The Legend of the Phantom Highwayman (5 page)

‘And what about highwaymen?' asked Tapser. ‘Mr Stockman says there were a lot of them.'

‘Indeed there were,' agreed Mr Stephenson. ‘That's why the coaches had to have armed guards.'

‘What sort of guns did they use?' asked Cowlick.

‘Oh, they'd have pistols and a brass blunderbuss.'

‘Mr Stockman told me the highwaymen sometimes used a blunderbuss too,' said Tapser. ‘He said it was a big gun with a wide end on it like a trumpet.'

Mr Stephenson nodded. ‘So they did, and sometimes armed dragoons – that's soldiers on horseback – had to escort the coaches through mountainous or remote areas where highwaymen were likely to strike.'

Anxious to turn the conversation around to Hugh Rua, Tapser asked him if he knew anything about actual robberies.

‘Well, I know they weren't always carried out by one highwayman as you might imagine,' said Mr Stephenson. ‘The Enniskillen mail, for example, was robbed at Dunshaughlin in County Meath by no less than fourteen armed men.
The Cock of the North
– now wasn't that a fine name for a coach? – it was held up near Newry by ten men. After robbing the passengers, they also stole the driver's whip so that he wouldn't be able to catch up with them or raise the alarm too soon, I suppose. And then there was the Limerick mail. It was robbed by thirteen armed men near Maryborough, or Portlaoise, as they call it now. They even stole the horses!'

‘I bet Hugh Rua was the only one who ever stole a coach,' said Cowlick.

‘The only one I ever heard of,' agreed Mr Stephenson. ‘But then he had a reason for doing that.'

‘Did he really exist?' asked Tapser.

‘Well I heard about him from my father and he heard about him from his father. Don't forget, it wasn't until the 1830s that the isolation of the glens was ended with the building of the coast road. So who's to say Hugh Rua didn't try to end that isolation? Or that he didn't exist – just because you can't find the story in your history books?'

‘And is this really the coach he stole?' asked Tapser.

‘Well, not the real one,' admitted Mr Stephenson. ‘It's a reproduction. But it's the same, right down to the last detail. Isn't that right, Jack?'

The man in the leather apron turned and grunted agreement. He was rather sour, Tapser thought, or maybe just shy in the fashion of some country people.

‘Jack looks after my coaches here,' explained Mr Stephenson. ‘We call him Blind Jack, for there was a famous coach builder by that name in the old days.'

Jack managed a smile, as if to say he didn't mind the nickname, and continued polishing.

‘But be warned,' whispered Mr Stephenson as he helped them into the coach. ‘Don't damage the paintwork, or you'll find he has a sharper eye in his head than I
have!'

They laughed and promised to be careful.

‘Do you ever take the coach out?' asked Tapser.

‘Indeed we do,' said Mr Stephenson. ‘Any parade we have, it's in it.'

‘Do you have horses then?'

‘That I have. Sure how do you think I farm some of the fields up here on the side of the glen? You'd never get a tractor up into them.'

‘The legend of Hugh Rua must be a great tourist attraction,' remarked Róisín, fishing for information.

‘Great,' he agreed. ‘They all come up here to see the coach.' He paused, then added, ‘You know, I was wondering if it would be worthwhile during the summer running the
Londonderry Mail
on excursions along the High Road as far as the memorial and back.'

‘Come for a ride in the phantom coach,' said Cowlick. ‘That would be a great attraction.'

‘Ah, well now, a phantom coach is something else,' said Mr Stephenson. ‘You'll have the polis on me again if you talk like that.'

‘But there is a lot of talk about the ghost of Hugh Rua being seen on the High Road,' Róisín reminded him, ‘and what it means.'

‘Coaches and highwaymen have always been the subject of ghost stories,' said Mr Stephenson. ‘And their ghosts are always said to be some kind of omen, usually bad.' He leaned forward so that his head was now sticking in through the open window. ‘Down in Cork there's an old legend about a phantom coach. They call it the Death Coach, for the story goes that when it drives round a house at midnight, with the coachman's whip cracking loudly, it's a sure sign of death.'

Lowering his voice, he went on …

‘Still rolling and rumbling, that sound
Making nearer and nearer approach;
Do I tremble, or is it the ground? –
Lord, save us! – what is it? – a coach! –

A coach! but that coach has no head;
And the horses are headless as it;
Of the driver the same may be said
And the passengers inside it who sit.'

Both the poem and the way Mr Stephenson said it were so scary that the four of them suddenly felt a great urge to get out, and ignoring the metal step below the door, they jumped to the ground.

Mr Stephenson closed the door after them, and with a wink to Blind Jack, continued, ‘But you need go no further than the vanishing lake to find another story of a phantom coach.'

‘What coach was that?' asked Róisín.

‘It belonged to Colonel Jack McNeill. As you know, the lake sometimes appears on one side of the road, then on the other.'

They all knew about the vanishing lake, or Loughareema, as it was more properly called, on the mountain between Cushendun and Ballycastle, and when they nodded, he went on.

‘Well, it was in 1898 that it happened. They say there was a terrible storm on the mountain, but Colonel McNeill was anxious to get to Ballycastle to catch the train to Belfast. There were no walls at the side of the road at that time, and the lake had risen so far the road was flooded. Whether the coachman missed the road or the horses panicked, nobody knows. But whatever happened the coach careered off into the lake, and both the men and the horses were drowned. Sometimes, they say, you can still hear the coach rumbling down the road and screeching as it goes into the
water.'

As they thought about that, Mr Stephenson lowered his voice again and continued …

‘Onest before the morning light
A horseman will come riding
Round and round the fairy lough
And no one there to see …'

‘Who wrote that?' asked Tapser.

‘Moira O'Neill, poetess of the glens.' Mr Stephenson took a deep breath. ‘There are those who won't go past the lake on a stormy night, for they know that if the two horses put their heads up out of the water their hair will turn white!'

‘That's silly,' said Róisín.

‘Anyway,' said Rachel, ‘Colonel McNeill wasn't a highwayman.'

‘No, but Redmond O'Hanlon was. He was a famous highwayman down in south Armagh. Tradition has it that his ghost still haunts the highways and byways that were the scenes of his adventures.'

‘You're just trying to scare us,' said Cowlick.

Mr Stephenson laughed and ruffled his cow's-lick curl. ‘Not really. All I'm saying is, there are a lot of these stories, and maybe you shouldn't take all this talk about the ghost of Hugh Rua too seriously.'

They walked out to the road.

‘How was Hugh Rua captured?' asked Tapser.

Mr Stephenson shrugged. ‘A highwayman always had a price on his head, and there was always somebody willing to collect it. Sometimes the informer would pour water into the highwayman's guns, and with his powder wet he wasn't able to offer much resistance when the soldiers came. That's what happened Thomas Archer, the Ballymena highwayman, and another one down in Waterford called William Crotty. Who knows? Maybe that was the way Hugh Rua was captured too.'

In spite of his extensive knowledge of coaches and highwaymen, Mr Stephenson hadn't really told them much more about Hugh Rua than they already knew, but before they could ask him anything else, he stopped and said, ‘Anyway, enough about highwaymen. Tell me, are you coming to the ceili tonight?'

‘We forgot all about it,' said Rachel.

‘Well, remind your people it's on tonight. It's being sponsored by the Castle Spa, and we're going to have a whale of a time.'

Back home, they found that the barley had been harvested and the bales of straw were being collected from the fields.

‘Well, who's doing the smuggling now?' asked Róisín. She had plaited a straw bobbin and was putting Rachel's hair up in a ponytail.

‘I don't know,' said Tapser. ‘But I still think Max and Peppi are tied up with it somehow.'

‘What more can we do?' asked Cowlick.

‘Well there are two things I'd like to do,' said Tapser. ‘I'd like to have a look at Max's bottling plant. And I'd like to see inside Peppi's caravan.'

‘You'd be asking for trouble if you tried that,' warned Rachel.

‘She's right,' said Cowlick.

‘What if we did it when they weren't looking?' said Tapser.

‘And when might that be?' asked Róisín.

‘How about tonight, when they're at the ceili? Peppi said he'd be there. And if the Castle Spa is sponsoring it, Max will probably be there too.'

The others looked at each other. They were beginning to wonder about their red-haired cousin and his bright ideas.

By the time it came to go to the ceili, however, Tapser had convinced the others that if they wanted to find out who was behind this smuggling business, Max and Peppi would have to be investigated.

The ceili was already under way when they arrived at The Highwayman. There was no sign of Peppi, but they were relieved to hear Max doing his party piece inside. Peering through a window, they saw him standing, glass in hand, singing a verse of the
Ballad of Hugh Rua
.

‘They hung him on the High Road
In chains he swung and dried,
But still they say that in the night
Some do see him ride.
They see him with his blunderbuss
In the midnight chill,
Along the High Road of the glen
Rides Hugh Rua still …'

Rachel nipped in to tell her mother and father that they were going down town, and as everyone joined in the chorus the four of them stole away.

* * *

It was almost dark and the Castle Spa jutted up into the purple sky like a giant finger of chalk.

Crouching behind a clump of bushes, they scanned the high wire fence.

‘How are we going to get in?' whispered Cowlick.

Two shadowy figures came bounding down the inside of the fence.

‘The Alsatians,' warned Róisín.

‘Oh-oh, I don't like this one bit,' whispered Rachel.

‘You don't have to go in', Tapser told her. ‘I've got an idea.'

‘Here we go again,' sighed Róisín. ‘Another bright idea.'

‘Would you keep quiet,' said Cowlick, ‘and listen.'

‘You and Rachel take Prince,' Tapser told Róisín. ‘Go away up to the far end of the castle grounds. And don't worry about keeping quiet. Make sure the Alsatians follow you. They'll go mad to get out to you when you have the dog.'

‘And what will we do?' asked Cowlick.

‘When the Alsatians are at the far end we can get in over the fence.'

‘And then what?'

‘We'll make for that cluster of outbuildings and see if we can find the bottling plant. Where's the best place to get over the fence?'

‘There's a sycamore tree down there to our left,' said Cowlick. ‘I think we could swing over from that.'

‘Great.' Tapser turned to the girls and told them, ‘We'd better take the torch in case we need it. Off you go, and whatever you do make sure you keep the Alsatians busy.'

‘We'll do our best,' Róisín assured him. ‘But be careful. Guard dogs can be very vicious.'

Taking Prince with them, Róisín and Rachel ran crouching up along the fence. Immediately the Alsatians were over to them, barking loudly and jumping up against the wire. Prince barked back, but Róisín held on to his collar as she ran and the Alsatians followed them.

When they had disappeared into the gloom and the barking had become more distant, Tapser and Cowlick dashed over to the fence. They helped each other up into the sycamore tree, made their way out along the lowest branch, then dropped down on the other side of the fence.

Pausing only to cast an anxious glance in the direction of the barking, they sprinted towards the outbuildings.

‘Now where do we go?' panted Tapser when they had nipped into one of the buildings, which they found was an open-ended barn.

Before Cowlick could answer, they heard the girls shouting, ‘Run for it! The Alsatians are coming! Run for it!'

They turned to run but tripped over a bale of straw and fell headlong. Scrambling to their feet, they clawed their way up a large pile of bales and found the top just as the two Alsatians jumped up, snarling and snapping at their heels.

‘What are we going to do?' whispered Cowlick.

‘Get down in between the bales,' advised Tapser. ‘Hurry, somebody's coming.'

‘What is going on?' asked a deep voice in a foreign accent.

‘I think there must be an intruder in the barn,' replied another. ‘Perhaps we should switch on the lights.'

‘No, no. If someone has got in, we will find him.'

Tapser and Cowlick squeezed themselves down in between the bales as far as they could. Their hearts were thumping after the narrow escape they had had with the Alsatians and with the fear that they were now going to be caught.

‘I will hold the dogs,' said the man with the deep voice. ‘See if you can find out what has made them so excited.'

The other man began climbing up the bales, but as he neared the top Tapser and Cowlick heard something flutter above their heads. Almost immediately the man fell back, screaming with fright, and the dogs began barking again.

Cautiously they peeped over the bales to see what was going on. They could just make out Whaler, who was holding the Alsatians, ducking his head. Then they heard him laugh and say to the other man, ‘Get up you fool, it is only bats. Come, we had better put the dogs in. The lorry will be here soon.'

The other man picked himself up. They could see it was Scamp.

As Whaler led the two dogs away, he was still laughing, and saying, ‘Bats! What did you think it was? A monster?'

Scamp, however, wasn't amused.

In their hiding place between the bales, Tapser and Cowlick heaved a huge sigh of relief. Across the yard they saw a door open and a shaft of light shine out until it was closed again.

‘Whew, that was a close shave,' gasped Cowlick.

‘You can say that again,' said Tapser. ‘Lucky for us we disturbed the bats.'

‘Did you hear your man screaming?' said Cowlick. ‘He must have got a right fright.'

Tapser smiled to himself, and added, ‘I wonder why they didn't want to put on the lights?'

‘Listen,' said Cowlick, ‘there's a car coming.'

Easing themselves back down behind the bales, they watched as a vehicle drove into the yard.

‘It must be the lorry they were talking about,' whispered Tapser.

‘And it hasn't any lights on either,' Cowlick observed.

Another shaft of light cut across the yard lighting up the lorry for a moment, and they could see it was loaded with crates of bottles. Shadowy figures gathered around the lorry. Somebody propped open a shed door, and men hurried in with the crates. In a short time the lorry was unloaded and the door closed again, leaving the yard in darkness. The lorry started up and drove away, and suddenly the yard was deserted.

‘Come on,' said Tapser, ‘there's something funny going on here. Let's see what we can find out before they let the dogs out again.'

Quietly they climbed down and ran across the yard to the door. They listened for a moment. There wasn't a sound. They opened the door and stepped inside. There was no one about, and they tiptoed along a dimly lit passageway. Somewhere ahead they could hear the clink of bottles. Following the noise, they made their way down steps and around corners, until they found themselves looking down into a large cavern. In the middle of the floor was a big machine in which bottles were whirled around to be filled, capped and labelled, in a dazzling display of movement and precision. Elsewhere in the cavern, workmen were piling up crates which presumably they had brought down from the lorry.

As Tapser and Cowlick tried to take it all in, they were amazed to hear the sound of a boat's engine, and switching their gaze to a cave beyond the bottling plant, they saw a boat nudging its way in.

Opening an iron gate, Whaler and Scamp went out to meet it, and when it was moored tightly the boatmen handed them up crate after crate of bottles which they brought back and placed on the floor of the large cavern.

‘That's one of Max's lobster boats,' said Cowlick.

‘Well they haven't been catching lobsters, that's for sure,' said Tapser. ‘Do you think they're the smugglers?'

‘I don't know. But it's all very strange.'

‘You can say that again. Come on. We'd better get out of here before they come back up.'

There was no sign of the Alsatians, so they raced across the darkened grounds and a few minutes later dropped down outside the wire fence. Róisín and Rachel, who had been hiding nearby, rushed over to meet them, and Prince barked a greeting.

‘Quiet boy,' urged Tapser, and they all hunkered down and looked back to see if anyone had heard. No one had, and they hurried away.

As they walked back through the town, Tapser and Cowlick told the girls what had happened and what they had seen.

‘We couldn't keep the Alsatians up there any longer,' said Róisín. ‘We were terrified they were going to tear you to pieces.'

Cowlick gave a wry smile. ‘They would have caught us too, if it hadn't been for your warning.'

‘And Scamp would have caught us,' Tapser added, ‘if it hadn't been for the bats.'

The girls laughed when they heard about that.

‘Poor Scamp,' giggled Rachel. ‘He must have got a terrible fright.'

‘Aye,' laughed Cowlick. ‘I think they flew into his face.'

‘Yugh,' shivered Róisín. ‘I wouldn't fancy that.'

‘Bats are harmless,' said Rachel.

‘I know. But still. It's the thought of it.'

‘Well, they saved our bacon anyway,' said Cowlick.

‘Aye. I didn't fancy the thought of Whaler getting his big hands on us,' said Tapser.

‘Do you think Max is involved in this smuggling business then?' asked Róisín.

‘There's something very funny going on over there,' said Tapser.

‘Why do you say that?' asked Rachel.

‘Well for a start,' Cowlick told her, ‘that lorry had no lights on.'

‘And Whaler didn't want to put the lights on in the yard,' recalled Tapser.

‘I wonder why?' said Róisín.

‘Unless it was a lorry-load of poteen they were smuggling down from the mountains,' said Cowlick.

‘Maybe they were just empties that had been collected,' suggested Rachel.

‘Then why bring them in at this time of night?' argued Tapser. ‘And with the lights switched off. No, there's something funny about the way they were acting.'

‘Not to mention the boat,' Cowlick reminded them.

‘That is funny,' Rachel agreed. ‘Do you think it was poteen too?'

‘Sure they wouldn't be bringing poteen down from the mountains that way,' asserted Róisín.

‘And it was properly bottled and all,' Tapser recalled.

‘Just like the bottles from the machine.'

‘Well the mountainy men wouldn't be bottling it like that,' said Róisín, ‘from what I know of them.'

‘Do you think that machine could be the big still Peppi was talking about?' asked Tapser.

‘Not at all,' said Cowlick. ‘They don't make poteen in a contraption like that. It would have to have a fire and barrels and all sorts of things, and anyway you'd smell it.'

‘Do you still think we should have a look at Peppi's caravan?' asked Róisín.

‘Why not?' said Tapser. ‘Sure maybe he's involved in this business too. He could be the contact man or anything up the mountain.'

‘Could he have something to do with the appearance of Hugh Rua on the High Road?' asked Cowlick.

‘Well, as you say, he does seem to know a lot about this poteen business,' said Tapser.

‘But the police seem to think it's Sam Stephenson or Blind Jack who are behind that,' Rachel reminded them. ‘And they do know an awful lot about coaches and highwaymen.'

That was true, the others had to admit, so they continued to turn the various possibilities over in their minds as they made their way back up to The Highwayman Inn.

They could tell by the music and the general sound of merriment that the ceili was still in full swing, but there was still no sign of Peppi's caravan so they sat down on the low wall and wondered what to do.

Below them, the waves glistened in the moonlight as they rolled in and crashed against the rocks. They were almost like phantom white horses, thought Tapser, and as he looked down he couldn't help feeling how strong and powerful they sounded, and how dark and lonely a place the beach seemed at night. ‘Are there many caves along the cliffs?' he asked.