Now Mr. Wilkinson, though a very pleasant, gentlemanly man--slightly inclined to be facetious, but never yielding to that vein farther than a subdued--one might almost say, internal--smile, at the odd things, and the absurd things, and the wicked things of this world--was quite in the wrong in taking it into his head that Maria Beauchamp was in love with Captain William Delaware. In truth, she was not; though certainly never were there circumstances more likely to make her become so. She had only got as far at present as being interested in the young sailor's fate in the highest degree; perfectly convinced that he was innocent and injured--thinking him certainly a very handsome youth--and granting that he was, with all his simplicity, one of the most agreeable men she had ever seen. The reader may ask if all this, then, was not love? No, no, no! It was not! There were bricks, and mortar, and trowels, and hods; but it was not the tower of Babel--What I mean is, that there were all the materials for love, but they wanted putting together.
In Lord Ashborough's house, however, with all these prepossessions in William Delaware's favor, she heard nothing coupled with his name but pompous censure, or flat and pointless sneers, and she dared not say a word in his favor. Now this, as it furnished her with a motive for not only thinking of him from morning till night, but furnished her also with a legitimate cause for connecting, in the sweet, unanswering privacy of her own bosom, all those manifold arguments in his favor which she could have put forth in society, had she not been afraid of their being controverted, caused imagination, and zeal, and generous enthusiasm, to labor hard to build up the said bricks and mortar into the firm and regular structure which Mr. Wilkinson, in his over-hasty conclusions, imagined to be already built.
However all that may be, it is certain that few people had been more completely wretched--and she was not a person to be so, without seeming so too--than Maria Beauchamp, since the business at Ryebury had taken place, and she yielded to a degree of gloom and despondency which Lord Ashborough had never before seen her display under any circumstances. As she never mingled in the conversation regarding William Delaware, the earl imagined that anxiety and suspense in regard to the fate of her brother were the causes of her gloom; and--with the very natural consideration which people generally display, who, however much grieved they may feel for a time, love to get over the memory of their dead relations as fast as may be--the noble earl took every means of removing her state of doubt as fast as possible, by assuring her, on all occasions, that unquestionably her brother was dead.
Suddenly a change came over Miss Beauchamp's whole demeanor. Though she admitted that it was very possible her brother might be dead, yet she resumed her usual tone of spirits; and instead of being silent in regard to Captain Delaware, she repelled with contempt the idea of his guilt whenever it was mentioned, declaring that she felt as much confidence in his innocence of the murder as she did in her own. All this surprised Lord Ashborough. The first, indeed, he accounted for pleasantly enough to himself, declaring that Maria's mind had now recovered its elasticity, having been relieved from suspense by the firm conviction which he had taken care to impress upon it that her brother was dead. He lauded at the same time, be it remarked, his own wisdom in the course he had pursued, blaming severely those ill-judging friends who, in such cases, suffer hope to linger on till it wears itself out. He even ventured on a simile, saying, that it was like torturing a drowning man by holding out straws to him.
In regard to Miss Beauchamp's extraordinary perversity in defending the murderer, he declared that he was more puzzled; and one day, after having remonstrated severely, he related the fact to the worthy Mr. Tims. That excellent person, however, only decided that it was a lady's caprice; and with this solution of the enigma his lordship was forced to rest satisfied.
In the meanwhile, Henry Beauchamp did the most uninteresting thing in the whole world--namely, he traveled from Calais to Paris; for, with the exception of Sterne, who carried his own world about with him in his post-chaise--and a strange mixed world of beauty and deformity it was--I know no one who has been able to make any thing of the journey between those two towns, either one way or the other--except, indeed, the Duke of Guise, in 1558, who made Calais a French town of it.
Henry Beauchamp's journey was somewhat Quixotic, certainly; but the whole details of his sally serve lamentably to show how the science of knight-errantry has declined since the occultation of the star of La Mancha. For a squire he had a Bow-street officer, backed by letters missive from the Foreign Secretary, and seated upon the rumble of a dark-green armless chariot, beside a fierce-looking mastiff of a courier, whom Beauchamp had engaged upon somewhat surer grounds than those on which Master Harding had been received into his service. Dapple and Rozinante were converted into four French stallions, of all sorts and sizes; and instead of mistaking inns for castles, one might have concluded that the young Englishman mistook them for prisons, so strenuously did he avoid them by traveling night and day.
As Mr. Wilkinson had stated, an officer had been previously sent to Paris in pursuit of Captain Delaware; and although it had not been judged expedient, notwithstanding the information given by Mr. Beauchamp, to recall him from that search, yet he was directed vigorously to co-operate with the person now sent to arrest Harding and his accomplices. Beauchamp, in his inexperience of such matters, had thought it might be better to follow the culprits by the ports at which they had landed in France, and which had been clearly ascertained from Willy Small, the smuggler, and his eldest son, who had acted as master of the cutter that took them over. The officer shook the wise head, however, and said, "No, no! Let us go to Paris first, sir; for that's a place which is sure to draw all rogues to it, first or last--as a saucer of honey in a shop window catches the flies. We get at all the passports there, too; and, beside, the mayors and folks in the country places wouldn't dare to back us in seizing the men without a government order, and a _John Darm_, as they call them. When we have searched Paris, let us set off for Cherbourg, and meet them in the face."
To this reasoning Beauchamp of course yielded; and although some difficulties occurred on the part of the French government, they were speedily removed--the passport-office was examined--some of the most active agents of the French police were employed--and such information finally obtained as the Bow-street officer thought likely to lead to the discovery of the whole party, either at Cherbourg or at Caen. Thither, then, Beauchamp and his attendants of various kinds, now increased in number to four, turned their steps, making the most minute inquiries at every point which offered the least chance of affording information concerning the culprits. Beauchamp, at the same time, pursued another search, anticipating, with no small eagerness a meeting with Miss Delaware and her father, who, he concluded must journey with slow stages, on account of the baronet's health. Strange, however, to say, that he, and the Bow-street officer, and the French agent of police, were all equally disappointed. Beauchamp found nobody that he sought; and his companions, though they laid hands upon the three personages whose passports and description had excited suspicion, were surprised and mortified to find that they bore not the slightest resemblance to those who had carried Mr. Beauchamp off from Ryebury.
On minute inquiry among the fishermen of the village where the culprits were said to have landed, the house was at length discovered in which they had first lodged; and the _aubergiste_ at once declared, that, understanding the English, language, he had heard them announce their intention of proceeding to Havre, in order to embark on board some American trader.
No time was to be lost under such circumstances, as ships were sailing every day for some transatlantic port or another; and the horses having been again put to the two carriages which now formed the cortege, away went Beauchamp and his train for Havre. From Cherbourg to Havre, running through one-half of the peninsula of Cotentin, is a long, though not uninteresting journey, to one who has nothing else to think of. But Beauchamp was in haste to get on. French postillions are notoriously slow, and Norman postillions notoriously slower. The steamboat was gone when the party arrived at Honfleur; and, in short, every thing that nature and art could do to stop them on their way was done to perfection. At length when they did reach Havre, they found that one vessel had sailed for America the preceding day, full of emigrants of all descriptions, and that two others had departed about four days earlier, each of which, to believe the accounts given of them, must have been a perfect Noah's Ark.
Beauchamp and the officers lost heart, and even the courier, whose trade being to run, could not be supposed to object to _battre la campagne_ in this manner, began to look rueful, under the apprehension that, if no farther clew could be gained, his occupation would soon be gone. After every inn had been inspected, every consul consulted, every shipping-office examined, Beauchamp determined once more to return to Paris, and thither he accordingly came by way of Rouen, followed by the posse, who found it not at all disagreeable to eat, and drink, and sleep at his expense, and be paid for the trouble thereof over and above.
New researches were immediately commenced; and never did fat-faced Gibbon bend his rotund cheeks over the pages of infidelity, ancient or modern, from Arius to Hobbes, with more eagerness to filch or find an objection or a fault in the blessed faith, whose beginning and end is glory to God in the highest, and peace and good will toward men, than did all parties pursue their object of discovering the guilty, in order, principally, it must be confessed, to exculpate the innocent. But the search seemed perfectly in vain; and the only conclusion which to any one could come was, that the murderers had really effected their escape to America. After nibbling at various surmises and reports for some time, the officer who had accompanied Beauchamp declared himself foiled, and took his leave. He who had been sent in quest of Captain Delaware had abandoned the pursuit for some time; and Beauchamp was thus left alone to proceed with such inquiries as he might still have sufficient perseverance to make.
These inquiries, it must be confessed, related principally to Sir Sidney and Miss Delaware, but here as many difficulties awaited him as he had met with in the other search; and he was just on the point of giving up the matter in despair, and returning to London to surprise his mourning friends, when a circumstance occurred, which, without throwing the slightest ray of light upon the course which Blanche and her father had taken, served, at all events, to induce Beauchamp to remain in Paris for several days longer than he had intended.
The hotel in which he lodged, at the corner of the Rue de la Paix, unlike most hotels in Paris, had but one staircase; and Beauchamp, who walked up and down this staircase as seldom as possible, had rarely the misfortune of meeting many people upon it. The last day but one, however, of his intended stay, he encountered a lady walking leisurely up; and, as each moved a little on one side, to suffer the other to pass, by a sort of semi-rotation of each upon the axis, their faces came opposite to one another, and Beauchamp recognized Mrs. Darlington, while she paid him the same compliment.
"Good gracious, Mr. Burrel!" she exclaimed, much more surprised than was at all proper--"or Mr. Beauchamp, am I to call you; for the people tell me, that the Mr. Burrel I had the pleasure of knowing, was known to others under the name of Beauchamp. But under whatever name you choose, I am most happy to see you; for all your good friends in England told me you were dead."
"They have done me too much honor, in every respect, my dear madam," replied Beauchamp. "Those the gods love, you know, die young. But though I must plead guilty to having deceived you, by calling myself names far different from my own, yet believe me, when I assure you, that I had no hand in my own death. That was entirely arranged by my friends and relations--though I doubt not, when I go back to England, the public prosecutor will think fit to arraign me for _felo-de-se_, with as much justice as the coroner's jury returned a verdict of murder against poor William Delaware."
"Ah, that was a terrible business!" replied Mrs. Darlington. A terrible business, indeed, poor young man! and I should like to talk it over with you, Mr. Beauchamp--but I dare say that was your carriage waiting, and I will not keep you now; but if you will return at half-past six, and dine with me and the Abbé de ----, who is as deaf as a pug-dog, I will tell you a curious circumstance which has occurred to me since I came here--not about the Delawares, indeed, poor people, but about something that happened just at the same time.
Now every thing that happened at that time was more or less a matter of interest to Henry Beauchamp; and therefore he willingly agreed to dine and hear, according to invitation. A few minutes after the appointed time, he was in the saloon of Madame Darlington's apartments, where he found that lady, with a worthy ex-émigré Abbé--the very sort of man who could dine with a widow lady of any age without scandal.
Beauchamp fully understood the _beinseance_ of never being curious about any thing, and therefore he listened to all Mrs. Darlington's reasons for being in Paris--how London was of course out of the question in October--how the house she had hired near Emberton had turned out as damp as a fen, and smelled of a wet dog from the garret to the kitchen--how Paris always afforded variety, &c.--without showing the slightest inclination to inquire into the occurrence she had mentioned in the morning. Dinner was announced, and was as _recherche_ in France as if it had been at Emberton; but not a word took place concerning the _occurrence_, Mrs. Darlington spending all the leisure moments in marveling that Mr. Beauchamp and herself could have remained in the same house for four days without discovering their proximity. After dinner, Beauchamp's _beinseance_ began to get tired, and probably would have broken down entirely, had he not fortunately happened to take up a very beautiful eye-glass set with emeralds, in the French fashion, which lay upon the table in the saloon.
"Oh, dear, that puts me in mind, Mr. Beauchamp!" cried Mrs. Darlington. "It is strange enough; I have twice bought that eye-glass in this very town. Once two days, and once eighteen months ago. That is the very thing I wished to tell you about. You remember when you did me the favor of dining with me at Emberton; my house was burned down--."
"Var shocken, indeed!" cried the Abbé, who piqued himself on speaking English. "Terrible shocken great!"
"Well," continued Mrs. Darlington, "that very evening, I left that eye-glass upon the table in the drawing-room; and you remember, I dare say, that I lost all my plate and jewels--indeed, the loss of various things was incalculable--but, however, that glass was among the rest; and as it was a sort of pet, I went into a shop the other day to see if I could find any thing like it. Well, the jeweler finding out I was English--though how he did so, I am sure I do not know, for I believe I speak French tolerably--"
"Oh, var excellent much!" said the Abbé, who was listening with his most acute ear bent subserviently to Mrs. Darlington's story. "As one Frenchwoman."
Mrs. Darlington smiled, nodded, and went on. "Well, the man found out that I was an Englishwoman--by the carriage, I suppose; and would talk nothing but English all the time, though he spoke it badly enough. On my describing what I wanted, he said that he had got the very thing; fresh arrived from England three days before. I told him that what I wanted was French; he declared that I must be mistaken, and produced my own eye-glass, with I. D., Isabella Darlington" ("What pretty name!" cried the Abbé) "on the medallion. I bought it, as you see, and the jeweler assured me that he had purchased it three days before from an English gentleman with black hair and large whiskers."
"Although the description is very exact," answered Beauchamp, smiling, "I can assure you, my dear madam, that I was not the thief--but as it has long struck me that there has been something very mysterious indeed in the whole business of the fire at your house, I should like much to know the name of the jeweler; and if you will favor me with it, will delay my departure for a day or two, in order to make farther inquiries."
Mrs. Darlington thanked Beauchamp warmly for the interest he took in the matter; and the address being given and put down, the young Englishman declared he would go that night and take the first steps toward investigating the business fully. Accordingly taking his leave, he sauntered out into the Place Vendome, and thence into one of the principal streets in the neighborhood of the Tuileries, where, entering the shop of the jeweler, he bought some trifling article, as a fair excuse for indulging in that sort of gossip which he thought most likely to elicit some facts.
The Frenchman was exactly the sort of person with whom one would desire to gossip. He was even more urbane than the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, fond of a little conversation on any subject--love, war, or politics--with those who came to buy his nick-nacks, and had his small fund of wit, of sentiment, and of anecdotism--not more of either than would have lain conveniently in a vinaigrette, yet quite sufficient to give piquancy to his vivacious nothings. Beauchamp soon led him to the subject of Mrs. Darlington's eye-glass; but he quitted it in a moment, declaring that it was a droll occurrence, but nothing to what had happened since.
He always had Galignani's Messenger on his counter, he said, to amuse the English gentlemen who dealt with him; and the other night, as he was sitting alone, a _beau jeune homme_ who had been there once before, came in to offer him some other articles for sale. "While I was examining what the stranger brought," continued the jeweler, "the young Englishman took up the newspaper, and then suddenly laid it down, but after a moment or two, he took it up again; and then I saw that he had just lighted upon the horrible murder, that has been lately committed in your country by a captain in the navy. Well, sir, when I looked in his face, he had turned as pale as a table-cloth, and was so agitated that I should have thought that he was the assassin himself, had he not been too young to be a captain in your navy. He read it out every word, however, though I could clearly see that he was very much disturbed, and I am sure that he was some relation either of the man who was killed, or of the murderer."
"How old was he?" demanded Beauchamp, remembering the extreme youthfulness of Captain Delaware's appearance.
"Oh, he could not be twenty?" answered the jeweler. "He was very fair, too, with fine light hair, tall, and well made too. Do you think it could be the assassin, monsieur?"
"Certainly not!" replied Beauchamp; who, though morally convinced that it was Captain Delaware whom the jeweler had seen, was still more convinced that he had nothing to do with the murder. "The man who committed this crime is quite a different person; I know the gentleman who has been here, as you describe, and I wish much to see him. Have you any idea of his address?"
"None whatever, sir!" replied the jeweler; "but I dare say he will be here again soon; for I bought the bijoux he had to sell, and he said that he had more, and would return."
"Well, it is of no great consequence," replied Beauchamp, assuming as much indifference as possible; "but in case he does come, be so good as to tell him that Mr. Henry Burrel is at the Hotel de ----, Rue de la Paix; and would be very glad to see him. Tell him also that I shall be at home and _alone_ on every evening during the week, from the hour of seven till the hour of ten."
The jeweler promised to deliver the message punctually; and, to guard against all mistakes, Beauchamp put down in writing his assumed name, and the number of his apartments in the hotel. He then--to do full justice to Mrs. Darlington's business--tried to bring the jeweler back to the story of the eye-glass; but it was all in vain. The man was like one of those birds whose correct ornithological name I do not know, but which boys call water-wagtails, and which go hopping from stone to stone, pausing lightly balanced on each for a moment, and then springing on to another, without ever returning to the same. It was in vain Beauchamp tried to elicit any farther information; he skipped on from subject to subject, and nothing farther could be made of him.
Tired of the endeavor, the young Englishman at length rose and returned to his hotel, bidding the man send the trinkets he had bought. He there reported his ill success to Mrs. Darlington; and taking measures to guard against intrusion at the hour he had promised to be alone on the following nights, he waited anxiously for Captain Delaware's coming, with that degree of uncertainty--as to whether the young officer would ever revisit the jeweler, and whether he would come even if he did receive the message--which Beauchamp could not endure with that feeling, or rather assumption, of indifference, with which he sometimes cheated himself.
From seven till ten on the two following nights, he paced his little saloon with a degree of anxiety which he had hardly ever felt before. Every step upon the stairs caught his ear--every voice in the ante-room, where he had placed his own servant on guard, made him pause and listen; but it was all in vain; and on both nights he heard ten, and even eleven, strike before he abandoned the consolatory reflection that clocks might differ, and that the object of his expectation might still appear.
As he now felt certain, however, that William Delaware was in the same city with himself, he resolved to wait on in Paris; and, if the message he had left proved vain, to endeavor once more to discover his dwelling by other means.
Henry Beauchamp was, beyond all doubt, by nature an impatient man; but, for the first five-and twenty years of his life, his impatience had found so little in his state or situation whereon to work, that it had gone lame for want of exercise. Nature--notwithstanding Locke--had given him a store of noble feelings, and education had added thereto a store of good principles; and, with all this to guard him against evil desires, he had found little in the world to wish for that his fortune or influence had not enabled him to obtain with ease: thus he was only now beginning to find matters whereon to exercise the virtue of patience.
On the third day after his visit to the jeweler's, he began to find that his stock was nearly exhausted, and likewise to contemplate paying another visit to the shop where he had first obtained this clew, as he hoped it would prove, for discovering the residence of William Delaware. Indeed, he would have pursued that course at once, had he not feared that his anxiety on the subject might excite suspicion, and cause some annoyance to the object of his search. This reflection, though it did not keep him from going near the jeweler's house more than once in the course of the day, did prevent him from venturing into it.
His equanimity, however, was gone; and, whether it arose from his late attack of fever, or from the air of Paris in the first days of November, or from disappointment and vexation, I can not tell; but certain it is, he viewed every thing on the darkest side, and began to revolve the prospect of losing Blanche Delaware forever, just at the moment that he had found new hopes of having her heart in his favor.
The consolatory process of dining did nothing for him; and, as seven o'clock chimed on the third day, the whole array of dinner was removed, the courier stationed as before in the ante-room, with strict orders given to admit no one but the person described; and, as soon as he was admitted, to retire, and leave his master, and the stranger alone. Eight o'clock came, Beauchamp ordered coffee, and took a book; but, though he gazed with an involuntary smile upon the grotesque drawings stitched into the _Roi de Boheme_, no word could he read of the letter-press. He tried the eloquent nonsense of Chateaubriand, but it was as unpalatable as the satirical nonsense of Nodier; and, casting away the books, he gave the matter up in despair, abandoning himself to the contemplation of the pictures in the wood fire.
At length the door of the ante-room was heard to open, and the voice of some one speaking to the courier reached Beauchamp's ear; but the door shut again, the intruder descended the stairs, and all was silent once more. The moment after, however, the same sounds were repeated; the door of the saloon also was thrown wide by the servant, who uttered, at the same time, the pleasant words of, "Here is the gentleman you expected, sir!"
Beauchamp started up as the visitor entered; but what was his surprise to see--not the features of Captain Delaware, but those of Walter Harrison, or Sailor Wat, as he had been called at Emberton, and who was certainly too nearly connected with one part at least of his long and hitherto unsuccessful search to be beheld without emotion. Beauchamp and the young sailor gazed at each other for a moment without speaking; and even the courier--doubtful, from the astonishment evident in his master's countenance, whether he had admitted the right person--stood at the door for a moment, and stared at them both in turn.
He soon received a sign, however, to depart; and, closing the door, he left Beauchamp and the sailor alone.
"This is a strange visit, certainly!" said Beauchamp, flinging himself into a chair, and gazing in some perplexity upon the countenance of Wat Harrison, which was pale, worn, and haggard, in a frightful degree. "This is a strange visit enough, certainly!"
"You have sought me, Mr. Burrel," said the young sailor, in a tone of calm determination; "and now you seem surprised to see me! What is the meaning of this?"
"I have certainly sought you, sir," said Beauchamp, not yet having caught the right end of the clew; "but, most assuredly, I little thought you would present yourself uncompelled--are you aware that this visit is dangerous to you?"
"Not a whit!" said Wat Harrison, boldly; "and I do not care a d--n if it were; but I say, not a whit! You are not a man, sir, to ask me here in order to betray me. I knew that well enough before I came."
Beauchamp now, for the first time, perceived the mistake. The young sailor, well dressed, and offering the external appearance of a gentleman, had gained that appellation from the jeweler, the mind of whose hearer, already filled with idea of Captain Delaware, had at once become impressed with the notion that the person described was no other than that officer. The height and the fair complexion had aided the rest of the circumstances; and Beauchamp now found that he had invited the visit of one of the murderers of the unhappy miser of Ryebury, in such a manner as to preclude him from taking advantage of his coming, to cause his apprehension. He hesitated, indeed, for he felt that perhaps the duty of bringing the culprit to justice should be paramount; but the word honor, so often falsely construed, was so even with Beauchamp, and he could not bring himself to do that which his conscience told him he ought to do. Although the contest between reason and prejudice was severe, yet he was not long in forming his determination; and rising again, after a moment's thought, he said, "Young man, your coming here has originated in a mistake. From the description given by the person who sent you, I thought he spoke of Captain Delaware, when he really alluded to yourself; but as the mistake was mine, not yours, I will not take advantage of it to give you up to justice. Nevertheless, remember that I am not ignorant of your crime; and that, although I suffer you to depart from this house, and will give you time to seek your place of concealment, yet I hold myself bound to give notice to the Parisian police--who have orders from the government to aid in arresting you and your accomplices--that you are within the walls of Paris, and that, therefore, if you escape, it is their fault."
"It will not be so easy to arrest me, Mr. Burrel," answered the young man, in the same calm tone in which he had spoken before. "It will not be so easy to arrest me, unless I like it myself. So you sent for me by mistake? Well, I had hoped that there was one man on earth that knew how to work me properly--but no matter--no matter! And you took me for Captain Delaware, did you? God bless him, wherever he is, for a noble gentleman and a gallant officer! So, they tell me they have accused him of the murder, and made him fly his country, and that he is to be dismissed his majesty's service;" and as he spoke, the calm tone was lost, and he was evidently working himself up to a pitch of excessive fury--"And if he is taken he is to be tried," he continued--"and there is already a coroner's verdict against him--and that he will be hanged to a certainty--and that his good name is already blasted forever--and that poor Miss Blanche will weep her heart out for him--and poor old Sir Sidney will die of grief for his son's fate--and all for a crime that he did not commit--and, d--n your eyes, do you think I am going to stand all that! No, never, by--! Weren't they kind to me when never a soul was kind to me in all the world? and didn't they stand by me when every soul abandoned me? And am I going to see them all go to ruin and to misery, because I myself and that black villain have brought damnation upon my own head? No, no, never you think that! Why, it was bad enough before--and every time I thought upon their going and murdering the poor old man, while I kept watch in the passage, I was ready to go and give myself up, and beg them to hang me out of the way, that I might think no more of it--but now--now that I find all that it has done besides, d--me if I would not hang forty such fellows as that, rather than that the captain should come to ill by it!"
From this confused speech, which Beauchamp listened to with eager attention, though certainly not without some surprise, he learned all that the judicious reader has already discovered, of what was passing in the mind of poor Walter Harrison. He saw, in short, that remorse had done its work; and that the fact of the crime in which he had taken part, having brought down such misfortunes on the family who had been his benefactors, had carried remorse to its natural climax of despair. It was evident, too, that his remorse was of that purer kind which is kindred to repentance, and that, at all events, he contemplated atonement; and Beauchamp felt confident that, by proper management, full and satisfactory evidence might now be procured of the facts necessary to exculpate William Delaware completely. He saw, however, at the same time, that the spirit with which he had to deal--wild, wayward, and violent--would require most skillful treatment to bring it to the point he had in view.
"You are heated!" he said, "Walter Harisson; but if I understand you right, there is still a hope, through your means, of saving William Delaware from all the evils that you have brought upon him."
"Hear me, sir--hear me!" replied the young sailor. "Only tell me what is necessary to save him--and if you bid me hang a slip-knot to the yard-arm, then put my neck in it, and cast myself off, I'll do it."
"I take you at your word," said Beauchamp. "There is but one way to clear him--but one way to restore him to that clear and honorable character which he always maintained in life, notwithstanding poverty."
"Ay, there it is! there it is!" cried the young man "clear and honorable, and yet poor--as poor for his rank as I was for mine--ay, and I might have a clear and honorable name, too--but never mind--never mind--it is all coming to an end soon!" And casting himself down in a chair, he pressed his hands over his eyes.
"You lose your self-command, Walter," said Beauchamp. "Be calm, and let us speak over this business rationally."
"Calm! calm!" cried the young sailor; starting up. "How the devil would you have me calm, when you are speaking of things that are burning in my heart like coals of fire? How can I be calm?"
"You came here," said Beauchamp, somewhat sternly, "with a fixed determination, I suppose, of some kind--either intending to do right or to do wrong--to make the only reparation that you can for the crimes you have committed, by delivering your benefactor from the consequences of your errors--or boldly to deny what you have committed. If you intend to do right, the first noble and generous determination that you have formed for long, should teach you to execute your purpose with the calmness and fortitude of a man."
"You say true, sir--you say true!" replied the youth, in a tone of deep melancholy. "You always say true; and if I had attended to what you told me when you brought me home from the fire that night, I should not have felt as I do now--but there is no use of talking of that--I did come here with the intention of doing right; and I will do right, if you will tell me how. What I want to do, is to clear the captain of every thing, and make it so plain that he never had any hand in the bad business, that even those old devils at Emberton shall have nothing to say. You were going to tell me the way when I stopped you. Now, I will stick at nothing, either on my own account, or that of others--for as to that accursed ruffian who entrapped me into the business, I have had many a black thought, when he sneers at me because I am sorry, to finish him myself."
"Your only way, then, to make the reparation you propose," replied Beauchamp, "is to give such information as may lead to the apprehension and conviction of the men who actually committed the murder--for, from what you have said, I am led to believe that you had no absolute share in the deed itself."
"No, no! None, none!" cried the young man, rapidly. "I did not know they were going to do it--they had promised me, with the most solemn oaths, not to hurt a hair of his head, and I knew nothing of it till it was all over."
"Well, then," answered Beauchamp, "if that be the case, you will not only be enabled to make, as I said before, the only reparation in your power for the ill you have done, but you will entirely clear Captain Delaware, and yet run no danger yourself; for in his Majesty's proclamation on the subject, I find that a free pardon is promised to any one of the parties--with the exception of the actual murderers--who will bring his accomplices to justice. So that your life is safe."
"I care nothing about my life!" cried the young man, relapsing into impetuosity. "What the devil, do you think I am going to turn a pitiful king's evidence, and make a bargain for my own neck, while I am hanging my fellows? No, no! I will tell all that I know--I will go along with them, and be tried with them, and hanged with them too, for that matter--I care not--if I am alive on the execution day. But I will make no bargains about my life--none--none--my days are numbered, Mr. Burrel!" He added, more calmly, "My days are numbered; and the last may come when it will--I will shake hands with it when it does. There is only one bargain I will make, and that I know you will grant me; for you were one of the few that were kind--it is about my poor mother I am talking. She has had sorrows enough, sir, and she shall only have one more for me; so, when I am dead, I hope you will promise to take care of her, and let her have enough--if the job do not kill her, which likely it may, too; and that is the worst of it all; but, however, I have made up my mind, do you see, and so you must promise me, that she shall have the old cottage and forty pounds a year to live on; and if nobody else gives it, you must."
"Most willingly will I do it, upon my honor," replied Beauchamp.
"That is enough, sir! Quite enough!" continued the young sailor. "You and I, Mr. Burrel, are quits in some things--you saved my life once; and I can tell you, that if it had not been for me on that horrible night, you would either have been left with your throat cut at the door of the house, or have gone overboard, and to the bottom, as we sailed along."
"I imagined that such was the case," answered Beauchamp; "and all these things tell so much in your favor, that I can not understand how you could suffer yourself to be led into such a crime as that which you have committed."
"I tell you, sir, I had nothing to do with it," cried the young man. "If I had been present, they should not have hurt a hair of his head--they knew that well enough, and therefore they left me below to keep watch. As to the robbery, that I did consent to; and that was bad enough, too--but then, that Harding had the tongue of the devil himself, to persuade one. He got round me when I was ill--he taught me to believe that all riches ought to be in common, and that no man should be wealthy, while another man was poor; and then he told me, that to take the money which the old miser made no use of, and left rotting in his chests, could be no harm; and then he harped upon my mother's poverty and misery, and made things ten times worse than they were; so at length I consented, on condition that he would promise not to hurt the old man. Well, even then, when he came down all bloody, and I saw too well that they had killed him, I do think that I should have either shot him for deceiving me, or should have gone and given him up, as he deserved, but I saw that he felt what he had done himself, and there was something so awful about him just at that moment, that I do not well know why or how, but he got the mastery of me, and I did what he liked, till it came to killing you, which the woman wanted us to do, as you lay stunned at the door. Then my spirit got up again, and I was master of them all till we came over here. But now he has forgotten all that he seemed to feel then--that Harding, I mean--and he talks about it quietly, and sneers and laughs, and looks coolly at me, while he is speaking of things that would make one's blood run cold--and he persuades himself that it is all right."
The strong excitement under which the young sailor labored afforded Beauchamp every means of drawing from him the whole details of the murder, and the events that followed; and he found that the crime, at least as far as he robbery went, had been concerted long before it was perpetrated. The moment for executing their plan had always been postponed by Harding himself, who had assured his accomplices, that a large sum of money, which he knew was to be paid into the miser's hands, and not yet been received; and Beauchamp easily divined that the murderer had alluded to the sum he himself had drawn for, through the instrumentality of the unhappy money-lender. So completely organized had been the whole design, that a French cutter, engaged by young Harrison, had actually lain upon the coast for several days, in order to carry the three culprits to Havre, whence they were instantly to embark for America. The master of the vessel, however, tired of waiting, had at length left the coast on the very night that the murder was committed; and the only means of escape that the four accomplices found when they reached the beach, was the boat which the young sailor had provided, with money furnished by Harding, for the purpose of conveying them from the shore to the ship, without the necessity of making signals, which might have betrayed them. The woman had, indeed, nearly brought the coast-guard upon them, by accidentally falling into the sea as they embarked, and screaming for help; but, nevertheless, they got her into the boat, and pushed off before any one came up. On their arrival in France, the young man added, they had taken, under Harding's directions, those measures of precaution which had baffled Beauchamp and the officers in their pursuit, and had at length arrived in Paris, where he, who might be considered as their leader, had boasted that he could lie concealed if all the police of France and England were set upon his track. Here he proposed to sell a variety of different articles of jewelry and plate, which he and his companion had contrived to bring with them, and then to take ship for the land of Columbus, as they originally had proposed. Harding, the young sailor said, had soon lost all appearance of that remorse which he had felt at first; but he described him at the same time as living in a state of reckless debauchery and excitement, from which Beauchamp argued that the never-dying worm was still tremendously alive within his 'bosom. He drank deep, Walter Harrison added, without getting drunk. The woman whom he had brought with him, and had before seduced, he treated with contempt and cruelty. He gamed, also, continually, in the lower and more brutal resorts of Parisian blacklegs and madmen; and, gratifying every passion to excess, it was evident that he was striving to drown the voice of remorse in a tide of gross and eager licentiousness.
"It is a fearful picture," said Beauchamp. "But now tell me how and when we can bring this atrocious villain to punishment. You, my poor young man, he has misled and betrayed; and I do not even know that his crime toward you is not of a deeper die than that which he committed on the person of the wretched old man at Ryebury. He could but kill the body of the one--"
"Ay, and of the other," interrupted the young sailor, "he has condemned the immortal soul!"
"I hope not! I hope not!" said Beauchamp. "Life is still before you, if you choose to live; and I know of no circumstances in which life is so inestimably valuable to man, as when he has been greatly criminal; for every year that he remains here may, if he will, be filled with the golden moments of repentance. But once more, how can we apprehend this villain?"
"Ay, he is a villain!" answered the young sailor; "if ever there lived one, he is the man;" and he was proceeding again to stray from the subject, when Beauchamp recalled him to it, and mentioned the necessity there would be of applying to the French police; but at the very idea the other started wild away.
"No, no, no!" he cried, "that will not do. He's a brave man, though he be a ruffian; and he shall never say that I took odds against him, because I was afraid of him one to one."
"Then how do you propose to act?" demanded Beauchamp, in some astonishment. "This man must be taken, and brought to punishment, if you would keep your word with me, and clear the character of William Delaware."
The young man mused sullenly for several minutes, merely muttering, "He shall--he shall be taken. Hark you, Mr. Burrel," he said at length, looking up boldly and steadfastly, "you are a brave man. I have seen you do brave things. Now, there is this Harding and another; and here are you and I--that is two to two, and fair play. If you choose to go with me to-morrow night, I will take you to where those two are alone; and if we do not take them, and tie them hand and foot, it is our fault; but d--me if I take odds against them."
The proposal was certainly as strange a one as ever was made, and as unpleasant a one as could have been addressed to Henry Beauchamp. I have said before that he was naturally fearless; and, consequently, did not see one-half of the dangers in any thing proposed that most other people would have done; but, at the same time, he had not the slightest inclination to run himself into scrapes of any kind without necessity; and he could not help perceiving that the business was at once a perilous one, and one which might be much better performed without his interference. In the next place, he did not think the occupation particularly dignified or becoming; and thirdly, he did not at all like the eclat it would produce, and felt most exquisitely annoyed at the very idea of the romantic interest of the story, as it would figure in all the newspapers, and be told in all the coteries. It was quite enough, he thought, to have been made to drown himself for the amusement of the public; and certainly something too much, to be obliged to apprehend two murderers, _vi et armis_, without any cause or necessity whatever.
"Well, sir, will you do it?" demanded the young sailor, seeing that he paused upon his proposal.
"Why, I think not," answered Beauchamp.
"D--me, then!" cried the other; but Beauchamp interrupted him, in that commanding tone which no one knew better how to assume.
"Hush, sir! hush!" he said. "You forget yourself, and who you are speaking to. Call not down in words those curses which I trust that your present and your future actions may avert, however much the past may have merited them. In regard to your proposal--in the first place, I am not a thief-taker; and consequently the task does not become me. In the next place, by the plan you suggest, the great object I have in view is likely to be defeated--I mean the bringing these men to justice, in order to clear Captain Delaware. Suppose, for instance, that by any accident we should be overpowered by them, we lose his only hope; and even if we overpower them, having no legal authority to do so, any one who happens to be near may give them such aid and assistance as will enable them to escape, and foil us entirely."
"I will tell you what sir," said the young man, sullenly; "I'll go some length, but I will not go all. To prevent them getting away any how, you may put the police round the house, if you like--but only you and I shall go in upon them; for I will not take odds against them any how; and if you are afraid to go, why--"
"I am not afraid to do any thing, sir!" replied Beauchamp. "And though it is not at all necessary, and though perhaps it may be foolish of me to do it--yet, rather than loose any evidence in favor of Captain Delaware, I will do what you propose; that is to say, I will go in with you alone, in order to master these two men, if we can: but it shall be on condition that the agents of the police be stationed round the house, in such a manner as to prevent their escape, whether we succeed or fail."
"That is what I say," replied the young sailor. "Let us have a bout with them, two to two fairly; and then, if they kill us, why, there will be still men around the house to take them."
"I had forgot," answered Beauchamp, "that, as you say, we may be both killed in this business; and if you should be killed, pray, what evidence is there to convict either of these men! If you really intend to do what you have promised, it will behove you to make a full and complete declaration of the whole facts, and sign them before two or three persons, previous to entering upon this undertaking."
Walter Harrison paused and thought, and Beauchamp urged him strongly to take the precaution he proposed; but he did not succeed. "No," said the young sailor, at length; "No! I will put it all down in my own handwriting, which can be well enough proved by the ship's books, and I will sign it with my name, and I'll give it to you to-morrow night; but I'll not go it all over again before any one else, till I tell it all for the last time--there, don't say any more; for I won't do it--I don't like this police business either; but I suppose it must be done--so, now I will go. You will find me, to-morrow night, at ten o'clock, opposite that jeweler's shop. I will not fail you, upon my honor;" and so saying, he walked toward the door. Ere he had reached it, however, he turned, and coming nearer, he said, "Mr. Burrel, I trust to your honor, that when you have got me there with the police, you will not let them go into the house with us--mind, two to two is fair play. He shall never say that I brought odds against him!"
"I have given you my word," said Beauchamp, "and I will certainly keep it."
"Well, then, good night, sir!" replied the young man, and opening the door, he passed out into the ante-room; but ere he had taken two steps beyond the threshold, he again returned to bid Beauchamp bring his pistols with him. "He always has his in his pockets," he said, "so it would be unfair that you should be without."
"I will take care to come prepared," replied Beauchamp, and his visitor once more left the room. He paused a moment in the ante-room, and hesitated as if he had something more to say, but the instant after he quitted the apartments, and was heard descending the stairs with a rapid step.