Jack Bolt and the Highwaymen's Hideout Read online

  For my mother —R. H.

  To Richard, Di, Imogen, and Phoebe

  and also to the genius of William Hogarth

  —S. H.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Lying in Wait

  Chapter Two

  Mysterious Voices

  Chapter Three

  A Great Honor

  Chapter Four

  The Knife in the Wall

  Chapter Five

  A Loop in the Ribbon of Time

  Chapter Six

  The Other Time

  Chapter Seven

  A Knotty Problem

  Chapter Eight

  Taking from the Rich

  Chapter Nine

  The Retreat

  Chapter Ten

  Burglars

  Chapter Eleven

  All Hallows’ Eve

  Chapter Twelve

  Snippers of Wittlesham

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Halloween Highwaymen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Naughty Boy

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hijack

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Divine Messenger

  Chapter Seventeen

  Capture!

  Chapter Eighteen

  A Lesson in Robbery

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Flight for Life

  Chapter Twenty

  Wittlesham

  Also by the Author

  Chapter One

  Lying in Wait

  “How dare they be late?” Lord Henry Vane exclaimed, peering at his watch in the moonlight. “We’ve been waiting for ages! My feet are aching, and my hair has gnats in it!”

  He waved his glove at the clouds of tiny flies that were swarming around them. Beneath him, his mare, Red Ruby, sighed, her belly filling with air that she expelled with a satisfying snort.

  “Brrrrrrhhhhhhhh!”

  Beside him, his servant, Tom Drum, was seated on a small pony, scratching himself like a dog with fleas.

  “It’s bloomin’ rude, my lord,” he agreed. “Here we are, about to rob the London coach, and they have the nerve to be late! It is very bad manners.”

  “Stop scratching yourself, man. It makes me want to scratch myself.” Lord Henry stood up in his stirrups and scratched his legs vigorously.

  Tom Drum took out a long-barreled pistol and reached behind his head to scratch his back with it. “I can’t help it, sir. It’s the thicket. It’s alive.”

  Lord Henry lit a clay pipe and blew clouds of smoke around them. “That’s fixed ’em!” he said, his eyes watering from the smoke. He continued sucking and puffing as together the two highwaymen watched the lonely moonlit road in front of them. Lord Henry’s face was periodically lit up by the red glow of the pipe. He had a large nose and chin, a mole on one cheek, a huge wig of brown curls topped with a three-cornered hat—and on his face, a mask. In the corner of the mask, a red ruby glimmered.

  “Because they are so late,” he told Tom Drum, “we shall rob them of everything tonight. Trinkets, jewelry, hats, furs, lace, and every piece of money. It is our reward for waiting for so long in this wretched swamp. The only things we shall leave the passengers are their watches!”

  “But watches is valuable, my lord.” Tom Drum was mystified.

  “It’s a joke, Tom. So they will not be late again, they must have their watches!”

  “Oh—ha, ha! Wittily done, my lord. Ha, ha!”

  “Thank you, Tom.”

  “May I request a nice pair of new boots? My current ones has holes in the soles.”

  “By all means.”

  “And a new undershirt. I need a new undershirt.” Tom Drum scratched himself under his arm.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, my lord. And pants. I need new pants. In fact—I require a whole new set of silken underclothes!”

  “Really? But, Tom—this would mean they had no clothes on. It is not gentlemanly to steal a man’s undergarments. We cannot leave them naked on the highway in the moonlight!”

  “No? I thought you said we would rob them of everything?”

  “It was a joke, remember? No, no, it is quite wrong to steal their underwear.” Lord Henry was troubled.

  “They could have my undergarments,” Tom suggested. “We could swap. Mine are basic but quite serviceable.”

  “No, Tom. It is unthinkable.” Lord Henry waved his pipe at the tiny flies. “When people sing ballads about us a hundred years from now, I don’t want to be known as the highwayman who stole underclothes. A man’s reputation is of paramount importance.”

  Tom Drum frowned. “What’s that mean? Paramount?”

  “It means ‘the very highest.’ My reputation is of the very highest importance. Remember: we always treat our victims with courtesy; we are always polite and well mannered. We show them tenderness, concern, love. We charm them until they are … until they are grateful to be robbed! And if possible, we make sure they have a fine story to recount to their friends in society. We want people to want to be robbed!”

  Lord Henry chuckled. What a marvelously mad idea: to want to be robbed! He sucked on his pipe and, finding it was empty, dropped it into his saddlebag. Underneath him, Red Ruby shifted gently.

  “Look!” Tom Drum suddenly grabbed Lord Henry’s arm and pointed. “There they are!”

  In the distance was a speck, like a black beetle, moving through the moonlit countryside. It disappeared behind trees, and the highwaymen waited and watched.

  “That’s them,” said Lord Henry as the coach appeared again. “At last!” Pleasure and excitement rang in his voice. He took out a little pocket mirror and checked his mask and his white teeth. Satisfied, he put the mirror away and brought out his pistol. He kissed it. “I see a fine supper ahead! Wine and stew at the old Cap and Stockings. And then a game of cards. Hmm?”

  “Aye,” agreed Tom Drum, grinning lopsidedly. “So—just the coat and boots, then?”

  “And the money!” Lord Henry reminded him. “And the money,” repeated Tom Drum. They took their positions by the road.

  “And the necklaces.”

  “Oh, yes: necklaces, money, coats, and boots …”

  The coach lurched toward them—two lanterns like yellow eyes, blinking in the silvery night. With a clatter of hooves the highwaymen rode up onto the road and stopped the coach.

  Lord Henry waved his pistol in the air. He shouted out in a fine, full voice:

  “Stand and deliver!

  Lord Henry Vane is my name,

  And highway robbery is my game!”

  Chapter Two

  Mysterious Voices

  Far away across the heath, Jack couldn’t sleep. He always found it difficult to sleep in Granny’s house. Maybe it was the light: moonlight streaming through the thin white curtains, giving the room a wash of cold silver. Or maybe it was the musty smell. Granny never used the guest room, so the air was stale, with a hint of mothballs and furniture polish.

  He turned over and looked at the clock. The red lights glowed: 10:30. Half past ten. At home Mom and Dad would be watching TV. Just like Granny downstairs. That’s what grown-ups do after they put you to bed, he thought. They go downstairs and watch TV. Sometimes they act like they’re doing something else—something important—which is why they say things like “Go on! Get to bed, we’ve got things to do.” And then they flop down in front of the flickering screen. He turned over again. Boing! A spring twanged in the mattress.

  That was the other reason Jack couldn’t sleep: the bed. This was the noisiest bed in the world! Every time he moved, the springs sprang. Twang! Boing! Pinggggggg! It was like lying on a harp. Or on the
strings of a grand piano. And the headboard creaked like a door in a horror movie. Errrrreeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr!

  He decided he would lie as still as possible so that the bed made no noise at all. Not a creak. Not a ping or a twang at all. He would count to see how long he could go without moving …

  He looked at the dark shapes of the furniture looming around him: the chest of drawers, the tall-backed armchair, the old seaman’s chest. They all looked sinister—he tried not to let himself become frightened by them. It was as if he was sharing his room with black lumps from which monsters might erupt.

  This was the first time Jack had stayed at his granny’s house on his own, without his parents. They had had to stay in London to work. He wondered what he would do. It was only three days and nights, but he had no friends here, no computer, no games, nothing. It was going to be really boring. And Granny was permanently busy.

  Then again, that might be a good thing. He liked the freedom Granny gave him. She had a straightforward policy when it came to ten-year-old visitors: she believed that they were quite capable of looking after themselves. She was there only for emergencies. “Food and first aid,” she’d said to him. “Your room is for you. It’s your private place. Do what you like. I will not come in unless specially invited!”

  And she didn’t, either. She insisted on talking to him from outside the room, in the hall. As she was a little deaf, this wasn’t always easy. “Grown-ups have privacy—why shouldn’t children?” she had said. “Now, good-bye—I’ve got things to do.” She always had things to do: the parish council, the village museum, visiting the sick. She spent a lot of time in the kitchen writing letters or cursing her typewriter, always, of course, keeping a sharp eye out for the neighbors. Her little cottage was in the middle of the pretty village, looking out over a square with benches and trees and other little old houses, and she knew everyone.

  Jack might have drifted off to sleep then, listening gently to nothing in particular—the occasional car passing, voices in the square below—and lying so still that the creaky bed was silent. But suddenly he heard a shout, and his eyes sprang open.

  “Soldiers?” cried a woman’s voice. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

  Jack sat up in bed and looked out of the window. Doinggg! The bedsprings sprang. The little square was quiet. Some of the old houses had lights on blinking through the leaves on the trees. The cars were parked. The bench in the middle of the square was empty. The Cap and Stockings pub across the street had a light on.

  “We have orders to check every room!” Jack heard a man say gruffly.

  He thought there must be someone in the hall.

  There was a stamping of feet on the stairs and a sudden kick and a crash. Jack stared at his bedroom door. But no one came in. Still he tried to work out where the voices were coming from. Somewhere in the house—maybe in the kitchen beneath his room? He looked nervously at the black shapes of the furniture.

  “We’re looking for the Vane Gang,” the man said loudly. “They’re robbing every traveler on the road, and Parliament has had enough.”

  “But he’s the posh Toby,” objected the woman. She seemed to be on the other side of the wall. “He’s never hurt anyone. And they say he is terribly handsome!”

  “Ha!” The man laughed hollowly.

  “I wouldn’t mind getting robbed by him meself!” the woman joked.

  “Oh, yeah?” The man’s voice had a threatening edge to it. “You like him, do you? You think it is all right to steal, do you?”

  “Oh, no!” replied the woman quickly. “He should be hanged. They all should be hanged.”

  “Yeah,” the man said cruelly. “He’ll dance upon nothing soon enough.”

  Jack heard a door slam, then footsteps and silence. It was suddenly so quiet that he could hear his heart beating. He swallowed. Was Granny all right? When he thought the coast was clear, he slipped out of bed and went to investigate. He tiptoed through the dark house—but he found everything as it should be. Granny was watching TV. The landing and hall were empty. The doors and windows were shut. Looking down the street one way and into the village square the other way, there was nothing suspicious, nothing unusual.

  He tiptoed back to bed. Had he imagined it? Could it be a ghost—a spirit in the room? The last words rang in Jack’s head: “He’ll dance upon nothing soon enough.”

  What did it mean?

  Chapter Three

  A Great Honor

  “Ladies and gentlemen! You have the great honor to be robbed by the one and only Lord Henry Vane!” The highwayman twirled his pistol in the air and made Red Ruby rear up on her hind legs. She did it very elegantly, as if it were a little exclamation mark at the end of the highwayman’s speech.

  “As you are late tonight—and have much inconvenienced me—I will be removing one item of clothing from each of you and distributing it to the poor of the parish!” Henry Vane announced. “Pray come out.”

  The coach driver opened the carriage door and the first passenger stepped out. Henry Vane held up a lantern. It was a stout woman with a wide bonnet and a silvery shawl wrapped around her.

  “Are you suggesting I take off my dress?” she asked coldly.

  “Certainly not, madam!” Lord Henry had standards. “Your rings, madam. Your necklace—what a pretty one it is—your shawl, and the silver buckles on your delightful shoes. Collect them, Tom.”

  Tom Drum slid off his horse and approached the woman. He bent a little, like a fawning butler, as she reluctantly gave him the jewelry and stood aside.

  Next came a scowling young man with a black traveling cloak, boots, and a hat pulled low over his face. He held out a small bag.

  “It’s all I have,” he said, trembling. He blinked behind his gold-rimmed glasses.

  “Thank you,” said Lord Henry. “How awfully kind. And I would have your cloak for the poor.”

  “And the boots, my lord,” said Tom Drum, looking up eagerly to Henry Vane. “Them’s a nice pair.”

  “Yes, yes, the boots too. Take them off.”

  “My boots?” asked the young man. “But what will I wear?”

  “We’ll swap!” Tom Drum told him. Hopping around the coach, Tom Drum pulled off his own boots. They had holes in them and one sole flapped. He thrust them in the young man’s arms and snatched the man’s boots off him. “Much obliged. I reckon they is a perfect fit!”

  The two highwaymen laughed. Lord Henry proceeded with the robbery.

  “Come on—don’t be shy. Would the next passenger step forward, please. Now, listen up: I am praying for some lovely, plump money bags …”

  “Ooooo, yes.” Tom Drum did a little dance in his new boots.

  Chapter Four

  The Knife in the Wall

  In the middle of the night, Jack woke up. The clock showed 3:33. For a moment he wondered where he was. Then he realized: in Granny’s guest room, surrounded by the dark furniture. Something had woken him up, startled him out of his sleep. What could it be? He remembered the voices of the woman and the soldier.

  He didn’t want to, but he forced himself to look around the room. He told himself that if he looked carefully, he was bound to see nothing—nothing bad, nothing unusual—and that would mean everything was all right.

  But as he peered into the darkness, he heard a scratching noise coming from the wall. It startled him and sent a tingle up his spine. Was it an animal—a rat maybe, or a mouse, in the wall? He stared in the direction of the noise, squinting his eyes into the darkness. And suddenly he saw something that made his blood run cold.

  A knife. Sliding through the wall. He saw its silver blade sawing through the wallpaper. Noisier now, scratching and tearing. In and out. Glinting for a moment, and then dull gray. It seemed to be making an opening.

  Jack’s mouth was open; he wanted to call out, but he couldn’t.

  He watched as the knife cut three sides of a square—an “n” shape. The bottom of the “n” was the floor. It was about two feet sq
uare, big enough to crawl through.

  And then to Jack’s horror, the wallpaper fell away, leaving a dark, square, empty hole.

  Jack saw something come through the hole, something the size of a small animal, and he let out a tiny cry.

  “What’s that?” whispered someone. A man’s voice.

  It was quickly answered.

  “The pigs. The pigs is down below.”

  Now Jack saw a hand coming through into his room. It had a loose white cuff and was holding a canvas bag. The hand put the bag down in the room. There was a muffled clang of metal objects banging together, and then the hand withdrew and the wallpaper was put back in place. It was like a little door opening out of his room, with hinges at the bottom on the floor.

  Who would put a bag in his room?

  He was just about to force himself to get out of bed and tiptoe over to see what had been left, when he heard more whispering on the other side of the wall.

  “Strike a light, Tom, for my eyes do play tricks on me!”

  Slowly, inch by inch, the hole opened again. There was a flickering light and Jack saw two eyes appear. They were eerie, lit from below by candlelight. Thick, dark eyebrows twitched together.

  The eyes swiveled around Jack’s room, staring in disbelief.

  “Well, blimey!” the man whispered. “Knock me right off my horse and into the ditch!”

  The gap widened and the rest of the man’s face appeared.

  “Knock me backward from Barnstaple and up Frampton Lane! That’s a big cupboard! I say, Tom. Look.”

  A second face appeared. It was round and quizzical with a strange curtain of dark hair hanging over its forehead. Both men wore old-fashioned triangular hats.

  “You see—it is not just a cupboard: it is an entire room!”

  “Cockles and codfish! It’s huge!” exclaimed the second man, and they both tried to squeeze through at the same time. Jack didn’t move.

  “Me first,” said the man with the long curly hair. “Hog’s breath, I just burned my wig!”