[4]In Cornwall a "foreigner" is anyone from east of the Tamar.
[4]In Cornwall a "foreigner" is anyone from east of the Tamar.
Mrs. Polwhele nodded.
"But what put it into your head that he's a Frenchman?"
"Because French is his language. With these very ears I heard him talk it! He joined the coach at Torpoint, and when I spoke him fair in honest English not a word could he answer me. Oh, Calvin, Calvin! what have I done—a poor weak woman—to be mixed up in these plots and invasions?"
But my grandfather couldn't stop to answer that question, for a terrible light was breaking in upon him. "A Frenchman?" he called out. "And for these twenty-four hours he's been marking out the river and taking soundings!" He glared at Arch'laus Spry, and Arch'laus dropped the brazen ewer upon the pavement and smote his forehead. "The Devil," says he, "is among us, having great wrath!"
"And for aught we know," says my grandfather, speaking in a slow and fearsome whisper, "the French ships may be hanging off the coast while we'm talking here!"
"You don't mean to tell us," cried Mrs. Polwhele, sitting up stiff in the pew, "that this manhas been mapping out the river under your very noses!"
"He has, Ma'am. Oh, I see it all! What likelier place could they choose on the whole coast? And from here to Falmouth what is it but a step?"
"Let them that be in Judæa flee to the mountains," said Arch'laus Spry solemn-like.
"And me just home from Plymouth with a fine new roasting-jack!" chimed in Mrs. Polwhele. "As though the day of wrath weren't bad enough withoutthatwaste o' money! Run, Calvin—run and tell the Vicar this instant—no, no, don't leave me behind! Take me home, that's a good man: else I shall faint at my own shadow!"
Well, they hurried off to the Vicarage: but, of course, there was no Parson to be found, for by this time he was half-way towards Little Dinnis, and running like a madman under the hot sun to see what damage had befallen his dearly-loved camp. The servants hadn't seen him leave the house; ne'er a word could they tell of him except that Martha, the cook, when she cleared away the breakfast things, had left him seated in his chair and smoking.
"But what's the meaning of this?" cried out Mrs. Polwhele, pointing to the tablecloth thatBligh had pulled all awry in his temper. "And the window open too!"
"And—hulloa!" says my grandfather, staring across the patch of turf outside. "Surely here's signs of a violent struggle. Human, by the look of it," says he, picking up a thigh-bone and holding it out towards Mrs. Polwhele.
She began to shake like a leaf. "Oh, Calvin!" she gasps out. "Oh, Calvin, not in this short time—it couldn't be!"
"Charred, too," says my grandfather, inspecting it: and with that they turned at a cry from Martha the cook, that was down on hands and knees upon the carpet.
"Ashes! See here, mistress—ashes all over your best carpet!"
The two women stared at the fireplace: but, of course, that told them nothing, being empty, as usual at the time of year, with only a few shavings stuck about it by way of ornament. Martha, the first to pick up her wits, dashed out into the front hall.
"Gone without his hat, too!" she fairly screamed, running her eye along the row of pegs.
Mrs. Polwhele clasped her hands. "In the midst of life we are in death," said Arch'laus Spry: "that's my opinion if you ask it."
"Gone! Gone without his hat, like the snuff of a candle!" Mrs. Polwhele dropped into a chair and rocked herself and moaned.
My grandfather banged his fist on the table. He never could abide the sight of a woman in trouble.
"Missus," says he, "if the Parson's anywhere alive, we'll find 'en: and if that Frenchman be Old Nick himself, he shall rue the day he ever set foot in Manaccan parish! Come'st along, Arch'laus——"
He took Spry by the arm and marched him out and down the garden path. There, by the gate, what should his eyes light upon but his own stolen tools! But by this time all power of astonishment was dried up within him. He just raised his eyes aloft, as much as to say, "Let the sky open and rain miracles!" and then and there he saw, coming down the road, the funeral that both he and the Parson had clean forgotten.
The corpse was an old man called 'Pollas Hockaday; and Sam Trewhella, a fish-curer that had married Hockaday's eldest daughter, walked next behind the coffin as chief mourner. My grandfather waited by the gate for the procession to come by, and with that Trewhella caught sight of him, and, says he, taking down the handkerchief from his nose—
"Well, you're a pretty fellow, I must say! What in thunder d'ee mean by not tolling the minute-bell?"
"Take 'en back," answers my grandfather, pointing to the coffin. "Take 'en back, 'co!"
"Eh?" says Trewhella. "Answer my question, I tell 'ee. You've hurt my feelings and the feelings of everyone connected with the deceased: and if this weren't not-azackly the place for it, I'd up and give you a dashed good hiding," says he.
"Aw, take 'en back," my grandfather goes on. "Take 'en back, my dears, and put 'en somewhere, cool and temporary! The grave's not digged, and the Parson's kidnapped, and the French be upon us, and down by the river ther's a furrin spy taking soundings at this moment! In the name of King George," said he, remembering that he was constable, "I command you all except the females to come along and collar 'en!"
While this was going on, Sir, Bligh had found his boat—which he'd left by the shore—and was pulling up the river to work off his rage. Ne'er a thought had he, as he flounced through the churchyard, of the train of powder he dribbled behind him: but all the way he blew off steam,cursing Parson Polwhele and the whole cloth from Land's End to Johnny Groats, and glowering at the very gates by the road as though he wanted to kick 'em to relieve his feelings. But when he reached his boat and began rowing, by little and little the exercise tamed him. With his flags and whitewash he'd marked out most of the lines he wanted for soundings: but there were two creeks he hadn't yet found time to explore—Porthnavas, on the opposite side, and the very creek by which we're sitting. So, as he came abreast of this one, he determined to have a look at it; and after rowing a hundred yards or so, lay on his oars, lit his pipe, and let his boat drift up with the tide.
The creek was just the same lonesome place that it is to-day, the only difference being that the pallace[5]at the entrance had a roof on it then, and was rented by Sam Trewhella—the same that followed old Hockaday's coffin, as I've told you. But above the pallace the woods grew close to the water's edge, and lined both shores with never a clearing till you reached the end, where the cottage stands now and the stream comes down beside it: in those days there wasn't any cottage, only a piece of swampy ground. I don'tknow that Bligh saw much in the scenery, but it may have helped to soothe his mind: for by-and-by he settled himself on the bottom-boards, lit another pipe, pulled his hat over his nose, and lay there blinking at the sky, while the boat drifted up, hitching sometimes in a bough and sometimes floating broadside-on to the current, until she reached this bit of marsh and took the mud very gently.
[5]Fish-store.
[5]Fish-store.
After a while, finding she didn't move, Bligh lifted his head for a look about him and found that he'd come to the end of the creek. He put out a hand and felt the water, that was almost luke-warm with running over the mud. The trees shut him in; not a living soul was in sight; and by the quietness he might have been a hundred miles from anywhere. So what does my gentleman do but strip himself for a comfortable bathe.
He folded his clothes very neatly in the stern-sheets, waded out across the shallows as naked as a babe, and took to the water with so much delight that after a minute or so he must needs lie on his back and kick. He splashed away, one leg after the other, with his face turned towards the shore, and was just on the point of rolling over for another swim, when, as he lifted a leg for one last kick, his eyes fell on the boat. Andthere on the top of his clothes, in the stern of her, sat my grandfather sucking a pipe.
Bligh let down his legs and stood up, touching bottom, but neck-deep in water.
"Hi, you there!" he sings out.
"Wee, wee, parleyvou!" my grandfather answers, making use of pretty well all the French he knew.
"Confound you, Sir, for an impident dirty dog! What in the name of jiminy"—I can't give you, Sir, the exact words, for my grandfather could never be got to repeat 'em—"What in the name of jiminy d'ee mean by sitting on my clothes!"
"Wee, wee," my grandfather took him up, calm as you please. "You shocked me dreadful yesterday with your blasphemious talk: but now, seeing 'tis French, I don't mind so much. Take your time: but when you come out you go to prison. Wee, wee—preeson," says my grandfather.
"Are you drunk?" yells Bligh. "Get off my clothes this instant, you hobnailed son of a something-or-other!" And he began striding for shore.
"In the name of his Majesty King George the Third I charge you to come along quiet," says my grandfather, picking up a stretcher.
quiet
"IN THE NAME OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE III. I CHARGE YOU TO COME ALONG QUIET."
Bligh, being naked and unarmed, casts a lookround for some way to help himself. He was a plucky fellow enough in a fight, as I've said: but I leave you to guess what he felt like when to right and left of him the bushes parted, and forth stepped half-a-dozen men in black suits with black silk weepers a foot and a half wide tied in great bunches round their hats. These were Sam Trewhella, of course, and the rest of the funeral-party, that had left the coffin in a nice shady spot inside the Vicarage garden-gate, and come along to assist the law. They had brought along pretty nearly all the menkind of the parish beside: but these, being in their work-a-day clothes, didn't appear, and for a reason you'll learn by-and-by. All that Bligh saw was this dismal company of mourners backed by a rabble of school-children, the little ones lining the shore and staring at him fearsomely with their fingers in their mouths.
For the moment Bligh must have thought himself dreaming. But there they stood, the men in black and the crowd of children, and my grandfather with the stretcher ready, and the green woods so quiet all round. And there he stood up to the ribs in water, and the tide and his temper rising.
"Look here, you something-or-other yokels,"he called out, "if this is one of your village jokes, I promise you shall smart for it. Leave the spot this moment, fetch that idiot out of the boat, and take away the children. I want to dress, and it isn't decent!"
"Mounseer," answers my grandfather, "I daresay you've a-done it for your country; but we've a-caught you, and now you must go to prison—wee, wee, to preeson," he says, lisping it in a Frenchified way so as to make himself understood.
Bligh began to foam. "The longer you keep up this farce, my fine fellows, the worse you'll smart for it! There's a magistrate in this parish, as I happen to know."
"Therewas," said my grandfather; "but we've strong reasons to believe he's been made away with."
"The only thing we could find of 'en," put in Arch'laus Spry, "was a shin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticed it, but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about the premises; and I've always been remarkable for my sense of smell."
"You won't deny," my grandfather went on, "that you've been making a map of this here river; for here it is in your tail-coat pocket."
"You insolent ruffian, put that down at once!I tell you that I'm a British officer and a gentleman!"
"Anda Papist," went on my grandfather, holding up a ribbon with a bullet threaded to it. ('Twas the bullet Bligh used to weigh out allowances with on his voyage in the open boat after the mutineers had turned him adrift from theBounty, and he wore it ever after.) "See here, friends: did you ever know an honest Protestant to wear such a thing about him inside his clothes?"
"Whether you're a joker or a numskull is more than I can fathom," says Bligh; "but for the last time I warn you I'm a British officer, and you'll go to jail for this as sure as eggs."
"The question is, Will you surrender and come along quiet?"
"No, I won't," says Bligh, sulky as a bear; "not if I stay here all night!"
With that my grandfather gave a wink to Sam Trewhella, and Sam Trewhella gave a whistle, and round the point came Trewhella's sean-boat that the village lads had fetched out and launched from his store at the mouth of the creek. Four men pulled her with all their might; in the stern stood Trewhella's foreman, Jim Bunt, with his two-hundred-fathom net: and along the shore came running the rest of the lads to see the fun.
"Heva, heva!" yelled Sam Trewhella, waving his hat with the black streamers.
The sean-boat swooped up to Bligh with a rush, and then, just as he faced upon it with his fists up, to die fighting, it swerved off on a curve round him, and Jim Bunt began shooting the sean hand over hand like lightning. Then the poor man understood, and having no mind to be rolled up and afterwards tucked in a sean-net, he let out an oath, ducked his head, and broke for the shore like a bull. But 'twas no manner of use. As soon as he touched land a dozen jumped for him and pulled him down. They handled him as gentle as they could, for he fought with fists, legs, and teeth, and his language was awful: but my grandfather in his foresight had brought along a couple of wainropes, and within ten minutes they had my gentleman trussed, heaved him into the boat, covered him over, and were rowing him off and down the creek to land him at Helford quay.
By this 'twas past noon; and at one o'clock, or a little before, Parson Polwhele come striding along home from Little Dinnis. He had tied a handkerchief about his head to keep off the sun; his hands and knees were coated with earth; and he sweated like a furze-bush in a mist, for thefootpath led through cornfields and the heat was something terrible. Moreover, he had just called the funeral to mind; and this and the damage he'd left at Little Dinnis fairly hurried him into a fever.
But worse was in store. As he drew near the Parsonage, he spied a man running towards him: and behind the man the most dreadful noises were sounding from the house. The Parson came to a halt and swayed where he stood.
"Oh, Calvin! Calvin!" he cried—for the man running was my grandfather—"don't try to break it gently, but let me know the worst!"
"Oh, blessed day! Oh, fearful and yet blessed day!" cries my grandfather, almost catching him in both arms. "So you're not dead! So you're not dead, the Lord be praised, but only hurt!"
"Hurt?" says the Parson. "Not a bit of it—or only in my feelings. Oh, 'tis the handkerchief you're looking at? I put that up against sunstroke. But whatever do these dreadful sounds mean? Tell me the worst, Calvin, I implore you!"
"Oh, as for that," says my grandfather cheerfully, "the Frenchman's the worst by a long way—not but what your good lady made noise enough when she thought you'd been made away with: and afterwards, when she went upstairs and,taking a glance out of window, spied a long black coffin laid out under the lilac bushes, I'm told you could hear her a mile away. But she've been weakening this half-hour: her nature couldn't keep it up: whereas the longer we keep that Frenchman, the louder he seems to bellow."
"Heaven defend us, Calvin!"—the Parson's eyes fairly rolled in his head—"are you gone clean crazed? Frenchman! What Frenchman?"
"The same that frightened Mrs. Polwhele, Sir, upon the coach. We caught him drawing maps of the river, and very nigh tucked him in Sam Trewhella's sean: and now he's in your tool-shed right and tight, and here's the key, Sir, making so bold, that you gave me this morning. But I didn't like to take him into the house, with your good lady tumbling out of one fit into another. Hark to 'en, now! Would you ever believe one man could make such a noise."
"Fits! My poor, dear, tender Mary having fits!" The Parson broke away for the house and dashed upstairs three steps at a time: and when she caught sight of him, Mrs. Polwhele let out a louder squeal than ever. But the next moment she was hanging round his neck, and laughing and sobbing by turns. And how long they'd have clung to one another there's no knowing, if it hadn't been for the language pouring from the tool-shed.
"My dear," said the Parson, holding himself up and listening, "I don't think that can possibly be a Frenchman. He's too fluent."
Mrs. Polwhele listened too, but after a while she was forced to cover her face with both hands. "Oh, Richard, I've often heard 'em described as gay, but—but they can't surely be so gay as all that!"
The Parson eased her into an armchair and went downstairs to the courtyard, and there, as you may suppose, he found the parish gathered.
"Stand back all of you," he ordered. "I've a notion that some mistake has been committed: but you had best hold yourselves ready in case the prisoner tries to escape."
"But, Parson dear, you're never going to unlock that door!" cried my grandfather.
"If you'll stand by me, Calvin," says the Parson, plucky as ginger, and up he steps to the very door, all the parish holding its breath.
He tapped once—no answer: twice—and no more answer than before. There was a small trap open in the roof and through this the language kept pouring with never a stop, only now and then a roar like a bull's. But at the third knock itdied down to a sort of rumbling, and presently came a shout, "Who's there?"
"A clergyman and justice of the peace," answers the Parson.
"I'll have your skin for this!"
"But you'll excuse me——"
"I'll have your skin for this, and your blood in a bottle! I'm a British officer and a gentleman, and I'll have you stuffed and put in a glass case, so sure as my name's Bligh!"
"Bligh?" says the Parson, opening the door.
"Any relation to the Blighs of St. Tudy? Oh, no—it can't be!" he stammered, taken all aback to see the man stark naked on the threshold. "Why—why, you're the gentleman that called this morning!" he went on, the light breaking in upon him: "excuse me, I recognise you by—by the slight scar on your face."
Well, Sir, there was nothing for Bligh to do—the whole parish staring at him—but to slip back into the shed and put on the clothes my grandfather handed in at the door: and while he was dressing the whole truth came out. I won't say that he took the Parson's explanations in a nice spirit: for he vowed to have the law on every one concerned. But that night he walked back toFalmouth and took the London coach. As for Helford River, 'twasn't charted that year nor for a score of years after. And now you know how this creek came by its name; and I'll say again, as I began, that a bad temper is an affliction, whoever owns it.
THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
AN EXTRACT FROM THE MEMOIRS OF GABRIEL FOOT, HIGHWAYMAN
I sit down to this chapter of my Memoirs with an unwonted relish, because it exhibits me as an instrument in the hands of Providence. Doubtless, in our business, we perform that function oftener than the law recognises, but seldom so directly, so unequivocally, as in the adventure I shall now relate. And I say this, not because it left me with a title to one of the neatest little estates in the West of England, but because I, the one man necessary to the situation, dropped upon it (so to speak) with my hands in my pockets. I had never before happened within thirty miles of Tregarrick town: I walked in at one end purposing only to walk out at the other: and, but for a child's practical joke, I had done so and forgotten the place. It was touch and go, in short: the sort of thing to set you speculating on the possible extent of man's missed opportunities.
I had stepped ashore, after a voyage from Hull (undertaken from expedience and not for health), upon the Market Strand at Falmouth, with one shilling and fourpence in my pocket. I have been in lower water, but never with such a job before me; and I started to tramp it back to London with little more than a dog's determination to get there somehow. The third afternoon found me in Tregarrick, wet through, sullen, and moderately hungry. The time of year was October: all day it had been raining and blowing chilly from the north-west; and traffic had deserted the unlovely Fore Street when, as the town-clock chimed a quarter to five, I passed the windows and open archway of the Red Hart Hotel. A gust from the archway brought me up staggering and clutching my hat: I faced round to it, and, in so doing, caught a momentary glimpse, above the wire blind in a lower window, of a bald-headed man within standing with his back to the street; and at the same instant heard a coin drop on the pavement behind me.
A richer man would have halted, turned and scanned the pavement as I did. But a richer man would probably have taken longer to assure himself that nothing had been lost from his pocket, and would certainly have taken longer to suspectthat the coin might have been tossed to him in charity. I flung a glance up at the window overhead, and spied a penny dangling over the sill by a string.
At once I recognised the secular jest; and stepped across the roadway to get a look at the performer. As I did so, an elderly man in an Inverness cape and rusty hat and suit emerged briskly from the archway of the inn, glanced up at the weather, and passed along the pavement beneath the window.
Thereupon, I saw the trick played to perfection. A curly-headed youngster popped into view, leaned out, rang the coin down at the very heels of the pedestrian, and whisked it as nimbly up. The man whipped round and, seeing nothing, pulled out a pair of spectacles and began to adjust them. I heard the youngster chuckle overhead as he stooped and a deflected gust from the archway, skimming his hat into the gutter, revealed the same bald head I had observed above the wire blind.
Just then, three other faces appeared; one above the same blind and two at the upper window behind the child. And a moment later I had spun right-about on my heel and was apparently in deep study of a damp placard upon a hoarding opposite.
The two faces at the upper window were interesting, had there been time to consider them; and one—that of a lady, obviously the child's mother—struck me as uncommonly beautiful, though pale and desperately sad. Beside her stood a man, as obviously the father; a handsome gentleman, with the flushed face and glassy stare of a drunkard. He stood there chuckling at the trick, and even the lady was smiling indulgently until she leaned out and caught a glimpse of the victim: whereupon, with a sudden terrified snatch, she drew the boy back from the window, and out of sight.
It was then, as I looked at the bald-headed man, seeking some explanation of her terror, that I caught sight of the face staring over the wire blind in the lower window, and lost not a second in presenting my back to it.
It belonged to an old acquaintance of mine. "Acquaintance," I say, because Robert Leggat and I had never been able to stomach each other. There was perhaps a trifle too much of the gentleman about both of us—enough, at any rate, to suggest rivalry, though we hunted different game. "Buck" Leggat was by gifts and election a sedentary scoundrel, with a tongue and a presence fatally plausible among women and clergymen,and a neat adaptable pen. Whence he came, or of what upbringing, I could never discover. I had heard some hint of an Oxford education, but he never alluded to that University in my company. Flash notes had brought him to the Old Bailey, and then his elegant deportment and a nice point of circumstantial evidence had saved his neck. This was about four years ago, and I had supposed him to be somewhere in the Plantations when his bad handsome face confounded me across Tregarrick Fore Street. He wore a clergyman's bands, too.
By good luck he had not recognised me, but was occupied with the bald-headed man who still groped on the pavement. The placard which I appeared to be studying announced the Sale by Auction of a considerable country estate, and my eyes roamed among such words as "farms," "tenements," "messuages," "acres," while I cast up the possible profit of my discovery. Here was I, pretty hungry, with barely the coin for a night's lodging. Here was Leggat, escaped convict, lording it in the coffee-room of a hotel, masquerading as a parson; therefore up to some game—a bold one—by the look of it a paying one. Decidedly I ought, with a little prudence, to handle a percentage.
I edged away from the hoarding to the shop-front on my left—a watchmaker's; and so, still presenting my back to the Red Hart, past a saddler's, a tailor's, the entrance of the County Hall, and the Town Clerk's office. Here, out of view from Leggat's window, I turned, stepped across the street into the hotel archway, and walked boldly into the coffee-room which opened out of it on the left.
Leggat had disappeared. The room in fact was empty.
I rang the bell, and after some minutes it was answered by a waitress, a decent girl, though somewhat towzled.
"There was a clergyman here a moment since," said I.
"That will be Mr. Addison. Do you wish to see him?" She eyed me with no great favour, and indeed my clothes ill agreed with the respectable dinginess of the coffee-room.
"So Addison's the name!" thought I, "and a pretty good one too. I wonder if Leggat has the face to claim descent from the essayist. He's capable of it." I pulled out my only shilling. "Well, yes, I want to have a talk with him: but I'll sit down and wait till he comes, and meanwhile you might bring me a glass of rum hot,with one slice of lemon. Mr. Addison is staying the night here, I suppose?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Anyhow, he won't be riding home to Welland till late. But hadn't you better come to the bar for your rum?"
"Well," said I, "if it's all the same to you, I'll stay where I am. To tell the truth, my dear, I've come to see Mr. Addison about putting up my banns: and that's a delicate matter, eh!"
Upon this she began to eye me more favourably, as I expected. There's anesprit de corpsamong women—or anesprit de sexe, if you will—which softens them towards the marrying man. Surrender to one, surrender to all. "But you don't belong to Welland parish," said she.
"Quite right. It takes two to make a wedding, and the young woman belongs to Welland."
"Who is she?"
"Aha!" I winked at her knowingly.
"I come from Welland parish myself," she went on, her curiosity fairly piqued.
"Then if you happen to be going home to church next Sunday keep your ears open after the second lesson."
She tossed her chin and went off on her errand, but returning in three minutes with the grog, must needs have another try. "I reckon it'sSusie Martin," she declared, and nodded at me with conviction in her eye.
"Well, now, supposing it's Susie—and, mind you, I'm not admitting it—you won't forbid the banns, I hope?"
"La, no! And I'll wager Mr. Addison won't, either," she tittered.
Plainly, here was an answer worth pondering. "You seem to be pretty full in the bar, to-night?" I observed, casually, to gain time; and, indeed, a hubbub of voices from across the archway smote on our ears through the double baize doors.
"The auctioneer is standing treat."
"Oh!—ah, yes—the auctioneer, to be sure," I murmured.
"The sale won't begin in the Long Room before six: he has half-an-hour for wetting their whistles. Seeming to me, you'll be lucky if you get Mr. Addison to attend toyourbusiness before it's over. But, perhaps," she added archly, "you'll like to have a word with Susie, to fill up the time? Shall I send her word that you are here? I dare say she'll find a chance to slip down to you; that is, if her mistress attends the auction."
"But will she?" I asked, doing my best to look wise.
She nodded sagely. "I shouldn't wonder. She'll want to look after the squire; he's more than half drunk already."
"It's plain you're a clever girl," I said; "but we'll let Susie wait for a while. And my business can wait on Mr. Addison. If his is an auction, mine is notoriously a lottery."
"There's one thing to console you," she answered smartly and (in the light of later knowledge I am bound to add) wittily; "you aren't drawing a blank." And with this shaft she left me.
Now the girl's talk was nothing short of heathen Greek to me, as doubtless it is to the reader, and I sat for ten minutes at least digesting it with the aid of my grog. Here was Leggat, my quarry, identified with a Mr. Addison, incumbent or curate of a country parish within riding distance of Tregarrick. He was here to attend an auction. My thoughts flew to the bill I had been pretending to study half-an-hour before; but unfortunately I had given it no particular attention, and could only remember now that it advertised an estate of good acreage. The name "Welland," indeed, struck me as familiar, but I could not refer it to the bill, and must pull up for the moment and try a cast upon a fresh scent—Susie Martin. Mr. Addison,aliasLeggat, is not likely to forbid herbanns, whoever she may be; in other words, won't be sorry to see her married. And Susie is a servant—of a mistress who will probably be attending this auction—to look after a drunken husband, who presumably, therefore, is also concerned in the auction. I recalled the two faces at the upper window, the one tipsy and the other sad, and felt pretty sure of having fixed Susie's employers. I recalled the lady's start of terror as she had caught sight of the bald-headed man below, and that I had first seen the bald head behind the window out of which Leggat had looked a minute later. If the bald-headed man had been talking with Leggat, this might connect her terror with Leggat. And both she and Leggat were to attend the auction. But what was this auction? And who the dickens was the bald-headed man?
The tangle—as the reader will admit—was a complicated one. But so far fortune had served me fairly; and considering the adventure as a game, in my knowledge of Leggat and his ignorance of my being anywhere in the neighborhood, I still held the two best trumps. In speculating on the possible strength of these two cards a new opening occurred to me. I had come with the purpose of forcing Leggat to buy me off or admit me into his game. But might there not be moreprofit, as there would certainly be less risk, in taking a hand against him? I had no fancy for him as a partner. I knew him for an unhealthy villain, with an instinct for preying on the weak, a born enemy of widows and orphans. If only I could discover what the stakes were, and what cards the other side held! Well, but I could have a try for this, even. I could, for instance, apply to the squire for a job, and this might throw me in the way of Susie Martin.
I stepped to the baize door, and passed out upon the archway. Six yards to the right, the Boots, with his back to me, was fixing a ladder to climb it and light the great lantern over the entrance. To my left a broad staircase ran up into the darkness. I tip-toed towards it, gained the stairs, and mounted them swiftly, but without noise, guiding myself by the handrail.
The stairs ran up to the first floor in two flights, with a bend about half-way. At the top of the second flight I found myself facing a pitch-dark corridor. The rooms facing the street must (I knew) be on my right; but as I groped along, my palm found the recess of a doorway on my left, and pressed open the door which stood just ajar. I drew back and listened: then, hearing no sound, poked my head cautiously within.
The room was dark, but the glow of a dying fire at the farther end gave me some idea of its dimensions. A faint reflection of this glow fell upon the polished surface of something which I guessed to be a mahogany table-leg, and, after a second or two, I perceived, or thought I perceived, two heavily-curtained windows, reaching almost to the top of the wall opposite.
I was reconnoitring so, in the recess of the doorway, when I heard a low tapping far up the corridor, and withdrew my head in time to see a door open and the faint ray of a candle fall upon a figure standing there, about twenty yards from my hiding-place; the black-coated figure of Mark Leggat.
"Hullo!" I said to myself. "Now for Susie!"
It was not Susie, however, who stepped out and, closing the door behind her, confronted Leggat, candle in hand. It was the pale lady I had seen at the window.
They stood for a moment conversing—so their attitude told me—in short whispers; and then came slowly down the passage towards me, the lady appearing to protest whilst Leggat persuaded and reassured her. At first I took it for granted they would enter one of the doors opposite; but, as they still came on, I saw that I must either retreat or be discovered.
I backed, therefore, around the half-open door and into the room. Then, as their voices drew near, it flashed on me that this might be the room they were seeking. I took three breathless paces across it, and found the table's edge. Guiding myself by this, and guided by the mercy of Heaven, which kept my feet from striking against the furniture, I found myself within three yards of the window nearest to the fireplace, with just time enough to make a dash for cover, and whip behind the curtain before Leggat pushed the door wide, and the pair entered the room.
"Youmustgive me five minutes!" Leggat was saying. "I tell you it's not for my sake, but for yours; it's your last chance!" Then, as the lady made no answer—"You did not believe you had another chance?" he asked.
"There can be none!" she answered now. "You have ruined me; you have ruined us all: and it was my fault for not warning Harry in time."
"My dear Ethel," he began; but a gesture of hers must have interrupted him, for he checked himself, and went on—"Very well, then, my dear Mrs. Carthew, if you prefer it; you are at once too weak and too scrupulous. A fatal defect, although you make it charming! Until toolate, you hid from yourself that you loved me. When that became impossible you ran for shelter behind your vows and a theory—which you know in your heart to be impossible—that I, who had ventured so much for you, did not love you."
"Love!" she echoed hoarsely. "What love could it have been that sought this way?"
"Well, as it happens, itwasa way. Harry? Tut-tut, with Harry I was merely the handiest excuse for going to the devil. Suppose you had never set eyes on me. You know well enough he was bound to gamble away Welland sooner or later, just as he will sooner or later drink himself dead. I am sorry for the child; but, look you, I am going to be frank. It was just through the child I hoped to get you. To save Welland forhimI believed you would follow your heart and take my help with my love. You wouldn't. You couldn't help loving me, but—as you put it—you are a good woman: and even now, with the sale but an hour away and a sot of a husband to lead off with poverty, you won't."
She had set down the candle on the table; and now, having made a peephole between the two curtains, I saw her lift her head proudly.
"No," she said, "to my shame I loved you; but you would buy me, and I am not to be bought."
"I know it," he answered, and let out a grim laugh. "But on one point I am going to prove you mistaken. You believe that because I tried bribery I did not love you. You win by that error; but it is an error nevertheless, as I am going to prove."
While her eyes questioned him he drew a roll of notes from his pocket.
"Your fond brother-in-law intends to buy Welland," said he.
"James?"
"To be sure," he nodded while he ran through the notes with finger and thumb. "As the eldest brother, James Carthew wants Welland, to add it to the entailed estates. He has always wanted it: but these eight months, since that infant was born to him, he has wanted it ten times more. To-night he bids for it: and for decency's sake he bids through me—which is precisely where he comes to grief."
"I don't understand."
Leggat went on silently counting the notes. "Three thousand, five hundred," he answered; "the deposit money and a trifle over, in case of accidents. James Carthew is a rich man. I should reckon him up at a hundred and twenty thousand, and be within the mark."
"But why should he employ you?"
"In the first place, I suppose, because I've played the game for him throughout, and played it pretty successfully."
"You?"
He nodded. "You don't suppose Harry was playing againstmeall this while? My dear lady, you cannot ruin a man at the cards without some capital of your own; that is, supposing you play straight, as I beg to observe that I did. No, no: I had a backer, and that backer was your amiable brother-in-law."
"But why?"
"Simply because a steady-going man like James, however much he inherits by entail, resents the choicest portion of the property—which does not happen to be entailed—being willed away to a loose dog of a younger brother. And when that younger brother marries and has a son, whereas he has married a childless woman, he resents it yet more bitterly. He cannot digest the grievance that, when he dies, the whole must go to the son of the brother who sits and drinks the wine in Naboth's vineyard. But, as it happens, his childless wife dies, and presto! he marries again. At a decent interval a child is born, and now is his time to play a tit-for-tat."
"He always hated us, I know," she murmured. "Butyou——"
"But I," he answered gaily, "am about to spoil that pretty game—and for your sake. Yes, and although you don't know how, and will never know how, I am going to risk my neck for it." He tossed the bundle of notes across the table towards her. She put out a hand as it rolled off the table's edge and dropped at her feet. "Count them: because I have to use them to-night to buy Welland back for you." And now there was a real thrill in his voice. "Count them," he insisted: "they are only the first-fruits, and after to-night you may never see me again: they are only the deposit on the price, and after the auction I shall ride away—not back to Welland Vicarage. But I have a word to leave, or to send, for Master James Carthew, and if these notes do not buy Welland back for you I am mistaken. I am what I am, and from what we are such poor devils as I cannot escape. But at least I have loved you, and in the end you shall be sure of it. Count them!"
He wheeled about on the words as the door was flung open. On the threshold stood Squire Harry Carthew.
He was white in the face and more than half-drunk. Under one arm he carried a leather-covered case and a pair of foils. His gaze wandered from his wife to Leggat, then back again to his wife.
"I want," said he, addressing her with husky solemnity, "a word with Mr. Addison in private." She bent her head and moved from the room, and he bowed as she passed, but somewhat spoiled the effect by shutting the door upon her train.
"I think," he said, closing the door a second time and locking it upon her—and his tone grew suddenly sharp, though he remained none the less drunk—"I think, Mr. Addison, we need waste no time. My wife's maid, Susie, has told me all that is necessary. You will choose one of those pistols, and we can settle the matter here and now. No!"—for Leggat had begun to edge towards the packet of notes lying on the floor—"you are not to stir, please, until we understand one another." He laid the foils on the table and held out the case. Leggat took the pistol next to his hand.
"You are drunk, Carthew."
"Am I? Well, that is likely enough, and as a sportsman you won't object to allow for it in our arrangements." He slipped the door-key into his breeches pocket and, still holding the pistolin his right hand, leaned forward and laid his left on the base of the candlestick. "You start from that end of the room, and I from this by the fireplace. Are you ready? Here, take one of the foils too. After I have blown the candle out you will remain at your end and count twenty, in silence, of course. I will do the same at my end, and then we begin."
"Don't be a fool, man! This is no duel; it is murder, and foolish murder."
Squire Carthew puffed out the candle. Then the guard of the foil rattled softly upon the mahogany as he closed his hand upon it. "Count twenty, please."
I leave the reader to picture my situation. There, in the silence and the darkness with these two—one of them drunk—prowling to kill. In all my experience I can recall nothing so entirely discomfortable. I had no defence but the folds of a window curtain. I could not stir without inviting a thrust or a pistol shot, or both. And I may remark here, that there is a degree of terror which resembles physical sickness.Experto credite.
I heard the men kick off their shoes; and after that for many seconds—though I strained my ears, you may be sure—I heard nothing.
Then a hand brushed upon the woodwork of the recess and even rested for a moment against the curtain, within six inches of my nose. It was Leggat I could be sworn. I drew back as his fingers felt the stuff of the curtain and passed on groping; I even heard the soft crack of his elbow-joint as he gripped the foil again, which for the moment he must have tucked under his armpit.
And with that it flashed on me what he was after—the roll of notes lying on the floor, between the table and the fireplace, barely a foot beyond the table's edge and perhaps four yards from my hiding place. I knew the spot exactly. Squire Carthew had almost touched the packet with his foot as he stooped to blow out the candle.
I dropped on hands and knees behind my curtain, pushed it softly aside and began to crawl. I could hear nothing now but my own heart drumming. For the next few moments, if I made no sound, it was unlikely either that Leggat would steal back upon me or that the squire could reach me without encountering Leggat. My hand touched the table-leg, and the touch of it, coming unexpectedly, almost made me cry out. A moment later I felt more easy. Once beneath the table I was comparatively safe. But I must get my hand on these notes, and after pausing asecond I steered towards the fireplace, poked out my head and shoulders beyond the table, and smoothed my palm across the floor until my fingers touched the packet and closed upon it.
At that moment, in the darkness, to the left, a foil rattled against a chair. The sound was a slight one, but it betrayed Leggat's whereabouts, and, with a gasp of triumph, Carthew came running upon him from the right.
I ducked my head, but before I could slip back he had blundered right across my shoulders, which reached, perhaps, to his knees. He went over me with an oath and a crash, and as he struck the floor his pistol exploded.
I drew back with the smoke of it in my mouth and nostrils—and listened. Not a sound came from Leggat's corner, not a groan from the body stretched within reach. The man was dead, for certain; and we others had no time to lose.
A thud in the corridor outside called me to my senses. "Robert Leggat," I cried, "this is a black night's job for you! Lay down that pistol, find your shoes, and run!"
At this distance of time I would give something to know how it took him—this voice calling his true name out of the darkness and across Carthew's body.
"My God! Who is that?" he asked, and I could hear his teeth chattering.
Before I had need to answer, he broke from his corner and flung up the window, but recollected himself, and ran for his shoes. He had scarcely found them when there came that rush upon the stairs for which I had been listening, and a woman's voice screamed, "The Mistress! They've murdered the mistress!"
In my heart I blessed Mrs. Carthew—poor soul—for having swooned so conveniently outside the door. By this time Leggat was clambering across the window sill. What sort of drop lay below it? I saw the black mass of his body framed there for a moment against a sky almost as black, and watched as he lowered himself, and disappeared. I listened for the thud of a fall; but none came, and running to see what had befallen him, I caught another glimpse of him as he stole past a lit skylight in a long flat roof scarcely six feet below.
Here was luck beyond my hoping. The crowd in the passage was still occupied with Mrs. Carthew, but at length someone tried the handle of the door. This was my cue. I clambered out after Leggat—who by this time had disappeared—drew down the window-sash cautiously and wriggled across the leads of the roof, pausing only at the skylight to peer down into an empty room, where a score of wooden-seated chairs stood in disarray by a long table—the deserted auction-room, doubtless. At the far end of this roof a chimney-stack rose gaunt against the night; and flattening myself against the side of it, I waited for the dull crash which told that the crowd had broken in the door.
I had made better speed, you understand, but for the risk of overtaking Leggat and being recognised. As it was, I had set the worst of all terrors barking at his heels, and by and by—it may have been after three minutes' wait—I chuckled at the sound of a horse's hoofs in the stable-yard below me. It was too dark for me to catch sight of the rider as he mounted; but he made for the lower gate of the yard and, once past it, broke into a gallop. As its echoes died away, I began my search for the ladder by which Leggat had descended; found it, as I had expected, in the form of a stout water-pipe; and having reached the ground without mishap, brushed and smoothed my clothes and sauntered up the stable-yard to the hotel archway.
At the foot of the stairs there, I was almost bowled over by the Boots, who came flying downthree stairs at a stride. "The Doctor!" he shouted: "the Doctor!" He tore past me and out into the street.
I entered the coffee-room and rang the bell.
I suppose that I rang it at intervals for something like half-an-hour before the waitress found me yawning before the exhausted fire.
"Sale over yet?" I asked pleasantly.
"Sale over? Sale ov—?" She set down the lamp and gasped. "Do you tell me that you've slept through it all?"
"All what, my dear?"
Out it all came in a flood. "The Squire's shot himself! In the Blue Room over your very head—locked the door and shot himself clean through the brains! Poor gentleman, he felt his position, though he did drink so fierce. And now he's gone, and Mrs. Carthew no sooner out of one swoon than into another."
"Bless my soul!" cried I. "Now you speak of it, Ididhear something like a pistol shot; but that must have been half-an-hour ago."
"It's a wonder," she said tragically, "his blood didn't drip on you through the ceiling."
It was useless (she agreed with me) to expect Mr. Addison to attend to my business that night. Indeed, though he was doubtless somewhere inthe crowd, she could not recall having seen him. It would also be useless, and worse, to seek an interview with Susie, who was attending to her poor mistress.
"Very well," I said. "Then since I can see neither the parson nor the girl, I must make shift with the lawyer. No, my dear, you need not stare at me like that, I don't put my money on my back, like some of your gentry; but while I keep enough in my pocket there's no law in England against my employing as good an attorney as poor Mr. Carthew—or, if I choose, the very same man."
"What? Mr. Retallack?"
I nodded. "That's it—Mr. Retallack. I take it he came to attend the auction, and is upstairs at this moment."
"Why, yes; it was he that gave orders to break in the door and found the body. He began putting questions to Mrs. Carthew, but the poor soul wasn't fit to answer. And then he and Mr. James tackled Susie, who swore she knew nothing of the business until she heard the shot—as we all did—and, running out, found her mistress stretched in the passage: and now she's attending to her in the bedroom with the doctor. So the lawyer's at a standstill."
"Mr. James Carthew? Ishehere too?"
"Yes: he's living at his town house this week, but he came here to-night—for the sale, I suppose. He's upstairs now, and his wife along with him; she heard the news cried up the street and came running down all agog with her bonnet on top of her nightcap. But I mustn't stay talking."
"No, indeed you must not," said I. "Here, tell me where you keep your tinder-box.... Now, while I light the candles, do you run upstairs and tell Mr. Retallack privately that a person wishes to speak with him in the coffee-room on an important matter and one connected with to-night's business."
The girl, hungry to be back at the scene of horror, lost no time. I had scarcely time to light the four candles on the chimney-piece when the baize door opened and I found myself bowing to a white-haired little gentleman with a kindly, flustered face. He was plainly suffering from nervous excitement in a high degree, and in the act of bowing attempted to rearrange his shirt-frill with an undecided hand.
"Good evening, Mr. Retallack."
"You sent for me——" he began, and broke off, obviously dismayed by my rough clothes and not altogether liking the look of his customer.
I offered him a chair; he looked at it doubtfully,but shook his head. "My business is of moment," said I, "and of some urgency. That must excuse me for summoning you just now, since as a matter of fact it has less to do with the unhappy pair upstairs than with what I take to be the cause of it. I mean the sale of the Welland estate."
He spread out his hands. "At such a time!" he protested.
"I am glad to find, sir, that you feel so deeply, since it proves you to be a real friend of the family. But as a lawyer you will not let emotion obscure your good sense, or miss a chance of saving Welland for the poor lady and orphan child upstairs merely because it happens to present itself at an untoward moment."
He eyed me, fumbling with the seals at his fob. His mind was by no means clear, but professional instinct seemed to warn him that my words were important.
"I do not know you, sir," he quavered; "but if you are here with any plan of saving Welland, I must tell you sadly that you waste time. I have thought of a hundred plans, sir, but have found none workable. It has destroyed my rest for months—for, with all his failings, I was sincerely attached to young Mr. Carthew, and no less sincerely to his unhappy lady. I warned him ahundred times: but the debts exist, the mortgagees foreclose, and Welland must go."
"Who are the mortgagees?"
"A joint-stock company in London, sir, which lives upon this form of usury. Men with bowels of brass. It was against my strongest warning that Mr. Harry went to them."
"The amount?"
"Thirty-four thousand pounds."
"Will the estate sell for that figure?"
"Scarcely, at a forced sale; unless some purchaser took a special fancy to it or had some special reason for acquiring it."
"Suppose, now, that I offer thirty-four thousand to buy the estate by private contract. Would such an offer be accepted?"
"Indubitably. The mortgagees could offer no objection, even if they wished; for they would be paid; but, in fact, they scarcely hope for so much. You will excuse me, however——"
"In a moment, Mr. Retallack. Still, supposing that I offer thirty-four thousand, a deposit on the purchase money would be required. Can you name the sum?"
"Unless the purchaser were well known in this neighbourhood ten per cent. would be asked, or three thousand four hundred."
"Leaving me a hundred," I said musingly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Nothing: a bad habit I have of talking to myself. Will you pardon a question of some abruptness? You are acquainted, no doubt, with the present Mrs. James Carthew?"
"Slightly." He looked at me in some puzzlement. "She was Mr. James's housekeeper."
"So I have heard. Is she a woman of strong mind? with an influence upon her husband?"
Mr. Retallack positively smiled.
"You may be sure he would never have married her without it. Oh, there's no doubt about the strength of her mind!"
"Middle-aged, I believe? With one child, and not likely to have another?"
"It astonished us all when this one was born. Indeed, people do say—but I mustn't repeat tattle."
"No, indeed. But a man like James Carthew, with a large entail at stake, might be forgiven——" I did not finish my sentence, but stepped to the bell and rang it.
"Excuse me, sir," said Mr. Retallack; "you began by promising—at least by holding out some hope—that Welland might be preserved for Mrs. Harry Carthew and her son. But so faryou have told me nothing except that you wish to purchase it yourself."
"I think, rather, that you must have jumped to that conclusion. My dear sir, do Ilooklike a man able to purchase Welland? No, no; I am merely the agent of a friend who is unhappily prevented from treating in person. My dear"—I turned to the waitress who entered at this moment—"would you mind running upstairs and telling Mr. and Mrs. James Carthew that Mr. Addison has ridden home, leaving a packet of notes behind him; and that the person in possession of that packet wishes to see them both—be particular to say 'both'—in private."
"Sir, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Retallack, as the maid shut the door. I turned to find him eyeing me between suspicion and alarm. "Either you have not been frank with me, or you must be ignorant that James Carthew has been no brotherly brother of poor Harry. He is the last man before whom I should care to discuss the purchase of Welland. I have, indeed, more than once suspected him of being in collusion with the Mr. Addison you mention, and, in part, responsible for the disaster into which, as I maintain, that reverend gentleman has hurried my poor friend. If there be any question of James Carthew's purchasing Welland (and I will confess the fear of this has been troubling me) I must decline to listen to it until fate compels me. To-night, with Harry Carthew lying dead in the room above, I will not hear it so much as suggested."
"Then, my excellent Mr. Retallack, do not start suggesting it. Ah, here they are!" said I, pleasantly, as the door opened, and, as I expected, my bald-headed man appeared on the threshold, and was followed by a grim-looking female in a fearsome head-dress compounded of bonnet and nightcap. "Sir," I began, addressing James Carthew with much affability, "it is through our common friend, Mr. Addison, that I venture to commend myself to you and to your good lady."
"And who may you be?" Mrs. James demanded, with sufficient bluntness.
"You may put me down as Captain Richard Steele, madam, of theSpectator, not theTatler; and I have sent for you in a hurry, for which I must apologise, because our friend, Mr. Addison, has ridden from Tregarrick to-night on urgent private business, and I am here to carry out certain intentions of his with regard to a bundle of notes which he left in my keeping."
"I don't know you, sir; and I don't know your game," struck in James Carthew roughly; "butif the notes are mine, as I suspect, I beg to state that I never intended——"
"Quite so," I took him up amiably. "You do good by stealth and blush to find it known. But, in view of the sad event upstairs, there can be no harm in my stating before so discreet a lawyer as Mr. Retallack what I had from Mr. Addison's own lips—that these notes were intended by you for the deposit-money on the purchase of Welland."
"Addison had no right——"
"Of course, if I misread his directions, you can refer to him to correct me—when he returns. As it is, I heard it from him most plainly that—thanks to you—Welland was to be rescued and preserved for Mr. Harry Carthew's child. Mr. Retallack tells me that thirty-four thousand pounds is the sum needed, and that, of this, ten per cent., or three thousand four hundred, will be accepted as deposit money. It happens that I have but a short time to spend in Tregarrick, and therefore I have ventured to summon you and madam to bear witness that I hand this sum over to the person competent to receive it." And with this I took the notes from my breast-pocket and began to count them out carefully upon the table.
"This fellow is drunk," said Mr. JamesCarthew, addressing the lawyer. "The notes are mine, as I can prove. They were entrusted by me to Mr. Addison——"
"Who, it appears, has surrendered them," said Mr. Retallack drily. "Did Mr. Addison give you a receipt?"
"They are mine, and were entrusted to him for a private purpose. This fellow can have come by them in no honest way. Impound them if you will; I can wait for Addison's testimony. But as for intending to make a present of Welland to that brat of Harry's——"
"Not directly to him," I interrupted, having done with my counting, and folding away two notes for fifty pounds apiece in my pocket. "On second thoughts, Mr. Retallack shall make out the conveyance to me, and I will assign a lease retaining the present tenant in possession at a nominal rent of, let me say, five shillings a year. I am sorry to give him so much trouble at this late hour, but it is important that I leave Tregarrick without avoidable delay."
"I can well believe that," James Carthew began. But the lawyer who, without a notion of my drift, was now playing up to me very prettily, interrupted him again.
"This is very well, sir," said he, addressing me;"very well, indeed. But if, as you say, you are leaving Tregarrick, at what date may we expect the purchase to be completed?"
"Why, that I must leave to you and Mr. James Carthew."
"To me, sir?" thundered Mr. James, every vein on his bald head swelling. "Tome! Are you mad, as well as drunk? When I tell you, Mr. Retallack——"
I glanced up with a smile and caught his wife's eye. And to my dying day I shall respect that woman. From first to last she had listened without the wink of an eyelash; but now she spoke up firmly.
"If I were you, James, I wouldn't be a fool. The best use you can make of your breath is to ask Mr. Retallack to leave the room."
The lawyer, at a nod from me, withdrew.
"Now," said she, as the door closed, "speak up and tell me what's the matter."
"The matter, madam," I answered, "is Addison. He's an escaped convict, and no more a clergyman than—excuse me—you are."
I declare that, still, not an eyelash of her quivered: but her ass of a husband broke in—
"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! Tell us how you came by the notes."
"James, I beg you not to be a fool. Has he cut and run?" she asked.
"He has."
"You can find him?"
"No," said I, "and I don't want to. But I can get a message conveyed that will probably reach and warn him—if he has not thought of it already—to send a letter to the Bishop formally resigning his living."
Then Mrs. James Carthew made a totally unexpected and, as I still hold, a really humorous remark.
"Drat the fellow!" she said. "And he preached an Assize Sermon too!"
But once again her ass of a mate broke in.
"What, in the devil's name, are you parleying about, Maria? Addison or no Addison, you don't suppose I'm to be blackmailed into buying Welland for that young whelp!"
"Just as you please," said I. "If you prefer the money being raised for him on the entail, so be it."
"On the entail?" He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.
"Yes, sir; on the entail—his parents not having employed Mr. Addison to marry them."
But at this point Mrs. James, without deigning me another look, tucked the poor fool under her arm and carried him off.
I left Tregarrick two days later with a hundred pounds in my pocket: for the odd notes seemed to me a fair commission on a very satisfactory job. Now, as I look back on my adventure, I detect several curious points in it. The first is, that I have never set eyes on Susie Martin: the second, that I never had another interview with Mr. or Mrs. James Carthew: the third, that neither then nor since have I ever had a word of thanks from the lady and child to whom I rendered this signal service. The one, so far as I know, never saw me: the other saw me only for that instant when he dropped me a penny for a trick. To both, I am known only as Captain Richard Steele, and whoever inhabits Welland pays five shillings out of one pocket into another for his tenancy, and will continue to do so. But, perhaps, what the reader will most wonder at, is that I—Gabriel Foot—having my hand on three thousand five hundred pounds, and a clear run for it, should have yielded up all but a hundred for a widow and orphan, who never heard of my existing. Well, perhaps, the secret is that Leggat intended to yield it, and I pride myself on being a better man than Leggat. In short, I have, within limits, a conscience.
RAIN OF DOLLARS
I
At nine o'clock or thereabouts in the morning of January 5, 1809, five regiments of British infantry and a troop of horse artillery with six guns were winding their way down the eastern slope of a ravine beyond Nogales, in the fastnesses of Galicia. They formed the reserve of Sir John Moore's army, retreating upon Corunna; and as they slid or skidded down the frozen road in the teeth of a snowstorm, the men of the 28th and 95th Rifles, who made up the rearguard—for the cavalry had been sent forward as being useless for protection in this difficult country—were forced to turn from time to time and silence the fire of the French, close upon their heels and galling them.
A dirty brown trail, trodden and churned by the main army and again frozen hard, gave them the course of the road as it zig-zagged into the ravine; but, even had the snow obliterated thetrack, the regiments could have found their way by the dead bodies strewing it—bodies of men, of horses, even of women and children—some heaped by the wind's eddies with thick coverlets of white, so that their forms could only be guessed; others half sunk, with a glazing of thin ice over upturned faces and wide-open eyes; others again flung in stiff contortions across the very road—here a man with his fists clenched to his ribs, there a horse on its back with all four legs in air, crooked, and rigid as poles. The most of these horses had belonged to the dragoons, who, after leading them to the last, had been forced to slaughter them: for the poor brutes cast their shoes on the rough track, and the forage-carts with the cavalry contained neither spare shoes nor nails. The women and children, with sick stragglers and plunderers, had made up that horrible, shameful tail-pipe which every retreating army drags in its wake—a crowd to which the reserve had for weeks acted as whippers-in, herding them through Bembibre, Calcabellos, Villa Franca, Nogales; driving them out of wine-shops; shaking, pricking, clubbing them from drunken stupor into panic; pushing them forward through the snow until they collapsed in it to stagger up no more. Strewn between the corpses along the wayside lay brokencarts and cartwheels, bundles, knapsacks, muskets, shakos, split boots, kettles, empty wine-flasks—whatever the weaker had dropped and the stronger had found not worth the gleaning.