At the lower end of the wood, nearly half a mile from our home, the scrub was very thick. It seemed to be a tangle of briars, too thick for hounds—too thick, almost, for rabbits. Hugh and I had never been in that part of the wood before, but our guide evidently knew it well, for he never hesitated. He swung us on, panting as we were, along the clearer parts, till we came to a part where our way seemed stopped by gorse-bushes. They rose up, thick and dark, right in front of us. Our guide stopped and told us to look down. Among the gnarled gorse-stems there seemed to be a passage or "run" made by some beast, fox or badger, going to and from his lair.
"Down you go," said our guide. "There's lots of room when you try. Imagine you're a rabbit."
We saw that it was useless to say No; and, besides, by this time we had lost most of our terror. I dropped on to my knees at once, and began to squirm through the passage. Hugh followed me, and the strange man followed after Hugh. It was not really difficult, except just at the beginning, where the stems were close together. When I had wriggled for a couple of yards, the bushes seemed to open out to either side. It was prickly work, but I am sure that we both felt the romance of it, forgetting our fear before we reached the heart of the clump.
In the heart of the clump the gorse-bushes had been cut away, and piled up in a sort of wall about a small central square some five or six yards across. In the middle of the square some one had dug a shallow hollow, filling rather more than half of the open space. The hollow was about eighteen inches deep, and roughly paved with shingle from the beach, well stamped down into the clay. It had then been neatly wattled over into a sort of trim hut, like the huts the salmon-fishers used to build near Kings-bridge. The wattling was made fairly waterproof by masses of gorse and bracken driven in among the boughs. It was one of the most perfect hiding-places you could imagine. It could not be seen from any point, save from high up in one of the trees surrounding the thicket. A regiment might have beaten the wood pretty thoroughly, and yet have failed to find it. The gorse was so thick in all the outer part of the clump that dogs would leave its depths un-searched. Yet, lying there in the shelter one could hear the splashing babble of the brook only fifty yards away, and the singing of a girl at the mill a little further up the stream.
The man told us to get inside the shelter, which we did. Inside it was rather dark, but the man lit a lantern which hung from the roof, and kindled a fire in a little fireplace. This fireplace was covered with turf, so that the smoke should not rise up in a column. We saw that the floor of the hut was heaped with bracken, and there were tarpaulin boat-rugs piled in one corner, as though for bedding.
The man picked up a couple of rugs and told us to wrap ourselves in them. "You'll be cold if you don't wrap up," he said.
As he tucked the rugs about us I noticed that the ring-finger of his left hand was tattooed with three blue rings. I remembered what Mrs Cottier had said about the man who had lighted her fire in the barn, so I stared at him hard, trying to fix his features on my memory. He was a well-made, active-looking man, with great arms and shoulders. He was evidently a sailor: one could tell that by the way of his walk, by the way in which his arms swung, by the way in which his head was set upon his body. What made him remarkable was the peculiar dancing brightness of his eyes; they gave his face, at odd moments, the look of a fiend; then that look would go, and he would look like a mischievous, merry boy; but more generally he would look fierce and resolute. Then his straight mouth would set, his eyes puckered in as though he were looking out to windward, the scar upon his cheek twitched and turned red, and he looked most wrathful and terrible.
"Well, mister," the man said to me, "would you know me again, in case you saw me?"
"Yes," I said, "I should know you anywhere."
"Would you," he said, grinning. "Well, I was always the beauty of the bunch." He bit off a piece of plug tobacco and began to chew it. By-and-by he turned to Hugh to ask if he chewed tobacco. Hugh answered "No," laughing.
"Ah," said the man, "don't you learn. That's my advice. It's not easy to stop, once you begin."
He lay back in his corner, and seemed to pass into a sort of day-dream. Presently he looked up at us again, and asked us if we knew why we were there. We said that we did not.
"Well," he said, "it's like this. Last night you" (here he gave me a nudge with his foot) "you young gentleman that looks so smart, you went for a ride late at night, in the snow and all. See what came of it. There was Others out for a ride last night, quite a lot of 'em. Others that the law would be glad to know of, with men so scarce for the King's navy. Well, to-day the beaks are out trying to find them other ones. There's a power of redcoats come here, besides the preventives, and there they go, clackity clank, all swords and horses, asking at every house."
"What do they ask," said Hugh.
"They ask a lot of things," said the man. "'Where was you last night?' That's one question. 'What time did you come in last night?' That's another. 'Let's have a look at your horse; he looks as though he'd bin out in the snow last night.' Lots of things they ask, and if they got a hold of you, young master, why, you might have noticed things last night, and perhaps they might pump what you noticed out of you. So some one thinks you had best be out of the road when they come."
"Who is some one?" I asked.
"Just some one," he answered. "Some one who gets more money than I get." His mouth drew into a hard and cruel line; he lapsed into his day-dream, still chewing his plug of tobacco. "Some one," he added, "who don't like questions, and don't like to be talked about too much."
He was silent for a minute or two, while Hugh and I looked at each other.
"Oh, I'm not going to keep you long," said the man. "Them redcoats'll have done asking questions about here before your dinner time. Then they'll ride on, and a good riddance. Your lady will know how to answer them all right. But till they're gone, why, here you'll stay. So let's be comp'ny. What's your name, young master?" He gave Hugh a dig in the ribs with his boot.
"Hugh," he answered.
"Hugh," said the man: "Hugh! You won't never come to much, you won't. What's your name?" He nudged me in the same way.
"Jim," I said.
"Ah! Jim, Jim," he repeated. "I've known a many Jims. Some were good in their way, too." He seemed to shrink into himself suddenly—I can't explain it—but he seemed to shrink, like a cat crouched to spring, and his eyes burned and danced; they seemed to look right into me, horribly gleaming, till the whole man became, as it were, just two bright spots of eyes—one saw nothing else.
"Ah," he said, after a long, cruel glare at me, "this is the first time Jim and I ever met. The first time. We shall be great friends, we shall. We shall be better acquainted, you and I. I wouldn't wonder if I didn't make a man of you, one time or another. Give me your hand, Jim."
I gave him my hand; he looked at it under the lantern; he traced one or two of the lines with his blackened finger-nails, muttering some words in a strange language, which somehow made my flesh creep. He repeated the words: "Orel. Orel. Adartha Cay." Then he glanced at the other hand, still muttering, and made a sort of mark with his fingers on my forehead. Hugh told me afterwards that he seemed to trace a kind of zigzag on my left temple. All the time he was muttering he seemed to be half-conscious, almost in a trance, or as if he were mad: he frightened us dreadfully. After he had made the mark upon my brow he came to himself again.
"They will see it," he muttered. "It'll be bright enough. The mark. It'll shine. They'll know when they see it. It is very good. A very good sign: it burns in the dark. They'll know it over there in the night." Then he went on mumbling to himself, but so brokenly that we could catch only a few words here and there—"black and red, knowledge and beauty; red and black, pleasure and strength. What do the cards say?"