The Firm of Girdlestone by Arthur Conan Doyle (epub ebook reader txt) 📕

"There's water, sir, in that bucket. Maybe you would like a bit o' plaster to bind up the cut?"

"It's not bad enough for that," said the merchant hastily.

"I'll leave you here," the fisherman remarked. "There's much to be done down theer. You'll have poor feedin' I'm afraid; biscuits and water and bully beef."

"Never mind that. Hurry up all you can." The man tramped away down to the beach, and Ezra remained with his father in the hut. The old man washed his hands very carefully, and poured the stained water away outside the door.

"How are you going to pay this man?" he asked.

"I have some money sewed up in my waistcoat," Ezra answered. "I wasn't such a fool as not to know that a crash might come at any moment. I was determined that all should not go to the creditors."

"How much have you?"

"What's that to you?" Ezra asked angrily. "You mind your own affairs. The money's mine, since I have saved it. It's quite enough if I spend part of it in helping you away."

"I don't dispute it, my boy," the old merchant said meekly. "It's a blessing that you had the foresight to secure it. Are you thinking of making for France now?"

"France! Pshaw, man, the telegraph would have set every gendarme on the coast on the look-out. No, no, that would be a poor hope of safety!"

"Where then?"

"Where is the fisherman?" asked Ezra suspiciously, peering out from the door into the darkness. "No one must know our destination. We'll pick up Migg's ship, the Black Eagle, in the Downs. She was to have gone down the Thames to-day, and to lie at Gravesend, and then to work round to the Downs, where she will be to-morrow. It will be a Sunday, so no news can get about. If we get away with him they will lose all trace of us. We'll get him to land up upon the Spanish coast. I think it will fairly puzzle the police. No doubt they are watching every station on the line by this time. I wonder what has become of Burt?"

"I trust that they will hang him," John Girdlestone cried, with a gleam of his old energy. "If he had taken the ordinary precaution of making sure who the girl was, this would never have occurred."

"Don't throw the blame on him," said Ezra bitterly. "Who was it who kept us all up to it whenever we wished to back out? If it had not been for you, who would have thought of it?"

"I acted for the best," cried the old man, throwing his hands up with a piteous gesture. "You should be the last to upbraid me. It was the dream of leaving you rich and honoured which drove me on. I was prepared to do anything for that end."

"You have always excellent intentions," his son said callously.
"They have a queer way of showing themselves, however. Look out, here's
Sampson!"

As he spoke they heard the crunching of the fisherman's heavy boots on the shingle, and he looked in, with his ruddy face all shining with the salt water.

"We're all ready now, sirs," he said. "Jarge and I will get into our oil duds, and then we can lock up the shop. It'll have to take care of itself until we come back."

The two gentlemen walked down to the edge of the sea. There was a little dinghy there, and the boat was anchored a couple of hundred yards off. They could just make out the loom of her through the darkness, and see her shadowy spars, dipping, rising, and falling with the wash of the waves. To right and left spread the long white line of thundering foam, as though the ocean were some great beast of prey which was gnashing its glistening teeth at them. The gale had partially died away, but there still came fitful gusts from the south-west, and the thick clouds overhead were sweeping in a majestic procession across the sky, and falling like a dark cataract over the horizon, showing that up there at least there was no lull in the tempest. It was bitterly cold, and both men buttoned up their coats and slapped their hands against each other to preserve their warmth.

After some little delay, Sampson and his son came down from the hut with a lantern in each of their hands. They had locked the door behind them, which showed that they were ready for a final start. By the lights which they carried it could be seen that they were dressed in yellow suits of oilskin and sou'wester hats, as if prepared for a wet night.

"You ain't half dressed for a cruise of this kind," Sampson said.
"You'll be nigh soaked through, I fear."

"That's our look-out," answered Ezra. "Let us get off."

"Step in, sir, and we'll get in after."

The dinghy was shoved off into the surf, and the two seamen clambered in after. Ezra and his father sat in the sheets, while the others rowed. The sea was running very high—so high that when the dinghy lay in the trough of a wave they could see neither the boat for which they were steering nor the shore which they had left—nothing indeed but the black line of hissing water above their heads. At times they would go up until they hung on the crest of a great roller and saw the dark valleys gaping beyond into which they were forthwith precipitated. Sometimes, when they were high upon a wave, the fishing-boat would be between the seas, and then there would be nothing of her visible except the upper portion of her mast. It was only a couple of hundred yards, but seemed a long journey to the shivering fugitives.

"Stand by with the boat-hook!" Sampson cried at last. The dark outline of the boat was looming immediately above them.

"All right, father."

The dinghy was held alongside, and the two gentlemen scrambled aboard as best they could, followed by their companions.

"Have you the painter, Jarge?"

"Ay, ay."

"Make it fast aft then!"

The lad fastened the rope which held the dinghy to a stanchion beside the tiller. Then he and his father proceeded to hoist the foresail so as to get the boat's head round.

"She'll do now," Sampson cried. "Give us a hand here, sir, if you don't mind."

Ezra caught hold of the rope which was handed him and pulled for some time. It was a relief to him to have something, however small, which would distract his mind from the events of the night.

"That will do, sir," the skipper cried, and, leaning over the bows, he seized the anchor which Ezra had hauled up, and tumbled it with a crash on the deck.

"Now, Jarge, with three reefs in her we might give her the mains'le."

With much pulling at ropes and with many strange nautical cries the father and the son, aided by their passengers, succeeded in raising the great brown sail. The little vessel lay over under the pressure of the wind until her lee bulwark was flush with the water, and the deck lay at such an angle that it was only by holding on to the weather rigging that the two gentlemen could retain their footing. The wild waves swirled and foamed round her bows, and beat at her quarter and beneath her counter, but the little boat rose gallantly to them, and shot away through the storm, running due eastward.

"It ain't much of a cabin," Sampson said apologetically. "Such as it is, you'll find it down there."

"Thank you," answered Ezra; "we'll stay on deck at present. When ought we to get to the Downs?"

"At this rate we'll be there by to-morrow afternoon."

"Thank you."

The fisherman and his boy took turn and turn, one steering and the other keeping a look-out forward and trimming the sails. The two passengers crouched huddled together against the weather rail. They were each too occupied with thought to have time for speech. Suddenly, after passing Claxton and rounding the point, they came in full sight of the Priory, every window of which was blazing with light. They could see dark figures passing to and fro against the glare.

"Look there," Girdlestone whispered.

"Ay, the police have not taken long," his son answered. John Girdlestone was silent for some time. Then he suddenly dropped his face upon his hands, and sobbed hoarsely for the first and last time in his career.

"I am thinking of Monday in Fenchurch Street," he said. "My God! is this the end of a life of hard work! Oh, my business, my business, that I built up myself! It will break my heart!"

And so through the long cold winter's night they sat together while the boat ploughed its way down the English Channel. Who shall say what their thoughts were as they stared with pale, rigid faces into the darkness, while their minds, perhaps, peered even more cheerlessly into the dismal obscurity which lay over their future. Better be the lifeless wreck whom they have carried up to the Priory, than be torn as these men are torn, by the demons of fear and remorse and grief, and crushed down by the weight of a sin-stained and irrevocable past.

The ruffian Burt was so horror-stricken at the sight of the girl whom he imagined that he had murdered, that he lay grovelling on the railway lines by the side of his victim, moaning with terror, and incapable of any resistance. He was promptly seized by the major's party, and the Nihilist secured his hands with a handkerchief so quickly and effectively that it was clearly not the first time that he had performed the feat. He then calmly drew a very long and bright knife from the recesses of his frock-coat, and having pressed it against Burt's nose to ensure his attention, he brandished it in front of him in a menacing way, as a hint that an attempt at escape might be dangerous.

"And who is dis?" asked Baumser, lifting up the dead woman's head, and resting it upon his knee.

"Poor girl! She will niver spake again, whoever she may have been," the major said, holding the lantern to her cold pale face. "Here's where the cowards struck her. Death must have been instantaneous and painless. I could have sworn it was the young lady we came afther, if it were not that we have her safe down there, thank the Lord!"

"Vere are those oders?" asked Von Baumser, peering about through the darkness. "If dere is justice in de country, dey vill hang for the work of dis night."

"They are off," the major answered, laying the girl's head reverently down again. "It's hopeless to follow them, as we know nothing of the counthry, nor which direction they took. They ran like madmen. Hullo! What the divil can this be?"

The sight which had attracted the veteran's attention was nothing less than the appearance at the end of the lane of three brilliant luminous discs moving along abreast of one another. They came rapidly nearer, increasing in brilliancy as they approached. Then a voice rang out of the darkness, "There they are, officers! Close with them! Don't let 'em get away!" And before the major and his party could quite grasp the situation they were valiantly charged by three of those much-enduring, stout-hearted mortals known as the British police force.

It takes courage to plunge into the boiling surf and to carry the rope to the breaking vessel. It takes courage to spring from the ship's side and support the struggling swimmer, never knowing the moment at which a flickering shadow may appear in the deep green water, and the tiger of the deep turn its white belly upwards as it dashes on its prey. There is courage too in the infantryman who takes a sturdy grip of his rifle and plants his feet firmly as he sees the Lancers sweeping