to say, even if a robber had been tracked — as it often chanced — to Jem’s immediate neighborhood, all traces of him were sure to be lost at the ferryman’s hut; and further search was useless.
Within, the hut presented such an appearance as might be expected, from its owner’s pursuits and its own unpromising exterior. Consisting of little more than a couple of rooms, the rude whitewashed walls exhibited, in lieu of prints of more pretension, a gallery of choicely-illustrated ballads, celebrating the exploits of various highwaymen, renowned in song, amongst which our friend Dick Turpin figured conspicuously upon his sable steed, Bess being represented by a huge rampant black patch, and Dick, with a pistol considerably longer than the arm that sustained it. Next to this curious collection was a drum-net, a fishing-rod, a landing-net, an eel-spear, and other piscatorial apparatus, with a couple of sculls and a boat-hook, indicative of Jem’s ferryman’s office, suspended by various hooks; the whole blackened and begrimed by peat-smoke, there being no legitimate means of exit permitted to the vapor generated by the turf-covered hearthstone. The only window, indeed, in the hut, was to the front; the back apartment, which served Jem for dormitory, had no aperture whatever for the admission of light, except such as was afforded through the door of communication between the rooms. A few broken rush-bottomed chairs, with a couple of dirty tables, formed the sum total of the ferryman’s furniture.
Notwithstanding the grotesque effect of his exaggerated nasal organ, Jem’s aspect was at once savage and repulsive; his lank black hair hung about his inflamed visage in wild elf locks, the animal predominating throughout; his eyes were small, red, and wolfish, and glared suspiciously from beneath his scarred and tufted eyebrows; while certain of his teeth projected, like the tusks of a boar, from out his coarse-lipped, sensual mouth. Dwarfish in stature, and deformed in person, Jem was built for strength; and what with his width of shoulder and shortness of neck, his figure looked as square and as solid as a cube. His throat and hirsute chest, constantly exposed to the weather, had acquired a glowing tan, while his arms, uncovered to the shoulders, and clothed with fur, like a bear’s hide, down, almost, to the tips of his fingers, presented a knot of folded muscles, the concentrated force of which few would have desired to encounter in action.
It was now on the stroke of midnight; and Jem, who had been lying extended upon the floor of his hovel, suddenly aroused by that warning impulse which never fails to awaken one of his calling at the exact moment when they require to be upon the alert, now set about fanning into flame the expiring fuel upon his hearth. Having succeeded in igniting further portions of the turf, Jem proceeded to examine the security of his door and window, and satisfied that lock and bolt were shot, and that the shutter was carefully closed, he kindled a light at his fire, and walked towards his bedroom. But it was not to retire for the night that the ferryman entered his dormitory. Beside his crazy couch stood a litter of empty bottles and a beer cask, crowding the chamber. The latter he rolled aside, and pressing his foot upon the plank beneath it, the board gave way, and a trap-door opening, discovered a ladder, conducting, apparently, into the bowels of the earth. Jem leaned over the abyss, and called in hoarse accents to some one below.
An answer was immediately returned, and a light became soon afterwards visible at the foot of the ladder. Two figures next ascended; the first who set foot within the ferryman’s chamber was Alan Rookwood: the other, as the reader may perhaps conjecture, was his grandson.
“Is it the hour?” asked Luke, as he sprang from out the trap-door.
“Ay,” replied Jem, with a coarse laugh, “or I had not disturbed myself to call you. But, maybe,” added he, softening his manner a little, “you’ll like some refreshments before you start? A stoup of Nantz will put you in cue for the job, ha, ha!”
“Not I,” replied Luke, who could ill tolerate
