Merry-Garden and Other StoriesQuiller-Couch, Arthur
General
Merry-Garden and Other Stories
Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction; France -- Fiction; Short stories
"Heaven knows, sir--Heaven, which has interposed at this hour to thwart
this treacherous design--alone can draw the full indictment against your
past. Clogg, march him off to the guard-room: and you, Doctor, tell
Pengelly to post a guard outside the door. In an hour's time I may feel
myself sufficiently composed to examine him, and we will hold a full
inquiry to-morrow. Good Lord!"--Captain Pond removed his hat and wiped
his brow. "Good Lord! what an escape!"
"I'll--I'll have the l-l-law on you for t-th-this!" stammered the prisoner
sulkily an hour later when Captain Pond entered his cell.
No other answer would he give to the Captain's closest interrogatory.
Only he demanded that a constable should be fetched. He was told that in
England a constable had no power of interference with military justice.
"Y-you are a s-s-silly fool!" answered the prisoner, and turned away to
his bench.
Captain Fond, emerging from the cell, gave orders to supply him with a
loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. Down in Falmouth the bells were
ringing for church. In the Castle a Sabbath stillness reigned.
Sergeant Topase, napping and reading his Bible by turns before the
gatehouse fire, remarked to his wife that on the whole these silly
amachoors were giving less trouble than he had expected.
At 7.45 next morning Gunner Israel Spettigew, having relieved guard with
Gunner Oke at the breach, and advised him to exhibit a dose of
black-currant wine before turning in (as a specific against a chill in the
extremities), was proceeding leisurably to cut himself a quid of tobacco
when he became aware of two workmen--carpenters they appeared to be in the
dim light--approaching the entry.
"Who goes there?" he challenged. "'Tis no use my asking you for the
countersign, because I've forgotten it myself: but there's No Admittance
except on Business."
"That's what we've come upon," said one of the workmen. "By the looks of
'ee you must be one of the new Artillerymen from Looe that can't die
however hard they want to. But didn' Jackson tell you to look out for
us?"
"Who's Jackson?"
"Why, our Clerk of the Works. He's somewhere inside surely? He usually
turns up half an hour ahead of anyone else, his heart's so set on this
job."
"I haven't seen 'en go by, to my knowledge," said Uncle Issy.
The two men looked at one another. "Not turned up? Then there must be
something the matter with 'en this morning: taken poorly with over-work,
I reckon. Oh, you can't miss Jackson when once you've set eyes on him--a
little chap with a face like a rabbit and a 'pediment in his speech."
"Hey?" said Uncle Issy sharply. "What? A stammerin' little slip of a
chap in a moleskin waistcoat?"
"That's the man. Leastways I never see'd him wear a moleskin waistcoat,
'xcept on Sundays."
"But it _was_ Sunday!"
"Hey?"
"Oh, tell me--tell me, that's dear souls! Makes a whistly noise in his
speech--do he?--like a slit bellows?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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