Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.

Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.Robert Hallam Wants Fresh Air.“That woman seemed as if she would never go,” said Hallam, entering the room hastily, and glancing at the clock.“She does like to stop and chat,” replied Millicent, wondering at his manner. “What are you going to do?”“I am off for a short run. I cannot bear this confinement any longer. It is dark, and no one will see me if I go out for a change.”“Shall I go with you?”“Go with me! No, not now,” he said hastily. “I want a little fresh air. Don’t stop me. I shall be back soon.”His manner seemed very strange, but Millicent said nothing, only followed him into the hall.“No, no,” he said hastily; “don’t do that. It is as if you were watching me.”She drew back in a pained way, and he followed her.“I’m pettish and impatient, that’s all,” he said smiling; and, closing the door after her, he hurriedly put on a cloak and travelling cap, muffling his face well; and then going softly out, and turning from the main street, he was soon after in the lane that led down by Thickens’s house and the mill.“At last!” said a voice from the hedge-side, just beyond where the last oil lamp shed a few dim rays across the road. “I thought you were never coming.”“Don’t talk. Have you everything ready?”“Yes, everything. It is only a cart, but it will take you easily.”“And are you sure of the road?”“Certain. I’ve done it twice so as to be sure.”“Good horse?”“Capital. We can get over the twenty miles in three hours, and catch the York coach easily by twelve. It does not pass before then.”“Mind, Stephen, I’m trusting you in this. If you fail me—”“If I fail you! Bah! Did I ever fail you?”“No, never.”“Then don’t talk like that. You’ve failed me pretty often, all the same. Going?”“Yes; I must get back.”“What’s that—the Castor coach?”“Yes,” said Hallam, starting. “It’s early.”“Don’t be longer than you can help; but, I say, have you plenty of money for the journey? I’ve only a guinea or two left.”“I have enough,” said Hallam grimly; and bidding his companion wait three hours, and if he did not come then to go back and return the next night, Hallam turned to hurry back to the town.It was intensely dark as he approached the mill, where the stream was gurgling and plashing over the waste-water shoot. In the distance there was the oil lamp glimmering, and a light or two shone in the scattered cottages, but there was none at Thickens’s as Hallam passed.There was a space of about a hundred yards between Thickens’s house and the next cottage, and Hallam had about half traversed this when he heard a step that seemed familiar coming, and his doubt was put an end to by a voice exclaiming, “Mind! Take care!”Was it fate that had put this in his way?He asked himself this as, like lightning, the thought struck him that Bayle had just come off the coach—he the sharer in the knowledge of his iniquity.A sharp struggle, and close at hand there was the bridge and the flowing river. It might have been an accident. But even then there was Thickens. What if he closed with him, and—disguised as he was, Bayle could never know—Bayle—the bearer of that heavy sum of money! He intended flight that night; was it fate, he asked himself again, that had thrown this in his way? And as the thoughts flashed through his brain, they encountered roughly upon the path, and Hallam’s hand touched the thick pocket-book in Bayle’s breast.It was a matter of moments. Even to Hallam it was like an encounter in a dream. A blind desire to possess himself of the money he had touched had come over him; and reckless now, half mad, he seized the curate by the throat. There was a furious struggle, a few inarticulate cries, a heavy fall, and he was kneeling upon him, and dragging the pocket-book from his breast.All, as it were, in a dream!Millicent Hallam stood listening at the window to her husband’s steps, and then pressed her hands to her burning forehead to try and think more clearly about her position. It was so hard to think ill of Bayle; she could not do it; and yet her husband had said he was his enemy, and fighting against him to destroy him. Besides, Bayle had not been near them for days. It was so strange that he should go away without telling her!And so, as she stood there, the two currents of thought met—that which ran love and trust in her husband, and that which was full of gentle sisterly feeling for Bayle; and as they met there was tumult and confusion in her brain, till the first current proved the stronger, and swept the latter aside, running strongly on towards the future.“He is my husband, and he trusts me now as I trust him,” she said proudly. “It is impossible. He could do no wrong.”She went up to the bed-room where Julie lay asleep, and stood watching the sweet, happy little face for some time, ending by kneeling down, taking one of the little hands in hers, and praying fervently for help, for guidance, and for protection in the troubled future, that appeared to be surrounding her with clouds.How dense they seemed! How was it all to end? Would she be called upon by her husband to leave their home and friends, and go far away? Well, and if that were her fate, husband and child were all in all to her, and it was her duty.“He trusts me now,” she said smiling; and feeling happier and more at rest than she had for months with their petty cares and poverty and shame, she bent over and kissed Julie, when the child’s arms were clasped about her neck and clung there for a moment, before dropping listlessly back upon the bed.Passing her hand over the child’s forehead to be sure that she was cool and that no lurking fever was there, Millicent went down to the dining-room again, to sit and listen for the coming step.She had heard the coach come and go, but instead of the place settling down again into its normal quiet, there seemed to be a great many people about, and hurrying footsteps were heard, such as would be at times when there was an alarm of fire in the town.And yet it was not like that. More, perhaps, as if there were some meeting, and the steps died away.For a moment or two Millicent had been disposed to summon Thisbe, and send her to see what was wrong; but on drawing aside the curtains and looking out, the street seemed deserted, and though there were a few figures in the market-place, they did not excite her surprise.“I am overwrought and excited,” she said to herself. “Ah! at last.”There was no mistaking that step, and starting up, she ran into the hall to admit Hallam, who staggered in, closed the door quickly, and catching her hand, half dragged her into the dining-room.She clung to him in affright, for she could see that the cloak he wore was torn and muddied, that his face was ghastly pale, and that as he threw off his travelling cap, there was a terrible swelling across his forehead, as if he had received some tremendous blow.“Robert,” she exclaimed, “what is the matter?”“Hush,” he said quickly; “be quiet and calm. Has Thisbe gone to bed?”“Yes. Yes, I think so.”“Quick, then; a basin and water, sponge and towel. I must bathe this place.”“Did you fall?” she cried, as she hastily helped him off with the cloak.“No. But quick; the water.”She hurried away, shivering with the dread of some new trouble to come, but soon returned with the sponge, and busied herself in bathing the hurt.“I was attacked—by some ruffian,” said Hallam hoarsely, as the water trickled and plashed back in the basin. “He struck me with a bludgeon and left me senseless. When I came to he was gone.”“Robert, you horrify me!” cried Millicent. “This is dreadful.”“Might have been worse,” he said coolly. “There, now dry it, and listen to me the while.”“Yes, Robert,” she said, forcing herself to be firm, and to listen to the words in spite of the curious doubting trouble that would oppress her.“As soon as I go upstairs to put a few things together and get some papers, you will put on your bonnet and cloak, and dress Julie.”“Dress Julie!”“Yes,” he said harshly, “without you wish me to leave you behind.”“You are going away, then?”“Yes, I am going away,” he said bitterly, “after hesitating, with a fool’s hesitation, all these days. I ought to have gone before.”“How strangely you speak!” she said.“Don’t waste time. Now go.”“One word, love,” she whispered imploringly; “do we go for long?”“No; not for long,” he said. And then, with an impatient gesture: “Bah!” he exclaimed; “yes, for ever.”She shrank from him in alarm.“Well,” he said harshly, as he glanced at his injury in the mirror, “you are hesitating. I do not force you. I am your husband, and I have a right to command; but I leave you free. Do you wish to stay?”A feeling of despair so terrible that it seemed crushing came over Millicent. To go from the home of her childhood—to flee like this with her husband, probably in disgrace, even if only through suspicion—was for the moment more than she could bear; and as he saw her momentary hesitation, an ugly sneering laugh came upon his face. It faded, though, as she calmly laid her hand upon his arm.“Am I to take any luggage?” she said.“Nothing but your few ornaments of value. Be quick.”She raised her lips and kissed him, and then seemed to glide out of the room.“Yes,” he said, “I have been a fool and an idiot not to have gone before. Curse the fellow: who could it be?” he cried, as he pressed his hand to his injured forehead.He took out his keys and opened a drawer in a cabinet, taking from it a hammer and cold chisel, and then stood thinking for a few moments before hurrying out, and into a little lobby behind the hall, from which he brought a small carpet-bag.“That will just hold it,” he said, “and a few of the things that she is sure to have.”He turned into the dining-room, going softly, as if he were engaged in some nefarious act. Then he picked up the hammer and chisel, and was about to return into the hall, when he heard a low murmur, which seemed to be increasing, and with it the trampling of feet, and shouts of excited men.“What’s that?” he cried, with his countenance growing ghastly pale; and the cold chisel fell to the floor with a clang.

“That woman seemed as if she would never go,” said Hallam, entering the room hastily, and glancing at the clock.

“She does like to stop and chat,” replied Millicent, wondering at his manner. “What are you going to do?”

“I am off for a short run. I cannot bear this confinement any longer. It is dark, and no one will see me if I go out for a change.”

“Shall I go with you?”

“Go with me! No, not now,” he said hastily. “I want a little fresh air. Don’t stop me. I shall be back soon.”

His manner seemed very strange, but Millicent said nothing, only followed him into the hall.

“No, no,” he said hastily; “don’t do that. It is as if you were watching me.”

She drew back in a pained way, and he followed her.

“I’m pettish and impatient, that’s all,” he said smiling; and, closing the door after her, he hurriedly put on a cloak and travelling cap, muffling his face well; and then going softly out, and turning from the main street, he was soon after in the lane that led down by Thickens’s house and the mill.

“At last!” said a voice from the hedge-side, just beyond where the last oil lamp shed a few dim rays across the road. “I thought you were never coming.”

“Don’t talk. Have you everything ready?”

“Yes, everything. It is only a cart, but it will take you easily.”

“And are you sure of the road?”

“Certain. I’ve done it twice so as to be sure.”

“Good horse?”

“Capital. We can get over the twenty miles in three hours, and catch the York coach easily by twelve. It does not pass before then.”

“Mind, Stephen, I’m trusting you in this. If you fail me—”

“If I fail you! Bah! Did I ever fail you?”

“No, never.”

“Then don’t talk like that. You’ve failed me pretty often, all the same. Going?”

“Yes; I must get back.”

“What’s that—the Castor coach?”

“Yes,” said Hallam, starting. “It’s early.”

“Don’t be longer than you can help; but, I say, have you plenty of money for the journey? I’ve only a guinea or two left.”

“I have enough,” said Hallam grimly; and bidding his companion wait three hours, and if he did not come then to go back and return the next night, Hallam turned to hurry back to the town.

It was intensely dark as he approached the mill, where the stream was gurgling and plashing over the waste-water shoot. In the distance there was the oil lamp glimmering, and a light or two shone in the scattered cottages, but there was none at Thickens’s as Hallam passed.

There was a space of about a hundred yards between Thickens’s house and the next cottage, and Hallam had about half traversed this when he heard a step that seemed familiar coming, and his doubt was put an end to by a voice exclaiming, “Mind! Take care!”

Was it fate that had put this in his way?

He asked himself this as, like lightning, the thought struck him that Bayle had just come off the coach—he the sharer in the knowledge of his iniquity.

A sharp struggle, and close at hand there was the bridge and the flowing river. It might have been an accident. But even then there was Thickens. What if he closed with him, and—disguised as he was, Bayle could never know—Bayle—the bearer of that heavy sum of money! He intended flight that night; was it fate, he asked himself again, that had thrown this in his way? And as the thoughts flashed through his brain, they encountered roughly upon the path, and Hallam’s hand touched the thick pocket-book in Bayle’s breast.

It was a matter of moments. Even to Hallam it was like an encounter in a dream. A blind desire to possess himself of the money he had touched had come over him; and reckless now, half mad, he seized the curate by the throat. There was a furious struggle, a few inarticulate cries, a heavy fall, and he was kneeling upon him, and dragging the pocket-book from his breast.

All, as it were, in a dream!

Millicent Hallam stood listening at the window to her husband’s steps, and then pressed her hands to her burning forehead to try and think more clearly about her position. It was so hard to think ill of Bayle; she could not do it; and yet her husband had said he was his enemy, and fighting against him to destroy him. Besides, Bayle had not been near them for days. It was so strange that he should go away without telling her!

And so, as she stood there, the two currents of thought met—that which ran love and trust in her husband, and that which was full of gentle sisterly feeling for Bayle; and as they met there was tumult and confusion in her brain, till the first current proved the stronger, and swept the latter aside, running strongly on towards the future.

“He is my husband, and he trusts me now as I trust him,” she said proudly. “It is impossible. He could do no wrong.”

She went up to the bed-room where Julie lay asleep, and stood watching the sweet, happy little face for some time, ending by kneeling down, taking one of the little hands in hers, and praying fervently for help, for guidance, and for protection in the troubled future, that appeared to be surrounding her with clouds.

How dense they seemed! How was it all to end? Would she be called upon by her husband to leave their home and friends, and go far away? Well, and if that were her fate, husband and child were all in all to her, and it was her duty.

“He trusts me now,” she said smiling; and feeling happier and more at rest than she had for months with their petty cares and poverty and shame, she bent over and kissed Julie, when the child’s arms were clasped about her neck and clung there for a moment, before dropping listlessly back upon the bed.

Passing her hand over the child’s forehead to be sure that she was cool and that no lurking fever was there, Millicent went down to the dining-room again, to sit and listen for the coming step.

She had heard the coach come and go, but instead of the place settling down again into its normal quiet, there seemed to be a great many people about, and hurrying footsteps were heard, such as would be at times when there was an alarm of fire in the town.

And yet it was not like that. More, perhaps, as if there were some meeting, and the steps died away.

For a moment or two Millicent had been disposed to summon Thisbe, and send her to see what was wrong; but on drawing aside the curtains and looking out, the street seemed deserted, and though there were a few figures in the market-place, they did not excite her surprise.

“I am overwrought and excited,” she said to herself. “Ah! at last.”

There was no mistaking that step, and starting up, she ran into the hall to admit Hallam, who staggered in, closed the door quickly, and catching her hand, half dragged her into the dining-room.

She clung to him in affright, for she could see that the cloak he wore was torn and muddied, that his face was ghastly pale, and that as he threw off his travelling cap, there was a terrible swelling across his forehead, as if he had received some tremendous blow.

“Robert,” she exclaimed, “what is the matter?”

“Hush,” he said quickly; “be quiet and calm. Has Thisbe gone to bed?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Quick, then; a basin and water, sponge and towel. I must bathe this place.”

“Did you fall?” she cried, as she hastily helped him off with the cloak.

“No. But quick; the water.”

She hurried away, shivering with the dread of some new trouble to come, but soon returned with the sponge, and busied herself in bathing the hurt.

“I was attacked—by some ruffian,” said Hallam hoarsely, as the water trickled and plashed back in the basin. “He struck me with a bludgeon and left me senseless. When I came to he was gone.”

“Robert, you horrify me!” cried Millicent. “This is dreadful.”

“Might have been worse,” he said coolly. “There, now dry it, and listen to me the while.”

“Yes, Robert,” she said, forcing herself to be firm, and to listen to the words in spite of the curious doubting trouble that would oppress her.

“As soon as I go upstairs to put a few things together and get some papers, you will put on your bonnet and cloak, and dress Julie.”

“Dress Julie!”

“Yes,” he said harshly, “without you wish me to leave you behind.”

“You are going away, then?”

“Yes, I am going away,” he said bitterly, “after hesitating, with a fool’s hesitation, all these days. I ought to have gone before.”

“How strangely you speak!” she said.

“Don’t waste time. Now go.”

“One word, love,” she whispered imploringly; “do we go for long?”

“No; not for long,” he said. And then, with an impatient gesture: “Bah!” he exclaimed; “yes, for ever.”

She shrank from him in alarm.

“Well,” he said harshly, as he glanced at his injury in the mirror, “you are hesitating. I do not force you. I am your husband, and I have a right to command; but I leave you free. Do you wish to stay?”

A feeling of despair so terrible that it seemed crushing came over Millicent. To go from the home of her childhood—to flee like this with her husband, probably in disgrace, even if only through suspicion—was for the moment more than she could bear; and as he saw her momentary hesitation, an ugly sneering laugh came upon his face. It faded, though, as she calmly laid her hand upon his arm.

“Am I to take any luggage?” she said.

“Nothing but your few ornaments of value. Be quick.”

She raised her lips and kissed him, and then seemed to glide out of the room.

“Yes,” he said, “I have been a fool and an idiot not to have gone before. Curse the fellow: who could it be?” he cried, as he pressed his hand to his injured forehead.

He took out his keys and opened a drawer in a cabinet, taking from it a hammer and cold chisel, and then stood thinking for a few moments before hurrying out, and into a little lobby behind the hall, from which he brought a small carpet-bag.

“That will just hold it,” he said, “and a few of the things that she is sure to have.”

He turned into the dining-room, going softly, as if he were engaged in some nefarious act. Then he picked up the hammer and chisel, and was about to return into the hall, when he heard a low murmur, which seemed to be increasing, and with it the trampling of feet, and shouts of excited men.

“What’s that?” he cried, with his countenance growing ghastly pale; and the cold chisel fell to the floor with a clang.

Volume Two—Chapter Thirteen.A Human Storm.The woman who had been acting the part of nurse to old Gemp was seated by the table, busily knitting a pair of blue worsted stockings by the light of a tallow candle, and every few minutes the snuff had so increased, and began to show so fungus-like a head, that the needles had to be left, a pair of snuffers taken out of their home in a niche that ran through the stem of the tin candlestick, and used to cut off the light-destroying snuff, with the effect that the snuffers were not sufficiently pinched to, and a thread of pale blue smoke rose from the incandescence within, and certainly with no good effect as far as fragrance was concerned.Old Gemp had become a great deal better. He had been up and dressed, and sat by the fireside for a couple of hours that afternoon, and had then expressed his determination not to go to bed.But his opposition was very slight, and he was got to bed, where he seemed to be lying thinking, and trying to recall something which evidently puzzled him. In fact all at once he called his nurse.“Mrs Preddle! Mrs Preddle!”“Yes,” said that lady with a weary air.“What was I thinking about when I was took badly?”“I don’t know,” said the woman sourly. “About somebody else’s business, I suppose.”Old Gemp grunted, and shook his head. Then he was silent, and lay staring about the room, passing his hand across his forehead every now and then, or shaving himself with one finger, with which all at once he would point at his nurse.“I say!” he cried sharply.“Bless the man! how you made me jump!” cried Mrs Preddle. “And, for goodness’ sake, don’t point at me like that! Easy to see you’re getting better, and won’t want me long.”“No, no! don’t go away!” he exclaimed. “I can’t think about it.”“Well, and no wonder neither! Why, bless the man! people don’t have bad fits o’ ’plexy and not feel nothing after! There, lie still, and go to sleep, there’s a good soul! It’ll do you good.”Mrs Preddle snuffed the candle again, and made another unpleasant smell of burning, but paid no heed to it, fifty years of practice having accustomed her to that odour—an extremely common one in those days, when in every little town there was a tallow-melter, the fumes of whose works at certain times made themselves pretty well-known for some distance round.The question was repeated by old Gemp at intervals all through the evening—“What was I thinking about when I was took badly?” and Mrs Preddle became irritated by his persistence.But this made no difference whatever to the old man, who scraped his stubbly chin with his finger, and then pointed, to ask again. For the trouble that had been upon his mind when he was stricken hung over him like a dark cloud, and he was always fighting mentally to learn what it all meant.“What was it?—what was it? What was I thinking about?” Over and over and over, and no answer would come. Mrs Preddle went on with her knitting, and ejaculated “Bless the man!” and dropped stitches, and picked them up again, and at last grew so angry, that, upon old Gemp asking her, for about the hundredth time that night, that same wearisome question, she cried out:“Drat the man! how should I know? Look ye here, if you—Oh! I won’t stand no more of this nonsense?” She rose and went into the kitchen. “Doctor Luttrell said if he got more restless he was to have it,” she grumbled to herself, “and he’s quite unbearable to-night!”She poured out a double dose from a bottle left in her charge, and chuckled as she said to herself, “That’ll quiet him for the night.”Old Gemp was sitting up in bed when she returned to the bed-room; and once more his pointing finger rose, and he was about to speak, when Mrs Preddle interfered.“There, that’ll do, my dear! and now you’ve got to take this here physic directly, to do you good.”The old man looked at her in a vacant, helpless way for a few moments, and then his countenance grew angry, and he motioned the medicine aside.“Oh, come now, it’s of no use! You’ve got to take it, so now then!”She pressed the cup towards his lips; but the old man struck at it angrily, and it flew across the room, splashing the bed with the opium-impregnated liquid, and then shattering on the cemented floor.“Well, of all the owd rips as ever I did see!” cried the woman. “Oh, you are better, then!”“What was I thinking about when I was took badly?” cried Gemp, pointing as if nothing had happened.“Oh, about your money in the bank for aught I know!” cried the woman.“Ha!”The old man clapped his hands to his forehead, and held them there for a few minutes, staring straight before him at the bed-room wall.He had uttered that ejaculation so sharply that the woman started, and recoiled from him, in ignorance of the fact that she had touched the key-note that had set the fibres of his memory athrill.“Why, what’s come to you?” she said. “Sakes, man, you’re not worse?”Old Gemp did not reply for a few moments. Then, stretching out one hand, and pointing at his nurse:“Go and fetch doctor. Go at once! Quick, I say, quick!”The woman stared in alarm for a few moments, and then, catching her bonnet and shawl from a nail, she hurriedly put them on and went out.“And I’ve been a-lying here,” panted Gemp, sliding his legs out of bed, and dressing himself quickly. “I remember now. I know. And perhaps all gone—deeds, writings—all gone. I knew there was something wrong—I knew there was something wrong!”In five minutes he was out in the street, and had reached his friend the tailor, who stared aghast at him at first, but as soon as he heard his words blazed up as if fire had been applied to tow, and then subsided with a cunning look.“Let’s keep it quiet, neighbour,” he said; “and go to-morrow morning, and see what we can do with Hallam. Ah!” he cried, as a thought flashed across his mind, “he has not been at the bank these three or four days. You’re right, neighbour, there is something wrong.”Just at that moment, seeing the door open, another neighbour stepped in, heard the last words, and saw Gemp’s wild, miserly face agitated by the horror of his loss.“What’s wrong?” he cried.“Wrong? That scoundrel Hallam! that thief! that—”The new-comer started.“Don’t say there’s owt wrong wi’ Dixons’!” he panted.“Yes, yes!” cried Gemp. “My deeds! my writings! I saw parson and Thickens busy together. They were tackling Hallam when I was took badly. Hallam’s a rogue! I warned you all—a rogue! a rogue! See how he has been going on!”“Neighbour,” groaned the new-comer, “they’ve got all I have in the world up yonder in the bank.”“Oh, but it can’t be true,” said the tailor, with a struggle to catch at a straw of hope.“Ay, but it is true,” said the last comer, whose face was ghastly; “and I’m a ruined man.”“Nay, nay, wait a bit. P’r’aps Hallam has only been ill.”“Ill? It was he, then, I’ll swear, I saw to-night, walk by me in a cloak and cap. He were going off. Neighbours, are we to sit still and bear a thing like this?”“I’ll hev my writings! I’ll hev my writings!” cried Gemp hoarsely, as he clawed at the air with his trembling hands.“Is owt wrong?” said a fresh voice, and another of the Castor tradesmen sauntered in, pipe in mouth.In another minute he knew all they had to tell and the light was indeed now applied to the tow. Reason and common-sense were thrown to the winds, and a wild, selfish madness took their place.Dixons’, the stable, the most substantial house in the county, the stronghold where the essence of all the property for miles round was kept, was now a bank of straw; and the flame ran from house to house like the wildfire that it was. Had an enemy invaded the place, or the fire that burns, there could not have been greater consternation. The stability of the bank touched so many; while, as the news flew from mouth to mouth, hundreds who had not a shilling in the bank, never had, nor ever would have, took up the matter with the greatest indignation, and joined in the excitement, and seemed the most aggrieved.There was nothing to go upon but the old man’s suspicion; but that spark had been enough to light the fire of popular indignation, and before long, in the midst of a score of different proposals, old Gemp started for the bank, supported by his two nearest neighbours, and across the dim market-place the increasing crowd made its way.Mr Trampleasure was smoking his evening cigar on the step of the private door. The cigar, a present from Sir Gordon: the permission to smoke it there a present from Mrs Trampleasure.He heard wonderingly the noise of tumult, saw the crowd approaching, and prudently went in and shut and bolted the doors, going up to a window to parley with the crowd, as the bell was rung furiously, and some one beat at the door of the bank with a stick.“What is it?” he said.“My deeds! my writings!” cried Gemp. “I want my deeds!”“Who’s that? Mr Gemp? My dear sir, the bank’s closed, as you know. Come to-morrow morning.”“No, no! Give the man his deeds. Here, break down the door!” cried a dozen voices; and the rough element that was to be found in King’s Castor, as well as elsewhere, uttered a shout, and began to kick at the panels.“Come away, Gemp. We shall get nothing if these fellows break in.”“Look here!” cried a shrill voice at the window; and there was a cessation of the noise, as Mrs Trampleasure leaned out. “We’ve got pistols and blunderbusses here, as you all know, and if you don’t be off, we shall fire.”“Open the doors then,” cried a rough voice.“We haven’t got the keys. Mr Thickens keeps them.”There was a shout at this, for the crowd, like all crowds, was ready to snatch at a change, and away they ran towards the mill.In five minutes though, they were tearing back, failing to find Thickens; and a cry had been raised by the man with the rough voice, and one of the poorest idlers of the town, the keenest redresser of wrong now.“Hallam’s! To Hallam’s!” he yelled. “Hev him out, lads. We’ll hev him out. Hurray, lads, come on!”The tradesmen and depositors at Dixons’ Bank looked aghast now at the mischief done. They saw how they had opened a crack in the dam, and that the crack had widened, the dam had given way, and the turbulent waters were about to carry all before them.It was in vain to speak, for the indignant poor were in the front, and the tailor, Gemp, and others who had been the leaders in the movement found themselves in a pitiful minority, and were ready to retreat.But that was impossible. They were in the crowd, and were carried with them across the market-place and down the street, to Hallam’s house, where they beat and thumped at the door.There was no answer for a few minutes, and they beat and roared. Then some one threw a stone and smashed a pane of glass. This earned a cheer, and a shower of stones followed, the panes shivering and tinkling down inside and out of the house.Millicent was wrong when she said that Thisbe had gone to bed, for that worthy was having what she called a quiet read in her room, and now as the windows were breaking, and Millicent was shielding Julie whom, half-awake, she had just dressed, there was an increase in the roar, for Thisbe had gone down, more indignant than alarmed, and thrown open the door.Then there was a dead silence, the silence of surprise, as Thisbe stood in the doorway, and as a great hulking lad strove to push by her, struck him a sounding slap on the face.There was a yell of laughter at this, and silence again, as the woman spoke.“What do you want?” she cried boldly.“Hallam! Hallam! In with you, lads: fetch him out.”“No, no; stop! stop! My deeds, my writings!” shrieked Gemp; but his voice was drowned in the yelling of the mob, who now forced their way in, filling the hall, the dining and drawing-rooms, and then making for the old-fashioned staircase.“He’s oop-stairs, lads; hev him down!” cried the leader, and the men pressed forward, with a yell, their faces looking wild and strange by the light of the lamp and the candle Thisbe had placed upon a bracket by the stairs.But here their progress was stopped by Millicent, who, pale with dread, but with a spot as of fire in either cheek, stood at the foot of the staircase, holding the frightened child to her side, while Thisbe forced her way before her.“What do you want?” she cried firmly.“Thy master, missus. Stand aside, we won’t hurt thee. We want Hallam.”“What do you want with him?” cried Millicent again.“We want him to give oop the money he’s stole, and the keys o’ bank. Stand aside wi’ you. Hev him down.”There was a rush, a struggle, and Millicent and her shrieking child were dragged down roughly, but good-humouredly, by the crowd that filled the hall, while others kept forcing their way in. As for Thisbe, as she fought and struck out bravely, her hands were pinioned behind her, and the group were held in a corner of the hall, while with a shout the mob rushed upstairs.“Here, let go,” panted Thisbe to the men who held her. “I won’t do so any more. Let me take the bairn.”The men loosed her at once, and they formed a ring about their prisoners.“Let me have her, Miss Milly,” she whispered, and she took Julie in her arms, while Millicent, freed from this charge, made an effort to get to the stairs.“Nay, nay, missus. Thou’rt better down here,” said one of her gaolers roughly; and the trembling woman was forced to stay, but only to keep imploring the men to let her pass.Meanwhile the mob were running from room to room without success; and at each shout of disappointment a throb of hope and joy made Millicent’s heart leap.She exchanged glances with Thisbe.“He has escaped,” she whispered.“More shame for him then,” cried Thisbe. “Why arn’t he here to protect his wife and bairn?”At that moment a fierce yelling and cheering was heard upstairs, where the mob had reached the attic door and detected that it was locked on the inside.The door was strong, but double the strength would not have held it against the fierce onslaught made, and in another minute, amidst fierce yelling, the tide began to set back, as the word was passed down, “They’ve got him.”Millicent’s brain reeled, and for a few moments she seemed to lose consciousness; but as she saw Hallam, pale, bleeding, his hair torn and dishevelled, dragged down the stairs by the infuriated mob, her love gave her strength. Wresting herself from those who would have restrained her, she forced her way to her husband’s side, flung her arms about him as he was driven back against the wall, and, turning her defiant face to the mob, made of her own body a shield.There was a moment’s pause, then a yell, and the leader’s voice cried:“Never mind her. Hev him out, lads, and then clear the house.”There was a fresh roar at this, and then blows were struck right and left in the dim light; the lamp was dashed over; while the curtains by the window, where it stood, blazed up, and cast a lurid light over the scene. For a moment the crowd recoiled as they saw the flushed and bleeding face of Christie Bayle, as he struck out right and left till he had fought his way to where he could plant himself before Millicent and her husband, and try to keep the assailants back.The surprise was only of a few minutes’ duration.“You lads, he’s only one. Come on! Hallam: Let’s judge and jury him.”“You scoundrels!” roared Bayle, “a man must be judged by his country, and not by such ruffians as you.”“Hev him out, lads, ’fore the place is burnt over your heads.”“Back! stand back, cowards!” cried Bayle; “do you not see the woman and the child? Back! Out of the place, you dogs!”“Dogs as can bite, too, parson,” cried the leader. “Come on.”He made a dash at Hallam, getting him by the collar, but only to collapse with a groan, so fierce was the blow that struck him on the ear.Again there was a pause—a murmur of rage, and the wooden support of the valance of the curtains began to crackle, while the hall was filling fast with stifling smoke.One leader down, another sprang in his place, for the crowd was roused.“Hev him out, lads! Quick, we have him now.”There was a rush, and Hallam was torn from Millicent’s grasp—from Christie Bayle’s protecting arms, and with a yell the crowd rushed out into the street, lit now by the glow from the smashed hall windows and the fire that burned within.“My husband! Christie—dear friend—help, oh, help!” wailed Millicent, as she tottered out to the front, in time to see Bayle literally leap to Hallam’s side and again strike the leader down.It was the last effort of his strength; and now a score of hands were tearing and striking at the wretched victim, when there was the clattering of horses’ hoofs and a mounted man rode right into the crowd with half-a-dozen followers at his side.“Stop!” he roared. “I am a magistrate. Constables: your duty.”The mob fell back, and as five men, with whom was Thickens, seized upon Hallam, Millicent tottered into the circle and sank at her husband’s knees.“Saved!” she sobbed, “saved!”For the first time Hallam found his voice, and cried, as he tried to shake himself free:“This—this is a mistake—constables. Loose me. These men—”“It is no mistake, Mr Hallam, you are arrested for embezzlement,” said the mounted man sternly.“Three cheers for Sir Gordon Bourne and Dixons’,” shouted one in the crowd.Christie Bayle had just time to catch Millicent Hallam in his arms as her senses left her, and with a piteous moan she sank back utterly stunned.

The woman who had been acting the part of nurse to old Gemp was seated by the table, busily knitting a pair of blue worsted stockings by the light of a tallow candle, and every few minutes the snuff had so increased, and began to show so fungus-like a head, that the needles had to be left, a pair of snuffers taken out of their home in a niche that ran through the stem of the tin candlestick, and used to cut off the light-destroying snuff, with the effect that the snuffers were not sufficiently pinched to, and a thread of pale blue smoke rose from the incandescence within, and certainly with no good effect as far as fragrance was concerned.

Old Gemp had become a great deal better. He had been up and dressed, and sat by the fireside for a couple of hours that afternoon, and had then expressed his determination not to go to bed.

But his opposition was very slight, and he was got to bed, where he seemed to be lying thinking, and trying to recall something which evidently puzzled him. In fact all at once he called his nurse.

“Mrs Preddle! Mrs Preddle!”

“Yes,” said that lady with a weary air.

“What was I thinking about when I was took badly?”

“I don’t know,” said the woman sourly. “About somebody else’s business, I suppose.”

Old Gemp grunted, and shook his head. Then he was silent, and lay staring about the room, passing his hand across his forehead every now and then, or shaving himself with one finger, with which all at once he would point at his nurse.

“I say!” he cried sharply.

“Bless the man! how you made me jump!” cried Mrs Preddle. “And, for goodness’ sake, don’t point at me like that! Easy to see you’re getting better, and won’t want me long.”

“No, no! don’t go away!” he exclaimed. “I can’t think about it.”

“Well, and no wonder neither! Why, bless the man! people don’t have bad fits o’ ’plexy and not feel nothing after! There, lie still, and go to sleep, there’s a good soul! It’ll do you good.”

Mrs Preddle snuffed the candle again, and made another unpleasant smell of burning, but paid no heed to it, fifty years of practice having accustomed her to that odour—an extremely common one in those days, when in every little town there was a tallow-melter, the fumes of whose works at certain times made themselves pretty well-known for some distance round.

The question was repeated by old Gemp at intervals all through the evening—“What was I thinking about when I was took badly?” and Mrs Preddle became irritated by his persistence.

But this made no difference whatever to the old man, who scraped his stubbly chin with his finger, and then pointed, to ask again. For the trouble that had been upon his mind when he was stricken hung over him like a dark cloud, and he was always fighting mentally to learn what it all meant.

“What was it?—what was it? What was I thinking about?” Over and over and over, and no answer would come. Mrs Preddle went on with her knitting, and ejaculated “Bless the man!” and dropped stitches, and picked them up again, and at last grew so angry, that, upon old Gemp asking her, for about the hundredth time that night, that same wearisome question, she cried out:

“Drat the man! how should I know? Look ye here, if you—Oh! I won’t stand no more of this nonsense?” She rose and went into the kitchen. “Doctor Luttrell said if he got more restless he was to have it,” she grumbled to herself, “and he’s quite unbearable to-night!”

She poured out a double dose from a bottle left in her charge, and chuckled as she said to herself, “That’ll quiet him for the night.”

Old Gemp was sitting up in bed when she returned to the bed-room; and once more his pointing finger rose, and he was about to speak, when Mrs Preddle interfered.

“There, that’ll do, my dear! and now you’ve got to take this here physic directly, to do you good.”

The old man looked at her in a vacant, helpless way for a few moments, and then his countenance grew angry, and he motioned the medicine aside.

“Oh, come now, it’s of no use! You’ve got to take it, so now then!”

She pressed the cup towards his lips; but the old man struck at it angrily, and it flew across the room, splashing the bed with the opium-impregnated liquid, and then shattering on the cemented floor.

“Well, of all the owd rips as ever I did see!” cried the woman. “Oh, you are better, then!”

“What was I thinking about when I was took badly?” cried Gemp, pointing as if nothing had happened.

“Oh, about your money in the bank for aught I know!” cried the woman.

“Ha!”

The old man clapped his hands to his forehead, and held them there for a few minutes, staring straight before him at the bed-room wall.

He had uttered that ejaculation so sharply that the woman started, and recoiled from him, in ignorance of the fact that she had touched the key-note that had set the fibres of his memory athrill.

“Why, what’s come to you?” she said. “Sakes, man, you’re not worse?”

Old Gemp did not reply for a few moments. Then, stretching out one hand, and pointing at his nurse:

“Go and fetch doctor. Go at once! Quick, I say, quick!”

The woman stared in alarm for a few moments, and then, catching her bonnet and shawl from a nail, she hurriedly put them on and went out.

“And I’ve been a-lying here,” panted Gemp, sliding his legs out of bed, and dressing himself quickly. “I remember now. I know. And perhaps all gone—deeds, writings—all gone. I knew there was something wrong—I knew there was something wrong!”

In five minutes he was out in the street, and had reached his friend the tailor, who stared aghast at him at first, but as soon as he heard his words blazed up as if fire had been applied to tow, and then subsided with a cunning look.

“Let’s keep it quiet, neighbour,” he said; “and go to-morrow morning, and see what we can do with Hallam. Ah!” he cried, as a thought flashed across his mind, “he has not been at the bank these three or four days. You’re right, neighbour, there is something wrong.”

Just at that moment, seeing the door open, another neighbour stepped in, heard the last words, and saw Gemp’s wild, miserly face agitated by the horror of his loss.

“What’s wrong?” he cried.

“Wrong? That scoundrel Hallam! that thief! that—”

The new-comer started.

“Don’t say there’s owt wrong wi’ Dixons’!” he panted.

“Yes, yes!” cried Gemp. “My deeds! my writings! I saw parson and Thickens busy together. They were tackling Hallam when I was took badly. Hallam’s a rogue! I warned you all—a rogue! a rogue! See how he has been going on!”

“Neighbour,” groaned the new-comer, “they’ve got all I have in the world up yonder in the bank.”

“Oh, but it can’t be true,” said the tailor, with a struggle to catch at a straw of hope.

“Ay, but it is true,” said the last comer, whose face was ghastly; “and I’m a ruined man.”

“Nay, nay, wait a bit. P’r’aps Hallam has only been ill.”

“Ill? It was he, then, I’ll swear, I saw to-night, walk by me in a cloak and cap. He were going off. Neighbours, are we to sit still and bear a thing like this?”

“I’ll hev my writings! I’ll hev my writings!” cried Gemp hoarsely, as he clawed at the air with his trembling hands.

“Is owt wrong?” said a fresh voice, and another of the Castor tradesmen sauntered in, pipe in mouth.

In another minute he knew all they had to tell and the light was indeed now applied to the tow. Reason and common-sense were thrown to the winds, and a wild, selfish madness took their place.

Dixons’, the stable, the most substantial house in the county, the stronghold where the essence of all the property for miles round was kept, was now a bank of straw; and the flame ran from house to house like the wildfire that it was. Had an enemy invaded the place, or the fire that burns, there could not have been greater consternation. The stability of the bank touched so many; while, as the news flew from mouth to mouth, hundreds who had not a shilling in the bank, never had, nor ever would have, took up the matter with the greatest indignation, and joined in the excitement, and seemed the most aggrieved.

There was nothing to go upon but the old man’s suspicion; but that spark had been enough to light the fire of popular indignation, and before long, in the midst of a score of different proposals, old Gemp started for the bank, supported by his two nearest neighbours, and across the dim market-place the increasing crowd made its way.

Mr Trampleasure was smoking his evening cigar on the step of the private door. The cigar, a present from Sir Gordon: the permission to smoke it there a present from Mrs Trampleasure.

He heard wonderingly the noise of tumult, saw the crowd approaching, and prudently went in and shut and bolted the doors, going up to a window to parley with the crowd, as the bell was rung furiously, and some one beat at the door of the bank with a stick.

“What is it?” he said.

“My deeds! my writings!” cried Gemp. “I want my deeds!”

“Who’s that? Mr Gemp? My dear sir, the bank’s closed, as you know. Come to-morrow morning.”

“No, no! Give the man his deeds. Here, break down the door!” cried a dozen voices; and the rough element that was to be found in King’s Castor, as well as elsewhere, uttered a shout, and began to kick at the panels.

“Come away, Gemp. We shall get nothing if these fellows break in.”

“Look here!” cried a shrill voice at the window; and there was a cessation of the noise, as Mrs Trampleasure leaned out. “We’ve got pistols and blunderbusses here, as you all know, and if you don’t be off, we shall fire.”

“Open the doors then,” cried a rough voice.

“We haven’t got the keys. Mr Thickens keeps them.”

There was a shout at this, for the crowd, like all crowds, was ready to snatch at a change, and away they ran towards the mill.

In five minutes though, they were tearing back, failing to find Thickens; and a cry had been raised by the man with the rough voice, and one of the poorest idlers of the town, the keenest redresser of wrong now.

“Hallam’s! To Hallam’s!” he yelled. “Hev him out, lads. We’ll hev him out. Hurray, lads, come on!”

The tradesmen and depositors at Dixons’ Bank looked aghast now at the mischief done. They saw how they had opened a crack in the dam, and that the crack had widened, the dam had given way, and the turbulent waters were about to carry all before them.

It was in vain to speak, for the indignant poor were in the front, and the tailor, Gemp, and others who had been the leaders in the movement found themselves in a pitiful minority, and were ready to retreat.

But that was impossible. They were in the crowd, and were carried with them across the market-place and down the street, to Hallam’s house, where they beat and thumped at the door.

There was no answer for a few minutes, and they beat and roared. Then some one threw a stone and smashed a pane of glass. This earned a cheer, and a shower of stones followed, the panes shivering and tinkling down inside and out of the house.

Millicent was wrong when she said that Thisbe had gone to bed, for that worthy was having what she called a quiet read in her room, and now as the windows were breaking, and Millicent was shielding Julie whom, half-awake, she had just dressed, there was an increase in the roar, for Thisbe had gone down, more indignant than alarmed, and thrown open the door.

Then there was a dead silence, the silence of surprise, as Thisbe stood in the doorway, and as a great hulking lad strove to push by her, struck him a sounding slap on the face.

There was a yell of laughter at this, and silence again, as the woman spoke.

“What do you want?” she cried boldly.

“Hallam! Hallam! In with you, lads: fetch him out.”

“No, no; stop! stop! My deeds, my writings!” shrieked Gemp; but his voice was drowned in the yelling of the mob, who now forced their way in, filling the hall, the dining and drawing-rooms, and then making for the old-fashioned staircase.

“He’s oop-stairs, lads; hev him down!” cried the leader, and the men pressed forward, with a yell, their faces looking wild and strange by the light of the lamp and the candle Thisbe had placed upon a bracket by the stairs.

But here their progress was stopped by Millicent, who, pale with dread, but with a spot as of fire in either cheek, stood at the foot of the staircase, holding the frightened child to her side, while Thisbe forced her way before her.

“What do you want?” she cried firmly.

“Thy master, missus. Stand aside, we won’t hurt thee. We want Hallam.”

“What do you want with him?” cried Millicent again.

“We want him to give oop the money he’s stole, and the keys o’ bank. Stand aside wi’ you. Hev him down.”

There was a rush, a struggle, and Millicent and her shrieking child were dragged down roughly, but good-humouredly, by the crowd that filled the hall, while others kept forcing their way in. As for Thisbe, as she fought and struck out bravely, her hands were pinioned behind her, and the group were held in a corner of the hall, while with a shout the mob rushed upstairs.

“Here, let go,” panted Thisbe to the men who held her. “I won’t do so any more. Let me take the bairn.”

The men loosed her at once, and they formed a ring about their prisoners.

“Let me have her, Miss Milly,” she whispered, and she took Julie in her arms, while Millicent, freed from this charge, made an effort to get to the stairs.

“Nay, nay, missus. Thou’rt better down here,” said one of her gaolers roughly; and the trembling woman was forced to stay, but only to keep imploring the men to let her pass.

Meanwhile the mob were running from room to room without success; and at each shout of disappointment a throb of hope and joy made Millicent’s heart leap.

She exchanged glances with Thisbe.

“He has escaped,” she whispered.

“More shame for him then,” cried Thisbe. “Why arn’t he here to protect his wife and bairn?”

At that moment a fierce yelling and cheering was heard upstairs, where the mob had reached the attic door and detected that it was locked on the inside.

The door was strong, but double the strength would not have held it against the fierce onslaught made, and in another minute, amidst fierce yelling, the tide began to set back, as the word was passed down, “They’ve got him.”

Millicent’s brain reeled, and for a few moments she seemed to lose consciousness; but as she saw Hallam, pale, bleeding, his hair torn and dishevelled, dragged down the stairs by the infuriated mob, her love gave her strength. Wresting herself from those who would have restrained her, she forced her way to her husband’s side, flung her arms about him as he was driven back against the wall, and, turning her defiant face to the mob, made of her own body a shield.

There was a moment’s pause, then a yell, and the leader’s voice cried:

“Never mind her. Hev him out, lads, and then clear the house.”

There was a fresh roar at this, and then blows were struck right and left in the dim light; the lamp was dashed over; while the curtains by the window, where it stood, blazed up, and cast a lurid light over the scene. For a moment the crowd recoiled as they saw the flushed and bleeding face of Christie Bayle, as he struck out right and left till he had fought his way to where he could plant himself before Millicent and her husband, and try to keep the assailants back.

The surprise was only of a few minutes’ duration.

“You lads, he’s only one. Come on! Hallam: Let’s judge and jury him.”

“You scoundrels!” roared Bayle, “a man must be judged by his country, and not by such ruffians as you.”

“Hev him out, lads, ’fore the place is burnt over your heads.”

“Back! stand back, cowards!” cried Bayle; “do you not see the woman and the child? Back! Out of the place, you dogs!”

“Dogs as can bite, too, parson,” cried the leader. “Come on.”

He made a dash at Hallam, getting him by the collar, but only to collapse with a groan, so fierce was the blow that struck him on the ear.

Again there was a pause—a murmur of rage, and the wooden support of the valance of the curtains began to crackle, while the hall was filling fast with stifling smoke.

One leader down, another sprang in his place, for the crowd was roused.

“Hev him out, lads! Quick, we have him now.”

There was a rush, and Hallam was torn from Millicent’s grasp—from Christie Bayle’s protecting arms, and with a yell the crowd rushed out into the street, lit now by the glow from the smashed hall windows and the fire that burned within.

“My husband! Christie—dear friend—help, oh, help!” wailed Millicent, as she tottered out to the front, in time to see Bayle literally leap to Hallam’s side and again strike the leader down.

It was the last effort of his strength; and now a score of hands were tearing and striking at the wretched victim, when there was the clattering of horses’ hoofs and a mounted man rode right into the crowd with half-a-dozen followers at his side.

“Stop!” he roared. “I am a magistrate. Constables: your duty.”

The mob fell back, and as five men, with whom was Thickens, seized upon Hallam, Millicent tottered into the circle and sank at her husband’s knees.

“Saved!” she sobbed, “saved!”

For the first time Hallam found his voice, and cried, as he tried to shake himself free:

“This—this is a mistake—constables. Loose me. These men—”

“It is no mistake, Mr Hallam, you are arrested for embezzlement,” said the mounted man sternly.

“Three cheers for Sir Gordon Bourne and Dixons’,” shouted one in the crowd.

Christie Bayle had just time to catch Millicent Hallam in his arms as her senses left her, and with a piteous moan she sank back utterly stunned.

Volume Two—Chapter Fourteen.Writhing in her Agony.“Mother!—father! Oh, in heaven’s name, speak to me! I cannot bear it. My heart is broken. What shall I do?”“My poor darling!” sobbed Mrs Luttrell, holding her child to her breast and rocking to and fro, while the doctor sat with wrinkled face nursing and caressing Julia, who clung to him in a scared fashion, not having yet got over the terrors of the past night.She had her arms about her grandfather, and nestled in his breast, but every now and then she started up to gaze piteously in his face.“Would my dolls all be burnt, grandpa?”“Oh, I hope not, my pet,” he said soothingly; “but never mind if they are: grandpa will buy you some better ones.”“But I liked those, grandpa, and—and is my little bed burnt too?”“No, my pet; I think not. I hope not. They put the fire out before it did a great deal of harm.”The child laid her head down again for a few moments, and then looked up anxiously.“Thibs says the bad men tore the place all to pieces last night and broke all the furniture and looking-glasses. Oh! grandpa, I—I—I—”Suffering still from the nervous shock of the nocturnal alarm, the poor child’s breast heaved, and she burst into a pitiful fit of sobbing, which was some time before it subsided.“Don’t think about it all, my pet,” said the doctor, tenderly stroking the soft little head. “Never mind about the old house, you shall come and live here with grandpa, and we’ll have such games in the old garden again.”“Yes, and I may smell the flowers, and—and—but I want our own house too.”“Ah, well, we shall see. There, you are not to think any more about that now.”“Why doesn’t Mr Bayle come, grandpa? Did the bad people hurt him very much?”“Oh no, my darling: he’s all right, and he punished some of them.”“And when will papa come?”“Hush, child,” cried Millicent in a harsh, strange voice, “I cannot hear to hear you.”The child looked at her in a scared manner and clung to her grandfather, but struggled from his embrace directly after, and ran to her mother, throwing her arms about her, and kissing her and sobbing.“Oh, my own dear, dear mamma!”“My darling, my darling!” cried Millicent, passionately clasping her to her breast; and Mrs Luttrell drew away to leave them together, creeping quietly to the doctor’s side, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, looking a while in his eyes as if asking whether she were doing wisely.The doctor nodded, and for a few minutes there was no sound heard but Millicent’s sobs.“I wish Mr Bayle would come,” said Julia all at once in her silvery childish treble.“Silence, child!” cried Millicent fiercely. “Father dear, speak to me; can you not help me in this trouble? You know the charge is all false?”“My darling, I will do everything I can.”“Yes, yes, I know, but every one seems to have turned against us—Sir Gordon, Mr Bayle, the whole town. It is some terrible mistake: all some fearful error. How dare they charge my husband with a crime?”She gazed fiercely at her father as she spoke, and the old man stood with his arms about Mrs Luttrell and his lips compressed.“You do not speak,” cried Millicent; “surely you are not going to turn against us, father?”“Oh! Milly, my own child,” sobbed Mrs Luttrell, running to her to take her head to her breast, “don’t speak to us like that; as if your father would do anything but help you.”“Of course, of course,” cried Millicent excitedly; “but there, I must put off all this pitiful wailing.”She rose in a quiet, determined way, and wiped her eyes hastily, arranged her hair, and began to walk up and down the room. Then, stopping, she forced a smile, and bent down and kissed Julia, sending a flash of joy through her countenance.“Go and look round the garden, darling. Pick mamma a nice bunch of flowers.”“Will you come too, grandpa?” cried the child eagerly.“I’ll come to you presently, darling,” said the doctor nodding; and the child bounded to the open window with a sigh of relief, but ran back to kiss each in turn.“Now we can speak,” cried Millicent, panting, as she forced herself to be calm. “There is no time for girlish sobbing when such a call as this is made upon me. The whole town is against poor Robert; they have wrecked and burnt our house, and they have cast him into prison.”“My darling, be calm, be calm,” said the doctor soothingly.“Yes, I am calm,” she said, “and I am going to work—and help my husband. Now tell me, What is to be done first? He is in that dreadful place.”“Yes, my child, but leave this now. I will do all I can, and will tell you everything. You have had no sleep all night; go and lie down now for a few hours.”“Sleep! and at a time like this!” cried Millicent. “Now tell me. He will be brought up before the magistrates to-day?”“Yes, my child.”“And he must have legal advice to counteract all this cruel charge that has been brought against him. Poor fellow! so troubled as he has been of late.”The doctor looked at her with the lines in his forehead deepening.“If they had given him time he would have proved to them how false all these attacks are. But we are wasting time. The lawyer, father, and he will have to be paid. You will help me, dear; we must have some money.”The doctor exchanged glances with his wife.“You have some, of course?” he said, turning to Millicent.“I? No. Robert has been so pressed lately. But you will lend us all we want. You have plenty, father.”The doctor was silent, and half turned away.“Father!” cried Millicent, catching his hand, “don’t you turn from me in my distress. I tell you Robert is innocent, and only wants time to prove it to all the world. You will let me have the money for his defence?”The doctor remained silent.“Father!” cried Millicent in a tone of command.“Hush! my darling; your poor father has no money,” sobbed Mrs Luttrell, “and sometimes lately we have not known which way to turn for a few shillings.”“Oh, father!” cried Millicent reproachfully. “But there’s the house. You must borrow money on its security, enough to pay for the best counsel in London. Robert will repay you a hundredfold.”The doctor turned away and walked to the window.“Father!” cried Millicent, “am I your child?”“My child! my darling!” he groaned, coming quickly back, “how can you speak to me in such a tone?”“How can you turn from me at such a time, when the honour of my dear husband is at stake? What are a few paltry hundred pounds to that? You cannot, you shall not refuse. There, I know enough of business for that. The lawyers will lend you money on the security of this house. Go at once, and get what is necessary. Why do you hesitate?”“My poor darling!” cried Mrs Luttrell piteously, “don’t, pray don’t speak to your father like that.”“I must help my husband,” said Millicent hoarsely. “Yes, yes, and you shall, my dear; but be calm, be calm. There, there, there.”“Mother, I must hear my father speak,” said Millicent sternly. “I come to him in sore distress and poverty. My home has been wrecked by last night’s mob, my poor husband half killed, and torn from me to be cast into prison. I come to my father for help—a few pitiful pounds, and he seems to side with my husband’s enemies.”“Milly, my darling, I’ll do everything I can,” cried the doctor; “but you ask impossibilities. The house is not mine.”“Not yours, father?”“Hush! hush, my dear!” sobbed Mrs Luttrell. “I can’t explain to you now, but poor papa was obliged to sell it a little while ago.”“Where is the money?” said Millicent fiercely.“It was all gone before—the mortgages,” said Mrs Luttrell.“And who bought it?” cried Millicent.“Mr Bayle.”There was a pause of a few moments’ duration, and then the suffering woman seemed to flash out into a fit of passion.“Mr Bayle again!” she cried.“Yes, Mr Bayle, our friend.”At that moment there came a burst of merry laughter from the garden, the sounds floating in through the open window with the sweet scents of the flowers, and directly after Julia, looking flushed and happy, appeared, holding Christie Bayle’s hand.Bayle paused as he saw the group within, and then slowly entered.“Mamma, I knew Mr Bayle would come!” cried Julia excitedly. “But, oh, look at him, he has hurt himself so! He is so—so—oh, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it!”The memories of the past night came back in a flash—the hurried awaking from sleep, the dressing, the sounds of the mob, the breaking windows, the fire, and the wild struggle; and the poor child sobbed hysterically and trembled, as Bayle sank upon his knees and took her to his breast.There she clung, while he caressed her and whispered comforting words, Millicent the while standing back, erect and stern, and Mrs Luttrell and the doctor with troubled countenances looking on.In a few minutes the child grew calm again, and then, without a word, Millicent crossed to the fireplace and rang the bell. It was answered directly by the doctor’s maid.“Send Thisbe here,” said Millicent sternly.In another minute Thisbe, who looked very white and troubled, appeared at the door, gazing sharply from one to the other.“Julie, go to Thisbe,” said Millicent in a cold, harsh voice.The child looked up quickly, and clung to Bayle, as she gazed at her mother with the same shrinking, half-scared look she had so often directed at her father.“Julie!”The child ran across to Thisbe, and Bayle bit his lip, and his brow contracted, for he caught the sound of a low wail as the door was closed.Then, advancing to her, with his face full of the pity he felt, Bayle held out his hand to Millicent, and then let it fall, as she stood motionless, gazing fiercely in his face, till he lowered his eyes, and his head sank slowly, while he heaved a sigh.“You have come, then,” she said, “come to look upon your work. You have come to enjoy your triumph. False friend! Coward! Treacherous villain! You have cast my husband into prison, and now you dare to meet me face to face!”“Mrs Hallam! Millicent!” he cried, looking up, his face flushing as he met her eyes, “what are you saying?”“The truth!” she cried fiercely. “He knew you better than I. He warned me against you. His dislike had cause. I, poor, weak, trusting woman, believed you to be our friend, and let you crawl and enlace yourself about our innocent child’s heart, while all the time you were forming your plans, and waiting for your chance to strike!”“Mrs Hallam,” said Bayle calmly, and with a voice full of pity, “you do not know what you are saying.”“Not know! when my poor husband told me all!—how you waited until he was in difficulties, and then plotted with that wretched menial Thickens to overthrow him! I know you now: cowardly, cruel man! Unworthy of a thought! But let me tell you that you win no triumph. You thought to separate us—to make the whole world turn from him whom you have cast into prison. You have succeeded in tightening the bonds between us. The trouble will pass as soon as my husband’s innocency is shown, while your conduct will cling to you, and show itself like some stain!”A look as angry as her own came over his countenance, but it passed in a moment, and he said gravely: “I came to offer you my sympathy and help in this time of need.”“Your help, your sympathy!” cried Millicent scornfully. “You, who planned, here, in my presence, with Sir Gordon, my husband’s ruin! Leave this house, sir! Stay! I forgot. By your machinations you are master here. Mother, father, let us go. The world is wide, and heaven will not let such villainy triumph in the end.”“Oh, hush! hush!” exclaimed Bayle sternly. “Mrs Hallam, you know not what you say. Doctor, come on to me, I wish to see you. Dear Mrs Luttrell, let me assist you all I can. Good-bye! God help you in your trouble. Good-bye!”He bent down and kissed the old lady; and as he pressed her hand she clung to his, and kissed it in return.“Good-bye, Mrs Hallam,” he said, holding out his hand once more.She turned from him with a look of disgust and loathing, and he went slowly out, as he had come, with his head bent, along the road, and on to the market-place.

“Mother!—father! Oh, in heaven’s name, speak to me! I cannot bear it. My heart is broken. What shall I do?”

“My poor darling!” sobbed Mrs Luttrell, holding her child to her breast and rocking to and fro, while the doctor sat with wrinkled face nursing and caressing Julia, who clung to him in a scared fashion, not having yet got over the terrors of the past night.

She had her arms about her grandfather, and nestled in his breast, but every now and then she started up to gaze piteously in his face.

“Would my dolls all be burnt, grandpa?”

“Oh, I hope not, my pet,” he said soothingly; “but never mind if they are: grandpa will buy you some better ones.”

“But I liked those, grandpa, and—and is my little bed burnt too?”

“No, my pet; I think not. I hope not. They put the fire out before it did a great deal of harm.”

The child laid her head down again for a few moments, and then looked up anxiously.

“Thibs says the bad men tore the place all to pieces last night and broke all the furniture and looking-glasses. Oh! grandpa, I—I—I—”

Suffering still from the nervous shock of the nocturnal alarm, the poor child’s breast heaved, and she burst into a pitiful fit of sobbing, which was some time before it subsided.

“Don’t think about it all, my pet,” said the doctor, tenderly stroking the soft little head. “Never mind about the old house, you shall come and live here with grandpa, and we’ll have such games in the old garden again.”

“Yes, and I may smell the flowers, and—and—but I want our own house too.”

“Ah, well, we shall see. There, you are not to think any more about that now.”

“Why doesn’t Mr Bayle come, grandpa? Did the bad people hurt him very much?”

“Oh no, my darling: he’s all right, and he punished some of them.”

“And when will papa come?”

“Hush, child,” cried Millicent in a harsh, strange voice, “I cannot hear to hear you.”

The child looked at her in a scared manner and clung to her grandfather, but struggled from his embrace directly after, and ran to her mother, throwing her arms about her, and kissing her and sobbing.

“Oh, my own dear, dear mamma!”

“My darling, my darling!” cried Millicent, passionately clasping her to her breast; and Mrs Luttrell drew away to leave them together, creeping quietly to the doctor’s side, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, looking a while in his eyes as if asking whether she were doing wisely.

The doctor nodded, and for a few minutes there was no sound heard but Millicent’s sobs.

“I wish Mr Bayle would come,” said Julia all at once in her silvery childish treble.

“Silence, child!” cried Millicent fiercely. “Father dear, speak to me; can you not help me in this trouble? You know the charge is all false?”

“My darling, I will do everything I can.”

“Yes, yes, I know, but every one seems to have turned against us—Sir Gordon, Mr Bayle, the whole town. It is some terrible mistake: all some fearful error. How dare they charge my husband with a crime?”

She gazed fiercely at her father as she spoke, and the old man stood with his arms about Mrs Luttrell and his lips compressed.

“You do not speak,” cried Millicent; “surely you are not going to turn against us, father?”

“Oh! Milly, my own child,” sobbed Mrs Luttrell, running to her to take her head to her breast, “don’t speak to us like that; as if your father would do anything but help you.”

“Of course, of course,” cried Millicent excitedly; “but there, I must put off all this pitiful wailing.”

She rose in a quiet, determined way, and wiped her eyes hastily, arranged her hair, and began to walk up and down the room. Then, stopping, she forced a smile, and bent down and kissed Julia, sending a flash of joy through her countenance.

“Go and look round the garden, darling. Pick mamma a nice bunch of flowers.”

“Will you come too, grandpa?” cried the child eagerly.

“I’ll come to you presently, darling,” said the doctor nodding; and the child bounded to the open window with a sigh of relief, but ran back to kiss each in turn.

“Now we can speak,” cried Millicent, panting, as she forced herself to be calm. “There is no time for girlish sobbing when such a call as this is made upon me. The whole town is against poor Robert; they have wrecked and burnt our house, and they have cast him into prison.”

“My darling, be calm, be calm,” said the doctor soothingly.

“Yes, I am calm,” she said, “and I am going to work—and help my husband. Now tell me, What is to be done first? He is in that dreadful place.”

“Yes, my child, but leave this now. I will do all I can, and will tell you everything. You have had no sleep all night; go and lie down now for a few hours.”

“Sleep! and at a time like this!” cried Millicent. “Now tell me. He will be brought up before the magistrates to-day?”

“Yes, my child.”

“And he must have legal advice to counteract all this cruel charge that has been brought against him. Poor fellow! so troubled as he has been of late.”

The doctor looked at her with the lines in his forehead deepening.

“If they had given him time he would have proved to them how false all these attacks are. But we are wasting time. The lawyer, father, and he will have to be paid. You will help me, dear; we must have some money.”

The doctor exchanged glances with his wife.

“You have some, of course?” he said, turning to Millicent.

“I? No. Robert has been so pressed lately. But you will lend us all we want. You have plenty, father.”

The doctor was silent, and half turned away.

“Father!” cried Millicent, catching his hand, “don’t you turn from me in my distress. I tell you Robert is innocent, and only wants time to prove it to all the world. You will let me have the money for his defence?”

The doctor remained silent.

“Father!” cried Millicent in a tone of command.

“Hush! my darling; your poor father has no money,” sobbed Mrs Luttrell, “and sometimes lately we have not known which way to turn for a few shillings.”

“Oh, father!” cried Millicent reproachfully. “But there’s the house. You must borrow money on its security, enough to pay for the best counsel in London. Robert will repay you a hundredfold.”

The doctor turned away and walked to the window.

“Father!” cried Millicent, “am I your child?”

“My child! my darling!” he groaned, coming quickly back, “how can you speak to me in such a tone?”

“How can you turn from me at such a time, when the honour of my dear husband is at stake? What are a few paltry hundred pounds to that? You cannot, you shall not refuse. There, I know enough of business for that. The lawyers will lend you money on the security of this house. Go at once, and get what is necessary. Why do you hesitate?”

“My poor darling!” cried Mrs Luttrell piteously, “don’t, pray don’t speak to your father like that.”

“I must help my husband,” said Millicent hoarsely. “Yes, yes, and you shall, my dear; but be calm, be calm. There, there, there.”

“Mother, I must hear my father speak,” said Millicent sternly. “I come to him in sore distress and poverty. My home has been wrecked by last night’s mob, my poor husband half killed, and torn from me to be cast into prison. I come to my father for help—a few pitiful pounds, and he seems to side with my husband’s enemies.”

“Milly, my darling, I’ll do everything I can,” cried the doctor; “but you ask impossibilities. The house is not mine.”

“Not yours, father?”

“Hush! hush, my dear!” sobbed Mrs Luttrell. “I can’t explain to you now, but poor papa was obliged to sell it a little while ago.”

“Where is the money?” said Millicent fiercely.

“It was all gone before—the mortgages,” said Mrs Luttrell.

“And who bought it?” cried Millicent.

“Mr Bayle.”

There was a pause of a few moments’ duration, and then the suffering woman seemed to flash out into a fit of passion.

“Mr Bayle again!” she cried.

“Yes, Mr Bayle, our friend.”

At that moment there came a burst of merry laughter from the garden, the sounds floating in through the open window with the sweet scents of the flowers, and directly after Julia, looking flushed and happy, appeared, holding Christie Bayle’s hand.

Bayle paused as he saw the group within, and then slowly entered.

“Mamma, I knew Mr Bayle would come!” cried Julia excitedly. “But, oh, look at him, he has hurt himself so! He is so—so—oh, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it!”

The memories of the past night came back in a flash—the hurried awaking from sleep, the dressing, the sounds of the mob, the breaking windows, the fire, and the wild struggle; and the poor child sobbed hysterically and trembled, as Bayle sank upon his knees and took her to his breast.

There she clung, while he caressed her and whispered comforting words, Millicent the while standing back, erect and stern, and Mrs Luttrell and the doctor with troubled countenances looking on.

In a few minutes the child grew calm again, and then, without a word, Millicent crossed to the fireplace and rang the bell. It was answered directly by the doctor’s maid.

“Send Thisbe here,” said Millicent sternly.

In another minute Thisbe, who looked very white and troubled, appeared at the door, gazing sharply from one to the other.

“Julie, go to Thisbe,” said Millicent in a cold, harsh voice.

The child looked up quickly, and clung to Bayle, as she gazed at her mother with the same shrinking, half-scared look she had so often directed at her father.

“Julie!”

The child ran across to Thisbe, and Bayle bit his lip, and his brow contracted, for he caught the sound of a low wail as the door was closed.

Then, advancing to her, with his face full of the pity he felt, Bayle held out his hand to Millicent, and then let it fall, as she stood motionless, gazing fiercely in his face, till he lowered his eyes, and his head sank slowly, while he heaved a sigh.

“You have come, then,” she said, “come to look upon your work. You have come to enjoy your triumph. False friend! Coward! Treacherous villain! You have cast my husband into prison, and now you dare to meet me face to face!”

“Mrs Hallam! Millicent!” he cried, looking up, his face flushing as he met her eyes, “what are you saying?”

“The truth!” she cried fiercely. “He knew you better than I. He warned me against you. His dislike had cause. I, poor, weak, trusting woman, believed you to be our friend, and let you crawl and enlace yourself about our innocent child’s heart, while all the time you were forming your plans, and waiting for your chance to strike!”

“Mrs Hallam,” said Bayle calmly, and with a voice full of pity, “you do not know what you are saying.”

“Not know! when my poor husband told me all!—how you waited until he was in difficulties, and then plotted with that wretched menial Thickens to overthrow him! I know you now: cowardly, cruel man! Unworthy of a thought! But let me tell you that you win no triumph. You thought to separate us—to make the whole world turn from him whom you have cast into prison. You have succeeded in tightening the bonds between us. The trouble will pass as soon as my husband’s innocency is shown, while your conduct will cling to you, and show itself like some stain!”

A look as angry as her own came over his countenance, but it passed in a moment, and he said gravely: “I came to offer you my sympathy and help in this time of need.”

“Your help, your sympathy!” cried Millicent scornfully. “You, who planned, here, in my presence, with Sir Gordon, my husband’s ruin! Leave this house, sir! Stay! I forgot. By your machinations you are master here. Mother, father, let us go. The world is wide, and heaven will not let such villainy triumph in the end.”

“Oh, hush! hush!” exclaimed Bayle sternly. “Mrs Hallam, you know not what you say. Doctor, come on to me, I wish to see you. Dear Mrs Luttrell, let me assist you all I can. Good-bye! God help you in your trouble. Good-bye!”

He bent down and kissed the old lady; and as he pressed her hand she clung to his, and kissed it in return.

“Good-bye, Mrs Hallam,” he said, holding out his hand once more.

She turned from him with a look of disgust and loathing, and he went slowly out, as he had come, with his head bent, along the road, and on to the market-place.

Volume Two—Chapter Fifteen.A Critical Time.There was only one bit of business going on in King’s Castor that morning among the mechanics, and that was where two carpenters were busy nailing boards across the gaping windows and broken door of Hallam’s house.The ivy about the hall window was all scorched, and the frames of that and two windows above were charred, but only the hall, staircase, and one room had been burned before the fire was extinguished. The greater part of the place, though, was a wreck, the mob having wreaked their vengeance upon the furniture when Hallam was snatched from their hands by the law; and for about an hour the self-constituted avengers of the customers at Dixons’ Bank had behaved like Goths.It was impossible for work to go on with such a night to canvass. One group, as Bayle approached, was watching the little fire-engine, and the drying of its hose which was hauled up by one end over the branch of an oak-tree at Poppin’s Corner.There was nothing to see but the little, contemptible, old-fashioned pump on wheels; still fifty people, who had seen it in the belfry every Sunday as they went to church, stopped to stare at it now.But the great group was round about the manager’s house, many of them being the idlers and scamps of the place, who had been foremost in the destruction.The public-houses had their contingents; and then there were the farmers from all round, who had driven in, red-hot with excitement; and, as soon as they had left their gigs or carts in the inn-yard, were making their way up to the bank.Some did not stop to go to the inn, but were there in their conveyances, waiting for the bank to open, long before the time, and quite a murmur of menace arose, when, to the very moment, James Thickens, calm and cool and drab as usual, threw open the door, to be driven back by a party of those gathered together.Fortunately the news had spread slowly, so that the crowd was not large; but it was augmented by a couple of score of the blackguards of the place, hungry-eyed, moist of lip, and ready for any excuse to leap over the bank counter and begin the work of plunder.For the first time in his life James Thickens performed that feat—leaping over the counter to place it between himself and the clamorous mob, who saw Mr Trampleasure there and Sir Gordon Bourne in the manager’s room, with the door open, and something on the table.“Here—Here”—“Here—Me”—“No, me.”“I was first.”“No, me, Thickens.”“My money.”“My cheque.”“Change these notes.”The time was many years ago, and there were no dozen or two of county constabulary to draft into the place for its protection. Hence it was that as Thickens stood, cool and silent, before the excited crowd, Sir Gordon, calm and stern, appeared in the doorway with a couple of pistols in his left hand, one held by the butt, the other by the barrel passed under his thumb.“Silence!” he cried in a quick, commanding tone.“I am prepared—”“Yah! No speeches. Our money! Our—”“Silence!” roared Sir Gordon. “We are waiting to pay all demands.”“Hear, hear! Hooray!” shouted one of the farmers, who had come in hot haste, and his mottled face grew calm.“But we can’t—”“Yah—yah!” came in a menacing yell.“Over with you, lads!” cried a great ruffian, clapping his hands on the counter and making a spring, which the pressure behind checked and hindered, so that he only got one leg on the counter.“Back, you ruffian!” cried Sir Gordon, taking a step forward, and, quick as lightning, presenting a pistol at the fellow’s head. “You, Dick Warren, I gave you six months for stealing corn. Move an inch forward, and as I am a man I’ll fire.”There was a fierce murmur, and then a pause.The great ruffian half crouched upon the counter, crossing his eyes in his fear, and squinting crookedly down the pistol barrel, which was within a foot of his head.“I say, gentlemen and customers, that Mr Thickens here is waiting to pay over all demands on Dixons’ Bank.”“Hear, hear!” cried the farmer who had before spoken.“But there are twenty or thirty dirty ruffians among you, and people who do not bank with us, and I must ask you to turn them out.”There was a fierce murmur here, and Sir Gordon’s voice rose again high and clear.“Mr Trampleasure, you will find the loaded firearms ready in the upper room. Go up, sir, and without hesitation shoot down the first scoundrel who dares to throw a stone at the bank.”“Yes, Sir Gordon,” said Trampleasure, who dared not have fired a piece to save his life, but who gladly beat a retreat to the first-floor window, where he stood with one short blunderbuss in his hand, and Mrs Trampleasure with the other.“Now, gentlemen,” cried Sir Gordon, “I am waiting for you to clear the bank.”There was another fierce growl at this; but the mottled-faced farmer, who had ridden in on his stout cob, and who carried a hunting crop with an old-fashioned iron hammer head, spat in his fist, and turned the handle—“Now, neighbours and friends as is customers!” he roared in a stentorian voice, “I’m ready when you are.” As he spoke he caught the man half on the counter by the collar, and dragged him off.“Here, keep your hands off me!”“Yow want to fight, yow’d—”“Yah! hah!”Then a scuffling and confused growl, and one or two appeals to sticks and fists; but in five minutes every man not known as a customer of the bank was outside, and the farmers gave a cheer, which was answered by a yell from the increasing mob, a couple of dozen of whom had stooped for stones and began to flourish sticks.But the stout farmer, who was on the steps between the two pillars that flanked the entrance, put his hand to his mouth, as if about to give a view halloo!“Look out for the bloonder-boosh, my lads.” And then, turning his head up to the window where Mr Trampleasure stood, weapon in hand, “Tak’ a good aim on the front, and gie it ’em—whang! Mr Trampleasure, sir. Thee’ll scatter the sloogs fine.”Not a stone was thrown, and by this time James Thickens was busy at work cancelling with his quill pen, and counting and weighing out gold. He never offered one of Dixons’ notes: silver and gold, current coin of the realm, was all he passed over the counter, and though the customers pressed and hurried to get their cheques or notes changed, Thickens retained his coolness and went on.At the end of a quarter of an hour the excitement was subsiding, but the bank was still full of farmers and tradespeople, the big burly man with the hunting crop being still by the counter unpaid.All at once, after watching the paying over of the money for some time, he began hammering the mahogany counter heavily with the iron handle of his whip.“Here, howd hard!” he roared.Sir Gordon, who had put the pistols on the table, and was sitting on the manager’s chair, coolly reading his newspaper in full view, laid it down, and rose to come to the open glass door.“Ay, that’s right, Sir Gordon. I want a word wi’ thee. I’m not a man to go on wi’ fullishness; but brass is brass, and a hard thing to get howd on. Now, look ye here. Howd hard, neighbours, I hevn’t got much to saya.”“What is it, Mr Anderson?” said Sir Gordon calmly.“Why, this much, Sir Gordon and neighbours. Friend o’ mine comes out o’ the town this morning and says, ‘If thou’st got any brass i’ Dixons’ Bank, run and get it, lad, for Maester Hallam’s bo’ted, and bank’s boosted oop.’ Now, Sir Gordon, it don’t look as if bank hev boosted oop.”“Oh, no,” said Sir Gordon, smiling.“Hev Maester Hallam bo’ted, then, or is that a lie too?”“I am sorry to say that Mr Hallam has been arrested on a charge of fraud.”“That be true, then?” said the farmer. “Well, now, look here, Sir Gordon; I’ve banked wi’ you over twanty year, and I can’t afford to lose my brass. Tween man and man, is my money safe?”“Perfectly, Mr Anderson.”“That’ll do, Sir Gordon,” said the farmer, tearing up the cheque he held in his hand, and scattering it over his head. “I’ll tak’ Sir Gordon’s word or Dixons’ if they say it’s all right. I don’t want my brass.”“Gentlemen,” said Sir Gordon, flashing slightly, “if you will trust me and my dear old friend Mr Dixon, you shall be paid all demands to the last penny we have. I am sorry to say that I have discovered a very heavy defalcation on the part of our late manager, and the loss will be large, but that loss will fall upon us, gentlemen, not upon you.”“But I want my deeds, my writings,” cried a voice. “I’m not a-going to be cheated out o’ my rights.”“Who is that?” said Sir Gordon.“Mr Gemp, Sir Gordon,” said Thickens quickly. “Deposit of deeds of row of houses in Rochester Close; and shares.”“Mr Gemp,” said Sir Gordon, “I am afraid your deeds are amongst others that are missing.”“Ay! Ay! Robbers! Robbers!” shouted Gemp excitedly.“No, Mr Gemp, we are not robbers,” said Sir Gordon. “If you will employ your valuer, I will employ ours; and as soon as they have decided the amount, Mr James Thickens will pay you—to-day if you can get the business done, and the houses and shares are Dixons’.”“Hear, hear, hear,” shouted Anderson. “There, neighbour, he can’t say fairer than that.”“Nay, I want my writings, and I don’t want to sell. I want my writings. I’ll hev ’em too.”“Shame on you, Gemp,” said a voice behind him. “Three days ago you were at death’s door. Your life was spared, and this is the thank-offering you make to your neighbours in their trouble.”“Nay, don’t you talk like that, parson, thou doesn’t know what it is to lose thy all,” piped Gemp.“Lose?” cried Bayle, who had entered the bank quietly to see Sir Gordon. “Man, I have lost heavily too.”Thickens was making signs to him now with his quill pen.“Ay, but I want my writings. I’ll hev my writings,” cried Gemp. “Neighbours, you have your money. Don’t you believe ’em. They’re robbers.”“If I weer close to thee, owd Gemp, I’d tak’ thee by the scruff and the band o’ thy owd breeches and pitch thee out o’ window. Sir Gordon’s ready to do the handsome thing.”“Touch me if you dare,” cried old Gemp. “I want my writings. It was bank getting unsafe made me badly. You neighbours have all thy money out, for they haven’t got enough to last long.”There was a fresh murmur here, and Sir Gordon looked anxious. Mr Anderson stood fast; but it was evident that a strong party were waiting for their money, and more than one began to twitch Thickens by the sleeve, and present cheques and notes.Thickens paid no heed, but made his way to where Christie Bayle was standing, and handed him a pocket-book.“Here,” he said. “I couldn’t come to you. I had to watch the bank.”“My pocket-book, Thickens?”“Yes, sir. I was just in time to knock that scoundrel over as he was throttling you. I’d come to meet the coach.”“Why, Thickens!” cried Bayle, flushing—“Ah, you grasping old miser! What! turn thief?”The latter was to old Gemp, who saw the pocket-book passed, and made a hawk-like clutch at it, but his wrist was pinned by Bayle, who took the pocket-book and slipped it into his breast.“It’s my papers—it’s writings—it’s—”His voice was drowned in a clamour that arose, as about twenty more people came hurrying in at the bank-door, eager to make demands for their deposits.Sir Gordon grew pale, for there was not enough cash in the house to meet the constant demand, and he had hoped that the ready payment of a great deal would quiet the run.The clamour increased, and it soon became evident that the dam had given way, and that nothing remained but to go on paying to the last penny in the bank, while there was every possibility of wreck and destruction following.“Howd hard, neighbours,” cried Anderson; “Sir Gordon says it’s all right. Dixons’ ’ll pay.”“Dixons’ can’t pay,” shouted a voice. “Hallam’s got everything, and the bank’s ruined.”There was a roar here, and the fire seemed to have been again applied to the tow. Thickens looked in despair at Bayle, and then with a quick movement locked the cash drawer, and clapped the key in his pocket. The action was seen. There was a yell of fury from the crowd in front, and a dozen hands seized the clerk.Sir Gordon darted forward, this time without pistols, and hands and sticks were raised, when in a voice of thunder Christie Bayle roared:“Stop!”There was instant silence, for he had leaped upon the bank counter.“Stand back!” he said, “and act like Christian men, and not like wild beasts. Dixons’ Bank is sound. Look here!”“It’s failed! it’s failed!” cried a dozen voices.“It has not failed,” shouted Bayle. “Look here: I have been to London.”“Yes, we know.”“To fetch twenty-one thousand pounds—my own property!”There was dead silence here.“Look! that is the money, all in new Bank of England notes.”He tore them out of the large pocket-book.“To show you my confidence in Dixons’ Bank and in Sir Gordon Bourne’s word, I deposit this sum with them, and open an account. Mr Thickens, have the goodness to enter this to my credit; I’ll take a chequebook when you are at liberty.”He passed the sheaf of rustling, fluttering, new, crisp notes to the cashier, and then, taking Sir Gordon’s offered hand, leaped down inside the counter of the bank.“There, Sir Gordon,” he said, with a smile, “I hope the plague is stayed.”“Christie Bayle,” whispered Sir Gordon huskily, “Heaven bless you! I shall never forget this day!” Half-an-hour later the bank business was going on as usual, but the business of the past night and morning was more talked of than before.

There was only one bit of business going on in King’s Castor that morning among the mechanics, and that was where two carpenters were busy nailing boards across the gaping windows and broken door of Hallam’s house.

The ivy about the hall window was all scorched, and the frames of that and two windows above were charred, but only the hall, staircase, and one room had been burned before the fire was extinguished. The greater part of the place, though, was a wreck, the mob having wreaked their vengeance upon the furniture when Hallam was snatched from their hands by the law; and for about an hour the self-constituted avengers of the customers at Dixons’ Bank had behaved like Goths.

It was impossible for work to go on with such a night to canvass. One group, as Bayle approached, was watching the little fire-engine, and the drying of its hose which was hauled up by one end over the branch of an oak-tree at Poppin’s Corner.

There was nothing to see but the little, contemptible, old-fashioned pump on wheels; still fifty people, who had seen it in the belfry every Sunday as they went to church, stopped to stare at it now.

But the great group was round about the manager’s house, many of them being the idlers and scamps of the place, who had been foremost in the destruction.

The public-houses had their contingents; and then there were the farmers from all round, who had driven in, red-hot with excitement; and, as soon as they had left their gigs or carts in the inn-yard, were making their way up to the bank.

Some did not stop to go to the inn, but were there in their conveyances, waiting for the bank to open, long before the time, and quite a murmur of menace arose, when, to the very moment, James Thickens, calm and cool and drab as usual, threw open the door, to be driven back by a party of those gathered together.

Fortunately the news had spread slowly, so that the crowd was not large; but it was augmented by a couple of score of the blackguards of the place, hungry-eyed, moist of lip, and ready for any excuse to leap over the bank counter and begin the work of plunder.

For the first time in his life James Thickens performed that feat—leaping over the counter to place it between himself and the clamorous mob, who saw Mr Trampleasure there and Sir Gordon Bourne in the manager’s room, with the door open, and something on the table.

“Here—Here”—“Here—Me”—“No, me.”

“I was first.”

“No, me, Thickens.”

“My money.”

“My cheque.”

“Change these notes.”

The time was many years ago, and there were no dozen or two of county constabulary to draft into the place for its protection. Hence it was that as Thickens stood, cool and silent, before the excited crowd, Sir Gordon, calm and stern, appeared in the doorway with a couple of pistols in his left hand, one held by the butt, the other by the barrel passed under his thumb.

“Silence!” he cried in a quick, commanding tone.

“I am prepared—”

“Yah! No speeches. Our money! Our—”

“Silence!” roared Sir Gordon. “We are waiting to pay all demands.”

“Hear, hear! Hooray!” shouted one of the farmers, who had come in hot haste, and his mottled face grew calm.

“But we can’t—”

“Yah—yah!” came in a menacing yell.

“Over with you, lads!” cried a great ruffian, clapping his hands on the counter and making a spring, which the pressure behind checked and hindered, so that he only got one leg on the counter.

“Back, you ruffian!” cried Sir Gordon, taking a step forward, and, quick as lightning, presenting a pistol at the fellow’s head. “You, Dick Warren, I gave you six months for stealing corn. Move an inch forward, and as I am a man I’ll fire.”

There was a fierce murmur, and then a pause.

The great ruffian half crouched upon the counter, crossing his eyes in his fear, and squinting crookedly down the pistol barrel, which was within a foot of his head.

“I say, gentlemen and customers, that Mr Thickens here is waiting to pay over all demands on Dixons’ Bank.”

“Hear, hear!” cried the farmer who had before spoken.

“But there are twenty or thirty dirty ruffians among you, and people who do not bank with us, and I must ask you to turn them out.”

There was a fierce murmur here, and Sir Gordon’s voice rose again high and clear.

“Mr Trampleasure, you will find the loaded firearms ready in the upper room. Go up, sir, and without hesitation shoot down the first scoundrel who dares to throw a stone at the bank.”

“Yes, Sir Gordon,” said Trampleasure, who dared not have fired a piece to save his life, but who gladly beat a retreat to the first-floor window, where he stood with one short blunderbuss in his hand, and Mrs Trampleasure with the other.

“Now, gentlemen,” cried Sir Gordon, “I am waiting for you to clear the bank.”

There was another fierce growl at this; but the mottled-faced farmer, who had ridden in on his stout cob, and who carried a hunting crop with an old-fashioned iron hammer head, spat in his fist, and turned the handle—

“Now, neighbours and friends as is customers!” he roared in a stentorian voice, “I’m ready when you are.” As he spoke he caught the man half on the counter by the collar, and dragged him off.

“Here, keep your hands off me!”

“Yow want to fight, yow’d—”

“Yah! hah!”

Then a scuffling and confused growl, and one or two appeals to sticks and fists; but in five minutes every man not known as a customer of the bank was outside, and the farmers gave a cheer, which was answered by a yell from the increasing mob, a couple of dozen of whom had stooped for stones and began to flourish sticks.

But the stout farmer, who was on the steps between the two pillars that flanked the entrance, put his hand to his mouth, as if about to give a view halloo!

“Look out for the bloonder-boosh, my lads.” And then, turning his head up to the window where Mr Trampleasure stood, weapon in hand, “Tak’ a good aim on the front, and gie it ’em—whang! Mr Trampleasure, sir. Thee’ll scatter the sloogs fine.”

Not a stone was thrown, and by this time James Thickens was busy at work cancelling with his quill pen, and counting and weighing out gold. He never offered one of Dixons’ notes: silver and gold, current coin of the realm, was all he passed over the counter, and though the customers pressed and hurried to get their cheques or notes changed, Thickens retained his coolness and went on.

At the end of a quarter of an hour the excitement was subsiding, but the bank was still full of farmers and tradespeople, the big burly man with the hunting crop being still by the counter unpaid.

All at once, after watching the paying over of the money for some time, he began hammering the mahogany counter heavily with the iron handle of his whip.

“Here, howd hard!” he roared.

Sir Gordon, who had put the pistols on the table, and was sitting on the manager’s chair, coolly reading his newspaper in full view, laid it down, and rose to come to the open glass door.

“Ay, that’s right, Sir Gordon. I want a word wi’ thee. I’m not a man to go on wi’ fullishness; but brass is brass, and a hard thing to get howd on. Now, look ye here. Howd hard, neighbours, I hevn’t got much to saya.”

“What is it, Mr Anderson?” said Sir Gordon calmly.

“Why, this much, Sir Gordon and neighbours. Friend o’ mine comes out o’ the town this morning and says, ‘If thou’st got any brass i’ Dixons’ Bank, run and get it, lad, for Maester Hallam’s bo’ted, and bank’s boosted oop.’ Now, Sir Gordon, it don’t look as if bank hev boosted oop.”

“Oh, no,” said Sir Gordon, smiling.

“Hev Maester Hallam bo’ted, then, or is that a lie too?”

“I am sorry to say that Mr Hallam has been arrested on a charge of fraud.”

“That be true, then?” said the farmer. “Well, now, look here, Sir Gordon; I’ve banked wi’ you over twanty year, and I can’t afford to lose my brass. Tween man and man, is my money safe?”

“Perfectly, Mr Anderson.”

“That’ll do, Sir Gordon,” said the farmer, tearing up the cheque he held in his hand, and scattering it over his head. “I’ll tak’ Sir Gordon’s word or Dixons’ if they say it’s all right. I don’t want my brass.”

“Gentlemen,” said Sir Gordon, flashing slightly, “if you will trust me and my dear old friend Mr Dixon, you shall be paid all demands to the last penny we have. I am sorry to say that I have discovered a very heavy defalcation on the part of our late manager, and the loss will be large, but that loss will fall upon us, gentlemen, not upon you.”

“But I want my deeds, my writings,” cried a voice. “I’m not a-going to be cheated out o’ my rights.”

“Who is that?” said Sir Gordon.

“Mr Gemp, Sir Gordon,” said Thickens quickly. “Deposit of deeds of row of houses in Rochester Close; and shares.”

“Mr Gemp,” said Sir Gordon, “I am afraid your deeds are amongst others that are missing.”

“Ay! Ay! Robbers! Robbers!” shouted Gemp excitedly.

“No, Mr Gemp, we are not robbers,” said Sir Gordon. “If you will employ your valuer, I will employ ours; and as soon as they have decided the amount, Mr James Thickens will pay you—to-day if you can get the business done, and the houses and shares are Dixons’.”

“Hear, hear, hear,” shouted Anderson. “There, neighbour, he can’t say fairer than that.”

“Nay, I want my writings, and I don’t want to sell. I want my writings. I’ll hev ’em too.”

“Shame on you, Gemp,” said a voice behind him. “Three days ago you were at death’s door. Your life was spared, and this is the thank-offering you make to your neighbours in their trouble.”

“Nay, don’t you talk like that, parson, thou doesn’t know what it is to lose thy all,” piped Gemp.

“Lose?” cried Bayle, who had entered the bank quietly to see Sir Gordon. “Man, I have lost heavily too.”

Thickens was making signs to him now with his quill pen.

“Ay, but I want my writings. I’ll hev my writings,” cried Gemp. “Neighbours, you have your money. Don’t you believe ’em. They’re robbers.”

“If I weer close to thee, owd Gemp, I’d tak’ thee by the scruff and the band o’ thy owd breeches and pitch thee out o’ window. Sir Gordon’s ready to do the handsome thing.”

“Touch me if you dare,” cried old Gemp. “I want my writings. It was bank getting unsafe made me badly. You neighbours have all thy money out, for they haven’t got enough to last long.”

There was a fresh murmur here, and Sir Gordon looked anxious. Mr Anderson stood fast; but it was evident that a strong party were waiting for their money, and more than one began to twitch Thickens by the sleeve, and present cheques and notes.

Thickens paid no heed, but made his way to where Christie Bayle was standing, and handed him a pocket-book.

“Here,” he said. “I couldn’t come to you. I had to watch the bank.”

“My pocket-book, Thickens?”

“Yes, sir. I was just in time to knock that scoundrel over as he was throttling you. I’d come to meet the coach.”

“Why, Thickens!” cried Bayle, flushing—“Ah, you grasping old miser! What! turn thief?”

The latter was to old Gemp, who saw the pocket-book passed, and made a hawk-like clutch at it, but his wrist was pinned by Bayle, who took the pocket-book and slipped it into his breast.

“It’s my papers—it’s writings—it’s—”

His voice was drowned in a clamour that arose, as about twenty more people came hurrying in at the bank-door, eager to make demands for their deposits.

Sir Gordon grew pale, for there was not enough cash in the house to meet the constant demand, and he had hoped that the ready payment of a great deal would quiet the run.

The clamour increased, and it soon became evident that the dam had given way, and that nothing remained but to go on paying to the last penny in the bank, while there was every possibility of wreck and destruction following.

“Howd hard, neighbours,” cried Anderson; “Sir Gordon says it’s all right. Dixons’ ’ll pay.”

“Dixons’ can’t pay,” shouted a voice. “Hallam’s got everything, and the bank’s ruined.”

There was a roar here, and the fire seemed to have been again applied to the tow. Thickens looked in despair at Bayle, and then with a quick movement locked the cash drawer, and clapped the key in his pocket. The action was seen. There was a yell of fury from the crowd in front, and a dozen hands seized the clerk.

Sir Gordon darted forward, this time without pistols, and hands and sticks were raised, when in a voice of thunder Christie Bayle roared:

“Stop!”

There was instant silence, for he had leaped upon the bank counter.

“Stand back!” he said, “and act like Christian men, and not like wild beasts. Dixons’ Bank is sound. Look here!”

“It’s failed! it’s failed!” cried a dozen voices.

“It has not failed,” shouted Bayle. “Look here: I have been to London.”

“Yes, we know.”

“To fetch twenty-one thousand pounds—my own property!”

There was dead silence here.

“Look! that is the money, all in new Bank of England notes.”

He tore them out of the large pocket-book.

“To show you my confidence in Dixons’ Bank and in Sir Gordon Bourne’s word, I deposit this sum with them, and open an account. Mr Thickens, have the goodness to enter this to my credit; I’ll take a chequebook when you are at liberty.”

He passed the sheaf of rustling, fluttering, new, crisp notes to the cashier, and then, taking Sir Gordon’s offered hand, leaped down inside the counter of the bank.

“There, Sir Gordon,” he said, with a smile, “I hope the plague is stayed.”

“Christie Bayle,” whispered Sir Gordon huskily, “Heaven bless you! I shall never forget this day!” Half-an-hour later the bank business was going on as usual, but the business of the past night and morning was more talked of than before.

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