CHAPTER IV.

Late in August, and a week or two before Mr. Trapp changed his signboard and resumed his proper business, I was idling by the edge of the Barbican one evening when a boy, whose eye I had blacked recently, charged up behind me and pushed me over. I pretended to be drowning, and sank theatrically as he and half a dozen others, conveniently naked, plunged to the rescue. They dived for my body with great zeal, while I, having slipped under the keel of a trading-ketch and climbed on board by her accommodation-ladder dangling on the far side, watched them from behind a stack of flower-pots on her deck. When they desisted, and I had seen the culprit first treated as a leper by the crowd, then haled before two constables and examined at length, finally led homeward by the ear and cuffed at every few steps by his mother (a widow), I slipped back into the water, dived back under the ketch, and, emerging, asked the cause of the disturbance. This made a new reputation for me, at the expense of some emotion to Mrs. Trapp, to whom the news of my decease had been borne on the swiftest wings of rumour.

But I have tarried too long over those days of my apprenticeship, and am yet only at the beginning. Were there no story to be told, I might fill a chapter by fishing up recollections of Plymouth in those days; of the women, for instance, carried down in procession to the Barbican and ducked for scolding. A husband had but to go before the Mayor (Mr. Trapp sometimes threatened it) and swear that his wife was a common scold, and the Mayor gave him an order to hoist her on a horse and take her to the ducking-chair to be dipped thrice in Sutton Pool. At last a poor creature died of it, and that put an end to the bad business. Then there were the press-gangs. Time and again I have run naked from bathing to watch the press as, after hunting from tavern to tavern, it dragged a man off screaming to the steps, the sailors often man-handling him and the officer joking with the crowd and behaving as cool and gentlemanly as you please. Mr. Trapp and I were by the door one evening, measuring out the soot, when a man came panting up the alley and rushed past us into the back kitchen without so much as "by your leave." Half a minute later up came the press, and the young officer at the head of them was for pushing past and into the house; but Mr. Trapp blocked the doorway, with Mrs. Trapp full of fight in the rear.

"Stand by!" says the officer to his men. "And you, sir, what the devil do you mean by setting yourself in the way of his Majesty's Service?"

"An Englishman's house," said Mr. Trapp, "is his castle."

"D'ye hear that?" screamed Mrs. Trapp.

"An Englishman's house," repeated Mr. Trapp slowly, "is his castle. The storms may assail it, and the winds whistle round it, but the King himself cannot do so."

The officer knew the law and called off his gang. When the coast was clear we went to search for the man, and found he had vanished, taking half a flitch of bacon with him off the kitchen-rack.

All those days, too, throb in my head to the tramp of soldiers in the streets, and ring with bugles blown almost incessantly from the ramparts high above my garret. On Sundays Mr. Trapp and I used to take our walk together around the ramparts, between church and dinner-time, after listening to the Royal Marine Band as it played up George Street and Bedford Street on the way from service in St. Andrew's Church. If we met a soldier we had to stand aside; indeed, even common privates in those days (so proudly the Army bore itself, though its triumphs were to come) would take the wall of a woman—a greater insult then than now, or at least a more unusual one. A young officer of the '—'th Regiment once put this indignity upon Mrs. Trapp, in Southside Street. The day was a wet one, and the gutter ran with liquid mud. Mrs. Trapp recovered her balance, slipped off her pattens, and stamped them on the back of his scarlet coat—two oval O's for him to walk about with.

Those were days, too, which kept our Plymouth stones rattling. Besides the coaches—the "Quicksilver," which carried the mails and a coachman and guard in scarlet liveries, the humdrum "Defiance" and the dashing "Subscription" or "Scrippy" post-chaises came and went continually, whisking naval officers between us and London with dispatches: and sometimes the whole populace turned out to cheer as trains of artillery wagons, escorted by armed seamen, marines, and soldiers, horse and foot, rumbled up from Dock towards the Citadel with treasure from some captured frigate. I could tell, too, of the great November Fair in the Market Place, and the rejoicings on the King's Jubilee, when I paid a halfpenny to go inside the huge hollow bonfire built on the Hoe: but all this would keep me from my story— for which I must hark back to Miss Plinlimmon.

For many months I heard nothing of this dear lady, and it seemed that I had parted from her for ever, when one evening as I returned from carrying a bag of soot out to Mutley Plain (where a market-gardener wanted some for his beds), Mrs. Trapp put into my hands a letter addressed in the familiar Italian hand to "H. Revel, residing with Mr. S. Trapp, House Renovator, near the Barbican." It ran:

"My dearest Harry,—I wonder if, amid your new avocations, you will take the pleasure in the handwriting of anold friend? I remember you many times daily, and often when I wake in the night; and commend you to God morning and evening, kneeling on the place where your cot used to stand, for I have no one now to care for in my room. There is little change in our life here; though Mr. Scougall, as I foreboded, takes less heart in his ministrations, and I should not wonder if he retired before long. But this is between ourselves. Punctual as ever in his duties, he rarely spends the night here, but departs at six p.m. for his wife's farm, where Mrs. S. very naturally prefers to reside. Indeed, I wish she would absent herself altogether; for when she comes, it is to criticise the housekeeping, in which I regret to say she does not maintain that generous spirit of which she gave promise in the veal pies, etc., of thatever memorablemorning. I never condescended to be a bride: yet I feel sure, that had I done so, it would have given me an extra compassion for the fatherless.""But enough of myself. My object in writing is to tell-you that my birthday falls on Wednesday next (May 1st, dedicated by the Ancient Romans to the Goddess of Flowers, as I was yearly reminded in my happy youth. But how often Fate withholds from us her seeming promises!). It might be a bond between us, my dear boy, if you will take that day for your birthday too. Pray humour me in this; for indeed your going has left a void which I cannot fill, and perhaps do not wish to, except with thoughts of you. I trust there used to be nopartiality; but for some reason you were dearer to me than the others; and I feel as if God, in His mysterious way, sent you into my lifewith meaning. Do you think that Mr. Trapp, if you asked him politely (and I trust you have not forgotten your politeness), would permit you to meet me at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, in Mr. Tucker's Bun Shop, in Bedford Street, to celebrate your birthday with an affectionate friend? Such ever is,""Amelia Plinlimmon."

"Oh, very well," said Mr. Trapp when I showed him the letter and put my request; "only don't let her swell you out of shape. Chimbleys is narrower than they used to be. May-day is Sweeps' Holiday, too, though we don't keep it up in Plymouth: I dare say the lady thought 'pon that. In my bachelor days I used to be Jack in the Green reggilar."

"It's just as well I never saw ye, then," said his wife tartly. "And to imagine that a lady like Miss Plinlimmon would concern herself with your deboshes! But you'd lower the King on his throne."

Indeed, Mr. Trapp went on to give some colour to this. "I wonder what she means, talking about Roman goddesses?" he mused. "I seen one, once, in a penny show; and it was marked outside 'Men only Admitted.'"

Mrs. Trapp swept me from the room.

On May-day, then, I entered Mr. Tucker's Bun Shop with a beating heart, a scrubbed face and a sprig of southernwood in my button-hole, and Miss Plinlimmon fell on my neck and kissed me. All the formality of the Genevan Hospital dropped away from her as a garment, and left only the tender formality of her own nature, so human that it amazed me. I had never really known her until now. She had prepared a feast, including Mr. Tucker's famous cheese-cakes, "as patronised by Queen Charlotte," and cakes called "maids of honour." "To my mind," said Miss Plinlimmon, taking one, "there is always an air of refinement about this shop." She praised my growth, and the cleanliness of my skin, and the care with which Mrs. Trapp kept my clothes; and laughed when I reported some of Mrs. Trapp's sayings— but tremulously: indeed, more than once her eyes brimmed as she gazed across the table. "You cannot think how happy I am!" she almost whispered, and broke off to draw my attention to a young officer who had entered the shop, with two ladies in fresh summer gowns of sprigged muslin, and who stood by the counter buying sweetmeats. "If you can do so without staring, Harry, always make a point of observing such people as that. You will be surprised at the little hints you pick up." I told her, growing bold, that I knew no finer lady than she, and never wanted to—which I still think a happy and highly creditable speech for a boy of eleven. She flushed with pleasure. "I have birth, I hope," she said, and with that her colour deepened, perhaps with a suspicion that this might hurt my feelings. "But since our reverses," she went on hurriedly, "we Plinlimmons have stood still; and one should move with the times. I am not with those who think good manners need be old-fashioned ones." She recurred to Mrs. Trapp. "I feel sure she must be an excellent woman. Your clothes are well kept, and I read more in needlework than you think. Also folks cannot neglect their cleanliness and then furbish themselves up in a day. I see by your complexion that she attends to you. I hope you are careful not to laugh at her when she makes those ludicrous speeches?"

But I shifted the talk from Mrs. Trapp.

"What did you mean, just now, by 'we,' Miss Plinlimmon?" I asked.

"Did I say 'we'?"

"You talked about your reverses—'our reverses,' you said. I wish you would tell me about it: I never heard, before, of anyone belonging to you."

"'We' means 'my brother and I,'" she said, and said no more until she had paid the bill and we walked up to the Hoe together. There she chose a seat overlooking the Sound and close above the amphitheatre (in those days used as a bull-ring) where Corineus the Trojan had wrestled, ages before, with the giant Gogmagog and defeated him.

"My brother Arthur—Captain Arthur Plinlimmon of the King's Own—is the soul of honour. I do not believe a nobler gentleman lives in the whole wide world: but then we are descended from the great Glendower, King of Wales (I will show you the pedigree, some day), and have Tudor blood, too, in our veins. When dear papa died and we discovered he had been speculating unfortunately in East India Stock—'buying for a fall' was, I am told, his besetting weakness, though I could never understand the process—Arthur offered me a home and maintenance for life. Of course I refused: for the blow reduced him, too, to bitter poverty, and he was married. And, besides, I could never bear his wife, who was a woman of fashion and extravagant. She is dead now, poor thing, so we will not talk of her: but she could never be made to understand that their circumstances were altered, and died leaving some debts and one child, a boy called Archibald, who is now close on twenty years old. So there is my story, Harry; and a very ordinary one, is it not?"

"Where does Captain Plinlimmon live?" I asked.

"He is quartered in Lancaster just now, with his regiment: and Archie lives with him. He had hoped to buy the poor boy a commission before this, but could not do so honourably until all the debts were paid. 'The sins of the fathers—'" She broke off and glanced at me nervously.

But I was not of an age to suspect why, or to understand my own lot at all. "I suppose you love this Archibald better than anybody," said I with a twinge of jealousy.

"Oh, no," she exclaimed quickly, and at once corrected herself. "Not so much as I ought. I love him, of course, for his father's sake: but in features he takes after his mother very strikingly, and that—on the few occasions I have seen him—chilled me. It is wrong, I know; and no doubt with more opportunity I should have grown very fond of him. Sometimes I tax myself, Harry, with being frail in my affections: they require renewing with a sight of—of their object. That is why we are keeping our birthdays together to-day."

She smiled at me, almost archly, putting out a hand to rest it on mine, which lay on my knee; then suddenly the smile wavered, and her eyes began to brim; I saw in them, as in troubled water, broken images of a hundred things I had known in dreams; and her arm was about my neck and I nestled against her.

"Dear Harry! Dear boy!"

I cannot tell how long we sat there: certainly until the ships hung out their riding-lights and the May stars shone down on us. At whiles we talked, and at whiles were silent: and both the talk and the silences (if you will not laugh) held some such meanings as they hold for lovers. More than ever she was not the Miss Plinlimmon I remembered, but a strange woman, coming forth and revealing herself with the stars. She actually confessed that she loathed porridge!— "though for example's sake, you know, I force myself to eat it. I think it unfair to compel children to a discipline you cannot endure with them."

She parted with me under the moonlit Citadel, at the head of a by-lane leading to the Trapps' cottage. "I shall not write often, or see you," she said. "It is seldom that I get a holiday or even an hour to myself, and we will not unsettle ourselves"—mark, if the child could not, the noble condescension—"in our duties that are perhaps the more blessed for being stern. But a year hence for certain, if spared, we will meet. Until then be a gentleman always and—I may ask it now—for my sake."

So we parted, and for a whole year I saw nothing of her, nor heard except at Christmas, when she sent me a closely written letter of six sheets, of which I will transcribe only the poetical conclusion:

"Christmas comes but once a year:And why? we well may ask.Repine not. We are probably unequalTo a severer task."

It is not only children who, having once tasted bliss, suppose fondly that one has only to prepare a time and place for it again and it can be repeated. But he must be a queer child who starts with expecting any less. Certainly no doubts assailed me when the anniversary came round and I made my way to Mr. Tucker's Bun Shop; nor did Miss Plinlimmon's greeting lack anything of tenderness. She began at once to talk away merrily: but children are demons to detect something amiss, and there was a note in her gaiety which somehow did not sound in key. After a while she broke off in the middle of a sentence and sat stirring her tea, as with a mind withdrawn; recovered herself, and catching at her last words, continued—but on a different subject; then, reading some puzzlement in my eyes, exclaimed abruptly, "My dear Harry, you have grown beyond knowledge!"

"Were you thinking of that?" I asked, for I had heard it twice already.

She answered one question with another. "Of what wereyouthinking?"

I hesitated, for in truth I had been thinking how much older she had grown. A year is a long time to a child, but it did not account to me for a curious wanness in her colour. Her hair was greyer, too, and there were dark rings under her eyes. "You seem different somehow, Miss Plinlimmon."

"Do I? The Hospital has been wearing me out, of late. I have thought sometimes of resigning and trying my fortune elsewhere: but the thought of the children restrains me. I make many mistakes with them—perhaps more as the years go on: they love me, however, for they know that I mean well, and it would haunt me if they fell into bad hands. Now I am not sure that Mr. Scougall would choose the best successor. Before he married I could have trusted his judgment." She fell a-musing again. "Archibald is here in Plymouth," she added inconsequently. "My nephew, you know."

I nodded, and asked, "Is he quartered here?"

"Why, how did you know he was in the Army?"

"You told me Major Arthur was saving up to buy him a commission."

"How well you remember!" she sighed. "Alas! no: the debts were too heavy. Archibald is in the Army, but he has enlisted as a private, in the 105th, the North Wilts Regiment. His father advised it: he says that, in these days, commissions are to be won by young men content to begin in the ranks; and the lad has (I believe) a good friend in Colonel Festonhaugh, who commands the North Wilts. He and Arthur are old comrades in arms. But garrison life does not suit the poor boy, or so he complains. He is a little sore with his father for subjecting him to it, and cannot take his stern view about paying the debts. That is natural enough, perhaps." She heaved another sigh. "His regiment—or rather the second battalion, to which he belongs—was ordered down to Plymouth last January, and since then has been occupied with drill and petty irritating duties at which he grumbles sorely—though I believe there is a prospect of their being ordered out to Portugal before long."

"You see him often?" I asked.

She seemed to pause a moment. "Yes; oh, yes to be sure, I see him frequently. That is only natural, is it not?"

We left the shop and strolled towards the Hoe. I felt that something was interfering to spoil our day; and felt unreasonably sure of it on finding our old seat occupied by three soldiers—two of them supporting a drunken comrade. We made disconsolately for an empty bench, some fifty yards away.

"They belong to Archibald's regiment," said Miss Plinlimmon as we settled ourselves to talk. I had noted that she scanned them narrowly. "Why, hereisArchibald!" she exclaimed: and I looked up and saw a young red-coat sauntering towards us.

Her tone, I was jealously glad to observe, had not been entirely joyous. And Master Archibald, as he drew near, did not seem in the best of tempers. He was beyond all doubt a handsome youth, and straight-limbed; but apparently a sullen one. He kept his eyes on the ground and only lifted them for a moment when close in front of us.

"Good afternoon, aunt."

"Good afternoon, Archibald. This is Harry—my friend of whom you have heard me speak."

He glanced at me with a curt nod. I could see that he considered me a nuisance. An awkward silence fell between the three of us, broken at length by a start and a smothered exclamation from Miss Plinlimmon.

Archibald glanced over his shoulder carelessly. "Oh, yes," said he, "they are baiting a bull down yonder."

The ridge hid the bull-ring from us. Dogs had been barking there when we seated ourselves, but the noise held no meaning for us. It was the bull's roar which had startled Miss Plinlimmon.

"Pray let us go!" She gathered her shawl about her in a twitter. "This is quite horrible!"

"There's nothing to be afraid of," he assured her. "The brute's tied fast enough. Don't go, aunt: I want a word with you."

He glowered at me again, and this time with meaning. I saw that he wished me gone, and I moved to go.

"This is Harry's birthday. I am keeping it with him: his birthday as well as mine, Archibald."

"Gad, I forgot! I'm sorry, aunt—Many happy returns of the day!"

"Thank you," said she drily. "And now if you particularly wish to speak to me, I will walk with you, but only a short way. Harry shall find another seat."

As they walked away side by side, I turned my head to look for a bench farther removed from the bull-ring; and so became aware of another soldier, in uniform similar to Mr. Archibald's, stretched prone on the turf a few paces behind me.

When I stood up and turned to have a look at him, his head had dropped on his arms and he appeared to be sleeping. But I could have sworn that when I first caught sight of him he had been gazing after the pair.

Well, there was nothing in this (you will say) to disturb me; yet for some reason it made me alert, if not uneasy. I chose another seat, but at no great distance, and kept him in view. He raised his head once, stared around like one confused and not wholly awake, and dropped into slumber again. Miss Plinlimmon and Archibald turned and came pacing back; turned again and repeated this quarter-deck walk three or four times. He was talking, and now and then using a slight gesture. I could not see that she responded. At any rate, she did not turn to him. But the man on the grass occupied most of my attention, and I missed the parting. An odd fancy took me to watch if he stirred again while I counted a hundred. He did not, and I shifted my gaze to find Miss Plinlimmon coming towards me unescorted. Archibald had disappeared.

Her eyes were red, and her voice trembled a little. "And now," said she, "that's enough of my affairs, please God!" She began to put questions about the Trapps. And while I answered them I happened to look along the flat stretch of turf to the right, in time to see, at perhaps a hundred yards' distance, a soldier cross it from behind and go hurrying down the slope towards the bull-ring. I recognised him at a glance. He was the black-avised man who had pretended to be sleeping.

Almost at once, as I remember it—but I dare say some minutes had passed—a furious hubbub arose below us, mixed with the yelling of dogs and a few sharp screams. And, before we knew what it meant, at the point where the black-avised man had disappeared, he came scrambling back, found his legs and headed desperately towards us, with a bull behind him in full chase.

I managed to drag Miss Plinlimmon off the bench, thrust her like a bundle beneath it, and scrambled after her into shelter but a second or two before the pair came thundering by; for the bull's hooves shook the ground; and so small a space—ten or twelve yards at the most—divided him from the man, that they passed in one rush, and with them half a dozen bulldogs hanging at the brute's heels as if trailed along by an invisible cord. Next after these pelted Master Archibald, shouting and tugging at his side-arm; and after him again, but well in the rear, a whole rabble of bull-baiters, butchers, soldiers, boys and mongrels, all yelping together with excitement and terror, the men flourishing swords and pitchforks.

To speak of the man first.—I have since seen soldiers crazed and running in battle, but never such a face as passed me in that brief vision. His lips were wide, his eyes strained and almost starting from his head, the pupils turned a little backward as if fascinated by the terror at his heels, imploring help, seeking a chance to double—all three together—and yet absolutely fixed and rigid.

The bull made no account of us, though below the seat I caught the light of his red eye as he plunged past, head to ground and so close that his hot breath smote in our faces and the broken end of rope about the base of his horns whipped the grass by my fingers. Perhaps the red coat attracted his rage. But he seemed to nurse a special grudge against the man.

This appeared when, a stone's-throw beyond our seat, the man sprang sideways to the left of his course—in the nick of time, too, for as he sprang he seemed to clear the horns by a bare foot. The bull's heavier rush carried him forward for several yards before he swerved himself on to the new line of pursuit; and this let up Master Archibald, who by this time had his side-arm loose.

"Ham-string 'en!" yelled a blue-shirted butcher, pausing beside us and panting. "Quick, you fool—ham-string 'en!"

For some reason the young man seemed to hesitate. Likely enough he did not hear; perhaps had lost presence of mind. At any rate, for a second or so, his arm hung on the stroke, and as the bull swerved again he jabbed his bayonet feebly at the haunch.

The butcher swore furiously. "Murdered by folly if ever man was! Ye bitter fool," he shouted, "it's pricked him on, ye've done!"

The black-faced man, having gained maybe a dozen yards by his manoeuvre, was now heading for the Citadel gate; beside which—so far away that we saw them as toys—stood a sentry-box and the figure of a sentry beside it. Could he reach this gate? His altered course had taken him a little downhill, to the left of the ridge, and to regain it by the Citadel he must fetch a slight loop. Luckily the bull could not reason: he followed his enemy. But there was just a chance that by running along the ridge the chase might be headed off. The crowd saw this and set off anew, with Master Archibald still a little in front and increasing his lead. I scrambled from under the seat and followed.

But almost at once it became plain that we were out-distanced. Alone of us Master Archibald had a chance; and if the man were to be saved, it lay either with him or with the sentry at the gate.

I can yet remember the look on the sentry's face as we drew closer and his features grew distinct. He stood in the middle of the short roadway which led to the drawbridge, and clearly it had within a few moments dawned upon him thathewas the point upon which these fatal forces were converging. A low wall fenced him on either hand, and as he braced himself, grasping his Brown Bess—a fine picture of Duty triumphing over Irresolution—into this narrow passage poured the chase, rolled as it were in a flying heap; the hunted man just perceptibly first, the bull and Archibald Plinlimmon cannoning against each other at the entrance. Master Archibald was hurled aside by the impact of the brute's hindquarters and shot, at first on all fours, then prone, alongside the base of the wall; but he had managed to get his thrust home, and this time with effect. The bull tossed his head with a mighty roar, ducked it again and charged on his prey, who flung up both arms and fell spent by the sentry-box. The sentry sprang to the other side of the roadway and let fly his charge at random as box, man, and bull crashed to earth together, and a dreadful bellow mingled with the sharper notes of splintered wood.

It was the end. The bullet had cut clean through the bull's spine at the neck, and the crowd dragged him lifeless, a board of the sentry-box still impaled on his horns, off the legs of the black-avised man—who, at first supposed to be dead also, awoke out of his swoon to moan feebly for water.

While this was fetching, the butcher knelt and lifted him against his knee. He struck me as ill-favoured enough—not to say ghastly—with the dust and blood on his face (for a splinter had laid open his cheek), and its complexion an unhealthy white against his matted hair. I took note that he wore sergeant's stripes.

"What's the poor thing called?" someone inquired of the sentry.

The sentry, being an Irishman, mistook the idiom. "He's called a Bull," said he, stroking the barrel of his rifle. "H'what the divvle else?"

"But 'tis the man we mean."

"Oh,he'scalled Letcher; sergeant; North Wilts."

Letcher gulped down a mouthful of water and managed to sit up, pushing the butcher's arm aside.

"Where's Plinlimmon?" he asked hoarsely. "Hurt?"

"Here I am, old fellow," answered Archibald, reeling rather than stepping forward. "A crack on the skull, that's all. Hope you're none the worse?" His own face was bleeding from a nasty graze on the right temple.

"H'm?" said Letcher. "Mean it? You'd better mean it by—!" he snarled suddenly, his face twisted with pain or malice. "You weren't too smart, the first go. Why the deuce didn't you hamstring the brute? You heard them shouting?"

"That's asackly what I told 'en," put in the butcher.

"Oh, stow your fat talk, you silly Devonshire-man!" The butcher's tongue was too big for his mouth, and Letcher mimicked him ferociously and with an accuracy quite wonderful, his exhaustion considered. He leaned back and panted. "The brute touched me—under the thigh, here. I doubt I'm bleeding." He closed his eyes and fainted away.

They found, on lifting him, that he spoke truth. The bull had gored him in the leg: a nasty wound beginning at the back of the knee, running upward and missing the main artery by a bare inch. A squad of soldiers had run out, hearing the shot, and these bore him into the Citadel, Master Archibald limping behind.

The crowd began to disperse, and I made my way back to Miss Plinlimmon.

"A providential escape!" said she on hearing my report. "I am glad that Archibald acquitted himself well." She went on to tell me of a youthful adventure of her own with a mountain bull, in her native Wales.

Some days later she sent me a poem on the occurrence:

"Lo, as he strides his native scene,The bull—how dignified his mien!When tethered, otherwise!Yetonehis tether broke and ranAfter a military manBefore these very eyes!"

"I feel that I have been more successful with the metre than usual," she added, "having been guided by a little poem, a favourite of mine, which, as it also inculcates kindness to the brute creation, you will do well, Harry, to commit to memory. It runs:

"'Poor little birds! If people knewWhat sorrows little birds go through,I think that even boysWould never deem it sport, or fun,To stand and fire a frightful gunFor nothing but the noise.'"

The shadow of Mr. Archibald seemed doomed to rest upon our anniversaries. This second one, though more than exciting enough, had not answered my expectations: and, on the third, when I presented myself at the Bun Shop it was to learn with dismay that Miss Plinlimmon had not arrived; with dismay and something more—for I had walked into the country towards Plympton early that morning and raided an orchard under the trees of which grew a fine crop of columbines, seeded from a neighbouring garden. Also I jingled together in my pocket no less a sum than two bright shillings, which Mr. Trapp had magnificently handed over to me out of a wager of five he had made with an East Country skipper that I could dive and take the water, hands first, off the jib-boom of any vessel selected from the shipping then at anchor in Cattewater. I knew that Miss Plinlimmon wanted a box to hold her skeins, and I also knew the price of one in a window in George Street, and had the shopman's promise not to part with it before five o'clock that evening. I wished Miss Plinlimmon to admire it first, and then I meant to enter the shop in a lordly fashion and, emerging, to put the treasure in her hands.

So I paced the pavement in front of Mr. Tucker's, the prey of a thousand misgivings. But at length, and fully half an hour late, she hove in sight.

"I have been detained, dear," she explained as we kissed, "—by Archibald," she added.

Always that accursed Archibald! "Did he wish you many happy returns?" I asked, thrusting my bunch of columbines upon her with a blush.

"You dear, dear boy!" she chirruped. But she ignored my question. When we were seated, too, she made the poorest attempt to eat, but kept exclaiming on the beauty of my flowers.

The meal over, she drew out her purse to pay. "We shan't be seeing Mr. Archibald to-day?" I asked wistfully, preparing to go.

"You may be certain—" With that she paused, with a blank look which changed to one of shame and utter confusion. The purse was empty.

"Oh, Harry—what shall I do? There were five shillings in it when—. I counted them out and laid the purse on the table beside my gloves. I was just picking them up when—when Archibald—" Her voice failed again and she turned to the shop-woman. "Something most unfortunate has happened. Will you, please, send for Mr. Tucker? He will know me. I have been here on several previous occasions—"

I had not the slightest notion of the price of eatables; but I, too, turned on the shopwoman with a bold face, albeit with a fluttering heart.

"How much?" I demanded.

"One-and-ninepence, sir."

I know not which made me the happier—relief, or the glory of being addressed as "sir." I paid, pocketed my threepence change, and in the elation of it offered Miss Plinlimmon my arm. We walked down George Street, past the work-box in the window. I managed to pass without wincing, though desperately afraid that the shopman might pop out—it seemed but natural he should be lying in wait—and hold me to my bargain.

Our session upon the Hoe, though uninterrupted, did not recapture the dear abandonment of our first blissful birthday. Miss Plinlimmon could neither forget the mishap to her purse, nor speak quite freely about it. A week later she celebrated her redemption in the following stanza:

"A friend in need is a friend indeed,We have oft-times heard:And King Richard the ThirdWas reduced to crying, 'My kingdom for a horse!'O, may we never want a friend!'Or a bottle to give him,' I omit, as coarse."

She enclosed one-and-ninepence in the missive: and so obtained her work-box after all—it being, by a miracle, still unsold.

It was exactly seven weeks later—that is to say, on the evening of June 18th, 1811—that as I stood in the doorway whistlingCome, cheer up, my lads, to Mrs. Trapp's tame blackbird, the old Jew slop-dealer came shuffling up the alley and demanded word with my master.

His name was Rodriguez—"I. Rodriguez, Marine Stores"—and his shop stood at the corner of the Barbican as you turn into Southside Street. He had an extraordinarily fine face, narrow, emaciated, with a noble hook to his nose (which was neither pendulous nor fleshy) and a black pointed beard divided by a line of grey. We boys feared him, one and all: but in a furred cloak and skull-cap he would have made a brave picture. The dirt of his person, however, was a scandal. I told him that Mr. Trapp had walked over and taken the ferry to Cremyll, where his boat was fitting out for the summer. "But Mrs. Trapp is washing-up at the back. Shall I call her?"

"God forbid!" said he. "I am not come to listen, but to speak."

I asked him then if I could take a message.

"As wine in a leaky vessel, so is a message committed to a child. Two of my chimneys need to be swept."

"I can remember that, sir," said I.

He eyed me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. "Yes; you will remember," he said, as if somehow he had satisfied himself. Yet his eyes continued to search me. "You have not swept my chimneys before?"

"I have been working for Mr. Trapp almost three years," said I demurely.

"Yes, I have seen your face. But I do not often have my chimneys swept: it is dreadful waste of money. The soot, now—your master and I cannot agree about it. I say that the soot is mine, that I made it, in my own chimney, with my own fuel; therefore it should be my property, but your master claims it. Five years ago I left my chimneys un-swept while I argued this; but one of them took fire, and so I lost my soot, and the Corporation fined me five shillings. It was terrible." He fell back a pace and studied me again. "If my brother Aaron could see your face, boy, he would want to paint it and you might make money."

"Where does he live, sir?" I asked.

"Eh? Good boy—good boy! He lives in Lisbon, in the Ghetto off the Street of the Four Evangelists." He laughed, high up in his nose, at my discomfiture. "If you ever meet him, mention my name: but first of all tell your master I shall expect him at five o'clock to-morrow morning." He wished me good night and shuffled away down the alley, still laughing at his joke.

At five o'clock next morning, or a little before, Mr. Trapp and I started for the house. The Barbican had not yet awaked to business. Its frowzy blinds were down, and out on the Pool nothing moved but a fishing-boat sweeping in upon the first of the flood.

At the entrance of Southside Street, however, we almost overtook a soldier walking towards the town. He walked slowly and with a very slight limp, but seemed to quicken his pace a little, and kept ahead of us. The barracks being full just then, many soldiers had their billets about the town, and that one should be abroad at such an hour was nothing suspicious: yet my eyes were still following him when Mr. Trapp halted and knocked at the Jew's door. At the sound, I saw the man start and hesitate for an instant in his stride: and in that instant, though he held on his pace and was lost to sight around the street-corner, I recognised him and understood the limp. He was the man of the bull-chase—Sergeant Letcher (as the sentry had named him) of the North Wilts.

Nobody answered Mr. Trapp's knock, though he repeated it four or five times. He stepped back into the roadway and scanned the unshuttered upper windows. They were uncurtained, too, every one, and grimed with dust: and through this dust we could see rows of cast-off suits dangling within like limp suicides.

"Very odd," commented Mr. Trapp. "You're sure he said five o'clock?"

"Sure," said I.

"Besides—five o'clock or six—why can't the old skin-flint answer?"

He knocked again vigorously. A blind-cord creaked, a window went up over a ship-chandler's shop next door, and a man thrust out his head.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"Sorry to disturb ye, Clemow; but old Rodriguez, here, bespoke us to sweep his chimneys at five, and we can't get admittance."

"Why, I heard him unbolt for ye an hour ago!" said the ship-chandler. "He woke me up with his noise, letting down the chain."

The door had a latch-handle and Mr. Trapp grasped it. "Drat me, but you're right!" he exclaimed, as he pressed his thumb and the door at once yielded. "Huh!" He stared into the empty passage, out of which a room opened on either hand, each hung with cast-off suits which seemed to sway slightly in the scanty light filtered through the shutter-holes. "I don't stomach moving among these. Even in broad daylight I'm never too sure there ain't a man hidden in one of 'em. He might be dead, too—by the smell."

He stepped to the foot of the uncarpeted stairs. "Mister Rodriguez!" he called. His voice echoed up past the cobwebbed landing and seemed to go wandering aloft among unclean mysteries to the very roof. Nobody answered.

"Mister Rodriguez!" he called again, and waited. "Let's try the kitchen," he suggested. "We started with that, last time: and, if my memory holds good, 'tis the only chimney he uses. He beds in a small room right over us, next the roof, and keeps a fire going there through the winter: but the flue of it leads into the same shaft—a pretty wide shaft as I rec'llect."

We groped our way by the foot of the staircase and along a line of cupboards to the kitchen. The window of this looked out upon a backyard piled with refuse timber, packing-cases, and plaster statuary broken and black with soot. Within, the hearth had been swept as if in preparation for us. On the dirty table stood a milk-jug with a news-sheet folded and laid across its top, a half-loaf of bread, and a plate of meat—but of what kind we did not pause to examine. It looked nauseous enough. A brindled cat made a dash past us and upstairs. Its unexpected charge greatly unsettled Mr. Trapp.

"It daunts me—I declare it do!" he confided hoarsely. "But he's been here, anyway; and he expects us." He waved a hand towards the hearth. "Shall I call again? Or what d'ye say to getting it over?"

"I'm ready," said I. To tell the truth, the inside of the chimney seemed more inviting to me than the rest of the house. I was accustomed to chimneys.

"Up we go, then!" Mr. Trapp began to spread his bags. He always used the first person plural on these occasions—meaning, no doubt, that I took with me his moral support. "The shaft's easy enough, I mind— two storeys above this, and all the flues leadin' to your right. I'll be out in the street by the time you hail."

I hadn't a doubt he would. "One week to Midsummer!" I cried, to hearten me—for we were both counting the days now between us and the fishing. He grinned, and up I went.

The chimney was foul, to be sure, but once past the first ten or a dozen feet I mounted quickly. Towards the top the shaft narrowed so that for a while I had my doubts if it could be squeezed through: but I found, on reaching it, that the brickwork shelved inwards very slightly, though furred or crusted with an extra thick coating of soot below the vent. Through this I broke in triumph, sweating from my haste; and brushing the filth from my eyes, leaned both arms on the chimney-pot while I scanned the roofs around for a glimpse between them, down to the street and Mr. Trapp. I did so at ease, for a flue entered the main shaft immediately below the stack, which was a decidedly dumpy one—in fact, less than five feet tall; so that I supported myself not by the arms alone but by resting my toes on the ridge where flue and shaft met.

Now, as the reader will remember, it was the height of summer, and the day had brightened considerably since we entered the house. The sudden sunshine set me blinking, and while I cleared my eyes it seemed to me that a man—a dark figure—something, at any rate, and something a great deal too large to be mistaken for a cat—stole from under the gable above which my chimney rose, and, swiftly crossing a patch of flat leaded roof to the right, disappeared around a chimney-stack on the far side of it.

I ceased rubbing my eyes and stared at the stack. It was a tall one, rising from a good fifteen feet below almost to a level with mine, and I could not possibly look over it.Something, I felt sure, lurked behind it, and my ears seemed to hold the sound of a soft footstep. I forgot Mr. Trapp. By pulling myself a little higher I could get a better view, not of the stack, but of the stretch of roof beyond it: nobody could break cover in that direction and escape me. I took a firm grip on the corroded bricks and heaved on them.

Next moment they had given way under my hands, falling inwards: and I was falling with them.

I kicked out, striving to find again with my toes the ridge where the flue joined the shaft—missed it—and went shooting down to the right through a smother of soot.

The total fall—or slide, rather—was not a severe one, after all; twenty feet perhaps, though uncomfortable enough for sixty. I pulled myself up quite suddenly, my feet resting on a ledge which, as I shook the soot off and recovered my wits, turned out to be the upper sill of a grate. Then, growing suddenly cautious when the need for caution was over, I descended the next foot or two back foremost, as one goes down a ladder, and jumped out into the room clear of the hearthstone.

And with that, as I turned, a scream rose to my throat and died there. I had almost jumped upon the stretched-out body of a man.

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