it sometimes happened that at those hours when the guard was being changed, seconds and even minutes passed, during which a sentry-box might be empty and a section of the inner wall remain unguarded. it was proposed by the seven to avail themselves of such a moment in the dusky evening hour before all prisoners were called upon to leave the exercise yard and pass behind locked doors. between the inner and outer walls of the prison extended a space or patrol ground of ten yards in breadth; but while the inner wall offered no special difficulties, as the sentries' staircases were built into the side of it, the second wall presented a harder problem. by climbing upon each other's shoulders like acrobats it was hoped to scale it, but since the message from the miser, this plan was abandoned in favour of mechanical means.
for necessary apparatus the conspirators looked to lovey lee. her businesslike reply to stark promised well.
"we must give her more to help us out than the authorities would give her to reveal our plans," explained commodore miller. "she would get but three pounds a head for us if she turned traitor. let her have ten pounds a head to free us and all will probably be done that she can do. lovey lee sells herself to the highest bidder. her only steadfast principle is dollars."
"suppose i was ter give her a tarnation fright, and let on as her life wouldn't be worth a chip if she rounded on us?" suggested david leverett.
but stark and miller protested at such short-sighted policy.
"she won't be driven, and she won't be frightened," declared the commodore. "her friendship is vital now. we've got to submit terms, and they will need to be high."
"best to offer a hundred pounds right off," said burnham.
"the difficulty will be to get her to help us without the money in advance," declared stark.
then came the great business of the communication to mrs. lee. it was duly written and anon reached lovey tight packed in a huge piece of tobacco. knapps apparently cut the quid from a roll and handed it to her in exchange for a bundle of watercresses. the woman put it into her cheek at once, and kept it there until opportunity offered to hide it in her pocket. then, as before, she hastened home upon the completion of market, locked her door, covered her window, and set to work to read.
"we want
item. a map or picture of the road from prince town to the town of ashburton.
item. a letter to be delivered to the first prisoner on parole, who shall be seen walking by you along that road, within the measured mile from ashburton.
item. an answer to that letter acknowledging its receipt.
item. a map or picture of the road from prince town to your cottage, so that if one escapes he may lie hid with you, and thus be of service to his friends.
item. three hundred yards of thin copper wire in lengths that can be wound up inside a fowl or other bird.
item. twenty very large iron nails that may be driven between the stones of masonry.
we offer
one hundred english pounds. ten will reach you from time to time on market days during the next three weeks. this will be placed between other moneys when we buy and you sell. ten will reach you on the day that the last of the stipulated articles are received. ten will reach you on the day that the first man of us gets clear of prince town. the balance will reach you when we are all free. there are seven of us. we can only promise by the god of heaven to keep this contract. we place ourselves in your power, and you must trust us as we trust you."
lovey lee reflected long upon this communication. then she put it aside and ate a meal of black bread and pickled snails. the snails were salted down in a barrel, and she forked them out of their shells and ate them with indifference. her senses of taste and smell were alike faulty. she cared nothing for food and only drank tea made of wild herbs.
"'tis a dreadful risk—an' me as never trusted a human soul since i was short-coated!" reflected the miser. "yet nothing venture nothing have. a hundred would make up the thousand down along to hangman's hollow. an' it might fall out that after i'd got their money, 'twould be in my power to give 'em up to the prison people again. seven of 'em. that would add up to twenty-one pound at three pound a head. there'll be ten pound anyway—clean profit afore i do anything. then i'll make a journey, for i've got a bag full of small money waiting to go."
she referred to her secret treasure-house in the moor. money she never kept beside her, but conveyed to her hoard at such times as the moon shone after midnight and she could count upon creeping over the wilderness unseen.
lovey lee's answer was practical. three days later she tramped to ashburton and walked ten miles to that town and ten miles back again without weariness. thus she killed two birds with one stone, for she purchased a hundred yards of thin copper wire, and she refreshed her mind as to the road and its nature. mile by mile the old woman set down the track upon a sheet of paper bought at ashburton for that purpose. she marked the features of the land upon it, wrote the names of the adjacent tors, and indicated bridges and rivers across which the highway passed. as for the wire, she purchased it ostensibly to make rabbit-snares, for which purpose it was chiefly sold. a few of the prisoners upon parole she also saw taking exercise, and knew them by their speech.
upon the following market day, lovey appeared at the prison with full baskets, and her big teeth closed tightly under her lips as the turnkey, from some unusual prick of conscience or accession of zeal, stopped her and overhauled her basket.
"hullo, missis, what's this, then?" he inquired, looking at a fine goose.
"your brother," said mrs. lee promptly.
"then best give him to me to bury decently, though 'twill be a cannibal act. you shall have a shilling for him."
"a shilling! look at the market rates? geese be paid according to weight—an' this ere bird's nine pound if it's a grain. but ban't for you. i promised young cecil stark as he should have a goose to his birthday."
"and so he shall then," said the turnkey. "mr. stark's a gentleman. he made me a toy for my child last week. 'twas a clever little thing, fashioned like a windmill, out of mutton bones. i lay he'll do summat with the skeleton of that goose."
the americans greeted lovey with their usual heartiness, but she refused to sell her bird until young stark and his friends approached. then, before he could make any remark, she lifted up her voice to him.
"i've kep' my promise, young man, an' here's your birthday feast, though you may think yourself lucky it have reached you, for mr. turnkey there was terrible set upon it."
"thank you, mrs. lee; and the price?"
"half-a-crown, though a grasping party might ax three shilling."
"you shall have three."
"'tis but just. all the same, it ban't a very young bird—rather old, in truth. an' i haven't drawn it, for their insides be a bit wiry when they come to full growth."
"so much the better for our teeth," said burnham.
"for that matter, we shall hev plenty of time to eat him," declared knapps.
"well, lads, to-morrow night we'll pick his bones, and if mrs. lee can manage to get a bottle of brandy past our friend there——"
the turnkey winked.
"if 'tis for physic——" he said.
"certainly, certainly. don't you wherrit about that. a jorum o' drink for the sick folk. narry a one on us would displeasure you ter drink it ourselves, i'm sure," declared leverett.
"and a noggin hot—for you yourself," said stark. then he handed silver coins to lovey lee; and, feeling between them in her pocket as she slipped them down, the old woman knew that a half-sovereign had come also.
from that moment she conducted her business with most unusual amiability. she jested with burnham and cecil stark; she cleared her baskets, and in a fit of reckless generosity presented leverett with a green apple, which remained when all else was sold.
"can't eat it," said the sailor. "my stomach have struck work; but this here nig will let it down, no doubt."
"you'd do better to keep it for a love token," said the miser; but mr. cuffee had already taken the fruit.
"don't eat it; treasure it," she said. "then you can tell your black maidens when you go home-along that you had a sweetheart in england who loved you so bad that her hair growed white for you."
"i lub you too, ma'am. i lub anybody who gib me apples," said sam. "you's de boofullest young ting i ebber see, and i dun fink about no udder gal no more. and i marry you when dey let me out ob dis dam bowray, i swar!"
at the same moment mr. cuffee opened his huge mouth and the apple was gone. mrs. lee looked fixedly at him and laughed a curious laugh.
"you clunk apples like a dog do swallow bones," she said. "there's the bell; an' i shan't come no more for a week belike, for i've got to get in my peat now, because winter will be knocking at the door again afore long. then we must have heat about us, for once let the marrow freeze in your bones 'pon dartymoor, an' you'm dead."
she departed, and within the hour mr. cuffee made a careful search upon the goose. two skeins of wire were concealed therein, and a scrap of paper, whose laconic message stark presently deciphered.
"i'll trust you since i must. fifty yards wire along with this. and in the apple i shall give to leverett you'll find a map of the road. have your letter ready for they ashburton chaps next time i come."
samuel cuffee wept when he learned what he had done, and vowed to atone for his greediness if only the lord would offer him an opportunity to do so; but the error was righted at mrs. lee's next visit. on this occasion she brought a big red apple for stark. she also carried more wire concealed in a sucking pig, and she took home with her a letter which the americans furnished. it was carefully hidden in a gift.
they had made lovey lee a new pipe with a piece of hard wood for its bowl and a mouthpiece of goose-bone. packed within this hollow bone was a missive for a friend of stark—a gentleman who dwelt upon parole with an ashburton farmer.
so, day by day and week by week the intercourse was continued, until lovey lee found herself the richer by ten pounds, and the plotters possessed maps, nails, wire, and certain communications from their distant accomplices. these objects reached them in pats of butter, in carrots or turnips, in ducks and fowls. once, when a sentry commented upon the fondness of the americans for poultry, lovey lee affected a furious indignation, accused the man of paltering with her character, and insisted upon disembowelling a bird under the public eye, that her innocence might be established.
at length all preliminaries for their attempt were completed, and only an opportunity and a twilight of grey weather remained to wait for. but each day augmented their difficulties, for the vigilance of commandant cottrell increased. others beside cecil stark and his friends had not only prepared but executed remarkable escapes. several men safely cleared the prison precincts only to be recaptured; several were found drowned in the rivers, whose crystal floods deceived them by their seeming shallowness; a few vanished never again to be seen or heard of; others made successful escapes, and finally reaching tor quay or dartmouth, got clear to france, and so home again. one young man from cecil stark's state of vermont went boldly forth in a girl's clothes, which were smuggled to him by a farmer's daughter under a basket of cabbages. a french prisoner nearly came off by stealing a sentry's coat and hat. but as he whistled on the way out, and adopted the air of the marseillaise, a guard challenged and the man was arrested. many other instances, successful and futile, were recorded. therefore stark and the seven exercised all caution and patience until fair conditions should open before them and their undertaking promise a triumphant issue.
