The Nipper, page 14
But now the nearer they came to the house the slower became their progress, for they were in gardens with ornamental trees all around, some, cut out like great beasts, merged with the fast approaching darkness and had a terrifying appearance. Now they were threading their way through a rose garden and the perfume came to him in waves and he thought he had never smelt anything like it in his life. On, on, he urged The Nipper until they were clear of the gardens, and there before him stretched a great lawn, and above it was perched the House. Across the lawn, up four shallow steps, and onto a wide drive, and now he pulled The Nipper to a stop and as the pony snorted loudly and eased its lungs, he patted it soothingly and said, ‘Good lad. Clever lad,’ while he gazed about him.
The strange thing was he couldn’t see a human being, yet the whole drive and as far as he could see into the stable yard held carriages and coaches, all with their shafts at an angle resting on the ground, which told him that the visitors inside the house had been there some time, for their horses had been stabled.
Sliding stiffly from The Nipper’s back, he then led him between two of the carriages. He reached up and pulled a strap from the high seat of one of them and, having first put it round The Nipper’s neck, attached it to the handle of the door; then saying hastily, ‘Stay now. Stay. I’ll be back,’ he dodged between the rest of the lifeless carriages and made for the front steps of the House.
He realised now why there was no-one about, for at the Harvest Supper Farmer Blyth’s yard had also looked like this, only in a less fine way and with fewer carriages. Once the horses were seen to, everybody went to eat in the barn; later, the farmhands went into the stables and had their own jollification, while the farmer and his personal friends had theirs in the house. This was what was happening here only on a grand scale, and he was lucky it was so, for he considered even one coachman would have been a tough nut to crack.
He was halfway up the steps when he stopped. The doors of the house were wide open and he was looking onto a scene the like of which he had never even dreamed about. He had never imagined there was so much colour in the world. He had seen the fells covered with heather; he had seen woods in snowdrifts of wood anemones; and he had seen banks drifting with bluebells like sea waves; but all that was dull to what he was looking on now. There were ladies dressed in gold, which colour seemed brighter than the sun, and green velvets that put young grass to shame; there were violets and soft pinks that you sometimes glimpsed streaking a wet sky when the sun came out after a storm; and all about there were shining, laughing faces.
Slowly he mounted another two steps and saw the ladies moving as if in procession across the hallway to a far door, and their laughter and voices came to him like tinkling music.
Two lackeys dressed handsomely in blue and grey cord suits with white stockings passed across his eye level. One man’s stockings, he saw, had yellow garters. He rose another slow step for his amazement had for the moment shut down all thought in his mind except that for the scene on which he was looking. He was in the outer hall now and walking slowly towards the main door, and the grandeur of the hall lifted his eyes upwards to the glistening candelabra, where hundreds of candles flickered, then swiftly down to a door to the right of him from which were emerging two more lackeys bearing great silver trays on which were the remains of food.
He had actually taken four steps into the hall before anyone saw him, and then it was one of the servants who were carrying the trays, and the tray shook in the man’s hand as he cried to the man with the gold coloured gaiters, ‘Mr Banner! Mr Banner! Look!’ When the butler turned and saw Sandy his astonishment stretched his face, then swelled his body with indignation, which checked his speech for a moment. But now, advancing on Sandy, his voice low and threatening, he muttered, ‘How did you get in here? Get out! Out this instant! Portman!’ He turned to a footman. ‘Get this creature…’
His words were now cut off by Sandy, who seeming to come alive again to the urgency of his presence here yelled at the top of his voice, ‘I’ll not! I’ll not! I must see the master. You’re in danger. You’re all in danger. You’re going to be blown up…BLOWN UP.’
There were hands on him now, seemingly dozens of hands. He was being borne towards the door, and he struggled and kicked and tore at the hands while he yelled, ‘I tell you, they’re goin’ to blow the house up, the miners. The miners, they’re going to blow the house up.’
The word miners seemed to re-echo round the hall and it brought to a stop the remainder of the ladies who were going into the drawing room. It brought the dining-room door bursting open and a tall figure came striding out, demanding in outraged tones, ‘What is this! What is this! Banner! What is the meaning of this?’
The butler, panting and standing aside, straightened his coat while pointing to his underlings who were holding Sandy as if he were a wild bull, and he said, ‘It’s regrettable, sir, it’s regrettable…’
The tall man glared at Sandy and ground out through clenched teeth, ‘Get rid of him immediately.’
‘Sir! Sir! They’re goin’ to blow your house up. There’s not much time, you’ll all be killed. Sir! Sir!’
‘Shut up you!’ There was a hand clapped across his mouth, and he was forced backwards and he felt himself being dragged from the room, his bare heels pulling up rugs as he went, when the progress was suddenly halted by a voice thundering, ‘Stay! Stay!’
Now he found himself being pushed upwards onto his feet again but with his head held painfully back as one of the lackeys gripped his hair. He gazed up at the face above him and in spite of the excruciating pain in his neck he appealed to it, ‘Please. Please, sir, believe me. They’re goin’ to blow up the house. It…it could happen any minute; they’re underneath’—he tried to indicate the floor—‘with gunpowder. I, I tried to tell you afore…’
Now there was another face looking at him. This he recognised as the girl’s who had used her whip on him, and, her voice low, she said, ‘Father, this…this is the boy I told you about who stopped the gig; he…he was trying to tell me something then. I…I didn’t understand what he said.’
‘Let him go!’ On the command, Sandy was free and standing upright, and he stood for a moment rubbing his neck and looking at the great circle of faces about him; then with a sudden movement he stepped close to the tall man and his words tumbled over each other as he said, ‘Please, sir, please, clear the house. I don’t know how much time you’ve got, they’re…they’re goin’ to do it when it’s dark. It’—he flung his hand back towards the open door—‘it’s almost that now. Another ten minutes, fifteen. Please, please sir, believe me.’
‘Follow me!’ The tall man now hurried through the throng of men surrounding the dining-room door; then, stopping abruptly, he called the butler to him and said quietly, ‘Just in case, be prepared to get the ladies out onto the lawn.’ He then went further into the dining room, pushing Sandy before him now, the men following.
The room seemed full of men, ten or more, handsomely dressed, forbidding men, masters all. But Sandy didn’t look at them. Quickly he scanned the large room. There was the fireplace. He dodged past the men and ran towards it, and looked from one side of the great wooden frame to the other, where on each side panel a large boar’s head was carved; and now turning to the master of the house, he cried, ‘It’s…it’s behind here, sir, the…the secret room.’
‘Secret room? What are you talking about, boy?’
‘There’s a secret room behind here, sir, and it runs over the kitchen and partly under here’—he pointed to the floor—‘and your parlour.’
‘Secret room?’ There was murmuring among the men, and one coming forward, said, ‘There is a secret room here, William,’ and Sir William Combe Stockwell turned on him abruptly, saying, ‘That was blocked up years ago, filled in, before our time here. The entrance was above a cupboard in the kitchen quarters. It’s roofed in with solid stone—it’s there for you to see—and I understand the place itself was filled in. I’ve never heard of any other secret room.’
‘Sir! Sir! I can show you, the boar’s head.’
‘The boar’s head?’
‘Yes, sir, up the nose. That’s where the spring is.’ Sandy looked from one side to the other, stumped now, for the two heads were exactly alike. But he dashed to the right side one first and, thrusting his fingers up the boar’s nostrils, he pressed and looked upwards to see if the panel moved. But nothing happened. When he turned they were all staring at him. He now ran to the other side of the fireplace, almost, in his haste, tripping over the huge iron firedogs that held the dead logs of wood. Now he was pressing his fingers up these two nostrils, and he almost laughed with sheer relief and nervousness as he felt the springs give; then before his eyes the panel began to move.
They were all about him, almost smothering him as they stared into the darkness beyond, but no-one said a word for a moment until Sir William startled them all by crying to the man next to him, ‘Get them out, Braintree! Everybody, everybody. Quickly!’
‘You mean clear the whole house?’
‘Yes, yes; if the boy’s right about this he could be right about the rest…get them out.’
There was a scampering now towards the door, not only by Mr Braintree but also by most of the rest of the company. Only three men stayed besides Sir William, and he turned to the first one and said, ‘Bring the candelabra, Conisbie.’ He pointed to the table.
At this stage the young girl came rushing up the room, crying, ‘Father! Father!’ and he shouted at her angrily, ‘Get away, child! Take your mama and get out.’
‘But Father…’
‘Get out! Do as you’re bid, instantly!’
There was great commotion coming from the hall now. No longer were the voices filled with laughter like tinkling music, there were now only squeals and cries of alarm.
As one of the men swiftly led the young girl from the room the master called a servant to him and said something about a gun. Seconds later the servant came running and handed his master a pistol.
The man called Conisbie had two candelabra in his hands now, each holding six candles, and Sir William, taking one from him, held it above his head and bent forward to peer into the darkness beyond. Then turning his head towards Sandy he said sharply, ‘Get inside!’ and Sandy, after swallowing his spittle, went forward into the room and Sir William followed him. After them came the man called Braintree and another whom the master addressed as Farrington.
The room was illuminated now and Sandy saw it in its entirety for the first time.
‘Well, this is something.’ It was Farrington speaking. ‘Who would have thought of this? You know I…I’ve heard tell of a passage…’
Sir William’s voice cut him short now, saying, ‘More of that later. Where are the explosives, boy?’
‘They must be under there, sir.’ He was pointing to the hole that led under the floors when Mr Braintree cried, ‘Look there!’ and whipping the candelabrum from Mr Conisbie’s hand and going further into the room he bent down, and the light from the candles revealed three uneven lines of gunpowder leading to the hole that Sandy had indicated.
‘My God!’ It was a concerted exclamation from the men.
‘God in heaven!’
‘What’s to be done?’
The voices were all around; they seemed for the moment to be unaware of the obvious, that in breaking the trail of gunpowder they would eliminate the danger. It had also escaped Sandy for the moment, until, looking up the passage that led from the room, he saw in the far distance a creeping light. His voice breaking on a high note, he cried, ‘They’ve…they’ve set it, the fuse. Scatter the powder!’ He was now rubbing his feet over the lines. Then, whipping off his coat, he ran from them and along the passage and threw it over the fast creeping flames, beating at it with his hands. Then there were others doing the same. The passage seemed packed to suffocation with the four of them, and one man kept repeating all the time, ‘My God! My God! What an escape.’
When the fuses were extinguished, Sir William, turning to Sandy and his voice laden with awe, said ‘Boy, what we owe you!’ The others murmured, ‘Indeed! Indeed!’
There was silence in the passage for a moment, until one of the men exclaimed, ‘They can’t be far, the rascals can’t be far.’
‘Come on, let’s get them!’ It was the voice of Mr Farrington, and Sandy looked at the man. He was young, younger than Tom Fitzsimmons; he was beautifully dressed, almost foppishly so, but there was no foppishness about his manner, and Sir William echoed him, saying, ‘Yes, yes. Lead the way, boy. Lead the way.’
But Sandy remained still. The danger was over, nobody was to be killed, and in this moment he did not want Big Mullen and his pals to be caught for that would mean the gibbet for them. He thought of Stan. Whatever happened to Big Mullen would affect Sam. He tried to stall any move along the passage by saying ‘Well, it’s over now, sir, you’re all safe.’
‘It isn’t over, boy.’ The face of the master looked stern again. ‘It’ll never be over while there are villains like this at large. Those men knew what they were doing; they meant to blow up my house, and but for you, boy, they would have achieved their evil purpose. Do you know how many people were in this house tonight? Twenty-six guests besides the servants. Just think, boy, just think. And now, as you seem to be acquainted with this route, lead the way.’
There was nothing for it but to go forward. But just before they started Sir William said, ‘Go back, Braintree, will you and tell them it’s all right, the danger’s over. And send Portman and Fawcett down, and one or two of the others. Tell them to hurry along after us. Who knows, we may need assistance.’
When they reached the crevasse in the rock, Sandy looked back. There were still only two men besides the master following, the one called Farrington, and the other, Conisbie. In the ordinary way he knew they wouldn’t have a chance against Big Mullen, John Felton and the other two, but the master had a pistol. Yet there was nothing for it, he had to go on. But no; he stayed their progress for a few minutes when, a thought coming into his head, he stopped abruptly and said, more to himself than to them, ‘The Nipper, he’s back there.’
‘The who?’
‘The Nipper, the pony that I came on.’
‘Oh.’ Sir William tossed his head impatiently. ‘He’ll be all right, boy.’
‘But sir, he doesn’t like to be handled by anybody else but me.’
‘Boy!’ The master was trying to keep the impatience from his voice. ‘We have more important things to think about at the present moment than your pony. Go on, lead the way.’
They passed through the crevasse and continued along the passage, but although they stopped and listened several times there was no sound of anyone running ahead, only the silence of their own breathing. That was until they came near the end of the passage and in sight of the trapdoor. Sandy lifted up his hand, then pointed, and when the candelabrum was held high it shone on the sloping slab, and from beyond this there came the sound of murmuring voices.
Sandy, reluctantly, was about to stand on the stones and reach upwards when Sir William put out his hand and pressed him aside, and he himself climbed the stones and slowly put his head through the trapdoor. Then, his movements surprisingly agile for so big a man, Sandy saw him swing himself upwards and through the hole and heard his voice, crying, ‘Hold! Make a move any of you and I’ll blow your brains out.’
Sandy was the last to scramble upwards; he didn’t hurry his entry for he didn’t want to face Big Mullen and his pals. They were bad men, he knew they were bad men; still, he was reluctant to prove to them that he was the means of sending them to the gibbet.
Pulling himself up from the floor he stood with his head bowed; then it jerked up so rapidly that he felt a painful kink in his neck for there, kneeling on the floor by Tom Fitzsimmons’s side, was his mother, and a little way off, looking down on the prostrate form of Big Mullen, was Stan.
He pushed past the master of the Manor and the other two men and shouting, ‘Ma! Ma!’ he dropped onto his knees beside her, and she put her arms around him as she gabbled, ‘Oh boy! Boy! Oh, thank God!’
‘What happened, Ma? What happened?’
‘We were too late, though we met Tom here on the road,’ she said. ‘He was coming to see us. We came straight on up. They were just coming out. Tom fought with Big Mullen. One of the others had a gun. He went to shoot Tom. The bullet grazed his shoulder’—she pointed down to Tom’s blood-soaked shirt, and added softly—‘then caught Big Mullen, full on.’
Sandy looked at Stan. His head was bowed on his chest as he looked down on the contorted but very still form.
The three men from the Manor moved forward now and Sandy, getting to his feet, said, ‘This is my mother, sir, and our friend, Mr Fitzsimmons. An’ my pal.’ He pointed towards Stan. ‘We arranged that they should try to stop them this way if…if I failed to get into your house.’
‘What is the name of that man?’ Sir William Stockwell asked now, pointing down to the figure of Big Mullen, and before Sandy could say anything Stan lifted his stiff white face towards the master and said bitterly, ‘Mullen; and he’s my father.’
The master was now looking from Stan to Sandy, and he said, ‘You say this boy is a friend of yours?’
‘Yes, sir. I…I can explain it, sir. He…he tried to stop his da. If it hadn’t been for him I…I would never have reached your house the night.’ This wasn’t exactly true but in this moment Sandy knew he had to place Stan in good stead with the owner of the mine. Stan was a pitman too and it would be hard for anyone to believe that a boy would go against his father, especially a man like Big Mullen.
‘There’s more to this than meets the eye.’ Sir William turned now and, thrusting his pistol into the back pocket of his tailcoat, he said, ‘And this man?’
Tom was now struggling to his feet. He was dazed, not so much from the skin wound, but from a blow on the head he had received from Mike Casey when he was struggling with Big Mullen. He held his head now as he said slowly, ‘What the boy says is true, sir.’
The strange thing was he couldn’t see a human being, yet the whole drive and as far as he could see into the stable yard held carriages and coaches, all with their shafts at an angle resting on the ground, which told him that the visitors inside the house had been there some time, for their horses had been stabled.
Sliding stiffly from The Nipper’s back, he then led him between two of the carriages. He reached up and pulled a strap from the high seat of one of them and, having first put it round The Nipper’s neck, attached it to the handle of the door; then saying hastily, ‘Stay now. Stay. I’ll be back,’ he dodged between the rest of the lifeless carriages and made for the front steps of the House.
He realised now why there was no-one about, for at the Harvest Supper Farmer Blyth’s yard had also looked like this, only in a less fine way and with fewer carriages. Once the horses were seen to, everybody went to eat in the barn; later, the farmhands went into the stables and had their own jollification, while the farmer and his personal friends had theirs in the house. This was what was happening here only on a grand scale, and he was lucky it was so, for he considered even one coachman would have been a tough nut to crack.
He was halfway up the steps when he stopped. The doors of the house were wide open and he was looking onto a scene the like of which he had never even dreamed about. He had never imagined there was so much colour in the world. He had seen the fells covered with heather; he had seen woods in snowdrifts of wood anemones; and he had seen banks drifting with bluebells like sea waves; but all that was dull to what he was looking on now. There were ladies dressed in gold, which colour seemed brighter than the sun, and green velvets that put young grass to shame; there were violets and soft pinks that you sometimes glimpsed streaking a wet sky when the sun came out after a storm; and all about there were shining, laughing faces.
Slowly he mounted another two steps and saw the ladies moving as if in procession across the hallway to a far door, and their laughter and voices came to him like tinkling music.
Two lackeys dressed handsomely in blue and grey cord suits with white stockings passed across his eye level. One man’s stockings, he saw, had yellow garters. He rose another slow step for his amazement had for the moment shut down all thought in his mind except that for the scene on which he was looking. He was in the outer hall now and walking slowly towards the main door, and the grandeur of the hall lifted his eyes upwards to the glistening candelabra, where hundreds of candles flickered, then swiftly down to a door to the right of him from which were emerging two more lackeys bearing great silver trays on which were the remains of food.
He had actually taken four steps into the hall before anyone saw him, and then it was one of the servants who were carrying the trays, and the tray shook in the man’s hand as he cried to the man with the gold coloured gaiters, ‘Mr Banner! Mr Banner! Look!’ When the butler turned and saw Sandy his astonishment stretched his face, then swelled his body with indignation, which checked his speech for a moment. But now, advancing on Sandy, his voice low and threatening, he muttered, ‘How did you get in here? Get out! Out this instant! Portman!’ He turned to a footman. ‘Get this creature…’
His words were now cut off by Sandy, who seeming to come alive again to the urgency of his presence here yelled at the top of his voice, ‘I’ll not! I’ll not! I must see the master. You’re in danger. You’re all in danger. You’re going to be blown up…BLOWN UP.’
There were hands on him now, seemingly dozens of hands. He was being borne towards the door, and he struggled and kicked and tore at the hands while he yelled, ‘I tell you, they’re goin’ to blow the house up, the miners. The miners, they’re going to blow the house up.’
The word miners seemed to re-echo round the hall and it brought to a stop the remainder of the ladies who were going into the drawing room. It brought the dining-room door bursting open and a tall figure came striding out, demanding in outraged tones, ‘What is this! What is this! Banner! What is the meaning of this?’
The butler, panting and standing aside, straightened his coat while pointing to his underlings who were holding Sandy as if he were a wild bull, and he said, ‘It’s regrettable, sir, it’s regrettable…’
The tall man glared at Sandy and ground out through clenched teeth, ‘Get rid of him immediately.’
‘Sir! Sir! They’re goin’ to blow your house up. There’s not much time, you’ll all be killed. Sir! Sir!’
‘Shut up you!’ There was a hand clapped across his mouth, and he was forced backwards and he felt himself being dragged from the room, his bare heels pulling up rugs as he went, when the progress was suddenly halted by a voice thundering, ‘Stay! Stay!’
Now he found himself being pushed upwards onto his feet again but with his head held painfully back as one of the lackeys gripped his hair. He gazed up at the face above him and in spite of the excruciating pain in his neck he appealed to it, ‘Please. Please, sir, believe me. They’re goin’ to blow up the house. It…it could happen any minute; they’re underneath’—he tried to indicate the floor—‘with gunpowder. I, I tried to tell you afore…’
Now there was another face looking at him. This he recognised as the girl’s who had used her whip on him, and, her voice low, she said, ‘Father, this…this is the boy I told you about who stopped the gig; he…he was trying to tell me something then. I…I didn’t understand what he said.’
‘Let him go!’ On the command, Sandy was free and standing upright, and he stood for a moment rubbing his neck and looking at the great circle of faces about him; then with a sudden movement he stepped close to the tall man and his words tumbled over each other as he said, ‘Please, sir, please, clear the house. I don’t know how much time you’ve got, they’re…they’re goin’ to do it when it’s dark. It’—he flung his hand back towards the open door—‘it’s almost that now. Another ten minutes, fifteen. Please, please sir, believe me.’
‘Follow me!’ The tall man now hurried through the throng of men surrounding the dining-room door; then, stopping abruptly, he called the butler to him and said quietly, ‘Just in case, be prepared to get the ladies out onto the lawn.’ He then went further into the dining room, pushing Sandy before him now, the men following.
The room seemed full of men, ten or more, handsomely dressed, forbidding men, masters all. But Sandy didn’t look at them. Quickly he scanned the large room. There was the fireplace. He dodged past the men and ran towards it, and looked from one side of the great wooden frame to the other, where on each side panel a large boar’s head was carved; and now turning to the master of the house, he cried, ‘It’s…it’s behind here, sir, the…the secret room.’
‘Secret room? What are you talking about, boy?’
‘There’s a secret room behind here, sir, and it runs over the kitchen and partly under here’—he pointed to the floor—‘and your parlour.’
‘Secret room?’ There was murmuring among the men, and one coming forward, said, ‘There is a secret room here, William,’ and Sir William Combe Stockwell turned on him abruptly, saying, ‘That was blocked up years ago, filled in, before our time here. The entrance was above a cupboard in the kitchen quarters. It’s roofed in with solid stone—it’s there for you to see—and I understand the place itself was filled in. I’ve never heard of any other secret room.’
‘Sir! Sir! I can show you, the boar’s head.’
‘The boar’s head?’
‘Yes, sir, up the nose. That’s where the spring is.’ Sandy looked from one side to the other, stumped now, for the two heads were exactly alike. But he dashed to the right side one first and, thrusting his fingers up the boar’s nostrils, he pressed and looked upwards to see if the panel moved. But nothing happened. When he turned they were all staring at him. He now ran to the other side of the fireplace, almost, in his haste, tripping over the huge iron firedogs that held the dead logs of wood. Now he was pressing his fingers up these two nostrils, and he almost laughed with sheer relief and nervousness as he felt the springs give; then before his eyes the panel began to move.
They were all about him, almost smothering him as they stared into the darkness beyond, but no-one said a word for a moment until Sir William startled them all by crying to the man next to him, ‘Get them out, Braintree! Everybody, everybody. Quickly!’
‘You mean clear the whole house?’
‘Yes, yes; if the boy’s right about this he could be right about the rest…get them out.’
There was a scampering now towards the door, not only by Mr Braintree but also by most of the rest of the company. Only three men stayed besides Sir William, and he turned to the first one and said, ‘Bring the candelabra, Conisbie.’ He pointed to the table.
At this stage the young girl came rushing up the room, crying, ‘Father! Father!’ and he shouted at her angrily, ‘Get away, child! Take your mama and get out.’
‘But Father…’
‘Get out! Do as you’re bid, instantly!’
There was great commotion coming from the hall now. No longer were the voices filled with laughter like tinkling music, there were now only squeals and cries of alarm.
As one of the men swiftly led the young girl from the room the master called a servant to him and said something about a gun. Seconds later the servant came running and handed his master a pistol.
The man called Conisbie had two candelabra in his hands now, each holding six candles, and Sir William, taking one from him, held it above his head and bent forward to peer into the darkness beyond. Then turning his head towards Sandy he said sharply, ‘Get inside!’ and Sandy, after swallowing his spittle, went forward into the room and Sir William followed him. After them came the man called Braintree and another whom the master addressed as Farrington.
The room was illuminated now and Sandy saw it in its entirety for the first time.
‘Well, this is something.’ It was Farrington speaking. ‘Who would have thought of this? You know I…I’ve heard tell of a passage…’
Sir William’s voice cut him short now, saying, ‘More of that later. Where are the explosives, boy?’
‘They must be under there, sir.’ He was pointing to the hole that led under the floors when Mr Braintree cried, ‘Look there!’ and whipping the candelabrum from Mr Conisbie’s hand and going further into the room he bent down, and the light from the candles revealed three uneven lines of gunpowder leading to the hole that Sandy had indicated.
‘My God!’ It was a concerted exclamation from the men.
‘God in heaven!’
‘What’s to be done?’
The voices were all around; they seemed for the moment to be unaware of the obvious, that in breaking the trail of gunpowder they would eliminate the danger. It had also escaped Sandy for the moment, until, looking up the passage that led from the room, he saw in the far distance a creeping light. His voice breaking on a high note, he cried, ‘They’ve…they’ve set it, the fuse. Scatter the powder!’ He was now rubbing his feet over the lines. Then, whipping off his coat, he ran from them and along the passage and threw it over the fast creeping flames, beating at it with his hands. Then there were others doing the same. The passage seemed packed to suffocation with the four of them, and one man kept repeating all the time, ‘My God! My God! What an escape.’
When the fuses were extinguished, Sir William, turning to Sandy and his voice laden with awe, said ‘Boy, what we owe you!’ The others murmured, ‘Indeed! Indeed!’
There was silence in the passage for a moment, until one of the men exclaimed, ‘They can’t be far, the rascals can’t be far.’
‘Come on, let’s get them!’ It was the voice of Mr Farrington, and Sandy looked at the man. He was young, younger than Tom Fitzsimmons; he was beautifully dressed, almost foppishly so, but there was no foppishness about his manner, and Sir William echoed him, saying, ‘Yes, yes. Lead the way, boy. Lead the way.’
But Sandy remained still. The danger was over, nobody was to be killed, and in this moment he did not want Big Mullen and his pals to be caught for that would mean the gibbet for them. He thought of Stan. Whatever happened to Big Mullen would affect Sam. He tried to stall any move along the passage by saying ‘Well, it’s over now, sir, you’re all safe.’
‘It isn’t over, boy.’ The face of the master looked stern again. ‘It’ll never be over while there are villains like this at large. Those men knew what they were doing; they meant to blow up my house, and but for you, boy, they would have achieved their evil purpose. Do you know how many people were in this house tonight? Twenty-six guests besides the servants. Just think, boy, just think. And now, as you seem to be acquainted with this route, lead the way.’
There was nothing for it but to go forward. But just before they started Sir William said, ‘Go back, Braintree, will you and tell them it’s all right, the danger’s over. And send Portman and Fawcett down, and one or two of the others. Tell them to hurry along after us. Who knows, we may need assistance.’
When they reached the crevasse in the rock, Sandy looked back. There were still only two men besides the master following, the one called Farrington, and the other, Conisbie. In the ordinary way he knew they wouldn’t have a chance against Big Mullen, John Felton and the other two, but the master had a pistol. Yet there was nothing for it, he had to go on. But no; he stayed their progress for a few minutes when, a thought coming into his head, he stopped abruptly and said, more to himself than to them, ‘The Nipper, he’s back there.’
‘The who?’
‘The Nipper, the pony that I came on.’
‘Oh.’ Sir William tossed his head impatiently. ‘He’ll be all right, boy.’
‘But sir, he doesn’t like to be handled by anybody else but me.’
‘Boy!’ The master was trying to keep the impatience from his voice. ‘We have more important things to think about at the present moment than your pony. Go on, lead the way.’
They passed through the crevasse and continued along the passage, but although they stopped and listened several times there was no sound of anyone running ahead, only the silence of their own breathing. That was until they came near the end of the passage and in sight of the trapdoor. Sandy lifted up his hand, then pointed, and when the candelabrum was held high it shone on the sloping slab, and from beyond this there came the sound of murmuring voices.
Sandy, reluctantly, was about to stand on the stones and reach upwards when Sir William put out his hand and pressed him aside, and he himself climbed the stones and slowly put his head through the trapdoor. Then, his movements surprisingly agile for so big a man, Sandy saw him swing himself upwards and through the hole and heard his voice, crying, ‘Hold! Make a move any of you and I’ll blow your brains out.’
Sandy was the last to scramble upwards; he didn’t hurry his entry for he didn’t want to face Big Mullen and his pals. They were bad men, he knew they were bad men; still, he was reluctant to prove to them that he was the means of sending them to the gibbet.
Pulling himself up from the floor he stood with his head bowed; then it jerked up so rapidly that he felt a painful kink in his neck for there, kneeling on the floor by Tom Fitzsimmons’s side, was his mother, and a little way off, looking down on the prostrate form of Big Mullen, was Stan.
He pushed past the master of the Manor and the other two men and shouting, ‘Ma! Ma!’ he dropped onto his knees beside her, and she put her arms around him as she gabbled, ‘Oh boy! Boy! Oh, thank God!’
‘What happened, Ma? What happened?’
‘We were too late, though we met Tom here on the road,’ she said. ‘He was coming to see us. We came straight on up. They were just coming out. Tom fought with Big Mullen. One of the others had a gun. He went to shoot Tom. The bullet grazed his shoulder’—she pointed down to Tom’s blood-soaked shirt, and added softly—‘then caught Big Mullen, full on.’
Sandy looked at Stan. His head was bowed on his chest as he looked down on the contorted but very still form.
The three men from the Manor moved forward now and Sandy, getting to his feet, said, ‘This is my mother, sir, and our friend, Mr Fitzsimmons. An’ my pal.’ He pointed towards Stan. ‘We arranged that they should try to stop them this way if…if I failed to get into your house.’
‘What is the name of that man?’ Sir William Stockwell asked now, pointing down to the figure of Big Mullen, and before Sandy could say anything Stan lifted his stiff white face towards the master and said bitterly, ‘Mullen; and he’s my father.’
The master was now looking from Stan to Sandy, and he said, ‘You say this boy is a friend of yours?’
‘Yes, sir. I…I can explain it, sir. He…he tried to stop his da. If it hadn’t been for him I…I would never have reached your house the night.’ This wasn’t exactly true but in this moment Sandy knew he had to place Stan in good stead with the owner of the mine. Stan was a pitman too and it would be hard for anyone to believe that a boy would go against his father, especially a man like Big Mullen.
‘There’s more to this than meets the eye.’ Sir William turned now and, thrusting his pistol into the back pocket of his tailcoat, he said, ‘And this man?’
Tom was now struggling to his feet. He was dazed, not so much from the skin wound, but from a blow on the head he had received from Mike Casey when he was struggling with Big Mullen. He held his head now as he said slowly, ‘What the boy says is true, sir.’
