"Can't say I notice much family likeness, old man." Peckover had been enjoying the novelty of a contemplative cigarette in the ancestral picture gallery of the Quorns, and was there surprised by Gage who had stood for a while silently comparing the portraits of dead and gone Quorns, in all stages of costume and self-consciousness, with the cheap, up-to-date cockney swell who sprawled in a great chair of state before them. "I guess they didn't pick you out in Australia by the family mug."
Peckover gave a short awkward laugh. "I should hope not," he replied, recovering his mental balance. "If I thought I was anything like that tuppence-coloured Johnnie I'd go and hang myself." He pointed to a depressing portrait labelled, "Everard, fourth Baron Quorn." "Good old Everard," he went on. "I've no use for a nose like that, nor for the dial of that old juggins in the Dutch oven—what's his name? Marmaduke. He'd only have to take the top off the pepper-castor to give the enemy a shock. Useful face that to fall back on, and it looks as though some one had been falling back on it." And he flicked the ash off his cigarette scornfully at the doughty warrior.
"We don't run to beauty, do we?" Gage remarked. "At least we didn't till quite recently," he corrected politely.
"Fact is," said Peckover, "the old crowd were an over-rated lot. Making allowances for bad workmanship on the painters' side, we should have no use for them except on the Fifth of November. They are fair frauds. What do you think of a man who wears a steel lounge suit like that?" He flung the end of his cigarette, having lighted a fresh one, at the nearest suit of armour.
"Well, it covered up his deficiencies," observed Gage.
"Yes," said Peckover, "it's about as clever as wrapping a twopenny smoke in silver-foil."
Gage gave a look round the gallery as though to see that they were alone, and then sat down beside his friend. "Tell you what it is, old man," he said seriously; "to change the subject, we must do something to make things hum a bit more for me. I became my lord to get some fun out of it, but as things are, it strikes me that I've got the empty title, and you're having all the fun."
"What do you mean?"
"Why," Gage proceeded, "what's my position here? I'm Lord Quorn with a million of money; but because Lord Q. is known to have next to nothing a year, nobody looks at me. You're supposed to be the millionaire and every one runs after you."
"Is that my fault?" Peckover asked pertinently.
"I don't say it is," Gage returned. "It suited our purpose to fix it so. But it don't work. There must be a change. I don't pay five thousand a year to stand out in the cold on the bleak eminence of an impoverished peerage, looking on and seeing every girl in the place tumbling into your arms."
"One can have too much of that sort of tumbling," Peckover remarked sententiously. "And——"
"Well, I'd like a little of it," snapped Gage, "and I'm going to have it."
"That's reasonable," Peckover agreed. "What do you propose?"
"Well," answered Gage, "I've thought it out, and it's simple enough. I've got to find an excuse for spending my money, or, rather for having money to spend. I've a plan. I'm going to save your life."
"What?" Peckover jumped a foot away and turned a suspicious and alarmed face on his companion. "What—what do you mean?"
"Just what I say," the other replied quietly. "I've got to save your life——"
"What from?" Peckover inquired apprehensively.
"Drowning, for choice," was the cool answer. "Then in common gratitude you will make over to me a sum sufficient to give me a handsome income. See?"
Peckover looked immeasurably relieved. "I see that much," he replied. "But how are you going to save me from drowning?"
"Well, that presents no difficulty. We are going fishing on the lake, and you are going to over-balance yourself in your excitement and slip overboard."
"Oh, am I?" Peckover looked uneasily doubtful. "I don't see where the excitement about fishing comes in."
"That's a detail."
"Then I can't swim," Peckover objected.
"All the more reason for my jumping in to save you."
"But supposing you don't save me?"
"I'm bound to save you. If I'm not going to rescue you, there is no point in your getting wet."
"If you are not going to rescue me there's no point in my getting drowned," Peckover returned, with misgiving.
"I shall work it all right," Gage assured him. "Never let go of you. You're too precious."
"I don't know. It would be worth five thousand a year to you to let me dive to the bottom and stay there."
"I'm neither a fool nor a murderer," Gage declared.
"Not much catch in taking a cold bath with your clothes on," Peckover remarked, with an uneasy shiver. "However, I suppose I must do it."
"Yes," said Gage, "after all it's the most feasible form of life-saving, combining as it does the minimum of risk with the maximum of effectiveness."
So it was arranged, and the next afternoon the confederates, dressed for the occasion in their oldest clothes, went fishing on the lake. Peckover, whilst ostensibly instituting inquiries as to the best pools for sport, had cunningly obtained information as to the depth of the water at various spots, and it was at one of the shallowest that he insisted on having the punt moored.
"What's the good of my pretending to save your precious life in four foot six of water," Gage expostulated in a disgusted tone, as he pointed to the watermark on the punt pole. "We shall be taken for blithering idiots."
"That won't matter," returned Peckover stolidly. "It's better than being blithering idiots, and dead ones at that."
"We shall give the show away."
"Better than giving a peerage and a million away," Peckover retorted. "Life's too comfortable just now for us to run any risks. Besides who's going to remember how shallow the water is; and it stands to reason that if we could keep our breathing apparatus above water by just standing up, we shouldn't be such fools as to want any swimming and life-saving."
So Gage had to submit, which he did with a better grace when he reflected that there might, after all, be some risk in saving a panic-stricken lover of life in really deep water.
The two fishermen made a great fuss over their sport, angling as probably no one in this world had ever angled before, and in a manner calculated not to take in the most unsophisticated fish that ever swam. What their proceedings, however, lacked in method, they made up in exuberance; never before had two such showy fishermen sat in a punt. Naturally their intention was to emphasize, generally, their existence, more particularly their presence in the punt on the lake, and incidentally their designs upon the fish. To their satisfaction they saw that they were not without observers. The farmer, to whom the grazing of the park was let, had luckily put in an appearance to inspect his sheep, accompanied by a semi-sporting person who might, however, have been, and indeed was, a butcher from Bunbury in quest of raw material. Presently two women came in sight, crossing the park by a right of way which skirted the lake.
The moment was propitious.
"Old man," said Gage, "this is grand. We're in luck for an audience. Now, over you topple; only, do it artistically, or you will have your dip for nothing."
Peckover threw a distasteful glance at the weed-grown water, and then his eye roved from the haggling fanner and butcher to the chattering pair of villagers. "Almost too much of an audience," he objected, with a view to postponing his immersion as long as possible.
"Rats! Can't be too many for our purpose," Gage returned impatiently. "We've got to make a business of it, if it's to do any good. Over you go. The water won't be any damper for you than it will be for me."
"You can swim," observed Peckover with something suspiciously like a chattering of the teeth.
"What odds does that make in four foot six of water?"
"Beastly weedy hole," remarked the unwilling adventurer.
"All the better. Makes it look more dangerous, and keeps people from seeing how shallow it is."
"I believe," said Peckover, with an admirable air of conviction, "there is an out-sized pike under those weeds. I just saw his scales glisten."
"Then you'll astonish him, that's all," was the unsympathetic reply. "Any one would think it was a crocodile or a shark by the funk you're in. Now, are you going over? Not knowing the treat that's in store for them these people aren't likely to wait all day. They'll be past directly. Stand up and swing your line out." Nerving himself to the disagreeable task, Peckover stood up, and began swinging the rod round his head.
"That'll do," said Gage, with a show of directing his attention elsewhere. "Now, over! That'll do with the rod. They'll think you mad. Over, you fool!"
Thus adjured, Peckover took the plunge, if plunge it can be called. Dropping the whirling rod on the placid surface of the lake, he suddenly stooped, nervously clutched the gunwale of the punt and, assisted surreptitiously in the manoeuvre by Gage's left foot, tamely rolled over the side. His despairing shout, which had been agreed upon, was smothered by the shock of the cold water and the utterer's general preoccupation. It therefore remained for Gage to do the shouting, which duty he performed with a vigour out of proportion to the apparent exigences of the case.
For the dripping Peckover was still holding tenaciously on to the side of the punt, with a fixity of purpose which no mere considerations of stage effect seemed likely to dispose him to relax. Added to this, there was more of his body above the surface of the water than appeared quite consistent with the idea of imminent and deadly peril; this was accounted for by the fact that he was standing, miserably enough, on the bottom of the lake.
"Get down! Let go of the punt! D'ye hear?" commanded Gage, in an exasperated undertone. "What's the good of hanging on there like a fool? Get down, will you? Duck that idiotic mug of yours under water, or how am I to go after you?"
"I—d—d—daren't," chattered Peckover: "my feet are slipping or sinking or something; it's dashed deep mud at the bottom."
"I wish your head was in it instead of your feet," retorted his prospective heroic rescuer, all the while making a fine show of bustle, for which, however, as viewed from the shore there was no obvious need. "Will you get down, before I knock you under?"
As he spoke Gage was surreptitiously jabbing at Peckover's fingers, and, incidentally, at his face with the butt-end of his rod. This somewhat drastic method of enforcing his orders and ensuring the vraisemblance of the performance was perhaps justified by the manifest absurdity and uselessness of his taking a showy and heroic dive in order to rescue a man who was, to the spectator's eye, holding comfortably on to a substantial punt with his breathing organs high out of the water. As matters—that is to say, Peckover—stood, danger was the last thing that would suggest itself to the casual onlooker. The note at the moment was farcical; it was urgently necessary to change it to the tragic, even at the expense of loosening a few of Peckover's front teeth.
That unhappy dissembler, finding the episode of having a brass-capped butt in forcible contact with the more sensitive and damageable parts of his physiognomy more than he had bargained for, spluttered forth an objurgatory remonstrance, and, to cut short the objectionable attentions, let go, disappearing forthwith under the side of the punt. Whereupon Gage, uttering a wild and wholly unnecessary shout, poised himself for a few moments with one foot on the gunwale, and then, having attracted the attention he desired, took a tremendous dive into the water. With such vigour did he go down that he forced his head and arms into a thick bed of weeds, which demanded for a time his breathless attention. On extricating himself from the difficulty, and coming to the surface, he was much concerned to find that Peckover was nowhere to be seen. Instantly he took another superfluous dive, and as he came up, knocked his head against the bottom of the punt. Half dizzy with the blow, he now saw Peckover watching his efforts from the other side of the craft whither he had worked his way round while the diving was in progress.
"What are you doing round there, you idiot?" he gasped. "Get right down into the water at once and shout for help till I come along and catch hold of you."
With the word, he struck out manfully and swam round to the other side of the punt, only to find on arriving there that Peckover had disappeared. Whereupon he dived again, only to come up empty-handed once more, and to see the anxious face watching him, alertly apprehensive, over the farther gunwale.
"What fool's game is this?" he hissed.
"None of your larks," returned Peckover in a tone of resolute desire for self-preservation. The cold water, the weeds and the mud were beginning to tell upon him; all sense of a practical joke had evaporated.
Gage looked round. On the right the farmer and the butcher, on the left the two women had come down to the margin of the lake and were watching the proceedings in a silence which betokened some doubt in their minds as to how they ought to take it.
"Will you get under water and let me come to the rescue?" Gage demanded with exasperation.
"Not good enough," Peckover replied, and thereupon he began a spirited effort to climb back into the punt.
"Fool!" Gage shut his mouth with a snap, and took a vicious dive under the punt as the shortest cut to his objective.
As he rose, Peckover was half on board. Without further expostulation Gage seized the leg which still hung in the water and furiously tried to drag it down. Peckover resisted, kicking, and a very pretty struggle ensued, which taking place, as might be supposed, between a millionaire and a peer of the Realm, must have given rise to singular reflections and conjectures in the minds of the onlookers.
Eventually the turn of the position favoured Gage. The conditions under which Peckover fought rendered the struggle additionally painful; by degrees he lost ground and finally was dragged back exhausted into the water.
"You stupid ass, I've a good mind to shove you under and keep you there," Gage growled.
His victim could only gasp and shiver.
"What must we look like from the shore?" Gage demanded savagely.
Peckover made no reply, but from his manner it might have been gathered that his mental attitude on the subject was one of complete indifference.
"Haven't we had enough of this tommy-rot?" at last he ventured to suggest.
Gage was maintaining a fine show of keeping afloat in the four-foot-six. "I think we have," he returned. "I'm getting chilly, so we had better come to business. Now, will you keep down in the water when you've quite done advertising the fact that it isn't up to our shoulders?"
All the response Peckover made was—"Look at the punt!"
Keeping the corner of an eye warily on his companion, Gage turned and looked. The distance between them and the punt instead of a few feet was now some twenty yards. The cause of this alteration was obvious. Their struggles had caused the cord which made fast the craft to one of the poles to become untied and the other pole to work loose. There was some wind, under which the punt was now moving at a fair pace over the lake, dragging one pole with it.
"All right," said Gage, "I'll soon catch it and bring it back."
But Peckover clutched him with the tenacity of despair. "No, you don't," he exclaimed, anxiously resolute. "You don't leave me here. How am I to get ashore if you don't come back?"
"Walk," answered Gage, trying to free himself.
"Yes, I dare say," Peckover retorted. "You don't catch me trying it. It's not the same depth all over. We're on a bit of a bank here."
"Look at the blamed thing going off," Gage cried. "Let go! She'll be a quarter of a mile away directly."
But Peckover was not to be shaken off. "You don't go and leave me here," he insisted wildly, "for any old punt."
The situation was an interesting one, and as such, no doubt the four spectators acknowledged it. Their comments, however, had not so far been directed to the performers.
"What are you going to do?" Peckover asked, still gripping the plunging Gage.
"Going for a swim," he answered unfeelingly, at the same time making spirited but futile efforts to dive.
"No, you don't," Peckover returned, restraining his companion's attempts with all the energy that the chill and unusual element allowed him.
Gage, kicking and struggling, was at length obliged to desist, after having furnished a several minutes' novel and exhilarating exhibition to the puzzled spectators. Short of actual murderous violence, it was not possible for him to free himself from the tenacious Peckover. It was difficult, he had to own, to do much in the way of natation with a desperate person hanging like grim death on to his legs, moreover, Peckover's embrace had a tendency to send Gage's head under water and to keep it there. So, exasperated and vindictive as he felt, he had to compromise.
"Well," he said, veiling his displeasure and sense of defeat with a cheerless grin, "am I going to save your life or not—before we catch our death of cold?"
"You've got to," was the dogged reply. "Five thousand a year is too good to say good-bye to in the middle of a pond."
"It is all your silly rot that has stuck us here," Gage returned. "If you hadn't played the drivelling idiot, the life-saving performance would have been comfortably over half an hour ago."
"Well, get it over now," retorted Peckover, "as quick as you like, and no tricks."
"All right; come on," said Gage ill-humouredly. "Let's hope those fools won't see through the fake."
"This way," said Peckover, starting off breast-high in the water, towards the nearest shore, and still holding tightly to his companion.
"You are not going to walk?" Gage exclaimed aghast.
"I'm going to do what I can do best, and I can't swim," Peckover replied, with a determination which was apparent even through his shivering. "We'll have to try this life-saving joke in some other form. It's getting a bit stale this way."
Slowly their progress towards the shore, impeded by mud and thick weeds, began. They had not noticed that the farmer, actuated by humanitarian motives or with an eye to reduction of rent, had run off to an old boat-house, and was now hurrying back with an oar and a coil of rope.
"All right, my lord!" shouted the butcher, as taking credit for his friend's action. The two men, shivering and struggling unromantically through the jungle of weeds, smiled unpleasantly at the cry.
Suddenly Peckover became aware that the water was up to his chin. "It's getting deeper," he gasped, trying to hold his companion back.
"Let it," Gage retorted sulkily. "We've got to get to shore, dead or alive."
With an energy which suggested his preference for the latter mode of arrival Peckover threw his arms around Gage and tried to draw him back. "Try another way," he panted.
"You can. I'm going straight on. You should learn to swim," was the unkind response. "If you don't let go, not another penny of my money shall you see," Gage added, beginning to have doubts about his own ultimate safety in those dreadful weeds.
"You're not going to leave me here to drown?" Peckover remonstrated, shaking with terror.
"You can go back."
"What's the good of that?"
"I'll fetch a boat."
Water had become so utterly distasteful to Peckover that even the comparative shallows had no longer the slightest attraction for him. "What am I to do?" he shrieked. "Gage, you must save me!"
"Don't feel up to it now; too cold," was the unfeeling reply.
Peckover now found that the extra six inches in the depth of the water made all the difference when it came to a struggle. The margin below the breathing point was too small to permit of a sustained effort. Gage struck out, and Peckover, choosing what a momentary consideration suggested as the lesser of the two evils, let go his hold and stayed behind where at least his mouth was above water.
What the four people on the bank now saw was this. The supposed Lord Quorn leaving his companion, and energetically striking out for the shore, while the head which was all that was visible of the pretended millionaire remained a weird and ghastly object on the green expanse of water. To add to the interest of the scene, Peckover, finding the mud on which he stood, had a tendency to give way beneath him, was forced, as he gradually sank, to keep jumping, with the object of maintaining his head well above water. That the situation had grown critical was now fairly apparent, and it became borne in upon the farmer and his friend that heroic measures were indicated.
Directed by the butcher, who assumed an important (and dry) superintendence of the operations, the farmer now waded to the tops of his gaiters into the lake, and flung out the oar with the rope attached towards the wildly struggling Gage.
"There you are, my lord. Lay 'old!" shouted the butcher. "Then you can go back for the gentleman. You'll 'ave to get a little farther out, Mr. Purvis; the rope's a bit short."
"Wish you'd come and lend a hand yourself, Mr. Fanning, instead o' telling me what any fool can see," Mr. Purvis called back testily, as the water lapped over the rim of his gaiters.
"You're all right, Mr. Purvis," Mr. Fanning cried encouragingly, ignoring the invitation. "Pull the oar in and throw it out again to his lordship."
"Thought you could swim, Fanning," observed Mr. Purvis, wrestling uncomfortably with the difficulties of the situation.
"Never," Mr. Fanning protested promptly and mendaciously. "Wish I could. Now, out with it! Take care of his lordship's 'ead."
Once more the oar hurtled through the air, and fell this time within a yard of Gage's blanched face. Making a desperate and supreme effort, he seized it, and, once sure of the timely support, clung to it panting and exhausted. As he rested there, his feet naturally sank till they met with an obstruction. Moving them about to clear himself, Gage found that they had touched the bottom; he forthwith stood up and disclosed the fact that he had been swimming for his life in three feet of water.
"Look to the other gentleman, Mr. Purvis," directed Mr. Fanning from his post of high and dry observation.
Mr. Purvis and Gage accordingly directed dubious glances at the bobbing head of the unhappy Peckover.
"If your lordship would swim out with the oar to the gentleman," Purvis suggested, "I can pull you both in."
"I dare say," returned Gage with chattering teeth. "I'm not going back, the fun doesn't pay for the trouble. You wade out as far as you can and throw the oar to him, and let your friend hold the rope. Hi!" he called, to the complacent Mr. Fanning, "come here and catch hold. Hurry up or there'll be an inquest."
The dictatorial Mr. Fanning's expansive face, together with his self-centred spirits, fell at the invitation. "Sorry I can't swim, my lord," he objected, advancing along the margin with dry and lagging steps.
"No one wants you to," retorted Gage as he heavily emerged, dripping and pitiful from the water. "Go in, and hold the rope," he commanded, "or my friend will be drowned."
And indeed Peckover's sharp cries, uttered so as to fill the opportunities when his mouth was above water, gave colour to the statement.
Mr. Fanning, perhaps by the nature of his trade, rendered somewhat indifferent to the question of life and death where he was not personally concerned, had been congratulating himself on being well out of the affair; and now the order coming as it did from so important a personage and customer as Lord Quorn, was neither pleasant nor to be disregarded. Personal discomfort was a thing to be endured by him only in other people, and now as he waded reluctantly into the water he resolved to avenge his outraged feelings and damp extremities by an extra penny a pound all round on his future deliveries at Staplewick Towers.
"Now throw me the end of the rope, Mr. Purvis," he commanded when the water reached half-way up his calves.
"You must come right out, Mr. Fanning," was the peremptory reply, "or we shall never reach the gentleman."
Accordingly Mr. Fanning, standing between a cross fire of admonishment and objurgation, was fain to advance till waist-deep.
Encouraged by the recently indicated shallowness of the water, Mr. Purvis now went boldly forward, as much with the idea of exhibiting superior prowess compared with Mr. Fanning, as of ingratiating himself with the lord of Staplewick. The resoluteness of the proceeding, however, had the effect of demonstrating its own superfluity, for as Mr. Purvis pushed forward he sank no deeper in the water and was able to approach waist-deep within the oar's length of Peckover who, it appeared, had unfortunately come upon a hole and, in his fright, stayed there. Clutching the end of the oar he was pulled out into safety, not, however, without a great show of superfluous energy on the part of Mr. Purvis, who wished to make the most of his effort and have the greatest possible return for his ruined breeches and gaiters; and so the three, rescuers and rescued, stumbled with mixed feelings to the shore.
The most tangible result of the aquatic performance was that Gage, through his long immersion, caught a bad chill, and had to take to his bed. Peckover, who was none the worse for the trying twenty minutes (having probably been too frightened to think of catching cold), was summoned to his lordship's bedroom, and there passed a particularly uncomfortable quarter of an hour.
"It is all your idiotic fault that I'm stuck away here," the patient declared wrathfully. "That ass of a doctor says he won't let me get up for a week. A fine lot of fun I'm getting out of the title up to now. And I'm paying you a hundred pounds for a week in bed. As though it matters when I'm between the blankets whether I'm a lord or a solicitor's clerk. A peerage only counts when you've got your boots on."
"I'm very sorry, old man," said Peckover contritely. "But I don't see that you can blame me."
"I do blame you," Gage burst out. "Why couldn't you do as I told you, instead of dodging about like a fool and nearly bringing us both to our death!"
"You might make allowances," urged Peckover, "for a chap's feelings, when he finds himself for the first time in cold water with his clothes on."
"Bah!" Gage returned scornfully. "You've no pluck. And you spoilt the whole show. Well, it will have to stand, anyhow; I'm not going to let you make a fool of me again, whatever you may do with yourself. Now perhaps you will put your mind to carrying through the dry land part of the trick. If you don't I'll chuck you back your beggarly title, and get on without it. It hasn't done much for me yet."
"What do you want me to do?"
"While I'm lying here," Gage answered in an aggrieved tone, "you've got to make the most of the rescue. I reckon neither of us wants to play the joke over again."
"Not me," Peckover agreed heartily.
"Well, then, the least you can do is to make out what a splendid rescue it was, and that I'm a first-class hero, and that you're going to recognize the fact by making over to me a big slice of your fortune. D'you see? If I'm not a hero there can be no point in your solid admiration and gratitude. So rub it well in."
"All right," Peckover promised.
"You may as well," Gage proceeded, "send for the lawyer chap from Bunbury and have a deed drawn up, settling, say, a couple of hundred thousand on me, it won't mean much as between you and me, but it will impress the local public; and I tell you I mean to have a good bit of glory to pay for this beastly cold. Now, do it at once and do it with a snap, or I shall find a better use for five thousand a year than a cold-catching title."
Thus admonished, Peckover carried out his instructions with a will, and in a very few hours thesoi-disantLord Quorn's heroic act promised fair to be an undying tradition for the country-side. In fact, Peckover, in his anxiety to retain his desirable income, rather overdid the business, and so much so that one or two cynical spirits were goaded into making question whether the life so saved was really, apart from the income it might have left behind, quite worth the value its owner evidently set upon it. Still, that mattered nothing to Peckover, who was not thin-skinned, at least on dry land.
TheBunbury Bulletindevoted a column and three quarters to the "Romantic and Heroic Incident at Staplewick Park," and told its breathless readers in unusually and adjectively gorgeous language how a distinguished young Colonial of immense wealth was the guest with the newly succeeded Lord Quorn at Staplewick Towers, temporarily in the occupation of Colonel and Lady Agatha Hemyock; how he had, while fishing in the justly celebrated and admired lake in the beautiful park, overbalanced himself in making a cast, had fallen into deep water, and he being in imminent risk of drowning, how the gallant young nobleman, worthy descendant of a line of heroes and otherwise distinguished ancestors, had plunged in and with great difficulty and after unheard-of exertions rescued his friend. The writer having fully described the occurrence, with a minuteness of detail only possible from the pen of one who was not there, proceeded to give the respective lineage and achievements of rescued and rescuer, while the interstices in the thrilling narrative were filled up with topographical, historical and picturesque notes by way of local colour; items which were kept ready for use in the event of anything worthy of description happening at Staplewick, from a chimney on fire to a royal visit.
Great as was the sensation which the highly coloured account created, it may be safely asserted that by none was it read with more consuming interest than by Mr. Purvis, the farmer, and Mr. Fanning, the butcher. Their traditional and rooted belief in the infallibility of the newspaper press received a shock from which it never recovered. But when their astonished perusal reached the last and most sensational paragraph, in which it was stated "on the best authority" that the grateful millionaire had, as a mark of his esteem, admiration and gratitude, settled a considerable fortune, "a sum which, it was an open secret, might be represented by a two and five noughts," on his deliverer, their sensations became of a complicated character that defied analysis. Anyhow, the result was that they met to discuss the matter, and the outcome of the meeting was that next morning they proceeded to the Towers and sought an interview with the supposititious millionaire.
Peckover felt somewhat uncomfortable when the visitors were announced. In his exuberance in making the most of a sham rescue he had overlooked the spectators, or at least had regarded them as negligible factors in the episode.
After a few words of disingenuous congratulation, Mr. Fanning came to the point. He and Mr. Purvis had seen it stated, doubtless correctly, in the local paper that Mr. Gage had in his gratitude, etc., rewarded his purported rescuer in more than princely fashion. And Mr. Fanning and Mr. Purvis, whilst not withholding their meed of admiration from his lordship, whose illness they deplored, and who had, they generously admitted, done the best he could, were anxious to know where they came in, and could only say that it was hard for them to express in words their joint and several disappointment at being mentioned in connexion with the affair only in the roles of casual spectators. Whereas, Mr. Fanning urged with a suggestion of latent heat, it was they who brought the accident to its comparatively happy termination; but for them and the parts they played, he, Mr. Fanning, did not think they would that day be having the pleasure of addressing Mr. Gage, or at any rate he, Mr. Gage, the advantage of being in a position to listen to them; the depressing inference being obvious.
As Peckover had by this time come to take a more comfortable and even jocular view of the affair, he was not inclined to give more notice to the claim than seeing in it evidence that the bogus rescue had deceived its witnesses. Moreover, as a Cockney, he had not much opinion of or consideration for the feelings of a farmer and a country butcher.
"Oh, I don't think you did much," he replied off-handedly.
"Begging your pardon, sir," Mr. Fanning maintained, "we did everything, if the lives of yourself and his lordship count for anything."
"You didn't risk your lives," Peckover argued.
"We did, begging your pardon, sir."
"What, in three feet six inches of water?"
"How," urged Mr. Fanning, "were we to know the depth? We were prepared to go much deeper."
"I dare say," returned Peckover incredulously. "But as you didn't that doesn't come into the account. You did a lot of shouting, I admit, and nearly knocked my head off by flinging that infernal oar at me as though you thought you were harpooning a whale. Well, what do you want?"
Mr. Fanning's face was lowering, and that of Mr. Purvis was overspread by a foolish grin of disappointment. Certainly matters were not turning out as they had anticipated on their walk to the Towers. They were being rudely awakened from their dreams of returning to their respective homes rich men.
Mr. Fanning paused for a moment, as collecting, so to say, his routed forces for a final charge. "Well, sir," he said, bluntly now and with a note of repressed indignation; "putting myself aside for the moment, I should like to ask, seeing what you are doing for his lordship, whether my friend Mr. Purvis' efforts on your behalf are not to meet with suitable recognition. It was Mr. Purvis who, with me, kept our presence of mind when matters looked black; it was Mr. Purvis who, under my direction, ran with splendid promptitude to the boathouse; it was Mr. Purvis who fetched out all there was to fetch, the oar and the rope, and, under my directions, lashed the one to the other; it was Mr. Purvis who, at my suggestion, and at imminent risk to himself, first made sure of his lordship when his lordship was totally exhausted. Yes."
Mr. Fanning paused, and drew a murrey-coloured handkerchief lightly across his heated brow. Mr. Purvis, with the reticence of conscious desert, stood eyeing Peckover with an expression which suggested, that if that unsympathetic person was not duly impressed by the catalogue of his achievements, he ought to be, and that if he, Purvis, failed to obtain due reward for the same he would be content to leave his claim to the judgment of posterity, but at the same time would much prefer an immediate and more material recognition.
"It was Mr. Purvis," resumed the butcher, "accompanied and assisted by your humble servant, who at considerable risk, I may say, great risk, since I am no swimmer——"
"Nor ain't I," interjaculated Purvis, thankfully, as looking to his ignorance to increase the figure of his recompense.
"Anyhow," continued Fanning, rather put off his eloquence by the interruption, "we risked it. We risked it. And we are husbands of wives and fathers of families."
Mr. Fanning, who was said to be in the habit of knocking his wife about after an evening at thePigeons, became, for a butcher, almost touching, and Mr. Purvis, whose wife ruled him with a copper-stick on the rare occasions when her tongue failed, experienced no difficulty in looking intensely married.
"It was Mr. Purvis, guided and sustained by me, who pushed out for you, sir, and——"
"It was Mr. Purvis, directed by you, who nearly sliced the top of my head off," Peckover interposed flippantly.
"Your rescue," pursued Fanning, ignoring the interruption, "was no light matter. It was the stiffest job I've ever been concerned in, though I must say I never expected to have to bring the fact home to the gentleman most interested in it."
"Well," said Peckover curtly, "what did you expect?"
"Leave it to you, sir," Purvis replied promptly, shrewdly fearing the effect his friend's verbosity might have upon the ultimate figure.
But Mr. Fanning would have his say. "Putting aside, sir, the risk of life we ran, to say nothing of the most valuable existence which it has been our privilege to prolong, I may mention that I was wearing on the occasion a bran new pair of boots which are now good for nothing, quite ruined, sir; I had on likewise my best market-day gaiters and breeches ditto; added to which the tails of my coat and the sleeves were so saturated that my missus can do nothing with 'em. And I believe I am correct in stating that Mr. Purvis' wearing apparel was greatly deteriorated."
He turned towards Purvis for corroboration. That worthy man gave an assenting nod. "Ain't been able to get into my breeches since, nor my boots, nor my gaiters," he asserted painfully.
Peckover made a rapid calculation based on the price-tickets he had studied during the luncheon hour in the windows of various establishments in Cheapside. "All right," he said graciously, "I shall be happy to present you with five pounds apiece; that is one pound seventeen for the damage and three guineas each for your trouble."
For a few moments a sepulchral silence reigned in the room. Then Mr. Fanning's mouth slowly opened, as though the machinery, brought to a sudden stop, was just set going again. But all he could say was:
"Five pounds apiece?"
So profound was his emotion that for the moment Peckover was at a loss as to the real effect of his offer.
"As a mark of my high appreciation of your services, and taking into consideration that we did not know the depth of water was only three foot six, I shall be pleased to make it guineas," Peckover announced, in as grand a manner as he knew how to assume.
Mr. Fanning threw up his hands and turned to Mr. Purvis, an incarnation of despair. "Five guineas! Five!" he gasped.
"The gentleman's joking," was all Purvis could say.
"No, I really mean it," said Peckover with princely condescension. "I absolutely refuse to reward your services at any lower figure, however much less your modesty may feel them to be really worth. I said five guineas and I mean five guineas, and not a shilling less than five guineas apiece shall you have."
Mr. Fanning was now reduced to a state of abject helplessness. "Five guineas! five guineas!" was his cry. "While the man who had to be rescued himself—by us, by us—gets a sum running into six figures. It's something to be a lord."
"A poor look-out for respectable farmers and tradesmen," put in Purvis.
"What," demanded Peckover, in well-feigned surprise, "aren't you satisfied?"
"Not exactly," Fanning answered feelingly.
"Well," returned Peckover, "I consider five guineas very good pay for ten minutes' work in preventing two gentlemen from drowning in three foot six of water."
"It's an insult," Fanning maintained.
"Oh, well," retorted Peckover, "I won't insult you. Good-day."
But neither Mr. Fanning nor Mr. Purvis had any intention of leaving heroism to be its own reward. They made a simultaneous movement to intercept their insulter as he moved towards the door.
"Don't misunderstand us, sir," said Fanning, tempering with a nice sense of dignity his demand for justice. "We are poor men, and if five guineas apiece is really all you are disposed to offer us, why, our duty to our families is to accept it."
"Ah, I thought you'd come to your senses," observed Peckover with a grin. "Five guineas isn't to be sneezed at."
"I've done a lot of sneezing for it," replied Fanning, "and so has Mr. Purvis. We both got bad colds from the wetting."
"Well, you can't expect me to pay you for having a cold in the head," returned Peckover, with more flippancy than justice. "Here's your bonus."
He took out the money and paid them, with the full intention of recovering the same from his friend and patron upstairs. Messrs. Fanning and Purvis received the inadequate solatium in a due spirit of protest. The crackle of the notes in their bucolic fingers woke them from their dreams of affluence, and as they gazed with sorrow on the legend thereon the fact was established that five, not five thousand, was the figure at which their heroism was assessed, and that if justice was to be found in the world her habitat was not Staplewick Towers.
With the departure of the dissatisfied pair Peckover threw himself into a chair and laughed for some minutes as he recalled, one after another, the salient points of the serio-comic interview. He had his limitations and deficiencies, but a certain sense of humour was not among them, and the logical consequence of that magnificently absurd rescue and reward appealed to it strongly.
"Oh, I'm in for a fine time at last," he chuckled, in unrestrained enjoyment of his new state of existence. "What a bit of luck! I'm going to be in clover for the rest of my days. Tal ra, ra! It's immense!" He jumped up and began, in pure joyousness, to dance a double shuffle. In the midst of his saltatory abandon he suddenly stopped. The light in the room had become sensibly diminished. Pirouetting round to the window to ascertain the cause, he saw bulking therein the huge figure of a man who was watching his caperings with a threatening eye.