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Hunted

Chapter XIII. The Escape

Chapter XIII. The Escape.

When, after that last sad parting with his wife amidst the smoking ruins of his cottage, Dillon heard the sound of the wheels of the cart bearing away from him all that he loved best on earth, a sense of his utter loneliness and desolation came over him. They had parted; where and when would they meet again? Would it be in a prison? where awaiting the hour of execution he should have even a more painful parting; or could it be that with the kind help of Heaven he would yet meet them on a distant shore, where, free from pursuit and the ever-present dread of arrest, they should enjoy peace after so dreadful trials?

He could hardly dare to hope that it would be so, and he felt again that it would be better once for all to end the agony by surrendering himself to the police. But he could not forget his wife's pleading words—‘Try to live for their sakes and for mine,’—and with an earnest prayer to Heaven for help, he determined he would brave it to the last.

He still clutched in his hand the little package she had given him. Stealthily creeping from his hiding-place, he examined it by the light of a burning log. It contained bank notes—the very last, he felt assured, of all that she had remaining. It pained him to have taken the money; he would gladly have given it back if it had been in his power. But it had been given him to aid him in his flight, and he could not but feel that in devoting it to the purpose of making good his escape he would be best serving the interests of his wife and children, as well as his own.

It was now nearly midnight. Every moment was one of danger; yet he felt it hard to drag himself away. He stood among the ruins. Threading his way among the debris, he wandered from room to room, and in his deiection he recalled the scenes of happiness that those now blackened and crumbling walls had witnessed. He left the ruins; he passed through the little plantation that lay between the cottage and the loch, and came to the place where his faithful servant was awaiting him.

Tom had moored the boat under the dark shadow of a bridge that spanned a little stream, and he was walking up and down impatiently and anxiously looking for his master.

For in the interval of his absence he had heard news that boded ill to Mr Dillon. From some passing neighbours with whom he had got into conversation he learned that the police were about to make a raid on the settlement of the unfortunate tenants on the hill; and that it was most likely to take place that night or the following morning.

The rumour was that the authorities had come to suspect that some criminals were hidden among the huts, and they had determined to have the place surrounded and searched; and numbers of policemen had been seen gathering in the direction of the place, as night set in.

Fortunate it had been for Dillon that he had crossed the loch. He had for some time believed that sooner or later this would happen, and that he would have to suddenly leave the settlement, or be caught. The hour for action had come.

He told Tom that he must fly, and asked him if he would take him down the loch, so as to escape the patrol. But Tom had already seen that flight was necessary, and had been preparing for this, employing his spare time in the absence of Mr Dillon, in loading the boat with farm-produce of every kind, piling up in the stern a great heap of sheaves of corn from a stack still remaining in the hayyard, which would serve at once as a concealment for his master, and an excuse for his travelling down the loch, in the event of his being overhauled by the police.

They came to the bridge underneath, which the boat was moored, and in a few minutes Dillon was effectually concealed underneath the corn, and the sheaves themselves were so arranged as to evade suspicion.

Tom rowed out into the middle of the loch, as far as possible to avoid being seen from the shore. The course intended to be taken by Dillon was to reach the southern extremity of the loch, and then proceed down the river and by the series of lochs succeeding one another, until he should reach a point in a distant county where, from the quieter condition of the peasantry, the police surveillance should not be so stringent.

Tom vowed that he would go with him to the ends of the earth, if needed, and that he would do anything to help him to escape; and Dillon, from his concealment in the after part of the boat, directed him to press on, so that by break of day he might be out of the loch and going down the river, where the number of boats on the water would make their little craft less conspicuous, and make it pass, as it appeared to be, for a boat laden with farm produce going to market.

They had been about an hour on the way, and had made good progress. A point of the shore jutting out into the loch lay before them, and in order to shorten the way, Tom steered his boat so as to shave the point as closely as possible. Just as they were passing, ‘Boat ahoy! Who goes there?’ was shouted from the beach, and, dark as the night was, Tom distinctly recognised the dreaded police patrol.

Without a word of reply he turned his boat from the shore, and, redoubling his efforts, page 32 soon placed a considerable distance between him and the point. But his action had been noticed. ‘Boat ahoy!’ again rang out loud and peremptory from the shore, and an instant after the sound of a carbine was followed by the whistling of a bullet past the boat.

Tom bent himself to the oars, and the boat flew over the water. Dillon raised himself from his hiding-place and looked behind. Nothing could be seen but the dim outline of the headland they had passed, but in the silent night air there was borne to him a sound that almost froze his blood with dismay. There was no mistaking it—it was that of oars being thrown into a boat; and Tom stopping his rowing for a moment, they could distinctly hear horne over the still surface of the loch the dip of the oars and the rattle of the rowlocks.

They were pursued. The loch had now narrowed to a point, and even the entrance to the river could not be very far ahead, so that there could be no possibility of dodging their pursuers.

The mistake that had been made in not answering the police challenge was now apparent. Had this been done, there seemed no doubt that the appearance of the cargo would have passed muster and that the police would have allowed it to pass. Now suspicions had been aroused by the effort to escape, and a complete overhaul of the cargo must take place.

Dillon saw the danger in an instant and that there was no escape for him unless he got ashore. Every moment the pursuers were gaining on them, and he could distinctly make out the outline of the police boat rushing through the darkness.

They were close in shore; a point which they had to pass was a short distance ahead. Directing Tom to round the point so as to conceal them from their pursuers, he prepared for a spring. The branches of a tree overhung and almost touched the surface of the loch. Extricating himself from his concealment the moment they had got under cover of the point, Dillon sprang at a branch of the tree and lightly swung himself ashore.

Rushing up the bank, he dropped behind a huge boulder, and from the covert of some gorse he saw the police boat shoot the point. Tom had now slackened his pace, and in a few minutes afterwards the police boat was alongside

Tom was prepared for some rough handling for his attempt to escape, but now that his master had slipped aside and evaded arrest, he was not particularly anxious as to the result

Affecting surprise he declared his satisfaction that it was a police boat; he had thought he was pursued by robbers. He had been frightened, he said, out of his ‘sivin sinses,’ and had given himself up as lost. So well did he play his part that the police, though sceptical at first, and though they made a search for ‘poteen’ or other illegal wares which they suspected he had on board, were at last convinced that Tom was an innocent country boy on his way down the river with farming stuff on board, and having rated him soundly for having led them such a wild-goose chase, while Tom complained that they had no business to frighten a poor fellow out of his wits, the police permitted him to proceed on his journey.

Tom declared that he had quite enough for one night, that he would stop where he was till the morning. So he put his boat in shore and moored it to a tree on the bank. In a short time Dillon, from his hiding place among the gorse, had the pleasure of seeing the police boat pass the point and slowly make its way up the loch.

Feeling confident that Tom would make his appearance again when the coast was clear, he waited. After some time he heard a low whistle from behind the point, so leaving the shelter of the gorse he made his way to the beach and was soon stowed away again in his hiding place in the boat.

Dillon congratulated Tom on the adroitness with which he had bluffed the police. Hope was begining once more to spring up in his heart. Danger passed gave him greater confidence as to the possibility of evading danger to come. Every hour was widening the distance between him and the scene of his escape, and lessening the vigilance directed by the police to the pursuit of the murderer of Captain Lewis, and for the first time since he sprang from the Courthouse window Dillon began to believe in the possibility of ultimate escape.

Warned, however, by this latest danger, he concluded that it would be unwise to excite suspicion again by pushing their journey by night and as Tom even more than himself was worn out with sleeplessness and fatigue, they determined to remain where they were till the morning. Fastening the boat-rope to a branch stretching far out over the water, so as to be free from intrusion from any chance passer-by, the two travellers were soon deep in slumber.

It was broad day when Tom awoke and began putting his craft in trim to pursue the journey. He dressed it up to appear as much as possible like a boat taking farm produce to market, while from his shelter among the oat-sheaves Dillon directed their progress.

They entered the river, and with the rapid current swollen by the melting snow, the boat went merrily on, while Tom in a leisurely way used the oars more to steady the boat and guide her down the stream, than to assist her progress.

At some of the villages on the banks of the river, Tom had no difficulty in purchasing provisions; and at one of them, by the direction of Mr Dillon, he obtained a suit of clothes at an outfitting establishment. For page 33 the necessity of having something besides the clothing in which he had escaped from the Courthouse and which, no doubt, had been accurately described in the ‘Hue and Cry,’ and the description of which must have been in the hands of every policeman—was fully impressed on the mind of Dillon.

For three days they continued their journey, now rapidly borne along by the current, again crossing one after another the picturesque lochs that are linked together like a chain of pearls by the Shannon; travelling by day, and mooring their craft to the bank at night.

They reached a point in the river, where Dillon deemed it prudent to take coach across country on his way to Waterford, which he believed to be the port least likely to be closely watched. Limerick, Galway, Dublin, or any port nearer or easier of access, would be far more likely to be suspected as the place from which a fugitive from his district would probably try to escape.

He wrote a long and loving letter to his wife, giving a narrative of his progress, but giving no hint as to his future intentions lest the letter might be intercepted. This he gave to Tom to convey to Mrs Dillon, concealing it within the lining of his clothes. He directed him to dispose of the boat, which had belonged to himself, as well as the cargo, and to return by coach or train, so soon as he had himself got started on his way.

Gladly would Tom have gone with his master and shared his trials, whatever they were; and sorry did Dillon feel the parting from the last old friend he would see for many a day, and the truest-hearted servant he had ever met. But Tom had strong ties drawing him back in the defenceless state of his poor old mother about to be driven out perhaps from her miserable shelter, and Dillon, too, had other work for Tom.

He knew that nothing would so surely free him from the stigma attaching to this dreadful crime, and so soon restore him to his family as the discovery of the actual criminal. He had faith in Tom's shrewdness; his faithfulness he had long proved, and as Tom belonged to the class who had suffered most severely from, and passionately resented, the cruelties perpetrated on the estate, he believed that no one could better trace out the actual murderer.

That the crime was committed either by some of the evicted tenants or someone acting in sympathy with them, he had not the least doubt, and he put it to Tom as his last request to hunt up the murderer and have him brought to justice, as the best service he could render to his master, falsely and foully charged with such a wicked and shameful crime.

The cross-country coach by which Dillon determined to run the risk of travelling to a somewhat distant railway station left at day-light in the morning. He did not desire Tom to accompany him to the coach, but to watch from a distance, so that he might be able to report to Mrs Dillon as to whether he had got safely started.

He took his place in the coach before it had left the stables. Three or four others took their places at the same time. He was far outside of his own district, and not likely to be recognised. Nevertbeless, when the coach drove through the streets to the Post-office, and when it stopped opposite the door of that building for five minutes—ten minutes — a quarter of an hour—while the letter bags were being put aboard, and the coach man chatted with the ostler, and examined the points of his team, and the beggar women and children came poking their faces into the coach and asking charity, and a solitary early policeman sauntered leisurely past, taking a glance at the passengers withiu—in that bad quarter of an hour Dillon's pulse was travelling at fever pace, and his heart was in his mouth till the crack of the coachman's whip and the jolting of the old lumbering coach told him they were off.

When night was gathering over the town, Dillon stepped forth that evening from the railway station at Waterford. In one of the common lodging houses in the neighbourhood of the quay, where mariners most do congregate; later on be found himself in conversation with the skipper of a small craft trading with Bourdeax. It was an open secret that more passed in the ‘Coquette’ than passed the Custom-house whether in France or Ireland. But what recked he? He was himself contraband; and when morning broke again, William Dillon was resting on his elbows on the bulwarks of the ‘Coquette’ with the outline of the coast of Ireland disappearing in the distant haze.