He opened his thick sea-coat, and took out a little packet of cards from an oilskin case. He dealt them out, first of all, in a circle containing two smaller circles; then in a curious sort of five-pointed star; lastly, in a square with a circle cutting off the corners. "Queer, queer," he said, grinning, as he swept the cards up and returned them to his pocket. "You and I will know a power of queer times together, Jim."
He brightened up after that, as though something had pleased him very much. He looked very nice when he looked pleased, in spite of his eyes and in spite of the gipsy darkness of his skin. "Here," he said, "let's be company. D'ye know any knots, you two?"
No; neither of us knew any knots except the ordinary overhand and granny knots.
"Well, I'll show you," he said. "It'll come in useful some day. Always learn what you can, that's what I say, because it'll come in useful. That's what the Irishman said. Always learn what you can. You never know; that's the beauty of it."
He searched in his pockets till he found a small hank of spun-yarn, from which he cut a piece about a yard long. "See here," he said. "Now, I'll teach you. It's quite easy, if you only pay attention. Now, how would you tie a knot if you was doing up a parcel?"
We both tried, and both made granny knots, with the ends sticking out at right angles to the rest of the yarn.
"Wrong," he said. "Those are grannies. They would jam so that you'd never untie 'em, besides being ugly. There's wrong ways even in doing up a string. See here." He rapidly twisted the ends together into a reef-knot. "There's strength and beauty together," he said. "Look how neat it is, the ends tidy along the standing part, all so neat as pie. Besides, it'd never jam. Watch how I do it, and then try it for yourself."
Very soon we had both mastered the reef-knot, and had tried our hand at others—the bowline, the figure of eight, the Carrick-bend, and the old swab-hitch. He was very patient with us. He told us exactly how each knot would be used at sea, and when, and why, and what the officers would say, and how things would look on deck while they were in the doing. The time passed pleasantly and quickly; we felt like jolly robbers in a cave. It was like being the hero of a story-book to sit there with that rough man waiting till the troops had gone. It was not very cold with the fire and the boat-rugs. We were heartily sorry when the man rose to his feet, with the remark that he must see if the coast were clear. Before he left the hut he glared down at us. "Look here," he said, "don't you try to go till I give the word. But there, we're friends; no need to speak rough to friends. I'll be back in a minute."
The strange man passed out of the hut and along the rabbit-run to the edge of the gorse. We heard his feet crunch upon the snow beyond, rustling the leaves underneath it; and then it was very, very quiet again, though once, in the stillness, we heard a cock pheasant calling. Another pheasant answered him from somewhere above at the upper part of the wood, and it occurred to both of us that the pheasants were the night-riders, making their private signals.
"We've had a famous adventure to tell Mother," said Hugh.
"Yes," I said; "but we had better be careful not to tell anybody else. I wonder what they do here in this hut; I suppose they hide their things here till it's safe to take them away."
"Where do they take them?" asked Hugh.
"Away into Dartmoor," I said. "And there there are wonderful places, so old Evans the postboy told me."
"What sort of places?" asked Hugh.
"Oh, caves covered over with gorse and fern, and old copper and tin mines, which were worked by the ancient Britons. They go under the ground for miles, so old Evans told me, with passages, and steps up and down, and great big rooms cut in the rock. And then there are bogs where you can sink things till it's quite safe to take them up. The bog-water keeps them quite sound; it doesn't rot them like ordinary water. Sometimes men fall into the bogs, and the marsh-mud closes over them. That's the sort of place Dartmoor is."
Hugh was very much interested in all this, but he was a quiet boy, not fond of talking. "Yes," he said; "but where do the things go afterwards—who takes them?"
"Nobody knows, so old Evans said," I answered; "but they go, they get taken. People come at night and carry them to the towns, little by little, and from the market towns, they get to the cities, no one knows how. I dare say this hut has been full of things—valuable lace and silk, and all sorts of wines and spirits—waiting for some one to carry them into the moor."
"Hush!" said Hugh; "there's some one calling—it's Mother."
Outside the gorse-clump, at some little distance from us, we heard Mrs Cottier and my aunt calling "Hugh!" and "Jim!" repeatedly. We lay very still wondering what they would think, and hoping that they would make no search for us. They could have tracked us in the snow quite easily, but we knew very well they would never think of it, for they were both shortsighted and ignorant of what the Red Indians do when they go tracking. To our surprise their voices came nearer and nearer, till they were at the edge of the clump, but on the side opposite to that in which the rabbit-run opened. I whispered to Hugh to be quiet as they stopped to call us. They lingered for several minutes, calling every now and then, and talking to each other in between whiles. We could hear every word of their conversation.
"It's very curious," said my aunt. "Where-ever can they have got to? How provoking boys are!"
"It doesn't really matter," said Mims; "the officer has gone, and the boy would only have been scared by all his questions. He might ha^e frightened the boy out of his wits. I wonder where the young monkeys have got to. They were going to build snow-huts, like the Indians. Perhaps they're hiding in one now."
We were, had she only known it; Hugh and I grinned at each other. Suddenly my aunt spoke again with a curious inflection in her voice.
"How funny," she exclaimed.
"What is it?" asked Mrs Cottier.
"I'm almost sure I smell something burning," said my aunt "I'm sure I do. Don't you?"
There was a pause of a few seconds while the two ladies sniffed the air.
"Yes," said Mrs Cottier, "there is something burning. It seems to come from that gorse there."
"Funny," said my aunt. "I suppose some one has lighted a fire up in the wood and the smoke is blowing down on us. Well, we'll go in to dinner; it's no good staying here catching our death looking for two mad things. I suppose you didn't hear how Mrs Burns is, yesterday?"
The two ladies passed away from the clump towards the orchard, talking of the affairs of the neighbourhood. A few minutes after they had gone, a cock pheasant called softly a few yards from us, then the gorse-stems shook, and our friend appeared at the hut door,
"They're gone, all right," he said; "swords, and redcoats and pipe-clay—they're gone. And a good riddance too! I should have been back before, only your ladies were talking, looking for you, so I had to wait till they were gone. I expect you'll want your dinner, sitting here so long? Well, cut and get it."
He slung the boat-rugs into a corner, blew out the lantern, and dropped a handful of snow on to the fire. "Cut," he continued. "You can go. Get out of this. Run and get your dinners." We went with him out of the hut into the square. "See here," he continued, "don't you go coming here. You don't know of this place—see? Don't you show your little tracks in this part of the wood; this is a private house, this is—trespassers will be prosecuted. Now run along and thank 'ee for your company."