"That is scarcely very safe," said John, ingratiatingly to his silent companion; "suppose you or I were less honest than we seem." He laughed, but his laugh died out of itself in that shamefaced way in which a laugh quenches itself when made at our own joke, and falling flat without response. But presently, after a while, he suggested, which was very true, that it was getting cold, and asked if she had enough wraps, or would accept one of his. This seemed to overcome altogether the patience of the veiled lady in the corner. She told him sharply to mind his own business. "There's nothing wanted from you," she said. The voice was odd, the shrill one alternating with a softer note as if two people were speaking. It had almost become a point of honour with John to overcome this persistent defiance. He approached with one of his plaids outspread, and laid it gently about her knees. The answer was a vivacious movement kicking it away.
"Will you not take a telling?" cried the shrill voice. "Away! and snoozle yourself in your corner, and let me be quit of you!" The voice was so fierce that John fell back in spite of himself, and, somewhat mortified, took the unfriendly advice. He did withdraw into his corner, wrapping himself round and round in his many wraps, until he was almost as much muffled up as his companion. And the night was cold, and there was only a very feeble lamp in the coach. He ended by "snoozling" as the old lady advised, with his head buried in the high collar of his coat; and as the windows were closed against the penetrating chill of the night, and the atmosphere heavy, he fell fast asleep.
He woke with a start some time after, with the sensation of a gust of wind blowing upon him from the coach door. Half bewildered as he came to himself, he saw that the door was open, and caught, with astonished eyes, a momentary glimpse of the face of a young woman, a sudden apparition against the blackness of the night; and then the door was closed sharply and with a clang. The coach was at the foot of a steep ascent beginning to ascend slowly. John sat up suddenly, awake but still bewildered, and rubbing his eyes. The opposite corner was vacant. His plaid lay on the floor where the old lady had tossed it, but she herself had disappeared. He jumped up still confused, and unable to believe his eyes, and groped in the corner. But there was no one there: then he put his head out of the window, and shouted loudly into the night.
The coach was crawling softly up the hill. In daylight half of the passengers would have walked up the ascent which was within a short distance of Duntrum, but they were all benumbed with the cold and the darkness, which was so intense that John, when he looked out, could see nothing but the white speck of the lamp travelling along a black line which might be a hedge or a wall, and was only visible as the light passed over it. It was like putting out his head into some awful abyss of nothing, his eyes hurting him in this black gloom which abolished them and their use. The big vehicle groaning under its burden crept on, labouring like some huge animal, jingling, creaking, reluctant, going on through the cold and the dark.
John shouted "Stop! stop!" with a stentorian voice. "A lady has fallen out of the coach! A passenger has fallen out of the coach!" he shouted, repeating it again and again; then opening the door, got out himself, dropping upon the invisible road. But it was not till some minutes later that the coach could be brought to a standstill, and he could get possession of one of the lamps, tearing it out of its place.
"She must be lying in the road," he said; "she was an old woman unable to walk." He held the lamp to the ground, as if at any moment he might tread her under foot. By this time other dark figures were detaching themselves from amidst their heaped-up wraps from the top of the coach and jumping down, stamping their feet upon the iron and ice of the frozen ruts.
"What is it? Who is it? An old body? Bless us all, an old body. She will just get her death!" There was a chorus of voices and of warm breath going up on the still air. The guard and John, each with a lamp, walked down to the bottom of the hill, accompanied vaguely by several scarcely decipherable attendants.
"I fell asleep," he said, explaining himself to the night, scarcely conscious of any auditor, "and then she was sitting there close up in the corner, as she had been since we left Edinburgh, and would never speak: but when I woke up, the door was wide open, swinging, and there was nobody——" He added, after a moment, as if he had suddenly discovered that face: "Some woman passing on the road shut to the door with a bang—and that woke me." It seemed to him as he related this that he was telling an incident in a dream; and yet he was sure it was quite true.
"A woman on the road—did you see a woman on the road? there's few foot-passengers here at this hour of the night," said the guard.
"I saw her as clear as I see you." He held up his lamp instinctively to the face of the other, which was bent like his own on the ground.
"One of you," cried the guard, "hurry up the hill and stop her if she's gone that way. She canna have gone far on this steep road. Stop her and see what she knows."
But no wayfarer was found on the ascending road, nor could all the light of the lamps find any trace of any one who had fallen. The inhabitants of the first wayside cottage at the foot of the hill were imperiously knocked up by the guard and put upon the trace.
"We canna stop the coach whatever happens," he cried, "but we'll send out a search party from Duntrum immediate. How long were you sleepin'?" he added peremptorily to John, who looked at his watch in the light of the lamp and answered—
"Perhaps an hour."
"An hour is a long time," said the guard, knitting his brows. "As far back as the brig we would be then, and at a smart pace, for the horses, poor things, scented their stables. Take your lantern, lad, if you have one, and go as far as that.—Ou ay, ye'll be paid, you needna be feared for that. Will ye come, sir, or bide? I daurna stop the coach."
John looked into the blankness of darkness before him and shivered, but it was not this only that moved him. He felt certain that the catastrophe, whatever it was, must have happened within a much shorter time than an hour,—that it had just occurred, indeed, when he woke, and when the sudden blast of the cold wind roused him with its searching chill. He felt convinced that he and his companions had already come to the farthest limits in which the accident, if it was an accident, could have occurred. His head was confused with the effort to find an explanation. What was it? After searching so far, he became convinced that the clue was not to be found on the road. Where, then, was it to be found? He made no answer either to this question in his own mind or to the guard, but turned back, leaving the others with the sleepy and startled cottagers, father and son, who had been roused from their beds, for it was already late, and were reluctantly accepting the directions of the guard, whose red coat made a spot like a fire in the darkness, lighted up by the lantern which he had attached to his belt. John turned back and began to reclimb the hill, throwing the flash of his lamp on every roughness of the road, and making his way back to where the coach smoked into the night, the breath of the passengers and the emanations from the horses forming a mist of life which rose dim yet consolatory across the light of the lamp in the midst of that chill of winter and darkness. As he came up to it his foot caught upon something almost under the hindmost wheel, and he gave a loud cry, which brought every one on foot around him. He set down his lamp on the frozen ground, and they all clustered over it in a circle. It was the heavy bundle of the mail-bags strapped together, one end of the leather strap still entangled with the step of the coach. The guard pulled them up with an exclamation.
"Dod! she's trailed the mails with her," and then he too uttered a cry, which was fierce with instant terror and dismay. "But where's the bag from Dunscore?"
The two lamps were immediately fixed upon this new problem, and their light shone upon a circle of faces, the guard's blanched with sudden alarm, all turned towards that dark mass gleaming with its metal clasps.
"It's come loose," said one voice; "it'll be on the road."
"Bah! a wheen letters," said another; "you'll no' stop us in the cold for that."
"It's just a simple accident," said the third. But the guard held up to the light the ends of a strap cut through, clean and clear, evidently by some very sharp instrument.
"It's been nae woman, it's been some robber in disguise,—it's been a got-up thing," he cried, throwing a glance of suspicion at John, who stood aghast, holding the lamp unconsciously quite close to the bundle of the mail-bags, and gazing at them as if there was something there that could elucidate the mystery. He began to put one thing to another confusedly in his mind.
"A got-up thing! Could it be a got-up thing? It was a woman certainly," he said to himself, but aloud,—"a woman certainly, and a small woman."
"Maybe a laddie in a woman's dress," said an officious bystander.
"Were there mony letters in't?" said another, with unseasonable curiosity.
"And what," said another, authoritatively, "had the mail-bags to do in the inside of the coach?"
This question made a silence in the group, which the guard broke suddenly and loudly.
"Get back to your seats," he said; "and Jamie, push them to their stiffest, those beasts of yours: this has to be seen into. It's robbery on the Queen's highway," he said, with a vague threat which cowed them all.
John got to the lodging which had been prepared for him, with a much perplexed and disturbed brain. It annoyed him beyond reason to think he had perhaps taken a mischievous boy for a lady, and wasted his polite attentions upon a young thief; yet perhaps, because he did not wish to believe this, this became an idea quite impossible to him after a little thought. He could not quite tell how he came to the conclusion, but he felt perfectly confident that a woman it was, perhaps not an invalid, as appeared—nay, certainly not an invalid: he remembered now the swift movement of surprise she had made when he suddenly opened the door on her side with the soup he had taken such trouble to get for her. She had flung herself aside from the door, but it was a woman's movement, not that of a boy. And then the woman's face at the opened door, looking in one moment from outside, closing it with such a hasty bang. No doubt of that being a woman's face, a young face, a pretty face, in a glow of colour as he remembered it. Could that be the wrapped-up old rheumatic person with the poultice on her cheek? His heart gave a jump partly of self-derision, the dolt he had been! not to discover a bonnie lass even underneath the mountain of veils and wraps. He could have sworn that not the cleverest should have so taken him in. But why, after all, should that beher? Most likely it was somebody passing, a country maid on the road, good-natured, giving a push to the open door as she passed. Would a fugitive have shut it with a clang like that? Not likely!
John was very ready for his supper and for his bed afterwards, being young and healthy: but his sleep was very broken, and that woman's face kept looking in upon him, from between the curtains and behind the door, at every turn and toss. He began to see it, better than he had done in the real moment of seeing it,—a pretty face, rather redder than was consistent with his idea of beauty, with a curious flash in the eyes, and anxious lines in the forehead. He saw it perfectly clear in those visions of the night, the hair dark and ruffled, a hood half drawn over the head, the lips apart. No doubt at all that it was a pretty face. And he remembered she glanced at him with a sort of laugh about the corners of her mouth, which changed to a look of fright as she saw him wake up. He had not thought of it at first, but certainly that was her expression, and the clang with which the door closed was probably due to that surprise. Was this the old woman with the rheumatics in her head? Could it be she who had squeaked and stormed at him, and ordered him to "snoozle"? He kept going over and over it in his broken sleep, seeing her more clearly every time he woke, reading more and more meaning in the details of her face which came to him one by one. Were the eyes blue or brown? Was the ruffled hair light or dark? He could not make out those most essential details, yet he thought he should recognise her wherever he saw her. The glimpse he had got of her in reality seemed nothing to the light upon her which came from his dreams. It was like seeing her again and again, and getting familiar with her face. He thought that if he ever saw it again, it would haunt him all his life. But he should see it again—of that he was determined. Then he suddenly thought to himself with a gleam of surprised pleasure, what a good thing it was, after all, that he had come to Duntrum! This seemed all at once to him a good, a delightful, a most entertaining and charming thing, but, I fear, he would have been quite at a loss, if he had been asked for an explanation, to say why.
The incident, as was natural, made a great noise in the country, and there was an examination held before the sheriff at which John was the principal witness. He described the old body to the great amusement of all present,—the lump on her cheek, and white edge of the plaster in which it was tied up, just showing beyond the great black muffler in which her face was enveloped, the Spanish veil, with large thick silken flowers, between the interstices of which only the fact that there was a face could be discovered, the shrill strange voice which he now felt to be assumed. And, finally, the young face that had appeared at the window.
"You were awoke by it—by what?" said the questioner; "by the sharp closing of the door?"
"Yes," said John.
"Then, if the noise only woke you, how could you see the face of the person who made it?"
"No, it was not the noise," said John; "it was the blast of the cold air coming in: and then the face appeared in the open, against the night, looking up a little, catching the light of the lamp. For a moment it moved with the coach, then the door was shut."
"Moved with the coach?" said the interrogator. "Do you mean she was walking by the side?"
"I begin to think," said John, slowly, "that she must have been on the step: then dropped out of sight, and shut the door."
"Are you sure, Mr Percival," said the sheriff, "that the pretty face at the door was not a dream? We all know that pretty faces are part of young men's dreams: and you are not sure at which moment you awoke."
"I did not say," said John, "that it was a pretty face."
"Ah!" said the sheriff.
"Still it is true—it was so: and young: but it was not a dream. I saw the lady quite clearly."
"It was a lady, then? You thought at first it might be a country lass passing."
"I am not sure that it was a lady," said John, "but I certainly think so—I——" He paused, then, with a slight start of astonishment, seemed to stop an exclamation that was on his lips.
"What is the matter?" cried his questioner. "You are not so sure as you were that you saw any young woman at all?"
"I am perfectly sure—on my oath, and with complete recollection of what happened, that I saw," cried John, "exactly what I have said,—a young woman with a great deal of expression in her face, and a hood on her head, looking in at me for a moment through the open door." He did not look at the sheriff as he spoke, but strained his eyes, interrogating the faces before him between the table at which he stood and the door. His heart had not quieted yet from that start, though his mind had. He had thought he saw her again, the same face, and had been startled, and then had said to himself how unlikely it was, and looking again had found there was no such thing before him, among the score or two of people who had assembled in the room. There were very few women at all: it must have been a temporary illusion, for certainly now there was no one visible who resembled that face at all. But his heart continued to beat, though he succeeded in quieting his mind and reason as I have described.
Many curious things happened in connection with this mystery. The letters which had been posted in Dunscore on that night—as was proved by the postmarks—almost without exception reached their destination within a day or two, but with the Edinburgh postmark added to that of Dunscore. There was an exception, and that was one letter addressed to the Duntrum Bank, in which John by this time had taken his place, a favoured supernumerary, with all the prestige of his Edinburgh antecedents and connection, to learn the country work. It was curious that the incident with which his name was already associated, and which formed so remarkable a part of his scanty and young experience, should thus be brought under his notice again. He heard nothing else spoken of for the first month, at least, of his dwelling in Duntrum. The one lost letter was from a small bank in the little town of Dunscore. It had enclosed several bank bills to be collected and other papers of commercial value, and was in fact, perhaps, the only important missive in the stolen bag, judging from a commercial point of view. From the discussions in the bank where he acquired the last information on the subject, John learnt that various unfortunate persons had reason to rejoice over the loss of this letter. Two or three poor men almost bankrupt had their ruin staved off for a moment, and the dread period of protested bills and mercantile dishonour deferred at least for a time: and there were many whisperings and questions whether any of the persons concerned could have been capable of so bold a stroke. But even the inventive genius of a country town, always so bold in attributing guilt, could not come to any agreement in respect to this. It could not even be said that any one was suspected. The thing had been accomplished so mysteriously in such a complete way, without leaving a trace, that the local inquisition was completely baffled. John found with mingled annoyance and relief that his own vision of the young woman at the coach door was not relied upon. He had probably dreamt it, most people thought. Like the sheriff, the community concluded that it was nothing wonderful if a young man suddenly awakened should think he saw a girl's face; probably he had been dreaming about some particular girl. And in those days the hypothesis of a woman having done any deed of note was rarely accepted and with difficulty. The naturalrôleof the woman in those days was to keep quiet and behind backs. She was not suspected of taking any leading part. The wrapped-up invalid in the country, whom the guard and several other persons besides John had seen, must have been a man in this disguise everybody was certain. It was not a thing that could have been done by a woman. No, no; no woman could have had the nerve to do it, the people in Duntrum said.
All these things John Percival turned over in his mind, and examined as much as he had the opportunity of doing. He listened to all the gossip about all the persons concerned, and especially of those who might be supposed to be advantaged by the loss of the mail-bag, with very keen interest, and formed within himself one hypothesis after another, several of which perished in the framing, so difficult was it to make the circumstances fit in. And in the meantime he himself became a personage of great importance, and much sought after in the gentlest society of Duntrum, which was understood to be very exclusive and difficult of access. John was the representative of Percival's Bank, one of the oldest establishments in Edinburgh, which was very much in his favour. And he was, besides, gifted with a story to tell, which was almost a greater recommendation. Over and over again during that winter he was required to give his famous description of his companion in the coach, of his own attempted attentions, the soup he procured in vain, the wraps that were kicked away. There was one circumstance which he never mentioned, but which touched his heart with the strangest thrill of kindness, which was that his tribute of the oranges had disappeared along with the old lady. It was as if she had not liked to hurt his feelings by rejecting his benevolences altogether. This curious experience inspired John with a slight inclination towards the dramatic which he had not been conscious of before, and almost made him believe before the season was over that perhaps if he had been left to follow his own devices, he might have been a great actor as well as a great artist or poet. At last, however, he got over his inclination to start at every girl's face he met and examine it critically on the score of a fancied likeness to the young woman of his vision. He said that most girls were like each other, as his final conclusion. They had all fine complexions in Duntrum.
Nevertheless, there was one evening at one of the many little dances that were given in that cheerful place, when John's composure was very much put to the test. He was taken to this entertainment by his own chief comrade and crony, young Maxwell, the son of the resident partner in the Duntrum Bank, who was in something of John's own position, more highly favoured than the other clerks and naturally one of theélite.
"Come, and I'll show you the flower of Wittisdale, the rose of Duntrum," said this young man. "She has been away in Edinburgh the whole winter; but mind you, none of your cantrips here. I warn you off before you see her. I'll have no interlopers cutting me out. Turn the heads of all the others, if you like, with your acting and your stories, but this one is mine."
"They are all just as like each other as apples in a basket," said the cynic John.
Nevertheless, when he went lightly into the brightly lighted room following his friend, John in a moment felt his heart leap into his throat: for there, standing a little behind the mistress of the house, with a curious little air of consciousness which seemed to him to prove that she was on her guard and ready for the startled look which he gave her, full in her face as if it had been a blow—to his extreme confusion and surprise there stood suddenly before him the woman of the coach door, the woman of his dreams.
When he reviewed afterwards, in quietness, the bewildering impressions of that night, John said to himself that it was the attitude of Miss Wamphrey which struck him before he had seen her face, and before he knew who she was, and that she was the object of young Maxwell's devotion. But probably this was only an idea developed afterwards, when he had begun to think of her in the character of a mysterious creature with a secret; for, indeed, to nobody else did she appear anything but a pretty girl in her twenties, very nicely dressed, with a little air of having descended from superior heights of fashion upon those circles of Duntrum which felt themselves so exclusive. Marion had spent most of the season in Edinburgh: she had even been in London: and various other girls in the assembly had already noted several points in her attire as things that were doubtless "to be worn," since she had just come from these fountain-heads of fashion. But what John remarked, or thought he remarked, was that she stood as one might to whom there might possibly arise an occasion to fly, which was a quite absurd exaggeration of any possibility, even if he were right in his surmises: also, which perhaps was more likely in that hypothesis, that she looked as if she expected something to happen, and glanced up behind the fan, of which she made greater use than a rustic Scotch maiden was apt to do (which was one of the things that struck the other girls as probably a new development of fashion), or over the shoulder of the chaperon, whom she followed like her shadow (which also was not a habit common among the young ladies of Duntrum), with a certain keen look of alarm, of expectance in her eyes. It happened that John saw her, after his eyes, as he thought, had been attracted to her by this peculiarity of attitude and look at a moment when she had dropped her fan to greet a friend, and before she perceived himself in the little crowd.
"Hullo!" he said to himself in the sudden surprise of recognition, and unaware he said it aloud.
"What's happened?" said Maxwell, by his side; "do you see anybody you know? By the way," he added, "it is Marion Wamphrey; of course you must have met her in Edinburgh. I wonder I never thought of that before."
"Which is Miss Wamphrey?" said John. He looked in the other direction that he might not betray himself, and then looked again to see that the girl had put up her fan, and that (as he thought) the something she was expecting had happened. She had seen him. Her eyes had taken a roundness which they had not before, the alarm of expectation had gone, and a sort of panic had come in its place. He saw her (or thought he saw her) obliterate herself behind the larger form of the lady with whom she was for a moment—then look out again over her shoulder, as if standing on tiptoe. Of course, she must have expected, John thought to himself, all that was happening or was about to happen. She must have known she would meet him. She must have been prepared to be recognised. She must be now at the height of a great crisis of mind, wound up to face it out, hoping that perhaps he might have been less quick of observation, less certain of recollection than she was.
"That's her," said Maxwell, with a wave of his hand towards the group, "playing keek-bo with somebody over Mrs Brydon's shoulder. Just like her saucy ways! You'll find Marion no country cousin, I can tell you, Percival. There's not one of your Edinburgh fine ladies more——Eh? think you have seen her before? I'll be bound you have seen her before! She's been spending the season, I tell you, in Edinburgh, and you that have yourentréeseverywhere——"
"Not so much as that," said John, with modesty; "and you must remember I have had all the fun cut off this year——"
"Never mind, I am sure you must have met her. Come along, and compare your experiences. I think I'm a man of great magnanimity not to hold you off; but it's better to run the risk of trusting you," he added with a laugh, "than to give you the attraction of the forbidden."
Somehow, however, their progress was slow through the little crowd—quite a little crowd, John felt, to one accustomed to the Assembly Rooms of Edinburgh. But somehow, everybody seemed to get in the way between himself and this lady. Had there not been a whisper sent out through the friendly ranks: "Oh, keep him off me! that man with his story about the stage-coach. I cannot abide these funny men with their stories." Young Duntrum, which had admired John quite long enough, was delighted to hear that so popular a girl as Marion Wamphrey did not want to hear the story which all the others had held their breath at. It was a victory, after all, for Duntrum over the invader in their midst. And accordingly they circled round him, and called attention to a hundred insignificant things.
"Did you hear the meet was at the Four Elms to-morrow, Percival?" "Man, do you know there's every prospect of a fine frost?" "Percival, my sister has a word to say to you about the Philharmonic." "Percival, I'm saying——" He had to stop again and again to respond to their appeals; while, on the other hand, his companion Maxwell shuffled impatiently about, waiting, and grumbled: "Come on, man, never mind,—be done with your civilities. She will have given away every dance before we get near her." Finally, John found himself standing face to face with this strange heroine of his thoughts. He said to himself that, but for her own looks, he might have been shaken in his conviction that it was she. The face that he saw before him, with hair smooth as satin, and crowned with flowers, as was then the fashion, in the midst of the ball was difficult to associate with the ruffled aspect, the flush of excitement, the strange light in the eyes of the woman at the coach door. But she stood straight up to meet him, like one who is strongly set in her own defence, as if she were standing at the bar: and there was in her eyes a watchfulness, a preparedness, as of a man who keeps his arm ready to return a blow. Perhaps all this was merely in John's eyes. Maxwell seemed to see nothing unusual in the look or air of the girl whom he admired. The gay group around fluttered and jested. Nobody within sight or hearing had the slightest suspicion of anything in Marion Wamphrey that was not always there. She did not hold out her hand to him, welcoming the stranger as the other frank and kindly maidens would have done; but that was because Miss Marion was always a little high and mighty, and now and then put on airs, as one who had been out in the world and knew the fashion.
"You mustn't think anything of that," Maxwell said afterwards; "it is just her way. I like her to have a way of her own, not like all the rest," said the young man in love. But John Percival was not satisfied that it was her way. She seemed to look at him in the eyes as if trying to cow him—as if on the faintest movement on his part she were ready to strike. And this on his part excited him, and made him anxious to strike.
"I think," he said, "that Miss Wamphrey and I have met before——"
"I told you so," said Maxwell,—"I told you both so. I was certain you must have met before."
If this ass had not broken in with his assurances about a thing he could know nothing whatever about, John felt sure she would have shown more consciousness than she did. As it was, her colour, he was sure, wavered a little; but she said, with a little burst of laughing surprise: "Oh, how condescending of you to remember! I recollect well seeing you, Mr Percival. But it was only seeing you, not meeting; for you were at the grand end of the Assembly Rooms, among all the lady patronesses, and I was only at the foot of the room, and knew nobody."
"There's one for you, Percival," said Maxwell, delightedly. Though John, it was certain, had had a greatsuccèsin Duntrum, they were all coming to think that it might do him good to be a little taken down.
"That is very hard upon me, especially as it was so much to my loss," said John; and then he thought he would carry the war into the enemy's country. "But I confess," he added, "I remember nothing about the Assembly Rooms. I think we have met in other circumstances."
She gave him a broad look from her fully opened eyes, with a faint elevation of the eyebrows.
"There I confess you have the advantage of me," she said steadily, holding him with that look, "as I, it appears, had of you on the former occasion." Then, with the faintest turn of her head, too dignified to be called a toss, she withdrew this embarrassing look from him, with a wave towards Maxwell of the card attached to her fan. "If you want any dances from me," she said, "it will be better not to lose any time."
"You cruel Marion," cried the young man, "it is all filled up, every line."
"You should not have been so late," she said, with a laugh; and they stood for a moment with their heads together, in the easy intimacy of having known each other all their lives. And then followed a little ball-room battle, while John stood, somewhat grim, looking on.
"I that was going to ask how many you would give me!" from him, with tender reproach; and "There will always be the extras, you know," from her.
"And it's easy to mistake about an extra—if you'll be good," said Maxwell, in a lively whisper; and they laughed together over the card, which he was manipulating. John was determined he would hold his ground. She was a very pretty girl, and she was in a state of suppressed excitement (or at least he thought so), which made her doubly interesting. And it was he who was the cause of her excitement. Whatever is the reason, it pleases a man, at least of John's age, to feel that he is the cause of a woman's emotion. He was not daunted by thepersiflagebut waited calmly till the end of the discussion; then he said—
"Is there no hope, Miss Wamphrey, for me?"
"Oh, Mr Percival," she said, turning round with an air of having forgotten him, which would have done no discredit to a great lady at a court ball: and then she shook her head. "I am afraid no more than there would have been for me at the Assembly Rooms if I had aspired to dance with one of the stewards," she said, laughing; "but you can look for yourself."
"Come, give him the last of the extras, Marion," said Maxwell, delighted to exercise a little patronage.
"If you are not at home and fast asleep before that," said Marion, raising her eyes quickly, with a dart, to John's face.
He felt it like a blow, but very carefully inscribed his name at the very bottom of her list, and retired with a bow of much dignity—at which, with secret wrath, he heard her laugh with Maxwell as he turned away. It was to be war then? She meant to turn him into ridicule before he could unmask her as the heroine of the strange adventure which everybody knew. John was very moody all the evening, and did not half fulfil the expectations of the merry country ladies, who thought it was the business of their partners to be amusing as well as to dance well. John fulfilled the latter requirement, but then they all danced well at Duntrum. They did not know the waltz in those days. They danced pretty figures of country-dances and reels, and other cheerful things. It had never occurred to them that quadrilles were dull—they were the height of the fashion, and the different figures respected as almost a revelation. Nobody "sat out," and if perhaps the assembly was simple, and some of the dances a little old-fashioned, it was very gay.
It need not be said that, in the state of mind in which he was, John stayed till the last moment, and presented himself to Miss Wamphrey just as she was following her chaperon to the door, holding together a dress which had been slightly damaged in the rapidity of a last reel. There was a glance of battle in his eyes as he came up to her, with a reminder that this was his dance, which kindled an immediate response in hers.
"I cannot stay another moment, May," said the chaperon, crossly. Marion shrugged her pretty shoulders, with a look which spoke volumes of repugnance, and reluctance, and scorn, and made John furious.
"I cannot break my word to this gentleman, if he insists upon it," she said.
"Seeing I have held on all these hours,and not gone to sleep," said John, with something savage in his tone, "only for this."
There was a last dreary quadrille being formed, and she gave her hand and allowed herself to be led to it, to fill up a side place. They stood side by side in silence for a moment, and then Marion said—
"It is very noble on your part, Mr Percival, to hold out so long. I am so sorry to have been the means of breaking your night's rest."
"It is not the first time, Miss Wamphrey," he said.
"Not the first time! This is too much of a compliment. We are not accustomed in the country to have such pretty things said to us."
"There was nothing so far from my intention as saying a pretty thing," said John.
"This is more and more tremendous, Mr Percival! It was an ugly thing, then, you meant to say?"
"What I meant," said John, "was to let you know that I have not forgotten our meeting, which has cost me many a thought."
"Dear me," said Marion, "is this all because I said I knew nobody atthatball? Comfort yourself. I knew nobody grand like the lady patronesses; but I had plenty of partners, and there is no need to be remorseful, even if you have the most tender conscience, on account of me."
"You know very well it is not that I am thinking of," said John, in a low tone.
"Well, I should not have expected it to be. A young man like you, in the best society, is not likely to trouble himself about a country girl he doesn't know."
"At all events, the other occasion was a very different matter," he said.
"What other occasion? One would think there was some great mystery between us. If you will come down from these stilts, and tell me what you mean——"
"That is just what I am most anxious to do—if I could for a moment suppose you had forgotten it! It was rather a different thing from a meeting at a ball."
"You had better wait a little," she said, sharply; "it is our turn for this figure."
And then they danced. I forget now what these figures were called. It was the one in which the lady on one side is led off by the gentleman on the other side, who advances to the abandoned partner with a lady in each hand. John was the man who had to stand and look on. She had recovered all her spirit, all her freshness, it appeared, and made of this innocent performance a parade of gaiety and grace. She came up to him and retired from him, holding the hand of the other with the most coquettish defiance, and swept him such a curtsy as she might have made to the king—deeper even, with mock deference and scorn, which was considered very amusing by all the lookers-on. "You should have seen Marion dancing L'Eté" (or whatever it was) "with the man from Edinburgh," they all said afterwards. John had been "too much made of" since his arrival and his adventure: it was delightful that he should thus be made to feel "put back in his place" without any one being to blame. And John, I will not deny, felt the sting: but he was stimulated by it, not depressed. In the quiet of the interval that followed, while the others were dancing, he made his attack on more decided lines.
"Where," he said—"I have always been very curious—did you hide all those dreadful things you had on?—the hoods, and the handkerchiefs, and the veil."
A spark flashed up into her eyes—was it possible there was a laugh in it that showed through both the affected wonder and the actual fear?
"What in the world do you mean?" she said; "the handkerchiefs and the hoods and—have you gone mad, Mr Percival?"
"Not a bit," said John, "nor you either. We're two very sane people. How you flashed it off in a moment might be just a woman's skill—but not to drop it on the road, not to let it be found anywhere, that's what I have always admired: it shows you have great force, and it really looked, you'll forgive me for saying, as if you had done such a thing before."
She turned round, swerving a little from his side. "If you're exposed it's your own fault," she cried, hurriedly, and in a very low tone. "I am afraid to dance with you any more."
"Oh, you need not be afraid," said John. "I am not mad: and I will not publish it, not at least at this moment; but stand still, or I'll not answer for what I may do."
She stood still, a thrill running through her; but even at that moment contrived to make her tremor invisible to the others, with glances towards him and elevations of her eyebrows, and little movements of her hands. She was no soft girl to be crushed by anything he would do, but a resolute woman meaning to fight every step, and with all the odds in her favour, well known and popular, whereas himself nobody knew.
"Perhaps this is not the best moment," said John, "but I thought I must warn you. I was very much taken in, and you must have had your laugh at me: but I was awake to all the circumstances in the end."
"It is a good thing," she said, suddenly forgetting herself, "that you are awake sometimes; for a better sleeper"—then she stopped, and a deep red flush covered her face—"dreamer of dreams," she added, quietly, "I never heard of. Did you dream all this, Mr Percival, or is it a story got up out of a book?"
And then they danced again, extraordinary interruption to such an interview. John could not help, when he took her hand, giving it a fierce grip of hostility, almost unawares. He was brought to his senses, when it was with equal fierceness and almost equal strength returned. She was not looking at him, but moving in the dance with a smile on her face. Many a close clasp of love has been given in such circumstances, but seldom one of actual defiance and ferocity. Her eyes, though they were not on him, blazed, the colour forsook her face, and its very paleness shone. She had perhaps never looked so beautiful in her life.
"Come away, Marion, come away," said Mrs Brydon; "I cannot wait a moment longer."
"This is the last figure," said Marion, over her shoulder, and she danced it to the end, but quickly disengaged herself before the concluding galop, and, seizing her friend by the arm, hurried away. John did not follow to get their cloaks and carriage, as he ought to have done. There were plenty of attendants ready. He sat down, grim, in a corner to think it over, and could not be persuaded to join the young men's rear-supper, or any of the closing festivities of the night.
Thus John found himself involved in a duel to the death, as it seemed, with an intelligence probably quicker than his own, and with many advantages over him, as he speedily realised.
Next day he surprised a group of young men in his own very bank, the centre of his life in Duntrum, where up to this present moment he had been so easily the chief personage. He came in in the midst of a burst of laughter, through which he heard the phrase, "She made fine sport of him. He'll not craw so crouse again, I'm thinking." While the sound of the laughter filled the room John came into sight, asking quietly, "Who is it that will not craw so crouse?" and the group melted before him, every man looking more conscious than the other.
"Oh, it was only a joke of some of the girls," said young Maxwell, very crestfallen.
John went grimly to his desk, and made no sign, but he knew very well that he was the subject of the joke; and they knew very well that he knew. He had not thought that his antagonist was of such force; but, indeed, to conceive and carry out so unflinchingly such a bold plan showed that she could be of no small force, and he reflected upon her and on what might be in store for him very gravely as he sat at his desk in the midst of an unusual silence in the office for the rest of the morning, paying, if truth must be told, very little attention to the country business which he had been sent to study, and which he had at that moment unusual facilities for studying, as it was market-day.
There was another party that evening, to which he went quite prepared for the fate which was about to overtake him, and which did overtake him accordingly. None of the young ladies of Duntrum would dance with John. Some of the girls looked mischievous, some regretful, but only one out of the troop of pretty creatures with whom he had hitherto been so popular, could find a single dance for him. That one was Marion Wamphrey, who pointed with a sparkle in her eye to one line in her programme which had been left free, and danced it majestically, treating him with a lofty civility which did a little to crush his spirit, but filled him more and more with the rage of battle. After that experience, John faced the chances of Society in Duntrum no more. He withdrew before the moment when, as in most of their little assemblies, dancing began; for in those days in Scotland most entertainments ended in a dance, the young people being quite unfastidious, and as willing to amuse themselves on a carpet as on the most beautifully waxed floors. John withdrew; and he was comforted to find that he was missed. There was no longer any fun in refusing to dance with the best partner in the room when he was not there to be vexed by the affront, and there was soon a revolt against Marion, as would no doubt have happened in any case, and those who had lent themselves to her revenge loudly complained that she had driven their finest performer away. "He told us all the new figures, and the French step that nobody here has learnt yet," moaned the culprits of that night, "led away," they could not quite tell why, by Marion, "and she gave him a dance herself!" they remembered. Did she want to keep him to herself? Was that her treacherous reason? So that before the winter was half over, John would have been received with open arms had he gone back; but he did not go back. He felt himself master of the situation, and determined to retain it, even at the cost of a little self-denial, which it certainly involved, for he was a young man of his period, not of this, and loved to find himself in the midst of pretty faces, and to show the new French steps, and the new figures, and to feel himself the king of the company as he had formerly done.
However, it was all the better for business that he should have had this check in the middle of his career. For it set him on giving his attention to the country business, and to the transactions of the bank with the little banking establishments in the little towns around, branches of the Duntrum Company or of others. Especially—and this the reader will understand, without perhaps crediting John with very great devotion to business, considered on its own merits—he was eager to inquire into the business with Dunscore, which had such a curious connection with the little drama to which he had been introduced in spite of himself. And he accepted with great alacrity, about the new year, a commission to go to that place on the affairs of the bank, and to consult with the managers there concerning some changes which it was thought expedient to make. Messrs Percival in Edinburgh were delighted to think that their nephew had been chosen for this commission. It showed, as they concluded, that the boy must be showing some real business capacity, or he would not have been chosen for such an office, and also a considerable interest on his part, or he would not have devoted himself to it. So that it made a very good impression, much to his favour, at home.
John appeared, too, at Dunscore to much advantage, with his look of gravity and interest in the suggested changes, and secured the full attention of the manager, who, knowing his connection with the Percivals, felt great interest in him as a rising young man, devoted to business, and anxious to extend his knowledge. He gave John a great deal of information as to the working of the banking system in the country, and all the difficulties which a manager had to encounter. When the business was over, the conversation went off to lighter subjects: but, indeed, it grew naturally out of it that he should inquire about the lost letter which had been in the stolen mail-bag, and whether there had been any light thrown upon that curious theft and its motives. The manager was very ready to talk on this subject, which was the most romantic incident that had been known in the country for ages past.
"Indeed," he said, "since the time when one of the Cochranes dressed herself up like a highwayman, and waylaid the mails—which took place not very far from the same spot——"
"What was that story?" said John.
"Did you never hear of it? It is just such another story. It was after Argyle's rebellion in 1685, and the warrant for her father's execution was supposed to be in the bag——"
"Her father?" said John.
"Oh, ay, it was a young lass. And did it never occur to you, Mr Percival," said the manager, "that this might well be a woman's work? You see Grizel Cochrane's story is well known, and women are grand actors when they have a purpose to serve. They say you saw a woman shut the coach door just after your queer passenger disappeared."
"It is quite true; but do you think a woman would have the nerve and the courage?"
"Oh, pooh! Nerve? they've nerve for anything when they've motive enough; and courage? there's no a deevil for daring like a young lass—they're worse than the lads; they never count the cost. I would just like to know if that is not your own point of view."
"But the motive?" said John.
"Oh, deed, there was motive enough. That big letter, Mr John, conveyed enough matter to distress, maybe to ruin, two or three families. There's times when even delay will save a man's credit: but clean destruction of bills and bonds—Lord, man, it's just salvation to some poor struggling men. There was an honest farmer that had kept up a sore struggle, my own very heart was wae for him when I put his bill in the packet. It would have been a question of roup and banishment, and an honest fellow, as honest as ever ploughed field. He came here like an honourable man, and bound himself over again for the sum, with a little delay, which we were glad to grant. Ay, and there was another, a gentleman's son, a wild fellow. I'm misdoubting he put his father's name to a bit of paper the worthy laird never saw, and a grand escape he has had. No, I don't think the bank will have very much loss, excepting just that one case."
"And who was the man, may I ask?" said John.
"I ought not to tell after what I have just said, for it would be a libel if ever it was repeated, and there's no evidence. Well, as you are, so to speak, in the business, Mr John, and in a manner concerned with the robbery, I may strain a point for you. It was just Will Wamphrey, the son of auld Wamphrey, of Craigthorn. He's away abroad now, and maybe he will never hear of it, unless, as I strongly suspect, that it was one of his gilpies that robbed the mail."
"His gilpies!" said John. He felt a flush of anger at the name.
"Just that," said the manager, nodding his head. "Plenty of them took an interest in him, if all tales are true. I have always thought it was some bold hizzy that was o'er the Border after him, and away to some seaport, while these police birkies were riding the country. Ye never can get them to turn their horses' heads the right way till the guilty person's well out of reach. Wull," he said, getting a little more familiar in his accent as the story warmed him, "was a wild deevil, and never out of mischief; but his father is a douce man, and we were all very sorry for him. I'm mostly glad, though it will be a loss to the bank, that yon bit of paper is out of the way. And they say that old Wamphrey had sworn an oath that if he played another pliskie, he should be cast off without a shilling, instead of being sent creditably to try his luck again, which is what has been done."
"This, if it came true, would make it a complete romance of the road," said John.
"That is just what it is, a woman," said the other, "and the best thing he could do would be to marry the lass, and take her with him out of the gait of justice. For my Lords Justiciary would take little heed, I fear, of the romantic circumstances if she were brought before them, which would be sure to happen sooner or later if she were to bide in this country. Somebody must have seen her—you did yourself, by the way, Mr John, as I have heard."
"I saw a country woman close the door," he said. He was glad that he had the time to prepare his answer, while the good man went on. "A person passing, I have little doubt, who saw it swinging open. And it was a momentary glimpse that I could not trust to. It would be a hard case if suspicion was thrown upon a decent woman returning from her work in the fields, and doing what she thought was a kind action as she passed."
"Bless me, that is true," said the bank manager, "but I understand you were of the opinion that it might be the very miss herself."
"I never meant to convey that impression," said John, with an immovable countenance. "It was a country lass; most likely a farm-servant going back a little late from the fields."
"Oh-h," said the manager. He added, after a pause, "I have maybe been rash in making up such a story. It might be no woman after all. But there's no telling," he continued, with a laugh; "Will Wamphrey had friends in all stations, though a country lass would scarcely have had the cleverness to carry it through."
John could scarcely help applying uncivil words to this genial person as he talked. A country lass! There were different kinds of country lasses: and the way in which this mere bank manager permitted himself to talk of one who was neither a gilpie nor a miss, nor, in short, anything that came within the range of such a critic, gave him a sensation of anger. Why should it give John, who was really the only witness against her, a sensation of anger? He could not tell. Nothing could be more absurd, and out of all agreement with the circumstances; yet he called Mr Scott several unpleasant names within himself. What did he know about it? a mere vulgar, little country-town man, a village magnate. That he should take upon himself to judge, could think himself qualified! The man was extremely charitable on the subject, and took what seemed to himself much too lenient a view; but it did not, as appeared, satisfy John, whose feelings were quite unexplainable even to himself. So far as he was aware, he wanted to find out everything about the business, but he did not choose that any one else should find out, or should prejudge or venture to form theories about it even to himself. And as he went back to Duntrum, John began to take himself to task, and to inquire into the nature of his own thoughts. Did he really, after all, believe that Marion Wamphrey was the heroine of his great adventure? Had he not seized upon the idea "for fun," as they all said, to give himself a reason for making a certain intimacy, a teasing acquaintance with the prettiest girl in the room, pretending to have this tremendous matter against her? He said to himself that this had really been all that was in his mind, when her own consciousness, her readiness to defy him, her anxious look, as of one who expected to be attacked, had turned his wavering, half-real recognition into certainty. He would not have permitted himself even to think of such a thing, to do more than to perplex her with a jest, but for that foreknowledge on her part, so clearly marking that she knew all, and more than all, he could say. This had startled and shocked him into saying many things he had not intended, and into persecuting her with hints and suggestions, as if he were quite sure of what was merely a vague suspicion. He took himself to task now as he went home. Had he really any ground for the attack he had made upon this young lady? A momentary glimpse of a face in a dark winter night, was that enough to build such an accusation upon? And he had as good as accused her, if not of the theft, at least of having been seen in circumstances of suspicion on the night when the theft was made. He had begun lightly enough: he had been himself startled by her response of eye and attitude: and now that he had hunted out this fresh information, which threw so living a light upon it all, he found himself forced to the conviction that it must be true. In the teeth of that conviction, he asked himself indignantly how he had dared to believe such a thing of an innocent girl, a girl whom he had met at a dance, blooming, gay, and full of confidence in all about her. Was that the person to accuse, even in your own mind, of robbing his Majesty's mails? It was preposterous; it was as false as anything could be. It might have been, as Scott said, a gilpie, one of the many loves of this Will Wamphrey, bent on serving him, and not too particular about the method; but Marion! with her white dress and her pearl necklace, and the flowers in her hair. It was, of course, impossible; it was impossible! Having said this to himself, he added, with a quick-drawn breath, that now the chain of evidence was complete, that the only thing wanting had been a motive, and now here was the motive abundantly supplied.
John jumped from his post-chaise at the foot of the hill where that adventure had taken place. It was now the end of February, and this had been a hazy, grey day, full of cold, yet at the same time of that indescribable thrill which shows us that the sap is moving in the veins of the old earth, and spring coming, though perhaps her footstep has but touched the heights. He was so restless with the movement of the thoughts that were rising in his own breast, that it gave him a little relief to walk. It was almost dark, and nobody was about. He stood still for a little, and looked over the hedge at the spot where the coach had stopped. It was a high and stiff hedge, hawthorn, full of strong prickles, and closely grown; there was a shallow ditch on the other side, and beyond that a large field, a little undulating, with little knowes and hollows. How did she get through the hedge, or over it? Where did she disappear to? How was it that with all their lanterns and all their eyes no one caught so much as a shadow of her? He examined the place very closely, and found that a little below there was a gap through which it was just possible an adroit person might squeeze. But it was almost impossible, if that was the mode of her escape, to imagine that so soon she could have got under cover. Not far from the hedge there was a group of half-grown rowan trees, forming a thick clump at the bottom, though very thin and wind-blown in the upper branches. They had been quite invisible in the darkness of the night, and he did not think there had been any proper search made at the moment of the wide open stretch of the field where there was so little possibility of concealment.
He was full of the recollection of that night, and of interest in the culprit whom all his investigations seemed to force him to identify almost against his will; and his inclination to follow what must have been her steps in her retreat was strong. The ground, he knew, had been gone over again and again, but no trace had been found, and it was highly unlikely now, when two months had passed, that he should find any trace of her. But he squeezed himself through the gap, with the unpleasant result of finding himself almost up to his knees in the muddy ditch at the foot of the hedge. There had been a great deal of rain in the past week, and not only was the ditch full, but the field was an expanse of soft mud, a little bound together by the grass, but slippery and soft, so that it was hard to get a footing as he scrambled out of the ditch. This was not a pleasant beginning, but he was determined to make his way to the little cluster of the rowans, and make sure for himself whether there was any possible shelter for a fugitive there. A more miserable spot there could not be. How a woman, encumbered by petticoats and cloaks as his fellow-traveller had been, could have slid and scrambled along, unheard, toward that little island in the muddy field, if that indeed had been where she went—and it was the only covert within sight—he could not divine. And very poor was the covert, a bundle of saplings, not much more: slim stems of young trees growing upon a small mound. But the farther side of this hillock, he found, fell abruptly, a little precipice of five or six feet. He had nearly fallen over it, which impressed it on his mind; and when he slid down on the treacherous and muddy slope at one side, he found that the bank above overhung a little, so as to make a shelter quite available, a sort of shallow cave. Had she come here, in the deep darkness, that daring girl, and listened to the ineffectual stir of her pursuers, the gleams of their lanterns? He tried to realise the situation. It was now only twilight, but it was difficult to distinguish anything across the damp level of the field which spread dismal round him. What could it have been in the mirk of the night, getting towards midnight, and black as winter and desolation could make it! Had she couched here, cold, encumbered with her disguise, never knowing when a light might flash round the corner upon her? John shivered with sympathy, yet felt also something of the whirl of excitement which must have been in all her being.
As he stood against the damp wall of mossy earth, held together by the roots of the rowans, he suddenly saw a speck of white in a crevice among the twisted roots. He pulled it out, or tried to do so, but it resisted his efforts. Finally, digging with his stick, and pulling with his hands, at risk of bringing the whole mound down upon him, he disinterred from the network of rough and twisted stems a handkerchief, then something black and large which he could not distinguish, and finally the skin of an orange. John's heart, already panting with the toil, gave a jump into his throat. The white handkerchief was folded into a sort of bandage, and had evidently been tied round the head; the large, black square was one of the huge neckcloths (so-called) of the period. These formed, no doubt, the wonderful headgear which his fellow-traveller had worn. But the orange skin overwhelmed John with an impulse to laugh and to cry together. It was one of his oranges which he had brought in, in kindness for the poor old lady. She had remembered them in danger and horror, and eaten it while they were looking for her. That daring creature defying heaven and earth, wet, cold, miserable, and—guilty. She had eaten his orange to comfort her, the poor little demon of a girl!
And was that Marion Wamphrey all white and dazzling, with the pearls on her throat, and the roses in her hair?
When John returned to his rooms, carrying his strange spoils with him, he found on his table an invitation. For the last week or two his invitations had been few. This one had been delivered, his landlady told him, by a man and horse from Wamphrey, which was some miles off to the south of Duntrum. This was so startling in the midst of his present thoughts, that his spoils fell from his hands in the excitement of the moment. To Wamphrey! Mr Wamphrey was an invalid, the brother was absent. There had been no festivities there since his arrival in Duntrum, and that such an invitation should come now when he was about, he thought, to disclose the family skeleton, and brand its most beloved member with guilt, startled him as if there was something preternatural in it. He threw himself down in his easy-chair and tried to think, but his head went round and round.
The objects which he had carried in his hands fell on the table and unrolled themselves as inanimate things sometimes do as if there was life in them. They had been tightly done up, and fluttered out of the roll as they fell: the white handkerchief, folded like a bandage, which had been tied together at the ends, and retained even something of the roundness of the head on which it had been bound, fell quite open, revealing its use. The larger black one had also been tied, two of the ends together. She had got rid of them on the first possible moment, trusting no doubt to the thick Spanish lace of her veil, with its large silken flowers, to disguise her sufficiently: but where did she go from that little shelter in the field? how had she escaped eventually, in the dark midnight, over the slippery, wet ground—so dark you could not see your hand held up before you, so wet and soft, your foot sinking into the clay?
John sat by his fire, and asked himself why he had been so hot in this discovery, and what he had wanted to do. Did he want to convict her, to bring her to shame, a girl who had done him no harm, who (he said to himself) had, after all, done nobody any harm,—except perhaps the bank, which was impersonal and could not suffer much. It was true that it would not do to establish a precedent, and rob his Majesty's mails, when they happened to contain something disagreeable to you. But then, there were very few people in the world who would have the nerve and the strength to do that; and indeed, when you came to think, it was as much the carelessness of the guard, putting such a temptation in the way, as the boldness of the culprit, which was to blame. If he had not left them within everybody's reach, she would not have attempted to get them. The guilt was with the guard. Then, if he himself had kept awake and not gone to sleep like a great baby, she would not have done it. Did he wish he had not gone to sleep? Did he wish the guard had not been so careless? Did he wish that the family should have been disgraced, and the prodigal ruined? John caught himself up with a start. What did it matter who was ruined? No one not with the purest motives, not with the most tender meaning, had a right to take the law in his or her hands. She had made herself amenable to the law—and not only so, but the position was untenable from any point of fact: it was a crime, it struck at the roots of every security. She was a thief! a thief! and of the most dangerous kind.
Suppose it had come into her head that somebody's diamonds would make a nice little portion for her brother, the prodigal whom his own family was sending away to the ends of the earth? Would that native have saved her from the law which has to deal with a criminal and not with the crime, certainly not with the circumstances that account for the crime? He replied to himself, indignantly, that there was no analogy in that case to this. To steal diamonds is common theft; to steal a mail-bag—well! That is a worse crime: and yet he could not endure to have it said even by himself. If Grizel Cochrane, who stopped her father's death-warrant so as to give him time to escape, was the heroine of the district, how was Marion Wamphrey to be called a thief? He went on reasoning with himself, wandering through the wilds of casuistry, examining, accusing, vanquishing himself over and over, and then beginning again.
Nevertheless, when he went to Wamphrey, ten days after, there were war and battle in John's eyes. He was given, as it happened, a very cordial welcome. Mr Wamphrey, the invalid, was down-stairs, seated in an easy-chair in his library, where he could take a quiet share in the amusement of the large party; and it turned out, as it so often turns out, especially in Scotland, that he had known John's father in their respective youths, which was a thing John himself had not done, having been an orphan as long as he could remember. And the elder son had come home from his travels, the object of which John was secretly aware of; but chiefly there was Marion, in the delightful position of daughter of the house, supreme everywhere—disposing of everybody, a princess at the head of her dominions. She was quite gracious to John, treating him with a sort of amusedempressement, a smile of triumph on her face, as if to show him how little she feared him. Her manner drove John back into a conviction of the falsehood of all his sophistries, and that this bright creature was nothing more nor less than the robber of his Majesty's mails, and had to be brought to justice. He was not even moved as he had been before by the thought of those little white shoes stumbling over the muddy field. This had subdued him utterly when she was not there. He could not even remember that orange skin which had appealed to him as the subtlest argument. Her smile of triumph seemed to turn his head—but the wrong way.
She had kept a dance conspicuously for him. She was evidently intent on proving that she did not fear him. She herself proposed, after it was over, to lead him to the farthest corner of the conservatory, to show him a rare flower of which the gardener was proud: but it was there in this position of favour that John was so hard-hearted as to fire his first gun.
"I have something of yours, Miss Wamphrey, which I must take the first opportunity of returning to you," he said.
"Something of mine? How can that be, Mr Percival? I am sure I never gave you anything of mine."
"Or rather there are two things: a white handkerchief marked with your name, and a black handkerchief, both of which you wore round your head on a certain occasion when we first met."
"Mr Percival," she said, with a change of colour, "do you think it is good taste to assail me whenever you happen to be alone with me, with this ridiculous delusion of yours?"
"They are still precisely as they were when you must have pulled them off: you know where I found them—thrust in among the roots of the rowan-trees in that little hollow under the brae. There was another thing," said John, "the skin of an orange."
When he said there was another thing, her eyes blazed up in sudden anxiety,—then they were dimmed with as sudden a shadow of relief. She had feared something else: therefore there must be something else to find there. And then her colour came back, and she laughed out, "The skin of an orange!" Oh, she understood perfectly what he meant! That was always what led him on. She understood every allusion. "That was a very innocent thing," she said; "I would like to know how you associate me with that."
"It gave me a kind of pleasure to see it," said John; "I thought to myself I was some good to her after all."
She paused, too, for a moment, casting down her eyes, and then she said: "I cannot really stand any longer listening to your nonsense about pocket-handkerchiefs and orange-skins. I hope you yourself know what you mean. I hope you have not—lost your head altogether. I don't want to be rude and leave you—but this is more than I shall ever give you the chance of saying to me again. Mr Percival, the next dance has begun."
"Is that all you have to say?" asked John.
"Every word—and too much!" she said.
I don't know what he had expected, or indeed what he meant at all by assailing her so bluntly, but he certainly did not make anything by it: she assumed her air of relieved triumph, but held him at arm's length all the rest of the evening; and he did not dance at all, but stood in a doorway and followed her with his eyes—always seeming to see that triumphant head flower-crowned, issuing from the bandages, and the white shoes stumbling over the muddy grass.
"What are you glowering at?" said Maxwell, taking him by the arm. "Mind, I warned you—no interference with me."
"I interfere! You had better think twice before you take any step," John said.
Then it was Maxwell's turn to glower at him.
"I hope you are not taking leave of your senses," he said.
These two drove home together, very silent, Maxwell in great wrath at such an extraordinary warning, John consumed with a desire to betray to him the secret of Marion. He could scarcely open his lips for fear it should burst forth. A dozen times at least he had framed the words. She is not what you think. There is something I could tell. I could put her in jail if I pleased. This last came most frequently of all. I could put her—in jail. He said it actually under his breath. He repeated it over a dozen times. He could not understand why his companion did not hear him. He seemed to himself to have another motive in speaking from that which anybody would imagine. It was not to expose Marion but to test Maxwell. He thought if the fellow knew as much as he knew, he would give her up at once: and with all his soul, he wanted to put this other man to the test. I don't know how it was that the secret was kept, nor did John know. He thought it was chiefly the noise of the post-chaise.
Next day John was very restless and excited, unable to keep quiet or to go on with his work. He had taken his hat two or three times to go out, but then reflected that to go during the day would be to call forth suspicion, and perhaps give some other person of a detective cast of mind a clue to the mystery. He was not at all himself of the detective mind, and, indeed, the thing was not known, and certainly not prized in those days. A thief-catcher it would have been called, and "Set a thief to catch a thief" was a suggestion which everybody thought of in that connection. But he went out in the afternoon, walking sedately over the high-standing hill, and reaching the foot just as the evening began to darken. He made his way again with the same shuffling and sliding over the muddy field, and, reaching the little declivity behind the rowan-trees, began his investigation. The roots were so tangled and twisted, so loosely filled up with earth and stones, that but for the clayey consistence of the soil, and the damp that penetrated through and through, he would have feared to bring the entire mound about his ears. It took him a long time, and the evening grew darker and darker, and he had almost ceased to hope for any further revelation, when suddenly the stick with which he was digging struck upon something which gave forth a metallic sound. With a sort of fury he rushed at it again, and struggling with a shower of falling stones, and the stem of one young tree which fell upon his arm, jamming it against the side, he at last managed to extract a large article, partly metallic, which was deeply lodged among the roots of the trees. He could scarcely make out its shape in the darkness, but, half by sight and half by feeling it with his hands, made sure, with a sensation which brought the blood rushing to his heart, that it was the mail-bag. He had scarcely quieted down after this discovery, when, looking up from his extraordinary treasure-trove, he was aware of another figure coming towards him, so near already that he could make out it was a woman, and guess what woman it was. He started back into the shadow of the outlying edge, where he was absolutely invisible, and stood there, a spectator of the eagerness with which she advanced to the spot which he had found such difficulty in discovering, where these things had been hid. She had not even a stick, but tore at the roots and earth with her hands, plunging her arm in up to the elbow into the hole which John had made. It was now almost entirely dark, and probably she thought this was the reason she found nothing, for suddenly, before he knew what was being done, she had begun to work with one of the elaborate methods of the time for striking a light. John stood breathless, invisible, yet so near to her that he felt her panting breath, while holding his own, quite unprepared for what was to come next, not knowing what to do. He held the thing for which she was searching, he held her secret, her freedom, almost her life, in his hands. Her fingers trembled, it took her a long time to strike that light—it seemed incredible to him that she was not aware at least that there was some one by.