Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching at Colmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his small bony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all a light of eyes.

Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had occurred to the authorities, he now found himself transferred to another "graft": from quarrying was set to trenching.

Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; the sea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be trenched and quarried.

And in Hogarth's new gang was—Fred Bates.

One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, saw that Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his hands.

"What, Fred, not giving in?" He went quickly and pressed his palm on Bates' brow, saying: "Patience! Stiffen your back: look how I slip into it!"

"Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man".

"So am I."

"Yes, but I was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, six months; you wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That touches the nerve, don't it? Ah!"

"And how did you expect to be out?"

"I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment was ordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the morning after the missus was killed, I went early—for I knew I'd soon be arrested—to a stableman at Beccles—you know old Harris—and I made him swear to give a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in Southampton, and to nobody else. In the letter I told Bob where he was to look for so-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence—"

"But I don't understand a word of what you are saying", interrupted
Hogarth.

"I'll tell you. I did not kill my Kit. The burn on her face, and on my hand, wasn't any red-hot poker. Did you ever hear such bosh? Look here, you mind, don't you, the talk that week about the world getting blowed up by some comet? Well, about 3 P.M. on the comet day, as I was walking home through Lagden Dip, an old gent, the same as took the farm over after you, he comes up to me, and he says: 'If you should happen to see anywhere in your travels', sez 'e, laughin' and rubbin' his hands, 'a piece of hot iron after eleven to-night, you bring it to me, and I'll put a cheque for One Thousand Pounds there in the middle of your palm'. Well—I said it was a Wednesday, didn't I? And Wednesday bein' the pay-day on the Eastern, me and the missus had a drop o' beer that afternoon, and you know 'ow you come and catched me a-paying of her—dirty dog that I was those days. But, Hogarth, you hadn't hardly gone when we made it up between us, and the rest of that evening we was just like—well—two bloomin', cooin' doves! kissin', blubblin', havin' drinks, and doin' our week's shoppin' together. Well—stop, here's Black—"

They were interrupted, and for two days found no other chance.

Two days during which Hogarth received another letter from Loveday, of which one paragraph was as follows: "The fifteen pounds which you left in Lloyd's Bank I have managed to withdraw for you on the authority of your aunt, Miss Sarah Hogarth", and at once he scented a cypher, having no fifteen pounds, and no aunt.

When he had unravelled it as before, he had: "Why you failed?
Expect—Balloon—Rope".

He was astounded: and could only conclude that O'Hara had not delivered his message.

And as the image of O'Hara had mixed itself with his thoughts of the copse, so now the image of Fred Bates mixed itself with the balloon.

It was partly through his evidence that Bates was here…!

On the third day Bates, as though he had just left off, resumed his story:

"You know Seely's, the general shop, at Priddlestone", said he; "it was there we always did our Wednesday-night marketin'—nobody would believe what high old jinks those Wednesday pay-days was to us Great Eastern blokes! By the time we reached Priddlestone, we had a quart of four-ale down us, let alone what we'd had before, and, as the saying is, one glass leads to another. By now we was feeling just nicely, thank you, and instead of going to Seely's, we took a short cut to 'The Broom', and it was going on for past eleven when we found ourselves in—you know the beechwood between Priddlestone and Thring—she singing all the time with her head thrown back, at the top of her voice.

"Hogarth, it gives me the creeps to think of! Suddenly it looked as if the whole wood was lit up: there was the sky all cut up with streamers, I saw my Kit quite plain, then all at once there was a whishin' and a rushin' among the trees, like steam—and I saw my Kit drop smack. In two ticks my head was sober: but, as I ran to her, I staggered sideways upon my left hand, and I let such a yell out of me—had put my hand upon something flamin' hot.

"The minute I bent over my old woman I knew she was a deader; and I dropped down, and I called of her, and I shook of her, and it was quite two hours before I come to myself properly, by which time the affair what struck her down was gone out in darkness. Of course, the first thing I thought of was the old gent at Lagden. 'This should mean a cool thou', says I to myself. But I knew I should be arrested first thing in the morning, except I told plain out what had happened: and that, you bet, I didn't mean to do, for if once I mentioned that there piece of iron before I had it safe off the lord-o'-the-manor's land, I knew it 'ud be taken from me. But to take it off before another day or two was out of the question—it was too hot. So says I to myself: 'I'll get convicted; and to- night I'll write a letter to Bob, telling him where to find the affair, how to get the thou, and after he's got it, how to set about gettin' the case retried '.

"Well, so said, so done. You know that old elm in the beech-wood? I dug a grave at the foot of it, and managed to kick and roll the affair into the grave, then I took up my Kit, carried her home, and by the time I pegged out the letter to Bob, I saw day breakin'. So I made paces for Beccles, knocked up old Harris, and gave him the letter for Bob. By eight o'clock I was arrested—"

At this point the 5.15 recall-bell rang out, and there was falling into line.

The next time that they had speech together, Hogarth said: "And were you such a clown, Fred Bates, as to imperil your life for a paltry thousand pounds?"

" Paltry thousand pounds?" answered Bates, surprised: "Hark at this! Didn't I peril my life ten times more in Egypt for a bob a day? I tell you I was certain in my own mind of getting out in a few weeks!"

"Well, what happened to prevent you?"

"Only this: Bob died on the troop-ship coming home; that's all".

"But you could write old Harris to open your letter to Bob, and act on it, or else hand it over to your father".

"My word, but haven't I wrote? Old 'Arris is either dead and buried, or gorn away, or somethin'. I've waited a year and nine months—good God! and no answer yet".

"Poor Fred! I could weep blood for you. Believe in God!"

"More Devil than God about Colmoor, it strikes me".

"As though you knew! Suppose I strike you blind— now —with a flash of Him?"

"I don't take your meaning, sir", said Bates, with a strange heart- bound and sense of awe.

"Do you remember 33 of the quarry-gang, Fred?"

"Yes".

Hogarth whispered: "It was I who got him off".

Bates whitened to the lips. "I—I thought as much".

"There is yet another chance, which you , if you like, may take".

Bates saw heaven opening; but with this vague hope was left two days.

On the third, Hogarth explained what he assumed to be the new plan of Loveday.

"I take it", he said, "that he will pass over the moor in a balloon trailing a rope, which will have a loop to be slipped under the arms. I tell you, there are dangers in this scheme: you may be shot. Are you for trying it?"

"Trying it, aye", said Bates, with fifty times the boldness of
O'Hara.

And now began for these two a painfulness of waiting days, the sleep of both, meanwhile, being one nightmare of confused affrights, balloons and deliriums.

Ten times they re-discussed every possibility of the scheme, Hogarth giving messages for Loveday, heaping counsels upon Bates. Nothing remained to be said, and still the days passed over the time-worn hearts, till a month went by.

At last something was observed in the sky—afar to the N.W.—in the afternoon turn, about two o'clock, a mist on the moor, but the sky almost cloudless.

Whereupon Hogarth, who first saw the object, stepped, as if looking for something, close to Bates, hissing: " Goodbye! Keep cool— choose well—"

Bates shovelled on steadily, as though this was a day like others; but twice his knees gave and bent beneath him; and there was a twitching of the livid under-lip, piteous to see.

It drew nearer, that silent needle, while Bates worked, delving, barrowing, making little trips; plenty of time; and no one noted his lip which pulled and twitched.

Without visible motion it came, wafted on the breaths of high heaven: half an hour—and still it was remote, fifteen hundred feet up. Bates and Hogarth peered to see a rope, but could none.

After fifty minutes it was actually over the moor, all now conscious of it; but the rope was indistinguishable from the air.

Yet it was there, walking the ground, at its end a horizontal staff….Hogarth, with wiser forethought than Loveday's, had predicted, not a staff, but a loop.

It passed twenty yards from the quarry, Loveday no doubt imagining that Hogarth still worked there; but the quarry was some hundred and fifty yards from the trench.

Its course, nevertheless was toward the trench: and on walked deliberately the fluctuating rope, the staff now travelling the gorsey ground, now bounding like a kangaroo yards high, to come down once more yonder.

A moment came when Hogarth, with intense hiss, was whispering to himself: "If I were he, I should dash now ".

But Fred Bates did not move.

Hogarth suffered agonies not less excruciating than the rack.

"Oh, whyever does he wait?" he groaned.

But now—all suddenly—it was known, it was felt, deep in five hundred ecstatic hearts, that a convict was gone—a man overboard—a soul in the agony—battling between life and death.

Like tempests the whistles split the air.

Where is he? Who is he? What mother bare him? It is 57! And he is there! —on high—caught, to the skies.

The tumbling of four ballast bags from the balloon was marked: the balloon darted high, wildly high; and with her, seated on the bar, the cord between his thighs, darted high Fred Bates.

Exultant! the five hundred faces wax fire-eyed, each heart a flame of madness. But yonder is Warder Black taking trembling, yet careful, aim: now the report is echoing from the two Tors, the granite-works; and that smoke no sooner thins than a whole volley of crackling musketry is winging toward that dot under the clouds.

And it was hideous—pitiful—the quailing heart waited and was still to see the dot dissever itself from its rod: he had been hit: was in the middle of the vast and vacant air: and wheeling he came.

A shockingly protracted interval did that fall fill up: the five hundred, gazing as at some wonder in heaven, did not, could not, breathe: the outraged heart seemed to rend the breast in a shriek. Would it never end, that somersault? Wheeling he came.

In reality it occupied much less than a minute: and now he is no more ethereal, but has grown, is grossly near, attended by the raving winds of his travelling: is arrived. And the thump of his coming was heard. As he touched the earth he jerked out circular….

Here was a tragedy remembered many a year at Colmoor, and always with feelings of the deepest awe. xlrtmeVjd8PExRTD8tHasc2ajaeaWSrPyBPcYOyOthALjsC87pGMQ+IKnzfncPOi