James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Of the loud cry I gave I know nothing, beyond that it was a noise so loud that the horse gave a startled leap forward; and the next instant I was over the back of the cart, sprawling in the mud, and up again with a sensation as of a bruised face, but with a pair of legs, thank heaven! sound for running. And run I did; and all the faster that presently I heard a man’s voice, and the sound of other legs hastening after me.

It was Ned Perks’s voice.

“Come back; d’ye hear!” he bawled. “B——t yer young eyes, will yer come back when I call yer? I’ll twist yer infernal neck when I get hold on yer, if yer don’t shut up your jaws and stop.”

How could I stop? I had now no sort of doubt that Mr. Belcher and his companions were murderers; and when Ned Perks said that he would twist my neck, I fully believed him. I ran so fast that I had not much breath to spare for calling out; but to the best of my ability I so exerted myself, crying out “Murder!” as I went running and stumbling and splashing along the muddy country road. I ran so fast as to completely outstrip Mr. Perks; and, finding that he had no chance of overtaking me, he paused, and gave a whistle, and immediately afterwards I heard the well-known hoof-falls of the high-trotting mare coming in my direction. It was all over now! My speed was no match against that of the horse; so, quaking with fear, I scrambled into the narrow ditch that skirted the road, and lay flat down on my belly. There was water in the ditch, so that I had to rest on my elbows to keep my face out of it. Rank grass and weeds grew on either side so as to overhang me, and, wretched as was my plight, I rejoiced to think that I had a good chance of escaping their observation even if they searched for me.

After Ned Perks had whistled he still continued to run in the direction I had taken, and just when he had reached opposite to where I was concealed, Mr. Belcher came up in the cart.

“Got him?” asked he, eagerly, of Ned, at the same time pulling up.

“He can’t be far-off,—him,” growled Mr. Perks, too blown almost to speak. “He’s just about here. What the blazes was the matter with him? What did he take fright at, I wonder?”

“We must have him, Ned! we’re bound to have him or they’ll have us. The gaff’s blowed!”

“How d’ye mean blowed? who blowed it?” inquired Mr. Perks, in a tone of the greatest alarm.

“Who? Why, that cunnin’ whelp. Hunt about, Ned! D——l and all, we must get hold on him: when we do, we must put him past chirpin’. D’ye hear, Ned? What’s the use of standin’ there like a fool? he’ll be a mile ahead by this time.”

“It’s werry fine to say, ‘What’s the use o’ standin’ still,’ when a feller’s fairly bellust off his legs,” growled Mr. Perks. “How do yer know he means blowin’ on us? What call have yer got to think so?”

“Come and look for yourself, if yu don’t believe me; look here!”

And I could hear Ned put his foot on the cart-step to raise himself so that he might look into the vehicle, and at the same time a flash of light skimmed along the water in the ditch close to my face, showing that Mr. Belcher had unslid the screen from before the bull’s eye that Ned might see what the matter was.

“ Now what do you think?” asked Mr. Belcher.

Ned Perks jumped down from the cart-step.

“Come on,” said he, with a frightful oath; “you’re right when you say we’ve got to ketch him, guv’nor.”

“He’ll have to have his mouth shot, Ned: it’s no use ketchin’ him without we shets his mouth.”

“Don’t you trouble, guv’nor, I’ll settle him. You trot the mare and I’ll hold on and run behind. He can’t have got far; he must have been nearly baked when I left off runnin’ arter him, and this ain’t a road he’s likely to meet anybody at this time in the mornin.”

And, to my inexpressible relief, the advice Mr. Perks gave was immediately followed, and next moment I could hear the brown mare’s retreating steps.

But what was I to do? If I ran forward, I might overtake them; if I ran towards London, they would speedily overtake me. In a pretty pucker of indecision I rose reeking from the ditch and scrambled out to the road, and, as I did so, to my astonishment and alarm a man broke suddenly through a gap in the hedge, and, stepping across the ditch, laid a hand on my shoulder.

“What’s the row?” said he, gruffly.

He had a lantern with him, and as he spoke he let the full blaze of it fall upon me. By the same light I was enabled to get a sight of him, and I very much doubt, extraordinary as must have been the figure I cut with my sooty rags saturated with muddy water, and my face all bloody from my scramble out of the cart when I made the dreadful discovery, whether he was more amazed than I was at his appearance, attired as he was in a great shaggy coat, with a slouched hat, and a gun in his hand.

“What’s the row, my lad?” repeated he, still with his hand on my shoulder, but in a much kinder voice than he had at first spoken. “How came your face bloody? How came you in the ditch? Did them fellows in the cart put you there?”

My head was so full of horrors that at first sight I thought that the man with the gun could be nothing less than an assassin—a highway robber perhaps—who lurked hereabout to rob and shoot people. A glance at his honest-looking face, however, reassured me.

“They didn’t put me in the ditch, sir,” said I; “I got there out of their way, sir. Don’t let ’em get at me, please, sir. They’re a-goin to settle me if they ketches hold on me, as you might have heard them say if you was close enough.”

“Well, I thought I heard something of the sort,” replied the game-keeper—for such the reader has, of course, made out the man with the shaggy coat and the gun to be;—“but what are you tryin’ to get away from ’em, that’s what I want to know? What is it that they threaten to settle you for?”

“’Cos I’ve bowled ’em out, sir. I didn’t mean to do it—leastwise, I didn’t think that that was what I was a-doin’ when I did it—but I bowled ’em out, and they’re arter me to settle me ’cos they thinks as I’m goin’ to split on ’em.”

“Bowled ’em out in what? What game have they been up to? Poaching?”

“Wuss than that, sir,” I replied, a new fit of trembling assailing me as a picture of the awful white hand rose before me. “They’ve been up to murder.”

“What!”

“Murder, sir. They’ve got the man wot they murdered in the cart with ’em; he’s tied up in a sack. I seed his hand. That’s how I came to bowl ’em out”

The cart was not yet so far away but that in the silence of the night the noise made by its wheels could be faintly heard. The gamekeeper was in a state of tremendous excitement, which was momentarily increased by his indecision as to what was best to be done. His first idea was to run after the vehicle; indeed, he had taken a dozen strides before he saw the uselessness of such a proceeding.

“Got the murdered man’s body in the cart, young ’un—you’re sure of that? You saw it, you say?”

“I saw its hand. I cut a hole in the sack to see what was in it, and the hand fell out on mine.”

“I’m afraid it’s true as he tells it,” said the perplexed gamekeeper, half aloud, “it sounds true, but blessed if I know what to do.” Then, turning to me, said he—

“Since you know all about ’em, you can tell me where they are bound for, boy.”

“For London, sir—for Chicksand Street, Camberwell, sir—that’s where Mr. Belcher lives, sir.” “How do you make that out?” returned the man, suspiciously; “that last’s a lie, anyhow. They’re a-goin’ right away from London.”