The Cuckoo Tree (16 page)

When they were halfway along, a man slipped silently past them, going in the opposite direction. It was too dark to see his face, but Dido gave two or three sharp sniffs after he had passed by.

"What's amiss, my duck?" whispered Yan, who was amazingly quick to notice anything that happened near him.

"The smell o' that chap's tobacco," Dido whispered back. "I knowed someone afore who smoked that kind—Vosper's Nautical Cut." She stopped to unstick the paper which had caught against itself—it was spread with treacle, Yan explained. He remarked that with a sniffer like hers, Dido was wasted outside the scent trade, and then they had arrived at the jail, a small brick building that stood beside a windmill on the outskirts of the town. It did not appear as if the jail were put to very frequent use; grass grew over the doorstep. There were bars on the ground-floor windows, but not on the upper ones. A watchman was seated on the mounting block outside the jail, drinking something from a leather bottle. Yan stole up behind him and gave him a brisk, deft thump with a sock full of soot; he toppled silently off the block and the contents of his bottle spilled on to the grass.

"Organ-grinder's oil," said Yan, sniffing; "wonder where he got it? Why, 'tis Sam Pelmett, I thought he was in service up to Tegleaze."

"He left there this morning," Dido said.

"We'd best put his head in a bag and tie him up middling tight."

This done, Yan took the treacled paper from Dido, ran up the ladder as nimbly as if chimney-sweeping were really his profession, smoothed the paper against a windowpane, and then tapped it with his soot-filled sock. The pane broke, but stuck to the paper, which he passed down to his mates. He then put an arm through the window, found the catch, opened it, and disappeared inside.

Five minutes of somewhat uneasy silence went by. At last one figure, two figures, suddenly and softly appeared around the corner of the building.

"It's us!" whispered Yan. "Came out the back door—dang me, it wasn't even locked."

"But where's Tobit?" Dido asked anxiously, for Yan's companion was a grown man.

"That be the mischief of it, ducky—he ain't there."

"Are you
sure?
" Dido made a movement toward the jail, but Yan grabbed her arm.

"Sure as Sunday—we went over the whole place, there's not another soul inside. But Pip here, who was in the next cell, says that not half an hour agone he heard some chaps come along, mouching and mumchance, have a word wi' the watchman, open up the boy's cell, and take him off wi' them. What d'you make o' that?"

"Oh my stars!" said Dido. "I reckon that there Mystery's gone and kidnapped him!"

Tobit had been horribly bored in jail. He was shut into a little upstairs room that looked out on to a pigsty with three pigs in it. Beyond that lay a grass-grown yard in which there was a well. The well appeared to be disused: it was covered by a millstone with moss on it; the wellhead was weatherworn, the handle and chain rusty. A pile of old farm implements lay in a corner of the yard, half grown over with brambles. On the other side of the yard was a windmill with some doves on its roof.

Tobit had plenty of time to study all these details.

For a while he tried to amuse himself by firing Joobie nuts through his peashooter at the pigs, but their hides were so thick that they didn't notice; it was very poor sport and he presently gave up. For a while, too, he tried to cheer himself by hoping that his grandmother would send to have him released, or that some witness would come forward to say that he had been wrongfully arrested, but time passed, and his hopes sank lower and lower. Night fell. When he had been sitting in the dark for
a couple of hours somebody opened his door and thrust in a rush dip, a loaf of brown bread, and a mug of weak beer; he had no more visitors that evening. It took him a long time to go to sleep; he made up dozens of different stories about how he was rescued by highwaymen, by Hanoverians, by outlaws; how he managed to escape by tearing his sheets into strips and climbing out of the window. But nobody rescued him, there were no sheets, it was a long drop to the ground, and then there were the pigs underneath; Tobit had a great dislike of pigs.

He thought of swallowing a Joobie nut. When he was little, Sannie had given him Joobie nuts to suck for toothache and there had been a fearful fascination about the things they made him see—trolls, giant bats, griffins. Then Sannie had forbidden Joobie nuts, which of course added to the excitement of sucking them. But now Sannie was not here to provoke, and he didn't fancy the kind of visions that Joobie nuts might produce in the little dark prison room. He counted sheep instead and at last fell asleep.

Next morning, not particularly early, the door opened and he was surprised to see Pelmett, who brought a loaf of brown bread and a cup of watery milk. Tobit's heart leapt up.

"Has Grandmother sent to have me let out?"

Pelmett dumped the cup and loaf on the floor, then stood regarding Tobit with folded arms and a scornful smile.

"Old Lady T? Not middling likely! You've cooked your goose with
her,
my boy—she've cut you off. There'll be no
more airs and graces, Mas'r Tobit now! Yes, Sir Tobit, no, Sir Tobit, what can I fetch for you, Sir Tobit—ugh, you spoilt young twort! You'll be pulled afore the Beak this morning, and you'll be given a lifer in Botany Bay, and serve you right. All for a couple of four penny shubunkins!" He laughed in a sneering manner as if he knew more than he was prepared to say, picked up the empty beer mug, spat into it, and retired, slamming the door.

Presently two constables appeared and hustled Tobit into a downstairs room.

Three gentlemen were already seated there, behind a table. He recognized the Tegleaze family lawyers, and hope rose in him again. But the two old gentlemen, Pickwick and FitzPickwick, stared vacantly about as if they had not noticed him come in, while young Mr. Wily flipped through a bunch of papers, stood up, and proceeded to read aloud in a rapid gabble:

"Accused was seen to steal two shubunkin fish, worth fourpence-three-farthings, property of Miss Betsy Smith; fish were subsequently discovered in accused's pocket."

"Shocking, shocking," mumbled the two old gentlemen. One of them asked, "Where is Miss Smith now?"

"She has left town."

"Names of witnesses?" croaked the other old gentleman. They seemed half asleep, and as if they were unable to distinguish objects more than two or three feet away.

"Mrs. Aker, Mrs. Baker, Mr. Caker, Miss Daker, Mrs. Eaker, Mr. Faker—all ratepayers; a Mr. Twite, and a Mr. Mystery, who happened to be passing through the town,
and Amos Frill, footman at Tegleaze Manor."

"Ah yes, mumble mumble; very respectable, Tegleaze Manor. Mumble mumble," said one of the two old men.

"And the culprit's name?"

As the younger lawyer read out Tobit's name, both constables fell into such a fit of coughing that it seemed almost impossible the old gentlemen should have heard it, but this did not seem to make any difference.

"Guilt clearly proved then," said one. "I think we are all agreed on that? Mumble mumble."

"Indeed yes, mumble," said the other. "And the sentence? Are we agreed on that?"

"Ten years in Botany Bay, I think we decided before coming in?"

Here it was young Mr. Wily's turn to cough in a reproving way.

"Did you hear, young man?" said old Mr. FitzPickwick, blinking in Tobit's direction. "You are sentenced to ten years' transportation, and we hope you are duly grateful for the leniency of your sentence."

Tobit's mouth was so dry with astonishment and dismay that he was incapable of making any reply, but nobody noticed; young Wily snapped out,

"Constables, remove him!" and he was hustled back to his cell.

"You'll be taken off on Tuesday, when a gang goes down to the convict ships at Pompey," one of the constables told him. "Ah, and am I thankful I'm not in
your
shoes!"

They dumped down his dinner—more brown bread
and a bowl of weak pea soup. After that, nothing happened for a number of hours and Tobit was left to his own miserable reflections. He tried to tell himself stories about how he escaped on the way to Portsmouth; how he was rescued by smugglers, by French privateers, by pirates from the convict ship—but none of the stories rang particularly true, and even if they had, they left a lot of time ahead of him which would have to be spent in a very disagreeable manner.

By five o'clock that evening it is probable that he was the most unhappy boy in Pet worth.

He was sunk in a sort of melancholy daze when he became aware of low voices having a conversation just outside his door, and the sound of coins chinking. Then the door was softly opened. Tobit, who had been staring gloomily out at the pigs, turned his head, but before he could see who had come in a neckerchief was whipped over his eyes and a noose was drawn tight over his hands. Something pricked him between the shoulder blades.

"D'you feel that?" inquired a voice in his ear. "If you want it to go another six inches in, just holler! It'd go in as easy as a knitting needle into a ball o' yarn."

Tobit prudently remained silent and was half pulled, half pushed very rapidly and, as far as he could make out, by at least two men, downstairs, out into the frosty night, a short distance over cobbles, a shorter distance over grass, and into a building that seemed large, to judge by the echoes, and had a strong, not unpleasant odor of bran, sacking, and grain. He could hear a regular creaking, and
the mutter of distant voices. A door slammed behind him and a bolt rattled. The cloth was removed from his face and he discovered that he was in a large, round, dimly lit room; sacks, some full, some empty, were piled against the walls; in the center was an arrangement of ropes and pulleys leading up through a hole in the high ceiling. The floor was thick with dust or flour. He realized that he must be in the windmill; the creak was the regular noise of the great sails as they went around.

A small oil lamp burned on a trestle table about ten feet from where he stood; beyond the table sat a man whose face could not at the moment be seen because he was leaning forward, looking down intently at a small object that lay between him and the light.

Presently the man raised his eyes from their gloating scrutiny and peered past the lamp. Tobit recognized the puppet master.

He spoke harshly and abruptly.

"Where's your sister, b-boy?" he demanded.

Tobit remained silent, thinking the question could not have been addressed to him.

But the man repeated impatiently.

"You have a tongue—use it, or b-by the powers, I'll d-drag it out of you. Where's your sister? Where will she have hidden herself?"

"I—I haven't got a sister!" gulped Tobit.

Here another man, who had been standing in the shadows, moved forward. So low were Tobit's spirits that he
was not particularly surprised to recognize Colonel FitzPickwick. The Colonel remonstrated.

"What difference does it make where the girl is, Tegleaze—since you have the heirloom?"

These words made Tobit start forward, but he was dragged sharply back by the cord around his wrists; Pelmett and another man still stood behind him.

"I tell you, I'll have no contenders for the title!" said the man addressed as Tegleaze. "When the Hanoverians come to power I want my claim clear. The boy is to be transported—very well,
he's
out of the running. But where's the g-girl? Where has she run off t-to?" he snarled at Tobit.

"I don't know what you are talking about!"

"He never met his sister," interposed FitzPickwick again. "He did not even know she existed. But doubtless we can soon track her down. She was friendly with the pair who have just decamped from Dogkennel Cottages—she may be with them. They'll not have gone far."

"She m-must be found."

"What will you do then?" the Colonel asked uneasily.

"Ship her overseas t-too, perhaps—back to Tiburon. Or m-marry her, maybe! How can I tell till I find her?"

"I don't understand you, Tegleaze!" the Colonel exclaimed. "You are so changeable. First you were going to wait till the boy came of age so that his grandmother would get her hands on the heirloom; I could have persuaded her to part with it as with all her other geegaws, for gambling money."

"Are you so sure?" interjected the other man. "The old lady is afraid of the luck-piece—Sannie told me so. She may be too willful and scatterbrained to scruple over gambling away family jewels and money, but the heirloom is something different. She believes, Sannie told me, that it has some uncanny power—that when it is in her hands it will bring her
luck.
"

"But
you
do not believe such superstitious nonsense?"

"N-no." Tegleaze seemed to hesitate. "But perhaps I do not altogether t-trust you, FitzPickwick! You might, after all, if you
had
succeeded in getting it from her, have kept the luck-piece for yourself! After all, those two old hags of yours were playing a fine double g-game. If it had not been for their suddenly producing this precious girl, I could have made my claim as heir, once Tobit was out of the count. B-but that won't be so s-simple now—even if we get rid of the g-girl people might ask awkward questions; you can d-dispatch
one
rival heir without arousing suspicion, but if there are
two,
you have to be more c-careful! Until King George is on the throne and our c-cause has triumphed I'll stay in the b-background—now I have the luck-piece I c-can afford to wait. Our f-friends will see I have my rights after we have dealt with the Wren's N-Nest."

"Well—very well. Shall I deliver the luck-piece to the Margrave of Bad Fallingoff? He will give all the jewels in his crown to see it safe!"

"Thank-ee, FitzPickwick," the other man said dryly. "I'll take care of that little m-matter myself!"

"What about Godwit—what about payment for moving the Wren's Nest?"

"Have no fear—you can trust
me!
Tell him to set his wits to work on the matter—he will receive f-funds within the w-week."

The seated man picked up the little object that lay before him; it was slung on a thin black cord, which he proceeded to tie in a knot. His hands, while doing this, shook so violently that two or three times he nearly dropped it; it swung crazily from side to side and Tobit could not get a clear view of it, though he could guess what it was.