The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl. Cobbold Richard
few years, however, previously to this narration, some smugglers had been disappointed of their run, and had thrown their tubs down the well, with the consent of their agent the fisherman, probably a descendant of the old shepherd’s, who dwelt in the cottage. This led to the re-discovery and improvement of this famous depôt of arms, ammunition, stock-in-trade, and place of retreat, which was then occupied by Will Laud and his associates, and to which very spot John Luff was at that time bound.
These men had contrived to make the cave as comfortable a berth as a subterraneous place could be. They had ingeniously tapped the land stream below the cave, and laid it perfectly dry, and with much labour and ingenuity had contrived to perforate the clay into the very chimney of the cottage; so that a current of air passed through the archway directly up the chimney, and carried away the smoke, without the least suspicion being awakened. This place was furnished with tables, mats, stools, and every requisite for a place of retreat and rendezvous. The descent was by a bucket well-rope, which a sailor well knew how to handle; whilst the bucket itself served to convey provisions or goods of any kind.
Such was the place into which vanished the choice spirits which poor Pat had seen, and into which Pat himself, nolens, volens, was shortly to be introduced. It would be needless to add, that the fisherman and his wife were accomplices of the smugglers.
Some short time after, Pat had an opportunity of discovering the use of the well as an inlet and outlet of the smugglers, and conceived the idea that contraband goods were stowed away at the bottom of it. He had seen a man, after talking to the woman at the spot, descend, and then come up again, and depart.
“Now’s my turn,” says Pat to himself, as he came out from his hiding-place, and went to the well. As every sailor could let himself down by a rope, and ascend by it likewise, Pat was soon at the bottom of the well, but found nothing. He began his ascent, working away with his hands and feet in a manner which a sailor only understands. He was gaining more daylight, and hoping that he should get out before the woman (whom he concluded had gone for help) should return. He had gained the very part where the archway into the cave was formed, and there found a sort of stay, or bar, at the opposite side, to rest his leg upon. He was taking advantage of this post to get breath, and had just swung off again to ascend, when he felt his ankles grasped by a powerful pair of pincers, as it seemed, and in another instant such a jerk as compelled him instantly to let go the rope, and he came with all his weight against the side of the well. Stunned he was, but not a bone was broken, for his tormentors had taken the precaution to have a well-stuffed hammock ready to break his fall. He was in a moment in the cave, and when reviving, heard such a burst of unearthly merriment, he could think of nothing but that he had arrived at that dreaded purgatory, to escape which he had paid so much to his priest.
In a faint, feeble voice, Pat was heard to exclaim – “O, Father O’Gharty; O, Father O’Gharty, deliver me!”
This caused such another burst, and such a roar of “O, Father O’Gharty! O, Father O’Gharty!" from so many voices, that the poor fellow groaned aloud. But a voice, which he fancied he had heard when on earth, addressed him, as he lay with his eyes just opening to a red glare of burning torches.
“Patrick O’Brien! Patrick O’Brien! welcome to the shades below.”
Pat blinked a little, and opened his eyes wider, and saw, as he thought, twenty or thirty ghosts of smugglers, whom he supposed had been shot by the coastguard, and were answering for their sins in purgatory.
“Come, Pat, take a drop of moonshine, my hearty, to qualify the water you have taken into your stomach: this liquid flame will warm the cold draught.”
Pat had need of something to warm him, but had no idea of drinking flame.
“I hope,” he said, “your majesty will excuse a poor Irishman.”
“No excuse! no excuse! By the saint, your namesake, you shall swallow this gill, or maybe you’ll have a little more water to simmer in.”
Pat made no further opposition; and one of the uncouth, black-bearded demons, handed him a cup of as bright, shining liquid as any which the sons of whisky ever saw.
“Drink, Pat, drink,” said the fellow; “a short life and a merry one.”
“Och!" sighed Pat, and the next moment the burning liquid ran down his throat, warming his inside with such a glow, as made the blood circulate rapidly through every vein of his body. Whether it was the pure gin he had drunk, or the naturally aspiring disposition of the man, he began to look around him, and to note the habitation in which they dwelt. Pikes and guns were slung here and there; cables and casks lay about the room; swords and pistols – weapons which seemed more adapted to fleshly men than disembodied spirits – made the reviving spirit of this son of the Emerald Isle bethink him that he had fallen into the hands of mortals. He now looked a little more wise, and began to give a good guess at the truth, when the one who seemed to be the captain of the band soon dissipated all his doubts by saying, “Patrick O’Brien, here’s to Lieutenant Barry and the preventive service. Come, Pat, drink to your commander, ’tis the last time you will ever be in such good company.”
These words convinced him that he was in the smugglers’ cave; and as he knew them to be most desperate fellows, his own lot did not appear much more happy than when he thought himself in the company of evil spirits.
“Come, Pat, drink. You need a little comfort.”
Pat drank, and though he foresaw that no good could come to him, yet as the spirit poured in, and his heart grew warm, he thought he would not seem afraid, so he drank “Success to Lieutenant Barry and the coastguard!”
“Now, Pat, one more glass, and we part for ever.”
Ominous words – “part for ever!” He heartily wished himself again in his own dear island, ere he had ventured a peep at the bottom of the well. The smugglers – for such he found they were – grinned upon him most unceremoniously, as if they had some horrid purpose in view, and seemed to enjoy the natural timidity which began to creep over his frame.
Pat drank his last glass: John Luff arose, commanded silence, and, in as gentle a voice as such a fellow could assume, said, “Mr. Patrick O’Brien, you are welcome now to your choice of departure.”
“Thank ye, gemmen, thank ye, and I shall not forget your hospitality.”
Pat rose, as if to depart.
“Mr. Patrick O’Brien, the choice of departure we give you is the choice of death!”
Pat’s heart sank within him, but he did not lose all his courage or presence of mind; and the latter quality suggested to him that he would try a little blarney.
“Why, gemmen, you wouldn’t kill a poor fellow in cold blood, would you?”
“No, Pat, no; and for that reason we have made you welcome to a drop, that you may not die a cold-blooded death. Draw swords!”
In an instant twenty sharp blades were unsheathed.
“Now, Mr. O’Brien, take your choice: shall every man have a cut at you – first a leg, then a hand, then an arm, and so on, until your head only shall remain – or will you be rolled up in a hammock for a sack, as your winding-sheet, and, well shotted, sink as a sailor to the bottom of those waters we have just quitted?”
“Thank your honour,” said the poor victim of their cruelty, “thank your honour; and of the two I had rather have neither.”
There was no smile upon any of the ferocious countenances around him, and Pat’s hopes of anything but cruelty forsook him. Just at this moment the bucket descended the well, and in came Will Laud, or Captain Laud, as he was called, who, acquainted with the fact of the Irishman’s descent (for he was the very person whom Pat had seen to make his exit, and had been informed by the woman of his being drowned), was a little relieved to see the man standing in the midst of his men unscathed.
He soon understood the position in which he was placed, and, after a few words with his Lieutenant, John Luff, himself repeated the already determined sentence of his crew.
So calm was his voice, so fixed his manner, that the bold Irishman