CHAPTER XXXII.
How we fought a most bloody battle with Simon, the constable, and others.
For some time we spoke never a word, Dawson and I,—he with his head lying on his arm, I seated in a chair with my hands hanging down by my side, quite stunned by the blow that had fallen upon us. At length, raising his head, his eyes puffed, and his face bedaubed with tears, he says:
"Han't you a word of comfort, Kit, for a broken-hearted man?"
I stammered a few words that had more sound than sense; but indeed I needed consolation myself, seeing my own responsibility for bringing this misfortune upon Moll, and being most heartily ashamed of my roguery now 'twas discovered.
"You don't think he'll be too hard on poor Moll, tell me that, Kit?"
"Aye, he'll forgive her," says I, "sooner than us, or we ourselves."
"And you don't think he'll be for ever a-casting it in her teeth that her father's a a drunken vagabond, eh?"
"Nay; I believe he is too good a man for that."
"Then," says he, standing up, "I'll go and tell him the whole story, and you shall come with me to bear me out."
"To-morrow will be time enough," says I, flinching from this office; "'tis late now."
"No matter for that. Time enough to sleep when we've settled this business. We'll not leave poor Moll to bear all the punishment of our getting. Mr. Godwin shall know what an innocent, simple child she was when we pushed her into this knavery, and how we dared not tell her of our purpose lest she should draw back. He shall know how she was ever an obedient, docile, artless girl, yielding always to my guidance; and you can stretch a point, Kit, to say you have ever known me for a headstrong, masterful sort of a fellow, who would take denial from none, but must have my own way in all things. I'll take all the blame on my own shoulders, as I should have done at first, but I was so staggered by this fall."
"Well," says I, "if you will have it so—"
"I will," says he, stoutly. "And now give me a bucket of water that I may souse my head, and wear a brave look. I would have him think the worst of me that he may feel the kinder to poor Moll. And I'll make what atonement I can," adds he, as I led him into my bed-chamber. "If he desire it, I will promise never to see Moll again; nay, I will offer to take the king's bounty, and go a-sailoring; and so, betwixt sickness and the Dutch, there'll be an end of Jack Dawson in a very short space."
When he had ducked his head in a bowl of water, and got our cloaks from the room below, we went to the door, and there, to my dismay, I found the lock fast and the key which I had left in its socket gone.
"What's amiss, Kit?" asks Dawson, perceiving my consternation.
"The key, the key!" says I, holding the candle here and there to seek it on the floor, then, giving up my search as it struck me that Mr. Godwin and Moll could not have left the house had the door been locked on the inside; "I do believe we are locked in and made prisoners," says I.
"Why, sure, this is not Mr. Godwin's doing!" cries he.
"'Tis Simon," says I, with conviction, seeing him again in my mind, standing behind Mr. Godwin, with wicked triumph in his face.
"Is there no other door but this one?" asks Dawson.
"There is one at the back, but I have never yet opened that, for lack of a key." And now setting one thing against another, and recalling how I had before found the door open, when I felt sure I had locked it fast, the truth appeared to me; namely, that Simon had that key and did get in the back way, going out by the front on that former occasion in haste upon some sudden alarm.
"Is there never a window we can slip through?" asks Jack.
"Only those above stairs; the lower are all barred."
"A fig for his bars. Does he think we have neither hands nor wits to be hindered by this silly woman's trick?"
"'Tis no silly trick. He's not the man to do an idle thing. There's mischief in this."
"What mischief can he do us more than he has done?—for I see his hand in our misfortune. What mischief, I say?—out with it, man, for your looks betray a fear of something worse."
"Faith, Jack, I dread he has gone to fetch help and will lodge us in gaol for this business."
"Gaol!" cries he, in a passion of desperation. "Why, this will undo Moll for ever. Her husband can never forgive her putting such shame upon him. Rouse yourself, man, from your stupor. Get me something in the shape of a hammer, for God's sake, that we may burst our way from this accursed trap."
I bethought me of an axe for splitting wood, that lay in the kitchen, and fetching it quickly, I put it in his hand. Bidding me stand aside, he let fly at the door like a madman. The splinters flew, but the door held good; and when he stayed a moment to take a new grip on his axe, I heard a clamour of voices outside—Simon's, higher than the rest, crying, "My new door, that cost me seven and eightpence!"
"The lock, the lock!" says I. "Strike that off."
Down came the axe, striking a spark of fire from the lock, which fell with a clatter at the next blow; but ere we had time to open the door, Simon and his party, entering by the back door, forced us to turn for our defence. Perceiving Dawson armed with an axe, however, these fellows paused, and the leader, whom I recognised for the constable of our parish, carrying a staff in one hand and a lanthorn in t'other, cried to us in the king's name to surrender ourselves.
"Take us, if you can," cries Dawson; "and the Lord have mercy on the first who comes within my reach!"
Deftly enough, old Simon, snatching the fellow's cap who stood next him, flings it at the candle that stands flaring on the floor, and justles the constable's lanthorn from his hand, so that in a moment we were all in darkness. Taking us at this disadvantage (for Dawson dared not lay about him with his axe, for fear of hitting me by misadventure), the rascals closed at once; and a most bloody, desperate fight ensued. For, after the first onslaught, in which Dawson (dropping his axe, as being useless at such close quarters) and I grappled each our man, the rest, knowing not friend from foe in the obscurity, and urged on by fear, fell upon each other,—this one striking out at the first he met, and that giving as good as he had taken,—and so all fell a-mauling and belabouring with such lust of vengeance that presently the whole place was of an uproar with the din of cursing, howling, and hard blows. For my own lot I had old Simon to deal with, as I knew at once by the cold, greasy feel of his leathern jerkin, he being enraged to make me his prisoner for the ill I had done him. Hooking his horny fingers about my throat, he clung to me like any wildcat; but stumbling, shortly, over two who were rolling on the floor, we went down both with a crack, and with such violence that he, being undermost, was stunned by the fall. Then, my blood boiling at this treatment, I got astride of him, and roasted his ribs royally, and with more force than ever I had conceived myself to be possessed of. And, growing beside myself with this passion of war, I do think I should have pounded him into a pulp, but that two other combatants, falling across me with their whole weight, knocked all the wind out of my body, oppressing me so grievously, that 'twas as much as I could do to draw myself out of the fray, and get a gasp of breath again.
About this time the uproar began to subside, for those who had got the worst of the battle thought it advisable to sneak out of the house for safety, and those who had fared better, fearing a reverse of fortune, counted they had done enough for this bout, and so also withdrew.
"Are you living, Kit?" asks Dawson, then.
"Aye," says I, as valiantly as you please, "and ready to fight another half-dozen such rascals," but pulling the broken door open, all the same, to get out the easier, in case they returned.
"Why, then, let's go," says he, "unless any is minded to have us stay."
No one responding to this challenge, we made ado to find a couple of hats and cloaks for our use and sallied out.
"Which way do we turn? " asks Dawson, as we come into the road.
"Whither would you go, Jack?"
"Why, to warn Moll of her danger, to be sure."
I apprehended no danger to her, and believed her husband would defend her in any case better than we could, but Dawson would have it we should warn them, and so we turned towards the Court. And now upon examination we found we had come very well out of this fight; for save that the wound in Dawson' s hand had been opened afresh, we were neither much the worse.
"But let us set our best foot foremost, Jack," says I, "for I do think we have done more mischief to-night than any we have before, and I shall not be greatly surprised if we are called to account for the death of old Simon or some of his hirelings."
"I know not how that may be," says he, "but I must answer for knocking of somebody's teeth out."