The Midnight Folk Read online

  “Why,” he said to himself, “it is my great-grandfather’s book. How very strange!” The book had been the property of other men before it had come to Captain Harker, for other names and earlier dates were written in it. He settled to read. The Sea-Gunner’s Practice was stiff reading for a little boy, though there were thrilling pages in it. One page was labelled:

  To make the fine mealed Gunpowder, for Priming.

  Another had the heading:

  To make the coarse corned Gunpowder.

  Another began:

  To make Coloured Flares and other Artificial Fire Works.

  “Someday,” he thought, “I’ll make gunpowder by the help of this. Then I’ll fire off great-grandpapa’s pistols that are on the wall, and I’ll have fireworks every night.”

  At the end of the book some twenty blank pages had been left by the publishers, so that sea-gunners might make notes and accounts of their stores according to the tables printed for their guidance. Captain Harker had made notes upon the first of these pages; the rest had been scrawled upon in a clumsy, coarse, untidy writing, by someone who did not know how to spell. In the cover of the book, at the end, was a pocket, which had once contained an engraving of Captain Shotgun’s Murdering Piece. The engraving was gone; in its stead was a very old brittle yellow piece of newspaper, headed:

  . . . EW YORK, December 1811.

  Strange Rescue in Gulf.

  He read on.

  Great interest was roused in West Street last evening by the arrival of the ship Seaman’s Rights, Captain Isaac Winterbourne, with a cargo of logwood from Campeachy. Captain Winterbourne reports that while in the Gulf he saw smoke rising apparently from the sea. Thinking that some ship might be on fire or assailed by pirates, he stood towards the smoke, and was soon rewarded by raising the Cranes Reefs, or rocky islets mentioned by Narvaez in his Gulf Pilot. The smoke proceeded from a fire of driftwood kindled by a solitary castaway, whom they found to be too crazed by his misfortunes to give a clear account of himself. No doubt he was the survivor of some merchantman wrecked in one of the great hurricanes, of which the last season was so fruitful. He seemed accustomed to a seafaring life, but neither his clothing nor his speech gave any clue as to who or what he was, the hardships to which he had been subject having destroyed his reason.

  On arrival in West Street, Captain Winterbourne sent him to a well-known doctor in Bleecker Street, from whose house he escaped in the course of last evening. Though he is certainly harmless, his manner may perplex or even frighten people, and the following description of him is issued to the public:

  A strongly-built man of five foot seven or eight inches in height, brown hair and eyes, short sandy beard, nose broken as though by a blow, and the lips somewhat slobber. When found on the rocks, he was dressed only in a suit of threadbare cottons. He left the Seaman’s Rights in a costume supplied by Captain Winterbourne, tarred trousers, a tarred hat, blue shirt and jacket. He had no property but an old Bible, a Prayer-book and a pamphlet on gunnery, to all of which the demented creature appeared equally attached. All these volumes had had several possessors and gave no clue to his identity.

  Captain Winterbourne in his passage home was twice assailed by the tyrants of the waves, but by his vessel’s speed was on both occasions able to uphold the challenge of her name.

  Kay wondered if the story could refer to some survivor of the Plunderer. Captain Harker had said that the Plunderer was last seen sailing towards the Gulf. Here was Captain Harker’s book taken from a rock in the Gulf at about the time of the Plunderer’s disappearance. And then the strange thing was that the book had been in the possession of this gamekeeper, whose name was Roper Bilges.

  “Yes,” Kay thought, “the gamekeeper is the descendant of my great-grandfather’s Roper Bilges, and probably the man taken off the reef was Roper Bilges himself. I’m jolly glad that he did have some hardships. But wait a minute. There’s all this writing at the end. Perhaps that will tell me more.”

  Turning to the writing at the end, he read as follows:

  The true statement of Roper Bilges, gunner in the ship Plunderer, Captain Harker, master.

  Since I have been spared to see that honesty is the best policy, I, Roper Bilges, set down the truth, so that justice may be done on villains. After I took charge of the Plunderer, to prevent her falling into bad hands, I had words with Twiney Pricker, the sailmaker, as he called himself, though he was nothing better than a pirate, having been one often, as I will swear. On my giving him orders as captain, he gave me low words, which I passed by, thinking that they would wait till we was ashore. In the night he came to my cot with three others, with Jake and the coffin-maker (having been such in Bristol), and English Joe, that deserted the Blanche frigate and had her on his stomach in blue. They said, “D—— your blood, we’ll no more Bilges for captain. Get down into the boat!”

  They put me ashore on some rocks, where there was nothing but birds and a kind of rat what lived on shellfish and the rain. They give me nothing but Bible and Prayer and one about gunnery. Pricker was against giving me fire, but the men stood out for me to have that. When they pulled back to the ship, she filled and stood off, and I never heard of her again: she was going, as they said, to the French settlements.

  On being left alone, I collected driftwood for a dozen fires which I always kept well heaped up so as not to lose my fire. I ate on rats, shellfish and sea birds, and the fish in the pools. At first I thought the crew was doing it for a pretend and would come back and take me off, but my fine Scoundrel Pricker saw to that.

  I reflected what my lot would be when the rains ceased on those hot rocks, with no shade, and whether I would go mad, etc.

  My main fear was of an hurricane which might whelm me out of this wicked world, which is but a snare. My one hope was, I had good books by me.

  On the eleventh day, or it may be the twelfth, for my mind was not very correct, being crazed with horror at T. Pricker’s monstrous ingratitude, I was took off by the ship Seaman’s Rights, Captain Winterbourne, master, with whom I returned to New York, tho’ not recovered in my brains. So fearing to be had into the mad-house to be cut open by the doctors, I thought it best to avoid into the country parts, where little by little my reason, which parts me from the brutes, came back as good as ever it was, tho’ no thanks to T. Pricker, the mad-house being my dread as well he knew.

  Coming back to England, I see in the newspapers Captain Harker is not dead, of which I am heartily glad, for I never meant him harm, and I am glad not to have his blood on my soul, it lying all on Twiney Pricker, who, I doubt not, has reaped his judgement according. It was he had the treasure. Whether it profited him I leave all to judge, for from that day to this no one has ever heard what came to him and them. One thing is sure, the ship is sank, for else we’d have heard of their folly, spending their ill-gotten gains, etc.

  If she was not sunk in a squall, she was cast away, and her crew and fine sailmaker captain made examples of as pirates, as I heartily hope. But having suffered according to his deserts, I forgive him the dirty turn he done me, but, if this should come after my death into the hands of the police, let them know that Twiney Pricker was from the northern parts, a sailmaker by profession and speaks in the northern way, lobster-eyed and blue of both eyes, wears his beard in the Newgate fringe fashion, has two teeth missing from the upper jaw on left side, being hit with a pot in a dispute about the victuals. He has also a lady’s heart transfixed with arrow on chest in gunpowder, also the fat ox of Bedford on his right arm. He speaks somewhat thick, owing to the teeth being gone, stands a short fellow but very thick. His hair which we call Twiney, is of a fair colour, like sea-twine. Anyone laying such by the heels would be entitled to the reward against pirates; though for my part, not being wishful to testify against an old shipmate, as well as being of a Xtian Turn and having forgiven him, would like to be kept out of it, not to come into court, if I could have the half reward for him; my one wish in this, being for justice on bloody-minded
villains. If he be now dead (as I sadly fear) guvvanment should hang his bones up as a warning what comes to these fine sailmakers that puts their betters upon rocks and would not give them even fire until forced to by some as would have shot them if they’d refused, it being only bullets as such Dogs have brains to understand, being very ignorant Fellows, for all they sit so high, as these Northern Parts men do.

  But I have now done with these wicked men, and took back my own name of R.B., and no harm can come now, Capt. H. being now dead: so I live at peace; only write this so as Truth may prevail and justice be done. The half reward might be left for Roper Bilges, at the Post Office, Shrewsbury, and would consent to a third. R.B.

  Kay read this story through three times. “It served him jolly well right,” he thought, “to be served as he served my great-grandfather. I’m jolly glad that he was put ashore. It is hard luck that all the treasure was lost, but anyhow I’d rather that than for Twiney Pricker and the others to have the benefit of it. It is exciting fun, piecing out the story.”

  He went to the library, where with some trouble he pulled out the Atlas, which had belonged to his grandfather. It was a big, heavy book; he lugged it to the table, turned up the Western maps, and tried to find the Cranes Reefs. After some time he found them, as little black specks in the midst of the pale blue Gulf, not very far from the lagoons of the French Settlements. “That is where they left Roper Bilges,” Kay thought; “and somewhere between those specks and the coast is where the Plunderer sank. I expect she is all covered with coral now, or fallen all to bits.”

  He left the Atlas open on the library table and returned to his lair above. When he had read the tale again, he left The Sea-Gunner’s Practice on his dressing-table.

  “That is what happened to the treasure,” he thought; “Pricker took it from Bilges and then it was sunk. I wish that I could tell great-grandpapa Harker, for that would be a load off his mind. No one could call that his fault.”

  ☆

  That afternoon the governess took him into the village, where he had to wait in the milliner’s shop while she matched a reel of silk; to wait outside the butcher’s (and not to play in the water of the gutter there, because there was blood in it) while she complained of last Sunday’s joint, which had been tough even when minced; then to wait outside the stationer’s, and not to go staring at the sweets next door because she would only be a minute, whereas she took eleven, because she met Mrs. Gossip there changing her novel; then in the last torment to wait in the sitting-room of Mrs. Tattle, looking at her case of wax fruits while “they” talked about Mr. Holyport’s sermon, and the sermon before that, and whether bugles were going to be much worn that year. The mention of bugles roused him for an instant, but it was soon plain that it wasn’t his kind of bugle, and that neither the governess nor Mrs. Tattle would come rousing the forest like Robin Hood: far from it. Then there was talk of the butcher, whose meat was so tough, and of the new butcher, down in the River Road, who had supplied a piece of veal that really, Mrs. Tattle was usually afraid of veal, because Dr. Gubbins says that you must be careful about veal, especially at night, but that this piece of veal, really it wasn’t like veal at all, but just like young lamb, so crisp when hot and delicious cold. Then there was all this talk about this and that in the newspapers that it was really dreadful what people were coming to, especially young people . . . Here there came a home-thrust at Kay, who wasn’t at all “what we were when we were girls,” which was very likely true.

  However, this visit, like so many others, came to an end at last. He was walked home to tea at home with a lecture about not fidgeting when he was paying a call, and especially of not twisting his hat-elastic round and round, and then letting it untwist, just as he’d been told not to at the swing, because it made everybody sick.

  He was undressing for bed that night when the governess, who was preparing to play the piano, called to him from the study: “Kay, was it you who had out the big Atlas and left it open here?”

  “Yes, it was, please.”

  “What did you have it out for?”

  “Please, I wanted to look out a place.”

  “Yes, but why didn’t you ask me or Ellen to put it back when you had done with it? You must get into the way of being tidy and not leave great books about when other people want to use the table.”

  It was just this interruption which kept him from putting The Sea-Gunner’s Practice into the secret nook. It was lying there on the dressing-table, just as he had left it; he had almost picked it up to put it away, when she asked that question: then it went out of his mind. He got into bed, making up his mind to keep awake; he was quite sure that he would not go to sleep. He half thought that he would get out of bed to hide away the book, but he did not see the use of it. One of the mice was scrunching away at the wainscot; he wondered if it were still invisible. It went scraunch and scraunch, as though grinding at the wood sideways. The scraunching mingled with the singing of the governess at last in a very drowsy noise which made the room dimmer, dimmer and dimmer; until . . .

  He woke up suddenly, wide awake and still with terror from the knowledge that someone was in the room. He rolled under the clothes at once, waited terrified there for a minute, and then peeped out.

  The room was brightly lit, as before, by no apparent light. It was dark night out of doors still, as he could see. An old woman in a poke-bonnet was standing close to his bed looking about her. “Our young friend is fast asleep, Blackmalkin,” she said, “but tread quietly. I must have a look about here.”

  He knew that sharp voice at once, and the next instant saw her face; it was Mrs. Pouncer.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Pouncer said, moving to the book upon the dressing-table, “what have we here? Aha, a very interesting book; very interesting. No wonder, Blackmalkin, that we pull down big Atlases, to see where Gulfs and places are. A very interesting pretty little book, Blackmalkin dear, but not at all the sort of reading for a nice young gentleman who ought to be giving his mind to ‘pouvoir.’ I think, my dear Blackmalkin, I will remove this little book.”

  At this she put it into her handbag, which shut with a snap. The odious Blackmalkin sidled against her ankles, purring.

  When she had taken the little book, she said, “I will just look round the room, Blackmalkin dear, in case there should be any other things of interest.” She lifted up a pair of glasses upon a handle, and began her search. She looked under the valance of the dressing-table. “Sugar, I see,” she said. “Our young friend’s private lunch, I presume; rather dirty sugar; unwholesome, I should say. Something of a smell of peppermint, too, isn’t there; or am I wrong about the peppermint; not quite peppermint, either, though; but I’ve lost the scent now.” She stared at the prints and at the model of the Plunderer. “The sports of our dear fathers,” she said, “and the toy . . . ah . . .Plunderer, I see . . . Ah, Plunderer; the name of the ship . . .”

  She paused for a minute over the ship; then she pulled a chair to the wall, stood upon it, fixed a magic lens upon the handle of her glasses, and stared through the model fixedly. “Nothing there,” she said, “nothing hidden there: no clue.”

  She carried the chair across the room, again stood upon it, and examined the pistols in the same way. “Useless,” she said, “no clue there. But let us now look at the hearthstone.”

  She rolled back the carpet so as to expose the slab. It was a big, clean block, six feet by four, apparently mortared and leaded into brickwork. She knelt down upon it, tried several magic lenses in her glasses, but seemed unable to see through it with any. She tapped it with a little hammer which she had in her bag. She pressed the knobs in the planks near it, as though hoping to press a secret spring. Nothing happened.

  “I don’t think that there is anything there,” she said. “But there may be a hollow space . . . It is a very big stone for an upstairs fireplace. There seems to be nothing more to examine here.” She tapped the window-seats and the wainscotings, looked under the bed, pulled the sofa to one side.<
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  “I think, my dear Blackmalkin,” she said, “we might go. There is nothing of any interest. We will go back to the library, where books like this seem to be found.” As she moved past the dressing-table on her way to the door, she paused again. “It is odd,” she said. “I really distinctly caught that smell of peppermint, or not quite peppermint. Perhaps it is a little the smell of mice, my dear young friend. You really ought between the three of you to be able to control the mice.”

  The odious Blackmalkin sidled against her ankles, purring.

  “He’s a regular little sucking up sneak,” Kay thought; “I’m jolly glad the keeper soused him.”

  Mrs. Pouncer looked at Kay for a moment; he rolled slowly over drowsily. “How soundly our young friend sleeps,” she said. “Well, the sounder the better; we don’t want young friends prying about the house while we’re at work.”

  Saying this, she moved out of the room, followed by Blackmalkin. When the door was closed upon her, Kay sat up to make sure that she had gone.

  “I’ll know her again if ever I see her,” he said to himself. “She has a hooky nose, a hooky chin, very bright black eyes, long dingle-dangle earrings which click, a poke-bonnet, a red cloak, a stick with a hooky handle, and pointy black shiny shoes. And although in a way she looks old, in another way she looks very young. And she has bagged my book . . . I’ll see if I can’t follow her, to get it back.”

  It was all very well to make this resolve from a warm bed; but when out of bed, and about to open the door onto what might be a dark passage full of witches, it did not seem so wise. “And yet,” he thought, “Roper Bilges’s name is in the book. If she finds out, somehow, that I got it from the keeper instead of from the library, she’ll probably tell the governess, I shall be asked how I got it, and then there’ll be a row. It will all be discovered then: my going out and everything. I must get the book.”