Chapter Six.Down in the Depths.Half-mad with despair and misery, one thought constantly returned with terrible persistence to Richard Frayne as he tramped up and down his prison—for so it now seemed, though neither locks nor bars stayed his way to freedom. The pleasant, handsomely-furnished room was the same as it had been only a few hours before, with musical instruments and treasured hobbies that he had collected together; and yet not the same, for it was the cell in which he was confined by the order of the man whose word had always been to him as a law, and in which he felt as firmly shut in as if he had given his parole of honour not to leave it until told to descend.The thirst for news was again rising. Mark, they had informed him, was lying insensible, slowly sinking into eternity, and he could not go to his side, fall upon his knees, and tell him that he would sooner have suffered death than this should have happened. And there, crushing him down, as his eyes were constantly turned upon that helmet, while he tramped the room or sank upon one of the chairs, was the thought, with its maddening persistency, that it was better that his parents had not lived to see their son’s position—the shame and despair which were now his lot—always that thought; for he recalled the days of sorrow, a couple of years back, when the gallant officer, whose name had been a power in India, was snatched away, and the loving wife and mother followed him within a month.Light-hearted, of an affectionate nature, and always on the warmest terms of intimacy with his fellow-pupils, his position now seemed to him doubly hard in his loneliness, for not one had come near him to take him by the hand. The words raved out in the quarrel had run through them and hardened all against him. They could have sympathised with him in the terrible result of the encounter; but the dishonourable, criminal act which his cousin’s charge had fixed upon him soured all, and they readily obeyed the principal’s wish that he should be left to himself.There were times when it seemed impossible to him that the charge he had made should so have recoiled and fixed itself upon him; but, by a strange perverseness, thus it was, and, saving by the servant, hardly a friendly word had been spoken.“Am I going mad?” he muttered, as he tramped up and down, holding his throbbing head. “It seems more than I can bear!”It was evening now, a glorious summer evening; with the mellow sunshine lighting up the lake-like meadows, for the river was far out of bounds and spreading still; but Richard Frayne saw nothing through the black cloud which seemed to shut him in. Then all at once, sending an electric thrill through him, there was a sharp tap at the door, and he turned to meet the visitor.Only Jerry, who came in bearing a napkin-covered tray, holding it resting upon the edge as he cleared a space upon the table.“Well?” cried Richard, hoarsely.“Your dinner, sir, that I was to bring up.”“How is he? How is he?” panted Richard.The man looked at him sadly, shook his head, and went on clearing a place for the tray.“Why don’t you speak?” cried Richard, fiercely. “Not—not—?”He could not finish.“No, sir; and the big doctor hasn’t got here yet. There you are, sir. Now do sit down and eat a bit; you must want something!”“Take it away!”“No, no, sir; do, please, try!”“Take it away, I tell you!”Jerry stood looking at him piteously, rubbing his hands one over the other as if he were washing them.“I know it goes agin’ you, sir, of course; but you ought, sir; indeed, you ought!”“Tell me,” cried Richard, “who is with him?”“The doctor, sir, and the nurse; and master’s always going up and down. I met him only just now that upset and white it gave me quite a turn. He shook his head at me. ‘A terrible business, Brigley, very!’ he says; ‘a terrible business! I wouldn’t have had it happen for a thousand pounds!’”“There, go away now, Jerry! Pray, pray, don’t stop! Take all that down!”“No, sir; I can’t do that!” said the man. “It was master’s orders, and you must really try to eat.”Richard sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands, but only sprang up the next minute upon feeling his shoulder touched, and saw the man leaning over him.“Can’t I do nothing for you, S’Richard?” whispered Jerry. “I’d do anything for you, sir; indeed, I would.”“Go to my cousin’s room and wait till you can get some news. Jerry, if it comes to the worst, I shall go mad.”The man looked at him compassionately, and then went out on tiptoe, to return after an interval to thrust in his head, which he gave a mournful shake, and then withdrew.The evening passed and the night was gliding on, with Richard still pacing the room from time to time, when Jerry once more came to the door, glided in, closed it, and hurriedly whispered—“The doctor’s down from London, sir, and he’s still in Mr Mark’s room.”“What does he say?” cried Richard, wildly.“Can’t tell yet, sir; but as soon as ever I hear I’ll come back.”Jerry crept away, and the prisoner sat down once more to think. He felt that he would soon know now—that he would shortly have to face the awful truth—and a chilling feeling of despair came upon him with redoubled violence; while, as he sat there, he gave up all hope. There was the future to face, and now a great change seemed to come over him, as if it were the energy begotten of despair.There was the worst to face, with the inquest, the examination, and the possibility of the wrong construction still being placed upon his acts. Everything had gone against him, everything would continue to go against him, and he told himself that it was impossible to face it. His word seemed to go for nothing; and, yielding to the horror of his position, he sat there in the darkest part of his room, wishing earnestly that he could exchange places with the unhappy lad lying yonder between life and death.Suddenly he started, for, sounding solemn and strange in the midnight air, the bell of the Cathedral boomed out the hour, the long-drawn strokes of the hammer seeming as if they would never come to an end; while, when the last stroke fell, it was succeeded in the silence of the night by a dull, quivering vibration that slowly died away.And there, with overstrained nerves, Richard Frayne sat, waiting still for the coming of the news. He must have that, he told himself, before he could act; but still it did not come.Twice over he went to the door, with the intention of opening it to listen, but he shrank away.No. He felt that he was a prisoner, and he could not lay a hand upon the lock. He would wait until the man came.But it was half-past one before the door was opened and Jerry stole in on tiptoe.“Think I wasn’t a-coming, sir?” he said, sadly.“The news!—the news!” gasped Richard.Jerry was silent, as he stood gazing wistfully at the inquirer.“Can’t you see that I am dying to hear?” cried the lad imploringly.“Yes, sir,” came in a broken voice; “but I’ve got that to tell you that’ll break your ’art as well, sir.”“Then it is the worst?” groaned Richard.“Yes, sir: master told me. He rang for me to tell me as soon as the doctor had gone to the hotel. I let him out, sir. Yes, sir, master rung for me to tell me; and, of course, he meant it so that I might come up and tell you. ‘Brigley,’ he says, ‘the doctor gives us no hope at all. There was a piece of bone pressing on the brain, he says, and this the doctors removed; but the shock was too much for the poor fellow, and he won’t last the night.’”Richard sat back in his chair, rigid, as if cut in stone, and Jerry went on—“Don’t look like that, sir; don’t, please! You wanted me to tell you. It was my dooty, sir; and now, sir, you know the worst, do take a bit of advice, sir. Even if you don’t undress, go and lie down, and have a good sleep till morning. There, sir, I must, too. I’ll bring you a cup of tea about six, sir. Good-night, sir.”“Good-night,” said Richard, quietly.“Ah, that’s better,” said Jerry to himself. “Now he knows the worst, he’s easier like. What’s o’clock?”He drew a big-faced watch from his pocket by its steel chain.“Harpus one; not much time for my snooze. I’ll just go and make up cook’s fire, put the kettle over, and have a nap there. It’s no use to go to bed now.”Jerry did as he had promised to himself, and finally sank back in a kind of Windsor chair, dropping off to sleep the next instant, and, by force of habit, waking just at the time he had arranged in his mind.“Ten minutes to six,” he muttered, smiling. “I’ve got a head like a ’larum. Just upon the boil, too,” he added, addressing the kettle, as he changed it from the trivet on to the glowing coals.The clocks were striking six as he went softly upstairs with a little tray, and, turning the handle, entered Richard Frayne’s room, where one of the windows was open; and all looked bright and cheery in the early morning sunshine as he set the tray down upon the table beside the larger one, which showed that some bread had been broken off, but the rest of the contents were untouched.“It’s a shame to wake him,” thought Jerry; “cup o’ tea’s a fine thing when you’re tired out, but a good long sleep’s a deal better. Poor chap, I won’t disturb him, but I’ll take the tea in and put it on a chair by his bedside. He shall see as I didn’t forget him in trouble. On’y to think him a real gent with a handle to his name and lots of money to come in for when he’s one-and-twenty. Right as a trivet yes’day morning and now in such a hobble as this, just like any common chap as goes and kills his mate. They can’t hang him, but I s’pose they’ll give it to him pretty hot, poor chap! Juries is such beasts, they’d take ’n give it to him hard because he’s a real gent, and make as though keeping up the glorious constitootion and freedom and liberty of the subject to everybody alike. Well, I s’pose it’s right, but I’d let him off in a minute if I was the judge.—Come on!”This was to the tea, whose fragrance he sniffed as he neared the waiter, and went softly to the archway where the curtain shut off the bedroom.“Poor boy!—for he is nothing but a boy—I am sorry for him, and no mistake. Well, ups and downs in life we see, and you can’t escape troubles, even if you’re a Prince o’ Wales.”Jerry softly drew the curtain aside and peered through without a sound; and as he let the heavy drapery fall, he uttered an ejaculation, put the tray on the washstand, and swung the heavy curtains right along the brass pole, making the rings give quite a clash, as the morning sun shone through, showing that the bed had not been disturbed.In an instant the man’s eyes were searching about the room, and he saw that a suit of clothes lay where they had been tossed upon a chair, while a wardrobe door was open.He darted to that, made a hasty examination, and muttered—“Brown velveteens! No, it ain’t. Here they are. It’s his dark tweeds, and—no—yes: dark stockings.”He continued his examination in the bedroom, but could make out nothing else.“Only gone for a walk before anyone’s up, poor chap! Hadn’t the heart to go to bed. More hadn’t I at the time. He ain’t taken nothing. He can’t have—he wouldn’t have—I don’t know though—I—oh, he couldn’t have—Let’s see—”He hurried downstairs and went to the front door, then to the dining-room, drawing-room, and study, as well as the room set apart for the pupils; but the windows were closed, and he went slowly upstairs again to pause by the staircase window.“A man might step out here on to the balcony and shut it down again, and easily drop. But no: he can’t have done that.”With his mind bent upon getting some clue as to the young man’s actions, Jerry turned back to his room and once more looked round.“No,” he said thoughtfully, “he couldn’t do that; it would be cowardly, and he’s got too much pluck. He’d have taken some things, too and he hasn’t done that.”As Jerry spoke his eyes were turning everywhere in search of a clue; but he saw nothing till they fell upon the tray, toward which he sprang with a cry, for he had now caught sight of a piece of paper folded like a note and bearing his name.He tore it open, and read only these words:—“Good-bye, Jerry. You were the only one to stand by me to the last. Take my gold fox-head pin for yourself. I cannot face it all. I feel half-mad.”
Half-mad with despair and misery, one thought constantly returned with terrible persistence to Richard Frayne as he tramped up and down his prison—for so it now seemed, though neither locks nor bars stayed his way to freedom. The pleasant, handsomely-furnished room was the same as it had been only a few hours before, with musical instruments and treasured hobbies that he had collected together; and yet not the same, for it was the cell in which he was confined by the order of the man whose word had always been to him as a law, and in which he felt as firmly shut in as if he had given his parole of honour not to leave it until told to descend.
The thirst for news was again rising. Mark, they had informed him, was lying insensible, slowly sinking into eternity, and he could not go to his side, fall upon his knees, and tell him that he would sooner have suffered death than this should have happened. And there, crushing him down, as his eyes were constantly turned upon that helmet, while he tramped the room or sank upon one of the chairs, was the thought, with its maddening persistency, that it was better that his parents had not lived to see their son’s position—the shame and despair which were now his lot—always that thought; for he recalled the days of sorrow, a couple of years back, when the gallant officer, whose name had been a power in India, was snatched away, and the loving wife and mother followed him within a month.
Light-hearted, of an affectionate nature, and always on the warmest terms of intimacy with his fellow-pupils, his position now seemed to him doubly hard in his loneliness, for not one had come near him to take him by the hand. The words raved out in the quarrel had run through them and hardened all against him. They could have sympathised with him in the terrible result of the encounter; but the dishonourable, criminal act which his cousin’s charge had fixed upon him soured all, and they readily obeyed the principal’s wish that he should be left to himself.
There were times when it seemed impossible to him that the charge he had made should so have recoiled and fixed itself upon him; but, by a strange perverseness, thus it was, and, saving by the servant, hardly a friendly word had been spoken.
“Am I going mad?” he muttered, as he tramped up and down, holding his throbbing head. “It seems more than I can bear!”
It was evening now, a glorious summer evening; with the mellow sunshine lighting up the lake-like meadows, for the river was far out of bounds and spreading still; but Richard Frayne saw nothing through the black cloud which seemed to shut him in. Then all at once, sending an electric thrill through him, there was a sharp tap at the door, and he turned to meet the visitor.
Only Jerry, who came in bearing a napkin-covered tray, holding it resting upon the edge as he cleared a space upon the table.
“Well?” cried Richard, hoarsely.
“Your dinner, sir, that I was to bring up.”
“How is he? How is he?” panted Richard.
The man looked at him sadly, shook his head, and went on clearing a place for the tray.
“Why don’t you speak?” cried Richard, fiercely. “Not—not—?”
He could not finish.
“No, sir; and the big doctor hasn’t got here yet. There you are, sir. Now do sit down and eat a bit; you must want something!”
“Take it away!”
“No, no, sir; do, please, try!”
“Take it away, I tell you!”
Jerry stood looking at him piteously, rubbing his hands one over the other as if he were washing them.
“I know it goes agin’ you, sir, of course; but you ought, sir; indeed, you ought!”
“Tell me,” cried Richard, “who is with him?”
“The doctor, sir, and the nurse; and master’s always going up and down. I met him only just now that upset and white it gave me quite a turn. He shook his head at me. ‘A terrible business, Brigley, very!’ he says; ‘a terrible business! I wouldn’t have had it happen for a thousand pounds!’”
“There, go away now, Jerry! Pray, pray, don’t stop! Take all that down!”
“No, sir; I can’t do that!” said the man. “It was master’s orders, and you must really try to eat.”
Richard sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands, but only sprang up the next minute upon feeling his shoulder touched, and saw the man leaning over him.
“Can’t I do nothing for you, S’Richard?” whispered Jerry. “I’d do anything for you, sir; indeed, I would.”
“Go to my cousin’s room and wait till you can get some news. Jerry, if it comes to the worst, I shall go mad.”
The man looked at him compassionately, and then went out on tiptoe, to return after an interval to thrust in his head, which he gave a mournful shake, and then withdrew.
The evening passed and the night was gliding on, with Richard still pacing the room from time to time, when Jerry once more came to the door, glided in, closed it, and hurriedly whispered—
“The doctor’s down from London, sir, and he’s still in Mr Mark’s room.”
“What does he say?” cried Richard, wildly.
“Can’t tell yet, sir; but as soon as ever I hear I’ll come back.”
Jerry crept away, and the prisoner sat down once more to think. He felt that he would soon know now—that he would shortly have to face the awful truth—and a chilling feeling of despair came upon him with redoubled violence; while, as he sat there, he gave up all hope. There was the future to face, and now a great change seemed to come over him, as if it were the energy begotten of despair.
There was the worst to face, with the inquest, the examination, and the possibility of the wrong construction still being placed upon his acts. Everything had gone against him, everything would continue to go against him, and he told himself that it was impossible to face it. His word seemed to go for nothing; and, yielding to the horror of his position, he sat there in the darkest part of his room, wishing earnestly that he could exchange places with the unhappy lad lying yonder between life and death.
Suddenly he started, for, sounding solemn and strange in the midnight air, the bell of the Cathedral boomed out the hour, the long-drawn strokes of the hammer seeming as if they would never come to an end; while, when the last stroke fell, it was succeeded in the silence of the night by a dull, quivering vibration that slowly died away.
And there, with overstrained nerves, Richard Frayne sat, waiting still for the coming of the news. He must have that, he told himself, before he could act; but still it did not come.
Twice over he went to the door, with the intention of opening it to listen, but he shrank away.
No. He felt that he was a prisoner, and he could not lay a hand upon the lock. He would wait until the man came.
But it was half-past one before the door was opened and Jerry stole in on tiptoe.
“Think I wasn’t a-coming, sir?” he said, sadly.
“The news!—the news!” gasped Richard.
Jerry was silent, as he stood gazing wistfully at the inquirer.
“Can’t you see that I am dying to hear?” cried the lad imploringly.
“Yes, sir,” came in a broken voice; “but I’ve got that to tell you that’ll break your ’art as well, sir.”
“Then it is the worst?” groaned Richard.
“Yes, sir: master told me. He rang for me to tell me as soon as the doctor had gone to the hotel. I let him out, sir. Yes, sir, master rung for me to tell me; and, of course, he meant it so that I might come up and tell you. ‘Brigley,’ he says, ‘the doctor gives us no hope at all. There was a piece of bone pressing on the brain, he says, and this the doctors removed; but the shock was too much for the poor fellow, and he won’t last the night.’”
Richard sat back in his chair, rigid, as if cut in stone, and Jerry went on—
“Don’t look like that, sir; don’t, please! You wanted me to tell you. It was my dooty, sir; and now, sir, you know the worst, do take a bit of advice, sir. Even if you don’t undress, go and lie down, and have a good sleep till morning. There, sir, I must, too. I’ll bring you a cup of tea about six, sir. Good-night, sir.”
“Good-night,” said Richard, quietly.
“Ah, that’s better,” said Jerry to himself. “Now he knows the worst, he’s easier like. What’s o’clock?”
He drew a big-faced watch from his pocket by its steel chain.
“Harpus one; not much time for my snooze. I’ll just go and make up cook’s fire, put the kettle over, and have a nap there. It’s no use to go to bed now.”
Jerry did as he had promised to himself, and finally sank back in a kind of Windsor chair, dropping off to sleep the next instant, and, by force of habit, waking just at the time he had arranged in his mind.
“Ten minutes to six,” he muttered, smiling. “I’ve got a head like a ’larum. Just upon the boil, too,” he added, addressing the kettle, as he changed it from the trivet on to the glowing coals.
The clocks were striking six as he went softly upstairs with a little tray, and, turning the handle, entered Richard Frayne’s room, where one of the windows was open; and all looked bright and cheery in the early morning sunshine as he set the tray down upon the table beside the larger one, which showed that some bread had been broken off, but the rest of the contents were untouched.
“It’s a shame to wake him,” thought Jerry; “cup o’ tea’s a fine thing when you’re tired out, but a good long sleep’s a deal better. Poor chap, I won’t disturb him, but I’ll take the tea in and put it on a chair by his bedside. He shall see as I didn’t forget him in trouble. On’y to think him a real gent with a handle to his name and lots of money to come in for when he’s one-and-twenty. Right as a trivet yes’day morning and now in such a hobble as this, just like any common chap as goes and kills his mate. They can’t hang him, but I s’pose they’ll give it to him pretty hot, poor chap! Juries is such beasts, they’d take ’n give it to him hard because he’s a real gent, and make as though keeping up the glorious constitootion and freedom and liberty of the subject to everybody alike. Well, I s’pose it’s right, but I’d let him off in a minute if I was the judge.—Come on!”
This was to the tea, whose fragrance he sniffed as he neared the waiter, and went softly to the archway where the curtain shut off the bedroom.
“Poor boy!—for he is nothing but a boy—I am sorry for him, and no mistake. Well, ups and downs in life we see, and you can’t escape troubles, even if you’re a Prince o’ Wales.”
Jerry softly drew the curtain aside and peered through without a sound; and as he let the heavy drapery fall, he uttered an ejaculation, put the tray on the washstand, and swung the heavy curtains right along the brass pole, making the rings give quite a clash, as the morning sun shone through, showing that the bed had not been disturbed.
In an instant the man’s eyes were searching about the room, and he saw that a suit of clothes lay where they had been tossed upon a chair, while a wardrobe door was open.
He darted to that, made a hasty examination, and muttered—
“Brown velveteens! No, it ain’t. Here they are. It’s his dark tweeds, and—no—yes: dark stockings.”
He continued his examination in the bedroom, but could make out nothing else.
“Only gone for a walk before anyone’s up, poor chap! Hadn’t the heart to go to bed. More hadn’t I at the time. He ain’t taken nothing. He can’t have—he wouldn’t have—I don’t know though—I—oh, he couldn’t have—Let’s see—”
He hurried downstairs and went to the front door, then to the dining-room, drawing-room, and study, as well as the room set apart for the pupils; but the windows were closed, and he went slowly upstairs again to pause by the staircase window.
“A man might step out here on to the balcony and shut it down again, and easily drop. But no: he can’t have done that.”
With his mind bent upon getting some clue as to the young man’s actions, Jerry turned back to his room and once more looked round.
“No,” he said thoughtfully, “he couldn’t do that; it would be cowardly, and he’s got too much pluck. He’d have taken some things, too and he hasn’t done that.”
As Jerry spoke his eyes were turning everywhere in search of a clue; but he saw nothing till they fell upon the tray, toward which he sprang with a cry, for he had now caught sight of a piece of paper folded like a note and bearing his name.
He tore it open, and read only these words:—
“Good-bye, Jerry. You were the only one to stand by me to the last. Take my gold fox-head pin for yourself. I cannot face it all. I feel half-mad.”
Chapter Seven.Jerry sees the worst.“Off his nut!” gasped Jerry, excitedly. “Who wants his fox-pin? I wants him. Couldn’t stand it!—half-dotty!”He looked wildly round, and then his eyes lit upon the glittering waters of the swollen river spreading far and near, and he once more uttered a cry.“The river!” he exclaimed. “It’s that!” and, rushing out of the room, he leaped headlong down the stairs, making for the pantry, where he caught up his hat.The next minute he was running along the main road, instinctively feeling that this was the way anyone would take who wished to reach the river.He did not meet a soul for the first few hundred yards, and then came suddenly, at a turn, upon a farmer’s man, in long smock-frock, driving a flock of sheep, and looking as if he had come far along the dusty road, perhaps travelling since daylight.“Meet a young gent in dark-grey soot and brown billycock hat?” panted Jerry.“Ay! Two mile along the road.”“Which way was he going?”“Simmed to be making for lower lane; but it’s all under water, and he’ll have to go round.”“All under water!” muttered Jerry, as he ran on rapidly. “Two miles—and me sitting sleeping there like a pig. That’s it—that’s what he meant! What did he say?—‘Couldn’t face it?’ If I could only get there in time! He must have been cracked! He must have been mad! He’s gone to drown hisself and get out of his misery, just like the high-sperretted gent he is. I know: gents don’t think like we do. It’s the Latin and Greek makes ’em classic and honourable, and they’d sooner die than get a bad name. It’s all right, I suppose; but it seems stoopid to me, when you know you ain’t done nothing wrong.”“Now, let me see,” thought Jerry. “I say he’s come this road, because he wouldn’t go and chuck hisself in the river up by the ruins, because he’d have had enough o’ them; so he’s come down here this way, and he’s found it ain’t so easy as he thought; for you can’t get to the water for far enough, if you want a good deep place. Chap can’t go and drown hisself in fields where it’s only six inches deep, without he goes and lies down in a ditch. Gent couldn’t do that. Be like dying dog-fashion! I know what he’s gone to do: he’s made for Brailey Bridge, where he could go over into a deep hole at once. Only wish I was alongside of him; I’d say something as would bring him to his senses.”And as Jerry trotted on, he passed turning after turning leading to fords or down by the river, for the simple reason that, during the night, the waters had come swirling down at such a rate that the whole of the river meadows were widely flooded; but it meant his getting more rapidly to Brailey Bridge, a couple of miles from the town, for he was forced into avoiding the winding low road, which followed the curves and doublings back of the river, and making short cuts, which brought him at last, breathless and panting, in sight of something which made him stare and, for the moment, forget his mission.For, as he trotted on, he obtained a glimpse of the rushing, foaming river tearing away, pretty well now beneath its banks, which were high at the spot where the bridge, an antique wooden structure, had spanned it with its clumsy piles. The great double wedge-shaped pier of oak timbers, rotten and blackened with age, and which had supported the roadway as it divided the river in two, was gone, and the remains of the bridge were gradually being torn away.Jerry drew his breath hard, and his throat felt dry, as he ran nearer, descending the slope towards where the road ended suddenly, and thinking of how the spot he approached was exactly such an one as would tempt a half-maddened person to run right on, make one desperate plunge into the muddy flood, and then and there be swept away.He paused at last, standing in a dangerous place, at the very edge of the broken bridge, gazing down into the hurrying waters, which hissed and gurgled beneath him, lapping at the slimy piles which remained; and, hot and dripping with perspiration as he was, he shivered, and felt as if icy hands were touching him as he wiped his brow.“It’s too horrid! too horrid!” he groaned, in the full belief that he was standing right on the place from which Richard Frayne had taken a desperate plunge. “Why, a score of his chums had better have died than him! I didn’t ought never to ha’ left him last night, seeing what a state he was in. You might ha’ saved his life, Jerry, and done more good than you’ll ever do blacking boots and brushing clothes, if yer lives to a hundred and ten.”He looked wildly to the right, and saw that the pollard willows were rising just out of the water, like heads with the hair standing on end. There were great patches of fresh hay floating swiftly down, and, closer at hand, something white rolling over and over, and he shuddered; but it was only the carcase of a drowned sheep, one of several more which had probably been surrounded in some meadow and swept away. Directly after, lowing dismally, and swimming hard to save itself, a bullock came down rapidly, with its muzzle and a narrow line of backbone alone showing above the surface.But Jerry knew well enough that no boat could live in the rushing water which swirled along; and, unless the poor beast could swim into some eddy and manage to get ashore, its fate was sealed.The man’s eyes followed the animal as it passed by the broken bridge and was swept on more rapidly downward as soon as it was below.“I came too late—I came too late!” groaned Jerry, as he still watched the bullock, his eyes at the same time noting how the river had passed over the bank on the other side and spread along meadows, and how it was threatening to lap over the road which ran upon his side away down to the mill, where the weir crossed the river and the eel-bucks stood in a row between the piles.“Yes, I’ve come too late, and I shall see that poor brute sink directly. Shall I go on down by the mill?”He shook his head. The bullock was going faster than he could have walked, and, if anyone had plunged into the river from where he stood, he must have been swept miles away in his journey onward to the sea.“And we shall never find him!” he muttered. “Gone! gone!”He was going to say “Gone!” again—for the third time—but a hoarse utterance escaped his lips instead, and he made a sudden movement to climb over the rail and let himself down into the narrow cross-road which ran to the mill.But, as he grasped the open fence, all power of action left him, and he stood, as if paralysed, staring at that which had caught his eye.There, far away toward the mill, dwarfed by distance, but clearly seen in the bright morning air, a figure had started up, run for a few yards along the bank, and suddenly plunged in the flooded river. Jerry saw the splashed water glitter in the sunshine and then, indistinctly, a head reappear and remain in sight for some few minutes as its owner floated or swam. Then a curve of the river hid it from his sight, and he recovered his power of action again. Climbing the rail, he scrambled down the side of the raised roadway, reached the bank, and started running.It was a mile to the mill, and in how many minutes Jerry covered the distance he never knew, but he pulled up short in the mill-yard, to find that he could go no farther; for the waters were well out beyond, and went swinging round a curve at a terrific rate, the river being narrowed here by the piers, buttresses, and piles upon which the mill-buildings had been reared. The tops of the pier-piles showed in two places, but that was all, and, though he climbed up the ladder leading to a whitened door in the side of the building, he could see nothing but the waste of hurrying water gleaming in the sunshine, and felt that the building was quivering from the pressure of the flood.Jerry clung to the handle of the door at the top of the steps, and the flour came off white upon his Oxford mixture coat as he turned dizzy and sick in his hurry and despair, for he knew that the figure he had seen must be that of Richard Frayne, and he had come too late!“He must have seen me,” groaned Jerry; “and just as he was a-hesitating he thought I’d come to drag him back, and he went in. Nothing couldn’t save him, and I seem to have drove him to his end.”In his own mind he wanted no endorsement of the correctness of his idea. He had been sure that Richard had taken this route when he started from the house; he had seen him; and it was all over.But the endorsement came, for just then, heard above the rushing of the river along the back-water and beneath the mill, where the huge revolving wheel worked, came a loud “Ahoy!”Turning quickly, Jerry saw, from his coign of vantage, the white figure of the miller coming quickly down the road, waving his arms as if he had once owned a wind-mill instead of a water-mill, and was imitating the action of the sails.“Hoi! come down from there,” bawled the big, bluff fellow, as he came within hearing. “’Tain’t safe! I made all my people clear out last night, and ’spected to see it gone by mornin’. Oh, it’s you, Mister Brigley. Looking for your young gent?”“Yes! Seen him?” cried Jerry wildly.“Ay, bit ago, when I were down before. He’d come down to see if the mill was safe, I s’pose.”“But—it was—our young gent?”“I say, don’t look so scared,” cried the miller, good-humouredly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you; but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the old place comes toppling down; and it will, if the water rises much more. You’re safe enough here.”“But, tell me,” panted Jerry, who did not want telling, “it was our young gent?”“Ay, him as come fishing with the others, and sat out on the weir yonder, tootling on that little pipe of his? Here! what’s the matter with you, man?”“A boat! a boat!” gasped Jerry.“A boat! what for? Mine’s got a plank out of it, and, if it hadn’t, you couldn’t use it now.”“But he’s gone down! I see him jump in!”“What!” yelled the miller, seizing Jerry excitedly by the collar. “Nonsense! He’s gone back by now.”“I—I was on the bridge.”“There ain’t no bridge!” growled the miller: “swep’ away.”“But I was over yonder—saw him jump in.”“You did?”“Yes, and came here fast as I could.”The miller turned to look down the rushing river, and took off his white felt hat, drew out a red cotton handkerchief, and began to mop his wet brow.“Then Heaven have mercy on him, poor lad! for he’ll never get to shore alive.”“But he could swim,” said Jerry, feebly.“Swim? Who’s to swim in water like that? Never! I saw a whole drove of sheep go down this morning, and a half a dozen bullocks. The river’s too much for them as can swim.”“But—but—”“But—but, man. Ah! what was he doing to jump in?”“Haven’t you heard?” groaned Jerry, speaking to the miller, and staring wildly down stream the while. “He got into dreadful trouble yesterday. Killed his cousin!”“What?”“Come down here to end hisself, I s’pose!”“Then he’s done it, poor lad!” said the miller, solemnly.“But couldn’t we do nothing? Couldn’t we try and help him?” whined Jerry, piteously.“No, my lad, not with the water rooshing down like this; it’s beyond human work, and—Hi! run—run!”He caught at Jerry again, and the two men started to run for a few yards, then turned to look back, as, after several warning cracks, the whole of the great white timber-built mill literally crumbled down over its undermined foundations and disappeared in the surging waters.“I knowed it!” panted the miller. “Poor old place! I’ve spent many a happy year there. Well, I come in time to save your life, squire.”“And I come to try and save his, but not in time,” groaned Jerry. “Oh, my poor dear lad!” he continued, as he leaned his arm against a tree and bent his head upon it to weep aloud, “you were the master, and I’m only a servant, but I’d ha’ most give my life to ha’ saved yours, that I would. Yes!” he cried, fiercely, now in a wild, hysterical voice; “it would ha’ been better if you, too, hadn’t come in time!”
“Off his nut!” gasped Jerry, excitedly. “Who wants his fox-pin? I wants him. Couldn’t stand it!—half-dotty!”
He looked wildly round, and then his eyes lit upon the glittering waters of the swollen river spreading far and near, and he once more uttered a cry.
“The river!” he exclaimed. “It’s that!” and, rushing out of the room, he leaped headlong down the stairs, making for the pantry, where he caught up his hat.
The next minute he was running along the main road, instinctively feeling that this was the way anyone would take who wished to reach the river.
He did not meet a soul for the first few hundred yards, and then came suddenly, at a turn, upon a farmer’s man, in long smock-frock, driving a flock of sheep, and looking as if he had come far along the dusty road, perhaps travelling since daylight.
“Meet a young gent in dark-grey soot and brown billycock hat?” panted Jerry.
“Ay! Two mile along the road.”
“Which way was he going?”
“Simmed to be making for lower lane; but it’s all under water, and he’ll have to go round.”
“All under water!” muttered Jerry, as he ran on rapidly. “Two miles—and me sitting sleeping there like a pig. That’s it—that’s what he meant! What did he say?—‘Couldn’t face it?’ If I could only get there in time! He must have been cracked! He must have been mad! He’s gone to drown hisself and get out of his misery, just like the high-sperretted gent he is. I know: gents don’t think like we do. It’s the Latin and Greek makes ’em classic and honourable, and they’d sooner die than get a bad name. It’s all right, I suppose; but it seems stoopid to me, when you know you ain’t done nothing wrong.”
“Now, let me see,” thought Jerry. “I say he’s come this road, because he wouldn’t go and chuck hisself in the river up by the ruins, because he’d have had enough o’ them; so he’s come down here this way, and he’s found it ain’t so easy as he thought; for you can’t get to the water for far enough, if you want a good deep place. Chap can’t go and drown hisself in fields where it’s only six inches deep, without he goes and lies down in a ditch. Gent couldn’t do that. Be like dying dog-fashion! I know what he’s gone to do: he’s made for Brailey Bridge, where he could go over into a deep hole at once. Only wish I was alongside of him; I’d say something as would bring him to his senses.”
And as Jerry trotted on, he passed turning after turning leading to fords or down by the river, for the simple reason that, during the night, the waters had come swirling down at such a rate that the whole of the river meadows were widely flooded; but it meant his getting more rapidly to Brailey Bridge, a couple of miles from the town, for he was forced into avoiding the winding low road, which followed the curves and doublings back of the river, and making short cuts, which brought him at last, breathless and panting, in sight of something which made him stare and, for the moment, forget his mission.
For, as he trotted on, he obtained a glimpse of the rushing, foaming river tearing away, pretty well now beneath its banks, which were high at the spot where the bridge, an antique wooden structure, had spanned it with its clumsy piles. The great double wedge-shaped pier of oak timbers, rotten and blackened with age, and which had supported the roadway as it divided the river in two, was gone, and the remains of the bridge were gradually being torn away.
Jerry drew his breath hard, and his throat felt dry, as he ran nearer, descending the slope towards where the road ended suddenly, and thinking of how the spot he approached was exactly such an one as would tempt a half-maddened person to run right on, make one desperate plunge into the muddy flood, and then and there be swept away.
He paused at last, standing in a dangerous place, at the very edge of the broken bridge, gazing down into the hurrying waters, which hissed and gurgled beneath him, lapping at the slimy piles which remained; and, hot and dripping with perspiration as he was, he shivered, and felt as if icy hands were touching him as he wiped his brow.
“It’s too horrid! too horrid!” he groaned, in the full belief that he was standing right on the place from which Richard Frayne had taken a desperate plunge. “Why, a score of his chums had better have died than him! I didn’t ought never to ha’ left him last night, seeing what a state he was in. You might ha’ saved his life, Jerry, and done more good than you’ll ever do blacking boots and brushing clothes, if yer lives to a hundred and ten.”
He looked wildly to the right, and saw that the pollard willows were rising just out of the water, like heads with the hair standing on end. There were great patches of fresh hay floating swiftly down, and, closer at hand, something white rolling over and over, and he shuddered; but it was only the carcase of a drowned sheep, one of several more which had probably been surrounded in some meadow and swept away. Directly after, lowing dismally, and swimming hard to save itself, a bullock came down rapidly, with its muzzle and a narrow line of backbone alone showing above the surface.
But Jerry knew well enough that no boat could live in the rushing water which swirled along; and, unless the poor beast could swim into some eddy and manage to get ashore, its fate was sealed.
The man’s eyes followed the animal as it passed by the broken bridge and was swept on more rapidly downward as soon as it was below.
“I came too late—I came too late!” groaned Jerry, as he still watched the bullock, his eyes at the same time noting how the river had passed over the bank on the other side and spread along meadows, and how it was threatening to lap over the road which ran upon his side away down to the mill, where the weir crossed the river and the eel-bucks stood in a row between the piles.
“Yes, I’ve come too late, and I shall see that poor brute sink directly. Shall I go on down by the mill?”
He shook his head. The bullock was going faster than he could have walked, and, if anyone had plunged into the river from where he stood, he must have been swept miles away in his journey onward to the sea.
“And we shall never find him!” he muttered. “Gone! gone!”
He was going to say “Gone!” again—for the third time—but a hoarse utterance escaped his lips instead, and he made a sudden movement to climb over the rail and let himself down into the narrow cross-road which ran to the mill.
But, as he grasped the open fence, all power of action left him, and he stood, as if paralysed, staring at that which had caught his eye.
There, far away toward the mill, dwarfed by distance, but clearly seen in the bright morning air, a figure had started up, run for a few yards along the bank, and suddenly plunged in the flooded river. Jerry saw the splashed water glitter in the sunshine and then, indistinctly, a head reappear and remain in sight for some few minutes as its owner floated or swam. Then a curve of the river hid it from his sight, and he recovered his power of action again. Climbing the rail, he scrambled down the side of the raised roadway, reached the bank, and started running.
It was a mile to the mill, and in how many minutes Jerry covered the distance he never knew, but he pulled up short in the mill-yard, to find that he could go no farther; for the waters were well out beyond, and went swinging round a curve at a terrific rate, the river being narrowed here by the piers, buttresses, and piles upon which the mill-buildings had been reared. The tops of the pier-piles showed in two places, but that was all, and, though he climbed up the ladder leading to a whitened door in the side of the building, he could see nothing but the waste of hurrying water gleaming in the sunshine, and felt that the building was quivering from the pressure of the flood.
Jerry clung to the handle of the door at the top of the steps, and the flour came off white upon his Oxford mixture coat as he turned dizzy and sick in his hurry and despair, for he knew that the figure he had seen must be that of Richard Frayne, and he had come too late!
“He must have seen me,” groaned Jerry; “and just as he was a-hesitating he thought I’d come to drag him back, and he went in. Nothing couldn’t save him, and I seem to have drove him to his end.”
In his own mind he wanted no endorsement of the correctness of his idea. He had been sure that Richard had taken this route when he started from the house; he had seen him; and it was all over.
But the endorsement came, for just then, heard above the rushing of the river along the back-water and beneath the mill, where the huge revolving wheel worked, came a loud “Ahoy!”
Turning quickly, Jerry saw, from his coign of vantage, the white figure of the miller coming quickly down the road, waving his arms as if he had once owned a wind-mill instead of a water-mill, and was imitating the action of the sails.
“Hoi! come down from there,” bawled the big, bluff fellow, as he came within hearing. “’Tain’t safe! I made all my people clear out last night, and ’spected to see it gone by mornin’. Oh, it’s you, Mister Brigley. Looking for your young gent?”
“Yes! Seen him?” cried Jerry wildly.
“Ay, bit ago, when I were down before. He’d come down to see if the mill was safe, I s’pose.”
“But—it was—our young gent?”
“I say, don’t look so scared,” cried the miller, good-humouredly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you; but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the old place comes toppling down; and it will, if the water rises much more. You’re safe enough here.”
“But, tell me,” panted Jerry, who did not want telling, “it was our young gent?”
“Ay, him as come fishing with the others, and sat out on the weir yonder, tootling on that little pipe of his? Here! what’s the matter with you, man?”
“A boat! a boat!” gasped Jerry.
“A boat! what for? Mine’s got a plank out of it, and, if it hadn’t, you couldn’t use it now.”
“But he’s gone down! I see him jump in!”
“What!” yelled the miller, seizing Jerry excitedly by the collar. “Nonsense! He’s gone back by now.”
“I—I was on the bridge.”
“There ain’t no bridge!” growled the miller: “swep’ away.”
“But I was over yonder—saw him jump in.”
“You did?”
“Yes, and came here fast as I could.”
The miller turned to look down the rushing river, and took off his white felt hat, drew out a red cotton handkerchief, and began to mop his wet brow.
“Then Heaven have mercy on him, poor lad! for he’ll never get to shore alive.”
“But he could swim,” said Jerry, feebly.
“Swim? Who’s to swim in water like that? Never! I saw a whole drove of sheep go down this morning, and a half a dozen bullocks. The river’s too much for them as can swim.”
“But—but—”
“But—but, man. Ah! what was he doing to jump in?”
“Haven’t you heard?” groaned Jerry, speaking to the miller, and staring wildly down stream the while. “He got into dreadful trouble yesterday. Killed his cousin!”
“What?”
“Come down here to end hisself, I s’pose!”
“Then he’s done it, poor lad!” said the miller, solemnly.
“But couldn’t we do nothing? Couldn’t we try and help him?” whined Jerry, piteously.
“No, my lad, not with the water rooshing down like this; it’s beyond human work, and—Hi! run—run!”
He caught at Jerry again, and the two men started to run for a few yards, then turned to look back, as, after several warning cracks, the whole of the great white timber-built mill literally crumbled down over its undermined foundations and disappeared in the surging waters.
“I knowed it!” panted the miller. “Poor old place! I’ve spent many a happy year there. Well, I come in time to save your life, squire.”
“And I come to try and save his, but not in time,” groaned Jerry. “Oh, my poor dear lad!” he continued, as he leaned his arm against a tree and bent his head upon it to weep aloud, “you were the master, and I’m only a servant, but I’d ha’ most give my life to ha’ saved yours, that I would. Yes!” he cried, fiercely, now in a wild, hysterical voice; “it would ha’ been better if you, too, hadn’t come in time!”
Chapter Eight.Another Turn of the Wheel.As if heartily ashamed of his weakness, Jerry suddenly straightened himself up, and turned angrily upon the miller.“Don’t you never go and say you saw me making such a fool of myself!” he cried.The man shook his head.“Think it’s any good to go up to the town for a boat?”“If you want to drown yourself,” was the reply. “I wouldn’t trust myself in no boat till the water goes down. I shouldn’t mind the rowing down; but you’d never know where you’d got to, and be capsized on a willow stump, or against some hedge, before you had gone a mile.”“But we might find him,” said Jerry, looking piteous once more.“Ay, you might find him, my lad. There’s no knowing.”“But you think we should not?”“Sure of it!”Jerry turned away without a word, leaving the miller staring blankly at the spot where the old place had stood, and hurried back toward the town.“Past seven!” he muttered, “and all those boots and shoes waiting. Breakfast’ll have to be late.”It sounded strange, but it was quite natural for him to mix up his daily work with this business; and upon reaching the house, as if feeling satisfied that there was no more to be done, he hurried about over his valeting, beginning with Mr Draycott, but found that he was not in his room.The tutor came, though, five minutes later, and, meeting his man, exclaimed with animation:“Better news, Brigley.”“No, sir,” said Jerry, shaking his head. “Worse—much worse!”“How dare you, sir?” cried the tutor, irritable from a sleepless night. “I tell you the news is better, and we have hopes.”“And I tell you, sir, that the news is worse.”Mr Draycott stared at his man, and began to frown. Strange suspicions attacked him as he saw that Jerry looked rough and unkempt. His hair was not brushed; he had evidently not washed that morning, and his Oxford mixture coat was marked by flour.“By the way, sir,” said the tutor, angrily, “where have you been? I rang twice, to send you to the doctor’s, but the bell was not answered. Were you not up?”“Not up, sir? Oh, yes; I was up and out long enough ago!”“Out?”“Yes, sir,” said Jerry, speaking very sturdily and solemnly; and he related all that he had seen, with the result that the tutor sank into the nearest chair, looking ghastly, and with his lips moving, but not uttering a sound.Jerry stood looking down at him sadly, and at the end of a few minutes he filled a glass from a waterbottle and handed the water to his master, who swallowed it hurriedly.“This is too dreadful,” said the latter, huskily; “too dreadful! But are you sure, my man—are you sure?”“Yes, sir, sure enough!” replied Jerry, with a hoarse sob. “The miller saw him just before.”“A terrible business—a terrible business! I thought we were beginning to see daylight again; but—poor weak rash boy!—this is ten times worse!”“Yes, sir—a hundred times!” said Jerry, with a groan; and master and man gazed in each other’s eyes for some time in silence, till Mr Draycott gave a start.“I am so stunned and helpless with this trouble upon trouble,” he cried huskily, “that I can hardly think—I can hardly believe it true. Tell me what you have done. You gave notice to the police, of course?”“The police, sir?” said Jerry, with a vacant look. “No; I never thought of that!”“And you have not given the alarm—sent people down the river in boats?”Jerry shook his head in a weary, helpless way.“Quick, then; do something, man!” cried Mr Draycott, wildly. “Run to the station and tell the inspector; they will take steps at once.”“I—I thought you would want to hush it up, sir.”“Hush it up, man!” cried the tutor, angrily. “You are crazy!”“Yes, sir, pretty nigh,” said Jerry, pitifully. “My head feels as if it won’t go; and I don’t know what I’m saying half my time.”“I beg your pardon, Brigley,” cried the tutor. “I spoke too hastily. I quite understand your feelings; but steps must be taken instantly. The truth must be known—the cruel truth!” he added, with a groan. “Yes; what is it?”There was a tap at the chamber door, and Jerry went to open it.“Please tell master that the London doctor has come in from the hotel and wants to see him directly.”“Ah, yes,” said the tutor, who had heard every word; “I thought he would come early. Go on to the station, Brigley; tell them poor Sir Richard must be found. I’ll go down to see the doctor.”Each departed upon his mission, and half an hour after the London surgeon took his departure, confirming his colleague’s opinion that a great change for the better had taken place in Mark Frayne.“Youth, my dear sir—youth! He has rallied wonderfully, and I feel that we may hope.”“But you will stop for the day?” said Mr Draycott, anxiously.“There is not the slightest need, my dear sir. My colleague yonder will, unless something very unforeseen happens, pull him through.”“But if anything unforeseen does happen?” said Mr Draycott, nervously.“Then telegraph to me, and I will come down at once. But I don’t think you need fear, Mr Draycott, and I congratulate you upon the happy turn things have taken. Good-morning. I shall hurry off to catch an early train.”“Congratulate me upon the happy turn things have taken!” groaned the tutor, wiping his moist face. “Poor boy! poor boy! I ought to have seen him again. It was more than the high-spirited lad could bear.”“Yes, sir; that’s it.”“You back, Brigley? Was I thinking aloud?”“Yes, sir; and I heard every word.”“But the police?”“They were off at once, sir. They’re going to hire a big boat and try and find him; but the inspector shook his head. He says he thinks it means being washed away to sea.”That was a sad day at the tutor’s, Richard Frayne’s yellow-pupils going to and fro in the silent house talking of the cousins, and canvassing Richard Frayne’s act from different points of view.The news soon spread, too, in the town; for the setting-off of the police with a couple of stout boatmen and the drags was enough to set the place in a ferment.There were plenty there, too, ready to talk of the position, as everything leaked out by degrees, and formed an exciting topic to add to that of the previous day, during which some hundreds had flocked down to the ruins to see the spot where the two pupils had fought and one had been killed—so it was firmly believed. Now the journeys were in the other direction—down the flooded river—but here the remains of the bridge and the spot where the mill had stood were the only things which rewarded their enterprise; for the police-boat had been swept down for miles, and it was not till dark that the men returned by rail to report that they could do nothing in the fierce, rushing waters till the flood was at an end.That evening, to Jerry’s great disgust, a crowd of idlers gathered on the opposite side of the road to stare at the tutor’s house, where the blinds were drawn down, as if they secured great satisfaction in gaping and whispering one to the other.“Oh!” he muttered, “if I could only have my way!”Mr Shrubsole, the second doctor, undertook to stay at the house that night, in case of any relapse on the part of Mark, and to the tutor’s great satisfaction, for he had fallen into a nervous state, wandering about the place and giving the pupils a fresh theme of conversation to occupy the dreary, slow-dragging time.Jerry caught the inspector as he came out of Mr Draycott’s study, and signalled him into the pantry.“Then you did nothing?” he said.“Yes, we did,” said the inspector, grimly; “we saved our lives, which was about all we could do. I only went for the name of the thing, Mr Brigley—thankye, I’ll say port. Of course, I went—ah! very nice full glass or wine. People’s so ready to say, ‘Where are the police?’ that, if we hadn’t gone, they’d ha’ been ready to think the poor young gent was hanging on by the branch of a tree and we wouldn’t go and save him. But I put it to you—well, thankye, Mr Brigley, I won’t say no; didn’t know you kept such a port as that.”“It won’t be long before the water goes down?”“No. Not it. Goes down, you know, as quickly as it goes up; but don’t you expect too much, sir.”“You think you won’t find him?”“Yes; that’s it,” said the inspector. “Why, look at the way the water was rushing along! Of course, he may be picked up right away down where the tide rises—Limesmouth or Dunkney—or about there; but I say it’s very doubtful.”“Ah!” sighed Jerry.“Poor young chap! The times I’ve stopped outside listening to him on the flute, or blowing that cornet, or scraping away at the fiddle. Wonderful power of music in those fingers of his and lips.”“And now all still, and stiff, and cold!” groaned Jerry.“Hold up, man—hold up!” said the inspector, kindly. “Life is short, you know; but we never expected this—did we?”Jerry shook his head.“And so the other young gent’s getting better, is he?”Jerry nodded.“Yes, the doctor told me. I thought we’d got a big interesting case on there. Sensible?”Jerry shook his head.“Ah! That’s what the doctor said, and that he might not be really sensible for weeks. Narrow squeak for him, eh?”“Yes.”“Fancy! That poor young chap nearly killing him!”“And serve him right!” shouted out Jerry, angrily. “Mr Frayne must have made him so mad he couldn’t bear himself, and he hit out hard. It was only an accident, after all.”“But we should have been in it, Mr Brigley, even if he got off; and there would have been the inquest, too. Things have been a bit quiet here lately.”“Well, you’ll have your inquest, after all,” said Jerry, bitterly.“Humph! Not so sure, sir. But it’s a very, very sad business, Mr Brigley, and I must be going now. Thank you. Quite refreshing, sir! Good-night; and wish you well out of the trouble.”“Wish us well out of the trouble!” growled Jerry, bitterly. “As if there ever would be any way out of it. On’y to think—him upstairs getting better, and his people telegraphing to say they’ll come over at once, and his cousin lying there out in the cold river, who knows how deep? It only wanted this to make me wish—”Jerry did not finish his sentence, but took a letter out of his pocket, read it through, and uttered a derisive laugh.“Yes; it only wanted this to help make me happy. Well, it wasn’t so very much, but it’s gone; and serve me right for being such a fool!”Just then a bell rang, and he went to answer it.“The doctor says we need not sit up, Brigley,” said his master, sadly. “You are tired. I shall want you no more to-night. The nurse will get anything the doctor requires.”“Beg pardon, sir,” said Jerry. “Mr Frayne, sir?—now?”“Sleeping, I believe, Brigley. Good-night!”“No; a bad night!” said Jerry. “Poor S’Richard! I’d give anything to see him again!”
As if heartily ashamed of his weakness, Jerry suddenly straightened himself up, and turned angrily upon the miller.
“Don’t you never go and say you saw me making such a fool of myself!” he cried.
The man shook his head.
“Think it’s any good to go up to the town for a boat?”
“If you want to drown yourself,” was the reply. “I wouldn’t trust myself in no boat till the water goes down. I shouldn’t mind the rowing down; but you’d never know where you’d got to, and be capsized on a willow stump, or against some hedge, before you had gone a mile.”
“But we might find him,” said Jerry, looking piteous once more.
“Ay, you might find him, my lad. There’s no knowing.”
“But you think we should not?”
“Sure of it!”
Jerry turned away without a word, leaving the miller staring blankly at the spot where the old place had stood, and hurried back toward the town.
“Past seven!” he muttered, “and all those boots and shoes waiting. Breakfast’ll have to be late.”
It sounded strange, but it was quite natural for him to mix up his daily work with this business; and upon reaching the house, as if feeling satisfied that there was no more to be done, he hurried about over his valeting, beginning with Mr Draycott, but found that he was not in his room.
The tutor came, though, five minutes later, and, meeting his man, exclaimed with animation:
“Better news, Brigley.”
“No, sir,” said Jerry, shaking his head. “Worse—much worse!”
“How dare you, sir?” cried the tutor, irritable from a sleepless night. “I tell you the news is better, and we have hopes.”
“And I tell you, sir, that the news is worse.”
Mr Draycott stared at his man, and began to frown. Strange suspicions attacked him as he saw that Jerry looked rough and unkempt. His hair was not brushed; he had evidently not washed that morning, and his Oxford mixture coat was marked by flour.
“By the way, sir,” said the tutor, angrily, “where have you been? I rang twice, to send you to the doctor’s, but the bell was not answered. Were you not up?”
“Not up, sir? Oh, yes; I was up and out long enough ago!”
“Out?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jerry, speaking very sturdily and solemnly; and he related all that he had seen, with the result that the tutor sank into the nearest chair, looking ghastly, and with his lips moving, but not uttering a sound.
Jerry stood looking down at him sadly, and at the end of a few minutes he filled a glass from a waterbottle and handed the water to his master, who swallowed it hurriedly.
“This is too dreadful,” said the latter, huskily; “too dreadful! But are you sure, my man—are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, sure enough!” replied Jerry, with a hoarse sob. “The miller saw him just before.”
“A terrible business—a terrible business! I thought we were beginning to see daylight again; but—poor weak rash boy!—this is ten times worse!”
“Yes, sir—a hundred times!” said Jerry, with a groan; and master and man gazed in each other’s eyes for some time in silence, till Mr Draycott gave a start.
“I am so stunned and helpless with this trouble upon trouble,” he cried huskily, “that I can hardly think—I can hardly believe it true. Tell me what you have done. You gave notice to the police, of course?”
“The police, sir?” said Jerry, with a vacant look. “No; I never thought of that!”
“And you have not given the alarm—sent people down the river in boats?”
Jerry shook his head in a weary, helpless way.
“Quick, then; do something, man!” cried Mr Draycott, wildly. “Run to the station and tell the inspector; they will take steps at once.”
“I—I thought you would want to hush it up, sir.”
“Hush it up, man!” cried the tutor, angrily. “You are crazy!”
“Yes, sir, pretty nigh,” said Jerry, pitifully. “My head feels as if it won’t go; and I don’t know what I’m saying half my time.”
“I beg your pardon, Brigley,” cried the tutor. “I spoke too hastily. I quite understand your feelings; but steps must be taken instantly. The truth must be known—the cruel truth!” he added, with a groan. “Yes; what is it?”
There was a tap at the chamber door, and Jerry went to open it.
“Please tell master that the London doctor has come in from the hotel and wants to see him directly.”
“Ah, yes,” said the tutor, who had heard every word; “I thought he would come early. Go on to the station, Brigley; tell them poor Sir Richard must be found. I’ll go down to see the doctor.”
Each departed upon his mission, and half an hour after the London surgeon took his departure, confirming his colleague’s opinion that a great change for the better had taken place in Mark Frayne.
“Youth, my dear sir—youth! He has rallied wonderfully, and I feel that we may hope.”
“But you will stop for the day?” said Mr Draycott, anxiously.
“There is not the slightest need, my dear sir. My colleague yonder will, unless something very unforeseen happens, pull him through.”
“But if anything unforeseen does happen?” said Mr Draycott, nervously.
“Then telegraph to me, and I will come down at once. But I don’t think you need fear, Mr Draycott, and I congratulate you upon the happy turn things have taken. Good-morning. I shall hurry off to catch an early train.”
“Congratulate me upon the happy turn things have taken!” groaned the tutor, wiping his moist face. “Poor boy! poor boy! I ought to have seen him again. It was more than the high-spirited lad could bear.”
“Yes, sir; that’s it.”
“You back, Brigley? Was I thinking aloud?”
“Yes, sir; and I heard every word.”
“But the police?”
“They were off at once, sir. They’re going to hire a big boat and try and find him; but the inspector shook his head. He says he thinks it means being washed away to sea.”
That was a sad day at the tutor’s, Richard Frayne’s yellow-pupils going to and fro in the silent house talking of the cousins, and canvassing Richard Frayne’s act from different points of view.
The news soon spread, too, in the town; for the setting-off of the police with a couple of stout boatmen and the drags was enough to set the place in a ferment.
There were plenty there, too, ready to talk of the position, as everything leaked out by degrees, and formed an exciting topic to add to that of the previous day, during which some hundreds had flocked down to the ruins to see the spot where the two pupils had fought and one had been killed—so it was firmly believed. Now the journeys were in the other direction—down the flooded river—but here the remains of the bridge and the spot where the mill had stood were the only things which rewarded their enterprise; for the police-boat had been swept down for miles, and it was not till dark that the men returned by rail to report that they could do nothing in the fierce, rushing waters till the flood was at an end.
That evening, to Jerry’s great disgust, a crowd of idlers gathered on the opposite side of the road to stare at the tutor’s house, where the blinds were drawn down, as if they secured great satisfaction in gaping and whispering one to the other.
“Oh!” he muttered, “if I could only have my way!”
Mr Shrubsole, the second doctor, undertook to stay at the house that night, in case of any relapse on the part of Mark, and to the tutor’s great satisfaction, for he had fallen into a nervous state, wandering about the place and giving the pupils a fresh theme of conversation to occupy the dreary, slow-dragging time.
Jerry caught the inspector as he came out of Mr Draycott’s study, and signalled him into the pantry.
“Then you did nothing?” he said.
“Yes, we did,” said the inspector, grimly; “we saved our lives, which was about all we could do. I only went for the name of the thing, Mr Brigley—thankye, I’ll say port. Of course, I went—ah! very nice full glass or wine. People’s so ready to say, ‘Where are the police?’ that, if we hadn’t gone, they’d ha’ been ready to think the poor young gent was hanging on by the branch of a tree and we wouldn’t go and save him. But I put it to you—well, thankye, Mr Brigley, I won’t say no; didn’t know you kept such a port as that.”
“It won’t be long before the water goes down?”
“No. Not it. Goes down, you know, as quickly as it goes up; but don’t you expect too much, sir.”
“You think you won’t find him?”
“Yes; that’s it,” said the inspector. “Why, look at the way the water was rushing along! Of course, he may be picked up right away down where the tide rises—Limesmouth or Dunkney—or about there; but I say it’s very doubtful.”
“Ah!” sighed Jerry.
“Poor young chap! The times I’ve stopped outside listening to him on the flute, or blowing that cornet, or scraping away at the fiddle. Wonderful power of music in those fingers of his and lips.”
“And now all still, and stiff, and cold!” groaned Jerry.
“Hold up, man—hold up!” said the inspector, kindly. “Life is short, you know; but we never expected this—did we?”
Jerry shook his head.
“And so the other young gent’s getting better, is he?”
Jerry nodded.
“Yes, the doctor told me. I thought we’d got a big interesting case on there. Sensible?”
Jerry shook his head.
“Ah! That’s what the doctor said, and that he might not be really sensible for weeks. Narrow squeak for him, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Fancy! That poor young chap nearly killing him!”
“And serve him right!” shouted out Jerry, angrily. “Mr Frayne must have made him so mad he couldn’t bear himself, and he hit out hard. It was only an accident, after all.”
“But we should have been in it, Mr Brigley, even if he got off; and there would have been the inquest, too. Things have been a bit quiet here lately.”
“Well, you’ll have your inquest, after all,” said Jerry, bitterly.
“Humph! Not so sure, sir. But it’s a very, very sad business, Mr Brigley, and I must be going now. Thank you. Quite refreshing, sir! Good-night; and wish you well out of the trouble.”
“Wish us well out of the trouble!” growled Jerry, bitterly. “As if there ever would be any way out of it. On’y to think—him upstairs getting better, and his people telegraphing to say they’ll come over at once, and his cousin lying there out in the cold river, who knows how deep? It only wanted this to make me wish—”
Jerry did not finish his sentence, but took a letter out of his pocket, read it through, and uttered a derisive laugh.
“Yes; it only wanted this to help make me happy. Well, it wasn’t so very much, but it’s gone; and serve me right for being such a fool!”
Just then a bell rang, and he went to answer it.
“The doctor says we need not sit up, Brigley,” said his master, sadly. “You are tired. I shall want you no more to-night. The nurse will get anything the doctor requires.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Jerry. “Mr Frayne, sir?—now?”
“Sleeping, I believe, Brigley. Good-night!”
“No; a bad night!” said Jerry. “Poor S’Richard! I’d give anything to see him again!”
Chapter Nine.Dead—and Buried.By the next morning the flood was subsiding rapidly, and at night the muddy meadows began to show that the river was sinking back into its bed.All that evening boats were out, and people watched in expectation of that which they felt would soon be found.Twenty-four hours more elapsed, and sheep, caught in hedgerows by the wool, were dragged through the mud and slime.Lower down the river an ox or two were found, while news came of other carcases, miles away, stranded in bends where gravel and mud had half-buried them.But there was a good deal of water still in the river, and a threatening of another rise.At Mr Draycott’s Mark Frayne still lay insensible, but he seemed to sleep calmly enough, and was beginning to take the food given to him, while the doctors both agreed that there was no fear of a relapse; the only trouble was—What would the young man’s mental state be when he recovered from his long stupor?Day after day glided by. Mr and Mrs Frayne reached the house, Mark’s father evidently painfully ill of the complaint which had taken him from his bleak Devonshire vicarage to the warmer climate and change of the South of France and the Riviera.The news had been a very great shock, and the doctor looked at him anxiously as he went to his son’s room, so weak that he had to be assisted by Jerry and the weeping mother.They accepted Mr Draycott’s hospitality and stayed, eager to be near their son, while longing to hear tidings of the discovery of their nephew—tidings that did not come.Jerry stole away more than once to try and make out the exact place where he had seen Richard plunge in, and returned, shaking his head, for it was impossible.Day by day he grew more morose, for fragments of the chatter reached him—petty talk, which blackened the young baronet’s fame; while, worst stab of all, he read in the little local paper, where, in a long article concerning the trouble of “our respected townsman, Mr Draycott,” it was said that the principal in the terrible tragedy had been guilty of that rash act to avoid the punishment likely to befall him consequent upon the assault he had committed and his connection with a monetary scandal.“And if I go and punch the head of him as wrote that, they’ll have me up before the magistrates,” said Jerry; “and they call this a free land!”Three weeks had passed, and Mark Frayne was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness, when, towards evening, the police inspector came to the house to ask to see Mr Draycott.“He’s in, I s’pose, Mr Brigley?” said the official, looking very serious and important.“Oh, yes; he’s in,” said Jerry, excitedly; “but—tell me—have you found him?”“Just got a wire, Mr Brigley, from Chedleigh, fifty mile away, sir!”Jerry caught at one of the hall chairs, and made it scroop on the stone floor.The news was correct enough, and the next day an inquest was held upon the cruelly disfigured body which had been discovered, stripped by the action of the flood, and buried in sand and stones.Jerry was there to give his evidence, along with that of others; and, looking haggard and suffering from mental anxiety, Mr Draycott was there to give his. The medical man who had been called told of his examination, and, as there seemed to be no doubt as to the identity, a verdict was readily returned. Two days later there was a funeral at Richard Frayne’s native place, and the unfortunate lad was laid to his rest—aged eighteen, people read upon his breastplate—just about the same time that Mark Frayne was lying upon his back, gazing at the open window, through which there came the pleasant odour of new-made hay, and wondering why he was there in bed, while a woman in white cap and apron was sitting reading.“I say,” he whispered at last; and the nurse started up, smiling.“Yes?” she said, coming to his bedside.“Who are you?”“The nurse. Don’t speak, please. You have been ill.”“Oh!” said Mark, “have I? Don’t go away!”“Only for a minute, to send word for somebody to come.”She stepped softly out into the corridor, just as the two pupils who had witnessed the encounter were coming upstairs.“Would you mind telling Mrs Frayne that he is quite sensible now?”“What! Mark Frayne?” cried Sinjohn. “Yes; all right.”The two young men turned and went together to deliver the news.“Then he is really getting well,” said Andrews, in a whisper. “Why, Sin, if he does, he’ll be Sir Mark Frayne!”“Not while his father lives,” said the other. “But only think!—poor old Dick buried to-day! I wish we could have gone.”“Yes,” said Andrews, bitterly. “Poor old Dick!”“We shall never hear his flute agin!”
By the next morning the flood was subsiding rapidly, and at night the muddy meadows began to show that the river was sinking back into its bed.
All that evening boats were out, and people watched in expectation of that which they felt would soon be found.
Twenty-four hours more elapsed, and sheep, caught in hedgerows by the wool, were dragged through the mud and slime.
Lower down the river an ox or two were found, while news came of other carcases, miles away, stranded in bends where gravel and mud had half-buried them.
But there was a good deal of water still in the river, and a threatening of another rise.
At Mr Draycott’s Mark Frayne still lay insensible, but he seemed to sleep calmly enough, and was beginning to take the food given to him, while the doctors both agreed that there was no fear of a relapse; the only trouble was—What would the young man’s mental state be when he recovered from his long stupor?
Day after day glided by. Mr and Mrs Frayne reached the house, Mark’s father evidently painfully ill of the complaint which had taken him from his bleak Devonshire vicarage to the warmer climate and change of the South of France and the Riviera.
The news had been a very great shock, and the doctor looked at him anxiously as he went to his son’s room, so weak that he had to be assisted by Jerry and the weeping mother.
They accepted Mr Draycott’s hospitality and stayed, eager to be near their son, while longing to hear tidings of the discovery of their nephew—tidings that did not come.
Jerry stole away more than once to try and make out the exact place where he had seen Richard plunge in, and returned, shaking his head, for it was impossible.
Day by day he grew more morose, for fragments of the chatter reached him—petty talk, which blackened the young baronet’s fame; while, worst stab of all, he read in the little local paper, where, in a long article concerning the trouble of “our respected townsman, Mr Draycott,” it was said that the principal in the terrible tragedy had been guilty of that rash act to avoid the punishment likely to befall him consequent upon the assault he had committed and his connection with a monetary scandal.
“And if I go and punch the head of him as wrote that, they’ll have me up before the magistrates,” said Jerry; “and they call this a free land!”
Three weeks had passed, and Mark Frayne was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness, when, towards evening, the police inspector came to the house to ask to see Mr Draycott.
“He’s in, I s’pose, Mr Brigley?” said the official, looking very serious and important.
“Oh, yes; he’s in,” said Jerry, excitedly; “but—tell me—have you found him?”
“Just got a wire, Mr Brigley, from Chedleigh, fifty mile away, sir!”
Jerry caught at one of the hall chairs, and made it scroop on the stone floor.
The news was correct enough, and the next day an inquest was held upon the cruelly disfigured body which had been discovered, stripped by the action of the flood, and buried in sand and stones.
Jerry was there to give his evidence, along with that of others; and, looking haggard and suffering from mental anxiety, Mr Draycott was there to give his. The medical man who had been called told of his examination, and, as there seemed to be no doubt as to the identity, a verdict was readily returned. Two days later there was a funeral at Richard Frayne’s native place, and the unfortunate lad was laid to his rest—aged eighteen, people read upon his breastplate—just about the same time that Mark Frayne was lying upon his back, gazing at the open window, through which there came the pleasant odour of new-made hay, and wondering why he was there in bed, while a woman in white cap and apron was sitting reading.
“I say,” he whispered at last; and the nurse started up, smiling.
“Yes?” she said, coming to his bedside.
“Who are you?”
“The nurse. Don’t speak, please. You have been ill.”
“Oh!” said Mark, “have I? Don’t go away!”
“Only for a minute, to send word for somebody to come.”
She stepped softly out into the corridor, just as the two pupils who had witnessed the encounter were coming upstairs.
“Would you mind telling Mrs Frayne that he is quite sensible now?”
“What! Mark Frayne?” cried Sinjohn. “Yes; all right.”
The two young men turned and went together to deliver the news.
“Then he is really getting well,” said Andrews, in a whisper. “Why, Sin, if he does, he’ll be Sir Mark Frayne!”
“Not while his father lives,” said the other. “But only think!—poor old Dick buried to-day! I wish we could have gone.”
“Yes,” said Andrews, bitterly. “Poor old Dick!”
“We shall never hear his flute agin!”
Chapter Ten.Into the Swift Waters.“Oh! I wouldn’t have done that!”Of course you would not. No sane lad would ever be led away by his imagination to be guilty of any folly whatever. No one with a well-balanced brain would, for a moment, ever dream of being guilty of an act that would cause him repentance for years. In other words, we are all of us so thoroughly perfect that we go straight on through life, laughing at temptations, triumphing over our weakness, and so manly and confident in our own strength of mind that we continue our life’s journey, never slipping, never stumbling, but bounding along to its highest point, where we pitch our caps in the air, flap our arms for want of wings, stretch out our throats, open our beaks, and cry “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” which, being translated from the gallinaceous tongue into plain English, means—“Look at me! Here I am! Did you ever see such a fine fellow in your life? I don’t believe there was ever my equal born into the world!”There was a comic philosopher born in the West, and his name was Artemus Ward; and every now and then, after a verbal flourish of this kind, he used to conclude by saying—“This is wrote sarcastic.”So are these remarks concerning Richard Frayne’s act, when, agonised by the horror of his position, and rankling mentally at being believed contemptible enough to have obtained the money, monkey-fashion, by using his cousin as catspaw, he had gradually become so out of balance that he was ready for any reckless act.A few words from the proper quarter would have set him right; a kindly bit or two of sympathy from his fellow-students would have helped him; but everyone but the servant held rigidly aloof, and when the dark, blank night-time came, and the long hours of agony culminated in a feeling of utter, hopeless despair, he sat alone there in his room, ready to dash at anything which would, even if temporarily, relieve him from the terrible strain.At last he forced himself into thinking as calmly as he could, setting himself to consider all that he had to face.Mark was dying fast. The doctors had said it, and in a few hours he would stand in the eyes of the world as, if not his murderer, the cause of his death. Next there must be that terrible public examination and the verdict—manslaughter; it could be no other, he told himself. Then there would be a magisterial examination, ending in his being committed for trial. After this, a long, weary waiting—possibly on bail—and then the trial.He arranged all of it in his own mind, perfectly satisfied that his view was too correct, and never once stopping to think that people would calmly investigate every circumstance of the trouble, and, while making every allowance, sift out the pearl truth from the sand and bitter ashes in which it was hidden. In his then frame of mind, he could only think the very worst of everything; for always before him was that terrible scene in which he was bound to take part. He felt that he could nerve himself to stand before coroner, magistrate, even judge, if matters went so far; but he could not face the sweet-faced, sorrowing mother and the weak invalid father, who must be now hastening back to their dying son as fast as trains could bear them.Condemn, pity, ridicule, which you will; but the fact remains. A kind of panic had attacked Richard Frayne, and he prepared for the folly he was about to commit. There were the two courses open—a frank, manly meeting of the consequences, whatever they might be, or the act of a coward.The hours passed, and his mind was fully made up. And now everything he did was in a quiet, decisive fashion, with as much method in his madness as ever the great poet endowed his Danish hero.He changed his clothes, putting on the quiet dark tweed suit Jerry missed, and went back into his room, to stand there in the gloom, looking round and vainly trying to make out the various objects there, every one being loved like some old friend.But he could not look the farewell, and began slowly to go round the room, laying his hand upon each in turn—his favourite books and pictures, his piano, the violin, the cornet, and the big ’cello in its case where it stood in the corner—all such dear old friends, and it was good-bye for ever!And as he went on, his hand at last touched the little, long morocco case lying upon the side-table.He clutched it hard, and something like a sob struggled to his lips; for that case contained, in company with the little piccolo, the flute that was once the property of the brave old soldier whose helmet hung dented there with its drooping black horse-hair plume.Richard’s thoughts went back into the past, and he recalled the evenings when he as a little child was enraptured listening to some operatic selection brilliantly played, while his mother sat accompanying upon the piano. Then he recollected the first lessons given him by his father upon that very flute, and years after the plaudits he listened to with burning cheeks after he had played one of his father’s favourite pieces with such skill and execution that these words followed:“Keep the flute, Dick, my boy, for my sake; it is yours.”And now he was bidding it farewell for ever—there in the darkness of that lonely night, whose silence was broken from time to time by the chiming and booming of the great Cathedral clock, which once more, to his disordered imagination, seemed associated with a solemn procession to the tomb.Richard Frayne’s breast swelled and his hands trembled as his fingers clung round that little morocco case. Then, as a weak sob once more struggled for utterance, his breast swelled suddenly more and more, till there was a long, hard lump down the left side beneath the closely-buttoned jacket.For, quick as lightning, the little case had been transferred to his breast-pocket. It was his father’s. He could not part from that.The rest of the favourite objects lying around were quickly touched; and then, there, in the middle of the room, the lad stood, feeling old and careworn, opposite two relics which he felt would be honourably removed from where they hung and sent away.He could not see them—and yet he could, inwardly, in his mind’s eye—the gilded metal helmet and the sabre.Then, as if performing some solemn act, the lad took a couple of steps towards the wall, gently and reverently lifted down the helmet, pressed his lips to the front, and put it back, to take down the sword and hold the blade and scabbard to his breast as he kissed the hilt.Saddened visions came trooping before his closed eyes in that darkness—of himself: a man, a soldier, as his father had been, an officer leading men against the enemies of his country; and at that, in his despair, he uttered a low, piteous sigh, and hung the sword in its place.He drew back then, uttering a sound like a moan, and opened his eyes with a start; for a pale, bluish light was slowly filling the room—a light that seemed ghastly to him and unreal.But it was the dawn of another day, the most eventful of his life, and he knew it was time to act.There was one more thing to be done, and his action in this was accompanied by a shudder.But he was quite firm and determined now, for his mind was fully made up. He had that to do first, and he would do it.He was already at the door, hat in hand, when he recalled another little thing, and, turning quickly back to the table, he sat down and wrote the few lines to Jerry, folded them, and laid them near the loaf, from which earlier in the night he had broken off a few fragments to allay the gnawing hunger he had felt.Now that was all, and, turning to the door once more, he paused for a final look round at the shadowy room, where the only thing which stood out clearly was the helmet, and this, seen in profile, seemed to assume a stern and threatening aspect.The next minute he was outside in the dark passage, listening; and then, as all was still, he walked, firmly and quietly, to the other end of the mansion, to stop by his cousin’s door.Here the chill of death seemed to strike upon him. No light stole through crack or keyhole—all was darkness and silence—and he sank upon his knees, to remain motionless for a few minutes, and then rise firmer of purpose than ever.It was later than he thought, for his various preparations had taken time; and the soft glow of morning lit up the east staircase window as he slowly raised it, stepped out on to the leads, closed it again, and then, climbing over the balcony rails, lowered himself down till he could hang for a moment or two from the bottom of one of the iron bars, swing himself to and fro by his wrists, and then, with a backward spring, drop lightly on to the turf beneath.In another minute—unseen, unheard—he had passed out of the gate and was walking through the town, making for the lower road and the swollen river.Here he rapidly awoke to the fact that the waters were out far more widely than he had ever seen them before; and again and again, as he made for the path that ran along by the river toward the bridge, he was driven back, the flood turning the different lanes he tried into huge ditches or canals.He tried every turning so as to reach the bridge as soon as possible, but it was always the same; and finally, after consuming a good deal of time, he made his way round by the road, following it on till it bore away to his right, crossing the river by the old two-spanned wooden bridge and then winding onward among the sunny vales and hills of Kent.As he walked on swiftly, now in the bright sunshine, it was with his head lowered and a curious feeling of guilt troubling him. He told himself that he ought to have left the place sooner, and he shivered at the thought of being seen by someone who, knowing all the circumstances, would catch him by the arm and insist upon his going back.But, at heart, he knew that the words would be in vain. Back he would never go, and, strong and active, he felt that he could easily free himself from the detaining clutch, and then—there was the river.Richard had some recollection of passing or being passed by a man with sheep; but he was coming in the opposite direction, and this did not seem an enemy to fear, as he shouted from beyond the flock, and above the patter of their hoofs, a cheery “Good-morning.”Richard smiled bitterly to himself as he hurried on. Good-morning! If that happy, careless fellow had known!At last, with his heart beating fast, and with the rushing sound of the river ever on the increase, he turned the curve which led to the wooden bridge, and, with his eyes fixed upon the dusty road, increased his pace, till he was suddenly brought up short, just as he was about to step down into the foaming, roaring flood.Richard Frayne stood there aghast, staring at the gulf before him, and then at the ragged piles on the other side, from which the hard light-coloured road ran on and on between hedges, rising higher and higher above unflooded meadows—the road leading to safety and rest, away from the terrible troubles which had driven him to this wildly reckless act.For Jerry Brigley was as wrong as he was right—right in his surmise that Richard would seek the bridge, which crossed the river at its deepest part, but wrong in imagining that it was for so horrible a deed.No: it was the way to safety—to places where he was unknown. There was an idea fixed in his mind, and it was to carry out this idea that he had sought the bridge—to find it gone, and escape in that direction gone as well!Still, he could swim vigorously as a young seal; but he shrank from so desperate a venture, for the swirling flood told him too plainly that it would be extremely doubtful whether the strongest swimmer who ventured there would ever reach the other side. If he did, it would be miles below. And as he looked, it was to see the carcase of a horse, a great willow-tree (torn out by the roots), and a broken gate float by.What should he do?There was a ferry two miles beyond the mill, but he felt that no boat would take him across.There was the old stone bridge, too, at Raynes Corner, six miles down the road. Well, he must cross there, for it was not likely that the sturdy piers could have suffered even from such a flood as this.That would do. He would get over the river there; but he must avoid the road, where he might meet the police or people going into the town, who knew him by sight as one of Mr Draycott’s pupils.Fortunately he knew the country well, and he could go along the high bank below the bridge as far as the mill, get into the field path at the back, and pass through the woods, and on and on as near the river as he could wherever the waters were not out.Climbing over the rails by the side of the raised road, he dropped down and hurried down to the mill, to find to his dismay that beyond it the fields were covered and that a great deal of the woodland was under water, too. As for the path at the side of the mill, it was only dry for some twenty yards, and then ended in a dark-looking lake.It was impossible to go by there, and he turned back toward the bridge, glancing up at the back of the mill as he reached it to see if he was observed.But not a soul was stirring, for the simple reason that it had been closed just before; and he sighed as he thought of the pleasant days he had spent there, seated upon the weir, gazing down at the bar-sided perch playing about and shrimp-seeking in the weeds of the piles, and at the great fat barbel wallowing in the gravelly holes where the stream ran swiftest.Happy days gone for ever, he thought, as he stepped out once more on the bank path, towards whose surface the tide was rapidly climbing up. He was making for the bridge once more, when his ears were thrilled by a faint, hoarse cry; and, as he looked in its direction, it was to see a white face, level with the muddy water, gliding rapidly down behind the saturated fleecy coat of a drowned sheep, which was evidently keeping the unfortunate up.It was a boy, by the smooth face—probably a shepherd lad, swept in while endeavouring to preserve his charge—only Richard did not think of that. His own troubles were forgotten, his best instincts aroused, in the desire to save the drowning lad.He saw at a glance how short a distance the helpless boy was from the bank, and that an eddy was setting him in so near that, if he went close down to the rushing water, he might be able to reach out and seize the fleece of the sheep as they passed.In a few seconds Richard was down, knee-deep in water, holding on with his left hand to the reedy growth of the bank and reaching out to snatch at the sheep.Vain attempt.The dead animal did not come within five yards, but, after curving in, literally shot out again towards the middle of the river and was borne down, the boy uttering a despairing wail as he saw his help fade away.At the same moment Richard Frayne felt the mud giving beneath his feet, and he had hard work to struggle out on to firm land. And then there was another despairing cry for help, so faint and yet so penetrating to the cowardly fugitive’s heart that he turned, forgot everything but the fact that a brother was dying before his eyes, and took one brave plunge into the swollen river, to pass under into the thunderous darkness, feeling as if he had suddenly been grasped by a giant who was bearing him down.
“Oh! I wouldn’t have done that!”
Of course you would not. No sane lad would ever be led away by his imagination to be guilty of any folly whatever. No one with a well-balanced brain would, for a moment, ever dream of being guilty of an act that would cause him repentance for years. In other words, we are all of us so thoroughly perfect that we go straight on through life, laughing at temptations, triumphing over our weakness, and so manly and confident in our own strength of mind that we continue our life’s journey, never slipping, never stumbling, but bounding along to its highest point, where we pitch our caps in the air, flap our arms for want of wings, stretch out our throats, open our beaks, and cry “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” which, being translated from the gallinaceous tongue into plain English, means—“Look at me! Here I am! Did you ever see such a fine fellow in your life? I don’t believe there was ever my equal born into the world!”
There was a comic philosopher born in the West, and his name was Artemus Ward; and every now and then, after a verbal flourish of this kind, he used to conclude by saying—
“This is wrote sarcastic.”
So are these remarks concerning Richard Frayne’s act, when, agonised by the horror of his position, and rankling mentally at being believed contemptible enough to have obtained the money, monkey-fashion, by using his cousin as catspaw, he had gradually become so out of balance that he was ready for any reckless act.
A few words from the proper quarter would have set him right; a kindly bit or two of sympathy from his fellow-students would have helped him; but everyone but the servant held rigidly aloof, and when the dark, blank night-time came, and the long hours of agony culminated in a feeling of utter, hopeless despair, he sat alone there in his room, ready to dash at anything which would, even if temporarily, relieve him from the terrible strain.
At last he forced himself into thinking as calmly as he could, setting himself to consider all that he had to face.
Mark was dying fast. The doctors had said it, and in a few hours he would stand in the eyes of the world as, if not his murderer, the cause of his death. Next there must be that terrible public examination and the verdict—manslaughter; it could be no other, he told himself. Then there would be a magisterial examination, ending in his being committed for trial. After this, a long, weary waiting—possibly on bail—and then the trial.
He arranged all of it in his own mind, perfectly satisfied that his view was too correct, and never once stopping to think that people would calmly investigate every circumstance of the trouble, and, while making every allowance, sift out the pearl truth from the sand and bitter ashes in which it was hidden. In his then frame of mind, he could only think the very worst of everything; for always before him was that terrible scene in which he was bound to take part. He felt that he could nerve himself to stand before coroner, magistrate, even judge, if matters went so far; but he could not face the sweet-faced, sorrowing mother and the weak invalid father, who must be now hastening back to their dying son as fast as trains could bear them.
Condemn, pity, ridicule, which you will; but the fact remains. A kind of panic had attacked Richard Frayne, and he prepared for the folly he was about to commit. There were the two courses open—a frank, manly meeting of the consequences, whatever they might be, or the act of a coward.
The hours passed, and his mind was fully made up. And now everything he did was in a quiet, decisive fashion, with as much method in his madness as ever the great poet endowed his Danish hero.
He changed his clothes, putting on the quiet dark tweed suit Jerry missed, and went back into his room, to stand there in the gloom, looking round and vainly trying to make out the various objects there, every one being loved like some old friend.
But he could not look the farewell, and began slowly to go round the room, laying his hand upon each in turn—his favourite books and pictures, his piano, the violin, the cornet, and the big ’cello in its case where it stood in the corner—all such dear old friends, and it was good-bye for ever!
And as he went on, his hand at last touched the little, long morocco case lying upon the side-table.
He clutched it hard, and something like a sob struggled to his lips; for that case contained, in company with the little piccolo, the flute that was once the property of the brave old soldier whose helmet hung dented there with its drooping black horse-hair plume.
Richard’s thoughts went back into the past, and he recalled the evenings when he as a little child was enraptured listening to some operatic selection brilliantly played, while his mother sat accompanying upon the piano. Then he recollected the first lessons given him by his father upon that very flute, and years after the plaudits he listened to with burning cheeks after he had played one of his father’s favourite pieces with such skill and execution that these words followed:
“Keep the flute, Dick, my boy, for my sake; it is yours.”
And now he was bidding it farewell for ever—there in the darkness of that lonely night, whose silence was broken from time to time by the chiming and booming of the great Cathedral clock, which once more, to his disordered imagination, seemed associated with a solemn procession to the tomb.
Richard Frayne’s breast swelled and his hands trembled as his fingers clung round that little morocco case. Then, as a weak sob once more struggled for utterance, his breast swelled suddenly more and more, till there was a long, hard lump down the left side beneath the closely-buttoned jacket.
For, quick as lightning, the little case had been transferred to his breast-pocket. It was his father’s. He could not part from that.
The rest of the favourite objects lying around were quickly touched; and then, there, in the middle of the room, the lad stood, feeling old and careworn, opposite two relics which he felt would be honourably removed from where they hung and sent away.
He could not see them—and yet he could, inwardly, in his mind’s eye—the gilded metal helmet and the sabre.
Then, as if performing some solemn act, the lad took a couple of steps towards the wall, gently and reverently lifted down the helmet, pressed his lips to the front, and put it back, to take down the sword and hold the blade and scabbard to his breast as he kissed the hilt.
Saddened visions came trooping before his closed eyes in that darkness—of himself: a man, a soldier, as his father had been, an officer leading men against the enemies of his country; and at that, in his despair, he uttered a low, piteous sigh, and hung the sword in its place.
He drew back then, uttering a sound like a moan, and opened his eyes with a start; for a pale, bluish light was slowly filling the room—a light that seemed ghastly to him and unreal.
But it was the dawn of another day, the most eventful of his life, and he knew it was time to act.
There was one more thing to be done, and his action in this was accompanied by a shudder.
But he was quite firm and determined now, for his mind was fully made up. He had that to do first, and he would do it.
He was already at the door, hat in hand, when he recalled another little thing, and, turning quickly back to the table, he sat down and wrote the few lines to Jerry, folded them, and laid them near the loaf, from which earlier in the night he had broken off a few fragments to allay the gnawing hunger he had felt.
Now that was all, and, turning to the door once more, he paused for a final look round at the shadowy room, where the only thing which stood out clearly was the helmet, and this, seen in profile, seemed to assume a stern and threatening aspect.
The next minute he was outside in the dark passage, listening; and then, as all was still, he walked, firmly and quietly, to the other end of the mansion, to stop by his cousin’s door.
Here the chill of death seemed to strike upon him. No light stole through crack or keyhole—all was darkness and silence—and he sank upon his knees, to remain motionless for a few minutes, and then rise firmer of purpose than ever.
It was later than he thought, for his various preparations had taken time; and the soft glow of morning lit up the east staircase window as he slowly raised it, stepped out on to the leads, closed it again, and then, climbing over the balcony rails, lowered himself down till he could hang for a moment or two from the bottom of one of the iron bars, swing himself to and fro by his wrists, and then, with a backward spring, drop lightly on to the turf beneath.
In another minute—unseen, unheard—he had passed out of the gate and was walking through the town, making for the lower road and the swollen river.
Here he rapidly awoke to the fact that the waters were out far more widely than he had ever seen them before; and again and again, as he made for the path that ran along by the river toward the bridge, he was driven back, the flood turning the different lanes he tried into huge ditches or canals.
He tried every turning so as to reach the bridge as soon as possible, but it was always the same; and finally, after consuming a good deal of time, he made his way round by the road, following it on till it bore away to his right, crossing the river by the old two-spanned wooden bridge and then winding onward among the sunny vales and hills of Kent.
As he walked on swiftly, now in the bright sunshine, it was with his head lowered and a curious feeling of guilt troubling him. He told himself that he ought to have left the place sooner, and he shivered at the thought of being seen by someone who, knowing all the circumstances, would catch him by the arm and insist upon his going back.
But, at heart, he knew that the words would be in vain. Back he would never go, and, strong and active, he felt that he could easily free himself from the detaining clutch, and then—there was the river.
Richard had some recollection of passing or being passed by a man with sheep; but he was coming in the opposite direction, and this did not seem an enemy to fear, as he shouted from beyond the flock, and above the patter of their hoofs, a cheery “Good-morning.”
Richard smiled bitterly to himself as he hurried on. Good-morning! If that happy, careless fellow had known!
At last, with his heart beating fast, and with the rushing sound of the river ever on the increase, he turned the curve which led to the wooden bridge, and, with his eyes fixed upon the dusty road, increased his pace, till he was suddenly brought up short, just as he was about to step down into the foaming, roaring flood.
Richard Frayne stood there aghast, staring at the gulf before him, and then at the ragged piles on the other side, from which the hard light-coloured road ran on and on between hedges, rising higher and higher above unflooded meadows—the road leading to safety and rest, away from the terrible troubles which had driven him to this wildly reckless act.
For Jerry Brigley was as wrong as he was right—right in his surmise that Richard would seek the bridge, which crossed the river at its deepest part, but wrong in imagining that it was for so horrible a deed.
No: it was the way to safety—to places where he was unknown. There was an idea fixed in his mind, and it was to carry out this idea that he had sought the bridge—to find it gone, and escape in that direction gone as well!
Still, he could swim vigorously as a young seal; but he shrank from so desperate a venture, for the swirling flood told him too plainly that it would be extremely doubtful whether the strongest swimmer who ventured there would ever reach the other side. If he did, it would be miles below. And as he looked, it was to see the carcase of a horse, a great willow-tree (torn out by the roots), and a broken gate float by.
What should he do?
There was a ferry two miles beyond the mill, but he felt that no boat would take him across.
There was the old stone bridge, too, at Raynes Corner, six miles down the road. Well, he must cross there, for it was not likely that the sturdy piers could have suffered even from such a flood as this.
That would do. He would get over the river there; but he must avoid the road, where he might meet the police or people going into the town, who knew him by sight as one of Mr Draycott’s pupils.
Fortunately he knew the country well, and he could go along the high bank below the bridge as far as the mill, get into the field path at the back, and pass through the woods, and on and on as near the river as he could wherever the waters were not out.
Climbing over the rails by the side of the raised road, he dropped down and hurried down to the mill, to find to his dismay that beyond it the fields were covered and that a great deal of the woodland was under water, too. As for the path at the side of the mill, it was only dry for some twenty yards, and then ended in a dark-looking lake.
It was impossible to go by there, and he turned back toward the bridge, glancing up at the back of the mill as he reached it to see if he was observed.
But not a soul was stirring, for the simple reason that it had been closed just before; and he sighed as he thought of the pleasant days he had spent there, seated upon the weir, gazing down at the bar-sided perch playing about and shrimp-seeking in the weeds of the piles, and at the great fat barbel wallowing in the gravelly holes where the stream ran swiftest.
Happy days gone for ever, he thought, as he stepped out once more on the bank path, towards whose surface the tide was rapidly climbing up. He was making for the bridge once more, when his ears were thrilled by a faint, hoarse cry; and, as he looked in its direction, it was to see a white face, level with the muddy water, gliding rapidly down behind the saturated fleecy coat of a drowned sheep, which was evidently keeping the unfortunate up.
It was a boy, by the smooth face—probably a shepherd lad, swept in while endeavouring to preserve his charge—only Richard did not think of that. His own troubles were forgotten, his best instincts aroused, in the desire to save the drowning lad.
He saw at a glance how short a distance the helpless boy was from the bank, and that an eddy was setting him in so near that, if he went close down to the rushing water, he might be able to reach out and seize the fleece of the sheep as they passed.
In a few seconds Richard was down, knee-deep in water, holding on with his left hand to the reedy growth of the bank and reaching out to snatch at the sheep.
Vain attempt.
The dead animal did not come within five yards, but, after curving in, literally shot out again towards the middle of the river and was borne down, the boy uttering a despairing wail as he saw his help fade away.
At the same moment Richard Frayne felt the mud giving beneath his feet, and he had hard work to struggle out on to firm land. And then there was another despairing cry for help, so faint and yet so penetrating to the cowardly fugitive’s heart that he turned, forgot everything but the fact that a brother was dying before his eyes, and took one brave plunge into the swollen river, to pass under into the thunderous darkness, feeling as if he had suddenly been grasped by a giant who was bearing him down.