Jack Bolt and the Highwaymen's Hideout Page 6

  “But why do you want to be a highwaywoman?”

  Polly looked at Jack. People were pretty nosy in this century. “Lord Henry. I suppose he is like my father. I never knew my father—but Henry is like what he would be. If you see what I mean.”

  “But if you are caught, wouldn’t you be hanged?” asked Jack.

  Polly nodded. “Yeah. But maybe I could do it for a bit and then stop?”

  “I suppose so,” said Jack, struggling to see the sense in it at all.

  “Yeah, well. I could pick potatoes and churn butter all me life. If I’m lucky!” she said.

  Jack was quiet. How could he hope to understand someone from another century? One thing he did know—he was glad to be born now, in the twenty-first century.

  * * *

  In the window of a house nearby, a jack-o’-lantern appeared, its grinning face scaring away spirits while attracting children. Jack explained what it was. Polly liked the idea of scaring spirits on a dark night. Soon the children came, silhouettes in the gloom, dressed up as pale ghosts, bloodthirsty vampires, ghastly ghouls, or witches. They didn’t come into the graveyard. They went with their flashlights down the darkening street, ringing doorbells, knocking on doors, and squealing with delight.

  “They don’t believe in witches, do they?” asked Polly.

  “No.” Jack didn’t want to know then that witches were real.

  “Us here—that is witchcraft,” said Polly, almost to herself.

  “Yes,” Jack agreed. It had to be.

  “I’m sorry I tied you up,” she said, turning to look at him. She was so friendly now. “I didn’t know all this was here.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I want to go back,” she said, shivering. “I don’t belong here. None of us does.”

  Their conversation was cut short by the eruption of the highwaymen from the Cap and Stockings. They came out, laughing and talking in loud voices.

  “Over here!” Polly called, waving in the dark.

  “Hey, Polly, look at this.” Tom Drum showed her a postcard of Wittlesham. He struck a match so that she could see it.

  “Look. You can see every tile on the roof, every blade of grass. A miracle.”

  “It’s a photograph,” said Jack.

  “What’s that?” Tom Drum was baffled.

  Jack explained.

  “Marvelous,” the highwaymen declared. “That’s progress. The things we will learn.”

  A little masked child came around the corner. “Stick ’em up!” he cried.

  “OOOO, I am frightened,” said Bernard in his deep, rumbling voice.

  “Come here, Martin,” said the child’s mother when she saw Bernard’s scar.

  “An’ look,” said Dirty Dick when the mother and child had disappeared around the corner, “I got this!” He opened his hand to show a neat black wallet. “Hee hee—I swiped it from that card player in the pub! What a dolt! I cheated him good and proper!”

  “You numskull,” growled Lord Henry. “You horse-headed loon! What did you do that for?”

  “Evening, lads,” said a voice. A beam of light pierced through the darkness and lit up their faces. “A bit old for trick-or-treating, aren’t we?”

  Jack’s heart jumped. Police!

  “You’re never too old,” Jack said, bravely taking charge. “They got dressed up for me.”

  “Only you haven’t dressed up?” observed the policeman, picking out Jack with his flashlight.

  There was a shuffling as Dirty Dick hid the wallet he had stolen.

  “Stand and deliver!” said Tom Drum playfully. He stuck out his fingers to make a pistol.

  “I am from the Hertfordshire Constabulary,” said the man. “Police Constable Manners is the name—so watch your Ps and Qs!” he warned them merrily.

  “Constable!” spluttered Dirty Dick.

  A shiver of nervousness ran through the highwaymen, and they huddled together.

  “Just keeping an eye out on a night like this … Lots of terrible crimes in the air, you know.” His flashlight played across their faces. “Crikey! You lot look like the real McCoy: where did you get the costumes and the makeup?”

  “I’ve got a costume box,” explained Jack. He couldn’t believe he was telling such a paper-thin lie.

  “Oh, well—don’t hold up any coaches or I’ll be after you!” laughed the policeman. “You are clearly very wicked men! And boys and girls. Ha, ha! Happy Halloween!”

  He stalked off into the night, whistling.

  “Happy Halloween!” the highwaymen chorused as sweetly as they were able (which was pretty murderously).

  “That was close,” breathed Dirty Dick.

  But before anyone could agree, there was a shout from the Cap and Stockings and a man ran out of the pub.

  “They’ve stolen my wallet, the thieving sots!” he cried. “Hey!” he shouted to the police constable. “I’ve just been robbed! They’ve stolen my wallet. It’s got my credit cards and a wad of cash.”

  They watched with mounting alarm as the policeman walked over to the Cap and Stockings and began talking to the man.

  “Time to go,” declared Lord Henry coolly.

  They took off like a flock of blackbirds into the night—boots pounding the pavement, cloaks flapping behind them. Polly and Jack were in the thick of it, friends now, as they both had an interest in the highwaymen. They charged through the churchyard, out of the far entrance, to an alley behind. They flew along the alley, swooping around the corner to approach the square from another direction.

  Sneakily, suspiciously, they tiptoed into Granny Bolt’s house and bounded up to Jack’s room. Jack was thankful Granny was still out. From the bedroom they could look down at the constable. He was below them, speaking on his radio. A moment later he walked briskly over to the churchyard gates.

  It was clear on whom he had pinned this particular crime.

  “Let’s go back,” said Lord Henry. “Not a minute to lose.”

  He picked up Dirty Dick’s hat. His hands were shaking. “Now we’re wanted in both places, you bearded buffoon!” He whacked Dirty Dick with the hat.

  “Sorry, my lord,” said Dirty Dick.

  Lord Henry turned to Jack. “That constable will want to talk to you too,” he said.

  “I know.” Even though Jack hadn’t stolen the wallet, he was involved with the highwaymen, and the policeman had seen Jack with them. Now Jack would have to lie low. And if the highwaymen could hide in his time, why couldn’t he hide in the highwaymen’s time?

  “Can I come with you?” Jack asked.

  Henry Vane smiled. “It is my most fervent wish. It is the perfect solution! For in my time, I believe the soldiers will now be gone, and we shall have safe passage through the darkness.” He put his arm around Jack’s shoulder and drew him aside. “Jack, I have a favor to ask of you.” He spoke in a warm, rich voice. Jack looked up into Lord Henry’s eyes: their friendliness made him feel almost dizzy. “Will you come to London and help me win Lady Marchwell’s hand?” he asked.

  “Well, I—”

  “Think about it,” said the highwayman hopefully.

  They were interrupted by a cry. “What do we do about this purse? The one Dirty Dick has stolen— against the rules.” Pete the Pudding waved the wallet in the air.

  “Keep it,” said a grinning Bernard, and he shrugged.

  “Bah! That money is no good in our time,” said Dirty Dick, now wishing he hadn’t taken it.

  “Why don’t we throw it out of the window onto the road?” suggested Polly.

  “Now that is an especially good idea!” declared Pete the Pudding in admiration.

  Bernard scratched his head and looked uncertain.

  Polly beamed. “Make it look as if the man dropped it. Look, you can see the Cap and Stockings from here.” She opened the window that looked down on the pub. “Just throw it out and then someone’ll find it and think the man made a mistake.”

  Before they left, Jack ran downsta
irs. He needed to let Granny know he was okay—or at least try to keep her from worrying. What with keeping the highwaymen on track, stopping them getting into trouble, preventing anybody finding out about who they really were, and making sure that Granny wasn’t worried about him and wouldn’t miss him—he felt like his brain would explode. Life was getting seriously complicated!

  He quickly wrote out a note for Granny saying that he had had supper and gone to bed. Then he went back upstairs and stuffed some pillows under his sheets. He put on the smock and rough sacking trousers over his jeans. Then he locked the room on the inside.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  The highwaymen quietly removed the chest covering the hole into the eighteenth century.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Naughty Boy

  It was dark, like a cellar at midnight. The highwaymen shuffled into the room bumping into each other. Jack could smell the pigs.

  “Where’s the door?” whispered Pete the Pudding.

  “Here,” said Bernard. There was a crumbling noise of plaster falling onto floorboards. “Ah. Sorry. It’s the curtain.”

  Jack snickered.

  “He’s ripped the curtains down!” exclaimed Tom Drum, as the faintest glimmer of starlight came through the tiny window.

  “Hush!” said Lord Henry, crawling through and shutting the metal plate to Jack’s room.

  “I’ve found the door,” said Polly. “Stay here—the soldiers may be downstairs.”

  “If there are any soldiers downstairs, then they’ll know we’re here. Unless they think a herd of cattle has stumbled through the roof,” said Pete, rubbing his head.

  “Flying cattle,” joked Jack.

  “Oi! You just poked me in the eye!” complained Dirty Dick.

  “Come down this minute,” said a sharp voice from downstairs. “Henry Arthur Vane! NOW!”

  The highwaymen fell silent.

  “Oh, dear,” said Lord Henry. “Nanny Manners. Now I’m in for it.”

  “You naughty boy,” said Tom Drum, grinning.

  “All of you!” Nanny Manners demanded fiercely.

  They trooped down the rickety staircase into the kitchen. There was an oil lamp burning on the table and candles in the window. Nanny Manners stood in front of the fire with her arms folded and a furious look on her face. She reminded Jack of his principal. Except Nanny Manners wielded a wooden spoon.

  “Is this how you return my kindness, Henry?” she demanded. “I offer you a safe house—my own house, my own secrets—and you bring this ragtag bunch of do-nothings and criminals in for fun?”

  “Nanny, these are good gentlemen.”

  “Good gentlemen? Fiddle faddle! They are highwaymen! Land pirates! They’d slit your throat as soon as look at you! And these two innocents: Polly here, an orphan—and the boy! Look at him! Young colt!”

  “He’s a fine fellow—”

  “He may be! But you are not.”

  “Nanny,” Lord Henry murmured in a soothing voice. He put his hands out to plead with her, and he flashed his charming smile.

  Whack! Nanny Manners nimbly stepped forward and rapped his hands with the wooden spoon. She wasn’t taken in.

  “Ow!”

  “I’ve had soldiers crawling all over this place, with their dirty feet and their rude ways,” she screeched. “Someone’s tipped them off that you’re here. You have been this close to swinging on the silken rope, my boy. You don’t know how lucky you are. It’s time you mended your ways.”

  “Nanny—”

  “OUT!” she cried. “I’ve said my piece, and I want you all OUT.”

  “But the soldiers may find us—”

  “NOW!” She pointed her trembling wooden spoon to the door. They began the slow, inevitable shuffle, heads hanging.

  “I’m sorry, Nanny,” whispered Lord Henry as he left.

  “OUT!” Nanny Manners threw her wooden spoon in frustration after them. It clattered to the floor.

  Jack was the last to leave. The old woman stared at him. “Be careful, boy,” he thought he heard her say. “You don’t have long.”

  Jack slipped out as fast as he could. Nanny Manners was spooky.

  Outside it was cool. The sky was clear and the moon was just coming up above the trees. Lights in the one or two cottages showed dimly. The pigs grunted. A dog barked.

  “You naughty boy,” said Dirty Dick, grinning like an idiot.

  “Shut up,” said Lord Henry.

  “Is this how you return my kindness, Henry?” mimicked Pete with a snort.

  “She is the only person in the land who can talk to me like that,” said Henry tersely.

  “She still loves you,” Tom Drum consoled him. “Always will.”

  “So?” asked Bernard, giving himself a good scratch. “Now what?”

  “We fetch the horses and go,” snapped Lord Henry, trying to reassert his authority. “I have business in London. Something I should have done years ago. And London is as good as the forest for us to hide in. The soldiers and constables will never find us there. Will you come?”

  “Well, there’s nothing for us here,” said Dirty Dick. “London’s the place to be.”

  “What about the boy?” asked Tom Drum.

  “And the girl? Don’t forget I’m one of the gang now,” Polly reminded them.

  “No, Polly,” said Lord Henry. “Please.”

  “You said I was,” Polly said indignantly. “And I heard you are a man of your word.”

  “Very well.” Lord Henry sighed. He didn’t have the stomach for a fight with Polly. “Have you a horse?”

  “I can get one,” Polly said.

  “Then fetch it. And get Jack some clothes. We’ll meet by Wagoners Lane.” Henry swept his cloak over his shoulders. “You’ll come, Jack?” he asked kindly.

  “Okay,” Jack told him.

  “Splendid. We’ll pick up a horse for you on the way.”

  Lord Henry took Jack by the arm and set off. He strode away, around the house and up the dark street.

  “Wait.” Jack pulled away from Lord Henry and looked back at the house. He could just make out its shape in the moonlight. It was so different from Granny Bolt’s house. For a start, it was thatched. It was smaller too: a humble cottage with one room downstairs and two little bedrooms upstairs. Next to the cottage was a low shed: the pigsty. And above the pigsty: nothing. Thin air. In time—how much time he wasn’t sure—his bedroom would be there.

  “Come on,” said Henry, tugging his arm.

  They walked up the street, through wood smoke from the fires in the cottages, to a dark cluster of buildings at the end of the village. A man named Jim went off to find their horses. He left Henry and Jack standing in the darkness. Dogs barked in the distance.

  “You see, Jack, how my family has deserted me.” Henry spoke almost to himself. “My father died. My mother did not stand up to my brother. My sisters married. And now—now even Nanny has had enough.”

  Jack didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s my own fault,” Henry mused. “Too fond of living. I always thought: live for today, not for tomorrow. But tomorrow comes.” He paced up and down in the darkness.

  “Maybe Lady Marchwell—”

  “Aye, maybe. Lady Marchwell or the gallows.”

  Jack said nothing. There was something self-pitying in Lord Henry. Lady Marchwell or the gallows. Was that how Henry saw his life?

  Jim returned with Henry’s horse, Red Ruby.

  “Is she well?” asked Lord Henry.

  “Aye,” said Jim.

  “When did the soldiers go?”

  “A couple hour past.”

  “Which way?”

  “Coast.” Jim disliked talk.

  “Thank you, Jim.”

  Lord Henry rubbed Red Ruby’s white nose and kissed her and mumbled to her. He led her to a tree stump near the road. Jack followed.

  Lord Henry mounted and Jack sat behind him again. He felt bruised from th
e day before—but he wasn’t going to complain, and he clenched his teeth as they trotted up the road to meet the others.

  Behind them, they heard a noise: “Ahhh! Go! Go! Bah! Go on! Hup hup.”

  “What the devil is that horrible noise?” asked Dirty Dick when Jack and Henry arrived.

  It was Polly.

  She appeared on a little gray pony, coaxing it along the road. It was old and stubborn. She arrived at the meeting place a little after Jack and Henry. She had to coax the pony every step of the way.

  “What’s the matter?” Polly demanded.

  “You’re not going to London on that?” laughed Pete the Pudding. He had a sturdy black horse that was snorting with excitement at the thought of being out at night.

  “Why not?”

  “Looks like that one died about three years ago.”

  “You’d do better on a cow!” laughed Bernard.

  “Never mind,” snapped Henry. “We’ll discover something on the way. The moon will light us—she is bright tonight and will make the going quick. Come on.” He wheeled Red Ruby around and they set off down the road, hooves drumming on the dirt.

  Soon they were traveling fast along a clear white path. Jack hung on for dear life. His bottom crashed painfully into the back of the saddle as he tried to concentrate on each landing. The others followed behind. Every now and then they had to stop and wait for Polly. They could hear her as she approached.

  “Go on! You stubborn goat, you old heifer-head! Go! Bah! Go!” When she caught up, they set off again toward the forest.

  As they reached the darkness of the trees, they slowed down.

  “All right, Jack?” asked Lord Henry.

  “Yeah—m-m-mostly,” grunted Jack, rigid from the ride.

  Lord Henry pulled his horse up short.

  “Shhh!”

  The others rode up behind. Jack listened and looked around Henry’s back, brushing aside the itchy wig. If only it didn’t smell, he thought. He heard Polly behind, doggedly urging her pony on.