The Toll-Gate Read online

  John got up to refill the ale jug. ‘What’s Brean’s lay?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  John laughed. ‘A stupid question, Mr Chirk! You wouldn’t tell me, if you did. But I want to find the man.’

  ‘Hark ’ee!’ said Chirk. ‘If you was thinking, because I stable the mare here now and then, and maybe have a bite o’ supper with Ned, he’s a fence, or a baggage-man, you’re going beside the cushion! He ain’t – not to my knowledge! This ain’t my beat, and I don’t come here in the way o’ business. What brings me here is another matter: private, you may say! If you’re willing I should leave the mare for an hour, well! If you ain’t – well again! I’ll brush!’

  ‘Oh, quite willing!’ John said. ‘I’m even willing to believe you don’t know what may have befallen Brean, or where to get news of him – if you tell me so, man to man!’

  Chirk looked at him with, narrowed, searching eyes. ‘What’s in your mind?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Who is the man who visits Brean secretly, after dark? The man Ben is afraid of?’

  Chirk pushed his chair back from the table. ‘What’s this? Trying to gammon me, guv’nor? You’ll catch cold at that!’

  ‘No, it’s the sober truth. That’s what had Ben in such a sweat of fear, the night I came to this place. Some stranger he’s never seen, nor been allowed to see. Brean pitched him a Canterbury tale to keep him from spying on the pair of them: told him if this mysterious visitor saw him he’d send him to work in the pits. If a tree so much as rustled out there –’ he jerked his head towards the back-door – ‘the boy turned green with fear.’

  ‘Sounds to me like a bag o’ moonshine!’ said Chirk incredulously. ‘Why, he went off, happy as a grig, to put Mollie through her tricks! He’s not scared!’

  ‘Oh, not now! I told him no one could harm him while I was here, and he believed me.’

  A gleam of humour lit Chirk’s eyes, as they ran over his host. ‘I should think he might,’ he agreed. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Wonder why the bantling never said a word to me about it? Him and me’s good friends, and he tells me most things. Ned’s a hard man, like I said, and he’s not one to take notice of brats, even when they’re of his own get. A monkey’s allowance is what he gives Ben: more kicks than ha’pence!’

  ‘How long is it since you were here last?’ John asked.

  ‘Matter of three weeks.’

  ‘I’ve a shrewd suspicion it’s happened since then. A pity! I had hoped you might know something. I’ve a notion there’s something devilish queer afoot here, but what it is, or how Brean came to be mixed up in it – if he is – I can’t guess. I shouldn’t think it could be what you call pound dealing, however: this visitor of his seems to be uncommonly anxious he shan’t be seen, or recognized.’

  Chirk dived a hand into his pocket, and drew forth a snuffbox. It was a handsome piece, as its present owner acknowledged, as he offered it, open, to John. ‘Took it off of a fat old gager a couple o’ years back,’ he explained, with engaging frankness. ‘Prigged his tatler, too, but I sold that. I’m a great one for a pinch o’ merry-go-up, and this little box just happened to take my fancy, and I’ve kept it. I daresay I’d get a double finnup for it, too,’ he added, sighing over his own prodigality. ‘It’s worth more, but when it comes to tipping over the dibs there ain’t a lock as isn’t a hog-grubber. Now, look ’ee here, Mr Nib-Cove –’

  ‘I wish you will stop calling me that!’ interrupted John. ‘If it means, as I suspect it may, that you take me for some town-tulip, you’re out! I’m a soldier!’

  ‘Oh!’ said Mr Chirk, helping himself to a generous pinch of his snuff. ‘No offence, Soldier! Now, maybe I could drop in at one or two kens which I knows of, and where I might get news o’ Ned Brean; but he never spoke a word to me about this cull which comes to see him secret. I’m bound to say it sounds to me like a Banbury story, but you ain’t no halfling, nor you don’t look like one o’ them young bloods kicking up a lark, and I don’t misdoubt you. I don’t twig what any boman prig should be doing in a backward place like this, but I’ll tell you that there’s ways a gatekeeper might be useful to such – if you greased him well in the fist! If so be as you was wishful to take a train o’ pack ponies through the pike, and no questions asked nor toll paid, for instance!’

  ‘Yes, I’d thought of that,’ John agreed. ‘I’ve seen it done, but not here. Dash it, man, this is Derbyshire!’

  ‘Just what I was thinking myself,’ nodded Chirk. ‘In the free-trading business, Soldier?’

  John laughed. ‘No, only for a week or two! I was picked up at sea once by a free-trading vessel, and made the voyage in her. A famous set of rascals they were, too, but they treated me well enough.’

  ‘I should think,’ said Chirk dryly, ‘them coves at Bedlam must be looking for you all over! You ain’t got a fancy to go on the rum-pad for a week or two, I s’pose?’

  ‘Not I!’ John grinned. ‘It’s pound dealing for me! Try it yourself! – I might be able to help you.’

  ‘Thanking you kindly, I’d as lief stand on my own feet! Nor I don’t see why you should want to help me.’

  ‘As you please! When you see Rose Durward, give her a message from me!’

  This brought Chirk up on to his feet, with a scrape of his chair across the floor, and a dangerous look in his eye. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said softly. ‘A man o’ the town, are you, Soldier? Would that be why you’re being so obliging as to keep the gate for Ned? Quite in the petticoat line, I daresay! Well, if you’re to her taste, she’s welcome!’

  ‘Tell her,’ said the Captain, carefully trimming the lamp, which had begun to smoke, ‘that I’ll be hanged if I know what she finds to take her fancy in a damned, green-eyed, suspicious, quarrel-picking hedge-bird, but I’ll stable his mare for him – if only to please her!’

  Considerably taken aback, Chirk stood staring at him, his humorous mouth thinned, and a challenging frown in his eyes. ‘There’s not a soul but her knows why I come here,’ he said. ‘Not a soul, d’ye hear me? So if you know it, it looks uncommon like she told you, Soldier! P’raps you’ll be so very obliging as to tell me how that came about?’ He had thrown off his greatcoat when he sat down to the table, but his pistol lay beside his plate, and he picked it up. ‘I’m a man as likes plain-speaking, Soldier – and a quick answer!’ he said significantly.

  ‘Are you?’ said the Captain, a hint of steel in his pleasant voice. ‘But I am not a man who likes to answer questions at the pistol muzzle, Mr Chirk! Put that gun down!’ He rose to his feet. ‘You’ll get hurt, you know, if you make me go to the trouble of wresting it away from you,’ he warned him.

  An involuntary grin lightened the severity of Chirk’s countenance. He lowered the pistol, and exclaimed: ‘Damme, if you don’t beat all hollow, Soldier! It ain’t me as would be hurt if I was to pull this trigger!’

  ‘If you were to do anything so mutton-headed, you’d be an even bigger gudgeon than I take you for – which isn’t possible!’ said John. ‘I’ve a strong liking for Rose, but I don’t dangle after women ten years older than I am, however comely they may be!’

  ‘You’re Quality, and they’re not particular where they throw out their damned lures – just for a bit o’ sport to while away the time!’ muttered Chirk.

  ‘I shan’t be particular where I throw you out, if you make me lose my temper!’ said the Captain grimly. ‘What the devil do you mean by talking of a decent woman as if she were a light frigate?’

  Mr Chirk flushed, and pocketed his pistol. ‘I never thought such!’ he protested. ‘It just put me in a tweak, thinking – But I see as I was mistaken! No offence, Soldier! The thing is, I get fair blue-devilled! There’s times when I wish I’d never set eyes on Rose, seeing as she’s one as is above my touch. She’s respectable, and I’m a hedge-bird, and no help for it! But I did set eyes on her, and the more I make u