Solomon started for Gethin on the ensuing morning; but his wife did not, as usual, find his departure a relief, since Balfour remained behind. Her last instructions from her husband were to treat this unwelcome guest with marked consideration, and to let him have his way in every thing. He also hinted, though it was scarcely necessary to insure her obedience, at certain brilliant prospects which were about to present themselves, through Balfour's means, if he were only kept in good-humor. Harry would have much preferred to relinquish his favor at the price of his absence; but not so her son. Notwithstanding the disparity in their ages, he and this new acquaintance were already fast friends. The latter had laid himself out to please the lad, and had succeeded; partly, perhaps, from the very novelty of companionship, for Charley knew no one in town, and was tired of taking his pleasure therein alone, but chiefly through his store of agreeable anecdotes, all illustrative of the enjoyments which wealth conferred, with which Balfour tickled his ears.
"In a few years—perhaps sooner, who knows?—all these things of which I speak will be within your own means. You will be rich; and he who is so can please himself in almost every thing. You can then marry your Agnes, if you will, without fear of being disinherited; or, what is better and more likely, you may choose from a score of Agneses, or even take them all."
He had a light amusing way with him, this Balfour, that hid the cynicism which would otherwise have jarred upon his young companion; for Charles, though selfish and fond of pleasure, was good-natured, and had not reached that period of life when our sherry must needs not only be dry, but have bitters in it. He was genuinely fond of his mother; yet even in this short time Balfour, as she well knew, had taught him to disobey her; not setting her at open defiance, indeed, but regarding her advice and remonstrances with a sort of tender contempt. She meant all for his good, his Mentor admitted, but women had not much knowledge of the world; and if a young man was not to be his own master at eighteen, he must look to be in leading-strings all his life. Harry perceived her darling's plastic nature changing daily for the worse in the hands of this crafty potter; and though it was an admission humiliating to her, as a mother, to make, she made it to Mrs. Basil in her sick-room.
"Mr. Balfour is doing my Charley harm," she said. "He is an altered boy already, and yet my husband talks as though we are never to be rid of the man. What money, what gain, can ever compensate for the demoralization of our child?"
"Nothing, indeed," said Mrs. Basil, quietly. "But have a little patience. Is not this gentleman going on Friday?"
"Yes; but he will come back again. It is only some business that calls him into Midlandshire. He does not even take all his luggage away. I have a great mind to tell him point-blank that his presence in this house—at all events in Mr. Coe's absence—is unwelcome; but I dare not do it; I am afraid."
"Yes, your husband would be very angry, without doubt," said Mrs. Basil, thoughtfully.
"That is not it. I am afraid of the man himself. He reminds me of that hateful creature—what is he?—in the opera, for which Mr. Aird gave us the tickets, and which Agnes went with us to see—Mephistopheles."
"What a strange fancy! He is only a sour, pleasure-jaded man. If I was not so ill I would speak to him myself; but you are right not to do so; that is your husband's place, who has brought him here. Let things be as they are till Friday."
Harry sighed, but perforce assented. Friday came, and Mr. Balfour went as he had designed, but not without stating at breakfast his intention of returning on the ensuing Monday or Tuesday at latest, and even making an engagement with Charley to spend the latter evening with him at the theatre.
"Do you happen to know when my husband will be home?" inquired Harry, timidly.
"No, madam. He was good enough to say, however, that his absence was to make no difference as to my remaining here as his guest."
This reply, which might easily have been made offensive, was delivered with the most studied courtesy: it cut the hostess's ground from under her; for it had answered the very objection which she had intended to imply. She felt herself not only defeated, but reproved.
"Let us hope you will both return together," said she.
"I do not think that very probable," answered Mr. Balfour, slowly.
An hour later and he had departed, his hostess, under pretense of being engaged with her sick friend up stairs, not having so much as shaken his hand. Charles, indignant at this slight, would have accompanied him to the railway station, but Balfour would not hear of it. For this he had two reasons: in the first place, he was anxious to keep his route secret; and secondly, it was a part of his system to give the young man no sort of trouble or inconvenience on his account. He wished every association that linked them together to be one of pleasure.
Mrs. Basil, as we have said, had not made her appearance that morning below stairs; she was, in fact, no better, but rather worse: that news from Lingmoor, outwardly borne so well, had shaken her to the core. Still, no sooner had Balfour left than she made shift to rise, and even came down to dinner. She discussed with Charley, who had a considerable regard for her, the character of their late guest—not with hostility, as his mother was wont to do, but with the air of one who asks for information, and has confidence in the verdict which she seeks. The lad, flattered by this implied compliment to his sagacity, answered her questions readily enough. He praised his friend, of course, and thought he praised him even when he spoke ill of him. He repeated his pungent sayings, and served up his anecdotes—such of them as were adapted, at least, for the ears of the ladies—anew. By this means he hoped to bring his hearers to a better opinion of so capital a fellow; and in Mrs. Basil's case he apparently succeeded. His mother still reiterated her opinion that Mr. Balfour was a dangerous personage, and not a fit companion for any young man. Charles smiled at this, for it was the almost literal fulfillment of a prophecy which Balfour had made to him, and believed in that gentleman's sagacity, accordingly, more than ever. Women were so ludicrously prejudiced; the fact of Mrs. Basil's—"the white witch"—not being so was an exception that proved the rule. She had been evidently interested in his anecdotes, of one of which she had even requested to hear the particulars twice over; not that, in his own judgment, it was the best, but, being of a weird sort, it had probably struck her fancy. It had lost in the telling, too—for he did not pretend to have the gift of narrative, as Mr. Balfour had—and his mother had seen in the story in question nothing at all.
Mrs. Basil came down stairs no more after that evening. She grew worse and worse, and was not only confined to her room, but to her bed. Harry was not much with her; she seized with avidity this opportunity of being alone with Charley to undo, as far as she could, Mr. Balfour's work with him. This was not hard, for the boy was a creature of impulse, and swayed for good or ill with equal ease. But she discovered that it would be useless to attempt henceforth to conceal from him the nature of his future prospects. He was now firmly convinced that he was the heir to a large fortune, and she regretted too late that she had left the disclosure to a stranger. What grieved her much more, and with reason, was that an attempt which she now made to bring the influence of Agnes to hear upon him proved unsuccessful; the girl resolutely refused to come to the house in the absence of its master, and contrary, as she knew, to his express commandment. Charley himself, too, whose visits to Mr. Aird's studio had been intermitted for some time, was received in Soho with coldness. It was not in Harry's nature to understand this independence of spirit, and she deeply deplored it on her son's account. She had looked to this young girl to be his guardian angel, and had never anticipated that she could possibly decline to watch over a charge so precious. She would not allow, even to herself, that her son's own conduct was as much the cause of this as her husband's ill favor; but she saw in it, clearly enough, the mark of the cloven hoof, the work of Balfour.
Sick Mrs. Basil could give her small comfort, though she did not attempt to defend their late visitor, as she had so unwarrantably appeared to do when discussing him with Charley.
"The man is gone, my dear," said she, wearily; "perhaps he may never come back: let us not meet troubles half-way. Charley has a kind, good heart"—for "the white witch" showed great favor to the lad at all times—"and all will come right at last."
She seemed too ill and weary to argue the matter, and Harry left her, as she thought, to repose. No sooner was she gone, however, than the closed lids of Mrs. Basil were opened wide, and revealed a sleepless and unutterable woe. Her sharp, pinched face showed pain and fear. Her parched lips muttered unceasingly words like these, which were, perhaps, the ravings of her fevered brain: "I am sure of it now, quite sure; those stags, those stags! There is no room for hope. His heart has become a stone, which no power can soften. It is no use to speak, or rather I am like one in a dream who watches murder done, and can not cry out."
Mr. Balfour—for so we must call him now, since he is attired respectably, travels first-class, and, moreover, even looks like a gentleman—did not go to the Midlands, as he had given out was his purpose, but took his ticket to Plymouth, to which place the railway had just extended in those days. He bought neither book nor newspaper, but sat in the corner, with his hat drawn over his eyes, for the whole nine hours, thinking. From Plymouth he posted to Turlock, where he arrived late at night, and without having broken fast since morning. He took no pains either to divulge or conceal his name; he asked no questions, nor was asked any except "whether he preferred to sleep between sheets or blankets"—for Turlock was still an out-of-the-way region, and the little inn about three-quarters of a century behind our modern caravansaries, with their "daily fly-bills" and "electric bells."
After dinner, which he scarcely touched, he wandered out—it was his habit to do so, as he told the hostler, who was also the night-chamberlain—and did not return till long after midnight. He observed, as he gave the man half a crown for sitting up for him to so late an hour, that the moon looked very fine upon the sea.
"You must be a painter, I guess, Sir," said the hostler, with a grin of intelligence.
"Why?" asked Balfour, sharply. "What makes you think that?"
"Well, Sir," returned the man, apologetically, "I mean no offense; but it is always the gentlemen-painters—or, at least, so they say at Gethin, and I wish more of 'em came here—as is so free with their money, and so fond of the moon."
"Lunatics, eh?" said the new arrival, with a loud, quick laugh. "Well,I'm no painter, my friend."
Then he took his candle and retired to his room, but not to bed. He disarranged the bed-clothes and rumpled the pillow; then walked softly to and fro in his slippers until morning. On the following day he made no attempt to visit his newly acquired property, but strolled about the harbor, or stood, in sheltered and, therefore, secluded places in the rocks, watching the winter sea. His meals at the inn were sent down almost as they were served up, yet he showed no sign of weakness or fatigue, but in the evening sallied forth as before. The night was very cloudy, with driving showers, and the landlady good-naturedly warned him of the danger of venturing on the cliff-path, which was narrow, and had been broken in places by a late storm.
"I will take care," said he, mechanically.
"Perhaps you would like supper—some cold meat, or something—since you have eaten so little, placed in your sitting-room against your return?"
"Yes, yes," said he, approvingly; "you are right; I shall doubtless be hungry to-night." Then he went out into the bleak, black night.
He hung about the harbor as before until near eleven, when all the lights of the little town had faded away, save that at the inn, which was burning for him alone; then he climbed the cliff, and pushed southward along the very path against the dangers of which he had been cautioned. He walked fast, too, with his gaze fixed before him, like one who has an appointment of importance for which there is a fear of being late. Presently he struck inland over the down, when he began to move less quickly, and to peer cautiously before him. All was dark: the grass on which he trod seemed to be black, until he suddenly arrived at a large circular patch of it whichwasblack, and made the surrounding soil less sombre by contrast. This was the mouth of a great pit; and he sat on the brink of it, with his face to seaward, and his ear in his hollowed hand, listening. Nothing was to be heard, however, but the occasional scud of the rain, and the ceaseless roar of the now distant waves. Far out to sea there was a round red light, which fell upon him at regular intervals, its absence making the place which it had filled more dark than elsewhere. It had a weird effect, as though some evil spirit was keeping watch upon him, but he knew it for what it was—the revolving lamp of a light-house. Presently, in the same direction as the red light, he perceived a white one, which, though moving slowly, was certainly advancing toward him; nor did it, like the other, become obscure.
"He is coming," said Balfour to himself, with a great sigh. He had begun to have doubts of the other's keeping his appointment; though, indeed, it was not yet the time that he had himself fixed for it. The light came on, quite close to the ground, and with two motions—across as well as along. It was that of a lantern, which guided thus the footsteps of a tall, stout man, who bore upon his shoulders a ladder so long that it both projected above his head and trailed behind him. Balfour rose up, and stood motionless in the path of the new-comer till this light fell full upon him. "Hollo!" cried the man, a little startled by the white, worn face that so suddenly confronted him, although he had been looking for it. "Is that you, Mr. Balfour?"
"Yes. Hush! There is no need to mention names."
"Quite true, Sir; but you gave me quite a turn," remonstrated the other, "coming out of the darkness like a ghost. This Wheal Danes, at midnight, puts queer thoughts into one's head."
"John Trevethick was not afraid of coming here," observed Balfour.
"Well, so he always said. He told me at the last that he only pretended to believe in any of the foolish stories that folks talk about, and in favor of which he used to argue. But he's dead and gone, andthatdon't make this place less uncanny. Nobody since his time has been a-near it; they think he haunts the pit, it seems, so every body gives it a wide berth, both night and day. We shall see, however, and pretty soon, I hope, whether that notion can not be got over. Why, in six months' time we ought to have a hundred men at work here."
"Let us hope so. But in the mean time you say nobody comes here even in the daytime, eh?"
"Never. The place lies out of the way, you see: about midway between the cliff-path and the road."
"That's well," said Balfour, mechanically. "And you have not been babbling to any one of our prospects, Mr. Coe—nor of me, I hope?"
"Certainly not, Sir; that was the first article of our partnership, as I understood. Not a soul at Gethin has heard a whisper of Wheal Danes, or of your coming; they think I'm fast asleep at my own house, this instant. But it's been hard work lugging this cursed ladder up here in such a breakneck night as this,Ican tell you, and I am glad enough to rest a bit."
"Well, it's all over now, Mr. Coe."
"Except that I have got to take it back again," grumbled Solomon.
"True, I had forgotten that. We must not leave it here, must we?"
"Of course not. I do not complain of the trouble, however, only you must admit I've kept my tryst under some little difficulties, eh, partner?" and Solomon chuckled self-approval.
"You will be paid in full for all, my good Sir," answered Balfour, gravely; "that is," he added, hastily, "if the mine should turn out as you predict. How deep is it? That ladder of yours will surely never reach the bottom."
"No, indeed. Did I not tell you that there are three levels, each about the same depth? The copper lode lies at the bottom of the last, in the northeastern corner. You will find I have concealed nothing from you. Well, I have got my breath again now. Are you ready, Mr. Balfour?"
"Quite; but walk slowly, I beg, for your lantern is very dim."
"Yes, yes. But wait a minute; I came here yesterday and hid something." Solomon seated himself upon the edge of the pit, with his legs hanging over, and began to peer and feel about him.
"Take care what you are at," cried Balfour, eagerly; "you may slip down and kill yourself, sliding along like that."
Solomon laughed contemptuously. "Never fear, Sir; I have had too many mischances with mines to fear them. I have fallen down worse places, and been shut up in others far deeper and darker than Wheal Danes, without food or candle, for a week, and yet lived through it. The shaft has not yet been dug, I reckon, as will prove—Oh, here's the torch."
He dragged from under the overhanging rim of the pit a piece of wood like a bludgeon, one end of which was smeared with pitch; and placing the lantern with its back to the wind, pushed the stick inside, which came out a torch, flaming and dropping flame.
"There's our corpse-candle!" cried Coe, triumphantly; "that would keep us without witnesses, even if any one were so bold as, in a night like this, to venture near Wheal Danes, to trespass on Tom Tiddler's ground, where we shall pick up the gold and the silver." There was a wild excitement, quite foreign to his habit, about this man, and he whirled the torch about his head in flaring circles.
"Keep your wits steady, if you please," observed Balfour, sternly.
"It is over now, Sir, and I am in the counting-house again," answered Solomon, submissively. "I felt a little exhilarated at the prospect of plucking a fruit that has been ripening for fifty years, that's all. This Wheal Danes is the very aloe of mines, and it is about to blossom for us only. You had better take the torch yourself; the lantern will serve for me; but just show a light here while I place the ladder."
Balfour held the blazing pine aloft, and disclosed the gaping mouth of the old pit, its margin wet with the rain, and its sheer sides slippery with the damps of ages.
"It would be easy enough to get down without this contrivance," observed Solomon, grimly, as he carefully adjusted the ladder, the foot of which was lost in gloom; "but it would take us some trouble to find our way back again without wings."
"In daylight, however, I dare say it looks easier," said Balfour, carelessly.
"It may look so, but it ain't. Nothing but a sea-gull ever goes in and out of Wheal Danes; even the bats keep there, where indeed they are snug and warm enough."
"It doesn't feel very warm at present," replied the other, who did not seem to be in a hurry to explore this unpromising territory.
"Ay, but you wait till we get to the lower level; you might live there, if the rats would let you, for a whole winter, and never need a fire."
"Oh, there are rats, are there? Why, what dotheylive upon?"
"Well, that'stheirlook-out," laughed Solomon; "they would be very glad to haveus, no doubt. It would be only just in my case, for I have lived on them before now; with rats and water a man may do very well for a week or two."
"What! there is water laid on in this establishment, is there?"
"No; the low levels are quite dry. But come, let us see for ourselves. We are losing time. I will start first, and do you follow close upon me, but without treading on my fingers;" and Solomon placed his heavy foot upon the first rung.
"No, no," said Balfour, drawing back; "I will not trust myself on the same ladder with a man of your weight. When you are at the bottom give me a call, and then I'll join you."
"As you like, Sir," responded Solomon, civilly; but his thick lips curled contemptuously, and he muttered, "So this man is lily-livered after all; so much the better: it is well to have a coward for a partner."
The next moment his descending form was lost in the gloom.
Balfour waited, torch in hand, until an "All right," that sounded like a voice from the tomb, assured him that his companion had reached terra firma. Then he descended very carefully, and joined him.
"Stand close to the wall, Sir, while I move the ladder," said Coe; "your head don't seem made for these deep places. Ah, here's the spot. This is a drop of twenty feet."
"And what is the depth of the last level?"
"Five-and-twenty. But don't you be afraid; the ladder will just reach it, only you won't have so much to hold on by at the top. It's only the getting down that's unpleasant; you'll find going back quite easy work. And then, just think of the lode!"
Solomon began to be anxious lest his companion's fears should induce him to give up the expedition altogether. It had never entered into his mind that what was so easy to himself could prove so formidable to another; and, besides, he had somehow concluded that Balfour was a man of strong nerves.
"Make haste," said the latter, in the tone of one who has achieved some mental victory: "let us go through with it."
In the second level it was perceptibly warmer. Dark, noiseless objects began to flit about the torch, and once something soft struck against Balfour's foot, and then scampered away.
He looked behind him, and not a trace of light was to be discerned, while before him was impenetrable gloom, except for the feeble gleam of his companion's lantern. Above him the roof was just discernible, from which long strings of fungi, white and clammy, hung down and brushed against his face as he moved slowly forward.
"Come on!" said Solomon, impatiently, whose spirits seemed to rise in this familiar scene. "We are only a few score yards from Golconda."
Balfour stopped short. "I thought you said there was another level?" There was a strange look of disappointment in his face, and even of rage.
"Yes, yes, and here it is," cried the other, putting down the ladder, which he had carried from place to place. "It is only depth that separates us from it. They dug well, those Romans, but left off, as you shall see, upon the very threshold of fortune. You have only to be a little careful, because the ladder does not quite reach."
He descended, as before, in advance, while Balfour followed slowly and cautiously. "How steep and smooth the rock is!" observed he, examining its surface.
"Yes, indeed; it is like a wall of marble. But what matters that? It baffles the rats, but not us. Here is the land of gold, here is—What the devil are you at?"
Solomon, in his impatience, had stridden on to the object of his desires; and Balfour, halting midway in his descent, suddenly retraced his footsteps, and having reached the top, was dragging the ladder up after him.
Solomon heard this noise, with which his ear was familiar, and his tone had some alarm in it as he cried out, "I say, no tricks, Mr. Balfour."
There was no reply. He hastened back to the spot he had just left, and from thence could dimly perceive his late companion sitting on the verge of the steep wall, peering down upon him.
"Come, come, a joke is a joke," remonstrated Coe. "What a fellow you are to be at such games when an important matter is at stake! Why, here is the lode, man."
"It is very valuable, I dare say, Mr. Coe, but it is worth more to one man than to two."
"Great Heaven! what do you mean?" cried Solomon, while a sudden sweat bedewed his forehead. "You would not murder a man to dissolve a partnership?"
"Certainly not. I shall leave him to die, that's all. He and the rats will have to settle it together. Six months hence, perhaps, we may have a picnic here, and explore the place. Then we shall find, where you are now standing, some well-picked bones and the metal part of your lantern. That will cause quite an excitement; and we shall search further, and in the northeast corner there will be found a copper lode. I will take your word for that."
"Mr. Balfour, I am sure you will not do this," pleaded the wretched man. "It is not in man's nature to treat a fellow-creature with such barbarity. You are trying to frighten me, I know, and I own you have succeeded. I know what it is to be shut up in desolate, dark places alone, out of reach of succor; and even for eight-and-forty hours or so it is terrible."
"What must it be, then, to suffer so for twenty years?"
It was a third voice that seemed to wake the echoes of that lonesome cavern. Solomon looked up in terror, and beheld a third face, that of Robert Balfour, but transfigured. He held the glowing brand above him, so that his deep-lined features could be distinctly seen, and they were all instinct with a deadly rage and malice. There was a fire in his eyes that might well have been taken for that of madness, and Solomon's heart sank within him as he looked.
"Mr. Balfour," said he, in a coaxing voice, "come and look at your treasure. It sparkles in the light of my lantern like gold, and you shall have it all if you please; I do not wish to share it with you."
"So you take me for a madman, do you? Look again; look fixedly upon me, Solomon Coe. You do not recognize me even yet? I do not wonder. It is not you that are dull, but I that am so changed by wrong and misery. My own mother does not know me, nor the woman of whom you robbed me nineteen years ago. Yes, you know me now. I am Richard Yorke!"
"Mercy, mercy!" gasped Solomon, dropping on his knees.
Richard laughed long and loud. The echoes of his ghastly mirth died slowly away, and when his voice was heard again it was stern and solemn. "It is my turn at last, man; I am the judge to-day, as you were the witness nineteen years ago who doomed me wrongfully to shame and misery. Night and day I have had this hour in my mind; the thought of it has been my only joy—in chains and darkness, in toil and torment, fasting and wakeful on my prison pillow, I have thought of nothing else. I did not know how it would come about, but I was sure that it would come. You swore falsely once that I was a thief; I am now about to be a murderer, and your whitening bones will not be able to witness against me."
"I never swore it, Mr. Yorke," pleaded Solomon, passionately.
"Your memory is defective," answered Richard, gloomily; "you forget that I was in court myself on that occasion. You did your very worst to blacken me before judge and jury, and you succeeded."
"But it was Trevethick—it was father-in-law who urged me to do it; it was indeed."
"I know it," replied the other, coldly; "he was a greater villain than yourself, but unhappily an older one. Death has robbed me of him, and made my vengeance incomplete. Still there is something left for me. While you die slowly here—But no; I shall wait at Turlock for that to happen. A strong man like you, who have rats to live upon, may last ten days, perhaps. Well, when you are dead, I shall return to your London house, and lead your son to ruin. You permitted me to begin the work in hopes of getting half this mine; I shall finish it while you are in sole possession of the whole of it."
"Devil!" cried Solomon, furiously.
"The appellation is a true one, my good Sir; but I was a man once. Evil is now my good, thanks to your teaching. Look at me—look at me, and see what you have brought me to at eight-and-thirty! You almost drove me mad, and it was easy, for I had the Carew blood in my veins; but I contrived to keep my wits for the enjoyment of this hour. I feel very old, and have few pleasures left, you see. It is impossible, unfortunately, to return here and see you rot; there would be danger in it; just the least risk in the world of somebody coming here to look for us. I must be off now, too, for there is a worthy man sitting up for me at the inn, and I have got to take this ladder back to Gethin."
A cry of mingled rage and despair burst forth from Richard's foe.
"What! you had calculated upon the absence of that ladder producing suspicion? It is curious how great wits jump together: that had also struck me. I shall take it back, for I well know where it ought to be; I am quite familiar with your house at Gethin, as you may remember, perhaps. You may keep the lantern, which will not be missed; but, if you will take my advice, you will put out the light, to preserve the candle—as an article of food. Put it somewhere where the rats can not eat it, and it may prolong your torments half a day. You can also eat the horn of the lantern, but you will doubtless preserve that for abonne bouche. You are not superstitious, else I would suggest that your father-in-law's spirit is exceedingly likely to haunt that northeastern corner down yonder."
Here there was a dull scrambling noise, a violent struggle as of feet and hands against a wall, and then a heavy thud.
"Now that is very foolish of you, Solomon, to attempt to get out of a place which you yourself informed me could never be escaped from without wings. I sincerely hope you have not hurt yourself much. I hear you moving slowly about again, so I may leave you without anxiety. Good-by, Solomon." Richard waited a moment, a frightful figure of hate and triumph, peering down into the pit beneath, where all was now dark. "You are too proud to speak to a convict, perhaps. Well, well, that is but natural in so honest a man. I take my leave, then. You have no message, I conclude, for home?"
An inarticulate cry, like that of a wild animal caught in a snare, was the only reply.
"That is the worst of letting his candle go out," mused Richard, aloud; "some rat has got hold of him already." Then, with a steady foot and smiling face, which showed how all his previous fears had been assumed, he retraced his steps, and mounted to the upper air. The sky was clearer now; and, casting the torch, for which he had no further need, far into the mine, and shouldering the ladder, he started for Gethin at good speed. It was past two o'clock before he reached his inn at Turlock; but before he retired to rest he sat down to the supper that had been prepared for him, but without the appetite which he had anticipated.
Robert Balfour did not remain at Turlock, as he had originally intended. Perhaps the vicinity to Wheal Danes was not so attractive to him as he had promised himself that it would be, although not for a single instant did his purpose of revenge relax. Other considerations, had he needed them, were powerful, now that he had taken the first step, to keep him on that terrible path which he had so long marked out for himself. To disclose the position of his victim now would have been not only to make void his future plans, but to place his own fate at Solomon's mercy. Yet he found his heart less hard than the petrifaction it had undergone, the constant droppings of wrong and hardship for twenty years, should have rendered it. He did not wake until late, and the first sound that broke upon his ear was the tinkling of the bell of the little church, for it was Sunday morning. He compared it for a moment with something that he had been dreaming of: a man in a well chipping footsteps for himself in the brick wall, up which he climbed a few feet, and then fell down again. Then a pitiful, unceasing cry of "Help, help!—help, help!" rang in his ears, instead of the voice that called people to prayers. Even when that ceased, the wind and rain—for the weather was wild and wet—beating against the window-pane, brought with them doleful shrieks. Sometimes a sudden gust seemed to bear upon it confused voices and the tramp of hurrying feet; and then he would knit his brow and clench his hand, with the apprehension that they had found his enemy, and were bringing him to the door. Not the slightest fear of the consequences to himself in such a case agitated his mind; he had quite resolved what to do, and that no prison walls should ever hem him in again; but the bare idea that Solomon should escape his vengeance drove him to the brink of frenzy. He would have left the place at once, but that he thought the coincidence of his departure with the disappearance of his foe might possibly awaken suspicion; so he staid on through the day, waiting for the news which he knew must arrive sooner or later. At noon he thought the landlady wore an unusually grave air, and he felt impelled to ask her what was the matter. But then, if there was nothing—if she only looked sour, as folks often did, just because it was Sunday—she might think him too curious.
From his window, a little later, he saw a knot of people in the rain talking eagerly together, and one of them pointing with his hand toward Gethin. But they were too far off to be overheard, and he did not dare go down and interrogate them. It was his object to appear utterly indifferent to local affairs, and as a total stranger. He felt half stifled within doors, and yet, if he should go out, he knew that he would be incontrollably impelled to take the cliff path that he had followed the preceding night, to watch that nobody came near the place that held his prey, and thereby, like the bird who shows her nest by keeping guard too near, attract attention. The tidings for which he waited came at six o'clock, just as he was sitting down to his dinner. The parlor-maid who served him had that happy and excited look which the possession of news, whether it be good or bad, but especially the latter, always imparts to persons of her class.
"There's strange news come from Gethin, Sir," said she, as she arranged the dishes.
"Indeed," said Balfour, carelessly, though he felt his brain spin round and his heart stop at the same moment. "What is it?"
"Mr. Coe, Sir, a very rich man—he as owns all Dunloppel—has disappeared."
"How's that?"
"Well, Sir, he went to his room last night, they say, at his usual hour, but never slept in his bed, and the front-door was found unlocked in the morning, so that he must have gone away of himself. That would not be so odd, for he is a secret sort of man, as is always coming and going; but he has taken nothing with him; only the clothes he stood in."
"Well, I dare say he has come back again by this time, my good girl.What's this? Is there no fish?"
"No, Sir; the weather was too bad yesterday for catching them, and all last night there was a dreadful sea: that's what they fear about Mr. Coe—that he has fell into the sea. His footsteps have been tracked to the cliff edge, and there they stop."
"Poor fellow! Has he any relatives?"
"Oh yes, Sir; a wife and son—a very handsome, nice young gentleman."
"Then his widow will be rich, I suppose?"
"Oh, pray, don't call her a widow yet, Sir; let us hope her husband may be found. It's a dreadful thing to be drowned like that on a Sunday morning; and for one who knows the cliff path so well as he did, too. He was a hard man, and no favorite, but one forgets that now, of course."
"You have also forgotten the Harvey Sauce, my good girl; oblige me by bringing it, will you?" said Mr. Balfour, beginning to whistle something which did not sound like a psalm tune. "You must excuse my hard-heartedness, but I had not the pleasure of knowing this gentleman."
An hour afterward the solitary guest had left the inn, and was on his road to Plymouth. His departure caused little surprise, for the weather was such as to induce no visitor to prolong his stay.
Whether from his long enforced abstinence from society, or from the unwelcome nature of his thoughts, Robert Balfour was always disinclined to be alone. His expeditions with Charley in search of pleasure had been, though he did not find pleasure, more agreeable to him than the being left to his own resources; and now this was more the case than ever. He preferred even such company as that which the smoking-room of an hotel afforded to none at all. The voices of his fellow-creatures could not shape themselves, as every inarticulate sound did to his straining ear, into groans and feeble cries for aid. Not twenty-four hours had elapsed since his prisoner was placed in hold, so that such sounds of weakness and agony must have been in every sense chimerical; and yet he heard them. What, then, if these echoes from the tomb should always be heard? A terrible idea indeed, but one which bred no repentance. It was not likely that remorse should seize him in the very place where his hated foe had clutched and consigned him tohisliving grave.
The hotel at which he now put up was the same at which he had then lodged; this public room was the same in which he had smoked his last cigar upon his fatal visit to the Miners' Bank. He had had only one companion then, but now it was full of people. By their talk it was evident that they were townsfolk, and all known to one another; in fact, it was a tradesmen's club, which met at theGeorge and Vultureon Sunday nights through the winter months. In spite of his willingness to be won from his thoughts, he could not fix his attention on the small local gossip that was going on about him. Men came in and out without his observing them; and indeed it was not easy to take note of faces through the cloud of smoke that filled the room; he was fast relapsing into his own reflections, wondering what Solomon was doing in the dark, and if he slept much, when an event occurred which roused him as thoroughly as the prick of a lance or a sudden douche of cold water.
"Let us have no misunderstanding and no obligation—that is my motto."
The speaker was a thin, gray man, whose entrance into the apartment Balfour had not perceived, and who was seated in an elevated chair, which had apparently been reserved for him as president of the assembly. The face was unfamiliar, for twenty years had made an old man of the astute and lively detective; but his phrase, and the manner of delivering it, identified him at once as his old friend Mr. Dodge.
"It was in this very room," continued the latter, "that I sat and talked with him as sociable as could be, not a quarter of an hour before I put the darbies on him; and it's a thing that has been upon my mind ever since. I was only doing my duty, of course, but still it seemed hard to take advantage of such a frank young fellow. As for stealing them notes, it's my belief he had no more intention of doing it than I had."
"And yet he got it hot at the 'sizes, Mr. Dodge, didn't he?" inquired one of the company.
"Got it hot, Sir?" replied Mr. Dodge, with dignity; "he got an infamous and most unjustly severe sentence, if you mean that, Sir. Of course what he did was contrary to law, but it's my opinion as the law was strained agin him. There was some as swore hard and fast to get him punished as knew he deserved no such treatment. Why, the girl as he loved, and whose picture I found upon him myself when I searched him, and gave it him back, too—ay, that I did—even she took a false oath, as Weasel himself told me, who was his lawyer, and had built up his case with that same hussy for its corner-stone. Ah!" said Mr. Dodge, with a gesture of abhorrence, "if there ever was a murdered man, it was that poor young fellow, Richard Yorke."
"But I thought he got twenty years' penal servitude," observed the same individual who had interposed before, and whose thankless office it seemed to be to draw the old gentleman out for the benefit of society.
"I say he was murdered, Sir. He was shut up for nigh twenty years, and then shot in the back in trying to get away from Lingmoor. It was the hardest case I ever knew in all my professional experience. Lord, if you had seen him—the handsomest, brightest, gayest young chap! And he was what some folks call well-born, too; he was the son—that is, though, in a left-handed sort of way, it's true—of mad Carew of Crompton, about whose death the papers were so full a month ago or so; and that, in my judgment, was the secret of all his misfortune: it was the Carew blood as did it. To take his own way in the world; to seek nobody's advice, nor use it if 'twas given; to be spoiled and petted by all the women and half the men as came nigh him; to own no master nor authority; to act without thought, and to scorn consequences—well, all that was bred in the bone with him."
"Then he had never any one to look after him at home, I reckon, Mr.Dodge?"
"Well, yes; he had a mother; and though she was a queer one too, she loved him dearly. She was the cleverest woman, Weasel used to say, as ever he had to do with; and a perfect lady too, mind you. She worked to get the poor lad off like a slave; and when all was over, instead of breaking down, as most would, she swallowed her pride, and went down on her bended knees to that old miserly devil, Trevethick, the prosecutor, and to his son-in-law, Coe, likewise: they lived down Cross Key way—where was it?—at Gethin—and begged and prayed him to join in petitioning in her son's favor. She got down there the very day after his lying daughter was married to Solomon Coe, he as has got Dunloppel, and is a big man now. But he'll never be any thing but a scurvy lot, if he was to be king o' Cornwall. I shall never forget the way he insulted that poor young fellow when he was took up. Damme, I would have given a ten-pound note to have hadhimcharged with something, and I'd ha' seen that the handcuffs weren't none too big for his wrists neither."
"And this Trevethick refused to help the lady, did he?"
"Why, of course he did. He broke her heart, poor soul. I saw her when she passed through Plymouth afterward, and she looked twenty years older than before that trial. Even then she didn't give the matter up, but laid it before the crown. But poor Yorke had offended government—helped some fool or another through one of them public examinations; he had wits enough for any thing, had that young fellow. But there—I can't a-bear to talk about him; and yet somehow I can't help doing on it when I get into this room. He sat just where that gentleman sits yonder. I think I see him now, smoking the best of cigars, one of which he offered to me—for he was free as free; but I was necessitated to restore it, for I couldn't take a gift from one as I was just a-going to nab. 'Thank you kindly,' says I, 'but let us have no misunderstanding and no obligation.' Poor fellow! poor fellow!"
No more was said about the case of Richard Yorke; but it was evidently a standing topic with the chairman of theGeorge and Vultureclub. A yearning to behold and embrace that mother who had done and suffered so much for his sake took possession of Richard's soul. His heart had been steeled against her when he found harbored under her roof the objects of his rage and loathing; but he felt now that that must have come to pass with some intention of benefit to himself. The very truth, indeed, flashed upon him that she entertained some plan of frustrating his revenge against them, with the idea of protecting him from the consequences that were likely to ensue from it; and he forgave her, while he hated his foes the more. He would carry out his design to the uttermost, but very cautiously, and with a prudence that he would certainly not have used had his own safety been alone concerned; and then, when he had avenged himself and her, he would disclose himself to her. The statement he had just heard affected him deeply, but in opposite ways. The justification of himself in no way moved him—he did not need that; it was also far too late for his heart to be touched by the expression of the old detective's good-will, though the time had been when he would have thanked him for its utterance with honest tears; but the revelation of his mother's toil and suffering in his behalf reawakened all his dormant love for her, while it made his purpose firmer than ever to be the Nemesis of her enemies and his own.
As he went to bed that night the clock struck twelve. It was just four-and-twenty hours since he had left his victim in the bowels of Wheal Danes. If a free pardon could have been offered to him for the crime, and the mine been filled with gold for him to its mouth, he would not have stretched out his hand to save him.
Mr. Balfour atoned for his previous indifference to the wares of the news-boy by sending him next morning to the station for all the local papers. In each, as he expected, there was a paragraph headedMysterious Disappearance, and as lengthened an account as professional ingenuity could devise of the unaccountable departure of Mr. Solomon Coe from his house at Gethin. The missing man was "much respected;" and, "as the prosperous owner of the Dunloppel mine, which had yielded so largely for so many years, he could certainly not have been pressed by pecuniary embarrassments, and therefore the idea of suicide was out of the question." Unlikely as it seemed in the case of one who knew the country so well, the most probable explanation of the affair was that the unfortunate gentleman, in taking a walk by night along the cliff top, must have slipped into the sea. The weather had been very rough of late and the wind blowing from off the land, which would have accounted—if this supposition was correct—for the body not having been washed ashore. "In the mean time an active search was going on."
Balfour had resolved not to return to London for at least ten days. Mrs. Coe and her son would, without doubt, be telegraphed for, and he could not repair to their house in their absence. The idea of being under the same roof alone with his mother was now repugnant to him. He felt that he could not trust himself in such a position. It had been hard and grievous, notwithstanding his resentment against her, to see her in company with others, and her absence of late from table had been a great relief to him. With his present feeling toward her it would be impossible to maintain his incognito; and, if that was lost, his future plans—to which he well knew she would oppose herself—would be rendered futile. He had seen with rage and bitter jealousy that both Harry and her boy, and especially the latter, were dear to her; and it was certain she would interfere to protect them, for their sake as well as for his own. He had other reasons also for not returning immediately to town. It might hereafter be expedient to show that hehadreally been to Midlandshire, where he had given out he had designed to go; and, moreover, though his purpose was relentless as respected Solomon, he did not perhaps care to be in a house where hourly suggestions would be dropped as to the whereabouts of his victim, or the fate that had happened to him. Harry and her son might even not have gone to Gethin, and in that case their apprehensions and surmises would have been insupportable.
Richard was more human than he would fain believe himself to be. Though he had gone to bed so inexorable of purpose, it had been somewhat shaken through the long hours of a night in which he had slept but little, and waked to think on what his feverish dreams had dwelt upon—the fate of his unhappy foe, perishing slowly beside his useless treasure. More than once, indeed, the impulse had been strong upon him that very morning to send word anonymously where Solomon was to be found to the police at Plymouth. Remorse had not as yet become chronic with him, but it seized him by fits and starts.
There had been a time when he had looked (through his prison bars) on all men with rage and hatred; but now he caught himself, as it were, at attempts at self-justification with respect to the retribution he had exacted even from his enemy. Had he not been rendered miserable, he argued, supremely wretched, for more than half his lifetime, through this man's agency? for it was certain that Solomon had sworn falsely, in the spirit if not in the letter, and caused him to be convicted of a crime which his rival was well aware he had not in intention committed. His conduct toward him on the occasion of his arrest had also been most brutal and insulting; while, after conviction had been obtained, this wretch's malice, as Mr. Dodge had stated, had known no cessation. In the arms of his young bride he had been deaf to the piteous cry of a mother beseeching for her only son.
But, on the other hand, had not he (Richard) deeply wronged this man in the first instance? Had he not robbed him—for so much at least must Solomon have known—of the love of his promised wife? If happiness from such an ill-assorted union was not to have been anticipated, still, had he not rendered it impossible? If their positions had been reversed, would not he have exacted expiation from such an offender to the uttermost? He would doubtless have scorned to twist the law as Solomon had done, and make it, as it were, the crooked instrument of his revenge. He would not, of course, have evoked its aid at all. But was that to be placed to his credit? He had put himself above the law throughout his life; he had never acknowledged any authority save that of his own selfish will; nay, he owned to himself that his bitterness against his unhappy victim had been caused not so much by the wrong he had suffered at his hands as by the contempt which he (Richard) had entertained for him. Without materials such as his father had possessed to back his pretensions he had imagined himself a sort of irresponsible and sovereign being. (Such infatuation is by no means rare, nor confined to despots and brigands, and when it exists in a poor man it is always fatal to himself.) His education, if it could be called such, had doubtless fostered this delusion; but Mr. Dodge was right; the Carew blood had been as poison in his veins, and had destroyed him.
All this might be true; but such philosophy could scarcely now obtain a hearing, while his enemy was dying of starvation in his living tomb. It was in vain for him to repeat mechanically that he had also suffered a sort of lingering death for twenty years. The present picture of his rival's torments presented itself in colors so lively and terrible that it blotted out the reminiscence of his own. The recollection of his wrongs was no longer sufficient for his vindication. He therefore strove to behold his victim in another light than as his private foe—as the murderer of his friend Balfour, the history of whose end may here be told.
On the night that Richard escaped from Lingmoor, it was Balfour, of course, who assisted him, and who was awaiting him in person at the foot of the prison wall. The old man's arms had received him as he slipped down the rope; and the object at which the sentry had fired had been two men, though in the misty night they had seemed but one. Balfour had been mortally wounded, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, laden with the burden of his dying friend, Richard had contrived to reach Bergen Wood. As his own footsteps were alone to be traced along the moor, the idea of another having accompanied his flight—though they knew there was complicity—had not occurred to the authorities. Balfour had hardly reached that wretched asylum when he expired, pressing Richard's hand, and bidding him remember Earl Street, Spitalfields. "What you find there is all yours, lad," was his dying testament and last words of farewell. And over his dead body Richard swore anew his vow of vengeance against the man that had thus, though indirectly, deprived him of his only friend. He had watched by the dead body, on its bed of rotten leaves, through that night and the whole of the next day; then, changing clothes with it, he had fled under cover of the ensuing darkness, and got away eventually to town.
He had found the house in Earl Street a wretched hovel, tenanted by a few abjects, whom the money found on Balfour—which he had received on leaving prison—was amply sufficient to buy out. Once alone in this tenement, he had easily possessed himself of the spoil so long secreted, and, furnished with it, he had hastened down to Crompton—the news of Carew's death having reached London on the very day that he found himself in a position to profit by it. The very plan which he had suggested to Balfour, whose name he also assumed, he himself put into execution. He made a private offer for the disused mine, which was gladly accepted by those who had the disposal of the property, acting under the advice of Parson Whymper. Trevethick, the only man that had attached any importance to the possession of it, was dead; and it was not likely that any one at the sale should bid one-half of the sum which this stranger was prepared to give for the mere gratification of his whim. The mine itself, indeed, had scarcely been mentioned in the transaction; it merely formed a portion in the lot comprising the few barren acres on which this capricious purchaser had expressed his fancy to build a home. "Disposed of by private contract" was the marginal note written in the auctioneer's catalogue which dashed Solomon's long-cherished hopes to the ground.
Richard staid on in the neighborhood to attend the sale. It attracted an immense concourse; and no less than a guinea a head was the price of admission to those who explored the splendid halls of Crompton, discussing the character of its late owner, and retailing wild stories of his eccentricities. Poor Parson Whymper, who had not a shilling left to him—for Carew had died intestate, though, thanks to him, not absolutely a beggar—was perhaps the only person present who felt a touch of regret. He had asked for his patron's signet-ring, as a keepsake, and this request had been refused on the part of the creditors; he wandered among the gay and jeering crowd like a ghost, little thinking that the one man who looked at him with a glance of pity was he whom he had once regarded as the heir of Crompton. It was the general opinion now that the unhappy chaplain had been Carew's evil genius, and had "led him on." Even Richard bestowed but that single glance upon him; hewaslooking in vain for the face that had so terrible an interest for himself. He had not heard that Trevethick was dead, but he knew it was so the instant that his eyes fell upon Solomon Coe, and all his hate was at once transferred to his younger enemy. The business upon which this man had come was as clear to him as though it had been written on his forehead. The first gleam of pleasure which had visited his dark soul for twenty years was the sight of Solomon's countenance when, on the sixth day's sale, the auctioneer gave out that lot 970 had been withdrawn. Solomon might have received the intimation long before but for the cautious prudence which had prevented him from making any inquiries upon the subject. For a minute or two he stood stunned and silent, then hurriedly made his way to the rostrum. Richard, who was sitting at the long table with the catalogue before him, kept his eyes fixed upon its pages while the auctioneer pointed him out as the purchaser of the lot in question. He knew the inquiry that was being asked, and its reply; he knew whose burly form it was that thrust itself the next minute in between him and his neighbor; every drop of blood in his body, every hair on his head, seemed to be cognizant that the man he hated most on earth was seated cheek by jowl with him—that the first step in the road of retribution had been taken voluntarily by his victim himself. The rest is soon told. Solomon at once commenced his clumsy efforts at conciliation; and his endeavors to recommend himself to the stranger's friendship were suffered quickly to bear fruit. He invited him to his house in London, which, to Richard's astonishment and indignation, he found to be his mother's home; and, in short, fell of his own accord into the very snare which the other, had he had the fixing of it, would himself have laid for him.
And now, as we have said, when all had gone exactly as Richard would have had it go, and Solomon was being punished to the uttermost, the executor of his doom was beginning to feel, if not compunction, at all events remorse. No adequate retribution had indeed overtaken Harry. To have made her a widow was, in fact, to have freed her from the yoke of a harsh and unloved master; but the fact was, notwithstanding the perjury of which he believed her to have been guilty, he had never hated her as he had hated the other authors of his wrongs. She had once on the rock-bound coast at Gethin preserved his life; she had accorded to his passion all that woman can grant, and had reciprocated it; not even in his fiercest hour of despair had he harbored the thought of raising his hand against her; he had hated her, indeed, as his betrayer, and as Solomon's wife, but never regarded her with that burning detestation which he felt toward her husband. There was another motive also, though he did not even admit it to himself, which, now that his chief foe was expiating his offense, had no inconsiderable weight in the scale of mercy as regarded the others.
His endeavors to win Charley's favor had had a reflex action. In spite of himself, a certain good-will had grown up in him toward this boy, whom his mission it was to ruin. If there had been less of his mother in the lad's appearance, or any thing of his father in his character, his heart might have been steeled against his youth and innocence of transgression. As a mere son of Solomon Coe's he would have beheld in him the whelp of a wolf, and treated him accordingly; but between the wolf and his offspring there was evidently as little of affection as there was of likeness. The very weaknesses of Charley's character—his love of pleasure, his credulity, his wayward impulsiveness, of all which Balfour had made use for his own purposes—were foreign to the nature of the elder Coe; while the lad's high spirit, demonstrativeness, and geniality were all his own. If he had one to guide as well as love him—a woman with sound heart and brain, such as this Agnes Aird was represented to be, what a happy future might be before this youth! Without such a wise counselor, how easy it would be, and how likely, for him to drift on the tide of self-will and self-indulgence to the devil! The decision rested in Richard's own hands, he knew. Should he blast this young life in the bud, in revenge for acts for which he was in no way accountable, and which were already being so bitterly expiated? The apprehension that Solomon might even yet be found alive perhaps alone prevented Richard from resolving finally to molest Harry and her son no further. If his victim should have been rescued, his enmity would have doubtless blazed forth afresh against them as inextinguishable as ever, but in the mean time it smouldered, and was dying out for want of fuel. If he had no penitence with respect to the terrible retribution he had already wrought, the idea of it disturbed him. If he had no scruples, he had pangs: when all was over—in a day or two, for even so strong a man as Solomon could scarcely hold out longer—he would doubtless cease to be troubled with them; when he was once dead Richard did not fear his ghost; but the thought of this perishing wretch at present haunted him. He was still not far from Gethin, and its neighborhood was likely to encourage such unpleasant feelings. He had only executed a righteous judgment, since there was no law to right him; but even a judge would avoid the vicinity of a gallows on which hangs a man on whom he had passed sentence.
He would go into Midlandshire—where he was now supposed to be—until the affair had blown over. That watching and waiting for the Thing to be discovered would, he foresaw, be disagreeable, nervous work. And when it happened, how full the newspapers would be of it! How Solomon got to the place where he would be found would be as much a matter of marvel as the object of his going there. If the copper lode—the existence of which Richard did not doubt—were discovered, as it most likely would be when the mine became the haunt of the curious and the morbid, it was only too probable that public attention would be drawn to the owner. The identification of Robert Balfour with the visitor who had visited Turlock might then be established, whence would rise suspicion, and perhaps discovery. Richard had no terrors upon his own account, but he was solicitous to spare his mother this new shame. He had been hitherto guiltless in her eyes, or, when blameworthy, the victim of circumstances; but could her love for him survive the knowledge that he was a murderer? But why encourage these morbid apprehensions? Was it not just as likely that the Thing would never be discovered at all? Once set upon a wrong scent, as folks already were, since the papers had suggested the man was drowned, why should they ever hit upon the right one? Wheal Danes had not been explored for half a century. Why should not Solomon's bones lie there till the judgment-day?
At this point in his reflections the door opened—he was taking his breakfast in a private sitting-room—and admitted, as he thought, the waiter. Richard stood in such profound thought that it was almost stupor, with his arms upon the mantel-piece, and his head resting on his hands. He did not change his posture; but when the door closed, and there was silence in place of the expected clatter of the breakfast things, he turned about, and beheld Harry standing before him—in deep black, and, as it seemed to him, in widow's weeds!