CHAPTER XXVI.
The rogues were very merry on their booty. They said a thousand
things that showed the wickedness of their morals.---Gil Bias.
They fixed on a spot where they made a cave, which was large enough
to receive them and their horses. This cave was inclosed within a
sort of thicket of bushes and brambles. From this station they used
to issue, etc.---Memoirs of Richard Turpin.
It was not for several minutes after their flight had commenced that any
conversation passed between the robbers. Their horses flew on like wind;
and the country through which they rode presented to their speed no other
obstacle than an occasional hedge, or a short cut through the thicknesses
of some leafless beechwood. The stars lent them a merry light, and the
spirits of two of them at least were fully in sympathy with the
exhilaration of the pace and the air. Perhaps, in the third, a certain
presentiment that the present adventure would end less merrily than it
had begun, conspired, with other causes of gloom, to check that
exaltation of the blood which generally follows a successful exploit.
The path which the robbers took wound by the sides of long woods or
across large tracts of uncultivated land; nor did they encounter anything
living by the road, save now and then a solitary owl, wheeling its gray
body around the skirts of the bare woods, or occasionally troops of
conies, pursuing their sports and enjoying their midnight food in the
fields.
"Heavens!" cried the tall robber, whose incognito we need no longer
preserve, and who, as our readers are doubtless aware, answered to the
name of Pepper,--"heavens!" cried he, looking upward at the starry skies
in a sort of ecstasy, "what a jolly life this is! Some fellows like
hunting; d---it! what hunting is like the road? If there be sport in
hunting down a nasty fox, how much more is there in hunting down a nice,
clean nobleman's carriage! If there be joy in getting a brush, how much
more is there in getting a purse! If it be pleasant to fly over a hedge
in the broad daylight, hang me if it be not ten times finer sport to skim
it by night,--here goes! Look how the hedges run away from us! and the
silly old moon dances about, as if the sight of us put the good lady in
spirits! Those old maids are always glad to have an eye upon such fine,
dashing young fellows."
"Ay," cried the more erudite and sententious Augustus Tomlinson, roused
by success from his usual philosophical sobriety; "no work is so pleasant
as night-work, and the witches our ancestors burned were in the right to
ride out on their broomsticks with the awls and the stars. We are their
successors now, Ned. We are your true fly-by-nights!"
"Only," quoth Ned, "we are a cursed deal more clever than they were; for
they played their game without being a bit the richer for it, and we--I
say, Tomlinson, where the devil did you put that red morocco case?"
"Experience never enlightens the foolish," said Tomlinson, "or you would
have known, without asking, that I had put it in the very safest pocket
in my coat. 'Gad, how heavy it is!
"Well," cried Pepper, "I can't say I wish it were lighter! Only think of
our robbing my lord twice, and on the same road too!"
"I say, Lovett," exclaimed Tomlinson, "was it not odd that we should have
stumbled upon our Bath friend so unceremoniously? Lucky for us that we
are so strict in robbing in masks! He would not have thought the better
of Bath company if he had seen our faces."
Lovett, or rather Clifford, had hitherto been silent. He now turned
slowly in his saddle, and said: "As it was, the poor devil was very
nearly despatched. Long Ned was making short work with him, if I had not
interposed!"
"And why did you?" said Ned.
"Because I will have no killing; it is the curse of the noble art of our
profession to have passionate professors like thee."
"Passionate!" repeated Ned. "Well, I am a little choleric, I own it;
but that is not so great a fault on the road as it would be in
housebreaking. I don't know a thing that requires so much coolness and
self-possession as cleaning out a house from top to bottom,--quietly and
civilly, mind you!"
"That is the reason, I suppose, then," said Augustus, "that you
altogether renounced that career. Your first adventure was house
breaking, I think I have heard you say. I confess it was a vulgar
debut,--not worthy of you!"
"No! Harry Cook seduced me; but the specimen I saw that night disgusted
me of picking locks; it brings one in contact with such low companions.
Only think, there was a merchant, a rag-merchant, one of the party!"
"Faugh!" said Tomlinson, in solemn disgust.
"Ay, you may well turn up your lip; I never broke into a house again."
"Who were your other companions?" asked Augustus. "Only Harry Cook,
--[A noted highwayman.]--and a very singular woman--"
Here Ned's narrative was interrupted by a dark defile through a wood,
allowing room for only one horseman at a time. They continued this
gloomy path for several minutes, until at length it brought them to the
brink of a large dell, overgrown with bushes, and spreading around
somewhat in the form of a rude semicircle. Here the robbers dismounted,
and led their reeking horses down the descent. Long Ned, who went first,
paused at a cluster of bushes, which seemed so thick as to defy
intrusion, but which, yielding on either side to the experienced hand of
the robber, presented what appeared the mouth of a cavern. A few steps
along the passage of this gulf brought them to a door, which, even seen
by torchlight, would have appeared so exactly similar in colour and
material to the rude walls on either side as to have deceived any
unsuspecting eye, and which, in the customary darkness brooding over it,
might have remained for centuries undiscovered. Touching a secret latch,
the door opened, and the robbers were in the secure precincts of the "Red
Cave." It may be remembered that among the early studies of our
exemplary hero the memoirs of Richard Turpin had formed a conspicuous
portion; and it may also be remembered that in the miscellaneous
adventures of that gentleman nothing had more delighted the juvenile
imagination of the student than the description of the forest cave in
which the gallant Turpin had been accustomed to conceal himself, his
friend, his horse,
"And that sweet saint who lay by Turpin's side;"
or, to speak more domestically, the respectable Mrs. Turpin. So strong
a hold, indeed, had that early reminiscence fixed upon our hero's mind,
that no sooner had he risen to eminence among his friends than he had put
the project of his childhood into execution. He had selected for the
scene of his ingenuity an admirable spot. In a thinly peopled country,
surrounded by commons and woods, and yet, as Mr. Robins would say if he
had to dispose of it by auction, "within an easy ride" of populous and
well-frequented roads, it possessed all the advantages of secrecy for
itself and convenience for depredation. Very few of the gang, and those
only who had been employed in its construction, were made acquainted with
the secret of this cavern; and as our adventurers rarely visited it, and
only on occasions of urgent want or secure concealment, it had continued
for more than two years undiscovered and unsuspected.
The cavern, originally hollowed by nature, owed but little to the
decorations of art; nevertheless, the roughness of the walls was
concealed by a rude but comfortable arras of matting; four or five of
such seats as the robbers themselves could construct were drawn around a
small but bright wood-fire, which, as there was no chimney, spread a thin
volume of smoke over the apartment. The height of the cave, added to the
universal reconciler (custom), prevented, however, this evil from being
seriously unpleasant; and, indeed, like the tenants of an Irish cabin,
perhaps the inmates attached a degree of comfort to a circumstance which
was coupled with their dearest household associations. A table, formed
of a board coarsely planed, and supported by four legs of irregular size,
made equal by the introduction of blocks or wedges between the legs and
the floor, stood warming its uncouth self by the fire. At one corner a
covered cart made a conspicuous article of furniture, no doubt useful
either in conveying plunder or provisions; beside the wheels were
carelessly thrown two or three coarse carpenter's tools, and the more
warlike utilities of a blunderbuss, a rifle, and two broadswords. In the
other corner was an open cupboard, containing rows of pewter platters,
mugs, etc. Opposite the fireplace, which was to the left of the
entrance, an excavation had been turned into a dormitory; and fronting
the entrance was a pair of broad, strong wooden steps, ascending to a
large hollow about eight feet from the ground. This was the entrance to
the stables; and as soon as their owners released the reins of the
horses, the docile animals proceeded one by one leisurely up the steps,
in the manner of quadrupeds educated at the public seminary of Astley's,
and disappeared within the aperture.
These steps, when drawn up,--which, however, from their extreme
clumsiness, required the united strength of two ordinary men, and was not
that instantaneous work which it should have been,--made the place above
a tolerably strong hold; for the wall was perfectly perpendicular and
level, and it was only by placing his hands upon the ledge, and so
lifting himself gymnastically upward, that an active assailant could have
reached the eminence,--a work which defenders equally active, it may
easily be supposed, would not be likely to allow.
This upper cave--for our robbers paid more attention to their horses than
themselves, as the nobler animals of the two species--was evidently
fitted up with some labour. The stalls were rudely divided, the litter
of dry fern was clean, troughs were filled with oats, and a large tub had
been supplied from a pond at a little distance. A cart-harness and some
old wagoners' frocks were fixed on pegs to the wall; while at the far end
of these singular stables was a door strongly barred, and only just large
enough to admit the body of a man. The confederates had made it an
express law never to enter their domain by this door, or to use it,
except for the purpose of escape, should the cave ever be attacked; in
which case, while one or two defended the entrance from the inner cave,
another might unbar the door, and as it opened upon the thickest part of
the wood, through which with great ingenuity a labyrinthine path had been
cut, not easily tracked by ignorant pursuers, these precautions of the
highwaymen had provided a fair hope of at least a temporary escape from
any invading enemies.
Such were the domestic arrangements of the Red Cave; and it will be
conceded that at least some skill had been shown in the choice of the
spot, if there were a lack of taste in its adornments.
While the horses were performing their nightly ascent, our three heroes,
after securing the door, made at once to the fire. And there, O reader!
they were greeted in welcome by one--an old and revered acquaintance of
thine--whom in such a scene it will equally astound and wound thee to
re-behold.
Know, then--But first we will describe to thee the occupation and the
garb of the August personage to whom we allude. Bending over a large
gridiron, daintily bespread with steaks of the fatted rump, the
INDIVIDUAL stood, with his right arm bared above the elbow, and his right
hand grasping that mimic trident known unto gastronomers by the
monosyllable "fork." His wigless head was adorned with a cotton
nightcap. His upper vestment was discarded, and a whitish apron flowed
gracefully down his middle man. His stockings were ungartered, and
permitted between the knee and the calf interesting glances of the rude
carnal. One list shoe and one of leathern manufacture cased his ample
feet. Enterprise, or the noble glow of his present culinary profession,
spread a yet rosier blush over a countenance early tinged by generous
libations, and from beneath the curtain of his pallid eyelashes his large
and rotund orbs gleamed dazzlingly on the new comers. Such, O reader!
was the aspect and the occupation of the venerable man whom we have long
since taught thee to admire; such, alas for the mutabilities of earth!
was--A new chapter only can contain the name.
