Then Martin turned abruptly and discharged a pistol at him. The man
staggered, but before he fell he fired at Martin, but missed.
Almost immediately Martin saw some black figures in front of him, and
stood, hesitating what to do. The figures were those of boys who were
spreading the fires among the furze bushes, but he thought that his
course was intercepted by his pursuers. Before he had decided where to
run he was surrounded and disarmed.
The warder was so seriously hurt that he was at once placed on a
gate and carried on the shoulders of four of the constables to Beer
Alston, to be examined by Mr. Coyshe and the ball extracted. This left
only three to guard the prisoner, one of whom was the warder who had
sprained his ankle, and had been running with that foot bare, and who
was now not in a condition to go much farther.
‘There is nothing for it,’ said Joseph, who was highly elated, ‘but
for us to go on to Morwell. We must lock the chap up there. In that
old house there are scores of strong places where the monks were
imprisoned. To-morrow we can take him to Tavistock.’ Joseph did not
say that Jane Welsh was at Morwell; this consideration, doubtless, had
something to do with determining the arrangement. On reaching Morwell,
which they did almost at once, for Martin had been captured on the down
near the entrance to the lane, the first inquiry was for a safe place
where the prisoner might be bestowed.
Jane, hearing the noise, and, above all, the loved voice of Joseph, ran
out.
‘Jane,’ said the policeman, ‘where can we lock the rascal up for the
night?’
She considered for a moment, and then suggested the corn-chamber. That
was over the cellar, the walls lined with slate, and the floor also of
slate. It had a stout oak door studded with nails, and access was had
to it from the quadrangle, up a flight of stone steps. There was no
window to it. ‘I’ll go ask Miss Barbara for the key,’ she said. ‘There
is nothing in it now but some old onions. But’—she paused—’if he be
locked up there all night, he’ll smell awful of onions in the morning.’
Reassured that this was of no importance, Jane went to her mistress for
the key. Barbara came out and listened to the arrangement, to which
she gave her consent, coldly. The warder could now only limp. She was
shocked to hear of the other having been shot.
A lack of hospitality had been shown when the constables and warders
came first, through inadvertence, not intentionally. Now that they
desired to remain the night at Morwell and guard there the prisoner,
Barbara gave orders that they should be made comfortable in the
hall. One would have to keep guard outside the door where Martin
was confined, the other two would spend the night in the hall, the
window of which commanded the court and the stairs that led to the
corn-chamber. ‘I won’t have the men in the kitchen,’ said Barbara, ‘or
the maids will lose their heads and nothing will be done.’ Besides,
the kitchen was out of the way of the corn-chamber.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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