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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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RGL e-Book Cover
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ALL four were over the fence in a flash, and hard on Canty's track. Dick Selby, leading, suddenly pointed.
"There he is!" he whispered to Roddy.
"Wonder where Dad is," muttered Roddy, and almost before the words were out of his mouth a figure tall as Canty himself, but twice his breadth, seemed to rise right in front of him.
"There he is!" said Roddy, dashing forward.
"No," cried Dick, but his voice was drowned in a sudden shout.
"You blackguard, Canty! What do you mean by it?" Roddy pulled up short.
"Great Goodness, it's the Squire!"
The Squire it was—the Honourable Godfrey Dane himself, an imposing figure in thick grey tweeds, a felt hat, and wearing heavy boots. He held a blackthorn in his big right hand, and with it threatened Canty.
"You blackguard!" he cried again angrily. "I thought you had your lesson. This time it's not a fine my man. It's prison for you and no mistake about it."
"I ain't doing nothing," gasped Canty in a terrified tone.
"Oh, aren't you?" came another voice, dry and curt, and a new figure appeared on the scene. A man, nearly as tall as the Squire but not so broad. A little active-looking man, with the cut of a naval officer about him.
"Dad, at last!" said Roddy.
"Hello, Mr. Visard," exclaimed the Squire. "What brings you here? Didn't know you'd turned gamekeeper," he added with a laugh.
"It's not that sort of game I'm after Mr. Dane," replied the Lieutenant. "I suspect this man Canty of something much more serious than poaching."
The Squire stared.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Smuggling," answered the other curtly.
"Smuggling?" repeated the Squire. Then suddenly he lifted his head and burst into a great roar of laughter.
Lieutenant Visard stood by in stiff silence.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Visard," said the Squire at last. "I really beg your pardon, but I couldn't help myself. The idea of Canty as a smuggler was too funny. Poacher, he is of course. I, or my keepers have caught him at that game more times than I can count. But smuggler!"
And again he burst into a delighted chuckle.
"I may be wrong, Mr. Dane," said the Lieutenant. "We can soon tell. I will ask you to let me examine the game-bag which Canty has just dropped."
"By all means," replied the Squire as he picked it up and handed it over. "By all means! But I'll lay you half a sovereign there's nothing in it but a couple of hares or a brace of pheasants."
Roddy's father took the bag and turned it upside down. It was exactly as the Squire had said. Two fat young leverets and a cock pheasant. That was all it held.
Lieutenant Visard's face fell. As for Roddy he felt perfectly sick with disappointment.
"Now are you convinced, or would you like to search the man himself?" smiled the Squire.
"As a matter of form, I will search him," said the Lieutenant firmly.
Roddy suddenly felt fingers gripping his elbow.
"Come!" whispered Dick in his ear.
Too sick and sorry to object, Roddy followed Dick as he slipped silently out of the circle of light.
"This way," said Dick and Roddy, wondering vaguely what on earth Dick had in that small shrewd head of his followed.
Dick started running and Roddy saw that they were going straight towards the court. The long rows of lighted windows shone through the trees.
"Where on earth are you going?" demanded Roddy.
"Tell you later," was Dick's curt answer, as he switched on to a path which led into a lane cutting through the coverts and joining the main road to Colchester a little below the Burland Court drive.
Down this lane Dick ran swiftly.
All of a sudden he stopped.
"I thought so!" he muttered, and for once his voice quivered with excitement. "The car—do you hear it?"
Roddy caught the faint purr of a motor-engine throttled to it's lowest. A car stood near the mouth of the lane.
"Hide in the hedge," Dick ordered. "Wait for me."
Roddy obeyed. Dick stole forward. and crept under the car. He was there for perhaps half a minute, but what he was doing Roddy could not see. Then he crept back and slipped into hiding beside Roddy.
"Now wait!" he muttered.
They had not long to wait. Within a few minutes heavy steps came along the lane and a bulky figure loomed through the gloom. It was the Squire, and following him was another man, shorter and squarer. Roddy's heart began to thump, for if the first was the Squire, the second was Dan Crundall, his keeper, and Dan was carrying on his back a game-bag which seemed heavy.
Dick's fingers tightened on Roddy's arm. Both crouched like rabbits in a brake.
The two men reached the car, and Crundall flung the heavy bag into the tonneau. The Squire said something to him but what, the boys could not hear.
The Squire then walked on quietly while Crundall jumped into the driving seat. The boys heard the click of a gear and at once the car moved forward. It was slightly uphill to the main road. The wheels skidded a trifle. Almost at once there was a crack like a pistol shot.
"Tyre gone! You cut it Dick," sharply whispered Roddy. Dick made no answer, but he was quivering with eagerness.
With an oath Crundall jumped out, and bent down to investigate the damage.
"You stay here!" ordered Dick, and darted out of cover. Quick as a terrier and as silent an a cat, he flitted up to the back of the car. Crundall busy over his wheel never saw the arm that slid over the door and seized the game bag. Then Dick came scooting back.
"Through the hedge!" he whispered urgently. It was thick, but they scrambled through somehow. They were hardly on the other side before they heard the Squire's voice, sharp and angry. The noise had brought him back.
"Was that a tyre Crundall?"
"Yes, and a new one sir," snarled Crundall.
There was a moment's pause. The boys lay under the hedge, hardly daring to breathe. Then—
"The bag! Where's the bag? You fool, someone's stolen the bag," came the Squire's voice hoarse with rage.
A gasp from Crundall.
"Quickly! It's those infernal boys. I thought something was up when they slipped away. They've twice the brains of the men. This way! Down the lane."
Steps came thundering down the lane. They passed within ten feet of where the boys were lying. Roddy felt half sick with excitement, but Dick kept his head.
"Straight across!" he said. "We must catch your father at the landing, and if they spot us, hide the bag. They mustn't get that at any price."
Roddy slung the bag over his back. This was where his bull strength came in. Then they started to run.
It was a good half mile to the landing, and the bag was very heavy. They had covered about half the distance and even Roddy was blowing hard, when a sharp whistle warned them they had been seen. Someone came crashing through the dead bracken behind. It was the Squire, who must have suspected their ruse, and came round to cut them off. Crundall, from the inland side, had spotted them first and warned him by a whistle.
The Squire did not shout, but he came at a pace which made them feel as if a bull was at their heels. There was a thick brake just ahead.
"We'll dodge him in that," said the indomitable Dick.
But would they reach it? That was the question Roddy asked himself. The Squire was closing on them with every stride.
The bag seemed to weigh a ton. Roddy's lungs felt as if they were bursting, and suddenly he tripped over a trailing brier and went down. He was up in an instant, but the damage was done. The Squire was right on top of him.
"You young demon!" growled the big man, and catching Roddy in his iron grasp, whirled him round and snatched the bag away from him. He gave him a push which sent him spinning, turned and was off.
Roddy, almost down again, recovered himself in time to hear the Squire give a yell and see him crash to the ground like a falling tree. It was Dick who, running right between his legs, had tripped him.
"Help, Roddy!" gasped Dick, and the two hurled themselves on the fallen man.
His struggles were terrific. He flung them this way and that, but they clung to him like terriers to a badger.
Then just as they were almost done, three men came bursting through the trees from the direction of the bluff and in a trice the Squire was pinned to the ground.
A light flashed.
"Why—why—it's the Squire!" came Lieutenant Visard's voice in accents of horrified amazement.
"Yes, sir," replied Dick; "and if that bag is not full of saccharin, then he's not the head of the smugglers."
BUT it was. There was thirty pounds weight of the stuff in it. And the upshot proved Dick to have been right all through. It was the Hon. Godfrey Dane himself who had organised the whole business. He, the last man in the world to be suspected, was the head of the illegal traffic.
At the trial it came out that Mr. Dane had practically ruined himself by Stock Exchange gambling before the war, and was heavily in debt. He had devised the smuggling scheme as a last throw with Fortune and, as the judge said, "but for the pluck and cleverness of a couple of lads he would in all probability have recouped himself at the expense of the British Government."
Mr. Godfrey Dane is in prison. Dick Selby is being trained for a post in the Secret Service, while Roddy, now just seventeen, has a middy's commission and is aboard one of the biggest of British Dreadnoughts.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.