Chapter Twenty Five.

Chapter Twenty Five.There is no Place like Home.It is strange how often our fortunes and misfortunes, which we are so apt to suppose depend on our own successes or failures, turn out to have fallen into hands we least expected, and to have been depending on trains of circumstances utterly beyond our range of imagination.Who, for instance, would have guessed that a meeting of half a dozen business men in a first-floor room of a New York office could have any bearing on the fate of the Cruden family? Or that an accident to Major Lambert’s horse while clearing a fence at one of the —shire hunts should also affect their prospects in life?But so it was.While Reginald, tenderly nursed by his old school friend, was slowly recovering from his illness in Liverpool, and while Mrs Cruden and Horace, in their shabby London lodging, were breaking into their last hundred pounds, and wondering how, even with the boy’s improved wages and promise of literary success, they should be able to keep a comfortable home for their scattered but shortly to be reunited family—at this very time a few of the leading creditors of the Wishwash and Longstop Railway assembled in the old office of that bankrupt undertaking, and decided to accept an offer from the Grand Roundabout Railway to buy up their undertaking at half-price, and add its few hundred miles of line to their own few thousand.A very important decision this for the little Dull Street family. For among the English creditors of this same Wishwash and Longstop Railway Mr Cruden had been one of the most considerable—so considerable that the shares he held in it had amounted to about half his fortune.And when the division of the proceeds of the sale of the railway came to be divided it turned out that Mr Cruden’s administrators, heirs, and assigns were entitled to about a third of the value of that gentleman’s shares, or in other words, something like a sixth of their old property, which little windfall, after a good deal of wandering about and search for an owner, came finally under the notice of Mr Richmond’s successors, who in turn passed it over to Mrs Cruden with a very neat little note of congratulation on the good fortune which had made her and her sons the joint proprietors of a snug little income of from £300 to £400 a year.Of course the sagacious reader will remark on this that it is only natural that towards the end of my story something of this sort should happen, in order to finish up with the remark that “they lived happily ever after.” And his opinion of me will, I fear, be considerably lowered when he finds that instead of Reginald dying in the smallpox hospital, and Mrs Cruden and Horace ending their days in the workhouse, things looked up a little for them towards the finish, and promised a rather more comfortable future than one had been led to expect.It is sad, of course, to lose any one’s good esteem, but as things really did look up for the Crudens—as Reginald really did recover, as Mrs Cruden and Horace really did not go to the workhouse, and as the Grand Roundabout Railway really was spirited enough to buy up the Wishwash and Longstop Railway at half-price, I cannot help saying so, whatever the consequences may be.But several weeks before Mr Richmond’s successors announced this windfall to their clients, the accident to Major Lambert’s horse had resulted in comfort to the Crudens of another kind, which, if truth must be told, they expected quite as little and valued quite as much.That worthy Nimrod, once an acquaintance and neighbour of the Garden Vale family in the days of their prosperity, was never known to miss a winter’s hunting in his own county if he could possibly help it, and during the present season had actually come all the way from Malta, where his regiment was stationed, on short leave, for the sake of two or three days of his favourite sport in the old country.Such enthusiasm was worthy of a happier fate than that which befell him. For on his first ride out his horse came to grief, as we have said, over a hedge, and left the gallant major somewhat knocked about himself, with nothing to do for half a day but to saunter disconsolately up and down the country lanes and pay afternoon calls on some of his old comrades.Among others, he knocked at the door of an elderly dowager named Osborn, who was very sympathetic with him in his misfortunes, and did her best to comfort him with afternoon tea and gossip.The latter lasted a good deal longer than the former. One after another the major’s old friends were mentioned and discussed and talked about as only folk can be talked about over afternoon tea.“By the way,” said the caller, “I hear poor Cruden didn’t leave much behind him after all. Is Mrs Cruden still at Garden Vale?”“No, indeed,” said the lady; “it’s a sad story altogether. Mr Cruden left nothing behind him, and Garden Vale had to be sold, and the family went to London, so I was told, in very poor circumstances.”“Bless me!” said the honest major, “haven’t you looked them up? Cruden was a good sort of a fellow, you know.”“Well, I’ve always intended to try and find out where they are living, but really, major, you have no idea how one’s time gets filled up.”“I’ve a very good idea,” said the major with a groan. “I have to sail in a week, and there’s not much spare time between now and then, I can tell you. Still, I’d like to call and pay my respects to Mrs Cruden if I knew where she lived.”“I daresay you could find out. But I was going to say that only yesterday I saw something in the paper which will hardly make Mrs Cruden anxious to see any of her old friends at present. The eldest son, I fear, has turned out badly.”“Who? young—what was his name?—Reginald? Can’t believe it. He always seemed one of the right sort. A bit of a prig perhaps, but straight enough. What has he been up to?”“You’d better see for yourself, major,” said the lady, extracting a newspaper from a heap under the dinner-waggon. “He seems to have been mixed up in a rather discreditable affair, as far as I could make out, but I didn’t read the report through.”The major took the paper, and read a short report of the proceedings at the Liverpool Police-Court.“You didn’t read it through, you say,” observed he, when he had finished; “you saw he was let off?”“Yes, but I’m afraid—well, it’s very sad for them all.”“Of course it is,” blurted out the soldier, “especially when none of their old friends seem to care anything about them. Excuse me, Mrs Osborn,” added he, seeing that the lady coloured. “I wasn’t meaning you, but myself. Cruden was on old comrade, who did me more than one good turn. I must certainly take a day in town on my way back and find them out. As for the boy, I don’t believe he’s got it in him to be a blackleg.”The major was as good as his word. He sacrificed a day of his loved pastime to look for his old friend’s widow in London.After a good deal of hunting he discovered her address, and presented himself, with not a little wonderment at the shabbiness of her quarters, at Dull Street.Barely convalescent, and still in the agony of suspense as to Reginald’s fate, Mrs Cruden was able to see no one. But the major was not thus to be baulked of his friendly intentions. Before he left the house he wrote a letter, which in due time lay in the widow’s hands and brought tears to her eyes.“Dear Mrs Cruden,—I am on my way back to Malta, and sorry not to see you. We all have our troubles, but you seem to have had more than your share; and what I should have liked would be to see whether there was anything an old friend of your husband could do to serve you. I trust you will not resent the liberty I take when I say I have instructed my agent, whose address is enclosed, to put himself at your disposal in any emergency when you may need either advice or any other sort of aid. He is a good fellow, and understands any service you may require (and emergencies often do arise) is to be rendered on my account. As to your eldest son, about whom I read a paragraph in the papers the other day, nothing will make me believe he is anything but his honest father’s honest son. My brother-in-law, whom you will remember, is likely shortly to have an opportunity of introducing a young fellow into an East India house in the City. I may mention this because, should you think well to tell Reginald of it, I believe there would not be much difficulty in his getting the post. But you will hear about this from my brother-in-law, whom I have asked to write to you. I don’t expect to get leave again, for eighteen months; but I hope then to find you all well.“Believe me, dear Mrs Cruden,—“Yours truly,—“Thomas Lambert.”This simple warm-hearted letter came to Mrs Cruden as the first gleam of better things on the troubled waters of her life. Things were just then at their worst. Reginald lost, Horace away in search of him, herself slowly recovering from a sad illness into a still more sad life, with little prospect either of happiness or competency, nothing to look forward to but a renewal of the old struggles, possibly single-handed. At such a time Major Lambert’s letter came to revive her drooping spirits and remind her of a Providence that never sleeps less than when we are ready to consider ourselves forgotten.All she could do was to write a grateful reply back, and then await news from Horace, trusting meanwhile it would not be necessary to draw on the major’s offered help. A few days later Horace was home again, jubilant at having found his brother, but anxious both as to his immediate recovery and the state of mind in which restored health would find him.“He told me lots about the past, mother,” said he. “No one can conceive what a terrible three months he has had since he left us, or how heroically he has borne it. He doesn’t think so himself, and is awfully depressed about his trial and the way in which the magistrate spoke to him—the brute!”“Poor boy! he is the very last to bear that sort of thing well.”“He’s got a sort of idea he’s a branded man, and is to be dragged down all his life by it. Perhaps when he hears that an old friend like Major Lambert believes in him, he may pick up. You know, mother, I believe his heart is in the grave where that little office-boy of his lies, and that he would have been thankful if—well, perhaps not so bad as that—but just at present he can’t speak or even think of the boy without breaking down.”“According to the letter from Major Lambert’s brother-in-law, the post that is offered him is one he will like, I think,” said Mrs Cruden. “I do hope he will take it. To have nothing to do would be the worst thing that could happen to him.”“To say nothing of the necessity of it for you, mother,” said Horace; “for there’s to be no more copying out manuscripts, mind, even if we all go to the workhouse.”Mrs Cruden sighed. She knew her son was right, but the wolf was at the door, and she shrank from becoming a useless burden on her boys’ shoulders.“I wonder, Horace,” said she, presently, “whether we could possibly find less expensive quarters than these. They are—”“Hullo, there’s the postman!” said Horace, who had been looking from the window; “ten to one there’s a line from Harker.”And he flew down the stairs, just in time to see the servant-girl take a letter from the box and put it in her pocket.“None for us?” said he.The girl, who till this moment was not aware of his presence, turned round and coloured very violently, but said nothing.“Show me the letter you put into your pocket just now,” said Horace, who had had experience before now in predicaments of this kind.The girl made no reply, but tried to go back to the kitchen. Horace, however, stopped her.“Be quick!” said he. “You’ve a letter for me in your pocket, and if I don’t have it before I count twenty I’ll give you in charge;” and he proceeded to count.Before he had reached ten the girl broke out into tears, and took from her pocket not only the letter in question, but three or four others.“There you are; that’s all of them. I’ve done with it!” sobbed she.Horace glanced over them in bewilderment. One was in Reginald’s writing, written three weeks ago; two were from himself to his mother, written last week, and the last was from Harker, written yesterday.“Why,” exclaimed he, too much taken aback almost to find words, “what does it mean? How do you come—”“Oh, I’ll tell you,” said the girl; “I don’t care what they do to me. I’d sooner be sent to prison than go on at it. He told me to do it, and threatened me all sorts of things if I didn’t. Oh dear! oh dear!”“Who told you?”“Why, Mr Shuckleford. He said Mr Reginald was a convict, or something, and if I didn’t mind every letter that came to the house from Liverpool I’d get sent to prison too for abetting him. I’m sure I don’t want to abet no one, and I can’t help if they do lock me up.”“You mean to say Mr Shuckleford told you to do this?” said—or rather roared—Horace.“Yes, he did; and he had them all before that one,” said the girl, pointing to the letter from Reginald. “But he’s never been for these, and I didn’t dare not to keep them for him. Please, sir, look over it this time.”Horace was too agitated to heed her tears or entreaties. He rushed from the house with the letters in his hand, and made straight for the Shucklefords’ door. But, with his hand on the bell, he hesitated. Mrs Shuckleford and her daughter had been good to his mother; he could not relieve his mind to Samuel in their presence. So he resolved to postpone that pleasure till he could find the young lawyer alone, and meanwhile hurried back to his mother and rejoiced her heart with the good news of Reginald contained in Harker’s letter.How and when Horace and Shuckleford settled accounts no one exactly knew, but one evening, about a week afterwards, the latter came home looking very scared and uncomfortable, and announced that he was getting tired of London, the air of which did not agree with his constitution. He intended to close with an offer he had received some time ago from a firm in the country to act as their clerk; and although the sacrifice was considerable, still the country air and change of scene he felt would do him good.So he went, much lamented by his mother and sister and club. But of all his acquaintances there was only one who knew the exact reason why, just at that particular time, the country air promised to be so beneficial for his constitution.Three weeks passed, and then one afternoon a cab rolled slowly up to the door of Number 6, Dull Street. Horace was away at the office, and Mrs Cruden herself was out taking a walk.So the two young men who alighted from the cab found themselves monarchs of all they surveyed, and proceeded upstairs to the parlour with no one to ask what their business was.“Now, old man,” said the sturdier of the two, “I won’t stay. I’ve brought you safe home, and you needn’t pretend you’ll be sorry to see my back.”“I won’t pretend,” said the other, with a smile on his pale face, “but if you’re not back very soon, in an hour or two, I shall be very very sorry.”“Never fear, I’ll be back.”And he went.The pale youth sat down, and looked with a strange mixture of sadness and eagerness round the little room. He had seen it before, and yet he seemed hardly to recognise it. He got up and glanced at a few envelopes lying on the mantel-piece. He took into his hands a piece of knitting that lay on one of the chairs and examined it. He turned over the leaves of a stray book, and read the name on the title-page. It all seemed so strange—yet so familiar. Then he crept silently to the half-open door of a little bedroom and peeped in, and his heart beat strangely as he recognised a photograph on the dressing-table, and by its side a letter written in his own handwriting. From this room he turned to another still smaller and more roughly furnished. A walking-stick stood in the corner that he knew well, and there was a cap on the peg behind the door, the sight of which sent a thrill through him.Yet he felt he dared touch nothing—that he scarcely dare let his foot be heard as he paced across the room, or venture even to stir the little fire that was dying out in the grate.The slight flush which the excitement of his first arrival had called up faded from his cheeks as the minutes wore on.Presently his ears caught a light footfall on the pavement outside, and his heart almost stood still as it halted and the bell rang below.It was one of those occasions when a man may live a lifetime in a minute. With a mighty rush his thoughts flew back to the last time he had heard that step. What goodness, what hope, what love did it not bring back to his life! He had taken it all for granted, and thought so little of it; but now, after months of loveless, cheerless drudgery and disappointment, that light step fell with a music which flooded his whole soul.He sat almost spell-bound as the street-door closed and the steps ascended the stairs. The room seemed to swim round him, and to his broken nerves it seemed for a moment as though he dreaded rather than longed for what was coming. But as the door opened the spell broke and all the mists vanished; he was his own self once more—nothing but the long-lost boy springing to the arms of the long-lost mother.“Mother!”“My boy!”That was all they said. And in those few words Reginald Cruden’s life entered on a new era.When Horace half an hour later came flying on to the scene they still sat there hand in hand, trying to realise it all, but not succeeding. Horace, however, helped them back to speech, and far into the night they talked. About ten o’clock Harker looked in for a moment, and after them young Gedge, unable to wait till the morning. But they stayed only a moment, and scarcely interrupted the little family reunion.What those three talked about it would be hard for me to say. What they did not talk about in the past, the present, and the future would be almost easier to set down. And when at last Mrs Cruden rose, and in her old familiar tones said,—“It’s time to go to bed, boys,” the boys obeyed, as in the days long ago, and came up to her and kissed her, and then went off like children, and slept, like those who never knew what care was, all the happy night.

It is strange how often our fortunes and misfortunes, which we are so apt to suppose depend on our own successes or failures, turn out to have fallen into hands we least expected, and to have been depending on trains of circumstances utterly beyond our range of imagination.

Who, for instance, would have guessed that a meeting of half a dozen business men in a first-floor room of a New York office could have any bearing on the fate of the Cruden family? Or that an accident to Major Lambert’s horse while clearing a fence at one of the —shire hunts should also affect their prospects in life?

But so it was.

While Reginald, tenderly nursed by his old school friend, was slowly recovering from his illness in Liverpool, and while Mrs Cruden and Horace, in their shabby London lodging, were breaking into their last hundred pounds, and wondering how, even with the boy’s improved wages and promise of literary success, they should be able to keep a comfortable home for their scattered but shortly to be reunited family—at this very time a few of the leading creditors of the Wishwash and Longstop Railway assembled in the old office of that bankrupt undertaking, and decided to accept an offer from the Grand Roundabout Railway to buy up their undertaking at half-price, and add its few hundred miles of line to their own few thousand.

A very important decision this for the little Dull Street family. For among the English creditors of this same Wishwash and Longstop Railway Mr Cruden had been one of the most considerable—so considerable that the shares he held in it had amounted to about half his fortune.

And when the division of the proceeds of the sale of the railway came to be divided it turned out that Mr Cruden’s administrators, heirs, and assigns were entitled to about a third of the value of that gentleman’s shares, or in other words, something like a sixth of their old property, which little windfall, after a good deal of wandering about and search for an owner, came finally under the notice of Mr Richmond’s successors, who in turn passed it over to Mrs Cruden with a very neat little note of congratulation on the good fortune which had made her and her sons the joint proprietors of a snug little income of from £300 to £400 a year.

Of course the sagacious reader will remark on this that it is only natural that towards the end of my story something of this sort should happen, in order to finish up with the remark that “they lived happily ever after.” And his opinion of me will, I fear, be considerably lowered when he finds that instead of Reginald dying in the smallpox hospital, and Mrs Cruden and Horace ending their days in the workhouse, things looked up a little for them towards the finish, and promised a rather more comfortable future than one had been led to expect.

It is sad, of course, to lose any one’s good esteem, but as things really did look up for the Crudens—as Reginald really did recover, as Mrs Cruden and Horace really did not go to the workhouse, and as the Grand Roundabout Railway really was spirited enough to buy up the Wishwash and Longstop Railway at half-price, I cannot help saying so, whatever the consequences may be.

But several weeks before Mr Richmond’s successors announced this windfall to their clients, the accident to Major Lambert’s horse had resulted in comfort to the Crudens of another kind, which, if truth must be told, they expected quite as little and valued quite as much.

That worthy Nimrod, once an acquaintance and neighbour of the Garden Vale family in the days of their prosperity, was never known to miss a winter’s hunting in his own county if he could possibly help it, and during the present season had actually come all the way from Malta, where his regiment was stationed, on short leave, for the sake of two or three days of his favourite sport in the old country.

Such enthusiasm was worthy of a happier fate than that which befell him. For on his first ride out his horse came to grief, as we have said, over a hedge, and left the gallant major somewhat knocked about himself, with nothing to do for half a day but to saunter disconsolately up and down the country lanes and pay afternoon calls on some of his old comrades.

Among others, he knocked at the door of an elderly dowager named Osborn, who was very sympathetic with him in his misfortunes, and did her best to comfort him with afternoon tea and gossip.

The latter lasted a good deal longer than the former. One after another the major’s old friends were mentioned and discussed and talked about as only folk can be talked about over afternoon tea.

“By the way,” said the caller, “I hear poor Cruden didn’t leave much behind him after all. Is Mrs Cruden still at Garden Vale?”

“No, indeed,” said the lady; “it’s a sad story altogether. Mr Cruden left nothing behind him, and Garden Vale had to be sold, and the family went to London, so I was told, in very poor circumstances.”

“Bless me!” said the honest major, “haven’t you looked them up? Cruden was a good sort of a fellow, you know.”

“Well, I’ve always intended to try and find out where they are living, but really, major, you have no idea how one’s time gets filled up.”

“I’ve a very good idea,” said the major with a groan. “I have to sail in a week, and there’s not much spare time between now and then, I can tell you. Still, I’d like to call and pay my respects to Mrs Cruden if I knew where she lived.”

“I daresay you could find out. But I was going to say that only yesterday I saw something in the paper which will hardly make Mrs Cruden anxious to see any of her old friends at present. The eldest son, I fear, has turned out badly.”

“Who? young—what was his name?—Reginald? Can’t believe it. He always seemed one of the right sort. A bit of a prig perhaps, but straight enough. What has he been up to?”

“You’d better see for yourself, major,” said the lady, extracting a newspaper from a heap under the dinner-waggon. “He seems to have been mixed up in a rather discreditable affair, as far as I could make out, but I didn’t read the report through.”

The major took the paper, and read a short report of the proceedings at the Liverpool Police-Court.

“You didn’t read it through, you say,” observed he, when he had finished; “you saw he was let off?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid—well, it’s very sad for them all.”

“Of course it is,” blurted out the soldier, “especially when none of their old friends seem to care anything about them. Excuse me, Mrs Osborn,” added he, seeing that the lady coloured. “I wasn’t meaning you, but myself. Cruden was on old comrade, who did me more than one good turn. I must certainly take a day in town on my way back and find them out. As for the boy, I don’t believe he’s got it in him to be a blackleg.”

The major was as good as his word. He sacrificed a day of his loved pastime to look for his old friend’s widow in London.

After a good deal of hunting he discovered her address, and presented himself, with not a little wonderment at the shabbiness of her quarters, at Dull Street.

Barely convalescent, and still in the agony of suspense as to Reginald’s fate, Mrs Cruden was able to see no one. But the major was not thus to be baulked of his friendly intentions. Before he left the house he wrote a letter, which in due time lay in the widow’s hands and brought tears to her eyes.

“Dear Mrs Cruden,—I am on my way back to Malta, and sorry not to see you. We all have our troubles, but you seem to have had more than your share; and what I should have liked would be to see whether there was anything an old friend of your husband could do to serve you. I trust you will not resent the liberty I take when I say I have instructed my agent, whose address is enclosed, to put himself at your disposal in any emergency when you may need either advice or any other sort of aid. He is a good fellow, and understands any service you may require (and emergencies often do arise) is to be rendered on my account. As to your eldest son, about whom I read a paragraph in the papers the other day, nothing will make me believe he is anything but his honest father’s honest son. My brother-in-law, whom you will remember, is likely shortly to have an opportunity of introducing a young fellow into an East India house in the City. I may mention this because, should you think well to tell Reginald of it, I believe there would not be much difficulty in his getting the post. But you will hear about this from my brother-in-law, whom I have asked to write to you. I don’t expect to get leave again, for eighteen months; but I hope then to find you all well.

“Believe me, dear Mrs Cruden,—

“Yours truly,—

“Thomas Lambert.”

This simple warm-hearted letter came to Mrs Cruden as the first gleam of better things on the troubled waters of her life. Things were just then at their worst. Reginald lost, Horace away in search of him, herself slowly recovering from a sad illness into a still more sad life, with little prospect either of happiness or competency, nothing to look forward to but a renewal of the old struggles, possibly single-handed. At such a time Major Lambert’s letter came to revive her drooping spirits and remind her of a Providence that never sleeps less than when we are ready to consider ourselves forgotten.

All she could do was to write a grateful reply back, and then await news from Horace, trusting meanwhile it would not be necessary to draw on the major’s offered help. A few days later Horace was home again, jubilant at having found his brother, but anxious both as to his immediate recovery and the state of mind in which restored health would find him.

“He told me lots about the past, mother,” said he. “No one can conceive what a terrible three months he has had since he left us, or how heroically he has borne it. He doesn’t think so himself, and is awfully depressed about his trial and the way in which the magistrate spoke to him—the brute!”

“Poor boy! he is the very last to bear that sort of thing well.”

“He’s got a sort of idea he’s a branded man, and is to be dragged down all his life by it. Perhaps when he hears that an old friend like Major Lambert believes in him, he may pick up. You know, mother, I believe his heart is in the grave where that little office-boy of his lies, and that he would have been thankful if—well, perhaps not so bad as that—but just at present he can’t speak or even think of the boy without breaking down.”

“According to the letter from Major Lambert’s brother-in-law, the post that is offered him is one he will like, I think,” said Mrs Cruden. “I do hope he will take it. To have nothing to do would be the worst thing that could happen to him.”

“To say nothing of the necessity of it for you, mother,” said Horace; “for there’s to be no more copying out manuscripts, mind, even if we all go to the workhouse.”

Mrs Cruden sighed. She knew her son was right, but the wolf was at the door, and she shrank from becoming a useless burden on her boys’ shoulders.

“I wonder, Horace,” said she, presently, “whether we could possibly find less expensive quarters than these. They are—”

“Hullo, there’s the postman!” said Horace, who had been looking from the window; “ten to one there’s a line from Harker.”

And he flew down the stairs, just in time to see the servant-girl take a letter from the box and put it in her pocket.

“None for us?” said he.

The girl, who till this moment was not aware of his presence, turned round and coloured very violently, but said nothing.

“Show me the letter you put into your pocket just now,” said Horace, who had had experience before now in predicaments of this kind.

The girl made no reply, but tried to go back to the kitchen. Horace, however, stopped her.

“Be quick!” said he. “You’ve a letter for me in your pocket, and if I don’t have it before I count twenty I’ll give you in charge;” and he proceeded to count.

Before he had reached ten the girl broke out into tears, and took from her pocket not only the letter in question, but three or four others.

“There you are; that’s all of them. I’ve done with it!” sobbed she.

Horace glanced over them in bewilderment. One was in Reginald’s writing, written three weeks ago; two were from himself to his mother, written last week, and the last was from Harker, written yesterday.

“Why,” exclaimed he, too much taken aback almost to find words, “what does it mean? How do you come—”

“Oh, I’ll tell you,” said the girl; “I don’t care what they do to me. I’d sooner be sent to prison than go on at it. He told me to do it, and threatened me all sorts of things if I didn’t. Oh dear! oh dear!”

“Who told you?”

“Why, Mr Shuckleford. He said Mr Reginald was a convict, or something, and if I didn’t mind every letter that came to the house from Liverpool I’d get sent to prison too for abetting him. I’m sure I don’t want to abet no one, and I can’t help if they do lock me up.”

“You mean to say Mr Shuckleford told you to do this?” said—or rather roared—Horace.

“Yes, he did; and he had them all before that one,” said the girl, pointing to the letter from Reginald. “But he’s never been for these, and I didn’t dare not to keep them for him. Please, sir, look over it this time.”

Horace was too agitated to heed her tears or entreaties. He rushed from the house with the letters in his hand, and made straight for the Shucklefords’ door. But, with his hand on the bell, he hesitated. Mrs Shuckleford and her daughter had been good to his mother; he could not relieve his mind to Samuel in their presence. So he resolved to postpone that pleasure till he could find the young lawyer alone, and meanwhile hurried back to his mother and rejoiced her heart with the good news of Reginald contained in Harker’s letter.

How and when Horace and Shuckleford settled accounts no one exactly knew, but one evening, about a week afterwards, the latter came home looking very scared and uncomfortable, and announced that he was getting tired of London, the air of which did not agree with his constitution. He intended to close with an offer he had received some time ago from a firm in the country to act as their clerk; and although the sacrifice was considerable, still the country air and change of scene he felt would do him good.

So he went, much lamented by his mother and sister and club. But of all his acquaintances there was only one who knew the exact reason why, just at that particular time, the country air promised to be so beneficial for his constitution.

Three weeks passed, and then one afternoon a cab rolled slowly up to the door of Number 6, Dull Street. Horace was away at the office, and Mrs Cruden herself was out taking a walk.

So the two young men who alighted from the cab found themselves monarchs of all they surveyed, and proceeded upstairs to the parlour with no one to ask what their business was.

“Now, old man,” said the sturdier of the two, “I won’t stay. I’ve brought you safe home, and you needn’t pretend you’ll be sorry to see my back.”

“I won’t pretend,” said the other, with a smile on his pale face, “but if you’re not back very soon, in an hour or two, I shall be very very sorry.”

“Never fear, I’ll be back.”

And he went.

The pale youth sat down, and looked with a strange mixture of sadness and eagerness round the little room. He had seen it before, and yet he seemed hardly to recognise it. He got up and glanced at a few envelopes lying on the mantel-piece. He took into his hands a piece of knitting that lay on one of the chairs and examined it. He turned over the leaves of a stray book, and read the name on the title-page. It all seemed so strange—yet so familiar. Then he crept silently to the half-open door of a little bedroom and peeped in, and his heart beat strangely as he recognised a photograph on the dressing-table, and by its side a letter written in his own handwriting. From this room he turned to another still smaller and more roughly furnished. A walking-stick stood in the corner that he knew well, and there was a cap on the peg behind the door, the sight of which sent a thrill through him.

Yet he felt he dared touch nothing—that he scarcely dare let his foot be heard as he paced across the room, or venture even to stir the little fire that was dying out in the grate.

The slight flush which the excitement of his first arrival had called up faded from his cheeks as the minutes wore on.

Presently his ears caught a light footfall on the pavement outside, and his heart almost stood still as it halted and the bell rang below.

It was one of those occasions when a man may live a lifetime in a minute. With a mighty rush his thoughts flew back to the last time he had heard that step. What goodness, what hope, what love did it not bring back to his life! He had taken it all for granted, and thought so little of it; but now, after months of loveless, cheerless drudgery and disappointment, that light step fell with a music which flooded his whole soul.

He sat almost spell-bound as the street-door closed and the steps ascended the stairs. The room seemed to swim round him, and to his broken nerves it seemed for a moment as though he dreaded rather than longed for what was coming. But as the door opened the spell broke and all the mists vanished; he was his own self once more—nothing but the long-lost boy springing to the arms of the long-lost mother.

“Mother!”

“My boy!”

That was all they said. And in those few words Reginald Cruden’s life entered on a new era.

When Horace half an hour later came flying on to the scene they still sat there hand in hand, trying to realise it all, but not succeeding. Horace, however, helped them back to speech, and far into the night they talked. About ten o’clock Harker looked in for a moment, and after them young Gedge, unable to wait till the morning. But they stayed only a moment, and scarcely interrupted the little family reunion.

What those three talked about it would be hard for me to say. What they did not talk about in the past, the present, and the future would be almost easier to set down. And when at last Mrs Cruden rose, and in her old familiar tones said,—

“It’s time to go to bed, boys,” the boys obeyed, as in the days long ago, and came up to her and kissed her, and then went off like children, and slept, like those who never knew what care was, all the happy night.

Chapter Twenty Six.Turning over Leaves, new and old.A very few words more, reader, and my story is done.The trial of Medlock and Shanklin took place in due time, and among the witnesses the most important, but the most reluctant, was Reginald Cruden. It was like a hateful return to the old life to find himself face to face with those men, and to have to tell over again the story of their knavery and his own folly. But he went through with it like a man.The prisoners, who were far more at their ease than the witness, troubled him with no awkward cross-examination, and when presently the jury retired, he retired too, having neither the curiosity nor the vindictiveness to remain and hear their sentence.On his way out a familiar voice accosted him.“Cruden, old man, will you shake hands? I’ve been a cad to you, but I’m sorry for it now.”It was Blandford, looking weak and pale, with one arm still in a sling.Reginald took his proffered hand eagerly and wrung it.“I’ve been bitten over this affair, as you know,” continued Blandford, “and I’ve paid up for my folly. I wish I could come out of it all with as easy a conscience as you do, that’s all! Among them all I’ve lost a good deal more than money; but if you and Horrors will take me back in your set there’ll be a chance for me yet. I’m going to University College, you know, so I shall be staying in town. Harker and I will probably be lodging together, and it won’t be my fault if it’s far away from your quarters.”And arm in arm the old schoolfellows walked, with their backs on the dark past and their faces turned hopefully to the future.Had Reginald remained to hear the end of the trial, he would have found himself the object of a demonstration he little counted on.The jury having returned with their expected verdict, and sentence having been passed on the prisoners, the counsel for the prosecution got up and asked his lordship for leave to make one observation. He spoke in the name of the various victims of the sham Corporation when he stated that his clients desired to express their conviction that the former secretary of the Corporation, whose evidence that day had mainly contributed to the exposure of the fraud, was himself entirely clear of any imputation in connection with the conspiracy.“I should not mention this, my lord,” said the counsel, “had not a certain magistrate, in another place, at an earlier stage of this inquiry, used language—in my humble opinion harsh and unwarranted—calculated to cast a slur on that gentleman’s character, if not to interfere seriously with his future prospects. I merely wish to say, my lord, that my clients, and those of us who have gone fully into the case, and may be expected to know as much about it even as a north-country magistrate, are fully convinced that Mr Cruden comes out of this case with an unsullied character, and we feel it our duty publicly to state our opinion to that effect.”The counsel sat down amid signs of approval from the Court, not unmixed with amusement at the expense of the north-country magistrate, and the judge, calling for order, replied, “I make no objection whatever to the statement which has just fallen from the lips of the learned counsel, and as it commends itself entirely to my own judgment in the matter, I am glad to inform Mr Cruden, if he be still in court, that he will quit it to-day clear of the slightest imputation on his character unbecoming an upright but unfortunate gentleman.”Reginald was not in court, but he read every word of it next day with grateful and overflowing heart.Three months have passed. The winter has given way to spring, and Number 3, Dull Street is empty. Jemima Shuckleford still nurses her sorrow in secret, and it will be a year or two yet before the happy man is to turn up who shall reconcile her to life, and disestablish the image of Reginald Cruden from her soft heart. Meanwhile she and her mother are constant visitors at the little house in Highbury where the Crudens now live, and as often as they go they find a welcome. Samuel writes home from the country that he is doing great things, and expects to become Lord Chancellor in a few years. Meanwhile he too contemplates matrimony with a widow and four children, who will probably leave him among them very little leisure for another experiment in the amateur detective business.The Shuckleford ladies were invited, but unfortunately were unable to go, to a little quiet house-warming given by the Crudens on the occasion of their taking possession of the new house.But though they could not go, Miss Crisp could, and, as a matter of course, Mr Booms, in all the magnificence of last year’s spring costume. And Waterford came too, and young Gedge, as did also the faithful Harker, and—with some little trepidation—the now sobered Blandford.The company had quite enough to talk about without having to fall back on shouting proverbs or musical chairs. Indeed, there were several little excitements in the wind which came out one by one, and made the evening a sort of epoch in the lives of most of those present.For instance, young Gedge was there no longer as a common compositor. He had lately been made, youth as he was, overseer in the room of Durfy; and the dignity of his new office filled him with sobriety and good-humour.“It’s no fault of mine,” said he, when Mrs Cruden congratulated him on his promotion. “If Cruden hadn’t stood by me that time he first came to theRocket, I should have gone clean to the dogs. I mean it. I was going full tilt that way.”“But I went off and left you after all,” said Reginald.“I know you did; and I was sorry at the time you hadn’t left that cab-horse to finish his business the evening you picked me up. But Horace here and Mrs Cruden—”“Picked you up again,” said Waterford. “Regular fellow for being picked up, you are. All comes of your habit of picking up types. One of nature’s revenges—and the last to pick you up is theRocket. What an appetite she’s got, to be sure!”“I should think so from the way she swallows your and Horace’s lucubrations every week,” says Gedge, laughing. “Why, I actually know a fellow who knows a fellow who laughed at one of your jokes.”“Come, none of your chaff,” said Horace, looking not at all displeased. “You never laughed at a joke, I know, because you never see one.”“No more I do. That’s what I complain of,” replied the incorrigible young overseer.“Never mind, we shall have our revenge when he has to put our joint novel in print,” said Waterford. “Ah, I thought you’d sit up there, my boy. Never mind, you’ll know about it some day. The first chapter is half done already.”“Jolly work that must be,” says Harker. “More fun than higher mathematics and Locke on the Understanding, eh, Bland?”“Perhaps they would be glad to change places with us before they are through with it, though,” observes Blandford.“Never knew such a beggar for grinding as Bland is turning out,” says Harker. “He takes the shine out of me; and I’m certain he’ll knock me into a cocked hat at the matric..”“You forget I’ve lost time to make up,” replies Blandford, gravely; “and I’m not going to be content if I don’t take honours.”“Don’t knock yourself up, that’s all,” says Reginald, “especially now cricket’s beginning. We ought to turn out a good eleven with four old Wilderhams to give it a backbone, eh?”And at the signal the four chums somehow get together in a corner, and the talk flies off to the old schooldays, and the battles and triumphs of the famous Wilderham Close.Meanwhile Booms and Miss Crisp whisper very confidentially together in another corner. What they talk about no one can guess. It may be collars, or it may be four-roomed cottages, or it may be only the weather. Whatever it is, Booms’s doleful face relaxes presently into a solemn smile, and Miss Crisp goes over and sits by Mrs Cruden, who puts her arm round the blushing girl and kisses her in a very motherly way on the forehead. It is a curious piece of business altogether, and it is just as well the four young men are too engrossed in football and cricket to notice it, and that Gedge and Waterford find their whole attention occupied by the contents of the little bookcase in the corner to have eyes for anything else.“Jolly lot of books you’ve got,” says Waterford, when presently the little groups break up and the big circle forms again. “I always think they are such nice furniture in a room, don’t you, Mrs Cruden?”“Yes, I do,” says Mrs Cruden; “especially when they are all old friends.”“Some of these seem older friends than others,” says Waterford, pointing to a corner where several unbound tattered works break the ranks of green-cloth gilt-lettered volumes. “Look at this weatherbeaten little fellow, for instance, a bit of aPilgrim’s Progress. That must be a very poor relation; surely you don’t count him in?”“Don’t I,” says Reginald, taking the book in his hands, and speaking in a tone which makes every one look up at him. “This little book is worth more to me than all the rest put together.”And as he bends his head over the precious little relic, and turns its well-thumbed pages one by one, he forgets where he is, or who is looking on. And a tear steals into his eyes as his mind flies far away to a little green grave in the north country over which the soft breezes of spring play lovingly, and seem to whisper in a voice he knows and loves to remember—“Come there too, guv’nor.”The End.

A very few words more, reader, and my story is done.

The trial of Medlock and Shanklin took place in due time, and among the witnesses the most important, but the most reluctant, was Reginald Cruden. It was like a hateful return to the old life to find himself face to face with those men, and to have to tell over again the story of their knavery and his own folly. But he went through with it like a man.

The prisoners, who were far more at their ease than the witness, troubled him with no awkward cross-examination, and when presently the jury retired, he retired too, having neither the curiosity nor the vindictiveness to remain and hear their sentence.

On his way out a familiar voice accosted him.

“Cruden, old man, will you shake hands? I’ve been a cad to you, but I’m sorry for it now.”

It was Blandford, looking weak and pale, with one arm still in a sling.

Reginald took his proffered hand eagerly and wrung it.

“I’ve been bitten over this affair, as you know,” continued Blandford, “and I’ve paid up for my folly. I wish I could come out of it all with as easy a conscience as you do, that’s all! Among them all I’ve lost a good deal more than money; but if you and Horrors will take me back in your set there’ll be a chance for me yet. I’m going to University College, you know, so I shall be staying in town. Harker and I will probably be lodging together, and it won’t be my fault if it’s far away from your quarters.”

And arm in arm the old schoolfellows walked, with their backs on the dark past and their faces turned hopefully to the future.

Had Reginald remained to hear the end of the trial, he would have found himself the object of a demonstration he little counted on.

The jury having returned with their expected verdict, and sentence having been passed on the prisoners, the counsel for the prosecution got up and asked his lordship for leave to make one observation. He spoke in the name of the various victims of the sham Corporation when he stated that his clients desired to express their conviction that the former secretary of the Corporation, whose evidence that day had mainly contributed to the exposure of the fraud, was himself entirely clear of any imputation in connection with the conspiracy.

“I should not mention this, my lord,” said the counsel, “had not a certain magistrate, in another place, at an earlier stage of this inquiry, used language—in my humble opinion harsh and unwarranted—calculated to cast a slur on that gentleman’s character, if not to interfere seriously with his future prospects. I merely wish to say, my lord, that my clients, and those of us who have gone fully into the case, and may be expected to know as much about it even as a north-country magistrate, are fully convinced that Mr Cruden comes out of this case with an unsullied character, and we feel it our duty publicly to state our opinion to that effect.”

The counsel sat down amid signs of approval from the Court, not unmixed with amusement at the expense of the north-country magistrate, and the judge, calling for order, replied, “I make no objection whatever to the statement which has just fallen from the lips of the learned counsel, and as it commends itself entirely to my own judgment in the matter, I am glad to inform Mr Cruden, if he be still in court, that he will quit it to-day clear of the slightest imputation on his character unbecoming an upright but unfortunate gentleman.”

Reginald was not in court, but he read every word of it next day with grateful and overflowing heart.

Three months have passed. The winter has given way to spring, and Number 3, Dull Street is empty. Jemima Shuckleford still nurses her sorrow in secret, and it will be a year or two yet before the happy man is to turn up who shall reconcile her to life, and disestablish the image of Reginald Cruden from her soft heart. Meanwhile she and her mother are constant visitors at the little house in Highbury where the Crudens now live, and as often as they go they find a welcome. Samuel writes home from the country that he is doing great things, and expects to become Lord Chancellor in a few years. Meanwhile he too contemplates matrimony with a widow and four children, who will probably leave him among them very little leisure for another experiment in the amateur detective business.

The Shuckleford ladies were invited, but unfortunately were unable to go, to a little quiet house-warming given by the Crudens on the occasion of their taking possession of the new house.

But though they could not go, Miss Crisp could, and, as a matter of course, Mr Booms, in all the magnificence of last year’s spring costume. And Waterford came too, and young Gedge, as did also the faithful Harker, and—with some little trepidation—the now sobered Blandford.

The company had quite enough to talk about without having to fall back on shouting proverbs or musical chairs. Indeed, there were several little excitements in the wind which came out one by one, and made the evening a sort of epoch in the lives of most of those present.

For instance, young Gedge was there no longer as a common compositor. He had lately been made, youth as he was, overseer in the room of Durfy; and the dignity of his new office filled him with sobriety and good-humour.

“It’s no fault of mine,” said he, when Mrs Cruden congratulated him on his promotion. “If Cruden hadn’t stood by me that time he first came to theRocket, I should have gone clean to the dogs. I mean it. I was going full tilt that way.”

“But I went off and left you after all,” said Reginald.

“I know you did; and I was sorry at the time you hadn’t left that cab-horse to finish his business the evening you picked me up. But Horace here and Mrs Cruden—”

“Picked you up again,” said Waterford. “Regular fellow for being picked up, you are. All comes of your habit of picking up types. One of nature’s revenges—and the last to pick you up is theRocket. What an appetite she’s got, to be sure!”

“I should think so from the way she swallows your and Horace’s lucubrations every week,” says Gedge, laughing. “Why, I actually know a fellow who knows a fellow who laughed at one of your jokes.”

“Come, none of your chaff,” said Horace, looking not at all displeased. “You never laughed at a joke, I know, because you never see one.”

“No more I do. That’s what I complain of,” replied the incorrigible young overseer.

“Never mind, we shall have our revenge when he has to put our joint novel in print,” said Waterford. “Ah, I thought you’d sit up there, my boy. Never mind, you’ll know about it some day. The first chapter is half done already.”

“Jolly work that must be,” says Harker. “More fun than higher mathematics and Locke on the Understanding, eh, Bland?”

“Perhaps they would be glad to change places with us before they are through with it, though,” observes Blandford.

“Never knew such a beggar for grinding as Bland is turning out,” says Harker. “He takes the shine out of me; and I’m certain he’ll knock me into a cocked hat at the matric..”

“You forget I’ve lost time to make up,” replies Blandford, gravely; “and I’m not going to be content if I don’t take honours.”

“Don’t knock yourself up, that’s all,” says Reginald, “especially now cricket’s beginning. We ought to turn out a good eleven with four old Wilderhams to give it a backbone, eh?”

And at the signal the four chums somehow get together in a corner, and the talk flies off to the old schooldays, and the battles and triumphs of the famous Wilderham Close.

Meanwhile Booms and Miss Crisp whisper very confidentially together in another corner. What they talk about no one can guess. It may be collars, or it may be four-roomed cottages, or it may be only the weather. Whatever it is, Booms’s doleful face relaxes presently into a solemn smile, and Miss Crisp goes over and sits by Mrs Cruden, who puts her arm round the blushing girl and kisses her in a very motherly way on the forehead. It is a curious piece of business altogether, and it is just as well the four young men are too engrossed in football and cricket to notice it, and that Gedge and Waterford find their whole attention occupied by the contents of the little bookcase in the corner to have eyes for anything else.

“Jolly lot of books you’ve got,” says Waterford, when presently the little groups break up and the big circle forms again. “I always think they are such nice furniture in a room, don’t you, Mrs Cruden?”

“Yes, I do,” says Mrs Cruden; “especially when they are all old friends.”

“Some of these seem older friends than others,” says Waterford, pointing to a corner where several unbound tattered works break the ranks of green-cloth gilt-lettered volumes. “Look at this weatherbeaten little fellow, for instance, a bit of aPilgrim’s Progress. That must be a very poor relation; surely you don’t count him in?”

“Don’t I,” says Reginald, taking the book in his hands, and speaking in a tone which makes every one look up at him. “This little book is worth more to me than all the rest put together.”

And as he bends his head over the precious little relic, and turns its well-thumbed pages one by one, he forgets where he is, or who is looking on. And a tear steals into his eyes as his mind flies far away to a little green grave in the north country over which the soft breezes of spring play lovingly, and seem to whisper in a voice he knows and loves to remember—“Come there too, guv’nor.”

|Chapter 1| |Chapter 2| |Chapter 3| |Chapter 4| |Chapter 5| |Chapter 6| |Chapter 7| |Chapter 8| |Chapter 9| |Chapter 10| |Chapter 11| |Chapter 12| |Chapter 13| |Chapter 14| |Chapter 15| |Chapter 16| |Chapter 17| |Chapter 18| |Chapter 19| |Chapter 20| |Chapter 21| |Chapter 22| |Chapter 23| |Chapter 24| |Chapter 25| |Chapter 26|

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