Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

I stood as still as caution might make me, and watched as the boat pulled nearer, revealing with the additional passage of a few moments the figures of four men — two at the oars, and two bent over the cargo. Brandy kegs? Or crates of goods, as various as the peoples of the Continent?

The boat slid to shore; the oarsmen jumped into the sea, and dragged their vessel high up on the sand; and to my surprise, Seraphine gave a stifled cry, and stumbled towards the dory's gunnels, her hand over her mouth in horror.

And at that instant, a group of men rushed from the cliff's foot down the shingle's length, and hurled themselves on the boat — dragoons, I thought at first, with a pounding heart, come to attack the Reverend's proxy — but it was clear they were known to the boatmen, and further observation revealed them dressed as rough fisherfolk, their faces blackened with soot to defy discovery. One, however, I recognised, to my intense surprise — for Mr. Dagliesh, the bashful surgeon's assistant, stood by the mademoiselle's side, while his fellows exchanged places with the oarsmen, and turned the boat back out to sea. Whatever did it mean?

I could spare no more attention for the dory's progress, however, the bulk of my interest being claimed by Seraphine, who knelt in a red-cloaked huddle over the vessel's beached cargo — which was neither kegs nor caskets, but the figure of a man, and quite insensible, from his attitude. The mademoiselle's shaking shoulders betrayed her to be silently weeping; and my curiosity was not greater than the sympathy her sorrowful attitude aroused. Dagliesh dropped to her side, and busied himself in attending the man; and the boy Toby leaned upon his staves, silently watching, with head bowed. His mistress looked up, and asked a quick question of Dagliesh, which was as fluidly and unintelligibly answered; and if my ears did not betray me, both had spoken in French.

Some grave mishap had overcome the smuggler's crew, that much was certain; and a wounded man — perhaps a dead man — had been brought to shore, and a team dispatched to serve as relief. Had the cutter been pursued across the Channel's length? Had it been fired upon, even, and stopt only long enough to send its casualties into English safekeeping? I shook my head in consternation. Such things were past my understanding.

The huddle of folk about the still form suddenly fell into disarray; Seraphine, with a wringing of her hands, turned to seek the path up the cliff's face, with Toby hobbling in tow; and the oarsmen, taking up their burden with a grunt, hoisted the unknown fellow to their shoulders and moved off into the night. No light had they, but for Seraphine's lanthorn; and if the cutter had indeed been pursued, it seemed likely they should spurn illumination for the protective cover of darkness. What a lonely trudge they faced to High Down Grange! And still more disheartening a night's watch, perhaps, over a man with little life left in him!

I turned back to the cave's interior, intent upon retaining my seclusion until the sounds of the smugglers’ passage should have entirely died away, though my own spirits were so cast down, and my energy so sapped, that I should as lief have been gone on my own way home, the quicker to put the night's peculiarities behind me. The threat of discovery I could not entertain, however; and so I counseled myself in greater patience, and ignored the cold that crept beneath my gown, and hugged my arms closer about my person. I envied Seraphine the utility of her thick cloak, and saw that I had much to learn of midnight skulduggery.

Perhaps a quarter-hour had passed, and I felt myself to be quite alone, and had just arisen with limbs aching from the cold, and ventured to the cave's mouth — when the sound of laughter and a stumbling foot stopt me dead. 1 drew breath, a wave of fear unaccountably washing over me, and found the courage to peer once more into the night.

Neither Seraphine nor Toby, nor yet one of the men so recently disembarked upon the shingle; but two fellows, quite rough in appearance, and strangers to my eyes. As I watched, one raised a bottle to his lips and tottered backwards, unmanned by spirits or die slope of beach or both; the other gave forth a burst of raucous cheer, and sang a snatch of a sailor's chanty. I glanced wildly about, and felt too swiftly the idiocy of my position — how alone I had made myself, and how unlikely a cry for help should now draw forth any aid from the Grange above — and cursed my too-active curiosity. It shall be my very death, I am sure, before the passage of much more time.

I drew back swiftly to the cave's interior, awaiting with bated breath the men's progress down the shingle; and clenched involuntarily at the rock wall to my back. The voices were approaching, amidst the tramp of heavy feet; their purpose was certain, and unswayed by any diversion, despite the fog of spirits that hobbled them. And so with suspended breath, and hands thrust behind to break any fall, I began to step noiselessly back into the cave. For I knew with a certainty that the men's object was my very place of hiding — and that all flight to the fore should be impossible.

20 September 1804, cont.

A BEAM OF LIGHT DANCED IN THE CAVE'S MOUTH, AND I HELD MY breath, feeling my way backwards. One of the men — he who had earlier produced the bottle — had lit a lanthorn as they approached, and it was this that swung its welling arc of illumination ever closer to my feet. I took yet another step back, and felt my boot heel butt up against something hard — not the cave's nether wall, thank God, but the cool dampness of a very large boulder. I ducked around it, the better to afford myself protection, and found a narrow space behind just capable of admitting my form. Providence had not entirely abandoned me.

“Give us the bottle, Dickie boy,” said a high-pitched, sneering voice; and with a guttural oath, his companion complied. The chink of glass against the lanthorn's metal, as the spirits changed hands; and then the contemptible sound of liquid coursing down a vulgar throat. ‘? ‘ates the very sight o’ such dank and nasty places, I do. I still says we should'uv gone ‘round by the ‘igh road. It's perishin’ dark and wet in ‘ere.”

The Ianthorn's light careened wildly up the rock wall opposite, and I assumed that Dickie had cuffed his partner about the head — which supposition was confirmed not an instant later by a howl of pain.

“‘Ere, now, what's the cause o’ that?”

“I told you afore to shut up, Eb. Now shut up, I say. We've serious business above, and it's as much as our necks are worth, if the Reverend finds out.”

“‘E's not a-goin’ to find out,” the man called Eb rejoined, in a wounded tone, ‘less you tells ‘im, or I tells ‘im, and that's not a-goin’ to ‘appen. We're snug coves, and do things proper. Care for a nip?”

“Put it away and stow your gaff.” The light swung towards my place of hiding, and the tramp of feet approached; I could not prevent myself from cowering, I fear, in the recognition that I should be considered a terrible risk to the two, did they discover me. As the larger of the men — the one called Dick — passed within inches of my face, I closed my eyes in the certainty that I had been discovered; but he must have looked neither to the right nor the left, and eventually, the sound of footsteps ceased. I opened my eyes, but stayed still where I stood, my ears straining for the slightest sound.

The ring of metal on stone, and a lowering of the light; Dick had set the Ian thorn down. A grunt of exertion, and a stifled oath from Eb, and then the squeak of poorly-oiled hinges — the men had heaved open a door! A passage must exist, hewn through the very rock, and leading deep into the downs. My heartbeat quickened, for I knew the men should toil onwards, leaving the cavern in peace; and the way to freedom and the road for Lyme should be entirely at liberty.