Normalize

9 files changed, 27780 insertions, 55526 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/71615-0.txt b/71615-0.txt
index 460b22d..6f9f632 100644
--- a/71615-0.txt
+++ b/71615-0.txt
@@ -1,11344 +1,11344 @@
-

-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes

-

-This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and 

-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 

-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms 

-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online 

-at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, 

-you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located 

-before using this eBook.

-

-

-Title: Loaves and fishes

-

-Author: Bernard Capes

-

-Release Date: September 11, 2023 [eBook #71615]

-

-Language: English

-

-Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer

-

-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***

-

-

-

-

-

- LOAVES AND FISHES

-

- BY

- BERNARD CAPES

-

-

-

-

- METHUEN & CO.

- 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

- LONDON

- _First Published in 1906_

-

-

-

-

- CONTENTS

-

- A GALLOWS-BIRD

- THE RAVELLED SLEAVE

- THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR

- A GHOST-CHILD

- HIS CLIENT’S CASE

- AN ABSENT VICAR

- THE BREECHES BISHOP

- THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE

- ARCADES AMBO

- OUR LADY OF REFUGE

- THE GHOST-LEECH

- POOR LUCY RIVERS

- THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR

- THE LOST NOTES

- THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD

- JACK THE SKIPPER

- A BUBBLE REPUTATION

- A POINT OF LAW

- THE FIVE INSIDES

- THE JADE BUTTON

- DOG TRUST

- A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE

-

-

-

-

- [NOTE]

-

-Acknowledgments are made to the editors of “The Pall Mall Magazine,”

-“The Illustrated London News,” “The World,” “Black and White,” “The

-London Magazine,” “The English Illustrated Magazine,” and “The

-Bystander,” to the hospitality of whose pages a number of the stories

-here reprinted were first invited.

-

-

-

-

- LOAVES AND FISHES

-

- A GALLOWS-BIRD

-

-In February of the year 1809, when the French were sat down before

-Saragossa--then enduring its second and more terrific siege within a

-period of six months--it came to the knowledge of the Duc d’Abrantes,

-at that time the General commanding, that his army, though undoubtedly

-the salt of the earth, was yet so little sufficient to itself in the

-matter of seasoning, that it was reduced to the necessity of

-flavouring its soup with the saltpetre out of its own cartridges. In

-this emergency, d’Abrantes sent for a certain Ducos, captain on the

-staff of General Berthier, but at present attached to a siege train

-before the doomed town, and asked him if he knew whence, if anywhere

-in the vicinity, it might be possible to make good the deficiency.

-

-Now this Eugène Ducos was a very progressive evolution of the times,

-hatched by the rising sun, emerged stinging and splendid from the

-exotic quagmires of the past. A facile linguist, by temperament and

-early training an artist, he had flown naturally to the field of

-battle as to that field most fertile of daring new effects, whose

-surprises called for record rather than analysis. It was for him to

-collect the impressions which, later, duller wits should classify.

-And, in the meantime, here he was at twenty a captain of renown, and

-always a creature of the most unflagging resourcefulness.

-

-“You were with Lefebvre-Desnouettes in Aragon last year?” demanded

-Junot.

-

-“I was, General; both before the siege and during it.”

-

-“You heard mention of salt mines in this neighbourhood?”

-

-“There were rumours of them, sir--amongst the hills of Ulebo; but it

-was never our need to verify the rumours.”

-

-“Take a company, now, and run them to earth. I will give you a week.”

-

-“Pardon me, General; I need no company but my own, which is ever the

-safest colleague.”

-

-Junot glared demoniacally. He was already verging on the madness which

-was presently to destroy him.

-

-“The devil!” he shouted. “You shall answer for that assurance! Go

-alone, sir, since you are so obliging, and find salt; and at your

-peril be killed before reporting the result to me. Bones of God! is

-every skipjack with a shoulder-knot to better my commands?”

-

-Ducos saluted, and wheeled impassive. He knew that in a few days

-Marshal Lannes was to supplant this maniac.

-

- * * * * *

-

-Up and away amongst the intricate ridges of the mountains, where the

-half-unravelled knots of the Pyrenees flow down in threads, or

-clustered threads, which are combed by and by into the plains south of

-Saragossa, a dusky young goatherd loitered among the chestnut trees on

-a hot afternoon. This boy’s beauty was of a supernal order. His

-elastic young cheeks glowed with colour; his eyebrows were resolute

-bows; his lips, like a pretty phrase of love, were set between dimples

-like inverted commas. And, as he stood, he coquetted like Dinorah to

-his own shadow, chasséd to it, spoke to it, upbraiding or caressing,

-as it answered to his movements on the ground before him--

-

-“Ah, pretty one! ah, shameless! Art thou the shadow of the girl that

-Eugenio loved? Fie, fie! thou wouldst betray this poor Anita--mock the

-round limbs and little feet that will not look their part. Yet, betray

-her to her love returning, and Anita will fall and kiss thee on her

-knees--kiss the very shadow of Eugenio’s love. Ah, little shadow! take

-wings and fly to him, who promised quickly to return. Say I am good

-but sad, awaiting him; say that Anita suffers, but is patient. He will

-remember then, and come. No shadow of disguise shall blind him to his

-love. Go, go, before I repent and hold thee, jealous that mine own

-shadow should run before to find his lips.”

-

-She stooped, and, with a fantastic gesture, threw her soul upon the

-winds; then rose, and leaned against a tree, and began to sing, and

-sigh and murmur softly:

-

-

- “‘At the gate of heaven are sold brogues

- For the little bare-footed angel rogues’--

-

-

-Ah, little dear mother! it is the seventh month, and the sign is still

-delayed. No baby, no lover. Alack! why should he return to me, who am

-a barren olive! The husbandman asks a guerdon for his care. Give me my

-little doll, Santissima, or I will be naughty and drink holy-water:

-give me the shrill wee voice, which pierces to the father’s heart,

-when even passion loiters. Ah, come to me, Eugenio, my Eugenio!”

-

-She raised her head quickly on the word, and her heart leaped. It was

-to hear the sound of a footstep, on the stones far below, coming up

-the mountain side. She looked to her shirt and jacket. Ragged as they

-were, undeveloped as was the figure within them, she had been so

-jealous a housewife that there was not in all so much as an eyelet

-hole to attract a peeping Tom. Now, leaving her goats amongst the

-scattered boulders of the open, she backed into the groves,

-precautionally, but a little reluctant, because in her heart she was

-curious.

-

-The footsteps came on toilfully, and presently the man who was

-responsible for them hove into sight. He wore the dress of an English

-officer, save for the shepherd’s felt hat on his head; but his scarlet

-jacket was knotted loosely by the sleeves about his throat, in order

-to the disposition of a sling which held his left arm crookt in a

-bloody swathe. He levered himself up with a broken spear-shaft; but he

-was otherwise weaponless. A pistol, in Ducos’s creed, was the argument

-of a fool. He carried _his_ ammunition in his brains.

-

-Having reached a little plateau, irregular with rocks shed from the

-cliffs above, he sat down within the shadow of a grove of chestnut and

-carob trees, and sighed, and wiped his brow, and nodded to all around

-and below him.

-

-“Yes, and yes, and of a truth,” thought he: “here is the country of my

-knowledge. And yonder, deep and far amongst its myrtles and

-mulberries, crawls the Ebro; and to my right, a browner clod amongst

-the furrows of the valleys, heaves up the ruined monastery of San

-Ildefonso, which Daguenet sacked, the radical; whilst I occupied (ah,

-the week of sweet malvoisie and sweeter passion!) the little inn at

-the junction of the Pampeluna and Saragossa roads. And what has become

-of Anita of the inn? Alack! if my little _fille de joie_ were but here

-to serve me now!”

-

-The goatherd slipped round the shoulder of a rock and stood before

-him, breathing hard. Her black curls were, for all the world,

-bandaged, as it might be, with a yellow napkin (though they were more

-in the way to give than take wounds), and crowned rakishly with a

-dusky sombrero. She wore a kind of gaskins on her legs, loose, so as

-to reveal the bare knees and a little over; and across her shoulders

-was slung a sun-burnt shawl, which depended in a bib against her

-chest.

-

-Now the one stood looking down and the other up, their visions

-magnetically meeting and blending, till the eyes of the goatherd were

-delivered of very stars of rapture.

-

-Was this a spirit, thought Ducos, summoned of his hot and necessitous

-desire? But the other had no such misgiving. All in a moment she had

-fallen on her brown knees before him, and was pitifully kissing his

-bandaged arm, while she strove to moan and murmur out the while her

-ecstasy of gratitude.

-

-“Nariguita!” he murmured, rallying as if from a dream; “Nariguita!”

-

-She laughed and sobbed.

-

-“Ah, the dear little happy name from thy lips! A thousand times will I

-repeat it to myself, but never as thou wouldst say it. And now! Yes,

-Nariguita, Eugenio--thine own ‘little nose’--thy child, thy baby, who

-never doubted that this day would come--O darling of my soul, that it

-would come!”--(she clung to him, and hid her face)--“Eugenio! though

-the blossom of our love delays its fruitage!”

-

-He smiled, recovered from his first astonishment. Ministers of

-coincidence! In all the fantastic convolutions of war, the merry, the

-danse-macabre, should not love’s reunions have a place? It was nothing

-out of that context that here was he chanced again, and timely, upon

-that same sweet instrument which he had once played on, and done with,

-and thrown aside, careless of its direction. Now he had but to stoop

-and reclaim it, and the discarded strings, it seemed, were ready as

-heretofore to answer to his touch with any melody he listed.

-

-He caressed her with real delight. She was something more than

-lovable. He made himself a very Judas to her lips.

-

-“Anita, my little Anita!” he began glowingly; but she took him up with

-a fevered eagerness, answering the question of his eyes.

-

-“So long ago, ah Dios! And thou wert gone; and the birds were silent;

-and under the heavy sky my father called me to him. He held a last

-letter of thine, which had missed my hands for his. Love, sick at our

-parting, had betrayed us. O, the letter! how I swooned to be denied

-it! He was for killing me, a traitor. Well, I could not help but be.

-But Tia Joachina had pity on me, and dressed me as you see, and

-smuggled me to the hills, that I might at least have a chance to live

-without suffering wrong. And, behold! the heavens smiled upon me,

-knowing my love; and Señor Cangrejo took me to herd his goats. For

-seven months--for seven long, faithful months; until the sweetest of

-my heart’s flock should return to pasture in my bosom. And now he has

-come, my lamb, my prince, even as he promised. He has come, drawing me

-to him over the hills, following the lark’s song of his love as it

-dropped to earth far forward of his steps. Eugenio! O, ecstasy! Thou

-hast dared this for my sake?”

-

-“Child,” answered the admirable Ducos, “I should have dared only in

-breaking my word. _Un honnête homme n’a que sa parole._ That is the

-single motto for a poor captain, Nariguita. And who is this Señor

-Cangrejo?”

-

-Some terror, offspring of his question, set her clinging to him once

-more.

-

-“What dost thou here?” she cried, with immediate inconsistency--“a

-lamb among the wolves! Eugenio!”

-

-“Eh!”--he took her up, with an air of bewilderment. “I am Sir Zhones,

-the English capitaine, though it loose me your favour, mamsellee. Wat!

-Damn eet, I say!”

-

-She fell away, staring at him; then in a moment gathered, and leapt to

-him again between tears and laughter.

-

-“But this?” she asked, her eyes glistening; and she touched the

-bandage.

-

-“Ah! that,” he answered. “Why, I was wounded, and taken prisoner by

-the French, you understand? Also, I escaped from my captors. It comes,

-blood and splint and all, from the smashed arm of a sabreur, who,

-indeed, had no longer need of it.”

-

-“For the love of Christ!” she cried in a panic. “Come away into the

-trees, where none will observe us!”

-

-“Bah! I have no fear, I,” said Ducos. But he rose, nevertheless, with

-a smile, and, catching up the goatherd, bore her into the shadows.

-There, sitting by her side, he assured her, the rogue, of the

-impatience with which he had anticipated, of the eagerness with which

-he had run to realize this longed-for moment. The escapade had only

-been rendered possible, he said truthfully, by the opportune demand

-for salt. Doubtless she would help him, for love’s sake, to justify

-the venture to his General?

-

-But, at that, she stared at him, troubled, and her lip began to

-quiver.

-

-“Ah, God!” she cried; “then it was not I in the first place! Go thy

-ways, love; but for pity’s heart-sake let me weep a little. Yes, yes,

-there is salt in the mountains, that I know, and where the caves lie.

-But there are also Cangrejo--whom you French ruined and made a

-madman--and a hundred like him, wild-cats hidden amongst the leaves.

-And there, too, are the homeless friars of St. Ildefonso; and, dear

-body of Christ! the tribunal of terror, the junta of women, who are

-the worst of all--lynx-eyed demons.”

-

-He smiled indulgently. Her terror amused him.

-

-“Well, well,” he said; “well, well. And what, then, is this junta?”

-

-“It is a scourge,” she whispered, shivering, “for traitors and for

-spies. It gathers nightly, at sunset, in the dip yonder, and there

-waters with blood its cross of death. This very evening, Cangrejo

-tells me----”

-

-She broke off, cuddled closer to her companion, and clasping her hands

-and shrugging up her shoulders to him, went on awfully--

-

-“Eugenio, there was a wagon-load of piastres coming secretly for

-Saragossa by the Tolosa road. It was badly convoyed. One of your

-generals got scent of it. The guard had time to hide their treasure

-and disperse, but him whom they thought had betrayed them the tribunal

-of women claimed, and to-night----”

-

-“Well, he will receive his wages. And where is the treasure

-concealed?”

-

-“Ah! that I do not know.”

-

-Ducos got to his feet, and stretched and yawned.

-

-“I have a fancy to see this meeting-place of the tribunal. Wilt thou

-lead me to it, Nariguita?”

-

-“Mother of God, thou art mad!”

-

-“Then I must go alone, like a madman.”

-

-“Eugenio, it is cursing and accurst. None will so much as look into it

-by day; and, at dusk, only when franked by the holy church.”

-

-“So greatly the better. Adios, Nariguita!”

-

-It took them half an hour, descending cautiously, and availing

-themselves of every possible shelter of bush and rock, to reach a

-strangely formed amphitheatre set stark and shallow amongst the higher

-swales of the valley, but so overhung with scrub of myrtle and wild

-pomegranate as to be only distinguishable, and that scarcely, from

-above. A ragged track, mounting from the lower levels into this

-hollow, tailed off, and was attenuated into a point where it took a

-curve of the rocks at a distance below.

-

-As Ducos, approaching the rim, pressed through the thicket, a toss of

-black crows went up from the mouth ahead of him, like cinders of paper

-spouted from a chimney. He looked over. The brushwood ceased at the

-edge of a considerable pit, roughly circular in shape, whose sides, of

-bare sloping sand, met and flattened at the bottom into an extended

-platform. Thence arose a triangular gibbet, a very rack in a devil’s

-larder, all about which a hoard of little pitchy bird scullions were

-busy with the joints. Holy mother, how they squabbled, and flapped at

-one another with their sleeves, it seemed! The two carcasses which

-hung there appeared, for all their heavy pendulosity, to reel and rock

-with laughter, nudging one another in eyeless merriment.

-

-Ducos mentally calculated the distance to the gallows below from any

-available coign of concealment.

-

-“One could not hide close enough to hear anything,” he murmured,

-shaking his head in aggravation; “and this junta of ladies--it will

-probably talk. What if it were to discuss that very question of the

-piastres? Nariguita, will you go and be my little reporter at the

-ceremony?”

-

-Anita, crouching in the brush behind him, whispered terrified: “It is

-impossible. They admit none but priests and women.”

-

-“And are not you a woman, most beautiful?”

-

-“God forbid!” she said. “I am the little goatherd Ambrosio.”

-

-He stood some moments, frowning. A scheme, daring and characteristic,

-was beginning to take shape in his brain.

-

-“What is that clump of rags by the gallows?” he asked, without looking

-round.

-

-“It is not rags; it is rope, Eugenio.”

-

-He thought again.

-

-“And when do they come to hang this rascal?” he said.

-

-“It is always at dusk. O, dear mother!” she whimpered, for the young

-man had suddenly slipped between the branches, and was going swiftly

-and softly down the pit-side.

-

-Already the basin of sand was filled with the shadows from the hills

-Ducos approached the gibbet. The last of the birds remaining arose and

-dispersed, quarrelling with nothing so much as the sunlight which they

-encountered above.

-

-“It is an abominable task,” said the aide-de-camp, looking up at the

-dangling bodies; “but--for the Emperor--always for the Emperor! That

-fellow, now, in the domino--it would make us appear of one build. And

-as for complexion, why, he at least would have no eyes for the

-travesty. Mon Dieu! I believe it is a Providence.”

-

-There was a ladder leaned against the third and empty beam. He put it

-into position for the cloaked figure, and ran up it. The rope was

-hitched to a hook in the cross-piece. He must clasp and lever up his

-burden by main strength before he could slacken and detach the cord.

-Then, with an exclamation of relief, he let the body drop upon the

-sand beneath. He descended the ladder in excitement.

-

-“Anita!” he called.

-

-She had followed, and was at hand. She trembled, and was as pale as

-death.

-

-“Help me,” he panted--“with this--into the bush.”

-

-He had lifted _his_ end by the shoulders.

-

-“What devil possesses you? I cannot,” she sobbed; “I shall die.”

-

-“Ah, Nariguita! for my sake! There is no danger if thou art brave and

-expeditious.”

-

-Between them they tugged and trailed their load into the dense

-undergrowth skirting the open track, and there let it plunge and sink.

-Ducos removed the domino from the body, rolling and hauling at that

-irreverently. Then he saw how the wretch had been pinioned, wrists and

-ankles, beneath.

-

-Carrying the cloak, he hastened back to the gallows. There he

-cautiously selected from the surplus stock of cord a length of some

-twelve feet, at either end of which he formed a loop. So, mounting the

-ladder, over the hook he hitched this cord by one end, and then,

-swinging himself clear, slid down the rope until he could pass both

-his feet into the lower hank.

-

-“_Voilà!_” said he. “Come up and tie me to the other with some little

-pieces round the waist and knees and neck.”

-

-She obeyed, weeping. Her love and her duty were to this wonder of

-manhood, however dreadful his counsel. Presently, trussed to his

-liking, he bade her fetch the brigand’s cloak and button it over all.

-

-“Now,” said he, “one last sacramental kiss; and, so descending and

-placing the ladder and all as before, thou shalt take standing-room in

-the pit for this veritable dance of death.”

-

-A moment--and he was hanging there, to all appearance a corpse. The

-short rope at his neck had been so disposed and knotted--the collar of

-the domino serving--as to make him look, indeed, as if he strained at

-the tether’s end. He had dragged his long hair over his eyes; his head

-lolled to one side; his tongue protruded. For the rest, the cloak hid

-all, even to his feet.

-

-The goatherd snivelled.

-

-“Ah, holy saints, he is dead!”

-

-The head came erect, grinning.

-

-“Eugenio!” she cried; “O, my God! Thou wilt be discovered--thou wilt

-slip and strangle! Ah, the crows--body of my body, the crows!”

-

-“Imbecile! have I not my hands? See, I kiss one to thee. Now the sun

-sinks, and my ghostly vigil will be short. Pray heaven only they

-alight not on that in the bush. Nariguita, little heroine, this is my

-last word. Go hide thyself in the bushes above, and watch what a

-Frenchman, the most sensitive of mortals, will suffer to serve his

-Emperor.”

-

-It was an era, indeed, of sublime lusts and barbaric virtues, when men

-must mount upon stepping-stones, not of their dead selves, but of

-their slaughtered enemies, to higher things. Anita, like Ducos, was a

-child of her generation. To her mind the heroic purpose of this deed

-overpowered its pungency. She kissed her lover’s feet; secured the

-safe disposition of the cloak about them; then turned and fled into

-hiding.

-

- * * * * *

-

-At dusk, with the sound of footsteps coming up the pass, the crows

-dispersed. Eugène, for all his self-sufficiency, had sweated over

-their persistence. A single more gluttonous swoop might at any moment,

-in blinding him, have laid him open to a general attack before help

-could reach him from the eyrie whence unwearying love watched his

-every movement. Now, common instance of the providence which waits on

-daring, the sudden lift and scatter of the swarm left his hearing

-sensible to the tinkling of a bridle, which came rhythmical from the

-track below. Immediately he fell, with all his soul, into the pose of

-death.

-

-The cadence of the steely warning so little altered, the footsteps

-stole in so muffled and so deadly, that, peering presently through

-slit eyelids for the advent of the troop, it twitched his strung

-nerves to see a sinister congress already drawn soundless about the

-gibbet on which he hung. Perhaps for the first time in this stagnant

-atmosphere he realized the peril he had invited. But still the

-gambler’s providence befriended him.

-

-They were all women but two--the victim, a sullen, whiskered

-Yanguesian, strapped cuttingly to a mule, and a paunchy shovel-hatted

-Carmelite, who hugged a crucifix between his roomy sleeves.

-

-Ducos had heard of these banded _vengeresses_. Now, he was Frenchman

-enough to appreciate in full the significance of their attitude, as

-they clustered beneath him in the dusk, a veiled and voiceless huddle

-of phantoms. “How,” he thought, peeping through the dropped curtain of

-his hair, “will the adorables do it?” He had an hysterical inclination

-to laugh, and at that moment the monk, with a sudden decision to

-action, brushed against him and set him slowly twirling until his face

-was averted from the show.

-

-Immediately thereon--as he interpreted sounds--the mule was led under

-the gallows. He heard the ladder placed in position, heard a strenuous

-shuffling as of concentrated movement. What he failed to hear (at

-present) was any cry or protest from the victim. The beam above

-creaked, a bridle tinkled, a lighter drop of hoofs receded. A pregnant

-pause ensued, broken only by a slight noise, like rustling or

-vibrating--and then, in an instant, by a voice, chuckling,

-hateful--the voice of the priest.

-

-“What! to hang there without a word, Carlos? Wouldst thou go, and

-never ask what is become of that very treasure thou soldst thy soul to

-betray? The devil has rounded on thee, Carlos; for after all it is

-thou that art lost, and not the treasure. That is all put away--shout

-it in the ears of thy neighbours up there--it is all put away, Carlos,

-safe in the salt mines of the Little Hump. Cry it to the whole world

-now. Thou mayst if thou canst. In the salt mines of the Little Hump.

-Dost hear? Ah, then, we must make thee answer.”

-

-With his words, the pit was all at once in shrill hubbub, noise

-indescribable and dreadful, the shrieking of harpies bidden to their

-prey. It rose demoniac--a very Walpurgis.

-

-“No, no,” thought Ducos, gulping under his collar. He was almost

-unnerved for the moment. “It is unlawful--they have no right to!”

-

-He was twisting again, for all his mad will to prevent it. He would

-not look, and yet he looked. The monk, possessed, was thrashing the

-torn and twitching rubbish with his crucifix. The others, their

-fingers busy with the bodkins they had plucked from their mantillas,

-had retreated for the moment to a little distance.

-

-Suddenly the Carmelite, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy, dropped his

-weapon, and scuttling to the mule, where it stood near at hand, tore a

-great horse pistol from its holster among the trappings, and pointed

-it at the insensible body.

-

-“Scum of all devils!” he bellowed. “In fire descend to fire that lasts

-eternal!”

-

-He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and shattering explosion. A

-blazing hornet stung Ducos in the leg. He may have started and

-shrieked. Any cry or motion of his must have passed unnoticed in the

-screaming panic evoked of the crash. He clung on with his hands and

-dared to raise his head. The mouth of the pass was dusk with flying

-skirts. Upon the sands beneath him, the body of the priest, a

-shapeless bulk, was slowly subsiding and settling, one fat fist of it

-yet gripping the stock of a pistol which, overgorged, had burst as it

-was discharged.

-

- * * * * *

-

-The reek of the little tragedy had hardly dissipated before Ducos

-found himself. The sentiment of revolt, deriving from his helpless

-position, had been indeed but momentary. To feel his own accessibility

-to torture, painted torture to him as an inhuman lust. With the means

-to resist, or escape, at will, he might have sat long in ambush

-watching it; even condoning it as an extravagant posture of art.

-

-With a heart full of such exultation over the success of his trick

-that for the moment he forgot the pain of his wound, he hurriedly

-unpicked the knots of the shorter cords about him, and, jumping to the

-ground, waited until the shadow of a little depressed figure came

-slinking across the sand towards him.

-

-“Eugenio!” it whispered; “what has happened? O! art thou hurt?”

-

-She ran into his arms, sobbing.

-

-“I am hurt,” said Ducos. “Quick, child! unstrap this from my arm and

-bind it about my calf. Didst hear? But it was magnificent! Two birds

-with a single stone. The piastres in pickle for us. Didst see,

-moreover? Holy Emperor! it was laughable. I would sacrifice a

-decoration to be witness of the meeting of those two overhead. It

-should be the Yanguesian for my money, for he has at least his teeth

-left. Look how he shows them, bursting with rage! Quick, quick, quick!

-we must be up and away, before any of those others think of

-returning.”

-

-“And if one should,” she said, “and mark the empty beam?”

-

-“What does it matter, nevertheless! I must be off to-night, after thou

-hast answered me one single question.”

-

-“Off? Eugenio! O! not without me?”

-

-“God, little girl! In this race I must not be hampered by so much as a

-thought. But I will return for thee--never fear.”

-

-He still sat in his domino. She knelt at his feet, stanching the flow

-from the wound the pistol had made in his leg. At his words she looked

-up breathlessly into his face; then away, to hide her swimming eyes.

-In the act she slunk down, making herself small in the sand.

-

-“Eugenio! My God! we are watched!”

-

-He turned about quickly.

-

-“Whence?”

-

-“From the mouth of the pass,” she whispered.

-

-“I can see nothing,” he said. “Hurry, nevertheless! What a time thou

-art! There, it is enough of thy bungling fingers. Help me to my feet

-and out of this place. Come!” he ended, angrily.

-

-He had an ado to climb the easy slope. By the time they were entered

-amongst the rocks and bushes above, it was black dusk.

-

-“Whither wouldst thou, dearest?” whispered the goatherd.

-

-He had known well enough a moment ago--to some point, in fact, whence

-she could indicate to him the direction of the Little Hump, where the

-treasure lay; afterwards, to the very hill-top where some hours

-earlier they had forgathered. But he would not or could not explain

-this. Some monstrous blight of gloom had seized his brain at a swoop.

-He thought it must be one of the crows, and he stumbled along, raving

-in his heart. If she offered to help him now, he would tear his arm

-furiously from her touch. She wondered, poor stricken thing, haunting

-him with tragic eyes. Then at last her misery and desolation found

-voice--

-

-“What have I done? I will not ask again to go with thee, if that is

-it. It was only one little foolish cry of terror, most dear--that they

-should suspect, and seize, and torture me. But, indeed, should they do

-it, thou canst trust me to be silent.”

-

-He stopped, swaying, and regarded her demoniacally. His face was a

-livid and malignant blot in the thickening dusk. To torture her? What

-torture could equal his at this moment? She sought merely to move him

-by an affectation of self-renunciation. That, of course, called at

-once for extreme punishment. He must bite and strangle her to death.

-

-He moved noiselessly upon her. She stood spellbound before him. All at

-once something seemed to strike him on the head, and, without uttering

-a sound, he fell forward into the bush.

-

- * * * * *

-

-Ducos opened his eyes to the vision of so preternaturally melancholy a

-face, that he was shaken with weak laughter over the whimsicality of

-his own imagination. But, in a very little, unwont to dreaming as he

-was, the realization that he was looking upon no apparition, but a

-grotesque of fact, silenced and absorbed him.

-

-Presently he was moved to examine his circumstances. He was lying on a

-heap of grass mats in a tiny house built of boards. Above him was a

-square of leaf-embroidered sky cut out of a cane roof; to his left,

-his eyes, focussing with a queer stiffness, looked through an open

-doorway down precipices of swimming cloud. That was because he lay in

-an eyrie on the hillside. And then at once, into his white field of

-vision, floated the dismal long face, surmounted by an ancient

-cocked-hat, slouched and buttonless, and issuing like an august Aunt

-Sally’s from the neck of a cloak as black and dropping as a pall.

-

-The figure crossed the opening outside, and wheeled, with the wind in

-its wings. In the act, its eyes, staring and protuberant, fixed

-themselves on those of the Frenchman. Immediately, with a little

-stately gesture expressive of relief and welcome, it entered the hut.

-

-“By the mercy of God!” exclaimed the stranger in his own tongue. Then

-he added in English: “The Inglese recovers to himself?”

-

-Ducos smiled, nodding his head; then answered confidently, feeling his

-way: “A little, sir, I tank you. Thees along night. Ah! it appear all

-one pain.”

-

-The other nodded solemnly in his turn--

-

-“A long night indeed, in which the sunksink tree very time.”

-

-“Comment!” broke out the aide-de-camp hoarsely, and instantly realized

-his mistake.

-

-“Ah! devil take the French!” said he explanatorily. “I been in their

-camp so long that to catch their lingo. But I spik l’Espagnol, señor.

-It shall be good to us to converse there.”

-

-The other bowed impenetrably. His habit of a profound and melancholy

-aloofness might have served for mask to any temper of mind but that

-which, in real fact, it environed--a reason, that is to say, more lost

-than bedevilled under the long tyranny of oppression.

-

-“I have been ill, I am to understand?” said Ducos, on his guard.

-

-“For three days and nights, señor. My goatherd came to tell me how a

-wounded English officer was lying on the hills. Between us we conveyed

-you hither.”

-

-“_Ah, Dios!_ I remember. I had endeavoured to carry muskets into

-Saragossa by the river. I was hit in the leg; I was captured; I

-escaped. For two days I wandered, señor, famished and desperate. At

-last in these mountains I fell as by a stroke from heaven.”

-

-“It was the foul blood clot, señor. It balked your circulation. There

-was the brazen splinter in the wound, which I removed, and God

-restored you. What fangs are theirs, these reptiles! In a few days you

-will be well.”

-

-“Thanks to what ministering angel?”

-

-“I am known as Don Manoel di Cangrejo, señor, the most shattered, as

-he was once the most prosperous of men. May God curse the French! May

-God” (his wild, mournful face twitched with strong emotion) “reward

-and bless these brave allies of a people more wronged than any the

-world has yet known!”

-

-“Noble Englishman,” said he by and by, “thou hast nothing at present

-but to lie here and accept the grateful devotion of a heart to which

-none but the inhuman denies humanity.”

-

-Ducos looked his thanks.

-

-“If I might rest here a little,” he said; “if I might be spared----”

-

-The other bowed, with a grave understanding.

-

-“None save ourselves, and the winds and trees, señor. I will nurse

-thee as if thou wert mine own child.”

-

-He was as good as his word. Ducos, pluming himself on his

-perspicacity, accepting the inevitable with philosophy, lent himself

-during the interval, while feigning a prolonged weakness, to recovery.

-That was his, to all practical purposes, within a couple of days,

-during which time he never set eyes on Anita, but only on Anita’s

-master. Don Manoel would often come and sit by his bed of mats; would

-even sometimes retail to him, as to a trusted ally, scraps of local

-information. Thus was he posted, to his immense gratification, in the

-topical after-history of his own exploit at the gallows.

-

-“It is said,” whispered Cangrejo awfully, “that one of the dead,

-resenting so vile a neighbour, impressed a goatherd into his service,

-and, being assisted from the beam, walked away. Truly it is an age of

-portents.”

-

-On the third morning, coming early with his bowl of goat’s milk and

-his offering of fruits, he must apologize, with a sweet and lofty

-courtesy, for the necessity he was under of absenting himself all day.

-

-“There is trouble,” he said--“as when is there not? I am called to

-secret council, señor. But the boy Ambrosio has my orders to be ever

-at hand shouldst thou need him.”

-

-Ducos’s heart leapt. But he was careful to deprecate this generous

-attention, and to cry _Adios!_ with the most perfect assumption of

-composure.

-

-He was lying on his elbow by and by, eagerly listening, when the

-doorway was blocked by a shadow. The next instant Anita had sprung to

-and was kneeling beside him.

-

-“Heart of my heart, have I done well? Thou art sound and whole? O,

-speak to me, speak to me, that I may hear thy voice and gather its

-forgiveness!”

-

-For what? She was sobbing and fondling him in a very lust of entreaty.

-

-“Thou hast done well,” he said. “So, we were seen indeed, Anita?”

-

-“Yes,” she wept, holding his face to her bosom. “And, O! I agonize for

-thee to be up and away, Eugenio, for I fear.”

-

-“Hush! I am strong. Help me to my legs, child. So! Now, come with me

-outside, and point out, if thou canst, where lies the Little Hump.”

-

-She was his devoted crutch at once. They stood in the sunlight,

-looking down upon the hills which fell from beneath their feet--a

-world of tossed and petrified rapids. At their backs, on a shallow

-plateau under eaves of rock, Cangrejo’s eyrie clung to the

-mountain-side.

-

-“There,” said the goatherd, indicating with her finger, “that mound

-above the valley--that little hill, fat-necked like a great mushroom,

-which sprouts from its basin among the trees?”

-

-“Wait! mine eyes are dazzled.”

-

-“Ah, poor sick eyes! Look, then! Dost thou not see the white worm of

-the Pampeluna road--below yonder, looping through the bushes?”

-

-“I see it--yes, yes.”

-

-“Now, follow upwards from the big coil, where the pine tree leans to

-the south, seeming a ladder between road and mound.”

-

-“Stay--I have it.”

-

-“Behold the Little Hump, the salt mine of St. Ildefonso, and once,

-they say, an island in the midst of a lake, which burst its banks and

-poured forth and was gone. And now thou knowest, Eugenio?”

-

-He did not answer. He was intently fixing in his memory the position

-of the hill. She waited on his mood, not daring to risk his anger a

-second time, with a pathetic anxiety. Presently he heaved out a sigh,

-and turned on her, smiling.

-

-“It is well,” he said. “Now conduct me to the spot where we met three

-days ago.”

-

-It was surprisingly near at hand. A labyrinthine descent--by way of

-aloe-horned rocks, with sandy bents and tufts of harsh juniper

-between--of a hundred yards or so, and they were on the stony plateau

-which he remembered. There, to one side, was the coppice of chestnuts

-and locust trees. To the other, the road by which he had climbed went

-down with a run--such as he himself was on thorns to emulate--into the

-valleys trending to Saragossa. His eyes gleamed. He seated himself

-down on a boulder, controlling his impatience only by a violent

-effort.

-

-“Anita,” he said, drilling out his speech with slow emphasis, “thou

-must leave me here alone awhile. I would think--I would think and

-plan, my heart. Go, wait on thy goats above, and I will return to thee

-presently.”

-

-She sighed, and crept away obedient. O, forlorn, most forlorn soul of

-love, which, counting mistrust treason, knows itself a traitor! Yet

-Anita obeyed, and with no thought to eavesdrop, because she was in

-love with loyalty.

-

-The moment he was well convinced of her retreat, Ducos got to his legs

-with an immense sigh of relief. Love, he thought, could be presuming,

-could be obtuse, could be positively a bore. It all turned upon the

-context of the moment; and the present was quick with desires other

-than for endearments. For it must be related that the young captain,

-having manœuvred matters to this accommodating pass, was designing

-nothing less than an instant return, on the wings of transport, to the

-blockading camp, whence he proposed returning, with a suitable force

-and all possible dispatch, to seize and empty of its varied treasures

-the salt mine of St. Ildefonso.

-

-“Pouf!” he muttered to himself in a sort of ecstatic aggravation;

-“this accursed delay! But the piastres are there still--I have

-Cangrejo’s word for it.”

-

-He turned once, before addressing himself to flight, to refocus in his

-memory the position of the mound, which still from here was plainly

-visible. In the act he pricked his ears, for there was a sound of

-footsteps rising up the mountain path. He dodged behind a boulder. The

-footsteps came on--approached him--paused--so long that he was induced

-at last to peep for the reason. At once his eyes encountered other

-eyes awaiting him. He laughed, and left his refuge. The new-comer was

-a typical Spanish Romany--slouching, filthy, with a bandage over one

-eye.

-

-“God be with thee, Caballero!” said the Frenchman defiantly.

-

-To his astonishment, the other broke into a little scream of laughter,

-and flung himself towards him.

-

-“Judge thou, now,” said he, “which is the more wide-awake adventurer

-and the better actor!”

-

-“My God!” cried Ducos; “it is de la Platière!”

-

-“Hush!” whispered the mendicant. “Are we private? Ah, bah! Junot

-should have sent me in the first instance.”

-

-“I have been hurt, thou rogue. Our duel of wits is yet postponed. In

-good time hast thou arrived. This simplifies matters. Thou shalt

-return, and I remain. Hist! come away, and I will tell thee all.”

-

-Half an hour later, de la Platière--having already, for his part,

-mentally absorbed the details of a certain position--swung rapidly,

-with a topical song on his lips, down the path he had ascended

-earlier. The sound of his footfalls receded and died out. The hill

-regathered itself to silence. Ducos, on terms with destiny and at

-peace with all the world, sat for hours in the shadow of the trees.

-

-Perhaps he was not yet Judas enough to return to Anita, awaiting him

-in Cangrejo’s eyrie. But at length, towards evening, fearing his long

-absence might arouse suspicion or uneasiness, he arose and climbed the

-hill. When he reached the cabin, he found it empty and silent. He

-loitered about, wondering and watchful. Not a soul came near him. He

-dozed; he awoke; he ate a few olives and some bread; he dozed again.

-When he opened his eyes for the second time, the shadows of the peaks

-were slanting to the east. He got to his feet, shivering a little.

-This utter silence and desertion discomforted him. Where was the girl?

-God! was it possible after all that she had betrayed him? He might

-have questioned his own heart as to that; only, as luck would have it,

-it was such a tiresomely deaf organ. So, let him think. De la

-Platière, with his men (as calculated), would be posted in the

-Pampeluna road, round the spur of the hill below, an hour after

-sunset--that was to say, at fifteen minutes to six. No doubt by then

-the alarm would have gone abroad. But no great resistance to a strong

-force was to be apprehended. In the meantime--well, in the meantime,

-until the moment came for him to descend under cover of dark and

-assume the leadership, he must possess his soul in patience.

-

-The sun went down. Night flowing into the valleys seemed to expel a

-moan of wind; then all dropped quiet again. Darkness fell swift and

-sudden like a curtain, but no Anita appeared, putting it aside, and

-Ducos was perplexed. He did not like this bodiless, shadowless

-subscription to his scheming. It troubled him to have no one to talk

-to--and deceive. He was depressed.

-

-By and by he pulled off, turned inside-out and resumed his scarlet

-jacket, which he had taken the provisional precaution to have lined

-with a sombre material. As he slipped in his arms, he started and

-looked eagerly into the lower vortices of dusk. In the very direction

-to which his thoughts were engaged, a little glow-worm light was

-burning steadily from the thickets. What did it signify--Spaniards or

-French, ambush or investment? Allowing--as between himself on the

-height and de la Platière on the road below--for the apparent

-discrepancy in the time of sunset, it was yet appreciably before the

-appointed hour. Nevertheless, this that he saw made the risk of an

-immediate descent necessary.

-

-Bringing all his wits, his resolution, his local knowledge to one

-instant focus, he started, going down at once swiftly and with

-caution. The hills rose above him like smoke as he dropped; the black

-ravines were lifted to his feet. Sometimes for scores of paces he

-would lose sight altogether of the eye of light; then, as he turned

-some shoulder of rock, it would strike him in the face with its nearer

-radiance, so that he had to pause and readjust his vision to the new

-perspective. Still, over crabbed ridges and by dip of thorny gulches

-he descended steadily, until the mound of the Little Hump, like a

-gigantic thatched kraal, loomed oddly upon him through the dark.

-

-And, lo! the beacon that had led him down unerring was a great lantern

-hung under the sagging branch of a chestnut tree at the foot of the

-mound--a lantern, the lurid nucleus of a little coil of tragedy.

-

-A cluster of rocks neighboured the clearing about the tree. To these

-Ducos padded his last paces with a cat-like stealth--crouching, hardly

-breathing; and now from that coign of peril he stared down.

-

-A throng of armed guerrillas, one a little forward of the rest, was

-gathered about a couple more of their kidney, who, right under the

-lantern, held the goatherd Anita on her knees in a nailing grip. To

-one side, very phantoms of desolation, stood Cangrejo and another. The

-faces of all, densely shadowed in part by the rims of their sombreros,

-looked as if masked; their mouths, corpse-like, showed a splint of

-teeth; their ink-black whiskers hummocked on their shoulders.

-

-So, in the moment of Ducos’s alighting on it, was the group

-postured--silent, motionless, as if poised on the turn of some full

-tide of passion. And then, in an instant, a voice boomed up to him.

-

-“Confess!” it cried, vibrating: “him thou wert seen with at the

-gallows; him whom thou foisted, O! unspeakable, thou devil’s doxy! on

-the unsuspecting Cangrejo; him, thy Frankish gallant and spy” (the

-voice guttered, and then, rising, leapt to flame)--“what hast thou

-done with him? where hidden? Speak quickly and with truth, if, traitor

-though thou be, thou wouldst be spared the traitor’s estrapade.”

-

-“Alguazil, I cannot say. Have mercy on me!”

-

-Ducos could hardly recognize the child in those agonized tones.

-

-The inquisitor, with an oath, half wheeled.

-

-“Pignatelli, father of this accursed--if by her duty thou canst

-prevail?”

-

-A figure--agitated, cadaverous, as sublimely dehumanized as

-Brutus--stepped from Cangrejo’s side and tossed one gnarled arm aloft.

-

-“No child of mine, alguazil!” it proclaimed in a shrill, strung cry.

-“Let her reap as she hath sown, alguazil!”

-

-Cangrejo leapt, and flung himself upon his knees by the girl.

-

-“Tell Don Manoel, chiquita. God! little boy, that being a girl (ah,

-naughty!) is half absolved. Tell him, tell him--ah, there--now, now,

-now! He, thy lover, was in the cabin. I left him prostrate, scarce

-able to move. When the council comes to seek him, he is gone. Away,

-sayst thou? Ah, child, but I must know better! It could not be far.

-Say where--give him up--let him show himself only, chiquita, and the

-good alguazil will spare thee. Such a traitor, ah, Dios! And yet I

-have loved, too.”

-

-He sobbed, and clawed her uncouthly. Ducos, in his eyrie, laughed to

-himself, and applauded softly, making little cymbals of his

-thumb-nails.

-

-“But he will not move her,” he thought--and, on the thought, started;

-for from his high perch his eye had suddenly caught, he was sure of

-it, the sleeking of a French bayonet in the road below.

-

-“Master!” cried Anita, in a heart-breaking voice; “he is gone--they

-cannot take him. O, don’t let them hurt me!”

-

-The alguazil made a sign. Cangrejo, gobbling and resisting, was

-dragged away. There was a little ugly, silent scuffle about the girl;

-and, in a moment, the group fell apart to watch her being hauled up to

-the branch by her thumbs.

-

-Ducos looked on greedily.

-

-“How long before she sets to screaming?” he thought, “so that I may

-escape under cover of it.”

-

-So long, that he grew intolerably restless--wild, furious. He could

-have cursed her for her endurance.

-

-But presently it came, moaning up all the scale of suffering. And, at

-that, slinking like a rat through its run, he went down swiftly

-towards the road--to meet de la Platière and his men already silently

-breaking cover from it.

-

-And, on the same instant, the Spaniards saw them.

-

- * * * * *

-

-“Peste!” whispered de la Platière “We could have them all at one

-volley but for that!”

-

-Between the French force, ensconced behind the rocks whither Ducos had

-led them, and the Spaniards who, completely taken by surprise, had

-clustered foolishly in a body under the lantern, hung the body of

-Anita, its torture suspended for the moment because its poor wits were

-out.

-

-“How, my friend!” exclaimed Ducos. “But for what?”

-

-“The girl, that is all.”

-

-“She will feel nothing. No doubt she is half dead already. A moment,

-and it will be too late.”

-

-“Nevertheless, I will not,” said de la Platière.

-

-Ducos stamped ragingly.

-

-“Give the word to me. She must stand her chance. For the Emperor!” he

-choked--then shrieked out, “Fire!”

-

-The explosion crashed among the hills, and echoed off.

-

-A dark mass, which writhed and settled beyond the lantern shine,

-seemed to excite a little convulsion of merriment in the swinging

-body. That twitched and shook a moment; then relaxed, and hung

-motionless.

-

-

-

-

- THE RAVELLED SLEAVE

-

-

- Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.

-

-

-I should like to preface my subject with a _Caractère_, in the

-style of La Bruyère, as thus:--

-

-Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant

-a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make

-Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as

-others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement

-of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than

-ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you

-the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and,

-resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities

-which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters

-always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct

-on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the

-Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself

-speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous

-secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but

-their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite,

-one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.

-

-Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his

-lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably

-a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one

-has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy

-day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that

-we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes.

-But we must adulterate largely to do it.

-

-Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is

-thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a

-big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary,

-but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon

-your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his

-rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t

-know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really

-instinctively greedy for the psychologic _bonne bouche_. He is tall,

-and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm

-but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace.

-He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”

-

-It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one

-night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being

-so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration

-for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental

-endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these

-noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself

-with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening

-paper.

-

-“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my

-shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I

-supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at

-the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-

-I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to

-an extreme of rudeness.

-

-“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had

-been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting

-your presence into my ear like that?”

-

-He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by);

-then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first

-time to realize my meaning.

-

-“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do

-you mean by the question?”

-

-Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real

-justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.

-

-“O, nothing!” I mumbled awkwardly; “except that you made me almost

-jump out of my skin.”

-

-It was characteristic of him, and a further puzzle, that in spite of

-his self-suggested consciousness of superiority he was easily

-depressed by a snub. We sat for a little in a glowering silence, and

-perhaps with a mutual sense of injury.

-

-“Yes, an interesting case,” he said at length with an effort. “A

-trance, isn’t it?”

-

-“Something of the sort,” I replied. “I saw the girl yesterday.”

-

-He looked up interested.

-

-“Yes?”

-

-“She is in a private ward of B---- Hospital. I know the house surgeon.

-He took me to see her.”

-

-“Well! How does she look?”

-

-“Seen the St. Amaranthe at Tussaud’s--the one whom, as children, we

-used to call the Sleeping Beauty? Not unlike her: as pretty as wax and

-as stiff: just breathing, with pale cheeks and her mouth a little

-open.”

-

-“The fit--I seem to remember--was brought on by some shock, wasn’t

-it?”

-

-I growled--

-

-“According to report, concealment of birth. I conclude she was put to

-shame by some rogue, and couldn’t face the music. The child was found,

-three or four months ago, on a doorstep or somewhere, and traced to

-her. When the police entered, I suppose she feared the worst, and went

-off. Odd part is, that the infant itself was intact--as sound as a

-bell. But all that’s of little interest. It’s the case for me; not the

-sentiment.”

-

-“Ah?” said Valentine.

-

-He leaned forward, resting his long arms on his knees and gently

-clicking his fingers together. His eyes were full of an eager light.

-

-“Johnny, I wonder if you could get _me_ a sight of her?”

-

-“Why not?” I answered. I felt that I owed him some atonement. “I’ll

-ask C---- if you like.”

-

-

-

-

- II

-

-C---- demurred, hummed and hawed, and acquiesced.

-

-“Your friend must keep in the background,” he said. “He’s not a

-backstair reporter, I suppose?”

-

-“He’s an independent gentleman, and either a poet or an ass--I don’t

-know which.”

-

-“Same thing,” said this airy Philistine; “but no matter, so long as he

-don’t talk.”

-

-“He won’t talk.”

-

-“Very well, bring him up. Fact is, we’re trying an experiment this

-afternoon. Aunt’s brought the baby--sort of natural magnetism to

-restore the current, cancel the hiatus--see? I’ve not much belief in

-it myself.”

-

-I fetched Valentine, and we followed C---- up to the ward. There were

-only present there--one, a list-footed nurse; two, a little

-shabby-genteel woman, with a false tow-like front over vicious eyes,

-who carried a flannelled bundle; and three, the patient herself.

-

-She had not so much as stirred, to all appearance, since I last saw

-her. We, Valentine and I, took up our position apart. Some accidental

-contact with him made me turn my head. He was quivering like a

-high-strung racer for the start. This physical excitability was news

-to me. “H’mph!” I thought. “Is there really that in you which you must

-keep such a tight rein on?”

-

-The nurse took the infant, and placed it on the sleeping girl’s

-breast. It mewed and sprawled, but evoked no response whatever.

-

-“She’d never a drop of the milk of kindness in her,” muttered the

-little verjuicy woman.

-

-“Hold your tongue!” said the doctor sharply.

-

-He and the nurse essayed some coaxing. In the midst, I was petrified

-by the sight of Valentine going softly up to the bed-head.

-

-“May I whisper a word?” he said. “It may fail or not. But I don’t

-think you can object to my trying.”

-

-And actually, before his astonished company could move or collect its

-wits, he had bent and spoken something, inaudible, into the patient’s

-ear.

-

-Now, I ask you to remember that this girl had been in a cataleptic

-sleep for not less than three months, under observation, and with no

-chance, so far as I knew, to cozen her attendants; and believe me then

-as you can when I tell you that, answering, instantly and normally, to

-Valentine’s whisper, she sighed, stretched her arms, though at first

-with an air of some lassitude and weakness, and, opening her eyes,

-fixed them with a sort of suspended stare upon the face of her

-exorcist. Gradually, then, a little pucker deepened between her brows,

-and instantly, some shadow of fright or uneasiness flickering in her

-dark pupils, she turned her head aside. Obviously she was distressed

-by the vision of this strange face coming between the light and her

-normal, as it seemed to her, awaking.

-

-Valentine immediately stood away, and backed to where she could not

-see him.

-

-C----, obviously putting great command on himself, since circumstances

-made it appear that some damned “natural magic” had got the better of

-his natural science, took the situation in hand professionally, and

-frowned to the aunt, to whom the baby had been restored, to show

-herself. The woman, rallying from the common stupefaction, gave an

-acrid sniff and obeyed.

-

-“_Well_, Nancy!” she said, in a tone between wonder and remonstrance.

-

-The girl looked round again and up, with a little shock. Immediately

-her dilated pupils accepted with frank astonishment this more familiar

-apparition.

-

-“Gracious goodness, Aunt Mim!” she whispered; “what have you got

-there?”

-

-Then she turned her face on the pillow, with a smile of drowsy

-rapture.

-

-“Anyhow, you’ve found your way to Skene at last,” she murmured, and

-instantly fell into a natural sleep, from which, it was evident, there

-must be no awaking her.

-

-C---- wheeled upon my friend.

-

-“I suppose you won’t part with your secret?” he asked drily.

-

-It was a habit with Valentine, not his least aggravating, composedly

-to put by any unwelcome or difficult question addressed to him as if

-he did not hear it.

-

-“Skene’s in Kent, isn’t it?” he asked, ostensibly of the aunt, though

-he looked at me. I could have snapped at him in pure vindictiveness.

-He wasn’t inscrutable, any more than another. What was his confounded

-right to pose as a sphinx?

-

-“She fancies she’s there,” he said. “Why?”

-

-I turned dumbly with the question to the little woman creature. I

-don’t know if she supposed I was in some sort of official authority to

-cross-examine her. She had powder on her face, and a weak glow mantled

-through it.

-

-“It was there she met her trouble, sir,” she said, hesitating. “She’d

-gone down to the hop-picking last September, and I was to follow. But

-circumstances” (she wriggled her shoulders with an indescribable

-simper) “was against my joining her.”

-

-“Well,” broke in C----, suddenly and rather sharply, “you must take

-the consequences, and, for the present anyhow, the burden of them off

-her shoulders.”

-

-“Begging your pardon, sir?” she questioned shrewdly.

-

-“The child,” said the doctor, “the child. Everything, it appears,

-relating to it is for the moment obliterated from her mind. She takes

-up existence, I think you’ll find, last autumn, at this Skene, with

-expecting you. Well, you have come, and returned to London together.

-You understand? The time of year is the same. None of all this has for

-the moment happened.”

-

-There was an acrid incredulity in his hearer’s face as she listened to

-him.

-

-“Do I understand, or don’t I, sir,” she said, “that her shame is to be

-my care and consideration? And till when, if you’ll be so good?”

-

-“That I can’t say,” he answered. “Probably the interval, the abyss in

-her mind, will bridge itself by slow degrees. Her reason likely

-depends upon your not rudely hastening the process. I warn you, that’s

-all.”

-

-“And pray,” she said, with ineffable sarcasm, “how is I, as a

-respectable woman, to account to her for this that I hold?”

-

-“Put it out to nurse.”

-

-“No, sir, _if_ you’ll allow me. The hussy have done her best to bring

-me to ruin already.”

-

-“Say you’ve adopted it.”

-

-She gave a shrill titter.

-

-“Nanny will have lost her wits, hindeed, to believe that.”

-

-“Well, she has in a measure.”

-

-“And the police?” she said. “Aren’t you a little forgetting them,

-sir?”

-

-“The police,” said C----, “I will answer for. The case isn’t worth

-their pursuing, and they will drop it.”

-

-The baby began to wail; and Aunt Mim, with her lips pursed, to play

-the vicious rocking-horse to it.

-

-

-

-

- III

-

-One evening, a week later, Valentine came quietly into my room. I had

-not seen him in the interval, and was immediately struck, though it

-was semi-dusk, by the expression on his face. It was white and

-smiling, and the eyes more brightly inscrutable than ever.

-

-A storm had just crashed across the town, and left everything dripping

-in a liquid fog. Looking down, one could see the house-fronts,

-submerged in the running pavements, become the very “baseless fabrics

-of a vision.” The hansom-drivers, bent over their glazed roofs, rode

-each with a shadowy phantom of himself reversed, like an oilskin Jack

-of Spades. No pedestrian but, like Hamlet, had his “fellow in the

-cellarage” keeping pace with him. The solid ground seemed melted, and

-the unsubstantial workings of the world revealed. To souls hemmed in

-by bricks, there are more commonplace, less depressing sights than a

-wet London viewed from a third story.

-

-There was a box in my window, with some marguerites in it, the sickly

-pledges of a rather jocund spring. Valentine, joining me as I leaned

-out, handled a half-broken stem very tenderly.

-

-“It has been beaten down, _like poor Nanny_, by the storm,” he said.

-“We must tie it to a stick.”

-

-I did not answer for a minute. Then very deliberately I drew in my

-head and sat down. Again like my shadow, in this city of shadows,

-Valentine did the same. For some five minutes we must have remained

-opposite one another without speaking. Then sudden and grim I set my

-lips, and asked the question he seemed to invite.

-

-“Are you the stick?”

-

-He nodded, with a smile, which I could hardly see now, on his face.

-

-“You speak figuratively, of course,” I said, “in talking of _tying_

-her to you?”

-

-“No,” he said. “I talk of the real bond.”

-

-“Of matrimony?”

-

-“Certainly.”

-

-With a naughty word, I jumped to my feet, strode the round of the

-room, sat down flop on the table, put my hands in my pockets, tried to

-whistle, laughed, and burst out--“I suppose you intend this, in a

-manner, for a confidence? I suppose you are taking straight up the

-tale of a week ago? Well, _I_ haven’t lost the impression of that

-moment, or gone mad in the interval. Do you want me to sympathize with

-_your_ insanity, or to argue you out of it--which?”

-

-He did not answer. Indeed, the offensiveness of my tone was not

-winning.

-

-“I am perfectly aware,” I went on, “that the melodramatic unities

-demand an espousal with the interesting spirit we have called back to

-life. They have a way, at the same time, of ignoring Aunt Mims. You

-will, I am sure, forgive me if I say that it is the figure of that

-good lady which sticks last in _my_ memory.”

-

-Still he did not answer.

-

-“I will put my point,” I continued, growing a little angry--“I will

-put my point, as you seem to ask it, with all the delicacy I can. You

-drew an analogy between--between some one and that broken cabbage

-yonder. The sentiment is unexceptionable; only in France they consider

-those things weeds.”

-

-“Do they?” he said coolly. “We don’t.”

-

-“No; because we must justify ourselves for exalting ’em out of their

-proper sphere. They’ll not cease to smell rank, though, however you

-give ’em the middle place in your greenhouse.”

-

-I struck my knee viciously with my open palm.

-

-“That was in vile bad taste, Val. I beg your pardon for saying it.

-But, deuce take it, man! you can’t have come to me, a worldling and an

-older one, for sympathy in this midsummer madness?”

-

-I was off the table again, going to and fro and apostrophizing him at

-odd turns.

-

-“Let’s drop parables--and answer plainly, if it’s in you. You don’t

-exhale sentiment as a rule. Did or did not that touch about ‘poor

-Nanny’ imply a hint of some confidence put in me?”

-

-“I’ve always considered you my closest friend.”

-

-“Flattered, I’m sure; though I didn’t guess it. You put such

-conundrums--excuse me--beyond the time of a plain man to guess. Well,

-I say, I’m flattered, and I’ll take the full privilege. It’s natural

-you should feel an interest in----by the way, I regret to say I only

-know her as the Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-

-“She’s Nanny Nolan.”

-

-“In Miss Nolan, then. A propos, I’ve never yet asked, and mustn’t

-know, I suppose, the secret of your ‘open sesame’?”

-

-“No, I can’t tell you.”

-

-“O, it doesn’t matter! Only, as a question of this confiding

-friendship----”

-

-“It isn’t my secret alone.”

-

-“Then I’ve no more to say. But I presume she’s the--the flower in

-question?”

-

-“O, yes! And I’m the stick.”

-

-He said it with a quiet laugh.

-

-“I shouldn’t have supposed it, on my honour,” I assured him. “You can

-have stuck at very little in a week.”

-

-I took a few turns, and faced him, or his motionless shadow, very

-solemnly.

-

-“Now,” I demanded, “for the plain speaking. Will you answer me the

-truth? I brought away an impression, as I said. It might have been,

-after all, an impertinent one. A man’s a man for a’ that--though I

-confess I can’t quite apply the moral to a woman. Still, I’ll ask you

-frankly: How is she socially?”

-

-“Nothing at all. Her father was a colour-sergeant, a red-headed Celt

-from over the border of dreams. He’s gone to join the Duke of Argyll’s

-cloud army at Inverary. Her aunt’s an ex-coryphée living on a

-mysterious pension.”

-

-“Of course; only rather worse than I supposed.”

-

-“Verender, I must tell you the girl is without reproach. Socially, it

-is true, they are in a very limited way. They eke out existence in a

-number of small directions, even, as you know, hop-picking.”

-

-“I’ve nothing but respect for Miss Nolan’s virtues. I can even

-appreciate the appeal of her prettiness to a susceptible nature, which

-I don’t think mine is. Anyhow, I’m no Pharisee to pelt my poor sister

-of the gutter because she’s fallen in it. That’s beside the question.

-But it isn’t, to ask what in the name of tragedy induces you, with

-your wealth, your refinement, your mental and social amiability, to

-sink all in this investment of a--of a fancy bespoke--there, I can put

-it no differently.”

-

-“Call it my amiability, Verender. She’s like the centurion’s daughter.

-There’s something awfully strange, awfully fascinating, after all, in

-getting into her confidence--in entering behind that broken seal of

-death.”

-

-“You’re not an impressionable Johnny--at least, you shouldn’t be.

-You’ve passed the Rubicon. This child with a child--with Aunt Mim,

-good Lord! Have you thought of the consequences?”

-

-“Yes; all of them.”

-

-“Of the--pardon me. Do you know who _he_ was?”

-

-“Yes.”

-

-I stared aghast at him--at the deeper blot of gloom from which his

-voice proceeded.

-

-“And you aren’t afraid--for her; for yourself?”

-

-“You mean, of her relapsing?” he said clearly. “Not when she knows the

-truth--knows what a poor thing he is.”

-

-“Are you sure _you_ know woman? She is apt to have a curious

-tenderness for the blackguard who distinguishes her with his most

-especial brand of villainy. Then she hasn’t learned it--the

-truth--yet?”

-

-“No. Aunt Mim has been loyal.”

-

-“Well, well she may be, so long as you offer yourself the prize to

-such a self-denying ordinance. She sees which side her bread’s

-buttered, no doubt. And how does she account for the little stranger?”

-

-“By adoption. It’s an odd thing, Verender--Verender, it’s a very odd

-thing, and very pitiful, to see how _she_--little Nanny--distrusts the

-child--looks on it sort of askance--almost hates it, I think. I’ve a

-very difficult part to play.”

-

-I groaned.

-

-“Then why play it? What does it all matter to you? You’ve opened her

-eyes. Isn’t that enough, without waiting till she’s opened yours?”

-

-“Ah!” he said, obviously not attending to me. “But that isn’t the

-whole of my difficulty. The truth is, she appears to shrink from me

-too.”

-

-“You’ll forgive me,” I said grimly. “That’s your first comforting

-statement.”

-

-“I don’t know how it is,” he continued, in a low voice,

-self-pondering; “she’s frightened--distressed, before a shadow she

-can’t define. Sometimes and somehow it seems as if she wants to love

-me, but can’t--as if she were trying, and vainly, to shape out of a

-great gloom the obstacle which separates us. And I want to help her;

-and yet I, too, can’t understand. Shall I ever, I wonder?”

-

-I stared at him. “Isn’t it plain enough? But you have love’s eyes, I

-suppose.” Then I asked, a little softened, “Does she ever lose

-herself, trying to piece that broken time?”

-

-“I don’t know,” he answered. “She speaks so little. She is like a

-little shy ghost--half-materialized--fearful between spirit and

-matter--very sweet and pathetic.”

-

-With the last word he turned abruptly and strode out of the room. I

-was not so much astonished at his curt conclusion, as at a certain

-tell-tale cough which accompanied it.

-

-“O, hang the fellow!” I muttered. “If he’s developed tears in his

-voice, I give him up.”

-

-

-

-

- IV

-

-One afternoon, accident taking me past the Nolans’ house in the Fulham

-Road, I was disturbed to hear Valentine’s voice hailing me from the

-parlour window. It was a little cheap tenement, and a curiously shabby

-frame to his rather distinguished figure as he stood up eagerly to

-stop me.

-

-“Come in,” he said. “I want you.”

-

-I demurred, in an instant and instinctive panic.

-

-“What for? I’m horribly pressed. Won’t it do another time?”

-

-“_It_ won’t,” he answered. “It’s its way. But go on, if your need is

-greater than mine.”

-

-“That’s shabby,” I thought; and yielded with the worst grace possible.

-He retaliated by meeting me all sweetness at the door, and conducting

-me into the parlour.

-

-It was an impossible room--I may say it at once--quite the typical

-tawdry boudoir of an ex-coryphée. She was not there, I was relieved

-to find, in person; but her multiplied presentment simpered and

-abashed one from a dozen places on walls and mantelpiece. “Claudine”

-(she might have been a hair-wash, and enjoyed the same sort of

-popularity) posed, for all the blind purposes of vanity, in the tights

-and kid boots of a past generation. Looking from queer old

-daguerreotypes, in skirts like curtailed crinolines; ogling from

-wreaths, her calves, crossed to display their strength, in disfiguring

-proportion with the thin bosom above, she seemed to make an outrage of

-the dear ungainly sanctities which appeal to us, in pegtops and

-voluminous skirts, from the back parts of our albums. There are

-certain people who, with the best intention in the world to be held

-sweet, are unsavoury; and Aunt Mim was one of them. All the more

-wonder that such fruit could be born of her stock.

-

-For she was certainly attractive, was the girl--pure and pretty and

-unaffected. I had to own it grudgingly to myself, as I bowed to her,

-and turned interrogatively to my friend.

-

-He had gone to the back of her chair, where she sat away from the open

-window. There was some discarded work in her lap, and in her eyes some

-look of a vague sadness and bewilderment.

-

-“Nanny,” he said softly, “this, Mr. Verender, is my great friend--my

-counsel out of Court. Will you just do this for me--make him yours,

-too? Will you try to explain to him, while I go away, what you find it

-so hard to explain to me--your sense of the something that keeps us

-apart?”

-

-I made an instant but faint demur. Nanny, as faintly, shook her head.

-

-“O,” he said, “but he will listen to you, I know! Because I am

-unhappy, and you are unhappy, and I love you so, Nanny, and he is my

-best friend. Try to explain to him, dear, the difficulty of your

-case.”

-

-This novel enlargement on our relations, his and mine, vaguely annoyed

-me.

-

-“Why should there be any?” I put in impatiently. “Our friend can give

-you great social and other advantages, Miss Nolan. If he is decided on

-this course--you don’t dislike him, I think--forgive me, I can see no

-reason for objection on _your_ part.”

-

-She rose, as if scared, to her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder.

-“Hush!” he said. “Be just to me, and try to tell him.”

-

-He left the room and the house; and I was in two minds about following

-him. Was ever man put in a more ridiculous position? Yet the look of

-the girl gave me pause. She seemed to me to be yet only half awake;

-and indeed, I think, that is something to understate the case.

-

-“Well,” I said stumblingly, as she stood before me. “You heard what he

-said, Miss Nolan?”

-

-I was not sympathetic. I knew it. Perhaps, having once asserted

-myself, I might have grown so. But she would not give me the

-opportunity. In the meantime, I did not feel the less the full force

-of this mismatch.

-

-She put her hand in a lost way to her forehead.

-

-“I will try,” she said, in a low voice, “because he asked me.

-There--there was a great trouble--O! it was so far back. I can’t

-remember it--and then everything went.”

-

-“He is willing, it appears, to take that interval, that trouble, on

-trust,” I said. “He only asks you, it seems, to repay his confidence.

-What you are is what he desires. Cannot you consider yourself new-born

-into his love?” (I positively sneered the word to myself.)

-

-“There is something stands between us,” she only murmured helplessly.

-

-“He doesn’t admit it for himself,” I insisted irritably. “It might be

-the ruin of his career, of his position, as foreseen by his friends. I

-suppose he wishes to assure you that that counts for nothing with him,

-if by any chance the bar between you lies in your dim consciousness of

-such a sentiment.”

-

-I had been brutal, I admit it. I can only palliate my behaviour by

-confessing that it was intended to sound the first note of my moral

-surrender to the appeal of those poor, pain-troubled eyes. Now, at

-least, I had got my shaft home. She looked up at me with a light of

-amazed knowledge in her face.

-

-“Thank you,” she said. “I knew there was a right reason; and all the

-time I have been hunting for a fancied one.”

-

-I suffered an instant reaction to dismay. I had had no right whatever

-to make this point. Whatever my private opinion of Valentine’s folly,

-I had allowed myself to be accredited his ambassador.

-

-“Come; it is no reason at all,” I said. “There is no such thing as a

-misalliance in love” (I threw this atrocious sop to my own panic). “If

-only the practical bar between you could be as easily disposed of.”

-

-“The practical bar?”

-

-She turned upon me with a piteous pain in her voice. I had opened a

-door of release to her, I suppose, and before she could escape shut it

-again in her face. I was stumbling weakly on an explanation, when

-suddenly from somewhere above the baby began to wail. Instantly her

-face assumed the strangest expression--a sort of exalted hardness. She

-put up her hand, listened a moment, then, without another word, glided

-from the room. I am ashamed to say that I seized the opportunity to

-put an instant period to my visit.

-

-I expected to meet Valentine loitering without; but to my relief he

-did not appear. So I went on my way fuming. What right had the man to

-try to inveigle me into seeming to sanction his idiotcy by claiming me

-its advocate? He wanted to buy justification, I suppose. There are

-certain natures which cannot properly relish their own grief or

-happiness unless a witness be by to report upon them. Such was

-Valentine’s, I thought; and the thought did not increase my respect

-for my friend. I fancied I had already plumbed the shallows of that

-pretentious reserve, and was angry and half contemptuous that he had

-so soon revealed himself to me. There was certainly something

-attractive about the girl; but--well, _he_ had not been the first to

-discover the fact, and, when all was said, his infatuation showed him

-a fool in my eyes.

-

-That evening, when I was sitting alone writing, she suddenly stood

-before me. My first shock of amazement was followed by a glow of fury.

-I felt that I was being persecuted.

-

-“Well, what is it?” I said harshly.

-

-“I only wanted to tell you,” she said low, panting as if she had run;

-“I wanted you to tell _him_ that--that I know now what it is. I found

-out the moment I left you; and I came to say--but you were gone.”

-

-“Well?”

-

-“It is the child, sir.”

-

-“Yes, you are quite right--it is the child.”

-

-No sooner had I said it, than I felt the weight of my self-commitment.

-Had she discovered--remembered all? Did she conceive the impediment as

-associated with some scandal attaching to the ineffable Aunt Mim? or

-was the baby, in her clouded soul, but an unattachable changeling,

-which had come to disrupt the kind order of things and brand their

-household with a curse?

-

-“Yes, it is the child,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my hand

-while I frowned over the problem.

-

-She made no answer. When I looked up at the end of a minute, she was

-gone.

-

-I started to my feet, and went up and down. I made no attempt to

-follow. “It is better,” I thought angrily, “to let this stuff ferment

-in its own way. I could have given no other answer.”

-

-At the twentieth turn I saw Valentine before me, and stopped abruptly.

-

-“Well,” he said; “were you able to get it out of her?”

-

-“What?” I asked defiantly.

-

-“The reason--the impediment, you know?” he answered.

-

-“Sit down, Valentine,” I said. “I will tell you the truth. I hinted

-that the _mésalliance_ might be her unconscious consideration.”

-

-“She is not so proud,” he said quietly; “though I’m unworthy to buckle

-her little shoe for her.”

-

-I positively gasped.

-

-“O! if that’s your view! But, anyhow, she was seeming to accept mine,

-when the infant hailed her, and she left me, and I bolted. You put too

-much upon me--really you do, Val; and here’s the sequel. Ten minutes

-ago she appeared in this room and told me that she had discovered the

-reason--the real one this time.”

-

-“And it was?”

-

-“The baby--no less.”

-

-“What! Does she----?”

-

-“I don’t know from Adam. I was thinking over my answer; and when I

-looked up, she was gone.”

-

-“And you gave her no reply?”

-

-“O yes! I told her I entirely agreed with her. I had to be honest.”

-

-“Verender! You must come with me!”

-

-“Go with you!”

-

-“You’ve called the tune; you must pay the piper.”

-

-“I don’t know what you mean. I’ll see you--cremated first!”

-

-He stared at me a moment, his teeth showing, his eyes rounding in the

-dusk, his fists clinching and unclinching; then he, too, was gone. And

-I went and stood at the window, slinking into the curtains, and

-feeling myself the most abused cur in all London.

-

-

-

-

- V

-

-For a fortnight this state continued in me, through alternations of

-depression, self-accusation, and savage bursts of rebellion. On the

-sixteenth day a brief note, begging me to call at his rooms, reached

-me from Valentine.

-

-“I won’t go,” I swore through my teeth, feeling an inclination to tear

-the paper in them; and five minutes later was on my way.

-

-“He shall justify me to myself,” I had thought. “I’ll let my

-conscience be his footstool no longer.”

-

-The fellow lived _en prince_ in Piccadilly. I found him in the midst

-of a litter--boxes and packages and strewed floors--evidently on the

-eve of a journey. He greeted me, twinkling, in high excitement--not a

-trace of grievance or embarrassment in his manner.

-

-“Leave those things, Phillips,” he said to his staid valet. “We’ll

-finish by and by.”

-

-The man left the room; and his master took me by the sleeve, while I

-held myself in reserve--unconsciously, at the same time, softening to

-his geniality.

-

-“We’re off to Capri--Egypt,” he said, “following our late summer with

-the swallows.”

-

-“You and--Phillips?” I asked.

-

-“I and my wife,” said he, with a laugh. “Hush! She’s seeing the baby

-to sleep.”

-

-He could say it without a blush; and they had been married, as I came

-to learn, just a week! He led me on tiptoe to a distant room, and bade

-me look through the opened door. Nanny, crowned, proud as any young

-queen, with conscious maternity, was bent, singing softly, above a

-little cot. The sight of her--Val’s wife--restored me at once to my

-self-respect. I had done nothing after all, it seemed, but help to

-precipitate an event I deplored. My shout had brought down the

-avalanche. Henceforth my position was to be that of the amused

-onlooker.

-

-He let me stare; then led me away with all his old affectation of

-pregnant mystery. We went out together--I don’t know why--into the

-Green Park. It seemed remote and silent, and the better shadows of

-night were beginning to troop under its trees. Then he spoke to me, as

-follows:

-

-“Verender, you have a right to know. You remember what you told me

-that evening? I wasn’t just to you, perhaps. I foresaw issues to which

-you must necessarily be blind. The baby stood between us, you said. It

-did, but not in the way you meant to imply. I am its father.”

-

-I listened perfectly silent, and very grave, as we stepped on

-together.

-

-“I will say of, not for, myself,” he continued, “that I had known

-nothing of the fruits of a little moonlight idyll out in that Kent

-village. I was hop-picking, as she was, but for a worser reason. Our

-encounter in B---- Hospital was my first intimation of the truth. Till

-that moment I had never considered, at least had been careless of, a

-sequel; had never, of course, had a shadow of thought to identify the

-patient with my victim. Then in a moment--Verender, her helplessness

-found all that wasn’t bad in me. She didn’t know me--the curtain was

-too thick. I determined to woo and win, as a stranger, what was

-already my own. Was I right?”

-

-I nodded. “Yes, you were right.”

-

-“Then came the strange part,” he said--“a sort of subconsciousness of

-an impediment she could not define. It was her dishonour, Verender--my

-God! Verender, _her_ dishonour!--that found some subtle expression in

-the little life introduced into her home. She always feared and

-distrusted the child; and I tell you I lived in horror that some day

-her witlessness would arm her gentle hand to do it a hurt. For she

-wanted to come to me, Verender, she wanted to come, and it was as if

-she couldn’t, and nobody would tell her why.

-

-“_You_ told her, you old rascal! And with what result, do you think?

-When I followed her, I found her gone--she had taken the baby from its

-cot, and hurried out. The old harpy was there, raving and gobbling

-beyond reason. I had her down on her knees to confess. She admitted

-that the girl had come in, in a fever to proclaim her knowledge of the

-bar which separated us. Nanny had rounded upon her, it appeared, and

-accused her, Aunt Mim, of wantonly causing the scandal which had

-brought this shadow into her life. And then--perhaps it wasn’t to be

-wondered at--Auntie exploded, and gave up all.”

-

-“The truth?”

-

-“All of it but what the old hag herself didn’t know--the name of the

-villain. That, circumstances had kept from her, you see. She let

-loose, did Auntie--we’ll allow her a grain of justification; to have

-her forbearance turned upon herself like that, you know!--and screamed

-to the girl to pack, and dispose of her rubbish somewhere else. And

-Nanny understood at last, and went.”

-

-“Where?”

-

-“Ah, where? That was the question. I’d only one clue--Skene and the

-river; but I seized upon it, and my inspiration proved right. She’d

-gone instinctively to the only place where, it seemed, her trouble

-could be resolved. You see, she hadn’t yet come to identify _me_ with

-it. But I followed, and I caught her in time.”

-

-He hung his head, and spoke very low.

-

-“I took the next train possible to Skene. Verender, I’m not going to

-talk. It was one of those fainting, indescribable experiences, like

-the voice in the burning bush. Cold dawn it was, with a white bubbling

-river and the ghost of an old moon. She had intended to commit _it_ to

-the water--the fog wasn’t yet out of her brain--and then, all in an

-instant, the mother came upon her, and the memory of me; and she ran

-to cast herself in instead, and saw me coming.”

-

-There followed a long interval of silence.

-

-“And Aunt Mim?” I asked drily, chiefly to keep up my character.

-

-He laughed.

-

-“O! we’ve added an honourable moiety to a dishonourable pension, and

-settled her,” he said.

-

-Another silence followed.

-

-“Well, I apologize,” I said grumpily.

-

-

-

-

- THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR

-

-John Stannary hungrily paced his laboratory, awaiting an expected

-advent. A brilliant coronal of candles, concentrated within a shade

-and pendent from a black beam over the dissecting table, regularly

-identified him as he came within its radiance, and as regularly, when

-he had passed without it, returned to its scrutiny of the empty slab

-beneath, as if it were trying to trace on that blank surface the

-unwritten hieroglyphics of his development. Yet, if each of its

-half-score fiery tongues had been as polyglot as the Apostles’ tongues

-of flame, it could have found among them all no voice to dispute his

-lifelong consistency with himself. From the hard, ungracious child,

-who had rejoiced to discomfit the love which sought to hedge him; from

-the cynic schoolboy, to whom to awaken and analyze pain in the living

-had been the only absorbing sport; from the unimpassioned student, who

-had walked the hospitals like a very spectre of moral insensibility;

-from the calculating libertine, whose experimental phase of animalism

-had been as brief as it was savage; from the lust of life, soon spent,

-to the bloodless analysis of its organic motives; from the soulless

-child to the virile monster of science; from nothingness to a great

-early reputation, to honours, to a fine house, to his present self and

-condition, in short, Professor Stannary’s progress had been entirely

-and unerringly consistent. He was one of those born to account for

-results, not by any means with a view to clearing the stream of

-tendency by cleansing its source. On the contrary, he never would have

-hesitated further to contaminate it, could he by so doing have evolved

-some novel epidemic. His fight was not to win Nature to God, but to

-the laboratory; and, if he had a conqueror’s ambition, it was to die

-gloriously upon a protoplast, at that beginning of things which his

-fathers had struggled through æons to forget. To have called him a

-dog nosing back for a scent, would have been to libel the sorriest of

-mongrels with an inch of tail to wag at a kind word. Yet he had

-routled so much, nevertheless, that his eyes were inflamed, and his

-features pimpled, and his nose itself sharpened as with much whetting

-on carrion. And, still unappeased, he paced his shambles that evening

-like a caged ravening jackal.

-

-In those early decades of the nineteenth century, anthropophagous

-science, especially when non-official, was often hard put to it for a

-meal. The “ringing grooves of change” were sounding; discovery was a

-new-risen star; ghoulish explorers shouldered one another in their

-struggle for the scientific pabulum which the grave afforded. But the

-supply, die as men would, was unequal to the demand. The hospitals

-kept their own; the others, _à contre-cœur_, must keep the

-resurrection-men. They pulled the blinds down on their consciences;

-they were willing to accept the least plausible of explanations, for

-the _Cause_ was paramount. But, indeed, we are all casuists when we

-want to justify our lusts to ourselves. Still the material lacked,

-only, according to the universal law of necessity, to evolve its more

-desperate instruments of supply. And then at last, hard-driven, first

-one, and after him another and another, had the panic courage to pull

-up those blinds, and let in the light on some very shocking

-suspicions--with the result that Burke was hanged in Edinburgh, and

-Bishop and Williams in London.

-

-Professor Stannary was not of these white-livers. He pulled up no

-blind, for the simple reason that he had let none down. He would have

-diagnosed conscience as a morbid disease characterized by a diathetic

-condition, and peculiar to fools of both sexes and all ages. He would

-have said that to ask any question in this world was to invite a lie,

-and that in all his thirty years’ experience he had found none but the

-dead to answer back the unswerving truth. Well, if they did? Did it

-matter to them, being dead? But it mattered greatly to the cause of

-science to get at the truth; and he, for one, was certainly not going

-to question the means so long as the results came to justify them.

-

-While yet, however, the blinds were down and the pitch-plaster but an

-ugly suspicion, the competition for material had not so ceased of its

-keenness but that Professor Stannary had found himself checked, one

-day, under the very near-conquered crest of a physiological peak, for

-want of the final clue to that crowning achievement--a clue which,

-like Bluebeard’s key, turned upon nothing so intimately as dead

-bodies. Step by step he had reasoned his way to this position, only,

-when within touch of the end, to find himself held up, tantalized,

-irritated by an inability to proceed farther until a nice necessity

-should be provided. His material, in fact and in short, had given out

-at the psychologic moment. His laboratory was already a museum of

-shredded particles--the pickings from much inevitable waste of dead

-humanity. There needed only the retraversing of certain nerves, or

-ducts, or canals to put the finishing touches to a great discovery.

-And then--the summit, the tribune, as it were, from which he was

-engaged to announce on the morrow to the Royal Society the triumphant

-term to his investigations.

-

-Already, pacing to and fro, eager and impatient, in the silent room,

-he foresaw himself the recipient of the highest honour it was in the

-power of that body to bestow. He was not above desiring it. He was not

-himself so superlatively rational but he could covet applause for

-knocking yet another long nail into the coffin of irrationality; could

-expect the recognition of the world for his services in helping to

-reduce it, its passions and its hopes and its pathetic fallacies, to

-some mathematical formulæ. There is nothing so incomprehensible to

-the men of science as the reluctance of the unscientific to part with

-their doting illusions. To be content to rejoice or sorrow in things

-as they seem, and not to wish to know them as they are--that, they

-think, is so foolish as to justify their hardest castigation of the

-folly. At least so thought John Stannary, as, with his lips set

-sourly, he paused, and consulted his watch, and listened for a sound

-of expected footsteps shuffling down the hang-dog passage which

-skirted that wall of the house, and into which his laboratory door

-conveniently opened.

-

-Not a whisper, however, rewarded him. He put his ear to the panels.

-Even then, the surf-like murmur of distant traffic--or the thud of his

-own excited heart, he could not tell which--was the only articulate

-sound. He glanced up angrily at the shortening candles before resuming

-his tramp. As he passed to and fro, from dusk to light, and into dusk

-again, he seemed to be demonstrating to a theatre of spectral

-monstrosities the hieroglyphics of that same empty slab. For the

-central core of radiance, concentrating itself with deadly expectancy

-upon its surface, had, nevertheless, its own ghostly halo--a dim

-auditorium, tier over tier, peopled with shadows of misbegotten

-horrors. Sets of surgical steel in the pit, arrayed symmetrically on

-a table as if for a dinner party of vampires; nameless writhed

-specimens on cards or in bottles, standing higher behind the dry sleek

-of glass; over all, murderous busts in the gallery, the dust on their

-heads and upper features giving them the appearance of standing above

-some infernal sort of footlights--with such shapes, watchful and

-gloating in suggestion, was the man hemmed in. They touched his nerves

-with just such an emotion as the ordinary citizen feels towards his

-domestic _lares_; they affected him in just such proportion as he was

-moved by the thought of the possible manner in which an order he had

-given to some friends of his that morning might be executed. That is

-to say, his feeling towards these dead members, as towards the means

-taken by others to procure him the use of them, was utterly

-impersonal. He had had at this pass a great truth to demonstrate. “A

-body, this night, at any cost,” he had simply ordered, and had

-straightway shut the door on his caterers. He had had no thought of

-scruple. His responsibility in these matters was to the ages; never to

-the individual.

-

-

-A low tap sounded at the door. He was there in three strides, and

-opening swiftly, let in two men, the one shouldering a sack, the other

-hovering about his comrade in a sort of anxious moral support.

-

-Professor Stannary, without a word, pointed to the table. The laden

-one, as mutely, shuffled across, backed, heaved his burden down, and

-stood to take off his hat and mop his brow. He was a burly,

-humorous-looking fellow, with a sort of cheerful popularity written

-across his face--an expression in strong contrast with that of the

-other, who, tall and stealthy, stood lank behind him, like his shadow

-at a distance, watching the persuasive effect of his principal on the

-customer. It was he who had closed the door gently upon them all as

-soon as they were in, and now stood, his teeth and eyeballs the

-prominent things in him, softly twirling his hat in his hand.

-

-“Take away the sack,” said the Professor quietly.

-

-The burly man obeyed, sliding it off like a petticoat; and revealed

-the body of a young woman. Lowering and rubbing his jaw, the Professor

-stood some moments pondering the vision. Then he turned sharply.

-

-“You are late. I expected you sooner.”

-

-“The notice was short, sir,” answered the man coolly. “These ’ere

-matters can’t be accommodated in a moment. As it is she’s warm. I

-bought the body off of----”

-

-The other interrupted him--

-

-“I don’t want to know. You can hold your tongue, and take your price,

-and go.”

-

-“Short and sweet,” said the man.

-

-He laughed, and his friend laughed in echo, putting his long hand to

-his mouth as if in apology for such an unpardonable ebullition of

-nature.

-

-“As to the price,” said the former, “taking into _con_sideration the

-urgency, and the special providence, so to speak, in purwiding, at a

-moment’s notice too, this ’ere comely young----”

-

-A certain full chink of money stopped him.

-

-“Thankee,” he said, after a short negotiation. “I’ll own you’ve done

-the handsome, sir, and we’ve no cause to complain. Not but what I had

-to give----”

-

-“Good night!” said the Professor.

-

-Not till they were gone, locked out, and the very trail of their

-filthy footsteps hidden under the black droppings of the night, did he

-turn, for all his impatience, and regard the body again.

-

-“Nancy,” he murmured to himself; “yes, it’s Nancy.”

-

-Into the vast study of biology it is perfectly certain that a personal

-knowledge of biogenesis must enter. Here, too, the individual must be

-sacrificed to the cause. Well, by virtue of that phase in his career

-before-mentioned, he had already once made of Nancy a holocaust to

-science. If the fruits of that sacrifice had been to be found in a

-ruined life, a social degradation, a gradual decline upon infamy, what

-was it all to him? As german to the general subject as the dead

-specimens on his walls was the living specimen of his passion. _Ex

-abusu non arguitur ad usum._ Still, it was a strange coincidence that

-she should come thus to consummate his work.

-

-Looking upon her frozen face, he was aware of certain tell-tale,

-rudely-erased tokens about the mouth. He never had a doubt as to what

-they signified. It was a rude kiss that of the pitch-plaster, more

-close and savage than any he himself had once pressed upon those

-blistered lips. So, the murderous beasts had gone the short way to

-supply his urgency! Would they have taken it none the less, he

-wondered, if they could have known in what relation their victim once

-stood towards their employer? Very likely. Very justly, too, could

-they believe him consistent with himself.

-

-Nevertheless, though he had no conscience, though he had too often

-scored that fact on human flesh with a knife to be in any doubt about

-it, it was notable that, as he moved now, perfectly cold and

-collected, to make some selection of tools from the table hard by, he

-was registering to himself a vow, mortal to some folks, that no effort

-of his should be lacking to help bring certain vile instruments to

-their judgment--so soon as his disuse of them should find warrant in a

-fuller supply of the legitimate material.

-

-As he groped for what he wanted, a sparrow twittered somewhere in the

-dark outside. He started, and dwelt a moment listening. Birds! the

-little false priests of haunted woods, who sang their lying

-benedictions over every folly perpetrated in their green shades! Why,

-he had loathed them, even while he had been making their loves the

-text for this early experiment of his in rustic nature. They had been

-singing when----grasping his knife firmly, he returned to the table.

-

-Something had happened there. For one moment the blade shook in his

-hand. To his practised eye there were signs--the ghostliest, the most

-remote--but signs still. A movement--a tremor--the faintest, faintest

-vibration of a soul, unreleased, struggling to return to the

-surface--that was what he felt rather than saw. He recalled the hasty

-character of the deed; he thought of the shock, of the suspended

-trance into which such a deed might cast a sensitive subject.

-Mastering himself, with the dry firm will of an operator, he walked

-once more unhurriedly to the instrument table, and made a further

-selection.

-

-The sparrow twittered again. Birds in the wood--small procuresses to

-Sentiment! What a trollop she was, that Sentiment! He had known

-ethereal creatures go from picking the bones of stuffed larks, to

-moralize sweetly on the song of nightingales under the moon. For

-himself, barring his natural asceticism, he would have no remorse

-whatever in devouring nightingales. Such emotions were born of

-surfeit, and the moral of them all was that a bird in the stomach was

-worth two, or two hundred, in the bush. The one was the decoy which

-brought the many into notice. Why, he himself, when flushed with

-passion----

-

-Harder than steel, hard as flesh can be, he stepped back to the table.

-

-Yes, there was no longer doubt about it. He must decide quickly.

-Decide! What was there in all his life to warrant in him a moment’s

-indecision? His pledge to to-morrow was paramount over his pledge to

-yesterday. It was by very virtue of the past that he owed everything

-to the future. The _Cause_ was himself, bone of his bone, flesh of his

-flesh. As she had made _her_self one with him, so must she consummate

-the gift. He chose to believe, even, that she would not hesitate could

-she know. He grasped his knife.

-

-Her hair! He had said some foolish things about it once. In a sudden

-fury he seized it, and sliced it off close by her head, and flung it

-aside. She looked strangely innocent and boyish thus shorn. He had a

-momentary grotesque thought that he would excuse himself to himself by

-pretending that she was a boy. It passed on the instant. What excuse

-was necessary? He remembered how once, to his idle amusement, when she

-had fancied herself secure of him, she had coveted greatness for his

-future. Well, it was within his grasp at length, and by her final

-means.

-

-Damn the sparrow! What was there in all the murky town to tempt his

-twittering? He had blunted his knife’s edge on the hair. He must fetch

-another.

-

-As he came back with it, the bird seemed to flutter and cry out

-against his very door. In a swift access of passion he strode to it,

-and opened. Whether old, or wounded, or poisoned in the drooping fog,

-there lay the little thing, gasping, with outspread wings, upon the

-pavement. One moment the Professor hesitated; then, crushing out the

-tiny shrieking life under his foot, he relocked the door and returned

-with a firm step to the table.

-

- * * * * *

-

-His treatise, read the next day before an august body, was said

-masterly to resolve an intricate and long obscure physiologic problem.

-

-It brought him additional and great honour, and, what he prized above

-all, that gift of the Society’s gold medal, which is only granted to

-discoveries of the first importance. But then, it must be remembered,

-he had given his soul to the Cause. The stain of its sacrifice was yet

-red on the stones outside his door.

-

-

-

-

- A GHOST-CHILD

-

-In making this confession public, I am aware that I am giving a

-butterfly to be broken on a wheel. There is so much of delicacy in its

-subject, that the mere resolve to handle it at all might seem to imply

-a lack of the sensitiveness necessary to its understanding; and it is

-certain that the more reverent the touch, the more irresistible will

-figure its opportunity to the common scepticism which is bondslave to

-its five senses. Moreover one cannot, in the reason of things, write

-to publish for Aristarchus alone; but the gauntlet of Grub Street must

-be run in any bid for truth and sincerity.

-

-On the other hand, to withhold from evidence, in these days of what

-one may call a zetetic psychology, anything which may appear

-elucidatory, however exquisitely and rarely, of our spiritual

-relationships, must be pronounced, I think, a sin against the Holy

-Ghost.

-

-All in all, therefore, I decide to give, with every passage to

-personal identification safeguarded, the story of a possession, or

-visitation, which is signified in the title to my narrative.

-

-

-Tryphena was the sole orphaned representative of an obscure but gentle

-family which had lived for generations in the east of England. The

-spirit of the fens, of the long grey marshes, whose shores are the

-neutral ground of two elements, slumbered in her eyes. Looking into

-them, one seemed to see little beds of tiny green mosses luminous

-under water, or stirred by the movement of microscopic life in their

-midst. Secrets, one felt, were shadowed in their depths, too frail and

-sweet for understanding. The pretty love-fancy of babies seen in the

-eyes of maidens, was in hers to be interpreted into the very cosmic

-dust of sea-urchins, sparkling like chrysoberyls. Her soul looked out

-through them, as if they were the windows of a water-nursery.

-

-She was always a child among children, in heart and knowledge most

-innocent, until Jason came and stood in her field of vision. Then,

-spirit of the neutral ground as she was, inclining to earth or water

-with the sway of the tides, she came wondering and dripping, as it

-were, to land, and took up her abode for final choice among the

-daughters of the earth. She knew her woman’s estate, in fact, and the

-irresistible attraction of all completed perfections to the light that

-burns to destroy them.

-

-Tryphena was not only an orphan, but an heiress. Her considerable

-estate was administered by her guardian, Jason’s father, a widower,

-who was possessed of this single adored child. The fruits of parental

-infatuation had come early to ripen on the seedling. The boy was

-self-willed and perverse, the more so as he was naturally of a

-hot-hearted disposition. Violence and remorse would sway him in

-alternate moods, and be made, each in its turn, a self-indulgence. He

-took a delight in crossing his father’s wishes, and no less in atoning

-for his gracelessness with moving demonstrations of affection.

-

-Foremost of the old man’s most cherished projects was, very naturally,

-a union between the two young people. He planned, manœuvred, spoke

-for it with all his heart of love and eloquence. And, indeed, it

-seemed at last as if his hopes were to be crowned. Jason, returning

-from a lengthy voyage (for his enterprising spirit had early decided

-for the sea, and he was a naval officer), saw, and was struck amazed

-before, the transformed vision of his old child-playfellow. She was an

-opened flower whom he had left a green bud--a thing so rare and

-flawless that it seemed a sacrilege for earthly passions to converse

-of her. Familiarity, however, and some sense of reciprocal attraction,

-quickly dethroned that eucharist. Tryphena could blush, could thrill,

-could solicit, in the sweet ways of innocent womanhood. She loved him

-dearly, wholly, it was plain--had found the realization of all her old

-formless dreams in this wondrous birth of a desire for one, in whose

-new-impassioned eyes she had known herself reflected hitherto only for

-the most patronized of small gossips. And, for her part, fearless as

-nature, she made no secret of her love. She was absorbed in, a captive

-to, Jason from that moment and for ever.

-

-He responded. What man, however perverse, could have resisted, on

-first appeal, the attraction of such beauty, the flower of a radiant

-soul? The two were betrothed; the old man’s cup of happiness was

-brimmed.

-

-Then came clouds and a cold wind, chilling the garden of Hesperis.

-Jason was always one of those who, possessing classic noses, will cut

-them off, on easy provocation, to spite their faces. He was so proudly

-independent, to himself, that he resented the least assumption of

-proprietorship in him on the part of other people--even of those who

-had the best claim to his love and submission. This pride was an

-obsession. It stultified the real good in him, which was considerable.

-Apart from it, he was a good, warm-tempered fellow, hasty but

-affectionate. Under its dominion, he would have broken his own heart

-on an imaginary grievance.

-

-He found one, it is to be supposed, in the privileges assumed by love;

-in its exacting claims upon him; perhaps in its little unreasoning

-jealousies. He distorted these into an implied conceit of authority

-over him on the part of an heiress who was condescending to his meaner

-fortunes. The suggestion was quite base and without warrant; but pride

-has no balance. No doubt, moreover, the rather childish

-self-depreciations of the old man, his father, in his attitude towards

-a match he had so fondly desired, helped to aggravate this feeling.

-The upshot was that, when within a few months of the date which was to

-make his union with Tryphena eternal, Jason broke away from a

-restraint which his pride pictured to him as intolerable, and went on

-a yachting expedition with a friend.

-

-Then, at once, and with characteristic violence, came the reaction. He

-wrote, impetuously, frenziedly, from a distant port, claiming himself

-Tryphena’s, and Tryphena his, for ever and ever and ever. They were

-man and wife before God. He had behaved like an insensate brute, and

-he was at that moment starting to speed to her side, to beg her

-forgiveness and the return of her love.

-

-He had no need to play the suitor afresh. She had never doubted or

-questioned their mutual bondage, and would have died a maid for his

-sake. Something of sweet exultation only seemed to quicken and leap in

-her body, that her faith in her dear love was vindicated.

-

-But the joy came near to upset the reason of the old man, already

-tottering to its dotage; and what followed destroyed it utterly.

-

-The yacht, flying home, was lost at sea, and Jason was drowned.

-

-I once saw Tryphena about this time. She lived with her near mindless

-charge, lonely, in an old grey house upon the borders of a salt mere,

-and had little but the unearthly cries of seabirds to answer to the

-questions of her widowed heart. She worked, sweet in charity, among

-the marsh folk, a beautiful unearthly presence; and was especially to

-be found where infants and the troubles of child-bearing women called

-for her help and sympathy. She was a wife herself, she would say

-quaintly; and some day perhaps, by grace of the good spirits of the

-sea, would be a mother. None thought to cross her statement, put with

-so sweet a sanity; and, indeed, I have often noticed that the

-neighbourhood of great waters breeds in souls a mysticism which is

-remote from the very understanding of land-dwellers.

-

-How I saw her was thus:--

-

-I was fishing, on a day of chill calm, in a dinghy off the flat coast.

-The stillness of the morning had tempted me some distance from the

-village where I was staying. Presently a sense of bad sport and

-healthy famine “plumped” in me, so to speak, for luncheon, and I

-looked about for a spot picturesque enough to add a zest to

-sandwiches, whisky, and tobacco. Close by, a little creek or estuary

-ran up into a mere, between which and the sea lay a cluster of low

-sand-hills; and thither I pulled. The spot, when I reached it, was

-calm, chill desolation manifest--lifeless water and lifeless sand,

-with no traffic between them but the dead interchange of salt. Low

-sedges, at first, and behind them low woods were mirrored in the water

-at a distance, with an interval between me and them of sheeted glass;

-and right across this shining pool ran a dim, half-drowned

-causeway--the sea-path, it appeared, to and from a lonely house which

-I could just distinguish squatting among trees. It was Tryphena’s

-home.

-

-Now, paddling dispiritedly, I turned a cold dune, and saw a mermaid

-before me. At least, that was my instant impression. The creature sat

-coiled on the strand, combing her hair--that was certain, for I saw

-the gold-green tresses of it whisked by her action into rainbow

-threads. It appeared as certain that her upper half was flesh and her

-lower fish; and it was only on my nearer approach that this latter

-resolved itself into a pale green skirt, roped, owing to her posture,

-about her limbs, and the hem fanned out at her feet into a tail fin.

-Thus also her bosom, which had appeared naked, became a bodice, as

-near to her flesh in colour and texture as a smock is to a

-lady’s-smock, which some call a cuckoo-flower.

-

-It was plain enough now; yet the illusion for the moment had quite

-startled me.

-

-As I came near, she paused in her strange business to canvass me. It

-was Tryphena herself, as after-inquiry informed me. I have never seen

-so lovely a creature. Her eyes, as they regarded me passing, were

-something to haunt a dream: so great in tragedy--not fathomless, but

-all in motion near their surfaces, it seemed, with green and rooted

-sorrows. They were the eyes, I thought, of an Undine late-humanized,

-late awakened to the rapturous and troubled knowledge of the woman’s

-burden. Her forehead was most fair, and the glistening thatch divided

-on it like a golden cloud revealing the face of a wondering angel.

-

-I passed, and a sand-heap stole my vision foot by foot. The vision was

-gone when I returned. I have reason to believe it was vouchsafed me

-within a few months of the coming of the ghost-child.

-

-On the morning succeeding the night of the day on which Jason and

-Tryphena were to have been married, the girl came down from her

-bedroom with an extraordinary expression of still rapture on her face.

-After breakfast she took the old man into her confidence. She was

-childish still; her manner quite youthfully thrilling; but now there

-was a new-born wonder in it that hovered on the pink of shame.

-

-“Father! I have been under the deep waters and found him. He came to

-me last night in my dreams--so sobbing, so impassioned--to assure me

-that he had never really ceased to love me, though he had near broken

-his own heart pretending it. Poor boy! poor ghost! What could I do but

-take him to my arms? And all night he lay there, blest and forgiven,

-till in the morning he melted away with a sigh that woke me; and it

-seemed to me that I came up dripping from the sea.”

-

-“My boy! He has come back!” chuckled the old man. “What have you done

-with him, Tryphena?”

-

-“I will hold him tighter the next time,” she said.

-

-But the spirit of Jason visited her dreams no more.

-

-That was in March. In the Christmas following, when the mere was

-locked in stillness, and the wan reflection of snow mingled on the

-ceiling with the red dance of firelight, one morning the old man came

-hurrying and panting to Tryphena’s door.

-

-“Tryphena! Come down quickly! My boy, my Jason, has come back! It was

-a lie that they told us about his being lost at sea!”

-

-Her heart leapt like a candle-flame! What new delusion of the old

-man’s was this? She hurried over her dressing and descended. A

-garrulous old voice mingled with a childish treble in the

-breakfast-room. Hardly breathing, she turned the handle of the door,

-and saw Jason before her.

-

-But it was Jason, the prattling babe of her first knowledge; Jason,

-the flaxen-headed, apple-cheeked cherub of the nursery; Jason, the

-confiding, the merry, the loving, before pride had come to warp his

-innocence. She fell on her knees to the child, and with a burst of

-ecstasy caught him to her heart.

-

-She asked no question of the old man as to when or whence this

-apparition had come, or why he was here. For some reason she dared

-not. She accepted him as some waif, whom an accidental likeness had

-made glorious to their hungering hearts. As for the father, he was

-utterly satisfied and content. He had heard a knock at the door, he

-said, and had opened it and found this. The child was naked, and his

-pink, wet body glazed with ice. Yet he seemed insensible to the

-killing cold. It was Jason--that was enough. There is no date nor time

-for imbecility. Its phantoms spring from the clash of ancient

-memories. This was just as actually his child as--more so, in fact,

-than--the grown young figure which, for all its manhood, had dissolved

-into the mist of waters. He was more familiar with, more confident of

-it, after all. It had come back to be unquestioningly dependent on

-him; and that was likest the real Jason, flesh of his flesh.

-

-“Who are you, darling?” said Tryphena.

-

-“I am Jason,” answered the child.

-

-She wept, and fondled him rapturously.

-

-“And who am I?” she asked. “If you are Jason, you must know what to

-call me.”

-

-“I know,” he said; “but I mustn’t, unless you ask me.”

-

-“I won’t,” she answered, with a burst of weeping. “It is Christmas

-Day, dearest, when the miracle of a little child was wrought. I will

-ask you nothing but to stay and bless our desolate home.”

-

-He nodded, laughing.

-

-“I will stay, until you ask me.”

-

-They found some little old robes of the baby Jason, put away in

-lavender, and dressed him in them. All day he laughed and prattled;

-yet it was strange that, talk as he might, he never once referred to

-matters familiar to the childhood of the lost sailor.

-

-In the early afternoon he asked to be taken out--seawards, that was

-his wish. Tryphena clothed him warmly, and, taking his little hand,

-led him away. They left the old man sleeping peacefully. He was never

-to wake again.

-

-As they crossed the narrow causeway, snow, thick and silent, began to

-fall. Tryphena was not afraid, for herself or the child. A rapture

-upheld her; a sense of some compelling happiness, which she knew

-before long must take shape on her lips.

-

-They reached the seaward dunes--mere ghosts of foothold in that smoke

-of flakes. The lap of vast waters seemed all around them, hollow and

-mysterious. The sound flooded Tryphena’s ears, drowning her senses.

-She cried out, and stopped.

-

-“Before they go,” she screamed--“before they go, tell me what you were

-to call me!”

-

-The child sprang a little distance, and stood facing her. Already his

-lower limbs seemed dissolving in the mists.

-

-“I was to call you ‘mother’!” he cried, with a smile and toss of his

-hand.

-

-Even as he spoke, his pretty features wavered and vanished. The snow

-broke into him, or he became part with it. Where he had been, a gleam

-of iridescent dust seemed to show one moment before it sank and was

-extinguished in the falling cloud. Then there was only the snow,

-heaping an eternal chaos with nothingness.

-

-

-Tryphena made this confession, on a Christmas Eve night, to one who

-was a believer in dreams. The next morning she was seen to cross the

-causeway, and thereafter was never seen again. But she left the

-sweetest memory behind her, for human charity, and an elf-like gift of

-loveliness.

-

-

-

-

- HIS CLIENT’S CASE

-

-The “Personal Reminiscences” of the late Mr. Justice Ganthony, now

-in process of being edited, are responsible for the following

-drollery:--

-

-My first “chambers” were on the top, not to say the attic, floor of a

-house in (the now defunct) Furnival’s Inn. I called _it_ “chambers,”

-in the plural, on the strength of a coal-cellar, in the window-seat,

-and a turn-up bedstead which became a cupboard by day. That accounted

-for two rooms, and “the usual offices,” as the house-agents say, when

-they refer to a kitchen six feet by eight in the basement. Trousers,

-after all, are only one garment, although they are called a pair.

-

-There I sat among the cobwebs, like a spider, and waited for my first

-brief. In the meanwhile, I lived as the spiders do--on hope, flavoured

-with a little attic salt. It was not a cheering repast; but, such as

-it was, there was no end to it. By and by I was almost convinced (of

-what I had been friendlily advised) that it was a forlorn hope--the

-sort that leads to glory and the grave; probably by starvation. A

-spider has always, as a last resource, his web to roll up and devour.

-I ate up my chambers by degrees; that is to say, I dined,

-figuratively, day in day out, at the sign of the Three Balls. But this

-was to consume my own hump, like the camel. When that should be all

-gone, what next? There is a vulgar expression for prog, which is

-“belly-timber.” I only realized its applicability to my own case when

-my chairs and tables, and other furniture, had gone the primrose way

-of digestion. It was the brass fender, a “genuine antique,” that sat

-heaviest on my chest.

-

-Furnival’s Inn was not a cheerful place to starve in. There was an

-atmosphere of gloom and decay about it, which derived, no doubt, from

-its former dealings in Chancery. In the days of its prosperity it had

-fed the Inns of Court, as Winchester feeds New College; in my time it

-could not feed itself. The rats were at it, and the bugs, which are

-the only things I know of that can thrive on crumbling plaster. I had

-the distinction of providing some of their rare debauches to the

-latter; but that was before I began to crumble myself. Some of my

-blood was certainly incorporated in the ancient walls, and was

-included in their downfall.

-

-My view, from Furnival’s Inn, was dismally introspective. It

-commanded, in the first place, a quadrangle of emptiness; and

-included, in the second, an array of lowering and mouldy tenements

-like my own, at whose stark windows hungry expectant faces would

-glimmer fitfully, and scan the yard for the clients who never came,

-and disappear.

-

-There was a decrepit inn, of another and the social type, budded, like

-a vicious intestinal growth, within Furnival’s. I used to speculate,

-as I looked down at night on its tottering portico, and solemn old

-frequenters, and the lights blinking behind its blinds like

-corpse-candles, if it were not a half-way house of call for the dead.

-For, by day, all business seemed withdrawn from it, and its upper

-rooms might have been mortuaries for any life they exhibited. No

-cheery housemaid ever looked from their windows to chaff the amorous

-Boots below. There was none to chaff. The dead need no boots.

-

-Furnival’s Inn had one gullet, by which the roar of the world came in

-from Holborn. Little else came in but tradesmen, and bailiffs, and an

-occasional policeman in a thoughtful archæological mood. But the

-gullet was a vent as much of exit as of entrance; and by it one could

-escape from the madness of ghostly isolation, and mingle with the

-world, and look in the pastry-cooks’ windows. Whenever I was moved to

-one of these chameleonic foraging expeditions, I would pin a ticket on

-my door: “Called away. Please leave message with housekeeper,” and

-light my pipe with it when I returned. I wonder if any one ever read

-the fatuous legends? To Hope’s eyes, I am sure, they must have been

-dinted, like phonographic records, with the echoes of all the

-footsteps that ever sounded on the stairs during my absences.

-

-Those footsteps! How they marked the measure of my desperation! They

-were not many, and they were far between; but not one in all the

-dreary tale ever reached my attic. Why should they, indeed? I am free

-to acknowledge its moral inaccessibility. Jurisprudence does not, in

-its convincing phases, inhabit immediately under the roof. The higher

-one lives, in practice, the lower one’s practice is like to be. The

-law is not an elevating pursuit.

-

-I recognized this in the end; and the moment I recognized it I got my

-first client.

-

-One November evening, very depressed at last, I was sitting smoking,

-and ruminating over my doleful fate, and thinking if I had not better

-shut myself up for good and all in the bed-cupboard, when I heard

-steps enter the hall below. My ears pricked, of course, from force of

-habit, and from force of habit I uttered a scornful stage laugh--for

-the withering of Fortune, if she happened to be by. But, in spite of

-my scorn, the steps, ignoring the architects’ offices on the ground

-floor (Frost and Driffel, contractors for Castles in Spain), ascended

-and continued to ascend--past the deed-engrosser’s closet on the

-half-way landing; past the empty chambers immediately below mine

-(whence, on gusty nights, the tiny creaking of the rope, by which the

-last tenant had hanged himself from a beam, would speak through the

-floor under my bed), and higher yet, right up to my door.

-

-Hope, dying on a pallet up three flights of stairs, sprang alert on

-the instant. It might be a friend, a creditor, the housekeeper:

-something telepathic, flowing through the panels, assured me that it

-was none of these things. Tap-tap! so smart on the woodwork that it

-made me jump. I swept pipes and tobacco into a drawer. “Come in!” I

-cried. Then, as the visitor entered, “John, throw up the window a

-little! O, bother the boy! he’s out.”

-

-I don’t know if the new-comer was imposed on. He nodded and sniffed.

-

-“Tobacco!” he exclaimed. “What an age since I’ve tasted it! Mr.

-Ganthony, I presume?”

-

-I bowed.

-

-“Barrister-at-law?”

-

-I bowed again. My plate was in the hall to inform him.

-

-“Accept my instructions for a brief.”

-

-He stated it so abruptly that it took my breath away. If all this was

-outside procedure, I was not going to quarrel with my bread and

-butter. I motioned him to a chair, and, taking up pen and paper

-tentatively, was in a position to scrutinize my visitor.

-

-His appearance was certainly odd--a marked exaggeration, I should have

-pronounced it, of the legal type. His face was very red; his enormous

-side-whiskers very white. Large spectacles obscured his eyes, and he

-wore his silk hat (of an obsolete pattern) cocked rakishly over one of

-them. Add to this that his voluminous frock-coat looked like a much

-larger man’s misfit; that his black cotton gloves were preposterously

-long in the fingers; that he carried a “gamp” of the pantomime

-pattern, and it will be obvious that I had some reason for my

-astonishment. But I kept that in hand. A lawyer, after all, must come

-to graduate in the eccentricities of clients.

-

-He looked perkily, with an abrupt action of his head, round about him;

-then came to me again.

-

-“Large practice?” he asked.

-

-“Large enough for my needs,” I answered winningly.

-

-“H’m!” He sniffed. “They don’t appear to be many.”

-

-“That--excuse me--is my affair,” I said with dignity.

-

-“Of course,” he said; “of course. Only I looked you up--accident

-serving intuition--on the supposition that you were green, you

-know--one of the briefless ones--called to the Bar, but not chosen,

-eh?”

-

-I plumped instantly for frankness.

-

-“You are my first retainer,” I said.

-

-His manner changed at once. He pulled his chair a little nearer me,

-with an eager motion.

-

-“Thats what I wanted,” he said. “That’s it. The sort that are

-suffering to win their spurs. None of your egregious old-stagers, who

-require their briefs to be endorsed to the tune of three figures

-before they’ll move--‘monkey’-in-the-slot men, _I_ call ’em. Thinks I

-to myself, Here’s the sort that’ll be willing to take up a case on

-spec’.”

-

-My enthusiasm shot down to zero.

-

-“O!” I said, with a falling face; “on speculation!”

-

-“There’s a fortune in it for a clever advocate,” he answered eagerly.

-“A fortune! all Pactolus in a nutshell. I’ve had my experiences of the

-other kind. They squeeze you, and throw you away; take the wages of

-sin, and hand you over to the deuce. What do _you_ say?”

-

-“If you will give me the particulars,” I answered, without heart, “I

-shall be able to judge better. Your client----?”

-

-He laughed joyously; frowned; put his hat on the floor; crossed his

-arms over his umbrella-handle, and glowered ferociously at me,

-squinting through his glasses.

-

-“Exactly,” he said; “my client, ha-ha! Here, then, young sir, is my

-client’s case.

-

-“His name is Buggins” (I glanced involuntarily at the wall). “He is,

-or was, until envy combined with detraction to ruin him, a

-company-promoter. As such, his trend was always towards insurance. It

-offered the best opportunities to a great creative genius. Buggins,

-being all that, recognized the still amazing potentialities in a field

-of commerce, which, though much worked, remains unexhausted--almost,

-one might say, inexhaustible. In his younger days he showed a pretty

-invention in devising and engineering what I may call personal essays

-in this line. His Insurance against Waterspouts, which he worked

-principally in the Midlands, brought him some handsome returns with a

-single generation of farmers. It was based on a cloud-burst at

-Bethesda, in Wales, which ruined quite a number. Other flights of his

-immature genius were, respectively, Insurance against Death in

-Diving-bells; against Death of a Broken Heart; against Official

-Strangulation; against Non-fatal Disfiguration by Lightning; against

-Death by Starvation (this last was largely patronized by

-millionaires). On a somewhat higher plane were his _Provident

-Dipsomaniary_, whose policies matured, or ‘burst,’ as Buggins phrased

-it, at the age of eighty-five, an essential condition being that the

-holders must put in their claims in person; his _Physical Promotion

-League_, which guaranteed to pay to the parents of any child, insured

-in it during his teens, a sum of ten pounds on the child’s reaching

-twenty-five years of age and a minimum height of six feet, and a

-thousand pounds for every additional inch which it grew afterwards;

-his _Anti-Fiction Mutual_, whose policies were forfeitable on first

-conviction of having written a novel (this proved one of the most

-profitable of all Buggins’s enterprises for a time; but in the end the

-national malady proved incurable, and subscribers fell off); his

-_Psychical Pocket Research Society_, which offered an Insurance

-against Ghost-seeing, the policy-holder forfeiting his claim on proof

-of his first supernatural visitation (but this was so violently

-assailed by the opposition society, which offered to prove that there

-were not three people in the United Kingdom who were insusceptible to

-spooks, that the scheme had to be abandoned); finally, in this

-category, his _Bachelors’ Protection Association_, which provided

-that, if a member reached the age of ninety without having married, he

-should receive an annuity beginning at fifty pounds, and rising, by

-yearly increments of ten pounds, to ten thousand pounds--figures

-which, in a centenarian age, were successful in dazzling a great many.

-

-“But, by then, Buggins was beginning to master the deep ethics of his

-trade, and to realize that its heaviest emoluments were rooted in the

-grand principle of profitable self-denial. People _will_ be unselfish

-if they see money in it; you can’t stop ’em.

-

-“One other notable venture marks this period of what I may call his

-moral transition. That was his inspired scheme for insuring _against_

-illness, in the sense that any policy-holder admitting him or herself

-to be seriously indisposed, lost the right to compensation. It would

-have proved a godsend in a neurotic age; but the antagonism of the

-entire medical profession, with the single exception of the officer

-appointed by the company, killed it.

-

-“We come now to Buggins’s final matured achievements. I beg your

-pardon?”

-

-I had said nothing; but I suppose there is such a thing as a

-“speaking” silence. Certainly, if I had looked as I felt, I was a more

-drivelling maniac by now than Buggins himself. The visitor seemed to

-shoot out his eyes like an angry crab.

-

-“Young man, young man!” he said warningly, “I begin to be suspicious

-that, after all, I may be misplacing my confidence.”

-

-He looked banefully into his hat, where it stood rim upwards on the

-floor; then, suddenly overwrought, kicked it fiercely across the room.

-The action seemed to restore him to complete urbanity. He smiled.

-

-“So perish all Buggins’s enemies!” he said loftily; “and hail the

-grand climacteric!”

-

-He pinned me, like a live butterfly, to the wall behind me with a

-fixed and penetrating gaze.

-

-“What would you say,” he said quietly, “to an Insurance against

-Brigandage, available to all travelling in Sicily or the Balkans, and

-realizable” (his watchfulness was intense) “on the receipt, at the

-head-offices in the Shetland Islands, of a nose, ear, or other organ,

-attested, under urgency, by the nearest consul, to be the personal

-property of the applicant desiring a ransom?”

-

-He paused significantly. “I should say,” I responded drivellingly,

-“that, as a feat of pure inspiration, it--it takes the cake.”

-

-“Ah!” He shouted it, and sprang to his feet joyously. “You are the man

-for me! You justify my confidence, as the returns justified Buggins’s

-daring conception. Would you believe it: within the first few months,

-bushels of noses were received at the head-offices, every one of which

-Buggins had no difficulty in proving to be false! But, hush!

-stay!--there was to be a higher flight!”

-

-He had been pacing riotously up and down. Now he flounced to a stop

-before me, and held me once more with his glittering eye.

-

-“It took the form,” he whispered, “of a _Purgatory Mutual_, on the

-Tontine principle, the last out to take the pool!”

-

-I rose, trembling, to my feet, as he burst into a violent fit of

-laughter.

-

-“It was that,” he shouted, as he set to racing up and down again,

-“which let loose the dogs of envy, spite, and slander. They called him

-mad--_him_, Buggins, _mad_, ha-ha! It was the fools themselves were

-mad. He ignored their clamour; his vast brain was yet busy with

-immortal conceptions; he matured a scheme against _Death from

-Flying-machines_” (here he tore off one whisker and threw it into the

-fireplace); “he did more--he personally tested the theory of

-aerostatics” (here he tore off the other whisker, and stamped on it).

-“Too great, too absorbed, he never noticed that the unstable engine

-had landed him in the grounds of a private asylum, and, relieved of

-his weight, had soared away again. The attendants came; they seized

-and immured him; they would not believe his assurances that he was a

-perfect stranger. From that day to this, when fortuitous circumstances

-enabled him to escape, he has appealed to their justice, their

-humanity, in vain.”

-

-Again he stopped before me, and, flinging his spectacles in my face,

-rent open the breast of his coat.

-

-“Know me at last for what I am!” he yelled. “I am Buggins, and I

-appoint you my advocate in the action I am about to bring against the

-Commissioners of Lunacy!”

-

-The door opened softly, and a masculine face peered round the edge.

-Its scrutiny appearing satisfactory, it was followed by the whole of

-an official form, which, in its entering, revealed another, large and

-passionless, standing behind it.

-

-“Now, Mr. Buggins,” said the first, “we’re a-waitin’ for you to take

-up your cue.”

-

-The visitor whipped round, started, chuckled, and, to my relief and

-surprise, responded rather abjectly.

-

-“All right, Johnson,” he said. “I just slipped out between the acts

-for a whiff of fresh air.”

-

-“Well,” said the man, “you must be quick and come along, or you’ll

-spile the play.”

-

-He went quite tamely, and the second official outside received him

-stolidly into custody. Mate number one lingered to touch his cap to me

-and explain.

-

-“Flyborough Asylum, sir. They give him a part in some private

-theatricals, and he tuk advantage of his disguise as a family lawyer

-to hook it between the acts. None of us reco’nized him, or guessed

-what he’d done, till the time come for him to take up his cue; and

-then, with the prompter howling for him and him not answering, the

-truth struck us of a heap.”

-

-I was down in my chair, flabby and gasping.

-

-“But what brought him to _me_?” I groaned.

-

-“Train, sir,” answered the man; “plenty of ’em, and easy to catch from

-the suburbs. Why he come on here? Why, his offices in the old days was

-in Furnival’s; it were that give us the clue. I suppose, now” (he took

-off his cap, took a red handkerchief from it, thoughtfully mopped his

-forehead, and returned the bandana to its nest), “I suppose, now, he’s

-been a-gammoning of you pretty high with his insurances? His fust

-principle in life was always to play upon fools.”

-

-

-

-

- AN ABSENT VICAR

-

-“Exactly,” said the Reverend Septimus Prior; “the exchange was the

-most fortuitous, not to say the most fortunate” (he gave a little

-giggle and bow) “possible. Your uncle saw my advertisement, answered

-it, and for a brief period he goes to my cure, and I come to his.”

-

-“Well, if you feel certain,” said Miss Robin, regretfully resting in

-her lap the novel she was reading.

-

-Mr. Prior sipped his tea and nibbled his rusk. In the intervals

-between, he would occasionally glance at the portrait of a scholarly

-cleric, with a thin grim mouth and glassy eyes, which bantered him

-from the wall opposite.

-

-“Your uncle--Mr. Fearful?” he had once ventured to ask; and the niece

-had answered, “Yes. It is very like him.”

-

-Now he paused, with his cup half-way to his mouth.

-

-“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed.

-

-Miss Robin put her book to her lips, and looking over it--really

-rather charmingly,--yawned behind the cover. She was surprisingly

-dégagée for a country vicar’s niece--self-collected, and admirably

-pretty; though her openwork stockings, which she did not hesitate to

-cross her legs to display, filled him with a weak sense of

-entanglement in some unrighteous mystery.

-

-“You said?” he invited her.

-

-“I said, If you feel certain,” she repeated calmly.

-

-“Ah!” he said. “Yes. You mean?”

-

-“I mean,” she said, without a ruffle, “that Uncle Philip _may_ have

-settled to swap livings with you _pro tem._, and _may_ have started

-off to take yours, and _may_ have got there--_if_ you feel certain

-that he has.”

-

-“To be sure,” he answered. “Why shouldn’t I?”

-

-“Had he arrived--when you started--for here?”

-

-“No. Certainly he hadn’t arrived. My train was due. I had to leave a

-message; but----”

-

-She stopped him by dropping her book into her lap; and, clasping one

-knee in her hands, conned him amiably.

-

-“Did he lead you to expect a niece among the charges he was committing

-to your care--or cure?” she asked.

-

-“Well, I must confess,” said the young man, blushing, “he--ah!

-mentioned a housekeeper--Mrs. Gaunt, I think--but----”

-

-“No, of course not,” she interrupted him. “He had forgotten all about

-me.”

-

-Mr. Prior gasped, and looked down. This was his first holiday exchange

-of livings--an unsophisticated venture, which he was already half

-repenting. A suburban cure; a desire for fresh pastures; a daring

-resolution; an advertisement in the “Church Times”; a prompt answer;

-as prompt an acceptance (after due reference to the Clergy List); a

-long railway journey; a tramp, relatively as long, to a remote

-parsonage on the road to a seaport; an arrival in the dark; an

-innocence of all expectation of, or preparation for him; an

-explanation; production of his written voucher, and--here he was,

-accepted, he could not but think, on sufferance. But there he thought

-wrong. Miss Robin was not near so upset by his appearance as he was.

-

-“He comes and goes” (she said of Uncle Philip) “without reference to

-anybody or anything. We never know what he’ll do next, or who’ll

-introduce himself into the house as his friend. It may be a burglar or

-a pirate for all we know. All sorts of strange people come up from the

-port, and are shown into my uncle’s room, and out again by himself at

-the side door. At least, I suppose so. We never know what becomes of

-them, or what’s going on, any more than I doubt he does himself. I

-dare say they fleece him nicely; and--you may laugh--but when he’s in

-his absent moods, you might undress him without his knowing. Only he’d

-probably strike you to the ground when he found out--he’s such an

-awful temper.”

-

-“Dear me!” murmured the young man; “how very curious. One hears of

-such cases.”

-

-“Does one?” said Miss Robin. “I’d rather hear of, than live with them,

-anyhow; and in a desert, too. It wouldn’t so much matter if he didn’t

-always hold others to blame for his mistakes and mislayings. He kept

-me in bed a week once, because he’d read right through a treatise on

-explosives in the pulpit, before he discovered that it wasn’t his

-peace-thanksgiving sermon.”

-

-“Astonishing!” said Mr. Prior; then added, with a faint smile, “Well,

-I can promise you, at least, that _I’m_ not a pirate.”

-

-“No,” she said, “I can see you’re not. Won’t you have some more tea?”

-

-He was shown to his bedroom by Mrs. Gaunt, who was a stony, silent

-woman, bleak with mystery. All night the wind howled round the lonely

-building; and the unhappy man, who, in a phase of worldly revolt,

-egged on by a dare-devil parishioner, had once read “The House on the

-Marsh”, thought of Sarah and Mr. Rayner, and of a silent weaving of

-strings across the stairway in the dark to catch him tripping should

-he venture upon escape.

-

-He arose, feverish, to a sense of hooting draughts in a grey house,

-and went to matins in the gaunt dull church, which stood as lonely as

-a shepherd’s hut on a slope hard by. There was nothing in sight but

-wind-torn pastures, and, all around, little graves, which seemed

-trying vainly to tuck themselves and their shivering epitaphs under

-the grass. There appeared nothing in the world to attract a

-congregation; but, as a matter of fact, there were a few old frosted

-spinsters present, of that amphibious order, a sort of landcrabs,

-which forgathers on the neutral wastes between sea and country.

-

-Mr. Prior went back to his dreary breakfast at the Vicarage. His lady

-hostess, it appeared, was wont to lie late abed, and did not think it

-worth her while to alter her habits for him. The meal, however, had

-been served and left to petrify, pending his return from matins. It

-was with a consciousness of congealed bacon-fat, insufficiently

-dissolved by lukewarm tea, sticking to the roof of his mouth, that he

-rose from it, and pondered his next movement. No one came near him. He

-looked dismally out on a weedy drive. He rather wished Miss Robin

-would condescend to his company. He was no pirate, certainly; but he

-believed he would brave, had braved already, much for his cloth. She

-had beautiful eyes--clear windows, he was sure, to a virginal soul.

-But then, the other end! the white feet peeping through that devil’s

-lattice! He tried to recall any authority in Holy Writ for openwork

-stockings. Certainly pilgrims went barefoot, and half a loaf was

-better than no bread.

-

-“This will not do, Septimus,” he said, weakly striking his breast. “I

-will go and compose my sermon.”

-

-He stepped into the hall. It was papered in cold blue and white

-marble, with a mahogany umbrella stand, and nothing else, to temper

-its tomb-like austerity. At the further end was a baize door of a

-faded strawberry colour.

-

-He was entitled to the run of the house, he concluded. There had been

-no mention of any Bluebeard chamber. But, then, to be sure, there had

-been no mention of a niece. The association of ideas tingled him. What

-if he should turn the handle and alight on Miss Robin?

-

-He flipped his breast again, frowning, and strode to the baize door.

-Beside it, he now observed, a passage went off to the kitchens.

-Desperately he pulled the door, found a second, of wood, beyond it,

-opened that also, and found himself in what was obviously the Vicar’s

-study.

-

-Obviously, that is to say, to his later conceptions of his

-correspondent. Otherwise he might have taken it for the laboratory of

-a scientist. It was lined with bookcases, sparsely volumed; but five

-out of every six shelves were thronged with jars, instruments, and

-engines of a terrifying nature. In one place was a curtained recess

-potential with unholiness. Prints of discomposing organs hung on the

-walls. Immemorial dust blurred everything. There was a pedestalled

-desk in the middle, and opposite it, hung with a short curtain, a

-half-glazed door which the intruder, tiptoeing thither and peeping,

-with his heart at the gallop, found to lead into a dismal narrow lane

-which communicated with the road. He returned to the desk, which,

-frankly open, seemed to invite him to its use, and was pondering the

-moral practicability of composition in the midst of such surroundings,

-when a voice at his ear almost made him jump out of his skin.

-

-“Pardon me, sir; but have you the master’s permission to use this

-room?”

-

-Mrs. Gaunt had come upon him without a sound.

-

-“Dear me, madam!” he said, wiping his forehead. “What do you mean?”

-

-“I mean, sir,” she said, in her stony, colourless way, “that this room

-is interdict to both great and little, now and always, unless he makes

-an exception in your favour.”

-

-“There was no specific mention of it, certainly,” said Mr. Prior,

-“neither for nor against. I concluded that the use of a study was not

-debarred me.”

-

-“Pardon me,” she repeated monotonously. “I believe you concluded

-wrong, sir.”

-

-“The door was not locked.”

-

-“There are some prohibitions,” she said, “that need no locks.”

-

-The inference was fearful.

-

-“Miss June” (ecstatic name!) “and I,” she said, “have never dared so

-much as to put our noses inside, and not a word spoken to forbid it.”

-

-Mr. Prior, to his own astonishment, revolted. Smarting, perhaps, under

-the memory of some suspected covert innuendo in a certain silvery

-acquiescence in a statement of his made last night, he revolted. He

-would prove that he could be a pirate if he chose.

-

-“I shall stop here,” he said, trembling all over. “There was no

-embargo laid, and I must have somewhere to write my sermon.”

-

-“Of course,” said a voice; and Miss Robin stood in the doorway--the

-most enchanting morning vision, her eyes bright with curiosity.

-

-“I am delighted you support me,” he said, kindling and advancing.

-

-She still looked beside and around him.

-

-“Do you know,” she said, “it is perfectly true. I have not once dared

-to venture in here before, though never actually told not to. But that

-is all one, I think. What an extraordinary litter!”

-

-She had not ventured! and with the inducement of her petrifying

-surroundings! She was uninquisitive, then--“an excellent thing in

-woman.”

-

-“Since there is no veto,” he said, incomparably audacious, “supposing

-we explore together?”

-

-She looked at him admiringly.

-

-“I should like to.” She hesitated.

-

-“June!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-

-“And I will,” said the girl.

-

-But the housekeeper, content, it appeared, with her protest, stood,

-not uninterested in the subsequent investigation.

-

-“Do you not find all this a little remote, a little lifeless

-sometimes, Miss Robin?” said the clergyman, greatly daring.

-

-She shrugged her shoulders.

-

-“Eels get used to skinning. It’s not life, of course. But I have to

-make the best of it, and there’s no help.”

-

-“Ah, yes, there is!” said her companion, intending to imply the

-spiritual, but half hoping she would construe it into the material

-consolation.

-

-“What do you mean?” she asked simply.

-

-“Why,” he said, stammering and blushing furiously, and giving away his

-case at once, “with your youth, and--and beauty--O, forgive me! I am a

-little confused.”

-

-“Where do you live?” she said, fixing him with her large eyes.

-

-“At Clapton,” he murmured.

-

-“It sounds most joyous,” she said, clasping her hands.

-

-Hardly knowing what he did, he pulled the curtain away from the recess

-by which they stood, and instantly staggered back. The housekeeper,

-who, foreseeing his act, had crept up inquisitively behind, gave a

-mortal gasp, and Miss Robin a faint shriek--for, stretched lifeless

-and livid on a couch within, lay the stark body of a man.

-

-For a minute they all stood staring, frozen with horror; then Mrs.

-Gaunt began to wring her hands.

-

-“It is the same,” she cried, in awful tones. “I remember him--the dark

-foreigner. He wandered up here from the port a week ago; and I took

-him in to the master, and he _never came out again_. I thought he had

-let him go by the door there into the lane. O, woe on this fearful

-house! Long have I suspected and long dreaded. The sounds, and the

-awful, awful smells!”

-

-“Perhaps,” whispered the girl, gulping, and clutching at her breast,

-“he died unexpectedly, and uncle put him away here, and forgot all

-about him.”

-

-Mrs. Gaunt shrieked, and seizing the clergyman’s arm, pointed--

-

-“Look! Pickled babies--one, two, three! And bones! And a fish-kettle!

-It is all plain. He kills them, and boils them down for his

-experiments, and by an accident he forgot to empty his larder--his

-larder! hoo-hoo!--before he went!”

-

-She broke into hysteric laughter and gaspings. Miss Robin, whinnying,

-tottered quite close up to the young man, who stood shivering and

-speechless.

-

-“What can we do to save him?” she whimpered. “Mr. Prior, say

-something!”

-

-Thus urged, the unhappy young man strove to press his brain into a

-focus with his hand, and to rally himself to what, he felt, was the

-supreme occasion of his life. The appealing eyes and parted lips so

-close to his would have intoxicated a saint, much more a pirate.

-

-“We must warn him--agony column--from returning,” he ejaculated,

-reeling. “Cryptic address--has he any distinguishing mark?”

-

-“Yes,” she said, with frantic eagerness; “he has a large mole at the

-root of his nose.”

-

-“Very well,” he said--“something of this sort: ‘Nose, with large mole

-at root of. All discovered. Don’t return!’”

-

-“But what is the use of an advertisement? O, Mr. Prior! what is the

-use of an advertisement when we know where he is, or ought to be, and

-can go----?”

-

-“Do you really think he will be there? It was a blind. O, Miss Robin,

-it is evident now it was a blind to cover his tracks!”

-

-“But why should he have designed to escape at all, leaving this--O,

-Mr. Prior!--leaving this horror behind him?”

-

-“We can only conjecture--O, Miss Robin, we can only conjecture!

-Perhaps because of his conscience overtaking him; perhaps because,

-killing in haste, he discovered at leisure that _it_ would not go into

-the kettle; perhaps in a phase of that deadly absence of mind, which,

-he will have realized by now, the Lord has converted to his

-confusion.”

-

-“Well, if you are right. And in the meantime we must get rid of

-this--somehow. O, pray think of a means! Do! Do!”

-

-Mrs. Gaunt steadied her storming breast as she leaned for support,

-with hanging head, against the door.

-

-“There’s the old well--off the lane,” she panted, without looking up.

-“He there _might_ have fallen in--as he went out--and none have

-guessed it to this day.”

-

-It was a fearful inspiration. Mr. Prior, in that moment of supreme

-sentient exaltation, abandoned himself to the awful rapture of things.

-

-“June!” he whispered, putting shaking hands on the girl’s shoulders;

-“if I do this thing for your sake, will you--will you--I have a

-mother--this is no longer a place for you--come to Clapton?”

-

-“Yes,” she answered, offering to nestle to him. “I had supposed that

-was understood.”

-

-He was a little taken aback.

-

-“We must move this first,” he said, wringing his damp forehead.

-“Who--who will help me?”

-

-It was really heroic of him. In a shuddering group, they approached

-together the terrible thing--hesitated--plunged, and dragged it out

-with a sickening flop on the floor.

-

-A greasy turban, which it wore, rolled away, disclosing a near bald

-head. Its eyes were closed; its teeth grinned through a fluff of dark

-hair; a lank frock-coat embraced its body, linen puttees its shanks,

-and at the end were stiff bare feet.

-

-“Look, and see if the coast is clear,” gasped the clergyman.

-

-Miss Robin turned to obey, and uttered a startled shriek.

-

-“What are you doing with my Senassee?” cried a terrible voice at the

-door.

-

-Mr. Prior whipped round, echoing his beloved’s squawk. A fierce old

-man, leaning on a stick, stood glaring in the opening.

-

-“Uncle!” cried the girl.

-

-He advanced, sneering and caustic, pushed them all rudely aside,

-dropped on his knees beside the corpse, and, thrusting his finger

-forcibly into its mouth, appeared to hook and roll its tongue forward.

-Instantly an amazing transformation occurred. A convulsion shook the

-body; life flowed into its drab cheeks; its eyes opened and rolled;

-inarticulate sounds came from its jaws.

-

-“Ha!” cried the old man; “I have foreclosed on these busybodies.”

-

-Then he rose to his feet, leaving the patient yawning and stretching

-on the floor.

-

-“Fearful!” gasped the clergyman.

-

-“Do you address me, sir?” asked the old man, scowling.

-

-“Conjurer!” whispered Mr. Prior.

-

-“If you like,” snarled the other. “It is a common enough trick with

-these Yogis, but one I had never seen until he came my way and offered

-to show it me for a consideration. I had forgot he was still lying

-there when I agreed to exchange livings with you. (You are Mr. Prior,

-I presume?) It was the merest oversight, which I remembered on my way,

-and came back by an early train to rectify--none too soon, it seems,

-for the staying of meddlesome fingers.”

-

-“Forgot he was there!” cried Mr. Prior.

-

-“And what if I did, sir?” snapped the other. “It was a full week he

-had lain tranced; and let me tell you, sir, I have more things to

-think of in a week than your mind could accommodate in a century.

-Why,” he cried, in sudden enlightenment, “I do believe the fools

-imagined I had murdered the man.”

-

-“Look at the babies in the bottles!” cried Mrs. Gaunt hysterically.

-

-“As to you, you old ass,” shouted the Vicar, flouncing round, “if you

-can’t distinguish embryo simiadæ from babies, you’d better call

-yourself Miss, as I believe you are!”

-

-“I give notice on the spot!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-

-Miss Robin stepped up bravely to the young clergyman, and linked her

-arm in his.

-

-“And I,” she said. “I think you have behaved very cruelly to me, to us

-all, Uncle, and--and Mr. Prior has a mother.”

-

-“I dare say; he seems fool enough for anything,” roared the old

-gentleman. “Go back to her, sir! Go to----”

-

-June shrieked.

-

-“Clapton!” he shouted, “and take this baggage with you!”

-

-

-

-

- THE BREECHES BISHOP

-

-

- In that age of gallantry, the reign of Charles the Second, it was

- customary when a gentleman drank a lady’s health to throw some part of

- his dress into the flames, in order to do her still greater honour.

- This was well enough for a lover, but the folly did not stop here, for

- his companions were obliged to follow him in this proof of his

- veneration by consuming a similar article, whatever it might be.

-

-

-About the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was living

-at Aldersferry, in the Soke of Godsport in Hampshire, a worthy

-clergyman of the name of Barnabas Winthrop. The little living of St.

-Ascham’s--a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry of

-Winchester--supplied the moral and material needs of this amiable man;

-his granddaughter, Miss Joan Seabird, kept house for him; and never

-were cream and ripe fruit happier in contact than were these two

-playful and reasonable intellects in their relations of child and

-sage.

-

-A hysteromaniac, however, is Fortune, who, charmed for a while with

-the simplicity of these her protégés, soon began to construe their

-contentment into self-sufficiency, and to devise some means to correct

-their supposed presumption on her favour, by putting it into the head

-of the artless divine how silence on questions which one felt called

-loudly for reform might be comfortable, but was shameful and an

-evasion of one’s duty. In short, Dr. Winthrop, entertaining original

-views on sanitation and the prevention of epidemics, was wickedly

-persuaded by her to expound them, and so to invite into his harmless

-Eden the snake which was to demoralize it. In one day he became a

-pamphleteer.

-

-Now the Plague, in that year of 1682, was not so remote a memory but

-that people lived in a constant terror of its recrudescence. Pandects,

-treatises, expositions, containing diagnoses, palladiums and schemes

-of quarantine, all based on the most orthodox superstitions, did not

-cease to pour from the press, to the eternal confusion of an age which

-was yet far from realizing the pious schism of the _aide-toi_. What,

-then, as might be supposed, was the effect on it, when a clergyman of

-the Establishment was seen to enter the arena as a declared dissenter

-from the _fata obstant_ of popular bigotry?

-

-For a time Godsport, startled and scandalized, watched aloof the paper

-warfare; and it was not until after the appearance of the Doctor’s

-tract, “_De omni re Scibili_”--wherein he sought, boldly and

-definitely, and withal with a characteristic humour, to lay the

-responsibility for pestilence, not upon the Almighty’s shoulders, but,

-literally, at the doors of men, at their face-to-face proximity, and

-at “the Castynge of Noisome filth in their neare neighbourhood”--that

-it brought down its official hand with a weight and suddenness which

-shook St. Ascham’s to its roots. In brief, there was flung at the

-delinquent one morning his formal citation to the Sessions Court,

-there to answer upon certain charges of having “in divers Tracts,

-Opuscules and Levrets, sought insidiously to ingrafte the minds of his

-Majesty’s liege subjects with such impudent heresies as that it is in

-the power of man to limit the visitations of God--a very pestilent

-doctrine, and one arrogating to His servants the Almighty’s high and

-beneficent prerogatives; inasmuch as Plague and Fire and other His

-scourges, being sacriligeously wrested from His graspe, the world

-would waxe blown with overlife, till it crawled upon the face of the

-heavens like a gross putrid cheese.”

-

-Under this bolt from the blue the liberal minds of grandsire and child

-sank amazed for the moment, only to rally to a consciousness of the

-necessity for immediate action.

-

-“Up, wench!” cried the Doctor, “and saddle our Pinwire. I will go lay

-my case instanter before the Bishop.”

-

-“Alas, dearest!” answered the weeping girl, “you forget; he is this

-long while bedridden.”

-

-Her imagination, which had been wont secretly to fondle the idea of

-her grandfather’s enlightened piety rewarded with a bishopric,

-pictured it in a moment turned to his confusion, and himself, perhaps,

-through the misrepresentations of a blockhead Corporation, disgraced

-and beggared in his old age. But, though she knew the Churchman, she

-had not calculated the rousing effects of criticism on the author.

-

-“Then,” roared he, “I will seek the fount itself of reason and

-justice. It was a good treatise, a well-argued treatise; and the King

-shall decide upon the practical merits of his own English.”

-

-“The King!” she cried, clasping her hands.

-

-“The King,” he answered. “Know you not that he moves daily between

-Southampton, where he lies, and Winchester, where he builds? We will

-go to Winchester. Nay, _we_, child; blubber not; for who knows but

-that, the shepherd being withdrawn, the wolves might think to practise

-on the lamb.”

-

-He checked himself, and hung his head.

-

-“The Lord pardon and justify me indignation,” he muttered. “I was a

-priest before an author.”

-

-It was fine, but a loaded sky, when they set forth upon their journey

-of twenty or so miles, Joan riding pillion behind her grandfather on

-the sober red nag. After much cross work over villainous tracks, they

-were got at last into the Southampton turnpike, when they were joined

-by a single horseman, riding a handsome barb, who, with a very

-favourable face for Joan, pulled alongside of them, as they jogged on,

-and fell into easy talk.

-

-“Dost ride to overtake a bishopric, master clergyman,” says he, “that

-you carry with you such a sweet bribe for preferment?”

-

-Joan looked up, softly panting. Could he somehow have got wind already

-of their mission, and have taken them by the way to forestall it? But

-her eyes fell again before the besieging gaze of the cavalier.

-

-He was a swart man of fifty or so, with a rather sooty expression, and

-his under-lip stuck out. His eyes, bagging a little in the lower lids,

-smouldered half-shut, between lust and weariness, under the blackest

-brows; and, for the rest, he was dressed as black as the devil, with a

-sparkle of diamonds here and there in his bosom. Joan looked down

-breathless.

-

-“I seek no preferment, sir, but a reasonable justice,” said the

-curate; and, in a little, between this and that, had ingenuously,

-though with a certain twinkling eye for the humour of it all,

-confessed his whole case to the stranger. But Joan uttered not a word.

-

-The cavalier laughed, then frowned mightily for a while. “We will

-indict these petty rogues of office on a _quo warranto_,” he growled.

-“What! does not ‘cleanness of body proceed from a due reverence of

-God’? Go on, sir, and I will promise you the King’s consideration.”

-

-Then he forgot his indignation, leering at the girl again.

-

-“And what is _your_ business with Charles, pretty flower?” said he.

-

-But, before she could answer, whish! went Pinwires’s girth out of its

-buckle, and parson and girl tumbled into the road.

-

-The cavalier laughed out, and, while the Doctor was ruefully

-readjusting his straps, offered his hand to the girl.

-

-“Come, sweetheart,” said he. “Since we go a common road, shalt mount

-behind me, and equal the odds between your jade and my greater beast.”

-

-Joan appealed in silence to her grandfather.

-

-“Verily, sir,” he said nodding and smiling, “it would be a gracious

-and kindly act.”

-

-In a moment she was mounted, with her white arms belted about the

-stranger’s waist; the next, he had put quick spurs to his horse, and

-was away with a rush and clatter.

-

-For an instant the Doctor failed to realize the nature of the

-abduction; and then of a sudden he was dancing and bawling in a sheer

-frenzy.

-

-“Dog! Ravisher! Halt! Stop him! Detain him!”

-

-He saw the flight disappear round a bend in the road. It was minutes

-before his shaking hands could negotiate strap and buckle, and enable

-him to follow in pursuit. But he carried no spurs, and Pinwire,

-already over-ridden, floundered in his steps. Distraught, dumbfounded,

-the old man was crying to himself, when he came upon Joan sitting by

-the roadside. He tumbled off, she jumped up, and they fell upon one

-another’s neck.

-

-“O, a fine King, forsooth!” she cried, sobbing and fondling him. “O, a

-fine King!”

-

-“Who? What?” said he.

-

-“Why, it was the King himself!”

-

-“The King!”

-

-“The King.”

-

-“How?” he gasped. “You have never seen him?”

-

-“Trust a woman,” quoth she.

-

-“A woman!” he cried. “You are but half a one yet.”

-

-“It was the King, nevertheless.”

-

-“Joan, let us turn back.”

-

-“He had a wooing voice, grandfather.”

-

-“_Retro Satanas!_ How did you give him the slip?”

-

-“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”

-

-“Dear Joan!”

-

-“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing

-he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of

-my beauty.”

-

-“That proves him false.”

-

-“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was

-a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a

-thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”

-

-She showed a silver pin like a skewer.

-

-“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.

-

-“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and

-was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give

-him----”

-

-“What, woman?”

-

-“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour,

-grandfather; and where are we?”

-

-He looked about him in the dolefullest way.

-

-“If I knew!” he sighed. “We must e’en seek the shelter of an inn till

-this storm is by, and then return home. Better any bankruptcy than

-that of honour, Joan.”

-

-They remounted and jogged on in the rain, which by now was falling

-heavily. The tired little horse, feeling the weight of his own soaked

-head, began to hang it and cough. Presently they dismounted at a

-wayside byre, and, eating the simple luncheon which their providence

-had provided, dwelt on a little in hopes of the weather clearing. But

-it grew steadily worse.

-

-“I have lost my bearings,” said the clergyman in a sudden amazement.

-“We must push on.”

-

-About four o’clock, being seven miles or so short of Winchester, they

-came down upon a little stream which bubbled across the road. The

-groaning horse splashed into it and stood still. Dr. Winthrop, wakened

-by the pause from a brown reverie, whipped his right leg over the

-beast’s withers, landed, slipped on a stone, and sat down in two feet

-of water. Uttering a startled ejaculation, he scrambled up, a sop to

-the very waist of his homespun breeches. Their points--old disused

-laces, fragrant from Joan’s bodice--clung weeping to his calves. He

-waded out, cherishing above water-mark the sodden skirts of his coat,

-his best, of ‘Colchester bayze.’ The horse, sensibly lightened,

-followed.

-

-“O, O!” cried Joan. “Wasn’t you sopped enough already, but you must

-fill your pockets with water?”

-

-“Joan!” he cried disconcerted. “I am drowned!”

-

-Luckily, in that pass, looking up the slope of the hill, they espied

-near the top a toll-booth, and, beyond, the first houses of a village.

-Making a little glad haste, they were soon at the bar.

-

-The woman who came to take their money looked hard at the tired girl.

-She was of a sober cast, and her close-fitting coif showed her of the

-non-conforming order.

-

-“For Winchester, master?” said she.

-

-“Nay,” answered the clergyman; “for the first hostelry. We are beat,

-dame.”

-

-“The first and the last is ‘The Five Alls,’” said she. “But I wouldn’t

-carry the maiden there, by your leave. There be great and wild company

-in the house, that recks nothing of anything in its cups. Canst hear

-’em, if thou wilt.” And, indeed, with her words, a muffled roar of

-merriment reached them from the inn a little beyond.

-

-“One riding for Winchester, and the rest from,” she said, “they met

-here, and here have forgathered roistering this hour. Dare them so you

-dare. I have spoken.”

-

-“_Nunc Deus avertat!_” cried the desperate minister. “The Fates fight

-against us. At all costs we must go by.”

-

-“Nay,” said the good woman; “but, an you will, seek you your own

-shelter there, and leave this poor lamb with me. I have two already by

-the fire--decent ladies and proper, and no quarry for licence. I know

-the company; ’twill be moving soon; and then canst come and claim

-thine own.”

-

-He accepted gladly, and, leaving Joan in her charge, rode on to the

-inn, where, dismounting, he betook himself to the stable, which was

-full of horses, and, after, to the kitchen.

-

-The landlord, cooking a pan of rashers alone over a great fire, turned

-his head, focussed the new-comer with one red eye, and asked his

-business.

-

-“A seat by the hearth, a clothes-rack for my breeches, a rug for my

-loins while they dry, and a mug of ale with a sop in it,” answered the

-traveller, with a smile for his own waggish epitome. And then he

-related of his mishap.

-

-The landlord grunted, returned to his task, blew on an ignited rasher,

-presently took the skillet off the coals, forked the fizzing mess into

-a dish, and disappeared with it. All the while an ineffable racket

-thundered on the floor above.

-

-“Peradventure they will respect my cloth,” thought the clergyman. “The

-Lord fend me! I am among the Philistines.”

-

-The landlord returned in a moment with a horn of ale in one hand, and

-a rug in the other, which he threw down.

-

-“Dod, man!” he cried; “peel, peel! This is the country of continence!

-Hast no reason to fear for thy modesty.” And he went out between

-chuckling and grumbling.

-

-Very decently the curate doffed his small-clothes, hung them over a

-trestle before the fire, wrapped and knotted the rug about his loins,

-and sat down vastly content to his sup. In ten minutes--what with

-weariness, warmth, and stingo--he was asleep.

-

-He woke with a little shriek, and staggered to his feet. Something had

-pricked him--the point of a rapier. The flushed, grinning face of the

-man who had wielded it stood away from him. The kitchen was full of

-rich company, which broke suddenly into a babble of merriment at the

-sight of his astounded visage. In the midst, a swart gentleman, who

-had been lolling at a table, advanced, and taking him by the

-shoulders, swung him gently to and fro till his eyes goggled.

-

-“Well followed, parson!” said he, chuckling, and lurching a little in

-his speech. “What! is the cuif not to be spoiled of his bishopric

-because of a saucy baggage?”

-

-He laughed, checked himself suddenly, and, still holding on, assumed a

-majestic air, with his wig a little on one side, and said with great

-dignity: “But, before I grant termsir, you shall bring the slut to

-canvass of herself what termsir. Godsmylife! to hold her King at a

-bodkin’s point! It merits no pardon, I say, unless the merit of the

-pardon of the termsir--no, the pardon of the merit of the termsir.

-Therefore I say, whither hast brought her, I say? Out with it, man!”

-

-The clergyman, recognizing Joan’s abductor, and listening amazed,

-sprang back at the end with a face of horror, almost upsetting His

-Majesty, who, barely recovering himself, stood shaking his head with a

-glassy smile.

-

-“If_hic_akins!” said he: “I woss a’most down!”

-

-“Avaunt, ravisher!” roared the Doctor.

-

-Charles stiffened with a jerk, stared, wheeled cautiously, and tiptoed

-elaborately from the room. His suite, staggering at the balance,

-followed with enormous solemnity; and the Doctor, still pointing

-denunciatory, was left alone.

-

-At the end of a minute, after much whispering outside, a young

-cavalier re-entered, and approached him with a threatening visage, as

-if up the slope of a deck.

-

-“His Maj’ty, sir,” said he, “demands to know if you know who the devil

-you was a-bawling--hic--at?”

-

-“To my sorrow, though late, I do, sir,” answered the Doctor in a

-grievous voice.

-

-“O!” said the cavalier, and tacked from the room. He returned again in

-a second, to poke the clergyman with his finger, and suggest to him

-confidentially, “Betteric la’ than never--hic!” which having uttered,

-he took himself off, after a vain attempt to open the door from its

-hinge side. In two minutes he was back again.

-

-“His Maj’ty wan’s know where hast hidden Mrs. Seabird. Nowhere in

-house, says landlord. Ver’ well--where then?”

-

-“Tell the King, where he shall reach her only over my body.”

-

-The cavalier vanished, and reappeared.

-

-“His Maj’ty doesn’t wan’ tread on your body. On contrary, wan’s raise

-you up. Wan’s hear story all over again from lady’s lips.”

-

-“I am His Majesty’s truthful minister. There is nothing to add to what

-I have already reported to him.”

-

-The cavalier withdrew, smacking his thigh profoundly. Sooner than

-usual he returned.

-

-“His Maj’ty s’prised at you. Says if you won’t tell him where’ve laid

-her by, he’ll beat up every house within miles-’n’-miles.”

-

-“No!” said the simple clergyman, in a sudden emotion.

-

-“Yes,” said the gentleman, not too drunk to note his advantage. “For

-miles-’n’-miles. His Maj’ty ver’ s’prised her behaviour to him. Wan’s

-lil word with her. Tell at once where she is, or worse for you.”

-

-The clergyman looked about him like one at bay. His glance lighted on

-the trestle before the fire, fixed itself there, and kindled.

-

-“The Lord justify the ways of His servant!” he muttered; and drew

-himself up.

-

-“Tell His Majesty,” he said in a strong voice, “that, so be he will

-honour a toast I shall call, the way he seeks shall be made clear to

-him.”

-

-The other gave a great chuckle, which was loudly echoed from the

-passage.

-

-“Why, thish is the right humour,” he said, and retired.

-

-Within a few moments the whole company re-entered, tittering and

-jogging one another, and spilling wine from the beakers they carried.

-

-The King called a silence.

-

-“Sir,” said the clergyman, advancing a little, “I pray your Majesty to

-convince me, by proof, of a reputed custom with our gallants, which is

-that, being to drink a lady’s health, the one that calleth shall cast

-into the flames some article of his attire, there to be consumed to

-her honour, and so shall demand of his company, by toasters’ law, that

-they do likewise.”

-

-“Dod!” said the King, chuckling; “woss he speiring at? Drink man!

-drink and sacrifice, and I give my royal word that all shall follow

-suit, though it be with the wigs from our heads.”

-

-The Doctor lifted his horn of ale and drained it.

-

-“I toast Joan!” he cried.

-

-“Joan!” they all shouted, laughing and hiccuping, and, having drunk,

-threw down their beakers helter-skelter.

-

-The clergyman took one swift step forward; snatched up his

-small-clothes from the trestle; displayed them a moment; thrust them

-deep into the blazing coals, and, facing about, disrugged himself, and

-stood in his shirttails.

-

-“I claim your Majesty’s word, and breeches,” said he.

-

-A silence of absolute stupefaction befell; and then in an instant the

-kitchen broke into one howl of laughter.

-

-In the midst, Charles walked stately to the table, sat down, and

-thrust out his legs.

-

-“Parson,” said he, “if you had but claimed my hair. The honours lie

-with you, sir; take ’em.”

-

-He would have none but the Doctor handle him; and, when his ineffable

-smalls were burning, he rose up in his royal shift, and ruthlessly

-commandeering every other pair in the room, stood, the speechless

-captain of as shameful and defenceless a crew of buccaneers as ever

-lowered its flag to honesty.

-

-Then the Doctor resumed his rug.

-

-“Sir,” said he, trembling, “I now fulfil my bond. My granddaughter is

-sheltering, with other modest ladies, in the pike-house hard by.”

-

-But the King swore--by divine right--a pretty oath or two, while the

-chill of his understandings helped to sober him.

-

-“By my cold wit you have won! and there may she remain for me. And

-now, decent man,” he cried, “I do call my company to witness how you

-have made yourself to be more honoured in the breach than the

-observance; and since you go wanting a frock, a bishop’s you shall

-have.”

-

-And with that he snatched the rug, and, skipping under it, sat on the

-table, grinning over the quenching of his amazed fire-eaters.

-

-And this, if you will believe deponent, is the true, if unauthorized,

-version of Dr. Winthrop’s election, and of the confounding of Godsport

-on a writ of _quo warranto_.

-

-

-

-

- THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE

-

-

- Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.

-

-

-There were notices, of varying dates, posted in prominent places

-about the cliffs to warn the public not to go near them--unless,

-indeed, it were to read the notices themselves, which were printed in

-a very unobtrusive type. Of late, however, this Dogberrian _caveat_

-had been supplemented by a statement in the local gazette that the

-cliffs, owing to the recent rains succeeding prolonged frost, were in

-so ill a constitution that to approach them at all, even to decipher

-the warnings not to, was--well, to take your life out of the municipal

-into your own hands.

-

-Now, had the Regius Professor a bee in his bonnet? Absurd. He knew the

-risks of foolhardiness as well as any pickpocket could have told him.

-Yet, neither general nor particular caution availed to abate his

-determination to examine, as soon as we had lunched, the interior

-formation of a cave or two, out of those black and innumerable, with

-which the undercliff was punctured like a warren.

-

-I did not remonstrate, after having once discovered, folded down under

-his nose on the table, the printed admonition, and heard the little

-dry, professorial click of tongue on palate which was wont to dismiss,

-declining discussion of it, any idle or superfluous proposition. I

-knew my man--or automaton. He inclined to the Providence of the

-unimaginative; his only fetish was science. He was one of those who,

-if unfortunately buried alive, would turn what opportunity remained to

-them to a study of geological deposits. My “nerves,” when we were on

-a jaunt (fond word!) together, were always a subject of sardonic

-amusement with him.

-

-Now, utterly unmoved by the prospect before him, he ate an enormous

-lunch (confiding it, incidentally, to an unerring digestion), rose,

-brushed some crumbs out of his beard, and said, “Well, shall we be

-off?”

-

-In twenty minutes we had reached the caves. They lay in a very

-secluded little bay--just a crescent of sombre sand, littered along

-all its inner edge with débris from the towering cliffs which

-contained it.

-

-“Are you coming with me?” said the Regius Professor.

-

-Judged by his anxious eyes, the question might have been an

-invitation, almost a shamefaced entreaty. But the anxiety, never more

-than apparent, was delusive product of the preposterous

-magnifying-glasses which he wore. Did he ever remove those glasses,

-one was startled to discover, in the seemingly aghast orbs which they

-misinterpreted, quite mean little attic windows to an unemotional

-soul.

-

-“Not by any means,” I said. “I will sit here, and think out your

-epitaph.”

-

-He stared at me a moment with a puzzled expression, grinned slightly,

-turned, strode off towards the cliffs, and disappeared, without a

-moment’s hesitation, into the first accessible burrow. I was moved on

-the instant to observe that it was the most sinister-looking of them

-all. The tilted stratification, under which it yawned oblique, seemed

-on the very poise to close down upon it.

-

-Now I set to pacing to and fro, essaying a sort of mechanical

-preoccupation in default of the philosophy I lacked. I was really in a

-state of clammy anxiety about the Professor. I poked in stony pools

-for little crabs, as if his life depended on my success. I made it a

-point of honour with myself not to leave off until I had found one. I

-tried, like a very amateur pickpocket, to abstract my mind from the

-atmosphere which contained it, only to find that I had brought mind

-and atmosphere away together. I bent down, with my back to the sea,

-and looking between my legs sought to regard life from a new point of

-view. Yet, even in that position, my eyes and ears were conscious,

-only in less degree, of the spectres which were always moving and

-rustling in the melancholy little bay.

-

-_Tekel upharsin._ The hand never left off writing upon the rocks, nor

-the dust of its scoring to fall and whisper. That came away in flakes,

-or slid down in tiny avalanches--here, there, in so many places at

-once, that the whole face of the cliffs seemed to crawl like a maggoty

-cheese. The sound was like a vast conspiracy of voices--busy,

-ominous--aloft on the seats of an amphitheatre. They were talking of

-the Regius Professor, and his consideration in making them a Roman

-holiday.

-

-Here, on no warrant but that of my senses, I knew the gazette’s

-warning to be something more than justified. It made no difference

-that my nerves were at the stretch. One could not hear a silence thus

-sown with grain of horror, and believe it barren of significance.

-Then, all in a moment, as it seemed to me, the resolution was taken,

-the voices hushed, and the whole bay poised on tiptoe of a suspense

-which preluded something terrific.

-

-I stood staring at the black mouth which had engulfed the Regius

-Professor. I felt that a disaster was imminent; but to rush to warn

-him would be to embarrass the issues of his Providence--that only. For

-the instant a fierce resentment of his foolhardiness fired me--and was

-as immediately gone. I turned sick and half blind. I thought I saw the

-rock-face shrug and wrinkle; a blot of gall was expelled from it--and

-the blot was the Professor himself issued forth, and coming composedly

-towards me.

-

-As he advanced, I turned my back on him. By the time he reached me I

-had made some small success of a struggle for self-mastery.

-

-“Well,” he said. “I left myself none too much of a margin, did I?”

-

-With an effort I faced about again. The base of the cliff was yet

-scarred with holes, many and irregular; but now some of those which

-had stared at me like dilated eyes were, I could have sworn it,

-over-lidded--the eyes of drowsing reptiles. _And the Professor’s

-particular cave was gone._

-

-I gave quite an absurd little giggle. This man was soulless--a

-monstrosity.

-

-“Look here,” he said, conning my face with a certain concern, “it’s no

-good tormenting yourself with what might have happened. Here I am, you

-know. Supposing we go and sit down yonder, against that drift, till

-you’re better.”

-

-He led the way, and, dropping upon the sand, lolled easily, talking to

-himself, by way of me, for some minutes. It was the kindest thing he

-could have done. His confident voice made scorn of the never-ceasing

-rustling and falling sounds to our rear. The gulls skated before my

-eyes, drawing wide arcs and figures of freedom in the air. Presently I

-topped the crisis, and drew a deep breath.

-

-“Tell me,” I said--“have you ever in all your life known fear?”

-

-The Regius Professor sat to consider.

-

-“Well,” he answered presently, rubbing his chin, “I was certainly once

-near losing hold of my will, if that’s what you mean. Of course, if I

-_had_ let go----”

-

-“But you didn’t.”

-

-“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No--luckily.”

-

-“You’re not taking credit for it?”

-

-“Credit!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why should I take credit for my

-freedom from a constitutional infirmity? In one way, indeed, I am only

-regretful that I am debarred that side of self-analysis.”

-

-I could laugh lovelily, for the first time.

-

-“Well,” I said, “will you tell me the story?”

-

-“I never considered it in the light of a story,” answered the Regius

-Professor. “But, if it will amuse and distract you, I will make it one

-with pleasure. My memory of it, as an only experience in that

-direction, is quite vivid, I think I may say--” and he settled his

-spectacles, and began:

-

-“It was during the period of my first appointment as Science

-Demonstrator to the Park Lane Polytechnic, a post which my little

-pamphlet on the Reef-building Serpulæ was instrumental in procuring

-me. I was a young man at the time, with a wide field of interests, but

-with few friends to help me in exploring it. My holidays I generally

-devoted to long, lonely tramps, knapsack on back, about the country.

-

-“It was on one of these occasions that you must picture me entered

-into a solitary valley among the Shropshire hills. The season was

-winter; it was bitterly cold, and the prospect was of the dreariest.

-The interesting conformations of the land--the bone-structure, as I

-might say--were blunted under a thick pelt of snow, which made walking

-a labour. One never recognizes under such conditions the extent of

-one’s efforts, as inequalities of ground are without the contrast of

-surroundings to emphasize them, and one may be conscious of the strain

-of a gradient, and not know if it is of one foot in fifty or in five

-hundred.

-

-“The scene was desolate to a degree; houseless, almost treeless--just

-white wastes and leaden sky, and the eternal fusing of the two in an

-indefinite horizon. I was wondering, without feeling actually

-dispirited, how long it was to last, when, turning the shoulder of a

-hill which had seemed to hump itself in my path, I came straight upon

-a tiny hamlet scattered over a widish area. There were some cottages,

-and a slated school building; and, showing above a lower hump a

-quarter of a mile beyond, the roofs and tall chimney of a factory.

-

-“It was a stark little oasis, sure enough--the most grudging of moral

-respites from depression. Only from one place, it seemed, broke a

-green shoot. Not a moving figure was abroad; not a face looked from a

-window. Deathlily exclusive, the little stony buildings stood apart

-from one another, incurious, sullen, and self-contained.

-

-“There was, however, the green shoot; and the stock from which it

-proceeded was the school building. That in itself was unlovely

-enough--a bleak little stone box in an arid enclosure. It looked

-hunched and grey with cold; and the sooty line of thaw at the foot of

-its wall only underscored its frostiness. But as if that one green

-shoot were the earnest of life lingering within, there suddenly broke

-through its walls the voices of young children singing; and, in the

-sound, the atmosphere of petrifaction lifted somewhat.

-

-“Yes? What is it? Does anything amuse you? I am glad you are so far

-recovered, at least. Well----

-

-“I like, I must confess, neither children nor music. At the same time,

-I am free to admit that those young voices, though they dismissed me

-promptly on my way, dismissed me pleased, and to a certain degree, as

-it were, reinvigorated. I passed through that little frigid camp of

-outer silence, and swung down the road towards the factory. As I

-advanced towards what I should have thought to be the one busy nucleus

-of an isolated colony, the aspect of desolation intensified, to my

-surprise, rather than diminished. But I soon saw the reason for this.

-The great forge in the hills was nothing but a wrecked and abandoned

-ruin, its fires long quenched, its ribs long laid bare. Seeing which,

-it only appeared to me a strange thing that any of the human part of

-its affairs should yet cling to its neighbourhood; and stranger still

-I thought it when I came to learn, as I did by and by, that its

-devastation was at that date an ancient story.

-

-“What a squalid carcass it did look, to be sure; gaunt, and unclean,

-and ravaged by fire from crown to basement. The great flue of it stood

-up alone, a blackened monument to its black memory.

-

-“Approaching and entering, I saw some writhed and tortured guts of

-machinery, relics of its old vital organs, fallen, withered, from its

-ribs. The floor, clammy to the tread, was littered with tumbled

-masonry; the sheet iron of the roof was shattered in a hundred places

-under the merciless bombardment of the weather; and, here and there, a

-scale of this was corroded so thin that it fluttered and buzzed in the

-draught like a ventilator. Bats of grimy cobweb hung from the beams;

-and the dead breath of all the dead place was acrid with cold soot.

-

-“It was all ugly and sordid enough, in truth, and I had no reason to

-be exacting in my inspection of it. Turning, in a vaulting silence, I

-was about to make my way out, when my attention was drawn to the black

-opening of what looked like a shed or annex to the main factory.

-Something, some shaft or plant, revealing itself from the dim

-obscurity of this place, attracted my curiosity. I walked thither,

-and, with all due precaution because of the littered ground, entered.

-I was some moments in adapting my vision to the gloom, and then I

-discovered that I was in the mill well-house. It was a little

-dead-locked chamber, its details only partly decipherable in the

-reflected light which came in by the doorway. The well itself was sunk

-in the very middle of the floor, and the projecting wall of it rose

-scarce higher than my knees. The windlass, pivoted in a massive yoke,

-crossed the twilight at a height a little above my own; and I could

-easily understand, by the apparent diameter of its barrel, that the

-well was of a considerable depth.

-

-“Now, as my eyes grew a little accustomed to the obscurity, I could

-see how a tooth of fire had cut even into this fastness. For the rope,

-which was fully reeled up upon the windlass, was scorched to one side,

-as though some exploded fragment of wood or brickwork had alighted

-there. It was an insignificant fact in itself, but my chance

-observation of it has its importance in the context; as has also the

-fact that the bight of the rope (from which the bucket had been

-removed) hung down a yard or so below the big drum.

-

-“You have always considered me a sapient, or at least a rational

-creature, have you not? Well, listen to this. Bending over to plumb

-with my eyes the depth of the pit (an absurdity, to begin with, in

-that vortex of gloom), I caught with my left hand (wisdom number two)

-at the hanging end of rope in order to steady myself. On the instant

-the barrel made one swift revolution, and stuck. The movement,

-however, had thrown me forward and down, so that my head and

-shoulders, hanging over, and actually into, the well, pulled me,

-without possibility of recovery, from my centre of gravity. With a

-convulsive wrench of my body, I succeeded in bringing my right hand to

-the support of my left. I was then secure of the rope; but the

-violence of the act dragged my feet and knees from their last

-desperate hold, and my legs came whipping helpless over the well-rim.

-The weight of them in falling near jerked me from my clutch--a bad

-shock, to begin with. But a worse was in store for me. For I

-perceived, in the next instant, that the rusty, long-disused windlass

-was beginning slowly to revolve, _and was letting me down into the

-abyss_.

-

-“I broke out in a sweat, I confess--a mere diaphoresis of nature; a

-sort of lubricant to the jammed mechanism of the nerves. I don’t think

-we are justified in attributing my first sensations to fear. I was

-exalted, rather--promoted to the analysis of a very exquisite, scarce

-mortal, problem. My will, as I hung by a hair over the abysm, was

-called upon to vindicate itself under an utmost stress of

-apprehension. I felt, ridiculous as it may appear, as if the

-surrounding dark were peopled with an invisible auditory, waiting,

-curious, to test the value of my philosophy.

-

-“Here, then, were the practical problems I had to combat. The

-windlass, as I have said, revolved slowly, but it revolved

-persistently. If I would remain with my head above the

-well-rim--which, I freely admit, I had an unphilosophic desire to

-do--I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and

-airy sort of treadmill. To climb, and climb, and always climb, paying

-out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place! It was to

-repudiate gravitation, which I spurned from beneath my feet into the

-depths. But when, momentarily exhausted, I ventured to pause, some

-nightmare revolt against the sense of sinking which seized me, would

-always send me struggling and wriggling, like a drowning body, up to

-the surface again. Fortunately, I was slightly built and active; yet I

-knew that wind and muscle were bound sometime to give out in this

-swarming competition against death. I measured their chances against

-the length of the rope. There was a desperate coil yet unwound.

-Moreover, in proportion as I grew the feebler, grew the need for my

-greater activity. For there were already signs that the great groaning

-windlass was casting its rust of ages, and was beginning to turn

-quicker in its sockets. If it had only stuck, paused one minute in its

-eternal round, I might have set myself oscillating, gradually and

-cautiously, until I was able to seize with one hand, then another,

-upon the brick rim, which was otherwise beyond my reach. But now, did

-I cease climbing for an instant and attempt a frantic clutch at it,

-down I sank like a clock weight, my fingers trailed a yard in cold

-slime, and there I was at my mad swarming once more--the madder that I

-must now make up for lost ground.

-

-“At last, faint with fatigue, I was driven to face an alternative

-resource, very disagreeable from the first in prospect. This was no

-less than to resign temporarily my possession of the upper, and sink

-to the under world; in other words, to let myself go with the rope,

-and, when it was all reeled out, to climb it again. To this course

-there were two objections: one, that I knew nothing of the depth of

-the water beneath me, or of how soon I should come to it; the other,

-that I was grown physically incapable of any further great effort in

-the way of climbing. My reluctance to forgo the useless solace of the

-upper twilight I dismiss as sentimental. But to drop into that sooty

-pit, and then, perhaps, to find myself unable to reascend it! to feel

-a gradual paralysis of heart and muscle committing me to a lingering

-and quite unspeakable death--that was an unnerving thought indeed!

-

-“Nevertheless, I had actually resolved upon the venture, and was on

-the point of ceasing all effort, and permitting myself to sink,

-when--I thought of the burnt place in the rope.

-

-“Do you grasp what that sudden thought meant to me? Death, sir, in any

-case; death, if, with benumbed and aching hands and blistered knees, I

-continued to work my air-mill; death, no earlier and no later, no less

-and no more certainly, if I ceased of the useless struggle and went

-down into the depths. So soon as the strain of my hanging should tell

-direct upon that scorched strand, that strand must part.

-

-“Then, I think, I knew fear--fear as demoralizing, perhaps, as it may

-be, short of the will-surrender. And, indeed, I’m not sure but that

-the will which survives fear may not be a worse last condition than

-fear itself, which, when exquisite, becomes oblivion. Consciousness

-_in extremis_ has never seemed to me the desirable thing which some

-hold it.

-

-“Still, if I suffered for retaining my will power, there is no doubt

-that its loss, on the flash of that deadly reflection, would have

-meant an immediate syncope of nerve and an instant downfall;

-whereas--well, anyhow, here I am.

-

-“I was fast draining of all capacity for further effort. I climbed

-painfully, spasmodically; but still I climbed, half hoping I should

-die of the toil of it before I fell. Ever and again I would glance

-faintly up at the snarling, slowly-revolving barrel above me, and mark

-how death, as figured in that scorched strand, was approaching me

-nearer at every turn. It was only a few coils away, when suddenly I

-set to doing what, goodness knows, I should have done earlier. I

-screamed--screamed until the dead marrow must have crawled in the very

-bones of the place.

-

-“Nothing human answered--not a voice, not the sound of a footfall.

-Only the echoes laughed and chattered like monkeys up in the broken

-roof of the factory. For the rest, my too-late outburst had but served

-to sap what little energy yet remained to me.

-

-“The end was come. Looking up, I saw the burnt strand reeling round, a

-couple of turns away, to the test; and, with a final gulp of horror, I

-threw up the sponge, and sank.

-

-“I had not descended a yard or two, when my feet touched something.”

-

-The Regius Professor paused dramatically.

-

-“O, go on!” I snapped.

-

-“That something,” he said, “yielded a little--settled--and there all

-at once was I, standing as firmly as if I were in a pulpit.

-

-“For the moment, I assure you, I was so benumbed, physically and

-mentally, that I was conscious of nothing in myself but a small weak

-impatience at finding the awful ecstasy of my descent checked. Then

-reason returned, like blood to the veins of a person half drowned; and

-I had never before realized that reason could make a man ache so.

-

-“With the cessation of my strain upon it, the windlass had ceased to

-revolve. Now, with a sudden desperation, I was tugging at the rope

-once more--pulling it down hand over hand. At the fifth haul there

-came a little quick report, and I staggered and near fell. The rope

-had snapped; and the upper slack of it came whipping down upon my

-shoulders.

-

-“I rose, dimly aware of what had happened. I was standing on the

-piled-up fathoms of rope which I had paid out beneath me. Above,

-though still beyond my effective winning, glimmered the moon-like disk

-of light which was the well mouth. I dared not, uncertain of the

-nature of my tenure, risk a spring for it. But, very cautiously, I

-found the end of the rope that had come away, made a bend in it well

-clear of the injured part, and, after many vain attempts, slung it

-clean over the yoke above, coaxed down the slack, spliced it to the

-other, and so made myself a fixed ladder to climb by. Up this, after a

-short interval for rest, I swarmed, set myself swinging, grasped the

-brick rim, first with one hand, then with both, and in another instant

-had flung myself upon the ground prostrate, and for the moment quite

-prostrated. Then presently I got up, struck some matches, and

-investigated.”

-

-The Regius Professor stopped, laughing a little over the memory.

-

-“_Do_ go on!” I said.

-

-“Why,” he responded, chuckling, “generations of school children had

-been pitching litter into that well, until it was filled up to within

-a couple yards of the top--just that. The rope, heaping up under me,

-did the rest. It was a testimony to the limited resources of the

-valley. What the little natives of to-day do with their odd time,

-goodness knows. But it was comical, wasn’t it?”

-

-“O, most!” said I. “And particularly from the point of view of the

-children’s return to you for your dislike of them.”

-

-“Well, as to that,” said the Regius Professor, rather shamefacedly, “I

-wasn’t beyond acknowledging a certain indebtedness.”

-

-“Acknowledging? How?”

-

-“Why, I happened to have in my knapsack one of my pamphlets on the

-Reef-building Serpulæ; so I went back to the school, and gave it to

-the mistress to include in her curriculum.”

-

-

-

-

- ARCADES AMBO

-

-Miguel and Nicanor were the Damon and Phintias of Lima. Their

-devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers--who are not, as a

-rule, very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships--was a

-standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they

-had grown up together, passed their school-days together (at an

-English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their

-young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other’s company,

-preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which

-was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.

-

-In the meanwhile, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued

-inseparable--a proverb for clean though passionate affection.

-

-The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and

-physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the

-younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature,

-bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all

-the wit, excitability, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to

-associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed--a

-man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger.

-

-Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous

-faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything

-fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable

-as lovable.

-

-The two started, well-equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks

-of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye

-with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with

-the birds.

-

-Miguel and Nicanor travelled overland to Cayenne, in French Guiana,

-where they took boat for Marseilles, whence they were to proceed to

-the capital. The circular tour of the world, for all who would make it

-comprehensively, dates from Paris and ends there. They sailed in a

-fine vessel, and made many charming acquaintances on board.

-

-Among these was Mademoiselle Suzanne, called also de la Vénerie,

-which one might interpret into Suzanne of the chase, or Suzanne of the

-kennel, according to one’s point of view. She had nothing in common

-with Diana, at least, unless it were a very seductive personality. She

-was a fashionable Parisian actress, travelling for her health, or

-perhaps for the health of Paris--much in the manner of the London

-gentleman, who was encountered touring alone on the Continent because

-his wife had been ordered change of air.

-

-Suzanne, as a matter of course, fell in love with Miguel first, for

-his white teeth and sleepy comeliness; and then with Nicanor, for his

-impudent bright spirit. That was the beginning and end of the trouble.

-

-One moonlight night, in mid-Atlantic, Miguel and Nicanor came together

-on deck. The funnel of the steamer belched an enormous smoke, which

-seemed to reach all the way back to Cayenne.

-

-“I hate it,” said Nicanor; “don’t you? It is like a huge cable paid

-out and paid out, while we drift further from home. If they would only

-stop a little, keeping it at the stretch, while we swarmed back by it,

-and left the ship to go on without us!”

-

-Miguel laughed; then sighed.

-

-“Dear Nicanor,” he said; “I will have nothing more to do with her, if

-it will make you happy.”

-

-“I was thinking of _your_ happiness, Miguel,” said Nicanor. “If I

-could only be certain that it would not be affected by what I have to

-tell you!”

-

-“What have you to tell me, old Nicanor?”

-

-“You must not be mistaken, Miguel. Your having nothing more to do with

-her would not lay the shadow of our separation, which the prospect of

-my union with her raises between us--though it would certainly comfort

-me a little on your behalf.”

-

-“I did not mean that at all, Nicanor. I meant that, for your sake, I

-would even renounce my right to her hand.”

-

-“That would be an easy renunciation, dear Miguel. I honour your

-affection; but I confess I expect more from it than a show of

-yielding, for its particular sake, what, in fact, is not yours to

-yield.”

-

-Miguel had been leaning over the taffrail, looking at the white

-wraiths of water which coiled and beckoned from the prow. Now he came

-upright, and spoke in his soft slow voice, which was always like that

-of one just stretching awake out of slumber--

-

-“I cannot take quite that view, Nicanor, though I should like to. But

-I do so hate a misunderstanding, at all times; and when it is with

-you----!”

-

-His tones grew sweet and full--

-

-“O, Nicanor! let this strange new shadow between us be dispelled, at

-once and for ever. I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Nicanor.”

-

-“I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Miguel.”

-

-“Very well. Then I yield her to you.”

-

-“O, pardon me, Miguel! but that is just the point. I wanted to save

-you the pain--the sense of self-renunciation; but your blindness

-confounds me. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. Your

-infatuation for Mademoiselle Suzanne is very plain to very many. What

-is plain only to yourself is that Mademoiselle Suzanne returns your

-devotion. You are not, indeed, justified in that belief.”

-

-“Why not?”

-

-“She has confessed her regard, in the first place, for me.”

-

-“But she has also confessed to me that I have won the leading place in

-her affections.”

-

-“That is absurd, Miguel. She is the soul of ingenuousness.”

-

-“Perhaps, Nicanor--we are only boys, after all--she is a practised

-coquette.”

-

-“You must not say that, Miguel, if you want me to remain your friend.

-You, perhaps, attach too much importance to your looks as an

-irresistible asset in matters of the heart.”

-

-“Now I shall certainly quarrel with you.”

-

-“You are mistaken, I think. Mind, to women of intellect, is the

-compelling lure.”

-

-“It remains to be proved.”

-

-“You are determined to put it to the test, then? Good-bye, Miguel.”

-

-“This is not a real breach between us? O, Nicanor!”

-

-“We must come to a definite understanding. Until we do, further

-confidence between us is impossible.”

-

-He strutted away, perking his angry head, and whistling.

-

-But Suzanne had accomplished the amiable débacle for which she had

-been intriguing. She had, paradoxically, separated the inseparables.

-It was a little triumph, perhaps; a very easy game to one of her

-experience--hardly worth the candle, in fact; but it was the best the

-boat had to offer. It remained only to solace the tedium of what was

-left of the voyage by playing on the broken strings of that

-friendship.

-

-It was Nicanor who suffered most under the torture. He had always been

-rather accustomed to hear himself applauded for his wit--a funny

-little acrid possession which was touched with a precocious knowledge

-of the world. Now, to know himself made the butt of a maturer social

-irony lowered his little cockerel crest most dismally. As for

-good-natured Miguel, it was his way to join, rather than resent, the

-laugh against himself; and his persistent moral health under the

-infliction only added to the other’s mind-corrosion. In a very little

-the two were at daggers-drawn.

-

-The “affair” made a laughable distraction for many of the listless and

-mischievous among the passengers. They contributed their little fans

-to the flame, and exchanged private bets upon the probable

-consequences. But Suzanne, indifferent to all interests but her own,

-worked her oracles serenely, and affected a wide-eyed unconsciousness

-of the amorous imbroglio which her arts had brought about. First one,

-then the other of the rivals would she beguile with her pensive

-kindnesses, and, according to her mood or the accident of

-circumstances, reassure in hope. And the task grew simpler as it

-advanced, inasmuch as the silence which came to fall between Miguel

-and Nicanor precluded the wholesome revelations which an interchange

-of confidences might have inspired.

-

-At last the decisive moment arrived when Suzanne’s more intimate

-worldlings were to be gratified with her solution of the riddle. It

-was to end, in fact, in a Palais Royal farce; and they were to be

-invited to witness the “curtain.”

-

-A few hours before reaching port she drew Miguel to a private

-interview.

-

-“Ah, my friend!” she said, her slender fingers knotted, her large eyes

-wistful with tears, “I become distracted in the near necessity for

-decision. Pity me in so momentous a pass. What am I to do?”

-

-“Mademoiselle,” said poor Miguel, his chest heaving, “it is resolved

-already. We are to journey together to Paris, where the bliss of my

-life is to be piously consummated.”

-

-“Yes,” she said; “but the publicity--the scandal! Men are sure to

-attribute the worst motives to our comradeship, and that I could not

-endure.”

-

-“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately--somewhere whence

-we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”

-

-“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! There is a little accommodating

-place--the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the

-harbour. Do you know it? No--I forgot the world is all to open for

-you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper

-of our intention to anyone. Now go, go!”

-

-He left her, rapturous but, once without her radiance, struck his

-breast and sighed, “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”

-

-And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor,

-angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously,

-timidly, and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a

-bantam.

-

-“Is it not my friend that you meant, mademoiselle? I will summon him

-back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”

-

-“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a

-witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul--least of all his

-brother and happier rival.”

-

-“His----! Ah, mademoiselle, I entreat you, do not torture me!”

-

-“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself!

-Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many

-women realize their feelings for the first time in the shock of

-imminent loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor.”

-

-“Poor Miguel--poor fellow!”

-

-“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”

-

-“Suzanne!”

-

-“No, do not speak to me. To have so bared my breast to this repulse!

-O, I am shamed beyond words!”

-

-“But do you not understand my heartfelt pity for his loss, when

-measured by my own ecstatic gain?”

-

-“Well?”

-

-“Suzanne! I cannot believe it true.”

-

-“I feel so bewildered also. What are we to do?”

-

-“You spoke once of a journey to Paris together.”

-

-“You and I? Think of the jests, the comments on the part of our

-shipmates! We are not to bear a slurred reputation with us. I should

-die of shame.”

-

-“What if we were to meet somewhere, unknown to anybody, by

-appointment, and slip away before the world awoke?”

-

-“Yes, that would do; but where?”

-

-“Can’t you suggest?”

-

-“I know of a little Café de Paris. It is on the Boulevard des Dames,

-near the harbour. Say we meet there, at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning, in time to catch the early mail?”

-

-“O, yes, yes!”

-

-“Hush! We have been long enough together. Do not forget; be silent as

-the grave.”

-

-“Brains triumph!” thought Nicanor, as he went. “Alas, my poor, sweet,

-simple-minded comrade!”

-

-De la Vénerie carried betimes quite a select little company with her

-to the rendezvous. They were all choking with fun and expectation.

-

-“The dear _ingénus_!” said Captain Robillard. “It will be exquisite

-to see the fur fly. But precocity must have its lesson.”

-

-They had their rolls and coffee in a closet adjoining the common room.

-There was a window overlooking the street.

-

-“Hist!” whispered the tiny Comte de Bellenglise. “Here they come!”

-

-Nicanor was the first to arrive. He was very spruce and cock-a-hoop.

-His big brown eyes were like fever-spots in his little body. He

-questioned, airily enough, the proprietor, who had been well prompted

-to answer him.

-

-“No, monsieur; there is no lady at this hour. An appointment? Alas!

-such is always the least considered of their many engagements.”

-

-As he spoke, Miguel came in. The two eyed one another blankly after

-the first shock. At length Nicanor spoke: the door between the closet

-and the café opened a little.

-

-“You have discovered, then? Go away, my poor friend. This is, indeed,

-the worst occasion for our reconciliation.”

-

-“I did not come to seek you, Nicanor. I came to meet Mademoiselle

-Suzanne alone, by appointment.”

-

-“And I, too, Miguel. I fear you must have overheard and misconstrued

-her meaning. It was I she invited to this place.”

-

-“No, Nicanor; it was I.”

-

-“She has not come, at least. We must decide, at once and for ever,

-before she comes.”

-

-“I know what you mean, Nicanor. This, indeed, is the only end to a

-madness. Have you your pistol? I have mine.”

-

-“And I have mine, Miguel. You will kill me, as you are the good shot.

-I don’t know why I ever carried one, except to entice you to show your

-skill at breaking the floating bottles. But that was before the

-trouble.”

-

-“Dear Nicanor!”

-

-“But let it be _à l’outrance_. I want either to kill you or to be

-killed.”

-

-“If she were only out of the way, you would love me again.”

-

-“Amen to that, dear Miguel!”

-

-“Yet we are to fight?”

-

-“To the death, my brother, my comrade! Such is the madness of

-passion.”

-

-The paralyzed landlord found breath for the first time to intervene.

-

-“Gentlemen, gentlemen! for God’s sake! consider my reputation!”

-

-Miguel, starting away, and leaving Nicanor with his back to the

-closet, produced and pointed his weapon at the trembling creature.

-These South Americans were a strange compound of sweetness and

-ferocity.

-

-“If you interfere,” he said, “I will shoot you instead. Now, Nicanor,

-we fire at discretion, one shot to each.”

-

-The bang of Nicanor’s pistol shattered the emptiness. Miguel was down

-on the floor. Nicanor cast away his reeking weapon, and, running to

-his friend, raised his body in his arms. The door of the closet

-opened, and Suzanne, radiant and gloating, stood in the entry. “That

-was a good shot, Nicanor,” said Miguel, smiling weakly. “You are

-better at men than bottles.”

-

-“Miguel! Miguel! you have your pistol undischarged. Faint as you are,

-you cannot miss me at this range.”

-

-“Stand away, then, Nicanor.”

-

-Nicanor stood up, tearing his coat apart.

-

-“Here, here! to my heart, dearest!”

-

-Miguel, supporting himself on his left hand, raised his pistol

-swiftly, and shot Mademoiselle Suzanne through the breast. Then he

-fell back to the floor.

-

-“That is the short way to it, Nicanor. Confess, after all, I am the

-better shot. Now we are reunited for ever.”

-

-Suzanne had not a word to say to that compact. She lay in a heap, like

-the sweetest of dressmaker’s dummies overturned.

-

-The landlord raised a terrible outcry.

-

-“Messieurs! I am ruined, unless you witness to the truth of this

-catastrophe!”

-

-“I, for one, will witness,” said de Bellenglise, very white.

-“Mademoiselle, it is plain to the humorist, has only reaped what she

-sowed. But I do not envy M. Nicanor his survival.”

-

-Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him

-to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe, in Normandy, where

-men whom the law exonerates may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal

-servitude.

-

-And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend wholehearted, for

-he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne

-to a place where her future interference between them was not to be

-dreaded.

-

-

-

-

- OUR LADY OF REFUGE

-

-When Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino,

-plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San

-Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after

-long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood,

-and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering

-ribbons, and merrily they cried together:

-

-“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the

-larger growth--patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment!

-For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ

-in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of

-evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’

-dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff

-of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children--there is time for

-all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood

-ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and

-see the ships--so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind

-in the rigging--and all for a paltry quarter-real!”

-

-Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest,

-among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared

-to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned

-their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino

-had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the

-mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that

-they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic

-perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a

-couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San

-Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by

-treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two

-thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San

-Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come

-of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in

-the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a

-large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening

-to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly

-as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection

-in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in

-San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to

-approach the peep-show.

-

-The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with

-travel.

-

-“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like

-adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”

-

-It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held

-himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to

-show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact,

-was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft

-olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow

-handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches,

-down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron,

-for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a

-high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and

-merriment were his bright assets.

-

-Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.

-

-“Sweet and inexhaustible! I could feed all day on thy love. Yet, I

-think, for my stomach’s sake, I would rather be less gifted than the

-mouse. What is the use to be able to smell meat through glass when the

-window is shut?”

-

-“Wait! There are other ways to the larder than by the door. In the

-meanwhile, we will go on. There are two ends to San Lorenzo, the upper

-and lower: we will try the lower. North and south sit with their backs

-to one another, like peevish sisters. What the one snubs the other may

-favour.”

-

-He swung the box by its strap to his shoulder, closed the tripod, and,

-using it for a staff, trudged on dustily with his comrade. Half way

-down the village, a man for the first time accosted them. He was

-young, vehement, authoritative--the segundo jefe, or sub-prefect of

-San Lorenzo.

-

-“Wait!” he said, halting the pair. “I know you, Caron. You should be

-de Charogne--a French carrion-crow. What do you here, spying for your

-masters?”

-

-“Señor,” said the showman, “you are mistaken. I am of your people.”

-

-“Since when? I know you, I say.”

-

-“Many know me, caballero, in these parts, and nothing against me but

-my nationality. Now that is changed.”

-

-“Since when? I repeat it.”

-

-“Since the Emperor tore my brother from his plough in Rousillon to

-serve his colours, and our father was left to die of starvation. We

-are but now on our way back from closing the old man’s eyes, and at

-the foot of the hills we recovered our chattels, which we had hid

-there, on our journey north, for security. I speak of myself and my

-little comrade, Pepino, who is truly of this province, señor, having

-been born in Gerona, where he made stockings.”

-

-The sub-prefect looked at Pepino attentively, for the first time, and

-his dark eyes kindled.

-

-“And wore them, by the same token,” he murmured.

-

-He swept off his hat, mockingly courteous.

-

-“Buenos dias, señora!” he said.

-

-Caron jumped.

-

-“Ah, mercy, caballero!” he cried. “Can you, indeed, distinguish so

-easily? Do not give us away.”

-

-“Tell me all about it,” said the sub-prefect. “Truly this is no time

-for masquerading in San Lorenzo.”

-

-“But it was the most obvious of precautions to begin with,” pleaded

-Caron. “Over the mountains is not safety for a woman; and since----”

-

-“And since, you are in San Lorenzo,” said the other.

-

-“It is true, señor. Pepa shall re-sex herself to-night. Yet it is

-only a few hours since we found our expedient justified.”

-

-“How was that?”

-

-“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French

-picket, and----”

-

-He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.

-

-“What have I said, señor?”

-

-“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and

-this is the first you speak of it! I understand--they come from

-Perpignan--they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve

-Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while----”

-

-He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow

-me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The

-whole village turned and followed him as he ran.

-

-Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and

-privacy.

-

-“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride _me_ for the

-future. And _this_ is home!”

-

-She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.

-

-“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can

-love you once more in my own way.”

-

-

-This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in

-Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in

-Figueras--one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from

-the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate--being

-small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the

-mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the

-neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour

-with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since

-a little might decide their fate--short shrift, and the knife or

-gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For

-those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the

-Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by

-the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.

-

-But Figueras was an important point, strategically; for which reason

-the Emperor--who generally in questions of political economy held

-lives cheaper than salt--had despatched an express to General Reille,

-who commanded the reserves at Perpignan, on the north side of the

-mountains, ordering him to proceed by forced marches to the relief of

-the garrison, as a step preliminary to the assault and capture of

-Gerona. And it was an advance body of this force which Luc and his

-companion had encountered bivouacking in the hills.

-

-It was not a considerable body as the two gauged it, for Colonel de

-Regnac’s troops--raw Tuscan recruits, and possessed with a panic

-terror of the enemy--were showing a very laggard spirit in the

-venture, and no emulation whatever of their officers’ eagerness to

-encounter. In fact, Colonel de Regnac, with his regimental staff, some

-twenty all told, and few beside, had run ahead of his column by the

-measure of a mile or two, and was sitting down to rest and curse,

-below his breath, in a hollow of the hills, when the two captured

-vagabonds were brought before him.

-

-There had been no light but the starlight, no voice but the

-downpouring of a mountain stream until the sentry had leaped upon

-them. Chatter and fire were alike prohibited things in those rocky

-ante-rooms of hate and treachery.

-

-“Who are you?” had demanded the Colonel of Caron.

-

-“A son of France, monsieur.”

-

-“Whither do you go?”

-

-“To attend the death-bed of my old father in Rousillon,” had answered

-Luc, lying readily.

-

-The Colonel had arisen, and scanned his imperturbable face keenly.

-

-“His name?”

-

-Luc had told him truthfully--also his father’s circumstances and

-misfortunes.

-

-The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence,

-then, do you come?”

-

-“From Figueras.”

-

-“Ha! They have news of us there?”

-

-“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”

-

-“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”

-

-A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was

-overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that

-those two rascals went _up_ the hill!”

-

-He was brought before the Colonel.

-

-“My son, what did you say?”

-

-The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his

-remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the

-vagabonds’ _descent towards San Lorenzo_, there would be trouble on

-the morrow.

-

-He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter

-degraded--to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed

-to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that,

-in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded

-by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing

-rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering

-for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the

-main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted

-upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under

-cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position--only to find it

-abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled

-to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.

-

-“_If_ I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel

-sweetly.

-

-And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very

-gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.

-

-It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted,

-depopulated.

-

-Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching

-under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly,

-and nodded.

-

-He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow

-more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight.

-He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were

-small and infamous--great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a

-moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and

-Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his

-enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways

-his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.

-

-“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”

-

-Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino

-crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.

-

-“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.

-

-A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.

-

-“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself

-spitting fire.”

-

-“It is symbolical of Jove,” said Caron.

-

-“Foul imps attend him!”

-

-“They are his Mercuries.”

-

-“No more words!” said the Colonel. “String the rascal up!”

-

-That was the common emergency exit in the then theatres of war. It had

-taken the place of the “little window” through which former traitors

-to their country had been invited to look.

-

-Pepino leapt to his feet, with a sudden scream.

-

-“No, no! He is Caron, the wit, the showman, dear to all hearts!”

-

-Colonel Regnac’s great neck seemed to swell like a ruttish wolf’s. His

-little eyes shot red with laughter. He had as keen a scent as the

-sub-prefect for a woman.

-

-“Good!” he said; “he shall make us a show.”

-

-“Señor, for the love of God! He spoke the truth. His father is dead.”

-

-“He will be in a dutiful haste to rejoin him.”

-

-“Señor, be merciful! You are of a gallant race.”

-

-“That is certain,” said de Regnac. “You, for your part, are acquitted,

-my child. I take you personally under my protection.”

-

-“Good-bye, comrade!” cried Caron sadly. “We have gone the long road

-together, and I am the first to reach home. Follow me when you will. I

-shall wait for you.”

-

-“Fie!” said the Colonel. “That is no sentiment for a renegade. Heaven

-is the goal of this innocence, whom I save from your corruption.”

-

-They hung him from the branch of a chestnut tree, and lingered out his

-poor dying spasms. Pepino, after one burst of agony, stood apathetic

-until the scene was over. Then, with a shudder, correlative with the

-last of the dangling body’s, she seemed to come awake.

-

-“Well,” she said, “there goes a good fellow; but it is true he was a

-renegade.”

-

-The Colonel was delighted.

-

-“They have always a spurious attraction,” he said, “to the sex that is

-in sympathy with naughtiness in any form. But consider: false to one

-is false to all, and this was a bad form of treachery--though,” he

-added gallantly, “he certainly had his extreme temptation.”

-

-“The French killed his father,” she said indifferently.

-

-“The French,” he answered, “kill, of choice, with nothing but

-kindness. You, though a Spaniard, my pet, shall have ample proof if

-you will.”

-

-“I am to come with you?”

-

-“God’s name! There is to be no enforcement.”

-

-“Well, you have left me little choice. Already here they had looked

-upon us with suspicion, and, if I remained alone, would doubtless kill

-me. I do not want to die--not yet. What must be must. The king is

-dead, live the king!”

-

-He was enchanted with her vivacity. He took her up before him on his

-saddle, and chuckled listening to the feverish chatter with which she

-seemed to beguile herself from memory.

-

-“These jays have no yesterday,” he thought; and said aloud, “You are

-not Pepino? Now tell me.”

-

-“No, I am Pepa,” she said. “I am only a man in seeming. Alack! I think

-a man would not forget so easily.”

-

-“Some men,” he answered, and his hand tightened a little upon her.

-“Trust me, that dead rogue is already forgathering with his succuba.”

-

-By and by he asked her: “How far to Figueras?”

-

-“Twelve miles from where we started,” she answered.

-

-A thought struck him, and he smiled wickedly.

-

-“You will always bear in mind,” he said, “that the moment I become

-suspicious that you are directing us wide, or, worse, into a

-guet-apens, I shall snap off your little head at the neck, and roll it

-back to San Lorenzo.”

-

-“Have no fear,” she said quietly; “we are in the straight road for the

-town--or what used to be one.”

-

-“And no shelter by the way? I run ahead of my rascals, as you see. We

-must halt while they overtake us. Besides”--he leered horribly--“there

-is the question of the night.”

-

-“I know of no shelter,” she said, “but Our Lady of Refuge.”

-

-“An opportune title, at least. What is it?”

-

-“It is a hospital for the fallen--for such as the good Brotherhoods of

-Madrid send for rest and restoration to the sanctuary of the quiet

-pastures. The monks of Misericorde are the Brothers’ deputies

-there--sad, holy men, who hide their faces from the world. The house

-stands solitary on the plain; we shall see it in a little. They will

-give you shelter, though you are their country’s enemies. They make no

-distinctions.”

-

-De Regnac pulled at his moustache, frowning, pondering.

-

-“Where these monks forgather are fat kids and old Malaga--a tempting

-alternative to the munching of cold biscuit under the stars.

-But--_sacré chien!_ one may always take in more with the gravy than

-ever fell from the spit. What, then!”

-

-He jerked his feet peevishly in the stirrups, and growled--

-

-“Limping and footsore already come my cursed rabble--there you are,

-white-livered Tuscan sheep! The bark of a dog will scare them; they

-would fear a thousand bogies in the dark. It is certain I must wait

-for them, and bivouac somewhere here in the plains.”

-

-Indeed, the first of them came on as he spoke--a weary, stumbling body

-of laggards, trailing feet and muskets.

-

-“Halte-là!” he thundered; and the men came to a loose-kneed stand,

-while the corporals went round prodding and cursing them into a form

-of discipline. De Regnac grumbled--

-

-“Are we to have this cold grace to our loves? God’s name! my heart

-cries out for fire--fire within and without. These monks!”

-

-“Shall I slip before, and sound them? You may trust me, for a Spanish

-girl, who has learned how to coax her confessor.”

-

-“Ha! _You!_” He held her, biting his great lips. “What are you good

-for but deceit, rogue! No, no; we will go together.”

-

-He called his staff about him, and they went forward in a body.

-Presently, topping a longish slope, they saw, sprung out of the plain

-before them, a huddled grey building, glooming monstrous in the dusk.

-Its barred windows stared blindly; twin towers held the portico

-between them, as it were the lunette of a vast guillotine; a solitary

-lamp hung motionless in the entrance. Far away across the flats a

-light or two twinkled over ruined Figueras, like marsh-candles over a

-swamp. The place seemed lifeless desolation embodied--Death’s own

-monument in a desert. Gaiety in its atmosphere shivered into silence.

-

-But at length a captain rallied, with a laugh.

-

-“Peste!” he cried; “a churchyard refuge! Let us see if the dead walk!”

-

-He battered with his sword-hilt on the great door. It swung open, in

-staggering response, and revealed a solitary figure. Cowled, spectral,

-gigantic--holding, motionless, a torch that wept fire--the shape stood

-without a word. It was muffled from crown to heel in coarse frieze;

-the eyelets in its woollen vizor were like holes scorched through by

-the burning gaze behind--the very rims of them appeared to smoulder.

-Laville, the captain, broke into an agitated laugh.

-

-“Mordieu, my friend, are the dead so lifeless?”

-

-“What do you seek?”

-

-The voice boomed, low and muffled, from the folds.

-

-“Rest and food,” answered Laville. “We are weary and famished. For the

-rest, we ask no question, and invite none.”

-

-“So they come in peace,” said the figure, “all are welcome here.”

-

-The Colonel pushed to the front, carrying his burden.

-

-“We come in peace,” he said--“strangers and travellers. We pay our

-way, and the better where our way is smoothed. Take that message to

-your Prior.”

-

-The figure withdrew, and returned in a little.

-

-“The answer is, Ye are welcome. For those who are officers, a repast

-will be served within an hour in the refectory; for the rest, what

-entertainment we can compass shall be provided in the outhouses. A

-room is placed at the disposal of your commander.”

-

-“It is well,” said de Regnac. “Now say, We invite your Prior to the

-feast himself provides, and his hand shall be first in the dish, and

-his lip to the cup; else, from our gallantry, do we go supperless.”

-

-Once more the figure withdrew and returned.

-

-“He accepts. You are to fear no outrage at his hands.”

-

-The Colonel exclaimed cynically, “Fie, fie! I protest you wrong our

-manners!”--and, giving some orders _sub voce_ for the precautionary

-disposal of his men, entered with his staff. They were ushered into a

-stone-cold hall, set deep in the heart of the building--a great

-windowless crypt, it seemed, whose glooms no warmth but that of tapers

-had ever penetrated. It was bare of all furniture save benches and a

-long trestle-table, and a few sacred pictures on the walls. While the

-rest waited there, de Regnac was invited to his quarters--a cell

-quarried still deeper into that hill of brick. No sound in all the

-place was audible to them as they went. He pushed Pepino before him.

-

-“This is my servant,” he said. “He will attend me, by your leave.”

-

-The girl made no least demur. She went even jocundly, turning now and

-again to him with her tongue in her cheek. He, for his part, was in a

-rapture of slyness; but he kept a reserve of precaution. They were

-escorted by the giant down a single dim corridor, into a decent

-habitable cell, fitted with chairs, a little stove, and a prie-Dieu;

-but the bed was abominably rocky. De Regnac made a wry face at it for

-his companion’s secret delectation.

-

-The ghostly monk, intimating that he would await outside the señor

-commandante’s toilet, that he might re-escort his charge to the

-refectory, closed the door upon the two. De Regnac cursed his

-officiousness, groaning; but Pepino reassured his impatience with a

-hundred drolleries. However, when the Colonel came out presently, he

-came out alone; and, moreover, turned the key in the door and pocketed

-it.

-

-“Merely a prudential measure,” he explained to his guide. “These

-gaillards are not to be trusted in strange houses. I will convey him

-his supper by and by with my own hands.”

-

-The figure neither answered nor seemed to hear. De Regnac, joining a

-rollicking company, dismissed him from his mind.

-

-And alone in the cell stood mad Pepino.

-

-But not for long. A trap opened in the floor, and from it sprouted,

-like a monstrous fungus, the head and shoulders of the giant monk.

-Massively, sombrely he arose, until the whole of his great bulk was

-emerged and standing in a burning scrutiny of the prisoner. A minute

-passed. Then, “Whence comest thou, Pepa Manoele? With whom, and for

-what purpose?” said the voice behind the folds.

-

-His question seemed to snap in an instant the garrotte about her

-brain. She flung herself on her knees before him with a lamentable

-cry--

-

-“They have killed my Luc, brother--my Luc, who took me from your wards

-of mercy, sins and all. They have killed my sweet singing cricket, my

-merry, merry cricket, that had no guile in all its roguish heart. They

-put their heel upon him in the path--what are songs to them!--and left

-my summer desolate. If I weep one moment, I know that blood will scald

-my cheeks and drain my heart, and I shall die before I act. O,

-brother! keep back my tears a little. Show me what to do!”

-

-She clutched in agony at his robe.

-

-“Come,” he said; “the way is clear.”

-

- * * * * *

-

-The feast was served to the tick of the hour by lay brothers, another

-blank-envisaged form directing them. The tables smoked with cheer, and

-de Regnac rubbed his hands. There were the joints of fat kid and the

-flagons of old Malaga--salmis of quail, too; truffled sausages;

-herrings with mustard sauce, things of strong flavour meet for

-warriors. The steam itself was an invitation--the smell, the sparkle.

-Only one thing lacked--the Prior’s grace. De Regnac, bestial always,

-but most like a tiger in the view of unattainable meats, crowded the

-interval with maledictions and curses. His courtesy stopped anywhere

-on the threshold of his appetites. Baulked of his banquet, he would be

-ready to make a holocaust of the whole hospital. Yet he dared not be

-the first to put his fingers in the dish.

-

-“Where is our host?” he growled. “Doth he fear the test--or death--a

-coward faint with indecision?”

-

-Even with the word, he found him at his elbow--an old, dry pipe of a

-man, wheezing thin air. The father’s face under its dropping cowl (no

-doubt his lungs were too crazy for the vizor) showed stark with rime;

-his forehead was streaked with it; his eyes were half-thawed pools. He

-spoke. Hoarse and feeble, his voice seemed to crow from the attics of

-a ruined tenement, high up among the winds.

-

-“Fall to, soldiers, fall to! There is no grace like honest appetite.

-Fall to! And they tell me ye have travelled far to claim our

-hospitality. Fall to!”

-

-De Regnac smacked his shoulder boisterously, so that he staggered.

-

-“Not till you have blessed our meal for us, old father.”

-

-The Prior raised his trembling hands. The other caught at them.

-

-“Not that way. We ask the taster’s grace. It was a bargain.”

-

-“Be seated, señor,” said the old man, with dignity. “I do not forget

-my obligations.”

-

-He went round, bent and stiffly, taking a shred from each dish, a

-sippet dipped in the gravy.

-

-“Bella premunt hostilia,” he expostulated. “Intestine wars invade our

-breast. What a task for our old digestion!”

-

-His roguery pleased and reassured his company. They attacked the

-viands with a will. He never ceased to encourage them, going about the

-board with garrulous cheer.

-

-“And ye come over the hills?” said he. “A hungry journey and a

-dangerous. It was the mountains, and the spirits of the mountains,

-that were alone invincible when the Moorish dogs overran all

-Spain--all but the mountains. The heathen crests were lowered

-there--rolled back in a bloody foam. Dear God! I’m old.”

-

-“Not so ancient, father,” cried de Regnac, “but that good liquor will

-revitalize you. There remains the wine.”

-

-“Ah me!” sighed the Prior; “must I?”

-

-They swore him to the toast by every bond of honour. Their throats

-were ragged with drought.

-

-“Well, well,” he said. “I’ll first dismiss these witnesses to their

-father’s shame. I’ll be no Noah to my children.”

-

-He drove the servitors, with feeble playfulness, into the passage;

-pursued them a pace or two. In a moment he was back alone, his cowl

-pulled about his face.

-

-“Give me the draught,” he said hoarsely, “nor look ye upon the old

-man’s abasement. I am soon to answer for my frailties.”

-

-Cheering and bantering, they mixed him a cup from every flagon, and

-put it into his hand, which gripped it through the cloth. He turned

-his back on them, and took the liquor down by slow degrees, chuckling

-and gasping and protesting. Then, still coughing, he handed the cup,

-backwards, to the nearest.

-

-“Bumpers, all!” roared de Regnac. “We toast old Noah for our king of

-hosts!”

-

-Even as he drank, as they all drank, thirsty and uproarious, the great

-door of the refectory clanged to, and the Prior spun with a scream to

-the floor. De Regnac’s cup fell from his hand; a dead silence

-succeeded.

-

-Suddenly the Colonel was on his feet, ghastly and terrible.

-

-“Something foul!” he whispered; “something foul!”

-

-Staggering, he swerved out, and drove with all his weight against the

-door. It had been locked and bolted upon them. Not a massive panel

-creaked. They were entombed!

-

-Hush!

-

-Solemn, low, mystic, arose without the chaunt of voices in unison--the

-prayers for one sick unto death: “Receive, O Lord, the sacrifice we

-offer for thy servant, who is near the end of her life.”

-

-With a scream, de Regnac threw himself towards the body on the floor,

-and lifted it with huge strength in his arms. As he did so, the cowl

-fell away, and revealed the face of Pepino. The shadow of death was

-already fallen on it; but she spoke, and with a smile.

-

-“When he pursued them, I was waiting and took his place. Curse him

-not. He observed the letter. ’Twas I poisoned the wine. Take back thy

-wages, dog! O, I go to find my Luc--if thou darest follow me!”

-

-He roared out--a spasm took his throat. He tried to crush her in his

-arms. They relaxed in the effort. Howling, he dropped her, and fell

-beside in a heap.

-

-Then, from out a mortal paralysis, arose sobbing and wailing at the

-table. Some seized salt, some the wet mustard from the fish, and

-swallowed it by handfuls. Others ran hither and thither aimlessly,

-screeching, blaspheming, beating the walls, the obdurate door. There

-was a regimental doctor among them; he was the first dead. None found

-help or hope in that ghastly trap. The venom had been swift, gripping,

-ineradicable. Within half an hour it was all a silent company, and the

-Miserere long had ceased.

-

-Somewhere in a book I read of a tale like this, which was headed

-“Patriotic Fanaticism.” Those were certainly the deadly days of

-retaliation; but in this case Love, as always, was the principal

-fanatic.

-

-

-

-

- THE GHOST-LEECH

-

-Kelvin, not I, is responsible for this story, which he told me

-sitting smoking by his study window.

-

-It was a squalid night, I remember, wet and fretful--the sort of night

-which seems to sojourners in the deep country (as we then were) to

-bring rumours of plashy pavements, and the roar of rain-sodden

-traffic, and the wailing and blaspheming of women lost and crying out

-of a great darkness. No knowledge of our rural isolation could allay

-this haunting impression in my mind that night. I felt ill at ease,

-and, for some reason, out of suits with life. It mattered nothing that

-a belt of wild woodland separated us from the country station five

-miles away. That, after all, by the noises in it, might have been a

-very causeway, by which innumerable spectres were hurrying home from

-their business in the distant cities. The dark clouds, as long as we

-could see them labouring from the south, appeared freighted with the

-very burden of congregated dreariness. They glided up, like vast

-electric tramcars, and seemed to pause overhead, as if to discharge

-into the sanctuary of our quiet pastures their loads of aggressive

-vulgarity. My nerves were all jangled into disorder, I fear, and

-inclining me to imaginative hyperbole.

-

-Kelvin, for his part, was very quiet. He was a conundrum, that man.

-Once the keenest of sportsmen, he was now for years become an almost

-sentimental humanitarian--and illogical, of necessity. He would not

-consent to kill under any circumstances--wilfully, that is to say; but

-he enjoyed his mutton with the best of us. However, I am not

-quarrelling with his point of view. He, for one--by his own admission,

-anyhow--owed a life to “the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,” and

-he would not, from the date of his debt, cross her prerogatives. The

-same occasion, it appeared, had opened in him an unstanchable vein of

-superstition, which was wont to gush--bloodily, I might say--in

-depressing seasons of the mind. It provoked me, on the evening of the

-present anecdote, to a sort of peevish protest.

-

-“Why the devil,” I said, “are spectral manifestations--at least,

-according to you fellows--everlastingly morbid and ugly? Are there no

-gentle disembodied things, who, of their love and pity, would be

-rather more anxious than the wicked, one would think, to communicate

-with their survivors?”

-

-“Of course,” said Kelvin; “but their brief sweet little reassurances

-pass unnoticed. Their forms are insignificant, their voices

-inarticulate; they can only appeal by symbol, desperately clinging to

-the earth the while. On the other hand, the world tethers its

-worldlings by the foot, so that they cannot take flight when they

-will. There remains, so to speak, too much earth in their composition,

-and it keeps ’em subject to the laws of gravitation.”

-

-I laughed; then shrugged impatiently.

-

-“What a rasping night it is! The devil take that moth!”

-

-The window was shut, and the persistent whirring and tapping of a big

-white insect on the glass outside jarred irritably on my nerves.

-

-“Let it in, for goodness’ sake,” I said, “if it _will_ insist on

-making a holocaust of itself!”

-

-Kelvin had looked up when I first spoke. Now he rose, with shining

-eyes, and a curious little sigh of the sort that one vents on the

-receipt of wonderful news coming out of suspense.

-

-“Yes, I’ll open the window,” he said low; and with the word threw up

-the casement. The moth whizzed in, whizzed round, and settled on his

-hand. He lifted it, with an odd set smile, into the intimate range of

-his vision, and scrutinized it intently. Suddenly and quickly, then,

-as if satisfied about something, he held it away from him.

-

-“_Ite missa est!_” he murmured, quoting some words of the Mass (he was

-a Catholic); and the moth fluttered and rose. Now, you may believe it

-or not; but there was a fire burning on the hearth, and straight for

-that fire went the moth, and seemed to go up with the smoke into the

-chimney. I was so astonished that I gasped; but Kelvin appeared

-serenely unconcerned as he faced round on me.

-

-“Well,” I exploded, “if a man mayn’t kill, he may persuade to suicide,

-it seems.”

-

-He answered good-humouredly, “All right; but it wasn’t suicide.”

-

-Then he resumed his seat by me, and relighted his pipe. I sat

-stolidly, with an indefinable feeling of grievance, and said nothing.

-But the silence soon grew unbearable.

-

-“Kelvin,” I said, suddenly and viciously; “what the deuce do you

-mean?”

-

-“You wouldn’t believe,” he answered, at once and cheerily, “even if I

-told you.”

-

-“Told me what?”

-

-“Well, this. There was the soul of little Patsy that went up in the

-smoke.”

-

-“The village child you are so attached to?”

-

-“Yes; and who has lain dying these weeks past.”

-

-“Why should it come to you?”

-

-“It was a compact between us--if she were summoned, in a moment,

-without time for a good-bye. We were close friends.”

-

-“Kelvin--excuse me--you are getting to be impossible.”

-

-“All right. Look at your watch. Time was made for unbelievers. There’s

-no convincing a sceptic but by foot-rule. Look at your watch.”

-

-“I did, I confess--covertly--in the instant of distraction caused by

-Kelvin’s little son, who came to bid his father good night. He was a

-quiet, winning little fellow, glowing with health and beauty.

-

-“Good night, Bobo,” said Kelvin, kissing the child fondly. “Ask God to

-make little Patsy’s bed comfy, before you get into your own.”

-

-I kissed the boy also; but awkwardly, for some reason, under his frank

-courteousness. After he was gone, I sank back in my chair and said,

-grudging the concession--

-

-“Very well. It’s half-past eight.”

-

-Kelvin nodded, and said nothing more for a long time. Then, all of a

-sudden, he broke out--

-

-“I usen’t to believe in such things myself, once upon a time; but Bobo

-converted me. Would you like to hear the story?”

-

-“O, yes!” I said, tolerantly superior. “Fire away!”

-

-He laughed, filling his pipe--the laugh of a man too surely

-self-convinced to regard criticism of his faith.

-

-“Patsy,” he said, “had no Ghost-Leech to touch her well. Poor little

-Patsy! But she’s better among the flowers.”

-

-“Of Paradise, I suppose you mean? Well, if she is, she is,” I said, as

-if I were deprecating the inevitably undesirable. “But what is a

-Ghost-Leech?”

-

-“A Ghost-Leech,” he said--“the sort, anyhow, that I’ve knowledge

-of--is one who has served seven years goal-keeper in the

-hurling-matches of the dead.”

-

-I stared at him. Was he really going, or gone, off his head? He

-laughed again, waving his hand to reassure me.

-

-“You may accept my proof or not. Anyhow, Bobo’s recovery was proof

-enough for me. A sense of humour, I admit, is outside our conception

-of the disembodied. We lay down laughter with life, don’t we? You’d

-count it heresy to believe otherwise. Yet have you ever considered how

-man’s one great distinctive faculty must be admitted into all evidence

-of his deeds upon earth, as minuted by the recording angel? It must be

-admitted, of course, and appreciatively by the final assessor. How

-could he judge laughter who had never laughed? The cachinnatory nerve

-is touched off from across the Styx--wireless telegraphy; and man will

-laugh still, though he be damned.”

-

-“Kelvin! my good soul!”

-

-“The dead, I tell you, do not put off their sense of humour with their

-flesh. They laugh beyond the grave. They are full of a sense of fun,

-and not necessarily the most transcendent.”

-

-“No, indeed, by all the testimony of spiritualism.”

-

-“Well; now listen. I was staying once in a village on the west coast

-of Ireland. The people of my hamlet were at deadly traditional feud

-with the people of a neighbouring hamlet. Traditional, I say, because

-the vendetta (it almost amounted to one) derived from the old days of

-rivalry between them in the ancient game of hurling, which was a sort

-of primitive violent “rugger” played with a wooden ball. The game

-itself was long fallen into disuse in the district, and had been

-supplanted, even in times out of memory, by sports of a gentler, more

-modern cast. But it, and the feud it had occasioned, were still

-continued unabated beyond the grave. How do I know this? Why, on the

-evidence of my Ghost-Leech.

-

-“He was a strange, moody, solitary man, pitied, though secretly

-dreaded, by his neighbours. They might have credited him with

-possession--particularly with a bad local form of possession; to

-suspect it was enough in itself to keep their mouths shut from

-questioning him, or their ears from inviting confession of his

-sufferings. For, so their surmise were correct, and he in the grip of

-the hurlers, a word wrung from him out of season would have brought

-the whole village under the curse of its dead.”

-

-I broke in here. “Kelvin, for the Lord’s sake! you are too cimmerian.

-Titillate your glooms with a touch of that spiritual laughter.”

-

-Agreeably to my banter, he smiled.

-

-“There’s fun in it,” he said; “only it’s rather ghastly fun. What do

-you say to the rival teams meeting in one or other of the village

-graveyards, and whacking a skull about with long shank-bones?”

-

-“I should say, It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Anything turning

-upon a more esoteric psychology would. What pitiful imaginations you

-Christmas-number seers are possessed of!”

-

-“I dare say. But I’m not imagining. It’s you practical souls that

-imagine--that common sense, for instance, is reason; that the top-hat

-is the divinely-inspired shibboleth of the chosen; and so on. But you

-don’t disappoint me. Shall I go on?”

-

-“O, yes! go on.”

-

-“The hurlers meet under the full moon, they say, in one or other of

-the rival graveyards; _but they must have a living bachelor out of

-each parish to keep goal for them_.”

-

-“I see! ‘They say’? I see!”

-

-“The doom of the poor wretch thus chosen is, as you may suppose, an

-appalling one. He must go, or suffer terrors damning out of reason.

-There is no power on earth can save him. One night he is sitting,

-perhaps, in his cabin at any peaceful work. The moor, mystic under the

-moonlight, stretches from miles away up to his walls, surrounding and

-isolating them. His little home is an ark, anchored amid a waste and

-silent sea of flowers. Suddenly the latch clinks up, advances, falls.

-The night air breathing in passes a presence standing in the opening,

-and quivers and dies. Stealthily the door gapes, ever so little, ever

-so softly, and a face, like the gliding rim of the moon, creeps round

-its edge. It is the face, he recognizes appalled, of one long dead.

-The eyeplaces are black hollows; but there is a movement in them like

-the glint of water in a deep well. A hand lifts and beckons. The

-goal-keeper is chosen, and must go. For seven years, it is said, he

-must serve the hurling-matches of the dead.”

-

-“State it for a fact. Don’t hedge on report.”

-

-“I don’t. This man served his time. If he hadn’t, Bobo wouldn’t be

-here.”

-

-“O? Poor Bobo!”

-

-“This man, I say, survived the ghastly ordeal--one case out of a dozen

-that succumb. Then he got his fee.”

-

-“O, a fee! What was that? A Rachel of the bogs?”

-

-“The power to cure by touch any human sickness, even the most humanly

-baffling.”

-

-“Really a royal reward. It’s easy to see a fortune in it.”

-

-“He would have been welcome to mine; but he would take nothing. He

-made my little boy whole again.”

-

-“Kelvin! I dare say I’m a brute. What had been the matter with him?”

-

-“Ah, what! He simply moaned and wasted--moaned eternally. Atrophy;

-meningitis; cachexy--they gave it a dozen names, but not a single

-cure. He was dying under slow torture--a heavy sight for a father.

-

-“One day an old Shaman of the moors called upon me. He was ancient,

-ancient--as dry as his staff, and so bent that, a little more, and he

-had tripped over his long beard in walking. I can’t reproduce his

-brogue; but this is the substance of what it conveyed to me:--

-

-“Had I ever heard speak of Baruch of the lone shebeen--him that had

-once kept an illicit still, but that the ghosts had got hold of for

-his sins? No? Well, he, the Shaman, was come too near the end of his

-own living tether to fear ghoulish reprisals if he told me. And he

-told me.

-

-“Baruch, he said, was suspected in the village of keeping the dead’s

-hurling-goal--had long been suspected--it was an old tale by now. But,

-och, wirrastrue! if, as he calculated, Baruch was nearing the close of

-his seven years’ service, Baruch was the man for me, and could do for

-my child what no other living man, barring a ghosts’ goal-keeper,

-could do likewise.

-

-“I humoured him when he was present; laughed at him when he was gone;

-but--I went to see Baruch. It’s all right: you aren’t a father.”

-

-“You went to see Baruch. Go on.”

-

-“He lived remote in such a little cabin as I have described. Lord!

-what a thing it was!--a living trophy of damnation--a statue

-inhabiting the human vestment! His face was young enough; but sorrow

-stricken into stone--unearthly suffering carved out of a block. It is

-astonishing what expression can be conveyed without a line. There was

-not a wrinkle in Baruch’s face.

-

-“All scepticism withered in me at the sight--all the desperate

-effrontery with which I had intended to challenge his gift. I asked

-him simply if he would cure my child.

-

-“He answered, in a voice as hoarse and feeble as an old man’s, but

-with a queer little promise of joy in it, like a sound of unborn rain,

-‘Asthore! for this I’ve lived me lone among the peats, and bid me

-time, and suffered what I know. In a good hour be it spoken! Wance

-more, and come again when the moon has passed its full.’

-

-“I went, without another question, or the thought of one. That was a

-bad week for me--a mortal struggle for the child. The dead kept

-pulling him to draw him down; but he fought and held on, the little

-plucked one. On the day following the night of full moon, I carried

-him in my arms to the cabin--myself, all the way. I wouldn’t let on to

-a soul; I went roundabout, and I got to Baruch unnoticed. I knew it

-was kill or cure for Bobo. He couldn’t have survived another night.

-

-“I tell you, it was a laughing spirit that greeted me. Have you ever

-seen Doré’s picture of the ‘Wandering Jew,’ at the end of his

-journey, having his boots pulled off? There is the same release

-depicted, the same sweet comedy of redemption--the same figure of fun,

-if you like, that Baruch presented.

-

-“He put his hands on Bobo’s head, and----”

-

-“Well?”

-

-“Bobo walked home with me, that’s all.”

-

-Kelvin got up from his chair to relight his pipe at the fire. As he

-moved, the door of the room opened, and a decent woman, his

-housekeeper, stood, with a grave face, in the entrance.

-

-“Patsy’s dead?” said Kelvin.

-

-“Ah, the poor mite!” answered the woman, with a burst of tears. “She

-passed but now, sir, at half after eight, in her little bed.”

-

-

-

-

- POOR LUCY RIVERS

-

-The following story was told to a friend--with leave, conditionally,

-to make it public--by a well-known physician who died last year.

-

-

-I was in Paul’s type-writing exchange (says the professional

-narrator), seeing about some circulars I required, when a young lady

-came in bearing a box, the weight of which seemed to tax her strength

-severely. She was a very personable young woman, though looking ill, I

-fancied--in short, with those diathetic symptoms which point to a

-condition of hysteria. The manager, who had been engaged elsewhere,

-making towards me at the moment, I intimated to him that he should

-attend to the new-comer first. He turned to her.

-

-“Now, madam?” said he.

-

-“I bought this machine second-hand of you last week,” she began, after

-a little hesitation. He admitted his memory of the fact. “I want to

-know,” she said, “if you’ll change it for another.”

-

-“Is there anything wrong with it, then?” he asked.

-

-“Yes,” she said; “No!” she said; “Everything!” she said, in a

-crescendo of spasms, looking as if she were about to cry. The manager

-shrugged his shoulders.

-

-“Very reprehensible of us,” said he; “and hardly our way. It is not

-customary; but, of course--if it doesn’t suit--to give

-satisfaction----” he cleared his throat.

-

-“I don’t want to be unfair,” said the young woman. “It doesn’t suit

-_me_. It might another person.”

-

-He had lifted, while speaking, its case off the type-writer, and now,

-placing the machine on a desk, inserted a sheet or two of paper, and

-ran his fingers deftly over the keys.

-

-“Really, madam,” said he, removing and examining the slip, “I can

-detect nothing wrong.”

-

-“I said--perhaps--only as regards myself.”

-

-She was hanging her head, and spoke very low.

-

-“But!” said he, and stopped--and could only add the emphasis of

-another deprecatory shrug.

-

-“Will you do me the favour, madam, to try it in my presence?”

-

-“No,” she murmured; “please don’t ask me. I’d really rather not.”

-Again the suggestion of strain--of suffering.

-

-“At least,” said he, “oblige me by looking at this.”

-

-He held before her the few lines he had typed. She had averted her

-head during the minute he had been at work; and it was now with

-evident reluctance, and some force put upon herself, that she

-acquiesced. But the moment she raised her eyes, her face brightened

-with a distinct expression of relief.

-

-“Yes,” she said; “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sure it’s

-all my fault. But--but, if you don’t mind. So much depends on it.”

-

-Well, the girl was pretty; the manager was human. There were a dozen

-young women, of a more or less pert type, at work in the front office.

-I dare say he had qualified in the illogic of feminine moods. At any

-rate, the visitor walked off in a little with a machine presumably

-another than that she had brought.

-

-“Professional?” I asked, to the manager’s resigned smile addressed to

-me.

-

-“So to speak,” said he. “She’s one of the ‘augment her income’ class.

-I fancy it’s little enough without. She’s done an occasional job for

-us. We’ve got her card somewhere.”

-

-“Can you find it?”

-

-He could find it, though he was evidently surprised at the

-request--scarce reasonably, I think, seeing how he himself had just

-given me an instance of that male inclination to the attractive, which

-is so calculated to impress woman in general with the injustice of our

-claims to impartiality.

-

-With the piece of pasteboard in my hand, I walked off then and there

-to commission “Miss Phillida Gray” with the job I had intended for

-Paul’s. Psychologically, I suppose, the case interested me. Here was a

-young person who seemed, for no _practical_ reason, to have quarrelled

-with her unexceptionable means to a livelihood.

-

-It raised more than one question; the incompleteness of woman as a

-wage earner, so long as she was emancipated from all but her

-fancifulness; the possibility of the spontaneous generation of

-soul--the _divina particula auræ_--in man-made mechanisms, in the

-construction of which their makers had invested their whole of mental

-capital. Frankenstein loathed the abortion of his genius. Who shall

-say that the soul of the inventor may not speak antipathetically,

-through the instrument which records it, to that soul’s natural

-antagonist? Locomotives have moods, as any engine-driver will tell

-you; and any shaver, that his razor, after maltreating in some fit of

-perversity one side of his face, will repent, and caress the other as

-gently as any sucking-dove.

-

-I laughed at this point of my reflections. Had Miss Gray’s

-type-writer, embodying the soul of a blasphemer, taken to swearing at

-her?

-

-It was a bitterly cold day. Snow, which had fallen heavily in

-November, was yet lying compact and unthawed in January. One had the

-novel experience in London of passing between piled ramparts of it.

-Traffic for some two months had been at a discount; and walking, for

-one of my years, was still so perilous a business that I was long in

-getting to Miss Gray’s door.

-

-She lived West Kensington way, in a “converted flat,” whose title,

-like that of a familiar type of Christian exhibited on platforms, did

-not convince of anything but a sort of paying opportunism. That is to

-say, at the cost of some internal match-boarding, roughly fitted and

-stained, an unlettable private residence, of the estimated yearly

-rental of forty pounds, had been divided into two “sets” at

-thirty-five apiece--whereby fashion, let us hope, profited as greatly

-as the landlord.

-

-Miss Gray inhabited the upper section, the door to which was opened by

-a little Cockney drab, very smutty, and smelling of gas stoves.

-

-“Yes, she was in.” (For all her burden, “Phillida,” with her young

-limbs, had outstripped me.) “Would I please to walk up?”

-

-It was the dismallest room I was shown into--really the most

-unattractive setting for the personable little body I had seen. She

-was not there at the moment, so that I could take stock without

-rudeness. The one curtainless window stared, under a lid of fog, at

-the factory-like rear of houses in the next street. Within was scarce

-an evidence of dainty feminine occupation. It was all an illustration

-of the empty larder and the wolf at the door. How long would the bolt

-withstand him? The very walls, it seemed, had been stripped for sops

-to his ravening--stripped so nervously, so hurriedly, that ribbons of

-paper had been flayed here and there from the plaster. The ceiling was

-falling; the common grate cold; there was a rag of old carpet on the

-floor--a dreary, deadly place! The type-writer--the new one--laid upon

-a little table placed ready for its use, was, in its varnished case,

-the one prominent object, quite healthy by contrast. How would the

-wolf moan and scratch to hear it desperately busy, with click and

-clang, building up its paper rampart against his besieging!

-

-I had fallen of a sudden so depressed, into a spirit of such

-premonitory haunting, that for a moment I almost thought I could hear

-the brute of my own fancy snuffling outside. Surely there was

-something breathing, rustling near me--something----

-

-I grunted, shook myself, and walked to the mantelpiece. There was

-nothing to remark on it but a copy of some verses on a sheet of

-notepaper; but the printed address at the top, and the signature at

-the foot of this, immediately caught my attention. I trust, under the

-circumstances (there was a coincidence here), that it was not

-dishonest, but I took out my glasses, and read those verses--or, to be

-strictly accurate, the gallant opening quartrain--with a laudable

-coolness. But inasmuch as the matter of the second and third stanzas,

-which I had an opportunity of perusing later, bears upon one aspect of

-my story, I may as well quote the whole poem here for what it is

-worth.

-

-

- Phyllis, I cannot woo in rhyme,

-  As courtlier gallants woo,

- With utterances sweet as thyme

-  And melting as the dew.

-

- An arm to serve; true eyes to see;

-  Honour surpassing love;

- These, for all song, my vouchers be,

-  Dear love, so thou’lt them prove.

-

- Bid me--and though the rhyming art

-  I may not thee contrive--

- I’ll print upon thy lips, sweetheart,

-  A poem that shall live.

-

-

-It may have been derivative; it seemed to me, when I came to read the

-complete copy, passable. At the first, even, I was certainly conscious

-of a thrill of secret gratification. But, as I said, I had mastered no

-more than the first four lines, when a rustle at the door informed me

-that I was detected.

-

-She started, I could see, as I turned round. I was not at the trouble

-of apologizing for my inquisitiveness.

-

-“Yes,” I said; “I saw you at Paul’s Exchange, got your address, and

-came on here. I want some circulars typed. No doubt you will undertake

-the job?”

-

-I was conning her narrowly while I spoke. It was obviously a case of

-neurasthenia--the tendril shooting in the sunless vault. But she had

-more spirit than I calculated on. She just walked across to the empty

-fireplace, collared those verses, and put them into her pocket. I

-rather admired her for it.

-

-“Yes, with pleasure,” she said, sweetening the rebuke with a blush,

-and stultifying it by affecting to look on the mantelpiece for a card,

-which eventually she produced from another place. “These are my

-terms.”

-

-“Thank you,” I replied. “What do you say to a contra account--you to

-do my work, and I to set my professional attendance against it? I am a

-doctor.”

-

-She looked at me mute and amazed.

-

-“But there is nothing the matter with me,” she murmured, and broke

-into a nervous smile.

-

-“O, I beg your pardon!” I said. “Then it was only your instrument

-which was out of sorts?”

-

-Her face fell at once.

-

-“You heard me--of course,” she said. “Yes, I--it was out of sorts, as

-you say. One gets fancies, perhaps, living alone, and typing--typing.”

-

-I thought of the discordant clack going on hour by hour--the dead

-words of others made brassily vociferous, until one’s own

-individuality would become merged in the infernal harmonics.

-

-“And so,” I said, “like the dog’s master in the fable, you quarrelled

-with an old servant.”

-

-“O, no!” she answered. “I had only had it for a week--since I came

-here.”

-

-“You have only been here a week?”

-

-“Little more,” she replied. “I had to move from my old rooms. It is

-very kind of you to take such an interest in me. Will you tell me what

-I can do for you?”

-

-My instructions were soon given. The morrow would see them attended

-to. No, she need not send the copies on. I would myself call for them

-in the afternoon.

-

-“I hope _this_ machine will be more to the purpose,” I said.

-

-“_I_ hope so, too,” she answered.

-

-“Well, she seems a lady,” I thought, as I walked home; “a little

-anæmic flower of gentility.” But sentiment was not to the point.

-

-That evening, “over the walnuts and the wine,” I tackled Master Jack,

-my second son. He was a promising youth; was reading for the Bar, and,

-for all I knew, might have contributed to the “Gownsman.”

-

-“Jack,” I said, when we were alone, “I never knew till to-day that you

-considered yourself a poet.”

-

-He looked at me coolly and inquiringly, but said nothing.

-

-“Do you consider yourself a marrying man, too?” I asked.

-

-He shook his head, with a little amazed smile.

-

-“Then what the devil do you mean by addressing a copy of love verses

-to Miss Phillida Gray?”

-

-He was on his feet in a moment, as pale as death.

-

-“If you were not my father”--he began.

-

-“But I am, my boy,” I answered, “and an indulgent one, I think you’ll

-grant.”

-

-He turned, and stalked out of the room; returned in a minute, and

-flung down a duplicate draft of _the_ poem on the table before me. I

-put down the crackers, took up the paper, and finished my reading of

-it.

-

-“Jack,” I said, “I beg your pardon. It does credit to your heart--you

-understand the emphasis? You are a young gentleman of some prospects.

-Miss Gray is a young lady of none.”

-

-He hesitated a moment; then flung himself on his knees before me. He

-was only a great boy.

-

-“Dad,” he said; “dear old Dad; you’ve seen them--you’ve seen her?”

-

-I admitted the facts. “But that is not at all an answer to me,” I

-said.

-

-“Where is she?” he entreated, pawing me.

-

-“You don’t know?”

-

-“Not from Adam. I drove her hard, and she ran away from me. She said

-she would, if I insisted--not to kill those same prospects of mine. My

-prospects! Good God! What are they without her? She left her old

-rooms, and no address. How did you get to see her--and my stuff?”

-

-I could satisfy him on these points.

-

-“But it’s true,” he said; “and--and I’m in love, Dad--Dad, I’m in

-love.”

-

-He leaned his arms on the table, and his head on his arms.

-

-“Well,” I said, “how did _you_ get to know her?”

-

-“Business,” he muttered, “pure business. I just answered her

-advertisement--took her some of my twaddle. She’s an orphan--daughter

-of a Captain Gray, navy man; and--and she’s an angel.”

-

-“I hope he is,” I answered. “But anyhow, that settles it. There’s no

-marrying and giving in marriage in heaven.”

-

-He looked up.

-

-“You don’t mean it? No! you dearest and most indulgent of old Dads!

-Tell me where she is.”

-

-I rose.

-

-“I may be all that; but I’m not such a fool. I shall see her

-to-morrow. Give me till after then.”

-

-“O, you perfect saint!”

-

-“I promise absolutely nothing.”

-

-“I don’t want you to. I leave you to her. She could beguile a Saint

-Anthony.”

-

-“Hey!”

-

-“I mean as a Christian woman should.”

-

-“O! that explains it.”

-

-The following afternoon I went to West Kensington. The little drab was

-snuffling when she opened the door. She had a little hat on her head.

-

-“Missus wasn’t well,” she said; “and she hadn’t liked to leave her,

-though by rights she was only engaged for an hour or two in the day.”

-

-“Well,” I said, “I’m a doctor, and will attend to her. You can go.”

-

-She gladly shut me in and herself out. The clang of the door echoed up

-the narrow staircase, and was succeeded, as if it had started it, by

-the quick toing and froing of a footfall in the room above. There was

-something inexpressibly ghostly in the sound, in the reeling dusk

-which transmitted it.

-

-I perceived, the moment I set eyes on the girl, that there was

-something seriously wrong with her. Her face was white as wax, and

-quivered with an incessant horror of laughter. She tried to rally, to

-greet me, but broke down at the first attempt, and stood as mute as

-stone.

-

-I thank my God I can be a sympathetic without being a fanciful man. I

-went to her at once, and imprisoned her icy hands in the human

-strength of my own.

-

-“What is it? Have you the papers ready for me?”

-

-She shook her head, and spoke only after a second effort.

-

-“I am very sorry.”

-

-“You haven’t done them, then? Never mind. But why not? Didn’t the new

-machine suit either?”

-

-I felt her hands twitch in mine. She made another movement of dissent.

-

-“That’s odd,” I said. “It looks as if it wasn’t the fault of the

-tools, but of the workwoman.”

-

-All in a moment she was clinging to me convulsively, and crying--

-

-“You are a doctor--you’ll understand--don’t leave me alone--don’t let

-me stop here!”

-

-“Now listen,” I said; “listen, and control yourself. Do you hear? I

-have come _prepared_ to take you away. I’ll explain why presently.”

-

-“I thought at first it was my fault,” she wept distressfully,

-“working, perhaps, until I grew light-headed” (Ah, hunger and

-loneliness and that grinding labour!); “but when I was sure of myself,

-still it went on, and I could not do my tasks to earn money. Then I

-thought--how can God let such things be!--that the instrument itself

-must be haunted. It took to going at night; and in the morning”--she

-gripped my hands--“I burnt them. I tried to think I had done it myself

-in my sleep, and I always burnt them. But it didn’t stop, and at last

-I made up my mind to take it back and ask for another--another--you

-remember?”

-

-She pressed closer to me, and looked fearfully over her shoulder.

-

-“It does the same,” she whispered, gulping. “It wasn’t the machine at

-all. It’s the place--itself--that’s haunted.”

-

-I confess a tremor ran through me. The room was dusking--hugging

-itself into secrecy over its own sordid details. Out near the window,

-the type-writer, like a watchful sentient thing, seemed grinning at us

-with all its ivory teeth. She had carried it there, that it might be

-as far from herself as possible.

-

-“First let me light the gas,” I said, gently but resolutely detaching

-her hands.

-

-“There is none,” she murmured.

-

-None. It was beyond her means. This poor creature kept her deadly

-vigils with a couple of candles. I lit them--they served but to make

-the gloom more visible--and went to pull down the blind.

-

-“O, take care of it!” she whispered fearfully, meaning the

-type-writer. “It is awful to shut out the daylight so soon.”

-

-God in heaven, what she must have suffered! But I admitted nothing,

-and took her determinedly in hand.

-

-“Now,” I said, returning to her, “tell me plainly and distinctly what

-it is that the machine does.”

-

-She did not answer. I repeated my question.

-

-“It writes things,” she muttered--“things that don’t come from me. Day

-and night it’s the same. The words on the paper aren’t the words that

-come from my fingers.”

-

-“But that is impossible, you know.”

-

-“So _I_ should have thought once. Perhaps--what is it to be possessed?

-There was another type-writer--another girl--lived in these rooms

-before me.”

-

-“Indeed! And what became of her?”

-

-“She disappeared mysteriously--no one knows why or where. Maria, my

-little maid, told me about her. Her name was Lucy Rivers, and--she

-just disappeared. The landlord advertised her effects, to be claimed,

-or sold to pay the rent; and that was done, and she made no sign. It

-was about two months ago.”

-

-“Well, will you now practically demonstrate to me this reprehensible

-eccentricity on the part of your instrument?”

-

-“Don’t ask me. I don’t dare.”

-

-“I would do it myself; but of course you will understand that a more

-satisfactory conclusion would be come to by my watching your fingers.

-Make an effort--you needn’t even look at the result--and I will take

-you away immediately after.”

-

-“You are very good,” she answered pathetically; “but I don’t know that

-I ought to accept. Where to, please? And--and I don’t even know your

-name.”

-

-“Well, I have my own reasons for withholding it.”

-

-“It is all so horrible,” she said; “and I am in your hands.”

-

-“They are waiting to transfer you to mamma’s,” said I.

-

-The name seemed an instant inspiration and solace to her. She looked

-at me, without a word, full of wonder and gratitude; then asked me to

-bring the candles, and she would acquit herself of her task. She

-showed the best pluck over it, though her face was ashy, and her mouth

-a line, and her little nostrils pulsing the whole time she was at

-work.

-

-I had got her down to one of my circulars, and, watching her fingers

-intently, was as sure as observer could be that she had followed the

-text verbatim.

-

-“Now,” I said, when she came to a pause, “give me a hint how to remove

-this paper, and go you to the other end of the room.”

-

-She flicked up a catch. “You have only to pull it off the roller,” she

-said; and rose and obeyed. The moment she was away I followed my

-instructions, and drew forth the printed sheet and looked at it.

-

-It may have occupied me longer than I intended. But I was folding it

-very deliberately, and putting it away in my pocket when I walked

-across to her with a smile. She gazed at me one intent moment, and

-dropped her eyes.

-

-“Yes,” she said; and I knew that she had satisfied herself. “Will you

-take me away now, at once, please?”

-

-The idea of escape, of liberty once realized, it would have been

-dangerous to balk her by a moment. I had acquainted mamma that I might

-possibly bring her a visitor. Well, it simply meant that the suggested

-visit must be indefinitely prolonged.

-

-Miss Gray accompanied me home, where certain surprises, in addition to

-the tenderest of ministrations, were awaiting her. All that becomes

-private history, and outside my story. I am not a man of sentiment;

-and if people choose to write poems and make general asses of

-themselves, why--God bless them!

-

-The problem I had set _my_self to unravel was what looked deucedly

-like a tough psychologic poser. But I was resolute to face it, and had

-formed my plan. It was no unusual thing for me to be out all night.

-That night, after dining, I spent in the “converted” flat in West

-Kensington.

-

-I had brought with me--I confess to so much weakness--one of your

-portable electric lamps. The moment I was shut in and established, I

-pulled out the paper Miss Gray had typed for me, spread it under the

-glow and stared at it. Was it a copy of my circular? Would a sober

-“First Aid Society” Secretary be likely, do you think, to require

-circulars containing such expressions as “_William! William! Come back

-to me! O, William, in God’s name! William! William! William!_”--in

-monstrous iteration--the one cry, or the gist of it, for lines and

-lines in succession?

-

-I am at the other end from humour in saying this. It is heaven’s

-truth. Line after line, half down the page, went that monotonous,

-heart-breaking appeal. It was so piercingly moving, my human terror of

-its unearthliness was all drowned, absorbed in an overflowing pity.

-

-I am not going to record the experiences of that night. That

-unchanging mood of mine upheld me through consciousnesses and

-sub-consciousnesses which shall be sacred. Sometimes, submerged in

-these, I seemed to hear the clack of the instrument in the window, but

-at a vast distance. I may have seen--I may have dreamt--I accepted it

-all. Awaking in the chill grey of morning, I felt no surprise at

-seeing some loose sheets of paper lying on the floor. “_William!

-William!_” their text ran down, “_Come back to me!_” It was all that

-same wail of a broken heart. I followed Miss Gray’s example. I took

-out my match-box, and reverently, reverently burned them.

-

-An hour or two later I was at Paul’s Exchange, privately interviewing

-my manager.

-

-“Did you ever employ a Miss Lucy Rivers?”

-

-“Certainly we did. Poor Lucy Rivers! She rented a machine of us. In

-fact----”

-

-He paused.

-

-“Well?”

-

-“Well--it is a mere matter of business--she ‘flitted,’ and we had to

-reclaim our instrument. As it happens, it was the very one purchased

-by the young lady who so interested you here two days ago.”

-

-“The first machine, you mean?”

-

-“The first--_and_ the second.” He smiled. “As a matter of fact, she

-took away again what she brought.”

-

-“Miss Rivers’s?”

-

-He nodded.

-

-“There was absolutely nothing wrong with it--mere fad. Women start

-these fancies. The click of the thing gets on their nerves, I suppose.

-We must protect ourselves, you see; and I’ll warrant she finds it

-perfection now.”

-

-“Perhaps she does. What was Miss Rivers’s address?”

-

-He gave me, with a positive grin this time, the “converted” flat.

-

-“But that was only latterly,” he said. “She had moved from----”

-

-He directed me elsewhere.

-

-“Why,” said I, taking up my hat, “did you call her ‘poor Lucy

-Rivers’?”

-

-“O, I don’t know!” he said. “She was rather an attractive young lady.

-But we had to discontinue our patronage. She developed the most

-extraordinary--but it’s no business of mine. She was one of the

-submerged tenth; and she’s gone under for good, I suppose.”

-

-I made my way to the _other_ address--a little lodging in a

-shabby-genteel street. A bitter-faced landlady, one of the

-“preordained” sort, greeted me with resignation when she thought I

-came for rooms, and with acerbity when she heard that my sole mission

-was to inquire about a Miss Lucy Rivers.

-

-“I won’t deceive you, sir,” she said. “When it come to receiving

-gentlemen privately, I told her she must go.”

-

-“Gentlemen!”

-

-“I won’t do Miss Rivers an injustice,” she said. “It was _ha_

-gentleman.”

-

-“Was that latterly?”

-

-“It was not latterly, sir. But it was the effects of its not being

-latterly which made her take to things.”

-

-“What things?”

-

-“Well, sir, she grew strange company, and took to the roof.”

-

-“What on earth do you mean?”

-

-“Just precisely what I say, sir; through the trap-door by the steps,

-and up among the chimney-pots. _He’d_ been there with her before, and

-perhaps she thought she’d find him hiding among the stacks. He called

-himself an astronomer; but it’s my belief it was another sort of

-star-gazing. I couldn’t stand it at last, and I had to give her

-notice.”

-

-It was falling near a gloomy midday when I again entered the flat, and

-shut myself in with its ghosts and echoes. I had a set conviction, a

-set purpose in my mind. There was that which seemed to scuttle, like a

-little demon of laughter, in my wake, now urging me on, now slipping

-round and above to trip me as I mounted. I went steadily on and up,

-past the sitting-room door, to the floor above. And here, for the

-first time, a thrill in my blood seemed to shock and hold me for a

-moment. Before my eyes, rising to a skylight, now dark and choked with

-snow, went a flight of steps. Pulling myself together, I mounted

-these, and with a huge effort (_the bolt was not shot_) shouldered the

-trap open. There were a fall and rustle without; daylight entered;

-and, levering the door over, I emerged upon the roof.

-

-Snow, grim and grimy and knee-deep, was over everything, muffling the

-contours of the chimneys, the parapets, the irregularities of the

-leads. The dull thunder of the streets came up to me; a fog of thaw

-was in the air; a thin drizzle was already falling. I drove my foot

-forward into a mound, and hitched it on something. In an instant I was

-down on my knees, scattering the sodden raff right and left, and--my

-God!--a face!

-

-She lay there as she had been overwhelmed, and frozen, and preserved

-these two months. She had closed the trap behind her, and nobody had

-known. Pure as wax--pitiful as hunger--dead! Poor Lucy Rivers!

-

-Who was she, and who the man? We could never learn. She had woven his

-name, his desertion, her own ruin and despair into the texture of her

-broken life. Only on the great day of retribution shall he answer to

-that agonized cry.

-

-

-

-

- THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR

-

-

- Ho! bring me some _lovers_, fat or lean,

- That I may crunch ’em my teeth between!

- I could eat so many, so many, so many,

- That in the wide world there would not be left any.

-

- Ho! Here is Avenant to be seen,

- Who comes to draw your teeth so keen;

- He’s not the greatest man to view,

- But he’s big enough to conquer you.

-

-        Planché’s “D’Aulnoy,” slightly misquoted.

-

-

-Sir Richard Avenant came home from Abyssinia to an interesting

-notoriety. He had been associated--a sort of explorative

-free-lance--with the expedition of Mr. Bruce, who was not yet returned

-from his adventures up the Nile in quest of the sources of that

-bewildering water; and, upon his arrival in London, he found himself

-engaged to a romance which was certainly remote from his deserts.

-

-Now he was a strong, saturnine man, but apt to whimsical decisions,

-whose consequences, the fruits of whatever odd impulses, he never had

-a thought but to hold by; and as the self-reserved must suffer the

-character accorded to their appearance (the only side of them

-confessed), Sir Richard found himself accredited, by anticipation,

-with deeds adapted to the countenance he had always addressed to the

-world.

-

-He was strolling, some days after his return, through the streets,

-when he was accosted by an acquaintance, a _preux chevalier_ of the

-highest _ton_, curled, be-ruffed, and imperturbably self-assured.

-

-“Why, strike me silly, Dick!” cried this exquisite, “what do you,

-wandering unsociable in a shag coat, and all London by the ears to

-lionize ye?”

-

-“Well, I know not, George. What have I done to be lionized?”

-

-“Done! _Done?_ asks the man that will not devour a steak but ’tis cut

-raw from the buttock of the living beast! _Done?_ asks Bluebeard (and

-stap me, Dick, but your chin is as blue as a watchman’s!)--_done_, he

-says, that brings grass-petticoats in his train enough to furnish the

-Paradise of the Grand Turk! Prithee, Dick, where hast stowed ’em all?

-O, thou hast a great famous reputation, I assure thee, to justify

-thyself of with the women! Such is the report of thy peris--their

-teeth, their raven hair, their eyes like stars of the night--there’s

-no virtue in town could resist, if asked, to be thy queen and theirs.”

-

-He was chuckling, and taking a delicate pinch of martinique, with his

-little finger cocked to display a glittering stone, when his eyes

-lighted on a house over against which they were standing.

-

-“Hist!” said he, pointing with his cane; “pan my honour, the single

-reservation.”

-

-“Single reservation?” repeated the explorer. “To what? To this London

-of frailties?”

-

-“To be sure,” said the other. “The one party, I’ll dare swear, that

-would not put her nose in a ring for thy sake.”

-

-“Indeed!” said Avenant. “Then she’s the one I must wed.”

-

-The elegant cocked his head, squinting derisive.

-

-“I lay you a double pony to a tester you don’t, within the decade.”

-

-“Done! Tell me about her.”

-

-“I’ll do more. I’ll carry you in to her, here and at once. Tell me

-about her, quotha! She’s the Fair with Golden Hair, and a guinea and a

-suitor to every thread of it.”

-

-“Whence comes she?”

-

-“From Arcadia, man, with a fortune of gold and roses. She cuts out

-hearts raw, as you do steaks, and devours them by the dozen. O, you

-shall know her!”

-

-“But by what name, George, by what name?”

-

-“Have I not told you? It shall suffice for all your needs. Thou shalt

-take a pack of Cabriolles, and never hunt her to the death. Come, my

-friend!”

-

-He led Sir Richard to the house, and had himself announced. They

-ascended a flight of stairs, going up into a heaven of floating

-fragrance and melodious sounds. Their feet moved noiseless over silken

-carpets. They crossed an anteroom ruffling with lackeys, and were

-ushered into the Fair’s boudoir.

-

-She sat at her mirror, in the hands of her perruquier. She was the

-most beautiful insolent creature Sir Richard had ever seen. There was

-not an inch of her which Nature could have altered to its improvement.

-The very patch on her cheek was a theft from perfection. But to so

-much loveliness her hair was the glory, a nimbus which, condensing in

-the heavy atmosphere of adoration, dropped in a melting flood of gold,

-which, short of the ground only, shrank and curled back from its gross

-contact.

-

-All round and about her hummed her court--poets, lords,

-minstrels--suitors straining their wits and their talents for her

-delectation, while they bled internally. Many of them greeted Sir

-Richard’s chaperon, many Sir Richard himself--good-humouredly,

-jealously, satirically, as the case might be--as the two pushed by. A

-stir went round, however, when the rough new-comer’s name was put

-about; and some rose in their seats, and all dwelt inquisitively on

-the explorer’s reception.

-

-It was condescending enough; as was that of his friend, who loved

-himself too well, and too wittily, to show a heart worth the beauty’s

-discussing.

-

-“Have you got back your appetite, sir,” said the Fair to Avenant, “for

-dressed meats?”

-

-“And ladies?” whispered Sir Richard’s friend.

-

-“O, fie!” said madam.

-

-“I will return the question on you,” said Sir Richard, in a low voice.

-

-The Fair lifted her brows.

-

-“Why, I am told, madam,” said Avenant, “that you feed on raw hearts;

-but I am willing to believe that the one lie is as certain as the

-other.”

-

-The imperious beauty bit her underlip, and laughed.

-

-“I perceive, Sir Richard,” she said, “that you do not court by

-flattery.”

-

-“I do not court at all, madam,” he answered.

-

-“Ah, true!” she replied. “You buy in the open market. It must be

-simpler; though, in the plain lodging where I hear you lie at present,

-the disposal of so responsible an establishment must exercise your

-diplomacy.”

-

-She spoke aloud, evoking a general titter; and so aloud Avenant

-answered her.

-

-“By no means, madam. I have in my sleeping-room a closet with three

-shelves. On one of these lies Beauty, unspoiled by adulation; on

-another lies Virtue, that respects her sex too well to traduce it; on

-the third lies feminine Truth, loveliest of her sisters. These are my

-whole establishment; and as they are shadows all, existing only in the

-imagination, they exercise nothing but my fondness for unattainable

-ideals.”

-

-The company broke into much laughter over this Jeremiad; and the girl

-joined her young voice to theirs. But a little glow of colour was

-showing in her cheek, verily as if Sir Richard had flicked that fair

-surface with his glove.

-

-“O!” she said, “this is a sad regale! Sure, sir, does the climate of

-Abyssinia breed no hotter than Leicestershire Quakers? Why, I have

-heard a lion roar fiercer in a caravan. Now, pray, Sir Richard, put

-off your civilities, and give us news instead of lessons. They say

-there is a form of lawless possession in the women of the country you

-visited.”

-

-“It is very true there is, madam. It is called the _Tigrétier_--a

-seizure of uncontrollable vanity, during which the victim is so

-self-centred that she is unable to attend to the interests, or even to

-distinguish the sexes of those about her. She will, for instance,

-surround herself with a circle of male admirers, assuming all the

-time, apparently, that they are the gossips of her own sex, with whom,

-like a decent woman, she would wont ordinarily, of course, to consort

-in private.”

-

-The Fair cried out, “Enough! Your stories are the most intolerable

-stuff, sir. I wish Mr. Bruce joy of your return, as I hear you are not

-to remain in England.”

-

-Then she turned her shoulder to him, her flush deepening to fire; and

-Sir Richard, bowing and moving away, fell into conversation with one

-or two of his acquaintances. Presently, looking up, he was surprised

-to see the room near empty. Goldenlocks had, in fact, issued her

-wilful mandate, and her court was dismissing itself.

-

-The explorer was pressing out after the rest, when a maidservant

-touched his sleeve, and begged him to return to her lady, who desired

-a word with him. Sir Richard acquiesced immediately. He found the Fair

-standing solitary by her dressing-table, frowning, her head bent, her

-fingers plucking at a wisp of lace. Her hair, still undressed, hung

-down deep over her shoulders, mantling them with heavy gold, like a

-priest’s chasuble.

-

-“Did you seek my acquaintance, sir,” she said imperatively, “with the

-sole purpose to insult me?”

-

-“Nay, madam,” he answered, as cool as tempered steel; “but because you

-was described to me as the one woman in London that I might not marry,

-if I had the will to.”

-

-“Why not?” was on the tip of her tongue; he saw it there. But she

-caught at herself, and answered, “So, sir, like sour reynard, I

-suppose, you would spite what you found it useless to covet.”

-

-“_I_ covet, madam!” he said, in a tone of astonishment. “_I_ aspire to

-wrest this wealth and beauty from a hundred worthier candidates!

-Believe me, my ambition halted far short of such attainment.”

-

-Her lips smiled, despite herself. What were the value, she suddenly

-thought, in a world of suitors that did not include this shagg’d and

-rugged Jeremiah? Her speech fell as caressing as the sound of water in

-a wood.

-

-“Yet you confess to some ambition?” she murmured.

-

-“True,” he answered; “the virtuoso’s.”

-

-She lifted her beautiful brows.

-

-“I will be candid, madam,” he said. “I have the collector’s itch.

-Whithersoever I visit, I lay my toll on the most characteristic

-productions of the tribes--robes, carvings, implements of war--even

-scalps. Madam, madam, you must surely be of the sun children! Your

-hair is the most lovely thing! I would give my soul--more, I would

-give a thousand pounds to possess it.”

-

-“I see, sir,” she said; “to carry your conquest at your belt.”

-

-“Nay,” he answered, with feigned eagerness. “Not a soul need know. The

-thing is done constantly. You have but to subscribe to the fashion of

-powder, and you gain a novel beauty, and I a secret I swear to hold

-inviolate.”

-

-“O!” she said softly “This is Samson come with the shears to turn the

-tables on poor Delilah!”

-

-And on the instant she flashed out, breaking upon him in a storm of

-passion. That he dared, that he dared, on no warrant but his

-reputation for inhumanity, so to outrage and insult her.

-

-“Go, sir!” she cried. “Return to your Nubians and Dacoits--to

-countries where head-hunting is considered an honourable proof of

-manliness!”

-

-He stood, as outwardly insensate as a bull.

-

-“Then you decline to deal?”

-

-Her only answer was to throw herself into a chair, and to abandon

-herself to incomprehensible weeping. But even her sobs seemed to make

-no soft impression on him. He took a step nearer to her, and spoke in

-the same civil and measured tone he had maintained throughout.

-

-“Take care, madam. I never yet set my will upon a capture that in the

-long run escaped me.”

-

-She checked her tears, to look up at him with a little furious laugh.

-

-“Poor boaster!” she said. “I think, perhaps, that recounting of your

-Tigrétier hath infected you with it.”

-

-“By my beard, madam,” said he, “I will make that hair my own!”

-

-“See,” she cried jeeringly, “how a boaster swears by what he has not!”

-

-Sir Richard felt to his chin.

-

-“That is soon remedied,” said he. “And so, till my oath is redeemed,

-to consign my razors to rust!” And with these words, bowing

-profoundly, he turned and left the room.

-

-Shortly after this he sailed to rejoin his expedition, and was not

-again in England during a period of eighteen months.

-

-At the end of that time, being once more in London, he devoted

-himself--his affairs having now been ordered with the view to his

-permanent residence in the country--to some guarded inquiries about

-the Fair with Golden Hair. For some days, the season of the town being

-inauspicious, he was unable to discover anything definite about her.

-And then, suddenly, the news which he sought and desired came in a

-clap.

-

-He was walking, one day, down a street of poor and genteel houses,

-when he saw her before him. He stood transfixed. There was no doubting

-his own eyesight. It was she: tall, slender, crowned with her

-accustomed glory, the flower of her beauty a little wan, as if seen by

-moonlight. But what confounded him was her condition. Her dress was

-mean, her gloves mended; every tag of cheap ribbon which hung upon her

-seemed the label to a separate tragedy. Thus he saw her again, the

-Fair with Golden Hair; but how deposed and fallen from her insolent

-estate!

-

-She mounted a step to a shabby door. While she stood there, waiting to

-be admitted, an old jaunty cavalier came ruffling it down the street,

-accosted her, and accompanied her within. She might have glanced at

-Avenant without recognizing him. The rough dark beard he wore was his

-sufficient disguise.

-

-Sir Richard made up his mind on the spot, and acted promptly. Having

-no intention to procure himself a notoriety in this business, he

-rigidly eschewed personal inquiry, and employed an official informer,

-at a safe figure, to ferret out the truth for him. This, epitomized,

-discovered itself as follows:--

-

-Cytherea--Venus Calva--Madonna of the magic girdle, who had once

-reigned supreme between wealth and loveliness, who had once eaten

-hearts raw for breakfast, feeding her roses as vampires do, was

-desolate and impoverished--and even, perhaps, hungry. A scoundrelly

-guardian had eloped with trust funds: the crash had followed at a

-blow. Robbed of her recommendation to respect; deposed, at once, from

-the world’s idolatry to its vicious solicitation, she had fled, with

-her hair and her poor derided virtue, into squalid oblivion; that, at

-least, she hoped. But, alas for the fateful recoils on Vanity! She

-drives with a tight rein; and woe to her if the rein snap! A certain

-libidinous and crafty nobleman, of threescore or so years, had

-secured, in the days of the Fair’s prosperity, some little bills of

-paper bearing that beauty’s signature. These he had politicly withheld

-himself from negotiating, on the mere chance that they might serve him

-some day for a means to humiliate one who, in the arrogance of her

-power, had scoffed at his amatory, and perfectly honourable,

-addresses. That precaution had justified itself. The peer was now come

-to woo again, and less scrupulously, with his hand on a paper weapon,

-one stroke from which alone was needed to give the Fair’s poor

-drabbled fortune its quietus. She was at bay, between ruin and

-dishonour.

-

-Sir Richard came immediately to a resolve, and lost no time in giving

-it effect. He wrote a formal note to the Fair, recalling himself

-courteously to her remembrance, reminding her of his original offer,

-and renewing it in so many words. He would do himself the honour, he

-said, to wait upon her for her answer on such and such a day.

-

-To this he received no reply; nor, perhaps, expected one. He went,

-nevertheless, to his self-made appointment with the imperturbable

-confidence of a strong man.

-

-Passing, on his way, by a perruquier’s, he checked himself, and stood

-for some moments at gaze in a motionless reverie. Then he entered the

-shop, made a purchase, and, going to a barber’s, caused himself to be

-shorn, shaved, and restored to the conventional aspect. Thus

-conditioned, he knocked at the Fair’s door, and was ushered up--bawled

-up, rather, by a slattern landlady--into her presence.

-

-She rose to face him as he entered. She had his letter in her hand.

-Her beautiful hair, jealous, it seemed, to withdraw itself from the

-curioso’s very appraisement, was gathered into and concealed under a

-cap. Her features, thus robbed of their dazzling frame, looked

-curiously, sadly childish and forlorn. There were dark marks round her

-eyes--the scarce dissipated clouds of recent tears. Who can tell what

-emotions, at sight of this piteous, hard-driven loveliness, stirred

-the heart of the man opposite, and were repressed by his iron will?

-

-“This letter, sir,” said the Fair, holding out the paper in a hand

-which shook a little. “I have tacitly permitted you to presume a right

-to a personal answer to that which it proposes, because such a course

-appeared to me the least compromising. I cannot write my name, sir,

-nowdays--as scandal doubtless hath informed you--but Fortune will be

-using it to my discredit.”

-

-Sir Richard bowed.

-

-“There is this difference only, madam: _my_ word is the bond of a

-gentleman. I vowed you secrecy.”

-

-“That is to assume, on your part,” she said quietly, “a

-confidentialness which, in its insult to misfortune, is at least not

-the _act_ of a gentleman. Moreover, a gentleman, surely, had not taken

-advantage of circumstances to propose to destitution what affluence

-had once refused him.”

-

-“Beware, madam!” said Avenant. “Pride must make some sacrifices to

-virtue. If, in renewing a pure business offer, I, a simple instrument

-in the hands of Providence, give you an opportunity to maintain that

-priceless possession unimpaired, would it not be the truer

-self-respect to secure your honour at whatever cost to your

-sentiments?”

-

-“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have not forgotten, nor forgotten to

-resent, my self-constituted Mentor. I will assure him that, for the

-matter of my virtue, it is safe in my hands, though I have to arm

-those against myself.”

-

-“Good heavens, madam!” cried Avenant. “You are not at that resource?”

-

-“Give yourself no concern, sir,” she answered coldly. “The moral I

-learned of your insult, was to save myself in its despite.”

-

-His deep eyes glowed upon her.

-

-“You have sold your hair?” he said.

-

-“Yes,” she answered; “to pay my debts. ’Twas your letter decided me.”

-

-“At a thousand pounds?”

-

-“At a hundred.”

-

-Then she added, as if irresistibly, because she was still little more

-than a child, “And now, sir, how is the boaster vindicated? But your

-oath, I perceive, still goes beardless.”

-

-“Within the hour only,” said he; and, thrusting his hand into his

-breast, he drew out the long tresses of the Fair With Golden Hair.

-

-She stared, amazed a moment; then threw herself upon her knees by a

-chair, weeping and crying out--

-

-“O, I hate you, I hate you!”

-

-He strode, and stood over her.

-

-“I saw them through a window as I came. How could I mistake them?

-There is not their like in the world. But now, my oath redeemed, it is

-for you to say if I am to destroy them.”

-

-“O, my hair!” she wept; “my one beauty!”

-

-“I have staked all on this,” he cried. “If your hair was your one

-beauty, my beard alone redeemed me from appalling ugliness by so much

-as it hid of me. Well, I have lost on both counts, if the net result

-is your hatred.”

-

-She looked up, with drowned bewildered eyes, and held out her hand

-blindly.

-

-“Give me back my hair,” she said, “and you shall have the hundred

-pounds.”

-

-“Nay, sweet Delilah,” quoth he; “for that would be to return you your

-strength, and I want you weak.”

-

-Her arm dropped to her side.

-

-“That you may insult me with impunity!” she said bitterly.

-

-“Ah, Delilah!” he cried; “is it so bad, that the offer of my hand and

-heart is an insult to a woman?”

-

-She sank back, sitting on her heels. From under her cap, fallen awry,

-curled shavings of gold hung out--the residue of a squandered wealth.

-Her eyes were wide with amazement.

-

-“So bad?” she whispered. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

-

-He was not a conformable wooer. The love-wise sex shall say if he was

-a diplomatic one. He threw himself on his knees beside the Fair,

-seized her in his bear-like grip, and kissed her lips.

-

-“Now,” he said, “it is neck or nothing. None but a parson can wipe out

-the stain. Hate me now, and put Love to bed for by and by.”

-

-She smiled suddenly--like the rainbow; like an angel.

-

-“Yes,” she said, “if you insist. But the poor thing has slept so long

-in my heart, that it would fain wake up at last, and confess itself.”

-

-

-The peer took his settlement with a very bad grace; but he had to take

-it, and there was an end of him.

-

-“Avenant,” whispered the Fair, on the evening of their wedding day, “I

-have been vain, spoiled, perhaps untruthful. But I wished to tell

-you--you can put me to sleep on the middle shelf of your cupboard.”

-

-“It has been converted into a closet for skeletons,” he said. “I was a

-bachelor then.”

-

-

-

-

- THE LOST NOTES

-

-The faculty of music is generally, I believe, inimical to the

-development of all the other faculties. Sufficient to itself is the

-composing gift. There was scarcely ever yet a born musician, I do

-declare, who, outside his birthright, was not a born ass. I say it

-with the less irreverence, because my uncle was patently one of the

-rare exceptions which prove the rule. He knew his Shakespeare as well

-as his musical-glasses--better than, in fact; for he was a staunch

-Baconian. This was all the odder because--as was both early and late

-impressed upon me--he had a strong sense of humour. Perhaps an eternal

-study of the hieroglyphics of the leger lines was responsible for his

-craze; for craze I still insist it was, in spite of the way he took to

-convince me of the value of cryptograms. I was an obstinate pupil, I

-confess, and withstood to the end the fire of all the big guns which

-he--together with my friend, Chaunt, who was in the same line--brought

-to bear upon me.

-

-Well, I was honest, at least; for I was my uncle’s sole provisional

-legatee, and heir presumptive to whatever small fortune he had amassed

-during his career. And day by day, as the breach between us widened, I

-saw my prospect of the succession attenuating, and would not budge

-from my position. No, Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I said, and Bacon,

-Bacon; and not all the cyphers in the world should convince me that

-any profit was to be gained by either imagining or unravelling a

-single one of them.

-

-“What, no profit!” roared my uncle. “But I will persuade you, young

-man, of your mistake before I’m done with you. Hum-ti-diddledidee! No

-profit, hey? H’m--well!”

-

-Then I saw that the end was come. And, indeed, it was an open quarrel

-between us, and I was forbidden to call upon him again.

-

-I was sorry for this, because, in his more frolicsome and

-uncontroversial moments, he was a genial companion, unless or until

-one inadvertently touched on _the_ theme, when at once he exploded.

-Professionally, he _could_ be quite a rollicking blade, and his

-settings of plantation songs were owned to be nothing less than lyric

-inspirations. Pantomime, too, in the light of his incidental music,

-had acquired something more than a classical complexion; and, in the

-domain of knockabout extravaganza, not only did the score of “The Girl

-who Knew a Thing or Two” owe to him its most refined numbers, but also

-the libretto, it was whispered, its best Attic _bonnes-bouches_.

-

-However, all that good company I must now forgo--though Chaunt tried

-vainly to heal the breach between us--and in the end the old man died,

-without any visible relenting towards me.

-

-I felt his loss pretty keenly, though it is no callousness in me to

-admit that our long separation had somewhat dulled the edge of my

-attachment. I expected, of course, no testamentary consideration from

-him, and was only more surprised than uplifted to receive one morning

-a request from his lawyers to visit them at my convenience. So I went,

-soberly enough, and introduced myself.

-

-“No,” said the partner to whom I was admitted, in answer to a question

-of mine: “I am not in a position to inform you who is the principal

-beneficiary under our friend’s will. I can only tell you--what a few

-days before his death he confided to us, and what, I think, under the

-circumstances, you are entitled to learn--that he had quite recently,

-feeling his end approaching, realized on the bulk of his capital,

-converted the net result into a certain number--five, I think he

-mentioned--of Bank of England notes, and… burned ’em, for all we know

-to the contrary.”

-

-“Burned them!” I murmured aghast.

-

-“I don’t say so,” corrected the lawyer drily. “I only say, you know,

-that we are not instructed to the contrary. Your uncle” (he coughed

-slightly) “had his eccentricities. Perhaps he swallowed ’em; perhaps

-gave ’em away at the gate. Our dealings are, beyond yourself, solely

-with the residuary legatee, who is, or was, his housekeeper. For her

-benefit, moreover, the furniture and effects of our late client are to

-be sold, always excepting a few more personal articles, which,

-together with a sealed enclosure, we are desired to hand over to you.”

-

-He signified, indeed, my bequest as he spoke. It lay on a table behind

-him: A bound volume of minutes of the Baconian Society; a volume of

-Ignatius Donnelly’s Great Cryptogram; a Chippendale tea-caddy (which,

-I was softened to think, the old man had often known me to admire); a

-large piece of foolscap paper twisted into a cone, and a penny with

-which to furnish myself with a mourning ring out of a cracker.

-

-I blushed to my ears, regarding the show; and then, to convince this

-person of my good-humoured sanity, giggled like an idiot. He did not

-even smile in reply, the self-important ass, but, with a manner of

-starchy condescension, as to a wastrel who was getting all his

-deserts, rose from his chair, unlocked a safe, took an ordinary sealed

-envelope from it, handed it to me, and informed me that, upon giving

-him a receipt, I was at liberty to remove the lot.

-

-“Thanks,” I said, grinding my astral teeth. “Am I to open this in your

-presence?”

-

-“Quite inessential,” he answered; and, upon ascertaining that I should

-like a cab called, sent for one.

-

-“Good morning,” he said, when at last it was announced (he had not

-spoken a word in the interval): “I wish you good morning,” in the

-morally patronizing tone of a governor discharging a prisoner.

-

-I responded coldly; tried, for no reason at all, to look threatening;

-failed utterly, and went out giggling again. Quite savagely I threw my

-goods upon the seat, snapped out my address, closed the apron upon my

-abasement, and sat slunk into the cavity behind, like a salted and

-malignant snail.

-

-Presently I thumped the books malevolently. The dear old man was

-grotesque beyond reason. Really he needn’t have left life cutting a

-somersault, as it were.

-

-But, as I cooled outwardly, a warmer thought would intrude. It drew,

-somehow, from the heart of that little enclosure lying at the moment

-in my pocket. It was ridiculous, of course, to expect anything of it

-but some further development of a rather unkind jest. My uncle’s

-professional connexion with burlesque had rather warped, it would

-appear, his sense of humour. Still, I could not but recall that story

-of the conversion of his capital into notes: and an envelope----!

-

-Bah! (I wriggled savagely). It was idiotic beyond measure so to

-flatter myself. Our recent relations had precluded for ever any such

-possibility. The holocaust, rather! The gift to a chance passer-by, as

-suggested by that fool of a lawyer! I stared out of the window,

-humming viciously, and telling myself it was only what I ought to

-expect; that such a vagary was distinctly in accordance with the

-traditions of low comedy. It will be observed that I was very

-contemptuous of buffoonery as a profession. Paradoxically, a joke is

-never played so low as when it is played on our lofty selves.

-

-Nevertheless, I was justified, it appeared. It may be asked, Why did I

-not at once settle the matter by opening the envelope in the cab?

-Well, I just temporized with my gluttony, till, like the greedy boy, I

-could examine my box in private--only to find that the rats had

-devoured all my cake. It was not till I was shut into my sitting-room

-that I dared at length to break the seal, and to withdraw----

-

-Even as it came out, with no suggestion of a reassuring crackle, I

-realized my fate. And this was it: please to examine it carefully--

-

-

-[IMAGE: images/img_197.jpg, “Musical notes”]

-

-

-Now, what do you make of it? “_Ex nihilo nihil fit_,” I think you will

-say with me. It was literally thus, carefully penned in the middle of

-a single sheet of music-paper--a phrase, or _motif_, I suppose it

-would be called--an undeveloped memorandum, in fact--nothing else

-whatever. I let the thing drop from my hand.

-

-No doubt there was some capping jest here, some sneer, some vindictive

-sarcasm. I was not musician enough to tell, even had I had spirit for

-the endeavour. It was unworthy, at least, of the old man--much more,

-or less, than I deserved. I had been his favourite once. Strange how

-the _idée fixe_ could corrode an otherwise tractable reason. In

-justice to myself I must insist that quite half my disappointment was

-in the realization that such dislike, due to such a trifle, could have

-come to usurp the old affection.

-

-By and by I rose dismally, and carried the jest to the piano. (Half a

-crown a day my landlady exacted from me, if I so much as thumped on

-the old wreck with one finger, which was the extent of my talent.)

-Well, I was reckless, and the theme appeared ridiculously simple. But

-I could make nothing of it--not though Mrs. Dexter came up in the

-midst, and congratulated me on my performance.

-

-When she was gone I took the thing to my chair again, and resumed its

-study despondently. And presently Chaunt came in.

-

-“Hullo!” he said: “how’s the blooming legatee?”

-

-“Pretty blooming, thanks,” I said. “Would you like to speculate in my

-reversion? Half a crown down to Mrs. Dexter, and the use of the tin

-kettle for the day.”

-

-“Done,” he said, “so far as the piano’s concerned. Let’s see what

-you’ve got there.”

-

-He had known of my prospective visit to the lawyers, and had dropped

-in to congratulate me on _that_ performance. I acquainted him with the

-result; showed him the books, and the tea-caddy, and the penny, and

-the remnants of foolscap--finally, handed him the crowning jest for

-inspection.

-

-“Pretty thin joke, isn’t it?” I growled dolefully. “Curse the money,

-anyhow! But I didn’t think it of the old man. I suppose you can make

-no more of that than I can?”

-

-He was squinting at the paper as he held it up, and rubbing his jaw,

-stuck out at an angle, grittily.

-

-“H’m!” he said, quite suddenly, “I’d go out for a walk and revive

-myself, if I were you. I intend to hold you to that piano, for my

-part; and you wouldn’t be edified.”

-

-“No,” I said: “I’ve had enough of music for a lifetime or so! I fancy

-I’ll go, if you won’t think me rude.”

-

-“On the contrary,” he murmured, in an absorbed way; and I left him.

-

-I took a longish spin, and returned, on the whole refreshed, in a

-couple of hours. He was still there; but he had finished, it appeared,

-with the piano.

-

-“Well,” he said, rising and yawning, “you’ve been a deuce of a time

-gone; but here you are”--and he held out to me indifferently a little

-crackling bundle.

-

-Without a word I took it from his hand--parted, stretched, and

-explored it.

-

-“Good God!” I gasped: “five notes of a thousand apiece!”

-

-He was rolling a cigarette.

-

-“Yes,” he drawled, “that’s the figure, I believe.”

-

-“For me?”

-

-“For you--from your uncle.”

-

-“But--how?”

-

-He lighted, took a serene puff or two, drew the _jest_ from his

-pocket, and, throwing it on a chair, “You’ll have to allow some value

-to cryptograms at last,” he said, and sat down to enjoy himself.

-

-“Chaunt!”

-

-“O,” he said, “it was a bagatelle. An ass might have brayed it out at

-sight.”

-

-“Please, I am something less than an ass. Please will you interpret

-for me?” I said humbly.

-

-He neighed out--I beg _his_ pardon--a great laugh at last.

-

-“O,” he cried: “your uncle was true blue; he stuck to his guns; but I

-never really supposed he meant to disinherit you, Johnny. You always

-had the first place in his heart, for all your obstinacy. He took his

-own way to convince you, that was all. Pretty poor stuff it is, I’m

-bound to confess; but enough to run _your_ capacities to extinction.

-Here, hand it over.”

-

-“Don’t be hard on me,” I protested, giving him the paper. “If I’m all

-that you say, it was as good as cutting me off with a penny.”

-

-“No,” he answered: “because he knew very well that you’d apply to me

-to help you out of the difficulty.”

-

-“Well, help me,” I said, “and, in the matter of Bacon, I’ll promise to

-be a fool convinced against my will.”

-

-“No doubt,” he answered drily, and came and sat beside me. “Look

-here,” he said; and I looked:--

-

-

-[IMAGE: images/img_200.jpg, “Musical notes”]

-

-

-“You know your notes, anyhow,” said he. “Well, you’ve only got to read

-off these into their alphabetical equivalents, and cut the result into

-perfectly obvious lengths. It’s child’s play so far; and, indeed, in

-everything, unless this rum-looking metronome beat, or whatever it may

-be, bothers you for a moment.”

-

-He put his finger on the crazy device perched up independently in the

-left-hand corner; and then came down to the lines again.

-

-“Let that be for the moment,” said he. “It don’t much signify, after

-all. How do these notes go? that’s the main question. Read ’em off.”

-

-I spelt them out, following his finger: “b a c e f d e c a d e c.”

-

-“That’s a good boy,” he said. “And now, what are these things beyond,

-that have run off the lines, so to speak?”

-

-“What are they? Why, I don’t see what they can be but notes.”

-

-“Exactly. Five notes.”

-

-I stared at the bundle in my hand, and then up at Chaunt.

-

-“O-o-o-o!” I exclaimed.

-

-He uttered a loud ironic laugh. “Well,” he said: “what does ‘b a c e f

-d e c a d e c’ spell?”

-

-I scratched my nose. “You tell me, please.”

-

-“O Jerusalem!” he cried, and took his pencil to the line, thus: b a c

-| e f | d e | c a d e | c--

-

-“Well?” he said again.

-

-I shook my head.

-

-He positively stamped. “Listen here,” he cried: “‘bac ef de cad-e

-c’--_don’t_ you see?”

-

-“No.”

-

-“O, you ineffable ass! ‘Back of the caddy’ (that’s to say the

-tea-caddy; there it is), ‘see’--see what? What follows? Why, five

-notes, don’t they? ‘Back of the caddy see five notes’--and there

-_they_ are.”

-

-I sank in a heap in my chair. Light had dawned on me. “And you found

-’em there, I suppose?” I murmured--“behind a false back or something?”

-

-He nodded. “You’re getting on.”

-

-“And, please, what’s the thing at the top?” I continued faintly. “Let

-me get it all over at once.”

-

-“Ah!” he said: “there’s a trifle more ingenuity in that, perhaps. What

-is it, to begin with? A demisemiquaver balanced on the top of an M Y,

-eh?”

-

-“So it appears to me.”

-

-“To any one. Don’t be frightened. Try it every way round, and conclude

-with this: ‘On the top of M Y’--that is to say, ‘_on_ M Y,’ which is

-_my_, ‘a demisemiquaver’: or, shorn of all superfluities (he pencilled

-it down), thus: ‘on my demisemiquaver.’ Now apply the same process.”

-

-I looked; pondered; felt myself instantly and brilliantly inspired;

-seized the pencil from him, and ticked off the measurements:--

-

-“On my demise | mi | q | u | av | er.”

-

-“Exactly,” said Chaunt, rising with the air of an at-length-released

-martyr, and proceeding to roll another cigarette: “‘On my demise, my

-cue you have here.’ ’Pon my word, without irreverence, it’s worthier

-of the composer of ‘Say, den, Julius, whar yo’ walkin’ roun’?’ than of

-the author of ‘Some Unnoticed Sides of Bacon.’ But all one can say is

-that he adapted himself to the intellectual measure of his legatee.

-Have you got a match?”

-

-I must end, I am really ashamed to say, with this. Anyhow, in one way

-my uncle was triumphant: I was convinced, at last and at least, of _a_

-value in cryptograms.

-

-

-

-

- THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE

- WORLD

-

-He was nicknamed, ironically, Carabas--a sort of French equivalent

-for Fortunatus--the only title by which I ever knew him. Perhaps the

-underlying sympathy which impelled the jest reconciled him to its

-mockery; for there is, after all, an acute distinction in being the

-unluckiest man in the world. Somebody says somewhere that it is better

-to “lead” in hell than be a super in heaven. There came a time, I

-think, when Carabas would have resented good fortune as an outrage. It

-would have broken his record, and made him commonplace at a blow. As

-with Hawthorne’s young woman who was bred and throve on poisons, a

-normal dietary would have been fatal to him. Carabas was nurtured on

-ill-luck.

-

-I made his acquaintance at Verey’s in Montreux. It was for ever

-Carabas here and Carabas there, and, sometimes, in badinage, M. le

-Marquis; for the fellow was always in huge request for his capability

-and good-humour. There was a great deal of commiseration being shown

-for him when I first arrived. Latterly he had drawn a prize

-ticket--for thirty thousand francs, I think it was--in some State

-lottery. But, alas! a few days before the declaration of the winning

-numbers, he had parted with his voucher for a trifle over cost price.

-We got up a consolation subscription for him in the hotel--relatively,

-quite a respectable little sum--which, with effusive thanks, he

-deposited in the Bureau de Secours Mutuels. The bank stopped payment

-almost at once, and Carabas lost his nest-egg, with a prospect of

-future “calls” from the parent cuckoo.

-

-After that, we abandoned him to his Nemesis. We had recognized

-finally, I suppose, that vails to him meant nothing but tips to his

-evil destiny, to whom, as to a rapacious head-waiter, they all

-accrued. And so he himself was convinced with us. He showed himself

-neither surprised nor aggrieved; but remained the sunniest fatalist,

-with just a touch of wistfulness, which Nature had ever produced out

-of a union between Candour and Philosophy.

-

-I don’t know what his official position was. I don’t think he knew

-himself. He wore a plain peaked cap, and a sleeved waistcoat with

-brass buttons, and was, loosely, jackal to the tremendous concierge

-whose bullion took the costly glass tabernacle in the hall with

-splendour. Carabas himself was not at all a figure of splendour. He

-was small, and placable in expression, with smiling cheeks, mobile

-lips, pencilled over by a tiny black moustache, and strength visible

-in nothing but his eyes. They were his vouchers of distinction above

-the common brand.

-

-One thing certain about him was that he was an accomplished linguist;

-a second, that, for all his unspoiledness, he had a large experience

-of man, and (notably) womankind; a third, that his courage was equal

-to his good temper; a fourth, that, with every natural claim to

-consideration, his pride halted at no service, whether of skill or

-complaisance, which an unscrupulous management could exact of him; a

-fifth and last, that he permitted his employers so to presume upon his

-reputation for successlessness, as to accept from them, in reward for

-his many accomplishments, wages which would have been cheap to

-inefficiency. His own material welfare, indeed, seemed always the

-thing remotest from his interests. To be helpful to others was the sum

-of his morality.

-

-I never could satisfy myself as to his nationality. Once--as one might

-ask him anything without offence--I put the question to him. To my

-secret surprise, he seemed to hesitate a perceptible moment before he

-answered, with a smiling shrug of his shoulders--

-

-“Cosmopolitan, monsieur; a foundling of Fortune.”

-

-“We should do very well, then,” I answered, “to claim you for

-England.”

-

-Was it fancy on my part that his pleasant face paled a little? “As to

-that,” he said, “I know nothing.”

-

-“You have never been in England?”

-

-He made no reply, but began bustling over some incoming luggage,

-calling to the porters at the lift; and in a moment he left me.

-

-The next day he was taken ill. The reversion of a service of raw

-oysters, supplied to the guests at table d’hôte, had found its way to

-the supper-table of the staff. Carabas detested oysters, but his

-gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial, and Ninette, the prettiest

-of _filles de cuisine_, sat next to him. She extracted a single

-“bivalve” from her half-dozen, and put it on his plate, moueing at him

-ravishingly.

-

-“Love conquers everything, M. Carabas,” she said; “even the

-antipathies of the stomach. I will not believe in your protestations

-unless you eat this for my sake.”

-

-He swallowed it at a gulp, and--it was a bad oyster, the only doubtful

-one in the whole consignment. Later, he was very sick; and afterwards

-ill for four days. Ninette cried, and then laughed, and congratulated

-herself on her escape. But as for the hotel, it was disconsolate in

-the temporary loss of its Carabas.

-

-For my part, I was even particularly conscious of a vague discomfort

-in his absence. Somehow a certain personal responsibility which I had

-undertaken seemed to weigh upon me the more heavily for it. It was not

-that Carabas could have lightened, by any conceivable means, my

-burden. It was just a sense of moral support withdrawn at a critical

-moment. It was as if the knees of my conscience were weak, owing to

-something having gone wrong with my backbone. But I will explain.

-

-Mr. G----, a very famous lawyer in our own country, had brought his

-family, a son and daughter, to holiday in Lucerne. The boy was a

-conceited and susceptible youth; to the lady I was--engaged.

-

-There seems no reason why impressionability should spell obstinacy;

-yet very often it does. Young Miller (so I will call him) having

-invited himself, at the Schweitzerhof, into the toils of a siren--a

-patently showy and dubious one--resisted all the efforts of his family

-to help him out. Baffled, but resolute, the father thereupon shifted

-the scene to Montreux, where they were no sooner arrived than he was

-summoned home on business at a moment’s notice. In the meanwhile, to

-me (hastily called from Paris, where it had been arranged I was to

-join the party on its homeward journey), was assigned the unenviable

-and impossible task of safeguarding the family interests. Miller had

-positively refused to accompany his father home, then or thereafter,

-until his absurd “honour,” as he called his fatuity, was vindicated.

-It would never do to abandon the wretched infant in the wilderness. He

-had his independence, and was a desirable _parti_. Hence my promotion

-to an utterly fictitious authority.

-

-I knew, naturally, how it would be; and so it turned out. The head was

-no sooner withdrawn, than Mademoiselle Celestine--privately advised,

-of course, of the fact--arrived at Verey’s. Here, then, was defiance

-unequivocal--naked and unashamed, I might have said, and been nearer

-the truth of the case. For mademoiselle’s charms were opulent, and she

-made no secret of them. One would have thought a schoolboy might have

-seen through that rouge and enamel, through the crude pencilling on

-those eyelashes, through all that self-advertising display. I will not

-dwell upon its details, because their possessor made, after all, only

-a summer nightmare for us, and was early discomfited. She served, at

-best, for foil to a brighter soul; and such is her present use in the

-context.

-

-From the outset there was no finesse, no pretence of propitiation in

-her tactics. She understood that it was a matter of now or never with

-her quarry, and aimed to bring him down sitting. A woman, even the

-best of her sex, never gives “law” in these matters. She goes out to

-kill.

-

-The two together formed an opposition camp--quite flagrantly, out in

-the sunlight. I thought sometimes the boy looked unhappy; but the

-witch would never let me have _him_ to myself, and I could not

-manœuvre _her_ from under his guns. I would never have scrupled to

-roll her in the mud, could I once have got her alone. But she was too

-cunning for that; and, as for her companion, his warfare was, after

-all, an honourable warfare. And all the time I had my own particular

-Campaspe to safeguard, to console, to squire through the odious

-notoriety which her brother’s infatuation had conferred upon us all.

-

-It was Carabas, of course, who in the end procured us a way, his own,

-out of the difficulty. The scandal being common property, there was no

-need for him to affect an ignorance of it. Yet we never knew, until

-the moment of his decision, how it had been occupying his mind from

-the beginning, or how, quietly and unobtrusively, he had been studying

-to qualify himself as our advocate. “_Our_ advocate,” I say; but I

-knew his brief was for the bright eyes of Campaspe. _He_ struck for

-the credit of the hotel, he declared; and mam’selle was associated

-with the best of that. Anyhow he struck, and daringly.

-

-He had risen from his bed on the fourth day, as smiling, as

-complaisant as ever. His presence, like a genial thaw, ameliorated the

-little winter of our discontent. We greeted his reappearance with

-effusion, and dated, from the moment of it, our restoration to the

-social sanities.

-

-It was a dusk, warm evening. The peaks of the Dent du Midi, thrust

-into a dewy sky, had been slowly cooling from pink to pearl-ash, like

-ingots of white-hot steel. Everything seemed one harmony of colour,

-except our thoughts, Campaspe’s and mine, as we strolled in the

-deserted garden. The Celestine and her victim had been out boating on

-the lake. We met them, unexpectedly returning. Mademoiselle was eating

-cherries out of a bag, and daintily spitting the stones right and left

-as she advanced. I don’t know how we should have faced the

-contretemps; I had no time, indeed, at the moment, to form a decision,

-before Carabas came softly and swiftly from a leafy ambush, and took

-command of the occasion.

-

-We all, I believe, instinctively recognized it for a critical one.

-Mademoiselle’s bosom, though she laughed musically (she had managed to

-preserve, it must be owned, the unspoiled voice of a _séductrice_)

-began to rise and fall in spasms. The portier addressed her without a

-moment’s hesitation.

-

-“I take the liberty to inform madame that she is in danger.”

-

-She gave a little gasp.

-

-“But is this comedy or melodrama?” she cried vehemently.

-

-“That is,” said Carabas, “as madame shall decide. I have the plot up

-my sleeve.”

-

-“The plot!” she echoed, and fell staring at him; and then furiously

-from him to us.

-

-“Go on,” she said. “I know very well who has instigated you to this.”

-

-She checked herself, and, smiling, put out a hand towards her

-companion, as if to ask, or give, reassurance. But I noticed, already

-to my satisfaction, that the boy did not respond. As for us, we were

-in complete darkness.

-

-“I obey, madame,” said Carabas. “This plot is told in a word. There

-was once in Paris a certain notorious _courtisane et joueuse_. Will

-madame desire her name?--_à bon entendeur demi-mot_. One night this

-lady’s husband, a Corsican, from whom she was separated on an

-honourable allowance, visited, purely by accident, her establishment.

-There was a fine scene, and he wounded her severely. She was forced by

-the police to prosecute him, and the jury, amidst the plaudits of the

-public, gave their verdict--against madame. But, triumphant there, the

-husband’s vengeance was whetted rather than assuaged. He would throw

-himself upon the suffrages of his countrymen in a more drastic

-vindication of his honour. She had disguised herself--her name--had

-fled. He devoted himself to the business of pursuit. At length he

-believed he had traced her to an hotel in Territet.”

-

-Carabas shrugged his shoulders and his lips, stuck out his arms at

-right angles with his body, stiff from the elbow, and came to a

-significant stop. I declare I pitied the adventuress. Every expression

-but that of panic seemed eliminated from her face at a touch. She

-looked old and haggard; and then, as if conscious of her

-self-betrayal, collapsed in a moment, dropping her bag of cherries.

-

-“I am not very well,” she stammered; “the night air tries me.” She

-turned lividly upon the portier: “Par pitié, monsieur! C’est pour me

-prevenir que vous etes venu, non pour me trahir?”

-

-Without waiting for his answer, she gathered herself together,

-literally, folding her train about her arm; made a desperate effort at

-self-command; wrenched out a smile, and went off, quavering a little

-airy chansonnette. But, after a few steps, despite her royal amplitude

-she was running. Carabas, very pale but self-possessed, picked up the

-bag, found one cherry in it, put it in his mouth abstractedly, and--

-

-“My God!” cried Miller hoarsely.

-

-Carabas jumped, and gulped.

-

-“A thousand devils!” he cried. “You made me swallow the stone,

-monsieur.”

-

-The boy was in a fever of agitation.

-

-“Is she really that--that sort?” he said.

-

-My Campaspe fell upon his neck.

-

-“O, my dear, O, my dear, I am so sorry!” she sobbed.

-

-He put her roughly, but not unkindly, away.

-

-“I’m--I’m going back to England--to the governor,” he said.

-

-“Carabas,” I demanded privately, as we returned to the hotel, “is it a

-fact that----?”

-

-“The husband is here? No, monsieur; it is not a fact.”

-

-“But----”

-

-“It was a _cause célèbre_. I was confident I recognized madame from

-the published prints. For the rest, it was just a chance shot; but it

-hit the mark.”

-

-“Carabas, you are wonderful; and we shall not forget.”

-

-Miller was as good as his word. With characteristic disregard for any

-but his own interests, he was gone the next morning, without sign or

-message, leaving us to wobble in his backwash of scandal, and to get

-out of it as best we could. His flight, of course, threw open all the

-doors of gossip. My business in Paris being unfinished, I had to go;

-but first I did my best to provide against unpleasantnesses by

-confiding Campaspe to the care of the least slanderous _dame de

-compagnie_ I could find. I am afraid, nevertheless, she had but a poor

-time of it.

-

-A week later I received a letter from Mr. G----, who in the interval

-had returned to Montreux.

-

-“All is happily over with all,” he wrote: “with the exception, that is

-to say, of poor Carabas, who is to undergo an operation for

-appendicitis. It appears that a cherry-stone, which he swallowed

-unwittingly, did the business. The management (OWLS!) demur to the

-expense. I have insisted (FOOLS!) upon undertaking it upon my own

-account. We owe much to him; and so do they (IDIOTS!). But they don’t

-understand how to pay your debts is very often the best foresight.”

-

-It was a case of pitch and toss. For days, it appeared, Carabas’s life

-hung in the balance. In the meanwhile, I was enabled to rejoin Mr.

-G---- and his daughter at Montreux, and to take my share in the

-nursing. Between gratitude and indignation, we rather claimed Carabas

-among us. Campaspe the poor fellow simply adored. Once, when he

-fancied himself losing hold, he confided to her, while we stood by,

-some main incidents in his life. I retail them here, in an abbreviated

-form.

-

-

-

-

- CARABAS’S STORY

-

-“There is no doubt,” he said “that as truly as some men are born

-without a palate, so some men are born without luck. It is no use

-trying to remedy the deficiency; it is well, rather, to study to

-reconcile oneself to it.

-

-“I was born in an English village, of naturalized Huguenot parents.

-When I was nineteen, I fell passionately in love. I had for a rival a

-youth very strong and unscrupulous. One day he persuaded me to bathe

-with him in the river, then swollen with floods. In mid-stream he

-pounced upon me, and strove to bear me under. I struggled

-desperately--it was of no avail. Death thundered in my ears; the water

-enwrapped and proceeded to swallow me. The last thing I saw was a

-figure gesticulating and shouting on the bridge a little way above;

-then consciousness fled, and I sank. I came to myself, stranded

-somewhere in a dark channel. A mad face was bending over me. I knew

-it--it was that of the miller. I had been carried into his race, and,

-just short of the wheel, he had caught and dragged me to shore. He was

-a drunkard, of that I was aware; and he was now quite demented.

-

-“‘Mordieu!’ he said, ‘I see what you’ve come for, and the devil shan’t

-call twice for his own.’

-

-“I understood instantly. He meant himself to go with me into the

-water--to join issues with the devil who had called for him, and have

-a fine frolic into eternity with his visitor. Terror lent me strength.

-I caught at a post, and, as he leaned down, shot my whole body at him

-like a spring. He went over with a splash, and I heard the wheel

-hitch, then begin to turn again, chewing its prey. O, my friends, what

-a situation! I lay like one damned, a thousand dreadful reflections

-mastering me. I should be accused, if caught, of murdering this man.

-That terror quite devoured the other, and increased with every moment

-that I lay. Darkness came upon me, and then I rose and fled. I thought

-of nothing but to escape; and so, stealing always by night, I reached

-London.

-

-“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I

-read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your

-Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual

-spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to _save me_ from

-drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his

-marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead;

-and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave--for my body, it appeared,

-had never been recovered--the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not

-complain, therefore. Yet--ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of

-sympathizers!--_she_ had been very dear to me.”

-

-Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could

-go on.

-

-“I obtained work--under an assumed name, of course--and for many years

-found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for

-languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more

-than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and

-soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize.

-Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the

-other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees

-him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.

-

-“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for

-companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the

-Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the

-train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of

-the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the

-distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he

-could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform.

-Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and

-on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.

-

-“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full

-horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite

-scares, and--ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already

-perceived my misfortune.

-

-“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a

-great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was

-certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as

-certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now

-possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon

-the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the

-smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform

-without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been

-passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make

-my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had

-fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to

-find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human

-monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for

-the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward

-on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now

-give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought

-that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this

-dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end

-before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur,

-if he likes, to vindicate my name.”

-

-

-As he finished, Mr. G----, whose face had been wonderfully kindling

-towards the end, bent over the bed.

-

-“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter,

-confessed the whole truth before he died.”

-

-Carabas sprang up.

-

-“Monsieur!” he cried.

-

-“I am a lawyer,” said Mr. G----; “I was connected with the case. The

-man confessed, I say. If I had only known that--Carabas! Carabas! you

-were the one witness we wanted, and could not find!”

-

-Campaspe knelt down, and put a pitiful young arm round the shoulders

-of the unluckiest man in the world.

-

-“Not only we now,” she said softly, “but others also, it seems, owe

-you a great debt, dear Carabas. We shall all be unable to pay it if

-you die. If--if I give you a kiss, will you live to return it to me on

-my wedding day?”

-

-“Mademoiselle!” cried Carabas, radiant. “You shame ill-luck; you shame

-even Death. See how they turn and go out by the door! Vouchsafe me

-that dear mascot, and I swear I will live for ever.”

-

-He is now, and has been for long, our most loved and trusted servant,

-with an iron constitution, and, what is best, an unshakable conviction

-that the circumstances which led him on to his present position were,

-after all, the kindest of luck in disguise.

-

-

-

-

- JACK THE SKIPPER

-

-“Will you favour me by looking at it, young gentleman?” said the

-petitioner.

-

-_It_ was a most curious little model, which the petitioner had taken

-reverently out of a handbag. He was a hungry, eager-looking man, in a

-battered bowler, shabby frockcoat, and a primordial “comforter” which

-might have been made for Job.

-

-Mr. Edward Cantle, busy at his desk, paid no attention.

-

-“It turns, sir, literally, on a question of fresh butter,” said the

-petitioner. “Who gets it nowadays, or realizes how, between churn and

-table, every pat becomes a dumping-ground for bacilli? Here, you will

-observe, the whole difficulty is resolved. We lead the cow into the

-cart itself, milk her into a separator, turn her out, drive off, and

-the revolution of the wheels completes the process. See? No chance for

-any freebooting germ! The result is simplicity itself--the customer’s

-butter made actually on the way to his door.”

-

-Mr. Cantle put his pen in his mouth, blotted what he had been at work

-on, examined it cursorily but surely, rose, walked to the counter, and

-presented a form to the petitioner, all something with the air of a

-passionless police-inspector. He was a tall young man, loose-limbed,

-and with all his hardness, like a melancholy Punch’s show character,

-in his head. Much converse with cranks had engendered in him an air of

-perpetual unspoken protest, of exasperated resignation. For he was a

-trusted clerk in the office of the Commissioners of Patents for

-Inventions.

-

-“Exactly,” he mumbled over the goose-quill. “Thats a matter for your

-provisional specification. Good morning.”

-

-“It’s the most wonderful----”

-

-“Of course--they all are. Good morning.”

-

-“It will revolutionize----”

-

-“Naturally. You will make your petition and declaration in the proper

-forms. Good morning.”

-

-The inventor essayed another effort or two, met with no response,

-quavered out a sigh, packed up his treasure and vanished. The sound of

-his exit neither relaxed nor deepened a wrinkle on the brow of the

-neatly groomed Government official. He simply went on with his work.

-

-At half-past one o’clock, it being Saturday, he--we were going to say

-“knocked off,” but the expression would be a libel on his methodical

-refinement. He took a hansom--selecting a personably horsed one--to

-his chambers in Adelphi Terrace; lunched off four _pâté de foie

-gras_ sandwiches, already awaiting him under a silver cover, and a

-glass of chablis; changed his dress for a river suit of sober-tinted

-flannel and a Panama hat; charged himself with a morocco handbag, also

-ready prepared; drove to Waterloo, and took a first-class ticket, and

-the train--he favoured the South-Western because it was the quieter

-line of two in this connexion--to Windsor. Arrived there, he was

-hailed and joined by a friend on the platform.

-

-“Glad you’re come, Ned. I’m off colour a bit. You never are.”

-

-It was hardly an attractive reception. Mr. Cantle glanced

-interrogatively at his companion, the Honourable Ivo Monk, son of Lord

-Prior.

-

-“No?” he said. “What’s disturbing you, Monk?”

-

-“O, the devil, I think!” said the young man peevishly. “Come along,

-do, out of this.”

-

-Together they walked down to the river in almost absolute silence. Mr.

-Cantle had agreed to join his friend for an agreeable week-end on the

-water. It looked promising. He thought a little, and came to a

-characteristically uncompromising decision.

-

-“Is it anything to do with Miss Varley?”

-

-“Yes, it is.”

-

-“She--they have a houseboat here, haven’t they?”

-

-“Yes.”

-

-“Close by?”

-

-“More or less. Just above Datchet.”

-

-“Then, I think, perhaps I’d better----”

-

-“Then, I think, perhaps, you’d not. You don’t know anything about it.

-It’s not what you suppose.”

-

-“O!”

-

-A punt, in luxurious keeping with the tastes of its owner, awaited

-them at the steps. It was equipped with a number of little lockers for

-wine and food, a wealth of the downiest cushions, and an adjustable

-tilt with brass hoops for “roughing it” at nights on the water. For

-the Honourable Ivo was at the moment an aquatic gipsy, wandering at

-large and at whim, and scorning the effeminate pillow.

-

-They loitered through Romney lock, talking commonplaces, and below

-relinquished their poles and sat and drifted until the reeds held them

-up. It was a fair, sweet afternoon, full of life and merriment, and,

-in view of the crowding craft, the remotest from ghostliness.

-

-“Would you like to see her?” said Mr. Monk suddenly and unexpectedly.

-

-Cantle was never to be taken off his guard.

-

-“If it will please you, it will please me,” he said.

-

-They resumed the poles and made forward. To their left a little sludgy

-creek went up among the osiers; and, anchored at its mouth, rocked the

-vulgarest little apology for a houseboat. It seemed just one cuddy,

-mounted on a craft like a bomb-ketch, which it filled from stem to

-stern; and what with its implied restrictedness, and dingy appearance,

-and stump of a chimney, one could not have imagined a less inviting

-prison in which to make out a holiday. Yet there was a lord to this

-squalid baby galliot, and to all appearance a very contented one, as

-he sat smoking a pipe, with his legs dangling over the side. Monk

-nodded to him, and the man nodded back with a grin.

-

-“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Cantle, when out of earshot.

-

-“O, a crank! You should recognize the breed better than I do.”

-

-Mr. Cantle, thoughtfully nursing his jaw, with a frown on his face,

-had left off punting.

-

-“Don’t you know him?” he said suddenly.

-

-“We exchange civilities,” answered the other; “the freemasonry of the

-river, you understand. _There’s_ the Varleys’ boat.”

-

-Forging under the Victoria Bridge, they had come in view of a long

-line of houseboats moored under the left bank against a withy bed,

-opposite the Home Park. At one of these, hight the “Mermaid,” very

-large and handsome, they came to, and fastening on, stepped aboard. A

-sound of murmuring ceased with their arrival, and Cantle had hardly

-become aware of two figures seated in the saloon, before he was being

-introduced to one of them.

-

-Miss Varley was certainly “interesting”--tall and “English,” but with

-an exhausted air, and her eyes superhumanly large. She greeted the

-stranger sweetly, and her fiancé with a rather full, pathetic look.

-

-“Mamma’s resting a little,” she said, in a bodiless voice, “and

-Nanna’s been reading to me. Papa comes down by the seven o’clock

-train.”

-

-“And what’s Nanna been reading?” asked the young man.

-

-The old nurse held up the volume. It was the Holy Book. Monk ground

-his teeth.

-

-“Hush, Master Ivo!” whispered the woman. “You only distress her.”

-

-“I’d rather see her reading a yellow-back on a July day on the river.”

-

-The girl put a hand on his arm. “When the call has come? When my days

-are numbered, Ivo?” she said.

-

-He almost burst out in an oath.

-

-“I’d rather, if I were you, be recognized and called by my own name

-and nature,” he said bitterly. “But it’s all nonsense, Netta. Do, for

-God’s sake, believe it!”

-

-He was so obviously overwrought, the situation was so painful, that

-his friend persuaded him, on personal grounds, to leave. They punted

-across, dropped down a distance, and brought up under the bank in a

-quiet spot.

-

-“Very well,” said Cantle. “You’ll tell me, perhaps, what’s the

-matter?”

-

-“Can’t you see? She’s dying.”

-

-He dropped his face into his hands, with a groan of impotent

-suffering.

-

-“There’s some mystery here,” said his friend quietly.

-

-Monk looked up, and burst out in a sudden lost fury--

-

-“There is, by God! Jack the Skipper!”

-

-Cantle was rolling a cigarette imperturbably.

-

-“Who’s--Jack the Skipper?” he drawled.

-

-“I wish you could tell me,” cried the other. “I wish you could show

-these the way to his throat!” He held out his hands. “They’d fasten!”

-he whispered.

-

-He came all of a sudden, quite quietly, and sat by his friend. “Its

-been going on for three weeks now,” he said rapidly. “They call him

-that about here--a sort of skit on the other--the other beast, you

-know. He appears at night--a sort of ghoulish, indescribable monster,

-black and huge and dripping, and utters one beastly sound and

-disappears. Nobody’s been able to trace him, or see where he comes

-from or goes to. He just appears in the night, in all sorts of

-unexpected places--houseboats, and bungalows, and shanties by the

-water--and terrifies some lonely child or woman, and is gone. The

-devil!--O, the devil! We’ve made parties and hunted him, to no good.

-It’s a regular reign of terror hereabouts. People don’t dare being

-left alone after dark. He frightened the little Cunningham child into

-a fit, and it’s not expected to recover. Mrs. Bancock died of an

-apoplexy after seeing it. And the worst of it is, a deadly

-superstition’s seized the place. Its visit’s got to be supposed to

-presage death, and----” He seized Cantle’s hand convulsively.

-

-“Damn it! It’s unnatural, Ned! The river’s haunted--here, in Cockney

-Datchet--in the twentieth century! You don’t believe in such

-things--tell me you don’t! But Netta----”

-

-His head sank on his breast. Cantle blew out a placid whiff of smoke.

-

-“But--Miss Varley?” he said.

-

-“You know--you’ve heard, at least,” said the other, “what she was. The

-_thing_ suddenly stood before her, when she was alone, one night.

-Well--you see what she is now.”

-

-“I don’t see, nevertheless, why she don’t----”

-

-“Pack and run? No more do I. Put it to her if you like. I’ve said _my_

-say. But she’s in the grip--thinks she’s had her call--and there’s no

-moving her. Cantle, she’s just dying where she stands.”

-

-Cantle’s cigarette made a tiny arc of light, and hissed in the river.

-He had heard of epidemic hysteria. The world was full of cranks.

-

-“Now,” he said, “drop the subject, please. Shall I tell you of some

-fools I’ve come across in my time?”

-

-He related some of his experiences in the Patent Office. The most

-impudent invention ever proposed, he said, was a burglar’s tool for

-snipping out and holding by suction in one movement a disk of window

-glass. His dry self-confidence had a curiously reassuring effect on

-the other. While they ate and drank and smoked and talked, the life of

-the river had become gradually attenuated and delivered to silence; a

-mist rose and hung above the water; sounds died down and ceased,

-concentrating themselves into the persistent dismal yelp of a dog

-somewhere on the bank above; the lights in the houseboats thinned to

-isolated sparks--twelve o’clock clanged from a distant tower.

-

-Then, all at once, he was alert and quietly active.

-

-“Monk, listen to me: I’m going to cure Miss Varley.”

-

-“Ned!”

-

-“Take the paddle and work up--up the river, do you hear? I’ll sit

-forward.”

-

-The ghost of a red moon was rising in the east. They slipped on with

-scarce a sound. A sort of lurid glaze enamelled the water. All of a

-sudden a sleek bulk rose ahead right in their path, wallowed a moment

-like a porpoise, and disappeared.

-

-“Good God!” cried Monk, in a choking voice, half rising from his seat.

-

-“Keep down!” whispered his friend.

-

-“Cantle! Did you see it? Cantle! It was he!”

-

-“Keep down!”

-

-They paddled on, past the last of the boats, through the bridge, on as

-far as the squat little bomb-ketch bulking black and menacing at the

-mouth of the creek.

-

-“Hold on!” whispered Cantle. “Run her out of sight into the reeds. We

-must wade on board there.”

-

-“There? That fellow Spindler’s boat?”

-

-“Of course, now. That was his name.”

-

-“What do you mean?”

-

-“You’ll soon know.”

-

-They accomplished the feat, though near mud-foundered by the way, and

-scrambled, dripping, on board. The door of the cuddy yielded to their

-touch. Monk was beginning to gather dim light.

-

-“Don’t let me,” he whispered, almost sobbing. “Keep my hands off him.”

-

-“Leave him to me,” said Cantle gravely.

-

-Not a sound of life greeted them. They stole into the cabin and closed

-the door, almost, upon themselves.

-

-“We must yield him to-night for the sake of to-morrow,” murmured

-Cantle.

-

-“Ned! If he goes again----”

-

-“Hush! It’s not probable he’d risk a second visit, knowing her

-watched.”

-

-The crack brightened as the moon rose: glowed into a ribbon of light.

-Suddenly Cantle gripped the other’s wrist.

-

-A stealthy puddling, sucking sound close by reached their ears. Over

-the side came swarming a great shapeless fishy creature, which settled

-with a sludgy wallop on the little triangle of foredeck almost at

-their feet. Monk gave a soft, awful gasp, and, with the sound, Cantle

-had dashed open the door and flung himself upon the monster.

-

-“Quick!” he cried; “you’ve got matches! Light a

-candle--lamp--anything! Lie still, Mr. Spindler. It’s all up. I know

-you and your Marine Secret Service suit! A knife now, Monk! Out he

-comes.”

-

-He was merciless with the blade when he got it, slashing and cutting

-at the oilskin suit, splitting it from top to toe. Mr. Spindler’s red

-beard and extravagant face came out of it like a death’s-head out of

-its chrysalis.

-

-“There goes the proud monument of a lifetime,” said the madman. He had

-made no effort to resist. The first blow at this darling of his

-invention had seemed to hamstring him, morally and materially.

-

-For he was just one of Mr. Cantle’s cranks--had once invented a

-submarine travelling suit, with which he had hoped to inaugurate a new

-system of Secret Service for the Admiralty. It was an ingenious enough

-device, with some scheme of floating valves through which to breathe;

-but the authorities, after holding him on and off, would have none of

-it. Then the fate of many inventors had befallen him. Between

-practical ruin and a moral sense of wrong, he had gone crazy, and

-vowed warfare on the mankind which had discarded him. It should

-comprehend, too late, the uses of instant appearance and disappearance

-to which his invention could be put. He went mad, and ended his days

-in an asylum.

-

-On the Monday morning Mr. Cantle posted back to the Patent Office; on

-the Tuesday Miss Varley was reading De Maupassant’s “Mademoiselle

-Fifi” under the awning of the “Mermaid’s” roof; and on the Wednesday

-Mr. Ivo Monk got her to name the day.

-

-

-

-

- A BUBBLE REPUTATION

-

-

- One crowded hour of glorious life

- Is worth an age without a name.

-

-

-I had never suspected Sweeting of a desire to be “somebody.” Indeed,

-the _jeunesse dorée_, in whose ranks Nature had seemed

-unquestioningly to bestow him, is not subject to diffidence, or prone

-to the wisdom which justifies itself in a knowledge of its own

-limitations. I was familiar with his placid, cherubic face at a minor

-club or two, in the Park, in Strand restaurants and Gaiety stalls; and

-it had never once occurred to me to classify him as apart from his

-fellows of the exquisite guild. If, like Keats, he could appreciate

-the hell of conscious failure, its most poignant anguish, I could have

-sworn, would borrow from some too-late realization of the correctest

-“form” in a hat-brim or shirt-collar. I could have sworn it, I say,

-and I should have been, of course, mistaken. Keats may have claimed it

-as his poetical prerogative to go ill-dressed, and to object, though

-John, to be dubbed “Johnny.” It remained to Sweeting to prove that a

-man might be a very typical “Johnny” and a poet to boot. But I will

-explain.

-

-One day I entered the reading-room of the Junior Winston and nodded to

-Sweeting, who was seated solitary at the newspaper-table. While I was

-hunting for the “Saturday Review”--which was conducting, I had been

-told, the vivisection of a friend of mine--my attention was attracted

-by something actually ostentatious in Sweeting’s perusal of _his_

-sheet, and I glanced across. Judge my astonishment when I saw in his

-hands, not “Baily’s” or the “Pink ’Un,” but the very periodical I

-sought. I gasped; then grinned.

-

-“Hullo!” I said. “Since when have you taken to that?”

-

-He attempted to reply with a face of wondering hauteur, but gave up at

-the first twitch.

-

-“O,” he said rather defiantly, “you lit’ary professionals think no

-one’s in it but yourselves.”

-

-“In what?”

-

-“Why, this sort of thing,” he said, tapping the “Saturday”; “the real

-stuff, you know.”

-

-“Indeed,” I said, “we don’t. You’re always welcome to the reversion of

-my place in it for one.”

-

-“O, me!” he said airily. “It don’t positively apply there, you see,

-being a sort of a kind of a professional myself.”

-

-“My Sweet!” I exclaimed. “A professional--you?”

-

-“O, yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Write for the ‘Argonaut.’ Little

-thing of mine in it last number.”

-

-I felt faint.

-

-“May I see it?” I murmured. “If I don’t mistake, it’s under your elbow

-at this moment.”

-

-“Is it?” he answered, blushing flagrantly, “Lor’ bless me, so it is!”

-

-I took it from his hand, opened it, and read, over his undoubted

-signature--Marmaduke Sweeting--the title, “The Fool of the Family.”

-

-“Ah!” I thought, “of course. Like title like author.”

-

-But I was wrong. The tale, a veritable _conte drolatique_, was as keen

-and strong as a Maupassant. I had no choice but to take it at a

-draught, smacking my lips after. Then I put the paper softly down and

-looked across at him. His harmless features were set in a sort of

-hypnotic smile, his hat was tilted over his eyes, and he was making

-constant mouthfuls of the large silver knob of his stick. My eyes

-travelled to and fro between this figure and the figures of print

-_that were he_. What possible connexion could there be between the

-two? I thought of Buffon writing in lace ruffles, and all at once

-recognized a virtue in immaculate shirt-cuffs, and decided to consult

-some fashionable hosier about raising my price per thousand words. In

-the meantime my respect for Sweeting was born.

-

-“So,” I said, “you are somebody after all?”

-

-“Am I?” he answered, grinning bucolic. “Glad you’ve found it out.”

-

-“Why,” I said, “honestly there’s genius in this story; but nothing to

-what you’ve shown in concealing that you had any. There must be much

-more to come out of the same bin.”

-

-He flushed and laughed and wriggled, as I walked over and sat beside

-him.

-

-“O, I dare say!” he said. “Hope so, anyhow.”

-

-“Not a doubt. What made you think of it, now?”

-

-“O! I thought of it,” he said; and, after all, there was no better

-reply to an idiotic question. I was beginning humbly to appraise

-intellectual self-sufficiency at its value, and to appreciate the

-hundred disguises of reason.

-

-I saw a good deal of Sweeting, on his own initiative, after this. He

-would visit me in my rooms, and discuss--none too sapiently, I may

-have thought in other circumstances, and with the most ingenuous

-admiration for his own abilities--the values of certain characters as

-portrayed by him in a brilliant series, “The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist,” which had immediately followed in the “Argonaut” “The

-Fool of the Family,” and was taking the town by storm. Thus, “What

-d’ee think of that old Lupin, last number,” he would chuckle, “with

-his calling virtue an ‘emu,’ don’tcherknow?”

-

-“Ha, yes!” I would correct him, with a nervous laugh. “‘Anæmia’ was

-the word. You meant it, of course.”

-

-“Why, didn’t I say it?” he would answer. “It’s got a big swallow

-anyhow”; and then he would check himself suddenly, and, without

-further explanation, eye me, and begin to whistle.

-

-Now I might recall the passage to which he referred (to wit, that

-every red blood corpuscle, being a seed peccancy, so to speak, made

-virtue an anæmia) and try to puzzle out a quite new significance in

-it. Suspecting that its author’s apparent naïveté was only assumed,

-I was respectfully guarded in my answers, and, when he was gone, would

-curiously ponder the perspicacious uses to which he would put them. He

-did not consult me, I felt, as an oracle; but rather drew upon me for

-the vulgar currency of thought, to which his exclusiveness was a

-stranger. He was very secret about his own affairs; though I

-understood that he was becoming quite an important “name” in the

-literary world. Ostensibly he was not, after that first essay, to be

-identified with the “Argonaut,” though any one, having an ounce of the

-proper appreciation, could scarcely fail to mark in the “Love-Letters”

-the right succession of qualities which had made the earlier story

-notable. Indeed, he suffered more than any man I knew from the

-penalties attaching to the popular author. The number of

-communications, both signed and anonymous, which he received from

-admirers was astonishing. Scarce a day passed but he brought me

-specimens of them to discuss and laugh over. I did not, I must admit,

-think his comments always in good taste; but then I was not personally

-subject to the flattering pursuit, and so may have been no more

-constituted to judge than a monk is of a worldling.

-

-These testimonies to his fame were from every sort of individual--the

-soldier, the divine, the poet, the painter, the actor (and more

-especially the actress), the young person with views, the social

-butterfly, the gushling late of the schoolroom, the woman of

-sensibility late of the latest lifelong passion for art or religion,

-and finding, as usual, the taste of life sour on her lips after a

-recent debauch of sentiment. They all found something in the

-“Love-Letters” to meet their particular cases--some note of subtle

-sympathy, some first intimation to their misunderstood spirits of a

-kindred emotion which had _felt_, and could lay its finger with divine

-solace on the spot. No longer would they suffer a barren

-grievance--that hair-shirt which not a soul suspected but to giggle

-over. To take, for example, from the series a typical sentence which

-served so many for a text--

-

-“_To whom does the materialist cry his defiance--to whom but to God?

-He cannot rest from baiting a Deity whose existence he denies. He

-forgets that irony can wring no response from a vacuum._” A propos of

-which wrote the following:--

-

-

- A Half-pay General.--Don’t tell me, Sir, but you’ve served, like me,

- a confounded ungrateful country, and learned your lesson! Memorialize

- the devil rather than the War Office. You’ve hit it off in your last

- sentence to a T.

-

- A Chorus Girl.--Dear Sir,--You mean me to understand, I know, and

- you’re quite right. The British public has no more ears than a ass, or

- they’d reconise who ought to be playing Lotta in “The Belle of

- Battersea.” It’s such a comfort you can’t tell. Please forgive this

- presumptious letter from a stranger.--Yours very affectionately,

-

-                                                      Dolly.

-

- An Apostolic Fisherman.--I like your metaphor. I would suggest only

- “ground-baiting a Deity” as more subtly applicable to the tactics of

- a worldling. Note: “And Simon Peter said, ‘I go a-fishing.’”

-

-

-Take, again, this excerpt: “_Doctors’ advice to certain patients to

-occupy their minds recalls the Irishman’s receipt for making a cannon,

-‘Take a hole and pour brass round it._’” Of which a “True Hibernian”

-wrote--

-

-

- Sir,--I’ve always maintained that the genuine “bull,” fathered on my

- suffering country, came from the loins of the English lion. Murder,

- now! How could a patient occupy his doctor’s mind as well as his own,

- unless he was beside himself? And then he’d have no mind at all.

-

-

-Or take, once more and to end, the sentence: “_The Past is that

-paradoxical possession, a Shadow which we would not drop for the

-Substance_”; which evoked the following from “One who has felt the

-Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret”--

-

-

- How strangely and exquisitely phrased! It brings, I know not how, the

- memory of the Channel before me. I have only crossed it once; but, O!

- the recollection! the solemn moving waters to which my soul went out!

-

-

-These are specimens, but a few, of the responses wrung by Sweeting

-from the human chords he touched. There were, in addition, prayers

-innumerable for autographs, requests for the reading of manuscripts,

-petitions for gratis copies of his works, to be sold for any and every

-charity but the betterment of impecunious authors. He fairly basked in

-the sunshine of a great reputation. There was only one flaw in his

-enormous self-satisfaction. By a singular perversity and most

-inexplicable coincidence, every one of these signed documents was

-without an address. But, after all, coincidence, which is only another

-name for the favouritism of Fate, must occasionally glut itself on an

-approved subject. Sweeting was in favour with the gods, and enjoyed “a

-high old time of it,” principally, perhaps, because he did not appear

-to be ambitious of impressing any “set” but that with which he was

-wont to forgather, and above which he made no affectation now of

-rising superior.

-

-I had an example one evening of this intellectual modesty, when

-casually visiting the Earl’s Court grounds. There I encountered my

-friend, the centre and protagonist of a select company in the

-enclosure. All exquisitely wore exquisite evening dress (for myself I

-always scornfully eschewed the livery), and all gravitated about

-Sweeting with the unconscious homage which imbecility pays to

-brains--“the desire of the moth for the star.” I could see at once

-that he was become their Sirius, their bright particular glory,

-reflecting credit upon their order. And he, who might have commanded

-the suffrages of the erudite, seemed content with his little

-conquest--to have reached, indeed, the apogee of his ambition--a

-one-eyed king among the blind. These suffered my introduction with

-some condescension, as a mere larva of Grub Street. They knew

-themselves now as the stock from which was generated this real genius.

-As for me, I was Gil Blas’s playwright at the supper of comedians. And

-then, at somebody’s initiative, we were all swaggering off together

-along the walks.

-

-Now, I had always had a sort of envy of the _esprit de ton_ which

-unites the guild of amiable gadflies; and, finding myself here, for

-all my self-conscious intellectual superiority, of the smallest

-account, I grew quickly sardonic. If I knew who wrote the

-“Heptameron,” I didn’t know, even by sight, the Toddy Tomes who was

-setting all the town roaring and droning with his song, “Papa’s

-Perpendicular Pants.” It is a peevish experience to be “out of it,”

-even if the _it_ is no more intelligible than a Toddy Tomes’s topical;

-and gradually I waxed quite savage. Reputation is only relative after

-all. There is no popular road to fame. As an abstract acquisition, it

-may be said to pertain at its highest to the man who combines quick

-perceptions with adaptive sympathies. I was not that man. In all, save

-exclusively my own company, I felt “out of it,” awkward because

-resentful, and resentful because awkward. I despised these asses,

-however franked by Sweeting, yet coveted, vainly, the temporary grace

-of seeming at home with them. I got very cross. And then we alighted

-on Slater.

-

-I knew it for his name by Sweeting’s greeting him in response to his

-hail. He was seated at a little table all by himself, drinking

-champagne, and alternately turning up and biting the ends of a red tag

-of beard, and luridly pulling at a ponderous cigar. He was a small,

-dingy person, so obviously inebriated, that the little human clearing

-in which he sat solitary was nothing more than the formal recognition

-of his state. He also, it was evident, to my disgust, despised the

-conventions of dress, but without any of those qualms of

-self-consciousness with which I was troubled. He lolled back, his hat

-crushed over his eyes, a hump of dicky and knotted tie escaping from

-his waistcoat-front, his disengaged thumb hooked into an arm-hole--as

-filthy a little vagabond, confident and maudlin and truculent in one,

-as you could wish. And he hailed Sweeting as a familiar.

-

-My friend stopped, with a rather sheepish grin.

-

-“Hullo, Slater!” said he. “A wet night, ain’t it?”

-

-Our little group came chuckling all about the baboon. Even then, I

-noticed, I was the one looked upon with most obvious disfavour by the

-surrounding company.

-

-“Look here,” said Sweeting, suddenly gripping me to the front. “Here’s

-one of your cloth, Slate’. Let me introjuce you,” and he whispered in

-my ear, “Awfully clever chap. You’ll like him when you know.”

-

-I suppose my instant and instinctive repulsion was patent even to the

-sot. He lurched to his feet, and swept off his crumpled hat with an

-extravaganza bow. Sweeting’s pack went into a howl of laughter. It was

-evident they were not unacquainted with the creature, and looked to

-him for some fun.

-

-“My cloth, sir?” vociferated the beast. “Honoured, sir, ’m sure, sir.

-Will you allow me to cut my coat according to it, sir? Has any

-gentleman a pair of scissors? Just the tails, sir, no more--quite

-large enough for me; and you’d look very elegent in an Eton jacket.”

-

-I tried to laugh at this idiotic badinage, and couldn’t.

-

-“O, crikey, wouldn’t he!” said a vulgar onlooker. “Like a sugar-barrel

-in a weskit.”

-

-Then, as everybody roared, I lost my temper.

-

-“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Sweeting. “It’s the way he’ll get his

-change out of you.”

-

-“Change!” I snapped furious. “No change could be for the worse with

-him, I should think. Let me pass, please!”

-

-The odious wretch was pursuing me all the time I spoke, while the

-others hemmed me in, edging me towards him and roaring with laughter.

-Sweeting himself made no effort to assist me, but stood to one side,

-irresistibly giggling, though with a certain anxiety in his note.

-

-“Call off your puppies!” I cried ragingly, and with the word was sent

-flying into the very arms of Slater. I felt something rip, and at a

-blow my hat sink over my eyes; and then a chill friendly voice entered

-into the mêlée.

-

-“O, look here, Slater, that’ll do, you know!”

-

-I wrenched my eyes free. My champion was not Sweeting, but Voules, Sir

-Francis Voules, of whom more hereafter. He was cool and vicious, and

-as faultlessly dressed as the others, but in a manner somehow superior

-to the foppery of their extreme youth. He carried a light overcoat on

-his arm.

-

-“O! _will_ it?” said Slater.

-

-“Yes, I said so,” said Voules, pausing a moment from addressing me to

-scan him. Slater slouched back to his table. Nobody laughed again.

-

-In the meantime, Sir Francis was helping me to restore my hat to

-shape, and to don _his_ overcoat.

-

-“Yours is split to the neck,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

-

-He took my arm, and we strolled off together. The crowd, quite

-respectful, parted, and we were engulfed in it.

-

-I was grateful to Voules, of course, but inexplicably resentful of his

-cool masterfulness. Truth to tell, we were souls quite antipathetic;

-and now he had put me right--with everybody but myself. In a helpless

-attempt to restore that balance, I snarled fiercely, smacking fist

-into palm--

-

-“I’ll have the law of that beast! You know him, it seems? I can’t

-congratulate you on your friends.”

-

-“Sweeting was most to blame,” said Voules quietly.

-

-I grunted, and strode on fuming.

-

-“But, after all,” said Voules, “the poor ass had to back up his

-confederate.”

-

-I glanced at him as we walked.

-

-“His confederate?”

-

-“Of course. Didn’t you know? Slater really writes the things for which

-Sweeting gets the credit.”

-

-“O, come, Voules! Here’s one of your foolhardy calumnies. You really

-should be careful. Some day you’ll get into trouble.”

-

-“O, very well!”

-

-“You talk as if it were an open secret.”

-

-“You know Sweeting as well as I. Do you recognize his style in the

-Nonconformist lucubrations? Possibly you’ve had letters from him?”

-

-“I’ve some specimens of letters _to_ him now--letters from admirers.

-If anything were needed to refute your absurd statement, there they

-are in evidence.”

-

-He gave a little dry laugh; then touched my sleeve eagerly.

-

-“You wouldn’t think it abusing a confidence to show me those letters?”

-

-“I don’t know why. Sweeting’s laid no embargo on me.”

-

-“Very well. If you’ll let me, I’ll come home with you now.”

-

-I stumbled on in a sort of haze.

-

-I did not believe this to be any more than a mad shot in the dark. Sir

-Francis was one of those men who made mischief as Pygmalion made

-Galatea. He fell in love with his own conceptions--would go any

-lengths to gratify his passion for detraction. Do not suppose, from

-his prefix, that he was a bold, bad baronet. He was just an actor of

-the new creation--belonged to what was known by doyens of the old

-Crummles school as the be-knighted profession. The stage was an

-important incident in his social life, and he seldom missed a

-rehearsal of any piece to which he was engaged.

-

-“You know this Slater?” I said, as I drove in my latchkey. “As what?”

-

-“As a clever, disreputable, and perfectly unscrupulous journalist.”

-

-“Its preposterous! What could induce him to part with such a

-notoriety?”

-

-“The highest bidder, of course.”

-

-“What! Sweeting? If he’s still the simple Johnny you’d have him be?”

-

-“I’m yet to learn that the simple Johnny lacks vanity.”

-

-“But, for him, such an unheard-of way to gratify it!”

-

-“Opportunism, sir. There are more things in the Johnny’s philosophy

-than we dream of.”

-

-“Well, I simply don’t believe it.”

-

-Voules read, with an immobile face, the letters which Sweeting had

-left with me. At the end he looked up.

-

-“Are you open to a bet?”

-

-“Can’t afford it.”

-

-“Never mind, then.” He rose. “Truth for its own sake will do. Anyhow,

-I presume you don’t object to countering on Slater?”

-

-“O, do what you like!”

-

-“Thanks. Would you wish to be in at the death?”

-

-“Just as you please.”

-

-“You see,” said he, with a pleasant affectation of righteousness, “if

-my surmise is correct--and you’re the first one I’ve ventured to

-confide in--it’s my plain duty to prick a very preposterous bubble.

-Thank you for lending yourself to the cause of decency. Don’t say

-anything until you hear from me. Good-bye!”--and he was gone, followed

-by my inclination, only my inclination, to hurl a book after him.

-

-I sat tight--always the more as I swelled over the delay--till, on the

-third day following, Sweeting called on me. He came in very

-shamefaced, but with a sort of suppressed triumph to support his

-abjectness.

-

-“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said; “and I gave him a bit of my

-mind after you’d gone.”

-

-“Indeed,” I answered good-humouredly; “that was what you couldn’t well

-afford, and it was generous of you.”

-

-He was blankly impervious to the sarcasm. Had it been otherwise, my

-new-fledged doubts had perhaps fluttered to the ground. After a moment

-I saw him pull a paper from his pocket.

-

-“Look here,” he said, vainly trying to suppress some emotion, which

-was compound, in suggestion, of elation and terror. “You’ve made your

-little joke, haven’t you, over all those other people forgettin’ to

-put their addresses? Well, what do you think of _that_ for the Prime

-Minister?”

-

-I took from his hand a sheet of large official-looking paper, and

-read--

-

-

- Dear Sir,--You may have heard of my book, “The Foundations of

- Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested to learn that I am

- contemplating a complete revision of its text in the light of your

- “Love-Letters.” They are plainly illuminating. From being a man of no

- assured opinions, I have become converted, through their medium, to a

- firm belief in the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me

- the honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-scribe

- the author of that incomparable series. I shall do myself the pleasure

- to call upon you at your rooms at nine o’clock this evening, when I

- have a little communication to make which I hope will not be

- unpleasing to you. Permit me to subscribe myself, with the profoundest

- admiration, your obedient servant,

-

-                                                J. A. Burleigh.

-

-

-“Well,” I murmured, feeling suffocated, “there’s no address here

-either.”

-

-“No,” he answered; “but, I say, it’s rather crushing. Won’t you come

-and help me out with it?”

-

-“What do you want _me_ for?” I protested. “I’ve no wish to be

-annihilated in the impact between two great minds. You aren’t afraid?”

-

-“O, no!” he said, perspiring. “It’ll be just a shake, and ‘So glad,’

-and ‘Thanks, awfully,’ I suppose, and nothing more to speak of. But

-you might just as well come, on the chance of helping me out of a

-tight place. It’s _viva voce_, don’tcherknow--not like writin’, with

-all your wits about you. And I shall get some other fellows there,

-too, so’s we aren’t allowed to grow too intimate; and you might as

-well.”

-

-“I wonder what the ‘communication’ is?” I mused.

-

-“O, nothin’ much, I don’t suppose,” said Sweeting, with a blushing

-nonchalance. But it was evident that he had pondered the delirious

-enigma and emerged from it Sir Marmaduke.

-

-“Well,” I concluded rather sourly, “I’ll come.”

-

-He went away much relieved, and I fell into a fit of stupor. In the

-afternoon a telegram from Voules reached me, “Be at Sweeting’s 8.45

-to-night.”

-

-At a quarter to nine I kept my appointment. Sweeting was insufferably

-well-to-do, and his rooms were luxurious. They were inhabited at the

-moment by an irreproachable and almost silent company. Among them I

-encountered many of the young gentlemen who had been witnesses of, and

-abettors in, my discomfiture the other night. But they were all too

-nervous now to presume upon the recognition--too oppressed with the

-stupendous nature of the honour about to be conferred upon their

-host--too self-weighted with their responsibility as his kindred and

-associates. They could only ogle him with large eyes over immensely

-stiff collars, as he moved about from one to another, panic-struck but

-radiant. It was the crowning moment of his life; yet its sweeter

-aftermath, I could feel, reposed for him in the sleek necks of

-champagne-bottles just visible on a supper-table in the next room. He

-longed to pass from the test to the toast, and the intoxicating memory

-of a triumph happily accomplished. And then suddenly Slater came in.

-

-He was not expected, I saw in a moment. Indeed, how could such a

-death’s-head claim place at such a feast? He was no whit improved upon

-my single memory of him, unless, to give the little beast his due, a

-shade less inebriated. But he was as grinning, cocksure, and truculent

-a little Bohemian as ever. Sweeting stared at him aghast.

-

-“Good Lord, Slate’,” said he, “what brings you here, now?”

-

-“Why, your wire, old chap,” said the animal.

-

-“I never sent one, I swear.”

-

-“Oho!” cries Slater, glaring. “D’ you want to go back on your word?

-Ain’t I fine enough for this fine company?” and he pulled a dirty

-scrap of paper out of his pocket, and screeched, “Read what you said

-yourself, then!”

-

-The telegram went round from hand to hand. I read, when it came to my

-turn: “Come supper my rooms 8.45 to-night. M. Sweeting.”

-

-“I never sent it,” protested our host. “It must be a hoax. Look here,

-Slate’. The truth is, the Prime Minister wrote he wanted to make my

-acquaintance, because--because of the ‘Letters,’ you know; and--and

-he’s due here in a few minutes.”

-

-The creature grinned like a jackal.

-

-“My eyes, what fun!” he said. “I shall love to see you two meet.”

-

-“There’s--there’s fizz in the next room, Slate’,” said the miserable

-Sweeting.

-

-“You needn’t tell me,” said Slater. “I’d spotted it already.”

-

-And then, before another word could be said, the door was opened, and

-the guest of the evening announced.

-

-He came in smiling, ingratiatory, the familiar willowy figure in

-pince-nez. We all rose, and the stricken Sweeting advanced to meet

-him. The great man, looking, it is true, a little surprised over his

-reception, held out his hand cordially.

-

-“And is this----” he purred--and paused.

-

-Sweeting did not answer: he was beyond it; but he nodded, and opened

-his mouth, as if to beg that the “communication” might be posted into

-it, and the matter settled off-hand.

-

-“I did not, I confess,” said the Premier, glancing smilingly round,

-“expect my little visit of duty--yes, of duty, sir--to provoke this

-signal welcome on the part of a company in which I recognize, if I

-mistake not, a very constellation of the intellectual aristocracy.”

-

-Here a youth, with a solitaire in his eye, and a vague sense of

-parliamentary fitness, ejaculated “Hear, hear!” and immediately

-becoming aware of the enormity, quenched himself for ever.

-

-“It makes,” went on the right hon. gentleman, “the strict limit to my

-call, which less momentous but more exacting engagements have obliged

-me to prescribe, appear the more ungracious. In view of this enforced

-restriction, I have equipped myself with a single question and a

-message. Your answer to the first will, I hope--nay, I am

-convinced--justify the tenor of the second.”

-

-He released, with a smile, the hand which all this time he had

-retained, much to Sweeting’s embarrassment, in his own. Finding it

-restored to him, Sweeting promptly put it in his pocket, like a tip.

-

-“I ask,” said the Premier, “the author of ‘The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist’ to listen to the following excerpt” (he produced a

-marked number of the “Argonaut” from his pocket) “from his own

-immortal series, as preliminary to some inquiry naturally evoked

-thereby”--and he read out, with the intonation of a confident orator:

-“‘We have (shall I not declare it, my sweet?) the most beautiful women

-and the most beautiful poets in the world--two very good things, but

-the latter unaccountable. Passion, in perpetuating, idyllically

-refines upon the features of its desire; hence the succession of

-assured physical loveliness in a race which, however insensible to the

-appeals of emotional and intellectual beauty, can understand and

-worship the beauty that is plain to see.’”

-

-Here the reader paused, and looking over his glasses with a smile,

-very slightly shook his head, and murmuring, “The _beauty_ that is

-_plain_ to see! H’m! a fence that I will recommend to Rosebery,”

-continued, “‘Passion endows passion, far-reaching, to bribe the gods

-with a compound interest of beauty. It touches heaven in imagination

-through its unborn generations. It tops the bunker of the world, and,

-soaring, drops, heedless of Time the putter, straight into the

-eighteenth hole of the empyrean.”

-

-The Premier stopped again, and, looking gravely at Sweeting, asked,

-“What is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-

-Now I expected my friend to reveal himself, to sally brilliantly,

-referring his questioner, perhaps, to some satire in the making, some

-latter-day Apocalypse of which here was a sample extracted for bait to

-the curious. Well, he did reveal himself, but not in the way I hoped.

-He just strained and strained, and then dropped his jaw with the most

-idiotic little hee-haw of a laugh I ever heard, and--that was all.

-

-The other, looking immensely surprised, repeated his question: “What,

-sir, I ask you, is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-

-“Why, the one the Irishman poured brass round.”

-

-I started. It was not Sweeting who spoke, but Slater. The little demon

-stood grinning in the background, his tongue in his cheek, and his

-hands in his trousers pockets.

-

-“H’mph!” said the Prime Minister. “Very apt, sir. I recall the

-witticism. It is singularly applicable at the moment to the

-reorganization of the Liberal party. ‘Take a hole and pour brass round

-it.’ Exactly.”

-

-His manner, there was no denying it, was extremely severe as he again

-addressed the perspiring Sweeting--

-

-“Once more, sir,” he said, “I resume our discussion of a passage, the

-intellectual rights in which you would seem to have made over to your

-friends.” And, with a positive scowl, he continued his reading.

-

-“‘So well’ (writes the impassioned Nonconformist) ‘for the national

-appreciation of beauty that is physical. On the other hand (tell me,

-dear. It would come so reassuringly from your lips), what can account

-for the spasmodic recurrence in our midst of the inspired singer? What

-makes his reproduction possible among a people endowed with

-tunelessness, innocent of a metrical ear?’”

-

-Quite abruptly the Prime Minister ended, and, deliberately folding his

-paper, hypnotized with a searching stare his unhappy examinee.

-

-“The question, Mr. Sweeting,” said he, “is before the House. You will

-recognize it as ending--with some psychologic subtlety, to be

-continued in our next--number 10--the last published of the

-“Argonaut.” To me, I confess, the answer can be, like the Catholic

-Church, only one and indivisible. Upon the question of your conformity

-with my view depends the nature of the communication which I am to

-have the pleasure, conditionally, of making to you. Plainly, then,

-sir, what makes possible the spasmodic recurrence of the inspired

-singer in the midst of a people endowed with tunelessness and innocent

-of a metrical ear? I feel convinced you can return no answer but one.”

-

-A dead silence fell upon the room. Sweeting scratched his right calf

-with his left foot, and giggled. Then in a moment, yielding the last

-of his wits to the unendurable strain, he gave all up, and, wheeling

-upon Slater--

-

-“O, look here, Slate’!” he said. “What does?” and without waiting for

-the answer, drove himself a passage through his satellites, and

-collapsed half dead upon a sofa.

-

-The Premier, with an amazing calm, returned the “Argonaut” to his

-pocket.

-

-“Surely, sir,” said he, “this is inexplicable; but” (he made a

-denunciatory gesture with his hands) “it remains to me only to inform

-you that, conditional on your right reply to your own postulate, it

-was to have been my privilege to acquaint you of His Majesty’s

-intention to bestow upon you a Civil List pension of £250 a year;

-which now, of course----”

-

-He was interrupted by Slater--

-

-“O, that’s all one, sir! Fit the cap on the right head. The answer’s

-‘Protection,’ isn’t it? I ought to know, as I wrote, and am writing,

-the stuff.”

-

-“_You_, sir!”

-

-All eyes were turned upon the beastly little genius, as he stood

-ruffling with greed and arrogance, and thence to the sofa.

-

-“O, shut up!” said Sweeting feebly. “It was only a joke. I paid him,

-handsome I did, to let me have the kudos and letters and things. He’d

-the best of the bargain by a long chalk.”

-

-“He-he!” screeched Slater. “Why, you fool, did you think merit earned

-such recognition in this suffering world? Hope you enjoyed reading

-’em, Sweet, as I did writing ’em.” He turned, half-cringing,

-half-defiant, upon the guest. “I’m the author of the ‘Love-Letters,’

-sir--honour bright, I am; and I wrote every one of the testimonials,

-too, that that ass sets such store by. You’ll take those into

-consideration, I hope.”

-

-“I shall, sir,” thundered the other--“in my estimate of a fool and his

-decoy.”

-

-He blazed round and snatched up his hat.

-

-“Make way, gentlemen!” he roared, and strode for the door.

-

-A slip of pasteboard fluttered from his hand to the carpet; he flung

-wide the portal, banged it to behind him, and was gone.

-

-Some one, in a sort of spasmodic torpor, picked up the card, and

-immediately uttered a gasping exclamation. We all crowded round him,

-and, reading the superscription at which he was pointing, “Mr.

-Hannibal Withers, Momus Theatre,” exchanged dumbfounded glances.

-

-“Why, of course,” stuttered a pallid youth; “it was Withers, Voules’s

-pal; I reco’nize him now. He’s the Prime Minister’s double, you know,

-and--and he’s been and goosed us.”

-

-“What!” screamed Slater.

-

-But I was off in a fit of hysterical laughter.

-

-It was actually a fact. It is a mistake to suppose that your

-professional scandal-monger is prepared to build except on a

-substratum of truth. Voules had pricked the bubble as he had promised.

-The bargain, it was admitted, had been struck--on Slater’s side for

-such a consideration as would submerge him in champagne had he desired

-it. He had written and sent the manuscripts to Sweeting, who had had

-them typed, and passed them on to the “Argonaut” as his own. But the

-real author knew that his tenure was insecure so long as the other’s

-colossal vanity was not ministered to. Hence the correspondence, in

-which the little monster burlesqued his own lucubrations. It might all

-have ended in a case of perpetual blackmail (Sweeting never could see

-beyond the end of his own nose) had not the bait answered so instantly

-to Voules’s calculations.

-

-There was a bitter attack on the immorality of the stage in the next

-number of the “Argonaut,” which subsequently had to compound with

-Voules under threat of an action for libel. But Sweeting had his wish.

-He was “somebody,” as never yet. Until he took his notoriety for a

-long sea-voyage, he was more crushingly than any gentleman in the

-“Dunciad” “damn’d to fame.”

-

-

-

-

- A POINT OF LAW

-

- BY A CAPTIOUS LITIGANT

-

-Given a wet night on circuit, a bar parlour with a chattering fire,

-a box of tobacco, a china bowl of punch, and a mixed forensic company

-to discuss the lot, and what odds would you lay for or against the

-chances of a good story or so?

-

-Grope in your memory (before you answer) among legal collectanea and

-the newspaper reports of famous, or infamous, trials. What then?

-“Lord!” you admit, “these bones unearthed seem wretched remains

-indeed! I find your grooms of the horsehair, young and old, cracking

-their ineffable chestnuts for the benefit of an obsequious tipstavery;

-I find a bench so conservative that, though it be pitched in the very

-markets of chicanery, it is never to be won from its affected

-ignorance of those topical affairs which are matters, else apart, of

-common knowledge; I find the profession for ever given to whet its

-wits on a thousand examples of resourcefulness and impudence, and most

-often failing in the retort piquant.” Give me a cheeky witness to cap

-the best drollery ever uttered by counsel. Legal facetiæ, forsooth!

-The wit that tells is the wit that can cheat the gallows, not send to

-it. Any dullard can hang a dog.

-

-Look at the autobiographies of your retired legal luminaries: what

-scurvy bald reading they make as a rule. Look at--but no: he rests in

-Abraham’s bosom; he is studying the Mosaic law; we may be in need of

-him again some day.

-

-There is an odd family likeness between the personalia of lawyers and

-of actors. The fellows, out of court, stripped of their melodramatic

-trappings, can’t raise a laugh which would tickle any one less than a

-bishop. They are obsessed with the idea of their own importance. Much

-self-inflation has killed in them all sense of proportion. They prove

-themselves, the truth is, dull dogs on revision.

-

-The law is not so exhausting a study as it appears on first sight to a

-layman. Given an understanding of its main principle, which is

-syllogism, and there you are already in its Holy of Holies. As, for

-instance, I call a man a beast: a cheetah is a beast: I have called

-the man a cheater--ergo, he can proceed against me for defamation.

-There is its rubric in a nutshell--perfectly simple.

-

-However, _exceptis excipiendis_, there were Curran, and Erskine, and

-some others. There was also Brindley, the great Crown Prosecutor,

-whose eloquence was of such persuasiveness that it was said the very

-Bench _hung upon his word_. I had the chance to meet him once, in such

-a place and on such a night as I began by describing. It was in the

-“Maid’s Head” at Norwich, and my experience is at your service.

-

-It had, I knew, been a full list and a varied; yet the great man, it

-seemed, had found nothing in it all to stimulate his humorous

-faculties. The liveliness was all supplied by a pert Deputy Clerk of

-the Peace, whose bump of reverence was as insignificant as his

-effrontery was tremendous. The Bar began by tolerating him; went on to

-humour his sallies; chilled presently over his presumption; grew

-patronizing, impatient, and at last rude. He didn’t care; nor I,

-certainly. His readiness was the only relief from a congested boredom.

-

-The talk drifted, in the course of the evening, upon legal

-_posers_--circumstantial evidence, ex-statutory cases, and so forth.

-There were some dull examples proffered, and I observed, incidentally,

-that the Law, when it couldn’t hark back to precedent, was wont to

-grow a little hazy and befogged. Many solemn conundrums were

-propounded; but the Deputy Clerk, as usual, pushed himself to the

-front with an impertinence--

-

-“If I slink out of the company of a bore, am I guilty of stealing from

-his person?”

-

-“Pooh, pooh!” said Brindley, with contempt. “Don’t be flippant, sir.”

-

-The Deputy Clerk was not a whit abashed.

-

-“Sir, to you,” he said. “If that isn’t liked, I’ll propose another. If

-a woman is divorced from her husband, and a child is born to her

-before the decree is made absolute, is that child, lawfully begot,

-legitimate or illegitimate?”

-

-They were glad to take this seriously. I forget what the decision

-was--that, given the necessary interval between the decree and its

-confirmation, I think, the situation was virtually impossible.

-

-“Very well,” said the Deputy Clerk. “But perhaps one can conceive such

-a question rising. Let it pass, however; and answer me this,

-gentlemen: If one is imprisoned unjustly--that is to say, for a crime

-one has not committed--and, breaking out of prison, gives proof of

-one’s innocence, can one be indicted for prison-breaking?”

-

-This, at least, was a fair poser, and discussion on it grew actually

-warm.

-

-“Bosh!” said a fierce gentleman. “You ain’t going to justify your

-defiance of the law by arguing that the law is liable to make an

-occasional mistake--don’t tell me!”

-

-Here a very young barrister dared the revolutionary sentiment that the

-law, being responsible in the first instance to itself, might be

-treated, if caught-stumbling _in flagranti delicto_, as drastically as

-any burglar with a pistol in his hand. He was called, almost shouted,

-down. The suggestion cut at the very root of jurisprudence. The law,

-like the king who typified it, could do no wrong; witness its

-time-honoured right to _pardon_ the innocent victims of its own

-errors.

-

-“It may detain and incarcerate one for being only a suspected person,”

-said Brindley. “That its suspicions may prove unfounded, is nothing.

-It must be _cum privilegio_, or the constitution goes. A nice thing if

-the Crown could be put on its defence for an error in judgment.”

-

-“A very nice thing,” said the Deputy Clerk.

-

-Brindley snorted at him. “Perhaps,” said he sarcastically, “the

-gentleman will state a case.”

-

-The gentleman desired nothing better. I would have backed him to hold

-his own, anyhow; but, in this instance, I was gratified to gather from

-his manner that he had a real story to tell. And he had.

-

-“Gentlemen,” he said, “it occurred within my fathers memory; but my

-own is good enough to reproduce it literally. It made a rare stir in

-the Norwich of his day, and quite fluttered, I assure you, the

-dovecots of the profession.

-

-“The parties chiefly concerned in it were three: old Nicholas

-Browbody, his ward Ellen, and Mr. George Hussey, who was put on his

-trial for burglary and murder. Mr. George was quite a notable

-cracksman in his day, which was one pretty remote from ours in

-everything but the conservatism of the law. He was ‘housebreaker’ in

-the indictment; he was arrested by the Tombland patrol; and he was

-carried to court in a ‘chair,’ attended by a party of the City Guard.

-

-“George, says the story, was an elegant figure of a man, and not at

-all regardless of the modes. Dark blue coat with brass buttons, fancy

-vest, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, hair full dressed

-and a brooch in his bosom--that was how he appeared before his judges.

-

-“The facts were simple enough. On a night of November, a shot and a

-screech had been heard in Mr. Browbody’s house in Unthank, a ward of

-the city; an entrance had been made through a window, opportunely

-open, by the Watch as opportunely handy, and the housebreaker had been

-discovered, a warm pistol in his hand, standing over the body of old

-Nicholas, who lay dead on the floor with his head blown in.

-

-“The burglar was found standing, I say, like as in a stupor; the room

-was old Browbody’s study; the door from it into the passage was open,

-and outside was discovered the body of a girl, Miss Ellen, lying, as

-it were, in a dead faint. There you have the situation dashed in

-broad; and pretty complete, you’ll agree, for circumstantial

-evidence.”

-

-“Wait, my friend,” began Brindley, putting up a fat pompous hand.

-“Circumstantial, I think you said?”

-

-“Yes, I said it,” answered the Deputy Clerk coolly; “and if you’ll

-listen, you’ll understand--perhaps. I said the girl was in a faint,

-_as it were_, for, as a matter of fact, _she never came out of it for

-seven months_.”

-

-He leant back, thumbing the ashes into his pipe, and took no heed

-while the murmurs of incredulity buzzed and died down.

-

-“Not for seven months,” he repeated, then. “They called it a

-cataleptic trance, induced by fright and shock upon witnessing the

-deed; and they postponed the trial, waiting for this material witness

-to recover. But when at last the doctors certified that they could put

-no period to a condition which might, after all, end fatally without

-real consciousness ever returning, they decided to try Mr. Hussey; and

-he was tried and condemned to be hanged.”

-

-“What! he made no defence?” said a junior contemptuously.

-

-“Well, sir, can you suggest one?” asked the other civilly.

-

-“Suicide, of course.”

-

-“With the pistol there in the burglar’s own hand?”

-

-“Well, he made none, you say.”

-

-“No, I don’t say it. He declared it was ridiculous attempting a

-defence, while he lacked his one essential witness to confirm it. He

-protested only that the lady would vindicate him if she could speak.”

-

-“O, of course!”

-

-“Yes, of course; and of course you say it. But he spoke the truth,

-sir, for all that, as you’ll see.

-

-“He was lodged in Norwich Jail, biding the finish. But, before the

-hangman could get him--that time, at least--he managed to break out,

-damaging a warder by the way. The dogs of the law were let loose,

-naturally; but, while they were in full cry, Mr. Hussey, if you’ll

-believe me, walks into a local attorney’s office with Miss Ellen on

-his arm.”

-

-Brindley turned in his chair, and gave a little condescending laugh.

-

-“Incredible, ain’t it?” said the Deputy Clerk. “But listen, now, to

-the affidavits of the pair, and judge for yourselves. We’ll take Miss

-Ellen’s first, plain as I can make it:--

-

-“‘I confess,’ says she, ‘to a romantic attachment to this same

-picturesque magsman, Mr. Hussey. He came my way--never mind how--and I

-fell in love with him. He made an assignation to visit me in my

-guardian’s house, and I saw that a window was left open for him to

-enter by. My guardian had latterly been in a very odd, depressed

-state. I think he was troubled about business matters. On the night of

-the assignation, by the irony of fate, his madness came to a head. He

-was of such methodical habits by nature, and so unerringly punctual in

-his hour for going to bed, that I had not hesitated to appoint my beau

-to meet me in his study, which was both remotest from his bedroom, and

-very accessible from without. But, to my confusion and terror, I heard

-him on this night, instead of retiring as usual, start pacing to and

-fro in the parlour underneath. I listened, helpless and aghast,

-expecting every moment to hear him enter his study and discover my

-lover, who must surely by now be awaiting me there. And at length I

-_did_ hear him actually cross the passage to it with hurried steps.

-Half demented, dreading anything and everything, I rushed down the

-stairs, and reached his room door just in time to see him put a pistol

-to his head and fire. With the flash and report, I fell as if dead,

-and remember nothing more till the voice of my beloved seemed to call

-upon me to rise from the tomb--when I opened my eyes, and saw Hussey

-standing above me.’

-

-“Now for Mr. Hussey’s statement:--

-

-“‘I had an assignation with a young lady,’ says he, ‘on the night of

-so-and-so. A window was to be left open for me in Unthank. I had no

-intent whatever to commit a felony. I came to appointment, and had

-only one moment entered when I heard rapid footsteps outside, and a

-man, with a desperate look on him, hurried into the room, snatched a

-pistol from a drawer, put it to his head, and, before I could stop

-him, fired. I swear that, so far from killing him, I tried to prevent

-him killing himself. I jumped, even as he fell, and tore the pistol

-from his hand. Simultaneous with his deed, I heard a scream outside.

-Still holding the weapon, I went to the door, and saw the form of her

-I had come to visit lying in that trance from which she has but now

-recovered. As I stood stupefied, the Watch entered and took me. From

-that time I knew that, lacking her evidence, it was hopeless to

-attempt to clear myself. After sentence I broke prison, rushed

-straight to her house, found her lying there, and called out upon her

-to wake and help me. She answered at once, stirring and coming out of

-her trance. I know no more than that she did; and there is the whole

-truth.’”

-

-The Deputy Clerk stopped. No one spoke.

-

-“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t ask you to pronounce upon those

-affidavits. In the upshot the law accepted them, admitting a

-miscarriage of justice. What I ask your verdict on is this: Could the

-law, after quashing its own conviction, hold the man responsible for

-any act committed by him during, and as the direct result of, that

-wrongful imprisonment?”

-

-This started the ball, and for minutes it was tossed back and forth.

-Presently the tumult subsided, and Brindley spoke authoritatively for

-the rest--

-

-“Certainly it could, and for any violence committed in the act.

-Provocation may extenuate, but it don’t justify. Prison-breaking, _per

-se_, is an offence against the law; so’s being found without any

-visible means of subsistence, though your pocket may just have been

-picked of its last penny. Any concessions in these respects would

-benefit the rogue without helping the community. I won’t say that if

-he hadn’t, by assaulting the warder, put himself out of court----”

-

-“That was where he wanted to put himself,” interrupted the Deputy

-Clerk. It was certain that he was deplorably flippant.

-

-Brindley waved the impertinence by.

-

-“The offence was an offence in outlawry,” he said.

-

-“But how could it be,” protested the Clerk, “since, by the law’s own

-admission, he was wrongfully convicted? If he hadn’t been, he couldn’t

-have hurt the warder. If you strike me first, mayn’t I hit you back? I

-tell you, the law acknowledged that it was in the wrong.”

-

-“Not at all. It acknowledged that the man was in the right.”

-

-“Isn’t that the same thing?”

-

-“O, my friend! I see you haven’t got the rudiments. Hussey was a

-prisoner; a criminal is a prisoner; _ergo_, Hussey was a criminal.”

-

-“But he was a prisoner in error!”

-

-“And the law might very properly pardon him that; but not his violence

-in asserting it.”

-

-The Deputy Clerk shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

-

-“Well, it was all the same in the end,” said he; “for it hanged him

-for pointing out its error to it, and so spoiled a very pretty

-romance. The lady accompanied him to the scaffold, and afterwards died

-mad. _Sic ita ad astra._ I will cap your syllogism, sir. An ass has

-long ears; the law has long ears; _ergo_, the law is an ass.”

-

-“Young man,” said Brindley, with more good humour than I expected,

-“you have missed your vocation. Take my advice, and go to writing for

-the comic papers.”

-

-“What!” cried the Deputy Clerk. “Haven’t I been a law reporter all my

-life!”

-

-

-

-

- THE FIVE INSIDES

-

-

- I’ll example you with thievery.--“Timon of Athens.”

-

-

-The dear old lady was ninety, and it was always Christmas in the

-sweet winter of her face. With the pink in her cheeks and the white of

-her hair, she came straight from the eighteenth century in which she

-was born. They were not more at odds with nature than are the hips and

-the traveller’s joy in a withered hedge; and if at one time they paid

-to art, why it was a charitable gift to a poor dependent--nothing

-more, I’ll swear.

-

-People are fond of testing links with the past. This sound old

-chatelaine had played trick-track, and dined at four o’clock. She had

-eaten battalia pie with “Lear” sauce, and had drunk orgeat in Bond

-Street. She had seen Blücher, the tough old “Vorwärts,” brought to

-bay in Hyde Park by a flying column of Amazons, and surrendering

-himself to an onslaught of kisses. She had seen Mr. Consul Brummell

-arrested by bailiffs in the streets of Caen, on a debt of so many

-hundreds of francs for so many bottles of vernis de Guiton, which was

-nothing less than an adorable boot-polish. She had heard the demon

-horns of newspaper boys shrill out the Little Corporal’s escape from

-Elba. She had sipped Roman punch, maybe;--I trust she had never taken

-snuff. She had--but why multiply instances? Born in 1790, she had

-taken just her little share in, and drawn her full interest of, the

-history, social and political, of all those years, fourscore and ten,

-which filled the interval between then and now.

-

-Once upon a time she had entered a hackney-coach; and, lo! before her

-journey was done, it was a railway coach, moving ever swifter and

-swifter, and its passengers succeeding one another with an ever more

-furious energy of hurry-scurry. Among the rest I got in, and straight

-fell into talk, and in love, with this traveller who had come from so

-far and from scenes so foreign to my knowledge. She was as sweet and

-instructive as an old diary brought from a bureau, smelling of

-rose-leaves and cedar-wood. She was merry, too, and wont to laugh at

-my wholly illusory attachment to an age which was already as dead as

-the moon when I was born. But she humoured me; though she complained

-that her feminine reminiscences were sweetmeats to a man.

-

-“You should talk with William keeper,” she said. “_He_ holds on to the

-past by a very practical link indeed.”

-

-It was snowy weather up at the Hall--the very moral of another winter

-(so I was told) when His Majesty’s frigate “Caledonia” came into

-Portsmouth to be paid off, and Commander Playfair sent express to his

-young wife up in the Hampshire hills that she might expect him early

-on the following morning. He did not come in the morning, nor in the

-afternoon, nor, indeed, until late in the evening, when--as Fortune

-was generous--he arrived just at the turn of the supper, when the snow

-outside the kitchen windows below was thawing itself, in delirious

-emulation of the melting processes going on within, into a rusty

-gravy.

-

-“You see,” said Madam, “it was not the etiquette, when a ship was paid

-off, for any officer to quit the port until the pennant was struck,

-which the cook, as the last officer, had to see done. And the cook had

-gone ashore and got tipsy; and there the poor souls must bide till he

-could be found. Poor Henry--and poor little me! But it came right.

-_Tout vient à qui sait attendre_. We had woodcocks for supper. It was

-just such a winter as this--the snow, the sky, the very day. Will you

-take your gun, and get me a woodcock, sir? and we will keep the

-anniversary, and you shall toast, in a bottle of _the_ Madeira, the

-old French rhyme.”

-

-I had this rhyme in my ears as I went off for my woodcock--

-

-

- Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,

- Duquel la chair resueille l’appetit.

- Il est oyseau passager et petit:

- Est par son goust fait des vins bien juger.

-

-

-I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought the

-coverts and dead ferns and icy reed-wrecked pools, and flushed not the

-little _oyseau passager_ of my gallantry’s desires. But at last, in a

-silent coomb, when my feet were frozen, and my fingers like bundles of

-newly-pulled red radishes, William keeper came upon me, and I confided

-my abortive wishes and sorrows to his velveteen bosom.

-

-He smiled, warm soul, like a grate.

-

-“Will’ee go up to feyther’s yonder, sir,” said he; “and sit by the

-fire, and leave the woodcock to me? The old man’ll be proud to

-entertain ye.”

-

-“I will go,” I said meanly. “But tell me first, William, what is your

-very practical link with the past?”

-

-He thought the frost had got into my blood; but when I had explained,

-he grinned again knowingly.

-

-“’Tain’t me my lady meant, sir,” he said. “’Tis old feyther, and his

-story of how the mail coach was robbed.”

-

-The cottage hung up on the side of the coomb, leaning its back to an

-ash wood, and digging its toes well into the slope to keep itself from

-pitching into the brook below. There were kennels under the faggot

-stacks, a horse-shoe on the door, red light behind the windows. It

-looked a very cosy corner after the white austerity of the woods.

-William led me to it, and introducing me and my errand to his father,

-left the two of us together by the fire.

-

-It was a strange old shell of a man, russet and smooth yet in the

-face; but his breath would sometimes rattle in him to show how dried

-was the kernel within. Still his brown eye was glossy, and his voice

-full and shrewd; and in that voice, speaking straight and clear out of

-the past, and in an accent yet more of the roads than of the woods, he

-told me presently the story of the great mail robbery.

-

-“It ruined and it made me, sir,” said he; “for the Captain, hearing as

-how the company had sacked me for neglect of duty, and knowing

-something of my character, swore I’d been used damnably, and that he’d

-back his opinion by making me his gamekeeper. And he did that; and

-here I be, waiting confident for him to check my accounts when I jine

-him across the river.”

-

-He pointed to a dusky corner. There hung on the wall an ancient

-key-bugle, and an old, old napless beaver hat, with a faded gold band

-about it.

-

-“I was twenty-five when I put _they_ up there, and that was in the

-year ’14; and not me nor no one else has fingered them since. Because

-why? Because it was like as if my past laid in a tomb underneath, and

-they was the sign that I held by it without shame or desire of

-concealment.

-

-“In those days I was guard to the ‘Globe’ coach, that run between

-London and Brighton. We made the journey in eight hours, from the

-‘Bull and Mouth’ in Aldersgate to the ‘New Inn’ in North Street--or

-t’other way about; and we never stopped but for changes, or to put

-down and take up. Sich was our orders, and nothing in reason to find

-fault with ’em, until they come to hold us responsible to something

-besides time. Then the trouble began.

-

-“Now, sir, as you may know, the coachman’s seat was over the

-fore-boot, and, being holler underneath, was often used as a box for

-special parcels. So it happened that this box was hired of the owners

-by Messrs. Black, South, and Co., the big Brighthelmstone bankers, in

-order to ship their notes and cash, whenever they’d the mind to,

-between London and the seaside, and so escape the risks and expense of

-a private mail. The valiables would be slid and locked in--coachman

-being in his place--with a private key; and George he’d nothing to do

-but keep his fat calves snug to the door, till someun at the other end

-came with a duplicate key to unlock it and claim the property. Very

-well--and very well it worked till the fifteenth of December in the

-year eighteen hundred and thirteen, on which day our responsibility

-touched the handsome figure--so I was to learn--of £4000 in Brighton

-Union bank notes, besides cash and securities.

-

-“It was rare cold weather, much as it is now, save that the snow was

-shallower by a matter of two inches, and no more bind in it than dry

-sand. We was advertised to start from the ‘Bull’ at nine; and there

-was booked six insides and five out. At ten minutes to the hour up

-walks a couple of Messrs. Pinnick and Waghorn’s clerks from the

-borough, with the cash box in whity-brown paper, looking as innocent

-as a babby in a Holland pinifore. George he comes out of the shades,

-like a jolly Corsican ghost, a viping of his mouth; the box is slung

-up and fastened in; coachman climbs to his perch, and the five

-outsides follow-my-leader arter him to theirs, where they swaddle

-’emselves into their wraps strait-veskit-vise, and settin’ as

-miserable as if they was waitin’ to have a tooth drawed. Not much harm

-there, you’ll say--one box-seat, two behind, two with me in the

-dickey--all packed tight, and none too close for observation. Well,

-sir, we’ll hear about it.

-

-“Out of the six insides, all taken, there was three already in place:

-a gentleman, very short and fierce, and snarling at everything;

-gentleman’s lady, pretty as paint, but a white timidious body;

-gentleman’s young-gentleman, in ducks and spencer and a cap like a

-concertina with the spring gone. So far so good, you’ll say again, and

-no connexion with any other party, and leastways of all with the

-insides as was yet wanting, and which the fierce gentleman was blowin’

-the lights out of for bein’ late.

-

-“‘Guard,’ says he, goin’ on outrageous, while the lady and the young

-gentleman cuddled together scared-like in a corner, ‘who are these

-people who stop the whole service while they look in the shop-vinders?

-If you’re for starting a minute after the stroke,’ says he, ‘dash my

-buttons,’ he says, ‘but I’ll raise all hell to have you cashiered!’

-

-“‘All right, sir,’ I says. ‘I knows my business better’n you can tell

-it me--’ and just as I spoke, a hackney kerridge come rumbling into

-the yard, and drew up anigh us.

-

-“‘Globe?’ says a jolly, fat-faced man, sticking his head out of it.

-‘All right, Cato--’ and down jumps a black servant, in livery, that

-was on the box, and opens the door.

-

-“The fat man he tumbled out--for all the world like a sheetful of

-washing a wallopin’ downstairs--Cato he got in, and between them they

-helped from the hackney and across to the coach as rickety a old

-figure as ever I see. He were all shawls and wraprascal. He’d blue

-spectacles to his eyes, a travellin’ cap pulled down on ’em, his mouth

-covered in; and the only evidence of flesh to be seen in the whole of

-his carcass, was a nose the colour of a hyster. He shuffled painful,

-too, as they held him up under the arms, and he groaned and muttered

-to himself all the time he were changing.

-

-“Now, sir, you may suppose the snarling gentleman didn’t make the best

-of what he see; and he broke out just as they was a-hauling the

-invalid in, wanting to know very sarcastic if they hadn’t mistook the

-‘Globe’ for a hearse. But the fat man he accepted him as good-humoured

-as could be.

-

-“‘It’s nothing affectionate, sir,’ says he. ‘Only paralysis, which

-ain’t catching. The gentleman won’t trouble you.’

-

-“‘Not for my place,’ says the fierce gentleman, bristling up like a

-dog. ‘Damme, sir, not for my place. O, I can see very well what his

-nose is a-pinting to, and damme if it isn’t as monstrous a piece of

-coolness as ever I expeerunced. _These_ seats, sir, are the nat’ral

-perkisite of a considerate punctiality, and if your friend objects to

-travelling with his back to the ’orses----’

-

-“‘Now, now,’ says the fat man--‘nothing of the sort. You don’t mind

-sitting with your back to the ’orses, do you, nunky?”

-

-“‘Eh,’ says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting a bit forward--‘No,

-no, no, no, no, no, no--’ and he sunk into the front cushions, while

-Cato and the fat ’un dispodged him to his comfort.

-

-“‘Time, gentlemen!’ says I.

-

-“‘Wait a bit’ says snarler. ‘It can’t never be--why, surely, it can’t

-never be that the sixth inside is took for a blackamoor?’

-

-“‘Alfred,’ says the lady, half veeping: ‘pray let things be. It’s only

-as far as Cuckfield we’re goin’, arter all.’

-

-“‘A poor argiment, my dear,’ says he, ‘in favour of suffering forty

-miles of a sulphurious devil.’

-

-“‘Pray control yourself, sir,’ says the fat man, still very ekable.

-‘We’ve booked three places, for two, just to be comfortable. Our

-servant rides outside.’

-

-“Well, that settled it; and in another minute we was off. I laughed a

-bit to myself as I swung up; but I hadn’t a thought of suspicion. What

-do _you_ say, sir? Would you have? Why, no, of course not--no more

-than if you was a Lyons Mail. There was the five o’ them packed in

-there, and one on the roof behind the coachman--three divisions of a

-party as couldn’t have seemed more unconnected with one another, or

-more cat and dog at that. Yet, would you believe it, every one of them

-six had his place in the robbery that follered as carefully set for

-him as a figure in a sum.

-

-“As for me, sir, I done my duty; and what more could be expected of

-me? At every stage I tuk a general look round, to see as things were

-snug and nat’ral; and at Croydon, fust out, I observed as how the

-invalid were a’ready nodding in a corner, and the other two gents

-settled to their ‘Mornin’ Postses.’

-

-“Beyond Croydon the cold begun to take the outsides bitter; and the

-nigger got into a vay of drummin’ with his feet so aggerawacious, that

-at last George he lost his temper with him and told him to shut up.

-Well, he shut up that, and started scrapin’ instead; and he went on

-scrapin’ till the fierce gentleman exploded out of the vinder below

-fit to bust the springs.

-

-“‘Who’s that?’ roars he--‘the blackamoor? Damme!’ he roars, ‘if you

-aren’t wus nor a badger in more ways than one,’ he roars.

-

-“‘All right, boss,’ says the nigger, grinning and lookin’ down. ‘Feet

-warm at last, boss,’ and he stopped his shufflin’ and begun to sing.

-

-“Now, sir, a sudden thought--I won’t go so far as to call it a

-suspicion--sent me, next stop, to examine unostentatious-like the

-neighbourhood of them great boots. But all were sound there, and the

-man sittin’ well tucked into his wraps. It wasn’t like, of course,

-that he could a’ kicked the panels of the box in without George

-knowin’ somethin’ about it. And he didn’t want to neither; _for he’d

-finished his part of the business a’ready_. So he just sat and smiled

-at me as amiable as Billy Vaters.

-

-“Well, we went on without a hitch; and at Cuckfield the three back

-insides turned out into the snow, and went for a bespoke po’-chaise

-that was waitin’ for ’em there. But, afore he got in, the fierce

-gentleman swung round and come blazin’ back to the vinder.

-

-“‘My compliments, sir,’ says he, ‘at parting; and, if it _should_ come

-to the vorst,’ he says, ‘I’d advise you to lay your friend pretty far

-under to his last sleep,’ he says, ‘or his snores’ll wake the dead.’

-

-“‘Hush,’ says the fat ’un. ‘It’s the drowndin’ spirit in him comin’ up

-to blow like a vale.’

-

-“‘Is it?’ says the fierce gentleman. ‘Then it’s my opinion that the

-outsides ought to be warned afore he gives his last heave----’ and he

-went off snortin’ like a tornader.

-

-“The fat man shook his head when he were gone. His mildness, having

-sich a figger, was amazing. He sat with his arm and shoulder for a

-bolster to old paralysis, who was certainly going on in style.

-

-“‘Now, sir,’ says I, ‘the whole blessed inside is yourn till the end

-of the journey.’

-

-“‘Thank you, guard,’ says he; ‘but I won’t disturb my friend, and

-we’ll stay as we are, thank you.’

-

-“I got up then, and on we went--last stage, sir, through Clayton, over

-the downs, whipping through Pyecombe and Patcham, swish through

-Preston turnpike, and so into East Street, where we’d scarce entered,

-when there come sich a hullabaloo from underneath as if the devil,

-riding on the springs, had got his tail jammed in the brake. Up I

-jumps, and up jumps the blackamoor, screeching and clawing at George,

-so as he a’most dropped the ribbins.

-

-“‘Eh, boss!’ he yelled. ‘De old man--down dere!--damn bad!’

-

-“George he pulled up; and I thought he’d a bust, till I climbed over

-and loosened his neckercher, and let it all out. Then down we

-got--nigger and I, and one or two of the passengers--and looked in.

-‘What the thunder’s up?’ says I. The fat man were goin’ on awful,

-sobbin’, and hiccupin’, and holding on to old paralysis, as were sunk

-back in the corner.

-

-“‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’! O, why did

-I ever give way to him, and let him come!’

-

-“Well, we all stood pretty foolish, not knowing what to say or do,

-when his great tricklin’ face come round like a leg o’ mutton on a

-spit, and, seein’ the nigger, bust into hystrikes.

-

-“‘O, Cato!’ he roars; ‘O Cato, O Cato! Sich a loss if he goes!’ he

-roars. ‘Run on by a short cut, Cato,’ he says, ‘and see if you can

-find a doctor agen our drawin’ up at the “New Inn.”’

-

-“That seemed to us all a good idea, though, to be sure, there was no

-cut shorter than the straight road we was in. But anyhow, before we

-could re’lise it, the nigger was off like a arrer; and one of the

-gentlemen offered to keep the fat man company. But that he wouldn’t

-listen to.

-

-“‘If he _should_ come round,’ he said, ‘the shock of a stranger might

-send him off agen. No, no,’ he said: ‘leave me alone with my dying

-friend, and drive on as quick as ever you can.’

-

-“It were only a matter of minutes; but afore we’d been drawed up half

-of one afore the inn, a crowd was gathered round the coach door.

-

-“‘Is he back?’ says the fat man--‘Is Cato come back with a doctor? No,

-I won’t have him touched or moved till a doctor’s seen him.’

-

-“Then all at once he was up and out, rampageous.

-

-“‘Where is he?’ he shrieks. ‘I can’t vait no longer--I’m goin’

-mad--I’ll find one myself’--and, afore you could say Jack Robinson, he

-was off. I never see sich a figger run so. He fair melted away. But

-the crowd was too interested in the corpse to follow him.

-

-“Well, sir, he didn’t come back with a doctor, and no more did Cato.

-And the corpse may have sat there ten minutes, and none daring to go

-into it, when a sawbones, a-comin’ down the street on his own account,

-was appealed to by the landlord for a verdict, seein’ as how by this

-time the whole traffic was blocked. He got in, and so did I; and he

-bent over the body spread back with its wraps agen the corner.

-

-“‘My God!’ I whispers--‘there’s no breath comin’ from him. Is he dead,

-sir?’

-

-“The sawbones he rose up very dry and cool.

-

-“‘No,’ he says, ‘there ain’t no breath comin’ from him, nor there

-never will. It ain’t in natur’ to expect it from a waxworks.’

-

-“Sir, I tell you I looked at him and just felt my heart as it might be

-a snail that someun had dropped a pinch of salt on.

-

-“‘Waxworks!’ I says, gaspin’. ‘Why, the man spoke and groaned!’

-

-“‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’

-says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.

-

-“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;--and

-I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy--nothing

-more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock my

-pullin’ it away give me--for there, behind where it had set, was a

-’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and

-panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the

-mail’s been robbed!’”

-

-The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised

-excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the

-question he expected.

-

-“And it had been?”

-

-“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In

-the vinter of ’13, sir--the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a

-rare stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards,

-when one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were

-took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man were a

-ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides to

-themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job. They cut

-into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and passed the boy

-through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’ Croydon. He set

-to--the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!--tuk a piece clean

-out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and brought down the

-cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his dance overhead to

-drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened and emptied, and put

-back in the boot where it was found; and the swag, for fear of

-accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”

-

-He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the younger,

-standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled auburn trophies

-in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a sigh--then

-with a smile.

-

-“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock. “How

-plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”

-

-

-

-

- THE JADE BUTTON

-

-The little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with

-a good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is

-the subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by

-any lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself

-misinformed, and attend your last moments on the scaffold.

-

-

-Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John Belmont

-hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this antagonism was a

-button.

-

-It was of jade stone, and it was a talisman. For three generations it

-had been the mascot of the Belmont family, an heirloom, and

-symbolizing in its shining disk a little local sun, as it were, of

-prosperity. The last three head Belmonts had all been men of an ample

-presence. The first of them, the original owner of the stone, having

-assigned it a place in perpetuity at the bottom hole of his waistcoat

-(as representing the centre of his system), his heirs were careful to

-substantiate a tradition which meant so much to them in a double

-sense.

-

-Indeed, the button was as good as a blister. It seemed to draw its

-wearer to a head in the prosperous part of him. It was set in gold,

-artfully furnished at its back with a loop and hank, and made

-transferable from waistcoat to waistcoat, that its possessor for the

-time being might enjoy at all seasons its beneficent influence. In

-broad or long cloth, in twill or flannel, by day and by night, the

-button attended him, regulating indiscriminately his business and his

-digestion. In such circumstances, it is plain that Death must have

-been hard put to it to find a vulnerable place; and such was the fact.

-It has often been said that a man’s soul is in his stomach; how, then,

-could it get behind the button? Only by one of those unworthy

-subterfuges, which, nevertheless, it does not disdain. The first

-Belmont lived to ninety, and with such increasing portliness that, at

-the last, a half-moon had to be cut, and perpetually enlarged, out of

-the dining-room table to accommodate his presence. Practically, he was

-eating his way through the board, with the prospect of emerging at the

-other end, when, in rising from a particularly substantial repast one

-night, he caught the button in the crack between the first slab

-(almost devoured) and the second, wrenched it away, and was

-immediately seized with apoplexy. He died; and the Destroyer, after

-pursuing his heir to threescore years and ten, looking for the heel of

-Achilles, as unworthily “got home” into him. He was lumbering down

-Fleet Street one dog-day when, oppressed beyond endurance by the heat,

-he wrenched open--in defiance of all canons of taste and prudence--his

-waistcoat. The button--_the_ button--was burst from its bonds in the

-act, though, fortunately--for the next-of-kin--to be caught by its

-hank in the owner’s watch-chain. But to the owner himself the impulse

-was fatal. A prowling cutpurse, quick to the chance, “let out” full on

-the old gentleman’s bow-window, quenching its lights, so to speak, for

-ever; and then, having snatched the chain, incontinently doubled into

-the arms of a constable. The property was recovered--but for the heir;

-the second Belmont’s bellows having been broken beyond mending.

-

-The third met with as inglorious an end, and at a comparatively early

-age; for the button--as a saving clause to whatever god had thrown it

-down, for the fun of the thing, among men--was possessed with a very

-devil of touchiness, and always instant to resent the least fancied

-slight to its self-importance. Else had Tithonus been its wearer to

-this day, as----but I won’t anticipate. The third Belmont, then, in a

-fit of colossal forgetfulness, sent the button, _in_ a white

-waistcoat, to the wash. The calamity was detected forthwith, _but not

-in time to avert itself_. After death the doctor. Before the outraged

-article could be restored to its owner and victim, he had died of a

-rapid dropsy, and the button became the property of Mrs. John Belmont,

-his relict and residuary legatee, who----

-

-But, for the history of the button itself? Why, in brief, as it

-affected the Belmont family, it was this. Mr. Adolphus Belmont had

-been Consul at one of the five treaty ports of China about the

-troublous years of 1840-42. During the short time that he held office,

-a certain local mandarin, Elephoo Ting by name, was reported to Peking

-for high treason, and honoured with an imperial ukase, or invitation

-to forestall the headsman. There was no doubt, indeed, that Elephoo

-Ting had been very strenuous, in public, in combating the intrusion of

-the foreign devil, while inviting him, in private, to come on and hold

-tight. There is no doubt, too, that in the result Elephoo and Adolphus

-had made a profitable partnership of it in the matter of opium, and

-that the mandarin had formed a very high, and even sentimental,

-opinion of the business capacities of his young friend. Young, that is

-to say, relatively, for Adolphus was already sixty-three when

-appointed to his post. But, then, of the immemorial Ting’s age no

-record actually existed. The oldest inhabitant of Ningpo knew him as

-one knows the historic beech of one’s district. He had always been

-there--bland, prosperous, enormous, a smooth bole of a man radiating

-benevolence. And now at last he was to die. It seemed impossible.

-

-It _was_ impossible, save on a condition. That he confided to his odd

-partner and confidant, the English Consul, during a last interview. He

-held a carving-knife in his hand.

-

-“Shall I accept this signal favour of the imperial sun?” he said.

-

-“Have you any choice?” asked the Consul gloomily. “The decree is out;

-the soldiers surround your dwelling.”

-

-Elephoo Ting laughed softly.

-

-“Vain, vain all, unless I discard my talisman.” He produced the jade

-button from his cap. “This,” he said, “I had from my father, when the

-old man sickened at last of life, desiring to be an ancestor. It

-renders who wears it, while he wears it, immortal; only it is jealous,

-jealous, and stands upon its dignity. Shall I, too, part with it, and

-at a stroke let in the light of ages?”

-

-He saw the incredulity in his visitor’s face, and handed him the

-carving-knife.

-

-“Strike,” he said. “I bid thee.”

-

-“You take the consequences?”

-

-“All.”

-

-With infinite cynicism, Mr. Belmont essayed to tickle, just to tickle,

-the creature’s infatuation with the steel point. It bent, where it

-touched, like paper. He thrust hard and ever harder, until at last he

-was thrashing and slicing with the implement in a sort of frenzy of

-horror. The mandarin stood apathetic, while the innocuous blade swept

-and rustled about his huge bulk like a harmless feather. Then said he,

-as the other desisted at length, unnerved and trembling: “Art thou

-convinced?”

-

-“I am convinced,” said the Consul.

-

-Elephoo Ting handed him the button in exchange for the knife.

-

-“Take and wear it,” he said, “for my sake, whom you have pleased by

-outwitting, on the score of benefiting, two Governments. You have the

-makings of a great mandarin in you; the button will do the rest. Would

-you ever escape the too-soon satiety of this stodgy life, pass it on,

-with these instructions which I shall give you, to your next-of-kin.

-Be ever deferential to the button and considerate of its vanity, for

-it is the fetish of a sensitive but undiscriminating spirit. So long

-as you cherish it, you will prosper. But the least apparent slight to

-itself, it will revenge, and promptly. As for me, I have an

-indigestion of the world that I would cure.”

-

-And with the words he too became an ancestor.

-

-Then riches and bodily amplitude came to Adolphus Belmont, until the

-earth groaned under his importance. He was a spanker, and after him

-Richard Belmont was a spanker, and after him John Belmont was a very

-spanker of spanks, even at thirty-two, when he committed the last

-enormous indiscretion which brought him death and his fortunes almost

-ruin. For the outrage to the button had been so immeasurable that, not

-content with his obliteration, it must manœuvre likewise to scatter

-the accumulations of fortune, which it had brought him, by involving

-in a common ruin most of the concerns in which that fortune was

-invested, so that his widow found herself left, all in a moment, a

-comparatively poor woman.

-

-And here Mrs. John Belmont comes in.

-

-She was a little woman, of piquancy and resource, and a very

-accomplished angler of men. She could count on her pink finger-tips

-the ten most killing baits for vanity. And, having once recovered the

-button, she set herself to conciliating it with a thousand pretty

-kisses and attentions. It lived between the bosom of her frock and the

-ruff of her dainty nightgown. Yet for a long time it sulked, refusing

-to be coaxed into better than a tacit staying of its devastating hand.

-And so matters stood when the Assembly ball was held.

-

-Miss Emma Belmont and Mrs. John Belmont lived in the same town,

-connexions, but apart. Their visits were visits of ceremony--and

-dislike. Miss Emma was Mr. John’s sister, and had always highly

-disapproved of his marriage with the “adventuress.” Her very name, she

-thought, bordered on an impropriety! How could any “Inez” dissociate

-herself from the tradition of cigarette-stained lips and white

-eyeballs travelling behind a fan like little moons of coquetry? This

-one, in fact, took no trouble to. Her reputation involved them in a

-common scandal; and it was solely on this account, I think, that she

-so resented her sister-in-law’s appropriation of the button. She

-herself was devoted to good works, and utterly content in her mission.

-She did not want the button; but, inasmuch as it was a Belmont

-heirloom, and Mrs. John childless, she chose to symbolize in it the

-bone of contention, and to use it as a convenient bar to amenities

-which would, otherwise, have seemed to argue in her a sympathy with a

-mode of life with which she could not too emphatically wish to

-disconnect herself.

-

-They met at the Assembly ball. Miss Belmont, though herself involved

-in the financial ebb, had considered it her duty to respect so

-respectable an occasion, and even to adorn it with a silk of such

-inflexibility that (I tremble as I write it) one could imagine her

-slipping out of it through a trap, like the vanishing lady, and

-leaving all standing. Presently Mrs. John Belmont, with a wicked look,

-floated up to her.

-

-“_You_ here, Inez!” exclaimed Miss Emma, affecting an amazement which,

-unhappily, she could not feel.

-

-The other flirted and simpered. When she smiled, one could detect

-little threads drawn in the fine powder near the corners of her mouth.

-There was no ensign of widowhood about her. She ruffled with little

-gaudy downs and feathers, like a new-fledged bird of paradise.

-

-“Yes, indeed,” she said. “And I’ve brought Captain Naylor, who’s been

-dining with me. Shall I introduce him to you?”

-

-Miss Belmont’s sense of decorum left her speechless.

-

-Inez, on the contrary, rippled out the most china-tinkling laugh.

-

-“You dear old thing,” she tittered. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew

-you’d be here to chaperon me, and----” She came a step closer. “Yes,

-the button’s there, Emma. You may stare; but make up your mind, I’m

-not going to part with it.”

-

-Miss Belmont found herself, and responded quietly--

-

-“I hope not indeed, Inez. I don’t ask or expect you. You might

-multiply it to-night by a dozen, and only offend me less.”

-

-Mrs. John laughed again, rather shrilly.

-

-“O, fie!” she said. “Why, even you haven’t a high-necked dress, you

-know.”

-

-And then a very black and red man, in a jam-pot collar and with a

-voice like a rook, came and claimed her.

-

-“Haw, Mrs. Belmont! Aw--er, dance, I think.”

-

-Miss Belmont, to save appearances, rigidly sat out the evening. When

-at last she could endure no more, she had her fly called and prepared

-to go home. She was about to get into it, when she observed a familiar

-figure standing among the few midnight loafers who had gathered

-without the shadow of the porch.

-

-“Hurley!” she exclaimed.

-

-The man, after a moment, slouched reluctantly forward, touching his

-hat. He had once been her most favoured protégé--a rogue and

-irreclaimable, whom she had persuaded, temporarily, from the devil’s

-service to her own. He had returned to his master, but with a

-reservation of respect for the practical Christian. Miss Belmont was

-orthodox, but she had a way with sinners. She pitied and fed and

-_trusted_ them. She was a member of the Prisoners’ First Aid Society,

-with a reverence for the law and a weakness for the lawless. Her aim

-was to reconcile the two, to interpret, in a yearning charity, between

-the policeman and the criminal, who at least, in the result, made a

-common cause of honouring _her_. Inez asserted that, living, as she

-did, very nervously alone on the outskirts of the town, she had

-adopted this double method of propitiation for the sake of her own

-security. But, then, Inez had a forked tongue, which you would never

-have guessed from seeing the little scarlet tip of it caressing her

-lips.

-

-Well, Miss Belmont had once coaxed Jim Hurley into being her handy

-man, foreseeing his redemption in an innocent association with flowers

-and the cult of the artless cabbage. He proved loyal to her, gained

-her confidence, knew all about the button and other matters of family

-moment. But the contiguity of the kitchen-garden with Squire

-Thorneycroft’s pheasant-coops was too much for hereditary

-proclivities. He stole eggs, sold them, was detected, prosecuted,

-sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and disappeared. Miss

-Belmont herself met him on his discharge from the jail gates, but he

-was not to be induced to return. The wild man was in his brain, and

-off he had gone, with Parthian shots of affection, in quest of fun.

-And for two years she had not seen him again until to-night, when his

-scratch of red hair and beard--which always looked as if he had just

-pulled his head out of a quickset--suddenly blew into flame before

-her. And then there followed a shock of distress.

-

-“Jim! Why, what’s happened? What’s the matter with you?”

-

-There was no need to specify. The man was obviously going off his

-tramp--nearing the turn of the dark road. He was ghastly, and

-constantly gave little spasmodic wrenching coughs during the minute he

-stood beside her.

-

-“Well,” he gasped, “I dunno. The rot has got into my stummick. I be

-all touchwood inside like an old ellum”

-

-“Will you come and see me?”

-

-“’Es. By’m-by.”

-

-“Why not now? Where are you going to sleep?”

-

-He grinned, and coughed, half suffocated, as he backed.

-

-“I’ve got my plans, Missis. You--leave me alone.”

-

-It did not sound gracious. One would not have guessed by it his

-design, which was nothing less than a jolly throw against the devil in

-the teeth of death. Miss Belmont, a little hurt, but more sad, got

-into her fly and was driven home. Arrived there, she sat up an hour

-contemplative. She was just preparing to go to bed in the grey dawn,

-when she heard the garden-gate click and footsteps rapidly traverse

-the path to the front door. Her heart seemed to stop. She stole

-trembling into the hall. “_Who’s there?_” she demanded in a quavering

-voice. The answer came, with a clearness which made her start, through

-the letter-box.

-

-“Me, Missis--Jim Hurley.”

-

-Amazed, and a little embarrassed, she opened. The man burst, almost

-fell in, and, staggering, recovered himself.

-

-“’Ere!” he said, with eager manipulation trying to force something

-upon her. “I’ve done ’er! I’ve got it for yer! Take it--make

-’aste--they’re arter me. It’s yourn as by rights, and she’s got to

-crow on the wrong side of ’er woundy little mouth.”

-

-But Miss Belmont, with instinctive repulsion, had put her hands behind

-her back and retreated before him.

-

-“Jim!” she said sickly. “_What_ have you got? What do you mean? I’ll

-take nothing from you.”

-

-“O, go along!” he insisted. His cough was gone. He seemed animated

-with a new masterfulness. “Ain’t I in the know? It’s yourn, anyhow,

-and”--his eye closed in an ineffable rapture--“I done the devil out of

-his own when I heard I be booked to go to him. He’ll pay me, I reckon;

-but I don’t care. You take it. It’s your dooty as a good woman.”

-

-“No, no,” cried Miss Belmont, beating him away with her hands. “Don’t

-let me even see it to know. How could you suppose such a thing? Take

-it back while you’ve time.”

-

-B’s 33 and 90 wore their list-footed boots; but Jim’s ear was a

-practised one. Swiftly summoned, they had raced on his tracks from the

-Assembly Rooms. He had known it, and had laboured merely to keep his

-start of them by three minutes--two--one. Now, while their sole was

-yet on the threshold, he darted into the dining-room and was under the

-table at a dive. They had him out and handcuffed, of course, in a

-jiffy; and then they stood to explain and expostulate.

-

-“Well, you ain’t a cheeked one neither, Hurley! To run up here of all

-places for cover! Don’t you mind him, Miss.” (She stood pale and

-shivering. “The shock!” she had murmured confusedly.) “Why,” said 33,

-“the man was heard by plenty proposing of hisself to visit you; and

-looked to your hold kindness to him to take and shelter, is supposed.”

-

-She found voice to ask: “What’s he done?”

-

-“Done!” said 33. “Why, bless you, Miss! Treating of you as if you was

-in collusion, ain’t I?” (She shivered.) “Why, he grabbed a jewel--a

-gold button, as I understand--out o’ the buzzim o’ your own late

-brother’s good lady as she was a-stepping into her broom, and bolted

-with it. It’ll be on ’im now if we’re lucky.”

-

-“You ain’t then, old cock,” said Jim, with a little hoarse laugh and

-choke.

-

-“Chuck it!” said 90, a saturnine man.

-

-“That’s what I done, Kroojer,” said Jim. “You go and ’unt in the

-bloomin’ ’edges if you don’t believe me.”

-

-“It’s my duty to tell you,” said 33, “that whatever you says will be

-took down in evidence agen you.”

-

-“Not by you,” said Jim. “Why, you can’t spell.”

-

-They carried him off dispassionately, with some rough, kindly

-apologies to Miss Belmont for the trouble to which they had put her.

-She locked and bolted the door when they were gone; mechanically saw

-to the lamps, and went upstairs to bed in a sort of stunned dream. So

-she committed herself to the sheets, and so, in a sort of waking

-delirium, passed the remaining hours of slumber. She felt as if the

-even tenor of her way, her stream of placid days, had been suddenly

-dammed by a dead body, the self-destroyed corpse of her own character.

-Sometimes she would start from a suffering negation to feel B 90’s

-hand upon her shoulder. “What have I done--O! what have I done?” she

-would moan in anguish; and B 90 would glower from under his helmet

-like a passionless Rhadamanthus--

-

-“What have you done? What but, like our second Henry, meanly, by

-inference and innuendo, imposed upon your wretched tool the

-responsibility for a deed which you dared not seek to compass by the

-open processes of the law. Did you dispute the right ownership of the

-button? Then why choose for your confidant an ex-thief and poacher? No

-use to say you designed no harm. By the flower be known the seed. Come

-along o’ me!”

-

-She rose late, ate no breakfast, and sat awaiting, pinched and grey,

-the inevitable ordeal. It opened, early enough, with the advent of

-Mrs. John. The little widow came sailing in, with a face of floured

-steel. When she saw, the edge of her tongue seemed to whet itself on

-her lips. Miss Emma broke out at once in an unendurable cry--

-

-“Inez! You can’t think I was a party to this!”

-

-“Who said so, dear? Though the man was a protégé of yours, and was

-known to have remained where he encountered me by your instructions.”

-

-“It is not true.”

-

-“Isn’t it? Well, at least, the plan miscarried. Now, give me the

-button, and I promise, to the best of my power, to hush the matter

-up.”

-

-“I haven’t got it, indeed; O, you must believe me! He told the

-policeman himself that he had thrown it away while escaping.”

-

-“Yes, yes. I give him credit for his loyalty to you. But, Emma--you

-know I never put much faith in your sanctimoniousness. Don’t be a

-fool, and drive me to extremities.”

-

-“You can’t mean it. I blame my covetous heart. I envied you--I admit

-it--this dear fetish of our family. But to think me capable of such a

-wickedness! O, Inez!”

-

-Then Mrs. John Belmont exploded. I muffle the report. It left Miss

-Belmont flaccid and invertebrate, weakly sobbing that she would see

-Hurley; would try to get him to identify the exact spot where he had

-parted with the bauble; would move heaven and earth to make her

-guiltless restitution. Yet all the time, remembering the scene of last

-night, she must have known her promise vain. Jim had sought to thrust

-no shadow of a fact upon her. He had not thrown the button away. He

-alone knew where it now was; but would he so far play into the hands

-of her enemy as to tell? She felt faint in the horror of this doubt;

-and Mrs. John perceived the horror.

-

-As for her, she was utterly hateful and incredulous. She had friends,

-she screamed--one in particular--who would act, and unmercifully, to

-see her righted. She hardly refrained from striking her sister-in-law,

-as she rushed out in a storm of hysterics.

-

-And at this point I was called in--by Miss Belmont, that is to say.

-

-I found her utterly prostrated--within step of the brink of the final

-collapse.

-

-I coaxed her back, foot by foot; won the whole truth from her; laughed

-her terrors to scorn, and staked her my professional credit to have

-the matter put right, or on the way to right, by our next meeting.

-

-And I meant it, and was confident. For that very day--though of this

-she did not know--I had officially ordered Jim Hurley’s removal from

-the cell in which he had been lodged to the County Hospital. The man

-was dying, that was the fact; and a fact which he had known perfectly

-when he staked at one throw for an easy bed for himself, and a

-repayment of his debt to his old benefactress.

-

-He was ensconced in a little ward by himself, when I visited him and

-sat down to my task. He cocked an eye at me from a red tangle, and

-grinned.

-

-“Now, Hurley,” I said, “I come straight from Miss Emma, by her

-authority, to acquaint you with the results of your deed.”

-

-“O!” he answered. “Hev the peelers been a-dirtyin’ of their pore knees

-lookin’ for it in the ’edgerows? I ’opes as they found it.”

-

-“You know they couldn’t. You’ve got it yourself.”

-

-“S’elp me, I haven’t!”

-

-Then I informed him, carefully and in detail, of the awful miscarriage

-of his intentions. He was patently dumbfounded.

-

-“Well, I’m blowed!” he whispered, quite amazed. “Well, I _am_ blowed!”

-

-“You must undo this,” I said. “There’s only one way. Where _is_ the

-button?”

-

-He gauged me profoundly a moment.

-

-“On a ledge under the table,” he said. Then he thrust out a claw.

-“Don’t you go lettin’ ’_er_ ’ave it back,” he said, “or I’ll ’aunt

-you!”

-

-I considered.

-

-“You must undo what you’ve done,” I repeated. “Don’t you see? Unless

-you can prove that it’s been in your possession all the time, _and is

-now_, her character’s gone for ever. Mrs. John will see to that.”

-

-He did not, professionally, lack wits. He understood perfectly.

-“You’re ’er friend?” he asked.

-

-I nodded.

-

-“All right,” he said, “you get ’old of it private, and smuggle of it

-’ere, and I’ll manage the rest.”

-

-“But, my good fellow! You’ve been overhauled, I suppose, and pretty

-thoroughly. How can you convince--_convince_, you understand--that

-you’ve kept the thing snug through it all?”

-

-“You go and smuggle of it ’ere,” he repeated doggedly.

-

-It needed only a very little manœuvring. I hurried back to Miss

-Belmont’s, heard the lady was still confined to her room, forbade the

-servant to report me, and claimed the privacy of the dining-room for

-the purpose of writing a prescription. The moment I was alone, I made

-an excited and perfectly undignified plunge under the table, found the

-ledge (the thing, in auctioneer’s parlance, was a “capital set,” in

-four leaves), and the button, which in a feverish ecstasy I pocketed.

-Then, very well satisfied, I hurried back to Mr. Hurley.

-

-I found him, even in that short interval, changed for the worse; so

-much changed, that, in face of his condition, a certain sense of novel

-vigour, an overweening confidence in my own importance which had grown

-up, and lusty, in me during my return journey, seemed nothing less

-than an indecency. However, curiously enough, this mood began to ebb

-and sober from the very moment of my handing over the _pièce de

-conviction_ to its purloiner. He “palmed” it professionally, cleared

-his throat, and took instant command of the occasion. “Now,” he said,

-“tell ’em I’ve confessed to you, and let ’em all come.”

-

-His confidence mastered the depression which had overtaken me. I

-returned, with fair assurance, to Miss Belmont, who received my news

-with a perfect rapture of relief. What she had suffered, poor good

-woman, none but herself might know.

-

-“Did he own to you where he had hidden it?” she asked. And “Yes,” I

-could answer, perfectly truthfully.

-

-By my advice, she prepared at once to go and fetch her sister-in-law

-to the hospital--with a friend, if she desired it--that all might

-witness to the details of the restitution.

-

-In the meanwhile I myself paid a visit to the police station, and

-thence returned to my post to await the arrival of my company.

-

-It came in about an hour: Miss Belmont, tearfully expectant; Mrs. John

-Belmont, shrill and incredulous; an immaculate tall gentleman, Captain

-Naylor by name, whose chin was propped on a very high collar, that he

-might perpetually sniff the incense of his own superiority; and,

-lastly, and officially to the occasion, B 90.

-

-I lost no time in conducting them to the bedside of the patient. He

-had rallied wonderfully since our last encounter. He was sitting up

-against his pillow, his red hair fluffed out like the aureole of a

-dissipated angel, an expression on his face of a quite sanctimonious

-relish. I fancy he even winked at me.

-

-“Now, Hurley,” I said gravely, “as one on the threshold of the grave”

-(which, nevertheless, I had my doubts about), “speak out and tell the

-truth.”

-

-He cleared his throat, and started at once in a loud voice, as if

-repeating a lesson he had set himself--

-

-“’Earing as ’ow my rash hact ’ave brought suspicion on a innercent

-lady, I ’ereby makes affirmation of the fac’s. I stole the button, and

-’id it in my boot, where it is now.”

-

-“No, it ain’t,” said B 90 suddenly. “Stow that.”

-

-Mr. Hurley smiled pityingly.

-

-“O, ain’t it, sir?” he said. “’Ow do you know?”

-

-“Because I searched you myself,” said B 90 shortly.

-

-“The patient, infinitely tolerant, waved his hand.

-

-“’E searched me, ladies and gentlemen! Ho, lor! Look at ’im; I only

-arsks that--look at ’im! Why, he doesn’t even know as there’s a smut

-on his nose at this moment.” (B 90 hastily rubbed that organ, and

-remembering himself, lapsed into stolidity once more.) Mr. Hurley

-addressed him with exaggerated politeness--“_Would_ you be so good,

-sir, as to go and fetch my boots?”

-

-B 90 thought profoundly, and officially, a minute; wheeled suddenly,

-withdrew, and returned shortly with the articles, very massive and

-muddy, which he laid on the counterpane before the prisoner. The

-latter, cherishing the ineffable _dénouement_, deliberately took and

-examined the left one, paused a moment, smilingly canvassing his

-company, and then quickly, with an almost imperceptible wrench and

-twirl, had unscrewed the heel bodily from its place and held it out.

-

-“’Ere!” he said; and, with his arm extended, sank back in an

-invertebrate ecstasy upon his pillow.

-

-The heel was pierced with a tiny compartment on its inner side, and

-within the aperture lay the button.

-

-They all saw it, but not as I, who, standing as I did at the bed-head,

-and being something of an amateur conjurer myself, was conscious in a

-flash of the rascal “passing” the trinket into its receptacle even as

-he exposed it.

-

-There followed an exclamation or two, and silence. Then Captain Naylor

-said “Haw!” and Miss Belmont, with a gasp, turned a mild reproachful

-gaze upon her sister-in-law. But Mrs. John had not the grace to accept

-it. She gave a little vexed, covetous laugh, and stepped forward.

-“Well,” she said to Miss Emma, “you must go without it still, dear, it

-seems.” Then, coldly, to Hurley: “Give it me, please.”

-

-Now, so far so good; and, though I was enraged with, I could not

-combat the decision. But truly I was not prepared for the upshot.

-

-Jim, at Mrs. John’s first movement, had recovered possession of the

-button.

-

-“No, you don’t!” he said quite savagely. “I know all about it, and

-’tain’t yourn by rights.”

-

-“Jim, Jim,” cried Miss Belmont in great agitation; “it is hers,

-indeed; please give it up. You don’t think what you make me suffer!”

-

-But the man was black with a lowering determination.

-

-“’Tain’t,” he said. “Keep off, you! I’ve not thrown agen the devil for

-nothing. It’s goin’ to be Miss Emma’s or nobody’s.”

-

-“Not mine,” cried the poor lady again. “I don’t want it. Not for

-worlds. I wouldn’t take it now!”

-

-And then Mrs. John Belmont, in one discordant explosion of fury, gave

-away her case for ever.

-

-“Insolent! Beyond endurance!” she shrieked, and whirled, with a

-flaming face, upon her cavalier.

-

-“Archibald! why do you stand grinning there? Why don’t you take it

-from him?”

-

-Thus prompted, Archibald, in great confusion, uttered an inarticulate

-“Haw!” explained himself in a second and clearer one, and strode

-threateningly towards the bed. Watching, with glittering eyes, the

-advance, Jim, at the last moment, _whipped the button into his mouth

-and swallowed it!_

-

- * * * * *

-

-The case, as a pathological no less than as a criminological

-curiosity, was unique. I will state a few particulars. The button

-lodged in the pancreas, in which it was presently detected,

-comfortably ensconced, by means of the Röntgen rays. And it is a fact

-that, from the moment it settled there--_never_ apparently (I use the

-emphasis with a full sense of my responsibility) to be evicted--Mr.

-Hurley began to recover, and from recovering to thrive--on anything.

-Croton-oil--I give only one instance--was a very cream of nourishment

-to him. Galvanic batteries but shook him into the laughter which makes

-fat, but without stirring the button. It was ridiculous to suggest an

-operation, though the point was long considered. But in the meanwhile

-the button had continued piling up over itself such impenetrable

-defences of adipose tissue that its very locality had become

-conjectural. The question was dropped, only to give rise to another.

-How could one any longer detain this luxuriant man in hospital as an

-invalid? He was removed, therefore, beaming, to the police court;

-received, for some inexplicable reason, a nominal sentence, dating

-from the time of his arrest (everything, in fact, was henceforward to

-prosper with him), and trundled himself out into the world, where he

-disappeared. I have seen him occasionally since at years-long

-intervals. He grows ever more sleek and portly, till the shadows of

-the three dead Belmonts together would not suffice to make him a pair

-of breeches. He has a colossal fortune; he is respectable, and, of

-course, respected--a genial monster of benevolence; and he never fails

-to remind me, when we meet, of the time when I could pronounce his

-life not worth a button.

-

-I have, can only have, one theory. The button, after many cross

-adventures, “got home” at last--fatally for Mrs. John Belmont, who

-fell into a vicious decline upon its loss, and, tenderly nursed by her

-sister-in-law, departed this sphere in an uncertain year of her life.

-And, unless the button itself comes to dissolve, Jim, I fear, is

-immortal.

-

-

-

-

- DOG TRUST

-

-There was no reason why Richard Le Shore should not have made a

-straightforward appeal for the hand of Miss Molly Tregarthen to her

-papa. His credentials--of fortune, condition, and character--were

-unexceptionable; the girl’s kind inclinations were confessed; the

-father himself was an unexacting, indulgent, and ease-loving

-Democritus. It was but a question of those two and of Mr. Dicky, their

-favoured, their intimately favoured, guest.

-

-There was no reason, and for the reason that the spirit of Romance

-abhors reason; and that was why, without any reason, Richard persuaded

-Mollinda to a clandestine engagement, to stolen interviews, to a

-belief that love franked by authority was only the skim-milk of human

-kindness. At least he chose to persuade himself that he persuaded her,

-at all times when he could coax a certain bewildered honesty in her

-eyes from dumbly questioning the necessity of such tactics. In reality

-he loved that look, as the sweetest earnest of a sweet quality. It was

-not her he studied to deceive, but himself. Incurably eligible, he

-could never taste but through make-believe, like the “Marchioness,”

-the sweet stimulant of paternal interdiction.

-

-At the end of the season he accompanied father and child to

-“Tregarthen.” Here, you may be sure, he had not been twenty-four hours

-without making choice for his love’s rendezvous of a little wood

-which, approached through a tangled shrubbery, covered the slopes

-which ran up from the back of the house to the high beeches above.

-

-Now Dicky would himself have allowed that everything (desirable) had

-shone upon his suit save moonlight. That only, of all poetic glamours,

-was yet lacking. And so he prevailed with Molly Tregarthen to consent

-to a postprandial trysting among the trees, on the very evening

-subsequent to that of his arrival.

-

-He had no difficulty in escaping from papa, the imperturbable

-sybarite. Seated in an open window over against shrouded lawns, and a

-moon which rose like a bubble in liquid darkness; dreaming betwixt

-decanter and cigar-case, papa would not have had his luminous coma

-disturbed for anything less than a serious fire. So Dicky left him,

-and going up alone to the woods, leaned his back against a tree and

-smoked placidly.

-

-It was very quiet, and fragrant, and beautiful there; and presently

-the young gentleman lost himself somewhat in reflections. The

-moonlight, penetrating the leaves, made of the sward a ghostly Tom

-Tiddler’s Ground, which was all mottled with disks of faint gold. What

-a soft, fine shower to fall upon the head of his Danae, as she should

-come stealing up the alleys of light! Stealing--stealing! There was a

-little thrill of ecstasy in the word. How wide her eyes would be, and

-how would her bosom rise and fall in the breathlessness of some

-phantom guilt!

-

-Quite a nice little debauch of expectation, only--she did not come. He

-waited on, desirous, impatient, hungry; and at last, it must be said,

-cross. The touch of her hand, her lips, had never seemed so

-indispensable to him; but he would not cheapen the virtues of his own

-by carrying them back to market to a coquette. If she wanted them, she

-knew where to find them. As for him, he was quite placid and content;

-in proof of which he threw away his cigar-butt, and began pacing with

-a noisy recklessness up and down.

-

-That did not conjure her to him, but it seemed to evoke occasional

-responsive rustlings, or the fancy of them, which would bring his

-heart into his throat. They were only the stirring of woodland things,

-it seemed. He got very angry, resentful, cruel in his thoughts. The

-moon, the bubble of light, rose higher and higher--to the very surface

-of night, where it floated a little, and then burst. At least, so it

-seemed; for, all of a sudden, where it had been was a black cloud, and

-drops began to patter on the leaves. Then Richard realized all in a

-moment that his tryst had failed, that the moonlight was quenched, and

-that it was beginning to rain. With a naughty word or two, he braced

-up his loins, left the wood, and descended towards the house.

-

-As he went down, he heard the stable clock strike twelve. He startled,

-and strode faster, faster, until he was fairly scuttling. It was in

-vain. The Tregarthens were early people, and, even before he reached

-the house, he knew that its every window was blind and black. The

-whole family was abed, and he was shut out into the night.

-

-Twice, and vainly, he made the entire round of the building, seeking

-for any loophole to enter by. The rain by then was pelting, yet he did

-not dare raise a clatter on the front door, for fear he should be

-pistolled from a window. The inmates knew nothing of his absence, and

-the Squire held, for a Democritus, strong views on the subject of

-undisturbed repose.

-

-Coming to the porch again from his second circuit, and putting a hand

-to rest upon one of its columns, he jumped, as if he had touched a

-charged battery, to see a figure standing motionless in the shadow.

-

-“Hullo!” he gasped, in the sudden shock; then rallying, muttered out

-in a fury at his own weakness, “Who the devil are you?”

-

-Some faint gleam of moonshine, weltering through the flood,

-enlightened him even as he spoke.

-

-“Why, if it ain’t the butler!” he said.

-

-It was the butler. The figure admitted it in a curt word. Le Shore had

-already, on the occasions of his two dinners at “Tregarthen,” noticed

-this man, and had taken a quite violent exception in his own

-conscience to his manner and appearance. He thought he had never known

-a leading trust bestowed upon one whose face so expressed the very

-moral of acquisitiveness, whose conduct was marked by such an uncouth

-inurbanity. Here, if there was any value in biology, was Bill Sikes in

-broadcloth.

-

-The tone of the fellow’s answer grated confoundedly on him--he hardly

-knew why.

-

-“Are you locked out, like me?” he said, putting violence on himself to

-speak civilly.

-

-“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but for a better reason.”

-

-“What do you mean by that?”

-

-The creature was as thick-set as a bull. He could have broken this

-elegant like a stick across his knee. He commanded the situation,

-massive and impassive, from his own standpoint.

-

-“Look’ee here, sir,” he said, speaking through a grip of little strong

-teeth in a square jaw, “I’m going to tell you what I mean. I’m going

-to make no bones about it. You meet Miss Molly fair and open, or you

-don’t meet her at all. Do I know what I’m saying? Yes, I do know. She

-didn’t come to you to-night--because why? Because _I_ interdicted of

-her. That’s it. She might have thought better--or worse--of it, bein’

-a woman, and soft; and that’s why I laid by, watchin’ that no harm

-should come of it if she did. But she was wise, and didn’t. I seen you

-all the time in the wood, and I tell you this. A word’s got to be

-enough. You meet her by fair means, or not at all. Never mind the

-Squire there. It’s me that says it. If she admires you, nine stun

-ten--which there’s no accounting for tastes--I’m not the one to make

-difficulties. But you go like a honest man and ask her straight of her

-father. That’s the ticket, and don’t you make no error. Don’t you

-flatter your fancy no more with randy-voos in the moonshine. Why, if

-ever there’s a light calc’lated to lead a gentleman astray, it’s that.

-I say it, and I know. You go to the girl’s father; and, after, we’ll

-see what we’ll see.”

-

-He cleared his throat with a quarrelling sound, and came out of the

-shadow.

-

-“Now,” said he, “here’s a house you’ve been locked out of, and you

-want to get in without disturbin’ of the family--is that it? Very

-well, sir; now we understand everything; and step this way, if _you_

-please.”

-

-Almost with the words, he had clawed himself up to a window-sill of

-the ground-floor, and was very softly manipulating the sash. Mr. Le

-Shore, voiceless, hardly gasping, stood, just conscious of himself, in

-an absolute rigor of fury and astonishment. He was “stound,” as

-Spenser would have put it. Presently he snapped his eyelids, and woke

-aware that Mr. Hissey, standing on the grass, was loweringly inviting

-him to enter by way of an opened window. With a shock, he recovered

-his nerves of motion, and, stalking to the place, vaulted stiffly to

-the sill, and sat thereon like a cavalryman.

-

-“I’ve just a word or two for you, before I--I avail myself of this,”

-he said. “You’ve been gadding, and got drunk, I suppose; and this is

-your way of trying to make capital of a belated guest. Perhaps the

-means you’ve adopted ’ll appear less excellent to you in the sober

-morning. As to your method of entry, there’s nothing in it

-incompatible with the character I’d already formed of you. But that,

-and your quite outrageous insolence, will be made matters for your

-master’s consideration to-morrow. I mention this in honour, before

-I----” He waved his hand towards the room.

-

-“I could twist your neck with two fingers, here and now,” said the

-man.

-

-“Exactly,” said Dicky. “And that’s why I decline to make use of this

-window except on the plain understanding.”

-

-The butler cleared his throat again, even with a strange note of

-approval in the unseemly sound.

-

-“Mayhap you’ll do,” he said. “Now go to bed, and don’t forgit your

-prayers in your disappyntment.”

-

-Mr. Le Shore hissed-in a breath, as though the rain had suddenly

-become boiling spray, then tiptoed rigidly to his room.

-

-

-The opening of the window, framed with creepers, whose shadows shrank

-or dilated softly in the muslin curtains, gave on to a soothful

-picture of lawn and herbaceous border which, withdrawing to cool

-caverns of leafiness under a remote cedar tree, seemed to gather

-themselves to a head of prettiest expression in the person of little

-Miss Mollinda swinging there in a hammock. Within, at the

-luncheon-table, Tregarthen poured himself out a glass of Madeira with

-a hand so limp and white in appearance that one would have thought it

-incapable of the task of poising the heavy decanter. Here was delicate

-seeming only, however. The perpetual sybarite reads an incorruptible

-constitution. The white hand held the bottle horizontal, as steady as

-a rock, during the minute the indolent, good-humoured eyes of its

-owner were directed to those of his visitor.

-

-“My dear good Richard, the man _is_ a burglar.”

-

-He laughed at the other’s expression, filled his glass, sipped at it,

-and, hooking his thumbs in his arm-holes, lolled back in his chair.

-

-“I am not justified in the confidence, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyhow,

-it is the short way out of a fatiguing explanation. The man _is_ a

-burglar--not figuratively, but actually, by breeding, education,

-profession--_appelez-le comme vous voudrez_. He has the stamp of it so

-distinctly on him that one need not ask him to produce his skeleton

-key.”

-

-“Then I have nothing more to say.”

-

-“Ah! the devil take the honest thief! Your obvious grievance forces me

-to the explanation, after all. My dear boy, I imply nothing, argue

-from no premises but such as a long experience of this capital,

-troublesome fellow suggest to me. Speaking from these (I may be

-wrong), I should conclude that he is somehow in process of

-safeguarding, as he thinks, the interests of my girl, to whom he is

-quite romantically attached. Honestly, I don’t know to whom I would

-rather commit them. Poor motherless child!”

-

-He had, it seemed, no thought of himself as pledged to the task.

-‘Himself’ should be a fair one-man’s burden.

-

-“He is very right to be attached to Miss Tregarthen,” muttered Le

-Shore dryly, and a little sullenly.

-

-“He is very right indeed,” answered his host; “righter (pardon the

-solecism) than you might think. In this excellent rogue is provided

-such an illustration of the ‘harmony not understood’ of discords, as

-circumstance has ever given to an _ennuyé_ world. The dear creature

-has decided to stultify his every instinct for a sentiment. It is the

-most interesting psychological phenomenon you can imagine. He has

-conceded nothing of his nature but the means to its practical

-achievement. Conceive a wolf of his own determination forgoing blood.

-Such is this dear, admirable brute. _Perfossor parietum nascitur._ He

-cannot change his spots. To this day, I think, he will always of

-choice enter by a window rather than a door; to this day he regards

-plate with a most _melting_ look. But for all that, I think I may

-swear that at the present moment the tally of my spoons is to an ounce

-what it was when he took service with me eighteen years ago.”

-

-“Your servant for eighteen years!”

-

-“My servant--titularly: in reality, my mentor, my vizier. Dog Trust is

-a rather sweetly demoralizing acquisition. He takes the burden of

-conscience from one--steals it, in this case, I may say. But then,

-after all, he may use his vicegerency to ends so far beyond the moral

-grasp of the master he represents, as more than to vindicate that

-master in his withdrawal from the vexatious problems of duty. Through

-sheer force of affection this admirable George has mastered himself,

-and bettered his master in the parental ethics.”

-

-“Indeed, sir?” (Mr. Dicky spoke very dryly.) “And how does Miss

-Tregarthen approve the viziership?”

-

-“As she loves and respects the vizier, Richard. I do not think she

-would willingly run counter to his dictates, which, by the way, he

-never imposes in a manner to alarm one’s pride. Ah! did you catch that

-whiff of scabious? There is a bush of it under the window there. It

-always seems to me to embody in itself the whole warmth and fragrance

-of summer. My dear fellow, your eyes are relentless inquisitors. No

-more wine? Well, I suppose I shall have to tell you how it came

-about.”

-

-He sighed, drained his glass, laughed slightly, and smoothed a stray

-wisp of hair from his forehead.

-

-“Once,” he said--“it was particularly disagreeable to a person of my

-temperament--I was called upon by Fate to suffer the ugly and sordid

-experience of a conflagration in my house. You, who are also a little

-inclined, I believe, to create for yourself an atmosphere of romance,

-to regard the great world only as a quarry, from which to gather

-materials most exquisite and most apt to the enrichment of the

-hermitage, which it is your design and your delight to build apart for

-your soul, will appreciate what were my feelings upon seeing my fairy

-fabric doomed to destruction, to positive annihilation, by the flames.

-I have never spoken to you of the disaster before. You will know that

-I do so now under the mere stress of fitness, as a means to your

-proper understanding of George Hissey’s conduct. The recollection is

-painful and horrible to a degree.

-

-“The alarm, the escape, the catastrophe were all accomplished in the

-dark hours of a winter’s morning. My dear wife (she sleeps, awaiting

-my coming, in Elysium) followed me down the stairs and out of the

-house at a short interval. She found me devoted to a frantic endeavour

-to secure from destruction such of my poor treasures as were

-accessible--few enough, alas! though the tears I shed should have

-quenched the hate of a Hecla. What had I done with her child? she

-cried to me--with our sweet Molly, our little three-year-old babe?

-Richard, I felt as stunned as if she, the pretty, gentle mother, had

-struck me across the mouth. I could only stare and gasp. She uttered a

-heart-shaking scream, and turned to where the servants stood huddled

-together in the garden. They were all there, and the two nurses were

-crying and moaning and accusing one another. My God! mad with terror,

-they had deserted their charge to perish by itself in the burning

-house!”

-

-He paused. “Don’t go on, sir, if it distresses you,” said Le Shore

-quietly.

-

-“No,” answered Tregarthen. “Like the Ancient Mariner, I must be quit

-of it now I have begun. But I will have a glass of wine.”

-

-He poured himself out one, daintily as to the drop on the decanter

-lip.

-

-“There followed a fearful scene,” he said. “It was all I could do to

-prevent my angel from precipitating herself through the blazing

-doorway. The whole building seemed by now a furnace--no possibility of

-further salvage from those priceless accumulations--not, of course,

-that at such a pass it was to be thought of. I mingled my tears with

-my wife’s. I offered half my fortune to any one of the crowd who would

-save, and a large reward to any one who would venture to save, our

-darling. But it was in vain; and in my heart I knew it.

-

-“Now, in this extremity of despair, a sudden roar went up from a

-hundred throats, and passed on the instant. Richard, a man, shedding

-flakes of fire as Venus cast her birth-slough of spray, had emerged

-overhead from the sea of flame, and in his arms was our child. Who was

-he? Whence did he come? No one knew. Our house was isolated. The

-engine from the neighbouring town had not arrived. He was not a

-friend, nor a neighbour, nor an employé. It was only evident that

-innocence had somehow evolved its champion.

-

-“We watched, stricken, as castaways watch the glimmer of a remote

-sail. The figure had broken its way through the skylight in the roof,

-only, it might be, to symbolize in the burden it bore the leaping of a

-little flame heavenward. The situation was the very sublimity of

-tragedy. Beneath those two the roof, sown with a very garden of fire,

-dropped at a sickening angle.

-

-“Suddenly, shutting, as it seemed, upon his charge, the man rolled

-himself up like a hedgehog, and came bowling down the slope. It was a

-terrible and gasping moment. His body, as it whirled, reeled out a

-hiss of sparks. The next instant it had bounded over the edge, and

-plunged among the smoking bushes beneath.

-

-“They broke his fall; but it was the verandah awning which in the

-first instance saved his life--his, and our dear devoted cherub’s. But

-he had never once, through all the stunning vertigo of his descent,

-failed to shield the little body which his own enwrapped.

-

-“Now, my dear Richard, comes the strange part. When I was sufficiently

-recovered to seek our preserver, I found him sitting handcuffed, in

-charge of the local policeman. He was very white, with two or three

-ribs broken; but he took it all unconcerned, as being in the day’s, or

-the night’s, business. Who was he? Well, here is the explanation. He

-was a renowned cracksman, as I think they call it, who had been

-operating in the neighbourhood for some weeks past--the hero of many a

-shuddering midnight adventure. Without doubt he had taken his toll of

-_my_ ‘crib,’ had not circumstance dropped him ripe into the gaping

-mouth of the law. He had entered, and was actually at work, when fire

-cut the ground, as it were, from under his feet. Almost before,

-intensely occupied, he realized his position, escape by the lower

-rooms was debarred him. Was ever situation so dramatic? It was to be

-compared only with that of a huntsman who, entering some cave to steal

-bear cubs, turns to find the dam blocking his outlet. Still, Mr.

-Hissey _might_ have escaped, and without detection, by dropping to the

-lawn from a back window, had his burglarious ears not pricked suddenly

-to the wailing of a child.

-

-“My dear fellow, need I explain further? The child he risked his own

-life to rescue was our--I may almost say, at this day, was _his_

-Molly. It was the strangest thing. I did not, as a consequence, quite

-see my way to holding him altogether absolved; but my dear, emotional

-partner was of a different opinion. We had quite a little scene about

-it. In the end she prevailed--with the whole boiling of the law, too;

-and the man was sentenced to come up for judgment if called upon. Then

-straightway, and by his own desire, she took the disinfected burglar

-into her service. It was one of those daring psychologic essays which

-may once and again be carried to a successful issue through the

-white-hot faith of the experimenter; but which must not be given

-authority as a precedent. My wife fairly redeemed this burglar, by

-committing, without hesitation, to his loyal trust the little waif of

-fire whose destinies he had earned the right to a voice in. From that

-day to this, I will say, he has never abused the faith we reposed in

-him. On her deathbed, my dear girl (pardon me a moment, Le Shore), my

-dear wife most solemnly recommitted her child to his care. I did not

-complain, I do not complain now. I, who make no pretence of competence

-in the paternal rôle, thank the gods only for my vizier, who is quite

-willing to accord me the ritual of authority, while taking its

-practical business on his own shoulders. With a man of my temperament

-it works; and I am satisfied, if Molly gives me her respect, that she

-should give Hissey her duty.”

-

-He ceased, with a little smiling sigh, and lifted a cigarette from a

-silver case which lay on the table. Le Shore regarded him steadily.

-

-“Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, “Molly and I are engaged. I should have

-told you before.”

-

-The older man did not pause in the act of lighting his cigarette; but

-enjoyed an inhalation of smoke before he answered--

-

-“I plead guilty to a suspicion, Richard. I am confident our vizier has

-been safeguarding the proprieties. You remember what I said to you in

-his excuse just now?”

-

-“I have your sanction, sir?”

-

-“Certainly, as a form. But I am afraid, from the practical side, you

-will have to satisfy that same inquisitor.”

-

-

-“Mr. George Hissey,” said Dicky, “I have papa’s authority to marry

-Miss Molly. Now, with your permission, I will relieve you of your

-trust.”

-

-“Dicky!” cried the girl reproachfully; and she put her kind young arms

-round the ex-burglar’s neck.

-

-“Unless,” said Le Shore, “you care to transfer that to my ‘crib,’ Mr.

-Hissey.”

-

-The butler cleared his throat.

-

-“Well, I do care, sir,” he said, hoarsely, nevertheless, “since you

-seen fit to cut that moonshinin’ lay, And as to cribs----”

-

-“Molly” said Richard, “there’s papa calling.”

-

-

-

-

- A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE

-

-“I have nothing to do with your scruples,” said the magistrate; “the

-law is the law, and I am here to administer it.”

-

-Mr. Plumley licked his hand, and stolidly smoothing down his black

-hair with it, answered, as if at a distance, being a well-fed,

-unctuous man, “too full for sound and foam,” “I’m a conscientious

-objector.”

-

-“Passive resister!” corrected a friend, a little eager man, among the

-audience near him.

-

-“Eh?” said Mr. Plumley immovably, and without a glance in the

-direction of the voice, “I said passive resister, didn’t I?”

-

-“Whether you said it or not,” answered the magistrate sharply, “you

-look it. I make an order against you for the amount.”

-

-“As man to man----” began Mr. Plumley.

-

-“Not in the least,” said the magistrate; “as debtor to creditor. Stand

-down.”

-

-“I shan’t pay it,” said Mr. Plumley, preparing to obey.

-

-“If you say another word, I’ll commit you for contempt,” said the

-magistrate. “Stand down, sir!”

-

-Mr. Plumley stood down, with an unspeakable expression--it might have

-been of satisfaction--on his huge, stolid face. Arrived at the floor,

-he beckoned his little friend to follow him, and heavily left the

-court.

-

-He steered--the other acting as his rudder, as it were, and keeping

-his position behind--straight for his own domestic shrine, hight

-Primrose Villa, semi-detached. It was a beautiful little home for a

-widower unencumbered, calculated, like an india-rubber collar, to

-afford the maximum of display at a minimum of cost in washing. The

-doorsteps were laid with a flaming pattern in tiles; red-aspinalled

-flower pots, embellished with little dull glazed shrubs, stood on the

-lowest window-sill; the bell-knob was of handsome porcelain, painted

-with the gaudiest flowers in miniature. Within, too, it was all

-furnished on a like hard principle of lustre--red and yellow oilcloth

-in the hall, with marbled paper to match; earthenware-panned mahogany

-hat-rack and umbrella-stand combined, as red as rhubarb, and as acrid

-in suggestion to one’s feelings; more oilcloth in the parlour; more

-mahogany, also, with a pert disposition in its doors and drawers to

-resent being shut up; glass bead mats and charity bazaar photograph

-frames on the whatnots, all so clean and pungent with sharp furniture

-stain that the rudder--Gardener by name--felt, as usual, the necessity

-of a humble apology for bringing his five feet four of shabbiness into

-the midst of so much splendour and selectness.

-

-Mr. Plumley rumbled condescendingly in reply--

-

-“You’d get used to it, Robert, you’d get used to it, if you’d lived

-familiar with it all your life, as I have.”

-

-“Ah!” said Gardener, “but I wasn’t born like you, sir, to shine.”

-

-If he meant that the other was a light in his way--a little tallowy,

-perhaps--his own dry, hungry cheeks certainly justified him in the

-self-depreciation. They justified him, moreover--or he fancied they

-did, which was all the same as to the moral--in continuing to act

-jackal to this social lion, who had once been his employer in the

-cheap furniture-removal line. He lived--hung, it would seem more

-apposite to say--on his traditions of the great man’s business

-capacities, capacities whose fruits were here to witness, for evidence

-of the competence upon which his principal had retired. He got, in

-fact, little else than his traditions out of his former master at this

-date; yet it was strange how they served to delude him into a belief

-in his continued profit at the hands of the old patronage. The moral

-benefit he acquired from stealing into the local chapel to hear Mr.

-Plumley take a Sunday-school class, was at least worth as much to him

-as the occasional pipe of tobacco, or glass of whisky and water, which

-his idol vouchsafed him. For Mr. Gardener, as a true ‘poor relation’

-of the gods, was humbly thankful for their cheapest condescensions.

-

-“You stuck to your principles, sir,” he said, standing on one leg and

-the toe of the other, in humble deprecation of his right to any but

-the smallest possible allowance of oilcloth. Perhaps he would have

-brought his foot down, even he, could he have guessed the true

-significance of his own remark.

-

-“I did, Robert,” said Mr. Plumley, placidly sleeking his hair. “I

-always do. Have a pipe, Robert?”

-

-“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the man. “That was a mistake you made,

-sir.”

-

-“Mistakes,” said Mr. Plumley, “will occur. Have some whisky, Robert?”

-

-“You’re very good, sir.”

-

-“You don’t like it too strong, I think, Robert? And how’s the world

-treating you, my friend?”

-

-“Much as usual, sir. From hand to mouth’s my motto.”

-

-“Sad, sad to be sure. They’ll distrain upon me, I suppose.”

-

-“I’m afraid so, sir.”

-

-“The inhumanity of the world, Robert! You do pretty reg’lar porter’s

-work for Bull and Hacker, the auctioneers, don’t you, Robert?”

-

-“That’s so, Mr. Plumley,” said the man, wondering. “But the work’s

-heavier than the wages.”

-

-“They’ll be commissioned to seize the necessary goods. I wish you’d

-manage to give ’em a hint, Robert--over the left, you know, without

-any reference to me--that there’s a picture I prize (and that I’ve

-reason to believe a dealer is after), what would more than pay the two

-pun odd of the distraint if put up first. O’ course, I can’t appear to

-favour the matter myself, being a con----”

-

-“Passive resister, sir.”

-

-“Thank you, Robert; being the one most concerned in disputin’ the

-justice of the law. But a hint from you might settle the question at

-once. We aren’t very good friends, Bull and me; and, if he thought I

-prized the article, he’d be moral sure to seize it, slap away, to

-spite me.”

-

-“The picter?”

-

-“The picture, Robert. There it is.”

-

-It hung in an obscure corner, a dingy enough article, in an old

-damaged frame.

-

-“It don’t look the price,” said Gardener doubtfully.

-

-“It cost me more in a bad debt,” said the ex-remover, busying himself

-with the whisky in his heavy, observant way.

-

-“Very like, sir,” answered the other, and coughed behind his hand.

-

-“I know what you mean,” said his patron; “that I was took in. Well,

-I’ve reason to think not, my man. I’ve reason to think that picture’s

-worth a deal--say, fifty pun. Anyhow, I mean to try.”

-

-“A dealer’s after it, you say?”

-

-“Yes, I do say.”

-

-“Then why--with deference, sir--don’t you sell direct to him?”

-

-“Why don’t I? Am I a man of business, Robert? Look about you. Have I

-learned, do you think, to take a hexpert’s word as to the precise

-vally of a article that I see his heye’s on, or to argy by induction

-that a good private offer means a better public one? When it comes to

-overreaching--hem!--a connoyser’s a man like myself; so we’ll just, by

-your leave, put the picture up to auction.”

-

-He carried the decanter back to its place in one of the shiny

-cupboards.

-

-“Besides, my friend,” said he, talking over his shoulder, “don’t you

-see as how my conscience demands this seizure?”

-

-“Not quite, sir, _with_ humility, if so be as----”

-

-“You’re dense, Robert. Look here, I’m a conscientious resister, ain’t

-I? Law ain’t necessarily equity because the devil and Mr. Chamberlain

-frames it. There’s some lawgivers that are Vicars of Jehovah, and some

-of----but perhaps you’ve never heard of Abaddon?”

-

-“_Haven’t_ I?” said Mr. Gardener ruefully. “I was near run in once for

-tendering one as had been passed on me.”

-

-“He was king of the bottomless pit,” said Mr. Plumley patiently. “_He_

-framed this here law what’s made a passive objector of me. Well, if,

-in resigning myself to his unjust processes, I force the

-picture-dealer’s hand, thereby making a profit elsewise denied me,

-don’t you see how I round on the law--triumph over it--kill two birds

-with one stone, as it might be?”

-

-“Yes, sir; I see that,” said Mr. Gardener, though still doubtfully.

-

-“You do, do you?” responded the other. “Well, then, the only thing is

-to make the law pay as heavy as possible by getting the picture run up

-to the dealer’s figure.”

-

-“But the law wouldn’t go for more’n its two pun odd,” protested the

-jackal.

-

-“O, you fool!” snarled the lion. “It’s the moral profit’s the game,

-don’t you see? _I_ gain by the very hact what starts of itself to ruin

-me. It’s as plain as two pins.”

-

-Mr. Gardener scratched his head, and broke into a short laugh.

-

-“Bless you sir,” said he, “it’s clear enough; if on’y you’ll tell me

-who in all this here place is a-going to run up the dealer, since you

-can’t yourself.”

-

-Mr. Plumley, bending at the cupboard, did not answer for a moment.

-When at last he did, rising and facing round, there was a curious

-pallor on his lips, and he had to clear his throat before he could

-articulate--

-

-“You, Robert.”

-

-“Me, sir! You’re joking.”

-

-“Never less so, Robert.”

-

-“I ain’t worth a sixpence in the world, sir.”

-

-The ex-remover walked shakily across, and put a flabby, insinuative

-hand on the other’s shoulder.

-

-“I think I may say I’ve been a good friend to you, Robert?”

-

-Gardener muttered an uneasy affirmative.

-

-“To justify a great principle, Robert? It’s a mere matter of form;

-its----humph! A moment, if you please. Think of it while I’m gone.”

-

-A rap at the front door had obtruded itself. Mr. Plumley tiptoed

-elephantinely out, was heard murmuring a few minutes in the hall, and

-returned shortly in a state of suavely perspiring mystery.

-

-“It’s the dealer himself, Robert,” he whispered, his little eyes

-twinkling. “He’s come to make another attempt. I’ll humour him--humour

-him, never fear. Now, you must be quick. Will you do this little thing

-to oblige me?”

-

-“Supposing I were let in, sir?”

-

-Mr. Plumley coughed.

-

-“I guarantee you, of course. It’s just a confidence between us. Go to

-fifty pound--not a penny less nor more--and let him take it at any

-figure he likes, beyond. He won’t fail you. You’ll do it, Robert?”

-

-“I don’t favour the job, sir.”

-

-“But you’ll do it?”

-

-“Well, yes, then.”

-

-Mr. Plumley showed him out, returned to the parlour, finished his

-whisky and water, and called in the dealer from some hidden corner of

-the hall where he had lain concealed. He had braced his nerves in the

-interval. His attitude all at once was scowling and truculent--meet

-for the reception of the shabby loafer who now presented himself.

-

-“What are you grinning at, sir?” he roared. “This ain’t the face to

-bring to business.”

-

-“O! isn’t it?” said the man. “Then I’ll change it----” which he did,

-so suddenly and terrifically that the other cowered. The stranger

-snorted, and relaxed.

-

-“What now, minion?” said he.

-

-“Bah!” snarled Mr. Plumley: “it comes easy to a barnstormer.”

-

-“Roscius, ye fat old Philistine,” cried the actor, striking his breast

-with a ragged-gloved hand: “Roscius, thou ‘villainous, obscene, greasy

-tallow-ketch!’”

-

-“Well,” said Mr. Plumley, wiping his brow, “I meant no offence,

-anyhow. Have a drink?”

-

-The stranger breathed heavily, and assumed a Napoleonic pose.

-

-“I will have a drink,” he said; and, in fact, before he would

-condescend to utter another word, he had two.

-

-“Ha!” he said then, ejaculating a little spirituous cloud, and his

-lean, pantomimic face was all at once benign. “Richard’s himself

-again, and eager for the fray! To the charge, my passive resister, my

-heavy lead! Ye need Theophilus Bolton! Ye must pay!”

-

-“As to that there,” began Mr. Plumley, stuttering and glowering; but

-the other took him up coolly----

-

-“As to that, dear boy, there’s no question. You’ve withheld me from a

-profitable engagement----”

-

-“O, blow profitable!” interposed Mr. Plumley. “And you didn’t jump at

-the chanst neither!”

-

-“To play a part for you,” went on the actor unruffled “Well, am I to

-be Agnew, or Christie, or Sotheby, or who? My commission’s five per

-cent.”

-

-“Well, I don’t object to that,” said Plumley, relieved. “On the vally

-of the picture to Gardener, that’s to say. Call it done, and call

-yourself what you like.”

-

-“One man in his time plays many parts,” murmured Mr. Bolton. “Put it

-on paper, dear boy. I have a weakness for testaments.”

-

-Mr. Plumley protested; the actor whistled. In the end, the latter

-pocketed a document to the effect that Joshua Plumley agreed to pay

-Theophilus Bolton a sum to be calculated at the rate of five per cent

-on the ultimate selling price at auction (on a date hereafter to be

-filled in) of a picture known as the “The Wood Shop.”

-

-“You’ll be close?” said Mr. Plumley uneasily. “It might--it might

-injure me, you know, if it got about. Short o’ fifty pound’s the

-figger--you understand? Let Gardener secure it at that. I’ve my

-reasons. You come to me quick and quiet after the sale, and you shall

-have your two pound ten on the nail, and slip off with it as private

-as you wish.”

-

-Now, what was Plumley’s little game? And wasn’t he anyhow a good man

-of business?

-

-

-He was at least such a sure student of human nature as to have made no

-miscalculation in the matter of Bull and Hacker’s predilections. They

-seized, on the strength of Mr. Gardener’s artful insinuations, the

-very picture on which the defaulter was supposed to set a value, and

-put it up to sale one afternoon on the tail of a general auction. Mr.

-Gardener bid for it (the practice was common enough amongst the firm’s

-employés, acting for private clients, and Bull rather admired the

-man’s astuteness in having suggested a seizure so prospectively

-profitable to himself), and a strange dealer opposed him. They ran one

-another up merrily, and the room gaped and sniggered and whispered. It

-was an afternoon of surprises.

-

-“Forty-six,” cried the auctioneer--“any advance on forty-six?”

-

-A local lawyer, Bittern by name, was observed pushing his way through

-the crowd.

-

-“Good Lord!” he was muttering; “is the man daft!”

-

-“Forty-seven,” said the dealer.

-

-“Forty-eight,” bawled Gardener.

-

-“Forty-nine,” said the dealer monotonously.

-

-“Fifty!” cried Gardener stoutly; and hung on the bid which was to quit

-and relieve him.

-

-It did not come.

-

-The auctioneer raised his stereotyped wail: It was giving the lot

-away; a chance like that might never occur again; let him say

-fifty-one. “Come, gentlemen! Shall I say fifty-one? No?” He would sell

-at fifty, then--sell this unique work at the low figure of fifty

-pounds. “Any advance on fifty pounds?” He raised his hammer.

-

-“Not for me,” said the dealer, turning away. “Let him have it.”

-

-Down came the hammer. “Gardener: fifty pounds,” murmured Mr. Bull,

-with a very satisfied face. The purchaser stood stupefied.

-

-Two flurried gentlemen at this moment entered the room. They seemed

-more rivals than friends, and each shouldered the other rather rudely.

-

-“Too late, by gosh!” growled one.

-

-“Not a bit,” said the second, pushing past. “We’ll get the vendee to

-put it up again. I dare say he’ll do it.”

-

-“Here!” cried the first, grasping at the other’s receding figure.

-

-Jibbing together, they made their way towards Gardener, who was

-standing in rueful and dumbfoundered altercation with the lawyer. A

-brief but very earnest discussion took place among the four. At the

-end, the rostrum was invoked, the picture was replaced on the table,

-the two new-comers took up position. Gardener, mute and dazed, fell

-back, in custody of the lawyer, who stood with a hard, shrewd glitter

-in his eyes, and the auctioneer, blandly elated, raised his voice,

-justifying his own judgment.

-

-The picture, he said--as he had already informed the company, in

-fact--was a desirable one, a rare example of that peerless master

-Adrian Ostade; and the recent purchaser--whose property it was now

-become--had been persuaded generously to put it up to auction again on

-his own account, in answer to the representations of certain would-be

-bidders, whom an unforeseen delay on the railway had prevented from

-attending earlier.

-

-“We will start at fifty pounds, gentlemen, if you please,” said he.

-

-Mr. Bolton, in the background, pulled his hat over his eyes, and

-settled himself to listen.

-

-

-That great financial strategist, Mr. Plumley, sat drinking whisky and

-water by lamplight. His pipe lay at his side. He had tried to smoke

-it; but tobacco flurried him.

-

-“It should be about settled by now,” he muttered. “Where’s that

-Bolton?”

-

-“Rap!” came the answer, upon such an acute nervous centre, that he

-started as if he had been stung.

-

-He rose, made an effort to compose himself, and went to the door.

-

-A spare tall figure detached itself from the dark, and entered.

-

-“What the devil’s been keeping you?” growled the ex-remover.

-

-“Ah! you’re short-sighted, my friend,” said Mr. Bittern, and walked

-coolly into the parlour.

-

-Mr. Plumley stared, felt suddenly wet, shook himself, and followed.

-When it came to creeping flesh, he felt the full aggravation of his

-size. The slow march of apprehensions, taking time from a sluggish but

-persistent brain, seemed minutes encompassing him.

-

-“So,” said the lawyer, dry and wintry, the moment he was in, “you

-coveted your neighbours one ewe lamb?”

-

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe, blew through it, put it down again, and

-said nothing.

-

-“You’d heard of Gardener’s aunt’s little bequest to him of fifty

-pounds, duty free, eh?” asked the lawyer.

-

-“No,” said Mr. Plumley.

-

-“O!” said the lawyer. “He bid fifty pounds for that picture of yours

-this afternoon, and got it. On whose instructions?”

-

-“Ask him, sir. He acts for many.”

-

-“It wasn’t on yours, then?”

-

-“Is that reasonable, Mr. Bittern, when to my knowledge the man wasn’t

-worth a brass farden?”

-

-“What do you say about holding him to his bargain?”

-

-“I say, if he’s bought the picture, he must pay for it.”

-

-“And who bid against him? You don’t know that either, I suppose?”

-

-“Nat’rally. Was I there?”

-

-“Well, I’ve settled for him with Bull and Hacker, and brought you

-their cheque, less commission and distraint. Give me a receipt for

-it.”

-

-The great creature, elated with his own strategy as he was, could

-hardly draw it out, his hands shook so. But he managed the business

-somehow. The lawyer examined the paper, and buttoning it into his

-pocket, took up his hat.

-

-“O, by the way!” he said, as if on an afterthought, “I was forgetting

-to mention that Gardener, after securing the picture, put it up to

-auction again, at the particular request of some late arrivals, and

-was bid a thousand pounds for it. It turned out to be a very good

-work.”

-

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe again quite softly, looked at it a

-moment, and suddenly dashed it to smithereens on the floor.

-

-“It was a plant!” he cried in a fat, hoarse scream. “I’ll be even with

-him--I’ll have the money--the picture was mine--I’ll--by God, I say,

-it was a conspiracy!”

-

-The lawyer at the door lashed round on him like whipcord.

-

-“And that’s what I think,” he shouted. “The meanest, dirtiest trick

-that was ever played by a canting scoundrel on a poor brother. But I

-may get to the bottom of it yet, from the opening scheme to enlist

-Gardener’s sympathies for a poor martyr to conscience, to the last

-wicked design upon him in the saleroom. I may get to the bottom of it,

-cunning as it was planned; and, when I do, let some look out!”

-

-As he flung away, he let in a new-comer, Mr. Bolton, by the opened

-door. Mr. Plumley, choking in the backwater of his own fury, had sunk

-into a chair, gasping betwixt bitterness and panic. He could not, for

-the moment, remember how far he had committed himself. He looked up to

-meet the insolent, ironic smile of his confederate. “Come along, dear

-boy,” said Mr. Bolton. “Curtain’s down. Cash up!”

-

-He presented a claim for fifty pounds, and stood, his hat cocked on

-his head, picking his teeth.

-

-“What’s this curst gammon?” sneered Mr. Plumley, rousing himself.

-

-“Commission,” said the actor airily. “Five per cent. on the ultimate

-selling price of a picture.”

-

-“It went at fifty.”

-

-“Pardon _me_, sir. _Ultimate--ultimate_, see agreement” (he smacked

-his chest). “One thou’ was the figure, and dirt cheap. Fine example.

-I’ll trouble you for a cheque.”

-

-“Two pound ten. I’ll give it you in cash.”

-

-Mr. Bolton whistled a stave, and turned round, his hands deep in his

-breeches’ pockets.

-

-“I can sell to the other party. Good day to you, and look out.”

-

- [The End]

-

-

-

-

- TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

-

-Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ cash-box/cash box,

-frockcoat/frock-coat, etc.) have been preserved.

-

-Alterations to the text:

-

-[A gallows-bird]

-

-Change “convolutions of war, the merry, the _dance-maccabre_” to

-_danse-macabre_.

-

-[Our lady of refuge]

-

-“fort of San Fernando. and the cursed French garrison,” change period

-to comma.

-

-[The five insides]

-

-(“‘Eh, says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting) add right single

-quotation mark after _Eh_.

-

-“a bit forward--‘No, no, no no, no, no, no--’” add comma after

-third _no_.

-

-[The jade button]

-

-“The property was recovered--but for the heir…” add period to

-sentence.

-

- [End of text]

-

-

-

-

-

-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***

-

-

-

-Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will

-be renamed.

-

-

-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright

-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,

-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United

-States without permission and without paying copyright

-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part

-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™

-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,

-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following

-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use

-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for

-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very

-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation

-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project

-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may

-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected

-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark

-license, especially commercial redistribution.

-

-

-START: FULL LICENSE

-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

-

-

-To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work

-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full

-Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at

-www.gutenberg.org/license.

-

-

-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-

-

-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™

-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to

-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property

-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all

-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or

-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your

-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a

-Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound

-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person

-or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

-

-

-1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who

-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few

-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See

-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this

-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

-

-

-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the

-Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection

-of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual

-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United

-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the

-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not

-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,

-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as

-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope

-that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting

-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™

-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the

-Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily

-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the

-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when

-you share it without charge with others.

-

-

-

-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern

-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are

-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,

-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this

-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,

-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any

-other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no

-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any

-country other than the United States.

-

-

-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

-

-

-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear

-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work

-on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the

-phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,

-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

-

-

-  

-    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms

-    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online

-    at www.gutenberg.org. If you

-    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws

-    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

-  

-

-

-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not

-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the

-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in

-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are

-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply

-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or

-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™

-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-

-

-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution

-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any

-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms

-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works

-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the

-beginning of this work.

-

-

-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™

-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this

-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

-

-

-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without

-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project

-Gutenberg™ License.

-

-

-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,

-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including

-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access

-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format

-other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official

-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website

-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense

-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means

-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain

-Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the

-full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

-

-

-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works

-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-

-

-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-provided that:

-

-

-    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from

-        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method

-        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed

-        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has

-        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid

-        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are

-        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty

-        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in

-        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg

-        Literary Archive Foundation.”

-    

-    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies

-        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he

-        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™

-        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all

-        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue

-        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™

-        works.

-    

-    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

-        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the

-        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of

-        receipt of the work.

-    

-    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free

-        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

-    

-

-

-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than

-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing

-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of

-the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set

-forth in Section 3 below.

-

-

-1.F.

-

-

-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread

-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project

-Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may

-contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate

-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other

-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or

-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or

-cannot be read by your equipment.

-

-

-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right

-of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project

-Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all

-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal

-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

-DAMAGE.

-

-

-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can

-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a

-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you

-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium

-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you

-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in

-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person

-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second

-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If

-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing

-without further opportunities to fix the problem.

-

-

-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth

-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO

-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT

-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

-

-

-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of

-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement

-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the

-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or

-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or

-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the

-remaining provisions.

-

-

-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone

-providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in

-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the

-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,

-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of

-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this

-or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or

-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any

-Defect you cause.

-

-

-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

-

-

-Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of

-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of

-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It

-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations

-from people in all walks of life.

-

-

-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s

-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will

-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure

-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future

-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see

-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

-

-

-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-

-

-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit

-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the

-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal

-Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification

-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by

-U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

-

-

-The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up

-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website

-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

-

-

-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-

-

-Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread

-public support and donations to carry out its mission of

-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be

-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest

-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations

-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt

-status with the IRS.

-

-

-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United

-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a

-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up

-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations

-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND

-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state

-visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

-

-

-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition

-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who

-approach us with offers to donate.

-

-

-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from

-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

-

-

-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation

-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other

-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To

-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

-

-

-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-

-

-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project

-Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be

-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and

-distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of

-volunteer support.

-

-

-Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed

-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in

-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not

-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper

-edition.

-

-

-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search

-facility: www.gutenberg.org.

-

-

-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to

-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

-

+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes
+
+This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and 
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms 
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online 
+at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, 
+you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located 
+before using this eBook.
+
+
+Title: Loaves and fishes
+
+Author: Bernard Capes
+
+Release Date: September 11, 2023 [eBook #71615]
+
+Language: English
+
+Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***
+
+
+
+
+
+ LOAVES AND FISHES
+
+ BY
+ BERNARD CAPES
+
+
+
+
+ METHUEN & CO.
+ 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+ LONDON
+ _First Published in 1906_
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+ A GALLOWS-BIRD
+ THE RAVELLED SLEAVE
+ THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR
+ A GHOST-CHILD
+ HIS CLIENT’S CASE
+ AN ABSENT VICAR
+ THE BREECHES BISHOP
+ THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE
+ ARCADES AMBO
+ OUR LADY OF REFUGE
+ THE GHOST-LEECH
+ POOR LUCY RIVERS
+ THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR
+ THE LOST NOTES
+ THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD
+ JACK THE SKIPPER
+ A BUBBLE REPUTATION
+ A POINT OF LAW
+ THE FIVE INSIDES
+ THE JADE BUTTON
+ DOG TRUST
+ A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE
+
+
+
+
+ [NOTE]
+
+Acknowledgments are made to the editors of “The Pall Mall Magazine,”
+“The Illustrated London News,” “The World,” “Black and White,” “The
+London Magazine,” “The English Illustrated Magazine,” and “The
+Bystander,” to the hospitality of whose pages a number of the stories
+here reprinted were first invited.
+
+
+
+
+ LOAVES AND FISHES
+
+ A GALLOWS-BIRD
+
+In February of the year 1809, when the French were sat down before
+Saragossa--then enduring its second and more terrific siege within a
+period of six months--it came to the knowledge of the Duc d’Abrantes,
+at that time the General commanding, that his army, though undoubtedly
+the salt of the earth, was yet so little sufficient to itself in the
+matter of seasoning, that it was reduced to the necessity of
+flavouring its soup with the saltpetre out of its own cartridges. In
+this emergency, d’Abrantes sent for a certain Ducos, captain on the
+staff of General Berthier, but at present attached to a siege train
+before the doomed town, and asked him if he knew whence, if anywhere
+in the vicinity, it might be possible to make good the deficiency.
+
+Now this Eugène Ducos was a very progressive evolution of the times,
+hatched by the rising sun, emerged stinging and splendid from the
+exotic quagmires of the past. A facile linguist, by temperament and
+early training an artist, he had flown naturally to the field of
+battle as to that field most fertile of daring new effects, whose
+surprises called for record rather than analysis. It was for him to
+collect the impressions which, later, duller wits should classify.
+And, in the meantime, here he was at twenty a captain of renown, and
+always a creature of the most unflagging resourcefulness.
+
+“You were with Lefebvre-Desnouettes in Aragon last year?” demanded
+Junot.
+
+“I was, General; both before the siege and during it.”
+
+“You heard mention of salt mines in this neighbourhood?”
+
+“There were rumours of them, sir--amongst the hills of Ulebo; but it
+was never our need to verify the rumours.”
+
+“Take a company, now, and run them to earth. I will give you a week.”
+
+“Pardon me, General; I need no company but my own, which is ever the
+safest colleague.”
+
+Junot glared demoniacally. He was already verging on the madness which
+was presently to destroy him.
+
+“The devil!” he shouted. “You shall answer for that assurance! Go
+alone, sir, since you are so obliging, and find salt; and at your
+peril be killed before reporting the result to me. Bones of God! is
+every skipjack with a shoulder-knot to better my commands?”
+
+Ducos saluted, and wheeled impassive. He knew that in a few days
+Marshal Lannes was to supplant this maniac.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Up and away amongst the intricate ridges of the mountains, where the
+half-unravelled knots of the Pyrenees flow down in threads, or
+clustered threads, which are combed by and by into the plains south of
+Saragossa, a dusky young goatherd loitered among the chestnut trees on
+a hot afternoon. This boy’s beauty was of a supernal order. His
+elastic young cheeks glowed with colour; his eyebrows were resolute
+bows; his lips, like a pretty phrase of love, were set between dimples
+like inverted commas. And, as he stood, he coquetted like Dinorah to
+his own shadow, chasséd to it, spoke to it, upbraiding or caressing,
+as it answered to his movements on the ground before him--
+
+“Ah, pretty one! ah, shameless! Art thou the shadow of the girl that
+Eugenio loved? Fie, fie! thou wouldst betray this poor Anita--mock the
+round limbs and little feet that will not look their part. Yet, betray
+her to her love returning, and Anita will fall and kiss thee on her
+knees--kiss the very shadow of Eugenio’s love. Ah, little shadow! take
+wings and fly to him, who promised quickly to return. Say I am good
+but sad, awaiting him; say that Anita suffers, but is patient. He will
+remember then, and come. No shadow of disguise shall blind him to his
+love. Go, go, before I repent and hold thee, jealous that mine own
+shadow should run before to find his lips.”
+
+She stooped, and, with a fantastic gesture, threw her soul upon the
+winds; then rose, and leaned against a tree, and began to sing, and
+sigh and murmur softly:
+
+
+ “‘At the gate of heaven are sold brogues
+ For the little bare-footed angel rogues’--
+
+
+Ah, little dear mother! it is the seventh month, and the sign is still
+delayed. No baby, no lover. Alack! why should he return to me, who am
+a barren olive! The husbandman asks a guerdon for his care. Give me my
+little doll, Santissima, or I will be naughty and drink holy-water:
+give me the shrill wee voice, which pierces to the father’s heart,
+when even passion loiters. Ah, come to me, Eugenio, my Eugenio!”
+
+She raised her head quickly on the word, and her heart leaped. It was
+to hear the sound of a footstep, on the stones far below, coming up
+the mountain side. She looked to her shirt and jacket. Ragged as they
+were, undeveloped as was the figure within them, she had been so
+jealous a housewife that there was not in all so much as an eyelet
+hole to attract a peeping Tom. Now, leaving her goats amongst the
+scattered boulders of the open, she backed into the groves,
+precautionally, but a little reluctant, because in her heart she was
+curious.
+
+The footsteps came on toilfully, and presently the man who was
+responsible for them hove into sight. He wore the dress of an English
+officer, save for the shepherd’s felt hat on his head; but his scarlet
+jacket was knotted loosely by the sleeves about his throat, in order
+to the disposition of a sling which held his left arm crookt in a
+bloody swathe. He levered himself up with a broken spear-shaft; but he
+was otherwise weaponless. A pistol, in Ducos’s creed, was the argument
+of a fool. He carried _his_ ammunition in his brains.
+
+Having reached a little plateau, irregular with rocks shed from the
+cliffs above, he sat down within the shadow of a grove of chestnut and
+carob trees, and sighed, and wiped his brow, and nodded to all around
+and below him.
+
+“Yes, and yes, and of a truth,” thought he: “here is the country of my
+knowledge. And yonder, deep and far amongst its myrtles and
+mulberries, crawls the Ebro; and to my right, a browner clod amongst
+the furrows of the valleys, heaves up the ruined monastery of San
+Ildefonso, which Daguenet sacked, the radical; whilst I occupied (ah,
+the week of sweet malvoisie and sweeter passion!) the little inn at
+the junction of the Pampeluna and Saragossa roads. And what has become
+of Anita of the inn? Alack! if my little _fille de joie_ were but here
+to serve me now!”
+
+The goatherd slipped round the shoulder of a rock and stood before
+him, breathing hard. Her black curls were, for all the world,
+bandaged, as it might be, with a yellow napkin (though they were more
+in the way to give than take wounds), and crowned rakishly with a
+dusky sombrero. She wore a kind of gaskins on her legs, loose, so as
+to reveal the bare knees and a little over; and across her shoulders
+was slung a sun-burnt shawl, which depended in a bib against her
+chest.
+
+Now the one stood looking down and the other up, their visions
+magnetically meeting and blending, till the eyes of the goatherd were
+delivered of very stars of rapture.
+
+Was this a spirit, thought Ducos, summoned of his hot and necessitous
+desire? But the other had no such misgiving. All in a moment she had
+fallen on her brown knees before him, and was pitifully kissing his
+bandaged arm, while she strove to moan and murmur out the while her
+ecstasy of gratitude.
+
+“Nariguita!” he murmured, rallying as if from a dream; “Nariguita!”
+
+She laughed and sobbed.
+
+“Ah, the dear little happy name from thy lips! A thousand times will I
+repeat it to myself, but never as thou wouldst say it. And now! Yes,
+Nariguita, Eugenio--thine own ‘little nose’--thy child, thy baby, who
+never doubted that this day would come--O darling of my soul, that it
+would come!”--(she clung to him, and hid her face)--“Eugenio! though
+the blossom of our love delays its fruitage!”
+
+He smiled, recovered from his first astonishment. Ministers of
+coincidence! In all the fantastic convolutions of war, the merry, the
+danse-macabre, should not love’s reunions have a place? It was nothing
+out of that context that here was he chanced again, and timely, upon
+that same sweet instrument which he had once played on, and done with,
+and thrown aside, careless of its direction. Now he had but to stoop
+and reclaim it, and the discarded strings, it seemed, were ready as
+heretofore to answer to his touch with any melody he listed.
+
+He caressed her with real delight. She was something more than
+lovable. He made himself a very Judas to her lips.
+
+“Anita, my little Anita!” he began glowingly; but she took him up with
+a fevered eagerness, answering the question of his eyes.
+
+“So long ago, ah Dios! And thou wert gone; and the birds were silent;
+and under the heavy sky my father called me to him. He held a last
+letter of thine, which had missed my hands for his. Love, sick at our
+parting, had betrayed us. O, the letter! how I swooned to be denied
+it! He was for killing me, a traitor. Well, I could not help but be.
+But Tia Joachina had pity on me, and dressed me as you see, and
+smuggled me to the hills, that I might at least have a chance to live
+without suffering wrong. And, behold! the heavens smiled upon me,
+knowing my love; and Señor Cangrejo took me to herd his goats. For
+seven months--for seven long, faithful months; until the sweetest of
+my heart’s flock should return to pasture in my bosom. And now he has
+come, my lamb, my prince, even as he promised. He has come, drawing me
+to him over the hills, following the lark’s song of his love as it
+dropped to earth far forward of his steps. Eugenio! O, ecstasy! Thou
+hast dared this for my sake?”
+
+“Child,” answered the admirable Ducos, “I should have dared only in
+breaking my word. _Un honnête homme n’a que sa parole._ That is the
+single motto for a poor captain, Nariguita. And who is this Señor
+Cangrejo?”
+
+Some terror, offspring of his question, set her clinging to him once
+more.
+
+“What dost thou here?” she cried, with immediate inconsistency--“a
+lamb among the wolves! Eugenio!”
+
+“Eh!”--he took her up, with an air of bewilderment. “I am Sir Zhones,
+the English capitaine, though it loose me your favour, mamsellee. Wat!
+Damn eet, I say!”
+
+She fell away, staring at him; then in a moment gathered, and leapt to
+him again between tears and laughter.
+
+“But this?” she asked, her eyes glistening; and she touched the
+bandage.
+
+“Ah! that,” he answered. “Why, I was wounded, and taken prisoner by
+the French, you understand? Also, I escaped from my captors. It comes,
+blood and splint and all, from the smashed arm of a sabreur, who,
+indeed, had no longer need of it.”
+
+“For the love of Christ!” she cried in a panic. “Come away into the
+trees, where none will observe us!”
+
+“Bah! I have no fear, I,” said Ducos. But he rose, nevertheless, with
+a smile, and, catching up the goatherd, bore her into the shadows.
+There, sitting by her side, he assured her, the rogue, of the
+impatience with which he had anticipated, of the eagerness with which
+he had run to realize this longed-for moment. The escapade had only
+been rendered possible, he said truthfully, by the opportune demand
+for salt. Doubtless she would help him, for love’s sake, to justify
+the venture to his General?
+
+But, at that, she stared at him, troubled, and her lip began to
+quiver.
+
+“Ah, God!” she cried; “then it was not I in the first place! Go thy
+ways, love; but for pity’s heart-sake let me weep a little. Yes, yes,
+there is salt in the mountains, that I know, and where the caves lie.
+But there are also Cangrejo--whom you French ruined and made a
+madman--and a hundred like him, wild-cats hidden amongst the leaves.
+And there, too, are the homeless friars of St. Ildefonso; and, dear
+body of Christ! the tribunal of terror, the junta of women, who are
+the worst of all--lynx-eyed demons.”
+
+He smiled indulgently. Her terror amused him.
+
+“Well, well,” he said; “well, well. And what, then, is this junta?”
+
+“It is a scourge,” she whispered, shivering, “for traitors and for
+spies. It gathers nightly, at sunset, in the dip yonder, and there
+waters with blood its cross of death. This very evening, Cangrejo
+tells me----”
+
+She broke off, cuddled closer to her companion, and clasping her hands
+and shrugging up her shoulders to him, went on awfully--
+
+“Eugenio, there was a wagon-load of piastres coming secretly for
+Saragossa by the Tolosa road. It was badly convoyed. One of your
+generals got scent of it. The guard had time to hide their treasure
+and disperse, but him whom they thought had betrayed them the tribunal
+of women claimed, and to-night----”
+
+“Well, he will receive his wages. And where is the treasure
+concealed?”
+
+“Ah! that I do not know.”
+
+Ducos got to his feet, and stretched and yawned.
+
+“I have a fancy to see this meeting-place of the tribunal. Wilt thou
+lead me to it, Nariguita?”
+
+“Mother of God, thou art mad!”
+
+“Then I must go alone, like a madman.”
+
+“Eugenio, it is cursing and accurst. None will so much as look into it
+by day; and, at dusk, only when franked by the holy church.”
+
+“So greatly the better. Adios, Nariguita!”
+
+It took them half an hour, descending cautiously, and availing
+themselves of every possible shelter of bush and rock, to reach a
+strangely formed amphitheatre set stark and shallow amongst the higher
+swales of the valley, but so overhung with scrub of myrtle and wild
+pomegranate as to be only distinguishable, and that scarcely, from
+above. A ragged track, mounting from the lower levels into this
+hollow, tailed off, and was attenuated into a point where it took a
+curve of the rocks at a distance below.
+
+As Ducos, approaching the rim, pressed through the thicket, a toss of
+black crows went up from the mouth ahead of him, like cinders of paper
+spouted from a chimney. He looked over. The brushwood ceased at the
+edge of a considerable pit, roughly circular in shape, whose sides, of
+bare sloping sand, met and flattened at the bottom into an extended
+platform. Thence arose a triangular gibbet, a very rack in a devil’s
+larder, all about which a hoard of little pitchy bird scullions were
+busy with the joints. Holy mother, how they squabbled, and flapped at
+one another with their sleeves, it seemed! The two carcasses which
+hung there appeared, for all their heavy pendulosity, to reel and rock
+with laughter, nudging one another in eyeless merriment.
+
+Ducos mentally calculated the distance to the gallows below from any
+available coign of concealment.
+
+“One could not hide close enough to hear anything,” he murmured,
+shaking his head in aggravation; “and this junta of ladies--it will
+probably talk. What if it were to discuss that very question of the
+piastres? Nariguita, will you go and be my little reporter at the
+ceremony?”
+
+Anita, crouching in the brush behind him, whispered terrified: “It is
+impossible. They admit none but priests and women.”
+
+“And are not you a woman, most beautiful?”
+
+“God forbid!” she said. “I am the little goatherd Ambrosio.”
+
+He stood some moments, frowning. A scheme, daring and characteristic,
+was beginning to take shape in his brain.
+
+“What is that clump of rags by the gallows?” he asked, without looking
+round.
+
+“It is not rags; it is rope, Eugenio.”
+
+He thought again.
+
+“And when do they come to hang this rascal?” he said.
+
+“It is always at dusk. O, dear mother!” she whimpered, for the young
+man had suddenly slipped between the branches, and was going swiftly
+and softly down the pit-side.
+
+Already the basin of sand was filled with the shadows from the hills
+Ducos approached the gibbet. The last of the birds remaining arose and
+dispersed, quarrelling with nothing so much as the sunlight which they
+encountered above.
+
+“It is an abominable task,” said the aide-de-camp, looking up at the
+dangling bodies; “but--for the Emperor--always for the Emperor! That
+fellow, now, in the domino--it would make us appear of one build. And
+as for complexion, why, he at least would have no eyes for the
+travesty. Mon Dieu! I believe it is a Providence.”
+
+There was a ladder leaned against the third and empty beam. He put it
+into position for the cloaked figure, and ran up it. The rope was
+hitched to a hook in the cross-piece. He must clasp and lever up his
+burden by main strength before he could slacken and detach the cord.
+Then, with an exclamation of relief, he let the body drop upon the
+sand beneath. He descended the ladder in excitement.
+
+“Anita!” he called.
+
+She had followed, and was at hand. She trembled, and was as pale as
+death.
+
+“Help me,” he panted--“with this--into the bush.”
+
+He had lifted _his_ end by the shoulders.
+
+“What devil possesses you? I cannot,” she sobbed; “I shall die.”
+
+“Ah, Nariguita! for my sake! There is no danger if thou art brave and
+expeditious.”
+
+Between them they tugged and trailed their load into the dense
+undergrowth skirting the open track, and there let it plunge and sink.
+Ducos removed the domino from the body, rolling and hauling at that
+irreverently. Then he saw how the wretch had been pinioned, wrists and
+ankles, beneath.
+
+Carrying the cloak, he hastened back to the gallows. There he
+cautiously selected from the surplus stock of cord a length of some
+twelve feet, at either end of which he formed a loop. So, mounting the
+ladder, over the hook he hitched this cord by one end, and then,
+swinging himself clear, slid down the rope until he could pass both
+his feet into the lower hank.
+
+“_Voilà!_” said he. “Come up and tie me to the other with some little
+pieces round the waist and knees and neck.”
+
+She obeyed, weeping. Her love and her duty were to this wonder of
+manhood, however dreadful his counsel. Presently, trussed to his
+liking, he bade her fetch the brigand’s cloak and button it over all.
+
+“Now,” said he, “one last sacramental kiss; and, so descending and
+placing the ladder and all as before, thou shalt take standing-room in
+the pit for this veritable dance of death.”
+
+A moment--and he was hanging there, to all appearance a corpse. The
+short rope at his neck had been so disposed and knotted--the collar of
+the domino serving--as to make him look, indeed, as if he strained at
+the tether’s end. He had dragged his long hair over his eyes; his head
+lolled to one side; his tongue protruded. For the rest, the cloak hid
+all, even to his feet.
+
+The goatherd snivelled.
+
+“Ah, holy saints, he is dead!”
+
+The head came erect, grinning.
+
+“Eugenio!” she cried; “O, my God! Thou wilt be discovered--thou wilt
+slip and strangle! Ah, the crows--body of my body, the crows!”
+
+“Imbecile! have I not my hands? See, I kiss one to thee. Now the sun
+sinks, and my ghostly vigil will be short. Pray heaven only they
+alight not on that in the bush. Nariguita, little heroine, this is my
+last word. Go hide thyself in the bushes above, and watch what a
+Frenchman, the most sensitive of mortals, will suffer to serve his
+Emperor.”
+
+It was an era, indeed, of sublime lusts and barbaric virtues, when men
+must mount upon stepping-stones, not of their dead selves, but of
+their slaughtered enemies, to higher things. Anita, like Ducos, was a
+child of her generation. To her mind the heroic purpose of this deed
+overpowered its pungency. She kissed her lover’s feet; secured the
+safe disposition of the cloak about them; then turned and fled into
+hiding.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At dusk, with the sound of footsteps coming up the pass, the crows
+dispersed. Eugène, for all his self-sufficiency, had sweated over
+their persistence. A single more gluttonous swoop might at any moment,
+in blinding him, have laid him open to a general attack before help
+could reach him from the eyrie whence unwearying love watched his
+every movement. Now, common instance of the providence which waits on
+daring, the sudden lift and scatter of the swarm left his hearing
+sensible to the tinkling of a bridle, which came rhythmical from the
+track below. Immediately he fell, with all his soul, into the pose of
+death.
+
+The cadence of the steely warning so little altered, the footsteps
+stole in so muffled and so deadly, that, peering presently through
+slit eyelids for the advent of the troop, it twitched his strung
+nerves to see a sinister congress already drawn soundless about the
+gibbet on which he hung. Perhaps for the first time in this stagnant
+atmosphere he realized the peril he had invited. But still the
+gambler’s providence befriended him.
+
+They were all women but two--the victim, a sullen, whiskered
+Yanguesian, strapped cuttingly to a mule, and a paunchy shovel-hatted
+Carmelite, who hugged a crucifix between his roomy sleeves.
+
+Ducos had heard of these banded _vengeresses_. Now, he was Frenchman
+enough to appreciate in full the significance of their attitude, as
+they clustered beneath him in the dusk, a veiled and voiceless huddle
+of phantoms. “How,” he thought, peeping through the dropped curtain of
+his hair, “will the adorables do it?” He had an hysterical inclination
+to laugh, and at that moment the monk, with a sudden decision to
+action, brushed against him and set him slowly twirling until his face
+was averted from the show.
+
+Immediately thereon--as he interpreted sounds--the mule was led under
+the gallows. He heard the ladder placed in position, heard a strenuous
+shuffling as of concentrated movement. What he failed to hear (at
+present) was any cry or protest from the victim. The beam above
+creaked, a bridle tinkled, a lighter drop of hoofs receded. A pregnant
+pause ensued, broken only by a slight noise, like rustling or
+vibrating--and then, in an instant, by a voice, chuckling,
+hateful--the voice of the priest.
+
+“What! to hang there without a word, Carlos? Wouldst thou go, and
+never ask what is become of that very treasure thou soldst thy soul to
+betray? The devil has rounded on thee, Carlos; for after all it is
+thou that art lost, and not the treasure. That is all put away--shout
+it in the ears of thy neighbours up there--it is all put away, Carlos,
+safe in the salt mines of the Little Hump. Cry it to the whole world
+now. Thou mayst if thou canst. In the salt mines of the Little Hump.
+Dost hear? Ah, then, we must make thee answer.”
+
+With his words, the pit was all at once in shrill hubbub, noise
+indescribable and dreadful, the shrieking of harpies bidden to their
+prey. It rose demoniac--a very Walpurgis.
+
+“No, no,” thought Ducos, gulping under his collar. He was almost
+unnerved for the moment. “It is unlawful--they have no right to!”
+
+He was twisting again, for all his mad will to prevent it. He would
+not look, and yet he looked. The monk, possessed, was thrashing the
+torn and twitching rubbish with his crucifix. The others, their
+fingers busy with the bodkins they had plucked from their mantillas,
+had retreated for the moment to a little distance.
+
+Suddenly the Carmelite, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy, dropped his
+weapon, and scuttling to the mule, where it stood near at hand, tore a
+great horse pistol from its holster among the trappings, and pointed
+it at the insensible body.
+
+“Scum of all devils!” he bellowed. “In fire descend to fire that lasts
+eternal!”
+
+He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and shattering explosion. A
+blazing hornet stung Ducos in the leg. He may have started and
+shrieked. Any cry or motion of his must have passed unnoticed in the
+screaming panic evoked of the crash. He clung on with his hands and
+dared to raise his head. The mouth of the pass was dusk with flying
+skirts. Upon the sands beneath him, the body of the priest, a
+shapeless bulk, was slowly subsiding and settling, one fat fist of it
+yet gripping the stock of a pistol which, overgorged, had burst as it
+was discharged.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The reek of the little tragedy had hardly dissipated before Ducos
+found himself. The sentiment of revolt, deriving from his helpless
+position, had been indeed but momentary. To feel his own accessibility
+to torture, painted torture to him as an inhuman lust. With the means
+to resist, or escape, at will, he might have sat long in ambush
+watching it; even condoning it as an extravagant posture of art.
+
+With a heart full of such exultation over the success of his trick
+that for the moment he forgot the pain of his wound, he hurriedly
+unpicked the knots of the shorter cords about him, and, jumping to the
+ground, waited until the shadow of a little depressed figure came
+slinking across the sand towards him.
+
+“Eugenio!” it whispered; “what has happened? O! art thou hurt?”
+
+She ran into his arms, sobbing.
+
+“I am hurt,” said Ducos. “Quick, child! unstrap this from my arm and
+bind it about my calf. Didst hear? But it was magnificent! Two birds
+with a single stone. The piastres in pickle for us. Didst see,
+moreover? Holy Emperor! it was laughable. I would sacrifice a
+decoration to be witness of the meeting of those two overhead. It
+should be the Yanguesian for my money, for he has at least his teeth
+left. Look how he shows them, bursting with rage! Quick, quick, quick!
+we must be up and away, before any of those others think of
+returning.”
+
+“And if one should,” she said, “and mark the empty beam?”
+
+“What does it matter, nevertheless! I must be off to-night, after thou
+hast answered me one single question.”
+
+“Off? Eugenio! O! not without me?”
+
+“God, little girl! In this race I must not be hampered by so much as a
+thought. But I will return for thee--never fear.”
+
+He still sat in his domino. She knelt at his feet, stanching the flow
+from the wound the pistol had made in his leg. At his words she looked
+up breathlessly into his face; then away, to hide her swimming eyes.
+In the act she slunk down, making herself small in the sand.
+
+“Eugenio! My God! we are watched!”
+
+He turned about quickly.
+
+“Whence?”
+
+“From the mouth of the pass,” she whispered.
+
+“I can see nothing,” he said. “Hurry, nevertheless! What a time thou
+art! There, it is enough of thy bungling fingers. Help me to my feet
+and out of this place. Come!” he ended, angrily.
+
+He had an ado to climb the easy slope. By the time they were entered
+amongst the rocks and bushes above, it was black dusk.
+
+“Whither wouldst thou, dearest?” whispered the goatherd.
+
+He had known well enough a moment ago--to some point, in fact, whence
+she could indicate to him the direction of the Little Hump, where the
+treasure lay; afterwards, to the very hill-top where some hours
+earlier they had forgathered. But he would not or could not explain
+this. Some monstrous blight of gloom had seized his brain at a swoop.
+He thought it must be one of the crows, and he stumbled along, raving
+in his heart. If she offered to help him now, he would tear his arm
+furiously from her touch. She wondered, poor stricken thing, haunting
+him with tragic eyes. Then at last her misery and desolation found
+voice--
+
+“What have I done? I will not ask again to go with thee, if that is
+it. It was only one little foolish cry of terror, most dear--that they
+should suspect, and seize, and torture me. But, indeed, should they do
+it, thou canst trust me to be silent.”
+
+He stopped, swaying, and regarded her demoniacally. His face was a
+livid and malignant blot in the thickening dusk. To torture her? What
+torture could equal his at this moment? She sought merely to move him
+by an affectation of self-renunciation. That, of course, called at
+once for extreme punishment. He must bite and strangle her to death.
+
+He moved noiselessly upon her. She stood spellbound before him. All at
+once something seemed to strike him on the head, and, without uttering
+a sound, he fell forward into the bush.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Ducos opened his eyes to the vision of so preternaturally melancholy a
+face, that he was shaken with weak laughter over the whimsicality of
+his own imagination. But, in a very little, unwont to dreaming as he
+was, the realization that he was looking upon no apparition, but a
+grotesque of fact, silenced and absorbed him.
+
+Presently he was moved to examine his circumstances. He was lying on a
+heap of grass mats in a tiny house built of boards. Above him was a
+square of leaf-embroidered sky cut out of a cane roof; to his left,
+his eyes, focussing with a queer stiffness, looked through an open
+doorway down precipices of swimming cloud. That was because he lay in
+an eyrie on the hillside. And then at once, into his white field of
+vision, floated the dismal long face, surmounted by an ancient
+cocked-hat, slouched and buttonless, and issuing like an august Aunt
+Sally’s from the neck of a cloak as black and dropping as a pall.
+
+The figure crossed the opening outside, and wheeled, with the wind in
+its wings. In the act, its eyes, staring and protuberant, fixed
+themselves on those of the Frenchman. Immediately, with a little
+stately gesture expressive of relief and welcome, it entered the hut.
+
+“By the mercy of God!” exclaimed the stranger in his own tongue. Then
+he added in English: “The Inglese recovers to himself?”
+
+Ducos smiled, nodding his head; then answered confidently, feeling his
+way: “A little, sir, I tank you. Thees along night. Ah! it appear all
+one pain.”
+
+The other nodded solemnly in his turn--
+
+“A long night indeed, in which the sunksink tree very time.”
+
+“Comment!” broke out the aide-de-camp hoarsely, and instantly realized
+his mistake.
+
+“Ah! devil take the French!” said he explanatorily. “I been in their
+camp so long that to catch their lingo. But I spik l’Espagnol, señor.
+It shall be good to us to converse there.”
+
+The other bowed impenetrably. His habit of a profound and melancholy
+aloofness might have served for mask to any temper of mind but that
+which, in real fact, it environed--a reason, that is to say, more lost
+than bedevilled under the long tyranny of oppression.
+
+“I have been ill, I am to understand?” said Ducos, on his guard.
+
+“For three days and nights, señor. My goatherd came to tell me how a
+wounded English officer was lying on the hills. Between us we conveyed
+you hither.”
+
+“_Ah, Dios!_ I remember. I had endeavoured to carry muskets into
+Saragossa by the river. I was hit in the leg; I was captured; I
+escaped. For two days I wandered, señor, famished and desperate. At
+last in these mountains I fell as by a stroke from heaven.”
+
+“It was the foul blood clot, señor. It balked your circulation. There
+was the brazen splinter in the wound, which I removed, and God
+restored you. What fangs are theirs, these reptiles! In a few days you
+will be well.”
+
+“Thanks to what ministering angel?”
+
+“I am known as Don Manoel di Cangrejo, señor, the most shattered, as
+he was once the most prosperous of men. May God curse the French! May
+God” (his wild, mournful face twitched with strong emotion) “reward
+and bless these brave allies of a people more wronged than any the
+world has yet known!”
+
+“Noble Englishman,” said he by and by, “thou hast nothing at present
+but to lie here and accept the grateful devotion of a heart to which
+none but the inhuman denies humanity.”
+
+Ducos looked his thanks.
+
+“If I might rest here a little,” he said; “if I might be spared----”
+
+The other bowed, with a grave understanding.
+
+“None save ourselves, and the winds and trees, señor. I will nurse
+thee as if thou wert mine own child.”
+
+He was as good as his word. Ducos, pluming himself on his
+perspicacity, accepting the inevitable with philosophy, lent himself
+during the interval, while feigning a prolonged weakness, to recovery.
+That was his, to all practical purposes, within a couple of days,
+during which time he never set eyes on Anita, but only on Anita’s
+master. Don Manoel would often come and sit by his bed of mats; would
+even sometimes retail to him, as to a trusted ally, scraps of local
+information. Thus was he posted, to his immense gratification, in the
+topical after-history of his own exploit at the gallows.
+
+“It is said,” whispered Cangrejo awfully, “that one of the dead,
+resenting so vile a neighbour, impressed a goatherd into his service,
+and, being assisted from the beam, walked away. Truly it is an age of
+portents.”
+
+On the third morning, coming early with his bowl of goat’s milk and
+his offering of fruits, he must apologize, with a sweet and lofty
+courtesy, for the necessity he was under of absenting himself all day.
+
+“There is trouble,” he said--“as when is there not? I am called to
+secret council, señor. But the boy Ambrosio has my orders to be ever
+at hand shouldst thou need him.”
+
+Ducos’s heart leapt. But he was careful to deprecate this generous
+attention, and to cry _Adios!_ with the most perfect assumption of
+composure.
+
+He was lying on his elbow by and by, eagerly listening, when the
+doorway was blocked by a shadow. The next instant Anita had sprung to
+and was kneeling beside him.
+
+“Heart of my heart, have I done well? Thou art sound and whole? O,
+speak to me, speak to me, that I may hear thy voice and gather its
+forgiveness!”
+
+For what? She was sobbing and fondling him in a very lust of entreaty.
+
+“Thou hast done well,” he said. “So, we were seen indeed, Anita?”
+
+“Yes,” she wept, holding his face to her bosom. “And, O! I agonize for
+thee to be up and away, Eugenio, for I fear.”
+
+“Hush! I am strong. Help me to my legs, child. So! Now, come with me
+outside, and point out, if thou canst, where lies the Little Hump.”
+
+She was his devoted crutch at once. They stood in the sunlight,
+looking down upon the hills which fell from beneath their feet--a
+world of tossed and petrified rapids. At their backs, on a shallow
+plateau under eaves of rock, Cangrejo’s eyrie clung to the
+mountain-side.
+
+“There,” said the goatherd, indicating with her finger, “that mound
+above the valley--that little hill, fat-necked like a great mushroom,
+which sprouts from its basin among the trees?”
+
+“Wait! mine eyes are dazzled.”
+
+“Ah, poor sick eyes! Look, then! Dost thou not see the white worm of
+the Pampeluna road--below yonder, looping through the bushes?”
+
+“I see it--yes, yes.”
+
+“Now, follow upwards from the big coil, where the pine tree leans to
+the south, seeming a ladder between road and mound.”
+
+“Stay--I have it.”
+
+“Behold the Little Hump, the salt mine of St. Ildefonso, and once,
+they say, an island in the midst of a lake, which burst its banks and
+poured forth and was gone. And now thou knowest, Eugenio?”
+
+He did not answer. He was intently fixing in his memory the position
+of the hill. She waited on his mood, not daring to risk his anger a
+second time, with a pathetic anxiety. Presently he heaved out a sigh,
+and turned on her, smiling.
+
+“It is well,” he said. “Now conduct me to the spot where we met three
+days ago.”
+
+It was surprisingly near at hand. A labyrinthine descent--by way of
+aloe-horned rocks, with sandy bents and tufts of harsh juniper
+between--of a hundred yards or so, and they were on the stony plateau
+which he remembered. There, to one side, was the coppice of chestnuts
+and locust trees. To the other, the road by which he had climbed went
+down with a run--such as he himself was on thorns to emulate--into the
+valleys trending to Saragossa. His eyes gleamed. He seated himself
+down on a boulder, controlling his impatience only by a violent
+effort.
+
+“Anita,” he said, drilling out his speech with slow emphasis, “thou
+must leave me here alone awhile. I would think--I would think and
+plan, my heart. Go, wait on thy goats above, and I will return to thee
+presently.”
+
+She sighed, and crept away obedient. O, forlorn, most forlorn soul of
+love, which, counting mistrust treason, knows itself a traitor! Yet
+Anita obeyed, and with no thought to eavesdrop, because she was in
+love with loyalty.
+
+The moment he was well convinced of her retreat, Ducos got to his legs
+with an immense sigh of relief. Love, he thought, could be presuming,
+could be obtuse, could be positively a bore. It all turned upon the
+context of the moment; and the present was quick with desires other
+than for endearments. For it must be related that the young captain,
+having manœuvred matters to this accommodating pass, was designing
+nothing less than an instant return, on the wings of transport, to the
+blockading camp, whence he proposed returning, with a suitable force
+and all possible dispatch, to seize and empty of its varied treasures
+the salt mine of St. Ildefonso.
+
+“Pouf!” he muttered to himself in a sort of ecstatic aggravation;
+“this accursed delay! But the piastres are there still--I have
+Cangrejo’s word for it.”
+
+He turned once, before addressing himself to flight, to refocus in his
+memory the position of the mound, which still from here was plainly
+visible. In the act he pricked his ears, for there was a sound of
+footsteps rising up the mountain path. He dodged behind a boulder. The
+footsteps came on--approached him--paused--so long that he was induced
+at last to peep for the reason. At once his eyes encountered other
+eyes awaiting him. He laughed, and left his refuge. The new-comer was
+a typical Spanish Romany--slouching, filthy, with a bandage over one
+eye.
+
+“God be with thee, Caballero!” said the Frenchman defiantly.
+
+To his astonishment, the other broke into a little scream of laughter,
+and flung himself towards him.
+
+“Judge thou, now,” said he, “which is the more wide-awake adventurer
+and the better actor!”
+
+“My God!” cried Ducos; “it is de la Platière!”
+
+“Hush!” whispered the mendicant. “Are we private? Ah, bah! Junot
+should have sent me in the first instance.”
+
+“I have been hurt, thou rogue. Our duel of wits is yet postponed. In
+good time hast thou arrived. This simplifies matters. Thou shalt
+return, and I remain. Hist! come away, and I will tell thee all.”
+
+Half an hour later, de la Platière--having already, for his part,
+mentally absorbed the details of a certain position--swung rapidly,
+with a topical song on his lips, down the path he had ascended
+earlier. The sound of his footfalls receded and died out. The hill
+regathered itself to silence. Ducos, on terms with destiny and at
+peace with all the world, sat for hours in the shadow of the trees.
+
+Perhaps he was not yet Judas enough to return to Anita, awaiting him
+in Cangrejo’s eyrie. But at length, towards evening, fearing his long
+absence might arouse suspicion or uneasiness, he arose and climbed the
+hill. When he reached the cabin, he found it empty and silent. He
+loitered about, wondering and watchful. Not a soul came near him. He
+dozed; he awoke; he ate a few olives and some bread; he dozed again.
+When he opened his eyes for the second time, the shadows of the peaks
+were slanting to the east. He got to his feet, shivering a little.
+This utter silence and desertion discomforted him. Where was the girl?
+God! was it possible after all that she had betrayed him? He might
+have questioned his own heart as to that; only, as luck would have it,
+it was such a tiresomely deaf organ. So, let him think. De la
+Platière, with his men (as calculated), would be posted in the
+Pampeluna road, round the spur of the hill below, an hour after
+sunset--that was to say, at fifteen minutes to six. No doubt by then
+the alarm would have gone abroad. But no great resistance to a strong
+force was to be apprehended. In the meantime--well, in the meantime,
+until the moment came for him to descend under cover of dark and
+assume the leadership, he must possess his soul in patience.
+
+The sun went down. Night flowing into the valleys seemed to expel a
+moan of wind; then all dropped quiet again. Darkness fell swift and
+sudden like a curtain, but no Anita appeared, putting it aside, and
+Ducos was perplexed. He did not like this bodiless, shadowless
+subscription to his scheming. It troubled him to have no one to talk
+to--and deceive. He was depressed.
+
+By and by he pulled off, turned inside-out and resumed his scarlet
+jacket, which he had taken the provisional precaution to have lined
+with a sombre material. As he slipped in his arms, he started and
+looked eagerly into the lower vortices of dusk. In the very direction
+to which his thoughts were engaged, a little glow-worm light was
+burning steadily from the thickets. What did it signify--Spaniards or
+French, ambush or investment? Allowing--as between himself on the
+height and de la Platière on the road below--for the apparent
+discrepancy in the time of sunset, it was yet appreciably before the
+appointed hour. Nevertheless, this that he saw made the risk of an
+immediate descent necessary.
+
+Bringing all his wits, his resolution, his local knowledge to one
+instant focus, he started, going down at once swiftly and with
+caution. The hills rose above him like smoke as he dropped; the black
+ravines were lifted to his feet. Sometimes for scores of paces he
+would lose sight altogether of the eye of light; then, as he turned
+some shoulder of rock, it would strike him in the face with its nearer
+radiance, so that he had to pause and readjust his vision to the new
+perspective. Still, over crabbed ridges and by dip of thorny gulches
+he descended steadily, until the mound of the Little Hump, like a
+gigantic thatched kraal, loomed oddly upon him through the dark.
+
+And, lo! the beacon that had led him down unerring was a great lantern
+hung under the sagging branch of a chestnut tree at the foot of the
+mound--a lantern, the lurid nucleus of a little coil of tragedy.
+
+A cluster of rocks neighboured the clearing about the tree. To these
+Ducos padded his last paces with a cat-like stealth--crouching, hardly
+breathing; and now from that coign of peril he stared down.
+
+A throng of armed guerrillas, one a little forward of the rest, was
+gathered about a couple more of their kidney, who, right under the
+lantern, held the goatherd Anita on her knees in a nailing grip. To
+one side, very phantoms of desolation, stood Cangrejo and another. The
+faces of all, densely shadowed in part by the rims of their sombreros,
+looked as if masked; their mouths, corpse-like, showed a splint of
+teeth; their ink-black whiskers hummocked on their shoulders.
+
+So, in the moment of Ducos’s alighting on it, was the group
+postured--silent, motionless, as if poised on the turn of some full
+tide of passion. And then, in an instant, a voice boomed up to him.
+
+“Confess!” it cried, vibrating: “him thou wert seen with at the
+gallows; him whom thou foisted, O! unspeakable, thou devil’s doxy! on
+the unsuspecting Cangrejo; him, thy Frankish gallant and spy” (the
+voice guttered, and then, rising, leapt to flame)--“what hast thou
+done with him? where hidden? Speak quickly and with truth, if, traitor
+though thou be, thou wouldst be spared the traitor’s estrapade.”
+
+“Alguazil, I cannot say. Have mercy on me!”
+
+Ducos could hardly recognize the child in those agonized tones.
+
+The inquisitor, with an oath, half wheeled.
+
+“Pignatelli, father of this accursed--if by her duty thou canst
+prevail?”
+
+A figure--agitated, cadaverous, as sublimely dehumanized as
+Brutus--stepped from Cangrejo’s side and tossed one gnarled arm aloft.
+
+“No child of mine, alguazil!” it proclaimed in a shrill, strung cry.
+“Let her reap as she hath sown, alguazil!”
+
+Cangrejo leapt, and flung himself upon his knees by the girl.
+
+“Tell Don Manoel, chiquita. God! little boy, that being a girl (ah,
+naughty!) is half absolved. Tell him, tell him--ah, there--now, now,
+now! He, thy lover, was in the cabin. I left him prostrate, scarce
+able to move. When the council comes to seek him, he is gone. Away,
+sayst thou? Ah, child, but I must know better! It could not be far.
+Say where--give him up--let him show himself only, chiquita, and the
+good alguazil will spare thee. Such a traitor, ah, Dios! And yet I
+have loved, too.”
+
+He sobbed, and clawed her uncouthly. Ducos, in his eyrie, laughed to
+himself, and applauded softly, making little cymbals of his
+thumb-nails.
+
+“But he will not move her,” he thought--and, on the thought, started;
+for from his high perch his eye had suddenly caught, he was sure of
+it, the sleeking of a French bayonet in the road below.
+
+“Master!” cried Anita, in a heart-breaking voice; “he is gone--they
+cannot take him. O, don’t let them hurt me!”
+
+The alguazil made a sign. Cangrejo, gobbling and resisting, was
+dragged away. There was a little ugly, silent scuffle about the girl;
+and, in a moment, the group fell apart to watch her being hauled up to
+the branch by her thumbs.
+
+Ducos looked on greedily.
+
+“How long before she sets to screaming?” he thought, “so that I may
+escape under cover of it.”
+
+So long, that he grew intolerably restless--wild, furious. He could
+have cursed her for her endurance.
+
+But presently it came, moaning up all the scale of suffering. And, at
+that, slinking like a rat through its run, he went down swiftly
+towards the road--to meet de la Platière and his men already silently
+breaking cover from it.
+
+And, on the same instant, the Spaniards saw them.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“Peste!” whispered de la Platière “We could have them all at one
+volley but for that!”
+
+Between the French force, ensconced behind the rocks whither Ducos had
+led them, and the Spaniards who, completely taken by surprise, had
+clustered foolishly in a body under the lantern, hung the body of
+Anita, its torture suspended for the moment because its poor wits were
+out.
+
+“How, my friend!” exclaimed Ducos. “But for what?”
+
+“The girl, that is all.”
+
+“She will feel nothing. No doubt she is half dead already. A moment,
+and it will be too late.”
+
+“Nevertheless, I will not,” said de la Platière.
+
+Ducos stamped ragingly.
+
+“Give the word to me. She must stand her chance. For the Emperor!” he
+choked--then shrieked out, “Fire!”
+
+The explosion crashed among the hills, and echoed off.
+
+A dark mass, which writhed and settled beyond the lantern shine,
+seemed to excite a little convulsion of merriment in the swinging
+body. That twitched and shook a moment; then relaxed, and hung
+motionless.
+
+
+
+
+ THE RAVELLED SLEAVE
+
+
+ Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.
+
+
+I should like to preface my subject with a _Caractère_, in the
+style of La Bruyère, as thus:--
+
+Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant
+a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make
+Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as
+others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement
+of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than
+ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you
+the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and,
+resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities
+which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters
+always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct
+on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the
+Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself
+speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous
+secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but
+their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite,
+one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.
+
+Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his
+lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably
+a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one
+has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy
+day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that
+we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes.
+But we must adulterate largely to do it.
+
+Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is
+thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a
+big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary,
+but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon
+your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his
+rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t
+know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really
+instinctively greedy for the psychologic _bonne bouche_. He is tall,
+and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm
+but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace.
+He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”
+
+It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one
+night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being
+so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration
+for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental
+endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these
+noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself
+with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening
+paper.
+
+“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my
+shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I
+supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at
+the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”
+
+I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to
+an extreme of rudeness.
+
+“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had
+been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting
+your presence into my ear like that?”
+
+He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by);
+then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first
+time to realize my meaning.
+
+“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do
+you mean by the question?”
+
+Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real
+justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.
+
+“O, nothing!” I mumbled awkwardly; “except that you made me almost
+jump out of my skin.”
+
+It was characteristic of him, and a further puzzle, that in spite of
+his self-suggested consciousness of superiority he was easily
+depressed by a snub. We sat for a little in a glowering silence, and
+perhaps with a mutual sense of injury.
+
+“Yes, an interesting case,” he said at length with an effort. “A
+trance, isn’t it?”
+
+“Something of the sort,” I replied. “I saw the girl yesterday.”
+
+He looked up interested.
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“She is in a private ward of B---- Hospital. I know the house surgeon.
+He took me to see her.”
+
+“Well! How does she look?”
+
+“Seen the St. Amaranthe at Tussaud’s--the one whom, as children, we
+used to call the Sleeping Beauty? Not unlike her: as pretty as wax and
+as stiff: just breathing, with pale cheeks and her mouth a little
+open.”
+
+“The fit--I seem to remember--was brought on by some shock, wasn’t
+it?”
+
+I growled--
+
+“According to report, concealment of birth. I conclude she was put to
+shame by some rogue, and couldn’t face the music. The child was found,
+three or four months ago, on a doorstep or somewhere, and traced to
+her. When the police entered, I suppose she feared the worst, and went
+off. Odd part is, that the infant itself was intact--as sound as a
+bell. But all that’s of little interest. It’s the case for me; not the
+sentiment.”
+
+“Ah?” said Valentine.
+
+He leaned forward, resting his long arms on his knees and gently
+clicking his fingers together. His eyes were full of an eager light.
+
+“Johnny, I wonder if you could get _me_ a sight of her?”
+
+“Why not?” I answered. I felt that I owed him some atonement. “I’ll
+ask C---- if you like.”
+
+
+
+
+ II
+
+C---- demurred, hummed and hawed, and acquiesced.
+
+“Your friend must keep in the background,” he said. “He’s not a
+backstair reporter, I suppose?”
+
+“He’s an independent gentleman, and either a poet or an ass--I don’t
+know which.”
+
+“Same thing,” said this airy Philistine; “but no matter, so long as he
+don’t talk.”
+
+“He won’t talk.”
+
+“Very well, bring him up. Fact is, we’re trying an experiment this
+afternoon. Aunt’s brought the baby--sort of natural magnetism to
+restore the current, cancel the hiatus--see? I’ve not much belief in
+it myself.”
+
+I fetched Valentine, and we followed C---- up to the ward. There were
+only present there--one, a list-footed nurse; two, a little
+shabby-genteel woman, with a false tow-like front over vicious eyes,
+who carried a flannelled bundle; and three, the patient herself.
+
+She had not so much as stirred, to all appearance, since I last saw
+her. We, Valentine and I, took up our position apart. Some accidental
+contact with him made me turn my head. He was quivering like a
+high-strung racer for the start. This physical excitability was news
+to me. “H’mph!” I thought. “Is there really that in you which you must
+keep such a tight rein on?”
+
+The nurse took the infant, and placed it on the sleeping girl’s
+breast. It mewed and sprawled, but evoked no response whatever.
+
+“She’d never a drop of the milk of kindness in her,” muttered the
+little verjuicy woman.
+
+“Hold your tongue!” said the doctor sharply.
+
+He and the nurse essayed some coaxing. In the midst, I was petrified
+by the sight of Valentine going softly up to the bed-head.
+
+“May I whisper a word?” he said. “It may fail or not. But I don’t
+think you can object to my trying.”
+
+And actually, before his astonished company could move or collect its
+wits, he had bent and spoken something, inaudible, into the patient’s
+ear.
+
+Now, I ask you to remember that this girl had been in a cataleptic
+sleep for not less than three months, under observation, and with no
+chance, so far as I knew, to cozen her attendants; and believe me then
+as you can when I tell you that, answering, instantly and normally, to
+Valentine’s whisper, she sighed, stretched her arms, though at first
+with an air of some lassitude and weakness, and, opening her eyes,
+fixed them with a sort of suspended stare upon the face of her
+exorcist. Gradually, then, a little pucker deepened between her brows,
+and instantly, some shadow of fright or uneasiness flickering in her
+dark pupils, she turned her head aside. Obviously she was distressed
+by the vision of this strange face coming between the light and her
+normal, as it seemed to her, awaking.
+
+Valentine immediately stood away, and backed to where she could not
+see him.
+
+C----, obviously putting great command on himself, since circumstances
+made it appear that some damned “natural magic” had got the better of
+his natural science, took the situation in hand professionally, and
+frowned to the aunt, to whom the baby had been restored, to show
+herself. The woman, rallying from the common stupefaction, gave an
+acrid sniff and obeyed.
+
+“_Well_, Nancy!” she said, in a tone between wonder and remonstrance.
+
+The girl looked round again and up, with a little shock. Immediately
+her dilated pupils accepted with frank astonishment this more familiar
+apparition.
+
+“Gracious goodness, Aunt Mim!” she whispered; “what have you got
+there?”
+
+Then she turned her face on the pillow, with a smile of drowsy
+rapture.
+
+“Anyhow, you’ve found your way to Skene at last,” she murmured, and
+instantly fell into a natural sleep, from which, it was evident, there
+must be no awaking her.
+
+C---- wheeled upon my friend.
+
+“I suppose you won’t part with your secret?” he asked drily.
+
+It was a habit with Valentine, not his least aggravating, composedly
+to put by any unwelcome or difficult question addressed to him as if
+he did not hear it.
+
+“Skene’s in Kent, isn’t it?” he asked, ostensibly of the aunt, though
+he looked at me. I could have snapped at him in pure vindictiveness.
+He wasn’t inscrutable, any more than another. What was his confounded
+right to pose as a sphinx?
+
+“She fancies she’s there,” he said. “Why?”
+
+I turned dumbly with the question to the little woman creature. I
+don’t know if she supposed I was in some sort of official authority to
+cross-examine her. She had powder on her face, and a weak glow mantled
+through it.
+
+“It was there she met her trouble, sir,” she said, hesitating. “She’d
+gone down to the hop-picking last September, and I was to follow. But
+circumstances” (she wriggled her shoulders with an indescribable
+simper) “was against my joining her.”
+
+“Well,” broke in C----, suddenly and rather sharply, “you must take
+the consequences, and, for the present anyhow, the burden of them off
+her shoulders.”
+
+“Begging your pardon, sir?” she questioned shrewdly.
+
+“The child,” said the doctor, “the child. Everything, it appears,
+relating to it is for the moment obliterated from her mind. She takes
+up existence, I think you’ll find, last autumn, at this Skene, with
+expecting you. Well, you have come, and returned to London together.
+You understand? The time of year is the same. None of all this has for
+the moment happened.”
+
+There was an acrid incredulity in his hearer’s face as she listened to
+him.
+
+“Do I understand, or don’t I, sir,” she said, “that her shame is to be
+my care and consideration? And till when, if you’ll be so good?”
+
+“That I can’t say,” he answered. “Probably the interval, the abyss in
+her mind, will bridge itself by slow degrees. Her reason likely
+depends upon your not rudely hastening the process. I warn you, that’s
+all.”
+
+“And pray,” she said, with ineffable sarcasm, “how is I, as a
+respectable woman, to account to her for this that I hold?”
+
+“Put it out to nurse.”
+
+“No, sir, _if_ you’ll allow me. The hussy have done her best to bring
+me to ruin already.”
+
+“Say you’ve adopted it.”
+
+She gave a shrill titter.
+
+“Nanny will have lost her wits, hindeed, to believe that.”
+
+“Well, she has in a measure.”
+
+“And the police?” she said. “Aren’t you a little forgetting them,
+sir?”
+
+“The police,” said C----, “I will answer for. The case isn’t worth
+their pursuing, and they will drop it.”
+
+The baby began to wail; and Aunt Mim, with her lips pursed, to play
+the vicious rocking-horse to it.
+
+
+
+
+ III
+
+One evening, a week later, Valentine came quietly into my room. I had
+not seen him in the interval, and was immediately struck, though it
+was semi-dusk, by the expression on his face. It was white and
+smiling, and the eyes more brightly inscrutable than ever.
+
+A storm had just crashed across the town, and left everything dripping
+in a liquid fog. Looking down, one could see the house-fronts,
+submerged in the running pavements, become the very “baseless fabrics
+of a vision.” The hansom-drivers, bent over their glazed roofs, rode
+each with a shadowy phantom of himself reversed, like an oilskin Jack
+of Spades. No pedestrian but, like Hamlet, had his “fellow in the
+cellarage” keeping pace with him. The solid ground seemed melted, and
+the unsubstantial workings of the world revealed. To souls hemmed in
+by bricks, there are more commonplace, less depressing sights than a
+wet London viewed from a third story.
+
+There was a box in my window, with some marguerites in it, the sickly
+pledges of a rather jocund spring. Valentine, joining me as I leaned
+out, handled a half-broken stem very tenderly.
+
+“It has been beaten down, _like poor Nanny_, by the storm,” he said.
+“We must tie it to a stick.”
+
+I did not answer for a minute. Then very deliberately I drew in my
+head and sat down. Again like my shadow, in this city of shadows,
+Valentine did the same. For some five minutes we must have remained
+opposite one another without speaking. Then sudden and grim I set my
+lips, and asked the question he seemed to invite.
+
+“Are you the stick?”
+
+He nodded, with a smile, which I could hardly see now, on his face.
+
+“You speak figuratively, of course,” I said, “in talking of _tying_
+her to you?”
+
+“No,” he said. “I talk of the real bond.”
+
+“Of matrimony?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+With a naughty word, I jumped to my feet, strode the round of the
+room, sat down flop on the table, put my hands in my pockets, tried to
+whistle, laughed, and burst out--“I suppose you intend this, in a
+manner, for a confidence? I suppose you are taking straight up the
+tale of a week ago? Well, _I_ haven’t lost the impression of that
+moment, or gone mad in the interval. Do you want me to sympathize with
+_your_ insanity, or to argue you out of it--which?”
+
+He did not answer. Indeed, the offensiveness of my tone was not
+winning.
+
+“I am perfectly aware,” I went on, “that the melodramatic unities
+demand an espousal with the interesting spirit we have called back to
+life. They have a way, at the same time, of ignoring Aunt Mims. You
+will, I am sure, forgive me if I say that it is the figure of that
+good lady which sticks last in _my_ memory.”
+
+Still he did not answer.
+
+“I will put my point,” I continued, growing a little angry--“I will
+put my point, as you seem to ask it, with all the delicacy I can. You
+drew an analogy between--between some one and that broken cabbage
+yonder. The sentiment is unexceptionable; only in France they consider
+those things weeds.”
+
+“Do they?” he said coolly. “We don’t.”
+
+“No; because we must justify ourselves for exalting ’em out of their
+proper sphere. They’ll not cease to smell rank, though, however you
+give ’em the middle place in your greenhouse.”
+
+I struck my knee viciously with my open palm.
+
+“That was in vile bad taste, Val. I beg your pardon for saying it.
+But, deuce take it, man! you can’t have come to me, a worldling and an
+older one, for sympathy in this midsummer madness?”
+
+I was off the table again, going to and fro and apostrophizing him at
+odd turns.
+
+“Let’s drop parables--and answer plainly, if it’s in you. You don’t
+exhale sentiment as a rule. Did or did not that touch about ‘poor
+Nanny’ imply a hint of some confidence put in me?”
+
+“I’ve always considered you my closest friend.”
+
+“Flattered, I’m sure; though I didn’t guess it. You put such
+conundrums--excuse me--beyond the time of a plain man to guess. Well,
+I say, I’m flattered, and I’ll take the full privilege. It’s natural
+you should feel an interest in----by the way, I regret to say I only
+know her as the Brompton Sleeping Girl.”
+
+“She’s Nanny Nolan.”
+
+“In Miss Nolan, then. A propos, I’ve never yet asked, and mustn’t
+know, I suppose, the secret of your ‘open sesame’?”
+
+“No, I can’t tell you.”
+
+“O, it doesn’t matter! Only, as a question of this confiding
+friendship----”
+
+“It isn’t my secret alone.”
+
+“Then I’ve no more to say. But I presume she’s the--the flower in
+question?”
+
+“O, yes! And I’m the stick.”
+
+He said it with a quiet laugh.
+
+“I shouldn’t have supposed it, on my honour,” I assured him. “You can
+have stuck at very little in a week.”
+
+I took a few turns, and faced him, or his motionless shadow, very
+solemnly.
+
+“Now,” I demanded, “for the plain speaking. Will you answer me the
+truth? I brought away an impression, as I said. It might have been,
+after all, an impertinent one. A man’s a man for a’ that--though I
+confess I can’t quite apply the moral to a woman. Still, I’ll ask you
+frankly: How is she socially?”
+
+“Nothing at all. Her father was a colour-sergeant, a red-headed Celt
+from over the border of dreams. He’s gone to join the Duke of Argyll’s
+cloud army at Inverary. Her aunt’s an ex-coryphée living on a
+mysterious pension.”
+
+“Of course; only rather worse than I supposed.”
+
+“Verender, I must tell you the girl is without reproach. Socially, it
+is true, they are in a very limited way. They eke out existence in a
+number of small directions, even, as you know, hop-picking.”
+
+“I’ve nothing but respect for Miss Nolan’s virtues. I can even
+appreciate the appeal of her prettiness to a susceptible nature, which
+I don’t think mine is. Anyhow, I’m no Pharisee to pelt my poor sister
+of the gutter because she’s fallen in it. That’s beside the question.
+But it isn’t, to ask what in the name of tragedy induces you, with
+your wealth, your refinement, your mental and social amiability, to
+sink all in this investment of a--of a fancy bespoke--there, I can put
+it no differently.”
+
+“Call it my amiability, Verender. She’s like the centurion’s daughter.
+There’s something awfully strange, awfully fascinating, after all, in
+getting into her confidence--in entering behind that broken seal of
+death.”
+
+“You’re not an impressionable Johnny--at least, you shouldn’t be.
+You’ve passed the Rubicon. This child with a child--with Aunt Mim,
+good Lord! Have you thought of the consequences?”
+
+“Yes; all of them.”
+
+“Of the--pardon me. Do you know who _he_ was?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+I stared aghast at him--at the deeper blot of gloom from which his
+voice proceeded.
+
+“And you aren’t afraid--for her; for yourself?”
+
+“You mean, of her relapsing?” he said clearly. “Not when she knows the
+truth--knows what a poor thing he is.”
+
+“Are you sure _you_ know woman? She is apt to have a curious
+tenderness for the blackguard who distinguishes her with his most
+especial brand of villainy. Then she hasn’t learned it--the
+truth--yet?”
+
+“No. Aunt Mim has been loyal.”
+
+“Well, well she may be, so long as you offer yourself the prize to
+such a self-denying ordinance. She sees which side her bread’s
+buttered, no doubt. And how does she account for the little stranger?”
+
+“By adoption. It’s an odd thing, Verender--Verender, it’s a very odd
+thing, and very pitiful, to see how _she_--little Nanny--distrusts the
+child--looks on it sort of askance--almost hates it, I think. I’ve a
+very difficult part to play.”
+
+I groaned.
+
+“Then why play it? What does it all matter to you? You’ve opened her
+eyes. Isn’t that enough, without waiting till she’s opened yours?”
+
+“Ah!” he said, obviously not attending to me. “But that isn’t the
+whole of my difficulty. The truth is, she appears to shrink from me
+too.”
+
+“You’ll forgive me,” I said grimly. “That’s your first comforting
+statement.”
+
+“I don’t know how it is,” he continued, in a low voice,
+self-pondering; “she’s frightened--distressed, before a shadow she
+can’t define. Sometimes and somehow it seems as if she wants to love
+me, but can’t--as if she were trying, and vainly, to shape out of a
+great gloom the obstacle which separates us. And I want to help her;
+and yet I, too, can’t understand. Shall I ever, I wonder?”
+
+I stared at him. “Isn’t it plain enough? But you have love’s eyes, I
+suppose.” Then I asked, a little softened, “Does she ever lose
+herself, trying to piece that broken time?”
+
+“I don’t know,” he answered. “She speaks so little. She is like a
+little shy ghost--half-materialized--fearful between spirit and
+matter--very sweet and pathetic.”
+
+With the last word he turned abruptly and strode out of the room. I
+was not so much astonished at his curt conclusion, as at a certain
+tell-tale cough which accompanied it.
+
+“O, hang the fellow!” I muttered. “If he’s developed tears in his
+voice, I give him up.”
+
+
+
+
+ IV
+
+One afternoon, accident taking me past the Nolans’ house in the Fulham
+Road, I was disturbed to hear Valentine’s voice hailing me from the
+parlour window. It was a little cheap tenement, and a curiously shabby
+frame to his rather distinguished figure as he stood up eagerly to
+stop me.
+
+“Come in,” he said. “I want you.”
+
+I demurred, in an instant and instinctive panic.
+
+“What for? I’m horribly pressed. Won’t it do another time?”
+
+“_It_ won’t,” he answered. “It’s its way. But go on, if your need is
+greater than mine.”
+
+“That’s shabby,” I thought; and yielded with the worst grace possible.
+He retaliated by meeting me all sweetness at the door, and conducting
+me into the parlour.
+
+It was an impossible room--I may say it at once--quite the typical
+tawdry boudoir of an ex-coryphée. She was not there, I was relieved
+to find, in person; but her multiplied presentment simpered and
+abashed one from a dozen places on walls and mantelpiece. “Claudine”
+(she might have been a hair-wash, and enjoyed the same sort of
+popularity) posed, for all the blind purposes of vanity, in the tights
+and kid boots of a past generation. Looking from queer old
+daguerreotypes, in skirts like curtailed crinolines; ogling from
+wreaths, her calves, crossed to display their strength, in disfiguring
+proportion with the thin bosom above, she seemed to make an outrage of
+the dear ungainly sanctities which appeal to us, in pegtops and
+voluminous skirts, from the back parts of our albums. There are
+certain people who, with the best intention in the world to be held
+sweet, are unsavoury; and Aunt Mim was one of them. All the more
+wonder that such fruit could be born of her stock.
+
+For she was certainly attractive, was the girl--pure and pretty and
+unaffected. I had to own it grudgingly to myself, as I bowed to her,
+and turned interrogatively to my friend.
+
+He had gone to the back of her chair, where she sat away from the open
+window. There was some discarded work in her lap, and in her eyes some
+look of a vague sadness and bewilderment.
+
+“Nanny,” he said softly, “this, Mr. Verender, is my great friend--my
+counsel out of Court. Will you just do this for me--make him yours,
+too? Will you try to explain to him, while I go away, what you find it
+so hard to explain to me--your sense of the something that keeps us
+apart?”
+
+I made an instant but faint demur. Nanny, as faintly, shook her head.
+
+“O,” he said, “but he will listen to you, I know! Because I am
+unhappy, and you are unhappy, and I love you so, Nanny, and he is my
+best friend. Try to explain to him, dear, the difficulty of your
+case.”
+
+This novel enlargement on our relations, his and mine, vaguely annoyed
+me.
+
+“Why should there be any?” I put in impatiently. “Our friend can give
+you great social and other advantages, Miss Nolan. If he is decided on
+this course--you don’t dislike him, I think--forgive me, I can see no
+reason for objection on _your_ part.”
+
+She rose, as if scared, to her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder.
+“Hush!” he said. “Be just to me, and try to tell him.”
+
+He left the room and the house; and I was in two minds about following
+him. Was ever man put in a more ridiculous position? Yet the look of
+the girl gave me pause. She seemed to me to be yet only half awake;
+and indeed, I think, that is something to understate the case.
+
+“Well,” I said stumblingly, as she stood before me. “You heard what he
+said, Miss Nolan?”
+
+I was not sympathetic. I knew it. Perhaps, having once asserted
+myself, I might have grown so. But she would not give me the
+opportunity. In the meantime, I did not feel the less the full force
+of this mismatch.
+
+She put her hand in a lost way to her forehead.
+
+“I will try,” she said, in a low voice, “because he asked me.
+There--there was a great trouble--O! it was so far back. I can’t
+remember it--and then everything went.”
+
+“He is willing, it appears, to take that interval, that trouble, on
+trust,” I said. “He only asks you, it seems, to repay his confidence.
+What you are is what he desires. Cannot you consider yourself new-born
+into his love?” (I positively sneered the word to myself.)
+
+“There is something stands between us,” she only murmured helplessly.
+
+“He doesn’t admit it for himself,” I insisted irritably. “It might be
+the ruin of his career, of his position, as foreseen by his friends. I
+suppose he wishes to assure you that that counts for nothing with him,
+if by any chance the bar between you lies in your dim consciousness of
+such a sentiment.”
+
+I had been brutal, I admit it. I can only palliate my behaviour by
+confessing that it was intended to sound the first note of my moral
+surrender to the appeal of those poor, pain-troubled eyes. Now, at
+least, I had got my shaft home. She looked up at me with a light of
+amazed knowledge in her face.
+
+“Thank you,” she said. “I knew there was a right reason; and all the
+time I have been hunting for a fancied one.”
+
+I suffered an instant reaction to dismay. I had had no right whatever
+to make this point. Whatever my private opinion of Valentine’s folly,
+I had allowed myself to be accredited his ambassador.
+
+“Come; it is no reason at all,” I said. “There is no such thing as a
+misalliance in love” (I threw this atrocious sop to my own panic). “If
+only the practical bar between you could be as easily disposed of.”
+
+“The practical bar?”
+
+She turned upon me with a piteous pain in her voice. I had opened a
+door of release to her, I suppose, and before she could escape shut it
+again in her face. I was stumbling weakly on an explanation, when
+suddenly from somewhere above the baby began to wail. Instantly her
+face assumed the strangest expression--a sort of exalted hardness. She
+put up her hand, listened a moment, then, without another word, glided
+from the room. I am ashamed to say that I seized the opportunity to
+put an instant period to my visit.
+
+I expected to meet Valentine loitering without; but to my relief he
+did not appear. So I went on my way fuming. What right had the man to
+try to inveigle me into seeming to sanction his idiotcy by claiming me
+its advocate? He wanted to buy justification, I suppose. There are
+certain natures which cannot properly relish their own grief or
+happiness unless a witness be by to report upon them. Such was
+Valentine’s, I thought; and the thought did not increase my respect
+for my friend. I fancied I had already plumbed the shallows of that
+pretentious reserve, and was angry and half contemptuous that he had
+so soon revealed himself to me. There was certainly something
+attractive about the girl; but--well, _he_ had not been the first to
+discover the fact, and, when all was said, his infatuation showed him
+a fool in my eyes.
+
+That evening, when I was sitting alone writing, she suddenly stood
+before me. My first shock of amazement was followed by a glow of fury.
+I felt that I was being persecuted.
+
+“Well, what is it?” I said harshly.
+
+“I only wanted to tell you,” she said low, panting as if she had run;
+“I wanted you to tell _him_ that--that I know now what it is. I found
+out the moment I left you; and I came to say--but you were gone.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“It is the child, sir.”
+
+“Yes, you are quite right--it is the child.”
+
+No sooner had I said it, than I felt the weight of my self-commitment.
+Had she discovered--remembered all? Did she conceive the impediment as
+associated with some scandal attaching to the ineffable Aunt Mim? or
+was the baby, in her clouded soul, but an unattachable changeling,
+which had come to disrupt the kind order of things and brand their
+household with a curse?
+
+“Yes, it is the child,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my hand
+while I frowned over the problem.
+
+She made no answer. When I looked up at the end of a minute, she was
+gone.
+
+I started to my feet, and went up and down. I made no attempt to
+follow. “It is better,” I thought angrily, “to let this stuff ferment
+in its own way. I could have given no other answer.”
+
+At the twentieth turn I saw Valentine before me, and stopped abruptly.
+
+“Well,” he said; “were you able to get it out of her?”
+
+“What?” I asked defiantly.
+
+“The reason--the impediment, you know?” he answered.
+
+“Sit down, Valentine,” I said. “I will tell you the truth. I hinted
+that the _mésalliance_ might be her unconscious consideration.”
+
+“She is not so proud,” he said quietly; “though I’m unworthy to buckle
+her little shoe for her.”
+
+I positively gasped.
+
+“O! if that’s your view! But, anyhow, she was seeming to accept mine,
+when the infant hailed her, and she left me, and I bolted. You put too
+much upon me--really you do, Val; and here’s the sequel. Ten minutes
+ago she appeared in this room and told me that she had discovered the
+reason--the real one this time.”
+
+“And it was?”
+
+“The baby--no less.”
+
+“What! Does she----?”
+
+“I don’t know from Adam. I was thinking over my answer; and when I
+looked up, she was gone.”
+
+“And you gave her no reply?”
+
+“O yes! I told her I entirely agreed with her. I had to be honest.”
+
+“Verender! You must come with me!”
+
+“Go with you!”
+
+“You’ve called the tune; you must pay the piper.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean. I’ll see you--cremated first!”
+
+He stared at me a moment, his teeth showing, his eyes rounding in the
+dusk, his fists clinching and unclinching; then he, too, was gone. And
+I went and stood at the window, slinking into the curtains, and
+feeling myself the most abused cur in all London.
+
+
+
+
+ V
+
+For a fortnight this state continued in me, through alternations of
+depression, self-accusation, and savage bursts of rebellion. On the
+sixteenth day a brief note, begging me to call at his rooms, reached
+me from Valentine.
+
+“I won’t go,” I swore through my teeth, feeling an inclination to tear
+the paper in them; and five minutes later was on my way.
+
+“He shall justify me to myself,” I had thought. “I’ll let my
+conscience be his footstool no longer.”
+
+The fellow lived _en prince_ in Piccadilly. I found him in the midst
+of a litter--boxes and packages and strewed floors--evidently on the
+eve of a journey. He greeted me, twinkling, in high excitement--not a
+trace of grievance or embarrassment in his manner.
+
+“Leave those things, Phillips,” he said to his staid valet. “We’ll
+finish by and by.”
+
+The man left the room; and his master took me by the sleeve, while I
+held myself in reserve--unconsciously, at the same time, softening to
+his geniality.
+
+“We’re off to Capri--Egypt,” he said, “following our late summer with
+the swallows.”
+
+“You and--Phillips?” I asked.
+
+“I and my wife,” said he, with a laugh. “Hush! She’s seeing the baby
+to sleep.”
+
+He could say it without a blush; and they had been married, as I came
+to learn, just a week! He led me on tiptoe to a distant room, and bade
+me look through the opened door. Nanny, crowned, proud as any young
+queen, with conscious maternity, was bent, singing softly, above a
+little cot. The sight of her--Val’s wife--restored me at once to my
+self-respect. I had done nothing after all, it seemed, but help to
+precipitate an event I deplored. My shout had brought down the
+avalanche. Henceforth my position was to be that of the amused
+onlooker.
+
+He let me stare; then led me away with all his old affectation of
+pregnant mystery. We went out together--I don’t know why--into the
+Green Park. It seemed remote and silent, and the better shadows of
+night were beginning to troop under its trees. Then he spoke to me, as
+follows:
+
+“Verender, you have a right to know. You remember what you told me
+that evening? I wasn’t just to you, perhaps. I foresaw issues to which
+you must necessarily be blind. The baby stood between us, you said. It
+did, but not in the way you meant to imply. I am its father.”
+
+I listened perfectly silent, and very grave, as we stepped on
+together.
+
+“I will say of, not for, myself,” he continued, “that I had known
+nothing of the fruits of a little moonlight idyll out in that Kent
+village. I was hop-picking, as she was, but for a worser reason. Our
+encounter in B---- Hospital was my first intimation of the truth. Till
+that moment I had never considered, at least had been careless of, a
+sequel; had never, of course, had a shadow of thought to identify the
+patient with my victim. Then in a moment--Verender, her helplessness
+found all that wasn’t bad in me. She didn’t know me--the curtain was
+too thick. I determined to woo and win, as a stranger, what was
+already my own. Was I right?”
+
+I nodded. “Yes, you were right.”
+
+“Then came the strange part,” he said--“a sort of subconsciousness of
+an impediment she could not define. It was her dishonour, Verender--my
+God! Verender, _her_ dishonour!--that found some subtle expression in
+the little life introduced into her home. She always feared and
+distrusted the child; and I tell you I lived in horror that some day
+her witlessness would arm her gentle hand to do it a hurt. For she
+wanted to come to me, Verender, she wanted to come, and it was as if
+she couldn’t, and nobody would tell her why.
+
+“_You_ told her, you old rascal! And with what result, do you think?
+When I followed her, I found her gone--she had taken the baby from its
+cot, and hurried out. The old harpy was there, raving and gobbling
+beyond reason. I had her down on her knees to confess. She admitted
+that the girl had come in, in a fever to proclaim her knowledge of the
+bar which separated us. Nanny had rounded upon her, it appeared, and
+accused her, Aunt Mim, of wantonly causing the scandal which had
+brought this shadow into her life. And then--perhaps it wasn’t to be
+wondered at--Auntie exploded, and gave up all.”
+
+“The truth?”
+
+“All of it but what the old hag herself didn’t know--the name of the
+villain. That, circumstances had kept from her, you see. She let
+loose, did Auntie--we’ll allow her a grain of justification; to have
+her forbearance turned upon herself like that, you know!--and screamed
+to the girl to pack, and dispose of her rubbish somewhere else. And
+Nanny understood at last, and went.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Ah, where? That was the question. I’d only one clue--Skene and the
+river; but I seized upon it, and my inspiration proved right. She’d
+gone instinctively to the only place where, it seemed, her trouble
+could be resolved. You see, she hadn’t yet come to identify _me_ with
+it. But I followed, and I caught her in time.”
+
+He hung his head, and spoke very low.
+
+“I took the next train possible to Skene. Verender, I’m not going to
+talk. It was one of those fainting, indescribable experiences, like
+the voice in the burning bush. Cold dawn it was, with a white bubbling
+river and the ghost of an old moon. She had intended to commit _it_ to
+the water--the fog wasn’t yet out of her brain--and then, all in an
+instant, the mother came upon her, and the memory of me; and she ran
+to cast herself in instead, and saw me coming.”
+
+There followed a long interval of silence.
+
+“And Aunt Mim?” I asked drily, chiefly to keep up my character.
+
+He laughed.
+
+“O! we’ve added an honourable moiety to a dishonourable pension, and
+settled her,” he said.
+
+Another silence followed.
+
+“Well, I apologize,” I said grumpily.
+
+
+
+
+ THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR
+
+John Stannary hungrily paced his laboratory, awaiting an expected
+advent. A brilliant coronal of candles, concentrated within a shade
+and pendent from a black beam over the dissecting table, regularly
+identified him as he came within its radiance, and as regularly, when
+he had passed without it, returned to its scrutiny of the empty slab
+beneath, as if it were trying to trace on that blank surface the
+unwritten hieroglyphics of his development. Yet, if each of its
+half-score fiery tongues had been as polyglot as the Apostles’ tongues
+of flame, it could have found among them all no voice to dispute his
+lifelong consistency with himself. From the hard, ungracious child,
+who had rejoiced to discomfit the love which sought to hedge him; from
+the cynic schoolboy, to whom to awaken and analyze pain in the living
+had been the only absorbing sport; from the unimpassioned student, who
+had walked the hospitals like a very spectre of moral insensibility;
+from the calculating libertine, whose experimental phase of animalism
+had been as brief as it was savage; from the lust of life, soon spent,
+to the bloodless analysis of its organic motives; from the soulless
+child to the virile monster of science; from nothingness to a great
+early reputation, to honours, to a fine house, to his present self and
+condition, in short, Professor Stannary’s progress had been entirely
+and unerringly consistent. He was one of those born to account for
+results, not by any means with a view to clearing the stream of
+tendency by cleansing its source. On the contrary, he never would have
+hesitated further to contaminate it, could he by so doing have evolved
+some novel epidemic. His fight was not to win Nature to God, but to
+the laboratory; and, if he had a conqueror’s ambition, it was to die
+gloriously upon a protoplast, at that beginning of things which his
+fathers had struggled through æons to forget. To have called him a
+dog nosing back for a scent, would have been to libel the sorriest of
+mongrels with an inch of tail to wag at a kind word. Yet he had
+routled so much, nevertheless, that his eyes were inflamed, and his
+features pimpled, and his nose itself sharpened as with much whetting
+on carrion. And, still unappeased, he paced his shambles that evening
+like a caged ravening jackal.
+
+In those early decades of the nineteenth century, anthropophagous
+science, especially when non-official, was often hard put to it for a
+meal. The “ringing grooves of change” were sounding; discovery was a
+new-risen star; ghoulish explorers shouldered one another in their
+struggle for the scientific pabulum which the grave afforded. But the
+supply, die as men would, was unequal to the demand. The hospitals
+kept their own; the others, _à contre-cœur_, must keep the
+resurrection-men. They pulled the blinds down on their consciences;
+they were willing to accept the least plausible of explanations, for
+the _Cause_ was paramount. But, indeed, we are all casuists when we
+want to justify our lusts to ourselves. Still the material lacked,
+only, according to the universal law of necessity, to evolve its more
+desperate instruments of supply. And then at last, hard-driven, first
+one, and after him another and another, had the panic courage to pull
+up those blinds, and let in the light on some very shocking
+suspicions--with the result that Burke was hanged in Edinburgh, and
+Bishop and Williams in London.
+
+Professor Stannary was not of these white-livers. He pulled up no
+blind, for the simple reason that he had let none down. He would have
+diagnosed conscience as a morbid disease characterized by a diathetic
+condition, and peculiar to fools of both sexes and all ages. He would
+have said that to ask any question in this world was to invite a lie,
+and that in all his thirty years’ experience he had found none but the
+dead to answer back the unswerving truth. Well, if they did? Did it
+matter to them, being dead? But it mattered greatly to the cause of
+science to get at the truth; and he, for one, was certainly not going
+to question the means so long as the results came to justify them.
+
+While yet, however, the blinds were down and the pitch-plaster but an
+ugly suspicion, the competition for material had not so ceased of its
+keenness but that Professor Stannary had found himself checked, one
+day, under the very near-conquered crest of a physiological peak, for
+want of the final clue to that crowning achievement--a clue which,
+like Bluebeard’s key, turned upon nothing so intimately as dead
+bodies. Step by step he had reasoned his way to this position, only,
+when within touch of the end, to find himself held up, tantalized,
+irritated by an inability to proceed farther until a nice necessity
+should be provided. His material, in fact and in short, had given out
+at the psychologic moment. His laboratory was already a museum of
+shredded particles--the pickings from much inevitable waste of dead
+humanity. There needed only the retraversing of certain nerves, or
+ducts, or canals to put the finishing touches to a great discovery.
+And then--the summit, the tribune, as it were, from which he was
+engaged to announce on the morrow to the Royal Society the triumphant
+term to his investigations.
+
+Already, pacing to and fro, eager and impatient, in the silent room,
+he foresaw himself the recipient of the highest honour it was in the
+power of that body to bestow. He was not above desiring it. He was not
+himself so superlatively rational but he could covet applause for
+knocking yet another long nail into the coffin of irrationality; could
+expect the recognition of the world for his services in helping to
+reduce it, its passions and its hopes and its pathetic fallacies, to
+some mathematical formulæ. There is nothing so incomprehensible to
+the men of science as the reluctance of the unscientific to part with
+their doting illusions. To be content to rejoice or sorrow in things
+as they seem, and not to wish to know them as they are--that, they
+think, is so foolish as to justify their hardest castigation of the
+folly. At least so thought John Stannary, as, with his lips set
+sourly, he paused, and consulted his watch, and listened for a sound
+of expected footsteps shuffling down the hang-dog passage which
+skirted that wall of the house, and into which his laboratory door
+conveniently opened.
+
+Not a whisper, however, rewarded him. He put his ear to the panels.
+Even then, the surf-like murmur of distant traffic--or the thud of his
+own excited heart, he could not tell which--was the only articulate
+sound. He glanced up angrily at the shortening candles before resuming
+his tramp. As he passed to and fro, from dusk to light, and into dusk
+again, he seemed to be demonstrating to a theatre of spectral
+monstrosities the hieroglyphics of that same empty slab. For the
+central core of radiance, concentrating itself with deadly expectancy
+upon its surface, had, nevertheless, its own ghostly halo--a dim
+auditorium, tier over tier, peopled with shadows of misbegotten
+horrors. Sets of surgical steel in the pit, arrayed symmetrically on
+a table as if for a dinner party of vampires; nameless writhed
+specimens on cards or in bottles, standing higher behind the dry sleek
+of glass; over all, murderous busts in the gallery, the dust on their
+heads and upper features giving them the appearance of standing above
+some infernal sort of footlights--with such shapes, watchful and
+gloating in suggestion, was the man hemmed in. They touched his nerves
+with just such an emotion as the ordinary citizen feels towards his
+domestic _lares_; they affected him in just such proportion as he was
+moved by the thought of the possible manner in which an order he had
+given to some friends of his that morning might be executed. That is
+to say, his feeling towards these dead members, as towards the means
+taken by others to procure him the use of them, was utterly
+impersonal. He had had at this pass a great truth to demonstrate. “A
+body, this night, at any cost,” he had simply ordered, and had
+straightway shut the door on his caterers. He had had no thought of
+scruple. His responsibility in these matters was to the ages; never to
+the individual.
+
+
+A low tap sounded at the door. He was there in three strides, and
+opening swiftly, let in two men, the one shouldering a sack, the other
+hovering about his comrade in a sort of anxious moral support.
+
+Professor Stannary, without a word, pointed to the table. The laden
+one, as mutely, shuffled across, backed, heaved his burden down, and
+stood to take off his hat and mop his brow. He was a burly,
+humorous-looking fellow, with a sort of cheerful popularity written
+across his face--an expression in strong contrast with that of the
+other, who, tall and stealthy, stood lank behind him, like his shadow
+at a distance, watching the persuasive effect of his principal on the
+customer. It was he who had closed the door gently upon them all as
+soon as they were in, and now stood, his teeth and eyeballs the
+prominent things in him, softly twirling his hat in his hand.
+
+“Take away the sack,” said the Professor quietly.
+
+The burly man obeyed, sliding it off like a petticoat; and revealed
+the body of a young woman. Lowering and rubbing his jaw, the Professor
+stood some moments pondering the vision. Then he turned sharply.
+
+“You are late. I expected you sooner.”
+
+“The notice was short, sir,” answered the man coolly. “These ’ere
+matters can’t be accommodated in a moment. As it is she’s warm. I
+bought the body off of----”
+
+The other interrupted him--
+
+“I don’t want to know. You can hold your tongue, and take your price,
+and go.”
+
+“Short and sweet,” said the man.
+
+He laughed, and his friend laughed in echo, putting his long hand to
+his mouth as if in apology for such an unpardonable ebullition of
+nature.
+
+“As to the price,” said the former, “taking into _con_sideration the
+urgency, and the special providence, so to speak, in purwiding, at a
+moment’s notice too, this ’ere comely young----”
+
+A certain full chink of money stopped him.
+
+“Thankee,” he said, after a short negotiation. “I’ll own you’ve done
+the handsome, sir, and we’ve no cause to complain. Not but what I had
+to give----”
+
+“Good night!” said the Professor.
+
+Not till they were gone, locked out, and the very trail of their
+filthy footsteps hidden under the black droppings of the night, did he
+turn, for all his impatience, and regard the body again.
+
+“Nancy,” he murmured to himself; “yes, it’s Nancy.”
+
+Into the vast study of biology it is perfectly certain that a personal
+knowledge of biogenesis must enter. Here, too, the individual must be
+sacrificed to the cause. Well, by virtue of that phase in his career
+before-mentioned, he had already once made of Nancy a holocaust to
+science. If the fruits of that sacrifice had been to be found in a
+ruined life, a social degradation, a gradual decline upon infamy, what
+was it all to him? As german to the general subject as the dead
+specimens on his walls was the living specimen of his passion. _Ex
+abusu non arguitur ad usum._ Still, it was a strange coincidence that
+she should come thus to consummate his work.
+
+Looking upon her frozen face, he was aware of certain tell-tale,
+rudely-erased tokens about the mouth. He never had a doubt as to what
+they signified. It was a rude kiss that of the pitch-plaster, more
+close and savage than any he himself had once pressed upon those
+blistered lips. So, the murderous beasts had gone the short way to
+supply his urgency! Would they have taken it none the less, he
+wondered, if they could have known in what relation their victim once
+stood towards their employer? Very likely. Very justly, too, could
+they believe him consistent with himself.
+
+Nevertheless, though he had no conscience, though he had too often
+scored that fact on human flesh with a knife to be in any doubt about
+it, it was notable that, as he moved now, perfectly cold and
+collected, to make some selection of tools from the table hard by, he
+was registering to himself a vow, mortal to some folks, that no effort
+of his should be lacking to help bring certain vile instruments to
+their judgment--so soon as his disuse of them should find warrant in a
+fuller supply of the legitimate material.
+
+As he groped for what he wanted, a sparrow twittered somewhere in the
+dark outside. He started, and dwelt a moment listening. Birds! the
+little false priests of haunted woods, who sang their lying
+benedictions over every folly perpetrated in their green shades! Why,
+he had loathed them, even while he had been making their loves the
+text for this early experiment of his in rustic nature. They had been
+singing when----grasping his knife firmly, he returned to the table.
+
+Something had happened there. For one moment the blade shook in his
+hand. To his practised eye there were signs--the ghostliest, the most
+remote--but signs still. A movement--a tremor--the faintest, faintest
+vibration of a soul, unreleased, struggling to return to the
+surface--that was what he felt rather than saw. He recalled the hasty
+character of the deed; he thought of the shock, of the suspended
+trance into which such a deed might cast a sensitive subject.
+Mastering himself, with the dry firm will of an operator, he walked
+once more unhurriedly to the instrument table, and made a further
+selection.
+
+The sparrow twittered again. Birds in the wood--small procuresses to
+Sentiment! What a trollop she was, that Sentiment! He had known
+ethereal creatures go from picking the bones of stuffed larks, to
+moralize sweetly on the song of nightingales under the moon. For
+himself, barring his natural asceticism, he would have no remorse
+whatever in devouring nightingales. Such emotions were born of
+surfeit, and the moral of them all was that a bird in the stomach was
+worth two, or two hundred, in the bush. The one was the decoy which
+brought the many into notice. Why, he himself, when flushed with
+passion----
+
+Harder than steel, hard as flesh can be, he stepped back to the table.
+
+Yes, there was no longer doubt about it. He must decide quickly.
+Decide! What was there in all his life to warrant in him a moment’s
+indecision? His pledge to to-morrow was paramount over his pledge to
+yesterday. It was by very virtue of the past that he owed everything
+to the future. The _Cause_ was himself, bone of his bone, flesh of his
+flesh. As she had made _her_self one with him, so must she consummate
+the gift. He chose to believe, even, that she would not hesitate could
+she know. He grasped his knife.
+
+Her hair! He had said some foolish things about it once. In a sudden
+fury he seized it, and sliced it off close by her head, and flung it
+aside. She looked strangely innocent and boyish thus shorn. He had a
+momentary grotesque thought that he would excuse himself to himself by
+pretending that she was a boy. It passed on the instant. What excuse
+was necessary? He remembered how once, to his idle amusement, when she
+had fancied herself secure of him, she had coveted greatness for his
+future. Well, it was within his grasp at length, and by her final
+means.
+
+Damn the sparrow! What was there in all the murky town to tempt his
+twittering? He had blunted his knife’s edge on the hair. He must fetch
+another.
+
+As he came back with it, the bird seemed to flutter and cry out
+against his very door. In a swift access of passion he strode to it,
+and opened. Whether old, or wounded, or poisoned in the drooping fog,
+there lay the little thing, gasping, with outspread wings, upon the
+pavement. One moment the Professor hesitated; then, crushing out the
+tiny shrieking life under his foot, he relocked the door and returned
+with a firm step to the table.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+His treatise, read the next day before an august body, was said
+masterly to resolve an intricate and long obscure physiologic problem.
+
+It brought him additional and great honour, and, what he prized above
+all, that gift of the Society’s gold medal, which is only granted to
+discoveries of the first importance. But then, it must be remembered,
+he had given his soul to the Cause. The stain of its sacrifice was yet
+red on the stones outside his door.
+
+
+
+
+ A GHOST-CHILD
+
+In making this confession public, I am aware that I am giving a
+butterfly to be broken on a wheel. There is so much of delicacy in its
+subject, that the mere resolve to handle it at all might seem to imply
+a lack of the sensitiveness necessary to its understanding; and it is
+certain that the more reverent the touch, the more irresistible will
+figure its opportunity to the common scepticism which is bondslave to
+its five senses. Moreover one cannot, in the reason of things, write
+to publish for Aristarchus alone; but the gauntlet of Grub Street must
+be run in any bid for truth and sincerity.
+
+On the other hand, to withhold from evidence, in these days of what
+one may call a zetetic psychology, anything which may appear
+elucidatory, however exquisitely and rarely, of our spiritual
+relationships, must be pronounced, I think, a sin against the Holy
+Ghost.
+
+All in all, therefore, I decide to give, with every passage to
+personal identification safeguarded, the story of a possession, or
+visitation, which is signified in the title to my narrative.
+
+
+Tryphena was the sole orphaned representative of an obscure but gentle
+family which had lived for generations in the east of England. The
+spirit of the fens, of the long grey marshes, whose shores are the
+neutral ground of two elements, slumbered in her eyes. Looking into
+them, one seemed to see little beds of tiny green mosses luminous
+under water, or stirred by the movement of microscopic life in their
+midst. Secrets, one felt, were shadowed in their depths, too frail and
+sweet for understanding. The pretty love-fancy of babies seen in the
+eyes of maidens, was in hers to be interpreted into the very cosmic
+dust of sea-urchins, sparkling like chrysoberyls. Her soul looked out
+through them, as if they were the windows of a water-nursery.
+
+She was always a child among children, in heart and knowledge most
+innocent, until Jason came and stood in her field of vision. Then,
+spirit of the neutral ground as she was, inclining to earth or water
+with the sway of the tides, she came wondering and dripping, as it
+were, to land, and took up her abode for final choice among the
+daughters of the earth. She knew her woman’s estate, in fact, and the
+irresistible attraction of all completed perfections to the light that
+burns to destroy them.
+
+Tryphena was not only an orphan, but an heiress. Her considerable
+estate was administered by her guardian, Jason’s father, a widower,
+who was possessed of this single adored child. The fruits of parental
+infatuation had come early to ripen on the seedling. The boy was
+self-willed and perverse, the more so as he was naturally of a
+hot-hearted disposition. Violence and remorse would sway him in
+alternate moods, and be made, each in its turn, a self-indulgence. He
+took a delight in crossing his father’s wishes, and no less in atoning
+for his gracelessness with moving demonstrations of affection.
+
+Foremost of the old man’s most cherished projects was, very naturally,
+a union between the two young people. He planned, manœuvred, spoke
+for it with all his heart of love and eloquence. And, indeed, it
+seemed at last as if his hopes were to be crowned. Jason, returning
+from a lengthy voyage (for his enterprising spirit had early decided
+for the sea, and he was a naval officer), saw, and was struck amazed
+before, the transformed vision of his old child-playfellow. She was an
+opened flower whom he had left a green bud--a thing so rare and
+flawless that it seemed a sacrilege for earthly passions to converse
+of her. Familiarity, however, and some sense of reciprocal attraction,
+quickly dethroned that eucharist. Tryphena could blush, could thrill,
+could solicit, in the sweet ways of innocent womanhood. She loved him
+dearly, wholly, it was plain--had found the realization of all her old
+formless dreams in this wondrous birth of a desire for one, in whose
+new-impassioned eyes she had known herself reflected hitherto only for
+the most patronized of small gossips. And, for her part, fearless as
+nature, she made no secret of her love. She was absorbed in, a captive
+to, Jason from that moment and for ever.
+
+He responded. What man, however perverse, could have resisted, on
+first appeal, the attraction of such beauty, the flower of a radiant
+soul? The two were betrothed; the old man’s cup of happiness was
+brimmed.
+
+Then came clouds and a cold wind, chilling the garden of Hesperis.
+Jason was always one of those who, possessing classic noses, will cut
+them off, on easy provocation, to spite their faces. He was so proudly
+independent, to himself, that he resented the least assumption of
+proprietorship in him on the part of other people--even of those who
+had the best claim to his love and submission. This pride was an
+obsession. It stultified the real good in him, which was considerable.
+Apart from it, he was a good, warm-tempered fellow, hasty but
+affectionate. Under its dominion, he would have broken his own heart
+on an imaginary grievance.
+
+He found one, it is to be supposed, in the privileges assumed by love;
+in its exacting claims upon him; perhaps in its little unreasoning
+jealousies. He distorted these into an implied conceit of authority
+over him on the part of an heiress who was condescending to his meaner
+fortunes. The suggestion was quite base and without warrant; but pride
+has no balance. No doubt, moreover, the rather childish
+self-depreciations of the old man, his father, in his attitude towards
+a match he had so fondly desired, helped to aggravate this feeling.
+The upshot was that, when within a few months of the date which was to
+make his union with Tryphena eternal, Jason broke away from a
+restraint which his pride pictured to him as intolerable, and went on
+a yachting expedition with a friend.
+
+Then, at once, and with characteristic violence, came the reaction. He
+wrote, impetuously, frenziedly, from a distant port, claiming himself
+Tryphena’s, and Tryphena his, for ever and ever and ever. They were
+man and wife before God. He had behaved like an insensate brute, and
+he was at that moment starting to speed to her side, to beg her
+forgiveness and the return of her love.
+
+He had no need to play the suitor afresh. She had never doubted or
+questioned their mutual bondage, and would have died a maid for his
+sake. Something of sweet exultation only seemed to quicken and leap in
+her body, that her faith in her dear love was vindicated.
+
+But the joy came near to upset the reason of the old man, already
+tottering to its dotage; and what followed destroyed it utterly.
+
+The yacht, flying home, was lost at sea, and Jason was drowned.
+
+I once saw Tryphena about this time. She lived with her near mindless
+charge, lonely, in an old grey house upon the borders of a salt mere,
+and had little but the unearthly cries of seabirds to answer to the
+questions of her widowed heart. She worked, sweet in charity, among
+the marsh folk, a beautiful unearthly presence; and was especially to
+be found where infants and the troubles of child-bearing women called
+for her help and sympathy. She was a wife herself, she would say
+quaintly; and some day perhaps, by grace of the good spirits of the
+sea, would be a mother. None thought to cross her statement, put with
+so sweet a sanity; and, indeed, I have often noticed that the
+neighbourhood of great waters breeds in souls a mysticism which is
+remote from the very understanding of land-dwellers.
+
+How I saw her was thus:--
+
+I was fishing, on a day of chill calm, in a dinghy off the flat coast.
+The stillness of the morning had tempted me some distance from the
+village where I was staying. Presently a sense of bad sport and
+healthy famine “plumped” in me, so to speak, for luncheon, and I
+looked about for a spot picturesque enough to add a zest to
+sandwiches, whisky, and tobacco. Close by, a little creek or estuary
+ran up into a mere, between which and the sea lay a cluster of low
+sand-hills; and thither I pulled. The spot, when I reached it, was
+calm, chill desolation manifest--lifeless water and lifeless sand,
+with no traffic between them but the dead interchange of salt. Low
+sedges, at first, and behind them low woods were mirrored in the water
+at a distance, with an interval between me and them of sheeted glass;
+and right across this shining pool ran a dim, half-drowned
+causeway--the sea-path, it appeared, to and from a lonely house which
+I could just distinguish squatting among trees. It was Tryphena’s
+home.
+
+Now, paddling dispiritedly, I turned a cold dune, and saw a mermaid
+before me. At least, that was my instant impression. The creature sat
+coiled on the strand, combing her hair--that was certain, for I saw
+the gold-green tresses of it whisked by her action into rainbow
+threads. It appeared as certain that her upper half was flesh and her
+lower fish; and it was only on my nearer approach that this latter
+resolved itself into a pale green skirt, roped, owing to her posture,
+about her limbs, and the hem fanned out at her feet into a tail fin.
+Thus also her bosom, which had appeared naked, became a bodice, as
+near to her flesh in colour and texture as a smock is to a
+lady’s-smock, which some call a cuckoo-flower.
+
+It was plain enough now; yet the illusion for the moment had quite
+startled me.
+
+As I came near, she paused in her strange business to canvass me. It
+was Tryphena herself, as after-inquiry informed me. I have never seen
+so lovely a creature. Her eyes, as they regarded me passing, were
+something to haunt a dream: so great in tragedy--not fathomless, but
+all in motion near their surfaces, it seemed, with green and rooted
+sorrows. They were the eyes, I thought, of an Undine late-humanized,
+late awakened to the rapturous and troubled knowledge of the woman’s
+burden. Her forehead was most fair, and the glistening thatch divided
+on it like a golden cloud revealing the face of a wondering angel.
+
+I passed, and a sand-heap stole my vision foot by foot. The vision was
+gone when I returned. I have reason to believe it was vouchsafed me
+within a few months of the coming of the ghost-child.
+
+On the morning succeeding the night of the day on which Jason and
+Tryphena were to have been married, the girl came down from her
+bedroom with an extraordinary expression of still rapture on her face.
+After breakfast she took the old man into her confidence. She was
+childish still; her manner quite youthfully thrilling; but now there
+was a new-born wonder in it that hovered on the pink of shame.
+
+“Father! I have been under the deep waters and found him. He came to
+me last night in my dreams--so sobbing, so impassioned--to assure me
+that he had never really ceased to love me, though he had near broken
+his own heart pretending it. Poor boy! poor ghost! What could I do but
+take him to my arms? And all night he lay there, blest and forgiven,
+till in the morning he melted away with a sigh that woke me; and it
+seemed to me that I came up dripping from the sea.”
+
+“My boy! He has come back!” chuckled the old man. “What have you done
+with him, Tryphena?”
+
+“I will hold him tighter the next time,” she said.
+
+But the spirit of Jason visited her dreams no more.
+
+That was in March. In the Christmas following, when the mere was
+locked in stillness, and the wan reflection of snow mingled on the
+ceiling with the red dance of firelight, one morning the old man came
+hurrying and panting to Tryphena’s door.
+
+“Tryphena! Come down quickly! My boy, my Jason, has come back! It was
+a lie that they told us about his being lost at sea!”
+
+Her heart leapt like a candle-flame! What new delusion of the old
+man’s was this? She hurried over her dressing and descended. A
+garrulous old voice mingled with a childish treble in the
+breakfast-room. Hardly breathing, she turned the handle of the door,
+and saw Jason before her.
+
+But it was Jason, the prattling babe of her first knowledge; Jason,
+the flaxen-headed, apple-cheeked cherub of the nursery; Jason, the
+confiding, the merry, the loving, before pride had come to warp his
+innocence. She fell on her knees to the child, and with a burst of
+ecstasy caught him to her heart.
+
+She asked no question of the old man as to when or whence this
+apparition had come, or why he was here. For some reason she dared
+not. She accepted him as some waif, whom an accidental likeness had
+made glorious to their hungering hearts. As for the father, he was
+utterly satisfied and content. He had heard a knock at the door, he
+said, and had opened it and found this. The child was naked, and his
+pink, wet body glazed with ice. Yet he seemed insensible to the
+killing cold. It was Jason--that was enough. There is no date nor time
+for imbecility. Its phantoms spring from the clash of ancient
+memories. This was just as actually his child as--more so, in fact,
+than--the grown young figure which, for all its manhood, had dissolved
+into the mist of waters. He was more familiar with, more confident of
+it, after all. It had come back to be unquestioningly dependent on
+him; and that was likest the real Jason, flesh of his flesh.
+
+“Who are you, darling?” said Tryphena.
+
+“I am Jason,” answered the child.
+
+She wept, and fondled him rapturously.
+
+“And who am I?” she asked. “If you are Jason, you must know what to
+call me.”
+
+“I know,” he said; “but I mustn’t, unless you ask me.”
+
+“I won’t,” she answered, with a burst of weeping. “It is Christmas
+Day, dearest, when the miracle of a little child was wrought. I will
+ask you nothing but to stay and bless our desolate home.”
+
+He nodded, laughing.
+
+“I will stay, until you ask me.”
+
+They found some little old robes of the baby Jason, put away in
+lavender, and dressed him in them. All day he laughed and prattled;
+yet it was strange that, talk as he might, he never once referred to
+matters familiar to the childhood of the lost sailor.
+
+In the early afternoon he asked to be taken out--seawards, that was
+his wish. Tryphena clothed him warmly, and, taking his little hand,
+led him away. They left the old man sleeping peacefully. He was never
+to wake again.
+
+As they crossed the narrow causeway, snow, thick and silent, began to
+fall. Tryphena was not afraid, for herself or the child. A rapture
+upheld her; a sense of some compelling happiness, which she knew
+before long must take shape on her lips.
+
+They reached the seaward dunes--mere ghosts of foothold in that smoke
+of flakes. The lap of vast waters seemed all around them, hollow and
+mysterious. The sound flooded Tryphena’s ears, drowning her senses.
+She cried out, and stopped.
+
+“Before they go,” she screamed--“before they go, tell me what you were
+to call me!”
+
+The child sprang a little distance, and stood facing her. Already his
+lower limbs seemed dissolving in the mists.
+
+“I was to call you ‘mother’!” he cried, with a smile and toss of his
+hand.
+
+Even as he spoke, his pretty features wavered and vanished. The snow
+broke into him, or he became part with it. Where he had been, a gleam
+of iridescent dust seemed to show one moment before it sank and was
+extinguished in the falling cloud. Then there was only the snow,
+heaping an eternal chaos with nothingness.
+
+
+Tryphena made this confession, on a Christmas Eve night, to one who
+was a believer in dreams. The next morning she was seen to cross the
+causeway, and thereafter was never seen again. But she left the
+sweetest memory behind her, for human charity, and an elf-like gift of
+loveliness.
+
+
+
+
+ HIS CLIENT’S CASE
+
+The “Personal Reminiscences” of the late Mr. Justice Ganthony, now
+in process of being edited, are responsible for the following
+drollery:--
+
+My first “chambers” were on the top, not to say the attic, floor of a
+house in (the now defunct) Furnival’s Inn. I called _it_ “chambers,”
+in the plural, on the strength of a coal-cellar, in the window-seat,
+and a turn-up bedstead which became a cupboard by day. That accounted
+for two rooms, and “the usual offices,” as the house-agents say, when
+they refer to a kitchen six feet by eight in the basement. Trousers,
+after all, are only one garment, although they are called a pair.
+
+There I sat among the cobwebs, like a spider, and waited for my first
+brief. In the meanwhile, I lived as the spiders do--on hope, flavoured
+with a little attic salt. It was not a cheering repast; but, such as
+it was, there was no end to it. By and by I was almost convinced (of
+what I had been friendlily advised) that it was a forlorn hope--the
+sort that leads to glory and the grave; probably by starvation. A
+spider has always, as a last resource, his web to roll up and devour.
+I ate up my chambers by degrees; that is to say, I dined,
+figuratively, day in day out, at the sign of the Three Balls. But this
+was to consume my own hump, like the camel. When that should be all
+gone, what next? There is a vulgar expression for prog, which is
+“belly-timber.” I only realized its applicability to my own case when
+my chairs and tables, and other furniture, had gone the primrose way
+of digestion. It was the brass fender, a “genuine antique,” that sat
+heaviest on my chest.
+
+Furnival’s Inn was not a cheerful place to starve in. There was an
+atmosphere of gloom and decay about it, which derived, no doubt, from
+its former dealings in Chancery. In the days of its prosperity it had
+fed the Inns of Court, as Winchester feeds New College; in my time it
+could not feed itself. The rats were at it, and the bugs, which are
+the only things I know of that can thrive on crumbling plaster. I had
+the distinction of providing some of their rare debauches to the
+latter; but that was before I began to crumble myself. Some of my
+blood was certainly incorporated in the ancient walls, and was
+included in their downfall.
+
+My view, from Furnival’s Inn, was dismally introspective. It
+commanded, in the first place, a quadrangle of emptiness; and
+included, in the second, an array of lowering and mouldy tenements
+like my own, at whose stark windows hungry expectant faces would
+glimmer fitfully, and scan the yard for the clients who never came,
+and disappear.
+
+There was a decrepit inn, of another and the social type, budded, like
+a vicious intestinal growth, within Furnival’s. I used to speculate,
+as I looked down at night on its tottering portico, and solemn old
+frequenters, and the lights blinking behind its blinds like
+corpse-candles, if it were not a half-way house of call for the dead.
+For, by day, all business seemed withdrawn from it, and its upper
+rooms might have been mortuaries for any life they exhibited. No
+cheery housemaid ever looked from their windows to chaff the amorous
+Boots below. There was none to chaff. The dead need no boots.
+
+Furnival’s Inn had one gullet, by which the roar of the world came in
+from Holborn. Little else came in but tradesmen, and bailiffs, and an
+occasional policeman in a thoughtful archæological mood. But the
+gullet was a vent as much of exit as of entrance; and by it one could
+escape from the madness of ghostly isolation, and mingle with the
+world, and look in the pastry-cooks’ windows. Whenever I was moved to
+one of these chameleonic foraging expeditions, I would pin a ticket on
+my door: “Called away. Please leave message with housekeeper,” and
+light my pipe with it when I returned. I wonder if any one ever read
+the fatuous legends? To Hope’s eyes, I am sure, they must have been
+dinted, like phonographic records, with the echoes of all the
+footsteps that ever sounded on the stairs during my absences.
+
+Those footsteps! How they marked the measure of my desperation! They
+were not many, and they were far between; but not one in all the
+dreary tale ever reached my attic. Why should they, indeed? I am free
+to acknowledge its moral inaccessibility. Jurisprudence does not, in
+its convincing phases, inhabit immediately under the roof. The higher
+one lives, in practice, the lower one’s practice is like to be. The
+law is not an elevating pursuit.
+
+I recognized this in the end; and the moment I recognized it I got my
+first client.
+
+One November evening, very depressed at last, I was sitting smoking,
+and ruminating over my doleful fate, and thinking if I had not better
+shut myself up for good and all in the bed-cupboard, when I heard
+steps enter the hall below. My ears pricked, of course, from force of
+habit, and from force of habit I uttered a scornful stage laugh--for
+the withering of Fortune, if she happened to be by. But, in spite of
+my scorn, the steps, ignoring the architects’ offices on the ground
+floor (Frost and Driffel, contractors for Castles in Spain), ascended
+and continued to ascend--past the deed-engrosser’s closet on the
+half-way landing; past the empty chambers immediately below mine
+(whence, on gusty nights, the tiny creaking of the rope, by which the
+last tenant had hanged himself from a beam, would speak through the
+floor under my bed), and higher yet, right up to my door.
+
+Hope, dying on a pallet up three flights of stairs, sprang alert on
+the instant. It might be a friend, a creditor, the housekeeper:
+something telepathic, flowing through the panels, assured me that it
+was none of these things. Tap-tap! so smart on the woodwork that it
+made me jump. I swept pipes and tobacco into a drawer. “Come in!” I
+cried. Then, as the visitor entered, “John, throw up the window a
+little! O, bother the boy! he’s out.”
+
+I don’t know if the new-comer was imposed on. He nodded and sniffed.
+
+“Tobacco!” he exclaimed. “What an age since I’ve tasted it! Mr.
+Ganthony, I presume?”
+
+I bowed.
+
+“Barrister-at-law?”
+
+I bowed again. My plate was in the hall to inform him.
+
+“Accept my instructions for a brief.”
+
+He stated it so abruptly that it took my breath away. If all this was
+outside procedure, I was not going to quarrel with my bread and
+butter. I motioned him to a chair, and, taking up pen and paper
+tentatively, was in a position to scrutinize my visitor.
+
+His appearance was certainly odd--a marked exaggeration, I should have
+pronounced it, of the legal type. His face was very red; his enormous
+side-whiskers very white. Large spectacles obscured his eyes, and he
+wore his silk hat (of an obsolete pattern) cocked rakishly over one of
+them. Add to this that his voluminous frock-coat looked like a much
+larger man’s misfit; that his black cotton gloves were preposterously
+long in the fingers; that he carried a “gamp” of the pantomime
+pattern, and it will be obvious that I had some reason for my
+astonishment. But I kept that in hand. A lawyer, after all, must come
+to graduate in the eccentricities of clients.
+
+He looked perkily, with an abrupt action of his head, round about him;
+then came to me again.
+
+“Large practice?” he asked.
+
+“Large enough for my needs,” I answered winningly.
+
+“H’m!” He sniffed. “They don’t appear to be many.”
+
+“That--excuse me--is my affair,” I said with dignity.
+
+“Of course,” he said; “of course. Only I looked you up--accident
+serving intuition--on the supposition that you were green, you
+know--one of the briefless ones--called to the Bar, but not chosen,
+eh?”
+
+I plumped instantly for frankness.
+
+“You are my first retainer,” I said.
+
+His manner changed at once. He pulled his chair a little nearer me,
+with an eager motion.
+
+“Thats what I wanted,” he said. “That’s it. The sort that are
+suffering to win their spurs. None of your egregious old-stagers, who
+require their briefs to be endorsed to the tune of three figures
+before they’ll move--‘monkey’-in-the-slot men, _I_ call ’em. Thinks I
+to myself, Here’s the sort that’ll be willing to take up a case on
+spec’.”
+
+My enthusiasm shot down to zero.
+
+“O!” I said, with a falling face; “on speculation!”
+
+“There’s a fortune in it for a clever advocate,” he answered eagerly.
+“A fortune! all Pactolus in a nutshell. I’ve had my experiences of the
+other kind. They squeeze you, and throw you away; take the wages of
+sin, and hand you over to the deuce. What do _you_ say?”
+
+“If you will give me the particulars,” I answered, without heart, “I
+shall be able to judge better. Your client----?”
+
+He laughed joyously; frowned; put his hat on the floor; crossed his
+arms over his umbrella-handle, and glowered ferociously at me,
+squinting through his glasses.
+
+“Exactly,” he said; “my client, ha-ha! Here, then, young sir, is my
+client’s case.
+
+“His name is Buggins” (I glanced involuntarily at the wall). “He is,
+or was, until envy combined with detraction to ruin him, a
+company-promoter. As such, his trend was always towards insurance. It
+offered the best opportunities to a great creative genius. Buggins,
+being all that, recognized the still amazing potentialities in a field
+of commerce, which, though much worked, remains unexhausted--almost,
+one might say, inexhaustible. In his younger days he showed a pretty
+invention in devising and engineering what I may call personal essays
+in this line. His Insurance against Waterspouts, which he worked
+principally in the Midlands, brought him some handsome returns with a
+single generation of farmers. It was based on a cloud-burst at
+Bethesda, in Wales, which ruined quite a number. Other flights of his
+immature genius were, respectively, Insurance against Death in
+Diving-bells; against Death of a Broken Heart; against Official
+Strangulation; against Non-fatal Disfiguration by Lightning; against
+Death by Starvation (this last was largely patronized by
+millionaires). On a somewhat higher plane were his _Provident
+Dipsomaniary_, whose policies matured, or ‘burst,’ as Buggins phrased
+it, at the age of eighty-five, an essential condition being that the
+holders must put in their claims in person; his _Physical Promotion
+League_, which guaranteed to pay to the parents of any child, insured
+in it during his teens, a sum of ten pounds on the child’s reaching
+twenty-five years of age and a minimum height of six feet, and a
+thousand pounds for every additional inch which it grew afterwards;
+his _Anti-Fiction Mutual_, whose policies were forfeitable on first
+conviction of having written a novel (this proved one of the most
+profitable of all Buggins’s enterprises for a time; but in the end the
+national malady proved incurable, and subscribers fell off); his
+_Psychical Pocket Research Society_, which offered an Insurance
+against Ghost-seeing, the policy-holder forfeiting his claim on proof
+of his first supernatural visitation (but this was so violently
+assailed by the opposition society, which offered to prove that there
+were not three people in the United Kingdom who were insusceptible to
+spooks, that the scheme had to be abandoned); finally, in this
+category, his _Bachelors’ Protection Association_, which provided
+that, if a member reached the age of ninety without having married, he
+should receive an annuity beginning at fifty pounds, and rising, by
+yearly increments of ten pounds, to ten thousand pounds--figures
+which, in a centenarian age, were successful in dazzling a great many.
+
+“But, by then, Buggins was beginning to master the deep ethics of his
+trade, and to realize that its heaviest emoluments were rooted in the
+grand principle of profitable self-denial. People _will_ be unselfish
+if they see money in it; you can’t stop ’em.
+
+“One other notable venture marks this period of what I may call his
+moral transition. That was his inspired scheme for insuring _against_
+illness, in the sense that any policy-holder admitting him or herself
+to be seriously indisposed, lost the right to compensation. It would
+have proved a godsend in a neurotic age; but the antagonism of the
+entire medical profession, with the single exception of the officer
+appointed by the company, killed it.
+
+“We come now to Buggins’s final matured achievements. I beg your
+pardon?”
+
+I had said nothing; but I suppose there is such a thing as a
+“speaking” silence. Certainly, if I had looked as I felt, I was a more
+drivelling maniac by now than Buggins himself. The visitor seemed to
+shoot out his eyes like an angry crab.
+
+“Young man, young man!” he said warningly, “I begin to be suspicious
+that, after all, I may be misplacing my confidence.”
+
+He looked banefully into his hat, where it stood rim upwards on the
+floor; then, suddenly overwrought, kicked it fiercely across the room.
+The action seemed to restore him to complete urbanity. He smiled.
+
+“So perish all Buggins’s enemies!” he said loftily; “and hail the
+grand climacteric!”
+
+He pinned me, like a live butterfly, to the wall behind me with a
+fixed and penetrating gaze.
+
+“What would you say,” he said quietly, “to an Insurance against
+Brigandage, available to all travelling in Sicily or the Balkans, and
+realizable” (his watchfulness was intense) “on the receipt, at the
+head-offices in the Shetland Islands, of a nose, ear, or other organ,
+attested, under urgency, by the nearest consul, to be the personal
+property of the applicant desiring a ransom?”
+
+He paused significantly. “I should say,” I responded drivellingly,
+“that, as a feat of pure inspiration, it--it takes the cake.”
+
+“Ah!” He shouted it, and sprang to his feet joyously. “You are the man
+for me! You justify my confidence, as the returns justified Buggins’s
+daring conception. Would you believe it: within the first few months,
+bushels of noses were received at the head-offices, every one of which
+Buggins had no difficulty in proving to be false! But, hush!
+stay!--there was to be a higher flight!”
+
+He had been pacing riotously up and down. Now he flounced to a stop
+before me, and held me once more with his glittering eye.
+
+“It took the form,” he whispered, “of a _Purgatory Mutual_, on the
+Tontine principle, the last out to take the pool!”
+
+I rose, trembling, to my feet, as he burst into a violent fit of
+laughter.
+
+“It was that,” he shouted, as he set to racing up and down again,
+“which let loose the dogs of envy, spite, and slander. They called him
+mad--_him_, Buggins, _mad_, ha-ha! It was the fools themselves were
+mad. He ignored their clamour; his vast brain was yet busy with
+immortal conceptions; he matured a scheme against _Death from
+Flying-machines_” (here he tore off one whisker and threw it into the
+fireplace); “he did more--he personally tested the theory of
+aerostatics” (here he tore off the other whisker, and stamped on it).
+“Too great, too absorbed, he never noticed that the unstable engine
+had landed him in the grounds of a private asylum, and, relieved of
+his weight, had soared away again. The attendants came; they seized
+and immured him; they would not believe his assurances that he was a
+perfect stranger. From that day to this, when fortuitous circumstances
+enabled him to escape, he has appealed to their justice, their
+humanity, in vain.”
+
+Again he stopped before me, and, flinging his spectacles in my face,
+rent open the breast of his coat.
+
+“Know me at last for what I am!” he yelled. “I am Buggins, and I
+appoint you my advocate in the action I am about to bring against the
+Commissioners of Lunacy!”
+
+The door opened softly, and a masculine face peered round the edge.
+Its scrutiny appearing satisfactory, it was followed by the whole of
+an official form, which, in its entering, revealed another, large and
+passionless, standing behind it.
+
+“Now, Mr. Buggins,” said the first, “we’re a-waitin’ for you to take
+up your cue.”
+
+The visitor whipped round, started, chuckled, and, to my relief and
+surprise, responded rather abjectly.
+
+“All right, Johnson,” he said. “I just slipped out between the acts
+for a whiff of fresh air.”
+
+“Well,” said the man, “you must be quick and come along, or you’ll
+spile the play.”
+
+He went quite tamely, and the second official outside received him
+stolidly into custody. Mate number one lingered to touch his cap to me
+and explain.
+
+“Flyborough Asylum, sir. They give him a part in some private
+theatricals, and he tuk advantage of his disguise as a family lawyer
+to hook it between the acts. None of us reco’nized him, or guessed
+what he’d done, till the time come for him to take up his cue; and
+then, with the prompter howling for him and him not answering, the
+truth struck us of a heap.”
+
+I was down in my chair, flabby and gasping.
+
+“But what brought him to _me_?” I groaned.
+
+“Train, sir,” answered the man; “plenty of ’em, and easy to catch from
+the suburbs. Why he come on here? Why, his offices in the old days was
+in Furnival’s; it were that give us the clue. I suppose, now” (he took
+off his cap, took a red handkerchief from it, thoughtfully mopped his
+forehead, and returned the bandana to its nest), “I suppose, now, he’s
+been a-gammoning of you pretty high with his insurances? His fust
+principle in life was always to play upon fools.”
+
+
+
+
+ AN ABSENT VICAR
+
+“Exactly,” said the Reverend Septimus Prior; “the exchange was the
+most fortuitous, not to say the most fortunate” (he gave a little
+giggle and bow) “possible. Your uncle saw my advertisement, answered
+it, and for a brief period he goes to my cure, and I come to his.”
+
+“Well, if you feel certain,” said Miss Robin, regretfully resting in
+her lap the novel she was reading.
+
+Mr. Prior sipped his tea and nibbled his rusk. In the intervals
+between, he would occasionally glance at the portrait of a scholarly
+cleric, with a thin grim mouth and glassy eyes, which bantered him
+from the wall opposite.
+
+“Your uncle--Mr. Fearful?” he had once ventured to ask; and the niece
+had answered, “Yes. It is very like him.”
+
+Now he paused, with his cup half-way to his mouth.
+
+“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed.
+
+Miss Robin put her book to her lips, and looking over it--really
+rather charmingly,--yawned behind the cover. She was surprisingly
+dégagée for a country vicar’s niece--self-collected, and admirably
+pretty; though her openwork stockings, which she did not hesitate to
+cross her legs to display, filled him with a weak sense of
+entanglement in some unrighteous mystery.
+
+“You said?” he invited her.
+
+“I said, If you feel certain,” she repeated calmly.
+
+“Ah!” he said. “Yes. You mean?”
+
+“I mean,” she said, without a ruffle, “that Uncle Philip _may_ have
+settled to swap livings with you _pro tem._, and _may_ have started
+off to take yours, and _may_ have got there--_if_ you feel certain
+that he has.”
+
+“To be sure,” he answered. “Why shouldn’t I?”
+
+“Had he arrived--when you started--for here?”
+
+“No. Certainly he hadn’t arrived. My train was due. I had to leave a
+message; but----”
+
+She stopped him by dropping her book into her lap; and, clasping one
+knee in her hands, conned him amiably.
+
+“Did he lead you to expect a niece among the charges he was committing
+to your care--or cure?” she asked.
+
+“Well, I must confess,” said the young man, blushing, “he--ah!
+mentioned a housekeeper--Mrs. Gaunt, I think--but----”
+
+“No, of course not,” she interrupted him. “He had forgotten all about
+me.”
+
+Mr. Prior gasped, and looked down. This was his first holiday exchange
+of livings--an unsophisticated venture, which he was already half
+repenting. A suburban cure; a desire for fresh pastures; a daring
+resolution; an advertisement in the “Church Times”; a prompt answer;
+as prompt an acceptance (after due reference to the Clergy List); a
+long railway journey; a tramp, relatively as long, to a remote
+parsonage on the road to a seaport; an arrival in the dark; an
+innocence of all expectation of, or preparation for him; an
+explanation; production of his written voucher, and--here he was,
+accepted, he could not but think, on sufferance. But there he thought
+wrong. Miss Robin was not near so upset by his appearance as he was.
+
+“He comes and goes” (she said of Uncle Philip) “without reference to
+anybody or anything. We never know what he’ll do next, or who’ll
+introduce himself into the house as his friend. It may be a burglar or
+a pirate for all we know. All sorts of strange people come up from the
+port, and are shown into my uncle’s room, and out again by himself at
+the side door. At least, I suppose so. We never know what becomes of
+them, or what’s going on, any more than I doubt he does himself. I
+dare say they fleece him nicely; and--you may laugh--but when he’s in
+his absent moods, you might undress him without his knowing. Only he’d
+probably strike you to the ground when he found out--he’s such an
+awful temper.”
+
+“Dear me!” murmured the young man; “how very curious. One hears of
+such cases.”
+
+“Does one?” said Miss Robin. “I’d rather hear of, than live with them,
+anyhow; and in a desert, too. It wouldn’t so much matter if he didn’t
+always hold others to blame for his mistakes and mislayings. He kept
+me in bed a week once, because he’d read right through a treatise on
+explosives in the pulpit, before he discovered that it wasn’t his
+peace-thanksgiving sermon.”
+
+“Astonishing!” said Mr. Prior; then added, with a faint smile, “Well,
+I can promise you, at least, that _I’m_ not a pirate.”
+
+“No,” she said, “I can see you’re not. Won’t you have some more tea?”
+
+He was shown to his bedroom by Mrs. Gaunt, who was a stony, silent
+woman, bleak with mystery. All night the wind howled round the lonely
+building; and the unhappy man, who, in a phase of worldly revolt,
+egged on by a dare-devil parishioner, had once read “The House on the
+Marsh”, thought of Sarah and Mr. Rayner, and of a silent weaving of
+strings across the stairway in the dark to catch him tripping should
+he venture upon escape.
+
+He arose, feverish, to a sense of hooting draughts in a grey house,
+and went to matins in the gaunt dull church, which stood as lonely as
+a shepherd’s hut on a slope hard by. There was nothing in sight but
+wind-torn pastures, and, all around, little graves, which seemed
+trying vainly to tuck themselves and their shivering epitaphs under
+the grass. There appeared nothing in the world to attract a
+congregation; but, as a matter of fact, there were a few old frosted
+spinsters present, of that amphibious order, a sort of landcrabs,
+which forgathers on the neutral wastes between sea and country.
+
+Mr. Prior went back to his dreary breakfast at the Vicarage. His lady
+hostess, it appeared, was wont to lie late abed, and did not think it
+worth her while to alter her habits for him. The meal, however, had
+been served and left to petrify, pending his return from matins. It
+was with a consciousness of congealed bacon-fat, insufficiently
+dissolved by lukewarm tea, sticking to the roof of his mouth, that he
+rose from it, and pondered his next movement. No one came near him. He
+looked dismally out on a weedy drive. He rather wished Miss Robin
+would condescend to his company. He was no pirate, certainly; but he
+believed he would brave, had braved already, much for his cloth. She
+had beautiful eyes--clear windows, he was sure, to a virginal soul.
+But then, the other end! the white feet peeping through that devil’s
+lattice! He tried to recall any authority in Holy Writ for openwork
+stockings. Certainly pilgrims went barefoot, and half a loaf was
+better than no bread.
+
+“This will not do, Septimus,” he said, weakly striking his breast. “I
+will go and compose my sermon.”
+
+He stepped into the hall. It was papered in cold blue and white
+marble, with a mahogany umbrella stand, and nothing else, to temper
+its tomb-like austerity. At the further end was a baize door of a
+faded strawberry colour.
+
+He was entitled to the run of the house, he concluded. There had been
+no mention of any Bluebeard chamber. But, then, to be sure, there had
+been no mention of a niece. The association of ideas tingled him. What
+if he should turn the handle and alight on Miss Robin?
+
+He flipped his breast again, frowning, and strode to the baize door.
+Beside it, he now observed, a passage went off to the kitchens.
+Desperately he pulled the door, found a second, of wood, beyond it,
+opened that also, and found himself in what was obviously the Vicar’s
+study.
+
+Obviously, that is to say, to his later conceptions of his
+correspondent. Otherwise he might have taken it for the laboratory of
+a scientist. It was lined with bookcases, sparsely volumed; but five
+out of every six shelves were thronged with jars, instruments, and
+engines of a terrifying nature. In one place was a curtained recess
+potential with unholiness. Prints of discomposing organs hung on the
+walls. Immemorial dust blurred everything. There was a pedestalled
+desk in the middle, and opposite it, hung with a short curtain, a
+half-glazed door which the intruder, tiptoeing thither and peeping,
+with his heart at the gallop, found to lead into a dismal narrow lane
+which communicated with the road. He returned to the desk, which,
+frankly open, seemed to invite him to its use, and was pondering the
+moral practicability of composition in the midst of such surroundings,
+when a voice at his ear almost made him jump out of his skin.
+
+“Pardon me, sir; but have you the master’s permission to use this
+room?”
+
+Mrs. Gaunt had come upon him without a sound.
+
+“Dear me, madam!” he said, wiping his forehead. “What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean, sir,” she said, in her stony, colourless way, “that this room
+is interdict to both great and little, now and always, unless he makes
+an exception in your favour.”
+
+“There was no specific mention of it, certainly,” said Mr. Prior,
+“neither for nor against. I concluded that the use of a study was not
+debarred me.”
+
+“Pardon me,” she repeated monotonously. “I believe you concluded
+wrong, sir.”
+
+“The door was not locked.”
+
+“There are some prohibitions,” she said, “that need no locks.”
+
+The inference was fearful.
+
+“Miss June” (ecstatic name!) “and I,” she said, “have never dared so
+much as to put our noses inside, and not a word spoken to forbid it.”
+
+Mr. Prior, to his own astonishment, revolted. Smarting, perhaps, under
+the memory of some suspected covert innuendo in a certain silvery
+acquiescence in a statement of his made last night, he revolted. He
+would prove that he could be a pirate if he chose.
+
+“I shall stop here,” he said, trembling all over. “There was no
+embargo laid, and I must have somewhere to write my sermon.”
+
+“Of course,” said a voice; and Miss Robin stood in the doorway--the
+most enchanting morning vision, her eyes bright with curiosity.
+
+“I am delighted you support me,” he said, kindling and advancing.
+
+She still looked beside and around him.
+
+“Do you know,” she said, “it is perfectly true. I have not once dared
+to venture in here before, though never actually told not to. But that
+is all one, I think. What an extraordinary litter!”
+
+She had not ventured! and with the inducement of her petrifying
+surroundings! She was uninquisitive, then--“an excellent thing in
+woman.”
+
+“Since there is no veto,” he said, incomparably audacious, “supposing
+we explore together?”
+
+She looked at him admiringly.
+
+“I should like to.” She hesitated.
+
+“June!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+“And I will,” said the girl.
+
+But the housekeeper, content, it appeared, with her protest, stood,
+not uninterested in the subsequent investigation.
+
+“Do you not find all this a little remote, a little lifeless
+sometimes, Miss Robin?” said the clergyman, greatly daring.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“Eels get used to skinning. It’s not life, of course. But I have to
+make the best of it, and there’s no help.”
+
+“Ah, yes, there is!” said her companion, intending to imply the
+spiritual, but half hoping she would construe it into the material
+consolation.
+
+“What do you mean?” she asked simply.
+
+“Why,” he said, stammering and blushing furiously, and giving away his
+case at once, “with your youth, and--and beauty--O, forgive me! I am a
+little confused.”
+
+“Where do you live?” she said, fixing him with her large eyes.
+
+“At Clapton,” he murmured.
+
+“It sounds most joyous,” she said, clasping her hands.
+
+Hardly knowing what he did, he pulled the curtain away from the recess
+by which they stood, and instantly staggered back. The housekeeper,
+who, foreseeing his act, had crept up inquisitively behind, gave a
+mortal gasp, and Miss Robin a faint shriek--for, stretched lifeless
+and livid on a couch within, lay the stark body of a man.
+
+For a minute they all stood staring, frozen with horror; then Mrs.
+Gaunt began to wring her hands.
+
+“It is the same,” she cried, in awful tones. “I remember him--the dark
+foreigner. He wandered up here from the port a week ago; and I took
+him in to the master, and he _never came out again_. I thought he had
+let him go by the door there into the lane. O, woe on this fearful
+house! Long have I suspected and long dreaded. The sounds, and the
+awful, awful smells!”
+
+“Perhaps,” whispered the girl, gulping, and clutching at her breast,
+“he died unexpectedly, and uncle put him away here, and forgot all
+about him.”
+
+Mrs. Gaunt shrieked, and seizing the clergyman’s arm, pointed--
+
+“Look! Pickled babies--one, two, three! And bones! And a fish-kettle!
+It is all plain. He kills them, and boils them down for his
+experiments, and by an accident he forgot to empty his larder--his
+larder! hoo-hoo!--before he went!”
+
+She broke into hysteric laughter and gaspings. Miss Robin, whinnying,
+tottered quite close up to the young man, who stood shivering and
+speechless.
+
+“What can we do to save him?” she whimpered. “Mr. Prior, say
+something!”
+
+Thus urged, the unhappy young man strove to press his brain into a
+focus with his hand, and to rally himself to what, he felt, was the
+supreme occasion of his life. The appealing eyes and parted lips so
+close to his would have intoxicated a saint, much more a pirate.
+
+“We must warn him--agony column--from returning,” he ejaculated,
+reeling. “Cryptic address--has he any distinguishing mark?”
+
+“Yes,” she said, with frantic eagerness; “he has a large mole at the
+root of his nose.”
+
+“Very well,” he said--“something of this sort: ‘Nose, with large mole
+at root of. All discovered. Don’t return!’”
+
+“But what is the use of an advertisement? O, Mr. Prior! what is the
+use of an advertisement when we know where he is, or ought to be, and
+can go----?”
+
+“Do you really think he will be there? It was a blind. O, Miss Robin,
+it is evident now it was a blind to cover his tracks!”
+
+“But why should he have designed to escape at all, leaving this--O,
+Mr. Prior!--leaving this horror behind him?”
+
+“We can only conjecture--O, Miss Robin, we can only conjecture!
+Perhaps because of his conscience overtaking him; perhaps because,
+killing in haste, he discovered at leisure that _it_ would not go into
+the kettle; perhaps in a phase of that deadly absence of mind, which,
+he will have realized by now, the Lord has converted to his
+confusion.”
+
+“Well, if you are right. And in the meantime we must get rid of
+this--somehow. O, pray think of a means! Do! Do!”
+
+Mrs. Gaunt steadied her storming breast as she leaned for support,
+with hanging head, against the door.
+
+“There’s the old well--off the lane,” she panted, without looking up.
+“He there _might_ have fallen in--as he went out--and none have
+guessed it to this day.”
+
+It was a fearful inspiration. Mr. Prior, in that moment of supreme
+sentient exaltation, abandoned himself to the awful rapture of things.
+
+“June!” he whispered, putting shaking hands on the girl’s shoulders;
+“if I do this thing for your sake, will you--will you--I have a
+mother--this is no longer a place for you--come to Clapton?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, offering to nestle to him. “I had supposed that
+was understood.”
+
+He was a little taken aback.
+
+“We must move this first,” he said, wringing his damp forehead.
+“Who--who will help me?”
+
+It was really heroic of him. In a shuddering group, they approached
+together the terrible thing--hesitated--plunged, and dragged it out
+with a sickening flop on the floor.
+
+A greasy turban, which it wore, rolled away, disclosing a near bald
+head. Its eyes were closed; its teeth grinned through a fluff of dark
+hair; a lank frock-coat embraced its body, linen puttees its shanks,
+and at the end were stiff bare feet.
+
+“Look, and see if the coast is clear,” gasped the clergyman.
+
+Miss Robin turned to obey, and uttered a startled shriek.
+
+“What are you doing with my Senassee?” cried a terrible voice at the
+door.
+
+Mr. Prior whipped round, echoing his beloved’s squawk. A fierce old
+man, leaning on a stick, stood glaring in the opening.
+
+“Uncle!” cried the girl.
+
+He advanced, sneering and caustic, pushed them all rudely aside,
+dropped on his knees beside the corpse, and, thrusting his finger
+forcibly into its mouth, appeared to hook and roll its tongue forward.
+Instantly an amazing transformation occurred. A convulsion shook the
+body; life flowed into its drab cheeks; its eyes opened and rolled;
+inarticulate sounds came from its jaws.
+
+“Ha!” cried the old man; “I have foreclosed on these busybodies.”
+
+Then he rose to his feet, leaving the patient yawning and stretching
+on the floor.
+
+“Fearful!” gasped the clergyman.
+
+“Do you address me, sir?” asked the old man, scowling.
+
+“Conjurer!” whispered Mr. Prior.
+
+“If you like,” snarled the other. “It is a common enough trick with
+these Yogis, but one I had never seen until he came my way and offered
+to show it me for a consideration. I had forgot he was still lying
+there when I agreed to exchange livings with you. (You are Mr. Prior,
+I presume?) It was the merest oversight, which I remembered on my way,
+and came back by an early train to rectify--none too soon, it seems,
+for the staying of meddlesome fingers.”
+
+“Forgot he was there!” cried Mr. Prior.
+
+“And what if I did, sir?” snapped the other. “It was a full week he
+had lain tranced; and let me tell you, sir, I have more things to
+think of in a week than your mind could accommodate in a century.
+Why,” he cried, in sudden enlightenment, “I do believe the fools
+imagined I had murdered the man.”
+
+“Look at the babies in the bottles!” cried Mrs. Gaunt hysterically.
+
+“As to you, you old ass,” shouted the Vicar, flouncing round, “if you
+can’t distinguish embryo simiadæ from babies, you’d better call
+yourself Miss, as I believe you are!”
+
+“I give notice on the spot!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+Miss Robin stepped up bravely to the young clergyman, and linked her
+arm in his.
+
+“And I,” she said. “I think you have behaved very cruelly to me, to us
+all, Uncle, and--and Mr. Prior has a mother.”
+
+“I dare say; he seems fool enough for anything,” roared the old
+gentleman. “Go back to her, sir! Go to----”
+
+June shrieked.
+
+“Clapton!” he shouted, “and take this baggage with you!”
+
+
+
+
+ THE BREECHES BISHOP
+
+
+ In that age of gallantry, the reign of Charles the Second, it was
+ customary when a gentleman drank a lady’s health to throw some part of
+ his dress into the flames, in order to do her still greater honour.
+ This was well enough for a lover, but the folly did not stop here, for
+ his companions were obliged to follow him in this proof of his
+ veneration by consuming a similar article, whatever it might be.
+
+
+About the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was living
+at Aldersferry, in the Soke of Godsport in Hampshire, a worthy
+clergyman of the name of Barnabas Winthrop. The little living of St.
+Ascham’s--a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry of
+Winchester--supplied the moral and material needs of this amiable man;
+his granddaughter, Miss Joan Seabird, kept house for him; and never
+were cream and ripe fruit happier in contact than were these two
+playful and reasonable intellects in their relations of child and
+sage.
+
+A hysteromaniac, however, is Fortune, who, charmed for a while with
+the simplicity of these her protégés, soon began to construe their
+contentment into self-sufficiency, and to devise some means to correct
+their supposed presumption on her favour, by putting it into the head
+of the artless divine how silence on questions which one felt called
+loudly for reform might be comfortable, but was shameful and an
+evasion of one’s duty. In short, Dr. Winthrop, entertaining original
+views on sanitation and the prevention of epidemics, was wickedly
+persuaded by her to expound them, and so to invite into his harmless
+Eden the snake which was to demoralize it. In one day he became a
+pamphleteer.
+
+Now the Plague, in that year of 1682, was not so remote a memory but
+that people lived in a constant terror of its recrudescence. Pandects,
+treatises, expositions, containing diagnoses, palladiums and schemes
+of quarantine, all based on the most orthodox superstitions, did not
+cease to pour from the press, to the eternal confusion of an age which
+was yet far from realizing the pious schism of the _aide-toi_. What,
+then, as might be supposed, was the effect on it, when a clergyman of
+the Establishment was seen to enter the arena as a declared dissenter
+from the _fata obstant_ of popular bigotry?
+
+For a time Godsport, startled and scandalized, watched aloof the paper
+warfare; and it was not until after the appearance of the Doctor’s
+tract, “_De omni re Scibili_”--wherein he sought, boldly and
+definitely, and withal with a characteristic humour, to lay the
+responsibility for pestilence, not upon the Almighty’s shoulders, but,
+literally, at the doors of men, at their face-to-face proximity, and
+at “the Castynge of Noisome filth in their neare neighbourhood”--that
+it brought down its official hand with a weight and suddenness which
+shook St. Ascham’s to its roots. In brief, there was flung at the
+delinquent one morning his formal citation to the Sessions Court,
+there to answer upon certain charges of having “in divers Tracts,
+Opuscules and Levrets, sought insidiously to ingrafte the minds of his
+Majesty’s liege subjects with such impudent heresies as that it is in
+the power of man to limit the visitations of God--a very pestilent
+doctrine, and one arrogating to His servants the Almighty’s high and
+beneficent prerogatives; inasmuch as Plague and Fire and other His
+scourges, being sacriligeously wrested from His graspe, the world
+would waxe blown with overlife, till it crawled upon the face of the
+heavens like a gross putrid cheese.”
+
+Under this bolt from the blue the liberal minds of grandsire and child
+sank amazed for the moment, only to rally to a consciousness of the
+necessity for immediate action.
+
+“Up, wench!” cried the Doctor, “and saddle our Pinwire. I will go lay
+my case instanter before the Bishop.”
+
+“Alas, dearest!” answered the weeping girl, “you forget; he is this
+long while bedridden.”
+
+Her imagination, which had been wont secretly to fondle the idea of
+her grandfather’s enlightened piety rewarded with a bishopric,
+pictured it in a moment turned to his confusion, and himself, perhaps,
+through the misrepresentations of a blockhead Corporation, disgraced
+and beggared in his old age. But, though she knew the Churchman, she
+had not calculated the rousing effects of criticism on the author.
+
+“Then,” roared he, “I will seek the fount itself of reason and
+justice. It was a good treatise, a well-argued treatise; and the King
+shall decide upon the practical merits of his own English.”
+
+“The King!” she cried, clasping her hands.
+
+“The King,” he answered. “Know you not that he moves daily between
+Southampton, where he lies, and Winchester, where he builds? We will
+go to Winchester. Nay, _we_, child; blubber not; for who knows but
+that, the shepherd being withdrawn, the wolves might think to practise
+on the lamb.”
+
+He checked himself, and hung his head.
+
+“The Lord pardon and justify me indignation,” he muttered. “I was a
+priest before an author.”
+
+It was fine, but a loaded sky, when they set forth upon their journey
+of twenty or so miles, Joan riding pillion behind her grandfather on
+the sober red nag. After much cross work over villainous tracks, they
+were got at last into the Southampton turnpike, when they were joined
+by a single horseman, riding a handsome barb, who, with a very
+favourable face for Joan, pulled alongside of them, as they jogged on,
+and fell into easy talk.
+
+“Dost ride to overtake a bishopric, master clergyman,” says he, “that
+you carry with you such a sweet bribe for preferment?”
+
+Joan looked up, softly panting. Could he somehow have got wind already
+of their mission, and have taken them by the way to forestall it? But
+her eyes fell again before the besieging gaze of the cavalier.
+
+He was a swart man of fifty or so, with a rather sooty expression, and
+his under-lip stuck out. His eyes, bagging a little in the lower lids,
+smouldered half-shut, between lust and weariness, under the blackest
+brows; and, for the rest, he was dressed as black as the devil, with a
+sparkle of diamonds here and there in his bosom. Joan looked down
+breathless.
+
+“I seek no preferment, sir, but a reasonable justice,” said the
+curate; and, in a little, between this and that, had ingenuously,
+though with a certain twinkling eye for the humour of it all,
+confessed his whole case to the stranger. But Joan uttered not a word.
+
+The cavalier laughed, then frowned mightily for a while. “We will
+indict these petty rogues of office on a _quo warranto_,” he growled.
+“What! does not ‘cleanness of body proceed from a due reverence of
+God’? Go on, sir, and I will promise you the King’s consideration.”
+
+Then he forgot his indignation, leering at the girl again.
+
+“And what is _your_ business with Charles, pretty flower?” said he.
+
+But, before she could answer, whish! went Pinwires’s girth out of its
+buckle, and parson and girl tumbled into the road.
+
+The cavalier laughed out, and, while the Doctor was ruefully
+readjusting his straps, offered his hand to the girl.
+
+“Come, sweetheart,” said he. “Since we go a common road, shalt mount
+behind me, and equal the odds between your jade and my greater beast.”
+
+Joan appealed in silence to her grandfather.
+
+“Verily, sir,” he said nodding and smiling, “it would be a gracious
+and kindly act.”
+
+In a moment she was mounted, with her white arms belted about the
+stranger’s waist; the next, he had put quick spurs to his horse, and
+was away with a rush and clatter.
+
+For an instant the Doctor failed to realize the nature of the
+abduction; and then of a sudden he was dancing and bawling in a sheer
+frenzy.
+
+“Dog! Ravisher! Halt! Stop him! Detain him!”
+
+He saw the flight disappear round a bend in the road. It was minutes
+before his shaking hands could negotiate strap and buckle, and enable
+him to follow in pursuit. But he carried no spurs, and Pinwire,
+already over-ridden, floundered in his steps. Distraught, dumbfounded,
+the old man was crying to himself, when he came upon Joan sitting by
+the roadside. He tumbled off, she jumped up, and they fell upon one
+another’s neck.
+
+“O, a fine King, forsooth!” she cried, sobbing and fondling him. “O, a
+fine King!”
+
+“Who? What?” said he.
+
+“Why, it was the King himself!”
+
+“The King!”
+
+“The King.”
+
+“How?” he gasped. “You have never seen him?”
+
+“Trust a woman,” quoth she.
+
+“A woman!” he cried. “You are but half a one yet.”
+
+“It was the King, nevertheless.”
+
+“Joan, let us turn back.”
+
+“He had a wooing voice, grandfather.”
+
+“_Retro Satanas!_ How did you give him the slip?”
+
+“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”
+
+“Dear Joan!”
+
+“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing
+he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of
+my beauty.”
+
+“That proves him false.”
+
+“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was
+a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a
+thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”
+
+She showed a silver pin like a skewer.
+
+“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.
+
+“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and
+was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give
+him----”
+
+“What, woman?”
+
+“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour,
+grandfather; and where are we?”
+
+He looked about him in the dolefullest way.
+
+“If I knew!” he sighed. “We must e’en seek the shelter of an inn till
+this storm is by, and then return home. Better any bankruptcy than
+that of honour, Joan.”
+
+They remounted and jogged on in the rain, which by now was falling
+heavily. The tired little horse, feeling the weight of his own soaked
+head, began to hang it and cough. Presently they dismounted at a
+wayside byre, and, eating the simple luncheon which their providence
+had provided, dwelt on a little in hopes of the weather clearing. But
+it grew steadily worse.
+
+“I have lost my bearings,” said the clergyman in a sudden amazement.
+“We must push on.”
+
+About four o’clock, being seven miles or so short of Winchester, they
+came down upon a little stream which bubbled across the road. The
+groaning horse splashed into it and stood still. Dr. Winthrop, wakened
+by the pause from a brown reverie, whipped his right leg over the
+beast’s withers, landed, slipped on a stone, and sat down in two feet
+of water. Uttering a startled ejaculation, he scrambled up, a sop to
+the very waist of his homespun breeches. Their points--old disused
+laces, fragrant from Joan’s bodice--clung weeping to his calves. He
+waded out, cherishing above water-mark the sodden skirts of his coat,
+his best, of ‘Colchester bayze.’ The horse, sensibly lightened,
+followed.
+
+“O, O!” cried Joan. “Wasn’t you sopped enough already, but you must
+fill your pockets with water?”
+
+“Joan!” he cried disconcerted. “I am drowned!”
+
+Luckily, in that pass, looking up the slope of the hill, they espied
+near the top a toll-booth, and, beyond, the first houses of a village.
+Making a little glad haste, they were soon at the bar.
+
+The woman who came to take their money looked hard at the tired girl.
+She was of a sober cast, and her close-fitting coif showed her of the
+non-conforming order.
+
+“For Winchester, master?” said she.
+
+“Nay,” answered the clergyman; “for the first hostelry. We are beat,
+dame.”
+
+“The first and the last is ‘The Five Alls,’” said she. “But I wouldn’t
+carry the maiden there, by your leave. There be great and wild company
+in the house, that recks nothing of anything in its cups. Canst hear
+’em, if thou wilt.” And, indeed, with her words, a muffled roar of
+merriment reached them from the inn a little beyond.
+
+“One riding for Winchester, and the rest from,” she said, “they met
+here, and here have forgathered roistering this hour. Dare them so you
+dare. I have spoken.”
+
+“_Nunc Deus avertat!_” cried the desperate minister. “The Fates fight
+against us. At all costs we must go by.”
+
+“Nay,” said the good woman; “but, an you will, seek you your own
+shelter there, and leave this poor lamb with me. I have two already by
+the fire--decent ladies and proper, and no quarry for licence. I know
+the company; ’twill be moving soon; and then canst come and claim
+thine own.”
+
+He accepted gladly, and, leaving Joan in her charge, rode on to the
+inn, where, dismounting, he betook himself to the stable, which was
+full of horses, and, after, to the kitchen.
+
+The landlord, cooking a pan of rashers alone over a great fire, turned
+his head, focussed the new-comer with one red eye, and asked his
+business.
+
+“A seat by the hearth, a clothes-rack for my breeches, a rug for my
+loins while they dry, and a mug of ale with a sop in it,” answered the
+traveller, with a smile for his own waggish epitome. And then he
+related of his mishap.
+
+The landlord grunted, returned to his task, blew on an ignited rasher,
+presently took the skillet off the coals, forked the fizzing mess into
+a dish, and disappeared with it. All the while an ineffable racket
+thundered on the floor above.
+
+“Peradventure they will respect my cloth,” thought the clergyman. “The
+Lord fend me! I am among the Philistines.”
+
+The landlord returned in a moment with a horn of ale in one hand, and
+a rug in the other, which he threw down.
+
+“Dod, man!” he cried; “peel, peel! This is the country of continence!
+Hast no reason to fear for thy modesty.” And he went out between
+chuckling and grumbling.
+
+Very decently the curate doffed his small-clothes, hung them over a
+trestle before the fire, wrapped and knotted the rug about his loins,
+and sat down vastly content to his sup. In ten minutes--what with
+weariness, warmth, and stingo--he was asleep.
+
+He woke with a little shriek, and staggered to his feet. Something had
+pricked him--the point of a rapier. The flushed, grinning face of the
+man who had wielded it stood away from him. The kitchen was full of
+rich company, which broke suddenly into a babble of merriment at the
+sight of his astounded visage. In the midst, a swart gentleman, who
+had been lolling at a table, advanced, and taking him by the
+shoulders, swung him gently to and fro till his eyes goggled.
+
+“Well followed, parson!” said he, chuckling, and lurching a little in
+his speech. “What! is the cuif not to be spoiled of his bishopric
+because of a saucy baggage?”
+
+He laughed, checked himself suddenly, and, still holding on, assumed a
+majestic air, with his wig a little on one side, and said with great
+dignity: “But, before I grant termsir, you shall bring the slut to
+canvass of herself what termsir. Godsmylife! to hold her King at a
+bodkin’s point! It merits no pardon, I say, unless the merit of the
+pardon of the termsir--no, the pardon of the merit of the termsir.
+Therefore I say, whither hast brought her, I say? Out with it, man!”
+
+The clergyman, recognizing Joan’s abductor, and listening amazed,
+sprang back at the end with a face of horror, almost upsetting His
+Majesty, who, barely recovering himself, stood shaking his head with a
+glassy smile.
+
+“If_hic_akins!” said he: “I woss a’most down!”
+
+“Avaunt, ravisher!” roared the Doctor.
+
+Charles stiffened with a jerk, stared, wheeled cautiously, and tiptoed
+elaborately from the room. His suite, staggering at the balance,
+followed with enormous solemnity; and the Doctor, still pointing
+denunciatory, was left alone.
+
+At the end of a minute, after much whispering outside, a young
+cavalier re-entered, and approached him with a threatening visage, as
+if up the slope of a deck.
+
+“His Maj’ty, sir,” said he, “demands to know if you know who the devil
+you was a-bawling--hic--at?”
+
+“To my sorrow, though late, I do, sir,” answered the Doctor in a
+grievous voice.
+
+“O!” said the cavalier, and tacked from the room. He returned again in
+a second, to poke the clergyman with his finger, and suggest to him
+confidentially, “Betteric la’ than never--hic!” which having uttered,
+he took himself off, after a vain attempt to open the door from its
+hinge side. In two minutes he was back again.
+
+“His Maj’ty wan’s know where hast hidden Mrs. Seabird. Nowhere in
+house, says landlord. Ver’ well--where then?”
+
+“Tell the King, where he shall reach her only over my body.”
+
+The cavalier vanished, and reappeared.
+
+“His Maj’ty doesn’t wan’ tread on your body. On contrary, wan’s raise
+you up. Wan’s hear story all over again from lady’s lips.”
+
+“I am His Majesty’s truthful minister. There is nothing to add to what
+I have already reported to him.”
+
+The cavalier withdrew, smacking his thigh profoundly. Sooner than
+usual he returned.
+
+“His Maj’ty s’prised at you. Says if you won’t tell him where’ve laid
+her by, he’ll beat up every house within miles-’n’-miles.”
+
+“No!” said the simple clergyman, in a sudden emotion.
+
+“Yes,” said the gentleman, not too drunk to note his advantage. “For
+miles-’n’-miles. His Maj’ty ver’ s’prised her behaviour to him. Wan’s
+lil word with her. Tell at once where she is, or worse for you.”
+
+The clergyman looked about him like one at bay. His glance lighted on
+the trestle before the fire, fixed itself there, and kindled.
+
+“The Lord justify the ways of His servant!” he muttered; and drew
+himself up.
+
+“Tell His Majesty,” he said in a strong voice, “that, so be he will
+honour a toast I shall call, the way he seeks shall be made clear to
+him.”
+
+The other gave a great chuckle, which was loudly echoed from the
+passage.
+
+“Why, thish is the right humour,” he said, and retired.
+
+Within a few moments the whole company re-entered, tittering and
+jogging one another, and spilling wine from the beakers they carried.
+
+The King called a silence.
+
+“Sir,” said the clergyman, advancing a little, “I pray your Majesty to
+convince me, by proof, of a reputed custom with our gallants, which is
+that, being to drink a lady’s health, the one that calleth shall cast
+into the flames some article of his attire, there to be consumed to
+her honour, and so shall demand of his company, by toasters’ law, that
+they do likewise.”
+
+“Dod!” said the King, chuckling; “woss he speiring at? Drink man!
+drink and sacrifice, and I give my royal word that all shall follow
+suit, though it be with the wigs from our heads.”
+
+The Doctor lifted his horn of ale and drained it.
+
+“I toast Joan!” he cried.
+
+“Joan!” they all shouted, laughing and hiccuping, and, having drunk,
+threw down their beakers helter-skelter.
+
+The clergyman took one swift step forward; snatched up his
+small-clothes from the trestle; displayed them a moment; thrust them
+deep into the blazing coals, and, facing about, disrugged himself, and
+stood in his shirttails.
+
+“I claim your Majesty’s word, and breeches,” said he.
+
+A silence of absolute stupefaction befell; and then in an instant the
+kitchen broke into one howl of laughter.
+
+In the midst, Charles walked stately to the table, sat down, and
+thrust out his legs.
+
+“Parson,” said he, “if you had but claimed my hair. The honours lie
+with you, sir; take ’em.”
+
+He would have none but the Doctor handle him; and, when his ineffable
+smalls were burning, he rose up in his royal shift, and ruthlessly
+commandeering every other pair in the room, stood, the speechless
+captain of as shameful and defenceless a crew of buccaneers as ever
+lowered its flag to honesty.
+
+Then the Doctor resumed his rug.
+
+“Sir,” said he, trembling, “I now fulfil my bond. My granddaughter is
+sheltering, with other modest ladies, in the pike-house hard by.”
+
+But the King swore--by divine right--a pretty oath or two, while the
+chill of his understandings helped to sober him.
+
+“By my cold wit you have won! and there may she remain for me. And
+now, decent man,” he cried, “I do call my company to witness how you
+have made yourself to be more honoured in the breach than the
+observance; and since you go wanting a frock, a bishop’s you shall
+have.”
+
+And with that he snatched the rug, and, skipping under it, sat on the
+table, grinning over the quenching of his amazed fire-eaters.
+
+And this, if you will believe deponent, is the true, if unauthorized,
+version of Dr. Winthrop’s election, and of the confounding of Godsport
+on a writ of _quo warranto_.
+
+
+
+
+ THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE
+
+
+ Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.
+
+
+There were notices, of varying dates, posted in prominent places
+about the cliffs to warn the public not to go near them--unless,
+indeed, it were to read the notices themselves, which were printed in
+a very unobtrusive type. Of late, however, this Dogberrian _caveat_
+had been supplemented by a statement in the local gazette that the
+cliffs, owing to the recent rains succeeding prolonged frost, were in
+so ill a constitution that to approach them at all, even to decipher
+the warnings not to, was--well, to take your life out of the municipal
+into your own hands.
+
+Now, had the Regius Professor a bee in his bonnet? Absurd. He knew the
+risks of foolhardiness as well as any pickpocket could have told him.
+Yet, neither general nor particular caution availed to abate his
+determination to examine, as soon as we had lunched, the interior
+formation of a cave or two, out of those black and innumerable, with
+which the undercliff was punctured like a warren.
+
+I did not remonstrate, after having once discovered, folded down under
+his nose on the table, the printed admonition, and heard the little
+dry, professorial click of tongue on palate which was wont to dismiss,
+declining discussion of it, any idle or superfluous proposition. I
+knew my man--or automaton. He inclined to the Providence of the
+unimaginative; his only fetish was science. He was one of those who,
+if unfortunately buried alive, would turn what opportunity remained to
+them to a study of geological deposits. My “nerves,” when we were on
+a jaunt (fond word!) together, were always a subject of sardonic
+amusement with him.
+
+Now, utterly unmoved by the prospect before him, he ate an enormous
+lunch (confiding it, incidentally, to an unerring digestion), rose,
+brushed some crumbs out of his beard, and said, “Well, shall we be
+off?”
+
+In twenty minutes we had reached the caves. They lay in a very
+secluded little bay--just a crescent of sombre sand, littered along
+all its inner edge with débris from the towering cliffs which
+contained it.
+
+“Are you coming with me?” said the Regius Professor.
+
+Judged by his anxious eyes, the question might have been an
+invitation, almost a shamefaced entreaty. But the anxiety, never more
+than apparent, was delusive product of the preposterous
+magnifying-glasses which he wore. Did he ever remove those glasses,
+one was startled to discover, in the seemingly aghast orbs which they
+misinterpreted, quite mean little attic windows to an unemotional
+soul.
+
+“Not by any means,” I said. “I will sit here, and think out your
+epitaph.”
+
+He stared at me a moment with a puzzled expression, grinned slightly,
+turned, strode off towards the cliffs, and disappeared, without a
+moment’s hesitation, into the first accessible burrow. I was moved on
+the instant to observe that it was the most sinister-looking of them
+all. The tilted stratification, under which it yawned oblique, seemed
+on the very poise to close down upon it.
+
+Now I set to pacing to and fro, essaying a sort of mechanical
+preoccupation in default of the philosophy I lacked. I was really in a
+state of clammy anxiety about the Professor. I poked in stony pools
+for little crabs, as if his life depended on my success. I made it a
+point of honour with myself not to leave off until I had found one. I
+tried, like a very amateur pickpocket, to abstract my mind from the
+atmosphere which contained it, only to find that I had brought mind
+and atmosphere away together. I bent down, with my back to the sea,
+and looking between my legs sought to regard life from a new point of
+view. Yet, even in that position, my eyes and ears were conscious,
+only in less degree, of the spectres which were always moving and
+rustling in the melancholy little bay.
+
+_Tekel upharsin._ The hand never left off writing upon the rocks, nor
+the dust of its scoring to fall and whisper. That came away in flakes,
+or slid down in tiny avalanches--here, there, in so many places at
+once, that the whole face of the cliffs seemed to crawl like a maggoty
+cheese. The sound was like a vast conspiracy of voices--busy,
+ominous--aloft on the seats of an amphitheatre. They were talking of
+the Regius Professor, and his consideration in making them a Roman
+holiday.
+
+Here, on no warrant but that of my senses, I knew the gazette’s
+warning to be something more than justified. It made no difference
+that my nerves were at the stretch. One could not hear a silence thus
+sown with grain of horror, and believe it barren of significance.
+Then, all in a moment, as it seemed to me, the resolution was taken,
+the voices hushed, and the whole bay poised on tiptoe of a suspense
+which preluded something terrific.
+
+I stood staring at the black mouth which had engulfed the Regius
+Professor. I felt that a disaster was imminent; but to rush to warn
+him would be to embarrass the issues of his Providence--that only. For
+the instant a fierce resentment of his foolhardiness fired me--and was
+as immediately gone. I turned sick and half blind. I thought I saw the
+rock-face shrug and wrinkle; a blot of gall was expelled from it--and
+the blot was the Professor himself issued forth, and coming composedly
+towards me.
+
+As he advanced, I turned my back on him. By the time he reached me I
+had made some small success of a struggle for self-mastery.
+
+“Well,” he said. “I left myself none too much of a margin, did I?”
+
+With an effort I faced about again. The base of the cliff was yet
+scarred with holes, many and irregular; but now some of those which
+had stared at me like dilated eyes were, I could have sworn it,
+over-lidded--the eyes of drowsing reptiles. _And the Professor’s
+particular cave was gone._
+
+I gave quite an absurd little giggle. This man was soulless--a
+monstrosity.
+
+“Look here,” he said, conning my face with a certain concern, “it’s no
+good tormenting yourself with what might have happened. Here I am, you
+know. Supposing we go and sit down yonder, against that drift, till
+you’re better.”
+
+He led the way, and, dropping upon the sand, lolled easily, talking to
+himself, by way of me, for some minutes. It was the kindest thing he
+could have done. His confident voice made scorn of the never-ceasing
+rustling and falling sounds to our rear. The gulls skated before my
+eyes, drawing wide arcs and figures of freedom in the air. Presently I
+topped the crisis, and drew a deep breath.
+
+“Tell me,” I said--“have you ever in all your life known fear?”
+
+The Regius Professor sat to consider.
+
+“Well,” he answered presently, rubbing his chin, “I was certainly once
+near losing hold of my will, if that’s what you mean. Of course, if I
+_had_ let go----”
+
+“But you didn’t.”
+
+“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No--luckily.”
+
+“You’re not taking credit for it?”
+
+“Credit!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why should I take credit for my
+freedom from a constitutional infirmity? In one way, indeed, I am only
+regretful that I am debarred that side of self-analysis.”
+
+I could laugh lovelily, for the first time.
+
+“Well,” I said, “will you tell me the story?”
+
+“I never considered it in the light of a story,” answered the Regius
+Professor. “But, if it will amuse and distract you, I will make it one
+with pleasure. My memory of it, as an only experience in that
+direction, is quite vivid, I think I may say--” and he settled his
+spectacles, and began:
+
+“It was during the period of my first appointment as Science
+Demonstrator to the Park Lane Polytechnic, a post which my little
+pamphlet on the Reef-building Serpulæ was instrumental in procuring
+me. I was a young man at the time, with a wide field of interests, but
+with few friends to help me in exploring it. My holidays I generally
+devoted to long, lonely tramps, knapsack on back, about the country.
+
+“It was on one of these occasions that you must picture me entered
+into a solitary valley among the Shropshire hills. The season was
+winter; it was bitterly cold, and the prospect was of the dreariest.
+The interesting conformations of the land--the bone-structure, as I
+might say--were blunted under a thick pelt of snow, which made walking
+a labour. One never recognizes under such conditions the extent of
+one’s efforts, as inequalities of ground are without the contrast of
+surroundings to emphasize them, and one may be conscious of the strain
+of a gradient, and not know if it is of one foot in fifty or in five
+hundred.
+
+“The scene was desolate to a degree; houseless, almost treeless--just
+white wastes and leaden sky, and the eternal fusing of the two in an
+indefinite horizon. I was wondering, without feeling actually
+dispirited, how long it was to last, when, turning the shoulder of a
+hill which had seemed to hump itself in my path, I came straight upon
+a tiny hamlet scattered over a widish area. There were some cottages,
+and a slated school building; and, showing above a lower hump a
+quarter of a mile beyond, the roofs and tall chimney of a factory.
+
+“It was a stark little oasis, sure enough--the most grudging of moral
+respites from depression. Only from one place, it seemed, broke a
+green shoot. Not a moving figure was abroad; not a face looked from a
+window. Deathlily exclusive, the little stony buildings stood apart
+from one another, incurious, sullen, and self-contained.
+
+“There was, however, the green shoot; and the stock from which it
+proceeded was the school building. That in itself was unlovely
+enough--a bleak little stone box in an arid enclosure. It looked
+hunched and grey with cold; and the sooty line of thaw at the foot of
+its wall only underscored its frostiness. But as if that one green
+shoot were the earnest of life lingering within, there suddenly broke
+through its walls the voices of young children singing; and, in the
+sound, the atmosphere of petrifaction lifted somewhat.
+
+“Yes? What is it? Does anything amuse you? I am glad you are so far
+recovered, at least. Well----
+
+“I like, I must confess, neither children nor music. At the same time,
+I am free to admit that those young voices, though they dismissed me
+promptly on my way, dismissed me pleased, and to a certain degree, as
+it were, reinvigorated. I passed through that little frigid camp of
+outer silence, and swung down the road towards the factory. As I
+advanced towards what I should have thought to be the one busy nucleus
+of an isolated colony, the aspect of desolation intensified, to my
+surprise, rather than diminished. But I soon saw the reason for this.
+The great forge in the hills was nothing but a wrecked and abandoned
+ruin, its fires long quenched, its ribs long laid bare. Seeing which,
+it only appeared to me a strange thing that any of the human part of
+its affairs should yet cling to its neighbourhood; and stranger still
+I thought it when I came to learn, as I did by and by, that its
+devastation was at that date an ancient story.
+
+“What a squalid carcass it did look, to be sure; gaunt, and unclean,
+and ravaged by fire from crown to basement. The great flue of it stood
+up alone, a blackened monument to its black memory.
+
+“Approaching and entering, I saw some writhed and tortured guts of
+machinery, relics of its old vital organs, fallen, withered, from its
+ribs. The floor, clammy to the tread, was littered with tumbled
+masonry; the sheet iron of the roof was shattered in a hundred places
+under the merciless bombardment of the weather; and, here and there, a
+scale of this was corroded so thin that it fluttered and buzzed in the
+draught like a ventilator. Bats of grimy cobweb hung from the beams;
+and the dead breath of all the dead place was acrid with cold soot.
+
+“It was all ugly and sordid enough, in truth, and I had no reason to
+be exacting in my inspection of it. Turning, in a vaulting silence, I
+was about to make my way out, when my attention was drawn to the black
+opening of what looked like a shed or annex to the main factory.
+Something, some shaft or plant, revealing itself from the dim
+obscurity of this place, attracted my curiosity. I walked thither,
+and, with all due precaution because of the littered ground, entered.
+I was some moments in adapting my vision to the gloom, and then I
+discovered that I was in the mill well-house. It was a little
+dead-locked chamber, its details only partly decipherable in the
+reflected light which came in by the doorway. The well itself was sunk
+in the very middle of the floor, and the projecting wall of it rose
+scarce higher than my knees. The windlass, pivoted in a massive yoke,
+crossed the twilight at a height a little above my own; and I could
+easily understand, by the apparent diameter of its barrel, that the
+well was of a considerable depth.
+
+“Now, as my eyes grew a little accustomed to the obscurity, I could
+see how a tooth of fire had cut even into this fastness. For the rope,
+which was fully reeled up upon the windlass, was scorched to one side,
+as though some exploded fragment of wood or brickwork had alighted
+there. It was an insignificant fact in itself, but my chance
+observation of it has its importance in the context; as has also the
+fact that the bight of the rope (from which the bucket had been
+removed) hung down a yard or so below the big drum.
+
+“You have always considered me a sapient, or at least a rational
+creature, have you not? Well, listen to this. Bending over to plumb
+with my eyes the depth of the pit (an absurdity, to begin with, in
+that vortex of gloom), I caught with my left hand (wisdom number two)
+at the hanging end of rope in order to steady myself. On the instant
+the barrel made one swift revolution, and stuck. The movement,
+however, had thrown me forward and down, so that my head and
+shoulders, hanging over, and actually into, the well, pulled me,
+without possibility of recovery, from my centre of gravity. With a
+convulsive wrench of my body, I succeeded in bringing my right hand to
+the support of my left. I was then secure of the rope; but the
+violence of the act dragged my feet and knees from their last
+desperate hold, and my legs came whipping helpless over the well-rim.
+The weight of them in falling near jerked me from my clutch--a bad
+shock, to begin with. But a worse was in store for me. For I
+perceived, in the next instant, that the rusty, long-disused windlass
+was beginning slowly to revolve, _and was letting me down into the
+abyss_.
+
+“I broke out in a sweat, I confess--a mere diaphoresis of nature; a
+sort of lubricant to the jammed mechanism of the nerves. I don’t think
+we are justified in attributing my first sensations to fear. I was
+exalted, rather--promoted to the analysis of a very exquisite, scarce
+mortal, problem. My will, as I hung by a hair over the abysm, was
+called upon to vindicate itself under an utmost stress of
+apprehension. I felt, ridiculous as it may appear, as if the
+surrounding dark were peopled with an invisible auditory, waiting,
+curious, to test the value of my philosophy.
+
+“Here, then, were the practical problems I had to combat. The
+windlass, as I have said, revolved slowly, but it revolved
+persistently. If I would remain with my head above the
+well-rim--which, I freely admit, I had an unphilosophic desire to
+do--I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and
+airy sort of treadmill. To climb, and climb, and always climb, paying
+out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place! It was to
+repudiate gravitation, which I spurned from beneath my feet into the
+depths. But when, momentarily exhausted, I ventured to pause, some
+nightmare revolt against the sense of sinking which seized me, would
+always send me struggling and wriggling, like a drowning body, up to
+the surface again. Fortunately, I was slightly built and active; yet I
+knew that wind and muscle were bound sometime to give out in this
+swarming competition against death. I measured their chances against
+the length of the rope. There was a desperate coil yet unwound.
+Moreover, in proportion as I grew the feebler, grew the need for my
+greater activity. For there were already signs that the great groaning
+windlass was casting its rust of ages, and was beginning to turn
+quicker in its sockets. If it had only stuck, paused one minute in its
+eternal round, I might have set myself oscillating, gradually and
+cautiously, until I was able to seize with one hand, then another,
+upon the brick rim, which was otherwise beyond my reach. But now, did
+I cease climbing for an instant and attempt a frantic clutch at it,
+down I sank like a clock weight, my fingers trailed a yard in cold
+slime, and there I was at my mad swarming once more--the madder that I
+must now make up for lost ground.
+
+“At last, faint with fatigue, I was driven to face an alternative
+resource, very disagreeable from the first in prospect. This was no
+less than to resign temporarily my possession of the upper, and sink
+to the under world; in other words, to let myself go with the rope,
+and, when it was all reeled out, to climb it again. To this course
+there were two objections: one, that I knew nothing of the depth of
+the water beneath me, or of how soon I should come to it; the other,
+that I was grown physically incapable of any further great effort in
+the way of climbing. My reluctance to forgo the useless solace of the
+upper twilight I dismiss as sentimental. But to drop into that sooty
+pit, and then, perhaps, to find myself unable to reascend it! to feel
+a gradual paralysis of heart and muscle committing me to a lingering
+and quite unspeakable death--that was an unnerving thought indeed!
+
+“Nevertheless, I had actually resolved upon the venture, and was on
+the point of ceasing all effort, and permitting myself to sink,
+when--I thought of the burnt place in the rope.
+
+“Do you grasp what that sudden thought meant to me? Death, sir, in any
+case; death, if, with benumbed and aching hands and blistered knees, I
+continued to work my air-mill; death, no earlier and no later, no less
+and no more certainly, if I ceased of the useless struggle and went
+down into the depths. So soon as the strain of my hanging should tell
+direct upon that scorched strand, that strand must part.
+
+“Then, I think, I knew fear--fear as demoralizing, perhaps, as it may
+be, short of the will-surrender. And, indeed, I’m not sure but that
+the will which survives fear may not be a worse last condition than
+fear itself, which, when exquisite, becomes oblivion. Consciousness
+_in extremis_ has never seemed to me the desirable thing which some
+hold it.
+
+“Still, if I suffered for retaining my will power, there is no doubt
+that its loss, on the flash of that deadly reflection, would have
+meant an immediate syncope of nerve and an instant downfall;
+whereas--well, anyhow, here I am.
+
+“I was fast draining of all capacity for further effort. I climbed
+painfully, spasmodically; but still I climbed, half hoping I should
+die of the toil of it before I fell. Ever and again I would glance
+faintly up at the snarling, slowly-revolving barrel above me, and mark
+how death, as figured in that scorched strand, was approaching me
+nearer at every turn. It was only a few coils away, when suddenly I
+set to doing what, goodness knows, I should have done earlier. I
+screamed--screamed until the dead marrow must have crawled in the very
+bones of the place.
+
+“Nothing human answered--not a voice, not the sound of a footfall.
+Only the echoes laughed and chattered like monkeys up in the broken
+roof of the factory. For the rest, my too-late outburst had but served
+to sap what little energy yet remained to me.
+
+“The end was come. Looking up, I saw the burnt strand reeling round, a
+couple of turns away, to the test; and, with a final gulp of horror, I
+threw up the sponge, and sank.
+
+“I had not descended a yard or two, when my feet touched something.”
+
+The Regius Professor paused dramatically.
+
+“O, go on!” I snapped.
+
+“That something,” he said, “yielded a little--settled--and there all
+at once was I, standing as firmly as if I were in a pulpit.
+
+“For the moment, I assure you, I was so benumbed, physically and
+mentally, that I was conscious of nothing in myself but a small weak
+impatience at finding the awful ecstasy of my descent checked. Then
+reason returned, like blood to the veins of a person half drowned; and
+I had never before realized that reason could make a man ache so.
+
+“With the cessation of my strain upon it, the windlass had ceased to
+revolve. Now, with a sudden desperation, I was tugging at the rope
+once more--pulling it down hand over hand. At the fifth haul there
+came a little quick report, and I staggered and near fell. The rope
+had snapped; and the upper slack of it came whipping down upon my
+shoulders.
+
+“I rose, dimly aware of what had happened. I was standing on the
+piled-up fathoms of rope which I had paid out beneath me. Above,
+though still beyond my effective winning, glimmered the moon-like disk
+of light which was the well mouth. I dared not, uncertain of the
+nature of my tenure, risk a spring for it. But, very cautiously, I
+found the end of the rope that had come away, made a bend in it well
+clear of the injured part, and, after many vain attempts, slung it
+clean over the yoke above, coaxed down the slack, spliced it to the
+other, and so made myself a fixed ladder to climb by. Up this, after a
+short interval for rest, I swarmed, set myself swinging, grasped the
+brick rim, first with one hand, then with both, and in another instant
+had flung myself upon the ground prostrate, and for the moment quite
+prostrated. Then presently I got up, struck some matches, and
+investigated.”
+
+The Regius Professor stopped, laughing a little over the memory.
+
+“_Do_ go on!” I said.
+
+“Why,” he responded, chuckling, “generations of school children had
+been pitching litter into that well, until it was filled up to within
+a couple yards of the top--just that. The rope, heaping up under me,
+did the rest. It was a testimony to the limited resources of the
+valley. What the little natives of to-day do with their odd time,
+goodness knows. But it was comical, wasn’t it?”
+
+“O, most!” said I. “And particularly from the point of view of the
+children’s return to you for your dislike of them.”
+
+“Well, as to that,” said the Regius Professor, rather shamefacedly, “I
+wasn’t beyond acknowledging a certain indebtedness.”
+
+“Acknowledging? How?”
+
+“Why, I happened to have in my knapsack one of my pamphlets on the
+Reef-building Serpulæ; so I went back to the school, and gave it to
+the mistress to include in her curriculum.”
+
+
+
+
+ ARCADES AMBO
+
+Miguel and Nicanor were the Damon and Phintias of Lima. Their
+devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers--who are not, as a
+rule, very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships--was a
+standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they
+had grown up together, passed their school-days together (at an
+English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their
+young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other’s company,
+preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which
+was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.
+
+In the meanwhile, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued
+inseparable--a proverb for clean though passionate affection.
+
+The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and
+physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the
+younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature,
+bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all
+the wit, excitability, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to
+associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed--a
+man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger.
+
+Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous
+faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything
+fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable
+as lovable.
+
+The two started, well-equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks
+of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye
+with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with
+the birds.
+
+Miguel and Nicanor travelled overland to Cayenne, in French Guiana,
+where they took boat for Marseilles, whence they were to proceed to
+the capital. The circular tour of the world, for all who would make it
+comprehensively, dates from Paris and ends there. They sailed in a
+fine vessel, and made many charming acquaintances on board.
+
+Among these was Mademoiselle Suzanne, called also de la Vénerie,
+which one might interpret into Suzanne of the chase, or Suzanne of the
+kennel, according to one’s point of view. She had nothing in common
+with Diana, at least, unless it were a very seductive personality. She
+was a fashionable Parisian actress, travelling for her health, or
+perhaps for the health of Paris--much in the manner of the London
+gentleman, who was encountered touring alone on the Continent because
+his wife had been ordered change of air.
+
+Suzanne, as a matter of course, fell in love with Miguel first, for
+his white teeth and sleepy comeliness; and then with Nicanor, for his
+impudent bright spirit. That was the beginning and end of the trouble.
+
+One moonlight night, in mid-Atlantic, Miguel and Nicanor came together
+on deck. The funnel of the steamer belched an enormous smoke, which
+seemed to reach all the way back to Cayenne.
+
+“I hate it,” said Nicanor; “don’t you? It is like a huge cable paid
+out and paid out, while we drift further from home. If they would only
+stop a little, keeping it at the stretch, while we swarmed back by it,
+and left the ship to go on without us!”
+
+Miguel laughed; then sighed.
+
+“Dear Nicanor,” he said; “I will have nothing more to do with her, if
+it will make you happy.”
+
+“I was thinking of _your_ happiness, Miguel,” said Nicanor. “If I
+could only be certain that it would not be affected by what I have to
+tell you!”
+
+“What have you to tell me, old Nicanor?”
+
+“You must not be mistaken, Miguel. Your having nothing more to do with
+her would not lay the shadow of our separation, which the prospect of
+my union with her raises between us--though it would certainly comfort
+me a little on your behalf.”
+
+“I did not mean that at all, Nicanor. I meant that, for your sake, I
+would even renounce my right to her hand.”
+
+“That would be an easy renunciation, dear Miguel. I honour your
+affection; but I confess I expect more from it than a show of
+yielding, for its particular sake, what, in fact, is not yours to
+yield.”
+
+Miguel had been leaning over the taffrail, looking at the white
+wraiths of water which coiled and beckoned from the prow. Now he came
+upright, and spoke in his soft slow voice, which was always like that
+of one just stretching awake out of slumber--
+
+“I cannot take quite that view, Nicanor, though I should like to. But
+I do so hate a misunderstanding, at all times; and when it is with
+you----!”
+
+His tones grew sweet and full--
+
+“O, Nicanor! let this strange new shadow between us be dispelled, at
+once and for ever. I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Nicanor.”
+
+“I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Miguel.”
+
+“Very well. Then I yield her to you.”
+
+“O, pardon me, Miguel! but that is just the point. I wanted to save
+you the pain--the sense of self-renunciation; but your blindness
+confounds me. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. Your
+infatuation for Mademoiselle Suzanne is very plain to very many. What
+is plain only to yourself is that Mademoiselle Suzanne returns your
+devotion. You are not, indeed, justified in that belief.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“She has confessed her regard, in the first place, for me.”
+
+“But she has also confessed to me that I have won the leading place in
+her affections.”
+
+“That is absurd, Miguel. She is the soul of ingenuousness.”
+
+“Perhaps, Nicanor--we are only boys, after all--she is a practised
+coquette.”
+
+“You must not say that, Miguel, if you want me to remain your friend.
+You, perhaps, attach too much importance to your looks as an
+irresistible asset in matters of the heart.”
+
+“Now I shall certainly quarrel with you.”
+
+“You are mistaken, I think. Mind, to women of intellect, is the
+compelling lure.”
+
+“It remains to be proved.”
+
+“You are determined to put it to the test, then? Good-bye, Miguel.”
+
+“This is not a real breach between us? O, Nicanor!”
+
+“We must come to a definite understanding. Until we do, further
+confidence between us is impossible.”
+
+He strutted away, perking his angry head, and whistling.
+
+But Suzanne had accomplished the amiable débacle for which she had
+been intriguing. She had, paradoxically, separated the inseparables.
+It was a little triumph, perhaps; a very easy game to one of her
+experience--hardly worth the candle, in fact; but it was the best the
+boat had to offer. It remained only to solace the tedium of what was
+left of the voyage by playing on the broken strings of that
+friendship.
+
+It was Nicanor who suffered most under the torture. He had always been
+rather accustomed to hear himself applauded for his wit--a funny
+little acrid possession which was touched with a precocious knowledge
+of the world. Now, to know himself made the butt of a maturer social
+irony lowered his little cockerel crest most dismally. As for
+good-natured Miguel, it was his way to join, rather than resent, the
+laugh against himself; and his persistent moral health under the
+infliction only added to the other’s mind-corrosion. In a very little
+the two were at daggers-drawn.
+
+The “affair” made a laughable distraction for many of the listless and
+mischievous among the passengers. They contributed their little fans
+to the flame, and exchanged private bets upon the probable
+consequences. But Suzanne, indifferent to all interests but her own,
+worked her oracles serenely, and affected a wide-eyed unconsciousness
+of the amorous imbroglio which her arts had brought about. First one,
+then the other of the rivals would she beguile with her pensive
+kindnesses, and, according to her mood or the accident of
+circumstances, reassure in hope. And the task grew simpler as it
+advanced, inasmuch as the silence which came to fall between Miguel
+and Nicanor precluded the wholesome revelations which an interchange
+of confidences might have inspired.
+
+At last the decisive moment arrived when Suzanne’s more intimate
+worldlings were to be gratified with her solution of the riddle. It
+was to end, in fact, in a Palais Royal farce; and they were to be
+invited to witness the “curtain.”
+
+A few hours before reaching port she drew Miguel to a private
+interview.
+
+“Ah, my friend!” she said, her slender fingers knotted, her large eyes
+wistful with tears, “I become distracted in the near necessity for
+decision. Pity me in so momentous a pass. What am I to do?”
+
+“Mademoiselle,” said poor Miguel, his chest heaving, “it is resolved
+already. We are to journey together to Paris, where the bliss of my
+life is to be piously consummated.”
+
+“Yes,” she said; “but the publicity--the scandal! Men are sure to
+attribute the worst motives to our comradeship, and that I could not
+endure.”
+
+“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately--somewhere whence
+we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”
+
+“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! There is a little accommodating
+place--the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the
+harbour. Do you know it? No--I forgot the world is all to open for
+you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o’clock to-morrow
+morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper
+of our intention to anyone. Now go, go!”
+
+He left her, rapturous but, once without her radiance, struck his
+breast and sighed, “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”
+
+And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor,
+angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously,
+timidly, and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a
+bantam.
+
+“Is it not my friend that you meant, mademoiselle? I will summon him
+back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”
+
+“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a
+witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul--least of all his
+brother and happier rival.”
+
+“His----! Ah, mademoiselle, I entreat you, do not torture me!”
+
+“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself!
+Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many
+women realize their feelings for the first time in the shock of
+imminent loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor.”
+
+“Poor Miguel--poor fellow!”
+
+“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”
+
+“Suzanne!”
+
+“No, do not speak to me. To have so bared my breast to this repulse!
+O, I am shamed beyond words!”
+
+“But do you not understand my heartfelt pity for his loss, when
+measured by my own ecstatic gain?”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Suzanne! I cannot believe it true.”
+
+“I feel so bewildered also. What are we to do?”
+
+“You spoke once of a journey to Paris together.”
+
+“You and I? Think of the jests, the comments on the part of our
+shipmates! We are not to bear a slurred reputation with us. I should
+die of shame.”
+
+“What if we were to meet somewhere, unknown to anybody, by
+appointment, and slip away before the world awoke?”
+
+“Yes, that would do; but where?”
+
+“Can’t you suggest?”
+
+“I know of a little Café de Paris. It is on the Boulevard des Dames,
+near the harbour. Say we meet there, at eight o’clock to-morrow
+morning, in time to catch the early mail?”
+
+“O, yes, yes!”
+
+“Hush! We have been long enough together. Do not forget; be silent as
+the grave.”
+
+“Brains triumph!” thought Nicanor, as he went. “Alas, my poor, sweet,
+simple-minded comrade!”
+
+De la Vénerie carried betimes quite a select little company with her
+to the rendezvous. They were all choking with fun and expectation.
+
+“The dear _ingénus_!” said Captain Robillard. “It will be exquisite
+to see the fur fly. But precocity must have its lesson.”
+
+They had their rolls and coffee in a closet adjoining the common room.
+There was a window overlooking the street.
+
+“Hist!” whispered the tiny Comte de Bellenglise. “Here they come!”
+
+Nicanor was the first to arrive. He was very spruce and cock-a-hoop.
+His big brown eyes were like fever-spots in his little body. He
+questioned, airily enough, the proprietor, who had been well prompted
+to answer him.
+
+“No, monsieur; there is no lady at this hour. An appointment? Alas!
+such is always the least considered of their many engagements.”
+
+As he spoke, Miguel came in. The two eyed one another blankly after
+the first shock. At length Nicanor spoke: the door between the closet
+and the café opened a little.
+
+“You have discovered, then? Go away, my poor friend. This is, indeed,
+the worst occasion for our reconciliation.”
+
+“I did not come to seek you, Nicanor. I came to meet Mademoiselle
+Suzanne alone, by appointment.”
+
+“And I, too, Miguel. I fear you must have overheard and misconstrued
+her meaning. It was I she invited to this place.”
+
+“No, Nicanor; it was I.”
+
+“She has not come, at least. We must decide, at once and for ever,
+before she comes.”
+
+“I know what you mean, Nicanor. This, indeed, is the only end to a
+madness. Have you your pistol? I have mine.”
+
+“And I have mine, Miguel. You will kill me, as you are the good shot.
+I don’t know why I ever carried one, except to entice you to show your
+skill at breaking the floating bottles. But that was before the
+trouble.”
+
+“Dear Nicanor!”
+
+“But let it be _à l’outrance_. I want either to kill you or to be
+killed.”
+
+“If she were only out of the way, you would love me again.”
+
+“Amen to that, dear Miguel!”
+
+“Yet we are to fight?”
+
+“To the death, my brother, my comrade! Such is the madness of
+passion.”
+
+The paralyzed landlord found breath for the first time to intervene.
+
+“Gentlemen, gentlemen! for God’s sake! consider my reputation!”
+
+Miguel, starting away, and leaving Nicanor with his back to the
+closet, produced and pointed his weapon at the trembling creature.
+These South Americans were a strange compound of sweetness and
+ferocity.
+
+“If you interfere,” he said, “I will shoot you instead. Now, Nicanor,
+we fire at discretion, one shot to each.”
+
+The bang of Nicanor’s pistol shattered the emptiness. Miguel was down
+on the floor. Nicanor cast away his reeking weapon, and, running to
+his friend, raised his body in his arms. The door of the closet
+opened, and Suzanne, radiant and gloating, stood in the entry. “That
+was a good shot, Nicanor,” said Miguel, smiling weakly. “You are
+better at men than bottles.”
+
+“Miguel! Miguel! you have your pistol undischarged. Faint as you are,
+you cannot miss me at this range.”
+
+“Stand away, then, Nicanor.”
+
+Nicanor stood up, tearing his coat apart.
+
+“Here, here! to my heart, dearest!”
+
+Miguel, supporting himself on his left hand, raised his pistol
+swiftly, and shot Mademoiselle Suzanne through the breast. Then he
+fell back to the floor.
+
+“That is the short way to it, Nicanor. Confess, after all, I am the
+better shot. Now we are reunited for ever.”
+
+Suzanne had not a word to say to that compact. She lay in a heap, like
+the sweetest of dressmaker’s dummies overturned.
+
+The landlord raised a terrible outcry.
+
+“Messieurs! I am ruined, unless you witness to the truth of this
+catastrophe!”
+
+“I, for one, will witness,” said de Bellenglise, very white.
+“Mademoiselle, it is plain to the humorist, has only reaped what she
+sowed. But I do not envy M. Nicanor his survival.”
+
+Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him
+to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe, in Normandy, where
+men whom the law exonerates may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal
+servitude.
+
+And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend wholehearted, for
+he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne
+to a place where her future interference between them was not to be
+dreaded.
+
+
+
+
+ OUR LADY OF REFUGE
+
+When Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino,
+plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San
+Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after
+long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood,
+and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering
+ribbons, and merrily they cried together:
+
+“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the
+larger growth--patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment!
+For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ
+in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of
+evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’
+dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff
+of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children--there is time for
+all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood
+ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and
+see the ships--so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind
+in the rigging--and all for a paltry quarter-real!”
+
+Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest,
+among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared
+to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned
+their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino
+had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the
+mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that
+they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic
+perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a
+couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San
+Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by
+treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two
+thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San
+Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come
+of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in
+the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a
+large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening
+to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly
+as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection
+in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in
+San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to
+approach the peep-show.
+
+The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with
+travel.
+
+“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like
+adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”
+
+It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held
+himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to
+show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact,
+was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft
+olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow
+handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches,
+down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron,
+for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a
+high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and
+merriment were his bright assets.
+
+Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.
+
+“Sweet and inexhaustible! I could feed all day on thy love. Yet, I
+think, for my stomach’s sake, I would rather be less gifted than the
+mouse. What is the use to be able to smell meat through glass when the
+window is shut?”
+
+“Wait! There are other ways to the larder than by the door. In the
+meanwhile, we will go on. There are two ends to San Lorenzo, the upper
+and lower: we will try the lower. North and south sit with their backs
+to one another, like peevish sisters. What the one snubs the other may
+favour.”
+
+He swung the box by its strap to his shoulder, closed the tripod, and,
+using it for a staff, trudged on dustily with his comrade. Half way
+down the village, a man for the first time accosted them. He was
+young, vehement, authoritative--the segundo jefe, or sub-prefect of
+San Lorenzo.
+
+“Wait!” he said, halting the pair. “I know you, Caron. You should be
+de Charogne--a French carrion-crow. What do you here, spying for your
+masters?”
+
+“Señor,” said the showman, “you are mistaken. I am of your people.”
+
+“Since when? I know you, I say.”
+
+“Many know me, caballero, in these parts, and nothing against me but
+my nationality. Now that is changed.”
+
+“Since when? I repeat it.”
+
+“Since the Emperor tore my brother from his plough in Rousillon to
+serve his colours, and our father was left to die of starvation. We
+are but now on our way back from closing the old man’s eyes, and at
+the foot of the hills we recovered our chattels, which we had hid
+there, on our journey north, for security. I speak of myself and my
+little comrade, Pepino, who is truly of this province, señor, having
+been born in Gerona, where he made stockings.”
+
+The sub-prefect looked at Pepino attentively, for the first time, and
+his dark eyes kindled.
+
+“And wore them, by the same token,” he murmured.
+
+He swept off his hat, mockingly courteous.
+
+“Buenos dias, señora!” he said.
+
+Caron jumped.
+
+“Ah, mercy, caballero!” he cried. “Can you, indeed, distinguish so
+easily? Do not give us away.”
+
+“Tell me all about it,” said the sub-prefect. “Truly this is no time
+for masquerading in San Lorenzo.”
+
+“But it was the most obvious of precautions to begin with,” pleaded
+Caron. “Over the mountains is not safety for a woman; and since----”
+
+“And since, you are in San Lorenzo,” said the other.
+
+“It is true, señor. Pepa shall re-sex herself to-night. Yet it is
+only a few hours since we found our expedient justified.”
+
+“How was that?”
+
+“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French
+picket, and----”
+
+He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.
+
+“What have I said, señor?”
+
+“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and
+this is the first you speak of it! I understand--they come from
+Perpignan--they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve
+Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while----”
+
+He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow
+me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The
+whole village turned and followed him as he ran.
+
+Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and
+privacy.
+
+“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride _me_ for the
+future. And _this_ is home!”
+
+She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.
+
+“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can
+love you once more in my own way.”
+
+
+This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in
+Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in
+Figueras--one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from
+the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate--being
+small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the
+mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the
+neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour
+with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since
+a little might decide their fate--short shrift, and the knife or
+gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For
+those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the
+Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by
+the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.
+
+But Figueras was an important point, strategically; for which reason
+the Emperor--who generally in questions of political economy held
+lives cheaper than salt--had despatched an express to General Reille,
+who commanded the reserves at Perpignan, on the north side of the
+mountains, ordering him to proceed by forced marches to the relief of
+the garrison, as a step preliminary to the assault and capture of
+Gerona. And it was an advance body of this force which Luc and his
+companion had encountered bivouacking in the hills.
+
+It was not a considerable body as the two gauged it, for Colonel de
+Regnac’s troops--raw Tuscan recruits, and possessed with a panic
+terror of the enemy--were showing a very laggard spirit in the
+venture, and no emulation whatever of their officers’ eagerness to
+encounter. In fact, Colonel de Regnac, with his regimental staff, some
+twenty all told, and few beside, had run ahead of his column by the
+measure of a mile or two, and was sitting down to rest and curse,
+below his breath, in a hollow of the hills, when the two captured
+vagabonds were brought before him.
+
+There had been no light but the starlight, no voice but the
+downpouring of a mountain stream until the sentry had leaped upon
+them. Chatter and fire were alike prohibited things in those rocky
+ante-rooms of hate and treachery.
+
+“Who are you?” had demanded the Colonel of Caron.
+
+“A son of France, monsieur.”
+
+“Whither do you go?”
+
+“To attend the death-bed of my old father in Rousillon,” had answered
+Luc, lying readily.
+
+The Colonel had arisen, and scanned his imperturbable face keenly.
+
+“His name?”
+
+Luc had told him truthfully--also his father’s circumstances and
+misfortunes.
+
+The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence,
+then, do you come?”
+
+“From Figueras.”
+
+“Ha! They have news of us there?”
+
+“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”
+
+“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”
+
+A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was
+overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that
+those two rascals went _up_ the hill!”
+
+He was brought before the Colonel.
+
+“My son, what did you say?”
+
+The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his
+remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the
+vagabonds’ _descent towards San Lorenzo_, there would be trouble on
+the morrow.
+
+He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter
+degraded--to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed
+to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that,
+in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded
+by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing
+rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering
+for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the
+main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted
+upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under
+cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position--only to find it
+abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled
+to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.
+
+“_If_ I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel
+sweetly.
+
+And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very
+gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.
+
+It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted,
+depopulated.
+
+Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching
+under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly,
+and nodded.
+
+He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow
+more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight.
+He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were
+small and infamous--great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a
+moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and
+Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his
+enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways
+his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.
+
+“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”
+
+Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino
+crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.
+
+“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.
+
+A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.
+
+“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself
+spitting fire.”
+
+“It is symbolical of Jove,” said Caron.
+
+“Foul imps attend him!”
+
+“They are his Mercuries.”
+
+“No more words!” said the Colonel. “String the rascal up!”
+
+That was the common emergency exit in the then theatres of war. It had
+taken the place of the “little window” through which former traitors
+to their country had been invited to look.
+
+Pepino leapt to his feet, with a sudden scream.
+
+“No, no! He is Caron, the wit, the showman, dear to all hearts!”
+
+Colonel Regnac’s great neck seemed to swell like a ruttish wolf’s. His
+little eyes shot red with laughter. He had as keen a scent as the
+sub-prefect for a woman.
+
+“Good!” he said; “he shall make us a show.”
+
+“Señor, for the love of God! He spoke the truth. His father is dead.”
+
+“He will be in a dutiful haste to rejoin him.”
+
+“Señor, be merciful! You are of a gallant race.”
+
+“That is certain,” said de Regnac. “You, for your part, are acquitted,
+my child. I take you personally under my protection.”
+
+“Good-bye, comrade!” cried Caron sadly. “We have gone the long road
+together, and I am the first to reach home. Follow me when you will. I
+shall wait for you.”
+
+“Fie!” said the Colonel. “That is no sentiment for a renegade. Heaven
+is the goal of this innocence, whom I save from your corruption.”
+
+They hung him from the branch of a chestnut tree, and lingered out his
+poor dying spasms. Pepino, after one burst of agony, stood apathetic
+until the scene was over. Then, with a shudder, correlative with the
+last of the dangling body’s, she seemed to come awake.
+
+“Well,” she said, “there goes a good fellow; but it is true he was a
+renegade.”
+
+The Colonel was delighted.
+
+“They have always a spurious attraction,” he said, “to the sex that is
+in sympathy with naughtiness in any form. But consider: false to one
+is false to all, and this was a bad form of treachery--though,” he
+added gallantly, “he certainly had his extreme temptation.”
+
+“The French killed his father,” she said indifferently.
+
+“The French,” he answered, “kill, of choice, with nothing but
+kindness. You, though a Spaniard, my pet, shall have ample proof if
+you will.”
+
+“I am to come with you?”
+
+“God’s name! There is to be no enforcement.”
+
+“Well, you have left me little choice. Already here they had looked
+upon us with suspicion, and, if I remained alone, would doubtless kill
+me. I do not want to die--not yet. What must be must. The king is
+dead, live the king!”
+
+He was enchanted with her vivacity. He took her up before him on his
+saddle, and chuckled listening to the feverish chatter with which she
+seemed to beguile herself from memory.
+
+“These jays have no yesterday,” he thought; and said aloud, “You are
+not Pepino? Now tell me.”
+
+“No, I am Pepa,” she said. “I am only a man in seeming. Alack! I think
+a man would not forget so easily.”
+
+“Some men,” he answered, and his hand tightened a little upon her.
+“Trust me, that dead rogue is already forgathering with his succuba.”
+
+By and by he asked her: “How far to Figueras?”
+
+“Twelve miles from where we started,” she answered.
+
+A thought struck him, and he smiled wickedly.
+
+“You will always bear in mind,” he said, “that the moment I become
+suspicious that you are directing us wide, or, worse, into a
+guet-apens, I shall snap off your little head at the neck, and roll it
+back to San Lorenzo.”
+
+“Have no fear,” she said quietly; “we are in the straight road for the
+town--or what used to be one.”
+
+“And no shelter by the way? I run ahead of my rascals, as you see. We
+must halt while they overtake us. Besides”--he leered horribly--“there
+is the question of the night.”
+
+“I know of no shelter,” she said, “but Our Lady of Refuge.”
+
+“An opportune title, at least. What is it?”
+
+“It is a hospital for the fallen--for such as the good Brotherhoods of
+Madrid send for rest and restoration to the sanctuary of the quiet
+pastures. The monks of Misericorde are the Brothers’ deputies
+there--sad, holy men, who hide their faces from the world. The house
+stands solitary on the plain; we shall see it in a little. They will
+give you shelter, though you are their country’s enemies. They make no
+distinctions.”
+
+De Regnac pulled at his moustache, frowning, pondering.
+
+“Where these monks forgather are fat kids and old Malaga--a tempting
+alternative to the munching of cold biscuit under the stars.
+But--_sacré chien!_ one may always take in more with the gravy than
+ever fell from the spit. What, then!”
+
+He jerked his feet peevishly in the stirrups, and growled--
+
+“Limping and footsore already come my cursed rabble--there you are,
+white-livered Tuscan sheep! The bark of a dog will scare them; they
+would fear a thousand bogies in the dark. It is certain I must wait
+for them, and bivouac somewhere here in the plains.”
+
+Indeed, the first of them came on as he spoke--a weary, stumbling body
+of laggards, trailing feet and muskets.
+
+“Halte-là!” he thundered; and the men came to a loose-kneed stand,
+while the corporals went round prodding and cursing them into a form
+of discipline. De Regnac grumbled--
+
+“Are we to have this cold grace to our loves? God’s name! my heart
+cries out for fire--fire within and without. These monks!”
+
+“Shall I slip before, and sound them? You may trust me, for a Spanish
+girl, who has learned how to coax her confessor.”
+
+“Ha! _You!_” He held her, biting his great lips. “What are you good
+for but deceit, rogue! No, no; we will go together.”
+
+He called his staff about him, and they went forward in a body.
+Presently, topping a longish slope, they saw, sprung out of the plain
+before them, a huddled grey building, glooming monstrous in the dusk.
+Its barred windows stared blindly; twin towers held the portico
+between them, as it were the lunette of a vast guillotine; a solitary
+lamp hung motionless in the entrance. Far away across the flats a
+light or two twinkled over ruined Figueras, like marsh-candles over a
+swamp. The place seemed lifeless desolation embodied--Death’s own
+monument in a desert. Gaiety in its atmosphere shivered into silence.
+
+But at length a captain rallied, with a laugh.
+
+“Peste!” he cried; “a churchyard refuge! Let us see if the dead walk!”
+
+He battered with his sword-hilt on the great door. It swung open, in
+staggering response, and revealed a solitary figure. Cowled, spectral,
+gigantic--holding, motionless, a torch that wept fire--the shape stood
+without a word. It was muffled from crown to heel in coarse frieze;
+the eyelets in its woollen vizor were like holes scorched through by
+the burning gaze behind--the very rims of them appeared to smoulder.
+Laville, the captain, broke into an agitated laugh.
+
+“Mordieu, my friend, are the dead so lifeless?”
+
+“What do you seek?”
+
+The voice boomed, low and muffled, from the folds.
+
+“Rest and food,” answered Laville. “We are weary and famished. For the
+rest, we ask no question, and invite none.”
+
+“So they come in peace,” said the figure, “all are welcome here.”
+
+The Colonel pushed to the front, carrying his burden.
+
+“We come in peace,” he said--“strangers and travellers. We pay our
+way, and the better where our way is smoothed. Take that message to
+your Prior.”
+
+The figure withdrew, and returned in a little.
+
+“The answer is, Ye are welcome. For those who are officers, a repast
+will be served within an hour in the refectory; for the rest, what
+entertainment we can compass shall be provided in the outhouses. A
+room is placed at the disposal of your commander.”
+
+“It is well,” said de Regnac. “Now say, We invite your Prior to the
+feast himself provides, and his hand shall be first in the dish, and
+his lip to the cup; else, from our gallantry, do we go supperless.”
+
+Once more the figure withdrew and returned.
+
+“He accepts. You are to fear no outrage at his hands.”
+
+The Colonel exclaimed cynically, “Fie, fie! I protest you wrong our
+manners!”--and, giving some orders _sub voce_ for the precautionary
+disposal of his men, entered with his staff. They were ushered into a
+stone-cold hall, set deep in the heart of the building--a great
+windowless crypt, it seemed, whose glooms no warmth but that of tapers
+had ever penetrated. It was bare of all furniture save benches and a
+long trestle-table, and a few sacred pictures on the walls. While the
+rest waited there, de Regnac was invited to his quarters--a cell
+quarried still deeper into that hill of brick. No sound in all the
+place was audible to them as they went. He pushed Pepino before him.
+
+“This is my servant,” he said. “He will attend me, by your leave.”
+
+The girl made no least demur. She went even jocundly, turning now and
+again to him with her tongue in her cheek. He, for his part, was in a
+rapture of slyness; but he kept a reserve of precaution. They were
+escorted by the giant down a single dim corridor, into a decent
+habitable cell, fitted with chairs, a little stove, and a prie-Dieu;
+but the bed was abominably rocky. De Regnac made a wry face at it for
+his companion’s secret delectation.
+
+The ghostly monk, intimating that he would await outside the señor
+commandante’s toilet, that he might re-escort his charge to the
+refectory, closed the door upon the two. De Regnac cursed his
+officiousness, groaning; but Pepino reassured his impatience with a
+hundred drolleries. However, when the Colonel came out presently, he
+came out alone; and, moreover, turned the key in the door and pocketed
+it.
+
+“Merely a prudential measure,” he explained to his guide. “These
+gaillards are not to be trusted in strange houses. I will convey him
+his supper by and by with my own hands.”
+
+The figure neither answered nor seemed to hear. De Regnac, joining a
+rollicking company, dismissed him from his mind.
+
+And alone in the cell stood mad Pepino.
+
+But not for long. A trap opened in the floor, and from it sprouted,
+like a monstrous fungus, the head and shoulders of the giant monk.
+Massively, sombrely he arose, until the whole of his great bulk was
+emerged and standing in a burning scrutiny of the prisoner. A minute
+passed. Then, “Whence comest thou, Pepa Manoele? With whom, and for
+what purpose?” said the voice behind the folds.
+
+His question seemed to snap in an instant the garrotte about her
+brain. She flung herself on her knees before him with a lamentable
+cry--
+
+“They have killed my Luc, brother--my Luc, who took me from your wards
+of mercy, sins and all. They have killed my sweet singing cricket, my
+merry, merry cricket, that had no guile in all its roguish heart. They
+put their heel upon him in the path--what are songs to them!--and left
+my summer desolate. If I weep one moment, I know that blood will scald
+my cheeks and drain my heart, and I shall die before I act. O,
+brother! keep back my tears a little. Show me what to do!”
+
+She clutched in agony at his robe.
+
+“Come,” he said; “the way is clear.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The feast was served to the tick of the hour by lay brothers, another
+blank-envisaged form directing them. The tables smoked with cheer, and
+de Regnac rubbed his hands. There were the joints of fat kid and the
+flagons of old Malaga--salmis of quail, too; truffled sausages;
+herrings with mustard sauce, things of strong flavour meet for
+warriors. The steam itself was an invitation--the smell, the sparkle.
+Only one thing lacked--the Prior’s grace. De Regnac, bestial always,
+but most like a tiger in the view of unattainable meats, crowded the
+interval with maledictions and curses. His courtesy stopped anywhere
+on the threshold of his appetites. Baulked of his banquet, he would be
+ready to make a holocaust of the whole hospital. Yet he dared not be
+the first to put his fingers in the dish.
+
+“Where is our host?” he growled. “Doth he fear the test--or death--a
+coward faint with indecision?”
+
+Even with the word, he found him at his elbow--an old, dry pipe of a
+man, wheezing thin air. The father’s face under its dropping cowl (no
+doubt his lungs were too crazy for the vizor) showed stark with rime;
+his forehead was streaked with it; his eyes were half-thawed pools. He
+spoke. Hoarse and feeble, his voice seemed to crow from the attics of
+a ruined tenement, high up among the winds.
+
+“Fall to, soldiers, fall to! There is no grace like honest appetite.
+Fall to! And they tell me ye have travelled far to claim our
+hospitality. Fall to!”
+
+De Regnac smacked his shoulder boisterously, so that he staggered.
+
+“Not till you have blessed our meal for us, old father.”
+
+The Prior raised his trembling hands. The other caught at them.
+
+“Not that way. We ask the taster’s grace. It was a bargain.”
+
+“Be seated, señor,” said the old man, with dignity. “I do not forget
+my obligations.”
+
+He went round, bent and stiffly, taking a shred from each dish, a
+sippet dipped in the gravy.
+
+“Bella premunt hostilia,” he expostulated. “Intestine wars invade our
+breast. What a task for our old digestion!”
+
+His roguery pleased and reassured his company. They attacked the
+viands with a will. He never ceased to encourage them, going about the
+board with garrulous cheer.
+
+“And ye come over the hills?” said he. “A hungry journey and a
+dangerous. It was the mountains, and the spirits of the mountains,
+that were alone invincible when the Moorish dogs overran all
+Spain--all but the mountains. The heathen crests were lowered
+there--rolled back in a bloody foam. Dear God! I’m old.”
+
+“Not so ancient, father,” cried de Regnac, “but that good liquor will
+revitalize you. There remains the wine.”
+
+“Ah me!” sighed the Prior; “must I?”
+
+They swore him to the toast by every bond of honour. Their throats
+were ragged with drought.
+
+“Well, well,” he said. “I’ll first dismiss these witnesses to their
+father’s shame. I’ll be no Noah to my children.”
+
+He drove the servitors, with feeble playfulness, into the passage;
+pursued them a pace or two. In a moment he was back alone, his cowl
+pulled about his face.
+
+“Give me the draught,” he said hoarsely, “nor look ye upon the old
+man’s abasement. I am soon to answer for my frailties.”
+
+Cheering and bantering, they mixed him a cup from every flagon, and
+put it into his hand, which gripped it through the cloth. He turned
+his back on them, and took the liquor down by slow degrees, chuckling
+and gasping and protesting. Then, still coughing, he handed the cup,
+backwards, to the nearest.
+
+“Bumpers, all!” roared de Regnac. “We toast old Noah for our king of
+hosts!”
+
+Even as he drank, as they all drank, thirsty and uproarious, the great
+door of the refectory clanged to, and the Prior spun with a scream to
+the floor. De Regnac’s cup fell from his hand; a dead silence
+succeeded.
+
+Suddenly the Colonel was on his feet, ghastly and terrible.
+
+“Something foul!” he whispered; “something foul!”
+
+Staggering, he swerved out, and drove with all his weight against the
+door. It had been locked and bolted upon them. Not a massive panel
+creaked. They were entombed!
+
+Hush!
+
+Solemn, low, mystic, arose without the chaunt of voices in unison--the
+prayers for one sick unto death: “Receive, O Lord, the sacrifice we
+offer for thy servant, who is near the end of her life.”
+
+With a scream, de Regnac threw himself towards the body on the floor,
+and lifted it with huge strength in his arms. As he did so, the cowl
+fell away, and revealed the face of Pepino. The shadow of death was
+already fallen on it; but she spoke, and with a smile.
+
+“When he pursued them, I was waiting and took his place. Curse him
+not. He observed the letter. ’Twas I poisoned the wine. Take back thy
+wages, dog! O, I go to find my Luc--if thou darest follow me!”
+
+He roared out--a spasm took his throat. He tried to crush her in his
+arms. They relaxed in the effort. Howling, he dropped her, and fell
+beside in a heap.
+
+Then, from out a mortal paralysis, arose sobbing and wailing at the
+table. Some seized salt, some the wet mustard from the fish, and
+swallowed it by handfuls. Others ran hither and thither aimlessly,
+screeching, blaspheming, beating the walls, the obdurate door. There
+was a regimental doctor among them; he was the first dead. None found
+help or hope in that ghastly trap. The venom had been swift, gripping,
+ineradicable. Within half an hour it was all a silent company, and the
+Miserere long had ceased.
+
+Somewhere in a book I read of a tale like this, which was headed
+“Patriotic Fanaticism.” Those were certainly the deadly days of
+retaliation; but in this case Love, as always, was the principal
+fanatic.
+
+
+
+
+ THE GHOST-LEECH
+
+Kelvin, not I, is responsible for this story, which he told me
+sitting smoking by his study window.
+
+It was a squalid night, I remember, wet and fretful--the sort of night
+which seems to sojourners in the deep country (as we then were) to
+bring rumours of plashy pavements, and the roar of rain-sodden
+traffic, and the wailing and blaspheming of women lost and crying out
+of a great darkness. No knowledge of our rural isolation could allay
+this haunting impression in my mind that night. I felt ill at ease,
+and, for some reason, out of suits with life. It mattered nothing that
+a belt of wild woodland separated us from the country station five
+miles away. That, after all, by the noises in it, might have been a
+very causeway, by which innumerable spectres were hurrying home from
+their business in the distant cities. The dark clouds, as long as we
+could see them labouring from the south, appeared freighted with the
+very burden of congregated dreariness. They glided up, like vast
+electric tramcars, and seemed to pause overhead, as if to discharge
+into the sanctuary of our quiet pastures their loads of aggressive
+vulgarity. My nerves were all jangled into disorder, I fear, and
+inclining me to imaginative hyperbole.
+
+Kelvin, for his part, was very quiet. He was a conundrum, that man.
+Once the keenest of sportsmen, he was now for years become an almost
+sentimental humanitarian--and illogical, of necessity. He would not
+consent to kill under any circumstances--wilfully, that is to say; but
+he enjoyed his mutton with the best of us. However, I am not
+quarrelling with his point of view. He, for one--by his own admission,
+anyhow--owed a life to “the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,” and
+he would not, from the date of his debt, cross her prerogatives. The
+same occasion, it appeared, had opened in him an unstanchable vein of
+superstition, which was wont to gush--bloodily, I might say--in
+depressing seasons of the mind. It provoked me, on the evening of the
+present anecdote, to a sort of peevish protest.
+
+“Why the devil,” I said, “are spectral manifestations--at least,
+according to you fellows--everlastingly morbid and ugly? Are there no
+gentle disembodied things, who, of their love and pity, would be
+rather more anxious than the wicked, one would think, to communicate
+with their survivors?”
+
+“Of course,” said Kelvin; “but their brief sweet little reassurances
+pass unnoticed. Their forms are insignificant, their voices
+inarticulate; they can only appeal by symbol, desperately clinging to
+the earth the while. On the other hand, the world tethers its
+worldlings by the foot, so that they cannot take flight when they
+will. There remains, so to speak, too much earth in their composition,
+and it keeps ’em subject to the laws of gravitation.”
+
+I laughed; then shrugged impatiently.
+
+“What a rasping night it is! The devil take that moth!”
+
+The window was shut, and the persistent whirring and tapping of a big
+white insect on the glass outside jarred irritably on my nerves.
+
+“Let it in, for goodness’ sake,” I said, “if it _will_ insist on
+making a holocaust of itself!”
+
+Kelvin had looked up when I first spoke. Now he rose, with shining
+eyes, and a curious little sigh of the sort that one vents on the
+receipt of wonderful news coming out of suspense.
+
+“Yes, I’ll open the window,” he said low; and with the word threw up
+the casement. The moth whizzed in, whizzed round, and settled on his
+hand. He lifted it, with an odd set smile, into the intimate range of
+his vision, and scrutinized it intently. Suddenly and quickly, then,
+as if satisfied about something, he held it away from him.
+
+“_Ite missa est!_” he murmured, quoting some words of the Mass (he was
+a Catholic); and the moth fluttered and rose. Now, you may believe it
+or not; but there was a fire burning on the hearth, and straight for
+that fire went the moth, and seemed to go up with the smoke into the
+chimney. I was so astonished that I gasped; but Kelvin appeared
+serenely unconcerned as he faced round on me.
+
+“Well,” I exploded, “if a man mayn’t kill, he may persuade to suicide,
+it seems.”
+
+He answered good-humouredly, “All right; but it wasn’t suicide.”
+
+Then he resumed his seat by me, and relighted his pipe. I sat
+stolidly, with an indefinable feeling of grievance, and said nothing.
+But the silence soon grew unbearable.
+
+“Kelvin,” I said, suddenly and viciously; “what the deuce do you
+mean?”
+
+“You wouldn’t believe,” he answered, at once and cheerily, “even if I
+told you.”
+
+“Told me what?”
+
+“Well, this. There was the soul of little Patsy that went up in the
+smoke.”
+
+“The village child you are so attached to?”
+
+“Yes; and who has lain dying these weeks past.”
+
+“Why should it come to you?”
+
+“It was a compact between us--if she were summoned, in a moment,
+without time for a good-bye. We were close friends.”
+
+“Kelvin--excuse me--you are getting to be impossible.”
+
+“All right. Look at your watch. Time was made for unbelievers. There’s
+no convincing a sceptic but by foot-rule. Look at your watch.”
+
+“I did, I confess--covertly--in the instant of distraction caused by
+Kelvin’s little son, who came to bid his father good night. He was a
+quiet, winning little fellow, glowing with health and beauty.
+
+“Good night, Bobo,” said Kelvin, kissing the child fondly. “Ask God to
+make little Patsy’s bed comfy, before you get into your own.”
+
+I kissed the boy also; but awkwardly, for some reason, under his frank
+courteousness. After he was gone, I sank back in my chair and said,
+grudging the concession--
+
+“Very well. It’s half-past eight.”
+
+Kelvin nodded, and said nothing more for a long time. Then, all of a
+sudden, he broke out--
+
+“I usen’t to believe in such things myself, once upon a time; but Bobo
+converted me. Would you like to hear the story?”
+
+“O, yes!” I said, tolerantly superior. “Fire away!”
+
+He laughed, filling his pipe--the laugh of a man too surely
+self-convinced to regard criticism of his faith.
+
+“Patsy,” he said, “had no Ghost-Leech to touch her well. Poor little
+Patsy! But she’s better among the flowers.”
+
+“Of Paradise, I suppose you mean? Well, if she is, she is,” I said, as
+if I were deprecating the inevitably undesirable. “But what is a
+Ghost-Leech?”
+
+“A Ghost-Leech,” he said--“the sort, anyhow, that I’ve knowledge
+of--is one who has served seven years goal-keeper in the
+hurling-matches of the dead.”
+
+I stared at him. Was he really going, or gone, off his head? He
+laughed again, waving his hand to reassure me.
+
+“You may accept my proof or not. Anyhow, Bobo’s recovery was proof
+enough for me. A sense of humour, I admit, is outside our conception
+of the disembodied. We lay down laughter with life, don’t we? You’d
+count it heresy to believe otherwise. Yet have you ever considered how
+man’s one great distinctive faculty must be admitted into all evidence
+of his deeds upon earth, as minuted by the recording angel? It must be
+admitted, of course, and appreciatively by the final assessor. How
+could he judge laughter who had never laughed? The cachinnatory nerve
+is touched off from across the Styx--wireless telegraphy; and man will
+laugh still, though he be damned.”
+
+“Kelvin! my good soul!”
+
+“The dead, I tell you, do not put off their sense of humour with their
+flesh. They laugh beyond the grave. They are full of a sense of fun,
+and not necessarily the most transcendent.”
+
+“No, indeed, by all the testimony of spiritualism.”
+
+“Well; now listen. I was staying once in a village on the west coast
+of Ireland. The people of my hamlet were at deadly traditional feud
+with the people of a neighbouring hamlet. Traditional, I say, because
+the vendetta (it almost amounted to one) derived from the old days of
+rivalry between them in the ancient game of hurling, which was a sort
+of primitive violent “rugger” played with a wooden ball. The game
+itself was long fallen into disuse in the district, and had been
+supplanted, even in times out of memory, by sports of a gentler, more
+modern cast. But it, and the feud it had occasioned, were still
+continued unabated beyond the grave. How do I know this? Why, on the
+evidence of my Ghost-Leech.
+
+“He was a strange, moody, solitary man, pitied, though secretly
+dreaded, by his neighbours. They might have credited him with
+possession--particularly with a bad local form of possession; to
+suspect it was enough in itself to keep their mouths shut from
+questioning him, or their ears from inviting confession of his
+sufferings. For, so their surmise were correct, and he in the grip of
+the hurlers, a word wrung from him out of season would have brought
+the whole village under the curse of its dead.”
+
+I broke in here. “Kelvin, for the Lord’s sake! you are too cimmerian.
+Titillate your glooms with a touch of that spiritual laughter.”
+
+Agreeably to my banter, he smiled.
+
+“There’s fun in it,” he said; “only it’s rather ghastly fun. What do
+you say to the rival teams meeting in one or other of the village
+graveyards, and whacking a skull about with long shank-bones?”
+
+“I should say, It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Anything turning
+upon a more esoteric psychology would. What pitiful imaginations you
+Christmas-number seers are possessed of!”
+
+“I dare say. But I’m not imagining. It’s you practical souls that
+imagine--that common sense, for instance, is reason; that the top-hat
+is the divinely-inspired shibboleth of the chosen; and so on. But you
+don’t disappoint me. Shall I go on?”
+
+“O, yes! go on.”
+
+“The hurlers meet under the full moon, they say, in one or other of
+the rival graveyards; _but they must have a living bachelor out of
+each parish to keep goal for them_.”
+
+“I see! ‘They say’? I see!”
+
+“The doom of the poor wretch thus chosen is, as you may suppose, an
+appalling one. He must go, or suffer terrors damning out of reason.
+There is no power on earth can save him. One night he is sitting,
+perhaps, in his cabin at any peaceful work. The moor, mystic under the
+moonlight, stretches from miles away up to his walls, surrounding and
+isolating them. His little home is an ark, anchored amid a waste and
+silent sea of flowers. Suddenly the latch clinks up, advances, falls.
+The night air breathing in passes a presence standing in the opening,
+and quivers and dies. Stealthily the door gapes, ever so little, ever
+so softly, and a face, like the gliding rim of the moon, creeps round
+its edge. It is the face, he recognizes appalled, of one long dead.
+The eyeplaces are black hollows; but there is a movement in them like
+the glint of water in a deep well. A hand lifts and beckons. The
+goal-keeper is chosen, and must go. For seven years, it is said, he
+must serve the hurling-matches of the dead.”
+
+“State it for a fact. Don’t hedge on report.”
+
+“I don’t. This man served his time. If he hadn’t, Bobo wouldn’t be
+here.”
+
+“O? Poor Bobo!”
+
+“This man, I say, survived the ghastly ordeal--one case out of a dozen
+that succumb. Then he got his fee.”
+
+“O, a fee! What was that? A Rachel of the bogs?”
+
+“The power to cure by touch any human sickness, even the most humanly
+baffling.”
+
+“Really a royal reward. It’s easy to see a fortune in it.”
+
+“He would have been welcome to mine; but he would take nothing. He
+made my little boy whole again.”
+
+“Kelvin! I dare say I’m a brute. What had been the matter with him?”
+
+“Ah, what! He simply moaned and wasted--moaned eternally. Atrophy;
+meningitis; cachexy--they gave it a dozen names, but not a single
+cure. He was dying under slow torture--a heavy sight for a father.
+
+“One day an old Shaman of the moors called upon me. He was ancient,
+ancient--as dry as his staff, and so bent that, a little more, and he
+had tripped over his long beard in walking. I can’t reproduce his
+brogue; but this is the substance of what it conveyed to me:--
+
+“Had I ever heard speak of Baruch of the lone shebeen--him that had
+once kept an illicit still, but that the ghosts had got hold of for
+his sins? No? Well, he, the Shaman, was come too near the end of his
+own living tether to fear ghoulish reprisals if he told me. And he
+told me.
+
+“Baruch, he said, was suspected in the village of keeping the dead’s
+hurling-goal--had long been suspected--it was an old tale by now. But,
+och, wirrastrue! if, as he calculated, Baruch was nearing the close of
+his seven years’ service, Baruch was the man for me, and could do for
+my child what no other living man, barring a ghosts’ goal-keeper,
+could do likewise.
+
+“I humoured him when he was present; laughed at him when he was gone;
+but--I went to see Baruch. It’s all right: you aren’t a father.”
+
+“You went to see Baruch. Go on.”
+
+“He lived remote in such a little cabin as I have described. Lord!
+what a thing it was!--a living trophy of damnation--a statue
+inhabiting the human vestment! His face was young enough; but sorrow
+stricken into stone--unearthly suffering carved out of a block. It is
+astonishing what expression can be conveyed without a line. There was
+not a wrinkle in Baruch’s face.
+
+“All scepticism withered in me at the sight--all the desperate
+effrontery with which I had intended to challenge his gift. I asked
+him simply if he would cure my child.
+
+“He answered, in a voice as hoarse and feeble as an old man’s, but
+with a queer little promise of joy in it, like a sound of unborn rain,
+‘Asthore! for this I’ve lived me lone among the peats, and bid me
+time, and suffered what I know. In a good hour be it spoken! Wance
+more, and come again when the moon has passed its full.’
+
+“I went, without another question, or the thought of one. That was a
+bad week for me--a mortal struggle for the child. The dead kept
+pulling him to draw him down; but he fought and held on, the little
+plucked one. On the day following the night of full moon, I carried
+him in my arms to the cabin--myself, all the way. I wouldn’t let on to
+a soul; I went roundabout, and I got to Baruch unnoticed. I knew it
+was kill or cure for Bobo. He couldn’t have survived another night.
+
+“I tell you, it was a laughing spirit that greeted me. Have you ever
+seen Doré’s picture of the ‘Wandering Jew,’ at the end of his
+journey, having his boots pulled off? There is the same release
+depicted, the same sweet comedy of redemption--the same figure of fun,
+if you like, that Baruch presented.
+
+“He put his hands on Bobo’s head, and----”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Bobo walked home with me, that’s all.”
+
+Kelvin got up from his chair to relight his pipe at the fire. As he
+moved, the door of the room opened, and a decent woman, his
+housekeeper, stood, with a grave face, in the entrance.
+
+“Patsy’s dead?” said Kelvin.
+
+“Ah, the poor mite!” answered the woman, with a burst of tears. “She
+passed but now, sir, at half after eight, in her little bed.”
+
+
+
+
+ POOR LUCY RIVERS
+
+The following story was told to a friend--with leave, conditionally,
+to make it public--by a well-known physician who died last year.
+
+
+I was in Paul’s type-writing exchange (says the professional
+narrator), seeing about some circulars I required, when a young lady
+came in bearing a box, the weight of which seemed to tax her strength
+severely. She was a very personable young woman, though looking ill, I
+fancied--in short, with those diathetic symptoms which point to a
+condition of hysteria. The manager, who had been engaged elsewhere,
+making towards me at the moment, I intimated to him that he should
+attend to the new-comer first. He turned to her.
+
+“Now, madam?” said he.
+
+“I bought this machine second-hand of you last week,” she began, after
+a little hesitation. He admitted his memory of the fact. “I want to
+know,” she said, “if you’ll change it for another.”
+
+“Is there anything wrong with it, then?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” she said; “No!” she said; “Everything!” she said, in a
+crescendo of spasms, looking as if she were about to cry. The manager
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Very reprehensible of us,” said he; “and hardly our way. It is not
+customary; but, of course--if it doesn’t suit--to give
+satisfaction----” he cleared his throat.
+
+“I don’t want to be unfair,” said the young woman. “It doesn’t suit
+_me_. It might another person.”
+
+He had lifted, while speaking, its case off the type-writer, and now,
+placing the machine on a desk, inserted a sheet or two of paper, and
+ran his fingers deftly over the keys.
+
+“Really, madam,” said he, removing and examining the slip, “I can
+detect nothing wrong.”
+
+“I said--perhaps--only as regards myself.”
+
+She was hanging her head, and spoke very low.
+
+“But!” said he, and stopped--and could only add the emphasis of
+another deprecatory shrug.
+
+“Will you do me the favour, madam, to try it in my presence?”
+
+“No,” she murmured; “please don’t ask me. I’d really rather not.”
+Again the suggestion of strain--of suffering.
+
+“At least,” said he, “oblige me by looking at this.”
+
+He held before her the few lines he had typed. She had averted her
+head during the minute he had been at work; and it was now with
+evident reluctance, and some force put upon herself, that she
+acquiesced. But the moment she raised her eyes, her face brightened
+with a distinct expression of relief.
+
+“Yes,” she said; “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sure it’s
+all my fault. But--but, if you don’t mind. So much depends on it.”
+
+Well, the girl was pretty; the manager was human. There were a dozen
+young women, of a more or less pert type, at work in the front office.
+I dare say he had qualified in the illogic of feminine moods. At any
+rate, the visitor walked off in a little with a machine presumably
+another than that she had brought.
+
+“Professional?” I asked, to the manager’s resigned smile addressed to
+me.
+
+“So to speak,” said he. “She’s one of the ‘augment her income’ class.
+I fancy it’s little enough without. She’s done an occasional job for
+us. We’ve got her card somewhere.”
+
+“Can you find it?”
+
+He could find it, though he was evidently surprised at the
+request--scarce reasonably, I think, seeing how he himself had just
+given me an instance of that male inclination to the attractive, which
+is so calculated to impress woman in general with the injustice of our
+claims to impartiality.
+
+With the piece of pasteboard in my hand, I walked off then and there
+to commission “Miss Phillida Gray” with the job I had intended for
+Paul’s. Psychologically, I suppose, the case interested me. Here was a
+young person who seemed, for no _practical_ reason, to have quarrelled
+with her unexceptionable means to a livelihood.
+
+It raised more than one question; the incompleteness of woman as a
+wage earner, so long as she was emancipated from all but her
+fancifulness; the possibility of the spontaneous generation of
+soul--the _divina particula auræ_--in man-made mechanisms, in the
+construction of which their makers had invested their whole of mental
+capital. Frankenstein loathed the abortion of his genius. Who shall
+say that the soul of the inventor may not speak antipathetically,
+through the instrument which records it, to that soul’s natural
+antagonist? Locomotives have moods, as any engine-driver will tell
+you; and any shaver, that his razor, after maltreating in some fit of
+perversity one side of his face, will repent, and caress the other as
+gently as any sucking-dove.
+
+I laughed at this point of my reflections. Had Miss Gray’s
+type-writer, embodying the soul of a blasphemer, taken to swearing at
+her?
+
+It was a bitterly cold day. Snow, which had fallen heavily in
+November, was yet lying compact and unthawed in January. One had the
+novel experience in London of passing between piled ramparts of it.
+Traffic for some two months had been at a discount; and walking, for
+one of my years, was still so perilous a business that I was long in
+getting to Miss Gray’s door.
+
+She lived West Kensington way, in a “converted flat,” whose title,
+like that of a familiar type of Christian exhibited on platforms, did
+not convince of anything but a sort of paying opportunism. That is to
+say, at the cost of some internal match-boarding, roughly fitted and
+stained, an unlettable private residence, of the estimated yearly
+rental of forty pounds, had been divided into two “sets” at
+thirty-five apiece--whereby fashion, let us hope, profited as greatly
+as the landlord.
+
+Miss Gray inhabited the upper section, the door to which was opened by
+a little Cockney drab, very smutty, and smelling of gas stoves.
+
+“Yes, she was in.” (For all her burden, “Phillida,” with her young
+limbs, had outstripped me.) “Would I please to walk up?”
+
+It was the dismallest room I was shown into--really the most
+unattractive setting for the personable little body I had seen. She
+was not there at the moment, so that I could take stock without
+rudeness. The one curtainless window stared, under a lid of fog, at
+the factory-like rear of houses in the next street. Within was scarce
+an evidence of dainty feminine occupation. It was all an illustration
+of the empty larder and the wolf at the door. How long would the bolt
+withstand him? The very walls, it seemed, had been stripped for sops
+to his ravening--stripped so nervously, so hurriedly, that ribbons of
+paper had been flayed here and there from the plaster. The ceiling was
+falling; the common grate cold; there was a rag of old carpet on the
+floor--a dreary, deadly place! The type-writer--the new one--laid upon
+a little table placed ready for its use, was, in its varnished case,
+the one prominent object, quite healthy by contrast. How would the
+wolf moan and scratch to hear it desperately busy, with click and
+clang, building up its paper rampart against his besieging!
+
+I had fallen of a sudden so depressed, into a spirit of such
+premonitory haunting, that for a moment I almost thought I could hear
+the brute of my own fancy snuffling outside. Surely there was
+something breathing, rustling near me--something----
+
+I grunted, shook myself, and walked to the mantelpiece. There was
+nothing to remark on it but a copy of some verses on a sheet of
+notepaper; but the printed address at the top, and the signature at
+the foot of this, immediately caught my attention. I trust, under the
+circumstances (there was a coincidence here), that it was not
+dishonest, but I took out my glasses, and read those verses--or, to be
+strictly accurate, the gallant opening quartrain--with a laudable
+coolness. But inasmuch as the matter of the second and third stanzas,
+which I had an opportunity of perusing later, bears upon one aspect of
+my story, I may as well quote the whole poem here for what it is
+worth.
+
+
+ Phyllis, I cannot woo in rhyme,
+  As courtlier gallants woo,
+ With utterances sweet as thyme
+  And melting as the dew.
+
+ An arm to serve; true eyes to see;
+  Honour surpassing love;
+ These, for all song, my vouchers be,
+  Dear love, so thou’lt them prove.
+
+ Bid me--and though the rhyming art
+  I may not thee contrive--
+ I’ll print upon thy lips, sweetheart,
+  A poem that shall live.
+
+
+It may have been derivative; it seemed to me, when I came to read the
+complete copy, passable. At the first, even, I was certainly conscious
+of a thrill of secret gratification. But, as I said, I had mastered no
+more than the first four lines, when a rustle at the door informed me
+that I was detected.
+
+She started, I could see, as I turned round. I was not at the trouble
+of apologizing for my inquisitiveness.
+
+“Yes,” I said; “I saw you at Paul’s Exchange, got your address, and
+came on here. I want some circulars typed. No doubt you will undertake
+the job?”
+
+I was conning her narrowly while I spoke. It was obviously a case of
+neurasthenia--the tendril shooting in the sunless vault. But she had
+more spirit than I calculated on. She just walked across to the empty
+fireplace, collared those verses, and put them into her pocket. I
+rather admired her for it.
+
+“Yes, with pleasure,” she said, sweetening the rebuke with a blush,
+and stultifying it by affecting to look on the mantelpiece for a card,
+which eventually she produced from another place. “These are my
+terms.”
+
+“Thank you,” I replied. “What do you say to a contra account--you to
+do my work, and I to set my professional attendance against it? I am a
+doctor.”
+
+She looked at me mute and amazed.
+
+“But there is nothing the matter with me,” she murmured, and broke
+into a nervous smile.
+
+“O, I beg your pardon!” I said. “Then it was only your instrument
+which was out of sorts?”
+
+Her face fell at once.
+
+“You heard me--of course,” she said. “Yes, I--it was out of sorts, as
+you say. One gets fancies, perhaps, living alone, and typing--typing.”
+
+I thought of the discordant clack going on hour by hour--the dead
+words of others made brassily vociferous, until one’s own
+individuality would become merged in the infernal harmonics.
+
+“And so,” I said, “like the dog’s master in the fable, you quarrelled
+with an old servant.”
+
+“O, no!” she answered. “I had only had it for a week--since I came
+here.”
+
+“You have only been here a week?”
+
+“Little more,” she replied. “I had to move from my old rooms. It is
+very kind of you to take such an interest in me. Will you tell me what
+I can do for you?”
+
+My instructions were soon given. The morrow would see them attended
+to. No, she need not send the copies on. I would myself call for them
+in the afternoon.
+
+“I hope _this_ machine will be more to the purpose,” I said.
+
+“_I_ hope so, too,” she answered.
+
+“Well, she seems a lady,” I thought, as I walked home; “a little
+anæmic flower of gentility.” But sentiment was not to the point.
+
+That evening, “over the walnuts and the wine,” I tackled Master Jack,
+my second son. He was a promising youth; was reading for the Bar, and,
+for all I knew, might have contributed to the “Gownsman.”
+
+“Jack,” I said, when we were alone, “I never knew till to-day that you
+considered yourself a poet.”
+
+He looked at me coolly and inquiringly, but said nothing.
+
+“Do you consider yourself a marrying man, too?” I asked.
+
+He shook his head, with a little amazed smile.
+
+“Then what the devil do you mean by addressing a copy of love verses
+to Miss Phillida Gray?”
+
+He was on his feet in a moment, as pale as death.
+
+“If you were not my father”--he began.
+
+“But I am, my boy,” I answered, “and an indulgent one, I think you’ll
+grant.”
+
+He turned, and stalked out of the room; returned in a minute, and
+flung down a duplicate draft of _the_ poem on the table before me. I
+put down the crackers, took up the paper, and finished my reading of
+it.
+
+“Jack,” I said, “I beg your pardon. It does credit to your heart--you
+understand the emphasis? You are a young gentleman of some prospects.
+Miss Gray is a young lady of none.”
+
+He hesitated a moment; then flung himself on his knees before me. He
+was only a great boy.
+
+“Dad,” he said; “dear old Dad; you’ve seen them--you’ve seen her?”
+
+I admitted the facts. “But that is not at all an answer to me,” I
+said.
+
+“Where is she?” he entreated, pawing me.
+
+“You don’t know?”
+
+“Not from Adam. I drove her hard, and she ran away from me. She said
+she would, if I insisted--not to kill those same prospects of mine. My
+prospects! Good God! What are they without her? She left her old
+rooms, and no address. How did you get to see her--and my stuff?”
+
+I could satisfy him on these points.
+
+“But it’s true,” he said; “and--and I’m in love, Dad--Dad, I’m in
+love.”
+
+He leaned his arms on the table, and his head on his arms.
+
+“Well,” I said, “how did _you_ get to know her?”
+
+“Business,” he muttered, “pure business. I just answered her
+advertisement--took her some of my twaddle. She’s an orphan--daughter
+of a Captain Gray, navy man; and--and she’s an angel.”
+
+“I hope he is,” I answered. “But anyhow, that settles it. There’s no
+marrying and giving in marriage in heaven.”
+
+He looked up.
+
+“You don’t mean it? No! you dearest and most indulgent of old Dads!
+Tell me where she is.”
+
+I rose.
+
+“I may be all that; but I’m not such a fool. I shall see her
+to-morrow. Give me till after then.”
+
+“O, you perfect saint!”
+
+“I promise absolutely nothing.”
+
+“I don’t want you to. I leave you to her. She could beguile a Saint
+Anthony.”
+
+“Hey!”
+
+“I mean as a Christian woman should.”
+
+“O! that explains it.”
+
+The following afternoon I went to West Kensington. The little drab was
+snuffling when she opened the door. She had a little hat on her head.
+
+“Missus wasn’t well,” she said; “and she hadn’t liked to leave her,
+though by rights she was only engaged for an hour or two in the day.”
+
+“Well,” I said, “I’m a doctor, and will attend to her. You can go.”
+
+She gladly shut me in and herself out. The clang of the door echoed up
+the narrow staircase, and was succeeded, as if it had started it, by
+the quick toing and froing of a footfall in the room above. There was
+something inexpressibly ghostly in the sound, in the reeling dusk
+which transmitted it.
+
+I perceived, the moment I set eyes on the girl, that there was
+something seriously wrong with her. Her face was white as wax, and
+quivered with an incessant horror of laughter. She tried to rally, to
+greet me, but broke down at the first attempt, and stood as mute as
+stone.
+
+I thank my God I can be a sympathetic without being a fanciful man. I
+went to her at once, and imprisoned her icy hands in the human
+strength of my own.
+
+“What is it? Have you the papers ready for me?”
+
+She shook her head, and spoke only after a second effort.
+
+“I am very sorry.”
+
+“You haven’t done them, then? Never mind. But why not? Didn’t the new
+machine suit either?”
+
+I felt her hands twitch in mine. She made another movement of dissent.
+
+“That’s odd,” I said. “It looks as if it wasn’t the fault of the
+tools, but of the workwoman.”
+
+All in a moment she was clinging to me convulsively, and crying--
+
+“You are a doctor--you’ll understand--don’t leave me alone--don’t let
+me stop here!”
+
+“Now listen,” I said; “listen, and control yourself. Do you hear? I
+have come _prepared_ to take you away. I’ll explain why presently.”
+
+“I thought at first it was my fault,” she wept distressfully,
+“working, perhaps, until I grew light-headed” (Ah, hunger and
+loneliness and that grinding labour!); “but when I was sure of myself,
+still it went on, and I could not do my tasks to earn money. Then I
+thought--how can God let such things be!--that the instrument itself
+must be haunted. It took to going at night; and in the morning”--she
+gripped my hands--“I burnt them. I tried to think I had done it myself
+in my sleep, and I always burnt them. But it didn’t stop, and at last
+I made up my mind to take it back and ask for another--another--you
+remember?”
+
+She pressed closer to me, and looked fearfully over her shoulder.
+
+“It does the same,” she whispered, gulping. “It wasn’t the machine at
+all. It’s the place--itself--that’s haunted.”
+
+I confess a tremor ran through me. The room was dusking--hugging
+itself into secrecy over its own sordid details. Out near the window,
+the type-writer, like a watchful sentient thing, seemed grinning at us
+with all its ivory teeth. She had carried it there, that it might be
+as far from herself as possible.
+
+“First let me light the gas,” I said, gently but resolutely detaching
+her hands.
+
+“There is none,” she murmured.
+
+None. It was beyond her means. This poor creature kept her deadly
+vigils with a couple of candles. I lit them--they served but to make
+the gloom more visible--and went to pull down the blind.
+
+“O, take care of it!” she whispered fearfully, meaning the
+type-writer. “It is awful to shut out the daylight so soon.”
+
+God in heaven, what she must have suffered! But I admitted nothing,
+and took her determinedly in hand.
+
+“Now,” I said, returning to her, “tell me plainly and distinctly what
+it is that the machine does.”
+
+She did not answer. I repeated my question.
+
+“It writes things,” she muttered--“things that don’t come from me. Day
+and night it’s the same. The words on the paper aren’t the words that
+come from my fingers.”
+
+“But that is impossible, you know.”
+
+“So _I_ should have thought once. Perhaps--what is it to be possessed?
+There was another type-writer--another girl--lived in these rooms
+before me.”
+
+“Indeed! And what became of her?”
+
+“She disappeared mysteriously--no one knows why or where. Maria, my
+little maid, told me about her. Her name was Lucy Rivers, and--she
+just disappeared. The landlord advertised her effects, to be claimed,
+or sold to pay the rent; and that was done, and she made no sign. It
+was about two months ago.”
+
+“Well, will you now practically demonstrate to me this reprehensible
+eccentricity on the part of your instrument?”
+
+“Don’t ask me. I don’t dare.”
+
+“I would do it myself; but of course you will understand that a more
+satisfactory conclusion would be come to by my watching your fingers.
+Make an effort--you needn’t even look at the result--and I will take
+you away immediately after.”
+
+“You are very good,” she answered pathetically; “but I don’t know that
+I ought to accept. Where to, please? And--and I don’t even know your
+name.”
+
+“Well, I have my own reasons for withholding it.”
+
+“It is all so horrible,” she said; “and I am in your hands.”
+
+“They are waiting to transfer you to mamma’s,” said I.
+
+The name seemed an instant inspiration and solace to her. She looked
+at me, without a word, full of wonder and gratitude; then asked me to
+bring the candles, and she would acquit herself of her task. She
+showed the best pluck over it, though her face was ashy, and her mouth
+a line, and her little nostrils pulsing the whole time she was at
+work.
+
+I had got her down to one of my circulars, and, watching her fingers
+intently, was as sure as observer could be that she had followed the
+text verbatim.
+
+“Now,” I said, when she came to a pause, “give me a hint how to remove
+this paper, and go you to the other end of the room.”
+
+She flicked up a catch. “You have only to pull it off the roller,” she
+said; and rose and obeyed. The moment she was away I followed my
+instructions, and drew forth the printed sheet and looked at it.
+
+It may have occupied me longer than I intended. But I was folding it
+very deliberately, and putting it away in my pocket when I walked
+across to her with a smile. She gazed at me one intent moment, and
+dropped her eyes.
+
+“Yes,” she said; and I knew that she had satisfied herself. “Will you
+take me away now, at once, please?”
+
+The idea of escape, of liberty once realized, it would have been
+dangerous to balk her by a moment. I had acquainted mamma that I might
+possibly bring her a visitor. Well, it simply meant that the suggested
+visit must be indefinitely prolonged.
+
+Miss Gray accompanied me home, where certain surprises, in addition to
+the tenderest of ministrations, were awaiting her. All that becomes
+private history, and outside my story. I am not a man of sentiment;
+and if people choose to write poems and make general asses of
+themselves, why--God bless them!
+
+The problem I had set _my_self to unravel was what looked deucedly
+like a tough psychologic poser. But I was resolute to face it, and had
+formed my plan. It was no unusual thing for me to be out all night.
+That night, after dining, I spent in the “converted” flat in West
+Kensington.
+
+I had brought with me--I confess to so much weakness--one of your
+portable electric lamps. The moment I was shut in and established, I
+pulled out the paper Miss Gray had typed for me, spread it under the
+glow and stared at it. Was it a copy of my circular? Would a sober
+“First Aid Society” Secretary be likely, do you think, to require
+circulars containing such expressions as “_William! William! Come back
+to me! O, William, in God’s name! William! William! William!_”--in
+monstrous iteration--the one cry, or the gist of it, for lines and
+lines in succession?
+
+I am at the other end from humour in saying this. It is heaven’s
+truth. Line after line, half down the page, went that monotonous,
+heart-breaking appeal. It was so piercingly moving, my human terror of
+its unearthliness was all drowned, absorbed in an overflowing pity.
+
+I am not going to record the experiences of that night. That
+unchanging mood of mine upheld me through consciousnesses and
+sub-consciousnesses which shall be sacred. Sometimes, submerged in
+these, I seemed to hear the clack of the instrument in the window, but
+at a vast distance. I may have seen--I may have dreamt--I accepted it
+all. Awaking in the chill grey of morning, I felt no surprise at
+seeing some loose sheets of paper lying on the floor. “_William!
+William!_” their text ran down, “_Come back to me!_” It was all that
+same wail of a broken heart. I followed Miss Gray’s example. I took
+out my match-box, and reverently, reverently burned them.
+
+An hour or two later I was at Paul’s Exchange, privately interviewing
+my manager.
+
+“Did you ever employ a Miss Lucy Rivers?”
+
+“Certainly we did. Poor Lucy Rivers! She rented a machine of us. In
+fact----”
+
+He paused.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well--it is a mere matter of business--she ‘flitted,’ and we had to
+reclaim our instrument. As it happens, it was the very one purchased
+by the young lady who so interested you here two days ago.”
+
+“The first machine, you mean?”
+
+“The first--_and_ the second.” He smiled. “As a matter of fact, she
+took away again what she brought.”
+
+“Miss Rivers’s?”
+
+He nodded.
+
+“There was absolutely nothing wrong with it--mere fad. Women start
+these fancies. The click of the thing gets on their nerves, I suppose.
+We must protect ourselves, you see; and I’ll warrant she finds it
+perfection now.”
+
+“Perhaps she does. What was Miss Rivers’s address?”
+
+He gave me, with a positive grin this time, the “converted” flat.
+
+“But that was only latterly,” he said. “She had moved from----”
+
+He directed me elsewhere.
+
+“Why,” said I, taking up my hat, “did you call her ‘poor Lucy
+Rivers’?”
+
+“O, I don’t know!” he said. “She was rather an attractive young lady.
+But we had to discontinue our patronage. She developed the most
+extraordinary--but it’s no business of mine. She was one of the
+submerged tenth; and she’s gone under for good, I suppose.”
+
+I made my way to the _other_ address--a little lodging in a
+shabby-genteel street. A bitter-faced landlady, one of the
+“preordained” sort, greeted me with resignation when she thought I
+came for rooms, and with acerbity when she heard that my sole mission
+was to inquire about a Miss Lucy Rivers.
+
+“I won’t deceive you, sir,” she said. “When it come to receiving
+gentlemen privately, I told her she must go.”
+
+“Gentlemen!”
+
+“I won’t do Miss Rivers an injustice,” she said. “It was _ha_
+gentleman.”
+
+“Was that latterly?”
+
+“It was not latterly, sir. But it was the effects of its not being
+latterly which made her take to things.”
+
+“What things?”
+
+“Well, sir, she grew strange company, and took to the roof.”
+
+“What on earth do you mean?”
+
+“Just precisely what I say, sir; through the trap-door by the steps,
+and up among the chimney-pots. _He’d_ been there with her before, and
+perhaps she thought she’d find him hiding among the stacks. He called
+himself an astronomer; but it’s my belief it was another sort of
+star-gazing. I couldn’t stand it at last, and I had to give her
+notice.”
+
+It was falling near a gloomy midday when I again entered the flat, and
+shut myself in with its ghosts and echoes. I had a set conviction, a
+set purpose in my mind. There was that which seemed to scuttle, like a
+little demon of laughter, in my wake, now urging me on, now slipping
+round and above to trip me as I mounted. I went steadily on and up,
+past the sitting-room door, to the floor above. And here, for the
+first time, a thrill in my blood seemed to shock and hold me for a
+moment. Before my eyes, rising to a skylight, now dark and choked with
+snow, went a flight of steps. Pulling myself together, I mounted
+these, and with a huge effort (_the bolt was not shot_) shouldered the
+trap open. There were a fall and rustle without; daylight entered;
+and, levering the door over, I emerged upon the roof.
+
+Snow, grim and grimy and knee-deep, was over everything, muffling the
+contours of the chimneys, the parapets, the irregularities of the
+leads. The dull thunder of the streets came up to me; a fog of thaw
+was in the air; a thin drizzle was already falling. I drove my foot
+forward into a mound, and hitched it on something. In an instant I was
+down on my knees, scattering the sodden raff right and left, and--my
+God!--a face!
+
+She lay there as she had been overwhelmed, and frozen, and preserved
+these two months. She had closed the trap behind her, and nobody had
+known. Pure as wax--pitiful as hunger--dead! Poor Lucy Rivers!
+
+Who was she, and who the man? We could never learn. She had woven his
+name, his desertion, her own ruin and despair into the texture of her
+broken life. Only on the great day of retribution shall he answer to
+that agonized cry.
+
+
+
+
+ THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR
+
+
+ Ho! bring me some _lovers_, fat or lean,
+ That I may crunch ’em my teeth between!
+ I could eat so many, so many, so many,
+ That in the wide world there would not be left any.
+
+ Ho! Here is Avenant to be seen,
+ Who comes to draw your teeth so keen;
+ He’s not the greatest man to view,
+ But he’s big enough to conquer you.
+
+        Planché’s “D’Aulnoy,” slightly misquoted.
+
+
+Sir Richard Avenant came home from Abyssinia to an interesting
+notoriety. He had been associated--a sort of explorative
+free-lance--with the expedition of Mr. Bruce, who was not yet returned
+from his adventures up the Nile in quest of the sources of that
+bewildering water; and, upon his arrival in London, he found himself
+engaged to a romance which was certainly remote from his deserts.
+
+Now he was a strong, saturnine man, but apt to whimsical decisions,
+whose consequences, the fruits of whatever odd impulses, he never had
+a thought but to hold by; and as the self-reserved must suffer the
+character accorded to their appearance (the only side of them
+confessed), Sir Richard found himself accredited, by anticipation,
+with deeds adapted to the countenance he had always addressed to the
+world.
+
+He was strolling, some days after his return, through the streets,
+when he was accosted by an acquaintance, a _preux chevalier_ of the
+highest _ton_, curled, be-ruffed, and imperturbably self-assured.
+
+“Why, strike me silly, Dick!” cried this exquisite, “what do you,
+wandering unsociable in a shag coat, and all London by the ears to
+lionize ye?”
+
+“Well, I know not, George. What have I done to be lionized?”
+
+“Done! _Done?_ asks the man that will not devour a steak but ’tis cut
+raw from the buttock of the living beast! _Done?_ asks Bluebeard (and
+stap me, Dick, but your chin is as blue as a watchman’s!)--_done_, he
+says, that brings grass-petticoats in his train enough to furnish the
+Paradise of the Grand Turk! Prithee, Dick, where hast stowed ’em all?
+O, thou hast a great famous reputation, I assure thee, to justify
+thyself of with the women! Such is the report of thy peris--their
+teeth, their raven hair, their eyes like stars of the night--there’s
+no virtue in town could resist, if asked, to be thy queen and theirs.”
+
+He was chuckling, and taking a delicate pinch of martinique, with his
+little finger cocked to display a glittering stone, when his eyes
+lighted on a house over against which they were standing.
+
+“Hist!” said he, pointing with his cane; “pan my honour, the single
+reservation.”
+
+“Single reservation?” repeated the explorer. “To what? To this London
+of frailties?”
+
+“To be sure,” said the other. “The one party, I’ll dare swear, that
+would not put her nose in a ring for thy sake.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Avenant. “Then she’s the one I must wed.”
+
+The elegant cocked his head, squinting derisive.
+
+“I lay you a double pony to a tester you don’t, within the decade.”
+
+“Done! Tell me about her.”
+
+“I’ll do more. I’ll carry you in to her, here and at once. Tell me
+about her, quotha! She’s the Fair with Golden Hair, and a guinea and a
+suitor to every thread of it.”
+
+“Whence comes she?”
+
+“From Arcadia, man, with a fortune of gold and roses. She cuts out
+hearts raw, as you do steaks, and devours them by the dozen. O, you
+shall know her!”
+
+“But by what name, George, by what name?”
+
+“Have I not told you? It shall suffice for all your needs. Thou shalt
+take a pack of Cabriolles, and never hunt her to the death. Come, my
+friend!”
+
+He led Sir Richard to the house, and had himself announced. They
+ascended a flight of stairs, going up into a heaven of floating
+fragrance and melodious sounds. Their feet moved noiseless over silken
+carpets. They crossed an anteroom ruffling with lackeys, and were
+ushered into the Fair’s boudoir.
+
+She sat at her mirror, in the hands of her perruquier. She was the
+most beautiful insolent creature Sir Richard had ever seen. There was
+not an inch of her which Nature could have altered to its improvement.
+The very patch on her cheek was a theft from perfection. But to so
+much loveliness her hair was the glory, a nimbus which, condensing in
+the heavy atmosphere of adoration, dropped in a melting flood of gold,
+which, short of the ground only, shrank and curled back from its gross
+contact.
+
+All round and about her hummed her court--poets, lords,
+minstrels--suitors straining their wits and their talents for her
+delectation, while they bled internally. Many of them greeted Sir
+Richard’s chaperon, many Sir Richard himself--good-humouredly,
+jealously, satirically, as the case might be--as the two pushed by. A
+stir went round, however, when the rough new-comer’s name was put
+about; and some rose in their seats, and all dwelt inquisitively on
+the explorer’s reception.
+
+It was condescending enough; as was that of his friend, who loved
+himself too well, and too wittily, to show a heart worth the beauty’s
+discussing.
+
+“Have you got back your appetite, sir,” said the Fair to Avenant, “for
+dressed meats?”
+
+“And ladies?” whispered Sir Richard’s friend.
+
+“O, fie!” said madam.
+
+“I will return the question on you,” said Sir Richard, in a low voice.
+
+The Fair lifted her brows.
+
+“Why, I am told, madam,” said Avenant, “that you feed on raw hearts;
+but I am willing to believe that the one lie is as certain as the
+other.”
+
+The imperious beauty bit her underlip, and laughed.
+
+“I perceive, Sir Richard,” she said, “that you do not court by
+flattery.”
+
+“I do not court at all, madam,” he answered.
+
+“Ah, true!” she replied. “You buy in the open market. It must be
+simpler; though, in the plain lodging where I hear you lie at present,
+the disposal of so responsible an establishment must exercise your
+diplomacy.”
+
+She spoke aloud, evoking a general titter; and so aloud Avenant
+answered her.
+
+“By no means, madam. I have in my sleeping-room a closet with three
+shelves. On one of these lies Beauty, unspoiled by adulation; on
+another lies Virtue, that respects her sex too well to traduce it; on
+the third lies feminine Truth, loveliest of her sisters. These are my
+whole establishment; and as they are shadows all, existing only in the
+imagination, they exercise nothing but my fondness for unattainable
+ideals.”
+
+The company broke into much laughter over this Jeremiad; and the girl
+joined her young voice to theirs. But a little glow of colour was
+showing in her cheek, verily as if Sir Richard had flicked that fair
+surface with his glove.
+
+“O!” she said, “this is a sad regale! Sure, sir, does the climate of
+Abyssinia breed no hotter than Leicestershire Quakers? Why, I have
+heard a lion roar fiercer in a caravan. Now, pray, Sir Richard, put
+off your civilities, and give us news instead of lessons. They say
+there is a form of lawless possession in the women of the country you
+visited.”
+
+“It is very true there is, madam. It is called the _Tigrétier_--a
+seizure of uncontrollable vanity, during which the victim is so
+self-centred that she is unable to attend to the interests, or even to
+distinguish the sexes of those about her. She will, for instance,
+surround herself with a circle of male admirers, assuming all the
+time, apparently, that they are the gossips of her own sex, with whom,
+like a decent woman, she would wont ordinarily, of course, to consort
+in private.”
+
+The Fair cried out, “Enough! Your stories are the most intolerable
+stuff, sir. I wish Mr. Bruce joy of your return, as I hear you are not
+to remain in England.”
+
+Then she turned her shoulder to him, her flush deepening to fire; and
+Sir Richard, bowing and moving away, fell into conversation with one
+or two of his acquaintances. Presently, looking up, he was surprised
+to see the room near empty. Goldenlocks had, in fact, issued her
+wilful mandate, and her court was dismissing itself.
+
+The explorer was pressing out after the rest, when a maidservant
+touched his sleeve, and begged him to return to her lady, who desired
+a word with him. Sir Richard acquiesced immediately. He found the Fair
+standing solitary by her dressing-table, frowning, her head bent, her
+fingers plucking at a wisp of lace. Her hair, still undressed, hung
+down deep over her shoulders, mantling them with heavy gold, like a
+priest’s chasuble.
+
+“Did you seek my acquaintance, sir,” she said imperatively, “with the
+sole purpose to insult me?”
+
+“Nay, madam,” he answered, as cool as tempered steel; “but because you
+was described to me as the one woman in London that I might not marry,
+if I had the will to.”
+
+“Why not?” was on the tip of her tongue; he saw it there. But she
+caught at herself, and answered, “So, sir, like sour reynard, I
+suppose, you would spite what you found it useless to covet.”
+
+“_I_ covet, madam!” he said, in a tone of astonishment. “_I_ aspire to
+wrest this wealth and beauty from a hundred worthier candidates!
+Believe me, my ambition halted far short of such attainment.”
+
+Her lips smiled, despite herself. What were the value, she suddenly
+thought, in a world of suitors that did not include this shagg’d and
+rugged Jeremiah? Her speech fell as caressing as the sound of water in
+a wood.
+
+“Yet you confess to some ambition?” she murmured.
+
+“True,” he answered; “the virtuoso’s.”
+
+She lifted her beautiful brows.
+
+“I will be candid, madam,” he said. “I have the collector’s itch.
+Whithersoever I visit, I lay my toll on the most characteristic
+productions of the tribes--robes, carvings, implements of war--even
+scalps. Madam, madam, you must surely be of the sun children! Your
+hair is the most lovely thing! I would give my soul--more, I would
+give a thousand pounds to possess it.”
+
+“I see, sir,” she said; “to carry your conquest at your belt.”
+
+“Nay,” he answered, with feigned eagerness. “Not a soul need know. The
+thing is done constantly. You have but to subscribe to the fashion of
+powder, and you gain a novel beauty, and I a secret I swear to hold
+inviolate.”
+
+“O!” she said softly “This is Samson come with the shears to turn the
+tables on poor Delilah!”
+
+And on the instant she flashed out, breaking upon him in a storm of
+passion. That he dared, that he dared, on no warrant but his
+reputation for inhumanity, so to outrage and insult her.
+
+“Go, sir!” she cried. “Return to your Nubians and Dacoits--to
+countries where head-hunting is considered an honourable proof of
+manliness!”
+
+He stood, as outwardly insensate as a bull.
+
+“Then you decline to deal?”
+
+Her only answer was to throw herself into a chair, and to abandon
+herself to incomprehensible weeping. But even her sobs seemed to make
+no soft impression on him. He took a step nearer to her, and spoke in
+the same civil and measured tone he had maintained throughout.
+
+“Take care, madam. I never yet set my will upon a capture that in the
+long run escaped me.”
+
+She checked her tears, to look up at him with a little furious laugh.
+
+“Poor boaster!” she said. “I think, perhaps, that recounting of your
+Tigrétier hath infected you with it.”
+
+“By my beard, madam,” said he, “I will make that hair my own!”
+
+“See,” she cried jeeringly, “how a boaster swears by what he has not!”
+
+Sir Richard felt to his chin.
+
+“That is soon remedied,” said he. “And so, till my oath is redeemed,
+to consign my razors to rust!” And with these words, bowing
+profoundly, he turned and left the room.
+
+Shortly after this he sailed to rejoin his expedition, and was not
+again in England during a period of eighteen months.
+
+At the end of that time, being once more in London, he devoted
+himself--his affairs having now been ordered with the view to his
+permanent residence in the country--to some guarded inquiries about
+the Fair with Golden Hair. For some days, the season of the town being
+inauspicious, he was unable to discover anything definite about her.
+And then, suddenly, the news which he sought and desired came in a
+clap.
+
+He was walking, one day, down a street of poor and genteel houses,
+when he saw her before him. He stood transfixed. There was no doubting
+his own eyesight. It was she: tall, slender, crowned with her
+accustomed glory, the flower of her beauty a little wan, as if seen by
+moonlight. But what confounded him was her condition. Her dress was
+mean, her gloves mended; every tag of cheap ribbon which hung upon her
+seemed the label to a separate tragedy. Thus he saw her again, the
+Fair with Golden Hair; but how deposed and fallen from her insolent
+estate!
+
+She mounted a step to a shabby door. While she stood there, waiting to
+be admitted, an old jaunty cavalier came ruffling it down the street,
+accosted her, and accompanied her within. She might have glanced at
+Avenant without recognizing him. The rough dark beard he wore was his
+sufficient disguise.
+
+Sir Richard made up his mind on the spot, and acted promptly. Having
+no intention to procure himself a notoriety in this business, he
+rigidly eschewed personal inquiry, and employed an official informer,
+at a safe figure, to ferret out the truth for him. This, epitomized,
+discovered itself as follows:--
+
+Cytherea--Venus Calva--Madonna of the magic girdle, who had once
+reigned supreme between wealth and loveliness, who had once eaten
+hearts raw for breakfast, feeding her roses as vampires do, was
+desolate and impoverished--and even, perhaps, hungry. A scoundrelly
+guardian had eloped with trust funds: the crash had followed at a
+blow. Robbed of her recommendation to respect; deposed, at once, from
+the world’s idolatry to its vicious solicitation, she had fled, with
+her hair and her poor derided virtue, into squalid oblivion; that, at
+least, she hoped. But, alas for the fateful recoils on Vanity! She
+drives with a tight rein; and woe to her if the rein snap! A certain
+libidinous and crafty nobleman, of threescore or so years, had
+secured, in the days of the Fair’s prosperity, some little bills of
+paper bearing that beauty’s signature. These he had politicly withheld
+himself from negotiating, on the mere chance that they might serve him
+some day for a means to humiliate one who, in the arrogance of her
+power, had scoffed at his amatory, and perfectly honourable,
+addresses. That precaution had justified itself. The peer was now come
+to woo again, and less scrupulously, with his hand on a paper weapon,
+one stroke from which alone was needed to give the Fair’s poor
+drabbled fortune its quietus. She was at bay, between ruin and
+dishonour.
+
+Sir Richard came immediately to a resolve, and lost no time in giving
+it effect. He wrote a formal note to the Fair, recalling himself
+courteously to her remembrance, reminding her of his original offer,
+and renewing it in so many words. He would do himself the honour, he
+said, to wait upon her for her answer on such and such a day.
+
+To this he received no reply; nor, perhaps, expected one. He went,
+nevertheless, to his self-made appointment with the imperturbable
+confidence of a strong man.
+
+Passing, on his way, by a perruquier’s, he checked himself, and stood
+for some moments at gaze in a motionless reverie. Then he entered the
+shop, made a purchase, and, going to a barber’s, caused himself to be
+shorn, shaved, and restored to the conventional aspect. Thus
+conditioned, he knocked at the Fair’s door, and was ushered up--bawled
+up, rather, by a slattern landlady--into her presence.
+
+She rose to face him as he entered. She had his letter in her hand.
+Her beautiful hair, jealous, it seemed, to withdraw itself from the
+curioso’s very appraisement, was gathered into and concealed under a
+cap. Her features, thus robbed of their dazzling frame, looked
+curiously, sadly childish and forlorn. There were dark marks round her
+eyes--the scarce dissipated clouds of recent tears. Who can tell what
+emotions, at sight of this piteous, hard-driven loveliness, stirred
+the heart of the man opposite, and were repressed by his iron will?
+
+“This letter, sir,” said the Fair, holding out the paper in a hand
+which shook a little. “I have tacitly permitted you to presume a right
+to a personal answer to that which it proposes, because such a course
+appeared to me the least compromising. I cannot write my name, sir,
+nowdays--as scandal doubtless hath informed you--but Fortune will be
+using it to my discredit.”
+
+Sir Richard bowed.
+
+“There is this difference only, madam: _my_ word is the bond of a
+gentleman. I vowed you secrecy.”
+
+“That is to assume, on your part,” she said quietly, “a
+confidentialness which, in its insult to misfortune, is at least not
+the _act_ of a gentleman. Moreover, a gentleman, surely, had not taken
+advantage of circumstances to propose to destitution what affluence
+had once refused him.”
+
+“Beware, madam!” said Avenant. “Pride must make some sacrifices to
+virtue. If, in renewing a pure business offer, I, a simple instrument
+in the hands of Providence, give you an opportunity to maintain that
+priceless possession unimpaired, would it not be the truer
+self-respect to secure your honour at whatever cost to your
+sentiments?”
+
+“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have not forgotten, nor forgotten to
+resent, my self-constituted Mentor. I will assure him that, for the
+matter of my virtue, it is safe in my hands, though I have to arm
+those against myself.”
+
+“Good heavens, madam!” cried Avenant. “You are not at that resource?”
+
+“Give yourself no concern, sir,” she answered coldly. “The moral I
+learned of your insult, was to save myself in its despite.”
+
+His deep eyes glowed upon her.
+
+“You have sold your hair?” he said.
+
+“Yes,” she answered; “to pay my debts. ’Twas your letter decided me.”
+
+“At a thousand pounds?”
+
+“At a hundred.”
+
+Then she added, as if irresistibly, because she was still little more
+than a child, “And now, sir, how is the boaster vindicated? But your
+oath, I perceive, still goes beardless.”
+
+“Within the hour only,” said he; and, thrusting his hand into his
+breast, he drew out the long tresses of the Fair With Golden Hair.
+
+She stared, amazed a moment; then threw herself upon her knees by a
+chair, weeping and crying out--
+
+“O, I hate you, I hate you!”
+
+He strode, and stood over her.
+
+“I saw them through a window as I came. How could I mistake them?
+There is not their like in the world. But now, my oath redeemed, it is
+for you to say if I am to destroy them.”
+
+“O, my hair!” she wept; “my one beauty!”
+
+“I have staked all on this,” he cried. “If your hair was your one
+beauty, my beard alone redeemed me from appalling ugliness by so much
+as it hid of me. Well, I have lost on both counts, if the net result
+is your hatred.”
+
+She looked up, with drowned bewildered eyes, and held out her hand
+blindly.
+
+“Give me back my hair,” she said, “and you shall have the hundred
+pounds.”
+
+“Nay, sweet Delilah,” quoth he; “for that would be to return you your
+strength, and I want you weak.”
+
+Her arm dropped to her side.
+
+“That you may insult me with impunity!” she said bitterly.
+
+“Ah, Delilah!” he cried; “is it so bad, that the offer of my hand and
+heart is an insult to a woman?”
+
+She sank back, sitting on her heels. From under her cap, fallen awry,
+curled shavings of gold hung out--the residue of a squandered wealth.
+Her eyes were wide with amazement.
+
+“So bad?” she whispered. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
+
+He was not a conformable wooer. The love-wise sex shall say if he was
+a diplomatic one. He threw himself on his knees beside the Fair,
+seized her in his bear-like grip, and kissed her lips.
+
+“Now,” he said, “it is neck or nothing. None but a parson can wipe out
+the stain. Hate me now, and put Love to bed for by and by.”
+
+She smiled suddenly--like the rainbow; like an angel.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “if you insist. But the poor thing has slept so long
+in my heart, that it would fain wake up at last, and confess itself.”
+
+
+The peer took his settlement with a very bad grace; but he had to take
+it, and there was an end of him.
+
+“Avenant,” whispered the Fair, on the evening of their wedding day, “I
+have been vain, spoiled, perhaps untruthful. But I wished to tell
+you--you can put me to sleep on the middle shelf of your cupboard.”
+
+“It has been converted into a closet for skeletons,” he said. “I was a
+bachelor then.”
+
+
+
+
+ THE LOST NOTES
+
+The faculty of music is generally, I believe, inimical to the
+development of all the other faculties. Sufficient to itself is the
+composing gift. There was scarcely ever yet a born musician, I do
+declare, who, outside his birthright, was not a born ass. I say it
+with the less irreverence, because my uncle was patently one of the
+rare exceptions which prove the rule. He knew his Shakespeare as well
+as his musical-glasses--better than, in fact; for he was a staunch
+Baconian. This was all the odder because--as was both early and late
+impressed upon me--he had a strong sense of humour. Perhaps an eternal
+study of the hieroglyphics of the leger lines was responsible for his
+craze; for craze I still insist it was, in spite of the way he took to
+convince me of the value of cryptograms. I was an obstinate pupil, I
+confess, and withstood to the end the fire of all the big guns which
+he--together with my friend, Chaunt, who was in the same line--brought
+to bear upon me.
+
+Well, I was honest, at least; for I was my uncle’s sole provisional
+legatee, and heir presumptive to whatever small fortune he had amassed
+during his career. And day by day, as the breach between us widened, I
+saw my prospect of the succession attenuating, and would not budge
+from my position. No, Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I said, and Bacon,
+Bacon; and not all the cyphers in the world should convince me that
+any profit was to be gained by either imagining or unravelling a
+single one of them.
+
+“What, no profit!” roared my uncle. “But I will persuade you, young
+man, of your mistake before I’m done with you. Hum-ti-diddledidee! No
+profit, hey? H’m--well!”
+
+Then I saw that the end was come. And, indeed, it was an open quarrel
+between us, and I was forbidden to call upon him again.
+
+I was sorry for this, because, in his more frolicsome and
+uncontroversial moments, he was a genial companion, unless or until
+one inadvertently touched on _the_ theme, when at once he exploded.
+Professionally, he _could_ be quite a rollicking blade, and his
+settings of plantation songs were owned to be nothing less than lyric
+inspirations. Pantomime, too, in the light of his incidental music,
+had acquired something more than a classical complexion; and, in the
+domain of knockabout extravaganza, not only did the score of “The Girl
+who Knew a Thing or Two” owe to him its most refined numbers, but also
+the libretto, it was whispered, its best Attic _bonnes-bouches_.
+
+However, all that good company I must now forgo--though Chaunt tried
+vainly to heal the breach between us--and in the end the old man died,
+without any visible relenting towards me.
+
+I felt his loss pretty keenly, though it is no callousness in me to
+admit that our long separation had somewhat dulled the edge of my
+attachment. I expected, of course, no testamentary consideration from
+him, and was only more surprised than uplifted to receive one morning
+a request from his lawyers to visit them at my convenience. So I went,
+soberly enough, and introduced myself.
+
+“No,” said the partner to whom I was admitted, in answer to a question
+of mine: “I am not in a position to inform you who is the principal
+beneficiary under our friend’s will. I can only tell you--what a few
+days before his death he confided to us, and what, I think, under the
+circumstances, you are entitled to learn--that he had quite recently,
+feeling his end approaching, realized on the bulk of his capital,
+converted the net result into a certain number--five, I think he
+mentioned--of Bank of England notes, and… burned ’em, for all we know
+to the contrary.”
+
+“Burned them!” I murmured aghast.
+
+“I don’t say so,” corrected the lawyer drily. “I only say, you know,
+that we are not instructed to the contrary. Your uncle” (he coughed
+slightly) “had his eccentricities. Perhaps he swallowed ’em; perhaps
+gave ’em away at the gate. Our dealings are, beyond yourself, solely
+with the residuary legatee, who is, or was, his housekeeper. For her
+benefit, moreover, the furniture and effects of our late client are to
+be sold, always excepting a few more personal articles, which,
+together with a sealed enclosure, we are desired to hand over to you.”
+
+He signified, indeed, my bequest as he spoke. It lay on a table behind
+him: A bound volume of minutes of the Baconian Society; a volume of
+Ignatius Donnelly’s Great Cryptogram; a Chippendale tea-caddy (which,
+I was softened to think, the old man had often known me to admire); a
+large piece of foolscap paper twisted into a cone, and a penny with
+which to furnish myself with a mourning ring out of a cracker.
+
+I blushed to my ears, regarding the show; and then, to convince this
+person of my good-humoured sanity, giggled like an idiot. He did not
+even smile in reply, the self-important ass, but, with a manner of
+starchy condescension, as to a wastrel who was getting all his
+deserts, rose from his chair, unlocked a safe, took an ordinary sealed
+envelope from it, handed it to me, and informed me that, upon giving
+him a receipt, I was at liberty to remove the lot.
+
+“Thanks,” I said, grinding my astral teeth. “Am I to open this in your
+presence?”
+
+“Quite inessential,” he answered; and, upon ascertaining that I should
+like a cab called, sent for one.
+
+“Good morning,” he said, when at last it was announced (he had not
+spoken a word in the interval): “I wish you good morning,” in the
+morally patronizing tone of a governor discharging a prisoner.
+
+I responded coldly; tried, for no reason at all, to look threatening;
+failed utterly, and went out giggling again. Quite savagely I threw my
+goods upon the seat, snapped out my address, closed the apron upon my
+abasement, and sat slunk into the cavity behind, like a salted and
+malignant snail.
+
+Presently I thumped the books malevolently. The dear old man was
+grotesque beyond reason. Really he needn’t have left life cutting a
+somersault, as it were.
+
+But, as I cooled outwardly, a warmer thought would intrude. It drew,
+somehow, from the heart of that little enclosure lying at the moment
+in my pocket. It was ridiculous, of course, to expect anything of it
+but some further development of a rather unkind jest. My uncle’s
+professional connexion with burlesque had rather warped, it would
+appear, his sense of humour. Still, I could not but recall that story
+of the conversion of his capital into notes: and an envelope----!
+
+Bah! (I wriggled savagely). It was idiotic beyond measure so to
+flatter myself. Our recent relations had precluded for ever any such
+possibility. The holocaust, rather! The gift to a chance passer-by, as
+suggested by that fool of a lawyer! I stared out of the window,
+humming viciously, and telling myself it was only what I ought to
+expect; that such a vagary was distinctly in accordance with the
+traditions of low comedy. It will be observed that I was very
+contemptuous of buffoonery as a profession. Paradoxically, a joke is
+never played so low as when it is played on our lofty selves.
+
+Nevertheless, I was justified, it appeared. It may be asked, Why did I
+not at once settle the matter by opening the envelope in the cab?
+Well, I just temporized with my gluttony, till, like the greedy boy, I
+could examine my box in private--only to find that the rats had
+devoured all my cake. It was not till I was shut into my sitting-room
+that I dared at length to break the seal, and to withdraw----
+
+Even as it came out, with no suggestion of a reassuring crackle, I
+realized my fate. And this was it: please to examine it carefully--
+
+
+[IMAGE: images/img_197.jpg, “Musical notes”]
+
+
+Now, what do you make of it? “_Ex nihilo nihil fit_,” I think you will
+say with me. It was literally thus, carefully penned in the middle of
+a single sheet of music-paper--a phrase, or _motif_, I suppose it
+would be called--an undeveloped memorandum, in fact--nothing else
+whatever. I let the thing drop from my hand.
+
+No doubt there was some capping jest here, some sneer, some vindictive
+sarcasm. I was not musician enough to tell, even had I had spirit for
+the endeavour. It was unworthy, at least, of the old man--much more,
+or less, than I deserved. I had been his favourite once. Strange how
+the _idée fixe_ could corrode an otherwise tractable reason. In
+justice to myself I must insist that quite half my disappointment was
+in the realization that such dislike, due to such a trifle, could have
+come to usurp the old affection.
+
+By and by I rose dismally, and carried the jest to the piano. (Half a
+crown a day my landlady exacted from me, if I so much as thumped on
+the old wreck with one finger, which was the extent of my talent.)
+Well, I was reckless, and the theme appeared ridiculously simple. But
+I could make nothing of it--not though Mrs. Dexter came up in the
+midst, and congratulated me on my performance.
+
+When she was gone I took the thing to my chair again, and resumed its
+study despondently. And presently Chaunt came in.
+
+“Hullo!” he said: “how’s the blooming legatee?”
+
+“Pretty blooming, thanks,” I said. “Would you like to speculate in my
+reversion? Half a crown down to Mrs. Dexter, and the use of the tin
+kettle for the day.”
+
+“Done,” he said, “so far as the piano’s concerned. Let’s see what
+you’ve got there.”
+
+He had known of my prospective visit to the lawyers, and had dropped
+in to congratulate me on _that_ performance. I acquainted him with the
+result; showed him the books, and the tea-caddy, and the penny, and
+the remnants of foolscap--finally, handed him the crowning jest for
+inspection.
+
+“Pretty thin joke, isn’t it?” I growled dolefully. “Curse the money,
+anyhow! But I didn’t think it of the old man. I suppose you can make
+no more of that than I can?”
+
+He was squinting at the paper as he held it up, and rubbing his jaw,
+stuck out at an angle, grittily.
+
+“H’m!” he said, quite suddenly, “I’d go out for a walk and revive
+myself, if I were you. I intend to hold you to that piano, for my
+part; and you wouldn’t be edified.”
+
+“No,” I said: “I’ve had enough of music for a lifetime or so! I fancy
+I’ll go, if you won’t think me rude.”
+
+“On the contrary,” he murmured, in an absorbed way; and I left him.
+
+I took a longish spin, and returned, on the whole refreshed, in a
+couple of hours. He was still there; but he had finished, it appeared,
+with the piano.
+
+“Well,” he said, rising and yawning, “you’ve been a deuce of a time
+gone; but here you are”--and he held out to me indifferently a little
+crackling bundle.
+
+Without a word I took it from his hand--parted, stretched, and
+explored it.
+
+“Good God!” I gasped: “five notes of a thousand apiece!”
+
+He was rolling a cigarette.
+
+“Yes,” he drawled, “that’s the figure, I believe.”
+
+“For me?”
+
+“For you--from your uncle.”
+
+“But--how?”
+
+He lighted, took a serene puff or two, drew the _jest_ from his
+pocket, and, throwing it on a chair, “You’ll have to allow some value
+to cryptograms at last,” he said, and sat down to enjoy himself.
+
+“Chaunt!”
+
+“O,” he said, “it was a bagatelle. An ass might have brayed it out at
+sight.”
+
+“Please, I am something less than an ass. Please will you interpret
+for me?” I said humbly.
+
+He neighed out--I beg _his_ pardon--a great laugh at last.
+
+“O,” he cried: “your uncle was true blue; he stuck to his guns; but I
+never really supposed he meant to disinherit you, Johnny. You always
+had the first place in his heart, for all your obstinacy. He took his
+own way to convince you, that was all. Pretty poor stuff it is, I’m
+bound to confess; but enough to run _your_ capacities to extinction.
+Here, hand it over.”
+
+“Don’t be hard on me,” I protested, giving him the paper. “If I’m all
+that you say, it was as good as cutting me off with a penny.”
+
+“No,” he answered: “because he knew very well that you’d apply to me
+to help you out of the difficulty.”
+
+“Well, help me,” I said, “and, in the matter of Bacon, I’ll promise to
+be a fool convinced against my will.”
+
+“No doubt,” he answered drily, and came and sat beside me. “Look
+here,” he said; and I looked:--
+
+
+[IMAGE: images/img_200.jpg, “Musical notes”]
+
+
+“You know your notes, anyhow,” said he. “Well, you’ve only got to read
+off these into their alphabetical equivalents, and cut the result into
+perfectly obvious lengths. It’s child’s play so far; and, indeed, in
+everything, unless this rum-looking metronome beat, or whatever it may
+be, bothers you for a moment.”
+
+He put his finger on the crazy device perched up independently in the
+left-hand corner; and then came down to the lines again.
+
+“Let that be for the moment,” said he. “It don’t much signify, after
+all. How do these notes go? that’s the main question. Read ’em off.”
+
+I spelt them out, following his finger: “b a c e f d e c a d e c.”
+
+“That’s a good boy,” he said. “And now, what are these things beyond,
+that have run off the lines, so to speak?”
+
+“What are they? Why, I don’t see what they can be but notes.”
+
+“Exactly. Five notes.”
+
+I stared at the bundle in my hand, and then up at Chaunt.
+
+“O-o-o-o!” I exclaimed.
+
+He uttered a loud ironic laugh. “Well,” he said: “what does ‘b a c e f
+d e c a d e c’ spell?”
+
+I scratched my nose. “You tell me, please.”
+
+“O Jerusalem!” he cried, and took his pencil to the line, thus: b a c
+| e f | d e | c a d e | c--
+
+“Well?” he said again.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+He positively stamped. “Listen here,” he cried: “‘bac ef de cad-e
+c’--_don’t_ you see?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“O, you ineffable ass! ‘Back of the caddy’ (that’s to say the
+tea-caddy; there it is), ‘see’--see what? What follows? Why, five
+notes, don’t they? ‘Back of the caddy see five notes’--and there
+_they_ are.”
+
+I sank in a heap in my chair. Light had dawned on me. “And you found
+’em there, I suppose?” I murmured--“behind a false back or something?”
+
+He nodded. “You’re getting on.”
+
+“And, please, what’s the thing at the top?” I continued faintly. “Let
+me get it all over at once.”
+
+“Ah!” he said: “there’s a trifle more ingenuity in that, perhaps. What
+is it, to begin with? A demisemiquaver balanced on the top of an M Y,
+eh?”
+
+“So it appears to me.”
+
+“To any one. Don’t be frightened. Try it every way round, and conclude
+with this: ‘On the top of M Y’--that is to say, ‘_on_ M Y,’ which is
+_my_, ‘a demisemiquaver’: or, shorn of all superfluities (he pencilled
+it down), thus: ‘on my demisemiquaver.’ Now apply the same process.”
+
+I looked; pondered; felt myself instantly and brilliantly inspired;
+seized the pencil from him, and ticked off the measurements:--
+
+“On my demise | mi | q | u | av | er.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Chaunt, rising with the air of an at-length-released
+martyr, and proceeding to roll another cigarette: “‘On my demise, my
+cue you have here.’ ’Pon my word, without irreverence, it’s worthier
+of the composer of ‘Say, den, Julius, whar yo’ walkin’ roun’?’ than of
+the author of ‘Some Unnoticed Sides of Bacon.’ But all one can say is
+that he adapted himself to the intellectual measure of his legatee.
+Have you got a match?”
+
+I must end, I am really ashamed to say, with this. Anyhow, in one way
+my uncle was triumphant: I was convinced, at last and at least, of _a_
+value in cryptograms.
+
+
+
+
+ THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE
+ WORLD
+
+He was nicknamed, ironically, Carabas--a sort of French equivalent
+for Fortunatus--the only title by which I ever knew him. Perhaps the
+underlying sympathy which impelled the jest reconciled him to its
+mockery; for there is, after all, an acute distinction in being the
+unluckiest man in the world. Somebody says somewhere that it is better
+to “lead” in hell than be a super in heaven. There came a time, I
+think, when Carabas would have resented good fortune as an outrage. It
+would have broken his record, and made him commonplace at a blow. As
+with Hawthorne’s young woman who was bred and throve on poisons, a
+normal dietary would have been fatal to him. Carabas was nurtured on
+ill-luck.
+
+I made his acquaintance at Verey’s in Montreux. It was for ever
+Carabas here and Carabas there, and, sometimes, in badinage, M. le
+Marquis; for the fellow was always in huge request for his capability
+and good-humour. There was a great deal of commiseration being shown
+for him when I first arrived. Latterly he had drawn a prize
+ticket--for thirty thousand francs, I think it was--in some State
+lottery. But, alas! a few days before the declaration of the winning
+numbers, he had parted with his voucher for a trifle over cost price.
+We got up a consolation subscription for him in the hotel--relatively,
+quite a respectable little sum--which, with effusive thanks, he
+deposited in the Bureau de Secours Mutuels. The bank stopped payment
+almost at once, and Carabas lost his nest-egg, with a prospect of
+future “calls” from the parent cuckoo.
+
+After that, we abandoned him to his Nemesis. We had recognized
+finally, I suppose, that vails to him meant nothing but tips to his
+evil destiny, to whom, as to a rapacious head-waiter, they all
+accrued. And so he himself was convinced with us. He showed himself
+neither surprised nor aggrieved; but remained the sunniest fatalist,
+with just a touch of wistfulness, which Nature had ever produced out
+of a union between Candour and Philosophy.
+
+I don’t know what his official position was. I don’t think he knew
+himself. He wore a plain peaked cap, and a sleeved waistcoat with
+brass buttons, and was, loosely, jackal to the tremendous concierge
+whose bullion took the costly glass tabernacle in the hall with
+splendour. Carabas himself was not at all a figure of splendour. He
+was small, and placable in expression, with smiling cheeks, mobile
+lips, pencilled over by a tiny black moustache, and strength visible
+in nothing but his eyes. They were his vouchers of distinction above
+the common brand.
+
+One thing certain about him was that he was an accomplished linguist;
+a second, that, for all his unspoiledness, he had a large experience
+of man, and (notably) womankind; a third, that his courage was equal
+to his good temper; a fourth, that, with every natural claim to
+consideration, his pride halted at no service, whether of skill or
+complaisance, which an unscrupulous management could exact of him; a
+fifth and last, that he permitted his employers so to presume upon his
+reputation for successlessness, as to accept from them, in reward for
+his many accomplishments, wages which would have been cheap to
+inefficiency. His own material welfare, indeed, seemed always the
+thing remotest from his interests. To be helpful to others was the sum
+of his morality.
+
+I never could satisfy myself as to his nationality. Once--as one might
+ask him anything without offence--I put the question to him. To my
+secret surprise, he seemed to hesitate a perceptible moment before he
+answered, with a smiling shrug of his shoulders--
+
+“Cosmopolitan, monsieur; a foundling of Fortune.”
+
+“We should do very well, then,” I answered, “to claim you for
+England.”
+
+Was it fancy on my part that his pleasant face paled a little? “As to
+that,” he said, “I know nothing.”
+
+“You have never been in England?”
+
+He made no reply, but began bustling over some incoming luggage,
+calling to the porters at the lift; and in a moment he left me.
+
+The next day he was taken ill. The reversion of a service of raw
+oysters, supplied to the guests at table d’hôte, had found its way to
+the supper-table of the staff. Carabas detested oysters, but his
+gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial, and Ninette, the prettiest
+of _filles de cuisine_, sat next to him. She extracted a single
+“bivalve” from her half-dozen, and put it on his plate, moueing at him
+ravishingly.
+
+“Love conquers everything, M. Carabas,” she said; “even the
+antipathies of the stomach. I will not believe in your protestations
+unless you eat this for my sake.”
+
+He swallowed it at a gulp, and--it was a bad oyster, the only doubtful
+one in the whole consignment. Later, he was very sick; and afterwards
+ill for four days. Ninette cried, and then laughed, and congratulated
+herself on her escape. But as for the hotel, it was disconsolate in
+the temporary loss of its Carabas.
+
+For my part, I was even particularly conscious of a vague discomfort
+in his absence. Somehow a certain personal responsibility which I had
+undertaken seemed to weigh upon me the more heavily for it. It was not
+that Carabas could have lightened, by any conceivable means, my
+burden. It was just a sense of moral support withdrawn at a critical
+moment. It was as if the knees of my conscience were weak, owing to
+something having gone wrong with my backbone. But I will explain.
+
+Mr. G----, a very famous lawyer in our own country, had brought his
+family, a son and daughter, to holiday in Lucerne. The boy was a
+conceited and susceptible youth; to the lady I was--engaged.
+
+There seems no reason why impressionability should spell obstinacy;
+yet very often it does. Young Miller (so I will call him) having
+invited himself, at the Schweitzerhof, into the toils of a siren--a
+patently showy and dubious one--resisted all the efforts of his family
+to help him out. Baffled, but resolute, the father thereupon shifted
+the scene to Montreux, where they were no sooner arrived than he was
+summoned home on business at a moment’s notice. In the meanwhile, to
+me (hastily called from Paris, where it had been arranged I was to
+join the party on its homeward journey), was assigned the unenviable
+and impossible task of safeguarding the family interests. Miller had
+positively refused to accompany his father home, then or thereafter,
+until his absurd “honour,” as he called his fatuity, was vindicated.
+It would never do to abandon the wretched infant in the wilderness. He
+had his independence, and was a desirable _parti_. Hence my promotion
+to an utterly fictitious authority.
+
+I knew, naturally, how it would be; and so it turned out. The head was
+no sooner withdrawn, than Mademoiselle Celestine--privately advised,
+of course, of the fact--arrived at Verey’s. Here, then, was defiance
+unequivocal--naked and unashamed, I might have said, and been nearer
+the truth of the case. For mademoiselle’s charms were opulent, and she
+made no secret of them. One would have thought a schoolboy might have
+seen through that rouge and enamel, through the crude pencilling on
+those eyelashes, through all that self-advertising display. I will not
+dwell upon its details, because their possessor made, after all, only
+a summer nightmare for us, and was early discomfited. She served, at
+best, for foil to a brighter soul; and such is her present use in the
+context.
+
+From the outset there was no finesse, no pretence of propitiation in
+her tactics. She understood that it was a matter of now or never with
+her quarry, and aimed to bring him down sitting. A woman, even the
+best of her sex, never gives “law” in these matters. She goes out to
+kill.
+
+The two together formed an opposition camp--quite flagrantly, out in
+the sunlight. I thought sometimes the boy looked unhappy; but the
+witch would never let me have _him_ to myself, and I could not
+manœuvre _her_ from under his guns. I would never have scrupled to
+roll her in the mud, could I once have got her alone. But she was too
+cunning for that; and, as for her companion, his warfare was, after
+all, an honourable warfare. And all the time I had my own particular
+Campaspe to safeguard, to console, to squire through the odious
+notoriety which her brother’s infatuation had conferred upon us all.
+
+It was Carabas, of course, who in the end procured us a way, his own,
+out of the difficulty. The scandal being common property, there was no
+need for him to affect an ignorance of it. Yet we never knew, until
+the moment of his decision, how it had been occupying his mind from
+the beginning, or how, quietly and unobtrusively, he had been studying
+to qualify himself as our advocate. “_Our_ advocate,” I say; but I
+knew his brief was for the bright eyes of Campaspe. _He_ struck for
+the credit of the hotel, he declared; and mam’selle was associated
+with the best of that. Anyhow he struck, and daringly.
+
+He had risen from his bed on the fourth day, as smiling, as
+complaisant as ever. His presence, like a genial thaw, ameliorated the
+little winter of our discontent. We greeted his reappearance with
+effusion, and dated, from the moment of it, our restoration to the
+social sanities.
+
+It was a dusk, warm evening. The peaks of the Dent du Midi, thrust
+into a dewy sky, had been slowly cooling from pink to pearl-ash, like
+ingots of white-hot steel. Everything seemed one harmony of colour,
+except our thoughts, Campaspe’s and mine, as we strolled in the
+deserted garden. The Celestine and her victim had been out boating on
+the lake. We met them, unexpectedly returning. Mademoiselle was eating
+cherries out of a bag, and daintily spitting the stones right and left
+as she advanced. I don’t know how we should have faced the
+contretemps; I had no time, indeed, at the moment, to form a decision,
+before Carabas came softly and swiftly from a leafy ambush, and took
+command of the occasion.
+
+We all, I believe, instinctively recognized it for a critical one.
+Mademoiselle’s bosom, though she laughed musically (she had managed to
+preserve, it must be owned, the unspoiled voice of a _séductrice_)
+began to rise and fall in spasms. The portier addressed her without a
+moment’s hesitation.
+
+“I take the liberty to inform madame that she is in danger.”
+
+She gave a little gasp.
+
+“But is this comedy or melodrama?” she cried vehemently.
+
+“That is,” said Carabas, “as madame shall decide. I have the plot up
+my sleeve.”
+
+“The plot!” she echoed, and fell staring at him; and then furiously
+from him to us.
+
+“Go on,” she said. “I know very well who has instigated you to this.”
+
+She checked herself, and, smiling, put out a hand towards her
+companion, as if to ask, or give, reassurance. But I noticed, already
+to my satisfaction, that the boy did not respond. As for us, we were
+in complete darkness.
+
+“I obey, madame,” said Carabas. “This plot is told in a word. There
+was once in Paris a certain notorious _courtisane et joueuse_. Will
+madame desire her name?--_à bon entendeur demi-mot_. One night this
+lady’s husband, a Corsican, from whom she was separated on an
+honourable allowance, visited, purely by accident, her establishment.
+There was a fine scene, and he wounded her severely. She was forced by
+the police to prosecute him, and the jury, amidst the plaudits of the
+public, gave their verdict--against madame. But, triumphant there, the
+husband’s vengeance was whetted rather than assuaged. He would throw
+himself upon the suffrages of his countrymen in a more drastic
+vindication of his honour. She had disguised herself--her name--had
+fled. He devoted himself to the business of pursuit. At length he
+believed he had traced her to an hotel in Territet.”
+
+Carabas shrugged his shoulders and his lips, stuck out his arms at
+right angles with his body, stiff from the elbow, and came to a
+significant stop. I declare I pitied the adventuress. Every expression
+but that of panic seemed eliminated from her face at a touch. She
+looked old and haggard; and then, as if conscious of her
+self-betrayal, collapsed in a moment, dropping her bag of cherries.
+
+“I am not very well,” she stammered; “the night air tries me.” She
+turned lividly upon the portier: “Par pitié, monsieur! C’est pour me
+prevenir que vous etes venu, non pour me trahir?”
+
+Without waiting for his answer, she gathered herself together,
+literally, folding her train about her arm; made a desperate effort at
+self-command; wrenched out a smile, and went off, quavering a little
+airy chansonnette. But, after a few steps, despite her royal amplitude
+she was running. Carabas, very pale but self-possessed, picked up the
+bag, found one cherry in it, put it in his mouth abstractedly, and--
+
+“My God!” cried Miller hoarsely.
+
+Carabas jumped, and gulped.
+
+“A thousand devils!” he cried. “You made me swallow the stone,
+monsieur.”
+
+The boy was in a fever of agitation.
+
+“Is she really that--that sort?” he said.
+
+My Campaspe fell upon his neck.
+
+“O, my dear, O, my dear, I am so sorry!” she sobbed.
+
+He put her roughly, but not unkindly, away.
+
+“I’m--I’m going back to England--to the governor,” he said.
+
+“Carabas,” I demanded privately, as we returned to the hotel, “is it a
+fact that----?”
+
+“The husband is here? No, monsieur; it is not a fact.”
+
+“But----”
+
+“It was a _cause célèbre_. I was confident I recognized madame from
+the published prints. For the rest, it was just a chance shot; but it
+hit the mark.”
+
+“Carabas, you are wonderful; and we shall not forget.”
+
+Miller was as good as his word. With characteristic disregard for any
+but his own interests, he was gone the next morning, without sign or
+message, leaving us to wobble in his backwash of scandal, and to get
+out of it as best we could. His flight, of course, threw open all the
+doors of gossip. My business in Paris being unfinished, I had to go;
+but first I did my best to provide against unpleasantnesses by
+confiding Campaspe to the care of the least slanderous _dame de
+compagnie_ I could find. I am afraid, nevertheless, she had but a poor
+time of it.
+
+A week later I received a letter from Mr. G----, who in the interval
+had returned to Montreux.
+
+“All is happily over with all,” he wrote: “with the exception, that is
+to say, of poor Carabas, who is to undergo an operation for
+appendicitis. It appears that a cherry-stone, which he swallowed
+unwittingly, did the business. The management (OWLS!) demur to the
+expense. I have insisted (FOOLS!) upon undertaking it upon my own
+account. We owe much to him; and so do they (IDIOTS!). But they don’t
+understand how to pay your debts is very often the best foresight.”
+
+It was a case of pitch and toss. For days, it appeared, Carabas’s life
+hung in the balance. In the meanwhile, I was enabled to rejoin Mr.
+G---- and his daughter at Montreux, and to take my share in the
+nursing. Between gratitude and indignation, we rather claimed Carabas
+among us. Campaspe the poor fellow simply adored. Once, when he
+fancied himself losing hold, he confided to her, while we stood by,
+some main incidents in his life. I retail them here, in an abbreviated
+form.
+
+
+
+
+ CARABAS’S STORY
+
+“There is no doubt,” he said “that as truly as some men are born
+without a palate, so some men are born without luck. It is no use
+trying to remedy the deficiency; it is well, rather, to study to
+reconcile oneself to it.
+
+“I was born in an English village, of naturalized Huguenot parents.
+When I was nineteen, I fell passionately in love. I had for a rival a
+youth very strong and unscrupulous. One day he persuaded me to bathe
+with him in the river, then swollen with floods. In mid-stream he
+pounced upon me, and strove to bear me under. I struggled
+desperately--it was of no avail. Death thundered in my ears; the water
+enwrapped and proceeded to swallow me. The last thing I saw was a
+figure gesticulating and shouting on the bridge a little way above;
+then consciousness fled, and I sank. I came to myself, stranded
+somewhere in a dark channel. A mad face was bending over me. I knew
+it--it was that of the miller. I had been carried into his race, and,
+just short of the wheel, he had caught and dragged me to shore. He was
+a drunkard, of that I was aware; and he was now quite demented.
+
+“‘Mordieu!’ he said, ‘I see what you’ve come for, and the devil shan’t
+call twice for his own.’
+
+“I understood instantly. He meant himself to go with me into the
+water--to join issues with the devil who had called for him, and have
+a fine frolic into eternity with his visitor. Terror lent me strength.
+I caught at a post, and, as he leaned down, shot my whole body at him
+like a spring. He went over with a splash, and I heard the wheel
+hitch, then begin to turn again, chewing its prey. O, my friends, what
+a situation! I lay like one damned, a thousand dreadful reflections
+mastering me. I should be accused, if caught, of murdering this man.
+That terror quite devoured the other, and increased with every moment
+that I lay. Darkness came upon me, and then I rose and fled. I thought
+of nothing but to escape; and so, stealing always by night, I reached
+London.
+
+“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I
+read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your
+Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual
+spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to _save me_ from
+drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his
+marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead;
+and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave--for my body, it appeared,
+had never been recovered--the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not
+complain, therefore. Yet--ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of
+sympathizers!--_she_ had been very dear to me.”
+
+Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could
+go on.
+
+“I obtained work--under an assumed name, of course--and for many years
+found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for
+languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more
+than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and
+soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize.
+Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the
+other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees
+him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.
+
+“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for
+companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the
+Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the
+train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of
+the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the
+distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he
+could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform.
+Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and
+on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.
+
+“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full
+horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite
+scares, and--ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already
+perceived my misfortune.
+
+“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a
+great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was
+certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as
+certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now
+possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon
+the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the
+smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform
+without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been
+passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make
+my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had
+fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to
+find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human
+monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for
+the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward
+on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now
+give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought
+that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this
+dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end
+before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur,
+if he likes, to vindicate my name.”
+
+
+As he finished, Mr. G----, whose face had been wonderfully kindling
+towards the end, bent over the bed.
+
+“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter,
+confessed the whole truth before he died.”
+
+Carabas sprang up.
+
+“Monsieur!” he cried.
+
+“I am a lawyer,” said Mr. G----; “I was connected with the case. The
+man confessed, I say. If I had only known that--Carabas! Carabas! you
+were the one witness we wanted, and could not find!”
+
+Campaspe knelt down, and put a pitiful young arm round the shoulders
+of the unluckiest man in the world.
+
+“Not only we now,” she said softly, “but others also, it seems, owe
+you a great debt, dear Carabas. We shall all be unable to pay it if
+you die. If--if I give you a kiss, will you live to return it to me on
+my wedding day?”
+
+“Mademoiselle!” cried Carabas, radiant. “You shame ill-luck; you shame
+even Death. See how they turn and go out by the door! Vouchsafe me
+that dear mascot, and I swear I will live for ever.”
+
+He is now, and has been for long, our most loved and trusted servant,
+with an iron constitution, and, what is best, an unshakable conviction
+that the circumstances which led him on to his present position were,
+after all, the kindest of luck in disguise.
+
+
+
+
+ JACK THE SKIPPER
+
+“Will you favour me by looking at it, young gentleman?” said the
+petitioner.
+
+_It_ was a most curious little model, which the petitioner had taken
+reverently out of a handbag. He was a hungry, eager-looking man, in a
+battered bowler, shabby frockcoat, and a primordial “comforter” which
+might have been made for Job.
+
+Mr. Edward Cantle, busy at his desk, paid no attention.
+
+“It turns, sir, literally, on a question of fresh butter,” said the
+petitioner. “Who gets it nowadays, or realizes how, between churn and
+table, every pat becomes a dumping-ground for bacilli? Here, you will
+observe, the whole difficulty is resolved. We lead the cow into the
+cart itself, milk her into a separator, turn her out, drive off, and
+the revolution of the wheels completes the process. See? No chance for
+any freebooting germ! The result is simplicity itself--the customer’s
+butter made actually on the way to his door.”
+
+Mr. Cantle put his pen in his mouth, blotted what he had been at work
+on, examined it cursorily but surely, rose, walked to the counter, and
+presented a form to the petitioner, all something with the air of a
+passionless police-inspector. He was a tall young man, loose-limbed,
+and with all his hardness, like a melancholy Punch’s show character,
+in his head. Much converse with cranks had engendered in him an air of
+perpetual unspoken protest, of exasperated resignation. For he was a
+trusted clerk in the office of the Commissioners of Patents for
+Inventions.
+
+“Exactly,” he mumbled over the goose-quill. “Thats a matter for your
+provisional specification. Good morning.”
+
+“It’s the most wonderful----”
+
+“Of course--they all are. Good morning.”
+
+“It will revolutionize----”
+
+“Naturally. You will make your petition and declaration in the proper
+forms. Good morning.”
+
+The inventor essayed another effort or two, met with no response,
+quavered out a sigh, packed up his treasure and vanished. The sound of
+his exit neither relaxed nor deepened a wrinkle on the brow of the
+neatly groomed Government official. He simply went on with his work.
+
+At half-past one o’clock, it being Saturday, he--we were going to say
+“knocked off,” but the expression would be a libel on his methodical
+refinement. He took a hansom--selecting a personably horsed one--to
+his chambers in Adelphi Terrace; lunched off four _pâté de foie
+gras_ sandwiches, already awaiting him under a silver cover, and a
+glass of chablis; changed his dress for a river suit of sober-tinted
+flannel and a Panama hat; charged himself with a morocco handbag, also
+ready prepared; drove to Waterloo, and took a first-class ticket, and
+the train--he favoured the South-Western because it was the quieter
+line of two in this connexion--to Windsor. Arrived there, he was
+hailed and joined by a friend on the platform.
+
+“Glad you’re come, Ned. I’m off colour a bit. You never are.”
+
+It was hardly an attractive reception. Mr. Cantle glanced
+interrogatively at his companion, the Honourable Ivo Monk, son of Lord
+Prior.
+
+“No?” he said. “What’s disturbing you, Monk?”
+
+“O, the devil, I think!” said the young man peevishly. “Come along,
+do, out of this.”
+
+Together they walked down to the river in almost absolute silence. Mr.
+Cantle had agreed to join his friend for an agreeable week-end on the
+water. It looked promising. He thought a little, and came to a
+characteristically uncompromising decision.
+
+“Is it anything to do with Miss Varley?”
+
+“Yes, it is.”
+
+“She--they have a houseboat here, haven’t they?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Close by?”
+
+“More or less. Just above Datchet.”
+
+“Then, I think, perhaps I’d better----”
+
+“Then, I think, perhaps, you’d not. You don’t know anything about it.
+It’s not what you suppose.”
+
+“O!”
+
+A punt, in luxurious keeping with the tastes of its owner, awaited
+them at the steps. It was equipped with a number of little lockers for
+wine and food, a wealth of the downiest cushions, and an adjustable
+tilt with brass hoops for “roughing it” at nights on the water. For
+the Honourable Ivo was at the moment an aquatic gipsy, wandering at
+large and at whim, and scorning the effeminate pillow.
+
+They loitered through Romney lock, talking commonplaces, and below
+relinquished their poles and sat and drifted until the reeds held them
+up. It was a fair, sweet afternoon, full of life and merriment, and,
+in view of the crowding craft, the remotest from ghostliness.
+
+“Would you like to see her?” said Mr. Monk suddenly and unexpectedly.
+
+Cantle was never to be taken off his guard.
+
+“If it will please you, it will please me,” he said.
+
+They resumed the poles and made forward. To their left a little sludgy
+creek went up among the osiers; and, anchored at its mouth, rocked the
+vulgarest little apology for a houseboat. It seemed just one cuddy,
+mounted on a craft like a bomb-ketch, which it filled from stem to
+stern; and what with its implied restrictedness, and dingy appearance,
+and stump of a chimney, one could not have imagined a less inviting
+prison in which to make out a holiday. Yet there was a lord to this
+squalid baby galliot, and to all appearance a very contented one, as
+he sat smoking a pipe, with his legs dangling over the side. Monk
+nodded to him, and the man nodded back with a grin.
+
+“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Cantle, when out of earshot.
+
+“O, a crank! You should recognize the breed better than I do.”
+
+Mr. Cantle, thoughtfully nursing his jaw, with a frown on his face,
+had left off punting.
+
+“Don’t you know him?” he said suddenly.
+
+“We exchange civilities,” answered the other; “the freemasonry of the
+river, you understand. _There’s_ the Varleys’ boat.”
+
+Forging under the Victoria Bridge, they had come in view of a long
+line of houseboats moored under the left bank against a withy bed,
+opposite the Home Park. At one of these, hight the “Mermaid,” very
+large and handsome, they came to, and fastening on, stepped aboard. A
+sound of murmuring ceased with their arrival, and Cantle had hardly
+become aware of two figures seated in the saloon, before he was being
+introduced to one of them.
+
+Miss Varley was certainly “interesting”--tall and “English,” but with
+an exhausted air, and her eyes superhumanly large. She greeted the
+stranger sweetly, and her fiancé with a rather full, pathetic look.
+
+“Mamma’s resting a little,” she said, in a bodiless voice, “and
+Nanna’s been reading to me. Papa comes down by the seven o’clock
+train.”
+
+“And what’s Nanna been reading?” asked the young man.
+
+The old nurse held up the volume. It was the Holy Book. Monk ground
+his teeth.
+
+“Hush, Master Ivo!” whispered the woman. “You only distress her.”
+
+“I’d rather see her reading a yellow-back on a July day on the river.”
+
+The girl put a hand on his arm. “When the call has come? When my days
+are numbered, Ivo?” she said.
+
+He almost burst out in an oath.
+
+“I’d rather, if I were you, be recognized and called by my own name
+and nature,” he said bitterly. “But it’s all nonsense, Netta. Do, for
+God’s sake, believe it!”
+
+He was so obviously overwrought, the situation was so painful, that
+his friend persuaded him, on personal grounds, to leave. They punted
+across, dropped down a distance, and brought up under the bank in a
+quiet spot.
+
+“Very well,” said Cantle. “You’ll tell me, perhaps, what’s the
+matter?”
+
+“Can’t you see? She’s dying.”
+
+He dropped his face into his hands, with a groan of impotent
+suffering.
+
+“There’s some mystery here,” said his friend quietly.
+
+Monk looked up, and burst out in a sudden lost fury--
+
+“There is, by God! Jack the Skipper!”
+
+Cantle was rolling a cigarette imperturbably.
+
+“Who’s--Jack the Skipper?” he drawled.
+
+“I wish you could tell me,” cried the other. “I wish you could show
+these the way to his throat!” He held out his hands. “They’d fasten!”
+he whispered.
+
+He came all of a sudden, quite quietly, and sat by his friend. “Its
+been going on for three weeks now,” he said rapidly. “They call him
+that about here--a sort of skit on the other--the other beast, you
+know. He appears at night--a sort of ghoulish, indescribable monster,
+black and huge and dripping, and utters one beastly sound and
+disappears. Nobody’s been able to trace him, or see where he comes
+from or goes to. He just appears in the night, in all sorts of
+unexpected places--houseboats, and bungalows, and shanties by the
+water--and terrifies some lonely child or woman, and is gone. The
+devil!--O, the devil! We’ve made parties and hunted him, to no good.
+It’s a regular reign of terror hereabouts. People don’t dare being
+left alone after dark. He frightened the little Cunningham child into
+a fit, and it’s not expected to recover. Mrs. Bancock died of an
+apoplexy after seeing it. And the worst of it is, a deadly
+superstition’s seized the place. Its visit’s got to be supposed to
+presage death, and----” He seized Cantle’s hand convulsively.
+
+“Damn it! It’s unnatural, Ned! The river’s haunted--here, in Cockney
+Datchet--in the twentieth century! You don’t believe in such
+things--tell me you don’t! But Netta----”
+
+His head sank on his breast. Cantle blew out a placid whiff of smoke.
+
+“But--Miss Varley?” he said.
+
+“You know--you’ve heard, at least,” said the other, “what she was. The
+_thing_ suddenly stood before her, when she was alone, one night.
+Well--you see what she is now.”
+
+“I don’t see, nevertheless, why she don’t----”
+
+“Pack and run? No more do I. Put it to her if you like. I’ve said _my_
+say. But she’s in the grip--thinks she’s had her call--and there’s no
+moving her. Cantle, she’s just dying where she stands.”
+
+Cantle’s cigarette made a tiny arc of light, and hissed in the river.
+He had heard of epidemic hysteria. The world was full of cranks.
+
+“Now,” he said, “drop the subject, please. Shall I tell you of some
+fools I’ve come across in my time?”
+
+He related some of his experiences in the Patent Office. The most
+impudent invention ever proposed, he said, was a burglar’s tool for
+snipping out and holding by suction in one movement a disk of window
+glass. His dry self-confidence had a curiously reassuring effect on
+the other. While they ate and drank and smoked and talked, the life of
+the river had become gradually attenuated and delivered to silence; a
+mist rose and hung above the water; sounds died down and ceased,
+concentrating themselves into the persistent dismal yelp of a dog
+somewhere on the bank above; the lights in the houseboats thinned to
+isolated sparks--twelve o’clock clanged from a distant tower.
+
+Then, all at once, he was alert and quietly active.
+
+“Monk, listen to me: I’m going to cure Miss Varley.”
+
+“Ned!”
+
+“Take the paddle and work up--up the river, do you hear? I’ll sit
+forward.”
+
+The ghost of a red moon was rising in the east. They slipped on with
+scarce a sound. A sort of lurid glaze enamelled the water. All of a
+sudden a sleek bulk rose ahead right in their path, wallowed a moment
+like a porpoise, and disappeared.
+
+“Good God!” cried Monk, in a choking voice, half rising from his seat.
+
+“Keep down!” whispered his friend.
+
+“Cantle! Did you see it? Cantle! It was he!”
+
+“Keep down!”
+
+They paddled on, past the last of the boats, through the bridge, on as
+far as the squat little bomb-ketch bulking black and menacing at the
+mouth of the creek.
+
+“Hold on!” whispered Cantle. “Run her out of sight into the reeds. We
+must wade on board there.”
+
+“There? That fellow Spindler’s boat?”
+
+“Of course, now. That was his name.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“You’ll soon know.”
+
+They accomplished the feat, though near mud-foundered by the way, and
+scrambled, dripping, on board. The door of the cuddy yielded to their
+touch. Monk was beginning to gather dim light.
+
+“Don’t let me,” he whispered, almost sobbing. “Keep my hands off him.”
+
+“Leave him to me,” said Cantle gravely.
+
+Not a sound of life greeted them. They stole into the cabin and closed
+the door, almost, upon themselves.
+
+“We must yield him to-night for the sake of to-morrow,” murmured
+Cantle.
+
+“Ned! If he goes again----”
+
+“Hush! It’s not probable he’d risk a second visit, knowing her
+watched.”
+
+The crack brightened as the moon rose: glowed into a ribbon of light.
+Suddenly Cantle gripped the other’s wrist.
+
+A stealthy puddling, sucking sound close by reached their ears. Over
+the side came swarming a great shapeless fishy creature, which settled
+with a sludgy wallop on the little triangle of foredeck almost at
+their feet. Monk gave a soft, awful gasp, and, with the sound, Cantle
+had dashed open the door and flung himself upon the monster.
+
+“Quick!” he cried; “you’ve got matches! Light a
+candle--lamp--anything! Lie still, Mr. Spindler. It’s all up. I know
+you and your Marine Secret Service suit! A knife now, Monk! Out he
+comes.”
+
+He was merciless with the blade when he got it, slashing and cutting
+at the oilskin suit, splitting it from top to toe. Mr. Spindler’s red
+beard and extravagant face came out of it like a death’s-head out of
+its chrysalis.
+
+“There goes the proud monument of a lifetime,” said the madman. He had
+made no effort to resist. The first blow at this darling of his
+invention had seemed to hamstring him, morally and materially.
+
+For he was just one of Mr. Cantle’s cranks--had once invented a
+submarine travelling suit, with which he had hoped to inaugurate a new
+system of Secret Service for the Admiralty. It was an ingenious enough
+device, with some scheme of floating valves through which to breathe;
+but the authorities, after holding him on and off, would have none of
+it. Then the fate of many inventors had befallen him. Between
+practical ruin and a moral sense of wrong, he had gone crazy, and
+vowed warfare on the mankind which had discarded him. It should
+comprehend, too late, the uses of instant appearance and disappearance
+to which his invention could be put. He went mad, and ended his days
+in an asylum.
+
+On the Monday morning Mr. Cantle posted back to the Patent Office; on
+the Tuesday Miss Varley was reading De Maupassant’s “Mademoiselle
+Fifi” under the awning of the “Mermaid’s” roof; and on the Wednesday
+Mr. Ivo Monk got her to name the day.
+
+
+
+
+ A BUBBLE REPUTATION
+
+
+ One crowded hour of glorious life
+ Is worth an age without a name.
+
+
+I had never suspected Sweeting of a desire to be “somebody.” Indeed,
+the _jeunesse dorée_, in whose ranks Nature had seemed
+unquestioningly to bestow him, is not subject to diffidence, or prone
+to the wisdom which justifies itself in a knowledge of its own
+limitations. I was familiar with his placid, cherubic face at a minor
+club or two, in the Park, in Strand restaurants and Gaiety stalls; and
+it had never once occurred to me to classify him as apart from his
+fellows of the exquisite guild. If, like Keats, he could appreciate
+the hell of conscious failure, its most poignant anguish, I could have
+sworn, would borrow from some too-late realization of the correctest
+“form” in a hat-brim or shirt-collar. I could have sworn it, I say,
+and I should have been, of course, mistaken. Keats may have claimed it
+as his poetical prerogative to go ill-dressed, and to object, though
+John, to be dubbed “Johnny.” It remained to Sweeting to prove that a
+man might be a very typical “Johnny” and a poet to boot. But I will
+explain.
+
+One day I entered the reading-room of the Junior Winston and nodded to
+Sweeting, who was seated solitary at the newspaper-table. While I was
+hunting for the “Saturday Review”--which was conducting, I had been
+told, the vivisection of a friend of mine--my attention was attracted
+by something actually ostentatious in Sweeting’s perusal of _his_
+sheet, and I glanced across. Judge my astonishment when I saw in his
+hands, not “Baily’s” or the “Pink ’Un,” but the very periodical I
+sought. I gasped; then grinned.
+
+“Hullo!” I said. “Since when have you taken to that?”
+
+He attempted to reply with a face of wondering hauteur, but gave up at
+the first twitch.
+
+“O,” he said rather defiantly, “you lit’ary professionals think no
+one’s in it but yourselves.”
+
+“In what?”
+
+“Why, this sort of thing,” he said, tapping the “Saturday”; “the real
+stuff, you know.”
+
+“Indeed,” I said, “we don’t. You’re always welcome to the reversion of
+my place in it for one.”
+
+“O, me!” he said airily. “It don’t positively apply there, you see,
+being a sort of a kind of a professional myself.”
+
+“My Sweet!” I exclaimed. “A professional--you?”
+
+“O, yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Write for the ‘Argonaut.’ Little
+thing of mine in it last number.”
+
+I felt faint.
+
+“May I see it?” I murmured. “If I don’t mistake, it’s under your elbow
+at this moment.”
+
+“Is it?” he answered, blushing flagrantly, “Lor’ bless me, so it is!”
+
+I took it from his hand, opened it, and read, over his undoubted
+signature--Marmaduke Sweeting--the title, “The Fool of the Family.”
+
+“Ah!” I thought, “of course. Like title like author.”
+
+But I was wrong. The tale, a veritable _conte drolatique_, was as keen
+and strong as a Maupassant. I had no choice but to take it at a
+draught, smacking my lips after. Then I put the paper softly down and
+looked across at him. His harmless features were set in a sort of
+hypnotic smile, his hat was tilted over his eyes, and he was making
+constant mouthfuls of the large silver knob of his stick. My eyes
+travelled to and fro between this figure and the figures of print
+_that were he_. What possible connexion could there be between the
+two? I thought of Buffon writing in lace ruffles, and all at once
+recognized a virtue in immaculate shirt-cuffs, and decided to consult
+some fashionable hosier about raising my price per thousand words. In
+the meantime my respect for Sweeting was born.
+
+“So,” I said, “you are somebody after all?”
+
+“Am I?” he answered, grinning bucolic. “Glad you’ve found it out.”
+
+“Why,” I said, “honestly there’s genius in this story; but nothing to
+what you’ve shown in concealing that you had any. There must be much
+more to come out of the same bin.”
+
+He flushed and laughed and wriggled, as I walked over and sat beside
+him.
+
+“O, I dare say!” he said. “Hope so, anyhow.”
+
+“Not a doubt. What made you think of it, now?”
+
+“O! I thought of it,” he said; and, after all, there was no better
+reply to an idiotic question. I was beginning humbly to appraise
+intellectual self-sufficiency at its value, and to appreciate the
+hundred disguises of reason.
+
+I saw a good deal of Sweeting, on his own initiative, after this. He
+would visit me in my rooms, and discuss--none too sapiently, I may
+have thought in other circumstances, and with the most ingenuous
+admiration for his own abilities--the values of certain characters as
+portrayed by him in a brilliant series, “The Love-Letters of a
+Nonconformist,” which had immediately followed in the “Argonaut” “The
+Fool of the Family,” and was taking the town by storm. Thus, “What
+d’ee think of that old Lupin, last number,” he would chuckle, “with
+his calling virtue an ‘emu,’ don’tcherknow?”
+
+“Ha, yes!” I would correct him, with a nervous laugh. “‘Anæmia’ was
+the word. You meant it, of course.”
+
+“Why, didn’t I say it?” he would answer. “It’s got a big swallow
+anyhow”; and then he would check himself suddenly, and, without
+further explanation, eye me, and begin to whistle.
+
+Now I might recall the passage to which he referred (to wit, that
+every red blood corpuscle, being a seed peccancy, so to speak, made
+virtue an anæmia) and try to puzzle out a quite new significance in
+it. Suspecting that its author’s apparent naïveté was only assumed,
+I was respectfully guarded in my answers, and, when he was gone, would
+curiously ponder the perspicacious uses to which he would put them. He
+did not consult me, I felt, as an oracle; but rather drew upon me for
+the vulgar currency of thought, to which his exclusiveness was a
+stranger. He was very secret about his own affairs; though I
+understood that he was becoming quite an important “name” in the
+literary world. Ostensibly he was not, after that first essay, to be
+identified with the “Argonaut,” though any one, having an ounce of the
+proper appreciation, could scarcely fail to mark in the “Love-Letters”
+the right succession of qualities which had made the earlier story
+notable. Indeed, he suffered more than any man I knew from the
+penalties attaching to the popular author. The number of
+communications, both signed and anonymous, which he received from
+admirers was astonishing. Scarce a day passed but he brought me
+specimens of them to discuss and laugh over. I did not, I must admit,
+think his comments always in good taste; but then I was not personally
+subject to the flattering pursuit, and so may have been no more
+constituted to judge than a monk is of a worldling.
+
+These testimonies to his fame were from every sort of individual--the
+soldier, the divine, the poet, the painter, the actor (and more
+especially the actress), the young person with views, the social
+butterfly, the gushling late of the schoolroom, the woman of
+sensibility late of the latest lifelong passion for art or religion,
+and finding, as usual, the taste of life sour on her lips after a
+recent debauch of sentiment. They all found something in the
+“Love-Letters” to meet their particular cases--some note of subtle
+sympathy, some first intimation to their misunderstood spirits of a
+kindred emotion which had _felt_, and could lay its finger with divine
+solace on the spot. No longer would they suffer a barren
+grievance--that hair-shirt which not a soul suspected but to giggle
+over. To take, for example, from the series a typical sentence which
+served so many for a text--
+
+“_To whom does the materialist cry his defiance--to whom but to God?
+He cannot rest from baiting a Deity whose existence he denies. He
+forgets that irony can wring no response from a vacuum._” A propos of
+which wrote the following:--
+
+
+ A Half-pay General.--Don’t tell me, Sir, but you’ve served, like me,
+ a confounded ungrateful country, and learned your lesson! Memorialize
+ the devil rather than the War Office. You’ve hit it off in your last
+ sentence to a T.
+
+ A Chorus Girl.--Dear Sir,--You mean me to understand, I know, and
+ you’re quite right. The British public has no more ears than a ass, or
+ they’d reconise who ought to be playing Lotta in “The Belle of
+ Battersea.” It’s such a comfort you can’t tell. Please forgive this
+ presumptious letter from a stranger.--Yours very affectionately,
+
+                                                      Dolly.
+
+ An Apostolic Fisherman.--I like your metaphor. I would suggest only
+ “ground-baiting a Deity” as more subtly applicable to the tactics of
+ a worldling. Note: “And Simon Peter said, ‘I go a-fishing.’”
+
+
+Take, again, this excerpt: “_Doctors’ advice to certain patients to
+occupy their minds recalls the Irishman’s receipt for making a cannon,
+‘Take a hole and pour brass round it._’” Of which a “True Hibernian”
+wrote--
+
+
+ Sir,--I’ve always maintained that the genuine “bull,” fathered on my
+ suffering country, came from the loins of the English lion. Murder,
+ now! How could a patient occupy his doctor’s mind as well as his own,
+ unless he was beside himself? And then he’d have no mind at all.
+
+
+Or take, once more and to end, the sentence: “_The Past is that
+paradoxical possession, a Shadow which we would not drop for the
+Substance_”; which evoked the following from “One who has felt the
+Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret”--
+
+
+ How strangely and exquisitely phrased! It brings, I know not how, the
+ memory of the Channel before me. I have only crossed it once; but, O!
+ the recollection! the solemn moving waters to which my soul went out!
+
+
+These are specimens, but a few, of the responses wrung by Sweeting
+from the human chords he touched. There were, in addition, prayers
+innumerable for autographs, requests for the reading of manuscripts,
+petitions for gratis copies of his works, to be sold for any and every
+charity but the betterment of impecunious authors. He fairly basked in
+the sunshine of a great reputation. There was only one flaw in his
+enormous self-satisfaction. By a singular perversity and most
+inexplicable coincidence, every one of these signed documents was
+without an address. But, after all, coincidence, which is only another
+name for the favouritism of Fate, must occasionally glut itself on an
+approved subject. Sweeting was in favour with the gods, and enjoyed “a
+high old time of it,” principally, perhaps, because he did not appear
+to be ambitious of impressing any “set” but that with which he was
+wont to forgather, and above which he made no affectation now of
+rising superior.
+
+I had an example one evening of this intellectual modesty, when
+casually visiting the Earl’s Court grounds. There I encountered my
+friend, the centre and protagonist of a select company in the
+enclosure. All exquisitely wore exquisite evening dress (for myself I
+always scornfully eschewed the livery), and all gravitated about
+Sweeting with the unconscious homage which imbecility pays to
+brains--“the desire of the moth for the star.” I could see at once
+that he was become their Sirius, their bright particular glory,
+reflecting credit upon their order. And he, who might have commanded
+the suffrages of the erudite, seemed content with his little
+conquest--to have reached, indeed, the apogee of his ambition--a
+one-eyed king among the blind. These suffered my introduction with
+some condescension, as a mere larva of Grub Street. They knew
+themselves now as the stock from which was generated this real genius.
+As for me, I was Gil Blas’s playwright at the supper of comedians. And
+then, at somebody’s initiative, we were all swaggering off together
+along the walks.
+
+Now, I had always had a sort of envy of the _esprit de ton_ which
+unites the guild of amiable gadflies; and, finding myself here, for
+all my self-conscious intellectual superiority, of the smallest
+account, I grew quickly sardonic. If I knew who wrote the
+“Heptameron,” I didn’t know, even by sight, the Toddy Tomes who was
+setting all the town roaring and droning with his song, “Papa’s
+Perpendicular Pants.” It is a peevish experience to be “out of it,”
+even if the _it_ is no more intelligible than a Toddy Tomes’s topical;
+and gradually I waxed quite savage. Reputation is only relative after
+all. There is no popular road to fame. As an abstract acquisition, it
+may be said to pertain at its highest to the man who combines quick
+perceptions with adaptive sympathies. I was not that man. In all, save
+exclusively my own company, I felt “out of it,” awkward because
+resentful, and resentful because awkward. I despised these asses,
+however franked by Sweeting, yet coveted, vainly, the temporary grace
+of seeming at home with them. I got very cross. And then we alighted
+on Slater.
+
+I knew it for his name by Sweeting’s greeting him in response to his
+hail. He was seated at a little table all by himself, drinking
+champagne, and alternately turning up and biting the ends of a red tag
+of beard, and luridly pulling at a ponderous cigar. He was a small,
+dingy person, so obviously inebriated, that the little human clearing
+in which he sat solitary was nothing more than the formal recognition
+of his state. He also, it was evident, to my disgust, despised the
+conventions of dress, but without any of those qualms of
+self-consciousness with which I was troubled. He lolled back, his hat
+crushed over his eyes, a hump of dicky and knotted tie escaping from
+his waistcoat-front, his disengaged thumb hooked into an arm-hole--as
+filthy a little vagabond, confident and maudlin and truculent in one,
+as you could wish. And he hailed Sweeting as a familiar.
+
+My friend stopped, with a rather sheepish grin.
+
+“Hullo, Slater!” said he. “A wet night, ain’t it?”
+
+Our little group came chuckling all about the baboon. Even then, I
+noticed, I was the one looked upon with most obvious disfavour by the
+surrounding company.
+
+“Look here,” said Sweeting, suddenly gripping me to the front. “Here’s
+one of your cloth, Slate’. Let me introjuce you,” and he whispered in
+my ear, “Awfully clever chap. You’ll like him when you know.”
+
+I suppose my instant and instinctive repulsion was patent even to the
+sot. He lurched to his feet, and swept off his crumpled hat with an
+extravaganza bow. Sweeting’s pack went into a howl of laughter. It was
+evident they were not unacquainted with the creature, and looked to
+him for some fun.
+
+“My cloth, sir?” vociferated the beast. “Honoured, sir, ’m sure, sir.
+Will you allow me to cut my coat according to it, sir? Has any
+gentleman a pair of scissors? Just the tails, sir, no more--quite
+large enough for me; and you’d look very elegent in an Eton jacket.”
+
+I tried to laugh at this idiotic badinage, and couldn’t.
+
+“O, crikey, wouldn’t he!” said a vulgar onlooker. “Like a sugar-barrel
+in a weskit.”
+
+Then, as everybody roared, I lost my temper.
+
+“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Sweeting. “It’s the way he’ll get his
+change out of you.”
+
+“Change!” I snapped furious. “No change could be for the worse with
+him, I should think. Let me pass, please!”
+
+The odious wretch was pursuing me all the time I spoke, while the
+others hemmed me in, edging me towards him and roaring with laughter.
+Sweeting himself made no effort to assist me, but stood to one side,
+irresistibly giggling, though with a certain anxiety in his note.
+
+“Call off your puppies!” I cried ragingly, and with the word was sent
+flying into the very arms of Slater. I felt something rip, and at a
+blow my hat sink over my eyes; and then a chill friendly voice entered
+into the mêlée.
+
+“O, look here, Slater, that’ll do, you know!”
+
+I wrenched my eyes free. My champion was not Sweeting, but Voules, Sir
+Francis Voules, of whom more hereafter. He was cool and vicious, and
+as faultlessly dressed as the others, but in a manner somehow superior
+to the foppery of their extreme youth. He carried a light overcoat on
+his arm.
+
+“O! _will_ it?” said Slater.
+
+“Yes, I said so,” said Voules, pausing a moment from addressing me to
+scan him. Slater slouched back to his table. Nobody laughed again.
+
+In the meantime, Sir Francis was helping me to restore my hat to
+shape, and to don _his_ overcoat.
+
+“Yours is split to the neck,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”
+
+He took my arm, and we strolled off together. The crowd, quite
+respectful, parted, and we were engulfed in it.
+
+I was grateful to Voules, of course, but inexplicably resentful of his
+cool masterfulness. Truth to tell, we were souls quite antipathetic;
+and now he had put me right--with everybody but myself. In a helpless
+attempt to restore that balance, I snarled fiercely, smacking fist
+into palm--
+
+“I’ll have the law of that beast! You know him, it seems? I can’t
+congratulate you on your friends.”
+
+“Sweeting was most to blame,” said Voules quietly.
+
+I grunted, and strode on fuming.
+
+“But, after all,” said Voules, “the poor ass had to back up his
+confederate.”
+
+I glanced at him as we walked.
+
+“His confederate?”
+
+“Of course. Didn’t you know? Slater really writes the things for which
+Sweeting gets the credit.”
+
+“O, come, Voules! Here’s one of your foolhardy calumnies. You really
+should be careful. Some day you’ll get into trouble.”
+
+“O, very well!”
+
+“You talk as if it were an open secret.”
+
+“You know Sweeting as well as I. Do you recognize his style in the
+Nonconformist lucubrations? Possibly you’ve had letters from him?”
+
+“I’ve some specimens of letters _to_ him now--letters from admirers.
+If anything were needed to refute your absurd statement, there they
+are in evidence.”
+
+He gave a little dry laugh; then touched my sleeve eagerly.
+
+“You wouldn’t think it abusing a confidence to show me those letters?”
+
+“I don’t know why. Sweeting’s laid no embargo on me.”
+
+“Very well. If you’ll let me, I’ll come home with you now.”
+
+I stumbled on in a sort of haze.
+
+I did not believe this to be any more than a mad shot in the dark. Sir
+Francis was one of those men who made mischief as Pygmalion made
+Galatea. He fell in love with his own conceptions--would go any
+lengths to gratify his passion for detraction. Do not suppose, from
+his prefix, that he was a bold, bad baronet. He was just an actor of
+the new creation--belonged to what was known by doyens of the old
+Crummles school as the be-knighted profession. The stage was an
+important incident in his social life, and he seldom missed a
+rehearsal of any piece to which he was engaged.
+
+“You know this Slater?” I said, as I drove in my latchkey. “As what?”
+
+“As a clever, disreputable, and perfectly unscrupulous journalist.”
+
+“Its preposterous! What could induce him to part with such a
+notoriety?”
+
+“The highest bidder, of course.”
+
+“What! Sweeting? If he’s still the simple Johnny you’d have him be?”
+
+“I’m yet to learn that the simple Johnny lacks vanity.”
+
+“But, for him, such an unheard-of way to gratify it!”
+
+“Opportunism, sir. There are more things in the Johnny’s philosophy
+than we dream of.”
+
+“Well, I simply don’t believe it.”
+
+Voules read, with an immobile face, the letters which Sweeting had
+left with me. At the end he looked up.
+
+“Are you open to a bet?”
+
+“Can’t afford it.”
+
+“Never mind, then.” He rose. “Truth for its own sake will do. Anyhow,
+I presume you don’t object to countering on Slater?”
+
+“O, do what you like!”
+
+“Thanks. Would you wish to be in at the death?”
+
+“Just as you please.”
+
+“You see,” said he, with a pleasant affectation of righteousness, “if
+my surmise is correct--and you’re the first one I’ve ventured to
+confide in--it’s my plain duty to prick a very preposterous bubble.
+Thank you for lending yourself to the cause of decency. Don’t say
+anything until you hear from me. Good-bye!”--and he was gone, followed
+by my inclination, only my inclination, to hurl a book after him.
+
+I sat tight--always the more as I swelled over the delay--till, on the
+third day following, Sweeting called on me. He came in very
+shamefaced, but with a sort of suppressed triumph to support his
+abjectness.
+
+“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said; “and I gave him a bit of my
+mind after you’d gone.”
+
+“Indeed,” I answered good-humouredly; “that was what you couldn’t well
+afford, and it was generous of you.”
+
+He was blankly impervious to the sarcasm. Had it been otherwise, my
+new-fledged doubts had perhaps fluttered to the ground. After a moment
+I saw him pull a paper from his pocket.
+
+“Look here,” he said, vainly trying to suppress some emotion, which
+was compound, in suggestion, of elation and terror. “You’ve made your
+little joke, haven’t you, over all those other people forgettin’ to
+put their addresses? Well, what do you think of _that_ for the Prime
+Minister?”
+
+I took from his hand a sheet of large official-looking paper, and
+read--
+
+
+ Dear Sir,--You may have heard of my book, “The Foundations of
+ Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested to learn that I am
+ contemplating a complete revision of its text in the light of your
+ “Love-Letters.” They are plainly illuminating. From being a man of no
+ assured opinions, I have become converted, through their medium, to a
+ firm belief in the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me
+ the honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-scribe
+ the author of that incomparable series. I shall do myself the pleasure
+ to call upon you at your rooms at nine o’clock this evening, when I
+ have a little communication to make which I hope will not be
+ unpleasing to you. Permit me to subscribe myself, with the profoundest
+ admiration, your obedient servant,
+
+                                                J. A. Burleigh.
+
+
+“Well,” I murmured, feeling suffocated, “there’s no address here
+either.”
+
+“No,” he answered; “but, I say, it’s rather crushing. Won’t you come
+and help me out with it?”
+
+“What do you want _me_ for?” I protested. “I’ve no wish to be
+annihilated in the impact between two great minds. You aren’t afraid?”
+
+“O, no!” he said, perspiring. “It’ll be just a shake, and ‘So glad,’
+and ‘Thanks, awfully,’ I suppose, and nothing more to speak of. But
+you might just as well come, on the chance of helping me out of a
+tight place. It’s _viva voce_, don’tcherknow--not like writin’, with
+all your wits about you. And I shall get some other fellows there,
+too, so’s we aren’t allowed to grow too intimate; and you might as
+well.”
+
+“I wonder what the ‘communication’ is?” I mused.
+
+“O, nothin’ much, I don’t suppose,” said Sweeting, with a blushing
+nonchalance. But it was evident that he had pondered the delirious
+enigma and emerged from it Sir Marmaduke.
+
+“Well,” I concluded rather sourly, “I’ll come.”
+
+He went away much relieved, and I fell into a fit of stupor. In the
+afternoon a telegram from Voules reached me, “Be at Sweeting’s 8.45
+to-night.”
+
+At a quarter to nine I kept my appointment. Sweeting was insufferably
+well-to-do, and his rooms were luxurious. They were inhabited at the
+moment by an irreproachable and almost silent company. Among them I
+encountered many of the young gentlemen who had been witnesses of, and
+abettors in, my discomfiture the other night. But they were all too
+nervous now to presume upon the recognition--too oppressed with the
+stupendous nature of the honour about to be conferred upon their
+host--too self-weighted with their responsibility as his kindred and
+associates. They could only ogle him with large eyes over immensely
+stiff collars, as he moved about from one to another, panic-struck but
+radiant. It was the crowning moment of his life; yet its sweeter
+aftermath, I could feel, reposed for him in the sleek necks of
+champagne-bottles just visible on a supper-table in the next room. He
+longed to pass from the test to the toast, and the intoxicating memory
+of a triumph happily accomplished. And then suddenly Slater came in.
+
+He was not expected, I saw in a moment. Indeed, how could such a
+death’s-head claim place at such a feast? He was no whit improved upon
+my single memory of him, unless, to give the little beast his due, a
+shade less inebriated. But he was as grinning, cocksure, and truculent
+a little Bohemian as ever. Sweeting stared at him aghast.
+
+“Good Lord, Slate’,” said he, “what brings you here, now?”
+
+“Why, your wire, old chap,” said the animal.
+
+“I never sent one, I swear.”
+
+“Oho!” cries Slater, glaring. “D’ you want to go back on your word?
+Ain’t I fine enough for this fine company?” and he pulled a dirty
+scrap of paper out of his pocket, and screeched, “Read what you said
+yourself, then!”
+
+The telegram went round from hand to hand. I read, when it came to my
+turn: “Come supper my rooms 8.45 to-night. M. Sweeting.”
+
+“I never sent it,” protested our host. “It must be a hoax. Look here,
+Slate’. The truth is, the Prime Minister wrote he wanted to make my
+acquaintance, because--because of the ‘Letters,’ you know; and--and
+he’s due here in a few minutes.”
+
+The creature grinned like a jackal.
+
+“My eyes, what fun!” he said. “I shall love to see you two meet.”
+
+“There’s--there’s fizz in the next room, Slate’,” said the miserable
+Sweeting.
+
+“You needn’t tell me,” said Slater. “I’d spotted it already.”
+
+And then, before another word could be said, the door was opened, and
+the guest of the evening announced.
+
+He came in smiling, ingratiatory, the familiar willowy figure in
+pince-nez. We all rose, and the stricken Sweeting advanced to meet
+him. The great man, looking, it is true, a little surprised over his
+reception, held out his hand cordially.
+
+“And is this----” he purred--and paused.
+
+Sweeting did not answer: he was beyond it; but he nodded, and opened
+his mouth, as if to beg that the “communication” might be posted into
+it, and the matter settled off-hand.
+
+“I did not, I confess,” said the Premier, glancing smilingly round,
+“expect my little visit of duty--yes, of duty, sir--to provoke this
+signal welcome on the part of a company in which I recognize, if I
+mistake not, a very constellation of the intellectual aristocracy.”
+
+Here a youth, with a solitaire in his eye, and a vague sense of
+parliamentary fitness, ejaculated “Hear, hear!” and immediately
+becoming aware of the enormity, quenched himself for ever.
+
+“It makes,” went on the right hon. gentleman, “the strict limit to my
+call, which less momentous but more exacting engagements have obliged
+me to prescribe, appear the more ungracious. In view of this enforced
+restriction, I have equipped myself with a single question and a
+message. Your answer to the first will, I hope--nay, I am
+convinced--justify the tenor of the second.”
+
+He released, with a smile, the hand which all this time he had
+retained, much to Sweeting’s embarrassment, in his own. Finding it
+restored to him, Sweeting promptly put it in his pocket, like a tip.
+
+“I ask,” said the Premier, “the author of ‘The Love-Letters of a
+Nonconformist’ to listen to the following excerpt” (he produced a
+marked number of the “Argonaut” from his pocket) “from his own
+immortal series, as preliminary to some inquiry naturally evoked
+thereby”--and he read out, with the intonation of a confident orator:
+“‘We have (shall I not declare it, my sweet?) the most beautiful women
+and the most beautiful poets in the world--two very good things, but
+the latter unaccountable. Passion, in perpetuating, idyllically
+refines upon the features of its desire; hence the succession of
+assured physical loveliness in a race which, however insensible to the
+appeals of emotional and intellectual beauty, can understand and
+worship the beauty that is plain to see.’”
+
+Here the reader paused, and looking over his glasses with a smile,
+very slightly shook his head, and murmuring, “The _beauty_ that is
+_plain_ to see! H’m! a fence that I will recommend to Rosebery,”
+continued, “‘Passion endows passion, far-reaching, to bribe the gods
+with a compound interest of beauty. It touches heaven in imagination
+through its unborn generations. It tops the bunker of the world, and,
+soaring, drops, heedless of Time the putter, straight into the
+eighteenth hole of the empyrean.”
+
+The Premier stopped again, and, looking gravely at Sweeting, asked,
+“What is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”
+
+Now I expected my friend to reveal himself, to sally brilliantly,
+referring his questioner, perhaps, to some satire in the making, some
+latter-day Apocalypse of which here was a sample extracted for bait to
+the curious. Well, he did reveal himself, but not in the way I hoped.
+He just strained and strained, and then dropped his jaw with the most
+idiotic little hee-haw of a laugh I ever heard, and--that was all.
+
+The other, looking immensely surprised, repeated his question: “What,
+sir, I ask you, is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”
+
+“Why, the one the Irishman poured brass round.”
+
+I started. It was not Sweeting who spoke, but Slater. The little demon
+stood grinning in the background, his tongue in his cheek, and his
+hands in his trousers pockets.
+
+“H’mph!” said the Prime Minister. “Very apt, sir. I recall the
+witticism. It is singularly applicable at the moment to the
+reorganization of the Liberal party. ‘Take a hole and pour brass round
+it.’ Exactly.”
+
+His manner, there was no denying it, was extremely severe as he again
+addressed the perspiring Sweeting--
+
+“Once more, sir,” he said, “I resume our discussion of a passage, the
+intellectual rights in which you would seem to have made over to your
+friends.” And, with a positive scowl, he continued his reading.
+
+“‘So well’ (writes the impassioned Nonconformist) ‘for the national
+appreciation of beauty that is physical. On the other hand (tell me,
+dear. It would come so reassuringly from your lips), what can account
+for the spasmodic recurrence in our midst of the inspired singer? What
+makes his reproduction possible among a people endowed with
+tunelessness, innocent of a metrical ear?’”
+
+Quite abruptly the Prime Minister ended, and, deliberately folding his
+paper, hypnotized with a searching stare his unhappy examinee.
+
+“The question, Mr. Sweeting,” said he, “is before the House. You will
+recognize it as ending--with some psychologic subtlety, to be
+continued in our next--number 10--the last published of the
+“Argonaut.” To me, I confess, the answer can be, like the Catholic
+Church, only one and indivisible. Upon the question of your conformity
+with my view depends the nature of the communication which I am to
+have the pleasure, conditionally, of making to you. Plainly, then,
+sir, what makes possible the spasmodic recurrence of the inspired
+singer in the midst of a people endowed with tunelessness and innocent
+of a metrical ear? I feel convinced you can return no answer but one.”
+
+A dead silence fell upon the room. Sweeting scratched his right calf
+with his left foot, and giggled. Then in a moment, yielding the last
+of his wits to the unendurable strain, he gave all up, and, wheeling
+upon Slater--
+
+“O, look here, Slate’!” he said. “What does?” and without waiting for
+the answer, drove himself a passage through his satellites, and
+collapsed half dead upon a sofa.
+
+The Premier, with an amazing calm, returned the “Argonaut” to his
+pocket.
+
+“Surely, sir,” said he, “this is inexplicable; but” (he made a
+denunciatory gesture with his hands) “it remains to me only to inform
+you that, conditional on your right reply to your own postulate, it
+was to have been my privilege to acquaint you of His Majesty’s
+intention to bestow upon you a Civil List pension of £250 a year;
+which now, of course----”
+
+He was interrupted by Slater--
+
+“O, that’s all one, sir! Fit the cap on the right head. The answer’s
+‘Protection,’ isn’t it? I ought to know, as I wrote, and am writing,
+the stuff.”
+
+“_You_, sir!”
+
+All eyes were turned upon the beastly little genius, as he stood
+ruffling with greed and arrogance, and thence to the sofa.
+
+“O, shut up!” said Sweeting feebly. “It was only a joke. I paid him,
+handsome I did, to let me have the kudos and letters and things. He’d
+the best of the bargain by a long chalk.”
+
+“He-he!” screeched Slater. “Why, you fool, did you think merit earned
+such recognition in this suffering world? Hope you enjoyed reading
+’em, Sweet, as I did writing ’em.” He turned, half-cringing,
+half-defiant, upon the guest. “I’m the author of the ‘Love-Letters,’
+sir--honour bright, I am; and I wrote every one of the testimonials,
+too, that that ass sets such store by. You’ll take those into
+consideration, I hope.”
+
+“I shall, sir,” thundered the other--“in my estimate of a fool and his
+decoy.”
+
+He blazed round and snatched up his hat.
+
+“Make way, gentlemen!” he roared, and strode for the door.
+
+A slip of pasteboard fluttered from his hand to the carpet; he flung
+wide the portal, banged it to behind him, and was gone.
+
+Some one, in a sort of spasmodic torpor, picked up the card, and
+immediately uttered a gasping exclamation. We all crowded round him,
+and, reading the superscription at which he was pointing, “Mr.
+Hannibal Withers, Momus Theatre,” exchanged dumbfounded glances.
+
+“Why, of course,” stuttered a pallid youth; “it was Withers, Voules’s
+pal; I reco’nize him now. He’s the Prime Minister’s double, you know,
+and--and he’s been and goosed us.”
+
+“What!” screamed Slater.
+
+But I was off in a fit of hysterical laughter.
+
+It was actually a fact. It is a mistake to suppose that your
+professional scandal-monger is prepared to build except on a
+substratum of truth. Voules had pricked the bubble as he had promised.
+The bargain, it was admitted, had been struck--on Slater’s side for
+such a consideration as would submerge him in champagne had he desired
+it. He had written and sent the manuscripts to Sweeting, who had had
+them typed, and passed them on to the “Argonaut” as his own. But the
+real author knew that his tenure was insecure so long as the other’s
+colossal vanity was not ministered to. Hence the correspondence, in
+which the little monster burlesqued his own lucubrations. It might all
+have ended in a case of perpetual blackmail (Sweeting never could see
+beyond the end of his own nose) had not the bait answered so instantly
+to Voules’s calculations.
+
+There was a bitter attack on the immorality of the stage in the next
+number of the “Argonaut,” which subsequently had to compound with
+Voules under threat of an action for libel. But Sweeting had his wish.
+He was “somebody,” as never yet. Until he took his notoriety for a
+long sea-voyage, he was more crushingly than any gentleman in the
+“Dunciad” “damn’d to fame.”
+
+
+
+
+ A POINT OF LAW
+
+ BY A CAPTIOUS LITIGANT
+
+Given a wet night on circuit, a bar parlour with a chattering fire,
+a box of tobacco, a china bowl of punch, and a mixed forensic company
+to discuss the lot, and what odds would you lay for or against the
+chances of a good story or so?
+
+Grope in your memory (before you answer) among legal collectanea and
+the newspaper reports of famous, or infamous, trials. What then?
+“Lord!” you admit, “these bones unearthed seem wretched remains
+indeed! I find your grooms of the horsehair, young and old, cracking
+their ineffable chestnuts for the benefit of an obsequious tipstavery;
+I find a bench so conservative that, though it be pitched in the very
+markets of chicanery, it is never to be won from its affected
+ignorance of those topical affairs which are matters, else apart, of
+common knowledge; I find the profession for ever given to whet its
+wits on a thousand examples of resourcefulness and impudence, and most
+often failing in the retort piquant.” Give me a cheeky witness to cap
+the best drollery ever uttered by counsel. Legal facetiæ, forsooth!
+The wit that tells is the wit that can cheat the gallows, not send to
+it. Any dullard can hang a dog.
+
+Look at the autobiographies of your retired legal luminaries: what
+scurvy bald reading they make as a rule. Look at--but no: he rests in
+Abraham’s bosom; he is studying the Mosaic law; we may be in need of
+him again some day.
+
+There is an odd family likeness between the personalia of lawyers and
+of actors. The fellows, out of court, stripped of their melodramatic
+trappings, can’t raise a laugh which would tickle any one less than a
+bishop. They are obsessed with the idea of their own importance. Much
+self-inflation has killed in them all sense of proportion. They prove
+themselves, the truth is, dull dogs on revision.
+
+The law is not so exhausting a study as it appears on first sight to a
+layman. Given an understanding of its main principle, which is
+syllogism, and there you are already in its Holy of Holies. As, for
+instance, I call a man a beast: a cheetah is a beast: I have called
+the man a cheater--ergo, he can proceed against me for defamation.
+There is its rubric in a nutshell--perfectly simple.
+
+However, _exceptis excipiendis_, there were Curran, and Erskine, and
+some others. There was also Brindley, the great Crown Prosecutor,
+whose eloquence was of such persuasiveness that it was said the very
+Bench _hung upon his word_. I had the chance to meet him once, in such
+a place and on such a night as I began by describing. It was in the
+“Maid’s Head” at Norwich, and my experience is at your service.
+
+It had, I knew, been a full list and a varied; yet the great man, it
+seemed, had found nothing in it all to stimulate his humorous
+faculties. The liveliness was all supplied by a pert Deputy Clerk of
+the Peace, whose bump of reverence was as insignificant as his
+effrontery was tremendous. The Bar began by tolerating him; went on to
+humour his sallies; chilled presently over his presumption; grew
+patronizing, impatient, and at last rude. He didn’t care; nor I,
+certainly. His readiness was the only relief from a congested boredom.
+
+The talk drifted, in the course of the evening, upon legal
+_posers_--circumstantial evidence, ex-statutory cases, and so forth.
+There were some dull examples proffered, and I observed, incidentally,
+that the Law, when it couldn’t hark back to precedent, was wont to
+grow a little hazy and befogged. Many solemn conundrums were
+propounded; but the Deputy Clerk, as usual, pushed himself to the
+front with an impertinence--
+
+“If I slink out of the company of a bore, am I guilty of stealing from
+his person?”
+
+“Pooh, pooh!” said Brindley, with contempt. “Don’t be flippant, sir.”
+
+The Deputy Clerk was not a whit abashed.
+
+“Sir, to you,” he said. “If that isn’t liked, I’ll propose another. If
+a woman is divorced from her husband, and a child is born to her
+before the decree is made absolute, is that child, lawfully begot,
+legitimate or illegitimate?”
+
+They were glad to take this seriously. I forget what the decision
+was--that, given the necessary interval between the decree and its
+confirmation, I think, the situation was virtually impossible.
+
+“Very well,” said the Deputy Clerk. “But perhaps one can conceive such
+a question rising. Let it pass, however; and answer me this,
+gentlemen: If one is imprisoned unjustly--that is to say, for a crime
+one has not committed--and, breaking out of prison, gives proof of
+one’s innocence, can one be indicted for prison-breaking?”
+
+This, at least, was a fair poser, and discussion on it grew actually
+warm.
+
+“Bosh!” said a fierce gentleman. “You ain’t going to justify your
+defiance of the law by arguing that the law is liable to make an
+occasional mistake--don’t tell me!”
+
+Here a very young barrister dared the revolutionary sentiment that the
+law, being responsible in the first instance to itself, might be
+treated, if caught-stumbling _in flagranti delicto_, as drastically as
+any burglar with a pistol in his hand. He was called, almost shouted,
+down. The suggestion cut at the very root of jurisprudence. The law,
+like the king who typified it, could do no wrong; witness its
+time-honoured right to _pardon_ the innocent victims of its own
+errors.
+
+“It may detain and incarcerate one for being only a suspected person,”
+said Brindley. “That its suspicions may prove unfounded, is nothing.
+It must be _cum privilegio_, or the constitution goes. A nice thing if
+the Crown could be put on its defence for an error in judgment.”
+
+“A very nice thing,” said the Deputy Clerk.
+
+Brindley snorted at him. “Perhaps,” said he sarcastically, “the
+gentleman will state a case.”
+
+The gentleman desired nothing better. I would have backed him to hold
+his own, anyhow; but, in this instance, I was gratified to gather from
+his manner that he had a real story to tell. And he had.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he said, “it occurred within my fathers memory; but my
+own is good enough to reproduce it literally. It made a rare stir in
+the Norwich of his day, and quite fluttered, I assure you, the
+dovecots of the profession.
+
+“The parties chiefly concerned in it were three: old Nicholas
+Browbody, his ward Ellen, and Mr. George Hussey, who was put on his
+trial for burglary and murder. Mr. George was quite a notable
+cracksman in his day, which was one pretty remote from ours in
+everything but the conservatism of the law. He was ‘housebreaker’ in
+the indictment; he was arrested by the Tombland patrol; and he was
+carried to court in a ‘chair,’ attended by a party of the City Guard.
+
+“George, says the story, was an elegant figure of a man, and not at
+all regardless of the modes. Dark blue coat with brass buttons, fancy
+vest, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, hair full dressed
+and a brooch in his bosom--that was how he appeared before his judges.
+
+“The facts were simple enough. On a night of November, a shot and a
+screech had been heard in Mr. Browbody’s house in Unthank, a ward of
+the city; an entrance had been made through a window, opportunely
+open, by the Watch as opportunely handy, and the housebreaker had been
+discovered, a warm pistol in his hand, standing over the body of old
+Nicholas, who lay dead on the floor with his head blown in.
+
+“The burglar was found standing, I say, like as in a stupor; the room
+was old Browbody’s study; the door from it into the passage was open,
+and outside was discovered the body of a girl, Miss Ellen, lying, as
+it were, in a dead faint. There you have the situation dashed in
+broad; and pretty complete, you’ll agree, for circumstantial
+evidence.”
+
+“Wait, my friend,” began Brindley, putting up a fat pompous hand.
+“Circumstantial, I think you said?”
+
+“Yes, I said it,” answered the Deputy Clerk coolly; “and if you’ll
+listen, you’ll understand--perhaps. I said the girl was in a faint,
+_as it were_, for, as a matter of fact, _she never came out of it for
+seven months_.”
+
+He leant back, thumbing the ashes into his pipe, and took no heed
+while the murmurs of incredulity buzzed and died down.
+
+“Not for seven months,” he repeated, then. “They called it a
+cataleptic trance, induced by fright and shock upon witnessing the
+deed; and they postponed the trial, waiting for this material witness
+to recover. But when at last the doctors certified that they could put
+no period to a condition which might, after all, end fatally without
+real consciousness ever returning, they decided to try Mr. Hussey; and
+he was tried and condemned to be hanged.”
+
+“What! he made no defence?” said a junior contemptuously.
+
+“Well, sir, can you suggest one?” asked the other civilly.
+
+“Suicide, of course.”
+
+“With the pistol there in the burglar’s own hand?”
+
+“Well, he made none, you say.”
+
+“No, I don’t say it. He declared it was ridiculous attempting a
+defence, while he lacked his one essential witness to confirm it. He
+protested only that the lady would vindicate him if she could speak.”
+
+“O, of course!”
+
+“Yes, of course; and of course you say it. But he spoke the truth,
+sir, for all that, as you’ll see.
+
+“He was lodged in Norwich Jail, biding the finish. But, before the
+hangman could get him--that time, at least--he managed to break out,
+damaging a warder by the way. The dogs of the law were let loose,
+naturally; but, while they were in full cry, Mr. Hussey, if you’ll
+believe me, walks into a local attorney’s office with Miss Ellen on
+his arm.”
+
+Brindley turned in his chair, and gave a little condescending laugh.
+
+“Incredible, ain’t it?” said the Deputy Clerk. “But listen, now, to
+the affidavits of the pair, and judge for yourselves. We’ll take Miss
+Ellen’s first, plain as I can make it:--
+
+“‘I confess,’ says she, ‘to a romantic attachment to this same
+picturesque magsman, Mr. Hussey. He came my way--never mind how--and I
+fell in love with him. He made an assignation to visit me in my
+guardian’s house, and I saw that a window was left open for him to
+enter by. My guardian had latterly been in a very odd, depressed
+state. I think he was troubled about business matters. On the night of
+the assignation, by the irony of fate, his madness came to a head. He
+was of such methodical habits by nature, and so unerringly punctual in
+his hour for going to bed, that I had not hesitated to appoint my beau
+to meet me in his study, which was both remotest from his bedroom, and
+very accessible from without. But, to my confusion and terror, I heard
+him on this night, instead of retiring as usual, start pacing to and
+fro in the parlour underneath. I listened, helpless and aghast,
+expecting every moment to hear him enter his study and discover my
+lover, who must surely by now be awaiting me there. And at length I
+_did_ hear him actually cross the passage to it with hurried steps.
+Half demented, dreading anything and everything, I rushed down the
+stairs, and reached his room door just in time to see him put a pistol
+to his head and fire. With the flash and report, I fell as if dead,
+and remember nothing more till the voice of my beloved seemed to call
+upon me to rise from the tomb--when I opened my eyes, and saw Hussey
+standing above me.’
+
+“Now for Mr. Hussey’s statement:--
+
+“‘I had an assignation with a young lady,’ says he, ‘on the night of
+so-and-so. A window was to be left open for me in Unthank. I had no
+intent whatever to commit a felony. I came to appointment, and had
+only one moment entered when I heard rapid footsteps outside, and a
+man, with a desperate look on him, hurried into the room, snatched a
+pistol from a drawer, put it to his head, and, before I could stop
+him, fired. I swear that, so far from killing him, I tried to prevent
+him killing himself. I jumped, even as he fell, and tore the pistol
+from his hand. Simultaneous with his deed, I heard a scream outside.
+Still holding the weapon, I went to the door, and saw the form of her
+I had come to visit lying in that trance from which she has but now
+recovered. As I stood stupefied, the Watch entered and took me. From
+that time I knew that, lacking her evidence, it was hopeless to
+attempt to clear myself. After sentence I broke prison, rushed
+straight to her house, found her lying there, and called out upon her
+to wake and help me. She answered at once, stirring and coming out of
+her trance. I know no more than that she did; and there is the whole
+truth.’”
+
+The Deputy Clerk stopped. No one spoke.
+
+“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t ask you to pronounce upon those
+affidavits. In the upshot the law accepted them, admitting a
+miscarriage of justice. What I ask your verdict on is this: Could the
+law, after quashing its own conviction, hold the man responsible for
+any act committed by him during, and as the direct result of, that
+wrongful imprisonment?”
+
+This started the ball, and for minutes it was tossed back and forth.
+Presently the tumult subsided, and Brindley spoke authoritatively for
+the rest--
+
+“Certainly it could, and for any violence committed in the act.
+Provocation may extenuate, but it don’t justify. Prison-breaking, _per
+se_, is an offence against the law; so’s being found without any
+visible means of subsistence, though your pocket may just have been
+picked of its last penny. Any concessions in these respects would
+benefit the rogue without helping the community. I won’t say that if
+he hadn’t, by assaulting the warder, put himself out of court----”
+
+“That was where he wanted to put himself,” interrupted the Deputy
+Clerk. It was certain that he was deplorably flippant.
+
+Brindley waved the impertinence by.
+
+“The offence was an offence in outlawry,” he said.
+
+“But how could it be,” protested the Clerk, “since, by the law’s own
+admission, he was wrongfully convicted? If he hadn’t been, he couldn’t
+have hurt the warder. If you strike me first, mayn’t I hit you back? I
+tell you, the law acknowledged that it was in the wrong.”
+
+“Not at all. It acknowledged that the man was in the right.”
+
+“Isn’t that the same thing?”
+
+“O, my friend! I see you haven’t got the rudiments. Hussey was a
+prisoner; a criminal is a prisoner; _ergo_, Hussey was a criminal.”
+
+“But he was a prisoner in error!”
+
+“And the law might very properly pardon him that; but not his violence
+in asserting it.”
+
+The Deputy Clerk shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.
+
+“Well, it was all the same in the end,” said he; “for it hanged him
+for pointing out its error to it, and so spoiled a very pretty
+romance. The lady accompanied him to the scaffold, and afterwards died
+mad. _Sic ita ad astra._ I will cap your syllogism, sir. An ass has
+long ears; the law has long ears; _ergo_, the law is an ass.”
+
+“Young man,” said Brindley, with more good humour than I expected,
+“you have missed your vocation. Take my advice, and go to writing for
+the comic papers.”
+
+“What!” cried the Deputy Clerk. “Haven’t I been a law reporter all my
+life!”
+
+
+
+
+ THE FIVE INSIDES
+
+
+ I’ll example you with thievery.--“Timon of Athens.”
+
+
+The dear old lady was ninety, and it was always Christmas in the
+sweet winter of her face. With the pink in her cheeks and the white of
+her hair, she came straight from the eighteenth century in which she
+was born. They were not more at odds with nature than are the hips and
+the traveller’s joy in a withered hedge; and if at one time they paid
+to art, why it was a charitable gift to a poor dependent--nothing
+more, I’ll swear.
+
+People are fond of testing links with the past. This sound old
+chatelaine had played trick-track, and dined at four o’clock. She had
+eaten battalia pie with “Lear” sauce, and had drunk orgeat in Bond
+Street. She had seen Blücher, the tough old “Vorwärts,” brought to
+bay in Hyde Park by a flying column of Amazons, and surrendering
+himself to an onslaught of kisses. She had seen Mr. Consul Brummell
+arrested by bailiffs in the streets of Caen, on a debt of so many
+hundreds of francs for so many bottles of vernis de Guiton, which was
+nothing less than an adorable boot-polish. She had heard the demon
+horns of newspaper boys shrill out the Little Corporal’s escape from
+Elba. She had sipped Roman punch, maybe;--I trust she had never taken
+snuff. She had--but why multiply instances? Born in 1790, she had
+taken just her little share in, and drawn her full interest of, the
+history, social and political, of all those years, fourscore and ten,
+which filled the interval between then and now.
+
+Once upon a time she had entered a hackney-coach; and, lo! before her
+journey was done, it was a railway coach, moving ever swifter and
+swifter, and its passengers succeeding one another with an ever more
+furious energy of hurry-scurry. Among the rest I got in, and straight
+fell into talk, and in love, with this traveller who had come from so
+far and from scenes so foreign to my knowledge. She was as sweet and
+instructive as an old diary brought from a bureau, smelling of
+rose-leaves and cedar-wood. She was merry, too, and wont to laugh at
+my wholly illusory attachment to an age which was already as dead as
+the moon when I was born. But she humoured me; though she complained
+that her feminine reminiscences were sweetmeats to a man.
+
+“You should talk with William keeper,” she said. “_He_ holds on to the
+past by a very practical link indeed.”
+
+It was snowy weather up at the Hall--the very moral of another winter
+(so I was told) when His Majesty’s frigate “Caledonia” came into
+Portsmouth to be paid off, and Commander Playfair sent express to his
+young wife up in the Hampshire hills that she might expect him early
+on the following morning. He did not come in the morning, nor in the
+afternoon, nor, indeed, until late in the evening, when--as Fortune
+was generous--he arrived just at the turn of the supper, when the snow
+outside the kitchen windows below was thawing itself, in delirious
+emulation of the melting processes going on within, into a rusty
+gravy.
+
+“You see,” said Madam, “it was not the etiquette, when a ship was paid
+off, for any officer to quit the port until the pennant was struck,
+which the cook, as the last officer, had to see done. And the cook had
+gone ashore and got tipsy; and there the poor souls must bide till he
+could be found. Poor Henry--and poor little me! But it came right.
+_Tout vient à qui sait attendre_. We had woodcocks for supper. It was
+just such a winter as this--the snow, the sky, the very day. Will you
+take your gun, and get me a woodcock, sir? and we will keep the
+anniversary, and you shall toast, in a bottle of _the_ Madeira, the
+old French rhyme.”
+
+I had this rhyme in my ears as I went off for my woodcock--
+
+
+ Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,
+ Duquel la chair resueille l’appetit.
+ Il est oyseau passager et petit:
+ Est par son goust fait des vins bien juger.
+
+
+I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought the
+coverts and dead ferns and icy reed-wrecked pools, and flushed not the
+little _oyseau passager_ of my gallantry’s desires. But at last, in a
+silent coomb, when my feet were frozen, and my fingers like bundles of
+newly-pulled red radishes, William keeper came upon me, and I confided
+my abortive wishes and sorrows to his velveteen bosom.
+
+He smiled, warm soul, like a grate.
+
+“Will’ee go up to feyther’s yonder, sir,” said he; “and sit by the
+fire, and leave the woodcock to me? The old man’ll be proud to
+entertain ye.”
+
+“I will go,” I said meanly. “But tell me first, William, what is your
+very practical link with the past?”
+
+He thought the frost had got into my blood; but when I had explained,
+he grinned again knowingly.
+
+“’Tain’t me my lady meant, sir,” he said. “’Tis old feyther, and his
+story of how the mail coach was robbed.”
+
+The cottage hung up on the side of the coomb, leaning its back to an
+ash wood, and digging its toes well into the slope to keep itself from
+pitching into the brook below. There were kennels under the faggot
+stacks, a horse-shoe on the door, red light behind the windows. It
+looked a very cosy corner after the white austerity of the woods.
+William led me to it, and introducing me and my errand to his father,
+left the two of us together by the fire.
+
+It was a strange old shell of a man, russet and smooth yet in the
+face; but his breath would sometimes rattle in him to show how dried
+was the kernel within. Still his brown eye was glossy, and his voice
+full and shrewd; and in that voice, speaking straight and clear out of
+the past, and in an accent yet more of the roads than of the woods, he
+told me presently the story of the great mail robbery.
+
+“It ruined and it made me, sir,” said he; “for the Captain, hearing as
+how the company had sacked me for neglect of duty, and knowing
+something of my character, swore I’d been used damnably, and that he’d
+back his opinion by making me his gamekeeper. And he did that; and
+here I be, waiting confident for him to check my accounts when I jine
+him across the river.”
+
+He pointed to a dusky corner. There hung on the wall an ancient
+key-bugle, and an old, old napless beaver hat, with a faded gold band
+about it.
+
+“I was twenty-five when I put _they_ up there, and that was in the
+year ’14; and not me nor no one else has fingered them since. Because
+why? Because it was like as if my past laid in a tomb underneath, and
+they was the sign that I held by it without shame or desire of
+concealment.
+
+“In those days I was guard to the ‘Globe’ coach, that run between
+London and Brighton. We made the journey in eight hours, from the
+‘Bull and Mouth’ in Aldersgate to the ‘New Inn’ in North Street--or
+t’other way about; and we never stopped but for changes, or to put
+down and take up. Sich was our orders, and nothing in reason to find
+fault with ’em, until they come to hold us responsible to something
+besides time. Then the trouble began.
+
+“Now, sir, as you may know, the coachman’s seat was over the
+fore-boot, and, being holler underneath, was often used as a box for
+special parcels. So it happened that this box was hired of the owners
+by Messrs. Black, South, and Co., the big Brighthelmstone bankers, in
+order to ship their notes and cash, whenever they’d the mind to,
+between London and the seaside, and so escape the risks and expense of
+a private mail. The valiables would be slid and locked in--coachman
+being in his place--with a private key; and George he’d nothing to do
+but keep his fat calves snug to the door, till someun at the other end
+came with a duplicate key to unlock it and claim the property. Very
+well--and very well it worked till the fifteenth of December in the
+year eighteen hundred and thirteen, on which day our responsibility
+touched the handsome figure--so I was to learn--of £4000 in Brighton
+Union bank notes, besides cash and securities.
+
+“It was rare cold weather, much as it is now, save that the snow was
+shallower by a matter of two inches, and no more bind in it than dry
+sand. We was advertised to start from the ‘Bull’ at nine; and there
+was booked six insides and five out. At ten minutes to the hour up
+walks a couple of Messrs. Pinnick and Waghorn’s clerks from the
+borough, with the cash box in whity-brown paper, looking as innocent
+as a babby in a Holland pinifore. George he comes out of the shades,
+like a jolly Corsican ghost, a viping of his mouth; the box is slung
+up and fastened in; coachman climbs to his perch, and the five
+outsides follow-my-leader arter him to theirs, where they swaddle
+’emselves into their wraps strait-veskit-vise, and settin’ as
+miserable as if they was waitin’ to have a tooth drawed. Not much harm
+there, you’ll say--one box-seat, two behind, two with me in the
+dickey--all packed tight, and none too close for observation. Well,
+sir, we’ll hear about it.
+
+“Out of the six insides, all taken, there was three already in place:
+a gentleman, very short and fierce, and snarling at everything;
+gentleman’s lady, pretty as paint, but a white timidious body;
+gentleman’s young-gentleman, in ducks and spencer and a cap like a
+concertina with the spring gone. So far so good, you’ll say again, and
+no connexion with any other party, and leastways of all with the
+insides as was yet wanting, and which the fierce gentleman was blowin’
+the lights out of for bein’ late.
+
+“‘Guard,’ says he, goin’ on outrageous, while the lady and the young
+gentleman cuddled together scared-like in a corner, ‘who are these
+people who stop the whole service while they look in the shop-vinders?
+If you’re for starting a minute after the stroke,’ says he, ‘dash my
+buttons,’ he says, ‘but I’ll raise all hell to have you cashiered!’
+
+“‘All right, sir,’ I says. ‘I knows my business better’n you can tell
+it me--’ and just as I spoke, a hackney kerridge come rumbling into
+the yard, and drew up anigh us.
+
+“‘Globe?’ says a jolly, fat-faced man, sticking his head out of it.
+‘All right, Cato--’ and down jumps a black servant, in livery, that
+was on the box, and opens the door.
+
+“The fat man he tumbled out--for all the world like a sheetful of
+washing a wallopin’ downstairs--Cato he got in, and between them they
+helped from the hackney and across to the coach as rickety a old
+figure as ever I see. He were all shawls and wraprascal. He’d blue
+spectacles to his eyes, a travellin’ cap pulled down on ’em, his mouth
+covered in; and the only evidence of flesh to be seen in the whole of
+his carcass, was a nose the colour of a hyster. He shuffled painful,
+too, as they held him up under the arms, and he groaned and muttered
+to himself all the time he were changing.
+
+“Now, sir, you may suppose the snarling gentleman didn’t make the best
+of what he see; and he broke out just as they was a-hauling the
+invalid in, wanting to know very sarcastic if they hadn’t mistook the
+‘Globe’ for a hearse. But the fat man he accepted him as good-humoured
+as could be.
+
+“‘It’s nothing affectionate, sir,’ says he. ‘Only paralysis, which
+ain’t catching. The gentleman won’t trouble you.’
+
+“‘Not for my place,’ says the fierce gentleman, bristling up like a
+dog. ‘Damme, sir, not for my place. O, I can see very well what his
+nose is a-pinting to, and damme if it isn’t as monstrous a piece of
+coolness as ever I expeerunced. _These_ seats, sir, are the nat’ral
+perkisite of a considerate punctiality, and if your friend objects to
+travelling with his back to the ’orses----’
+
+“‘Now, now,’ says the fat man--‘nothing of the sort. You don’t mind
+sitting with your back to the ’orses, do you, nunky?”
+
+“‘Eh,’ says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting a bit forward--‘No,
+no, no, no, no, no, no--’ and he sunk into the front cushions, while
+Cato and the fat ’un dispodged him to his comfort.
+
+“‘Time, gentlemen!’ says I.
+
+“‘Wait a bit’ says snarler. ‘It can’t never be--why, surely, it can’t
+never be that the sixth inside is took for a blackamoor?’
+
+“‘Alfred,’ says the lady, half veeping: ‘pray let things be. It’s only
+as far as Cuckfield we’re goin’, arter all.’
+
+“‘A poor argiment, my dear,’ says he, ‘in favour of suffering forty
+miles of a sulphurious devil.’
+
+“‘Pray control yourself, sir,’ says the fat man, still very ekable.
+‘We’ve booked three places, for two, just to be comfortable. Our
+servant rides outside.’
+
+“Well, that settled it; and in another minute we was off. I laughed a
+bit to myself as I swung up; but I hadn’t a thought of suspicion. What
+do _you_ say, sir? Would you have? Why, no, of course not--no more
+than if you was a Lyons Mail. There was the five o’ them packed in
+there, and one on the roof behind the coachman--three divisions of a
+party as couldn’t have seemed more unconnected with one another, or
+more cat and dog at that. Yet, would you believe it, every one of them
+six had his place in the robbery that follered as carefully set for
+him as a figure in a sum.
+
+“As for me, sir, I done my duty; and what more could be expected of
+me? At every stage I tuk a general look round, to see as things were
+snug and nat’ral; and at Croydon, fust out, I observed as how the
+invalid were a’ready nodding in a corner, and the other two gents
+settled to their ‘Mornin’ Postses.’
+
+“Beyond Croydon the cold begun to take the outsides bitter; and the
+nigger got into a vay of drummin’ with his feet so aggerawacious, that
+at last George he lost his temper with him and told him to shut up.
+Well, he shut up that, and started scrapin’ instead; and he went on
+scrapin’ till the fierce gentleman exploded out of the vinder below
+fit to bust the springs.
+
+“‘Who’s that?’ roars he--‘the blackamoor? Damme!’ he roars, ‘if you
+aren’t wus nor a badger in more ways than one,’ he roars.
+
+“‘All right, boss,’ says the nigger, grinning and lookin’ down. ‘Feet
+warm at last, boss,’ and he stopped his shufflin’ and begun to sing.
+
+“Now, sir, a sudden thought--I won’t go so far as to call it a
+suspicion--sent me, next stop, to examine unostentatious-like the
+neighbourhood of them great boots. But all were sound there, and the
+man sittin’ well tucked into his wraps. It wasn’t like, of course,
+that he could a’ kicked the panels of the box in without George
+knowin’ somethin’ about it. And he didn’t want to neither; _for he’d
+finished his part of the business a’ready_. So he just sat and smiled
+at me as amiable as Billy Vaters.
+
+“Well, we went on without a hitch; and at Cuckfield the three back
+insides turned out into the snow, and went for a bespoke po’-chaise
+that was waitin’ for ’em there. But, afore he got in, the fierce
+gentleman swung round and come blazin’ back to the vinder.
+
+“‘My compliments, sir,’ says he, ‘at parting; and, if it _should_ come
+to the vorst,’ he says, ‘I’d advise you to lay your friend pretty far
+under to his last sleep,’ he says, ‘or his snores’ll wake the dead.’
+
+“‘Hush,’ says the fat ’un. ‘It’s the drowndin’ spirit in him comin’ up
+to blow like a vale.’
+
+“‘Is it?’ says the fierce gentleman. ‘Then it’s my opinion that the
+outsides ought to be warned afore he gives his last heave----’ and he
+went off snortin’ like a tornader.
+
+“The fat man shook his head when he were gone. His mildness, having
+sich a figger, was amazing. He sat with his arm and shoulder for a
+bolster to old paralysis, who was certainly going on in style.
+
+“‘Now, sir,’ says I, ‘the whole blessed inside is yourn till the end
+of the journey.’
+
+“‘Thank you, guard,’ says he; ‘but I won’t disturb my friend, and
+we’ll stay as we are, thank you.’
+
+“I got up then, and on we went--last stage, sir, through Clayton, over
+the downs, whipping through Pyecombe and Patcham, swish through
+Preston turnpike, and so into East Street, where we’d scarce entered,
+when there come sich a hullabaloo from underneath as if the devil,
+riding on the springs, had got his tail jammed in the brake. Up I
+jumps, and up jumps the blackamoor, screeching and clawing at George,
+so as he a’most dropped the ribbins.
+
+“‘Eh, boss!’ he yelled. ‘De old man--down dere!--damn bad!’
+
+“George he pulled up; and I thought he’d a bust, till I climbed over
+and loosened his neckercher, and let it all out. Then down we
+got--nigger and I, and one or two of the passengers--and looked in.
+‘What the thunder’s up?’ says I. The fat man were goin’ on awful,
+sobbin’, and hiccupin’, and holding on to old paralysis, as were sunk
+back in the corner.
+
+“‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’! O, why did
+I ever give way to him, and let him come!’
+
+“Well, we all stood pretty foolish, not knowing what to say or do,
+when his great tricklin’ face come round like a leg o’ mutton on a
+spit, and, seein’ the nigger, bust into hystrikes.
+
+“‘O, Cato!’ he roars; ‘O Cato, O Cato! Sich a loss if he goes!’ he
+roars. ‘Run on by a short cut, Cato,’ he says, ‘and see if you can
+find a doctor agen our drawin’ up at the “New Inn.”’
+
+“That seemed to us all a good idea, though, to be sure, there was no
+cut shorter than the straight road we was in. But anyhow, before we
+could re’lise it, the nigger was off like a arrer; and one of the
+gentlemen offered to keep the fat man company. But that he wouldn’t
+listen to.
+
+“‘If he _should_ come round,’ he said, ‘the shock of a stranger might
+send him off agen. No, no,’ he said: ‘leave me alone with my dying
+friend, and drive on as quick as ever you can.’
+
+“It were only a matter of minutes; but afore we’d been drawed up half
+of one afore the inn, a crowd was gathered round the coach door.
+
+“‘Is he back?’ says the fat man--‘Is Cato come back with a doctor? No,
+I won’t have him touched or moved till a doctor’s seen him.’
+
+“Then all at once he was up and out, rampageous.
+
+“‘Where is he?’ he shrieks. ‘I can’t vait no longer--I’m goin’
+mad--I’ll find one myself’--and, afore you could say Jack Robinson, he
+was off. I never see sich a figger run so. He fair melted away. But
+the crowd was too interested in the corpse to follow him.
+
+“Well, sir, he didn’t come back with a doctor, and no more did Cato.
+And the corpse may have sat there ten minutes, and none daring to go
+into it, when a sawbones, a-comin’ down the street on his own account,
+was appealed to by the landlord for a verdict, seein’ as how by this
+time the whole traffic was blocked. He got in, and so did I; and he
+bent over the body spread back with its wraps agen the corner.
+
+“‘My God!’ I whispers--‘there’s no breath comin’ from him. Is he dead,
+sir?’
+
+“The sawbones he rose up very dry and cool.
+
+“‘No,’ he says, ‘there ain’t no breath comin’ from him, nor there
+never will. It ain’t in natur’ to expect it from a waxworks.’
+
+“Sir, I tell you I looked at him and just felt my heart as it might be
+a snail that someun had dropped a pinch of salt on.
+
+“‘Waxworks!’ I says, gaspin’. ‘Why, the man spoke and groaned!’
+
+“‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’
+says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.
+
+“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;--and
+I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy--nothing
+more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock my
+pullin’ it away give me--for there, behind where it had set, was a
+’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and
+panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the
+mail’s been robbed!’”
+
+The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised
+excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the
+question he expected.
+
+“And it had been?”
+
+“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In
+the vinter of ’13, sir--the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a
+rare stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards,
+when one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were
+took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man were a
+ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides to
+themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job. They cut
+into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and passed the boy
+through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’ Croydon. He set
+to--the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!--tuk a piece clean
+out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and brought down the
+cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his dance overhead to
+drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened and emptied, and put
+back in the boot where it was found; and the swag, for fear of
+accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”
+
+He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the younger,
+standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled auburn trophies
+in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a sigh--then
+with a smile.
+
+“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock. “How
+plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”
+
+
+
+
+ THE JADE BUTTON
+
+The little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with
+a good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is
+the subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by
+any lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself
+misinformed, and attend your last moments on the scaffold.
+
+
+Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John Belmont
+hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this antagonism was a
+button.
+
+It was of jade stone, and it was a talisman. For three generations it
+had been the mascot of the Belmont family, an heirloom, and
+symbolizing in its shining disk a little local sun, as it were, of
+prosperity. The last three head Belmonts had all been men of an ample
+presence. The first of them, the original owner of the stone, having
+assigned it a place in perpetuity at the bottom hole of his waistcoat
+(as representing the centre of his system), his heirs were careful to
+substantiate a tradition which meant so much to them in a double
+sense.
+
+Indeed, the button was as good as a blister. It seemed to draw its
+wearer to a head in the prosperous part of him. It was set in gold,
+artfully furnished at its back with a loop and hank, and made
+transferable from waistcoat to waistcoat, that its possessor for the
+time being might enjoy at all seasons its beneficent influence. In
+broad or long cloth, in twill or flannel, by day and by night, the
+button attended him, regulating indiscriminately his business and his
+digestion. In such circumstances, it is plain that Death must have
+been hard put to it to find a vulnerable place; and such was the fact.
+It has often been said that a man’s soul is in his stomach; how, then,
+could it get behind the button? Only by one of those unworthy
+subterfuges, which, nevertheless, it does not disdain. The first
+Belmont lived to ninety, and with such increasing portliness that, at
+the last, a half-moon had to be cut, and perpetually enlarged, out of
+the dining-room table to accommodate his presence. Practically, he was
+eating his way through the board, with the prospect of emerging at the
+other end, when, in rising from a particularly substantial repast one
+night, he caught the button in the crack between the first slab
+(almost devoured) and the second, wrenched it away, and was
+immediately seized with apoplexy. He died; and the Destroyer, after
+pursuing his heir to threescore years and ten, looking for the heel of
+Achilles, as unworthily “got home” into him. He was lumbering down
+Fleet Street one dog-day when, oppressed beyond endurance by the heat,
+he wrenched open--in defiance of all canons of taste and prudence--his
+waistcoat. The button--_the_ button--was burst from its bonds in the
+act, though, fortunately--for the next-of-kin--to be caught by its
+hank in the owner’s watch-chain. But to the owner himself the impulse
+was fatal. A prowling cutpurse, quick to the chance, “let out” full on
+the old gentleman’s bow-window, quenching its lights, so to speak, for
+ever; and then, having snatched the chain, incontinently doubled into
+the arms of a constable. The property was recovered--but for the heir;
+the second Belmont’s bellows having been broken beyond mending.
+
+The third met with as inglorious an end, and at a comparatively early
+age; for the button--as a saving clause to whatever god had thrown it
+down, for the fun of the thing, among men--was possessed with a very
+devil of touchiness, and always instant to resent the least fancied
+slight to its self-importance. Else had Tithonus been its wearer to
+this day, as----but I won’t anticipate. The third Belmont, then, in a
+fit of colossal forgetfulness, sent the button, _in_ a white
+waistcoat, to the wash. The calamity was detected forthwith, _but not
+in time to avert itself_. After death the doctor. Before the outraged
+article could be restored to its owner and victim, he had died of a
+rapid dropsy, and the button became the property of Mrs. John Belmont,
+his relict and residuary legatee, who----
+
+But, for the history of the button itself? Why, in brief, as it
+affected the Belmont family, it was this. Mr. Adolphus Belmont had
+been Consul at one of the five treaty ports of China about the
+troublous years of 1840-42. During the short time that he held office,
+a certain local mandarin, Elephoo Ting by name, was reported to Peking
+for high treason, and honoured with an imperial ukase, or invitation
+to forestall the headsman. There was no doubt, indeed, that Elephoo
+Ting had been very strenuous, in public, in combating the intrusion of
+the foreign devil, while inviting him, in private, to come on and hold
+tight. There is no doubt, too, that in the result Elephoo and Adolphus
+had made a profitable partnership of it in the matter of opium, and
+that the mandarin had formed a very high, and even sentimental,
+opinion of the business capacities of his young friend. Young, that is
+to say, relatively, for Adolphus was already sixty-three when
+appointed to his post. But, then, of the immemorial Ting’s age no
+record actually existed. The oldest inhabitant of Ningpo knew him as
+one knows the historic beech of one’s district. He had always been
+there--bland, prosperous, enormous, a smooth bole of a man radiating
+benevolence. And now at last he was to die. It seemed impossible.
+
+It _was_ impossible, save on a condition. That he confided to his odd
+partner and confidant, the English Consul, during a last interview. He
+held a carving-knife in his hand.
+
+“Shall I accept this signal favour of the imperial sun?” he said.
+
+“Have you any choice?” asked the Consul gloomily. “The decree is out;
+the soldiers surround your dwelling.”
+
+Elephoo Ting laughed softly.
+
+“Vain, vain all, unless I discard my talisman.” He produced the jade
+button from his cap. “This,” he said, “I had from my father, when the
+old man sickened at last of life, desiring to be an ancestor. It
+renders who wears it, while he wears it, immortal; only it is jealous,
+jealous, and stands upon its dignity. Shall I, too, part with it, and
+at a stroke let in the light of ages?”
+
+He saw the incredulity in his visitor’s face, and handed him the
+carving-knife.
+
+“Strike,” he said. “I bid thee.”
+
+“You take the consequences?”
+
+“All.”
+
+With infinite cynicism, Mr. Belmont essayed to tickle, just to tickle,
+the creature’s infatuation with the steel point. It bent, where it
+touched, like paper. He thrust hard and ever harder, until at last he
+was thrashing and slicing with the implement in a sort of frenzy of
+horror. The mandarin stood apathetic, while the innocuous blade swept
+and rustled about his huge bulk like a harmless feather. Then said he,
+as the other desisted at length, unnerved and trembling: “Art thou
+convinced?”
+
+“I am convinced,” said the Consul.
+
+Elephoo Ting handed him the button in exchange for the knife.
+
+“Take and wear it,” he said, “for my sake, whom you have pleased by
+outwitting, on the score of benefiting, two Governments. You have the
+makings of a great mandarin in you; the button will do the rest. Would
+you ever escape the too-soon satiety of this stodgy life, pass it on,
+with these instructions which I shall give you, to your next-of-kin.
+Be ever deferential to the button and considerate of its vanity, for
+it is the fetish of a sensitive but undiscriminating spirit. So long
+as you cherish it, you will prosper. But the least apparent slight to
+itself, it will revenge, and promptly. As for me, I have an
+indigestion of the world that I would cure.”
+
+And with the words he too became an ancestor.
+
+Then riches and bodily amplitude came to Adolphus Belmont, until the
+earth groaned under his importance. He was a spanker, and after him
+Richard Belmont was a spanker, and after him John Belmont was a very
+spanker of spanks, even at thirty-two, when he committed the last
+enormous indiscretion which brought him death and his fortunes almost
+ruin. For the outrage to the button had been so immeasurable that, not
+content with his obliteration, it must manœuvre likewise to scatter
+the accumulations of fortune, which it had brought him, by involving
+in a common ruin most of the concerns in which that fortune was
+invested, so that his widow found herself left, all in a moment, a
+comparatively poor woman.
+
+And here Mrs. John Belmont comes in.
+
+She was a little woman, of piquancy and resource, and a very
+accomplished angler of men. She could count on her pink finger-tips
+the ten most killing baits for vanity. And, having once recovered the
+button, she set herself to conciliating it with a thousand pretty
+kisses and attentions. It lived between the bosom of her frock and the
+ruff of her dainty nightgown. Yet for a long time it sulked, refusing
+to be coaxed into better than a tacit staying of its devastating hand.
+And so matters stood when the Assembly ball was held.
+
+Miss Emma Belmont and Mrs. John Belmont lived in the same town,
+connexions, but apart. Their visits were visits of ceremony--and
+dislike. Miss Emma was Mr. John’s sister, and had always highly
+disapproved of his marriage with the “adventuress.” Her very name, she
+thought, bordered on an impropriety! How could any “Inez” dissociate
+herself from the tradition of cigarette-stained lips and white
+eyeballs travelling behind a fan like little moons of coquetry? This
+one, in fact, took no trouble to. Her reputation involved them in a
+common scandal; and it was solely on this account, I think, that she
+so resented her sister-in-law’s appropriation of the button. She
+herself was devoted to good works, and utterly content in her mission.
+She did not want the button; but, inasmuch as it was a Belmont
+heirloom, and Mrs. John childless, she chose to symbolize in it the
+bone of contention, and to use it as a convenient bar to amenities
+which would, otherwise, have seemed to argue in her a sympathy with a
+mode of life with which she could not too emphatically wish to
+disconnect herself.
+
+They met at the Assembly ball. Miss Belmont, though herself involved
+in the financial ebb, had considered it her duty to respect so
+respectable an occasion, and even to adorn it with a silk of such
+inflexibility that (I tremble as I write it) one could imagine her
+slipping out of it through a trap, like the vanishing lady, and
+leaving all standing. Presently Mrs. John Belmont, with a wicked look,
+floated up to her.
+
+“_You_ here, Inez!” exclaimed Miss Emma, affecting an amazement which,
+unhappily, she could not feel.
+
+The other flirted and simpered. When she smiled, one could detect
+little threads drawn in the fine powder near the corners of her mouth.
+There was no ensign of widowhood about her. She ruffled with little
+gaudy downs and feathers, like a new-fledged bird of paradise.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” she said. “And I’ve brought Captain Naylor, who’s been
+dining with me. Shall I introduce him to you?”
+
+Miss Belmont’s sense of decorum left her speechless.
+
+Inez, on the contrary, rippled out the most china-tinkling laugh.
+
+“You dear old thing,” she tittered. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew
+you’d be here to chaperon me, and----” She came a step closer. “Yes,
+the button’s there, Emma. You may stare; but make up your mind, I’m
+not going to part with it.”
+
+Miss Belmont found herself, and responded quietly--
+
+“I hope not indeed, Inez. I don’t ask or expect you. You might
+multiply it to-night by a dozen, and only offend me less.”
+
+Mrs. John laughed again, rather shrilly.
+
+“O, fie!” she said. “Why, even you haven’t a high-necked dress, you
+know.”
+
+And then a very black and red man, in a jam-pot collar and with a
+voice like a rook, came and claimed her.
+
+“Haw, Mrs. Belmont! Aw--er, dance, I think.”
+
+Miss Belmont, to save appearances, rigidly sat out the evening. When
+at last she could endure no more, she had her fly called and prepared
+to go home. She was about to get into it, when she observed a familiar
+figure standing among the few midnight loafers who had gathered
+without the shadow of the porch.
+
+“Hurley!” she exclaimed.
+
+The man, after a moment, slouched reluctantly forward, touching his
+hat. He had once been her most favoured protégé--a rogue and
+irreclaimable, whom she had persuaded, temporarily, from the devil’s
+service to her own. He had returned to his master, but with a
+reservation of respect for the practical Christian. Miss Belmont was
+orthodox, but she had a way with sinners. She pitied and fed and
+_trusted_ them. She was a member of the Prisoners’ First Aid Society,
+with a reverence for the law and a weakness for the lawless. Her aim
+was to reconcile the two, to interpret, in a yearning charity, between
+the policeman and the criminal, who at least, in the result, made a
+common cause of honouring _her_. Inez asserted that, living, as she
+did, very nervously alone on the outskirts of the town, she had
+adopted this double method of propitiation for the sake of her own
+security. But, then, Inez had a forked tongue, which you would never
+have guessed from seeing the little scarlet tip of it caressing her
+lips.
+
+Well, Miss Belmont had once coaxed Jim Hurley into being her handy
+man, foreseeing his redemption in an innocent association with flowers
+and the cult of the artless cabbage. He proved loyal to her, gained
+her confidence, knew all about the button and other matters of family
+moment. But the contiguity of the kitchen-garden with Squire
+Thorneycroft’s pheasant-coops was too much for hereditary
+proclivities. He stole eggs, sold them, was detected, prosecuted,
+sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and disappeared. Miss
+Belmont herself met him on his discharge from the jail gates, but he
+was not to be induced to return. The wild man was in his brain, and
+off he had gone, with Parthian shots of affection, in quest of fun.
+And for two years she had not seen him again until to-night, when his
+scratch of red hair and beard--which always looked as if he had just
+pulled his head out of a quickset--suddenly blew into flame before
+her. And then there followed a shock of distress.
+
+“Jim! Why, what’s happened? What’s the matter with you?”
+
+There was no need to specify. The man was obviously going off his
+tramp--nearing the turn of the dark road. He was ghastly, and
+constantly gave little spasmodic wrenching coughs during the minute he
+stood beside her.
+
+“Well,” he gasped, “I dunno. The rot has got into my stummick. I be
+all touchwood inside like an old ellum”
+
+“Will you come and see me?”
+
+“’Es. By’m-by.”
+
+“Why not now? Where are you going to sleep?”
+
+He grinned, and coughed, half suffocated, as he backed.
+
+“I’ve got my plans, Missis. You--leave me alone.”
+
+It did not sound gracious. One would not have guessed by it his
+design, which was nothing less than a jolly throw against the devil in
+the teeth of death. Miss Belmont, a little hurt, but more sad, got
+into her fly and was driven home. Arrived there, she sat up an hour
+contemplative. She was just preparing to go to bed in the grey dawn,
+when she heard the garden-gate click and footsteps rapidly traverse
+the path to the front door. Her heart seemed to stop. She stole
+trembling into the hall. “_Who’s there?_” she demanded in a quavering
+voice. The answer came, with a clearness which made her start, through
+the letter-box.
+
+“Me, Missis--Jim Hurley.”
+
+Amazed, and a little embarrassed, she opened. The man burst, almost
+fell in, and, staggering, recovered himself.
+
+“’Ere!” he said, with eager manipulation trying to force something
+upon her. “I’ve done ’er! I’ve got it for yer! Take it--make
+’aste--they’re arter me. It’s yourn as by rights, and she’s got to
+crow on the wrong side of ’er woundy little mouth.”
+
+But Miss Belmont, with instinctive repulsion, had put her hands behind
+her back and retreated before him.
+
+“Jim!” she said sickly. “_What_ have you got? What do you mean? I’ll
+take nothing from you.”
+
+“O, go along!” he insisted. His cough was gone. He seemed animated
+with a new masterfulness. “Ain’t I in the know? It’s yourn, anyhow,
+and”--his eye closed in an ineffable rapture--“I done the devil out of
+his own when I heard I be booked to go to him. He’ll pay me, I reckon;
+but I don’t care. You take it. It’s your dooty as a good woman.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Miss Belmont, beating him away with her hands. “Don’t
+let me even see it to know. How could you suppose such a thing? Take
+it back while you’ve time.”
+
+B’s 33 and 90 wore their list-footed boots; but Jim’s ear was a
+practised one. Swiftly summoned, they had raced on his tracks from the
+Assembly Rooms. He had known it, and had laboured merely to keep his
+start of them by three minutes--two--one. Now, while their sole was
+yet on the threshold, he darted into the dining-room and was under the
+table at a dive. They had him out and handcuffed, of course, in a
+jiffy; and then they stood to explain and expostulate.
+
+“Well, you ain’t a cheeked one neither, Hurley! To run up here of all
+places for cover! Don’t you mind him, Miss.” (She stood pale and
+shivering. “The shock!” she had murmured confusedly.) “Why,” said 33,
+“the man was heard by plenty proposing of hisself to visit you; and
+looked to your hold kindness to him to take and shelter, is supposed.”
+
+She found voice to ask: “What’s he done?”
+
+“Done!” said 33. “Why, bless you, Miss! Treating of you as if you was
+in collusion, ain’t I?” (She shivered.) “Why, he grabbed a jewel--a
+gold button, as I understand--out o’ the buzzim o’ your own late
+brother’s good lady as she was a-stepping into her broom, and bolted
+with it. It’ll be on ’im now if we’re lucky.”
+
+“You ain’t then, old cock,” said Jim, with a little hoarse laugh and
+choke.
+
+“Chuck it!” said 90, a saturnine man.
+
+“That’s what I done, Kroojer,” said Jim. “You go and ’unt in the
+bloomin’ ’edges if you don’t believe me.”
+
+“It’s my duty to tell you,” said 33, “that whatever you says will be
+took down in evidence agen you.”
+
+“Not by you,” said Jim. “Why, you can’t spell.”
+
+They carried him off dispassionately, with some rough, kindly
+apologies to Miss Belmont for the trouble to which they had put her.
+She locked and bolted the door when they were gone; mechanically saw
+to the lamps, and went upstairs to bed in a sort of stunned dream. So
+she committed herself to the sheets, and so, in a sort of waking
+delirium, passed the remaining hours of slumber. She felt as if the
+even tenor of her way, her stream of placid days, had been suddenly
+dammed by a dead body, the self-destroyed corpse of her own character.
+Sometimes she would start from a suffering negation to feel B 90’s
+hand upon her shoulder. “What have I done--O! what have I done?” she
+would moan in anguish; and B 90 would glower from under his helmet
+like a passionless Rhadamanthus--
+
+“What have you done? What but, like our second Henry, meanly, by
+inference and innuendo, imposed upon your wretched tool the
+responsibility for a deed which you dared not seek to compass by the
+open processes of the law. Did you dispute the right ownership of the
+button? Then why choose for your confidant an ex-thief and poacher? No
+use to say you designed no harm. By the flower be known the seed. Come
+along o’ me!”
+
+She rose late, ate no breakfast, and sat awaiting, pinched and grey,
+the inevitable ordeal. It opened, early enough, with the advent of
+Mrs. John. The little widow came sailing in, with a face of floured
+steel. When she saw, the edge of her tongue seemed to whet itself on
+her lips. Miss Emma broke out at once in an unendurable cry--
+
+“Inez! You can’t think I was a party to this!”
+
+“Who said so, dear? Though the man was a protégé of yours, and was
+known to have remained where he encountered me by your instructions.”
+
+“It is not true.”
+
+“Isn’t it? Well, at least, the plan miscarried. Now, give me the
+button, and I promise, to the best of my power, to hush the matter
+up.”
+
+“I haven’t got it, indeed; O, you must believe me! He told the
+policeman himself that he had thrown it away while escaping.”
+
+“Yes, yes. I give him credit for his loyalty to you. But, Emma--you
+know I never put much faith in your sanctimoniousness. Don’t be a
+fool, and drive me to extremities.”
+
+“You can’t mean it. I blame my covetous heart. I envied you--I admit
+it--this dear fetish of our family. But to think me capable of such a
+wickedness! O, Inez!”
+
+Then Mrs. John Belmont exploded. I muffle the report. It left Miss
+Belmont flaccid and invertebrate, weakly sobbing that she would see
+Hurley; would try to get him to identify the exact spot where he had
+parted with the bauble; would move heaven and earth to make her
+guiltless restitution. Yet all the time, remembering the scene of last
+night, she must have known her promise vain. Jim had sought to thrust
+no shadow of a fact upon her. He had not thrown the button away. He
+alone knew where it now was; but would he so far play into the hands
+of her enemy as to tell? She felt faint in the horror of this doubt;
+and Mrs. John perceived the horror.
+
+As for her, she was utterly hateful and incredulous. She had friends,
+she screamed--one in particular--who would act, and unmercifully, to
+see her righted. She hardly refrained from striking her sister-in-law,
+as she rushed out in a storm of hysterics.
+
+And at this point I was called in--by Miss Belmont, that is to say.
+
+I found her utterly prostrated--within step of the brink of the final
+collapse.
+
+I coaxed her back, foot by foot; won the whole truth from her; laughed
+her terrors to scorn, and staked her my professional credit to have
+the matter put right, or on the way to right, by our next meeting.
+
+And I meant it, and was confident. For that very day--though of this
+she did not know--I had officially ordered Jim Hurley’s removal from
+the cell in which he had been lodged to the County Hospital. The man
+was dying, that was the fact; and a fact which he had known perfectly
+when he staked at one throw for an easy bed for himself, and a
+repayment of his debt to his old benefactress.
+
+He was ensconced in a little ward by himself, when I visited him and
+sat down to my task. He cocked an eye at me from a red tangle, and
+grinned.
+
+“Now, Hurley,” I said, “I come straight from Miss Emma, by her
+authority, to acquaint you with the results of your deed.”
+
+“O!” he answered. “Hev the peelers been a-dirtyin’ of their pore knees
+lookin’ for it in the ’edgerows? I ’opes as they found it.”
+
+“You know they couldn’t. You’ve got it yourself.”
+
+“S’elp me, I haven’t!”
+
+Then I informed him, carefully and in detail, of the awful miscarriage
+of his intentions. He was patently dumbfounded.
+
+“Well, I’m blowed!” he whispered, quite amazed. “Well, I _am_ blowed!”
+
+“You must undo this,” I said. “There’s only one way. Where _is_ the
+button?”
+
+He gauged me profoundly a moment.
+
+“On a ledge under the table,” he said. Then he thrust out a claw.
+“Don’t you go lettin’ ’_er_ ’ave it back,” he said, “or I’ll ’aunt
+you!”
+
+I considered.
+
+“You must undo what you’ve done,” I repeated. “Don’t you see? Unless
+you can prove that it’s been in your possession all the time, _and is
+now_, her character’s gone for ever. Mrs. John will see to that.”
+
+He did not, professionally, lack wits. He understood perfectly.
+“You’re ’er friend?” he asked.
+
+I nodded.
+
+“All right,” he said, “you get ’old of it private, and smuggle of it
+’ere, and I’ll manage the rest.”
+
+“But, my good fellow! You’ve been overhauled, I suppose, and pretty
+thoroughly. How can you convince--_convince_, you understand--that
+you’ve kept the thing snug through it all?”
+
+“You go and smuggle of it ’ere,” he repeated doggedly.
+
+It needed only a very little manœuvring. I hurried back to Miss
+Belmont’s, heard the lady was still confined to her room, forbade the
+servant to report me, and claimed the privacy of the dining-room for
+the purpose of writing a prescription. The moment I was alone, I made
+an excited and perfectly undignified plunge under the table, found the
+ledge (the thing, in auctioneer’s parlance, was a “capital set,” in
+four leaves), and the button, which in a feverish ecstasy I pocketed.
+Then, very well satisfied, I hurried back to Mr. Hurley.
+
+I found him, even in that short interval, changed for the worse; so
+much changed, that, in face of his condition, a certain sense of novel
+vigour, an overweening confidence in my own importance which had grown
+up, and lusty, in me during my return journey, seemed nothing less
+than an indecency. However, curiously enough, this mood began to ebb
+and sober from the very moment of my handing over the _pièce de
+conviction_ to its purloiner. He “palmed” it professionally, cleared
+his throat, and took instant command of the occasion. “Now,” he said,
+“tell ’em I’ve confessed to you, and let ’em all come.”
+
+His confidence mastered the depression which had overtaken me. I
+returned, with fair assurance, to Miss Belmont, who received my news
+with a perfect rapture of relief. What she had suffered, poor good
+woman, none but herself might know.
+
+“Did he own to you where he had hidden it?” she asked. And “Yes,” I
+could answer, perfectly truthfully.
+
+By my advice, she prepared at once to go and fetch her sister-in-law
+to the hospital--with a friend, if she desired it--that all might
+witness to the details of the restitution.
+
+In the meanwhile I myself paid a visit to the police station, and
+thence returned to my post to await the arrival of my company.
+
+It came in about an hour: Miss Belmont, tearfully expectant; Mrs. John
+Belmont, shrill and incredulous; an immaculate tall gentleman, Captain
+Naylor by name, whose chin was propped on a very high collar, that he
+might perpetually sniff the incense of his own superiority; and,
+lastly, and officially to the occasion, B 90.
+
+I lost no time in conducting them to the bedside of the patient. He
+had rallied wonderfully since our last encounter. He was sitting up
+against his pillow, his red hair fluffed out like the aureole of a
+dissipated angel, an expression on his face of a quite sanctimonious
+relish. I fancy he even winked at me.
+
+“Now, Hurley,” I said gravely, “as one on the threshold of the grave”
+(which, nevertheless, I had my doubts about), “speak out and tell the
+truth.”
+
+He cleared his throat, and started at once in a loud voice, as if
+repeating a lesson he had set himself--
+
+“’Earing as ’ow my rash hact ’ave brought suspicion on a innercent
+lady, I ’ereby makes affirmation of the fac’s. I stole the button, and
+’id it in my boot, where it is now.”
+
+“No, it ain’t,” said B 90 suddenly. “Stow that.”
+
+Mr. Hurley smiled pityingly.
+
+“O, ain’t it, sir?” he said. “’Ow do you know?”
+
+“Because I searched you myself,” said B 90 shortly.
+
+“The patient, infinitely tolerant, waved his hand.
+
+“’E searched me, ladies and gentlemen! Ho, lor! Look at ’im; I only
+arsks that--look at ’im! Why, he doesn’t even know as there’s a smut
+on his nose at this moment.” (B 90 hastily rubbed that organ, and
+remembering himself, lapsed into stolidity once more.) Mr. Hurley
+addressed him with exaggerated politeness--“_Would_ you be so good,
+sir, as to go and fetch my boots?”
+
+B 90 thought profoundly, and officially, a minute; wheeled suddenly,
+withdrew, and returned shortly with the articles, very massive and
+muddy, which he laid on the counterpane before the prisoner. The
+latter, cherishing the ineffable _dénouement_, deliberately took and
+examined the left one, paused a moment, smilingly canvassing his
+company, and then quickly, with an almost imperceptible wrench and
+twirl, had unscrewed the heel bodily from its place and held it out.
+
+“’Ere!” he said; and, with his arm extended, sank back in an
+invertebrate ecstasy upon his pillow.
+
+The heel was pierced with a tiny compartment on its inner side, and
+within the aperture lay the button.
+
+They all saw it, but not as I, who, standing as I did at the bed-head,
+and being something of an amateur conjurer myself, was conscious in a
+flash of the rascal “passing” the trinket into its receptacle even as
+he exposed it.
+
+There followed an exclamation or two, and silence. Then Captain Naylor
+said “Haw!” and Miss Belmont, with a gasp, turned a mild reproachful
+gaze upon her sister-in-law. But Mrs. John had not the grace to accept
+it. She gave a little vexed, covetous laugh, and stepped forward.
+“Well,” she said to Miss Emma, “you must go without it still, dear, it
+seems.” Then, coldly, to Hurley: “Give it me, please.”
+
+Now, so far so good; and, though I was enraged with, I could not
+combat the decision. But truly I was not prepared for the upshot.
+
+Jim, at Mrs. John’s first movement, had recovered possession of the
+button.
+
+“No, you don’t!” he said quite savagely. “I know all about it, and
+’tain’t yourn by rights.”
+
+“Jim, Jim,” cried Miss Belmont in great agitation; “it is hers,
+indeed; please give it up. You don’t think what you make me suffer!”
+
+But the man was black with a lowering determination.
+
+“’Tain’t,” he said. “Keep off, you! I’ve not thrown agen the devil for
+nothing. It’s goin’ to be Miss Emma’s or nobody’s.”
+
+“Not mine,” cried the poor lady again. “I don’t want it. Not for
+worlds. I wouldn’t take it now!”
+
+And then Mrs. John Belmont, in one discordant explosion of fury, gave
+away her case for ever.
+
+“Insolent! Beyond endurance!” she shrieked, and whirled, with a
+flaming face, upon her cavalier.
+
+“Archibald! why do you stand grinning there? Why don’t you take it
+from him?”
+
+Thus prompted, Archibald, in great confusion, uttered an inarticulate
+“Haw!” explained himself in a second and clearer one, and strode
+threateningly towards the bed. Watching, with glittering eyes, the
+advance, Jim, at the last moment, _whipped the button into his mouth
+and swallowed it!_
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The case, as a pathological no less than as a criminological
+curiosity, was unique. I will state a few particulars. The button
+lodged in the pancreas, in which it was presently detected,
+comfortably ensconced, by means of the Röntgen rays. And it is a fact
+that, from the moment it settled there--_never_ apparently (I use the
+emphasis with a full sense of my responsibility) to be evicted--Mr.
+Hurley began to recover, and from recovering to thrive--on anything.
+Croton-oil--I give only one instance--was a very cream of nourishment
+to him. Galvanic batteries but shook him into the laughter which makes
+fat, but without stirring the button. It was ridiculous to suggest an
+operation, though the point was long considered. But in the meanwhile
+the button had continued piling up over itself such impenetrable
+defences of adipose tissue that its very locality had become
+conjectural. The question was dropped, only to give rise to another.
+How could one any longer detain this luxuriant man in hospital as an
+invalid? He was removed, therefore, beaming, to the police court;
+received, for some inexplicable reason, a nominal sentence, dating
+from the time of his arrest (everything, in fact, was henceforward to
+prosper with him), and trundled himself out into the world, where he
+disappeared. I have seen him occasionally since at years-long
+intervals. He grows ever more sleek and portly, till the shadows of
+the three dead Belmonts together would not suffice to make him a pair
+of breeches. He has a colossal fortune; he is respectable, and, of
+course, respected--a genial monster of benevolence; and he never fails
+to remind me, when we meet, of the time when I could pronounce his
+life not worth a button.
+
+I have, can only have, one theory. The button, after many cross
+adventures, “got home” at last--fatally for Mrs. John Belmont, who
+fell into a vicious decline upon its loss, and, tenderly nursed by her
+sister-in-law, departed this sphere in an uncertain year of her life.
+And, unless the button itself comes to dissolve, Jim, I fear, is
+immortal.
+
+
+
+
+ DOG TRUST
+
+There was no reason why Richard Le Shore should not have made a
+straightforward appeal for the hand of Miss Molly Tregarthen to her
+papa. His credentials--of fortune, condition, and character--were
+unexceptionable; the girl’s kind inclinations were confessed; the
+father himself was an unexacting, indulgent, and ease-loving
+Democritus. It was but a question of those two and of Mr. Dicky, their
+favoured, their intimately favoured, guest.
+
+There was no reason, and for the reason that the spirit of Romance
+abhors reason; and that was why, without any reason, Richard persuaded
+Mollinda to a clandestine engagement, to stolen interviews, to a
+belief that love franked by authority was only the skim-milk of human
+kindness. At least he chose to persuade himself that he persuaded her,
+at all times when he could coax a certain bewildered honesty in her
+eyes from dumbly questioning the necessity of such tactics. In reality
+he loved that look, as the sweetest earnest of a sweet quality. It was
+not her he studied to deceive, but himself. Incurably eligible, he
+could never taste but through make-believe, like the “Marchioness,”
+the sweet stimulant of paternal interdiction.
+
+At the end of the season he accompanied father and child to
+“Tregarthen.” Here, you may be sure, he had not been twenty-four hours
+without making choice for his love’s rendezvous of a little wood
+which, approached through a tangled shrubbery, covered the slopes
+which ran up from the back of the house to the high beeches above.
+
+Now Dicky would himself have allowed that everything (desirable) had
+shone upon his suit save moonlight. That only, of all poetic glamours,
+was yet lacking. And so he prevailed with Molly Tregarthen to consent
+to a postprandial trysting among the trees, on the very evening
+subsequent to that of his arrival.
+
+He had no difficulty in escaping from papa, the imperturbable
+sybarite. Seated in an open window over against shrouded lawns, and a
+moon which rose like a bubble in liquid darkness; dreaming betwixt
+decanter and cigar-case, papa would not have had his luminous coma
+disturbed for anything less than a serious fire. So Dicky left him,
+and going up alone to the woods, leaned his back against a tree and
+smoked placidly.
+
+It was very quiet, and fragrant, and beautiful there; and presently
+the young gentleman lost himself somewhat in reflections. The
+moonlight, penetrating the leaves, made of the sward a ghostly Tom
+Tiddler’s Ground, which was all mottled with disks of faint gold. What
+a soft, fine shower to fall upon the head of his Danae, as she should
+come stealing up the alleys of light! Stealing--stealing! There was a
+little thrill of ecstasy in the word. How wide her eyes would be, and
+how would her bosom rise and fall in the breathlessness of some
+phantom guilt!
+
+Quite a nice little debauch of expectation, only--she did not come. He
+waited on, desirous, impatient, hungry; and at last, it must be said,
+cross. The touch of her hand, her lips, had never seemed so
+indispensable to him; but he would not cheapen the virtues of his own
+by carrying them back to market to a coquette. If she wanted them, she
+knew where to find them. As for him, he was quite placid and content;
+in proof of which he threw away his cigar-butt, and began pacing with
+a noisy recklessness up and down.
+
+That did not conjure her to him, but it seemed to evoke occasional
+responsive rustlings, or the fancy of them, which would bring his
+heart into his throat. They were only the stirring of woodland things,
+it seemed. He got very angry, resentful, cruel in his thoughts. The
+moon, the bubble of light, rose higher and higher--to the very surface
+of night, where it floated a little, and then burst. At least, so it
+seemed; for, all of a sudden, where it had been was a black cloud, and
+drops began to patter on the leaves. Then Richard realized all in a
+moment that his tryst had failed, that the moonlight was quenched, and
+that it was beginning to rain. With a naughty word or two, he braced
+up his loins, left the wood, and descended towards the house.
+
+As he went down, he heard the stable clock strike twelve. He startled,
+and strode faster, faster, until he was fairly scuttling. It was in
+vain. The Tregarthens were early people, and, even before he reached
+the house, he knew that its every window was blind and black. The
+whole family was abed, and he was shut out into the night.
+
+Twice, and vainly, he made the entire round of the building, seeking
+for any loophole to enter by. The rain by then was pelting, yet he did
+not dare raise a clatter on the front door, for fear he should be
+pistolled from a window. The inmates knew nothing of his absence, and
+the Squire held, for a Democritus, strong views on the subject of
+undisturbed repose.
+
+Coming to the porch again from his second circuit, and putting a hand
+to rest upon one of its columns, he jumped, as if he had touched a
+charged battery, to see a figure standing motionless in the shadow.
+
+“Hullo!” he gasped, in the sudden shock; then rallying, muttered out
+in a fury at his own weakness, “Who the devil are you?”
+
+Some faint gleam of moonshine, weltering through the flood,
+enlightened him even as he spoke.
+
+“Why, if it ain’t the butler!” he said.
+
+It was the butler. The figure admitted it in a curt word. Le Shore had
+already, on the occasions of his two dinners at “Tregarthen,” noticed
+this man, and had taken a quite violent exception in his own
+conscience to his manner and appearance. He thought he had never known
+a leading trust bestowed upon one whose face so expressed the very
+moral of acquisitiveness, whose conduct was marked by such an uncouth
+inurbanity. Here, if there was any value in biology, was Bill Sikes in
+broadcloth.
+
+The tone of the fellow’s answer grated confoundedly on him--he hardly
+knew why.
+
+“Are you locked out, like me?” he said, putting violence on himself to
+speak civilly.
+
+“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but for a better reason.”
+
+“What do you mean by that?”
+
+The creature was as thick-set as a bull. He could have broken this
+elegant like a stick across his knee. He commanded the situation,
+massive and impassive, from his own standpoint.
+
+“Look’ee here, sir,” he said, speaking through a grip of little strong
+teeth in a square jaw, “I’m going to tell you what I mean. I’m going
+to make no bones about it. You meet Miss Molly fair and open, or you
+don’t meet her at all. Do I know what I’m saying? Yes, I do know. She
+didn’t come to you to-night--because why? Because _I_ interdicted of
+her. That’s it. She might have thought better--or worse--of it, bein’
+a woman, and soft; and that’s why I laid by, watchin’ that no harm
+should come of it if she did. But she was wise, and didn’t. I seen you
+all the time in the wood, and I tell you this. A word’s got to be
+enough. You meet her by fair means, or not at all. Never mind the
+Squire there. It’s me that says it. If she admires you, nine stun
+ten--which there’s no accounting for tastes--I’m not the one to make
+difficulties. But you go like a honest man and ask her straight of her
+father. That’s the ticket, and don’t you make no error. Don’t you
+flatter your fancy no more with randy-voos in the moonshine. Why, if
+ever there’s a light calc’lated to lead a gentleman astray, it’s that.
+I say it, and I know. You go to the girl’s father; and, after, we’ll
+see what we’ll see.”
+
+He cleared his throat with a quarrelling sound, and came out of the
+shadow.
+
+“Now,” said he, “here’s a house you’ve been locked out of, and you
+want to get in without disturbin’ of the family--is that it? Very
+well, sir; now we understand everything; and step this way, if _you_
+please.”
+
+Almost with the words, he had clawed himself up to a window-sill of
+the ground-floor, and was very softly manipulating the sash. Mr. Le
+Shore, voiceless, hardly gasping, stood, just conscious of himself, in
+an absolute rigor of fury and astonishment. He was “stound,” as
+Spenser would have put it. Presently he snapped his eyelids, and woke
+aware that Mr. Hissey, standing on the grass, was loweringly inviting
+him to enter by way of an opened window. With a shock, he recovered
+his nerves of motion, and, stalking to the place, vaulted stiffly to
+the sill, and sat thereon like a cavalryman.
+
+“I’ve just a word or two for you, before I--I avail myself of this,”
+he said. “You’ve been gadding, and got drunk, I suppose; and this is
+your way of trying to make capital of a belated guest. Perhaps the
+means you’ve adopted ’ll appear less excellent to you in the sober
+morning. As to your method of entry, there’s nothing in it
+incompatible with the character I’d already formed of you. But that,
+and your quite outrageous insolence, will be made matters for your
+master’s consideration to-morrow. I mention this in honour, before
+I----” He waved his hand towards the room.
+
+“I could twist your neck with two fingers, here and now,” said the
+man.
+
+“Exactly,” said Dicky. “And that’s why I decline to make use of this
+window except on the plain understanding.”
+
+The butler cleared his throat again, even with a strange note of
+approval in the unseemly sound.
+
+“Mayhap you’ll do,” he said. “Now go to bed, and don’t forgit your
+prayers in your disappyntment.”
+
+Mr. Le Shore hissed-in a breath, as though the rain had suddenly
+become boiling spray, then tiptoed rigidly to his room.
+
+
+The opening of the window, framed with creepers, whose shadows shrank
+or dilated softly in the muslin curtains, gave on to a soothful
+picture of lawn and herbaceous border which, withdrawing to cool
+caverns of leafiness under a remote cedar tree, seemed to gather
+themselves to a head of prettiest expression in the person of little
+Miss Mollinda swinging there in a hammock. Within, at the
+luncheon-table, Tregarthen poured himself out a glass of Madeira with
+a hand so limp and white in appearance that one would have thought it
+incapable of the task of poising the heavy decanter. Here was delicate
+seeming only, however. The perpetual sybarite reads an incorruptible
+constitution. The white hand held the bottle horizontal, as steady as
+a rock, during the minute the indolent, good-humoured eyes of its
+owner were directed to those of his visitor.
+
+“My dear good Richard, the man _is_ a burglar.”
+
+He laughed at the other’s expression, filled his glass, sipped at it,
+and, hooking his thumbs in his arm-holes, lolled back in his chair.
+
+“I am not justified in the confidence, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyhow,
+it is the short way out of a fatiguing explanation. The man _is_ a
+burglar--not figuratively, but actually, by breeding, education,
+profession--_appelez-le comme vous voudrez_. He has the stamp of it so
+distinctly on him that one need not ask him to produce his skeleton
+key.”
+
+“Then I have nothing more to say.”
+
+“Ah! the devil take the honest thief! Your obvious grievance forces me
+to the explanation, after all. My dear boy, I imply nothing, argue
+from no premises but such as a long experience of this capital,
+troublesome fellow suggest to me. Speaking from these (I may be
+wrong), I should conclude that he is somehow in process of
+safeguarding, as he thinks, the interests of my girl, to whom he is
+quite romantically attached. Honestly, I don’t know to whom I would
+rather commit them. Poor motherless child!”
+
+He had, it seemed, no thought of himself as pledged to the task.
+‘Himself’ should be a fair one-man’s burden.
+
+“He is very right to be attached to Miss Tregarthen,” muttered Le
+Shore dryly, and a little sullenly.
+
+“He is very right indeed,” answered his host; “righter (pardon the
+solecism) than you might think. In this excellent rogue is provided
+such an illustration of the ‘harmony not understood’ of discords, as
+circumstance has ever given to an _ennuyé_ world. The dear creature
+has decided to stultify his every instinct for a sentiment. It is the
+most interesting psychological phenomenon you can imagine. He has
+conceded nothing of his nature but the means to its practical
+achievement. Conceive a wolf of his own determination forgoing blood.
+Such is this dear, admirable brute. _Perfossor parietum nascitur._ He
+cannot change his spots. To this day, I think, he will always of
+choice enter by a window rather than a door; to this day he regards
+plate with a most _melting_ look. But for all that, I think I may
+swear that at the present moment the tally of my spoons is to an ounce
+what it was when he took service with me eighteen years ago.”
+
+“Your servant for eighteen years!”
+
+“My servant--titularly: in reality, my mentor, my vizier. Dog Trust is
+a rather sweetly demoralizing acquisition. He takes the burden of
+conscience from one--steals it, in this case, I may say. But then,
+after all, he may use his vicegerency to ends so far beyond the moral
+grasp of the master he represents, as more than to vindicate that
+master in his withdrawal from the vexatious problems of duty. Through
+sheer force of affection this admirable George has mastered himself,
+and bettered his master in the parental ethics.”
+
+“Indeed, sir?” (Mr. Dicky spoke very dryly.) “And how does Miss
+Tregarthen approve the viziership?”
+
+“As she loves and respects the vizier, Richard. I do not think she
+would willingly run counter to his dictates, which, by the way, he
+never imposes in a manner to alarm one’s pride. Ah! did you catch that
+whiff of scabious? There is a bush of it under the window there. It
+always seems to me to embody in itself the whole warmth and fragrance
+of summer. My dear fellow, your eyes are relentless inquisitors. No
+more wine? Well, I suppose I shall have to tell you how it came
+about.”
+
+He sighed, drained his glass, laughed slightly, and smoothed a stray
+wisp of hair from his forehead.
+
+“Once,” he said--“it was particularly disagreeable to a person of my
+temperament--I was called upon by Fate to suffer the ugly and sordid
+experience of a conflagration in my house. You, who are also a little
+inclined, I believe, to create for yourself an atmosphere of romance,
+to regard the great world only as a quarry, from which to gather
+materials most exquisite and most apt to the enrichment of the
+hermitage, which it is your design and your delight to build apart for
+your soul, will appreciate what were my feelings upon seeing my fairy
+fabric doomed to destruction, to positive annihilation, by the flames.
+I have never spoken to you of the disaster before. You will know that
+I do so now under the mere stress of fitness, as a means to your
+proper understanding of George Hissey’s conduct. The recollection is
+painful and horrible to a degree.
+
+“The alarm, the escape, the catastrophe were all accomplished in the
+dark hours of a winter’s morning. My dear wife (she sleeps, awaiting
+my coming, in Elysium) followed me down the stairs and out of the
+house at a short interval. She found me devoted to a frantic endeavour
+to secure from destruction such of my poor treasures as were
+accessible--few enough, alas! though the tears I shed should have
+quenched the hate of a Hecla. What had I done with her child? she
+cried to me--with our sweet Molly, our little three-year-old babe?
+Richard, I felt as stunned as if she, the pretty, gentle mother, had
+struck me across the mouth. I could only stare and gasp. She uttered a
+heart-shaking scream, and turned to where the servants stood huddled
+together in the garden. They were all there, and the two nurses were
+crying and moaning and accusing one another. My God! mad with terror,
+they had deserted their charge to perish by itself in the burning
+house!”
+
+He paused. “Don’t go on, sir, if it distresses you,” said Le Shore
+quietly.
+
+“No,” answered Tregarthen. “Like the Ancient Mariner, I must be quit
+of it now I have begun. But I will have a glass of wine.”
+
+He poured himself out one, daintily as to the drop on the decanter
+lip.
+
+“There followed a fearful scene,” he said. “It was all I could do to
+prevent my angel from precipitating herself through the blazing
+doorway. The whole building seemed by now a furnace--no possibility of
+further salvage from those priceless accumulations--not, of course,
+that at such a pass it was to be thought of. I mingled my tears with
+my wife’s. I offered half my fortune to any one of the crowd who would
+save, and a large reward to any one who would venture to save, our
+darling. But it was in vain; and in my heart I knew it.
+
+“Now, in this extremity of despair, a sudden roar went up from a
+hundred throats, and passed on the instant. Richard, a man, shedding
+flakes of fire as Venus cast her birth-slough of spray, had emerged
+overhead from the sea of flame, and in his arms was our child. Who was
+he? Whence did he come? No one knew. Our house was isolated. The
+engine from the neighbouring town had not arrived. He was not a
+friend, nor a neighbour, nor an employé. It was only evident that
+innocence had somehow evolved its champion.
+
+“We watched, stricken, as castaways watch the glimmer of a remote
+sail. The figure had broken its way through the skylight in the roof,
+only, it might be, to symbolize in the burden it bore the leaping of a
+little flame heavenward. The situation was the very sublimity of
+tragedy. Beneath those two the roof, sown with a very garden of fire,
+dropped at a sickening angle.
+
+“Suddenly, shutting, as it seemed, upon his charge, the man rolled
+himself up like a hedgehog, and came bowling down the slope. It was a
+terrible and gasping moment. His body, as it whirled, reeled out a
+hiss of sparks. The next instant it had bounded over the edge, and
+plunged among the smoking bushes beneath.
+
+“They broke his fall; but it was the verandah awning which in the
+first instance saved his life--his, and our dear devoted cherub’s. But
+he had never once, through all the stunning vertigo of his descent,
+failed to shield the little body which his own enwrapped.
+
+“Now, my dear Richard, comes the strange part. When I was sufficiently
+recovered to seek our preserver, I found him sitting handcuffed, in
+charge of the local policeman. He was very white, with two or three
+ribs broken; but he took it all unconcerned, as being in the day’s, or
+the night’s, business. Who was he? Well, here is the explanation. He
+was a renowned cracksman, as I think they call it, who had been
+operating in the neighbourhood for some weeks past--the hero of many a
+shuddering midnight adventure. Without doubt he had taken his toll of
+_my_ ‘crib,’ had not circumstance dropped him ripe into the gaping
+mouth of the law. He had entered, and was actually at work, when fire
+cut the ground, as it were, from under his feet. Almost before,
+intensely occupied, he realized his position, escape by the lower
+rooms was debarred him. Was ever situation so dramatic? It was to be
+compared only with that of a huntsman who, entering some cave to steal
+bear cubs, turns to find the dam blocking his outlet. Still, Mr.
+Hissey _might_ have escaped, and without detection, by dropping to the
+lawn from a back window, had his burglarious ears not pricked suddenly
+to the wailing of a child.
+
+“My dear fellow, need I explain further? The child he risked his own
+life to rescue was our--I may almost say, at this day, was _his_
+Molly. It was the strangest thing. I did not, as a consequence, quite
+see my way to holding him altogether absolved; but my dear, emotional
+partner was of a different opinion. We had quite a little scene about
+it. In the end she prevailed--with the whole boiling of the law, too;
+and the man was sentenced to come up for judgment if called upon. Then
+straightway, and by his own desire, she took the disinfected burglar
+into her service. It was one of those daring psychologic essays which
+may once and again be carried to a successful issue through the
+white-hot faith of the experimenter; but which must not be given
+authority as a precedent. My wife fairly redeemed this burglar, by
+committing, without hesitation, to his loyal trust the little waif of
+fire whose destinies he had earned the right to a voice in. From that
+day to this, I will say, he has never abused the faith we reposed in
+him. On her deathbed, my dear girl (pardon me a moment, Le Shore), my
+dear wife most solemnly recommitted her child to his care. I did not
+complain, I do not complain now. I, who make no pretence of competence
+in the paternal rôle, thank the gods only for my vizier, who is quite
+willing to accord me the ritual of authority, while taking its
+practical business on his own shoulders. With a man of my temperament
+it works; and I am satisfied, if Molly gives me her respect, that she
+should give Hissey her duty.”
+
+He ceased, with a little smiling sigh, and lifted a cigarette from a
+silver case which lay on the table. Le Shore regarded him steadily.
+
+“Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, “Molly and I are engaged. I should have
+told you before.”
+
+The older man did not pause in the act of lighting his cigarette; but
+enjoyed an inhalation of smoke before he answered--
+
+“I plead guilty to a suspicion, Richard. I am confident our vizier has
+been safeguarding the proprieties. You remember what I said to you in
+his excuse just now?”
+
+“I have your sanction, sir?”
+
+“Certainly, as a form. But I am afraid, from the practical side, you
+will have to satisfy that same inquisitor.”
+
+
+“Mr. George Hissey,” said Dicky, “I have papa’s authority to marry
+Miss Molly. Now, with your permission, I will relieve you of your
+trust.”
+
+“Dicky!” cried the girl reproachfully; and she put her kind young arms
+round the ex-burglar’s neck.
+
+“Unless,” said Le Shore, “you care to transfer that to my ‘crib,’ Mr.
+Hissey.”
+
+The butler cleared his throat.
+
+“Well, I do care, sir,” he said, hoarsely, nevertheless, “since you
+seen fit to cut that moonshinin’ lay, And as to cribs----”
+
+“Molly” said Richard, “there’s papa calling.”
+
+
+
+
+ A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE
+
+“I have nothing to do with your scruples,” said the magistrate; “the
+law is the law, and I am here to administer it.”
+
+Mr. Plumley licked his hand, and stolidly smoothing down his black
+hair with it, answered, as if at a distance, being a well-fed,
+unctuous man, “too full for sound and foam,” “I’m a conscientious
+objector.”
+
+“Passive resister!” corrected a friend, a little eager man, among the
+audience near him.
+
+“Eh?” said Mr. Plumley immovably, and without a glance in the
+direction of the voice, “I said passive resister, didn’t I?”
+
+“Whether you said it or not,” answered the magistrate sharply, “you
+look it. I make an order against you for the amount.”
+
+“As man to man----” began Mr. Plumley.
+
+“Not in the least,” said the magistrate; “as debtor to creditor. Stand
+down.”
+
+“I shan’t pay it,” said Mr. Plumley, preparing to obey.
+
+“If you say another word, I’ll commit you for contempt,” said the
+magistrate. “Stand down, sir!”
+
+Mr. Plumley stood down, with an unspeakable expression--it might have
+been of satisfaction--on his huge, stolid face. Arrived at the floor,
+he beckoned his little friend to follow him, and heavily left the
+court.
+
+He steered--the other acting as his rudder, as it were, and keeping
+his position behind--straight for his own domestic shrine, hight
+Primrose Villa, semi-detached. It was a beautiful little home for a
+widower unencumbered, calculated, like an india-rubber collar, to
+afford the maximum of display at a minimum of cost in washing. The
+doorsteps were laid with a flaming pattern in tiles; red-aspinalled
+flower pots, embellished with little dull glazed shrubs, stood on the
+lowest window-sill; the bell-knob was of handsome porcelain, painted
+with the gaudiest flowers in miniature. Within, too, it was all
+furnished on a like hard principle of lustre--red and yellow oilcloth
+in the hall, with marbled paper to match; earthenware-panned mahogany
+hat-rack and umbrella-stand combined, as red as rhubarb, and as acrid
+in suggestion to one’s feelings; more oilcloth in the parlour; more
+mahogany, also, with a pert disposition in its doors and drawers to
+resent being shut up; glass bead mats and charity bazaar photograph
+frames on the whatnots, all so clean and pungent with sharp furniture
+stain that the rudder--Gardener by name--felt, as usual, the necessity
+of a humble apology for bringing his five feet four of shabbiness into
+the midst of so much splendour and selectness.
+
+Mr. Plumley rumbled condescendingly in reply--
+
+“You’d get used to it, Robert, you’d get used to it, if you’d lived
+familiar with it all your life, as I have.”
+
+“Ah!” said Gardener, “but I wasn’t born like you, sir, to shine.”
+
+If he meant that the other was a light in his way--a little tallowy,
+perhaps--his own dry, hungry cheeks certainly justified him in the
+self-depreciation. They justified him, moreover--or he fancied they
+did, which was all the same as to the moral--in continuing to act
+jackal to this social lion, who had once been his employer in the
+cheap furniture-removal line. He lived--hung, it would seem more
+apposite to say--on his traditions of the great man’s business
+capacities, capacities whose fruits were here to witness, for evidence
+of the competence upon which his principal had retired. He got, in
+fact, little else than his traditions out of his former master at this
+date; yet it was strange how they served to delude him into a belief
+in his continued profit at the hands of the old patronage. The moral
+benefit he acquired from stealing into the local chapel to hear Mr.
+Plumley take a Sunday-school class, was at least worth as much to him
+as the occasional pipe of tobacco, or glass of whisky and water, which
+his idol vouchsafed him. For Mr. Gardener, as a true ‘poor relation’
+of the gods, was humbly thankful for their cheapest condescensions.
+
+“You stuck to your principles, sir,” he said, standing on one leg and
+the toe of the other, in humble deprecation of his right to any but
+the smallest possible allowance of oilcloth. Perhaps he would have
+brought his foot down, even he, could he have guessed the true
+significance of his own remark.
+
+“I did, Robert,” said Mr. Plumley, placidly sleeking his hair. “I
+always do. Have a pipe, Robert?”
+
+“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the man. “That was a mistake you made,
+sir.”
+
+“Mistakes,” said Mr. Plumley, “will occur. Have some whisky, Robert?”
+
+“You’re very good, sir.”
+
+“You don’t like it too strong, I think, Robert? And how’s the world
+treating you, my friend?”
+
+“Much as usual, sir. From hand to mouth’s my motto.”
+
+“Sad, sad to be sure. They’ll distrain upon me, I suppose.”
+
+“I’m afraid so, sir.”
+
+“The inhumanity of the world, Robert! You do pretty reg’lar porter’s
+work for Bull and Hacker, the auctioneers, don’t you, Robert?”
+
+“That’s so, Mr. Plumley,” said the man, wondering. “But the work’s
+heavier than the wages.”
+
+“They’ll be commissioned to seize the necessary goods. I wish you’d
+manage to give ’em a hint, Robert--over the left, you know, without
+any reference to me--that there’s a picture I prize (and that I’ve
+reason to believe a dealer is after), what would more than pay the two
+pun odd of the distraint if put up first. O’ course, I can’t appear to
+favour the matter myself, being a con----”
+
+“Passive resister, sir.”
+
+“Thank you, Robert; being the one most concerned in disputin’ the
+justice of the law. But a hint from you might settle the question at
+once. We aren’t very good friends, Bull and me; and, if he thought I
+prized the article, he’d be moral sure to seize it, slap away, to
+spite me.”
+
+“The picter?”
+
+“The picture, Robert. There it is.”
+
+It hung in an obscure corner, a dingy enough article, in an old
+damaged frame.
+
+“It don’t look the price,” said Gardener doubtfully.
+
+“It cost me more in a bad debt,” said the ex-remover, busying himself
+with the whisky in his heavy, observant way.
+
+“Very like, sir,” answered the other, and coughed behind his hand.
+
+“I know what you mean,” said his patron; “that I was took in. Well,
+I’ve reason to think not, my man. I’ve reason to think that picture’s
+worth a deal--say, fifty pun. Anyhow, I mean to try.”
+
+“A dealer’s after it, you say?”
+
+“Yes, I do say.”
+
+“Then why--with deference, sir--don’t you sell direct to him?”
+
+“Why don’t I? Am I a man of business, Robert? Look about you. Have I
+learned, do you think, to take a hexpert’s word as to the precise
+vally of a article that I see his heye’s on, or to argy by induction
+that a good private offer means a better public one? When it comes to
+overreaching--hem!--a connoyser’s a man like myself; so we’ll just, by
+your leave, put the picture up to auction.”
+
+He carried the decanter back to its place in one of the shiny
+cupboards.
+
+“Besides, my friend,” said he, talking over his shoulder, “don’t you
+see as how my conscience demands this seizure?”
+
+“Not quite, sir, _with_ humility, if so be as----”
+
+“You’re dense, Robert. Look here, I’m a conscientious resister, ain’t
+I? Law ain’t necessarily equity because the devil and Mr. Chamberlain
+frames it. There’s some lawgivers that are Vicars of Jehovah, and some
+of----but perhaps you’ve never heard of Abaddon?”
+
+“_Haven’t_ I?” said Mr. Gardener ruefully. “I was near run in once for
+tendering one as had been passed on me.”
+
+“He was king of the bottomless pit,” said Mr. Plumley patiently. “_He_
+framed this here law what’s made a passive objector of me. Well, if,
+in resigning myself to his unjust processes, I force the
+picture-dealer’s hand, thereby making a profit elsewise denied me,
+don’t you see how I round on the law--triumph over it--kill two birds
+with one stone, as it might be?”
+
+“Yes, sir; I see that,” said Mr. Gardener, though still doubtfully.
+
+“You do, do you?” responded the other. “Well, then, the only thing is
+to make the law pay as heavy as possible by getting the picture run up
+to the dealer’s figure.”
+
+“But the law wouldn’t go for more’n its two pun odd,” protested the
+jackal.
+
+“O, you fool!” snarled the lion. “It’s the moral profit’s the game,
+don’t you see? _I_ gain by the very hact what starts of itself to ruin
+me. It’s as plain as two pins.”
+
+Mr. Gardener scratched his head, and broke into a short laugh.
+
+“Bless you sir,” said he, “it’s clear enough; if on’y you’ll tell me
+who in all this here place is a-going to run up the dealer, since you
+can’t yourself.”
+
+Mr. Plumley, bending at the cupboard, did not answer for a moment.
+When at last he did, rising and facing round, there was a curious
+pallor on his lips, and he had to clear his throat before he could
+articulate--
+
+“You, Robert.”
+
+“Me, sir! You’re joking.”
+
+“Never less so, Robert.”
+
+“I ain’t worth a sixpence in the world, sir.”
+
+The ex-remover walked shakily across, and put a flabby, insinuative
+hand on the other’s shoulder.
+
+“I think I may say I’ve been a good friend to you, Robert?”
+
+Gardener muttered an uneasy affirmative.
+
+“To justify a great principle, Robert? It’s a mere matter of form;
+its----humph! A moment, if you please. Think of it while I’m gone.”
+
+A rap at the front door had obtruded itself. Mr. Plumley tiptoed
+elephantinely out, was heard murmuring a few minutes in the hall, and
+returned shortly in a state of suavely perspiring mystery.
+
+“It’s the dealer himself, Robert,” he whispered, his little eyes
+twinkling. “He’s come to make another attempt. I’ll humour him--humour
+him, never fear. Now, you must be quick. Will you do this little thing
+to oblige me?”
+
+“Supposing I were let in, sir?”
+
+Mr. Plumley coughed.
+
+“I guarantee you, of course. It’s just a confidence between us. Go to
+fifty pound--not a penny less nor more--and let him take it at any
+figure he likes, beyond. He won’t fail you. You’ll do it, Robert?”
+
+“I don’t favour the job, sir.”
+
+“But you’ll do it?”
+
+“Well, yes, then.”
+
+Mr. Plumley showed him out, returned to the parlour, finished his
+whisky and water, and called in the dealer from some hidden corner of
+the hall where he had lain concealed. He had braced his nerves in the
+interval. His attitude all at once was scowling and truculent--meet
+for the reception of the shabby loafer who now presented himself.
+
+“What are you grinning at, sir?” he roared. “This ain’t the face to
+bring to business.”
+
+“O! isn’t it?” said the man. “Then I’ll change it----” which he did,
+so suddenly and terrifically that the other cowered. The stranger
+snorted, and relaxed.
+
+“What now, minion?” said he.
+
+“Bah!” snarled Mr. Plumley: “it comes easy to a barnstormer.”
+
+“Roscius, ye fat old Philistine,” cried the actor, striking his breast
+with a ragged-gloved hand: “Roscius, thou ‘villainous, obscene, greasy
+tallow-ketch!’”
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Plumley, wiping his brow, “I meant no offence,
+anyhow. Have a drink?”
+
+The stranger breathed heavily, and assumed a Napoleonic pose.
+
+“I will have a drink,” he said; and, in fact, before he would
+condescend to utter another word, he had two.
+
+“Ha!” he said then, ejaculating a little spirituous cloud, and his
+lean, pantomimic face was all at once benign. “Richard’s himself
+again, and eager for the fray! To the charge, my passive resister, my
+heavy lead! Ye need Theophilus Bolton! Ye must pay!”
+
+“As to that there,” began Mr. Plumley, stuttering and glowering; but
+the other took him up coolly----
+
+“As to that, dear boy, there’s no question. You’ve withheld me from a
+profitable engagement----”
+
+“O, blow profitable!” interposed Mr. Plumley. “And you didn’t jump at
+the chanst neither!”
+
+“To play a part for you,” went on the actor unruffled “Well, am I to
+be Agnew, or Christie, or Sotheby, or who? My commission’s five per
+cent.”
+
+“Well, I don’t object to that,” said Plumley, relieved. “On the vally
+of the picture to Gardener, that’s to say. Call it done, and call
+yourself what you like.”
+
+“One man in his time plays many parts,” murmured Mr. Bolton. “Put it
+on paper, dear boy. I have a weakness for testaments.”
+
+Mr. Plumley protested; the actor whistled. In the end, the latter
+pocketed a document to the effect that Joshua Plumley agreed to pay
+Theophilus Bolton a sum to be calculated at the rate of five per cent
+on the ultimate selling price at auction (on a date hereafter to be
+filled in) of a picture known as the “The Wood Shop.”
+
+“You’ll be close?” said Mr. Plumley uneasily. “It might--it might
+injure me, you know, if it got about. Short o’ fifty pound’s the
+figger--you understand? Let Gardener secure it at that. I’ve my
+reasons. You come to me quick and quiet after the sale, and you shall
+have your two pound ten on the nail, and slip off with it as private
+as you wish.”
+
+Now, what was Plumley’s little game? And wasn’t he anyhow a good man
+of business?
+
+
+He was at least such a sure student of human nature as to have made no
+miscalculation in the matter of Bull and Hacker’s predilections. They
+seized, on the strength of Mr. Gardener’s artful insinuations, the
+very picture on which the defaulter was supposed to set a value, and
+put it up to sale one afternoon on the tail of a general auction. Mr.
+Gardener bid for it (the practice was common enough amongst the firm’s
+employés, acting for private clients, and Bull rather admired the
+man’s astuteness in having suggested a seizure so prospectively
+profitable to himself), and a strange dealer opposed him. They ran one
+another up merrily, and the room gaped and sniggered and whispered. It
+was an afternoon of surprises.
+
+“Forty-six,” cried the auctioneer--“any advance on forty-six?”
+
+A local lawyer, Bittern by name, was observed pushing his way through
+the crowd.
+
+“Good Lord!” he was muttering; “is the man daft!”
+
+“Forty-seven,” said the dealer.
+
+“Forty-eight,” bawled Gardener.
+
+“Forty-nine,” said the dealer monotonously.
+
+“Fifty!” cried Gardener stoutly; and hung on the bid which was to quit
+and relieve him.
+
+It did not come.
+
+The auctioneer raised his stereotyped wail: It was giving the lot
+away; a chance like that might never occur again; let him say
+fifty-one. “Come, gentlemen! Shall I say fifty-one? No?” He would sell
+at fifty, then--sell this unique work at the low figure of fifty
+pounds. “Any advance on fifty pounds?” He raised his hammer.
+
+“Not for me,” said the dealer, turning away. “Let him have it.”
+
+Down came the hammer. “Gardener: fifty pounds,” murmured Mr. Bull,
+with a very satisfied face. The purchaser stood stupefied.
+
+Two flurried gentlemen at this moment entered the room. They seemed
+more rivals than friends, and each shouldered the other rather rudely.
+
+“Too late, by gosh!” growled one.
+
+“Not a bit,” said the second, pushing past. “We’ll get the vendee to
+put it up again. I dare say he’ll do it.”
+
+“Here!” cried the first, grasping at the other’s receding figure.
+
+Jibbing together, they made their way towards Gardener, who was
+standing in rueful and dumbfoundered altercation with the lawyer. A
+brief but very earnest discussion took place among the four. At the
+end, the rostrum was invoked, the picture was replaced on the table,
+the two new-comers took up position. Gardener, mute and dazed, fell
+back, in custody of the lawyer, who stood with a hard, shrewd glitter
+in his eyes, and the auctioneer, blandly elated, raised his voice,
+justifying his own judgment.
+
+The picture, he said--as he had already informed the company, in
+fact--was a desirable one, a rare example of that peerless master
+Adrian Ostade; and the recent purchaser--whose property it was now
+become--had been persuaded generously to put it up to auction again on
+his own account, in answer to the representations of certain would-be
+bidders, whom an unforeseen delay on the railway had prevented from
+attending earlier.
+
+“We will start at fifty pounds, gentlemen, if you please,” said he.
+
+Mr. Bolton, in the background, pulled his hat over his eyes, and
+settled himself to listen.
+
+
+That great financial strategist, Mr. Plumley, sat drinking whisky and
+water by lamplight. His pipe lay at his side. He had tried to smoke
+it; but tobacco flurried him.
+
+“It should be about settled by now,” he muttered. “Where’s that
+Bolton?”
+
+“Rap!” came the answer, upon such an acute nervous centre, that he
+started as if he had been stung.
+
+He rose, made an effort to compose himself, and went to the door.
+
+A spare tall figure detached itself from the dark, and entered.
+
+“What the devil’s been keeping you?” growled the ex-remover.
+
+“Ah! you’re short-sighted, my friend,” said Mr. Bittern, and walked
+coolly into the parlour.
+
+Mr. Plumley stared, felt suddenly wet, shook himself, and followed.
+When it came to creeping flesh, he felt the full aggravation of his
+size. The slow march of apprehensions, taking time from a sluggish but
+persistent brain, seemed minutes encompassing him.
+
+“So,” said the lawyer, dry and wintry, the moment he was in, “you
+coveted your neighbours one ewe lamb?”
+
+Mr. Plumley took up his pipe, blew through it, put it down again, and
+said nothing.
+
+“You’d heard of Gardener’s aunt’s little bequest to him of fifty
+pounds, duty free, eh?” asked the lawyer.
+
+“No,” said Mr. Plumley.
+
+“O!” said the lawyer. “He bid fifty pounds for that picture of yours
+this afternoon, and got it. On whose instructions?”
+
+“Ask him, sir. He acts for many.”
+
+“It wasn’t on yours, then?”
+
+“Is that reasonable, Mr. Bittern, when to my knowledge the man wasn’t
+worth a brass farden?”
+
+“What do you say about holding him to his bargain?”
+
+“I say, if he’s bought the picture, he must pay for it.”
+
+“And who bid against him? You don’t know that either, I suppose?”
+
+“Nat’rally. Was I there?”
+
+“Well, I’ve settled for him with Bull and Hacker, and brought you
+their cheque, less commission and distraint. Give me a receipt for
+it.”
+
+The great creature, elated with his own strategy as he was, could
+hardly draw it out, his hands shook so. But he managed the business
+somehow. The lawyer examined the paper, and buttoning it into his
+pocket, took up his hat.
+
+“O, by the way!” he said, as if on an afterthought, “I was forgetting
+to mention that Gardener, after securing the picture, put it up to
+auction again, at the particular request of some late arrivals, and
+was bid a thousand pounds for it. It turned out to be a very good
+work.”
+
+Mr. Plumley took up his pipe again quite softly, looked at it a
+moment, and suddenly dashed it to smithereens on the floor.
+
+“It was a plant!” he cried in a fat, hoarse scream. “I’ll be even with
+him--I’ll have the money--the picture was mine--I’ll--by God, I say,
+it was a conspiracy!”
+
+The lawyer at the door lashed round on him like whipcord.
+
+“And that’s what I think,” he shouted. “The meanest, dirtiest trick
+that was ever played by a canting scoundrel on a poor brother. But I
+may get to the bottom of it yet, from the opening scheme to enlist
+Gardener’s sympathies for a poor martyr to conscience, to the last
+wicked design upon him in the saleroom. I may get to the bottom of it,
+cunning as it was planned; and, when I do, let some look out!”
+
+As he flung away, he let in a new-comer, Mr. Bolton, by the opened
+door. Mr. Plumley, choking in the backwater of his own fury, had sunk
+into a chair, gasping betwixt bitterness and panic. He could not, for
+the moment, remember how far he had committed himself. He looked up to
+meet the insolent, ironic smile of his confederate. “Come along, dear
+boy,” said Mr. Bolton. “Curtain’s down. Cash up!”
+
+He presented a claim for fifty pounds, and stood, his hat cocked on
+his head, picking his teeth.
+
+“What’s this curst gammon?” sneered Mr. Plumley, rousing himself.
+
+“Commission,” said the actor airily. “Five per cent. on the ultimate
+selling price of a picture.”
+
+“It went at fifty.”
+
+“Pardon _me_, sir. _Ultimate--ultimate_, see agreement” (he smacked
+his chest). “One thou’ was the figure, and dirt cheap. Fine example.
+I’ll trouble you for a cheque.”
+
+“Two pound ten. I’ll give it you in cash.”
+
+Mr. Bolton whistled a stave, and turned round, his hands deep in his
+breeches’ pockets.
+
+“I can sell to the other party. Good day to you, and look out.”
+
+ [The End]
+
+
+
+
+ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ cash-box/cash box,
+frockcoat/frock-coat, etc.) have been preserved.
+
+Alterations to the text:
+
+[A gallows-bird]
+
+Change “convolutions of war, the merry, the _dance-maccabre_” to
+_danse-macabre_.
+
+[Our lady of refuge]
+
+“fort of San Fernando. and the cursed French garrison,” change period
+to comma.
+
+[The five insides]
+
+(“‘Eh, says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting) add right single
+quotation mark after _Eh_.
+
+“a bit forward--‘No, no, no no, no, no, no--’” add comma after
+third _no_.
+
+[The jade button]
+
+“The property was recovered--but for the heir…” add period to
+sentence.
+
+ [End of text]
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
+or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+
+1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
+Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
+on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+
+  
+    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+    at www.gutenberg.org. If you
+    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
+    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
+  
+
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
+
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg™ License.
+
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
+other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
+Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+provided that:
+
+
+    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
+        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
+        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+        Literary Archive Foundation.”
+    
+    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
+        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
+        works.
+    
+    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+        receipt of the work.
+    
+    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
+    
+
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+
+
+1.F.
+
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
+
+
+Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
+
+
+The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+
+
+Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
+visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
+
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org.
+
+
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/71615-0.zip b/71615-0.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index a170076..0000000
--- a/71615-0.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/71615-h.zip b/71615-h.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index 494f7f5..0000000
--- a/71615-h.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/71615-h/71615-h.htm b/71615-h/71615-h.htm
index c798512..d2f3e02 100644
--- a/71615-h/71615-h.htm
+++ b/71615-h/71615-h.htm
@@ -1,16419 +1,16419 @@
-<!DOCTYPE html>

-<html lang="en">

-<head>

- <meta charset="UTF-8">

- <title>

-  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes, by Bernard Capes

- </title>

- <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">

-  <style>

-    

-    #pg-header div, #pg-footer div {

-        all: initial;

-        display: block;

-        margin-top: 1em;

-        margin-bottom: 1em;

-        margin-left: 2em;

-    }

-    #pg-footer div.agate {

-        font-size: 90%;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-        text-align: center;

-    }

-    #pg-footer li {

-        all: initial;

-        display: block;

-        margin-top: 1em;

-        margin-bottom: 1em;

-        text-indent: -0.6em;

-    }

-    #pg-footer div.secthead {

-        font-size: 110%;

-        font-weight: bold;

-    }

-    #pg-footer #project-gutenberg-license {

-        font-size: 110%;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-        text-align: center;

-    }

-    #pg-header-heading {

-        all: inherit;

-        text-align: center;

-        font-size: 120%;

-        font-weight:bold;

-    }

-    #pg-footer-heading {

-        all: inherit;

-        text-align: center;

-        font-size: 120%;

-        font-weight: normal;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-machine-header p {

-        text-indent: -4em;

-        margin-left: 4em;

-        margin-top: 1em;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-        font-size: medium

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-header-authlist {

-        all: initial;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-machine-header strong {

-        font-weight: normal;

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-start-separator, #pg-footer #pg-end-separator {

-        margin-bottom: 3em;

-        margin-left: 0;

-        margin-right: auto;

-        margin-top: 2em;

-        text-align: center

-    }

-    

-  </style>

- <style>

-

-/* Headers and Divisions */

- h1, h2, h3 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:always; text-align:center;}

- h4 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:avoid; text-align:center;}

-

-/* General */

-

- body {margin:0% 5% 0% 5%;}

-

- .nobreak {page-break-before:avoid;}

-

- p {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em;}

- .center {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;}

- .noindent {text-indent:0em;}

- .spacer {margin:0.5em 0em 0.5em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;}

-

- .toc_1 {font-variant:small-caps; margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .toc_2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;}

-

- .right {text-align:right;}

- .sign2 {margin:0em 2em 0em 0em; text-align:right; text-indent:0em;}

-

- .chap_sub {font-size:70%;}

- .sc {font-variant:small-caps;}

- .font80 {font-size:80%;}

-

-/* special formatting */

- /* poem/song verse formatting */

- .is {margin:1em 0em 0em 0em; text-indent:0em;}

- .i0 {margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i1 {margin:0em 0em 0em 3em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 4em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i3 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i4 {margin:0em 0em 0em 6em; text-indent:-2em;}

-

- .mt1 {margin-top:1em;}

- .mt2 {margin-top:2em;}

- .mt3 {margin-top:3em;}

- .mt4 {margin-top:4em;}

- .mt6 {margin-top:6em;}

- .mb1 {margin-bottom:1em;}

-

- blockquote {margin:1em 1em 1em 2em;}

-

- figure {text-align:center;}

- img {max-width:90%;}

-

-</style>

-</head>

-<body>

-<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-header' lang='en'>

-<h2 id='pg-header-heading' title=''>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes by Bernard Capes</h2>

-

-<div>This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and 

-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 

-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms 

-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online 

-at <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not located in the United States, 

-you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located 

-before using this eBook.</div>

-

-

-<div class='container' id='pg-machine-header'>

-<p><strong>Title: </strong>Loaves and fishes</p>

-<div id='pg-header-authlist'>

-<p><strong>Author: </strong>Bernard Capes</p>

-</div>

-

-<p><strong>Release Date: </strong>September 11, 2023 [eBook #71615]</p>

-<p><strong>Language: </strong>English</p>

-<p><strong>Credits: </strong>an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer</p>

-</div>

-<div id='pg-start-separator'>

-<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***</span>

-</div>

-</section>

-

-

-<h1>

-LOAVES AND FISHES

-</h1>

-

-<p class="center">

-<span class="font80">BY</span><br>

-BERNARD CAPES

-</p>

-

-<p class="center mt6">

-METHUEN & CO.<br>

-36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br>

-LONDON<br>

-<i>First Published in 1906</i>

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-CONTENTS

-</h2>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch01">A GALLOWS-BIRD</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch02">THE RAVELLED SLEAVE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch03">THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch04">A GHOST-CHILD</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch05">HIS CLIENT’S CASE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch06">AN ABSENT VICAR</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch07">THE BREECHES BISHOP</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch08">THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch09">ARCADES AMBO</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch10">OUR LADY OF REFUGE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch11">THE GHOST-LEECH</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch12">POOR LUCY RIVERS</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch13">THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch14">THE LOST NOTES</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch15">THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch16">JACK THE SKIPPER</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch17">A BUBBLE REPUTATION</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch18">A POINT OF LAW</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch19">THE FIVE INSIDES</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch20">THE JADE BUTTON</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch21">DOG TRUST</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch22">A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE</a>

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-[NOTE]

-</h2>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">Acknowledgments</span> are made to the editors of “The Pall Mall Magazine,”

-“The Illustrated London News,” “The World,” “Black and White,” “The

-London Magazine,” “The English Illustrated Magazine,” and “The

-Bystander,” to the hospitality of whose pages a number of the stories

-here reprinted were first invited.

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-LOAVES AND FISHES

-</h2>

-

-<h3 class="nobreak" id="ch01">

-A GALLOWS-BIRD

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">In</span> February of the year 1809, when the French were sat down before

-Saragossa&mdash;then enduring its second and more terrific siege within a

-period of six months&mdash;it came to the knowledge of the Duc d’Abrantes,

-at that time the General commanding, that his army, though undoubtedly

-the salt of the earth, was yet so little sufficient to itself in the

-matter of seasoning, that it was reduced to the necessity of

-flavouring its soup with the saltpetre out of its own cartridges. In

-this emergency, d’Abrantes sent for a certain Ducos, captain on the

-staff of General Berthier, but at present attached to a siege train

-before the doomed town, and asked him if he knew whence, if anywhere

-in the vicinity, it might be possible to make good the deficiency.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now this Eugène Ducos was a very progressive evolution of the times,

-hatched by the rising sun, emerged stinging and splendid from the

-exotic quagmires of the past. A facile linguist, by temperament and

-early training an artist, he had flown naturally to the field of

-battle as to that field most fertile of daring new effects, whose

-surprises called for record rather than analysis. It was for him to

-collect the impressions which, later, duller wits should classify.

-And, in the meantime, here he was at twenty a captain of renown, and

-always a creature of the most unflagging resourcefulness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You were with Lefebvre-Desnouettes in Aragon last year?” demanded

-Junot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was, General; both before the siege and during it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You heard mention of salt mines in this neighbourhood?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There were rumours of them, sir&mdash;amongst the hills of Ulebo; but it

-was never our need to verify the rumours.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take a company, now, and run them to earth. I will give you a week.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon me, General; I need no company but my own, which is ever the

-safest colleague.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Junot glared demoniacally. He was already verging on the madness which

-was presently to destroy him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The devil!” he shouted. “You shall answer for that assurance! Go

-alone, sir, since you are so obliging, and find salt; and at your

-peril be killed before reporting the result to me. Bones of God! is

-every skipjack with a shoulder-knot to better my commands?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos saluted, and wheeled impassive. He knew that in a few days

-Marshal Lannes was to supplant this maniac.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Up and away amongst the intricate ridges of the mountains, where the

-half-unravelled knots of the Pyrenees flow down in threads, or

-clustered threads, which are combed by and by into the plains south of

-Saragossa, a dusky young goatherd loitered among the chestnut trees on

-a hot afternoon. This boy’s beauty was of a supernal order. His

-elastic young cheeks glowed with colour; his eyebrows were resolute

-bows; his lips, like a pretty phrase of love, were set between dimples

-like inverted commas. And, as he stood, he coquetted like Dinorah to

-his own shadow, chasséd to it, spoke to it, upbraiding or caressing,

-as it answered to his movements on the ground before him&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, pretty one! ah, shameless! Art thou the shadow of the girl that

-Eugenio loved? Fie, fie! thou wouldst betray this poor Anita&mdash;mock the

-round limbs and little feet that will not look their part. Yet, betray

-her to her love returning, and Anita will fall and kiss thee on her

-knees&mdash;kiss the very shadow of Eugenio’s love. Ah, little shadow! take

-wings and fly to him, who promised quickly to return. Say I am good

-but sad, awaiting him; say that Anita suffers, but is patient. He will

-remember then, and come. No shadow of disguise shall blind him to his

-love. Go, go, before I repent and hold thee, jealous that mine own

-shadow should run before to find his lips.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She stooped, and, with a fantastic gesture, threw her soul upon the

-winds; then rose, and leaned against a tree, and began to sing, and

-sigh and murmur softly:

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">“&hairsp;‘At the gate of heaven are sold brogues</p>

-<p class="i0">For the little bare-footed angel rogues’&mdash;</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-Ah, little dear mother! it is the seventh month, and the sign is still

-delayed. No baby, no lover. Alack! why should he return to me, who am

-a barren olive! The husbandman asks a guerdon for his care. Give me my

-little doll, Santissima, or I will be naughty and drink holy-water:

-give me the shrill wee voice, which pierces to the father’s heart,

-when even passion loiters. Ah, come to me, Eugenio, my Eugenio!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She raised her head quickly on the word, and her heart leaped. It was

-to hear the sound of a footstep, on the stones far below, coming up

-the mountain side. She looked to her shirt and jacket. Ragged as they

-were, undeveloped as was the figure within them, she had been so

-jealous a housewife that there was not in all so much as an eyelet

-hole to attract a peeping Tom. Now, leaving her goats amongst the

-scattered boulders of the open, she backed into the groves,

-precautionally, but a little reluctant, because in her heart she was

-curious.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The footsteps came on toilfully, and presently the man who was

-responsible for them hove into sight. He wore the dress of an English

-officer, save for the shepherd’s felt hat on his head; but his scarlet

-jacket was knotted loosely by the sleeves about his throat, in order

-to the disposition of a sling which held his left arm crookt in a

-bloody swathe. He levered himself up with a broken spear-shaft; but he

-was otherwise weaponless. A pistol, in Ducos’s creed, was the argument

-of a fool. He carried <i>his</i> ammunition in his brains.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Having reached a little plateau, irregular with rocks shed from the

-cliffs above, he sat down within the shadow of a grove of chestnut and

-carob trees, and sighed, and wiped his brow, and nodded to all around

-and below him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, and yes, and of a truth,” thought he: “here is the country of my

-knowledge. And yonder, deep and far amongst its myrtles and

-mulberries, crawls the Ebro; and to my right, a browner clod amongst

-the furrows of the valleys, heaves up the ruined monastery of San

-Ildefonso, which Daguenet sacked, the radical; whilst I occupied (ah,

-the week of sweet malvoisie and sweeter passion!) the little inn at

-the junction of the Pampeluna and Saragossa roads. And what has become

-of Anita of the inn? Alack! if my little <i>fille de joie</i> were but here

-to serve me now!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The goatherd slipped round the shoulder of a rock and stood before

-him, breathing hard. Her black curls were, for all the world,

-bandaged, as it might be, with a yellow napkin (though they were more

-in the way to give than take wounds), and crowned rakishly with a

-dusky sombrero. She wore a kind of gaskins on her legs, loose, so as

-to reveal the bare knees and a little over; and across her shoulders

-was slung a sun-burnt shawl, which depended in a bib against her

-chest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now the one stood looking down and the other up, their visions

-magnetically meeting and blending, till the eyes of the goatherd were

-delivered of very stars of rapture.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Was this a spirit, thought Ducos, summoned of his hot and necessitous

-desire? But the other had no such misgiving. All in a moment she had

-fallen on her brown knees before him, and was pitifully kissing his

-bandaged arm, while she strove to moan and murmur out the while her

-ecstasy of gratitude.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nariguita!” he murmured, rallying as if from a dream; “Nariguita!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She laughed and sobbed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, the dear little happy name from thy lips! A thousand times will I

-repeat it to myself, but never as thou wouldst say it. And now! Yes,

-Nariguita, Eugenio&mdash;thine own ‘little nose’&mdash;thy child, thy baby, who

-never doubted that this day would come&mdash;O darling of my soul, that it

-would come!”&mdash;(she clung to him, and hid her face)&mdash;“Eugenio! though

-the blossom of our love delays its fruitage!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He smiled, recovered from his first astonishment. Ministers of

-coincidence! In all the fantastic convolutions of war, the merry, the

-danse-macabre, should not love’s reunions have a place? It was nothing

-out of that context that here was he chanced again, and timely, upon

-that same sweet instrument which he had once played on, and done with,

-and thrown aside, careless of its direction. Now he had but to stoop

-and reclaim it, and the discarded strings, it seemed, were ready as

-heretofore to answer to his touch with any melody he listed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He caressed her with real delight. She was something more than

-lovable. He made himself a very Judas to her lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anita, my little Anita!” he began glowingly; but she took him up with

-a fevered eagerness, answering the question of his eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So long ago, ah Dios! And thou wert gone; and the birds were silent;

-and under the heavy sky my father called me to him. He held a last

-letter of thine, which had missed my hands for his. Love, sick at our

-parting, had betrayed us. O, the letter! how I swooned to be denied

-it! He was for killing me, a traitor. Well, I could not help but be.

-But Tia Joachina had pity on me, and dressed me as you see, and

-smuggled me to the hills, that I might at least have a chance to live

-without suffering wrong. And, behold! the heavens smiled upon me,

-knowing my love; and Señor Cangrejo took me to herd his goats. For

-seven months&mdash;for seven long, faithful months; until the sweetest of

-my heart’s flock should return to pasture in my bosom. And now he has

-come, my lamb, my prince, even as he promised. He has come, drawing me

-to him over the hills, following the lark’s song of his love as it

-dropped to earth far forward of his steps. Eugenio! O, ecstasy! Thou

-hast dared this for my sake?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Child,” answered the admirable Ducos, “I should have dared only in

-breaking my word. <i>Un honnête homme n’a que sa parole.</i> That is the

-single motto for a poor captain, Nariguita. And who is this Señor

-Cangrejo?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Some terror, offspring of his question, set her clinging to him once

-more.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What dost thou here?” she cried, with immediate inconsistency&mdash;“a

-lamb among the wolves! Eugenio!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eh!”&mdash;he took her up, with an air of bewilderment. “I am Sir Zhones,

-the English capitaine, though it loose me your favour, mamsellee. Wat!

-Damn eet, I say!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She fell away, staring at him; then in a moment gathered, and leapt to

-him again between tears and laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But this?” she asked, her eyes glistening; and she touched the

-bandage.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! that,” he answered. “Why, I was wounded, and taken prisoner by

-the French, you understand? Also, I escaped from my captors. It comes,

-blood and splint and all, from the smashed arm of a sabreur, who,

-indeed, had no longer need of it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For the love of Christ!” she cried in a panic. “Come away into the

-trees, where none will observe us!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bah! I have no fear, I,” said Ducos. But he rose, nevertheless, with

-a smile, and, catching up the goatherd, bore her into the shadows.

-There, sitting by her side, he assured her, the rogue, of the

-impatience with which he had anticipated, of the eagerness with which

-he had run to realize this longed-for moment. The escapade had only

-been rendered possible, he said truthfully, by the opportune demand

-for salt. Doubtless she would help him, for love’s sake, to justify

-the venture to his General?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, at that, she stared at him, troubled, and her lip began to

-quiver.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, God!” she cried; “then it was not I in the first place! Go thy

-ways, love; but for pity’s heart-sake let me weep a little. Yes, yes,

-there is salt in the mountains, that I know, and where the caves lie.

-But there are also Cangrejo&mdash;whom you French ruined and made a

-madman&mdash;and a hundred like him, wild-cats hidden amongst the leaves.

-And there, too, are the homeless friars of St. Ildefonso; and, dear

-body of Christ! the tribunal of terror, the junta of women, who are

-the worst of all&mdash;lynx-eyed demons.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He smiled indulgently. Her terror amused him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, well,” he said; “well, well. And what, then, is this junta?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is a scourge,” she whispered, shivering, “for traitors and for

-spies. It gathers nightly, at sunset, in the dip yonder, and there

-waters with blood its cross of death. This very evening, Cangrejo

-tells me&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She broke off, cuddled closer to her companion, and clasping her hands

-and shrugging up her shoulders to him, went on awfully&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio, there was a wagon-load of piastres coming secretly for

-Saragossa by the Tolosa road. It was badly convoyed. One of your

-generals got scent of it. The guard had time to hide their treasure

-and disperse, but him whom they thought had betrayed them the tribunal

-of women claimed, and to-night&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, he will receive his wages. And where is the treasure

-concealed?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! that I do not know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos got to his feet, and stretched and yawned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have a fancy to see this meeting-place of the tribunal. Wilt thou

-lead me to it, Nariguita?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mother of God, thou art mad!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I must go alone, like a madman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio, it is cursing and accurst. None will so much as look into it

-by day; and, at dusk, only when franked by the holy church.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So greatly the better. Adios, Nariguita!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It took them half an hour, descending cautiously, and availing

-themselves of every possible shelter of bush and rock, to reach a

-strangely formed amphitheatre set stark and shallow amongst the higher

-swales of the valley, but so overhung with scrub of myrtle and wild

-pomegranate as to be only distinguishable, and that scarcely, from

-above. A ragged track, mounting from the lower levels into this

-hollow, tailed off, and was attenuated into a point where it took a

-curve of the rocks at a distance below.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As Ducos, approaching the rim, pressed through the thicket, a toss of

-black crows went up from the mouth ahead of him, like cinders of paper

-spouted from a chimney. He looked over. The brushwood ceased at the

-edge of a considerable pit, roughly circular in shape, whose sides, of

-bare sloping sand, met and flattened at the bottom into an extended

-platform. Thence arose a triangular gibbet, a very rack in a devil’s

-larder, all about which a hoard of little pitchy bird scullions were

-busy with the joints. Holy mother, how they squabbled, and flapped at

-one another with their sleeves, it seemed! The two carcasses which

-hung there appeared, for all their heavy pendulosity, to reel and rock

-with laughter, nudging one another in eyeless merriment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos mentally calculated the distance to the gallows below from any

-available coign of concealment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One could not hide close enough to hear anything,” he murmured,

-shaking his head in aggravation; “and this junta of ladies&mdash;it will

-probably talk. What if it were to discuss that very question of the

-piastres? Nariguita, will you go and be my little reporter at the

-ceremony?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Anita, crouching in the brush behind him, whispered terrified: “It is

-impossible. They admit none but priests and women.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And are not you a woman, most beautiful?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God forbid!” she said. “I am the little goatherd Ambrosio.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stood some moments, frowning. A scheme, daring and characteristic,

-was beginning to take shape in his brain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What is that clump of rags by the gallows?” he asked, without looking

-round.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is not rags; it is rope, Eugenio.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He thought again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And when do they come to hang this rascal?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is always at dusk. O, dear mother!” she whimpered, for the young

-man had suddenly slipped between the branches, and was going swiftly

-and softly down the pit-side.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Already the basin of sand was filled with the shadows from the hills

-Ducos approached the gibbet. The last of the birds remaining arose and

-dispersed, quarrelling with nothing so much as the sunlight which they

-encountered above.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is an abominable task,” said the aide-de-camp, looking up at the

-dangling bodies; “but&mdash;for the Emperor&mdash;always for the Emperor! That

-fellow, now, in the domino&mdash;it would make us appear of one build. And

-as for complexion, why, he at least would have no eyes for the

-travesty. Mon Dieu! I believe it is a Providence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a ladder leaned against the third and empty beam. He put it

-into position for the cloaked figure, and ran up it. The rope was

-hitched to a hook in the cross-piece. He must clasp and lever up his

-burden by main strength before he could slacken and detach the cord.

-Then, with an exclamation of relief, he let the body drop upon the

-sand beneath. He descended the ladder in excitement.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anita!” he called.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She had followed, and was at hand. She trembled, and was as pale as

-death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Help me,” he panted&mdash;“with this&mdash;into the bush.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had lifted <i>his</i> end by the shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What devil possesses you? I cannot,” she sobbed; “I shall die.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, Nariguita! for my sake! There is no danger if thou art brave and

-expeditious.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Between them they tugged and trailed their load into the dense

-undergrowth skirting the open track, and there let it plunge and sink.

-Ducos removed the domino from the body, rolling and hauling at that

-irreverently. Then he saw how the wretch had been pinioned, wrists and

-ankles, beneath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carrying the cloak, he hastened back to the gallows. There he

-cautiously selected from the surplus stock of cord a length of some

-twelve feet, at either end of which he formed a loop. So, mounting the

-ladder, over the hook he hitched this cord by one end, and then,

-swinging himself clear, slid down the rope until he could pass both

-his feet into the lower hank.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Voilà!</i>” said he. “Come up and tie me to the other with some little

-pieces round the waist and knees and neck.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She obeyed, weeping. Her love and her duty were to this wonder of

-manhood, however dreadful his counsel. Presently, trussed to his

-liking, he bade her fetch the brigand’s cloak and button it over all.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” said he, “one last sacramental kiss; and, so descending and

-placing the ladder and all as before, thou shalt take standing-room in

-the pit for this veritable dance of death.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A moment&mdash;and he was hanging there, to all appearance a corpse. The

-short rope at his neck had been so disposed and knotted&mdash;the collar of

-the domino serving&mdash;as to make him look, indeed, as if he strained at

-the tether’s end. He had dragged his long hair over his eyes; his head

-lolled to one side; his tongue protruded. For the rest, the cloak hid

-all, even to his feet.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The goatherd snivelled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, holy saints, he is dead!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The head came erect, grinning.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio!” she cried; “O, my God! Thou wilt be discovered&mdash;thou wilt

-slip and strangle! Ah, the crows&mdash;body of my body, the crows!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Imbecile! have I not my hands? See, I kiss one to thee. Now the sun

-sinks, and my ghostly vigil will be short. Pray heaven only they

-alight not on that in the bush. Nariguita, little heroine, this is my

-last word. Go hide thyself in the bushes above, and watch what a

-Frenchman, the most sensitive of mortals, will suffer to serve his

-Emperor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was an era, indeed, of sublime lusts and barbaric virtues, when men

-must mount upon stepping-stones, not of their dead selves, but of

-their slaughtered enemies, to higher things. Anita, like Ducos, was a

-child of her generation. To her mind the heroic purpose of this deed

-overpowered its pungency. She kissed her lover’s feet; secured the

-safe disposition of the cloak about them; then turned and fled into

-hiding.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At dusk, with the sound of footsteps coming up the pass, the crows

-dispersed. Eugène, for all his self-sufficiency, had sweated over

-their persistence. A single more gluttonous swoop might at any moment,

-in blinding him, have laid him open to a general attack before help

-could reach him from the eyrie whence unwearying love watched his

-every movement. Now, common instance of the providence which waits on

-daring, the sudden lift and scatter of the swarm left his hearing

-sensible to the tinkling of a bridle, which came rhythmical from the

-track below. Immediately he fell, with all his soul, into the pose of

-death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cadence of the steely warning so little altered, the footsteps

-stole in so muffled and so deadly, that, peering presently through

-slit eyelids for the advent of the troop, it twitched his strung

-nerves to see a sinister congress already drawn soundless about the

-gibbet on which he hung. Perhaps for the first time in this stagnant

-atmosphere he realized the peril he had invited. But still the

-gambler’s providence befriended him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They were all women but two&mdash;the victim, a sullen, whiskered

-Yanguesian, strapped cuttingly to a mule, and a paunchy shovel-hatted

-Carmelite, who hugged a crucifix between his roomy sleeves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos had heard of these banded <i>vengeresses</i>. Now, he was Frenchman

-enough to appreciate in full the significance of their attitude, as

-they clustered beneath him in the dusk, a veiled and voiceless huddle

-of phantoms. “How,” he thought, peeping through the dropped curtain of

-his hair, “will the adorables do it?” He had an hysterical inclination

-to laugh, and at that moment the monk, with a sudden decision to

-action, brushed against him and set him slowly twirling until his face

-was averted from the show.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Immediately thereon&mdash;as he interpreted sounds&mdash;the mule was led under

-the gallows. He heard the ladder placed in position, heard a strenuous

-shuffling as of concentrated movement. What he failed to hear (at

-present) was any cry or protest from the victim. The beam above

-creaked, a bridle tinkled, a lighter drop of hoofs receded. A pregnant

-pause ensued, broken only by a slight noise, like rustling or

-vibrating&mdash;and then, in an instant, by a voice, chuckling,

-hateful&mdash;the voice of the priest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! to hang there without a word, Carlos? Wouldst thou go, and

-never ask what is become of that very treasure thou soldst thy soul to

-betray? The devil has rounded on thee, Carlos; for after all it is

-thou that art lost, and not the treasure. That is all put away&mdash;shout

-it in the ears of thy neighbours up there&mdash;it is all put away, Carlos,

-safe in the salt mines of the Little Hump. Cry it to the whole world

-now. Thou mayst if thou canst. In the salt mines of the Little Hump.

-Dost hear? Ah, then, we must make thee answer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With his words, the pit was all at once in shrill hubbub, noise

-indescribable and dreadful, the shrieking of harpies bidden to their

-prey. It rose demoniac&mdash;a very Walpurgis.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, no,” thought Ducos, gulping under his collar. He was almost

-unnerved for the moment. “It is unlawful&mdash;they have no right to!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was twisting again, for all his mad will to prevent it. He would

-not look, and yet he looked. The monk, possessed, was thrashing the

-torn and twitching rubbish with his crucifix. The others, their

-fingers busy with the bodkins they had plucked from their mantillas,

-had retreated for the moment to a little distance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suddenly the Carmelite, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy, dropped his

-weapon, and scuttling to the mule, where it stood near at hand, tore a

-great horse pistol from its holster among the trappings, and pointed

-it at the insensible body.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Scum of all devils!” he bellowed. “In fire descend to fire that lasts

-eternal!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and shattering explosion. A

-blazing hornet stung Ducos in the leg. He may have started and

-shrieked. Any cry or motion of his must have passed unnoticed in the

-screaming panic evoked of the crash. He clung on with his hands and

-dared to raise his head. The mouth of the pass was dusk with flying

-skirts. Upon the sands beneath him, the body of the priest, a

-shapeless bulk, was slowly subsiding and settling, one fat fist of it

-yet gripping the stock of a pistol which, overgorged, had burst as it

-was discharged.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The reek of the little tragedy had hardly dissipated before Ducos

-found himself. The sentiment of revolt, deriving from his helpless

-position, had been indeed but momentary. To feel his own accessibility

-to torture, painted torture to him as an inhuman lust. With the means

-to resist, or escape, at will, he might have sat long in ambush

-watching it; even condoning it as an extravagant posture of art.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With a heart full of such exultation over the success of his trick

-that for the moment he forgot the pain of his wound, he hurriedly

-unpicked the knots of the shorter cords about him, and, jumping to the

-ground, waited until the shadow of a little depressed figure came

-slinking across the sand towards him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio!” it whispered; “what has happened? O! art thou hurt?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She ran into his arms, sobbing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am hurt,” said Ducos. “Quick, child! unstrap this from my arm and

-bind it about my calf. Didst hear? But it was magnificent! Two birds

-with a single stone. The piastres in pickle for us. Didst see,

-moreover? Holy Emperor! it was laughable. I would sacrifice a

-decoration to be witness of the meeting of those two overhead. It

-should be the Yanguesian for my money, for he has at least his teeth

-left. Look how he shows them, bursting with rage! Quick, quick, quick!

-we must be up and away, before any of those others think of

-returning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And if one should,” she said, “and mark the empty beam?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What does it matter, nevertheless! I must be off to-night, after thou

-hast answered me one single question.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Off? Eugenio! O! not without me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God, little girl! In this race I must not be hampered by so much as a

-thought. But I will return for thee&mdash;never fear.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He still sat in his domino. She knelt at his feet, stanching the flow

-from the wound the pistol had made in his leg. At his words she looked

-up breathlessly into his face; then away, to hide her swimming eyes.

-In the act she slunk down, making herself small in the sand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio! My God! we are watched!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He turned about quickly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whence?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“From the mouth of the pass,” she whispered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I can see nothing,” he said. “Hurry, nevertheless! What a time thou

-art! There, it is enough of thy bungling fingers. Help me to my feet

-and out of this place. Come!” he ended, angrily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had an ado to climb the easy slope. By the time they were entered

-amongst the rocks and bushes above, it was black dusk.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whither wouldst thou, dearest?” whispered the goatherd.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had known well enough a moment ago&mdash;to some point, in fact, whence

-she could indicate to him the direction of the Little Hump, where the

-treasure lay; afterwards, to the very hill-top where some hours

-earlier they had forgathered. But he would not or could not explain

-this. Some monstrous blight of gloom had seized his brain at a swoop.

-He thought it must be one of the crows, and he stumbled along, raving

-in his heart. If she offered to help him now, he would tear his arm

-furiously from her touch. She wondered, poor stricken thing, haunting

-him with tragic eyes. Then at last her misery and desolation found

-voice&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have I done? I will not ask again to go with thee, if that is

-it. It was only one little foolish cry of terror, most dear&mdash;that they

-should suspect, and seize, and torture me. But, indeed, should they do

-it, thou canst trust me to be silent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stopped, swaying, and regarded her demoniacally. His face was a

-livid and malignant blot in the thickening dusk. To torture her? What

-torture could equal his at this moment? She sought merely to move him

-by an affectation of self-renunciation. That, of course, called at

-once for extreme punishment. He must bite and strangle her to death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He moved noiselessly upon her. She stood spellbound before him. All at

-once something seemed to strike him on the head, and, without uttering

-a sound, he fell forward into the bush.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos opened his eyes to the vision of so preternaturally melancholy a

-face, that he was shaken with weak laughter over the whimsicality of

-his own imagination. But, in a very little, unwont to dreaming as he

-was, the realization that he was looking upon no apparition, but a

-grotesque of fact, silenced and absorbed him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Presently he was moved to examine his circumstances. He was lying on a

-heap of grass mats in a tiny house built of boards. Above him was a

-square of leaf-embroidered sky cut out of a cane roof; to his left,

-his eyes, focussing with a queer stiffness, looked through an open

-doorway down precipices of swimming cloud. That was because he lay in

-an eyrie on the hillside. And then at once, into his white field of

-vision, floated the dismal long face, surmounted by an ancient

-cocked-hat, slouched and buttonless, and issuing like an august Aunt

-Sally’s from the neck of a cloak as black and dropping as a pall.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The figure crossed the opening outside, and wheeled, with the wind in

-its wings. In the act, its eyes, staring and protuberant, fixed

-themselves on those of the Frenchman. Immediately, with a little

-stately gesture expressive of relief and welcome, it entered the hut.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By the mercy of God!” exclaimed the stranger in his own tongue. Then

-he added in English: “The Inglese recovers to himself?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos smiled, nodding his head; then answered confidently, feeling his

-way: “A little, sir, I tank you. Thees along night. Ah! it appear all

-one pain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other nodded solemnly in his turn&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A long night indeed, in which the sunksink tree very time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Comment!” broke out the aide-de-camp hoarsely, and instantly realized

-his mistake.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! devil take the French!” said he explanatorily. “I been in their

-camp so long that to catch their lingo. But I spik l’Espagnol, señor.

-It shall be good to us to converse there.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other bowed impenetrably. His habit of a profound and melancholy

-aloofness might have served for mask to any temper of mind but that

-which, in real fact, it environed&mdash;a reason, that is to say, more lost

-than bedevilled under the long tyranny of oppression.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have been ill, I am to understand?” said Ducos, on his guard.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For three days and nights, señor. My goatherd came to tell me how a

-wounded English officer was lying on the hills. Between us we conveyed

-you hither.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Ah, Dios!</i> I remember. I had endeavoured to carry muskets into

-Saragossa by the river. I was hit in the leg; I was captured; I

-escaped. For two days I wandered, señor, famished and desperate. At

-last in these mountains I fell as by a stroke from heaven.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was the foul blood clot, señor. It balked your circulation. There

-was the brazen splinter in the wound, which I removed, and God

-restored you. What fangs are theirs, these reptiles! In a few days you

-will be well.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thanks to what ministering angel?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am known as Don Manoel di Cangrejo, señor, the most shattered, as

-he was once the most prosperous of men. May God curse the French! May

-God” (his wild, mournful face twitched with strong emotion) “reward

-and bless these brave allies of a people more wronged than any the

-world has yet known!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Noble Englishman,” said he by and by, “thou hast nothing at present

-but to lie here and accept the grateful devotion of a heart to which

-none but the inhuman denies humanity.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos looked his thanks.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If I might rest here a little,” he said; “if I might be spared&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other bowed, with a grave understanding.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“None save ourselves, and the winds and trees, señor. I will nurse

-thee as if thou wert mine own child.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was as good as his word. Ducos, pluming himself on his

-perspicacity, accepting the inevitable with philosophy, lent himself

-during the interval, while feigning a prolonged weakness, to recovery.

-That was his, to all practical purposes, within a couple of days,

-during which time he never set eyes on Anita, but only on Anita’s

-master. Don Manoel would often come and sit by his bed of mats; would

-even sometimes retail to him, as to a trusted ally, scraps of local

-information. Thus was he posted, to his immense gratification, in the

-topical after-history of his own exploit at the gallows.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is said,” whispered Cangrejo awfully, “that one of the dead,

-resenting so vile a neighbour, impressed a goatherd into his service,

-and, being assisted from the beam, walked away. Truly it is an age of

-portents.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the third morning, coming early with his bowl of goat’s milk and

-his offering of fruits, he must apologize, with a sweet and lofty

-courtesy, for the necessity he was under of absenting himself all day.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is trouble,” he said&mdash;“as when is there not? I am called to

-secret council, señor. But the boy Ambrosio has my orders to be ever

-at hand shouldst thou need him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos’s heart leapt. But he was careful to deprecate this generous

-attention, and to cry <i>Adios!</i> with the most perfect assumption of

-composure.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was lying on his elbow by and by, eagerly listening, when the

-doorway was blocked by a shadow. The next instant Anita had sprung to

-and was kneeling beside him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Heart of my heart, have I done well? Thou art sound and whole? O,

-speak to me, speak to me, that I may hear thy voice and gather its

-forgiveness!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For what? She was sobbing and fondling him in a very lust of entreaty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thou hast done well,” he said. “So, we were seen indeed, Anita?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she wept, holding his face to her bosom. “And, O! I agonize for

-thee to be up and away, Eugenio, for I fear.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush! I am strong. Help me to my legs, child. So! Now, come with me

-outside, and point out, if thou canst, where lies the Little Hump.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was his devoted crutch at once. They stood in the sunlight,

-looking down upon the hills which fell from beneath their feet&mdash;a

-world of tossed and petrified rapids. At their backs, on a shallow

-plateau under eaves of rock, Cangrejo’s eyrie clung to the

-mountain-side.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There,” said the goatherd, indicating with her finger, “that mound

-above the valley&mdash;that little hill, fat-necked like a great mushroom,

-which sprouts from its basin among the trees?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait! mine eyes are dazzled.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, poor sick eyes! Look, then! Dost thou not see the white worm of

-the Pampeluna road&mdash;below yonder, looping through the bushes?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I see it&mdash;yes, yes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, follow upwards from the big coil, where the pine tree leans to

-the south, seeming a ladder between road and mound.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Stay&mdash;I have it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Behold the Little Hump, the salt mine of St. Ildefonso, and once,

-they say, an island in the midst of a lake, which burst its banks and

-poured forth and was gone. And now thou knowest, Eugenio?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He did not answer. He was intently fixing in his memory the position

-of the hill. She waited on his mood, not daring to risk his anger a

-second time, with a pathetic anxiety. Presently he heaved out a sigh,

-and turned on her, smiling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is well,” he said. “Now conduct me to the spot where we met three

-days ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was surprisingly near at hand. A labyrinthine descent&mdash;by way of

-aloe-horned rocks, with sandy bents and tufts of harsh juniper

-between&mdash;of a hundred yards or so, and they were on the stony plateau

-which he remembered. There, to one side, was the coppice of chestnuts

-and locust trees. To the other, the road by which he had climbed went

-down with a run&mdash;such as he himself was on thorns to emulate&mdash;into the

-valleys trending to Saragossa. His eyes gleamed. He seated himself

-down on a boulder, controlling his impatience only by a violent

-effort.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anita,” he said, drilling out his speech with slow emphasis, “thou

-must leave me here alone awhile. I would think&mdash;I would think and

-plan, my heart. Go, wait on thy goats above, and I will return to thee

-presently.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She sighed, and crept away obedient. O, forlorn, most forlorn soul of

-love, which, counting mistrust treason, knows itself a traitor! Yet

-Anita obeyed, and with no thought to eavesdrop, because she was in

-love with loyalty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The moment he was well convinced of her retreat, Ducos got to his legs

-with an immense sigh of relief. Love, he thought, could be presuming,

-could be obtuse, could be positively a bore. It all turned upon the

-context of the moment; and the present was quick with desires other

-than for endearments. For it must be related that the young captain,

-having manœuvred matters to this accommodating pass, was designing

-nothing less than an instant return, on the wings of transport, to the

-blockading camp, whence he proposed returning, with a suitable force

-and all possible dispatch, to seize and empty of its varied treasures

-the salt mine of St. Ildefonso.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pouf!” he muttered to himself in a sort of ecstatic aggravation;

-“this accursed delay! But the piastres are there still&mdash;I have

-Cangrejo’s word for it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He turned once, before addressing himself to flight, to refocus in his

-memory the position of the mound, which still from here was plainly

-visible. In the act he pricked his ears, for there was a sound of

-footsteps rising up the mountain path. He dodged behind a boulder. The

-footsteps came on&mdash;approached him&mdash;paused&mdash;so long that he was induced

-at last to peep for the reason. At once his eyes encountered other

-eyes awaiting him. He laughed, and left his refuge. The new-comer was

-a typical Spanish Romany&mdash;slouching, filthy, with a bandage over one

-eye.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God be with thee, Caballero!” said the Frenchman defiantly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-To his astonishment, the other broke into a little scream of laughter,

-and flung himself towards him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Judge thou, now,” said he, “which is the more wide-awake adventurer

-and the better actor!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My God!” cried Ducos; “it is de la Platière!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush!” whispered the mendicant. “Are we private? Ah, bah! Junot

-should have sent me in the first instance.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have been hurt, thou rogue. Our duel of wits is yet postponed. In

-good time hast thou arrived. This simplifies matters. Thou shalt

-return, and I remain. Hist! come away, and I will tell thee all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Half an hour later, de la Platière&mdash;having already, for his part,

-mentally absorbed the details of a certain position&mdash;swung rapidly,

-with a topical song on his lips, down the path he had ascended

-earlier. The sound of his footfalls receded and died out. The hill

-regathered itself to silence. Ducos, on terms with destiny and at

-peace with all the world, sat for hours in the shadow of the trees.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Perhaps he was not yet Judas enough to return to Anita, awaiting him

-in Cangrejo’s eyrie. But at length, towards evening, fearing his long

-absence might arouse suspicion or uneasiness, he arose and climbed the

-hill. When he reached the cabin, he found it empty and silent. He

-loitered about, wondering and watchful. Not a soul came near him. He

-dozed; he awoke; he ate a few olives and some bread; he dozed again.

-When he opened his eyes for the second time, the shadows of the peaks

-were slanting to the east. He got to his feet, shivering a little.

-This utter silence and desertion discomforted him. Where was the girl?

-God! was it possible after all that she had betrayed him? He might

-have questioned his own heart as to that; only, as luck would have it,

-it was such a tiresomely deaf organ. So, let him think. De la

-Platière, with his men (as calculated), would be posted in the

-Pampeluna road, round the spur of the hill below, an hour after

-sunset&mdash;that was to say, at fifteen minutes to six. No doubt by then

-the alarm would have gone abroad. But no great resistance to a strong

-force was to be apprehended. In the meantime&mdash;well, in the meantime,

-until the moment came for him to descend under cover of dark and

-assume the leadership, he must possess his soul in patience.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sun went down. Night flowing into the valleys seemed to expel a

-moan of wind; then all dropped quiet again. Darkness fell swift and

-sudden like a curtain, but no Anita appeared, putting it aside, and

-Ducos was perplexed. He did not like this bodiless, shadowless

-subscription to his scheming. It troubled him to have no one to talk

-to&mdash;and deceive. He was depressed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By and by he pulled off, turned inside-out and resumed his scarlet

-jacket, which he had taken the provisional precaution to have lined

-with a sombre material. As he slipped in his arms, he started and

-looked eagerly into the lower vortices of dusk. In the very direction

-to which his thoughts were engaged, a little glow-worm light was

-burning steadily from the thickets. What did it signify&mdash;Spaniards or

-French, ambush or investment? Allowing&mdash;as between himself on the

-height and de la Platière on the road below&mdash;for the apparent

-discrepancy in the time of sunset, it was yet appreciably before the

-appointed hour. Nevertheless, this that he saw made the risk of an

-immediate descent necessary.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Bringing all his wits, his resolution, his local knowledge to one

-instant focus, he started, going down at once swiftly and with

-caution. The hills rose above him like smoke as he dropped; the black

-ravines were lifted to his feet. Sometimes for scores of paces he

-would lose sight altogether of the eye of light; then, as he turned

-some shoulder of rock, it would strike him in the face with its nearer

-radiance, so that he had to pause and readjust his vision to the new

-perspective. Still, over crabbed ridges and by dip of thorny gulches

-he descended steadily, until the mound of the Little Hump, like a

-gigantic thatched kraal, loomed oddly upon him through the dark.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, lo! the beacon that had led him down unerring was a great lantern

-hung under the sagging branch of a chestnut tree at the foot of the

-mound&mdash;a lantern, the lurid nucleus of a little coil of tragedy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A cluster of rocks neighboured the clearing about the tree. To these

-Ducos padded his last paces with a cat-like stealth&mdash;crouching, hardly

-breathing; and now from that coign of peril he stared down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A throng of armed guerrillas, one a little forward of the rest, was

-gathered about a couple more of their kidney, who, right under the

-lantern, held the goatherd Anita on her knees in a nailing grip. To

-one side, very phantoms of desolation, stood Cangrejo and another. The

-faces of all, densely shadowed in part by the rims of their sombreros,

-looked as if masked; their mouths, corpse-like, showed a splint of

-teeth; their ink-black whiskers hummocked on their shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-So, in the moment of Ducos’s alighting on it, was the group

-postured&mdash;silent, motionless, as if poised on the turn of some full

-tide of passion. And then, in an instant, a voice boomed up to him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Confess!” it cried, vibrating: “him thou wert seen with at the

-gallows; him whom thou foisted, O! unspeakable, thou devil’s doxy! on

-the unsuspecting Cangrejo; him, thy Frankish gallant and spy” (the

-voice guttered, and then, rising, leapt to flame)&mdash;“what hast thou

-done with him? where hidden? Speak quickly and with truth, if, traitor

-though thou be, thou wouldst be spared the traitor’s estrapade.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Alguazil, I cannot say. Have mercy on me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos could hardly recognize the child in those agonized tones.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The inquisitor, with an oath, half wheeled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pignatelli, father of this accursed&mdash;if by her duty thou canst

-prevail?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A figure&mdash;agitated, cadaverous, as sublimely dehumanized as

-Brutus&mdash;stepped from Cangrejo’s side and tossed one gnarled arm aloft.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No child of mine, alguazil!” it proclaimed in a shrill, strung cry.

-“Let her reap as she hath sown, alguazil!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cangrejo leapt, and flung himself upon his knees by the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell Don Manoel, chiquita. God! little boy, that being a girl (ah,

-naughty!) is half absolved. Tell him, tell him&mdash;ah, there&mdash;now, now,

-now! He, thy lover, was in the cabin. I left him prostrate, scarce

-able to move. When the council comes to seek him, he is gone. Away,

-sayst thou? Ah, child, but I must know better! It could not be far.

-Say where&mdash;give him up&mdash;let him show himself only, chiquita, and the

-good alguazil will spare thee. Such a traitor, ah, Dios! And yet I

-have loved, too.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He sobbed, and clawed her uncouthly. Ducos, in his eyrie, laughed to

-himself, and applauded softly, making little cymbals of his

-thumb-nails.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But he will not move her,” he thought&mdash;and, on the thought, started;

-for from his high perch his eye had suddenly caught, he was sure of

-it, the sleeking of a French bayonet in the road below.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Master!” cried Anita, in a heart-breaking voice; “he is gone&mdash;they

-cannot take him. O, don’t let them hurt me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The alguazil made a sign. Cangrejo, gobbling and resisting, was

-dragged away. There was a little ugly, silent scuffle about the girl;

-and, in a moment, the group fell apart to watch her being hauled up to

-the branch by her thumbs.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos looked on greedily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How long before she sets to screaming?” he thought, “so that I may

-escape under cover of it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-So long, that he grew intolerably restless&mdash;wild, furious. He could

-have cursed her for her endurance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But presently it came, moaning up all the scale of suffering. And, at

-that, slinking like a rat through its run, he went down swiftly

-towards the road&mdash;to meet de la Platière and his men already silently

-breaking cover from it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, on the same instant, the Spaniards saw them.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Peste!” whispered de la Platière “We could have them all at one

-volley but for that!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Between the French force, ensconced behind the rocks whither Ducos had

-led them, and the Spaniards who, completely taken by surprise, had

-clustered foolishly in a body under the lantern, hung the body of

-Anita, its torture suspended for the moment because its poor wits were

-out.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How, my friend!” exclaimed Ducos. “But for what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The girl, that is all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She will feel nothing. No doubt she is half dead already. A moment,

-and it will be too late.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nevertheless, I will not,” said de la Platière.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos stamped ragingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give the word to me. She must stand her chance. For the Emperor!” he

-choked&mdash;then shrieked out, “Fire!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The explosion crashed among the hills, and echoed off.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A dark mass, which writhed and settled beyond the lantern shine,

-seemed to excite a little convulsion of merriment in the swinging

-body. That twitched and shook a moment; then relaxed, and hung

-motionless.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch02">

-THE RAVELLED SLEAVE

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">I should</span> like to preface my subject with a <i>Caractère</i>, in the

-style of La Bruyère, as thus:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant

-a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make

-Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as

-others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement

-of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than

-ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you

-the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and,

-resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities

-which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters

-always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct

-on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the

-Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself

-speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous

-secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but

-their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite,

-one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his

-lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably

-a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one

-has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy

-day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that

-we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes.

-But we must adulterate largely to do it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is

-thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a

-big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary,

-but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon

-your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his

-rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t

-know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really

-instinctively greedy for the psychologic <i>bonne bouche</i>. He is tall,

-and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm

-but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace.

-He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one

-night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being

-so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration

-for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental

-endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these

-noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself

-with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening

-paper.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my

-shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I

-supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at

-the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to

-an extreme of rudeness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had

-been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting

-your presence into my ear like that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by);

-then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first

-time to realize my meaning.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do

-you mean by the question?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real

-justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, nothing!” I mumbled awkwardly; “except that you made me almost

-jump out of my skin.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was characteristic of him, and a further puzzle, that in spite of

-his self-suggested consciousness of superiority he was easily

-depressed by a snub. We sat for a little in a glowering silence, and

-perhaps with a mutual sense of injury.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, an interesting case,” he said at length with an effort. “A

-trance, isn’t it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Something of the sort,” I replied. “I saw the girl yesterday.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked up interested.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She is in a private ward of B&mdash;&mdash; Hospital. I know the house surgeon.

-He took me to see her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well! How does she look?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Seen the St. Amaranthe at Tussaud’s&mdash;the one whom, as children, we

-used to call the Sleeping Beauty? Not unlike her: as pretty as wax and

-as stiff: just breathing, with pale cheeks and her mouth a little

-open.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The fit&mdash;I seem to remember&mdash;was brought on by some shock, wasn’t

-it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I growled&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“According to report, concealment of birth. I conclude she was put to

-shame by some rogue, and couldn’t face the music. The child was found,

-three or four months ago, on a doorstep or somewhere, and traced to

-her. When the police entered, I suppose she feared the worst, and went

-off. Odd part is, that the infant itself was intact&mdash;as sound as a

-bell. But all that’s of little interest. It’s the case for me; not the

-sentiment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah?” said Valentine.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leaned forward, resting his long arms on his knees and gently

-clicking his fingers together. His eyes were full of an eager light.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Johnny, I wonder if you could get <i>me</i> a sight of her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not?” I answered. I felt that I owed him some atonement. “I’ll

-ask C&mdash;&mdash; if you like.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-II

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-C&mdash;&mdash; demurred, hummed and hawed, and acquiesced.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Your friend must keep in the background,” he said. “He’s not a

-backstair reporter, I suppose?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He’s an independent gentleman, and either a poet or an ass&mdash;I don’t

-know which.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Same thing,” said this airy Philistine; “but no matter, so long as he

-don’t talk.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He won’t talk.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well, bring him up. Fact is, we’re trying an experiment this

-afternoon. Aunt’s brought the baby&mdash;sort of natural magnetism to

-restore the current, cancel the hiatus&mdash;see? I’ve not much belief in

-it myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I fetched Valentine, and we followed C&mdash;&mdash; up to the ward. There were

-only present there&mdash;one, a list-footed nurse; two, a little

-shabby-genteel woman, with a false tow-like front over vicious eyes,

-who carried a flannelled bundle; and three, the patient herself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She had not so much as stirred, to all appearance, since I last saw

-her. We, Valentine and I, took up our position apart. Some accidental

-contact with him made me turn my head. He was quivering like a

-high-strung racer for the start. This physical excitability was news

-to me. “H’mph!” I thought. “Is there really that in you which you must

-keep such a tight rein on?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The nurse took the infant, and placed it on the sleeping girl’s

-breast. It mewed and sprawled, but evoked no response whatever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She’d never a drop of the milk of kindness in her,” muttered the

-little verjuicy woman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hold your tongue!” said the doctor sharply.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He and the nurse essayed some coaxing. In the midst, I was petrified

-by the sight of Valentine going softly up to the bed-head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“May I whisper a word?” he said. “It may fail or not. But I don’t

-think you can object to my trying.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And actually, before his astonished company could move or collect its

-wits, he had bent and spoken something, inaudible, into the patient’s

-ear.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, I ask you to remember that this girl had been in a cataleptic

-sleep for not less than three months, under observation, and with no

-chance, so far as I knew, to cozen her attendants; and believe me then

-as you can when I tell you that, answering, instantly and normally, to

-Valentine’s whisper, she sighed, stretched her arms, though at first

-with an air of some lassitude and weakness, and, opening her eyes,

-fixed them with a sort of suspended stare upon the face of her

-exorcist. Gradually, then, a little pucker deepened between her brows,

-and instantly, some shadow of fright or uneasiness flickering in her

-dark pupils, she turned her head aside. Obviously she was distressed

-by the vision of this strange face coming between the light and her

-normal, as it seemed to her, awaking.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Valentine immediately stood away, and backed to where she could not

-see him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-C&mdash;&mdash;, obviously putting great command on himself, since circumstances

-made it appear that some damned “natural magic” had got the better of

-his natural science, took the situation in hand professionally, and

-frowned to the aunt, to whom the baby had been restored, to show

-herself. The woman, rallying from the common stupefaction, gave an

-acrid sniff and obeyed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Well</i>, Nancy!” she said, in a tone between wonder and remonstrance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The girl looked round again and up, with a little shock. Immediately

-her dilated pupils accepted with frank astonishment this more familiar

-apparition.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gracious goodness, Aunt Mim!” she whispered; “what have you got

-there?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then she turned her face on the pillow, with a smile of drowsy

-rapture.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anyhow, you’ve found your way to Skene at last,” she murmured, and

-instantly fell into a natural sleep, from which, it was evident, there

-must be no awaking her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-C&mdash;&mdash; wheeled upon my friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I suppose you won’t part with your secret?” he asked drily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a habit with Valentine, not his least aggravating, composedly

-to put by any unwelcome or difficult question addressed to him as if

-he did not hear it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Skene’s in Kent, isn’t it?” he asked, ostensibly of the aunt, though

-he looked at me. I could have snapped at him in pure vindictiveness.

-He wasn’t inscrutable, any more than another. What was his confounded

-right to pose as a sphinx?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She fancies she’s there,” he said. “Why?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I turned dumbly with the question to the little woman creature. I

-don’t know if she supposed I was in some sort of official authority to

-cross-examine her. She had powder on her face, and a weak glow mantled

-through it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was there she met her trouble, sir,” she said, hesitating. “She’d

-gone down to the hop-picking last September, and I was to follow. But

-circumstances” (she wriggled her shoulders with an indescribable

-simper) “was against my joining her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” broke in C&mdash;&mdash;, suddenly and rather sharply, “you must take

-the consequences, and, for the present anyhow, the burden of them off

-her shoulders.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Begging your pardon, sir?” she questioned shrewdly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The child,” said the doctor, “the child. Everything, it appears,

-relating to it is for the moment obliterated from her mind. She takes

-up existence, I think you’ll find, last autumn, at this Skene, with

-expecting you. Well, you have come, and returned to London together.

-You understand? The time of year is the same. None of all this has for

-the moment happened.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was an acrid incredulity in his hearer’s face as she listened to

-him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do I understand, or don’t I, sir,” she said, “that her shame is to be

-my care and consideration? And till when, if you’ll be so good?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That I can’t say,” he answered. “Probably the interval, the abyss in

-her mind, will bridge itself by slow degrees. Her reason likely

-depends upon your not rudely hastening the process. I warn you, that’s

-all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And pray,” she said, with ineffable sarcasm, “how is I, as a

-respectable woman, to account to her for this that I hold?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Put it out to nurse.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, sir, <i>if</i> you’ll allow me. The hussy have done her best to bring

-me to ruin already.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Say you’ve adopted it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She gave a shrill titter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nanny will have lost her wits, hindeed, to believe that.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, she has in a measure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And the police?” she said. “Aren’t you a little forgetting them,

-sir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The police,” said C&mdash;&mdash;, “I will answer for. The case isn’t worth

-their pursuing, and they will drop it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The baby began to wail; and Aunt Mim, with her lips pursed, to play

-the vicious rocking-horse to it.

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-III

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-One evening, a week later, Valentine came quietly into my room. I had

-not seen him in the interval, and was immediately struck, though it

-was semi-dusk, by the expression on his face. It was white and

-smiling, and the eyes more brightly inscrutable than ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A storm had just crashed across the town, and left everything dripping

-in a liquid fog. Looking down, one could see the house-fronts,

-submerged in the running pavements, become the very “baseless fabrics

-of a vision.” The hansom-drivers, bent over their glazed roofs, rode

-each with a shadowy phantom of himself reversed, like an oilskin Jack

-of Spades. No pedestrian but, like Hamlet, had his “fellow in the

-cellarage” keeping pace with him. The solid ground seemed melted, and

-the unsubstantial workings of the world revealed. To souls hemmed in

-by bricks, there are more commonplace, less depressing sights than a

-wet London viewed from a third story.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a box in my window, with some marguerites in it, the sickly

-pledges of a rather jocund spring. Valentine, joining me as I leaned

-out, handled a half-broken stem very tenderly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It has been beaten down, <i>like poor Nanny</i>, by the storm,” he said.

-“We must tie it to a stick.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I did not answer for a minute. Then very deliberately I drew in my

-head and sat down. Again like my shadow, in this city of shadows,

-Valentine did the same. For some five minutes we must have remained

-opposite one another without speaking. Then sudden and grim I set my

-lips, and asked the question he seemed to invite.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you the stick?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded, with a smile, which I could hardly see now, on his face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You speak figuratively, of course,” I said, “in talking of <i>tying</i>

-her to you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he said. “I talk of the real bond.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of matrimony?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With a naughty word, I jumped to my feet, strode the round of the

-room, sat down flop on the table, put my hands in my pockets, tried to

-whistle, laughed, and burst out&mdash;“I suppose you intend this, in a

-manner, for a confidence? I suppose you are taking straight up the

-tale of a week ago? Well, <i>I</i> haven’t lost the impression of that

-moment, or gone mad in the interval. Do you want me to sympathize with

-<i>your</i> insanity, or to argue you out of it&mdash;which?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He did not answer. Indeed, the offensiveness of my tone was not

-winning.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am perfectly aware,” I went on, “that the melodramatic unities

-demand an espousal with the interesting spirit we have called back to

-life. They have a way, at the same time, of ignoring Aunt Mims. You

-will, I am sure, forgive me if I say that it is the figure of that

-good lady which sticks last in <i>my</i> memory.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Still he did not answer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will put my point,” I continued, growing a little angry&mdash;“I will

-put my point, as you seem to ask it, with all the delicacy I can. You

-drew an analogy between&mdash;between some one and that broken cabbage

-yonder. The sentiment is unexceptionable; only in France they consider

-those things weeds.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do they?” he said coolly. “We don’t.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No; because we must justify ourselves for exalting ’em out of their

-proper sphere. They’ll not cease to smell rank, though, however you

-give ’em the middle place in your greenhouse.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I struck my knee viciously with my open palm.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That was in vile bad taste, Val. I beg your pardon for saying it.

-But, deuce take it, man! you can’t have come to me, a worldling and an

-older one, for sympathy in this midsummer madness?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was off the table again, going to and fro and apostrophizing him at

-odd turns.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Let’s drop parables&mdash;and answer plainly, if it’s in you. You don’t

-exhale sentiment as a rule. Did or did not that touch about ‘poor

-Nanny’ imply a hint of some confidence put in me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve always considered you my closest friend.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Flattered, I’m sure; though I didn’t guess it. You put such

-conundrums&mdash;excuse me&mdash;beyond the time of a plain man to guess. Well,

-I say, I’m flattered, and I’ll take the full privilege. It’s natural

-you should feel an interest in&mdash;&mdash;by the way, I regret to say I only

-know her as the Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She’s Nanny Nolan.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“In Miss Nolan, then. A propos, I’ve never yet asked, and mustn’t

-know, I suppose, the secret of your ‘open sesame’?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, I can’t tell you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, it doesn’t matter! Only, as a question of this confiding

-friendship&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It isn’t my secret alone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I’ve no more to say. But I presume she’s the&mdash;the flower in

-question?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes! And I’m the stick.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He said it with a quiet laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shouldn’t have supposed it, on my honour,” I assured him. “You can

-have stuck at very little in a week.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took a few turns, and faced him, or his motionless shadow, very

-solemnly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” I demanded, “for the plain speaking. Will you answer me the

-truth? I brought away an impression, as I said. It might have been,

-after all, an impertinent one. A man’s a man for a’ that&mdash;though I

-confess I can’t quite apply the moral to a woman. Still, I’ll ask you

-frankly: How is she socially?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nothing at all. Her father was a colour-sergeant, a red-headed Celt

-from over the border of dreams. He’s gone to join the Duke of Argyll’s

-cloud army at Inverary. Her aunt’s an ex-coryphée living on a

-mysterious pension.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course; only rather worse than I supposed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verender, I must tell you the girl is without reproach. Socially, it

-is true, they are in a very limited way. They eke out existence in a

-number of small directions, even, as you know, hop-picking.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve nothing but respect for Miss Nolan’s virtues. I can even

-appreciate the appeal of her prettiness to a susceptible nature, which

-I don’t think mine is. Anyhow, I’m no Pharisee to pelt my poor sister

-of the gutter because she’s fallen in it. That’s beside the question.

-But it isn’t, to ask what in the name of tragedy induces you, with

-your wealth, your refinement, your mental and social amiability, to

-sink all in this investment of a&mdash;of a fancy bespoke&mdash;there, I can put

-it no differently.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Call it my amiability, Verender. She’s like the centurion’s daughter.

-There’s something awfully strange, awfully fascinating, after all, in

-getting into her confidence&mdash;in entering behind that broken seal of

-death.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re not an impressionable Johnny&mdash;at least, you shouldn’t be.

-You’ve passed the Rubicon. This child with a child&mdash;with Aunt Mim,

-good Lord! Have you thought of the consequences?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes; all of them.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of the&mdash;pardon me. Do you know who <i>he</i> was?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared aghast at him&mdash;at the deeper blot of gloom from which his

-voice proceeded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And you aren’t afraid&mdash;for her; for yourself?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You mean, of her relapsing?” he said clearly. “Not when she knows the

-truth&mdash;knows what a poor thing he is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you sure <i>you</i> know woman? She is apt to have a curious

-tenderness for the blackguard who distinguishes her with his most

-especial brand of villainy. Then she hasn’t learned it&mdash;the

-truth&mdash;yet?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No. Aunt Mim has been loyal.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, well she may be, so long as you offer yourself the prize to

-such a self-denying ordinance. She sees which side her bread’s

-buttered, no doubt. And how does she account for the little stranger?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By adoption. It’s an odd thing, Verender&mdash;Verender, it’s a very odd

-thing, and very pitiful, to see how <i>she</i>&mdash;little Nanny&mdash;distrusts the

-child&mdash;looks on it sort of askance&mdash;almost hates it, I think. I’ve a

-very difficult part to play.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I groaned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then why play it? What does it all matter to you? You’ve opened her

-eyes. Isn’t that enough, without waiting till she’s opened yours?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he said, obviously not attending to me. “But that isn’t the

-whole of my difficulty. The truth is, she appears to shrink from me

-too.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ll forgive me,” I said grimly. “That’s your first comforting

-statement.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know how it is,” he continued, in a low voice,

-self-pondering; “she’s frightened&mdash;distressed, before a shadow she

-can’t define. Sometimes and somehow it seems as if she wants to love

-me, but can’t&mdash;as if she were trying, and vainly, to shape out of a

-great gloom the obstacle which separates us. And I want to help her;

-and yet I, too, can’t understand. Shall I ever, I wonder?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared at him. “Isn’t it plain enough? But you have love’s eyes, I

-suppose.” Then I asked, a little softened, “Does she ever lose

-herself, trying to piece that broken time?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know,” he answered. “She speaks so little. She is like a

-little shy ghost&mdash;half-materialized&mdash;fearful between spirit and

-matter&mdash;very sweet and pathetic.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With the last word he turned abruptly and strode out of the room. I

-was not so much astonished at his curt conclusion, as at a certain

-tell-tale cough which accompanied it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, hang the fellow!” I muttered. “If he’s developed tears in his

-voice, I give him up.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-IV

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-One afternoon, accident taking me past the Nolans’ house in the Fulham

-Road, I was disturbed to hear Valentine’s voice hailing me from the

-parlour window. It was a little cheap tenement, and a curiously shabby

-frame to his rather distinguished figure as he stood up eagerly to

-stop me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come in,” he said. “I want you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I demurred, in an instant and instinctive panic.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What for? I’m horribly pressed. Won’t it do another time?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>It</i> won’t,” he answered. “It’s its way. But go on, if your need is

-greater than mine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s shabby,” I thought; and yielded with the worst grace possible.

-He retaliated by meeting me all sweetness at the door, and conducting

-me into the parlour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was an impossible room&mdash;I may say it at once&mdash;quite the typical

-tawdry boudoir of an ex-coryphée. She was not there, I was relieved

-to find, in person; but her multiplied presentment simpered and

-abashed one from a dozen places on walls and mantelpiece. “Claudine”

-(she might have been a hair-wash, and enjoyed the same sort of

-popularity) posed, for all the blind purposes of vanity, in the tights

-and kid boots of a past generation. Looking from queer old

-daguerreotypes, in skirts like curtailed crinolines; ogling from

-wreaths, her calves, crossed to display their strength, in disfiguring

-proportion with the thin bosom above, she seemed to make an outrage of

-the dear ungainly sanctities which appeal to us, in pegtops and

-voluminous skirts, from the back parts of our albums. There are

-certain people who, with the best intention in the world to be held

-sweet, are unsavoury; and Aunt Mim was one of them. All the more

-wonder that such fruit could be born of her stock.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For she was certainly attractive, was the girl&mdash;pure and pretty and

-unaffected. I had to own it grudgingly to myself, as I bowed to her,

-and turned interrogatively to my friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had gone to the back of her chair, where she sat away from the open

-window. There was some discarded work in her lap, and in her eyes some

-look of a vague sadness and bewilderment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nanny,” he said softly, “this, Mr. Verender, is my great friend&mdash;my

-counsel out of Court. Will you just do this for me&mdash;make him yours,

-too? Will you try to explain to him, while I go away, what you find it

-so hard to explain to me&mdash;your sense of the something that keeps us

-apart?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I made an instant but faint demur. Nanny, as faintly, shook her head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he said, “but he will listen to you, I know! Because I am

-unhappy, and you are unhappy, and I love you so, Nanny, and he is my

-best friend. Try to explain to him, dear, the difficulty of your

-case.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-This novel enlargement on our relations, his and mine, vaguely annoyed

-me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why should there be any?” I put in impatiently. “Our friend can give

-you great social and other advantages, Miss Nolan. If he is decided on

-this course&mdash;you don’t dislike him, I think&mdash;forgive me, I can see no

-reason for objection on <i>your</i> part.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She rose, as if scared, to her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder.

-“Hush!” he said. “Be just to me, and try to tell him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He left the room and the house; and I was in two minds about following

-him. Was ever man put in a more ridiculous position? Yet the look of

-the girl gave me pause. She seemed to me to be yet only half awake;

-and indeed, I think, that is something to understate the case.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said stumblingly, as she stood before me. “You heard what he

-said, Miss Nolan?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was not sympathetic. I knew it. Perhaps, having once asserted

-myself, I might have grown so. But she would not give me the

-opportunity. In the meantime, I did not feel the less the full force

-of this mismatch.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She put her hand in a lost way to her forehead.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will try,” she said, in a low voice, “because he asked me.

-There&mdash;there was a great trouble&mdash;O! it was so far back. I can’t

-remember it&mdash;and then everything went.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He is willing, it appears, to take that interval, that trouble, on

-trust,” I said. “He only asks you, it seems, to repay his confidence.

-What you are is what he desires. Cannot you consider yourself new-born

-into his love?” (I positively sneered the word to myself.)

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is something stands between us,” she only murmured helplessly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He doesn’t admit it for himself,” I insisted irritably. “It might be

-the ruin of his career, of his position, as foreseen by his friends. I

-suppose he wishes to assure you that that counts for nothing with him,

-if by any chance the bar between you lies in your dim consciousness of

-such a sentiment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had been brutal, I admit it. I can only palliate my behaviour by

-confessing that it was intended to sound the first note of my moral

-surrender to the appeal of those poor, pain-troubled eyes. Now, at

-least, I had got my shaft home. She looked up at me with a light of

-amazed knowledge in her face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you,” she said. “I knew there was a right reason; and all the

-time I have been hunting for a fancied one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I suffered an instant reaction to dismay. I had had no right whatever

-to make this point. Whatever my private opinion of Valentine’s folly,

-I had allowed myself to be accredited his ambassador.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come; it is no reason at all,” I said. “There is no such thing as a

-misalliance in love” (I threw this atrocious sop to my own panic). “If

-only the practical bar between you could be as easily disposed of.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The practical bar?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She turned upon me with a piteous pain in her voice. I had opened a

-door of release to her, I suppose, and before she could escape shut it

-again in her face. I was stumbling weakly on an explanation, when

-suddenly from somewhere above the baby began to wail. Instantly her

-face assumed the strangest expression&mdash;a sort of exalted hardness. She

-put up her hand, listened a moment, then, without another word, glided

-from the room. I am ashamed to say that I seized the opportunity to

-put an instant period to my visit.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I expected to meet Valentine loitering without; but to my relief he

-did not appear. So I went on my way fuming. What right had the man to

-try to inveigle me into seeming to sanction his idiotcy by claiming me

-its advocate? He wanted to buy justification, I suppose. There are

-certain natures which cannot properly relish their own grief or

-happiness unless a witness be by to report upon them. Such was

-Valentine’s, I thought; and the thought did not increase my respect

-for my friend. I fancied I had already plumbed the shallows of that

-pretentious reserve, and was angry and half contemptuous that he had

-so soon revealed himself to me. There was certainly something

-attractive about the girl; but&mdash;well, <i>he</i> had not been the first to

-discover the fact, and, when all was said, his infatuation showed him

-a fool in my eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That evening, when I was sitting alone writing, she suddenly stood

-before me. My first shock of amazement was followed by a glow of fury.

-I felt that I was being persecuted.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, what is it?” I said harshly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I only wanted to tell you,” she said low, panting as if she had run;

-“I wanted you to tell <i>him</i> that&mdash;that I know now what it is. I found

-out the moment I left you; and I came to say&mdash;but you were gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is the child, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, you are quite right&mdash;it is the child.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-No sooner had I said it, than I felt the weight of my self-commitment.

-Had she discovered&mdash;remembered all? Did she conceive the impediment as

-associated with some scandal attaching to the ineffable Aunt Mim? or

-was the baby, in her clouded soul, but an unattachable changeling,

-which had come to disrupt the kind order of things and brand their

-household with a curse?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, it is the child,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my hand

-while I frowned over the problem.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She made no answer. When I looked up at the end of a minute, she was

-gone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I started to my feet, and went up and down. I made no attempt to

-follow. “It is better,” I thought angrily, “to let this stuff ferment

-in its own way. I could have given no other answer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the twentieth turn I saw Valentine before me, and stopped abruptly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he said; “were you able to get it out of her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What?” I asked defiantly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The reason&mdash;the impediment, you know?” he answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sit down, Valentine,” I said. “I will tell you the truth. I hinted

-that the <i>mésalliance</i> might be her unconscious consideration.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She is not so proud,” he said quietly; “though I’m unworthy to buckle

-her little shoe for her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I positively gasped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! if that’s your view! But, anyhow, she was seeming to accept mine,

-when the infant hailed her, and she left me, and I bolted. You put too

-much upon me&mdash;really you do, Val; and here’s the sequel. Ten minutes

-ago she appeared in this room and told me that she had discovered the

-reason&mdash;the real one this time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And it was?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The baby&mdash;no less.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! Does she&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know from Adam. I was thinking over my answer; and when I

-looked up, she was gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And you gave her no reply?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O yes! I told her I entirely agreed with her. I had to be honest.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verender! You must come with me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Go with you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ve called the tune; you must pay the piper.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know what you mean. I’ll see you&mdash;cremated first!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stared at me a moment, his teeth showing, his eyes rounding in the

-dusk, his fists clinching and unclinching; then he, too, was gone. And

-I went and stood at the window, slinking into the curtains, and

-feeling myself the most abused cur in all London.

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-V

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-For a fortnight this state continued in me, through alternations of

-depression, self-accusation, and savage bursts of rebellion. On the

-sixteenth day a brief note, begging me to call at his rooms, reached

-me from Valentine.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t go,” I swore through my teeth, feeling an inclination to tear

-the paper in them; and five minutes later was on my way.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He shall justify me to myself,” I had thought. “I’ll let my

-conscience be his footstool no longer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The fellow lived <i>en prince</i> in Piccadilly. I found him in the midst

-of a litter&mdash;boxes and packages and strewed floors&mdash;evidently on the

-eve of a journey. He greeted me, twinkling, in high excitement&mdash;not a

-trace of grievance or embarrassment in his manner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Leave those things, Phillips,” he said to his staid valet. “We’ll

-finish by and by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The man left the room; and his master took me by the sleeve, while I

-held myself in reserve&mdash;unconsciously, at the same time, softening to

-his geniality.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We’re off to Capri&mdash;Egypt,” he said, “following our late summer with

-the swallows.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You and&mdash;Phillips?” I asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I and my wife,” said he, with a laugh. “Hush! She’s seeing the baby

-to sleep.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He could say it without a blush; and they had been married, as I came

-to learn, just a week! He led me on tiptoe to a distant room, and bade

-me look through the opened door. Nanny, crowned, proud as any young

-queen, with conscious maternity, was bent, singing softly, above a

-little cot. The sight of her&mdash;Val’s wife&mdash;restored me at once to my

-self-respect. I had done nothing after all, it seemed, but help to

-precipitate an event I deplored. My shout had brought down the

-avalanche. Henceforth my position was to be that of the amused

-onlooker.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He let me stare; then led me away with all his old affectation of

-pregnant mystery. We went out together&mdash;I don’t know why&mdash;into the

-Green Park. It seemed remote and silent, and the better shadows of

-night were beginning to troop under its trees. Then he spoke to me, as

-follows:

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verender, you have a right to know. You remember what you told me

-that evening? I wasn’t just to you, perhaps. I foresaw issues to which

-you must necessarily be blind. The baby stood between us, you said. It

-did, but not in the way you meant to imply. I am its father.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I listened perfectly silent, and very grave, as we stepped on

-together.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will say of, not for, myself,” he continued, “that I had known

-nothing of the fruits of a little moonlight idyll out in that Kent

-village. I was hop-picking, as she was, but for a worser reason. Our

-encounter in B&mdash;&mdash; Hospital was my first intimation of the truth. Till

-that moment I had never considered, at least had been careless of, a

-sequel; had never, of course, had a shadow of thought to identify the

-patient with my victim. Then in a moment&mdash;Verender, her helplessness

-found all that wasn’t bad in me. She didn’t know me&mdash;the curtain was

-too thick. I determined to woo and win, as a stranger, what was

-already my own. Was I right?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I nodded. “Yes, you were right.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then came the strange part,” he said&mdash;“a sort of subconsciousness of

-an impediment she could not define. It was her dishonour, Verender&mdash;my

-God! Verender, <i>her</i> dishonour!&mdash;that found some subtle expression in

-the little life introduced into her home. She always feared and

-distrusted the child; and I tell you I lived in horror that some day

-her witlessness would arm her gentle hand to do it a hurt. For she

-wanted to come to me, Verender, she wanted to come, and it was as if

-she couldn’t, and nobody would tell her why.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>You</i> told her, you old rascal! And with what result, do you think?

-When I followed her, I found her gone&mdash;she had taken the baby from its

-cot, and hurried out. The old harpy was there, raving and gobbling

-beyond reason. I had her down on her knees to confess. She admitted

-that the girl had come in, in a fever to proclaim her knowledge of the

-bar which separated us. Nanny had rounded upon her, it appeared, and

-accused her, Aunt Mim, of wantonly causing the scandal which had

-brought this shadow into her life. And then&mdash;perhaps it wasn’t to be

-wondered at&mdash;Auntie exploded, and gave up all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The truth?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All of it but what the old hag herself didn’t know&mdash;the name of the

-villain. That, circumstances had kept from her, you see. She let

-loose, did Auntie&mdash;we’ll allow her a grain of justification; to have

-her forbearance turned upon herself like that, you know!&mdash;and screamed

-to the girl to pack, and dispose of her rubbish somewhere else. And

-Nanny understood at last, and went.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, where? That was the question. I’d only one clue&mdash;Skene and the

-river; but I seized upon it, and my inspiration proved right. She’d

-gone instinctively to the only place where, it seemed, her trouble

-could be resolved. You see, she hadn’t yet come to identify <i>me</i> with

-it. But I followed, and I caught her in time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He hung his head, and spoke very low.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I took the next train possible to Skene. Verender, I’m not going to

-talk. It was one of those fainting, indescribable experiences, like

-the voice in the burning bush. Cold dawn it was, with a white bubbling

-river and the ghost of an old moon. She had intended to commit <i>it</i> to

-the water&mdash;the fog wasn’t yet out of her brain&mdash;and then, all in an

-instant, the mother came upon her, and the memory of me; and she ran

-to cast herself in instead, and saw me coming.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There followed a long interval of silence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And Aunt Mim?” I asked drily, chiefly to keep up my character.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! we’ve added an honourable moiety to a dishonourable pension, and

-settled her,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Another silence followed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I apologize,” I said grumpily.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch03">

-THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">John Stannary</span> hungrily paced his laboratory, awaiting an expected

-advent. A brilliant coronal of candles, concentrated within a shade

-and pendent from a black beam over the dissecting table, regularly

-identified him as he came within its radiance, and as regularly, when

-he had passed without it, returned to its scrutiny of the empty slab

-beneath, as if it were trying to trace on that blank surface the

-unwritten hieroglyphics of his development. Yet, if each of its

-half-score fiery tongues had been as polyglot as the Apostles’ tongues

-of flame, it could have found among them all no voice to dispute his

-lifelong consistency with himself. From the hard, ungracious child,

-who had rejoiced to discomfit the love which sought to hedge him; from

-the cynic schoolboy, to whom to awaken and analyze pain in the living

-had been the only absorbing sport; from the unimpassioned student, who

-had walked the hospitals like a very spectre of moral insensibility;

-from the calculating libertine, whose experimental phase of animalism

-had been as brief as it was savage; from the lust of life, soon spent,

-to the bloodless analysis of its organic motives; from the soulless

-child to the virile monster of science; from nothingness to a great

-early reputation, to honours, to a fine house, to his present self and

-condition, in short, Professor Stannary’s progress had been entirely

-and unerringly consistent. He was one of those born to account for

-results, not by any means with a view to clearing the stream of

-tendency by cleansing its source. On the contrary, he never would have

-hesitated further to contaminate it, could he by so doing have evolved

-some novel epidemic. His fight was not to win Nature to God, but to

-the laboratory; and, if he had a conqueror’s ambition, it was to die

-gloriously upon a protoplast, at that beginning of things which his

-fathers had struggled through æons to forget. To have called him a

-dog nosing back for a scent, would have been to libel the sorriest of

-mongrels with an inch of tail to wag at a kind word. Yet he had

-routled so much, nevertheless, that his eyes were inflamed, and his

-features pimpled, and his nose itself sharpened as with much whetting

-on carrion. And, still unappeased, he paced his shambles that evening

-like a caged ravening jackal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In those early decades of the nineteenth century, anthropophagous

-science, especially when non-official, was often hard put to it for a

-meal. The “ringing grooves of change” were sounding; discovery was a

-new-risen star; ghoulish explorers shouldered one another in their

-struggle for the scientific pabulum which the grave afforded. But the

-supply, die as men would, was unequal to the demand. The hospitals

-kept their own; the others, <i>à contre-cœur</i>, must keep the

-resurrection-men. They pulled the blinds down on their consciences;

-they were willing to accept the least plausible of explanations, for

-the <i>Cause</i> was paramount. But, indeed, we are all casuists when we

-want to justify our lusts to ourselves. Still the material lacked,

-only, according to the universal law of necessity, to evolve its more

-desperate instruments of supply. And then at last, hard-driven, first

-one, and after him another and another, had the panic courage to pull

-up those blinds, and let in the light on some very shocking

-suspicions&mdash;with the result that Burke was hanged in Edinburgh, and

-Bishop and Williams in London.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Professor Stannary was not of these white-livers. He pulled up no

-blind, for the simple reason that he had let none down. He would have

-diagnosed conscience as a morbid disease characterized by a diathetic

-condition, and peculiar to fools of both sexes and all ages. He would

-have said that to ask any question in this world was to invite a lie,

-and that in all his thirty years’ experience he had found none but the

-dead to answer back the unswerving truth. Well, if they did? Did it

-matter to them, being dead? But it mattered greatly to the cause of

-science to get at the truth; and he, for one, was certainly not going

-to question the means so long as the results came to justify them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-While yet, however, the blinds were down and the pitch-plaster but an

-ugly suspicion, the competition for material had not so ceased of its

-keenness but that Professor Stannary had found himself checked, one

-day, under the very near-conquered crest of a physiological peak, for

-want of the final clue to that crowning achievement&mdash;a clue which,

-like Bluebeard’s key, turned upon nothing so intimately as dead

-bodies. Step by step he had reasoned his way to this position, only,

-when within touch of the end, to find himself held up, tantalized,

-irritated by an inability to proceed farther until a nice necessity

-should be provided. His material, in fact and in short, had given out

-at the psychologic moment. His laboratory was already a museum of

-shredded particles&mdash;the pickings from much inevitable waste of dead

-humanity. There needed only the retraversing of certain nerves, or

-ducts, or canals to put the finishing touches to a great discovery.

-And then&mdash;the summit, the tribune, as it were, from which he was

-engaged to announce on the morrow to the Royal Society the triumphant

-term to his investigations.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Already, pacing to and fro, eager and impatient, in the silent room,

-he foresaw himself the recipient of the highest honour it was in the

-power of that body to bestow. He was not above desiring it. He was not

-himself so superlatively rational but he could covet applause for

-knocking yet another long nail into the coffin of irrationality; could

-expect the recognition of the world for his services in helping to

-reduce it, its passions and its hopes and its pathetic fallacies, to

-some mathematical formulæ. There is nothing so incomprehensible to

-the men of science as the reluctance of the unscientific to part with

-their doting illusions. To be content to rejoice or sorrow in things

-as they seem, and not to wish to know them as they are&mdash;that, they

-think, is so foolish as to justify their hardest castigation of the

-folly. At least so thought John Stannary, as, with his lips set

-sourly, he paused, and consulted his watch, and listened for a sound

-of expected footsteps shuffling down the hang-dog passage which

-skirted that wall of the house, and into which his laboratory door

-conveniently opened.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Not a whisper, however, rewarded him. He put his ear to the panels.

-Even then, the surf-like murmur of distant traffic&mdash;or the thud of his

-own excited heart, he could not tell which&mdash;was the only articulate

-sound. He glanced up angrily at the shortening candles before resuming

-his tramp. As he passed to and fro, from dusk to light, and into dusk

-again, he seemed to be demonstrating to a theatre of spectral

-monstrosities the hieroglyphics of that same empty slab. For the

-central core of radiance, concentrating itself with deadly expectancy

-upon its surface, had, nevertheless, its own ghostly halo&mdash;a dim

-auditorium, tier over tier, peopled with shadows of misbegotten

-horrors. Sets of surgical steel in the pit, arrayed symmetrically on

-a table as if for a dinner party of vampires; nameless writhed

-specimens on cards or in bottles, standing higher behind the dry sleek

-of glass; over all, murderous busts in the gallery, the dust on their

-heads and upper features giving them the appearance of standing above

-some infernal sort of footlights&mdash;with such shapes, watchful and

-gloating in suggestion, was the man hemmed in. They touched his nerves

-with just such an emotion as the ordinary citizen feels towards his

-domestic <i>lares</i>; they affected him in just such proportion as he was

-moved by the thought of the possible manner in which an order he had

-given to some friends of his that morning might be executed. That is

-to say, his feeling towards these dead members, as towards the means

-taken by others to procure him the use of them, was utterly

-impersonal. He had had at this pass a great truth to demonstrate. “A

-body, this night, at any cost,” he had simply ordered, and had

-straightway shut the door on his caterers. He had had no thought of

-scruple. His responsibility in these matters was to the ages; never to

-the individual.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-A low tap sounded at the door. He was there in three strides, and

-opening swiftly, let in two men, the one shouldering a sack, the other

-hovering about his comrade in a sort of anxious moral support.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Professor Stannary, without a word, pointed to the table. The laden

-one, as mutely, shuffled across, backed, heaved his burden down, and

-stood to take off his hat and mop his brow. He was a burly,

-humorous-looking fellow, with a sort of cheerful popularity written

-across his face&mdash;an expression in strong contrast with that of the

-other, who, tall and stealthy, stood lank behind him, like his shadow

-at a distance, watching the persuasive effect of his principal on the

-customer. It was he who had closed the door gently upon them all as

-soon as they were in, and now stood, his teeth and eyeballs the

-prominent things in him, softly twirling his hat in his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take away the sack,” said the Professor quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The burly man obeyed, sliding it off like a petticoat; and revealed

-the body of a young woman. Lowering and rubbing his jaw, the Professor

-stood some moments pondering the vision. Then he turned sharply.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are late. I expected you sooner.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The notice was short, sir,” answered the man coolly. “These ’ere

-matters can’t be accommodated in a moment. As it is she’s warm. I

-bought the body off of&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other interrupted him&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t want to know. You can hold your tongue, and take your price,

-and go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Short and sweet,” said the man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed, and his friend laughed in echo, putting his long hand to

-his mouth as if in apology for such an unpardonable ebullition of

-nature.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to the price,” said the former, “taking into <i>con</i>sideration the

-urgency, and the special providence, so to speak, in purwiding, at a

-moment’s notice too, this ’ere comely young&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A certain full chink of money stopped him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thankee,” he said, after a short negotiation. “I’ll own you’ve done

-the handsome, sir, and we’ve no cause to complain. Not but what I had

-to give&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good night!” said the Professor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Not till they were gone, locked out, and the very trail of their

-filthy footsteps hidden under the black droppings of the night, did he

-turn, for all his impatience, and regard the body again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nancy,” he murmured to himself; “yes, it’s Nancy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Into the vast study of biology it is perfectly certain that a personal

-knowledge of biogenesis must enter. Here, too, the individual must be

-sacrificed to the cause. Well, by virtue of that phase in his career

-before-mentioned, he had already once made of Nancy a holocaust to

-science. If the fruits of that sacrifice had been to be found in a

-ruined life, a social degradation, a gradual decline upon infamy, what

-was it all to him? As german to the general subject as the dead

-specimens on his walls was the living specimen of his passion. <i>Ex

-abusu non arguitur ad usum.</i> Still, it was a strange coincidence that

-she should come thus to consummate his work.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Looking upon her frozen face, he was aware of certain tell-tale,

-rudely-erased tokens about the mouth. He never had a doubt as to what

-they signified. It was a rude kiss that of the pitch-plaster, more

-close and savage than any he himself had once pressed upon those

-blistered lips. So, the murderous beasts had gone the short way to

-supply his urgency! Would they have taken it none the less, he

-wondered, if they could have known in what relation their victim once

-stood towards their employer? Very likely. Very justly, too, could

-they believe him consistent with himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nevertheless, though he had no conscience, though he had too often

-scored that fact on human flesh with a knife to be in any doubt about

-it, it was notable that, as he moved now, perfectly cold and

-collected, to make some selection of tools from the table hard by, he

-was registering to himself a vow, mortal to some folks, that no effort

-of his should be lacking to help bring certain vile instruments to

-their judgment&mdash;so soon as his disuse of them should find warrant in a

-fuller supply of the legitimate material.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he groped for what he wanted, a sparrow twittered somewhere in the

-dark outside. He started, and dwelt a moment listening. Birds! the

-little false priests of haunted woods, who sang their lying

-benedictions over every folly perpetrated in their green shades! Why,

-he had loathed them, even while he had been making their loves the

-text for this early experiment of his in rustic nature. They had been

-singing when&mdash;&mdash;grasping his knife firmly, he returned to the table.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Something had happened there. For one moment the blade shook in his

-hand. To his practised eye there were signs&mdash;the ghostliest, the most

-remote&mdash;but signs still. A movement&mdash;a tremor&mdash;the faintest, faintest

-vibration of a soul, unreleased, struggling to return to the

-surface&mdash;that was what he felt rather than saw. He recalled the hasty

-character of the deed; he thought of the shock, of the suspended

-trance into which such a deed might cast a sensitive subject.

-Mastering himself, with the dry firm will of an operator, he walked

-once more unhurriedly to the instrument table, and made a further

-selection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sparrow twittered again. Birds in the wood&mdash;small procuresses to

-Sentiment! What a trollop she was, that Sentiment! He had known

-ethereal creatures go from picking the bones of stuffed larks, to

-moralize sweetly on the song of nightingales under the moon. For

-himself, barring his natural asceticism, he would have no remorse

-whatever in devouring nightingales. Such emotions were born of

-surfeit, and the moral of them all was that a bird in the stomach was

-worth two, or two hundred, in the bush. The one was the decoy which

-brought the many into notice. Why, he himself, when flushed with

-passion&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Harder than steel, hard as flesh can be, he stepped back to the table.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Yes, there was no longer doubt about it. He must decide quickly.

-Decide! What was there in all his life to warrant in him a moment’s

-indecision? His pledge to to-morrow was paramount over his pledge to

-yesterday. It was by very virtue of the past that he owed everything

-to the future. The <i>Cause</i> was himself, bone of his bone, flesh of his

-flesh. As she had made <i>her</i>self one with him, so must she consummate

-the gift. He chose to believe, even, that she would not hesitate could

-she know. He grasped his knife.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her hair! He had said some foolish things about it once. In a sudden

-fury he seized it, and sliced it off close by her head, and flung it

-aside. She looked strangely innocent and boyish thus shorn. He had a

-momentary grotesque thought that he would excuse himself to himself by

-pretending that she was a boy. It passed on the instant. What excuse

-was necessary? He remembered how once, to his idle amusement, when she

-had fancied herself secure of him, she had coveted greatness for his

-future. Well, it was within his grasp at length, and by her final

-means.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Damn the sparrow! What was there in all the murky town to tempt his

-twittering? He had blunted his knife’s edge on the hair. He must fetch

-another.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he came back with it, the bird seemed to flutter and cry out

-against his very door. In a swift access of passion he strode to it,

-and opened. Whether old, or wounded, or poisoned in the drooping fog,

-there lay the little thing, gasping, with outspread wings, upon the

-pavement. One moment the Professor hesitated; then, crushing out the

-tiny shrieking life under his foot, he relocked the door and returned

-with a firm step to the table.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His treatise, read the next day before an august body, was said

-masterly to resolve an intricate and long obscure physiologic problem.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It brought him additional and great honour, and, what he prized above

-all, that gift of the Society’s gold medal, which is only granted to

-discoveries of the first importance. But then, it must be remembered,

-he had given his soul to the Cause. The stain of its sacrifice was yet

-red on the stones outside his door.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch04">

-A GHOST-CHILD

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">In</span> making this confession public, I am aware that I am giving a

-butterfly to be broken on a wheel. There is so much of delicacy in its

-subject, that the mere resolve to handle it at all might seem to imply

-a lack of the sensitiveness necessary to its understanding; and it is

-certain that the more reverent the touch, the more irresistible will

-figure its opportunity to the common scepticism which is bondslave to

-its five senses. Moreover one cannot, in the reason of things, write

-to publish for Aristarchus alone; but the gauntlet of Grub Street must

-be run in any bid for truth and sincerity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the other hand, to withhold from evidence, in these days of what

-one may call a zetetic psychology, anything which may appear

-elucidatory, however exquisitely and rarely, of our spiritual

-relationships, must be pronounced, I think, a sin against the Holy

-Ghost.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All in all, therefore, I decide to give, with every passage to

-personal identification safeguarded, the story of a possession, or

-visitation, which is signified in the title to my narrative.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-Tryphena was the sole orphaned representative of an obscure but gentle

-family which had lived for generations in the east of England. The

-spirit of the fens, of the long grey marshes, whose shores are the

-neutral ground of two elements, slumbered in her eyes. Looking into

-them, one seemed to see little beds of tiny green mosses luminous

-under water, or stirred by the movement of microscopic life in their

-midst. Secrets, one felt, were shadowed in their depths, too frail and

-sweet for understanding. The pretty love-fancy of babies seen in the

-eyes of maidens, was in hers to be interpreted into the very cosmic

-dust of sea-urchins, sparkling like chrysoberyls. Her soul looked out

-through them, as if they were the windows of a water-nursery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was always a child among children, in heart and knowledge most

-innocent, until Jason came and stood in her field of vision. Then,

-spirit of the neutral ground as she was, inclining to earth or water

-with the sway of the tides, she came wondering and dripping, as it

-were, to land, and took up her abode for final choice among the

-daughters of the earth. She knew her woman’s estate, in fact, and the

-irresistible attraction of all completed perfections to the light that

-burns to destroy them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Tryphena was not only an orphan, but an heiress. Her considerable

-estate was administered by her guardian, Jason’s father, a widower,

-who was possessed of this single adored child. The fruits of parental

-infatuation had come early to ripen on the seedling. The boy was

-self-willed and perverse, the more so as he was naturally of a

-hot-hearted disposition. Violence and remorse would sway him in

-alternate moods, and be made, each in its turn, a self-indulgence. He

-took a delight in crossing his father’s wishes, and no less in atoning

-for his gracelessness with moving demonstrations of affection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Foremost of the old man’s most cherished projects was, very naturally,

-a union between the two young people. He planned, manœuvred, spoke

-for it with all his heart of love and eloquence. And, indeed, it

-seemed at last as if his hopes were to be crowned. Jason, returning

-from a lengthy voyage (for his enterprising spirit had early decided

-for the sea, and he was a naval officer), saw, and was struck amazed

-before, the transformed vision of his old child-playfellow. She was an

-opened flower whom he had left a green bud&mdash;a thing so rare and

-flawless that it seemed a sacrilege for earthly passions to converse

-of her. Familiarity, however, and some sense of reciprocal attraction,

-quickly dethroned that eucharist. Tryphena could blush, could thrill,

-could solicit, in the sweet ways of innocent womanhood. She loved him

-dearly, wholly, it was plain&mdash;had found the realization of all her old

-formless dreams in this wondrous birth of a desire for one, in whose

-new-impassioned eyes she had known herself reflected hitherto only for

-the most patronized of small gossips. And, for her part, fearless as

-nature, she made no secret of her love. She was absorbed in, a captive

-to, Jason from that moment and for ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He responded. What man, however perverse, could have resisted, on

-first appeal, the attraction of such beauty, the flower of a radiant

-soul? The two were betrothed; the old man’s cup of happiness was

-brimmed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then came clouds and a cold wind, chilling the garden of Hesperis.

-Jason was always one of those who, possessing classic noses, will cut

-them off, on easy provocation, to spite their faces. He was so proudly

-independent, to himself, that he resented the least assumption of

-proprietorship in him on the part of other people&mdash;even of those who

-had the best claim to his love and submission. This pride was an

-obsession. It stultified the real good in him, which was considerable.

-Apart from it, he was a good, warm-tempered fellow, hasty but

-affectionate. Under its dominion, he would have broken his own heart

-on an imaginary grievance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He found one, it is to be supposed, in the privileges assumed by love;

-in its exacting claims upon him; perhaps in its little unreasoning

-jealousies. He distorted these into an implied conceit of authority

-over him on the part of an heiress who was condescending to his meaner

-fortunes. The suggestion was quite base and without warrant; but pride

-has no balance. No doubt, moreover, the rather childish

-self-depreciations of the old man, his father, in his attitude towards

-a match he had so fondly desired, helped to aggravate this feeling.

-The upshot was that, when within a few months of the date which was to

-make his union with Tryphena eternal, Jason broke away from a

-restraint which his pride pictured to him as intolerable, and went on

-a yachting expedition with a friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, at once, and with characteristic violence, came the reaction. He

-wrote, impetuously, frenziedly, from a distant port, claiming himself

-Tryphena’s, and Tryphena his, for ever and ever and ever. They were

-man and wife before God. He had behaved like an insensate brute, and

-he was at that moment starting to speed to her side, to beg her

-forgiveness and the return of her love.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had no need to play the suitor afresh. She had never doubted or

-questioned their mutual bondage, and would have died a maid for his

-sake. Something of sweet exultation only seemed to quicken and leap in

-her body, that her faith in her dear love was vindicated.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the joy came near to upset the reason of the old man, already

-tottering to its dotage; and what followed destroyed it utterly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The yacht, flying home, was lost at sea, and Jason was drowned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I once saw Tryphena about this time. She lived with her near mindless

-charge, lonely, in an old grey house upon the borders of a salt mere,

-and had little but the unearthly cries of seabirds to answer to the

-questions of her widowed heart. She worked, sweet in charity, among

-the marsh folk, a beautiful unearthly presence; and was especially to

-be found where infants and the troubles of child-bearing women called

-for her help and sympathy. She was a wife herself, she would say

-quaintly; and some day perhaps, by grace of the good spirits of the

-sea, would be a mother. None thought to cross her statement, put with

-so sweet a sanity; and, indeed, I have often noticed that the

-neighbourhood of great waters breeds in souls a mysticism which is

-remote from the very understanding of land-dwellers.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-How I saw her was thus:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was fishing, on a day of chill calm, in a dinghy off the flat coast.

-The stillness of the morning had tempted me some distance from the

-village where I was staying. Presently a sense of bad sport and

-healthy famine “plumped” in me, so to speak, for luncheon, and I

-looked about for a spot picturesque enough to add a zest to

-sandwiches, whisky, and tobacco. Close by, a little creek or estuary

-ran up into a mere, between which and the sea lay a cluster of low

-sand-hills; and thither I pulled. The spot, when I reached it, was

-calm, chill desolation manifest&mdash;lifeless water and lifeless sand,

-with no traffic between them but the dead interchange of salt. Low

-sedges, at first, and behind them low woods were mirrored in the water

-at a distance, with an interval between me and them of sheeted glass;

-and right across this shining pool ran a dim, half-drowned

-causeway&mdash;the sea-path, it appeared, to and from a lonely house which

-I could just distinguish squatting among trees. It was Tryphena’s

-home.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, paddling dispiritedly, I turned a cold dune, and saw a mermaid

-before me. At least, that was my instant impression. The creature sat

-coiled on the strand, combing her hair&mdash;that was certain, for I saw

-the gold-green tresses of it whisked by her action into rainbow

-threads. It appeared as certain that her upper half was flesh and her

-lower fish; and it was only on my nearer approach that this latter

-resolved itself into a pale green skirt, roped, owing to her posture,

-about her limbs, and the hem fanned out at her feet into a tail fin.

-Thus also her bosom, which had appeared naked, became a bodice, as

-near to her flesh in colour and texture as a smock is to a

-lady’s-smock, which some call a cuckoo-flower.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was plain enough now; yet the illusion for the moment had quite

-startled me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As I came near, she paused in her strange business to canvass me. It

-was Tryphena herself, as after-inquiry informed me. I have never seen

-so lovely a creature. Her eyes, as they regarded me passing, were

-something to haunt a dream: so great in tragedy&mdash;not fathomless, but

-all in motion near their surfaces, it seemed, with green and rooted

-sorrows. They were the eyes, I thought, of an Undine late-humanized,

-late awakened to the rapturous and troubled knowledge of the woman’s

-burden. Her forehead was most fair, and the glistening thatch divided

-on it like a golden cloud revealing the face of a wondering angel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I passed, and a sand-heap stole my vision foot by foot. The vision was

-gone when I returned. I have reason to believe it was vouchsafed me

-within a few months of the coming of the ghost-child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the morning succeeding the night of the day on which Jason and

-Tryphena were to have been married, the girl came down from her

-bedroom with an extraordinary expression of still rapture on her face.

-After breakfast she took the old man into her confidence. She was

-childish still; her manner quite youthfully thrilling; but now there

-was a new-born wonder in it that hovered on the pink of shame.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Father! I have been under the deep waters and found him. He came to

-me last night in my dreams&mdash;so sobbing, so impassioned&mdash;to assure me

-that he had never really ceased to love me, though he had near broken

-his own heart pretending it. Poor boy! poor ghost! What could I do but

-take him to my arms? And all night he lay there, blest and forgiven,

-till in the morning he melted away with a sigh that woke me; and it

-seemed to me that I came up dripping from the sea.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My boy! He has come back!” chuckled the old man. “What have you done

-with him, Tryphena?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will hold him tighter the next time,” she said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the spirit of Jason visited her dreams no more.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That was in March. In the Christmas following, when the mere was

-locked in stillness, and the wan reflection of snow mingled on the

-ceiling with the red dance of firelight, one morning the old man came

-hurrying and panting to Tryphena’s door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tryphena! Come down quickly! My boy, my Jason, has come back! It was

-a lie that they told us about his being lost at sea!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her heart leapt like a candle-flame! What new delusion of the old

-man’s was this? She hurried over her dressing and descended. A

-garrulous old voice mingled with a childish treble in the

-breakfast-room. Hardly breathing, she turned the handle of the door,

-and saw Jason before her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But it was Jason, the prattling babe of her first knowledge; Jason,

-the flaxen-headed, apple-cheeked cherub of the nursery; Jason, the

-confiding, the merry, the loving, before pride had come to warp his

-innocence. She fell on her knees to the child, and with a burst of

-ecstasy caught him to her heart.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She asked no question of the old man as to when or whence this

-apparition had come, or why he was here. For some reason she dared

-not. She accepted him as some waif, whom an accidental likeness had

-made glorious to their hungering hearts. As for the father, he was

-utterly satisfied and content. He had heard a knock at the door, he

-said, and had opened it and found this. The child was naked, and his

-pink, wet body glazed with ice. Yet he seemed insensible to the

-killing cold. It was Jason&mdash;that was enough. There is no date nor time

-for imbecility. Its phantoms spring from the clash of ancient

-memories. This was just as actually his child as&mdash;more so, in fact,

-than&mdash;the grown young figure which, for all its manhood, had dissolved

-into the mist of waters. He was more familiar with, more confident of

-it, after all. It had come back to be unquestioningly dependent on

-him; and that was likest the real Jason, flesh of his flesh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who are you, darling?” said Tryphena.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am Jason,” answered the child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She wept, and fondled him rapturously.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And who am I?” she asked. “If you are Jason, you must know what to

-call me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know,” he said; “but I mustn’t, unless you ask me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t,” she answered, with a burst of weeping. “It is Christmas

-Day, dearest, when the miracle of a little child was wrought. I will

-ask you nothing but to stay and bless our desolate home.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded, laughing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will stay, until you ask me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They found some little old robes of the baby Jason, put away in

-lavender, and dressed him in them. All day he laughed and prattled;

-yet it was strange that, talk as he might, he never once referred to

-matters familiar to the childhood of the lost sailor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the early afternoon he asked to be taken out&mdash;seawards, that was

-his wish. Tryphena clothed him warmly, and, taking his little hand,

-led him away. They left the old man sleeping peacefully. He was never

-to wake again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As they crossed the narrow causeway, snow, thick and silent, began to

-fall. Tryphena was not afraid, for herself or the child. A rapture

-upheld her; a sense of some compelling happiness, which she knew

-before long must take shape on her lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They reached the seaward dunes&mdash;mere ghosts of foothold in that smoke

-of flakes. The lap of vast waters seemed all around them, hollow and

-mysterious. The sound flooded Tryphena’s ears, drowning her senses.

-She cried out, and stopped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Before they go,” she screamed&mdash;“before they go, tell me what you were

-to call me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The child sprang a little distance, and stood facing her. Already his

-lower limbs seemed dissolving in the mists.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was to call you ‘mother’!” he cried, with a smile and toss of his

-hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even as he spoke, his pretty features wavered and vanished. The snow

-broke into him, or he became part with it. Where he had been, a gleam

-of iridescent dust seemed to show one moment before it sank and was

-extinguished in the falling cloud. Then there was only the snow,

-heaping an eternal chaos with nothingness.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-Tryphena made this confession, on a Christmas Eve night, to one who

-was a believer in dreams. The next morning she was seen to cross the

-causeway, and thereafter was never seen again. But she left the

-sweetest memory behind her, for human charity, and an elf-like gift of

-loveliness.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch05">

-HIS CLIENT’S CASE

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> “Personal Reminiscences” of the late Mr. Justice Ganthony, now

-in process of being edited, are responsible for the following

-drollery:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My first “chambers” were on the top, not to say the attic, floor of a

-house in (the now defunct) Furnival’s Inn. I called <i>it</i> “chambers,”

-in the plural, on the strength of a coal-cellar, in the window-seat,

-and a turn-up bedstead which became a cupboard by day. That accounted

-for two rooms, and “the usual offices,” as the house-agents say, when

-they refer to a kitchen six feet by eight in the basement. Trousers,

-after all, are only one garment, although they are called a pair.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There I sat among the cobwebs, like a spider, and waited for my first

-brief. In the meanwhile, I lived as the spiders do&mdash;on hope, flavoured

-with a little attic salt. It was not a cheering repast; but, such as

-it was, there was no end to it. By and by I was almost convinced (of

-what I had been friendlily advised) that it was a forlorn hope&mdash;the

-sort that leads to glory and the grave; probably by starvation. A

-spider has always, as a last resource, his web to roll up and devour.

-I ate up my chambers by degrees; that is to say, I dined,

-figuratively, day in day out, at the sign of the Three Balls. But this

-was to consume my own hump, like the camel. When that should be all

-gone, what next? There is a vulgar expression for prog, which is

-“belly-timber.” I only realized its applicability to my own case when

-my chairs and tables, and other furniture, had gone the primrose way

-of digestion. It was the brass fender, a “genuine antique,” that sat

-heaviest on my chest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Furnival’s Inn was not a cheerful place to starve in. There was an

-atmosphere of gloom and decay about it, which derived, no doubt, from

-its former dealings in Chancery. In the days of its prosperity it had

-fed the Inns of Court, as Winchester feeds New College; in my time it

-could not feed itself. The rats were at it, and the bugs, which are

-the only things I know of that can thrive on crumbling plaster. I had

-the distinction of providing some of their rare debauches to the

-latter; but that was before I began to crumble myself. Some of my

-blood was certainly incorporated in the ancient walls, and was

-included in their downfall.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My view, from Furnival’s Inn, was dismally introspective. It

-commanded, in the first place, a quadrangle of emptiness; and

-included, in the second, an array of lowering and mouldy tenements

-like my own, at whose stark windows hungry expectant faces would

-glimmer fitfully, and scan the yard for the clients who never came,

-and disappear.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a decrepit inn, of another and the social type, budded, like

-a vicious intestinal growth, within Furnival’s. I used to speculate,

-as I looked down at night on its tottering portico, and solemn old

-frequenters, and the lights blinking behind its blinds like

-corpse-candles, if it were not a half-way house of call for the dead.

-For, by day, all business seemed withdrawn from it, and its upper

-rooms might have been mortuaries for any life they exhibited. No

-cheery housemaid ever looked from their windows to chaff the amorous

-Boots below. There was none to chaff. The dead need no boots.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Furnival’s Inn had one gullet, by which the roar of the world came in

-from Holborn. Little else came in but tradesmen, and bailiffs, and an

-occasional policeman in a thoughtful archæological mood. But the

-gullet was a vent as much of exit as of entrance; and by it one could

-escape from the madness of ghostly isolation, and mingle with the

-world, and look in the pastry-cooks’ windows. Whenever I was moved to

-one of these chameleonic foraging expeditions, I would pin a ticket on

-my door: “Called away. Please leave message with housekeeper,” and

-light my pipe with it when I returned. I wonder if any one ever read

-the fatuous legends? To Hope’s eyes, I am sure, they must have been

-dinted, like phonographic records, with the echoes of all the

-footsteps that ever sounded on the stairs during my absences.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Those footsteps! How they marked the measure of my desperation! They

-were not many, and they were far between; but not one in all the

-dreary tale ever reached my attic. Why should they, indeed? I am free

-to acknowledge its moral inaccessibility. Jurisprudence does not, in

-its convincing phases, inhabit immediately under the roof. The higher

-one lives, in practice, the lower one’s practice is like to be. The

-law is not an elevating pursuit.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I recognized this in the end; and the moment I recognized it I got my

-first client.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One November evening, very depressed at last, I was sitting smoking,

-and ruminating over my doleful fate, and thinking if I had not better

-shut myself up for good and all in the bed-cupboard, when I heard

-steps enter the hall below. My ears pricked, of course, from force of

-habit, and from force of habit I uttered a scornful stage laugh&mdash;for

-the withering of Fortune, if she happened to be by. But, in spite of

-my scorn, the steps, ignoring the architects’ offices on the ground

-floor (Frost and Driffel, contractors for Castles in Spain), ascended

-and continued to ascend&mdash;past the deed-engrosser’s closet on the

-half-way landing; past the empty chambers immediately below mine

-(whence, on gusty nights, the tiny creaking of the rope, by which the

-last tenant had hanged himself from a beam, would speak through the

-floor under my bed), and higher yet, right up to my door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Hope, dying on a pallet up three flights of stairs, sprang alert on

-the instant. It might be a friend, a creditor, the housekeeper:

-something telepathic, flowing through the panels, assured me that it

-was none of these things. Tap-tap! so smart on the woodwork that it

-made me jump. I swept pipes and tobacco into a drawer. “Come in!” I

-cried. Then, as the visitor entered, “John, throw up the window a

-little! O, bother the boy! he’s out.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I don’t know if the new-comer was imposed on. He nodded and sniffed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tobacco!” he exclaimed. “What an age since I’ve tasted it! Mr.

-Ganthony, I presume?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I bowed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Barrister-at-law?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I bowed again. My plate was in the hall to inform him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Accept my instructions for a brief.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stated it so abruptly that it took my breath away. If all this was

-outside procedure, I was not going to quarrel with my bread and

-butter. I motioned him to a chair, and, taking up pen and paper

-tentatively, was in a position to scrutinize my visitor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His appearance was certainly odd&mdash;a marked exaggeration, I should have

-pronounced it, of the legal type. His face was very red; his enormous

-side-whiskers very white. Large spectacles obscured his eyes, and he

-wore his silk hat (of an obsolete pattern) cocked rakishly over one of

-them. Add to this that his voluminous frock-coat looked like a much

-larger man’s misfit; that his black cotton gloves were preposterously

-long in the fingers; that he carried a “gamp” of the pantomime

-pattern, and it will be obvious that I had some reason for my

-astonishment. But I kept that in hand. A lawyer, after all, must come

-to graduate in the eccentricities of clients.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked perkily, with an abrupt action of his head, round about him;

-then came to me again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Large practice?” he asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Large enough for my needs,” I answered winningly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“H’m!” He sniffed. “They don’t appear to be many.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That&mdash;excuse me&mdash;is my affair,” I said with dignity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course,” he said; “of course. Only I looked you up&mdash;accident

-serving intuition&mdash;on the supposition that you were green, you

-know&mdash;one of the briefless ones&mdash;called to the Bar, but not chosen,

-eh?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I plumped instantly for frankness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are my first retainer,” I said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His manner changed at once. He pulled his chair a little nearer me,

-with an eager motion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thats what I wanted,” he said. “That’s it. The sort that are

-suffering to win their spurs. None of your egregious old-stagers, who

-require their briefs to be endorsed to the tune of three figures

-before they’ll move&mdash;‘monkey’-in-the-slot men, <i>I</i> call ’em. Thinks I

-to myself, Here’s the sort that’ll be willing to take up a case on

-spec’.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My enthusiasm shot down to zero.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” I said, with a falling face; “on speculation!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s a fortune in it for a clever advocate,” he answered eagerly.

-“A fortune! all Pactolus in a nutshell. I’ve had my experiences of the

-other kind. They squeeze you, and throw you away; take the wages of

-sin, and hand you over to the deuce. What do <i>you</i> say?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you will give me the particulars,” I answered, without heart, “I

-shall be able to judge better. Your client&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed joyously; frowned; put his hat on the floor; crossed his

-arms over his umbrella-handle, and glowered ferociously at me,

-squinting through his glasses.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” he said; “my client, ha-ha! Here, then, young sir, is my

-client’s case.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His name is Buggins” (I glanced involuntarily at the wall). “He is,

-or was, until envy combined with detraction to ruin him, a

-company-promoter. As such, his trend was always towards insurance. It

-offered the best opportunities to a great creative genius. Buggins,

-being all that, recognized the still amazing potentialities in a field

-of commerce, which, though much worked, remains unexhausted&mdash;almost,

-one might say, inexhaustible. In his younger days he showed a pretty

-invention in devising and engineering what I may call personal essays

-in this line. His Insurance against Waterspouts, which he worked

-principally in the Midlands, brought him some handsome returns with a

-single generation of farmers. It was based on a cloud-burst at

-Bethesda, in Wales, which ruined quite a number. Other flights of his

-immature genius were, respectively, Insurance against Death in

-Diving-bells; against Death of a Broken Heart; against Official

-Strangulation; against Non-fatal Disfiguration by Lightning; against

-Death by Starvation (this last was largely patronized by

-millionaires). On a somewhat higher plane were his <i>Provident

-Dipsomaniary</i>, whose policies matured, or ‘burst,’ as Buggins phrased

-it, at the age of eighty-five, an essential condition being that the

-holders must put in their claims in person; his <i>Physical Promotion

-League</i>, which guaranteed to pay to the parents of any child, insured

-in it during his teens, a sum of ten pounds on the child’s reaching

-twenty-five years of age and a minimum height of six feet, and a

-thousand pounds for every additional inch which it grew afterwards;

-his <i>Anti-Fiction Mutual</i>, whose policies were forfeitable on first

-conviction of having written a novel (this proved one of the most

-profitable of all Buggins’s enterprises for a time; but in the end the

-national malady proved incurable, and subscribers fell off); his

-<i>Psychical Pocket Research Society</i>, which offered an Insurance

-against Ghost-seeing, the policy-holder forfeiting his claim on proof

-of his first supernatural visitation (but this was so violently

-assailed by the opposition society, which offered to prove that there

-were not three people in the United Kingdom who were insusceptible to

-spooks, that the scheme had to be abandoned); finally, in this

-category, his <i>Bachelors’ Protection Association</i>, which provided

-that, if a member reached the age of ninety without having married, he

-should receive an annuity beginning at fifty pounds, and rising, by

-yearly increments of ten pounds, to ten thousand pounds&mdash;figures

-which, in a centenarian age, were successful in dazzling a great many.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, by then, Buggins was beginning to master the deep ethics of his

-trade, and to realize that its heaviest emoluments were rooted in the

-grand principle of profitable self-denial. People <i>will</i> be unselfish

-if they see money in it; you can’t stop ’em.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One other notable venture marks this period of what I may call his

-moral transition. That was his inspired scheme for insuring <i>against</i>

-illness, in the sense that any policy-holder admitting him or herself

-to be seriously indisposed, lost the right to compensation. It would

-have proved a godsend in a neurotic age; but the antagonism of the

-entire medical profession, with the single exception of the officer

-appointed by the company, killed it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We come now to Buggins’s final matured achievements. I beg your

-pardon?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had said nothing; but I suppose there is such a thing as a

-“speaking” silence. Certainly, if I had looked as I felt, I was a more

-drivelling maniac by now than Buggins himself. The visitor seemed to

-shoot out his eyes like an angry crab.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Young man, young man!” he said warningly, “I begin to be suspicious

-that, after all, I may be misplacing my confidence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked banefully into his hat, where it stood rim upwards on the

-floor; then, suddenly overwrought, kicked it fiercely across the room.

-The action seemed to restore him to complete urbanity. He smiled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So perish all Buggins’s enemies!” he said loftily; “and hail the

-grand climacteric!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He pinned me, like a live butterfly, to the wall behind me with a

-fixed and penetrating gaze.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What would you say,” he said quietly, “to an Insurance against

-Brigandage, available to all travelling in Sicily or the Balkans, and

-realizable” (his watchfulness was intense) “on the receipt, at the

-head-offices in the Shetland Islands, of a nose, ear, or other organ,

-attested, under urgency, by the nearest consul, to be the personal

-property of the applicant desiring a ransom?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He paused significantly. “I should say,” I responded drivellingly,

-“that, as a feat of pure inspiration, it&mdash;it takes the cake.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” He shouted it, and sprang to his feet joyously. “You are the man

-for me! You justify my confidence, as the returns justified Buggins’s

-daring conception. Would you believe it: within the first few months,

-bushels of noses were received at the head-offices, every one of which

-Buggins had no difficulty in proving to be false! But, hush!

-stay!&mdash;there was to be a higher flight!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had been pacing riotously up and down. Now he flounced to a stop

-before me, and held me once more with his glittering eye.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It took the form,” he whispered, “of a <i>Purgatory Mutual</i>, on the

-Tontine principle, the last out to take the pool!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I rose, trembling, to my feet, as he burst into a violent fit of

-laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was that,” he shouted, as he set to racing up and down again,

-“which let loose the dogs of envy, spite, and slander. They called him

-mad&mdash;<i>him</i>, Buggins, <i>mad</i>, ha-ha! It was the fools themselves were

-mad. He ignored their clamour; his vast brain was yet busy with

-immortal conceptions; he matured a scheme against <i>Death from

-Flying-machines</i>” (here he tore off one whisker and threw it into the

-fireplace); “he did more&mdash;he personally tested the theory of

-aerostatics” (here he tore off the other whisker, and stamped on it).

-“Too great, too absorbed, he never noticed that the unstable engine

-had landed him in the grounds of a private asylum, and, relieved of

-his weight, had soared away again. The attendants came; they seized

-and immured him; they would not believe his assurances that he was a

-perfect stranger. From that day to this, when fortuitous circumstances

-enabled him to escape, he has appealed to their justice, their

-humanity, in vain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Again he stopped before me, and, flinging his spectacles in my face,

-rent open the breast of his coat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Know me at last for what I am!” he yelled. “I am Buggins, and I

-appoint you my advocate in the action I am about to bring against the

-Commissioners of Lunacy!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The door opened softly, and a masculine face peered round the edge.

-Its scrutiny appearing satisfactory, it was followed by the whole of

-an official form, which, in its entering, revealed another, large and

-passionless, standing behind it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, Mr. Buggins,” said the first, “we’re a-waitin’ for you to take

-up your cue.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The visitor whipped round, started, chuckled, and, to my relief and

-surprise, responded rather abjectly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All right, Johnson,” he said. “I just slipped out between the acts

-for a whiff of fresh air.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” said the man, “you must be quick and come along, or you’ll

-spile the play.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He went quite tamely, and the second official outside received him

-stolidly into custody. Mate number one lingered to touch his cap to me

-and explain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Flyborough Asylum, sir. They give him a part in some private

-theatricals, and he tuk advantage of his disguise as a family lawyer

-to hook it between the acts. None of us reco’nized him, or guessed

-what he’d done, till the time come for him to take up his cue; and

-then, with the prompter howling for him and him not answering, the

-truth struck us of a heap.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was down in my chair, flabby and gasping.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But what brought him to <i>me</i>?” I groaned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Train, sir,” answered the man; “plenty of ’em, and easy to catch from

-the suburbs. Why he come on here? Why, his offices in the old days was

-in Furnival’s; it were that give us the clue. I suppose, now” (he took

-off his cap, took a red handkerchief from it, thoughtfully mopped his

-forehead, and returned the bandana to its nest), “I suppose, now, he’s

-been a-gammoning of you pretty high with his insurances? His fust

-principle in life was always to play upon fools.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch06">

-AN ABSENT VICAR

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-“<span class="sc">Exactly</span>,” said the Reverend Septimus Prior; “the exchange was the

-most fortuitous, not to say the most fortunate” (he gave a little

-giggle and bow) “possible. Your uncle saw my advertisement, answered

-it, and for a brief period he goes to my cure, and I come to his.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, if you feel certain,” said Miss Robin, regretfully resting in

-her lap the novel she was reading.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior sipped his tea and nibbled his rusk. In the intervals

-between, he would occasionally glance at the portrait of a scholarly

-cleric, with a thin grim mouth and glassy eyes, which bantered him

-from the wall opposite.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Your uncle&mdash;Mr. Fearful?” he had once ventured to ask; and the niece

-had answered, “Yes. It is very like him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now he paused, with his cup half-way to his mouth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Robin put her book to her lips, and looking over it&mdash;really

-rather charmingly,&mdash;yawned behind the cover. She was surprisingly

-dégagée for a country vicar’s niece&mdash;self-collected, and admirably

-pretty; though her openwork stockings, which she did not hesitate to

-cross her legs to display, filled him with a weak sense of

-entanglement in some unrighteous mystery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You said?” he invited her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I said, If you feel certain,” she repeated calmly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he said. “Yes. You mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I mean,” she said, without a ruffle, “that Uncle Philip <i>may</i> have

-settled to swap livings with you <i>pro tem.</i>, and <i>may</i> have started

-off to take yours, and <i>may</i> have got there&mdash;<i>if</i> you feel certain

-that he has.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To be sure,” he answered. “Why shouldn’t I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Had he arrived&mdash;when you started&mdash;for here?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No. Certainly he hadn’t arrived. My train was due. I had to leave a

-message; but&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She stopped him by dropping her book into her lap; and, clasping one

-knee in her hands, conned him amiably.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did he lead you to expect a niece among the charges he was committing

-to your care&mdash;or cure?” she asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I must confess,” said the young man, blushing, “he&mdash;ah!

-mentioned a housekeeper&mdash;Mrs. Gaunt, I think&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, of course not,” she interrupted him. “He had forgotten all about

-me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior gasped, and looked down. This was his first holiday exchange

-of livings&mdash;an unsophisticated venture, which he was already half

-repenting. A suburban cure; a desire for fresh pastures; a daring

-resolution; an advertisement in the “Church Times”; a prompt answer;

-as prompt an acceptance (after due reference to the Clergy List); a

-long railway journey; a tramp, relatively as long, to a remote

-parsonage on the road to a seaport; an arrival in the dark; an

-innocence of all expectation of, or preparation for him; an

-explanation; production of his written voucher, and&mdash;here he was,

-accepted, he could not but think, on sufferance. But there he thought

-wrong. Miss Robin was not near so upset by his appearance as he was.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He comes and goes” (she said of Uncle Philip) “without reference to

-anybody or anything. We never know what he’ll do next, or who’ll

-introduce himself into the house as his friend. It may be a burglar or

-a pirate for all we know. All sorts of strange people come up from the

-port, and are shown into my uncle’s room, and out again by himself at

-the side door. At least, I suppose so. We never know what becomes of

-them, or what’s going on, any more than I doubt he does himself. I

-dare say they fleece him nicely; and&mdash;you may laugh&mdash;but when he’s in

-his absent moods, you might undress him without his knowing. Only he’d

-probably strike you to the ground when he found out&mdash;he’s such an

-awful temper.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear me!” murmured the young man; “how very curious. One hears of

-such cases.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Does one?” said Miss Robin. “I’d rather hear of, than live with them,

-anyhow; and in a desert, too. It wouldn’t so much matter if he didn’t

-always hold others to blame for his mistakes and mislayings. He kept

-me in bed a week once, because he’d read right through a treatise on

-explosives in the pulpit, before he discovered that it wasn’t his

-peace-thanksgiving sermon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Astonishing!” said Mr. Prior; then added, with a faint smile, “Well,

-I can promise you, at least, that <i>I’m</i> not a pirate.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” she said, “I can see you’re not. Won’t you have some more tea?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was shown to his bedroom by Mrs. Gaunt, who was a stony, silent

-woman, bleak with mystery. All night the wind howled round the lonely

-building; and the unhappy man, who, in a phase of worldly revolt,

-egged on by a dare-devil parishioner, had once read “The House on the

-Marsh”, thought of Sarah and Mr. Rayner, and of a silent weaving of

-strings across the stairway in the dark to catch him tripping should

-he venture upon escape.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He arose, feverish, to a sense of hooting draughts in a grey house,

-and went to matins in the gaunt dull church, which stood as lonely as

-a shepherd’s hut on a slope hard by. There was nothing in sight but

-wind-torn pastures, and, all around, little graves, which seemed

-trying vainly to tuck themselves and their shivering epitaphs under

-the grass. There appeared nothing in the world to attract a

-congregation; but, as a matter of fact, there were a few old frosted

-spinsters present, of that amphibious order, a sort of landcrabs,

-which forgathers on the neutral wastes between sea and country.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior went back to his dreary breakfast at the Vicarage. His lady

-hostess, it appeared, was wont to lie late abed, and did not think it

-worth her while to alter her habits for him. The meal, however, had

-been served and left to petrify, pending his return from matins. It

-was with a consciousness of congealed bacon-fat, insufficiently

-dissolved by lukewarm tea, sticking to the roof of his mouth, that he

-rose from it, and pondered his next movement. No one came near him. He

-looked dismally out on a weedy drive. He rather wished Miss Robin

-would condescend to his company. He was no pirate, certainly; but he

-believed he would brave, had braved already, much for his cloth. She

-had beautiful eyes&mdash;clear windows, he was sure, to a virginal soul.

-But then, the other end! the white feet peeping through that devil’s

-lattice! He tried to recall any authority in Holy Writ for openwork

-stockings. Certainly pilgrims went barefoot, and half a loaf was

-better than no bread.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This will not do, Septimus,” he said, weakly striking his breast. “I

-will go and compose my sermon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stepped into the hall. It was papered in cold blue and white

-marble, with a mahogany umbrella stand, and nothing else, to temper

-its tomb-like austerity. At the further end was a baize door of a

-faded strawberry colour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was entitled to the run of the house, he concluded. There had been

-no mention of any Bluebeard chamber. But, then, to be sure, there had

-been no mention of a niece. The association of ideas tingled him. What

-if he should turn the handle and alight on Miss Robin?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He flipped his breast again, frowning, and strode to the baize door.

-Beside it, he now observed, a passage went off to the kitchens.

-Desperately he pulled the door, found a second, of wood, beyond it,

-opened that also, and found himself in what was obviously the Vicar’s

-study.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Obviously, that is to say, to his later conceptions of his

-correspondent. Otherwise he might have taken it for the laboratory of

-a scientist. It was lined with bookcases, sparsely volumed; but five

-out of every six shelves were thronged with jars, instruments, and

-engines of a terrifying nature. In one place was a curtained recess

-potential with unholiness. Prints of discomposing organs hung on the

-walls. Immemorial dust blurred everything. There was a pedestalled

-desk in the middle, and opposite it, hung with a short curtain, a

-half-glazed door which the intruder, tiptoeing thither and peeping,

-with his heart at the gallop, found to lead into a dismal narrow lane

-which communicated with the road. He returned to the desk, which,

-frankly open, seemed to invite him to its use, and was pondering the

-moral practicability of composition in the midst of such surroundings,

-when a voice at his ear almost made him jump out of his skin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon me, sir; but have you the master’s permission to use this

-room?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. Gaunt had come upon him without a sound.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear me, madam!” he said, wiping his forehead. “What do you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I mean, sir,” she said, in her stony, colourless way, “that this room

-is interdict to both great and little, now and always, unless he makes

-an exception in your favour.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There was no specific mention of it, certainly,” said Mr. Prior,

-“neither for nor against. I concluded that the use of a study was not

-debarred me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon me,” she repeated monotonously. “I believe you concluded

-wrong, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The door was not locked.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There are some prohibitions,” she said, “that need no locks.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The inference was fearful.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Miss June” (ecstatic name!) “and I,” she said, “have never dared so

-much as to put our noses inside, and not a word spoken to forbid it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior, to his own astonishment, revolted. Smarting, perhaps, under

-the memory of some suspected covert innuendo in a certain silvery

-acquiescence in a statement of his made last night, he revolted. He

-would prove that he could be a pirate if he chose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shall stop here,” he said, trembling all over. “There was no

-embargo laid, and I must have somewhere to write my sermon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course,” said a voice; and Miss Robin stood in the doorway&mdash;the

-most enchanting morning vision, her eyes bright with curiosity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am delighted you support me,” he said, kindling and advancing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She still looked beside and around him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you know,” she said, “it is perfectly true. I have not once dared

-to venture in here before, though never actually told not to. But that

-is all one, I think. What an extraordinary litter!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She had not ventured! and with the inducement of her petrifying

-surroundings! She was uninquisitive, then&mdash;“an excellent thing in

-woman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since there is no veto,” he said, incomparably audacious, “supposing

-we explore together?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She looked at him admiringly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I should like to.” She hesitated.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“June!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I will,” said the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the housekeeper, content, it appeared, with her protest, stood,

-not uninterested in the subsequent investigation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you not find all this a little remote, a little lifeless

-sometimes, Miss Robin?” said the clergyman, greatly daring.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She shrugged her shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eels get used to skinning. It’s not life, of course. But I have to

-make the best of it, and there’s no help.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, yes, there is!” said her companion, intending to imply the

-spiritual, but half hoping she would construe it into the material

-consolation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you mean?” she asked simply.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” he said, stammering and blushing furiously, and giving away his

-case at once, “with your youth, and&mdash;and beauty&mdash;O, forgive me! I am a

-little confused.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where do you live?” she said, fixing him with her large eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At Clapton,” he murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It sounds most joyous,” she said, clasping her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Hardly knowing what he did, he pulled the curtain away from the recess

-by which they stood, and instantly staggered back. The housekeeper,

-who, foreseeing his act, had crept up inquisitively behind, gave a

-mortal gasp, and Miss Robin a faint shriek&mdash;for, stretched lifeless

-and livid on a couch within, lay the stark body of a man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For a minute they all stood staring, frozen with horror; then Mrs.

-Gaunt began to wring her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is the same,” she cried, in awful tones. “I remember him&mdash;the dark

-foreigner. He wandered up here from the port a week ago; and I took

-him in to the master, and he <i>never came out again</i>. I thought he had

-let him go by the door there into the lane. O, woe on this fearful

-house! Long have I suspected and long dreaded. The sounds, and the

-awful, awful smells!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Perhaps,” whispered the girl, gulping, and clutching at her breast,

-“he died unexpectedly, and uncle put him away here, and forgot all

-about him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. Gaunt shrieked, and seizing the clergyman’s arm, pointed&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look! Pickled babies&mdash;one, two, three! And bones! And a fish-kettle!

-It is all plain. He kills them, and boils them down for his

-experiments, and by an accident he forgot to empty his larder&mdash;his

-larder! hoo-hoo!&mdash;before he went!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She broke into hysteric laughter and gaspings. Miss Robin, whinnying,

-tottered quite close up to the young man, who stood shivering and

-speechless.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What can we do to save him?” she whimpered. “Mr. Prior, say

-something!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Thus urged, the unhappy young man strove to press his brain into a

-focus with his hand, and to rally himself to what, he felt, was the

-supreme occasion of his life. The appealing eyes and parted lips so

-close to his would have intoxicated a saint, much more a pirate.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must warn him&mdash;agony column&mdash;from returning,” he ejaculated,

-reeling. “Cryptic address&mdash;has he any distinguishing mark?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said, with frantic eagerness; “he has a large mole at the

-root of his nose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well,” he said&mdash;“something of this sort: ‘Nose, with large mole

-at root of. All discovered. Don’t return!’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But what is the use of an advertisement? O, Mr. Prior! what is the

-use of an advertisement when we know where he is, or ought to be, and

-can go&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you really think he will be there? It was a blind. O, Miss Robin,

-it is evident now it was a blind to cover his tracks!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But why should he have designed to escape at all, leaving this&mdash;O,

-Mr. Prior!&mdash;leaving this horror behind him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We can only conjecture&mdash;O, Miss Robin, we can only conjecture!

-Perhaps because of his conscience overtaking him; perhaps because,

-killing in haste, he discovered at leisure that <i>it</i> would not go into

-the kettle; perhaps in a phase of that deadly absence of mind, which,

-he will have realized by now, the Lord has converted to his

-confusion.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, if you are right. And in the meantime we must get rid of

-this&mdash;somehow. O, pray think of a means! Do! Do!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. Gaunt steadied her storming breast as she leaned for support,

-with hanging head, against the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s the old well&mdash;off the lane,” she panted, without looking up.

-“He there <i>might</i> have fallen in&mdash;as he went out&mdash;and none have

-guessed it to this day.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a fearful inspiration. Mr. Prior, in that moment of supreme

-sentient exaltation, abandoned himself to the awful rapture of things.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“June!” he whispered, putting shaking hands on the girl’s shoulders;

-“if I do this thing for your sake, will you&mdash;will you&mdash;I have a

-mother&mdash;this is no longer a place for you&mdash;come to Clapton?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she answered, offering to nestle to him. “I had supposed that

-was understood.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was a little taken aback.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must move this first,” he said, wringing his damp forehead.

-“Who&mdash;who will help me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was really heroic of him. In a shuddering group, they approached

-together the terrible thing&mdash;hesitated&mdash;plunged, and dragged it out

-with a sickening flop on the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A greasy turban, which it wore, rolled away, disclosing a near bald

-head. Its eyes were closed; its teeth grinned through a fluff of dark

-hair; a lank frock-coat embraced its body, linen puttees its shanks,

-and at the end were stiff bare feet.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look, and see if the coast is clear,” gasped the clergyman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Robin turned to obey, and uttered a startled shriek.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What are you doing with my Senassee?” cried a terrible voice at the

-door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior whipped round, echoing his beloved’s squawk. A fierce old

-man, leaning on a stick, stood glaring in the opening.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Uncle!” cried the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He advanced, sneering and caustic, pushed them all rudely aside,

-dropped on his knees beside the corpse, and, thrusting his finger

-forcibly into its mouth, appeared to hook and roll its tongue forward.

-Instantly an amazing transformation occurred. A convulsion shook the

-body; life flowed into its drab cheeks; its eyes opened and rolled;

-inarticulate sounds came from its jaws.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha!” cried the old man; “I have foreclosed on these busybodies.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then he rose to his feet, leaving the patient yawning and stretching

-on the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fearful!” gasped the clergyman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you address me, sir?” asked the old man, scowling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Conjurer!” whispered Mr. Prior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you like,” snarled the other. “It is a common enough trick with

-these Yogis, but one I had never seen until he came my way and offered

-to show it me for a consideration. I had forgot he was still lying

-there when I agreed to exchange livings with you. (You are Mr. Prior,

-I presume?) It was the merest oversight, which I remembered on my way,

-and came back by an early train to rectify&mdash;none too soon, it seems,

-for the staying of meddlesome fingers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forgot he was there!” cried Mr. Prior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And what if I did, sir?” snapped the other. “It was a full week he

-had lain tranced; and let me tell you, sir, I have more things to

-think of in a week than your mind could accommodate in a century.

-Why,” he cried, in sudden enlightenment, “I do believe the fools

-imagined I had murdered the man.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look at the babies in the bottles!” cried Mrs. Gaunt hysterically.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to you, you old ass,” shouted the Vicar, flouncing round, “if you

-can’t distinguish embryo simiadæ from babies, you’d better call

-yourself Miss, as I believe you are!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I give notice on the spot!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Robin stepped up bravely to the young clergyman, and linked her

-arm in his.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I,” she said. “I think you have behaved very cruelly to me, to us

-all, Uncle, and&mdash;and Mr. Prior has a mother.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I dare say; he seems fool enough for anything,” roared the old

-gentleman. “Go back to her, sir! Go to&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-June shrieked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Clapton!” he shouted, “and take this baggage with you!”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch07">

-THE BREECHES BISHOP

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-In that age of gallantry, the reign of Charles the Second, it was

-customary when a gentleman drank a lady’s health to throw some part of

-his dress into the flames, in order to do her still greater honour.

-This was well enough for a lover, but the folly did not stop here, for

-his companions were obliged to follow him in this proof of his

-veneration by consuming a similar article, whatever it might be.

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">About</span> the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was living

-at Aldersferry, in the Soke of Godsport in Hampshire, a worthy

-clergyman of the name of Barnabas Winthrop. The little living of St.

-Ascham’s&mdash;a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry of

-Winchester&mdash;supplied the moral and material needs of this amiable man;

-his granddaughter, Miss Joan Seabird, kept house for him; and never

-were cream and ripe fruit happier in contact than were these two

-playful and reasonable intellects in their relations of child and

-sage.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A hysteromaniac, however, is Fortune, who, charmed for a while with

-the simplicity of these her protégés, soon began to construe their

-contentment into self-sufficiency, and to devise some means to correct

-their supposed presumption on her favour, by putting it into the head

-of the artless divine how silence on questions which one felt called

-loudly for reform might be comfortable, but was shameful and an

-evasion of one’s duty. In short, Dr. Winthrop, entertaining original

-views on sanitation and the prevention of epidemics, was wickedly

-persuaded by her to expound them, and so to invite into his harmless

-Eden the snake which was to demoralize it. In one day he became a

-pamphleteer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now the Plague, in that year of 1682, was not so remote a memory but

-that people lived in a constant terror of its recrudescence. Pandects,

-treatises, expositions, containing diagnoses, palladiums and schemes

-of quarantine, all based on the most orthodox superstitions, did not

-cease to pour from the press, to the eternal confusion of an age which

-was yet far from realizing the pious schism of the <i>aide-toi</i>. What,

-then, as might be supposed, was the effect on it, when a clergyman of

-the Establishment was seen to enter the arena as a declared dissenter

-from the <i>fata obstant</i> of popular bigotry?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For a time Godsport, startled and scandalized, watched aloof the paper

-warfare; and it was not until after the appearance of the Doctor’s

-tract, “<i>De omni re Scibili</i>”&mdash;wherein he sought, boldly and

-definitely, and withal with a characteristic humour, to lay the

-responsibility for pestilence, not upon the Almighty’s shoulders, but,

-literally, at the doors of men, at their face-to-face proximity, and

-at “the Castynge of Noisome filth in their neare neighbourhood”&mdash;that

-it brought down its official hand with a weight and suddenness which

-shook St. Ascham’s to its roots. In brief, there was flung at the

-delinquent one morning his formal citation to the Sessions Court,

-there to answer upon certain charges of having “in divers Tracts,

-Opuscules and Levrets, sought insidiously to ingrafte the minds of his

-Majesty’s liege subjects with such impudent heresies as that it is in

-the power of man to limit the visitations of God&mdash;a very pestilent

-doctrine, and one arrogating to His servants the Almighty’s high and

-beneficent prerogatives; inasmuch as Plague and Fire and other His

-scourges, being sacriligeously wrested from His graspe, the world

-would waxe blown with overlife, till it crawled upon the face of the

-heavens like a gross putrid cheese.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Under this bolt from the blue the liberal minds of grandsire and child

-sank amazed for the moment, only to rally to a consciousness of the

-necessity for immediate action.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Up, wench!” cried the Doctor, “and saddle our Pinwire. I will go lay

-my case instanter before the Bishop.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Alas, dearest!” answered the weeping girl, “you forget; he is this

-long while bedridden.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her imagination, which had been wont secretly to fondle the idea of

-her grandfather’s enlightened piety rewarded with a bishopric,

-pictured it in a moment turned to his confusion, and himself, perhaps,

-through the misrepresentations of a blockhead Corporation, disgraced

-and beggared in his old age. But, though she knew the Churchman, she

-had not calculated the rousing effects of criticism on the author.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then,” roared he, “I will seek the fount itself of reason and

-justice. It was a good treatise, a well-argued treatise; and the King

-shall decide upon the practical merits of his own English.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King!” she cried, clasping her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King,” he answered. “Know you not that he moves daily between

-Southampton, where he lies, and Winchester, where he builds? We will

-go to Winchester. Nay, <i>we</i>, child; blubber not; for who knows but

-that, the shepherd being withdrawn, the wolves might think to practise

-on the lamb.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He checked himself, and hung his head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The Lord pardon and justify me indignation,” he muttered. “I was a

-priest before an author.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was fine, but a loaded sky, when they set forth upon their journey

-of twenty or so miles, Joan riding pillion behind her grandfather on

-the sober red nag. After much cross work over villainous tracks, they

-were got at last into the Southampton turnpike, when they were joined

-by a single horseman, riding a handsome barb, who, with a very

-favourable face for Joan, pulled alongside of them, as they jogged on,

-and fell into easy talk.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dost ride to overtake a bishopric, master clergyman,” says he, “that

-you carry with you such a sweet bribe for preferment?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Joan looked up, softly panting. Could he somehow have got wind already

-of their mission, and have taken them by the way to forestall it? But

-her eyes fell again before the besieging gaze of the cavalier.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was a swart man of fifty or so, with a rather sooty expression, and

-his under-lip stuck out. His eyes, bagging a little in the lower lids,

-smouldered half-shut, between lust and weariness, under the blackest

-brows; and, for the rest, he was dressed as black as the devil, with a

-sparkle of diamonds here and there in his bosom. Joan looked down

-breathless.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I seek no preferment, sir, but a reasonable justice,” said the

-curate; and, in a little, between this and that, had ingenuously,

-though with a certain twinkling eye for the humour of it all,

-confessed his whole case to the stranger. But Joan uttered not a word.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier laughed, then frowned mightily for a while. “We will

-indict these petty rogues of office on a <i>quo warranto</i>,” he growled.

-“What! does not ‘cleanness of body proceed from a due reverence of

-God’? Go on, sir, and I will promise you the King’s consideration.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then he forgot his indignation, leering at the girl again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And what is <i>your</i> business with Charles, pretty flower?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, before she could answer, whish! went Pinwires’s girth out of its

-buckle, and parson and girl tumbled into the road.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier laughed out, and, while the Doctor was ruefully

-readjusting his straps, offered his hand to the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come, sweetheart,” said he. “Since we go a common road, shalt mount

-behind me, and equal the odds between your jade and my greater beast.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Joan appealed in silence to her grandfather.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verily, sir,” he said nodding and smiling, “it would be a gracious

-and kindly act.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In a moment she was mounted, with her white arms belted about the

-stranger’s waist; the next, he had put quick spurs to his horse, and

-was away with a rush and clatter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For an instant the Doctor failed to realize the nature of the

-abduction; and then of a sudden he was dancing and bawling in a sheer

-frenzy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dog! Ravisher! Halt! Stop him! Detain him!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He saw the flight disappear round a bend in the road. It was minutes

-before his shaking hands could negotiate strap and buckle, and enable

-him to follow in pursuit. But he carried no spurs, and Pinwire,

-already over-ridden, floundered in his steps. Distraught, dumbfounded,

-the old man was crying to himself, when he came upon Joan sitting by

-the roadside. He tumbled off, she jumped up, and they fell upon one

-another’s neck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, a fine King, forsooth!” she cried, sobbing and fondling him. “O, a

-fine King!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who? What?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, it was the King himself!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How?” he gasped. “You have never seen him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Trust a woman,” quoth she.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A woman!” he cried. “You are but half a one yet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was the King, nevertheless.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Joan, let us turn back.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He had a wooing voice, grandfather.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Retro Satanas!</i> How did you give him the slip?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear Joan!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing

-he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of

-my beauty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That proves him false.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was

-a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a

-thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She showed a silver pin like a skewer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and

-was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give

-him&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What, woman?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour,

-grandfather; and where are we?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked about him in the dolefullest way.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If I knew!” he sighed. “We must e’en seek the shelter of an inn till

-this storm is by, and then return home. Better any bankruptcy than

-that of honour, Joan.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They remounted and jogged on in the rain, which by now was falling

-heavily. The tired little horse, feeling the weight of his own soaked

-head, began to hang it and cough. Presently they dismounted at a

-wayside byre, and, eating the simple luncheon which their providence

-had provided, dwelt on a little in hopes of the weather clearing. But

-it grew steadily worse.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have lost my bearings,” said the clergyman in a sudden amazement.

-“We must push on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-About four o’clock, being seven miles or so short of Winchester, they

-came down upon a little stream which bubbled across the road. The

-groaning horse splashed into it and stood still. Dr. Winthrop, wakened

-by the pause from a brown reverie, whipped his right leg over the

-beast’s withers, landed, slipped on a stone, and sat down in two feet

-of water. Uttering a startled ejaculation, he scrambled up, a sop to

-the very waist of his homespun breeches. Their points&mdash;old disused

-laces, fragrant from Joan’s bodice&mdash;clung weeping to his calves. He

-waded out, cherishing above water-mark the sodden skirts of his coat,

-his best, of ‘Colchester bayze.’ The horse, sensibly lightened,

-followed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, O!” cried Joan. “Wasn’t you sopped enough already, but you must

-fill your pockets with water?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Joan!” he cried disconcerted. “I am drowned!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luckily, in that pass, looking up the slope of the hill, they espied

-near the top a toll-booth, and, beyond, the first houses of a village.

-Making a little glad haste, they were soon at the bar.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The woman who came to take their money looked hard at the tired girl.

-She was of a sober cast, and her close-fitting coif showed her of the

-non-conforming order.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For Winchester, master?” said she.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay,” answered the clergyman; “for the first hostelry. We are beat,

-dame.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The first and the last is ‘The Five Alls,’&hairsp;” said she. “But I wouldn’t

-carry the maiden there, by your leave. There be great and wild company

-in the house, that recks nothing of anything in its cups. Canst hear

-’em, if thou wilt.” And, indeed, with her words, a muffled roar of

-merriment reached them from the inn a little beyond.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One riding for Winchester, and the rest from,” she said, “they met

-here, and here have forgathered roistering this hour. Dare them so you

-dare. I have spoken.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Nunc Deus avertat!</i>” cried the desperate minister. “The Fates fight

-against us. At all costs we must go by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay,” said the good woman; “but, an you will, seek you your own

-shelter there, and leave this poor lamb with me. I have two already by

-the fire&mdash;decent ladies and proper, and no quarry for licence. I know

-the company; ’twill be moving soon; and then canst come and claim

-thine own.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He accepted gladly, and, leaving Joan in her charge, rode on to the

-inn, where, dismounting, he betook himself to the stable, which was

-full of horses, and, after, to the kitchen.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord, cooking a pan of rashers alone over a great fire, turned

-his head, focussed the new-comer with one red eye, and asked his

-business.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A seat by the hearth, a clothes-rack for my breeches, a rug for my

-loins while they dry, and a mug of ale with a sop in it,” answered the

-traveller, with a smile for his own waggish epitome. And then he

-related of his mishap.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord grunted, returned to his task, blew on an ignited rasher,

-presently took the skillet off the coals, forked the fizzing mess into

-a dish, and disappeared with it. All the while an ineffable racket

-thundered on the floor above.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Peradventure they will respect my cloth,” thought the clergyman. “The

-Lord fend me! I am among the Philistines.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord returned in a moment with a horn of ale in one hand, and

-a rug in the other, which he threw down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dod, man!” he cried; “peel, peel! This is the country of continence!

-Hast no reason to fear for thy modesty.” And he went out between

-chuckling and grumbling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Very decently the curate doffed his small-clothes, hung them over a

-trestle before the fire, wrapped and knotted the rug about his loins,

-and sat down vastly content to his sup. In ten minutes&mdash;what with

-weariness, warmth, and stingo&mdash;he was asleep.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He woke with a little shriek, and staggered to his feet. Something had

-pricked him&mdash;the point of a rapier. The flushed, grinning face of the

-man who had wielded it stood away from him. The kitchen was full of

-rich company, which broke suddenly into a babble of merriment at the

-sight of his astounded visage. In the midst, a swart gentleman, who

-had been lolling at a table, advanced, and taking him by the

-shoulders, swung him gently to and fro till his eyes goggled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well followed, parson!” said he, chuckling, and lurching a little in

-his speech. “What! is the cuif not to be spoiled of his bishopric

-because of a saucy baggage?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed, checked himself suddenly, and, still holding on, assumed a

-majestic air, with his wig a little on one side, and said with great

-dignity: “But, before I grant termsir, you shall bring the slut to

-canvass of herself what termsir. Godsmylife! to hold her King at a

-bodkin’s point! It merits no pardon, I say, unless the merit of the

-pardon of the termsir&mdash;no, the pardon of the merit of the termsir.

-Therefore I say, whither hast brought her, I say? Out with it, man!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The clergyman, recognizing Joan’s abductor, and listening amazed,

-sprang back at the end with a face of horror, almost upsetting His

-Majesty, who, barely recovering himself, stood shaking his head with a

-glassy smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If<i>hic</i>akins!” said he: “I woss a’most down!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Avaunt, ravisher!” roared the Doctor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Charles stiffened with a jerk, stared, wheeled cautiously, and tiptoed

-elaborately from the room. His suite, staggering at the balance,

-followed with enormous solemnity; and the Doctor, still pointing

-denunciatory, was left alone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the end of a minute, after much whispering outside, a young

-cavalier re-entered, and approached him with a threatening visage, as

-if up the slope of a deck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty, sir,” said he, “demands to know if you know who the devil

-you was a-bawling&mdash;hic&mdash;at?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To my sorrow, though late, I do, sir,” answered the Doctor in a

-grievous voice.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” said the cavalier, and tacked from the room. He returned again in

-a second, to poke the clergyman with his finger, and suggest to him

-confidentially, “Betteric la’ than never&mdash;hic!” which having uttered,

-he took himself off, after a vain attempt to open the door from its

-hinge side. In two minutes he was back again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty wan’s know where hast hidden Mrs. Seabird. Nowhere in

-house, says landlord. Ver’ well&mdash;where then?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell the King, where he shall reach her only over my body.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier vanished, and reappeared.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty doesn’t wan’ tread on your body. On contrary, wan’s raise

-you up. Wan’s hear story all over again from lady’s lips.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am His Majesty’s truthful minister. There is nothing to add to what

-I have already reported to him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier withdrew, smacking his thigh profoundly. Sooner than

-usual he returned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty s’prised at you. Says if you won’t tell him where’ve laid

-her by, he’ll beat up every house within miles-’n’-miles.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No!” said the simple clergyman, in a sudden emotion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” said the gentleman, not too drunk to note his advantage. “For

-miles-’n’-miles. His Maj’ty ver’ s’prised her behaviour to him. Wan’s

-lil word with her. Tell at once where she is, or worse for you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The clergyman looked about him like one at bay. His glance lighted on

-the trestle before the fire, fixed itself there, and kindled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The Lord justify the ways of His servant!” he muttered; and drew

-himself up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell His Majesty,” he said in a strong voice, “that, so be he will

-honour a toast I shall call, the way he seeks shall be made clear to

-him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other gave a great chuckle, which was loudly echoed from the

-passage.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, thish is the right humour,” he said, and retired.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Within a few moments the whole company re-entered, tittering and

-jogging one another, and spilling wine from the beakers they carried.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The King called a silence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir,” said the clergyman, advancing a little, “I pray your Majesty to

-convince me, by proof, of a reputed custom with our gallants, which is

-that, being to drink a lady’s health, the one that calleth shall cast

-into the flames some article of his attire, there to be consumed to

-her honour, and so shall demand of his company, by toasters’ law, that

-they do likewise.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dod!” said the King, chuckling; “woss he speiring at? Drink man!

-drink and sacrifice, and I give my royal word that all shall follow

-suit, though it be with the wigs from our heads.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Doctor lifted his horn of ale and drained it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I toast Joan!” he cried.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Joan!” they all shouted, laughing and hiccuping, and, having drunk,

-threw down their beakers helter-skelter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The clergyman took one swift step forward; snatched up his

-small-clothes from the trestle; displayed them a moment; thrust them

-deep into the blazing coals, and, facing about, disrugged himself, and

-stood in his shirttails.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I claim your Majesty’s word, and breeches,” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A silence of absolute stupefaction befell; and then in an instant the

-kitchen broke into one howl of laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the midst, Charles walked stately to the table, sat down, and

-thrust out his legs.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Parson,” said he, “if you had but claimed my hair. The honours lie

-with you, sir; take ’em.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He would have none but the Doctor handle him; and, when his ineffable

-smalls were burning, he rose up in his royal shift, and ruthlessly

-commandeering every other pair in the room, stood, the speechless

-captain of as shameful and defenceless a crew of buccaneers as ever

-lowered its flag to honesty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then the Doctor resumed his rug.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir,” said he, trembling, “I now fulfil my bond. My granddaughter is

-sheltering, with other modest ladies, in the pike-house hard by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the King swore&mdash;by divine right&mdash;a pretty oath or two, while the

-chill of his understandings helped to sober him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By my cold wit you have won! and there may she remain for me. And

-now, decent man,” he cried, “I do call my company to witness how you

-have made yourself to be more honoured in the breach than the

-observance; and since you go wanting a frock, a bishop’s you shall

-have.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And with that he snatched the rug, and, skipping under it, sat on the

-table, grinning over the quenching of his amazed fire-eaters.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And this, if you will believe deponent, is the true, if unauthorized,

-version of Dr. Winthrop’s election, and of the confounding of Godsport

-on a writ of <i>quo warranto</i>.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch08">

-THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">There</span> were notices, of varying dates, posted in prominent places

-about the cliffs to warn the public not to go near them&mdash;unless,

-indeed, it were to read the notices themselves, which were printed in

-a very unobtrusive type. Of late, however, this Dogberrian <i>caveat</i>

-had been supplemented by a statement in the local gazette that the

-cliffs, owing to the recent rains succeeding prolonged frost, were in

-so ill a constitution that to approach them at all, even to decipher

-the warnings not to, was&mdash;well, to take your life out of the municipal

-into your own hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, had the Regius Professor a bee in his bonnet? Absurd. He knew the

-risks of foolhardiness as well as any pickpocket could have told him.

-Yet, neither general nor particular caution availed to abate his

-determination to examine, as soon as we had lunched, the interior

-formation of a cave or two, out of those black and innumerable, with

-which the undercliff was punctured like a warren.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I did not remonstrate, after having once discovered, folded down under

-his nose on the table, the printed admonition, and heard the little

-dry, professorial click of tongue on palate which was wont to dismiss,

-declining discussion of it, any idle or superfluous proposition. I

-knew my man&mdash;or automaton. He inclined to the Providence of the

-unimaginative; his only fetish was science. He was one of those who,

-if unfortunately buried alive, would turn what opportunity remained to

-them to a study of geological deposits. My “nerves,” when we were on

-a jaunt (fond word!) together, were always a subject of sardonic

-amusement with him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, utterly unmoved by the prospect before him, he ate an enormous

-lunch (confiding it, incidentally, to an unerring digestion), rose,

-brushed some crumbs out of his beard, and said, “Well, shall we be

-off?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In twenty minutes we had reached the caves. They lay in a very

-secluded little bay&mdash;just a crescent of sombre sand, littered along

-all its inner edge with débris from the towering cliffs which

-contained it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you coming with me?” said the Regius Professor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Judged by his anxious eyes, the question might have been an

-invitation, almost a shamefaced entreaty. But the anxiety, never more

-than apparent, was delusive product of the preposterous

-magnifying-glasses which he wore. Did he ever remove those glasses,

-one was startled to discover, in the seemingly aghast orbs which they

-misinterpreted, quite mean little attic windows to an unemotional

-soul.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not by any means,” I said. “I will sit here, and think out your

-epitaph.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stared at me a moment with a puzzled expression, grinned slightly,

-turned, strode off towards the cliffs, and disappeared, without a

-moment’s hesitation, into the first accessible burrow. I was moved on

-the instant to observe that it was the most sinister-looking of them

-all. The tilted stratification, under which it yawned oblique, seemed

-on the very poise to close down upon it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now I set to pacing to and fro, essaying a sort of mechanical

-preoccupation in default of the philosophy I lacked. I was really in a

-state of clammy anxiety about the Professor. I poked in stony pools

-for little crabs, as if his life depended on my success. I made it a

-point of honour with myself not to leave off until I had found one. I

-tried, like a very amateur pickpocket, to abstract my mind from the

-atmosphere which contained it, only to find that I had brought mind

-and atmosphere away together. I bent down, with my back to the sea,

-and looking between my legs sought to regard life from a new point of

-view. Yet, even in that position, my eyes and ears were conscious,

-only in less degree, of the spectres which were always moving and

-rustling in the melancholy little bay.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-<i>Tekel upharsin.</i> The hand never left off writing upon the rocks, nor

-the dust of its scoring to fall and whisper. That came away in flakes,

-or slid down in tiny avalanches&mdash;here, there, in so many places at

-once, that the whole face of the cliffs seemed to crawl like a maggoty

-cheese. The sound was like a vast conspiracy of voices&mdash;busy,

-ominous&mdash;aloft on the seats of an amphitheatre. They were talking of

-the Regius Professor, and his consideration in making them a Roman

-holiday.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here, on no warrant but that of my senses, I knew the gazette’s

-warning to be something more than justified. It made no difference

-that my nerves were at the stretch. One could not hear a silence thus

-sown with grain of horror, and believe it barren of significance.

-Then, all in a moment, as it seemed to me, the resolution was taken,

-the voices hushed, and the whole bay poised on tiptoe of a suspense

-which preluded something terrific.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stood staring at the black mouth which had engulfed the Regius

-Professor. I felt that a disaster was imminent; but to rush to warn

-him would be to embarrass the issues of his Providence&mdash;that only. For

-the instant a fierce resentment of his foolhardiness fired me&mdash;and was

-as immediately gone. I turned sick and half blind. I thought I saw the

-rock-face shrug and wrinkle; a blot of gall was expelled from it&mdash;and

-the blot was the Professor himself issued forth, and coming composedly

-towards me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he advanced, I turned my back on him. By the time he reached me I

-had made some small success of a struggle for self-mastery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he said. “I left myself none too much of a margin, did I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With an effort I faced about again. The base of the cliff was yet

-scarred with holes, many and irregular; but now some of those which

-had stared at me like dilated eyes were, I could have sworn it,

-over-lidded&mdash;the eyes of drowsing reptiles. <i>And the Professor’s

-particular cave was gone.</i>

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I gave quite an absurd little giggle. This man was soulless&mdash;a

-monstrosity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look here,” he said, conning my face with a certain concern, “it’s no

-good tormenting yourself with what might have happened. Here I am, you

-know. Supposing we go and sit down yonder, against that drift, till

-you’re better.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He led the way, and, dropping upon the sand, lolled easily, talking to

-himself, by way of me, for some minutes. It was the kindest thing he

-could have done. His confident voice made scorn of the never-ceasing

-rustling and falling sounds to our rear. The gulls skated before my

-eyes, drawing wide arcs and figures of freedom in the air. Presently I

-topped the crisis, and drew a deep breath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell me,” I said&mdash;“have you ever in all your life known fear?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Regius Professor sat to consider.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he answered presently, rubbing his chin, “I was certainly once

-near losing hold of my will, if that’s what you mean. Of course, if I

-<i>had</i> let go&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But you didn’t.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No&mdash;luckily.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re not taking credit for it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Credit!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why should I take credit for my

-freedom from a constitutional infirmity? In one way, indeed, I am only

-regretful that I am debarred that side of self-analysis.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I could laugh lovelily, for the first time.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said, “will you tell me the story?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I never considered it in the light of a story,” answered the Regius

-Professor. “But, if it will amuse and distract you, I will make it one

-with pleasure. My memory of it, as an only experience in that

-direction, is quite vivid, I think I may say&mdash;” and he settled his

-spectacles, and began:

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was during the period of my first appointment as Science

-Demonstrator to the Park Lane Polytechnic, a post which my little

-pamphlet on the Reef-building Serpulæ was instrumental in procuring

-me. I was a young man at the time, with a wide field of interests, but

-with few friends to help me in exploring it. My holidays I generally

-devoted to long, lonely tramps, knapsack on back, about the country.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was on one of these occasions that you must picture me entered

-into a solitary valley among the Shropshire hills. The season was

-winter; it was bitterly cold, and the prospect was of the dreariest.

-The interesting conformations of the land&mdash;the bone-structure, as I

-might say&mdash;were blunted under a thick pelt of snow, which made walking

-a labour. One never recognizes under such conditions the extent of

-one’s efforts, as inequalities of ground are without the contrast of

-surroundings to emphasize them, and one may be conscious of the strain

-of a gradient, and not know if it is of one foot in fifty or in five

-hundred.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The scene was desolate to a degree; houseless, almost treeless&mdash;just

-white wastes and leaden sky, and the eternal fusing of the two in an

-indefinite horizon. I was wondering, without feeling actually

-dispirited, how long it was to last, when, turning the shoulder of a

-hill which had seemed to hump itself in my path, I came straight upon

-a tiny hamlet scattered over a widish area. There were some cottages,

-and a slated school building; and, showing above a lower hump a

-quarter of a mile beyond, the roofs and tall chimney of a factory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a stark little oasis, sure enough&mdash;the most grudging of moral

-respites from depression. Only from one place, it seemed, broke a

-green shoot. Not a moving figure was abroad; not a face looked from a

-window. Deathlily exclusive, the little stony buildings stood apart

-from one another, incurious, sullen, and self-contained.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There was, however, the green shoot; and the stock from which it

-proceeded was the school building. That in itself was unlovely

-enough&mdash;a bleak little stone box in an arid enclosure. It looked

-hunched and grey with cold; and the sooty line of thaw at the foot of

-its wall only underscored its frostiness. But as if that one green

-shoot were the earnest of life lingering within, there suddenly broke

-through its walls the voices of young children singing; and, in the

-sound, the atmosphere of petrifaction lifted somewhat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes? What is it? Does anything amuse you? I am glad you are so far

-recovered, at least. Well&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I like, I must confess, neither children nor music. At the same time,

-I am free to admit that those young voices, though they dismissed me

-promptly on my way, dismissed me pleased, and to a certain degree, as

-it were, reinvigorated. I passed through that little frigid camp of

-outer silence, and swung down the road towards the factory. As I

-advanced towards what I should have thought to be the one busy nucleus

-of an isolated colony, the aspect of desolation intensified, to my

-surprise, rather than diminished. But I soon saw the reason for this.

-The great forge in the hills was nothing but a wrecked and abandoned

-ruin, its fires long quenched, its ribs long laid bare. Seeing which,

-it only appeared to me a strange thing that any of the human part of

-its affairs should yet cling to its neighbourhood; and stranger still

-I thought it when I came to learn, as I did by and by, that its

-devastation was at that date an ancient story.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What a squalid carcass it did look, to be sure; gaunt, and unclean,

-and ravaged by fire from crown to basement. The great flue of it stood

-up alone, a blackened monument to its black memory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Approaching and entering, I saw some writhed and tortured guts of

-machinery, relics of its old vital organs, fallen, withered, from its

-ribs. The floor, clammy to the tread, was littered with tumbled

-masonry; the sheet iron of the roof was shattered in a hundred places

-under the merciless bombardment of the weather; and, here and there, a

-scale of this was corroded so thin that it fluttered and buzzed in the

-draught like a ventilator. Bats of grimy cobweb hung from the beams;

-and the dead breath of all the dead place was acrid with cold soot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was all ugly and sordid enough, in truth, and I had no reason to

-be exacting in my inspection of it. Turning, in a vaulting silence, I

-was about to make my way out, when my attention was drawn to the black

-opening of what looked like a shed or annex to the main factory.

-Something, some shaft or plant, revealing itself from the dim

-obscurity of this place, attracted my curiosity. I walked thither,

-and, with all due precaution because of the littered ground, entered.

-I was some moments in adapting my vision to the gloom, and then I

-discovered that I was in the mill well-house. It was a little

-dead-locked chamber, its details only partly decipherable in the

-reflected light which came in by the doorway. The well itself was sunk

-in the very middle of the floor, and the projecting wall of it rose

-scarce higher than my knees. The windlass, pivoted in a massive yoke,

-crossed the twilight at a height a little above my own; and I could

-easily understand, by the apparent diameter of its barrel, that the

-well was of a considerable depth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, as my eyes grew a little accustomed to the obscurity, I could

-see how a tooth of fire had cut even into this fastness. For the rope,

-which was fully reeled up upon the windlass, was scorched to one side,

-as though some exploded fragment of wood or brickwork had alighted

-there. It was an insignificant fact in itself, but my chance

-observation of it has its importance in the context; as has also the

-fact that the bight of the rope (from which the bucket had been

-removed) hung down a yard or so below the big drum.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have always considered me a sapient, or at least a rational

-creature, have you not? Well, listen to this. Bending over to plumb

-with my eyes the depth of the pit (an absurdity, to begin with, in

-that vortex of gloom), I caught with my left hand (wisdom number two)

-at the hanging end of rope in order to steady myself. On the instant

-the barrel made one swift revolution, and stuck. The movement,

-however, had thrown me forward and down, so that my head and

-shoulders, hanging over, and actually into, the well, pulled me,

-without possibility of recovery, from my centre of gravity. With a

-convulsive wrench of my body, I succeeded in bringing my right hand to

-the support of my left. I was then secure of the rope; but the

-violence of the act dragged my feet and knees from their last

-desperate hold, and my legs came whipping helpless over the well-rim.

-The weight of them in falling near jerked me from my clutch&mdash;a bad

-shock, to begin with. But a worse was in store for me. For I

-perceived, in the next instant, that the rusty, long-disused windlass

-was beginning slowly to revolve, <i>and was letting me down into the

-abyss</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I broke out in a sweat, I confess&mdash;a mere diaphoresis of nature; a

-sort of lubricant to the jammed mechanism of the nerves. I don’t think

-we are justified in attributing my first sensations to fear. I was

-exalted, rather&mdash;promoted to the analysis of a very exquisite, scarce

-mortal, problem. My will, as I hung by a hair over the abysm, was

-called upon to vindicate itself under an utmost stress of

-apprehension. I felt, ridiculous as it may appear, as if the

-surrounding dark were peopled with an invisible auditory, waiting,

-curious, to test the value of my philosophy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Here, then, were the practical problems I had to combat. The

-windlass, as I have said, revolved slowly, but it revolved

-persistently. If I would remain with my head above the

-well-rim&mdash;which, I freely admit, I had an unphilosophic desire to

-do&mdash;I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and

-airy sort of treadmill. To climb, and climb, and always climb, paying

-out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place! It was to

-repudiate gravitation, which I spurned from beneath my feet into the

-depths. But when, momentarily exhausted, I ventured to pause, some

-nightmare revolt against the sense of sinking which seized me, would

-always send me struggling and wriggling, like a drowning body, up to

-the surface again. Fortunately, I was slightly built and active; yet I

-knew that wind and muscle were bound sometime to give out in this

-swarming competition against death. I measured their chances against

-the length of the rope. There was a desperate coil yet unwound.

-Moreover, in proportion as I grew the feebler, grew the need for my

-greater activity. For there were already signs that the great groaning

-windlass was casting its rust of ages, and was beginning to turn

-quicker in its sockets. If it had only stuck, paused one minute in its

-eternal round, I might have set myself oscillating, gradually and

-cautiously, until I was able to seize with one hand, then another,

-upon the brick rim, which was otherwise beyond my reach. But now, did

-I cease climbing for an instant and attempt a frantic clutch at it,

-down I sank like a clock weight, my fingers trailed a yard in cold

-slime, and there I was at my mad swarming once more&mdash;the madder that I

-must now make up for lost ground.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At last, faint with fatigue, I was driven to face an alternative

-resource, very disagreeable from the first in prospect. This was no

-less than to resign temporarily my possession of the upper, and sink

-to the under world; in other words, to let myself go with the rope,

-and, when it was all reeled out, to climb it again. To this course

-there were two objections: one, that I knew nothing of the depth of

-the water beneath me, or of how soon I should come to it; the other,

-that I was grown physically incapable of any further great effort in

-the way of climbing. My reluctance to forgo the useless solace of the

-upper twilight I dismiss as sentimental. But to drop into that sooty

-pit, and then, perhaps, to find myself unable to reascend it! to feel

-a gradual paralysis of heart and muscle committing me to a lingering

-and quite unspeakable death&mdash;that was an unnerving thought indeed!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nevertheless, I had actually resolved upon the venture, and was on

-the point of ceasing all effort, and permitting myself to sink,

-when&mdash;I thought of the burnt place in the rope.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you grasp what that sudden thought meant to me? Death, sir, in any

-case; death, if, with benumbed and aching hands and blistered knees, I

-continued to work my air-mill; death, no earlier and no later, no less

-and no more certainly, if I ceased of the useless struggle and went

-down into the depths. So soon as the strain of my hanging should tell

-direct upon that scorched strand, that strand must part.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then, I think, I knew fear&mdash;fear as demoralizing, perhaps, as it may

-be, short of the will-surrender. And, indeed, I’m not sure but that

-the will which survives fear may not be a worse last condition than

-fear itself, which, when exquisite, becomes oblivion. Consciousness

-<i>in extremis</i> has never seemed to me the desirable thing which some

-hold it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Still, if I suffered for retaining my will power, there is no doubt

-that its loss, on the flash of that deadly reflection, would have

-meant an immediate syncope of nerve and an instant downfall;

-whereas&mdash;well, anyhow, here I am.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was fast draining of all capacity for further effort. I climbed

-painfully, spasmodically; but still I climbed, half hoping I should

-die of the toil of it before I fell. Ever and again I would glance

-faintly up at the snarling, slowly-revolving barrel above me, and mark

-how death, as figured in that scorched strand, was approaching me

-nearer at every turn. It was only a few coils away, when suddenly I

-set to doing what, goodness knows, I should have done earlier. I

-screamed&mdash;screamed until the dead marrow must have crawled in the very

-bones of the place.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nothing human answered&mdash;not a voice, not the sound of a footfall.

-Only the echoes laughed and chattered like monkeys up in the broken

-roof of the factory. For the rest, my too-late outburst had but served

-to sap what little energy yet remained to me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The end was come. Looking up, I saw the burnt strand reeling round, a

-couple of turns away, to the test; and, with a final gulp of horror, I

-threw up the sponge, and sank.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I had not descended a yard or two, when my feet touched something.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Regius Professor paused dramatically.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, go on!” I snapped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That something,” he said, “yielded a little&mdash;settled&mdash;and there all

-at once was I, standing as firmly as if I were in a pulpit.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For the moment, I assure you, I was so benumbed, physically and

-mentally, that I was conscious of nothing in myself but a small weak

-impatience at finding the awful ecstasy of my descent checked. Then

-reason returned, like blood to the veins of a person half drowned; and

-I had never before realized that reason could make a man ache so.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“With the cessation of my strain upon it, the windlass had ceased to

-revolve. Now, with a sudden desperation, I was tugging at the rope

-once more&mdash;pulling it down hand over hand. At the fifth haul there

-came a little quick report, and I staggered and near fell. The rope

-had snapped; and the upper slack of it came whipping down upon my

-shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I rose, dimly aware of what had happened. I was standing on the

-piled-up fathoms of rope which I had paid out beneath me. Above,

-though still beyond my effective winning, glimmered the moon-like disk

-of light which was the well mouth. I dared not, uncertain of the

-nature of my tenure, risk a spring for it. But, very cautiously, I

-found the end of the rope that had come away, made a bend in it well

-clear of the injured part, and, after many vain attempts, slung it

-clean over the yoke above, coaxed down the slack, spliced it to the

-other, and so made myself a fixed ladder to climb by. Up this, after a

-short interval for rest, I swarmed, set myself swinging, grasped the

-brick rim, first with one hand, then with both, and in another instant

-had flung myself upon the ground prostrate, and for the moment quite

-prostrated. Then presently I got up, struck some matches, and

-investigated.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Regius Professor stopped, laughing a little over the memory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Do</i> go on!” I said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” he responded, chuckling, “generations of school children had

-been pitching litter into that well, until it was filled up to within

-a couple yards of the top&mdash;just that. The rope, heaping up under me,

-did the rest. It was a testimony to the limited resources of the

-valley. What the little natives of to-day do with their odd time,

-goodness knows. But it was comical, wasn’t it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, most!” said I. “And particularly from the point of view of the

-children’s return to you for your dislike of them.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, as to that,” said the Regius Professor, rather shamefacedly, “I

-wasn’t beyond acknowledging a certain indebtedness.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Acknowledging? How?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, I happened to have in my knapsack one of my pamphlets on the

-Reef-building Serpulæ; so I went back to the school, and gave it to

-the mistress to include in her curriculum.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch09">

-ARCADES AMBO

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Miguel</span> and Nicanor were the Damon and Phintias of Lima. Their

-devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers&mdash;who are not, as a

-rule, very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships&mdash;was a

-standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they

-had grown up together, passed their school-days together (at an

-English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their

-young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other’s company,

-preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which

-was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the meanwhile, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued

-inseparable&mdash;a proverb for clean though passionate affection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and

-physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the

-younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature,

-bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all

-the wit, excitability, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to

-associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed&mdash;a

-man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous

-faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything

-fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable

-as lovable.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The two started, well-equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks

-of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye

-with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with

-the birds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel and Nicanor travelled overland to Cayenne, in French Guiana,

-where they took boat for Marseilles, whence they were to proceed to

-the capital. The circular tour of the world, for all who would make it

-comprehensively, dates from Paris and ends there. They sailed in a

-fine vessel, and made many charming acquaintances on board.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Among these was Mademoiselle Suzanne, called also de la Vénerie,

-which one might interpret into Suzanne of the chase, or Suzanne of the

-kennel, according to one’s point of view. She had nothing in common

-with Diana, at least, unless it were a very seductive personality. She

-was a fashionable Parisian actress, travelling for her health, or

-perhaps for the health of Paris&mdash;much in the manner of the London

-gentleman, who was encountered touring alone on the Continent because

-his wife had been ordered change of air.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suzanne, as a matter of course, fell in love with Miguel first, for

-his white teeth and sleepy comeliness; and then with Nicanor, for his

-impudent bright spirit. That was the beginning and end of the trouble.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One moonlight night, in mid-Atlantic, Miguel and Nicanor came together

-on deck. The funnel of the steamer belched an enormous smoke, which

-seemed to reach all the way back to Cayenne.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hate it,” said Nicanor; “don’t you? It is like a huge cable paid

-out and paid out, while we drift further from home. If they would only

-stop a little, keeping it at the stretch, while we swarmed back by it,

-and left the ship to go on without us!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel laughed; then sighed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear Nicanor,” he said; “I will have nothing more to do with her, if

-it will make you happy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was thinking of <i>your</i> happiness, Miguel,” said Nicanor. “If I

-could only be certain that it would not be affected by what I have to

-tell you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have you to tell me, old Nicanor?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must not be mistaken, Miguel. Your having nothing more to do with

-her would not lay the shadow of our separation, which the prospect of

-my union with her raises between us&mdash;though it would certainly comfort

-me a little on your behalf.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did not mean that at all, Nicanor. I meant that, for your sake, I

-would even renounce my right to her hand.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That would be an easy renunciation, dear Miguel. I honour your

-affection; but I confess I expect more from it than a show of

-yielding, for its particular sake, what, in fact, is not yours to

-yield.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel had been leaning over the taffrail, looking at the white

-wraiths of water which coiled and beckoned from the prow. Now he came

-upright, and spoke in his soft slow voice, which was always like that

-of one just stretching awake out of slumber&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I cannot take quite that view, Nicanor, though I should like to. But

-I do so hate a misunderstanding, at all times; and when it is with

-you&mdash;&mdash;!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His tones grew sweet and full&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, Nicanor! let this strange new shadow between us be dispelled, at

-once and for ever. I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Nicanor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Miguel.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well. Then I yield her to you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, pardon me, Miguel! but that is just the point. I wanted to save

-you the pain&mdash;the sense of self-renunciation; but your blindness

-confounds me. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. Your

-infatuation for Mademoiselle Suzanne is very plain to very many. What

-is plain only to yourself is that Mademoiselle Suzanne returns your

-devotion. You are not, indeed, justified in that belief.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She has confessed her regard, in the first place, for me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But she has also confessed to me that I have won the leading place in

-her affections.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is absurd, Miguel. She is the soul of ingenuousness.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Perhaps, Nicanor&mdash;we are only boys, after all&mdash;she is a practised

-coquette.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must not say that, Miguel, if you want me to remain your friend.

-You, perhaps, attach too much importance to your looks as an

-irresistible asset in matters of the heart.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now I shall certainly quarrel with you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are mistaken, I think. Mind, to women of intellect, is the

-compelling lure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It remains to be proved.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are determined to put it to the test, then? Good-bye, Miguel.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This is not a real breach between us? O, Nicanor!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must come to a definite understanding. Until we do, further

-confidence between us is impossible.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He strutted away, perking his angry head, and whistling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But Suzanne had accomplished the amiable débacle for which she had

-been intriguing. She had, paradoxically, separated the inseparables.

-It was a little triumph, perhaps; a very easy game to one of her

-experience&mdash;hardly worth the candle, in fact; but it was the best the

-boat had to offer. It remained only to solace the tedium of what was

-left of the voyage by playing on the broken strings of that

-friendship.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was Nicanor who suffered most under the torture. He had always been

-rather accustomed to hear himself applauded for his wit&mdash;a funny

-little acrid possession which was touched with a precocious knowledge

-of the world. Now, to know himself made the butt of a maturer social

-irony lowered his little cockerel crest most dismally. As for

-good-natured Miguel, it was his way to join, rather than resent, the

-laugh against himself; and his persistent moral health under the

-infliction only added to the other’s mind-corrosion. In a very little

-the two were at daggers-drawn.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The “affair” made a laughable distraction for many of the listless and

-mischievous among the passengers. They contributed their little fans

-to the flame, and exchanged private bets upon the probable

-consequences. But Suzanne, indifferent to all interests but her own,

-worked her oracles serenely, and affected a wide-eyed unconsciousness

-of the amorous imbroglio which her arts had brought about. First one,

-then the other of the rivals would she beguile with her pensive

-kindnesses, and, according to her mood or the accident of

-circumstances, reassure in hope. And the task grew simpler as it

-advanced, inasmuch as the silence which came to fall between Miguel

-and Nicanor precluded the wholesome revelations which an interchange

-of confidences might have inspired.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At last the decisive moment arrived when Suzanne’s more intimate

-worldlings were to be gratified with her solution of the riddle. It

-was to end, in fact, in a Palais Royal farce; and they were to be

-invited to witness the “curtain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A few hours before reaching port she drew Miguel to a private

-interview.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, my friend!” she said, her slender fingers knotted, her large eyes

-wistful with tears, “I become distracted in the near necessity for

-decision. Pity me in so momentous a pass. What am I to do?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mademoiselle,” said poor Miguel, his chest heaving, “it is resolved

-already. We are to journey together to Paris, where the bliss of my

-life is to be piously consummated.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; “but the publicity&mdash;the scandal! Men are sure to

-attribute the worst motives to our comradeship, and that I could not

-endure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately&mdash;somewhere whence

-we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! There is a little accommodating

-place&mdash;the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the

-harbour. Do you know it? No&mdash;I forgot the world is all to open for

-you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper

-of our intention to anyone. Now go, go!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He left her, rapturous but, once without her radiance, struck his

-breast and sighed, “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor,

-angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously,

-timidly, and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a

-bantam.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is it not my friend that you meant, mademoiselle? I will summon him

-back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a

-witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul&mdash;least of all his

-brother and happier rival.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His&mdash;&mdash;! Ah, mademoiselle, I entreat you, do not torture me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself!

-Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many

-women realize their feelings for the first time in the shock of

-imminent loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Poor Miguel&mdash;poor fellow!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suzanne!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, do not speak to me. To have so bared my breast to this repulse!

-O, I am shamed beyond words!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But do you not understand my heartfelt pity for his loss, when

-measured by my own ecstatic gain?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suzanne! I cannot believe it true.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I feel so bewildered also. What are we to do?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You spoke once of a journey to Paris together.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You and I? Think of the jests, the comments on the part of our

-shipmates! We are not to bear a slurred reputation with us. I should

-die of shame.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What if we were to meet somewhere, unknown to anybody, by

-appointment, and slip away before the world awoke?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, that would do; but where?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can’t you suggest?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know of a little Café de Paris. It is on the Boulevard des Dames,

-near the harbour. Say we meet there, at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning, in time to catch the early mail?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes, yes!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush! We have been long enough together. Do not forget; be silent as

-the grave.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Brains triumph!” thought Nicanor, as he went. “Alas, my poor, sweet,

-simple-minded comrade!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-De la Vénerie carried betimes quite a select little company with her

-to the rendezvous. They were all choking with fun and expectation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The dear <i>ingénus</i>!” said Captain Robillard. “It will be exquisite

-to see the fur fly. But precocity must have its lesson.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They had their rolls and coffee in a closet adjoining the common room.

-There was a window overlooking the street.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hist!” whispered the tiny Comte de Bellenglise. “Here they come!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nicanor was the first to arrive. He was very spruce and cock-a-hoop.

-His big brown eyes were like fever-spots in his little body. He

-questioned, airily enough, the proprietor, who had been well prompted

-to answer him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, monsieur; there is no lady at this hour. An appointment? Alas!

-such is always the least considered of their many engagements.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he spoke, Miguel came in. The two eyed one another blankly after

-the first shock. At length Nicanor spoke: the door between the closet

-and the café opened a little.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have discovered, then? Go away, my poor friend. This is, indeed,

-the worst occasion for our reconciliation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did not come to seek you, Nicanor. I came to meet Mademoiselle

-Suzanne alone, by appointment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I, too, Miguel. I fear you must have overheard and misconstrued

-her meaning. It was I she invited to this place.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, Nicanor; it was I.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She has not come, at least. We must decide, at once and for ever,

-before she comes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know what you mean, Nicanor. This, indeed, is the only end to a

-madness. Have you your pistol? I have mine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I have mine, Miguel. You will kill me, as you are the good shot.

-I don’t know why I ever carried one, except to entice you to show your

-skill at breaking the floating bottles. But that was before the

-trouble.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear Nicanor!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But let it be <i>à l’outrance</i>. I want either to kill you or to be

-killed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If she were only out of the way, you would love me again.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Amen to that, dear Miguel!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yet we are to fight?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To the death, my brother, my comrade! Such is the madness of

-passion.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The paralyzed landlord found breath for the first time to intervene.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gentlemen, gentlemen! for God’s sake! consider my reputation!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel, starting away, and leaving Nicanor with his back to the

-closet, produced and pointed his weapon at the trembling creature.

-These South Americans were a strange compound of sweetness and

-ferocity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you interfere,” he said, “I will shoot you instead. Now, Nicanor,

-we fire at discretion, one shot to each.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The bang of Nicanor’s pistol shattered the emptiness. Miguel was down

-on the floor. Nicanor cast away his reeking weapon, and, running to

-his friend, raised his body in his arms. The door of the closet

-opened, and Suzanne, radiant and gloating, stood in the entry. “That

-was a good shot, Nicanor,” said Miguel, smiling weakly. “You are

-better at men than bottles.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Miguel! Miguel! you have your pistol undischarged. Faint as you are,

-you cannot miss me at this range.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Stand away, then, Nicanor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nicanor stood up, tearing his coat apart.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Here, here! to my heart, dearest!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel, supporting himself on his left hand, raised his pistol

-swiftly, and shot Mademoiselle Suzanne through the breast. Then he

-fell back to the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is the short way to it, Nicanor. Confess, after all, I am the

-better shot. Now we are reunited for ever.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suzanne had not a word to say to that compact. She lay in a heap, like

-the sweetest of dressmaker’s dummies overturned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord raised a terrible outcry.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Messieurs! I am ruined, unless you witness to the truth of this

-catastrophe!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I, for one, will witness,” said de Bellenglise, very white.

-“Mademoiselle, it is plain to the humorist, has only reaped what she

-sowed. But I do not envy M. Nicanor his survival.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him

-to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe, in Normandy, where

-men whom the law exonerates may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal

-servitude.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend wholehearted, for

-he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne

-to a place where her future interference between them was not to be

-dreaded.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch10">

-OUR LADY OF REFUGE

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">When</span> Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino,

-plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San

-Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after

-long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood,

-and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering

-ribbons, and merrily they cried together:

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the

-larger growth&mdash;patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment!

-For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ

-in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of

-evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’

-dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff

-of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children&mdash;there is time for

-all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood

-ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and

-see the ships&mdash;so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind

-in the rigging&mdash;and all for a paltry quarter-real!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest,

-among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared

-to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned

-their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino

-had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the

-mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that

-they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic

-perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a

-couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San

-Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by

-treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two

-thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San

-Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come

-of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in

-the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a

-large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening

-to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly

-as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection

-in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in

-San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to

-approach the peep-show.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with

-travel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like

-adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held

-himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to

-show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact,

-was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft

-olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow

-handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches,

-down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron,

-for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a

-high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and

-merriment were his bright assets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sweet and inexhaustible! I could feed all day on thy love. Yet, I

-think, for my stomach’s sake, I would rather be less gifted than the

-mouse. What is the use to be able to smell meat through glass when the

-window is shut?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait! There are other ways to the larder than by the door. In the

-meanwhile, we will go on. There are two ends to San Lorenzo, the upper

-and lower: we will try the lower. North and south sit with their backs

-to one another, like peevish sisters. What the one snubs the other may

-favour.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He swung the box by its strap to his shoulder, closed the tripod, and,

-using it for a staff, trudged on dustily with his comrade. Half way

-down the village, a man for the first time accosted them. He was

-young, vehement, authoritative&mdash;the segundo jefe, or sub-prefect of

-San Lorenzo.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait!” he said, halting the pair. “I know you, Caron. You should be

-de Charogne&mdash;a French carrion-crow. What do you here, spying for your

-masters?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Señor,” said the showman, “you are mistaken. I am of your people.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since when? I know you, I say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Many know me, caballero, in these parts, and nothing against me but

-my nationality. Now that is changed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since when? I repeat it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since the Emperor tore my brother from his plough in Rousillon to

-serve his colours, and our father was left to die of starvation. We

-are but now on our way back from closing the old man’s eyes, and at

-the foot of the hills we recovered our chattels, which we had hid

-there, on our journey north, for security. I speak of myself and my

-little comrade, Pepino, who is truly of this province, señor, having

-been born in Gerona, where he made stockings.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sub-prefect looked at Pepino attentively, for the first time, and

-his dark eyes kindled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And wore them, by the same token,” he murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He swept off his hat, mockingly courteous.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Buenos dias, señora!” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Caron jumped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, mercy, caballero!” he cried. “Can you, indeed, distinguish so

-easily? Do not give us away.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell me all about it,” said the sub-prefect. “Truly this is no time

-for masquerading in San Lorenzo.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But it was the most obvious of precautions to begin with,” pleaded

-Caron. “Over the mountains is not safety for a woman; and since&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And since, you are in San Lorenzo,” said the other.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is true, señor. Pepa shall re-sex herself to-night. Yet it is

-only a few hours since we found our expedient justified.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How was that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French

-picket, and&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have I said, señor?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and

-this is the first you speak of it! I understand&mdash;they come from

-Perpignan&mdash;they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve

-Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow

-me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The

-whole village turned and followed him as he ran.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and

-privacy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride <i>me</i> for the

-future. And <i>this</i> is home!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can

-love you once more in my own way.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in

-Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in

-Figueras&mdash;one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from

-the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate&mdash;being

-small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the

-mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the

-neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour

-with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since

-a little might decide their fate&mdash;short shrift, and the knife or

-gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For

-those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the

-Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by

-the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But Figueras was an important point, strategically; for which reason

-the Emperor&mdash;who generally in questions of political economy held

-lives cheaper than salt&mdash;had despatched an express to General Reille,

-who commanded the reserves at Perpignan, on the north side of the

-mountains, ordering him to proceed by forced marches to the relief of

-the garrison, as a step preliminary to the assault and capture of

-Gerona. And it was an advance body of this force which Luc and his

-companion had encountered bivouacking in the hills.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was not a considerable body as the two gauged it, for Colonel de

-Regnac’s troops&mdash;raw Tuscan recruits, and possessed with a panic

-terror of the enemy&mdash;were showing a very laggard spirit in the

-venture, and no emulation whatever of their officers’ eagerness to

-encounter. In fact, Colonel de Regnac, with his regimental staff, some

-twenty all told, and few beside, had run ahead of his column by the

-measure of a mile or two, and was sitting down to rest and curse,

-below his breath, in a hollow of the hills, when the two captured

-vagabonds were brought before him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There had been no light but the starlight, no voice but the

-downpouring of a mountain stream until the sentry had leaped upon

-them. Chatter and fire were alike prohibited things in those rocky

-ante-rooms of hate and treachery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who are you?” had demanded the Colonel of Caron.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A son of France, monsieur.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whither do you go?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To attend the death-bed of my old father in Rousillon,” had answered

-Luc, lying readily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel had arisen, and scanned his imperturbable face keenly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His name?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luc had told him truthfully&mdash;also his father’s circumstances and

-misfortunes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence,

-then, do you come?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“From Figueras.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha! They have news of us there?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was

-overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that

-those two rascals went <i>up</i> the hill!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was brought before the Colonel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My son, what did you say?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his

-remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the

-vagabonds’ <i>descent towards San Lorenzo</i>, there would be trouble on

-the morrow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter

-degraded&mdash;to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed

-to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that,

-in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded

-by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing

-rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering

-for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the

-main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted

-upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under

-cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position&mdash;only to find it

-abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled

-to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>If</i> I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel

-sweetly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very

-gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted,

-depopulated.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching

-under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly,

-and nodded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow

-more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight.

-He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were

-small and infamous&mdash;great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a

-moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and

-Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his

-enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways

-his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino

-crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself

-spitting fire.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is symbolical of Jove,” said Caron.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Foul imps attend him!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They are his Mercuries.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No more words!” said the Colonel. “String the rascal up!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That was the common emergency exit in the then theatres of war. It had

-taken the place of the “little window” through which former traitors

-to their country had been invited to look.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pepino leapt to his feet, with a sudden scream.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, no! He is Caron, the wit, the showman, dear to all hearts!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Colonel Regnac’s great neck seemed to swell like a ruttish wolf’s. His

-little eyes shot red with laughter. He had as keen a scent as the

-sub-prefect for a woman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good!” he said; “he shall make us a show.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Señor, for the love of God! He spoke the truth. His father is dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He will be in a dutiful haste to rejoin him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Señor, be merciful! You are of a gallant race.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is certain,” said de Regnac. “You, for your part, are acquitted,

-my child. I take you personally under my protection.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good-bye, comrade!” cried Caron sadly. “We have gone the long road

-together, and I am the first to reach home. Follow me when you will. I

-shall wait for you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fie!” said the Colonel. “That is no sentiment for a renegade. Heaven

-is the goal of this innocence, whom I save from your corruption.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They hung him from the branch of a chestnut tree, and lingered out his

-poor dying spasms. Pepino, after one burst of agony, stood apathetic

-until the scene was over. Then, with a shudder, correlative with the

-last of the dangling body’s, she seemed to come awake.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” she said, “there goes a good fellow; but it is true he was a

-renegade.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel was delighted.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They have always a spurious attraction,” he said, “to the sex that is

-in sympathy with naughtiness in any form. But consider: false to one

-is false to all, and this was a bad form of treachery&mdash;though,” he

-added gallantly, “he certainly had his extreme temptation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The French killed his father,” she said indifferently.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The French,” he answered, “kill, of choice, with nothing but

-kindness. You, though a Spaniard, my pet, shall have ample proof if

-you will.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am to come with you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God’s name! There is to be no enforcement.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, you have left me little choice. Already here they had looked

-upon us with suspicion, and, if I remained alone, would doubtless kill

-me. I do not want to die&mdash;not yet. What must be must. The king is

-dead, live the king!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was enchanted with her vivacity. He took her up before him on his

-saddle, and chuckled listening to the feverish chatter with which she

-seemed to beguile herself from memory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“These jays have no yesterday,” he thought; and said aloud, “You are

-not Pepino? Now tell me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, I am Pepa,” she said. “I am only a man in seeming. Alack! I think

-a man would not forget so easily.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Some men,” he answered, and his hand tightened a little upon her.

-“Trust me, that dead rogue is already forgathering with his succuba.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By and by he asked her: “How far to Figueras?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Twelve miles from where we started,” she answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A thought struck him, and he smiled wickedly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You will always bear in mind,” he said, “that the moment I become

-suspicious that you are directing us wide, or, worse, into a

-guet-apens, I shall snap off your little head at the neck, and roll it

-back to San Lorenzo.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have no fear,” she said quietly; “we are in the straight road for the

-town&mdash;or what used to be one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And no shelter by the way? I run ahead of my rascals, as you see. We

-must halt while they overtake us. Besides”&mdash;he leered horribly&mdash;“there

-is the question of the night.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know of no shelter,” she said, “but Our Lady of Refuge.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“An opportune title, at least. What is it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is a hospital for the fallen&mdash;for such as the good Brotherhoods of

-Madrid send for rest and restoration to the sanctuary of the quiet

-pastures. The monks of Misericorde are the Brothers’ deputies

-there&mdash;sad, holy men, who hide their faces from the world. The house

-stands solitary on the plain; we shall see it in a little. They will

-give you shelter, though you are their country’s enemies. They make no

-distinctions.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-De Regnac pulled at his moustache, frowning, pondering.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where these monks forgather are fat kids and old Malaga&mdash;a tempting

-alternative to the munching of cold biscuit under the stars.

-But&mdash;<i>sacré chien!</i> one may always take in more with the gravy than

-ever fell from the spit. What, then!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He jerked his feet peevishly in the stirrups, and growled&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Limping and footsore already come my cursed rabble&mdash;there you are,

-white-livered Tuscan sheep! The bark of a dog will scare them; they

-would fear a thousand bogies in the dark. It is certain I must wait

-for them, and bivouac somewhere here in the plains.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Indeed, the first of them came on as he spoke&mdash;a weary, stumbling body

-of laggards, trailing feet and muskets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Halte-là!” he thundered; and the men came to a loose-kneed stand,

-while the corporals went round prodding and cursing them into a form

-of discipline. De Regnac grumbled&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are we to have this cold grace to our loves? God’s name! my heart

-cries out for fire&mdash;fire within and without. These monks!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Shall I slip before, and sound them? You may trust me, for a Spanish

-girl, who has learned how to coax her confessor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha! <i>You!</i>” He held her, biting his great lips. “What are you good

-for but deceit, rogue! No, no; we will go together.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He called his staff about him, and they went forward in a body.

-Presently, topping a longish slope, they saw, sprung out of the plain

-before them, a huddled grey building, glooming monstrous in the dusk.

-Its barred windows stared blindly; twin towers held the portico

-between them, as it were the lunette of a vast guillotine; a solitary

-lamp hung motionless in the entrance. Far away across the flats a

-light or two twinkled over ruined Figueras, like marsh-candles over a

-swamp. The place seemed lifeless desolation embodied&mdash;Death’s own

-monument in a desert. Gaiety in its atmosphere shivered into silence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But at length a captain rallied, with a laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Peste!” he cried; “a churchyard refuge! Let us see if the dead walk!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He battered with his sword-hilt on the great door. It swung open, in

-staggering response, and revealed a solitary figure. Cowled, spectral,

-gigantic&mdash;holding, motionless, a torch that wept fire&mdash;the shape stood

-without a word. It was muffled from crown to heel in coarse frieze;

-the eyelets in its woollen vizor were like holes scorched through by

-the burning gaze behind&mdash;the very rims of them appeared to smoulder.

-Laville, the captain, broke into an agitated laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mordieu, my friend, are the dead so lifeless?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you seek?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The voice boomed, low and muffled, from the folds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Rest and food,” answered Laville. “We are weary and famished. For the

-rest, we ask no question, and invite none.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So they come in peace,” said the figure, “all are welcome here.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel pushed to the front, carrying his burden.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We come in peace,” he said&mdash;“strangers and travellers. We pay our

-way, and the better where our way is smoothed. Take that message to

-your Prior.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The figure withdrew, and returned in a little.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The answer is, Ye are welcome. For those who are officers, a repast

-will be served within an hour in the refectory; for the rest, what

-entertainment we can compass shall be provided in the outhouses. A

-room is placed at the disposal of your commander.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is well,” said de Regnac. “Now say, We invite your Prior to the

-feast himself provides, and his hand shall be first in the dish, and

-his lip to the cup; else, from our gallantry, do we go supperless.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Once more the figure withdrew and returned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He accepts. You are to fear no outrage at his hands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel exclaimed cynically, “Fie, fie! I protest you wrong our

-manners!”&mdash;and, giving some orders <i>sub voce</i> for the precautionary

-disposal of his men, entered with his staff. They were ushered into a

-stone-cold hall, set deep in the heart of the building&mdash;a great

-windowless crypt, it seemed, whose glooms no warmth but that of tapers

-had ever penetrated. It was bare of all furniture save benches and a

-long trestle-table, and a few sacred pictures on the walls. While the

-rest waited there, de Regnac was invited to his quarters&mdash;a cell

-quarried still deeper into that hill of brick. No sound in all the

-place was audible to them as they went. He pushed Pepino before him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This is my servant,” he said. “He will attend me, by your leave.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The girl made no least demur. She went even jocundly, turning now and

-again to him with her tongue in her cheek. He, for his part, was in a

-rapture of slyness; but he kept a reserve of precaution. They were

-escorted by the giant down a single dim corridor, into a decent

-habitable cell, fitted with chairs, a little stove, and a prie-Dieu;

-but the bed was abominably rocky. De Regnac made a wry face at it for

-his companion’s secret delectation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The ghostly monk, intimating that he would await outside the señor

-commandante’s toilet, that he might re-escort his charge to the

-refectory, closed the door upon the two. De Regnac cursed his

-officiousness, groaning; but Pepino reassured his impatience with a

-hundred drolleries. However, when the Colonel came out presently, he

-came out alone; and, moreover, turned the key in the door and pocketed

-it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Merely a prudential measure,” he explained to his guide. “These

-gaillards are not to be trusted in strange houses. I will convey him

-his supper by and by with my own hands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The figure neither answered nor seemed to hear. De Regnac, joining a

-rollicking company, dismissed him from his mind.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And alone in the cell stood mad Pepino.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But not for long. A trap opened in the floor, and from it sprouted,

-like a monstrous fungus, the head and shoulders of the giant monk.

-Massively, sombrely he arose, until the whole of his great bulk was

-emerged and standing in a burning scrutiny of the prisoner. A minute

-passed. Then, “Whence comest thou, Pepa Manoele? With whom, and for

-what purpose?” said the voice behind the folds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His question seemed to snap in an instant the garrotte about her

-brain. She flung herself on her knees before him with a lamentable

-cry&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They have killed my Luc, brother&mdash;my Luc, who took me from your wards

-of mercy, sins and all. They have killed my sweet singing cricket, my

-merry, merry cricket, that had no guile in all its roguish heart. They

-put their heel upon him in the path&mdash;what are songs to them!&mdash;and left

-my summer desolate. If I weep one moment, I know that blood will scald

-my cheeks and drain my heart, and I shall die before I act. O,

-brother! keep back my tears a little. Show me what to do!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She clutched in agony at his robe.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come,” he said; “the way is clear.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The feast was served to the tick of the hour by lay brothers, another

-blank-envisaged form directing them. The tables smoked with cheer, and

-de Regnac rubbed his hands. There were the joints of fat kid and the

-flagons of old Malaga&mdash;salmis of quail, too; truffled sausages;

-herrings with mustard sauce, things of strong flavour meet for

-warriors. The steam itself was an invitation&mdash;the smell, the sparkle.

-Only one thing lacked&mdash;the Prior’s grace. De Regnac, bestial always,

-but most like a tiger in the view of unattainable meats, crowded the

-interval with maledictions and curses. His courtesy stopped anywhere

-on the threshold of his appetites. Baulked of his banquet, he would be

-ready to make a holocaust of the whole hospital. Yet he dared not be

-the first to put his fingers in the dish.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where is our host?” he growled. “Doth he fear the test&mdash;or death&mdash;a

-coward faint with indecision?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even with the word, he found him at his elbow&mdash;an old, dry pipe of a

-man, wheezing thin air. The father’s face under its dropping cowl (no

-doubt his lungs were too crazy for the vizor) showed stark with rime;

-his forehead was streaked with it; his eyes were half-thawed pools. He

-spoke. Hoarse and feeble, his voice seemed to crow from the attics of

-a ruined tenement, high up among the winds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fall to, soldiers, fall to! There is no grace like honest appetite.

-Fall to! And they tell me ye have travelled far to claim our

-hospitality. Fall to!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-De Regnac smacked his shoulder boisterously, so that he staggered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not till you have blessed our meal for us, old father.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Prior raised his trembling hands. The other caught at them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not that way. We ask the taster’s grace. It was a bargain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Be seated, señor,” said the old man, with dignity. “I do not forget

-my obligations.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He went round, bent and stiffly, taking a shred from each dish, a

-sippet dipped in the gravy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bella premunt hostilia,” he expostulated. “Intestine wars invade our

-breast. What a task for our old digestion!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His roguery pleased and reassured his company. They attacked the

-viands with a will. He never ceased to encourage them, going about the

-board with garrulous cheer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And ye come over the hills?” said he. “A hungry journey and a

-dangerous. It was the mountains, and the spirits of the mountains,

-that were alone invincible when the Moorish dogs overran all

-Spain&mdash;all but the mountains. The heathen crests were lowered

-there&mdash;rolled back in a bloody foam. Dear God! I’m old.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not so ancient, father,” cried de Regnac, “but that good liquor will

-revitalize you. There remains the wine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah me!” sighed the Prior; “must I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They swore him to the toast by every bond of honour. Their throats

-were ragged with drought.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, well,” he said. “I’ll first dismiss these witnesses to their

-father’s shame. I’ll be no Noah to my children.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He drove the servitors, with feeble playfulness, into the passage;

-pursued them a pace or two. In a moment he was back alone, his cowl

-pulled about his face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give me the draught,” he said hoarsely, “nor look ye upon the old

-man’s abasement. I am soon to answer for my frailties.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cheering and bantering, they mixed him a cup from every flagon, and

-put it into his hand, which gripped it through the cloth. He turned

-his back on them, and took the liquor down by slow degrees, chuckling

-and gasping and protesting. Then, still coughing, he handed the cup,

-backwards, to the nearest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bumpers, all!” roared de Regnac. “We toast old Noah for our king of

-hosts!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even as he drank, as they all drank, thirsty and uproarious, the great

-door of the refectory clanged to, and the Prior spun with a scream to

-the floor. De Regnac’s cup fell from his hand; a dead silence

-succeeded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suddenly the Colonel was on his feet, ghastly and terrible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Something foul!” he whispered; “something foul!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Staggering, he swerved out, and drove with all his weight against the

-door. It had been locked and bolted upon them. Not a massive panel

-creaked. They were entombed!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Hush!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Solemn, low, mystic, arose without the chaunt of voices in unison&mdash;the

-prayers for one sick unto death: “Receive, O Lord, the sacrifice we

-offer for thy servant, who is near the end of her life.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With a scream, de Regnac threw himself towards the body on the floor,

-and lifted it with huge strength in his arms. As he did so, the cowl

-fell away, and revealed the face of Pepino. The shadow of death was

-already fallen on it; but she spoke, and with a smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“When he pursued them, I was waiting and took his place. Curse him

-not. He observed the letter. ’Twas I poisoned the wine. Take back thy

-wages, dog! O, I go to find my Luc&mdash;if thou darest follow me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He roared out&mdash;a spasm took his throat. He tried to crush her in his

-arms. They relaxed in the effort. Howling, he dropped her, and fell

-beside in a heap.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, from out a mortal paralysis, arose sobbing and wailing at the

-table. Some seized salt, some the wet mustard from the fish, and

-swallowed it by handfuls. Others ran hither and thither aimlessly,

-screeching, blaspheming, beating the walls, the obdurate door. There

-was a regimental doctor among them; he was the first dead. None found

-help or hope in that ghastly trap. The venom had been swift, gripping,

-ineradicable. Within half an hour it was all a silent company, and the

-Miserere long had ceased.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Somewhere in a book I read of a tale like this, which was headed

-“Patriotic Fanaticism.” Those were certainly the deadly days of

-retaliation; but in this case Love, as always, was the principal

-fanatic.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch11">

-THE GHOST-LEECH

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Kelvin</span>, not I, is responsible for this story, which he told me

-sitting smoking by his study window.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a squalid night, I remember, wet and fretful&mdash;the sort of night

-which seems to sojourners in the deep country (as we then were) to

-bring rumours of plashy pavements, and the roar of rain-sodden

-traffic, and the wailing and blaspheming of women lost and crying out

-of a great darkness. No knowledge of our rural isolation could allay

-this haunting impression in my mind that night. I felt ill at ease,

-and, for some reason, out of suits with life. It mattered nothing that

-a belt of wild woodland separated us from the country station five

-miles away. That, after all, by the noises in it, might have been a

-very causeway, by which innumerable spectres were hurrying home from

-their business in the distant cities. The dark clouds, as long as we

-could see them labouring from the south, appeared freighted with the

-very burden of congregated dreariness. They glided up, like vast

-electric tramcars, and seemed to pause overhead, as if to discharge

-into the sanctuary of our quiet pastures their loads of aggressive

-vulgarity. My nerves were all jangled into disorder, I fear, and

-inclining me to imaginative hyperbole.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin, for his part, was very quiet. He was a conundrum, that man.

-Once the keenest of sportsmen, he was now for years become an almost

-sentimental humanitarian&mdash;and illogical, of necessity. He would not

-consent to kill under any circumstances&mdash;wilfully, that is to say; but

-he enjoyed his mutton with the best of us. However, I am not

-quarrelling with his point of view. He, for one&mdash;by his own admission,

-anyhow&mdash;owed a life to “the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,” and

-he would not, from the date of his debt, cross her prerogatives. The

-same occasion, it appeared, had opened in him an unstanchable vein of

-superstition, which was wont to gush&mdash;bloodily, I might say&mdash;in

-depressing seasons of the mind. It provoked me, on the evening of the

-present anecdote, to a sort of peevish protest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why the devil,” I said, “are spectral manifestations&mdash;at least,

-according to you fellows&mdash;everlastingly morbid and ugly? Are there no

-gentle disembodied things, who, of their love and pity, would be

-rather more anxious than the wicked, one would think, to communicate

-with their survivors?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course,” said Kelvin; “but their brief sweet little reassurances

-pass unnoticed. Their forms are insignificant, their voices

-inarticulate; they can only appeal by symbol, desperately clinging to

-the earth the while. On the other hand, the world tethers its

-worldlings by the foot, so that they cannot take flight when they

-will. There remains, so to speak, too much earth in their composition,

-and it keeps ’em subject to the laws of gravitation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I laughed; then shrugged impatiently.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What a rasping night it is! The devil take that moth!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The window was shut, and the persistent whirring and tapping of a big

-white insect on the glass outside jarred irritably on my nerves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Let it in, for goodness’ sake,” I said, “if it <i>will</i> insist on

-making a holocaust of itself!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin had looked up when I first spoke. Now he rose, with shining

-eyes, and a curious little sigh of the sort that one vents on the

-receipt of wonderful news coming out of suspense.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I’ll open the window,” he said low; and with the word threw up

-the casement. The moth whizzed in, whizzed round, and settled on his

-hand. He lifted it, with an odd set smile, into the intimate range of

-his vision, and scrutinized it intently. Suddenly and quickly, then,

-as if satisfied about something, he held it away from him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Ite missa est!</i>” he murmured, quoting some words of the Mass (he was

-a Catholic); and the moth fluttered and rose. Now, you may believe it

-or not; but there was a fire burning on the hearth, and straight for

-that fire went the moth, and seemed to go up with the smoke into the

-chimney. I was so astonished that I gasped; but Kelvin appeared

-serenely unconcerned as he faced round on me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I exploded, “if a man mayn’t kill, he may persuade to suicide,

-it seems.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He answered good-humouredly, “All right; but it wasn’t suicide.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then he resumed his seat by me, and relighted his pipe. I sat

-stolidly, with an indefinable feeling of grievance, and said nothing.

-But the silence soon grew unbearable.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin,” I said, suddenly and viciously; “what the deuce do you

-mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You wouldn’t believe,” he answered, at once and cheerily, “even if I

-told you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Told me what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, this. There was the soul of little Patsy that went up in the

-smoke.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The village child you are so attached to?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes; and who has lain dying these weeks past.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why should it come to you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a compact between us&mdash;if she were summoned, in a moment,

-without time for a good-bye. We were close friends.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin&mdash;excuse me&mdash;you are getting to be impossible.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All right. Look at your watch. Time was made for unbelievers. There’s

-no convincing a sceptic but by foot-rule. Look at your watch.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did, I confess&mdash;covertly&mdash;in the instant of distraction caused by

-Kelvin’s little son, who came to bid his father good night. He was a

-quiet, winning little fellow, glowing with health and beauty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good night, Bobo,” said Kelvin, kissing the child fondly. “Ask God to

-make little Patsy’s bed comfy, before you get into your own.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I kissed the boy also; but awkwardly, for some reason, under his frank

-courteousness. After he was gone, I sank back in my chair and said,

-grudging the concession&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well. It’s half-past eight.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin nodded, and said nothing more for a long time. Then, all of a

-sudden, he broke out&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I usen’t to believe in such things myself, once upon a time; but Bobo

-converted me. Would you like to hear the story?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes!” I said, tolerantly superior. “Fire away!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed, filling his pipe&mdash;the laugh of a man too surely

-self-convinced to regard criticism of his faith.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Patsy,” he said, “had no Ghost-Leech to touch her well. Poor little

-Patsy! But she’s better among the flowers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of Paradise, I suppose you mean? Well, if she is, she is,” I said, as

-if I were deprecating the inevitably undesirable. “But what is a

-Ghost-Leech?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A Ghost-Leech,” he said&mdash;“the sort, anyhow, that I’ve knowledge

-of&mdash;is one who has served seven years goal-keeper in the

-hurling-matches of the dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared at him. Was he really going, or gone, off his head? He

-laughed again, waving his hand to reassure me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You may accept my proof or not. Anyhow, Bobo’s recovery was proof

-enough for me. A sense of humour, I admit, is outside our conception

-of the disembodied. We lay down laughter with life, don’t we? You’d

-count it heresy to believe otherwise. Yet have you ever considered how

-man’s one great distinctive faculty must be admitted into all evidence

-of his deeds upon earth, as minuted by the recording angel? It must be

-admitted, of course, and appreciatively by the final assessor. How

-could he judge laughter who had never laughed? The cachinnatory nerve

-is touched off from across the Styx&mdash;wireless telegraphy; and man will

-laugh still, though he be damned.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin! my good soul!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The dead, I tell you, do not put off their sense of humour with their

-flesh. They laugh beyond the grave. They are full of a sense of fun,

-and not necessarily the most transcendent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, indeed, by all the testimony of spiritualism.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well; now listen. I was staying once in a village on the west coast

-of Ireland. The people of my hamlet were at deadly traditional feud

-with the people of a neighbouring hamlet. Traditional, I say, because

-the vendetta (it almost amounted to one) derived from the old days of

-rivalry between them in the ancient game of hurling, which was a sort

-of primitive violent “rugger” played with a wooden ball. The game

-itself was long fallen into disuse in the district, and had been

-supplanted, even in times out of memory, by sports of a gentler, more

-modern cast. But it, and the feud it had occasioned, were still

-continued unabated beyond the grave. How do I know this? Why, on the

-evidence of my Ghost-Leech.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He was a strange, moody, solitary man, pitied, though secretly

-dreaded, by his neighbours. They might have credited him with

-possession&mdash;particularly with a bad local form of possession; to

-suspect it was enough in itself to keep their mouths shut from

-questioning him, or their ears from inviting confession of his

-sufferings. For, so their surmise were correct, and he in the grip of

-the hurlers, a word wrung from him out of season would have brought

-the whole village under the curse of its dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I broke in here. “Kelvin, for the Lord’s sake! you are too cimmerian.

-Titillate your glooms with a touch of that spiritual laughter.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Agreeably to my banter, he smiled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s fun in it,” he said; “only it’s rather ghastly fun. What do

-you say to the rival teams meeting in one or other of the village

-graveyards, and whacking a skull about with long shank-bones?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I should say, It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Anything turning

-upon a more esoteric psychology would. What pitiful imaginations you

-Christmas-number seers are possessed of!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I dare say. But I’m not imagining. It’s you practical souls that

-imagine&mdash;that common sense, for instance, is reason; that the top-hat

-is the divinely-inspired shibboleth of the chosen; and so on. But you

-don’t disappoint me. Shall I go on?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes! go on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The hurlers meet under the full moon, they say, in one or other of

-the rival graveyards; <i>but they must have a living bachelor out of

-each parish to keep goal for them</i>.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I see! ‘They say’? I see!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The doom of the poor wretch thus chosen is, as you may suppose, an

-appalling one. He must go, or suffer terrors damning out of reason.

-There is no power on earth can save him. One night he is sitting,

-perhaps, in his cabin at any peaceful work. The moor, mystic under the

-moonlight, stretches from miles away up to his walls, surrounding and

-isolating them. His little home is an ark, anchored amid a waste and

-silent sea of flowers. Suddenly the latch clinks up, advances, falls.

-The night air breathing in passes a presence standing in the opening,

-and quivers and dies. Stealthily the door gapes, ever so little, ever

-so softly, and a face, like the gliding rim of the moon, creeps round

-its edge. It is the face, he recognizes appalled, of one long dead.

-The eyeplaces are black hollows; but there is a movement in them like

-the glint of water in a deep well. A hand lifts and beckons. The

-goal-keeper is chosen, and must go. For seven years, it is said, he

-must serve the hurling-matches of the dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“State it for a fact. Don’t hedge on report.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t. This man served his time. If he hadn’t, Bobo wouldn’t be

-here.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O? Poor Bobo!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This man, I say, survived the ghastly ordeal&mdash;one case out of a dozen

-that succumb. Then he got his fee.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, a fee! What was that? A Rachel of the bogs?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The power to cure by touch any human sickness, even the most humanly

-baffling.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Really a royal reward. It’s easy to see a fortune in it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He would have been welcome to mine; but he would take nothing. He

-made my little boy whole again.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin! I dare say I’m a brute. What had been the matter with him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, what! He simply moaned and wasted&mdash;moaned eternally. Atrophy;

-meningitis; cachexy&mdash;they gave it a dozen names, but not a single

-cure. He was dying under slow torture&mdash;a heavy sight for a father.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One day an old Shaman of the moors called upon me. He was ancient,

-ancient&mdash;as dry as his staff, and so bent that, a little more, and he

-had tripped over his long beard in walking. I can’t reproduce his

-brogue; but this is the substance of what it conveyed to me:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Had I ever heard speak of Baruch of the lone shebeen&mdash;him that had

-once kept an illicit still, but that the ghosts had got hold of for

-his sins? No? Well, he, the Shaman, was come too near the end of his

-own living tether to fear ghoulish reprisals if he told me. And he

-told me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Baruch, he said, was suspected in the village of keeping the dead’s

-hurling-goal&mdash;had long been suspected&mdash;it was an old tale by now. But,

-och, wirrastrue! if, as he calculated, Baruch was nearing the close of

-his seven years’ service, Baruch was the man for me, and could do for

-my child what no other living man, barring a ghosts’ goal-keeper,

-could do likewise.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I humoured him when he was present; laughed at him when he was gone;

-but&mdash;I went to see Baruch. It’s all right: you aren’t a father.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You went to see Baruch. Go on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He lived remote in such a little cabin as I have described. Lord!

-what a thing it was!&mdash;a living trophy of damnation&mdash;a statue

-inhabiting the human vestment! His face was young enough; but sorrow

-stricken into stone&mdash;unearthly suffering carved out of a block. It is

-astonishing what expression can be conveyed without a line. There was

-not a wrinkle in Baruch’s face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All scepticism withered in me at the sight&mdash;all the desperate

-effrontery with which I had intended to challenge his gift. I asked

-him simply if he would cure my child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He answered, in a voice as hoarse and feeble as an old man’s, but

-with a queer little promise of joy in it, like a sound of unborn rain,

-‘Asthore! for this I’ve lived me lone among the peats, and bid me

-time, and suffered what I know. In a good hour be it spoken! Wance

-more, and come again when the moon has passed its full.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I went, without another question, or the thought of one. That was a

-bad week for me&mdash;a mortal struggle for the child. The dead kept

-pulling him to draw him down; but he fought and held on, the little

-plucked one. On the day following the night of full moon, I carried

-him in my arms to the cabin&mdash;myself, all the way. I wouldn’t let on to

-a soul; I went roundabout, and I got to Baruch unnoticed. I knew it

-was kill or cure for Bobo. He couldn’t have survived another night.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I tell you, it was a laughing spirit that greeted me. Have you ever

-seen Doré’s picture of the ‘Wandering Jew,’ at the end of his

-journey, having his boots pulled off? There is the same release

-depicted, the same sweet comedy of redemption&mdash;the same figure of fun,

-if you like, that Baruch presented.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He put his hands on Bobo’s head, and&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bobo walked home with me, that’s all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin got up from his chair to relight his pipe at the fire. As he

-moved, the door of the room opened, and a decent woman, his

-housekeeper, stood, with a grave face, in the entrance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Patsy’s dead?” said Kelvin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, the poor mite!” answered the woman, with a burst of tears. “She

-passed but now, sir, at half after eight, in her little bed.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch12">

-POOR LUCY RIVERS

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> following story was told to a friend&mdash;with leave, conditionally,

-to make it public&mdash;by a well-known physician who died last year.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-I was in Paul’s type-writing exchange (says the professional

-narrator), seeing about some circulars I required, when a young lady

-came in bearing a box, the weight of which seemed to tax her strength

-severely. She was a very personable young woman, though looking ill, I

-fancied&mdash;in short, with those diathetic symptoms which point to a

-condition of hysteria. The manager, who had been engaged elsewhere,

-making towards me at the moment, I intimated to him that he should

-attend to the new-comer first. He turned to her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, madam?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I bought this machine second-hand of you last week,” she began, after

-a little hesitation. He admitted his memory of the fact. “I want to

-know,” she said, “if you’ll change it for another.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is there anything wrong with it, then?” he asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; “No!” she said; “Everything!” she said, in a

-crescendo of spasms, looking as if she were about to cry. The manager

-shrugged his shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very reprehensible of us,” said he; “and hardly our way. It is not

-customary; but, of course&mdash;if it doesn’t suit&mdash;to give

-satisfaction&mdash;&mdash;” he cleared his throat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t want to be unfair,” said the young woman. “It doesn’t suit

-<i>me</i>. It might another person.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had lifted, while speaking, its case off the type-writer, and now,

-placing the machine on a desk, inserted a sheet or two of paper, and

-ran his fingers deftly over the keys.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Really, madam,” said he, removing and examining the slip, “I can

-detect nothing wrong.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I said&mdash;perhaps&mdash;only as regards myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was hanging her head, and spoke very low.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But!” said he, and stopped&mdash;and could only add the emphasis of

-another deprecatory shrug.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Will you do me the favour, madam, to try it in my presence?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” she murmured; “please don’t ask me. I’d really rather not.”

-Again the suggestion of strain&mdash;of suffering.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At least,” said he, “oblige me by looking at this.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He held before her the few lines he had typed. She had averted her

-head during the minute he had been at work; and it was now with

-evident reluctance, and some force put upon herself, that she

-acquiesced. But the moment she raised her eyes, her face brightened

-with a distinct expression of relief.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sure it’s

-all my fault. But&mdash;but, if you don’t mind. So much depends on it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Well, the girl was pretty; the manager was human. There were a dozen

-young women, of a more or less pert type, at work in the front office.

-I dare say he had qualified in the illogic of feminine moods. At any

-rate, the visitor walked off in a little with a machine presumably

-another than that she had brought.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Professional?” I asked, to the manager’s resigned smile addressed to

-me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So to speak,” said he. “She’s one of the ‘augment her income’ class.

-I fancy it’s little enough without. She’s done an occasional job for

-us. We’ve got her card somewhere.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can you find it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He could find it, though he was evidently surprised at the

-request&mdash;scarce reasonably, I think, seeing how he himself had just

-given me an instance of that male inclination to the attractive, which

-is so calculated to impress woman in general with the injustice of our

-claims to impartiality.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With the piece of pasteboard in my hand, I walked off then and there

-to commission “Miss Phillida Gray” with the job I had intended for

-Paul’s. Psychologically, I suppose, the case interested me. Here was a

-young person who seemed, for no <i>practical</i> reason, to have quarrelled

-with her unexceptionable means to a livelihood.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It raised more than one question; the incompleteness of woman as a

-wage earner, so long as she was emancipated from all but her

-fancifulness; the possibility of the spontaneous generation of

-soul&mdash;the <i>divina particula auræ</i>&mdash;in man-made mechanisms, in the

-construction of which their makers had invested their whole of mental

-capital. Frankenstein loathed the abortion of his genius. Who shall

-say that the soul of the inventor may not speak antipathetically,

-through the instrument which records it, to that soul’s natural

-antagonist? Locomotives have moods, as any engine-driver will tell

-you; and any shaver, that his razor, after maltreating in some fit of

-perversity one side of his face, will repent, and caress the other as

-gently as any sucking-dove.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I laughed at this point of my reflections. Had Miss Gray’s

-type-writer, embodying the soul of a blasphemer, taken to swearing at

-her?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a bitterly cold day. Snow, which had fallen heavily in

-November, was yet lying compact and unthawed in January. One had the

-novel experience in London of passing between piled ramparts of it.

-Traffic for some two months had been at a discount; and walking, for

-one of my years, was still so perilous a business that I was long in

-getting to Miss Gray’s door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She lived West Kensington way, in a “converted flat,” whose title,

-like that of a familiar type of Christian exhibited on platforms, did

-not convince of anything but a sort of paying opportunism. That is to

-say, at the cost of some internal match-boarding, roughly fitted and

-stained, an unlettable private residence, of the estimated yearly

-rental of forty pounds, had been divided into two “sets” at

-thirty-five apiece&mdash;whereby fashion, let us hope, profited as greatly

-as the landlord.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Gray inhabited the upper section, the door to which was opened by

-a little Cockney drab, very smutty, and smelling of gas stoves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, she was in.” (For all her burden, “Phillida,” with her young

-limbs, had outstripped me.) “Would I please to walk up?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was the dismallest room I was shown into&mdash;really the most

-unattractive setting for the personable little body I had seen. She

-was not there at the moment, so that I could take stock without

-rudeness. The one curtainless window stared, under a lid of fog, at

-the factory-like rear of houses in the next street. Within was scarce

-an evidence of dainty feminine occupation. It was all an illustration

-of the empty larder and the wolf at the door. How long would the bolt

-withstand him? The very walls, it seemed, had been stripped for sops

-to his ravening&mdash;stripped so nervously, so hurriedly, that ribbons of

-paper had been flayed here and there from the plaster. The ceiling was

-falling; the common grate cold; there was a rag of old carpet on the

-floor&mdash;a dreary, deadly place! The type-writer&mdash;the new one&mdash;laid upon

-a little table placed ready for its use, was, in its varnished case,

-the one prominent object, quite healthy by contrast. How would the

-wolf moan and scratch to hear it desperately busy, with click and

-clang, building up its paper rampart against his besieging!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had fallen of a sudden so depressed, into a spirit of such

-premonitory haunting, that for a moment I almost thought I could hear

-the brute of my own fancy snuffling outside. Surely there was

-something breathing, rustling near me&mdash;something&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I grunted, shook myself, and walked to the mantelpiece. There was

-nothing to remark on it but a copy of some verses on a sheet of

-notepaper; but the printed address at the top, and the signature at

-the foot of this, immediately caught my attention. I trust, under the

-circumstances (there was a coincidence here), that it was not

-dishonest, but I took out my glasses, and read those verses&mdash;or, to be

-strictly accurate, the gallant opening quartrain&mdash;with a laudable

-coolness. But inasmuch as the matter of the second and third stanzas,

-which I had an opportunity of perusing later, bears upon one aspect of

-my story, I may as well quote the whole poem here for what it is

-worth.

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Phyllis, I cannot woo in rhyme,</p>

-<p class="i1">As courtlier gallants woo,</p>

-<p class="i0">With utterances sweet as thyme</p>

-<p class="i1">And melting as the dew.</p>

-

-<p class="i0 mt1">An arm to serve; true eyes to see;</p>

-<p class="i1">Honour surpassing love;</p>

-<p class="i0">These, for all song, my vouchers be,</p>

-<p class="i1">Dear love, so thou’lt them prove.</p>

-

-<p class="i0 mt1">Bid me&mdash;and though the rhyming art</p>

-<p class="i1">I may not thee contrive&mdash;</p>

-<p class="i0">I’ll print upon thy lips, sweetheart,</p>

-<p class="i1">A poem that shall live.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-It may have been derivative; it seemed to me, when I came to read the

-complete copy, passable. At the first, even, I was certainly conscious

-of a thrill of secret gratification. But, as I said, I had mastered no

-more than the first four lines, when a rustle at the door informed me

-that I was detected.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She started, I could see, as I turned round. I was not at the trouble

-of apologizing for my inquisitiveness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” I said; “I saw you at Paul’s Exchange, got your address, and

-came on here. I want some circulars typed. No doubt you will undertake

-the job?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was conning her narrowly while I spoke. It was obviously a case of

-neurasthenia&mdash;the tendril shooting in the sunless vault. But she had

-more spirit than I calculated on. She just walked across to the empty

-fireplace, collared those verses, and put them into her pocket. I

-rather admired her for it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, with pleasure,” she said, sweetening the rebuke with a blush,

-and stultifying it by affecting to look on the mantelpiece for a card,

-which eventually she produced from another place. “These are my

-terms.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you,” I replied. “What do you say to a contra account&mdash;you to

-do my work, and I to set my professional attendance against it? I am a

-doctor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She looked at me mute and amazed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But there is nothing the matter with me,” she murmured, and broke

-into a nervous smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I beg your pardon!” I said. “Then it was only your instrument

-which was out of sorts?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her face fell at once.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You heard me&mdash;of course,” she said. “Yes, I&mdash;it was out of sorts, as

-you say. One gets fancies, perhaps, living alone, and typing&mdash;typing.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I thought of the discordant clack going on hour by hour&mdash;the dead

-words of others made brassily vociferous, until one’s own

-individuality would become merged in the infernal harmonics.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And so,” I said, “like the dog’s master in the fable, you quarrelled

-with an old servant.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, no!” she answered. “I had only had it for a week&mdash;since I came

-here.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have only been here a week?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Little more,” she replied. “I had to move from my old rooms. It is

-very kind of you to take such an interest in me. Will you tell me what

-I can do for you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My instructions were soon given. The morrow would see them attended

-to. No, she need not send the copies on. I would myself call for them

-in the afternoon.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hope <i>this</i> machine will be more to the purpose,” I said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>I</i> hope so, too,” she answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, she seems a lady,” I thought, as I walked home; “a little

-anæmic flower of gentility.” But sentiment was not to the point.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That evening, “over the walnuts and the wine,” I tackled Master Jack,

-my second son. He was a promising youth; was reading for the Bar, and,

-for all I knew, might have contributed to the “Gownsman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jack,” I said, when we were alone, “I never knew till to-day that you

-considered yourself a poet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked at me coolly and inquiringly, but said nothing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you consider yourself a marrying man, too?” I asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He shook his head, with a little amazed smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then what the devil do you mean by addressing a copy of love verses

-to Miss Phillida Gray?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was on his feet in a moment, as pale as death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you were not my father”&mdash;he began.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But I am, my boy,” I answered, “and an indulgent one, I think you’ll

-grant.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He turned, and stalked out of the room; returned in a minute, and

-flung down a duplicate draft of <i>the</i> poem on the table before me. I

-put down the crackers, took up the paper, and finished my reading of

-it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jack,” I said, “I beg your pardon. It does credit to your heart&mdash;you

-understand the emphasis? You are a young gentleman of some prospects.

-Miss Gray is a young lady of none.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He hesitated a moment; then flung himself on his knees before me. He

-was only a great boy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dad,” he said; “dear old Dad; you’ve seen them&mdash;you’ve seen her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I admitted the facts. “But that is not at all an answer to me,” I

-said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where is she?” he entreated, pawing me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You don’t know?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not from Adam. I drove her hard, and she ran away from me. She said

-she would, if I insisted&mdash;not to kill those same prospects of mine. My

-prospects! Good God! What are they without her? She left her old

-rooms, and no address. How did you get to see her&mdash;and my stuff?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I could satisfy him on these points.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But it’s true,” he said; “and&mdash;and I’m in love, Dad&mdash;Dad, I’m in

-love.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leaned his arms on the table, and his head on his arms.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said, “how did <i>you</i> get to know her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Business,” he muttered, “pure business. I just answered her

-advertisement&mdash;took her some of my twaddle. She’s an orphan&mdash;daughter

-of a Captain Gray, navy man; and&mdash;and she’s an angel.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hope he is,” I answered. “But anyhow, that settles it. There’s no

-marrying and giving in marriage in heaven.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You don’t mean it? No! you dearest and most indulgent of old Dads!

-Tell me where she is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I rose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I may be all that; but I’m not such a fool. I shall see her

-to-morrow. Give me till after then.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, you perfect saint!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I promise absolutely nothing.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t want you to. I leave you to her. She could beguile a Saint

-Anthony.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hey!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I mean as a Christian woman should.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! that explains it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The following afternoon I went to West Kensington. The little drab was

-snuffling when she opened the door. She had a little hat on her head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Missus wasn’t well,” she said; “and she hadn’t liked to leave her,

-though by rights she was only engaged for an hour or two in the day.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said, “I’m a doctor, and will attend to her. You can go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She gladly shut me in and herself out. The clang of the door echoed up

-the narrow staircase, and was succeeded, as if it had started it, by

-the quick toing and froing of a footfall in the room above. There was

-something inexpressibly ghostly in the sound, in the reeling dusk

-which transmitted it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I perceived, the moment I set eyes on the girl, that there was

-something seriously wrong with her. Her face was white as wax, and

-quivered with an incessant horror of laughter. She tried to rally, to

-greet me, but broke down at the first attempt, and stood as mute as

-stone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I thank my God I can be a sympathetic without being a fanciful man. I

-went to her at once, and imprisoned her icy hands in the human

-strength of my own.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What is it? Have you the papers ready for me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She shook her head, and spoke only after a second effort.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am very sorry.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You haven’t done them, then? Never mind. But why not? Didn’t the new

-machine suit either?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I felt her hands twitch in mine. She made another movement of dissent.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s odd,” I said. “It looks as if it wasn’t the fault of the

-tools, but of the workwoman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All in a moment she was clinging to me convulsively, and crying&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are a doctor&mdash;you’ll understand&mdash;don’t leave me alone&mdash;don’t let

-me stop here!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now listen,” I said; “listen, and control yourself. Do you hear? I

-have come <i>prepared</i> to take you away. I’ll explain why presently.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I thought at first it was my fault,” she wept distressfully,

-“working, perhaps, until I grew light-headed” (Ah, hunger and

-loneliness and that grinding labour!); “but when I was sure of myself,

-still it went on, and I could not do my tasks to earn money. Then I

-thought&mdash;how can God let such things be!&mdash;that the instrument itself

-must be haunted. It took to going at night; and in the morning”&mdash;she

-gripped my hands&mdash;“I burnt them. I tried to think I had done it myself

-in my sleep, and I always burnt them. But it didn’t stop, and at last

-I made up my mind to take it back and ask for another&mdash;another&mdash;you

-remember?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She pressed closer to me, and looked fearfully over her shoulder.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It does the same,” she whispered, gulping. “It wasn’t the machine at

-all. It’s the place&mdash;itself&mdash;that’s haunted.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I confess a tremor ran through me. The room was dusking&mdash;hugging

-itself into secrecy over its own sordid details. Out near the window,

-the type-writer, like a watchful sentient thing, seemed grinning at us

-with all its ivory teeth. She had carried it there, that it might be

-as far from herself as possible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“First let me light the gas,” I said, gently but resolutely detaching

-her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is none,” she murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-None. It was beyond her means. This poor creature kept her deadly

-vigils with a couple of candles. I lit them&mdash;they served but to make

-the gloom more visible&mdash;and went to pull down the blind.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, take care of it!” she whispered fearfully, meaning the

-type-writer. “It is awful to shut out the daylight so soon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-God in heaven, what she must have suffered! But I admitted nothing,

-and took her determinedly in hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” I said, returning to her, “tell me plainly and distinctly what

-it is that the machine does.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She did not answer. I repeated my question.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It writes things,” she muttered&mdash;“things that don’t come from me. Day

-and night it’s the same. The words on the paper aren’t the words that

-come from my fingers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But that is impossible, you know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So <i>I</i> should have thought once. Perhaps&mdash;what is it to be possessed?

-There was another type-writer&mdash;another girl&mdash;lived in these rooms

-before me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed! And what became of her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She disappeared mysteriously&mdash;no one knows why or where. Maria, my

-little maid, told me about her. Her name was Lucy Rivers, and&mdash;she

-just disappeared. The landlord advertised her effects, to be claimed,

-or sold to pay the rent; and that was done, and she made no sign. It

-was about two months ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, will you now practically demonstrate to me this reprehensible

-eccentricity on the part of your instrument?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t ask me. I don’t dare.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I would do it myself; but of course you will understand that a more

-satisfactory conclusion would be come to by my watching your fingers.

-Make an effort&mdash;you needn’t even look at the result&mdash;and I will take

-you away immediately after.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are very good,” she answered pathetically; “but I don’t know that

-I ought to accept. Where to, please? And&mdash;and I don’t even know your

-name.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I have my own reasons for withholding it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is all so horrible,” she said; “and I am in your hands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They are waiting to transfer you to mamma’s,” said I.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The name seemed an instant inspiration and solace to her. She looked

-at me, without a word, full of wonder and gratitude; then asked me to

-bring the candles, and she would acquit herself of her task. She

-showed the best pluck over it, though her face was ashy, and her mouth

-a line, and her little nostrils pulsing the whole time she was at

-work.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had got her down to one of my circulars, and, watching her fingers

-intently, was as sure as observer could be that she had followed the

-text verbatim.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” I said, when she came to a pause, “give me a hint how to remove

-this paper, and go you to the other end of the room.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She flicked up a catch. “You have only to pull it off the roller,” she

-said; and rose and obeyed. The moment she was away I followed my

-instructions, and drew forth the printed sheet and looked at it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It may have occupied me longer than I intended. But I was folding it

-very deliberately, and putting it away in my pocket when I walked

-across to her with a smile. She gazed at me one intent moment, and

-dropped her eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; and I knew that she had satisfied herself. “Will you

-take me away now, at once, please?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The idea of escape, of liberty once realized, it would have been

-dangerous to balk her by a moment. I had acquainted mamma that I might

-possibly bring her a visitor. Well, it simply meant that the suggested

-visit must be indefinitely prolonged.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Gray accompanied me home, where certain surprises, in addition to

-the tenderest of ministrations, were awaiting her. All that becomes

-private history, and outside my story. I am not a man of sentiment;

-and if people choose to write poems and make general asses of

-themselves, why&mdash;God bless them!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The problem I had set <i>my</i>self to unravel was what looked deucedly

-like a tough psychologic poser. But I was resolute to face it, and had

-formed my plan. It was no unusual thing for me to be out all night.

-That night, after dining, I spent in the “converted” flat in West

-Kensington.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had brought with me&mdash;I confess to so much weakness&mdash;one of your

-portable electric lamps. The moment I was shut in and established, I

-pulled out the paper Miss Gray had typed for me, spread it under the

-glow and stared at it. Was it a copy of my circular? Would a sober

-“First Aid Society” Secretary be likely, do you think, to require

-circulars containing such expressions as “<i>William! William! Come back

-to me! O, William, in God’s name! William! William! William!</i>”&mdash;in

-monstrous iteration&mdash;the one cry, or the gist of it, for lines and

-lines in succession?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I am at the other end from humour in saying this. It is heaven’s

-truth. Line after line, half down the page, went that monotonous,

-heart-breaking appeal. It was so piercingly moving, my human terror of

-its unearthliness was all drowned, absorbed in an overflowing pity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I am not going to record the experiences of that night. That

-unchanging mood of mine upheld me through consciousnesses and

-sub-consciousnesses which shall be sacred. Sometimes, submerged in

-these, I seemed to hear the clack of the instrument in the window, but

-at a vast distance. I may have seen&mdash;I may have dreamt&mdash;I accepted it

-all. Awaking in the chill grey of morning, I felt no surprise at

-seeing some loose sheets of paper lying on the floor. “<i>William!

-William!</i>” their text ran down, “<i>Come back to me!</i>” It was all that

-same wail of a broken heart. I followed Miss Gray’s example. I took

-out my match-box, and reverently, reverently burned them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-An hour or two later I was at Paul’s Exchange, privately interviewing

-my manager.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did you ever employ a Miss Lucy Rivers?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly we did. Poor Lucy Rivers! She rented a machine of us. In

-fact&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He paused.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well&mdash;it is a mere matter of business&mdash;she ‘flitted,’ and we had to

-reclaim our instrument. As it happens, it was the very one purchased

-by the young lady who so interested you here two days ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The first machine, you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The first&mdash;<i>and</i> the second.” He smiled. “As a matter of fact, she

-took away again what she brought.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Miss Rivers’s?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There was absolutely nothing wrong with it&mdash;mere fad. Women start

-these fancies. The click of the thing gets on their nerves, I suppose.

-We must protect ourselves, you see; and I’ll warrant she finds it

-perfection now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Perhaps she does. What was Miss Rivers’s address?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He gave me, with a positive grin this time, the “converted” flat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But that was only latterly,” he said. “She had moved from&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He directed me elsewhere.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” said I, taking up my hat, “did you call her ‘poor Lucy

-Rivers’?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I don’t know!” he said. “She was rather an attractive young lady.

-But we had to discontinue our patronage. She developed the most

-extraordinary&mdash;but it’s no business of mine. She was one of the

-submerged tenth; and she’s gone under for good, I suppose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I made my way to the <i>other</i> address&mdash;a little lodging in a

-shabby-genteel street. A bitter-faced landlady, one of the

-“preordained” sort, greeted me with resignation when she thought I

-came for rooms, and with acerbity when she heard that my sole mission

-was to inquire about a Miss Lucy Rivers.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t deceive you, sir,” she said. “When it come to receiving

-gentlemen privately, I told her she must go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gentlemen!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t do Miss Rivers an injustice,” she said. “It was <i>ha</i>

-gentleman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Was that latterly?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was not latterly, sir. But it was the effects of its not being

-latterly which made her take to things.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What things?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, sir, she grew strange company, and took to the roof.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What on earth do you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Just precisely what I say, sir; through the trap-door by the steps,

-and up among the chimney-pots. <i>He’d</i> been there with her before, and

-perhaps she thought she’d find him hiding among the stacks. He called

-himself an astronomer; but it’s my belief it was another sort of

-star-gazing. I couldn’t stand it at last, and I had to give her

-notice.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was falling near a gloomy midday when I again entered the flat, and

-shut myself in with its ghosts and echoes. I had a set conviction, a

-set purpose in my mind. There was that which seemed to scuttle, like a

-little demon of laughter, in my wake, now urging me on, now slipping

-round and above to trip me as I mounted. I went steadily on and up,

-past the sitting-room door, to the floor above. And here, for the

-first time, a thrill in my blood seemed to shock and hold me for a

-moment. Before my eyes, rising to a skylight, now dark and choked with

-snow, went a flight of steps. Pulling myself together, I mounted

-these, and with a huge effort (<i>the bolt was not shot</i>) shouldered the

-trap open. There were a fall and rustle without; daylight entered;

-and, levering the door over, I emerged upon the roof.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Snow, grim and grimy and knee-deep, was over everything, muffling the

-contours of the chimneys, the parapets, the irregularities of the

-leads. The dull thunder of the streets came up to me; a fog of thaw

-was in the air; a thin drizzle was already falling. I drove my foot

-forward into a mound, and hitched it on something. In an instant I was

-down on my knees, scattering the sodden raff right and left, and&mdash;my

-God!&mdash;a face!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She lay there as she had been overwhelmed, and frozen, and preserved

-these two months. She had closed the trap behind her, and nobody had

-known. Pure as wax&mdash;pitiful as hunger&mdash;dead! Poor Lucy Rivers!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Who was she, and who the man? We could never learn. She had woven his

-name, his desertion, her own ruin and despair into the texture of her

-broken life. Only on the great day of retribution shall he answer to

-that agonized cry.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch13">

-THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Ho! bring me some <i>lovers</i>, fat or lean,</p>

-<p class="i0">That I may crunch ’em my teeth between!</p>

-<p class="i0">I could eat so many, so many, so many,</p>

-<p class="i0">That in the wide world there would not be left any.</p>

-

-<p class="i0 mt1">Ho! Here is Avenant to be seen,</p>

-<p class="i0">Who comes to draw your teeth so keen;</p>

-<p class="i0">He’s not the greatest man to view,</p>

-<p class="i0">But he’s big enough to conquer you.</p>

-

-<p class="i4">

-<span class="sc">Planché’s</span> “D’Aulnoy,” slightly misquoted.

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Sir Richard Avenant</span> came home from Abyssinia to an interesting

-notoriety. He had been associated&mdash;a sort of explorative

-free-lance&mdash;with the expedition of Mr. Bruce, who was not yet returned

-from his adventures up the Nile in quest of the sources of that

-bewildering water; and, upon his arrival in London, he found himself

-engaged to a romance which was certainly remote from his deserts.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now he was a strong, saturnine man, but apt to whimsical decisions,

-whose consequences, the fruits of whatever odd impulses, he never had

-a thought but to hold by; and as the self-reserved must suffer the

-character accorded to their appearance (the only side of them

-confessed), Sir Richard found himself accredited, by anticipation,

-with deeds adapted to the countenance he had always addressed to the

-world.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was strolling, some days after his return, through the streets,

-when he was accosted by an acquaintance, a <i>preux chevalier</i> of the

-highest <i>ton</i>, curled, be-ruffed, and imperturbably self-assured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, strike me silly, Dick!” cried this exquisite, “what do you,

-wandering unsociable in a shag coat, and all London by the ears to

-lionize ye?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I know not, George. What have I done to be lionized?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done! <i>Done?</i> asks the man that will not devour a steak but ’tis cut

-raw from the buttock of the living beast! <i>Done?</i> asks Bluebeard (and

-stap me, Dick, but your chin is as blue as a watchman’s!)&mdash;<i>done</i>, he

-says, that brings grass-petticoats in his train enough to furnish the

-Paradise of the Grand Turk! Prithee, Dick, where hast stowed ’em all?

-O, thou hast a great famous reputation, I assure thee, to justify

-thyself of with the women! Such is the report of thy peris&mdash;their

-teeth, their raven hair, their eyes like stars of the night&mdash;there’s

-no virtue in town could resist, if asked, to be thy queen and theirs.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was chuckling, and taking a delicate pinch of martinique, with his

-little finger cocked to display a glittering stone, when his eyes

-lighted on a house over against which they were standing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hist!” said he, pointing with his cane; “pan my honour, the single

-reservation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Single reservation?” repeated the explorer. “To what? To this London

-of frailties?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To be sure,” said the other. “The one party, I’ll dare swear, that

-would not put her nose in a ring for thy sake.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed!” said Avenant. “Then she’s the one I must wed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The elegant cocked his head, squinting derisive.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I lay you a double pony to a tester you don’t, within the decade.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done! Tell me about her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ll do more. I’ll carry you in to her, here and at once. Tell me

-about her, quotha! She’s the Fair with Golden Hair, and a guinea and a

-suitor to every thread of it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whence comes she?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“From Arcadia, man, with a fortune of gold and roses. She cuts out

-hearts raw, as you do steaks, and devours them by the dozen. O, you

-shall know her!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But by what name, George, by what name?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have I not told you? It shall suffice for all your needs. Thou shalt

-take a pack of Cabriolles, and never hunt her to the death. Come, my

-friend!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He led Sir Richard to the house, and had himself announced. They

-ascended a flight of stairs, going up into a heaven of floating

-fragrance and melodious sounds. Their feet moved noiseless over silken

-carpets. They crossed an anteroom ruffling with lackeys, and were

-ushered into the Fair’s boudoir.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She sat at her mirror, in the hands of her perruquier. She was the

-most beautiful insolent creature Sir Richard had ever seen. There was

-not an inch of her which Nature could have altered to its improvement.

-The very patch on her cheek was a theft from perfection. But to so

-much loveliness her hair was the glory, a nimbus which, condensing in

-the heavy atmosphere of adoration, dropped in a melting flood of gold,

-which, short of the ground only, shrank and curled back from its gross

-contact.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All round and about her hummed her court&mdash;poets, lords,

-minstrels&mdash;suitors straining their wits and their talents for her

-delectation, while they bled internally. Many of them greeted Sir

-Richard’s chaperon, many Sir Richard himself&mdash;good-humouredly,

-jealously, satirically, as the case might be&mdash;as the two pushed by. A

-stir went round, however, when the rough new-comer’s name was put

-about; and some rose in their seats, and all dwelt inquisitively on

-the explorer’s reception.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was condescending enough; as was that of his friend, who loved

-himself too well, and too wittily, to show a heart worth the beauty’s

-discussing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have you got back your appetite, sir,” said the Fair to Avenant, “for

-dressed meats?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And ladies?” whispered Sir Richard’s friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, fie!” said madam.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will return the question on you,” said Sir Richard, in a low voice.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Fair lifted her brows.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, I am told, madam,” said Avenant, “that you feed on raw hearts;

-but I am willing to believe that the one lie is as certain as the

-other.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The imperious beauty bit her underlip, and laughed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I perceive, Sir Richard,” she said, “that you do not court by

-flattery.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I do not court at all, madam,” he answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, true!” she replied. “You buy in the open market. It must be

-simpler; though, in the plain lodging where I hear you lie at present,

-the disposal of so responsible an establishment must exercise your

-diplomacy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She spoke aloud, evoking a general titter; and so aloud Avenant

-answered her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By no means, madam. I have in my sleeping-room a closet with three

-shelves. On one of these lies Beauty, unspoiled by adulation; on

-another lies Virtue, that respects her sex too well to traduce it; on

-the third lies feminine Truth, loveliest of her sisters. These are my

-whole establishment; and as they are shadows all, existing only in the

-imagination, they exercise nothing but my fondness for unattainable

-ideals.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The company broke into much laughter over this Jeremiad; and the girl

-joined her young voice to theirs. But a little glow of colour was

-showing in her cheek, verily as if Sir Richard had flicked that fair

-surface with his glove.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” she said, “this is a sad regale! Sure, sir, does the climate of

-Abyssinia breed no hotter than Leicestershire Quakers? Why, I have

-heard a lion roar fiercer in a caravan. Now, pray, Sir Richard, put

-off your civilities, and give us news instead of lessons. They say

-there is a form of lawless possession in the women of the country you

-visited.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is very true there is, madam. It is called the <i>Tigrétier</i>&mdash;a

-seizure of uncontrollable vanity, during which the victim is so

-self-centred that she is unable to attend to the interests, or even to

-distinguish the sexes of those about her. She will, for instance,

-surround herself with a circle of male admirers, assuming all the

-time, apparently, that they are the gossips of her own sex, with whom,

-like a decent woman, she would wont ordinarily, of course, to consort

-in private.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Fair cried out, “Enough! Your stories are the most intolerable

-stuff, sir. I wish Mr. Bruce joy of your return, as I hear you are not

-to remain in England.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then she turned her shoulder to him, her flush deepening to fire; and

-Sir Richard, bowing and moving away, fell into conversation with one

-or two of his acquaintances. Presently, looking up, he was surprised

-to see the room near empty. Goldenlocks had, in fact, issued her

-wilful mandate, and her court was dismissing itself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The explorer was pressing out after the rest, when a maidservant

-touched his sleeve, and begged him to return to her lady, who desired

-a word with him. Sir Richard acquiesced immediately. He found the Fair

-standing solitary by her dressing-table, frowning, her head bent, her

-fingers plucking at a wisp of lace. Her hair, still undressed, hung

-down deep over her shoulders, mantling them with heavy gold, like a

-priest’s chasuble.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did you seek my acquaintance, sir,” she said imperatively, “with the

-sole purpose to insult me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay, madam,” he answered, as cool as tempered steel; “but because you

-was described to me as the one woman in London that I might not marry,

-if I had the will to.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not?” was on the tip of her tongue; he saw it there. But she

-caught at herself, and answered, “So, sir, like sour reynard, I

-suppose, you would spite what you found it useless to covet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>I</i> covet, madam!” he said, in a tone of astonishment. “<i>I</i> aspire to

-wrest this wealth and beauty from a hundred worthier candidates!

-Believe me, my ambition halted far short of such attainment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her lips smiled, despite herself. What were the value, she suddenly

-thought, in a world of suitors that did not include this shagg’d and

-rugged Jeremiah? Her speech fell as caressing as the sound of water in

-a wood.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yet you confess to some ambition?” she murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“True,” he answered; “the virtuoso’s.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She lifted her beautiful brows.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will be candid, madam,” he said. “I have the collector’s itch.

-Whithersoever I visit, I lay my toll on the most characteristic

-productions of the tribes&mdash;robes, carvings, implements of war&mdash;even

-scalps. Madam, madam, you must surely be of the sun children! Your

-hair is the most lovely thing! I would give my soul&mdash;more, I would

-give a thousand pounds to possess it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I see, sir,” she said; “to carry your conquest at your belt.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay,” he answered, with feigned eagerness. “Not a soul need know. The

-thing is done constantly. You have but to subscribe to the fashion of

-powder, and you gain a novel beauty, and I a secret I swear to hold

-inviolate.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” she said softly “This is Samson come with the shears to turn the

-tables on poor Delilah!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And on the instant she flashed out, breaking upon him in a storm of

-passion. That he dared, that he dared, on no warrant but his

-reputation for inhumanity, so to outrage and insult her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Go, sir!” she cried. “Return to your Nubians and Dacoits&mdash;to

-countries where head-hunting is considered an honourable proof of

-manliness!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stood, as outwardly insensate as a bull.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then you decline to deal?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her only answer was to throw herself into a chair, and to abandon

-herself to incomprehensible weeping. But even her sobs seemed to make

-no soft impression on him. He took a step nearer to her, and spoke in

-the same civil and measured tone he had maintained throughout.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take care, madam. I never yet set my will upon a capture that in the

-long run escaped me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She checked her tears, to look up at him with a little furious laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Poor boaster!” she said. “I think, perhaps, that recounting of your

-Tigrétier hath infected you with it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By my beard, madam,” said he, “I will make that hair my own!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“See,” she cried jeeringly, “how a boaster swears by what he has not!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard felt to his chin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is soon remedied,” said he. “And so, till my oath is redeemed,

-to consign my razors to rust!” And with these words, bowing

-profoundly, he turned and left the room.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Shortly after this he sailed to rejoin his expedition, and was not

-again in England during a period of eighteen months.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the end of that time, being once more in London, he devoted

-himself&mdash;his affairs having now been ordered with the view to his

-permanent residence in the country&mdash;to some guarded inquiries about

-the Fair with Golden Hair. For some days, the season of the town being

-inauspicious, he was unable to discover anything definite about her.

-And then, suddenly, the news which he sought and desired came in a

-clap.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was walking, one day, down a street of poor and genteel houses,

-when he saw her before him. He stood transfixed. There was no doubting

-his own eyesight. It was she: tall, slender, crowned with her

-accustomed glory, the flower of her beauty a little wan, as if seen by

-moonlight. But what confounded him was her condition. Her dress was

-mean, her gloves mended; every tag of cheap ribbon which hung upon her

-seemed the label to a separate tragedy. Thus he saw her again, the

-Fair with Golden Hair; but how deposed and fallen from her insolent

-estate!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She mounted a step to a shabby door. While she stood there, waiting to

-be admitted, an old jaunty cavalier came ruffling it down the street,

-accosted her, and accompanied her within. She might have glanced at

-Avenant without recognizing him. The rough dark beard he wore was his

-sufficient disguise.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard made up his mind on the spot, and acted promptly. Having

-no intention to procure himself a notoriety in this business, he

-rigidly eschewed personal inquiry, and employed an official informer,

-at a safe figure, to ferret out the truth for him. This, epitomized,

-discovered itself as follows:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cytherea&mdash;Venus Calva&mdash;Madonna of the magic girdle, who had once

-reigned supreme between wealth and loveliness, who had once eaten

-hearts raw for breakfast, feeding her roses as vampires do, was

-desolate and impoverished&mdash;and even, perhaps, hungry. A scoundrelly

-guardian had eloped with trust funds: the crash had followed at a

-blow. Robbed of her recommendation to respect; deposed, at once, from

-the world’s idolatry to its vicious solicitation, she had fled, with

-her hair and her poor derided virtue, into squalid oblivion; that, at

-least, she hoped. But, alas for the fateful recoils on Vanity! She

-drives with a tight rein; and woe to her if the rein snap! A certain

-libidinous and crafty nobleman, of threescore or so years, had

-secured, in the days of the Fair’s prosperity, some little bills of

-paper bearing that beauty’s signature. These he had politicly withheld

-himself from negotiating, on the mere chance that they might serve him

-some day for a means to humiliate one who, in the arrogance of her

-power, had scoffed at his amatory, and perfectly honourable,

-addresses. That precaution had justified itself. The peer was now come

-to woo again, and less scrupulously, with his hand on a paper weapon,

-one stroke from which alone was needed to give the Fair’s poor

-drabbled fortune its quietus. She was at bay, between ruin and

-dishonour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard came immediately to a resolve, and lost no time in giving

-it effect. He wrote a formal note to the Fair, recalling himself

-courteously to her remembrance, reminding her of his original offer,

-and renewing it in so many words. He would do himself the honour, he

-said, to wait upon her for her answer on such and such a day.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-To this he received no reply; nor, perhaps, expected one. He went,

-nevertheless, to his self-made appointment with the imperturbable

-confidence of a strong man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Passing, on his way, by a perruquier’s, he checked himself, and stood

-for some moments at gaze in a motionless reverie. Then he entered the

-shop, made a purchase, and, going to a barber’s, caused himself to be

-shorn, shaved, and restored to the conventional aspect. Thus

-conditioned, he knocked at the Fair’s door, and was ushered up&mdash;bawled

-up, rather, by a slattern landlady&mdash;into her presence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She rose to face him as he entered. She had his letter in her hand.

-Her beautiful hair, jealous, it seemed, to withdraw itself from the

-curioso’s very appraisement, was gathered into and concealed under a

-cap. Her features, thus robbed of their dazzling frame, looked

-curiously, sadly childish and forlorn. There were dark marks round her

-eyes&mdash;the scarce dissipated clouds of recent tears. Who can tell what

-emotions, at sight of this piteous, hard-driven loveliness, stirred

-the heart of the man opposite, and were repressed by his iron will?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This letter, sir,” said the Fair, holding out the paper in a hand

-which shook a little. “I have tacitly permitted you to presume a right

-to a personal answer to that which it proposes, because such a course

-appeared to me the least compromising. I cannot write my name, sir,

-nowdays&mdash;as scandal doubtless hath informed you&mdash;but Fortune will be

-using it to my discredit.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard bowed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is this difference only, madam: <i>my</i> word is the bond of a

-gentleman. I vowed you secrecy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is to assume, on your part,” she said quietly, “a

-confidentialness which, in its insult to misfortune, is at least not

-the <i>act</i> of a gentleman. Moreover, a gentleman, surely, had not taken

-advantage of circumstances to propose to destitution what affluence

-had once refused him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Beware, madam!” said Avenant. “Pride must make some sacrifices to

-virtue. If, in renewing a pure business offer, I, a simple instrument

-in the hands of Providence, give you an opportunity to maintain that

-priceless possession unimpaired, would it not be the truer

-self-respect to secure your honour at whatever cost to your

-sentiments?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have not forgotten, nor forgotten to

-resent, my self-constituted Mentor. I will assure him that, for the

-matter of my virtue, it is safe in my hands, though I have to arm

-those against myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good heavens, madam!” cried Avenant. “You are not at that resource?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give yourself no concern, sir,” she answered coldly. “The moral I

-learned of your insult, was to save myself in its despite.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His deep eyes glowed upon her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have sold your hair?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she answered; “to pay my debts. ’Twas your letter decided me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At a thousand pounds?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At a hundred.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then she added, as if irresistibly, because she was still little more

-than a child, “And now, sir, how is the boaster vindicated? But your

-oath, I perceive, still goes beardless.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Within the hour only,” said he; and, thrusting his hand into his

-breast, he drew out the long tresses of the Fair With Golden Hair.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She stared, amazed a moment; then threw herself upon her knees by a

-chair, weeping and crying out&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I hate you, I hate you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He strode, and stood over her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I saw them through a window as I came. How could I mistake them?

-There is not their like in the world. But now, my oath redeemed, it is

-for you to say if I am to destroy them.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, my hair!” she wept; “my one beauty!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have staked all on this,” he cried. “If your hair was your one

-beauty, my beard alone redeemed me from appalling ugliness by so much

-as it hid of me. Well, I have lost on both counts, if the net result

-is your hatred.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She looked up, with drowned bewildered eyes, and held out her hand

-blindly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give me back my hair,” she said, “and you shall have the hundred

-pounds.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay, sweet Delilah,” quoth he; “for that would be to return you your

-strength, and I want you weak.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her arm dropped to her side.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That you may insult me with impunity!” she said bitterly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, Delilah!” he cried; “is it so bad, that the offer of my hand and

-heart is an insult to a woman?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She sank back, sitting on her heels. From under her cap, fallen awry,

-curled shavings of gold hung out&mdash;the residue of a squandered wealth.

-Her eyes were wide with amazement.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So bad?” she whispered. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was not a conformable wooer. The love-wise sex shall say if he was

-a diplomatic one. He threw himself on his knees beside the Fair,

-seized her in his bear-like grip, and kissed her lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” he said, “it is neck or nothing. None but a parson can wipe out

-the stain. Hate me now, and put Love to bed for by and by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She smiled suddenly&mdash;like the rainbow; like an angel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said, “if you insist. But the poor thing has slept so long

-in my heart, that it would fain wake up at last, and confess itself.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-The peer took his settlement with a very bad grace; but he had to take

-it, and there was an end of him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Avenant,” whispered the Fair, on the evening of their wedding day, “I

-have been vain, spoiled, perhaps untruthful. But I wished to tell

-you&mdash;you can put me to sleep on the middle shelf of your cupboard.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It has been converted into a closet for skeletons,” he said. “I was a

-bachelor then.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch14">

-THE LOST NOTES

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> faculty of music is generally, I believe, inimical to the

-development of all the other faculties. Sufficient to itself is the

-composing gift. There was scarcely ever yet a born musician, I do

-declare, who, outside his birthright, was not a born ass. I say it

-with the less irreverence, because my uncle was patently one of the

-rare exceptions which prove the rule. He knew his Shakespeare as well

-as his musical-glasses&mdash;better than, in fact; for he was a staunch

-Baconian. This was all the odder because&mdash;as was both early and late

-impressed upon me&mdash;he had a strong sense of humour. Perhaps an eternal

-study of the hieroglyphics of the leger lines was responsible for his

-craze; for craze I still insist it was, in spite of the way he took to

-convince me of the value of cryptograms. I was an obstinate pupil, I

-confess, and withstood to the end the fire of all the big guns which

-he&mdash;together with my friend, Chaunt, who was in the same line&mdash;brought

-to bear upon me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Well, I was honest, at least; for I was my uncle’s sole provisional

-legatee, and heir presumptive to whatever small fortune he had amassed

-during his career. And day by day, as the breach between us widened, I

-saw my prospect of the succession attenuating, and would not budge

-from my position. No, Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I said, and Bacon,

-Bacon; and not all the cyphers in the world should convince me that

-any profit was to be gained by either imagining or unravelling a

-single one of them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What, no profit!” roared my uncle. “But I will persuade you, young

-man, of your mistake before I’m done with you. Hum-ti-diddledidee! No

-profit, hey? H’m&mdash;well!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then I saw that the end was come. And, indeed, it was an open quarrel

-between us, and I was forbidden to call upon him again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was sorry for this, because, in his more frolicsome and

-uncontroversial moments, he was a genial companion, unless or until

-one inadvertently touched on <i>the</i> theme, when at once he exploded.

-Professionally, he <i>could</i> be quite a rollicking blade, and his

-settings of plantation songs were owned to be nothing less than lyric

-inspirations. Pantomime, too, in the light of his incidental music,

-had acquired something more than a classical complexion; and, in the

-domain of knockabout extravaganza, not only did the score of “The Girl

-who Knew a Thing or Two” owe to him its most refined numbers, but also

-the libretto, it was whispered, its best Attic <i>bonnes-bouches</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-However, all that good company I must now forgo&mdash;though Chaunt tried

-vainly to heal the breach between us&mdash;and in the end the old man died,

-without any visible relenting towards me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I felt his loss pretty keenly, though it is no callousness in me to

-admit that our long separation had somewhat dulled the edge of my

-attachment. I expected, of course, no testamentary consideration from

-him, and was only more surprised than uplifted to receive one morning

-a request from his lawyers to visit them at my convenience. So I went,

-soberly enough, and introduced myself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” said the partner to whom I was admitted, in answer to a question

-of mine: “I am not in a position to inform you who is the principal

-beneficiary under our friend’s will. I can only tell you&mdash;what a few

-days before his death he confided to us, and what, I think, under the

-circumstances, you are entitled to learn&mdash;that he had quite recently,

-feeling his end approaching, realized on the bulk of his capital,

-converted the net result into a certain number&mdash;five, I think he

-mentioned&mdash;of Bank of England notes, and… burned ’em, for all we know

-to the contrary.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Burned them!” I murmured aghast.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t say so,” corrected the lawyer drily. “I only say, you know,

-that we are not instructed to the contrary. Your uncle” (he coughed

-slightly) “had his eccentricities. Perhaps he swallowed ’em; perhaps

-gave ’em away at the gate. Our dealings are, beyond yourself, solely

-with the residuary legatee, who is, or was, his housekeeper. For her

-benefit, moreover, the furniture and effects of our late client are to

-be sold, always excepting a few more personal articles, which,

-together with a sealed enclosure, we are desired to hand over to you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He signified, indeed, my bequest as he spoke. It lay on a table behind

-him: A bound volume of minutes of the Baconian Society; a volume of

-Ignatius Donnelly’s Great Cryptogram; a Chippendale tea-caddy (which,

-I was softened to think, the old man had often known me to admire); a

-large piece of foolscap paper twisted into a cone, and a penny with

-which to furnish myself with a mourning ring out of a cracker.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I blushed to my ears, regarding the show; and then, to convince this

-person of my good-humoured sanity, giggled like an idiot. He did not

-even smile in reply, the self-important ass, but, with a manner of

-starchy condescension, as to a wastrel who was getting all his

-deserts, rose from his chair, unlocked a safe, took an ordinary sealed

-envelope from it, handed it to me, and informed me that, upon giving

-him a receipt, I was at liberty to remove the lot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thanks,” I said, grinding my astral teeth. “Am I to open this in your

-presence?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Quite inessential,” he answered; and, upon ascertaining that I should

-like a cab called, sent for one.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good morning,” he said, when at last it was announced (he had not

-spoken a word in the interval): “I wish you good morning,” in the

-morally patronizing tone of a governor discharging a prisoner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I responded coldly; tried, for no reason at all, to look threatening;

-failed utterly, and went out giggling again. Quite savagely I threw my

-goods upon the seat, snapped out my address, closed the apron upon my

-abasement, and sat slunk into the cavity behind, like a salted and

-malignant snail.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Presently I thumped the books malevolently. The dear old man was

-grotesque beyond reason. Really he needn’t have left life cutting a

-somersault, as it were.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, as I cooled outwardly, a warmer thought would intrude. It drew,

-somehow, from the heart of that little enclosure lying at the moment

-in my pocket. It was ridiculous, of course, to expect anything of it

-but some further development of a rather unkind jest. My uncle’s

-professional connexion with burlesque had rather warped, it would

-appear, his sense of humour. Still, I could not but recall that story

-of the conversion of his capital into notes: and an envelope&mdash;&mdash;!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Bah! (I wriggled savagely). It was idiotic beyond measure so to

-flatter myself. Our recent relations had precluded for ever any such

-possibility. The holocaust, rather! The gift to a chance passer-by, as

-suggested by that fool of a lawyer! I stared out of the window,

-humming viciously, and telling myself it was only what I ought to

-expect; that such a vagary was distinctly in accordance with the

-traditions of low comedy. It will be observed that I was very

-contemptuous of buffoonery as a profession. Paradoxically, a joke is

-never played so low as when it is played on our lofty selves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nevertheless, I was justified, it appeared. It may be asked, Why did I

-not at once settle the matter by opening the envelope in the cab?

-Well, I just temporized with my gluttony, till, like the greedy boy, I

-could examine my box in private&mdash;only to find that the rats had

-devoured all my cake. It was not till I was shut into my sitting-room

-that I dared at length to break the seal, and to withdraw&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even as it came out, with no suggestion of a reassuring crackle, I

-realized my fate. And this was it: please to examine it carefully&mdash;

-</p>

-

-

-<figure>

- <img src="images/img_197.jpg" alt="Musical notes">

-</figure>

-

-<p>

-Now, what do you make of it? “<i>Ex nihilo nihil fit</i>,” I think you will

-say with me. It was literally thus, carefully penned in the middle of

-a single sheet of music-paper&mdash;a phrase, or <i>motif</i>, I suppose it

-would be called&mdash;an undeveloped memorandum, in fact&mdash;nothing else

-whatever. I let the thing drop from my hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-No doubt there was some capping jest here, some sneer, some vindictive

-sarcasm. I was not musician enough to tell, even had I had spirit for

-the endeavour. It was unworthy, at least, of the old man&mdash;much more,

-or less, than I deserved. I had been his favourite once. Strange how

-the <i>idée fixe</i> could corrode an otherwise tractable reason. In

-justice to myself I must insist that quite half my disappointment was

-in the realization that such dislike, due to such a trifle, could have

-come to usurp the old affection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By and by I rose dismally, and carried the jest to the piano. (Half a

-crown a day my landlady exacted from me, if I so much as thumped on

-the old wreck with one finger, which was the extent of my talent.)

-Well, I was reckless, and the theme appeared ridiculously simple. But

-I could make nothing of it&mdash;not though Mrs. Dexter came up in the

-midst, and congratulated me on my performance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-When she was gone I took the thing to my chair again, and resumed its

-study despondently. And presently Chaunt came in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo!” he said: “how’s the blooming legatee?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pretty blooming, thanks,” I said. “Would you like to speculate in my

-reversion? Half a crown down to Mrs. Dexter, and the use of the tin

-kettle for the day.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done,” he said, “so far as the piano’s concerned. Let’s see what

-you’ve got there.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had known of my prospective visit to the lawyers, and had dropped

-in to congratulate me on <i>that</i> performance. I acquainted him with the

-result; showed him the books, and the tea-caddy, and the penny, and

-the remnants of foolscap&mdash;finally, handed him the crowning jest for

-inspection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pretty thin joke, isn’t it?” I growled dolefully. “Curse the money,

-anyhow! But I didn’t think it of the old man. I suppose you can make

-no more of that than I can?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was squinting at the paper as he held it up, and rubbing his jaw,

-stuck out at an angle, grittily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“H’m!” he said, quite suddenly, “I’d go out for a walk and revive

-myself, if I were you. I intend to hold you to that piano, for my

-part; and you wouldn’t be edified.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” I said: “I’ve had enough of music for a lifetime or so! I fancy

-I’ll go, if you won’t think me rude.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On the contrary,” he murmured, in an absorbed way; and I left him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took a longish spin, and returned, on the whole refreshed, in a

-couple of hours. He was still there; but he had finished, it appeared,

-with the piano.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he said, rising and yawning, “you’ve been a deuce of a time

-gone; but here you are”&mdash;and he held out to me indifferently a little

-crackling bundle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Without a word I took it from his hand&mdash;parted, stretched, and

-explored it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good God!” I gasped: “five notes of a thousand apiece!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was rolling a cigarette.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” he drawled, “that’s the figure, I believe.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For you&mdash;from your uncle.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But&mdash;how?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He lighted, took a serene puff or two, drew the <i>jest</i> from his

-pocket, and, throwing it on a chair, “You’ll have to allow some value

-to cryptograms at last,” he said, and sat down to enjoy himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Chaunt!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he said, “it was a bagatelle. An ass might have brayed it out at

-sight.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Please, I am something less than an ass. Please will you interpret

-for me?” I said humbly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He neighed out&mdash;I beg <i>his</i> pardon&mdash;a great laugh at last.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he cried: “your uncle was true blue; he stuck to his guns; but I

-never really supposed he meant to disinherit you, Johnny. You always

-had the first place in his heart, for all your obstinacy. He took his

-own way to convince you, that was all. Pretty poor stuff it is, I’m

-bound to confess; but enough to run <i>your</i> capacities to extinction.

-Here, hand it over.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t be hard on me,” I protested, giving him the paper. “If I’m all

-that you say, it was as good as cutting me off with a penny.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he answered: “because he knew very well that you’d apply to me

-to help you out of the difficulty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, help me,” I said, “and, in the matter of Bacon, I’ll promise to

-be a fool convinced against my will.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No doubt,” he answered drily, and came and sat beside me. “Look

-here,” he said; and I looked:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<figure>

- <img src="images/img_200.jpg" alt="Musical notes">

-</figure>

-

-<p>

-“You know your notes, anyhow,” said he. “Well, you’ve only got to read

-off these into their alphabetical equivalents, and cut the result into

-perfectly obvious lengths. It’s child’s play so far; and, indeed, in

-everything, unless this rum-looking metronome beat, or whatever it may

-be, bothers you for a moment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He put his finger on the crazy device perched up independently in the

-left-hand corner; and then came down to the lines again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Let that be for the moment,” said he. “It don’t much signify, after

-all. How do these notes go? that’s the main question. Read ’em off.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I spelt them out, following his finger: “b a c e f d e c a d e c.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s a good boy,” he said. “And now, what are these things beyond,

-that have run off the lines, so to speak?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What are they? Why, I don’t see what they can be but notes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly. Five notes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared at the bundle in my hand, and then up at Chaunt.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O-o-o-o!” I exclaimed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He uttered a loud ironic laugh. “Well,” he said: “what does ‘b a c e f

-d e c a d e c’ spell?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I scratched my nose. “You tell me, please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O Jerusalem!” he cried, and took his pencil to the line, thus: b a c

-| e f | d e | c a d e | c&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?” he said again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I shook my head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He positively stamped. “Listen here,” he cried: “&hairsp;‘bac ef de cad-e

-c’&mdash;<i>don’t</i> you see?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, you ineffable ass! ‘Back of the caddy’ (that’s to say the

-tea-caddy; there it is), ‘see’&mdash;see what? What follows? Why, five

-notes, don’t they? ‘Back of the caddy see five notes’&mdash;and there

-<i>they</i> are.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I sank in a heap in my chair. Light had dawned on me. “And you found

-’em there, I suppose?” I murmured&mdash;“behind a false back or something?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded. “You’re getting on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And, please, what’s the thing at the top?” I continued faintly. “Let

-me get it all over at once.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he said: “there’s a trifle more ingenuity in that, perhaps. What

-is it, to begin with? A demisemiquaver balanced on the top of an M Y,

-eh?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So it appears to me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To any one. Don’t be frightened. Try it every way round, and conclude

-with this: ‘On the top of M Y’&mdash;that is to say, ‘<i>on</i> M Y,’ which is

-<i>my</i>, ‘a demisemiquaver’: or, shorn of all superfluities (he pencilled

-it down), thus: ‘on my demisemiquaver.’ Now apply the same process.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I looked; pondered; felt myself instantly and brilliantly inspired;

-seized the pencil from him, and ticked off the measurements:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On my demise | mi | q | u | av | er.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” said Chaunt, rising with the air of an at-length-released

-martyr, and proceeding to roll another cigarette: “&hairsp;‘On my demise, my

-cue you have here.’ ’Pon my word, without irreverence, it’s worthier

-of the composer of ‘Say, den, Julius, whar yo’ walkin’ roun’?’ than of

-the author of ‘Some Unnoticed Sides of Bacon.’ But all one can say is

-that he adapted himself to the intellectual measure of his legatee.

-Have you got a match?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I must end, I am really ashamed to say, with this. Anyhow, in one way

-my uncle was triumphant: I was convinced, at last and at least, of <i>a</i>

-value in cryptograms.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch15">

-THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE<br>

-WORLD

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">He</span> was nicknamed, ironically, Carabas&mdash;a sort of French equivalent

-for Fortunatus&mdash;the only title by which I ever knew him. Perhaps the

-underlying sympathy which impelled the jest reconciled him to its

-mockery; for there is, after all, an acute distinction in being the

-unluckiest man in the world. Somebody says somewhere that it is better

-to “lead” in hell than be a super in heaven. There came a time, I

-think, when Carabas would have resented good fortune as an outrage. It

-would have broken his record, and made him commonplace at a blow. As

-with Hawthorne’s young woman who was bred and throve on poisons, a

-normal dietary would have been fatal to him. Carabas was nurtured on

-ill-luck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I made his acquaintance at Verey’s in Montreux. It was for ever

-Carabas here and Carabas there, and, sometimes, in badinage, M. le

-Marquis; for the fellow was always in huge request for his capability

-and good-humour. There was a great deal of commiseration being shown

-for him when I first arrived. Latterly he had drawn a prize

-ticket&mdash;for thirty thousand francs, I think it was&mdash;in some State

-lottery. But, alas! a few days before the declaration of the winning

-numbers, he had parted with his voucher for a trifle over cost price.

-We got up a consolation subscription for him in the hotel&mdash;relatively,

-quite a respectable little sum&mdash;which, with effusive thanks, he

-deposited in the Bureau de Secours Mutuels. The bank stopped payment

-almost at once, and Carabas lost his nest-egg, with a prospect of

-future “calls” from the parent cuckoo.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-After that, we abandoned him to his Nemesis. We had recognized

-finally, I suppose, that vails to him meant nothing but tips to his

-evil destiny, to whom, as to a rapacious head-waiter, they all

-accrued. And so he himself was convinced with us. He showed himself

-neither surprised nor aggrieved; but remained the sunniest fatalist,

-with just a touch of wistfulness, which Nature had ever produced out

-of a union between Candour and Philosophy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I don’t know what his official position was. I don’t think he knew

-himself. He wore a plain peaked cap, and a sleeved waistcoat with

-brass buttons, and was, loosely, jackal to the tremendous concierge

-whose bullion took the costly glass tabernacle in the hall with

-splendour. Carabas himself was not at all a figure of splendour. He

-was small, and placable in expression, with smiling cheeks, mobile

-lips, pencilled over by a tiny black moustache, and strength visible

-in nothing but his eyes. They were his vouchers of distinction above

-the common brand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One thing certain about him was that he was an accomplished linguist;

-a second, that, for all his unspoiledness, he had a large experience

-of man, and (notably) womankind; a third, that his courage was equal

-to his good temper; a fourth, that, with every natural claim to

-consideration, his pride halted at no service, whether of skill or

-complaisance, which an unscrupulous management could exact of him; a

-fifth and last, that he permitted his employers so to presume upon his

-reputation for successlessness, as to accept from them, in reward for

-his many accomplishments, wages which would have been cheap to

-inefficiency. His own material welfare, indeed, seemed always the

-thing remotest from his interests. To be helpful to others was the sum

-of his morality.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I never could satisfy myself as to his nationality. Once&mdash;as one might

-ask him anything without offence&mdash;I put the question to him. To my

-secret surprise, he seemed to hesitate a perceptible moment before he

-answered, with a smiling shrug of his shoulders&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Cosmopolitan, monsieur; a foundling of Fortune.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We should do very well, then,” I answered, “to claim you for

-England.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Was it fancy on my part that his pleasant face paled a little? “As to

-that,” he said, “I know nothing.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have never been in England?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He made no reply, but began bustling over some incoming luggage,

-calling to the porters at the lift; and in a moment he left me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The next day he was taken ill. The reversion of a service of raw

-oysters, supplied to the guests at table d’hôte, had found its way to

-the supper-table of the staff. Carabas detested oysters, but his

-gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial, and Ninette, the prettiest

-of <i>filles de cuisine</i>, sat next to him. She extracted a single

-“bivalve” from her half-dozen, and put it on his plate, moueing at him

-ravishingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Love conquers everything, M. Carabas,” she said; “even the

-antipathies of the stomach. I will not believe in your protestations

-unless you eat this for my sake.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He swallowed it at a gulp, and&mdash;it was a bad oyster, the only doubtful

-one in the whole consignment. Later, he was very sick; and afterwards

-ill for four days. Ninette cried, and then laughed, and congratulated

-herself on her escape. But as for the hotel, it was disconsolate in

-the temporary loss of its Carabas.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For my part, I was even particularly conscious of a vague discomfort

-in his absence. Somehow a certain personal responsibility which I had

-undertaken seemed to weigh upon me the more heavily for it. It was not

-that Carabas could have lightened, by any conceivable means, my

-burden. It was just a sense of moral support withdrawn at a critical

-moment. It was as if the knees of my conscience were weak, owing to

-something having gone wrong with my backbone. But I will explain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, a very famous lawyer in our own country, had brought his

-family, a son and daughter, to holiday in Lucerne. The boy was a

-conceited and susceptible youth; to the lady I was&mdash;engaged.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There seems no reason why impressionability should spell obstinacy;

-yet very often it does. Young Miller (so I will call him) having

-invited himself, at the Schweitzerhof, into the toils of a siren&mdash;a

-patently showy and dubious one&mdash;resisted all the efforts of his family

-to help him out. Baffled, but resolute, the father thereupon shifted

-the scene to Montreux, where they were no sooner arrived than he was

-summoned home on business at a moment’s notice. In the meanwhile, to

-me (hastily called from Paris, where it had been arranged I was to

-join the party on its homeward journey), was assigned the unenviable

-and impossible task of safeguarding the family interests. Miller had

-positively refused to accompany his father home, then or thereafter,

-until his absurd “honour,” as he called his fatuity, was vindicated.

-It would never do to abandon the wretched infant in the wilderness. He

-had his independence, and was a desirable <i>parti</i>. Hence my promotion

-to an utterly fictitious authority.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I knew, naturally, how it would be; and so it turned out. The head was

-no sooner withdrawn, than Mademoiselle Celestine&mdash;privately advised,

-of course, of the fact&mdash;arrived at Verey’s. Here, then, was defiance

-unequivocal&mdash;naked and unashamed, I might have said, and been nearer

-the truth of the case. For mademoiselle’s charms were opulent, and she

-made no secret of them. One would have thought a schoolboy might have

-seen through that rouge and enamel, through the crude pencilling on

-those eyelashes, through all that self-advertising display. I will not

-dwell upon its details, because their possessor made, after all, only

-a summer nightmare for us, and was early discomfited. She served, at

-best, for foil to a brighter soul; and such is her present use in the

-context.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-From the outset there was no finesse, no pretence of propitiation in

-her tactics. She understood that it was a matter of now or never with

-her quarry, and aimed to bring him down sitting. A woman, even the

-best of her sex, never gives “law” in these matters. She goes out to

-kill.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The two together formed an opposition camp&mdash;quite flagrantly, out in

-the sunlight. I thought sometimes the boy looked unhappy; but the

-witch would never let me have <i>him</i> to myself, and I could not

-manœuvre <i>her</i> from under his guns. I would never have scrupled to

-roll her in the mud, could I once have got her alone. But she was too

-cunning for that; and, as for her companion, his warfare was, after

-all, an honourable warfare. And all the time I had my own particular

-Campaspe to safeguard, to console, to squire through the odious

-notoriety which her brother’s infatuation had conferred upon us all.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was Carabas, of course, who in the end procured us a way, his own,

-out of the difficulty. The scandal being common property, there was no

-need for him to affect an ignorance of it. Yet we never knew, until

-the moment of his decision, how it had been occupying his mind from

-the beginning, or how, quietly and unobtrusively, he had been studying

-to qualify himself as our advocate. “<i>Our</i> advocate,” I say; but I

-knew his brief was for the bright eyes of Campaspe. <i>He</i> struck for

-the credit of the hotel, he declared; and mam’selle was associated

-with the best of that. Anyhow he struck, and daringly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had risen from his bed on the fourth day, as smiling, as

-complaisant as ever. His presence, like a genial thaw, ameliorated the

-little winter of our discontent. We greeted his reappearance with

-effusion, and dated, from the moment of it, our restoration to the

-social sanities.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a dusk, warm evening. The peaks of the Dent du Midi, thrust

-into a dewy sky, had been slowly cooling from pink to pearl-ash, like

-ingots of white-hot steel. Everything seemed one harmony of colour,

-except our thoughts, Campaspe’s and mine, as we strolled in the

-deserted garden. The Celestine and her victim had been out boating on

-the lake. We met them, unexpectedly returning. Mademoiselle was eating

-cherries out of a bag, and daintily spitting the stones right and left

-as she advanced. I don’t know how we should have faced the

-contretemps; I had no time, indeed, at the moment, to form a decision,

-before Carabas came softly and swiftly from a leafy ambush, and took

-command of the occasion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-We all, I believe, instinctively recognized it for a critical one.

-Mademoiselle’s bosom, though she laughed musically (she had managed to

-preserve, it must be owned, the unspoiled voice of a <i>séductrice</i>)

-began to rise and fall in spasms. The portier addressed her without a

-moment’s hesitation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I take the liberty to inform madame that she is in danger.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She gave a little gasp.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But is this comedy or melodrama?” she cried vehemently.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is,” said Carabas, “as madame shall decide. I have the plot up

-my sleeve.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The plot!” she echoed, and fell staring at him; and then furiously

-from him to us.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Go on,” she said. “I know very well who has instigated you to this.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She checked herself, and, smiling, put out a hand towards her

-companion, as if to ask, or give, reassurance. But I noticed, already

-to my satisfaction, that the boy did not respond. As for us, we were

-in complete darkness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I obey, madame,” said Carabas. “This plot is told in a word. There

-was once in Paris a certain notorious <i>courtisane et joueuse</i>. Will

-madame desire her name?&mdash;<i>à bon entendeur demi-mot</i>. One night this

-lady’s husband, a Corsican, from whom she was separated on an

-honourable allowance, visited, purely by accident, her establishment.

-There was a fine scene, and he wounded her severely. She was forced by

-the police to prosecute him, and the jury, amidst the plaudits of the

-public, gave their verdict&mdash;against madame. But, triumphant there, the

-husband’s vengeance was whetted rather than assuaged. He would throw

-himself upon the suffrages of his countrymen in a more drastic

-vindication of his honour. She had disguised herself&mdash;her name&mdash;had

-fled. He devoted himself to the business of pursuit. At length he

-believed he had traced her to an hotel in Territet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carabas shrugged his shoulders and his lips, stuck out his arms at

-right angles with his body, stiff from the elbow, and came to a

-significant stop. I declare I pitied the adventuress. Every expression

-but that of panic seemed eliminated from her face at a touch. She

-looked old and haggard; and then, as if conscious of her

-self-betrayal, collapsed in a moment, dropping her bag of cherries.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am not very well,” she stammered; “the night air tries me.” She

-turned lividly upon the portier: “Par pitié, monsieur! C’est pour me

-prevenir que vous etes venu, non pour me trahir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Without waiting for his answer, she gathered herself together,

-literally, folding her train about her arm; made a desperate effort at

-self-command; wrenched out a smile, and went off, quavering a little

-airy chansonnette. But, after a few steps, despite her royal amplitude

-she was running. Carabas, very pale but self-possessed, picked up the

-bag, found one cherry in it, put it in his mouth abstractedly, and&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My God!” cried Miller hoarsely.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carabas jumped, and gulped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A thousand devils!” he cried. “You made me swallow the stone,

-monsieur.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The boy was in a fever of agitation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is she really that&mdash;that sort?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My Campaspe fell upon his neck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, my dear, O, my dear, I am so sorry!” she sobbed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He put her roughly, but not unkindly, away.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’m&mdash;I’m going back to England&mdash;to the governor,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Carabas,” I demanded privately, as we returned to the hotel, “is it a

-fact that&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The husband is here? No, monsieur; it is not a fact.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a <i>cause célèbre</i>. I was confident I recognized madame from

-the published prints. For the rest, it was just a chance shot; but it

-hit the mark.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Carabas, you are wonderful; and we shall not forget.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miller was as good as his word. With characteristic disregard for any

-but his own interests, he was gone the next morning, without sign or

-message, leaving us to wobble in his backwash of scandal, and to get

-out of it as best we could. His flight, of course, threw open all the

-doors of gossip. My business in Paris being unfinished, I had to go;

-but first I did my best to provide against unpleasantnesses by

-confiding Campaspe to the care of the least slanderous <i>dame de

-compagnie</i> I could find. I am afraid, nevertheless, she had but a poor

-time of it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A week later I received a letter from Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, who in the interval

-had returned to Montreux.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All is happily over with all,” he wrote: “with the exception, that is

-to say, of poor Carabas, who is to undergo an operation for

-appendicitis. It appears that a cherry-stone, which he swallowed

-unwittingly, did the business. The management (OWLS!) demur to the

-expense. I have insisted (FOOLS!) upon undertaking it upon my own

-account. We owe much to him; and so do they (IDIOTS!). But they don’t

-understand how to pay your debts is very often the best foresight.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a case of pitch and toss. For days, it appeared, Carabas’s life

-hung in the balance. In the meanwhile, I was enabled to rejoin Mr.

-G&mdash;&mdash; and his daughter at Montreux, and to take my share in the

-nursing. Between gratitude and indignation, we rather claimed Carabas

-among us. Campaspe the poor fellow simply adored. Once, when he

-fancied himself losing hold, he confided to her, while we stood by,

-some main incidents in his life. I retail them here, in an abbreviated

-form.

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-CARABAS’S STORY

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-“There is no doubt,” he said “that as truly as some men are born

-without a palate, so some men are born without luck. It is no use

-trying to remedy the deficiency; it is well, rather, to study to

-reconcile oneself to it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was born in an English village, of naturalized Huguenot parents.

-When I was nineteen, I fell passionately in love. I had for a rival a

-youth very strong and unscrupulous. One day he persuaded me to bathe

-with him in the river, then swollen with floods. In mid-stream he

-pounced upon me, and strove to bear me under. I struggled

-desperately&mdash;it was of no avail. Death thundered in my ears; the water

-enwrapped and proceeded to swallow me. The last thing I saw was a

-figure gesticulating and shouting on the bridge a little way above;

-then consciousness fled, and I sank. I came to myself, stranded

-somewhere in a dark channel. A mad face was bending over me. I knew

-it&mdash;it was that of the miller. I had been carried into his race, and,

-just short of the wheel, he had caught and dragged me to shore. He was

-a drunkard, of that I was aware; and he was now quite demented.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Mordieu!’ he said, ‘I see what you’ve come for, and the devil shan’t

-call twice for his own.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I understood instantly. He meant himself to go with me into the

-water&mdash;to join issues with the devil who had called for him, and have

-a fine frolic into eternity with his visitor. Terror lent me strength.

-I caught at a post, and, as he leaned down, shot my whole body at him

-like a spring. He went over with a splash, and I heard the wheel

-hitch, then begin to turn again, chewing its prey. O, my friends, what

-a situation! I lay like one damned, a thousand dreadful reflections

-mastering me. I should be accused, if caught, of murdering this man.

-That terror quite devoured the other, and increased with every moment

-that I lay. Darkness came upon me, and then I rose and fled. I thought

-of nothing but to escape; and so, stealing always by night, I reached

-London.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I

-read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your

-Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual

-spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to <i>save me</i> from

-drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his

-marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead;

-and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave&mdash;for my body, it appeared,

-had never been recovered&mdash;the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not

-complain, therefore. Yet&mdash;ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of

-sympathizers!&mdash;<i>she</i> had been very dear to me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could

-go on.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I obtained work&mdash;under an assumed name, of course&mdash;and for many years

-found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for

-languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more

-than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and

-soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize.

-Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the

-other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees

-him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for

-companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the

-Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the

-train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of

-the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the

-distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he

-could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform.

-Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and

-on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full

-horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite

-scares, and&mdash;ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already

-perceived my misfortune.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a

-great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was

-certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as

-certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now

-possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon

-the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the

-smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform

-without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been

-passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make

-my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had

-fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to

-find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human

-monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for

-the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward

-on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now

-give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought

-that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this

-dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end

-before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur,

-if he likes, to vindicate my name.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-As he finished, Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, whose face had been wonderfully kindling

-towards the end, bent over the bed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter,

-confessed the whole truth before he died.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carabas sprang up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Monsieur!” he cried.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am a lawyer,” said Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;; “I was connected with the case. The

-man confessed, I say. If I had only known that&mdash;Carabas! Carabas! you

-were the one witness we wanted, and could not find!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Campaspe knelt down, and put a pitiful young arm round the shoulders

-of the unluckiest man in the world.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not only we now,” she said softly, “but others also, it seems, owe

-you a great debt, dear Carabas. We shall all be unable to pay it if

-you die. If&mdash;if I give you a kiss, will you live to return it to me on

-my wedding day?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mademoiselle!” cried Carabas, radiant. “You shame ill-luck; you shame

-even Death. See how they turn and go out by the door! Vouchsafe me

-that dear mascot, and I swear I will live for ever.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He is now, and has been for long, our most loved and trusted servant,

-with an iron constitution, and, what is best, an unshakable conviction

-that the circumstances which led him on to his present position were,

-after all, the kindest of luck in disguise.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch16">

-JACK THE SKIPPER

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-“<span class="sc">Will</span> you favour me by looking at it, young gentleman?” said the

-petitioner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-<i>It</i> was a most curious little model, which the petitioner had taken

-reverently out of a handbag. He was a hungry, eager-looking man, in a

-battered bowler, shabby frockcoat, and a primordial “comforter” which

-might have been made for Job.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Edward Cantle, busy at his desk, paid no attention.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It turns, sir, literally, on a question of fresh butter,” said the

-petitioner. “Who gets it nowadays, or realizes how, between churn and

-table, every pat becomes a dumping-ground for bacilli? Here, you will

-observe, the whole difficulty is resolved. We lead the cow into the

-cart itself, milk her into a separator, turn her out, drive off, and

-the revolution of the wheels completes the process. See? No chance for

-any freebooting germ! The result is simplicity itself&mdash;the customer’s

-butter made actually on the way to his door.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Cantle put his pen in his mouth, blotted what he had been at work

-on, examined it cursorily but surely, rose, walked to the counter, and

-presented a form to the petitioner, all something with the air of a

-passionless police-inspector. He was a tall young man, loose-limbed,

-and with all his hardness, like a melancholy Punch’s show character,

-in his head. Much converse with cranks had engendered in him an air of

-perpetual unspoken protest, of exasperated resignation. For he was a

-trusted clerk in the office of the Commissioners of Patents for

-Inventions.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” he mumbled over the goose-quill. “Thats a matter for your

-provisional specification. Good morning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It’s the most wonderful&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course&mdash;they all are. Good morning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It will revolutionize&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Naturally. You will make your petition and declaration in the proper

-forms. Good morning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The inventor essayed another effort or two, met with no response,

-quavered out a sigh, packed up his treasure and vanished. The sound of

-his exit neither relaxed nor deepened a wrinkle on the brow of the

-neatly groomed Government official. He simply went on with his work.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At half-past one o’clock, it being Saturday, he&mdash;we were going to say

-“knocked off,” but the expression would be a libel on his methodical

-refinement. He took a hansom&mdash;selecting a personably horsed one&mdash;to

-his chambers in Adelphi Terrace; lunched off four <i>pâté de foie

-gras</i> sandwiches, already awaiting him under a silver cover, and a

-glass of chablis; changed his dress for a river suit of sober-tinted

-flannel and a Panama hat; charged himself with a morocco handbag, also

-ready prepared; drove to Waterloo, and took a first-class ticket, and

-the train&mdash;he favoured the South-Western because it was the quieter

-line of two in this connexion&mdash;to Windsor. Arrived there, he was

-hailed and joined by a friend on the platform.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Glad you’re come, Ned. I’m off colour a bit. You never are.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was hardly an attractive reception. Mr. Cantle glanced

-interrogatively at his companion, the Honourable Ivo Monk, son of Lord

-Prior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No?” he said. “What’s disturbing you, Monk?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, the devil, I think!” said the young man peevishly. “Come along,

-do, out of this.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Together they walked down to the river in almost absolute silence. Mr.

-Cantle had agreed to join his friend for an agreeable week-end on the

-water. It looked promising. He thought a little, and came to a

-characteristically uncompromising decision.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is it anything to do with Miss Varley?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, it is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She&mdash;they have a houseboat here, haven’t they?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Close by?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“More or less. Just above Datchet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then, I think, perhaps I’d better&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then, I think, perhaps, you’d not. You don’t know anything about it.

-It’s not what you suppose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A punt, in luxurious keeping with the tastes of its owner, awaited

-them at the steps. It was equipped with a number of little lockers for

-wine and food, a wealth of the downiest cushions, and an adjustable

-tilt with brass hoops for “roughing it” at nights on the water. For

-the Honourable Ivo was at the moment an aquatic gipsy, wandering at

-large and at whim, and scorning the effeminate pillow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They loitered through Romney lock, talking commonplaces, and below

-relinquished their poles and sat and drifted until the reeds held them

-up. It was a fair, sweet afternoon, full of life and merriment, and,

-in view of the crowding craft, the remotest from ghostliness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Would you like to see her?” said Mr. Monk suddenly and unexpectedly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cantle was never to be taken off his guard.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If it will please you, it will please me,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They resumed the poles and made forward. To their left a little sludgy

-creek went up among the osiers; and, anchored at its mouth, rocked the

-vulgarest little apology for a houseboat. It seemed just one cuddy,

-mounted on a craft like a bomb-ketch, which it filled from stem to

-stern; and what with its implied restrictedness, and dingy appearance,

-and stump of a chimney, one could not have imagined a less inviting

-prison in which to make out a holiday. Yet there was a lord to this

-squalid baby galliot, and to all appearance a very contented one, as

-he sat smoking a pipe, with his legs dangling over the side. Monk

-nodded to him, and the man nodded back with a grin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Cantle, when out of earshot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, a crank! You should recognize the breed better than I do.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Cantle, thoughtfully nursing his jaw, with a frown on his face,

-had left off punting.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t you know him?” he said suddenly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We exchange civilities,” answered the other; “the freemasonry of the

-river, you understand. <i>There’s</i> the Varleys’ boat.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Forging under the Victoria Bridge, they had come in view of a long

-line of houseboats moored under the left bank against a withy bed,

-opposite the Home Park. At one of these, hight the “Mermaid,” very

-large and handsome, they came to, and fastening on, stepped aboard. A

-sound of murmuring ceased with their arrival, and Cantle had hardly

-become aware of two figures seated in the saloon, before he was being

-introduced to one of them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Varley was certainly “interesting”&mdash;tall and “English,” but with

-an exhausted air, and her eyes superhumanly large. She greeted the

-stranger sweetly, and her fiancé with a rather full, pathetic look.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mamma’s resting a little,” she said, in a bodiless voice, “and

-Nanna’s been reading to me. Papa comes down by the seven o’clock

-train.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And what’s Nanna been reading?” asked the young man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The old nurse held up the volume. It was the Holy Book. Monk ground

-his teeth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush, Master Ivo!” whispered the woman. “You only distress her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’d rather see her reading a yellow-back on a July day on the river.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The girl put a hand on his arm. “When the call has come? When my days

-are numbered, Ivo?” she said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He almost burst out in an oath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’d rather, if I were you, be recognized and called by my own name

-and nature,” he said bitterly. “But it’s all nonsense, Netta. Do, for

-God’s sake, believe it!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was so obviously overwrought, the situation was so painful, that

-his friend persuaded him, on personal grounds, to leave. They punted

-across, dropped down a distance, and brought up under the bank in a

-quiet spot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well,” said Cantle. “You’ll tell me, perhaps, what’s the

-matter?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can’t you see? She’s dying.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He dropped his face into his hands, with a groan of impotent

-suffering.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s some mystery here,” said his friend quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Monk looked up, and burst out in a sudden lost fury&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is, by God! Jack the Skipper!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cantle was rolling a cigarette imperturbably.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who’s&mdash;Jack the Skipper?” he drawled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I wish you could tell me,” cried the other. “I wish you could show

-these the way to his throat!” He held out his hands. “They’d fasten!”

-he whispered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He came all of a sudden, quite quietly, and sat by his friend. “Its

-been going on for three weeks now,” he said rapidly. “They call him

-that about here&mdash;a sort of skit on the other&mdash;the other beast, you

-know. He appears at night&mdash;a sort of ghoulish, indescribable monster,

-black and huge and dripping, and utters one beastly sound and

-disappears. Nobody’s been able to trace him, or see where he comes

-from or goes to. He just appears in the night, in all sorts of

-unexpected places&mdash;houseboats, and bungalows, and shanties by the

-water&mdash;and terrifies some lonely child or woman, and is gone. The

-devil!&mdash;O, the devil! We’ve made parties and hunted him, to no good.

-It’s a regular reign of terror hereabouts. People don’t dare being

-left alone after dark. He frightened the little Cunningham child into

-a fit, and it’s not expected to recover. Mrs. Bancock died of an

-apoplexy after seeing it. And the worst of it is, a deadly

-superstition’s seized the place. Its visit’s got to be supposed to

-presage death, and&mdash;&mdash;” He seized Cantle’s hand convulsively.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Damn it! It’s unnatural, Ned! The river’s haunted&mdash;here, in Cockney

-Datchet&mdash;in the twentieth century! You don’t believe in such

-things&mdash;tell me you don’t! But Netta&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His head sank on his breast. Cantle blew out a placid whiff of smoke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But&mdash;Miss Varley?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know&mdash;you’ve heard, at least,” said the other, “what she was. The

-<i>thing</i> suddenly stood before her, when she was alone, one night.

-Well&mdash;you see what she is now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t see, nevertheless, why she don’t&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pack and run? No more do I. Put it to her if you like. I’ve said <i>my</i>

-say. But she’s in the grip&mdash;thinks she’s had her call&mdash;and there’s no

-moving her. Cantle, she’s just dying where she stands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cantle’s cigarette made a tiny arc of light, and hissed in the river.

-He had heard of epidemic hysteria. The world was full of cranks.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” he said, “drop the subject, please. Shall I tell you of some

-fools I’ve come across in my time?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He related some of his experiences in the Patent Office. The most

-impudent invention ever proposed, he said, was a burglar’s tool for

-snipping out and holding by suction in one movement a disk of window

-glass. His dry self-confidence had a curiously reassuring effect on

-the other. While they ate and drank and smoked and talked, the life of

-the river had become gradually attenuated and delivered to silence; a

-mist rose and hung above the water; sounds died down and ceased,

-concentrating themselves into the persistent dismal yelp of a dog

-somewhere on the bank above; the lights in the houseboats thinned to

-isolated sparks&mdash;twelve o’clock clanged from a distant tower.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, all at once, he was alert and quietly active.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Monk, listen to me: I’m going to cure Miss Varley.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ned!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take the paddle and work up&mdash;up the river, do you hear? I’ll sit

-forward.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The ghost of a red moon was rising in the east. They slipped on with

-scarce a sound. A sort of lurid glaze enamelled the water. All of a

-sudden a sleek bulk rose ahead right in their path, wallowed a moment

-like a porpoise, and disappeared.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good God!” cried Monk, in a choking voice, half rising from his seat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Keep down!” whispered his friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Cantle! Did you see it? Cantle! It was he!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Keep down!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They paddled on, past the last of the boats, through the bridge, on as

-far as the squat little bomb-ketch bulking black and menacing at the

-mouth of the creek.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hold on!” whispered Cantle. “Run her out of sight into the reeds. We

-must wade on board there.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There? That fellow Spindler’s boat?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course, now. That was his name.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ll soon know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They accomplished the feat, though near mud-foundered by the way, and

-scrambled, dripping, on board. The door of the cuddy yielded to their

-touch. Monk was beginning to gather dim light.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t let me,” he whispered, almost sobbing. “Keep my hands off him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Leave him to me,” said Cantle gravely.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Not a sound of life greeted them. They stole into the cabin and closed

-the door, almost, upon themselves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must yield him to-night for the sake of to-morrow,” murmured

-Cantle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ned! If he goes again&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush! It’s not probable he’d risk a second visit, knowing her

-watched.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The crack brightened as the moon rose: glowed into a ribbon of light.

-Suddenly Cantle gripped the other’s wrist.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A stealthy puddling, sucking sound close by reached their ears. Over

-the side came swarming a great shapeless fishy creature, which settled

-with a sludgy wallop on the little triangle of foredeck almost at

-their feet. Monk gave a soft, awful gasp, and, with the sound, Cantle

-had dashed open the door and flung himself upon the monster.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Quick!” he cried; “you’ve got matches! Light a

-candle&mdash;lamp&mdash;anything! Lie still, Mr. Spindler. It’s all up. I know

-you and your Marine Secret Service suit! A knife now, Monk! Out he

-comes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was merciless with the blade when he got it, slashing and cutting

-at the oilskin suit, splitting it from top to toe. Mr. Spindler’s red

-beard and extravagant face came out of it like a death’s-head out of

-its chrysalis.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There goes the proud monument of a lifetime,” said the madman. He had

-made no effort to resist. The first blow at this darling of his

-invention had seemed to hamstring him, morally and materially.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For he was just one of Mr. Cantle’s cranks&mdash;had once invented a

-submarine travelling suit, with which he had hoped to inaugurate a new

-system of Secret Service for the Admiralty. It was an ingenious enough

-device, with some scheme of floating valves through which to breathe;

-but the authorities, after holding him on and off, would have none of

-it. Then the fate of many inventors had befallen him. Between

-practical ruin and a moral sense of wrong, he had gone crazy, and

-vowed warfare on the mankind which had discarded him. It should

-comprehend, too late, the uses of instant appearance and disappearance

-to which his invention could be put. He went mad, and ended his days

-in an asylum.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the Monday morning Mr. Cantle posted back to the Patent Office; on

-the Tuesday Miss Varley was reading De Maupassant’s “Mademoiselle

-Fifi” under the awning of the “Mermaid’s” roof; and on the Wednesday

-Mr. Ivo Monk got her to name the day.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch17">

-A BUBBLE REPUTATION

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">One crowded hour of glorious life</p>

-<p class="i0">Is worth an age without a name.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">I had</span> never suspected Sweeting of a desire to be “somebody.” Indeed,

-the <i>jeunesse dorée</i>, in whose ranks Nature had seemed

-unquestioningly to bestow him, is not subject to diffidence, or prone

-to the wisdom which justifies itself in a knowledge of its own

-limitations. I was familiar with his placid, cherubic face at a minor

-club or two, in the Park, in Strand restaurants and Gaiety stalls; and

-it had never once occurred to me to classify him as apart from his

-fellows of the exquisite guild. If, like Keats, he could appreciate

-the hell of conscious failure, its most poignant anguish, I could have

-sworn, would borrow from some too-late realization of the correctest

-“form” in a hat-brim or shirt-collar. I could have sworn it, I say,

-and I should have been, of course, mistaken. Keats may have claimed it

-as his poetical prerogative to go ill-dressed, and to object, though

-John, to be dubbed “Johnny.” It remained to Sweeting to prove that a

-man might be a very typical “Johnny” and a poet to boot. But I will

-explain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One day I entered the reading-room of the Junior Winston and nodded to

-Sweeting, who was seated solitary at the newspaper-table. While I was

-hunting for the “Saturday Review”&mdash;which was conducting, I had been

-told, the vivisection of a friend of mine&mdash;my attention was attracted

-by something actually ostentatious in Sweeting’s perusal of <i>his</i>

-sheet, and I glanced across. Judge my astonishment when I saw in his

-hands, not “Baily’s” or the “Pink ’Un,” but the very periodical I

-sought. I gasped; then grinned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo!” I said. “Since when have you taken to that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He attempted to reply with a face of wondering hauteur, but gave up at

-the first twitch.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he said rather defiantly, “you lit’ary professionals think no

-one’s in it but yourselves.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“In what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, this sort of thing,” he said, tapping the “Saturday”; “the real

-stuff, you know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed,” I said, “we don’t. You’re always welcome to the reversion of

-my place in it for one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, me!” he said airily. “It don’t positively apply there, you see,

-being a sort of a kind of a professional myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My Sweet!” I exclaimed. “A professional&mdash;you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Write for the ‘Argonaut.’ Little

-thing of mine in it last number.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I felt faint.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“May I see it?” I murmured. “If I don’t mistake, it’s under your elbow

-at this moment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is it?” he answered, blushing flagrantly, “Lor’ bless me, so it is!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took it from his hand, opened it, and read, over his undoubted

-signature&mdash;Marmaduke Sweeting&mdash;the title, “The Fool of the Family.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” I thought, “of course. Like title like author.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But I was wrong. The tale, a veritable <i>conte drolatique</i>, was as keen

-and strong as a Maupassant. I had no choice but to take it at a

-draught, smacking my lips after. Then I put the paper softly down and

-looked across at him. His harmless features were set in a sort of

-hypnotic smile, his hat was tilted over his eyes, and he was making

-constant mouthfuls of the large silver knob of his stick. My eyes

-travelled to and fro between this figure and the figures of print

-<i>that were he</i>. What possible connexion could there be between the

-two? I thought of Buffon writing in lace ruffles, and all at once

-recognized a virtue in immaculate shirt-cuffs, and decided to consult

-some fashionable hosier about raising my price per thousand words. In

-the meantime my respect for Sweeting was born.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So,” I said, “you are somebody after all?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Am I?” he answered, grinning bucolic. “Glad you’ve found it out.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” I said, “honestly there’s genius in this story; but nothing to

-what you’ve shown in concealing that you had any. There must be much

-more to come out of the same bin.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He flushed and laughed and wriggled, as I walked over and sat beside

-him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I dare say!” he said. “Hope so, anyhow.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not a doubt. What made you think of it, now?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! I thought of it,” he said; and, after all, there was no better

-reply to an idiotic question. I was beginning humbly to appraise

-intellectual self-sufficiency at its value, and to appreciate the

-hundred disguises of reason.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I saw a good deal of Sweeting, on his own initiative, after this. He

-would visit me in my rooms, and discuss&mdash;none too sapiently, I may

-have thought in other circumstances, and with the most ingenuous

-admiration for his own abilities&mdash;the values of certain characters as

-portrayed by him in a brilliant series, “The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist,” which had immediately followed in the “Argonaut” “The

-Fool of the Family,” and was taking the town by storm. Thus, “What

-d’ee think of that old Lupin, last number,” he would chuckle, “with

-his calling virtue an ‘emu,’ don’tcherknow?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha, yes!” I would correct him, with a nervous laugh. “&hairsp;‘Anæmia’ was

-the word. You meant it, of course.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, didn’t I say it?” he would answer. “It’s got a big swallow

-anyhow”; and then he would check himself suddenly, and, without

-further explanation, eye me, and begin to whistle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now I might recall the passage to which he referred (to wit, that

-every red blood corpuscle, being a seed peccancy, so to speak, made

-virtue an anæmia) and try to puzzle out a quite new significance in

-it. Suspecting that its author’s apparent naïveté was only assumed,

-I was respectfully guarded in my answers, and, when he was gone, would

-curiously ponder the perspicacious uses to which he would put them. He

-did not consult me, I felt, as an oracle; but rather drew upon me for

-the vulgar currency of thought, to which his exclusiveness was a

-stranger. He was very secret about his own affairs; though I

-understood that he was becoming quite an important “name” in the

-literary world. Ostensibly he was not, after that first essay, to be

-identified with the “Argonaut,” though any one, having an ounce of the

-proper appreciation, could scarcely fail to mark in the “Love-Letters”

-the right succession of qualities which had made the earlier story

-notable. Indeed, he suffered more than any man I knew from the

-penalties attaching to the popular author. The number of

-communications, both signed and anonymous, which he received from

-admirers was astonishing. Scarce a day passed but he brought me

-specimens of them to discuss and laugh over. I did not, I must admit,

-think his comments always in good taste; but then I was not personally

-subject to the flattering pursuit, and so may have been no more

-constituted to judge than a monk is of a worldling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-These testimonies to his fame were from every sort of individual&mdash;the

-soldier, the divine, the poet, the painter, the actor (and more

-especially the actress), the young person with views, the social

-butterfly, the gushling late of the schoolroom, the woman of

-sensibility late of the latest lifelong passion for art or religion,

-and finding, as usual, the taste of life sour on her lips after a

-recent debauch of sentiment. They all found something in the

-“Love-Letters” to meet their particular cases&mdash;some note of subtle

-sympathy, some first intimation to their misunderstood spirits of a

-kindred emotion which had <i>felt</i>, and could lay its finger with divine

-solace on the spot. No longer would they suffer a barren

-grievance&mdash;that hair-shirt which not a soul suspected but to giggle

-over. To take, for example, from the series a typical sentence which

-served so many for a text&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>To whom does the materialist cry his defiance&mdash;to whom but to God?

-He cannot rest from baiting a Deity whose existence he denies. He

-forgets that irony can wring no response from a vacuum.</i>” A propos of

-which wrote the following:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">A Half-pay General</span>.&mdash;Don’t tell me, Sir, but you’ve served, like me,

-a confounded ungrateful country, and learned your lesson! Memorialize

-the devil rather than the War Office. You’ve hit it off in your last

-sentence to a T.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-<span class="sc">A Chorus Girl</span>.&mdash;Dear Sir,&mdash;You mean me to understand, I know, and

-you’re quite right. The British public has no more ears than a ass, or

-they’d reconise who ought to be playing Lotta in “The Belle of

-Battersea.” It’s such a comfort you can’t tell. Please forgive this

-presumptious letter from a stranger.&mdash;Yours very affectionately,

-</p>

-

-<p class="sign2">

-<span class="sc">Dolly</span>.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-<span class="sc">An Apostolic Fisherman</span>.&mdash;I like your metaphor. I would suggest only

-“ground-baiting a Deity” as more subtly applicable to the tactics of

-a worldling. Note: “And Simon Peter said, ‘I go a-fishing.’&hairsp;”

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-Take, again, this excerpt: “<i>Doctors’ advice to certain patients to

-occupy their minds recalls the Irishman’s receipt for making a cannon,

-‘Take a hole and pour brass round it.</i>’&hairsp;” Of which a “True Hibernian”

-wrote&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">Sir</span>,&mdash;I’ve always maintained that the genuine “bull,” fathered on my

-suffering country, came from the loins of the English lion. Murder,

-now! How could a patient occupy his doctor’s mind as well as his own,

-unless he was beside himself? And then he’d have no mind at all.

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-Or take, once more and to end, the sentence: “<i>The Past is that

-paradoxical possession, a Shadow which we would not drop for the

-Substance</i>”; which evoked the following from “One who has felt the

-Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret”&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-How strangely and exquisitely phrased! It brings, I know not how, the

-memory of the Channel before me. I have only crossed it once; but, O!

-the recollection! the solemn moving waters to which my soul went out!

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-These are specimens, but a few, of the responses wrung by Sweeting

-from the human chords he touched. There were, in addition, prayers

-innumerable for autographs, requests for the reading of manuscripts,

-petitions for gratis copies of his works, to be sold for any and every

-charity but the betterment of impecunious authors. He fairly basked in

-the sunshine of a great reputation. There was only one flaw in his

-enormous self-satisfaction. By a singular perversity and most

-inexplicable coincidence, every one of these signed documents was

-without an address. But, after all, coincidence, which is only another

-name for the favouritism of Fate, must occasionally glut itself on an

-approved subject. Sweeting was in favour with the gods, and enjoyed “a

-high old time of it,” principally, perhaps, because he did not appear

-to be ambitious of impressing any “set” but that with which he was

-wont to forgather, and above which he made no affectation now of

-rising superior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had an example one evening of this intellectual modesty, when

-casually visiting the Earl’s Court grounds. There I encountered my

-friend, the centre and protagonist of a select company in the

-enclosure. All exquisitely wore exquisite evening dress (for myself I

-always scornfully eschewed the livery), and all gravitated about

-Sweeting with the unconscious homage which imbecility pays to

-brains&mdash;“the desire of the moth for the star.” I could see at once

-that he was become their Sirius, their bright particular glory,

-reflecting credit upon their order. And he, who might have commanded

-the suffrages of the erudite, seemed content with his little

-conquest&mdash;to have reached, indeed, the apogee of his ambition&mdash;a

-one-eyed king among the blind. These suffered my introduction with

-some condescension, as a mere larva of Grub Street. They knew

-themselves now as the stock from which was generated this real genius.

-As for me, I was Gil Blas’s playwright at the supper of comedians. And

-then, at somebody’s initiative, we were all swaggering off together

-along the walks.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, I had always had a sort of envy of the <i>esprit de ton</i> which

-unites the guild of amiable gadflies; and, finding myself here, for

-all my self-conscious intellectual superiority, of the smallest

-account, I grew quickly sardonic. If I knew who wrote the

-“Heptameron,” I didn’t know, even by sight, the Toddy Tomes who was

-setting all the town roaring and droning with his song, “Papa’s

-Perpendicular Pants.” It is a peevish experience to be “out of it,”

-even if the <i>it</i> is no more intelligible than a Toddy Tomes’s topical;

-and gradually I waxed quite savage. Reputation is only relative after

-all. There is no popular road to fame. As an abstract acquisition, it

-may be said to pertain at its highest to the man who combines quick

-perceptions with adaptive sympathies. I was not that man. In all, save

-exclusively my own company, I felt “out of it,” awkward because

-resentful, and resentful because awkward. I despised these asses,

-however franked by Sweeting, yet coveted, vainly, the temporary grace

-of seeming at home with them. I got very cross. And then we alighted

-on Slater.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I knew it for his name by Sweeting’s greeting him in response to his

-hail. He was seated at a little table all by himself, drinking

-champagne, and alternately turning up and biting the ends of a red tag

-of beard, and luridly pulling at a ponderous cigar. He was a small,

-dingy person, so obviously inebriated, that the little human clearing

-in which he sat solitary was nothing more than the formal recognition

-of his state. He also, it was evident, to my disgust, despised the

-conventions of dress, but without any of those qualms of

-self-consciousness with which I was troubled. He lolled back, his hat

-crushed over his eyes, a hump of dicky and knotted tie escaping from

-his waistcoat-front, his disengaged thumb hooked into an arm-hole&mdash;as

-filthy a little vagabond, confident and maudlin and truculent in one,

-as you could wish. And he hailed Sweeting as a familiar.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My friend stopped, with a rather sheepish grin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo, Slater!” said he. “A wet night, ain’t it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Our little group came chuckling all about the baboon. Even then, I

-noticed, I was the one looked upon with most obvious disfavour by the

-surrounding company.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look here,” said Sweeting, suddenly gripping me to the front. “Here’s

-one of your cloth, Slate’. Let me introjuce you,” and he whispered in

-my ear, “Awfully clever chap. You’ll like him when you know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I suppose my instant and instinctive repulsion was patent even to the

-sot. He lurched to his feet, and swept off his crumpled hat with an

-extravaganza bow. Sweeting’s pack went into a howl of laughter. It was

-evident they were not unacquainted with the creature, and looked to

-him for some fun.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My cloth, sir?” vociferated the beast. “Honoured, sir, ’m sure, sir.

-Will you allow me to cut my coat according to it, sir? Has any

-gentleman a pair of scissors? Just the tails, sir, no more&mdash;quite

-large enough for me; and you’d look very elegent in an Eton jacket.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I tried to laugh at this idiotic badinage, and couldn’t.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, crikey, wouldn’t he!” said a vulgar onlooker. “Like a sugar-barrel

-in a weskit.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, as everybody roared, I lost my temper.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Sweeting. “It’s the way he’ll get his

-change out of you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Change!” I snapped furious. “No change could be for the worse with

-him, I should think. Let me pass, please!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The odious wretch was pursuing me all the time I spoke, while the

-others hemmed me in, edging me towards him and roaring with laughter.

-Sweeting himself made no effort to assist me, but stood to one side,

-irresistibly giggling, though with a certain anxiety in his note.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Call off your puppies!” I cried ragingly, and with the word was sent

-flying into the very arms of Slater. I felt something rip, and at a

-blow my hat sink over my eyes; and then a chill friendly voice entered

-into the mêlée.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, look here, Slater, that’ll do, you know!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I wrenched my eyes free. My champion was not Sweeting, but Voules, Sir

-Francis Voules, of whom more hereafter. He was cool and vicious, and

-as faultlessly dressed as the others, but in a manner somehow superior

-to the foppery of their extreme youth. He carried a light overcoat on

-his arm.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! <i>will</i> it?” said Slater.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I said so,” said Voules, pausing a moment from addressing me to

-scan him. Slater slouched back to his table. Nobody laughed again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the meantime, Sir Francis was helping me to restore my hat to

-shape, and to don <i>his</i> overcoat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yours is split to the neck,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He took my arm, and we strolled off together. The crowd, quite

-respectful, parted, and we were engulfed in it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was grateful to Voules, of course, but inexplicably resentful of his

-cool masterfulness. Truth to tell, we were souls quite antipathetic;

-and now he had put me right&mdash;with everybody but myself. In a helpless

-attempt to restore that balance, I snarled fiercely, smacking fist

-into palm&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ll have the law of that beast! You know him, it seems? I can’t

-congratulate you on your friends.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sweeting was most to blame,” said Voules quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I grunted, and strode on fuming.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, after all,” said Voules, “the poor ass had to back up his

-confederate.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I glanced at him as we walked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His confederate?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course. Didn’t you know? Slater really writes the things for which

-Sweeting gets the credit.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, come, Voules! Here’s one of your foolhardy calumnies. You really

-should be careful. Some day you’ll get into trouble.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, very well!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You talk as if it were an open secret.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know Sweeting as well as I. Do you recognize his style in the

-Nonconformist lucubrations? Possibly you’ve had letters from him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve some specimens of letters <i>to</i> him now&mdash;letters from admirers.

-If anything were needed to refute your absurd statement, there they

-are in evidence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He gave a little dry laugh; then touched my sleeve eagerly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You wouldn’t think it abusing a confidence to show me those letters?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know why. Sweeting’s laid no embargo on me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well. If you’ll let me, I’ll come home with you now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stumbled on in a sort of haze.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I did not believe this to be any more than a mad shot in the dark. Sir

-Francis was one of those men who made mischief as Pygmalion made

-Galatea. He fell in love with his own conceptions&mdash;would go any

-lengths to gratify his passion for detraction. Do not suppose, from

-his prefix, that he was a bold, bad baronet. He was just an actor of

-the new creation&mdash;belonged to what was known by doyens of the old

-Crummles school as the be-knighted profession. The stage was an

-important incident in his social life, and he seldom missed a

-rehearsal of any piece to which he was engaged.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know this Slater?” I said, as I drove in my latchkey. “As what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As a clever, disreputable, and perfectly unscrupulous journalist.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Its preposterous! What could induce him to part with such a

-notoriety?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The highest bidder, of course.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! Sweeting? If he’s still the simple Johnny you’d have him be?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’m yet to learn that the simple Johnny lacks vanity.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, for him, such an unheard-of way to gratify it!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Opportunism, sir. There are more things in the Johnny’s philosophy

-than we dream of.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I simply don’t believe it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Voules read, with an immobile face, the letters which Sweeting had

-left with me. At the end he looked up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you open to a bet?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can’t afford it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Never mind, then.” He rose. “Truth for its own sake will do. Anyhow,

-I presume you don’t object to countering on Slater?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, do what you like!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thanks. Would you wish to be in at the death?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Just as you please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You see,” said he, with a pleasant affectation of righteousness, “if

-my surmise is correct&mdash;and you’re the first one I’ve ventured to

-confide in&mdash;it’s my plain duty to prick a very preposterous bubble.

-Thank you for lending yourself to the cause of decency. Don’t say

-anything until you hear from me. Good-bye!”&mdash;and he was gone, followed

-by my inclination, only my inclination, to hurl a book after him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I sat tight&mdash;always the more as I swelled over the delay&mdash;till, on the

-third day following, Sweeting called on me. He came in very

-shamefaced, but with a sort of suppressed triumph to support his

-abjectness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said; “and I gave him a bit of my

-mind after you’d gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed,” I answered good-humouredly; “that was what you couldn’t well

-afford, and it was generous of you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was blankly impervious to the sarcasm. Had it been otherwise, my

-new-fledged doubts had perhaps fluttered to the ground. After a moment

-I saw him pull a paper from his pocket.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look here,” he said, vainly trying to suppress some emotion, which

-was compound, in suggestion, of elation and terror. “You’ve made your

-little joke, haven’t you, over all those other people forgettin’ to

-put their addresses? Well, what do you think of <i>that</i> for the Prime

-Minister?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took from his hand a sheet of large official-looking paper, and

-read&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;You may have heard of my book, “The Foundations of

-Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested to learn that I am

-contemplating a complete revision of its text in the light of your

-“Love-Letters.” They are plainly illuminating. From being a man of no

-assured opinions, I have become converted, through their medium, to a

-firm belief in the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me

-the honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-scribe

-the author of that incomparable series. I shall do myself the pleasure

-to call upon you at your rooms at nine o’clock this evening, when I

-have a little communication to make which I hope will not be

-unpleasing to you. Permit me to subscribe myself, with the profoundest

-admiration, your obedient servant,

-</p>

-

-<p class="sign2">

-<span class="sc">J. A. Burleigh</span>.

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I murmured, feeling suffocated, “there’s no address here

-either.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he answered; “but, I say, it’s rather crushing. Won’t you come

-and help me out with it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you want <i>me</i> for?” I protested. “I’ve no wish to be

-annihilated in the impact between two great minds. You aren’t afraid?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, no!” he said, perspiring. “It’ll be just a shake, and ‘So glad,’

-and ‘Thanks, awfully,’ I suppose, and nothing more to speak of. But

-you might just as well come, on the chance of helping me out of a

-tight place. It’s <i>viva voce</i>, don’tcherknow&mdash;not like writin’, with

-all your wits about you. And I shall get some other fellows there,

-too, so’s we aren’t allowed to grow too intimate; and you might as

-well.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I wonder what the ‘communication’ is?” I mused.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, nothin’ much, I don’t suppose,” said Sweeting, with a blushing

-nonchalance. But it was evident that he had pondered the delirious

-enigma and emerged from it Sir Marmaduke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I concluded rather sourly, “I’ll come.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He went away much relieved, and I fell into a fit of stupor. In the

-afternoon a telegram from Voules reached me, “Be at Sweeting’s 8.45

-to-night.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At a quarter to nine I kept my appointment. Sweeting was insufferably

-well-to-do, and his rooms were luxurious. They were inhabited at the

-moment by an irreproachable and almost silent company. Among them I

-encountered many of the young gentlemen who had been witnesses of, and

-abettors in, my discomfiture the other night. But they were all too

-nervous now to presume upon the recognition&mdash;too oppressed with the

-stupendous nature of the honour about to be conferred upon their

-host&mdash;too self-weighted with their responsibility as his kindred and

-associates. They could only ogle him with large eyes over immensely

-stiff collars, as he moved about from one to another, panic-struck but

-radiant. It was the crowning moment of his life; yet its sweeter

-aftermath, I could feel, reposed for him in the sleek necks of

-champagne-bottles just visible on a supper-table in the next room. He

-longed to pass from the test to the toast, and the intoxicating memory

-of a triumph happily accomplished. And then suddenly Slater came in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was not expected, I saw in a moment. Indeed, how could such a

-death’s-head claim place at such a feast? He was no whit improved upon

-my single memory of him, unless, to give the little beast his due, a

-shade less inebriated. But he was as grinning, cocksure, and truculent

-a little Bohemian as ever. Sweeting stared at him aghast.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good Lord, Slate’,” said he, “what brings you here, now?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, your wire, old chap,” said the animal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I never sent one, I swear.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Oho!” cries Slater, glaring. “D’ you want to go back on your word?

-Ain’t I fine enough for this fine company?” and he pulled a dirty

-scrap of paper out of his pocket, and screeched, “Read what you said

-yourself, then!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The telegram went round from hand to hand. I read, when it came to my

-turn: “Come supper my rooms 8.45 to-night. M. Sweeting.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I never sent it,” protested our host. “It must be a hoax. Look here,

-Slate’. The truth is, the Prime Minister wrote he wanted to make my

-acquaintance, because&mdash;because of the ‘Letters,’ you know; and&mdash;and

-he’s due here in a few minutes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The creature grinned like a jackal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My eyes, what fun!” he said. “I shall love to see you two meet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s&mdash;there’s fizz in the next room, Slate’,” said the miserable

-Sweeting.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You needn’t tell me,” said Slater. “I’d spotted it already.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And then, before another word could be said, the door was opened, and

-the guest of the evening announced.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He came in smiling, ingratiatory, the familiar willowy figure in

-pince-nez. We all rose, and the stricken Sweeting advanced to meet

-him. The great man, looking, it is true, a little surprised over his

-reception, held out his hand cordially.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And is this&mdash;&mdash;” he purred&mdash;and paused.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sweeting did not answer: he was beyond it; but he nodded, and opened

-his mouth, as if to beg that the “communication” might be posted into

-it, and the matter settled off-hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did not, I confess,” said the Premier, glancing smilingly round,

-“expect my little visit of duty&mdash;yes, of duty, sir&mdash;to provoke this

-signal welcome on the part of a company in which I recognize, if I

-mistake not, a very constellation of the intellectual aristocracy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here a youth, with a solitaire in his eye, and a vague sense of

-parliamentary fitness, ejaculated “Hear, hear!” and immediately

-becoming aware of the enormity, quenched himself for ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It makes,” went on the right hon. gentleman, “the strict limit to my

-call, which less momentous but more exacting engagements have obliged

-me to prescribe, appear the more ungracious. In view of this enforced

-restriction, I have equipped myself with a single question and a

-message. Your answer to the first will, I hope&mdash;nay, I am

-convinced&mdash;justify the tenor of the second.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He released, with a smile, the hand which all this time he had

-retained, much to Sweeting’s embarrassment, in his own. Finding it

-restored to him, Sweeting promptly put it in his pocket, like a tip.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I ask,” said the Premier, “the author of ‘The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist’ to listen to the following excerpt” (he produced a

-marked number of the “Argonaut” from his pocket) “from his own

-immortal series, as preliminary to some inquiry naturally evoked

-thereby”&mdash;and he read out, with the intonation of a confident orator:

-“&hairsp;‘We have (shall I not declare it, my sweet?) the most beautiful women

-and the most beautiful poets in the world&mdash;two very good things, but

-the latter unaccountable. Passion, in perpetuating, idyllically

-refines upon the features of its desire; hence the succession of

-assured physical loveliness in a race which, however insensible to the

-appeals of emotional and intellectual beauty, can understand and

-worship the beauty that is plain to see.’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here the reader paused, and looking over his glasses with a smile,

-very slightly shook his head, and murmuring, “The <i>beauty</i> that is

-<i>plain</i> to see! H’m! a fence that I will recommend to Rosebery,”

-continued, “&hairsp;‘Passion endows passion, far-reaching, to bribe the gods

-with a compound interest of beauty. It touches heaven in imagination

-through its unborn generations. It tops the bunker of the world, and,

-soaring, drops, heedless of Time the putter, straight into the

-eighteenth hole of the empyrean.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Premier stopped again, and, looking gravely at Sweeting, asked,

-“What is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now I expected my friend to reveal himself, to sally brilliantly,

-referring his questioner, perhaps, to some satire in the making, some

-latter-day Apocalypse of which here was a sample extracted for bait to

-the curious. Well, he did reveal himself, but not in the way I hoped.

-He just strained and strained, and then dropped his jaw with the most

-idiotic little hee-haw of a laugh I ever heard, and&mdash;that was all.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other, looking immensely surprised, repeated his question: “What,

-sir, I ask you, is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, the one the Irishman poured brass round.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I started. It was not Sweeting who spoke, but Slater. The little demon

-stood grinning in the background, his tongue in his cheek, and his

-hands in his trousers pockets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“H’mph!” said the Prime Minister. “Very apt, sir. I recall the

-witticism. It is singularly applicable at the moment to the

-reorganization of the Liberal party. ‘Take a hole and pour brass round

-it.’ Exactly.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His manner, there was no denying it, was extremely severe as he again

-addressed the perspiring Sweeting&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Once more, sir,” he said, “I resume our discussion of a passage, the

-intellectual rights in which you would seem to have made over to your

-friends.” And, with a positive scowl, he continued his reading.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘So well’ (writes the impassioned Nonconformist) ‘for the national

-appreciation of beauty that is physical. On the other hand (tell me,

-dear. It would come so reassuringly from your lips), what can account

-for the spasmodic recurrence in our midst of the inspired singer? What

-makes his reproduction possible among a people endowed with

-tunelessness, innocent of a metrical ear?’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Quite abruptly the Prime Minister ended, and, deliberately folding his

-paper, hypnotized with a searching stare his unhappy examinee.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The question, Mr. Sweeting,” said he, “is before the House. You will

-recognize it as ending&mdash;with some psychologic subtlety, to be

-continued in our next&mdash;number 10&mdash;the last published of the

-“Argonaut.” To me, I confess, the answer can be, like the Catholic

-Church, only one and indivisible. Upon the question of your conformity

-with my view depends the nature of the communication which I am to

-have the pleasure, conditionally, of making to you. Plainly, then,

-sir, what makes possible the spasmodic recurrence of the inspired

-singer in the midst of a people endowed with tunelessness and innocent

-of a metrical ear? I feel convinced you can return no answer but one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A dead silence fell upon the room. Sweeting scratched his right calf

-with his left foot, and giggled. Then in a moment, yielding the last

-of his wits to the unendurable strain, he gave all up, and, wheeling

-upon Slater&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, look here, Slate’!” he said. “What does?” and without waiting for

-the answer, drove himself a passage through his satellites, and

-collapsed half dead upon a sofa.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Premier, with an amazing calm, returned the “Argonaut” to his

-pocket.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Surely, sir,” said he, “this is inexplicable; but” (he made a

-denunciatory gesture with his hands) “it remains to me only to inform

-you that, conditional on your right reply to your own postulate, it

-was to have been my privilege to acquaint you of His Majesty’s

-intention to bestow upon you a Civil List pension of £250 a year;

-which now, of course&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was interrupted by Slater&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, that’s all one, sir! Fit the cap on the right head. The answer’s

-‘Protection,’ isn’t it? I ought to know, as I wrote, and am writing,

-the stuff.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>You</i>, sir!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All eyes were turned upon the beastly little genius, as he stood

-ruffling with greed and arrogance, and thence to the sofa.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, shut up!” said Sweeting feebly. “It was only a joke. I paid him,

-handsome I did, to let me have the kudos and letters and things. He’d

-the best of the bargain by a long chalk.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He-he!” screeched Slater. “Why, you fool, did you think merit earned

-such recognition in this suffering world? Hope you enjoyed reading

-’em, Sweet, as I did writing ’em.” He turned, half-cringing,

-half-defiant, upon the guest. “I’m the author of the ‘Love-Letters,’

-sir&mdash;honour bright, I am; and I wrote every one of the testimonials,

-too, that that ass sets such store by. You’ll take those into

-consideration, I hope.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shall, sir,” thundered the other&mdash;“in my estimate of a fool and his

-decoy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He blazed round and snatched up his hat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Make way, gentlemen!” he roared, and strode for the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A slip of pasteboard fluttered from his hand to the carpet; he flung

-wide the portal, banged it to behind him, and was gone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Some one, in a sort of spasmodic torpor, picked up the card, and

-immediately uttered a gasping exclamation. We all crowded round him,

-and, reading the superscription at which he was pointing, “Mr.

-Hannibal Withers, Momus Theatre,” exchanged dumbfounded glances.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, of course,” stuttered a pallid youth; “it was Withers, Voules’s

-pal; I reco’nize him now. He’s the Prime Minister’s double, you know,

-and&mdash;and he’s been and goosed us.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What!” screamed Slater.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But I was off in a fit of hysterical laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was actually a fact. It is a mistake to suppose that your

-professional scandal-monger is prepared to build except on a

-substratum of truth. Voules had pricked the bubble as he had promised.

-The bargain, it was admitted, had been struck&mdash;on Slater’s side for

-such a consideration as would submerge him in champagne had he desired

-it. He had written and sent the manuscripts to Sweeting, who had had

-them typed, and passed them on to the “Argonaut” as his own. But the

-real author knew that his tenure was insecure so long as the other’s

-colossal vanity was not ministered to. Hence the correspondence, in

-which the little monster burlesqued his own lucubrations. It might all

-have ended in a case of perpetual blackmail (Sweeting never could see

-beyond the end of his own nose) had not the bait answered so instantly

-to Voules’s calculations.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a bitter attack on the immorality of the stage in the next

-number of the “Argonaut,” which subsequently had to compound with

-Voules under threat of an action for libel. But Sweeting had his wish.

-He was “somebody,” as never yet. Until he took his notoriety for a

-long sea-voyage, he was more crushingly than any gentleman in the

-“Dunciad” “damn’d to fame.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch18">

-A POINT OF LAW

-</h3>

-

-<p class="center mb1">

-BY A CAPTIOUS LITIGANT

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Given</span> a wet night on circuit, a bar parlour with a chattering fire,

-a box of tobacco, a china bowl of punch, and a mixed forensic company

-to discuss the lot, and what odds would you lay for or against the

-chances of a good story or so?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Grope in your memory (before you answer) among legal collectanea and

-the newspaper reports of famous, or infamous, trials. What then?

-“Lord!” you admit, “these bones unearthed seem wretched remains

-indeed! I find your grooms of the horsehair, young and old, cracking

-their ineffable chestnuts for the benefit of an obsequious tipstavery;

-I find a bench so conservative that, though it be pitched in the very

-markets of chicanery, it is never to be won from its affected

-ignorance of those topical affairs which are matters, else apart, of

-common knowledge; I find the profession for ever given to whet its

-wits on a thousand examples of resourcefulness and impudence, and most

-often failing in the retort piquant.” Give me a cheeky witness to cap

-the best drollery ever uttered by counsel. Legal facetiæ, forsooth!

-The wit that tells is the wit that can cheat the gallows, not send to

-it. Any dullard can hang a dog.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Look at the autobiographies of your retired legal luminaries: what

-scurvy bald reading they make as a rule. Look at&mdash;but no: he rests in

-Abraham’s bosom; he is studying the Mosaic law; we may be in need of

-him again some day.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There is an odd family likeness between the personalia of lawyers and

-of actors. The fellows, out of court, stripped of their melodramatic

-trappings, can’t raise a laugh which would tickle any one less than a

-bishop. They are obsessed with the idea of their own importance. Much

-self-inflation has killed in them all sense of proportion. They prove

-themselves, the truth is, dull dogs on revision.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The law is not so exhausting a study as it appears on first sight to a

-layman. Given an understanding of its main principle, which is

-syllogism, and there you are already in its Holy of Holies. As, for

-instance, I call a man a beast: a cheetah is a beast: I have called

-the man a cheater&mdash;ergo, he can proceed against me for defamation.

-There is its rubric in a nutshell&mdash;perfectly simple.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-However, <i>exceptis excipiendis</i>, there were Curran, and Erskine, and

-some others. There was also Brindley, the great Crown Prosecutor,

-whose eloquence was of such persuasiveness that it was said the very

-Bench <i>hung upon his word</i>. I had the chance to meet him once, in such

-a place and on such a night as I began by describing. It was in the

-“Maid’s Head” at Norwich, and my experience is at your service.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It had, I knew, been a full list and a varied; yet the great man, it

-seemed, had found nothing in it all to stimulate his humorous

-faculties. The liveliness was all supplied by a pert Deputy Clerk of

-the Peace, whose bump of reverence was as insignificant as his

-effrontery was tremendous. The Bar began by tolerating him; went on to

-humour his sallies; chilled presently over his presumption; grew

-patronizing, impatient, and at last rude. He didn’t care; nor I,

-certainly. His readiness was the only relief from a congested boredom.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The talk drifted, in the course of the evening, upon legal

-<i>posers</i>&mdash;circumstantial evidence, ex-statutory cases, and so forth.

-There were some dull examples proffered, and I observed, incidentally,

-that the Law, when it couldn’t hark back to precedent, was wont to

-grow a little hazy and befogged. Many solemn conundrums were

-propounded; but the Deputy Clerk, as usual, pushed himself to the

-front with an impertinence&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If I slink out of the company of a bore, am I guilty of stealing from

-his person?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pooh, pooh!” said Brindley, with contempt. “Don’t be flippant, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Deputy Clerk was not a whit abashed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir, to you,” he said. “If that isn’t liked, I’ll propose another. If

-a woman is divorced from her husband, and a child is born to her

-before the decree is made absolute, is that child, lawfully begot,

-legitimate or illegitimate?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They were glad to take this seriously. I forget what the decision

-was&mdash;that, given the necessary interval between the decree and its

-confirmation, I think, the situation was virtually impossible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well,” said the Deputy Clerk. “But perhaps one can conceive such

-a question rising. Let it pass, however; and answer me this,

-gentlemen: If one is imprisoned unjustly&mdash;that is to say, for a crime

-one has not committed&mdash;and, breaking out of prison, gives proof of

-one’s innocence, can one be indicted for prison-breaking?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-This, at least, was a fair poser, and discussion on it grew actually

-warm.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bosh!” said a fierce gentleman. “You ain’t going to justify your

-defiance of the law by arguing that the law is liable to make an

-occasional mistake&mdash;don’t tell me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here a very young barrister dared the revolutionary sentiment that the

-law, being responsible in the first instance to itself, might be

-treated, if caught-stumbling <i>in flagranti delicto</i>, as drastically as

-any burglar with a pistol in his hand. He was called, almost shouted,

-down. The suggestion cut at the very root of jurisprudence. The law,

-like the king who typified it, could do no wrong; witness its

-time-honoured right to <i>pardon</i> the innocent victims of its own

-errors.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It may detain and incarcerate one for being only a suspected person,”

-said Brindley. “That its suspicions may prove unfounded, is nothing.

-It must be <i>cum privilegio</i>, or the constitution goes. A nice thing if

-the Crown could be put on its defence for an error in judgment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A very nice thing,” said the Deputy Clerk.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Brindley snorted at him. “Perhaps,” said he sarcastically, “the

-gentleman will state a case.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The gentleman desired nothing better. I would have backed him to hold

-his own, anyhow; but, in this instance, I was gratified to gather from

-his manner that he had a real story to tell. And he had.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gentlemen,” he said, “it occurred within my fathers memory; but my

-own is good enough to reproduce it literally. It made a rare stir in

-the Norwich of his day, and quite fluttered, I assure you, the

-dovecots of the profession.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The parties chiefly concerned in it were three: old Nicholas

-Browbody, his ward Ellen, and Mr. George Hussey, who was put on his

-trial for burglary and murder. Mr. George was quite a notable

-cracksman in his day, which was one pretty remote from ours in

-everything but the conservatism of the law. He was ‘housebreaker’ in

-the indictment; he was arrested by the Tombland patrol; and he was

-carried to court in a ‘chair,’ attended by a party of the City Guard.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“George, says the story, was an elegant figure of a man, and not at

-all regardless of the modes. Dark blue coat with brass buttons, fancy

-vest, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, hair full dressed

-and a brooch in his bosom&mdash;that was how he appeared before his judges.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The facts were simple enough. On a night of November, a shot and a

-screech had been heard in Mr. Browbody’s house in Unthank, a ward of

-the city; an entrance had been made through a window, opportunely

-open, by the Watch as opportunely handy, and the housebreaker had been

-discovered, a warm pistol in his hand, standing over the body of old

-Nicholas, who lay dead on the floor with his head blown in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The burglar was found standing, I say, like as in a stupor; the room

-was old Browbody’s study; the door from it into the passage was open,

-and outside was discovered the body of a girl, Miss Ellen, lying, as

-it were, in a dead faint. There you have the situation dashed in

-broad; and pretty complete, you’ll agree, for circumstantial

-evidence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait, my friend,” began Brindley, putting up a fat pompous hand.

-“Circumstantial, I think you said?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I said it,” answered the Deputy Clerk coolly; “and if you’ll

-listen, you’ll understand&mdash;perhaps. I said the girl was in a faint,

-<i>as it were</i>, for, as a matter of fact, <i>she never came out of it for

-seven months</i>.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leant back, thumbing the ashes into his pipe, and took no heed

-while the murmurs of incredulity buzzed and died down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not for seven months,” he repeated, then. “They called it a

-cataleptic trance, induced by fright and shock upon witnessing the

-deed; and they postponed the trial, waiting for this material witness

-to recover. But when at last the doctors certified that they could put

-no period to a condition which might, after all, end fatally without

-real consciousness ever returning, they decided to try Mr. Hussey; and

-he was tried and condemned to be hanged.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! he made no defence?” said a junior contemptuously.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, sir, can you suggest one?” asked the other civilly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suicide, of course.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“With the pistol there in the burglar’s own hand?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, he made none, you say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, I don’t say it. He declared it was ridiculous attempting a

-defence, while he lacked his one essential witness to confirm it. He

-protested only that the lady would vindicate him if she could speak.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, of course!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, of course; and of course you say it. But he spoke the truth,

-sir, for all that, as you’ll see.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He was lodged in Norwich Jail, biding the finish. But, before the

-hangman could get him&mdash;that time, at least&mdash;he managed to break out,

-damaging a warder by the way. The dogs of the law were let loose,

-naturally; but, while they were in full cry, Mr. Hussey, if you’ll

-believe me, walks into a local attorney’s office with Miss Ellen on

-his arm.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Brindley turned in his chair, and gave a little condescending laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Incredible, ain’t it?” said the Deputy Clerk. “But listen, now, to

-the affidavits of the pair, and judge for yourselves. We’ll take Miss

-Ellen’s first, plain as I can make it:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘I confess,’ says she, ‘to a romantic attachment to this same

-picturesque magsman, Mr. Hussey. He came my way&mdash;never mind how&mdash;and I

-fell in love with him. He made an assignation to visit me in my

-guardian’s house, and I saw that a window was left open for him to

-enter by. My guardian had latterly been in a very odd, depressed

-state. I think he was troubled about business matters. On the night of

-the assignation, by the irony of fate, his madness came to a head. He

-was of such methodical habits by nature, and so unerringly punctual in

-his hour for going to bed, that I had not hesitated to appoint my beau

-to meet me in his study, which was both remotest from his bedroom, and

-very accessible from without. But, to my confusion and terror, I heard

-him on this night, instead of retiring as usual, start pacing to and

-fro in the parlour underneath. I listened, helpless and aghast,

-expecting every moment to hear him enter his study and discover my

-lover, who must surely by now be awaiting me there. And at length I

-<i>did</i> hear him actually cross the passage to it with hurried steps.

-Half demented, dreading anything and everything, I rushed down the

-stairs, and reached his room door just in time to see him put a pistol

-to his head and fire. With the flash and report, I fell as if dead,

-and remember nothing more till the voice of my beloved seemed to call

-upon me to rise from the tomb&mdash;when I opened my eyes, and saw Hussey

-standing above me.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now for Mr. Hussey’s statement:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘I had an assignation with a young lady,’ says he, ‘on the night of

-so-and-so. A window was to be left open for me in Unthank. I had no

-intent whatever to commit a felony. I came to appointment, and had

-only one moment entered when I heard rapid footsteps outside, and a

-man, with a desperate look on him, hurried into the room, snatched a

-pistol from a drawer, put it to his head, and, before I could stop

-him, fired. I swear that, so far from killing him, I tried to prevent

-him killing himself. I jumped, even as he fell, and tore the pistol

-from his hand. Simultaneous with his deed, I heard a scream outside.

-Still holding the weapon, I went to the door, and saw the form of her

-I had come to visit lying in that trance from which she has but now

-recovered. As I stood stupefied, the Watch entered and took me. From

-that time I knew that, lacking her evidence, it was hopeless to

-attempt to clear myself. After sentence I broke prison, rushed

-straight to her house, found her lying there, and called out upon her

-to wake and help me. She answered at once, stirring and coming out of

-her trance. I know no more than that she did; and there is the whole

-truth.’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Deputy Clerk stopped. No one spoke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t ask you to pronounce upon those

-affidavits. In the upshot the law accepted them, admitting a

-miscarriage of justice. What I ask your verdict on is this: Could the

-law, after quashing its own conviction, hold the man responsible for

-any act committed by him during, and as the direct result of, that

-wrongful imprisonment?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-This started the ball, and for minutes it was tossed back and forth.

-Presently the tumult subsided, and Brindley spoke authoritatively for

-the rest&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly it could, and for any violence committed in the act.

-Provocation may extenuate, but it don’t justify. Prison-breaking, <i>per

-se</i>, is an offence against the law; so’s being found without any

-visible means of subsistence, though your pocket may just have been

-picked of its last penny. Any concessions in these respects would

-benefit the rogue without helping the community. I won’t say that if

-he hadn’t, by assaulting the warder, put himself out of court&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That was where he wanted to put himself,” interrupted the Deputy

-Clerk. It was certain that he was deplorably flippant.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Brindley waved the impertinence by.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The offence was an offence in outlawry,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But how could it be,” protested the Clerk, “since, by the law’s own

-admission, he was wrongfully convicted? If he hadn’t been, he couldn’t

-have hurt the warder. If you strike me first, mayn’t I hit you back? I

-tell you, the law acknowledged that it was in the wrong.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not at all. It acknowledged that the man was in the right.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Isn’t that the same thing?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, my friend! I see you haven’t got the rudiments. Hussey was a

-prisoner; a criminal is a prisoner; <i>ergo</i>, Hussey was a criminal.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But he was a prisoner in error!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And the law might very properly pardon him that; but not his violence

-in asserting it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Deputy Clerk shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, it was all the same in the end,” said he; “for it hanged him

-for pointing out its error to it, and so spoiled a very pretty

-romance. The lady accompanied him to the scaffold, and afterwards died

-mad. <i>Sic ita ad astra.</i> I will cap your syllogism, sir. An ass has

-long ears; the law has long ears; <i>ergo</i>, the law is an ass.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Young man,” said Brindley, with more good humour than I expected,

-“you have missed your vocation. Take my advice, and go to writing for

-the comic papers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What!” cried the Deputy Clerk. “Haven’t I been a law reporter all my

-life!”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch19">

-THE FIVE INSIDES

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">I’ll example you with thievery.&mdash;“Timon of Athens.”</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> dear old lady was ninety, and it was always Christmas in the

-sweet winter of her face. With the pink in her cheeks and the white of

-her hair, she came straight from the eighteenth century in which she

-was born. They were not more at odds with nature than are the hips and

-the traveller’s joy in a withered hedge; and if at one time they paid

-to art, why it was a charitable gift to a poor dependent&mdash;nothing

-more, I’ll swear.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-People are fond of testing links with the past. This sound old

-chatelaine had played trick-track, and dined at four o’clock. She had

-eaten battalia pie with “Lear” sauce, and had drunk orgeat in Bond

-Street. She had seen Blücher, the tough old “Vorwärts,” brought to

-bay in Hyde Park by a flying column of Amazons, and surrendering

-himself to an onslaught of kisses. She had seen Mr. Consul Brummell

-arrested by bailiffs in the streets of Caen, on a debt of so many

-hundreds of francs for so many bottles of vernis de Guiton, which was

-nothing less than an adorable boot-polish. She had heard the demon

-horns of newspaper boys shrill out the Little Corporal’s escape from

-Elba. She had sipped Roman punch, maybe;&mdash;I trust she had never taken

-snuff. She had&mdash;but why multiply instances? Born in 1790, she had

-taken just her little share in, and drawn her full interest of, the

-history, social and political, of all those years, fourscore and ten,

-which filled the interval between then and now.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Once upon a time she had entered a hackney-coach; and, lo! before her

-journey was done, it was a railway coach, moving ever swifter and

-swifter, and its passengers succeeding one another with an ever more

-furious energy of hurry-scurry. Among the rest I got in, and straight

-fell into talk, and in love, with this traveller who had come from so

-far and from scenes so foreign to my knowledge. She was as sweet and

-instructive as an old diary brought from a bureau, smelling of

-rose-leaves and cedar-wood. She was merry, too, and wont to laugh at

-my wholly illusory attachment to an age which was already as dead as

-the moon when I was born. But she humoured me; though she complained

-that her feminine reminiscences were sweetmeats to a man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You should talk with William keeper,” she said. “<i>He</i> holds on to the

-past by a very practical link indeed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was snowy weather up at the Hall&mdash;the very moral of another winter

-(so I was told) when His Majesty’s frigate “Caledonia” came into

-Portsmouth to be paid off, and Commander Playfair sent express to his

-young wife up in the Hampshire hills that she might expect him early

-on the following morning. He did not come in the morning, nor in the

-afternoon, nor, indeed, until late in the evening, when&mdash;as Fortune

-was generous&mdash;he arrived just at the turn of the supper, when the snow

-outside the kitchen windows below was thawing itself, in delirious

-emulation of the melting processes going on within, into a rusty

-gravy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You see,” said Madam, “it was not the etiquette, when a ship was paid

-off, for any officer to quit the port until the pennant was struck,

-which the cook, as the last officer, had to see done. And the cook had

-gone ashore and got tipsy; and there the poor souls must bide till he

-could be found. Poor Henry&mdash;and poor little me! But it came right.

-<i>Tout vient à qui sait attendre</i>. We had woodcocks for supper. It was

-just such a winter as this&mdash;the snow, the sky, the very day. Will you

-take your gun, and get me a woodcock, sir? and we will keep the

-anniversary, and you shall toast, in a bottle of <i>the</i> Madeira, the

-old French rhyme.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had this rhyme in my ears as I went off for my woodcock&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,</p>

-<p class="i0">Duquel la chair resueille l’appetit.</p>

-<p class="i0">Il est oyseau passager et petit:</p>

-<p class="i0">Est par son goust fait des vins bien juger.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought the

-coverts and dead ferns and icy reed-wrecked pools, and flushed not the

-little <i>oyseau passager</i> of my gallantry’s desires. But at last, in a

-silent coomb, when my feet were frozen, and my fingers like bundles of

-newly-pulled red radishes, William keeper came upon me, and I confided

-my abortive wishes and sorrows to his velveteen bosom.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He smiled, warm soul, like a grate.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Will’ee go up to feyther’s yonder, sir,” said he; “and sit by the

-fire, and leave the woodcock to me? The old man’ll be proud to

-entertain ye.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will go,” I said meanly. “But tell me first, William, what is your

-very practical link with the past?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He thought the frost had got into my blood; but when I had explained,

-he grinned again knowingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Tain’t me my lady meant, sir,” he said. “&hairsp;’Tis old feyther, and his

-story of how the mail coach was robbed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cottage hung up on the side of the coomb, leaning its back to an

-ash wood, and digging its toes well into the slope to keep itself from

-pitching into the brook below. There were kennels under the faggot

-stacks, a horse-shoe on the door, red light behind the windows. It

-looked a very cosy corner after the white austerity of the woods.

-William led me to it, and introducing me and my errand to his father,

-left the two of us together by the fire.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a strange old shell of a man, russet and smooth yet in the

-face; but his breath would sometimes rattle in him to show how dried

-was the kernel within. Still his brown eye was glossy, and his voice

-full and shrewd; and in that voice, speaking straight and clear out of

-the past, and in an accent yet more of the roads than of the woods, he

-told me presently the story of the great mail robbery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It ruined and it made me, sir,” said he; “for the Captain, hearing as

-how the company had sacked me for neglect of duty, and knowing

-something of my character, swore I’d been used damnably, and that he’d

-back his opinion by making me his gamekeeper. And he did that; and

-here I be, waiting confident for him to check my accounts when I jine

-him across the river.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He pointed to a dusky corner. There hung on the wall an ancient

-key-bugle, and an old, old napless beaver hat, with a faded gold band

-about it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was twenty-five when I put <i>they</i> up there, and that was in the

-year ’14; and not me nor no one else has fingered them since. Because

-why? Because it was like as if my past laid in a tomb underneath, and

-they was the sign that I held by it without shame or desire of

-concealment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“In those days I was guard to the ‘Globe’ coach, that run between

-London and Brighton. We made the journey in eight hours, from the

-‘Bull and Mouth’ in Aldersgate to the ‘New Inn’ in North Street&mdash;or

-t’other way about; and we never stopped but for changes, or to put

-down and take up. Sich was our orders, and nothing in reason to find

-fault with ’em, until they come to hold us responsible to something

-besides time. Then the trouble began.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, sir, as you may know, the coachman’s seat was over the

-fore-boot, and, being holler underneath, was often used as a box for

-special parcels. So it happened that this box was hired of the owners

-by Messrs. Black, South, and Co., the big Brighthelmstone bankers, in

-order to ship their notes and cash, whenever they’d the mind to,

-between London and the seaside, and so escape the risks and expense of

-a private mail. The valiables would be slid and locked in&mdash;coachman

-being in his place&mdash;with a private key; and George he’d nothing to do

-but keep his fat calves snug to the door, till someun at the other end

-came with a duplicate key to unlock it and claim the property. Very

-well&mdash;and very well it worked till the fifteenth of December in the

-year eighteen hundred and thirteen, on which day our responsibility

-touched the handsome figure&mdash;so I was to learn&mdash;of £4000 in Brighton

-Union bank notes, besides cash and securities.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was rare cold weather, much as it is now, save that the snow was

-shallower by a matter of two inches, and no more bind in it than dry

-sand. We was advertised to start from the ‘Bull’ at nine; and there

-was booked six insides and five out. At ten minutes to the hour up

-walks a couple of Messrs. Pinnick and Waghorn’s clerks from the

-borough, with the cash box in whity-brown paper, looking as innocent

-as a babby in a Holland pinifore. George he comes out of the shades,

-like a jolly Corsican ghost, a viping of his mouth; the box is slung

-up and fastened in; coachman climbs to his perch, and the five

-outsides follow-my-leader arter him to theirs, where they swaddle

-’emselves into their wraps strait-veskit-vise, and settin’ as

-miserable as if they was waitin’ to have a tooth drawed. Not much harm

-there, you’ll say&mdash;one box-seat, two behind, two with me in the

-dickey&mdash;all packed tight, and none too close for observation. Well,

-sir, we’ll hear about it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Out of the six insides, all taken, there was three already in place:

-a gentleman, very short and fierce, and snarling at everything;

-gentleman’s lady, pretty as paint, but a white timidious body;

-gentleman’s young-gentleman, in ducks and spencer and a cap like a

-concertina with the spring gone. So far so good, you’ll say again, and

-no connexion with any other party, and leastways of all with the

-insides as was yet wanting, and which the fierce gentleman was blowin’

-the lights out of for bein’ late.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Guard,’ says he, goin’ on outrageous, while the lady and the young

-gentleman cuddled together scared-like in a corner, ‘who are these

-people who stop the whole service while they look in the shop-vinders?

-If you’re for starting a minute after the stroke,’ says he, ‘dash my

-buttons,’ he says, ‘but I’ll raise all hell to have you cashiered!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘All right, sir,’ I says. ‘I knows my business better’n you can tell

-it me&mdash;’ and just as I spoke, a hackney kerridge come rumbling into

-the yard, and drew up anigh us.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Globe?’ says a jolly, fat-faced man, sticking his head out of it.

-‘All right, Cato&mdash;’ and down jumps a black servant, in livery, that

-was on the box, and opens the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The fat man he tumbled out&mdash;for all the world like a sheetful of

-washing a wallopin’ downstairs&mdash;Cato he got in, and between them they

-helped from the hackney and across to the coach as rickety a old

-figure as ever I see. He were all shawls and wraprascal. He’d blue

-spectacles to his eyes, a travellin’ cap pulled down on ’em, his mouth

-covered in; and the only evidence of flesh to be seen in the whole of

-his carcass, was a nose the colour of a hyster. He shuffled painful,

-too, as they held him up under the arms, and he groaned and muttered

-to himself all the time he were changing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, sir, you may suppose the snarling gentleman didn’t make the best

-of what he see; and he broke out just as they was a-hauling the

-invalid in, wanting to know very sarcastic if they hadn’t mistook the

-‘Globe’ for a hearse. But the fat man he accepted him as good-humoured

-as could be.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘It’s nothing affectionate, sir,’ says he. ‘Only paralysis, which

-ain’t catching. The gentleman won’t trouble you.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Not for my place,’ says the fierce gentleman, bristling up like a

-dog. ‘Damme, sir, not for my place. O, I can see very well what his

-nose is a-pinting to, and damme if it isn’t as monstrous a piece of

-coolness as ever I expeerunced. <i>These</i> seats, sir, are the nat’ral

-perkisite of a considerate punctiality, and if your friend objects to

-travelling with his back to the ’orses&mdash;&mdash;’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Now, now,’ says the fat man&mdash;‘nothing of the sort. You don’t mind

-sitting with your back to the ’orses, do you, nunky?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Eh,’ says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting a bit forward&mdash;‘No,

-no, no, no, no, no, no&mdash;’ and he sunk into the front cushions, while

-Cato and the fat ’un dispodged him to his comfort.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Time, gentlemen!’ says I.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Wait a bit’ says snarler. ‘It can’t never be&mdash;why, surely, it can’t

-never be that the sixth inside is took for a blackamoor?’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Alfred,’ says the lady, half veeping: ‘pray let things be. It’s only

-as far as Cuckfield we’re goin’, arter all.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘A poor argiment, my dear,’ says he, ‘in favour of suffering forty

-miles of a sulphurious devil.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Pray control yourself, sir,’ says the fat man, still very ekable.

-‘We’ve booked three places, for two, just to be comfortable. Our

-servant rides outside.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, that settled it; and in another minute we was off. I laughed a

-bit to myself as I swung up; but I hadn’t a thought of suspicion. What

-do <i>you</i> say, sir? Would you have? Why, no, of course not&mdash;no more

-than if you was a Lyons Mail. There was the five o’ them packed in

-there, and one on the roof behind the coachman&mdash;three divisions of a

-party as couldn’t have seemed more unconnected with one another, or

-more cat and dog at that. Yet, would you believe it, every one of them

-six had his place in the robbery that follered as carefully set for

-him as a figure in a sum.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As for me, sir, I done my duty; and what more could be expected of

-me? At every stage I tuk a general look round, to see as things were

-snug and nat’ral; and at Croydon, fust out, I observed as how the

-invalid were a’ready nodding in a corner, and the other two gents

-settled to their ‘Mornin’ Postses.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Beyond Croydon the cold begun to take the outsides bitter; and the

-nigger got into a vay of drummin’ with his feet so aggerawacious, that

-at last George he lost his temper with him and told him to shut up.

-Well, he shut up that, and started scrapin’ instead; and he went on

-scrapin’ till the fierce gentleman exploded out of the vinder below

-fit to bust the springs.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Who’s that?’ roars he&mdash;‘the blackamoor? Damme!’ he roars, ‘if you

-aren’t wus nor a badger in more ways than one,’ he roars.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘All right, boss,’ says the nigger, grinning and lookin’ down. ‘Feet

-warm at last, boss,’ and he stopped his shufflin’ and begun to sing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, sir, a sudden thought&mdash;I won’t go so far as to call it a

-suspicion&mdash;sent me, next stop, to examine unostentatious-like the

-neighbourhood of them great boots. But all were sound there, and the

-man sittin’ well tucked into his wraps. It wasn’t like, of course,

-that he could a’ kicked the panels of the box in without George

-knowin’ somethin’ about it. And he didn’t want to neither; <i>for he’d

-finished his part of the business a’ready</i>. So he just sat and smiled

-at me as amiable as Billy Vaters.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, we went on without a hitch; and at Cuckfield the three back

-insides turned out into the snow, and went for a bespoke po’-chaise

-that was waitin’ for ’em there. But, afore he got in, the fierce

-gentleman swung round and come blazin’ back to the vinder.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘My compliments, sir,’ says he, ‘at parting; and, if it <i>should</i> come

-to the vorst,’ he says, ‘I’d advise you to lay your friend pretty far

-under to his last sleep,’ he says, ‘or his snores’ll wake the dead.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Hush,’ says the fat ’un. ‘It’s the drowndin’ spirit in him comin’ up

-to blow like a vale.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Is it?’ says the fierce gentleman. ‘Then it’s my opinion that the

-outsides ought to be warned afore he gives his last heave&mdash;&mdash;’ and he

-went off snortin’ like a tornader.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The fat man shook his head when he were gone. His mildness, having

-sich a figger, was amazing. He sat with his arm and shoulder for a

-bolster to old paralysis, who was certainly going on in style.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Now, sir,’ says I, ‘the whole blessed inside is yourn till the end

-of the journey.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Thank you, guard,’ says he; ‘but I won’t disturb my friend, and

-we’ll stay as we are, thank you.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I got up then, and on we went&mdash;last stage, sir, through Clayton, over

-the downs, whipping through Pyecombe and Patcham, swish through

-Preston turnpike, and so into East Street, where we’d scarce entered,

-when there come sich a hullabaloo from underneath as if the devil,

-riding on the springs, had got his tail jammed in the brake. Up I

-jumps, and up jumps the blackamoor, screeching and clawing at George,

-so as he a’most dropped the ribbins.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Eh, boss!’ he yelled. ‘De old man&mdash;down dere!&mdash;damn bad!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“George he pulled up; and I thought he’d a bust, till I climbed over

-and loosened his neckercher, and let it all out. Then down we

-got&mdash;nigger and I, and one or two of the passengers&mdash;and looked in.

-‘What the thunder’s up?’ says I. The fat man were goin’ on awful,

-sobbin’, and hiccupin’, and holding on to old paralysis, as were sunk

-back in the corner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’! O, why did

-I ever give way to him, and let him come!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, we all stood pretty foolish, not knowing what to say or do,

-when his great tricklin’ face come round like a leg o’ mutton on a

-spit, and, seein’ the nigger, bust into hystrikes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘O, Cato!’ he roars; ‘O Cato, O Cato! Sich a loss if he goes!’ he

-roars. ‘Run on by a short cut, Cato,’ he says, ‘and see if you can

-find a doctor agen our drawin’ up at the “New Inn.”&hairsp;’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That seemed to us all a good idea, though, to be sure, there was no

-cut shorter than the straight road we was in. But anyhow, before we

-could re’lise it, the nigger was off like a arrer; and one of the

-gentlemen offered to keep the fat man company. But that he wouldn’t

-listen to.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘If he <i>should</i> come round,’ he said, ‘the shock of a stranger might

-send him off agen. No, no,’ he said: ‘leave me alone with my dying

-friend, and drive on as quick as ever you can.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It were only a matter of minutes; but afore we’d been drawed up half

-of one afore the inn, a crowd was gathered round the coach door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Is he back?’ says the fat man&mdash;‘Is Cato come back with a doctor? No,

-I won’t have him touched or moved till a doctor’s seen him.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then all at once he was up and out, rampageous.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Where is he?’ he shrieks. ‘I can’t vait no longer&mdash;I’m goin’

-mad&mdash;I’ll find one myself’&mdash;and, afore you could say Jack Robinson, he

-was off. I never see sich a figger run so. He fair melted away. But

-the crowd was too interested in the corpse to follow him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, sir, he didn’t come back with a doctor, and no more did Cato.

-And the corpse may have sat there ten minutes, and none daring to go

-into it, when a sawbones, a-comin’ down the street on his own account,

-was appealed to by the landlord for a verdict, seein’ as how by this

-time the whole traffic was blocked. He got in, and so did I; and he

-bent over the body spread back with its wraps agen the corner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘My God!’ I whispers&mdash;‘there’s no breath comin’ from him. Is he dead,

-sir?’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The sawbones he rose up very dry and cool.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘No,’ he says, ‘there ain’t no breath comin’ from him, nor there

-never will. It ain’t in natur’ to expect it from a waxworks.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir, I tell you I looked at him and just felt my heart as it might be

-a snail that someun had dropped a pinch of salt on.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Waxworks!’ I says, gaspin’. ‘Why, the man spoke and groaned!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’

-says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;&mdash;and

-I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy&mdash;nothing

-more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock my

-pullin’ it away give me&mdash;for there, behind where it had set, was a

-’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and

-panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the

-mail’s been robbed!’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised

-excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the

-question he expected.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And it had been?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In

-the vinter of ’13, sir&mdash;the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a

-rare stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards,

-when one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were

-took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man were a

-ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides to

-themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job. They cut

-into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and passed the boy

-through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’ Croydon. He set

-to&mdash;the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!&mdash;tuk a piece clean

-out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and brought down the

-cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his dance overhead to

-drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened and emptied, and put

-back in the boot where it was found; and the swag, for fear of

-accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the younger,

-standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled auburn trophies

-in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a sigh&mdash;then

-with a smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock. “How

-plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch20">

-THE JADE BUTTON

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with

-a good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is

-the subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by

-any lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself

-misinformed, and attend your last moments on the scaffold.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John Belmont

-hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this antagonism was a

-button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was of jade stone, and it was a talisman. For three generations it

-had been the mascot of the Belmont family, an heirloom, and

-symbolizing in its shining disk a little local sun, as it were, of

-prosperity. The last three head Belmonts had all been men of an ample

-presence. The first of them, the original owner of the stone, having

-assigned it a place in perpetuity at the bottom hole of his waistcoat

-(as representing the centre of his system), his heirs were careful to

-substantiate a tradition which meant so much to them in a double

-sense.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Indeed, the button was as good as a blister. It seemed to draw its

-wearer to a head in the prosperous part of him. It was set in gold,

-artfully furnished at its back with a loop and hank, and made

-transferable from waistcoat to waistcoat, that its possessor for the

-time being might enjoy at all seasons its beneficent influence. In

-broad or long cloth, in twill or flannel, by day and by night, the

-button attended him, regulating indiscriminately his business and his

-digestion. In such circumstances, it is plain that Death must have

-been hard put to it to find a vulnerable place; and such was the fact.

-It has often been said that a man’s soul is in his stomach; how, then,

-could it get behind the button? Only by one of those unworthy

-subterfuges, which, nevertheless, it does not disdain. The first

-Belmont lived to ninety, and with such increasing portliness that, at

-the last, a half-moon had to be cut, and perpetually enlarged, out of

-the dining-room table to accommodate his presence. Practically, he was

-eating his way through the board, with the prospect of emerging at the

-other end, when, in rising from a particularly substantial repast one

-night, he caught the button in the crack between the first slab

-(almost devoured) and the second, wrenched it away, and was

-immediately seized with apoplexy. He died; and the Destroyer, after

-pursuing his heir to threescore years and ten, looking for the heel of

-Achilles, as unworthily “got home” into him. He was lumbering down

-Fleet Street one dog-day when, oppressed beyond endurance by the heat,

-he wrenched open&mdash;in defiance of all canons of taste and prudence&mdash;his

-waistcoat. The button&mdash;<i>the</i> button&mdash;was burst from its bonds in the

-act, though, fortunately&mdash;for the next-of-kin&mdash;to be caught by its

-hank in the owner’s watch-chain. But to the owner himself the impulse

-was fatal. A prowling cutpurse, quick to the chance, “let out” full on

-the old gentleman’s bow-window, quenching its lights, so to speak, for

-ever; and then, having snatched the chain, incontinently doubled into

-the arms of a constable. The property was recovered&mdash;but for the heir;

-the second Belmont’s bellows having been broken beyond mending.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The third met with as inglorious an end, and at a comparatively early

-age; for the button&mdash;as a saving clause to whatever god had thrown it

-down, for the fun of the thing, among men&mdash;was possessed with a very

-devil of touchiness, and always instant to resent the least fancied

-slight to its self-importance. Else had Tithonus been its wearer to

-this day, as&mdash;&mdash;but I won’t anticipate. The third Belmont, then, in a

-fit of colossal forgetfulness, sent the button, <i>in</i> a white

-waistcoat, to the wash. The calamity was detected forthwith, <i>but not

-in time to avert itself</i>. After death the doctor. Before the outraged

-article could be restored to its owner and victim, he had died of a

-rapid dropsy, and the button became the property of Mrs. John Belmont,

-his relict and residuary legatee, who&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, for the history of the button itself? Why, in brief, as it

-affected the Belmont family, it was this. Mr. Adolphus Belmont had

-been Consul at one of the five treaty ports of China about the

-troublous years of 1840-42. During the short time that he held office,

-a certain local mandarin, Elephoo Ting by name, was reported to Peking

-for high treason, and honoured with an imperial ukase, or invitation

-to forestall the headsman. There was no doubt, indeed, that Elephoo

-Ting had been very strenuous, in public, in combating the intrusion of

-the foreign devil, while inviting him, in private, to come on and hold

-tight. There is no doubt, too, that in the result Elephoo and Adolphus

-had made a profitable partnership of it in the matter of opium, and

-that the mandarin had formed a very high, and even sentimental,

-opinion of the business capacities of his young friend. Young, that is

-to say, relatively, for Adolphus was already sixty-three when

-appointed to his post. But, then, of the immemorial Ting’s age no

-record actually existed. The oldest inhabitant of Ningpo knew him as

-one knows the historic beech of one’s district. He had always been

-there&mdash;bland, prosperous, enormous, a smooth bole of a man radiating

-benevolence. And now at last he was to die. It seemed impossible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It <i>was</i> impossible, save on a condition. That he confided to his odd

-partner and confidant, the English Consul, during a last interview. He

-held a carving-knife in his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Shall I accept this signal favour of the imperial sun?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have you any choice?” asked the Consul gloomily. “The decree is out;

-the soldiers surround your dwelling.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Elephoo Ting laughed softly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Vain, vain all, unless I discard my talisman.” He produced the jade

-button from his cap. “This,” he said, “I had from my father, when the

-old man sickened at last of life, desiring to be an ancestor. It

-renders who wears it, while he wears it, immortal; only it is jealous,

-jealous, and stands upon its dignity. Shall I, too, part with it, and

-at a stroke let in the light of ages?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He saw the incredulity in his visitor’s face, and handed him the

-carving-knife.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Strike,” he said. “I bid thee.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You take the consequences?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With infinite cynicism, Mr. Belmont essayed to tickle, just to tickle,

-the creature’s infatuation with the steel point. It bent, where it

-touched, like paper. He thrust hard and ever harder, until at last he

-was thrashing and slicing with the implement in a sort of frenzy of

-horror. The mandarin stood apathetic, while the innocuous blade swept

-and rustled about his huge bulk like a harmless feather. Then said he,

-as the other desisted at length, unnerved and trembling: “Art thou

-convinced?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am convinced,” said the Consul.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Elephoo Ting handed him the button in exchange for the knife.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take and wear it,” he said, “for my sake, whom you have pleased by

-outwitting, on the score of benefiting, two Governments. You have the

-makings of a great mandarin in you; the button will do the rest. Would

-you ever escape the too-soon satiety of this stodgy life, pass it on,

-with these instructions which I shall give you, to your next-of-kin.

-Be ever deferential to the button and considerate of its vanity, for

-it is the fetish of a sensitive but undiscriminating spirit. So long

-as you cherish it, you will prosper. But the least apparent slight to

-itself, it will revenge, and promptly. As for me, I have an

-indigestion of the world that I would cure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And with the words he too became an ancestor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then riches and bodily amplitude came to Adolphus Belmont, until the

-earth groaned under his importance. He was a spanker, and after him

-Richard Belmont was a spanker, and after him John Belmont was a very

-spanker of spanks, even at thirty-two, when he committed the last

-enormous indiscretion which brought him death and his fortunes almost

-ruin. For the outrage to the button had been so immeasurable that, not

-content with his obliteration, it must manœuvre likewise to scatter

-the accumulations of fortune, which it had brought him, by involving

-in a common ruin most of the concerns in which that fortune was

-invested, so that his widow found herself left, all in a moment, a

-comparatively poor woman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And here Mrs. John Belmont comes in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was a little woman, of piquancy and resource, and a very

-accomplished angler of men. She could count on her pink finger-tips

-the ten most killing baits for vanity. And, having once recovered the

-button, she set herself to conciliating it with a thousand pretty

-kisses and attentions. It lived between the bosom of her frock and the

-ruff of her dainty nightgown. Yet for a long time it sulked, refusing

-to be coaxed into better than a tacit staying of its devastating hand.

-And so matters stood when the Assembly ball was held.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Emma Belmont and Mrs. John Belmont lived in the same town,

-connexions, but apart. Their visits were visits of ceremony&mdash;and

-dislike. Miss Emma was Mr. John’s sister, and had always highly

-disapproved of his marriage with the “adventuress.” Her very name, she

-thought, bordered on an impropriety! How could any “Inez” dissociate

-herself from the tradition of cigarette-stained lips and white

-eyeballs travelling behind a fan like little moons of coquetry? This

-one, in fact, took no trouble to. Her reputation involved them in a

-common scandal; and it was solely on this account, I think, that she

-so resented her sister-in-law’s appropriation of the button. She

-herself was devoted to good works, and utterly content in her mission.

-She did not want the button; but, inasmuch as it was a Belmont

-heirloom, and Mrs. John childless, she chose to symbolize in it the

-bone of contention, and to use it as a convenient bar to amenities

-which would, otherwise, have seemed to argue in her a sympathy with a

-mode of life with which she could not too emphatically wish to

-disconnect herself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They met at the Assembly ball. Miss Belmont, though herself involved

-in the financial ebb, had considered it her duty to respect so

-respectable an occasion, and even to adorn it with a silk of such

-inflexibility that (I tremble as I write it) one could imagine her

-slipping out of it through a trap, like the vanishing lady, and

-leaving all standing. Presently Mrs. John Belmont, with a wicked look,

-floated up to her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>You</i> here, Inez!” exclaimed Miss Emma, affecting an amazement which,

-unhappily, she could not feel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other flirted and simpered. When she smiled, one could detect

-little threads drawn in the fine powder near the corners of her mouth.

-There was no ensign of widowhood about her. She ruffled with little

-gaudy downs and feathers, like a new-fledged bird of paradise.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, indeed,” she said. “And I’ve brought Captain Naylor, who’s been

-dining with me. Shall I introduce him to you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Belmont’s sense of decorum left her speechless.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Inez, on the contrary, rippled out the most china-tinkling laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You dear old thing,” she tittered. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew

-you’d be here to chaperon me, and&mdash;&mdash;” She came a step closer. “Yes,

-the button’s there, Emma. You may stare; but make up your mind, I’m

-not going to part with it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Belmont found herself, and responded quietly&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hope not indeed, Inez. I don’t ask or expect you. You might

-multiply it to-night by a dozen, and only offend me less.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. John laughed again, rather shrilly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, fie!” she said. “Why, even you haven’t a high-necked dress, you

-know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And then a very black and red man, in a jam-pot collar and with a

-voice like a rook, came and claimed her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Haw, Mrs. Belmont! Aw&mdash;er, dance, I think.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Belmont, to save appearances, rigidly sat out the evening. When

-at last she could endure no more, she had her fly called and prepared

-to go home. She was about to get into it, when she observed a familiar

-figure standing among the few midnight loafers who had gathered

-without the shadow of the porch.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hurley!” she exclaimed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The man, after a moment, slouched reluctantly forward, touching his

-hat. He had once been her most favoured protégé&mdash;a rogue and

-irreclaimable, whom she had persuaded, temporarily, from the devil’s

-service to her own. He had returned to his master, but with a

-reservation of respect for the practical Christian. Miss Belmont was

-orthodox, but she had a way with sinners. She pitied and fed and

-<i>trusted</i> them. She was a member of the Prisoners’ First Aid Society,

-with a reverence for the law and a weakness for the lawless. Her aim

-was to reconcile the two, to interpret, in a yearning charity, between

-the policeman and the criminal, who at least, in the result, made a

-common cause of honouring <i>her</i>. Inez asserted that, living, as she

-did, very nervously alone on the outskirts of the town, she had

-adopted this double method of propitiation for the sake of her own

-security. But, then, Inez had a forked tongue, which you would never

-have guessed from seeing the little scarlet tip of it caressing her

-lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Well, Miss Belmont had once coaxed Jim Hurley into being her handy

-man, foreseeing his redemption in an innocent association with flowers

-and the cult of the artless cabbage. He proved loyal to her, gained

-her confidence, knew all about the button and other matters of family

-moment. But the contiguity of the kitchen-garden with Squire

-Thorneycroft’s pheasant-coops was too much for hereditary

-proclivities. He stole eggs, sold them, was detected, prosecuted,

-sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and disappeared. Miss

-Belmont herself met him on his discharge from the jail gates, but he

-was not to be induced to return. The wild man was in his brain, and

-off he had gone, with Parthian shots of affection, in quest of fun.

-And for two years she had not seen him again until to-night, when his

-scratch of red hair and beard&mdash;which always looked as if he had just

-pulled his head out of a quickset&mdash;suddenly blew into flame before

-her. And then there followed a shock of distress.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jim! Why, what’s happened? What’s the matter with you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was no need to specify. The man was obviously going off his

-tramp&mdash;nearing the turn of the dark road. He was ghastly, and

-constantly gave little spasmodic wrenching coughs during the minute he

-stood beside her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he gasped, “I dunno. The rot has got into my stummick. I be

-all touchwood inside like an old ellum”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Will you come and see me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Es. By’m-by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not now? Where are you going to sleep?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He grinned, and coughed, half suffocated, as he backed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve got my plans, Missis. You&mdash;leave me alone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It did not sound gracious. One would not have guessed by it his

-design, which was nothing less than a jolly throw against the devil in

-the teeth of death. Miss Belmont, a little hurt, but more sad, got

-into her fly and was driven home. Arrived there, she sat up an hour

-contemplative. She was just preparing to go to bed in the grey dawn,

-when she heard the garden-gate click and footsteps rapidly traverse

-the path to the front door. Her heart seemed to stop. She stole

-trembling into the hall. “<i>Who’s there?</i>” she demanded in a quavering

-voice. The answer came, with a clearness which made her start, through

-the letter-box.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Me, Missis&mdash;Jim Hurley.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Amazed, and a little embarrassed, she opened. The man burst, almost

-fell in, and, staggering, recovered himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Ere!” he said, with eager manipulation trying to force something

-upon her. “I’ve done ’er! I’ve got it for yer! Take it&mdash;make

-’aste&mdash;they’re arter me. It’s yourn as by rights, and she’s got to

-crow on the wrong side of ’er woundy little mouth.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But Miss Belmont, with instinctive repulsion, had put her hands behind

-her back and retreated before him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jim!” she said sickly. “<i>What</i> have you got? What do you mean? I’ll

-take nothing from you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, go along!” he insisted. His cough was gone. He seemed animated

-with a new masterfulness. “Ain’t I in the know? It’s yourn, anyhow,

-and”&mdash;his eye closed in an ineffable rapture&mdash;“I done the devil out of

-his own when I heard I be booked to go to him. He’ll pay me, I reckon;

-but I don’t care. You take it. It’s your dooty as a good woman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, no,” cried Miss Belmont, beating him away with her hands. “Don’t

-let me even see it to know. How could you suppose such a thing? Take

-it back while you’ve time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-B’s 33 and 90 wore their list-footed boots; but Jim’s ear was a

-practised one. Swiftly summoned, they had raced on his tracks from the

-Assembly Rooms. He had known it, and had laboured merely to keep his

-start of them by three minutes&mdash;two&mdash;one. Now, while their sole was

-yet on the threshold, he darted into the dining-room and was under the

-table at a dive. They had him out and handcuffed, of course, in a

-jiffy; and then they stood to explain and expostulate.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, you ain’t a cheeked one neither, Hurley! To run up here of all

-places for cover! Don’t you mind him, Miss.” (She stood pale and

-shivering. “The shock!” she had murmured confusedly.) “Why,” said 33,

-“the man was heard by plenty proposing of hisself to visit you; and

-looked to your hold kindness to him to take and shelter, is supposed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She found voice to ask: “What’s he done?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done!” said 33. “Why, bless you, Miss! Treating of you as if you was

-in collusion, ain’t I?” (She shivered.) “Why, he grabbed a jewel&mdash;a

-gold button, as I understand&mdash;out o’ the buzzim o’ your own late

-brother’s good lady as she was a-stepping into her broom, and bolted

-with it. It’ll be on ’im now if we’re lucky.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You ain’t then, old cock,” said Jim, with a little hoarse laugh and

-choke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Chuck it!” said 90, a saturnine man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s what I done, Kroojer,” said Jim. “You go and ’unt in the

-bloomin’ ’edges if you don’t believe me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It’s my duty to tell you,” said 33, “that whatever you says will be

-took down in evidence agen you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not by you,” said Jim. “Why, you can’t spell.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They carried him off dispassionately, with some rough, kindly

-apologies to Miss Belmont for the trouble to which they had put her.

-She locked and bolted the door when they were gone; mechanically saw

-to the lamps, and went upstairs to bed in a sort of stunned dream. So

-she committed herself to the sheets, and so, in a sort of waking

-delirium, passed the remaining hours of slumber. She felt as if the

-even tenor of her way, her stream of placid days, had been suddenly

-dammed by a dead body, the self-destroyed corpse of her own character.

-Sometimes she would start from a suffering negation to feel B 90’s

-hand upon her shoulder. “What have I done&mdash;O! what have I done?” she

-would moan in anguish; and B 90 would glower from under his helmet

-like a passionless Rhadamanthus&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have you done? What but, like our second Henry, meanly, by

-inference and innuendo, imposed upon your wretched tool the

-responsibility for a deed which you dared not seek to compass by the

-open processes of the law. Did you dispute the right ownership of the

-button? Then why choose for your confidant an ex-thief and poacher? No

-use to say you designed no harm. By the flower be known the seed. Come

-along o’ me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She rose late, ate no breakfast, and sat awaiting, pinched and grey,

-the inevitable ordeal. It opened, early enough, with the advent of

-Mrs. John. The little widow came sailing in, with a face of floured

-steel. When she saw, the edge of her tongue seemed to whet itself on

-her lips. Miss Emma broke out at once in an unendurable cry&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Inez! You can’t think I was a party to this!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who said so, dear? Though the man was a protégé of yours, and was

-known to have remained where he encountered me by your instructions.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is not true.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Isn’t it? Well, at least, the plan miscarried. Now, give me the

-button, and I promise, to the best of my power, to hush the matter

-up.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I haven’t got it, indeed; O, you must believe me! He told the

-policeman himself that he had thrown it away while escaping.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, yes. I give him credit for his loyalty to you. But, Emma&mdash;you

-know I never put much faith in your sanctimoniousness. Don’t be a

-fool, and drive me to extremities.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You can’t mean it. I blame my covetous heart. I envied you&mdash;I admit

-it&mdash;this dear fetish of our family. But to think me capable of such a

-wickedness! O, Inez!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then Mrs. John Belmont exploded. I muffle the report. It left Miss

-Belmont flaccid and invertebrate, weakly sobbing that she would see

-Hurley; would try to get him to identify the exact spot where he had

-parted with the bauble; would move heaven and earth to make her

-guiltless restitution. Yet all the time, remembering the scene of last

-night, she must have known her promise vain. Jim had sought to thrust

-no shadow of a fact upon her. He had not thrown the button away. He

-alone knew where it now was; but would he so far play into the hands

-of her enemy as to tell? She felt faint in the horror of this doubt;

-and Mrs. John perceived the horror.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As for her, she was utterly hateful and incredulous. She had friends,

-she screamed&mdash;one in particular&mdash;who would act, and unmercifully, to

-see her righted. She hardly refrained from striking her sister-in-law,

-as she rushed out in a storm of hysterics.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And at this point I was called in&mdash;by Miss Belmont, that is to say.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I found her utterly prostrated&mdash;within step of the brink of the final

-collapse.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I coaxed her back, foot by foot; won the whole truth from her; laughed

-her terrors to scorn, and staked her my professional credit to have

-the matter put right, or on the way to right, by our next meeting.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And I meant it, and was confident. For that very day&mdash;though of this

-she did not know&mdash;I had officially ordered Jim Hurley’s removal from

-the cell in which he had been lodged to the County Hospital. The man

-was dying, that was the fact; and a fact which he had known perfectly

-when he staked at one throw for an easy bed for himself, and a

-repayment of his debt to his old benefactress.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was ensconced in a little ward by himself, when I visited him and

-sat down to my task. He cocked an eye at me from a red tangle, and

-grinned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, Hurley,” I said, “I come straight from Miss Emma, by her

-authority, to acquaint you with the results of your deed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” he answered. “Hev the peelers been a-dirtyin’ of their pore knees

-lookin’ for it in the ’edgerows? I ’opes as they found it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know they couldn’t. You’ve got it yourself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“S’elp me, I haven’t!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then I informed him, carefully and in detail, of the awful miscarriage

-of his intentions. He was patently dumbfounded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I’m blowed!” he whispered, quite amazed. “Well, I <i>am</i> blowed!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must undo this,” I said. “There’s only one way. Where <i>is</i> the

-button?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He gauged me profoundly a moment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On a ledge under the table,” he said. Then he thrust out a claw.

-“Don’t you go lettin’ ’<i>er</i> ’ave it back,” he said, “or I’ll ’aunt

-you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I considered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must undo what you’ve done,” I repeated. “Don’t you see? Unless

-you can prove that it’s been in your possession all the time, <i>and is

-now</i>, her character’s gone for ever. Mrs. John will see to that.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He did not, professionally, lack wits. He understood perfectly.

-“You’re ’er friend?” he asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I nodded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All right,” he said, “you get ’old of it private, and smuggle of it

-’ere, and I’ll manage the rest.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, my good fellow! You’ve been overhauled, I suppose, and pretty

-thoroughly. How can you convince&mdash;<i>convince</i>, you understand&mdash;that

-you’ve kept the thing snug through it all?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You go and smuggle of it ’ere,” he repeated doggedly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It needed only a very little manœuvring. I hurried back to Miss

-Belmont’s, heard the lady was still confined to her room, forbade the

-servant to report me, and claimed the privacy of the dining-room for

-the purpose of writing a prescription. The moment I was alone, I made

-an excited and perfectly undignified plunge under the table, found the

-ledge (the thing, in auctioneer’s parlance, was a “capital set,” in

-four leaves), and the button, which in a feverish ecstasy I pocketed.

-Then, very well satisfied, I hurried back to Mr. Hurley.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I found him, even in that short interval, changed for the worse; so

-much changed, that, in face of his condition, a certain sense of novel

-vigour, an overweening confidence in my own importance which had grown

-up, and lusty, in me during my return journey, seemed nothing less

-than an indecency. However, curiously enough, this mood began to ebb

-and sober from the very moment of my handing over the <i>pièce de

-conviction</i> to its purloiner. He “palmed” it professionally, cleared

-his throat, and took instant command of the occasion. “Now,” he said,

-“tell ’em I’ve confessed to you, and let ’em all come.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His confidence mastered the depression which had overtaken me. I

-returned, with fair assurance, to Miss Belmont, who received my news

-with a perfect rapture of relief. What she had suffered, poor good

-woman, none but herself might know.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did he own to you where he had hidden it?” she asked. And “Yes,” I

-could answer, perfectly truthfully.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By my advice, she prepared at once to go and fetch her sister-in-law

-to the hospital&mdash;with a friend, if she desired it&mdash;that all might

-witness to the details of the restitution.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the meanwhile I myself paid a visit to the police station, and

-thence returned to my post to await the arrival of my company.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It came in about an hour: Miss Belmont, tearfully expectant; Mrs. John

-Belmont, shrill and incredulous; an immaculate tall gentleman, Captain

-Naylor by name, whose chin was propped on a very high collar, that he

-might perpetually sniff the incense of his own superiority; and,

-lastly, and officially to the occasion, B 90.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I lost no time in conducting them to the bedside of the patient. He

-had rallied wonderfully since our last encounter. He was sitting up

-against his pillow, his red hair fluffed out like the aureole of a

-dissipated angel, an expression on his face of a quite sanctimonious

-relish. I fancy he even winked at me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, Hurley,” I said gravely, “as one on the threshold of the grave”

-(which, nevertheless, I had my doubts about), “speak out and tell the

-truth.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He cleared his throat, and started at once in a loud voice, as if

-repeating a lesson he had set himself&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Earing as ’ow my rash hact ’ave brought suspicion on a innercent

-lady, I ’ereby makes affirmation of the fac’s. I stole the button, and

-’id it in my boot, where it is now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, it ain’t,” said B 90 suddenly. “Stow that.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Hurley smiled pityingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, ain’t it, sir?” he said. “&hairsp;’Ow do you know?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Because I searched you myself,” said B 90 shortly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The patient, infinitely tolerant, waved his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’E searched me, ladies and gentlemen! Ho, lor! Look at ’im; I only

-arsks that&mdash;look at ’im! Why, he doesn’t even know as there’s a smut

-on his nose at this moment.” (B 90 hastily rubbed that organ, and

-remembering himself, lapsed into stolidity once more.) Mr. Hurley

-addressed him with exaggerated politeness&mdash;“<i>Would</i> you be so good,

-sir, as to go and fetch my boots?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-B 90 thought profoundly, and officially, a minute; wheeled suddenly,

-withdrew, and returned shortly with the articles, very massive and

-muddy, which he laid on the counterpane before the prisoner. The

-latter, cherishing the ineffable <i>dénouement</i>, deliberately took and

-examined the left one, paused a moment, smilingly canvassing his

-company, and then quickly, with an almost imperceptible wrench and

-twirl, had unscrewed the heel bodily from its place and held it out.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Ere!” he said; and, with his arm extended, sank back in an

-invertebrate ecstasy upon his pillow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The heel was pierced with a tiny compartment on its inner side, and

-within the aperture lay the button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They all saw it, but not as I, who, standing as I did at the bed-head,

-and being something of an amateur conjurer myself, was conscious in a

-flash of the rascal “passing” the trinket into its receptacle even as

-he exposed it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There followed an exclamation or two, and silence. Then Captain Naylor

-said “Haw!” and Miss Belmont, with a gasp, turned a mild reproachful

-gaze upon her sister-in-law. But Mrs. John had not the grace to accept

-it. She gave a little vexed, covetous laugh, and stepped forward.

-“Well,” she said to Miss Emma, “you must go without it still, dear, it

-seems.” Then, coldly, to Hurley: “Give it me, please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, so far so good; and, though I was enraged with, I could not

-combat the decision. But truly I was not prepared for the upshot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Jim, at Mrs. John’s first movement, had recovered possession of the

-button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, you don’t!” he said quite savagely. “I know all about it, and

-’tain’t yourn by rights.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jim, Jim,” cried Miss Belmont in great agitation; “it is hers,

-indeed; please give it up. You don’t think what you make me suffer!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the man was black with a lowering determination.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Tain’t,” he said. “Keep off, you! I’ve not thrown agen the devil for

-nothing. It’s goin’ to be Miss Emma’s or nobody’s.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not mine,” cried the poor lady again. “I don’t want it. Not for

-worlds. I wouldn’t take it now!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And then Mrs. John Belmont, in one discordant explosion of fury, gave

-away her case for ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Insolent! Beyond endurance!” she shrieked, and whirled, with a

-flaming face, upon her cavalier.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Archibald! why do you stand grinning there? Why don’t you take it

-from him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Thus prompted, Archibald, in great confusion, uttered an inarticulate

-“Haw!” explained himself in a second and clearer one, and strode

-threateningly towards the bed. Watching, with glittering eyes, the

-advance, Jim, at the last moment, <i>whipped the button into his mouth

-and swallowed it!</i>

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The case, as a pathological no less than as a criminological

-curiosity, was unique. I will state a few particulars. The button

-lodged in the pancreas, in which it was presently detected,

-comfortably ensconced, by means of the Röntgen rays. And it is a fact

-that, from the moment it settled there&mdash;<i>never</i> apparently (I use the

-emphasis with a full sense of my responsibility) to be evicted&mdash;Mr.

-Hurley began to recover, and from recovering to thrive&mdash;on anything.

-Croton-oil&mdash;I give only one instance&mdash;was a very cream of nourishment

-to him. Galvanic batteries but shook him into the laughter which makes

-fat, but without stirring the button. It was ridiculous to suggest an

-operation, though the point was long considered. But in the meanwhile

-the button had continued piling up over itself such impenetrable

-defences of adipose tissue that its very locality had become

-conjectural. The question was dropped, only to give rise to another.

-How could one any longer detain this luxuriant man in hospital as an

-invalid? He was removed, therefore, beaming, to the police court;

-received, for some inexplicable reason, a nominal sentence, dating

-from the time of his arrest (everything, in fact, was henceforward to

-prosper with him), and trundled himself out into the world, where he

-disappeared. I have seen him occasionally since at years-long

-intervals. He grows ever more sleek and portly, till the shadows of

-the three dead Belmonts together would not suffice to make him a pair

-of breeches. He has a colossal fortune; he is respectable, and, of

-course, respected&mdash;a genial monster of benevolence; and he never fails

-to remind me, when we meet, of the time when I could pronounce his

-life not worth a button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I have, can only have, one theory. The button, after many cross

-adventures, “got home” at last&mdash;fatally for Mrs. John Belmont, who

-fell into a vicious decline upon its loss, and, tenderly nursed by her

-sister-in-law, departed this sphere in an uncertain year of her life.

-And, unless the button itself comes to dissolve, Jim, I fear, is

-immortal.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch21">

-DOG TRUST

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">There</span> was no reason why Richard Le Shore should not have made a

-straightforward appeal for the hand of Miss Molly Tregarthen to her

-papa. His credentials&mdash;of fortune, condition, and character&mdash;were

-unexceptionable; the girl’s kind inclinations were confessed; the

-father himself was an unexacting, indulgent, and ease-loving

-Democritus. It was but a question of those two and of Mr. Dicky, their

-favoured, their intimately favoured, guest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was no reason, and for the reason that the spirit of Romance

-abhors reason; and that was why, without any reason, Richard persuaded

-Mollinda to a clandestine engagement, to stolen interviews, to a

-belief that love franked by authority was only the skim-milk of human

-kindness. At least he chose to persuade himself that he persuaded her,

-at all times when he could coax a certain bewildered honesty in her

-eyes from dumbly questioning the necessity of such tactics. In reality

-he loved that look, as the sweetest earnest of a sweet quality. It was

-not her he studied to deceive, but himself. Incurably eligible, he

-could never taste but through make-believe, like the “Marchioness,”

-the sweet stimulant of paternal interdiction.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the end of the season he accompanied father and child to

-“Tregarthen.” Here, you may be sure, he had not been twenty-four hours

-without making choice for his love’s rendezvous of a little wood

-which, approached through a tangled shrubbery, covered the slopes

-which ran up from the back of the house to the high beeches above.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now Dicky would himself have allowed that everything (desirable) had

-shone upon his suit save moonlight. That only, of all poetic glamours,

-was yet lacking. And so he prevailed with Molly Tregarthen to consent

-to a postprandial trysting among the trees, on the very evening

-subsequent to that of his arrival.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had no difficulty in escaping from papa, the imperturbable

-sybarite. Seated in an open window over against shrouded lawns, and a

-moon which rose like a bubble in liquid darkness; dreaming betwixt

-decanter and cigar-case, papa would not have had his luminous coma

-disturbed for anything less than a serious fire. So Dicky left him,

-and going up alone to the woods, leaned his back against a tree and

-smoked placidly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was very quiet, and fragrant, and beautiful there; and presently

-the young gentleman lost himself somewhat in reflections. The

-moonlight, penetrating the leaves, made of the sward a ghostly Tom

-Tiddler’s Ground, which was all mottled with disks of faint gold. What

-a soft, fine shower to fall upon the head of his Danae, as she should

-come stealing up the alleys of light! Stealing&mdash;stealing! There was a

-little thrill of ecstasy in the word. How wide her eyes would be, and

-how would her bosom rise and fall in the breathlessness of some

-phantom guilt!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Quite a nice little debauch of expectation, only&mdash;she did not come. He

-waited on, desirous, impatient, hungry; and at last, it must be said,

-cross. The touch of her hand, her lips, had never seemed so

-indispensable to him; but he would not cheapen the virtues of his own

-by carrying them back to market to a coquette. If she wanted them, she

-knew where to find them. As for him, he was quite placid and content;

-in proof of which he threw away his cigar-butt, and began pacing with

-a noisy recklessness up and down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That did not conjure her to him, but it seemed to evoke occasional

-responsive rustlings, or the fancy of them, which would bring his

-heart into his throat. They were only the stirring of woodland things,

-it seemed. He got very angry, resentful, cruel in his thoughts. The

-moon, the bubble of light, rose higher and higher&mdash;to the very surface

-of night, where it floated a little, and then burst. At least, so it

-seemed; for, all of a sudden, where it had been was a black cloud, and

-drops began to patter on the leaves. Then Richard realized all in a

-moment that his tryst had failed, that the moonlight was quenched, and

-that it was beginning to rain. With a naughty word or two, he braced

-up his loins, left the wood, and descended towards the house.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he went down, he heard the stable clock strike twelve. He startled,

-and strode faster, faster, until he was fairly scuttling. It was in

-vain. The Tregarthens were early people, and, even before he reached

-the house, he knew that its every window was blind and black. The

-whole family was abed, and he was shut out into the night.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Twice, and vainly, he made the entire round of the building, seeking

-for any loophole to enter by. The rain by then was pelting, yet he did

-not dare raise a clatter on the front door, for fear he should be

-pistolled from a window. The inmates knew nothing of his absence, and

-the Squire held, for a Democritus, strong views on the subject of

-undisturbed repose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Coming to the porch again from his second circuit, and putting a hand

-to rest upon one of its columns, he jumped, as if he had touched a

-charged battery, to see a figure standing motionless in the shadow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo!” he gasped, in the sudden shock; then rallying, muttered out

-in a fury at his own weakness, “Who the devil are you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Some faint gleam of moonshine, weltering through the flood,

-enlightened him even as he spoke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, if it ain’t the butler!” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was the butler. The figure admitted it in a curt word. Le Shore had

-already, on the occasions of his two dinners at “Tregarthen,” noticed

-this man, and had taken a quite violent exception in his own

-conscience to his manner and appearance. He thought he had never known

-a leading trust bestowed upon one whose face so expressed the very

-moral of acquisitiveness, whose conduct was marked by such an uncouth

-inurbanity. Here, if there was any value in biology, was Bill Sikes in

-broadcloth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The tone of the fellow’s answer grated confoundedly on him&mdash;he hardly

-knew why.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you locked out, like me?” he said, putting violence on himself to

-speak civilly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but for a better reason.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you mean by that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The creature was as thick-set as a bull. He could have broken this

-elegant like a stick across his knee. He commanded the situation,

-massive and impassive, from his own standpoint.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look’ee here, sir,” he said, speaking through a grip of little strong

-teeth in a square jaw, “I’m going to tell you what I mean. I’m going

-to make no bones about it. You meet Miss Molly fair and open, or you

-don’t meet her at all. Do I know what I’m saying? Yes, I do know. She

-didn’t come to you to-night&mdash;because why? Because <i>I</i> interdicted of

-her. That’s it. She might have thought better&mdash;or worse&mdash;of it, bein’

-a woman, and soft; and that’s why I laid by, watchin’ that no harm

-should come of it if she did. But she was wise, and didn’t. I seen you

-all the time in the wood, and I tell you this. A word’s got to be

-enough. You meet her by fair means, or not at all. Never mind the

-Squire there. It’s me that says it. If she admires you, nine stun

-ten&mdash;which there’s no accounting for tastes&mdash;I’m not the one to make

-difficulties. But you go like a honest man and ask her straight of her

-father. That’s the ticket, and don’t you make no error. Don’t you

-flatter your fancy no more with randy-voos in the moonshine. Why, if

-ever there’s a light calc’lated to lead a gentleman astray, it’s that.

-I say it, and I know. You go to the girl’s father; and, after, we’ll

-see what we’ll see.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He cleared his throat with a quarrelling sound, and came out of the

-shadow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” said he, “here’s a house you’ve been locked out of, and you

-want to get in without disturbin’ of the family&mdash;is that it? Very

-well, sir; now we understand everything; and step this way, if <i>you</i>

-please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Almost with the words, he had clawed himself up to a window-sill of

-the ground-floor, and was very softly manipulating the sash. Mr. Le

-Shore, voiceless, hardly gasping, stood, just conscious of himself, in

-an absolute rigor of fury and astonishment. He was “stound,” as

-Spenser would have put it. Presently he snapped his eyelids, and woke

-aware that Mr. Hissey, standing on the grass, was loweringly inviting

-him to enter by way of an opened window. With a shock, he recovered

-his nerves of motion, and, stalking to the place, vaulted stiffly to

-the sill, and sat thereon like a cavalryman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve just a word or two for you, before I&mdash;I avail myself of this,”

-he said. “You’ve been gadding, and got drunk, I suppose; and this is

-your way of trying to make capital of a belated guest. Perhaps the

-means you’ve adopted ’ll appear less excellent to you in the sober

-morning. As to your method of entry, there’s nothing in it

-incompatible with the character I’d already formed of you. But that,

-and your quite outrageous insolence, will be made matters for your

-master’s consideration to-morrow. I mention this in honour, before

-I&mdash;&mdash;” He waved his hand towards the room.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I could twist your neck with two fingers, here and now,” said the

-man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” said Dicky. “And that’s why I decline to make use of this

-window except on the plain understanding.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The butler cleared his throat again, even with a strange note of

-approval in the unseemly sound.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mayhap you’ll do,” he said. “Now go to bed, and don’t forgit your

-prayers in your disappyntment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Le Shore hissed-in a breath, as though the rain had suddenly

-become boiling spray, then tiptoed rigidly to his room.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-The opening of the window, framed with creepers, whose shadows shrank

-or dilated softly in the muslin curtains, gave on to a soothful

-picture of lawn and herbaceous border which, withdrawing to cool

-caverns of leafiness under a remote cedar tree, seemed to gather

-themselves to a head of prettiest expression in the person of little

-Miss Mollinda swinging there in a hammock. Within, at the

-luncheon-table, Tregarthen poured himself out a glass of Madeira with

-a hand so limp and white in appearance that one would have thought it

-incapable of the task of poising the heavy decanter. Here was delicate

-seeming only, however. The perpetual sybarite reads an incorruptible

-constitution. The white hand held the bottle horizontal, as steady as

-a rock, during the minute the indolent, good-humoured eyes of its

-owner were directed to those of his visitor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My dear good Richard, the man <i>is</i> a burglar.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed at the other’s expression, filled his glass, sipped at it,

-and, hooking his thumbs in his arm-holes, lolled back in his chair.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am not justified in the confidence, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyhow,

-it is the short way out of a fatiguing explanation. The man <i>is</i> a

-burglar&mdash;not figuratively, but actually, by breeding, education,

-profession&mdash;<i>appelez-le comme vous voudrez</i>. He has the stamp of it so

-distinctly on him that one need not ask him to produce his skeleton

-key.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I have nothing more to say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! the devil take the honest thief! Your obvious grievance forces me

-to the explanation, after all. My dear boy, I imply nothing, argue

-from no premises but such as a long experience of this capital,

-troublesome fellow suggest to me. Speaking from these (I may be

-wrong), I should conclude that he is somehow in process of

-safeguarding, as he thinks, the interests of my girl, to whom he is

-quite romantically attached. Honestly, I don’t know to whom I would

-rather commit them. Poor motherless child!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had, it seemed, no thought of himself as pledged to the task.

-‘Himself’ should be a fair one-man’s burden.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He is very right to be attached to Miss Tregarthen,” muttered Le

-Shore dryly, and a little sullenly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He is very right indeed,” answered his host; “righter (pardon the

-solecism) than you might think. In this excellent rogue is provided

-such an illustration of the ‘harmony not understood’ of discords, as

-circumstance has ever given to an <i>ennuyé</i> world. The dear creature

-has decided to stultify his every instinct for a sentiment. It is the

-most interesting psychological phenomenon you can imagine. He has

-conceded nothing of his nature but the means to its practical

-achievement. Conceive a wolf of his own determination forgoing blood.

-Such is this dear, admirable brute. <i>Perfossor parietum nascitur.</i> He

-cannot change his spots. To this day, I think, he will always of

-choice enter by a window rather than a door; to this day he regards

-plate with a most <i>melting</i> look. But for all that, I think I may

-swear that at the present moment the tally of my spoons is to an ounce

-what it was when he took service with me eighteen years ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Your servant for eighteen years!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My servant&mdash;titularly: in reality, my mentor, my vizier. Dog Trust is

-a rather sweetly demoralizing acquisition. He takes the burden of

-conscience from one&mdash;steals it, in this case, I may say. But then,

-after all, he may use his vicegerency to ends so far beyond the moral

-grasp of the master he represents, as more than to vindicate that

-master in his withdrawal from the vexatious problems of duty. Through

-sheer force of affection this admirable George has mastered himself,

-and bettered his master in the parental ethics.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed, sir?” (Mr. Dicky spoke very dryly.) “And how does Miss

-Tregarthen approve the viziership?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As she loves and respects the vizier, Richard. I do not think she

-would willingly run counter to his dictates, which, by the way, he

-never imposes in a manner to alarm one’s pride. Ah! did you catch that

-whiff of scabious? There is a bush of it under the window there. It

-always seems to me to embody in itself the whole warmth and fragrance

-of summer. My dear fellow, your eyes are relentless inquisitors. No

-more wine? Well, I suppose I shall have to tell you how it came

-about.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He sighed, drained his glass, laughed slightly, and smoothed a stray

-wisp of hair from his forehead.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Once,” he said&mdash;“it was particularly disagreeable to a person of my

-temperament&mdash;I was called upon by Fate to suffer the ugly and sordid

-experience of a conflagration in my house. You, who are also a little

-inclined, I believe, to create for yourself an atmosphere of romance,

-to regard the great world only as a quarry, from which to gather

-materials most exquisite and most apt to the enrichment of the

-hermitage, which it is your design and your delight to build apart for

-your soul, will appreciate what were my feelings upon seeing my fairy

-fabric doomed to destruction, to positive annihilation, by the flames.

-I have never spoken to you of the disaster before. You will know that

-I do so now under the mere stress of fitness, as a means to your

-proper understanding of George Hissey’s conduct. The recollection is

-painful and horrible to a degree.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The alarm, the escape, the catastrophe were all accomplished in the

-dark hours of a winter’s morning. My dear wife (she sleeps, awaiting

-my coming, in Elysium) followed me down the stairs and out of the

-house at a short interval. She found me devoted to a frantic endeavour

-to secure from destruction such of my poor treasures as were

-accessible&mdash;few enough, alas! though the tears I shed should have

-quenched the hate of a Hecla. What had I done with her child? she

-cried to me&mdash;with our sweet Molly, our little three-year-old babe?

-Richard, I felt as stunned as if she, the pretty, gentle mother, had

-struck me across the mouth. I could only stare and gasp. She uttered a

-heart-shaking scream, and turned to where the servants stood huddled

-together in the garden. They were all there, and the two nurses were

-crying and moaning and accusing one another. My God! mad with terror,

-they had deserted their charge to perish by itself in the burning

-house!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He paused. “Don’t go on, sir, if it distresses you,” said Le Shore

-quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” answered Tregarthen. “Like the Ancient Mariner, I must be quit

-of it now I have begun. But I will have a glass of wine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He poured himself out one, daintily as to the drop on the decanter

-lip.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There followed a fearful scene,” he said. “It was all I could do to

-prevent my angel from precipitating herself through the blazing

-doorway. The whole building seemed by now a furnace&mdash;no possibility of

-further salvage from those priceless accumulations&mdash;not, of course,

-that at such a pass it was to be thought of. I mingled my tears with

-my wife’s. I offered half my fortune to any one of the crowd who would

-save, and a large reward to any one who would venture to save, our

-darling. But it was in vain; and in my heart I knew it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, in this extremity of despair, a sudden roar went up from a

-hundred throats, and passed on the instant. Richard, a man, shedding

-flakes of fire as Venus cast her birth-slough of spray, had emerged

-overhead from the sea of flame, and in his arms was our child. Who was

-he? Whence did he come? No one knew. Our house was isolated. The

-engine from the neighbouring town had not arrived. He was not a

-friend, nor a neighbour, nor an employé. It was only evident that

-innocence had somehow evolved its champion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We watched, stricken, as castaways watch the glimmer of a remote

-sail. The figure had broken its way through the skylight in the roof,

-only, it might be, to symbolize in the burden it bore the leaping of a

-little flame heavenward. The situation was the very sublimity of

-tragedy. Beneath those two the roof, sown with a very garden of fire,

-dropped at a sickening angle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suddenly, shutting, as it seemed, upon his charge, the man rolled

-himself up like a hedgehog, and came bowling down the slope. It was a

-terrible and gasping moment. His body, as it whirled, reeled out a

-hiss of sparks. The next instant it had bounded over the edge, and

-plunged among the smoking bushes beneath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They broke his fall; but it was the verandah awning which in the

-first instance saved his life&mdash;his, and our dear devoted cherub’s. But

-he had never once, through all the stunning vertigo of his descent,

-failed to shield the little body which his own enwrapped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, my dear Richard, comes the strange part. When I was sufficiently

-recovered to seek our preserver, I found him sitting handcuffed, in

-charge of the local policeman. He was very white, with two or three

-ribs broken; but he took it all unconcerned, as being in the day’s, or

-the night’s, business. Who was he? Well, here is the explanation. He

-was a renowned cracksman, as I think they call it, who had been

-operating in the neighbourhood for some weeks past&mdash;the hero of many a

-shuddering midnight adventure. Without doubt he had taken his toll of

-<i>my</i> ‘crib,’ had not circumstance dropped him ripe into the gaping

-mouth of the law. He had entered, and was actually at work, when fire

-cut the ground, as it were, from under his feet. Almost before,

-intensely occupied, he realized his position, escape by the lower

-rooms was debarred him. Was ever situation so dramatic? It was to be

-compared only with that of a huntsman who, entering some cave to steal

-bear cubs, turns to find the dam blocking his outlet. Still, Mr.

-Hissey <i>might</i> have escaped, and without detection, by dropping to the

-lawn from a back window, had his burglarious ears not pricked suddenly

-to the wailing of a child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My dear fellow, need I explain further? The child he risked his own

-life to rescue was our&mdash;I may almost say, at this day, was <i>his</i>

-Molly. It was the strangest thing. I did not, as a consequence, quite

-see my way to holding him altogether absolved; but my dear, emotional

-partner was of a different opinion. We had quite a little scene about

-it. In the end she prevailed&mdash;with the whole boiling of the law, too;

-and the man was sentenced to come up for judgment if called upon. Then

-straightway, and by his own desire, she took the disinfected burglar

-into her service. It was one of those daring psychologic essays which

-may once and again be carried to a successful issue through the

-white-hot faith of the experimenter; but which must not be given

-authority as a precedent. My wife fairly redeemed this burglar, by

-committing, without hesitation, to his loyal trust the little waif of

-fire whose destinies he had earned the right to a voice in. From that

-day to this, I will say, he has never abused the faith we reposed in

-him. On her deathbed, my dear girl (pardon me a moment, Le Shore), my

-dear wife most solemnly recommitted her child to his care. I did not

-complain, I do not complain now. I, who make no pretence of competence

-in the paternal rôle, thank the gods only for my vizier, who is quite

-willing to accord me the ritual of authority, while taking its

-practical business on his own shoulders. With a man of my temperament

-it works; and I am satisfied, if Molly gives me her respect, that she

-should give Hissey her duty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He ceased, with a little smiling sigh, and lifted a cigarette from a

-silver case which lay on the table. Le Shore regarded him steadily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, “Molly and I are engaged. I should have

-told you before.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The older man did not pause in the act of lighting his cigarette; but

-enjoyed an inhalation of smoke before he answered&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I plead guilty to a suspicion, Richard. I am confident our vizier has

-been safeguarding the proprieties. You remember what I said to you in

-his excuse just now?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have your sanction, sir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly, as a form. But I am afraid, from the practical side, you

-will have to satisfy that same inquisitor.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-“Mr. George Hissey,” said Dicky, “I have papa’s authority to marry

-Miss Molly. Now, with your permission, I will relieve you of your

-trust.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dicky!” cried the girl reproachfully; and she put her kind young arms

-round the ex-burglar’s neck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Unless,” said Le Shore, “you care to transfer that to my ‘crib,’ Mr.

-Hissey.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The butler cleared his throat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I do care, sir,” he said, hoarsely, nevertheless, “since you

-seen fit to cut that moonshinin’ lay, And as to cribs&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Molly” said Richard, “there’s papa calling.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch22">

-A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-“<span class="sc">I have</span> nothing to do with your scruples,” said the magistrate; “the

-law is the law, and I am here to administer it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley licked his hand, and stolidly smoothing down his black

-hair with it, answered, as if at a distance, being a well-fed,

-unctuous man, “too full for sound and foam,” “I’m a conscientious

-objector.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Passive resister!” corrected a friend, a little eager man, among the

-audience near him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eh?” said Mr. Plumley immovably, and without a glance in the

-direction of the voice, “I said passive resister, didn’t I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whether you said it or not,” answered the magistrate sharply, “you

-look it. I make an order against you for the amount.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As man to man&mdash;&mdash;” began Mr. Plumley.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not in the least,” said the magistrate; “as debtor to creditor. Stand

-down.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shan’t pay it,” said Mr. Plumley, preparing to obey.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you say another word, I’ll commit you for contempt,” said the

-magistrate. “Stand down, sir!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley stood down, with an unspeakable expression&mdash;it might have

-been of satisfaction&mdash;on his huge, stolid face. Arrived at the floor,

-he beckoned his little friend to follow him, and heavily left the

-court.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He steered&mdash;the other acting as his rudder, as it were, and keeping

-his position behind&mdash;straight for his own domestic shrine, hight

-Primrose Villa, semi-detached. It was a beautiful little home for a

-widower unencumbered, calculated, like an india-rubber collar, to

-afford the maximum of display at a minimum of cost in washing. The

-doorsteps were laid with a flaming pattern in tiles; red-aspinalled

-flower pots, embellished with little dull glazed shrubs, stood on the

-lowest window-sill; the bell-knob was of handsome porcelain, painted

-with the gaudiest flowers in miniature. Within, too, it was all

-furnished on a like hard principle of lustre&mdash;red and yellow oilcloth

-in the hall, with marbled paper to match; earthenware-panned mahogany

-hat-rack and umbrella-stand combined, as red as rhubarb, and as acrid

-in suggestion to one’s feelings; more oilcloth in the parlour; more

-mahogany, also, with a pert disposition in its doors and drawers to

-resent being shut up; glass bead mats and charity bazaar photograph

-frames on the whatnots, all so clean and pungent with sharp furniture

-stain that the rudder&mdash;Gardener by name&mdash;felt, as usual, the necessity

-of a humble apology for bringing his five feet four of shabbiness into

-the midst of so much splendour and selectness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley rumbled condescendingly in reply&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’d get used to it, Robert, you’d get used to it, if you’d lived

-familiar with it all your life, as I have.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” said Gardener, “but I wasn’t born like you, sir, to shine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-If he meant that the other was a light in his way&mdash;a little tallowy,

-perhaps&mdash;his own dry, hungry cheeks certainly justified him in the

-self-depreciation. They justified him, moreover&mdash;or he fancied they

-did, which was all the same as to the moral&mdash;in continuing to act

-jackal to this social lion, who had once been his employer in the

-cheap furniture-removal line. He lived&mdash;hung, it would seem more

-apposite to say&mdash;on his traditions of the great man’s business

-capacities, capacities whose fruits were here to witness, for evidence

-of the competence upon which his principal had retired. He got, in

-fact, little else than his traditions out of his former master at this

-date; yet it was strange how they served to delude him into a belief

-in his continued profit at the hands of the old patronage. The moral

-benefit he acquired from stealing into the local chapel to hear Mr.

-Plumley take a Sunday-school class, was at least worth as much to him

-as the occasional pipe of tobacco, or glass of whisky and water, which

-his idol vouchsafed him. For Mr. Gardener, as a true ‘poor relation’

-of the gods, was humbly thankful for their cheapest condescensions.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You stuck to your principles, sir,” he said, standing on one leg and

-the toe of the other, in humble deprecation of his right to any but

-the smallest possible allowance of oilcloth. Perhaps he would have

-brought his foot down, even he, could he have guessed the true

-significance of his own remark.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did, Robert,” said Mr. Plumley, placidly sleeking his hair. “I

-always do. Have a pipe, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the man. “That was a mistake you made,

-sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mistakes,” said Mr. Plumley, “will occur. Have some whisky, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re very good, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You don’t like it too strong, I think, Robert? And how’s the world

-treating you, my friend?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Much as usual, sir. From hand to mouth’s my motto.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sad, sad to be sure. They’ll distrain upon me, I suppose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’m afraid so, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The inhumanity of the world, Robert! You do pretty reg’lar porter’s

-work for Bull and Hacker, the auctioneers, don’t you, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s so, Mr. Plumley,” said the man, wondering. “But the work’s

-heavier than the wages.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They’ll be commissioned to seize the necessary goods. I wish you’d

-manage to give ’em a hint, Robert&mdash;over the left, you know, without

-any reference to me&mdash;that there’s a picture I prize (and that I’ve

-reason to believe a dealer is after), what would more than pay the two

-pun odd of the distraint if put up first. O’ course, I can’t appear to

-favour the matter myself, being a con&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Passive resister, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you, Robert; being the one most concerned in disputin’ the

-justice of the law. But a hint from you might settle the question at

-once. We aren’t very good friends, Bull and me; and, if he thought I

-prized the article, he’d be moral sure to seize it, slap away, to

-spite me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The picter?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The picture, Robert. There it is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It hung in an obscure corner, a dingy enough article, in an old

-damaged frame.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It don’t look the price,” said Gardener doubtfully.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It cost me more in a bad debt,” said the ex-remover, busying himself

-with the whisky in his heavy, observant way.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very like, sir,” answered the other, and coughed behind his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know what you mean,” said his patron; “that I was took in. Well,

-I’ve reason to think not, my man. I’ve reason to think that picture’s

-worth a deal&mdash;say, fifty pun. Anyhow, I mean to try.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A dealer’s after it, you say?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I do say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then why&mdash;with deference, sir&mdash;don’t you sell direct to him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why don’t I? Am I a man of business, Robert? Look about you. Have I

-learned, do you think, to take a hexpert’s word as to the precise

-vally of a article that I see his heye’s on, or to argy by induction

-that a good private offer means a better public one? When it comes to

-overreaching&mdash;hem!&mdash;a connoyser’s a man like myself; so we’ll just, by

-your leave, put the picture up to auction.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He carried the decanter back to its place in one of the shiny

-cupboards.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Besides, my friend,” said he, talking over his shoulder, “don’t you

-see as how my conscience demands this seizure?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not quite, sir, <i>with</i> humility, if so be as&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re dense, Robert. Look here, I’m a conscientious resister, ain’t

-I? Law ain’t necessarily equity because the devil and Mr. Chamberlain

-frames it. There’s some lawgivers that are Vicars of Jehovah, and some

-of&mdash;&mdash;but perhaps you’ve never heard of Abaddon?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Haven’t</i> I?” said Mr. Gardener ruefully. “I was near run in once for

-tendering one as had been passed on me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He was king of the bottomless pit,” said Mr. Plumley patiently. “<i>He</i>

-framed this here law what’s made a passive objector of me. Well, if,

-in resigning myself to his unjust processes, I force the

-picture-dealer’s hand, thereby making a profit elsewise denied me,

-don’t you see how I round on the law&mdash;triumph over it&mdash;kill two birds

-with one stone, as it might be?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, sir; I see that,” said Mr. Gardener, though still doubtfully.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You do, do you?” responded the other. “Well, then, the only thing is

-to make the law pay as heavy as possible by getting the picture run up

-to the dealer’s figure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But the law wouldn’t go for more’n its two pun odd,” protested the

-jackal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, you fool!” snarled the lion. “It’s the moral profit’s the game,

-don’t you see? <i>I</i> gain by the very hact what starts of itself to ruin

-me. It’s as plain as two pins.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Gardener scratched his head, and broke into a short laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bless you sir,” said he, “it’s clear enough; if on’y you’ll tell me

-who in all this here place is a-going to run up the dealer, since you

-can’t yourself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley, bending at the cupboard, did not answer for a moment.

-When at last he did, rising and facing round, there was a curious

-pallor on his lips, and he had to clear his throat before he could

-articulate&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You, Robert.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Me, sir! You’re joking.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Never less so, Robert.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I ain’t worth a sixpence in the world, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The ex-remover walked shakily across, and put a flabby, insinuative

-hand on the other’s shoulder.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I think I may say I’ve been a good friend to you, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Gardener muttered an uneasy affirmative.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To justify a great principle, Robert? It’s a mere matter of form;

-its&mdash;&mdash;humph! A moment, if you please. Think of it while I’m gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A rap at the front door had obtruded itself. Mr. Plumley tiptoed

-elephantinely out, was heard murmuring a few minutes in the hall, and

-returned shortly in a state of suavely perspiring mystery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It’s the dealer himself, Robert,” he whispered, his little eyes

-twinkling. “He’s come to make another attempt. I’ll humour him&mdash;humour

-him, never fear. Now, you must be quick. Will you do this little thing

-to oblige me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Supposing I were let in, sir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley coughed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I guarantee you, of course. It’s just a confidence between us. Go to

-fifty pound&mdash;not a penny less nor more&mdash;and let him take it at any

-figure he likes, beyond. He won’t fail you. You’ll do it, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t favour the job, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But you’ll do it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, yes, then.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley showed him out, returned to the parlour, finished his

-whisky and water, and called in the dealer from some hidden corner of

-the hall where he had lain concealed. He had braced his nerves in the

-interval. His attitude all at once was scowling and truculent&mdash;meet

-for the reception of the shabby loafer who now presented himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What are you grinning at, sir?” he roared. “This ain’t the face to

-bring to business.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! isn’t it?” said the man. “Then I’ll change it&mdash;&mdash;” which he did,

-so suddenly and terrifically that the other cowered. The stranger

-snorted, and relaxed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What now, minion?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bah!” snarled Mr. Plumley: “it comes easy to a barnstormer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Roscius, ye fat old Philistine,” cried the actor, striking his breast

-with a ragged-gloved hand: “Roscius, thou ‘villainous, obscene, greasy

-tallow-ketch!’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” said Mr. Plumley, wiping his brow, “I meant no offence,

-anyhow. Have a drink?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The stranger breathed heavily, and assumed a Napoleonic pose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will have a drink,” he said; and, in fact, before he would

-condescend to utter another word, he had two.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha!” he said then, ejaculating a little spirituous cloud, and his

-lean, pantomimic face was all at once benign. “Richard’s himself

-again, and eager for the fray! To the charge, my passive resister, my

-heavy lead! Ye need Theophilus Bolton! Ye must pay!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to that there,” began Mr. Plumley, stuttering and glowering; but

-the other took him up coolly&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to that, dear boy, there’s no question. You’ve withheld me from a

-profitable engagement&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, blow profitable!” interposed Mr. Plumley. “And you didn’t jump at

-the chanst neither!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To play a part for you,” went on the actor unruffled “Well, am I to

-be Agnew, or Christie, or Sotheby, or who? My commission’s five per

-cent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I don’t object to that,” said Plumley, relieved. “On the vally

-of the picture to Gardener, that’s to say. Call it done, and call

-yourself what you like.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One man in his time plays many parts,” murmured Mr. Bolton. “Put it

-on paper, dear boy. I have a weakness for testaments.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley protested; the actor whistled. In the end, the latter

-pocketed a document to the effect that Joshua Plumley agreed to pay

-Theophilus Bolton a sum to be calculated at the rate of five per cent

-on the ultimate selling price at auction (on a date hereafter to be

-filled in) of a picture known as the “The Wood Shop.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ll be close?” said Mr. Plumley uneasily. “It might&mdash;it might

-injure me, you know, if it got about. Short o’ fifty pound’s the

-figger&mdash;you understand? Let Gardener secure it at that. I’ve my

-reasons. You come to me quick and quiet after the sale, and you shall

-have your two pound ten on the nail, and slip off with it as private

-as you wish.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, what was Plumley’s little game? And wasn’t he anyhow a good man

-of business?

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-He was at least such a sure student of human nature as to have made no

-miscalculation in the matter of Bull and Hacker’s predilections. They

-seized, on the strength of Mr. Gardener’s artful insinuations, the

-very picture on which the defaulter was supposed to set a value, and

-put it up to sale one afternoon on the tail of a general auction. Mr.

-Gardener bid for it (the practice was common enough amongst the firm’s

-employés, acting for private clients, and Bull rather admired the

-man’s astuteness in having suggested a seizure so prospectively

-profitable to himself), and a strange dealer opposed him. They ran one

-another up merrily, and the room gaped and sniggered and whispered. It

-was an afternoon of surprises.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-six,” cried the auctioneer&mdash;“any advance on forty-six?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A local lawyer, Bittern by name, was observed pushing his way through

-the crowd.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good Lord!” he was muttering; “is the man daft!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-seven,” said the dealer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-eight,” bawled Gardener.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-nine,” said the dealer monotonously.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fifty!” cried Gardener stoutly; and hung on the bid which was to quit

-and relieve him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It did not come.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The auctioneer raised his stereotyped wail: It was giving the lot

-away; a chance like that might never occur again; let him say

-fifty-one. “Come, gentlemen! Shall I say fifty-one? No?” He would sell

-at fifty, then&mdash;sell this unique work at the low figure of fifty

-pounds. “Any advance on fifty pounds?” He raised his hammer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not for me,” said the dealer, turning away. “Let him have it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Down came the hammer. “Gardener: fifty pounds,” murmured Mr. Bull,

-with a very satisfied face. The purchaser stood stupefied.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Two flurried gentlemen at this moment entered the room. They seemed

-more rivals than friends, and each shouldered the other rather rudely.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Too late, by gosh!” growled one.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not a bit,” said the second, pushing past. “We’ll get the vendee to

-put it up again. I dare say he’ll do it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Here!” cried the first, grasping at the other’s receding figure.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Jibbing together, they made their way towards Gardener, who was

-standing in rueful and dumbfoundered altercation with the lawyer. A

-brief but very earnest discussion took place among the four. At the

-end, the rostrum was invoked, the picture was replaced on the table,

-the two new-comers took up position. Gardener, mute and dazed, fell

-back, in custody of the lawyer, who stood with a hard, shrewd glitter

-in his eyes, and the auctioneer, blandly elated, raised his voice,

-justifying his own judgment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The picture, he said&mdash;as he had already informed the company, in

-fact&mdash;was a desirable one, a rare example of that peerless master

-Adrian Ostade; and the recent purchaser&mdash;whose property it was now

-become&mdash;had been persuaded generously to put it up to auction again on

-his own account, in answer to the representations of certain would-be

-bidders, whom an unforeseen delay on the railway had prevented from

-attending earlier.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We will start at fifty pounds, gentlemen, if you please,” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Bolton, in the background, pulled his hat over his eyes, and

-settled himself to listen.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-That great financial strategist, Mr. Plumley, sat drinking whisky and

-water by lamplight. His pipe lay at his side. He had tried to smoke

-it; but tobacco flurried him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It should be about settled by now,” he muttered. “Where’s that

-Bolton?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Rap!” came the answer, upon such an acute nervous centre, that he

-started as if he had been stung.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He rose, made an effort to compose himself, and went to the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A spare tall figure detached itself from the dark, and entered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What the devil’s been keeping you?” growled the ex-remover.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! you’re short-sighted, my friend,” said Mr. Bittern, and walked

-coolly into the parlour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley stared, felt suddenly wet, shook himself, and followed.

-When it came to creeping flesh, he felt the full aggravation of his

-size. The slow march of apprehensions, taking time from a sluggish but

-persistent brain, seemed minutes encompassing him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So,” said the lawyer, dry and wintry, the moment he was in, “you

-coveted your neighbours one ewe lamb?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe, blew through it, put it down again, and

-said nothing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’d heard of Gardener’s aunt’s little bequest to him of fifty

-pounds, duty free, eh?” asked the lawyer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” said Mr. Plumley.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” said the lawyer. “He bid fifty pounds for that picture of yours

-this afternoon, and got it. On whose instructions?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ask him, sir. He acts for many.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It wasn’t on yours, then?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is that reasonable, Mr. Bittern, when to my knowledge the man wasn’t

-worth a brass farden?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you say about holding him to his bargain?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I say, if he’s bought the picture, he must pay for it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And who bid against him? You don’t know that either, I suppose?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nat’rally. Was I there?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I’ve settled for him with Bull and Hacker, and brought you

-their cheque, less commission and distraint. Give me a receipt for

-it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The great creature, elated with his own strategy as he was, could

-hardly draw it out, his hands shook so. But he managed the business

-somehow. The lawyer examined the paper, and buttoning it into his

-pocket, took up his hat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, by the way!” he said, as if on an afterthought, “I was forgetting

-to mention that Gardener, after securing the picture, put it up to

-auction again, at the particular request of some late arrivals, and

-was bid a thousand pounds for it. It turned out to be a very good

-work.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe again quite softly, looked at it a

-moment, and suddenly dashed it to smithereens on the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a plant!” he cried in a fat, hoarse scream. “I’ll be even with

-him&mdash;I’ll have the money&mdash;the picture was mine&mdash;I’ll&mdash;by God, I say,

-it was a conspiracy!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The lawyer at the door lashed round on him like whipcord.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And that’s what I think,” he shouted. “The meanest, dirtiest trick

-that was ever played by a canting scoundrel on a poor brother. But I

-may get to the bottom of it yet, from the opening scheme to enlist

-Gardener’s sympathies for a poor martyr to conscience, to the last

-wicked design upon him in the saleroom. I may get to the bottom of it,

-cunning as it was planned; and, when I do, let some look out!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he flung away, he let in a new-comer, Mr. Bolton, by the opened

-door. Mr. Plumley, choking in the backwater of his own fury, had sunk

-into a chair, gasping betwixt bitterness and panic. He could not, for

-the moment, remember how far he had committed himself. He looked up to

-meet the insolent, ironic smile of his confederate. “Come along, dear

-boy,” said Mr. Bolton. “Curtain’s down. Cash up!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He presented a claim for fifty pounds, and stood, his hat cocked on

-his head, picking his teeth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What’s this curst gammon?” sneered Mr. Plumley, rousing himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Commission,” said the actor airily. “Five per cent. on the ultimate

-selling price of a picture.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It went at fifty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon <i>me</i>, sir. <i>Ultimate&mdash;ultimate</i>, see agreement” (he smacked

-his chest). “One thou’ was the figure, and dirt cheap. Fine example.

-I’ll trouble you for a cheque.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Two pound ten. I’ll give it you in cash.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Bolton whistled a stave, and turned round, his hands deep in his

-breeches’ pockets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I can sell to the other party. Good day to you, and look out.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="center mt1">

-[The End]

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

-</h2>

-

-<p>

-Minor spelling inconsistencies (<i>e.g.</i> cash-box/cash box,

-frockcoat/frock-coat, etc.) have been preserved.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<b>Alterations to the text</b>:

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[A gallows-bird]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Change “convolutions of war, the merry, the <i>dance-maccabre</i>” to

-<i>danse-macabre</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[Our lady of refuge]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“fort of San Fernando. and the cursed French garrison,” change period

-to comma.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[The five insides]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-(“&hairsp;‘Eh, says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting) add right single

-quotation mark after <i>Eh</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“a bit forward&mdash;‘No, no, no no, no, no, no&mdash;’&hairsp;” add comma after

-third <i>no</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[The jade button]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The property was recovered&mdash;but for the heir…” add period to

-sentence.

-</p>

-

-<p class="center mt1">

-[End of text]

-</p>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'></div>

-<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-footer' lang='en' >

-<div id='pg-end-separator'>

-<span>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***</span>

-</div>

-

-<div>

-Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will

-be renamed.

-</div>

-<div>

-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright

-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,

-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United

-States without permission and without paying copyright

-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part

-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™

-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,

-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following

-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use

-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for

-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very

-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation

-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project

-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may

-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected

-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark

-license, especially commercial redistribution.

-</div>

-

-<div id='project-gutenberg-license'>START: FULL LICENSE</div>

-<h2 id='pg-footer-heading'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</h2>

-<div class='agate'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div>

-

-<div>

-To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work

-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full

-Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at

-www.gutenberg.org/license.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-</div>

-<div>

-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™

-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to

-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property

-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all

-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or

-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your

-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a

-Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound

-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person

-or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who

-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few

-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See

-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this

-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the

-Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection

-of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual

-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United

-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the

-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not

-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,

-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as

-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope

-that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting

-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™

-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the

-Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily

-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the

-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when

-you share it without charge with others.

-</div>

-

-<div>

-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern

-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are

-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,

-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this

-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,

-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any

-other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no

-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any

-country other than the United States.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear

-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work

-on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the

-phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,

-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

-</div>

-<blockquote>

-  <div>

-    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms

-    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online

-    at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you

-    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws

-    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

-  </div>

-</blockquote>

-<div>

-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not

-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the

-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in

-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are

-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply

-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or

-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™

-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution

-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any

-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms

-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works

-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the

-beginning of this work.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™

-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this

-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without

-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project

-Gutenberg™ License.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,

-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including

-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access

-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format

-other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official

-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website

-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense

-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means

-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain

-Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the

-full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works

-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-provided that:

-</div>

-<ul>

-    <li>• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from

-        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method

-        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed

-        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has

-        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid

-        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are

-        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty

-        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in

-        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg

-        Literary Archive Foundation.”

-    </li>

-    <li>• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies

-        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he

-        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™

-        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all

-        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue

-        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™

-        works.

-    </li>

-    <li>• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

-        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the

-        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of

-        receipt of the work.

-    </li>

-    <li>• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free

-        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

-    </li>

-</ul>

-<div>

-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than

-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing

-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of

-the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set

-forth in Section 3 below.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread

-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project

-Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may

-contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate

-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other

-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or

-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or

-cannot be read by your equipment.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right

-of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project

-Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all

-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal

-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

-DAMAGE.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can

-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a

-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you

-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium

-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you

-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in

-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person

-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second

-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If

-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing

-without further opportunities to fix the problem.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth

-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO

-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT

-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of

-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement

-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the

-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or

-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or

-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the

-remaining provisions.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone

-providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in

-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the

-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,

-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of

-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this

-or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or

-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any

-Defect you cause.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

-</div>

-<div>

-Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of

-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of

-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It

-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations

-from people in all walks of life.

-</div>

-<div>

-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s

-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will

-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure

-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future

-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see

-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-</div>

-<div>

-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit

-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the

-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal

-Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification

-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by

-U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

-</div>

-<div>

-The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up

-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website

-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-</div>

-<div>

-Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread

-public support and donations to carry out its mission of

-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be

-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest

-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations

-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt

-status with the IRS.

-</div>

-<div>

-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United

-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a

-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up

-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations

-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND

-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state

-visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.

-</div>

-<div>

-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition

-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who

-approach us with offers to donate.

-</div>

-<div>

-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from

-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

-</div>

-<div>

-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation

-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other

-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To

-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-</div>

-<div>

-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project

-Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be

-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and

-distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of

-volunteer support.

-</div>

-<div>

-Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed

-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in

-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not

-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper

-edition.

-</div>

-<div>

-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search

-facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.

-</div>

-<div>

-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to

-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

-</div>

-

-</section>

-</body>

-</html>

+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+ <meta charset="UTF-8">
+ <title>
+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes, by Bernard Capes
+ </title>
+ <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+  <style>
+    
+    #pg-header div, #pg-footer div {
+        all: initial;
+        display: block;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em;
+        margin-left: 2em;
+    }
+    #pg-footer div.agate {
+        font-size: 90%;
+        margin-top: 0;
+        margin-bottom: 0;
+        text-align: center;
+    }
+    #pg-footer li {
+        all: initial;
+        display: block;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em;
+        text-indent: -0.6em;
+    }
+    #pg-footer div.secthead {
+        font-size: 110%;
+        font-weight: bold;
+    }
+    #pg-footer #project-gutenberg-license {
+        font-size: 110%;
+        margin-top: 0;
+        margin-bottom: 0;
+        text-align: center;
+    }
+    #pg-header-heading {
+        all: inherit;
+        text-align: center;
+        font-size: 120%;
+        font-weight:bold;
+    }
+    #pg-footer-heading {
+        all: inherit;
+        text-align: center;
+        font-size: 120%;
+        font-weight: normal;
+        margin-top: 0;
+        margin-bottom: 0;
+    }
+    #pg-header #pg-machine-header p {
+        text-indent: -4em;
+        margin-left: 4em;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 0;
+        font-size: medium
+    }
+    #pg-header #pg-header-authlist {
+        all: initial;
+        margin-top: 0;
+        margin-bottom: 0;
+    }
+    #pg-header #pg-machine-header strong {
+        font-weight: normal;
+    }
+    #pg-header #pg-start-separator, #pg-footer #pg-end-separator {
+        margin-bottom: 3em;
+        margin-left: 0;
+        margin-right: auto;
+        margin-top: 2em;
+        text-align: center
+    }
+    
+  </style>
+ <style>
+
+/* Headers and Divisions */
+ h1, h2, h3 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:always; text-align:center;}
+ h4 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:avoid; text-align:center;}
+
+/* General */
+
+ body {margin:0% 5% 0% 5%;}
+
+ .nobreak {page-break-before:avoid;}
+
+ p {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em;}
+ .center {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;}
+ .noindent {text-indent:0em;}
+ .spacer {margin:0.5em 0em 0.5em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;}
+
+ .toc_1 {font-variant:small-caps; margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;}
+ .toc_2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;}
+
+ .right {text-align:right;}
+ .sign2 {margin:0em 2em 0em 0em; text-align:right; text-indent:0em;}
+
+ .chap_sub {font-size:70%;}
+ .sc {font-variant:small-caps;}
+ .font80 {font-size:80%;}
+
+/* special formatting */
+ /* poem/song verse formatting */
+ .is {margin:1em 0em 0em 0em; text-indent:0em;}
+ .i0 {margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;}
+ .i1 {margin:0em 0em 0em 3em; text-indent:-2em;}
+ .i2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 4em; text-indent:-2em;}
+ .i3 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;}
+ .i4 {margin:0em 0em 0em 6em; text-indent:-2em;}
+
+ .mt1 {margin-top:1em;}
+ .mt2 {margin-top:2em;}
+ .mt3 {margin-top:3em;}
+ .mt4 {margin-top:4em;}
+ .mt6 {margin-top:6em;}
+ .mb1 {margin-bottom:1em;}
+
+ blockquote {margin:1em 1em 1em 2em;}
+
+ figure {text-align:center;}
+ img {max-width:90%;}
+
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-header' lang='en'>
+<h2 id='pg-header-heading' title=''>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes by Bernard Capes</h2>
+
+<div>This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and 
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms 
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online 
+at <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not located in the United States, 
+you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located 
+before using this eBook.</div>
+
+
+<div class='container' id='pg-machine-header'>
+<p><strong>Title: </strong>Loaves and fishes</p>
+<div id='pg-header-authlist'>
+<p><strong>Author: </strong>Bernard Capes</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><strong>Release Date: </strong>September 11, 2023 [eBook #71615]</p>
+<p><strong>Language: </strong>English</p>
+<p><strong>Credits: </strong>an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer</p>
+</div>
+<div id='pg-start-separator'>
+<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***</span>
+</div>
+</section>
+
+
+<h1>
+LOAVES AND FISHES
+</h1>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="font80">BY</span><br>
+BERNARD CAPES
+</p>
+
+<p class="center mt6">
+METHUEN & CO.<br>
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br>
+LONDON<br>
+<i>First Published in 1906</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<h2>
+CONTENTS
+</h2>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch01">A GALLOWS-BIRD</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch02">THE RAVELLED SLEAVE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch03">THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch04">A GHOST-CHILD</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch05">HIS CLIENT’S CASE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch06">AN ABSENT VICAR</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch07">THE BREECHES BISHOP</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch08">THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch09">ARCADES AMBO</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch10">OUR LADY OF REFUGE</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch11">THE GHOST-LEECH</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch12">POOR LUCY RIVERS</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch13">THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch14">THE LOST NOTES</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch15">THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch16">JACK THE SKIPPER</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch17">A BUBBLE REPUTATION</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch18">A POINT OF LAW</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch19">THE FIVE INSIDES</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch20">THE JADE BUTTON</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch21">DOG TRUST</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="toc_1">
+<a href="#ch22">A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE</a>
+</p>
+
+
+<h2>
+[NOTE]
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Acknowledgments</span> are made to the editors of “The Pall Mall Magazine,”
+“The Illustrated London News,” “The World,” “Black and White,” “The
+London Magazine,” “The English Illustrated Magazine,” and “The
+Bystander,” to the hospitality of whose pages a number of the stories
+here reprinted were first invited.
+</p>
+
+
+<h2>
+LOAVES AND FISHES
+</h2>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="ch01">
+A GALLOWS-BIRD
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">In</span> February of the year 1809, when the French were sat down before
+Saragossa&mdash;then enduring its second and more terrific siege within a
+period of six months&mdash;it came to the knowledge of the Duc d’Abrantes,
+at that time the General commanding, that his army, though undoubtedly
+the salt of the earth, was yet so little sufficient to itself in the
+matter of seasoning, that it was reduced to the necessity of
+flavouring its soup with the saltpetre out of its own cartridges. In
+this emergency, d’Abrantes sent for a certain Ducos, captain on the
+staff of General Berthier, but at present attached to a siege train
+before the doomed town, and asked him if he knew whence, if anywhere
+in the vicinity, it might be possible to make good the deficiency.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now this Eugène Ducos was a very progressive evolution of the times,
+hatched by the rising sun, emerged stinging and splendid from the
+exotic quagmires of the past. A facile linguist, by temperament and
+early training an artist, he had flown naturally to the field of
+battle as to that field most fertile of daring new effects, whose
+surprises called for record rather than analysis. It was for him to
+collect the impressions which, later, duller wits should classify.
+And, in the meantime, here he was at twenty a captain of renown, and
+always a creature of the most unflagging resourcefulness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were with Lefebvre-Desnouettes in Aragon last year?” demanded
+Junot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was, General; both before the siege and during it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You heard mention of salt mines in this neighbourhood?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There were rumours of them, sir&mdash;amongst the hills of Ulebo; but it
+was never our need to verify the rumours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take a company, now, and run them to earth. I will give you a week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pardon me, General; I need no company but my own, which is ever the
+safest colleague.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Junot glared demoniacally. He was already verging on the madness which
+was presently to destroy him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The devil!” he shouted. “You shall answer for that assurance! Go
+alone, sir, since you are so obliging, and find salt; and at your
+peril be killed before reporting the result to me. Bones of God! is
+every skipjack with a shoulder-knot to better my commands?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos saluted, and wheeled impassive. He knew that in a few days
+Marshal Lannes was to supplant this maniac.
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up and away amongst the intricate ridges of the mountains, where the
+half-unravelled knots of the Pyrenees flow down in threads, or
+clustered threads, which are combed by and by into the plains south of
+Saragossa, a dusky young goatherd loitered among the chestnut trees on
+a hot afternoon. This boy’s beauty was of a supernal order. His
+elastic young cheeks glowed with colour; his eyebrows were resolute
+bows; his lips, like a pretty phrase of love, were set between dimples
+like inverted commas. And, as he stood, he coquetted like Dinorah to
+his own shadow, chasséd to it, spoke to it, upbraiding or caressing,
+as it answered to his movements on the ground before him&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, pretty one! ah, shameless! Art thou the shadow of the girl that
+Eugenio loved? Fie, fie! thou wouldst betray this poor Anita&mdash;mock the
+round limbs and little feet that will not look their part. Yet, betray
+her to her love returning, and Anita will fall and kiss thee on her
+knees&mdash;kiss the very shadow of Eugenio’s love. Ah, little shadow! take
+wings and fly to him, who promised quickly to return. Say I am good
+but sad, awaiting him; say that Anita suffers, but is patient. He will
+remember then, and come. No shadow of disguise shall blind him to his
+love. Go, go, before I repent and hold thee, jealous that mine own
+shadow should run before to find his lips.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stooped, and, with a fantastic gesture, threw her soul upon the
+winds; then rose, and leaned against a tree, and began to sing, and
+sigh and murmur softly:
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">“&hairsp;‘At the gate of heaven are sold brogues</p>
+<p class="i0">For the little bare-footed angel rogues’&mdash;</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Ah, little dear mother! it is the seventh month, and the sign is still
+delayed. No baby, no lover. Alack! why should he return to me, who am
+a barren olive! The husbandman asks a guerdon for his care. Give me my
+little doll, Santissima, or I will be naughty and drink holy-water:
+give me the shrill wee voice, which pierces to the father’s heart,
+when even passion loiters. Ah, come to me, Eugenio, my Eugenio!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She raised her head quickly on the word, and her heart leaped. It was
+to hear the sound of a footstep, on the stones far below, coming up
+the mountain side. She looked to her shirt and jacket. Ragged as they
+were, undeveloped as was the figure within them, she had been so
+jealous a housewife that there was not in all so much as an eyelet
+hole to attract a peeping Tom. Now, leaving her goats amongst the
+scattered boulders of the open, she backed into the groves,
+precautionally, but a little reluctant, because in her heart she was
+curious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The footsteps came on toilfully, and presently the man who was
+responsible for them hove into sight. He wore the dress of an English
+officer, save for the shepherd’s felt hat on his head; but his scarlet
+jacket was knotted loosely by the sleeves about his throat, in order
+to the disposition of a sling which held his left arm crookt in a
+bloody swathe. He levered himself up with a broken spear-shaft; but he
+was otherwise weaponless. A pistol, in Ducos’s creed, was the argument
+of a fool. He carried <i>his</i> ammunition in his brains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having reached a little plateau, irregular with rocks shed from the
+cliffs above, he sat down within the shadow of a grove of chestnut and
+carob trees, and sighed, and wiped his brow, and nodded to all around
+and below him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and yes, and of a truth,” thought he: “here is the country of my
+knowledge. And yonder, deep and far amongst its myrtles and
+mulberries, crawls the Ebro; and to my right, a browner clod amongst
+the furrows of the valleys, heaves up the ruined monastery of San
+Ildefonso, which Daguenet sacked, the radical; whilst I occupied (ah,
+the week of sweet malvoisie and sweeter passion!) the little inn at
+the junction of the Pampeluna and Saragossa roads. And what has become
+of Anita of the inn? Alack! if my little <i>fille de joie</i> were but here
+to serve me now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The goatherd slipped round the shoulder of a rock and stood before
+him, breathing hard. Her black curls were, for all the world,
+bandaged, as it might be, with a yellow napkin (though they were more
+in the way to give than take wounds), and crowned rakishly with a
+dusky sombrero. She wore a kind of gaskins on her legs, loose, so as
+to reveal the bare knees and a little over; and across her shoulders
+was slung a sun-burnt shawl, which depended in a bib against her
+chest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the one stood looking down and the other up, their visions
+magnetically meeting and blending, till the eyes of the goatherd were
+delivered of very stars of rapture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was this a spirit, thought Ducos, summoned of his hot and necessitous
+desire? But the other had no such misgiving. All in a moment she had
+fallen on her brown knees before him, and was pitifully kissing his
+bandaged arm, while she strove to moan and murmur out the while her
+ecstasy of gratitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nariguita!” he murmured, rallying as if from a dream; “Nariguita!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laughed and sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, the dear little happy name from thy lips! A thousand times will I
+repeat it to myself, but never as thou wouldst say it. And now! Yes,
+Nariguita, Eugenio&mdash;thine own ‘little nose’&mdash;thy child, thy baby, who
+never doubted that this day would come&mdash;O darling of my soul, that it
+would come!”&mdash;(she clung to him, and hid her face)&mdash;“Eugenio! though
+the blossom of our love delays its fruitage!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled, recovered from his first astonishment. Ministers of
+coincidence! In all the fantastic convolutions of war, the merry, the
+danse-macabre, should not love’s reunions have a place? It was nothing
+out of that context that here was he chanced again, and timely, upon
+that same sweet instrument which he had once played on, and done with,
+and thrown aside, careless of its direction. Now he had but to stoop
+and reclaim it, and the discarded strings, it seemed, were ready as
+heretofore to answer to his touch with any melody he listed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He caressed her with real delight. She was something more than
+lovable. He made himself a very Judas to her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anita, my little Anita!” he began glowingly; but she took him up with
+a fevered eagerness, answering the question of his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So long ago, ah Dios! And thou wert gone; and the birds were silent;
+and under the heavy sky my father called me to him. He held a last
+letter of thine, which had missed my hands for his. Love, sick at our
+parting, had betrayed us. O, the letter! how I swooned to be denied
+it! He was for killing me, a traitor. Well, I could not help but be.
+But Tia Joachina had pity on me, and dressed me as you see, and
+smuggled me to the hills, that I might at least have a chance to live
+without suffering wrong. And, behold! the heavens smiled upon me,
+knowing my love; and Señor Cangrejo took me to herd his goats. For
+seven months&mdash;for seven long, faithful months; until the sweetest of
+my heart’s flock should return to pasture in my bosom. And now he has
+come, my lamb, my prince, even as he promised. He has come, drawing me
+to him over the hills, following the lark’s song of his love as it
+dropped to earth far forward of his steps. Eugenio! O, ecstasy! Thou
+hast dared this for my sake?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Child,” answered the admirable Ducos, “I should have dared only in
+breaking my word. <i>Un honnête homme n’a que sa parole.</i> That is the
+single motto for a poor captain, Nariguita. And who is this Señor
+Cangrejo?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some terror, offspring of his question, set her clinging to him once
+more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What dost thou here?” she cried, with immediate inconsistency&mdash;“a
+lamb among the wolves! Eugenio!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eh!”&mdash;he took her up, with an air of bewilderment. “I am Sir Zhones,
+the English capitaine, though it loose me your favour, mamsellee. Wat!
+Damn eet, I say!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She fell away, staring at him; then in a moment gathered, and leapt to
+him again between tears and laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But this?” she asked, her eyes glistening; and she touched the
+bandage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah! that,” he answered. “Why, I was wounded, and taken prisoner by
+the French, you understand? Also, I escaped from my captors. It comes,
+blood and splint and all, from the smashed arm of a sabreur, who,
+indeed, had no longer need of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For the love of Christ!” she cried in a panic. “Come away into the
+trees, where none will observe us!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bah! I have no fear, I,” said Ducos. But he rose, nevertheless, with
+a smile, and, catching up the goatherd, bore her into the shadows.
+There, sitting by her side, he assured her, the rogue, of the
+impatience with which he had anticipated, of the eagerness with which
+he had run to realize this longed-for moment. The escapade had only
+been rendered possible, he said truthfully, by the opportune demand
+for salt. Doubtless she would help him, for love’s sake, to justify
+the venture to his General?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, at that, she stared at him, troubled, and her lip began to
+quiver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, God!” she cried; “then it was not I in the first place! Go thy
+ways, love; but for pity’s heart-sake let me weep a little. Yes, yes,
+there is salt in the mountains, that I know, and where the caves lie.
+But there are also Cangrejo&mdash;whom you French ruined and made a
+madman&mdash;and a hundred like him, wild-cats hidden amongst the leaves.
+And there, too, are the homeless friars of St. Ildefonso; and, dear
+body of Christ! the tribunal of terror, the junta of women, who are
+the worst of all&mdash;lynx-eyed demons.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled indulgently. Her terror amused him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, well,” he said; “well, well. And what, then, is this junta?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is a scourge,” she whispered, shivering, “for traitors and for
+spies. It gathers nightly, at sunset, in the dip yonder, and there
+waters with blood its cross of death. This very evening, Cangrejo
+tells me&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She broke off, cuddled closer to her companion, and clasping her hands
+and shrugging up her shoulders to him, went on awfully&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eugenio, there was a wagon-load of piastres coming secretly for
+Saragossa by the Tolosa road. It was badly convoyed. One of your
+generals got scent of it. The guard had time to hide their treasure
+and disperse, but him whom they thought had betrayed them the tribunal
+of women claimed, and to-night&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, he will receive his wages. And where is the treasure
+concealed?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah! that I do not know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos got to his feet, and stretched and yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have a fancy to see this meeting-place of the tribunal. Wilt thou
+lead me to it, Nariguita?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother of God, thou art mad!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I must go alone, like a madman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eugenio, it is cursing and accurst. None will so much as look into it
+by day; and, at dusk, only when franked by the holy church.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So greatly the better. Adios, Nariguita!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It took them half an hour, descending cautiously, and availing
+themselves of every possible shelter of bush and rock, to reach a
+strangely formed amphitheatre set stark and shallow amongst the higher
+swales of the valley, but so overhung with scrub of myrtle and wild
+pomegranate as to be only distinguishable, and that scarcely, from
+above. A ragged track, mounting from the lower levels into this
+hollow, tailed off, and was attenuated into a point where it took a
+curve of the rocks at a distance below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Ducos, approaching the rim, pressed through the thicket, a toss of
+black crows went up from the mouth ahead of him, like cinders of paper
+spouted from a chimney. He looked over. The brushwood ceased at the
+edge of a considerable pit, roughly circular in shape, whose sides, of
+bare sloping sand, met and flattened at the bottom into an extended
+platform. Thence arose a triangular gibbet, a very rack in a devil’s
+larder, all about which a hoard of little pitchy bird scullions were
+busy with the joints. Holy mother, how they squabbled, and flapped at
+one another with their sleeves, it seemed! The two carcasses which
+hung there appeared, for all their heavy pendulosity, to reel and rock
+with laughter, nudging one another in eyeless merriment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos mentally calculated the distance to the gallows below from any
+available coign of concealment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One could not hide close enough to hear anything,” he murmured,
+shaking his head in aggravation; “and this junta of ladies&mdash;it will
+probably talk. What if it were to discuss that very question of the
+piastres? Nariguita, will you go and be my little reporter at the
+ceremony?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anita, crouching in the brush behind him, whispered terrified: “It is
+impossible. They admit none but priests and women.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And are not you a woman, most beautiful?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God forbid!” she said. “I am the little goatherd Ambrosio.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood some moments, frowning. A scheme, daring and characteristic,
+was beginning to take shape in his brain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is that clump of rags by the gallows?” he asked, without looking
+round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is not rags; it is rope, Eugenio.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thought again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And when do they come to hang this rascal?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is always at dusk. O, dear mother!” she whimpered, for the young
+man had suddenly slipped between the branches, and was going swiftly
+and softly down the pit-side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Already the basin of sand was filled with the shadows from the hills
+Ducos approached the gibbet. The last of the birds remaining arose and
+dispersed, quarrelling with nothing so much as the sunlight which they
+encountered above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is an abominable task,” said the aide-de-camp, looking up at the
+dangling bodies; “but&mdash;for the Emperor&mdash;always for the Emperor! That
+fellow, now, in the domino&mdash;it would make us appear of one build. And
+as for complexion, why, he at least would have no eyes for the
+travesty. Mon Dieu! I believe it is a Providence.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a ladder leaned against the third and empty beam. He put it
+into position for the cloaked figure, and ran up it. The rope was
+hitched to a hook in the cross-piece. He must clasp and lever up his
+burden by main strength before he could slacken and detach the cord.
+Then, with an exclamation of relief, he let the body drop upon the
+sand beneath. He descended the ladder in excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anita!” he called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had followed, and was at hand. She trembled, and was as pale as
+death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Help me,” he panted&mdash;“with this&mdash;into the bush.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had lifted <i>his</i> end by the shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What devil possesses you? I cannot,” she sobbed; “I shall die.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, Nariguita! for my sake! There is no danger if thou art brave and
+expeditious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between them they tugged and trailed their load into the dense
+undergrowth skirting the open track, and there let it plunge and sink.
+Ducos removed the domino from the body, rolling and hauling at that
+irreverently. Then he saw how the wretch had been pinioned, wrists and
+ankles, beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carrying the cloak, he hastened back to the gallows. There he
+cautiously selected from the surplus stock of cord a length of some
+twelve feet, at either end of which he formed a loop. So, mounting the
+ladder, over the hook he hitched this cord by one end, and then,
+swinging himself clear, slid down the rope until he could pass both
+his feet into the lower hank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Voilà!</i>” said he. “Come up and tie me to the other with some little
+pieces round the waist and knees and neck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She obeyed, weeping. Her love and her duty were to this wonder of
+manhood, however dreadful his counsel. Presently, trussed to his
+liking, he bade her fetch the brigand’s cloak and button it over all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” said he, “one last sacramental kiss; and, so descending and
+placing the ladder and all as before, thou shalt take standing-room in
+the pit for this veritable dance of death.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A moment&mdash;and he was hanging there, to all appearance a corpse. The
+short rope at his neck had been so disposed and knotted&mdash;the collar of
+the domino serving&mdash;as to make him look, indeed, as if he strained at
+the tether’s end. He had dragged his long hair over his eyes; his head
+lolled to one side; his tongue protruded. For the rest, the cloak hid
+all, even to his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The goatherd snivelled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, holy saints, he is dead!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The head came erect, grinning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eugenio!” she cried; “O, my God! Thou wilt be discovered&mdash;thou wilt
+slip and strangle! Ah, the crows&mdash;body of my body, the crows!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Imbecile! have I not my hands? See, I kiss one to thee. Now the sun
+sinks, and my ghostly vigil will be short. Pray heaven only they
+alight not on that in the bush. Nariguita, little heroine, this is my
+last word. Go hide thyself in the bushes above, and watch what a
+Frenchman, the most sensitive of mortals, will suffer to serve his
+Emperor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an era, indeed, of sublime lusts and barbaric virtues, when men
+must mount upon stepping-stones, not of their dead selves, but of
+their slaughtered enemies, to higher things. Anita, like Ducos, was a
+child of her generation. To her mind the heroic purpose of this deed
+overpowered its pungency. She kissed her lover’s feet; secured the
+safe disposition of the cloak about them; then turned and fled into
+hiding.
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At dusk, with the sound of footsteps coming up the pass, the crows
+dispersed. Eugène, for all his self-sufficiency, had sweated over
+their persistence. A single more gluttonous swoop might at any moment,
+in blinding him, have laid him open to a general attack before help
+could reach him from the eyrie whence unwearying love watched his
+every movement. Now, common instance of the providence which waits on
+daring, the sudden lift and scatter of the swarm left his hearing
+sensible to the tinkling of a bridle, which came rhythmical from the
+track below. Immediately he fell, with all his soul, into the pose of
+death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cadence of the steely warning so little altered, the footsteps
+stole in so muffled and so deadly, that, peering presently through
+slit eyelids for the advent of the troop, it twitched his strung
+nerves to see a sinister congress already drawn soundless about the
+gibbet on which he hung. Perhaps for the first time in this stagnant
+atmosphere he realized the peril he had invited. But still the
+gambler’s providence befriended him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were all women but two&mdash;the victim, a sullen, whiskered
+Yanguesian, strapped cuttingly to a mule, and a paunchy shovel-hatted
+Carmelite, who hugged a crucifix between his roomy sleeves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos had heard of these banded <i>vengeresses</i>. Now, he was Frenchman
+enough to appreciate in full the significance of their attitude, as
+they clustered beneath him in the dusk, a veiled and voiceless huddle
+of phantoms. “How,” he thought, peeping through the dropped curtain of
+his hair, “will the adorables do it?” He had an hysterical inclination
+to laugh, and at that moment the monk, with a sudden decision to
+action, brushed against him and set him slowly twirling until his face
+was averted from the show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immediately thereon&mdash;as he interpreted sounds&mdash;the mule was led under
+the gallows. He heard the ladder placed in position, heard a strenuous
+shuffling as of concentrated movement. What he failed to hear (at
+present) was any cry or protest from the victim. The beam above
+creaked, a bridle tinkled, a lighter drop of hoofs receded. A pregnant
+pause ensued, broken only by a slight noise, like rustling or
+vibrating&mdash;and then, in an instant, by a voice, chuckling,
+hateful&mdash;the voice of the priest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What! to hang there without a word, Carlos? Wouldst thou go, and
+never ask what is become of that very treasure thou soldst thy soul to
+betray? The devil has rounded on thee, Carlos; for after all it is
+thou that art lost, and not the treasure. That is all put away&mdash;shout
+it in the ears of thy neighbours up there&mdash;it is all put away, Carlos,
+safe in the salt mines of the Little Hump. Cry it to the whole world
+now. Thou mayst if thou canst. In the salt mines of the Little Hump.
+Dost hear? Ah, then, we must make thee answer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With his words, the pit was all at once in shrill hubbub, noise
+indescribable and dreadful, the shrieking of harpies bidden to their
+prey. It rose demoniac&mdash;a very Walpurgis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no,” thought Ducos, gulping under his collar. He was almost
+unnerved for the moment. “It is unlawful&mdash;they have no right to!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was twisting again, for all his mad will to prevent it. He would
+not look, and yet he looked. The monk, possessed, was thrashing the
+torn and twitching rubbish with his crucifix. The others, their
+fingers busy with the bodkins they had plucked from their mantillas,
+had retreated for the moment to a little distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the Carmelite, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy, dropped his
+weapon, and scuttling to the mule, where it stood near at hand, tore a
+great horse pistol from its holster among the trappings, and pointed
+it at the insensible body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Scum of all devils!” he bellowed. “In fire descend to fire that lasts
+eternal!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and shattering explosion. A
+blazing hornet stung Ducos in the leg. He may have started and
+shrieked. Any cry or motion of his must have passed unnoticed in the
+screaming panic evoked of the crash. He clung on with his hands and
+dared to raise his head. The mouth of the pass was dusk with flying
+skirts. Upon the sands beneath him, the body of the priest, a
+shapeless bulk, was slowly subsiding and settling, one fat fist of it
+yet gripping the stock of a pistol which, overgorged, had burst as it
+was discharged.
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reek of the little tragedy had hardly dissipated before Ducos
+found himself. The sentiment of revolt, deriving from his helpless
+position, had been indeed but momentary. To feel his own accessibility
+to torture, painted torture to him as an inhuman lust. With the means
+to resist, or escape, at will, he might have sat long in ambush
+watching it; even condoning it as an extravagant posture of art.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a heart full of such exultation over the success of his trick
+that for the moment he forgot the pain of his wound, he hurriedly
+unpicked the knots of the shorter cords about him, and, jumping to the
+ground, waited until the shadow of a little depressed figure came
+slinking across the sand towards him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eugenio!” it whispered; “what has happened? O! art thou hurt?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ran into his arms, sobbing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am hurt,” said Ducos. “Quick, child! unstrap this from my arm and
+bind it about my calf. Didst hear? But it was magnificent! Two birds
+with a single stone. The piastres in pickle for us. Didst see,
+moreover? Holy Emperor! it was laughable. I would sacrifice a
+decoration to be witness of the meeting of those two overhead. It
+should be the Yanguesian for my money, for he has at least his teeth
+left. Look how he shows them, bursting with rage! Quick, quick, quick!
+we must be up and away, before any of those others think of
+returning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And if one should,” she said, “and mark the empty beam?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does it matter, nevertheless! I must be off to-night, after thou
+hast answered me one single question.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Off? Eugenio! O! not without me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God, little girl! In this race I must not be hampered by so much as a
+thought. But I will return for thee&mdash;never fear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He still sat in his domino. She knelt at his feet, stanching the flow
+from the wound the pistol had made in his leg. At his words she looked
+up breathlessly into his face; then away, to hide her swimming eyes.
+In the act she slunk down, making herself small in the sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eugenio! My God! we are watched!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned about quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whence?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From the mouth of the pass,” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can see nothing,” he said. “Hurry, nevertheless! What a time thou
+art! There, it is enough of thy bungling fingers. Help me to my feet
+and out of this place. Come!” he ended, angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had an ado to climb the easy slope. By the time they were entered
+amongst the rocks and bushes above, it was black dusk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whither wouldst thou, dearest?” whispered the goatherd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had known well enough a moment ago&mdash;to some point, in fact, whence
+she could indicate to him the direction of the Little Hump, where the
+treasure lay; afterwards, to the very hill-top where some hours
+earlier they had forgathered. But he would not or could not explain
+this. Some monstrous blight of gloom had seized his brain at a swoop.
+He thought it must be one of the crows, and he stumbled along, raving
+in his heart. If she offered to help him now, he would tear his arm
+furiously from her touch. She wondered, poor stricken thing, haunting
+him with tragic eyes. Then at last her misery and desolation found
+voice&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have I done? I will not ask again to go with thee, if that is
+it. It was only one little foolish cry of terror, most dear&mdash;that they
+should suspect, and seize, and torture me. But, indeed, should they do
+it, thou canst trust me to be silent.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped, swaying, and regarded her demoniacally. His face was a
+livid and malignant blot in the thickening dusk. To torture her? What
+torture could equal his at this moment? She sought merely to move him
+by an affectation of self-renunciation. That, of course, called at
+once for extreme punishment. He must bite and strangle her to death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He moved noiselessly upon her. She stood spellbound before him. All at
+once something seemed to strike him on the head, and, without uttering
+a sound, he fell forward into the bush.
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos opened his eyes to the vision of so preternaturally melancholy a
+face, that he was shaken with weak laughter over the whimsicality of
+his own imagination. But, in a very little, unwont to dreaming as he
+was, the realization that he was looking upon no apparition, but a
+grotesque of fact, silenced and absorbed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently he was moved to examine his circumstances. He was lying on a
+heap of grass mats in a tiny house built of boards. Above him was a
+square of leaf-embroidered sky cut out of a cane roof; to his left,
+his eyes, focussing with a queer stiffness, looked through an open
+doorway down precipices of swimming cloud. That was because he lay in
+an eyrie on the hillside. And then at once, into his white field of
+vision, floated the dismal long face, surmounted by an ancient
+cocked-hat, slouched and buttonless, and issuing like an august Aunt
+Sally’s from the neck of a cloak as black and dropping as a pall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The figure crossed the opening outside, and wheeled, with the wind in
+its wings. In the act, its eyes, staring and protuberant, fixed
+themselves on those of the Frenchman. Immediately, with a little
+stately gesture expressive of relief and welcome, it entered the hut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By the mercy of God!” exclaimed the stranger in his own tongue. Then
+he added in English: “The Inglese recovers to himself?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos smiled, nodding his head; then answered confidently, feeling his
+way: “A little, sir, I tank you. Thees along night. Ah! it appear all
+one pain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other nodded solemnly in his turn&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A long night indeed, in which the sunksink tree very time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Comment!” broke out the aide-de-camp hoarsely, and instantly realized
+his mistake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah! devil take the French!” said he explanatorily. “I been in their
+camp so long that to catch their lingo. But I spik l’Espagnol, señor.
+It shall be good to us to converse there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other bowed impenetrably. His habit of a profound and melancholy
+aloofness might have served for mask to any temper of mind but that
+which, in real fact, it environed&mdash;a reason, that is to say, more lost
+than bedevilled under the long tyranny of oppression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have been ill, I am to understand?” said Ducos, on his guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For three days and nights, señor. My goatherd came to tell me how a
+wounded English officer was lying on the hills. Between us we conveyed
+you hither.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Ah, Dios!</i> I remember. I had endeavoured to carry muskets into
+Saragossa by the river. I was hit in the leg; I was captured; I
+escaped. For two days I wandered, señor, famished and desperate. At
+last in these mountains I fell as by a stroke from heaven.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was the foul blood clot, señor. It balked your circulation. There
+was the brazen splinter in the wound, which I removed, and God
+restored you. What fangs are theirs, these reptiles! In a few days you
+will be well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks to what ministering angel?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am known as Don Manoel di Cangrejo, señor, the most shattered, as
+he was once the most prosperous of men. May God curse the French! May
+God” (his wild, mournful face twitched with strong emotion) “reward
+and bless these brave allies of a people more wronged than any the
+world has yet known!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Noble Englishman,” said he by and by, “thou hast nothing at present
+but to lie here and accept the grateful devotion of a heart to which
+none but the inhuman denies humanity.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos looked his thanks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I might rest here a little,” he said; “if I might be spared&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other bowed, with a grave understanding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“None save ourselves, and the winds and trees, señor. I will nurse
+thee as if thou wert mine own child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was as good as his word. Ducos, pluming himself on his
+perspicacity, accepting the inevitable with philosophy, lent himself
+during the interval, while feigning a prolonged weakness, to recovery.
+That was his, to all practical purposes, within a couple of days,
+during which time he never set eyes on Anita, but only on Anita’s
+master. Don Manoel would often come and sit by his bed of mats; would
+even sometimes retail to him, as to a trusted ally, scraps of local
+information. Thus was he posted, to his immense gratification, in the
+topical after-history of his own exploit at the gallows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is said,” whispered Cangrejo awfully, “that one of the dead,
+resenting so vile a neighbour, impressed a goatherd into his service,
+and, being assisted from the beam, walked away. Truly it is an age of
+portents.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the third morning, coming early with his bowl of goat’s milk and
+his offering of fruits, he must apologize, with a sweet and lofty
+courtesy, for the necessity he was under of absenting himself all day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is trouble,” he said&mdash;“as when is there not? I am called to
+secret council, señor. But the boy Ambrosio has my orders to be ever
+at hand shouldst thou need him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos’s heart leapt. But he was careful to deprecate this generous
+attention, and to cry <i>Adios!</i> with the most perfect assumption of
+composure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was lying on his elbow by and by, eagerly listening, when the
+doorway was blocked by a shadow. The next instant Anita had sprung to
+and was kneeling beside him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Heart of my heart, have I done well? Thou art sound and whole? O,
+speak to me, speak to me, that I may hear thy voice and gather its
+forgiveness!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For what? She was sobbing and fondling him in a very lust of entreaty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thou hast done well,” he said. “So, we were seen indeed, Anita?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she wept, holding his face to her bosom. “And, O! I agonize for
+thee to be up and away, Eugenio, for I fear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush! I am strong. Help me to my legs, child. So! Now, come with me
+outside, and point out, if thou canst, where lies the Little Hump.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was his devoted crutch at once. They stood in the sunlight,
+looking down upon the hills which fell from beneath their feet&mdash;a
+world of tossed and petrified rapids. At their backs, on a shallow
+plateau under eaves of rock, Cangrejo’s eyrie clung to the
+mountain-side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There,” said the goatherd, indicating with her finger, “that mound
+above the valley&mdash;that little hill, fat-necked like a great mushroom,
+which sprouts from its basin among the trees?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait! mine eyes are dazzled.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, poor sick eyes! Look, then! Dost thou not see the white worm of
+the Pampeluna road&mdash;below yonder, looping through the bushes?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see it&mdash;yes, yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, follow upwards from the big coil, where the pine tree leans to
+the south, seeming a ladder between road and mound.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stay&mdash;I have it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Behold the Little Hump, the salt mine of St. Ildefonso, and once,
+they say, an island in the midst of a lake, which burst its banks and
+poured forth and was gone. And now thou knowest, Eugenio?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not answer. He was intently fixing in his memory the position
+of the hill. She waited on his mood, not daring to risk his anger a
+second time, with a pathetic anxiety. Presently he heaved out a sigh,
+and turned on her, smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is well,” he said. “Now conduct me to the spot where we met three
+days ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was surprisingly near at hand. A labyrinthine descent&mdash;by way of
+aloe-horned rocks, with sandy bents and tufts of harsh juniper
+between&mdash;of a hundred yards or so, and they were on the stony plateau
+which he remembered. There, to one side, was the coppice of chestnuts
+and locust trees. To the other, the road by which he had climbed went
+down with a run&mdash;such as he himself was on thorns to emulate&mdash;into the
+valleys trending to Saragossa. His eyes gleamed. He seated himself
+down on a boulder, controlling his impatience only by a violent
+effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anita,” he said, drilling out his speech with slow emphasis, “thou
+must leave me here alone awhile. I would think&mdash;I would think and
+plan, my heart. Go, wait on thy goats above, and I will return to thee
+presently.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sighed, and crept away obedient. O, forlorn, most forlorn soul of
+love, which, counting mistrust treason, knows itself a traitor! Yet
+Anita obeyed, and with no thought to eavesdrop, because she was in
+love with loyalty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moment he was well convinced of her retreat, Ducos got to his legs
+with an immense sigh of relief. Love, he thought, could be presuming,
+could be obtuse, could be positively a bore. It all turned upon the
+context of the moment; and the present was quick with desires other
+than for endearments. For it must be related that the young captain,
+having manœuvred matters to this accommodating pass, was designing
+nothing less than an instant return, on the wings of transport, to the
+blockading camp, whence he proposed returning, with a suitable force
+and all possible dispatch, to seize and empty of its varied treasures
+the salt mine of St. Ildefonso.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pouf!” he muttered to himself in a sort of ecstatic aggravation;
+“this accursed delay! But the piastres are there still&mdash;I have
+Cangrejo’s word for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned once, before addressing himself to flight, to refocus in his
+memory the position of the mound, which still from here was plainly
+visible. In the act he pricked his ears, for there was a sound of
+footsteps rising up the mountain path. He dodged behind a boulder. The
+footsteps came on&mdash;approached him&mdash;paused&mdash;so long that he was induced
+at last to peep for the reason. At once his eyes encountered other
+eyes awaiting him. He laughed, and left his refuge. The new-comer was
+a typical Spanish Romany&mdash;slouching, filthy, with a bandage over one
+eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God be with thee, Caballero!” said the Frenchman defiantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To his astonishment, the other broke into a little scream of laughter,
+and flung himself towards him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Judge thou, now,” said he, “which is the more wide-awake adventurer
+and the better actor!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God!” cried Ducos; “it is de la Platière!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush!” whispered the mendicant. “Are we private? Ah, bah! Junot
+should have sent me in the first instance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have been hurt, thou rogue. Our duel of wits is yet postponed. In
+good time hast thou arrived. This simplifies matters. Thou shalt
+return, and I remain. Hist! come away, and I will tell thee all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half an hour later, de la Platière&mdash;having already, for his part,
+mentally absorbed the details of a certain position&mdash;swung rapidly,
+with a topical song on his lips, down the path he had ascended
+earlier. The sound of his footfalls receded and died out. The hill
+regathered itself to silence. Ducos, on terms with destiny and at
+peace with all the world, sat for hours in the shadow of the trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps he was not yet Judas enough to return to Anita, awaiting him
+in Cangrejo’s eyrie. But at length, towards evening, fearing his long
+absence might arouse suspicion or uneasiness, he arose and climbed the
+hill. When he reached the cabin, he found it empty and silent. He
+loitered about, wondering and watchful. Not a soul came near him. He
+dozed; he awoke; he ate a few olives and some bread; he dozed again.
+When he opened his eyes for the second time, the shadows of the peaks
+were slanting to the east. He got to his feet, shivering a little.
+This utter silence and desertion discomforted him. Where was the girl?
+God! was it possible after all that she had betrayed him? He might
+have questioned his own heart as to that; only, as luck would have it,
+it was such a tiresomely deaf organ. So, let him think. De la
+Platière, with his men (as calculated), would be posted in the
+Pampeluna road, round the spur of the hill below, an hour after
+sunset&mdash;that was to say, at fifteen minutes to six. No doubt by then
+the alarm would have gone abroad. But no great resistance to a strong
+force was to be apprehended. In the meantime&mdash;well, in the meantime,
+until the moment came for him to descend under cover of dark and
+assume the leadership, he must possess his soul in patience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sun went down. Night flowing into the valleys seemed to expel a
+moan of wind; then all dropped quiet again. Darkness fell swift and
+sudden like a curtain, but no Anita appeared, putting it aside, and
+Ducos was perplexed. He did not like this bodiless, shadowless
+subscription to his scheming. It troubled him to have no one to talk
+to&mdash;and deceive. He was depressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by he pulled off, turned inside-out and resumed his scarlet
+jacket, which he had taken the provisional precaution to have lined
+with a sombre material. As he slipped in his arms, he started and
+looked eagerly into the lower vortices of dusk. In the very direction
+to which his thoughts were engaged, a little glow-worm light was
+burning steadily from the thickets. What did it signify&mdash;Spaniards or
+French, ambush or investment? Allowing&mdash;as between himself on the
+height and de la Platière on the road below&mdash;for the apparent
+discrepancy in the time of sunset, it was yet appreciably before the
+appointed hour. Nevertheless, this that he saw made the risk of an
+immediate descent necessary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bringing all his wits, his resolution, his local knowledge to one
+instant focus, he started, going down at once swiftly and with
+caution. The hills rose above him like smoke as he dropped; the black
+ravines were lifted to his feet. Sometimes for scores of paces he
+would lose sight altogether of the eye of light; then, as he turned
+some shoulder of rock, it would strike him in the face with its nearer
+radiance, so that he had to pause and readjust his vision to the new
+perspective. Still, over crabbed ridges and by dip of thorny gulches
+he descended steadily, until the mound of the Little Hump, like a
+gigantic thatched kraal, loomed oddly upon him through the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, lo! the beacon that had led him down unerring was a great lantern
+hung under the sagging branch of a chestnut tree at the foot of the
+mound&mdash;a lantern, the lurid nucleus of a little coil of tragedy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A cluster of rocks neighboured the clearing about the tree. To these
+Ducos padded his last paces with a cat-like stealth&mdash;crouching, hardly
+breathing; and now from that coign of peril he stared down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A throng of armed guerrillas, one a little forward of the rest, was
+gathered about a couple more of their kidney, who, right under the
+lantern, held the goatherd Anita on her knees in a nailing grip. To
+one side, very phantoms of desolation, stood Cangrejo and another. The
+faces of all, densely shadowed in part by the rims of their sombreros,
+looked as if masked; their mouths, corpse-like, showed a splint of
+teeth; their ink-black whiskers hummocked on their shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So, in the moment of Ducos’s alighting on it, was the group
+postured&mdash;silent, motionless, as if poised on the turn of some full
+tide of passion. And then, in an instant, a voice boomed up to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Confess!” it cried, vibrating: “him thou wert seen with at the
+gallows; him whom thou foisted, O! unspeakable, thou devil’s doxy! on
+the unsuspecting Cangrejo; him, thy Frankish gallant and spy” (the
+voice guttered, and then, rising, leapt to flame)&mdash;“what hast thou
+done with him? where hidden? Speak quickly and with truth, if, traitor
+though thou be, thou wouldst be spared the traitor’s estrapade.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Alguazil, I cannot say. Have mercy on me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos could hardly recognize the child in those agonized tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inquisitor, with an oath, half wheeled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pignatelli, father of this accursed&mdash;if by her duty thou canst
+prevail?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A figure&mdash;agitated, cadaverous, as sublimely dehumanized as
+Brutus&mdash;stepped from Cangrejo’s side and tossed one gnarled arm aloft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No child of mine, alguazil!” it proclaimed in a shrill, strung cry.
+“Let her reap as she hath sown, alguazil!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cangrejo leapt, and flung himself upon his knees by the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell Don Manoel, chiquita. God! little boy, that being a girl (ah,
+naughty!) is half absolved. Tell him, tell him&mdash;ah, there&mdash;now, now,
+now! He, thy lover, was in the cabin. I left him prostrate, scarce
+able to move. When the council comes to seek him, he is gone. Away,
+sayst thou? Ah, child, but I must know better! It could not be far.
+Say where&mdash;give him up&mdash;let him show himself only, chiquita, and the
+good alguazil will spare thee. Such a traitor, ah, Dios! And yet I
+have loved, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sobbed, and clawed her uncouthly. Ducos, in his eyrie, laughed to
+himself, and applauded softly, making little cymbals of his
+thumb-nails.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But he will not move her,” he thought&mdash;and, on the thought, started;
+for from his high perch his eye had suddenly caught, he was sure of
+it, the sleeking of a French bayonet in the road below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Master!” cried Anita, in a heart-breaking voice; “he is gone&mdash;they
+cannot take him. O, don’t let them hurt me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The alguazil made a sign. Cangrejo, gobbling and resisting, was
+dragged away. There was a little ugly, silent scuffle about the girl;
+and, in a moment, the group fell apart to watch her being hauled up to
+the branch by her thumbs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos looked on greedily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How long before she sets to screaming?” he thought, “so that I may
+escape under cover of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So long, that he grew intolerably restless&mdash;wild, furious. He could
+have cursed her for her endurance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But presently it came, moaning up all the scale of suffering. And, at
+that, slinking like a rat through its run, he went down swiftly
+towards the road&mdash;to meet de la Platière and his men already silently
+breaking cover from it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, on the same instant, the Spaniards saw them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peste!” whispered de la Platière “We could have them all at one
+volley but for that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between the French force, ensconced behind the rocks whither Ducos had
+led them, and the Spaniards who, completely taken by surprise, had
+clustered foolishly in a body under the lantern, hung the body of
+Anita, its torture suspended for the moment because its poor wits were
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How, my friend!” exclaimed Ducos. “But for what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The girl, that is all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She will feel nothing. No doubt she is half dead already. A moment,
+and it will be too late.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nevertheless, I will not,” said de la Platière.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ducos stamped ragingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give the word to me. She must stand her chance. For the Emperor!” he
+choked&mdash;then shrieked out, “Fire!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The explosion crashed among the hills, and echoed off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A dark mass, which writhed and settled beyond the lantern shine,
+seemed to excite a little convulsion of merriment in the swinging
+body. That twitched and shook a moment; then relaxed, and hung
+motionless.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch02">
+THE RAVELLED SLEAVE
+</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">I should</span> like to preface my subject with a <i>Caractère</i>, in the
+style of La Bruyère, as thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant
+a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make
+Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as
+others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement
+of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than
+ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you
+the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and,
+resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities
+which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters
+always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct
+on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the
+Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself
+speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous
+secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but
+their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite,
+one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his
+lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably
+a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one
+has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy
+day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that
+we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes.
+But we must adulterate largely to do it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is
+thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a
+big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary,
+but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon
+your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his
+rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t
+know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really
+instinctively greedy for the psychologic <i>bonne bouche</i>. He is tall,
+and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm
+but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace.
+He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one
+night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being
+so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration
+for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental
+endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these
+noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself
+with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening
+paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my
+shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I
+supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at
+the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to
+an extreme of rudeness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had
+been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting
+your presence into my ear like that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by);
+then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first
+time to realize my meaning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do
+you mean by the question?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real
+justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, nothing!” I mumbled awkwardly; “except that you made me almost
+jump out of my skin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was characteristic of him, and a further puzzle, that in spite of
+his self-suggested consciousness of superiority he was easily
+depressed by a snub. We sat for a little in a glowering silence, and
+perhaps with a mutual sense of injury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, an interesting case,” he said at length with an effort. “A
+trance, isn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Something of the sort,” I replied. “I saw the girl yesterday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked up interested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is in a private ward of B&mdash;&mdash; Hospital. I know the house surgeon.
+He took me to see her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well! How does she look?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Seen the St. Amaranthe at Tussaud’s&mdash;the one whom, as children, we
+used to call the Sleeping Beauty? Not unlike her: as pretty as wax and
+as stiff: just breathing, with pale cheeks and her mouth a little
+open.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The fit&mdash;I seem to remember&mdash;was brought on by some shock, wasn’t
+it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I growled&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“According to report, concealment of birth. I conclude she was put to
+shame by some rogue, and couldn’t face the music. The child was found,
+three or four months ago, on a doorstep or somewhere, and traced to
+her. When the police entered, I suppose she feared the worst, and went
+off. Odd part is, that the infant itself was intact&mdash;as sound as a
+bell. But all that’s of little interest. It’s the case for me; not the
+sentiment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah?” said Valentine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leaned forward, resting his long arms on his knees and gently
+clicking his fingers together. His eyes were full of an eager light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Johnny, I wonder if you could get <i>me</i> a sight of her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not?” I answered. I felt that I owed him some atonement. “I’ll
+ask C&mdash;&mdash; if you like.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h4>
+II
+</h4>
+
+<p>
+C&mdash;&mdash; demurred, hummed and hawed, and acquiesced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your friend must keep in the background,” he said. “He’s not a
+backstair reporter, I suppose?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s an independent gentleman, and either a poet or an ass&mdash;I don’t
+know which.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Same thing,” said this airy Philistine; “but no matter, so long as he
+don’t talk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He won’t talk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well, bring him up. Fact is, we’re trying an experiment this
+afternoon. Aunt’s brought the baby&mdash;sort of natural magnetism to
+restore the current, cancel the hiatus&mdash;see? I’ve not much belief in
+it myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I fetched Valentine, and we followed C&mdash;&mdash; up to the ward. There were
+only present there&mdash;one, a list-footed nurse; two, a little
+shabby-genteel woman, with a false tow-like front over vicious eyes,
+who carried a flannelled bundle; and three, the patient herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had not so much as stirred, to all appearance, since I last saw
+her. We, Valentine and I, took up our position apart. Some accidental
+contact with him made me turn my head. He was quivering like a
+high-strung racer for the start. This physical excitability was news
+to me. “H’mph!” I thought. “Is there really that in you which you must
+keep such a tight rein on?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nurse took the infant, and placed it on the sleeping girl’s
+breast. It mewed and sprawled, but evoked no response whatever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’d never a drop of the milk of kindness in her,” muttered the
+little verjuicy woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold your tongue!” said the doctor sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He and the nurse essayed some coaxing. In the midst, I was petrified
+by the sight of Valentine going softly up to the bed-head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I whisper a word?” he said. “It may fail or not. But I don’t
+think you can object to my trying.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And actually, before his astonished company could move or collect its
+wits, he had bent and spoken something, inaudible, into the patient’s
+ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, I ask you to remember that this girl had been in a cataleptic
+sleep for not less than three months, under observation, and with no
+chance, so far as I knew, to cozen her attendants; and believe me then
+as you can when I tell you that, answering, instantly and normally, to
+Valentine’s whisper, she sighed, stretched her arms, though at first
+with an air of some lassitude and weakness, and, opening her eyes,
+fixed them with a sort of suspended stare upon the face of her
+exorcist. Gradually, then, a little pucker deepened between her brows,
+and instantly, some shadow of fright or uneasiness flickering in her
+dark pupils, she turned her head aside. Obviously she was distressed
+by the vision of this strange face coming between the light and her
+normal, as it seemed to her, awaking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Valentine immediately stood away, and backed to where she could not
+see him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+C&mdash;&mdash;, obviously putting great command on himself, since circumstances
+made it appear that some damned “natural magic” had got the better of
+his natural science, took the situation in hand professionally, and
+frowned to the aunt, to whom the baby had been restored, to show
+herself. The woman, rallying from the common stupefaction, gave an
+acrid sniff and obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Well</i>, Nancy!” she said, in a tone between wonder and remonstrance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl looked round again and up, with a little shock. Immediately
+her dilated pupils accepted with frank astonishment this more familiar
+apparition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gracious goodness, Aunt Mim!” she whispered; “what have you got
+there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she turned her face on the pillow, with a smile of drowsy
+rapture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anyhow, you’ve found your way to Skene at last,” she murmured, and
+instantly fell into a natural sleep, from which, it was evident, there
+must be no awaking her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+C&mdash;&mdash; wheeled upon my friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose you won’t part with your secret?” he asked drily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a habit with Valentine, not his least aggravating, composedly
+to put by any unwelcome or difficult question addressed to him as if
+he did not hear it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Skene’s in Kent, isn’t it?” he asked, ostensibly of the aunt, though
+he looked at me. I could have snapped at him in pure vindictiveness.
+He wasn’t inscrutable, any more than another. What was his confounded
+right to pose as a sphinx?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She fancies she’s there,” he said. “Why?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I turned dumbly with the question to the little woman creature. I
+don’t know if she supposed I was in some sort of official authority to
+cross-examine her. She had powder on her face, and a weak glow mantled
+through it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was there she met her trouble, sir,” she said, hesitating. “She’d
+gone down to the hop-picking last September, and I was to follow. But
+circumstances” (she wriggled her shoulders with an indescribable
+simper) “was against my joining her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” broke in C&mdash;&mdash;, suddenly and rather sharply, “you must take
+the consequences, and, for the present anyhow, the burden of them off
+her shoulders.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Begging your pardon, sir?” she questioned shrewdly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The child,” said the doctor, “the child. Everything, it appears,
+relating to it is for the moment obliterated from her mind. She takes
+up existence, I think you’ll find, last autumn, at this Skene, with
+expecting you. Well, you have come, and returned to London together.
+You understand? The time of year is the same. None of all this has for
+the moment happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was an acrid incredulity in his hearer’s face as she listened to
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do I understand, or don’t I, sir,” she said, “that her shame is to be
+my care and consideration? And till when, if you’ll be so good?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That I can’t say,” he answered. “Probably the interval, the abyss in
+her mind, will bridge itself by slow degrees. Her reason likely
+depends upon your not rudely hastening the process. I warn you, that’s
+all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And pray,” she said, with ineffable sarcasm, “how is I, as a
+respectable woman, to account to her for this that I hold?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put it out to nurse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, sir, <i>if</i> you’ll allow me. The hussy have done her best to bring
+me to ruin already.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say you’ve adopted it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gave a shrill titter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nanny will have lost her wits, hindeed, to believe that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she has in a measure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the police?” she said. “Aren’t you a little forgetting them,
+sir?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The police,” said C&mdash;&mdash;, “I will answer for. The case isn’t worth
+their pursuing, and they will drop it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The baby began to wail; and Aunt Mim, with her lips pursed, to play
+the vicious rocking-horse to it.
+</p>
+
+
+<h4>
+III
+</h4>
+
+<p>
+One evening, a week later, Valentine came quietly into my room. I had
+not seen him in the interval, and was immediately struck, though it
+was semi-dusk, by the expression on his face. It was white and
+smiling, and the eyes more brightly inscrutable than ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A storm had just crashed across the town, and left everything dripping
+in a liquid fog. Looking down, one could see the house-fronts,
+submerged in the running pavements, become the very “baseless fabrics
+of a vision.” The hansom-drivers, bent over their glazed roofs, rode
+each with a shadowy phantom of himself reversed, like an oilskin Jack
+of Spades. No pedestrian but, like Hamlet, had his “fellow in the
+cellarage” keeping pace with him. The solid ground seemed melted, and
+the unsubstantial workings of the world revealed. To souls hemmed in
+by bricks, there are more commonplace, less depressing sights than a
+wet London viewed from a third story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a box in my window, with some marguerites in it, the sickly
+pledges of a rather jocund spring. Valentine, joining me as I leaned
+out, handled a half-broken stem very tenderly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has been beaten down, <i>like poor Nanny</i>, by the storm,” he said.
+“We must tie it to a stick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not answer for a minute. Then very deliberately I drew in my
+head and sat down. Again like my shadow, in this city of shadows,
+Valentine did the same. For some five minutes we must have remained
+opposite one another without speaking. Then sudden and grim I set my
+lips, and asked the question he seemed to invite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you the stick?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded, with a smile, which I could hardly see now, on his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You speak figuratively, of course,” I said, “in talking of <i>tying</i>
+her to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he said. “I talk of the real bond.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of matrimony?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a naughty word, I jumped to my feet, strode the round of the
+room, sat down flop on the table, put my hands in my pockets, tried to
+whistle, laughed, and burst out&mdash;“I suppose you intend this, in a
+manner, for a confidence? I suppose you are taking straight up the
+tale of a week ago? Well, <i>I</i> haven’t lost the impression of that
+moment, or gone mad in the interval. Do you want me to sympathize with
+<i>your</i> insanity, or to argue you out of it&mdash;which?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not answer. Indeed, the offensiveness of my tone was not
+winning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am perfectly aware,” I went on, “that the melodramatic unities
+demand an espousal with the interesting spirit we have called back to
+life. They have a way, at the same time, of ignoring Aunt Mims. You
+will, I am sure, forgive me if I say that it is the figure of that
+good lady which sticks last in <i>my</i> memory.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still he did not answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will put my point,” I continued, growing a little angry&mdash;“I will
+put my point, as you seem to ask it, with all the delicacy I can. You
+drew an analogy between&mdash;between some one and that broken cabbage
+yonder. The sentiment is unexceptionable; only in France they consider
+those things weeds.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do they?” he said coolly. “We don’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No; because we must justify ourselves for exalting ’em out of their
+proper sphere. They’ll not cease to smell rank, though, however you
+give ’em the middle place in your greenhouse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I struck my knee viciously with my open palm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was in vile bad taste, Val. I beg your pardon for saying it.
+But, deuce take it, man! you can’t have come to me, a worldling and an
+older one, for sympathy in this midsummer madness?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was off the table again, going to and fro and apostrophizing him at
+odd turns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s drop parables&mdash;and answer plainly, if it’s in you. You don’t
+exhale sentiment as a rule. Did or did not that touch about ‘poor
+Nanny’ imply a hint of some confidence put in me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve always considered you my closest friend.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Flattered, I’m sure; though I didn’t guess it. You put such
+conundrums&mdash;excuse me&mdash;beyond the time of a plain man to guess. Well,
+I say, I’m flattered, and I’ll take the full privilege. It’s natural
+you should feel an interest in&mdash;&mdash;by the way, I regret to say I only
+know her as the Brompton Sleeping Girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s Nanny Nolan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In Miss Nolan, then. A propos, I’ve never yet asked, and mustn’t
+know, I suppose, the secret of your ‘open sesame’?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I can’t tell you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, it doesn’t matter! Only, as a question of this confiding
+friendship&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It isn’t my secret alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I’ve no more to say. But I presume she’s the&mdash;the flower in
+question?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, yes! And I’m the stick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said it with a quiet laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shouldn’t have supposed it, on my honour,” I assured him. “You can
+have stuck at very little in a week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took a few turns, and faced him, or his motionless shadow, very
+solemnly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” I demanded, “for the plain speaking. Will you answer me the
+truth? I brought away an impression, as I said. It might have been,
+after all, an impertinent one. A man’s a man for a’ that&mdash;though I
+confess I can’t quite apply the moral to a woman. Still, I’ll ask you
+frankly: How is she socially?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing at all. Her father was a colour-sergeant, a red-headed Celt
+from over the border of dreams. He’s gone to join the Duke of Argyll’s
+cloud army at Inverary. Her aunt’s an ex-coryphée living on a
+mysterious pension.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course; only rather worse than I supposed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Verender, I must tell you the girl is without reproach. Socially, it
+is true, they are in a very limited way. They eke out existence in a
+number of small directions, even, as you know, hop-picking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve nothing but respect for Miss Nolan’s virtues. I can even
+appreciate the appeal of her prettiness to a susceptible nature, which
+I don’t think mine is. Anyhow, I’m no Pharisee to pelt my poor sister
+of the gutter because she’s fallen in it. That’s beside the question.
+But it isn’t, to ask what in the name of tragedy induces you, with
+your wealth, your refinement, your mental and social amiability, to
+sink all in this investment of a&mdash;of a fancy bespoke&mdash;there, I can put
+it no differently.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Call it my amiability, Verender. She’s like the centurion’s daughter.
+There’s something awfully strange, awfully fascinating, after all, in
+getting into her confidence&mdash;in entering behind that broken seal of
+death.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re not an impressionable Johnny&mdash;at least, you shouldn’t be.
+You’ve passed the Rubicon. This child with a child&mdash;with Aunt Mim,
+good Lord! Have you thought of the consequences?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes; all of them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of the&mdash;pardon me. Do you know who <i>he</i> was?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stared aghast at him&mdash;at the deeper blot of gloom from which his
+voice proceeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you aren’t afraid&mdash;for her; for yourself?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean, of her relapsing?” he said clearly. “Not when she knows the
+truth&mdash;knows what a poor thing he is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you sure <i>you</i> know woman? She is apt to have a curious
+tenderness for the blackguard who distinguishes her with his most
+especial brand of villainy. Then she hasn’t learned it&mdash;the
+truth&mdash;yet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Aunt Mim has been loyal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, well she may be, so long as you offer yourself the prize to
+such a self-denying ordinance. She sees which side her bread’s
+buttered, no doubt. And how does she account for the little stranger?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By adoption. It’s an odd thing, Verender&mdash;Verender, it’s a very odd
+thing, and very pitiful, to see how <i>she</i>&mdash;little Nanny&mdash;distrusts the
+child&mdash;looks on it sort of askance&mdash;almost hates it, I think. I’ve a
+very difficult part to play.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I groaned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then why play it? What does it all matter to you? You’ve opened her
+eyes. Isn’t that enough, without waiting till she’s opened yours?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” he said, obviously not attending to me. “But that isn’t the
+whole of my difficulty. The truth is, she appears to shrink from me
+too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll forgive me,” I said grimly. “That’s your first comforting
+statement.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know how it is,” he continued, in a low voice,
+self-pondering; “she’s frightened&mdash;distressed, before a shadow she
+can’t define. Sometimes and somehow it seems as if she wants to love
+me, but can’t&mdash;as if she were trying, and vainly, to shape out of a
+great gloom the obstacle which separates us. And I want to help her;
+and yet I, too, can’t understand. Shall I ever, I wonder?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stared at him. “Isn’t it plain enough? But you have love’s eyes, I
+suppose.” Then I asked, a little softened, “Does she ever lose
+herself, trying to piece that broken time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” he answered. “She speaks so little. She is like a
+little shy ghost&mdash;half-materialized&mdash;fearful between spirit and
+matter&mdash;very sweet and pathetic.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the last word he turned abruptly and strode out of the room. I
+was not so much astonished at his curt conclusion, as at a certain
+tell-tale cough which accompanied it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, hang the fellow!” I muttered. “If he’s developed tears in his
+voice, I give him up.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h4>
+IV
+</h4>
+
+<p>
+One afternoon, accident taking me past the Nolans’ house in the Fulham
+Road, I was disturbed to hear Valentine’s voice hailing me from the
+parlour window. It was a little cheap tenement, and a curiously shabby
+frame to his rather distinguished figure as he stood up eagerly to
+stop me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come in,” he said. “I want you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I demurred, in an instant and instinctive panic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What for? I’m horribly pressed. Won’t it do another time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>It</i> won’t,” he answered. “It’s its way. But go on, if your need is
+greater than mine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s shabby,” I thought; and yielded with the worst grace possible.
+He retaliated by meeting me all sweetness at the door, and conducting
+me into the parlour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an impossible room&mdash;I may say it at once&mdash;quite the typical
+tawdry boudoir of an ex-coryphée. She was not there, I was relieved
+to find, in person; but her multiplied presentment simpered and
+abashed one from a dozen places on walls and mantelpiece. “Claudine”
+(she might have been a hair-wash, and enjoyed the same sort of
+popularity) posed, for all the blind purposes of vanity, in the tights
+and kid boots of a past generation. Looking from queer old
+daguerreotypes, in skirts like curtailed crinolines; ogling from
+wreaths, her calves, crossed to display their strength, in disfiguring
+proportion with the thin bosom above, she seemed to make an outrage of
+the dear ungainly sanctities which appeal to us, in pegtops and
+voluminous skirts, from the back parts of our albums. There are
+certain people who, with the best intention in the world to be held
+sweet, are unsavoury; and Aunt Mim was one of them. All the more
+wonder that such fruit could be born of her stock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For she was certainly attractive, was the girl&mdash;pure and pretty and
+unaffected. I had to own it grudgingly to myself, as I bowed to her,
+and turned interrogatively to my friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had gone to the back of her chair, where she sat away from the open
+window. There was some discarded work in her lap, and in her eyes some
+look of a vague sadness and bewilderment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nanny,” he said softly, “this, Mr. Verender, is my great friend&mdash;my
+counsel out of Court. Will you just do this for me&mdash;make him yours,
+too? Will you try to explain to him, while I go away, what you find it
+so hard to explain to me&mdash;your sense of the something that keeps us
+apart?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made an instant but faint demur. Nanny, as faintly, shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O,” he said, “but he will listen to you, I know! Because I am
+unhappy, and you are unhappy, and I love you so, Nanny, and he is my
+best friend. Try to explain to him, dear, the difficulty of your
+case.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This novel enlargement on our relations, his and mine, vaguely annoyed
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why should there be any?” I put in impatiently. “Our friend can give
+you great social and other advantages, Miss Nolan. If he is decided on
+this course&mdash;you don’t dislike him, I think&mdash;forgive me, I can see no
+reason for objection on <i>your</i> part.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose, as if scared, to her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder.
+“Hush!” he said. “Be just to me, and try to tell him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left the room and the house; and I was in two minds about following
+him. Was ever man put in a more ridiculous position? Yet the look of
+the girl gave me pause. She seemed to me to be yet only half awake;
+and indeed, I think, that is something to understate the case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” I said stumblingly, as she stood before me. “You heard what he
+said, Miss Nolan?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was not sympathetic. I knew it. Perhaps, having once asserted
+myself, I might have grown so. But she would not give me the
+opportunity. In the meantime, I did not feel the less the full force
+of this mismatch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put her hand in a lost way to her forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will try,” she said, in a low voice, “because he asked me.
+There&mdash;there was a great trouble&mdash;O! it was so far back. I can’t
+remember it&mdash;and then everything went.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is willing, it appears, to take that interval, that trouble, on
+trust,” I said. “He only asks you, it seems, to repay his confidence.
+What you are is what he desires. Cannot you consider yourself new-born
+into his love?” (I positively sneered the word to myself.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is something stands between us,” she only murmured helplessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He doesn’t admit it for himself,” I insisted irritably. “It might be
+the ruin of his career, of his position, as foreseen by his friends. I
+suppose he wishes to assure you that that counts for nothing with him,
+if by any chance the bar between you lies in your dim consciousness of
+such a sentiment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had been brutal, I admit it. I can only palliate my behaviour by
+confessing that it was intended to sound the first note of my moral
+surrender to the appeal of those poor, pain-troubled eyes. Now, at
+least, I had got my shaft home. She looked up at me with a light of
+amazed knowledge in her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you,” she said. “I knew there was a right reason; and all the
+time I have been hunting for a fancied one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I suffered an instant reaction to dismay. I had had no right whatever
+to make this point. Whatever my private opinion of Valentine’s folly,
+I had allowed myself to be accredited his ambassador.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come; it is no reason at all,” I said. “There is no such thing as a
+misalliance in love” (I threw this atrocious sop to my own panic). “If
+only the practical bar between you could be as easily disposed of.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The practical bar?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned upon me with a piteous pain in her voice. I had opened a
+door of release to her, I suppose, and before she could escape shut it
+again in her face. I was stumbling weakly on an explanation, when
+suddenly from somewhere above the baby began to wail. Instantly her
+face assumed the strangest expression&mdash;a sort of exalted hardness. She
+put up her hand, listened a moment, then, without another word, glided
+from the room. I am ashamed to say that I seized the opportunity to
+put an instant period to my visit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I expected to meet Valentine loitering without; but to my relief he
+did not appear. So I went on my way fuming. What right had the man to
+try to inveigle me into seeming to sanction his idiotcy by claiming me
+its advocate? He wanted to buy justification, I suppose. There are
+certain natures which cannot properly relish their own grief or
+happiness unless a witness be by to report upon them. Such was
+Valentine’s, I thought; and the thought did not increase my respect
+for my friend. I fancied I had already plumbed the shallows of that
+pretentious reserve, and was angry and half contemptuous that he had
+so soon revealed himself to me. There was certainly something
+attractive about the girl; but&mdash;well, <i>he</i> had not been the first to
+discover the fact, and, when all was said, his infatuation showed him
+a fool in my eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening, when I was sitting alone writing, she suddenly stood
+before me. My first shock of amazement was followed by a glow of fury.
+I felt that I was being persecuted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, what is it?” I said harshly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I only wanted to tell you,” she said low, panting as if she had run;
+“I wanted you to tell <i>him</i> that&mdash;that I know now what it is. I found
+out the moment I left you; and I came to say&mdash;but you were gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is the child, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you are quite right&mdash;it is the child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner had I said it, than I felt the weight of my self-commitment.
+Had she discovered&mdash;remembered all? Did she conceive the impediment as
+associated with some scandal attaching to the ineffable Aunt Mim? or
+was the baby, in her clouded soul, but an unattachable changeling,
+which had come to disrupt the kind order of things and brand their
+household with a curse?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, it is the child,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my hand
+while I frowned over the problem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made no answer. When I looked up at the end of a minute, she was
+gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started to my feet, and went up and down. I made no attempt to
+follow. “It is better,” I thought angrily, “to let this stuff ferment
+in its own way. I could have given no other answer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the twentieth turn I saw Valentine before me, and stopped abruptly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” he said; “were you able to get it out of her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” I asked defiantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The reason&mdash;the impediment, you know?” he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sit down, Valentine,” I said. “I will tell you the truth. I hinted
+that the <i>mésalliance</i> might be her unconscious consideration.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is not so proud,” he said quietly; “though I’m unworthy to buckle
+her little shoe for her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I positively gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O! if that’s your view! But, anyhow, she was seeming to accept mine,
+when the infant hailed her, and she left me, and I bolted. You put too
+much upon me&mdash;really you do, Val; and here’s the sequel. Ten minutes
+ago she appeared in this room and told me that she had discovered the
+reason&mdash;the real one this time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And it was?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The baby&mdash;no less.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What! Does she&mdash;&mdash;?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know from Adam. I was thinking over my answer; and when I
+looked up, she was gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you gave her no reply?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O yes! I told her I entirely agreed with her. I had to be honest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Verender! You must come with me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go with you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve called the tune; you must pay the piper.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know what you mean. I’ll see you&mdash;cremated first!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stared at me a moment, his teeth showing, his eyes rounding in the
+dusk, his fists clinching and unclinching; then he, too, was gone. And
+I went and stood at the window, slinking into the curtains, and
+feeling myself the most abused cur in all London.
+</p>
+
+
+<h4>
+V
+</h4>
+
+<p>
+For a fortnight this state continued in me, through alternations of
+depression, self-accusation, and savage bursts of rebellion. On the
+sixteenth day a brief note, begging me to call at his rooms, reached
+me from Valentine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t go,” I swore through my teeth, feeling an inclination to tear
+the paper in them; and five minutes later was on my way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He shall justify me to myself,” I had thought. “I’ll let my
+conscience be his footstool no longer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fellow lived <i>en prince</i> in Piccadilly. I found him in the midst
+of a litter&mdash;boxes and packages and strewed floors&mdash;evidently on the
+eve of a journey. He greeted me, twinkling, in high excitement&mdash;not a
+trace of grievance or embarrassment in his manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave those things, Phillips,” he said to his staid valet. “We’ll
+finish by and by.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man left the room; and his master took me by the sleeve, while I
+held myself in reserve&mdash;unconsciously, at the same time, softening to
+his geniality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’re off to Capri&mdash;Egypt,” he said, “following our late summer with
+the swallows.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You and&mdash;Phillips?” I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I and my wife,” said he, with a laugh. “Hush! She’s seeing the baby
+to sleep.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could say it without a blush; and they had been married, as I came
+to learn, just a week! He led me on tiptoe to a distant room, and bade
+me look through the opened door. Nanny, crowned, proud as any young
+queen, with conscious maternity, was bent, singing softly, above a
+little cot. The sight of her&mdash;Val’s wife&mdash;restored me at once to my
+self-respect. I had done nothing after all, it seemed, but help to
+precipitate an event I deplored. My shout had brought down the
+avalanche. Henceforth my position was to be that of the amused
+onlooker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He let me stare; then led me away with all his old affectation of
+pregnant mystery. We went out together&mdash;I don’t know why&mdash;into the
+Green Park. It seemed remote and silent, and the better shadows of
+night were beginning to troop under its trees. Then he spoke to me, as
+follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Verender, you have a right to know. You remember what you told me
+that evening? I wasn’t just to you, perhaps. I foresaw issues to which
+you must necessarily be blind. The baby stood between us, you said. It
+did, but not in the way you meant to imply. I am its father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I listened perfectly silent, and very grave, as we stepped on
+together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will say of, not for, myself,” he continued, “that I had known
+nothing of the fruits of a little moonlight idyll out in that Kent
+village. I was hop-picking, as she was, but for a worser reason. Our
+encounter in B&mdash;&mdash; Hospital was my first intimation of the truth. Till
+that moment I had never considered, at least had been careless of, a
+sequel; had never, of course, had a shadow of thought to identify the
+patient with my victim. Then in a moment&mdash;Verender, her helplessness
+found all that wasn’t bad in me. She didn’t know me&mdash;the curtain was
+too thick. I determined to woo and win, as a stranger, what was
+already my own. Was I right?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I nodded. “Yes, you were right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then came the strange part,” he said&mdash;“a sort of subconsciousness of
+an impediment she could not define. It was her dishonour, Verender&mdash;my
+God! Verender, <i>her</i> dishonour!&mdash;that found some subtle expression in
+the little life introduced into her home. She always feared and
+distrusted the child; and I tell you I lived in horror that some day
+her witlessness would arm her gentle hand to do it a hurt. For she
+wanted to come to me, Verender, she wanted to come, and it was as if
+she couldn’t, and nobody would tell her why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>You</i> told her, you old rascal! And with what result, do you think?
+When I followed her, I found her gone&mdash;she had taken the baby from its
+cot, and hurried out. The old harpy was there, raving and gobbling
+beyond reason. I had her down on her knees to confess. She admitted
+that the girl had come in, in a fever to proclaim her knowledge of the
+bar which separated us. Nanny had rounded upon her, it appeared, and
+accused her, Aunt Mim, of wantonly causing the scandal which had
+brought this shadow into her life. And then&mdash;perhaps it wasn’t to be
+wondered at&mdash;Auntie exploded, and gave up all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The truth?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All of it but what the old hag herself didn’t know&mdash;the name of the
+villain. That, circumstances had kept from her, you see. She let
+loose, did Auntie&mdash;we’ll allow her a grain of justification; to have
+her forbearance turned upon herself like that, you know!&mdash;and screamed
+to the girl to pack, and dispose of her rubbish somewhere else. And
+Nanny understood at last, and went.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, where? That was the question. I’d only one clue&mdash;Skene and the
+river; but I seized upon it, and my inspiration proved right. She’d
+gone instinctively to the only place where, it seemed, her trouble
+could be resolved. You see, she hadn’t yet come to identify <i>me</i> with
+it. But I followed, and I caught her in time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He hung his head, and spoke very low.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I took the next train possible to Skene. Verender, I’m not going to
+talk. It was one of those fainting, indescribable experiences, like
+the voice in the burning bush. Cold dawn it was, with a white bubbling
+river and the ghost of an old moon. She had intended to commit <i>it</i> to
+the water&mdash;the fog wasn’t yet out of her brain&mdash;and then, all in an
+instant, the mother came upon her, and the memory of me; and she ran
+to cast herself in instead, and saw me coming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There followed a long interval of silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Aunt Mim?” I asked drily, chiefly to keep up my character.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O! we’ve added an honourable moiety to a dishonourable pension, and
+settled her,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another silence followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I apologize,” I said grumpily.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch03">
+THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">John Stannary</span> hungrily paced his laboratory, awaiting an expected
+advent. A brilliant coronal of candles, concentrated within a shade
+and pendent from a black beam over the dissecting table, regularly
+identified him as he came within its radiance, and as regularly, when
+he had passed without it, returned to its scrutiny of the empty slab
+beneath, as if it were trying to trace on that blank surface the
+unwritten hieroglyphics of his development. Yet, if each of its
+half-score fiery tongues had been as polyglot as the Apostles’ tongues
+of flame, it could have found among them all no voice to dispute his
+lifelong consistency with himself. From the hard, ungracious child,
+who had rejoiced to discomfit the love which sought to hedge him; from
+the cynic schoolboy, to whom to awaken and analyze pain in the living
+had been the only absorbing sport; from the unimpassioned student, who
+had walked the hospitals like a very spectre of moral insensibility;
+from the calculating libertine, whose experimental phase of animalism
+had been as brief as it was savage; from the lust of life, soon spent,
+to the bloodless analysis of its organic motives; from the soulless
+child to the virile monster of science; from nothingness to a great
+early reputation, to honours, to a fine house, to his present self and
+condition, in short, Professor Stannary’s progress had been entirely
+and unerringly consistent. He was one of those born to account for
+results, not by any means with a view to clearing the stream of
+tendency by cleansing its source. On the contrary, he never would have
+hesitated further to contaminate it, could he by so doing have evolved
+some novel epidemic. His fight was not to win Nature to God, but to
+the laboratory; and, if he had a conqueror’s ambition, it was to die
+gloriously upon a protoplast, at that beginning of things which his
+fathers had struggled through æons to forget. To have called him a
+dog nosing back for a scent, would have been to libel the sorriest of
+mongrels with an inch of tail to wag at a kind word. Yet he had
+routled so much, nevertheless, that his eyes were inflamed, and his
+features pimpled, and his nose itself sharpened as with much whetting
+on carrion. And, still unappeased, he paced his shambles that evening
+like a caged ravening jackal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In those early decades of the nineteenth century, anthropophagous
+science, especially when non-official, was often hard put to it for a
+meal. The “ringing grooves of change” were sounding; discovery was a
+new-risen star; ghoulish explorers shouldered one another in their
+struggle for the scientific pabulum which the grave afforded. But the
+supply, die as men would, was unequal to the demand. The hospitals
+kept their own; the others, <i>à contre-cœur</i>, must keep the
+resurrection-men. They pulled the blinds down on their consciences;
+they were willing to accept the least plausible of explanations, for
+the <i>Cause</i> was paramount. But, indeed, we are all casuists when we
+want to justify our lusts to ourselves. Still the material lacked,
+only, according to the universal law of necessity, to evolve its more
+desperate instruments of supply. And then at last, hard-driven, first
+one, and after him another and another, had the panic courage to pull
+up those blinds, and let in the light on some very shocking
+suspicions&mdash;with the result that Burke was hanged in Edinburgh, and
+Bishop and Williams in London.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Stannary was not of these white-livers. He pulled up no
+blind, for the simple reason that he had let none down. He would have
+diagnosed conscience as a morbid disease characterized by a diathetic
+condition, and peculiar to fools of both sexes and all ages. He would
+have said that to ask any question in this world was to invite a lie,
+and that in all his thirty years’ experience he had found none but the
+dead to answer back the unswerving truth. Well, if they did? Did it
+matter to them, being dead? But it mattered greatly to the cause of
+science to get at the truth; and he, for one, was certainly not going
+to question the means so long as the results came to justify them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While yet, however, the blinds were down and the pitch-plaster but an
+ugly suspicion, the competition for material had not so ceased of its
+keenness but that Professor Stannary had found himself checked, one
+day, under the very near-conquered crest of a physiological peak, for
+want of the final clue to that crowning achievement&mdash;a clue which,
+like Bluebeard’s key, turned upon nothing so intimately as dead
+bodies. Step by step he had reasoned his way to this position, only,
+when within touch of the end, to find himself held up, tantalized,
+irritated by an inability to proceed farther until a nice necessity
+should be provided. His material, in fact and in short, had given out
+at the psychologic moment. His laboratory was already a museum of
+shredded particles&mdash;the pickings from much inevitable waste of dead
+humanity. There needed only the retraversing of certain nerves, or
+ducts, or canals to put the finishing touches to a great discovery.
+And then&mdash;the summit, the tribune, as it were, from which he was
+engaged to announce on the morrow to the Royal Society the triumphant
+term to his investigations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Already, pacing to and fro, eager and impatient, in the silent room,
+he foresaw himself the recipient of the highest honour it was in the
+power of that body to bestow. He was not above desiring it. He was not
+himself so superlatively rational but he could covet applause for
+knocking yet another long nail into the coffin of irrationality; could
+expect the recognition of the world for his services in helping to
+reduce it, its passions and its hopes and its pathetic fallacies, to
+some mathematical formulæ. There is nothing so incomprehensible to
+the men of science as the reluctance of the unscientific to part with
+their doting illusions. To be content to rejoice or sorrow in things
+as they seem, and not to wish to know them as they are&mdash;that, they
+think, is so foolish as to justify their hardest castigation of the
+folly. At least so thought John Stannary, as, with his lips set
+sourly, he paused, and consulted his watch, and listened for a sound
+of expected footsteps shuffling down the hang-dog passage which
+skirted that wall of the house, and into which his laboratory door
+conveniently opened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a whisper, however, rewarded him. He put his ear to the panels.
+Even then, the surf-like murmur of distant traffic&mdash;or the thud of his
+own excited heart, he could not tell which&mdash;was the only articulate
+sound. He glanced up angrily at the shortening candles before resuming
+his tramp. As he passed to and fro, from dusk to light, and into dusk
+again, he seemed to be demonstrating to a theatre of spectral
+monstrosities the hieroglyphics of that same empty slab. For the
+central core of radiance, concentrating itself with deadly expectancy
+upon its surface, had, nevertheless, its own ghostly halo&mdash;a dim
+auditorium, tier over tier, peopled with shadows of misbegotten
+horrors. Sets of surgical steel in the pit, arrayed symmetrically on
+a table as if for a dinner party of vampires; nameless writhed
+specimens on cards or in bottles, standing higher behind the dry sleek
+of glass; over all, murderous busts in the gallery, the dust on their
+heads and upper features giving them the appearance of standing above
+some infernal sort of footlights&mdash;with such shapes, watchful and
+gloating in suggestion, was the man hemmed in. They touched his nerves
+with just such an emotion as the ordinary citizen feels towards his
+domestic <i>lares</i>; they affected him in just such proportion as he was
+moved by the thought of the possible manner in which an order he had
+given to some friends of his that morning might be executed. That is
+to say, his feeling towards these dead members, as towards the means
+taken by others to procure him the use of them, was utterly
+impersonal. He had had at this pass a great truth to demonstrate. “A
+body, this night, at any cost,” he had simply ordered, and had
+straightway shut the door on his caterers. He had had no thought of
+scruple. His responsibility in these matters was to the ages; never to
+the individual.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+A low tap sounded at the door. He was there in three strides, and
+opening swiftly, let in two men, the one shouldering a sack, the other
+hovering about his comrade in a sort of anxious moral support.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Professor Stannary, without a word, pointed to the table. The laden
+one, as mutely, shuffled across, backed, heaved his burden down, and
+stood to take off his hat and mop his brow. He was a burly,
+humorous-looking fellow, with a sort of cheerful popularity written
+across his face&mdash;an expression in strong contrast with that of the
+other, who, tall and stealthy, stood lank behind him, like his shadow
+at a distance, watching the persuasive effect of his principal on the
+customer. It was he who had closed the door gently upon them all as
+soon as they were in, and now stood, his teeth and eyeballs the
+prominent things in him, softly twirling his hat in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take away the sack,” said the Professor quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The burly man obeyed, sliding it off like a petticoat; and revealed
+the body of a young woman. Lowering and rubbing his jaw, the Professor
+stood some moments pondering the vision. Then he turned sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are late. I expected you sooner.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The notice was short, sir,” answered the man coolly. “These ’ere
+matters can’t be accommodated in a moment. As it is she’s warm. I
+bought the body off of&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other interrupted him&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want to know. You can hold your tongue, and take your price,
+and go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Short and sweet,” said the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed, and his friend laughed in echo, putting his long hand to
+his mouth as if in apology for such an unpardonable ebullition of
+nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As to the price,” said the former, “taking into <i>con</i>sideration the
+urgency, and the special providence, so to speak, in purwiding, at a
+moment’s notice too, this ’ere comely young&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A certain full chink of money stopped him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thankee,” he said, after a short negotiation. “I’ll own you’ve done
+the handsome, sir, and we’ve no cause to complain. Not but what I had
+to give&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good night!” said the Professor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not till they were gone, locked out, and the very trail of their
+filthy footsteps hidden under the black droppings of the night, did he
+turn, for all his impatience, and regard the body again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nancy,” he murmured to himself; “yes, it’s Nancy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Into the vast study of biology it is perfectly certain that a personal
+knowledge of biogenesis must enter. Here, too, the individual must be
+sacrificed to the cause. Well, by virtue of that phase in his career
+before-mentioned, he had already once made of Nancy a holocaust to
+science. If the fruits of that sacrifice had been to be found in a
+ruined life, a social degradation, a gradual decline upon infamy, what
+was it all to him? As german to the general subject as the dead
+specimens on his walls was the living specimen of his passion. <i>Ex
+abusu non arguitur ad usum.</i> Still, it was a strange coincidence that
+she should come thus to consummate his work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Looking upon her frozen face, he was aware of certain tell-tale,
+rudely-erased tokens about the mouth. He never had a doubt as to what
+they signified. It was a rude kiss that of the pitch-plaster, more
+close and savage than any he himself had once pressed upon those
+blistered lips. So, the murderous beasts had gone the short way to
+supply his urgency! Would they have taken it none the less, he
+wondered, if they could have known in what relation their victim once
+stood towards their employer? Very likely. Very justly, too, could
+they believe him consistent with himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, though he had no conscience, though he had too often
+scored that fact on human flesh with a knife to be in any doubt about
+it, it was notable that, as he moved now, perfectly cold and
+collected, to make some selection of tools from the table hard by, he
+was registering to himself a vow, mortal to some folks, that no effort
+of his should be lacking to help bring certain vile instruments to
+their judgment&mdash;so soon as his disuse of them should find warrant in a
+fuller supply of the legitimate material.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he groped for what he wanted, a sparrow twittered somewhere in the
+dark outside. He started, and dwelt a moment listening. Birds! the
+little false priests of haunted woods, who sang their lying
+benedictions over every folly perpetrated in their green shades! Why,
+he had loathed them, even while he had been making their loves the
+text for this early experiment of his in rustic nature. They had been
+singing when&mdash;&mdash;grasping his knife firmly, he returned to the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something had happened there. For one moment the blade shook in his
+hand. To his practised eye there were signs&mdash;the ghostliest, the most
+remote&mdash;but signs still. A movement&mdash;a tremor&mdash;the faintest, faintest
+vibration of a soul, unreleased, struggling to return to the
+surface&mdash;that was what he felt rather than saw. He recalled the hasty
+character of the deed; he thought of the shock, of the suspended
+trance into which such a deed might cast a sensitive subject.
+Mastering himself, with the dry firm will of an operator, he walked
+once more unhurriedly to the instrument table, and made a further
+selection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sparrow twittered again. Birds in the wood&mdash;small procuresses to
+Sentiment! What a trollop she was, that Sentiment! He had known
+ethereal creatures go from picking the bones of stuffed larks, to
+moralize sweetly on the song of nightingales under the moon. For
+himself, barring his natural asceticism, he would have no remorse
+whatever in devouring nightingales. Such emotions were born of
+surfeit, and the moral of them all was that a bird in the stomach was
+worth two, or two hundred, in the bush. The one was the decoy which
+brought the many into notice. Why, he himself, when flushed with
+passion&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Harder than steel, hard as flesh can be, he stepped back to the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yes, there was no longer doubt about it. He must decide quickly.
+Decide! What was there in all his life to warrant in him a moment’s
+indecision? His pledge to to-morrow was paramount over his pledge to
+yesterday. It was by very virtue of the past that he owed everything
+to the future. The <i>Cause</i> was himself, bone of his bone, flesh of his
+flesh. As she had made <i>her</i>self one with him, so must she consummate
+the gift. He chose to believe, even, that she would not hesitate could
+she know. He grasped his knife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her hair! He had said some foolish things about it once. In a sudden
+fury he seized it, and sliced it off close by her head, and flung it
+aside. She looked strangely innocent and boyish thus shorn. He had a
+momentary grotesque thought that he would excuse himself to himself by
+pretending that she was a boy. It passed on the instant. What excuse
+was necessary? He remembered how once, to his idle amusement, when she
+had fancied herself secure of him, she had coveted greatness for his
+future. Well, it was within his grasp at length, and by her final
+means.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Damn the sparrow! What was there in all the murky town to tempt his
+twittering? He had blunted his knife’s edge on the hair. He must fetch
+another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he came back with it, the bird seemed to flutter and cry out
+against his very door. In a swift access of passion he strode to it,
+and opened. Whether old, or wounded, or poisoned in the drooping fog,
+there lay the little thing, gasping, with outspread wings, upon the
+pavement. One moment the Professor hesitated; then, crushing out the
+tiny shrieking life under his foot, he relocked the door and returned
+with a firm step to the table.
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His treatise, read the next day before an august body, was said
+masterly to resolve an intricate and long obscure physiologic problem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It brought him additional and great honour, and, what he prized above
+all, that gift of the Society’s gold medal, which is only granted to
+discoveries of the first importance. But then, it must be remembered,
+he had given his soul to the Cause. The stain of its sacrifice was yet
+red on the stones outside his door.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch04">
+A GHOST-CHILD
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">In</span> making this confession public, I am aware that I am giving a
+butterfly to be broken on a wheel. There is so much of delicacy in its
+subject, that the mere resolve to handle it at all might seem to imply
+a lack of the sensitiveness necessary to its understanding; and it is
+certain that the more reverent the touch, the more irresistible will
+figure its opportunity to the common scepticism which is bondslave to
+its five senses. Moreover one cannot, in the reason of things, write
+to publish for Aristarchus alone; but the gauntlet of Grub Street must
+be run in any bid for truth and sincerity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other hand, to withhold from evidence, in these days of what
+one may call a zetetic psychology, anything which may appear
+elucidatory, however exquisitely and rarely, of our spiritual
+relationships, must be pronounced, I think, a sin against the Holy
+Ghost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All in all, therefore, I decide to give, with every passage to
+personal identification safeguarded, the story of a possession, or
+visitation, which is signified in the title to my narrative.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+Tryphena was the sole orphaned representative of an obscure but gentle
+family which had lived for generations in the east of England. The
+spirit of the fens, of the long grey marshes, whose shores are the
+neutral ground of two elements, slumbered in her eyes. Looking into
+them, one seemed to see little beds of tiny green mosses luminous
+under water, or stirred by the movement of microscopic life in their
+midst. Secrets, one felt, were shadowed in their depths, too frail and
+sweet for understanding. The pretty love-fancy of babies seen in the
+eyes of maidens, was in hers to be interpreted into the very cosmic
+dust of sea-urchins, sparkling like chrysoberyls. Her soul looked out
+through them, as if they were the windows of a water-nursery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was always a child among children, in heart and knowledge most
+innocent, until Jason came and stood in her field of vision. Then,
+spirit of the neutral ground as she was, inclining to earth or water
+with the sway of the tides, she came wondering and dripping, as it
+were, to land, and took up her abode for final choice among the
+daughters of the earth. She knew her woman’s estate, in fact, and the
+irresistible attraction of all completed perfections to the light that
+burns to destroy them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tryphena was not only an orphan, but an heiress. Her considerable
+estate was administered by her guardian, Jason’s father, a widower,
+who was possessed of this single adored child. The fruits of parental
+infatuation had come early to ripen on the seedling. The boy was
+self-willed and perverse, the more so as he was naturally of a
+hot-hearted disposition. Violence and remorse would sway him in
+alternate moods, and be made, each in its turn, a self-indulgence. He
+took a delight in crossing his father’s wishes, and no less in atoning
+for his gracelessness with moving demonstrations of affection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Foremost of the old man’s most cherished projects was, very naturally,
+a union between the two young people. He planned, manœuvred, spoke
+for it with all his heart of love and eloquence. And, indeed, it
+seemed at last as if his hopes were to be crowned. Jason, returning
+from a lengthy voyage (for his enterprising spirit had early decided
+for the sea, and he was a naval officer), saw, and was struck amazed
+before, the transformed vision of his old child-playfellow. She was an
+opened flower whom he had left a green bud&mdash;a thing so rare and
+flawless that it seemed a sacrilege for earthly passions to converse
+of her. Familiarity, however, and some sense of reciprocal attraction,
+quickly dethroned that eucharist. Tryphena could blush, could thrill,
+could solicit, in the sweet ways of innocent womanhood. She loved him
+dearly, wholly, it was plain&mdash;had found the realization of all her old
+formless dreams in this wondrous birth of a desire for one, in whose
+new-impassioned eyes she had known herself reflected hitherto only for
+the most patronized of small gossips. And, for her part, fearless as
+nature, she made no secret of her love. She was absorbed in, a captive
+to, Jason from that moment and for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He responded. What man, however perverse, could have resisted, on
+first appeal, the attraction of such beauty, the flower of a radiant
+soul? The two were betrothed; the old man’s cup of happiness was
+brimmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came clouds and a cold wind, chilling the garden of Hesperis.
+Jason was always one of those who, possessing classic noses, will cut
+them off, on easy provocation, to spite their faces. He was so proudly
+independent, to himself, that he resented the least assumption of
+proprietorship in him on the part of other people&mdash;even of those who
+had the best claim to his love and submission. This pride was an
+obsession. It stultified the real good in him, which was considerable.
+Apart from it, he was a good, warm-tempered fellow, hasty but
+affectionate. Under its dominion, he would have broken his own heart
+on an imaginary grievance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He found one, it is to be supposed, in the privileges assumed by love;
+in its exacting claims upon him; perhaps in its little unreasoning
+jealousies. He distorted these into an implied conceit of authority
+over him on the part of an heiress who was condescending to his meaner
+fortunes. The suggestion was quite base and without warrant; but pride
+has no balance. No doubt, moreover, the rather childish
+self-depreciations of the old man, his father, in his attitude towards
+a match he had so fondly desired, helped to aggravate this feeling.
+The upshot was that, when within a few months of the date which was to
+make his union with Tryphena eternal, Jason broke away from a
+restraint which his pride pictured to him as intolerable, and went on
+a yachting expedition with a friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, at once, and with characteristic violence, came the reaction. He
+wrote, impetuously, frenziedly, from a distant port, claiming himself
+Tryphena’s, and Tryphena his, for ever and ever and ever. They were
+man and wife before God. He had behaved like an insensate brute, and
+he was at that moment starting to speed to her side, to beg her
+forgiveness and the return of her love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had no need to play the suitor afresh. She had never doubted or
+questioned their mutual bondage, and would have died a maid for his
+sake. Something of sweet exultation only seemed to quicken and leap in
+her body, that her faith in her dear love was vindicated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the joy came near to upset the reason of the old man, already
+tottering to its dotage; and what followed destroyed it utterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The yacht, flying home, was lost at sea, and Jason was drowned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I once saw Tryphena about this time. She lived with her near mindless
+charge, lonely, in an old grey house upon the borders of a salt mere,
+and had little but the unearthly cries of seabirds to answer to the
+questions of her widowed heart. She worked, sweet in charity, among
+the marsh folk, a beautiful unearthly presence; and was especially to
+be found where infants and the troubles of child-bearing women called
+for her help and sympathy. She was a wife herself, she would say
+quaintly; and some day perhaps, by grace of the good spirits of the
+sea, would be a mother. None thought to cross her statement, put with
+so sweet a sanity; and, indeed, I have often noticed that the
+neighbourhood of great waters breeds in souls a mysticism which is
+remote from the very understanding of land-dwellers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How I saw her was thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was fishing, on a day of chill calm, in a dinghy off the flat coast.
+The stillness of the morning had tempted me some distance from the
+village where I was staying. Presently a sense of bad sport and
+healthy famine “plumped” in me, so to speak, for luncheon, and I
+looked about for a spot picturesque enough to add a zest to
+sandwiches, whisky, and tobacco. Close by, a little creek or estuary
+ran up into a mere, between which and the sea lay a cluster of low
+sand-hills; and thither I pulled. The spot, when I reached it, was
+calm, chill desolation manifest&mdash;lifeless water and lifeless sand,
+with no traffic between them but the dead interchange of salt. Low
+sedges, at first, and behind them low woods were mirrored in the water
+at a distance, with an interval between me and them of sheeted glass;
+and right across this shining pool ran a dim, half-drowned
+causeway&mdash;the sea-path, it appeared, to and from a lonely house which
+I could just distinguish squatting among trees. It was Tryphena’s
+home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, paddling dispiritedly, I turned a cold dune, and saw a mermaid
+before me. At least, that was my instant impression. The creature sat
+coiled on the strand, combing her hair&mdash;that was certain, for I saw
+the gold-green tresses of it whisked by her action into rainbow
+threads. It appeared as certain that her upper half was flesh and her
+lower fish; and it was only on my nearer approach that this latter
+resolved itself into a pale green skirt, roped, owing to her posture,
+about her limbs, and the hem fanned out at her feet into a tail fin.
+Thus also her bosom, which had appeared naked, became a bodice, as
+near to her flesh in colour and texture as a smock is to a
+lady’s-smock, which some call a cuckoo-flower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was plain enough now; yet the illusion for the moment had quite
+startled me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I came near, she paused in her strange business to canvass me. It
+was Tryphena herself, as after-inquiry informed me. I have never seen
+so lovely a creature. Her eyes, as they regarded me passing, were
+something to haunt a dream: so great in tragedy&mdash;not fathomless, but
+all in motion near their surfaces, it seemed, with green and rooted
+sorrows. They were the eyes, I thought, of an Undine late-humanized,
+late awakened to the rapturous and troubled knowledge of the woman’s
+burden. Her forehead was most fair, and the glistening thatch divided
+on it like a golden cloud revealing the face of a wondering angel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I passed, and a sand-heap stole my vision foot by foot. The vision was
+gone when I returned. I have reason to believe it was vouchsafed me
+within a few months of the coming of the ghost-child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the morning succeeding the night of the day on which Jason and
+Tryphena were to have been married, the girl came down from her
+bedroom with an extraordinary expression of still rapture on her face.
+After breakfast she took the old man into her confidence. She was
+childish still; her manner quite youthfully thrilling; but now there
+was a new-born wonder in it that hovered on the pink of shame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Father! I have been under the deep waters and found him. He came to
+me last night in my dreams&mdash;so sobbing, so impassioned&mdash;to assure me
+that he had never really ceased to love me, though he had near broken
+his own heart pretending it. Poor boy! poor ghost! What could I do but
+take him to my arms? And all night he lay there, blest and forgiven,
+till in the morning he melted away with a sigh that woke me; and it
+seemed to me that I came up dripping from the sea.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My boy! He has come back!” chuckled the old man. “What have you done
+with him, Tryphena?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will hold him tighter the next time,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the spirit of Jason visited her dreams no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was in March. In the Christmas following, when the mere was
+locked in stillness, and the wan reflection of snow mingled on the
+ceiling with the red dance of firelight, one morning the old man came
+hurrying and panting to Tryphena’s door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tryphena! Come down quickly! My boy, my Jason, has come back! It was
+a lie that they told us about his being lost at sea!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her heart leapt like a candle-flame! What new delusion of the old
+man’s was this? She hurried over her dressing and descended. A
+garrulous old voice mingled with a childish treble in the
+breakfast-room. Hardly breathing, she turned the handle of the door,
+and saw Jason before her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was Jason, the prattling babe of her first knowledge; Jason,
+the flaxen-headed, apple-cheeked cherub of the nursery; Jason, the
+confiding, the merry, the loving, before pride had come to warp his
+innocence. She fell on her knees to the child, and with a burst of
+ecstasy caught him to her heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She asked no question of the old man as to when or whence this
+apparition had come, or why he was here. For some reason she dared
+not. She accepted him as some waif, whom an accidental likeness had
+made glorious to their hungering hearts. As for the father, he was
+utterly satisfied and content. He had heard a knock at the door, he
+said, and had opened it and found this. The child was naked, and his
+pink, wet body glazed with ice. Yet he seemed insensible to the
+killing cold. It was Jason&mdash;that was enough. There is no date nor time
+for imbecility. Its phantoms spring from the clash of ancient
+memories. This was just as actually his child as&mdash;more so, in fact,
+than&mdash;the grown young figure which, for all its manhood, had dissolved
+into the mist of waters. He was more familiar with, more confident of
+it, after all. It had come back to be unquestioningly dependent on
+him; and that was likest the real Jason, flesh of his flesh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who are you, darling?” said Tryphena.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am Jason,” answered the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wept, and fondled him rapturously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And who am I?” she asked. “If you are Jason, you must know what to
+call me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know,” he said; “but I mustn’t, unless you ask me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t,” she answered, with a burst of weeping. “It is Christmas
+Day, dearest, when the miracle of a little child was wrought. I will
+ask you nothing but to stay and bless our desolate home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded, laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will stay, until you ask me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They found some little old robes of the baby Jason, put away in
+lavender, and dressed him in them. All day he laughed and prattled;
+yet it was strange that, talk as he might, he never once referred to
+matters familiar to the childhood of the lost sailor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the early afternoon he asked to be taken out&mdash;seawards, that was
+his wish. Tryphena clothed him warmly, and, taking his little hand,
+led him away. They left the old man sleeping peacefully. He was never
+to wake again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they crossed the narrow causeway, snow, thick and silent, began to
+fall. Tryphena was not afraid, for herself or the child. A rapture
+upheld her; a sense of some compelling happiness, which she knew
+before long must take shape on her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They reached the seaward dunes&mdash;mere ghosts of foothold in that smoke
+of flakes. The lap of vast waters seemed all around them, hollow and
+mysterious. The sound flooded Tryphena’s ears, drowning her senses.
+She cried out, and stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Before they go,” she screamed&mdash;“before they go, tell me what you were
+to call me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child sprang a little distance, and stood facing her. Already his
+lower limbs seemed dissolving in the mists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was to call you ‘mother’!” he cried, with a smile and toss of his
+hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even as he spoke, his pretty features wavered and vanished. The snow
+broke into him, or he became part with it. Where he had been, a gleam
+of iridescent dust seemed to show one moment before it sank and was
+extinguished in the falling cloud. Then there was only the snow,
+heaping an eternal chaos with nothingness.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+Tryphena made this confession, on a Christmas Eve night, to one who
+was a believer in dreams. The next morning she was seen to cross the
+causeway, and thereafter was never seen again. But she left the
+sweetest memory behind her, for human charity, and an elf-like gift of
+loveliness.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch05">
+HIS CLIENT’S CASE
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">The</span> “Personal Reminiscences” of the late Mr. Justice Ganthony, now
+in process of being edited, are responsible for the following
+drollery:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My first “chambers” were on the top, not to say the attic, floor of a
+house in (the now defunct) Furnival’s Inn. I called <i>it</i> “chambers,”
+in the plural, on the strength of a coal-cellar, in the window-seat,
+and a turn-up bedstead which became a cupboard by day. That accounted
+for two rooms, and “the usual offices,” as the house-agents say, when
+they refer to a kitchen six feet by eight in the basement. Trousers,
+after all, are only one garment, although they are called a pair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There I sat among the cobwebs, like a spider, and waited for my first
+brief. In the meanwhile, I lived as the spiders do&mdash;on hope, flavoured
+with a little attic salt. It was not a cheering repast; but, such as
+it was, there was no end to it. By and by I was almost convinced (of
+what I had been friendlily advised) that it was a forlorn hope&mdash;the
+sort that leads to glory and the grave; probably by starvation. A
+spider has always, as a last resource, his web to roll up and devour.
+I ate up my chambers by degrees; that is to say, I dined,
+figuratively, day in day out, at the sign of the Three Balls. But this
+was to consume my own hump, like the camel. When that should be all
+gone, what next? There is a vulgar expression for prog, which is
+“belly-timber.” I only realized its applicability to my own case when
+my chairs and tables, and other furniture, had gone the primrose way
+of digestion. It was the brass fender, a “genuine antique,” that sat
+heaviest on my chest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Furnival’s Inn was not a cheerful place to starve in. There was an
+atmosphere of gloom and decay about it, which derived, no doubt, from
+its former dealings in Chancery. In the days of its prosperity it had
+fed the Inns of Court, as Winchester feeds New College; in my time it
+could not feed itself. The rats were at it, and the bugs, which are
+the only things I know of that can thrive on crumbling plaster. I had
+the distinction of providing some of their rare debauches to the
+latter; but that was before I began to crumble myself. Some of my
+blood was certainly incorporated in the ancient walls, and was
+included in their downfall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My view, from Furnival’s Inn, was dismally introspective. It
+commanded, in the first place, a quadrangle of emptiness; and
+included, in the second, an array of lowering and mouldy tenements
+like my own, at whose stark windows hungry expectant faces would
+glimmer fitfully, and scan the yard for the clients who never came,
+and disappear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a decrepit inn, of another and the social type, budded, like
+a vicious intestinal growth, within Furnival’s. I used to speculate,
+as I looked down at night on its tottering portico, and solemn old
+frequenters, and the lights blinking behind its blinds like
+corpse-candles, if it were not a half-way house of call for the dead.
+For, by day, all business seemed withdrawn from it, and its upper
+rooms might have been mortuaries for any life they exhibited. No
+cheery housemaid ever looked from their windows to chaff the amorous
+Boots below. There was none to chaff. The dead need no boots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Furnival’s Inn had one gullet, by which the roar of the world came in
+from Holborn. Little else came in but tradesmen, and bailiffs, and an
+occasional policeman in a thoughtful archæological mood. But the
+gullet was a vent as much of exit as of entrance; and by it one could
+escape from the madness of ghostly isolation, and mingle with the
+world, and look in the pastry-cooks’ windows. Whenever I was moved to
+one of these chameleonic foraging expeditions, I would pin a ticket on
+my door: “Called away. Please leave message with housekeeper,” and
+light my pipe with it when I returned. I wonder if any one ever read
+the fatuous legends? To Hope’s eyes, I am sure, they must have been
+dinted, like phonographic records, with the echoes of all the
+footsteps that ever sounded on the stairs during my absences.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those footsteps! How they marked the measure of my desperation! They
+were not many, and they were far between; but not one in all the
+dreary tale ever reached my attic. Why should they, indeed? I am free
+to acknowledge its moral inaccessibility. Jurisprudence does not, in
+its convincing phases, inhabit immediately under the roof. The higher
+one lives, in practice, the lower one’s practice is like to be. The
+law is not an elevating pursuit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I recognized this in the end; and the moment I recognized it I got my
+first client.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One November evening, very depressed at last, I was sitting smoking,
+and ruminating over my doleful fate, and thinking if I had not better
+shut myself up for good and all in the bed-cupboard, when I heard
+steps enter the hall below. My ears pricked, of course, from force of
+habit, and from force of habit I uttered a scornful stage laugh&mdash;for
+the withering of Fortune, if she happened to be by. But, in spite of
+my scorn, the steps, ignoring the architects’ offices on the ground
+floor (Frost and Driffel, contractors for Castles in Spain), ascended
+and continued to ascend&mdash;past the deed-engrosser’s closet on the
+half-way landing; past the empty chambers immediately below mine
+(whence, on gusty nights, the tiny creaking of the rope, by which the
+last tenant had hanged himself from a beam, would speak through the
+floor under my bed), and higher yet, right up to my door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hope, dying on a pallet up three flights of stairs, sprang alert on
+the instant. It might be a friend, a creditor, the housekeeper:
+something telepathic, flowing through the panels, assured me that it
+was none of these things. Tap-tap! so smart on the woodwork that it
+made me jump. I swept pipes and tobacco into a drawer. “Come in!” I
+cried. Then, as the visitor entered, “John, throw up the window a
+little! O, bother the boy! he’s out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I don’t know if the new-comer was imposed on. He nodded and sniffed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tobacco!” he exclaimed. “What an age since I’ve tasted it! Mr.
+Ganthony, I presume?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Barrister-at-law?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bowed again. My plate was in the hall to inform him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Accept my instructions for a brief.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stated it so abruptly that it took my breath away. If all this was
+outside procedure, I was not going to quarrel with my bread and
+butter. I motioned him to a chair, and, taking up pen and paper
+tentatively, was in a position to scrutinize my visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His appearance was certainly odd&mdash;a marked exaggeration, I should have
+pronounced it, of the legal type. His face was very red; his enormous
+side-whiskers very white. Large spectacles obscured his eyes, and he
+wore his silk hat (of an obsolete pattern) cocked rakishly over one of
+them. Add to this that his voluminous frock-coat looked like a much
+larger man’s misfit; that his black cotton gloves were preposterously
+long in the fingers; that he carried a “gamp” of the pantomime
+pattern, and it will be obvious that I had some reason for my
+astonishment. But I kept that in hand. A lawyer, after all, must come
+to graduate in the eccentricities of clients.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked perkily, with an abrupt action of his head, round about him;
+then came to me again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Large practice?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Large enough for my needs,” I answered winningly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“H’m!” He sniffed. “They don’t appear to be many.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That&mdash;excuse me&mdash;is my affair,” I said with dignity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” he said; “of course. Only I looked you up&mdash;accident
+serving intuition&mdash;on the supposition that you were green, you
+know&mdash;one of the briefless ones&mdash;called to the Bar, but not chosen,
+eh?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I plumped instantly for frankness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are my first retainer,” I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His manner changed at once. He pulled his chair a little nearer me,
+with an eager motion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thats what I wanted,” he said. “That’s it. The sort that are
+suffering to win their spurs. None of your egregious old-stagers, who
+require their briefs to be endorsed to the tune of three figures
+before they’ll move&mdash;‘monkey’-in-the-slot men, <i>I</i> call ’em. Thinks I
+to myself, Here’s the sort that’ll be willing to take up a case on
+spec’.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My enthusiasm shot down to zero.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O!” I said, with a falling face; “on speculation!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s a fortune in it for a clever advocate,” he answered eagerly.
+“A fortune! all Pactolus in a nutshell. I’ve had my experiences of the
+other kind. They squeeze you, and throw you away; take the wages of
+sin, and hand you over to the deuce. What do <i>you</i> say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you will give me the particulars,” I answered, without heart, “I
+shall be able to judge better. Your client&mdash;&mdash;?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed joyously; frowned; put his hat on the floor; crossed his
+arms over his umbrella-handle, and glowered ferociously at me,
+squinting through his glasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Exactly,” he said; “my client, ha-ha! Here, then, young sir, is my
+client’s case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His name is Buggins” (I glanced involuntarily at the wall). “He is,
+or was, until envy combined with detraction to ruin him, a
+company-promoter. As such, his trend was always towards insurance. It
+offered the best opportunities to a great creative genius. Buggins,
+being all that, recognized the still amazing potentialities in a field
+of commerce, which, though much worked, remains unexhausted&mdash;almost,
+one might say, inexhaustible. In his younger days he showed a pretty
+invention in devising and engineering what I may call personal essays
+in this line. His Insurance against Waterspouts, which he worked
+principally in the Midlands, brought him some handsome returns with a
+single generation of farmers. It was based on a cloud-burst at
+Bethesda, in Wales, which ruined quite a number. Other flights of his
+immature genius were, respectively, Insurance against Death in
+Diving-bells; against Death of a Broken Heart; against Official
+Strangulation; against Non-fatal Disfiguration by Lightning; against
+Death by Starvation (this last was largely patronized by
+millionaires). On a somewhat higher plane were his <i>Provident
+Dipsomaniary</i>, whose policies matured, or ‘burst,’ as Buggins phrased
+it, at the age of eighty-five, an essential condition being that the
+holders must put in their claims in person; his <i>Physical Promotion
+League</i>, which guaranteed to pay to the parents of any child, insured
+in it during his teens, a sum of ten pounds on the child’s reaching
+twenty-five years of age and a minimum height of six feet, and a
+thousand pounds for every additional inch which it grew afterwards;
+his <i>Anti-Fiction Mutual</i>, whose policies were forfeitable on first
+conviction of having written a novel (this proved one of the most
+profitable of all Buggins’s enterprises for a time; but in the end the
+national malady proved incurable, and subscribers fell off); his
+<i>Psychical Pocket Research Society</i>, which offered an Insurance
+against Ghost-seeing, the policy-holder forfeiting his claim on proof
+of his first supernatural visitation (but this was so violently
+assailed by the opposition society, which offered to prove that there
+were not three people in the United Kingdom who were insusceptible to
+spooks, that the scheme had to be abandoned); finally, in this
+category, his <i>Bachelors’ Protection Association</i>, which provided
+that, if a member reached the age of ninety without having married, he
+should receive an annuity beginning at fifty pounds, and rising, by
+yearly increments of ten pounds, to ten thousand pounds&mdash;figures
+which, in a centenarian age, were successful in dazzling a great many.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, by then, Buggins was beginning to master the deep ethics of his
+trade, and to realize that its heaviest emoluments were rooted in the
+grand principle of profitable self-denial. People <i>will</i> be unselfish
+if they see money in it; you can’t stop ’em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One other notable venture marks this period of what I may call his
+moral transition. That was his inspired scheme for insuring <i>against</i>
+illness, in the sense that any policy-holder admitting him or herself
+to be seriously indisposed, lost the right to compensation. It would
+have proved a godsend in a neurotic age; but the antagonism of the
+entire medical profession, with the single exception of the officer
+appointed by the company, killed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We come now to Buggins’s final matured achievements. I beg your
+pardon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had said nothing; but I suppose there is such a thing as a
+“speaking” silence. Certainly, if I had looked as I felt, I was a more
+drivelling maniac by now than Buggins himself. The visitor seemed to
+shoot out his eyes like an angry crab.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Young man, young man!” he said warningly, “I begin to be suspicious
+that, after all, I may be misplacing my confidence.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked banefully into his hat, where it stood rim upwards on the
+floor; then, suddenly overwrought, kicked it fiercely across the room.
+The action seemed to restore him to complete urbanity. He smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So perish all Buggins’s enemies!” he said loftily; “and hail the
+grand climacteric!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pinned me, like a live butterfly, to the wall behind me with a
+fixed and penetrating gaze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What would you say,” he said quietly, “to an Insurance against
+Brigandage, available to all travelling in Sicily or the Balkans, and
+realizable” (his watchfulness was intense) “on the receipt, at the
+head-offices in the Shetland Islands, of a nose, ear, or other organ,
+attested, under urgency, by the nearest consul, to be the personal
+property of the applicant desiring a ransom?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused significantly. “I should say,” I responded drivellingly,
+“that, as a feat of pure inspiration, it&mdash;it takes the cake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” He shouted it, and sprang to his feet joyously. “You are the man
+for me! You justify my confidence, as the returns justified Buggins’s
+daring conception. Would you believe it: within the first few months,
+bushels of noses were received at the head-offices, every one of which
+Buggins had no difficulty in proving to be false! But, hush!
+stay!&mdash;there was to be a higher flight!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been pacing riotously up and down. Now he flounced to a stop
+before me, and held me once more with his glittering eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It took the form,” he whispered, “of a <i>Purgatory Mutual</i>, on the
+Tontine principle, the last out to take the pool!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rose, trembling, to my feet, as he burst into a violent fit of
+laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was that,” he shouted, as he set to racing up and down again,
+“which let loose the dogs of envy, spite, and slander. They called him
+mad&mdash;<i>him</i>, Buggins, <i>mad</i>, ha-ha! It was the fools themselves were
+mad. He ignored their clamour; his vast brain was yet busy with
+immortal conceptions; he matured a scheme against <i>Death from
+Flying-machines</i>” (here he tore off one whisker and threw it into the
+fireplace); “he did more&mdash;he personally tested the theory of
+aerostatics” (here he tore off the other whisker, and stamped on it).
+“Too great, too absorbed, he never noticed that the unstable engine
+had landed him in the grounds of a private asylum, and, relieved of
+his weight, had soared away again. The attendants came; they seized
+and immured him; they would not believe his assurances that he was a
+perfect stranger. From that day to this, when fortuitous circumstances
+enabled him to escape, he has appealed to their justice, their
+humanity, in vain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again he stopped before me, and, flinging his spectacles in my face,
+rent open the breast of his coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Know me at last for what I am!” he yelled. “I am Buggins, and I
+appoint you my advocate in the action I am about to bring against the
+Commissioners of Lunacy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened softly, and a masculine face peered round the edge.
+Its scrutiny appearing satisfactory, it was followed by the whole of
+an official form, which, in its entering, revealed another, large and
+passionless, standing behind it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Mr. Buggins,” said the first, “we’re a-waitin’ for you to take
+up your cue.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The visitor whipped round, started, chuckled, and, to my relief and
+surprise, responded rather abjectly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Johnson,” he said. “I just slipped out between the acts
+for a whiff of fresh air.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” said the man, “you must be quick and come along, or you’ll
+spile the play.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went quite tamely, and the second official outside received him
+stolidly into custody. Mate number one lingered to touch his cap to me
+and explain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Flyborough Asylum, sir. They give him a part in some private
+theatricals, and he tuk advantage of his disguise as a family lawyer
+to hook it between the acts. None of us reco’nized him, or guessed
+what he’d done, till the time come for him to take up his cue; and
+then, with the prompter howling for him and him not answering, the
+truth struck us of a heap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was down in my chair, flabby and gasping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But what brought him to <i>me</i>?” I groaned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Train, sir,” answered the man; “plenty of ’em, and easy to catch from
+the suburbs. Why he come on here? Why, his offices in the old days was
+in Furnival’s; it were that give us the clue. I suppose, now” (he took
+off his cap, took a red handkerchief from it, thoughtfully mopped his
+forehead, and returned the bandana to its nest), “I suppose, now, he’s
+been a-gammoning of you pretty high with his insurances? His fust
+principle in life was always to play upon fools.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch06">
+AN ABSENT VICAR
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“<span class="sc">Exactly</span>,” said the Reverend Septimus Prior; “the exchange was the
+most fortuitous, not to say the most fortunate” (he gave a little
+giggle and bow) “possible. Your uncle saw my advertisement, answered
+it, and for a brief period he goes to my cure, and I come to his.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if you feel certain,” said Miss Robin, regretfully resting in
+her lap the novel she was reading.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Prior sipped his tea and nibbled his rusk. In the intervals
+between, he would occasionally glance at the portrait of a scholarly
+cleric, with a thin grim mouth and glassy eyes, which bantered him
+from the wall opposite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your uncle&mdash;Mr. Fearful?” he had once ventured to ask; and the niece
+had answered, “Yes. It is very like him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now he paused, with his cup half-way to his mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Robin put her book to her lips, and looking over it&mdash;really
+rather charmingly,&mdash;yawned behind the cover. She was surprisingly
+dégagée for a country vicar’s niece&mdash;self-collected, and admirably
+pretty; though her openwork stockings, which she did not hesitate to
+cross her legs to display, filled him with a weak sense of
+entanglement in some unrighteous mystery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You said?” he invited her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I said, If you feel certain,” she repeated calmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” he said. “Yes. You mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean,” she said, without a ruffle, “that Uncle Philip <i>may</i> have
+settled to swap livings with you <i>pro tem.</i>, and <i>may</i> have started
+off to take yours, and <i>may</i> have got there&mdash;<i>if</i> you feel certain
+that he has.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To be sure,” he answered. “Why shouldn’t I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Had he arrived&mdash;when you started&mdash;for here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Certainly he hadn’t arrived. My train was due. I had to leave a
+message; but&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stopped him by dropping her book into her lap; and, clasping one
+knee in her hands, conned him amiably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did he lead you to expect a niece among the charges he was committing
+to your care&mdash;or cure?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I must confess,” said the young man, blushing, “he&mdash;ah!
+mentioned a housekeeper&mdash;Mrs. Gaunt, I think&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, of course not,” she interrupted him. “He had forgotten all about
+me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Prior gasped, and looked down. This was his first holiday exchange
+of livings&mdash;an unsophisticated venture, which he was already half
+repenting. A suburban cure; a desire for fresh pastures; a daring
+resolution; an advertisement in the “Church Times”; a prompt answer;
+as prompt an acceptance (after due reference to the Clergy List); a
+long railway journey; a tramp, relatively as long, to a remote
+parsonage on the road to a seaport; an arrival in the dark; an
+innocence of all expectation of, or preparation for him; an
+explanation; production of his written voucher, and&mdash;here he was,
+accepted, he could not but think, on sufferance. But there he thought
+wrong. Miss Robin was not near so upset by his appearance as he was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He comes and goes” (she said of Uncle Philip) “without reference to
+anybody or anything. We never know what he’ll do next, or who’ll
+introduce himself into the house as his friend. It may be a burglar or
+a pirate for all we know. All sorts of strange people come up from the
+port, and are shown into my uncle’s room, and out again by himself at
+the side door. At least, I suppose so. We never know what becomes of
+them, or what’s going on, any more than I doubt he does himself. I
+dare say they fleece him nicely; and&mdash;you may laugh&mdash;but when he’s in
+his absent moods, you might undress him without his knowing. Only he’d
+probably strike you to the ground when he found out&mdash;he’s such an
+awful temper.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear me!” murmured the young man; “how very curious. One hears of
+such cases.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does one?” said Miss Robin. “I’d rather hear of, than live with them,
+anyhow; and in a desert, too. It wouldn’t so much matter if he didn’t
+always hold others to blame for his mistakes and mislayings. He kept
+me in bed a week once, because he’d read right through a treatise on
+explosives in the pulpit, before he discovered that it wasn’t his
+peace-thanksgiving sermon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Astonishing!” said Mr. Prior; then added, with a faint smile, “Well,
+I can promise you, at least, that <i>I’m</i> not a pirate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” she said, “I can see you’re not. Won’t you have some more tea?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was shown to his bedroom by Mrs. Gaunt, who was a stony, silent
+woman, bleak with mystery. All night the wind howled round the lonely
+building; and the unhappy man, who, in a phase of worldly revolt,
+egged on by a dare-devil parishioner, had once read “The House on the
+Marsh”, thought of Sarah and Mr. Rayner, and of a silent weaving of
+strings across the stairway in the dark to catch him tripping should
+he venture upon escape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He arose, feverish, to a sense of hooting draughts in a grey house,
+and went to matins in the gaunt dull church, which stood as lonely as
+a shepherd’s hut on a slope hard by. There was nothing in sight but
+wind-torn pastures, and, all around, little graves, which seemed
+trying vainly to tuck themselves and their shivering epitaphs under
+the grass. There appeared nothing in the world to attract a
+congregation; but, as a matter of fact, there were a few old frosted
+spinsters present, of that amphibious order, a sort of landcrabs,
+which forgathers on the neutral wastes between sea and country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Prior went back to his dreary breakfast at the Vicarage. His lady
+hostess, it appeared, was wont to lie late abed, and did not think it
+worth her while to alter her habits for him. The meal, however, had
+been served and left to petrify, pending his return from matins. It
+was with a consciousness of congealed bacon-fat, insufficiently
+dissolved by lukewarm tea, sticking to the roof of his mouth, that he
+rose from it, and pondered his next movement. No one came near him. He
+looked dismally out on a weedy drive. He rather wished Miss Robin
+would condescend to his company. He was no pirate, certainly; but he
+believed he would brave, had braved already, much for his cloth. She
+had beautiful eyes&mdash;clear windows, he was sure, to a virginal soul.
+But then, the other end! the white feet peeping through that devil’s
+lattice! He tried to recall any authority in Holy Writ for openwork
+stockings. Certainly pilgrims went barefoot, and half a loaf was
+better than no bread.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This will not do, Septimus,” he said, weakly striking his breast. “I
+will go and compose my sermon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stepped into the hall. It was papered in cold blue and white
+marble, with a mahogany umbrella stand, and nothing else, to temper
+its tomb-like austerity. At the further end was a baize door of a
+faded strawberry colour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was entitled to the run of the house, he concluded. There had been
+no mention of any Bluebeard chamber. But, then, to be sure, there had
+been no mention of a niece. The association of ideas tingled him. What
+if he should turn the handle and alight on Miss Robin?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He flipped his breast again, frowning, and strode to the baize door.
+Beside it, he now observed, a passage went off to the kitchens.
+Desperately he pulled the door, found a second, of wood, beyond it,
+opened that also, and found himself in what was obviously the Vicar’s
+study.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Obviously, that is to say, to his later conceptions of his
+correspondent. Otherwise he might have taken it for the laboratory of
+a scientist. It was lined with bookcases, sparsely volumed; but five
+out of every six shelves were thronged with jars, instruments, and
+engines of a terrifying nature. In one place was a curtained recess
+potential with unholiness. Prints of discomposing organs hung on the
+walls. Immemorial dust blurred everything. There was a pedestalled
+desk in the middle, and opposite it, hung with a short curtain, a
+half-glazed door which the intruder, tiptoeing thither and peeping,
+with his heart at the gallop, found to lead into a dismal narrow lane
+which communicated with the road. He returned to the desk, which,
+frankly open, seemed to invite him to its use, and was pondering the
+moral practicability of composition in the midst of such surroundings,
+when a voice at his ear almost made him jump out of his skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pardon me, sir; but have you the master’s permission to use this
+room?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaunt had come upon him without a sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear me, madam!” he said, wiping his forehead. “What do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean, sir,” she said, in her stony, colourless way, “that this room
+is interdict to both great and little, now and always, unless he makes
+an exception in your favour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There was no specific mention of it, certainly,” said Mr. Prior,
+“neither for nor against. I concluded that the use of a study was not
+debarred me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pardon me,” she repeated monotonously. “I believe you concluded
+wrong, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The door was not locked.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There are some prohibitions,” she said, “that need no locks.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inference was fearful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss June” (ecstatic name!) “and I,” she said, “have never dared so
+much as to put our noses inside, and not a word spoken to forbid it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Prior, to his own astonishment, revolted. Smarting, perhaps, under
+the memory of some suspected covert innuendo in a certain silvery
+acquiescence in a statement of his made last night, he revolted. He
+would prove that he could be a pirate if he chose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shall stop here,” he said, trembling all over. “There was no
+embargo laid, and I must have somewhere to write my sermon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” said a voice; and Miss Robin stood in the doorway&mdash;the
+most enchanting morning vision, her eyes bright with curiosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am delighted you support me,” he said, kindling and advancing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She still looked beside and around him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know,” she said, “it is perfectly true. I have not once dared
+to venture in here before, though never actually told not to. But that
+is all one, I think. What an extraordinary litter!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had not ventured! and with the inducement of her petrifying
+surroundings! She was uninquisitive, then&mdash;“an excellent thing in
+woman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Since there is no veto,” he said, incomparably audacious, “supposing
+we explore together?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at him admiringly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I should like to.” She hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“June!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I will,” said the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the housekeeper, content, it appeared, with her protest, stood,
+not uninterested in the subsequent investigation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you not find all this a little remote, a little lifeless
+sometimes, Miss Robin?” said the clergyman, greatly daring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eels get used to skinning. It’s not life, of course. But I have to
+make the best of it, and there’s no help.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, yes, there is!” said her companion, intending to imply the
+spiritual, but half hoping she would construe it into the material
+consolation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean?” she asked simply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why,” he said, stammering and blushing furiously, and giving away his
+case at once, “with your youth, and&mdash;and beauty&mdash;O, forgive me! I am a
+little confused.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where do you live?” she said, fixing him with her large eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At Clapton,” he murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It sounds most joyous,” she said, clasping her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hardly knowing what he did, he pulled the curtain away from the recess
+by which they stood, and instantly staggered back. The housekeeper,
+who, foreseeing his act, had crept up inquisitively behind, gave a
+mortal gasp, and Miss Robin a faint shriek&mdash;for, stretched lifeless
+and livid on a couch within, lay the stark body of a man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a minute they all stood staring, frozen with horror; then Mrs.
+Gaunt began to wring her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is the same,” she cried, in awful tones. “I remember him&mdash;the dark
+foreigner. He wandered up here from the port a week ago; and I took
+him in to the master, and he <i>never came out again</i>. I thought he had
+let him go by the door there into the lane. O, woe on this fearful
+house! Long have I suspected and long dreaded. The sounds, and the
+awful, awful smells!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps,” whispered the girl, gulping, and clutching at her breast,
+“he died unexpectedly, and uncle put him away here, and forgot all
+about him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaunt shrieked, and seizing the clergyman’s arm, pointed&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look! Pickled babies&mdash;one, two, three! And bones! And a fish-kettle!
+It is all plain. He kills them, and boils them down for his
+experiments, and by an accident he forgot to empty his larder&mdash;his
+larder! hoo-hoo!&mdash;before he went!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She broke into hysteric laughter and gaspings. Miss Robin, whinnying,
+tottered quite close up to the young man, who stood shivering and
+speechless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What can we do to save him?” she whimpered. “Mr. Prior, say
+something!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus urged, the unhappy young man strove to press his brain into a
+focus with his hand, and to rally himself to what, he felt, was the
+supreme occasion of his life. The appealing eyes and parted lips so
+close to his would have intoxicated a saint, much more a pirate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We must warn him&mdash;agony column&mdash;from returning,” he ejaculated,
+reeling. “Cryptic address&mdash;has he any distinguishing mark?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said, with frantic eagerness; “he has a large mole at the
+root of his nose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well,” he said&mdash;“something of this sort: ‘Nose, with large mole
+at root of. All discovered. Don’t return!’&hairsp;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But what is the use of an advertisement? O, Mr. Prior! what is the
+use of an advertisement when we know where he is, or ought to be, and
+can go&mdash;&mdash;?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you really think he will be there? It was a blind. O, Miss Robin,
+it is evident now it was a blind to cover his tracks!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But why should he have designed to escape at all, leaving this&mdash;O,
+Mr. Prior!&mdash;leaving this horror behind him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We can only conjecture&mdash;O, Miss Robin, we can only conjecture!
+Perhaps because of his conscience overtaking him; perhaps because,
+killing in haste, he discovered at leisure that <i>it</i> would not go into
+the kettle; perhaps in a phase of that deadly absence of mind, which,
+he will have realized by now, the Lord has converted to his
+confusion.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if you are right. And in the meantime we must get rid of
+this&mdash;somehow. O, pray think of a means! Do! Do!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaunt steadied her storming breast as she leaned for support,
+with hanging head, against the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s the old well&mdash;off the lane,” she panted, without looking up.
+“He there <i>might</i> have fallen in&mdash;as he went out&mdash;and none have
+guessed it to this day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a fearful inspiration. Mr. Prior, in that moment of supreme
+sentient exaltation, abandoned himself to the awful rapture of things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“June!” he whispered, putting shaking hands on the girl’s shoulders;
+“if I do this thing for your sake, will you&mdash;will you&mdash;I have a
+mother&mdash;this is no longer a place for you&mdash;come to Clapton?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she answered, offering to nestle to him. “I had supposed that
+was understood.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a little taken aback.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We must move this first,” he said, wringing his damp forehead.
+“Who&mdash;who will help me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was really heroic of him. In a shuddering group, they approached
+together the terrible thing&mdash;hesitated&mdash;plunged, and dragged it out
+with a sickening flop on the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A greasy turban, which it wore, rolled away, disclosing a near bald
+head. Its eyes were closed; its teeth grinned through a fluff of dark
+hair; a lank frock-coat embraced its body, linen puttees its shanks,
+and at the end were stiff bare feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look, and see if the coast is clear,” gasped the clergyman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Robin turned to obey, and uttered a startled shriek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you doing with my Senassee?” cried a terrible voice at the
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Prior whipped round, echoing his beloved’s squawk. A fierce old
+man, leaning on a stick, stood glaring in the opening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle!” cried the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He advanced, sneering and caustic, pushed them all rudely aside,
+dropped on his knees beside the corpse, and, thrusting his finger
+forcibly into its mouth, appeared to hook and roll its tongue forward.
+Instantly an amazing transformation occurred. A convulsion shook the
+body; life flowed into its drab cheeks; its eyes opened and rolled;
+inarticulate sounds came from its jaws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ha!” cried the old man; “I have foreclosed on these busybodies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he rose to his feet, leaving the patient yawning and stretching
+on the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fearful!” gasped the clergyman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you address me, sir?” asked the old man, scowling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Conjurer!” whispered Mr. Prior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you like,” snarled the other. “It is a common enough trick with
+these Yogis, but one I had never seen until he came my way and offered
+to show it me for a consideration. I had forgot he was still lying
+there when I agreed to exchange livings with you. (You are Mr. Prior,
+I presume?) It was the merest oversight, which I remembered on my way,
+and came back by an early train to rectify&mdash;none too soon, it seems,
+for the staying of meddlesome fingers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forgot he was there!” cried Mr. Prior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what if I did, sir?” snapped the other. “It was a full week he
+had lain tranced; and let me tell you, sir, I have more things to
+think of in a week than your mind could accommodate in a century.
+Why,” he cried, in sudden enlightenment, “I do believe the fools
+imagined I had murdered the man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look at the babies in the bottles!” cried Mrs. Gaunt hysterically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As to you, you old ass,” shouted the Vicar, flouncing round, “if you
+can’t distinguish embryo simiadæ from babies, you’d better call
+yourself Miss, as I believe you are!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I give notice on the spot!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Robin stepped up bravely to the young clergyman, and linked her
+arm in his.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I,” she said. “I think you have behaved very cruelly to me, to us
+all, Uncle, and&mdash;and Mr. Prior has a mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I dare say; he seems fool enough for anything,” roared the old
+gentleman. “Go back to her, sir! Go to&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+June shrieked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Clapton!” he shouted, “and take this baggage with you!”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch07">
+THE BREECHES BISHOP
+</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>
+In that age of gallantry, the reign of Charles the Second, it was
+customary when a gentleman drank a lady’s health to throw some part of
+his dress into the flames, in order to do her still greater honour.
+This was well enough for a lover, but the folly did not stop here, for
+his companions were obliged to follow him in this proof of his
+veneration by consuming a similar article, whatever it might be.
+</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">About</span> the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was living
+at Aldersferry, in the Soke of Godsport in Hampshire, a worthy
+clergyman of the name of Barnabas Winthrop. The little living of St.
+Ascham’s&mdash;a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry of
+Winchester&mdash;supplied the moral and material needs of this amiable man;
+his granddaughter, Miss Joan Seabird, kept house for him; and never
+were cream and ripe fruit happier in contact than were these two
+playful and reasonable intellects in their relations of child and
+sage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A hysteromaniac, however, is Fortune, who, charmed for a while with
+the simplicity of these her protégés, soon began to construe their
+contentment into self-sufficiency, and to devise some means to correct
+their supposed presumption on her favour, by putting it into the head
+of the artless divine how silence on questions which one felt called
+loudly for reform might be comfortable, but was shameful and an
+evasion of one’s duty. In short, Dr. Winthrop, entertaining original
+views on sanitation and the prevention of epidemics, was wickedly
+persuaded by her to expound them, and so to invite into his harmless
+Eden the snake which was to demoralize it. In one day he became a
+pamphleteer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the Plague, in that year of 1682, was not so remote a memory but
+that people lived in a constant terror of its recrudescence. Pandects,
+treatises, expositions, containing diagnoses, palladiums and schemes
+of quarantine, all based on the most orthodox superstitions, did not
+cease to pour from the press, to the eternal confusion of an age which
+was yet far from realizing the pious schism of the <i>aide-toi</i>. What,
+then, as might be supposed, was the effect on it, when a clergyman of
+the Establishment was seen to enter the arena as a declared dissenter
+from the <i>fata obstant</i> of popular bigotry?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a time Godsport, startled and scandalized, watched aloof the paper
+warfare; and it was not until after the appearance of the Doctor’s
+tract, “<i>De omni re Scibili</i>”&mdash;wherein he sought, boldly and
+definitely, and withal with a characteristic humour, to lay the
+responsibility for pestilence, not upon the Almighty’s shoulders, but,
+literally, at the doors of men, at their face-to-face proximity, and
+at “the Castynge of Noisome filth in their neare neighbourhood”&mdash;that
+it brought down its official hand with a weight and suddenness which
+shook St. Ascham’s to its roots. In brief, there was flung at the
+delinquent one morning his formal citation to the Sessions Court,
+there to answer upon certain charges of having “in divers Tracts,
+Opuscules and Levrets, sought insidiously to ingrafte the minds of his
+Majesty’s liege subjects with such impudent heresies as that it is in
+the power of man to limit the visitations of God&mdash;a very pestilent
+doctrine, and one arrogating to His servants the Almighty’s high and
+beneficent prerogatives; inasmuch as Plague and Fire and other His
+scourges, being sacriligeously wrested from His graspe, the world
+would waxe blown with overlife, till it crawled upon the face of the
+heavens like a gross putrid cheese.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under this bolt from the blue the liberal minds of grandsire and child
+sank amazed for the moment, only to rally to a consciousness of the
+necessity for immediate action.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Up, wench!” cried the Doctor, “and saddle our Pinwire. I will go lay
+my case instanter before the Bishop.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Alas, dearest!” answered the weeping girl, “you forget; he is this
+long while bedridden.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her imagination, which had been wont secretly to fondle the idea of
+her grandfather’s enlightened piety rewarded with a bishopric,
+pictured it in a moment turned to his confusion, and himself, perhaps,
+through the misrepresentations of a blockhead Corporation, disgraced
+and beggared in his old age. But, though she knew the Churchman, she
+had not calculated the rousing effects of criticism on the author.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then,” roared he, “I will seek the fount itself of reason and
+justice. It was a good treatise, a well-argued treatise; and the King
+shall decide upon the practical merits of his own English.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The King!” she cried, clasping her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The King,” he answered. “Know you not that he moves daily between
+Southampton, where he lies, and Winchester, where he builds? We will
+go to Winchester. Nay, <i>we</i>, child; blubber not; for who knows but
+that, the shepherd being withdrawn, the wolves might think to practise
+on the lamb.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He checked himself, and hung his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Lord pardon and justify me indignation,” he muttered. “I was a
+priest before an author.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was fine, but a loaded sky, when they set forth upon their journey
+of twenty or so miles, Joan riding pillion behind her grandfather on
+the sober red nag. After much cross work over villainous tracks, they
+were got at last into the Southampton turnpike, when they were joined
+by a single horseman, riding a handsome barb, who, with a very
+favourable face for Joan, pulled alongside of them, as they jogged on,
+and fell into easy talk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dost ride to overtake a bishopric, master clergyman,” says he, “that
+you carry with you such a sweet bribe for preferment?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joan looked up, softly panting. Could he somehow have got wind already
+of their mission, and have taken them by the way to forestall it? But
+her eyes fell again before the besieging gaze of the cavalier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a swart man of fifty or so, with a rather sooty expression, and
+his under-lip stuck out. His eyes, bagging a little in the lower lids,
+smouldered half-shut, between lust and weariness, under the blackest
+brows; and, for the rest, he was dressed as black as the devil, with a
+sparkle of diamonds here and there in his bosom. Joan looked down
+breathless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I seek no preferment, sir, but a reasonable justice,” said the
+curate; and, in a little, between this and that, had ingenuously,
+though with a certain twinkling eye for the humour of it all,
+confessed his whole case to the stranger. But Joan uttered not a word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cavalier laughed, then frowned mightily for a while. “We will
+indict these petty rogues of office on a <i>quo warranto</i>,” he growled.
+“What! does not ‘cleanness of body proceed from a due reverence of
+God’? Go on, sir, and I will promise you the King’s consideration.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he forgot his indignation, leering at the girl again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what is <i>your</i> business with Charles, pretty flower?” said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, before she could answer, whish! went Pinwires’s girth out of its
+buckle, and parson and girl tumbled into the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cavalier laughed out, and, while the Doctor was ruefully
+readjusting his straps, offered his hand to the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, sweetheart,” said he. “Since we go a common road, shalt mount
+behind me, and equal the odds between your jade and my greater beast.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joan appealed in silence to her grandfather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Verily, sir,” he said nodding and smiling, “it would be a gracious
+and kindly act.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a moment she was mounted, with her white arms belted about the
+stranger’s waist; the next, he had put quick spurs to his horse, and
+was away with a rush and clatter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For an instant the Doctor failed to realize the nature of the
+abduction; and then of a sudden he was dancing and bawling in a sheer
+frenzy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dog! Ravisher! Halt! Stop him! Detain him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He saw the flight disappear round a bend in the road. It was minutes
+before his shaking hands could negotiate strap and buckle, and enable
+him to follow in pursuit. But he carried no spurs, and Pinwire,
+already over-ridden, floundered in his steps. Distraught, dumbfounded,
+the old man was crying to himself, when he came upon Joan sitting by
+the roadside. He tumbled off, she jumped up, and they fell upon one
+another’s neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, a fine King, forsooth!” she cried, sobbing and fondling him. “O, a
+fine King!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who? What?” said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, it was the King himself!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The King!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The King.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How?” he gasped. “You have never seen him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Trust a woman,” quoth she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A woman!” he cried. “You are but half a one yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was the King, nevertheless.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Joan, let us turn back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He had a wooing voice, grandfather.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Retro Satanas!</i> How did you give him the slip?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear Joan!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing
+he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of
+my beauty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That proves him false.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was
+a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a
+thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She showed a silver pin like a skewer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and
+was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give
+him&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What, woman?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour,
+grandfather; and where are we?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked about him in the dolefullest way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I knew!” he sighed. “We must e’en seek the shelter of an inn till
+this storm is by, and then return home. Better any bankruptcy than
+that of honour, Joan.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They remounted and jogged on in the rain, which by now was falling
+heavily. The tired little horse, feeling the weight of his own soaked
+head, began to hang it and cough. Presently they dismounted at a
+wayside byre, and, eating the simple luncheon which their providence
+had provided, dwelt on a little in hopes of the weather clearing. But
+it grew steadily worse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have lost my bearings,” said the clergyman in a sudden amazement.
+“We must push on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About four o’clock, being seven miles or so short of Winchester, they
+came down upon a little stream which bubbled across the road. The
+groaning horse splashed into it and stood still. Dr. Winthrop, wakened
+by the pause from a brown reverie, whipped his right leg over the
+beast’s withers, landed, slipped on a stone, and sat down in two feet
+of water. Uttering a startled ejaculation, he scrambled up, a sop to
+the very waist of his homespun breeches. Their points&mdash;old disused
+laces, fragrant from Joan’s bodice&mdash;clung weeping to his calves. He
+waded out, cherishing above water-mark the sodden skirts of his coat,
+his best, of ‘Colchester bayze.’ The horse, sensibly lightened,
+followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, O!” cried Joan. “Wasn’t you sopped enough already, but you must
+fill your pockets with water?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Joan!” he cried disconcerted. “I am drowned!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luckily, in that pass, looking up the slope of the hill, they espied
+near the top a toll-booth, and, beyond, the first houses of a village.
+Making a little glad haste, they were soon at the bar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman who came to take their money looked hard at the tired girl.
+She was of a sober cast, and her close-fitting coif showed her of the
+non-conforming order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For Winchester, master?” said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nay,” answered the clergyman; “for the first hostelry. We are beat,
+dame.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The first and the last is ‘The Five Alls,’&hairsp;” said she. “But I wouldn’t
+carry the maiden there, by your leave. There be great and wild company
+in the house, that recks nothing of anything in its cups. Canst hear
+’em, if thou wilt.” And, indeed, with her words, a muffled roar of
+merriment reached them from the inn a little beyond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One riding for Winchester, and the rest from,” she said, “they met
+here, and here have forgathered roistering this hour. Dare them so you
+dare. I have spoken.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Nunc Deus avertat!</i>” cried the desperate minister. “The Fates fight
+against us. At all costs we must go by.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nay,” said the good woman; “but, an you will, seek you your own
+shelter there, and leave this poor lamb with me. I have two already by
+the fire&mdash;decent ladies and proper, and no quarry for licence. I know
+the company; ’twill be moving soon; and then canst come and claim
+thine own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He accepted gladly, and, leaving Joan in her charge, rode on to the
+inn, where, dismounting, he betook himself to the stable, which was
+full of horses, and, after, to the kitchen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord, cooking a pan of rashers alone over a great fire, turned
+his head, focussed the new-comer with one red eye, and asked his
+business.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A seat by the hearth, a clothes-rack for my breeches, a rug for my
+loins while they dry, and a mug of ale with a sop in it,” answered the
+traveller, with a smile for his own waggish epitome. And then he
+related of his mishap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord grunted, returned to his task, blew on an ignited rasher,
+presently took the skillet off the coals, forked the fizzing mess into
+a dish, and disappeared with it. All the while an ineffable racket
+thundered on the floor above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peradventure they will respect my cloth,” thought the clergyman. “The
+Lord fend me! I am among the Philistines.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord returned in a moment with a horn of ale in one hand, and
+a rug in the other, which he threw down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dod, man!” he cried; “peel, peel! This is the country of continence!
+Hast no reason to fear for thy modesty.” And he went out between
+chuckling and grumbling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very decently the curate doffed his small-clothes, hung them over a
+trestle before the fire, wrapped and knotted the rug about his loins,
+and sat down vastly content to his sup. In ten minutes&mdash;what with
+weariness, warmth, and stingo&mdash;he was asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He woke with a little shriek, and staggered to his feet. Something had
+pricked him&mdash;the point of a rapier. The flushed, grinning face of the
+man who had wielded it stood away from him. The kitchen was full of
+rich company, which broke suddenly into a babble of merriment at the
+sight of his astounded visage. In the midst, a swart gentleman, who
+had been lolling at a table, advanced, and taking him by the
+shoulders, swung him gently to and fro till his eyes goggled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well followed, parson!” said he, chuckling, and lurching a little in
+his speech. “What! is the cuif not to be spoiled of his bishopric
+because of a saucy baggage?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed, checked himself suddenly, and, still holding on, assumed a
+majestic air, with his wig a little on one side, and said with great
+dignity: “But, before I grant termsir, you shall bring the slut to
+canvass of herself what termsir. Godsmylife! to hold her King at a
+bodkin’s point! It merits no pardon, I say, unless the merit of the
+pardon of the termsir&mdash;no, the pardon of the merit of the termsir.
+Therefore I say, whither hast brought her, I say? Out with it, man!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clergyman, recognizing Joan’s abductor, and listening amazed,
+sprang back at the end with a face of horror, almost upsetting His
+Majesty, who, barely recovering himself, stood shaking his head with a
+glassy smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If<i>hic</i>akins!” said he: “I woss a’most down!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Avaunt, ravisher!” roared the Doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charles stiffened with a jerk, stared, wheeled cautiously, and tiptoed
+elaborately from the room. His suite, staggering at the balance,
+followed with enormous solemnity; and the Doctor, still pointing
+denunciatory, was left alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of a minute, after much whispering outside, a young
+cavalier re-entered, and approached him with a threatening visage, as
+if up the slope of a deck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His Maj’ty, sir,” said he, “demands to know if you know who the devil
+you was a-bawling&mdash;hic&mdash;at?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To my sorrow, though late, I do, sir,” answered the Doctor in a
+grievous voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O!” said the cavalier, and tacked from the room. He returned again in
+a second, to poke the clergyman with his finger, and suggest to him
+confidentially, “Betteric la’ than never&mdash;hic!” which having uttered,
+he took himself off, after a vain attempt to open the door from its
+hinge side. In two minutes he was back again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His Maj’ty wan’s know where hast hidden Mrs. Seabird. Nowhere in
+house, says landlord. Ver’ well&mdash;where then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell the King, where he shall reach her only over my body.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cavalier vanished, and reappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His Maj’ty doesn’t wan’ tread on your body. On contrary, wan’s raise
+you up. Wan’s hear story all over again from lady’s lips.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am His Majesty’s truthful minister. There is nothing to add to what
+I have already reported to him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cavalier withdrew, smacking his thigh profoundly. Sooner than
+usual he returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His Maj’ty s’prised at you. Says if you won’t tell him where’ve laid
+her by, he’ll beat up every house within miles-’n’-miles.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” said the simple clergyman, in a sudden emotion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said the gentleman, not too drunk to note his advantage. “For
+miles-’n’-miles. His Maj’ty ver’ s’prised her behaviour to him. Wan’s
+lil word with her. Tell at once where she is, or worse for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clergyman looked about him like one at bay. His glance lighted on
+the trestle before the fire, fixed itself there, and kindled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Lord justify the ways of His servant!” he muttered; and drew
+himself up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell His Majesty,” he said in a strong voice, “that, so be he will
+honour a toast I shall call, the way he seeks shall be made clear to
+him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other gave a great chuckle, which was loudly echoed from the
+passage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, thish is the right humour,” he said, and retired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Within a few moments the whole company re-entered, tittering and
+jogging one another, and spilling wine from the beakers they carried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The King called a silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sir,” said the clergyman, advancing a little, “I pray your Majesty to
+convince me, by proof, of a reputed custom with our gallants, which is
+that, being to drink a lady’s health, the one that calleth shall cast
+into the flames some article of his attire, there to be consumed to
+her honour, and so shall demand of his company, by toasters’ law, that
+they do likewise.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dod!” said the King, chuckling; “woss he speiring at? Drink man!
+drink and sacrifice, and I give my royal word that all shall follow
+suit, though it be with the wigs from our heads.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Doctor lifted his horn of ale and drained it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I toast Joan!” he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Joan!” they all shouted, laughing and hiccuping, and, having drunk,
+threw down their beakers helter-skelter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clergyman took one swift step forward; snatched up his
+small-clothes from the trestle; displayed them a moment; thrust them
+deep into the blazing coals, and, facing about, disrugged himself, and
+stood in his shirttails.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I claim your Majesty’s word, and breeches,” said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A silence of absolute stupefaction befell; and then in an instant the
+kitchen broke into one howl of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the midst, Charles walked stately to the table, sat down, and
+thrust out his legs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Parson,” said he, “if you had but claimed my hair. The honours lie
+with you, sir; take ’em.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He would have none but the Doctor handle him; and, when his ineffable
+smalls were burning, he rose up in his royal shift, and ruthlessly
+commandeering every other pair in the room, stood, the speechless
+captain of as shameful and defenceless a crew of buccaneers as ever
+lowered its flag to honesty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the Doctor resumed his rug.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sir,” said he, trembling, “I now fulfil my bond. My granddaughter is
+sheltering, with other modest ladies, in the pike-house hard by.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the King swore&mdash;by divine right&mdash;a pretty oath or two, while the
+chill of his understandings helped to sober him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By my cold wit you have won! and there may she remain for me. And
+now, decent man,” he cried, “I do call my company to witness how you
+have made yourself to be more honoured in the breach than the
+observance; and since you go wanting a frock, a bishop’s you shall
+have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with that he snatched the rug, and, skipping under it, sat on the
+table, grinning over the quenching of his amazed fire-eaters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And this, if you will believe deponent, is the true, if unauthorized,
+version of Dr. Winthrop’s election, and of the confounding of Godsport
+on a writ of <i>quo warranto</i>.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch08">
+THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE
+</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">There</span> were notices, of varying dates, posted in prominent places
+about the cliffs to warn the public not to go near them&mdash;unless,
+indeed, it were to read the notices themselves, which were printed in
+a very unobtrusive type. Of late, however, this Dogberrian <i>caveat</i>
+had been supplemented by a statement in the local gazette that the
+cliffs, owing to the recent rains succeeding prolonged frost, were in
+so ill a constitution that to approach them at all, even to decipher
+the warnings not to, was&mdash;well, to take your life out of the municipal
+into your own hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, had the Regius Professor a bee in his bonnet? Absurd. He knew the
+risks of foolhardiness as well as any pickpocket could have told him.
+Yet, neither general nor particular caution availed to abate his
+determination to examine, as soon as we had lunched, the interior
+formation of a cave or two, out of those black and innumerable, with
+which the undercliff was punctured like a warren.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not remonstrate, after having once discovered, folded down under
+his nose on the table, the printed admonition, and heard the little
+dry, professorial click of tongue on palate which was wont to dismiss,
+declining discussion of it, any idle or superfluous proposition. I
+knew my man&mdash;or automaton. He inclined to the Providence of the
+unimaginative; his only fetish was science. He was one of those who,
+if unfortunately buried alive, would turn what opportunity remained to
+them to a study of geological deposits. My “nerves,” when we were on
+a jaunt (fond word!) together, were always a subject of sardonic
+amusement with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, utterly unmoved by the prospect before him, he ate an enormous
+lunch (confiding it, incidentally, to an unerring digestion), rose,
+brushed some crumbs out of his beard, and said, “Well, shall we be
+off?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In twenty minutes we had reached the caves. They lay in a very
+secluded little bay&mdash;just a crescent of sombre sand, littered along
+all its inner edge with débris from the towering cliffs which
+contained it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you coming with me?” said the Regius Professor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Judged by his anxious eyes, the question might have been an
+invitation, almost a shamefaced entreaty. But the anxiety, never more
+than apparent, was delusive product of the preposterous
+magnifying-glasses which he wore. Did he ever remove those glasses,
+one was startled to discover, in the seemingly aghast orbs which they
+misinterpreted, quite mean little attic windows to an unemotional
+soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not by any means,” I said. “I will sit here, and think out your
+epitaph.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stared at me a moment with a puzzled expression, grinned slightly,
+turned, strode off towards the cliffs, and disappeared, without a
+moment’s hesitation, into the first accessible burrow. I was moved on
+the instant to observe that it was the most sinister-looking of them
+all. The tilted stratification, under which it yawned oblique, seemed
+on the very poise to close down upon it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now I set to pacing to and fro, essaying a sort of mechanical
+preoccupation in default of the philosophy I lacked. I was really in a
+state of clammy anxiety about the Professor. I poked in stony pools
+for little crabs, as if his life depended on my success. I made it a
+point of honour with myself not to leave off until I had found one. I
+tried, like a very amateur pickpocket, to abstract my mind from the
+atmosphere which contained it, only to find that I had brought mind
+and atmosphere away together. I bent down, with my back to the sea,
+and looking between my legs sought to regard life from a new point of
+view. Yet, even in that position, my eyes and ears were conscious,
+only in less degree, of the spectres which were always moving and
+rustling in the melancholy little bay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Tekel upharsin.</i> The hand never left off writing upon the rocks, nor
+the dust of its scoring to fall and whisper. That came away in flakes,
+or slid down in tiny avalanches&mdash;here, there, in so many places at
+once, that the whole face of the cliffs seemed to crawl like a maggoty
+cheese. The sound was like a vast conspiracy of voices&mdash;busy,
+ominous&mdash;aloft on the seats of an amphitheatre. They were talking of
+the Regius Professor, and his consideration in making them a Roman
+holiday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, on no warrant but that of my senses, I knew the gazette’s
+warning to be something more than justified. It made no difference
+that my nerves were at the stretch. One could not hear a silence thus
+sown with grain of horror, and believe it barren of significance.
+Then, all in a moment, as it seemed to me, the resolution was taken,
+the voices hushed, and the whole bay poised on tiptoe of a suspense
+which preluded something terrific.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood staring at the black mouth which had engulfed the Regius
+Professor. I felt that a disaster was imminent; but to rush to warn
+him would be to embarrass the issues of his Providence&mdash;that only. For
+the instant a fierce resentment of his foolhardiness fired me&mdash;and was
+as immediately gone. I turned sick and half blind. I thought I saw the
+rock-face shrug and wrinkle; a blot of gall was expelled from it&mdash;and
+the blot was the Professor himself issued forth, and coming composedly
+towards me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he advanced, I turned my back on him. By the time he reached me I
+had made some small success of a struggle for self-mastery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” he said. “I left myself none too much of a margin, did I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With an effort I faced about again. The base of the cliff was yet
+scarred with holes, many and irregular; but now some of those which
+had stared at me like dilated eyes were, I could have sworn it,
+over-lidded&mdash;the eyes of drowsing reptiles. <i>And the Professor’s
+particular cave was gone.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gave quite an absurd little giggle. This man was soulless&mdash;a
+monstrosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look here,” he said, conning my face with a certain concern, “it’s no
+good tormenting yourself with what might have happened. Here I am, you
+know. Supposing we go and sit down yonder, against that drift, till
+you’re better.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led the way, and, dropping upon the sand, lolled easily, talking to
+himself, by way of me, for some minutes. It was the kindest thing he
+could have done. His confident voice made scorn of the never-ceasing
+rustling and falling sounds to our rear. The gulls skated before my
+eyes, drawing wide arcs and figures of freedom in the air. Presently I
+topped the crisis, and drew a deep breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me,” I said&mdash;“have you ever in all your life known fear?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Regius Professor sat to consider.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” he answered presently, rubbing his chin, “I was certainly once
+near losing hold of my will, if that’s what you mean. Of course, if I
+<i>had</i> let go&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you didn’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No&mdash;luckily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re not taking credit for it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Credit!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why should I take credit for my
+freedom from a constitutional infirmity? In one way, indeed, I am only
+regretful that I am debarred that side of self-analysis.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could laugh lovelily, for the first time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” I said, “will you tell me the story?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never considered it in the light of a story,” answered the Regius
+Professor. “But, if it will amuse and distract you, I will make it one
+with pleasure. My memory of it, as an only experience in that
+direction, is quite vivid, I think I may say&mdash;” and he settled his
+spectacles, and began:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was during the period of my first appointment as Science
+Demonstrator to the Park Lane Polytechnic, a post which my little
+pamphlet on the Reef-building Serpulæ was instrumental in procuring
+me. I was a young man at the time, with a wide field of interests, but
+with few friends to help me in exploring it. My holidays I generally
+devoted to long, lonely tramps, knapsack on back, about the country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was on one of these occasions that you must picture me entered
+into a solitary valley among the Shropshire hills. The season was
+winter; it was bitterly cold, and the prospect was of the dreariest.
+The interesting conformations of the land&mdash;the bone-structure, as I
+might say&mdash;were blunted under a thick pelt of snow, which made walking
+a labour. One never recognizes under such conditions the extent of
+one’s efforts, as inequalities of ground are without the contrast of
+surroundings to emphasize them, and one may be conscious of the strain
+of a gradient, and not know if it is of one foot in fifty or in five
+hundred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The scene was desolate to a degree; houseless, almost treeless&mdash;just
+white wastes and leaden sky, and the eternal fusing of the two in an
+indefinite horizon. I was wondering, without feeling actually
+dispirited, how long it was to last, when, turning the shoulder of a
+hill which had seemed to hump itself in my path, I came straight upon
+a tiny hamlet scattered over a widish area. There were some cottages,
+and a slated school building; and, showing above a lower hump a
+quarter of a mile beyond, the roofs and tall chimney of a factory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a stark little oasis, sure enough&mdash;the most grudging of moral
+respites from depression. Only from one place, it seemed, broke a
+green shoot. Not a moving figure was abroad; not a face looked from a
+window. Deathlily exclusive, the little stony buildings stood apart
+from one another, incurious, sullen, and self-contained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There was, however, the green shoot; and the stock from which it
+proceeded was the school building. That in itself was unlovely
+enough&mdash;a bleak little stone box in an arid enclosure. It looked
+hunched and grey with cold; and the sooty line of thaw at the foot of
+its wall only underscored its frostiness. But as if that one green
+shoot were the earnest of life lingering within, there suddenly broke
+through its walls the voices of young children singing; and, in the
+sound, the atmosphere of petrifaction lifted somewhat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes? What is it? Does anything amuse you? I am glad you are so far
+recovered, at least. Well&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like, I must confess, neither children nor music. At the same time,
+I am free to admit that those young voices, though they dismissed me
+promptly on my way, dismissed me pleased, and to a certain degree, as
+it were, reinvigorated. I passed through that little frigid camp of
+outer silence, and swung down the road towards the factory. As I
+advanced towards what I should have thought to be the one busy nucleus
+of an isolated colony, the aspect of desolation intensified, to my
+surprise, rather than diminished. But I soon saw the reason for this.
+The great forge in the hills was nothing but a wrecked and abandoned
+ruin, its fires long quenched, its ribs long laid bare. Seeing which,
+it only appeared to me a strange thing that any of the human part of
+its affairs should yet cling to its neighbourhood; and stranger still
+I thought it when I came to learn, as I did by and by, that its
+devastation was at that date an ancient story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What a squalid carcass it did look, to be sure; gaunt, and unclean,
+and ravaged by fire from crown to basement. The great flue of it stood
+up alone, a blackened monument to its black memory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Approaching and entering, I saw some writhed and tortured guts of
+machinery, relics of its old vital organs, fallen, withered, from its
+ribs. The floor, clammy to the tread, was littered with tumbled
+masonry; the sheet iron of the roof was shattered in a hundred places
+under the merciless bombardment of the weather; and, here and there, a
+scale of this was corroded so thin that it fluttered and buzzed in the
+draught like a ventilator. Bats of grimy cobweb hung from the beams;
+and the dead breath of all the dead place was acrid with cold soot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was all ugly and sordid enough, in truth, and I had no reason to
+be exacting in my inspection of it. Turning, in a vaulting silence, I
+was about to make my way out, when my attention was drawn to the black
+opening of what looked like a shed or annex to the main factory.
+Something, some shaft or plant, revealing itself from the dim
+obscurity of this place, attracted my curiosity. I walked thither,
+and, with all due precaution because of the littered ground, entered.
+I was some moments in adapting my vision to the gloom, and then I
+discovered that I was in the mill well-house. It was a little
+dead-locked chamber, its details only partly decipherable in the
+reflected light which came in by the doorway. The well itself was sunk
+in the very middle of the floor, and the projecting wall of it rose
+scarce higher than my knees. The windlass, pivoted in a massive yoke,
+crossed the twilight at a height a little above my own; and I could
+easily understand, by the apparent diameter of its barrel, that the
+well was of a considerable depth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, as my eyes grew a little accustomed to the obscurity, I could
+see how a tooth of fire had cut even into this fastness. For the rope,
+which was fully reeled up upon the windlass, was scorched to one side,
+as though some exploded fragment of wood or brickwork had alighted
+there. It was an insignificant fact in itself, but my chance
+observation of it has its importance in the context; as has also the
+fact that the bight of the rope (from which the bucket had been
+removed) hung down a yard or so below the big drum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have always considered me a sapient, or at least a rational
+creature, have you not? Well, listen to this. Bending over to plumb
+with my eyes the depth of the pit (an absurdity, to begin with, in
+that vortex of gloom), I caught with my left hand (wisdom number two)
+at the hanging end of rope in order to steady myself. On the instant
+the barrel made one swift revolution, and stuck. The movement,
+however, had thrown me forward and down, so that my head and
+shoulders, hanging over, and actually into, the well, pulled me,
+without possibility of recovery, from my centre of gravity. With a
+convulsive wrench of my body, I succeeded in bringing my right hand to
+the support of my left. I was then secure of the rope; but the
+violence of the act dragged my feet and knees from their last
+desperate hold, and my legs came whipping helpless over the well-rim.
+The weight of them in falling near jerked me from my clutch&mdash;a bad
+shock, to begin with. But a worse was in store for me. For I
+perceived, in the next instant, that the rusty, long-disused windlass
+was beginning slowly to revolve, <i>and was letting me down into the
+abyss</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I broke out in a sweat, I confess&mdash;a mere diaphoresis of nature; a
+sort of lubricant to the jammed mechanism of the nerves. I don’t think
+we are justified in attributing my first sensations to fear. I was
+exalted, rather&mdash;promoted to the analysis of a very exquisite, scarce
+mortal, problem. My will, as I hung by a hair over the abysm, was
+called upon to vindicate itself under an utmost stress of
+apprehension. I felt, ridiculous as it may appear, as if the
+surrounding dark were peopled with an invisible auditory, waiting,
+curious, to test the value of my philosophy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here, then, were the practical problems I had to combat. The
+windlass, as I have said, revolved slowly, but it revolved
+persistently. If I would remain with my head above the
+well-rim&mdash;which, I freely admit, I had an unphilosophic desire to
+do&mdash;I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and
+airy sort of treadmill. To climb, and climb, and always climb, paying
+out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place! It was to
+repudiate gravitation, which I spurned from beneath my feet into the
+depths. But when, momentarily exhausted, I ventured to pause, some
+nightmare revolt against the sense of sinking which seized me, would
+always send me struggling and wriggling, like a drowning body, up to
+the surface again. Fortunately, I was slightly built and active; yet I
+knew that wind and muscle were bound sometime to give out in this
+swarming competition against death. I measured their chances against
+the length of the rope. There was a desperate coil yet unwound.
+Moreover, in proportion as I grew the feebler, grew the need for my
+greater activity. For there were already signs that the great groaning
+windlass was casting its rust of ages, and was beginning to turn
+quicker in its sockets. If it had only stuck, paused one minute in its
+eternal round, I might have set myself oscillating, gradually and
+cautiously, until I was able to seize with one hand, then another,
+upon the brick rim, which was otherwise beyond my reach. But now, did
+I cease climbing for an instant and attempt a frantic clutch at it,
+down I sank like a clock weight, my fingers trailed a yard in cold
+slime, and there I was at my mad swarming once more&mdash;the madder that I
+must now make up for lost ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At last, faint with fatigue, I was driven to face an alternative
+resource, very disagreeable from the first in prospect. This was no
+less than to resign temporarily my possession of the upper, and sink
+to the under world; in other words, to let myself go with the rope,
+and, when it was all reeled out, to climb it again. To this course
+there were two objections: one, that I knew nothing of the depth of
+the water beneath me, or of how soon I should come to it; the other,
+that I was grown physically incapable of any further great effort in
+the way of climbing. My reluctance to forgo the useless solace of the
+upper twilight I dismiss as sentimental. But to drop into that sooty
+pit, and then, perhaps, to find myself unable to reascend it! to feel
+a gradual paralysis of heart and muscle committing me to a lingering
+and quite unspeakable death&mdash;that was an unnerving thought indeed!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nevertheless, I had actually resolved upon the venture, and was on
+the point of ceasing all effort, and permitting myself to sink,
+when&mdash;I thought of the burnt place in the rope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you grasp what that sudden thought meant to me? Death, sir, in any
+case; death, if, with benumbed and aching hands and blistered knees, I
+continued to work my air-mill; death, no earlier and no later, no less
+and no more certainly, if I ceased of the useless struggle and went
+down into the depths. So soon as the strain of my hanging should tell
+direct upon that scorched strand, that strand must part.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then, I think, I knew fear&mdash;fear as demoralizing, perhaps, as it may
+be, short of the will-surrender. And, indeed, I’m not sure but that
+the will which survives fear may not be a worse last condition than
+fear itself, which, when exquisite, becomes oblivion. Consciousness
+<i>in extremis</i> has never seemed to me the desirable thing which some
+hold it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Still, if I suffered for retaining my will power, there is no doubt
+that its loss, on the flash of that deadly reflection, would have
+meant an immediate syncope of nerve and an instant downfall;
+whereas&mdash;well, anyhow, here I am.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was fast draining of all capacity for further effort. I climbed
+painfully, spasmodically; but still I climbed, half hoping I should
+die of the toil of it before I fell. Ever and again I would glance
+faintly up at the snarling, slowly-revolving barrel above me, and mark
+how death, as figured in that scorched strand, was approaching me
+nearer at every turn. It was only a few coils away, when suddenly I
+set to doing what, goodness knows, I should have done earlier. I
+screamed&mdash;screamed until the dead marrow must have crawled in the very
+bones of the place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing human answered&mdash;not a voice, not the sound of a footfall.
+Only the echoes laughed and chattered like monkeys up in the broken
+roof of the factory. For the rest, my too-late outburst had but served
+to sap what little energy yet remained to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The end was come. Looking up, I saw the burnt strand reeling round, a
+couple of turns away, to the test; and, with a final gulp of horror, I
+threw up the sponge, and sank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had not descended a yard or two, when my feet touched something.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Regius Professor paused dramatically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, go on!” I snapped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That something,” he said, “yielded a little&mdash;settled&mdash;and there all
+at once was I, standing as firmly as if I were in a pulpit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For the moment, I assure you, I was so benumbed, physically and
+mentally, that I was conscious of nothing in myself but a small weak
+impatience at finding the awful ecstasy of my descent checked. Then
+reason returned, like blood to the veins of a person half drowned; and
+I had never before realized that reason could make a man ache so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“With the cessation of my strain upon it, the windlass had ceased to
+revolve. Now, with a sudden desperation, I was tugging at the rope
+once more&mdash;pulling it down hand over hand. At the fifth haul there
+came a little quick report, and I staggered and near fell. The rope
+had snapped; and the upper slack of it came whipping down upon my
+shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I rose, dimly aware of what had happened. I was standing on the
+piled-up fathoms of rope which I had paid out beneath me. Above,
+though still beyond my effective winning, glimmered the moon-like disk
+of light which was the well mouth. I dared not, uncertain of the
+nature of my tenure, risk a spring for it. But, very cautiously, I
+found the end of the rope that had come away, made a bend in it well
+clear of the injured part, and, after many vain attempts, slung it
+clean over the yoke above, coaxed down the slack, spliced it to the
+other, and so made myself a fixed ladder to climb by. Up this, after a
+short interval for rest, I swarmed, set myself swinging, grasped the
+brick rim, first with one hand, then with both, and in another instant
+had flung myself upon the ground prostrate, and for the moment quite
+prostrated. Then presently I got up, struck some matches, and
+investigated.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Regius Professor stopped, laughing a little over the memory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Do</i> go on!” I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why,” he responded, chuckling, “generations of school children had
+been pitching litter into that well, until it was filled up to within
+a couple yards of the top&mdash;just that. The rope, heaping up under me,
+did the rest. It was a testimony to the limited resources of the
+valley. What the little natives of to-day do with their odd time,
+goodness knows. But it was comical, wasn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, most!” said I. “And particularly from the point of view of the
+children’s return to you for your dislike of them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, as to that,” said the Regius Professor, rather shamefacedly, “I
+wasn’t beyond acknowledging a certain indebtedness.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Acknowledging? How?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, I happened to have in my knapsack one of my pamphlets on the
+Reef-building Serpulæ; so I went back to the school, and gave it to
+the mistress to include in her curriculum.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch09">
+ARCADES AMBO
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">Miguel</span> and Nicanor were the Damon and Phintias of Lima. Their
+devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers&mdash;who are not, as a
+rule, very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships&mdash;was a
+standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they
+had grown up together, passed their school-days together (at an
+English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their
+young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other’s company,
+preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which
+was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meanwhile, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued
+inseparable&mdash;a proverb for clean though passionate affection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and
+physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the
+younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature,
+bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all
+the wit, excitability, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to
+associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed&mdash;a
+man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous
+faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything
+fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable
+as lovable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two started, well-equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks
+of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye
+with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with
+the birds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miguel and Nicanor travelled overland to Cayenne, in French Guiana,
+where they took boat for Marseilles, whence they were to proceed to
+the capital. The circular tour of the world, for all who would make it
+comprehensively, dates from Paris and ends there. They sailed in a
+fine vessel, and made many charming acquaintances on board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among these was Mademoiselle Suzanne, called also de la Vénerie,
+which one might interpret into Suzanne of the chase, or Suzanne of the
+kennel, according to one’s point of view. She had nothing in common
+with Diana, at least, unless it were a very seductive personality. She
+was a fashionable Parisian actress, travelling for her health, or
+perhaps for the health of Paris&mdash;much in the manner of the London
+gentleman, who was encountered touring alone on the Continent because
+his wife had been ordered change of air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suzanne, as a matter of course, fell in love with Miguel first, for
+his white teeth and sleepy comeliness; and then with Nicanor, for his
+impudent bright spirit. That was the beginning and end of the trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One moonlight night, in mid-Atlantic, Miguel and Nicanor came together
+on deck. The funnel of the steamer belched an enormous smoke, which
+seemed to reach all the way back to Cayenne.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hate it,” said Nicanor; “don’t you? It is like a huge cable paid
+out and paid out, while we drift further from home. If they would only
+stop a little, keeping it at the stretch, while we swarmed back by it,
+and left the ship to go on without us!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miguel laughed; then sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear Nicanor,” he said; “I will have nothing more to do with her, if
+it will make you happy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was thinking of <i>your</i> happiness, Miguel,” said Nicanor. “If I
+could only be certain that it would not be affected by what I have to
+tell you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have you to tell me, old Nicanor?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must not be mistaken, Miguel. Your having nothing more to do with
+her would not lay the shadow of our separation, which the prospect of
+my union with her raises between us&mdash;though it would certainly comfort
+me a little on your behalf.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did not mean that at all, Nicanor. I meant that, for your sake, I
+would even renounce my right to her hand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That would be an easy renunciation, dear Miguel. I honour your
+affection; but I confess I expect more from it than a show of
+yielding, for its particular sake, what, in fact, is not yours to
+yield.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miguel had been leaning over the taffrail, looking at the white
+wraiths of water which coiled and beckoned from the prow. Now he came
+upright, and spoke in his soft slow voice, which was always like that
+of one just stretching awake out of slumber&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I cannot take quite that view, Nicanor, though I should like to. But
+I do so hate a misunderstanding, at all times; and when it is with
+you&mdash;&mdash;!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His tones grew sweet and full&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, Nicanor! let this strange new shadow between us be dispelled, at
+once and for ever. I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Nicanor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Miguel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well. Then I yield her to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, pardon me, Miguel! but that is just the point. I wanted to save
+you the pain&mdash;the sense of self-renunciation; but your blindness
+confounds me. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. Your
+infatuation for Mademoiselle Suzanne is very plain to very many. What
+is plain only to yourself is that Mademoiselle Suzanne returns your
+devotion. You are not, indeed, justified in that belief.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She has confessed her regard, in the first place, for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But she has also confessed to me that I have won the leading place in
+her affections.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is absurd, Miguel. She is the soul of ingenuousness.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps, Nicanor&mdash;we are only boys, after all&mdash;she is a practised
+coquette.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must not say that, Miguel, if you want me to remain your friend.
+You, perhaps, attach too much importance to your looks as an
+irresistible asset in matters of the heart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now I shall certainly quarrel with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are mistaken, I think. Mind, to women of intellect, is the
+compelling lure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It remains to be proved.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are determined to put it to the test, then? Good-bye, Miguel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is not a real breach between us? O, Nicanor!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We must come to a definite understanding. Until we do, further
+confidence between us is impossible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He strutted away, perking his angry head, and whistling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Suzanne had accomplished the amiable débacle for which she had
+been intriguing. She had, paradoxically, separated the inseparables.
+It was a little triumph, perhaps; a very easy game to one of her
+experience&mdash;hardly worth the candle, in fact; but it was the best the
+boat had to offer. It remained only to solace the tedium of what was
+left of the voyage by playing on the broken strings of that
+friendship.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Nicanor who suffered most under the torture. He had always been
+rather accustomed to hear himself applauded for his wit&mdash;a funny
+little acrid possession which was touched with a precocious knowledge
+of the world. Now, to know himself made the butt of a maturer social
+irony lowered his little cockerel crest most dismally. As for
+good-natured Miguel, it was his way to join, rather than resent, the
+laugh against himself; and his persistent moral health under the
+infliction only added to the other’s mind-corrosion. In a very little
+the two were at daggers-drawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The “affair” made a laughable distraction for many of the listless and
+mischievous among the passengers. They contributed their little fans
+to the flame, and exchanged private bets upon the probable
+consequences. But Suzanne, indifferent to all interests but her own,
+worked her oracles serenely, and affected a wide-eyed unconsciousness
+of the amorous imbroglio which her arts had brought about. First one,
+then the other of the rivals would she beguile with her pensive
+kindnesses, and, according to her mood or the accident of
+circumstances, reassure in hope. And the task grew simpler as it
+advanced, inasmuch as the silence which came to fall between Miguel
+and Nicanor precluded the wholesome revelations which an interchange
+of confidences might have inspired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the decisive moment arrived when Suzanne’s more intimate
+worldlings were to be gratified with her solution of the riddle. It
+was to end, in fact, in a Palais Royal farce; and they were to be
+invited to witness the “curtain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few hours before reaching port she drew Miguel to a private
+interview.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, my friend!” she said, her slender fingers knotted, her large eyes
+wistful with tears, “I become distracted in the near necessity for
+decision. Pity me in so momentous a pass. What am I to do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mademoiselle,” said poor Miguel, his chest heaving, “it is resolved
+already. We are to journey together to Paris, where the bliss of my
+life is to be piously consummated.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said; “but the publicity&mdash;the scandal! Men are sure to
+attribute the worst motives to our comradeship, and that I could not
+endure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately&mdash;somewhere whence
+we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! There is a little accommodating
+place&mdash;the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the
+harbour. Do you know it? No&mdash;I forgot the world is all to open for
+you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o’clock to-morrow
+morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper
+of our intention to anyone. Now go, go!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left her, rapturous but, once without her radiance, struck his
+breast and sighed, “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor,
+angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously,
+timidly, and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a
+bantam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it not my friend that you meant, mademoiselle? I will summon him
+back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a
+witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul&mdash;least of all his
+brother and happier rival.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His&mdash;&mdash;! Ah, mademoiselle, I entreat you, do not torture me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself!
+Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many
+women realize their feelings for the first time in the shock of
+imminent loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor Miguel&mdash;poor fellow!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Suzanne!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, do not speak to me. To have so bared my breast to this repulse!
+O, I am shamed beyond words!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But do you not understand my heartfelt pity for his loss, when
+measured by my own ecstatic gain?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Suzanne! I cannot believe it true.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I feel so bewildered also. What are we to do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You spoke once of a journey to Paris together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You and I? Think of the jests, the comments on the part of our
+shipmates! We are not to bear a slurred reputation with us. I should
+die of shame.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What if we were to meet somewhere, unknown to anybody, by
+appointment, and slip away before the world awoke?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, that would do; but where?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t you suggest?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know of a little Café de Paris. It is on the Boulevard des Dames,
+near the harbour. Say we meet there, at eight o’clock to-morrow
+morning, in time to catch the early mail?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, yes, yes!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush! We have been long enough together. Do not forget; be silent as
+the grave.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Brains triumph!” thought Nicanor, as he went. “Alas, my poor, sweet,
+simple-minded comrade!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+De la Vénerie carried betimes quite a select little company with her
+to the rendezvous. They were all choking with fun and expectation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The dear <i>ingénus</i>!” said Captain Robillard. “It will be exquisite
+to see the fur fly. But precocity must have its lesson.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had their rolls and coffee in a closet adjoining the common room.
+There was a window overlooking the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hist!” whispered the tiny Comte de Bellenglise. “Here they come!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nicanor was the first to arrive. He was very spruce and cock-a-hoop.
+His big brown eyes were like fever-spots in his little body. He
+questioned, airily enough, the proprietor, who had been well prompted
+to answer him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, monsieur; there is no lady at this hour. An appointment? Alas!
+such is always the least considered of their many engagements.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke, Miguel came in. The two eyed one another blankly after
+the first shock. At length Nicanor spoke: the door between the closet
+and the café opened a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have discovered, then? Go away, my poor friend. This is, indeed,
+the worst occasion for our reconciliation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did not come to seek you, Nicanor. I came to meet Mademoiselle
+Suzanne alone, by appointment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I, too, Miguel. I fear you must have overheard and misconstrued
+her meaning. It was I she invited to this place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Nicanor; it was I.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She has not come, at least. We must decide, at once and for ever,
+before she comes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know what you mean, Nicanor. This, indeed, is the only end to a
+madness. Have you your pistol? I have mine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I have mine, Miguel. You will kill me, as you are the good shot.
+I don’t know why I ever carried one, except to entice you to show your
+skill at breaking the floating bottles. But that was before the
+trouble.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear Nicanor!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But let it be <i>à l’outrance</i>. I want either to kill you or to be
+killed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If she were only out of the way, you would love me again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Amen to that, dear Miguel!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yet we are to fight?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To the death, my brother, my comrade! Such is the madness of
+passion.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The paralyzed landlord found breath for the first time to intervene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gentlemen, gentlemen! for God’s sake! consider my reputation!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miguel, starting away, and leaving Nicanor with his back to the
+closet, produced and pointed his weapon at the trembling creature.
+These South Americans were a strange compound of sweetness and
+ferocity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you interfere,” he said, “I will shoot you instead. Now, Nicanor,
+we fire at discretion, one shot to each.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bang of Nicanor’s pistol shattered the emptiness. Miguel was down
+on the floor. Nicanor cast away his reeking weapon, and, running to
+his friend, raised his body in his arms. The door of the closet
+opened, and Suzanne, radiant and gloating, stood in the entry. “That
+was a good shot, Nicanor,” said Miguel, smiling weakly. “You are
+better at men than bottles.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miguel! Miguel! you have your pistol undischarged. Faint as you are,
+you cannot miss me at this range.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stand away, then, Nicanor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nicanor stood up, tearing his coat apart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here, here! to my heart, dearest!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miguel, supporting himself on his left hand, raised his pistol
+swiftly, and shot Mademoiselle Suzanne through the breast. Then he
+fell back to the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is the short way to it, Nicanor. Confess, after all, I am the
+better shot. Now we are reunited for ever.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suzanne had not a word to say to that compact. She lay in a heap, like
+the sweetest of dressmaker’s dummies overturned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlord raised a terrible outcry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Messieurs! I am ruined, unless you witness to the truth of this
+catastrophe!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I, for one, will witness,” said de Bellenglise, very white.
+“Mademoiselle, it is plain to the humorist, has only reaped what she
+sowed. But I do not envy M. Nicanor his survival.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him
+to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe, in Normandy, where
+men whom the law exonerates may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal
+servitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend wholehearted, for
+he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne
+to a place where her future interference between them was not to be
+dreaded.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch10">
+OUR LADY OF REFUGE
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">When</span> Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino,
+plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San
+Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after
+long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood,
+and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering
+ribbons, and merrily they cried together:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the
+larger growth&mdash;patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment!
+For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ
+in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of
+evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’
+dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff
+of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children&mdash;there is time for
+all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood
+ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and
+see the ships&mdash;so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind
+in the rigging&mdash;and all for a paltry quarter-real!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest,
+among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared
+to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned
+their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino
+had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the
+mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that
+they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic
+perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a
+couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San
+Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by
+treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two
+thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San
+Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come
+of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in
+the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a
+large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening
+to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly
+as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection
+in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in
+San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to
+approach the peep-show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with
+travel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like
+adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held
+himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to
+show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact,
+was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft
+olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow
+handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches,
+down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron,
+for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a
+high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and
+merriment were his bright assets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sweet and inexhaustible! I could feed all day on thy love. Yet, I
+think, for my stomach’s sake, I would rather be less gifted than the
+mouse. What is the use to be able to smell meat through glass when the
+window is shut?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait! There are other ways to the larder than by the door. In the
+meanwhile, we will go on. There are two ends to San Lorenzo, the upper
+and lower: we will try the lower. North and south sit with their backs
+to one another, like peevish sisters. What the one snubs the other may
+favour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swung the box by its strap to his shoulder, closed the tripod, and,
+using it for a staff, trudged on dustily with his comrade. Half way
+down the village, a man for the first time accosted them. He was
+young, vehement, authoritative&mdash;the segundo jefe, or sub-prefect of
+San Lorenzo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait!” he said, halting the pair. “I know you, Caron. You should be
+de Charogne&mdash;a French carrion-crow. What do you here, spying for your
+masters?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Señor,” said the showman, “you are mistaken. I am of your people.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Since when? I know you, I say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Many know me, caballero, in these parts, and nothing against me but
+my nationality. Now that is changed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Since when? I repeat it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Since the Emperor tore my brother from his plough in Rousillon to
+serve his colours, and our father was left to die of starvation. We
+are but now on our way back from closing the old man’s eyes, and at
+the foot of the hills we recovered our chattels, which we had hid
+there, on our journey north, for security. I speak of myself and my
+little comrade, Pepino, who is truly of this province, señor, having
+been born in Gerona, where he made stockings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sub-prefect looked at Pepino attentively, for the first time, and
+his dark eyes kindled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And wore them, by the same token,” he murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swept off his hat, mockingly courteous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Buenos dias, señora!” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Caron jumped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, mercy, caballero!” he cried. “Can you, indeed, distinguish so
+easily? Do not give us away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me all about it,” said the sub-prefect. “Truly this is no time
+for masquerading in San Lorenzo.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But it was the most obvious of precautions to begin with,” pleaded
+Caron. “Over the mountains is not safety for a woman; and since&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And since, you are in San Lorenzo,” said the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is true, señor. Pepa shall re-sex herself to-night. Yet it is
+only a few hours since we found our expedient justified.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How was that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French
+picket, and&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have I said, señor?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and
+this is the first you speak of it! I understand&mdash;they come from
+Perpignan&mdash;they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve
+Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow
+me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The
+whole village turned and followed him as he ran.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and
+privacy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride <i>me</i> for the
+future. And <i>this</i> is home!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can
+love you once more in my own way.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in
+Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in
+Figueras&mdash;one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from
+the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate&mdash;being
+small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the
+mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the
+neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour
+with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since
+a little might decide their fate&mdash;short shrift, and the knife or
+gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For
+those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the
+Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by
+the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Figueras was an important point, strategically; for which reason
+the Emperor&mdash;who generally in questions of political economy held
+lives cheaper than salt&mdash;had despatched an express to General Reille,
+who commanded the reserves at Perpignan, on the north side of the
+mountains, ordering him to proceed by forced marches to the relief of
+the garrison, as a step preliminary to the assault and capture of
+Gerona. And it was an advance body of this force which Luc and his
+companion had encountered bivouacking in the hills.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not a considerable body as the two gauged it, for Colonel de
+Regnac’s troops&mdash;raw Tuscan recruits, and possessed with a panic
+terror of the enemy&mdash;were showing a very laggard spirit in the
+venture, and no emulation whatever of their officers’ eagerness to
+encounter. In fact, Colonel de Regnac, with his regimental staff, some
+twenty all told, and few beside, had run ahead of his column by the
+measure of a mile or two, and was sitting down to rest and curse,
+below his breath, in a hollow of the hills, when the two captured
+vagabonds were brought before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There had been no light but the starlight, no voice but the
+downpouring of a mountain stream until the sentry had leaped upon
+them. Chatter and fire were alike prohibited things in those rocky
+ante-rooms of hate and treachery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who are you?” had demanded the Colonel of Caron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A son of France, monsieur.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whither do you go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To attend the death-bed of my old father in Rousillon,” had answered
+Luc, lying readily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Colonel had arisen, and scanned his imperturbable face keenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His name?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luc had told him truthfully&mdash;also his father’s circumstances and
+misfortunes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence,
+then, do you come?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From Figueras.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ha! They have news of us there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was
+overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that
+those two rascals went <i>up</i> the hill!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was brought before the Colonel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My son, what did you say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his
+remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the
+vagabonds’ <i>descent towards San Lorenzo</i>, there would be trouble on
+the morrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter
+degraded&mdash;to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed
+to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that,
+in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded
+by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing
+rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering
+for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the
+main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted
+upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under
+cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position&mdash;only to find it
+abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled
+to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>If</i> I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel
+sweetly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very
+gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted,
+depopulated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching
+under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly,
+and nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow
+more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight.
+He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were
+small and infamous&mdash;great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a
+moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and
+Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his
+enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways
+his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino
+crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself
+spitting fire.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is symbolical of Jove,” said Caron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Foul imps attend him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are his Mercuries.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No more words!” said the Colonel. “String the rascal up!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the common emergency exit in the then theatres of war. It had
+taken the place of the “little window” through which former traitors
+to their country had been invited to look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pepino leapt to his feet, with a sudden scream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no! He is Caron, the wit, the showman, dear to all hearts!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Colonel Regnac’s great neck seemed to swell like a ruttish wolf’s. His
+little eyes shot red with laughter. He had as keen a scent as the
+sub-prefect for a woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good!” he said; “he shall make us a show.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Señor, for the love of God! He spoke the truth. His father is dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He will be in a dutiful haste to rejoin him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Señor, be merciful! You are of a gallant race.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is certain,” said de Regnac. “You, for your part, are acquitted,
+my child. I take you personally under my protection.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good-bye, comrade!” cried Caron sadly. “We have gone the long road
+together, and I am the first to reach home. Follow me when you will. I
+shall wait for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fie!” said the Colonel. “That is no sentiment for a renegade. Heaven
+is the goal of this innocence, whom I save from your corruption.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They hung him from the branch of a chestnut tree, and lingered out his
+poor dying spasms. Pepino, after one burst of agony, stood apathetic
+until the scene was over. Then, with a shudder, correlative with the
+last of the dangling body’s, she seemed to come awake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” she said, “there goes a good fellow; but it is true he was a
+renegade.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Colonel was delighted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They have always a spurious attraction,” he said, “to the sex that is
+in sympathy with naughtiness in any form. But consider: false to one
+is false to all, and this was a bad form of treachery&mdash;though,” he
+added gallantly, “he certainly had his extreme temptation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The French killed his father,” she said indifferently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The French,” he answered, “kill, of choice, with nothing but
+kindness. You, though a Spaniard, my pet, shall have ample proof if
+you will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am to come with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God’s name! There is to be no enforcement.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you have left me little choice. Already here they had looked
+upon us with suspicion, and, if I remained alone, would doubtless kill
+me. I do not want to die&mdash;not yet. What must be must. The king is
+dead, live the king!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was enchanted with her vivacity. He took her up before him on his
+saddle, and chuckled listening to the feverish chatter with which she
+seemed to beguile herself from memory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“These jays have no yesterday,” he thought; and said aloud, “You are
+not Pepino? Now tell me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I am Pepa,” she said. “I am only a man in seeming. Alack! I think
+a man would not forget so easily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some men,” he answered, and his hand tightened a little upon her.
+“Trust me, that dead rogue is already forgathering with his succuba.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by he asked her: “How far to Figueras?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Twelve miles from where we started,” she answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A thought struck him, and he smiled wickedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will always bear in mind,” he said, “that the moment I become
+suspicious that you are directing us wide, or, worse, into a
+guet-apens, I shall snap off your little head at the neck, and roll it
+back to San Lorenzo.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have no fear,” she said quietly; “we are in the straight road for the
+town&mdash;or what used to be one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And no shelter by the way? I run ahead of my rascals, as you see. We
+must halt while they overtake us. Besides”&mdash;he leered horribly&mdash;“there
+is the question of the night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know of no shelter,” she said, “but Our Lady of Refuge.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“An opportune title, at least. What is it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is a hospital for the fallen&mdash;for such as the good Brotherhoods of
+Madrid send for rest and restoration to the sanctuary of the quiet
+pastures. The monks of Misericorde are the Brothers’ deputies
+there&mdash;sad, holy men, who hide their faces from the world. The house
+stands solitary on the plain; we shall see it in a little. They will
+give you shelter, though you are their country’s enemies. They make no
+distinctions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+De Regnac pulled at his moustache, frowning, pondering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where these monks forgather are fat kids and old Malaga&mdash;a tempting
+alternative to the munching of cold biscuit under the stars.
+But&mdash;<i>sacré chien!</i> one may always take in more with the gravy than
+ever fell from the spit. What, then!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He jerked his feet peevishly in the stirrups, and growled&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Limping and footsore already come my cursed rabble&mdash;there you are,
+white-livered Tuscan sheep! The bark of a dog will scare them; they
+would fear a thousand bogies in the dark. It is certain I must wait
+for them, and bivouac somewhere here in the plains.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, the first of them came on as he spoke&mdash;a weary, stumbling body
+of laggards, trailing feet and muskets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Halte-là!” he thundered; and the men came to a loose-kneed stand,
+while the corporals went round prodding and cursing them into a form
+of discipline. De Regnac grumbled&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are we to have this cold grace to our loves? God’s name! my heart
+cries out for fire&mdash;fire within and without. These monks!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I slip before, and sound them? You may trust me, for a Spanish
+girl, who has learned how to coax her confessor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ha! <i>You!</i>” He held her, biting his great lips. “What are you good
+for but deceit, rogue! No, no; we will go together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He called his staff about him, and they went forward in a body.
+Presently, topping a longish slope, they saw, sprung out of the plain
+before them, a huddled grey building, glooming monstrous in the dusk.
+Its barred windows stared blindly; twin towers held the portico
+between them, as it were the lunette of a vast guillotine; a solitary
+lamp hung motionless in the entrance. Far away across the flats a
+light or two twinkled over ruined Figueras, like marsh-candles over a
+swamp. The place seemed lifeless desolation embodied&mdash;Death’s own
+monument in a desert. Gaiety in its atmosphere shivered into silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at length a captain rallied, with a laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Peste!” he cried; “a churchyard refuge! Let us see if the dead walk!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He battered with his sword-hilt on the great door. It swung open, in
+staggering response, and revealed a solitary figure. Cowled, spectral,
+gigantic&mdash;holding, motionless, a torch that wept fire&mdash;the shape stood
+without a word. It was muffled from crown to heel in coarse frieze;
+the eyelets in its woollen vizor were like holes scorched through by
+the burning gaze behind&mdash;the very rims of them appeared to smoulder.
+Laville, the captain, broke into an agitated laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mordieu, my friend, are the dead so lifeless?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you seek?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voice boomed, low and muffled, from the folds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rest and food,” answered Laville. “We are weary and famished. For the
+rest, we ask no question, and invite none.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So they come in peace,” said the figure, “all are welcome here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Colonel pushed to the front, carrying his burden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We come in peace,” he said&mdash;“strangers and travellers. We pay our
+way, and the better where our way is smoothed. Take that message to
+your Prior.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The figure withdrew, and returned in a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The answer is, Ye are welcome. For those who are officers, a repast
+will be served within an hour in the refectory; for the rest, what
+entertainment we can compass shall be provided in the outhouses. A
+room is placed at the disposal of your commander.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is well,” said de Regnac. “Now say, We invite your Prior to the
+feast himself provides, and his hand shall be first in the dish, and
+his lip to the cup; else, from our gallantry, do we go supperless.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more the figure withdrew and returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He accepts. You are to fear no outrage at his hands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Colonel exclaimed cynically, “Fie, fie! I protest you wrong our
+manners!”&mdash;and, giving some orders <i>sub voce</i> for the precautionary
+disposal of his men, entered with his staff. They were ushered into a
+stone-cold hall, set deep in the heart of the building&mdash;a great
+windowless crypt, it seemed, whose glooms no warmth but that of tapers
+had ever penetrated. It was bare of all furniture save benches and a
+long trestle-table, and a few sacred pictures on the walls. While the
+rest waited there, de Regnac was invited to his quarters&mdash;a cell
+quarried still deeper into that hill of brick. No sound in all the
+place was audible to them as they went. He pushed Pepino before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is my servant,” he said. “He will attend me, by your leave.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl made no least demur. She went even jocundly, turning now and
+again to him with her tongue in her cheek. He, for his part, was in a
+rapture of slyness; but he kept a reserve of precaution. They were
+escorted by the giant down a single dim corridor, into a decent
+habitable cell, fitted with chairs, a little stove, and a prie-Dieu;
+but the bed was abominably rocky. De Regnac made a wry face at it for
+his companion’s secret delectation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ghostly monk, intimating that he would await outside the señor
+commandante’s toilet, that he might re-escort his charge to the
+refectory, closed the door upon the two. De Regnac cursed his
+officiousness, groaning; but Pepino reassured his impatience with a
+hundred drolleries. However, when the Colonel came out presently, he
+came out alone; and, moreover, turned the key in the door and pocketed
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Merely a prudential measure,” he explained to his guide. “These
+gaillards are not to be trusted in strange houses. I will convey him
+his supper by and by with my own hands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The figure neither answered nor seemed to hear. De Regnac, joining a
+rollicking company, dismissed him from his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And alone in the cell stood mad Pepino.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not for long. A trap opened in the floor, and from it sprouted,
+like a monstrous fungus, the head and shoulders of the giant monk.
+Massively, sombrely he arose, until the whole of his great bulk was
+emerged and standing in a burning scrutiny of the prisoner. A minute
+passed. Then, “Whence comest thou, Pepa Manoele? With whom, and for
+what purpose?” said the voice behind the folds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His question seemed to snap in an instant the garrotte about her
+brain. She flung herself on her knees before him with a lamentable
+cry&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They have killed my Luc, brother&mdash;my Luc, who took me from your wards
+of mercy, sins and all. They have killed my sweet singing cricket, my
+merry, merry cricket, that had no guile in all its roguish heart. They
+put their heel upon him in the path&mdash;what are songs to them!&mdash;and left
+my summer desolate. If I weep one moment, I know that blood will scald
+my cheeks and drain my heart, and I shall die before I act. O,
+brother! keep back my tears a little. Show me what to do!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She clutched in agony at his robe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come,” he said; “the way is clear.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The feast was served to the tick of the hour by lay brothers, another
+blank-envisaged form directing them. The tables smoked with cheer, and
+de Regnac rubbed his hands. There were the joints of fat kid and the
+flagons of old Malaga&mdash;salmis of quail, too; truffled sausages;
+herrings with mustard sauce, things of strong flavour meet for
+warriors. The steam itself was an invitation&mdash;the smell, the sparkle.
+Only one thing lacked&mdash;the Prior’s grace. De Regnac, bestial always,
+but most like a tiger in the view of unattainable meats, crowded the
+interval with maledictions and curses. His courtesy stopped anywhere
+on the threshold of his appetites. Baulked of his banquet, he would be
+ready to make a holocaust of the whole hospital. Yet he dared not be
+the first to put his fingers in the dish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is our host?” he growled. “Doth he fear the test&mdash;or death&mdash;a
+coward faint with indecision?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even with the word, he found him at his elbow&mdash;an old, dry pipe of a
+man, wheezing thin air. The father’s face under its dropping cowl (no
+doubt his lungs were too crazy for the vizor) showed stark with rime;
+his forehead was streaked with it; his eyes were half-thawed pools. He
+spoke. Hoarse and feeble, his voice seemed to crow from the attics of
+a ruined tenement, high up among the winds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fall to, soldiers, fall to! There is no grace like honest appetite.
+Fall to! And they tell me ye have travelled far to claim our
+hospitality. Fall to!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+De Regnac smacked his shoulder boisterously, so that he staggered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not till you have blessed our meal for us, old father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Prior raised his trembling hands. The other caught at them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not that way. We ask the taster’s grace. It was a bargain.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Be seated, señor,” said the old man, with dignity. “I do not forget
+my obligations.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went round, bent and stiffly, taking a shred from each dish, a
+sippet dipped in the gravy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bella premunt hostilia,” he expostulated. “Intestine wars invade our
+breast. What a task for our old digestion!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His roguery pleased and reassured his company. They attacked the
+viands with a will. He never ceased to encourage them, going about the
+board with garrulous cheer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And ye come over the hills?” said he. “A hungry journey and a
+dangerous. It was the mountains, and the spirits of the mountains,
+that were alone invincible when the Moorish dogs overran all
+Spain&mdash;all but the mountains. The heathen crests were lowered
+there&mdash;rolled back in a bloody foam. Dear God! I’m old.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not so ancient, father,” cried de Regnac, “but that good liquor will
+revitalize you. There remains the wine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah me!” sighed the Prior; “must I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They swore him to the toast by every bond of honour. Their throats
+were ragged with drought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, well,” he said. “I’ll first dismiss these witnesses to their
+father’s shame. I’ll be no Noah to my children.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He drove the servitors, with feeble playfulness, into the passage;
+pursued them a pace or two. In a moment he was back alone, his cowl
+pulled about his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give me the draught,” he said hoarsely, “nor look ye upon the old
+man’s abasement. I am soon to answer for my frailties.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cheering and bantering, they mixed him a cup from every flagon, and
+put it into his hand, which gripped it through the cloth. He turned
+his back on them, and took the liquor down by slow degrees, chuckling
+and gasping and protesting. Then, still coughing, he handed the cup,
+backwards, to the nearest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bumpers, all!” roared de Regnac. “We toast old Noah for our king of
+hosts!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even as he drank, as they all drank, thirsty and uproarious, the great
+door of the refectory clanged to, and the Prior spun with a scream to
+the floor. De Regnac’s cup fell from his hand; a dead silence
+succeeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the Colonel was on his feet, ghastly and terrible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Something foul!” he whispered; “something foul!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Staggering, he swerved out, and drove with all his weight against the
+door. It had been locked and bolted upon them. Not a massive panel
+creaked. They were entombed!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hush!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Solemn, low, mystic, arose without the chaunt of voices in unison&mdash;the
+prayers for one sick unto death: “Receive, O Lord, the sacrifice we
+offer for thy servant, who is near the end of her life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a scream, de Regnac threw himself towards the body on the floor,
+and lifted it with huge strength in his arms. As he did so, the cowl
+fell away, and revealed the face of Pepino. The shadow of death was
+already fallen on it; but she spoke, and with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When he pursued them, I was waiting and took his place. Curse him
+not. He observed the letter. ’Twas I poisoned the wine. Take back thy
+wages, dog! O, I go to find my Luc&mdash;if thou darest follow me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He roared out&mdash;a spasm took his throat. He tried to crush her in his
+arms. They relaxed in the effort. Howling, he dropped her, and fell
+beside in a heap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, from out a mortal paralysis, arose sobbing and wailing at the
+table. Some seized salt, some the wet mustard from the fish, and
+swallowed it by handfuls. Others ran hither and thither aimlessly,
+screeching, blaspheming, beating the walls, the obdurate door. There
+was a regimental doctor among them; he was the first dead. None found
+help or hope in that ghastly trap. The venom had been swift, gripping,
+ineradicable. Within half an hour it was all a silent company, and the
+Miserere long had ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somewhere in a book I read of a tale like this, which was headed
+“Patriotic Fanaticism.” Those were certainly the deadly days of
+retaliation; but in this case Love, as always, was the principal
+fanatic.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch11">
+THE GHOST-LEECH
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">Kelvin</span>, not I, is responsible for this story, which he told me
+sitting smoking by his study window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a squalid night, I remember, wet and fretful&mdash;the sort of night
+which seems to sojourners in the deep country (as we then were) to
+bring rumours of plashy pavements, and the roar of rain-sodden
+traffic, and the wailing and blaspheming of women lost and crying out
+of a great darkness. No knowledge of our rural isolation could allay
+this haunting impression in my mind that night. I felt ill at ease,
+and, for some reason, out of suits with life. It mattered nothing that
+a belt of wild woodland separated us from the country station five
+miles away. That, after all, by the noises in it, might have been a
+very causeway, by which innumerable spectres were hurrying home from
+their business in the distant cities. The dark clouds, as long as we
+could see them labouring from the south, appeared freighted with the
+very burden of congregated dreariness. They glided up, like vast
+electric tramcars, and seemed to pause overhead, as if to discharge
+into the sanctuary of our quiet pastures their loads of aggressive
+vulgarity. My nerves were all jangled into disorder, I fear, and
+inclining me to imaginative hyperbole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kelvin, for his part, was very quiet. He was a conundrum, that man.
+Once the keenest of sportsmen, he was now for years become an almost
+sentimental humanitarian&mdash;and illogical, of necessity. He would not
+consent to kill under any circumstances&mdash;wilfully, that is to say; but
+he enjoyed his mutton with the best of us. However, I am not
+quarrelling with his point of view. He, for one&mdash;by his own admission,
+anyhow&mdash;owed a life to “the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,” and
+he would not, from the date of his debt, cross her prerogatives. The
+same occasion, it appeared, had opened in him an unstanchable vein of
+superstition, which was wont to gush&mdash;bloodily, I might say&mdash;in
+depressing seasons of the mind. It provoked me, on the evening of the
+present anecdote, to a sort of peevish protest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why the devil,” I said, “are spectral manifestations&mdash;at least,
+according to you fellows&mdash;everlastingly morbid and ugly? Are there no
+gentle disembodied things, who, of their love and pity, would be
+rather more anxious than the wicked, one would think, to communicate
+with their survivors?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” said Kelvin; “but their brief sweet little reassurances
+pass unnoticed. Their forms are insignificant, their voices
+inarticulate; they can only appeal by symbol, desperately clinging to
+the earth the while. On the other hand, the world tethers its
+worldlings by the foot, so that they cannot take flight when they
+will. There remains, so to speak, too much earth in their composition,
+and it keeps ’em subject to the laws of gravitation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laughed; then shrugged impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What a rasping night it is! The devil take that moth!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The window was shut, and the persistent whirring and tapping of a big
+white insect on the glass outside jarred irritably on my nerves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let it in, for goodness’ sake,” I said, “if it <i>will</i> insist on
+making a holocaust of itself!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kelvin had looked up when I first spoke. Now he rose, with shining
+eyes, and a curious little sigh of the sort that one vents on the
+receipt of wonderful news coming out of suspense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I’ll open the window,” he said low; and with the word threw up
+the casement. The moth whizzed in, whizzed round, and settled on his
+hand. He lifted it, with an odd set smile, into the intimate range of
+his vision, and scrutinized it intently. Suddenly and quickly, then,
+as if satisfied about something, he held it away from him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Ite missa est!</i>” he murmured, quoting some words of the Mass (he was
+a Catholic); and the moth fluttered and rose. Now, you may believe it
+or not; but there was a fire burning on the hearth, and straight for
+that fire went the moth, and seemed to go up with the smoke into the
+chimney. I was so astonished that I gasped; but Kelvin appeared
+serenely unconcerned as he faced round on me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” I exploded, “if a man mayn’t kill, he may persuade to suicide,
+it seems.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He answered good-humouredly, “All right; but it wasn’t suicide.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he resumed his seat by me, and relighted his pipe. I sat
+stolidly, with an indefinable feeling of grievance, and said nothing.
+But the silence soon grew unbearable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kelvin,” I said, suddenly and viciously; “what the deuce do you
+mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You wouldn’t believe,” he answered, at once and cheerily, “even if I
+told you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Told me what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, this. There was the soul of little Patsy that went up in the
+smoke.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The village child you are so attached to?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes; and who has lain dying these weeks past.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why should it come to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a compact between us&mdash;if she were summoned, in a moment,
+without time for a good-bye. We were close friends.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kelvin&mdash;excuse me&mdash;you are getting to be impossible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right. Look at your watch. Time was made for unbelievers. There’s
+no convincing a sceptic but by foot-rule. Look at your watch.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did, I confess&mdash;covertly&mdash;in the instant of distraction caused by
+Kelvin’s little son, who came to bid his father good night. He was a
+quiet, winning little fellow, glowing with health and beauty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good night, Bobo,” said Kelvin, kissing the child fondly. “Ask God to
+make little Patsy’s bed comfy, before you get into your own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I kissed the boy also; but awkwardly, for some reason, under his frank
+courteousness. After he was gone, I sank back in my chair and said,
+grudging the concession&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well. It’s half-past eight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kelvin nodded, and said nothing more for a long time. Then, all of a
+sudden, he broke out&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I usen’t to believe in such things myself, once upon a time; but Bobo
+converted me. Would you like to hear the story?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, yes!” I said, tolerantly superior. “Fire away!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed, filling his pipe&mdash;the laugh of a man too surely
+self-convinced to regard criticism of his faith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Patsy,” he said, “had no Ghost-Leech to touch her well. Poor little
+Patsy! But she’s better among the flowers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of Paradise, I suppose you mean? Well, if she is, she is,” I said, as
+if I were deprecating the inevitably undesirable. “But what is a
+Ghost-Leech?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A Ghost-Leech,” he said&mdash;“the sort, anyhow, that I’ve knowledge
+of&mdash;is one who has served seven years goal-keeper in the
+hurling-matches of the dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stared at him. Was he really going, or gone, off his head? He
+laughed again, waving his hand to reassure me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You may accept my proof or not. Anyhow, Bobo’s recovery was proof
+enough for me. A sense of humour, I admit, is outside our conception
+of the disembodied. We lay down laughter with life, don’t we? You’d
+count it heresy to believe otherwise. Yet have you ever considered how
+man’s one great distinctive faculty must be admitted into all evidence
+of his deeds upon earth, as minuted by the recording angel? It must be
+admitted, of course, and appreciatively by the final assessor. How
+could he judge laughter who had never laughed? The cachinnatory nerve
+is touched off from across the Styx&mdash;wireless telegraphy; and man will
+laugh still, though he be damned.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kelvin! my good soul!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The dead, I tell you, do not put off their sense of humour with their
+flesh. They laugh beyond the grave. They are full of a sense of fun,
+and not necessarily the most transcendent.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, indeed, by all the testimony of spiritualism.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well; now listen. I was staying once in a village on the west coast
+of Ireland. The people of my hamlet were at deadly traditional feud
+with the people of a neighbouring hamlet. Traditional, I say, because
+the vendetta (it almost amounted to one) derived from the old days of
+rivalry between them in the ancient game of hurling, which was a sort
+of primitive violent “rugger” played with a wooden ball. The game
+itself was long fallen into disuse in the district, and had been
+supplanted, even in times out of memory, by sports of a gentler, more
+modern cast. But it, and the feud it had occasioned, were still
+continued unabated beyond the grave. How do I know this? Why, on the
+evidence of my Ghost-Leech.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was a strange, moody, solitary man, pitied, though secretly
+dreaded, by his neighbours. They might have credited him with
+possession&mdash;particularly with a bad local form of possession; to
+suspect it was enough in itself to keep their mouths shut from
+questioning him, or their ears from inviting confession of his
+sufferings. For, so their surmise were correct, and he in the grip of
+the hurlers, a word wrung from him out of season would have brought
+the whole village under the curse of its dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I broke in here. “Kelvin, for the Lord’s sake! you are too cimmerian.
+Titillate your glooms with a touch of that spiritual laughter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Agreeably to my banter, he smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s fun in it,” he said; “only it’s rather ghastly fun. What do
+you say to the rival teams meeting in one or other of the village
+graveyards, and whacking a skull about with long shank-bones?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I should say, It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Anything turning
+upon a more esoteric psychology would. What pitiful imaginations you
+Christmas-number seers are possessed of!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I dare say. But I’m not imagining. It’s you practical souls that
+imagine&mdash;that common sense, for instance, is reason; that the top-hat
+is the divinely-inspired shibboleth of the chosen; and so on. But you
+don’t disappoint me. Shall I go on?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, yes! go on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The hurlers meet under the full moon, they say, in one or other of
+the rival graveyards; <i>but they must have a living bachelor out of
+each parish to keep goal for them</i>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see! ‘They say’? I see!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The doom of the poor wretch thus chosen is, as you may suppose, an
+appalling one. He must go, or suffer terrors damning out of reason.
+There is no power on earth can save him. One night he is sitting,
+perhaps, in his cabin at any peaceful work. The moor, mystic under the
+moonlight, stretches from miles away up to his walls, surrounding and
+isolating them. His little home is an ark, anchored amid a waste and
+silent sea of flowers. Suddenly the latch clinks up, advances, falls.
+The night air breathing in passes a presence standing in the opening,
+and quivers and dies. Stealthily the door gapes, ever so little, ever
+so softly, and a face, like the gliding rim of the moon, creeps round
+its edge. It is the face, he recognizes appalled, of one long dead.
+The eyeplaces are black hollows; but there is a movement in them like
+the glint of water in a deep well. A hand lifts and beckons. The
+goal-keeper is chosen, and must go. For seven years, it is said, he
+must serve the hurling-matches of the dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“State it for a fact. Don’t hedge on report.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t. This man served his time. If he hadn’t, Bobo wouldn’t be
+here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O? Poor Bobo!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This man, I say, survived the ghastly ordeal&mdash;one case out of a dozen
+that succumb. Then he got his fee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, a fee! What was that? A Rachel of the bogs?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The power to cure by touch any human sickness, even the most humanly
+baffling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Really a royal reward. It’s easy to see a fortune in it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He would have been welcome to mine; but he would take nothing. He
+made my little boy whole again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kelvin! I dare say I’m a brute. What had been the matter with him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, what! He simply moaned and wasted&mdash;moaned eternally. Atrophy;
+meningitis; cachexy&mdash;they gave it a dozen names, but not a single
+cure. He was dying under slow torture&mdash;a heavy sight for a father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One day an old Shaman of the moors called upon me. He was ancient,
+ancient&mdash;as dry as his staff, and so bent that, a little more, and he
+had tripped over his long beard in walking. I can’t reproduce his
+brogue; but this is the substance of what it conveyed to me:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Had I ever heard speak of Baruch of the lone shebeen&mdash;him that had
+once kept an illicit still, but that the ghosts had got hold of for
+his sins? No? Well, he, the Shaman, was come too near the end of his
+own living tether to fear ghoulish reprisals if he told me. And he
+told me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Baruch, he said, was suspected in the village of keeping the dead’s
+hurling-goal&mdash;had long been suspected&mdash;it was an old tale by now. But,
+och, wirrastrue! if, as he calculated, Baruch was nearing the close of
+his seven years’ service, Baruch was the man for me, and could do for
+my child what no other living man, barring a ghosts’ goal-keeper,
+could do likewise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I humoured him when he was present; laughed at him when he was gone;
+but&mdash;I went to see Baruch. It’s all right: you aren’t a father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You went to see Baruch. Go on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He lived remote in such a little cabin as I have described. Lord!
+what a thing it was!&mdash;a living trophy of damnation&mdash;a statue
+inhabiting the human vestment! His face was young enough; but sorrow
+stricken into stone&mdash;unearthly suffering carved out of a block. It is
+astonishing what expression can be conveyed without a line. There was
+not a wrinkle in Baruch’s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All scepticism withered in me at the sight&mdash;all the desperate
+effrontery with which I had intended to challenge his gift. I asked
+him simply if he would cure my child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He answered, in a voice as hoarse and feeble as an old man’s, but
+with a queer little promise of joy in it, like a sound of unborn rain,
+‘Asthore! for this I’ve lived me lone among the peats, and bid me
+time, and suffered what I know. In a good hour be it spoken! Wance
+more, and come again when the moon has passed its full.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I went, without another question, or the thought of one. That was a
+bad week for me&mdash;a mortal struggle for the child. The dead kept
+pulling him to draw him down; but he fought and held on, the little
+plucked one. On the day following the night of full moon, I carried
+him in my arms to the cabin&mdash;myself, all the way. I wouldn’t let on to
+a soul; I went roundabout, and I got to Baruch unnoticed. I knew it
+was kill or cure for Bobo. He couldn’t have survived another night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I tell you, it was a laughing spirit that greeted me. Have you ever
+seen Doré’s picture of the ‘Wandering Jew,’ at the end of his
+journey, having his boots pulled off? There is the same release
+depicted, the same sweet comedy of redemption&mdash;the same figure of fun,
+if you like, that Baruch presented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He put his hands on Bobo’s head, and&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bobo walked home with me, that’s all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kelvin got up from his chair to relight his pipe at the fire. As he
+moved, the door of the room opened, and a decent woman, his
+housekeeper, stood, with a grave face, in the entrance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Patsy’s dead?” said Kelvin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, the poor mite!” answered the woman, with a burst of tears. “She
+passed but now, sir, at half after eight, in her little bed.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch12">
+POOR LUCY RIVERS
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">The</span> following story was told to a friend&mdash;with leave, conditionally,
+to make it public&mdash;by a well-known physician who died last year.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+I was in Paul’s type-writing exchange (says the professional
+narrator), seeing about some circulars I required, when a young lady
+came in bearing a box, the weight of which seemed to tax her strength
+severely. She was a very personable young woman, though looking ill, I
+fancied&mdash;in short, with those diathetic symptoms which point to a
+condition of hysteria. The manager, who had been engaged elsewhere,
+making towards me at the moment, I intimated to him that he should
+attend to the new-comer first. He turned to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, madam?” said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I bought this machine second-hand of you last week,” she began, after
+a little hesitation. He admitted his memory of the fact. “I want to
+know,” she said, “if you’ll change it for another.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is there anything wrong with it, then?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said; “No!” she said; “Everything!” she said, in a
+crescendo of spasms, looking as if she were about to cry. The manager
+shrugged his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very reprehensible of us,” said he; “and hardly our way. It is not
+customary; but, of course&mdash;if it doesn’t suit&mdash;to give
+satisfaction&mdash;&mdash;” he cleared his throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want to be unfair,” said the young woman. “It doesn’t suit
+<i>me</i>. It might another person.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had lifted, while speaking, its case off the type-writer, and now,
+placing the machine on a desk, inserted a sheet or two of paper, and
+ran his fingers deftly over the keys.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Really, madam,” said he, removing and examining the slip, “I can
+detect nothing wrong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I said&mdash;perhaps&mdash;only as regards myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was hanging her head, and spoke very low.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But!” said he, and stopped&mdash;and could only add the emphasis of
+another deprecatory shrug.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you do me the favour, madam, to try it in my presence?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” she murmured; “please don’t ask me. I’d really rather not.”
+Again the suggestion of strain&mdash;of suffering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At least,” said he, “oblige me by looking at this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held before her the few lines he had typed. She had averted her
+head during the minute he had been at work; and it was now with
+evident reluctance, and some force put upon herself, that she
+acquiesced. But the moment she raised her eyes, her face brightened
+with a distinct expression of relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said; “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sure it’s
+all my fault. But&mdash;but, if you don’t mind. So much depends on it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, the girl was pretty; the manager was human. There were a dozen
+young women, of a more or less pert type, at work in the front office.
+I dare say he had qualified in the illogic of feminine moods. At any
+rate, the visitor walked off in a little with a machine presumably
+another than that she had brought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Professional?” I asked, to the manager’s resigned smile addressed to
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So to speak,” said he. “She’s one of the ‘augment her income’ class.
+I fancy it’s little enough without. She’s done an occasional job for
+us. We’ve got her card somewhere.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can you find it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could find it, though he was evidently surprised at the
+request&mdash;scarce reasonably, I think, seeing how he himself had just
+given me an instance of that male inclination to the attractive, which
+is so calculated to impress woman in general with the injustice of our
+claims to impartiality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the piece of pasteboard in my hand, I walked off then and there
+to commission “Miss Phillida Gray” with the job I had intended for
+Paul’s. Psychologically, I suppose, the case interested me. Here was a
+young person who seemed, for no <i>practical</i> reason, to have quarrelled
+with her unexceptionable means to a livelihood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It raised more than one question; the incompleteness of woman as a
+wage earner, so long as she was emancipated from all but her
+fancifulness; the possibility of the spontaneous generation of
+soul&mdash;the <i>divina particula auræ</i>&mdash;in man-made mechanisms, in the
+construction of which their makers had invested their whole of mental
+capital. Frankenstein loathed the abortion of his genius. Who shall
+say that the soul of the inventor may not speak antipathetically,
+through the instrument which records it, to that soul’s natural
+antagonist? Locomotives have moods, as any engine-driver will tell
+you; and any shaver, that his razor, after maltreating in some fit of
+perversity one side of his face, will repent, and caress the other as
+gently as any sucking-dove.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laughed at this point of my reflections. Had Miss Gray’s
+type-writer, embodying the soul of a blasphemer, taken to swearing at
+her?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a bitterly cold day. Snow, which had fallen heavily in
+November, was yet lying compact and unthawed in January. One had the
+novel experience in London of passing between piled ramparts of it.
+Traffic for some two months had been at a discount; and walking, for
+one of my years, was still so perilous a business that I was long in
+getting to Miss Gray’s door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lived West Kensington way, in a “converted flat,” whose title,
+like that of a familiar type of Christian exhibited on platforms, did
+not convince of anything but a sort of paying opportunism. That is to
+say, at the cost of some internal match-boarding, roughly fitted and
+stained, an unlettable private residence, of the estimated yearly
+rental of forty pounds, had been divided into two “sets” at
+thirty-five apiece&mdash;whereby fashion, let us hope, profited as greatly
+as the landlord.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Gray inhabited the upper section, the door to which was opened by
+a little Cockney drab, very smutty, and smelling of gas stoves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, she was in.” (For all her burden, “Phillida,” with her young
+limbs, had outstripped me.) “Would I please to walk up?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the dismallest room I was shown into&mdash;really the most
+unattractive setting for the personable little body I had seen. She
+was not there at the moment, so that I could take stock without
+rudeness. The one curtainless window stared, under a lid of fog, at
+the factory-like rear of houses in the next street. Within was scarce
+an evidence of dainty feminine occupation. It was all an illustration
+of the empty larder and the wolf at the door. How long would the bolt
+withstand him? The very walls, it seemed, had been stripped for sops
+to his ravening&mdash;stripped so nervously, so hurriedly, that ribbons of
+paper had been flayed here and there from the plaster. The ceiling was
+falling; the common grate cold; there was a rag of old carpet on the
+floor&mdash;a dreary, deadly place! The type-writer&mdash;the new one&mdash;laid upon
+a little table placed ready for its use, was, in its varnished case,
+the one prominent object, quite healthy by contrast. How would the
+wolf moan and scratch to hear it desperately busy, with click and
+clang, building up its paper rampart against his besieging!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had fallen of a sudden so depressed, into a spirit of such
+premonitory haunting, that for a moment I almost thought I could hear
+the brute of my own fancy snuffling outside. Surely there was
+something breathing, rustling near me&mdash;something&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I grunted, shook myself, and walked to the mantelpiece. There was
+nothing to remark on it but a copy of some verses on a sheet of
+notepaper; but the printed address at the top, and the signature at
+the foot of this, immediately caught my attention. I trust, under the
+circumstances (there was a coincidence here), that it was not
+dishonest, but I took out my glasses, and read those verses&mdash;or, to be
+strictly accurate, the gallant opening quartrain&mdash;with a laudable
+coolness. But inasmuch as the matter of the second and third stanzas,
+which I had an opportunity of perusing later, bears upon one aspect of
+my story, I may as well quote the whole poem here for what it is
+worth.
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">Phyllis, I cannot woo in rhyme,</p>
+<p class="i1">As courtlier gallants woo,</p>
+<p class="i0">With utterances sweet as thyme</p>
+<p class="i1">And melting as the dew.</p>
+
+<p class="i0 mt1">An arm to serve; true eyes to see;</p>
+<p class="i1">Honour surpassing love;</p>
+<p class="i0">These, for all song, my vouchers be,</p>
+<p class="i1">Dear love, so thou’lt them prove.</p>
+
+<p class="i0 mt1">Bid me&mdash;and though the rhyming art</p>
+<p class="i1">I may not thee contrive&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i0">I’ll print upon thy lips, sweetheart,</p>
+<p class="i1">A poem that shall live.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+It may have been derivative; it seemed to me, when I came to read the
+complete copy, passable. At the first, even, I was certainly conscious
+of a thrill of secret gratification. But, as I said, I had mastered no
+more than the first four lines, when a rustle at the door informed me
+that I was detected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started, I could see, as I turned round. I was not at the trouble
+of apologizing for my inquisitiveness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” I said; “I saw you at Paul’s Exchange, got your address, and
+came on here. I want some circulars typed. No doubt you will undertake
+the job?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was conning her narrowly while I spoke. It was obviously a case of
+neurasthenia&mdash;the tendril shooting in the sunless vault. But she had
+more spirit than I calculated on. She just walked across to the empty
+fireplace, collared those verses, and put them into her pocket. I
+rather admired her for it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, with pleasure,” she said, sweetening the rebuke with a blush,
+and stultifying it by affecting to look on the mantelpiece for a card,
+which eventually she produced from another place. “These are my
+terms.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you,” I replied. “What do you say to a contra account&mdash;you to
+do my work, and I to set my professional attendance against it? I am a
+doctor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at me mute and amazed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But there is nothing the matter with me,” she murmured, and broke
+into a nervous smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, I beg your pardon!” I said. “Then it was only your instrument
+which was out of sorts?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her face fell at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You heard me&mdash;of course,” she said. “Yes, I&mdash;it was out of sorts, as
+you say. One gets fancies, perhaps, living alone, and typing&mdash;typing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought of the discordant clack going on hour by hour&mdash;the dead
+words of others made brassily vociferous, until one’s own
+individuality would become merged in the infernal harmonics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And so,” I said, “like the dog’s master in the fable, you quarrelled
+with an old servant.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, no!” she answered. “I had only had it for a week&mdash;since I came
+here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have only been here a week?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Little more,” she replied. “I had to move from my old rooms. It is
+very kind of you to take such an interest in me. Will you tell me what
+I can do for you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My instructions were soon given. The morrow would see them attended
+to. No, she need not send the copies on. I would myself call for them
+in the afternoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hope <i>this</i> machine will be more to the purpose,” I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>I</i> hope so, too,” she answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she seems a lady,” I thought, as I walked home; “a little
+anæmic flower of gentility.” But sentiment was not to the point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening, “over the walnuts and the wine,” I tackled Master Jack,
+my second son. He was a promising youth; was reading for the Bar, and,
+for all I knew, might have contributed to the “Gownsman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack,” I said, when we were alone, “I never knew till to-day that you
+considered yourself a poet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at me coolly and inquiringly, but said nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you consider yourself a marrying man, too?” I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head, with a little amazed smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then what the devil do you mean by addressing a copy of love verses
+to Miss Phillida Gray?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was on his feet in a moment, as pale as death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you were not my father”&mdash;he began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I am, my boy,” I answered, “and an indulgent one, I think you’ll
+grant.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned, and stalked out of the room; returned in a minute, and
+flung down a duplicate draft of <i>the</i> poem on the table before me. I
+put down the crackers, took up the paper, and finished my reading of
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack,” I said, “I beg your pardon. It does credit to your heart&mdash;you
+understand the emphasis? You are a young gentleman of some prospects.
+Miss Gray is a young lady of none.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He hesitated a moment; then flung himself on his knees before me. He
+was only a great boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dad,” he said; “dear old Dad; you’ve seen them&mdash;you’ve seen her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I admitted the facts. “But that is not at all an answer to me,” I
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is she?” he entreated, pawing me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not from Adam. I drove her hard, and she ran away from me. She said
+she would, if I insisted&mdash;not to kill those same prospects of mine. My
+prospects! Good God! What are they without her? She left her old
+rooms, and no address. How did you get to see her&mdash;and my stuff?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could satisfy him on these points.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But it’s true,” he said; “and&mdash;and I’m in love, Dad&mdash;Dad, I’m in
+love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leaned his arms on the table, and his head on his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” I said, “how did <i>you</i> get to know her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Business,” he muttered, “pure business. I just answered her
+advertisement&mdash;took her some of my twaddle. She’s an orphan&mdash;daughter
+of a Captain Gray, navy man; and&mdash;and she’s an angel.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hope he is,” I answered. “But anyhow, that settles it. There’s no
+marrying and giving in marriage in heaven.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t mean it? No! you dearest and most indulgent of old Dads!
+Tell me where she is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I may be all that; but I’m not such a fool. I shall see her
+to-morrow. Give me till after then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, you perfect saint!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I promise absolutely nothing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want you to. I leave you to her. She could beguile a Saint
+Anthony.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean as a Christian woman should.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O! that explains it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following afternoon I went to West Kensington. The little drab was
+snuffling when she opened the door. She had a little hat on her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Missus wasn’t well,” she said; “and she hadn’t liked to leave her,
+though by rights she was only engaged for an hour or two in the day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” I said, “I’m a doctor, and will attend to her. You can go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gladly shut me in and herself out. The clang of the door echoed up
+the narrow staircase, and was succeeded, as if it had started it, by
+the quick toing and froing of a footfall in the room above. There was
+something inexpressibly ghostly in the sound, in the reeling dusk
+which transmitted it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I perceived, the moment I set eyes on the girl, that there was
+something seriously wrong with her. Her face was white as wax, and
+quivered with an incessant horror of laughter. She tried to rally, to
+greet me, but broke down at the first attempt, and stood as mute as
+stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thank my God I can be a sympathetic without being a fanciful man. I
+went to her at once, and imprisoned her icy hands in the human
+strength of my own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is it? Have you the papers ready for me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head, and spoke only after a second effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am very sorry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You haven’t done them, then? Never mind. But why not? Didn’t the new
+machine suit either?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt her hands twitch in mine. She made another movement of dissent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s odd,” I said. “It looks as if it wasn’t the fault of the
+tools, but of the workwoman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All in a moment she was clinging to me convulsively, and crying&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are a doctor&mdash;you’ll understand&mdash;don’t leave me alone&mdash;don’t let
+me stop here!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now listen,” I said; “listen, and control yourself. Do you hear? I
+have come <i>prepared</i> to take you away. I’ll explain why presently.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought at first it was my fault,” she wept distressfully,
+“working, perhaps, until I grew light-headed” (Ah, hunger and
+loneliness and that grinding labour!); “but when I was sure of myself,
+still it went on, and I could not do my tasks to earn money. Then I
+thought&mdash;how can God let such things be!&mdash;that the instrument itself
+must be haunted. It took to going at night; and in the morning”&mdash;she
+gripped my hands&mdash;“I burnt them. I tried to think I had done it myself
+in my sleep, and I always burnt them. But it didn’t stop, and at last
+I made up my mind to take it back and ask for another&mdash;another&mdash;you
+remember?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pressed closer to me, and looked fearfully over her shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It does the same,” she whispered, gulping. “It wasn’t the machine at
+all. It’s the place&mdash;itself&mdash;that’s haunted.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I confess a tremor ran through me. The room was dusking&mdash;hugging
+itself into secrecy over its own sordid details. Out near the window,
+the type-writer, like a watchful sentient thing, seemed grinning at us
+with all its ivory teeth. She had carried it there, that it might be
+as far from herself as possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“First let me light the gas,” I said, gently but resolutely detaching
+her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is none,” she murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+None. It was beyond her means. This poor creature kept her deadly
+vigils with a couple of candles. I lit them&mdash;they served but to make
+the gloom more visible&mdash;and went to pull down the blind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, take care of it!” she whispered fearfully, meaning the
+type-writer. “It is awful to shut out the daylight so soon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+God in heaven, what she must have suffered! But I admitted nothing,
+and took her determinedly in hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” I said, returning to her, “tell me plainly and distinctly what
+it is that the machine does.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not answer. I repeated my question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It writes things,” she muttered&mdash;“things that don’t come from me. Day
+and night it’s the same. The words on the paper aren’t the words that
+come from my fingers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But that is impossible, you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So <i>I</i> should have thought once. Perhaps&mdash;what is it to be possessed?
+There was another type-writer&mdash;another girl&mdash;lived in these rooms
+before me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed! And what became of her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She disappeared mysteriously&mdash;no one knows why or where. Maria, my
+little maid, told me about her. Her name was Lucy Rivers, and&mdash;she
+just disappeared. The landlord advertised her effects, to be claimed,
+or sold to pay the rent; and that was done, and she made no sign. It
+was about two months ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, will you now practically demonstrate to me this reprehensible
+eccentricity on the part of your instrument?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t ask me. I don’t dare.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I would do it myself; but of course you will understand that a more
+satisfactory conclusion would be come to by my watching your fingers.
+Make an effort&mdash;you needn’t even look at the result&mdash;and I will take
+you away immediately after.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are very good,” she answered pathetically; “but I don’t know that
+I ought to accept. Where to, please? And&mdash;and I don’t even know your
+name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I have my own reasons for withholding it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is all so horrible,” she said; “and I am in your hands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are waiting to transfer you to mamma’s,” said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The name seemed an instant inspiration and solace to her. She looked
+at me, without a word, full of wonder and gratitude; then asked me to
+bring the candles, and she would acquit herself of her task. She
+showed the best pluck over it, though her face was ashy, and her mouth
+a line, and her little nostrils pulsing the whole time she was at
+work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had got her down to one of my circulars, and, watching her fingers
+intently, was as sure as observer could be that she had followed the
+text verbatim.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” I said, when she came to a pause, “give me a hint how to remove
+this paper, and go you to the other end of the room.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She flicked up a catch. “You have only to pull it off the roller,” she
+said; and rose and obeyed. The moment she was away I followed my
+instructions, and drew forth the printed sheet and looked at it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may have occupied me longer than I intended. But I was folding it
+very deliberately, and putting it away in my pocket when I walked
+across to her with a smile. She gazed at me one intent moment, and
+dropped her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said; and I knew that she had satisfied herself. “Will you
+take me away now, at once, please?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idea of escape, of liberty once realized, it would have been
+dangerous to balk her by a moment. I had acquainted mamma that I might
+possibly bring her a visitor. Well, it simply meant that the suggested
+visit must be indefinitely prolonged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Gray accompanied me home, where certain surprises, in addition to
+the tenderest of ministrations, were awaiting her. All that becomes
+private history, and outside my story. I am not a man of sentiment;
+and if people choose to write poems and make general asses of
+themselves, why&mdash;God bless them!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The problem I had set <i>my</i>self to unravel was what looked deucedly
+like a tough psychologic poser. But I was resolute to face it, and had
+formed my plan. It was no unusual thing for me to be out all night.
+That night, after dining, I spent in the “converted” flat in West
+Kensington.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had brought with me&mdash;I confess to so much weakness&mdash;one of your
+portable electric lamps. The moment I was shut in and established, I
+pulled out the paper Miss Gray had typed for me, spread it under the
+glow and stared at it. Was it a copy of my circular? Would a sober
+“First Aid Society” Secretary be likely, do you think, to require
+circulars containing such expressions as “<i>William! William! Come back
+to me! O, William, in God’s name! William! William! William!</i>”&mdash;in
+monstrous iteration&mdash;the one cry, or the gist of it, for lines and
+lines in succession?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am at the other end from humour in saying this. It is heaven’s
+truth. Line after line, half down the page, went that monotonous,
+heart-breaking appeal. It was so piercingly moving, my human terror of
+its unearthliness was all drowned, absorbed in an overflowing pity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am not going to record the experiences of that night. That
+unchanging mood of mine upheld me through consciousnesses and
+sub-consciousnesses which shall be sacred. Sometimes, submerged in
+these, I seemed to hear the clack of the instrument in the window, but
+at a vast distance. I may have seen&mdash;I may have dreamt&mdash;I accepted it
+all. Awaking in the chill grey of morning, I felt no surprise at
+seeing some loose sheets of paper lying on the floor. “<i>William!
+William!</i>” their text ran down, “<i>Come back to me!</i>” It was all that
+same wail of a broken heart. I followed Miss Gray’s example. I took
+out my match-box, and reverently, reverently burned them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour or two later I was at Paul’s Exchange, privately interviewing
+my manager.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you ever employ a Miss Lucy Rivers?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly we did. Poor Lucy Rivers! She rented a machine of us. In
+fact&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well&mdash;it is a mere matter of business&mdash;she ‘flitted,’ and we had to
+reclaim our instrument. As it happens, it was the very one purchased
+by the young lady who so interested you here two days ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The first machine, you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The first&mdash;<i>and</i> the second.” He smiled. “As a matter of fact, she
+took away again what she brought.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Rivers’s?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There was absolutely nothing wrong with it&mdash;mere fad. Women start
+these fancies. The click of the thing gets on their nerves, I suppose.
+We must protect ourselves, you see; and I’ll warrant she finds it
+perfection now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps she does. What was Miss Rivers’s address?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gave me, with a positive grin this time, the “converted” flat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But that was only latterly,” he said. “She had moved from&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He directed me elsewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why,” said I, taking up my hat, “did you call her ‘poor Lucy
+Rivers’?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, I don’t know!” he said. “She was rather an attractive young lady.
+But we had to discontinue our patronage. She developed the most
+extraordinary&mdash;but it’s no business of mine. She was one of the
+submerged tenth; and she’s gone under for good, I suppose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made my way to the <i>other</i> address&mdash;a little lodging in a
+shabby-genteel street. A bitter-faced landlady, one of the
+“preordained” sort, greeted me with resignation when she thought I
+came for rooms, and with acerbity when she heard that my sole mission
+was to inquire about a Miss Lucy Rivers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t deceive you, sir,” she said. “When it come to receiving
+gentlemen privately, I told her she must go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gentlemen!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t do Miss Rivers an injustice,” she said. “It was <i>ha</i>
+gentleman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was that latterly?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was not latterly, sir. But it was the effects of its not being
+latterly which made her take to things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What things?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, sir, she grew strange company, and took to the roof.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What on earth do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just precisely what I say, sir; through the trap-door by the steps,
+and up among the chimney-pots. <i>He’d</i> been there with her before, and
+perhaps she thought she’d find him hiding among the stacks. He called
+himself an astronomer; but it’s my belief it was another sort of
+star-gazing. I couldn’t stand it at last, and I had to give her
+notice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was falling near a gloomy midday when I again entered the flat, and
+shut myself in with its ghosts and echoes. I had a set conviction, a
+set purpose in my mind. There was that which seemed to scuttle, like a
+little demon of laughter, in my wake, now urging me on, now slipping
+round and above to trip me as I mounted. I went steadily on and up,
+past the sitting-room door, to the floor above. And here, for the
+first time, a thrill in my blood seemed to shock and hold me for a
+moment. Before my eyes, rising to a skylight, now dark and choked with
+snow, went a flight of steps. Pulling myself together, I mounted
+these, and with a huge effort (<i>the bolt was not shot</i>) shouldered the
+trap open. There were a fall and rustle without; daylight entered;
+and, levering the door over, I emerged upon the roof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Snow, grim and grimy and knee-deep, was over everything, muffling the
+contours of the chimneys, the parapets, the irregularities of the
+leads. The dull thunder of the streets came up to me; a fog of thaw
+was in the air; a thin drizzle was already falling. I drove my foot
+forward into a mound, and hitched it on something. In an instant I was
+down on my knees, scattering the sodden raff right and left, and&mdash;my
+God!&mdash;a face!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lay there as she had been overwhelmed, and frozen, and preserved
+these two months. She had closed the trap behind her, and nobody had
+known. Pure as wax&mdash;pitiful as hunger&mdash;dead! Poor Lucy Rivers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who was she, and who the man? We could never learn. She had woven his
+name, his desertion, her own ruin and despair into the texture of her
+broken life. Only on the great day of retribution shall he answer to
+that agonized cry.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch13">
+THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR
+</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">Ho! bring me some <i>lovers</i>, fat or lean,</p>
+<p class="i0">That I may crunch ’em my teeth between!</p>
+<p class="i0">I could eat so many, so many, so many,</p>
+<p class="i0">That in the wide world there would not be left any.</p>
+
+<p class="i0 mt1">Ho! Here is Avenant to be seen,</p>
+<p class="i0">Who comes to draw your teeth so keen;</p>
+<p class="i0">He’s not the greatest man to view,</p>
+<p class="i0">But he’s big enough to conquer you.</p>
+
+<p class="i4">
+<span class="sc">Planché’s</span> “D’Aulnoy,” slightly misquoted.
+</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">Sir Richard Avenant</span> came home from Abyssinia to an interesting
+notoriety. He had been associated&mdash;a sort of explorative
+free-lance&mdash;with the expedition of Mr. Bruce, who was not yet returned
+from his adventures up the Nile in quest of the sources of that
+bewildering water; and, upon his arrival in London, he found himself
+engaged to a romance which was certainly remote from his deserts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now he was a strong, saturnine man, but apt to whimsical decisions,
+whose consequences, the fruits of whatever odd impulses, he never had
+a thought but to hold by; and as the self-reserved must suffer the
+character accorded to their appearance (the only side of them
+confessed), Sir Richard found himself accredited, by anticipation,
+with deeds adapted to the countenance he had always addressed to the
+world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was strolling, some days after his return, through the streets,
+when he was accosted by an acquaintance, a <i>preux chevalier</i> of the
+highest <i>ton</i>, curled, be-ruffed, and imperturbably self-assured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, strike me silly, Dick!” cried this exquisite, “what do you,
+wandering unsociable in a shag coat, and all London by the ears to
+lionize ye?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I know not, George. What have I done to be lionized?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Done! <i>Done?</i> asks the man that will not devour a steak but ’tis cut
+raw from the buttock of the living beast! <i>Done?</i> asks Bluebeard (and
+stap me, Dick, but your chin is as blue as a watchman’s!)&mdash;<i>done</i>, he
+says, that brings grass-petticoats in his train enough to furnish the
+Paradise of the Grand Turk! Prithee, Dick, where hast stowed ’em all?
+O, thou hast a great famous reputation, I assure thee, to justify
+thyself of with the women! Such is the report of thy peris&mdash;their
+teeth, their raven hair, their eyes like stars of the night&mdash;there’s
+no virtue in town could resist, if asked, to be thy queen and theirs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was chuckling, and taking a delicate pinch of martinique, with his
+little finger cocked to display a glittering stone, when his eyes
+lighted on a house over against which they were standing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hist!” said he, pointing with his cane; “pan my honour, the single
+reservation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Single reservation?” repeated the explorer. “To what? To this London
+of frailties?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To be sure,” said the other. “The one party, I’ll dare swear, that
+would not put her nose in a ring for thy sake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed!” said Avenant. “Then she’s the one I must wed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The elegant cocked his head, squinting derisive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I lay you a double pony to a tester you don’t, within the decade.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Done! Tell me about her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll do more. I’ll carry you in to her, here and at once. Tell me
+about her, quotha! She’s the Fair with Golden Hair, and a guinea and a
+suitor to every thread of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whence comes she?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From Arcadia, man, with a fortune of gold and roses. She cuts out
+hearts raw, as you do steaks, and devours them by the dozen. O, you
+shall know her!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But by what name, George, by what name?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have I not told you? It shall suffice for all your needs. Thou shalt
+take a pack of Cabriolles, and never hunt her to the death. Come, my
+friend!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led Sir Richard to the house, and had himself announced. They
+ascended a flight of stairs, going up into a heaven of floating
+fragrance and melodious sounds. Their feet moved noiseless over silken
+carpets. They crossed an anteroom ruffling with lackeys, and were
+ushered into the Fair’s boudoir.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat at her mirror, in the hands of her perruquier. She was the
+most beautiful insolent creature Sir Richard had ever seen. There was
+not an inch of her which Nature could have altered to its improvement.
+The very patch on her cheek was a theft from perfection. But to so
+much loveliness her hair was the glory, a nimbus which, condensing in
+the heavy atmosphere of adoration, dropped in a melting flood of gold,
+which, short of the ground only, shrank and curled back from its gross
+contact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All round and about her hummed her court&mdash;poets, lords,
+minstrels&mdash;suitors straining their wits and their talents for her
+delectation, while they bled internally. Many of them greeted Sir
+Richard’s chaperon, many Sir Richard himself&mdash;good-humouredly,
+jealously, satirically, as the case might be&mdash;as the two pushed by. A
+stir went round, however, when the rough new-comer’s name was put
+about; and some rose in their seats, and all dwelt inquisitively on
+the explorer’s reception.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was condescending enough; as was that of his friend, who loved
+himself too well, and too wittily, to show a heart worth the beauty’s
+discussing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you got back your appetite, sir,” said the Fair to Avenant, “for
+dressed meats?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And ladies?” whispered Sir Richard’s friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, fie!” said madam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will return the question on you,” said Sir Richard, in a low voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Fair lifted her brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, I am told, madam,” said Avenant, “that you feed on raw hearts;
+but I am willing to believe that the one lie is as certain as the
+other.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The imperious beauty bit her underlip, and laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I perceive, Sir Richard,” she said, “that you do not court by
+flattery.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not court at all, madam,” he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, true!” she replied. “You buy in the open market. It must be
+simpler; though, in the plain lodging where I hear you lie at present,
+the disposal of so responsible an establishment must exercise your
+diplomacy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She spoke aloud, evoking a general titter; and so aloud Avenant
+answered her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By no means, madam. I have in my sleeping-room a closet with three
+shelves. On one of these lies Beauty, unspoiled by adulation; on
+another lies Virtue, that respects her sex too well to traduce it; on
+the third lies feminine Truth, loveliest of her sisters. These are my
+whole establishment; and as they are shadows all, existing only in the
+imagination, they exercise nothing but my fondness for unattainable
+ideals.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The company broke into much laughter over this Jeremiad; and the girl
+joined her young voice to theirs. But a little glow of colour was
+showing in her cheek, verily as if Sir Richard had flicked that fair
+surface with his glove.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O!” she said, “this is a sad regale! Sure, sir, does the climate of
+Abyssinia breed no hotter than Leicestershire Quakers? Why, I have
+heard a lion roar fiercer in a caravan. Now, pray, Sir Richard, put
+off your civilities, and give us news instead of lessons. They say
+there is a form of lawless possession in the women of the country you
+visited.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is very true there is, madam. It is called the <i>Tigrétier</i>&mdash;a
+seizure of uncontrollable vanity, during which the victim is so
+self-centred that she is unable to attend to the interests, or even to
+distinguish the sexes of those about her. She will, for instance,
+surround herself with a circle of male admirers, assuming all the
+time, apparently, that they are the gossips of her own sex, with whom,
+like a decent woman, she would wont ordinarily, of course, to consort
+in private.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Fair cried out, “Enough! Your stories are the most intolerable
+stuff, sir. I wish Mr. Bruce joy of your return, as I hear you are not
+to remain in England.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she turned her shoulder to him, her flush deepening to fire; and
+Sir Richard, bowing and moving away, fell into conversation with one
+or two of his acquaintances. Presently, looking up, he was surprised
+to see the room near empty. Goldenlocks had, in fact, issued her
+wilful mandate, and her court was dismissing itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The explorer was pressing out after the rest, when a maidservant
+touched his sleeve, and begged him to return to her lady, who desired
+a word with him. Sir Richard acquiesced immediately. He found the Fair
+standing solitary by her dressing-table, frowning, her head bent, her
+fingers plucking at a wisp of lace. Her hair, still undressed, hung
+down deep over her shoulders, mantling them with heavy gold, like a
+priest’s chasuble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you seek my acquaintance, sir,” she said imperatively, “with the
+sole purpose to insult me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nay, madam,” he answered, as cool as tempered steel; “but because you
+was described to me as the one woman in London that I might not marry,
+if I had the will to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not?” was on the tip of her tongue; he saw it there. But she
+caught at herself, and answered, “So, sir, like sour reynard, I
+suppose, you would spite what you found it useless to covet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>I</i> covet, madam!” he said, in a tone of astonishment. “<i>I</i> aspire to
+wrest this wealth and beauty from a hundred worthier candidates!
+Believe me, my ambition halted far short of such attainment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her lips smiled, despite herself. What were the value, she suddenly
+thought, in a world of suitors that did not include this shagg’d and
+rugged Jeremiah? Her speech fell as caressing as the sound of water in
+a wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yet you confess to some ambition?” she murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“True,” he answered; “the virtuoso’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lifted her beautiful brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will be candid, madam,” he said. “I have the collector’s itch.
+Whithersoever I visit, I lay my toll on the most characteristic
+productions of the tribes&mdash;robes, carvings, implements of war&mdash;even
+scalps. Madam, madam, you must surely be of the sun children! Your
+hair is the most lovely thing! I would give my soul&mdash;more, I would
+give a thousand pounds to possess it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see, sir,” she said; “to carry your conquest at your belt.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nay,” he answered, with feigned eagerness. “Not a soul need know. The
+thing is done constantly. You have but to subscribe to the fashion of
+powder, and you gain a novel beauty, and I a secret I swear to hold
+inviolate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O!” she said softly “This is Samson come with the shears to turn the
+tables on poor Delilah!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And on the instant she flashed out, breaking upon him in a storm of
+passion. That he dared, that he dared, on no warrant but his
+reputation for inhumanity, so to outrage and insult her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go, sir!” she cried. “Return to your Nubians and Dacoits&mdash;to
+countries where head-hunting is considered an honourable proof of
+manliness!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood, as outwardly insensate as a bull.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you decline to deal?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her only answer was to throw herself into a chair, and to abandon
+herself to incomprehensible weeping. But even her sobs seemed to make
+no soft impression on him. He took a step nearer to her, and spoke in
+the same civil and measured tone he had maintained throughout.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take care, madam. I never yet set my will upon a capture that in the
+long run escaped me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She checked her tears, to look up at him with a little furious laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor boaster!” she said. “I think, perhaps, that recounting of your
+Tigrétier hath infected you with it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By my beard, madam,” said he, “I will make that hair my own!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See,” she cried jeeringly, “how a boaster swears by what he has not!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Richard felt to his chin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is soon remedied,” said he. “And so, till my oath is redeemed,
+to consign my razors to rust!” And with these words, bowing
+profoundly, he turned and left the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after this he sailed to rejoin his expedition, and was not
+again in England during a period of eighteen months.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of that time, being once more in London, he devoted
+himself&mdash;his affairs having now been ordered with the view to his
+permanent residence in the country&mdash;to some guarded inquiries about
+the Fair with Golden Hair. For some days, the season of the town being
+inauspicious, he was unable to discover anything definite about her.
+And then, suddenly, the news which he sought and desired came in a
+clap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was walking, one day, down a street of poor and genteel houses,
+when he saw her before him. He stood transfixed. There was no doubting
+his own eyesight. It was she: tall, slender, crowned with her
+accustomed glory, the flower of her beauty a little wan, as if seen by
+moonlight. But what confounded him was her condition. Her dress was
+mean, her gloves mended; every tag of cheap ribbon which hung upon her
+seemed the label to a separate tragedy. Thus he saw her again, the
+Fair with Golden Hair; but how deposed and fallen from her insolent
+estate!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She mounted a step to a shabby door. While she stood there, waiting to
+be admitted, an old jaunty cavalier came ruffling it down the street,
+accosted her, and accompanied her within. She might have glanced at
+Avenant without recognizing him. The rough dark beard he wore was his
+sufficient disguise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Richard made up his mind on the spot, and acted promptly. Having
+no intention to procure himself a notoriety in this business, he
+rigidly eschewed personal inquiry, and employed an official informer,
+at a safe figure, to ferret out the truth for him. This, epitomized,
+discovered itself as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cytherea&mdash;Venus Calva&mdash;Madonna of the magic girdle, who had once
+reigned supreme between wealth and loveliness, who had once eaten
+hearts raw for breakfast, feeding her roses as vampires do, was
+desolate and impoverished&mdash;and even, perhaps, hungry. A scoundrelly
+guardian had eloped with trust funds: the crash had followed at a
+blow. Robbed of her recommendation to respect; deposed, at once, from
+the world’s idolatry to its vicious solicitation, she had fled, with
+her hair and her poor derided virtue, into squalid oblivion; that, at
+least, she hoped. But, alas for the fateful recoils on Vanity! She
+drives with a tight rein; and woe to her if the rein snap! A certain
+libidinous and crafty nobleman, of threescore or so years, had
+secured, in the days of the Fair’s prosperity, some little bills of
+paper bearing that beauty’s signature. These he had politicly withheld
+himself from negotiating, on the mere chance that they might serve him
+some day for a means to humiliate one who, in the arrogance of her
+power, had scoffed at his amatory, and perfectly honourable,
+addresses. That precaution had justified itself. The peer was now come
+to woo again, and less scrupulously, with his hand on a paper weapon,
+one stroke from which alone was needed to give the Fair’s poor
+drabbled fortune its quietus. She was at bay, between ruin and
+dishonour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Richard came immediately to a resolve, and lost no time in giving
+it effect. He wrote a formal note to the Fair, recalling himself
+courteously to her remembrance, reminding her of his original offer,
+and renewing it in so many words. He would do himself the honour, he
+said, to wait upon her for her answer on such and such a day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this he received no reply; nor, perhaps, expected one. He went,
+nevertheless, to his self-made appointment with the imperturbable
+confidence of a strong man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Passing, on his way, by a perruquier’s, he checked himself, and stood
+for some moments at gaze in a motionless reverie. Then he entered the
+shop, made a purchase, and, going to a barber’s, caused himself to be
+shorn, shaved, and restored to the conventional aspect. Thus
+conditioned, he knocked at the Fair’s door, and was ushered up&mdash;bawled
+up, rather, by a slattern landlady&mdash;into her presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose to face him as he entered. She had his letter in her hand.
+Her beautiful hair, jealous, it seemed, to withdraw itself from the
+curioso’s very appraisement, was gathered into and concealed under a
+cap. Her features, thus robbed of their dazzling frame, looked
+curiously, sadly childish and forlorn. There were dark marks round her
+eyes&mdash;the scarce dissipated clouds of recent tears. Who can tell what
+emotions, at sight of this piteous, hard-driven loveliness, stirred
+the heart of the man opposite, and were repressed by his iron will?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This letter, sir,” said the Fair, holding out the paper in a hand
+which shook a little. “I have tacitly permitted you to presume a right
+to a personal answer to that which it proposes, because such a course
+appeared to me the least compromising. I cannot write my name, sir,
+nowdays&mdash;as scandal doubtless hath informed you&mdash;but Fortune will be
+using it to my discredit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Richard bowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is this difference only, madam: <i>my</i> word is the bond of a
+gentleman. I vowed you secrecy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is to assume, on your part,” she said quietly, “a
+confidentialness which, in its insult to misfortune, is at least not
+the <i>act</i> of a gentleman. Moreover, a gentleman, surely, had not taken
+advantage of circumstances to propose to destitution what affluence
+had once refused him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Beware, madam!” said Avenant. “Pride must make some sacrifices to
+virtue. If, in renewing a pure business offer, I, a simple instrument
+in the hands of Providence, give you an opportunity to maintain that
+priceless possession unimpaired, would it not be the truer
+self-respect to secure your honour at whatever cost to your
+sentiments?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have not forgotten, nor forgotten to
+resent, my self-constituted Mentor. I will assure him that, for the
+matter of my virtue, it is safe in my hands, though I have to arm
+those against myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good heavens, madam!” cried Avenant. “You are not at that resource?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give yourself no concern, sir,” she answered coldly. “The moral I
+learned of your insult, was to save myself in its despite.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His deep eyes glowed upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have sold your hair?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she answered; “to pay my debts. ’Twas your letter decided me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At a thousand pounds?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At a hundred.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she added, as if irresistibly, because she was still little more
+than a child, “And now, sir, how is the boaster vindicated? But your
+oath, I perceive, still goes beardless.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Within the hour only,” said he; and, thrusting his hand into his
+breast, he drew out the long tresses of the Fair With Golden Hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stared, amazed a moment; then threw herself upon her knees by a
+chair, weeping and crying out&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, I hate you, I hate you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He strode, and stood over her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I saw them through a window as I came. How could I mistake them?
+There is not their like in the world. But now, my oath redeemed, it is
+for you to say if I am to destroy them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, my hair!” she wept; “my one beauty!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have staked all on this,” he cried. “If your hair was your one
+beauty, my beard alone redeemed me from appalling ugliness by so much
+as it hid of me. Well, I have lost on both counts, if the net result
+is your hatred.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked up, with drowned bewildered eyes, and held out her hand
+blindly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give me back my hair,” she said, “and you shall have the hundred
+pounds.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nay, sweet Delilah,” quoth he; “for that would be to return you your
+strength, and I want you weak.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her arm dropped to her side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That you may insult me with impunity!” she said bitterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, Delilah!” he cried; “is it so bad, that the offer of my hand and
+heart is an insult to a woman?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sank back, sitting on her heels. From under her cap, fallen awry,
+curled shavings of gold hung out&mdash;the residue of a squandered wealth.
+Her eyes were wide with amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So bad?” she whispered. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was not a conformable wooer. The love-wise sex shall say if he was
+a diplomatic one. He threw himself on his knees beside the Fair,
+seized her in his bear-like grip, and kissed her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” he said, “it is neck or nothing. None but a parson can wipe out
+the stain. Hate me now, and put Love to bed for by and by.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She smiled suddenly&mdash;like the rainbow; like an angel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said, “if you insist. But the poor thing has slept so long
+in my heart, that it would fain wake up at last, and confess itself.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+The peer took his settlement with a very bad grace; but he had to take
+it, and there was an end of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Avenant,” whispered the Fair, on the evening of their wedding day, “I
+have been vain, spoiled, perhaps untruthful. But I wished to tell
+you&mdash;you can put me to sleep on the middle shelf of your cupboard.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has been converted into a closet for skeletons,” he said. “I was a
+bachelor then.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch14">
+THE LOST NOTES
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">The</span> faculty of music is generally, I believe, inimical to the
+development of all the other faculties. Sufficient to itself is the
+composing gift. There was scarcely ever yet a born musician, I do
+declare, who, outside his birthright, was not a born ass. I say it
+with the less irreverence, because my uncle was patently one of the
+rare exceptions which prove the rule. He knew his Shakespeare as well
+as his musical-glasses&mdash;better than, in fact; for he was a staunch
+Baconian. This was all the odder because&mdash;as was both early and late
+impressed upon me&mdash;he had a strong sense of humour. Perhaps an eternal
+study of the hieroglyphics of the leger lines was responsible for his
+craze; for craze I still insist it was, in spite of the way he took to
+convince me of the value of cryptograms. I was an obstinate pupil, I
+confess, and withstood to the end the fire of all the big guns which
+he&mdash;together with my friend, Chaunt, who was in the same line&mdash;brought
+to bear upon me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, I was honest, at least; for I was my uncle’s sole provisional
+legatee, and heir presumptive to whatever small fortune he had amassed
+during his career. And day by day, as the breach between us widened, I
+saw my prospect of the succession attenuating, and would not budge
+from my position. No, Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I said, and Bacon,
+Bacon; and not all the cyphers in the world should convince me that
+any profit was to be gained by either imagining or unravelling a
+single one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What, no profit!” roared my uncle. “But I will persuade you, young
+man, of your mistake before I’m done with you. Hum-ti-diddledidee! No
+profit, hey? H’m&mdash;well!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I saw that the end was come. And, indeed, it was an open quarrel
+between us, and I was forbidden to call upon him again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was sorry for this, because, in his more frolicsome and
+uncontroversial moments, he was a genial companion, unless or until
+one inadvertently touched on <i>the</i> theme, when at once he exploded.
+Professionally, he <i>could</i> be quite a rollicking blade, and his
+settings of plantation songs were owned to be nothing less than lyric
+inspirations. Pantomime, too, in the light of his incidental music,
+had acquired something more than a classical complexion; and, in the
+domain of knockabout extravaganza, not only did the score of “The Girl
+who Knew a Thing or Two” owe to him its most refined numbers, but also
+the libretto, it was whispered, its best Attic <i>bonnes-bouches</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, all that good company I must now forgo&mdash;though Chaunt tried
+vainly to heal the breach between us&mdash;and in the end the old man died,
+without any visible relenting towards me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt his loss pretty keenly, though it is no callousness in me to
+admit that our long separation had somewhat dulled the edge of my
+attachment. I expected, of course, no testamentary consideration from
+him, and was only more surprised than uplifted to receive one morning
+a request from his lawyers to visit them at my convenience. So I went,
+soberly enough, and introduced myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said the partner to whom I was admitted, in answer to a question
+of mine: “I am not in a position to inform you who is the principal
+beneficiary under our friend’s will. I can only tell you&mdash;what a few
+days before his death he confided to us, and what, I think, under the
+circumstances, you are entitled to learn&mdash;that he had quite recently,
+feeling his end approaching, realized on the bulk of his capital,
+converted the net result into a certain number&mdash;five, I think he
+mentioned&mdash;of Bank of England notes, and… burned ’em, for all we know
+to the contrary.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Burned them!” I murmured aghast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t say so,” corrected the lawyer drily. “I only say, you know,
+that we are not instructed to the contrary. Your uncle” (he coughed
+slightly) “had his eccentricities. Perhaps he swallowed ’em; perhaps
+gave ’em away at the gate. Our dealings are, beyond yourself, solely
+with the residuary legatee, who is, or was, his housekeeper. For her
+benefit, moreover, the furniture and effects of our late client are to
+be sold, always excepting a few more personal articles, which,
+together with a sealed enclosure, we are desired to hand over to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He signified, indeed, my bequest as he spoke. It lay on a table behind
+him: A bound volume of minutes of the Baconian Society; a volume of
+Ignatius Donnelly’s Great Cryptogram; a Chippendale tea-caddy (which,
+I was softened to think, the old man had often known me to admire); a
+large piece of foolscap paper twisted into a cone, and a penny with
+which to furnish myself with a mourning ring out of a cracker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I blushed to my ears, regarding the show; and then, to convince this
+person of my good-humoured sanity, giggled like an idiot. He did not
+even smile in reply, the self-important ass, but, with a manner of
+starchy condescension, as to a wastrel who was getting all his
+deserts, rose from his chair, unlocked a safe, took an ordinary sealed
+envelope from it, handed it to me, and informed me that, upon giving
+him a receipt, I was at liberty to remove the lot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks,” I said, grinding my astral teeth. “Am I to open this in your
+presence?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quite inessential,” he answered; and, upon ascertaining that I should
+like a cab called, sent for one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good morning,” he said, when at last it was announced (he had not
+spoken a word in the interval): “I wish you good morning,” in the
+morally patronizing tone of a governor discharging a prisoner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I responded coldly; tried, for no reason at all, to look threatening;
+failed utterly, and went out giggling again. Quite savagely I threw my
+goods upon the seat, snapped out my address, closed the apron upon my
+abasement, and sat slunk into the cavity behind, like a salted and
+malignant snail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently I thumped the books malevolently. The dear old man was
+grotesque beyond reason. Really he needn’t have left life cutting a
+somersault, as it were.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, as I cooled outwardly, a warmer thought would intrude. It drew,
+somehow, from the heart of that little enclosure lying at the moment
+in my pocket. It was ridiculous, of course, to expect anything of it
+but some further development of a rather unkind jest. My uncle’s
+professional connexion with burlesque had rather warped, it would
+appear, his sense of humour. Still, I could not but recall that story
+of the conversion of his capital into notes: and an envelope&mdash;&mdash;!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bah! (I wriggled savagely). It was idiotic beyond measure so to
+flatter myself. Our recent relations had precluded for ever any such
+possibility. The holocaust, rather! The gift to a chance passer-by, as
+suggested by that fool of a lawyer! I stared out of the window,
+humming viciously, and telling myself it was only what I ought to
+expect; that such a vagary was distinctly in accordance with the
+traditions of low comedy. It will be observed that I was very
+contemptuous of buffoonery as a profession. Paradoxically, a joke is
+never played so low as when it is played on our lofty selves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, I was justified, it appeared. It may be asked, Why did I
+not at once settle the matter by opening the envelope in the cab?
+Well, I just temporized with my gluttony, till, like the greedy boy, I
+could examine my box in private&mdash;only to find that the rats had
+devoured all my cake. It was not till I was shut into my sitting-room
+that I dared at length to break the seal, and to withdraw&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even as it came out, with no suggestion of a reassuring crackle, I
+realized my fate. And this was it: please to examine it carefully&mdash;
+</p>
+
+
+<figure>
+ <img src="images/img_197.jpg" alt="Musical notes">
+</figure>
+
+<p>
+Now, what do you make of it? “<i>Ex nihilo nihil fit</i>,” I think you will
+say with me. It was literally thus, carefully penned in the middle of
+a single sheet of music-paper&mdash;a phrase, or <i>motif</i>, I suppose it
+would be called&mdash;an undeveloped memorandum, in fact&mdash;nothing else
+whatever. I let the thing drop from my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No doubt there was some capping jest here, some sneer, some vindictive
+sarcasm. I was not musician enough to tell, even had I had spirit for
+the endeavour. It was unworthy, at least, of the old man&mdash;much more,
+or less, than I deserved. I had been his favourite once. Strange how
+the <i>idée fixe</i> could corrode an otherwise tractable reason. In
+justice to myself I must insist that quite half my disappointment was
+in the realization that such dislike, due to such a trifle, could have
+come to usurp the old affection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by I rose dismally, and carried the jest to the piano. (Half a
+crown a day my landlady exacted from me, if I so much as thumped on
+the old wreck with one finger, which was the extent of my talent.)
+Well, I was reckless, and the theme appeared ridiculously simple. But
+I could make nothing of it&mdash;not though Mrs. Dexter came up in the
+midst, and congratulated me on my performance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she was gone I took the thing to my chair again, and resumed its
+study despondently. And presently Chaunt came in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hullo!” he said: “how’s the blooming legatee?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pretty blooming, thanks,” I said. “Would you like to speculate in my
+reversion? Half a crown down to Mrs. Dexter, and the use of the tin
+kettle for the day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Done,” he said, “so far as the piano’s concerned. Let’s see what
+you’ve got there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had known of my prospective visit to the lawyers, and had dropped
+in to congratulate me on <i>that</i> performance. I acquainted him with the
+result; showed him the books, and the tea-caddy, and the penny, and
+the remnants of foolscap&mdash;finally, handed him the crowning jest for
+inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pretty thin joke, isn’t it?” I growled dolefully. “Curse the money,
+anyhow! But I didn’t think it of the old man. I suppose you can make
+no more of that than I can?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was squinting at the paper as he held it up, and rubbing his jaw,
+stuck out at an angle, grittily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“H’m!” he said, quite suddenly, “I’d go out for a walk and revive
+myself, if I were you. I intend to hold you to that piano, for my
+part; and you wouldn’t be edified.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” I said: “I’ve had enough of music for a lifetime or so! I fancy
+I’ll go, if you won’t think me rude.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On the contrary,” he murmured, in an absorbed way; and I left him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took a longish spin, and returned, on the whole refreshed, in a
+couple of hours. He was still there; but he had finished, it appeared,
+with the piano.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” he said, rising and yawning, “you’ve been a deuce of a time
+gone; but here you are”&mdash;and he held out to me indifferently a little
+crackling bundle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without a word I took it from his hand&mdash;parted, stretched, and
+explored it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good God!” I gasped: “five notes of a thousand apiece!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was rolling a cigarette.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” he drawled, “that’s the figure, I believe.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For you&mdash;from your uncle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But&mdash;how?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lighted, took a serene puff or two, drew the <i>jest</i> from his
+pocket, and, throwing it on a chair, “You’ll have to allow some value
+to cryptograms at last,” he said, and sat down to enjoy himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chaunt!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O,” he said, “it was a bagatelle. An ass might have brayed it out at
+sight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please, I am something less than an ass. Please will you interpret
+for me?” I said humbly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He neighed out&mdash;I beg <i>his</i> pardon&mdash;a great laugh at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O,” he cried: “your uncle was true blue; he stuck to his guns; but I
+never really supposed he meant to disinherit you, Johnny. You always
+had the first place in his heart, for all your obstinacy. He took his
+own way to convince you, that was all. Pretty poor stuff it is, I’m
+bound to confess; but enough to run <i>your</i> capacities to extinction.
+Here, hand it over.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be hard on me,” I protested, giving him the paper. “If I’m all
+that you say, it was as good as cutting me off with a penny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he answered: “because he knew very well that you’d apply to me
+to help you out of the difficulty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, help me,” I said, “and, in the matter of Bacon, I’ll promise to
+be a fool convinced against my will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No doubt,” he answered drily, and came and sat beside me. “Look
+here,” he said; and I looked:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<figure>
+ <img src="images/img_200.jpg" alt="Musical notes">
+</figure>
+
+<p>
+“You know your notes, anyhow,” said he. “Well, you’ve only got to read
+off these into their alphabetical equivalents, and cut the result into
+perfectly obvious lengths. It’s child’s play so far; and, indeed, in
+everything, unless this rum-looking metronome beat, or whatever it may
+be, bothers you for a moment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put his finger on the crazy device perched up independently in the
+left-hand corner; and then came down to the lines again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let that be for the moment,” said he. “It don’t much signify, after
+all. How do these notes go? that’s the main question. Read ’em off.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I spelt them out, following his finger: “b a c e f d e c a d e c.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a good boy,” he said. “And now, what are these things beyond,
+that have run off the lines, so to speak?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are they? Why, I don’t see what they can be but notes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Exactly. Five notes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stared at the bundle in my hand, and then up at Chaunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O-o-o-o!” I exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He uttered a loud ironic laugh. “Well,” he said: “what does ‘b a c e f
+d e c a d e c’ spell?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I scratched my nose. “You tell me, please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O Jerusalem!” he cried, and took his pencil to the line, thus: b a c
+| e f | d e | c a d e | c&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well?” he said again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shook my head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He positively stamped. “Listen here,” he cried: “&hairsp;‘bac ef de cad-e
+c’&mdash;<i>don’t</i> you see?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, you ineffable ass! ‘Back of the caddy’ (that’s to say the
+tea-caddy; there it is), ‘see’&mdash;see what? What follows? Why, five
+notes, don’t they? ‘Back of the caddy see five notes’&mdash;and there
+<i>they</i> are.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sank in a heap in my chair. Light had dawned on me. “And you found
+’em there, I suppose?” I murmured&mdash;“behind a false back or something?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded. “You’re getting on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And, please, what’s the thing at the top?” I continued faintly. “Let
+me get it all over at once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” he said: “there’s a trifle more ingenuity in that, perhaps. What
+is it, to begin with? A demisemiquaver balanced on the top of an M Y,
+eh?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So it appears to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To any one. Don’t be frightened. Try it every way round, and conclude
+with this: ‘On the top of M Y’&mdash;that is to say, ‘<i>on</i> M Y,’ which is
+<i>my</i>, ‘a demisemiquaver’: or, shorn of all superfluities (he pencilled
+it down), thus: ‘on my demisemiquaver.’ Now apply the same process.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked; pondered; felt myself instantly and brilliantly inspired;
+seized the pencil from him, and ticked off the measurements:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On my demise | mi | q | u | av | er.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Exactly,” said Chaunt, rising with the air of an at-length-released
+martyr, and proceeding to roll another cigarette: “&hairsp;‘On my demise, my
+cue you have here.’ ’Pon my word, without irreverence, it’s worthier
+of the composer of ‘Say, den, Julius, whar yo’ walkin’ roun’?’ than of
+the author of ‘Some Unnoticed Sides of Bacon.’ But all one can say is
+that he adapted himself to the intellectual measure of his legatee.
+Have you got a match?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I must end, I am really ashamed to say, with this. Anyhow, in one way
+my uncle was triumphant: I was convinced, at last and at least, of <i>a</i>
+value in cryptograms.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch15">
+THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE<br>
+WORLD
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">He</span> was nicknamed, ironically, Carabas&mdash;a sort of French equivalent
+for Fortunatus&mdash;the only title by which I ever knew him. Perhaps the
+underlying sympathy which impelled the jest reconciled him to its
+mockery; for there is, after all, an acute distinction in being the
+unluckiest man in the world. Somebody says somewhere that it is better
+to “lead” in hell than be a super in heaven. There came a time, I
+think, when Carabas would have resented good fortune as an outrage. It
+would have broken his record, and made him commonplace at a blow. As
+with Hawthorne’s young woman who was bred and throve on poisons, a
+normal dietary would have been fatal to him. Carabas was nurtured on
+ill-luck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made his acquaintance at Verey’s in Montreux. It was for ever
+Carabas here and Carabas there, and, sometimes, in badinage, M. le
+Marquis; for the fellow was always in huge request for his capability
+and good-humour. There was a great deal of commiseration being shown
+for him when I first arrived. Latterly he had drawn a prize
+ticket&mdash;for thirty thousand francs, I think it was&mdash;in some State
+lottery. But, alas! a few days before the declaration of the winning
+numbers, he had parted with his voucher for a trifle over cost price.
+We got up a consolation subscription for him in the hotel&mdash;relatively,
+quite a respectable little sum&mdash;which, with effusive thanks, he
+deposited in the Bureau de Secours Mutuels. The bank stopped payment
+almost at once, and Carabas lost his nest-egg, with a prospect of
+future “calls” from the parent cuckoo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After that, we abandoned him to his Nemesis. We had recognized
+finally, I suppose, that vails to him meant nothing but tips to his
+evil destiny, to whom, as to a rapacious head-waiter, they all
+accrued. And so he himself was convinced with us. He showed himself
+neither surprised nor aggrieved; but remained the sunniest fatalist,
+with just a touch of wistfulness, which Nature had ever produced out
+of a union between Candour and Philosophy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I don’t know what his official position was. I don’t think he knew
+himself. He wore a plain peaked cap, and a sleeved waistcoat with
+brass buttons, and was, loosely, jackal to the tremendous concierge
+whose bullion took the costly glass tabernacle in the hall with
+splendour. Carabas himself was not at all a figure of splendour. He
+was small, and placable in expression, with smiling cheeks, mobile
+lips, pencilled over by a tiny black moustache, and strength visible
+in nothing but his eyes. They were his vouchers of distinction above
+the common brand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One thing certain about him was that he was an accomplished linguist;
+a second, that, for all his unspoiledness, he had a large experience
+of man, and (notably) womankind; a third, that his courage was equal
+to his good temper; a fourth, that, with every natural claim to
+consideration, his pride halted at no service, whether of skill or
+complaisance, which an unscrupulous management could exact of him; a
+fifth and last, that he permitted his employers so to presume upon his
+reputation for successlessness, as to accept from them, in reward for
+his many accomplishments, wages which would have been cheap to
+inefficiency. His own material welfare, indeed, seemed always the
+thing remotest from his interests. To be helpful to others was the sum
+of his morality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I never could satisfy myself as to his nationality. Once&mdash;as one might
+ask him anything without offence&mdash;I put the question to him. To my
+secret surprise, he seemed to hesitate a perceptible moment before he
+answered, with a smiling shrug of his shoulders&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cosmopolitan, monsieur; a foundling of Fortune.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We should do very well, then,” I answered, “to claim you for
+England.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was it fancy on my part that his pleasant face paled a little? “As to
+that,” he said, “I know nothing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have never been in England?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made no reply, but began bustling over some incoming luggage,
+calling to the porters at the lift; and in a moment he left me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day he was taken ill. The reversion of a service of raw
+oysters, supplied to the guests at table d’hôte, had found its way to
+the supper-table of the staff. Carabas detested oysters, but his
+gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial, and Ninette, the prettiest
+of <i>filles de cuisine</i>, sat next to him. She extracted a single
+“bivalve” from her half-dozen, and put it on his plate, moueing at him
+ravishingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Love conquers everything, M. Carabas,” she said; “even the
+antipathies of the stomach. I will not believe in your protestations
+unless you eat this for my sake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swallowed it at a gulp, and&mdash;it was a bad oyster, the only doubtful
+one in the whole consignment. Later, he was very sick; and afterwards
+ill for four days. Ninette cried, and then laughed, and congratulated
+herself on her escape. But as for the hotel, it was disconsolate in
+the temporary loss of its Carabas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For my part, I was even particularly conscious of a vague discomfort
+in his absence. Somehow a certain personal responsibility which I had
+undertaken seemed to weigh upon me the more heavily for it. It was not
+that Carabas could have lightened, by any conceivable means, my
+burden. It was just a sense of moral support withdrawn at a critical
+moment. It was as if the knees of my conscience were weak, owing to
+something having gone wrong with my backbone. But I will explain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, a very famous lawyer in our own country, had brought his
+family, a son and daughter, to holiday in Lucerne. The boy was a
+conceited and susceptible youth; to the lady I was&mdash;engaged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There seems no reason why impressionability should spell obstinacy;
+yet very often it does. Young Miller (so I will call him) having
+invited himself, at the Schweitzerhof, into the toils of a siren&mdash;a
+patently showy and dubious one&mdash;resisted all the efforts of his family
+to help him out. Baffled, but resolute, the father thereupon shifted
+the scene to Montreux, where they were no sooner arrived than he was
+summoned home on business at a moment’s notice. In the meanwhile, to
+me (hastily called from Paris, where it had been arranged I was to
+join the party on its homeward journey), was assigned the unenviable
+and impossible task of safeguarding the family interests. Miller had
+positively refused to accompany his father home, then or thereafter,
+until his absurd “honour,” as he called his fatuity, was vindicated.
+It would never do to abandon the wretched infant in the wilderness. He
+had his independence, and was a desirable <i>parti</i>. Hence my promotion
+to an utterly fictitious authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I knew, naturally, how it would be; and so it turned out. The head was
+no sooner withdrawn, than Mademoiselle Celestine&mdash;privately advised,
+of course, of the fact&mdash;arrived at Verey’s. Here, then, was defiance
+unequivocal&mdash;naked and unashamed, I might have said, and been nearer
+the truth of the case. For mademoiselle’s charms were opulent, and she
+made no secret of them. One would have thought a schoolboy might have
+seen through that rouge and enamel, through the crude pencilling on
+those eyelashes, through all that self-advertising display. I will not
+dwell upon its details, because their possessor made, after all, only
+a summer nightmare for us, and was early discomfited. She served, at
+best, for foil to a brighter soul; and such is her present use in the
+context.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the outset there was no finesse, no pretence of propitiation in
+her tactics. She understood that it was a matter of now or never with
+her quarry, and aimed to bring him down sitting. A woman, even the
+best of her sex, never gives “law” in these matters. She goes out to
+kill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two together formed an opposition camp&mdash;quite flagrantly, out in
+the sunlight. I thought sometimes the boy looked unhappy; but the
+witch would never let me have <i>him</i> to myself, and I could not
+manœuvre <i>her</i> from under his guns. I would never have scrupled to
+roll her in the mud, could I once have got her alone. But she was too
+cunning for that; and, as for her companion, his warfare was, after
+all, an honourable warfare. And all the time I had my own particular
+Campaspe to safeguard, to console, to squire through the odious
+notoriety which her brother’s infatuation had conferred upon us all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Carabas, of course, who in the end procured us a way, his own,
+out of the difficulty. The scandal being common property, there was no
+need for him to affect an ignorance of it. Yet we never knew, until
+the moment of his decision, how it had been occupying his mind from
+the beginning, or how, quietly and unobtrusively, he had been studying
+to qualify himself as our advocate. “<i>Our</i> advocate,” I say; but I
+knew his brief was for the bright eyes of Campaspe. <i>He</i> struck for
+the credit of the hotel, he declared; and mam’selle was associated
+with the best of that. Anyhow he struck, and daringly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had risen from his bed on the fourth day, as smiling, as
+complaisant as ever. His presence, like a genial thaw, ameliorated the
+little winter of our discontent. We greeted his reappearance with
+effusion, and dated, from the moment of it, our restoration to the
+social sanities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a dusk, warm evening. The peaks of the Dent du Midi, thrust
+into a dewy sky, had been slowly cooling from pink to pearl-ash, like
+ingots of white-hot steel. Everything seemed one harmony of colour,
+except our thoughts, Campaspe’s and mine, as we strolled in the
+deserted garden. The Celestine and her victim had been out boating on
+the lake. We met them, unexpectedly returning. Mademoiselle was eating
+cherries out of a bag, and daintily spitting the stones right and left
+as she advanced. I don’t know how we should have faced the
+contretemps; I had no time, indeed, at the moment, to form a decision,
+before Carabas came softly and swiftly from a leafy ambush, and took
+command of the occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We all, I believe, instinctively recognized it for a critical one.
+Mademoiselle’s bosom, though she laughed musically (she had managed to
+preserve, it must be owned, the unspoiled voice of a <i>séductrice</i>)
+began to rise and fall in spasms. The portier addressed her without a
+moment’s hesitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I take the liberty to inform madame that she is in danger.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gave a little gasp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But is this comedy or melodrama?” she cried vehemently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is,” said Carabas, “as madame shall decide. I have the plot up
+my sleeve.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The plot!” she echoed, and fell staring at him; and then furiously
+from him to us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go on,” she said. “I know very well who has instigated you to this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She checked herself, and, smiling, put out a hand towards her
+companion, as if to ask, or give, reassurance. But I noticed, already
+to my satisfaction, that the boy did not respond. As for us, we were
+in complete darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I obey, madame,” said Carabas. “This plot is told in a word. There
+was once in Paris a certain notorious <i>courtisane et joueuse</i>. Will
+madame desire her name?&mdash;<i>à bon entendeur demi-mot</i>. One night this
+lady’s husband, a Corsican, from whom she was separated on an
+honourable allowance, visited, purely by accident, her establishment.
+There was a fine scene, and he wounded her severely. She was forced by
+the police to prosecute him, and the jury, amidst the plaudits of the
+public, gave their verdict&mdash;against madame. But, triumphant there, the
+husband’s vengeance was whetted rather than assuaged. He would throw
+himself upon the suffrages of his countrymen in a more drastic
+vindication of his honour. She had disguised herself&mdash;her name&mdash;had
+fled. He devoted himself to the business of pursuit. At length he
+believed he had traced her to an hotel in Territet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carabas shrugged his shoulders and his lips, stuck out his arms at
+right angles with his body, stiff from the elbow, and came to a
+significant stop. I declare I pitied the adventuress. Every expression
+but that of panic seemed eliminated from her face at a touch. She
+looked old and haggard; and then, as if conscious of her
+self-betrayal, collapsed in a moment, dropping her bag of cherries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am not very well,” she stammered; “the night air tries me.” She
+turned lividly upon the portier: “Par pitié, monsieur! C’est pour me
+prevenir que vous etes venu, non pour me trahir?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without waiting for his answer, she gathered herself together,
+literally, folding her train about her arm; made a desperate effort at
+self-command; wrenched out a smile, and went off, quavering a little
+airy chansonnette. But, after a few steps, despite her royal amplitude
+she was running. Carabas, very pale but self-possessed, picked up the
+bag, found one cherry in it, put it in his mouth abstractedly, and&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God!” cried Miller hoarsely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carabas jumped, and gulped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A thousand devils!” he cried. “You made me swallow the stone,
+monsieur.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy was in a fever of agitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is she really that&mdash;that sort?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My Campaspe fell upon his neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, my dear, O, my dear, I am so sorry!” she sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put her roughly, but not unkindly, away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m&mdash;I’m going back to England&mdash;to the governor,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Carabas,” I demanded privately, as we returned to the hotel, “is it a
+fact that&mdash;&mdash;?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The husband is here? No, monsieur; it is not a fact.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a <i>cause célèbre</i>. I was confident I recognized madame from
+the published prints. For the rest, it was just a chance shot; but it
+hit the mark.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Carabas, you are wonderful; and we shall not forget.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miller was as good as his word. With characteristic disregard for any
+but his own interests, he was gone the next morning, without sign or
+message, leaving us to wobble in his backwash of scandal, and to get
+out of it as best we could. His flight, of course, threw open all the
+doors of gossip. My business in Paris being unfinished, I had to go;
+but first I did my best to provide against unpleasantnesses by
+confiding Campaspe to the care of the least slanderous <i>dame de
+compagnie</i> I could find. I am afraid, nevertheless, she had but a poor
+time of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A week later I received a letter from Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, who in the interval
+had returned to Montreux.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All is happily over with all,” he wrote: “with the exception, that is
+to say, of poor Carabas, who is to undergo an operation for
+appendicitis. It appears that a cherry-stone, which he swallowed
+unwittingly, did the business. The management (OWLS!) demur to the
+expense. I have insisted (FOOLS!) upon undertaking it upon my own
+account. We owe much to him; and so do they (IDIOTS!). But they don’t
+understand how to pay your debts is very often the best foresight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a case of pitch and toss. For days, it appeared, Carabas’s life
+hung in the balance. In the meanwhile, I was enabled to rejoin Mr.
+G&mdash;&mdash; and his daughter at Montreux, and to take my share in the
+nursing. Between gratitude and indignation, we rather claimed Carabas
+among us. Campaspe the poor fellow simply adored. Once, when he
+fancied himself losing hold, he confided to her, while we stood by,
+some main incidents in his life. I retail them here, in an abbreviated
+form.
+</p>
+
+
+<h4>
+CARABAS’S STORY
+</h4>
+
+<p>
+“There is no doubt,” he said “that as truly as some men are born
+without a palate, so some men are born without luck. It is no use
+trying to remedy the deficiency; it is well, rather, to study to
+reconcile oneself to it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was born in an English village, of naturalized Huguenot parents.
+When I was nineteen, I fell passionately in love. I had for a rival a
+youth very strong and unscrupulous. One day he persuaded me to bathe
+with him in the river, then swollen with floods. In mid-stream he
+pounced upon me, and strove to bear me under. I struggled
+desperately&mdash;it was of no avail. Death thundered in my ears; the water
+enwrapped and proceeded to swallow me. The last thing I saw was a
+figure gesticulating and shouting on the bridge a little way above;
+then consciousness fled, and I sank. I came to myself, stranded
+somewhere in a dark channel. A mad face was bending over me. I knew
+it&mdash;it was that of the miller. I had been carried into his race, and,
+just short of the wheel, he had caught and dragged me to shore. He was
+a drunkard, of that I was aware; and he was now quite demented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Mordieu!’ he said, ‘I see what you’ve come for, and the devil shan’t
+call twice for his own.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I understood instantly. He meant himself to go with me into the
+water&mdash;to join issues with the devil who had called for him, and have
+a fine frolic into eternity with his visitor. Terror lent me strength.
+I caught at a post, and, as he leaned down, shot my whole body at him
+like a spring. He went over with a splash, and I heard the wheel
+hitch, then begin to turn again, chewing its prey. O, my friends, what
+a situation! I lay like one damned, a thousand dreadful reflections
+mastering me. I should be accused, if caught, of murdering this man.
+That terror quite devoured the other, and increased with every moment
+that I lay. Darkness came upon me, and then I rose and fled. I thought
+of nothing but to escape; and so, stealing always by night, I reached
+London.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I
+read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your
+Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual
+spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to <i>save me</i> from
+drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his
+marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead;
+and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave&mdash;for my body, it appeared,
+had never been recovered&mdash;the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not
+complain, therefore. Yet&mdash;ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of
+sympathizers!&mdash;<i>she</i> had been very dear to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could
+go on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I obtained work&mdash;under an assumed name, of course&mdash;and for many years
+found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for
+languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more
+than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and
+soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize.
+Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the
+other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees
+him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for
+companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the
+Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the
+train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of
+the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the
+distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he
+could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform.
+Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and
+on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full
+horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite
+scares, and&mdash;ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already
+perceived my misfortune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a
+great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was
+certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as
+certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now
+possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon
+the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the
+smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform
+without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been
+passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make
+my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had
+fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to
+find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human
+monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for
+the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward
+on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now
+give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought
+that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this
+dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end
+before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur,
+if he likes, to vindicate my name.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+As he finished, Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, whose face had been wonderfully kindling
+towards the end, bent over the bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter,
+confessed the whole truth before he died.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carabas sprang up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Monsieur!” he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am a lawyer,” said Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;; “I was connected with the case. The
+man confessed, I say. If I had only known that&mdash;Carabas! Carabas! you
+were the one witness we wanted, and could not find!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Campaspe knelt down, and put a pitiful young arm round the shoulders
+of the unluckiest man in the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not only we now,” she said softly, “but others also, it seems, owe
+you a great debt, dear Carabas. We shall all be unable to pay it if
+you die. If&mdash;if I give you a kiss, will you live to return it to me on
+my wedding day?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mademoiselle!” cried Carabas, radiant. “You shame ill-luck; you shame
+even Death. See how they turn and go out by the door! Vouchsafe me
+that dear mascot, and I swear I will live for ever.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He is now, and has been for long, our most loved and trusted servant,
+with an iron constitution, and, what is best, an unshakable conviction
+that the circumstances which led him on to his present position were,
+after all, the kindest of luck in disguise.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch16">
+JACK THE SKIPPER
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“<span class="sc">Will</span> you favour me by looking at it, young gentleman?” said the
+petitioner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>It</i> was a most curious little model, which the petitioner had taken
+reverently out of a handbag. He was a hungry, eager-looking man, in a
+battered bowler, shabby frockcoat, and a primordial “comforter” which
+might have been made for Job.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Edward Cantle, busy at his desk, paid no attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It turns, sir, literally, on a question of fresh butter,” said the
+petitioner. “Who gets it nowadays, or realizes how, between churn and
+table, every pat becomes a dumping-ground for bacilli? Here, you will
+observe, the whole difficulty is resolved. We lead the cow into the
+cart itself, milk her into a separator, turn her out, drive off, and
+the revolution of the wheels completes the process. See? No chance for
+any freebooting germ! The result is simplicity itself&mdash;the customer’s
+butter made actually on the way to his door.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cantle put his pen in his mouth, blotted what he had been at work
+on, examined it cursorily but surely, rose, walked to the counter, and
+presented a form to the petitioner, all something with the air of a
+passionless police-inspector. He was a tall young man, loose-limbed,
+and with all his hardness, like a melancholy Punch’s show character,
+in his head. Much converse with cranks had engendered in him an air of
+perpetual unspoken protest, of exasperated resignation. For he was a
+trusted clerk in the office of the Commissioners of Patents for
+Inventions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Exactly,” he mumbled over the goose-quill. “Thats a matter for your
+provisional specification. Good morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s the most wonderful&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course&mdash;they all are. Good morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It will revolutionize&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Naturally. You will make your petition and declaration in the proper
+forms. Good morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inventor essayed another effort or two, met with no response,
+quavered out a sigh, packed up his treasure and vanished. The sound of
+his exit neither relaxed nor deepened a wrinkle on the brow of the
+neatly groomed Government official. He simply went on with his work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half-past one o’clock, it being Saturday, he&mdash;we were going to say
+“knocked off,” but the expression would be a libel on his methodical
+refinement. He took a hansom&mdash;selecting a personably horsed one&mdash;to
+his chambers in Adelphi Terrace; lunched off four <i>pâté de foie
+gras</i> sandwiches, already awaiting him under a silver cover, and a
+glass of chablis; changed his dress for a river suit of sober-tinted
+flannel and a Panama hat; charged himself with a morocco handbag, also
+ready prepared; drove to Waterloo, and took a first-class ticket, and
+the train&mdash;he favoured the South-Western because it was the quieter
+line of two in this connexion&mdash;to Windsor. Arrived there, he was
+hailed and joined by a friend on the platform.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Glad you’re come, Ned. I’m off colour a bit. You never are.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was hardly an attractive reception. Mr. Cantle glanced
+interrogatively at his companion, the Honourable Ivo Monk, son of Lord
+Prior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No?” he said. “What’s disturbing you, Monk?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, the devil, I think!” said the young man peevishly. “Come along,
+do, out of this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Together they walked down to the river in almost absolute silence. Mr.
+Cantle had agreed to join his friend for an agreeable week-end on the
+water. It looked promising. He thought a little, and came to a
+characteristically uncompromising decision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it anything to do with Miss Varley?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She&mdash;they have a houseboat here, haven’t they?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Close by?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“More or less. Just above Datchet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then, I think, perhaps I’d better&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then, I think, perhaps, you’d not. You don’t know anything about it.
+It’s not what you suppose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A punt, in luxurious keeping with the tastes of its owner, awaited
+them at the steps. It was equipped with a number of little lockers for
+wine and food, a wealth of the downiest cushions, and an adjustable
+tilt with brass hoops for “roughing it” at nights on the water. For
+the Honourable Ivo was at the moment an aquatic gipsy, wandering at
+large and at whim, and scorning the effeminate pillow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They loitered through Romney lock, talking commonplaces, and below
+relinquished their poles and sat and drifted until the reeds held them
+up. It was a fair, sweet afternoon, full of life and merriment, and,
+in view of the crowding craft, the remotest from ghostliness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would you like to see her?” said Mr. Monk suddenly and unexpectedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cantle was never to be taken off his guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If it will please you, it will please me,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They resumed the poles and made forward. To their left a little sludgy
+creek went up among the osiers; and, anchored at its mouth, rocked the
+vulgarest little apology for a houseboat. It seemed just one cuddy,
+mounted on a craft like a bomb-ketch, which it filled from stem to
+stern; and what with its implied restrictedness, and dingy appearance,
+and stump of a chimney, one could not have imagined a less inviting
+prison in which to make out a holiday. Yet there was a lord to this
+squalid baby galliot, and to all appearance a very contented one, as
+he sat smoking a pipe, with his legs dangling over the side. Monk
+nodded to him, and the man nodded back with a grin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Cantle, when out of earshot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, a crank! You should recognize the breed better than I do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Cantle, thoughtfully nursing his jaw, with a frown on his face,
+had left off punting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you know him?” he said suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We exchange civilities,” answered the other; “the freemasonry of the
+river, you understand. <i>There’s</i> the Varleys’ boat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forging under the Victoria Bridge, they had come in view of a long
+line of houseboats moored under the left bank against a withy bed,
+opposite the Home Park. At one of these, hight the “Mermaid,” very
+large and handsome, they came to, and fastening on, stepped aboard. A
+sound of murmuring ceased with their arrival, and Cantle had hardly
+become aware of two figures seated in the saloon, before he was being
+introduced to one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Varley was certainly “interesting”&mdash;tall and “English,” but with
+an exhausted air, and her eyes superhumanly large. She greeted the
+stranger sweetly, and her fiancé with a rather full, pathetic look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mamma’s resting a little,” she said, in a bodiless voice, “and
+Nanna’s been reading to me. Papa comes down by the seven o’clock
+train.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what’s Nanna been reading?” asked the young man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old nurse held up the volume. It was the Holy Book. Monk ground
+his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, Master Ivo!” whispered the woman. “You only distress her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather see her reading a yellow-back on a July day on the river.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl put a hand on his arm. “When the call has come? When my days
+are numbered, Ivo?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He almost burst out in an oath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather, if I were you, be recognized and called by my own name
+and nature,” he said bitterly. “But it’s all nonsense, Netta. Do, for
+God’s sake, believe it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was so obviously overwrought, the situation was so painful, that
+his friend persuaded him, on personal grounds, to leave. They punted
+across, dropped down a distance, and brought up under the bank in a
+quiet spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well,” said Cantle. “You’ll tell me, perhaps, what’s the
+matter?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t you see? She’s dying.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He dropped his face into his hands, with a groan of impotent
+suffering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s some mystery here,” said his friend quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monk looked up, and burst out in a sudden lost fury&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is, by God! Jack the Skipper!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cantle was rolling a cigarette imperturbably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s&mdash;Jack the Skipper?” he drawled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you could tell me,” cried the other. “I wish you could show
+these the way to his throat!” He held out his hands. “They’d fasten!”
+he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came all of a sudden, quite quietly, and sat by his friend. “Its
+been going on for three weeks now,” he said rapidly. “They call him
+that about here&mdash;a sort of skit on the other&mdash;the other beast, you
+know. He appears at night&mdash;a sort of ghoulish, indescribable monster,
+black and huge and dripping, and utters one beastly sound and
+disappears. Nobody’s been able to trace him, or see where he comes
+from or goes to. He just appears in the night, in all sorts of
+unexpected places&mdash;houseboats, and bungalows, and shanties by the
+water&mdash;and terrifies some lonely child or woman, and is gone. The
+devil!&mdash;O, the devil! We’ve made parties and hunted him, to no good.
+It’s a regular reign of terror hereabouts. People don’t dare being
+left alone after dark. He frightened the little Cunningham child into
+a fit, and it’s not expected to recover. Mrs. Bancock died of an
+apoplexy after seeing it. And the worst of it is, a deadly
+superstition’s seized the place. Its visit’s got to be supposed to
+presage death, and&mdash;&mdash;” He seized Cantle’s hand convulsively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Damn it! It’s unnatural, Ned! The river’s haunted&mdash;here, in Cockney
+Datchet&mdash;in the twentieth century! You don’t believe in such
+things&mdash;tell me you don’t! But Netta&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His head sank on his breast. Cantle blew out a placid whiff of smoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But&mdash;Miss Varley?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know&mdash;you’ve heard, at least,” said the other, “what she was. The
+<i>thing</i> suddenly stood before her, when she was alone, one night.
+Well&mdash;you see what she is now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t see, nevertheless, why she don’t&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pack and run? No more do I. Put it to her if you like. I’ve said <i>my</i>
+say. But she’s in the grip&mdash;thinks she’s had her call&mdash;and there’s no
+moving her. Cantle, she’s just dying where she stands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cantle’s cigarette made a tiny arc of light, and hissed in the river.
+He had heard of epidemic hysteria. The world was full of cranks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” he said, “drop the subject, please. Shall I tell you of some
+fools I’ve come across in my time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He related some of his experiences in the Patent Office. The most
+impudent invention ever proposed, he said, was a burglar’s tool for
+snipping out and holding by suction in one movement a disk of window
+glass. His dry self-confidence had a curiously reassuring effect on
+the other. While they ate and drank and smoked and talked, the life of
+the river had become gradually attenuated and delivered to silence; a
+mist rose and hung above the water; sounds died down and ceased,
+concentrating themselves into the persistent dismal yelp of a dog
+somewhere on the bank above; the lights in the houseboats thinned to
+isolated sparks&mdash;twelve o’clock clanged from a distant tower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, all at once, he was alert and quietly active.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Monk, listen to me: I’m going to cure Miss Varley.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ned!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take the paddle and work up&mdash;up the river, do you hear? I’ll sit
+forward.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ghost of a red moon was rising in the east. They slipped on with
+scarce a sound. A sort of lurid glaze enamelled the water. All of a
+sudden a sleek bulk rose ahead right in their path, wallowed a moment
+like a porpoise, and disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good God!” cried Monk, in a choking voice, half rising from his seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keep down!” whispered his friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cantle! Did you see it? Cantle! It was he!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keep down!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They paddled on, past the last of the boats, through the bridge, on as
+far as the squat little bomb-ketch bulking black and menacing at the
+mouth of the creek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold on!” whispered Cantle. “Run her out of sight into the reeds. We
+must wade on board there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There? That fellow Spindler’s boat?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, now. That was his name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll soon know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They accomplished the feat, though near mud-foundered by the way, and
+scrambled, dripping, on board. The door of the cuddy yielded to their
+touch. Monk was beginning to gather dim light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t let me,” he whispered, almost sobbing. “Keep my hands off him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Leave him to me,” said Cantle gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a sound of life greeted them. They stole into the cabin and closed
+the door, almost, upon themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We must yield him to-night for the sake of to-morrow,” murmured
+Cantle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ned! If he goes again&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush! It’s not probable he’d risk a second visit, knowing her
+watched.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crack brightened as the moon rose: glowed into a ribbon of light.
+Suddenly Cantle gripped the other’s wrist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A stealthy puddling, sucking sound close by reached their ears. Over
+the side came swarming a great shapeless fishy creature, which settled
+with a sludgy wallop on the little triangle of foredeck almost at
+their feet. Monk gave a soft, awful gasp, and, with the sound, Cantle
+had dashed open the door and flung himself upon the monster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quick!” he cried; “you’ve got matches! Light a
+candle&mdash;lamp&mdash;anything! Lie still, Mr. Spindler. It’s all up. I know
+you and your Marine Secret Service suit! A knife now, Monk! Out he
+comes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was merciless with the blade when he got it, slashing and cutting
+at the oilskin suit, splitting it from top to toe. Mr. Spindler’s red
+beard and extravagant face came out of it like a death’s-head out of
+its chrysalis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There goes the proud monument of a lifetime,” said the madman. He had
+made no effort to resist. The first blow at this darling of his
+invention had seemed to hamstring him, morally and materially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For he was just one of Mr. Cantle’s cranks&mdash;had once invented a
+submarine travelling suit, with which he had hoped to inaugurate a new
+system of Secret Service for the Admiralty. It was an ingenious enough
+device, with some scheme of floating valves through which to breathe;
+but the authorities, after holding him on and off, would have none of
+it. Then the fate of many inventors had befallen him. Between
+practical ruin and a moral sense of wrong, he had gone crazy, and
+vowed warfare on the mankind which had discarded him. It should
+comprehend, too late, the uses of instant appearance and disappearance
+to which his invention could be put. He went mad, and ended his days
+in an asylum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the Monday morning Mr. Cantle posted back to the Patent Office; on
+the Tuesday Miss Varley was reading De Maupassant’s “Mademoiselle
+Fifi” under the awning of the “Mermaid’s” roof; and on the Wednesday
+Mr. Ivo Monk got her to name the day.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch17">
+A BUBBLE REPUTATION
+</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">One crowded hour of glorious life</p>
+<p class="i0">Is worth an age without a name.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">I had</span> never suspected Sweeting of a desire to be “somebody.” Indeed,
+the <i>jeunesse dorée</i>, in whose ranks Nature had seemed
+unquestioningly to bestow him, is not subject to diffidence, or prone
+to the wisdom which justifies itself in a knowledge of its own
+limitations. I was familiar with his placid, cherubic face at a minor
+club or two, in the Park, in Strand restaurants and Gaiety stalls; and
+it had never once occurred to me to classify him as apart from his
+fellows of the exquisite guild. If, like Keats, he could appreciate
+the hell of conscious failure, its most poignant anguish, I could have
+sworn, would borrow from some too-late realization of the correctest
+“form” in a hat-brim or shirt-collar. I could have sworn it, I say,
+and I should have been, of course, mistaken. Keats may have claimed it
+as his poetical prerogative to go ill-dressed, and to object, though
+John, to be dubbed “Johnny.” It remained to Sweeting to prove that a
+man might be a very typical “Johnny” and a poet to boot. But I will
+explain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day I entered the reading-room of the Junior Winston and nodded to
+Sweeting, who was seated solitary at the newspaper-table. While I was
+hunting for the “Saturday Review”&mdash;which was conducting, I had been
+told, the vivisection of a friend of mine&mdash;my attention was attracted
+by something actually ostentatious in Sweeting’s perusal of <i>his</i>
+sheet, and I glanced across. Judge my astonishment when I saw in his
+hands, not “Baily’s” or the “Pink ’Un,” but the very periodical I
+sought. I gasped; then grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hullo!” I said. “Since when have you taken to that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He attempted to reply with a face of wondering hauteur, but gave up at
+the first twitch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O,” he said rather defiantly, “you lit’ary professionals think no
+one’s in it but yourselves.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, this sort of thing,” he said, tapping the “Saturday”; “the real
+stuff, you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed,” I said, “we don’t. You’re always welcome to the reversion of
+my place in it for one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, me!” he said airily. “It don’t positively apply there, you see,
+being a sort of a kind of a professional myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My Sweet!” I exclaimed. “A professional&mdash;you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Write for the ‘Argonaut.’ Little
+thing of mine in it last number.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt faint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I see it?” I murmured. “If I don’t mistake, it’s under your elbow
+at this moment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it?” he answered, blushing flagrantly, “Lor’ bless me, so it is!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took it from his hand, opened it, and read, over his undoubted
+signature&mdash;Marmaduke Sweeting&mdash;the title, “The Fool of the Family.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” I thought, “of course. Like title like author.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I was wrong. The tale, a veritable <i>conte drolatique</i>, was as keen
+and strong as a Maupassant. I had no choice but to take it at a
+draught, smacking my lips after. Then I put the paper softly down and
+looked across at him. His harmless features were set in a sort of
+hypnotic smile, his hat was tilted over his eyes, and he was making
+constant mouthfuls of the large silver knob of his stick. My eyes
+travelled to and fro between this figure and the figures of print
+<i>that were he</i>. What possible connexion could there be between the
+two? I thought of Buffon writing in lace ruffles, and all at once
+recognized a virtue in immaculate shirt-cuffs, and decided to consult
+some fashionable hosier about raising my price per thousand words. In
+the meantime my respect for Sweeting was born.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So,” I said, “you are somebody after all?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Am I?” he answered, grinning bucolic. “Glad you’ve found it out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why,” I said, “honestly there’s genius in this story; but nothing to
+what you’ve shown in concealing that you had any. There must be much
+more to come out of the same bin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He flushed and laughed and wriggled, as I walked over and sat beside
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, I dare say!” he said. “Hope so, anyhow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not a doubt. What made you think of it, now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O! I thought of it,” he said; and, after all, there was no better
+reply to an idiotic question. I was beginning humbly to appraise
+intellectual self-sufficiency at its value, and to appreciate the
+hundred disguises of reason.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw a good deal of Sweeting, on his own initiative, after this. He
+would visit me in my rooms, and discuss&mdash;none too sapiently, I may
+have thought in other circumstances, and with the most ingenuous
+admiration for his own abilities&mdash;the values of certain characters as
+portrayed by him in a brilliant series, “The Love-Letters of a
+Nonconformist,” which had immediately followed in the “Argonaut” “The
+Fool of the Family,” and was taking the town by storm. Thus, “What
+d’ee think of that old Lupin, last number,” he would chuckle, “with
+his calling virtue an ‘emu,’ don’tcherknow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ha, yes!” I would correct him, with a nervous laugh. “&hairsp;‘Anæmia’ was
+the word. You meant it, of course.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, didn’t I say it?” he would answer. “It’s got a big swallow
+anyhow”; and then he would check himself suddenly, and, without
+further explanation, eye me, and begin to whistle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now I might recall the passage to which he referred (to wit, that
+every red blood corpuscle, being a seed peccancy, so to speak, made
+virtue an anæmia) and try to puzzle out a quite new significance in
+it. Suspecting that its author’s apparent naïveté was only assumed,
+I was respectfully guarded in my answers, and, when he was gone, would
+curiously ponder the perspicacious uses to which he would put them. He
+did not consult me, I felt, as an oracle; but rather drew upon me for
+the vulgar currency of thought, to which his exclusiveness was a
+stranger. He was very secret about his own affairs; though I
+understood that he was becoming quite an important “name” in the
+literary world. Ostensibly he was not, after that first essay, to be
+identified with the “Argonaut,” though any one, having an ounce of the
+proper appreciation, could scarcely fail to mark in the “Love-Letters”
+the right succession of qualities which had made the earlier story
+notable. Indeed, he suffered more than any man I knew from the
+penalties attaching to the popular author. The number of
+communications, both signed and anonymous, which he received from
+admirers was astonishing. Scarce a day passed but he brought me
+specimens of them to discuss and laugh over. I did not, I must admit,
+think his comments always in good taste; but then I was not personally
+subject to the flattering pursuit, and so may have been no more
+constituted to judge than a monk is of a worldling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These testimonies to his fame were from every sort of individual&mdash;the
+soldier, the divine, the poet, the painter, the actor (and more
+especially the actress), the young person with views, the social
+butterfly, the gushling late of the schoolroom, the woman of
+sensibility late of the latest lifelong passion for art or religion,
+and finding, as usual, the taste of life sour on her lips after a
+recent debauch of sentiment. They all found something in the
+“Love-Letters” to meet their particular cases&mdash;some note of subtle
+sympathy, some first intimation to their misunderstood spirits of a
+kindred emotion which had <i>felt</i>, and could lay its finger with divine
+solace on the spot. No longer would they suffer a barren
+grievance&mdash;that hair-shirt which not a soul suspected but to giggle
+over. To take, for example, from the series a typical sentence which
+served so many for a text&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>To whom does the materialist cry his defiance&mdash;to whom but to God?
+He cannot rest from baiting a Deity whose existence he denies. He
+forgets that irony can wring no response from a vacuum.</i>” A propos of
+which wrote the following:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">A Half-pay General</span>.&mdash;Don’t tell me, Sir, but you’ve served, like me,
+a confounded ungrateful country, and learned your lesson! Memorialize
+the devil rather than the War Office. You’ve hit it off in your last
+sentence to a T.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+<span class="sc">A Chorus Girl</span>.&mdash;Dear Sir,&mdash;You mean me to understand, I know, and
+you’re quite right. The British public has no more ears than a ass, or
+they’d reconise who ought to be playing Lotta in “The Belle of
+Battersea.” It’s such a comfort you can’t tell. Please forgive this
+presumptious letter from a stranger.&mdash;Yours very affectionately,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign2">
+<span class="sc">Dolly</span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+<span class="sc">An Apostolic Fisherman</span>.&mdash;I like your metaphor. I would suggest only
+“ground-baiting a Deity” as more subtly applicable to the tactics of
+a worldling. Note: “And Simon Peter said, ‘I go a-fishing.’&hairsp;”
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+Take, again, this excerpt: “<i>Doctors’ advice to certain patients to
+occupy their minds recalls the Irishman’s receipt for making a cannon,
+‘Take a hole and pour brass round it.</i>’&hairsp;” Of which a “True Hibernian”
+wrote&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Sir</span>,&mdash;I’ve always maintained that the genuine “bull,” fathered on my
+suffering country, came from the loins of the English lion. Murder,
+now! How could a patient occupy his doctor’s mind as well as his own,
+unless he was beside himself? And then he’d have no mind at all.
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+Or take, once more and to end, the sentence: “<i>The Past is that
+paradoxical possession, a Shadow which we would not drop for the
+Substance</i>”; which evoked the following from “One who has felt the
+Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret”&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>
+How strangely and exquisitely phrased! It brings, I know not how, the
+memory of the Channel before me. I have only crossed it once; but, O!
+the recollection! the solemn moving waters to which my soul went out!
+</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+These are specimens, but a few, of the responses wrung by Sweeting
+from the human chords he touched. There were, in addition, prayers
+innumerable for autographs, requests for the reading of manuscripts,
+petitions for gratis copies of his works, to be sold for any and every
+charity but the betterment of impecunious authors. He fairly basked in
+the sunshine of a great reputation. There was only one flaw in his
+enormous self-satisfaction. By a singular perversity and most
+inexplicable coincidence, every one of these signed documents was
+without an address. But, after all, coincidence, which is only another
+name for the favouritism of Fate, must occasionally glut itself on an
+approved subject. Sweeting was in favour with the gods, and enjoyed “a
+high old time of it,” principally, perhaps, because he did not appear
+to be ambitious of impressing any “set” but that with which he was
+wont to forgather, and above which he made no affectation now of
+rising superior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had an example one evening of this intellectual modesty, when
+casually visiting the Earl’s Court grounds. There I encountered my
+friend, the centre and protagonist of a select company in the
+enclosure. All exquisitely wore exquisite evening dress (for myself I
+always scornfully eschewed the livery), and all gravitated about
+Sweeting with the unconscious homage which imbecility pays to
+brains&mdash;“the desire of the moth for the star.” I could see at once
+that he was become their Sirius, their bright particular glory,
+reflecting credit upon their order. And he, who might have commanded
+the suffrages of the erudite, seemed content with his little
+conquest&mdash;to have reached, indeed, the apogee of his ambition&mdash;a
+one-eyed king among the blind. These suffered my introduction with
+some condescension, as a mere larva of Grub Street. They knew
+themselves now as the stock from which was generated this real genius.
+As for me, I was Gil Blas’s playwright at the supper of comedians. And
+then, at somebody’s initiative, we were all swaggering off together
+along the walks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, I had always had a sort of envy of the <i>esprit de ton</i> which
+unites the guild of amiable gadflies; and, finding myself here, for
+all my self-conscious intellectual superiority, of the smallest
+account, I grew quickly sardonic. If I knew who wrote the
+“Heptameron,” I didn’t know, even by sight, the Toddy Tomes who was
+setting all the town roaring and droning with his song, “Papa’s
+Perpendicular Pants.” It is a peevish experience to be “out of it,”
+even if the <i>it</i> is no more intelligible than a Toddy Tomes’s topical;
+and gradually I waxed quite savage. Reputation is only relative after
+all. There is no popular road to fame. As an abstract acquisition, it
+may be said to pertain at its highest to the man who combines quick
+perceptions with adaptive sympathies. I was not that man. In all, save
+exclusively my own company, I felt “out of it,” awkward because
+resentful, and resentful because awkward. I despised these asses,
+however franked by Sweeting, yet coveted, vainly, the temporary grace
+of seeming at home with them. I got very cross. And then we alighted
+on Slater.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I knew it for his name by Sweeting’s greeting him in response to his
+hail. He was seated at a little table all by himself, drinking
+champagne, and alternately turning up and biting the ends of a red tag
+of beard, and luridly pulling at a ponderous cigar. He was a small,
+dingy person, so obviously inebriated, that the little human clearing
+in which he sat solitary was nothing more than the formal recognition
+of his state. He also, it was evident, to my disgust, despised the
+conventions of dress, but without any of those qualms of
+self-consciousness with which I was troubled. He lolled back, his hat
+crushed over his eyes, a hump of dicky and knotted tie escaping from
+his waistcoat-front, his disengaged thumb hooked into an arm-hole&mdash;as
+filthy a little vagabond, confident and maudlin and truculent in one,
+as you could wish. And he hailed Sweeting as a familiar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My friend stopped, with a rather sheepish grin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hullo, Slater!” said he. “A wet night, ain’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our little group came chuckling all about the baboon. Even then, I
+noticed, I was the one looked upon with most obvious disfavour by the
+surrounding company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look here,” said Sweeting, suddenly gripping me to the front. “Here’s
+one of your cloth, Slate’. Let me introjuce you,” and he whispered in
+my ear, “Awfully clever chap. You’ll like him when you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I suppose my instant and instinctive repulsion was patent even to the
+sot. He lurched to his feet, and swept off his crumpled hat with an
+extravaganza bow. Sweeting’s pack went into a howl of laughter. It was
+evident they were not unacquainted with the creature, and looked to
+him for some fun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My cloth, sir?” vociferated the beast. “Honoured, sir, ’m sure, sir.
+Will you allow me to cut my coat according to it, sir? Has any
+gentleman a pair of scissors? Just the tails, sir, no more&mdash;quite
+large enough for me; and you’d look very elegent in an Eton jacket.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I tried to laugh at this idiotic badinage, and couldn’t.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, crikey, wouldn’t he!” said a vulgar onlooker. “Like a sugar-barrel
+in a weskit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, as everybody roared, I lost my temper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Sweeting. “It’s the way he’ll get his
+change out of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Change!” I snapped furious. “No change could be for the worse with
+him, I should think. Let me pass, please!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The odious wretch was pursuing me all the time I spoke, while the
+others hemmed me in, edging me towards him and roaring with laughter.
+Sweeting himself made no effort to assist me, but stood to one side,
+irresistibly giggling, though with a certain anxiety in his note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Call off your puppies!” I cried ragingly, and with the word was sent
+flying into the very arms of Slater. I felt something rip, and at a
+blow my hat sink over my eyes; and then a chill friendly voice entered
+into the mêlée.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, look here, Slater, that’ll do, you know!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I wrenched my eyes free. My champion was not Sweeting, but Voules, Sir
+Francis Voules, of whom more hereafter. He was cool and vicious, and
+as faultlessly dressed as the others, but in a manner somehow superior
+to the foppery of their extreme youth. He carried a light overcoat on
+his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O! <i>will</i> it?” said Slater.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I said so,” said Voules, pausing a moment from addressing me to
+scan him. Slater slouched back to his table. Nobody laughed again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meantime, Sir Francis was helping me to restore my hat to
+shape, and to don <i>his</i> overcoat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yours is split to the neck,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took my arm, and we strolled off together. The crowd, quite
+respectful, parted, and we were engulfed in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was grateful to Voules, of course, but inexplicably resentful of his
+cool masterfulness. Truth to tell, we were souls quite antipathetic;
+and now he had put me right&mdash;with everybody but myself. In a helpless
+attempt to restore that balance, I snarled fiercely, smacking fist
+into palm&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll have the law of that beast! You know him, it seems? I can’t
+congratulate you on your friends.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sweeting was most to blame,” said Voules quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I grunted, and strode on fuming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, after all,” said Voules, “the poor ass had to back up his
+confederate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I glanced at him as we walked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His confederate?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course. Didn’t you know? Slater really writes the things for which
+Sweeting gets the credit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, come, Voules! Here’s one of your foolhardy calumnies. You really
+should be careful. Some day you’ll get into trouble.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, very well!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You talk as if it were an open secret.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know Sweeting as well as I. Do you recognize his style in the
+Nonconformist lucubrations? Possibly you’ve had letters from him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve some specimens of letters <i>to</i> him now&mdash;letters from admirers.
+If anything were needed to refute your absurd statement, there they
+are in evidence.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gave a little dry laugh; then touched my sleeve eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You wouldn’t think it abusing a confidence to show me those letters?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know why. Sweeting’s laid no embargo on me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well. If you’ll let me, I’ll come home with you now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stumbled on in a sort of haze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not believe this to be any more than a mad shot in the dark. Sir
+Francis was one of those men who made mischief as Pygmalion made
+Galatea. He fell in love with his own conceptions&mdash;would go any
+lengths to gratify his passion for detraction. Do not suppose, from
+his prefix, that he was a bold, bad baronet. He was just an actor of
+the new creation&mdash;belonged to what was known by doyens of the old
+Crummles school as the be-knighted profession. The stage was an
+important incident in his social life, and he seldom missed a
+rehearsal of any piece to which he was engaged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know this Slater?” I said, as I drove in my latchkey. “As what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As a clever, disreputable, and perfectly unscrupulous journalist.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Its preposterous! What could induce him to part with such a
+notoriety?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The highest bidder, of course.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What! Sweeting? If he’s still the simple Johnny you’d have him be?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m yet to learn that the simple Johnny lacks vanity.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, for him, such an unheard-of way to gratify it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Opportunism, sir. There are more things in the Johnny’s philosophy
+than we dream of.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I simply don’t believe it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voules read, with an immobile face, the letters which Sweeting had
+left with me. At the end he looked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you open to a bet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t afford it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never mind, then.” He rose. “Truth for its own sake will do. Anyhow,
+I presume you don’t object to countering on Slater?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, do what you like!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks. Would you wish to be in at the death?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just as you please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see,” said he, with a pleasant affectation of righteousness, “if
+my surmise is correct&mdash;and you’re the first one I’ve ventured to
+confide in&mdash;it’s my plain duty to prick a very preposterous bubble.
+Thank you for lending yourself to the cause of decency. Don’t say
+anything until you hear from me. Good-bye!”&mdash;and he was gone, followed
+by my inclination, only my inclination, to hurl a book after him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sat tight&mdash;always the more as I swelled over the delay&mdash;till, on the
+third day following, Sweeting called on me. He came in very
+shamefaced, but with a sort of suppressed triumph to support his
+abjectness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said; “and I gave him a bit of my
+mind after you’d gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed,” I answered good-humouredly; “that was what you couldn’t well
+afford, and it was generous of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was blankly impervious to the sarcasm. Had it been otherwise, my
+new-fledged doubts had perhaps fluttered to the ground. After a moment
+I saw him pull a paper from his pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look here,” he said, vainly trying to suppress some emotion, which
+was compound, in suggestion, of elation and terror. “You’ve made your
+little joke, haven’t you, over all those other people forgettin’ to
+put their addresses? Well, what do you think of <i>that</i> for the Prime
+Minister?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took from his hand a sheet of large official-looking paper, and
+read&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>
+<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;You may have heard of my book, “The Foundations of
+Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested to learn that I am
+contemplating a complete revision of its text in the light of your
+“Love-Letters.” They are plainly illuminating. From being a man of no
+assured opinions, I have become converted, through their medium, to a
+firm belief in the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me
+the honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-scribe
+the author of that incomparable series. I shall do myself the pleasure
+to call upon you at your rooms at nine o’clock this evening, when I
+have a little communication to make which I hope will not be
+unpleasing to you. Permit me to subscribe myself, with the profoundest
+admiration, your obedient servant,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sign2">
+<span class="sc">J. A. Burleigh</span>.
+</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” I murmured, feeling suffocated, “there’s no address here
+either.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he answered; “but, I say, it’s rather crushing. Won’t you come
+and help me out with it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you want <i>me</i> for?” I protested. “I’ve no wish to be
+annihilated in the impact between two great minds. You aren’t afraid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, no!” he said, perspiring. “It’ll be just a shake, and ‘So glad,’
+and ‘Thanks, awfully,’ I suppose, and nothing more to speak of. But
+you might just as well come, on the chance of helping me out of a
+tight place. It’s <i>viva voce</i>, don’tcherknow&mdash;not like writin’, with
+all your wits about you. And I shall get some other fellows there,
+too, so’s we aren’t allowed to grow too intimate; and you might as
+well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wonder what the ‘communication’ is?” I mused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, nothin’ much, I don’t suppose,” said Sweeting, with a blushing
+nonchalance. But it was evident that he had pondered the delirious
+enigma and emerged from it Sir Marmaduke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” I concluded rather sourly, “I’ll come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went away much relieved, and I fell into a fit of stupor. In the
+afternoon a telegram from Voules reached me, “Be at Sweeting’s 8.45
+to-night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At a quarter to nine I kept my appointment. Sweeting was insufferably
+well-to-do, and his rooms were luxurious. They were inhabited at the
+moment by an irreproachable and almost silent company. Among them I
+encountered many of the young gentlemen who had been witnesses of, and
+abettors in, my discomfiture the other night. But they were all too
+nervous now to presume upon the recognition&mdash;too oppressed with the
+stupendous nature of the honour about to be conferred upon their
+host&mdash;too self-weighted with their responsibility as his kindred and
+associates. They could only ogle him with large eyes over immensely
+stiff collars, as he moved about from one to another, panic-struck but
+radiant. It was the crowning moment of his life; yet its sweeter
+aftermath, I could feel, reposed for him in the sleek necks of
+champagne-bottles just visible on a supper-table in the next room. He
+longed to pass from the test to the toast, and the intoxicating memory
+of a triumph happily accomplished. And then suddenly Slater came in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was not expected, I saw in a moment. Indeed, how could such a
+death’s-head claim place at such a feast? He was no whit improved upon
+my single memory of him, unless, to give the little beast his due, a
+shade less inebriated. But he was as grinning, cocksure, and truculent
+a little Bohemian as ever. Sweeting stared at him aghast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good Lord, Slate’,” said he, “what brings you here, now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, your wire, old chap,” said the animal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never sent one, I swear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oho!” cries Slater, glaring. “D’ you want to go back on your word?
+Ain’t I fine enough for this fine company?” and he pulled a dirty
+scrap of paper out of his pocket, and screeched, “Read what you said
+yourself, then!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The telegram went round from hand to hand. I read, when it came to my
+turn: “Come supper my rooms 8.45 to-night. M. Sweeting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never sent it,” protested our host. “It must be a hoax. Look here,
+Slate’. The truth is, the Prime Minister wrote he wanted to make my
+acquaintance, because&mdash;because of the ‘Letters,’ you know; and&mdash;and
+he’s due here in a few minutes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The creature grinned like a jackal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My eyes, what fun!” he said. “I shall love to see you two meet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s&mdash;there’s fizz in the next room, Slate’,” said the miserable
+Sweeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You needn’t tell me,” said Slater. “I’d spotted it already.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then, before another word could be said, the door was opened, and
+the guest of the evening announced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came in smiling, ingratiatory, the familiar willowy figure in
+pince-nez. We all rose, and the stricken Sweeting advanced to meet
+him. The great man, looking, it is true, a little surprised over his
+reception, held out his hand cordially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And is this&mdash;&mdash;” he purred&mdash;and paused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sweeting did not answer: he was beyond it; but he nodded, and opened
+his mouth, as if to beg that the “communication” might be posted into
+it, and the matter settled off-hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did not, I confess,” said the Premier, glancing smilingly round,
+“expect my little visit of duty&mdash;yes, of duty, sir&mdash;to provoke this
+signal welcome on the part of a company in which I recognize, if I
+mistake not, a very constellation of the intellectual aristocracy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here a youth, with a solitaire in his eye, and a vague sense of
+parliamentary fitness, ejaculated “Hear, hear!” and immediately
+becoming aware of the enormity, quenched himself for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It makes,” went on the right hon. gentleman, “the strict limit to my
+call, which less momentous but more exacting engagements have obliged
+me to prescribe, appear the more ungracious. In view of this enforced
+restriction, I have equipped myself with a single question and a
+message. Your answer to the first will, I hope&mdash;nay, I am
+convinced&mdash;justify the tenor of the second.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He released, with a smile, the hand which all this time he had
+retained, much to Sweeting’s embarrassment, in his own. Finding it
+restored to him, Sweeting promptly put it in his pocket, like a tip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ask,” said the Premier, “the author of ‘The Love-Letters of a
+Nonconformist’ to listen to the following excerpt” (he produced a
+marked number of the “Argonaut” from his pocket) “from his own
+immortal series, as preliminary to some inquiry naturally evoked
+thereby”&mdash;and he read out, with the intonation of a confident orator:
+“&hairsp;‘We have (shall I not declare it, my sweet?) the most beautiful women
+and the most beautiful poets in the world&mdash;two very good things, but
+the latter unaccountable. Passion, in perpetuating, idyllically
+refines upon the features of its desire; hence the succession of
+assured physical loveliness in a race which, however insensible to the
+appeals of emotional and intellectual beauty, can understand and
+worship the beauty that is plain to see.’&hairsp;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the reader paused, and looking over his glasses with a smile,
+very slightly shook his head, and murmuring, “The <i>beauty</i> that is
+<i>plain</i> to see! H’m! a fence that I will recommend to Rosebery,”
+continued, “&hairsp;‘Passion endows passion, far-reaching, to bribe the gods
+with a compound interest of beauty. It touches heaven in imagination
+through its unborn generations. It tops the bunker of the world, and,
+soaring, drops, heedless of Time the putter, straight into the
+eighteenth hole of the empyrean.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Premier stopped again, and, looking gravely at Sweeting, asked,
+“What is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now I expected my friend to reveal himself, to sally brilliantly,
+referring his questioner, perhaps, to some satire in the making, some
+latter-day Apocalypse of which here was a sample extracted for bait to
+the curious. Well, he did reveal himself, but not in the way I hoped.
+He just strained and strained, and then dropped his jaw with the most
+idiotic little hee-haw of a laugh I ever heard, and&mdash;that was all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other, looking immensely surprised, repeated his question: “What,
+sir, I ask you, is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, the one the Irishman poured brass round.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started. It was not Sweeting who spoke, but Slater. The little demon
+stood grinning in the background, his tongue in his cheek, and his
+hands in his trousers pockets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“H’mph!” said the Prime Minister. “Very apt, sir. I recall the
+witticism. It is singularly applicable at the moment to the
+reorganization of the Liberal party. ‘Take a hole and pour brass round
+it.’ Exactly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His manner, there was no denying it, was extremely severe as he again
+addressed the perspiring Sweeting&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Once more, sir,” he said, “I resume our discussion of a passage, the
+intellectual rights in which you would seem to have made over to your
+friends.” And, with a positive scowl, he continued his reading.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘So well’ (writes the impassioned Nonconformist) ‘for the national
+appreciation of beauty that is physical. On the other hand (tell me,
+dear. It would come so reassuringly from your lips), what can account
+for the spasmodic recurrence in our midst of the inspired singer? What
+makes his reproduction possible among a people endowed with
+tunelessness, innocent of a metrical ear?’&hairsp;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quite abruptly the Prime Minister ended, and, deliberately folding his
+paper, hypnotized with a searching stare his unhappy examinee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The question, Mr. Sweeting,” said he, “is before the House. You will
+recognize it as ending&mdash;with some psychologic subtlety, to be
+continued in our next&mdash;number 10&mdash;the last published of the
+“Argonaut.” To me, I confess, the answer can be, like the Catholic
+Church, only one and indivisible. Upon the question of your conformity
+with my view depends the nature of the communication which I am to
+have the pleasure, conditionally, of making to you. Plainly, then,
+sir, what makes possible the spasmodic recurrence of the inspired
+singer in the midst of a people endowed with tunelessness and innocent
+of a metrical ear? I feel convinced you can return no answer but one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A dead silence fell upon the room. Sweeting scratched his right calf
+with his left foot, and giggled. Then in a moment, yielding the last
+of his wits to the unendurable strain, he gave all up, and, wheeling
+upon Slater&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, look here, Slate’!” he said. “What does?” and without waiting for
+the answer, drove himself a passage through his satellites, and
+collapsed half dead upon a sofa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Premier, with an amazing calm, returned the “Argonaut” to his
+pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Surely, sir,” said he, “this is inexplicable; but” (he made a
+denunciatory gesture with his hands) “it remains to me only to inform
+you that, conditional on your right reply to your own postulate, it
+was to have been my privilege to acquaint you of His Majesty’s
+intention to bestow upon you a Civil List pension of £250 a year;
+which now, of course&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was interrupted by Slater&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, that’s all one, sir! Fit the cap on the right head. The answer’s
+‘Protection,’ isn’t it? I ought to know, as I wrote, and am writing,
+the stuff.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>You</i>, sir!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All eyes were turned upon the beastly little genius, as he stood
+ruffling with greed and arrogance, and thence to the sofa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, shut up!” said Sweeting feebly. “It was only a joke. I paid him,
+handsome I did, to let me have the kudos and letters and things. He’d
+the best of the bargain by a long chalk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He-he!” screeched Slater. “Why, you fool, did you think merit earned
+such recognition in this suffering world? Hope you enjoyed reading
+’em, Sweet, as I did writing ’em.” He turned, half-cringing,
+half-defiant, upon the guest. “I’m the author of the ‘Love-Letters,’
+sir&mdash;honour bright, I am; and I wrote every one of the testimonials,
+too, that that ass sets such store by. You’ll take those into
+consideration, I hope.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shall, sir,” thundered the other&mdash;“in my estimate of a fool and his
+decoy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He blazed round and snatched up his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Make way, gentlemen!” he roared, and strode for the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A slip of pasteboard fluttered from his hand to the carpet; he flung
+wide the portal, banged it to behind him, and was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some one, in a sort of spasmodic torpor, picked up the card, and
+immediately uttered a gasping exclamation. We all crowded round him,
+and, reading the superscription at which he was pointing, “Mr.
+Hannibal Withers, Momus Theatre,” exchanged dumbfounded glances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, of course,” stuttered a pallid youth; “it was Withers, Voules’s
+pal; I reco’nize him now. He’s the Prime Minister’s double, you know,
+and&mdash;and he’s been and goosed us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What!” screamed Slater.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I was off in a fit of hysterical laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was actually a fact. It is a mistake to suppose that your
+professional scandal-monger is prepared to build except on a
+substratum of truth. Voules had pricked the bubble as he had promised.
+The bargain, it was admitted, had been struck&mdash;on Slater’s side for
+such a consideration as would submerge him in champagne had he desired
+it. He had written and sent the manuscripts to Sweeting, who had had
+them typed, and passed them on to the “Argonaut” as his own. But the
+real author knew that his tenure was insecure so long as the other’s
+colossal vanity was not ministered to. Hence the correspondence, in
+which the little monster burlesqued his own lucubrations. It might all
+have ended in a case of perpetual blackmail (Sweeting never could see
+beyond the end of his own nose) had not the bait answered so instantly
+to Voules’s calculations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a bitter attack on the immorality of the stage in the next
+number of the “Argonaut,” which subsequently had to compound with
+Voules under threat of an action for libel. But Sweeting had his wish.
+He was “somebody,” as never yet. Until he took his notoriety for a
+long sea-voyage, he was more crushingly than any gentleman in the
+“Dunciad” “damn’d to fame.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch18">
+A POINT OF LAW
+</h3>
+
+<p class="center mb1">
+BY A CAPTIOUS LITIGANT
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">Given</span> a wet night on circuit, a bar parlour with a chattering fire,
+a box of tobacco, a china bowl of punch, and a mixed forensic company
+to discuss the lot, and what odds would you lay for or against the
+chances of a good story or so?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Grope in your memory (before you answer) among legal collectanea and
+the newspaper reports of famous, or infamous, trials. What then?
+“Lord!” you admit, “these bones unearthed seem wretched remains
+indeed! I find your grooms of the horsehair, young and old, cracking
+their ineffable chestnuts for the benefit of an obsequious tipstavery;
+I find a bench so conservative that, though it be pitched in the very
+markets of chicanery, it is never to be won from its affected
+ignorance of those topical affairs which are matters, else apart, of
+common knowledge; I find the profession for ever given to whet its
+wits on a thousand examples of resourcefulness and impudence, and most
+often failing in the retort piquant.” Give me a cheeky witness to cap
+the best drollery ever uttered by counsel. Legal facetiæ, forsooth!
+The wit that tells is the wit that can cheat the gallows, not send to
+it. Any dullard can hang a dog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Look at the autobiographies of your retired legal luminaries: what
+scurvy bald reading they make as a rule. Look at&mdash;but no: he rests in
+Abraham’s bosom; he is studying the Mosaic law; we may be in need of
+him again some day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is an odd family likeness between the personalia of lawyers and
+of actors. The fellows, out of court, stripped of their melodramatic
+trappings, can’t raise a laugh which would tickle any one less than a
+bishop. They are obsessed with the idea of their own importance. Much
+self-inflation has killed in them all sense of proportion. They prove
+themselves, the truth is, dull dogs on revision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The law is not so exhausting a study as it appears on first sight to a
+layman. Given an understanding of its main principle, which is
+syllogism, and there you are already in its Holy of Holies. As, for
+instance, I call a man a beast: a cheetah is a beast: I have called
+the man a cheater&mdash;ergo, he can proceed against me for defamation.
+There is its rubric in a nutshell&mdash;perfectly simple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, <i>exceptis excipiendis</i>, there were Curran, and Erskine, and
+some others. There was also Brindley, the great Crown Prosecutor,
+whose eloquence was of such persuasiveness that it was said the very
+Bench <i>hung upon his word</i>. I had the chance to meet him once, in such
+a place and on such a night as I began by describing. It was in the
+“Maid’s Head” at Norwich, and my experience is at your service.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had, I knew, been a full list and a varied; yet the great man, it
+seemed, had found nothing in it all to stimulate his humorous
+faculties. The liveliness was all supplied by a pert Deputy Clerk of
+the Peace, whose bump of reverence was as insignificant as his
+effrontery was tremendous. The Bar began by tolerating him; went on to
+humour his sallies; chilled presently over his presumption; grew
+patronizing, impatient, and at last rude. He didn’t care; nor I,
+certainly. His readiness was the only relief from a congested boredom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The talk drifted, in the course of the evening, upon legal
+<i>posers</i>&mdash;circumstantial evidence, ex-statutory cases, and so forth.
+There were some dull examples proffered, and I observed, incidentally,
+that the Law, when it couldn’t hark back to precedent, was wont to
+grow a little hazy and befogged. Many solemn conundrums were
+propounded; but the Deputy Clerk, as usual, pushed himself to the
+front with an impertinence&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I slink out of the company of a bore, am I guilty of stealing from
+his person?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pooh, pooh!” said Brindley, with contempt. “Don’t be flippant, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Deputy Clerk was not a whit abashed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sir, to you,” he said. “If that isn’t liked, I’ll propose another. If
+a woman is divorced from her husband, and a child is born to her
+before the decree is made absolute, is that child, lawfully begot,
+legitimate or illegitimate?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were glad to take this seriously. I forget what the decision
+was&mdash;that, given the necessary interval between the decree and its
+confirmation, I think, the situation was virtually impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well,” said the Deputy Clerk. “But perhaps one can conceive such
+a question rising. Let it pass, however; and answer me this,
+gentlemen: If one is imprisoned unjustly&mdash;that is to say, for a crime
+one has not committed&mdash;and, breaking out of prison, gives proof of
+one’s innocence, can one be indicted for prison-breaking?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This, at least, was a fair poser, and discussion on it grew actually
+warm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bosh!” said a fierce gentleman. “You ain’t going to justify your
+defiance of the law by arguing that the law is liable to make an
+occasional mistake&mdash;don’t tell me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here a very young barrister dared the revolutionary sentiment that the
+law, being responsible in the first instance to itself, might be
+treated, if caught-stumbling <i>in flagranti delicto</i>, as drastically as
+any burglar with a pistol in his hand. He was called, almost shouted,
+down. The suggestion cut at the very root of jurisprudence. The law,
+like the king who typified it, could do no wrong; witness its
+time-honoured right to <i>pardon</i> the innocent victims of its own
+errors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It may detain and incarcerate one for being only a suspected person,”
+said Brindley. “That its suspicions may prove unfounded, is nothing.
+It must be <i>cum privilegio</i>, or the constitution goes. A nice thing if
+the Crown could be put on its defence for an error in judgment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A very nice thing,” said the Deputy Clerk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Brindley snorted at him. “Perhaps,” said he sarcastically, “the
+gentleman will state a case.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The gentleman desired nothing better. I would have backed him to hold
+his own, anyhow; but, in this instance, I was gratified to gather from
+his manner that he had a real story to tell. And he had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gentlemen,” he said, “it occurred within my fathers memory; but my
+own is good enough to reproduce it literally. It made a rare stir in
+the Norwich of his day, and quite fluttered, I assure you, the
+dovecots of the profession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The parties chiefly concerned in it were three: old Nicholas
+Browbody, his ward Ellen, and Mr. George Hussey, who was put on his
+trial for burglary and murder. Mr. George was quite a notable
+cracksman in his day, which was one pretty remote from ours in
+everything but the conservatism of the law. He was ‘housebreaker’ in
+the indictment; he was arrested by the Tombland patrol; and he was
+carried to court in a ‘chair,’ attended by a party of the City Guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“George, says the story, was an elegant figure of a man, and not at
+all regardless of the modes. Dark blue coat with brass buttons, fancy
+vest, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, hair full dressed
+and a brooch in his bosom&mdash;that was how he appeared before his judges.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The facts were simple enough. On a night of November, a shot and a
+screech had been heard in Mr. Browbody’s house in Unthank, a ward of
+the city; an entrance had been made through a window, opportunely
+open, by the Watch as opportunely handy, and the housebreaker had been
+discovered, a warm pistol in his hand, standing over the body of old
+Nicholas, who lay dead on the floor with his head blown in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The burglar was found standing, I say, like as in a stupor; the room
+was old Browbody’s study; the door from it into the passage was open,
+and outside was discovered the body of a girl, Miss Ellen, lying, as
+it were, in a dead faint. There you have the situation dashed in
+broad; and pretty complete, you’ll agree, for circumstantial
+evidence.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait, my friend,” began Brindley, putting up a fat pompous hand.
+“Circumstantial, I think you said?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I said it,” answered the Deputy Clerk coolly; “and if you’ll
+listen, you’ll understand&mdash;perhaps. I said the girl was in a faint,
+<i>as it were</i>, for, as a matter of fact, <i>she never came out of it for
+seven months</i>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leant back, thumbing the ashes into his pipe, and took no heed
+while the murmurs of incredulity buzzed and died down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not for seven months,” he repeated, then. “They called it a
+cataleptic trance, induced by fright and shock upon witnessing the
+deed; and they postponed the trial, waiting for this material witness
+to recover. But when at last the doctors certified that they could put
+no period to a condition which might, after all, end fatally without
+real consciousness ever returning, they decided to try Mr. Hussey; and
+he was tried and condemned to be hanged.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What! he made no defence?” said a junior contemptuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, sir, can you suggest one?” asked the other civilly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Suicide, of course.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“With the pistol there in the burglar’s own hand?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, he made none, you say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I don’t say it. He declared it was ridiculous attempting a
+defence, while he lacked his one essential witness to confirm it. He
+protested only that the lady would vindicate him if she could speak.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, of course!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, of course; and of course you say it. But he spoke the truth,
+sir, for all that, as you’ll see.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was lodged in Norwich Jail, biding the finish. But, before the
+hangman could get him&mdash;that time, at least&mdash;he managed to break out,
+damaging a warder by the way. The dogs of the law were let loose,
+naturally; but, while they were in full cry, Mr. Hussey, if you’ll
+believe me, walks into a local attorney’s office with Miss Ellen on
+his arm.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Brindley turned in his chair, and gave a little condescending laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Incredible, ain’t it?” said the Deputy Clerk. “But listen, now, to
+the affidavits of the pair, and judge for yourselves. We’ll take Miss
+Ellen’s first, plain as I can make it:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘I confess,’ says she, ‘to a romantic attachment to this same
+picturesque magsman, Mr. Hussey. He came my way&mdash;never mind how&mdash;and I
+fell in love with him. He made an assignation to visit me in my
+guardian’s house, and I saw that a window was left open for him to
+enter by. My guardian had latterly been in a very odd, depressed
+state. I think he was troubled about business matters. On the night of
+the assignation, by the irony of fate, his madness came to a head. He
+was of such methodical habits by nature, and so unerringly punctual in
+his hour for going to bed, that I had not hesitated to appoint my beau
+to meet me in his study, which was both remotest from his bedroom, and
+very accessible from without. But, to my confusion and terror, I heard
+him on this night, instead of retiring as usual, start pacing to and
+fro in the parlour underneath. I listened, helpless and aghast,
+expecting every moment to hear him enter his study and discover my
+lover, who must surely by now be awaiting me there. And at length I
+<i>did</i> hear him actually cross the passage to it with hurried steps.
+Half demented, dreading anything and everything, I rushed down the
+stairs, and reached his room door just in time to see him put a pistol
+to his head and fire. With the flash and report, I fell as if dead,
+and remember nothing more till the voice of my beloved seemed to call
+upon me to rise from the tomb&mdash;when I opened my eyes, and saw Hussey
+standing above me.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now for Mr. Hussey’s statement:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘I had an assignation with a young lady,’ says he, ‘on the night of
+so-and-so. A window was to be left open for me in Unthank. I had no
+intent whatever to commit a felony. I came to appointment, and had
+only one moment entered when I heard rapid footsteps outside, and a
+man, with a desperate look on him, hurried into the room, snatched a
+pistol from a drawer, put it to his head, and, before I could stop
+him, fired. I swear that, so far from killing him, I tried to prevent
+him killing himself. I jumped, even as he fell, and tore the pistol
+from his hand. Simultaneous with his deed, I heard a scream outside.
+Still holding the weapon, I went to the door, and saw the form of her
+I had come to visit lying in that trance from which she has but now
+recovered. As I stood stupefied, the Watch entered and took me. From
+that time I knew that, lacking her evidence, it was hopeless to
+attempt to clear myself. After sentence I broke prison, rushed
+straight to her house, found her lying there, and called out upon her
+to wake and help me. She answered at once, stirring and coming out of
+her trance. I know no more than that she did; and there is the whole
+truth.’&hairsp;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Deputy Clerk stopped. No one spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t ask you to pronounce upon those
+affidavits. In the upshot the law accepted them, admitting a
+miscarriage of justice. What I ask your verdict on is this: Could the
+law, after quashing its own conviction, hold the man responsible for
+any act committed by him during, and as the direct result of, that
+wrongful imprisonment?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This started the ball, and for minutes it was tossed back and forth.
+Presently the tumult subsided, and Brindley spoke authoritatively for
+the rest&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly it could, and for any violence committed in the act.
+Provocation may extenuate, but it don’t justify. Prison-breaking, <i>per
+se</i>, is an offence against the law; so’s being found without any
+visible means of subsistence, though your pocket may just have been
+picked of its last penny. Any concessions in these respects would
+benefit the rogue without helping the community. I won’t say that if
+he hadn’t, by assaulting the warder, put himself out of court&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was where he wanted to put himself,” interrupted the Deputy
+Clerk. It was certain that he was deplorably flippant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Brindley waved the impertinence by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The offence was an offence in outlawry,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But how could it be,” protested the Clerk, “since, by the law’s own
+admission, he was wrongfully convicted? If he hadn’t been, he couldn’t
+have hurt the warder. If you strike me first, mayn’t I hit you back? I
+tell you, the law acknowledged that it was in the wrong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not at all. It acknowledged that the man was in the right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Isn’t that the same thing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, my friend! I see you haven’t got the rudiments. Hussey was a
+prisoner; a criminal is a prisoner; <i>ergo</i>, Hussey was a criminal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But he was a prisoner in error!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the law might very properly pardon him that; but not his violence
+in asserting it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Deputy Clerk shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it was all the same in the end,” said he; “for it hanged him
+for pointing out its error to it, and so spoiled a very pretty
+romance. The lady accompanied him to the scaffold, and afterwards died
+mad. <i>Sic ita ad astra.</i> I will cap your syllogism, sir. An ass has
+long ears; the law has long ears; <i>ergo</i>, the law is an ass.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Young man,” said Brindley, with more good humour than I expected,
+“you have missed your vocation. Take my advice, and go to writing for
+the comic papers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What!” cried the Deputy Clerk. “Haven’t I been a law reporter all my
+life!”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch19">
+THE FIVE INSIDES
+</h3>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">I’ll example you with thievery.&mdash;“Timon of Athens.”</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">The</span> dear old lady was ninety, and it was always Christmas in the
+sweet winter of her face. With the pink in her cheeks and the white of
+her hair, she came straight from the eighteenth century in which she
+was born. They were not more at odds with nature than are the hips and
+the traveller’s joy in a withered hedge; and if at one time they paid
+to art, why it was a charitable gift to a poor dependent&mdash;nothing
+more, I’ll swear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+People are fond of testing links with the past. This sound old
+chatelaine had played trick-track, and dined at four o’clock. She had
+eaten battalia pie with “Lear” sauce, and had drunk orgeat in Bond
+Street. She had seen Blücher, the tough old “Vorwärts,” brought to
+bay in Hyde Park by a flying column of Amazons, and surrendering
+himself to an onslaught of kisses. She had seen Mr. Consul Brummell
+arrested by bailiffs in the streets of Caen, on a debt of so many
+hundreds of francs for so many bottles of vernis de Guiton, which was
+nothing less than an adorable boot-polish. She had heard the demon
+horns of newspaper boys shrill out the Little Corporal’s escape from
+Elba. She had sipped Roman punch, maybe;&mdash;I trust she had never taken
+snuff. She had&mdash;but why multiply instances? Born in 1790, she had
+taken just her little share in, and drawn her full interest of, the
+history, social and political, of all those years, fourscore and ten,
+which filled the interval between then and now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once upon a time she had entered a hackney-coach; and, lo! before her
+journey was done, it was a railway coach, moving ever swifter and
+swifter, and its passengers succeeding one another with an ever more
+furious energy of hurry-scurry. Among the rest I got in, and straight
+fell into talk, and in love, with this traveller who had come from so
+far and from scenes so foreign to my knowledge. She was as sweet and
+instructive as an old diary brought from a bureau, smelling of
+rose-leaves and cedar-wood. She was merry, too, and wont to laugh at
+my wholly illusory attachment to an age which was already as dead as
+the moon when I was born. But she humoured me; though she complained
+that her feminine reminiscences were sweetmeats to a man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You should talk with William keeper,” she said. “<i>He</i> holds on to the
+past by a very practical link indeed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was snowy weather up at the Hall&mdash;the very moral of another winter
+(so I was told) when His Majesty’s frigate “Caledonia” came into
+Portsmouth to be paid off, and Commander Playfair sent express to his
+young wife up in the Hampshire hills that she might expect him early
+on the following morning. He did not come in the morning, nor in the
+afternoon, nor, indeed, until late in the evening, when&mdash;as Fortune
+was generous&mdash;he arrived just at the turn of the supper, when the snow
+outside the kitchen windows below was thawing itself, in delirious
+emulation of the melting processes going on within, into a rusty
+gravy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see,” said Madam, “it was not the etiquette, when a ship was paid
+off, for any officer to quit the port until the pennant was struck,
+which the cook, as the last officer, had to see done. And the cook had
+gone ashore and got tipsy; and there the poor souls must bide till he
+could be found. Poor Henry&mdash;and poor little me! But it came right.
+<i>Tout vient à qui sait attendre</i>. We had woodcocks for supper. It was
+just such a winter as this&mdash;the snow, the sky, the very day. Will you
+take your gun, and get me a woodcock, sir? and we will keep the
+anniversary, and you shall toast, in a bottle of <i>the</i> Madeira, the
+old French rhyme.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had this rhyme in my ears as I went off for my woodcock&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p class="i0">Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,</p>
+<p class="i0">Duquel la chair resueille l’appetit.</p>
+<p class="i0">Il est oyseau passager et petit:</p>
+<p class="i0">Est par son goust fait des vins bien juger.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought the
+coverts and dead ferns and icy reed-wrecked pools, and flushed not the
+little <i>oyseau passager</i> of my gallantry’s desires. But at last, in a
+silent coomb, when my feet were frozen, and my fingers like bundles of
+newly-pulled red radishes, William keeper came upon me, and I confided
+my abortive wishes and sorrows to his velveteen bosom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled, warm soul, like a grate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will’ee go up to feyther’s yonder, sir,” said he; “and sit by the
+fire, and leave the woodcock to me? The old man’ll be proud to
+entertain ye.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will go,” I said meanly. “But tell me first, William, what is your
+very practical link with the past?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thought the frost had got into my blood; but when I had explained,
+he grinned again knowingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;’Tain’t me my lady meant, sir,” he said. “&hairsp;’Tis old feyther, and his
+story of how the mail coach was robbed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cottage hung up on the side of the coomb, leaning its back to an
+ash wood, and digging its toes well into the slope to keep itself from
+pitching into the brook below. There were kennels under the faggot
+stacks, a horse-shoe on the door, red light behind the windows. It
+looked a very cosy corner after the white austerity of the woods.
+William led me to it, and introducing me and my errand to his father,
+left the two of us together by the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a strange old shell of a man, russet and smooth yet in the
+face; but his breath would sometimes rattle in him to show how dried
+was the kernel within. Still his brown eye was glossy, and his voice
+full and shrewd; and in that voice, speaking straight and clear out of
+the past, and in an accent yet more of the roads than of the woods, he
+told me presently the story of the great mail robbery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It ruined and it made me, sir,” said he; “for the Captain, hearing as
+how the company had sacked me for neglect of duty, and knowing
+something of my character, swore I’d been used damnably, and that he’d
+back his opinion by making me his gamekeeper. And he did that; and
+here I be, waiting confident for him to check my accounts when I jine
+him across the river.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to a dusky corner. There hung on the wall an ancient
+key-bugle, and an old, old napless beaver hat, with a faded gold band
+about it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was twenty-five when I put <i>they</i> up there, and that was in the
+year ’14; and not me nor no one else has fingered them since. Because
+why? Because it was like as if my past laid in a tomb underneath, and
+they was the sign that I held by it without shame or desire of
+concealment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In those days I was guard to the ‘Globe’ coach, that run between
+London and Brighton. We made the journey in eight hours, from the
+‘Bull and Mouth’ in Aldersgate to the ‘New Inn’ in North Street&mdash;or
+t’other way about; and we never stopped but for changes, or to put
+down and take up. Sich was our orders, and nothing in reason to find
+fault with ’em, until they come to hold us responsible to something
+besides time. Then the trouble began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, sir, as you may know, the coachman’s seat was over the
+fore-boot, and, being holler underneath, was often used as a box for
+special parcels. So it happened that this box was hired of the owners
+by Messrs. Black, South, and Co., the big Brighthelmstone bankers, in
+order to ship their notes and cash, whenever they’d the mind to,
+between London and the seaside, and so escape the risks and expense of
+a private mail. The valiables would be slid and locked in&mdash;coachman
+being in his place&mdash;with a private key; and George he’d nothing to do
+but keep his fat calves snug to the door, till someun at the other end
+came with a duplicate key to unlock it and claim the property. Very
+well&mdash;and very well it worked till the fifteenth of December in the
+year eighteen hundred and thirteen, on which day our responsibility
+touched the handsome figure&mdash;so I was to learn&mdash;of £4000 in Brighton
+Union bank notes, besides cash and securities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was rare cold weather, much as it is now, save that the snow was
+shallower by a matter of two inches, and no more bind in it than dry
+sand. We was advertised to start from the ‘Bull’ at nine; and there
+was booked six insides and five out. At ten minutes to the hour up
+walks a couple of Messrs. Pinnick and Waghorn’s clerks from the
+borough, with the cash box in whity-brown paper, looking as innocent
+as a babby in a Holland pinifore. George he comes out of the shades,
+like a jolly Corsican ghost, a viping of his mouth; the box is slung
+up and fastened in; coachman climbs to his perch, and the five
+outsides follow-my-leader arter him to theirs, where they swaddle
+’emselves into their wraps strait-veskit-vise, and settin’ as
+miserable as if they was waitin’ to have a tooth drawed. Not much harm
+there, you’ll say&mdash;one box-seat, two behind, two with me in the
+dickey&mdash;all packed tight, and none too close for observation. Well,
+sir, we’ll hear about it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Out of the six insides, all taken, there was three already in place:
+a gentleman, very short and fierce, and snarling at everything;
+gentleman’s lady, pretty as paint, but a white timidious body;
+gentleman’s young-gentleman, in ducks and spencer and a cap like a
+concertina with the spring gone. So far so good, you’ll say again, and
+no connexion with any other party, and leastways of all with the
+insides as was yet wanting, and which the fierce gentleman was blowin’
+the lights out of for bein’ late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Guard,’ says he, goin’ on outrageous, while the lady and the young
+gentleman cuddled together scared-like in a corner, ‘who are these
+people who stop the whole service while they look in the shop-vinders?
+If you’re for starting a minute after the stroke,’ says he, ‘dash my
+buttons,’ he says, ‘but I’ll raise all hell to have you cashiered!’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘All right, sir,’ I says. ‘I knows my business better’n you can tell
+it me&mdash;’ and just as I spoke, a hackney kerridge come rumbling into
+the yard, and drew up anigh us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Globe?’ says a jolly, fat-faced man, sticking his head out of it.
+‘All right, Cato&mdash;’ and down jumps a black servant, in livery, that
+was on the box, and opens the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The fat man he tumbled out&mdash;for all the world like a sheetful of
+washing a wallopin’ downstairs&mdash;Cato he got in, and between them they
+helped from the hackney and across to the coach as rickety a old
+figure as ever I see. He were all shawls and wraprascal. He’d blue
+spectacles to his eyes, a travellin’ cap pulled down on ’em, his mouth
+covered in; and the only evidence of flesh to be seen in the whole of
+his carcass, was a nose the colour of a hyster. He shuffled painful,
+too, as they held him up under the arms, and he groaned and muttered
+to himself all the time he were changing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, sir, you may suppose the snarling gentleman didn’t make the best
+of what he see; and he broke out just as they was a-hauling the
+invalid in, wanting to know very sarcastic if they hadn’t mistook the
+‘Globe’ for a hearse. But the fat man he accepted him as good-humoured
+as could be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘It’s nothing affectionate, sir,’ says he. ‘Only paralysis, which
+ain’t catching. The gentleman won’t trouble you.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Not for my place,’ says the fierce gentleman, bristling up like a
+dog. ‘Damme, sir, not for my place. O, I can see very well what his
+nose is a-pinting to, and damme if it isn’t as monstrous a piece of
+coolness as ever I expeerunced. <i>These</i> seats, sir, are the nat’ral
+perkisite of a considerate punctiality, and if your friend objects to
+travelling with his back to the ’orses&mdash;&mdash;’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Now, now,’ says the fat man&mdash;‘nothing of the sort. You don’t mind
+sitting with your back to the ’orses, do you, nunky?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Eh,’ says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting a bit forward&mdash;‘No,
+no, no, no, no, no, no&mdash;’ and he sunk into the front cushions, while
+Cato and the fat ’un dispodged him to his comfort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Time, gentlemen!’ says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Wait a bit’ says snarler. ‘It can’t never be&mdash;why, surely, it can’t
+never be that the sixth inside is took for a blackamoor?’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Alfred,’ says the lady, half veeping: ‘pray let things be. It’s only
+as far as Cuckfield we’re goin’, arter all.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘A poor argiment, my dear,’ says he, ‘in favour of suffering forty
+miles of a sulphurious devil.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Pray control yourself, sir,’ says the fat man, still very ekable.
+‘We’ve booked three places, for two, just to be comfortable. Our
+servant rides outside.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, that settled it; and in another minute we was off. I laughed a
+bit to myself as I swung up; but I hadn’t a thought of suspicion. What
+do <i>you</i> say, sir? Would you have? Why, no, of course not&mdash;no more
+than if you was a Lyons Mail. There was the five o’ them packed in
+there, and one on the roof behind the coachman&mdash;three divisions of a
+party as couldn’t have seemed more unconnected with one another, or
+more cat and dog at that. Yet, would you believe it, every one of them
+six had his place in the robbery that follered as carefully set for
+him as a figure in a sum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As for me, sir, I done my duty; and what more could be expected of
+me? At every stage I tuk a general look round, to see as things were
+snug and nat’ral; and at Croydon, fust out, I observed as how the
+invalid were a’ready nodding in a corner, and the other two gents
+settled to their ‘Mornin’ Postses.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Beyond Croydon the cold begun to take the outsides bitter; and the
+nigger got into a vay of drummin’ with his feet so aggerawacious, that
+at last George he lost his temper with him and told him to shut up.
+Well, he shut up that, and started scrapin’ instead; and he went on
+scrapin’ till the fierce gentleman exploded out of the vinder below
+fit to bust the springs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Who’s that?’ roars he&mdash;‘the blackamoor? Damme!’ he roars, ‘if you
+aren’t wus nor a badger in more ways than one,’ he roars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘All right, boss,’ says the nigger, grinning and lookin’ down. ‘Feet
+warm at last, boss,’ and he stopped his shufflin’ and begun to sing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, sir, a sudden thought&mdash;I won’t go so far as to call it a
+suspicion&mdash;sent me, next stop, to examine unostentatious-like the
+neighbourhood of them great boots. But all were sound there, and the
+man sittin’ well tucked into his wraps. It wasn’t like, of course,
+that he could a’ kicked the panels of the box in without George
+knowin’ somethin’ about it. And he didn’t want to neither; <i>for he’d
+finished his part of the business a’ready</i>. So he just sat and smiled
+at me as amiable as Billy Vaters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, we went on without a hitch; and at Cuckfield the three back
+insides turned out into the snow, and went for a bespoke po’-chaise
+that was waitin’ for ’em there. But, afore he got in, the fierce
+gentleman swung round and come blazin’ back to the vinder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘My compliments, sir,’ says he, ‘at parting; and, if it <i>should</i> come
+to the vorst,’ he says, ‘I’d advise you to lay your friend pretty far
+under to his last sleep,’ he says, ‘or his snores’ll wake the dead.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Hush,’ says the fat ’un. ‘It’s the drowndin’ spirit in him comin’ up
+to blow like a vale.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Is it?’ says the fierce gentleman. ‘Then it’s my opinion that the
+outsides ought to be warned afore he gives his last heave&mdash;&mdash;’ and he
+went off snortin’ like a tornader.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The fat man shook his head when he were gone. His mildness, having
+sich a figger, was amazing. He sat with his arm and shoulder for a
+bolster to old paralysis, who was certainly going on in style.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Now, sir,’ says I, ‘the whole blessed inside is yourn till the end
+of the journey.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Thank you, guard,’ says he; ‘but I won’t disturb my friend, and
+we’ll stay as we are, thank you.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I got up then, and on we went&mdash;last stage, sir, through Clayton, over
+the downs, whipping through Pyecombe and Patcham, swish through
+Preston turnpike, and so into East Street, where we’d scarce entered,
+when there come sich a hullabaloo from underneath as if the devil,
+riding on the springs, had got his tail jammed in the brake. Up I
+jumps, and up jumps the blackamoor, screeching and clawing at George,
+so as he a’most dropped the ribbins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Eh, boss!’ he yelled. ‘De old man&mdash;down dere!&mdash;damn bad!’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“George he pulled up; and I thought he’d a bust, till I climbed over
+and loosened his neckercher, and let it all out. Then down we
+got&mdash;nigger and I, and one or two of the passengers&mdash;and looked in.
+‘What the thunder’s up?’ says I. The fat man were goin’ on awful,
+sobbin’, and hiccupin’, and holding on to old paralysis, as were sunk
+back in the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’! O, why did
+I ever give way to him, and let him come!’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, we all stood pretty foolish, not knowing what to say or do,
+when his great tricklin’ face come round like a leg o’ mutton on a
+spit, and, seein’ the nigger, bust into hystrikes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘O, Cato!’ he roars; ‘O Cato, O Cato! Sich a loss if he goes!’ he
+roars. ‘Run on by a short cut, Cato,’ he says, ‘and see if you can
+find a doctor agen our drawin’ up at the “New Inn.”&hairsp;’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That seemed to us all a good idea, though, to be sure, there was no
+cut shorter than the straight road we was in. But anyhow, before we
+could re’lise it, the nigger was off like a arrer; and one of the
+gentlemen offered to keep the fat man company. But that he wouldn’t
+listen to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘If he <i>should</i> come round,’ he said, ‘the shock of a stranger might
+send him off agen. No, no,’ he said: ‘leave me alone with my dying
+friend, and drive on as quick as ever you can.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It were only a matter of minutes; but afore we’d been drawed up half
+of one afore the inn, a crowd was gathered round the coach door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Is he back?’ says the fat man&mdash;‘Is Cato come back with a doctor? No,
+I won’t have him touched or moved till a doctor’s seen him.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then all at once he was up and out, rampageous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Where is he?’ he shrieks. ‘I can’t vait no longer&mdash;I’m goin’
+mad&mdash;I’ll find one myself’&mdash;and, afore you could say Jack Robinson, he
+was off. I never see sich a figger run so. He fair melted away. But
+the crowd was too interested in the corpse to follow him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, sir, he didn’t come back with a doctor, and no more did Cato.
+And the corpse may have sat there ten minutes, and none daring to go
+into it, when a sawbones, a-comin’ down the street on his own account,
+was appealed to by the landlord for a verdict, seein’ as how by this
+time the whole traffic was blocked. He got in, and so did I; and he
+bent over the body spread back with its wraps agen the corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘My God!’ I whispers&mdash;‘there’s no breath comin’ from him. Is he dead,
+sir?’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The sawbones he rose up very dry and cool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘No,’ he says, ‘there ain’t no breath comin’ from him, nor there
+never will. It ain’t in natur’ to expect it from a waxworks.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sir, I tell you I looked at him and just felt my heart as it might be
+a snail that someun had dropped a pinch of salt on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Waxworks!’ I says, gaspin’. ‘Why, the man spoke and groaned!’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’
+says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;&mdash;and
+I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy&mdash;nothing
+more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock my
+pullin’ it away give me&mdash;for there, behind where it had set, was a
+’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and
+panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the
+mail’s been robbed!’&hairsp;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised
+excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the
+question he expected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And it had been?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In
+the vinter of ’13, sir&mdash;the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a
+rare stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards,
+when one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were
+took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man were a
+ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides to
+themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job. They cut
+into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and passed the boy
+through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’ Croydon. He set
+to&mdash;the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!&mdash;tuk a piece clean
+out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and brought down the
+cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his dance overhead to
+drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened and emptied, and put
+back in the boot where it was found; and the swag, for fear of
+accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the younger,
+standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled auburn trophies
+in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a sigh&mdash;then
+with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock. “How
+plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch20">
+THE JADE BUTTON
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">The</span> little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with
+a good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is
+the subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by
+any lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself
+misinformed, and attend your last moments on the scaffold.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John Belmont
+hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this antagonism was a
+button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was of jade stone, and it was a talisman. For three generations it
+had been the mascot of the Belmont family, an heirloom, and
+symbolizing in its shining disk a little local sun, as it were, of
+prosperity. The last three head Belmonts had all been men of an ample
+presence. The first of them, the original owner of the stone, having
+assigned it a place in perpetuity at the bottom hole of his waistcoat
+(as representing the centre of his system), his heirs were careful to
+substantiate a tradition which meant so much to them in a double
+sense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, the button was as good as a blister. It seemed to draw its
+wearer to a head in the prosperous part of him. It was set in gold,
+artfully furnished at its back with a loop and hank, and made
+transferable from waistcoat to waistcoat, that its possessor for the
+time being might enjoy at all seasons its beneficent influence. In
+broad or long cloth, in twill or flannel, by day and by night, the
+button attended him, regulating indiscriminately his business and his
+digestion. In such circumstances, it is plain that Death must have
+been hard put to it to find a vulnerable place; and such was the fact.
+It has often been said that a man’s soul is in his stomach; how, then,
+could it get behind the button? Only by one of those unworthy
+subterfuges, which, nevertheless, it does not disdain. The first
+Belmont lived to ninety, and with such increasing portliness that, at
+the last, a half-moon had to be cut, and perpetually enlarged, out of
+the dining-room table to accommodate his presence. Practically, he was
+eating his way through the board, with the prospect of emerging at the
+other end, when, in rising from a particularly substantial repast one
+night, he caught the button in the crack between the first slab
+(almost devoured) and the second, wrenched it away, and was
+immediately seized with apoplexy. He died; and the Destroyer, after
+pursuing his heir to threescore years and ten, looking for the heel of
+Achilles, as unworthily “got home” into him. He was lumbering down
+Fleet Street one dog-day when, oppressed beyond endurance by the heat,
+he wrenched open&mdash;in defiance of all canons of taste and prudence&mdash;his
+waistcoat. The button&mdash;<i>the</i> button&mdash;was burst from its bonds in the
+act, though, fortunately&mdash;for the next-of-kin&mdash;to be caught by its
+hank in the owner’s watch-chain. But to the owner himself the impulse
+was fatal. A prowling cutpurse, quick to the chance, “let out” full on
+the old gentleman’s bow-window, quenching its lights, so to speak, for
+ever; and then, having snatched the chain, incontinently doubled into
+the arms of a constable. The property was recovered&mdash;but for the heir;
+the second Belmont’s bellows having been broken beyond mending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third met with as inglorious an end, and at a comparatively early
+age; for the button&mdash;as a saving clause to whatever god had thrown it
+down, for the fun of the thing, among men&mdash;was possessed with a very
+devil of touchiness, and always instant to resent the least fancied
+slight to its self-importance. Else had Tithonus been its wearer to
+this day, as&mdash;&mdash;but I won’t anticipate. The third Belmont, then, in a
+fit of colossal forgetfulness, sent the button, <i>in</i> a white
+waistcoat, to the wash. The calamity was detected forthwith, <i>but not
+in time to avert itself</i>. After death the doctor. Before the outraged
+article could be restored to its owner and victim, he had died of a
+rapid dropsy, and the button became the property of Mrs. John Belmont,
+his relict and residuary legatee, who&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, for the history of the button itself? Why, in brief, as it
+affected the Belmont family, it was this. Mr. Adolphus Belmont had
+been Consul at one of the five treaty ports of China about the
+troublous years of 1840-42. During the short time that he held office,
+a certain local mandarin, Elephoo Ting by name, was reported to Peking
+for high treason, and honoured with an imperial ukase, or invitation
+to forestall the headsman. There was no doubt, indeed, that Elephoo
+Ting had been very strenuous, in public, in combating the intrusion of
+the foreign devil, while inviting him, in private, to come on and hold
+tight. There is no doubt, too, that in the result Elephoo and Adolphus
+had made a profitable partnership of it in the matter of opium, and
+that the mandarin had formed a very high, and even sentimental,
+opinion of the business capacities of his young friend. Young, that is
+to say, relatively, for Adolphus was already sixty-three when
+appointed to his post. But, then, of the immemorial Ting’s age no
+record actually existed. The oldest inhabitant of Ningpo knew him as
+one knows the historic beech of one’s district. He had always been
+there&mdash;bland, prosperous, enormous, a smooth bole of a man radiating
+benevolence. And now at last he was to die. It seemed impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It <i>was</i> impossible, save on a condition. That he confided to his odd
+partner and confidant, the English Consul, during a last interview. He
+held a carving-knife in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I accept this signal favour of the imperial sun?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you any choice?” asked the Consul gloomily. “The decree is out;
+the soldiers surround your dwelling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elephoo Ting laughed softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Vain, vain all, unless I discard my talisman.” He produced the jade
+button from his cap. “This,” he said, “I had from my father, when the
+old man sickened at last of life, desiring to be an ancestor. It
+renders who wears it, while he wears it, immortal; only it is jealous,
+jealous, and stands upon its dignity. Shall I, too, part with it, and
+at a stroke let in the light of ages?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He saw the incredulity in his visitor’s face, and handed him the
+carving-knife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Strike,” he said. “I bid thee.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You take the consequences?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With infinite cynicism, Mr. Belmont essayed to tickle, just to tickle,
+the creature’s infatuation with the steel point. It bent, where it
+touched, like paper. He thrust hard and ever harder, until at last he
+was thrashing and slicing with the implement in a sort of frenzy of
+horror. The mandarin stood apathetic, while the innocuous blade swept
+and rustled about his huge bulk like a harmless feather. Then said he,
+as the other desisted at length, unnerved and trembling: “Art thou
+convinced?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am convinced,” said the Consul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elephoo Ting handed him the button in exchange for the knife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take and wear it,” he said, “for my sake, whom you have pleased by
+outwitting, on the score of benefiting, two Governments. You have the
+makings of a great mandarin in you; the button will do the rest. Would
+you ever escape the too-soon satiety of this stodgy life, pass it on,
+with these instructions which I shall give you, to your next-of-kin.
+Be ever deferential to the button and considerate of its vanity, for
+it is the fetish of a sensitive but undiscriminating spirit. So long
+as you cherish it, you will prosper. But the least apparent slight to
+itself, it will revenge, and promptly. As for me, I have an
+indigestion of the world that I would cure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with the words he too became an ancestor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then riches and bodily amplitude came to Adolphus Belmont, until the
+earth groaned under his importance. He was a spanker, and after him
+Richard Belmont was a spanker, and after him John Belmont was a very
+spanker of spanks, even at thirty-two, when he committed the last
+enormous indiscretion which brought him death and his fortunes almost
+ruin. For the outrage to the button had been so immeasurable that, not
+content with his obliteration, it must manœuvre likewise to scatter
+the accumulations of fortune, which it had brought him, by involving
+in a common ruin most of the concerns in which that fortune was
+invested, so that his widow found herself left, all in a moment, a
+comparatively poor woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here Mrs. John Belmont comes in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was a little woman, of piquancy and resource, and a very
+accomplished angler of men. She could count on her pink finger-tips
+the ten most killing baits for vanity. And, having once recovered the
+button, she set herself to conciliating it with a thousand pretty
+kisses and attentions. It lived between the bosom of her frock and the
+ruff of her dainty nightgown. Yet for a long time it sulked, refusing
+to be coaxed into better than a tacit staying of its devastating hand.
+And so matters stood when the Assembly ball was held.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Emma Belmont and Mrs. John Belmont lived in the same town,
+connexions, but apart. Their visits were visits of ceremony&mdash;and
+dislike. Miss Emma was Mr. John’s sister, and had always highly
+disapproved of his marriage with the “adventuress.” Her very name, she
+thought, bordered on an impropriety! How could any “Inez” dissociate
+herself from the tradition of cigarette-stained lips and white
+eyeballs travelling behind a fan like little moons of coquetry? This
+one, in fact, took no trouble to. Her reputation involved them in a
+common scandal; and it was solely on this account, I think, that she
+so resented her sister-in-law’s appropriation of the button. She
+herself was devoted to good works, and utterly content in her mission.
+She did not want the button; but, inasmuch as it was a Belmont
+heirloom, and Mrs. John childless, she chose to symbolize in it the
+bone of contention, and to use it as a convenient bar to amenities
+which would, otherwise, have seemed to argue in her a sympathy with a
+mode of life with which she could not too emphatically wish to
+disconnect herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They met at the Assembly ball. Miss Belmont, though herself involved
+in the financial ebb, had considered it her duty to respect so
+respectable an occasion, and even to adorn it with a silk of such
+inflexibility that (I tremble as I write it) one could imagine her
+slipping out of it through a trap, like the vanishing lady, and
+leaving all standing. Presently Mrs. John Belmont, with a wicked look,
+floated up to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>You</i> here, Inez!” exclaimed Miss Emma, affecting an amazement which,
+unhappily, she could not feel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other flirted and simpered. When she smiled, one could detect
+little threads drawn in the fine powder near the corners of her mouth.
+There was no ensign of widowhood about her. She ruffled with little
+gaudy downs and feathers, like a new-fledged bird of paradise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, indeed,” she said. “And I’ve brought Captain Naylor, who’s been
+dining with me. Shall I introduce him to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Belmont’s sense of decorum left her speechless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Inez, on the contrary, rippled out the most china-tinkling laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You dear old thing,” she tittered. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew
+you’d be here to chaperon me, and&mdash;&mdash;” She came a step closer. “Yes,
+the button’s there, Emma. You may stare; but make up your mind, I’m
+not going to part with it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Belmont found herself, and responded quietly&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hope not indeed, Inez. I don’t ask or expect you. You might
+multiply it to-night by a dozen, and only offend me less.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. John laughed again, rather shrilly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, fie!” she said. “Why, even you haven’t a high-necked dress, you
+know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then a very black and red man, in a jam-pot collar and with a
+voice like a rook, came and claimed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haw, Mrs. Belmont! Aw&mdash;er, dance, I think.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Belmont, to save appearances, rigidly sat out the evening. When
+at last she could endure no more, she had her fly called and prepared
+to go home. She was about to get into it, when she observed a familiar
+figure standing among the few midnight loafers who had gathered
+without the shadow of the porch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hurley!” she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man, after a moment, slouched reluctantly forward, touching his
+hat. He had once been her most favoured protégé&mdash;a rogue and
+irreclaimable, whom she had persuaded, temporarily, from the devil’s
+service to her own. He had returned to his master, but with a
+reservation of respect for the practical Christian. Miss Belmont was
+orthodox, but she had a way with sinners. She pitied and fed and
+<i>trusted</i> them. She was a member of the Prisoners’ First Aid Society,
+with a reverence for the law and a weakness for the lawless. Her aim
+was to reconcile the two, to interpret, in a yearning charity, between
+the policeman and the criminal, who at least, in the result, made a
+common cause of honouring <i>her</i>. Inez asserted that, living, as she
+did, very nervously alone on the outskirts of the town, she had
+adopted this double method of propitiation for the sake of her own
+security. But, then, Inez had a forked tongue, which you would never
+have guessed from seeing the little scarlet tip of it caressing her
+lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, Miss Belmont had once coaxed Jim Hurley into being her handy
+man, foreseeing his redemption in an innocent association with flowers
+and the cult of the artless cabbage. He proved loyal to her, gained
+her confidence, knew all about the button and other matters of family
+moment. But the contiguity of the kitchen-garden with Squire
+Thorneycroft’s pheasant-coops was too much for hereditary
+proclivities. He stole eggs, sold them, was detected, prosecuted,
+sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and disappeared. Miss
+Belmont herself met him on his discharge from the jail gates, but he
+was not to be induced to return. The wild man was in his brain, and
+off he had gone, with Parthian shots of affection, in quest of fun.
+And for two years she had not seen him again until to-night, when his
+scratch of red hair and beard&mdash;which always looked as if he had just
+pulled his head out of a quickset&mdash;suddenly blew into flame before
+her. And then there followed a shock of distress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jim! Why, what’s happened? What’s the matter with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no need to specify. The man was obviously going off his
+tramp&mdash;nearing the turn of the dark road. He was ghastly, and
+constantly gave little spasmodic wrenching coughs during the minute he
+stood beside her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” he gasped, “I dunno. The rot has got into my stummick. I be
+all touchwood inside like an old ellum”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you come and see me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;’Es. By’m-by.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not now? Where are you going to sleep?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He grinned, and coughed, half suffocated, as he backed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got my plans, Missis. You&mdash;leave me alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It did not sound gracious. One would not have guessed by it his
+design, which was nothing less than a jolly throw against the devil in
+the teeth of death. Miss Belmont, a little hurt, but more sad, got
+into her fly and was driven home. Arrived there, she sat up an hour
+contemplative. She was just preparing to go to bed in the grey dawn,
+when she heard the garden-gate click and footsteps rapidly traverse
+the path to the front door. Her heart seemed to stop. She stole
+trembling into the hall. “<i>Who’s there?</i>” she demanded in a quavering
+voice. The answer came, with a clearness which made her start, through
+the letter-box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Me, Missis&mdash;Jim Hurley.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amazed, and a little embarrassed, she opened. The man burst, almost
+fell in, and, staggering, recovered himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;’Ere!” he said, with eager manipulation trying to force something
+upon her. “I’ve done ’er! I’ve got it for yer! Take it&mdash;make
+’aste&mdash;they’re arter me. It’s yourn as by rights, and she’s got to
+crow on the wrong side of ’er woundy little mouth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Miss Belmont, with instinctive repulsion, had put her hands behind
+her back and retreated before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jim!” she said sickly. “<i>What</i> have you got? What do you mean? I’ll
+take nothing from you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, go along!” he insisted. His cough was gone. He seemed animated
+with a new masterfulness. “Ain’t I in the know? It’s yourn, anyhow,
+and”&mdash;his eye closed in an ineffable rapture&mdash;“I done the devil out of
+his own when I heard I be booked to go to him. He’ll pay me, I reckon;
+but I don’t care. You take it. It’s your dooty as a good woman.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, no,” cried Miss Belmont, beating him away with her hands. “Don’t
+let me even see it to know. How could you suppose such a thing? Take
+it back while you’ve time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+B’s 33 and 90 wore their list-footed boots; but Jim’s ear was a
+practised one. Swiftly summoned, they had raced on his tracks from the
+Assembly Rooms. He had known it, and had laboured merely to keep his
+start of them by three minutes&mdash;two&mdash;one. Now, while their sole was
+yet on the threshold, he darted into the dining-room and was under the
+table at a dive. They had him out and handcuffed, of course, in a
+jiffy; and then they stood to explain and expostulate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you ain’t a cheeked one neither, Hurley! To run up here of all
+places for cover! Don’t you mind him, Miss.” (She stood pale and
+shivering. “The shock!” she had murmured confusedly.) “Why,” said 33,
+“the man was heard by plenty proposing of hisself to visit you; and
+looked to your hold kindness to him to take and shelter, is supposed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She found voice to ask: “What’s he done?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Done!” said 33. “Why, bless you, Miss! Treating of you as if you was
+in collusion, ain’t I?” (She shivered.) “Why, he grabbed a jewel&mdash;a
+gold button, as I understand&mdash;out o’ the buzzim o’ your own late
+brother’s good lady as she was a-stepping into her broom, and bolted
+with it. It’ll be on ’im now if we’re lucky.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ain’t then, old cock,” said Jim, with a little hoarse laugh and
+choke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Chuck it!” said 90, a saturnine man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s what I done, Kroojer,” said Jim. “You go and ’unt in the
+bloomin’ ’edges if you don’t believe me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s my duty to tell you,” said 33, “that whatever you says will be
+took down in evidence agen you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not by you,” said Jim. “Why, you can’t spell.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They carried him off dispassionately, with some rough, kindly
+apologies to Miss Belmont for the trouble to which they had put her.
+She locked and bolted the door when they were gone; mechanically saw
+to the lamps, and went upstairs to bed in a sort of stunned dream. So
+she committed herself to the sheets, and so, in a sort of waking
+delirium, passed the remaining hours of slumber. She felt as if the
+even tenor of her way, her stream of placid days, had been suddenly
+dammed by a dead body, the self-destroyed corpse of her own character.
+Sometimes she would start from a suffering negation to feel B 90’s
+hand upon her shoulder. “What have I done&mdash;O! what have I done?” she
+would moan in anguish; and B 90 would glower from under his helmet
+like a passionless Rhadamanthus&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have you done? What but, like our second Henry, meanly, by
+inference and innuendo, imposed upon your wretched tool the
+responsibility for a deed which you dared not seek to compass by the
+open processes of the law. Did you dispute the right ownership of the
+button? Then why choose for your confidant an ex-thief and poacher? No
+use to say you designed no harm. By the flower be known the seed. Come
+along o’ me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She rose late, ate no breakfast, and sat awaiting, pinched and grey,
+the inevitable ordeal. It opened, early enough, with the advent of
+Mrs. John. The little widow came sailing in, with a face of floured
+steel. When she saw, the edge of her tongue seemed to whet itself on
+her lips. Miss Emma broke out at once in an unendurable cry&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Inez! You can’t think I was a party to this!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who said so, dear? Though the man was a protégé of yours, and was
+known to have remained where he encountered me by your instructions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is not true.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Isn’t it? Well, at least, the plan miscarried. Now, give me the
+button, and I promise, to the best of my power, to hush the matter
+up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I haven’t got it, indeed; O, you must believe me! He told the
+policeman himself that he had thrown it away while escaping.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, yes. I give him credit for his loyalty to you. But, Emma&mdash;you
+know I never put much faith in your sanctimoniousness. Don’t be a
+fool, and drive me to extremities.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can’t mean it. I blame my covetous heart. I envied you&mdash;I admit
+it&mdash;this dear fetish of our family. But to think me capable of such a
+wickedness! O, Inez!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Mrs. John Belmont exploded. I muffle the report. It left Miss
+Belmont flaccid and invertebrate, weakly sobbing that she would see
+Hurley; would try to get him to identify the exact spot where he had
+parted with the bauble; would move heaven and earth to make her
+guiltless restitution. Yet all the time, remembering the scene of last
+night, she must have known her promise vain. Jim had sought to thrust
+no shadow of a fact upon her. He had not thrown the button away. He
+alone knew where it now was; but would he so far play into the hands
+of her enemy as to tell? She felt faint in the horror of this doubt;
+and Mrs. John perceived the horror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for her, she was utterly hateful and incredulous. She had friends,
+she screamed&mdash;one in particular&mdash;who would act, and unmercifully, to
+see her righted. She hardly refrained from striking her sister-in-law,
+as she rushed out in a storm of hysterics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And at this point I was called in&mdash;by Miss Belmont, that is to say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I found her utterly prostrated&mdash;within step of the brink of the final
+collapse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I coaxed her back, foot by foot; won the whole truth from her; laughed
+her terrors to scorn, and staked her my professional credit to have
+the matter put right, or on the way to right, by our next meeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I meant it, and was confident. For that very day&mdash;though of this
+she did not know&mdash;I had officially ordered Jim Hurley’s removal from
+the cell in which he had been lodged to the County Hospital. The man
+was dying, that was the fact; and a fact which he had known perfectly
+when he staked at one throw for an easy bed for himself, and a
+repayment of his debt to his old benefactress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was ensconced in a little ward by himself, when I visited him and
+sat down to my task. He cocked an eye at me from a red tangle, and
+grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Hurley,” I said, “I come straight from Miss Emma, by her
+authority, to acquaint you with the results of your deed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O!” he answered. “Hev the peelers been a-dirtyin’ of their pore knees
+lookin’ for it in the ’edgerows? I ’opes as they found it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know they couldn’t. You’ve got it yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“S’elp me, I haven’t!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I informed him, carefully and in detail, of the awful miscarriage
+of his intentions. He was patently dumbfounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’m blowed!” he whispered, quite amazed. “Well, I <i>am</i> blowed!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must undo this,” I said. “There’s only one way. Where <i>is</i> the
+button?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gauged me profoundly a moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On a ledge under the table,” he said. Then he thrust out a claw.
+“Don’t you go lettin’ ’<i>er</i> ’ave it back,” he said, “or I’ll ’aunt
+you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I considered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must undo what you’ve done,” I repeated. “Don’t you see? Unless
+you can prove that it’s been in your possession all the time, <i>and is
+now</i>, her character’s gone for ever. Mrs. John will see to that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not, professionally, lack wits. He understood perfectly.
+“You’re ’er friend?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right,” he said, “you get ’old of it private, and smuggle of it
+’ere, and I’ll manage the rest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, my good fellow! You’ve been overhauled, I suppose, and pretty
+thoroughly. How can you convince&mdash;<i>convince</i>, you understand&mdash;that
+you’ve kept the thing snug through it all?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You go and smuggle of it ’ere,” he repeated doggedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It needed only a very little manœuvring. I hurried back to Miss
+Belmont’s, heard the lady was still confined to her room, forbade the
+servant to report me, and claimed the privacy of the dining-room for
+the purpose of writing a prescription. The moment I was alone, I made
+an excited and perfectly undignified plunge under the table, found the
+ledge (the thing, in auctioneer’s parlance, was a “capital set,” in
+four leaves), and the button, which in a feverish ecstasy I pocketed.
+Then, very well satisfied, I hurried back to Mr. Hurley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I found him, even in that short interval, changed for the worse; so
+much changed, that, in face of his condition, a certain sense of novel
+vigour, an overweening confidence in my own importance which had grown
+up, and lusty, in me during my return journey, seemed nothing less
+than an indecency. However, curiously enough, this mood began to ebb
+and sober from the very moment of my handing over the <i>pièce de
+conviction</i> to its purloiner. He “palmed” it professionally, cleared
+his throat, and took instant command of the occasion. “Now,” he said,
+“tell ’em I’ve confessed to you, and let ’em all come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His confidence mastered the depression which had overtaken me. I
+returned, with fair assurance, to Miss Belmont, who received my news
+with a perfect rapture of relief. What she had suffered, poor good
+woman, none but herself might know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did he own to you where he had hidden it?” she asked. And “Yes,” I
+could answer, perfectly truthfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By my advice, she prepared at once to go and fetch her sister-in-law
+to the hospital&mdash;with a friend, if she desired it&mdash;that all might
+witness to the details of the restitution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meanwhile I myself paid a visit to the police station, and
+thence returned to my post to await the arrival of my company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It came in about an hour: Miss Belmont, tearfully expectant; Mrs. John
+Belmont, shrill and incredulous; an immaculate tall gentleman, Captain
+Naylor by name, whose chin was propped on a very high collar, that he
+might perpetually sniff the incense of his own superiority; and,
+lastly, and officially to the occasion, B 90.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I lost no time in conducting them to the bedside of the patient. He
+had rallied wonderfully since our last encounter. He was sitting up
+against his pillow, his red hair fluffed out like the aureole of a
+dissipated angel, an expression on his face of a quite sanctimonious
+relish. I fancy he even winked at me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, Hurley,” I said gravely, “as one on the threshold of the grave”
+(which, nevertheless, I had my doubts about), “speak out and tell the
+truth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He cleared his throat, and started at once in a loud voice, as if
+repeating a lesson he had set himself&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;’Earing as ’ow my rash hact ’ave brought suspicion on a innercent
+lady, I ’ereby makes affirmation of the fac’s. I stole the button, and
+’id it in my boot, where it is now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, it ain’t,” said B 90 suddenly. “Stow that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Hurley smiled pityingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, ain’t it, sir?” he said. “&hairsp;’Ow do you know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because I searched you myself,” said B 90 shortly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The patient, infinitely tolerant, waved his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;’E searched me, ladies and gentlemen! Ho, lor! Look at ’im; I only
+arsks that&mdash;look at ’im! Why, he doesn’t even know as there’s a smut
+on his nose at this moment.” (B 90 hastily rubbed that organ, and
+remembering himself, lapsed into stolidity once more.) Mr. Hurley
+addressed him with exaggerated politeness&mdash;“<i>Would</i> you be so good,
+sir, as to go and fetch my boots?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+B 90 thought profoundly, and officially, a minute; wheeled suddenly,
+withdrew, and returned shortly with the articles, very massive and
+muddy, which he laid on the counterpane before the prisoner. The
+latter, cherishing the ineffable <i>dénouement</i>, deliberately took and
+examined the left one, paused a moment, smilingly canvassing his
+company, and then quickly, with an almost imperceptible wrench and
+twirl, had unscrewed the heel bodily from its place and held it out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;’Ere!” he said; and, with his arm extended, sank back in an
+invertebrate ecstasy upon his pillow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heel was pierced with a tiny compartment on its inner side, and
+within the aperture lay the button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They all saw it, but not as I, who, standing as I did at the bed-head,
+and being something of an amateur conjurer myself, was conscious in a
+flash of the rascal “passing” the trinket into its receptacle even as
+he exposed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There followed an exclamation or two, and silence. Then Captain Naylor
+said “Haw!” and Miss Belmont, with a gasp, turned a mild reproachful
+gaze upon her sister-in-law. But Mrs. John had not the grace to accept
+it. She gave a little vexed, covetous laugh, and stepped forward.
+“Well,” she said to Miss Emma, “you must go without it still, dear, it
+seems.” Then, coldly, to Hurley: “Give it me, please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, so far so good; and, though I was enraged with, I could not
+combat the decision. But truly I was not prepared for the upshot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jim, at Mrs. John’s first movement, had recovered possession of the
+button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, you don’t!” he said quite savagely. “I know all about it, and
+’tain’t yourn by rights.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jim, Jim,” cried Miss Belmont in great agitation; “it is hers,
+indeed; please give it up. You don’t think what you make me suffer!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the man was black with a lowering determination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&hairsp;’Tain’t,” he said. “Keep off, you! I’ve not thrown agen the devil for
+nothing. It’s goin’ to be Miss Emma’s or nobody’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not mine,” cried the poor lady again. “I don’t want it. Not for
+worlds. I wouldn’t take it now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then Mrs. John Belmont, in one discordant explosion of fury, gave
+away her case for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Insolent! Beyond endurance!” she shrieked, and whirled, with a
+flaming face, upon her cavalier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Archibald! why do you stand grinning there? Why don’t you take it
+from him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus prompted, Archibald, in great confusion, uttered an inarticulate
+“Haw!” explained himself in a second and clearer one, and strode
+threateningly towards the bed. Watching, with glittering eyes, the
+advance, Jim, at the last moment, <i>whipped the button into his mouth
+and swallowed it!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">
+* * * * *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The case, as a pathological no less than as a criminological
+curiosity, was unique. I will state a few particulars. The button
+lodged in the pancreas, in which it was presently detected,
+comfortably ensconced, by means of the Röntgen rays. And it is a fact
+that, from the moment it settled there&mdash;<i>never</i> apparently (I use the
+emphasis with a full sense of my responsibility) to be evicted&mdash;Mr.
+Hurley began to recover, and from recovering to thrive&mdash;on anything.
+Croton-oil&mdash;I give only one instance&mdash;was a very cream of nourishment
+to him. Galvanic batteries but shook him into the laughter which makes
+fat, but without stirring the button. It was ridiculous to suggest an
+operation, though the point was long considered. But in the meanwhile
+the button had continued piling up over itself such impenetrable
+defences of adipose tissue that its very locality had become
+conjectural. The question was dropped, only to give rise to another.
+How could one any longer detain this luxuriant man in hospital as an
+invalid? He was removed, therefore, beaming, to the police court;
+received, for some inexplicable reason, a nominal sentence, dating
+from the time of his arrest (everything, in fact, was henceforward to
+prosper with him), and trundled himself out into the world, where he
+disappeared. I have seen him occasionally since at years-long
+intervals. He grows ever more sleek and portly, till the shadows of
+the three dead Belmonts together would not suffice to make him a pair
+of breeches. He has a colossal fortune; he is respectable, and, of
+course, respected&mdash;a genial monster of benevolence; and he never fails
+to remind me, when we meet, of the time when I could pronounce his
+life not worth a button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have, can only have, one theory. The button, after many cross
+adventures, “got home” at last&mdash;fatally for Mrs. John Belmont, who
+fell into a vicious decline upon its loss, and, tenderly nursed by her
+sister-in-law, departed this sphere in an uncertain year of her life.
+And, unless the button itself comes to dissolve, Jim, I fear, is
+immortal.
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch21">
+DOG TRUST
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<span class="sc">There</span> was no reason why Richard Le Shore should not have made a
+straightforward appeal for the hand of Miss Molly Tregarthen to her
+papa. His credentials&mdash;of fortune, condition, and character&mdash;were
+unexceptionable; the girl’s kind inclinations were confessed; the
+father himself was an unexacting, indulgent, and ease-loving
+Democritus. It was but a question of those two and of Mr. Dicky, their
+favoured, their intimately favoured, guest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no reason, and for the reason that the spirit of Romance
+abhors reason; and that was why, without any reason, Richard persuaded
+Mollinda to a clandestine engagement, to stolen interviews, to a
+belief that love franked by authority was only the skim-milk of human
+kindness. At least he chose to persuade himself that he persuaded her,
+at all times when he could coax a certain bewildered honesty in her
+eyes from dumbly questioning the necessity of such tactics. In reality
+he loved that look, as the sweetest earnest of a sweet quality. It was
+not her he studied to deceive, but himself. Incurably eligible, he
+could never taste but through make-believe, like the “Marchioness,”
+the sweet stimulant of paternal interdiction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of the season he accompanied father and child to
+“Tregarthen.” Here, you may be sure, he had not been twenty-four hours
+without making choice for his love’s rendezvous of a little wood
+which, approached through a tangled shrubbery, covered the slopes
+which ran up from the back of the house to the high beeches above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now Dicky would himself have allowed that everything (desirable) had
+shone upon his suit save moonlight. That only, of all poetic glamours,
+was yet lacking. And so he prevailed with Molly Tregarthen to consent
+to a postprandial trysting among the trees, on the very evening
+subsequent to that of his arrival.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had no difficulty in escaping from papa, the imperturbable
+sybarite. Seated in an open window over against shrouded lawns, and a
+moon which rose like a bubble in liquid darkness; dreaming betwixt
+decanter and cigar-case, papa would not have had his luminous coma
+disturbed for anything less than a serious fire. So Dicky left him,
+and going up alone to the woods, leaned his back against a tree and
+smoked placidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was very quiet, and fragrant, and beautiful there; and presently
+the young gentleman lost himself somewhat in reflections. The
+moonlight, penetrating the leaves, made of the sward a ghostly Tom
+Tiddler’s Ground, which was all mottled with disks of faint gold. What
+a soft, fine shower to fall upon the head of his Danae, as she should
+come stealing up the alleys of light! Stealing&mdash;stealing! There was a
+little thrill of ecstasy in the word. How wide her eyes would be, and
+how would her bosom rise and fall in the breathlessness of some
+phantom guilt!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quite a nice little debauch of expectation, only&mdash;she did not come. He
+waited on, desirous, impatient, hungry; and at last, it must be said,
+cross. The touch of her hand, her lips, had never seemed so
+indispensable to him; but he would not cheapen the virtues of his own
+by carrying them back to market to a coquette. If she wanted them, she
+knew where to find them. As for him, he was quite placid and content;
+in proof of which he threw away his cigar-butt, and began pacing with
+a noisy recklessness up and down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That did not conjure her to him, but it seemed to evoke occasional
+responsive rustlings, or the fancy of them, which would bring his
+heart into his throat. They were only the stirring of woodland things,
+it seemed. He got very angry, resentful, cruel in his thoughts. The
+moon, the bubble of light, rose higher and higher&mdash;to the very surface
+of night, where it floated a little, and then burst. At least, so it
+seemed; for, all of a sudden, where it had been was a black cloud, and
+drops began to patter on the leaves. Then Richard realized all in a
+moment that his tryst had failed, that the moonlight was quenched, and
+that it was beginning to rain. With a naughty word or two, he braced
+up his loins, left the wood, and descended towards the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he went down, he heard the stable clock strike twelve. He startled,
+and strode faster, faster, until he was fairly scuttling. It was in
+vain. The Tregarthens were early people, and, even before he reached
+the house, he knew that its every window was blind and black. The
+whole family was abed, and he was shut out into the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice, and vainly, he made the entire round of the building, seeking
+for any loophole to enter by. The rain by then was pelting, yet he did
+not dare raise a clatter on the front door, for fear he should be
+pistolled from a window. The inmates knew nothing of his absence, and
+the Squire held, for a Democritus, strong views on the subject of
+undisturbed repose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Coming to the porch again from his second circuit, and putting a hand
+to rest upon one of its columns, he jumped, as if he had touched a
+charged battery, to see a figure standing motionless in the shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hullo!” he gasped, in the sudden shock; then rallying, muttered out
+in a fury at his own weakness, “Who the devil are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some faint gleam of moonshine, weltering through the flood,
+enlightened him even as he spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, if it ain’t the butler!” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the butler. The figure admitted it in a curt word. Le Shore had
+already, on the occasions of his two dinners at “Tregarthen,” noticed
+this man, and had taken a quite violent exception in his own
+conscience to his manner and appearance. He thought he had never known
+a leading trust bestowed upon one whose face so expressed the very
+moral of acquisitiveness, whose conduct was marked by such an uncouth
+inurbanity. Here, if there was any value in biology, was Bill Sikes in
+broadcloth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tone of the fellow’s answer grated confoundedly on him&mdash;he hardly
+knew why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you locked out, like me?” he said, putting violence on himself to
+speak civilly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but for a better reason.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean by that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The creature was as thick-set as a bull. He could have broken this
+elegant like a stick across his knee. He commanded the situation,
+massive and impassive, from his own standpoint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look’ee here, sir,” he said, speaking through a grip of little strong
+teeth in a square jaw, “I’m going to tell you what I mean. I’m going
+to make no bones about it. You meet Miss Molly fair and open, or you
+don’t meet her at all. Do I know what I’m saying? Yes, I do know. She
+didn’t come to you to-night&mdash;because why? Because <i>I</i> interdicted of
+her. That’s it. She might have thought better&mdash;or worse&mdash;of it, bein’
+a woman, and soft; and that’s why I laid by, watchin’ that no harm
+should come of it if she did. But she was wise, and didn’t. I seen you
+all the time in the wood, and I tell you this. A word’s got to be
+enough. You meet her by fair means, or not at all. Never mind the
+Squire there. It’s me that says it. If she admires you, nine stun
+ten&mdash;which there’s no accounting for tastes&mdash;I’m not the one to make
+difficulties. But you go like a honest man and ask her straight of her
+father. That’s the ticket, and don’t you make no error. Don’t you
+flatter your fancy no more with randy-voos in the moonshine. Why, if
+ever there’s a light calc’lated to lead a gentleman astray, it’s that.
+I say it, and I know. You go to the girl’s father; and, after, we’ll
+see what we’ll see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He cleared his throat with a quarrelling sound, and came out of the
+shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now,” said he, “here’s a house you’ve been locked out of, and you
+want to get in without disturbin’ of the family&mdash;is that it? Very
+well, sir; now we understand everything; and step this way, if <i>you</i>
+please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost with the words, he had clawed himself up to a window-sill of
+the ground-floor, and was very softly manipulating the sash. Mr. Le
+Shore, voiceless, hardly gasping, stood, just conscious of himself, in
+an absolute rigor of fury and astonishment. He was “stound,” as
+Spenser would have put it. Presently he snapped his eyelids, and woke
+aware that Mr. Hissey, standing on the grass, was loweringly inviting
+him to enter by way of an opened window. With a shock, he recovered
+his nerves of motion, and, stalking to the place, vaulted stiffly to
+the sill, and sat thereon like a cavalryman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve just a word or two for you, before I&mdash;I avail myself of this,”
+he said. “You’ve been gadding, and got drunk, I suppose; and this is
+your way of trying to make capital of a belated guest. Perhaps the
+means you’ve adopted ’ll appear less excellent to you in the sober
+morning. As to your method of entry, there’s nothing in it
+incompatible with the character I’d already formed of you. But that,
+and your quite outrageous insolence, will be made matters for your
+master’s consideration to-morrow. I mention this in honour, before
+I&mdash;&mdash;” He waved his hand towards the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I could twist your neck with two fingers, here and now,” said the
+man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Exactly,” said Dicky. “And that’s why I decline to make use of this
+window except on the plain understanding.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The butler cleared his throat again, even with a strange note of
+approval in the unseemly sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mayhap you’ll do,” he said. “Now go to bed, and don’t forgit your
+prayers in your disappyntment.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Le Shore hissed-in a breath, as though the rain had suddenly
+become boiling spray, then tiptoed rigidly to his room.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+The opening of the window, framed with creepers, whose shadows shrank
+or dilated softly in the muslin curtains, gave on to a soothful
+picture of lawn and herbaceous border which, withdrawing to cool
+caverns of leafiness under a remote cedar tree, seemed to gather
+themselves to a head of prettiest expression in the person of little
+Miss Mollinda swinging there in a hammock. Within, at the
+luncheon-table, Tregarthen poured himself out a glass of Madeira with
+a hand so limp and white in appearance that one would have thought it
+incapable of the task of poising the heavy decanter. Here was delicate
+seeming only, however. The perpetual sybarite reads an incorruptible
+constitution. The white hand held the bottle horizontal, as steady as
+a rock, during the minute the indolent, good-humoured eyes of its
+owner were directed to those of his visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My dear good Richard, the man <i>is</i> a burglar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed at the other’s expression, filled his glass, sipped at it,
+and, hooking his thumbs in his arm-holes, lolled back in his chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am not justified in the confidence, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyhow,
+it is the short way out of a fatiguing explanation. The man <i>is</i> a
+burglar&mdash;not figuratively, but actually, by breeding, education,
+profession&mdash;<i>appelez-le comme vous voudrez</i>. He has the stamp of it so
+distinctly on him that one need not ask him to produce his skeleton
+key.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I have nothing more to say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah! the devil take the honest thief! Your obvious grievance forces me
+to the explanation, after all. My dear boy, I imply nothing, argue
+from no premises but such as a long experience of this capital,
+troublesome fellow suggest to me. Speaking from these (I may be
+wrong), I should conclude that he is somehow in process of
+safeguarding, as he thinks, the interests of my girl, to whom he is
+quite romantically attached. Honestly, I don’t know to whom I would
+rather commit them. Poor motherless child!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had, it seemed, no thought of himself as pledged to the task.
+‘Himself’ should be a fair one-man’s burden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is very right to be attached to Miss Tregarthen,” muttered Le
+Shore dryly, and a little sullenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is very right indeed,” answered his host; “righter (pardon the
+solecism) than you might think. In this excellent rogue is provided
+such an illustration of the ‘harmony not understood’ of discords, as
+circumstance has ever given to an <i>ennuyé</i> world. The dear creature
+has decided to stultify his every instinct for a sentiment. It is the
+most interesting psychological phenomenon you can imagine. He has
+conceded nothing of his nature but the means to its practical
+achievement. Conceive a wolf of his own determination forgoing blood.
+Such is this dear, admirable brute. <i>Perfossor parietum nascitur.</i> He
+cannot change his spots. To this day, I think, he will always of
+choice enter by a window rather than a door; to this day he regards
+plate with a most <i>melting</i> look. But for all that, I think I may
+swear that at the present moment the tally of my spoons is to an ounce
+what it was when he took service with me eighteen years ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your servant for eighteen years!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My servant&mdash;titularly: in reality, my mentor, my vizier. Dog Trust is
+a rather sweetly demoralizing acquisition. He takes the burden of
+conscience from one&mdash;steals it, in this case, I may say. But then,
+after all, he may use his vicegerency to ends so far beyond the moral
+grasp of the master he represents, as more than to vindicate that
+master in his withdrawal from the vexatious problems of duty. Through
+sheer force of affection this admirable George has mastered himself,
+and bettered his master in the parental ethics.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed, sir?” (Mr. Dicky spoke very dryly.) “And how does Miss
+Tregarthen approve the viziership?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As she loves and respects the vizier, Richard. I do not think she
+would willingly run counter to his dictates, which, by the way, he
+never imposes in a manner to alarm one’s pride. Ah! did you catch that
+whiff of scabious? There is a bush of it under the window there. It
+always seems to me to embody in itself the whole warmth and fragrance
+of summer. My dear fellow, your eyes are relentless inquisitors. No
+more wine? Well, I suppose I shall have to tell you how it came
+about.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sighed, drained his glass, laughed slightly, and smoothed a stray
+wisp of hair from his forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Once,” he said&mdash;“it was particularly disagreeable to a person of my
+temperament&mdash;I was called upon by Fate to suffer the ugly and sordid
+experience of a conflagration in my house. You, who are also a little
+inclined, I believe, to create for yourself an atmosphere of romance,
+to regard the great world only as a quarry, from which to gather
+materials most exquisite and most apt to the enrichment of the
+hermitage, which it is your design and your delight to build apart for
+your soul, will appreciate what were my feelings upon seeing my fairy
+fabric doomed to destruction, to positive annihilation, by the flames.
+I have never spoken to you of the disaster before. You will know that
+I do so now under the mere stress of fitness, as a means to your
+proper understanding of George Hissey’s conduct. The recollection is
+painful and horrible to a degree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The alarm, the escape, the catastrophe were all accomplished in the
+dark hours of a winter’s morning. My dear wife (she sleeps, awaiting
+my coming, in Elysium) followed me down the stairs and out of the
+house at a short interval. She found me devoted to a frantic endeavour
+to secure from destruction such of my poor treasures as were
+accessible&mdash;few enough, alas! though the tears I shed should have
+quenched the hate of a Hecla. What had I done with her child? she
+cried to me&mdash;with our sweet Molly, our little three-year-old babe?
+Richard, I felt as stunned as if she, the pretty, gentle mother, had
+struck me across the mouth. I could only stare and gasp. She uttered a
+heart-shaking scream, and turned to where the servants stood huddled
+together in the garden. They were all there, and the two nurses were
+crying and moaning and accusing one another. My God! mad with terror,
+they had deserted their charge to perish by itself in the burning
+house!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused. “Don’t go on, sir, if it distresses you,” said Le Shore
+quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” answered Tregarthen. “Like the Ancient Mariner, I must be quit
+of it now I have begun. But I will have a glass of wine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He poured himself out one, daintily as to the drop on the decanter
+lip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There followed a fearful scene,” he said. “It was all I could do to
+prevent my angel from precipitating herself through the blazing
+doorway. The whole building seemed by now a furnace&mdash;no possibility of
+further salvage from those priceless accumulations&mdash;not, of course,
+that at such a pass it was to be thought of. I mingled my tears with
+my wife’s. I offered half my fortune to any one of the crowd who would
+save, and a large reward to any one who would venture to save, our
+darling. But it was in vain; and in my heart I knew it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, in this extremity of despair, a sudden roar went up from a
+hundred throats, and passed on the instant. Richard, a man, shedding
+flakes of fire as Venus cast her birth-slough of spray, had emerged
+overhead from the sea of flame, and in his arms was our child. Who was
+he? Whence did he come? No one knew. Our house was isolated. The
+engine from the neighbouring town had not arrived. He was not a
+friend, nor a neighbour, nor an employé. It was only evident that
+innocence had somehow evolved its champion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We watched, stricken, as castaways watch the glimmer of a remote
+sail. The figure had broken its way through the skylight in the roof,
+only, it might be, to symbolize in the burden it bore the leaping of a
+little flame heavenward. The situation was the very sublimity of
+tragedy. Beneath those two the roof, sown with a very garden of fire,
+dropped at a sickening angle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Suddenly, shutting, as it seemed, upon his charge, the man rolled
+himself up like a hedgehog, and came bowling down the slope. It was a
+terrible and gasping moment. His body, as it whirled, reeled out a
+hiss of sparks. The next instant it had bounded over the edge, and
+plunged among the smoking bushes beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They broke his fall; but it was the verandah awning which in the
+first instance saved his life&mdash;his, and our dear devoted cherub’s. But
+he had never once, through all the stunning vertigo of his descent,
+failed to shield the little body which his own enwrapped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, my dear Richard, comes the strange part. When I was sufficiently
+recovered to seek our preserver, I found him sitting handcuffed, in
+charge of the local policeman. He was very white, with two or three
+ribs broken; but he took it all unconcerned, as being in the day’s, or
+the night’s, business. Who was he? Well, here is the explanation. He
+was a renowned cracksman, as I think they call it, who had been
+operating in the neighbourhood for some weeks past&mdash;the hero of many a
+shuddering midnight adventure. Without doubt he had taken his toll of
+<i>my</i> ‘crib,’ had not circumstance dropped him ripe into the gaping
+mouth of the law. He had entered, and was actually at work, when fire
+cut the ground, as it were, from under his feet. Almost before,
+intensely occupied, he realized his position, escape by the lower
+rooms was debarred him. Was ever situation so dramatic? It was to be
+compared only with that of a huntsman who, entering some cave to steal
+bear cubs, turns to find the dam blocking his outlet. Still, Mr.
+Hissey <i>might</i> have escaped, and without detection, by dropping to the
+lawn from a back window, had his burglarious ears not pricked suddenly
+to the wailing of a child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My dear fellow, need I explain further? The child he risked his own
+life to rescue was our&mdash;I may almost say, at this day, was <i>his</i>
+Molly. It was the strangest thing. I did not, as a consequence, quite
+see my way to holding him altogether absolved; but my dear, emotional
+partner was of a different opinion. We had quite a little scene about
+it. In the end she prevailed&mdash;with the whole boiling of the law, too;
+and the man was sentenced to come up for judgment if called upon. Then
+straightway, and by his own desire, she took the disinfected burglar
+into her service. It was one of those daring psychologic essays which
+may once and again be carried to a successful issue through the
+white-hot faith of the experimenter; but which must not be given
+authority as a precedent. My wife fairly redeemed this burglar, by
+committing, without hesitation, to his loyal trust the little waif of
+fire whose destinies he had earned the right to a voice in. From that
+day to this, I will say, he has never abused the faith we reposed in
+him. On her deathbed, my dear girl (pardon me a moment, Le Shore), my
+dear wife most solemnly recommitted her child to his care. I did not
+complain, I do not complain now. I, who make no pretence of competence
+in the paternal rôle, thank the gods only for my vizier, who is quite
+willing to accord me the ritual of authority, while taking its
+practical business on his own shoulders. With a man of my temperament
+it works; and I am satisfied, if Molly gives me her respect, that she
+should give Hissey her duty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ceased, with a little smiling sigh, and lifted a cigarette from a
+silver case which lay on the table. Le Shore regarded him steadily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, “Molly and I are engaged. I should have
+told you before.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The older man did not pause in the act of lighting his cigarette; but
+enjoyed an inhalation of smoke before he answered&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I plead guilty to a suspicion, Richard. I am confident our vizier has
+been safeguarding the proprieties. You remember what I said to you in
+his excuse just now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have your sanction, sir?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly, as a form. But I am afraid, from the practical side, you
+will have to satisfy that same inquisitor.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+“Mr. George Hissey,” said Dicky, “I have papa’s authority to marry
+Miss Molly. Now, with your permission, I will relieve you of your
+trust.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dicky!” cried the girl reproachfully; and she put her kind young arms
+round the ex-burglar’s neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Unless,” said Le Shore, “you care to transfer that to my ‘crib,’ Mr.
+Hissey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The butler cleared his throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I do care, sir,” he said, hoarsely, nevertheless, “since you
+seen fit to cut that moonshinin’ lay, And as to cribs&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Molly” said Richard, “there’s papa calling.”
+</p>
+
+
+<h3 id="ch22">
+A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE
+</h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“<span class="sc">I have</span> nothing to do with your scruples,” said the magistrate; “the
+law is the law, and I am here to administer it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley licked his hand, and stolidly smoothing down his black
+hair with it, answered, as if at a distance, being a well-fed,
+unctuous man, “too full for sound and foam,” “I’m a conscientious
+objector.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Passive resister!” corrected a friend, a little eager man, among the
+audience near him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eh?” said Mr. Plumley immovably, and without a glance in the
+direction of the voice, “I said passive resister, didn’t I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whether you said it or not,” answered the magistrate sharply, “you
+look it. I make an order against you for the amount.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As man to man&mdash;&mdash;” began Mr. Plumley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not in the least,” said the magistrate; “as debtor to creditor. Stand
+down.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shan’t pay it,” said Mr. Plumley, preparing to obey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you say another word, I’ll commit you for contempt,” said the
+magistrate. “Stand down, sir!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley stood down, with an unspeakable expression&mdash;it might have
+been of satisfaction&mdash;on his huge, stolid face. Arrived at the floor,
+he beckoned his little friend to follow him, and heavily left the
+court.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He steered&mdash;the other acting as his rudder, as it were, and keeping
+his position behind&mdash;straight for his own domestic shrine, hight
+Primrose Villa, semi-detached. It was a beautiful little home for a
+widower unencumbered, calculated, like an india-rubber collar, to
+afford the maximum of display at a minimum of cost in washing. The
+doorsteps were laid with a flaming pattern in tiles; red-aspinalled
+flower pots, embellished with little dull glazed shrubs, stood on the
+lowest window-sill; the bell-knob was of handsome porcelain, painted
+with the gaudiest flowers in miniature. Within, too, it was all
+furnished on a like hard principle of lustre&mdash;red and yellow oilcloth
+in the hall, with marbled paper to match; earthenware-panned mahogany
+hat-rack and umbrella-stand combined, as red as rhubarb, and as acrid
+in suggestion to one’s feelings; more oilcloth in the parlour; more
+mahogany, also, with a pert disposition in its doors and drawers to
+resent being shut up; glass bead mats and charity bazaar photograph
+frames on the whatnots, all so clean and pungent with sharp furniture
+stain that the rudder&mdash;Gardener by name&mdash;felt, as usual, the necessity
+of a humble apology for bringing his five feet four of shabbiness into
+the midst of so much splendour and selectness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley rumbled condescendingly in reply&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d get used to it, Robert, you’d get used to it, if you’d lived
+familiar with it all your life, as I have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah!” said Gardener, “but I wasn’t born like you, sir, to shine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If he meant that the other was a light in his way&mdash;a little tallowy,
+perhaps&mdash;his own dry, hungry cheeks certainly justified him in the
+self-depreciation. They justified him, moreover&mdash;or he fancied they
+did, which was all the same as to the moral&mdash;in continuing to act
+jackal to this social lion, who had once been his employer in the
+cheap furniture-removal line. He lived&mdash;hung, it would seem more
+apposite to say&mdash;on his traditions of the great man’s business
+capacities, capacities whose fruits were here to witness, for evidence
+of the competence upon which his principal had retired. He got, in
+fact, little else than his traditions out of his former master at this
+date; yet it was strange how they served to delude him into a belief
+in his continued profit at the hands of the old patronage. The moral
+benefit he acquired from stealing into the local chapel to hear Mr.
+Plumley take a Sunday-school class, was at least worth as much to him
+as the occasional pipe of tobacco, or glass of whisky and water, which
+his idol vouchsafed him. For Mr. Gardener, as a true ‘poor relation’
+of the gods, was humbly thankful for their cheapest condescensions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You stuck to your principles, sir,” he said, standing on one leg and
+the toe of the other, in humble deprecation of his right to any but
+the smallest possible allowance of oilcloth. Perhaps he would have
+brought his foot down, even he, could he have guessed the true
+significance of his own remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did, Robert,” said Mr. Plumley, placidly sleeking his hair. “I
+always do. Have a pipe, Robert?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the man. “That was a mistake you made,
+sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mistakes,” said Mr. Plumley, “will occur. Have some whisky, Robert?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re very good, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t like it too strong, I think, Robert? And how’s the world
+treating you, my friend?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Much as usual, sir. From hand to mouth’s my motto.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sad, sad to be sure. They’ll distrain upon me, I suppose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid so, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The inhumanity of the world, Robert! You do pretty reg’lar porter’s
+work for Bull and Hacker, the auctioneers, don’t you, Robert?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s so, Mr. Plumley,” said the man, wondering. “But the work’s
+heavier than the wages.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’ll be commissioned to seize the necessary goods. I wish you’d
+manage to give ’em a hint, Robert&mdash;over the left, you know, without
+any reference to me&mdash;that there’s a picture I prize (and that I’ve
+reason to believe a dealer is after), what would more than pay the two
+pun odd of the distraint if put up first. O’ course, I can’t appear to
+favour the matter myself, being a con&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Passive resister, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you, Robert; being the one most concerned in disputin’ the
+justice of the law. But a hint from you might settle the question at
+once. We aren’t very good friends, Bull and me; and, if he thought I
+prized the article, he’d be moral sure to seize it, slap away, to
+spite me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The picter?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The picture, Robert. There it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It hung in an obscure corner, a dingy enough article, in an old
+damaged frame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It don’t look the price,” said Gardener doubtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It cost me more in a bad debt,” said the ex-remover, busying himself
+with the whisky in his heavy, observant way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very like, sir,” answered the other, and coughed behind his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know what you mean,” said his patron; “that I was took in. Well,
+I’ve reason to think not, my man. I’ve reason to think that picture’s
+worth a deal&mdash;say, fifty pun. Anyhow, I mean to try.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A dealer’s after it, you say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I do say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then why&mdash;with deference, sir&mdash;don’t you sell direct to him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t I? Am I a man of business, Robert? Look about you. Have I
+learned, do you think, to take a hexpert’s word as to the precise
+vally of a article that I see his heye’s on, or to argy by induction
+that a good private offer means a better public one? When it comes to
+overreaching&mdash;hem!&mdash;a connoyser’s a man like myself; so we’ll just, by
+your leave, put the picture up to auction.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He carried the decanter back to its place in one of the shiny
+cupboards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Besides, my friend,” said he, talking over his shoulder, “don’t you
+see as how my conscience demands this seizure?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not quite, sir, <i>with</i> humility, if so be as&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re dense, Robert. Look here, I’m a conscientious resister, ain’t
+I? Law ain’t necessarily equity because the devil and Mr. Chamberlain
+frames it. There’s some lawgivers that are Vicars of Jehovah, and some
+of&mdash;&mdash;but perhaps you’ve never heard of Abaddon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Haven’t</i> I?” said Mr. Gardener ruefully. “I was near run in once for
+tendering one as had been passed on me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was king of the bottomless pit,” said Mr. Plumley patiently. “<i>He</i>
+framed this here law what’s made a passive objector of me. Well, if,
+in resigning myself to his unjust processes, I force the
+picture-dealer’s hand, thereby making a profit elsewise denied me,
+don’t you see how I round on the law&mdash;triumph over it&mdash;kill two birds
+with one stone, as it might be?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, sir; I see that,” said Mr. Gardener, though still doubtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You do, do you?” responded the other. “Well, then, the only thing is
+to make the law pay as heavy as possible by getting the picture run up
+to the dealer’s figure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But the law wouldn’t go for more’n its two pun odd,” protested the
+jackal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, you fool!” snarled the lion. “It’s the moral profit’s the game,
+don’t you see? <i>I</i> gain by the very hact what starts of itself to ruin
+me. It’s as plain as two pins.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Gardener scratched his head, and broke into a short laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bless you sir,” said he, “it’s clear enough; if on’y you’ll tell me
+who in all this here place is a-going to run up the dealer, since you
+can’t yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley, bending at the cupboard, did not answer for a moment.
+When at last he did, rising and facing round, there was a curious
+pallor on his lips, and he had to clear his throat before he could
+articulate&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You, Robert.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Me, sir! You’re joking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never less so, Robert.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ain’t worth a sixpence in the world, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ex-remover walked shakily across, and put a flabby, insinuative
+hand on the other’s shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think I may say I’ve been a good friend to you, Robert?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gardener muttered an uneasy affirmative.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To justify a great principle, Robert? It’s a mere matter of form;
+its&mdash;&mdash;humph! A moment, if you please. Think of it while I’m gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A rap at the front door had obtruded itself. Mr. Plumley tiptoed
+elephantinely out, was heard murmuring a few minutes in the hall, and
+returned shortly in a state of suavely perspiring mystery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s the dealer himself, Robert,” he whispered, his little eyes
+twinkling. “He’s come to make another attempt. I’ll humour him&mdash;humour
+him, never fear. Now, you must be quick. Will you do this little thing
+to oblige me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Supposing I were let in, sir?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley coughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guarantee you, of course. It’s just a confidence between us. Go to
+fifty pound&mdash;not a penny less nor more&mdash;and let him take it at any
+figure he likes, beyond. He won’t fail you. You’ll do it, Robert?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t favour the job, sir.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you’ll do it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, yes, then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley showed him out, returned to the parlour, finished his
+whisky and water, and called in the dealer from some hidden corner of
+the hall where he had lain concealed. He had braced his nerves in the
+interval. His attitude all at once was scowling and truculent&mdash;meet
+for the reception of the shabby loafer who now presented himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you grinning at, sir?” he roared. “This ain’t the face to
+bring to business.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O! isn’t it?” said the man. “Then I’ll change it&mdash;&mdash;” which he did,
+so suddenly and terrifically that the other cowered. The stranger
+snorted, and relaxed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What now, minion?” said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bah!” snarled Mr. Plumley: “it comes easy to a barnstormer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Roscius, ye fat old Philistine,” cried the actor, striking his breast
+with a ragged-gloved hand: “Roscius, thou ‘villainous, obscene, greasy
+tallow-ketch!’&hairsp;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” said Mr. Plumley, wiping his brow, “I meant no offence,
+anyhow. Have a drink?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stranger breathed heavily, and assumed a Napoleonic pose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will have a drink,” he said; and, in fact, before he would
+condescend to utter another word, he had two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ha!” he said then, ejaculating a little spirituous cloud, and his
+lean, pantomimic face was all at once benign. “Richard’s himself
+again, and eager for the fray! To the charge, my passive resister, my
+heavy lead! Ye need Theophilus Bolton! Ye must pay!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As to that there,” began Mr. Plumley, stuttering and glowering; but
+the other took him up coolly&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As to that, dear boy, there’s no question. You’ve withheld me from a
+profitable engagement&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, blow profitable!” interposed Mr. Plumley. “And you didn’t jump at
+the chanst neither!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To play a part for you,” went on the actor unruffled “Well, am I to
+be Agnew, or Christie, or Sotheby, or who? My commission’s five per
+cent.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I don’t object to that,” said Plumley, relieved. “On the vally
+of the picture to Gardener, that’s to say. Call it done, and call
+yourself what you like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One man in his time plays many parts,” murmured Mr. Bolton. “Put it
+on paper, dear boy. I have a weakness for testaments.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley protested; the actor whistled. In the end, the latter
+pocketed a document to the effect that Joshua Plumley agreed to pay
+Theophilus Bolton a sum to be calculated at the rate of five per cent
+on the ultimate selling price at auction (on a date hereafter to be
+filled in) of a picture known as the “The Wood Shop.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll be close?” said Mr. Plumley uneasily. “It might&mdash;it might
+injure me, you know, if it got about. Short o’ fifty pound’s the
+figger&mdash;you understand? Let Gardener secure it at that. I’ve my
+reasons. You come to me quick and quiet after the sale, and you shall
+have your two pound ten on the nail, and slip off with it as private
+as you wish.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, what was Plumley’s little game? And wasn’t he anyhow a good man
+of business?
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+He was at least such a sure student of human nature as to have made no
+miscalculation in the matter of Bull and Hacker’s predilections. They
+seized, on the strength of Mr. Gardener’s artful insinuations, the
+very picture on which the defaulter was supposed to set a value, and
+put it up to sale one afternoon on the tail of a general auction. Mr.
+Gardener bid for it (the practice was common enough amongst the firm’s
+employés, acting for private clients, and Bull rather admired the
+man’s astuteness in having suggested a seizure so prospectively
+profitable to himself), and a strange dealer opposed him. They ran one
+another up merrily, and the room gaped and sniggered and whispered. It
+was an afternoon of surprises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forty-six,” cried the auctioneer&mdash;“any advance on forty-six?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A local lawyer, Bittern by name, was observed pushing his way through
+the crowd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good Lord!” he was muttering; “is the man daft!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forty-seven,” said the dealer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forty-eight,” bawled Gardener.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forty-nine,” said the dealer monotonously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fifty!” cried Gardener stoutly; and hung on the bid which was to quit
+and relieve him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It did not come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The auctioneer raised his stereotyped wail: It was giving the lot
+away; a chance like that might never occur again; let him say
+fifty-one. “Come, gentlemen! Shall I say fifty-one? No?” He would sell
+at fifty, then&mdash;sell this unique work at the low figure of fifty
+pounds. “Any advance on fifty pounds?” He raised his hammer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not for me,” said the dealer, turning away. “Let him have it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down came the hammer. “Gardener: fifty pounds,” murmured Mr. Bull,
+with a very satisfied face. The purchaser stood stupefied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two flurried gentlemen at this moment entered the room. They seemed
+more rivals than friends, and each shouldered the other rather rudely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Too late, by gosh!” growled one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not a bit,” said the second, pushing past. “We’ll get the vendee to
+put it up again. I dare say he’ll do it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here!” cried the first, grasping at the other’s receding figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jibbing together, they made their way towards Gardener, who was
+standing in rueful and dumbfoundered altercation with the lawyer. A
+brief but very earnest discussion took place among the four. At the
+end, the rostrum was invoked, the picture was replaced on the table,
+the two new-comers took up position. Gardener, mute and dazed, fell
+back, in custody of the lawyer, who stood with a hard, shrewd glitter
+in his eyes, and the auctioneer, blandly elated, raised his voice,
+justifying his own judgment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The picture, he said&mdash;as he had already informed the company, in
+fact&mdash;was a desirable one, a rare example of that peerless master
+Adrian Ostade; and the recent purchaser&mdash;whose property it was now
+become&mdash;had been persuaded generously to put it up to auction again on
+his own account, in answer to the representations of certain would-be
+bidders, whom an unforeseen delay on the railway had prevented from
+attending earlier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will start at fifty pounds, gentlemen, if you please,” said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Bolton, in the background, pulled his hat over his eyes, and
+settled himself to listen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="mt1">
+That great financial strategist, Mr. Plumley, sat drinking whisky and
+water by lamplight. His pipe lay at his side. He had tried to smoke
+it; but tobacco flurried him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It should be about settled by now,” he muttered. “Where’s that
+Bolton?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rap!” came the answer, upon such an acute nervous centre, that he
+started as if he had been stung.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rose, made an effort to compose himself, and went to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A spare tall figure detached itself from the dark, and entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What the devil’s been keeping you?” growled the ex-remover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah! you’re short-sighted, my friend,” said Mr. Bittern, and walked
+coolly into the parlour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley stared, felt suddenly wet, shook himself, and followed.
+When it came to creeping flesh, he felt the full aggravation of his
+size. The slow march of apprehensions, taking time from a sluggish but
+persistent brain, seemed minutes encompassing him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So,” said the lawyer, dry and wintry, the moment he was in, “you
+coveted your neighbours one ewe lamb?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley took up his pipe, blew through it, put it down again, and
+said nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d heard of Gardener’s aunt’s little bequest to him of fifty
+pounds, duty free, eh?” asked the lawyer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Mr. Plumley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O!” said the lawyer. “He bid fifty pounds for that picture of yours
+this afternoon, and got it. On whose instructions?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ask him, sir. He acts for many.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It wasn’t on yours, then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that reasonable, Mr. Bittern, when to my knowledge the man wasn’t
+worth a brass farden?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you say about holding him to his bargain?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I say, if he’s bought the picture, he must pay for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And who bid against him? You don’t know that either, I suppose?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nat’rally. Was I there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’ve settled for him with Bull and Hacker, and brought you
+their cheque, less commission and distraint. Give me a receipt for
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great creature, elated with his own strategy as he was, could
+hardly draw it out, his hands shook so. But he managed the business
+somehow. The lawyer examined the paper, and buttoning it into his
+pocket, took up his hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“O, by the way!” he said, as if on an afterthought, “I was forgetting
+to mention that Gardener, after securing the picture, put it up to
+auction again, at the particular request of some late arrivals, and
+was bid a thousand pounds for it. It turned out to be a very good
+work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Plumley took up his pipe again quite softly, looked at it a
+moment, and suddenly dashed it to smithereens on the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a plant!” he cried in a fat, hoarse scream. “I’ll be even with
+him&mdash;I’ll have the money&mdash;the picture was mine&mdash;I’ll&mdash;by God, I say,
+it was a conspiracy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lawyer at the door lashed round on him like whipcord.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And that’s what I think,” he shouted. “The meanest, dirtiest trick
+that was ever played by a canting scoundrel on a poor brother. But I
+may get to the bottom of it yet, from the opening scheme to enlist
+Gardener’s sympathies for a poor martyr to conscience, to the last
+wicked design upon him in the saleroom. I may get to the bottom of it,
+cunning as it was planned; and, when I do, let some look out!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he flung away, he let in a new-comer, Mr. Bolton, by the opened
+door. Mr. Plumley, choking in the backwater of his own fury, had sunk
+into a chair, gasping betwixt bitterness and panic. He could not, for
+the moment, remember how far he had committed himself. He looked up to
+meet the insolent, ironic smile of his confederate. “Come along, dear
+boy,” said Mr. Bolton. “Curtain’s down. Cash up!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He presented a claim for fifty pounds, and stood, his hat cocked on
+his head, picking his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s this curst gammon?” sneered Mr. Plumley, rousing himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Commission,” said the actor airily. “Five per cent. on the ultimate
+selling price of a picture.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It went at fifty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pardon <i>me</i>, sir. <i>Ultimate&mdash;ultimate</i>, see agreement” (he smacked
+his chest). “One thou’ was the figure, and dirt cheap. Fine example.
+I’ll trouble you for a cheque.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Two pound ten. I’ll give it you in cash.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Bolton whistled a stave, and turned round, his hands deep in his
+breeches’ pockets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can sell to the other party. Good day to you, and look out.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="center mt1">
+[The End]
+</p>
+
+
+<h2>
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Minor spelling inconsistencies (<i>e.g.</i> cash-box/cash box,
+frockcoat/frock-coat, etc.) have been preserved.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<b>Alterations to the text</b>:
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+[A gallows-bird]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Change “convolutions of war, the merry, the <i>dance-maccabre</i>” to
+<i>danse-macabre</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+[Our lady of refuge]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“fort of San Fernando. and the cursed French garrison,” change period
+to comma.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+[The five insides]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(“&hairsp;‘Eh, says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting) add right single
+quotation mark after <i>Eh</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“a bit forward&mdash;‘No, no, no no, no, no, no&mdash;’&hairsp;” add comma after
+third <i>no</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+[The jade button]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The property was recovered&mdash;but for the heir…” add period to
+sentence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center mt1">
+[End of text]
+</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'></div>
+<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-footer' lang='en' >
+<div id='pg-end-separator'>
+<span>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***</span>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
+be renamed.
+</div>
+<div>
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+</div>
+
+<div id='project-gutenberg-license'>START: FULL LICENSE</div>
+<h2 id='pg-footer-heading'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</h2>
+<div class='agate'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div>
+
+<div>
+To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+</div>
+<div class='secthead'>
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+</div>
+<div>
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
+or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
+Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+</div>
+
+<div>
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
+on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+</div>
+<blockquote>
+  <div>
+    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+    at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
+    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
+  </div>
+</blockquote>
+<div>
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg™ License.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
+other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
+Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+provided that:
+</div>
+<ul>
+    <li>• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
+        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
+        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+        Literary Archive Foundation.”
+    </li>
+    <li>• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
+        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
+        works.
+    </li>
+    <li>• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+        receipt of the work.
+    </li>
+    <li>• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
+    </li>
+</ul>
+<div>
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.F.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+</div>
+<div>
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+</div>
+<div class='secthead'>
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
+</div>
+<div>
+Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+</div>
+<div>
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
+</div>
+<div class='secthead'>
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+<div>
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
+</div>
+<div>
+The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+</div>
+<div class='secthead'>
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+<div>
+Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+</div>
+<div>
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
+visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.
+</div>
+<div>
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+</div>
+<div>
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+</div>
+<div>
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
+</div>
+<div class='secthead'>
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
+</div>
+<div>
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+</div>
+<div>
+Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+</div>
+<div>
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
+</div>
+<div>
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+</div>
+
+</section>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7a2e27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #71615 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71615)
diff --git a/old/71615-0_2023-09-11.txt b/old/71615-0_2023-09-11.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 460b22d..0000000
--- a/old/71615-0_2023-09-11.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,11344 +0,0 @@
-

-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes

-

-This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and 

-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 

-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms 

-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online 

-at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, 

-you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located 

-before using this eBook.

-

-

-Title: Loaves and fishes

-

-Author: Bernard Capes

-

-Release Date: September 11, 2023 [eBook #71615]

-

-Language: English

-

-Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer

-

-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***

-

-

-

-

-

- LOAVES AND FISHES

-

- BY

- BERNARD CAPES

-

-

-

-

- METHUEN & CO.

- 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

- LONDON

- _First Published in 1906_

-

-

-

-

- CONTENTS

-

- A GALLOWS-BIRD

- THE RAVELLED SLEAVE

- THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR

- A GHOST-CHILD

- HIS CLIENT’S CASE

- AN ABSENT VICAR

- THE BREECHES BISHOP

- THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE

- ARCADES AMBO

- OUR LADY OF REFUGE

- THE GHOST-LEECH

- POOR LUCY RIVERS

- THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR

- THE LOST NOTES

- THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD

- JACK THE SKIPPER

- A BUBBLE REPUTATION

- A POINT OF LAW

- THE FIVE INSIDES

- THE JADE BUTTON

- DOG TRUST

- A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE

-

-

-

-

- [NOTE]

-

-Acknowledgments are made to the editors of “The Pall Mall Magazine,”

-“The Illustrated London News,” “The World,” “Black and White,” “The

-London Magazine,” “The English Illustrated Magazine,” and “The

-Bystander,” to the hospitality of whose pages a number of the stories

-here reprinted were first invited.

-

-

-

-

- LOAVES AND FISHES

-

- A GALLOWS-BIRD

-

-In February of the year 1809, when the French were sat down before

-Saragossa--then enduring its second and more terrific siege within a

-period of six months--it came to the knowledge of the Duc d’Abrantes,

-at that time the General commanding, that his army, though undoubtedly

-the salt of the earth, was yet so little sufficient to itself in the

-matter of seasoning, that it was reduced to the necessity of

-flavouring its soup with the saltpetre out of its own cartridges. In

-this emergency, d’Abrantes sent for a certain Ducos, captain on the

-staff of General Berthier, but at present attached to a siege train

-before the doomed town, and asked him if he knew whence, if anywhere

-in the vicinity, it might be possible to make good the deficiency.

-

-Now this Eugène Ducos was a very progressive evolution of the times,

-hatched by the rising sun, emerged stinging and splendid from the

-exotic quagmires of the past. A facile linguist, by temperament and

-early training an artist, he had flown naturally to the field of

-battle as to that field most fertile of daring new effects, whose

-surprises called for record rather than analysis. It was for him to

-collect the impressions which, later, duller wits should classify.

-And, in the meantime, here he was at twenty a captain of renown, and

-always a creature of the most unflagging resourcefulness.

-

-“You were with Lefebvre-Desnouettes in Aragon last year?” demanded

-Junot.

-

-“I was, General; both before the siege and during it.”

-

-“You heard mention of salt mines in this neighbourhood?”

-

-“There were rumours of them, sir--amongst the hills of Ulebo; but it

-was never our need to verify the rumours.”

-

-“Take a company, now, and run them to earth. I will give you a week.”

-

-“Pardon me, General; I need no company but my own, which is ever the

-safest colleague.”

-

-Junot glared demoniacally. He was already verging on the madness which

-was presently to destroy him.

-

-“The devil!” he shouted. “You shall answer for that assurance! Go

-alone, sir, since you are so obliging, and find salt; and at your

-peril be killed before reporting the result to me. Bones of God! is

-every skipjack with a shoulder-knot to better my commands?”

-

-Ducos saluted, and wheeled impassive. He knew that in a few days

-Marshal Lannes was to supplant this maniac.

-

- * * * * *

-

-Up and away amongst the intricate ridges of the mountains, where the

-half-unravelled knots of the Pyrenees flow down in threads, or

-clustered threads, which are combed by and by into the plains south of

-Saragossa, a dusky young goatherd loitered among the chestnut trees on

-a hot afternoon. This boy’s beauty was of a supernal order. His

-elastic young cheeks glowed with colour; his eyebrows were resolute

-bows; his lips, like a pretty phrase of love, were set between dimples

-like inverted commas. And, as he stood, he coquetted like Dinorah to

-his own shadow, chasséd to it, spoke to it, upbraiding or caressing,

-as it answered to his movements on the ground before him--

-

-“Ah, pretty one! ah, shameless! Art thou the shadow of the girl that

-Eugenio loved? Fie, fie! thou wouldst betray this poor Anita--mock the

-round limbs and little feet that will not look their part. Yet, betray

-her to her love returning, and Anita will fall and kiss thee on her

-knees--kiss the very shadow of Eugenio’s love. Ah, little shadow! take

-wings and fly to him, who promised quickly to return. Say I am good

-but sad, awaiting him; say that Anita suffers, but is patient. He will

-remember then, and come. No shadow of disguise shall blind him to his

-love. Go, go, before I repent and hold thee, jealous that mine own

-shadow should run before to find his lips.”

-

-She stooped, and, with a fantastic gesture, threw her soul upon the

-winds; then rose, and leaned against a tree, and began to sing, and

-sigh and murmur softly:

-

-

- “‘At the gate of heaven are sold brogues

- For the little bare-footed angel rogues’--

-

-

-Ah, little dear mother! it is the seventh month, and the sign is still

-delayed. No baby, no lover. Alack! why should he return to me, who am

-a barren olive! The husbandman asks a guerdon for his care. Give me my

-little doll, Santissima, or I will be naughty and drink holy-water:

-give me the shrill wee voice, which pierces to the father’s heart,

-when even passion loiters. Ah, come to me, Eugenio, my Eugenio!”

-

-She raised her head quickly on the word, and her heart leaped. It was

-to hear the sound of a footstep, on the stones far below, coming up

-the mountain side. She looked to her shirt and jacket. Ragged as they

-were, undeveloped as was the figure within them, she had been so

-jealous a housewife that there was not in all so much as an eyelet

-hole to attract a peeping Tom. Now, leaving her goats amongst the

-scattered boulders of the open, she backed into the groves,

-precautionally, but a little reluctant, because in her heart she was

-curious.

-

-The footsteps came on toilfully, and presently the man who was

-responsible for them hove into sight. He wore the dress of an English

-officer, save for the shepherd’s felt hat on his head; but his scarlet

-jacket was knotted loosely by the sleeves about his throat, in order

-to the disposition of a sling which held his left arm crookt in a

-bloody swathe. He levered himself up with a broken spear-shaft; but he

-was otherwise weaponless. A pistol, in Ducos’s creed, was the argument

-of a fool. He carried _his_ ammunition in his brains.

-

-Having reached a little plateau, irregular with rocks shed from the

-cliffs above, he sat down within the shadow of a grove of chestnut and

-carob trees, and sighed, and wiped his brow, and nodded to all around

-and below him.

-

-“Yes, and yes, and of a truth,” thought he: “here is the country of my

-knowledge. And yonder, deep and far amongst its myrtles and

-mulberries, crawls the Ebro; and to my right, a browner clod amongst

-the furrows of the valleys, heaves up the ruined monastery of San

-Ildefonso, which Daguenet sacked, the radical; whilst I occupied (ah,

-the week of sweet malvoisie and sweeter passion!) the little inn at

-the junction of the Pampeluna and Saragossa roads. And what has become

-of Anita of the inn? Alack! if my little _fille de joie_ were but here

-to serve me now!”

-

-The goatherd slipped round the shoulder of a rock and stood before

-him, breathing hard. Her black curls were, for all the world,

-bandaged, as it might be, with a yellow napkin (though they were more

-in the way to give than take wounds), and crowned rakishly with a

-dusky sombrero. She wore a kind of gaskins on her legs, loose, so as

-to reveal the bare knees and a little over; and across her shoulders

-was slung a sun-burnt shawl, which depended in a bib against her

-chest.

-

-Now the one stood looking down and the other up, their visions

-magnetically meeting and blending, till the eyes of the goatherd were

-delivered of very stars of rapture.

-

-Was this a spirit, thought Ducos, summoned of his hot and necessitous

-desire? But the other had no such misgiving. All in a moment she had

-fallen on her brown knees before him, and was pitifully kissing his

-bandaged arm, while she strove to moan and murmur out the while her

-ecstasy of gratitude.

-

-“Nariguita!” he murmured, rallying as if from a dream; “Nariguita!”

-

-She laughed and sobbed.

-

-“Ah, the dear little happy name from thy lips! A thousand times will I

-repeat it to myself, but never as thou wouldst say it. And now! Yes,

-Nariguita, Eugenio--thine own ‘little nose’--thy child, thy baby, who

-never doubted that this day would come--O darling of my soul, that it

-would come!”--(she clung to him, and hid her face)--“Eugenio! though

-the blossom of our love delays its fruitage!”

-

-He smiled, recovered from his first astonishment. Ministers of

-coincidence! In all the fantastic convolutions of war, the merry, the

-danse-macabre, should not love’s reunions have a place? It was nothing

-out of that context that here was he chanced again, and timely, upon

-that same sweet instrument which he had once played on, and done with,

-and thrown aside, careless of its direction. Now he had but to stoop

-and reclaim it, and the discarded strings, it seemed, were ready as

-heretofore to answer to his touch with any melody he listed.

-

-He caressed her with real delight. She was something more than

-lovable. He made himself a very Judas to her lips.

-

-“Anita, my little Anita!” he began glowingly; but she took him up with

-a fevered eagerness, answering the question of his eyes.

-

-“So long ago, ah Dios! And thou wert gone; and the birds were silent;

-and under the heavy sky my father called me to him. He held a last

-letter of thine, which had missed my hands for his. Love, sick at our

-parting, had betrayed us. O, the letter! how I swooned to be denied

-it! He was for killing me, a traitor. Well, I could not help but be.

-But Tia Joachina had pity on me, and dressed me as you see, and

-smuggled me to the hills, that I might at least have a chance to live

-without suffering wrong. And, behold! the heavens smiled upon me,

-knowing my love; and Señor Cangrejo took me to herd his goats. For

-seven months--for seven long, faithful months; until the sweetest of

-my heart’s flock should return to pasture in my bosom. And now he has

-come, my lamb, my prince, even as he promised. He has come, drawing me

-to him over the hills, following the lark’s song of his love as it

-dropped to earth far forward of his steps. Eugenio! O, ecstasy! Thou

-hast dared this for my sake?”

-

-“Child,” answered the admirable Ducos, “I should have dared only in

-breaking my word. _Un honnête homme n’a que sa parole._ That is the

-single motto for a poor captain, Nariguita. And who is this Señor

-Cangrejo?”

-

-Some terror, offspring of his question, set her clinging to him once

-more.

-

-“What dost thou here?” she cried, with immediate inconsistency--“a

-lamb among the wolves! Eugenio!”

-

-“Eh!”--he took her up, with an air of bewilderment. “I am Sir Zhones,

-the English capitaine, though it loose me your favour, mamsellee. Wat!

-Damn eet, I say!”

-

-She fell away, staring at him; then in a moment gathered, and leapt to

-him again between tears and laughter.

-

-“But this?” she asked, her eyes glistening; and she touched the

-bandage.

-

-“Ah! that,” he answered. “Why, I was wounded, and taken prisoner by

-the French, you understand? Also, I escaped from my captors. It comes,

-blood and splint and all, from the smashed arm of a sabreur, who,

-indeed, had no longer need of it.”

-

-“For the love of Christ!” she cried in a panic. “Come away into the

-trees, where none will observe us!”

-

-“Bah! I have no fear, I,” said Ducos. But he rose, nevertheless, with

-a smile, and, catching up the goatherd, bore her into the shadows.

-There, sitting by her side, he assured her, the rogue, of the

-impatience with which he had anticipated, of the eagerness with which

-he had run to realize this longed-for moment. The escapade had only

-been rendered possible, he said truthfully, by the opportune demand

-for salt. Doubtless she would help him, for love’s sake, to justify

-the venture to his General?

-

-But, at that, she stared at him, troubled, and her lip began to

-quiver.

-

-“Ah, God!” she cried; “then it was not I in the first place! Go thy

-ways, love; but for pity’s heart-sake let me weep a little. Yes, yes,

-there is salt in the mountains, that I know, and where the caves lie.

-But there are also Cangrejo--whom you French ruined and made a

-madman--and a hundred like him, wild-cats hidden amongst the leaves.

-And there, too, are the homeless friars of St. Ildefonso; and, dear

-body of Christ! the tribunal of terror, the junta of women, who are

-the worst of all--lynx-eyed demons.”

-

-He smiled indulgently. Her terror amused him.

-

-“Well, well,” he said; “well, well. And what, then, is this junta?”

-

-“It is a scourge,” she whispered, shivering, “for traitors and for

-spies. It gathers nightly, at sunset, in the dip yonder, and there

-waters with blood its cross of death. This very evening, Cangrejo

-tells me----”

-

-She broke off, cuddled closer to her companion, and clasping her hands

-and shrugging up her shoulders to him, went on awfully--

-

-“Eugenio, there was a wagon-load of piastres coming secretly for

-Saragossa by the Tolosa road. It was badly convoyed. One of your

-generals got scent of it. The guard had time to hide their treasure

-and disperse, but him whom they thought had betrayed them the tribunal

-of women claimed, and to-night----”

-

-“Well, he will receive his wages. And where is the treasure

-concealed?”

-

-“Ah! that I do not know.”

-

-Ducos got to his feet, and stretched and yawned.

-

-“I have a fancy to see this meeting-place of the tribunal. Wilt thou

-lead me to it, Nariguita?”

-

-“Mother of God, thou art mad!”

-

-“Then I must go alone, like a madman.”

-

-“Eugenio, it is cursing and accurst. None will so much as look into it

-by day; and, at dusk, only when franked by the holy church.”

-

-“So greatly the better. Adios, Nariguita!”

-

-It took them half an hour, descending cautiously, and availing

-themselves of every possible shelter of bush and rock, to reach a

-strangely formed amphitheatre set stark and shallow amongst the higher

-swales of the valley, but so overhung with scrub of myrtle and wild

-pomegranate as to be only distinguishable, and that scarcely, from

-above. A ragged track, mounting from the lower levels into this

-hollow, tailed off, and was attenuated into a point where it took a

-curve of the rocks at a distance below.

-

-As Ducos, approaching the rim, pressed through the thicket, a toss of

-black crows went up from the mouth ahead of him, like cinders of paper

-spouted from a chimney. He looked over. The brushwood ceased at the

-edge of a considerable pit, roughly circular in shape, whose sides, of

-bare sloping sand, met and flattened at the bottom into an extended

-platform. Thence arose a triangular gibbet, a very rack in a devil’s

-larder, all about which a hoard of little pitchy bird scullions were

-busy with the joints. Holy mother, how they squabbled, and flapped at

-one another with their sleeves, it seemed! The two carcasses which

-hung there appeared, for all their heavy pendulosity, to reel and rock

-with laughter, nudging one another in eyeless merriment.

-

-Ducos mentally calculated the distance to the gallows below from any

-available coign of concealment.

-

-“One could not hide close enough to hear anything,” he murmured,

-shaking his head in aggravation; “and this junta of ladies--it will

-probably talk. What if it were to discuss that very question of the

-piastres? Nariguita, will you go and be my little reporter at the

-ceremony?”

-

-Anita, crouching in the brush behind him, whispered terrified: “It is

-impossible. They admit none but priests and women.”

-

-“And are not you a woman, most beautiful?”

-

-“God forbid!” she said. “I am the little goatherd Ambrosio.”

-

-He stood some moments, frowning. A scheme, daring and characteristic,

-was beginning to take shape in his brain.

-

-“What is that clump of rags by the gallows?” he asked, without looking

-round.

-

-“It is not rags; it is rope, Eugenio.”

-

-He thought again.

-

-“And when do they come to hang this rascal?” he said.

-

-“It is always at dusk. O, dear mother!” she whimpered, for the young

-man had suddenly slipped between the branches, and was going swiftly

-and softly down the pit-side.

-

-Already the basin of sand was filled with the shadows from the hills

-Ducos approached the gibbet. The last of the birds remaining arose and

-dispersed, quarrelling with nothing so much as the sunlight which they

-encountered above.

-

-“It is an abominable task,” said the aide-de-camp, looking up at the

-dangling bodies; “but--for the Emperor--always for the Emperor! That

-fellow, now, in the domino--it would make us appear of one build. And

-as for complexion, why, he at least would have no eyes for the

-travesty. Mon Dieu! I believe it is a Providence.”

-

-There was a ladder leaned against the third and empty beam. He put it

-into position for the cloaked figure, and ran up it. The rope was

-hitched to a hook in the cross-piece. He must clasp and lever up his

-burden by main strength before he could slacken and detach the cord.

-Then, with an exclamation of relief, he let the body drop upon the

-sand beneath. He descended the ladder in excitement.

-

-“Anita!” he called.

-

-She had followed, and was at hand. She trembled, and was as pale as

-death.

-

-“Help me,” he panted--“with this--into the bush.”

-

-He had lifted _his_ end by the shoulders.

-

-“What devil possesses you? I cannot,” she sobbed; “I shall die.”

-

-“Ah, Nariguita! for my sake! There is no danger if thou art brave and

-expeditious.”

-

-Between them they tugged and trailed their load into the dense

-undergrowth skirting the open track, and there let it plunge and sink.

-Ducos removed the domino from the body, rolling and hauling at that

-irreverently. Then he saw how the wretch had been pinioned, wrists and

-ankles, beneath.

-

-Carrying the cloak, he hastened back to the gallows. There he

-cautiously selected from the surplus stock of cord a length of some

-twelve feet, at either end of which he formed a loop. So, mounting the

-ladder, over the hook he hitched this cord by one end, and then,

-swinging himself clear, slid down the rope until he could pass both

-his feet into the lower hank.

-

-“_Voilà!_” said he. “Come up and tie me to the other with some little

-pieces round the waist and knees and neck.”

-

-She obeyed, weeping. Her love and her duty were to this wonder of

-manhood, however dreadful his counsel. Presently, trussed to his

-liking, he bade her fetch the brigand’s cloak and button it over all.

-

-“Now,” said he, “one last sacramental kiss; and, so descending and

-placing the ladder and all as before, thou shalt take standing-room in

-the pit for this veritable dance of death.”

-

-A moment--and he was hanging there, to all appearance a corpse. The

-short rope at his neck had been so disposed and knotted--the collar of

-the domino serving--as to make him look, indeed, as if he strained at

-the tether’s end. He had dragged his long hair over his eyes; his head

-lolled to one side; his tongue protruded. For the rest, the cloak hid

-all, even to his feet.

-

-The goatherd snivelled.

-

-“Ah, holy saints, he is dead!”

-

-The head came erect, grinning.

-

-“Eugenio!” she cried; “O, my God! Thou wilt be discovered--thou wilt

-slip and strangle! Ah, the crows--body of my body, the crows!”

-

-“Imbecile! have I not my hands? See, I kiss one to thee. Now the sun

-sinks, and my ghostly vigil will be short. Pray heaven only they

-alight not on that in the bush. Nariguita, little heroine, this is my

-last word. Go hide thyself in the bushes above, and watch what a

-Frenchman, the most sensitive of mortals, will suffer to serve his

-Emperor.”

-

-It was an era, indeed, of sublime lusts and barbaric virtues, when men

-must mount upon stepping-stones, not of their dead selves, but of

-their slaughtered enemies, to higher things. Anita, like Ducos, was a

-child of her generation. To her mind the heroic purpose of this deed

-overpowered its pungency. She kissed her lover’s feet; secured the

-safe disposition of the cloak about them; then turned and fled into

-hiding.

-

- * * * * *

-

-At dusk, with the sound of footsteps coming up the pass, the crows

-dispersed. Eugène, for all his self-sufficiency, had sweated over

-their persistence. A single more gluttonous swoop might at any moment,

-in blinding him, have laid him open to a general attack before help

-could reach him from the eyrie whence unwearying love watched his

-every movement. Now, common instance of the providence which waits on

-daring, the sudden lift and scatter of the swarm left his hearing

-sensible to the tinkling of a bridle, which came rhythmical from the

-track below. Immediately he fell, with all his soul, into the pose of

-death.

-

-The cadence of the steely warning so little altered, the footsteps

-stole in so muffled and so deadly, that, peering presently through

-slit eyelids for the advent of the troop, it twitched his strung

-nerves to see a sinister congress already drawn soundless about the

-gibbet on which he hung. Perhaps for the first time in this stagnant

-atmosphere he realized the peril he had invited. But still the

-gambler’s providence befriended him.

-

-They were all women but two--the victim, a sullen, whiskered

-Yanguesian, strapped cuttingly to a mule, and a paunchy shovel-hatted

-Carmelite, who hugged a crucifix between his roomy sleeves.

-

-Ducos had heard of these banded _vengeresses_. Now, he was Frenchman

-enough to appreciate in full the significance of their attitude, as

-they clustered beneath him in the dusk, a veiled and voiceless huddle

-of phantoms. “How,” he thought, peeping through the dropped curtain of

-his hair, “will the adorables do it?” He had an hysterical inclination

-to laugh, and at that moment the monk, with a sudden decision to

-action, brushed against him and set him slowly twirling until his face

-was averted from the show.

-

-Immediately thereon--as he interpreted sounds--the mule was led under

-the gallows. He heard the ladder placed in position, heard a strenuous

-shuffling as of concentrated movement. What he failed to hear (at

-present) was any cry or protest from the victim. The beam above

-creaked, a bridle tinkled, a lighter drop of hoofs receded. A pregnant

-pause ensued, broken only by a slight noise, like rustling or

-vibrating--and then, in an instant, by a voice, chuckling,

-hateful--the voice of the priest.

-

-“What! to hang there without a word, Carlos? Wouldst thou go, and

-never ask what is become of that very treasure thou soldst thy soul to

-betray? The devil has rounded on thee, Carlos; for after all it is

-thou that art lost, and not the treasure. That is all put away--shout

-it in the ears of thy neighbours up there--it is all put away, Carlos,

-safe in the salt mines of the Little Hump. Cry it to the whole world

-now. Thou mayst if thou canst. In the salt mines of the Little Hump.

-Dost hear? Ah, then, we must make thee answer.”

-

-With his words, the pit was all at once in shrill hubbub, noise

-indescribable and dreadful, the shrieking of harpies bidden to their

-prey. It rose demoniac--a very Walpurgis.

-

-“No, no,” thought Ducos, gulping under his collar. He was almost

-unnerved for the moment. “It is unlawful--they have no right to!”

-

-He was twisting again, for all his mad will to prevent it. He would

-not look, and yet he looked. The monk, possessed, was thrashing the

-torn and twitching rubbish with his crucifix. The others, their

-fingers busy with the bodkins they had plucked from their mantillas,

-had retreated for the moment to a little distance.

-

-Suddenly the Carmelite, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy, dropped his

-weapon, and scuttling to the mule, where it stood near at hand, tore a

-great horse pistol from its holster among the trappings, and pointed

-it at the insensible body.

-

-“Scum of all devils!” he bellowed. “In fire descend to fire that lasts

-eternal!”

-

-He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and shattering explosion. A

-blazing hornet stung Ducos in the leg. He may have started and

-shrieked. Any cry or motion of his must have passed unnoticed in the

-screaming panic evoked of the crash. He clung on with his hands and

-dared to raise his head. The mouth of the pass was dusk with flying

-skirts. Upon the sands beneath him, the body of the priest, a

-shapeless bulk, was slowly subsiding and settling, one fat fist of it

-yet gripping the stock of a pistol which, overgorged, had burst as it

-was discharged.

-

- * * * * *

-

-The reek of the little tragedy had hardly dissipated before Ducos

-found himself. The sentiment of revolt, deriving from his helpless

-position, had been indeed but momentary. To feel his own accessibility

-to torture, painted torture to him as an inhuman lust. With the means

-to resist, or escape, at will, he might have sat long in ambush

-watching it; even condoning it as an extravagant posture of art.

-

-With a heart full of such exultation over the success of his trick

-that for the moment he forgot the pain of his wound, he hurriedly

-unpicked the knots of the shorter cords about him, and, jumping to the

-ground, waited until the shadow of a little depressed figure came

-slinking across the sand towards him.

-

-“Eugenio!” it whispered; “what has happened? O! art thou hurt?”

-

-She ran into his arms, sobbing.

-

-“I am hurt,” said Ducos. “Quick, child! unstrap this from my arm and

-bind it about my calf. Didst hear? But it was magnificent! Two birds

-with a single stone. The piastres in pickle for us. Didst see,

-moreover? Holy Emperor! it was laughable. I would sacrifice a

-decoration to be witness of the meeting of those two overhead. It

-should be the Yanguesian for my money, for he has at least his teeth

-left. Look how he shows them, bursting with rage! Quick, quick, quick!

-we must be up and away, before any of those others think of

-returning.”

-

-“And if one should,” she said, “and mark the empty beam?”

-

-“What does it matter, nevertheless! I must be off to-night, after thou

-hast answered me one single question.”

-

-“Off? Eugenio! O! not without me?”

-

-“God, little girl! In this race I must not be hampered by so much as a

-thought. But I will return for thee--never fear.”

-

-He still sat in his domino. She knelt at his feet, stanching the flow

-from the wound the pistol had made in his leg. At his words she looked

-up breathlessly into his face; then away, to hide her swimming eyes.

-In the act she slunk down, making herself small in the sand.

-

-“Eugenio! My God! we are watched!”

-

-He turned about quickly.

-

-“Whence?”

-

-“From the mouth of the pass,” she whispered.

-

-“I can see nothing,” he said. “Hurry, nevertheless! What a time thou

-art! There, it is enough of thy bungling fingers. Help me to my feet

-and out of this place. Come!” he ended, angrily.

-

-He had an ado to climb the easy slope. By the time they were entered

-amongst the rocks and bushes above, it was black dusk.

-

-“Whither wouldst thou, dearest?” whispered the goatherd.

-

-He had known well enough a moment ago--to some point, in fact, whence

-she could indicate to him the direction of the Little Hump, where the

-treasure lay; afterwards, to the very hill-top where some hours

-earlier they had forgathered. But he would not or could not explain

-this. Some monstrous blight of gloom had seized his brain at a swoop.

-He thought it must be one of the crows, and he stumbled along, raving

-in his heart. If she offered to help him now, he would tear his arm

-furiously from her touch. She wondered, poor stricken thing, haunting

-him with tragic eyes. Then at last her misery and desolation found

-voice--

-

-“What have I done? I will not ask again to go with thee, if that is

-it. It was only one little foolish cry of terror, most dear--that they

-should suspect, and seize, and torture me. But, indeed, should they do

-it, thou canst trust me to be silent.”

-

-He stopped, swaying, and regarded her demoniacally. His face was a

-livid and malignant blot in the thickening dusk. To torture her? What

-torture could equal his at this moment? She sought merely to move him

-by an affectation of self-renunciation. That, of course, called at

-once for extreme punishment. He must bite and strangle her to death.

-

-He moved noiselessly upon her. She stood spellbound before him. All at

-once something seemed to strike him on the head, and, without uttering

-a sound, he fell forward into the bush.

-

- * * * * *

-

-Ducos opened his eyes to the vision of so preternaturally melancholy a

-face, that he was shaken with weak laughter over the whimsicality of

-his own imagination. But, in a very little, unwont to dreaming as he

-was, the realization that he was looking upon no apparition, but a

-grotesque of fact, silenced and absorbed him.

-

-Presently he was moved to examine his circumstances. He was lying on a

-heap of grass mats in a tiny house built of boards. Above him was a

-square of leaf-embroidered sky cut out of a cane roof; to his left,

-his eyes, focussing with a queer stiffness, looked through an open

-doorway down precipices of swimming cloud. That was because he lay in

-an eyrie on the hillside. And then at once, into his white field of

-vision, floated the dismal long face, surmounted by an ancient

-cocked-hat, slouched and buttonless, and issuing like an august Aunt

-Sally’s from the neck of a cloak as black and dropping as a pall.

-

-The figure crossed the opening outside, and wheeled, with the wind in

-its wings. In the act, its eyes, staring and protuberant, fixed

-themselves on those of the Frenchman. Immediately, with a little

-stately gesture expressive of relief and welcome, it entered the hut.

-

-“By the mercy of God!” exclaimed the stranger in his own tongue. Then

-he added in English: “The Inglese recovers to himself?”

-

-Ducos smiled, nodding his head; then answered confidently, feeling his

-way: “A little, sir, I tank you. Thees along night. Ah! it appear all

-one pain.”

-

-The other nodded solemnly in his turn--

-

-“A long night indeed, in which the sunksink tree very time.”

-

-“Comment!” broke out the aide-de-camp hoarsely, and instantly realized

-his mistake.

-

-“Ah! devil take the French!” said he explanatorily. “I been in their

-camp so long that to catch their lingo. But I spik l’Espagnol, señor.

-It shall be good to us to converse there.”

-

-The other bowed impenetrably. His habit of a profound and melancholy

-aloofness might have served for mask to any temper of mind but that

-which, in real fact, it environed--a reason, that is to say, more lost

-than bedevilled under the long tyranny of oppression.

-

-“I have been ill, I am to understand?” said Ducos, on his guard.

-

-“For three days and nights, señor. My goatherd came to tell me how a

-wounded English officer was lying on the hills. Between us we conveyed

-you hither.”

-

-“_Ah, Dios!_ I remember. I had endeavoured to carry muskets into

-Saragossa by the river. I was hit in the leg; I was captured; I

-escaped. For two days I wandered, señor, famished and desperate. At

-last in these mountains I fell as by a stroke from heaven.”

-

-“It was the foul blood clot, señor. It balked your circulation. There

-was the brazen splinter in the wound, which I removed, and God

-restored you. What fangs are theirs, these reptiles! In a few days you

-will be well.”

-

-“Thanks to what ministering angel?”

-

-“I am known as Don Manoel di Cangrejo, señor, the most shattered, as

-he was once the most prosperous of men. May God curse the French! May

-God” (his wild, mournful face twitched with strong emotion) “reward

-and bless these brave allies of a people more wronged than any the

-world has yet known!”

-

-“Noble Englishman,” said he by and by, “thou hast nothing at present

-but to lie here and accept the grateful devotion of a heart to which

-none but the inhuman denies humanity.”

-

-Ducos looked his thanks.

-

-“If I might rest here a little,” he said; “if I might be spared----”

-

-The other bowed, with a grave understanding.

-

-“None save ourselves, and the winds and trees, señor. I will nurse

-thee as if thou wert mine own child.”

-

-He was as good as his word. Ducos, pluming himself on his

-perspicacity, accepting the inevitable with philosophy, lent himself

-during the interval, while feigning a prolonged weakness, to recovery.

-That was his, to all practical purposes, within a couple of days,

-during which time he never set eyes on Anita, but only on Anita’s

-master. Don Manoel would often come and sit by his bed of mats; would

-even sometimes retail to him, as to a trusted ally, scraps of local

-information. Thus was he posted, to his immense gratification, in the

-topical after-history of his own exploit at the gallows.

-

-“It is said,” whispered Cangrejo awfully, “that one of the dead,

-resenting so vile a neighbour, impressed a goatherd into his service,

-and, being assisted from the beam, walked away. Truly it is an age of

-portents.”

-

-On the third morning, coming early with his bowl of goat’s milk and

-his offering of fruits, he must apologize, with a sweet and lofty

-courtesy, for the necessity he was under of absenting himself all day.

-

-“There is trouble,” he said--“as when is there not? I am called to

-secret council, señor. But the boy Ambrosio has my orders to be ever

-at hand shouldst thou need him.”

-

-Ducos’s heart leapt. But he was careful to deprecate this generous

-attention, and to cry _Adios!_ with the most perfect assumption of

-composure.

-

-He was lying on his elbow by and by, eagerly listening, when the

-doorway was blocked by a shadow. The next instant Anita had sprung to

-and was kneeling beside him.

-

-“Heart of my heart, have I done well? Thou art sound and whole? O,

-speak to me, speak to me, that I may hear thy voice and gather its

-forgiveness!”

-

-For what? She was sobbing and fondling him in a very lust of entreaty.

-

-“Thou hast done well,” he said. “So, we were seen indeed, Anita?”

-

-“Yes,” she wept, holding his face to her bosom. “And, O! I agonize for

-thee to be up and away, Eugenio, for I fear.”

-

-“Hush! I am strong. Help me to my legs, child. So! Now, come with me

-outside, and point out, if thou canst, where lies the Little Hump.”

-

-She was his devoted crutch at once. They stood in the sunlight,

-looking down upon the hills which fell from beneath their feet--a

-world of tossed and petrified rapids. At their backs, on a shallow

-plateau under eaves of rock, Cangrejo’s eyrie clung to the

-mountain-side.

-

-“There,” said the goatherd, indicating with her finger, “that mound

-above the valley--that little hill, fat-necked like a great mushroom,

-which sprouts from its basin among the trees?”

-

-“Wait! mine eyes are dazzled.”

-

-“Ah, poor sick eyes! Look, then! Dost thou not see the white worm of

-the Pampeluna road--below yonder, looping through the bushes?”

-

-“I see it--yes, yes.”

-

-“Now, follow upwards from the big coil, where the pine tree leans to

-the south, seeming a ladder between road and mound.”

-

-“Stay--I have it.”

-

-“Behold the Little Hump, the salt mine of St. Ildefonso, and once,

-they say, an island in the midst of a lake, which burst its banks and

-poured forth and was gone. And now thou knowest, Eugenio?”

-

-He did not answer. He was intently fixing in his memory the position

-of the hill. She waited on his mood, not daring to risk his anger a

-second time, with a pathetic anxiety. Presently he heaved out a sigh,

-and turned on her, smiling.

-

-“It is well,” he said. “Now conduct me to the spot where we met three

-days ago.”

-

-It was surprisingly near at hand. A labyrinthine descent--by way of

-aloe-horned rocks, with sandy bents and tufts of harsh juniper

-between--of a hundred yards or so, and they were on the stony plateau

-which he remembered. There, to one side, was the coppice of chestnuts

-and locust trees. To the other, the road by which he had climbed went

-down with a run--such as he himself was on thorns to emulate--into the

-valleys trending to Saragossa. His eyes gleamed. He seated himself

-down on a boulder, controlling his impatience only by a violent

-effort.

-

-“Anita,” he said, drilling out his speech with slow emphasis, “thou

-must leave me here alone awhile. I would think--I would think and

-plan, my heart. Go, wait on thy goats above, and I will return to thee

-presently.”

-

-She sighed, and crept away obedient. O, forlorn, most forlorn soul of

-love, which, counting mistrust treason, knows itself a traitor! Yet

-Anita obeyed, and with no thought to eavesdrop, because she was in

-love with loyalty.

-

-The moment he was well convinced of her retreat, Ducos got to his legs

-with an immense sigh of relief. Love, he thought, could be presuming,

-could be obtuse, could be positively a bore. It all turned upon the

-context of the moment; and the present was quick with desires other

-than for endearments. For it must be related that the young captain,

-having manœuvred matters to this accommodating pass, was designing

-nothing less than an instant return, on the wings of transport, to the

-blockading camp, whence he proposed returning, with a suitable force

-and all possible dispatch, to seize and empty of its varied treasures

-the salt mine of St. Ildefonso.

-

-“Pouf!” he muttered to himself in a sort of ecstatic aggravation;

-“this accursed delay! But the piastres are there still--I have

-Cangrejo’s word for it.”

-

-He turned once, before addressing himself to flight, to refocus in his

-memory the position of the mound, which still from here was plainly

-visible. In the act he pricked his ears, for there was a sound of

-footsteps rising up the mountain path. He dodged behind a boulder. The

-footsteps came on--approached him--paused--so long that he was induced

-at last to peep for the reason. At once his eyes encountered other

-eyes awaiting him. He laughed, and left his refuge. The new-comer was

-a typical Spanish Romany--slouching, filthy, with a bandage over one

-eye.

-

-“God be with thee, Caballero!” said the Frenchman defiantly.

-

-To his astonishment, the other broke into a little scream of laughter,

-and flung himself towards him.

-

-“Judge thou, now,” said he, “which is the more wide-awake adventurer

-and the better actor!”

-

-“My God!” cried Ducos; “it is de la Platière!”

-

-“Hush!” whispered the mendicant. “Are we private? Ah, bah! Junot

-should have sent me in the first instance.”

-

-“I have been hurt, thou rogue. Our duel of wits is yet postponed. In

-good time hast thou arrived. This simplifies matters. Thou shalt

-return, and I remain. Hist! come away, and I will tell thee all.”

-

-Half an hour later, de la Platière--having already, for his part,

-mentally absorbed the details of a certain position--swung rapidly,

-with a topical song on his lips, down the path he had ascended

-earlier. The sound of his footfalls receded and died out. The hill

-regathered itself to silence. Ducos, on terms with destiny and at

-peace with all the world, sat for hours in the shadow of the trees.

-

-Perhaps he was not yet Judas enough to return to Anita, awaiting him

-in Cangrejo’s eyrie. But at length, towards evening, fearing his long

-absence might arouse suspicion or uneasiness, he arose and climbed the

-hill. When he reached the cabin, he found it empty and silent. He

-loitered about, wondering and watchful. Not a soul came near him. He

-dozed; he awoke; he ate a few olives and some bread; he dozed again.

-When he opened his eyes for the second time, the shadows of the peaks

-were slanting to the east. He got to his feet, shivering a little.

-This utter silence and desertion discomforted him. Where was the girl?

-God! was it possible after all that she had betrayed him? He might

-have questioned his own heart as to that; only, as luck would have it,

-it was such a tiresomely deaf organ. So, let him think. De la

-Platière, with his men (as calculated), would be posted in the

-Pampeluna road, round the spur of the hill below, an hour after

-sunset--that was to say, at fifteen minutes to six. No doubt by then

-the alarm would have gone abroad. But no great resistance to a strong

-force was to be apprehended. In the meantime--well, in the meantime,

-until the moment came for him to descend under cover of dark and

-assume the leadership, he must possess his soul in patience.

-

-The sun went down. Night flowing into the valleys seemed to expel a

-moan of wind; then all dropped quiet again. Darkness fell swift and

-sudden like a curtain, but no Anita appeared, putting it aside, and

-Ducos was perplexed. He did not like this bodiless, shadowless

-subscription to his scheming. It troubled him to have no one to talk

-to--and deceive. He was depressed.

-

-By and by he pulled off, turned inside-out and resumed his scarlet

-jacket, which he had taken the provisional precaution to have lined

-with a sombre material. As he slipped in his arms, he started and

-looked eagerly into the lower vortices of dusk. In the very direction

-to which his thoughts were engaged, a little glow-worm light was

-burning steadily from the thickets. What did it signify--Spaniards or

-French, ambush or investment? Allowing--as between himself on the

-height and de la Platière on the road below--for the apparent

-discrepancy in the time of sunset, it was yet appreciably before the

-appointed hour. Nevertheless, this that he saw made the risk of an

-immediate descent necessary.

-

-Bringing all his wits, his resolution, his local knowledge to one

-instant focus, he started, going down at once swiftly and with

-caution. The hills rose above him like smoke as he dropped; the black

-ravines were lifted to his feet. Sometimes for scores of paces he

-would lose sight altogether of the eye of light; then, as he turned

-some shoulder of rock, it would strike him in the face with its nearer

-radiance, so that he had to pause and readjust his vision to the new

-perspective. Still, over crabbed ridges and by dip of thorny gulches

-he descended steadily, until the mound of the Little Hump, like a

-gigantic thatched kraal, loomed oddly upon him through the dark.

-

-And, lo! the beacon that had led him down unerring was a great lantern

-hung under the sagging branch of a chestnut tree at the foot of the

-mound--a lantern, the lurid nucleus of a little coil of tragedy.

-

-A cluster of rocks neighboured the clearing about the tree. To these

-Ducos padded his last paces with a cat-like stealth--crouching, hardly

-breathing; and now from that coign of peril he stared down.

-

-A throng of armed guerrillas, one a little forward of the rest, was

-gathered about a couple more of their kidney, who, right under the

-lantern, held the goatherd Anita on her knees in a nailing grip. To

-one side, very phantoms of desolation, stood Cangrejo and another. The

-faces of all, densely shadowed in part by the rims of their sombreros,

-looked as if masked; their mouths, corpse-like, showed a splint of

-teeth; their ink-black whiskers hummocked on their shoulders.

-

-So, in the moment of Ducos’s alighting on it, was the group

-postured--silent, motionless, as if poised on the turn of some full

-tide of passion. And then, in an instant, a voice boomed up to him.

-

-“Confess!” it cried, vibrating: “him thou wert seen with at the

-gallows; him whom thou foisted, O! unspeakable, thou devil’s doxy! on

-the unsuspecting Cangrejo; him, thy Frankish gallant and spy” (the

-voice guttered, and then, rising, leapt to flame)--“what hast thou

-done with him? where hidden? Speak quickly and with truth, if, traitor

-though thou be, thou wouldst be spared the traitor’s estrapade.”

-

-“Alguazil, I cannot say. Have mercy on me!”

-

-Ducos could hardly recognize the child in those agonized tones.

-

-The inquisitor, with an oath, half wheeled.

-

-“Pignatelli, father of this accursed--if by her duty thou canst

-prevail?”

-

-A figure--agitated, cadaverous, as sublimely dehumanized as

-Brutus--stepped from Cangrejo’s side and tossed one gnarled arm aloft.

-

-“No child of mine, alguazil!” it proclaimed in a shrill, strung cry.

-“Let her reap as she hath sown, alguazil!”

-

-Cangrejo leapt, and flung himself upon his knees by the girl.

-

-“Tell Don Manoel, chiquita. God! little boy, that being a girl (ah,

-naughty!) is half absolved. Tell him, tell him--ah, there--now, now,

-now! He, thy lover, was in the cabin. I left him prostrate, scarce

-able to move. When the council comes to seek him, he is gone. Away,

-sayst thou? Ah, child, but I must know better! It could not be far.

-Say where--give him up--let him show himself only, chiquita, and the

-good alguazil will spare thee. Such a traitor, ah, Dios! And yet I

-have loved, too.”

-

-He sobbed, and clawed her uncouthly. Ducos, in his eyrie, laughed to

-himself, and applauded softly, making little cymbals of his

-thumb-nails.

-

-“But he will not move her,” he thought--and, on the thought, started;

-for from his high perch his eye had suddenly caught, he was sure of

-it, the sleeking of a French bayonet in the road below.

-

-“Master!” cried Anita, in a heart-breaking voice; “he is gone--they

-cannot take him. O, don’t let them hurt me!”

-

-The alguazil made a sign. Cangrejo, gobbling and resisting, was

-dragged away. There was a little ugly, silent scuffle about the girl;

-and, in a moment, the group fell apart to watch her being hauled up to

-the branch by her thumbs.

-

-Ducos looked on greedily.

-

-“How long before she sets to screaming?” he thought, “so that I may

-escape under cover of it.”

-

-So long, that he grew intolerably restless--wild, furious. He could

-have cursed her for her endurance.

-

-But presently it came, moaning up all the scale of suffering. And, at

-that, slinking like a rat through its run, he went down swiftly

-towards the road--to meet de la Platière and his men already silently

-breaking cover from it.

-

-And, on the same instant, the Spaniards saw them.

-

- * * * * *

-

-“Peste!” whispered de la Platière “We could have them all at one

-volley but for that!”

-

-Between the French force, ensconced behind the rocks whither Ducos had

-led them, and the Spaniards who, completely taken by surprise, had

-clustered foolishly in a body under the lantern, hung the body of

-Anita, its torture suspended for the moment because its poor wits were

-out.

-

-“How, my friend!” exclaimed Ducos. “But for what?”

-

-“The girl, that is all.”

-

-“She will feel nothing. No doubt she is half dead already. A moment,

-and it will be too late.”

-

-“Nevertheless, I will not,” said de la Platière.

-

-Ducos stamped ragingly.

-

-“Give the word to me. She must stand her chance. For the Emperor!” he

-choked--then shrieked out, “Fire!”

-

-The explosion crashed among the hills, and echoed off.

-

-A dark mass, which writhed and settled beyond the lantern shine,

-seemed to excite a little convulsion of merriment in the swinging

-body. That twitched and shook a moment; then relaxed, and hung

-motionless.

-

-

-

-

- THE RAVELLED SLEAVE

-

-

- Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.

-

-

-I should like to preface my subject with a _Caractère_, in the

-style of La Bruyère, as thus:--

-

-Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant

-a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make

-Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as

-others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement

-of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than

-ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you

-the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and,

-resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities

-which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters

-always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct

-on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the

-Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself

-speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous

-secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but

-their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite,

-one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.

-

-Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his

-lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably

-a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one

-has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy

-day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that

-we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes.

-But we must adulterate largely to do it.

-

-Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is

-thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a

-big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary,

-but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon

-your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his

-rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t

-know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really

-instinctively greedy for the psychologic _bonne bouche_. He is tall,

-and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm

-but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace.

-He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”

-

-It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one

-night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being

-so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration

-for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental

-endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these

-noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself

-with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening

-paper.

-

-“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my

-shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I

-supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at

-the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-

-I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to

-an extreme of rudeness.

-

-“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had

-been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting

-your presence into my ear like that?”

-

-He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by);

-then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first

-time to realize my meaning.

-

-“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do

-you mean by the question?”

-

-Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real

-justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.

-

-“O, nothing!” I mumbled awkwardly; “except that you made me almost

-jump out of my skin.”

-

-It was characteristic of him, and a further puzzle, that in spite of

-his self-suggested consciousness of superiority he was easily

-depressed by a snub. We sat for a little in a glowering silence, and

-perhaps with a mutual sense of injury.

-

-“Yes, an interesting case,” he said at length with an effort. “A

-trance, isn’t it?”

-

-“Something of the sort,” I replied. “I saw the girl yesterday.”

-

-He looked up interested.

-

-“Yes?”

-

-“She is in a private ward of B---- Hospital. I know the house surgeon.

-He took me to see her.”

-

-“Well! How does she look?”

-

-“Seen the St. Amaranthe at Tussaud’s--the one whom, as children, we

-used to call the Sleeping Beauty? Not unlike her: as pretty as wax and

-as stiff: just breathing, with pale cheeks and her mouth a little

-open.”

-

-“The fit--I seem to remember--was brought on by some shock, wasn’t

-it?”

-

-I growled--

-

-“According to report, concealment of birth. I conclude she was put to

-shame by some rogue, and couldn’t face the music. The child was found,

-three or four months ago, on a doorstep or somewhere, and traced to

-her. When the police entered, I suppose she feared the worst, and went

-off. Odd part is, that the infant itself was intact--as sound as a

-bell. But all that’s of little interest. It’s the case for me; not the

-sentiment.”

-

-“Ah?” said Valentine.

-

-He leaned forward, resting his long arms on his knees and gently

-clicking his fingers together. His eyes were full of an eager light.

-

-“Johnny, I wonder if you could get _me_ a sight of her?”

-

-“Why not?” I answered. I felt that I owed him some atonement. “I’ll

-ask C---- if you like.”

-

-

-

-

- II

-

-C---- demurred, hummed and hawed, and acquiesced.

-

-“Your friend must keep in the background,” he said. “He’s not a

-backstair reporter, I suppose?”

-

-“He’s an independent gentleman, and either a poet or an ass--I don’t

-know which.”

-

-“Same thing,” said this airy Philistine; “but no matter, so long as he

-don’t talk.”

-

-“He won’t talk.”

-

-“Very well, bring him up. Fact is, we’re trying an experiment this

-afternoon. Aunt’s brought the baby--sort of natural magnetism to

-restore the current, cancel the hiatus--see? I’ve not much belief in

-it myself.”

-

-I fetched Valentine, and we followed C---- up to the ward. There were

-only present there--one, a list-footed nurse; two, a little

-shabby-genteel woman, with a false tow-like front over vicious eyes,

-who carried a flannelled bundle; and three, the patient herself.

-

-She had not so much as stirred, to all appearance, since I last saw

-her. We, Valentine and I, took up our position apart. Some accidental

-contact with him made me turn my head. He was quivering like a

-high-strung racer for the start. This physical excitability was news

-to me. “H’mph!” I thought. “Is there really that in you which you must

-keep such a tight rein on?”

-

-The nurse took the infant, and placed it on the sleeping girl’s

-breast. It mewed and sprawled, but evoked no response whatever.

-

-“She’d never a drop of the milk of kindness in her,” muttered the

-little verjuicy woman.

-

-“Hold your tongue!” said the doctor sharply.

-

-He and the nurse essayed some coaxing. In the midst, I was petrified

-by the sight of Valentine going softly up to the bed-head.

-

-“May I whisper a word?” he said. “It may fail or not. But I don’t

-think you can object to my trying.”

-

-And actually, before his astonished company could move or collect its

-wits, he had bent and spoken something, inaudible, into the patient’s

-ear.

-

-Now, I ask you to remember that this girl had been in a cataleptic

-sleep for not less than three months, under observation, and with no

-chance, so far as I knew, to cozen her attendants; and believe me then

-as you can when I tell you that, answering, instantly and normally, to

-Valentine’s whisper, she sighed, stretched her arms, though at first

-with an air of some lassitude and weakness, and, opening her eyes,

-fixed them with a sort of suspended stare upon the face of her

-exorcist. Gradually, then, a little pucker deepened between her brows,

-and instantly, some shadow of fright or uneasiness flickering in her

-dark pupils, she turned her head aside. Obviously she was distressed

-by the vision of this strange face coming between the light and her

-normal, as it seemed to her, awaking.

-

-Valentine immediately stood away, and backed to where she could not

-see him.

-

-C----, obviously putting great command on himself, since circumstances

-made it appear that some damned “natural magic” had got the better of

-his natural science, took the situation in hand professionally, and

-frowned to the aunt, to whom the baby had been restored, to show

-herself. The woman, rallying from the common stupefaction, gave an

-acrid sniff and obeyed.

-

-“_Well_, Nancy!” she said, in a tone between wonder and remonstrance.

-

-The girl looked round again and up, with a little shock. Immediately

-her dilated pupils accepted with frank astonishment this more familiar

-apparition.

-

-“Gracious goodness, Aunt Mim!” she whispered; “what have you got

-there?”

-

-Then she turned her face on the pillow, with a smile of drowsy

-rapture.

-

-“Anyhow, you’ve found your way to Skene at last,” she murmured, and

-instantly fell into a natural sleep, from which, it was evident, there

-must be no awaking her.

-

-C---- wheeled upon my friend.

-

-“I suppose you won’t part with your secret?” he asked drily.

-

-It was a habit with Valentine, not his least aggravating, composedly

-to put by any unwelcome or difficult question addressed to him as if

-he did not hear it.

-

-“Skene’s in Kent, isn’t it?” he asked, ostensibly of the aunt, though

-he looked at me. I could have snapped at him in pure vindictiveness.

-He wasn’t inscrutable, any more than another. What was his confounded

-right to pose as a sphinx?

-

-“She fancies she’s there,” he said. “Why?”

-

-I turned dumbly with the question to the little woman creature. I

-don’t know if she supposed I was in some sort of official authority to

-cross-examine her. She had powder on her face, and a weak glow mantled

-through it.

-

-“It was there she met her trouble, sir,” she said, hesitating. “She’d

-gone down to the hop-picking last September, and I was to follow. But

-circumstances” (she wriggled her shoulders with an indescribable

-simper) “was against my joining her.”

-

-“Well,” broke in C----, suddenly and rather sharply, “you must take

-the consequences, and, for the present anyhow, the burden of them off

-her shoulders.”

-

-“Begging your pardon, sir?” she questioned shrewdly.

-

-“The child,” said the doctor, “the child. Everything, it appears,

-relating to it is for the moment obliterated from her mind. She takes

-up existence, I think you’ll find, last autumn, at this Skene, with

-expecting you. Well, you have come, and returned to London together.

-You understand? The time of year is the same. None of all this has for

-the moment happened.”

-

-There was an acrid incredulity in his hearer’s face as she listened to

-him.

-

-“Do I understand, or don’t I, sir,” she said, “that her shame is to be

-my care and consideration? And till when, if you’ll be so good?”

-

-“That I can’t say,” he answered. “Probably the interval, the abyss in

-her mind, will bridge itself by slow degrees. Her reason likely

-depends upon your not rudely hastening the process. I warn you, that’s

-all.”

-

-“And pray,” she said, with ineffable sarcasm, “how is I, as a

-respectable woman, to account to her for this that I hold?”

-

-“Put it out to nurse.”

-

-“No, sir, _if_ you’ll allow me. The hussy have done her best to bring

-me to ruin already.”

-

-“Say you’ve adopted it.”

-

-She gave a shrill titter.

-

-“Nanny will have lost her wits, hindeed, to believe that.”

-

-“Well, she has in a measure.”

-

-“And the police?” she said. “Aren’t you a little forgetting them,

-sir?”

-

-“The police,” said C----, “I will answer for. The case isn’t worth

-their pursuing, and they will drop it.”

-

-The baby began to wail; and Aunt Mim, with her lips pursed, to play

-the vicious rocking-horse to it.

-

-

-

-

- III

-

-One evening, a week later, Valentine came quietly into my room. I had

-not seen him in the interval, and was immediately struck, though it

-was semi-dusk, by the expression on his face. It was white and

-smiling, and the eyes more brightly inscrutable than ever.

-

-A storm had just crashed across the town, and left everything dripping

-in a liquid fog. Looking down, one could see the house-fronts,

-submerged in the running pavements, become the very “baseless fabrics

-of a vision.” The hansom-drivers, bent over their glazed roofs, rode

-each with a shadowy phantom of himself reversed, like an oilskin Jack

-of Spades. No pedestrian but, like Hamlet, had his “fellow in the

-cellarage” keeping pace with him. The solid ground seemed melted, and

-the unsubstantial workings of the world revealed. To souls hemmed in

-by bricks, there are more commonplace, less depressing sights than a

-wet London viewed from a third story.

-

-There was a box in my window, with some marguerites in it, the sickly

-pledges of a rather jocund spring. Valentine, joining me as I leaned

-out, handled a half-broken stem very tenderly.

-

-“It has been beaten down, _like poor Nanny_, by the storm,” he said.

-“We must tie it to a stick.”

-

-I did not answer for a minute. Then very deliberately I drew in my

-head and sat down. Again like my shadow, in this city of shadows,

-Valentine did the same. For some five minutes we must have remained

-opposite one another without speaking. Then sudden and grim I set my

-lips, and asked the question he seemed to invite.

-

-“Are you the stick?”

-

-He nodded, with a smile, which I could hardly see now, on his face.

-

-“You speak figuratively, of course,” I said, “in talking of _tying_

-her to you?”

-

-“No,” he said. “I talk of the real bond.”

-

-“Of matrimony?”

-

-“Certainly.”

-

-With a naughty word, I jumped to my feet, strode the round of the

-room, sat down flop on the table, put my hands in my pockets, tried to

-whistle, laughed, and burst out--“I suppose you intend this, in a

-manner, for a confidence? I suppose you are taking straight up the

-tale of a week ago? Well, _I_ haven’t lost the impression of that

-moment, or gone mad in the interval. Do you want me to sympathize with

-_your_ insanity, or to argue you out of it--which?”

-

-He did not answer. Indeed, the offensiveness of my tone was not

-winning.

-

-“I am perfectly aware,” I went on, “that the melodramatic unities

-demand an espousal with the interesting spirit we have called back to

-life. They have a way, at the same time, of ignoring Aunt Mims. You

-will, I am sure, forgive me if I say that it is the figure of that

-good lady which sticks last in _my_ memory.”

-

-Still he did not answer.

-

-“I will put my point,” I continued, growing a little angry--“I will

-put my point, as you seem to ask it, with all the delicacy I can. You

-drew an analogy between--between some one and that broken cabbage

-yonder. The sentiment is unexceptionable; only in France they consider

-those things weeds.”

-

-“Do they?” he said coolly. “We don’t.”

-

-“No; because we must justify ourselves for exalting ’em out of their

-proper sphere. They’ll not cease to smell rank, though, however you

-give ’em the middle place in your greenhouse.”

-

-I struck my knee viciously with my open palm.

-

-“That was in vile bad taste, Val. I beg your pardon for saying it.

-But, deuce take it, man! you can’t have come to me, a worldling and an

-older one, for sympathy in this midsummer madness?”

-

-I was off the table again, going to and fro and apostrophizing him at

-odd turns.

-

-“Let’s drop parables--and answer plainly, if it’s in you. You don’t

-exhale sentiment as a rule. Did or did not that touch about ‘poor

-Nanny’ imply a hint of some confidence put in me?”

-

-“I’ve always considered you my closest friend.”

-

-“Flattered, I’m sure; though I didn’t guess it. You put such

-conundrums--excuse me--beyond the time of a plain man to guess. Well,

-I say, I’m flattered, and I’ll take the full privilege. It’s natural

-you should feel an interest in----by the way, I regret to say I only

-know her as the Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-

-“She’s Nanny Nolan.”

-

-“In Miss Nolan, then. A propos, I’ve never yet asked, and mustn’t

-know, I suppose, the secret of your ‘open sesame’?”

-

-“No, I can’t tell you.”

-

-“O, it doesn’t matter! Only, as a question of this confiding

-friendship----”

-

-“It isn’t my secret alone.”

-

-“Then I’ve no more to say. But I presume she’s the--the flower in

-question?”

-

-“O, yes! And I’m the stick.”

-

-He said it with a quiet laugh.

-

-“I shouldn’t have supposed it, on my honour,” I assured him. “You can

-have stuck at very little in a week.”

-

-I took a few turns, and faced him, or his motionless shadow, very

-solemnly.

-

-“Now,” I demanded, “for the plain speaking. Will you answer me the

-truth? I brought away an impression, as I said. It might have been,

-after all, an impertinent one. A man’s a man for a’ that--though I

-confess I can’t quite apply the moral to a woman. Still, I’ll ask you

-frankly: How is she socially?”

-

-“Nothing at all. Her father was a colour-sergeant, a red-headed Celt

-from over the border of dreams. He’s gone to join the Duke of Argyll’s

-cloud army at Inverary. Her aunt’s an ex-coryphée living on a

-mysterious pension.”

-

-“Of course; only rather worse than I supposed.”

-

-“Verender, I must tell you the girl is without reproach. Socially, it

-is true, they are in a very limited way. They eke out existence in a

-number of small directions, even, as you know, hop-picking.”

-

-“I’ve nothing but respect for Miss Nolan’s virtues. I can even

-appreciate the appeal of her prettiness to a susceptible nature, which

-I don’t think mine is. Anyhow, I’m no Pharisee to pelt my poor sister

-of the gutter because she’s fallen in it. That’s beside the question.

-But it isn’t, to ask what in the name of tragedy induces you, with

-your wealth, your refinement, your mental and social amiability, to

-sink all in this investment of a--of a fancy bespoke--there, I can put

-it no differently.”

-

-“Call it my amiability, Verender. She’s like the centurion’s daughter.

-There’s something awfully strange, awfully fascinating, after all, in

-getting into her confidence--in entering behind that broken seal of

-death.”

-

-“You’re not an impressionable Johnny--at least, you shouldn’t be.

-You’ve passed the Rubicon. This child with a child--with Aunt Mim,

-good Lord! Have you thought of the consequences?”

-

-“Yes; all of them.”

-

-“Of the--pardon me. Do you know who _he_ was?”

-

-“Yes.”

-

-I stared aghast at him--at the deeper blot of gloom from which his

-voice proceeded.

-

-“And you aren’t afraid--for her; for yourself?”

-

-“You mean, of her relapsing?” he said clearly. “Not when she knows the

-truth--knows what a poor thing he is.”

-

-“Are you sure _you_ know woman? She is apt to have a curious

-tenderness for the blackguard who distinguishes her with his most

-especial brand of villainy. Then she hasn’t learned it--the

-truth--yet?”

-

-“No. Aunt Mim has been loyal.”

-

-“Well, well she may be, so long as you offer yourself the prize to

-such a self-denying ordinance. She sees which side her bread’s

-buttered, no doubt. And how does she account for the little stranger?”

-

-“By adoption. It’s an odd thing, Verender--Verender, it’s a very odd

-thing, and very pitiful, to see how _she_--little Nanny--distrusts the

-child--looks on it sort of askance--almost hates it, I think. I’ve a

-very difficult part to play.”

-

-I groaned.

-

-“Then why play it? What does it all matter to you? You’ve opened her

-eyes. Isn’t that enough, without waiting till she’s opened yours?”

-

-“Ah!” he said, obviously not attending to me. “But that isn’t the

-whole of my difficulty. The truth is, she appears to shrink from me

-too.”

-

-“You’ll forgive me,” I said grimly. “That’s your first comforting

-statement.”

-

-“I don’t know how it is,” he continued, in a low voice,

-self-pondering; “she’s frightened--distressed, before a shadow she

-can’t define. Sometimes and somehow it seems as if she wants to love

-me, but can’t--as if she were trying, and vainly, to shape out of a

-great gloom the obstacle which separates us. And I want to help her;

-and yet I, too, can’t understand. Shall I ever, I wonder?”

-

-I stared at him. “Isn’t it plain enough? But you have love’s eyes, I

-suppose.” Then I asked, a little softened, “Does she ever lose

-herself, trying to piece that broken time?”

-

-“I don’t know,” he answered. “She speaks so little. She is like a

-little shy ghost--half-materialized--fearful between spirit and

-matter--very sweet and pathetic.”

-

-With the last word he turned abruptly and strode out of the room. I

-was not so much astonished at his curt conclusion, as at a certain

-tell-tale cough which accompanied it.

-

-“O, hang the fellow!” I muttered. “If he’s developed tears in his

-voice, I give him up.”

-

-

-

-

- IV

-

-One afternoon, accident taking me past the Nolans’ house in the Fulham

-Road, I was disturbed to hear Valentine’s voice hailing me from the

-parlour window. It was a little cheap tenement, and a curiously shabby

-frame to his rather distinguished figure as he stood up eagerly to

-stop me.

-

-“Come in,” he said. “I want you.”

-

-I demurred, in an instant and instinctive panic.

-

-“What for? I’m horribly pressed. Won’t it do another time?”

-

-“_It_ won’t,” he answered. “It’s its way. But go on, if your need is

-greater than mine.”

-

-“That’s shabby,” I thought; and yielded with the worst grace possible.

-He retaliated by meeting me all sweetness at the door, and conducting

-me into the parlour.

-

-It was an impossible room--I may say it at once--quite the typical

-tawdry boudoir of an ex-coryphée. She was not there, I was relieved

-to find, in person; but her multiplied presentment simpered and

-abashed one from a dozen places on walls and mantelpiece. “Claudine”

-(she might have been a hair-wash, and enjoyed the same sort of

-popularity) posed, for all the blind purposes of vanity, in the tights

-and kid boots of a past generation. Looking from queer old

-daguerreotypes, in skirts like curtailed crinolines; ogling from

-wreaths, her calves, crossed to display their strength, in disfiguring

-proportion with the thin bosom above, she seemed to make an outrage of

-the dear ungainly sanctities which appeal to us, in pegtops and

-voluminous skirts, from the back parts of our albums. There are

-certain people who, with the best intention in the world to be held

-sweet, are unsavoury; and Aunt Mim was one of them. All the more

-wonder that such fruit could be born of her stock.

-

-For she was certainly attractive, was the girl--pure and pretty and

-unaffected. I had to own it grudgingly to myself, as I bowed to her,

-and turned interrogatively to my friend.

-

-He had gone to the back of her chair, where she sat away from the open

-window. There was some discarded work in her lap, and in her eyes some

-look of a vague sadness and bewilderment.

-

-“Nanny,” he said softly, “this, Mr. Verender, is my great friend--my

-counsel out of Court. Will you just do this for me--make him yours,

-too? Will you try to explain to him, while I go away, what you find it

-so hard to explain to me--your sense of the something that keeps us

-apart?”

-

-I made an instant but faint demur. Nanny, as faintly, shook her head.

-

-“O,” he said, “but he will listen to you, I know! Because I am

-unhappy, and you are unhappy, and I love you so, Nanny, and he is my

-best friend. Try to explain to him, dear, the difficulty of your

-case.”

-

-This novel enlargement on our relations, his and mine, vaguely annoyed

-me.

-

-“Why should there be any?” I put in impatiently. “Our friend can give

-you great social and other advantages, Miss Nolan. If he is decided on

-this course--you don’t dislike him, I think--forgive me, I can see no

-reason for objection on _your_ part.”

-

-She rose, as if scared, to her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder.

-“Hush!” he said. “Be just to me, and try to tell him.”

-

-He left the room and the house; and I was in two minds about following

-him. Was ever man put in a more ridiculous position? Yet the look of

-the girl gave me pause. She seemed to me to be yet only half awake;

-and indeed, I think, that is something to understate the case.

-

-“Well,” I said stumblingly, as she stood before me. “You heard what he

-said, Miss Nolan?”

-

-I was not sympathetic. I knew it. Perhaps, having once asserted

-myself, I might have grown so. But she would not give me the

-opportunity. In the meantime, I did not feel the less the full force

-of this mismatch.

-

-She put her hand in a lost way to her forehead.

-

-“I will try,” she said, in a low voice, “because he asked me.

-There--there was a great trouble--O! it was so far back. I can’t

-remember it--and then everything went.”

-

-“He is willing, it appears, to take that interval, that trouble, on

-trust,” I said. “He only asks you, it seems, to repay his confidence.

-What you are is what he desires. Cannot you consider yourself new-born

-into his love?” (I positively sneered the word to myself.)

-

-“There is something stands between us,” she only murmured helplessly.

-

-“He doesn’t admit it for himself,” I insisted irritably. “It might be

-the ruin of his career, of his position, as foreseen by his friends. I

-suppose he wishes to assure you that that counts for nothing with him,

-if by any chance the bar between you lies in your dim consciousness of

-such a sentiment.”

-

-I had been brutal, I admit it. I can only palliate my behaviour by

-confessing that it was intended to sound the first note of my moral

-surrender to the appeal of those poor, pain-troubled eyes. Now, at

-least, I had got my shaft home. She looked up at me with a light of

-amazed knowledge in her face.

-

-“Thank you,” she said. “I knew there was a right reason; and all the

-time I have been hunting for a fancied one.”

-

-I suffered an instant reaction to dismay. I had had no right whatever

-to make this point. Whatever my private opinion of Valentine’s folly,

-I had allowed myself to be accredited his ambassador.

-

-“Come; it is no reason at all,” I said. “There is no such thing as a

-misalliance in love” (I threw this atrocious sop to my own panic). “If

-only the practical bar between you could be as easily disposed of.”

-

-“The practical bar?”

-

-She turned upon me with a piteous pain in her voice. I had opened a

-door of release to her, I suppose, and before she could escape shut it

-again in her face. I was stumbling weakly on an explanation, when

-suddenly from somewhere above the baby began to wail. Instantly her

-face assumed the strangest expression--a sort of exalted hardness. She

-put up her hand, listened a moment, then, without another word, glided

-from the room. I am ashamed to say that I seized the opportunity to

-put an instant period to my visit.

-

-I expected to meet Valentine loitering without; but to my relief he

-did not appear. So I went on my way fuming. What right had the man to

-try to inveigle me into seeming to sanction his idiotcy by claiming me

-its advocate? He wanted to buy justification, I suppose. There are

-certain natures which cannot properly relish their own grief or

-happiness unless a witness be by to report upon them. Such was

-Valentine’s, I thought; and the thought did not increase my respect

-for my friend. I fancied I had already plumbed the shallows of that

-pretentious reserve, and was angry and half contemptuous that he had

-so soon revealed himself to me. There was certainly something

-attractive about the girl; but--well, _he_ had not been the first to

-discover the fact, and, when all was said, his infatuation showed him

-a fool in my eyes.

-

-That evening, when I was sitting alone writing, she suddenly stood

-before me. My first shock of amazement was followed by a glow of fury.

-I felt that I was being persecuted.

-

-“Well, what is it?” I said harshly.

-

-“I only wanted to tell you,” she said low, panting as if she had run;

-“I wanted you to tell _him_ that--that I know now what it is. I found

-out the moment I left you; and I came to say--but you were gone.”

-

-“Well?”

-

-“It is the child, sir.”

-

-“Yes, you are quite right--it is the child.”

-

-No sooner had I said it, than I felt the weight of my self-commitment.

-Had she discovered--remembered all? Did she conceive the impediment as

-associated with some scandal attaching to the ineffable Aunt Mim? or

-was the baby, in her clouded soul, but an unattachable changeling,

-which had come to disrupt the kind order of things and brand their

-household with a curse?

-

-“Yes, it is the child,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my hand

-while I frowned over the problem.

-

-She made no answer. When I looked up at the end of a minute, she was

-gone.

-

-I started to my feet, and went up and down. I made no attempt to

-follow. “It is better,” I thought angrily, “to let this stuff ferment

-in its own way. I could have given no other answer.”

-

-At the twentieth turn I saw Valentine before me, and stopped abruptly.

-

-“Well,” he said; “were you able to get it out of her?”

-

-“What?” I asked defiantly.

-

-“The reason--the impediment, you know?” he answered.

-

-“Sit down, Valentine,” I said. “I will tell you the truth. I hinted

-that the _mésalliance_ might be her unconscious consideration.”

-

-“She is not so proud,” he said quietly; “though I’m unworthy to buckle

-her little shoe for her.”

-

-I positively gasped.

-

-“O! if that’s your view! But, anyhow, she was seeming to accept mine,

-when the infant hailed her, and she left me, and I bolted. You put too

-much upon me--really you do, Val; and here’s the sequel. Ten minutes

-ago she appeared in this room and told me that she had discovered the

-reason--the real one this time.”

-

-“And it was?”

-

-“The baby--no less.”

-

-“What! Does she----?”

-

-“I don’t know from Adam. I was thinking over my answer; and when I

-looked up, she was gone.”

-

-“And you gave her no reply?”

-

-“O yes! I told her I entirely agreed with her. I had to be honest.”

-

-“Verender! You must come with me!”

-

-“Go with you!”

-

-“You’ve called the tune; you must pay the piper.”

-

-“I don’t know what you mean. I’ll see you--cremated first!”

-

-He stared at me a moment, his teeth showing, his eyes rounding in the

-dusk, his fists clinching and unclinching; then he, too, was gone. And

-I went and stood at the window, slinking into the curtains, and

-feeling myself the most abused cur in all London.

-

-

-

-

- V

-

-For a fortnight this state continued in me, through alternations of

-depression, self-accusation, and savage bursts of rebellion. On the

-sixteenth day a brief note, begging me to call at his rooms, reached

-me from Valentine.

-

-“I won’t go,” I swore through my teeth, feeling an inclination to tear

-the paper in them; and five minutes later was on my way.

-

-“He shall justify me to myself,” I had thought. “I’ll let my

-conscience be his footstool no longer.”

-

-The fellow lived _en prince_ in Piccadilly. I found him in the midst

-of a litter--boxes and packages and strewed floors--evidently on the

-eve of a journey. He greeted me, twinkling, in high excitement--not a

-trace of grievance or embarrassment in his manner.

-

-“Leave those things, Phillips,” he said to his staid valet. “We’ll

-finish by and by.”

-

-The man left the room; and his master took me by the sleeve, while I

-held myself in reserve--unconsciously, at the same time, softening to

-his geniality.

-

-“We’re off to Capri--Egypt,” he said, “following our late summer with

-the swallows.”

-

-“You and--Phillips?” I asked.

-

-“I and my wife,” said he, with a laugh. “Hush! She’s seeing the baby

-to sleep.”

-

-He could say it without a blush; and they had been married, as I came

-to learn, just a week! He led me on tiptoe to a distant room, and bade

-me look through the opened door. Nanny, crowned, proud as any young

-queen, with conscious maternity, was bent, singing softly, above a

-little cot. The sight of her--Val’s wife--restored me at once to my

-self-respect. I had done nothing after all, it seemed, but help to

-precipitate an event I deplored. My shout had brought down the

-avalanche. Henceforth my position was to be that of the amused

-onlooker.

-

-He let me stare; then led me away with all his old affectation of

-pregnant mystery. We went out together--I don’t know why--into the

-Green Park. It seemed remote and silent, and the better shadows of

-night were beginning to troop under its trees. Then he spoke to me, as

-follows:

-

-“Verender, you have a right to know. You remember what you told me

-that evening? I wasn’t just to you, perhaps. I foresaw issues to which

-you must necessarily be blind. The baby stood between us, you said. It

-did, but not in the way you meant to imply. I am its father.”

-

-I listened perfectly silent, and very grave, as we stepped on

-together.

-

-“I will say of, not for, myself,” he continued, “that I had known

-nothing of the fruits of a little moonlight idyll out in that Kent

-village. I was hop-picking, as she was, but for a worser reason. Our

-encounter in B---- Hospital was my first intimation of the truth. Till

-that moment I had never considered, at least had been careless of, a

-sequel; had never, of course, had a shadow of thought to identify the

-patient with my victim. Then in a moment--Verender, her helplessness

-found all that wasn’t bad in me. She didn’t know me--the curtain was

-too thick. I determined to woo and win, as a stranger, what was

-already my own. Was I right?”

-

-I nodded. “Yes, you were right.”

-

-“Then came the strange part,” he said--“a sort of subconsciousness of

-an impediment she could not define. It was her dishonour, Verender--my

-God! Verender, _her_ dishonour!--that found some subtle expression in

-the little life introduced into her home. She always feared and

-distrusted the child; and I tell you I lived in horror that some day

-her witlessness would arm her gentle hand to do it a hurt. For she

-wanted to come to me, Verender, she wanted to come, and it was as if

-she couldn’t, and nobody would tell her why.

-

-“_You_ told her, you old rascal! And with what result, do you think?

-When I followed her, I found her gone--she had taken the baby from its

-cot, and hurried out. The old harpy was there, raving and gobbling

-beyond reason. I had her down on her knees to confess. She admitted

-that the girl had come in, in a fever to proclaim her knowledge of the

-bar which separated us. Nanny had rounded upon her, it appeared, and

-accused her, Aunt Mim, of wantonly causing the scandal which had

-brought this shadow into her life. And then--perhaps it wasn’t to be

-wondered at--Auntie exploded, and gave up all.”

-

-“The truth?”

-

-“All of it but what the old hag herself didn’t know--the name of the

-villain. That, circumstances had kept from her, you see. She let

-loose, did Auntie--we’ll allow her a grain of justification; to have

-her forbearance turned upon herself like that, you know!--and screamed

-to the girl to pack, and dispose of her rubbish somewhere else. And

-Nanny understood at last, and went.”

-

-“Where?”

-

-“Ah, where? That was the question. I’d only one clue--Skene and the

-river; but I seized upon it, and my inspiration proved right. She’d

-gone instinctively to the only place where, it seemed, her trouble

-could be resolved. You see, she hadn’t yet come to identify _me_ with

-it. But I followed, and I caught her in time.”

-

-He hung his head, and spoke very low.

-

-“I took the next train possible to Skene. Verender, I’m not going to

-talk. It was one of those fainting, indescribable experiences, like

-the voice in the burning bush. Cold dawn it was, with a white bubbling

-river and the ghost of an old moon. She had intended to commit _it_ to

-the water--the fog wasn’t yet out of her brain--and then, all in an

-instant, the mother came upon her, and the memory of me; and she ran

-to cast herself in instead, and saw me coming.”

-

-There followed a long interval of silence.

-

-“And Aunt Mim?” I asked drily, chiefly to keep up my character.

-

-He laughed.

-

-“O! we’ve added an honourable moiety to a dishonourable pension, and

-settled her,” he said.

-

-Another silence followed.

-

-“Well, I apologize,” I said grumpily.

-

-

-

-

- THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR

-

-John Stannary hungrily paced his laboratory, awaiting an expected

-advent. A brilliant coronal of candles, concentrated within a shade

-and pendent from a black beam over the dissecting table, regularly

-identified him as he came within its radiance, and as regularly, when

-he had passed without it, returned to its scrutiny of the empty slab

-beneath, as if it were trying to trace on that blank surface the

-unwritten hieroglyphics of his development. Yet, if each of its

-half-score fiery tongues had been as polyglot as the Apostles’ tongues

-of flame, it could have found among them all no voice to dispute his

-lifelong consistency with himself. From the hard, ungracious child,

-who had rejoiced to discomfit the love which sought to hedge him; from

-the cynic schoolboy, to whom to awaken and analyze pain in the living

-had been the only absorbing sport; from the unimpassioned student, who

-had walked the hospitals like a very spectre of moral insensibility;

-from the calculating libertine, whose experimental phase of animalism

-had been as brief as it was savage; from the lust of life, soon spent,

-to the bloodless analysis of its organic motives; from the soulless

-child to the virile monster of science; from nothingness to a great

-early reputation, to honours, to a fine house, to his present self and

-condition, in short, Professor Stannary’s progress had been entirely

-and unerringly consistent. He was one of those born to account for

-results, not by any means with a view to clearing the stream of

-tendency by cleansing its source. On the contrary, he never would have

-hesitated further to contaminate it, could he by so doing have evolved

-some novel epidemic. His fight was not to win Nature to God, but to

-the laboratory; and, if he had a conqueror’s ambition, it was to die

-gloriously upon a protoplast, at that beginning of things which his

-fathers had struggled through æons to forget. To have called him a

-dog nosing back for a scent, would have been to libel the sorriest of

-mongrels with an inch of tail to wag at a kind word. Yet he had

-routled so much, nevertheless, that his eyes were inflamed, and his

-features pimpled, and his nose itself sharpened as with much whetting

-on carrion. And, still unappeased, he paced his shambles that evening

-like a caged ravening jackal.

-

-In those early decades of the nineteenth century, anthropophagous

-science, especially when non-official, was often hard put to it for a

-meal. The “ringing grooves of change” were sounding; discovery was a

-new-risen star; ghoulish explorers shouldered one another in their

-struggle for the scientific pabulum which the grave afforded. But the

-supply, die as men would, was unequal to the demand. The hospitals

-kept their own; the others, _à contre-cœur_, must keep the

-resurrection-men. They pulled the blinds down on their consciences;

-they were willing to accept the least plausible of explanations, for

-the _Cause_ was paramount. But, indeed, we are all casuists when we

-want to justify our lusts to ourselves. Still the material lacked,

-only, according to the universal law of necessity, to evolve its more

-desperate instruments of supply. And then at last, hard-driven, first

-one, and after him another and another, had the panic courage to pull

-up those blinds, and let in the light on some very shocking

-suspicions--with the result that Burke was hanged in Edinburgh, and

-Bishop and Williams in London.

-

-Professor Stannary was not of these white-livers. He pulled up no

-blind, for the simple reason that he had let none down. He would have

-diagnosed conscience as a morbid disease characterized by a diathetic

-condition, and peculiar to fools of both sexes and all ages. He would

-have said that to ask any question in this world was to invite a lie,

-and that in all his thirty years’ experience he had found none but the

-dead to answer back the unswerving truth. Well, if they did? Did it

-matter to them, being dead? But it mattered greatly to the cause of

-science to get at the truth; and he, for one, was certainly not going

-to question the means so long as the results came to justify them.

-

-While yet, however, the blinds were down and the pitch-plaster but an

-ugly suspicion, the competition for material had not so ceased of its

-keenness but that Professor Stannary had found himself checked, one

-day, under the very near-conquered crest of a physiological peak, for

-want of the final clue to that crowning achievement--a clue which,

-like Bluebeard’s key, turned upon nothing so intimately as dead

-bodies. Step by step he had reasoned his way to this position, only,

-when within touch of the end, to find himself held up, tantalized,

-irritated by an inability to proceed farther until a nice necessity

-should be provided. His material, in fact and in short, had given out

-at the psychologic moment. His laboratory was already a museum of

-shredded particles--the pickings from much inevitable waste of dead

-humanity. There needed only the retraversing of certain nerves, or

-ducts, or canals to put the finishing touches to a great discovery.

-And then--the summit, the tribune, as it were, from which he was

-engaged to announce on the morrow to the Royal Society the triumphant

-term to his investigations.

-

-Already, pacing to and fro, eager and impatient, in the silent room,

-he foresaw himself the recipient of the highest honour it was in the

-power of that body to bestow. He was not above desiring it. He was not

-himself so superlatively rational but he could covet applause for

-knocking yet another long nail into the coffin of irrationality; could

-expect the recognition of the world for his services in helping to

-reduce it, its passions and its hopes and its pathetic fallacies, to

-some mathematical formulæ. There is nothing so incomprehensible to

-the men of science as the reluctance of the unscientific to part with

-their doting illusions. To be content to rejoice or sorrow in things

-as they seem, and not to wish to know them as they are--that, they

-think, is so foolish as to justify their hardest castigation of the

-folly. At least so thought John Stannary, as, with his lips set

-sourly, he paused, and consulted his watch, and listened for a sound

-of expected footsteps shuffling down the hang-dog passage which

-skirted that wall of the house, and into which his laboratory door

-conveniently opened.

-

-Not a whisper, however, rewarded him. He put his ear to the panels.

-Even then, the surf-like murmur of distant traffic--or the thud of his

-own excited heart, he could not tell which--was the only articulate

-sound. He glanced up angrily at the shortening candles before resuming

-his tramp. As he passed to and fro, from dusk to light, and into dusk

-again, he seemed to be demonstrating to a theatre of spectral

-monstrosities the hieroglyphics of that same empty slab. For the

-central core of radiance, concentrating itself with deadly expectancy

-upon its surface, had, nevertheless, its own ghostly halo--a dim

-auditorium, tier over tier, peopled with shadows of misbegotten

-horrors. Sets of surgical steel in the pit, arrayed symmetrically on

-a table as if for a dinner party of vampires; nameless writhed

-specimens on cards or in bottles, standing higher behind the dry sleek

-of glass; over all, murderous busts in the gallery, the dust on their

-heads and upper features giving them the appearance of standing above

-some infernal sort of footlights--with such shapes, watchful and

-gloating in suggestion, was the man hemmed in. They touched his nerves

-with just such an emotion as the ordinary citizen feels towards his

-domestic _lares_; they affected him in just such proportion as he was

-moved by the thought of the possible manner in which an order he had

-given to some friends of his that morning might be executed. That is

-to say, his feeling towards these dead members, as towards the means

-taken by others to procure him the use of them, was utterly

-impersonal. He had had at this pass a great truth to demonstrate. “A

-body, this night, at any cost,” he had simply ordered, and had

-straightway shut the door on his caterers. He had had no thought of

-scruple. His responsibility in these matters was to the ages; never to

-the individual.

-

-

-A low tap sounded at the door. He was there in three strides, and

-opening swiftly, let in two men, the one shouldering a sack, the other

-hovering about his comrade in a sort of anxious moral support.

-

-Professor Stannary, without a word, pointed to the table. The laden

-one, as mutely, shuffled across, backed, heaved his burden down, and

-stood to take off his hat and mop his brow. He was a burly,

-humorous-looking fellow, with a sort of cheerful popularity written

-across his face--an expression in strong contrast with that of the

-other, who, tall and stealthy, stood lank behind him, like his shadow

-at a distance, watching the persuasive effect of his principal on the

-customer. It was he who had closed the door gently upon them all as

-soon as they were in, and now stood, his teeth and eyeballs the

-prominent things in him, softly twirling his hat in his hand.

-

-“Take away the sack,” said the Professor quietly.

-

-The burly man obeyed, sliding it off like a petticoat; and revealed

-the body of a young woman. Lowering and rubbing his jaw, the Professor

-stood some moments pondering the vision. Then he turned sharply.

-

-“You are late. I expected you sooner.”

-

-“The notice was short, sir,” answered the man coolly. “These ’ere

-matters can’t be accommodated in a moment. As it is she’s warm. I

-bought the body off of----”

-

-The other interrupted him--

-

-“I don’t want to know. You can hold your tongue, and take your price,

-and go.”

-

-“Short and sweet,” said the man.

-

-He laughed, and his friend laughed in echo, putting his long hand to

-his mouth as if in apology for such an unpardonable ebullition of

-nature.

-

-“As to the price,” said the former, “taking into _con_sideration the

-urgency, and the special providence, so to speak, in purwiding, at a

-moment’s notice too, this ’ere comely young----”

-

-A certain full chink of money stopped him.

-

-“Thankee,” he said, after a short negotiation. “I’ll own you’ve done

-the handsome, sir, and we’ve no cause to complain. Not but what I had

-to give----”

-

-“Good night!” said the Professor.

-

-Not till they were gone, locked out, and the very trail of their

-filthy footsteps hidden under the black droppings of the night, did he

-turn, for all his impatience, and regard the body again.

-

-“Nancy,” he murmured to himself; “yes, it’s Nancy.”

-

-Into the vast study of biology it is perfectly certain that a personal

-knowledge of biogenesis must enter. Here, too, the individual must be

-sacrificed to the cause. Well, by virtue of that phase in his career

-before-mentioned, he had already once made of Nancy a holocaust to

-science. If the fruits of that sacrifice had been to be found in a

-ruined life, a social degradation, a gradual decline upon infamy, what

-was it all to him? As german to the general subject as the dead

-specimens on his walls was the living specimen of his passion. _Ex

-abusu non arguitur ad usum._ Still, it was a strange coincidence that

-she should come thus to consummate his work.

-

-Looking upon her frozen face, he was aware of certain tell-tale,

-rudely-erased tokens about the mouth. He never had a doubt as to what

-they signified. It was a rude kiss that of the pitch-plaster, more

-close and savage than any he himself had once pressed upon those

-blistered lips. So, the murderous beasts had gone the short way to

-supply his urgency! Would they have taken it none the less, he

-wondered, if they could have known in what relation their victim once

-stood towards their employer? Very likely. Very justly, too, could

-they believe him consistent with himself.

-

-Nevertheless, though he had no conscience, though he had too often

-scored that fact on human flesh with a knife to be in any doubt about

-it, it was notable that, as he moved now, perfectly cold and

-collected, to make some selection of tools from the table hard by, he

-was registering to himself a vow, mortal to some folks, that no effort

-of his should be lacking to help bring certain vile instruments to

-their judgment--so soon as his disuse of them should find warrant in a

-fuller supply of the legitimate material.

-

-As he groped for what he wanted, a sparrow twittered somewhere in the

-dark outside. He started, and dwelt a moment listening. Birds! the

-little false priests of haunted woods, who sang their lying

-benedictions over every folly perpetrated in their green shades! Why,

-he had loathed them, even while he had been making their loves the

-text for this early experiment of his in rustic nature. They had been

-singing when----grasping his knife firmly, he returned to the table.

-

-Something had happened there. For one moment the blade shook in his

-hand. To his practised eye there were signs--the ghostliest, the most

-remote--but signs still. A movement--a tremor--the faintest, faintest

-vibration of a soul, unreleased, struggling to return to the

-surface--that was what he felt rather than saw. He recalled the hasty

-character of the deed; he thought of the shock, of the suspended

-trance into which such a deed might cast a sensitive subject.

-Mastering himself, with the dry firm will of an operator, he walked

-once more unhurriedly to the instrument table, and made a further

-selection.

-

-The sparrow twittered again. Birds in the wood--small procuresses to

-Sentiment! What a trollop she was, that Sentiment! He had known

-ethereal creatures go from picking the bones of stuffed larks, to

-moralize sweetly on the song of nightingales under the moon. For

-himself, barring his natural asceticism, he would have no remorse

-whatever in devouring nightingales. Such emotions were born of

-surfeit, and the moral of them all was that a bird in the stomach was

-worth two, or two hundred, in the bush. The one was the decoy which

-brought the many into notice. Why, he himself, when flushed with

-passion----

-

-Harder than steel, hard as flesh can be, he stepped back to the table.

-

-Yes, there was no longer doubt about it. He must decide quickly.

-Decide! What was there in all his life to warrant in him a moment’s

-indecision? His pledge to to-morrow was paramount over his pledge to

-yesterday. It was by very virtue of the past that he owed everything

-to the future. The _Cause_ was himself, bone of his bone, flesh of his

-flesh. As she had made _her_self one with him, so must she consummate

-the gift. He chose to believe, even, that she would not hesitate could

-she know. He grasped his knife.

-

-Her hair! He had said some foolish things about it once. In a sudden

-fury he seized it, and sliced it off close by her head, and flung it

-aside. She looked strangely innocent and boyish thus shorn. He had a

-momentary grotesque thought that he would excuse himself to himself by

-pretending that she was a boy. It passed on the instant. What excuse

-was necessary? He remembered how once, to his idle amusement, when she

-had fancied herself secure of him, she had coveted greatness for his

-future. Well, it was within his grasp at length, and by her final

-means.

-

-Damn the sparrow! What was there in all the murky town to tempt his

-twittering? He had blunted his knife’s edge on the hair. He must fetch

-another.

-

-As he came back with it, the bird seemed to flutter and cry out

-against his very door. In a swift access of passion he strode to it,

-and opened. Whether old, or wounded, or poisoned in the drooping fog,

-there lay the little thing, gasping, with outspread wings, upon the

-pavement. One moment the Professor hesitated; then, crushing out the

-tiny shrieking life under his foot, he relocked the door and returned

-with a firm step to the table.

-

- * * * * *

-

-His treatise, read the next day before an august body, was said

-masterly to resolve an intricate and long obscure physiologic problem.

-

-It brought him additional and great honour, and, what he prized above

-all, that gift of the Society’s gold medal, which is only granted to

-discoveries of the first importance. But then, it must be remembered,

-he had given his soul to the Cause. The stain of its sacrifice was yet

-red on the stones outside his door.

-

-

-

-

- A GHOST-CHILD

-

-In making this confession public, I am aware that I am giving a

-butterfly to be broken on a wheel. There is so much of delicacy in its

-subject, that the mere resolve to handle it at all might seem to imply

-a lack of the sensitiveness necessary to its understanding; and it is

-certain that the more reverent the touch, the more irresistible will

-figure its opportunity to the common scepticism which is bondslave to

-its five senses. Moreover one cannot, in the reason of things, write

-to publish for Aristarchus alone; but the gauntlet of Grub Street must

-be run in any bid for truth and sincerity.

-

-On the other hand, to withhold from evidence, in these days of what

-one may call a zetetic psychology, anything which may appear

-elucidatory, however exquisitely and rarely, of our spiritual

-relationships, must be pronounced, I think, a sin against the Holy

-Ghost.

-

-All in all, therefore, I decide to give, with every passage to

-personal identification safeguarded, the story of a possession, or

-visitation, which is signified in the title to my narrative.

-

-

-Tryphena was the sole orphaned representative of an obscure but gentle

-family which had lived for generations in the east of England. The

-spirit of the fens, of the long grey marshes, whose shores are the

-neutral ground of two elements, slumbered in her eyes. Looking into

-them, one seemed to see little beds of tiny green mosses luminous

-under water, or stirred by the movement of microscopic life in their

-midst. Secrets, one felt, were shadowed in their depths, too frail and

-sweet for understanding. The pretty love-fancy of babies seen in the

-eyes of maidens, was in hers to be interpreted into the very cosmic

-dust of sea-urchins, sparkling like chrysoberyls. Her soul looked out

-through them, as if they were the windows of a water-nursery.

-

-She was always a child among children, in heart and knowledge most

-innocent, until Jason came and stood in her field of vision. Then,

-spirit of the neutral ground as she was, inclining to earth or water

-with the sway of the tides, she came wondering and dripping, as it

-were, to land, and took up her abode for final choice among the

-daughters of the earth. She knew her woman’s estate, in fact, and the

-irresistible attraction of all completed perfections to the light that

-burns to destroy them.

-

-Tryphena was not only an orphan, but an heiress. Her considerable

-estate was administered by her guardian, Jason’s father, a widower,

-who was possessed of this single adored child. The fruits of parental

-infatuation had come early to ripen on the seedling. The boy was

-self-willed and perverse, the more so as he was naturally of a

-hot-hearted disposition. Violence and remorse would sway him in

-alternate moods, and be made, each in its turn, a self-indulgence. He

-took a delight in crossing his father’s wishes, and no less in atoning

-for his gracelessness with moving demonstrations of affection.

-

-Foremost of the old man’s most cherished projects was, very naturally,

-a union between the two young people. He planned, manœuvred, spoke

-for it with all his heart of love and eloquence. And, indeed, it

-seemed at last as if his hopes were to be crowned. Jason, returning

-from a lengthy voyage (for his enterprising spirit had early decided

-for the sea, and he was a naval officer), saw, and was struck amazed

-before, the transformed vision of his old child-playfellow. She was an

-opened flower whom he had left a green bud--a thing so rare and

-flawless that it seemed a sacrilege for earthly passions to converse

-of her. Familiarity, however, and some sense of reciprocal attraction,

-quickly dethroned that eucharist. Tryphena could blush, could thrill,

-could solicit, in the sweet ways of innocent womanhood. She loved him

-dearly, wholly, it was plain--had found the realization of all her old

-formless dreams in this wondrous birth of a desire for one, in whose

-new-impassioned eyes she had known herself reflected hitherto only for

-the most patronized of small gossips. And, for her part, fearless as

-nature, she made no secret of her love. She was absorbed in, a captive

-to, Jason from that moment and for ever.

-

-He responded. What man, however perverse, could have resisted, on

-first appeal, the attraction of such beauty, the flower of a radiant

-soul? The two were betrothed; the old man’s cup of happiness was

-brimmed.

-

-Then came clouds and a cold wind, chilling the garden of Hesperis.

-Jason was always one of those who, possessing classic noses, will cut

-them off, on easy provocation, to spite their faces. He was so proudly

-independent, to himself, that he resented the least assumption of

-proprietorship in him on the part of other people--even of those who

-had the best claim to his love and submission. This pride was an

-obsession. It stultified the real good in him, which was considerable.

-Apart from it, he was a good, warm-tempered fellow, hasty but

-affectionate. Under its dominion, he would have broken his own heart

-on an imaginary grievance.

-

-He found one, it is to be supposed, in the privileges assumed by love;

-in its exacting claims upon him; perhaps in its little unreasoning

-jealousies. He distorted these into an implied conceit of authority

-over him on the part of an heiress who was condescending to his meaner

-fortunes. The suggestion was quite base and without warrant; but pride

-has no balance. No doubt, moreover, the rather childish

-self-depreciations of the old man, his father, in his attitude towards

-a match he had so fondly desired, helped to aggravate this feeling.

-The upshot was that, when within a few months of the date which was to

-make his union with Tryphena eternal, Jason broke away from a

-restraint which his pride pictured to him as intolerable, and went on

-a yachting expedition with a friend.

-

-Then, at once, and with characteristic violence, came the reaction. He

-wrote, impetuously, frenziedly, from a distant port, claiming himself

-Tryphena’s, and Tryphena his, for ever and ever and ever. They were

-man and wife before God. He had behaved like an insensate brute, and

-he was at that moment starting to speed to her side, to beg her

-forgiveness and the return of her love.

-

-He had no need to play the suitor afresh. She had never doubted or

-questioned their mutual bondage, and would have died a maid for his

-sake. Something of sweet exultation only seemed to quicken and leap in

-her body, that her faith in her dear love was vindicated.

-

-But the joy came near to upset the reason of the old man, already

-tottering to its dotage; and what followed destroyed it utterly.

-

-The yacht, flying home, was lost at sea, and Jason was drowned.

-

-I once saw Tryphena about this time. She lived with her near mindless

-charge, lonely, in an old grey house upon the borders of a salt mere,

-and had little but the unearthly cries of seabirds to answer to the

-questions of her widowed heart. She worked, sweet in charity, among

-the marsh folk, a beautiful unearthly presence; and was especially to

-be found where infants and the troubles of child-bearing women called

-for her help and sympathy. She was a wife herself, she would say

-quaintly; and some day perhaps, by grace of the good spirits of the

-sea, would be a mother. None thought to cross her statement, put with

-so sweet a sanity; and, indeed, I have often noticed that the

-neighbourhood of great waters breeds in souls a mysticism which is

-remote from the very understanding of land-dwellers.

-

-How I saw her was thus:--

-

-I was fishing, on a day of chill calm, in a dinghy off the flat coast.

-The stillness of the morning had tempted me some distance from the

-village where I was staying. Presently a sense of bad sport and

-healthy famine “plumped” in me, so to speak, for luncheon, and I

-looked about for a spot picturesque enough to add a zest to

-sandwiches, whisky, and tobacco. Close by, a little creek or estuary

-ran up into a mere, between which and the sea lay a cluster of low

-sand-hills; and thither I pulled. The spot, when I reached it, was

-calm, chill desolation manifest--lifeless water and lifeless sand,

-with no traffic between them but the dead interchange of salt. Low

-sedges, at first, and behind them low woods were mirrored in the water

-at a distance, with an interval between me and them of sheeted glass;

-and right across this shining pool ran a dim, half-drowned

-causeway--the sea-path, it appeared, to and from a lonely house which

-I could just distinguish squatting among trees. It was Tryphena’s

-home.

-

-Now, paddling dispiritedly, I turned a cold dune, and saw a mermaid

-before me. At least, that was my instant impression. The creature sat

-coiled on the strand, combing her hair--that was certain, for I saw

-the gold-green tresses of it whisked by her action into rainbow

-threads. It appeared as certain that her upper half was flesh and her

-lower fish; and it was only on my nearer approach that this latter

-resolved itself into a pale green skirt, roped, owing to her posture,

-about her limbs, and the hem fanned out at her feet into a tail fin.

-Thus also her bosom, which had appeared naked, became a bodice, as

-near to her flesh in colour and texture as a smock is to a

-lady’s-smock, which some call a cuckoo-flower.

-

-It was plain enough now; yet the illusion for the moment had quite

-startled me.

-

-As I came near, she paused in her strange business to canvass me. It

-was Tryphena herself, as after-inquiry informed me. I have never seen

-so lovely a creature. Her eyes, as they regarded me passing, were

-something to haunt a dream: so great in tragedy--not fathomless, but

-all in motion near their surfaces, it seemed, with green and rooted

-sorrows. They were the eyes, I thought, of an Undine late-humanized,

-late awakened to the rapturous and troubled knowledge of the woman’s

-burden. Her forehead was most fair, and the glistening thatch divided

-on it like a golden cloud revealing the face of a wondering angel.

-

-I passed, and a sand-heap stole my vision foot by foot. The vision was

-gone when I returned. I have reason to believe it was vouchsafed me

-within a few months of the coming of the ghost-child.

-

-On the morning succeeding the night of the day on which Jason and

-Tryphena were to have been married, the girl came down from her

-bedroom with an extraordinary expression of still rapture on her face.

-After breakfast she took the old man into her confidence. She was

-childish still; her manner quite youthfully thrilling; but now there

-was a new-born wonder in it that hovered on the pink of shame.

-

-“Father! I have been under the deep waters and found him. He came to

-me last night in my dreams--so sobbing, so impassioned--to assure me

-that he had never really ceased to love me, though he had near broken

-his own heart pretending it. Poor boy! poor ghost! What could I do but

-take him to my arms? And all night he lay there, blest and forgiven,

-till in the morning he melted away with a sigh that woke me; and it

-seemed to me that I came up dripping from the sea.”

-

-“My boy! He has come back!” chuckled the old man. “What have you done

-with him, Tryphena?”

-

-“I will hold him tighter the next time,” she said.

-

-But the spirit of Jason visited her dreams no more.

-

-That was in March. In the Christmas following, when the mere was

-locked in stillness, and the wan reflection of snow mingled on the

-ceiling with the red dance of firelight, one morning the old man came

-hurrying and panting to Tryphena’s door.

-

-“Tryphena! Come down quickly! My boy, my Jason, has come back! It was

-a lie that they told us about his being lost at sea!”

-

-Her heart leapt like a candle-flame! What new delusion of the old

-man’s was this? She hurried over her dressing and descended. A

-garrulous old voice mingled with a childish treble in the

-breakfast-room. Hardly breathing, she turned the handle of the door,

-and saw Jason before her.

-

-But it was Jason, the prattling babe of her first knowledge; Jason,

-the flaxen-headed, apple-cheeked cherub of the nursery; Jason, the

-confiding, the merry, the loving, before pride had come to warp his

-innocence. She fell on her knees to the child, and with a burst of

-ecstasy caught him to her heart.

-

-She asked no question of the old man as to when or whence this

-apparition had come, or why he was here. For some reason she dared

-not. She accepted him as some waif, whom an accidental likeness had

-made glorious to their hungering hearts. As for the father, he was

-utterly satisfied and content. He had heard a knock at the door, he

-said, and had opened it and found this. The child was naked, and his

-pink, wet body glazed with ice. Yet he seemed insensible to the

-killing cold. It was Jason--that was enough. There is no date nor time

-for imbecility. Its phantoms spring from the clash of ancient

-memories. This was just as actually his child as--more so, in fact,

-than--the grown young figure which, for all its manhood, had dissolved

-into the mist of waters. He was more familiar with, more confident of

-it, after all. It had come back to be unquestioningly dependent on

-him; and that was likest the real Jason, flesh of his flesh.

-

-“Who are you, darling?” said Tryphena.

-

-“I am Jason,” answered the child.

-

-She wept, and fondled him rapturously.

-

-“And who am I?” she asked. “If you are Jason, you must know what to

-call me.”

-

-“I know,” he said; “but I mustn’t, unless you ask me.”

-

-“I won’t,” she answered, with a burst of weeping. “It is Christmas

-Day, dearest, when the miracle of a little child was wrought. I will

-ask you nothing but to stay and bless our desolate home.”

-

-He nodded, laughing.

-

-“I will stay, until you ask me.”

-

-They found some little old robes of the baby Jason, put away in

-lavender, and dressed him in them. All day he laughed and prattled;

-yet it was strange that, talk as he might, he never once referred to

-matters familiar to the childhood of the lost sailor.

-

-In the early afternoon he asked to be taken out--seawards, that was

-his wish. Tryphena clothed him warmly, and, taking his little hand,

-led him away. They left the old man sleeping peacefully. He was never

-to wake again.

-

-As they crossed the narrow causeway, snow, thick and silent, began to

-fall. Tryphena was not afraid, for herself or the child. A rapture

-upheld her; a sense of some compelling happiness, which she knew

-before long must take shape on her lips.

-

-They reached the seaward dunes--mere ghosts of foothold in that smoke

-of flakes. The lap of vast waters seemed all around them, hollow and

-mysterious. The sound flooded Tryphena’s ears, drowning her senses.

-She cried out, and stopped.

-

-“Before they go,” she screamed--“before they go, tell me what you were

-to call me!”

-

-The child sprang a little distance, and stood facing her. Already his

-lower limbs seemed dissolving in the mists.

-

-“I was to call you ‘mother’!” he cried, with a smile and toss of his

-hand.

-

-Even as he spoke, his pretty features wavered and vanished. The snow

-broke into him, or he became part with it. Where he had been, a gleam

-of iridescent dust seemed to show one moment before it sank and was

-extinguished in the falling cloud. Then there was only the snow,

-heaping an eternal chaos with nothingness.

-

-

-Tryphena made this confession, on a Christmas Eve night, to one who

-was a believer in dreams. The next morning she was seen to cross the

-causeway, and thereafter was never seen again. But she left the

-sweetest memory behind her, for human charity, and an elf-like gift of

-loveliness.

-

-

-

-

- HIS CLIENT’S CASE

-

-The “Personal Reminiscences” of the late Mr. Justice Ganthony, now

-in process of being edited, are responsible for the following

-drollery:--

-

-My first “chambers” were on the top, not to say the attic, floor of a

-house in (the now defunct) Furnival’s Inn. I called _it_ “chambers,”

-in the plural, on the strength of a coal-cellar, in the window-seat,

-and a turn-up bedstead which became a cupboard by day. That accounted

-for two rooms, and “the usual offices,” as the house-agents say, when

-they refer to a kitchen six feet by eight in the basement. Trousers,

-after all, are only one garment, although they are called a pair.

-

-There I sat among the cobwebs, like a spider, and waited for my first

-brief. In the meanwhile, I lived as the spiders do--on hope, flavoured

-with a little attic salt. It was not a cheering repast; but, such as

-it was, there was no end to it. By and by I was almost convinced (of

-what I had been friendlily advised) that it was a forlorn hope--the

-sort that leads to glory and the grave; probably by starvation. A

-spider has always, as a last resource, his web to roll up and devour.

-I ate up my chambers by degrees; that is to say, I dined,

-figuratively, day in day out, at the sign of the Three Balls. But this

-was to consume my own hump, like the camel. When that should be all

-gone, what next? There is a vulgar expression for prog, which is

-“belly-timber.” I only realized its applicability to my own case when

-my chairs and tables, and other furniture, had gone the primrose way

-of digestion. It was the brass fender, a “genuine antique,” that sat

-heaviest on my chest.

-

-Furnival’s Inn was not a cheerful place to starve in. There was an

-atmosphere of gloom and decay about it, which derived, no doubt, from

-its former dealings in Chancery. In the days of its prosperity it had

-fed the Inns of Court, as Winchester feeds New College; in my time it

-could not feed itself. The rats were at it, and the bugs, which are

-the only things I know of that can thrive on crumbling plaster. I had

-the distinction of providing some of their rare debauches to the

-latter; but that was before I began to crumble myself. Some of my

-blood was certainly incorporated in the ancient walls, and was

-included in their downfall.

-

-My view, from Furnival’s Inn, was dismally introspective. It

-commanded, in the first place, a quadrangle of emptiness; and

-included, in the second, an array of lowering and mouldy tenements

-like my own, at whose stark windows hungry expectant faces would

-glimmer fitfully, and scan the yard for the clients who never came,

-and disappear.

-

-There was a decrepit inn, of another and the social type, budded, like

-a vicious intestinal growth, within Furnival’s. I used to speculate,

-as I looked down at night on its tottering portico, and solemn old

-frequenters, and the lights blinking behind its blinds like

-corpse-candles, if it were not a half-way house of call for the dead.

-For, by day, all business seemed withdrawn from it, and its upper

-rooms might have been mortuaries for any life they exhibited. No

-cheery housemaid ever looked from their windows to chaff the amorous

-Boots below. There was none to chaff. The dead need no boots.

-

-Furnival’s Inn had one gullet, by which the roar of the world came in

-from Holborn. Little else came in but tradesmen, and bailiffs, and an

-occasional policeman in a thoughtful archæological mood. But the

-gullet was a vent as much of exit as of entrance; and by it one could

-escape from the madness of ghostly isolation, and mingle with the

-world, and look in the pastry-cooks’ windows. Whenever I was moved to

-one of these chameleonic foraging expeditions, I would pin a ticket on

-my door: “Called away. Please leave message with housekeeper,” and

-light my pipe with it when I returned. I wonder if any one ever read

-the fatuous legends? To Hope’s eyes, I am sure, they must have been

-dinted, like phonographic records, with the echoes of all the

-footsteps that ever sounded on the stairs during my absences.

-

-Those footsteps! How they marked the measure of my desperation! They

-were not many, and they were far between; but not one in all the

-dreary tale ever reached my attic. Why should they, indeed? I am free

-to acknowledge its moral inaccessibility. Jurisprudence does not, in

-its convincing phases, inhabit immediately under the roof. The higher

-one lives, in practice, the lower one’s practice is like to be. The

-law is not an elevating pursuit.

-

-I recognized this in the end; and the moment I recognized it I got my

-first client.

-

-One November evening, very depressed at last, I was sitting smoking,

-and ruminating over my doleful fate, and thinking if I had not better

-shut myself up for good and all in the bed-cupboard, when I heard

-steps enter the hall below. My ears pricked, of course, from force of

-habit, and from force of habit I uttered a scornful stage laugh--for

-the withering of Fortune, if she happened to be by. But, in spite of

-my scorn, the steps, ignoring the architects’ offices on the ground

-floor (Frost and Driffel, contractors for Castles in Spain), ascended

-and continued to ascend--past the deed-engrosser’s closet on the

-half-way landing; past the empty chambers immediately below mine

-(whence, on gusty nights, the tiny creaking of the rope, by which the

-last tenant had hanged himself from a beam, would speak through the

-floor under my bed), and higher yet, right up to my door.

-

-Hope, dying on a pallet up three flights of stairs, sprang alert on

-the instant. It might be a friend, a creditor, the housekeeper:

-something telepathic, flowing through the panels, assured me that it

-was none of these things. Tap-tap! so smart on the woodwork that it

-made me jump. I swept pipes and tobacco into a drawer. “Come in!” I

-cried. Then, as the visitor entered, “John, throw up the window a

-little! O, bother the boy! he’s out.”

-

-I don’t know if the new-comer was imposed on. He nodded and sniffed.

-

-“Tobacco!” he exclaimed. “What an age since I’ve tasted it! Mr.

-Ganthony, I presume?”

-

-I bowed.

-

-“Barrister-at-law?”

-

-I bowed again. My plate was in the hall to inform him.

-

-“Accept my instructions for a brief.”

-

-He stated it so abruptly that it took my breath away. If all this was

-outside procedure, I was not going to quarrel with my bread and

-butter. I motioned him to a chair, and, taking up pen and paper

-tentatively, was in a position to scrutinize my visitor.

-

-His appearance was certainly odd--a marked exaggeration, I should have

-pronounced it, of the legal type. His face was very red; his enormous

-side-whiskers very white. Large spectacles obscured his eyes, and he

-wore his silk hat (of an obsolete pattern) cocked rakishly over one of

-them. Add to this that his voluminous frock-coat looked like a much

-larger man’s misfit; that his black cotton gloves were preposterously

-long in the fingers; that he carried a “gamp” of the pantomime

-pattern, and it will be obvious that I had some reason for my

-astonishment. But I kept that in hand. A lawyer, after all, must come

-to graduate in the eccentricities of clients.

-

-He looked perkily, with an abrupt action of his head, round about him;

-then came to me again.

-

-“Large practice?” he asked.

-

-“Large enough for my needs,” I answered winningly.

-

-“H’m!” He sniffed. “They don’t appear to be many.”

-

-“That--excuse me--is my affair,” I said with dignity.

-

-“Of course,” he said; “of course. Only I looked you up--accident

-serving intuition--on the supposition that you were green, you

-know--one of the briefless ones--called to the Bar, but not chosen,

-eh?”

-

-I plumped instantly for frankness.

-

-“You are my first retainer,” I said.

-

-His manner changed at once. He pulled his chair a little nearer me,

-with an eager motion.

-

-“Thats what I wanted,” he said. “That’s it. The sort that are

-suffering to win their spurs. None of your egregious old-stagers, who

-require their briefs to be endorsed to the tune of three figures

-before they’ll move--‘monkey’-in-the-slot men, _I_ call ’em. Thinks I

-to myself, Here’s the sort that’ll be willing to take up a case on

-spec’.”

-

-My enthusiasm shot down to zero.

-

-“O!” I said, with a falling face; “on speculation!”

-

-“There’s a fortune in it for a clever advocate,” he answered eagerly.

-“A fortune! all Pactolus in a nutshell. I’ve had my experiences of the

-other kind. They squeeze you, and throw you away; take the wages of

-sin, and hand you over to the deuce. What do _you_ say?”

-

-“If you will give me the particulars,” I answered, without heart, “I

-shall be able to judge better. Your client----?”

-

-He laughed joyously; frowned; put his hat on the floor; crossed his

-arms over his umbrella-handle, and glowered ferociously at me,

-squinting through his glasses.

-

-“Exactly,” he said; “my client, ha-ha! Here, then, young sir, is my

-client’s case.

-

-“His name is Buggins” (I glanced involuntarily at the wall). “He is,

-or was, until envy combined with detraction to ruin him, a

-company-promoter. As such, his trend was always towards insurance. It

-offered the best opportunities to a great creative genius. Buggins,

-being all that, recognized the still amazing potentialities in a field

-of commerce, which, though much worked, remains unexhausted--almost,

-one might say, inexhaustible. In his younger days he showed a pretty

-invention in devising and engineering what I may call personal essays

-in this line. His Insurance against Waterspouts, which he worked

-principally in the Midlands, brought him some handsome returns with a

-single generation of farmers. It was based on a cloud-burst at

-Bethesda, in Wales, which ruined quite a number. Other flights of his

-immature genius were, respectively, Insurance against Death in

-Diving-bells; against Death of a Broken Heart; against Official

-Strangulation; against Non-fatal Disfiguration by Lightning; against

-Death by Starvation (this last was largely patronized by

-millionaires). On a somewhat higher plane were his _Provident

-Dipsomaniary_, whose policies matured, or ‘burst,’ as Buggins phrased

-it, at the age of eighty-five, an essential condition being that the

-holders must put in their claims in person; his _Physical Promotion

-League_, which guaranteed to pay to the parents of any child, insured

-in it during his teens, a sum of ten pounds on the child’s reaching

-twenty-five years of age and a minimum height of six feet, and a

-thousand pounds for every additional inch which it grew afterwards;

-his _Anti-Fiction Mutual_, whose policies were forfeitable on first

-conviction of having written a novel (this proved one of the most

-profitable of all Buggins’s enterprises for a time; but in the end the

-national malady proved incurable, and subscribers fell off); his

-_Psychical Pocket Research Society_, which offered an Insurance

-against Ghost-seeing, the policy-holder forfeiting his claim on proof

-of his first supernatural visitation (but this was so violently

-assailed by the opposition society, which offered to prove that there

-were not three people in the United Kingdom who were insusceptible to

-spooks, that the scheme had to be abandoned); finally, in this

-category, his _Bachelors’ Protection Association_, which provided

-that, if a member reached the age of ninety without having married, he

-should receive an annuity beginning at fifty pounds, and rising, by

-yearly increments of ten pounds, to ten thousand pounds--figures

-which, in a centenarian age, were successful in dazzling a great many.

-

-“But, by then, Buggins was beginning to master the deep ethics of his

-trade, and to realize that its heaviest emoluments were rooted in the

-grand principle of profitable self-denial. People _will_ be unselfish

-if they see money in it; you can’t stop ’em.

-

-“One other notable venture marks this period of what I may call his

-moral transition. That was his inspired scheme for insuring _against_

-illness, in the sense that any policy-holder admitting him or herself

-to be seriously indisposed, lost the right to compensation. It would

-have proved a godsend in a neurotic age; but the antagonism of the

-entire medical profession, with the single exception of the officer

-appointed by the company, killed it.

-

-“We come now to Buggins’s final matured achievements. I beg your

-pardon?”

-

-I had said nothing; but I suppose there is such a thing as a

-“speaking” silence. Certainly, if I had looked as I felt, I was a more

-drivelling maniac by now than Buggins himself. The visitor seemed to

-shoot out his eyes like an angry crab.

-

-“Young man, young man!” he said warningly, “I begin to be suspicious

-that, after all, I may be misplacing my confidence.”

-

-He looked banefully into his hat, where it stood rim upwards on the

-floor; then, suddenly overwrought, kicked it fiercely across the room.

-The action seemed to restore him to complete urbanity. He smiled.

-

-“So perish all Buggins’s enemies!” he said loftily; “and hail the

-grand climacteric!”

-

-He pinned me, like a live butterfly, to the wall behind me with a

-fixed and penetrating gaze.

-

-“What would you say,” he said quietly, “to an Insurance against

-Brigandage, available to all travelling in Sicily or the Balkans, and

-realizable” (his watchfulness was intense) “on the receipt, at the

-head-offices in the Shetland Islands, of a nose, ear, or other organ,

-attested, under urgency, by the nearest consul, to be the personal

-property of the applicant desiring a ransom?”

-

-He paused significantly. “I should say,” I responded drivellingly,

-“that, as a feat of pure inspiration, it--it takes the cake.”

-

-“Ah!” He shouted it, and sprang to his feet joyously. “You are the man

-for me! You justify my confidence, as the returns justified Buggins’s

-daring conception. Would you believe it: within the first few months,

-bushels of noses were received at the head-offices, every one of which

-Buggins had no difficulty in proving to be false! But, hush!

-stay!--there was to be a higher flight!”

-

-He had been pacing riotously up and down. Now he flounced to a stop

-before me, and held me once more with his glittering eye.

-

-“It took the form,” he whispered, “of a _Purgatory Mutual_, on the

-Tontine principle, the last out to take the pool!”

-

-I rose, trembling, to my feet, as he burst into a violent fit of

-laughter.

-

-“It was that,” he shouted, as he set to racing up and down again,

-“which let loose the dogs of envy, spite, and slander. They called him

-mad--_him_, Buggins, _mad_, ha-ha! It was the fools themselves were

-mad. He ignored their clamour; his vast brain was yet busy with

-immortal conceptions; he matured a scheme against _Death from

-Flying-machines_” (here he tore off one whisker and threw it into the

-fireplace); “he did more--he personally tested the theory of

-aerostatics” (here he tore off the other whisker, and stamped on it).

-“Too great, too absorbed, he never noticed that the unstable engine

-had landed him in the grounds of a private asylum, and, relieved of

-his weight, had soared away again. The attendants came; they seized

-and immured him; they would not believe his assurances that he was a

-perfect stranger. From that day to this, when fortuitous circumstances

-enabled him to escape, he has appealed to their justice, their

-humanity, in vain.”

-

-Again he stopped before me, and, flinging his spectacles in my face,

-rent open the breast of his coat.

-

-“Know me at last for what I am!” he yelled. “I am Buggins, and I

-appoint you my advocate in the action I am about to bring against the

-Commissioners of Lunacy!”

-

-The door opened softly, and a masculine face peered round the edge.

-Its scrutiny appearing satisfactory, it was followed by the whole of

-an official form, which, in its entering, revealed another, large and

-passionless, standing behind it.

-

-“Now, Mr. Buggins,” said the first, “we’re a-waitin’ for you to take

-up your cue.”

-

-The visitor whipped round, started, chuckled, and, to my relief and

-surprise, responded rather abjectly.

-

-“All right, Johnson,” he said. “I just slipped out between the acts

-for a whiff of fresh air.”

-

-“Well,” said the man, “you must be quick and come along, or you’ll

-spile the play.”

-

-He went quite tamely, and the second official outside received him

-stolidly into custody. Mate number one lingered to touch his cap to me

-and explain.

-

-“Flyborough Asylum, sir. They give him a part in some private

-theatricals, and he tuk advantage of his disguise as a family lawyer

-to hook it between the acts. None of us reco’nized him, or guessed

-what he’d done, till the time come for him to take up his cue; and

-then, with the prompter howling for him and him not answering, the

-truth struck us of a heap.”

-

-I was down in my chair, flabby and gasping.

-

-“But what brought him to _me_?” I groaned.

-

-“Train, sir,” answered the man; “plenty of ’em, and easy to catch from

-the suburbs. Why he come on here? Why, his offices in the old days was

-in Furnival’s; it were that give us the clue. I suppose, now” (he took

-off his cap, took a red handkerchief from it, thoughtfully mopped his

-forehead, and returned the bandana to its nest), “I suppose, now, he’s

-been a-gammoning of you pretty high with his insurances? His fust

-principle in life was always to play upon fools.”

-

-

-

-

- AN ABSENT VICAR

-

-“Exactly,” said the Reverend Septimus Prior; “the exchange was the

-most fortuitous, not to say the most fortunate” (he gave a little

-giggle and bow) “possible. Your uncle saw my advertisement, answered

-it, and for a brief period he goes to my cure, and I come to his.”

-

-“Well, if you feel certain,” said Miss Robin, regretfully resting in

-her lap the novel she was reading.

-

-Mr. Prior sipped his tea and nibbled his rusk. In the intervals

-between, he would occasionally glance at the portrait of a scholarly

-cleric, with a thin grim mouth and glassy eyes, which bantered him

-from the wall opposite.

-

-“Your uncle--Mr. Fearful?” he had once ventured to ask; and the niece

-had answered, “Yes. It is very like him.”

-

-Now he paused, with his cup half-way to his mouth.

-

-“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed.

-

-Miss Robin put her book to her lips, and looking over it--really

-rather charmingly,--yawned behind the cover. She was surprisingly

-dégagée for a country vicar’s niece--self-collected, and admirably

-pretty; though her openwork stockings, which she did not hesitate to

-cross her legs to display, filled him with a weak sense of

-entanglement in some unrighteous mystery.

-

-“You said?” he invited her.

-

-“I said, If you feel certain,” she repeated calmly.

-

-“Ah!” he said. “Yes. You mean?”

-

-“I mean,” she said, without a ruffle, “that Uncle Philip _may_ have

-settled to swap livings with you _pro tem._, and _may_ have started

-off to take yours, and _may_ have got there--_if_ you feel certain

-that he has.”

-

-“To be sure,” he answered. “Why shouldn’t I?”

-

-“Had he arrived--when you started--for here?”

-

-“No. Certainly he hadn’t arrived. My train was due. I had to leave a

-message; but----”

-

-She stopped him by dropping her book into her lap; and, clasping one

-knee in her hands, conned him amiably.

-

-“Did he lead you to expect a niece among the charges he was committing

-to your care--or cure?” she asked.

-

-“Well, I must confess,” said the young man, blushing, “he--ah!

-mentioned a housekeeper--Mrs. Gaunt, I think--but----”

-

-“No, of course not,” she interrupted him. “He had forgotten all about

-me.”

-

-Mr. Prior gasped, and looked down. This was his first holiday exchange

-of livings--an unsophisticated venture, which he was already half

-repenting. A suburban cure; a desire for fresh pastures; a daring

-resolution; an advertisement in the “Church Times”; a prompt answer;

-as prompt an acceptance (after due reference to the Clergy List); a

-long railway journey; a tramp, relatively as long, to a remote

-parsonage on the road to a seaport; an arrival in the dark; an

-innocence of all expectation of, or preparation for him; an

-explanation; production of his written voucher, and--here he was,

-accepted, he could not but think, on sufferance. But there he thought

-wrong. Miss Robin was not near so upset by his appearance as he was.

-

-“He comes and goes” (she said of Uncle Philip) “without reference to

-anybody or anything. We never know what he’ll do next, or who’ll

-introduce himself into the house as his friend. It may be a burglar or

-a pirate for all we know. All sorts of strange people come up from the

-port, and are shown into my uncle’s room, and out again by himself at

-the side door. At least, I suppose so. We never know what becomes of

-them, or what’s going on, any more than I doubt he does himself. I

-dare say they fleece him nicely; and--you may laugh--but when he’s in

-his absent moods, you might undress him without his knowing. Only he’d

-probably strike you to the ground when he found out--he’s such an

-awful temper.”

-

-“Dear me!” murmured the young man; “how very curious. One hears of

-such cases.”

-

-“Does one?” said Miss Robin. “I’d rather hear of, than live with them,

-anyhow; and in a desert, too. It wouldn’t so much matter if he didn’t

-always hold others to blame for his mistakes and mislayings. He kept

-me in bed a week once, because he’d read right through a treatise on

-explosives in the pulpit, before he discovered that it wasn’t his

-peace-thanksgiving sermon.”

-

-“Astonishing!” said Mr. Prior; then added, with a faint smile, “Well,

-I can promise you, at least, that _I’m_ not a pirate.”

-

-“No,” she said, “I can see you’re not. Won’t you have some more tea?”

-

-He was shown to his bedroom by Mrs. Gaunt, who was a stony, silent

-woman, bleak with mystery. All night the wind howled round the lonely

-building; and the unhappy man, who, in a phase of worldly revolt,

-egged on by a dare-devil parishioner, had once read “The House on the

-Marsh”, thought of Sarah and Mr. Rayner, and of a silent weaving of

-strings across the stairway in the dark to catch him tripping should

-he venture upon escape.

-

-He arose, feverish, to a sense of hooting draughts in a grey house,

-and went to matins in the gaunt dull church, which stood as lonely as

-a shepherd’s hut on a slope hard by. There was nothing in sight but

-wind-torn pastures, and, all around, little graves, which seemed

-trying vainly to tuck themselves and their shivering epitaphs under

-the grass. There appeared nothing in the world to attract a

-congregation; but, as a matter of fact, there were a few old frosted

-spinsters present, of that amphibious order, a sort of landcrabs,

-which forgathers on the neutral wastes between sea and country.

-

-Mr. Prior went back to his dreary breakfast at the Vicarage. His lady

-hostess, it appeared, was wont to lie late abed, and did not think it

-worth her while to alter her habits for him. The meal, however, had

-been served and left to petrify, pending his return from matins. It

-was with a consciousness of congealed bacon-fat, insufficiently

-dissolved by lukewarm tea, sticking to the roof of his mouth, that he

-rose from it, and pondered his next movement. No one came near him. He

-looked dismally out on a weedy drive. He rather wished Miss Robin

-would condescend to his company. He was no pirate, certainly; but he

-believed he would brave, had braved already, much for his cloth. She

-had beautiful eyes--clear windows, he was sure, to a virginal soul.

-But then, the other end! the white feet peeping through that devil’s

-lattice! He tried to recall any authority in Holy Writ for openwork

-stockings. Certainly pilgrims went barefoot, and half a loaf was

-better than no bread.

-

-“This will not do, Septimus,” he said, weakly striking his breast. “I

-will go and compose my sermon.”

-

-He stepped into the hall. It was papered in cold blue and white

-marble, with a mahogany umbrella stand, and nothing else, to temper

-its tomb-like austerity. At the further end was a baize door of a

-faded strawberry colour.

-

-He was entitled to the run of the house, he concluded. There had been

-no mention of any Bluebeard chamber. But, then, to be sure, there had

-been no mention of a niece. The association of ideas tingled him. What

-if he should turn the handle and alight on Miss Robin?

-

-He flipped his breast again, frowning, and strode to the baize door.

-Beside it, he now observed, a passage went off to the kitchens.

-Desperately he pulled the door, found a second, of wood, beyond it,

-opened that also, and found himself in what was obviously the Vicar’s

-study.

-

-Obviously, that is to say, to his later conceptions of his

-correspondent. Otherwise he might have taken it for the laboratory of

-a scientist. It was lined with bookcases, sparsely volumed; but five

-out of every six shelves were thronged with jars, instruments, and

-engines of a terrifying nature. In one place was a curtained recess

-potential with unholiness. Prints of discomposing organs hung on the

-walls. Immemorial dust blurred everything. There was a pedestalled

-desk in the middle, and opposite it, hung with a short curtain, a

-half-glazed door which the intruder, tiptoeing thither and peeping,

-with his heart at the gallop, found to lead into a dismal narrow lane

-which communicated with the road. He returned to the desk, which,

-frankly open, seemed to invite him to its use, and was pondering the

-moral practicability of composition in the midst of such surroundings,

-when a voice at his ear almost made him jump out of his skin.

-

-“Pardon me, sir; but have you the master’s permission to use this

-room?”

-

-Mrs. Gaunt had come upon him without a sound.

-

-“Dear me, madam!” he said, wiping his forehead. “What do you mean?”

-

-“I mean, sir,” she said, in her stony, colourless way, “that this room

-is interdict to both great and little, now and always, unless he makes

-an exception in your favour.”

-

-“There was no specific mention of it, certainly,” said Mr. Prior,

-“neither for nor against. I concluded that the use of a study was not

-debarred me.”

-

-“Pardon me,” she repeated monotonously. “I believe you concluded

-wrong, sir.”

-

-“The door was not locked.”

-

-“There are some prohibitions,” she said, “that need no locks.”

-

-The inference was fearful.

-

-“Miss June” (ecstatic name!) “and I,” she said, “have never dared so

-much as to put our noses inside, and not a word spoken to forbid it.”

-

-Mr. Prior, to his own astonishment, revolted. Smarting, perhaps, under

-the memory of some suspected covert innuendo in a certain silvery

-acquiescence in a statement of his made last night, he revolted. He

-would prove that he could be a pirate if he chose.

-

-“I shall stop here,” he said, trembling all over. “There was no

-embargo laid, and I must have somewhere to write my sermon.”

-

-“Of course,” said a voice; and Miss Robin stood in the doorway--the

-most enchanting morning vision, her eyes bright with curiosity.

-

-“I am delighted you support me,” he said, kindling and advancing.

-

-She still looked beside and around him.

-

-“Do you know,” she said, “it is perfectly true. I have not once dared

-to venture in here before, though never actually told not to. But that

-is all one, I think. What an extraordinary litter!”

-

-She had not ventured! and with the inducement of her petrifying

-surroundings! She was uninquisitive, then--“an excellent thing in

-woman.”

-

-“Since there is no veto,” he said, incomparably audacious, “supposing

-we explore together?”

-

-She looked at him admiringly.

-

-“I should like to.” She hesitated.

-

-“June!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-

-“And I will,” said the girl.

-

-But the housekeeper, content, it appeared, with her protest, stood,

-not uninterested in the subsequent investigation.

-

-“Do you not find all this a little remote, a little lifeless

-sometimes, Miss Robin?” said the clergyman, greatly daring.

-

-She shrugged her shoulders.

-

-“Eels get used to skinning. It’s not life, of course. But I have to

-make the best of it, and there’s no help.”

-

-“Ah, yes, there is!” said her companion, intending to imply the

-spiritual, but half hoping she would construe it into the material

-consolation.

-

-“What do you mean?” she asked simply.

-

-“Why,” he said, stammering and blushing furiously, and giving away his

-case at once, “with your youth, and--and beauty--O, forgive me! I am a

-little confused.”

-

-“Where do you live?” she said, fixing him with her large eyes.

-

-“At Clapton,” he murmured.

-

-“It sounds most joyous,” she said, clasping her hands.

-

-Hardly knowing what he did, he pulled the curtain away from the recess

-by which they stood, and instantly staggered back. The housekeeper,

-who, foreseeing his act, had crept up inquisitively behind, gave a

-mortal gasp, and Miss Robin a faint shriek--for, stretched lifeless

-and livid on a couch within, lay the stark body of a man.

-

-For a minute they all stood staring, frozen with horror; then Mrs.

-Gaunt began to wring her hands.

-

-“It is the same,” she cried, in awful tones. “I remember him--the dark

-foreigner. He wandered up here from the port a week ago; and I took

-him in to the master, and he _never came out again_. I thought he had

-let him go by the door there into the lane. O, woe on this fearful

-house! Long have I suspected and long dreaded. The sounds, and the

-awful, awful smells!”

-

-“Perhaps,” whispered the girl, gulping, and clutching at her breast,

-“he died unexpectedly, and uncle put him away here, and forgot all

-about him.”

-

-Mrs. Gaunt shrieked, and seizing the clergyman’s arm, pointed--

-

-“Look! Pickled babies--one, two, three! And bones! And a fish-kettle!

-It is all plain. He kills them, and boils them down for his

-experiments, and by an accident he forgot to empty his larder--his

-larder! hoo-hoo!--before he went!”

-

-She broke into hysteric laughter and gaspings. Miss Robin, whinnying,

-tottered quite close up to the young man, who stood shivering and

-speechless.

-

-“What can we do to save him?” she whimpered. “Mr. Prior, say

-something!”

-

-Thus urged, the unhappy young man strove to press his brain into a

-focus with his hand, and to rally himself to what, he felt, was the

-supreme occasion of his life. The appealing eyes and parted lips so

-close to his would have intoxicated a saint, much more a pirate.

-

-“We must warn him--agony column--from returning,” he ejaculated,

-reeling. “Cryptic address--has he any distinguishing mark?”

-

-“Yes,” she said, with frantic eagerness; “he has a large mole at the

-root of his nose.”

-

-“Very well,” he said--“something of this sort: ‘Nose, with large mole

-at root of. All discovered. Don’t return!’”

-

-“But what is the use of an advertisement? O, Mr. Prior! what is the

-use of an advertisement when we know where he is, or ought to be, and

-can go----?”

-

-“Do you really think he will be there? It was a blind. O, Miss Robin,

-it is evident now it was a blind to cover his tracks!”

-

-“But why should he have designed to escape at all, leaving this--O,

-Mr. Prior!--leaving this horror behind him?”

-

-“We can only conjecture--O, Miss Robin, we can only conjecture!

-Perhaps because of his conscience overtaking him; perhaps because,

-killing in haste, he discovered at leisure that _it_ would not go into

-the kettle; perhaps in a phase of that deadly absence of mind, which,

-he will have realized by now, the Lord has converted to his

-confusion.”

-

-“Well, if you are right. And in the meantime we must get rid of

-this--somehow. O, pray think of a means! Do! Do!”

-

-Mrs. Gaunt steadied her storming breast as she leaned for support,

-with hanging head, against the door.

-

-“There’s the old well--off the lane,” she panted, without looking up.

-“He there _might_ have fallen in--as he went out--and none have

-guessed it to this day.”

-

-It was a fearful inspiration. Mr. Prior, in that moment of supreme

-sentient exaltation, abandoned himself to the awful rapture of things.

-

-“June!” he whispered, putting shaking hands on the girl’s shoulders;

-“if I do this thing for your sake, will you--will you--I have a

-mother--this is no longer a place for you--come to Clapton?”

-

-“Yes,” she answered, offering to nestle to him. “I had supposed that

-was understood.”

-

-He was a little taken aback.

-

-“We must move this first,” he said, wringing his damp forehead.

-“Who--who will help me?”

-

-It was really heroic of him. In a shuddering group, they approached

-together the terrible thing--hesitated--plunged, and dragged it out

-with a sickening flop on the floor.

-

-A greasy turban, which it wore, rolled away, disclosing a near bald

-head. Its eyes were closed; its teeth grinned through a fluff of dark

-hair; a lank frock-coat embraced its body, linen puttees its shanks,

-and at the end were stiff bare feet.

-

-“Look, and see if the coast is clear,” gasped the clergyman.

-

-Miss Robin turned to obey, and uttered a startled shriek.

-

-“What are you doing with my Senassee?” cried a terrible voice at the

-door.

-

-Mr. Prior whipped round, echoing his beloved’s squawk. A fierce old

-man, leaning on a stick, stood glaring in the opening.

-

-“Uncle!” cried the girl.

-

-He advanced, sneering and caustic, pushed them all rudely aside,

-dropped on his knees beside the corpse, and, thrusting his finger

-forcibly into its mouth, appeared to hook and roll its tongue forward.

-Instantly an amazing transformation occurred. A convulsion shook the

-body; life flowed into its drab cheeks; its eyes opened and rolled;

-inarticulate sounds came from its jaws.

-

-“Ha!” cried the old man; “I have foreclosed on these busybodies.”

-

-Then he rose to his feet, leaving the patient yawning and stretching

-on the floor.

-

-“Fearful!” gasped the clergyman.

-

-“Do you address me, sir?” asked the old man, scowling.

-

-“Conjurer!” whispered Mr. Prior.

-

-“If you like,” snarled the other. “It is a common enough trick with

-these Yogis, but one I had never seen until he came my way and offered

-to show it me for a consideration. I had forgot he was still lying

-there when I agreed to exchange livings with you. (You are Mr. Prior,

-I presume?) It was the merest oversight, which I remembered on my way,

-and came back by an early train to rectify--none too soon, it seems,

-for the staying of meddlesome fingers.”

-

-“Forgot he was there!” cried Mr. Prior.

-

-“And what if I did, sir?” snapped the other. “It was a full week he

-had lain tranced; and let me tell you, sir, I have more things to

-think of in a week than your mind could accommodate in a century.

-Why,” he cried, in sudden enlightenment, “I do believe the fools

-imagined I had murdered the man.”

-

-“Look at the babies in the bottles!” cried Mrs. Gaunt hysterically.

-

-“As to you, you old ass,” shouted the Vicar, flouncing round, “if you

-can’t distinguish embryo simiadæ from babies, you’d better call

-yourself Miss, as I believe you are!”

-

-“I give notice on the spot!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-

-Miss Robin stepped up bravely to the young clergyman, and linked her

-arm in his.

-

-“And I,” she said. “I think you have behaved very cruelly to me, to us

-all, Uncle, and--and Mr. Prior has a mother.”

-

-“I dare say; he seems fool enough for anything,” roared the old

-gentleman. “Go back to her, sir! Go to----”

-

-June shrieked.

-

-“Clapton!” he shouted, “and take this baggage with you!”

-

-

-

-

- THE BREECHES BISHOP

-

-

- In that age of gallantry, the reign of Charles the Second, it was

- customary when a gentleman drank a lady’s health to throw some part of

- his dress into the flames, in order to do her still greater honour.

- This was well enough for a lover, but the folly did not stop here, for

- his companions were obliged to follow him in this proof of his

- veneration by consuming a similar article, whatever it might be.

-

-

-About the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was living

-at Aldersferry, in the Soke of Godsport in Hampshire, a worthy

-clergyman of the name of Barnabas Winthrop. The little living of St.

-Ascham’s--a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry of

-Winchester--supplied the moral and material needs of this amiable man;

-his granddaughter, Miss Joan Seabird, kept house for him; and never

-were cream and ripe fruit happier in contact than were these two

-playful and reasonable intellects in their relations of child and

-sage.

-

-A hysteromaniac, however, is Fortune, who, charmed for a while with

-the simplicity of these her protégés, soon began to construe their

-contentment into self-sufficiency, and to devise some means to correct

-their supposed presumption on her favour, by putting it into the head

-of the artless divine how silence on questions which one felt called

-loudly for reform might be comfortable, but was shameful and an

-evasion of one’s duty. In short, Dr. Winthrop, entertaining original

-views on sanitation and the prevention of epidemics, was wickedly

-persuaded by her to expound them, and so to invite into his harmless

-Eden the snake which was to demoralize it. In one day he became a

-pamphleteer.

-

-Now the Plague, in that year of 1682, was not so remote a memory but

-that people lived in a constant terror of its recrudescence. Pandects,

-treatises, expositions, containing diagnoses, palladiums and schemes

-of quarantine, all based on the most orthodox superstitions, did not

-cease to pour from the press, to the eternal confusion of an age which

-was yet far from realizing the pious schism of the _aide-toi_. What,

-then, as might be supposed, was the effect on it, when a clergyman of

-the Establishment was seen to enter the arena as a declared dissenter

-from the _fata obstant_ of popular bigotry?

-

-For a time Godsport, startled and scandalized, watched aloof the paper

-warfare; and it was not until after the appearance of the Doctor’s

-tract, “_De omni re Scibili_”--wherein he sought, boldly and

-definitely, and withal with a characteristic humour, to lay the

-responsibility for pestilence, not upon the Almighty’s shoulders, but,

-literally, at the doors of men, at their face-to-face proximity, and

-at “the Castynge of Noisome filth in their neare neighbourhood”--that

-it brought down its official hand with a weight and suddenness which

-shook St. Ascham’s to its roots. In brief, there was flung at the

-delinquent one morning his formal citation to the Sessions Court,

-there to answer upon certain charges of having “in divers Tracts,

-Opuscules and Levrets, sought insidiously to ingrafte the minds of his

-Majesty’s liege subjects with such impudent heresies as that it is in

-the power of man to limit the visitations of God--a very pestilent

-doctrine, and one arrogating to His servants the Almighty’s high and

-beneficent prerogatives; inasmuch as Plague and Fire and other His

-scourges, being sacriligeously wrested from His graspe, the world

-would waxe blown with overlife, till it crawled upon the face of the

-heavens like a gross putrid cheese.”

-

-Under this bolt from the blue the liberal minds of grandsire and child

-sank amazed for the moment, only to rally to a consciousness of the

-necessity for immediate action.

-

-“Up, wench!” cried the Doctor, “and saddle our Pinwire. I will go lay

-my case instanter before the Bishop.”

-

-“Alas, dearest!” answered the weeping girl, “you forget; he is this

-long while bedridden.”

-

-Her imagination, which had been wont secretly to fondle the idea of

-her grandfather’s enlightened piety rewarded with a bishopric,

-pictured it in a moment turned to his confusion, and himself, perhaps,

-through the misrepresentations of a blockhead Corporation, disgraced

-and beggared in his old age. But, though she knew the Churchman, she

-had not calculated the rousing effects of criticism on the author.

-

-“Then,” roared he, “I will seek the fount itself of reason and

-justice. It was a good treatise, a well-argued treatise; and the King

-shall decide upon the practical merits of his own English.”

-

-“The King!” she cried, clasping her hands.

-

-“The King,” he answered. “Know you not that he moves daily between

-Southampton, where he lies, and Winchester, where he builds? We will

-go to Winchester. Nay, _we_, child; blubber not; for who knows but

-that, the shepherd being withdrawn, the wolves might think to practise

-on the lamb.”

-

-He checked himself, and hung his head.

-

-“The Lord pardon and justify me indignation,” he muttered. “I was a

-priest before an author.”

-

-It was fine, but a loaded sky, when they set forth upon their journey

-of twenty or so miles, Joan riding pillion behind her grandfather on

-the sober red nag. After much cross work over villainous tracks, they

-were got at last into the Southampton turnpike, when they were joined

-by a single horseman, riding a handsome barb, who, with a very

-favourable face for Joan, pulled alongside of them, as they jogged on,

-and fell into easy talk.

-

-“Dost ride to overtake a bishopric, master clergyman,” says he, “that

-you carry with you such a sweet bribe for preferment?”

-

-Joan looked up, softly panting. Could he somehow have got wind already

-of their mission, and have taken them by the way to forestall it? But

-her eyes fell again before the besieging gaze of the cavalier.

-

-He was a swart man of fifty or so, with a rather sooty expression, and

-his under-lip stuck out. His eyes, bagging a little in the lower lids,

-smouldered half-shut, between lust and weariness, under the blackest

-brows; and, for the rest, he was dressed as black as the devil, with a

-sparkle of diamonds here and there in his bosom. Joan looked down

-breathless.

-

-“I seek no preferment, sir, but a reasonable justice,” said the

-curate; and, in a little, between this and that, had ingenuously,

-though with a certain twinkling eye for the humour of it all,

-confessed his whole case to the stranger. But Joan uttered not a word.

-

-The cavalier laughed, then frowned mightily for a while. “We will

-indict these petty rogues of office on a _quo warranto_,” he growled.

-“What! does not ‘cleanness of body proceed from a due reverence of

-God’? Go on, sir, and I will promise you the King’s consideration.”

-

-Then he forgot his indignation, leering at the girl again.

-

-“And what is _your_ business with Charles, pretty flower?” said he.

-

-But, before she could answer, whish! went Pinwires’s girth out of its

-buckle, and parson and girl tumbled into the road.

-

-The cavalier laughed out, and, while the Doctor was ruefully

-readjusting his straps, offered his hand to the girl.

-

-“Come, sweetheart,” said he. “Since we go a common road, shalt mount

-behind me, and equal the odds between your jade and my greater beast.”

-

-Joan appealed in silence to her grandfather.

-

-“Verily, sir,” he said nodding and smiling, “it would be a gracious

-and kindly act.”

-

-In a moment she was mounted, with her white arms belted about the

-stranger’s waist; the next, he had put quick spurs to his horse, and

-was away with a rush and clatter.

-

-For an instant the Doctor failed to realize the nature of the

-abduction; and then of a sudden he was dancing and bawling in a sheer

-frenzy.

-

-“Dog! Ravisher! Halt! Stop him! Detain him!”

-

-He saw the flight disappear round a bend in the road. It was minutes

-before his shaking hands could negotiate strap and buckle, and enable

-him to follow in pursuit. But he carried no spurs, and Pinwire,

-already over-ridden, floundered in his steps. Distraught, dumbfounded,

-the old man was crying to himself, when he came upon Joan sitting by

-the roadside. He tumbled off, she jumped up, and they fell upon one

-another’s neck.

-

-“O, a fine King, forsooth!” she cried, sobbing and fondling him. “O, a

-fine King!”

-

-“Who? What?” said he.

-

-“Why, it was the King himself!”

-

-“The King!”

-

-“The King.”

-

-“How?” he gasped. “You have never seen him?”

-

-“Trust a woman,” quoth she.

-

-“A woman!” he cried. “You are but half a one yet.”

-

-“It was the King, nevertheless.”

-

-“Joan, let us turn back.”

-

-“He had a wooing voice, grandfather.”

-

-“_Retro Satanas!_ How did you give him the slip?”

-

-“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”

-

-“Dear Joan!”

-

-“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing

-he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of

-my beauty.”

-

-“That proves him false.”

-

-“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was

-a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a

-thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”

-

-She showed a silver pin like a skewer.

-

-“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.

-

-“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and

-was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give

-him----”

-

-“What, woman?”

-

-“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour,

-grandfather; and where are we?”

-

-He looked about him in the dolefullest way.

-

-“If I knew!” he sighed. “We must e’en seek the shelter of an inn till

-this storm is by, and then return home. Better any bankruptcy than

-that of honour, Joan.”

-

-They remounted and jogged on in the rain, which by now was falling

-heavily. The tired little horse, feeling the weight of his own soaked

-head, began to hang it and cough. Presently they dismounted at a

-wayside byre, and, eating the simple luncheon which their providence

-had provided, dwelt on a little in hopes of the weather clearing. But

-it grew steadily worse.

-

-“I have lost my bearings,” said the clergyman in a sudden amazement.

-“We must push on.”

-

-About four o’clock, being seven miles or so short of Winchester, they

-came down upon a little stream which bubbled across the road. The

-groaning horse splashed into it and stood still. Dr. Winthrop, wakened

-by the pause from a brown reverie, whipped his right leg over the

-beast’s withers, landed, slipped on a stone, and sat down in two feet

-of water. Uttering a startled ejaculation, he scrambled up, a sop to

-the very waist of his homespun breeches. Their points--old disused

-laces, fragrant from Joan’s bodice--clung weeping to his calves. He

-waded out, cherishing above water-mark the sodden skirts of his coat,

-his best, of ‘Colchester bayze.’ The horse, sensibly lightened,

-followed.

-

-“O, O!” cried Joan. “Wasn’t you sopped enough already, but you must

-fill your pockets with water?”

-

-“Joan!” he cried disconcerted. “I am drowned!”

-

-Luckily, in that pass, looking up the slope of the hill, they espied

-near the top a toll-booth, and, beyond, the first houses of a village.

-Making a little glad haste, they were soon at the bar.

-

-The woman who came to take their money looked hard at the tired girl.

-She was of a sober cast, and her close-fitting coif showed her of the

-non-conforming order.

-

-“For Winchester, master?” said she.

-

-“Nay,” answered the clergyman; “for the first hostelry. We are beat,

-dame.”

-

-“The first and the last is ‘The Five Alls,’” said she. “But I wouldn’t

-carry the maiden there, by your leave. There be great and wild company

-in the house, that recks nothing of anything in its cups. Canst hear

-’em, if thou wilt.” And, indeed, with her words, a muffled roar of

-merriment reached them from the inn a little beyond.

-

-“One riding for Winchester, and the rest from,” she said, “they met

-here, and here have forgathered roistering this hour. Dare them so you

-dare. I have spoken.”

-

-“_Nunc Deus avertat!_” cried the desperate minister. “The Fates fight

-against us. At all costs we must go by.”

-

-“Nay,” said the good woman; “but, an you will, seek you your own

-shelter there, and leave this poor lamb with me. I have two already by

-the fire--decent ladies and proper, and no quarry for licence. I know

-the company; ’twill be moving soon; and then canst come and claim

-thine own.”

-

-He accepted gladly, and, leaving Joan in her charge, rode on to the

-inn, where, dismounting, he betook himself to the stable, which was

-full of horses, and, after, to the kitchen.

-

-The landlord, cooking a pan of rashers alone over a great fire, turned

-his head, focussed the new-comer with one red eye, and asked his

-business.

-

-“A seat by the hearth, a clothes-rack for my breeches, a rug for my

-loins while they dry, and a mug of ale with a sop in it,” answered the

-traveller, with a smile for his own waggish epitome. And then he

-related of his mishap.

-

-The landlord grunted, returned to his task, blew on an ignited rasher,

-presently took the skillet off the coals, forked the fizzing mess into

-a dish, and disappeared with it. All the while an ineffable racket

-thundered on the floor above.

-

-“Peradventure they will respect my cloth,” thought the clergyman. “The

-Lord fend me! I am among the Philistines.”

-

-The landlord returned in a moment with a horn of ale in one hand, and

-a rug in the other, which he threw down.

-

-“Dod, man!” he cried; “peel, peel! This is the country of continence!

-Hast no reason to fear for thy modesty.” And he went out between

-chuckling and grumbling.

-

-Very decently the curate doffed his small-clothes, hung them over a

-trestle before the fire, wrapped and knotted the rug about his loins,

-and sat down vastly content to his sup. In ten minutes--what with

-weariness, warmth, and stingo--he was asleep.

-

-He woke with a little shriek, and staggered to his feet. Something had

-pricked him--the point of a rapier. The flushed, grinning face of the

-man who had wielded it stood away from him. The kitchen was full of

-rich company, which broke suddenly into a babble of merriment at the

-sight of his astounded visage. In the midst, a swart gentleman, who

-had been lolling at a table, advanced, and taking him by the

-shoulders, swung him gently to and fro till his eyes goggled.

-

-“Well followed, parson!” said he, chuckling, and lurching a little in

-his speech. “What! is the cuif not to be spoiled of his bishopric

-because of a saucy baggage?”

-

-He laughed, checked himself suddenly, and, still holding on, assumed a

-majestic air, with his wig a little on one side, and said with great

-dignity: “But, before I grant termsir, you shall bring the slut to

-canvass of herself what termsir. Godsmylife! to hold her King at a

-bodkin’s point! It merits no pardon, I say, unless the merit of the

-pardon of the termsir--no, the pardon of the merit of the termsir.

-Therefore I say, whither hast brought her, I say? Out with it, man!”

-

-The clergyman, recognizing Joan’s abductor, and listening amazed,

-sprang back at the end with a face of horror, almost upsetting His

-Majesty, who, barely recovering himself, stood shaking his head with a

-glassy smile.

-

-“If_hic_akins!” said he: “I woss a’most down!”

-

-“Avaunt, ravisher!” roared the Doctor.

-

-Charles stiffened with a jerk, stared, wheeled cautiously, and tiptoed

-elaborately from the room. His suite, staggering at the balance,

-followed with enormous solemnity; and the Doctor, still pointing

-denunciatory, was left alone.

-

-At the end of a minute, after much whispering outside, a young

-cavalier re-entered, and approached him with a threatening visage, as

-if up the slope of a deck.

-

-“His Maj’ty, sir,” said he, “demands to know if you know who the devil

-you was a-bawling--hic--at?”

-

-“To my sorrow, though late, I do, sir,” answered the Doctor in a

-grievous voice.

-

-“O!” said the cavalier, and tacked from the room. He returned again in

-a second, to poke the clergyman with his finger, and suggest to him

-confidentially, “Betteric la’ than never--hic!” which having uttered,

-he took himself off, after a vain attempt to open the door from its

-hinge side. In two minutes he was back again.

-

-“His Maj’ty wan’s know where hast hidden Mrs. Seabird. Nowhere in

-house, says landlord. Ver’ well--where then?”

-

-“Tell the King, where he shall reach her only over my body.”

-

-The cavalier vanished, and reappeared.

-

-“His Maj’ty doesn’t wan’ tread on your body. On contrary, wan’s raise

-you up. Wan’s hear story all over again from lady’s lips.”

-

-“I am His Majesty’s truthful minister. There is nothing to add to what

-I have already reported to him.”

-

-The cavalier withdrew, smacking his thigh profoundly. Sooner than

-usual he returned.

-

-“His Maj’ty s’prised at you. Says if you won’t tell him where’ve laid

-her by, he’ll beat up every house within miles-’n’-miles.”

-

-“No!” said the simple clergyman, in a sudden emotion.

-

-“Yes,” said the gentleman, not too drunk to note his advantage. “For

-miles-’n’-miles. His Maj’ty ver’ s’prised her behaviour to him. Wan’s

-lil word with her. Tell at once where she is, or worse for you.”

-

-The clergyman looked about him like one at bay. His glance lighted on

-the trestle before the fire, fixed itself there, and kindled.

-

-“The Lord justify the ways of His servant!” he muttered; and drew

-himself up.

-

-“Tell His Majesty,” he said in a strong voice, “that, so be he will

-honour a toast I shall call, the way he seeks shall be made clear to

-him.”

-

-The other gave a great chuckle, which was loudly echoed from the

-passage.

-

-“Why, thish is the right humour,” he said, and retired.

-

-Within a few moments the whole company re-entered, tittering and

-jogging one another, and spilling wine from the beakers they carried.

-

-The King called a silence.

-

-“Sir,” said the clergyman, advancing a little, “I pray your Majesty to

-convince me, by proof, of a reputed custom with our gallants, which is

-that, being to drink a lady’s health, the one that calleth shall cast

-into the flames some article of his attire, there to be consumed to

-her honour, and so shall demand of his company, by toasters’ law, that

-they do likewise.”

-

-“Dod!” said the King, chuckling; “woss he speiring at? Drink man!

-drink and sacrifice, and I give my royal word that all shall follow

-suit, though it be with the wigs from our heads.”

-

-The Doctor lifted his horn of ale and drained it.

-

-“I toast Joan!” he cried.

-

-“Joan!” they all shouted, laughing and hiccuping, and, having drunk,

-threw down their beakers helter-skelter.

-

-The clergyman took one swift step forward; snatched up his

-small-clothes from the trestle; displayed them a moment; thrust them

-deep into the blazing coals, and, facing about, disrugged himself, and

-stood in his shirttails.

-

-“I claim your Majesty’s word, and breeches,” said he.

-

-A silence of absolute stupefaction befell; and then in an instant the

-kitchen broke into one howl of laughter.

-

-In the midst, Charles walked stately to the table, sat down, and

-thrust out his legs.

-

-“Parson,” said he, “if you had but claimed my hair. The honours lie

-with you, sir; take ’em.”

-

-He would have none but the Doctor handle him; and, when his ineffable

-smalls were burning, he rose up in his royal shift, and ruthlessly

-commandeering every other pair in the room, stood, the speechless

-captain of as shameful and defenceless a crew of buccaneers as ever

-lowered its flag to honesty.

-

-Then the Doctor resumed his rug.

-

-“Sir,” said he, trembling, “I now fulfil my bond. My granddaughter is

-sheltering, with other modest ladies, in the pike-house hard by.”

-

-But the King swore--by divine right--a pretty oath or two, while the

-chill of his understandings helped to sober him.

-

-“By my cold wit you have won! and there may she remain for me. And

-now, decent man,” he cried, “I do call my company to witness how you

-have made yourself to be more honoured in the breach than the

-observance; and since you go wanting a frock, a bishop’s you shall

-have.”

-

-And with that he snatched the rug, and, skipping under it, sat on the

-table, grinning over the quenching of his amazed fire-eaters.

-

-And this, if you will believe deponent, is the true, if unauthorized,

-version of Dr. Winthrop’s election, and of the confounding of Godsport

-on a writ of _quo warranto_.

-

-

-

-

- THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE

-

-

- Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.

-

-

-There were notices, of varying dates, posted in prominent places

-about the cliffs to warn the public not to go near them--unless,

-indeed, it were to read the notices themselves, which were printed in

-a very unobtrusive type. Of late, however, this Dogberrian _caveat_

-had been supplemented by a statement in the local gazette that the

-cliffs, owing to the recent rains succeeding prolonged frost, were in

-so ill a constitution that to approach them at all, even to decipher

-the warnings not to, was--well, to take your life out of the municipal

-into your own hands.

-

-Now, had the Regius Professor a bee in his bonnet? Absurd. He knew the

-risks of foolhardiness as well as any pickpocket could have told him.

-Yet, neither general nor particular caution availed to abate his

-determination to examine, as soon as we had lunched, the interior

-formation of a cave or two, out of those black and innumerable, with

-which the undercliff was punctured like a warren.

-

-I did not remonstrate, after having once discovered, folded down under

-his nose on the table, the printed admonition, and heard the little

-dry, professorial click of tongue on palate which was wont to dismiss,

-declining discussion of it, any idle or superfluous proposition. I

-knew my man--or automaton. He inclined to the Providence of the

-unimaginative; his only fetish was science. He was one of those who,

-if unfortunately buried alive, would turn what opportunity remained to

-them to a study of geological deposits. My “nerves,” when we were on

-a jaunt (fond word!) together, were always a subject of sardonic

-amusement with him.

-

-Now, utterly unmoved by the prospect before him, he ate an enormous

-lunch (confiding it, incidentally, to an unerring digestion), rose,

-brushed some crumbs out of his beard, and said, “Well, shall we be

-off?”

-

-In twenty minutes we had reached the caves. They lay in a very

-secluded little bay--just a crescent of sombre sand, littered along

-all its inner edge with débris from the towering cliffs which

-contained it.

-

-“Are you coming with me?” said the Regius Professor.

-

-Judged by his anxious eyes, the question might have been an

-invitation, almost a shamefaced entreaty. But the anxiety, never more

-than apparent, was delusive product of the preposterous

-magnifying-glasses which he wore. Did he ever remove those glasses,

-one was startled to discover, in the seemingly aghast orbs which they

-misinterpreted, quite mean little attic windows to an unemotional

-soul.

-

-“Not by any means,” I said. “I will sit here, and think out your

-epitaph.”

-

-He stared at me a moment with a puzzled expression, grinned slightly,

-turned, strode off towards the cliffs, and disappeared, without a

-moment’s hesitation, into the first accessible burrow. I was moved on

-the instant to observe that it was the most sinister-looking of them

-all. The tilted stratification, under which it yawned oblique, seemed

-on the very poise to close down upon it.

-

-Now I set to pacing to and fro, essaying a sort of mechanical

-preoccupation in default of the philosophy I lacked. I was really in a

-state of clammy anxiety about the Professor. I poked in stony pools

-for little crabs, as if his life depended on my success. I made it a

-point of honour with myself not to leave off until I had found one. I

-tried, like a very amateur pickpocket, to abstract my mind from the

-atmosphere which contained it, only to find that I had brought mind

-and atmosphere away together. I bent down, with my back to the sea,

-and looking between my legs sought to regard life from a new point of

-view. Yet, even in that position, my eyes and ears were conscious,

-only in less degree, of the spectres which were always moving and

-rustling in the melancholy little bay.

-

-_Tekel upharsin._ The hand never left off writing upon the rocks, nor

-the dust of its scoring to fall and whisper. That came away in flakes,

-or slid down in tiny avalanches--here, there, in so many places at

-once, that the whole face of the cliffs seemed to crawl like a maggoty

-cheese. The sound was like a vast conspiracy of voices--busy,

-ominous--aloft on the seats of an amphitheatre. They were talking of

-the Regius Professor, and his consideration in making them a Roman

-holiday.

-

-Here, on no warrant but that of my senses, I knew the gazette’s

-warning to be something more than justified. It made no difference

-that my nerves were at the stretch. One could not hear a silence thus

-sown with grain of horror, and believe it barren of significance.

-Then, all in a moment, as it seemed to me, the resolution was taken,

-the voices hushed, and the whole bay poised on tiptoe of a suspense

-which preluded something terrific.

-

-I stood staring at the black mouth which had engulfed the Regius

-Professor. I felt that a disaster was imminent; but to rush to warn

-him would be to embarrass the issues of his Providence--that only. For

-the instant a fierce resentment of his foolhardiness fired me--and was

-as immediately gone. I turned sick and half blind. I thought I saw the

-rock-face shrug and wrinkle; a blot of gall was expelled from it--and

-the blot was the Professor himself issued forth, and coming composedly

-towards me.

-

-As he advanced, I turned my back on him. By the time he reached me I

-had made some small success of a struggle for self-mastery.

-

-“Well,” he said. “I left myself none too much of a margin, did I?”

-

-With an effort I faced about again. The base of the cliff was yet

-scarred with holes, many and irregular; but now some of those which

-had stared at me like dilated eyes were, I could have sworn it,

-over-lidded--the eyes of drowsing reptiles. _And the Professor’s

-particular cave was gone._

-

-I gave quite an absurd little giggle. This man was soulless--a

-monstrosity.

-

-“Look here,” he said, conning my face with a certain concern, “it’s no

-good tormenting yourself with what might have happened. Here I am, you

-know. Supposing we go and sit down yonder, against that drift, till

-you’re better.”

-

-He led the way, and, dropping upon the sand, lolled easily, talking to

-himself, by way of me, for some minutes. It was the kindest thing he

-could have done. His confident voice made scorn of the never-ceasing

-rustling and falling sounds to our rear. The gulls skated before my

-eyes, drawing wide arcs and figures of freedom in the air. Presently I

-topped the crisis, and drew a deep breath.

-

-“Tell me,” I said--“have you ever in all your life known fear?”

-

-The Regius Professor sat to consider.

-

-“Well,” he answered presently, rubbing his chin, “I was certainly once

-near losing hold of my will, if that’s what you mean. Of course, if I

-_had_ let go----”

-

-“But you didn’t.”

-

-“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No--luckily.”

-

-“You’re not taking credit for it?”

-

-“Credit!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why should I take credit for my

-freedom from a constitutional infirmity? In one way, indeed, I am only

-regretful that I am debarred that side of self-analysis.”

-

-I could laugh lovelily, for the first time.

-

-“Well,” I said, “will you tell me the story?”

-

-“I never considered it in the light of a story,” answered the Regius

-Professor. “But, if it will amuse and distract you, I will make it one

-with pleasure. My memory of it, as an only experience in that

-direction, is quite vivid, I think I may say--” and he settled his

-spectacles, and began:

-

-“It was during the period of my first appointment as Science

-Demonstrator to the Park Lane Polytechnic, a post which my little

-pamphlet on the Reef-building Serpulæ was instrumental in procuring

-me. I was a young man at the time, with a wide field of interests, but

-with few friends to help me in exploring it. My holidays I generally

-devoted to long, lonely tramps, knapsack on back, about the country.

-

-“It was on one of these occasions that you must picture me entered

-into a solitary valley among the Shropshire hills. The season was

-winter; it was bitterly cold, and the prospect was of the dreariest.

-The interesting conformations of the land--the bone-structure, as I

-might say--were blunted under a thick pelt of snow, which made walking

-a labour. One never recognizes under such conditions the extent of

-one’s efforts, as inequalities of ground are without the contrast of

-surroundings to emphasize them, and one may be conscious of the strain

-of a gradient, and not know if it is of one foot in fifty or in five

-hundred.

-

-“The scene was desolate to a degree; houseless, almost treeless--just

-white wastes and leaden sky, and the eternal fusing of the two in an

-indefinite horizon. I was wondering, without feeling actually

-dispirited, how long it was to last, when, turning the shoulder of a

-hill which had seemed to hump itself in my path, I came straight upon

-a tiny hamlet scattered over a widish area. There were some cottages,

-and a slated school building; and, showing above a lower hump a

-quarter of a mile beyond, the roofs and tall chimney of a factory.

-

-“It was a stark little oasis, sure enough--the most grudging of moral

-respites from depression. Only from one place, it seemed, broke a

-green shoot. Not a moving figure was abroad; not a face looked from a

-window. Deathlily exclusive, the little stony buildings stood apart

-from one another, incurious, sullen, and self-contained.

-

-“There was, however, the green shoot; and the stock from which it

-proceeded was the school building. That in itself was unlovely

-enough--a bleak little stone box in an arid enclosure. It looked

-hunched and grey with cold; and the sooty line of thaw at the foot of

-its wall only underscored its frostiness. But as if that one green

-shoot were the earnest of life lingering within, there suddenly broke

-through its walls the voices of young children singing; and, in the

-sound, the atmosphere of petrifaction lifted somewhat.

-

-“Yes? What is it? Does anything amuse you? I am glad you are so far

-recovered, at least. Well----

-

-“I like, I must confess, neither children nor music. At the same time,

-I am free to admit that those young voices, though they dismissed me

-promptly on my way, dismissed me pleased, and to a certain degree, as

-it were, reinvigorated. I passed through that little frigid camp of

-outer silence, and swung down the road towards the factory. As I

-advanced towards what I should have thought to be the one busy nucleus

-of an isolated colony, the aspect of desolation intensified, to my

-surprise, rather than diminished. But I soon saw the reason for this.

-The great forge in the hills was nothing but a wrecked and abandoned

-ruin, its fires long quenched, its ribs long laid bare. Seeing which,

-it only appeared to me a strange thing that any of the human part of

-its affairs should yet cling to its neighbourhood; and stranger still

-I thought it when I came to learn, as I did by and by, that its

-devastation was at that date an ancient story.

-

-“What a squalid carcass it did look, to be sure; gaunt, and unclean,

-and ravaged by fire from crown to basement. The great flue of it stood

-up alone, a blackened monument to its black memory.

-

-“Approaching and entering, I saw some writhed and tortured guts of

-machinery, relics of its old vital organs, fallen, withered, from its

-ribs. The floor, clammy to the tread, was littered with tumbled

-masonry; the sheet iron of the roof was shattered in a hundred places

-under the merciless bombardment of the weather; and, here and there, a

-scale of this was corroded so thin that it fluttered and buzzed in the

-draught like a ventilator. Bats of grimy cobweb hung from the beams;

-and the dead breath of all the dead place was acrid with cold soot.

-

-“It was all ugly and sordid enough, in truth, and I had no reason to

-be exacting in my inspection of it. Turning, in a vaulting silence, I

-was about to make my way out, when my attention was drawn to the black

-opening of what looked like a shed or annex to the main factory.

-Something, some shaft or plant, revealing itself from the dim

-obscurity of this place, attracted my curiosity. I walked thither,

-and, with all due precaution because of the littered ground, entered.

-I was some moments in adapting my vision to the gloom, and then I

-discovered that I was in the mill well-house. It was a little

-dead-locked chamber, its details only partly decipherable in the

-reflected light which came in by the doorway. The well itself was sunk

-in the very middle of the floor, and the projecting wall of it rose

-scarce higher than my knees. The windlass, pivoted in a massive yoke,

-crossed the twilight at a height a little above my own; and I could

-easily understand, by the apparent diameter of its barrel, that the

-well was of a considerable depth.

-

-“Now, as my eyes grew a little accustomed to the obscurity, I could

-see how a tooth of fire had cut even into this fastness. For the rope,

-which was fully reeled up upon the windlass, was scorched to one side,

-as though some exploded fragment of wood or brickwork had alighted

-there. It was an insignificant fact in itself, but my chance

-observation of it has its importance in the context; as has also the

-fact that the bight of the rope (from which the bucket had been

-removed) hung down a yard or so below the big drum.

-

-“You have always considered me a sapient, or at least a rational

-creature, have you not? Well, listen to this. Bending over to plumb

-with my eyes the depth of the pit (an absurdity, to begin with, in

-that vortex of gloom), I caught with my left hand (wisdom number two)

-at the hanging end of rope in order to steady myself. On the instant

-the barrel made one swift revolution, and stuck. The movement,

-however, had thrown me forward and down, so that my head and

-shoulders, hanging over, and actually into, the well, pulled me,

-without possibility of recovery, from my centre of gravity. With a

-convulsive wrench of my body, I succeeded in bringing my right hand to

-the support of my left. I was then secure of the rope; but the

-violence of the act dragged my feet and knees from their last

-desperate hold, and my legs came whipping helpless over the well-rim.

-The weight of them in falling near jerked me from my clutch--a bad

-shock, to begin with. But a worse was in store for me. For I

-perceived, in the next instant, that the rusty, long-disused windlass

-was beginning slowly to revolve, _and was letting me down into the

-abyss_.

-

-“I broke out in a sweat, I confess--a mere diaphoresis of nature; a

-sort of lubricant to the jammed mechanism of the nerves. I don’t think

-we are justified in attributing my first sensations to fear. I was

-exalted, rather--promoted to the analysis of a very exquisite, scarce

-mortal, problem. My will, as I hung by a hair over the abysm, was

-called upon to vindicate itself under an utmost stress of

-apprehension. I felt, ridiculous as it may appear, as if the

-surrounding dark were peopled with an invisible auditory, waiting,

-curious, to test the value of my philosophy.

-

-“Here, then, were the practical problems I had to combat. The

-windlass, as I have said, revolved slowly, but it revolved

-persistently. If I would remain with my head above the

-well-rim--which, I freely admit, I had an unphilosophic desire to

-do--I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and

-airy sort of treadmill. To climb, and climb, and always climb, paying

-out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place! It was to

-repudiate gravitation, which I spurned from beneath my feet into the

-depths. But when, momentarily exhausted, I ventured to pause, some

-nightmare revolt against the sense of sinking which seized me, would

-always send me struggling and wriggling, like a drowning body, up to

-the surface again. Fortunately, I was slightly built and active; yet I

-knew that wind and muscle were bound sometime to give out in this

-swarming competition against death. I measured their chances against

-the length of the rope. There was a desperate coil yet unwound.

-Moreover, in proportion as I grew the feebler, grew the need for my

-greater activity. For there were already signs that the great groaning

-windlass was casting its rust of ages, and was beginning to turn

-quicker in its sockets. If it had only stuck, paused one minute in its

-eternal round, I might have set myself oscillating, gradually and

-cautiously, until I was able to seize with one hand, then another,

-upon the brick rim, which was otherwise beyond my reach. But now, did

-I cease climbing for an instant and attempt a frantic clutch at it,

-down I sank like a clock weight, my fingers trailed a yard in cold

-slime, and there I was at my mad swarming once more--the madder that I

-must now make up for lost ground.

-

-“At last, faint with fatigue, I was driven to face an alternative

-resource, very disagreeable from the first in prospect. This was no

-less than to resign temporarily my possession of the upper, and sink

-to the under world; in other words, to let myself go with the rope,

-and, when it was all reeled out, to climb it again. To this course

-there were two objections: one, that I knew nothing of the depth of

-the water beneath me, or of how soon I should come to it; the other,

-that I was grown physically incapable of any further great effort in

-the way of climbing. My reluctance to forgo the useless solace of the

-upper twilight I dismiss as sentimental. But to drop into that sooty

-pit, and then, perhaps, to find myself unable to reascend it! to feel

-a gradual paralysis of heart and muscle committing me to a lingering

-and quite unspeakable death--that was an unnerving thought indeed!

-

-“Nevertheless, I had actually resolved upon the venture, and was on

-the point of ceasing all effort, and permitting myself to sink,

-when--I thought of the burnt place in the rope.

-

-“Do you grasp what that sudden thought meant to me? Death, sir, in any

-case; death, if, with benumbed and aching hands and blistered knees, I

-continued to work my air-mill; death, no earlier and no later, no less

-and no more certainly, if I ceased of the useless struggle and went

-down into the depths. So soon as the strain of my hanging should tell

-direct upon that scorched strand, that strand must part.

-

-“Then, I think, I knew fear--fear as demoralizing, perhaps, as it may

-be, short of the will-surrender. And, indeed, I’m not sure but that

-the will which survives fear may not be a worse last condition than

-fear itself, which, when exquisite, becomes oblivion. Consciousness

-_in extremis_ has never seemed to me the desirable thing which some

-hold it.

-

-“Still, if I suffered for retaining my will power, there is no doubt

-that its loss, on the flash of that deadly reflection, would have

-meant an immediate syncope of nerve and an instant downfall;

-whereas--well, anyhow, here I am.

-

-“I was fast draining of all capacity for further effort. I climbed

-painfully, spasmodically; but still I climbed, half hoping I should

-die of the toil of it before I fell. Ever and again I would glance

-faintly up at the snarling, slowly-revolving barrel above me, and mark

-how death, as figured in that scorched strand, was approaching me

-nearer at every turn. It was only a few coils away, when suddenly I

-set to doing what, goodness knows, I should have done earlier. I

-screamed--screamed until the dead marrow must have crawled in the very

-bones of the place.

-

-“Nothing human answered--not a voice, not the sound of a footfall.

-Only the echoes laughed and chattered like monkeys up in the broken

-roof of the factory. For the rest, my too-late outburst had but served

-to sap what little energy yet remained to me.

-

-“The end was come. Looking up, I saw the burnt strand reeling round, a

-couple of turns away, to the test; and, with a final gulp of horror, I

-threw up the sponge, and sank.

-

-“I had not descended a yard or two, when my feet touched something.”

-

-The Regius Professor paused dramatically.

-

-“O, go on!” I snapped.

-

-“That something,” he said, “yielded a little--settled--and there all

-at once was I, standing as firmly as if I were in a pulpit.

-

-“For the moment, I assure you, I was so benumbed, physically and

-mentally, that I was conscious of nothing in myself but a small weak

-impatience at finding the awful ecstasy of my descent checked. Then

-reason returned, like blood to the veins of a person half drowned; and

-I had never before realized that reason could make a man ache so.

-

-“With the cessation of my strain upon it, the windlass had ceased to

-revolve. Now, with a sudden desperation, I was tugging at the rope

-once more--pulling it down hand over hand. At the fifth haul there

-came a little quick report, and I staggered and near fell. The rope

-had snapped; and the upper slack of it came whipping down upon my

-shoulders.

-

-“I rose, dimly aware of what had happened. I was standing on the

-piled-up fathoms of rope which I had paid out beneath me. Above,

-though still beyond my effective winning, glimmered the moon-like disk

-of light which was the well mouth. I dared not, uncertain of the

-nature of my tenure, risk a spring for it. But, very cautiously, I

-found the end of the rope that had come away, made a bend in it well

-clear of the injured part, and, after many vain attempts, slung it

-clean over the yoke above, coaxed down the slack, spliced it to the

-other, and so made myself a fixed ladder to climb by. Up this, after a

-short interval for rest, I swarmed, set myself swinging, grasped the

-brick rim, first with one hand, then with both, and in another instant

-had flung myself upon the ground prostrate, and for the moment quite

-prostrated. Then presently I got up, struck some matches, and

-investigated.”

-

-The Regius Professor stopped, laughing a little over the memory.

-

-“_Do_ go on!” I said.

-

-“Why,” he responded, chuckling, “generations of school children had

-been pitching litter into that well, until it was filled up to within

-a couple yards of the top--just that. The rope, heaping up under me,

-did the rest. It was a testimony to the limited resources of the

-valley. What the little natives of to-day do with their odd time,

-goodness knows. But it was comical, wasn’t it?”

-

-“O, most!” said I. “And particularly from the point of view of the

-children’s return to you for your dislike of them.”

-

-“Well, as to that,” said the Regius Professor, rather shamefacedly, “I

-wasn’t beyond acknowledging a certain indebtedness.”

-

-“Acknowledging? How?”

-

-“Why, I happened to have in my knapsack one of my pamphlets on the

-Reef-building Serpulæ; so I went back to the school, and gave it to

-the mistress to include in her curriculum.”

-

-

-

-

- ARCADES AMBO

-

-Miguel and Nicanor were the Damon and Phintias of Lima. Their

-devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers--who are not, as a

-rule, very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships--was a

-standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they

-had grown up together, passed their school-days together (at an

-English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their

-young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other’s company,

-preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which

-was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.

-

-In the meanwhile, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued

-inseparable--a proverb for clean though passionate affection.

-

-The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and

-physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the

-younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature,

-bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all

-the wit, excitability, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to

-associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed--a

-man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger.

-

-Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous

-faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything

-fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable

-as lovable.

-

-The two started, well-equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks

-of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye

-with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with

-the birds.

-

-Miguel and Nicanor travelled overland to Cayenne, in French Guiana,

-where they took boat for Marseilles, whence they were to proceed to

-the capital. The circular tour of the world, for all who would make it

-comprehensively, dates from Paris and ends there. They sailed in a

-fine vessel, and made many charming acquaintances on board.

-

-Among these was Mademoiselle Suzanne, called also de la Vénerie,

-which one might interpret into Suzanne of the chase, or Suzanne of the

-kennel, according to one’s point of view. She had nothing in common

-with Diana, at least, unless it were a very seductive personality. She

-was a fashionable Parisian actress, travelling for her health, or

-perhaps for the health of Paris--much in the manner of the London

-gentleman, who was encountered touring alone on the Continent because

-his wife had been ordered change of air.

-

-Suzanne, as a matter of course, fell in love with Miguel first, for

-his white teeth and sleepy comeliness; and then with Nicanor, for his

-impudent bright spirit. That was the beginning and end of the trouble.

-

-One moonlight night, in mid-Atlantic, Miguel and Nicanor came together

-on deck. The funnel of the steamer belched an enormous smoke, which

-seemed to reach all the way back to Cayenne.

-

-“I hate it,” said Nicanor; “don’t you? It is like a huge cable paid

-out and paid out, while we drift further from home. If they would only

-stop a little, keeping it at the stretch, while we swarmed back by it,

-and left the ship to go on without us!”

-

-Miguel laughed; then sighed.

-

-“Dear Nicanor,” he said; “I will have nothing more to do with her, if

-it will make you happy.”

-

-“I was thinking of _your_ happiness, Miguel,” said Nicanor. “If I

-could only be certain that it would not be affected by what I have to

-tell you!”

-

-“What have you to tell me, old Nicanor?”

-

-“You must not be mistaken, Miguel. Your having nothing more to do with

-her would not lay the shadow of our separation, which the prospect of

-my union with her raises between us--though it would certainly comfort

-me a little on your behalf.”

-

-“I did not mean that at all, Nicanor. I meant that, for your sake, I

-would even renounce my right to her hand.”

-

-“That would be an easy renunciation, dear Miguel. I honour your

-affection; but I confess I expect more from it than a show of

-yielding, for its particular sake, what, in fact, is not yours to

-yield.”

-

-Miguel had been leaning over the taffrail, looking at the white

-wraiths of water which coiled and beckoned from the prow. Now he came

-upright, and spoke in his soft slow voice, which was always like that

-of one just stretching awake out of slumber--

-

-“I cannot take quite that view, Nicanor, though I should like to. But

-I do so hate a misunderstanding, at all times; and when it is with

-you----!”

-

-His tones grew sweet and full--

-

-“O, Nicanor! let this strange new shadow between us be dispelled, at

-once and for ever. I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Nicanor.”

-

-“I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Miguel.”

-

-“Very well. Then I yield her to you.”

-

-“O, pardon me, Miguel! but that is just the point. I wanted to save

-you the pain--the sense of self-renunciation; but your blindness

-confounds me. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. Your

-infatuation for Mademoiselle Suzanne is very plain to very many. What

-is plain only to yourself is that Mademoiselle Suzanne returns your

-devotion. You are not, indeed, justified in that belief.”

-

-“Why not?”

-

-“She has confessed her regard, in the first place, for me.”

-

-“But she has also confessed to me that I have won the leading place in

-her affections.”

-

-“That is absurd, Miguel. She is the soul of ingenuousness.”

-

-“Perhaps, Nicanor--we are only boys, after all--she is a practised

-coquette.”

-

-“You must not say that, Miguel, if you want me to remain your friend.

-You, perhaps, attach too much importance to your looks as an

-irresistible asset in matters of the heart.”

-

-“Now I shall certainly quarrel with you.”

-

-“You are mistaken, I think. Mind, to women of intellect, is the

-compelling lure.”

-

-“It remains to be proved.”

-

-“You are determined to put it to the test, then? Good-bye, Miguel.”

-

-“This is not a real breach between us? O, Nicanor!”

-

-“We must come to a definite understanding. Until we do, further

-confidence between us is impossible.”

-

-He strutted away, perking his angry head, and whistling.

-

-But Suzanne had accomplished the amiable débacle for which she had

-been intriguing. She had, paradoxically, separated the inseparables.

-It was a little triumph, perhaps; a very easy game to one of her

-experience--hardly worth the candle, in fact; but it was the best the

-boat had to offer. It remained only to solace the tedium of what was

-left of the voyage by playing on the broken strings of that

-friendship.

-

-It was Nicanor who suffered most under the torture. He had always been

-rather accustomed to hear himself applauded for his wit--a funny

-little acrid possession which was touched with a precocious knowledge

-of the world. Now, to know himself made the butt of a maturer social

-irony lowered his little cockerel crest most dismally. As for

-good-natured Miguel, it was his way to join, rather than resent, the

-laugh against himself; and his persistent moral health under the

-infliction only added to the other’s mind-corrosion. In a very little

-the two were at daggers-drawn.

-

-The “affair” made a laughable distraction for many of the listless and

-mischievous among the passengers. They contributed their little fans

-to the flame, and exchanged private bets upon the probable

-consequences. But Suzanne, indifferent to all interests but her own,

-worked her oracles serenely, and affected a wide-eyed unconsciousness

-of the amorous imbroglio which her arts had brought about. First one,

-then the other of the rivals would she beguile with her pensive

-kindnesses, and, according to her mood or the accident of

-circumstances, reassure in hope. And the task grew simpler as it

-advanced, inasmuch as the silence which came to fall between Miguel

-and Nicanor precluded the wholesome revelations which an interchange

-of confidences might have inspired.

-

-At last the decisive moment arrived when Suzanne’s more intimate

-worldlings were to be gratified with her solution of the riddle. It

-was to end, in fact, in a Palais Royal farce; and they were to be

-invited to witness the “curtain.”

-

-A few hours before reaching port she drew Miguel to a private

-interview.

-

-“Ah, my friend!” she said, her slender fingers knotted, her large eyes

-wistful with tears, “I become distracted in the near necessity for

-decision. Pity me in so momentous a pass. What am I to do?”

-

-“Mademoiselle,” said poor Miguel, his chest heaving, “it is resolved

-already. We are to journey together to Paris, where the bliss of my

-life is to be piously consummated.”

-

-“Yes,” she said; “but the publicity--the scandal! Men are sure to

-attribute the worst motives to our comradeship, and that I could not

-endure.”

-

-“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately--somewhere whence

-we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”

-

-“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! There is a little accommodating

-place--the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the

-harbour. Do you know it? No--I forgot the world is all to open for

-you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper

-of our intention to anyone. Now go, go!”

-

-He left her, rapturous but, once without her radiance, struck his

-breast and sighed, “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”

-

-And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor,

-angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously,

-timidly, and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a

-bantam.

-

-“Is it not my friend that you meant, mademoiselle? I will summon him

-back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”

-

-“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a

-witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul--least of all his

-brother and happier rival.”

-

-“His----! Ah, mademoiselle, I entreat you, do not torture me!”

-

-“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself!

-Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many

-women realize their feelings for the first time in the shock of

-imminent loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor.”

-

-“Poor Miguel--poor fellow!”

-

-“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”

-

-“Suzanne!”

-

-“No, do not speak to me. To have so bared my breast to this repulse!

-O, I am shamed beyond words!”

-

-“But do you not understand my heartfelt pity for his loss, when

-measured by my own ecstatic gain?”

-

-“Well?”

-

-“Suzanne! I cannot believe it true.”

-

-“I feel so bewildered also. What are we to do?”

-

-“You spoke once of a journey to Paris together.”

-

-“You and I? Think of the jests, the comments on the part of our

-shipmates! We are not to bear a slurred reputation with us. I should

-die of shame.”

-

-“What if we were to meet somewhere, unknown to anybody, by

-appointment, and slip away before the world awoke?”

-

-“Yes, that would do; but where?”

-

-“Can’t you suggest?”

-

-“I know of a little Café de Paris. It is on the Boulevard des Dames,

-near the harbour. Say we meet there, at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning, in time to catch the early mail?”

-

-“O, yes, yes!”

-

-“Hush! We have been long enough together. Do not forget; be silent as

-the grave.”

-

-“Brains triumph!” thought Nicanor, as he went. “Alas, my poor, sweet,

-simple-minded comrade!”

-

-De la Vénerie carried betimes quite a select little company with her

-to the rendezvous. They were all choking with fun and expectation.

-

-“The dear _ingénus_!” said Captain Robillard. “It will be exquisite

-to see the fur fly. But precocity must have its lesson.”

-

-They had their rolls and coffee in a closet adjoining the common room.

-There was a window overlooking the street.

-

-“Hist!” whispered the tiny Comte de Bellenglise. “Here they come!”

-

-Nicanor was the first to arrive. He was very spruce and cock-a-hoop.

-His big brown eyes were like fever-spots in his little body. He

-questioned, airily enough, the proprietor, who had been well prompted

-to answer him.

-

-“No, monsieur; there is no lady at this hour. An appointment? Alas!

-such is always the least considered of their many engagements.”

-

-As he spoke, Miguel came in. The two eyed one another blankly after

-the first shock. At length Nicanor spoke: the door between the closet

-and the café opened a little.

-

-“You have discovered, then? Go away, my poor friend. This is, indeed,

-the worst occasion for our reconciliation.”

-

-“I did not come to seek you, Nicanor. I came to meet Mademoiselle

-Suzanne alone, by appointment.”

-

-“And I, too, Miguel. I fear you must have overheard and misconstrued

-her meaning. It was I she invited to this place.”

-

-“No, Nicanor; it was I.”

-

-“She has not come, at least. We must decide, at once and for ever,

-before she comes.”

-

-“I know what you mean, Nicanor. This, indeed, is the only end to a

-madness. Have you your pistol? I have mine.”

-

-“And I have mine, Miguel. You will kill me, as you are the good shot.

-I don’t know why I ever carried one, except to entice you to show your

-skill at breaking the floating bottles. But that was before the

-trouble.”

-

-“Dear Nicanor!”

-

-“But let it be _à l’outrance_. I want either to kill you or to be

-killed.”

-

-“If she were only out of the way, you would love me again.”

-

-“Amen to that, dear Miguel!”

-

-“Yet we are to fight?”

-

-“To the death, my brother, my comrade! Such is the madness of

-passion.”

-

-The paralyzed landlord found breath for the first time to intervene.

-

-“Gentlemen, gentlemen! for God’s sake! consider my reputation!”

-

-Miguel, starting away, and leaving Nicanor with his back to the

-closet, produced and pointed his weapon at the trembling creature.

-These South Americans were a strange compound of sweetness and

-ferocity.

-

-“If you interfere,” he said, “I will shoot you instead. Now, Nicanor,

-we fire at discretion, one shot to each.”

-

-The bang of Nicanor’s pistol shattered the emptiness. Miguel was down

-on the floor. Nicanor cast away his reeking weapon, and, running to

-his friend, raised his body in his arms. The door of the closet

-opened, and Suzanne, radiant and gloating, stood in the entry. “That

-was a good shot, Nicanor,” said Miguel, smiling weakly. “You are

-better at men than bottles.”

-

-“Miguel! Miguel! you have your pistol undischarged. Faint as you are,

-you cannot miss me at this range.”

-

-“Stand away, then, Nicanor.”

-

-Nicanor stood up, tearing his coat apart.

-

-“Here, here! to my heart, dearest!”

-

-Miguel, supporting himself on his left hand, raised his pistol

-swiftly, and shot Mademoiselle Suzanne through the breast. Then he

-fell back to the floor.

-

-“That is the short way to it, Nicanor. Confess, after all, I am the

-better shot. Now we are reunited for ever.”

-

-Suzanne had not a word to say to that compact. She lay in a heap, like

-the sweetest of dressmaker’s dummies overturned.

-

-The landlord raised a terrible outcry.

-

-“Messieurs! I am ruined, unless you witness to the truth of this

-catastrophe!”

-

-“I, for one, will witness,” said de Bellenglise, very white.

-“Mademoiselle, it is plain to the humorist, has only reaped what she

-sowed. But I do not envy M. Nicanor his survival.”

-

-Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him

-to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe, in Normandy, where

-men whom the law exonerates may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal

-servitude.

-

-And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend wholehearted, for

-he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne

-to a place where her future interference between them was not to be

-dreaded.

-

-

-

-

- OUR LADY OF REFUGE

-

-When Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino,

-plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San

-Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after

-long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood,

-and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering

-ribbons, and merrily they cried together:

-

-“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the

-larger growth--patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment!

-For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ

-in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of

-evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’

-dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff

-of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children--there is time for

-all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood

-ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and

-see the ships--so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind

-in the rigging--and all for a paltry quarter-real!”

-

-Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest,

-among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared

-to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned

-their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino

-had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the

-mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that

-they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic

-perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a

-couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San

-Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by

-treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two

-thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San

-Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come

-of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in

-the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a

-large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening

-to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly

-as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection

-in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in

-San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to

-approach the peep-show.

-

-The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with

-travel.

-

-“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like

-adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”

-

-It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held

-himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to

-show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact,

-was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft

-olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow

-handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches,

-down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron,

-for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a

-high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and

-merriment were his bright assets.

-

-Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.

-

-“Sweet and inexhaustible! I could feed all day on thy love. Yet, I

-think, for my stomach’s sake, I would rather be less gifted than the

-mouse. What is the use to be able to smell meat through glass when the

-window is shut?”

-

-“Wait! There are other ways to the larder than by the door. In the

-meanwhile, we will go on. There are two ends to San Lorenzo, the upper

-and lower: we will try the lower. North and south sit with their backs

-to one another, like peevish sisters. What the one snubs the other may

-favour.”

-

-He swung the box by its strap to his shoulder, closed the tripod, and,

-using it for a staff, trudged on dustily with his comrade. Half way

-down the village, a man for the first time accosted them. He was

-young, vehement, authoritative--the segundo jefe, or sub-prefect of

-San Lorenzo.

-

-“Wait!” he said, halting the pair. “I know you, Caron. You should be

-de Charogne--a French carrion-crow. What do you here, spying for your

-masters?”

-

-“Señor,” said the showman, “you are mistaken. I am of your people.”

-

-“Since when? I know you, I say.”

-

-“Many know me, caballero, in these parts, and nothing against me but

-my nationality. Now that is changed.”

-

-“Since when? I repeat it.”

-

-“Since the Emperor tore my brother from his plough in Rousillon to

-serve his colours, and our father was left to die of starvation. We

-are but now on our way back from closing the old man’s eyes, and at

-the foot of the hills we recovered our chattels, which we had hid

-there, on our journey north, for security. I speak of myself and my

-little comrade, Pepino, who is truly of this province, señor, having

-been born in Gerona, where he made stockings.”

-

-The sub-prefect looked at Pepino attentively, for the first time, and

-his dark eyes kindled.

-

-“And wore them, by the same token,” he murmured.

-

-He swept off his hat, mockingly courteous.

-

-“Buenos dias, señora!” he said.

-

-Caron jumped.

-

-“Ah, mercy, caballero!” he cried. “Can you, indeed, distinguish so

-easily? Do not give us away.”

-

-“Tell me all about it,” said the sub-prefect. “Truly this is no time

-for masquerading in San Lorenzo.”

-

-“But it was the most obvious of precautions to begin with,” pleaded

-Caron. “Over the mountains is not safety for a woman; and since----”

-

-“And since, you are in San Lorenzo,” said the other.

-

-“It is true, señor. Pepa shall re-sex herself to-night. Yet it is

-only a few hours since we found our expedient justified.”

-

-“How was that?”

-

-“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French

-picket, and----”

-

-He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.

-

-“What have I said, señor?”

-

-“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and

-this is the first you speak of it! I understand--they come from

-Perpignan--they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve

-Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while----”

-

-He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow

-me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The

-whole village turned and followed him as he ran.

-

-Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and

-privacy.

-

-“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride _me_ for the

-future. And _this_ is home!”

-

-She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.

-

-“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can

-love you once more in my own way.”

-

-

-This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in

-Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in

-Figueras--one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from

-the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate--being

-small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the

-mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the

-neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour

-with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since

-a little might decide their fate--short shrift, and the knife or

-gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For

-those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the

-Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by

-the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.

-

-But Figueras was an important point, strategically; for which reason

-the Emperor--who generally in questions of political economy held

-lives cheaper than salt--had despatched an express to General Reille,

-who commanded the reserves at Perpignan, on the north side of the

-mountains, ordering him to proceed by forced marches to the relief of

-the garrison, as a step preliminary to the assault and capture of

-Gerona. And it was an advance body of this force which Luc and his

-companion had encountered bivouacking in the hills.

-

-It was not a considerable body as the two gauged it, for Colonel de

-Regnac’s troops--raw Tuscan recruits, and possessed with a panic

-terror of the enemy--were showing a very laggard spirit in the

-venture, and no emulation whatever of their officers’ eagerness to

-encounter. In fact, Colonel de Regnac, with his regimental staff, some

-twenty all told, and few beside, had run ahead of his column by the

-measure of a mile or two, and was sitting down to rest and curse,

-below his breath, in a hollow of the hills, when the two captured

-vagabonds were brought before him.

-

-There had been no light but the starlight, no voice but the

-downpouring of a mountain stream until the sentry had leaped upon

-them. Chatter and fire were alike prohibited things in those rocky

-ante-rooms of hate and treachery.

-

-“Who are you?” had demanded the Colonel of Caron.

-

-“A son of France, monsieur.”

-

-“Whither do you go?”

-

-“To attend the death-bed of my old father in Rousillon,” had answered

-Luc, lying readily.

-

-The Colonel had arisen, and scanned his imperturbable face keenly.

-

-“His name?”

-

-Luc had told him truthfully--also his father’s circumstances and

-misfortunes.

-

-The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence,

-then, do you come?”

-

-“From Figueras.”

-

-“Ha! They have news of us there?”

-

-“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”

-

-“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”

-

-A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was

-overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that

-those two rascals went _up_ the hill!”

-

-He was brought before the Colonel.

-

-“My son, what did you say?”

-

-The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his

-remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the

-vagabonds’ _descent towards San Lorenzo_, there would be trouble on

-the morrow.

-

-He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter

-degraded--to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed

-to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that,

-in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded

-by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing

-rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering

-for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the

-main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted

-upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under

-cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position--only to find it

-abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled

-to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.

-

-“_If_ I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel

-sweetly.

-

-And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very

-gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.

-

-It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted,

-depopulated.

-

-Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching

-under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly,

-and nodded.

-

-He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow

-more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight.

-He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were

-small and infamous--great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a

-moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and

-Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his

-enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways

-his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.

-

-“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”

-

-Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino

-crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.

-

-“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.

-

-A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.

-

-“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself

-spitting fire.”

-

-“It is symbolical of Jove,” said Caron.

-

-“Foul imps attend him!”

-

-“They are his Mercuries.”

-

-“No more words!” said the Colonel. “String the rascal up!”

-

-That was the common emergency exit in the then theatres of war. It had

-taken the place of the “little window” through which former traitors

-to their country had been invited to look.

-

-Pepino leapt to his feet, with a sudden scream.

-

-“No, no! He is Caron, the wit, the showman, dear to all hearts!”

-

-Colonel Regnac’s great neck seemed to swell like a ruttish wolf’s. His

-little eyes shot red with laughter. He had as keen a scent as the

-sub-prefect for a woman.

-

-“Good!” he said; “he shall make us a show.”

-

-“Señor, for the love of God! He spoke the truth. His father is dead.”

-

-“He will be in a dutiful haste to rejoin him.”

-

-“Señor, be merciful! You are of a gallant race.”

-

-“That is certain,” said de Regnac. “You, for your part, are acquitted,

-my child. I take you personally under my protection.”

-

-“Good-bye, comrade!” cried Caron sadly. “We have gone the long road

-together, and I am the first to reach home. Follow me when you will. I

-shall wait for you.”

-

-“Fie!” said the Colonel. “That is no sentiment for a renegade. Heaven

-is the goal of this innocence, whom I save from your corruption.”

-

-They hung him from the branch of a chestnut tree, and lingered out his

-poor dying spasms. Pepino, after one burst of agony, stood apathetic

-until the scene was over. Then, with a shudder, correlative with the

-last of the dangling body’s, she seemed to come awake.

-

-“Well,” she said, “there goes a good fellow; but it is true he was a

-renegade.”

-

-The Colonel was delighted.

-

-“They have always a spurious attraction,” he said, “to the sex that is

-in sympathy with naughtiness in any form. But consider: false to one

-is false to all, and this was a bad form of treachery--though,” he

-added gallantly, “he certainly had his extreme temptation.”

-

-“The French killed his father,” she said indifferently.

-

-“The French,” he answered, “kill, of choice, with nothing but

-kindness. You, though a Spaniard, my pet, shall have ample proof if

-you will.”

-

-“I am to come with you?”

-

-“God’s name! There is to be no enforcement.”

-

-“Well, you have left me little choice. Already here they had looked

-upon us with suspicion, and, if I remained alone, would doubtless kill

-me. I do not want to die--not yet. What must be must. The king is

-dead, live the king!”

-

-He was enchanted with her vivacity. He took her up before him on his

-saddle, and chuckled listening to the feverish chatter with which she

-seemed to beguile herself from memory.

-

-“These jays have no yesterday,” he thought; and said aloud, “You are

-not Pepino? Now tell me.”

-

-“No, I am Pepa,” she said. “I am only a man in seeming. Alack! I think

-a man would not forget so easily.”

-

-“Some men,” he answered, and his hand tightened a little upon her.

-“Trust me, that dead rogue is already forgathering with his succuba.”

-

-By and by he asked her: “How far to Figueras?”

-

-“Twelve miles from where we started,” she answered.

-

-A thought struck him, and he smiled wickedly.

-

-“You will always bear in mind,” he said, “that the moment I become

-suspicious that you are directing us wide, or, worse, into a

-guet-apens, I shall snap off your little head at the neck, and roll it

-back to San Lorenzo.”

-

-“Have no fear,” she said quietly; “we are in the straight road for the

-town--or what used to be one.”

-

-“And no shelter by the way? I run ahead of my rascals, as you see. We

-must halt while they overtake us. Besides”--he leered horribly--“there

-is the question of the night.”

-

-“I know of no shelter,” she said, “but Our Lady of Refuge.”

-

-“An opportune title, at least. What is it?”

-

-“It is a hospital for the fallen--for such as the good Brotherhoods of

-Madrid send for rest and restoration to the sanctuary of the quiet

-pastures. The monks of Misericorde are the Brothers’ deputies

-there--sad, holy men, who hide their faces from the world. The house

-stands solitary on the plain; we shall see it in a little. They will

-give you shelter, though you are their country’s enemies. They make no

-distinctions.”

-

-De Regnac pulled at his moustache, frowning, pondering.

-

-“Where these monks forgather are fat kids and old Malaga--a tempting

-alternative to the munching of cold biscuit under the stars.

-But--_sacré chien!_ one may always take in more with the gravy than

-ever fell from the spit. What, then!”

-

-He jerked his feet peevishly in the stirrups, and growled--

-

-“Limping and footsore already come my cursed rabble--there you are,

-white-livered Tuscan sheep! The bark of a dog will scare them; they

-would fear a thousand bogies in the dark. It is certain I must wait

-for them, and bivouac somewhere here in the plains.”

-

-Indeed, the first of them came on as he spoke--a weary, stumbling body

-of laggards, trailing feet and muskets.

-

-“Halte-là!” he thundered; and the men came to a loose-kneed stand,

-while the corporals went round prodding and cursing them into a form

-of discipline. De Regnac grumbled--

-

-“Are we to have this cold grace to our loves? God’s name! my heart

-cries out for fire--fire within and without. These monks!”

-

-“Shall I slip before, and sound them? You may trust me, for a Spanish

-girl, who has learned how to coax her confessor.”

-

-“Ha! _You!_” He held her, biting his great lips. “What are you good

-for but deceit, rogue! No, no; we will go together.”

-

-He called his staff about him, and they went forward in a body.

-Presently, topping a longish slope, they saw, sprung out of the plain

-before them, a huddled grey building, glooming monstrous in the dusk.

-Its barred windows stared blindly; twin towers held the portico

-between them, as it were the lunette of a vast guillotine; a solitary

-lamp hung motionless in the entrance. Far away across the flats a

-light or two twinkled over ruined Figueras, like marsh-candles over a

-swamp. The place seemed lifeless desolation embodied--Death’s own

-monument in a desert. Gaiety in its atmosphere shivered into silence.

-

-But at length a captain rallied, with a laugh.

-

-“Peste!” he cried; “a churchyard refuge! Let us see if the dead walk!”

-

-He battered with his sword-hilt on the great door. It swung open, in

-staggering response, and revealed a solitary figure. Cowled, spectral,

-gigantic--holding, motionless, a torch that wept fire--the shape stood

-without a word. It was muffled from crown to heel in coarse frieze;

-the eyelets in its woollen vizor were like holes scorched through by

-the burning gaze behind--the very rims of them appeared to smoulder.

-Laville, the captain, broke into an agitated laugh.

-

-“Mordieu, my friend, are the dead so lifeless?”

-

-“What do you seek?”

-

-The voice boomed, low and muffled, from the folds.

-

-“Rest and food,” answered Laville. “We are weary and famished. For the

-rest, we ask no question, and invite none.”

-

-“So they come in peace,” said the figure, “all are welcome here.”

-

-The Colonel pushed to the front, carrying his burden.

-

-“We come in peace,” he said--“strangers and travellers. We pay our

-way, and the better where our way is smoothed. Take that message to

-your Prior.”

-

-The figure withdrew, and returned in a little.

-

-“The answer is, Ye are welcome. For those who are officers, a repast

-will be served within an hour in the refectory; for the rest, what

-entertainment we can compass shall be provided in the outhouses. A

-room is placed at the disposal of your commander.”

-

-“It is well,” said de Regnac. “Now say, We invite your Prior to the

-feast himself provides, and his hand shall be first in the dish, and

-his lip to the cup; else, from our gallantry, do we go supperless.”

-

-Once more the figure withdrew and returned.

-

-“He accepts. You are to fear no outrage at his hands.”

-

-The Colonel exclaimed cynically, “Fie, fie! I protest you wrong our

-manners!”--and, giving some orders _sub voce_ for the precautionary

-disposal of his men, entered with his staff. They were ushered into a

-stone-cold hall, set deep in the heart of the building--a great

-windowless crypt, it seemed, whose glooms no warmth but that of tapers

-had ever penetrated. It was bare of all furniture save benches and a

-long trestle-table, and a few sacred pictures on the walls. While the

-rest waited there, de Regnac was invited to his quarters--a cell

-quarried still deeper into that hill of brick. No sound in all the

-place was audible to them as they went. He pushed Pepino before him.

-

-“This is my servant,” he said. “He will attend me, by your leave.”

-

-The girl made no least demur. She went even jocundly, turning now and

-again to him with her tongue in her cheek. He, for his part, was in a

-rapture of slyness; but he kept a reserve of precaution. They were

-escorted by the giant down a single dim corridor, into a decent

-habitable cell, fitted with chairs, a little stove, and a prie-Dieu;

-but the bed was abominably rocky. De Regnac made a wry face at it for

-his companion’s secret delectation.

-

-The ghostly monk, intimating that he would await outside the señor

-commandante’s toilet, that he might re-escort his charge to the

-refectory, closed the door upon the two. De Regnac cursed his

-officiousness, groaning; but Pepino reassured his impatience with a

-hundred drolleries. However, when the Colonel came out presently, he

-came out alone; and, moreover, turned the key in the door and pocketed

-it.

-

-“Merely a prudential measure,” he explained to his guide. “These

-gaillards are not to be trusted in strange houses. I will convey him

-his supper by and by with my own hands.”

-

-The figure neither answered nor seemed to hear. De Regnac, joining a

-rollicking company, dismissed him from his mind.

-

-And alone in the cell stood mad Pepino.

-

-But not for long. A trap opened in the floor, and from it sprouted,

-like a monstrous fungus, the head and shoulders of the giant monk.

-Massively, sombrely he arose, until the whole of his great bulk was

-emerged and standing in a burning scrutiny of the prisoner. A minute

-passed. Then, “Whence comest thou, Pepa Manoele? With whom, and for

-what purpose?” said the voice behind the folds.

-

-His question seemed to snap in an instant the garrotte about her

-brain. She flung herself on her knees before him with a lamentable

-cry--

-

-“They have killed my Luc, brother--my Luc, who took me from your wards

-of mercy, sins and all. They have killed my sweet singing cricket, my

-merry, merry cricket, that had no guile in all its roguish heart. They

-put their heel upon him in the path--what are songs to them!--and left

-my summer desolate. If I weep one moment, I know that blood will scald

-my cheeks and drain my heart, and I shall die before I act. O,

-brother! keep back my tears a little. Show me what to do!”

-

-She clutched in agony at his robe.

-

-“Come,” he said; “the way is clear.”

-

- * * * * *

-

-The feast was served to the tick of the hour by lay brothers, another

-blank-envisaged form directing them. The tables smoked with cheer, and

-de Regnac rubbed his hands. There were the joints of fat kid and the

-flagons of old Malaga--salmis of quail, too; truffled sausages;

-herrings with mustard sauce, things of strong flavour meet for

-warriors. The steam itself was an invitation--the smell, the sparkle.

-Only one thing lacked--the Prior’s grace. De Regnac, bestial always,

-but most like a tiger in the view of unattainable meats, crowded the

-interval with maledictions and curses. His courtesy stopped anywhere

-on the threshold of his appetites. Baulked of his banquet, he would be

-ready to make a holocaust of the whole hospital. Yet he dared not be

-the first to put his fingers in the dish.

-

-“Where is our host?” he growled. “Doth he fear the test--or death--a

-coward faint with indecision?”

-

-Even with the word, he found him at his elbow--an old, dry pipe of a

-man, wheezing thin air. The father’s face under its dropping cowl (no

-doubt his lungs were too crazy for the vizor) showed stark with rime;

-his forehead was streaked with it; his eyes were half-thawed pools. He

-spoke. Hoarse and feeble, his voice seemed to crow from the attics of

-a ruined tenement, high up among the winds.

-

-“Fall to, soldiers, fall to! There is no grace like honest appetite.

-Fall to! And they tell me ye have travelled far to claim our

-hospitality. Fall to!”

-

-De Regnac smacked his shoulder boisterously, so that he staggered.

-

-“Not till you have blessed our meal for us, old father.”

-

-The Prior raised his trembling hands. The other caught at them.

-

-“Not that way. We ask the taster’s grace. It was a bargain.”

-

-“Be seated, señor,” said the old man, with dignity. “I do not forget

-my obligations.”

-

-He went round, bent and stiffly, taking a shred from each dish, a

-sippet dipped in the gravy.

-

-“Bella premunt hostilia,” he expostulated. “Intestine wars invade our

-breast. What a task for our old digestion!”

-

-His roguery pleased and reassured his company. They attacked the

-viands with a will. He never ceased to encourage them, going about the

-board with garrulous cheer.

-

-“And ye come over the hills?” said he. “A hungry journey and a

-dangerous. It was the mountains, and the spirits of the mountains,

-that were alone invincible when the Moorish dogs overran all

-Spain--all but the mountains. The heathen crests were lowered

-there--rolled back in a bloody foam. Dear God! I’m old.”

-

-“Not so ancient, father,” cried de Regnac, “but that good liquor will

-revitalize you. There remains the wine.”

-

-“Ah me!” sighed the Prior; “must I?”

-

-They swore him to the toast by every bond of honour. Their throats

-were ragged with drought.

-

-“Well, well,” he said. “I’ll first dismiss these witnesses to their

-father’s shame. I’ll be no Noah to my children.”

-

-He drove the servitors, with feeble playfulness, into the passage;

-pursued them a pace or two. In a moment he was back alone, his cowl

-pulled about his face.

-

-“Give me the draught,” he said hoarsely, “nor look ye upon the old

-man’s abasement. I am soon to answer for my frailties.”

-

-Cheering and bantering, they mixed him a cup from every flagon, and

-put it into his hand, which gripped it through the cloth. He turned

-his back on them, and took the liquor down by slow degrees, chuckling

-and gasping and protesting. Then, still coughing, he handed the cup,

-backwards, to the nearest.

-

-“Bumpers, all!” roared de Regnac. “We toast old Noah for our king of

-hosts!”

-

-Even as he drank, as they all drank, thirsty and uproarious, the great

-door of the refectory clanged to, and the Prior spun with a scream to

-the floor. De Regnac’s cup fell from his hand; a dead silence

-succeeded.

-

-Suddenly the Colonel was on his feet, ghastly and terrible.

-

-“Something foul!” he whispered; “something foul!”

-

-Staggering, he swerved out, and drove with all his weight against the

-door. It had been locked and bolted upon them. Not a massive panel

-creaked. They were entombed!

-

-Hush!

-

-Solemn, low, mystic, arose without the chaunt of voices in unison--the

-prayers for one sick unto death: “Receive, O Lord, the sacrifice we

-offer for thy servant, who is near the end of her life.”

-

-With a scream, de Regnac threw himself towards the body on the floor,

-and lifted it with huge strength in his arms. As he did so, the cowl

-fell away, and revealed the face of Pepino. The shadow of death was

-already fallen on it; but she spoke, and with a smile.

-

-“When he pursued them, I was waiting and took his place. Curse him

-not. He observed the letter. ’Twas I poisoned the wine. Take back thy

-wages, dog! O, I go to find my Luc--if thou darest follow me!”

-

-He roared out--a spasm took his throat. He tried to crush her in his

-arms. They relaxed in the effort. Howling, he dropped her, and fell

-beside in a heap.

-

-Then, from out a mortal paralysis, arose sobbing and wailing at the

-table. Some seized salt, some the wet mustard from the fish, and

-swallowed it by handfuls. Others ran hither and thither aimlessly,

-screeching, blaspheming, beating the walls, the obdurate door. There

-was a regimental doctor among them; he was the first dead. None found

-help or hope in that ghastly trap. The venom had been swift, gripping,

-ineradicable. Within half an hour it was all a silent company, and the

-Miserere long had ceased.

-

-Somewhere in a book I read of a tale like this, which was headed

-“Patriotic Fanaticism.” Those were certainly the deadly days of

-retaliation; but in this case Love, as always, was the principal

-fanatic.

-

-

-

-

- THE GHOST-LEECH

-

-Kelvin, not I, is responsible for this story, which he told me

-sitting smoking by his study window.

-

-It was a squalid night, I remember, wet and fretful--the sort of night

-which seems to sojourners in the deep country (as we then were) to

-bring rumours of plashy pavements, and the roar of rain-sodden

-traffic, and the wailing and blaspheming of women lost and crying out

-of a great darkness. No knowledge of our rural isolation could allay

-this haunting impression in my mind that night. I felt ill at ease,

-and, for some reason, out of suits with life. It mattered nothing that

-a belt of wild woodland separated us from the country station five

-miles away. That, after all, by the noises in it, might have been a

-very causeway, by which innumerable spectres were hurrying home from

-their business in the distant cities. The dark clouds, as long as we

-could see them labouring from the south, appeared freighted with the

-very burden of congregated dreariness. They glided up, like vast

-electric tramcars, and seemed to pause overhead, as if to discharge

-into the sanctuary of our quiet pastures their loads of aggressive

-vulgarity. My nerves were all jangled into disorder, I fear, and

-inclining me to imaginative hyperbole.

-

-Kelvin, for his part, was very quiet. He was a conundrum, that man.

-Once the keenest of sportsmen, he was now for years become an almost

-sentimental humanitarian--and illogical, of necessity. He would not

-consent to kill under any circumstances--wilfully, that is to say; but

-he enjoyed his mutton with the best of us. However, I am not

-quarrelling with his point of view. He, for one--by his own admission,

-anyhow--owed a life to “the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,” and

-he would not, from the date of his debt, cross her prerogatives. The

-same occasion, it appeared, had opened in him an unstanchable vein of

-superstition, which was wont to gush--bloodily, I might say--in

-depressing seasons of the mind. It provoked me, on the evening of the

-present anecdote, to a sort of peevish protest.

-

-“Why the devil,” I said, “are spectral manifestations--at least,

-according to you fellows--everlastingly morbid and ugly? Are there no

-gentle disembodied things, who, of their love and pity, would be

-rather more anxious than the wicked, one would think, to communicate

-with their survivors?”

-

-“Of course,” said Kelvin; “but their brief sweet little reassurances

-pass unnoticed. Their forms are insignificant, their voices

-inarticulate; they can only appeal by symbol, desperately clinging to

-the earth the while. On the other hand, the world tethers its

-worldlings by the foot, so that they cannot take flight when they

-will. There remains, so to speak, too much earth in their composition,

-and it keeps ’em subject to the laws of gravitation.”

-

-I laughed; then shrugged impatiently.

-

-“What a rasping night it is! The devil take that moth!”

-

-The window was shut, and the persistent whirring and tapping of a big

-white insect on the glass outside jarred irritably on my nerves.

-

-“Let it in, for goodness’ sake,” I said, “if it _will_ insist on

-making a holocaust of itself!”

-

-Kelvin had looked up when I first spoke. Now he rose, with shining

-eyes, and a curious little sigh of the sort that one vents on the

-receipt of wonderful news coming out of suspense.

-

-“Yes, I’ll open the window,” he said low; and with the word threw up

-the casement. The moth whizzed in, whizzed round, and settled on his

-hand. He lifted it, with an odd set smile, into the intimate range of

-his vision, and scrutinized it intently. Suddenly and quickly, then,

-as if satisfied about something, he held it away from him.

-

-“_Ite missa est!_” he murmured, quoting some words of the Mass (he was

-a Catholic); and the moth fluttered and rose. Now, you may believe it

-or not; but there was a fire burning on the hearth, and straight for

-that fire went the moth, and seemed to go up with the smoke into the

-chimney. I was so astonished that I gasped; but Kelvin appeared

-serenely unconcerned as he faced round on me.

-

-“Well,” I exploded, “if a man mayn’t kill, he may persuade to suicide,

-it seems.”

-

-He answered good-humouredly, “All right; but it wasn’t suicide.”

-

-Then he resumed his seat by me, and relighted his pipe. I sat

-stolidly, with an indefinable feeling of grievance, and said nothing.

-But the silence soon grew unbearable.

-

-“Kelvin,” I said, suddenly and viciously; “what the deuce do you

-mean?”

-

-“You wouldn’t believe,” he answered, at once and cheerily, “even if I

-told you.”

-

-“Told me what?”

-

-“Well, this. There was the soul of little Patsy that went up in the

-smoke.”

-

-“The village child you are so attached to?”

-

-“Yes; and who has lain dying these weeks past.”

-

-“Why should it come to you?”

-

-“It was a compact between us--if she were summoned, in a moment,

-without time for a good-bye. We were close friends.”

-

-“Kelvin--excuse me--you are getting to be impossible.”

-

-“All right. Look at your watch. Time was made for unbelievers. There’s

-no convincing a sceptic but by foot-rule. Look at your watch.”

-

-“I did, I confess--covertly--in the instant of distraction caused by

-Kelvin’s little son, who came to bid his father good night. He was a

-quiet, winning little fellow, glowing with health and beauty.

-

-“Good night, Bobo,” said Kelvin, kissing the child fondly. “Ask God to

-make little Patsy’s bed comfy, before you get into your own.”

-

-I kissed the boy also; but awkwardly, for some reason, under his frank

-courteousness. After he was gone, I sank back in my chair and said,

-grudging the concession--

-

-“Very well. It’s half-past eight.”

-

-Kelvin nodded, and said nothing more for a long time. Then, all of a

-sudden, he broke out--

-

-“I usen’t to believe in such things myself, once upon a time; but Bobo

-converted me. Would you like to hear the story?”

-

-“O, yes!” I said, tolerantly superior. “Fire away!”

-

-He laughed, filling his pipe--the laugh of a man too surely

-self-convinced to regard criticism of his faith.

-

-“Patsy,” he said, “had no Ghost-Leech to touch her well. Poor little

-Patsy! But she’s better among the flowers.”

-

-“Of Paradise, I suppose you mean? Well, if she is, she is,” I said, as

-if I were deprecating the inevitably undesirable. “But what is a

-Ghost-Leech?”

-

-“A Ghost-Leech,” he said--“the sort, anyhow, that I’ve knowledge

-of--is one who has served seven years goal-keeper in the

-hurling-matches of the dead.”

-

-I stared at him. Was he really going, or gone, off his head? He

-laughed again, waving his hand to reassure me.

-

-“You may accept my proof or not. Anyhow, Bobo’s recovery was proof

-enough for me. A sense of humour, I admit, is outside our conception

-of the disembodied. We lay down laughter with life, don’t we? You’d

-count it heresy to believe otherwise. Yet have you ever considered how

-man’s one great distinctive faculty must be admitted into all evidence

-of his deeds upon earth, as minuted by the recording angel? It must be

-admitted, of course, and appreciatively by the final assessor. How

-could he judge laughter who had never laughed? The cachinnatory nerve

-is touched off from across the Styx--wireless telegraphy; and man will

-laugh still, though he be damned.”

-

-“Kelvin! my good soul!”

-

-“The dead, I tell you, do not put off their sense of humour with their

-flesh. They laugh beyond the grave. They are full of a sense of fun,

-and not necessarily the most transcendent.”

-

-“No, indeed, by all the testimony of spiritualism.”

-

-“Well; now listen. I was staying once in a village on the west coast

-of Ireland. The people of my hamlet were at deadly traditional feud

-with the people of a neighbouring hamlet. Traditional, I say, because

-the vendetta (it almost amounted to one) derived from the old days of

-rivalry between them in the ancient game of hurling, which was a sort

-of primitive violent “rugger” played with a wooden ball. The game

-itself was long fallen into disuse in the district, and had been

-supplanted, even in times out of memory, by sports of a gentler, more

-modern cast. But it, and the feud it had occasioned, were still

-continued unabated beyond the grave. How do I know this? Why, on the

-evidence of my Ghost-Leech.

-

-“He was a strange, moody, solitary man, pitied, though secretly

-dreaded, by his neighbours. They might have credited him with

-possession--particularly with a bad local form of possession; to

-suspect it was enough in itself to keep their mouths shut from

-questioning him, or their ears from inviting confession of his

-sufferings. For, so their surmise were correct, and he in the grip of

-the hurlers, a word wrung from him out of season would have brought

-the whole village under the curse of its dead.”

-

-I broke in here. “Kelvin, for the Lord’s sake! you are too cimmerian.

-Titillate your glooms with a touch of that spiritual laughter.”

-

-Agreeably to my banter, he smiled.

-

-“There’s fun in it,” he said; “only it’s rather ghastly fun. What do

-you say to the rival teams meeting in one or other of the village

-graveyards, and whacking a skull about with long shank-bones?”

-

-“I should say, It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Anything turning

-upon a more esoteric psychology would. What pitiful imaginations you

-Christmas-number seers are possessed of!”

-

-“I dare say. But I’m not imagining. It’s you practical souls that

-imagine--that common sense, for instance, is reason; that the top-hat

-is the divinely-inspired shibboleth of the chosen; and so on. But you

-don’t disappoint me. Shall I go on?”

-

-“O, yes! go on.”

-

-“The hurlers meet under the full moon, they say, in one or other of

-the rival graveyards; _but they must have a living bachelor out of

-each parish to keep goal for them_.”

-

-“I see! ‘They say’? I see!”

-

-“The doom of the poor wretch thus chosen is, as you may suppose, an

-appalling one. He must go, or suffer terrors damning out of reason.

-There is no power on earth can save him. One night he is sitting,

-perhaps, in his cabin at any peaceful work. The moor, mystic under the

-moonlight, stretches from miles away up to his walls, surrounding and

-isolating them. His little home is an ark, anchored amid a waste and

-silent sea of flowers. Suddenly the latch clinks up, advances, falls.

-The night air breathing in passes a presence standing in the opening,

-and quivers and dies. Stealthily the door gapes, ever so little, ever

-so softly, and a face, like the gliding rim of the moon, creeps round

-its edge. It is the face, he recognizes appalled, of one long dead.

-The eyeplaces are black hollows; but there is a movement in them like

-the glint of water in a deep well. A hand lifts and beckons. The

-goal-keeper is chosen, and must go. For seven years, it is said, he

-must serve the hurling-matches of the dead.”

-

-“State it for a fact. Don’t hedge on report.”

-

-“I don’t. This man served his time. If he hadn’t, Bobo wouldn’t be

-here.”

-

-“O? Poor Bobo!”

-

-“This man, I say, survived the ghastly ordeal--one case out of a dozen

-that succumb. Then he got his fee.”

-

-“O, a fee! What was that? A Rachel of the bogs?”

-

-“The power to cure by touch any human sickness, even the most humanly

-baffling.”

-

-“Really a royal reward. It’s easy to see a fortune in it.”

-

-“He would have been welcome to mine; but he would take nothing. He

-made my little boy whole again.”

-

-“Kelvin! I dare say I’m a brute. What had been the matter with him?”

-

-“Ah, what! He simply moaned and wasted--moaned eternally. Atrophy;

-meningitis; cachexy--they gave it a dozen names, but not a single

-cure. He was dying under slow torture--a heavy sight for a father.

-

-“One day an old Shaman of the moors called upon me. He was ancient,

-ancient--as dry as his staff, and so bent that, a little more, and he

-had tripped over his long beard in walking. I can’t reproduce his

-brogue; but this is the substance of what it conveyed to me:--

-

-“Had I ever heard speak of Baruch of the lone shebeen--him that had

-once kept an illicit still, but that the ghosts had got hold of for

-his sins? No? Well, he, the Shaman, was come too near the end of his

-own living tether to fear ghoulish reprisals if he told me. And he

-told me.

-

-“Baruch, he said, was suspected in the village of keeping the dead’s

-hurling-goal--had long been suspected--it was an old tale by now. But,

-och, wirrastrue! if, as he calculated, Baruch was nearing the close of

-his seven years’ service, Baruch was the man for me, and could do for

-my child what no other living man, barring a ghosts’ goal-keeper,

-could do likewise.

-

-“I humoured him when he was present; laughed at him when he was gone;

-but--I went to see Baruch. It’s all right: you aren’t a father.”

-

-“You went to see Baruch. Go on.”

-

-“He lived remote in such a little cabin as I have described. Lord!

-what a thing it was!--a living trophy of damnation--a statue

-inhabiting the human vestment! His face was young enough; but sorrow

-stricken into stone--unearthly suffering carved out of a block. It is

-astonishing what expression can be conveyed without a line. There was

-not a wrinkle in Baruch’s face.

-

-“All scepticism withered in me at the sight--all the desperate

-effrontery with which I had intended to challenge his gift. I asked

-him simply if he would cure my child.

-

-“He answered, in a voice as hoarse and feeble as an old man’s, but

-with a queer little promise of joy in it, like a sound of unborn rain,

-‘Asthore! for this I’ve lived me lone among the peats, and bid me

-time, and suffered what I know. In a good hour be it spoken! Wance

-more, and come again when the moon has passed its full.’

-

-“I went, without another question, or the thought of one. That was a

-bad week for me--a mortal struggle for the child. The dead kept

-pulling him to draw him down; but he fought and held on, the little

-plucked one. On the day following the night of full moon, I carried

-him in my arms to the cabin--myself, all the way. I wouldn’t let on to

-a soul; I went roundabout, and I got to Baruch unnoticed. I knew it

-was kill or cure for Bobo. He couldn’t have survived another night.

-

-“I tell you, it was a laughing spirit that greeted me. Have you ever

-seen Doré’s picture of the ‘Wandering Jew,’ at the end of his

-journey, having his boots pulled off? There is the same release

-depicted, the same sweet comedy of redemption--the same figure of fun,

-if you like, that Baruch presented.

-

-“He put his hands on Bobo’s head, and----”

-

-“Well?”

-

-“Bobo walked home with me, that’s all.”

-

-Kelvin got up from his chair to relight his pipe at the fire. As he

-moved, the door of the room opened, and a decent woman, his

-housekeeper, stood, with a grave face, in the entrance.

-

-“Patsy’s dead?” said Kelvin.

-

-“Ah, the poor mite!” answered the woman, with a burst of tears. “She

-passed but now, sir, at half after eight, in her little bed.”

-

-

-

-

- POOR LUCY RIVERS

-

-The following story was told to a friend--with leave, conditionally,

-to make it public--by a well-known physician who died last year.

-

-

-I was in Paul’s type-writing exchange (says the professional

-narrator), seeing about some circulars I required, when a young lady

-came in bearing a box, the weight of which seemed to tax her strength

-severely. She was a very personable young woman, though looking ill, I

-fancied--in short, with those diathetic symptoms which point to a

-condition of hysteria. The manager, who had been engaged elsewhere,

-making towards me at the moment, I intimated to him that he should

-attend to the new-comer first. He turned to her.

-

-“Now, madam?” said he.

-

-“I bought this machine second-hand of you last week,” she began, after

-a little hesitation. He admitted his memory of the fact. “I want to

-know,” she said, “if you’ll change it for another.”

-

-“Is there anything wrong with it, then?” he asked.

-

-“Yes,” she said; “No!” she said; “Everything!” she said, in a

-crescendo of spasms, looking as if she were about to cry. The manager

-shrugged his shoulders.

-

-“Very reprehensible of us,” said he; “and hardly our way. It is not

-customary; but, of course--if it doesn’t suit--to give

-satisfaction----” he cleared his throat.

-

-“I don’t want to be unfair,” said the young woman. “It doesn’t suit

-_me_. It might another person.”

-

-He had lifted, while speaking, its case off the type-writer, and now,

-placing the machine on a desk, inserted a sheet or two of paper, and

-ran his fingers deftly over the keys.

-

-“Really, madam,” said he, removing and examining the slip, “I can

-detect nothing wrong.”

-

-“I said--perhaps--only as regards myself.”

-

-She was hanging her head, and spoke very low.

-

-“But!” said he, and stopped--and could only add the emphasis of

-another deprecatory shrug.

-

-“Will you do me the favour, madam, to try it in my presence?”

-

-“No,” she murmured; “please don’t ask me. I’d really rather not.”

-Again the suggestion of strain--of suffering.

-

-“At least,” said he, “oblige me by looking at this.”

-

-He held before her the few lines he had typed. She had averted her

-head during the minute he had been at work; and it was now with

-evident reluctance, and some force put upon herself, that she

-acquiesced. But the moment she raised her eyes, her face brightened

-with a distinct expression of relief.

-

-“Yes,” she said; “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sure it’s

-all my fault. But--but, if you don’t mind. So much depends on it.”

-

-Well, the girl was pretty; the manager was human. There were a dozen

-young women, of a more or less pert type, at work in the front office.

-I dare say he had qualified in the illogic of feminine moods. At any

-rate, the visitor walked off in a little with a machine presumably

-another than that she had brought.

-

-“Professional?” I asked, to the manager’s resigned smile addressed to

-me.

-

-“So to speak,” said he. “She’s one of the ‘augment her income’ class.

-I fancy it’s little enough without. She’s done an occasional job for

-us. We’ve got her card somewhere.”

-

-“Can you find it?”

-

-He could find it, though he was evidently surprised at the

-request--scarce reasonably, I think, seeing how he himself had just

-given me an instance of that male inclination to the attractive, which

-is so calculated to impress woman in general with the injustice of our

-claims to impartiality.

-

-With the piece of pasteboard in my hand, I walked off then and there

-to commission “Miss Phillida Gray” with the job I had intended for

-Paul’s. Psychologically, I suppose, the case interested me. Here was a

-young person who seemed, for no _practical_ reason, to have quarrelled

-with her unexceptionable means to a livelihood.

-

-It raised more than one question; the incompleteness of woman as a

-wage earner, so long as she was emancipated from all but her

-fancifulness; the possibility of the spontaneous generation of

-soul--the _divina particula auræ_--in man-made mechanisms, in the

-construction of which their makers had invested their whole of mental

-capital. Frankenstein loathed the abortion of his genius. Who shall

-say that the soul of the inventor may not speak antipathetically,

-through the instrument which records it, to that soul’s natural

-antagonist? Locomotives have moods, as any engine-driver will tell

-you; and any shaver, that his razor, after maltreating in some fit of

-perversity one side of his face, will repent, and caress the other as

-gently as any sucking-dove.

-

-I laughed at this point of my reflections. Had Miss Gray’s

-type-writer, embodying the soul of a blasphemer, taken to swearing at

-her?

-

-It was a bitterly cold day. Snow, which had fallen heavily in

-November, was yet lying compact and unthawed in January. One had the

-novel experience in London of passing between piled ramparts of it.

-Traffic for some two months had been at a discount; and walking, for

-one of my years, was still so perilous a business that I was long in

-getting to Miss Gray’s door.

-

-She lived West Kensington way, in a “converted flat,” whose title,

-like that of a familiar type of Christian exhibited on platforms, did

-not convince of anything but a sort of paying opportunism. That is to

-say, at the cost of some internal match-boarding, roughly fitted and

-stained, an unlettable private residence, of the estimated yearly

-rental of forty pounds, had been divided into two “sets” at

-thirty-five apiece--whereby fashion, let us hope, profited as greatly

-as the landlord.

-

-Miss Gray inhabited the upper section, the door to which was opened by

-a little Cockney drab, very smutty, and smelling of gas stoves.

-

-“Yes, she was in.” (For all her burden, “Phillida,” with her young

-limbs, had outstripped me.) “Would I please to walk up?”

-

-It was the dismallest room I was shown into--really the most

-unattractive setting for the personable little body I had seen. She

-was not there at the moment, so that I could take stock without

-rudeness. The one curtainless window stared, under a lid of fog, at

-the factory-like rear of houses in the next street. Within was scarce

-an evidence of dainty feminine occupation. It was all an illustration

-of the empty larder and the wolf at the door. How long would the bolt

-withstand him? The very walls, it seemed, had been stripped for sops

-to his ravening--stripped so nervously, so hurriedly, that ribbons of

-paper had been flayed here and there from the plaster. The ceiling was

-falling; the common grate cold; there was a rag of old carpet on the

-floor--a dreary, deadly place! The type-writer--the new one--laid upon

-a little table placed ready for its use, was, in its varnished case,

-the one prominent object, quite healthy by contrast. How would the

-wolf moan and scratch to hear it desperately busy, with click and

-clang, building up its paper rampart against his besieging!

-

-I had fallen of a sudden so depressed, into a spirit of such

-premonitory haunting, that for a moment I almost thought I could hear

-the brute of my own fancy snuffling outside. Surely there was

-something breathing, rustling near me--something----

-

-I grunted, shook myself, and walked to the mantelpiece. There was

-nothing to remark on it but a copy of some verses on a sheet of

-notepaper; but the printed address at the top, and the signature at

-the foot of this, immediately caught my attention. I trust, under the

-circumstances (there was a coincidence here), that it was not

-dishonest, but I took out my glasses, and read those verses--or, to be

-strictly accurate, the gallant opening quartrain--with a laudable

-coolness. But inasmuch as the matter of the second and third stanzas,

-which I had an opportunity of perusing later, bears upon one aspect of

-my story, I may as well quote the whole poem here for what it is

-worth.

-

-

- Phyllis, I cannot woo in rhyme,

-  As courtlier gallants woo,

- With utterances sweet as thyme

-  And melting as the dew.

-

- An arm to serve; true eyes to see;

-  Honour surpassing love;

- These, for all song, my vouchers be,

-  Dear love, so thou’lt them prove.

-

- Bid me--and though the rhyming art

-  I may not thee contrive--

- I’ll print upon thy lips, sweetheart,

-  A poem that shall live.

-

-

-It may have been derivative; it seemed to me, when I came to read the

-complete copy, passable. At the first, even, I was certainly conscious

-of a thrill of secret gratification. But, as I said, I had mastered no

-more than the first four lines, when a rustle at the door informed me

-that I was detected.

-

-She started, I could see, as I turned round. I was not at the trouble

-of apologizing for my inquisitiveness.

-

-“Yes,” I said; “I saw you at Paul’s Exchange, got your address, and

-came on here. I want some circulars typed. No doubt you will undertake

-the job?”

-

-I was conning her narrowly while I spoke. It was obviously a case of

-neurasthenia--the tendril shooting in the sunless vault. But she had

-more spirit than I calculated on. She just walked across to the empty

-fireplace, collared those verses, and put them into her pocket. I

-rather admired her for it.

-

-“Yes, with pleasure,” she said, sweetening the rebuke with a blush,

-and stultifying it by affecting to look on the mantelpiece for a card,

-which eventually she produced from another place. “These are my

-terms.”

-

-“Thank you,” I replied. “What do you say to a contra account--you to

-do my work, and I to set my professional attendance against it? I am a

-doctor.”

-

-She looked at me mute and amazed.

-

-“But there is nothing the matter with me,” she murmured, and broke

-into a nervous smile.

-

-“O, I beg your pardon!” I said. “Then it was only your instrument

-which was out of sorts?”

-

-Her face fell at once.

-

-“You heard me--of course,” she said. “Yes, I--it was out of sorts, as

-you say. One gets fancies, perhaps, living alone, and typing--typing.”

-

-I thought of the discordant clack going on hour by hour--the dead

-words of others made brassily vociferous, until one’s own

-individuality would become merged in the infernal harmonics.

-

-“And so,” I said, “like the dog’s master in the fable, you quarrelled

-with an old servant.”

-

-“O, no!” she answered. “I had only had it for a week--since I came

-here.”

-

-“You have only been here a week?”

-

-“Little more,” she replied. “I had to move from my old rooms. It is

-very kind of you to take such an interest in me. Will you tell me what

-I can do for you?”

-

-My instructions were soon given. The morrow would see them attended

-to. No, she need not send the copies on. I would myself call for them

-in the afternoon.

-

-“I hope _this_ machine will be more to the purpose,” I said.

-

-“_I_ hope so, too,” she answered.

-

-“Well, she seems a lady,” I thought, as I walked home; “a little

-anæmic flower of gentility.” But sentiment was not to the point.

-

-That evening, “over the walnuts and the wine,” I tackled Master Jack,

-my second son. He was a promising youth; was reading for the Bar, and,

-for all I knew, might have contributed to the “Gownsman.”

-

-“Jack,” I said, when we were alone, “I never knew till to-day that you

-considered yourself a poet.”

-

-He looked at me coolly and inquiringly, but said nothing.

-

-“Do you consider yourself a marrying man, too?” I asked.

-

-He shook his head, with a little amazed smile.

-

-“Then what the devil do you mean by addressing a copy of love verses

-to Miss Phillida Gray?”

-

-He was on his feet in a moment, as pale as death.

-

-“If you were not my father”--he began.

-

-“But I am, my boy,” I answered, “and an indulgent one, I think you’ll

-grant.”

-

-He turned, and stalked out of the room; returned in a minute, and

-flung down a duplicate draft of _the_ poem on the table before me. I

-put down the crackers, took up the paper, and finished my reading of

-it.

-

-“Jack,” I said, “I beg your pardon. It does credit to your heart--you

-understand the emphasis? You are a young gentleman of some prospects.

-Miss Gray is a young lady of none.”

-

-He hesitated a moment; then flung himself on his knees before me. He

-was only a great boy.

-

-“Dad,” he said; “dear old Dad; you’ve seen them--you’ve seen her?”

-

-I admitted the facts. “But that is not at all an answer to me,” I

-said.

-

-“Where is she?” he entreated, pawing me.

-

-“You don’t know?”

-

-“Not from Adam. I drove her hard, and she ran away from me. She said

-she would, if I insisted--not to kill those same prospects of mine. My

-prospects! Good God! What are they without her? She left her old

-rooms, and no address. How did you get to see her--and my stuff?”

-

-I could satisfy him on these points.

-

-“But it’s true,” he said; “and--and I’m in love, Dad--Dad, I’m in

-love.”

-

-He leaned his arms on the table, and his head on his arms.

-

-“Well,” I said, “how did _you_ get to know her?”

-

-“Business,” he muttered, “pure business. I just answered her

-advertisement--took her some of my twaddle. She’s an orphan--daughter

-of a Captain Gray, navy man; and--and she’s an angel.”

-

-“I hope he is,” I answered. “But anyhow, that settles it. There’s no

-marrying and giving in marriage in heaven.”

-

-He looked up.

-

-“You don’t mean it? No! you dearest and most indulgent of old Dads!

-Tell me where she is.”

-

-I rose.

-

-“I may be all that; but I’m not such a fool. I shall see her

-to-morrow. Give me till after then.”

-

-“O, you perfect saint!”

-

-“I promise absolutely nothing.”

-

-“I don’t want you to. I leave you to her. She could beguile a Saint

-Anthony.”

-

-“Hey!”

-

-“I mean as a Christian woman should.”

-

-“O! that explains it.”

-

-The following afternoon I went to West Kensington. The little drab was

-snuffling when she opened the door. She had a little hat on her head.

-

-“Missus wasn’t well,” she said; “and she hadn’t liked to leave her,

-though by rights she was only engaged for an hour or two in the day.”

-

-“Well,” I said, “I’m a doctor, and will attend to her. You can go.”

-

-She gladly shut me in and herself out. The clang of the door echoed up

-the narrow staircase, and was succeeded, as if it had started it, by

-the quick toing and froing of a footfall in the room above. There was

-something inexpressibly ghostly in the sound, in the reeling dusk

-which transmitted it.

-

-I perceived, the moment I set eyes on the girl, that there was

-something seriously wrong with her. Her face was white as wax, and

-quivered with an incessant horror of laughter. She tried to rally, to

-greet me, but broke down at the first attempt, and stood as mute as

-stone.

-

-I thank my God I can be a sympathetic without being a fanciful man. I

-went to her at once, and imprisoned her icy hands in the human

-strength of my own.

-

-“What is it? Have you the papers ready for me?”

-

-She shook her head, and spoke only after a second effort.

-

-“I am very sorry.”

-

-“You haven’t done them, then? Never mind. But why not? Didn’t the new

-machine suit either?”

-

-I felt her hands twitch in mine. She made another movement of dissent.

-

-“That’s odd,” I said. “It looks as if it wasn’t the fault of the

-tools, but of the workwoman.”

-

-All in a moment she was clinging to me convulsively, and crying--

-

-“You are a doctor--you’ll understand--don’t leave me alone--don’t let

-me stop here!”

-

-“Now listen,” I said; “listen, and control yourself. Do you hear? I

-have come _prepared_ to take you away. I’ll explain why presently.”

-

-“I thought at first it was my fault,” she wept distressfully,

-“working, perhaps, until I grew light-headed” (Ah, hunger and

-loneliness and that grinding labour!); “but when I was sure of myself,

-still it went on, and I could not do my tasks to earn money. Then I

-thought--how can God let such things be!--that the instrument itself

-must be haunted. It took to going at night; and in the morning”--she

-gripped my hands--“I burnt them. I tried to think I had done it myself

-in my sleep, and I always burnt them. But it didn’t stop, and at last

-I made up my mind to take it back and ask for another--another--you

-remember?”

-

-She pressed closer to me, and looked fearfully over her shoulder.

-

-“It does the same,” she whispered, gulping. “It wasn’t the machine at

-all. It’s the place--itself--that’s haunted.”

-

-I confess a tremor ran through me. The room was dusking--hugging

-itself into secrecy over its own sordid details. Out near the window,

-the type-writer, like a watchful sentient thing, seemed grinning at us

-with all its ivory teeth. She had carried it there, that it might be

-as far from herself as possible.

-

-“First let me light the gas,” I said, gently but resolutely detaching

-her hands.

-

-“There is none,” she murmured.

-

-None. It was beyond her means. This poor creature kept her deadly

-vigils with a couple of candles. I lit them--they served but to make

-the gloom more visible--and went to pull down the blind.

-

-“O, take care of it!” she whispered fearfully, meaning the

-type-writer. “It is awful to shut out the daylight so soon.”

-

-God in heaven, what she must have suffered! But I admitted nothing,

-and took her determinedly in hand.

-

-“Now,” I said, returning to her, “tell me plainly and distinctly what

-it is that the machine does.”

-

-She did not answer. I repeated my question.

-

-“It writes things,” she muttered--“things that don’t come from me. Day

-and night it’s the same. The words on the paper aren’t the words that

-come from my fingers.”

-

-“But that is impossible, you know.”

-

-“So _I_ should have thought once. Perhaps--what is it to be possessed?

-There was another type-writer--another girl--lived in these rooms

-before me.”

-

-“Indeed! And what became of her?”

-

-“She disappeared mysteriously--no one knows why or where. Maria, my

-little maid, told me about her. Her name was Lucy Rivers, and--she

-just disappeared. The landlord advertised her effects, to be claimed,

-or sold to pay the rent; and that was done, and she made no sign. It

-was about two months ago.”

-

-“Well, will you now practically demonstrate to me this reprehensible

-eccentricity on the part of your instrument?”

-

-“Don’t ask me. I don’t dare.”

-

-“I would do it myself; but of course you will understand that a more

-satisfactory conclusion would be come to by my watching your fingers.

-Make an effort--you needn’t even look at the result--and I will take

-you away immediately after.”

-

-“You are very good,” she answered pathetically; “but I don’t know that

-I ought to accept. Where to, please? And--and I don’t even know your

-name.”

-

-“Well, I have my own reasons for withholding it.”

-

-“It is all so horrible,” she said; “and I am in your hands.”

-

-“They are waiting to transfer you to mamma’s,” said I.

-

-The name seemed an instant inspiration and solace to her. She looked

-at me, without a word, full of wonder and gratitude; then asked me to

-bring the candles, and she would acquit herself of her task. She

-showed the best pluck over it, though her face was ashy, and her mouth

-a line, and her little nostrils pulsing the whole time she was at

-work.

-

-I had got her down to one of my circulars, and, watching her fingers

-intently, was as sure as observer could be that she had followed the

-text verbatim.

-

-“Now,” I said, when she came to a pause, “give me a hint how to remove

-this paper, and go you to the other end of the room.”

-

-She flicked up a catch. “You have only to pull it off the roller,” she

-said; and rose and obeyed. The moment she was away I followed my

-instructions, and drew forth the printed sheet and looked at it.

-

-It may have occupied me longer than I intended. But I was folding it

-very deliberately, and putting it away in my pocket when I walked

-across to her with a smile. She gazed at me one intent moment, and

-dropped her eyes.

-

-“Yes,” she said; and I knew that she had satisfied herself. “Will you

-take me away now, at once, please?”

-

-The idea of escape, of liberty once realized, it would have been

-dangerous to balk her by a moment. I had acquainted mamma that I might

-possibly bring her a visitor. Well, it simply meant that the suggested

-visit must be indefinitely prolonged.

-

-Miss Gray accompanied me home, where certain surprises, in addition to

-the tenderest of ministrations, were awaiting her. All that becomes

-private history, and outside my story. I am not a man of sentiment;

-and if people choose to write poems and make general asses of

-themselves, why--God bless them!

-

-The problem I had set _my_self to unravel was what looked deucedly

-like a tough psychologic poser. But I was resolute to face it, and had

-formed my plan. It was no unusual thing for me to be out all night.

-That night, after dining, I spent in the “converted” flat in West

-Kensington.

-

-I had brought with me--I confess to so much weakness--one of your

-portable electric lamps. The moment I was shut in and established, I

-pulled out the paper Miss Gray had typed for me, spread it under the

-glow and stared at it. Was it a copy of my circular? Would a sober

-“First Aid Society” Secretary be likely, do you think, to require

-circulars containing such expressions as “_William! William! Come back

-to me! O, William, in God’s name! William! William! William!_”--in

-monstrous iteration--the one cry, or the gist of it, for lines and

-lines in succession?

-

-I am at the other end from humour in saying this. It is heaven’s

-truth. Line after line, half down the page, went that monotonous,

-heart-breaking appeal. It was so piercingly moving, my human terror of

-its unearthliness was all drowned, absorbed in an overflowing pity.

-

-I am not going to record the experiences of that night. That

-unchanging mood of mine upheld me through consciousnesses and

-sub-consciousnesses which shall be sacred. Sometimes, submerged in

-these, I seemed to hear the clack of the instrument in the window, but

-at a vast distance. I may have seen--I may have dreamt--I accepted it

-all. Awaking in the chill grey of morning, I felt no surprise at

-seeing some loose sheets of paper lying on the floor. “_William!

-William!_” their text ran down, “_Come back to me!_” It was all that

-same wail of a broken heart. I followed Miss Gray’s example. I took

-out my match-box, and reverently, reverently burned them.

-

-An hour or two later I was at Paul’s Exchange, privately interviewing

-my manager.

-

-“Did you ever employ a Miss Lucy Rivers?”

-

-“Certainly we did. Poor Lucy Rivers! She rented a machine of us. In

-fact----”

-

-He paused.

-

-“Well?”

-

-“Well--it is a mere matter of business--she ‘flitted,’ and we had to

-reclaim our instrument. As it happens, it was the very one purchased

-by the young lady who so interested you here two days ago.”

-

-“The first machine, you mean?”

-

-“The first--_and_ the second.” He smiled. “As a matter of fact, she

-took away again what she brought.”

-

-“Miss Rivers’s?”

-

-He nodded.

-

-“There was absolutely nothing wrong with it--mere fad. Women start

-these fancies. The click of the thing gets on their nerves, I suppose.

-We must protect ourselves, you see; and I’ll warrant she finds it

-perfection now.”

-

-“Perhaps she does. What was Miss Rivers’s address?”

-

-He gave me, with a positive grin this time, the “converted” flat.

-

-“But that was only latterly,” he said. “She had moved from----”

-

-He directed me elsewhere.

-

-“Why,” said I, taking up my hat, “did you call her ‘poor Lucy

-Rivers’?”

-

-“O, I don’t know!” he said. “She was rather an attractive young lady.

-But we had to discontinue our patronage. She developed the most

-extraordinary--but it’s no business of mine. She was one of the

-submerged tenth; and she’s gone under for good, I suppose.”

-

-I made my way to the _other_ address--a little lodging in a

-shabby-genteel street. A bitter-faced landlady, one of the

-“preordained” sort, greeted me with resignation when she thought I

-came for rooms, and with acerbity when she heard that my sole mission

-was to inquire about a Miss Lucy Rivers.

-

-“I won’t deceive you, sir,” she said. “When it come to receiving

-gentlemen privately, I told her she must go.”

-

-“Gentlemen!”

-

-“I won’t do Miss Rivers an injustice,” she said. “It was _ha_

-gentleman.”

-

-“Was that latterly?”

-

-“It was not latterly, sir. But it was the effects of its not being

-latterly which made her take to things.”

-

-“What things?”

-

-“Well, sir, she grew strange company, and took to the roof.”

-

-“What on earth do you mean?”

-

-“Just precisely what I say, sir; through the trap-door by the steps,

-and up among the chimney-pots. _He’d_ been there with her before, and

-perhaps she thought she’d find him hiding among the stacks. He called

-himself an astronomer; but it’s my belief it was another sort of

-star-gazing. I couldn’t stand it at last, and I had to give her

-notice.”

-

-It was falling near a gloomy midday when I again entered the flat, and

-shut myself in with its ghosts and echoes. I had a set conviction, a

-set purpose in my mind. There was that which seemed to scuttle, like a

-little demon of laughter, in my wake, now urging me on, now slipping

-round and above to trip me as I mounted. I went steadily on and up,

-past the sitting-room door, to the floor above. And here, for the

-first time, a thrill in my blood seemed to shock and hold me for a

-moment. Before my eyes, rising to a skylight, now dark and choked with

-snow, went a flight of steps. Pulling myself together, I mounted

-these, and with a huge effort (_the bolt was not shot_) shouldered the

-trap open. There were a fall and rustle without; daylight entered;

-and, levering the door over, I emerged upon the roof.

-

-Snow, grim and grimy and knee-deep, was over everything, muffling the

-contours of the chimneys, the parapets, the irregularities of the

-leads. The dull thunder of the streets came up to me; a fog of thaw

-was in the air; a thin drizzle was already falling. I drove my foot

-forward into a mound, and hitched it on something. In an instant I was

-down on my knees, scattering the sodden raff right and left, and--my

-God!--a face!

-

-She lay there as she had been overwhelmed, and frozen, and preserved

-these two months. She had closed the trap behind her, and nobody had

-known. Pure as wax--pitiful as hunger--dead! Poor Lucy Rivers!

-

-Who was she, and who the man? We could never learn. She had woven his

-name, his desertion, her own ruin and despair into the texture of her

-broken life. Only on the great day of retribution shall he answer to

-that agonized cry.

-

-

-

-

- THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR

-

-

- Ho! bring me some _lovers_, fat or lean,

- That I may crunch ’em my teeth between!

- I could eat so many, so many, so many,

- That in the wide world there would not be left any.

-

- Ho! Here is Avenant to be seen,

- Who comes to draw your teeth so keen;

- He’s not the greatest man to view,

- But he’s big enough to conquer you.

-

-        Planché’s “D’Aulnoy,” slightly misquoted.

-

-

-Sir Richard Avenant came home from Abyssinia to an interesting

-notoriety. He had been associated--a sort of explorative

-free-lance--with the expedition of Mr. Bruce, who was not yet returned

-from his adventures up the Nile in quest of the sources of that

-bewildering water; and, upon his arrival in London, he found himself

-engaged to a romance which was certainly remote from his deserts.

-

-Now he was a strong, saturnine man, but apt to whimsical decisions,

-whose consequences, the fruits of whatever odd impulses, he never had

-a thought but to hold by; and as the self-reserved must suffer the

-character accorded to their appearance (the only side of them

-confessed), Sir Richard found himself accredited, by anticipation,

-with deeds adapted to the countenance he had always addressed to the

-world.

-

-He was strolling, some days after his return, through the streets,

-when he was accosted by an acquaintance, a _preux chevalier_ of the

-highest _ton_, curled, be-ruffed, and imperturbably self-assured.

-

-“Why, strike me silly, Dick!” cried this exquisite, “what do you,

-wandering unsociable in a shag coat, and all London by the ears to

-lionize ye?”

-

-“Well, I know not, George. What have I done to be lionized?”

-

-“Done! _Done?_ asks the man that will not devour a steak but ’tis cut

-raw from the buttock of the living beast! _Done?_ asks Bluebeard (and

-stap me, Dick, but your chin is as blue as a watchman’s!)--_done_, he

-says, that brings grass-petticoats in his train enough to furnish the

-Paradise of the Grand Turk! Prithee, Dick, where hast stowed ’em all?

-O, thou hast a great famous reputation, I assure thee, to justify

-thyself of with the women! Such is the report of thy peris--their

-teeth, their raven hair, their eyes like stars of the night--there’s

-no virtue in town could resist, if asked, to be thy queen and theirs.”

-

-He was chuckling, and taking a delicate pinch of martinique, with his

-little finger cocked to display a glittering stone, when his eyes

-lighted on a house over against which they were standing.

-

-“Hist!” said he, pointing with his cane; “pan my honour, the single

-reservation.”

-

-“Single reservation?” repeated the explorer. “To what? To this London

-of frailties?”

-

-“To be sure,” said the other. “The one party, I’ll dare swear, that

-would not put her nose in a ring for thy sake.”

-

-“Indeed!” said Avenant. “Then she’s the one I must wed.”

-

-The elegant cocked his head, squinting derisive.

-

-“I lay you a double pony to a tester you don’t, within the decade.”

-

-“Done! Tell me about her.”

-

-“I’ll do more. I’ll carry you in to her, here and at once. Tell me

-about her, quotha! She’s the Fair with Golden Hair, and a guinea and a

-suitor to every thread of it.”

-

-“Whence comes she?”

-

-“From Arcadia, man, with a fortune of gold and roses. She cuts out

-hearts raw, as you do steaks, and devours them by the dozen. O, you

-shall know her!”

-

-“But by what name, George, by what name?”

-

-“Have I not told you? It shall suffice for all your needs. Thou shalt

-take a pack of Cabriolles, and never hunt her to the death. Come, my

-friend!”

-

-He led Sir Richard to the house, and had himself announced. They

-ascended a flight of stairs, going up into a heaven of floating

-fragrance and melodious sounds. Their feet moved noiseless over silken

-carpets. They crossed an anteroom ruffling with lackeys, and were

-ushered into the Fair’s boudoir.

-

-She sat at her mirror, in the hands of her perruquier. She was the

-most beautiful insolent creature Sir Richard had ever seen. There was

-not an inch of her which Nature could have altered to its improvement.

-The very patch on her cheek was a theft from perfection. But to so

-much loveliness her hair was the glory, a nimbus which, condensing in

-the heavy atmosphere of adoration, dropped in a melting flood of gold,

-which, short of the ground only, shrank and curled back from its gross

-contact.

-

-All round and about her hummed her court--poets, lords,

-minstrels--suitors straining their wits and their talents for her

-delectation, while they bled internally. Many of them greeted Sir

-Richard’s chaperon, many Sir Richard himself--good-humouredly,

-jealously, satirically, as the case might be--as the two pushed by. A

-stir went round, however, when the rough new-comer’s name was put

-about; and some rose in their seats, and all dwelt inquisitively on

-the explorer’s reception.

-

-It was condescending enough; as was that of his friend, who loved

-himself too well, and too wittily, to show a heart worth the beauty’s

-discussing.

-

-“Have you got back your appetite, sir,” said the Fair to Avenant, “for

-dressed meats?”

-

-“And ladies?” whispered Sir Richard’s friend.

-

-“O, fie!” said madam.

-

-“I will return the question on you,” said Sir Richard, in a low voice.

-

-The Fair lifted her brows.

-

-“Why, I am told, madam,” said Avenant, “that you feed on raw hearts;

-but I am willing to believe that the one lie is as certain as the

-other.”

-

-The imperious beauty bit her underlip, and laughed.

-

-“I perceive, Sir Richard,” she said, “that you do not court by

-flattery.”

-

-“I do not court at all, madam,” he answered.

-

-“Ah, true!” she replied. “You buy in the open market. It must be

-simpler; though, in the plain lodging where I hear you lie at present,

-the disposal of so responsible an establishment must exercise your

-diplomacy.”

-

-She spoke aloud, evoking a general titter; and so aloud Avenant

-answered her.

-

-“By no means, madam. I have in my sleeping-room a closet with three

-shelves. On one of these lies Beauty, unspoiled by adulation; on

-another lies Virtue, that respects her sex too well to traduce it; on

-the third lies feminine Truth, loveliest of her sisters. These are my

-whole establishment; and as they are shadows all, existing only in the

-imagination, they exercise nothing but my fondness for unattainable

-ideals.”

-

-The company broke into much laughter over this Jeremiad; and the girl

-joined her young voice to theirs. But a little glow of colour was

-showing in her cheek, verily as if Sir Richard had flicked that fair

-surface with his glove.

-

-“O!” she said, “this is a sad regale! Sure, sir, does the climate of

-Abyssinia breed no hotter than Leicestershire Quakers? Why, I have

-heard a lion roar fiercer in a caravan. Now, pray, Sir Richard, put

-off your civilities, and give us news instead of lessons. They say

-there is a form of lawless possession in the women of the country you

-visited.”

-

-“It is very true there is, madam. It is called the _Tigrétier_--a

-seizure of uncontrollable vanity, during which the victim is so

-self-centred that she is unable to attend to the interests, or even to

-distinguish the sexes of those about her. She will, for instance,

-surround herself with a circle of male admirers, assuming all the

-time, apparently, that they are the gossips of her own sex, with whom,

-like a decent woman, she would wont ordinarily, of course, to consort

-in private.”

-

-The Fair cried out, “Enough! Your stories are the most intolerable

-stuff, sir. I wish Mr. Bruce joy of your return, as I hear you are not

-to remain in England.”

-

-Then she turned her shoulder to him, her flush deepening to fire; and

-Sir Richard, bowing and moving away, fell into conversation with one

-or two of his acquaintances. Presently, looking up, he was surprised

-to see the room near empty. Goldenlocks had, in fact, issued her

-wilful mandate, and her court was dismissing itself.

-

-The explorer was pressing out after the rest, when a maidservant

-touched his sleeve, and begged him to return to her lady, who desired

-a word with him. Sir Richard acquiesced immediately. He found the Fair

-standing solitary by her dressing-table, frowning, her head bent, her

-fingers plucking at a wisp of lace. Her hair, still undressed, hung

-down deep over her shoulders, mantling them with heavy gold, like a

-priest’s chasuble.

-

-“Did you seek my acquaintance, sir,” she said imperatively, “with the

-sole purpose to insult me?”

-

-“Nay, madam,” he answered, as cool as tempered steel; “but because you

-was described to me as the one woman in London that I might not marry,

-if I had the will to.”

-

-“Why not?” was on the tip of her tongue; he saw it there. But she

-caught at herself, and answered, “So, sir, like sour reynard, I

-suppose, you would spite what you found it useless to covet.”

-

-“_I_ covet, madam!” he said, in a tone of astonishment. “_I_ aspire to

-wrest this wealth and beauty from a hundred worthier candidates!

-Believe me, my ambition halted far short of such attainment.”

-

-Her lips smiled, despite herself. What were the value, she suddenly

-thought, in a world of suitors that did not include this shagg’d and

-rugged Jeremiah? Her speech fell as caressing as the sound of water in

-a wood.

-

-“Yet you confess to some ambition?” she murmured.

-

-“True,” he answered; “the virtuoso’s.”

-

-She lifted her beautiful brows.

-

-“I will be candid, madam,” he said. “I have the collector’s itch.

-Whithersoever I visit, I lay my toll on the most characteristic

-productions of the tribes--robes, carvings, implements of war--even

-scalps. Madam, madam, you must surely be of the sun children! Your

-hair is the most lovely thing! I would give my soul--more, I would

-give a thousand pounds to possess it.”

-

-“I see, sir,” she said; “to carry your conquest at your belt.”

-

-“Nay,” he answered, with feigned eagerness. “Not a soul need know. The

-thing is done constantly. You have but to subscribe to the fashion of

-powder, and you gain a novel beauty, and I a secret I swear to hold

-inviolate.”

-

-“O!” she said softly “This is Samson come with the shears to turn the

-tables on poor Delilah!”

-

-And on the instant she flashed out, breaking upon him in a storm of

-passion. That he dared, that he dared, on no warrant but his

-reputation for inhumanity, so to outrage and insult her.

-

-“Go, sir!” she cried. “Return to your Nubians and Dacoits--to

-countries where head-hunting is considered an honourable proof of

-manliness!”

-

-He stood, as outwardly insensate as a bull.

-

-“Then you decline to deal?”

-

-Her only answer was to throw herself into a chair, and to abandon

-herself to incomprehensible weeping. But even her sobs seemed to make

-no soft impression on him. He took a step nearer to her, and spoke in

-the same civil and measured tone he had maintained throughout.

-

-“Take care, madam. I never yet set my will upon a capture that in the

-long run escaped me.”

-

-She checked her tears, to look up at him with a little furious laugh.

-

-“Poor boaster!” she said. “I think, perhaps, that recounting of your

-Tigrétier hath infected you with it.”

-

-“By my beard, madam,” said he, “I will make that hair my own!”

-

-“See,” she cried jeeringly, “how a boaster swears by what he has not!”

-

-Sir Richard felt to his chin.

-

-“That is soon remedied,” said he. “And so, till my oath is redeemed,

-to consign my razors to rust!” And with these words, bowing

-profoundly, he turned and left the room.

-

-Shortly after this he sailed to rejoin his expedition, and was not

-again in England during a period of eighteen months.

-

-At the end of that time, being once more in London, he devoted

-himself--his affairs having now been ordered with the view to his

-permanent residence in the country--to some guarded inquiries about

-the Fair with Golden Hair. For some days, the season of the town being

-inauspicious, he was unable to discover anything definite about her.

-And then, suddenly, the news which he sought and desired came in a

-clap.

-

-He was walking, one day, down a street of poor and genteel houses,

-when he saw her before him. He stood transfixed. There was no doubting

-his own eyesight. It was she: tall, slender, crowned with her

-accustomed glory, the flower of her beauty a little wan, as if seen by

-moonlight. But what confounded him was her condition. Her dress was

-mean, her gloves mended; every tag of cheap ribbon which hung upon her

-seemed the label to a separate tragedy. Thus he saw her again, the

-Fair with Golden Hair; but how deposed and fallen from her insolent

-estate!

-

-She mounted a step to a shabby door. While she stood there, waiting to

-be admitted, an old jaunty cavalier came ruffling it down the street,

-accosted her, and accompanied her within. She might have glanced at

-Avenant without recognizing him. The rough dark beard he wore was his

-sufficient disguise.

-

-Sir Richard made up his mind on the spot, and acted promptly. Having

-no intention to procure himself a notoriety in this business, he

-rigidly eschewed personal inquiry, and employed an official informer,

-at a safe figure, to ferret out the truth for him. This, epitomized,

-discovered itself as follows:--

-

-Cytherea--Venus Calva--Madonna of the magic girdle, who had once

-reigned supreme between wealth and loveliness, who had once eaten

-hearts raw for breakfast, feeding her roses as vampires do, was

-desolate and impoverished--and even, perhaps, hungry. A scoundrelly

-guardian had eloped with trust funds: the crash had followed at a

-blow. Robbed of her recommendation to respect; deposed, at once, from

-the world’s idolatry to its vicious solicitation, she had fled, with

-her hair and her poor derided virtue, into squalid oblivion; that, at

-least, she hoped. But, alas for the fateful recoils on Vanity! She

-drives with a tight rein; and woe to her if the rein snap! A certain

-libidinous and crafty nobleman, of threescore or so years, had

-secured, in the days of the Fair’s prosperity, some little bills of

-paper bearing that beauty’s signature. These he had politicly withheld

-himself from negotiating, on the mere chance that they might serve him

-some day for a means to humiliate one who, in the arrogance of her

-power, had scoffed at his amatory, and perfectly honourable,

-addresses. That precaution had justified itself. The peer was now come

-to woo again, and less scrupulously, with his hand on a paper weapon,

-one stroke from which alone was needed to give the Fair’s poor

-drabbled fortune its quietus. She was at bay, between ruin and

-dishonour.

-

-Sir Richard came immediately to a resolve, and lost no time in giving

-it effect. He wrote a formal note to the Fair, recalling himself

-courteously to her remembrance, reminding her of his original offer,

-and renewing it in so many words. He would do himself the honour, he

-said, to wait upon her for her answer on such and such a day.

-

-To this he received no reply; nor, perhaps, expected one. He went,

-nevertheless, to his self-made appointment with the imperturbable

-confidence of a strong man.

-

-Passing, on his way, by a perruquier’s, he checked himself, and stood

-for some moments at gaze in a motionless reverie. Then he entered the

-shop, made a purchase, and, going to a barber’s, caused himself to be

-shorn, shaved, and restored to the conventional aspect. Thus

-conditioned, he knocked at the Fair’s door, and was ushered up--bawled

-up, rather, by a slattern landlady--into her presence.

-

-She rose to face him as he entered. She had his letter in her hand.

-Her beautiful hair, jealous, it seemed, to withdraw itself from the

-curioso’s very appraisement, was gathered into and concealed under a

-cap. Her features, thus robbed of their dazzling frame, looked

-curiously, sadly childish and forlorn. There were dark marks round her

-eyes--the scarce dissipated clouds of recent tears. Who can tell what

-emotions, at sight of this piteous, hard-driven loveliness, stirred

-the heart of the man opposite, and were repressed by his iron will?

-

-“This letter, sir,” said the Fair, holding out the paper in a hand

-which shook a little. “I have tacitly permitted you to presume a right

-to a personal answer to that which it proposes, because such a course

-appeared to me the least compromising. I cannot write my name, sir,

-nowdays--as scandal doubtless hath informed you--but Fortune will be

-using it to my discredit.”

-

-Sir Richard bowed.

-

-“There is this difference only, madam: _my_ word is the bond of a

-gentleman. I vowed you secrecy.”

-

-“That is to assume, on your part,” she said quietly, “a

-confidentialness which, in its insult to misfortune, is at least not

-the _act_ of a gentleman. Moreover, a gentleman, surely, had not taken

-advantage of circumstances to propose to destitution what affluence

-had once refused him.”

-

-“Beware, madam!” said Avenant. “Pride must make some sacrifices to

-virtue. If, in renewing a pure business offer, I, a simple instrument

-in the hands of Providence, give you an opportunity to maintain that

-priceless possession unimpaired, would it not be the truer

-self-respect to secure your honour at whatever cost to your

-sentiments?”

-

-“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have not forgotten, nor forgotten to

-resent, my self-constituted Mentor. I will assure him that, for the

-matter of my virtue, it is safe in my hands, though I have to arm

-those against myself.”

-

-“Good heavens, madam!” cried Avenant. “You are not at that resource?”

-

-“Give yourself no concern, sir,” she answered coldly. “The moral I

-learned of your insult, was to save myself in its despite.”

-

-His deep eyes glowed upon her.

-

-“You have sold your hair?” he said.

-

-“Yes,” she answered; “to pay my debts. ’Twas your letter decided me.”

-

-“At a thousand pounds?”

-

-“At a hundred.”

-

-Then she added, as if irresistibly, because she was still little more

-than a child, “And now, sir, how is the boaster vindicated? But your

-oath, I perceive, still goes beardless.”

-

-“Within the hour only,” said he; and, thrusting his hand into his

-breast, he drew out the long tresses of the Fair With Golden Hair.

-

-She stared, amazed a moment; then threw herself upon her knees by a

-chair, weeping and crying out--

-

-“O, I hate you, I hate you!”

-

-He strode, and stood over her.

-

-“I saw them through a window as I came. How could I mistake them?

-There is not their like in the world. But now, my oath redeemed, it is

-for you to say if I am to destroy them.”

-

-“O, my hair!” she wept; “my one beauty!”

-

-“I have staked all on this,” he cried. “If your hair was your one

-beauty, my beard alone redeemed me from appalling ugliness by so much

-as it hid of me. Well, I have lost on both counts, if the net result

-is your hatred.”

-

-She looked up, with drowned bewildered eyes, and held out her hand

-blindly.

-

-“Give me back my hair,” she said, “and you shall have the hundred

-pounds.”

-

-“Nay, sweet Delilah,” quoth he; “for that would be to return you your

-strength, and I want you weak.”

-

-Her arm dropped to her side.

-

-“That you may insult me with impunity!” she said bitterly.

-

-“Ah, Delilah!” he cried; “is it so bad, that the offer of my hand and

-heart is an insult to a woman?”

-

-She sank back, sitting on her heels. From under her cap, fallen awry,

-curled shavings of gold hung out--the residue of a squandered wealth.

-Her eyes were wide with amazement.

-

-“So bad?” she whispered. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

-

-He was not a conformable wooer. The love-wise sex shall say if he was

-a diplomatic one. He threw himself on his knees beside the Fair,

-seized her in his bear-like grip, and kissed her lips.

-

-“Now,” he said, “it is neck or nothing. None but a parson can wipe out

-the stain. Hate me now, and put Love to bed for by and by.”

-

-She smiled suddenly--like the rainbow; like an angel.

-

-“Yes,” she said, “if you insist. But the poor thing has slept so long

-in my heart, that it would fain wake up at last, and confess itself.”

-

-

-The peer took his settlement with a very bad grace; but he had to take

-it, and there was an end of him.

-

-“Avenant,” whispered the Fair, on the evening of their wedding day, “I

-have been vain, spoiled, perhaps untruthful. But I wished to tell

-you--you can put me to sleep on the middle shelf of your cupboard.”

-

-“It has been converted into a closet for skeletons,” he said. “I was a

-bachelor then.”

-

-

-

-

- THE LOST NOTES

-

-The faculty of music is generally, I believe, inimical to the

-development of all the other faculties. Sufficient to itself is the

-composing gift. There was scarcely ever yet a born musician, I do

-declare, who, outside his birthright, was not a born ass. I say it

-with the less irreverence, because my uncle was patently one of the

-rare exceptions which prove the rule. He knew his Shakespeare as well

-as his musical-glasses--better than, in fact; for he was a staunch

-Baconian. This was all the odder because--as was both early and late

-impressed upon me--he had a strong sense of humour. Perhaps an eternal

-study of the hieroglyphics of the leger lines was responsible for his

-craze; for craze I still insist it was, in spite of the way he took to

-convince me of the value of cryptograms. I was an obstinate pupil, I

-confess, and withstood to the end the fire of all the big guns which

-he--together with my friend, Chaunt, who was in the same line--brought

-to bear upon me.

-

-Well, I was honest, at least; for I was my uncle’s sole provisional

-legatee, and heir presumptive to whatever small fortune he had amassed

-during his career. And day by day, as the breach between us widened, I

-saw my prospect of the succession attenuating, and would not budge

-from my position. No, Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I said, and Bacon,

-Bacon; and not all the cyphers in the world should convince me that

-any profit was to be gained by either imagining or unravelling a

-single one of them.

-

-“What, no profit!” roared my uncle. “But I will persuade you, young

-man, of your mistake before I’m done with you. Hum-ti-diddledidee! No

-profit, hey? H’m--well!”

-

-Then I saw that the end was come. And, indeed, it was an open quarrel

-between us, and I was forbidden to call upon him again.

-

-I was sorry for this, because, in his more frolicsome and

-uncontroversial moments, he was a genial companion, unless or until

-one inadvertently touched on _the_ theme, when at once he exploded.

-Professionally, he _could_ be quite a rollicking blade, and his

-settings of plantation songs were owned to be nothing less than lyric

-inspirations. Pantomime, too, in the light of his incidental music,

-had acquired something more than a classical complexion; and, in the

-domain of knockabout extravaganza, not only did the score of “The Girl

-who Knew a Thing or Two” owe to him its most refined numbers, but also

-the libretto, it was whispered, its best Attic _bonnes-bouches_.

-

-However, all that good company I must now forgo--though Chaunt tried

-vainly to heal the breach between us--and in the end the old man died,

-without any visible relenting towards me.

-

-I felt his loss pretty keenly, though it is no callousness in me to

-admit that our long separation had somewhat dulled the edge of my

-attachment. I expected, of course, no testamentary consideration from

-him, and was only more surprised than uplifted to receive one morning

-a request from his lawyers to visit them at my convenience. So I went,

-soberly enough, and introduced myself.

-

-“No,” said the partner to whom I was admitted, in answer to a question

-of mine: “I am not in a position to inform you who is the principal

-beneficiary under our friend’s will. I can only tell you--what a few

-days before his death he confided to us, and what, I think, under the

-circumstances, you are entitled to learn--that he had quite recently,

-feeling his end approaching, realized on the bulk of his capital,

-converted the net result into a certain number--five, I think he

-mentioned--of Bank of England notes, and… burned ’em, for all we know

-to the contrary.”

-

-“Burned them!” I murmured aghast.

-

-“I don’t say so,” corrected the lawyer drily. “I only say, you know,

-that we are not instructed to the contrary. Your uncle” (he coughed

-slightly) “had his eccentricities. Perhaps he swallowed ’em; perhaps

-gave ’em away at the gate. Our dealings are, beyond yourself, solely

-with the residuary legatee, who is, or was, his housekeeper. For her

-benefit, moreover, the furniture and effects of our late client are to

-be sold, always excepting a few more personal articles, which,

-together with a sealed enclosure, we are desired to hand over to you.”

-

-He signified, indeed, my bequest as he spoke. It lay on a table behind

-him: A bound volume of minutes of the Baconian Society; a volume of

-Ignatius Donnelly’s Great Cryptogram; a Chippendale tea-caddy (which,

-I was softened to think, the old man had often known me to admire); a

-large piece of foolscap paper twisted into a cone, and a penny with

-which to furnish myself with a mourning ring out of a cracker.

-

-I blushed to my ears, regarding the show; and then, to convince this

-person of my good-humoured sanity, giggled like an idiot. He did not

-even smile in reply, the self-important ass, but, with a manner of

-starchy condescension, as to a wastrel who was getting all his

-deserts, rose from his chair, unlocked a safe, took an ordinary sealed

-envelope from it, handed it to me, and informed me that, upon giving

-him a receipt, I was at liberty to remove the lot.

-

-“Thanks,” I said, grinding my astral teeth. “Am I to open this in your

-presence?”

-

-“Quite inessential,” he answered; and, upon ascertaining that I should

-like a cab called, sent for one.

-

-“Good morning,” he said, when at last it was announced (he had not

-spoken a word in the interval): “I wish you good morning,” in the

-morally patronizing tone of a governor discharging a prisoner.

-

-I responded coldly; tried, for no reason at all, to look threatening;

-failed utterly, and went out giggling again. Quite savagely I threw my

-goods upon the seat, snapped out my address, closed the apron upon my

-abasement, and sat slunk into the cavity behind, like a salted and

-malignant snail.

-

-Presently I thumped the books malevolently. The dear old man was

-grotesque beyond reason. Really he needn’t have left life cutting a

-somersault, as it were.

-

-But, as I cooled outwardly, a warmer thought would intrude. It drew,

-somehow, from the heart of that little enclosure lying at the moment

-in my pocket. It was ridiculous, of course, to expect anything of it

-but some further development of a rather unkind jest. My uncle’s

-professional connexion with burlesque had rather warped, it would

-appear, his sense of humour. Still, I could not but recall that story

-of the conversion of his capital into notes: and an envelope----!

-

-Bah! (I wriggled savagely). It was idiotic beyond measure so to

-flatter myself. Our recent relations had precluded for ever any such

-possibility. The holocaust, rather! The gift to a chance passer-by, as

-suggested by that fool of a lawyer! I stared out of the window,

-humming viciously, and telling myself it was only what I ought to

-expect; that such a vagary was distinctly in accordance with the

-traditions of low comedy. It will be observed that I was very

-contemptuous of buffoonery as a profession. Paradoxically, a joke is

-never played so low as when it is played on our lofty selves.

-

-Nevertheless, I was justified, it appeared. It may be asked, Why did I

-not at once settle the matter by opening the envelope in the cab?

-Well, I just temporized with my gluttony, till, like the greedy boy, I

-could examine my box in private--only to find that the rats had

-devoured all my cake. It was not till I was shut into my sitting-room

-that I dared at length to break the seal, and to withdraw----

-

-Even as it came out, with no suggestion of a reassuring crackle, I

-realized my fate. And this was it: please to examine it carefully--

-

-

-[IMAGE: images/img_197.jpg, “Musical notes”]

-

-

-Now, what do you make of it? “_Ex nihilo nihil fit_,” I think you will

-say with me. It was literally thus, carefully penned in the middle of

-a single sheet of music-paper--a phrase, or _motif_, I suppose it

-would be called--an undeveloped memorandum, in fact--nothing else

-whatever. I let the thing drop from my hand.

-

-No doubt there was some capping jest here, some sneer, some vindictive

-sarcasm. I was not musician enough to tell, even had I had spirit for

-the endeavour. It was unworthy, at least, of the old man--much more,

-or less, than I deserved. I had been his favourite once. Strange how

-the _idée fixe_ could corrode an otherwise tractable reason. In

-justice to myself I must insist that quite half my disappointment was

-in the realization that such dislike, due to such a trifle, could have

-come to usurp the old affection.

-

-By and by I rose dismally, and carried the jest to the piano. (Half a

-crown a day my landlady exacted from me, if I so much as thumped on

-the old wreck with one finger, which was the extent of my talent.)

-Well, I was reckless, and the theme appeared ridiculously simple. But

-I could make nothing of it--not though Mrs. Dexter came up in the

-midst, and congratulated me on my performance.

-

-When she was gone I took the thing to my chair again, and resumed its

-study despondently. And presently Chaunt came in.

-

-“Hullo!” he said: “how’s the blooming legatee?”

-

-“Pretty blooming, thanks,” I said. “Would you like to speculate in my

-reversion? Half a crown down to Mrs. Dexter, and the use of the tin

-kettle for the day.”

-

-“Done,” he said, “so far as the piano’s concerned. Let’s see what

-you’ve got there.”

-

-He had known of my prospective visit to the lawyers, and had dropped

-in to congratulate me on _that_ performance. I acquainted him with the

-result; showed him the books, and the tea-caddy, and the penny, and

-the remnants of foolscap--finally, handed him the crowning jest for

-inspection.

-

-“Pretty thin joke, isn’t it?” I growled dolefully. “Curse the money,

-anyhow! But I didn’t think it of the old man. I suppose you can make

-no more of that than I can?”

-

-He was squinting at the paper as he held it up, and rubbing his jaw,

-stuck out at an angle, grittily.

-

-“H’m!” he said, quite suddenly, “I’d go out for a walk and revive

-myself, if I were you. I intend to hold you to that piano, for my

-part; and you wouldn’t be edified.”

-

-“No,” I said: “I’ve had enough of music for a lifetime or so! I fancy

-I’ll go, if you won’t think me rude.”

-

-“On the contrary,” he murmured, in an absorbed way; and I left him.

-

-I took a longish spin, and returned, on the whole refreshed, in a

-couple of hours. He was still there; but he had finished, it appeared,

-with the piano.

-

-“Well,” he said, rising and yawning, “you’ve been a deuce of a time

-gone; but here you are”--and he held out to me indifferently a little

-crackling bundle.

-

-Without a word I took it from his hand--parted, stretched, and

-explored it.

-

-“Good God!” I gasped: “five notes of a thousand apiece!”

-

-He was rolling a cigarette.

-

-“Yes,” he drawled, “that’s the figure, I believe.”

-

-“For me?”

-

-“For you--from your uncle.”

-

-“But--how?”

-

-He lighted, took a serene puff or two, drew the _jest_ from his

-pocket, and, throwing it on a chair, “You’ll have to allow some value

-to cryptograms at last,” he said, and sat down to enjoy himself.

-

-“Chaunt!”

-

-“O,” he said, “it was a bagatelle. An ass might have brayed it out at

-sight.”

-

-“Please, I am something less than an ass. Please will you interpret

-for me?” I said humbly.

-

-He neighed out--I beg _his_ pardon--a great laugh at last.

-

-“O,” he cried: “your uncle was true blue; he stuck to his guns; but I

-never really supposed he meant to disinherit you, Johnny. You always

-had the first place in his heart, for all your obstinacy. He took his

-own way to convince you, that was all. Pretty poor stuff it is, I’m

-bound to confess; but enough to run _your_ capacities to extinction.

-Here, hand it over.”

-

-“Don’t be hard on me,” I protested, giving him the paper. “If I’m all

-that you say, it was as good as cutting me off with a penny.”

-

-“No,” he answered: “because he knew very well that you’d apply to me

-to help you out of the difficulty.”

-

-“Well, help me,” I said, “and, in the matter of Bacon, I’ll promise to

-be a fool convinced against my will.”

-

-“No doubt,” he answered drily, and came and sat beside me. “Look

-here,” he said; and I looked:--

-

-

-[IMAGE: images/img_200.jpg, “Musical notes”]

-

-

-“You know your notes, anyhow,” said he. “Well, you’ve only got to read

-off these into their alphabetical equivalents, and cut the result into

-perfectly obvious lengths. It’s child’s play so far; and, indeed, in

-everything, unless this rum-looking metronome beat, or whatever it may

-be, bothers you for a moment.”

-

-He put his finger on the crazy device perched up independently in the

-left-hand corner; and then came down to the lines again.

-

-“Let that be for the moment,” said he. “It don’t much signify, after

-all. How do these notes go? that’s the main question. Read ’em off.”

-

-I spelt them out, following his finger: “b a c e f d e c a d e c.”

-

-“That’s a good boy,” he said. “And now, what are these things beyond,

-that have run off the lines, so to speak?”

-

-“What are they? Why, I don’t see what they can be but notes.”

-

-“Exactly. Five notes.”

-

-I stared at the bundle in my hand, and then up at Chaunt.

-

-“O-o-o-o!” I exclaimed.

-

-He uttered a loud ironic laugh. “Well,” he said: “what does ‘b a c e f

-d e c a d e c’ spell?”

-

-I scratched my nose. “You tell me, please.”

-

-“O Jerusalem!” he cried, and took his pencil to the line, thus: b a c

-| e f | d e | c a d e | c--

-

-“Well?” he said again.

-

-I shook my head.

-

-He positively stamped. “Listen here,” he cried: “‘bac ef de cad-e

-c’--_don’t_ you see?”

-

-“No.”

-

-“O, you ineffable ass! ‘Back of the caddy’ (that’s to say the

-tea-caddy; there it is), ‘see’--see what? What follows? Why, five

-notes, don’t they? ‘Back of the caddy see five notes’--and there

-_they_ are.”

-

-I sank in a heap in my chair. Light had dawned on me. “And you found

-’em there, I suppose?” I murmured--“behind a false back or something?”

-

-He nodded. “You’re getting on.”

-

-“And, please, what’s the thing at the top?” I continued faintly. “Let

-me get it all over at once.”

-

-“Ah!” he said: “there’s a trifle more ingenuity in that, perhaps. What

-is it, to begin with? A demisemiquaver balanced on the top of an M Y,

-eh?”

-

-“So it appears to me.”

-

-“To any one. Don’t be frightened. Try it every way round, and conclude

-with this: ‘On the top of M Y’--that is to say, ‘_on_ M Y,’ which is

-_my_, ‘a demisemiquaver’: or, shorn of all superfluities (he pencilled

-it down), thus: ‘on my demisemiquaver.’ Now apply the same process.”

-

-I looked; pondered; felt myself instantly and brilliantly inspired;

-seized the pencil from him, and ticked off the measurements:--

-

-“On my demise | mi | q | u | av | er.”

-

-“Exactly,” said Chaunt, rising with the air of an at-length-released

-martyr, and proceeding to roll another cigarette: “‘On my demise, my

-cue you have here.’ ’Pon my word, without irreverence, it’s worthier

-of the composer of ‘Say, den, Julius, whar yo’ walkin’ roun’?’ than of

-the author of ‘Some Unnoticed Sides of Bacon.’ But all one can say is

-that he adapted himself to the intellectual measure of his legatee.

-Have you got a match?”

-

-I must end, I am really ashamed to say, with this. Anyhow, in one way

-my uncle was triumphant: I was convinced, at last and at least, of _a_

-value in cryptograms.

-

-

-

-

- THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE

- WORLD

-

-He was nicknamed, ironically, Carabas--a sort of French equivalent

-for Fortunatus--the only title by which I ever knew him. Perhaps the

-underlying sympathy which impelled the jest reconciled him to its

-mockery; for there is, after all, an acute distinction in being the

-unluckiest man in the world. Somebody says somewhere that it is better

-to “lead” in hell than be a super in heaven. There came a time, I

-think, when Carabas would have resented good fortune as an outrage. It

-would have broken his record, and made him commonplace at a blow. As

-with Hawthorne’s young woman who was bred and throve on poisons, a

-normal dietary would have been fatal to him. Carabas was nurtured on

-ill-luck.

-

-I made his acquaintance at Verey’s in Montreux. It was for ever

-Carabas here and Carabas there, and, sometimes, in badinage, M. le

-Marquis; for the fellow was always in huge request for his capability

-and good-humour. There was a great deal of commiseration being shown

-for him when I first arrived. Latterly he had drawn a prize

-ticket--for thirty thousand francs, I think it was--in some State

-lottery. But, alas! a few days before the declaration of the winning

-numbers, he had parted with his voucher for a trifle over cost price.

-We got up a consolation subscription for him in the hotel--relatively,

-quite a respectable little sum--which, with effusive thanks, he

-deposited in the Bureau de Secours Mutuels. The bank stopped payment

-almost at once, and Carabas lost his nest-egg, with a prospect of

-future “calls” from the parent cuckoo.

-

-After that, we abandoned him to his Nemesis. We had recognized

-finally, I suppose, that vails to him meant nothing but tips to his

-evil destiny, to whom, as to a rapacious head-waiter, they all

-accrued. And so he himself was convinced with us. He showed himself

-neither surprised nor aggrieved; but remained the sunniest fatalist,

-with just a touch of wistfulness, which Nature had ever produced out

-of a union between Candour and Philosophy.

-

-I don’t know what his official position was. I don’t think he knew

-himself. He wore a plain peaked cap, and a sleeved waistcoat with

-brass buttons, and was, loosely, jackal to the tremendous concierge

-whose bullion took the costly glass tabernacle in the hall with

-splendour. Carabas himself was not at all a figure of splendour. He

-was small, and placable in expression, with smiling cheeks, mobile

-lips, pencilled over by a tiny black moustache, and strength visible

-in nothing but his eyes. They were his vouchers of distinction above

-the common brand.

-

-One thing certain about him was that he was an accomplished linguist;

-a second, that, for all his unspoiledness, he had a large experience

-of man, and (notably) womankind; a third, that his courage was equal

-to his good temper; a fourth, that, with every natural claim to

-consideration, his pride halted at no service, whether of skill or

-complaisance, which an unscrupulous management could exact of him; a

-fifth and last, that he permitted his employers so to presume upon his

-reputation for successlessness, as to accept from them, in reward for

-his many accomplishments, wages which would have been cheap to

-inefficiency. His own material welfare, indeed, seemed always the

-thing remotest from his interests. To be helpful to others was the sum

-of his morality.

-

-I never could satisfy myself as to his nationality. Once--as one might

-ask him anything without offence--I put the question to him. To my

-secret surprise, he seemed to hesitate a perceptible moment before he

-answered, with a smiling shrug of his shoulders--

-

-“Cosmopolitan, monsieur; a foundling of Fortune.”

-

-“We should do very well, then,” I answered, “to claim you for

-England.”

-

-Was it fancy on my part that his pleasant face paled a little? “As to

-that,” he said, “I know nothing.”

-

-“You have never been in England?”

-

-He made no reply, but began bustling over some incoming luggage,

-calling to the porters at the lift; and in a moment he left me.

-

-The next day he was taken ill. The reversion of a service of raw

-oysters, supplied to the guests at table d’hôte, had found its way to

-the supper-table of the staff. Carabas detested oysters, but his

-gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial, and Ninette, the prettiest

-of _filles de cuisine_, sat next to him. She extracted a single

-“bivalve” from her half-dozen, and put it on his plate, moueing at him

-ravishingly.

-

-“Love conquers everything, M. Carabas,” she said; “even the

-antipathies of the stomach. I will not believe in your protestations

-unless you eat this for my sake.”

-

-He swallowed it at a gulp, and--it was a bad oyster, the only doubtful

-one in the whole consignment. Later, he was very sick; and afterwards

-ill for four days. Ninette cried, and then laughed, and congratulated

-herself on her escape. But as for the hotel, it was disconsolate in

-the temporary loss of its Carabas.

-

-For my part, I was even particularly conscious of a vague discomfort

-in his absence. Somehow a certain personal responsibility which I had

-undertaken seemed to weigh upon me the more heavily for it. It was not

-that Carabas could have lightened, by any conceivable means, my

-burden. It was just a sense of moral support withdrawn at a critical

-moment. It was as if the knees of my conscience were weak, owing to

-something having gone wrong with my backbone. But I will explain.

-

-Mr. G----, a very famous lawyer in our own country, had brought his

-family, a son and daughter, to holiday in Lucerne. The boy was a

-conceited and susceptible youth; to the lady I was--engaged.

-

-There seems no reason why impressionability should spell obstinacy;

-yet very often it does. Young Miller (so I will call him) having

-invited himself, at the Schweitzerhof, into the toils of a siren--a

-patently showy and dubious one--resisted all the efforts of his family

-to help him out. Baffled, but resolute, the father thereupon shifted

-the scene to Montreux, where they were no sooner arrived than he was

-summoned home on business at a moment’s notice. In the meanwhile, to

-me (hastily called from Paris, where it had been arranged I was to

-join the party on its homeward journey), was assigned the unenviable

-and impossible task of safeguarding the family interests. Miller had

-positively refused to accompany his father home, then or thereafter,

-until his absurd “honour,” as he called his fatuity, was vindicated.

-It would never do to abandon the wretched infant in the wilderness. He

-had his independence, and was a desirable _parti_. Hence my promotion

-to an utterly fictitious authority.

-

-I knew, naturally, how it would be; and so it turned out. The head was

-no sooner withdrawn, than Mademoiselle Celestine--privately advised,

-of course, of the fact--arrived at Verey’s. Here, then, was defiance

-unequivocal--naked and unashamed, I might have said, and been nearer

-the truth of the case. For mademoiselle’s charms were opulent, and she

-made no secret of them. One would have thought a schoolboy might have

-seen through that rouge and enamel, through the crude pencilling on

-those eyelashes, through all that self-advertising display. I will not

-dwell upon its details, because their possessor made, after all, only

-a summer nightmare for us, and was early discomfited. She served, at

-best, for foil to a brighter soul; and such is her present use in the

-context.

-

-From the outset there was no finesse, no pretence of propitiation in

-her tactics. She understood that it was a matter of now or never with

-her quarry, and aimed to bring him down sitting. A woman, even the

-best of her sex, never gives “law” in these matters. She goes out to

-kill.

-

-The two together formed an opposition camp--quite flagrantly, out in

-the sunlight. I thought sometimes the boy looked unhappy; but the

-witch would never let me have _him_ to myself, and I could not

-manœuvre _her_ from under his guns. I would never have scrupled to

-roll her in the mud, could I once have got her alone. But she was too

-cunning for that; and, as for her companion, his warfare was, after

-all, an honourable warfare. And all the time I had my own particular

-Campaspe to safeguard, to console, to squire through the odious

-notoriety which her brother’s infatuation had conferred upon us all.

-

-It was Carabas, of course, who in the end procured us a way, his own,

-out of the difficulty. The scandal being common property, there was no

-need for him to affect an ignorance of it. Yet we never knew, until

-the moment of his decision, how it had been occupying his mind from

-the beginning, or how, quietly and unobtrusively, he had been studying

-to qualify himself as our advocate. “_Our_ advocate,” I say; but I

-knew his brief was for the bright eyes of Campaspe. _He_ struck for

-the credit of the hotel, he declared; and mam’selle was associated

-with the best of that. Anyhow he struck, and daringly.

-

-He had risen from his bed on the fourth day, as smiling, as

-complaisant as ever. His presence, like a genial thaw, ameliorated the

-little winter of our discontent. We greeted his reappearance with

-effusion, and dated, from the moment of it, our restoration to the

-social sanities.

-

-It was a dusk, warm evening. The peaks of the Dent du Midi, thrust

-into a dewy sky, had been slowly cooling from pink to pearl-ash, like

-ingots of white-hot steel. Everything seemed one harmony of colour,

-except our thoughts, Campaspe’s and mine, as we strolled in the

-deserted garden. The Celestine and her victim had been out boating on

-the lake. We met them, unexpectedly returning. Mademoiselle was eating

-cherries out of a bag, and daintily spitting the stones right and left

-as she advanced. I don’t know how we should have faced the

-contretemps; I had no time, indeed, at the moment, to form a decision,

-before Carabas came softly and swiftly from a leafy ambush, and took

-command of the occasion.

-

-We all, I believe, instinctively recognized it for a critical one.

-Mademoiselle’s bosom, though she laughed musically (she had managed to

-preserve, it must be owned, the unspoiled voice of a _séductrice_)

-began to rise and fall in spasms. The portier addressed her without a

-moment’s hesitation.

-

-“I take the liberty to inform madame that she is in danger.”

-

-She gave a little gasp.

-

-“But is this comedy or melodrama?” she cried vehemently.

-

-“That is,” said Carabas, “as madame shall decide. I have the plot up

-my sleeve.”

-

-“The plot!” she echoed, and fell staring at him; and then furiously

-from him to us.

-

-“Go on,” she said. “I know very well who has instigated you to this.”

-

-She checked herself, and, smiling, put out a hand towards her

-companion, as if to ask, or give, reassurance. But I noticed, already

-to my satisfaction, that the boy did not respond. As for us, we were

-in complete darkness.

-

-“I obey, madame,” said Carabas. “This plot is told in a word. There

-was once in Paris a certain notorious _courtisane et joueuse_. Will

-madame desire her name?--_à bon entendeur demi-mot_. One night this

-lady’s husband, a Corsican, from whom she was separated on an

-honourable allowance, visited, purely by accident, her establishment.

-There was a fine scene, and he wounded her severely. She was forced by

-the police to prosecute him, and the jury, amidst the plaudits of the

-public, gave their verdict--against madame. But, triumphant there, the

-husband’s vengeance was whetted rather than assuaged. He would throw

-himself upon the suffrages of his countrymen in a more drastic

-vindication of his honour. She had disguised herself--her name--had

-fled. He devoted himself to the business of pursuit. At length he

-believed he had traced her to an hotel in Territet.”

-

-Carabas shrugged his shoulders and his lips, stuck out his arms at

-right angles with his body, stiff from the elbow, and came to a

-significant stop. I declare I pitied the adventuress. Every expression

-but that of panic seemed eliminated from her face at a touch. She

-looked old and haggard; and then, as if conscious of her

-self-betrayal, collapsed in a moment, dropping her bag of cherries.

-

-“I am not very well,” she stammered; “the night air tries me.” She

-turned lividly upon the portier: “Par pitié, monsieur! C’est pour me

-prevenir que vous etes venu, non pour me trahir?”

-

-Without waiting for his answer, she gathered herself together,

-literally, folding her train about her arm; made a desperate effort at

-self-command; wrenched out a smile, and went off, quavering a little

-airy chansonnette. But, after a few steps, despite her royal amplitude

-she was running. Carabas, very pale but self-possessed, picked up the

-bag, found one cherry in it, put it in his mouth abstractedly, and--

-

-“My God!” cried Miller hoarsely.

-

-Carabas jumped, and gulped.

-

-“A thousand devils!” he cried. “You made me swallow the stone,

-monsieur.”

-

-The boy was in a fever of agitation.

-

-“Is she really that--that sort?” he said.

-

-My Campaspe fell upon his neck.

-

-“O, my dear, O, my dear, I am so sorry!” she sobbed.

-

-He put her roughly, but not unkindly, away.

-

-“I’m--I’m going back to England--to the governor,” he said.

-

-“Carabas,” I demanded privately, as we returned to the hotel, “is it a

-fact that----?”

-

-“The husband is here? No, monsieur; it is not a fact.”

-

-“But----”

-

-“It was a _cause célèbre_. I was confident I recognized madame from

-the published prints. For the rest, it was just a chance shot; but it

-hit the mark.”

-

-“Carabas, you are wonderful; and we shall not forget.”

-

-Miller was as good as his word. With characteristic disregard for any

-but his own interests, he was gone the next morning, without sign or

-message, leaving us to wobble in his backwash of scandal, and to get

-out of it as best we could. His flight, of course, threw open all the

-doors of gossip. My business in Paris being unfinished, I had to go;

-but first I did my best to provide against unpleasantnesses by

-confiding Campaspe to the care of the least slanderous _dame de

-compagnie_ I could find. I am afraid, nevertheless, she had but a poor

-time of it.

-

-A week later I received a letter from Mr. G----, who in the interval

-had returned to Montreux.

-

-“All is happily over with all,” he wrote: “with the exception, that is

-to say, of poor Carabas, who is to undergo an operation for

-appendicitis. It appears that a cherry-stone, which he swallowed

-unwittingly, did the business. The management (OWLS!) demur to the

-expense. I have insisted (FOOLS!) upon undertaking it upon my own

-account. We owe much to him; and so do they (IDIOTS!). But they don’t

-understand how to pay your debts is very often the best foresight.”

-

-It was a case of pitch and toss. For days, it appeared, Carabas’s life

-hung in the balance. In the meanwhile, I was enabled to rejoin Mr.

-G---- and his daughter at Montreux, and to take my share in the

-nursing. Between gratitude and indignation, we rather claimed Carabas

-among us. Campaspe the poor fellow simply adored. Once, when he

-fancied himself losing hold, he confided to her, while we stood by,

-some main incidents in his life. I retail them here, in an abbreviated

-form.

-

-

-

-

- CARABAS’S STORY

-

-“There is no doubt,” he said “that as truly as some men are born

-without a palate, so some men are born without luck. It is no use

-trying to remedy the deficiency; it is well, rather, to study to

-reconcile oneself to it.

-

-“I was born in an English village, of naturalized Huguenot parents.

-When I was nineteen, I fell passionately in love. I had for a rival a

-youth very strong and unscrupulous. One day he persuaded me to bathe

-with him in the river, then swollen with floods. In mid-stream he

-pounced upon me, and strove to bear me under. I struggled

-desperately--it was of no avail. Death thundered in my ears; the water

-enwrapped and proceeded to swallow me. The last thing I saw was a

-figure gesticulating and shouting on the bridge a little way above;

-then consciousness fled, and I sank. I came to myself, stranded

-somewhere in a dark channel. A mad face was bending over me. I knew

-it--it was that of the miller. I had been carried into his race, and,

-just short of the wheel, he had caught and dragged me to shore. He was

-a drunkard, of that I was aware; and he was now quite demented.

-

-“‘Mordieu!’ he said, ‘I see what you’ve come for, and the devil shan’t

-call twice for his own.’

-

-“I understood instantly. He meant himself to go with me into the

-water--to join issues with the devil who had called for him, and have

-a fine frolic into eternity with his visitor. Terror lent me strength.

-I caught at a post, and, as he leaned down, shot my whole body at him

-like a spring. He went over with a splash, and I heard the wheel

-hitch, then begin to turn again, chewing its prey. O, my friends, what

-a situation! I lay like one damned, a thousand dreadful reflections

-mastering me. I should be accused, if caught, of murdering this man.

-That terror quite devoured the other, and increased with every moment

-that I lay. Darkness came upon me, and then I rose and fled. I thought

-of nothing but to escape; and so, stealing always by night, I reached

-London.

-

-“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I

-read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your

-Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual

-spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to _save me_ from

-drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his

-marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead;

-and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave--for my body, it appeared,

-had never been recovered--the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not

-complain, therefore. Yet--ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of

-sympathizers!--_she_ had been very dear to me.”

-

-Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could

-go on.

-

-“I obtained work--under an assumed name, of course--and for many years

-found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for

-languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more

-than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and

-soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize.

-Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the

-other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees

-him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.

-

-“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for

-companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the

-Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the

-train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of

-the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the

-distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he

-could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform.

-Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and

-on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.

-

-“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full

-horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite

-scares, and--ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already

-perceived my misfortune.

-

-“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a

-great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was

-certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as

-certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now

-possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon

-the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the

-smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform

-without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been

-passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make

-my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had

-fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to

-find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human

-monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for

-the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward

-on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now

-give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought

-that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this

-dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end

-before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur,

-if he likes, to vindicate my name.”

-

-

-As he finished, Mr. G----, whose face had been wonderfully kindling

-towards the end, bent over the bed.

-

-“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter,

-confessed the whole truth before he died.”

-

-Carabas sprang up.

-

-“Monsieur!” he cried.

-

-“I am a lawyer,” said Mr. G----; “I was connected with the case. The

-man confessed, I say. If I had only known that--Carabas! Carabas! you

-were the one witness we wanted, and could not find!”

-

-Campaspe knelt down, and put a pitiful young arm round the shoulders

-of the unluckiest man in the world.

-

-“Not only we now,” she said softly, “but others also, it seems, owe

-you a great debt, dear Carabas. We shall all be unable to pay it if

-you die. If--if I give you a kiss, will you live to return it to me on

-my wedding day?”

-

-“Mademoiselle!” cried Carabas, radiant. “You shame ill-luck; you shame

-even Death. See how they turn and go out by the door! Vouchsafe me

-that dear mascot, and I swear I will live for ever.”

-

-He is now, and has been for long, our most loved and trusted servant,

-with an iron constitution, and, what is best, an unshakable conviction

-that the circumstances which led him on to his present position were,

-after all, the kindest of luck in disguise.

-

-

-

-

- JACK THE SKIPPER

-

-“Will you favour me by looking at it, young gentleman?” said the

-petitioner.

-

-_It_ was a most curious little model, which the petitioner had taken

-reverently out of a handbag. He was a hungry, eager-looking man, in a

-battered bowler, shabby frockcoat, and a primordial “comforter” which

-might have been made for Job.

-

-Mr. Edward Cantle, busy at his desk, paid no attention.

-

-“It turns, sir, literally, on a question of fresh butter,” said the

-petitioner. “Who gets it nowadays, or realizes how, between churn and

-table, every pat becomes a dumping-ground for bacilli? Here, you will

-observe, the whole difficulty is resolved. We lead the cow into the

-cart itself, milk her into a separator, turn her out, drive off, and

-the revolution of the wheels completes the process. See? No chance for

-any freebooting germ! The result is simplicity itself--the customer’s

-butter made actually on the way to his door.”

-

-Mr. Cantle put his pen in his mouth, blotted what he had been at work

-on, examined it cursorily but surely, rose, walked to the counter, and

-presented a form to the petitioner, all something with the air of a

-passionless police-inspector. He was a tall young man, loose-limbed,

-and with all his hardness, like a melancholy Punch’s show character,

-in his head. Much converse with cranks had engendered in him an air of

-perpetual unspoken protest, of exasperated resignation. For he was a

-trusted clerk in the office of the Commissioners of Patents for

-Inventions.

-

-“Exactly,” he mumbled over the goose-quill. “Thats a matter for your

-provisional specification. Good morning.”

-

-“It’s the most wonderful----”

-

-“Of course--they all are. Good morning.”

-

-“It will revolutionize----”

-

-“Naturally. You will make your petition and declaration in the proper

-forms. Good morning.”

-

-The inventor essayed another effort or two, met with no response,

-quavered out a sigh, packed up his treasure and vanished. The sound of

-his exit neither relaxed nor deepened a wrinkle on the brow of the

-neatly groomed Government official. He simply went on with his work.

-

-At half-past one o’clock, it being Saturday, he--we were going to say

-“knocked off,” but the expression would be a libel on his methodical

-refinement. He took a hansom--selecting a personably horsed one--to

-his chambers in Adelphi Terrace; lunched off four _pâté de foie

-gras_ sandwiches, already awaiting him under a silver cover, and a

-glass of chablis; changed his dress for a river suit of sober-tinted

-flannel and a Panama hat; charged himself with a morocco handbag, also

-ready prepared; drove to Waterloo, and took a first-class ticket, and

-the train--he favoured the South-Western because it was the quieter

-line of two in this connexion--to Windsor. Arrived there, he was

-hailed and joined by a friend on the platform.

-

-“Glad you’re come, Ned. I’m off colour a bit. You never are.”

-

-It was hardly an attractive reception. Mr. Cantle glanced

-interrogatively at his companion, the Honourable Ivo Monk, son of Lord

-Prior.

-

-“No?” he said. “What’s disturbing you, Monk?”

-

-“O, the devil, I think!” said the young man peevishly. “Come along,

-do, out of this.”

-

-Together they walked down to the river in almost absolute silence. Mr.

-Cantle had agreed to join his friend for an agreeable week-end on the

-water. It looked promising. He thought a little, and came to a

-characteristically uncompromising decision.

-

-“Is it anything to do with Miss Varley?”

-

-“Yes, it is.”

-

-“She--they have a houseboat here, haven’t they?”

-

-“Yes.”

-

-“Close by?”

-

-“More or less. Just above Datchet.”

-

-“Then, I think, perhaps I’d better----”

-

-“Then, I think, perhaps, you’d not. You don’t know anything about it.

-It’s not what you suppose.”

-

-“O!”

-

-A punt, in luxurious keeping with the tastes of its owner, awaited

-them at the steps. It was equipped with a number of little lockers for

-wine and food, a wealth of the downiest cushions, and an adjustable

-tilt with brass hoops for “roughing it” at nights on the water. For

-the Honourable Ivo was at the moment an aquatic gipsy, wandering at

-large and at whim, and scorning the effeminate pillow.

-

-They loitered through Romney lock, talking commonplaces, and below

-relinquished their poles and sat and drifted until the reeds held them

-up. It was a fair, sweet afternoon, full of life and merriment, and,

-in view of the crowding craft, the remotest from ghostliness.

-

-“Would you like to see her?” said Mr. Monk suddenly and unexpectedly.

-

-Cantle was never to be taken off his guard.

-

-“If it will please you, it will please me,” he said.

-

-They resumed the poles and made forward. To their left a little sludgy

-creek went up among the osiers; and, anchored at its mouth, rocked the

-vulgarest little apology for a houseboat. It seemed just one cuddy,

-mounted on a craft like a bomb-ketch, which it filled from stem to

-stern; and what with its implied restrictedness, and dingy appearance,

-and stump of a chimney, one could not have imagined a less inviting

-prison in which to make out a holiday. Yet there was a lord to this

-squalid baby galliot, and to all appearance a very contented one, as

-he sat smoking a pipe, with his legs dangling over the side. Monk

-nodded to him, and the man nodded back with a grin.

-

-“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Cantle, when out of earshot.

-

-“O, a crank! You should recognize the breed better than I do.”

-

-Mr. Cantle, thoughtfully nursing his jaw, with a frown on his face,

-had left off punting.

-

-“Don’t you know him?” he said suddenly.

-

-“We exchange civilities,” answered the other; “the freemasonry of the

-river, you understand. _There’s_ the Varleys’ boat.”

-

-Forging under the Victoria Bridge, they had come in view of a long

-line of houseboats moored under the left bank against a withy bed,

-opposite the Home Park. At one of these, hight the “Mermaid,” very

-large and handsome, they came to, and fastening on, stepped aboard. A

-sound of murmuring ceased with their arrival, and Cantle had hardly

-become aware of two figures seated in the saloon, before he was being

-introduced to one of them.

-

-Miss Varley was certainly “interesting”--tall and “English,” but with

-an exhausted air, and her eyes superhumanly large. She greeted the

-stranger sweetly, and her fiancé with a rather full, pathetic look.

-

-“Mamma’s resting a little,” she said, in a bodiless voice, “and

-Nanna’s been reading to me. Papa comes down by the seven o’clock

-train.”

-

-“And what’s Nanna been reading?” asked the young man.

-

-The old nurse held up the volume. It was the Holy Book. Monk ground

-his teeth.

-

-“Hush, Master Ivo!” whispered the woman. “You only distress her.”

-

-“I’d rather see her reading a yellow-back on a July day on the river.”

-

-The girl put a hand on his arm. “When the call has come? When my days

-are numbered, Ivo?” she said.

-

-He almost burst out in an oath.

-

-“I’d rather, if I were you, be recognized and called by my own name

-and nature,” he said bitterly. “But it’s all nonsense, Netta. Do, for

-God’s sake, believe it!”

-

-He was so obviously overwrought, the situation was so painful, that

-his friend persuaded him, on personal grounds, to leave. They punted

-across, dropped down a distance, and brought up under the bank in a

-quiet spot.

-

-“Very well,” said Cantle. “You’ll tell me, perhaps, what’s the

-matter?”

-

-“Can’t you see? She’s dying.”

-

-He dropped his face into his hands, with a groan of impotent

-suffering.

-

-“There’s some mystery here,” said his friend quietly.

-

-Monk looked up, and burst out in a sudden lost fury--

-

-“There is, by God! Jack the Skipper!”

-

-Cantle was rolling a cigarette imperturbably.

-

-“Who’s--Jack the Skipper?” he drawled.

-

-“I wish you could tell me,” cried the other. “I wish you could show

-these the way to his throat!” He held out his hands. “They’d fasten!”

-he whispered.

-

-He came all of a sudden, quite quietly, and sat by his friend. “Its

-been going on for three weeks now,” he said rapidly. “They call him

-that about here--a sort of skit on the other--the other beast, you

-know. He appears at night--a sort of ghoulish, indescribable monster,

-black and huge and dripping, and utters one beastly sound and

-disappears. Nobody’s been able to trace him, or see where he comes

-from or goes to. He just appears in the night, in all sorts of

-unexpected places--houseboats, and bungalows, and shanties by the

-water--and terrifies some lonely child or woman, and is gone. The

-devil!--O, the devil! We’ve made parties and hunted him, to no good.

-It’s a regular reign of terror hereabouts. People don’t dare being

-left alone after dark. He frightened the little Cunningham child into

-a fit, and it’s not expected to recover. Mrs. Bancock died of an

-apoplexy after seeing it. And the worst of it is, a deadly

-superstition’s seized the place. Its visit’s got to be supposed to

-presage death, and----” He seized Cantle’s hand convulsively.

-

-“Damn it! It’s unnatural, Ned! The river’s haunted--here, in Cockney

-Datchet--in the twentieth century! You don’t believe in such

-things--tell me you don’t! But Netta----”

-

-His head sank on his breast. Cantle blew out a placid whiff of smoke.

-

-“But--Miss Varley?” he said.

-

-“You know--you’ve heard, at least,” said the other, “what she was. The

-_thing_ suddenly stood before her, when she was alone, one night.

-Well--you see what she is now.”

-

-“I don’t see, nevertheless, why she don’t----”

-

-“Pack and run? No more do I. Put it to her if you like. I’ve said _my_

-say. But she’s in the grip--thinks she’s had her call--and there’s no

-moving her. Cantle, she’s just dying where she stands.”

-

-Cantle’s cigarette made a tiny arc of light, and hissed in the river.

-He had heard of epidemic hysteria. The world was full of cranks.

-

-“Now,” he said, “drop the subject, please. Shall I tell you of some

-fools I’ve come across in my time?”

-

-He related some of his experiences in the Patent Office. The most

-impudent invention ever proposed, he said, was a burglar’s tool for

-snipping out and holding by suction in one movement a disk of window

-glass. His dry self-confidence had a curiously reassuring effect on

-the other. While they ate and drank and smoked and talked, the life of

-the river had become gradually attenuated and delivered to silence; a

-mist rose and hung above the water; sounds died down and ceased,

-concentrating themselves into the persistent dismal yelp of a dog

-somewhere on the bank above; the lights in the houseboats thinned to

-isolated sparks--twelve o’clock clanged from a distant tower.

-

-Then, all at once, he was alert and quietly active.

-

-“Monk, listen to me: I’m going to cure Miss Varley.”

-

-“Ned!”

-

-“Take the paddle and work up--up the river, do you hear? I’ll sit

-forward.”

-

-The ghost of a red moon was rising in the east. They slipped on with

-scarce a sound. A sort of lurid glaze enamelled the water. All of a

-sudden a sleek bulk rose ahead right in their path, wallowed a moment

-like a porpoise, and disappeared.

-

-“Good God!” cried Monk, in a choking voice, half rising from his seat.

-

-“Keep down!” whispered his friend.

-

-“Cantle! Did you see it? Cantle! It was he!”

-

-“Keep down!”

-

-They paddled on, past the last of the boats, through the bridge, on as

-far as the squat little bomb-ketch bulking black and menacing at the

-mouth of the creek.

-

-“Hold on!” whispered Cantle. “Run her out of sight into the reeds. We

-must wade on board there.”

-

-“There? That fellow Spindler’s boat?”

-

-“Of course, now. That was his name.”

-

-“What do you mean?”

-

-“You’ll soon know.”

-

-They accomplished the feat, though near mud-foundered by the way, and

-scrambled, dripping, on board. The door of the cuddy yielded to their

-touch. Monk was beginning to gather dim light.

-

-“Don’t let me,” he whispered, almost sobbing. “Keep my hands off him.”

-

-“Leave him to me,” said Cantle gravely.

-

-Not a sound of life greeted them. They stole into the cabin and closed

-the door, almost, upon themselves.

-

-“We must yield him to-night for the sake of to-morrow,” murmured

-Cantle.

-

-“Ned! If he goes again----”

-

-“Hush! It’s not probable he’d risk a second visit, knowing her

-watched.”

-

-The crack brightened as the moon rose: glowed into a ribbon of light.

-Suddenly Cantle gripped the other’s wrist.

-

-A stealthy puddling, sucking sound close by reached their ears. Over

-the side came swarming a great shapeless fishy creature, which settled

-with a sludgy wallop on the little triangle of foredeck almost at

-their feet. Monk gave a soft, awful gasp, and, with the sound, Cantle

-had dashed open the door and flung himself upon the monster.

-

-“Quick!” he cried; “you’ve got matches! Light a

-candle--lamp--anything! Lie still, Mr. Spindler. It’s all up. I know

-you and your Marine Secret Service suit! A knife now, Monk! Out he

-comes.”

-

-He was merciless with the blade when he got it, slashing and cutting

-at the oilskin suit, splitting it from top to toe. Mr. Spindler’s red

-beard and extravagant face came out of it like a death’s-head out of

-its chrysalis.

-

-“There goes the proud monument of a lifetime,” said the madman. He had

-made no effort to resist. The first blow at this darling of his

-invention had seemed to hamstring him, morally and materially.

-

-For he was just one of Mr. Cantle’s cranks--had once invented a

-submarine travelling suit, with which he had hoped to inaugurate a new

-system of Secret Service for the Admiralty. It was an ingenious enough

-device, with some scheme of floating valves through which to breathe;

-but the authorities, after holding him on and off, would have none of

-it. Then the fate of many inventors had befallen him. Between

-practical ruin and a moral sense of wrong, he had gone crazy, and

-vowed warfare on the mankind which had discarded him. It should

-comprehend, too late, the uses of instant appearance and disappearance

-to which his invention could be put. He went mad, and ended his days

-in an asylum.

-

-On the Monday morning Mr. Cantle posted back to the Patent Office; on

-the Tuesday Miss Varley was reading De Maupassant’s “Mademoiselle

-Fifi” under the awning of the “Mermaid’s” roof; and on the Wednesday

-Mr. Ivo Monk got her to name the day.

-

-

-

-

- A BUBBLE REPUTATION

-

-

- One crowded hour of glorious life

- Is worth an age without a name.

-

-

-I had never suspected Sweeting of a desire to be “somebody.” Indeed,

-the _jeunesse dorée_, in whose ranks Nature had seemed

-unquestioningly to bestow him, is not subject to diffidence, or prone

-to the wisdom which justifies itself in a knowledge of its own

-limitations. I was familiar with his placid, cherubic face at a minor

-club or two, in the Park, in Strand restaurants and Gaiety stalls; and

-it had never once occurred to me to classify him as apart from his

-fellows of the exquisite guild. If, like Keats, he could appreciate

-the hell of conscious failure, its most poignant anguish, I could have

-sworn, would borrow from some too-late realization of the correctest

-“form” in a hat-brim or shirt-collar. I could have sworn it, I say,

-and I should have been, of course, mistaken. Keats may have claimed it

-as his poetical prerogative to go ill-dressed, and to object, though

-John, to be dubbed “Johnny.” It remained to Sweeting to prove that a

-man might be a very typical “Johnny” and a poet to boot. But I will

-explain.

-

-One day I entered the reading-room of the Junior Winston and nodded to

-Sweeting, who was seated solitary at the newspaper-table. While I was

-hunting for the “Saturday Review”--which was conducting, I had been

-told, the vivisection of a friend of mine--my attention was attracted

-by something actually ostentatious in Sweeting’s perusal of _his_

-sheet, and I glanced across. Judge my astonishment when I saw in his

-hands, not “Baily’s” or the “Pink ’Un,” but the very periodical I

-sought. I gasped; then grinned.

-

-“Hullo!” I said. “Since when have you taken to that?”

-

-He attempted to reply with a face of wondering hauteur, but gave up at

-the first twitch.

-

-“O,” he said rather defiantly, “you lit’ary professionals think no

-one’s in it but yourselves.”

-

-“In what?”

-

-“Why, this sort of thing,” he said, tapping the “Saturday”; “the real

-stuff, you know.”

-

-“Indeed,” I said, “we don’t. You’re always welcome to the reversion of

-my place in it for one.”

-

-“O, me!” he said airily. “It don’t positively apply there, you see,

-being a sort of a kind of a professional myself.”

-

-“My Sweet!” I exclaimed. “A professional--you?”

-

-“O, yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Write for the ‘Argonaut.’ Little

-thing of mine in it last number.”

-

-I felt faint.

-

-“May I see it?” I murmured. “If I don’t mistake, it’s under your elbow

-at this moment.”

-

-“Is it?” he answered, blushing flagrantly, “Lor’ bless me, so it is!”

-

-I took it from his hand, opened it, and read, over his undoubted

-signature--Marmaduke Sweeting--the title, “The Fool of the Family.”

-

-“Ah!” I thought, “of course. Like title like author.”

-

-But I was wrong. The tale, a veritable _conte drolatique_, was as keen

-and strong as a Maupassant. I had no choice but to take it at a

-draught, smacking my lips after. Then I put the paper softly down and

-looked across at him. His harmless features were set in a sort of

-hypnotic smile, his hat was tilted over his eyes, and he was making

-constant mouthfuls of the large silver knob of his stick. My eyes

-travelled to and fro between this figure and the figures of print

-_that were he_. What possible connexion could there be between the

-two? I thought of Buffon writing in lace ruffles, and all at once

-recognized a virtue in immaculate shirt-cuffs, and decided to consult

-some fashionable hosier about raising my price per thousand words. In

-the meantime my respect for Sweeting was born.

-

-“So,” I said, “you are somebody after all?”

-

-“Am I?” he answered, grinning bucolic. “Glad you’ve found it out.”

-

-“Why,” I said, “honestly there’s genius in this story; but nothing to

-what you’ve shown in concealing that you had any. There must be much

-more to come out of the same bin.”

-

-He flushed and laughed and wriggled, as I walked over and sat beside

-him.

-

-“O, I dare say!” he said. “Hope so, anyhow.”

-

-“Not a doubt. What made you think of it, now?”

-

-“O! I thought of it,” he said; and, after all, there was no better

-reply to an idiotic question. I was beginning humbly to appraise

-intellectual self-sufficiency at its value, and to appreciate the

-hundred disguises of reason.

-

-I saw a good deal of Sweeting, on his own initiative, after this. He

-would visit me in my rooms, and discuss--none too sapiently, I may

-have thought in other circumstances, and with the most ingenuous

-admiration for his own abilities--the values of certain characters as

-portrayed by him in a brilliant series, “The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist,” which had immediately followed in the “Argonaut” “The

-Fool of the Family,” and was taking the town by storm. Thus, “What

-d’ee think of that old Lupin, last number,” he would chuckle, “with

-his calling virtue an ‘emu,’ don’tcherknow?”

-

-“Ha, yes!” I would correct him, with a nervous laugh. “‘Anæmia’ was

-the word. You meant it, of course.”

-

-“Why, didn’t I say it?” he would answer. “It’s got a big swallow

-anyhow”; and then he would check himself suddenly, and, without

-further explanation, eye me, and begin to whistle.

-

-Now I might recall the passage to which he referred (to wit, that

-every red blood corpuscle, being a seed peccancy, so to speak, made

-virtue an anæmia) and try to puzzle out a quite new significance in

-it. Suspecting that its author’s apparent naïveté was only assumed,

-I was respectfully guarded in my answers, and, when he was gone, would

-curiously ponder the perspicacious uses to which he would put them. He

-did not consult me, I felt, as an oracle; but rather drew upon me for

-the vulgar currency of thought, to which his exclusiveness was a

-stranger. He was very secret about his own affairs; though I

-understood that he was becoming quite an important “name” in the

-literary world. Ostensibly he was not, after that first essay, to be

-identified with the “Argonaut,” though any one, having an ounce of the

-proper appreciation, could scarcely fail to mark in the “Love-Letters”

-the right succession of qualities which had made the earlier story

-notable. Indeed, he suffered more than any man I knew from the

-penalties attaching to the popular author. The number of

-communications, both signed and anonymous, which he received from

-admirers was astonishing. Scarce a day passed but he brought me

-specimens of them to discuss and laugh over. I did not, I must admit,

-think his comments always in good taste; but then I was not personally

-subject to the flattering pursuit, and so may have been no more

-constituted to judge than a monk is of a worldling.

-

-These testimonies to his fame were from every sort of individual--the

-soldier, the divine, the poet, the painter, the actor (and more

-especially the actress), the young person with views, the social

-butterfly, the gushling late of the schoolroom, the woman of

-sensibility late of the latest lifelong passion for art or religion,

-and finding, as usual, the taste of life sour on her lips after a

-recent debauch of sentiment. They all found something in the

-“Love-Letters” to meet their particular cases--some note of subtle

-sympathy, some first intimation to their misunderstood spirits of a

-kindred emotion which had _felt_, and could lay its finger with divine

-solace on the spot. No longer would they suffer a barren

-grievance--that hair-shirt which not a soul suspected but to giggle

-over. To take, for example, from the series a typical sentence which

-served so many for a text--

-

-“_To whom does the materialist cry his defiance--to whom but to God?

-He cannot rest from baiting a Deity whose existence he denies. He

-forgets that irony can wring no response from a vacuum._” A propos of

-which wrote the following:--

-

-

- A Half-pay General.--Don’t tell me, Sir, but you’ve served, like me,

- a confounded ungrateful country, and learned your lesson! Memorialize

- the devil rather than the War Office. You’ve hit it off in your last

- sentence to a T.

-

- A Chorus Girl.--Dear Sir,--You mean me to understand, I know, and

- you’re quite right. The British public has no more ears than a ass, or

- they’d reconise who ought to be playing Lotta in “The Belle of

- Battersea.” It’s such a comfort you can’t tell. Please forgive this

- presumptious letter from a stranger.--Yours very affectionately,

-

-                                                      Dolly.

-

- An Apostolic Fisherman.--I like your metaphor. I would suggest only

- “ground-baiting a Deity” as more subtly applicable to the tactics of

- a worldling. Note: “And Simon Peter said, ‘I go a-fishing.’”

-

-

-Take, again, this excerpt: “_Doctors’ advice to certain patients to

-occupy their minds recalls the Irishman’s receipt for making a cannon,

-‘Take a hole and pour brass round it._’” Of which a “True Hibernian”

-wrote--

-

-

- Sir,--I’ve always maintained that the genuine “bull,” fathered on my

- suffering country, came from the loins of the English lion. Murder,

- now! How could a patient occupy his doctor’s mind as well as his own,

- unless he was beside himself? And then he’d have no mind at all.

-

-

-Or take, once more and to end, the sentence: “_The Past is that

-paradoxical possession, a Shadow which we would not drop for the

-Substance_”; which evoked the following from “One who has felt the

-Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret”--

-

-

- How strangely and exquisitely phrased! It brings, I know not how, the

- memory of the Channel before me. I have only crossed it once; but, O!

- the recollection! the solemn moving waters to which my soul went out!

-

-

-These are specimens, but a few, of the responses wrung by Sweeting

-from the human chords he touched. There were, in addition, prayers

-innumerable for autographs, requests for the reading of manuscripts,

-petitions for gratis copies of his works, to be sold for any and every

-charity but the betterment of impecunious authors. He fairly basked in

-the sunshine of a great reputation. There was only one flaw in his

-enormous self-satisfaction. By a singular perversity and most

-inexplicable coincidence, every one of these signed documents was

-without an address. But, after all, coincidence, which is only another

-name for the favouritism of Fate, must occasionally glut itself on an

-approved subject. Sweeting was in favour with the gods, and enjoyed “a

-high old time of it,” principally, perhaps, because he did not appear

-to be ambitious of impressing any “set” but that with which he was

-wont to forgather, and above which he made no affectation now of

-rising superior.

-

-I had an example one evening of this intellectual modesty, when

-casually visiting the Earl’s Court grounds. There I encountered my

-friend, the centre and protagonist of a select company in the

-enclosure. All exquisitely wore exquisite evening dress (for myself I

-always scornfully eschewed the livery), and all gravitated about

-Sweeting with the unconscious homage which imbecility pays to

-brains--“the desire of the moth for the star.” I could see at once

-that he was become their Sirius, their bright particular glory,

-reflecting credit upon their order. And he, who might have commanded

-the suffrages of the erudite, seemed content with his little

-conquest--to have reached, indeed, the apogee of his ambition--a

-one-eyed king among the blind. These suffered my introduction with

-some condescension, as a mere larva of Grub Street. They knew

-themselves now as the stock from which was generated this real genius.

-As for me, I was Gil Blas’s playwright at the supper of comedians. And

-then, at somebody’s initiative, we were all swaggering off together

-along the walks.

-

-Now, I had always had a sort of envy of the _esprit de ton_ which

-unites the guild of amiable gadflies; and, finding myself here, for

-all my self-conscious intellectual superiority, of the smallest

-account, I grew quickly sardonic. If I knew who wrote the

-“Heptameron,” I didn’t know, even by sight, the Toddy Tomes who was

-setting all the town roaring and droning with his song, “Papa’s

-Perpendicular Pants.” It is a peevish experience to be “out of it,”

-even if the _it_ is no more intelligible than a Toddy Tomes’s topical;

-and gradually I waxed quite savage. Reputation is only relative after

-all. There is no popular road to fame. As an abstract acquisition, it

-may be said to pertain at its highest to the man who combines quick

-perceptions with adaptive sympathies. I was not that man. In all, save

-exclusively my own company, I felt “out of it,” awkward because

-resentful, and resentful because awkward. I despised these asses,

-however franked by Sweeting, yet coveted, vainly, the temporary grace

-of seeming at home with them. I got very cross. And then we alighted

-on Slater.

-

-I knew it for his name by Sweeting’s greeting him in response to his

-hail. He was seated at a little table all by himself, drinking

-champagne, and alternately turning up and biting the ends of a red tag

-of beard, and luridly pulling at a ponderous cigar. He was a small,

-dingy person, so obviously inebriated, that the little human clearing

-in which he sat solitary was nothing more than the formal recognition

-of his state. He also, it was evident, to my disgust, despised the

-conventions of dress, but without any of those qualms of

-self-consciousness with which I was troubled. He lolled back, his hat

-crushed over his eyes, a hump of dicky and knotted tie escaping from

-his waistcoat-front, his disengaged thumb hooked into an arm-hole--as

-filthy a little vagabond, confident and maudlin and truculent in one,

-as you could wish. And he hailed Sweeting as a familiar.

-

-My friend stopped, with a rather sheepish grin.

-

-“Hullo, Slater!” said he. “A wet night, ain’t it?”

-

-Our little group came chuckling all about the baboon. Even then, I

-noticed, I was the one looked upon with most obvious disfavour by the

-surrounding company.

-

-“Look here,” said Sweeting, suddenly gripping me to the front. “Here’s

-one of your cloth, Slate’. Let me introjuce you,” and he whispered in

-my ear, “Awfully clever chap. You’ll like him when you know.”

-

-I suppose my instant and instinctive repulsion was patent even to the

-sot. He lurched to his feet, and swept off his crumpled hat with an

-extravaganza bow. Sweeting’s pack went into a howl of laughter. It was

-evident they were not unacquainted with the creature, and looked to

-him for some fun.

-

-“My cloth, sir?” vociferated the beast. “Honoured, sir, ’m sure, sir.

-Will you allow me to cut my coat according to it, sir? Has any

-gentleman a pair of scissors? Just the tails, sir, no more--quite

-large enough for me; and you’d look very elegent in an Eton jacket.”

-

-I tried to laugh at this idiotic badinage, and couldn’t.

-

-“O, crikey, wouldn’t he!” said a vulgar onlooker. “Like a sugar-barrel

-in a weskit.”

-

-Then, as everybody roared, I lost my temper.

-

-“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Sweeting. “It’s the way he’ll get his

-change out of you.”

-

-“Change!” I snapped furious. “No change could be for the worse with

-him, I should think. Let me pass, please!”

-

-The odious wretch was pursuing me all the time I spoke, while the

-others hemmed me in, edging me towards him and roaring with laughter.

-Sweeting himself made no effort to assist me, but stood to one side,

-irresistibly giggling, though with a certain anxiety in his note.

-

-“Call off your puppies!” I cried ragingly, and with the word was sent

-flying into the very arms of Slater. I felt something rip, and at a

-blow my hat sink over my eyes; and then a chill friendly voice entered

-into the mêlée.

-

-“O, look here, Slater, that’ll do, you know!”

-

-I wrenched my eyes free. My champion was not Sweeting, but Voules, Sir

-Francis Voules, of whom more hereafter. He was cool and vicious, and

-as faultlessly dressed as the others, but in a manner somehow superior

-to the foppery of their extreme youth. He carried a light overcoat on

-his arm.

-

-“O! _will_ it?” said Slater.

-

-“Yes, I said so,” said Voules, pausing a moment from addressing me to

-scan him. Slater slouched back to his table. Nobody laughed again.

-

-In the meantime, Sir Francis was helping me to restore my hat to

-shape, and to don _his_ overcoat.

-

-“Yours is split to the neck,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

-

-He took my arm, and we strolled off together. The crowd, quite

-respectful, parted, and we were engulfed in it.

-

-I was grateful to Voules, of course, but inexplicably resentful of his

-cool masterfulness. Truth to tell, we were souls quite antipathetic;

-and now he had put me right--with everybody but myself. In a helpless

-attempt to restore that balance, I snarled fiercely, smacking fist

-into palm--

-

-“I’ll have the law of that beast! You know him, it seems? I can’t

-congratulate you on your friends.”

-

-“Sweeting was most to blame,” said Voules quietly.

-

-I grunted, and strode on fuming.

-

-“But, after all,” said Voules, “the poor ass had to back up his

-confederate.”

-

-I glanced at him as we walked.

-

-“His confederate?”

-

-“Of course. Didn’t you know? Slater really writes the things for which

-Sweeting gets the credit.”

-

-“O, come, Voules! Here’s one of your foolhardy calumnies. You really

-should be careful. Some day you’ll get into trouble.”

-

-“O, very well!”

-

-“You talk as if it were an open secret.”

-

-“You know Sweeting as well as I. Do you recognize his style in the

-Nonconformist lucubrations? Possibly you’ve had letters from him?”

-

-“I’ve some specimens of letters _to_ him now--letters from admirers.

-If anything were needed to refute your absurd statement, there they

-are in evidence.”

-

-He gave a little dry laugh; then touched my sleeve eagerly.

-

-“You wouldn’t think it abusing a confidence to show me those letters?”

-

-“I don’t know why. Sweeting’s laid no embargo on me.”

-

-“Very well. If you’ll let me, I’ll come home with you now.”

-

-I stumbled on in a sort of haze.

-

-I did not believe this to be any more than a mad shot in the dark. Sir

-Francis was one of those men who made mischief as Pygmalion made

-Galatea. He fell in love with his own conceptions--would go any

-lengths to gratify his passion for detraction. Do not suppose, from

-his prefix, that he was a bold, bad baronet. He was just an actor of

-the new creation--belonged to what was known by doyens of the old

-Crummles school as the be-knighted profession. The stage was an

-important incident in his social life, and he seldom missed a

-rehearsal of any piece to which he was engaged.

-

-“You know this Slater?” I said, as I drove in my latchkey. “As what?”

-

-“As a clever, disreputable, and perfectly unscrupulous journalist.”

-

-“Its preposterous! What could induce him to part with such a

-notoriety?”

-

-“The highest bidder, of course.”

-

-“What! Sweeting? If he’s still the simple Johnny you’d have him be?”

-

-“I’m yet to learn that the simple Johnny lacks vanity.”

-

-“But, for him, such an unheard-of way to gratify it!”

-

-“Opportunism, sir. There are more things in the Johnny’s philosophy

-than we dream of.”

-

-“Well, I simply don’t believe it.”

-

-Voules read, with an immobile face, the letters which Sweeting had

-left with me. At the end he looked up.

-

-“Are you open to a bet?”

-

-“Can’t afford it.”

-

-“Never mind, then.” He rose. “Truth for its own sake will do. Anyhow,

-I presume you don’t object to countering on Slater?”

-

-“O, do what you like!”

-

-“Thanks. Would you wish to be in at the death?”

-

-“Just as you please.”

-

-“You see,” said he, with a pleasant affectation of righteousness, “if

-my surmise is correct--and you’re the first one I’ve ventured to

-confide in--it’s my plain duty to prick a very preposterous bubble.

-Thank you for lending yourself to the cause of decency. Don’t say

-anything until you hear from me. Good-bye!”--and he was gone, followed

-by my inclination, only my inclination, to hurl a book after him.

-

-I sat tight--always the more as I swelled over the delay--till, on the

-third day following, Sweeting called on me. He came in very

-shamefaced, but with a sort of suppressed triumph to support his

-abjectness.

-

-“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said; “and I gave him a bit of my

-mind after you’d gone.”

-

-“Indeed,” I answered good-humouredly; “that was what you couldn’t well

-afford, and it was generous of you.”

-

-He was blankly impervious to the sarcasm. Had it been otherwise, my

-new-fledged doubts had perhaps fluttered to the ground. After a moment

-I saw him pull a paper from his pocket.

-

-“Look here,” he said, vainly trying to suppress some emotion, which

-was compound, in suggestion, of elation and terror. “You’ve made your

-little joke, haven’t you, over all those other people forgettin’ to

-put their addresses? Well, what do you think of _that_ for the Prime

-Minister?”

-

-I took from his hand a sheet of large official-looking paper, and

-read--

-

-

- Dear Sir,--You may have heard of my book, “The Foundations of

- Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested to learn that I am

- contemplating a complete revision of its text in the light of your

- “Love-Letters.” They are plainly illuminating. From being a man of no

- assured opinions, I have become converted, through their medium, to a

- firm belief in the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me

- the honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-scribe

- the author of that incomparable series. I shall do myself the pleasure

- to call upon you at your rooms at nine o’clock this evening, when I

- have a little communication to make which I hope will not be

- unpleasing to you. Permit me to subscribe myself, with the profoundest

- admiration, your obedient servant,

-

-                                                J. A. Burleigh.

-

-

-“Well,” I murmured, feeling suffocated, “there’s no address here

-either.”

-

-“No,” he answered; “but, I say, it’s rather crushing. Won’t you come

-and help me out with it?”

-

-“What do you want _me_ for?” I protested. “I’ve no wish to be

-annihilated in the impact between two great minds. You aren’t afraid?”

-

-“O, no!” he said, perspiring. “It’ll be just a shake, and ‘So glad,’

-and ‘Thanks, awfully,’ I suppose, and nothing more to speak of. But

-you might just as well come, on the chance of helping me out of a

-tight place. It’s _viva voce_, don’tcherknow--not like writin’, with

-all your wits about you. And I shall get some other fellows there,

-too, so’s we aren’t allowed to grow too intimate; and you might as

-well.”

-

-“I wonder what the ‘communication’ is?” I mused.

-

-“O, nothin’ much, I don’t suppose,” said Sweeting, with a blushing

-nonchalance. But it was evident that he had pondered the delirious

-enigma and emerged from it Sir Marmaduke.

-

-“Well,” I concluded rather sourly, “I’ll come.”

-

-He went away much relieved, and I fell into a fit of stupor. In the

-afternoon a telegram from Voules reached me, “Be at Sweeting’s 8.45

-to-night.”

-

-At a quarter to nine I kept my appointment. Sweeting was insufferably

-well-to-do, and his rooms were luxurious. They were inhabited at the

-moment by an irreproachable and almost silent company. Among them I

-encountered many of the young gentlemen who had been witnesses of, and

-abettors in, my discomfiture the other night. But they were all too

-nervous now to presume upon the recognition--too oppressed with the

-stupendous nature of the honour about to be conferred upon their

-host--too self-weighted with their responsibility as his kindred and

-associates. They could only ogle him with large eyes over immensely

-stiff collars, as he moved about from one to another, panic-struck but

-radiant. It was the crowning moment of his life; yet its sweeter

-aftermath, I could feel, reposed for him in the sleek necks of

-champagne-bottles just visible on a supper-table in the next room. He

-longed to pass from the test to the toast, and the intoxicating memory

-of a triumph happily accomplished. And then suddenly Slater came in.

-

-He was not expected, I saw in a moment. Indeed, how could such a

-death’s-head claim place at such a feast? He was no whit improved upon

-my single memory of him, unless, to give the little beast his due, a

-shade less inebriated. But he was as grinning, cocksure, and truculent

-a little Bohemian as ever. Sweeting stared at him aghast.

-

-“Good Lord, Slate’,” said he, “what brings you here, now?”

-

-“Why, your wire, old chap,” said the animal.

-

-“I never sent one, I swear.”

-

-“Oho!” cries Slater, glaring. “D’ you want to go back on your word?

-Ain’t I fine enough for this fine company?” and he pulled a dirty

-scrap of paper out of his pocket, and screeched, “Read what you said

-yourself, then!”

-

-The telegram went round from hand to hand. I read, when it came to my

-turn: “Come supper my rooms 8.45 to-night. M. Sweeting.”

-

-“I never sent it,” protested our host. “It must be a hoax. Look here,

-Slate’. The truth is, the Prime Minister wrote he wanted to make my

-acquaintance, because--because of the ‘Letters,’ you know; and--and

-he’s due here in a few minutes.”

-

-The creature grinned like a jackal.

-

-“My eyes, what fun!” he said. “I shall love to see you two meet.”

-

-“There’s--there’s fizz in the next room, Slate’,” said the miserable

-Sweeting.

-

-“You needn’t tell me,” said Slater. “I’d spotted it already.”

-

-And then, before another word could be said, the door was opened, and

-the guest of the evening announced.

-

-He came in smiling, ingratiatory, the familiar willowy figure in

-pince-nez. We all rose, and the stricken Sweeting advanced to meet

-him. The great man, looking, it is true, a little surprised over his

-reception, held out his hand cordially.

-

-“And is this----” he purred--and paused.

-

-Sweeting did not answer: he was beyond it; but he nodded, and opened

-his mouth, as if to beg that the “communication” might be posted into

-it, and the matter settled off-hand.

-

-“I did not, I confess,” said the Premier, glancing smilingly round,

-“expect my little visit of duty--yes, of duty, sir--to provoke this

-signal welcome on the part of a company in which I recognize, if I

-mistake not, a very constellation of the intellectual aristocracy.”

-

-Here a youth, with a solitaire in his eye, and a vague sense of

-parliamentary fitness, ejaculated “Hear, hear!” and immediately

-becoming aware of the enormity, quenched himself for ever.

-

-“It makes,” went on the right hon. gentleman, “the strict limit to my

-call, which less momentous but more exacting engagements have obliged

-me to prescribe, appear the more ungracious. In view of this enforced

-restriction, I have equipped myself with a single question and a

-message. Your answer to the first will, I hope--nay, I am

-convinced--justify the tenor of the second.”

-

-He released, with a smile, the hand which all this time he had

-retained, much to Sweeting’s embarrassment, in his own. Finding it

-restored to him, Sweeting promptly put it in his pocket, like a tip.

-

-“I ask,” said the Premier, “the author of ‘The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist’ to listen to the following excerpt” (he produced a

-marked number of the “Argonaut” from his pocket) “from his own

-immortal series, as preliminary to some inquiry naturally evoked

-thereby”--and he read out, with the intonation of a confident orator:

-“‘We have (shall I not declare it, my sweet?) the most beautiful women

-and the most beautiful poets in the world--two very good things, but

-the latter unaccountable. Passion, in perpetuating, idyllically

-refines upon the features of its desire; hence the succession of

-assured physical loveliness in a race which, however insensible to the

-appeals of emotional and intellectual beauty, can understand and

-worship the beauty that is plain to see.’”

-

-Here the reader paused, and looking over his glasses with a smile,

-very slightly shook his head, and murmuring, “The _beauty_ that is

-_plain_ to see! H’m! a fence that I will recommend to Rosebery,”

-continued, “‘Passion endows passion, far-reaching, to bribe the gods

-with a compound interest of beauty. It touches heaven in imagination

-through its unborn generations. It tops the bunker of the world, and,

-soaring, drops, heedless of Time the putter, straight into the

-eighteenth hole of the empyrean.”

-

-The Premier stopped again, and, looking gravely at Sweeting, asked,

-“What is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-

-Now I expected my friend to reveal himself, to sally brilliantly,

-referring his questioner, perhaps, to some satire in the making, some

-latter-day Apocalypse of which here was a sample extracted for bait to

-the curious. Well, he did reveal himself, but not in the way I hoped.

-He just strained and strained, and then dropped his jaw with the most

-idiotic little hee-haw of a laugh I ever heard, and--that was all.

-

-The other, looking immensely surprised, repeated his question: “What,

-sir, I ask you, is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-

-“Why, the one the Irishman poured brass round.”

-

-I started. It was not Sweeting who spoke, but Slater. The little demon

-stood grinning in the background, his tongue in his cheek, and his

-hands in his trousers pockets.

-

-“H’mph!” said the Prime Minister. “Very apt, sir. I recall the

-witticism. It is singularly applicable at the moment to the

-reorganization of the Liberal party. ‘Take a hole and pour brass round

-it.’ Exactly.”

-

-His manner, there was no denying it, was extremely severe as he again

-addressed the perspiring Sweeting--

-

-“Once more, sir,” he said, “I resume our discussion of a passage, the

-intellectual rights in which you would seem to have made over to your

-friends.” And, with a positive scowl, he continued his reading.

-

-“‘So well’ (writes the impassioned Nonconformist) ‘for the national

-appreciation of beauty that is physical. On the other hand (tell me,

-dear. It would come so reassuringly from your lips), what can account

-for the spasmodic recurrence in our midst of the inspired singer? What

-makes his reproduction possible among a people endowed with

-tunelessness, innocent of a metrical ear?’”

-

-Quite abruptly the Prime Minister ended, and, deliberately folding his

-paper, hypnotized with a searching stare his unhappy examinee.

-

-“The question, Mr. Sweeting,” said he, “is before the House. You will

-recognize it as ending--with some psychologic subtlety, to be

-continued in our next--number 10--the last published of the

-“Argonaut.” To me, I confess, the answer can be, like the Catholic

-Church, only one and indivisible. Upon the question of your conformity

-with my view depends the nature of the communication which I am to

-have the pleasure, conditionally, of making to you. Plainly, then,

-sir, what makes possible the spasmodic recurrence of the inspired

-singer in the midst of a people endowed with tunelessness and innocent

-of a metrical ear? I feel convinced you can return no answer but one.”

-

-A dead silence fell upon the room. Sweeting scratched his right calf

-with his left foot, and giggled. Then in a moment, yielding the last

-of his wits to the unendurable strain, he gave all up, and, wheeling

-upon Slater--

-

-“O, look here, Slate’!” he said. “What does?” and without waiting for

-the answer, drove himself a passage through his satellites, and

-collapsed half dead upon a sofa.

-

-The Premier, with an amazing calm, returned the “Argonaut” to his

-pocket.

-

-“Surely, sir,” said he, “this is inexplicable; but” (he made a

-denunciatory gesture with his hands) “it remains to me only to inform

-you that, conditional on your right reply to your own postulate, it

-was to have been my privilege to acquaint you of His Majesty’s

-intention to bestow upon you a Civil List pension of £250 a year;

-which now, of course----”

-

-He was interrupted by Slater--

-

-“O, that’s all one, sir! Fit the cap on the right head. The answer’s

-‘Protection,’ isn’t it? I ought to know, as I wrote, and am writing,

-the stuff.”

-

-“_You_, sir!”

-

-All eyes were turned upon the beastly little genius, as he stood

-ruffling with greed and arrogance, and thence to the sofa.

-

-“O, shut up!” said Sweeting feebly. “It was only a joke. I paid him,

-handsome I did, to let me have the kudos and letters and things. He’d

-the best of the bargain by a long chalk.”

-

-“He-he!” screeched Slater. “Why, you fool, did you think merit earned

-such recognition in this suffering world? Hope you enjoyed reading

-’em, Sweet, as I did writing ’em.” He turned, half-cringing,

-half-defiant, upon the guest. “I’m the author of the ‘Love-Letters,’

-sir--honour bright, I am; and I wrote every one of the testimonials,

-too, that that ass sets such store by. You’ll take those into

-consideration, I hope.”

-

-“I shall, sir,” thundered the other--“in my estimate of a fool and his

-decoy.”

-

-He blazed round and snatched up his hat.

-

-“Make way, gentlemen!” he roared, and strode for the door.

-

-A slip of pasteboard fluttered from his hand to the carpet; he flung

-wide the portal, banged it to behind him, and was gone.

-

-Some one, in a sort of spasmodic torpor, picked up the card, and

-immediately uttered a gasping exclamation. We all crowded round him,

-and, reading the superscription at which he was pointing, “Mr.

-Hannibal Withers, Momus Theatre,” exchanged dumbfounded glances.

-

-“Why, of course,” stuttered a pallid youth; “it was Withers, Voules’s

-pal; I reco’nize him now. He’s the Prime Minister’s double, you know,

-and--and he’s been and goosed us.”

-

-“What!” screamed Slater.

-

-But I was off in a fit of hysterical laughter.

-

-It was actually a fact. It is a mistake to suppose that your

-professional scandal-monger is prepared to build except on a

-substratum of truth. Voules had pricked the bubble as he had promised.

-The bargain, it was admitted, had been struck--on Slater’s side for

-such a consideration as would submerge him in champagne had he desired

-it. He had written and sent the manuscripts to Sweeting, who had had

-them typed, and passed them on to the “Argonaut” as his own. But the

-real author knew that his tenure was insecure so long as the other’s

-colossal vanity was not ministered to. Hence the correspondence, in

-which the little monster burlesqued his own lucubrations. It might all

-have ended in a case of perpetual blackmail (Sweeting never could see

-beyond the end of his own nose) had not the bait answered so instantly

-to Voules’s calculations.

-

-There was a bitter attack on the immorality of the stage in the next

-number of the “Argonaut,” which subsequently had to compound with

-Voules under threat of an action for libel. But Sweeting had his wish.

-He was “somebody,” as never yet. Until he took his notoriety for a

-long sea-voyage, he was more crushingly than any gentleman in the

-“Dunciad” “damn’d to fame.”

-

-

-

-

- A POINT OF LAW

-

- BY A CAPTIOUS LITIGANT

-

-Given a wet night on circuit, a bar parlour with a chattering fire,

-a box of tobacco, a china bowl of punch, and a mixed forensic company

-to discuss the lot, and what odds would you lay for or against the

-chances of a good story or so?

-

-Grope in your memory (before you answer) among legal collectanea and

-the newspaper reports of famous, or infamous, trials. What then?

-“Lord!” you admit, “these bones unearthed seem wretched remains

-indeed! I find your grooms of the horsehair, young and old, cracking

-their ineffable chestnuts for the benefit of an obsequious tipstavery;

-I find a bench so conservative that, though it be pitched in the very

-markets of chicanery, it is never to be won from its affected

-ignorance of those topical affairs which are matters, else apart, of

-common knowledge; I find the profession for ever given to whet its

-wits on a thousand examples of resourcefulness and impudence, and most

-often failing in the retort piquant.” Give me a cheeky witness to cap

-the best drollery ever uttered by counsel. Legal facetiæ, forsooth!

-The wit that tells is the wit that can cheat the gallows, not send to

-it. Any dullard can hang a dog.

-

-Look at the autobiographies of your retired legal luminaries: what

-scurvy bald reading they make as a rule. Look at--but no: he rests in

-Abraham’s bosom; he is studying the Mosaic law; we may be in need of

-him again some day.

-

-There is an odd family likeness between the personalia of lawyers and

-of actors. The fellows, out of court, stripped of their melodramatic

-trappings, can’t raise a laugh which would tickle any one less than a

-bishop. They are obsessed with the idea of their own importance. Much

-self-inflation has killed in them all sense of proportion. They prove

-themselves, the truth is, dull dogs on revision.

-

-The law is not so exhausting a study as it appears on first sight to a

-layman. Given an understanding of its main principle, which is

-syllogism, and there you are already in its Holy of Holies. As, for

-instance, I call a man a beast: a cheetah is a beast: I have called

-the man a cheater--ergo, he can proceed against me for defamation.

-There is its rubric in a nutshell--perfectly simple.

-

-However, _exceptis excipiendis_, there were Curran, and Erskine, and

-some others. There was also Brindley, the great Crown Prosecutor,

-whose eloquence was of such persuasiveness that it was said the very

-Bench _hung upon his word_. I had the chance to meet him once, in such

-a place and on such a night as I began by describing. It was in the

-“Maid’s Head” at Norwich, and my experience is at your service.

-

-It had, I knew, been a full list and a varied; yet the great man, it

-seemed, had found nothing in it all to stimulate his humorous

-faculties. The liveliness was all supplied by a pert Deputy Clerk of

-the Peace, whose bump of reverence was as insignificant as his

-effrontery was tremendous. The Bar began by tolerating him; went on to

-humour his sallies; chilled presently over his presumption; grew

-patronizing, impatient, and at last rude. He didn’t care; nor I,

-certainly. His readiness was the only relief from a congested boredom.

-

-The talk drifted, in the course of the evening, upon legal

-_posers_--circumstantial evidence, ex-statutory cases, and so forth.

-There were some dull examples proffered, and I observed, incidentally,

-that the Law, when it couldn’t hark back to precedent, was wont to

-grow a little hazy and befogged. Many solemn conundrums were

-propounded; but the Deputy Clerk, as usual, pushed himself to the

-front with an impertinence--

-

-“If I slink out of the company of a bore, am I guilty of stealing from

-his person?”

-

-“Pooh, pooh!” said Brindley, with contempt. “Don’t be flippant, sir.”

-

-The Deputy Clerk was not a whit abashed.

-

-“Sir, to you,” he said. “If that isn’t liked, I’ll propose another. If

-a woman is divorced from her husband, and a child is born to her

-before the decree is made absolute, is that child, lawfully begot,

-legitimate or illegitimate?”

-

-They were glad to take this seriously. I forget what the decision

-was--that, given the necessary interval between the decree and its

-confirmation, I think, the situation was virtually impossible.

-

-“Very well,” said the Deputy Clerk. “But perhaps one can conceive such

-a question rising. Let it pass, however; and answer me this,

-gentlemen: If one is imprisoned unjustly--that is to say, for a crime

-one has not committed--and, breaking out of prison, gives proof of

-one’s innocence, can one be indicted for prison-breaking?”

-

-This, at least, was a fair poser, and discussion on it grew actually

-warm.

-

-“Bosh!” said a fierce gentleman. “You ain’t going to justify your

-defiance of the law by arguing that the law is liable to make an

-occasional mistake--don’t tell me!”

-

-Here a very young barrister dared the revolutionary sentiment that the

-law, being responsible in the first instance to itself, might be

-treated, if caught-stumbling _in flagranti delicto_, as drastically as

-any burglar with a pistol in his hand. He was called, almost shouted,

-down. The suggestion cut at the very root of jurisprudence. The law,

-like the king who typified it, could do no wrong; witness its

-time-honoured right to _pardon_ the innocent victims of its own

-errors.

-

-“It may detain and incarcerate one for being only a suspected person,”

-said Brindley. “That its suspicions may prove unfounded, is nothing.

-It must be _cum privilegio_, or the constitution goes. A nice thing if

-the Crown could be put on its defence for an error in judgment.”

-

-“A very nice thing,” said the Deputy Clerk.

-

-Brindley snorted at him. “Perhaps,” said he sarcastically, “the

-gentleman will state a case.”

-

-The gentleman desired nothing better. I would have backed him to hold

-his own, anyhow; but, in this instance, I was gratified to gather from

-his manner that he had a real story to tell. And he had.

-

-“Gentlemen,” he said, “it occurred within my fathers memory; but my

-own is good enough to reproduce it literally. It made a rare stir in

-the Norwich of his day, and quite fluttered, I assure you, the

-dovecots of the profession.

-

-“The parties chiefly concerned in it were three: old Nicholas

-Browbody, his ward Ellen, and Mr. George Hussey, who was put on his

-trial for burglary and murder. Mr. George was quite a notable

-cracksman in his day, which was one pretty remote from ours in

-everything but the conservatism of the law. He was ‘housebreaker’ in

-the indictment; he was arrested by the Tombland patrol; and he was

-carried to court in a ‘chair,’ attended by a party of the City Guard.

-

-“George, says the story, was an elegant figure of a man, and not at

-all regardless of the modes. Dark blue coat with brass buttons, fancy

-vest, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, hair full dressed

-and a brooch in his bosom--that was how he appeared before his judges.

-

-“The facts were simple enough. On a night of November, a shot and a

-screech had been heard in Mr. Browbody’s house in Unthank, a ward of

-the city; an entrance had been made through a window, opportunely

-open, by the Watch as opportunely handy, and the housebreaker had been

-discovered, a warm pistol in his hand, standing over the body of old

-Nicholas, who lay dead on the floor with his head blown in.

-

-“The burglar was found standing, I say, like as in a stupor; the room

-was old Browbody’s study; the door from it into the passage was open,

-and outside was discovered the body of a girl, Miss Ellen, lying, as

-it were, in a dead faint. There you have the situation dashed in

-broad; and pretty complete, you’ll agree, for circumstantial

-evidence.”

-

-“Wait, my friend,” began Brindley, putting up a fat pompous hand.

-“Circumstantial, I think you said?”

-

-“Yes, I said it,” answered the Deputy Clerk coolly; “and if you’ll

-listen, you’ll understand--perhaps. I said the girl was in a faint,

-_as it were_, for, as a matter of fact, _she never came out of it for

-seven months_.”

-

-He leant back, thumbing the ashes into his pipe, and took no heed

-while the murmurs of incredulity buzzed and died down.

-

-“Not for seven months,” he repeated, then. “They called it a

-cataleptic trance, induced by fright and shock upon witnessing the

-deed; and they postponed the trial, waiting for this material witness

-to recover. But when at last the doctors certified that they could put

-no period to a condition which might, after all, end fatally without

-real consciousness ever returning, they decided to try Mr. Hussey; and

-he was tried and condemned to be hanged.”

-

-“What! he made no defence?” said a junior contemptuously.

-

-“Well, sir, can you suggest one?” asked the other civilly.

-

-“Suicide, of course.”

-

-“With the pistol there in the burglar’s own hand?”

-

-“Well, he made none, you say.”

-

-“No, I don’t say it. He declared it was ridiculous attempting a

-defence, while he lacked his one essential witness to confirm it. He

-protested only that the lady would vindicate him if she could speak.”

-

-“O, of course!”

-

-“Yes, of course; and of course you say it. But he spoke the truth,

-sir, for all that, as you’ll see.

-

-“He was lodged in Norwich Jail, biding the finish. But, before the

-hangman could get him--that time, at least--he managed to break out,

-damaging a warder by the way. The dogs of the law were let loose,

-naturally; but, while they were in full cry, Mr. Hussey, if you’ll

-believe me, walks into a local attorney’s office with Miss Ellen on

-his arm.”

-

-Brindley turned in his chair, and gave a little condescending laugh.

-

-“Incredible, ain’t it?” said the Deputy Clerk. “But listen, now, to

-the affidavits of the pair, and judge for yourselves. We’ll take Miss

-Ellen’s first, plain as I can make it:--

-

-“‘I confess,’ says she, ‘to a romantic attachment to this same

-picturesque magsman, Mr. Hussey. He came my way--never mind how--and I

-fell in love with him. He made an assignation to visit me in my

-guardian’s house, and I saw that a window was left open for him to

-enter by. My guardian had latterly been in a very odd, depressed

-state. I think he was troubled about business matters. On the night of

-the assignation, by the irony of fate, his madness came to a head. He

-was of such methodical habits by nature, and so unerringly punctual in

-his hour for going to bed, that I had not hesitated to appoint my beau

-to meet me in his study, which was both remotest from his bedroom, and

-very accessible from without. But, to my confusion and terror, I heard

-him on this night, instead of retiring as usual, start pacing to and

-fro in the parlour underneath. I listened, helpless and aghast,

-expecting every moment to hear him enter his study and discover my

-lover, who must surely by now be awaiting me there. And at length I

-_did_ hear him actually cross the passage to it with hurried steps.

-Half demented, dreading anything and everything, I rushed down the

-stairs, and reached his room door just in time to see him put a pistol

-to his head and fire. With the flash and report, I fell as if dead,

-and remember nothing more till the voice of my beloved seemed to call

-upon me to rise from the tomb--when I opened my eyes, and saw Hussey

-standing above me.’

-

-“Now for Mr. Hussey’s statement:--

-

-“‘I had an assignation with a young lady,’ says he, ‘on the night of

-so-and-so. A window was to be left open for me in Unthank. I had no

-intent whatever to commit a felony. I came to appointment, and had

-only one moment entered when I heard rapid footsteps outside, and a

-man, with a desperate look on him, hurried into the room, snatched a

-pistol from a drawer, put it to his head, and, before I could stop

-him, fired. I swear that, so far from killing him, I tried to prevent

-him killing himself. I jumped, even as he fell, and tore the pistol

-from his hand. Simultaneous with his deed, I heard a scream outside.

-Still holding the weapon, I went to the door, and saw the form of her

-I had come to visit lying in that trance from which she has but now

-recovered. As I stood stupefied, the Watch entered and took me. From

-that time I knew that, lacking her evidence, it was hopeless to

-attempt to clear myself. After sentence I broke prison, rushed

-straight to her house, found her lying there, and called out upon her

-to wake and help me. She answered at once, stirring and coming out of

-her trance. I know no more than that she did; and there is the whole

-truth.’”

-

-The Deputy Clerk stopped. No one spoke.

-

-“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t ask you to pronounce upon those

-affidavits. In the upshot the law accepted them, admitting a

-miscarriage of justice. What I ask your verdict on is this: Could the

-law, after quashing its own conviction, hold the man responsible for

-any act committed by him during, and as the direct result of, that

-wrongful imprisonment?”

-

-This started the ball, and for minutes it was tossed back and forth.

-Presently the tumult subsided, and Brindley spoke authoritatively for

-the rest--

-

-“Certainly it could, and for any violence committed in the act.

-Provocation may extenuate, but it don’t justify. Prison-breaking, _per

-se_, is an offence against the law; so’s being found without any

-visible means of subsistence, though your pocket may just have been

-picked of its last penny. Any concessions in these respects would

-benefit the rogue without helping the community. I won’t say that if

-he hadn’t, by assaulting the warder, put himself out of court----”

-

-“That was where he wanted to put himself,” interrupted the Deputy

-Clerk. It was certain that he was deplorably flippant.

-

-Brindley waved the impertinence by.

-

-“The offence was an offence in outlawry,” he said.

-

-“But how could it be,” protested the Clerk, “since, by the law’s own

-admission, he was wrongfully convicted? If he hadn’t been, he couldn’t

-have hurt the warder. If you strike me first, mayn’t I hit you back? I

-tell you, the law acknowledged that it was in the wrong.”

-

-“Not at all. It acknowledged that the man was in the right.”

-

-“Isn’t that the same thing?”

-

-“O, my friend! I see you haven’t got the rudiments. Hussey was a

-prisoner; a criminal is a prisoner; _ergo_, Hussey was a criminal.”

-

-“But he was a prisoner in error!”

-

-“And the law might very properly pardon him that; but not his violence

-in asserting it.”

-

-The Deputy Clerk shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

-

-“Well, it was all the same in the end,” said he; “for it hanged him

-for pointing out its error to it, and so spoiled a very pretty

-romance. The lady accompanied him to the scaffold, and afterwards died

-mad. _Sic ita ad astra._ I will cap your syllogism, sir. An ass has

-long ears; the law has long ears; _ergo_, the law is an ass.”

-

-“Young man,” said Brindley, with more good humour than I expected,

-“you have missed your vocation. Take my advice, and go to writing for

-the comic papers.”

-

-“What!” cried the Deputy Clerk. “Haven’t I been a law reporter all my

-life!”

-

-

-

-

- THE FIVE INSIDES

-

-

- I’ll example you with thievery.--“Timon of Athens.”

-

-

-The dear old lady was ninety, and it was always Christmas in the

-sweet winter of her face. With the pink in her cheeks and the white of

-her hair, she came straight from the eighteenth century in which she

-was born. They were not more at odds with nature than are the hips and

-the traveller’s joy in a withered hedge; and if at one time they paid

-to art, why it was a charitable gift to a poor dependent--nothing

-more, I’ll swear.

-

-People are fond of testing links with the past. This sound old

-chatelaine had played trick-track, and dined at four o’clock. She had

-eaten battalia pie with “Lear” sauce, and had drunk orgeat in Bond

-Street. She had seen Blücher, the tough old “Vorwärts,” brought to

-bay in Hyde Park by a flying column of Amazons, and surrendering

-himself to an onslaught of kisses. She had seen Mr. Consul Brummell

-arrested by bailiffs in the streets of Caen, on a debt of so many

-hundreds of francs for so many bottles of vernis de Guiton, which was

-nothing less than an adorable boot-polish. She had heard the demon

-horns of newspaper boys shrill out the Little Corporal’s escape from

-Elba. She had sipped Roman punch, maybe;--I trust she had never taken

-snuff. She had--but why multiply instances? Born in 1790, she had

-taken just her little share in, and drawn her full interest of, the

-history, social and political, of all those years, fourscore and ten,

-which filled the interval between then and now.

-

-Once upon a time she had entered a hackney-coach; and, lo! before her

-journey was done, it was a railway coach, moving ever swifter and

-swifter, and its passengers succeeding one another with an ever more

-furious energy of hurry-scurry. Among the rest I got in, and straight

-fell into talk, and in love, with this traveller who had come from so

-far and from scenes so foreign to my knowledge. She was as sweet and

-instructive as an old diary brought from a bureau, smelling of

-rose-leaves and cedar-wood. She was merry, too, and wont to laugh at

-my wholly illusory attachment to an age which was already as dead as

-the moon when I was born. But she humoured me; though she complained

-that her feminine reminiscences were sweetmeats to a man.

-

-“You should talk with William keeper,” she said. “_He_ holds on to the

-past by a very practical link indeed.”

-

-It was snowy weather up at the Hall--the very moral of another winter

-(so I was told) when His Majesty’s frigate “Caledonia” came into

-Portsmouth to be paid off, and Commander Playfair sent express to his

-young wife up in the Hampshire hills that she might expect him early

-on the following morning. He did not come in the morning, nor in the

-afternoon, nor, indeed, until late in the evening, when--as Fortune

-was generous--he arrived just at the turn of the supper, when the snow

-outside the kitchen windows below was thawing itself, in delirious

-emulation of the melting processes going on within, into a rusty

-gravy.

-

-“You see,” said Madam, “it was not the etiquette, when a ship was paid

-off, for any officer to quit the port until the pennant was struck,

-which the cook, as the last officer, had to see done. And the cook had

-gone ashore and got tipsy; and there the poor souls must bide till he

-could be found. Poor Henry--and poor little me! But it came right.

-_Tout vient à qui sait attendre_. We had woodcocks for supper. It was

-just such a winter as this--the snow, the sky, the very day. Will you

-take your gun, and get me a woodcock, sir? and we will keep the

-anniversary, and you shall toast, in a bottle of _the_ Madeira, the

-old French rhyme.”

-

-I had this rhyme in my ears as I went off for my woodcock--

-

-

- Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,

- Duquel la chair resueille l’appetit.

- Il est oyseau passager et petit:

- Est par son goust fait des vins bien juger.

-

-

-I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought the

-coverts and dead ferns and icy reed-wrecked pools, and flushed not the

-little _oyseau passager_ of my gallantry’s desires. But at last, in a

-silent coomb, when my feet were frozen, and my fingers like bundles of

-newly-pulled red radishes, William keeper came upon me, and I confided

-my abortive wishes and sorrows to his velveteen bosom.

-

-He smiled, warm soul, like a grate.

-

-“Will’ee go up to feyther’s yonder, sir,” said he; “and sit by the

-fire, and leave the woodcock to me? The old man’ll be proud to

-entertain ye.”

-

-“I will go,” I said meanly. “But tell me first, William, what is your

-very practical link with the past?”

-

-He thought the frost had got into my blood; but when I had explained,

-he grinned again knowingly.

-

-“’Tain’t me my lady meant, sir,” he said. “’Tis old feyther, and his

-story of how the mail coach was robbed.”

-

-The cottage hung up on the side of the coomb, leaning its back to an

-ash wood, and digging its toes well into the slope to keep itself from

-pitching into the brook below. There were kennels under the faggot

-stacks, a horse-shoe on the door, red light behind the windows. It

-looked a very cosy corner after the white austerity of the woods.

-William led me to it, and introducing me and my errand to his father,

-left the two of us together by the fire.

-

-It was a strange old shell of a man, russet and smooth yet in the

-face; but his breath would sometimes rattle in him to show how dried

-was the kernel within. Still his brown eye was glossy, and his voice

-full and shrewd; and in that voice, speaking straight and clear out of

-the past, and in an accent yet more of the roads than of the woods, he

-told me presently the story of the great mail robbery.

-

-“It ruined and it made me, sir,” said he; “for the Captain, hearing as

-how the company had sacked me for neglect of duty, and knowing

-something of my character, swore I’d been used damnably, and that he’d

-back his opinion by making me his gamekeeper. And he did that; and

-here I be, waiting confident for him to check my accounts when I jine

-him across the river.”

-

-He pointed to a dusky corner. There hung on the wall an ancient

-key-bugle, and an old, old napless beaver hat, with a faded gold band

-about it.

-

-“I was twenty-five when I put _they_ up there, and that was in the

-year ’14; and not me nor no one else has fingered them since. Because

-why? Because it was like as if my past laid in a tomb underneath, and

-they was the sign that I held by it without shame or desire of

-concealment.

-

-“In those days I was guard to the ‘Globe’ coach, that run between

-London and Brighton. We made the journey in eight hours, from the

-‘Bull and Mouth’ in Aldersgate to the ‘New Inn’ in North Street--or

-t’other way about; and we never stopped but for changes, or to put

-down and take up. Sich was our orders, and nothing in reason to find

-fault with ’em, until they come to hold us responsible to something

-besides time. Then the trouble began.

-

-“Now, sir, as you may know, the coachman’s seat was over the

-fore-boot, and, being holler underneath, was often used as a box for

-special parcels. So it happened that this box was hired of the owners

-by Messrs. Black, South, and Co., the big Brighthelmstone bankers, in

-order to ship their notes and cash, whenever they’d the mind to,

-between London and the seaside, and so escape the risks and expense of

-a private mail. The valiables would be slid and locked in--coachman

-being in his place--with a private key; and George he’d nothing to do

-but keep his fat calves snug to the door, till someun at the other end

-came with a duplicate key to unlock it and claim the property. Very

-well--and very well it worked till the fifteenth of December in the

-year eighteen hundred and thirteen, on which day our responsibility

-touched the handsome figure--so I was to learn--of £4000 in Brighton

-Union bank notes, besides cash and securities.

-

-“It was rare cold weather, much as it is now, save that the snow was

-shallower by a matter of two inches, and no more bind in it than dry

-sand. We was advertised to start from the ‘Bull’ at nine; and there

-was booked six insides and five out. At ten minutes to the hour up

-walks a couple of Messrs. Pinnick and Waghorn’s clerks from the

-borough, with the cash box in whity-brown paper, looking as innocent

-as a babby in a Holland pinifore. George he comes out of the shades,

-like a jolly Corsican ghost, a viping of his mouth; the box is slung

-up and fastened in; coachman climbs to his perch, and the five

-outsides follow-my-leader arter him to theirs, where they swaddle

-’emselves into their wraps strait-veskit-vise, and settin’ as

-miserable as if they was waitin’ to have a tooth drawed. Not much harm

-there, you’ll say--one box-seat, two behind, two with me in the

-dickey--all packed tight, and none too close for observation. Well,

-sir, we’ll hear about it.

-

-“Out of the six insides, all taken, there was three already in place:

-a gentleman, very short and fierce, and snarling at everything;

-gentleman’s lady, pretty as paint, but a white timidious body;

-gentleman’s young-gentleman, in ducks and spencer and a cap like a

-concertina with the spring gone. So far so good, you’ll say again, and

-no connexion with any other party, and leastways of all with the

-insides as was yet wanting, and which the fierce gentleman was blowin’

-the lights out of for bein’ late.

-

-“‘Guard,’ says he, goin’ on outrageous, while the lady and the young

-gentleman cuddled together scared-like in a corner, ‘who are these

-people who stop the whole service while they look in the shop-vinders?

-If you’re for starting a minute after the stroke,’ says he, ‘dash my

-buttons,’ he says, ‘but I’ll raise all hell to have you cashiered!’

-

-“‘All right, sir,’ I says. ‘I knows my business better’n you can tell

-it me--’ and just as I spoke, a hackney kerridge come rumbling into

-the yard, and drew up anigh us.

-

-“‘Globe?’ says a jolly, fat-faced man, sticking his head out of it.

-‘All right, Cato--’ and down jumps a black servant, in livery, that

-was on the box, and opens the door.

-

-“The fat man he tumbled out--for all the world like a sheetful of

-washing a wallopin’ downstairs--Cato he got in, and between them they

-helped from the hackney and across to the coach as rickety a old

-figure as ever I see. He were all shawls and wraprascal. He’d blue

-spectacles to his eyes, a travellin’ cap pulled down on ’em, his mouth

-covered in; and the only evidence of flesh to be seen in the whole of

-his carcass, was a nose the colour of a hyster. He shuffled painful,

-too, as they held him up under the arms, and he groaned and muttered

-to himself all the time he were changing.

-

-“Now, sir, you may suppose the snarling gentleman didn’t make the best

-of what he see; and he broke out just as they was a-hauling the

-invalid in, wanting to know very sarcastic if they hadn’t mistook the

-‘Globe’ for a hearse. But the fat man he accepted him as good-humoured

-as could be.

-

-“‘It’s nothing affectionate, sir,’ says he. ‘Only paralysis, which

-ain’t catching. The gentleman won’t trouble you.’

-

-“‘Not for my place,’ says the fierce gentleman, bristling up like a

-dog. ‘Damme, sir, not for my place. O, I can see very well what his

-nose is a-pinting to, and damme if it isn’t as monstrous a piece of

-coolness as ever I expeerunced. _These_ seats, sir, are the nat’ral

-perkisite of a considerate punctiality, and if your friend objects to

-travelling with his back to the ’orses----’

-

-“‘Now, now,’ says the fat man--‘nothing of the sort. You don’t mind

-sitting with your back to the ’orses, do you, nunky?”

-

-“‘Eh,’ says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting a bit forward--‘No,

-no, no, no, no, no, no--’ and he sunk into the front cushions, while

-Cato and the fat ’un dispodged him to his comfort.

-

-“‘Time, gentlemen!’ says I.

-

-“‘Wait a bit’ says snarler. ‘It can’t never be--why, surely, it can’t

-never be that the sixth inside is took for a blackamoor?’

-

-“‘Alfred,’ says the lady, half veeping: ‘pray let things be. It’s only

-as far as Cuckfield we’re goin’, arter all.’

-

-“‘A poor argiment, my dear,’ says he, ‘in favour of suffering forty

-miles of a sulphurious devil.’

-

-“‘Pray control yourself, sir,’ says the fat man, still very ekable.

-‘We’ve booked three places, for two, just to be comfortable. Our

-servant rides outside.’

-

-“Well, that settled it; and in another minute we was off. I laughed a

-bit to myself as I swung up; but I hadn’t a thought of suspicion. What

-do _you_ say, sir? Would you have? Why, no, of course not--no more

-than if you was a Lyons Mail. There was the five o’ them packed in

-there, and one on the roof behind the coachman--three divisions of a

-party as couldn’t have seemed more unconnected with one another, or

-more cat and dog at that. Yet, would you believe it, every one of them

-six had his place in the robbery that follered as carefully set for

-him as a figure in a sum.

-

-“As for me, sir, I done my duty; and what more could be expected of

-me? At every stage I tuk a general look round, to see as things were

-snug and nat’ral; and at Croydon, fust out, I observed as how the

-invalid were a’ready nodding in a corner, and the other two gents

-settled to their ‘Mornin’ Postses.’

-

-“Beyond Croydon the cold begun to take the outsides bitter; and the

-nigger got into a vay of drummin’ with his feet so aggerawacious, that

-at last George he lost his temper with him and told him to shut up.

-Well, he shut up that, and started scrapin’ instead; and he went on

-scrapin’ till the fierce gentleman exploded out of the vinder below

-fit to bust the springs.

-

-“‘Who’s that?’ roars he--‘the blackamoor? Damme!’ he roars, ‘if you

-aren’t wus nor a badger in more ways than one,’ he roars.

-

-“‘All right, boss,’ says the nigger, grinning and lookin’ down. ‘Feet

-warm at last, boss,’ and he stopped his shufflin’ and begun to sing.

-

-“Now, sir, a sudden thought--I won’t go so far as to call it a

-suspicion--sent me, next stop, to examine unostentatious-like the

-neighbourhood of them great boots. But all were sound there, and the

-man sittin’ well tucked into his wraps. It wasn’t like, of course,

-that he could a’ kicked the panels of the box in without George

-knowin’ somethin’ about it. And he didn’t want to neither; _for he’d

-finished his part of the business a’ready_. So he just sat and smiled

-at me as amiable as Billy Vaters.

-

-“Well, we went on without a hitch; and at Cuckfield the three back

-insides turned out into the snow, and went for a bespoke po’-chaise

-that was waitin’ for ’em there. But, afore he got in, the fierce

-gentleman swung round and come blazin’ back to the vinder.

-

-“‘My compliments, sir,’ says he, ‘at parting; and, if it _should_ come

-to the vorst,’ he says, ‘I’d advise you to lay your friend pretty far

-under to his last sleep,’ he says, ‘or his snores’ll wake the dead.’

-

-“‘Hush,’ says the fat ’un. ‘It’s the drowndin’ spirit in him comin’ up

-to blow like a vale.’

-

-“‘Is it?’ says the fierce gentleman. ‘Then it’s my opinion that the

-outsides ought to be warned afore he gives his last heave----’ and he

-went off snortin’ like a tornader.

-

-“The fat man shook his head when he were gone. His mildness, having

-sich a figger, was amazing. He sat with his arm and shoulder for a

-bolster to old paralysis, who was certainly going on in style.

-

-“‘Now, sir,’ says I, ‘the whole blessed inside is yourn till the end

-of the journey.’

-

-“‘Thank you, guard,’ says he; ‘but I won’t disturb my friend, and

-we’ll stay as we are, thank you.’

-

-“I got up then, and on we went--last stage, sir, through Clayton, over

-the downs, whipping through Pyecombe and Patcham, swish through

-Preston turnpike, and so into East Street, where we’d scarce entered,

-when there come sich a hullabaloo from underneath as if the devil,

-riding on the springs, had got his tail jammed in the brake. Up I

-jumps, and up jumps the blackamoor, screeching and clawing at George,

-so as he a’most dropped the ribbins.

-

-“‘Eh, boss!’ he yelled. ‘De old man--down dere!--damn bad!’

-

-“George he pulled up; and I thought he’d a bust, till I climbed over

-and loosened his neckercher, and let it all out. Then down we

-got--nigger and I, and one or two of the passengers--and looked in.

-‘What the thunder’s up?’ says I. The fat man were goin’ on awful,

-sobbin’, and hiccupin’, and holding on to old paralysis, as were sunk

-back in the corner.

-

-“‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’! O, why did

-I ever give way to him, and let him come!’

-

-“Well, we all stood pretty foolish, not knowing what to say or do,

-when his great tricklin’ face come round like a leg o’ mutton on a

-spit, and, seein’ the nigger, bust into hystrikes.

-

-“‘O, Cato!’ he roars; ‘O Cato, O Cato! Sich a loss if he goes!’ he

-roars. ‘Run on by a short cut, Cato,’ he says, ‘and see if you can

-find a doctor agen our drawin’ up at the “New Inn.”’

-

-“That seemed to us all a good idea, though, to be sure, there was no

-cut shorter than the straight road we was in. But anyhow, before we

-could re’lise it, the nigger was off like a arrer; and one of the

-gentlemen offered to keep the fat man company. But that he wouldn’t

-listen to.

-

-“‘If he _should_ come round,’ he said, ‘the shock of a stranger might

-send him off agen. No, no,’ he said: ‘leave me alone with my dying

-friend, and drive on as quick as ever you can.’

-

-“It were only a matter of minutes; but afore we’d been drawed up half

-of one afore the inn, a crowd was gathered round the coach door.

-

-“‘Is he back?’ says the fat man--‘Is Cato come back with a doctor? No,

-I won’t have him touched or moved till a doctor’s seen him.’

-

-“Then all at once he was up and out, rampageous.

-

-“‘Where is he?’ he shrieks. ‘I can’t vait no longer--I’m goin’

-mad--I’ll find one myself’--and, afore you could say Jack Robinson, he

-was off. I never see sich a figger run so. He fair melted away. But

-the crowd was too interested in the corpse to follow him.

-

-“Well, sir, he didn’t come back with a doctor, and no more did Cato.

-And the corpse may have sat there ten minutes, and none daring to go

-into it, when a sawbones, a-comin’ down the street on his own account,

-was appealed to by the landlord for a verdict, seein’ as how by this

-time the whole traffic was blocked. He got in, and so did I; and he

-bent over the body spread back with its wraps agen the corner.

-

-“‘My God!’ I whispers--‘there’s no breath comin’ from him. Is he dead,

-sir?’

-

-“The sawbones he rose up very dry and cool.

-

-“‘No,’ he says, ‘there ain’t no breath comin’ from him, nor there

-never will. It ain’t in natur’ to expect it from a waxworks.’

-

-“Sir, I tell you I looked at him and just felt my heart as it might be

-a snail that someun had dropped a pinch of salt on.

-

-“‘Waxworks!’ I says, gaspin’. ‘Why, the man spoke and groaned!’

-

-“‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’

-says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.

-

-“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;--and

-I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy--nothing

-more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock my

-pullin’ it away give me--for there, behind where it had set, was a

-’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and

-panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the

-mail’s been robbed!’”

-

-The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised

-excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the

-question he expected.

-

-“And it had been?”

-

-“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In

-the vinter of ’13, sir--the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a

-rare stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards,

-when one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were

-took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man were a

-ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides to

-themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job. They cut

-into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and passed the boy

-through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’ Croydon. He set

-to--the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!--tuk a piece clean

-out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and brought down the

-cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his dance overhead to

-drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened and emptied, and put

-back in the boot where it was found; and the swag, for fear of

-accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”

-

-He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the younger,

-standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled auburn trophies

-in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a sigh--then

-with a smile.

-

-“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock. “How

-plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”

-

-

-

-

- THE JADE BUTTON

-

-The little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with

-a good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is

-the subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by

-any lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself

-misinformed, and attend your last moments on the scaffold.

-

-

-Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John Belmont

-hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this antagonism was a

-button.

-

-It was of jade stone, and it was a talisman. For three generations it

-had been the mascot of the Belmont family, an heirloom, and

-symbolizing in its shining disk a little local sun, as it were, of

-prosperity. The last three head Belmonts had all been men of an ample

-presence. The first of them, the original owner of the stone, having

-assigned it a place in perpetuity at the bottom hole of his waistcoat

-(as representing the centre of his system), his heirs were careful to

-substantiate a tradition which meant so much to them in a double

-sense.

-

-Indeed, the button was as good as a blister. It seemed to draw its

-wearer to a head in the prosperous part of him. It was set in gold,

-artfully furnished at its back with a loop and hank, and made

-transferable from waistcoat to waistcoat, that its possessor for the

-time being might enjoy at all seasons its beneficent influence. In

-broad or long cloth, in twill or flannel, by day and by night, the

-button attended him, regulating indiscriminately his business and his

-digestion. In such circumstances, it is plain that Death must have

-been hard put to it to find a vulnerable place; and such was the fact.

-It has often been said that a man’s soul is in his stomach; how, then,

-could it get behind the button? Only by one of those unworthy

-subterfuges, which, nevertheless, it does not disdain. The first

-Belmont lived to ninety, and with such increasing portliness that, at

-the last, a half-moon had to be cut, and perpetually enlarged, out of

-the dining-room table to accommodate his presence. Practically, he was

-eating his way through the board, with the prospect of emerging at the

-other end, when, in rising from a particularly substantial repast one

-night, he caught the button in the crack between the first slab

-(almost devoured) and the second, wrenched it away, and was

-immediately seized with apoplexy. He died; and the Destroyer, after

-pursuing his heir to threescore years and ten, looking for the heel of

-Achilles, as unworthily “got home” into him. He was lumbering down

-Fleet Street one dog-day when, oppressed beyond endurance by the heat,

-he wrenched open--in defiance of all canons of taste and prudence--his

-waistcoat. The button--_the_ button--was burst from its bonds in the

-act, though, fortunately--for the next-of-kin--to be caught by its

-hank in the owner’s watch-chain. But to the owner himself the impulse

-was fatal. A prowling cutpurse, quick to the chance, “let out” full on

-the old gentleman’s bow-window, quenching its lights, so to speak, for

-ever; and then, having snatched the chain, incontinently doubled into

-the arms of a constable. The property was recovered--but for the heir;

-the second Belmont’s bellows having been broken beyond mending.

-

-The third met with as inglorious an end, and at a comparatively early

-age; for the button--as a saving clause to whatever god had thrown it

-down, for the fun of the thing, among men--was possessed with a very

-devil of touchiness, and always instant to resent the least fancied

-slight to its self-importance. Else had Tithonus been its wearer to

-this day, as----but I won’t anticipate. The third Belmont, then, in a

-fit of colossal forgetfulness, sent the button, _in_ a white

-waistcoat, to the wash. The calamity was detected forthwith, _but not

-in time to avert itself_. After death the doctor. Before the outraged

-article could be restored to its owner and victim, he had died of a

-rapid dropsy, and the button became the property of Mrs. John Belmont,

-his relict and residuary legatee, who----

-

-But, for the history of the button itself? Why, in brief, as it

-affected the Belmont family, it was this. Mr. Adolphus Belmont had

-been Consul at one of the five treaty ports of China about the

-troublous years of 1840-42. During the short time that he held office,

-a certain local mandarin, Elephoo Ting by name, was reported to Peking

-for high treason, and honoured with an imperial ukase, or invitation

-to forestall the headsman. There was no doubt, indeed, that Elephoo

-Ting had been very strenuous, in public, in combating the intrusion of

-the foreign devil, while inviting him, in private, to come on and hold

-tight. There is no doubt, too, that in the result Elephoo and Adolphus

-had made a profitable partnership of it in the matter of opium, and

-that the mandarin had formed a very high, and even sentimental,

-opinion of the business capacities of his young friend. Young, that is

-to say, relatively, for Adolphus was already sixty-three when

-appointed to his post. But, then, of the immemorial Ting’s age no

-record actually existed. The oldest inhabitant of Ningpo knew him as

-one knows the historic beech of one’s district. He had always been

-there--bland, prosperous, enormous, a smooth bole of a man radiating

-benevolence. And now at last he was to die. It seemed impossible.

-

-It _was_ impossible, save on a condition. That he confided to his odd

-partner and confidant, the English Consul, during a last interview. He

-held a carving-knife in his hand.

-

-“Shall I accept this signal favour of the imperial sun?” he said.

-

-“Have you any choice?” asked the Consul gloomily. “The decree is out;

-the soldiers surround your dwelling.”

-

-Elephoo Ting laughed softly.

-

-“Vain, vain all, unless I discard my talisman.” He produced the jade

-button from his cap. “This,” he said, “I had from my father, when the

-old man sickened at last of life, desiring to be an ancestor. It

-renders who wears it, while he wears it, immortal; only it is jealous,

-jealous, and stands upon its dignity. Shall I, too, part with it, and

-at a stroke let in the light of ages?”

-

-He saw the incredulity in his visitor’s face, and handed him the

-carving-knife.

-

-“Strike,” he said. “I bid thee.”

-

-“You take the consequences?”

-

-“All.”

-

-With infinite cynicism, Mr. Belmont essayed to tickle, just to tickle,

-the creature’s infatuation with the steel point. It bent, where it

-touched, like paper. He thrust hard and ever harder, until at last he

-was thrashing and slicing with the implement in a sort of frenzy of

-horror. The mandarin stood apathetic, while the innocuous blade swept

-and rustled about his huge bulk like a harmless feather. Then said he,

-as the other desisted at length, unnerved and trembling: “Art thou

-convinced?”

-

-“I am convinced,” said the Consul.

-

-Elephoo Ting handed him the button in exchange for the knife.

-

-“Take and wear it,” he said, “for my sake, whom you have pleased by

-outwitting, on the score of benefiting, two Governments. You have the

-makings of a great mandarin in you; the button will do the rest. Would

-you ever escape the too-soon satiety of this stodgy life, pass it on,

-with these instructions which I shall give you, to your next-of-kin.

-Be ever deferential to the button and considerate of its vanity, for

-it is the fetish of a sensitive but undiscriminating spirit. So long

-as you cherish it, you will prosper. But the least apparent slight to

-itself, it will revenge, and promptly. As for me, I have an

-indigestion of the world that I would cure.”

-

-And with the words he too became an ancestor.

-

-Then riches and bodily amplitude came to Adolphus Belmont, until the

-earth groaned under his importance. He was a spanker, and after him

-Richard Belmont was a spanker, and after him John Belmont was a very

-spanker of spanks, even at thirty-two, when he committed the last

-enormous indiscretion which brought him death and his fortunes almost

-ruin. For the outrage to the button had been so immeasurable that, not

-content with his obliteration, it must manœuvre likewise to scatter

-the accumulations of fortune, which it had brought him, by involving

-in a common ruin most of the concerns in which that fortune was

-invested, so that his widow found herself left, all in a moment, a

-comparatively poor woman.

-

-And here Mrs. John Belmont comes in.

-

-She was a little woman, of piquancy and resource, and a very

-accomplished angler of men. She could count on her pink finger-tips

-the ten most killing baits for vanity. And, having once recovered the

-button, she set herself to conciliating it with a thousand pretty

-kisses and attentions. It lived between the bosom of her frock and the

-ruff of her dainty nightgown. Yet for a long time it sulked, refusing

-to be coaxed into better than a tacit staying of its devastating hand.

-And so matters stood when the Assembly ball was held.

-

-Miss Emma Belmont and Mrs. John Belmont lived in the same town,

-connexions, but apart. Their visits were visits of ceremony--and

-dislike. Miss Emma was Mr. John’s sister, and had always highly

-disapproved of his marriage with the “adventuress.” Her very name, she

-thought, bordered on an impropriety! How could any “Inez” dissociate

-herself from the tradition of cigarette-stained lips and white

-eyeballs travelling behind a fan like little moons of coquetry? This

-one, in fact, took no trouble to. Her reputation involved them in a

-common scandal; and it was solely on this account, I think, that she

-so resented her sister-in-law’s appropriation of the button. She

-herself was devoted to good works, and utterly content in her mission.

-She did not want the button; but, inasmuch as it was a Belmont

-heirloom, and Mrs. John childless, she chose to symbolize in it the

-bone of contention, and to use it as a convenient bar to amenities

-which would, otherwise, have seemed to argue in her a sympathy with a

-mode of life with which she could not too emphatically wish to

-disconnect herself.

-

-They met at the Assembly ball. Miss Belmont, though herself involved

-in the financial ebb, had considered it her duty to respect so

-respectable an occasion, and even to adorn it with a silk of such

-inflexibility that (I tremble as I write it) one could imagine her

-slipping out of it through a trap, like the vanishing lady, and

-leaving all standing. Presently Mrs. John Belmont, with a wicked look,

-floated up to her.

-

-“_You_ here, Inez!” exclaimed Miss Emma, affecting an amazement which,

-unhappily, she could not feel.

-

-The other flirted and simpered. When she smiled, one could detect

-little threads drawn in the fine powder near the corners of her mouth.

-There was no ensign of widowhood about her. She ruffled with little

-gaudy downs and feathers, like a new-fledged bird of paradise.

-

-“Yes, indeed,” she said. “And I’ve brought Captain Naylor, who’s been

-dining with me. Shall I introduce him to you?”

-

-Miss Belmont’s sense of decorum left her speechless.

-

-Inez, on the contrary, rippled out the most china-tinkling laugh.

-

-“You dear old thing,” she tittered. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew

-you’d be here to chaperon me, and----” She came a step closer. “Yes,

-the button’s there, Emma. You may stare; but make up your mind, I’m

-not going to part with it.”

-

-Miss Belmont found herself, and responded quietly--

-

-“I hope not indeed, Inez. I don’t ask or expect you. You might

-multiply it to-night by a dozen, and only offend me less.”

-

-Mrs. John laughed again, rather shrilly.

-

-“O, fie!” she said. “Why, even you haven’t a high-necked dress, you

-know.”

-

-And then a very black and red man, in a jam-pot collar and with a

-voice like a rook, came and claimed her.

-

-“Haw, Mrs. Belmont! Aw--er, dance, I think.”

-

-Miss Belmont, to save appearances, rigidly sat out the evening. When

-at last she could endure no more, she had her fly called and prepared

-to go home. She was about to get into it, when she observed a familiar

-figure standing among the few midnight loafers who had gathered

-without the shadow of the porch.

-

-“Hurley!” she exclaimed.

-

-The man, after a moment, slouched reluctantly forward, touching his

-hat. He had once been her most favoured protégé--a rogue and

-irreclaimable, whom she had persuaded, temporarily, from the devil’s

-service to her own. He had returned to his master, but with a

-reservation of respect for the practical Christian. Miss Belmont was

-orthodox, but she had a way with sinners. She pitied and fed and

-_trusted_ them. She was a member of the Prisoners’ First Aid Society,

-with a reverence for the law and a weakness for the lawless. Her aim

-was to reconcile the two, to interpret, in a yearning charity, between

-the policeman and the criminal, who at least, in the result, made a

-common cause of honouring _her_. Inez asserted that, living, as she

-did, very nervously alone on the outskirts of the town, she had

-adopted this double method of propitiation for the sake of her own

-security. But, then, Inez had a forked tongue, which you would never

-have guessed from seeing the little scarlet tip of it caressing her

-lips.

-

-Well, Miss Belmont had once coaxed Jim Hurley into being her handy

-man, foreseeing his redemption in an innocent association with flowers

-and the cult of the artless cabbage. He proved loyal to her, gained

-her confidence, knew all about the button and other matters of family

-moment. But the contiguity of the kitchen-garden with Squire

-Thorneycroft’s pheasant-coops was too much for hereditary

-proclivities. He stole eggs, sold them, was detected, prosecuted,

-sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and disappeared. Miss

-Belmont herself met him on his discharge from the jail gates, but he

-was not to be induced to return. The wild man was in his brain, and

-off he had gone, with Parthian shots of affection, in quest of fun.

-And for two years she had not seen him again until to-night, when his

-scratch of red hair and beard--which always looked as if he had just

-pulled his head out of a quickset--suddenly blew into flame before

-her. And then there followed a shock of distress.

-

-“Jim! Why, what’s happened? What’s the matter with you?”

-

-There was no need to specify. The man was obviously going off his

-tramp--nearing the turn of the dark road. He was ghastly, and

-constantly gave little spasmodic wrenching coughs during the minute he

-stood beside her.

-

-“Well,” he gasped, “I dunno. The rot has got into my stummick. I be

-all touchwood inside like an old ellum”

-

-“Will you come and see me?”

-

-“’Es. By’m-by.”

-

-“Why not now? Where are you going to sleep?”

-

-He grinned, and coughed, half suffocated, as he backed.

-

-“I’ve got my plans, Missis. You--leave me alone.”

-

-It did not sound gracious. One would not have guessed by it his

-design, which was nothing less than a jolly throw against the devil in

-the teeth of death. Miss Belmont, a little hurt, but more sad, got

-into her fly and was driven home. Arrived there, she sat up an hour

-contemplative. She was just preparing to go to bed in the grey dawn,

-when she heard the garden-gate click and footsteps rapidly traverse

-the path to the front door. Her heart seemed to stop. She stole

-trembling into the hall. “_Who’s there?_” she demanded in a quavering

-voice. The answer came, with a clearness which made her start, through

-the letter-box.

-

-“Me, Missis--Jim Hurley.”

-

-Amazed, and a little embarrassed, she opened. The man burst, almost

-fell in, and, staggering, recovered himself.

-

-“’Ere!” he said, with eager manipulation trying to force something

-upon her. “I’ve done ’er! I’ve got it for yer! Take it--make

-’aste--they’re arter me. It’s yourn as by rights, and she’s got to

-crow on the wrong side of ’er woundy little mouth.”

-

-But Miss Belmont, with instinctive repulsion, had put her hands behind

-her back and retreated before him.

-

-“Jim!” she said sickly. “_What_ have you got? What do you mean? I’ll

-take nothing from you.”

-

-“O, go along!” he insisted. His cough was gone. He seemed animated

-with a new masterfulness. “Ain’t I in the know? It’s yourn, anyhow,

-and”--his eye closed in an ineffable rapture--“I done the devil out of

-his own when I heard I be booked to go to him. He’ll pay me, I reckon;

-but I don’t care. You take it. It’s your dooty as a good woman.”

-

-“No, no,” cried Miss Belmont, beating him away with her hands. “Don’t

-let me even see it to know. How could you suppose such a thing? Take

-it back while you’ve time.”

-

-B’s 33 and 90 wore their list-footed boots; but Jim’s ear was a

-practised one. Swiftly summoned, they had raced on his tracks from the

-Assembly Rooms. He had known it, and had laboured merely to keep his

-start of them by three minutes--two--one. Now, while their sole was

-yet on the threshold, he darted into the dining-room and was under the

-table at a dive. They had him out and handcuffed, of course, in a

-jiffy; and then they stood to explain and expostulate.

-

-“Well, you ain’t a cheeked one neither, Hurley! To run up here of all

-places for cover! Don’t you mind him, Miss.” (She stood pale and

-shivering. “The shock!” she had murmured confusedly.) “Why,” said 33,

-“the man was heard by plenty proposing of hisself to visit you; and

-looked to your hold kindness to him to take and shelter, is supposed.”

-

-She found voice to ask: “What’s he done?”

-

-“Done!” said 33. “Why, bless you, Miss! Treating of you as if you was

-in collusion, ain’t I?” (She shivered.) “Why, he grabbed a jewel--a

-gold button, as I understand--out o’ the buzzim o’ your own late

-brother’s good lady as she was a-stepping into her broom, and bolted

-with it. It’ll be on ’im now if we’re lucky.”

-

-“You ain’t then, old cock,” said Jim, with a little hoarse laugh and

-choke.

-

-“Chuck it!” said 90, a saturnine man.

-

-“That’s what I done, Kroojer,” said Jim. “You go and ’unt in the

-bloomin’ ’edges if you don’t believe me.”

-

-“It’s my duty to tell you,” said 33, “that whatever you says will be

-took down in evidence agen you.”

-

-“Not by you,” said Jim. “Why, you can’t spell.”

-

-They carried him off dispassionately, with some rough, kindly

-apologies to Miss Belmont for the trouble to which they had put her.

-She locked and bolted the door when they were gone; mechanically saw

-to the lamps, and went upstairs to bed in a sort of stunned dream. So

-she committed herself to the sheets, and so, in a sort of waking

-delirium, passed the remaining hours of slumber. She felt as if the

-even tenor of her way, her stream of placid days, had been suddenly

-dammed by a dead body, the self-destroyed corpse of her own character.

-Sometimes she would start from a suffering negation to feel B 90’s

-hand upon her shoulder. “What have I done--O! what have I done?” she

-would moan in anguish; and B 90 would glower from under his helmet

-like a passionless Rhadamanthus--

-

-“What have you done? What but, like our second Henry, meanly, by

-inference and innuendo, imposed upon your wretched tool the

-responsibility for a deed which you dared not seek to compass by the

-open processes of the law. Did you dispute the right ownership of the

-button? Then why choose for your confidant an ex-thief and poacher? No

-use to say you designed no harm. By the flower be known the seed. Come

-along o’ me!”

-

-She rose late, ate no breakfast, and sat awaiting, pinched and grey,

-the inevitable ordeal. It opened, early enough, with the advent of

-Mrs. John. The little widow came sailing in, with a face of floured

-steel. When she saw, the edge of her tongue seemed to whet itself on

-her lips. Miss Emma broke out at once in an unendurable cry--

-

-“Inez! You can’t think I was a party to this!”

-

-“Who said so, dear? Though the man was a protégé of yours, and was

-known to have remained where he encountered me by your instructions.”

-

-“It is not true.”

-

-“Isn’t it? Well, at least, the plan miscarried. Now, give me the

-button, and I promise, to the best of my power, to hush the matter

-up.”

-

-“I haven’t got it, indeed; O, you must believe me! He told the

-policeman himself that he had thrown it away while escaping.”

-

-“Yes, yes. I give him credit for his loyalty to you. But, Emma--you

-know I never put much faith in your sanctimoniousness. Don’t be a

-fool, and drive me to extremities.”

-

-“You can’t mean it. I blame my covetous heart. I envied you--I admit

-it--this dear fetish of our family. But to think me capable of such a

-wickedness! O, Inez!”

-

-Then Mrs. John Belmont exploded. I muffle the report. It left Miss

-Belmont flaccid and invertebrate, weakly sobbing that she would see

-Hurley; would try to get him to identify the exact spot where he had

-parted with the bauble; would move heaven and earth to make her

-guiltless restitution. Yet all the time, remembering the scene of last

-night, she must have known her promise vain. Jim had sought to thrust

-no shadow of a fact upon her. He had not thrown the button away. He

-alone knew where it now was; but would he so far play into the hands

-of her enemy as to tell? She felt faint in the horror of this doubt;

-and Mrs. John perceived the horror.

-

-As for her, she was utterly hateful and incredulous. She had friends,

-she screamed--one in particular--who would act, and unmercifully, to

-see her righted. She hardly refrained from striking her sister-in-law,

-as she rushed out in a storm of hysterics.

-

-And at this point I was called in--by Miss Belmont, that is to say.

-

-I found her utterly prostrated--within step of the brink of the final

-collapse.

-

-I coaxed her back, foot by foot; won the whole truth from her; laughed

-her terrors to scorn, and staked her my professional credit to have

-the matter put right, or on the way to right, by our next meeting.

-

-And I meant it, and was confident. For that very day--though of this

-she did not know--I had officially ordered Jim Hurley’s removal from

-the cell in which he had been lodged to the County Hospital. The man

-was dying, that was the fact; and a fact which he had known perfectly

-when he staked at one throw for an easy bed for himself, and a

-repayment of his debt to his old benefactress.

-

-He was ensconced in a little ward by himself, when I visited him and

-sat down to my task. He cocked an eye at me from a red tangle, and

-grinned.

-

-“Now, Hurley,” I said, “I come straight from Miss Emma, by her

-authority, to acquaint you with the results of your deed.”

-

-“O!” he answered. “Hev the peelers been a-dirtyin’ of their pore knees

-lookin’ for it in the ’edgerows? I ’opes as they found it.”

-

-“You know they couldn’t. You’ve got it yourself.”

-

-“S’elp me, I haven’t!”

-

-Then I informed him, carefully and in detail, of the awful miscarriage

-of his intentions. He was patently dumbfounded.

-

-“Well, I’m blowed!” he whispered, quite amazed. “Well, I _am_ blowed!”

-

-“You must undo this,” I said. “There’s only one way. Where _is_ the

-button?”

-

-He gauged me profoundly a moment.

-

-“On a ledge under the table,” he said. Then he thrust out a claw.

-“Don’t you go lettin’ ’_er_ ’ave it back,” he said, “or I’ll ’aunt

-you!”

-

-I considered.

-

-“You must undo what you’ve done,” I repeated. “Don’t you see? Unless

-you can prove that it’s been in your possession all the time, _and is

-now_, her character’s gone for ever. Mrs. John will see to that.”

-

-He did not, professionally, lack wits. He understood perfectly.

-“You’re ’er friend?” he asked.

-

-I nodded.

-

-“All right,” he said, “you get ’old of it private, and smuggle of it

-’ere, and I’ll manage the rest.”

-

-“But, my good fellow! You’ve been overhauled, I suppose, and pretty

-thoroughly. How can you convince--_convince_, you understand--that

-you’ve kept the thing snug through it all?”

-

-“You go and smuggle of it ’ere,” he repeated doggedly.

-

-It needed only a very little manœuvring. I hurried back to Miss

-Belmont’s, heard the lady was still confined to her room, forbade the

-servant to report me, and claimed the privacy of the dining-room for

-the purpose of writing a prescription. The moment I was alone, I made

-an excited and perfectly undignified plunge under the table, found the

-ledge (the thing, in auctioneer’s parlance, was a “capital set,” in

-four leaves), and the button, which in a feverish ecstasy I pocketed.

-Then, very well satisfied, I hurried back to Mr. Hurley.

-

-I found him, even in that short interval, changed for the worse; so

-much changed, that, in face of his condition, a certain sense of novel

-vigour, an overweening confidence in my own importance which had grown

-up, and lusty, in me during my return journey, seemed nothing less

-than an indecency. However, curiously enough, this mood began to ebb

-and sober from the very moment of my handing over the _pièce de

-conviction_ to its purloiner. He “palmed” it professionally, cleared

-his throat, and took instant command of the occasion. “Now,” he said,

-“tell ’em I’ve confessed to you, and let ’em all come.”

-

-His confidence mastered the depression which had overtaken me. I

-returned, with fair assurance, to Miss Belmont, who received my news

-with a perfect rapture of relief. What she had suffered, poor good

-woman, none but herself might know.

-

-“Did he own to you where he had hidden it?” she asked. And “Yes,” I

-could answer, perfectly truthfully.

-

-By my advice, she prepared at once to go and fetch her sister-in-law

-to the hospital--with a friend, if she desired it--that all might

-witness to the details of the restitution.

-

-In the meanwhile I myself paid a visit to the police station, and

-thence returned to my post to await the arrival of my company.

-

-It came in about an hour: Miss Belmont, tearfully expectant; Mrs. John

-Belmont, shrill and incredulous; an immaculate tall gentleman, Captain

-Naylor by name, whose chin was propped on a very high collar, that he

-might perpetually sniff the incense of his own superiority; and,

-lastly, and officially to the occasion, B 90.

-

-I lost no time in conducting them to the bedside of the patient. He

-had rallied wonderfully since our last encounter. He was sitting up

-against his pillow, his red hair fluffed out like the aureole of a

-dissipated angel, an expression on his face of a quite sanctimonious

-relish. I fancy he even winked at me.

-

-“Now, Hurley,” I said gravely, “as one on the threshold of the grave”

-(which, nevertheless, I had my doubts about), “speak out and tell the

-truth.”

-

-He cleared his throat, and started at once in a loud voice, as if

-repeating a lesson he had set himself--

-

-“’Earing as ’ow my rash hact ’ave brought suspicion on a innercent

-lady, I ’ereby makes affirmation of the fac’s. I stole the button, and

-’id it in my boot, where it is now.”

-

-“No, it ain’t,” said B 90 suddenly. “Stow that.”

-

-Mr. Hurley smiled pityingly.

-

-“O, ain’t it, sir?” he said. “’Ow do you know?”

-

-“Because I searched you myself,” said B 90 shortly.

-

-“The patient, infinitely tolerant, waved his hand.

-

-“’E searched me, ladies and gentlemen! Ho, lor! Look at ’im; I only

-arsks that--look at ’im! Why, he doesn’t even know as there’s a smut

-on his nose at this moment.” (B 90 hastily rubbed that organ, and

-remembering himself, lapsed into stolidity once more.) Mr. Hurley

-addressed him with exaggerated politeness--“_Would_ you be so good,

-sir, as to go and fetch my boots?”

-

-B 90 thought profoundly, and officially, a minute; wheeled suddenly,

-withdrew, and returned shortly with the articles, very massive and

-muddy, which he laid on the counterpane before the prisoner. The

-latter, cherishing the ineffable _dénouement_, deliberately took and

-examined the left one, paused a moment, smilingly canvassing his

-company, and then quickly, with an almost imperceptible wrench and

-twirl, had unscrewed the heel bodily from its place and held it out.

-

-“’Ere!” he said; and, with his arm extended, sank back in an

-invertebrate ecstasy upon his pillow.

-

-The heel was pierced with a tiny compartment on its inner side, and

-within the aperture lay the button.

-

-They all saw it, but not as I, who, standing as I did at the bed-head,

-and being something of an amateur conjurer myself, was conscious in a

-flash of the rascal “passing” the trinket into its receptacle even as

-he exposed it.

-

-There followed an exclamation or two, and silence. Then Captain Naylor

-said “Haw!” and Miss Belmont, with a gasp, turned a mild reproachful

-gaze upon her sister-in-law. But Mrs. John had not the grace to accept

-it. She gave a little vexed, covetous laugh, and stepped forward.

-“Well,” she said to Miss Emma, “you must go without it still, dear, it

-seems.” Then, coldly, to Hurley: “Give it me, please.”

-

-Now, so far so good; and, though I was enraged with, I could not

-combat the decision. But truly I was not prepared for the upshot.

-

-Jim, at Mrs. John’s first movement, had recovered possession of the

-button.

-

-“No, you don’t!” he said quite savagely. “I know all about it, and

-’tain’t yourn by rights.”

-

-“Jim, Jim,” cried Miss Belmont in great agitation; “it is hers,

-indeed; please give it up. You don’t think what you make me suffer!”

-

-But the man was black with a lowering determination.

-

-“’Tain’t,” he said. “Keep off, you! I’ve not thrown agen the devil for

-nothing. It’s goin’ to be Miss Emma’s or nobody’s.”

-

-“Not mine,” cried the poor lady again. “I don’t want it. Not for

-worlds. I wouldn’t take it now!”

-

-And then Mrs. John Belmont, in one discordant explosion of fury, gave

-away her case for ever.

-

-“Insolent! Beyond endurance!” she shrieked, and whirled, with a

-flaming face, upon her cavalier.

-

-“Archibald! why do you stand grinning there? Why don’t you take it

-from him?”

-

-Thus prompted, Archibald, in great confusion, uttered an inarticulate

-“Haw!” explained himself in a second and clearer one, and strode

-threateningly towards the bed. Watching, with glittering eyes, the

-advance, Jim, at the last moment, _whipped the button into his mouth

-and swallowed it!_

-

- * * * * *

-

-The case, as a pathological no less than as a criminological

-curiosity, was unique. I will state a few particulars. The button

-lodged in the pancreas, in which it was presently detected,

-comfortably ensconced, by means of the Röntgen rays. And it is a fact

-that, from the moment it settled there--_never_ apparently (I use the

-emphasis with a full sense of my responsibility) to be evicted--Mr.

-Hurley began to recover, and from recovering to thrive--on anything.

-Croton-oil--I give only one instance--was a very cream of nourishment

-to him. Galvanic batteries but shook him into the laughter which makes

-fat, but without stirring the button. It was ridiculous to suggest an

-operation, though the point was long considered. But in the meanwhile

-the button had continued piling up over itself such impenetrable

-defences of adipose tissue that its very locality had become

-conjectural. The question was dropped, only to give rise to another.

-How could one any longer detain this luxuriant man in hospital as an

-invalid? He was removed, therefore, beaming, to the police court;

-received, for some inexplicable reason, a nominal sentence, dating

-from the time of his arrest (everything, in fact, was henceforward to

-prosper with him), and trundled himself out into the world, where he

-disappeared. I have seen him occasionally since at years-long

-intervals. He grows ever more sleek and portly, till the shadows of

-the three dead Belmonts together would not suffice to make him a pair

-of breeches. He has a colossal fortune; he is respectable, and, of

-course, respected--a genial monster of benevolence; and he never fails

-to remind me, when we meet, of the time when I could pronounce his

-life not worth a button.

-

-I have, can only have, one theory. The button, after many cross

-adventures, “got home” at last--fatally for Mrs. John Belmont, who

-fell into a vicious decline upon its loss, and, tenderly nursed by her

-sister-in-law, departed this sphere in an uncertain year of her life.

-And, unless the button itself comes to dissolve, Jim, I fear, is

-immortal.

-

-

-

-

- DOG TRUST

-

-There was no reason why Richard Le Shore should not have made a

-straightforward appeal for the hand of Miss Molly Tregarthen to her

-papa. His credentials--of fortune, condition, and character--were

-unexceptionable; the girl’s kind inclinations were confessed; the

-father himself was an unexacting, indulgent, and ease-loving

-Democritus. It was but a question of those two and of Mr. Dicky, their

-favoured, their intimately favoured, guest.

-

-There was no reason, and for the reason that the spirit of Romance

-abhors reason; and that was why, without any reason, Richard persuaded

-Mollinda to a clandestine engagement, to stolen interviews, to a

-belief that love franked by authority was only the skim-milk of human

-kindness. At least he chose to persuade himself that he persuaded her,

-at all times when he could coax a certain bewildered honesty in her

-eyes from dumbly questioning the necessity of such tactics. In reality

-he loved that look, as the sweetest earnest of a sweet quality. It was

-not her he studied to deceive, but himself. Incurably eligible, he

-could never taste but through make-believe, like the “Marchioness,”

-the sweet stimulant of paternal interdiction.

-

-At the end of the season he accompanied father and child to

-“Tregarthen.” Here, you may be sure, he had not been twenty-four hours

-without making choice for his love’s rendezvous of a little wood

-which, approached through a tangled shrubbery, covered the slopes

-which ran up from the back of the house to the high beeches above.

-

-Now Dicky would himself have allowed that everything (desirable) had

-shone upon his suit save moonlight. That only, of all poetic glamours,

-was yet lacking. And so he prevailed with Molly Tregarthen to consent

-to a postprandial trysting among the trees, on the very evening

-subsequent to that of his arrival.

-

-He had no difficulty in escaping from papa, the imperturbable

-sybarite. Seated in an open window over against shrouded lawns, and a

-moon which rose like a bubble in liquid darkness; dreaming betwixt

-decanter and cigar-case, papa would not have had his luminous coma

-disturbed for anything less than a serious fire. So Dicky left him,

-and going up alone to the woods, leaned his back against a tree and

-smoked placidly.

-

-It was very quiet, and fragrant, and beautiful there; and presently

-the young gentleman lost himself somewhat in reflections. The

-moonlight, penetrating the leaves, made of the sward a ghostly Tom

-Tiddler’s Ground, which was all mottled with disks of faint gold. What

-a soft, fine shower to fall upon the head of his Danae, as she should

-come stealing up the alleys of light! Stealing--stealing! There was a

-little thrill of ecstasy in the word. How wide her eyes would be, and

-how would her bosom rise and fall in the breathlessness of some

-phantom guilt!

-

-Quite a nice little debauch of expectation, only--she did not come. He

-waited on, desirous, impatient, hungry; and at last, it must be said,

-cross. The touch of her hand, her lips, had never seemed so

-indispensable to him; but he would not cheapen the virtues of his own

-by carrying them back to market to a coquette. If she wanted them, she

-knew where to find them. As for him, he was quite placid and content;

-in proof of which he threw away his cigar-butt, and began pacing with

-a noisy recklessness up and down.

-

-That did not conjure her to him, but it seemed to evoke occasional

-responsive rustlings, or the fancy of them, which would bring his

-heart into his throat. They were only the stirring of woodland things,

-it seemed. He got very angry, resentful, cruel in his thoughts. The

-moon, the bubble of light, rose higher and higher--to the very surface

-of night, where it floated a little, and then burst. At least, so it

-seemed; for, all of a sudden, where it had been was a black cloud, and

-drops began to patter on the leaves. Then Richard realized all in a

-moment that his tryst had failed, that the moonlight was quenched, and

-that it was beginning to rain. With a naughty word or two, he braced

-up his loins, left the wood, and descended towards the house.

-

-As he went down, he heard the stable clock strike twelve. He startled,

-and strode faster, faster, until he was fairly scuttling. It was in

-vain. The Tregarthens were early people, and, even before he reached

-the house, he knew that its every window was blind and black. The

-whole family was abed, and he was shut out into the night.

-

-Twice, and vainly, he made the entire round of the building, seeking

-for any loophole to enter by. The rain by then was pelting, yet he did

-not dare raise a clatter on the front door, for fear he should be

-pistolled from a window. The inmates knew nothing of his absence, and

-the Squire held, for a Democritus, strong views on the subject of

-undisturbed repose.

-

-Coming to the porch again from his second circuit, and putting a hand

-to rest upon one of its columns, he jumped, as if he had touched a

-charged battery, to see a figure standing motionless in the shadow.

-

-“Hullo!” he gasped, in the sudden shock; then rallying, muttered out

-in a fury at his own weakness, “Who the devil are you?”

-

-Some faint gleam of moonshine, weltering through the flood,

-enlightened him even as he spoke.

-

-“Why, if it ain’t the butler!” he said.

-

-It was the butler. The figure admitted it in a curt word. Le Shore had

-already, on the occasions of his two dinners at “Tregarthen,” noticed

-this man, and had taken a quite violent exception in his own

-conscience to his manner and appearance. He thought he had never known

-a leading trust bestowed upon one whose face so expressed the very

-moral of acquisitiveness, whose conduct was marked by such an uncouth

-inurbanity. Here, if there was any value in biology, was Bill Sikes in

-broadcloth.

-

-The tone of the fellow’s answer grated confoundedly on him--he hardly

-knew why.

-

-“Are you locked out, like me?” he said, putting violence on himself to

-speak civilly.

-

-“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but for a better reason.”

-

-“What do you mean by that?”

-

-The creature was as thick-set as a bull. He could have broken this

-elegant like a stick across his knee. He commanded the situation,

-massive and impassive, from his own standpoint.

-

-“Look’ee here, sir,” he said, speaking through a grip of little strong

-teeth in a square jaw, “I’m going to tell you what I mean. I’m going

-to make no bones about it. You meet Miss Molly fair and open, or you

-don’t meet her at all. Do I know what I’m saying? Yes, I do know. She

-didn’t come to you to-night--because why? Because _I_ interdicted of

-her. That’s it. She might have thought better--or worse--of it, bein’

-a woman, and soft; and that’s why I laid by, watchin’ that no harm

-should come of it if she did. But she was wise, and didn’t. I seen you

-all the time in the wood, and I tell you this. A word’s got to be

-enough. You meet her by fair means, or not at all. Never mind the

-Squire there. It’s me that says it. If she admires you, nine stun

-ten--which there’s no accounting for tastes--I’m not the one to make

-difficulties. But you go like a honest man and ask her straight of her

-father. That’s the ticket, and don’t you make no error. Don’t you

-flatter your fancy no more with randy-voos in the moonshine. Why, if

-ever there’s a light calc’lated to lead a gentleman astray, it’s that.

-I say it, and I know. You go to the girl’s father; and, after, we’ll

-see what we’ll see.”

-

-He cleared his throat with a quarrelling sound, and came out of the

-shadow.

-

-“Now,” said he, “here’s a house you’ve been locked out of, and you

-want to get in without disturbin’ of the family--is that it? Very

-well, sir; now we understand everything; and step this way, if _you_

-please.”

-

-Almost with the words, he had clawed himself up to a window-sill of

-the ground-floor, and was very softly manipulating the sash. Mr. Le

-Shore, voiceless, hardly gasping, stood, just conscious of himself, in

-an absolute rigor of fury and astonishment. He was “stound,” as

-Spenser would have put it. Presently he snapped his eyelids, and woke

-aware that Mr. Hissey, standing on the grass, was loweringly inviting

-him to enter by way of an opened window. With a shock, he recovered

-his nerves of motion, and, stalking to the place, vaulted stiffly to

-the sill, and sat thereon like a cavalryman.

-

-“I’ve just a word or two for you, before I--I avail myself of this,”

-he said. “You’ve been gadding, and got drunk, I suppose; and this is

-your way of trying to make capital of a belated guest. Perhaps the

-means you’ve adopted ’ll appear less excellent to you in the sober

-morning. As to your method of entry, there’s nothing in it

-incompatible with the character I’d already formed of you. But that,

-and your quite outrageous insolence, will be made matters for your

-master’s consideration to-morrow. I mention this in honour, before

-I----” He waved his hand towards the room.

-

-“I could twist your neck with two fingers, here and now,” said the

-man.

-

-“Exactly,” said Dicky. “And that’s why I decline to make use of this

-window except on the plain understanding.”

-

-The butler cleared his throat again, even with a strange note of

-approval in the unseemly sound.

-

-“Mayhap you’ll do,” he said. “Now go to bed, and don’t forgit your

-prayers in your disappyntment.”

-

-Mr. Le Shore hissed-in a breath, as though the rain had suddenly

-become boiling spray, then tiptoed rigidly to his room.

-

-

-The opening of the window, framed with creepers, whose shadows shrank

-or dilated softly in the muslin curtains, gave on to a soothful

-picture of lawn and herbaceous border which, withdrawing to cool

-caverns of leafiness under a remote cedar tree, seemed to gather

-themselves to a head of prettiest expression in the person of little

-Miss Mollinda swinging there in a hammock. Within, at the

-luncheon-table, Tregarthen poured himself out a glass of Madeira with

-a hand so limp and white in appearance that one would have thought it

-incapable of the task of poising the heavy decanter. Here was delicate

-seeming only, however. The perpetual sybarite reads an incorruptible

-constitution. The white hand held the bottle horizontal, as steady as

-a rock, during the minute the indolent, good-humoured eyes of its

-owner were directed to those of his visitor.

-

-“My dear good Richard, the man _is_ a burglar.”

-

-He laughed at the other’s expression, filled his glass, sipped at it,

-and, hooking his thumbs in his arm-holes, lolled back in his chair.

-

-“I am not justified in the confidence, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyhow,

-it is the short way out of a fatiguing explanation. The man _is_ a

-burglar--not figuratively, but actually, by breeding, education,

-profession--_appelez-le comme vous voudrez_. He has the stamp of it so

-distinctly on him that one need not ask him to produce his skeleton

-key.”

-

-“Then I have nothing more to say.”

-

-“Ah! the devil take the honest thief! Your obvious grievance forces me

-to the explanation, after all. My dear boy, I imply nothing, argue

-from no premises but such as a long experience of this capital,

-troublesome fellow suggest to me. Speaking from these (I may be

-wrong), I should conclude that he is somehow in process of

-safeguarding, as he thinks, the interests of my girl, to whom he is

-quite romantically attached. Honestly, I don’t know to whom I would

-rather commit them. Poor motherless child!”

-

-He had, it seemed, no thought of himself as pledged to the task.

-‘Himself’ should be a fair one-man’s burden.

-

-“He is very right to be attached to Miss Tregarthen,” muttered Le

-Shore dryly, and a little sullenly.

-

-“He is very right indeed,” answered his host; “righter (pardon the

-solecism) than you might think. In this excellent rogue is provided

-such an illustration of the ‘harmony not understood’ of discords, as

-circumstance has ever given to an _ennuyé_ world. The dear creature

-has decided to stultify his every instinct for a sentiment. It is the

-most interesting psychological phenomenon you can imagine. He has

-conceded nothing of his nature but the means to its practical

-achievement. Conceive a wolf of his own determination forgoing blood.

-Such is this dear, admirable brute. _Perfossor parietum nascitur._ He

-cannot change his spots. To this day, I think, he will always of

-choice enter by a window rather than a door; to this day he regards

-plate with a most _melting_ look. But for all that, I think I may

-swear that at the present moment the tally of my spoons is to an ounce

-what it was when he took service with me eighteen years ago.”

-

-“Your servant for eighteen years!”

-

-“My servant--titularly: in reality, my mentor, my vizier. Dog Trust is

-a rather sweetly demoralizing acquisition. He takes the burden of

-conscience from one--steals it, in this case, I may say. But then,

-after all, he may use his vicegerency to ends so far beyond the moral

-grasp of the master he represents, as more than to vindicate that

-master in his withdrawal from the vexatious problems of duty. Through

-sheer force of affection this admirable George has mastered himself,

-and bettered his master in the parental ethics.”

-

-“Indeed, sir?” (Mr. Dicky spoke very dryly.) “And how does Miss

-Tregarthen approve the viziership?”

-

-“As she loves and respects the vizier, Richard. I do not think she

-would willingly run counter to his dictates, which, by the way, he

-never imposes in a manner to alarm one’s pride. Ah! did you catch that

-whiff of scabious? There is a bush of it under the window there. It

-always seems to me to embody in itself the whole warmth and fragrance

-of summer. My dear fellow, your eyes are relentless inquisitors. No

-more wine? Well, I suppose I shall have to tell you how it came

-about.”

-

-He sighed, drained his glass, laughed slightly, and smoothed a stray

-wisp of hair from his forehead.

-

-“Once,” he said--“it was particularly disagreeable to a person of my

-temperament--I was called upon by Fate to suffer the ugly and sordid

-experience of a conflagration in my house. You, who are also a little

-inclined, I believe, to create for yourself an atmosphere of romance,

-to regard the great world only as a quarry, from which to gather

-materials most exquisite and most apt to the enrichment of the

-hermitage, which it is your design and your delight to build apart for

-your soul, will appreciate what were my feelings upon seeing my fairy

-fabric doomed to destruction, to positive annihilation, by the flames.

-I have never spoken to you of the disaster before. You will know that

-I do so now under the mere stress of fitness, as a means to your

-proper understanding of George Hissey’s conduct. The recollection is

-painful and horrible to a degree.

-

-“The alarm, the escape, the catastrophe were all accomplished in the

-dark hours of a winter’s morning. My dear wife (she sleeps, awaiting

-my coming, in Elysium) followed me down the stairs and out of the

-house at a short interval. She found me devoted to a frantic endeavour

-to secure from destruction such of my poor treasures as were

-accessible--few enough, alas! though the tears I shed should have

-quenched the hate of a Hecla. What had I done with her child? she

-cried to me--with our sweet Molly, our little three-year-old babe?

-Richard, I felt as stunned as if she, the pretty, gentle mother, had

-struck me across the mouth. I could only stare and gasp. She uttered a

-heart-shaking scream, and turned to where the servants stood huddled

-together in the garden. They were all there, and the two nurses were

-crying and moaning and accusing one another. My God! mad with terror,

-they had deserted their charge to perish by itself in the burning

-house!”

-

-He paused. “Don’t go on, sir, if it distresses you,” said Le Shore

-quietly.

-

-“No,” answered Tregarthen. “Like the Ancient Mariner, I must be quit

-of it now I have begun. But I will have a glass of wine.”

-

-He poured himself out one, daintily as to the drop on the decanter

-lip.

-

-“There followed a fearful scene,” he said. “It was all I could do to

-prevent my angel from precipitating herself through the blazing

-doorway. The whole building seemed by now a furnace--no possibility of

-further salvage from those priceless accumulations--not, of course,

-that at such a pass it was to be thought of. I mingled my tears with

-my wife’s. I offered half my fortune to any one of the crowd who would

-save, and a large reward to any one who would venture to save, our

-darling. But it was in vain; and in my heart I knew it.

-

-“Now, in this extremity of despair, a sudden roar went up from a

-hundred throats, and passed on the instant. Richard, a man, shedding

-flakes of fire as Venus cast her birth-slough of spray, had emerged

-overhead from the sea of flame, and in his arms was our child. Who was

-he? Whence did he come? No one knew. Our house was isolated. The

-engine from the neighbouring town had not arrived. He was not a

-friend, nor a neighbour, nor an employé. It was only evident that

-innocence had somehow evolved its champion.

-

-“We watched, stricken, as castaways watch the glimmer of a remote

-sail. The figure had broken its way through the skylight in the roof,

-only, it might be, to symbolize in the burden it bore the leaping of a

-little flame heavenward. The situation was the very sublimity of

-tragedy. Beneath those two the roof, sown with a very garden of fire,

-dropped at a sickening angle.

-

-“Suddenly, shutting, as it seemed, upon his charge, the man rolled

-himself up like a hedgehog, and came bowling down the slope. It was a

-terrible and gasping moment. His body, as it whirled, reeled out a

-hiss of sparks. The next instant it had bounded over the edge, and

-plunged among the smoking bushes beneath.

-

-“They broke his fall; but it was the verandah awning which in the

-first instance saved his life--his, and our dear devoted cherub’s. But

-he had never once, through all the stunning vertigo of his descent,

-failed to shield the little body which his own enwrapped.

-

-“Now, my dear Richard, comes the strange part. When I was sufficiently

-recovered to seek our preserver, I found him sitting handcuffed, in

-charge of the local policeman. He was very white, with two or three

-ribs broken; but he took it all unconcerned, as being in the day’s, or

-the night’s, business. Who was he? Well, here is the explanation. He

-was a renowned cracksman, as I think they call it, who had been

-operating in the neighbourhood for some weeks past--the hero of many a

-shuddering midnight adventure. Without doubt he had taken his toll of

-_my_ ‘crib,’ had not circumstance dropped him ripe into the gaping

-mouth of the law. He had entered, and was actually at work, when fire

-cut the ground, as it were, from under his feet. Almost before,

-intensely occupied, he realized his position, escape by the lower

-rooms was debarred him. Was ever situation so dramatic? It was to be

-compared only with that of a huntsman who, entering some cave to steal

-bear cubs, turns to find the dam blocking his outlet. Still, Mr.

-Hissey _might_ have escaped, and without detection, by dropping to the

-lawn from a back window, had his burglarious ears not pricked suddenly

-to the wailing of a child.

-

-“My dear fellow, need I explain further? The child he risked his own

-life to rescue was our--I may almost say, at this day, was _his_

-Molly. It was the strangest thing. I did not, as a consequence, quite

-see my way to holding him altogether absolved; but my dear, emotional

-partner was of a different opinion. We had quite a little scene about

-it. In the end she prevailed--with the whole boiling of the law, too;

-and the man was sentenced to come up for judgment if called upon. Then

-straightway, and by his own desire, she took the disinfected burglar

-into her service. It was one of those daring psychologic essays which

-may once and again be carried to a successful issue through the

-white-hot faith of the experimenter; but which must not be given

-authority as a precedent. My wife fairly redeemed this burglar, by

-committing, without hesitation, to his loyal trust the little waif of

-fire whose destinies he had earned the right to a voice in. From that

-day to this, I will say, he has never abused the faith we reposed in

-him. On her deathbed, my dear girl (pardon me a moment, Le Shore), my

-dear wife most solemnly recommitted her child to his care. I did not

-complain, I do not complain now. I, who make no pretence of competence

-in the paternal rôle, thank the gods only for my vizier, who is quite

-willing to accord me the ritual of authority, while taking its

-practical business on his own shoulders. With a man of my temperament

-it works; and I am satisfied, if Molly gives me her respect, that she

-should give Hissey her duty.”

-

-He ceased, with a little smiling sigh, and lifted a cigarette from a

-silver case which lay on the table. Le Shore regarded him steadily.

-

-“Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, “Molly and I are engaged. I should have

-told you before.”

-

-The older man did not pause in the act of lighting his cigarette; but

-enjoyed an inhalation of smoke before he answered--

-

-“I plead guilty to a suspicion, Richard. I am confident our vizier has

-been safeguarding the proprieties. You remember what I said to you in

-his excuse just now?”

-

-“I have your sanction, sir?”

-

-“Certainly, as a form. But I am afraid, from the practical side, you

-will have to satisfy that same inquisitor.”

-

-

-“Mr. George Hissey,” said Dicky, “I have papa’s authority to marry

-Miss Molly. Now, with your permission, I will relieve you of your

-trust.”

-

-“Dicky!” cried the girl reproachfully; and she put her kind young arms

-round the ex-burglar’s neck.

-

-“Unless,” said Le Shore, “you care to transfer that to my ‘crib,’ Mr.

-Hissey.”

-

-The butler cleared his throat.

-

-“Well, I do care, sir,” he said, hoarsely, nevertheless, “since you

-seen fit to cut that moonshinin’ lay, And as to cribs----”

-

-“Molly” said Richard, “there’s papa calling.”

-

-

-

-

- A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE

-

-“I have nothing to do with your scruples,” said the magistrate; “the

-law is the law, and I am here to administer it.”

-

-Mr. Plumley licked his hand, and stolidly smoothing down his black

-hair with it, answered, as if at a distance, being a well-fed,

-unctuous man, “too full for sound and foam,” “I’m a conscientious

-objector.”

-

-“Passive resister!” corrected a friend, a little eager man, among the

-audience near him.

-

-“Eh?” said Mr. Plumley immovably, and without a glance in the

-direction of the voice, “I said passive resister, didn’t I?”

-

-“Whether you said it or not,” answered the magistrate sharply, “you

-look it. I make an order against you for the amount.”

-

-“As man to man----” began Mr. Plumley.

-

-“Not in the least,” said the magistrate; “as debtor to creditor. Stand

-down.”

-

-“I shan’t pay it,” said Mr. Plumley, preparing to obey.

-

-“If you say another word, I’ll commit you for contempt,” said the

-magistrate. “Stand down, sir!”

-

-Mr. Plumley stood down, with an unspeakable expression--it might have

-been of satisfaction--on his huge, stolid face. Arrived at the floor,

-he beckoned his little friend to follow him, and heavily left the

-court.

-

-He steered--the other acting as his rudder, as it were, and keeping

-his position behind--straight for his own domestic shrine, hight

-Primrose Villa, semi-detached. It was a beautiful little home for a

-widower unencumbered, calculated, like an india-rubber collar, to

-afford the maximum of display at a minimum of cost in washing. The

-doorsteps were laid with a flaming pattern in tiles; red-aspinalled

-flower pots, embellished with little dull glazed shrubs, stood on the

-lowest window-sill; the bell-knob was of handsome porcelain, painted

-with the gaudiest flowers in miniature. Within, too, it was all

-furnished on a like hard principle of lustre--red and yellow oilcloth

-in the hall, with marbled paper to match; earthenware-panned mahogany

-hat-rack and umbrella-stand combined, as red as rhubarb, and as acrid

-in suggestion to one’s feelings; more oilcloth in the parlour; more

-mahogany, also, with a pert disposition in its doors and drawers to

-resent being shut up; glass bead mats and charity bazaar photograph

-frames on the whatnots, all so clean and pungent with sharp furniture

-stain that the rudder--Gardener by name--felt, as usual, the necessity

-of a humble apology for bringing his five feet four of shabbiness into

-the midst of so much splendour and selectness.

-

-Mr. Plumley rumbled condescendingly in reply--

-

-“You’d get used to it, Robert, you’d get used to it, if you’d lived

-familiar with it all your life, as I have.”

-

-“Ah!” said Gardener, “but I wasn’t born like you, sir, to shine.”

-

-If he meant that the other was a light in his way--a little tallowy,

-perhaps--his own dry, hungry cheeks certainly justified him in the

-self-depreciation. They justified him, moreover--or he fancied they

-did, which was all the same as to the moral--in continuing to act

-jackal to this social lion, who had once been his employer in the

-cheap furniture-removal line. He lived--hung, it would seem more

-apposite to say--on his traditions of the great man’s business

-capacities, capacities whose fruits were here to witness, for evidence

-of the competence upon which his principal had retired. He got, in

-fact, little else than his traditions out of his former master at this

-date; yet it was strange how they served to delude him into a belief

-in his continued profit at the hands of the old patronage. The moral

-benefit he acquired from stealing into the local chapel to hear Mr.

-Plumley take a Sunday-school class, was at least worth as much to him

-as the occasional pipe of tobacco, or glass of whisky and water, which

-his idol vouchsafed him. For Mr. Gardener, as a true ‘poor relation’

-of the gods, was humbly thankful for their cheapest condescensions.

-

-“You stuck to your principles, sir,” he said, standing on one leg and

-the toe of the other, in humble deprecation of his right to any but

-the smallest possible allowance of oilcloth. Perhaps he would have

-brought his foot down, even he, could he have guessed the true

-significance of his own remark.

-

-“I did, Robert,” said Mr. Plumley, placidly sleeking his hair. “I

-always do. Have a pipe, Robert?”

-

-“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the man. “That was a mistake you made,

-sir.”

-

-“Mistakes,” said Mr. Plumley, “will occur. Have some whisky, Robert?”

-

-“You’re very good, sir.”

-

-“You don’t like it too strong, I think, Robert? And how’s the world

-treating you, my friend?”

-

-“Much as usual, sir. From hand to mouth’s my motto.”

-

-“Sad, sad to be sure. They’ll distrain upon me, I suppose.”

-

-“I’m afraid so, sir.”

-

-“The inhumanity of the world, Robert! You do pretty reg’lar porter’s

-work for Bull and Hacker, the auctioneers, don’t you, Robert?”

-

-“That’s so, Mr. Plumley,” said the man, wondering. “But the work’s

-heavier than the wages.”

-

-“They’ll be commissioned to seize the necessary goods. I wish you’d

-manage to give ’em a hint, Robert--over the left, you know, without

-any reference to me--that there’s a picture I prize (and that I’ve

-reason to believe a dealer is after), what would more than pay the two

-pun odd of the distraint if put up first. O’ course, I can’t appear to

-favour the matter myself, being a con----”

-

-“Passive resister, sir.”

-

-“Thank you, Robert; being the one most concerned in disputin’ the

-justice of the law. But a hint from you might settle the question at

-once. We aren’t very good friends, Bull and me; and, if he thought I

-prized the article, he’d be moral sure to seize it, slap away, to

-spite me.”

-

-“The picter?”

-

-“The picture, Robert. There it is.”

-

-It hung in an obscure corner, a dingy enough article, in an old

-damaged frame.

-

-“It don’t look the price,” said Gardener doubtfully.

-

-“It cost me more in a bad debt,” said the ex-remover, busying himself

-with the whisky in his heavy, observant way.

-

-“Very like, sir,” answered the other, and coughed behind his hand.

-

-“I know what you mean,” said his patron; “that I was took in. Well,

-I’ve reason to think not, my man. I’ve reason to think that picture’s

-worth a deal--say, fifty pun. Anyhow, I mean to try.”

-

-“A dealer’s after it, you say?”

-

-“Yes, I do say.”

-

-“Then why--with deference, sir--don’t you sell direct to him?”

-

-“Why don’t I? Am I a man of business, Robert? Look about you. Have I

-learned, do you think, to take a hexpert’s word as to the precise

-vally of a article that I see his heye’s on, or to argy by induction

-that a good private offer means a better public one? When it comes to

-overreaching--hem!--a connoyser’s a man like myself; so we’ll just, by

-your leave, put the picture up to auction.”

-

-He carried the decanter back to its place in one of the shiny

-cupboards.

-

-“Besides, my friend,” said he, talking over his shoulder, “don’t you

-see as how my conscience demands this seizure?”

-

-“Not quite, sir, _with_ humility, if so be as----”

-

-“You’re dense, Robert. Look here, I’m a conscientious resister, ain’t

-I? Law ain’t necessarily equity because the devil and Mr. Chamberlain

-frames it. There’s some lawgivers that are Vicars of Jehovah, and some

-of----but perhaps you’ve never heard of Abaddon?”

-

-“_Haven’t_ I?” said Mr. Gardener ruefully. “I was near run in once for

-tendering one as had been passed on me.”

-

-“He was king of the bottomless pit,” said Mr. Plumley patiently. “_He_

-framed this here law what’s made a passive objector of me. Well, if,

-in resigning myself to his unjust processes, I force the

-picture-dealer’s hand, thereby making a profit elsewise denied me,

-don’t you see how I round on the law--triumph over it--kill two birds

-with one stone, as it might be?”

-

-“Yes, sir; I see that,” said Mr. Gardener, though still doubtfully.

-

-“You do, do you?” responded the other. “Well, then, the only thing is

-to make the law pay as heavy as possible by getting the picture run up

-to the dealer’s figure.”

-

-“But the law wouldn’t go for more’n its two pun odd,” protested the

-jackal.

-

-“O, you fool!” snarled the lion. “It’s the moral profit’s the game,

-don’t you see? _I_ gain by the very hact what starts of itself to ruin

-me. It’s as plain as two pins.”

-

-Mr. Gardener scratched his head, and broke into a short laugh.

-

-“Bless you sir,” said he, “it’s clear enough; if on’y you’ll tell me

-who in all this here place is a-going to run up the dealer, since you

-can’t yourself.”

-

-Mr. Plumley, bending at the cupboard, did not answer for a moment.

-When at last he did, rising and facing round, there was a curious

-pallor on his lips, and he had to clear his throat before he could

-articulate--

-

-“You, Robert.”

-

-“Me, sir! You’re joking.”

-

-“Never less so, Robert.”

-

-“I ain’t worth a sixpence in the world, sir.”

-

-The ex-remover walked shakily across, and put a flabby, insinuative

-hand on the other’s shoulder.

-

-“I think I may say I’ve been a good friend to you, Robert?”

-

-Gardener muttered an uneasy affirmative.

-

-“To justify a great principle, Robert? It’s a mere matter of form;

-its----humph! A moment, if you please. Think of it while I’m gone.”

-

-A rap at the front door had obtruded itself. Mr. Plumley tiptoed

-elephantinely out, was heard murmuring a few minutes in the hall, and

-returned shortly in a state of suavely perspiring mystery.

-

-“It’s the dealer himself, Robert,” he whispered, his little eyes

-twinkling. “He’s come to make another attempt. I’ll humour him--humour

-him, never fear. Now, you must be quick. Will you do this little thing

-to oblige me?”

-

-“Supposing I were let in, sir?”

-

-Mr. Plumley coughed.

-

-“I guarantee you, of course. It’s just a confidence between us. Go to

-fifty pound--not a penny less nor more--and let him take it at any

-figure he likes, beyond. He won’t fail you. You’ll do it, Robert?”

-

-“I don’t favour the job, sir.”

-

-“But you’ll do it?”

-

-“Well, yes, then.”

-

-Mr. Plumley showed him out, returned to the parlour, finished his

-whisky and water, and called in the dealer from some hidden corner of

-the hall where he had lain concealed. He had braced his nerves in the

-interval. His attitude all at once was scowling and truculent--meet

-for the reception of the shabby loafer who now presented himself.

-

-“What are you grinning at, sir?” he roared. “This ain’t the face to

-bring to business.”

-

-“O! isn’t it?” said the man. “Then I’ll change it----” which he did,

-so suddenly and terrifically that the other cowered. The stranger

-snorted, and relaxed.

-

-“What now, minion?” said he.

-

-“Bah!” snarled Mr. Plumley: “it comes easy to a barnstormer.”

-

-“Roscius, ye fat old Philistine,” cried the actor, striking his breast

-with a ragged-gloved hand: “Roscius, thou ‘villainous, obscene, greasy

-tallow-ketch!’”

-

-“Well,” said Mr. Plumley, wiping his brow, “I meant no offence,

-anyhow. Have a drink?”

-

-The stranger breathed heavily, and assumed a Napoleonic pose.

-

-“I will have a drink,” he said; and, in fact, before he would

-condescend to utter another word, he had two.

-

-“Ha!” he said then, ejaculating a little spirituous cloud, and his

-lean, pantomimic face was all at once benign. “Richard’s himself

-again, and eager for the fray! To the charge, my passive resister, my

-heavy lead! Ye need Theophilus Bolton! Ye must pay!”

-

-“As to that there,” began Mr. Plumley, stuttering and glowering; but

-the other took him up coolly----

-

-“As to that, dear boy, there’s no question. You’ve withheld me from a

-profitable engagement----”

-

-“O, blow profitable!” interposed Mr. Plumley. “And you didn’t jump at

-the chanst neither!”

-

-“To play a part for you,” went on the actor unruffled “Well, am I to

-be Agnew, or Christie, or Sotheby, or who? My commission’s five per

-cent.”

-

-“Well, I don’t object to that,” said Plumley, relieved. “On the vally

-of the picture to Gardener, that’s to say. Call it done, and call

-yourself what you like.”

-

-“One man in his time plays many parts,” murmured Mr. Bolton. “Put it

-on paper, dear boy. I have a weakness for testaments.”

-

-Mr. Plumley protested; the actor whistled. In the end, the latter

-pocketed a document to the effect that Joshua Plumley agreed to pay

-Theophilus Bolton a sum to be calculated at the rate of five per cent

-on the ultimate selling price at auction (on a date hereafter to be

-filled in) of a picture known as the “The Wood Shop.”

-

-“You’ll be close?” said Mr. Plumley uneasily. “It might--it might

-injure me, you know, if it got about. Short o’ fifty pound’s the

-figger--you understand? Let Gardener secure it at that. I’ve my

-reasons. You come to me quick and quiet after the sale, and you shall

-have your two pound ten on the nail, and slip off with it as private

-as you wish.”

-

-Now, what was Plumley’s little game? And wasn’t he anyhow a good man

-of business?

-

-

-He was at least such a sure student of human nature as to have made no

-miscalculation in the matter of Bull and Hacker’s predilections. They

-seized, on the strength of Mr. Gardener’s artful insinuations, the

-very picture on which the defaulter was supposed to set a value, and

-put it up to sale one afternoon on the tail of a general auction. Mr.

-Gardener bid for it (the practice was common enough amongst the firm’s

-employés, acting for private clients, and Bull rather admired the

-man’s astuteness in having suggested a seizure so prospectively

-profitable to himself), and a strange dealer opposed him. They ran one

-another up merrily, and the room gaped and sniggered and whispered. It

-was an afternoon of surprises.

-

-“Forty-six,” cried the auctioneer--“any advance on forty-six?”

-

-A local lawyer, Bittern by name, was observed pushing his way through

-the crowd.

-

-“Good Lord!” he was muttering; “is the man daft!”

-

-“Forty-seven,” said the dealer.

-

-“Forty-eight,” bawled Gardener.

-

-“Forty-nine,” said the dealer monotonously.

-

-“Fifty!” cried Gardener stoutly; and hung on the bid which was to quit

-and relieve him.

-

-It did not come.

-

-The auctioneer raised his stereotyped wail: It was giving the lot

-away; a chance like that might never occur again; let him say

-fifty-one. “Come, gentlemen! Shall I say fifty-one? No?” He would sell

-at fifty, then--sell this unique work at the low figure of fifty

-pounds. “Any advance on fifty pounds?” He raised his hammer.

-

-“Not for me,” said the dealer, turning away. “Let him have it.”

-

-Down came the hammer. “Gardener: fifty pounds,” murmured Mr. Bull,

-with a very satisfied face. The purchaser stood stupefied.

-

-Two flurried gentlemen at this moment entered the room. They seemed

-more rivals than friends, and each shouldered the other rather rudely.

-

-“Too late, by gosh!” growled one.

-

-“Not a bit,” said the second, pushing past. “We’ll get the vendee to

-put it up again. I dare say he’ll do it.”

-

-“Here!” cried the first, grasping at the other’s receding figure.

-

-Jibbing together, they made their way towards Gardener, who was

-standing in rueful and dumbfoundered altercation with the lawyer. A

-brief but very earnest discussion took place among the four. At the

-end, the rostrum was invoked, the picture was replaced on the table,

-the two new-comers took up position. Gardener, mute and dazed, fell

-back, in custody of the lawyer, who stood with a hard, shrewd glitter

-in his eyes, and the auctioneer, blandly elated, raised his voice,

-justifying his own judgment.

-

-The picture, he said--as he had already informed the company, in

-fact--was a desirable one, a rare example of that peerless master

-Adrian Ostade; and the recent purchaser--whose property it was now

-become--had been persuaded generously to put it up to auction again on

-his own account, in answer to the representations of certain would-be

-bidders, whom an unforeseen delay on the railway had prevented from

-attending earlier.

-

-“We will start at fifty pounds, gentlemen, if you please,” said he.

-

-Mr. Bolton, in the background, pulled his hat over his eyes, and

-settled himself to listen.

-

-

-That great financial strategist, Mr. Plumley, sat drinking whisky and

-water by lamplight. His pipe lay at his side. He had tried to smoke

-it; but tobacco flurried him.

-

-“It should be about settled by now,” he muttered. “Where’s that

-Bolton?”

-

-“Rap!” came the answer, upon such an acute nervous centre, that he

-started as if he had been stung.

-

-He rose, made an effort to compose himself, and went to the door.

-

-A spare tall figure detached itself from the dark, and entered.

-

-“What the devil’s been keeping you?” growled the ex-remover.

-

-“Ah! you’re short-sighted, my friend,” said Mr. Bittern, and walked

-coolly into the parlour.

-

-Mr. Plumley stared, felt suddenly wet, shook himself, and followed.

-When it came to creeping flesh, he felt the full aggravation of his

-size. The slow march of apprehensions, taking time from a sluggish but

-persistent brain, seemed minutes encompassing him.

-

-“So,” said the lawyer, dry and wintry, the moment he was in, “you

-coveted your neighbours one ewe lamb?”

-

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe, blew through it, put it down again, and

-said nothing.

-

-“You’d heard of Gardener’s aunt’s little bequest to him of fifty

-pounds, duty free, eh?” asked the lawyer.

-

-“No,” said Mr. Plumley.

-

-“O!” said the lawyer. “He bid fifty pounds for that picture of yours

-this afternoon, and got it. On whose instructions?”

-

-“Ask him, sir. He acts for many.”

-

-“It wasn’t on yours, then?”

-

-“Is that reasonable, Mr. Bittern, when to my knowledge the man wasn’t

-worth a brass farden?”

-

-“What do you say about holding him to his bargain?”

-

-“I say, if he’s bought the picture, he must pay for it.”

-

-“And who bid against him? You don’t know that either, I suppose?”

-

-“Nat’rally. Was I there?”

-

-“Well, I’ve settled for him with Bull and Hacker, and brought you

-their cheque, less commission and distraint. Give me a receipt for

-it.”

-

-The great creature, elated with his own strategy as he was, could

-hardly draw it out, his hands shook so. But he managed the business

-somehow. The lawyer examined the paper, and buttoning it into his

-pocket, took up his hat.

-

-“O, by the way!” he said, as if on an afterthought, “I was forgetting

-to mention that Gardener, after securing the picture, put it up to

-auction again, at the particular request of some late arrivals, and

-was bid a thousand pounds for it. It turned out to be a very good

-work.”

-

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe again quite softly, looked at it a

-moment, and suddenly dashed it to smithereens on the floor.

-

-“It was a plant!” he cried in a fat, hoarse scream. “I’ll be even with

-him--I’ll have the money--the picture was mine--I’ll--by God, I say,

-it was a conspiracy!”

-

-The lawyer at the door lashed round on him like whipcord.

-

-“And that’s what I think,” he shouted. “The meanest, dirtiest trick

-that was ever played by a canting scoundrel on a poor brother. But I

-may get to the bottom of it yet, from the opening scheme to enlist

-Gardener’s sympathies for a poor martyr to conscience, to the last

-wicked design upon him in the saleroom. I may get to the bottom of it,

-cunning as it was planned; and, when I do, let some look out!”

-

-As he flung away, he let in a new-comer, Mr. Bolton, by the opened

-door. Mr. Plumley, choking in the backwater of his own fury, had sunk

-into a chair, gasping betwixt bitterness and panic. He could not, for

-the moment, remember how far he had committed himself. He looked up to

-meet the insolent, ironic smile of his confederate. “Come along, dear

-boy,” said Mr. Bolton. “Curtain’s down. Cash up!”

-

-He presented a claim for fifty pounds, and stood, his hat cocked on

-his head, picking his teeth.

-

-“What’s this curst gammon?” sneered Mr. Plumley, rousing himself.

-

-“Commission,” said the actor airily. “Five per cent. on the ultimate

-selling price of a picture.”

-

-“It went at fifty.”

-

-“Pardon _me_, sir. _Ultimate--ultimate_, see agreement” (he smacked

-his chest). “One thou’ was the figure, and dirt cheap. Fine example.

-I’ll trouble you for a cheque.”

-

-“Two pound ten. I’ll give it you in cash.”

-

-Mr. Bolton whistled a stave, and turned round, his hands deep in his

-breeches’ pockets.

-

-“I can sell to the other party. Good day to you, and look out.”

-

- [The End]

-

-

-

-

- TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

-

-Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ cash-box/cash box,

-frockcoat/frock-coat, etc.) have been preserved.

-

-Alterations to the text:

-

-[A gallows-bird]

-

-Change “convolutions of war, the merry, the _dance-maccabre_” to

-_danse-macabre_.

-

-[Our lady of refuge]

-

-“fort of San Fernando. and the cursed French garrison,” change period

-to comma.

-

-[The five insides]

-

-(“‘Eh, says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting) add right single

-quotation mark after _Eh_.

-

-“a bit forward--‘No, no, no no, no, no, no--’” add comma after

-third _no_.

-

-[The jade button]

-

-“The property was recovered--but for the heir…” add period to

-sentence.

-

- [End of text]

-

-

-

-

-

-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***

-

-

-

-Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will

-be renamed.

-

-

-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright

-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,

-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United

-States without permission and without paying copyright

-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part

-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™

-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,

-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following

-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use

-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for

-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very

-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation

-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project

-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may

-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected

-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark

-license, especially commercial redistribution.

-

-

-START: FULL LICENSE

-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

-

-

-To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work

-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full

-Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at

-www.gutenberg.org/license.

-

-

-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-

-

-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™

-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to

-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property

-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all

-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or

-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your

-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a

-Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound

-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person

-or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

-

-

-1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who

-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few

-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See

-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this

-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

-

-

-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the

-Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection

-of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual

-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United

-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the

-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not

-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,

-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as

-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope

-that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting

-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™

-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the

-Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily

-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the

-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when

-you share it without charge with others.

-

-

-

-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern

-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are

-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,

-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this

-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,

-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any

-other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no

-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any

-country other than the United States.

-

-

-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

-

-

-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear

-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work

-on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the

-phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,

-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

-

-

-  

-    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms

-    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online

-    at www.gutenberg.org. If you

-    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws

-    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

-  

-

-

-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not

-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the

-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in

-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are

-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply

-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or

-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™

-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-

-

-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution

-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any

-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms

-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works

-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the

-beginning of this work.

-

-

-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™

-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this

-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

-

-

-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without

-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project

-Gutenberg™ License.

-

-

-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,

-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including

-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access

-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format

-other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official

-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website

-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense

-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means

-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain

-Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the

-full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

-

-

-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works

-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-

-

-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-provided that:

-

-

-    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from

-        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method

-        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed

-        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has

-        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid

-        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are

-        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty

-        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in

-        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg

-        Literary Archive Foundation.”

-    

-    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies

-        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he

-        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™

-        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all

-        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue

-        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™

-        works.

-    

-    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

-        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the

-        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of

-        receipt of the work.

-    

-    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free

-        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

-    

-

-

-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than

-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing

-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of

-the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set

-forth in Section 3 below.

-

-

-1.F.

-

-

-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread

-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project

-Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may

-contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate

-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other

-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or

-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or

-cannot be read by your equipment.

-

-

-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right

-of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project

-Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all

-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal

-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

-DAMAGE.

-

-

-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can

-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a

-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you

-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium

-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you

-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in

-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person

-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second

-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If

-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing

-without further opportunities to fix the problem.

-

-

-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth

-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO

-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT

-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

-

-

-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of

-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement

-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the

-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or

-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or

-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the

-remaining provisions.

-

-

-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone

-providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in

-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the

-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,

-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of

-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this

-or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or

-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any

-Defect you cause.

-

-

-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

-

-

-Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of

-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of

-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It

-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations

-from people in all walks of life.

-

-

-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s

-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will

-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure

-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future

-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see

-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

-

-

-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-

-

-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit

-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the

-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal

-Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification

-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by

-U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

-

-

-The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up

-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website

-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

-

-

-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-

-

-Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread

-public support and donations to carry out its mission of

-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be

-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest

-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations

-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt

-status with the IRS.

-

-

-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United

-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a

-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up

-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations

-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND

-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state

-visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

-

-

-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition

-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who

-approach us with offers to donate.

-

-

-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from

-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

-

-

-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation

-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other

-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To

-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

-

-

-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-

-

-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project

-Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be

-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and

-distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of

-volunteer support.

-

-

-Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed

-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in

-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not

-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper

-edition.

-

-

-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search

-facility: www.gutenberg.org.

-

-

-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to

-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

-

diff --git a/old/71615-h_2023-09-11.htm b/old/71615-h_2023-09-11.htm
deleted file mode 100644
index c798512..0000000
--- a/old/71615-h_2023-09-11.htm
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,16419 +0,0 @@
-<!DOCTYPE html>

-<html lang="en">

-<head>

- <meta charset="UTF-8">

- <title>

-  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes, by Bernard Capes

- </title>

- <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">

-  <style>

-    

-    #pg-header div, #pg-footer div {

-        all: initial;

-        display: block;

-        margin-top: 1em;

-        margin-bottom: 1em;

-        margin-left: 2em;

-    }

-    #pg-footer div.agate {

-        font-size: 90%;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-        text-align: center;

-    }

-    #pg-footer li {

-        all: initial;

-        display: block;

-        margin-top: 1em;

-        margin-bottom: 1em;

-        text-indent: -0.6em;

-    }

-    #pg-footer div.secthead {

-        font-size: 110%;

-        font-weight: bold;

-    }

-    #pg-footer #project-gutenberg-license {

-        font-size: 110%;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-        text-align: center;

-    }

-    #pg-header-heading {

-        all: inherit;

-        text-align: center;

-        font-size: 120%;

-        font-weight:bold;

-    }

-    #pg-footer-heading {

-        all: inherit;

-        text-align: center;

-        font-size: 120%;

-        font-weight: normal;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-machine-header p {

-        text-indent: -4em;

-        margin-left: 4em;

-        margin-top: 1em;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-        font-size: medium

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-header-authlist {

-        all: initial;

-        margin-top: 0;

-        margin-bottom: 0;

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-machine-header strong {

-        font-weight: normal;

-    }

-    #pg-header #pg-start-separator, #pg-footer #pg-end-separator {

-        margin-bottom: 3em;

-        margin-left: 0;

-        margin-right: auto;

-        margin-top: 2em;

-        text-align: center

-    }

-    

-  </style>

- <style>

-

-/* Headers and Divisions */

- h1, h2, h3 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:always; text-align:center;}

- h4 {margin:2em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:avoid; text-align:center;}

-

-/* General */

-

- body {margin:0% 5% 0% 5%;}

-

- .nobreak {page-break-before:avoid;}

-

- p {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em;}

- .center {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;}

- .noindent {text-indent:0em;}

- .spacer {margin:0.5em 0em 0.5em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;}

-

- .toc_1 {font-variant:small-caps; margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .toc_2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;}

-

- .right {text-align:right;}

- .sign2 {margin:0em 2em 0em 0em; text-align:right; text-indent:0em;}

-

- .chap_sub {font-size:70%;}

- .sc {font-variant:small-caps;}

- .font80 {font-size:80%;}

-

-/* special formatting */

- /* poem/song verse formatting */

- .is {margin:1em 0em 0em 0em; text-indent:0em;}

- .i0 {margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i1 {margin:0em 0em 0em 3em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i2 {margin:0em 0em 0em 4em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i3 {margin:0em 0em 0em 5em; text-indent:-2em;}

- .i4 {margin:0em 0em 0em 6em; text-indent:-2em;}

-

- .mt1 {margin-top:1em;}

- .mt2 {margin-top:2em;}

- .mt3 {margin-top:3em;}

- .mt4 {margin-top:4em;}

- .mt6 {margin-top:6em;}

- .mb1 {margin-bottom:1em;}

-

- blockquote {margin:1em 1em 1em 2em;}

-

- figure {text-align:center;}

- img {max-width:90%;}

-

-</style>

-</head>

-<body>

-<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-header' lang='en'>

-<h2 id='pg-header-heading' title=''>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Loaves and fishes by Bernard Capes</h2>

-

-<div>This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and 

-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 

-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms 

-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online 

-at <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not located in the United States, 

-you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located 

-before using this eBook.</div>

-

-

-<div class='container' id='pg-machine-header'>

-<p><strong>Title: </strong>Loaves and fishes</p>

-<div id='pg-header-authlist'>

-<p><strong>Author: </strong>Bernard Capes</p>

-</div>

-

-<p><strong>Release Date: </strong>September 11, 2023 [eBook #71615]</p>

-<p><strong>Language: </strong>English</p>

-<p><strong>Credits: </strong>an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer</p>

-</div>

-<div id='pg-start-separator'>

-<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***</span>

-</div>

-</section>

-

-

-<h1>

-LOAVES AND FISHES

-</h1>

-

-<p class="center">

-<span class="font80">BY</span><br>

-BERNARD CAPES

-</p>

-

-<p class="center mt6">

-METHUEN & CO.<br>

-36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br>

-LONDON<br>

-<i>First Published in 1906</i>

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-CONTENTS

-</h2>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch01">A GALLOWS-BIRD</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch02">THE RAVELLED SLEAVE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch03">THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch04">A GHOST-CHILD</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch05">HIS CLIENT’S CASE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch06">AN ABSENT VICAR</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch07">THE BREECHES BISHOP</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch08">THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch09">ARCADES AMBO</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch10">OUR LADY OF REFUGE</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch11">THE GHOST-LEECH</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch12">POOR LUCY RIVERS</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch13">THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch14">THE LOST NOTES</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch15">THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch16">JACK THE SKIPPER</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch17">A BUBBLE REPUTATION</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch18">A POINT OF LAW</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch19">THE FIVE INSIDES</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch20">THE JADE BUTTON</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch21">DOG TRUST</a>

-</p>

-

-<p class="toc_1">

-<a href="#ch22">A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE</a>

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-[NOTE]

-</h2>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">Acknowledgments</span> are made to the editors of “The Pall Mall Magazine,”

-“The Illustrated London News,” “The World,” “Black and White,” “The

-London Magazine,” “The English Illustrated Magazine,” and “The

-Bystander,” to the hospitality of whose pages a number of the stories

-here reprinted were first invited.

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-LOAVES AND FISHES

-</h2>

-

-<h3 class="nobreak" id="ch01">

-A GALLOWS-BIRD

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">In</span> February of the year 1809, when the French were sat down before

-Saragossa&mdash;then enduring its second and more terrific siege within a

-period of six months&mdash;it came to the knowledge of the Duc d’Abrantes,

-at that time the General commanding, that his army, though undoubtedly

-the salt of the earth, was yet so little sufficient to itself in the

-matter of seasoning, that it was reduced to the necessity of

-flavouring its soup with the saltpetre out of its own cartridges. In

-this emergency, d’Abrantes sent for a certain Ducos, captain on the

-staff of General Berthier, but at present attached to a siege train

-before the doomed town, and asked him if he knew whence, if anywhere

-in the vicinity, it might be possible to make good the deficiency.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now this Eugène Ducos was a very progressive evolution of the times,

-hatched by the rising sun, emerged stinging and splendid from the

-exotic quagmires of the past. A facile linguist, by temperament and

-early training an artist, he had flown naturally to the field of

-battle as to that field most fertile of daring new effects, whose

-surprises called for record rather than analysis. It was for him to

-collect the impressions which, later, duller wits should classify.

-And, in the meantime, here he was at twenty a captain of renown, and

-always a creature of the most unflagging resourcefulness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You were with Lefebvre-Desnouettes in Aragon last year?” demanded

-Junot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was, General; both before the siege and during it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You heard mention of salt mines in this neighbourhood?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There were rumours of them, sir&mdash;amongst the hills of Ulebo; but it

-was never our need to verify the rumours.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take a company, now, and run them to earth. I will give you a week.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon me, General; I need no company but my own, which is ever the

-safest colleague.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Junot glared demoniacally. He was already verging on the madness which

-was presently to destroy him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The devil!” he shouted. “You shall answer for that assurance! Go

-alone, sir, since you are so obliging, and find salt; and at your

-peril be killed before reporting the result to me. Bones of God! is

-every skipjack with a shoulder-knot to better my commands?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos saluted, and wheeled impassive. He knew that in a few days

-Marshal Lannes was to supplant this maniac.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Up and away amongst the intricate ridges of the mountains, where the

-half-unravelled knots of the Pyrenees flow down in threads, or

-clustered threads, which are combed by and by into the plains south of

-Saragossa, a dusky young goatherd loitered among the chestnut trees on

-a hot afternoon. This boy’s beauty was of a supernal order. His

-elastic young cheeks glowed with colour; his eyebrows were resolute

-bows; his lips, like a pretty phrase of love, were set between dimples

-like inverted commas. And, as he stood, he coquetted like Dinorah to

-his own shadow, chasséd to it, spoke to it, upbraiding or caressing,

-as it answered to his movements on the ground before him&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, pretty one! ah, shameless! Art thou the shadow of the girl that

-Eugenio loved? Fie, fie! thou wouldst betray this poor Anita&mdash;mock the

-round limbs and little feet that will not look their part. Yet, betray

-her to her love returning, and Anita will fall and kiss thee on her

-knees&mdash;kiss the very shadow of Eugenio’s love. Ah, little shadow! take

-wings and fly to him, who promised quickly to return. Say I am good

-but sad, awaiting him; say that Anita suffers, but is patient. He will

-remember then, and come. No shadow of disguise shall blind him to his

-love. Go, go, before I repent and hold thee, jealous that mine own

-shadow should run before to find his lips.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She stooped, and, with a fantastic gesture, threw her soul upon the

-winds; then rose, and leaned against a tree, and began to sing, and

-sigh and murmur softly:

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">“&hairsp;‘At the gate of heaven are sold brogues</p>

-<p class="i0">For the little bare-footed angel rogues’&mdash;</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-Ah, little dear mother! it is the seventh month, and the sign is still

-delayed. No baby, no lover. Alack! why should he return to me, who am

-a barren olive! The husbandman asks a guerdon for his care. Give me my

-little doll, Santissima, or I will be naughty and drink holy-water:

-give me the shrill wee voice, which pierces to the father’s heart,

-when even passion loiters. Ah, come to me, Eugenio, my Eugenio!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She raised her head quickly on the word, and her heart leaped. It was

-to hear the sound of a footstep, on the stones far below, coming up

-the mountain side. She looked to her shirt and jacket. Ragged as they

-were, undeveloped as was the figure within them, she had been so

-jealous a housewife that there was not in all so much as an eyelet

-hole to attract a peeping Tom. Now, leaving her goats amongst the

-scattered boulders of the open, she backed into the groves,

-precautionally, but a little reluctant, because in her heart she was

-curious.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The footsteps came on toilfully, and presently the man who was

-responsible for them hove into sight. He wore the dress of an English

-officer, save for the shepherd’s felt hat on his head; but his scarlet

-jacket was knotted loosely by the sleeves about his throat, in order

-to the disposition of a sling which held his left arm crookt in a

-bloody swathe. He levered himself up with a broken spear-shaft; but he

-was otherwise weaponless. A pistol, in Ducos’s creed, was the argument

-of a fool. He carried <i>his</i> ammunition in his brains.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Having reached a little plateau, irregular with rocks shed from the

-cliffs above, he sat down within the shadow of a grove of chestnut and

-carob trees, and sighed, and wiped his brow, and nodded to all around

-and below him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, and yes, and of a truth,” thought he: “here is the country of my

-knowledge. And yonder, deep and far amongst its myrtles and

-mulberries, crawls the Ebro; and to my right, a browner clod amongst

-the furrows of the valleys, heaves up the ruined monastery of San

-Ildefonso, which Daguenet sacked, the radical; whilst I occupied (ah,

-the week of sweet malvoisie and sweeter passion!) the little inn at

-the junction of the Pampeluna and Saragossa roads. And what has become

-of Anita of the inn? Alack! if my little <i>fille de joie</i> were but here

-to serve me now!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The goatherd slipped round the shoulder of a rock and stood before

-him, breathing hard. Her black curls were, for all the world,

-bandaged, as it might be, with a yellow napkin (though they were more

-in the way to give than take wounds), and crowned rakishly with a

-dusky sombrero. She wore a kind of gaskins on her legs, loose, so as

-to reveal the bare knees and a little over; and across her shoulders

-was slung a sun-burnt shawl, which depended in a bib against her

-chest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now the one stood looking down and the other up, their visions

-magnetically meeting and blending, till the eyes of the goatherd were

-delivered of very stars of rapture.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Was this a spirit, thought Ducos, summoned of his hot and necessitous

-desire? But the other had no such misgiving. All in a moment she had

-fallen on her brown knees before him, and was pitifully kissing his

-bandaged arm, while she strove to moan and murmur out the while her

-ecstasy of gratitude.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nariguita!” he murmured, rallying as if from a dream; “Nariguita!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She laughed and sobbed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, the dear little happy name from thy lips! A thousand times will I

-repeat it to myself, but never as thou wouldst say it. And now! Yes,

-Nariguita, Eugenio&mdash;thine own ‘little nose’&mdash;thy child, thy baby, who

-never doubted that this day would come&mdash;O darling of my soul, that it

-would come!”&mdash;(she clung to him, and hid her face)&mdash;“Eugenio! though

-the blossom of our love delays its fruitage!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He smiled, recovered from his first astonishment. Ministers of

-coincidence! In all the fantastic convolutions of war, the merry, the

-danse-macabre, should not love’s reunions have a place? It was nothing

-out of that context that here was he chanced again, and timely, upon

-that same sweet instrument which he had once played on, and done with,

-and thrown aside, careless of its direction. Now he had but to stoop

-and reclaim it, and the discarded strings, it seemed, were ready as

-heretofore to answer to his touch with any melody he listed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He caressed her with real delight. She was something more than

-lovable. He made himself a very Judas to her lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anita, my little Anita!” he began glowingly; but she took him up with

-a fevered eagerness, answering the question of his eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So long ago, ah Dios! And thou wert gone; and the birds were silent;

-and under the heavy sky my father called me to him. He held a last

-letter of thine, which had missed my hands for his. Love, sick at our

-parting, had betrayed us. O, the letter! how I swooned to be denied

-it! He was for killing me, a traitor. Well, I could not help but be.

-But Tia Joachina had pity on me, and dressed me as you see, and

-smuggled me to the hills, that I might at least have a chance to live

-without suffering wrong. And, behold! the heavens smiled upon me,

-knowing my love; and Señor Cangrejo took me to herd his goats. For

-seven months&mdash;for seven long, faithful months; until the sweetest of

-my heart’s flock should return to pasture in my bosom. And now he has

-come, my lamb, my prince, even as he promised. He has come, drawing me

-to him over the hills, following the lark’s song of his love as it

-dropped to earth far forward of his steps. Eugenio! O, ecstasy! Thou

-hast dared this for my sake?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Child,” answered the admirable Ducos, “I should have dared only in

-breaking my word. <i>Un honnête homme n’a que sa parole.</i> That is the

-single motto for a poor captain, Nariguita. And who is this Señor

-Cangrejo?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Some terror, offspring of his question, set her clinging to him once

-more.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What dost thou here?” she cried, with immediate inconsistency&mdash;“a

-lamb among the wolves! Eugenio!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eh!”&mdash;he took her up, with an air of bewilderment. “I am Sir Zhones,

-the English capitaine, though it loose me your favour, mamsellee. Wat!

-Damn eet, I say!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She fell away, staring at him; then in a moment gathered, and leapt to

-him again between tears and laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But this?” she asked, her eyes glistening; and she touched the

-bandage.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! that,” he answered. “Why, I was wounded, and taken prisoner by

-the French, you understand? Also, I escaped from my captors. It comes,

-blood and splint and all, from the smashed arm of a sabreur, who,

-indeed, had no longer need of it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For the love of Christ!” she cried in a panic. “Come away into the

-trees, where none will observe us!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bah! I have no fear, I,” said Ducos. But he rose, nevertheless, with

-a smile, and, catching up the goatherd, bore her into the shadows.

-There, sitting by her side, he assured her, the rogue, of the

-impatience with which he had anticipated, of the eagerness with which

-he had run to realize this longed-for moment. The escapade had only

-been rendered possible, he said truthfully, by the opportune demand

-for salt. Doubtless she would help him, for love’s sake, to justify

-the venture to his General?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, at that, she stared at him, troubled, and her lip began to

-quiver.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, God!” she cried; “then it was not I in the first place! Go thy

-ways, love; but for pity’s heart-sake let me weep a little. Yes, yes,

-there is salt in the mountains, that I know, and where the caves lie.

-But there are also Cangrejo&mdash;whom you French ruined and made a

-madman&mdash;and a hundred like him, wild-cats hidden amongst the leaves.

-And there, too, are the homeless friars of St. Ildefonso; and, dear

-body of Christ! the tribunal of terror, the junta of women, who are

-the worst of all&mdash;lynx-eyed demons.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He smiled indulgently. Her terror amused him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, well,” he said; “well, well. And what, then, is this junta?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is a scourge,” she whispered, shivering, “for traitors and for

-spies. It gathers nightly, at sunset, in the dip yonder, and there

-waters with blood its cross of death. This very evening, Cangrejo

-tells me&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She broke off, cuddled closer to her companion, and clasping her hands

-and shrugging up her shoulders to him, went on awfully&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio, there was a wagon-load of piastres coming secretly for

-Saragossa by the Tolosa road. It was badly convoyed. One of your

-generals got scent of it. The guard had time to hide their treasure

-and disperse, but him whom they thought had betrayed them the tribunal

-of women claimed, and to-night&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, he will receive his wages. And where is the treasure

-concealed?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! that I do not know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos got to his feet, and stretched and yawned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have a fancy to see this meeting-place of the tribunal. Wilt thou

-lead me to it, Nariguita?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mother of God, thou art mad!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I must go alone, like a madman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio, it is cursing and accurst. None will so much as look into it

-by day; and, at dusk, only when franked by the holy church.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So greatly the better. Adios, Nariguita!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It took them half an hour, descending cautiously, and availing

-themselves of every possible shelter of bush and rock, to reach a

-strangely formed amphitheatre set stark and shallow amongst the higher

-swales of the valley, but so overhung with scrub of myrtle and wild

-pomegranate as to be only distinguishable, and that scarcely, from

-above. A ragged track, mounting from the lower levels into this

-hollow, tailed off, and was attenuated into a point where it took a

-curve of the rocks at a distance below.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As Ducos, approaching the rim, pressed through the thicket, a toss of

-black crows went up from the mouth ahead of him, like cinders of paper

-spouted from a chimney. He looked over. The brushwood ceased at the

-edge of a considerable pit, roughly circular in shape, whose sides, of

-bare sloping sand, met and flattened at the bottom into an extended

-platform. Thence arose a triangular gibbet, a very rack in a devil’s

-larder, all about which a hoard of little pitchy bird scullions were

-busy with the joints. Holy mother, how they squabbled, and flapped at

-one another with their sleeves, it seemed! The two carcasses which

-hung there appeared, for all their heavy pendulosity, to reel and rock

-with laughter, nudging one another in eyeless merriment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos mentally calculated the distance to the gallows below from any

-available coign of concealment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One could not hide close enough to hear anything,” he murmured,

-shaking his head in aggravation; “and this junta of ladies&mdash;it will

-probably talk. What if it were to discuss that very question of the

-piastres? Nariguita, will you go and be my little reporter at the

-ceremony?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Anita, crouching in the brush behind him, whispered terrified: “It is

-impossible. They admit none but priests and women.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And are not you a woman, most beautiful?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God forbid!” she said. “I am the little goatherd Ambrosio.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stood some moments, frowning. A scheme, daring and characteristic,

-was beginning to take shape in his brain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What is that clump of rags by the gallows?” he asked, without looking

-round.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is not rags; it is rope, Eugenio.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He thought again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And when do they come to hang this rascal?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is always at dusk. O, dear mother!” she whimpered, for the young

-man had suddenly slipped between the branches, and was going swiftly

-and softly down the pit-side.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Already the basin of sand was filled with the shadows from the hills

-Ducos approached the gibbet. The last of the birds remaining arose and

-dispersed, quarrelling with nothing so much as the sunlight which they

-encountered above.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is an abominable task,” said the aide-de-camp, looking up at the

-dangling bodies; “but&mdash;for the Emperor&mdash;always for the Emperor! That

-fellow, now, in the domino&mdash;it would make us appear of one build. And

-as for complexion, why, he at least would have no eyes for the

-travesty. Mon Dieu! I believe it is a Providence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a ladder leaned against the third and empty beam. He put it

-into position for the cloaked figure, and ran up it. The rope was

-hitched to a hook in the cross-piece. He must clasp and lever up his

-burden by main strength before he could slacken and detach the cord.

-Then, with an exclamation of relief, he let the body drop upon the

-sand beneath. He descended the ladder in excitement.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anita!” he called.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She had followed, and was at hand. She trembled, and was as pale as

-death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Help me,” he panted&mdash;“with this&mdash;into the bush.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had lifted <i>his</i> end by the shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What devil possesses you? I cannot,” she sobbed; “I shall die.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, Nariguita! for my sake! There is no danger if thou art brave and

-expeditious.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Between them they tugged and trailed their load into the dense

-undergrowth skirting the open track, and there let it plunge and sink.

-Ducos removed the domino from the body, rolling and hauling at that

-irreverently. Then he saw how the wretch had been pinioned, wrists and

-ankles, beneath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carrying the cloak, he hastened back to the gallows. There he

-cautiously selected from the surplus stock of cord a length of some

-twelve feet, at either end of which he formed a loop. So, mounting the

-ladder, over the hook he hitched this cord by one end, and then,

-swinging himself clear, slid down the rope until he could pass both

-his feet into the lower hank.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Voilà!</i>” said he. “Come up and tie me to the other with some little

-pieces round the waist and knees and neck.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She obeyed, weeping. Her love and her duty were to this wonder of

-manhood, however dreadful his counsel. Presently, trussed to his

-liking, he bade her fetch the brigand’s cloak and button it over all.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” said he, “one last sacramental kiss; and, so descending and

-placing the ladder and all as before, thou shalt take standing-room in

-the pit for this veritable dance of death.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A moment&mdash;and he was hanging there, to all appearance a corpse. The

-short rope at his neck had been so disposed and knotted&mdash;the collar of

-the domino serving&mdash;as to make him look, indeed, as if he strained at

-the tether’s end. He had dragged his long hair over his eyes; his head

-lolled to one side; his tongue protruded. For the rest, the cloak hid

-all, even to his feet.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The goatherd snivelled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, holy saints, he is dead!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The head came erect, grinning.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio!” she cried; “O, my God! Thou wilt be discovered&mdash;thou wilt

-slip and strangle! Ah, the crows&mdash;body of my body, the crows!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Imbecile! have I not my hands? See, I kiss one to thee. Now the sun

-sinks, and my ghostly vigil will be short. Pray heaven only they

-alight not on that in the bush. Nariguita, little heroine, this is my

-last word. Go hide thyself in the bushes above, and watch what a

-Frenchman, the most sensitive of mortals, will suffer to serve his

-Emperor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was an era, indeed, of sublime lusts and barbaric virtues, when men

-must mount upon stepping-stones, not of their dead selves, but of

-their slaughtered enemies, to higher things. Anita, like Ducos, was a

-child of her generation. To her mind the heroic purpose of this deed

-overpowered its pungency. She kissed her lover’s feet; secured the

-safe disposition of the cloak about them; then turned and fled into

-hiding.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At dusk, with the sound of footsteps coming up the pass, the crows

-dispersed. Eugène, for all his self-sufficiency, had sweated over

-their persistence. A single more gluttonous swoop might at any moment,

-in blinding him, have laid him open to a general attack before help

-could reach him from the eyrie whence unwearying love watched his

-every movement. Now, common instance of the providence which waits on

-daring, the sudden lift and scatter of the swarm left his hearing

-sensible to the tinkling of a bridle, which came rhythmical from the

-track below. Immediately he fell, with all his soul, into the pose of

-death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cadence of the steely warning so little altered, the footsteps

-stole in so muffled and so deadly, that, peering presently through

-slit eyelids for the advent of the troop, it twitched his strung

-nerves to see a sinister congress already drawn soundless about the

-gibbet on which he hung. Perhaps for the first time in this stagnant

-atmosphere he realized the peril he had invited. But still the

-gambler’s providence befriended him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They were all women but two&mdash;the victim, a sullen, whiskered

-Yanguesian, strapped cuttingly to a mule, and a paunchy shovel-hatted

-Carmelite, who hugged a crucifix between his roomy sleeves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos had heard of these banded <i>vengeresses</i>. Now, he was Frenchman

-enough to appreciate in full the significance of their attitude, as

-they clustered beneath him in the dusk, a veiled and voiceless huddle

-of phantoms. “How,” he thought, peeping through the dropped curtain of

-his hair, “will the adorables do it?” He had an hysterical inclination

-to laugh, and at that moment the monk, with a sudden decision to

-action, brushed against him and set him slowly twirling until his face

-was averted from the show.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Immediately thereon&mdash;as he interpreted sounds&mdash;the mule was led under

-the gallows. He heard the ladder placed in position, heard a strenuous

-shuffling as of concentrated movement. What he failed to hear (at

-present) was any cry or protest from the victim. The beam above

-creaked, a bridle tinkled, a lighter drop of hoofs receded. A pregnant

-pause ensued, broken only by a slight noise, like rustling or

-vibrating&mdash;and then, in an instant, by a voice, chuckling,

-hateful&mdash;the voice of the priest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! to hang there without a word, Carlos? Wouldst thou go, and

-never ask what is become of that very treasure thou soldst thy soul to

-betray? The devil has rounded on thee, Carlos; for after all it is

-thou that art lost, and not the treasure. That is all put away&mdash;shout

-it in the ears of thy neighbours up there&mdash;it is all put away, Carlos,

-safe in the salt mines of the Little Hump. Cry it to the whole world

-now. Thou mayst if thou canst. In the salt mines of the Little Hump.

-Dost hear? Ah, then, we must make thee answer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With his words, the pit was all at once in shrill hubbub, noise

-indescribable and dreadful, the shrieking of harpies bidden to their

-prey. It rose demoniac&mdash;a very Walpurgis.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, no,” thought Ducos, gulping under his collar. He was almost

-unnerved for the moment. “It is unlawful&mdash;they have no right to!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was twisting again, for all his mad will to prevent it. He would

-not look, and yet he looked. The monk, possessed, was thrashing the

-torn and twitching rubbish with his crucifix. The others, their

-fingers busy with the bodkins they had plucked from their mantillas,

-had retreated for the moment to a little distance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suddenly the Carmelite, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy, dropped his

-weapon, and scuttling to the mule, where it stood near at hand, tore a

-great horse pistol from its holster among the trappings, and pointed

-it at the insensible body.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Scum of all devils!” he bellowed. “In fire descend to fire that lasts

-eternal!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and shattering explosion. A

-blazing hornet stung Ducos in the leg. He may have started and

-shrieked. Any cry or motion of his must have passed unnoticed in the

-screaming panic evoked of the crash. He clung on with his hands and

-dared to raise his head. The mouth of the pass was dusk with flying

-skirts. Upon the sands beneath him, the body of the priest, a

-shapeless bulk, was slowly subsiding and settling, one fat fist of it

-yet gripping the stock of a pistol which, overgorged, had burst as it

-was discharged.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The reek of the little tragedy had hardly dissipated before Ducos

-found himself. The sentiment of revolt, deriving from his helpless

-position, had been indeed but momentary. To feel his own accessibility

-to torture, painted torture to him as an inhuman lust. With the means

-to resist, or escape, at will, he might have sat long in ambush

-watching it; even condoning it as an extravagant posture of art.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With a heart full of such exultation over the success of his trick

-that for the moment he forgot the pain of his wound, he hurriedly

-unpicked the knots of the shorter cords about him, and, jumping to the

-ground, waited until the shadow of a little depressed figure came

-slinking across the sand towards him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio!” it whispered; “what has happened? O! art thou hurt?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She ran into his arms, sobbing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am hurt,” said Ducos. “Quick, child! unstrap this from my arm and

-bind it about my calf. Didst hear? But it was magnificent! Two birds

-with a single stone. The piastres in pickle for us. Didst see,

-moreover? Holy Emperor! it was laughable. I would sacrifice a

-decoration to be witness of the meeting of those two overhead. It

-should be the Yanguesian for my money, for he has at least his teeth

-left. Look how he shows them, bursting with rage! Quick, quick, quick!

-we must be up and away, before any of those others think of

-returning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And if one should,” she said, “and mark the empty beam?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What does it matter, nevertheless! I must be off to-night, after thou

-hast answered me one single question.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Off? Eugenio! O! not without me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God, little girl! In this race I must not be hampered by so much as a

-thought. But I will return for thee&mdash;never fear.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He still sat in his domino. She knelt at his feet, stanching the flow

-from the wound the pistol had made in his leg. At his words she looked

-up breathlessly into his face; then away, to hide her swimming eyes.

-In the act she slunk down, making herself small in the sand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eugenio! My God! we are watched!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He turned about quickly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whence?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“From the mouth of the pass,” she whispered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I can see nothing,” he said. “Hurry, nevertheless! What a time thou

-art! There, it is enough of thy bungling fingers. Help me to my feet

-and out of this place. Come!” he ended, angrily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had an ado to climb the easy slope. By the time they were entered

-amongst the rocks and bushes above, it was black dusk.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whither wouldst thou, dearest?” whispered the goatherd.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had known well enough a moment ago&mdash;to some point, in fact, whence

-she could indicate to him the direction of the Little Hump, where the

-treasure lay; afterwards, to the very hill-top where some hours

-earlier they had forgathered. But he would not or could not explain

-this. Some monstrous blight of gloom had seized his brain at a swoop.

-He thought it must be one of the crows, and he stumbled along, raving

-in his heart. If she offered to help him now, he would tear his arm

-furiously from her touch. She wondered, poor stricken thing, haunting

-him with tragic eyes. Then at last her misery and desolation found

-voice&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have I done? I will not ask again to go with thee, if that is

-it. It was only one little foolish cry of terror, most dear&mdash;that they

-should suspect, and seize, and torture me. But, indeed, should they do

-it, thou canst trust me to be silent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stopped, swaying, and regarded her demoniacally. His face was a

-livid and malignant blot in the thickening dusk. To torture her? What

-torture could equal his at this moment? She sought merely to move him

-by an affectation of self-renunciation. That, of course, called at

-once for extreme punishment. He must bite and strangle her to death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He moved noiselessly upon her. She stood spellbound before him. All at

-once something seemed to strike him on the head, and, without uttering

-a sound, he fell forward into the bush.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos opened his eyes to the vision of so preternaturally melancholy a

-face, that he was shaken with weak laughter over the whimsicality of

-his own imagination. But, in a very little, unwont to dreaming as he

-was, the realization that he was looking upon no apparition, but a

-grotesque of fact, silenced and absorbed him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Presently he was moved to examine his circumstances. He was lying on a

-heap of grass mats in a tiny house built of boards. Above him was a

-square of leaf-embroidered sky cut out of a cane roof; to his left,

-his eyes, focussing with a queer stiffness, looked through an open

-doorway down precipices of swimming cloud. That was because he lay in

-an eyrie on the hillside. And then at once, into his white field of

-vision, floated the dismal long face, surmounted by an ancient

-cocked-hat, slouched and buttonless, and issuing like an august Aunt

-Sally’s from the neck of a cloak as black and dropping as a pall.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The figure crossed the opening outside, and wheeled, with the wind in

-its wings. In the act, its eyes, staring and protuberant, fixed

-themselves on those of the Frenchman. Immediately, with a little

-stately gesture expressive of relief and welcome, it entered the hut.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By the mercy of God!” exclaimed the stranger in his own tongue. Then

-he added in English: “The Inglese recovers to himself?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos smiled, nodding his head; then answered confidently, feeling his

-way: “A little, sir, I tank you. Thees along night. Ah! it appear all

-one pain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other nodded solemnly in his turn&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A long night indeed, in which the sunksink tree very time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Comment!” broke out the aide-de-camp hoarsely, and instantly realized

-his mistake.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! devil take the French!” said he explanatorily. “I been in their

-camp so long that to catch their lingo. But I spik l’Espagnol, señor.

-It shall be good to us to converse there.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other bowed impenetrably. His habit of a profound and melancholy

-aloofness might have served for mask to any temper of mind but that

-which, in real fact, it environed&mdash;a reason, that is to say, more lost

-than bedevilled under the long tyranny of oppression.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have been ill, I am to understand?” said Ducos, on his guard.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For three days and nights, señor. My goatherd came to tell me how a

-wounded English officer was lying on the hills. Between us we conveyed

-you hither.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Ah, Dios!</i> I remember. I had endeavoured to carry muskets into

-Saragossa by the river. I was hit in the leg; I was captured; I

-escaped. For two days I wandered, señor, famished and desperate. At

-last in these mountains I fell as by a stroke from heaven.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was the foul blood clot, señor. It balked your circulation. There

-was the brazen splinter in the wound, which I removed, and God

-restored you. What fangs are theirs, these reptiles! In a few days you

-will be well.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thanks to what ministering angel?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am known as Don Manoel di Cangrejo, señor, the most shattered, as

-he was once the most prosperous of men. May God curse the French! May

-God” (his wild, mournful face twitched with strong emotion) “reward

-and bless these brave allies of a people more wronged than any the

-world has yet known!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Noble Englishman,” said he by and by, “thou hast nothing at present

-but to lie here and accept the grateful devotion of a heart to which

-none but the inhuman denies humanity.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos looked his thanks.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If I might rest here a little,” he said; “if I might be spared&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other bowed, with a grave understanding.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“None save ourselves, and the winds and trees, señor. I will nurse

-thee as if thou wert mine own child.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was as good as his word. Ducos, pluming himself on his

-perspicacity, accepting the inevitable with philosophy, lent himself

-during the interval, while feigning a prolonged weakness, to recovery.

-That was his, to all practical purposes, within a couple of days,

-during which time he never set eyes on Anita, but only on Anita’s

-master. Don Manoel would often come and sit by his bed of mats; would

-even sometimes retail to him, as to a trusted ally, scraps of local

-information. Thus was he posted, to his immense gratification, in the

-topical after-history of his own exploit at the gallows.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is said,” whispered Cangrejo awfully, “that one of the dead,

-resenting so vile a neighbour, impressed a goatherd into his service,

-and, being assisted from the beam, walked away. Truly it is an age of

-portents.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the third morning, coming early with his bowl of goat’s milk and

-his offering of fruits, he must apologize, with a sweet and lofty

-courtesy, for the necessity he was under of absenting himself all day.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is trouble,” he said&mdash;“as when is there not? I am called to

-secret council, señor. But the boy Ambrosio has my orders to be ever

-at hand shouldst thou need him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos’s heart leapt. But he was careful to deprecate this generous

-attention, and to cry <i>Adios!</i> with the most perfect assumption of

-composure.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was lying on his elbow by and by, eagerly listening, when the

-doorway was blocked by a shadow. The next instant Anita had sprung to

-and was kneeling beside him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Heart of my heart, have I done well? Thou art sound and whole? O,

-speak to me, speak to me, that I may hear thy voice and gather its

-forgiveness!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For what? She was sobbing and fondling him in a very lust of entreaty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thou hast done well,” he said. “So, we were seen indeed, Anita?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she wept, holding his face to her bosom. “And, O! I agonize for

-thee to be up and away, Eugenio, for I fear.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush! I am strong. Help me to my legs, child. So! Now, come with me

-outside, and point out, if thou canst, where lies the Little Hump.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was his devoted crutch at once. They stood in the sunlight,

-looking down upon the hills which fell from beneath their feet&mdash;a

-world of tossed and petrified rapids. At their backs, on a shallow

-plateau under eaves of rock, Cangrejo’s eyrie clung to the

-mountain-side.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There,” said the goatherd, indicating with her finger, “that mound

-above the valley&mdash;that little hill, fat-necked like a great mushroom,

-which sprouts from its basin among the trees?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait! mine eyes are dazzled.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, poor sick eyes! Look, then! Dost thou not see the white worm of

-the Pampeluna road&mdash;below yonder, looping through the bushes?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I see it&mdash;yes, yes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, follow upwards from the big coil, where the pine tree leans to

-the south, seeming a ladder between road and mound.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Stay&mdash;I have it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Behold the Little Hump, the salt mine of St. Ildefonso, and once,

-they say, an island in the midst of a lake, which burst its banks and

-poured forth and was gone. And now thou knowest, Eugenio?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He did not answer. He was intently fixing in his memory the position

-of the hill. She waited on his mood, not daring to risk his anger a

-second time, with a pathetic anxiety. Presently he heaved out a sigh,

-and turned on her, smiling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is well,” he said. “Now conduct me to the spot where we met three

-days ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was surprisingly near at hand. A labyrinthine descent&mdash;by way of

-aloe-horned rocks, with sandy bents and tufts of harsh juniper

-between&mdash;of a hundred yards or so, and they were on the stony plateau

-which he remembered. There, to one side, was the coppice of chestnuts

-and locust trees. To the other, the road by which he had climbed went

-down with a run&mdash;such as he himself was on thorns to emulate&mdash;into the

-valleys trending to Saragossa. His eyes gleamed. He seated himself

-down on a boulder, controlling his impatience only by a violent

-effort.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anita,” he said, drilling out his speech with slow emphasis, “thou

-must leave me here alone awhile. I would think&mdash;I would think and

-plan, my heart. Go, wait on thy goats above, and I will return to thee

-presently.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She sighed, and crept away obedient. O, forlorn, most forlorn soul of

-love, which, counting mistrust treason, knows itself a traitor! Yet

-Anita obeyed, and with no thought to eavesdrop, because she was in

-love with loyalty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The moment he was well convinced of her retreat, Ducos got to his legs

-with an immense sigh of relief. Love, he thought, could be presuming,

-could be obtuse, could be positively a bore. It all turned upon the

-context of the moment; and the present was quick with desires other

-than for endearments. For it must be related that the young captain,

-having manœuvred matters to this accommodating pass, was designing

-nothing less than an instant return, on the wings of transport, to the

-blockading camp, whence he proposed returning, with a suitable force

-and all possible dispatch, to seize and empty of its varied treasures

-the salt mine of St. Ildefonso.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pouf!” he muttered to himself in a sort of ecstatic aggravation;

-“this accursed delay! But the piastres are there still&mdash;I have

-Cangrejo’s word for it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He turned once, before addressing himself to flight, to refocus in his

-memory the position of the mound, which still from here was plainly

-visible. In the act he pricked his ears, for there was a sound of

-footsteps rising up the mountain path. He dodged behind a boulder. The

-footsteps came on&mdash;approached him&mdash;paused&mdash;so long that he was induced

-at last to peep for the reason. At once his eyes encountered other

-eyes awaiting him. He laughed, and left his refuge. The new-comer was

-a typical Spanish Romany&mdash;slouching, filthy, with a bandage over one

-eye.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God be with thee, Caballero!” said the Frenchman defiantly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-To his astonishment, the other broke into a little scream of laughter,

-and flung himself towards him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Judge thou, now,” said he, “which is the more wide-awake adventurer

-and the better actor!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My God!” cried Ducos; “it is de la Platière!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush!” whispered the mendicant. “Are we private? Ah, bah! Junot

-should have sent me in the first instance.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have been hurt, thou rogue. Our duel of wits is yet postponed. In

-good time hast thou arrived. This simplifies matters. Thou shalt

-return, and I remain. Hist! come away, and I will tell thee all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Half an hour later, de la Platière&mdash;having already, for his part,

-mentally absorbed the details of a certain position&mdash;swung rapidly,

-with a topical song on his lips, down the path he had ascended

-earlier. The sound of his footfalls receded and died out. The hill

-regathered itself to silence. Ducos, on terms with destiny and at

-peace with all the world, sat for hours in the shadow of the trees.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Perhaps he was not yet Judas enough to return to Anita, awaiting him

-in Cangrejo’s eyrie. But at length, towards evening, fearing his long

-absence might arouse suspicion or uneasiness, he arose and climbed the

-hill. When he reached the cabin, he found it empty and silent. He

-loitered about, wondering and watchful. Not a soul came near him. He

-dozed; he awoke; he ate a few olives and some bread; he dozed again.

-When he opened his eyes for the second time, the shadows of the peaks

-were slanting to the east. He got to his feet, shivering a little.

-This utter silence and desertion discomforted him. Where was the girl?

-God! was it possible after all that she had betrayed him? He might

-have questioned his own heart as to that; only, as luck would have it,

-it was such a tiresomely deaf organ. So, let him think. De la

-Platière, with his men (as calculated), would be posted in the

-Pampeluna road, round the spur of the hill below, an hour after

-sunset&mdash;that was to say, at fifteen minutes to six. No doubt by then

-the alarm would have gone abroad. But no great resistance to a strong

-force was to be apprehended. In the meantime&mdash;well, in the meantime,

-until the moment came for him to descend under cover of dark and

-assume the leadership, he must possess his soul in patience.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sun went down. Night flowing into the valleys seemed to expel a

-moan of wind; then all dropped quiet again. Darkness fell swift and

-sudden like a curtain, but no Anita appeared, putting it aside, and

-Ducos was perplexed. He did not like this bodiless, shadowless

-subscription to his scheming. It troubled him to have no one to talk

-to&mdash;and deceive. He was depressed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By and by he pulled off, turned inside-out and resumed his scarlet

-jacket, which he had taken the provisional precaution to have lined

-with a sombre material. As he slipped in his arms, he started and

-looked eagerly into the lower vortices of dusk. In the very direction

-to which his thoughts were engaged, a little glow-worm light was

-burning steadily from the thickets. What did it signify&mdash;Spaniards or

-French, ambush or investment? Allowing&mdash;as between himself on the

-height and de la Platière on the road below&mdash;for the apparent

-discrepancy in the time of sunset, it was yet appreciably before the

-appointed hour. Nevertheless, this that he saw made the risk of an

-immediate descent necessary.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Bringing all his wits, his resolution, his local knowledge to one

-instant focus, he started, going down at once swiftly and with

-caution. The hills rose above him like smoke as he dropped; the black

-ravines were lifted to his feet. Sometimes for scores of paces he

-would lose sight altogether of the eye of light; then, as he turned

-some shoulder of rock, it would strike him in the face with its nearer

-radiance, so that he had to pause and readjust his vision to the new

-perspective. Still, over crabbed ridges and by dip of thorny gulches

-he descended steadily, until the mound of the Little Hump, like a

-gigantic thatched kraal, loomed oddly upon him through the dark.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, lo! the beacon that had led him down unerring was a great lantern

-hung under the sagging branch of a chestnut tree at the foot of the

-mound&mdash;a lantern, the lurid nucleus of a little coil of tragedy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A cluster of rocks neighboured the clearing about the tree. To these

-Ducos padded his last paces with a cat-like stealth&mdash;crouching, hardly

-breathing; and now from that coign of peril he stared down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A throng of armed guerrillas, one a little forward of the rest, was

-gathered about a couple more of their kidney, who, right under the

-lantern, held the goatherd Anita on her knees in a nailing grip. To

-one side, very phantoms of desolation, stood Cangrejo and another. The

-faces of all, densely shadowed in part by the rims of their sombreros,

-looked as if masked; their mouths, corpse-like, showed a splint of

-teeth; their ink-black whiskers hummocked on their shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-So, in the moment of Ducos’s alighting on it, was the group

-postured&mdash;silent, motionless, as if poised on the turn of some full

-tide of passion. And then, in an instant, a voice boomed up to him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Confess!” it cried, vibrating: “him thou wert seen with at the

-gallows; him whom thou foisted, O! unspeakable, thou devil’s doxy! on

-the unsuspecting Cangrejo; him, thy Frankish gallant and spy” (the

-voice guttered, and then, rising, leapt to flame)&mdash;“what hast thou

-done with him? where hidden? Speak quickly and with truth, if, traitor

-though thou be, thou wouldst be spared the traitor’s estrapade.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Alguazil, I cannot say. Have mercy on me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos could hardly recognize the child in those agonized tones.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The inquisitor, with an oath, half wheeled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pignatelli, father of this accursed&mdash;if by her duty thou canst

-prevail?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A figure&mdash;agitated, cadaverous, as sublimely dehumanized as

-Brutus&mdash;stepped from Cangrejo’s side and tossed one gnarled arm aloft.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No child of mine, alguazil!” it proclaimed in a shrill, strung cry.

-“Let her reap as she hath sown, alguazil!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cangrejo leapt, and flung himself upon his knees by the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell Don Manoel, chiquita. God! little boy, that being a girl (ah,

-naughty!) is half absolved. Tell him, tell him&mdash;ah, there&mdash;now, now,

-now! He, thy lover, was in the cabin. I left him prostrate, scarce

-able to move. When the council comes to seek him, he is gone. Away,

-sayst thou? Ah, child, but I must know better! It could not be far.

-Say where&mdash;give him up&mdash;let him show himself only, chiquita, and the

-good alguazil will spare thee. Such a traitor, ah, Dios! And yet I

-have loved, too.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He sobbed, and clawed her uncouthly. Ducos, in his eyrie, laughed to

-himself, and applauded softly, making little cymbals of his

-thumb-nails.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But he will not move her,” he thought&mdash;and, on the thought, started;

-for from his high perch his eye had suddenly caught, he was sure of

-it, the sleeking of a French bayonet in the road below.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Master!” cried Anita, in a heart-breaking voice; “he is gone&mdash;they

-cannot take him. O, don’t let them hurt me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The alguazil made a sign. Cangrejo, gobbling and resisting, was

-dragged away. There was a little ugly, silent scuffle about the girl;

-and, in a moment, the group fell apart to watch her being hauled up to

-the branch by her thumbs.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos looked on greedily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How long before she sets to screaming?” he thought, “so that I may

-escape under cover of it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-So long, that he grew intolerably restless&mdash;wild, furious. He could

-have cursed her for her endurance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But presently it came, moaning up all the scale of suffering. And, at

-that, slinking like a rat through its run, he went down swiftly

-towards the road&mdash;to meet de la Platière and his men already silently

-breaking cover from it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, on the same instant, the Spaniards saw them.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Peste!” whispered de la Platière “We could have them all at one

-volley but for that!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Between the French force, ensconced behind the rocks whither Ducos had

-led them, and the Spaniards who, completely taken by surprise, had

-clustered foolishly in a body under the lantern, hung the body of

-Anita, its torture suspended for the moment because its poor wits were

-out.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How, my friend!” exclaimed Ducos. “But for what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The girl, that is all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She will feel nothing. No doubt she is half dead already. A moment,

-and it will be too late.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nevertheless, I will not,” said de la Platière.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Ducos stamped ragingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give the word to me. She must stand her chance. For the Emperor!” he

-choked&mdash;then shrieked out, “Fire!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The explosion crashed among the hills, and echoed off.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A dark mass, which writhed and settled beyond the lantern shine,

-seemed to excite a little convulsion of merriment in the swinging

-body. That twitched and shook a moment; then relaxed, and hung

-motionless.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch02">

-THE RAVELLED SLEAVE

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">I should</span> like to preface my subject with a <i>Caractère</i>, in the

-style of La Bruyère, as thus:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant

-a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make

-Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as

-others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement

-of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than

-ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you

-the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and,

-resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities

-which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters

-always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct

-on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the

-Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself

-speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous

-secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but

-their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite,

-one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his

-lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably

-a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one

-has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy

-day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that

-we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes.

-But we must adulterate largely to do it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is

-thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a

-big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary,

-but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon

-your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his

-rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t

-know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really

-instinctively greedy for the psychologic <i>bonne bouche</i>. He is tall,

-and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm

-but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace.

-He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one

-night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being

-so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration

-for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental

-endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these

-noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself

-with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening

-paper.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my

-shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I

-supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at

-the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to

-an extreme of rudeness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had

-been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting

-your presence into my ear like that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by);

-then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first

-time to realize my meaning.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do

-you mean by the question?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real

-justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, nothing!” I mumbled awkwardly; “except that you made me almost

-jump out of my skin.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was characteristic of him, and a further puzzle, that in spite of

-his self-suggested consciousness of superiority he was easily

-depressed by a snub. We sat for a little in a glowering silence, and

-perhaps with a mutual sense of injury.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, an interesting case,” he said at length with an effort. “A

-trance, isn’t it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Something of the sort,” I replied. “I saw the girl yesterday.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked up interested.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She is in a private ward of B&mdash;&mdash; Hospital. I know the house surgeon.

-He took me to see her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well! How does she look?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Seen the St. Amaranthe at Tussaud’s&mdash;the one whom, as children, we

-used to call the Sleeping Beauty? Not unlike her: as pretty as wax and

-as stiff: just breathing, with pale cheeks and her mouth a little

-open.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The fit&mdash;I seem to remember&mdash;was brought on by some shock, wasn’t

-it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I growled&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“According to report, concealment of birth. I conclude she was put to

-shame by some rogue, and couldn’t face the music. The child was found,

-three or four months ago, on a doorstep or somewhere, and traced to

-her. When the police entered, I suppose she feared the worst, and went

-off. Odd part is, that the infant itself was intact&mdash;as sound as a

-bell. But all that’s of little interest. It’s the case for me; not the

-sentiment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah?” said Valentine.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leaned forward, resting his long arms on his knees and gently

-clicking his fingers together. His eyes were full of an eager light.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Johnny, I wonder if you could get <i>me</i> a sight of her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not?” I answered. I felt that I owed him some atonement. “I’ll

-ask C&mdash;&mdash; if you like.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-II

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-C&mdash;&mdash; demurred, hummed and hawed, and acquiesced.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Your friend must keep in the background,” he said. “He’s not a

-backstair reporter, I suppose?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He’s an independent gentleman, and either a poet or an ass&mdash;I don’t

-know which.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Same thing,” said this airy Philistine; “but no matter, so long as he

-don’t talk.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He won’t talk.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well, bring him up. Fact is, we’re trying an experiment this

-afternoon. Aunt’s brought the baby&mdash;sort of natural magnetism to

-restore the current, cancel the hiatus&mdash;see? I’ve not much belief in

-it myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I fetched Valentine, and we followed C&mdash;&mdash; up to the ward. There were

-only present there&mdash;one, a list-footed nurse; two, a little

-shabby-genteel woman, with a false tow-like front over vicious eyes,

-who carried a flannelled bundle; and three, the patient herself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She had not so much as stirred, to all appearance, since I last saw

-her. We, Valentine and I, took up our position apart. Some accidental

-contact with him made me turn my head. He was quivering like a

-high-strung racer for the start. This physical excitability was news

-to me. “H’mph!” I thought. “Is there really that in you which you must

-keep such a tight rein on?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The nurse took the infant, and placed it on the sleeping girl’s

-breast. It mewed and sprawled, but evoked no response whatever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She’d never a drop of the milk of kindness in her,” muttered the

-little verjuicy woman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hold your tongue!” said the doctor sharply.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He and the nurse essayed some coaxing. In the midst, I was petrified

-by the sight of Valentine going softly up to the bed-head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“May I whisper a word?” he said. “It may fail or not. But I don’t

-think you can object to my trying.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And actually, before his astonished company could move or collect its

-wits, he had bent and spoken something, inaudible, into the patient’s

-ear.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, I ask you to remember that this girl had been in a cataleptic

-sleep for not less than three months, under observation, and with no

-chance, so far as I knew, to cozen her attendants; and believe me then

-as you can when I tell you that, answering, instantly and normally, to

-Valentine’s whisper, she sighed, stretched her arms, though at first

-with an air of some lassitude and weakness, and, opening her eyes,

-fixed them with a sort of suspended stare upon the face of her

-exorcist. Gradually, then, a little pucker deepened between her brows,

-and instantly, some shadow of fright or uneasiness flickering in her

-dark pupils, she turned her head aside. Obviously she was distressed

-by the vision of this strange face coming between the light and her

-normal, as it seemed to her, awaking.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Valentine immediately stood away, and backed to where she could not

-see him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-C&mdash;&mdash;, obviously putting great command on himself, since circumstances

-made it appear that some damned “natural magic” had got the better of

-his natural science, took the situation in hand professionally, and

-frowned to the aunt, to whom the baby had been restored, to show

-herself. The woman, rallying from the common stupefaction, gave an

-acrid sniff and obeyed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Well</i>, Nancy!” she said, in a tone between wonder and remonstrance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The girl looked round again and up, with a little shock. Immediately

-her dilated pupils accepted with frank astonishment this more familiar

-apparition.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gracious goodness, Aunt Mim!” she whispered; “what have you got

-there?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then she turned her face on the pillow, with a smile of drowsy

-rapture.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Anyhow, you’ve found your way to Skene at last,” she murmured, and

-instantly fell into a natural sleep, from which, it was evident, there

-must be no awaking her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-C&mdash;&mdash; wheeled upon my friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I suppose you won’t part with your secret?” he asked drily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a habit with Valentine, not his least aggravating, composedly

-to put by any unwelcome or difficult question addressed to him as if

-he did not hear it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Skene’s in Kent, isn’t it?” he asked, ostensibly of the aunt, though

-he looked at me. I could have snapped at him in pure vindictiveness.

-He wasn’t inscrutable, any more than another. What was his confounded

-right to pose as a sphinx?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She fancies she’s there,” he said. “Why?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I turned dumbly with the question to the little woman creature. I

-don’t know if she supposed I was in some sort of official authority to

-cross-examine her. She had powder on her face, and a weak glow mantled

-through it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was there she met her trouble, sir,” she said, hesitating. “She’d

-gone down to the hop-picking last September, and I was to follow. But

-circumstances” (she wriggled her shoulders with an indescribable

-simper) “was against my joining her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” broke in C&mdash;&mdash;, suddenly and rather sharply, “you must take

-the consequences, and, for the present anyhow, the burden of them off

-her shoulders.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Begging your pardon, sir?” she questioned shrewdly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The child,” said the doctor, “the child. Everything, it appears,

-relating to it is for the moment obliterated from her mind. She takes

-up existence, I think you’ll find, last autumn, at this Skene, with

-expecting you. Well, you have come, and returned to London together.

-You understand? The time of year is the same. None of all this has for

-the moment happened.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was an acrid incredulity in his hearer’s face as she listened to

-him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do I understand, or don’t I, sir,” she said, “that her shame is to be

-my care and consideration? And till when, if you’ll be so good?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That I can’t say,” he answered. “Probably the interval, the abyss in

-her mind, will bridge itself by slow degrees. Her reason likely

-depends upon your not rudely hastening the process. I warn you, that’s

-all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And pray,” she said, with ineffable sarcasm, “how is I, as a

-respectable woman, to account to her for this that I hold?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Put it out to nurse.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, sir, <i>if</i> you’ll allow me. The hussy have done her best to bring

-me to ruin already.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Say you’ve adopted it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She gave a shrill titter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nanny will have lost her wits, hindeed, to believe that.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, she has in a measure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And the police?” she said. “Aren’t you a little forgetting them,

-sir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The police,” said C&mdash;&mdash;, “I will answer for. The case isn’t worth

-their pursuing, and they will drop it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The baby began to wail; and Aunt Mim, with her lips pursed, to play

-the vicious rocking-horse to it.

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-III

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-One evening, a week later, Valentine came quietly into my room. I had

-not seen him in the interval, and was immediately struck, though it

-was semi-dusk, by the expression on his face. It was white and

-smiling, and the eyes more brightly inscrutable than ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A storm had just crashed across the town, and left everything dripping

-in a liquid fog. Looking down, one could see the house-fronts,

-submerged in the running pavements, become the very “baseless fabrics

-of a vision.” The hansom-drivers, bent over their glazed roofs, rode

-each with a shadowy phantom of himself reversed, like an oilskin Jack

-of Spades. No pedestrian but, like Hamlet, had his “fellow in the

-cellarage” keeping pace with him. The solid ground seemed melted, and

-the unsubstantial workings of the world revealed. To souls hemmed in

-by bricks, there are more commonplace, less depressing sights than a

-wet London viewed from a third story.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a box in my window, with some marguerites in it, the sickly

-pledges of a rather jocund spring. Valentine, joining me as I leaned

-out, handled a half-broken stem very tenderly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It has been beaten down, <i>like poor Nanny</i>, by the storm,” he said.

-“We must tie it to a stick.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I did not answer for a minute. Then very deliberately I drew in my

-head and sat down. Again like my shadow, in this city of shadows,

-Valentine did the same. For some five minutes we must have remained

-opposite one another without speaking. Then sudden and grim I set my

-lips, and asked the question he seemed to invite.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you the stick?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded, with a smile, which I could hardly see now, on his face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You speak figuratively, of course,” I said, “in talking of <i>tying</i>

-her to you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he said. “I talk of the real bond.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of matrimony?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With a naughty word, I jumped to my feet, strode the round of the

-room, sat down flop on the table, put my hands in my pockets, tried to

-whistle, laughed, and burst out&mdash;“I suppose you intend this, in a

-manner, for a confidence? I suppose you are taking straight up the

-tale of a week ago? Well, <i>I</i> haven’t lost the impression of that

-moment, or gone mad in the interval. Do you want me to sympathize with

-<i>your</i> insanity, or to argue you out of it&mdash;which?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He did not answer. Indeed, the offensiveness of my tone was not

-winning.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am perfectly aware,” I went on, “that the melodramatic unities

-demand an espousal with the interesting spirit we have called back to

-life. They have a way, at the same time, of ignoring Aunt Mims. You

-will, I am sure, forgive me if I say that it is the figure of that

-good lady which sticks last in <i>my</i> memory.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Still he did not answer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will put my point,” I continued, growing a little angry&mdash;“I will

-put my point, as you seem to ask it, with all the delicacy I can. You

-drew an analogy between&mdash;between some one and that broken cabbage

-yonder. The sentiment is unexceptionable; only in France they consider

-those things weeds.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do they?” he said coolly. “We don’t.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No; because we must justify ourselves for exalting ’em out of their

-proper sphere. They’ll not cease to smell rank, though, however you

-give ’em the middle place in your greenhouse.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I struck my knee viciously with my open palm.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That was in vile bad taste, Val. I beg your pardon for saying it.

-But, deuce take it, man! you can’t have come to me, a worldling and an

-older one, for sympathy in this midsummer madness?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was off the table again, going to and fro and apostrophizing him at

-odd turns.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Let’s drop parables&mdash;and answer plainly, if it’s in you. You don’t

-exhale sentiment as a rule. Did or did not that touch about ‘poor

-Nanny’ imply a hint of some confidence put in me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve always considered you my closest friend.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Flattered, I’m sure; though I didn’t guess it. You put such

-conundrums&mdash;excuse me&mdash;beyond the time of a plain man to guess. Well,

-I say, I’m flattered, and I’ll take the full privilege. It’s natural

-you should feel an interest in&mdash;&mdash;by the way, I regret to say I only

-know her as the Brompton Sleeping Girl.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She’s Nanny Nolan.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“In Miss Nolan, then. A propos, I’ve never yet asked, and mustn’t

-know, I suppose, the secret of your ‘open sesame’?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, I can’t tell you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, it doesn’t matter! Only, as a question of this confiding

-friendship&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It isn’t my secret alone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I’ve no more to say. But I presume she’s the&mdash;the flower in

-question?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes! And I’m the stick.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He said it with a quiet laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shouldn’t have supposed it, on my honour,” I assured him. “You can

-have stuck at very little in a week.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took a few turns, and faced him, or his motionless shadow, very

-solemnly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” I demanded, “for the plain speaking. Will you answer me the

-truth? I brought away an impression, as I said. It might have been,

-after all, an impertinent one. A man’s a man for a’ that&mdash;though I

-confess I can’t quite apply the moral to a woman. Still, I’ll ask you

-frankly: How is she socially?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nothing at all. Her father was a colour-sergeant, a red-headed Celt

-from over the border of dreams. He’s gone to join the Duke of Argyll’s

-cloud army at Inverary. Her aunt’s an ex-coryphée living on a

-mysterious pension.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course; only rather worse than I supposed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verender, I must tell you the girl is without reproach. Socially, it

-is true, they are in a very limited way. They eke out existence in a

-number of small directions, even, as you know, hop-picking.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve nothing but respect for Miss Nolan’s virtues. I can even

-appreciate the appeal of her prettiness to a susceptible nature, which

-I don’t think mine is. Anyhow, I’m no Pharisee to pelt my poor sister

-of the gutter because she’s fallen in it. That’s beside the question.

-But it isn’t, to ask what in the name of tragedy induces you, with

-your wealth, your refinement, your mental and social amiability, to

-sink all in this investment of a&mdash;of a fancy bespoke&mdash;there, I can put

-it no differently.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Call it my amiability, Verender. She’s like the centurion’s daughter.

-There’s something awfully strange, awfully fascinating, after all, in

-getting into her confidence&mdash;in entering behind that broken seal of

-death.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re not an impressionable Johnny&mdash;at least, you shouldn’t be.

-You’ve passed the Rubicon. This child with a child&mdash;with Aunt Mim,

-good Lord! Have you thought of the consequences?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes; all of them.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of the&mdash;pardon me. Do you know who <i>he</i> was?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared aghast at him&mdash;at the deeper blot of gloom from which his

-voice proceeded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And you aren’t afraid&mdash;for her; for yourself?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You mean, of her relapsing?” he said clearly. “Not when she knows the

-truth&mdash;knows what a poor thing he is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you sure <i>you</i> know woman? She is apt to have a curious

-tenderness for the blackguard who distinguishes her with his most

-especial brand of villainy. Then she hasn’t learned it&mdash;the

-truth&mdash;yet?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No. Aunt Mim has been loyal.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, well she may be, so long as you offer yourself the prize to

-such a self-denying ordinance. She sees which side her bread’s

-buttered, no doubt. And how does she account for the little stranger?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By adoption. It’s an odd thing, Verender&mdash;Verender, it’s a very odd

-thing, and very pitiful, to see how <i>she</i>&mdash;little Nanny&mdash;distrusts the

-child&mdash;looks on it sort of askance&mdash;almost hates it, I think. I’ve a

-very difficult part to play.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I groaned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then why play it? What does it all matter to you? You’ve opened her

-eyes. Isn’t that enough, without waiting till she’s opened yours?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he said, obviously not attending to me. “But that isn’t the

-whole of my difficulty. The truth is, she appears to shrink from me

-too.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ll forgive me,” I said grimly. “That’s your first comforting

-statement.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know how it is,” he continued, in a low voice,

-self-pondering; “she’s frightened&mdash;distressed, before a shadow she

-can’t define. Sometimes and somehow it seems as if she wants to love

-me, but can’t&mdash;as if she were trying, and vainly, to shape out of a

-great gloom the obstacle which separates us. And I want to help her;

-and yet I, too, can’t understand. Shall I ever, I wonder?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared at him. “Isn’t it plain enough? But you have love’s eyes, I

-suppose.” Then I asked, a little softened, “Does she ever lose

-herself, trying to piece that broken time?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know,” he answered. “She speaks so little. She is like a

-little shy ghost&mdash;half-materialized&mdash;fearful between spirit and

-matter&mdash;very sweet and pathetic.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With the last word he turned abruptly and strode out of the room. I

-was not so much astonished at his curt conclusion, as at a certain

-tell-tale cough which accompanied it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, hang the fellow!” I muttered. “If he’s developed tears in his

-voice, I give him up.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-IV

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-One afternoon, accident taking me past the Nolans’ house in the Fulham

-Road, I was disturbed to hear Valentine’s voice hailing me from the

-parlour window. It was a little cheap tenement, and a curiously shabby

-frame to his rather distinguished figure as he stood up eagerly to

-stop me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come in,” he said. “I want you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I demurred, in an instant and instinctive panic.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What for? I’m horribly pressed. Won’t it do another time?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>It</i> won’t,” he answered. “It’s its way. But go on, if your need is

-greater than mine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s shabby,” I thought; and yielded with the worst grace possible.

-He retaliated by meeting me all sweetness at the door, and conducting

-me into the parlour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was an impossible room&mdash;I may say it at once&mdash;quite the typical

-tawdry boudoir of an ex-coryphée. She was not there, I was relieved

-to find, in person; but her multiplied presentment simpered and

-abashed one from a dozen places on walls and mantelpiece. “Claudine”

-(she might have been a hair-wash, and enjoyed the same sort of

-popularity) posed, for all the blind purposes of vanity, in the tights

-and kid boots of a past generation. Looking from queer old

-daguerreotypes, in skirts like curtailed crinolines; ogling from

-wreaths, her calves, crossed to display their strength, in disfiguring

-proportion with the thin bosom above, she seemed to make an outrage of

-the dear ungainly sanctities which appeal to us, in pegtops and

-voluminous skirts, from the back parts of our albums. There are

-certain people who, with the best intention in the world to be held

-sweet, are unsavoury; and Aunt Mim was one of them. All the more

-wonder that such fruit could be born of her stock.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For she was certainly attractive, was the girl&mdash;pure and pretty and

-unaffected. I had to own it grudgingly to myself, as I bowed to her,

-and turned interrogatively to my friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had gone to the back of her chair, where she sat away from the open

-window. There was some discarded work in her lap, and in her eyes some

-look of a vague sadness and bewilderment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nanny,” he said softly, “this, Mr. Verender, is my great friend&mdash;my

-counsel out of Court. Will you just do this for me&mdash;make him yours,

-too? Will you try to explain to him, while I go away, what you find it

-so hard to explain to me&mdash;your sense of the something that keeps us

-apart?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I made an instant but faint demur. Nanny, as faintly, shook her head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he said, “but he will listen to you, I know! Because I am

-unhappy, and you are unhappy, and I love you so, Nanny, and he is my

-best friend. Try to explain to him, dear, the difficulty of your

-case.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-This novel enlargement on our relations, his and mine, vaguely annoyed

-me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why should there be any?” I put in impatiently. “Our friend can give

-you great social and other advantages, Miss Nolan. If he is decided on

-this course&mdash;you don’t dislike him, I think&mdash;forgive me, I can see no

-reason for objection on <i>your</i> part.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She rose, as if scared, to her feet. He put a hand on her shoulder.

-“Hush!” he said. “Be just to me, and try to tell him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He left the room and the house; and I was in two minds about following

-him. Was ever man put in a more ridiculous position? Yet the look of

-the girl gave me pause. She seemed to me to be yet only half awake;

-and indeed, I think, that is something to understate the case.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said stumblingly, as she stood before me. “You heard what he

-said, Miss Nolan?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was not sympathetic. I knew it. Perhaps, having once asserted

-myself, I might have grown so. But she would not give me the

-opportunity. In the meantime, I did not feel the less the full force

-of this mismatch.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She put her hand in a lost way to her forehead.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will try,” she said, in a low voice, “because he asked me.

-There&mdash;there was a great trouble&mdash;O! it was so far back. I can’t

-remember it&mdash;and then everything went.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He is willing, it appears, to take that interval, that trouble, on

-trust,” I said. “He only asks you, it seems, to repay his confidence.

-What you are is what he desires. Cannot you consider yourself new-born

-into his love?” (I positively sneered the word to myself.)

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is something stands between us,” she only murmured helplessly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He doesn’t admit it for himself,” I insisted irritably. “It might be

-the ruin of his career, of his position, as foreseen by his friends. I

-suppose he wishes to assure you that that counts for nothing with him,

-if by any chance the bar between you lies in your dim consciousness of

-such a sentiment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had been brutal, I admit it. I can only palliate my behaviour by

-confessing that it was intended to sound the first note of my moral

-surrender to the appeal of those poor, pain-troubled eyes. Now, at

-least, I had got my shaft home. She looked up at me with a light of

-amazed knowledge in her face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you,” she said. “I knew there was a right reason; and all the

-time I have been hunting for a fancied one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I suffered an instant reaction to dismay. I had had no right whatever

-to make this point. Whatever my private opinion of Valentine’s folly,

-I had allowed myself to be accredited his ambassador.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come; it is no reason at all,” I said. “There is no such thing as a

-misalliance in love” (I threw this atrocious sop to my own panic). “If

-only the practical bar between you could be as easily disposed of.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The practical bar?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She turned upon me with a piteous pain in her voice. I had opened a

-door of release to her, I suppose, and before she could escape shut it

-again in her face. I was stumbling weakly on an explanation, when

-suddenly from somewhere above the baby began to wail. Instantly her

-face assumed the strangest expression&mdash;a sort of exalted hardness. She

-put up her hand, listened a moment, then, without another word, glided

-from the room. I am ashamed to say that I seized the opportunity to

-put an instant period to my visit.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I expected to meet Valentine loitering without; but to my relief he

-did not appear. So I went on my way fuming. What right had the man to

-try to inveigle me into seeming to sanction his idiotcy by claiming me

-its advocate? He wanted to buy justification, I suppose. There are

-certain natures which cannot properly relish their own grief or

-happiness unless a witness be by to report upon them. Such was

-Valentine’s, I thought; and the thought did not increase my respect

-for my friend. I fancied I had already plumbed the shallows of that

-pretentious reserve, and was angry and half contemptuous that he had

-so soon revealed himself to me. There was certainly something

-attractive about the girl; but&mdash;well, <i>he</i> had not been the first to

-discover the fact, and, when all was said, his infatuation showed him

-a fool in my eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That evening, when I was sitting alone writing, she suddenly stood

-before me. My first shock of amazement was followed by a glow of fury.

-I felt that I was being persecuted.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, what is it?” I said harshly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I only wanted to tell you,” she said low, panting as if she had run;

-“I wanted you to tell <i>him</i> that&mdash;that I know now what it is. I found

-out the moment I left you; and I came to say&mdash;but you were gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is the child, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, you are quite right&mdash;it is the child.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-No sooner had I said it, than I felt the weight of my self-commitment.

-Had she discovered&mdash;remembered all? Did she conceive the impediment as

-associated with some scandal attaching to the ineffable Aunt Mim? or

-was the baby, in her clouded soul, but an unattachable changeling,

-which had come to disrupt the kind order of things and brand their

-household with a curse?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, it is the child,” I said, and leaned my forehead into my hand

-while I frowned over the problem.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She made no answer. When I looked up at the end of a minute, she was

-gone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I started to my feet, and went up and down. I made no attempt to

-follow. “It is better,” I thought angrily, “to let this stuff ferment

-in its own way. I could have given no other answer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the twentieth turn I saw Valentine before me, and stopped abruptly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he said; “were you able to get it out of her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What?” I asked defiantly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The reason&mdash;the impediment, you know?” he answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sit down, Valentine,” I said. “I will tell you the truth. I hinted

-that the <i>mésalliance</i> might be her unconscious consideration.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She is not so proud,” he said quietly; “though I’m unworthy to buckle

-her little shoe for her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I positively gasped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! if that’s your view! But, anyhow, she was seeming to accept mine,

-when the infant hailed her, and she left me, and I bolted. You put too

-much upon me&mdash;really you do, Val; and here’s the sequel. Ten minutes

-ago she appeared in this room and told me that she had discovered the

-reason&mdash;the real one this time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And it was?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The baby&mdash;no less.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! Does she&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know from Adam. I was thinking over my answer; and when I

-looked up, she was gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And you gave her no reply?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O yes! I told her I entirely agreed with her. I had to be honest.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verender! You must come with me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Go with you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ve called the tune; you must pay the piper.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know what you mean. I’ll see you&mdash;cremated first!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stared at me a moment, his teeth showing, his eyes rounding in the

-dusk, his fists clinching and unclinching; then he, too, was gone. And

-I went and stood at the window, slinking into the curtains, and

-feeling myself the most abused cur in all London.

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-V

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-For a fortnight this state continued in me, through alternations of

-depression, self-accusation, and savage bursts of rebellion. On the

-sixteenth day a brief note, begging me to call at his rooms, reached

-me from Valentine.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t go,” I swore through my teeth, feeling an inclination to tear

-the paper in them; and five minutes later was on my way.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He shall justify me to myself,” I had thought. “I’ll let my

-conscience be his footstool no longer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The fellow lived <i>en prince</i> in Piccadilly. I found him in the midst

-of a litter&mdash;boxes and packages and strewed floors&mdash;evidently on the

-eve of a journey. He greeted me, twinkling, in high excitement&mdash;not a

-trace of grievance or embarrassment in his manner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Leave those things, Phillips,” he said to his staid valet. “We’ll

-finish by and by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The man left the room; and his master took me by the sleeve, while I

-held myself in reserve&mdash;unconsciously, at the same time, softening to

-his geniality.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We’re off to Capri&mdash;Egypt,” he said, “following our late summer with

-the swallows.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You and&mdash;Phillips?” I asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I and my wife,” said he, with a laugh. “Hush! She’s seeing the baby

-to sleep.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He could say it without a blush; and they had been married, as I came

-to learn, just a week! He led me on tiptoe to a distant room, and bade

-me look through the opened door. Nanny, crowned, proud as any young

-queen, with conscious maternity, was bent, singing softly, above a

-little cot. The sight of her&mdash;Val’s wife&mdash;restored me at once to my

-self-respect. I had done nothing after all, it seemed, but help to

-precipitate an event I deplored. My shout had brought down the

-avalanche. Henceforth my position was to be that of the amused

-onlooker.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He let me stare; then led me away with all his old affectation of

-pregnant mystery. We went out together&mdash;I don’t know why&mdash;into the

-Green Park. It seemed remote and silent, and the better shadows of

-night were beginning to troop under its trees. Then he spoke to me, as

-follows:

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verender, you have a right to know. You remember what you told me

-that evening? I wasn’t just to you, perhaps. I foresaw issues to which

-you must necessarily be blind. The baby stood between us, you said. It

-did, but not in the way you meant to imply. I am its father.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I listened perfectly silent, and very grave, as we stepped on

-together.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will say of, not for, myself,” he continued, “that I had known

-nothing of the fruits of a little moonlight idyll out in that Kent

-village. I was hop-picking, as she was, but for a worser reason. Our

-encounter in B&mdash;&mdash; Hospital was my first intimation of the truth. Till

-that moment I had never considered, at least had been careless of, a

-sequel; had never, of course, had a shadow of thought to identify the

-patient with my victim. Then in a moment&mdash;Verender, her helplessness

-found all that wasn’t bad in me. She didn’t know me&mdash;the curtain was

-too thick. I determined to woo and win, as a stranger, what was

-already my own. Was I right?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I nodded. “Yes, you were right.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then came the strange part,” he said&mdash;“a sort of subconsciousness of

-an impediment she could not define. It was her dishonour, Verender&mdash;my

-God! Verender, <i>her</i> dishonour!&mdash;that found some subtle expression in

-the little life introduced into her home. She always feared and

-distrusted the child; and I tell you I lived in horror that some day

-her witlessness would arm her gentle hand to do it a hurt. For she

-wanted to come to me, Verender, she wanted to come, and it was as if

-she couldn’t, and nobody would tell her why.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>You</i> told her, you old rascal! And with what result, do you think?

-When I followed her, I found her gone&mdash;she had taken the baby from its

-cot, and hurried out. The old harpy was there, raving and gobbling

-beyond reason. I had her down on her knees to confess. She admitted

-that the girl had come in, in a fever to proclaim her knowledge of the

-bar which separated us. Nanny had rounded upon her, it appeared, and

-accused her, Aunt Mim, of wantonly causing the scandal which had

-brought this shadow into her life. And then&mdash;perhaps it wasn’t to be

-wondered at&mdash;Auntie exploded, and gave up all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The truth?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All of it but what the old hag herself didn’t know&mdash;the name of the

-villain. That, circumstances had kept from her, you see. She let

-loose, did Auntie&mdash;we’ll allow her a grain of justification; to have

-her forbearance turned upon herself like that, you know!&mdash;and screamed

-to the girl to pack, and dispose of her rubbish somewhere else. And

-Nanny understood at last, and went.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, where? That was the question. I’d only one clue&mdash;Skene and the

-river; but I seized upon it, and my inspiration proved right. She’d

-gone instinctively to the only place where, it seemed, her trouble

-could be resolved. You see, she hadn’t yet come to identify <i>me</i> with

-it. But I followed, and I caught her in time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He hung his head, and spoke very low.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I took the next train possible to Skene. Verender, I’m not going to

-talk. It was one of those fainting, indescribable experiences, like

-the voice in the burning bush. Cold dawn it was, with a white bubbling

-river and the ghost of an old moon. She had intended to commit <i>it</i> to

-the water&mdash;the fog wasn’t yet out of her brain&mdash;and then, all in an

-instant, the mother came upon her, and the memory of me; and she ran

-to cast herself in instead, and saw me coming.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There followed a long interval of silence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And Aunt Mim?” I asked drily, chiefly to keep up my character.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! we’ve added an honourable moiety to a dishonourable pension, and

-settled her,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Another silence followed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I apologize,” I said grumpily.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch03">

-THE SOUL OF THE PROFESSOR

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">John Stannary</span> hungrily paced his laboratory, awaiting an expected

-advent. A brilliant coronal of candles, concentrated within a shade

-and pendent from a black beam over the dissecting table, regularly

-identified him as he came within its radiance, and as regularly, when

-he had passed without it, returned to its scrutiny of the empty slab

-beneath, as if it were trying to trace on that blank surface the

-unwritten hieroglyphics of his development. Yet, if each of its

-half-score fiery tongues had been as polyglot as the Apostles’ tongues

-of flame, it could have found among them all no voice to dispute his

-lifelong consistency with himself. From the hard, ungracious child,

-who had rejoiced to discomfit the love which sought to hedge him; from

-the cynic schoolboy, to whom to awaken and analyze pain in the living

-had been the only absorbing sport; from the unimpassioned student, who

-had walked the hospitals like a very spectre of moral insensibility;

-from the calculating libertine, whose experimental phase of animalism

-had been as brief as it was savage; from the lust of life, soon spent,

-to the bloodless analysis of its organic motives; from the soulless

-child to the virile monster of science; from nothingness to a great

-early reputation, to honours, to a fine house, to his present self and

-condition, in short, Professor Stannary’s progress had been entirely

-and unerringly consistent. He was one of those born to account for

-results, not by any means with a view to clearing the stream of

-tendency by cleansing its source. On the contrary, he never would have

-hesitated further to contaminate it, could he by so doing have evolved

-some novel epidemic. His fight was not to win Nature to God, but to

-the laboratory; and, if he had a conqueror’s ambition, it was to die

-gloriously upon a protoplast, at that beginning of things which his

-fathers had struggled through æons to forget. To have called him a

-dog nosing back for a scent, would have been to libel the sorriest of

-mongrels with an inch of tail to wag at a kind word. Yet he had

-routled so much, nevertheless, that his eyes were inflamed, and his

-features pimpled, and his nose itself sharpened as with much whetting

-on carrion. And, still unappeased, he paced his shambles that evening

-like a caged ravening jackal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In those early decades of the nineteenth century, anthropophagous

-science, especially when non-official, was often hard put to it for a

-meal. The “ringing grooves of change” were sounding; discovery was a

-new-risen star; ghoulish explorers shouldered one another in their

-struggle for the scientific pabulum which the grave afforded. But the

-supply, die as men would, was unequal to the demand. The hospitals

-kept their own; the others, <i>à contre-cœur</i>, must keep the

-resurrection-men. They pulled the blinds down on their consciences;

-they were willing to accept the least plausible of explanations, for

-the <i>Cause</i> was paramount. But, indeed, we are all casuists when we

-want to justify our lusts to ourselves. Still the material lacked,

-only, according to the universal law of necessity, to evolve its more

-desperate instruments of supply. And then at last, hard-driven, first

-one, and after him another and another, had the panic courage to pull

-up those blinds, and let in the light on some very shocking

-suspicions&mdash;with the result that Burke was hanged in Edinburgh, and

-Bishop and Williams in London.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Professor Stannary was not of these white-livers. He pulled up no

-blind, for the simple reason that he had let none down. He would have

-diagnosed conscience as a morbid disease characterized by a diathetic

-condition, and peculiar to fools of both sexes and all ages. He would

-have said that to ask any question in this world was to invite a lie,

-and that in all his thirty years’ experience he had found none but the

-dead to answer back the unswerving truth. Well, if they did? Did it

-matter to them, being dead? But it mattered greatly to the cause of

-science to get at the truth; and he, for one, was certainly not going

-to question the means so long as the results came to justify them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-While yet, however, the blinds were down and the pitch-plaster but an

-ugly suspicion, the competition for material had not so ceased of its

-keenness but that Professor Stannary had found himself checked, one

-day, under the very near-conquered crest of a physiological peak, for

-want of the final clue to that crowning achievement&mdash;a clue which,

-like Bluebeard’s key, turned upon nothing so intimately as dead

-bodies. Step by step he had reasoned his way to this position, only,

-when within touch of the end, to find himself held up, tantalized,

-irritated by an inability to proceed farther until a nice necessity

-should be provided. His material, in fact and in short, had given out

-at the psychologic moment. His laboratory was already a museum of

-shredded particles&mdash;the pickings from much inevitable waste of dead

-humanity. There needed only the retraversing of certain nerves, or

-ducts, or canals to put the finishing touches to a great discovery.

-And then&mdash;the summit, the tribune, as it were, from which he was

-engaged to announce on the morrow to the Royal Society the triumphant

-term to his investigations.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Already, pacing to and fro, eager and impatient, in the silent room,

-he foresaw himself the recipient of the highest honour it was in the

-power of that body to bestow. He was not above desiring it. He was not

-himself so superlatively rational but he could covet applause for

-knocking yet another long nail into the coffin of irrationality; could

-expect the recognition of the world for his services in helping to

-reduce it, its passions and its hopes and its pathetic fallacies, to

-some mathematical formulæ. There is nothing so incomprehensible to

-the men of science as the reluctance of the unscientific to part with

-their doting illusions. To be content to rejoice or sorrow in things

-as they seem, and not to wish to know them as they are&mdash;that, they

-think, is so foolish as to justify their hardest castigation of the

-folly. At least so thought John Stannary, as, with his lips set

-sourly, he paused, and consulted his watch, and listened for a sound

-of expected footsteps shuffling down the hang-dog passage which

-skirted that wall of the house, and into which his laboratory door

-conveniently opened.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Not a whisper, however, rewarded him. He put his ear to the panels.

-Even then, the surf-like murmur of distant traffic&mdash;or the thud of his

-own excited heart, he could not tell which&mdash;was the only articulate

-sound. He glanced up angrily at the shortening candles before resuming

-his tramp. As he passed to and fro, from dusk to light, and into dusk

-again, he seemed to be demonstrating to a theatre of spectral

-monstrosities the hieroglyphics of that same empty slab. For the

-central core of radiance, concentrating itself with deadly expectancy

-upon its surface, had, nevertheless, its own ghostly halo&mdash;a dim

-auditorium, tier over tier, peopled with shadows of misbegotten

-horrors. Sets of surgical steel in the pit, arrayed symmetrically on

-a table as if for a dinner party of vampires; nameless writhed

-specimens on cards or in bottles, standing higher behind the dry sleek

-of glass; over all, murderous busts in the gallery, the dust on their

-heads and upper features giving them the appearance of standing above

-some infernal sort of footlights&mdash;with such shapes, watchful and

-gloating in suggestion, was the man hemmed in. They touched his nerves

-with just such an emotion as the ordinary citizen feels towards his

-domestic <i>lares</i>; they affected him in just such proportion as he was

-moved by the thought of the possible manner in which an order he had

-given to some friends of his that morning might be executed. That is

-to say, his feeling towards these dead members, as towards the means

-taken by others to procure him the use of them, was utterly

-impersonal. He had had at this pass a great truth to demonstrate. “A

-body, this night, at any cost,” he had simply ordered, and had

-straightway shut the door on his caterers. He had had no thought of

-scruple. His responsibility in these matters was to the ages; never to

-the individual.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-A low tap sounded at the door. He was there in three strides, and

-opening swiftly, let in two men, the one shouldering a sack, the other

-hovering about his comrade in a sort of anxious moral support.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Professor Stannary, without a word, pointed to the table. The laden

-one, as mutely, shuffled across, backed, heaved his burden down, and

-stood to take off his hat and mop his brow. He was a burly,

-humorous-looking fellow, with a sort of cheerful popularity written

-across his face&mdash;an expression in strong contrast with that of the

-other, who, tall and stealthy, stood lank behind him, like his shadow

-at a distance, watching the persuasive effect of his principal on the

-customer. It was he who had closed the door gently upon them all as

-soon as they were in, and now stood, his teeth and eyeballs the

-prominent things in him, softly twirling his hat in his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take away the sack,” said the Professor quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The burly man obeyed, sliding it off like a petticoat; and revealed

-the body of a young woman. Lowering and rubbing his jaw, the Professor

-stood some moments pondering the vision. Then he turned sharply.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are late. I expected you sooner.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The notice was short, sir,” answered the man coolly. “These ’ere

-matters can’t be accommodated in a moment. As it is she’s warm. I

-bought the body off of&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other interrupted him&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t want to know. You can hold your tongue, and take your price,

-and go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Short and sweet,” said the man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed, and his friend laughed in echo, putting his long hand to

-his mouth as if in apology for such an unpardonable ebullition of

-nature.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to the price,” said the former, “taking into <i>con</i>sideration the

-urgency, and the special providence, so to speak, in purwiding, at a

-moment’s notice too, this ’ere comely young&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A certain full chink of money stopped him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thankee,” he said, after a short negotiation. “I’ll own you’ve done

-the handsome, sir, and we’ve no cause to complain. Not but what I had

-to give&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good night!” said the Professor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Not till they were gone, locked out, and the very trail of their

-filthy footsteps hidden under the black droppings of the night, did he

-turn, for all his impatience, and regard the body again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nancy,” he murmured to himself; “yes, it’s Nancy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Into the vast study of biology it is perfectly certain that a personal

-knowledge of biogenesis must enter. Here, too, the individual must be

-sacrificed to the cause. Well, by virtue of that phase in his career

-before-mentioned, he had already once made of Nancy a holocaust to

-science. If the fruits of that sacrifice had been to be found in a

-ruined life, a social degradation, a gradual decline upon infamy, what

-was it all to him? As german to the general subject as the dead

-specimens on his walls was the living specimen of his passion. <i>Ex

-abusu non arguitur ad usum.</i> Still, it was a strange coincidence that

-she should come thus to consummate his work.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Looking upon her frozen face, he was aware of certain tell-tale,

-rudely-erased tokens about the mouth. He never had a doubt as to what

-they signified. It was a rude kiss that of the pitch-plaster, more

-close and savage than any he himself had once pressed upon those

-blistered lips. So, the murderous beasts had gone the short way to

-supply his urgency! Would they have taken it none the less, he

-wondered, if they could have known in what relation their victim once

-stood towards their employer? Very likely. Very justly, too, could

-they believe him consistent with himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nevertheless, though he had no conscience, though he had too often

-scored that fact on human flesh with a knife to be in any doubt about

-it, it was notable that, as he moved now, perfectly cold and

-collected, to make some selection of tools from the table hard by, he

-was registering to himself a vow, mortal to some folks, that no effort

-of his should be lacking to help bring certain vile instruments to

-their judgment&mdash;so soon as his disuse of them should find warrant in a

-fuller supply of the legitimate material.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he groped for what he wanted, a sparrow twittered somewhere in the

-dark outside. He started, and dwelt a moment listening. Birds! the

-little false priests of haunted woods, who sang their lying

-benedictions over every folly perpetrated in their green shades! Why,

-he had loathed them, even while he had been making their loves the

-text for this early experiment of his in rustic nature. They had been

-singing when&mdash;&mdash;grasping his knife firmly, he returned to the table.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Something had happened there. For one moment the blade shook in his

-hand. To his practised eye there were signs&mdash;the ghostliest, the most

-remote&mdash;but signs still. A movement&mdash;a tremor&mdash;the faintest, faintest

-vibration of a soul, unreleased, struggling to return to the

-surface&mdash;that was what he felt rather than saw. He recalled the hasty

-character of the deed; he thought of the shock, of the suspended

-trance into which such a deed might cast a sensitive subject.

-Mastering himself, with the dry firm will of an operator, he walked

-once more unhurriedly to the instrument table, and made a further

-selection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sparrow twittered again. Birds in the wood&mdash;small procuresses to

-Sentiment! What a trollop she was, that Sentiment! He had known

-ethereal creatures go from picking the bones of stuffed larks, to

-moralize sweetly on the song of nightingales under the moon. For

-himself, barring his natural asceticism, he would have no remorse

-whatever in devouring nightingales. Such emotions were born of

-surfeit, and the moral of them all was that a bird in the stomach was

-worth two, or two hundred, in the bush. The one was the decoy which

-brought the many into notice. Why, he himself, when flushed with

-passion&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Harder than steel, hard as flesh can be, he stepped back to the table.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Yes, there was no longer doubt about it. He must decide quickly.

-Decide! What was there in all his life to warrant in him a moment’s

-indecision? His pledge to to-morrow was paramount over his pledge to

-yesterday. It was by very virtue of the past that he owed everything

-to the future. The <i>Cause</i> was himself, bone of his bone, flesh of his

-flesh. As she had made <i>her</i>self one with him, so must she consummate

-the gift. He chose to believe, even, that she would not hesitate could

-she know. He grasped his knife.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her hair! He had said some foolish things about it once. In a sudden

-fury he seized it, and sliced it off close by her head, and flung it

-aside. She looked strangely innocent and boyish thus shorn. He had a

-momentary grotesque thought that he would excuse himself to himself by

-pretending that she was a boy. It passed on the instant. What excuse

-was necessary? He remembered how once, to his idle amusement, when she

-had fancied herself secure of him, she had coveted greatness for his

-future. Well, it was within his grasp at length, and by her final

-means.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Damn the sparrow! What was there in all the murky town to tempt his

-twittering? He had blunted his knife’s edge on the hair. He must fetch

-another.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he came back with it, the bird seemed to flutter and cry out

-against his very door. In a swift access of passion he strode to it,

-and opened. Whether old, or wounded, or poisoned in the drooping fog,

-there lay the little thing, gasping, with outspread wings, upon the

-pavement. One moment the Professor hesitated; then, crushing out the

-tiny shrieking life under his foot, he relocked the door and returned

-with a firm step to the table.

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His treatise, read the next day before an august body, was said

-masterly to resolve an intricate and long obscure physiologic problem.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It brought him additional and great honour, and, what he prized above

-all, that gift of the Society’s gold medal, which is only granted to

-discoveries of the first importance. But then, it must be remembered,

-he had given his soul to the Cause. The stain of its sacrifice was yet

-red on the stones outside his door.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch04">

-A GHOST-CHILD

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">In</span> making this confession public, I am aware that I am giving a

-butterfly to be broken on a wheel. There is so much of delicacy in its

-subject, that the mere resolve to handle it at all might seem to imply

-a lack of the sensitiveness necessary to its understanding; and it is

-certain that the more reverent the touch, the more irresistible will

-figure its opportunity to the common scepticism which is bondslave to

-its five senses. Moreover one cannot, in the reason of things, write

-to publish for Aristarchus alone; but the gauntlet of Grub Street must

-be run in any bid for truth and sincerity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the other hand, to withhold from evidence, in these days of what

-one may call a zetetic psychology, anything which may appear

-elucidatory, however exquisitely and rarely, of our spiritual

-relationships, must be pronounced, I think, a sin against the Holy

-Ghost.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All in all, therefore, I decide to give, with every passage to

-personal identification safeguarded, the story of a possession, or

-visitation, which is signified in the title to my narrative.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-Tryphena was the sole orphaned representative of an obscure but gentle

-family which had lived for generations in the east of England. The

-spirit of the fens, of the long grey marshes, whose shores are the

-neutral ground of two elements, slumbered in her eyes. Looking into

-them, one seemed to see little beds of tiny green mosses luminous

-under water, or stirred by the movement of microscopic life in their

-midst. Secrets, one felt, were shadowed in their depths, too frail and

-sweet for understanding. The pretty love-fancy of babies seen in the

-eyes of maidens, was in hers to be interpreted into the very cosmic

-dust of sea-urchins, sparkling like chrysoberyls. Her soul looked out

-through them, as if they were the windows of a water-nursery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was always a child among children, in heart and knowledge most

-innocent, until Jason came and stood in her field of vision. Then,

-spirit of the neutral ground as she was, inclining to earth or water

-with the sway of the tides, she came wondering and dripping, as it

-were, to land, and took up her abode for final choice among the

-daughters of the earth. She knew her woman’s estate, in fact, and the

-irresistible attraction of all completed perfections to the light that

-burns to destroy them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Tryphena was not only an orphan, but an heiress. Her considerable

-estate was administered by her guardian, Jason’s father, a widower,

-who was possessed of this single adored child. The fruits of parental

-infatuation had come early to ripen on the seedling. The boy was

-self-willed and perverse, the more so as he was naturally of a

-hot-hearted disposition. Violence and remorse would sway him in

-alternate moods, and be made, each in its turn, a self-indulgence. He

-took a delight in crossing his father’s wishes, and no less in atoning

-for his gracelessness with moving demonstrations of affection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Foremost of the old man’s most cherished projects was, very naturally,

-a union between the two young people. He planned, manœuvred, spoke

-for it with all his heart of love and eloquence. And, indeed, it

-seemed at last as if his hopes were to be crowned. Jason, returning

-from a lengthy voyage (for his enterprising spirit had early decided

-for the sea, and he was a naval officer), saw, and was struck amazed

-before, the transformed vision of his old child-playfellow. She was an

-opened flower whom he had left a green bud&mdash;a thing so rare and

-flawless that it seemed a sacrilege for earthly passions to converse

-of her. Familiarity, however, and some sense of reciprocal attraction,

-quickly dethroned that eucharist. Tryphena could blush, could thrill,

-could solicit, in the sweet ways of innocent womanhood. She loved him

-dearly, wholly, it was plain&mdash;had found the realization of all her old

-formless dreams in this wondrous birth of a desire for one, in whose

-new-impassioned eyes she had known herself reflected hitherto only for

-the most patronized of small gossips. And, for her part, fearless as

-nature, she made no secret of her love. She was absorbed in, a captive

-to, Jason from that moment and for ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He responded. What man, however perverse, could have resisted, on

-first appeal, the attraction of such beauty, the flower of a radiant

-soul? The two were betrothed; the old man’s cup of happiness was

-brimmed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then came clouds and a cold wind, chilling the garden of Hesperis.

-Jason was always one of those who, possessing classic noses, will cut

-them off, on easy provocation, to spite their faces. He was so proudly

-independent, to himself, that he resented the least assumption of

-proprietorship in him on the part of other people&mdash;even of those who

-had the best claim to his love and submission. This pride was an

-obsession. It stultified the real good in him, which was considerable.

-Apart from it, he was a good, warm-tempered fellow, hasty but

-affectionate. Under its dominion, he would have broken his own heart

-on an imaginary grievance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He found one, it is to be supposed, in the privileges assumed by love;

-in its exacting claims upon him; perhaps in its little unreasoning

-jealousies. He distorted these into an implied conceit of authority

-over him on the part of an heiress who was condescending to his meaner

-fortunes. The suggestion was quite base and without warrant; but pride

-has no balance. No doubt, moreover, the rather childish

-self-depreciations of the old man, his father, in his attitude towards

-a match he had so fondly desired, helped to aggravate this feeling.

-The upshot was that, when within a few months of the date which was to

-make his union with Tryphena eternal, Jason broke away from a

-restraint which his pride pictured to him as intolerable, and went on

-a yachting expedition with a friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, at once, and with characteristic violence, came the reaction. He

-wrote, impetuously, frenziedly, from a distant port, claiming himself

-Tryphena’s, and Tryphena his, for ever and ever and ever. They were

-man and wife before God. He had behaved like an insensate brute, and

-he was at that moment starting to speed to her side, to beg her

-forgiveness and the return of her love.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had no need to play the suitor afresh. She had never doubted or

-questioned their mutual bondage, and would have died a maid for his

-sake. Something of sweet exultation only seemed to quicken and leap in

-her body, that her faith in her dear love was vindicated.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the joy came near to upset the reason of the old man, already

-tottering to its dotage; and what followed destroyed it utterly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The yacht, flying home, was lost at sea, and Jason was drowned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I once saw Tryphena about this time. She lived with her near mindless

-charge, lonely, in an old grey house upon the borders of a salt mere,

-and had little but the unearthly cries of seabirds to answer to the

-questions of her widowed heart. She worked, sweet in charity, among

-the marsh folk, a beautiful unearthly presence; and was especially to

-be found where infants and the troubles of child-bearing women called

-for her help and sympathy. She was a wife herself, she would say

-quaintly; and some day perhaps, by grace of the good spirits of the

-sea, would be a mother. None thought to cross her statement, put with

-so sweet a sanity; and, indeed, I have often noticed that the

-neighbourhood of great waters breeds in souls a mysticism which is

-remote from the very understanding of land-dwellers.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-How I saw her was thus:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was fishing, on a day of chill calm, in a dinghy off the flat coast.

-The stillness of the morning had tempted me some distance from the

-village where I was staying. Presently a sense of bad sport and

-healthy famine “plumped” in me, so to speak, for luncheon, and I

-looked about for a spot picturesque enough to add a zest to

-sandwiches, whisky, and tobacco. Close by, a little creek or estuary

-ran up into a mere, between which and the sea lay a cluster of low

-sand-hills; and thither I pulled. The spot, when I reached it, was

-calm, chill desolation manifest&mdash;lifeless water and lifeless sand,

-with no traffic between them but the dead interchange of salt. Low

-sedges, at first, and behind them low woods were mirrored in the water

-at a distance, with an interval between me and them of sheeted glass;

-and right across this shining pool ran a dim, half-drowned

-causeway&mdash;the sea-path, it appeared, to and from a lonely house which

-I could just distinguish squatting among trees. It was Tryphena’s

-home.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, paddling dispiritedly, I turned a cold dune, and saw a mermaid

-before me. At least, that was my instant impression. The creature sat

-coiled on the strand, combing her hair&mdash;that was certain, for I saw

-the gold-green tresses of it whisked by her action into rainbow

-threads. It appeared as certain that her upper half was flesh and her

-lower fish; and it was only on my nearer approach that this latter

-resolved itself into a pale green skirt, roped, owing to her posture,

-about her limbs, and the hem fanned out at her feet into a tail fin.

-Thus also her bosom, which had appeared naked, became a bodice, as

-near to her flesh in colour and texture as a smock is to a

-lady’s-smock, which some call a cuckoo-flower.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was plain enough now; yet the illusion for the moment had quite

-startled me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As I came near, she paused in her strange business to canvass me. It

-was Tryphena herself, as after-inquiry informed me. I have never seen

-so lovely a creature. Her eyes, as they regarded me passing, were

-something to haunt a dream: so great in tragedy&mdash;not fathomless, but

-all in motion near their surfaces, it seemed, with green and rooted

-sorrows. They were the eyes, I thought, of an Undine late-humanized,

-late awakened to the rapturous and troubled knowledge of the woman’s

-burden. Her forehead was most fair, and the glistening thatch divided

-on it like a golden cloud revealing the face of a wondering angel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I passed, and a sand-heap stole my vision foot by foot. The vision was

-gone when I returned. I have reason to believe it was vouchsafed me

-within a few months of the coming of the ghost-child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the morning succeeding the night of the day on which Jason and

-Tryphena were to have been married, the girl came down from her

-bedroom with an extraordinary expression of still rapture on her face.

-After breakfast she took the old man into her confidence. She was

-childish still; her manner quite youthfully thrilling; but now there

-was a new-born wonder in it that hovered on the pink of shame.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Father! I have been under the deep waters and found him. He came to

-me last night in my dreams&mdash;so sobbing, so impassioned&mdash;to assure me

-that he had never really ceased to love me, though he had near broken

-his own heart pretending it. Poor boy! poor ghost! What could I do but

-take him to my arms? And all night he lay there, blest and forgiven,

-till in the morning he melted away with a sigh that woke me; and it

-seemed to me that I came up dripping from the sea.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My boy! He has come back!” chuckled the old man. “What have you done

-with him, Tryphena?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will hold him tighter the next time,” she said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the spirit of Jason visited her dreams no more.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That was in March. In the Christmas following, when the mere was

-locked in stillness, and the wan reflection of snow mingled on the

-ceiling with the red dance of firelight, one morning the old man came

-hurrying and panting to Tryphena’s door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tryphena! Come down quickly! My boy, my Jason, has come back! It was

-a lie that they told us about his being lost at sea!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her heart leapt like a candle-flame! What new delusion of the old

-man’s was this? She hurried over her dressing and descended. A

-garrulous old voice mingled with a childish treble in the

-breakfast-room. Hardly breathing, she turned the handle of the door,

-and saw Jason before her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But it was Jason, the prattling babe of her first knowledge; Jason,

-the flaxen-headed, apple-cheeked cherub of the nursery; Jason, the

-confiding, the merry, the loving, before pride had come to warp his

-innocence. She fell on her knees to the child, and with a burst of

-ecstasy caught him to her heart.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She asked no question of the old man as to when or whence this

-apparition had come, or why he was here. For some reason she dared

-not. She accepted him as some waif, whom an accidental likeness had

-made glorious to their hungering hearts. As for the father, he was

-utterly satisfied and content. He had heard a knock at the door, he

-said, and had opened it and found this. The child was naked, and his

-pink, wet body glazed with ice. Yet he seemed insensible to the

-killing cold. It was Jason&mdash;that was enough. There is no date nor time

-for imbecility. Its phantoms spring from the clash of ancient

-memories. This was just as actually his child as&mdash;more so, in fact,

-than&mdash;the grown young figure which, for all its manhood, had dissolved

-into the mist of waters. He was more familiar with, more confident of

-it, after all. It had come back to be unquestioningly dependent on

-him; and that was likest the real Jason, flesh of his flesh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who are you, darling?” said Tryphena.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am Jason,” answered the child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She wept, and fondled him rapturously.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And who am I?” she asked. “If you are Jason, you must know what to

-call me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know,” he said; “but I mustn’t, unless you ask me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t,” she answered, with a burst of weeping. “It is Christmas

-Day, dearest, when the miracle of a little child was wrought. I will

-ask you nothing but to stay and bless our desolate home.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded, laughing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will stay, until you ask me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They found some little old robes of the baby Jason, put away in

-lavender, and dressed him in them. All day he laughed and prattled;

-yet it was strange that, talk as he might, he never once referred to

-matters familiar to the childhood of the lost sailor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the early afternoon he asked to be taken out&mdash;seawards, that was

-his wish. Tryphena clothed him warmly, and, taking his little hand,

-led him away. They left the old man sleeping peacefully. He was never

-to wake again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As they crossed the narrow causeway, snow, thick and silent, began to

-fall. Tryphena was not afraid, for herself or the child. A rapture

-upheld her; a sense of some compelling happiness, which she knew

-before long must take shape on her lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They reached the seaward dunes&mdash;mere ghosts of foothold in that smoke

-of flakes. The lap of vast waters seemed all around them, hollow and

-mysterious. The sound flooded Tryphena’s ears, drowning her senses.

-She cried out, and stopped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Before they go,” she screamed&mdash;“before they go, tell me what you were

-to call me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The child sprang a little distance, and stood facing her. Already his

-lower limbs seemed dissolving in the mists.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was to call you ‘mother’!” he cried, with a smile and toss of his

-hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even as he spoke, his pretty features wavered and vanished. The snow

-broke into him, or he became part with it. Where he had been, a gleam

-of iridescent dust seemed to show one moment before it sank and was

-extinguished in the falling cloud. Then there was only the snow,

-heaping an eternal chaos with nothingness.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-Tryphena made this confession, on a Christmas Eve night, to one who

-was a believer in dreams. The next morning she was seen to cross the

-causeway, and thereafter was never seen again. But she left the

-sweetest memory behind her, for human charity, and an elf-like gift of

-loveliness.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch05">

-HIS CLIENT’S CASE

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> “Personal Reminiscences” of the late Mr. Justice Ganthony, now

-in process of being edited, are responsible for the following

-drollery:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My first “chambers” were on the top, not to say the attic, floor of a

-house in (the now defunct) Furnival’s Inn. I called <i>it</i> “chambers,”

-in the plural, on the strength of a coal-cellar, in the window-seat,

-and a turn-up bedstead which became a cupboard by day. That accounted

-for two rooms, and “the usual offices,” as the house-agents say, when

-they refer to a kitchen six feet by eight in the basement. Trousers,

-after all, are only one garment, although they are called a pair.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There I sat among the cobwebs, like a spider, and waited for my first

-brief. In the meanwhile, I lived as the spiders do&mdash;on hope, flavoured

-with a little attic salt. It was not a cheering repast; but, such as

-it was, there was no end to it. By and by I was almost convinced (of

-what I had been friendlily advised) that it was a forlorn hope&mdash;the

-sort that leads to glory and the grave; probably by starvation. A

-spider has always, as a last resource, his web to roll up and devour.

-I ate up my chambers by degrees; that is to say, I dined,

-figuratively, day in day out, at the sign of the Three Balls. But this

-was to consume my own hump, like the camel. When that should be all

-gone, what next? There is a vulgar expression for prog, which is

-“belly-timber.” I only realized its applicability to my own case when

-my chairs and tables, and other furniture, had gone the primrose way

-of digestion. It was the brass fender, a “genuine antique,” that sat

-heaviest on my chest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Furnival’s Inn was not a cheerful place to starve in. There was an

-atmosphere of gloom and decay about it, which derived, no doubt, from

-its former dealings in Chancery. In the days of its prosperity it had

-fed the Inns of Court, as Winchester feeds New College; in my time it

-could not feed itself. The rats were at it, and the bugs, which are

-the only things I know of that can thrive on crumbling plaster. I had

-the distinction of providing some of their rare debauches to the

-latter; but that was before I began to crumble myself. Some of my

-blood was certainly incorporated in the ancient walls, and was

-included in their downfall.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My view, from Furnival’s Inn, was dismally introspective. It

-commanded, in the first place, a quadrangle of emptiness; and

-included, in the second, an array of lowering and mouldy tenements

-like my own, at whose stark windows hungry expectant faces would

-glimmer fitfully, and scan the yard for the clients who never came,

-and disappear.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a decrepit inn, of another and the social type, budded, like

-a vicious intestinal growth, within Furnival’s. I used to speculate,

-as I looked down at night on its tottering portico, and solemn old

-frequenters, and the lights blinking behind its blinds like

-corpse-candles, if it were not a half-way house of call for the dead.

-For, by day, all business seemed withdrawn from it, and its upper

-rooms might have been mortuaries for any life they exhibited. No

-cheery housemaid ever looked from their windows to chaff the amorous

-Boots below. There was none to chaff. The dead need no boots.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Furnival’s Inn had one gullet, by which the roar of the world came in

-from Holborn. Little else came in but tradesmen, and bailiffs, and an

-occasional policeman in a thoughtful archæological mood. But the

-gullet was a vent as much of exit as of entrance; and by it one could

-escape from the madness of ghostly isolation, and mingle with the

-world, and look in the pastry-cooks’ windows. Whenever I was moved to

-one of these chameleonic foraging expeditions, I would pin a ticket on

-my door: “Called away. Please leave message with housekeeper,” and

-light my pipe with it when I returned. I wonder if any one ever read

-the fatuous legends? To Hope’s eyes, I am sure, they must have been

-dinted, like phonographic records, with the echoes of all the

-footsteps that ever sounded on the stairs during my absences.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Those footsteps! How they marked the measure of my desperation! They

-were not many, and they were far between; but not one in all the

-dreary tale ever reached my attic. Why should they, indeed? I am free

-to acknowledge its moral inaccessibility. Jurisprudence does not, in

-its convincing phases, inhabit immediately under the roof. The higher

-one lives, in practice, the lower one’s practice is like to be. The

-law is not an elevating pursuit.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I recognized this in the end; and the moment I recognized it I got my

-first client.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One November evening, very depressed at last, I was sitting smoking,

-and ruminating over my doleful fate, and thinking if I had not better

-shut myself up for good and all in the bed-cupboard, when I heard

-steps enter the hall below. My ears pricked, of course, from force of

-habit, and from force of habit I uttered a scornful stage laugh&mdash;for

-the withering of Fortune, if she happened to be by. But, in spite of

-my scorn, the steps, ignoring the architects’ offices on the ground

-floor (Frost and Driffel, contractors for Castles in Spain), ascended

-and continued to ascend&mdash;past the deed-engrosser’s closet on the

-half-way landing; past the empty chambers immediately below mine

-(whence, on gusty nights, the tiny creaking of the rope, by which the

-last tenant had hanged himself from a beam, would speak through the

-floor under my bed), and higher yet, right up to my door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Hope, dying on a pallet up three flights of stairs, sprang alert on

-the instant. It might be a friend, a creditor, the housekeeper:

-something telepathic, flowing through the panels, assured me that it

-was none of these things. Tap-tap! so smart on the woodwork that it

-made me jump. I swept pipes and tobacco into a drawer. “Come in!” I

-cried. Then, as the visitor entered, “John, throw up the window a

-little! O, bother the boy! he’s out.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I don’t know if the new-comer was imposed on. He nodded and sniffed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tobacco!” he exclaimed. “What an age since I’ve tasted it! Mr.

-Ganthony, I presume?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I bowed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Barrister-at-law?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I bowed again. My plate was in the hall to inform him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Accept my instructions for a brief.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stated it so abruptly that it took my breath away. If all this was

-outside procedure, I was not going to quarrel with my bread and

-butter. I motioned him to a chair, and, taking up pen and paper

-tentatively, was in a position to scrutinize my visitor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His appearance was certainly odd&mdash;a marked exaggeration, I should have

-pronounced it, of the legal type. His face was very red; his enormous

-side-whiskers very white. Large spectacles obscured his eyes, and he

-wore his silk hat (of an obsolete pattern) cocked rakishly over one of

-them. Add to this that his voluminous frock-coat looked like a much

-larger man’s misfit; that his black cotton gloves were preposterously

-long in the fingers; that he carried a “gamp” of the pantomime

-pattern, and it will be obvious that I had some reason for my

-astonishment. But I kept that in hand. A lawyer, after all, must come

-to graduate in the eccentricities of clients.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked perkily, with an abrupt action of his head, round about him;

-then came to me again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Large practice?” he asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Large enough for my needs,” I answered winningly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“H’m!” He sniffed. “They don’t appear to be many.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That&mdash;excuse me&mdash;is my affair,” I said with dignity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course,” he said; “of course. Only I looked you up&mdash;accident

-serving intuition&mdash;on the supposition that you were green, you

-know&mdash;one of the briefless ones&mdash;called to the Bar, but not chosen,

-eh?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I plumped instantly for frankness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are my first retainer,” I said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His manner changed at once. He pulled his chair a little nearer me,

-with an eager motion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thats what I wanted,” he said. “That’s it. The sort that are

-suffering to win their spurs. None of your egregious old-stagers, who

-require their briefs to be endorsed to the tune of three figures

-before they’ll move&mdash;‘monkey’-in-the-slot men, <i>I</i> call ’em. Thinks I

-to myself, Here’s the sort that’ll be willing to take up a case on

-spec’.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My enthusiasm shot down to zero.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” I said, with a falling face; “on speculation!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s a fortune in it for a clever advocate,” he answered eagerly.

-“A fortune! all Pactolus in a nutshell. I’ve had my experiences of the

-other kind. They squeeze you, and throw you away; take the wages of

-sin, and hand you over to the deuce. What do <i>you</i> say?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you will give me the particulars,” I answered, without heart, “I

-shall be able to judge better. Your client&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed joyously; frowned; put his hat on the floor; crossed his

-arms over his umbrella-handle, and glowered ferociously at me,

-squinting through his glasses.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” he said; “my client, ha-ha! Here, then, young sir, is my

-client’s case.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His name is Buggins” (I glanced involuntarily at the wall). “He is,

-or was, until envy combined with detraction to ruin him, a

-company-promoter. As such, his trend was always towards insurance. It

-offered the best opportunities to a great creative genius. Buggins,

-being all that, recognized the still amazing potentialities in a field

-of commerce, which, though much worked, remains unexhausted&mdash;almost,

-one might say, inexhaustible. In his younger days he showed a pretty

-invention in devising and engineering what I may call personal essays

-in this line. His Insurance against Waterspouts, which he worked

-principally in the Midlands, brought him some handsome returns with a

-single generation of farmers. It was based on a cloud-burst at

-Bethesda, in Wales, which ruined quite a number. Other flights of his

-immature genius were, respectively, Insurance against Death in

-Diving-bells; against Death of a Broken Heart; against Official

-Strangulation; against Non-fatal Disfiguration by Lightning; against

-Death by Starvation (this last was largely patronized by

-millionaires). On a somewhat higher plane were his <i>Provident

-Dipsomaniary</i>, whose policies matured, or ‘burst,’ as Buggins phrased

-it, at the age of eighty-five, an essential condition being that the

-holders must put in their claims in person; his <i>Physical Promotion

-League</i>, which guaranteed to pay to the parents of any child, insured

-in it during his teens, a sum of ten pounds on the child’s reaching

-twenty-five years of age and a minimum height of six feet, and a

-thousand pounds for every additional inch which it grew afterwards;

-his <i>Anti-Fiction Mutual</i>, whose policies were forfeitable on first

-conviction of having written a novel (this proved one of the most

-profitable of all Buggins’s enterprises for a time; but in the end the

-national malady proved incurable, and subscribers fell off); his

-<i>Psychical Pocket Research Society</i>, which offered an Insurance

-against Ghost-seeing, the policy-holder forfeiting his claim on proof

-of his first supernatural visitation (but this was so violently

-assailed by the opposition society, which offered to prove that there

-were not three people in the United Kingdom who were insusceptible to

-spooks, that the scheme had to be abandoned); finally, in this

-category, his <i>Bachelors’ Protection Association</i>, which provided

-that, if a member reached the age of ninety without having married, he

-should receive an annuity beginning at fifty pounds, and rising, by

-yearly increments of ten pounds, to ten thousand pounds&mdash;figures

-which, in a centenarian age, were successful in dazzling a great many.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, by then, Buggins was beginning to master the deep ethics of his

-trade, and to realize that its heaviest emoluments were rooted in the

-grand principle of profitable self-denial. People <i>will</i> be unselfish

-if they see money in it; you can’t stop ’em.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One other notable venture marks this period of what I may call his

-moral transition. That was his inspired scheme for insuring <i>against</i>

-illness, in the sense that any policy-holder admitting him or herself

-to be seriously indisposed, lost the right to compensation. It would

-have proved a godsend in a neurotic age; but the antagonism of the

-entire medical profession, with the single exception of the officer

-appointed by the company, killed it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We come now to Buggins’s final matured achievements. I beg your

-pardon?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had said nothing; but I suppose there is such a thing as a

-“speaking” silence. Certainly, if I had looked as I felt, I was a more

-drivelling maniac by now than Buggins himself. The visitor seemed to

-shoot out his eyes like an angry crab.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Young man, young man!” he said warningly, “I begin to be suspicious

-that, after all, I may be misplacing my confidence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked banefully into his hat, where it stood rim upwards on the

-floor; then, suddenly overwrought, kicked it fiercely across the room.

-The action seemed to restore him to complete urbanity. He smiled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So perish all Buggins’s enemies!” he said loftily; “and hail the

-grand climacteric!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He pinned me, like a live butterfly, to the wall behind me with a

-fixed and penetrating gaze.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What would you say,” he said quietly, “to an Insurance against

-Brigandage, available to all travelling in Sicily or the Balkans, and

-realizable” (his watchfulness was intense) “on the receipt, at the

-head-offices in the Shetland Islands, of a nose, ear, or other organ,

-attested, under urgency, by the nearest consul, to be the personal

-property of the applicant desiring a ransom?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He paused significantly. “I should say,” I responded drivellingly,

-“that, as a feat of pure inspiration, it&mdash;it takes the cake.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” He shouted it, and sprang to his feet joyously. “You are the man

-for me! You justify my confidence, as the returns justified Buggins’s

-daring conception. Would you believe it: within the first few months,

-bushels of noses were received at the head-offices, every one of which

-Buggins had no difficulty in proving to be false! But, hush!

-stay!&mdash;there was to be a higher flight!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had been pacing riotously up and down. Now he flounced to a stop

-before me, and held me once more with his glittering eye.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It took the form,” he whispered, “of a <i>Purgatory Mutual</i>, on the

-Tontine principle, the last out to take the pool!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I rose, trembling, to my feet, as he burst into a violent fit of

-laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was that,” he shouted, as he set to racing up and down again,

-“which let loose the dogs of envy, spite, and slander. They called him

-mad&mdash;<i>him</i>, Buggins, <i>mad</i>, ha-ha! It was the fools themselves were

-mad. He ignored their clamour; his vast brain was yet busy with

-immortal conceptions; he matured a scheme against <i>Death from

-Flying-machines</i>” (here he tore off one whisker and threw it into the

-fireplace); “he did more&mdash;he personally tested the theory of

-aerostatics” (here he tore off the other whisker, and stamped on it).

-“Too great, too absorbed, he never noticed that the unstable engine

-had landed him in the grounds of a private asylum, and, relieved of

-his weight, had soared away again. The attendants came; they seized

-and immured him; they would not believe his assurances that he was a

-perfect stranger. From that day to this, when fortuitous circumstances

-enabled him to escape, he has appealed to their justice, their

-humanity, in vain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Again he stopped before me, and, flinging his spectacles in my face,

-rent open the breast of his coat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Know me at last for what I am!” he yelled. “I am Buggins, and I

-appoint you my advocate in the action I am about to bring against the

-Commissioners of Lunacy!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The door opened softly, and a masculine face peered round the edge.

-Its scrutiny appearing satisfactory, it was followed by the whole of

-an official form, which, in its entering, revealed another, large and

-passionless, standing behind it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, Mr. Buggins,” said the first, “we’re a-waitin’ for you to take

-up your cue.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The visitor whipped round, started, chuckled, and, to my relief and

-surprise, responded rather abjectly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All right, Johnson,” he said. “I just slipped out between the acts

-for a whiff of fresh air.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” said the man, “you must be quick and come along, or you’ll

-spile the play.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He went quite tamely, and the second official outside received him

-stolidly into custody. Mate number one lingered to touch his cap to me

-and explain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Flyborough Asylum, sir. They give him a part in some private

-theatricals, and he tuk advantage of his disguise as a family lawyer

-to hook it between the acts. None of us reco’nized him, or guessed

-what he’d done, till the time come for him to take up his cue; and

-then, with the prompter howling for him and him not answering, the

-truth struck us of a heap.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was down in my chair, flabby and gasping.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But what brought him to <i>me</i>?” I groaned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Train, sir,” answered the man; “plenty of ’em, and easy to catch from

-the suburbs. Why he come on here? Why, his offices in the old days was

-in Furnival’s; it were that give us the clue. I suppose, now” (he took

-off his cap, took a red handkerchief from it, thoughtfully mopped his

-forehead, and returned the bandana to its nest), “I suppose, now, he’s

-been a-gammoning of you pretty high with his insurances? His fust

-principle in life was always to play upon fools.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch06">

-AN ABSENT VICAR

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-“<span class="sc">Exactly</span>,” said the Reverend Septimus Prior; “the exchange was the

-most fortuitous, not to say the most fortunate” (he gave a little

-giggle and bow) “possible. Your uncle saw my advertisement, answered

-it, and for a brief period he goes to my cure, and I come to his.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, if you feel certain,” said Miss Robin, regretfully resting in

-her lap the novel she was reading.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior sipped his tea and nibbled his rusk. In the intervals

-between, he would occasionally glance at the portrait of a scholarly

-cleric, with a thin grim mouth and glassy eyes, which bantered him

-from the wall opposite.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Your uncle&mdash;Mr. Fearful?” he had once ventured to ask; and the niece

-had answered, “Yes. It is very like him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now he paused, with his cup half-way to his mouth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I beg your pardon?” he exclaimed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Robin put her book to her lips, and looking over it&mdash;really

-rather charmingly,&mdash;yawned behind the cover. She was surprisingly

-dégagée for a country vicar’s niece&mdash;self-collected, and admirably

-pretty; though her openwork stockings, which she did not hesitate to

-cross her legs to display, filled him with a weak sense of

-entanglement in some unrighteous mystery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You said?” he invited her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I said, If you feel certain,” she repeated calmly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he said. “Yes. You mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I mean,” she said, without a ruffle, “that Uncle Philip <i>may</i> have

-settled to swap livings with you <i>pro tem.</i>, and <i>may</i> have started

-off to take yours, and <i>may</i> have got there&mdash;<i>if</i> you feel certain

-that he has.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To be sure,” he answered. “Why shouldn’t I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Had he arrived&mdash;when you started&mdash;for here?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No. Certainly he hadn’t arrived. My train was due. I had to leave a

-message; but&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She stopped him by dropping her book into her lap; and, clasping one

-knee in her hands, conned him amiably.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did he lead you to expect a niece among the charges he was committing

-to your care&mdash;or cure?” she asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I must confess,” said the young man, blushing, “he&mdash;ah!

-mentioned a housekeeper&mdash;Mrs. Gaunt, I think&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, of course not,” she interrupted him. “He had forgotten all about

-me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior gasped, and looked down. This was his first holiday exchange

-of livings&mdash;an unsophisticated venture, which he was already half

-repenting. A suburban cure; a desire for fresh pastures; a daring

-resolution; an advertisement in the “Church Times”; a prompt answer;

-as prompt an acceptance (after due reference to the Clergy List); a

-long railway journey; a tramp, relatively as long, to a remote

-parsonage on the road to a seaport; an arrival in the dark; an

-innocence of all expectation of, or preparation for him; an

-explanation; production of his written voucher, and&mdash;here he was,

-accepted, he could not but think, on sufferance. But there he thought

-wrong. Miss Robin was not near so upset by his appearance as he was.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He comes and goes” (she said of Uncle Philip) “without reference to

-anybody or anything. We never know what he’ll do next, or who’ll

-introduce himself into the house as his friend. It may be a burglar or

-a pirate for all we know. All sorts of strange people come up from the

-port, and are shown into my uncle’s room, and out again by himself at

-the side door. At least, I suppose so. We never know what becomes of

-them, or what’s going on, any more than I doubt he does himself. I

-dare say they fleece him nicely; and&mdash;you may laugh&mdash;but when he’s in

-his absent moods, you might undress him without his knowing. Only he’d

-probably strike you to the ground when he found out&mdash;he’s such an

-awful temper.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear me!” murmured the young man; “how very curious. One hears of

-such cases.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Does one?” said Miss Robin. “I’d rather hear of, than live with them,

-anyhow; and in a desert, too. It wouldn’t so much matter if he didn’t

-always hold others to blame for his mistakes and mislayings. He kept

-me in bed a week once, because he’d read right through a treatise on

-explosives in the pulpit, before he discovered that it wasn’t his

-peace-thanksgiving sermon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Astonishing!” said Mr. Prior; then added, with a faint smile, “Well,

-I can promise you, at least, that <i>I’m</i> not a pirate.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” she said, “I can see you’re not. Won’t you have some more tea?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was shown to his bedroom by Mrs. Gaunt, who was a stony, silent

-woman, bleak with mystery. All night the wind howled round the lonely

-building; and the unhappy man, who, in a phase of worldly revolt,

-egged on by a dare-devil parishioner, had once read “The House on the

-Marsh”, thought of Sarah and Mr. Rayner, and of a silent weaving of

-strings across the stairway in the dark to catch him tripping should

-he venture upon escape.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He arose, feverish, to a sense of hooting draughts in a grey house,

-and went to matins in the gaunt dull church, which stood as lonely as

-a shepherd’s hut on a slope hard by. There was nothing in sight but

-wind-torn pastures, and, all around, little graves, which seemed

-trying vainly to tuck themselves and their shivering epitaphs under

-the grass. There appeared nothing in the world to attract a

-congregation; but, as a matter of fact, there were a few old frosted

-spinsters present, of that amphibious order, a sort of landcrabs,

-which forgathers on the neutral wastes between sea and country.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior went back to his dreary breakfast at the Vicarage. His lady

-hostess, it appeared, was wont to lie late abed, and did not think it

-worth her while to alter her habits for him. The meal, however, had

-been served and left to petrify, pending his return from matins. It

-was with a consciousness of congealed bacon-fat, insufficiently

-dissolved by lukewarm tea, sticking to the roof of his mouth, that he

-rose from it, and pondered his next movement. No one came near him. He

-looked dismally out on a weedy drive. He rather wished Miss Robin

-would condescend to his company. He was no pirate, certainly; but he

-believed he would brave, had braved already, much for his cloth. She

-had beautiful eyes&mdash;clear windows, he was sure, to a virginal soul.

-But then, the other end! the white feet peeping through that devil’s

-lattice! He tried to recall any authority in Holy Writ for openwork

-stockings. Certainly pilgrims went barefoot, and half a loaf was

-better than no bread.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This will not do, Septimus,” he said, weakly striking his breast. “I

-will go and compose my sermon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stepped into the hall. It was papered in cold blue and white

-marble, with a mahogany umbrella stand, and nothing else, to temper

-its tomb-like austerity. At the further end was a baize door of a

-faded strawberry colour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was entitled to the run of the house, he concluded. There had been

-no mention of any Bluebeard chamber. But, then, to be sure, there had

-been no mention of a niece. The association of ideas tingled him. What

-if he should turn the handle and alight on Miss Robin?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He flipped his breast again, frowning, and strode to the baize door.

-Beside it, he now observed, a passage went off to the kitchens.

-Desperately he pulled the door, found a second, of wood, beyond it,

-opened that also, and found himself in what was obviously the Vicar’s

-study.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Obviously, that is to say, to his later conceptions of his

-correspondent. Otherwise he might have taken it for the laboratory of

-a scientist. It was lined with bookcases, sparsely volumed; but five

-out of every six shelves were thronged with jars, instruments, and

-engines of a terrifying nature. In one place was a curtained recess

-potential with unholiness. Prints of discomposing organs hung on the

-walls. Immemorial dust blurred everything. There was a pedestalled

-desk in the middle, and opposite it, hung with a short curtain, a

-half-glazed door which the intruder, tiptoeing thither and peeping,

-with his heart at the gallop, found to lead into a dismal narrow lane

-which communicated with the road. He returned to the desk, which,

-frankly open, seemed to invite him to its use, and was pondering the

-moral practicability of composition in the midst of such surroundings,

-when a voice at his ear almost made him jump out of his skin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon me, sir; but have you the master’s permission to use this

-room?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. Gaunt had come upon him without a sound.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear me, madam!” he said, wiping his forehead. “What do you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I mean, sir,” she said, in her stony, colourless way, “that this room

-is interdict to both great and little, now and always, unless he makes

-an exception in your favour.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There was no specific mention of it, certainly,” said Mr. Prior,

-“neither for nor against. I concluded that the use of a study was not

-debarred me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon me,” she repeated monotonously. “I believe you concluded

-wrong, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The door was not locked.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There are some prohibitions,” she said, “that need no locks.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The inference was fearful.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Miss June” (ecstatic name!) “and I,” she said, “have never dared so

-much as to put our noses inside, and not a word spoken to forbid it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior, to his own astonishment, revolted. Smarting, perhaps, under

-the memory of some suspected covert innuendo in a certain silvery

-acquiescence in a statement of his made last night, he revolted. He

-would prove that he could be a pirate if he chose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shall stop here,” he said, trembling all over. “There was no

-embargo laid, and I must have somewhere to write my sermon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course,” said a voice; and Miss Robin stood in the doorway&mdash;the

-most enchanting morning vision, her eyes bright with curiosity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am delighted you support me,” he said, kindling and advancing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She still looked beside and around him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you know,” she said, “it is perfectly true. I have not once dared

-to venture in here before, though never actually told not to. But that

-is all one, I think. What an extraordinary litter!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She had not ventured! and with the inducement of her petrifying

-surroundings! She was uninquisitive, then&mdash;“an excellent thing in

-woman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since there is no veto,” he said, incomparably audacious, “supposing

-we explore together?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She looked at him admiringly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I should like to.” She hesitated.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“June!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I will,” said the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the housekeeper, content, it appeared, with her protest, stood,

-not uninterested in the subsequent investigation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you not find all this a little remote, a little lifeless

-sometimes, Miss Robin?” said the clergyman, greatly daring.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She shrugged her shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eels get used to skinning. It’s not life, of course. But I have to

-make the best of it, and there’s no help.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, yes, there is!” said her companion, intending to imply the

-spiritual, but half hoping she would construe it into the material

-consolation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you mean?” she asked simply.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” he said, stammering and blushing furiously, and giving away his

-case at once, “with your youth, and&mdash;and beauty&mdash;O, forgive me! I am a

-little confused.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where do you live?” she said, fixing him with her large eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At Clapton,” he murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It sounds most joyous,” she said, clasping her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Hardly knowing what he did, he pulled the curtain away from the recess

-by which they stood, and instantly staggered back. The housekeeper,

-who, foreseeing his act, had crept up inquisitively behind, gave a

-mortal gasp, and Miss Robin a faint shriek&mdash;for, stretched lifeless

-and livid on a couch within, lay the stark body of a man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For a minute they all stood staring, frozen with horror; then Mrs.

-Gaunt began to wring her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is the same,” she cried, in awful tones. “I remember him&mdash;the dark

-foreigner. He wandered up here from the port a week ago; and I took

-him in to the master, and he <i>never came out again</i>. I thought he had

-let him go by the door there into the lane. O, woe on this fearful

-house! Long have I suspected and long dreaded. The sounds, and the

-awful, awful smells!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Perhaps,” whispered the girl, gulping, and clutching at her breast,

-“he died unexpectedly, and uncle put him away here, and forgot all

-about him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. Gaunt shrieked, and seizing the clergyman’s arm, pointed&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look! Pickled babies&mdash;one, two, three! And bones! And a fish-kettle!

-It is all plain. He kills them, and boils them down for his

-experiments, and by an accident he forgot to empty his larder&mdash;his

-larder! hoo-hoo!&mdash;before he went!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She broke into hysteric laughter and gaspings. Miss Robin, whinnying,

-tottered quite close up to the young man, who stood shivering and

-speechless.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What can we do to save him?” she whimpered. “Mr. Prior, say

-something!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Thus urged, the unhappy young man strove to press his brain into a

-focus with his hand, and to rally himself to what, he felt, was the

-supreme occasion of his life. The appealing eyes and parted lips so

-close to his would have intoxicated a saint, much more a pirate.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must warn him&mdash;agony column&mdash;from returning,” he ejaculated,

-reeling. “Cryptic address&mdash;has he any distinguishing mark?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said, with frantic eagerness; “he has a large mole at the

-root of his nose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well,” he said&mdash;“something of this sort: ‘Nose, with large mole

-at root of. All discovered. Don’t return!’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But what is the use of an advertisement? O, Mr. Prior! what is the

-use of an advertisement when we know where he is, or ought to be, and

-can go&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you really think he will be there? It was a blind. O, Miss Robin,

-it is evident now it was a blind to cover his tracks!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But why should he have designed to escape at all, leaving this&mdash;O,

-Mr. Prior!&mdash;leaving this horror behind him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We can only conjecture&mdash;O, Miss Robin, we can only conjecture!

-Perhaps because of his conscience overtaking him; perhaps because,

-killing in haste, he discovered at leisure that <i>it</i> would not go into

-the kettle; perhaps in a phase of that deadly absence of mind, which,

-he will have realized by now, the Lord has converted to his

-confusion.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, if you are right. And in the meantime we must get rid of

-this&mdash;somehow. O, pray think of a means! Do! Do!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. Gaunt steadied her storming breast as she leaned for support,

-with hanging head, against the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s the old well&mdash;off the lane,” she panted, without looking up.

-“He there <i>might</i> have fallen in&mdash;as he went out&mdash;and none have

-guessed it to this day.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a fearful inspiration. Mr. Prior, in that moment of supreme

-sentient exaltation, abandoned himself to the awful rapture of things.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“June!” he whispered, putting shaking hands on the girl’s shoulders;

-“if I do this thing for your sake, will you&mdash;will you&mdash;I have a

-mother&mdash;this is no longer a place for you&mdash;come to Clapton?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she answered, offering to nestle to him. “I had supposed that

-was understood.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was a little taken aback.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must move this first,” he said, wringing his damp forehead.

-“Who&mdash;who will help me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was really heroic of him. In a shuddering group, they approached

-together the terrible thing&mdash;hesitated&mdash;plunged, and dragged it out

-with a sickening flop on the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A greasy turban, which it wore, rolled away, disclosing a near bald

-head. Its eyes were closed; its teeth grinned through a fluff of dark

-hair; a lank frock-coat embraced its body, linen puttees its shanks,

-and at the end were stiff bare feet.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look, and see if the coast is clear,” gasped the clergyman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Robin turned to obey, and uttered a startled shriek.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What are you doing with my Senassee?” cried a terrible voice at the

-door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Prior whipped round, echoing his beloved’s squawk. A fierce old

-man, leaning on a stick, stood glaring in the opening.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Uncle!” cried the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He advanced, sneering and caustic, pushed them all rudely aside,

-dropped on his knees beside the corpse, and, thrusting his finger

-forcibly into its mouth, appeared to hook and roll its tongue forward.

-Instantly an amazing transformation occurred. A convulsion shook the

-body; life flowed into its drab cheeks; its eyes opened and rolled;

-inarticulate sounds came from its jaws.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha!” cried the old man; “I have foreclosed on these busybodies.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then he rose to his feet, leaving the patient yawning and stretching

-on the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fearful!” gasped the clergyman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you address me, sir?” asked the old man, scowling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Conjurer!” whispered Mr. Prior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you like,” snarled the other. “It is a common enough trick with

-these Yogis, but one I had never seen until he came my way and offered

-to show it me for a consideration. I had forgot he was still lying

-there when I agreed to exchange livings with you. (You are Mr. Prior,

-I presume?) It was the merest oversight, which I remembered on my way,

-and came back by an early train to rectify&mdash;none too soon, it seems,

-for the staying of meddlesome fingers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forgot he was there!” cried Mr. Prior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And what if I did, sir?” snapped the other. “It was a full week he

-had lain tranced; and let me tell you, sir, I have more things to

-think of in a week than your mind could accommodate in a century.

-Why,” he cried, in sudden enlightenment, “I do believe the fools

-imagined I had murdered the man.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look at the babies in the bottles!” cried Mrs. Gaunt hysterically.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to you, you old ass,” shouted the Vicar, flouncing round, “if you

-can’t distinguish embryo simiadæ from babies, you’d better call

-yourself Miss, as I believe you are!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I give notice on the spot!” cried Mrs. Gaunt.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Robin stepped up bravely to the young clergyman, and linked her

-arm in his.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I,” she said. “I think you have behaved very cruelly to me, to us

-all, Uncle, and&mdash;and Mr. Prior has a mother.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I dare say; he seems fool enough for anything,” roared the old

-gentleman. “Go back to her, sir! Go to&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-June shrieked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Clapton!” he shouted, “and take this baggage with you!”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch07">

-THE BREECHES BISHOP

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-In that age of gallantry, the reign of Charles the Second, it was

-customary when a gentleman drank a lady’s health to throw some part of

-his dress into the flames, in order to do her still greater honour.

-This was well enough for a lover, but the folly did not stop here, for

-his companions were obliged to follow him in this proof of his

-veneration by consuming a similar article, whatever it might be.

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">About</span> the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was living

-at Aldersferry, in the Soke of Godsport in Hampshire, a worthy

-clergyman of the name of Barnabas Winthrop. The little living of St.

-Ascham’s&mdash;a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry of

-Winchester&mdash;supplied the moral and material needs of this amiable man;

-his granddaughter, Miss Joan Seabird, kept house for him; and never

-were cream and ripe fruit happier in contact than were these two

-playful and reasonable intellects in their relations of child and

-sage.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A hysteromaniac, however, is Fortune, who, charmed for a while with

-the simplicity of these her protégés, soon began to construe their

-contentment into self-sufficiency, and to devise some means to correct

-their supposed presumption on her favour, by putting it into the head

-of the artless divine how silence on questions which one felt called

-loudly for reform might be comfortable, but was shameful and an

-evasion of one’s duty. In short, Dr. Winthrop, entertaining original

-views on sanitation and the prevention of epidemics, was wickedly

-persuaded by her to expound them, and so to invite into his harmless

-Eden the snake which was to demoralize it. In one day he became a

-pamphleteer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now the Plague, in that year of 1682, was not so remote a memory but

-that people lived in a constant terror of its recrudescence. Pandects,

-treatises, expositions, containing diagnoses, palladiums and schemes

-of quarantine, all based on the most orthodox superstitions, did not

-cease to pour from the press, to the eternal confusion of an age which

-was yet far from realizing the pious schism of the <i>aide-toi</i>. What,

-then, as might be supposed, was the effect on it, when a clergyman of

-the Establishment was seen to enter the arena as a declared dissenter

-from the <i>fata obstant</i> of popular bigotry?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For a time Godsport, startled and scandalized, watched aloof the paper

-warfare; and it was not until after the appearance of the Doctor’s

-tract, “<i>De omni re Scibili</i>”&mdash;wherein he sought, boldly and

-definitely, and withal with a characteristic humour, to lay the

-responsibility for pestilence, not upon the Almighty’s shoulders, but,

-literally, at the doors of men, at their face-to-face proximity, and

-at “the Castynge of Noisome filth in their neare neighbourhood”&mdash;that

-it brought down its official hand with a weight and suddenness which

-shook St. Ascham’s to its roots. In brief, there was flung at the

-delinquent one morning his formal citation to the Sessions Court,

-there to answer upon certain charges of having “in divers Tracts,

-Opuscules and Levrets, sought insidiously to ingrafte the minds of his

-Majesty’s liege subjects with such impudent heresies as that it is in

-the power of man to limit the visitations of God&mdash;a very pestilent

-doctrine, and one arrogating to His servants the Almighty’s high and

-beneficent prerogatives; inasmuch as Plague and Fire and other His

-scourges, being sacriligeously wrested from His graspe, the world

-would waxe blown with overlife, till it crawled upon the face of the

-heavens like a gross putrid cheese.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Under this bolt from the blue the liberal minds of grandsire and child

-sank amazed for the moment, only to rally to a consciousness of the

-necessity for immediate action.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Up, wench!” cried the Doctor, “and saddle our Pinwire. I will go lay

-my case instanter before the Bishop.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Alas, dearest!” answered the weeping girl, “you forget; he is this

-long while bedridden.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her imagination, which had been wont secretly to fondle the idea of

-her grandfather’s enlightened piety rewarded with a bishopric,

-pictured it in a moment turned to his confusion, and himself, perhaps,

-through the misrepresentations of a blockhead Corporation, disgraced

-and beggared in his old age. But, though she knew the Churchman, she

-had not calculated the rousing effects of criticism on the author.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then,” roared he, “I will seek the fount itself of reason and

-justice. It was a good treatise, a well-argued treatise; and the King

-shall decide upon the practical merits of his own English.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King!” she cried, clasping her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King,” he answered. “Know you not that he moves daily between

-Southampton, where he lies, and Winchester, where he builds? We will

-go to Winchester. Nay, <i>we</i>, child; blubber not; for who knows but

-that, the shepherd being withdrawn, the wolves might think to practise

-on the lamb.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He checked himself, and hung his head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The Lord pardon and justify me indignation,” he muttered. “I was a

-priest before an author.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was fine, but a loaded sky, when they set forth upon their journey

-of twenty or so miles, Joan riding pillion behind her grandfather on

-the sober red nag. After much cross work over villainous tracks, they

-were got at last into the Southampton turnpike, when they were joined

-by a single horseman, riding a handsome barb, who, with a very

-favourable face for Joan, pulled alongside of them, as they jogged on,

-and fell into easy talk.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dost ride to overtake a bishopric, master clergyman,” says he, “that

-you carry with you such a sweet bribe for preferment?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Joan looked up, softly panting. Could he somehow have got wind already

-of their mission, and have taken them by the way to forestall it? But

-her eyes fell again before the besieging gaze of the cavalier.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was a swart man of fifty or so, with a rather sooty expression, and

-his under-lip stuck out. His eyes, bagging a little in the lower lids,

-smouldered half-shut, between lust and weariness, under the blackest

-brows; and, for the rest, he was dressed as black as the devil, with a

-sparkle of diamonds here and there in his bosom. Joan looked down

-breathless.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I seek no preferment, sir, but a reasonable justice,” said the

-curate; and, in a little, between this and that, had ingenuously,

-though with a certain twinkling eye for the humour of it all,

-confessed his whole case to the stranger. But Joan uttered not a word.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier laughed, then frowned mightily for a while. “We will

-indict these petty rogues of office on a <i>quo warranto</i>,” he growled.

-“What! does not ‘cleanness of body proceed from a due reverence of

-God’? Go on, sir, and I will promise you the King’s consideration.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then he forgot his indignation, leering at the girl again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And what is <i>your</i> business with Charles, pretty flower?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, before she could answer, whish! went Pinwires’s girth out of its

-buckle, and parson and girl tumbled into the road.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier laughed out, and, while the Doctor was ruefully

-readjusting his straps, offered his hand to the girl.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come, sweetheart,” said he. “Since we go a common road, shalt mount

-behind me, and equal the odds between your jade and my greater beast.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Joan appealed in silence to her grandfather.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Verily, sir,” he said nodding and smiling, “it would be a gracious

-and kindly act.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In a moment she was mounted, with her white arms belted about the

-stranger’s waist; the next, he had put quick spurs to his horse, and

-was away with a rush and clatter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For an instant the Doctor failed to realize the nature of the

-abduction; and then of a sudden he was dancing and bawling in a sheer

-frenzy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dog! Ravisher! Halt! Stop him! Detain him!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He saw the flight disappear round a bend in the road. It was minutes

-before his shaking hands could negotiate strap and buckle, and enable

-him to follow in pursuit. But he carried no spurs, and Pinwire,

-already over-ridden, floundered in his steps. Distraught, dumbfounded,

-the old man was crying to himself, when he came upon Joan sitting by

-the roadside. He tumbled off, she jumped up, and they fell upon one

-another’s neck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, a fine King, forsooth!” she cried, sobbing and fondling him. “O, a

-fine King!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who? What?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, it was the King himself!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The King.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How?” he gasped. “You have never seen him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Trust a woman,” quoth she.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A woman!” he cried. “You are but half a one yet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was the King, nevertheless.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Joan, let us turn back.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He had a wooing voice, grandfather.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Retro Satanas!</i> How did you give him the slip?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear Joan!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing

-he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of

-my beauty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That proves him false.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was

-a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a

-thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She showed a silver pin like a skewer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and

-was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give

-him&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What, woman?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour,

-grandfather; and where are we?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked about him in the dolefullest way.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If I knew!” he sighed. “We must e’en seek the shelter of an inn till

-this storm is by, and then return home. Better any bankruptcy than

-that of honour, Joan.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They remounted and jogged on in the rain, which by now was falling

-heavily. The tired little horse, feeling the weight of his own soaked

-head, began to hang it and cough. Presently they dismounted at a

-wayside byre, and, eating the simple luncheon which their providence

-had provided, dwelt on a little in hopes of the weather clearing. But

-it grew steadily worse.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have lost my bearings,” said the clergyman in a sudden amazement.

-“We must push on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-About four o’clock, being seven miles or so short of Winchester, they

-came down upon a little stream which bubbled across the road. The

-groaning horse splashed into it and stood still. Dr. Winthrop, wakened

-by the pause from a brown reverie, whipped his right leg over the

-beast’s withers, landed, slipped on a stone, and sat down in two feet

-of water. Uttering a startled ejaculation, he scrambled up, a sop to

-the very waist of his homespun breeches. Their points&mdash;old disused

-laces, fragrant from Joan’s bodice&mdash;clung weeping to his calves. He

-waded out, cherishing above water-mark the sodden skirts of his coat,

-his best, of ‘Colchester bayze.’ The horse, sensibly lightened,

-followed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, O!” cried Joan. “Wasn’t you sopped enough already, but you must

-fill your pockets with water?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Joan!” he cried disconcerted. “I am drowned!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luckily, in that pass, looking up the slope of the hill, they espied

-near the top a toll-booth, and, beyond, the first houses of a village.

-Making a little glad haste, they were soon at the bar.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The woman who came to take their money looked hard at the tired girl.

-She was of a sober cast, and her close-fitting coif showed her of the

-non-conforming order.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For Winchester, master?” said she.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay,” answered the clergyman; “for the first hostelry. We are beat,

-dame.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The first and the last is ‘The Five Alls,’&hairsp;” said she. “But I wouldn’t

-carry the maiden there, by your leave. There be great and wild company

-in the house, that recks nothing of anything in its cups. Canst hear

-’em, if thou wilt.” And, indeed, with her words, a muffled roar of

-merriment reached them from the inn a little beyond.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One riding for Winchester, and the rest from,” she said, “they met

-here, and here have forgathered roistering this hour. Dare them so you

-dare. I have spoken.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Nunc Deus avertat!</i>” cried the desperate minister. “The Fates fight

-against us. At all costs we must go by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay,” said the good woman; “but, an you will, seek you your own

-shelter there, and leave this poor lamb with me. I have two already by

-the fire&mdash;decent ladies and proper, and no quarry for licence. I know

-the company; ’twill be moving soon; and then canst come and claim

-thine own.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He accepted gladly, and, leaving Joan in her charge, rode on to the

-inn, where, dismounting, he betook himself to the stable, which was

-full of horses, and, after, to the kitchen.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord, cooking a pan of rashers alone over a great fire, turned

-his head, focussed the new-comer with one red eye, and asked his

-business.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A seat by the hearth, a clothes-rack for my breeches, a rug for my

-loins while they dry, and a mug of ale with a sop in it,” answered the

-traveller, with a smile for his own waggish epitome. And then he

-related of his mishap.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord grunted, returned to his task, blew on an ignited rasher,

-presently took the skillet off the coals, forked the fizzing mess into

-a dish, and disappeared with it. All the while an ineffable racket

-thundered on the floor above.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Peradventure they will respect my cloth,” thought the clergyman. “The

-Lord fend me! I am among the Philistines.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord returned in a moment with a horn of ale in one hand, and

-a rug in the other, which he threw down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dod, man!” he cried; “peel, peel! This is the country of continence!

-Hast no reason to fear for thy modesty.” And he went out between

-chuckling and grumbling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Very decently the curate doffed his small-clothes, hung them over a

-trestle before the fire, wrapped and knotted the rug about his loins,

-and sat down vastly content to his sup. In ten minutes&mdash;what with

-weariness, warmth, and stingo&mdash;he was asleep.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He woke with a little shriek, and staggered to his feet. Something had

-pricked him&mdash;the point of a rapier. The flushed, grinning face of the

-man who had wielded it stood away from him. The kitchen was full of

-rich company, which broke suddenly into a babble of merriment at the

-sight of his astounded visage. In the midst, a swart gentleman, who

-had been lolling at a table, advanced, and taking him by the

-shoulders, swung him gently to and fro till his eyes goggled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well followed, parson!” said he, chuckling, and lurching a little in

-his speech. “What! is the cuif not to be spoiled of his bishopric

-because of a saucy baggage?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed, checked himself suddenly, and, still holding on, assumed a

-majestic air, with his wig a little on one side, and said with great

-dignity: “But, before I grant termsir, you shall bring the slut to

-canvass of herself what termsir. Godsmylife! to hold her King at a

-bodkin’s point! It merits no pardon, I say, unless the merit of the

-pardon of the termsir&mdash;no, the pardon of the merit of the termsir.

-Therefore I say, whither hast brought her, I say? Out with it, man!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The clergyman, recognizing Joan’s abductor, and listening amazed,

-sprang back at the end with a face of horror, almost upsetting His

-Majesty, who, barely recovering himself, stood shaking his head with a

-glassy smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If<i>hic</i>akins!” said he: “I woss a’most down!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Avaunt, ravisher!” roared the Doctor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Charles stiffened with a jerk, stared, wheeled cautiously, and tiptoed

-elaborately from the room. His suite, staggering at the balance,

-followed with enormous solemnity; and the Doctor, still pointing

-denunciatory, was left alone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the end of a minute, after much whispering outside, a young

-cavalier re-entered, and approached him with a threatening visage, as

-if up the slope of a deck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty, sir,” said he, “demands to know if you know who the devil

-you was a-bawling&mdash;hic&mdash;at?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To my sorrow, though late, I do, sir,” answered the Doctor in a

-grievous voice.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” said the cavalier, and tacked from the room. He returned again in

-a second, to poke the clergyman with his finger, and suggest to him

-confidentially, “Betteric la’ than never&mdash;hic!” which having uttered,

-he took himself off, after a vain attempt to open the door from its

-hinge side. In two minutes he was back again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty wan’s know where hast hidden Mrs. Seabird. Nowhere in

-house, says landlord. Ver’ well&mdash;where then?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell the King, where he shall reach her only over my body.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier vanished, and reappeared.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty doesn’t wan’ tread on your body. On contrary, wan’s raise

-you up. Wan’s hear story all over again from lady’s lips.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am His Majesty’s truthful minister. There is nothing to add to what

-I have already reported to him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cavalier withdrew, smacking his thigh profoundly. Sooner than

-usual he returned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His Maj’ty s’prised at you. Says if you won’t tell him where’ve laid

-her by, he’ll beat up every house within miles-’n’-miles.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No!” said the simple clergyman, in a sudden emotion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” said the gentleman, not too drunk to note his advantage. “For

-miles-’n’-miles. His Maj’ty ver’ s’prised her behaviour to him. Wan’s

-lil word with her. Tell at once where she is, or worse for you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The clergyman looked about him like one at bay. His glance lighted on

-the trestle before the fire, fixed itself there, and kindled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The Lord justify the ways of His servant!” he muttered; and drew

-himself up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell His Majesty,” he said in a strong voice, “that, so be he will

-honour a toast I shall call, the way he seeks shall be made clear to

-him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other gave a great chuckle, which was loudly echoed from the

-passage.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, thish is the right humour,” he said, and retired.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Within a few moments the whole company re-entered, tittering and

-jogging one another, and spilling wine from the beakers they carried.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The King called a silence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir,” said the clergyman, advancing a little, “I pray your Majesty to

-convince me, by proof, of a reputed custom with our gallants, which is

-that, being to drink a lady’s health, the one that calleth shall cast

-into the flames some article of his attire, there to be consumed to

-her honour, and so shall demand of his company, by toasters’ law, that

-they do likewise.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dod!” said the King, chuckling; “woss he speiring at? Drink man!

-drink and sacrifice, and I give my royal word that all shall follow

-suit, though it be with the wigs from our heads.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Doctor lifted his horn of ale and drained it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I toast Joan!” he cried.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Joan!” they all shouted, laughing and hiccuping, and, having drunk,

-threw down their beakers helter-skelter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The clergyman took one swift step forward; snatched up his

-small-clothes from the trestle; displayed them a moment; thrust them

-deep into the blazing coals, and, facing about, disrugged himself, and

-stood in his shirttails.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I claim your Majesty’s word, and breeches,” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A silence of absolute stupefaction befell; and then in an instant the

-kitchen broke into one howl of laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the midst, Charles walked stately to the table, sat down, and

-thrust out his legs.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Parson,” said he, “if you had but claimed my hair. The honours lie

-with you, sir; take ’em.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He would have none but the Doctor handle him; and, when his ineffable

-smalls were burning, he rose up in his royal shift, and ruthlessly

-commandeering every other pair in the room, stood, the speechless

-captain of as shameful and defenceless a crew of buccaneers as ever

-lowered its flag to honesty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then the Doctor resumed his rug.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir,” said he, trembling, “I now fulfil my bond. My granddaughter is

-sheltering, with other modest ladies, in the pike-house hard by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the King swore&mdash;by divine right&mdash;a pretty oath or two, while the

-chill of his understandings helped to sober him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By my cold wit you have won! and there may she remain for me. And

-now, decent man,” he cried, “I do call my company to witness how you

-have made yourself to be more honoured in the breach than the

-observance; and since you go wanting a frock, a bishop’s you shall

-have.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And with that he snatched the rug, and, skipping under it, sat on the

-table, grinning over the quenching of his amazed fire-eaters.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And this, if you will believe deponent, is the true, if unauthorized,

-version of Dr. Winthrop’s election, and of the confounding of Godsport

-on a writ of <i>quo warranto</i>.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch08">

-THE STRENGTH OF THE ROPE

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">There</span> were notices, of varying dates, posted in prominent places

-about the cliffs to warn the public not to go near them&mdash;unless,

-indeed, it were to read the notices themselves, which were printed in

-a very unobtrusive type. Of late, however, this Dogberrian <i>caveat</i>

-had been supplemented by a statement in the local gazette that the

-cliffs, owing to the recent rains succeeding prolonged frost, were in

-so ill a constitution that to approach them at all, even to decipher

-the warnings not to, was&mdash;well, to take your life out of the municipal

-into your own hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, had the Regius Professor a bee in his bonnet? Absurd. He knew the

-risks of foolhardiness as well as any pickpocket could have told him.

-Yet, neither general nor particular caution availed to abate his

-determination to examine, as soon as we had lunched, the interior

-formation of a cave or two, out of those black and innumerable, with

-which the undercliff was punctured like a warren.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I did not remonstrate, after having once discovered, folded down under

-his nose on the table, the printed admonition, and heard the little

-dry, professorial click of tongue on palate which was wont to dismiss,

-declining discussion of it, any idle or superfluous proposition. I

-knew my man&mdash;or automaton. He inclined to the Providence of the

-unimaginative; his only fetish was science. He was one of those who,

-if unfortunately buried alive, would turn what opportunity remained to

-them to a study of geological deposits. My “nerves,” when we were on

-a jaunt (fond word!) together, were always a subject of sardonic

-amusement with him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, utterly unmoved by the prospect before him, he ate an enormous

-lunch (confiding it, incidentally, to an unerring digestion), rose,

-brushed some crumbs out of his beard, and said, “Well, shall we be

-off?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In twenty minutes we had reached the caves. They lay in a very

-secluded little bay&mdash;just a crescent of sombre sand, littered along

-all its inner edge with débris from the towering cliffs which

-contained it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you coming with me?” said the Regius Professor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Judged by his anxious eyes, the question might have been an

-invitation, almost a shamefaced entreaty. But the anxiety, never more

-than apparent, was delusive product of the preposterous

-magnifying-glasses which he wore. Did he ever remove those glasses,

-one was startled to discover, in the seemingly aghast orbs which they

-misinterpreted, quite mean little attic windows to an unemotional

-soul.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not by any means,” I said. “I will sit here, and think out your

-epitaph.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stared at me a moment with a puzzled expression, grinned slightly,

-turned, strode off towards the cliffs, and disappeared, without a

-moment’s hesitation, into the first accessible burrow. I was moved on

-the instant to observe that it was the most sinister-looking of them

-all. The tilted stratification, under which it yawned oblique, seemed

-on the very poise to close down upon it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now I set to pacing to and fro, essaying a sort of mechanical

-preoccupation in default of the philosophy I lacked. I was really in a

-state of clammy anxiety about the Professor. I poked in stony pools

-for little crabs, as if his life depended on my success. I made it a

-point of honour with myself not to leave off until I had found one. I

-tried, like a very amateur pickpocket, to abstract my mind from the

-atmosphere which contained it, only to find that I had brought mind

-and atmosphere away together. I bent down, with my back to the sea,

-and looking between my legs sought to regard life from a new point of

-view. Yet, even in that position, my eyes and ears were conscious,

-only in less degree, of the spectres which were always moving and

-rustling in the melancholy little bay.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-<i>Tekel upharsin.</i> The hand never left off writing upon the rocks, nor

-the dust of its scoring to fall and whisper. That came away in flakes,

-or slid down in tiny avalanches&mdash;here, there, in so many places at

-once, that the whole face of the cliffs seemed to crawl like a maggoty

-cheese. The sound was like a vast conspiracy of voices&mdash;busy,

-ominous&mdash;aloft on the seats of an amphitheatre. They were talking of

-the Regius Professor, and his consideration in making them a Roman

-holiday.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here, on no warrant but that of my senses, I knew the gazette’s

-warning to be something more than justified. It made no difference

-that my nerves were at the stretch. One could not hear a silence thus

-sown with grain of horror, and believe it barren of significance.

-Then, all in a moment, as it seemed to me, the resolution was taken,

-the voices hushed, and the whole bay poised on tiptoe of a suspense

-which preluded something terrific.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stood staring at the black mouth which had engulfed the Regius

-Professor. I felt that a disaster was imminent; but to rush to warn

-him would be to embarrass the issues of his Providence&mdash;that only. For

-the instant a fierce resentment of his foolhardiness fired me&mdash;and was

-as immediately gone. I turned sick and half blind. I thought I saw the

-rock-face shrug and wrinkle; a blot of gall was expelled from it&mdash;and

-the blot was the Professor himself issued forth, and coming composedly

-towards me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he advanced, I turned my back on him. By the time he reached me I

-had made some small success of a struggle for self-mastery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he said. “I left myself none too much of a margin, did I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With an effort I faced about again. The base of the cliff was yet

-scarred with holes, many and irregular; but now some of those which

-had stared at me like dilated eyes were, I could have sworn it,

-over-lidded&mdash;the eyes of drowsing reptiles. <i>And the Professor’s

-particular cave was gone.</i>

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I gave quite an absurd little giggle. This man was soulless&mdash;a

-monstrosity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look here,” he said, conning my face with a certain concern, “it’s no

-good tormenting yourself with what might have happened. Here I am, you

-know. Supposing we go and sit down yonder, against that drift, till

-you’re better.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He led the way, and, dropping upon the sand, lolled easily, talking to

-himself, by way of me, for some minutes. It was the kindest thing he

-could have done. His confident voice made scorn of the never-ceasing

-rustling and falling sounds to our rear. The gulls skated before my

-eyes, drawing wide arcs and figures of freedom in the air. Presently I

-topped the crisis, and drew a deep breath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell me,” I said&mdash;“have you ever in all your life known fear?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Regius Professor sat to consider.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he answered presently, rubbing his chin, “I was certainly once

-near losing hold of my will, if that’s what you mean. Of course, if I

-<i>had</i> let go&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But you didn’t.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No&mdash;luckily.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re not taking credit for it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Credit!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why should I take credit for my

-freedom from a constitutional infirmity? In one way, indeed, I am only

-regretful that I am debarred that side of self-analysis.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I could laugh lovelily, for the first time.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said, “will you tell me the story?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I never considered it in the light of a story,” answered the Regius

-Professor. “But, if it will amuse and distract you, I will make it one

-with pleasure. My memory of it, as an only experience in that

-direction, is quite vivid, I think I may say&mdash;” and he settled his

-spectacles, and began:

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was during the period of my first appointment as Science

-Demonstrator to the Park Lane Polytechnic, a post which my little

-pamphlet on the Reef-building Serpulæ was instrumental in procuring

-me. I was a young man at the time, with a wide field of interests, but

-with few friends to help me in exploring it. My holidays I generally

-devoted to long, lonely tramps, knapsack on back, about the country.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was on one of these occasions that you must picture me entered

-into a solitary valley among the Shropshire hills. The season was

-winter; it was bitterly cold, and the prospect was of the dreariest.

-The interesting conformations of the land&mdash;the bone-structure, as I

-might say&mdash;were blunted under a thick pelt of snow, which made walking

-a labour. One never recognizes under such conditions the extent of

-one’s efforts, as inequalities of ground are without the contrast of

-surroundings to emphasize them, and one may be conscious of the strain

-of a gradient, and not know if it is of one foot in fifty or in five

-hundred.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The scene was desolate to a degree; houseless, almost treeless&mdash;just

-white wastes and leaden sky, and the eternal fusing of the two in an

-indefinite horizon. I was wondering, without feeling actually

-dispirited, how long it was to last, when, turning the shoulder of a

-hill which had seemed to hump itself in my path, I came straight upon

-a tiny hamlet scattered over a widish area. There were some cottages,

-and a slated school building; and, showing above a lower hump a

-quarter of a mile beyond, the roofs and tall chimney of a factory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a stark little oasis, sure enough&mdash;the most grudging of moral

-respites from depression. Only from one place, it seemed, broke a

-green shoot. Not a moving figure was abroad; not a face looked from a

-window. Deathlily exclusive, the little stony buildings stood apart

-from one another, incurious, sullen, and self-contained.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There was, however, the green shoot; and the stock from which it

-proceeded was the school building. That in itself was unlovely

-enough&mdash;a bleak little stone box in an arid enclosure. It looked

-hunched and grey with cold; and the sooty line of thaw at the foot of

-its wall only underscored its frostiness. But as if that one green

-shoot were the earnest of life lingering within, there suddenly broke

-through its walls the voices of young children singing; and, in the

-sound, the atmosphere of petrifaction lifted somewhat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes? What is it? Does anything amuse you? I am glad you are so far

-recovered, at least. Well&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I like, I must confess, neither children nor music. At the same time,

-I am free to admit that those young voices, though they dismissed me

-promptly on my way, dismissed me pleased, and to a certain degree, as

-it were, reinvigorated. I passed through that little frigid camp of

-outer silence, and swung down the road towards the factory. As I

-advanced towards what I should have thought to be the one busy nucleus

-of an isolated colony, the aspect of desolation intensified, to my

-surprise, rather than diminished. But I soon saw the reason for this.

-The great forge in the hills was nothing but a wrecked and abandoned

-ruin, its fires long quenched, its ribs long laid bare. Seeing which,

-it only appeared to me a strange thing that any of the human part of

-its affairs should yet cling to its neighbourhood; and stranger still

-I thought it when I came to learn, as I did by and by, that its

-devastation was at that date an ancient story.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What a squalid carcass it did look, to be sure; gaunt, and unclean,

-and ravaged by fire from crown to basement. The great flue of it stood

-up alone, a blackened monument to its black memory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Approaching and entering, I saw some writhed and tortured guts of

-machinery, relics of its old vital organs, fallen, withered, from its

-ribs. The floor, clammy to the tread, was littered with tumbled

-masonry; the sheet iron of the roof was shattered in a hundred places

-under the merciless bombardment of the weather; and, here and there, a

-scale of this was corroded so thin that it fluttered and buzzed in the

-draught like a ventilator. Bats of grimy cobweb hung from the beams;

-and the dead breath of all the dead place was acrid with cold soot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was all ugly and sordid enough, in truth, and I had no reason to

-be exacting in my inspection of it. Turning, in a vaulting silence, I

-was about to make my way out, when my attention was drawn to the black

-opening of what looked like a shed or annex to the main factory.

-Something, some shaft or plant, revealing itself from the dim

-obscurity of this place, attracted my curiosity. I walked thither,

-and, with all due precaution because of the littered ground, entered.

-I was some moments in adapting my vision to the gloom, and then I

-discovered that I was in the mill well-house. It was a little

-dead-locked chamber, its details only partly decipherable in the

-reflected light which came in by the doorway. The well itself was sunk

-in the very middle of the floor, and the projecting wall of it rose

-scarce higher than my knees. The windlass, pivoted in a massive yoke,

-crossed the twilight at a height a little above my own; and I could

-easily understand, by the apparent diameter of its barrel, that the

-well was of a considerable depth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, as my eyes grew a little accustomed to the obscurity, I could

-see how a tooth of fire had cut even into this fastness. For the rope,

-which was fully reeled up upon the windlass, was scorched to one side,

-as though some exploded fragment of wood or brickwork had alighted

-there. It was an insignificant fact in itself, but my chance

-observation of it has its importance in the context; as has also the

-fact that the bight of the rope (from which the bucket had been

-removed) hung down a yard or so below the big drum.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have always considered me a sapient, or at least a rational

-creature, have you not? Well, listen to this. Bending over to plumb

-with my eyes the depth of the pit (an absurdity, to begin with, in

-that vortex of gloom), I caught with my left hand (wisdom number two)

-at the hanging end of rope in order to steady myself. On the instant

-the barrel made one swift revolution, and stuck. The movement,

-however, had thrown me forward and down, so that my head and

-shoulders, hanging over, and actually into, the well, pulled me,

-without possibility of recovery, from my centre of gravity. With a

-convulsive wrench of my body, I succeeded in bringing my right hand to

-the support of my left. I was then secure of the rope; but the

-violence of the act dragged my feet and knees from their last

-desperate hold, and my legs came whipping helpless over the well-rim.

-The weight of them in falling near jerked me from my clutch&mdash;a bad

-shock, to begin with. But a worse was in store for me. For I

-perceived, in the next instant, that the rusty, long-disused windlass

-was beginning slowly to revolve, <i>and was letting me down into the

-abyss</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I broke out in a sweat, I confess&mdash;a mere diaphoresis of nature; a

-sort of lubricant to the jammed mechanism of the nerves. I don’t think

-we are justified in attributing my first sensations to fear. I was

-exalted, rather&mdash;promoted to the analysis of a very exquisite, scarce

-mortal, problem. My will, as I hung by a hair over the abysm, was

-called upon to vindicate itself under an utmost stress of

-apprehension. I felt, ridiculous as it may appear, as if the

-surrounding dark were peopled with an invisible auditory, waiting,

-curious, to test the value of my philosophy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Here, then, were the practical problems I had to combat. The

-windlass, as I have said, revolved slowly, but it revolved

-persistently. If I would remain with my head above the

-well-rim&mdash;which, I freely admit, I had an unphilosophic desire to

-do&mdash;I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and

-airy sort of treadmill. To climb, and climb, and always climb, paying

-out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place! It was to

-repudiate gravitation, which I spurned from beneath my feet into the

-depths. But when, momentarily exhausted, I ventured to pause, some

-nightmare revolt against the sense of sinking which seized me, would

-always send me struggling and wriggling, like a drowning body, up to

-the surface again. Fortunately, I was slightly built and active; yet I

-knew that wind and muscle were bound sometime to give out in this

-swarming competition against death. I measured their chances against

-the length of the rope. There was a desperate coil yet unwound.

-Moreover, in proportion as I grew the feebler, grew the need for my

-greater activity. For there were already signs that the great groaning

-windlass was casting its rust of ages, and was beginning to turn

-quicker in its sockets. If it had only stuck, paused one minute in its

-eternal round, I might have set myself oscillating, gradually and

-cautiously, until I was able to seize with one hand, then another,

-upon the brick rim, which was otherwise beyond my reach. But now, did

-I cease climbing for an instant and attempt a frantic clutch at it,

-down I sank like a clock weight, my fingers trailed a yard in cold

-slime, and there I was at my mad swarming once more&mdash;the madder that I

-must now make up for lost ground.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At last, faint with fatigue, I was driven to face an alternative

-resource, very disagreeable from the first in prospect. This was no

-less than to resign temporarily my possession of the upper, and sink

-to the under world; in other words, to let myself go with the rope,

-and, when it was all reeled out, to climb it again. To this course

-there were two objections: one, that I knew nothing of the depth of

-the water beneath me, or of how soon I should come to it; the other,

-that I was grown physically incapable of any further great effort in

-the way of climbing. My reluctance to forgo the useless solace of the

-upper twilight I dismiss as sentimental. But to drop into that sooty

-pit, and then, perhaps, to find myself unable to reascend it! to feel

-a gradual paralysis of heart and muscle committing me to a lingering

-and quite unspeakable death&mdash;that was an unnerving thought indeed!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nevertheless, I had actually resolved upon the venture, and was on

-the point of ceasing all effort, and permitting myself to sink,

-when&mdash;I thought of the burnt place in the rope.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you grasp what that sudden thought meant to me? Death, sir, in any

-case; death, if, with benumbed and aching hands and blistered knees, I

-continued to work my air-mill; death, no earlier and no later, no less

-and no more certainly, if I ceased of the useless struggle and went

-down into the depths. So soon as the strain of my hanging should tell

-direct upon that scorched strand, that strand must part.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then, I think, I knew fear&mdash;fear as demoralizing, perhaps, as it may

-be, short of the will-surrender. And, indeed, I’m not sure but that

-the will which survives fear may not be a worse last condition than

-fear itself, which, when exquisite, becomes oblivion. Consciousness

-<i>in extremis</i> has never seemed to me the desirable thing which some

-hold it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Still, if I suffered for retaining my will power, there is no doubt

-that its loss, on the flash of that deadly reflection, would have

-meant an immediate syncope of nerve and an instant downfall;

-whereas&mdash;well, anyhow, here I am.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was fast draining of all capacity for further effort. I climbed

-painfully, spasmodically; but still I climbed, half hoping I should

-die of the toil of it before I fell. Ever and again I would glance

-faintly up at the snarling, slowly-revolving barrel above me, and mark

-how death, as figured in that scorched strand, was approaching me

-nearer at every turn. It was only a few coils away, when suddenly I

-set to doing what, goodness knows, I should have done earlier. I

-screamed&mdash;screamed until the dead marrow must have crawled in the very

-bones of the place.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nothing human answered&mdash;not a voice, not the sound of a footfall.

-Only the echoes laughed and chattered like monkeys up in the broken

-roof of the factory. For the rest, my too-late outburst had but served

-to sap what little energy yet remained to me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The end was come. Looking up, I saw the burnt strand reeling round, a

-couple of turns away, to the test; and, with a final gulp of horror, I

-threw up the sponge, and sank.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I had not descended a yard or two, when my feet touched something.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Regius Professor paused dramatically.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, go on!” I snapped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That something,” he said, “yielded a little&mdash;settled&mdash;and there all

-at once was I, standing as firmly as if I were in a pulpit.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For the moment, I assure you, I was so benumbed, physically and

-mentally, that I was conscious of nothing in myself but a small weak

-impatience at finding the awful ecstasy of my descent checked. Then

-reason returned, like blood to the veins of a person half drowned; and

-I had never before realized that reason could make a man ache so.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“With the cessation of my strain upon it, the windlass had ceased to

-revolve. Now, with a sudden desperation, I was tugging at the rope

-once more&mdash;pulling it down hand over hand. At the fifth haul there

-came a little quick report, and I staggered and near fell. The rope

-had snapped; and the upper slack of it came whipping down upon my

-shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I rose, dimly aware of what had happened. I was standing on the

-piled-up fathoms of rope which I had paid out beneath me. Above,

-though still beyond my effective winning, glimmered the moon-like disk

-of light which was the well mouth. I dared not, uncertain of the

-nature of my tenure, risk a spring for it. But, very cautiously, I

-found the end of the rope that had come away, made a bend in it well

-clear of the injured part, and, after many vain attempts, slung it

-clean over the yoke above, coaxed down the slack, spliced it to the

-other, and so made myself a fixed ladder to climb by. Up this, after a

-short interval for rest, I swarmed, set myself swinging, grasped the

-brick rim, first with one hand, then with both, and in another instant

-had flung myself upon the ground prostrate, and for the moment quite

-prostrated. Then presently I got up, struck some matches, and

-investigated.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Regius Professor stopped, laughing a little over the memory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Do</i> go on!” I said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” he responded, chuckling, “generations of school children had

-been pitching litter into that well, until it was filled up to within

-a couple yards of the top&mdash;just that. The rope, heaping up under me,

-did the rest. It was a testimony to the limited resources of the

-valley. What the little natives of to-day do with their odd time,

-goodness knows. But it was comical, wasn’t it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, most!” said I. “And particularly from the point of view of the

-children’s return to you for your dislike of them.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, as to that,” said the Regius Professor, rather shamefacedly, “I

-wasn’t beyond acknowledging a certain indebtedness.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Acknowledging? How?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, I happened to have in my knapsack one of my pamphlets on the

-Reef-building Serpulæ; so I went back to the school, and gave it to

-the mistress to include in her curriculum.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch09">

-ARCADES AMBO

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Miguel</span> and Nicanor were the Damon and Phintias of Lima. Their

-devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers&mdash;who are not, as a

-rule, very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships&mdash;was a

-standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they

-had grown up together, passed their school-days together (at an

-English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their

-young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other’s company,

-preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which

-was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the meanwhile, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued

-inseparable&mdash;a proverb for clean though passionate affection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and

-physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the

-younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature,

-bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all

-the wit, excitability, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to

-associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed&mdash;a

-man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous

-faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything

-fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable

-as lovable.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The two started, well-equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks

-of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye

-with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with

-the birds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel and Nicanor travelled overland to Cayenne, in French Guiana,

-where they took boat for Marseilles, whence they were to proceed to

-the capital. The circular tour of the world, for all who would make it

-comprehensively, dates from Paris and ends there. They sailed in a

-fine vessel, and made many charming acquaintances on board.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Among these was Mademoiselle Suzanne, called also de la Vénerie,

-which one might interpret into Suzanne of the chase, or Suzanne of the

-kennel, according to one’s point of view. She had nothing in common

-with Diana, at least, unless it were a very seductive personality. She

-was a fashionable Parisian actress, travelling for her health, or

-perhaps for the health of Paris&mdash;much in the manner of the London

-gentleman, who was encountered touring alone on the Continent because

-his wife had been ordered change of air.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suzanne, as a matter of course, fell in love with Miguel first, for

-his white teeth and sleepy comeliness; and then with Nicanor, for his

-impudent bright spirit. That was the beginning and end of the trouble.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One moonlight night, in mid-Atlantic, Miguel and Nicanor came together

-on deck. The funnel of the steamer belched an enormous smoke, which

-seemed to reach all the way back to Cayenne.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hate it,” said Nicanor; “don’t you? It is like a huge cable paid

-out and paid out, while we drift further from home. If they would only

-stop a little, keeping it at the stretch, while we swarmed back by it,

-and left the ship to go on without us!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel laughed; then sighed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear Nicanor,” he said; “I will have nothing more to do with her, if

-it will make you happy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was thinking of <i>your</i> happiness, Miguel,” said Nicanor. “If I

-could only be certain that it would not be affected by what I have to

-tell you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have you to tell me, old Nicanor?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must not be mistaken, Miguel. Your having nothing more to do with

-her would not lay the shadow of our separation, which the prospect of

-my union with her raises between us&mdash;though it would certainly comfort

-me a little on your behalf.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did not mean that at all, Nicanor. I meant that, for your sake, I

-would even renounce my right to her hand.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That would be an easy renunciation, dear Miguel. I honour your

-affection; but I confess I expect more from it than a show of

-yielding, for its particular sake, what, in fact, is not yours to

-yield.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel had been leaning over the taffrail, looking at the white

-wraiths of water which coiled and beckoned from the prow. Now he came

-upright, and spoke in his soft slow voice, which was always like that

-of one just stretching awake out of slumber&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I cannot take quite that view, Nicanor, though I should like to. But

-I do so hate a misunderstanding, at all times; and when it is with

-you&mdash;&mdash;!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His tones grew sweet and full&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, Nicanor! let this strange new shadow between us be dispelled, at

-once and for ever. I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Nicanor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Miguel.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well. Then I yield her to you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, pardon me, Miguel! but that is just the point. I wanted to save

-you the pain&mdash;the sense of self-renunciation; but your blindness

-confounds me. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. Your

-infatuation for Mademoiselle Suzanne is very plain to very many. What

-is plain only to yourself is that Mademoiselle Suzanne returns your

-devotion. You are not, indeed, justified in that belief.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She has confessed her regard, in the first place, for me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But she has also confessed to me that I have won the leading place in

-her affections.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is absurd, Miguel. She is the soul of ingenuousness.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Perhaps, Nicanor&mdash;we are only boys, after all&mdash;she is a practised

-coquette.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must not say that, Miguel, if you want me to remain your friend.

-You, perhaps, attach too much importance to your looks as an

-irresistible asset in matters of the heart.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now I shall certainly quarrel with you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are mistaken, I think. Mind, to women of intellect, is the

-compelling lure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It remains to be proved.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are determined to put it to the test, then? Good-bye, Miguel.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This is not a real breach between us? O, Nicanor!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must come to a definite understanding. Until we do, further

-confidence between us is impossible.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He strutted away, perking his angry head, and whistling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But Suzanne had accomplished the amiable débacle for which she had

-been intriguing. She had, paradoxically, separated the inseparables.

-It was a little triumph, perhaps; a very easy game to one of her

-experience&mdash;hardly worth the candle, in fact; but it was the best the

-boat had to offer. It remained only to solace the tedium of what was

-left of the voyage by playing on the broken strings of that

-friendship.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was Nicanor who suffered most under the torture. He had always been

-rather accustomed to hear himself applauded for his wit&mdash;a funny

-little acrid possession which was touched with a precocious knowledge

-of the world. Now, to know himself made the butt of a maturer social

-irony lowered his little cockerel crest most dismally. As for

-good-natured Miguel, it was his way to join, rather than resent, the

-laugh against himself; and his persistent moral health under the

-infliction only added to the other’s mind-corrosion. In a very little

-the two were at daggers-drawn.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The “affair” made a laughable distraction for many of the listless and

-mischievous among the passengers. They contributed their little fans

-to the flame, and exchanged private bets upon the probable

-consequences. But Suzanne, indifferent to all interests but her own,

-worked her oracles serenely, and affected a wide-eyed unconsciousness

-of the amorous imbroglio which her arts had brought about. First one,

-then the other of the rivals would she beguile with her pensive

-kindnesses, and, according to her mood or the accident of

-circumstances, reassure in hope. And the task grew simpler as it

-advanced, inasmuch as the silence which came to fall between Miguel

-and Nicanor precluded the wholesome revelations which an interchange

-of confidences might have inspired.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At last the decisive moment arrived when Suzanne’s more intimate

-worldlings were to be gratified with her solution of the riddle. It

-was to end, in fact, in a Palais Royal farce; and they were to be

-invited to witness the “curtain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A few hours before reaching port she drew Miguel to a private

-interview.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, my friend!” she said, her slender fingers knotted, her large eyes

-wistful with tears, “I become distracted in the near necessity for

-decision. Pity me in so momentous a pass. What am I to do?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mademoiselle,” said poor Miguel, his chest heaving, “it is resolved

-already. We are to journey together to Paris, where the bliss of my

-life is to be piously consummated.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; “but the publicity&mdash;the scandal! Men are sure to

-attribute the worst motives to our comradeship, and that I could not

-endure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately&mdash;somewhere whence

-we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! There is a little accommodating

-place&mdash;the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the

-harbour. Do you know it? No&mdash;I forgot the world is all to open for

-you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper

-of our intention to anyone. Now go, go!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He left her, rapturous but, once without her radiance, struck his

-breast and sighed, “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor,

-angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously,

-timidly, and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a

-bantam.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is it not my friend that you meant, mademoiselle? I will summon him

-back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a

-witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul&mdash;least of all his

-brother and happier rival.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His&mdash;&mdash;! Ah, mademoiselle, I entreat you, do not torture me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself!

-Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many

-women realize their feelings for the first time in the shock of

-imminent loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Poor Miguel&mdash;poor fellow!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suzanne!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, do not speak to me. To have so bared my breast to this repulse!

-O, I am shamed beyond words!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But do you not understand my heartfelt pity for his loss, when

-measured by my own ecstatic gain?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suzanne! I cannot believe it true.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I feel so bewildered also. What are we to do?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You spoke once of a journey to Paris together.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You and I? Think of the jests, the comments on the part of our

-shipmates! We are not to bear a slurred reputation with us. I should

-die of shame.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What if we were to meet somewhere, unknown to anybody, by

-appointment, and slip away before the world awoke?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, that would do; but where?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can’t you suggest?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know of a little Café de Paris. It is on the Boulevard des Dames,

-near the harbour. Say we meet there, at eight o’clock to-morrow

-morning, in time to catch the early mail?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes, yes!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush! We have been long enough together. Do not forget; be silent as

-the grave.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Brains triumph!” thought Nicanor, as he went. “Alas, my poor, sweet,

-simple-minded comrade!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-De la Vénerie carried betimes quite a select little company with her

-to the rendezvous. They were all choking with fun and expectation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The dear <i>ingénus</i>!” said Captain Robillard. “It will be exquisite

-to see the fur fly. But precocity must have its lesson.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They had their rolls and coffee in a closet adjoining the common room.

-There was a window overlooking the street.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hist!” whispered the tiny Comte de Bellenglise. “Here they come!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nicanor was the first to arrive. He was very spruce and cock-a-hoop.

-His big brown eyes were like fever-spots in his little body. He

-questioned, airily enough, the proprietor, who had been well prompted

-to answer him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, monsieur; there is no lady at this hour. An appointment? Alas!

-such is always the least considered of their many engagements.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he spoke, Miguel came in. The two eyed one another blankly after

-the first shock. At length Nicanor spoke: the door between the closet

-and the café opened a little.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have discovered, then? Go away, my poor friend. This is, indeed,

-the worst occasion for our reconciliation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did not come to seek you, Nicanor. I came to meet Mademoiselle

-Suzanne alone, by appointment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I, too, Miguel. I fear you must have overheard and misconstrued

-her meaning. It was I she invited to this place.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, Nicanor; it was I.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She has not come, at least. We must decide, at once and for ever,

-before she comes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know what you mean, Nicanor. This, indeed, is the only end to a

-madness. Have you your pistol? I have mine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And I have mine, Miguel. You will kill me, as you are the good shot.

-I don’t know why I ever carried one, except to entice you to show your

-skill at breaking the floating bottles. But that was before the

-trouble.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dear Nicanor!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But let it be <i>à l’outrance</i>. I want either to kill you or to be

-killed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If she were only out of the way, you would love me again.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Amen to that, dear Miguel!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yet we are to fight?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To the death, my brother, my comrade! Such is the madness of

-passion.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The paralyzed landlord found breath for the first time to intervene.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gentlemen, gentlemen! for God’s sake! consider my reputation!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel, starting away, and leaving Nicanor with his back to the

-closet, produced and pointed his weapon at the trembling creature.

-These South Americans were a strange compound of sweetness and

-ferocity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you interfere,” he said, “I will shoot you instead. Now, Nicanor,

-we fire at discretion, one shot to each.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The bang of Nicanor’s pistol shattered the emptiness. Miguel was down

-on the floor. Nicanor cast away his reeking weapon, and, running to

-his friend, raised his body in his arms. The door of the closet

-opened, and Suzanne, radiant and gloating, stood in the entry. “That

-was a good shot, Nicanor,” said Miguel, smiling weakly. “You are

-better at men than bottles.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Miguel! Miguel! you have your pistol undischarged. Faint as you are,

-you cannot miss me at this range.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Stand away, then, Nicanor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nicanor stood up, tearing his coat apart.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Here, here! to my heart, dearest!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miguel, supporting himself on his left hand, raised his pistol

-swiftly, and shot Mademoiselle Suzanne through the breast. Then he

-fell back to the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is the short way to it, Nicanor. Confess, after all, I am the

-better shot. Now we are reunited for ever.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suzanne had not a word to say to that compact. She lay in a heap, like

-the sweetest of dressmaker’s dummies overturned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The landlord raised a terrible outcry.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Messieurs! I am ruined, unless you witness to the truth of this

-catastrophe!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I, for one, will witness,” said de Bellenglise, very white.

-“Mademoiselle, it is plain to the humorist, has only reaped what she

-sowed. But I do not envy M. Nicanor his survival.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him

-to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe, in Normandy, where

-men whom the law exonerates may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal

-servitude.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend wholehearted, for

-he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne

-to a place where her future interference between them was not to be

-dreaded.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch10">

-OUR LADY OF REFUGE

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">When</span> Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino,

-plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San

-Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after

-long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood,

-and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering

-ribbons, and merrily they cried together:

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the

-larger growth&mdash;patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment!

-For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ

-in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of

-evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’

-dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff

-of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children&mdash;there is time for

-all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood

-ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and

-see the ships&mdash;so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind

-in the rigging&mdash;and all for a paltry quarter-real!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest,

-among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared

-to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned

-their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino

-had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the

-mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that

-they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic

-perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a

-couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San

-Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by

-treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two

-thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San

-Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come

-of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in

-the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a

-large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening

-to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly

-as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection

-in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in

-San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to

-approach the peep-show.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with

-travel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like

-adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held

-himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to

-show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact,

-was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft

-olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow

-handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches,

-down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron,

-for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a

-high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and

-merriment were his bright assets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sweet and inexhaustible! I could feed all day on thy love. Yet, I

-think, for my stomach’s sake, I would rather be less gifted than the

-mouse. What is the use to be able to smell meat through glass when the

-window is shut?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait! There are other ways to the larder than by the door. In the

-meanwhile, we will go on. There are two ends to San Lorenzo, the upper

-and lower: we will try the lower. North and south sit with their backs

-to one another, like peevish sisters. What the one snubs the other may

-favour.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He swung the box by its strap to his shoulder, closed the tripod, and,

-using it for a staff, trudged on dustily with his comrade. Half way

-down the village, a man for the first time accosted them. He was

-young, vehement, authoritative&mdash;the segundo jefe, or sub-prefect of

-San Lorenzo.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait!” he said, halting the pair. “I know you, Caron. You should be

-de Charogne&mdash;a French carrion-crow. What do you here, spying for your

-masters?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Señor,” said the showman, “you are mistaken. I am of your people.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since when? I know you, I say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Many know me, caballero, in these parts, and nothing against me but

-my nationality. Now that is changed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since when? I repeat it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Since the Emperor tore my brother from his plough in Rousillon to

-serve his colours, and our father was left to die of starvation. We

-are but now on our way back from closing the old man’s eyes, and at

-the foot of the hills we recovered our chattels, which we had hid

-there, on our journey north, for security. I speak of myself and my

-little comrade, Pepino, who is truly of this province, señor, having

-been born in Gerona, where he made stockings.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sub-prefect looked at Pepino attentively, for the first time, and

-his dark eyes kindled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And wore them, by the same token,” he murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He swept off his hat, mockingly courteous.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Buenos dias, señora!” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Caron jumped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, mercy, caballero!” he cried. “Can you, indeed, distinguish so

-easily? Do not give us away.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Tell me all about it,” said the sub-prefect. “Truly this is no time

-for masquerading in San Lorenzo.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But it was the most obvious of precautions to begin with,” pleaded

-Caron. “Over the mountains is not safety for a woman; and since&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And since, you are in San Lorenzo,” said the other.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is true, señor. Pepa shall re-sex herself to-night. Yet it is

-only a few hours since we found our expedient justified.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“How was that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French

-picket, and&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have I said, señor?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and

-this is the first you speak of it! I understand&mdash;they come from

-Perpignan&mdash;they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve

-Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow

-me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The

-whole village turned and followed him as he ran.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and

-privacy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride <i>me</i> for the

-future. And <i>this</i> is home!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can

-love you once more in my own way.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in

-Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in

-Figueras&mdash;one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from

-the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate&mdash;being

-small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the

-mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the

-neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour

-with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since

-a little might decide their fate&mdash;short shrift, and the knife or

-gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For

-those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the

-Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by

-the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But Figueras was an important point, strategically; for which reason

-the Emperor&mdash;who generally in questions of political economy held

-lives cheaper than salt&mdash;had despatched an express to General Reille,

-who commanded the reserves at Perpignan, on the north side of the

-mountains, ordering him to proceed by forced marches to the relief of

-the garrison, as a step preliminary to the assault and capture of

-Gerona. And it was an advance body of this force which Luc and his

-companion had encountered bivouacking in the hills.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was not a considerable body as the two gauged it, for Colonel de

-Regnac’s troops&mdash;raw Tuscan recruits, and possessed with a panic

-terror of the enemy&mdash;were showing a very laggard spirit in the

-venture, and no emulation whatever of their officers’ eagerness to

-encounter. In fact, Colonel de Regnac, with his regimental staff, some

-twenty all told, and few beside, had run ahead of his column by the

-measure of a mile or two, and was sitting down to rest and curse,

-below his breath, in a hollow of the hills, when the two captured

-vagabonds were brought before him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There had been no light but the starlight, no voice but the

-downpouring of a mountain stream until the sentry had leaped upon

-them. Chatter and fire were alike prohibited things in those rocky

-ante-rooms of hate and treachery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who are you?” had demanded the Colonel of Caron.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A son of France, monsieur.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whither do you go?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To attend the death-bed of my old father in Rousillon,” had answered

-Luc, lying readily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel had arisen, and scanned his imperturbable face keenly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His name?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luc had told him truthfully&mdash;also his father’s circumstances and

-misfortunes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence,

-then, do you come?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“From Figueras.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha! They have news of us there?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was

-overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that

-those two rascals went <i>up</i> the hill!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was brought before the Colonel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My son, what did you say?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his

-remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the

-vagabonds’ <i>descent towards San Lorenzo</i>, there would be trouble on

-the morrow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter

-degraded&mdash;to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed

-to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that,

-in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded

-by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing

-rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering

-for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the

-main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted

-upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under

-cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position&mdash;only to find it

-abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled

-to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>If</i> I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel

-sweetly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very

-gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted,

-depopulated.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching

-under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly,

-and nodded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow

-more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight.

-He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were

-small and infamous&mdash;great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a

-moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and

-Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his

-enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways

-his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino

-crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself

-spitting fire.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is symbolical of Jove,” said Caron.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Foul imps attend him!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They are his Mercuries.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No more words!” said the Colonel. “String the rascal up!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That was the common emergency exit in the then theatres of war. It had

-taken the place of the “little window” through which former traitors

-to their country had been invited to look.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Pepino leapt to his feet, with a sudden scream.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, no! He is Caron, the wit, the showman, dear to all hearts!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Colonel Regnac’s great neck seemed to swell like a ruttish wolf’s. His

-little eyes shot red with laughter. He had as keen a scent as the

-sub-prefect for a woman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good!” he said; “he shall make us a show.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Señor, for the love of God! He spoke the truth. His father is dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He will be in a dutiful haste to rejoin him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Señor, be merciful! You are of a gallant race.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is certain,” said de Regnac. “You, for your part, are acquitted,

-my child. I take you personally under my protection.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good-bye, comrade!” cried Caron sadly. “We have gone the long road

-together, and I am the first to reach home. Follow me when you will. I

-shall wait for you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fie!” said the Colonel. “That is no sentiment for a renegade. Heaven

-is the goal of this innocence, whom I save from your corruption.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They hung him from the branch of a chestnut tree, and lingered out his

-poor dying spasms. Pepino, after one burst of agony, stood apathetic

-until the scene was over. Then, with a shudder, correlative with the

-last of the dangling body’s, she seemed to come awake.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” she said, “there goes a good fellow; but it is true he was a

-renegade.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel was delighted.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They have always a spurious attraction,” he said, “to the sex that is

-in sympathy with naughtiness in any form. But consider: false to one

-is false to all, and this was a bad form of treachery&mdash;though,” he

-added gallantly, “he certainly had his extreme temptation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The French killed his father,” she said indifferently.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The French,” he answered, “kill, of choice, with nothing but

-kindness. You, though a Spaniard, my pet, shall have ample proof if

-you will.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am to come with you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“God’s name! There is to be no enforcement.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, you have left me little choice. Already here they had looked

-upon us with suspicion, and, if I remained alone, would doubtless kill

-me. I do not want to die&mdash;not yet. What must be must. The king is

-dead, live the king!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was enchanted with her vivacity. He took her up before him on his

-saddle, and chuckled listening to the feverish chatter with which she

-seemed to beguile herself from memory.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“These jays have no yesterday,” he thought; and said aloud, “You are

-not Pepino? Now tell me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, I am Pepa,” she said. “I am only a man in seeming. Alack! I think

-a man would not forget so easily.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Some men,” he answered, and his hand tightened a little upon her.

-“Trust me, that dead rogue is already forgathering with his succuba.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By and by he asked her: “How far to Figueras?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Twelve miles from where we started,” she answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A thought struck him, and he smiled wickedly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You will always bear in mind,” he said, “that the moment I become

-suspicious that you are directing us wide, or, worse, into a

-guet-apens, I shall snap off your little head at the neck, and roll it

-back to San Lorenzo.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have no fear,” she said quietly; “we are in the straight road for the

-town&mdash;or what used to be one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And no shelter by the way? I run ahead of my rascals, as you see. We

-must halt while they overtake us. Besides”&mdash;he leered horribly&mdash;“there

-is the question of the night.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know of no shelter,” she said, “but Our Lady of Refuge.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“An opportune title, at least. What is it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is a hospital for the fallen&mdash;for such as the good Brotherhoods of

-Madrid send for rest and restoration to the sanctuary of the quiet

-pastures. The monks of Misericorde are the Brothers’ deputies

-there&mdash;sad, holy men, who hide their faces from the world. The house

-stands solitary on the plain; we shall see it in a little. They will

-give you shelter, though you are their country’s enemies. They make no

-distinctions.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-De Regnac pulled at his moustache, frowning, pondering.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where these monks forgather are fat kids and old Malaga&mdash;a tempting

-alternative to the munching of cold biscuit under the stars.

-But&mdash;<i>sacré chien!</i> one may always take in more with the gravy than

-ever fell from the spit. What, then!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He jerked his feet peevishly in the stirrups, and growled&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Limping and footsore already come my cursed rabble&mdash;there you are,

-white-livered Tuscan sheep! The bark of a dog will scare them; they

-would fear a thousand bogies in the dark. It is certain I must wait

-for them, and bivouac somewhere here in the plains.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Indeed, the first of them came on as he spoke&mdash;a weary, stumbling body

-of laggards, trailing feet and muskets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Halte-là!” he thundered; and the men came to a loose-kneed stand,

-while the corporals went round prodding and cursing them into a form

-of discipline. De Regnac grumbled&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are we to have this cold grace to our loves? God’s name! my heart

-cries out for fire&mdash;fire within and without. These monks!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Shall I slip before, and sound them? You may trust me, for a Spanish

-girl, who has learned how to coax her confessor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha! <i>You!</i>” He held her, biting his great lips. “What are you good

-for but deceit, rogue! No, no; we will go together.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He called his staff about him, and they went forward in a body.

-Presently, topping a longish slope, they saw, sprung out of the plain

-before them, a huddled grey building, glooming monstrous in the dusk.

-Its barred windows stared blindly; twin towers held the portico

-between them, as it were the lunette of a vast guillotine; a solitary

-lamp hung motionless in the entrance. Far away across the flats a

-light or two twinkled over ruined Figueras, like marsh-candles over a

-swamp. The place seemed lifeless desolation embodied&mdash;Death’s own

-monument in a desert. Gaiety in its atmosphere shivered into silence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But at length a captain rallied, with a laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Peste!” he cried; “a churchyard refuge! Let us see if the dead walk!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He battered with his sword-hilt on the great door. It swung open, in

-staggering response, and revealed a solitary figure. Cowled, spectral,

-gigantic&mdash;holding, motionless, a torch that wept fire&mdash;the shape stood

-without a word. It was muffled from crown to heel in coarse frieze;

-the eyelets in its woollen vizor were like holes scorched through by

-the burning gaze behind&mdash;the very rims of them appeared to smoulder.

-Laville, the captain, broke into an agitated laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mordieu, my friend, are the dead so lifeless?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you seek?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The voice boomed, low and muffled, from the folds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Rest and food,” answered Laville. “We are weary and famished. For the

-rest, we ask no question, and invite none.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So they come in peace,” said the figure, “all are welcome here.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel pushed to the front, carrying his burden.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We come in peace,” he said&mdash;“strangers and travellers. We pay our

-way, and the better where our way is smoothed. Take that message to

-your Prior.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The figure withdrew, and returned in a little.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The answer is, Ye are welcome. For those who are officers, a repast

-will be served within an hour in the refectory; for the rest, what

-entertainment we can compass shall be provided in the outhouses. A

-room is placed at the disposal of your commander.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is well,” said de Regnac. “Now say, We invite your Prior to the

-feast himself provides, and his hand shall be first in the dish, and

-his lip to the cup; else, from our gallantry, do we go supperless.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Once more the figure withdrew and returned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He accepts. You are to fear no outrage at his hands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Colonel exclaimed cynically, “Fie, fie! I protest you wrong our

-manners!”&mdash;and, giving some orders <i>sub voce</i> for the precautionary

-disposal of his men, entered with his staff. They were ushered into a

-stone-cold hall, set deep in the heart of the building&mdash;a great

-windowless crypt, it seemed, whose glooms no warmth but that of tapers

-had ever penetrated. It was bare of all furniture save benches and a

-long trestle-table, and a few sacred pictures on the walls. While the

-rest waited there, de Regnac was invited to his quarters&mdash;a cell

-quarried still deeper into that hill of brick. No sound in all the

-place was audible to them as they went. He pushed Pepino before him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This is my servant,” he said. “He will attend me, by your leave.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The girl made no least demur. She went even jocundly, turning now and

-again to him with her tongue in her cheek. He, for his part, was in a

-rapture of slyness; but he kept a reserve of precaution. They were

-escorted by the giant down a single dim corridor, into a decent

-habitable cell, fitted with chairs, a little stove, and a prie-Dieu;

-but the bed was abominably rocky. De Regnac made a wry face at it for

-his companion’s secret delectation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The ghostly monk, intimating that he would await outside the señor

-commandante’s toilet, that he might re-escort his charge to the

-refectory, closed the door upon the two. De Regnac cursed his

-officiousness, groaning; but Pepino reassured his impatience with a

-hundred drolleries. However, when the Colonel came out presently, he

-came out alone; and, moreover, turned the key in the door and pocketed

-it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Merely a prudential measure,” he explained to his guide. “These

-gaillards are not to be trusted in strange houses. I will convey him

-his supper by and by with my own hands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The figure neither answered nor seemed to hear. De Regnac, joining a

-rollicking company, dismissed him from his mind.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And alone in the cell stood mad Pepino.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But not for long. A trap opened in the floor, and from it sprouted,

-like a monstrous fungus, the head and shoulders of the giant monk.

-Massively, sombrely he arose, until the whole of his great bulk was

-emerged and standing in a burning scrutiny of the prisoner. A minute

-passed. Then, “Whence comest thou, Pepa Manoele? With whom, and for

-what purpose?” said the voice behind the folds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His question seemed to snap in an instant the garrotte about her

-brain. She flung herself on her knees before him with a lamentable

-cry&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They have killed my Luc, brother&mdash;my Luc, who took me from your wards

-of mercy, sins and all. They have killed my sweet singing cricket, my

-merry, merry cricket, that had no guile in all its roguish heart. They

-put their heel upon him in the path&mdash;what are songs to them!&mdash;and left

-my summer desolate. If I weep one moment, I know that blood will scald

-my cheeks and drain my heart, and I shall die before I act. O,

-brother! keep back my tears a little. Show me what to do!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She clutched in agony at his robe.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Come,” he said; “the way is clear.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The feast was served to the tick of the hour by lay brothers, another

-blank-envisaged form directing them. The tables smoked with cheer, and

-de Regnac rubbed his hands. There were the joints of fat kid and the

-flagons of old Malaga&mdash;salmis of quail, too; truffled sausages;

-herrings with mustard sauce, things of strong flavour meet for

-warriors. The steam itself was an invitation&mdash;the smell, the sparkle.

-Only one thing lacked&mdash;the Prior’s grace. De Regnac, bestial always,

-but most like a tiger in the view of unattainable meats, crowded the

-interval with maledictions and curses. His courtesy stopped anywhere

-on the threshold of his appetites. Baulked of his banquet, he would be

-ready to make a holocaust of the whole hospital. Yet he dared not be

-the first to put his fingers in the dish.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where is our host?” he growled. “Doth he fear the test&mdash;or death&mdash;a

-coward faint with indecision?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even with the word, he found him at his elbow&mdash;an old, dry pipe of a

-man, wheezing thin air. The father’s face under its dropping cowl (no

-doubt his lungs were too crazy for the vizor) showed stark with rime;

-his forehead was streaked with it; his eyes were half-thawed pools. He

-spoke. Hoarse and feeble, his voice seemed to crow from the attics of

-a ruined tenement, high up among the winds.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fall to, soldiers, fall to! There is no grace like honest appetite.

-Fall to! And they tell me ye have travelled far to claim our

-hospitality. Fall to!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-De Regnac smacked his shoulder boisterously, so that he staggered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not till you have blessed our meal for us, old father.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Prior raised his trembling hands. The other caught at them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not that way. We ask the taster’s grace. It was a bargain.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Be seated, señor,” said the old man, with dignity. “I do not forget

-my obligations.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He went round, bent and stiffly, taking a shred from each dish, a

-sippet dipped in the gravy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bella premunt hostilia,” he expostulated. “Intestine wars invade our

-breast. What a task for our old digestion!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His roguery pleased and reassured his company. They attacked the

-viands with a will. He never ceased to encourage them, going about the

-board with garrulous cheer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And ye come over the hills?” said he. “A hungry journey and a

-dangerous. It was the mountains, and the spirits of the mountains,

-that were alone invincible when the Moorish dogs overran all

-Spain&mdash;all but the mountains. The heathen crests were lowered

-there&mdash;rolled back in a bloody foam. Dear God! I’m old.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not so ancient, father,” cried de Regnac, “but that good liquor will

-revitalize you. There remains the wine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah me!” sighed the Prior; “must I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They swore him to the toast by every bond of honour. Their throats

-were ragged with drought.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, well,” he said. “I’ll first dismiss these witnesses to their

-father’s shame. I’ll be no Noah to my children.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He drove the servitors, with feeble playfulness, into the passage;

-pursued them a pace or two. In a moment he was back alone, his cowl

-pulled about his face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give me the draught,” he said hoarsely, “nor look ye upon the old

-man’s abasement. I am soon to answer for my frailties.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cheering and bantering, they mixed him a cup from every flagon, and

-put it into his hand, which gripped it through the cloth. He turned

-his back on them, and took the liquor down by slow degrees, chuckling

-and gasping and protesting. Then, still coughing, he handed the cup,

-backwards, to the nearest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bumpers, all!” roared de Regnac. “We toast old Noah for our king of

-hosts!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even as he drank, as they all drank, thirsty and uproarious, the great

-door of the refectory clanged to, and the Prior spun with a scream to

-the floor. De Regnac’s cup fell from his hand; a dead silence

-succeeded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Suddenly the Colonel was on his feet, ghastly and terrible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Something foul!” he whispered; “something foul!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Staggering, he swerved out, and drove with all his weight against the

-door. It had been locked and bolted upon them. Not a massive panel

-creaked. They were entombed!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Hush!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Solemn, low, mystic, arose without the chaunt of voices in unison&mdash;the

-prayers for one sick unto death: “Receive, O Lord, the sacrifice we

-offer for thy servant, who is near the end of her life.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With a scream, de Regnac threw himself towards the body on the floor,

-and lifted it with huge strength in his arms. As he did so, the cowl

-fell away, and revealed the face of Pepino. The shadow of death was

-already fallen on it; but she spoke, and with a smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“When he pursued them, I was waiting and took his place. Curse him

-not. He observed the letter. ’Twas I poisoned the wine. Take back thy

-wages, dog! O, I go to find my Luc&mdash;if thou darest follow me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He roared out&mdash;a spasm took his throat. He tried to crush her in his

-arms. They relaxed in the effort. Howling, he dropped her, and fell

-beside in a heap.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, from out a mortal paralysis, arose sobbing and wailing at the

-table. Some seized salt, some the wet mustard from the fish, and

-swallowed it by handfuls. Others ran hither and thither aimlessly,

-screeching, blaspheming, beating the walls, the obdurate door. There

-was a regimental doctor among them; he was the first dead. None found

-help or hope in that ghastly trap. The venom had been swift, gripping,

-ineradicable. Within half an hour it was all a silent company, and the

-Miserere long had ceased.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Somewhere in a book I read of a tale like this, which was headed

-“Patriotic Fanaticism.” Those were certainly the deadly days of

-retaliation; but in this case Love, as always, was the principal

-fanatic.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch11">

-THE GHOST-LEECH

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Kelvin</span>, not I, is responsible for this story, which he told me

-sitting smoking by his study window.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a squalid night, I remember, wet and fretful&mdash;the sort of night

-which seems to sojourners in the deep country (as we then were) to

-bring rumours of plashy pavements, and the roar of rain-sodden

-traffic, and the wailing and blaspheming of women lost and crying out

-of a great darkness. No knowledge of our rural isolation could allay

-this haunting impression in my mind that night. I felt ill at ease,

-and, for some reason, out of suits with life. It mattered nothing that

-a belt of wild woodland separated us from the country station five

-miles away. That, after all, by the noises in it, might have been a

-very causeway, by which innumerable spectres were hurrying home from

-their business in the distant cities. The dark clouds, as long as we

-could see them labouring from the south, appeared freighted with the

-very burden of congregated dreariness. They glided up, like vast

-electric tramcars, and seemed to pause overhead, as if to discharge

-into the sanctuary of our quiet pastures their loads of aggressive

-vulgarity. My nerves were all jangled into disorder, I fear, and

-inclining me to imaginative hyperbole.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin, for his part, was very quiet. He was a conundrum, that man.

-Once the keenest of sportsmen, he was now for years become an almost

-sentimental humanitarian&mdash;and illogical, of necessity. He would not

-consent to kill under any circumstances&mdash;wilfully, that is to say; but

-he enjoyed his mutton with the best of us. However, I am not

-quarrelling with his point of view. He, for one&mdash;by his own admission,

-anyhow&mdash;owed a life to “the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,” and

-he would not, from the date of his debt, cross her prerogatives. The

-same occasion, it appeared, had opened in him an unstanchable vein of

-superstition, which was wont to gush&mdash;bloodily, I might say&mdash;in

-depressing seasons of the mind. It provoked me, on the evening of the

-present anecdote, to a sort of peevish protest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why the devil,” I said, “are spectral manifestations&mdash;at least,

-according to you fellows&mdash;everlastingly morbid and ugly? Are there no

-gentle disembodied things, who, of their love and pity, would be

-rather more anxious than the wicked, one would think, to communicate

-with their survivors?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course,” said Kelvin; “but their brief sweet little reassurances

-pass unnoticed. Their forms are insignificant, their voices

-inarticulate; they can only appeal by symbol, desperately clinging to

-the earth the while. On the other hand, the world tethers its

-worldlings by the foot, so that they cannot take flight when they

-will. There remains, so to speak, too much earth in their composition,

-and it keeps ’em subject to the laws of gravitation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I laughed; then shrugged impatiently.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What a rasping night it is! The devil take that moth!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The window was shut, and the persistent whirring and tapping of a big

-white insect on the glass outside jarred irritably on my nerves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Let it in, for goodness’ sake,” I said, “if it <i>will</i> insist on

-making a holocaust of itself!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin had looked up when I first spoke. Now he rose, with shining

-eyes, and a curious little sigh of the sort that one vents on the

-receipt of wonderful news coming out of suspense.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I’ll open the window,” he said low; and with the word threw up

-the casement. The moth whizzed in, whizzed round, and settled on his

-hand. He lifted it, with an odd set smile, into the intimate range of

-his vision, and scrutinized it intently. Suddenly and quickly, then,

-as if satisfied about something, he held it away from him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Ite missa est!</i>” he murmured, quoting some words of the Mass (he was

-a Catholic); and the moth fluttered and rose. Now, you may believe it

-or not; but there was a fire burning on the hearth, and straight for

-that fire went the moth, and seemed to go up with the smoke into the

-chimney. I was so astonished that I gasped; but Kelvin appeared

-serenely unconcerned as he faced round on me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I exploded, “if a man mayn’t kill, he may persuade to suicide,

-it seems.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He answered good-humouredly, “All right; but it wasn’t suicide.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then he resumed his seat by me, and relighted his pipe. I sat

-stolidly, with an indefinable feeling of grievance, and said nothing.

-But the silence soon grew unbearable.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin,” I said, suddenly and viciously; “what the deuce do you

-mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You wouldn’t believe,” he answered, at once and cheerily, “even if I

-told you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Told me what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, this. There was the soul of little Patsy that went up in the

-smoke.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The village child you are so attached to?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes; and who has lain dying these weeks past.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why should it come to you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a compact between us&mdash;if she were summoned, in a moment,

-without time for a good-bye. We were close friends.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin&mdash;excuse me&mdash;you are getting to be impossible.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All right. Look at your watch. Time was made for unbelievers. There’s

-no convincing a sceptic but by foot-rule. Look at your watch.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did, I confess&mdash;covertly&mdash;in the instant of distraction caused by

-Kelvin’s little son, who came to bid his father good night. He was a

-quiet, winning little fellow, glowing with health and beauty.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good night, Bobo,” said Kelvin, kissing the child fondly. “Ask God to

-make little Patsy’s bed comfy, before you get into your own.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I kissed the boy also; but awkwardly, for some reason, under his frank

-courteousness. After he was gone, I sank back in my chair and said,

-grudging the concession&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well. It’s half-past eight.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin nodded, and said nothing more for a long time. Then, all of a

-sudden, he broke out&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I usen’t to believe in such things myself, once upon a time; but Bobo

-converted me. Would you like to hear the story?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes!” I said, tolerantly superior. “Fire away!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed, filling his pipe&mdash;the laugh of a man too surely

-self-convinced to regard criticism of his faith.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Patsy,” he said, “had no Ghost-Leech to touch her well. Poor little

-Patsy! But she’s better among the flowers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of Paradise, I suppose you mean? Well, if she is, she is,” I said, as

-if I were deprecating the inevitably undesirable. “But what is a

-Ghost-Leech?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A Ghost-Leech,” he said&mdash;“the sort, anyhow, that I’ve knowledge

-of&mdash;is one who has served seven years goal-keeper in the

-hurling-matches of the dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared at him. Was he really going, or gone, off his head? He

-laughed again, waving his hand to reassure me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You may accept my proof or not. Anyhow, Bobo’s recovery was proof

-enough for me. A sense of humour, I admit, is outside our conception

-of the disembodied. We lay down laughter with life, don’t we? You’d

-count it heresy to believe otherwise. Yet have you ever considered how

-man’s one great distinctive faculty must be admitted into all evidence

-of his deeds upon earth, as minuted by the recording angel? It must be

-admitted, of course, and appreciatively by the final assessor. How

-could he judge laughter who had never laughed? The cachinnatory nerve

-is touched off from across the Styx&mdash;wireless telegraphy; and man will

-laugh still, though he be damned.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin! my good soul!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The dead, I tell you, do not put off their sense of humour with their

-flesh. They laugh beyond the grave. They are full of a sense of fun,

-and not necessarily the most transcendent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, indeed, by all the testimony of spiritualism.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well; now listen. I was staying once in a village on the west coast

-of Ireland. The people of my hamlet were at deadly traditional feud

-with the people of a neighbouring hamlet. Traditional, I say, because

-the vendetta (it almost amounted to one) derived from the old days of

-rivalry between them in the ancient game of hurling, which was a sort

-of primitive violent “rugger” played with a wooden ball. The game

-itself was long fallen into disuse in the district, and had been

-supplanted, even in times out of memory, by sports of a gentler, more

-modern cast. But it, and the feud it had occasioned, were still

-continued unabated beyond the grave. How do I know this? Why, on the

-evidence of my Ghost-Leech.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He was a strange, moody, solitary man, pitied, though secretly

-dreaded, by his neighbours. They might have credited him with

-possession&mdash;particularly with a bad local form of possession; to

-suspect it was enough in itself to keep their mouths shut from

-questioning him, or their ears from inviting confession of his

-sufferings. For, so their surmise were correct, and he in the grip of

-the hurlers, a word wrung from him out of season would have brought

-the whole village under the curse of its dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I broke in here. “Kelvin, for the Lord’s sake! you are too cimmerian.

-Titillate your glooms with a touch of that spiritual laughter.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Agreeably to my banter, he smiled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s fun in it,” he said; “only it’s rather ghastly fun. What do

-you say to the rival teams meeting in one or other of the village

-graveyards, and whacking a skull about with long shank-bones?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I should say, It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Anything turning

-upon a more esoteric psychology would. What pitiful imaginations you

-Christmas-number seers are possessed of!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I dare say. But I’m not imagining. It’s you practical souls that

-imagine&mdash;that common sense, for instance, is reason; that the top-hat

-is the divinely-inspired shibboleth of the chosen; and so on. But you

-don’t disappoint me. Shall I go on?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes! go on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The hurlers meet under the full moon, they say, in one or other of

-the rival graveyards; <i>but they must have a living bachelor out of

-each parish to keep goal for them</i>.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I see! ‘They say’? I see!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The doom of the poor wretch thus chosen is, as you may suppose, an

-appalling one. He must go, or suffer terrors damning out of reason.

-There is no power on earth can save him. One night he is sitting,

-perhaps, in his cabin at any peaceful work. The moor, mystic under the

-moonlight, stretches from miles away up to his walls, surrounding and

-isolating them. His little home is an ark, anchored amid a waste and

-silent sea of flowers. Suddenly the latch clinks up, advances, falls.

-The night air breathing in passes a presence standing in the opening,

-and quivers and dies. Stealthily the door gapes, ever so little, ever

-so softly, and a face, like the gliding rim of the moon, creeps round

-its edge. It is the face, he recognizes appalled, of one long dead.

-The eyeplaces are black hollows; but there is a movement in them like

-the glint of water in a deep well. A hand lifts and beckons. The

-goal-keeper is chosen, and must go. For seven years, it is said, he

-must serve the hurling-matches of the dead.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“State it for a fact. Don’t hedge on report.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t. This man served his time. If he hadn’t, Bobo wouldn’t be

-here.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O? Poor Bobo!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This man, I say, survived the ghastly ordeal&mdash;one case out of a dozen

-that succumb. Then he got his fee.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, a fee! What was that? A Rachel of the bogs?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The power to cure by touch any human sickness, even the most humanly

-baffling.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Really a royal reward. It’s easy to see a fortune in it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He would have been welcome to mine; but he would take nothing. He

-made my little boy whole again.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Kelvin! I dare say I’m a brute. What had been the matter with him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, what! He simply moaned and wasted&mdash;moaned eternally. Atrophy;

-meningitis; cachexy&mdash;they gave it a dozen names, but not a single

-cure. He was dying under slow torture&mdash;a heavy sight for a father.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One day an old Shaman of the moors called upon me. He was ancient,

-ancient&mdash;as dry as his staff, and so bent that, a little more, and he

-had tripped over his long beard in walking. I can’t reproduce his

-brogue; but this is the substance of what it conveyed to me:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Had I ever heard speak of Baruch of the lone shebeen&mdash;him that had

-once kept an illicit still, but that the ghosts had got hold of for

-his sins? No? Well, he, the Shaman, was come too near the end of his

-own living tether to fear ghoulish reprisals if he told me. And he

-told me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Baruch, he said, was suspected in the village of keeping the dead’s

-hurling-goal&mdash;had long been suspected&mdash;it was an old tale by now. But,

-och, wirrastrue! if, as he calculated, Baruch was nearing the close of

-his seven years’ service, Baruch was the man for me, and could do for

-my child what no other living man, barring a ghosts’ goal-keeper,

-could do likewise.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I humoured him when he was present; laughed at him when he was gone;

-but&mdash;I went to see Baruch. It’s all right: you aren’t a father.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You went to see Baruch. Go on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He lived remote in such a little cabin as I have described. Lord!

-what a thing it was!&mdash;a living trophy of damnation&mdash;a statue

-inhabiting the human vestment! His face was young enough; but sorrow

-stricken into stone&mdash;unearthly suffering carved out of a block. It is

-astonishing what expression can be conveyed without a line. There was

-not a wrinkle in Baruch’s face.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All scepticism withered in me at the sight&mdash;all the desperate

-effrontery with which I had intended to challenge his gift. I asked

-him simply if he would cure my child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He answered, in a voice as hoarse and feeble as an old man’s, but

-with a queer little promise of joy in it, like a sound of unborn rain,

-‘Asthore! for this I’ve lived me lone among the peats, and bid me

-time, and suffered what I know. In a good hour be it spoken! Wance

-more, and come again when the moon has passed its full.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I went, without another question, or the thought of one. That was a

-bad week for me&mdash;a mortal struggle for the child. The dead kept

-pulling him to draw him down; but he fought and held on, the little

-plucked one. On the day following the night of full moon, I carried

-him in my arms to the cabin&mdash;myself, all the way. I wouldn’t let on to

-a soul; I went roundabout, and I got to Baruch unnoticed. I knew it

-was kill or cure for Bobo. He couldn’t have survived another night.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I tell you, it was a laughing spirit that greeted me. Have you ever

-seen Doré’s picture of the ‘Wandering Jew,’ at the end of his

-journey, having his boots pulled off? There is the same release

-depicted, the same sweet comedy of redemption&mdash;the same figure of fun,

-if you like, that Baruch presented.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He put his hands on Bobo’s head, and&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bobo walked home with me, that’s all.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Kelvin got up from his chair to relight his pipe at the fire. As he

-moved, the door of the room opened, and a decent woman, his

-housekeeper, stood, with a grave face, in the entrance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Patsy’s dead?” said Kelvin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, the poor mite!” answered the woman, with a burst of tears. “She

-passed but now, sir, at half after eight, in her little bed.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch12">

-POOR LUCY RIVERS

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> following story was told to a friend&mdash;with leave, conditionally,

-to make it public&mdash;by a well-known physician who died last year.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-I was in Paul’s type-writing exchange (says the professional

-narrator), seeing about some circulars I required, when a young lady

-came in bearing a box, the weight of which seemed to tax her strength

-severely. She was a very personable young woman, though looking ill, I

-fancied&mdash;in short, with those diathetic symptoms which point to a

-condition of hysteria. The manager, who had been engaged elsewhere,

-making towards me at the moment, I intimated to him that he should

-attend to the new-comer first. He turned to her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, madam?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I bought this machine second-hand of you last week,” she began, after

-a little hesitation. He admitted his memory of the fact. “I want to

-know,” she said, “if you’ll change it for another.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is there anything wrong with it, then?” he asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; “No!” she said; “Everything!” she said, in a

-crescendo of spasms, looking as if she were about to cry. The manager

-shrugged his shoulders.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very reprehensible of us,” said he; “and hardly our way. It is not

-customary; but, of course&mdash;if it doesn’t suit&mdash;to give

-satisfaction&mdash;&mdash;” he cleared his throat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t want to be unfair,” said the young woman. “It doesn’t suit

-<i>me</i>. It might another person.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had lifted, while speaking, its case off the type-writer, and now,

-placing the machine on a desk, inserted a sheet or two of paper, and

-ran his fingers deftly over the keys.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Really, madam,” said he, removing and examining the slip, “I can

-detect nothing wrong.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I said&mdash;perhaps&mdash;only as regards myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was hanging her head, and spoke very low.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But!” said he, and stopped&mdash;and could only add the emphasis of

-another deprecatory shrug.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Will you do me the favour, madam, to try it in my presence?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” she murmured; “please don’t ask me. I’d really rather not.”

-Again the suggestion of strain&mdash;of suffering.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At least,” said he, “oblige me by looking at this.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He held before her the few lines he had typed. She had averted her

-head during the minute he had been at work; and it was now with

-evident reluctance, and some force put upon herself, that she

-acquiesced. But the moment she raised her eyes, her face brightened

-with a distinct expression of relief.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sure it’s

-all my fault. But&mdash;but, if you don’t mind. So much depends on it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Well, the girl was pretty; the manager was human. There were a dozen

-young women, of a more or less pert type, at work in the front office.

-I dare say he had qualified in the illogic of feminine moods. At any

-rate, the visitor walked off in a little with a machine presumably

-another than that she had brought.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Professional?” I asked, to the manager’s resigned smile addressed to

-me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So to speak,” said he. “She’s one of the ‘augment her income’ class.

-I fancy it’s little enough without. She’s done an occasional job for

-us. We’ve got her card somewhere.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can you find it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He could find it, though he was evidently surprised at the

-request&mdash;scarce reasonably, I think, seeing how he himself had just

-given me an instance of that male inclination to the attractive, which

-is so calculated to impress woman in general with the injustice of our

-claims to impartiality.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With the piece of pasteboard in my hand, I walked off then and there

-to commission “Miss Phillida Gray” with the job I had intended for

-Paul’s. Psychologically, I suppose, the case interested me. Here was a

-young person who seemed, for no <i>practical</i> reason, to have quarrelled

-with her unexceptionable means to a livelihood.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It raised more than one question; the incompleteness of woman as a

-wage earner, so long as she was emancipated from all but her

-fancifulness; the possibility of the spontaneous generation of

-soul&mdash;the <i>divina particula auræ</i>&mdash;in man-made mechanisms, in the

-construction of which their makers had invested their whole of mental

-capital. Frankenstein loathed the abortion of his genius. Who shall

-say that the soul of the inventor may not speak antipathetically,

-through the instrument which records it, to that soul’s natural

-antagonist? Locomotives have moods, as any engine-driver will tell

-you; and any shaver, that his razor, after maltreating in some fit of

-perversity one side of his face, will repent, and caress the other as

-gently as any sucking-dove.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I laughed at this point of my reflections. Had Miss Gray’s

-type-writer, embodying the soul of a blasphemer, taken to swearing at

-her?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a bitterly cold day. Snow, which had fallen heavily in

-November, was yet lying compact and unthawed in January. One had the

-novel experience in London of passing between piled ramparts of it.

-Traffic for some two months had been at a discount; and walking, for

-one of my years, was still so perilous a business that I was long in

-getting to Miss Gray’s door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She lived West Kensington way, in a “converted flat,” whose title,

-like that of a familiar type of Christian exhibited on platforms, did

-not convince of anything but a sort of paying opportunism. That is to

-say, at the cost of some internal match-boarding, roughly fitted and

-stained, an unlettable private residence, of the estimated yearly

-rental of forty pounds, had been divided into two “sets” at

-thirty-five apiece&mdash;whereby fashion, let us hope, profited as greatly

-as the landlord.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Gray inhabited the upper section, the door to which was opened by

-a little Cockney drab, very smutty, and smelling of gas stoves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, she was in.” (For all her burden, “Phillida,” with her young

-limbs, had outstripped me.) “Would I please to walk up?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was the dismallest room I was shown into&mdash;really the most

-unattractive setting for the personable little body I had seen. She

-was not there at the moment, so that I could take stock without

-rudeness. The one curtainless window stared, under a lid of fog, at

-the factory-like rear of houses in the next street. Within was scarce

-an evidence of dainty feminine occupation. It was all an illustration

-of the empty larder and the wolf at the door. How long would the bolt

-withstand him? The very walls, it seemed, had been stripped for sops

-to his ravening&mdash;stripped so nervously, so hurriedly, that ribbons of

-paper had been flayed here and there from the plaster. The ceiling was

-falling; the common grate cold; there was a rag of old carpet on the

-floor&mdash;a dreary, deadly place! The type-writer&mdash;the new one&mdash;laid upon

-a little table placed ready for its use, was, in its varnished case,

-the one prominent object, quite healthy by contrast. How would the

-wolf moan and scratch to hear it desperately busy, with click and

-clang, building up its paper rampart against his besieging!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had fallen of a sudden so depressed, into a spirit of such

-premonitory haunting, that for a moment I almost thought I could hear

-the brute of my own fancy snuffling outside. Surely there was

-something breathing, rustling near me&mdash;something&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I grunted, shook myself, and walked to the mantelpiece. There was

-nothing to remark on it but a copy of some verses on a sheet of

-notepaper; but the printed address at the top, and the signature at

-the foot of this, immediately caught my attention. I trust, under the

-circumstances (there was a coincidence here), that it was not

-dishonest, but I took out my glasses, and read those verses&mdash;or, to be

-strictly accurate, the gallant opening quartrain&mdash;with a laudable

-coolness. But inasmuch as the matter of the second and third stanzas,

-which I had an opportunity of perusing later, bears upon one aspect of

-my story, I may as well quote the whole poem here for what it is

-worth.

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Phyllis, I cannot woo in rhyme,</p>

-<p class="i1">As courtlier gallants woo,</p>

-<p class="i0">With utterances sweet as thyme</p>

-<p class="i1">And melting as the dew.</p>

-

-<p class="i0 mt1">An arm to serve; true eyes to see;</p>

-<p class="i1">Honour surpassing love;</p>

-<p class="i0">These, for all song, my vouchers be,</p>

-<p class="i1">Dear love, so thou’lt them prove.</p>

-

-<p class="i0 mt1">Bid me&mdash;and though the rhyming art</p>

-<p class="i1">I may not thee contrive&mdash;</p>

-<p class="i0">I’ll print upon thy lips, sweetheart,</p>

-<p class="i1">A poem that shall live.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-It may have been derivative; it seemed to me, when I came to read the

-complete copy, passable. At the first, even, I was certainly conscious

-of a thrill of secret gratification. But, as I said, I had mastered no

-more than the first four lines, when a rustle at the door informed me

-that I was detected.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She started, I could see, as I turned round. I was not at the trouble

-of apologizing for my inquisitiveness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” I said; “I saw you at Paul’s Exchange, got your address, and

-came on here. I want some circulars typed. No doubt you will undertake

-the job?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was conning her narrowly while I spoke. It was obviously a case of

-neurasthenia&mdash;the tendril shooting in the sunless vault. But she had

-more spirit than I calculated on. She just walked across to the empty

-fireplace, collared those verses, and put them into her pocket. I

-rather admired her for it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, with pleasure,” she said, sweetening the rebuke with a blush,

-and stultifying it by affecting to look on the mantelpiece for a card,

-which eventually she produced from another place. “These are my

-terms.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you,” I replied. “What do you say to a contra account&mdash;you to

-do my work, and I to set my professional attendance against it? I am a

-doctor.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She looked at me mute and amazed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But there is nothing the matter with me,” she murmured, and broke

-into a nervous smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I beg your pardon!” I said. “Then it was only your instrument

-which was out of sorts?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her face fell at once.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You heard me&mdash;of course,” she said. “Yes, I&mdash;it was out of sorts, as

-you say. One gets fancies, perhaps, living alone, and typing&mdash;typing.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I thought of the discordant clack going on hour by hour&mdash;the dead

-words of others made brassily vociferous, until one’s own

-individuality would become merged in the infernal harmonics.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And so,” I said, “like the dog’s master in the fable, you quarrelled

-with an old servant.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, no!” she answered. “I had only had it for a week&mdash;since I came

-here.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have only been here a week?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Little more,” she replied. “I had to move from my old rooms. It is

-very kind of you to take such an interest in me. Will you tell me what

-I can do for you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My instructions were soon given. The morrow would see them attended

-to. No, she need not send the copies on. I would myself call for them

-in the afternoon.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hope <i>this</i> machine will be more to the purpose,” I said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>I</i> hope so, too,” she answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, she seems a lady,” I thought, as I walked home; “a little

-anæmic flower of gentility.” But sentiment was not to the point.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That evening, “over the walnuts and the wine,” I tackled Master Jack,

-my second son. He was a promising youth; was reading for the Bar, and,

-for all I knew, might have contributed to the “Gownsman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jack,” I said, when we were alone, “I never knew till to-day that you

-considered yourself a poet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked at me coolly and inquiringly, but said nothing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Do you consider yourself a marrying man, too?” I asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He shook his head, with a little amazed smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then what the devil do you mean by addressing a copy of love verses

-to Miss Phillida Gray?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was on his feet in a moment, as pale as death.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you were not my father”&mdash;he began.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But I am, my boy,” I answered, “and an indulgent one, I think you’ll

-grant.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He turned, and stalked out of the room; returned in a minute, and

-flung down a duplicate draft of <i>the</i> poem on the table before me. I

-put down the crackers, took up the paper, and finished my reading of

-it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jack,” I said, “I beg your pardon. It does credit to your heart&mdash;you

-understand the emphasis? You are a young gentleman of some prospects.

-Miss Gray is a young lady of none.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He hesitated a moment; then flung himself on his knees before me. He

-was only a great boy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dad,” he said; “dear old Dad; you’ve seen them&mdash;you’ve seen her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I admitted the facts. “But that is not at all an answer to me,” I

-said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Where is she?” he entreated, pawing me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You don’t know?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not from Adam. I drove her hard, and she ran away from me. She said

-she would, if I insisted&mdash;not to kill those same prospects of mine. My

-prospects! Good God! What are they without her? She left her old

-rooms, and no address. How did you get to see her&mdash;and my stuff?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I could satisfy him on these points.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But it’s true,” he said; “and&mdash;and I’m in love, Dad&mdash;Dad, I’m in

-love.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leaned his arms on the table, and his head on his arms.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said, “how did <i>you</i> get to know her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Business,” he muttered, “pure business. I just answered her

-advertisement&mdash;took her some of my twaddle. She’s an orphan&mdash;daughter

-of a Captain Gray, navy man; and&mdash;and she’s an angel.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hope he is,” I answered. “But anyhow, that settles it. There’s no

-marrying and giving in marriage in heaven.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He looked up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You don’t mean it? No! you dearest and most indulgent of old Dads!

-Tell me where she is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I rose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I may be all that; but I’m not such a fool. I shall see her

-to-morrow. Give me till after then.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, you perfect saint!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I promise absolutely nothing.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t want you to. I leave you to her. She could beguile a Saint

-Anthony.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hey!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I mean as a Christian woman should.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! that explains it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The following afternoon I went to West Kensington. The little drab was

-snuffling when she opened the door. She had a little hat on her head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Missus wasn’t well,” she said; “and she hadn’t liked to leave her,

-though by rights she was only engaged for an hour or two in the day.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I said, “I’m a doctor, and will attend to her. You can go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She gladly shut me in and herself out. The clang of the door echoed up

-the narrow staircase, and was succeeded, as if it had started it, by

-the quick toing and froing of a footfall in the room above. There was

-something inexpressibly ghostly in the sound, in the reeling dusk

-which transmitted it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I perceived, the moment I set eyes on the girl, that there was

-something seriously wrong with her. Her face was white as wax, and

-quivered with an incessant horror of laughter. She tried to rally, to

-greet me, but broke down at the first attempt, and stood as mute as

-stone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I thank my God I can be a sympathetic without being a fanciful man. I

-went to her at once, and imprisoned her icy hands in the human

-strength of my own.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What is it? Have you the papers ready for me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She shook her head, and spoke only after a second effort.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am very sorry.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You haven’t done them, then? Never mind. But why not? Didn’t the new

-machine suit either?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I felt her hands twitch in mine. She made another movement of dissent.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s odd,” I said. “It looks as if it wasn’t the fault of the

-tools, but of the workwoman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All in a moment she was clinging to me convulsively, and crying&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are a doctor&mdash;you’ll understand&mdash;don’t leave me alone&mdash;don’t let

-me stop here!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now listen,” I said; “listen, and control yourself. Do you hear? I

-have come <i>prepared</i> to take you away. I’ll explain why presently.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I thought at first it was my fault,” she wept distressfully,

-“working, perhaps, until I grew light-headed” (Ah, hunger and

-loneliness and that grinding labour!); “but when I was sure of myself,

-still it went on, and I could not do my tasks to earn money. Then I

-thought&mdash;how can God let such things be!&mdash;that the instrument itself

-must be haunted. It took to going at night; and in the morning”&mdash;she

-gripped my hands&mdash;“I burnt them. I tried to think I had done it myself

-in my sleep, and I always burnt them. But it didn’t stop, and at last

-I made up my mind to take it back and ask for another&mdash;another&mdash;you

-remember?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She pressed closer to me, and looked fearfully over her shoulder.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It does the same,” she whispered, gulping. “It wasn’t the machine at

-all. It’s the place&mdash;itself&mdash;that’s haunted.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I confess a tremor ran through me. The room was dusking&mdash;hugging

-itself into secrecy over its own sordid details. Out near the window,

-the type-writer, like a watchful sentient thing, seemed grinning at us

-with all its ivory teeth. She had carried it there, that it might be

-as far from herself as possible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“First let me light the gas,” I said, gently but resolutely detaching

-her hands.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is none,” she murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-None. It was beyond her means. This poor creature kept her deadly

-vigils with a couple of candles. I lit them&mdash;they served but to make

-the gloom more visible&mdash;and went to pull down the blind.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, take care of it!” she whispered fearfully, meaning the

-type-writer. “It is awful to shut out the daylight so soon.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-God in heaven, what she must have suffered! But I admitted nothing,

-and took her determinedly in hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” I said, returning to her, “tell me plainly and distinctly what

-it is that the machine does.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She did not answer. I repeated my question.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It writes things,” she muttered&mdash;“things that don’t come from me. Day

-and night it’s the same. The words on the paper aren’t the words that

-come from my fingers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But that is impossible, you know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So <i>I</i> should have thought once. Perhaps&mdash;what is it to be possessed?

-There was another type-writer&mdash;another girl&mdash;lived in these rooms

-before me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed! And what became of her?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She disappeared mysteriously&mdash;no one knows why or where. Maria, my

-little maid, told me about her. Her name was Lucy Rivers, and&mdash;she

-just disappeared. The landlord advertised her effects, to be claimed,

-or sold to pay the rent; and that was done, and she made no sign. It

-was about two months ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, will you now practically demonstrate to me this reprehensible

-eccentricity on the part of your instrument?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t ask me. I don’t dare.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I would do it myself; but of course you will understand that a more

-satisfactory conclusion would be come to by my watching your fingers.

-Make an effort&mdash;you needn’t even look at the result&mdash;and I will take

-you away immediately after.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You are very good,” she answered pathetically; “but I don’t know that

-I ought to accept. Where to, please? And&mdash;and I don’t even know your

-name.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I have my own reasons for withholding it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is all so horrible,” she said; “and I am in your hands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They are waiting to transfer you to mamma’s,” said I.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The name seemed an instant inspiration and solace to her. She looked

-at me, without a word, full of wonder and gratitude; then asked me to

-bring the candles, and she would acquit herself of her task. She

-showed the best pluck over it, though her face was ashy, and her mouth

-a line, and her little nostrils pulsing the whole time she was at

-work.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had got her down to one of my circulars, and, watching her fingers

-intently, was as sure as observer could be that she had followed the

-text verbatim.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” I said, when she came to a pause, “give me a hint how to remove

-this paper, and go you to the other end of the room.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She flicked up a catch. “You have only to pull it off the roller,” she

-said; and rose and obeyed. The moment she was away I followed my

-instructions, and drew forth the printed sheet and looked at it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It may have occupied me longer than I intended. But I was folding it

-very deliberately, and putting it away in my pocket when I walked

-across to her with a smile. She gazed at me one intent moment, and

-dropped her eyes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said; and I knew that she had satisfied herself. “Will you

-take me away now, at once, please?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The idea of escape, of liberty once realized, it would have been

-dangerous to balk her by a moment. I had acquainted mamma that I might

-possibly bring her a visitor. Well, it simply meant that the suggested

-visit must be indefinitely prolonged.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Gray accompanied me home, where certain surprises, in addition to

-the tenderest of ministrations, were awaiting her. All that becomes

-private history, and outside my story. I am not a man of sentiment;

-and if people choose to write poems and make general asses of

-themselves, why&mdash;God bless them!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The problem I had set <i>my</i>self to unravel was what looked deucedly

-like a tough psychologic poser. But I was resolute to face it, and had

-formed my plan. It was no unusual thing for me to be out all night.

-That night, after dining, I spent in the “converted” flat in West

-Kensington.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had brought with me&mdash;I confess to so much weakness&mdash;one of your

-portable electric lamps. The moment I was shut in and established, I

-pulled out the paper Miss Gray had typed for me, spread it under the

-glow and stared at it. Was it a copy of my circular? Would a sober

-“First Aid Society” Secretary be likely, do you think, to require

-circulars containing such expressions as “<i>William! William! Come back

-to me! O, William, in God’s name! William! William! William!</i>”&mdash;in

-monstrous iteration&mdash;the one cry, or the gist of it, for lines and

-lines in succession?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I am at the other end from humour in saying this. It is heaven’s

-truth. Line after line, half down the page, went that monotonous,

-heart-breaking appeal. It was so piercingly moving, my human terror of

-its unearthliness was all drowned, absorbed in an overflowing pity.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I am not going to record the experiences of that night. That

-unchanging mood of mine upheld me through consciousnesses and

-sub-consciousnesses which shall be sacred. Sometimes, submerged in

-these, I seemed to hear the clack of the instrument in the window, but

-at a vast distance. I may have seen&mdash;I may have dreamt&mdash;I accepted it

-all. Awaking in the chill grey of morning, I felt no surprise at

-seeing some loose sheets of paper lying on the floor. “<i>William!

-William!</i>” their text ran down, “<i>Come back to me!</i>” It was all that

-same wail of a broken heart. I followed Miss Gray’s example. I took

-out my match-box, and reverently, reverently burned them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-An hour or two later I was at Paul’s Exchange, privately interviewing

-my manager.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did you ever employ a Miss Lucy Rivers?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly we did. Poor Lucy Rivers! She rented a machine of us. In

-fact&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He paused.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well&mdash;it is a mere matter of business&mdash;she ‘flitted,’ and we had to

-reclaim our instrument. As it happens, it was the very one purchased

-by the young lady who so interested you here two days ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The first machine, you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The first&mdash;<i>and</i> the second.” He smiled. “As a matter of fact, she

-took away again what she brought.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Miss Rivers’s?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There was absolutely nothing wrong with it&mdash;mere fad. Women start

-these fancies. The click of the thing gets on their nerves, I suppose.

-We must protect ourselves, you see; and I’ll warrant she finds it

-perfection now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Perhaps she does. What was Miss Rivers’s address?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He gave me, with a positive grin this time, the “converted” flat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But that was only latterly,” he said. “She had moved from&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He directed me elsewhere.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” said I, taking up my hat, “did you call her ‘poor Lucy

-Rivers’?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I don’t know!” he said. “She was rather an attractive young lady.

-But we had to discontinue our patronage. She developed the most

-extraordinary&mdash;but it’s no business of mine. She was one of the

-submerged tenth; and she’s gone under for good, I suppose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I made my way to the <i>other</i> address&mdash;a little lodging in a

-shabby-genteel street. A bitter-faced landlady, one of the

-“preordained” sort, greeted me with resignation when she thought I

-came for rooms, and with acerbity when she heard that my sole mission

-was to inquire about a Miss Lucy Rivers.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t deceive you, sir,” she said. “When it come to receiving

-gentlemen privately, I told her she must go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gentlemen!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I won’t do Miss Rivers an injustice,” she said. “It was <i>ha</i>

-gentleman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Was that latterly?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was not latterly, sir. But it was the effects of its not being

-latterly which made her take to things.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What things?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, sir, she grew strange company, and took to the roof.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What on earth do you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Just precisely what I say, sir; through the trap-door by the steps,

-and up among the chimney-pots. <i>He’d</i> been there with her before, and

-perhaps she thought she’d find him hiding among the stacks. He called

-himself an astronomer; but it’s my belief it was another sort of

-star-gazing. I couldn’t stand it at last, and I had to give her

-notice.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was falling near a gloomy midday when I again entered the flat, and

-shut myself in with its ghosts and echoes. I had a set conviction, a

-set purpose in my mind. There was that which seemed to scuttle, like a

-little demon of laughter, in my wake, now urging me on, now slipping

-round and above to trip me as I mounted. I went steadily on and up,

-past the sitting-room door, to the floor above. And here, for the

-first time, a thrill in my blood seemed to shock and hold me for a

-moment. Before my eyes, rising to a skylight, now dark and choked with

-snow, went a flight of steps. Pulling myself together, I mounted

-these, and with a huge effort (<i>the bolt was not shot</i>) shouldered the

-trap open. There were a fall and rustle without; daylight entered;

-and, levering the door over, I emerged upon the roof.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Snow, grim and grimy and knee-deep, was over everything, muffling the

-contours of the chimneys, the parapets, the irregularities of the

-leads. The dull thunder of the streets came up to me; a fog of thaw

-was in the air; a thin drizzle was already falling. I drove my foot

-forward into a mound, and hitched it on something. In an instant I was

-down on my knees, scattering the sodden raff right and left, and&mdash;my

-God!&mdash;a face!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She lay there as she had been overwhelmed, and frozen, and preserved

-these two months. She had closed the trap behind her, and nobody had

-known. Pure as wax&mdash;pitiful as hunger&mdash;dead! Poor Lucy Rivers!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Who was she, and who the man? We could never learn. She had woven his

-name, his desertion, her own ruin and despair into the texture of her

-broken life. Only on the great day of retribution shall he answer to

-that agonized cry.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch13">

-THE FAIR WITH GOLDEN HAIR

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Ho! bring me some <i>lovers</i>, fat or lean,</p>

-<p class="i0">That I may crunch ’em my teeth between!</p>

-<p class="i0">I could eat so many, so many, so many,</p>

-<p class="i0">That in the wide world there would not be left any.</p>

-

-<p class="i0 mt1">Ho! Here is Avenant to be seen,</p>

-<p class="i0">Who comes to draw your teeth so keen;</p>

-<p class="i0">He’s not the greatest man to view,</p>

-<p class="i0">But he’s big enough to conquer you.</p>

-

-<p class="i4">

-<span class="sc">Planché’s</span> “D’Aulnoy,” slightly misquoted.

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Sir Richard Avenant</span> came home from Abyssinia to an interesting

-notoriety. He had been associated&mdash;a sort of explorative

-free-lance&mdash;with the expedition of Mr. Bruce, who was not yet returned

-from his adventures up the Nile in quest of the sources of that

-bewildering water; and, upon his arrival in London, he found himself

-engaged to a romance which was certainly remote from his deserts.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now he was a strong, saturnine man, but apt to whimsical decisions,

-whose consequences, the fruits of whatever odd impulses, he never had

-a thought but to hold by; and as the self-reserved must suffer the

-character accorded to their appearance (the only side of them

-confessed), Sir Richard found himself accredited, by anticipation,

-with deeds adapted to the countenance he had always addressed to the

-world.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was strolling, some days after his return, through the streets,

-when he was accosted by an acquaintance, a <i>preux chevalier</i> of the

-highest <i>ton</i>, curled, be-ruffed, and imperturbably self-assured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, strike me silly, Dick!” cried this exquisite, “what do you,

-wandering unsociable in a shag coat, and all London by the ears to

-lionize ye?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I know not, George. What have I done to be lionized?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done! <i>Done?</i> asks the man that will not devour a steak but ’tis cut

-raw from the buttock of the living beast! <i>Done?</i> asks Bluebeard (and

-stap me, Dick, but your chin is as blue as a watchman’s!)&mdash;<i>done</i>, he

-says, that brings grass-petticoats in his train enough to furnish the

-Paradise of the Grand Turk! Prithee, Dick, where hast stowed ’em all?

-O, thou hast a great famous reputation, I assure thee, to justify

-thyself of with the women! Such is the report of thy peris&mdash;their

-teeth, their raven hair, their eyes like stars of the night&mdash;there’s

-no virtue in town could resist, if asked, to be thy queen and theirs.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was chuckling, and taking a delicate pinch of martinique, with his

-little finger cocked to display a glittering stone, when his eyes

-lighted on a house over against which they were standing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hist!” said he, pointing with his cane; “pan my honour, the single

-reservation.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Single reservation?” repeated the explorer. “To what? To this London

-of frailties?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To be sure,” said the other. “The one party, I’ll dare swear, that

-would not put her nose in a ring for thy sake.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed!” said Avenant. “Then she’s the one I must wed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The elegant cocked his head, squinting derisive.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I lay you a double pony to a tester you don’t, within the decade.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done! Tell me about her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ll do more. I’ll carry you in to her, here and at once. Tell me

-about her, quotha! She’s the Fair with Golden Hair, and a guinea and a

-suitor to every thread of it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whence comes she?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“From Arcadia, man, with a fortune of gold and roses. She cuts out

-hearts raw, as you do steaks, and devours them by the dozen. O, you

-shall know her!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But by what name, George, by what name?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have I not told you? It shall suffice for all your needs. Thou shalt

-take a pack of Cabriolles, and never hunt her to the death. Come, my

-friend!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He led Sir Richard to the house, and had himself announced. They

-ascended a flight of stairs, going up into a heaven of floating

-fragrance and melodious sounds. Their feet moved noiseless over silken

-carpets. They crossed an anteroom ruffling with lackeys, and were

-ushered into the Fair’s boudoir.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She sat at her mirror, in the hands of her perruquier. She was the

-most beautiful insolent creature Sir Richard had ever seen. There was

-not an inch of her which Nature could have altered to its improvement.

-The very patch on her cheek was a theft from perfection. But to so

-much loveliness her hair was the glory, a nimbus which, condensing in

-the heavy atmosphere of adoration, dropped in a melting flood of gold,

-which, short of the ground only, shrank and curled back from its gross

-contact.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All round and about her hummed her court&mdash;poets, lords,

-minstrels&mdash;suitors straining their wits and their talents for her

-delectation, while they bled internally. Many of them greeted Sir

-Richard’s chaperon, many Sir Richard himself&mdash;good-humouredly,

-jealously, satirically, as the case might be&mdash;as the two pushed by. A

-stir went round, however, when the rough new-comer’s name was put

-about; and some rose in their seats, and all dwelt inquisitively on

-the explorer’s reception.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was condescending enough; as was that of his friend, who loved

-himself too well, and too wittily, to show a heart worth the beauty’s

-discussing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have you got back your appetite, sir,” said the Fair to Avenant, “for

-dressed meats?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And ladies?” whispered Sir Richard’s friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, fie!” said madam.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will return the question on you,” said Sir Richard, in a low voice.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Fair lifted her brows.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, I am told, madam,” said Avenant, “that you feed on raw hearts;

-but I am willing to believe that the one lie is as certain as the

-other.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The imperious beauty bit her underlip, and laughed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I perceive, Sir Richard,” she said, “that you do not court by

-flattery.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I do not court at all, madam,” he answered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, true!” she replied. “You buy in the open market. It must be

-simpler; though, in the plain lodging where I hear you lie at present,

-the disposal of so responsible an establishment must exercise your

-diplomacy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She spoke aloud, evoking a general titter; and so aloud Avenant

-answered her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By no means, madam. I have in my sleeping-room a closet with three

-shelves. On one of these lies Beauty, unspoiled by adulation; on

-another lies Virtue, that respects her sex too well to traduce it; on

-the third lies feminine Truth, loveliest of her sisters. These are my

-whole establishment; and as they are shadows all, existing only in the

-imagination, they exercise nothing but my fondness for unattainable

-ideals.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The company broke into much laughter over this Jeremiad; and the girl

-joined her young voice to theirs. But a little glow of colour was

-showing in her cheek, verily as if Sir Richard had flicked that fair

-surface with his glove.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” she said, “this is a sad regale! Sure, sir, does the climate of

-Abyssinia breed no hotter than Leicestershire Quakers? Why, I have

-heard a lion roar fiercer in a caravan. Now, pray, Sir Richard, put

-off your civilities, and give us news instead of lessons. They say

-there is a form of lawless possession in the women of the country you

-visited.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is very true there is, madam. It is called the <i>Tigrétier</i>&mdash;a

-seizure of uncontrollable vanity, during which the victim is so

-self-centred that she is unable to attend to the interests, or even to

-distinguish the sexes of those about her. She will, for instance,

-surround herself with a circle of male admirers, assuming all the

-time, apparently, that they are the gossips of her own sex, with whom,

-like a decent woman, she would wont ordinarily, of course, to consort

-in private.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Fair cried out, “Enough! Your stories are the most intolerable

-stuff, sir. I wish Mr. Bruce joy of your return, as I hear you are not

-to remain in England.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then she turned her shoulder to him, her flush deepening to fire; and

-Sir Richard, bowing and moving away, fell into conversation with one

-or two of his acquaintances. Presently, looking up, he was surprised

-to see the room near empty. Goldenlocks had, in fact, issued her

-wilful mandate, and her court was dismissing itself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The explorer was pressing out after the rest, when a maidservant

-touched his sleeve, and begged him to return to her lady, who desired

-a word with him. Sir Richard acquiesced immediately. He found the Fair

-standing solitary by her dressing-table, frowning, her head bent, her

-fingers plucking at a wisp of lace. Her hair, still undressed, hung

-down deep over her shoulders, mantling them with heavy gold, like a

-priest’s chasuble.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did you seek my acquaintance, sir,” she said imperatively, “with the

-sole purpose to insult me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay, madam,” he answered, as cool as tempered steel; “but because you

-was described to me as the one woman in London that I might not marry,

-if I had the will to.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not?” was on the tip of her tongue; he saw it there. But she

-caught at herself, and answered, “So, sir, like sour reynard, I

-suppose, you would spite what you found it useless to covet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>I</i> covet, madam!” he said, in a tone of astonishment. “<i>I</i> aspire to

-wrest this wealth and beauty from a hundred worthier candidates!

-Believe me, my ambition halted far short of such attainment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her lips smiled, despite herself. What were the value, she suddenly

-thought, in a world of suitors that did not include this shagg’d and

-rugged Jeremiah? Her speech fell as caressing as the sound of water in

-a wood.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yet you confess to some ambition?” she murmured.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“True,” he answered; “the virtuoso’s.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She lifted her beautiful brows.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will be candid, madam,” he said. “I have the collector’s itch.

-Whithersoever I visit, I lay my toll on the most characteristic

-productions of the tribes&mdash;robes, carvings, implements of war&mdash;even

-scalps. Madam, madam, you must surely be of the sun children! Your

-hair is the most lovely thing! I would give my soul&mdash;more, I would

-give a thousand pounds to possess it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I see, sir,” she said; “to carry your conquest at your belt.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay,” he answered, with feigned eagerness. “Not a soul need know. The

-thing is done constantly. You have but to subscribe to the fashion of

-powder, and you gain a novel beauty, and I a secret I swear to hold

-inviolate.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” she said softly “This is Samson come with the shears to turn the

-tables on poor Delilah!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And on the instant she flashed out, breaking upon him in a storm of

-passion. That he dared, that he dared, on no warrant but his

-reputation for inhumanity, so to outrage and insult her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Go, sir!” she cried. “Return to your Nubians and Dacoits&mdash;to

-countries where head-hunting is considered an honourable proof of

-manliness!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He stood, as outwardly insensate as a bull.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then you decline to deal?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her only answer was to throw herself into a chair, and to abandon

-herself to incomprehensible weeping. But even her sobs seemed to make

-no soft impression on him. He took a step nearer to her, and spoke in

-the same civil and measured tone he had maintained throughout.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take care, madam. I never yet set my will upon a capture that in the

-long run escaped me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She checked her tears, to look up at him with a little furious laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Poor boaster!” she said. “I think, perhaps, that recounting of your

-Tigrétier hath infected you with it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“By my beard, madam,” said he, “I will make that hair my own!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“See,” she cried jeeringly, “how a boaster swears by what he has not!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard felt to his chin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is soon remedied,” said he. “And so, till my oath is redeemed,

-to consign my razors to rust!” And with these words, bowing

-profoundly, he turned and left the room.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Shortly after this he sailed to rejoin his expedition, and was not

-again in England during a period of eighteen months.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the end of that time, being once more in London, he devoted

-himself&mdash;his affairs having now been ordered with the view to his

-permanent residence in the country&mdash;to some guarded inquiries about

-the Fair with Golden Hair. For some days, the season of the town being

-inauspicious, he was unable to discover anything definite about her.

-And then, suddenly, the news which he sought and desired came in a

-clap.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was walking, one day, down a street of poor and genteel houses,

-when he saw her before him. He stood transfixed. There was no doubting

-his own eyesight. It was she: tall, slender, crowned with her

-accustomed glory, the flower of her beauty a little wan, as if seen by

-moonlight. But what confounded him was her condition. Her dress was

-mean, her gloves mended; every tag of cheap ribbon which hung upon her

-seemed the label to a separate tragedy. Thus he saw her again, the

-Fair with Golden Hair; but how deposed and fallen from her insolent

-estate!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She mounted a step to a shabby door. While she stood there, waiting to

-be admitted, an old jaunty cavalier came ruffling it down the street,

-accosted her, and accompanied her within. She might have glanced at

-Avenant without recognizing him. The rough dark beard he wore was his

-sufficient disguise.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard made up his mind on the spot, and acted promptly. Having

-no intention to procure himself a notoriety in this business, he

-rigidly eschewed personal inquiry, and employed an official informer,

-at a safe figure, to ferret out the truth for him. This, epitomized,

-discovered itself as follows:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cytherea&mdash;Venus Calva&mdash;Madonna of the magic girdle, who had once

-reigned supreme between wealth and loveliness, who had once eaten

-hearts raw for breakfast, feeding her roses as vampires do, was

-desolate and impoverished&mdash;and even, perhaps, hungry. A scoundrelly

-guardian had eloped with trust funds: the crash had followed at a

-blow. Robbed of her recommendation to respect; deposed, at once, from

-the world’s idolatry to its vicious solicitation, she had fled, with

-her hair and her poor derided virtue, into squalid oblivion; that, at

-least, she hoped. But, alas for the fateful recoils on Vanity! She

-drives with a tight rein; and woe to her if the rein snap! A certain

-libidinous and crafty nobleman, of threescore or so years, had

-secured, in the days of the Fair’s prosperity, some little bills of

-paper bearing that beauty’s signature. These he had politicly withheld

-himself from negotiating, on the mere chance that they might serve him

-some day for a means to humiliate one who, in the arrogance of her

-power, had scoffed at his amatory, and perfectly honourable,

-addresses. That precaution had justified itself. The peer was now come

-to woo again, and less scrupulously, with his hand on a paper weapon,

-one stroke from which alone was needed to give the Fair’s poor

-drabbled fortune its quietus. She was at bay, between ruin and

-dishonour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard came immediately to a resolve, and lost no time in giving

-it effect. He wrote a formal note to the Fair, recalling himself

-courteously to her remembrance, reminding her of his original offer,

-and renewing it in so many words. He would do himself the honour, he

-said, to wait upon her for her answer on such and such a day.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-To this he received no reply; nor, perhaps, expected one. He went,

-nevertheless, to his self-made appointment with the imperturbable

-confidence of a strong man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Passing, on his way, by a perruquier’s, he checked himself, and stood

-for some moments at gaze in a motionless reverie. Then he entered the

-shop, made a purchase, and, going to a barber’s, caused himself to be

-shorn, shaved, and restored to the conventional aspect. Thus

-conditioned, he knocked at the Fair’s door, and was ushered up&mdash;bawled

-up, rather, by a slattern landlady&mdash;into her presence.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She rose to face him as he entered. She had his letter in her hand.

-Her beautiful hair, jealous, it seemed, to withdraw itself from the

-curioso’s very appraisement, was gathered into and concealed under a

-cap. Her features, thus robbed of their dazzling frame, looked

-curiously, sadly childish and forlorn. There were dark marks round her

-eyes&mdash;the scarce dissipated clouds of recent tears. Who can tell what

-emotions, at sight of this piteous, hard-driven loveliness, stirred

-the heart of the man opposite, and were repressed by his iron will?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This letter, sir,” said the Fair, holding out the paper in a hand

-which shook a little. “I have tacitly permitted you to presume a right

-to a personal answer to that which it proposes, because such a course

-appeared to me the least compromising. I cannot write my name, sir,

-nowdays&mdash;as scandal doubtless hath informed you&mdash;but Fortune will be

-using it to my discredit.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sir Richard bowed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is this difference only, madam: <i>my</i> word is the bond of a

-gentleman. I vowed you secrecy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is to assume, on your part,” she said quietly, “a

-confidentialness which, in its insult to misfortune, is at least not

-the <i>act</i> of a gentleman. Moreover, a gentleman, surely, had not taken

-advantage of circumstances to propose to destitution what affluence

-had once refused him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Beware, madam!” said Avenant. “Pride must make some sacrifices to

-virtue. If, in renewing a pure business offer, I, a simple instrument

-in the hands of Providence, give you an opportunity to maintain that

-priceless possession unimpaired, would it not be the truer

-self-respect to secure your honour at whatever cost to your

-sentiments?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have not forgotten, nor forgotten to

-resent, my self-constituted Mentor. I will assure him that, for the

-matter of my virtue, it is safe in my hands, though I have to arm

-those against myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good heavens, madam!” cried Avenant. “You are not at that resource?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give yourself no concern, sir,” she answered coldly. “The moral I

-learned of your insult, was to save myself in its despite.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His deep eyes glowed upon her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have sold your hair?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she answered; “to pay my debts. ’Twas your letter decided me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At a thousand pounds?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“At a hundred.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then she added, as if irresistibly, because she was still little more

-than a child, “And now, sir, how is the boaster vindicated? But your

-oath, I perceive, still goes beardless.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Within the hour only,” said he; and, thrusting his hand into his

-breast, he drew out the long tresses of the Fair With Golden Hair.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She stared, amazed a moment; then threw herself upon her knees by a

-chair, weeping and crying out&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I hate you, I hate you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He strode, and stood over her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I saw them through a window as I came. How could I mistake them?

-There is not their like in the world. But now, my oath redeemed, it is

-for you to say if I am to destroy them.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, my hair!” she wept; “my one beauty!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have staked all on this,” he cried. “If your hair was your one

-beauty, my beard alone redeemed me from appalling ugliness by so much

-as it hid of me. Well, I have lost on both counts, if the net result

-is your hatred.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She looked up, with drowned bewildered eyes, and held out her hand

-blindly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Give me back my hair,” she said, “and you shall have the hundred

-pounds.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nay, sweet Delilah,” quoth he; “for that would be to return you your

-strength, and I want you weak.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Her arm dropped to her side.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That you may insult me with impunity!” she said bitterly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah, Delilah!” he cried; “is it so bad, that the offer of my hand and

-heart is an insult to a woman?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She sank back, sitting on her heels. From under her cap, fallen awry,

-curled shavings of gold hung out&mdash;the residue of a squandered wealth.

-Her eyes were wide with amazement.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So bad?” she whispered. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was not a conformable wooer. The love-wise sex shall say if he was

-a diplomatic one. He threw himself on his knees beside the Fair,

-seized her in his bear-like grip, and kissed her lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” he said, “it is neck or nothing. None but a parson can wipe out

-the stain. Hate me now, and put Love to bed for by and by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She smiled suddenly&mdash;like the rainbow; like an angel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” she said, “if you insist. But the poor thing has slept so long

-in my heart, that it would fain wake up at last, and confess itself.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-The peer took his settlement with a very bad grace; but he had to take

-it, and there was an end of him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Avenant,” whispered the Fair, on the evening of their wedding day, “I

-have been vain, spoiled, perhaps untruthful. But I wished to tell

-you&mdash;you can put me to sleep on the middle shelf of your cupboard.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It has been converted into a closet for skeletons,” he said. “I was a

-bachelor then.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch14">

-THE LOST NOTES

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> faculty of music is generally, I believe, inimical to the

-development of all the other faculties. Sufficient to itself is the

-composing gift. There was scarcely ever yet a born musician, I do

-declare, who, outside his birthright, was not a born ass. I say it

-with the less irreverence, because my uncle was patently one of the

-rare exceptions which prove the rule. He knew his Shakespeare as well

-as his musical-glasses&mdash;better than, in fact; for he was a staunch

-Baconian. This was all the odder because&mdash;as was both early and late

-impressed upon me&mdash;he had a strong sense of humour. Perhaps an eternal

-study of the hieroglyphics of the leger lines was responsible for his

-craze; for craze I still insist it was, in spite of the way he took to

-convince me of the value of cryptograms. I was an obstinate pupil, I

-confess, and withstood to the end the fire of all the big guns which

-he&mdash;together with my friend, Chaunt, who was in the same line&mdash;brought

-to bear upon me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Well, I was honest, at least; for I was my uncle’s sole provisional

-legatee, and heir presumptive to whatever small fortune he had amassed

-during his career. And day by day, as the breach between us widened, I

-saw my prospect of the succession attenuating, and would not budge

-from my position. No, Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I said, and Bacon,

-Bacon; and not all the cyphers in the world should convince me that

-any profit was to be gained by either imagining or unravelling a

-single one of them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What, no profit!” roared my uncle. “But I will persuade you, young

-man, of your mistake before I’m done with you. Hum-ti-diddledidee! No

-profit, hey? H’m&mdash;well!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then I saw that the end was come. And, indeed, it was an open quarrel

-between us, and I was forbidden to call upon him again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was sorry for this, because, in his more frolicsome and

-uncontroversial moments, he was a genial companion, unless or until

-one inadvertently touched on <i>the</i> theme, when at once he exploded.

-Professionally, he <i>could</i> be quite a rollicking blade, and his

-settings of plantation songs were owned to be nothing less than lyric

-inspirations. Pantomime, too, in the light of his incidental music,

-had acquired something more than a classical complexion; and, in the

-domain of knockabout extravaganza, not only did the score of “The Girl

-who Knew a Thing or Two” owe to him its most refined numbers, but also

-the libretto, it was whispered, its best Attic <i>bonnes-bouches</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-However, all that good company I must now forgo&mdash;though Chaunt tried

-vainly to heal the breach between us&mdash;and in the end the old man died,

-without any visible relenting towards me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I felt his loss pretty keenly, though it is no callousness in me to

-admit that our long separation had somewhat dulled the edge of my

-attachment. I expected, of course, no testamentary consideration from

-him, and was only more surprised than uplifted to receive one morning

-a request from his lawyers to visit them at my convenience. So I went,

-soberly enough, and introduced myself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” said the partner to whom I was admitted, in answer to a question

-of mine: “I am not in a position to inform you who is the principal

-beneficiary under our friend’s will. I can only tell you&mdash;what a few

-days before his death he confided to us, and what, I think, under the

-circumstances, you are entitled to learn&mdash;that he had quite recently,

-feeling his end approaching, realized on the bulk of his capital,

-converted the net result into a certain number&mdash;five, I think he

-mentioned&mdash;of Bank of England notes, and… burned ’em, for all we know

-to the contrary.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Burned them!” I murmured aghast.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t say so,” corrected the lawyer drily. “I only say, you know,

-that we are not instructed to the contrary. Your uncle” (he coughed

-slightly) “had his eccentricities. Perhaps he swallowed ’em; perhaps

-gave ’em away at the gate. Our dealings are, beyond yourself, solely

-with the residuary legatee, who is, or was, his housekeeper. For her

-benefit, moreover, the furniture and effects of our late client are to

-be sold, always excepting a few more personal articles, which,

-together with a sealed enclosure, we are desired to hand over to you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He signified, indeed, my bequest as he spoke. It lay on a table behind

-him: A bound volume of minutes of the Baconian Society; a volume of

-Ignatius Donnelly’s Great Cryptogram; a Chippendale tea-caddy (which,

-I was softened to think, the old man had often known me to admire); a

-large piece of foolscap paper twisted into a cone, and a penny with

-which to furnish myself with a mourning ring out of a cracker.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I blushed to my ears, regarding the show; and then, to convince this

-person of my good-humoured sanity, giggled like an idiot. He did not

-even smile in reply, the self-important ass, but, with a manner of

-starchy condescension, as to a wastrel who was getting all his

-deserts, rose from his chair, unlocked a safe, took an ordinary sealed

-envelope from it, handed it to me, and informed me that, upon giving

-him a receipt, I was at liberty to remove the lot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thanks,” I said, grinding my astral teeth. “Am I to open this in your

-presence?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Quite inessential,” he answered; and, upon ascertaining that I should

-like a cab called, sent for one.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good morning,” he said, when at last it was announced (he had not

-spoken a word in the interval): “I wish you good morning,” in the

-morally patronizing tone of a governor discharging a prisoner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I responded coldly; tried, for no reason at all, to look threatening;

-failed utterly, and went out giggling again. Quite savagely I threw my

-goods upon the seat, snapped out my address, closed the apron upon my

-abasement, and sat slunk into the cavity behind, like a salted and

-malignant snail.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Presently I thumped the books malevolently. The dear old man was

-grotesque beyond reason. Really he needn’t have left life cutting a

-somersault, as it were.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, as I cooled outwardly, a warmer thought would intrude. It drew,

-somehow, from the heart of that little enclosure lying at the moment

-in my pocket. It was ridiculous, of course, to expect anything of it

-but some further development of a rather unkind jest. My uncle’s

-professional connexion with burlesque had rather warped, it would

-appear, his sense of humour. Still, I could not but recall that story

-of the conversion of his capital into notes: and an envelope&mdash;&mdash;!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Bah! (I wriggled savagely). It was idiotic beyond measure so to

-flatter myself. Our recent relations had precluded for ever any such

-possibility. The holocaust, rather! The gift to a chance passer-by, as

-suggested by that fool of a lawyer! I stared out of the window,

-humming viciously, and telling myself it was only what I ought to

-expect; that such a vagary was distinctly in accordance with the

-traditions of low comedy. It will be observed that I was very

-contemptuous of buffoonery as a profession. Paradoxically, a joke is

-never played so low as when it is played on our lofty selves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Nevertheless, I was justified, it appeared. It may be asked, Why did I

-not at once settle the matter by opening the envelope in the cab?

-Well, I just temporized with my gluttony, till, like the greedy boy, I

-could examine my box in private&mdash;only to find that the rats had

-devoured all my cake. It was not till I was shut into my sitting-room

-that I dared at length to break the seal, and to withdraw&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Even as it came out, with no suggestion of a reassuring crackle, I

-realized my fate. And this was it: please to examine it carefully&mdash;

-</p>

-

-

-<figure>

- <img src="images/img_197.jpg" alt="Musical notes">

-</figure>

-

-<p>

-Now, what do you make of it? “<i>Ex nihilo nihil fit</i>,” I think you will

-say with me. It was literally thus, carefully penned in the middle of

-a single sheet of music-paper&mdash;a phrase, or <i>motif</i>, I suppose it

-would be called&mdash;an undeveloped memorandum, in fact&mdash;nothing else

-whatever. I let the thing drop from my hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-No doubt there was some capping jest here, some sneer, some vindictive

-sarcasm. I was not musician enough to tell, even had I had spirit for

-the endeavour. It was unworthy, at least, of the old man&mdash;much more,

-or less, than I deserved. I had been his favourite once. Strange how

-the <i>idée fixe</i> could corrode an otherwise tractable reason. In

-justice to myself I must insist that quite half my disappointment was

-in the realization that such dislike, due to such a trifle, could have

-come to usurp the old affection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By and by I rose dismally, and carried the jest to the piano. (Half a

-crown a day my landlady exacted from me, if I so much as thumped on

-the old wreck with one finger, which was the extent of my talent.)

-Well, I was reckless, and the theme appeared ridiculously simple. But

-I could make nothing of it&mdash;not though Mrs. Dexter came up in the

-midst, and congratulated me on my performance.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-When she was gone I took the thing to my chair again, and resumed its

-study despondently. And presently Chaunt came in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo!” he said: “how’s the blooming legatee?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pretty blooming, thanks,” I said. “Would you like to speculate in my

-reversion? Half a crown down to Mrs. Dexter, and the use of the tin

-kettle for the day.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done,” he said, “so far as the piano’s concerned. Let’s see what

-you’ve got there.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had known of my prospective visit to the lawyers, and had dropped

-in to congratulate me on <i>that</i> performance. I acquainted him with the

-result; showed him the books, and the tea-caddy, and the penny, and

-the remnants of foolscap&mdash;finally, handed him the crowning jest for

-inspection.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pretty thin joke, isn’t it?” I growled dolefully. “Curse the money,

-anyhow! But I didn’t think it of the old man. I suppose you can make

-no more of that than I can?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was squinting at the paper as he held it up, and rubbing his jaw,

-stuck out at an angle, grittily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“H’m!” he said, quite suddenly, “I’d go out for a walk and revive

-myself, if I were you. I intend to hold you to that piano, for my

-part; and you wouldn’t be edified.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” I said: “I’ve had enough of music for a lifetime or so! I fancy

-I’ll go, if you won’t think me rude.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On the contrary,” he murmured, in an absorbed way; and I left him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took a longish spin, and returned, on the whole refreshed, in a

-couple of hours. He was still there; but he had finished, it appeared,

-with the piano.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he said, rising and yawning, “you’ve been a deuce of a time

-gone; but here you are”&mdash;and he held out to me indifferently a little

-crackling bundle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Without a word I took it from his hand&mdash;parted, stretched, and

-explored it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good God!” I gasped: “five notes of a thousand apiece!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was rolling a cigarette.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes,” he drawled, “that’s the figure, I believe.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“For you&mdash;from your uncle.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But&mdash;how?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He lighted, took a serene puff or two, drew the <i>jest</i> from his

-pocket, and, throwing it on a chair, “You’ll have to allow some value

-to cryptograms at last,” he said, and sat down to enjoy himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Chaunt!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he said, “it was a bagatelle. An ass might have brayed it out at

-sight.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Please, I am something less than an ass. Please will you interpret

-for me?” I said humbly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He neighed out&mdash;I beg <i>his</i> pardon&mdash;a great laugh at last.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he cried: “your uncle was true blue; he stuck to his guns; but I

-never really supposed he meant to disinherit you, Johnny. You always

-had the first place in his heart, for all your obstinacy. He took his

-own way to convince you, that was all. Pretty poor stuff it is, I’m

-bound to confess; but enough to run <i>your</i> capacities to extinction.

-Here, hand it over.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t be hard on me,” I protested, giving him the paper. “If I’m all

-that you say, it was as good as cutting me off with a penny.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he answered: “because he knew very well that you’d apply to me

-to help you out of the difficulty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, help me,” I said, “and, in the matter of Bacon, I’ll promise to

-be a fool convinced against my will.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No doubt,” he answered drily, and came and sat beside me. “Look

-here,” he said; and I looked:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<figure>

- <img src="images/img_200.jpg" alt="Musical notes">

-</figure>

-

-<p>

-“You know your notes, anyhow,” said he. “Well, you’ve only got to read

-off these into their alphabetical equivalents, and cut the result into

-perfectly obvious lengths. It’s child’s play so far; and, indeed, in

-everything, unless this rum-looking metronome beat, or whatever it may

-be, bothers you for a moment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He put his finger on the crazy device perched up independently in the

-left-hand corner; and then came down to the lines again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Let that be for the moment,” said he. “It don’t much signify, after

-all. How do these notes go? that’s the main question. Read ’em off.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I spelt them out, following his finger: “b a c e f d e c a d e c.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s a good boy,” he said. “And now, what are these things beyond,

-that have run off the lines, so to speak?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What are they? Why, I don’t see what they can be but notes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly. Five notes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stared at the bundle in my hand, and then up at Chaunt.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O-o-o-o!” I exclaimed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He uttered a loud ironic laugh. “Well,” he said: “what does ‘b a c e f

-d e c a d e c’ spell?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I scratched my nose. “You tell me, please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O Jerusalem!” he cried, and took his pencil to the line, thus: b a c

-| e f | d e | c a d e | c&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well?” he said again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I shook my head.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He positively stamped. “Listen here,” he cried: “&hairsp;‘bac ef de cad-e

-c’&mdash;<i>don’t</i> you see?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, you ineffable ass! ‘Back of the caddy’ (that’s to say the

-tea-caddy; there it is), ‘see’&mdash;see what? What follows? Why, five

-notes, don’t they? ‘Back of the caddy see five notes’&mdash;and there

-<i>they</i> are.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I sank in a heap in my chair. Light had dawned on me. “And you found

-’em there, I suppose?” I murmured&mdash;“behind a false back or something?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He nodded. “You’re getting on.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And, please, what’s the thing at the top?” I continued faintly. “Let

-me get it all over at once.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” he said: “there’s a trifle more ingenuity in that, perhaps. What

-is it, to begin with? A demisemiquaver balanced on the top of an M Y,

-eh?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So it appears to me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To any one. Don’t be frightened. Try it every way round, and conclude

-with this: ‘On the top of M Y’&mdash;that is to say, ‘<i>on</i> M Y,’ which is

-<i>my</i>, ‘a demisemiquaver’: or, shorn of all superfluities (he pencilled

-it down), thus: ‘on my demisemiquaver.’ Now apply the same process.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I looked; pondered; felt myself instantly and brilliantly inspired;

-seized the pencil from him, and ticked off the measurements:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On my demise | mi | q | u | av | er.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” said Chaunt, rising with the air of an at-length-released

-martyr, and proceeding to roll another cigarette: “&hairsp;‘On my demise, my

-cue you have here.’ ’Pon my word, without irreverence, it’s worthier

-of the composer of ‘Say, den, Julius, whar yo’ walkin’ roun’?’ than of

-the author of ‘Some Unnoticed Sides of Bacon.’ But all one can say is

-that he adapted himself to the intellectual measure of his legatee.

-Have you got a match?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I must end, I am really ashamed to say, with this. Anyhow, in one way

-my uncle was triumphant: I was convinced, at last and at least, of <i>a</i>

-value in cryptograms.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch15">

-THE UNLUCKIEST MAN IN THE<br>

-WORLD

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">He</span> was nicknamed, ironically, Carabas&mdash;a sort of French equivalent

-for Fortunatus&mdash;the only title by which I ever knew him. Perhaps the

-underlying sympathy which impelled the jest reconciled him to its

-mockery; for there is, after all, an acute distinction in being the

-unluckiest man in the world. Somebody says somewhere that it is better

-to “lead” in hell than be a super in heaven. There came a time, I

-think, when Carabas would have resented good fortune as an outrage. It

-would have broken his record, and made him commonplace at a blow. As

-with Hawthorne’s young woman who was bred and throve on poisons, a

-normal dietary would have been fatal to him. Carabas was nurtured on

-ill-luck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I made his acquaintance at Verey’s in Montreux. It was for ever

-Carabas here and Carabas there, and, sometimes, in badinage, M. le

-Marquis; for the fellow was always in huge request for his capability

-and good-humour. There was a great deal of commiseration being shown

-for him when I first arrived. Latterly he had drawn a prize

-ticket&mdash;for thirty thousand francs, I think it was&mdash;in some State

-lottery. But, alas! a few days before the declaration of the winning

-numbers, he had parted with his voucher for a trifle over cost price.

-We got up a consolation subscription for him in the hotel&mdash;relatively,

-quite a respectable little sum&mdash;which, with effusive thanks, he

-deposited in the Bureau de Secours Mutuels. The bank stopped payment

-almost at once, and Carabas lost his nest-egg, with a prospect of

-future “calls” from the parent cuckoo.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-After that, we abandoned him to his Nemesis. We had recognized

-finally, I suppose, that vails to him meant nothing but tips to his

-evil destiny, to whom, as to a rapacious head-waiter, they all

-accrued. And so he himself was convinced with us. He showed himself

-neither surprised nor aggrieved; but remained the sunniest fatalist,

-with just a touch of wistfulness, which Nature had ever produced out

-of a union between Candour and Philosophy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I don’t know what his official position was. I don’t think he knew

-himself. He wore a plain peaked cap, and a sleeved waistcoat with

-brass buttons, and was, loosely, jackal to the tremendous concierge

-whose bullion took the costly glass tabernacle in the hall with

-splendour. Carabas himself was not at all a figure of splendour. He

-was small, and placable in expression, with smiling cheeks, mobile

-lips, pencilled over by a tiny black moustache, and strength visible

-in nothing but his eyes. They were his vouchers of distinction above

-the common brand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One thing certain about him was that he was an accomplished linguist;

-a second, that, for all his unspoiledness, he had a large experience

-of man, and (notably) womankind; a third, that his courage was equal

-to his good temper; a fourth, that, with every natural claim to

-consideration, his pride halted at no service, whether of skill or

-complaisance, which an unscrupulous management could exact of him; a

-fifth and last, that he permitted his employers so to presume upon his

-reputation for successlessness, as to accept from them, in reward for

-his many accomplishments, wages which would have been cheap to

-inefficiency. His own material welfare, indeed, seemed always the

-thing remotest from his interests. To be helpful to others was the sum

-of his morality.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I never could satisfy myself as to his nationality. Once&mdash;as one might

-ask him anything without offence&mdash;I put the question to him. To my

-secret surprise, he seemed to hesitate a perceptible moment before he

-answered, with a smiling shrug of his shoulders&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Cosmopolitan, monsieur; a foundling of Fortune.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We should do very well, then,” I answered, “to claim you for

-England.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Was it fancy on my part that his pleasant face paled a little? “As to

-that,” he said, “I know nothing.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You have never been in England?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He made no reply, but began bustling over some incoming luggage,

-calling to the porters at the lift; and in a moment he left me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The next day he was taken ill. The reversion of a service of raw

-oysters, supplied to the guests at table d’hôte, had found its way to

-the supper-table of the staff. Carabas detested oysters, but his

-gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial, and Ninette, the prettiest

-of <i>filles de cuisine</i>, sat next to him. She extracted a single

-“bivalve” from her half-dozen, and put it on his plate, moueing at him

-ravishingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Love conquers everything, M. Carabas,” she said; “even the

-antipathies of the stomach. I will not believe in your protestations

-unless you eat this for my sake.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He swallowed it at a gulp, and&mdash;it was a bad oyster, the only doubtful

-one in the whole consignment. Later, he was very sick; and afterwards

-ill for four days. Ninette cried, and then laughed, and congratulated

-herself on her escape. But as for the hotel, it was disconsolate in

-the temporary loss of its Carabas.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For my part, I was even particularly conscious of a vague discomfort

-in his absence. Somehow a certain personal responsibility which I had

-undertaken seemed to weigh upon me the more heavily for it. It was not

-that Carabas could have lightened, by any conceivable means, my

-burden. It was just a sense of moral support withdrawn at a critical

-moment. It was as if the knees of my conscience were weak, owing to

-something having gone wrong with my backbone. But I will explain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, a very famous lawyer in our own country, had brought his

-family, a son and daughter, to holiday in Lucerne. The boy was a

-conceited and susceptible youth; to the lady I was&mdash;engaged.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There seems no reason why impressionability should spell obstinacy;

-yet very often it does. Young Miller (so I will call him) having

-invited himself, at the Schweitzerhof, into the toils of a siren&mdash;a

-patently showy and dubious one&mdash;resisted all the efforts of his family

-to help him out. Baffled, but resolute, the father thereupon shifted

-the scene to Montreux, where they were no sooner arrived than he was

-summoned home on business at a moment’s notice. In the meanwhile, to

-me (hastily called from Paris, where it had been arranged I was to

-join the party on its homeward journey), was assigned the unenviable

-and impossible task of safeguarding the family interests. Miller had

-positively refused to accompany his father home, then or thereafter,

-until his absurd “honour,” as he called his fatuity, was vindicated.

-It would never do to abandon the wretched infant in the wilderness. He

-had his independence, and was a desirable <i>parti</i>. Hence my promotion

-to an utterly fictitious authority.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I knew, naturally, how it would be; and so it turned out. The head was

-no sooner withdrawn, than Mademoiselle Celestine&mdash;privately advised,

-of course, of the fact&mdash;arrived at Verey’s. Here, then, was defiance

-unequivocal&mdash;naked and unashamed, I might have said, and been nearer

-the truth of the case. For mademoiselle’s charms were opulent, and she

-made no secret of them. One would have thought a schoolboy might have

-seen through that rouge and enamel, through the crude pencilling on

-those eyelashes, through all that self-advertising display. I will not

-dwell upon its details, because their possessor made, after all, only

-a summer nightmare for us, and was early discomfited. She served, at

-best, for foil to a brighter soul; and such is her present use in the

-context.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-From the outset there was no finesse, no pretence of propitiation in

-her tactics. She understood that it was a matter of now or never with

-her quarry, and aimed to bring him down sitting. A woman, even the

-best of her sex, never gives “law” in these matters. She goes out to

-kill.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The two together formed an opposition camp&mdash;quite flagrantly, out in

-the sunlight. I thought sometimes the boy looked unhappy; but the

-witch would never let me have <i>him</i> to myself, and I could not

-manœuvre <i>her</i> from under his guns. I would never have scrupled to

-roll her in the mud, could I once have got her alone. But she was too

-cunning for that; and, as for her companion, his warfare was, after

-all, an honourable warfare. And all the time I had my own particular

-Campaspe to safeguard, to console, to squire through the odious

-notoriety which her brother’s infatuation had conferred upon us all.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was Carabas, of course, who in the end procured us a way, his own,

-out of the difficulty. The scandal being common property, there was no

-need for him to affect an ignorance of it. Yet we never knew, until

-the moment of his decision, how it had been occupying his mind from

-the beginning, or how, quietly and unobtrusively, he had been studying

-to qualify himself as our advocate. “<i>Our</i> advocate,” I say; but I

-knew his brief was for the bright eyes of Campaspe. <i>He</i> struck for

-the credit of the hotel, he declared; and mam’selle was associated

-with the best of that. Anyhow he struck, and daringly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had risen from his bed on the fourth day, as smiling, as

-complaisant as ever. His presence, like a genial thaw, ameliorated the

-little winter of our discontent. We greeted his reappearance with

-effusion, and dated, from the moment of it, our restoration to the

-social sanities.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a dusk, warm evening. The peaks of the Dent du Midi, thrust

-into a dewy sky, had been slowly cooling from pink to pearl-ash, like

-ingots of white-hot steel. Everything seemed one harmony of colour,

-except our thoughts, Campaspe’s and mine, as we strolled in the

-deserted garden. The Celestine and her victim had been out boating on

-the lake. We met them, unexpectedly returning. Mademoiselle was eating

-cherries out of a bag, and daintily spitting the stones right and left

-as she advanced. I don’t know how we should have faced the

-contretemps; I had no time, indeed, at the moment, to form a decision,

-before Carabas came softly and swiftly from a leafy ambush, and took

-command of the occasion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-We all, I believe, instinctively recognized it for a critical one.

-Mademoiselle’s bosom, though she laughed musically (she had managed to

-preserve, it must be owned, the unspoiled voice of a <i>séductrice</i>)

-began to rise and fall in spasms. The portier addressed her without a

-moment’s hesitation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I take the liberty to inform madame that she is in danger.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She gave a little gasp.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But is this comedy or melodrama?” she cried vehemently.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That is,” said Carabas, “as madame shall decide. I have the plot up

-my sleeve.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The plot!” she echoed, and fell staring at him; and then furiously

-from him to us.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Go on,” she said. “I know very well who has instigated you to this.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She checked herself, and, smiling, put out a hand towards her

-companion, as if to ask, or give, reassurance. But I noticed, already

-to my satisfaction, that the boy did not respond. As for us, we were

-in complete darkness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I obey, madame,” said Carabas. “This plot is told in a word. There

-was once in Paris a certain notorious <i>courtisane et joueuse</i>. Will

-madame desire her name?&mdash;<i>à bon entendeur demi-mot</i>. One night this

-lady’s husband, a Corsican, from whom she was separated on an

-honourable allowance, visited, purely by accident, her establishment.

-There was a fine scene, and he wounded her severely. She was forced by

-the police to prosecute him, and the jury, amidst the plaudits of the

-public, gave their verdict&mdash;against madame. But, triumphant there, the

-husband’s vengeance was whetted rather than assuaged. He would throw

-himself upon the suffrages of his countrymen in a more drastic

-vindication of his honour. She had disguised herself&mdash;her name&mdash;had

-fled. He devoted himself to the business of pursuit. At length he

-believed he had traced her to an hotel in Territet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carabas shrugged his shoulders and his lips, stuck out his arms at

-right angles with his body, stiff from the elbow, and came to a

-significant stop. I declare I pitied the adventuress. Every expression

-but that of panic seemed eliminated from her face at a touch. She

-looked old and haggard; and then, as if conscious of her

-self-betrayal, collapsed in a moment, dropping her bag of cherries.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am not very well,” she stammered; “the night air tries me.” She

-turned lividly upon the portier: “Par pitié, monsieur! C’est pour me

-prevenir que vous etes venu, non pour me trahir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Without waiting for his answer, she gathered herself together,

-literally, folding her train about her arm; made a desperate effort at

-self-command; wrenched out a smile, and went off, quavering a little

-airy chansonnette. But, after a few steps, despite her royal amplitude

-she was running. Carabas, very pale but self-possessed, picked up the

-bag, found one cherry in it, put it in his mouth abstractedly, and&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My God!” cried Miller hoarsely.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carabas jumped, and gulped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A thousand devils!” he cried. “You made me swallow the stone,

-monsieur.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The boy was in a fever of agitation.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is she really that&mdash;that sort?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My Campaspe fell upon his neck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, my dear, O, my dear, I am so sorry!” she sobbed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He put her roughly, but not unkindly, away.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’m&mdash;I’m going back to England&mdash;to the governor,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Carabas,” I demanded privately, as we returned to the hotel, “is it a

-fact that&mdash;&mdash;?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The husband is here? No, monsieur; it is not a fact.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a <i>cause célèbre</i>. I was confident I recognized madame from

-the published prints. For the rest, it was just a chance shot; but it

-hit the mark.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Carabas, you are wonderful; and we shall not forget.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miller was as good as his word. With characteristic disregard for any

-but his own interests, he was gone the next morning, without sign or

-message, leaving us to wobble in his backwash of scandal, and to get

-out of it as best we could. His flight, of course, threw open all the

-doors of gossip. My business in Paris being unfinished, I had to go;

-but first I did my best to provide against unpleasantnesses by

-confiding Campaspe to the care of the least slanderous <i>dame de

-compagnie</i> I could find. I am afraid, nevertheless, she had but a poor

-time of it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A week later I received a letter from Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, who in the interval

-had returned to Montreux.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All is happily over with all,” he wrote: “with the exception, that is

-to say, of poor Carabas, who is to undergo an operation for

-appendicitis. It appears that a cherry-stone, which he swallowed

-unwittingly, did the business. The management (OWLS!) demur to the

-expense. I have insisted (FOOLS!) upon undertaking it upon my own

-account. We owe much to him; and so do they (IDIOTS!). But they don’t

-understand how to pay your debts is very often the best foresight.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a case of pitch and toss. For days, it appeared, Carabas’s life

-hung in the balance. In the meanwhile, I was enabled to rejoin Mr.

-G&mdash;&mdash; and his daughter at Montreux, and to take my share in the

-nursing. Between gratitude and indignation, we rather claimed Carabas

-among us. Campaspe the poor fellow simply adored. Once, when he

-fancied himself losing hold, he confided to her, while we stood by,

-some main incidents in his life. I retail them here, in an abbreviated

-form.

-</p>

-

-

-<h4>

-CARABAS’S STORY

-</h4>

-

-<p>

-“There is no doubt,” he said “that as truly as some men are born

-without a palate, so some men are born without luck. It is no use

-trying to remedy the deficiency; it is well, rather, to study to

-reconcile oneself to it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was born in an English village, of naturalized Huguenot parents.

-When I was nineteen, I fell passionately in love. I had for a rival a

-youth very strong and unscrupulous. One day he persuaded me to bathe

-with him in the river, then swollen with floods. In mid-stream he

-pounced upon me, and strove to bear me under. I struggled

-desperately&mdash;it was of no avail. Death thundered in my ears; the water

-enwrapped and proceeded to swallow me. The last thing I saw was a

-figure gesticulating and shouting on the bridge a little way above;

-then consciousness fled, and I sank. I came to myself, stranded

-somewhere in a dark channel. A mad face was bending over me. I knew

-it&mdash;it was that of the miller. I had been carried into his race, and,

-just short of the wheel, he had caught and dragged me to shore. He was

-a drunkard, of that I was aware; and he was now quite demented.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Mordieu!’ he said, ‘I see what you’ve come for, and the devil shan’t

-call twice for his own.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I understood instantly. He meant himself to go with me into the

-water&mdash;to join issues with the devil who had called for him, and have

-a fine frolic into eternity with his visitor. Terror lent me strength.

-I caught at a post, and, as he leaned down, shot my whole body at him

-like a spring. He went over with a splash, and I heard the wheel

-hitch, then begin to turn again, chewing its prey. O, my friends, what

-a situation! I lay like one damned, a thousand dreadful reflections

-mastering me. I should be accused, if caught, of murdering this man.

-That terror quite devoured the other, and increased with every moment

-that I lay. Darkness came upon me, and then I rose and fled. I thought

-of nothing but to escape; and so, stealing always by night, I reached

-London.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I

-read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your

-Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual

-spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to <i>save me</i> from

-drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his

-marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead;

-and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave&mdash;for my body, it appeared,

-had never been recovered&mdash;the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not

-complain, therefore. Yet&mdash;ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of

-sympathizers!&mdash;<i>she</i> had been very dear to me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could

-go on.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I obtained work&mdash;under an assumed name, of course&mdash;and for many years

-found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for

-languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more

-than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and

-soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize.

-Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the

-other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees

-him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for

-companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the

-Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the

-train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of

-the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the

-distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he

-could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform.

-Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and

-on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full

-horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite

-scares, and&mdash;ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already

-perceived my misfortune.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a

-great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was

-certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as

-certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now

-possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon

-the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the

-smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform

-without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been

-passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make

-my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had

-fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to

-find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human

-monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for

-the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward

-on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now

-give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought

-that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this

-dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end

-before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur,

-if he likes, to vindicate my name.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-As he finished, Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;, whose face had been wonderfully kindling

-towards the end, bent over the bed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter,

-confessed the whole truth before he died.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Carabas sprang up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Monsieur!” he cried.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am a lawyer,” said Mr. G&mdash;&mdash;; “I was connected with the case. The

-man confessed, I say. If I had only known that&mdash;Carabas! Carabas! you

-were the one witness we wanted, and could not find!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Campaspe knelt down, and put a pitiful young arm round the shoulders

-of the unluckiest man in the world.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not only we now,” she said softly, “but others also, it seems, owe

-you a great debt, dear Carabas. We shall all be unable to pay it if

-you die. If&mdash;if I give you a kiss, will you live to return it to me on

-my wedding day?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mademoiselle!” cried Carabas, radiant. “You shame ill-luck; you shame

-even Death. See how they turn and go out by the door! Vouchsafe me

-that dear mascot, and I swear I will live for ever.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He is now, and has been for long, our most loved and trusted servant,

-with an iron constitution, and, what is best, an unshakable conviction

-that the circumstances which led him on to his present position were,

-after all, the kindest of luck in disguise.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch16">

-JACK THE SKIPPER

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-“<span class="sc">Will</span> you favour me by looking at it, young gentleman?” said the

-petitioner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-<i>It</i> was a most curious little model, which the petitioner had taken

-reverently out of a handbag. He was a hungry, eager-looking man, in a

-battered bowler, shabby frockcoat, and a primordial “comforter” which

-might have been made for Job.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Edward Cantle, busy at his desk, paid no attention.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It turns, sir, literally, on a question of fresh butter,” said the

-petitioner. “Who gets it nowadays, or realizes how, between churn and

-table, every pat becomes a dumping-ground for bacilli? Here, you will

-observe, the whole difficulty is resolved. We lead the cow into the

-cart itself, milk her into a separator, turn her out, drive off, and

-the revolution of the wheels completes the process. See? No chance for

-any freebooting germ! The result is simplicity itself&mdash;the customer’s

-butter made actually on the way to his door.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Cantle put his pen in his mouth, blotted what he had been at work

-on, examined it cursorily but surely, rose, walked to the counter, and

-presented a form to the petitioner, all something with the air of a

-passionless police-inspector. He was a tall young man, loose-limbed,

-and with all his hardness, like a melancholy Punch’s show character,

-in his head. Much converse with cranks had engendered in him an air of

-perpetual unspoken protest, of exasperated resignation. For he was a

-trusted clerk in the office of the Commissioners of Patents for

-Inventions.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” he mumbled over the goose-quill. “Thats a matter for your

-provisional specification. Good morning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It’s the most wonderful&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course&mdash;they all are. Good morning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It will revolutionize&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Naturally. You will make your petition and declaration in the proper

-forms. Good morning.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The inventor essayed another effort or two, met with no response,

-quavered out a sigh, packed up his treasure and vanished. The sound of

-his exit neither relaxed nor deepened a wrinkle on the brow of the

-neatly groomed Government official. He simply went on with his work.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At half-past one o’clock, it being Saturday, he&mdash;we were going to say

-“knocked off,” but the expression would be a libel on his methodical

-refinement. He took a hansom&mdash;selecting a personably horsed one&mdash;to

-his chambers in Adelphi Terrace; lunched off four <i>pâté de foie

-gras</i> sandwiches, already awaiting him under a silver cover, and a

-glass of chablis; changed his dress for a river suit of sober-tinted

-flannel and a Panama hat; charged himself with a morocco handbag, also

-ready prepared; drove to Waterloo, and took a first-class ticket, and

-the train&mdash;he favoured the South-Western because it was the quieter

-line of two in this connexion&mdash;to Windsor. Arrived there, he was

-hailed and joined by a friend on the platform.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Glad you’re come, Ned. I’m off colour a bit. You never are.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was hardly an attractive reception. Mr. Cantle glanced

-interrogatively at his companion, the Honourable Ivo Monk, son of Lord

-Prior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No?” he said. “What’s disturbing you, Monk?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, the devil, I think!” said the young man peevishly. “Come along,

-do, out of this.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Together they walked down to the river in almost absolute silence. Mr.

-Cantle had agreed to join his friend for an agreeable week-end on the

-water. It looked promising. He thought a little, and came to a

-characteristically uncompromising decision.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is it anything to do with Miss Varley?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, it is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“She&mdash;they have a houseboat here, haven’t they?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Close by?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“More or less. Just above Datchet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then, I think, perhaps I’d better&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then, I think, perhaps, you’d not. You don’t know anything about it.

-It’s not what you suppose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A punt, in luxurious keeping with the tastes of its owner, awaited

-them at the steps. It was equipped with a number of little lockers for

-wine and food, a wealth of the downiest cushions, and an adjustable

-tilt with brass hoops for “roughing it” at nights on the water. For

-the Honourable Ivo was at the moment an aquatic gipsy, wandering at

-large and at whim, and scorning the effeminate pillow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They loitered through Romney lock, talking commonplaces, and below

-relinquished their poles and sat and drifted until the reeds held them

-up. It was a fair, sweet afternoon, full of life and merriment, and,

-in view of the crowding craft, the remotest from ghostliness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Would you like to see her?” said Mr. Monk suddenly and unexpectedly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cantle was never to be taken off his guard.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If it will please you, it will please me,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They resumed the poles and made forward. To their left a little sludgy

-creek went up among the osiers; and, anchored at its mouth, rocked the

-vulgarest little apology for a houseboat. It seemed just one cuddy,

-mounted on a craft like a bomb-ketch, which it filled from stem to

-stern; and what with its implied restrictedness, and dingy appearance,

-and stump of a chimney, one could not have imagined a less inviting

-prison in which to make out a holiday. Yet there was a lord to this

-squalid baby galliot, and to all appearance a very contented one, as

-he sat smoking a pipe, with his legs dangling over the side. Monk

-nodded to him, and the man nodded back with a grin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Cantle, when out of earshot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, a crank! You should recognize the breed better than I do.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Cantle, thoughtfully nursing his jaw, with a frown on his face,

-had left off punting.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t you know him?” he said suddenly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We exchange civilities,” answered the other; “the freemasonry of the

-river, you understand. <i>There’s</i> the Varleys’ boat.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Forging under the Victoria Bridge, they had come in view of a long

-line of houseboats moored under the left bank against a withy bed,

-opposite the Home Park. At one of these, hight the “Mermaid,” very

-large and handsome, they came to, and fastening on, stepped aboard. A

-sound of murmuring ceased with their arrival, and Cantle had hardly

-become aware of two figures seated in the saloon, before he was being

-introduced to one of them.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Varley was certainly “interesting”&mdash;tall and “English,” but with

-an exhausted air, and her eyes superhumanly large. She greeted the

-stranger sweetly, and her fiancé with a rather full, pathetic look.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mamma’s resting a little,” she said, in a bodiless voice, “and

-Nanna’s been reading to me. Papa comes down by the seven o’clock

-train.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And what’s Nanna been reading?” asked the young man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The old nurse held up the volume. It was the Holy Book. Monk ground

-his teeth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush, Master Ivo!” whispered the woman. “You only distress her.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’d rather see her reading a yellow-back on a July day on the river.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The girl put a hand on his arm. “When the call has come? When my days

-are numbered, Ivo?” she said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He almost burst out in an oath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’d rather, if I were you, be recognized and called by my own name

-and nature,” he said bitterly. “But it’s all nonsense, Netta. Do, for

-God’s sake, believe it!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was so obviously overwrought, the situation was so painful, that

-his friend persuaded him, on personal grounds, to leave. They punted

-across, dropped down a distance, and brought up under the bank in a

-quiet spot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well,” said Cantle. “You’ll tell me, perhaps, what’s the

-matter?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can’t you see? She’s dying.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He dropped his face into his hands, with a groan of impotent

-suffering.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s some mystery here,” said his friend quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Monk looked up, and burst out in a sudden lost fury&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There is, by God! Jack the Skipper!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cantle was rolling a cigarette imperturbably.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who’s&mdash;Jack the Skipper?” he drawled.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I wish you could tell me,” cried the other. “I wish you could show

-these the way to his throat!” He held out his hands. “They’d fasten!”

-he whispered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He came all of a sudden, quite quietly, and sat by his friend. “Its

-been going on for three weeks now,” he said rapidly. “They call him

-that about here&mdash;a sort of skit on the other&mdash;the other beast, you

-know. He appears at night&mdash;a sort of ghoulish, indescribable monster,

-black and huge and dripping, and utters one beastly sound and

-disappears. Nobody’s been able to trace him, or see where he comes

-from or goes to. He just appears in the night, in all sorts of

-unexpected places&mdash;houseboats, and bungalows, and shanties by the

-water&mdash;and terrifies some lonely child or woman, and is gone. The

-devil!&mdash;O, the devil! We’ve made parties and hunted him, to no good.

-It’s a regular reign of terror hereabouts. People don’t dare being

-left alone after dark. He frightened the little Cunningham child into

-a fit, and it’s not expected to recover. Mrs. Bancock died of an

-apoplexy after seeing it. And the worst of it is, a deadly

-superstition’s seized the place. Its visit’s got to be supposed to

-presage death, and&mdash;&mdash;” He seized Cantle’s hand convulsively.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Damn it! It’s unnatural, Ned! The river’s haunted&mdash;here, in Cockney

-Datchet&mdash;in the twentieth century! You don’t believe in such

-things&mdash;tell me you don’t! But Netta&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His head sank on his breast. Cantle blew out a placid whiff of smoke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But&mdash;Miss Varley?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know&mdash;you’ve heard, at least,” said the other, “what she was. The

-<i>thing</i> suddenly stood before her, when she was alone, one night.

-Well&mdash;you see what she is now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t see, nevertheless, why she don’t&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pack and run? No more do I. Put it to her if you like. I’ve said <i>my</i>

-say. But she’s in the grip&mdash;thinks she’s had her call&mdash;and there’s no

-moving her. Cantle, she’s just dying where she stands.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Cantle’s cigarette made a tiny arc of light, and hissed in the river.

-He had heard of epidemic hysteria. The world was full of cranks.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” he said, “drop the subject, please. Shall I tell you of some

-fools I’ve come across in my time?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He related some of his experiences in the Patent Office. The most

-impudent invention ever proposed, he said, was a burglar’s tool for

-snipping out and holding by suction in one movement a disk of window

-glass. His dry self-confidence had a curiously reassuring effect on

-the other. While they ate and drank and smoked and talked, the life of

-the river had become gradually attenuated and delivered to silence; a

-mist rose and hung above the water; sounds died down and ceased,

-concentrating themselves into the persistent dismal yelp of a dog

-somewhere on the bank above; the lights in the houseboats thinned to

-isolated sparks&mdash;twelve o’clock clanged from a distant tower.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, all at once, he was alert and quietly active.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Monk, listen to me: I’m going to cure Miss Varley.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ned!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take the paddle and work up&mdash;up the river, do you hear? I’ll sit

-forward.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The ghost of a red moon was rising in the east. They slipped on with

-scarce a sound. A sort of lurid glaze enamelled the water. All of a

-sudden a sleek bulk rose ahead right in their path, wallowed a moment

-like a porpoise, and disappeared.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good God!” cried Monk, in a choking voice, half rising from his seat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Keep down!” whispered his friend.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Cantle! Did you see it? Cantle! It was he!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Keep down!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They paddled on, past the last of the boats, through the bridge, on as

-far as the squat little bomb-ketch bulking black and menacing at the

-mouth of the creek.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hold on!” whispered Cantle. “Run her out of sight into the reeds. We

-must wade on board there.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There? That fellow Spindler’s boat?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course, now. That was his name.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you mean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ll soon know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They accomplished the feat, though near mud-foundered by the way, and

-scrambled, dripping, on board. The door of the cuddy yielded to their

-touch. Monk was beginning to gather dim light.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t let me,” he whispered, almost sobbing. “Keep my hands off him.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Leave him to me,” said Cantle gravely.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Not a sound of life greeted them. They stole into the cabin and closed

-the door, almost, upon themselves.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We must yield him to-night for the sake of to-morrow,” murmured

-Cantle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ned! If he goes again&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hush! It’s not probable he’d risk a second visit, knowing her

-watched.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The crack brightened as the moon rose: glowed into a ribbon of light.

-Suddenly Cantle gripped the other’s wrist.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A stealthy puddling, sucking sound close by reached their ears. Over

-the side came swarming a great shapeless fishy creature, which settled

-with a sludgy wallop on the little triangle of foredeck almost at

-their feet. Monk gave a soft, awful gasp, and, with the sound, Cantle

-had dashed open the door and flung himself upon the monster.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Quick!” he cried; “you’ve got matches! Light a

-candle&mdash;lamp&mdash;anything! Lie still, Mr. Spindler. It’s all up. I know

-you and your Marine Secret Service suit! A knife now, Monk! Out he

-comes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was merciless with the blade when he got it, slashing and cutting

-at the oilskin suit, splitting it from top to toe. Mr. Spindler’s red

-beard and extravagant face came out of it like a death’s-head out of

-its chrysalis.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There goes the proud monument of a lifetime,” said the madman. He had

-made no effort to resist. The first blow at this darling of his

-invention had seemed to hamstring him, morally and materially.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-For he was just one of Mr. Cantle’s cranks&mdash;had once invented a

-submarine travelling suit, with which he had hoped to inaugurate a new

-system of Secret Service for the Admiralty. It was an ingenious enough

-device, with some scheme of floating valves through which to breathe;

-but the authorities, after holding him on and off, would have none of

-it. Then the fate of many inventors had befallen him. Between

-practical ruin and a moral sense of wrong, he had gone crazy, and

-vowed warfare on the mankind which had discarded him. It should

-comprehend, too late, the uses of instant appearance and disappearance

-to which his invention could be put. He went mad, and ended his days

-in an asylum.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-On the Monday morning Mr. Cantle posted back to the Patent Office; on

-the Tuesday Miss Varley was reading De Maupassant’s “Mademoiselle

-Fifi” under the awning of the “Mermaid’s” roof; and on the Wednesday

-Mr. Ivo Monk got her to name the day.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch17">

-A BUBBLE REPUTATION

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">One crowded hour of glorious life</p>

-<p class="i0">Is worth an age without a name.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">I had</span> never suspected Sweeting of a desire to be “somebody.” Indeed,

-the <i>jeunesse dorée</i>, in whose ranks Nature had seemed

-unquestioningly to bestow him, is not subject to diffidence, or prone

-to the wisdom which justifies itself in a knowledge of its own

-limitations. I was familiar with his placid, cherubic face at a minor

-club or two, in the Park, in Strand restaurants and Gaiety stalls; and

-it had never once occurred to me to classify him as apart from his

-fellows of the exquisite guild. If, like Keats, he could appreciate

-the hell of conscious failure, its most poignant anguish, I could have

-sworn, would borrow from some too-late realization of the correctest

-“form” in a hat-brim or shirt-collar. I could have sworn it, I say,

-and I should have been, of course, mistaken. Keats may have claimed it

-as his poetical prerogative to go ill-dressed, and to object, though

-John, to be dubbed “Johnny.” It remained to Sweeting to prove that a

-man might be a very typical “Johnny” and a poet to boot. But I will

-explain.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-One day I entered the reading-room of the Junior Winston and nodded to

-Sweeting, who was seated solitary at the newspaper-table. While I was

-hunting for the “Saturday Review”&mdash;which was conducting, I had been

-told, the vivisection of a friend of mine&mdash;my attention was attracted

-by something actually ostentatious in Sweeting’s perusal of <i>his</i>

-sheet, and I glanced across. Judge my astonishment when I saw in his

-hands, not “Baily’s” or the “Pink ’Un,” but the very periodical I

-sought. I gasped; then grinned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo!” I said. “Since when have you taken to that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He attempted to reply with a face of wondering hauteur, but gave up at

-the first twitch.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O,” he said rather defiantly, “you lit’ary professionals think no

-one’s in it but yourselves.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“In what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, this sort of thing,” he said, tapping the “Saturday”; “the real

-stuff, you know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed,” I said, “we don’t. You’re always welcome to the reversion of

-my place in it for one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, me!” he said airily. “It don’t positively apply there, you see,

-being a sort of a kind of a professional myself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My Sweet!” I exclaimed. “A professional&mdash;you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Write for the ‘Argonaut.’ Little

-thing of mine in it last number.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I felt faint.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“May I see it?” I murmured. “If I don’t mistake, it’s under your elbow

-at this moment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is it?” he answered, blushing flagrantly, “Lor’ bless me, so it is!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took it from his hand, opened it, and read, over his undoubted

-signature&mdash;Marmaduke Sweeting&mdash;the title, “The Fool of the Family.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” I thought, “of course. Like title like author.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But I was wrong. The tale, a veritable <i>conte drolatique</i>, was as keen

-and strong as a Maupassant. I had no choice but to take it at a

-draught, smacking my lips after. Then I put the paper softly down and

-looked across at him. His harmless features were set in a sort of

-hypnotic smile, his hat was tilted over his eyes, and he was making

-constant mouthfuls of the large silver knob of his stick. My eyes

-travelled to and fro between this figure and the figures of print

-<i>that were he</i>. What possible connexion could there be between the

-two? I thought of Buffon writing in lace ruffles, and all at once

-recognized a virtue in immaculate shirt-cuffs, and decided to consult

-some fashionable hosier about raising my price per thousand words. In

-the meantime my respect for Sweeting was born.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So,” I said, “you are somebody after all?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Am I?” he answered, grinning bucolic. “Glad you’ve found it out.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why,” I said, “honestly there’s genius in this story; but nothing to

-what you’ve shown in concealing that you had any. There must be much

-more to come out of the same bin.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He flushed and laughed and wriggled, as I walked over and sat beside

-him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, I dare say!” he said. “Hope so, anyhow.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not a doubt. What made you think of it, now?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! I thought of it,” he said; and, after all, there was no better

-reply to an idiotic question. I was beginning humbly to appraise

-intellectual self-sufficiency at its value, and to appreciate the

-hundred disguises of reason.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I saw a good deal of Sweeting, on his own initiative, after this. He

-would visit me in my rooms, and discuss&mdash;none too sapiently, I may

-have thought in other circumstances, and with the most ingenuous

-admiration for his own abilities&mdash;the values of certain characters as

-portrayed by him in a brilliant series, “The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist,” which had immediately followed in the “Argonaut” “The

-Fool of the Family,” and was taking the town by storm. Thus, “What

-d’ee think of that old Lupin, last number,” he would chuckle, “with

-his calling virtue an ‘emu,’ don’tcherknow?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha, yes!” I would correct him, with a nervous laugh. “&hairsp;‘Anæmia’ was

-the word. You meant it, of course.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, didn’t I say it?” he would answer. “It’s got a big swallow

-anyhow”; and then he would check himself suddenly, and, without

-further explanation, eye me, and begin to whistle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now I might recall the passage to which he referred (to wit, that

-every red blood corpuscle, being a seed peccancy, so to speak, made

-virtue an anæmia) and try to puzzle out a quite new significance in

-it. Suspecting that its author’s apparent naïveté was only assumed,

-I was respectfully guarded in my answers, and, when he was gone, would

-curiously ponder the perspicacious uses to which he would put them. He

-did not consult me, I felt, as an oracle; but rather drew upon me for

-the vulgar currency of thought, to which his exclusiveness was a

-stranger. He was very secret about his own affairs; though I

-understood that he was becoming quite an important “name” in the

-literary world. Ostensibly he was not, after that first essay, to be

-identified with the “Argonaut,” though any one, having an ounce of the

-proper appreciation, could scarcely fail to mark in the “Love-Letters”

-the right succession of qualities which had made the earlier story

-notable. Indeed, he suffered more than any man I knew from the

-penalties attaching to the popular author. The number of

-communications, both signed and anonymous, which he received from

-admirers was astonishing. Scarce a day passed but he brought me

-specimens of them to discuss and laugh over. I did not, I must admit,

-think his comments always in good taste; but then I was not personally

-subject to the flattering pursuit, and so may have been no more

-constituted to judge than a monk is of a worldling.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-These testimonies to his fame were from every sort of individual&mdash;the

-soldier, the divine, the poet, the painter, the actor (and more

-especially the actress), the young person with views, the social

-butterfly, the gushling late of the schoolroom, the woman of

-sensibility late of the latest lifelong passion for art or religion,

-and finding, as usual, the taste of life sour on her lips after a

-recent debauch of sentiment. They all found something in the

-“Love-Letters” to meet their particular cases&mdash;some note of subtle

-sympathy, some first intimation to their misunderstood spirits of a

-kindred emotion which had <i>felt</i>, and could lay its finger with divine

-solace on the spot. No longer would they suffer a barren

-grievance&mdash;that hair-shirt which not a soul suspected but to giggle

-over. To take, for example, from the series a typical sentence which

-served so many for a text&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>To whom does the materialist cry his defiance&mdash;to whom but to God?

-He cannot rest from baiting a Deity whose existence he denies. He

-forgets that irony can wring no response from a vacuum.</i>” A propos of

-which wrote the following:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">A Half-pay General</span>.&mdash;Don’t tell me, Sir, but you’ve served, like me,

-a confounded ungrateful country, and learned your lesson! Memorialize

-the devil rather than the War Office. You’ve hit it off in your last

-sentence to a T.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-<span class="sc">A Chorus Girl</span>.&mdash;Dear Sir,&mdash;You mean me to understand, I know, and

-you’re quite right. The British public has no more ears than a ass, or

-they’d reconise who ought to be playing Lotta in “The Belle of

-Battersea.” It’s such a comfort you can’t tell. Please forgive this

-presumptious letter from a stranger.&mdash;Yours very affectionately,

-</p>

-

-<p class="sign2">

-<span class="sc">Dolly</span>.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-<span class="sc">An Apostolic Fisherman</span>.&mdash;I like your metaphor. I would suggest only

-“ground-baiting a Deity” as more subtly applicable to the tactics of

-a worldling. Note: “And Simon Peter said, ‘I go a-fishing.’&hairsp;”

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-Take, again, this excerpt: “<i>Doctors’ advice to certain patients to

-occupy their minds recalls the Irishman’s receipt for making a cannon,

-‘Take a hole and pour brass round it.</i>’&hairsp;” Of which a “True Hibernian”

-wrote&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">Sir</span>,&mdash;I’ve always maintained that the genuine “bull,” fathered on my

-suffering country, came from the loins of the English lion. Murder,

-now! How could a patient occupy his doctor’s mind as well as his own,

-unless he was beside himself? And then he’d have no mind at all.

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-Or take, once more and to end, the sentence: “<i>The Past is that

-paradoxical possession, a Shadow which we would not drop for the

-Substance</i>”; which evoked the following from “One who has felt the

-Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret”&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-How strangely and exquisitely phrased! It brings, I know not how, the

-memory of the Channel before me. I have only crossed it once; but, O!

-the recollection! the solemn moving waters to which my soul went out!

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-These are specimens, but a few, of the responses wrung by Sweeting

-from the human chords he touched. There were, in addition, prayers

-innumerable for autographs, requests for the reading of manuscripts,

-petitions for gratis copies of his works, to be sold for any and every

-charity but the betterment of impecunious authors. He fairly basked in

-the sunshine of a great reputation. There was only one flaw in his

-enormous self-satisfaction. By a singular perversity and most

-inexplicable coincidence, every one of these signed documents was

-without an address. But, after all, coincidence, which is only another

-name for the favouritism of Fate, must occasionally glut itself on an

-approved subject. Sweeting was in favour with the gods, and enjoyed “a

-high old time of it,” principally, perhaps, because he did not appear

-to be ambitious of impressing any “set” but that with which he was

-wont to forgather, and above which he made no affectation now of

-rising superior.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had an example one evening of this intellectual modesty, when

-casually visiting the Earl’s Court grounds. There I encountered my

-friend, the centre and protagonist of a select company in the

-enclosure. All exquisitely wore exquisite evening dress (for myself I

-always scornfully eschewed the livery), and all gravitated about

-Sweeting with the unconscious homage which imbecility pays to

-brains&mdash;“the desire of the moth for the star.” I could see at once

-that he was become their Sirius, their bright particular glory,

-reflecting credit upon their order. And he, who might have commanded

-the suffrages of the erudite, seemed content with his little

-conquest&mdash;to have reached, indeed, the apogee of his ambition&mdash;a

-one-eyed king among the blind. These suffered my introduction with

-some condescension, as a mere larva of Grub Street. They knew

-themselves now as the stock from which was generated this real genius.

-As for me, I was Gil Blas’s playwright at the supper of comedians. And

-then, at somebody’s initiative, we were all swaggering off together

-along the walks.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, I had always had a sort of envy of the <i>esprit de ton</i> which

-unites the guild of amiable gadflies; and, finding myself here, for

-all my self-conscious intellectual superiority, of the smallest

-account, I grew quickly sardonic. If I knew who wrote the

-“Heptameron,” I didn’t know, even by sight, the Toddy Tomes who was

-setting all the town roaring and droning with his song, “Papa’s

-Perpendicular Pants.” It is a peevish experience to be “out of it,”

-even if the <i>it</i> is no more intelligible than a Toddy Tomes’s topical;

-and gradually I waxed quite savage. Reputation is only relative after

-all. There is no popular road to fame. As an abstract acquisition, it

-may be said to pertain at its highest to the man who combines quick

-perceptions with adaptive sympathies. I was not that man. In all, save

-exclusively my own company, I felt “out of it,” awkward because

-resentful, and resentful because awkward. I despised these asses,

-however franked by Sweeting, yet coveted, vainly, the temporary grace

-of seeming at home with them. I got very cross. And then we alighted

-on Slater.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I knew it for his name by Sweeting’s greeting him in response to his

-hail. He was seated at a little table all by himself, drinking

-champagne, and alternately turning up and biting the ends of a red tag

-of beard, and luridly pulling at a ponderous cigar. He was a small,

-dingy person, so obviously inebriated, that the little human clearing

-in which he sat solitary was nothing more than the formal recognition

-of his state. He also, it was evident, to my disgust, despised the

-conventions of dress, but without any of those qualms of

-self-consciousness with which I was troubled. He lolled back, his hat

-crushed over his eyes, a hump of dicky and knotted tie escaping from

-his waistcoat-front, his disengaged thumb hooked into an arm-hole&mdash;as

-filthy a little vagabond, confident and maudlin and truculent in one,

-as you could wish. And he hailed Sweeting as a familiar.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-My friend stopped, with a rather sheepish grin.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo, Slater!” said he. “A wet night, ain’t it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Our little group came chuckling all about the baboon. Even then, I

-noticed, I was the one looked upon with most obvious disfavour by the

-surrounding company.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look here,” said Sweeting, suddenly gripping me to the front. “Here’s

-one of your cloth, Slate’. Let me introjuce you,” and he whispered in

-my ear, “Awfully clever chap. You’ll like him when you know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I suppose my instant and instinctive repulsion was patent even to the

-sot. He lurched to his feet, and swept off his crumpled hat with an

-extravaganza bow. Sweeting’s pack went into a howl of laughter. It was

-evident they were not unacquainted with the creature, and looked to

-him for some fun.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My cloth, sir?” vociferated the beast. “Honoured, sir, ’m sure, sir.

-Will you allow me to cut my coat according to it, sir? Has any

-gentleman a pair of scissors? Just the tails, sir, no more&mdash;quite

-large enough for me; and you’d look very elegent in an Eton jacket.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I tried to laugh at this idiotic badinage, and couldn’t.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, crikey, wouldn’t he!” said a vulgar onlooker. “Like a sugar-barrel

-in a weskit.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then, as everybody roared, I lost my temper.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Sweeting. “It’s the way he’ll get his

-change out of you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Change!” I snapped furious. “No change could be for the worse with

-him, I should think. Let me pass, please!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The odious wretch was pursuing me all the time I spoke, while the

-others hemmed me in, edging me towards him and roaring with laughter.

-Sweeting himself made no effort to assist me, but stood to one side,

-irresistibly giggling, though with a certain anxiety in his note.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Call off your puppies!” I cried ragingly, and with the word was sent

-flying into the very arms of Slater. I felt something rip, and at a

-blow my hat sink over my eyes; and then a chill friendly voice entered

-into the mêlée.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, look here, Slater, that’ll do, you know!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I wrenched my eyes free. My champion was not Sweeting, but Voules, Sir

-Francis Voules, of whom more hereafter. He was cool and vicious, and

-as faultlessly dressed as the others, but in a manner somehow superior

-to the foppery of their extreme youth. He carried a light overcoat on

-his arm.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! <i>will</i> it?” said Slater.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I said so,” said Voules, pausing a moment from addressing me to

-scan him. Slater slouched back to his table. Nobody laughed again.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the meantime, Sir Francis was helping me to restore my hat to

-shape, and to don <i>his</i> overcoat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yours is split to the neck,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He took my arm, and we strolled off together. The crowd, quite

-respectful, parted, and we were engulfed in it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I was grateful to Voules, of course, but inexplicably resentful of his

-cool masterfulness. Truth to tell, we were souls quite antipathetic;

-and now he had put me right&mdash;with everybody but myself. In a helpless

-attempt to restore that balance, I snarled fiercely, smacking fist

-into palm&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ll have the law of that beast! You know him, it seems? I can’t

-congratulate you on your friends.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sweeting was most to blame,” said Voules quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I grunted, and strode on fuming.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, after all,” said Voules, “the poor ass had to back up his

-confederate.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I glanced at him as we walked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“His confederate?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Of course. Didn’t you know? Slater really writes the things for which

-Sweeting gets the credit.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, come, Voules! Here’s one of your foolhardy calumnies. You really

-should be careful. Some day you’ll get into trouble.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, very well!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You talk as if it were an open secret.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know Sweeting as well as I. Do you recognize his style in the

-Nonconformist lucubrations? Possibly you’ve had letters from him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve some specimens of letters <i>to</i> him now&mdash;letters from admirers.

-If anything were needed to refute your absurd statement, there they

-are in evidence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He gave a little dry laugh; then touched my sleeve eagerly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You wouldn’t think it abusing a confidence to show me those letters?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t know why. Sweeting’s laid no embargo on me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well. If you’ll let me, I’ll come home with you now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I stumbled on in a sort of haze.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I did not believe this to be any more than a mad shot in the dark. Sir

-Francis was one of those men who made mischief as Pygmalion made

-Galatea. He fell in love with his own conceptions&mdash;would go any

-lengths to gratify his passion for detraction. Do not suppose, from

-his prefix, that he was a bold, bad baronet. He was just an actor of

-the new creation&mdash;belonged to what was known by doyens of the old

-Crummles school as the be-knighted profession. The stage was an

-important incident in his social life, and he seldom missed a

-rehearsal of any piece to which he was engaged.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know this Slater?” I said, as I drove in my latchkey. “As what?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As a clever, disreputable, and perfectly unscrupulous journalist.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Its preposterous! What could induce him to part with such a

-notoriety?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The highest bidder, of course.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! Sweeting? If he’s still the simple Johnny you’d have him be?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’m yet to learn that the simple Johnny lacks vanity.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, for him, such an unheard-of way to gratify it!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Opportunism, sir. There are more things in the Johnny’s philosophy

-than we dream of.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I simply don’t believe it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Voules read, with an immobile face, the letters which Sweeting had

-left with me. At the end he looked up.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you open to a bet?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Can’t afford it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Never mind, then.” He rose. “Truth for its own sake will do. Anyhow,

-I presume you don’t object to countering on Slater?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, do what you like!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thanks. Would you wish to be in at the death?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Just as you please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You see,” said he, with a pleasant affectation of righteousness, “if

-my surmise is correct&mdash;and you’re the first one I’ve ventured to

-confide in&mdash;it’s my plain duty to prick a very preposterous bubble.

-Thank you for lending yourself to the cause of decency. Don’t say

-anything until you hear from me. Good-bye!”&mdash;and he was gone, followed

-by my inclination, only my inclination, to hurl a book after him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I sat tight&mdash;always the more as I swelled over the delay&mdash;till, on the

-third day following, Sweeting called on me. He came in very

-shamefaced, but with a sort of suppressed triumph to support his

-abjectness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said; “and I gave him a bit of my

-mind after you’d gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed,” I answered good-humouredly; “that was what you couldn’t well

-afford, and it was generous of you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was blankly impervious to the sarcasm. Had it been otherwise, my

-new-fledged doubts had perhaps fluttered to the ground. After a moment

-I saw him pull a paper from his pocket.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look here,” he said, vainly trying to suppress some emotion, which

-was compound, in suggestion, of elation and terror. “You’ve made your

-little joke, haven’t you, over all those other people forgettin’ to

-put their addresses? Well, what do you think of <i>that</i> for the Prime

-Minister?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I took from his hand a sheet of large official-looking paper, and

-read&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>

-<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;You may have heard of my book, “The Foundations of

-Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested to learn that I am

-contemplating a complete revision of its text in the light of your

-“Love-Letters.” They are plainly illuminating. From being a man of no

-assured opinions, I have become converted, through their medium, to a

-firm belief in the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me

-the honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-scribe

-the author of that incomparable series. I shall do myself the pleasure

-to call upon you at your rooms at nine o’clock this evening, when I

-have a little communication to make which I hope will not be

-unpleasing to you. Permit me to subscribe myself, with the profoundest

-admiration, your obedient servant,

-</p>

-

-<p class="sign2">

-<span class="sc">J. A. Burleigh</span>.

-</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I murmured, feeling suffocated, “there’s no address here

-either.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” he answered; “but, I say, it’s rather crushing. Won’t you come

-and help me out with it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you want <i>me</i> for?” I protested. “I’ve no wish to be

-annihilated in the impact between two great minds. You aren’t afraid?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, no!” he said, perspiring. “It’ll be just a shake, and ‘So glad,’

-and ‘Thanks, awfully,’ I suppose, and nothing more to speak of. But

-you might just as well come, on the chance of helping me out of a

-tight place. It’s <i>viva voce</i>, don’tcherknow&mdash;not like writin’, with

-all your wits about you. And I shall get some other fellows there,

-too, so’s we aren’t allowed to grow too intimate; and you might as

-well.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I wonder what the ‘communication’ is?” I mused.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, nothin’ much, I don’t suppose,” said Sweeting, with a blushing

-nonchalance. But it was evident that he had pondered the delirious

-enigma and emerged from it Sir Marmaduke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” I concluded rather sourly, “I’ll come.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He went away much relieved, and I fell into a fit of stupor. In the

-afternoon a telegram from Voules reached me, “Be at Sweeting’s 8.45

-to-night.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At a quarter to nine I kept my appointment. Sweeting was insufferably

-well-to-do, and his rooms were luxurious. They were inhabited at the

-moment by an irreproachable and almost silent company. Among them I

-encountered many of the young gentlemen who had been witnesses of, and

-abettors in, my discomfiture the other night. But they were all too

-nervous now to presume upon the recognition&mdash;too oppressed with the

-stupendous nature of the honour about to be conferred upon their

-host&mdash;too self-weighted with their responsibility as his kindred and

-associates. They could only ogle him with large eyes over immensely

-stiff collars, as he moved about from one to another, panic-struck but

-radiant. It was the crowning moment of his life; yet its sweeter

-aftermath, I could feel, reposed for him in the sleek necks of

-champagne-bottles just visible on a supper-table in the next room. He

-longed to pass from the test to the toast, and the intoxicating memory

-of a triumph happily accomplished. And then suddenly Slater came in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was not expected, I saw in a moment. Indeed, how could such a

-death’s-head claim place at such a feast? He was no whit improved upon

-my single memory of him, unless, to give the little beast his due, a

-shade less inebriated. But he was as grinning, cocksure, and truculent

-a little Bohemian as ever. Sweeting stared at him aghast.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good Lord, Slate’,” said he, “what brings you here, now?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, your wire, old chap,” said the animal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I never sent one, I swear.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Oho!” cries Slater, glaring. “D’ you want to go back on your word?

-Ain’t I fine enough for this fine company?” and he pulled a dirty

-scrap of paper out of his pocket, and screeched, “Read what you said

-yourself, then!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The telegram went round from hand to hand. I read, when it came to my

-turn: “Come supper my rooms 8.45 to-night. M. Sweeting.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I never sent it,” protested our host. “It must be a hoax. Look here,

-Slate’. The truth is, the Prime Minister wrote he wanted to make my

-acquaintance, because&mdash;because of the ‘Letters,’ you know; and&mdash;and

-he’s due here in a few minutes.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The creature grinned like a jackal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My eyes, what fun!” he said. “I shall love to see you two meet.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There’s&mdash;there’s fizz in the next room, Slate’,” said the miserable

-Sweeting.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You needn’t tell me,” said Slater. “I’d spotted it already.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And then, before another word could be said, the door was opened, and

-the guest of the evening announced.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He came in smiling, ingratiatory, the familiar willowy figure in

-pince-nez. We all rose, and the stricken Sweeting advanced to meet

-him. The great man, looking, it is true, a little surprised over his

-reception, held out his hand cordially.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And is this&mdash;&mdash;” he purred&mdash;and paused.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Sweeting did not answer: he was beyond it; but he nodded, and opened

-his mouth, as if to beg that the “communication” might be posted into

-it, and the matter settled off-hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did not, I confess,” said the Premier, glancing smilingly round,

-“expect my little visit of duty&mdash;yes, of duty, sir&mdash;to provoke this

-signal welcome on the part of a company in which I recognize, if I

-mistake not, a very constellation of the intellectual aristocracy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here a youth, with a solitaire in his eye, and a vague sense of

-parliamentary fitness, ejaculated “Hear, hear!” and immediately

-becoming aware of the enormity, quenched himself for ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It makes,” went on the right hon. gentleman, “the strict limit to my

-call, which less momentous but more exacting engagements have obliged

-me to prescribe, appear the more ungracious. In view of this enforced

-restriction, I have equipped myself with a single question and a

-message. Your answer to the first will, I hope&mdash;nay, I am

-convinced&mdash;justify the tenor of the second.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He released, with a smile, the hand which all this time he had

-retained, much to Sweeting’s embarrassment, in his own. Finding it

-restored to him, Sweeting promptly put it in his pocket, like a tip.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I ask,” said the Premier, “the author of ‘The Love-Letters of a

-Nonconformist’ to listen to the following excerpt” (he produced a

-marked number of the “Argonaut” from his pocket) “from his own

-immortal series, as preliminary to some inquiry naturally evoked

-thereby”&mdash;and he read out, with the intonation of a confident orator:

-“&hairsp;‘We have (shall I not declare it, my sweet?) the most beautiful women

-and the most beautiful poets in the world&mdash;two very good things, but

-the latter unaccountable. Passion, in perpetuating, idyllically

-refines upon the features of its desire; hence the succession of

-assured physical loveliness in a race which, however insensible to the

-appeals of emotional and intellectual beauty, can understand and

-worship the beauty that is plain to see.’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here the reader paused, and looking over his glasses with a smile,

-very slightly shook his head, and murmuring, “The <i>beauty</i> that is

-<i>plain</i> to see! H’m! a fence that I will recommend to Rosebery,”

-continued, “&hairsp;‘Passion endows passion, far-reaching, to bribe the gods

-with a compound interest of beauty. It touches heaven in imagination

-through its unborn generations. It tops the bunker of the world, and,

-soaring, drops, heedless of Time the putter, straight into the

-eighteenth hole of the empyrean.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Premier stopped again, and, looking gravely at Sweeting, asked,

-“What is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now I expected my friend to reveal himself, to sally brilliantly,

-referring his questioner, perhaps, to some satire in the making, some

-latter-day Apocalypse of which here was a sample extracted for bait to

-the curious. Well, he did reveal himself, but not in the way I hoped.

-He just strained and strained, and then dropped his jaw with the most

-idiotic little hee-haw of a laugh I ever heard, and&mdash;that was all.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other, looking immensely surprised, repeated his question: “What,

-sir, I ask you, is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, the one the Irishman poured brass round.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I started. It was not Sweeting who spoke, but Slater. The little demon

-stood grinning in the background, his tongue in his cheek, and his

-hands in his trousers pockets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“H’mph!” said the Prime Minister. “Very apt, sir. I recall the

-witticism. It is singularly applicable at the moment to the

-reorganization of the Liberal party. ‘Take a hole and pour brass round

-it.’ Exactly.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His manner, there was no denying it, was extremely severe as he again

-addressed the perspiring Sweeting&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Once more, sir,” he said, “I resume our discussion of a passage, the

-intellectual rights in which you would seem to have made over to your

-friends.” And, with a positive scowl, he continued his reading.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘So well’ (writes the impassioned Nonconformist) ‘for the national

-appreciation of beauty that is physical. On the other hand (tell me,

-dear. It would come so reassuringly from your lips), what can account

-for the spasmodic recurrence in our midst of the inspired singer? What

-makes his reproduction possible among a people endowed with

-tunelessness, innocent of a metrical ear?’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Quite abruptly the Prime Minister ended, and, deliberately folding his

-paper, hypnotized with a searching stare his unhappy examinee.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The question, Mr. Sweeting,” said he, “is before the House. You will

-recognize it as ending&mdash;with some psychologic subtlety, to be

-continued in our next&mdash;number 10&mdash;the last published of the

-“Argonaut.” To me, I confess, the answer can be, like the Catholic

-Church, only one and indivisible. Upon the question of your conformity

-with my view depends the nature of the communication which I am to

-have the pleasure, conditionally, of making to you. Plainly, then,

-sir, what makes possible the spasmodic recurrence of the inspired

-singer in the midst of a people endowed with tunelessness and innocent

-of a metrical ear? I feel convinced you can return no answer but one.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A dead silence fell upon the room. Sweeting scratched his right calf

-with his left foot, and giggled. Then in a moment, yielding the last

-of his wits to the unendurable strain, he gave all up, and, wheeling

-upon Slater&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, look here, Slate’!” he said. “What does?” and without waiting for

-the answer, drove himself a passage through his satellites, and

-collapsed half dead upon a sofa.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Premier, with an amazing calm, returned the “Argonaut” to his

-pocket.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Surely, sir,” said he, “this is inexplicable; but” (he made a

-denunciatory gesture with his hands) “it remains to me only to inform

-you that, conditional on your right reply to your own postulate, it

-was to have been my privilege to acquaint you of His Majesty’s

-intention to bestow upon you a Civil List pension of £250 a year;

-which now, of course&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was interrupted by Slater&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, that’s all one, sir! Fit the cap on the right head. The answer’s

-‘Protection,’ isn’t it? I ought to know, as I wrote, and am writing,

-the stuff.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>You</i>, sir!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-All eyes were turned upon the beastly little genius, as he stood

-ruffling with greed and arrogance, and thence to the sofa.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, shut up!” said Sweeting feebly. “It was only a joke. I paid him,

-handsome I did, to let me have the kudos and letters and things. He’d

-the best of the bargain by a long chalk.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He-he!” screeched Slater. “Why, you fool, did you think merit earned

-such recognition in this suffering world? Hope you enjoyed reading

-’em, Sweet, as I did writing ’em.” He turned, half-cringing,

-half-defiant, upon the guest. “I’m the author of the ‘Love-Letters,’

-sir&mdash;honour bright, I am; and I wrote every one of the testimonials,

-too, that that ass sets such store by. You’ll take those into

-consideration, I hope.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shall, sir,” thundered the other&mdash;“in my estimate of a fool and his

-decoy.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He blazed round and snatched up his hat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Make way, gentlemen!” he roared, and strode for the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A slip of pasteboard fluttered from his hand to the carpet; he flung

-wide the portal, banged it to behind him, and was gone.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Some one, in a sort of spasmodic torpor, picked up the card, and

-immediately uttered a gasping exclamation. We all crowded round him,

-and, reading the superscription at which he was pointing, “Mr.

-Hannibal Withers, Momus Theatre,” exchanged dumbfounded glances.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, of course,” stuttered a pallid youth; “it was Withers, Voules’s

-pal; I reco’nize him now. He’s the Prime Minister’s double, you know,

-and&mdash;and he’s been and goosed us.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What!” screamed Slater.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But I was off in a fit of hysterical laughter.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was actually a fact. It is a mistake to suppose that your

-professional scandal-monger is prepared to build except on a

-substratum of truth. Voules had pricked the bubble as he had promised.

-The bargain, it was admitted, had been struck&mdash;on Slater’s side for

-such a consideration as would submerge him in champagne had he desired

-it. He had written and sent the manuscripts to Sweeting, who had had

-them typed, and passed them on to the “Argonaut” as his own. But the

-real author knew that his tenure was insecure so long as the other’s

-colossal vanity was not ministered to. Hence the correspondence, in

-which the little monster burlesqued his own lucubrations. It might all

-have ended in a case of perpetual blackmail (Sweeting never could see

-beyond the end of his own nose) had not the bait answered so instantly

-to Voules’s calculations.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was a bitter attack on the immorality of the stage in the next

-number of the “Argonaut,” which subsequently had to compound with

-Voules under threat of an action for libel. But Sweeting had his wish.

-He was “somebody,” as never yet. Until he took his notoriety for a

-long sea-voyage, he was more crushingly than any gentleman in the

-“Dunciad” “damn’d to fame.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch18">

-A POINT OF LAW

-</h3>

-

-<p class="center mb1">

-BY A CAPTIOUS LITIGANT

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">Given</span> a wet night on circuit, a bar parlour with a chattering fire,

-a box of tobacco, a china bowl of punch, and a mixed forensic company

-to discuss the lot, and what odds would you lay for or against the

-chances of a good story or so?

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Grope in your memory (before you answer) among legal collectanea and

-the newspaper reports of famous, or infamous, trials. What then?

-“Lord!” you admit, “these bones unearthed seem wretched remains

-indeed! I find your grooms of the horsehair, young and old, cracking

-their ineffable chestnuts for the benefit of an obsequious tipstavery;

-I find a bench so conservative that, though it be pitched in the very

-markets of chicanery, it is never to be won from its affected

-ignorance of those topical affairs which are matters, else apart, of

-common knowledge; I find the profession for ever given to whet its

-wits on a thousand examples of resourcefulness and impudence, and most

-often failing in the retort piquant.” Give me a cheeky witness to cap

-the best drollery ever uttered by counsel. Legal facetiæ, forsooth!

-The wit that tells is the wit that can cheat the gallows, not send to

-it. Any dullard can hang a dog.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Look at the autobiographies of your retired legal luminaries: what

-scurvy bald reading they make as a rule. Look at&mdash;but no: he rests in

-Abraham’s bosom; he is studying the Mosaic law; we may be in need of

-him again some day.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There is an odd family likeness between the personalia of lawyers and

-of actors. The fellows, out of court, stripped of their melodramatic

-trappings, can’t raise a laugh which would tickle any one less than a

-bishop. They are obsessed with the idea of their own importance. Much

-self-inflation has killed in them all sense of proportion. They prove

-themselves, the truth is, dull dogs on revision.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The law is not so exhausting a study as it appears on first sight to a

-layman. Given an understanding of its main principle, which is

-syllogism, and there you are already in its Holy of Holies. As, for

-instance, I call a man a beast: a cheetah is a beast: I have called

-the man a cheater&mdash;ergo, he can proceed against me for defamation.

-There is its rubric in a nutshell&mdash;perfectly simple.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-However, <i>exceptis excipiendis</i>, there were Curran, and Erskine, and

-some others. There was also Brindley, the great Crown Prosecutor,

-whose eloquence was of such persuasiveness that it was said the very

-Bench <i>hung upon his word</i>. I had the chance to meet him once, in such

-a place and on such a night as I began by describing. It was in the

-“Maid’s Head” at Norwich, and my experience is at your service.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It had, I knew, been a full list and a varied; yet the great man, it

-seemed, had found nothing in it all to stimulate his humorous

-faculties. The liveliness was all supplied by a pert Deputy Clerk of

-the Peace, whose bump of reverence was as insignificant as his

-effrontery was tremendous. The Bar began by tolerating him; went on to

-humour his sallies; chilled presently over his presumption; grew

-patronizing, impatient, and at last rude. He didn’t care; nor I,

-certainly. His readiness was the only relief from a congested boredom.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The talk drifted, in the course of the evening, upon legal

-<i>posers</i>&mdash;circumstantial evidence, ex-statutory cases, and so forth.

-There were some dull examples proffered, and I observed, incidentally,

-that the Law, when it couldn’t hark back to precedent, was wont to

-grow a little hazy and befogged. Many solemn conundrums were

-propounded; but the Deputy Clerk, as usual, pushed himself to the

-front with an impertinence&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If I slink out of the company of a bore, am I guilty of stealing from

-his person?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pooh, pooh!” said Brindley, with contempt. “Don’t be flippant, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Deputy Clerk was not a whit abashed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir, to you,” he said. “If that isn’t liked, I’ll propose another. If

-a woman is divorced from her husband, and a child is born to her

-before the decree is made absolute, is that child, lawfully begot,

-legitimate or illegitimate?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They were glad to take this seriously. I forget what the decision

-was&mdash;that, given the necessary interval between the decree and its

-confirmation, I think, the situation was virtually impossible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very well,” said the Deputy Clerk. “But perhaps one can conceive such

-a question rising. Let it pass, however; and answer me this,

-gentlemen: If one is imprisoned unjustly&mdash;that is to say, for a crime

-one has not committed&mdash;and, breaking out of prison, gives proof of

-one’s innocence, can one be indicted for prison-breaking?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-This, at least, was a fair poser, and discussion on it grew actually

-warm.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bosh!” said a fierce gentleman. “You ain’t going to justify your

-defiance of the law by arguing that the law is liable to make an

-occasional mistake&mdash;don’t tell me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Here a very young barrister dared the revolutionary sentiment that the

-law, being responsible in the first instance to itself, might be

-treated, if caught-stumbling <i>in flagranti delicto</i>, as drastically as

-any burglar with a pistol in his hand. He was called, almost shouted,

-down. The suggestion cut at the very root of jurisprudence. The law,

-like the king who typified it, could do no wrong; witness its

-time-honoured right to <i>pardon</i> the innocent victims of its own

-errors.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It may detain and incarcerate one for being only a suspected person,”

-said Brindley. “That its suspicions may prove unfounded, is nothing.

-It must be <i>cum privilegio</i>, or the constitution goes. A nice thing if

-the Crown could be put on its defence for an error in judgment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A very nice thing,” said the Deputy Clerk.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Brindley snorted at him. “Perhaps,” said he sarcastically, “the

-gentleman will state a case.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The gentleman desired nothing better. I would have backed him to hold

-his own, anyhow; but, in this instance, I was gratified to gather from

-his manner that he had a real story to tell. And he had.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Gentlemen,” he said, “it occurred within my fathers memory; but my

-own is good enough to reproduce it literally. It made a rare stir in

-the Norwich of his day, and quite fluttered, I assure you, the

-dovecots of the profession.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The parties chiefly concerned in it were three: old Nicholas

-Browbody, his ward Ellen, and Mr. George Hussey, who was put on his

-trial for burglary and murder. Mr. George was quite a notable

-cracksman in his day, which was one pretty remote from ours in

-everything but the conservatism of the law. He was ‘housebreaker’ in

-the indictment; he was arrested by the Tombland patrol; and he was

-carried to court in a ‘chair,’ attended by a party of the City Guard.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“George, says the story, was an elegant figure of a man, and not at

-all regardless of the modes. Dark blue coat with brass buttons, fancy

-vest, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, hair full dressed

-and a brooch in his bosom&mdash;that was how he appeared before his judges.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The facts were simple enough. On a night of November, a shot and a

-screech had been heard in Mr. Browbody’s house in Unthank, a ward of

-the city; an entrance had been made through a window, opportunely

-open, by the Watch as opportunely handy, and the housebreaker had been

-discovered, a warm pistol in his hand, standing over the body of old

-Nicholas, who lay dead on the floor with his head blown in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The burglar was found standing, I say, like as in a stupor; the room

-was old Browbody’s study; the door from it into the passage was open,

-and outside was discovered the body of a girl, Miss Ellen, lying, as

-it were, in a dead faint. There you have the situation dashed in

-broad; and pretty complete, you’ll agree, for circumstantial

-evidence.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Wait, my friend,” began Brindley, putting up a fat pompous hand.

-“Circumstantial, I think you said?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I said it,” answered the Deputy Clerk coolly; “and if you’ll

-listen, you’ll understand&mdash;perhaps. I said the girl was in a faint,

-<i>as it were</i>, for, as a matter of fact, <i>she never came out of it for

-seven months</i>.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He leant back, thumbing the ashes into his pipe, and took no heed

-while the murmurs of incredulity buzzed and died down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not for seven months,” he repeated, then. “They called it a

-cataleptic trance, induced by fright and shock upon witnessing the

-deed; and they postponed the trial, waiting for this material witness

-to recover. But when at last the doctors certified that they could put

-no period to a condition which might, after all, end fatally without

-real consciousness ever returning, they decided to try Mr. Hussey; and

-he was tried and condemned to be hanged.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What! he made no defence?” said a junior contemptuously.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, sir, can you suggest one?” asked the other civilly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suicide, of course.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“With the pistol there in the burglar’s own hand?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, he made none, you say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, I don’t say it. He declared it was ridiculous attempting a

-defence, while he lacked his one essential witness to confirm it. He

-protested only that the lady would vindicate him if she could speak.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, of course!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, of course; and of course you say it. But he spoke the truth,

-sir, for all that, as you’ll see.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He was lodged in Norwich Jail, biding the finish. But, before the

-hangman could get him&mdash;that time, at least&mdash;he managed to break out,

-damaging a warder by the way. The dogs of the law were let loose,

-naturally; but, while they were in full cry, Mr. Hussey, if you’ll

-believe me, walks into a local attorney’s office with Miss Ellen on

-his arm.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Brindley turned in his chair, and gave a little condescending laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Incredible, ain’t it?” said the Deputy Clerk. “But listen, now, to

-the affidavits of the pair, and judge for yourselves. We’ll take Miss

-Ellen’s first, plain as I can make it:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘I confess,’ says she, ‘to a romantic attachment to this same

-picturesque magsman, Mr. Hussey. He came my way&mdash;never mind how&mdash;and I

-fell in love with him. He made an assignation to visit me in my

-guardian’s house, and I saw that a window was left open for him to

-enter by. My guardian had latterly been in a very odd, depressed

-state. I think he was troubled about business matters. On the night of

-the assignation, by the irony of fate, his madness came to a head. He

-was of such methodical habits by nature, and so unerringly punctual in

-his hour for going to bed, that I had not hesitated to appoint my beau

-to meet me in his study, which was both remotest from his bedroom, and

-very accessible from without. But, to my confusion and terror, I heard

-him on this night, instead of retiring as usual, start pacing to and

-fro in the parlour underneath. I listened, helpless and aghast,

-expecting every moment to hear him enter his study and discover my

-lover, who must surely by now be awaiting me there. And at length I

-<i>did</i> hear him actually cross the passage to it with hurried steps.

-Half demented, dreading anything and everything, I rushed down the

-stairs, and reached his room door just in time to see him put a pistol

-to his head and fire. With the flash and report, I fell as if dead,

-and remember nothing more till the voice of my beloved seemed to call

-upon me to rise from the tomb&mdash;when I opened my eyes, and saw Hussey

-standing above me.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now for Mr. Hussey’s statement:&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘I had an assignation with a young lady,’ says he, ‘on the night of

-so-and-so. A window was to be left open for me in Unthank. I had no

-intent whatever to commit a felony. I came to appointment, and had

-only one moment entered when I heard rapid footsteps outside, and a

-man, with a desperate look on him, hurried into the room, snatched a

-pistol from a drawer, put it to his head, and, before I could stop

-him, fired. I swear that, so far from killing him, I tried to prevent

-him killing himself. I jumped, even as he fell, and tore the pistol

-from his hand. Simultaneous with his deed, I heard a scream outside.

-Still holding the weapon, I went to the door, and saw the form of her

-I had come to visit lying in that trance from which she has but now

-recovered. As I stood stupefied, the Watch entered and took me. From

-that time I knew that, lacking her evidence, it was hopeless to

-attempt to clear myself. After sentence I broke prison, rushed

-straight to her house, found her lying there, and called out upon her

-to wake and help me. She answered at once, stirring and coming out of

-her trance. I know no more than that she did; and there is the whole

-truth.’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Deputy Clerk stopped. No one spoke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t ask you to pronounce upon those

-affidavits. In the upshot the law accepted them, admitting a

-miscarriage of justice. What I ask your verdict on is this: Could the

-law, after quashing its own conviction, hold the man responsible for

-any act committed by him during, and as the direct result of, that

-wrongful imprisonment?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-This started the ball, and for minutes it was tossed back and forth.

-Presently the tumult subsided, and Brindley spoke authoritatively for

-the rest&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly it could, and for any violence committed in the act.

-Provocation may extenuate, but it don’t justify. Prison-breaking, <i>per

-se</i>, is an offence against the law; so’s being found without any

-visible means of subsistence, though your pocket may just have been

-picked of its last penny. Any concessions in these respects would

-benefit the rogue without helping the community. I won’t say that if

-he hadn’t, by assaulting the warder, put himself out of court&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That was where he wanted to put himself,” interrupted the Deputy

-Clerk. It was certain that he was deplorably flippant.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Brindley waved the impertinence by.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The offence was an offence in outlawry,” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But how could it be,” protested the Clerk, “since, by the law’s own

-admission, he was wrongfully convicted? If he hadn’t been, he couldn’t

-have hurt the warder. If you strike me first, mayn’t I hit you back? I

-tell you, the law acknowledged that it was in the wrong.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not at all. It acknowledged that the man was in the right.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Isn’t that the same thing?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, my friend! I see you haven’t got the rudiments. Hussey was a

-prisoner; a criminal is a prisoner; <i>ergo</i>, Hussey was a criminal.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But he was a prisoner in error!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And the law might very properly pardon him that; but not his violence

-in asserting it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The Deputy Clerk shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, it was all the same in the end,” said he; “for it hanged him

-for pointing out its error to it, and so spoiled a very pretty

-romance. The lady accompanied him to the scaffold, and afterwards died

-mad. <i>Sic ita ad astra.</i> I will cap your syllogism, sir. An ass has

-long ears; the law has long ears; <i>ergo</i>, the law is an ass.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Young man,” said Brindley, with more good humour than I expected,

-“you have missed your vocation. Take my advice, and go to writing for

-the comic papers.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What!” cried the Deputy Clerk. “Haven’t I been a law reporter all my

-life!”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch19">

-THE FIVE INSIDES

-</h3>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">I’ll example you with thievery.&mdash;“Timon of Athens.”</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> dear old lady was ninety, and it was always Christmas in the

-sweet winter of her face. With the pink in her cheeks and the white of

-her hair, she came straight from the eighteenth century in which she

-was born. They were not more at odds with nature than are the hips and

-the traveller’s joy in a withered hedge; and if at one time they paid

-to art, why it was a charitable gift to a poor dependent&mdash;nothing

-more, I’ll swear.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-People are fond of testing links with the past. This sound old

-chatelaine had played trick-track, and dined at four o’clock. She had

-eaten battalia pie with “Lear” sauce, and had drunk orgeat in Bond

-Street. She had seen Blücher, the tough old “Vorwärts,” brought to

-bay in Hyde Park by a flying column of Amazons, and surrendering

-himself to an onslaught of kisses. She had seen Mr. Consul Brummell

-arrested by bailiffs in the streets of Caen, on a debt of so many

-hundreds of francs for so many bottles of vernis de Guiton, which was

-nothing less than an adorable boot-polish. She had heard the demon

-horns of newspaper boys shrill out the Little Corporal’s escape from

-Elba. She had sipped Roman punch, maybe;&mdash;I trust she had never taken

-snuff. She had&mdash;but why multiply instances? Born in 1790, she had

-taken just her little share in, and drawn her full interest of, the

-history, social and political, of all those years, fourscore and ten,

-which filled the interval between then and now.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Once upon a time she had entered a hackney-coach; and, lo! before her

-journey was done, it was a railway coach, moving ever swifter and

-swifter, and its passengers succeeding one another with an ever more

-furious energy of hurry-scurry. Among the rest I got in, and straight

-fell into talk, and in love, with this traveller who had come from so

-far and from scenes so foreign to my knowledge. She was as sweet and

-instructive as an old diary brought from a bureau, smelling of

-rose-leaves and cedar-wood. She was merry, too, and wont to laugh at

-my wholly illusory attachment to an age which was already as dead as

-the moon when I was born. But she humoured me; though she complained

-that her feminine reminiscences were sweetmeats to a man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You should talk with William keeper,” she said. “<i>He</i> holds on to the

-past by a very practical link indeed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was snowy weather up at the Hall&mdash;the very moral of another winter

-(so I was told) when His Majesty’s frigate “Caledonia” came into

-Portsmouth to be paid off, and Commander Playfair sent express to his

-young wife up in the Hampshire hills that she might expect him early

-on the following morning. He did not come in the morning, nor in the

-afternoon, nor, indeed, until late in the evening, when&mdash;as Fortune

-was generous&mdash;he arrived just at the turn of the supper, when the snow

-outside the kitchen windows below was thawing itself, in delirious

-emulation of the melting processes going on within, into a rusty

-gravy.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You see,” said Madam, “it was not the etiquette, when a ship was paid

-off, for any officer to quit the port until the pennant was struck,

-which the cook, as the last officer, had to see done. And the cook had

-gone ashore and got tipsy; and there the poor souls must bide till he

-could be found. Poor Henry&mdash;and poor little me! But it came right.

-<i>Tout vient à qui sait attendre</i>. We had woodcocks for supper. It was

-just such a winter as this&mdash;the snow, the sky, the very day. Will you

-take your gun, and get me a woodcock, sir? and we will keep the

-anniversary, and you shall toast, in a bottle of <i>the</i> Madeira, the

-old French rhyme.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I had this rhyme in my ears as I went off for my woodcock&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p class="i0">Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,</p>

-<p class="i0">Duquel la chair resueille l’appetit.</p>

-<p class="i0">Il est oyseau passager et petit:</p>

-<p class="i0">Est par son goust fait des vins bien juger.</p>

-

-</blockquote>

-

-<p>

-I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought the

-coverts and dead ferns and icy reed-wrecked pools, and flushed not the

-little <i>oyseau passager</i> of my gallantry’s desires. But at last, in a

-silent coomb, when my feet were frozen, and my fingers like bundles of

-newly-pulled red radishes, William keeper came upon me, and I confided

-my abortive wishes and sorrows to his velveteen bosom.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He smiled, warm soul, like a grate.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Will’ee go up to feyther’s yonder, sir,” said he; “and sit by the

-fire, and leave the woodcock to me? The old man’ll be proud to

-entertain ye.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will go,” I said meanly. “But tell me first, William, what is your

-very practical link with the past?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He thought the frost had got into my blood; but when I had explained,

-he grinned again knowingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Tain’t me my lady meant, sir,” he said. “&hairsp;’Tis old feyther, and his

-story of how the mail coach was robbed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The cottage hung up on the side of the coomb, leaning its back to an

-ash wood, and digging its toes well into the slope to keep itself from

-pitching into the brook below. There were kennels under the faggot

-stacks, a horse-shoe on the door, red light behind the windows. It

-looked a very cosy corner after the white austerity of the woods.

-William led me to it, and introducing me and my errand to his father,

-left the two of us together by the fire.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was a strange old shell of a man, russet and smooth yet in the

-face; but his breath would sometimes rattle in him to show how dried

-was the kernel within. Still his brown eye was glossy, and his voice

-full and shrewd; and in that voice, speaking straight and clear out of

-the past, and in an accent yet more of the roads than of the woods, he

-told me presently the story of the great mail robbery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It ruined and it made me, sir,” said he; “for the Captain, hearing as

-how the company had sacked me for neglect of duty, and knowing

-something of my character, swore I’d been used damnably, and that he’d

-back his opinion by making me his gamekeeper. And he did that; and

-here I be, waiting confident for him to check my accounts when I jine

-him across the river.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He pointed to a dusky corner. There hung on the wall an ancient

-key-bugle, and an old, old napless beaver hat, with a faded gold band

-about it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I was twenty-five when I put <i>they</i> up there, and that was in the

-year ’14; and not me nor no one else has fingered them since. Because

-why? Because it was like as if my past laid in a tomb underneath, and

-they was the sign that I held by it without shame or desire of

-concealment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“In those days I was guard to the ‘Globe’ coach, that run between

-London and Brighton. We made the journey in eight hours, from the

-‘Bull and Mouth’ in Aldersgate to the ‘New Inn’ in North Street&mdash;or

-t’other way about; and we never stopped but for changes, or to put

-down and take up. Sich was our orders, and nothing in reason to find

-fault with ’em, until they come to hold us responsible to something

-besides time. Then the trouble began.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, sir, as you may know, the coachman’s seat was over the

-fore-boot, and, being holler underneath, was often used as a box for

-special parcels. So it happened that this box was hired of the owners

-by Messrs. Black, South, and Co., the big Brighthelmstone bankers, in

-order to ship their notes and cash, whenever they’d the mind to,

-between London and the seaside, and so escape the risks and expense of

-a private mail. The valiables would be slid and locked in&mdash;coachman

-being in his place&mdash;with a private key; and George he’d nothing to do

-but keep his fat calves snug to the door, till someun at the other end

-came with a duplicate key to unlock it and claim the property. Very

-well&mdash;and very well it worked till the fifteenth of December in the

-year eighteen hundred and thirteen, on which day our responsibility

-touched the handsome figure&mdash;so I was to learn&mdash;of £4000 in Brighton

-Union bank notes, besides cash and securities.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was rare cold weather, much as it is now, save that the snow was

-shallower by a matter of two inches, and no more bind in it than dry

-sand. We was advertised to start from the ‘Bull’ at nine; and there

-was booked six insides and five out. At ten minutes to the hour up

-walks a couple of Messrs. Pinnick and Waghorn’s clerks from the

-borough, with the cash box in whity-brown paper, looking as innocent

-as a babby in a Holland pinifore. George he comes out of the shades,

-like a jolly Corsican ghost, a viping of his mouth; the box is slung

-up and fastened in; coachman climbs to his perch, and the five

-outsides follow-my-leader arter him to theirs, where they swaddle

-’emselves into their wraps strait-veskit-vise, and settin’ as

-miserable as if they was waitin’ to have a tooth drawed. Not much harm

-there, you’ll say&mdash;one box-seat, two behind, two with me in the

-dickey&mdash;all packed tight, and none too close for observation. Well,

-sir, we’ll hear about it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Out of the six insides, all taken, there was three already in place:

-a gentleman, very short and fierce, and snarling at everything;

-gentleman’s lady, pretty as paint, but a white timidious body;

-gentleman’s young-gentleman, in ducks and spencer and a cap like a

-concertina with the spring gone. So far so good, you’ll say again, and

-no connexion with any other party, and leastways of all with the

-insides as was yet wanting, and which the fierce gentleman was blowin’

-the lights out of for bein’ late.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Guard,’ says he, goin’ on outrageous, while the lady and the young

-gentleman cuddled together scared-like in a corner, ‘who are these

-people who stop the whole service while they look in the shop-vinders?

-If you’re for starting a minute after the stroke,’ says he, ‘dash my

-buttons,’ he says, ‘but I’ll raise all hell to have you cashiered!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘All right, sir,’ I says. ‘I knows my business better’n you can tell

-it me&mdash;’ and just as I spoke, a hackney kerridge come rumbling into

-the yard, and drew up anigh us.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Globe?’ says a jolly, fat-faced man, sticking his head out of it.

-‘All right, Cato&mdash;’ and down jumps a black servant, in livery, that

-was on the box, and opens the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The fat man he tumbled out&mdash;for all the world like a sheetful of

-washing a wallopin’ downstairs&mdash;Cato he got in, and between them they

-helped from the hackney and across to the coach as rickety a old

-figure as ever I see. He were all shawls and wraprascal. He’d blue

-spectacles to his eyes, a travellin’ cap pulled down on ’em, his mouth

-covered in; and the only evidence of flesh to be seen in the whole of

-his carcass, was a nose the colour of a hyster. He shuffled painful,

-too, as they held him up under the arms, and he groaned and muttered

-to himself all the time he were changing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, sir, you may suppose the snarling gentleman didn’t make the best

-of what he see; and he broke out just as they was a-hauling the

-invalid in, wanting to know very sarcastic if they hadn’t mistook the

-‘Globe’ for a hearse. But the fat man he accepted him as good-humoured

-as could be.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘It’s nothing affectionate, sir,’ says he. ‘Only paralysis, which

-ain’t catching. The gentleman won’t trouble you.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Not for my place,’ says the fierce gentleman, bristling up like a

-dog. ‘Damme, sir, not for my place. O, I can see very well what his

-nose is a-pinting to, and damme if it isn’t as monstrous a piece of

-coolness as ever I expeerunced. <i>These</i> seats, sir, are the nat’ral

-perkisite of a considerate punctiality, and if your friend objects to

-travelling with his back to the ’orses&mdash;&mdash;’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Now, now,’ says the fat man&mdash;‘nothing of the sort. You don’t mind

-sitting with your back to the ’orses, do you, nunky?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Eh,’ says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting a bit forward&mdash;‘No,

-no, no, no, no, no, no&mdash;’ and he sunk into the front cushions, while

-Cato and the fat ’un dispodged him to his comfort.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Time, gentlemen!’ says I.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Wait a bit’ says snarler. ‘It can’t never be&mdash;why, surely, it can’t

-never be that the sixth inside is took for a blackamoor?’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Alfred,’ says the lady, half veeping: ‘pray let things be. It’s only

-as far as Cuckfield we’re goin’, arter all.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘A poor argiment, my dear,’ says he, ‘in favour of suffering forty

-miles of a sulphurious devil.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Pray control yourself, sir,’ says the fat man, still very ekable.

-‘We’ve booked three places, for two, just to be comfortable. Our

-servant rides outside.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, that settled it; and in another minute we was off. I laughed a

-bit to myself as I swung up; but I hadn’t a thought of suspicion. What

-do <i>you</i> say, sir? Would you have? Why, no, of course not&mdash;no more

-than if you was a Lyons Mail. There was the five o’ them packed in

-there, and one on the roof behind the coachman&mdash;three divisions of a

-party as couldn’t have seemed more unconnected with one another, or

-more cat and dog at that. Yet, would you believe it, every one of them

-six had his place in the robbery that follered as carefully set for

-him as a figure in a sum.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As for me, sir, I done my duty; and what more could be expected of

-me? At every stage I tuk a general look round, to see as things were

-snug and nat’ral; and at Croydon, fust out, I observed as how the

-invalid were a’ready nodding in a corner, and the other two gents

-settled to their ‘Mornin’ Postses.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Beyond Croydon the cold begun to take the outsides bitter; and the

-nigger got into a vay of drummin’ with his feet so aggerawacious, that

-at last George he lost his temper with him and told him to shut up.

-Well, he shut up that, and started scrapin’ instead; and he went on

-scrapin’ till the fierce gentleman exploded out of the vinder below

-fit to bust the springs.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Who’s that?’ roars he&mdash;‘the blackamoor? Damme!’ he roars, ‘if you

-aren’t wus nor a badger in more ways than one,’ he roars.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘All right, boss,’ says the nigger, grinning and lookin’ down. ‘Feet

-warm at last, boss,’ and he stopped his shufflin’ and begun to sing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, sir, a sudden thought&mdash;I won’t go so far as to call it a

-suspicion&mdash;sent me, next stop, to examine unostentatious-like the

-neighbourhood of them great boots. But all were sound there, and the

-man sittin’ well tucked into his wraps. It wasn’t like, of course,

-that he could a’ kicked the panels of the box in without George

-knowin’ somethin’ about it. And he didn’t want to neither; <i>for he’d

-finished his part of the business a’ready</i>. So he just sat and smiled

-at me as amiable as Billy Vaters.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, we went on without a hitch; and at Cuckfield the three back

-insides turned out into the snow, and went for a bespoke po’-chaise

-that was waitin’ for ’em there. But, afore he got in, the fierce

-gentleman swung round and come blazin’ back to the vinder.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘My compliments, sir,’ says he, ‘at parting; and, if it <i>should</i> come

-to the vorst,’ he says, ‘I’d advise you to lay your friend pretty far

-under to his last sleep,’ he says, ‘or his snores’ll wake the dead.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Hush,’ says the fat ’un. ‘It’s the drowndin’ spirit in him comin’ up

-to blow like a vale.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Is it?’ says the fierce gentleman. ‘Then it’s my opinion that the

-outsides ought to be warned afore he gives his last heave&mdash;&mdash;’ and he

-went off snortin’ like a tornader.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The fat man shook his head when he were gone. His mildness, having

-sich a figger, was amazing. He sat with his arm and shoulder for a

-bolster to old paralysis, who was certainly going on in style.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Now, sir,’ says I, ‘the whole blessed inside is yourn till the end

-of the journey.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Thank you, guard,’ says he; ‘but I won’t disturb my friend, and

-we’ll stay as we are, thank you.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I got up then, and on we went&mdash;last stage, sir, through Clayton, over

-the downs, whipping through Pyecombe and Patcham, swish through

-Preston turnpike, and so into East Street, where we’d scarce entered,

-when there come sich a hullabaloo from underneath as if the devil,

-riding on the springs, had got his tail jammed in the brake. Up I

-jumps, and up jumps the blackamoor, screeching and clawing at George,

-so as he a’most dropped the ribbins.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Eh, boss!’ he yelled. ‘De old man&mdash;down dere!&mdash;damn bad!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“George he pulled up; and I thought he’d a bust, till I climbed over

-and loosened his neckercher, and let it all out. Then down we

-got&mdash;nigger and I, and one or two of the passengers&mdash;and looked in.

-‘What the thunder’s up?’ says I. The fat man were goin’ on awful,

-sobbin’, and hiccupin’, and holding on to old paralysis, as were sunk

-back in the corner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’! O, why did

-I ever give way to him, and let him come!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, we all stood pretty foolish, not knowing what to say or do,

-when his great tricklin’ face come round like a leg o’ mutton on a

-spit, and, seein’ the nigger, bust into hystrikes.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘O, Cato!’ he roars; ‘O Cato, O Cato! Sich a loss if he goes!’ he

-roars. ‘Run on by a short cut, Cato,’ he says, ‘and see if you can

-find a doctor agen our drawin’ up at the “New Inn.”&hairsp;’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That seemed to us all a good idea, though, to be sure, there was no

-cut shorter than the straight road we was in. But anyhow, before we

-could re’lise it, the nigger was off like a arrer; and one of the

-gentlemen offered to keep the fat man company. But that he wouldn’t

-listen to.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘If he <i>should</i> come round,’ he said, ‘the shock of a stranger might

-send him off agen. No, no,’ he said: ‘leave me alone with my dying

-friend, and drive on as quick as ever you can.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It were only a matter of minutes; but afore we’d been drawed up half

-of one afore the inn, a crowd was gathered round the coach door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Is he back?’ says the fat man&mdash;‘Is Cato come back with a doctor? No,

-I won’t have him touched or moved till a doctor’s seen him.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then all at once he was up and out, rampageous.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Where is he?’ he shrieks. ‘I can’t vait no longer&mdash;I’m goin’

-mad&mdash;I’ll find one myself’&mdash;and, afore you could say Jack Robinson, he

-was off. I never see sich a figger run so. He fair melted away. But

-the crowd was too interested in the corpse to follow him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, sir, he didn’t come back with a doctor, and no more did Cato.

-And the corpse may have sat there ten minutes, and none daring to go

-into it, when a sawbones, a-comin’ down the street on his own account,

-was appealed to by the landlord for a verdict, seein’ as how by this

-time the whole traffic was blocked. He got in, and so did I; and he

-bent over the body spread back with its wraps agen the corner.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘My God!’ I whispers&mdash;‘there’s no breath comin’ from him. Is he dead,

-sir?’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The sawbones he rose up very dry and cool.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘No,’ he says, ‘there ain’t no breath comin’ from him, nor there

-never will. It ain’t in natur’ to expect it from a waxworks.’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sir, I tell you I looked at him and just felt my heart as it might be

-a snail that someun had dropped a pinch of salt on.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Waxworks!’ I says, gaspin’. ‘Why, the man spoke and groaned!’

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’

-says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;&mdash;and

-I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy&mdash;nothing

-more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock my

-pullin’ it away give me&mdash;for there, behind where it had set, was a

-’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and

-panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the

-mail’s been robbed!’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised

-excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the

-question he expected.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And it had been?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In

-the vinter of ’13, sir&mdash;the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a

-rare stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards,

-when one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were

-took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man were a

-ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides to

-themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job. They cut

-into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and passed the boy

-through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’ Croydon. He set

-to&mdash;the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!&mdash;tuk a piece clean

-out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and brought down the

-cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his dance overhead to

-drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened and emptied, and put

-back in the boot where it was found; and the swag, for fear of

-accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the younger,

-standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled auburn trophies

-in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a sigh&mdash;then

-with a smile.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock. “How

-plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch20">

-THE JADE BUTTON

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">The</span> little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with

-a good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is

-the subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by

-any lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself

-misinformed, and attend your last moments on the scaffold.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John Belmont

-hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this antagonism was a

-button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was of jade stone, and it was a talisman. For three generations it

-had been the mascot of the Belmont family, an heirloom, and

-symbolizing in its shining disk a little local sun, as it were, of

-prosperity. The last three head Belmonts had all been men of an ample

-presence. The first of them, the original owner of the stone, having

-assigned it a place in perpetuity at the bottom hole of his waistcoat

-(as representing the centre of his system), his heirs were careful to

-substantiate a tradition which meant so much to them in a double

-sense.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Indeed, the button was as good as a blister. It seemed to draw its

-wearer to a head in the prosperous part of him. It was set in gold,

-artfully furnished at its back with a loop and hank, and made

-transferable from waistcoat to waistcoat, that its possessor for the

-time being might enjoy at all seasons its beneficent influence. In

-broad or long cloth, in twill or flannel, by day and by night, the

-button attended him, regulating indiscriminately his business and his

-digestion. In such circumstances, it is plain that Death must have

-been hard put to it to find a vulnerable place; and such was the fact.

-It has often been said that a man’s soul is in his stomach; how, then,

-could it get behind the button? Only by one of those unworthy

-subterfuges, which, nevertheless, it does not disdain. The first

-Belmont lived to ninety, and with such increasing portliness that, at

-the last, a half-moon had to be cut, and perpetually enlarged, out of

-the dining-room table to accommodate his presence. Practically, he was

-eating his way through the board, with the prospect of emerging at the

-other end, when, in rising from a particularly substantial repast one

-night, he caught the button in the crack between the first slab

-(almost devoured) and the second, wrenched it away, and was

-immediately seized with apoplexy. He died; and the Destroyer, after

-pursuing his heir to threescore years and ten, looking for the heel of

-Achilles, as unworthily “got home” into him. He was lumbering down

-Fleet Street one dog-day when, oppressed beyond endurance by the heat,

-he wrenched open&mdash;in defiance of all canons of taste and prudence&mdash;his

-waistcoat. The button&mdash;<i>the</i> button&mdash;was burst from its bonds in the

-act, though, fortunately&mdash;for the next-of-kin&mdash;to be caught by its

-hank in the owner’s watch-chain. But to the owner himself the impulse

-was fatal. A prowling cutpurse, quick to the chance, “let out” full on

-the old gentleman’s bow-window, quenching its lights, so to speak, for

-ever; and then, having snatched the chain, incontinently doubled into

-the arms of a constable. The property was recovered&mdash;but for the heir;

-the second Belmont’s bellows having been broken beyond mending.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The third met with as inglorious an end, and at a comparatively early

-age; for the button&mdash;as a saving clause to whatever god had thrown it

-down, for the fun of the thing, among men&mdash;was possessed with a very

-devil of touchiness, and always instant to resent the least fancied

-slight to its self-importance. Else had Tithonus been its wearer to

-this day, as&mdash;&mdash;but I won’t anticipate. The third Belmont, then, in a

-fit of colossal forgetfulness, sent the button, <i>in</i> a white

-waistcoat, to the wash. The calamity was detected forthwith, <i>but not

-in time to avert itself</i>. After death the doctor. Before the outraged

-article could be restored to its owner and victim, he had died of a

-rapid dropsy, and the button became the property of Mrs. John Belmont,

-his relict and residuary legatee, who&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But, for the history of the button itself? Why, in brief, as it

-affected the Belmont family, it was this. Mr. Adolphus Belmont had

-been Consul at one of the five treaty ports of China about the

-troublous years of 1840-42. During the short time that he held office,

-a certain local mandarin, Elephoo Ting by name, was reported to Peking

-for high treason, and honoured with an imperial ukase, or invitation

-to forestall the headsman. There was no doubt, indeed, that Elephoo

-Ting had been very strenuous, in public, in combating the intrusion of

-the foreign devil, while inviting him, in private, to come on and hold

-tight. There is no doubt, too, that in the result Elephoo and Adolphus

-had made a profitable partnership of it in the matter of opium, and

-that the mandarin had formed a very high, and even sentimental,

-opinion of the business capacities of his young friend. Young, that is

-to say, relatively, for Adolphus was already sixty-three when

-appointed to his post. But, then, of the immemorial Ting’s age no

-record actually existed. The oldest inhabitant of Ningpo knew him as

-one knows the historic beech of one’s district. He had always been

-there&mdash;bland, prosperous, enormous, a smooth bole of a man radiating

-benevolence. And now at last he was to die. It seemed impossible.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It <i>was</i> impossible, save on a condition. That he confided to his odd

-partner and confidant, the English Consul, during a last interview. He

-held a carving-knife in his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Shall I accept this signal favour of the imperial sun?” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Have you any choice?” asked the Consul gloomily. “The decree is out;

-the soldiers surround your dwelling.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Elephoo Ting laughed softly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Vain, vain all, unless I discard my talisman.” He produced the jade

-button from his cap. “This,” he said, “I had from my father, when the

-old man sickened at last of life, desiring to be an ancestor. It

-renders who wears it, while he wears it, immortal; only it is jealous,

-jealous, and stands upon its dignity. Shall I, too, part with it, and

-at a stroke let in the light of ages?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He saw the incredulity in his visitor’s face, and handed him the

-carving-knife.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Strike,” he said. “I bid thee.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You take the consequences?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-With infinite cynicism, Mr. Belmont essayed to tickle, just to tickle,

-the creature’s infatuation with the steel point. It bent, where it

-touched, like paper. He thrust hard and ever harder, until at last he

-was thrashing and slicing with the implement in a sort of frenzy of

-horror. The mandarin stood apathetic, while the innocuous blade swept

-and rustled about his huge bulk like a harmless feather. Then said he,

-as the other desisted at length, unnerved and trembling: “Art thou

-convinced?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am convinced,” said the Consul.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Elephoo Ting handed him the button in exchange for the knife.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Take and wear it,” he said, “for my sake, whom you have pleased by

-outwitting, on the score of benefiting, two Governments. You have the

-makings of a great mandarin in you; the button will do the rest. Would

-you ever escape the too-soon satiety of this stodgy life, pass it on,

-with these instructions which I shall give you, to your next-of-kin.

-Be ever deferential to the button and considerate of its vanity, for

-it is the fetish of a sensitive but undiscriminating spirit. So long

-as you cherish it, you will prosper. But the least apparent slight to

-itself, it will revenge, and promptly. As for me, I have an

-indigestion of the world that I would cure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And with the words he too became an ancestor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then riches and bodily amplitude came to Adolphus Belmont, until the

-earth groaned under his importance. He was a spanker, and after him

-Richard Belmont was a spanker, and after him John Belmont was a very

-spanker of spanks, even at thirty-two, when he committed the last

-enormous indiscretion which brought him death and his fortunes almost

-ruin. For the outrage to the button had been so immeasurable that, not

-content with his obliteration, it must manœuvre likewise to scatter

-the accumulations of fortune, which it had brought him, by involving

-in a common ruin most of the concerns in which that fortune was

-invested, so that his widow found herself left, all in a moment, a

-comparatively poor woman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And here Mrs. John Belmont comes in.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She was a little woman, of piquancy and resource, and a very

-accomplished angler of men. She could count on her pink finger-tips

-the ten most killing baits for vanity. And, having once recovered the

-button, she set herself to conciliating it with a thousand pretty

-kisses and attentions. It lived between the bosom of her frock and the

-ruff of her dainty nightgown. Yet for a long time it sulked, refusing

-to be coaxed into better than a tacit staying of its devastating hand.

-And so matters stood when the Assembly ball was held.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Emma Belmont and Mrs. John Belmont lived in the same town,

-connexions, but apart. Their visits were visits of ceremony&mdash;and

-dislike. Miss Emma was Mr. John’s sister, and had always highly

-disapproved of his marriage with the “adventuress.” Her very name, she

-thought, bordered on an impropriety! How could any “Inez” dissociate

-herself from the tradition of cigarette-stained lips and white

-eyeballs travelling behind a fan like little moons of coquetry? This

-one, in fact, took no trouble to. Her reputation involved them in a

-common scandal; and it was solely on this account, I think, that she

-so resented her sister-in-law’s appropriation of the button. She

-herself was devoted to good works, and utterly content in her mission.

-She did not want the button; but, inasmuch as it was a Belmont

-heirloom, and Mrs. John childless, she chose to symbolize in it the

-bone of contention, and to use it as a convenient bar to amenities

-which would, otherwise, have seemed to argue in her a sympathy with a

-mode of life with which she could not too emphatically wish to

-disconnect herself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They met at the Assembly ball. Miss Belmont, though herself involved

-in the financial ebb, had considered it her duty to respect so

-respectable an occasion, and even to adorn it with a silk of such

-inflexibility that (I tremble as I write it) one could imagine her

-slipping out of it through a trap, like the vanishing lady, and

-leaving all standing. Presently Mrs. John Belmont, with a wicked look,

-floated up to her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>You</i> here, Inez!” exclaimed Miss Emma, affecting an amazement which,

-unhappily, she could not feel.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The other flirted and simpered. When she smiled, one could detect

-little threads drawn in the fine powder near the corners of her mouth.

-There was no ensign of widowhood about her. She ruffled with little

-gaudy downs and feathers, like a new-fledged bird of paradise.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, indeed,” she said. “And I’ve brought Captain Naylor, who’s been

-dining with me. Shall I introduce him to you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Belmont’s sense of decorum left her speechless.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Inez, on the contrary, rippled out the most china-tinkling laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You dear old thing,” she tittered. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew

-you’d be here to chaperon me, and&mdash;&mdash;” She came a step closer. “Yes,

-the button’s there, Emma. You may stare; but make up your mind, I’m

-not going to part with it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Belmont found herself, and responded quietly&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I hope not indeed, Inez. I don’t ask or expect you. You might

-multiply it to-night by a dozen, and only offend me less.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mrs. John laughed again, rather shrilly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, fie!” she said. “Why, even you haven’t a high-necked dress, you

-know.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And then a very black and red man, in a jam-pot collar and with a

-voice like a rook, came and claimed her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Haw, Mrs. Belmont! Aw&mdash;er, dance, I think.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Miss Belmont, to save appearances, rigidly sat out the evening. When

-at last she could endure no more, she had her fly called and prepared

-to go home. She was about to get into it, when she observed a familiar

-figure standing among the few midnight loafers who had gathered

-without the shadow of the porch.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hurley!” she exclaimed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The man, after a moment, slouched reluctantly forward, touching his

-hat. He had once been her most favoured protégé&mdash;a rogue and

-irreclaimable, whom she had persuaded, temporarily, from the devil’s

-service to her own. He had returned to his master, but with a

-reservation of respect for the practical Christian. Miss Belmont was

-orthodox, but she had a way with sinners. She pitied and fed and

-<i>trusted</i> them. She was a member of the Prisoners’ First Aid Society,

-with a reverence for the law and a weakness for the lawless. Her aim

-was to reconcile the two, to interpret, in a yearning charity, between

-the policeman and the criminal, who at least, in the result, made a

-common cause of honouring <i>her</i>. Inez asserted that, living, as she

-did, very nervously alone on the outskirts of the town, she had

-adopted this double method of propitiation for the sake of her own

-security. But, then, Inez had a forked tongue, which you would never

-have guessed from seeing the little scarlet tip of it caressing her

-lips.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Well, Miss Belmont had once coaxed Jim Hurley into being her handy

-man, foreseeing his redemption in an innocent association with flowers

-and the cult of the artless cabbage. He proved loyal to her, gained

-her confidence, knew all about the button and other matters of family

-moment. But the contiguity of the kitchen-garden with Squire

-Thorneycroft’s pheasant-coops was too much for hereditary

-proclivities. He stole eggs, sold them, was detected, prosecuted,

-sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and disappeared. Miss

-Belmont herself met him on his discharge from the jail gates, but he

-was not to be induced to return. The wild man was in his brain, and

-off he had gone, with Parthian shots of affection, in quest of fun.

-And for two years she had not seen him again until to-night, when his

-scratch of red hair and beard&mdash;which always looked as if he had just

-pulled his head out of a quickset&mdash;suddenly blew into flame before

-her. And then there followed a shock of distress.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jim! Why, what’s happened? What’s the matter with you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was no need to specify. The man was obviously going off his

-tramp&mdash;nearing the turn of the dark road. He was ghastly, and

-constantly gave little spasmodic wrenching coughs during the minute he

-stood beside her.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” he gasped, “I dunno. The rot has got into my stummick. I be

-all touchwood inside like an old ellum”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Will you come and see me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Es. By’m-by.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why not now? Where are you going to sleep?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He grinned, and coughed, half suffocated, as he backed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve got my plans, Missis. You&mdash;leave me alone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It did not sound gracious. One would not have guessed by it his

-design, which was nothing less than a jolly throw against the devil in

-the teeth of death. Miss Belmont, a little hurt, but more sad, got

-into her fly and was driven home. Arrived there, she sat up an hour

-contemplative. She was just preparing to go to bed in the grey dawn,

-when she heard the garden-gate click and footsteps rapidly traverse

-the path to the front door. Her heart seemed to stop. She stole

-trembling into the hall. “<i>Who’s there?</i>” she demanded in a quavering

-voice. The answer came, with a clearness which made her start, through

-the letter-box.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Me, Missis&mdash;Jim Hurley.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Amazed, and a little embarrassed, she opened. The man burst, almost

-fell in, and, staggering, recovered himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Ere!” he said, with eager manipulation trying to force something

-upon her. “I’ve done ’er! I’ve got it for yer! Take it&mdash;make

-’aste&mdash;they’re arter me. It’s yourn as by rights, and she’s got to

-crow on the wrong side of ’er woundy little mouth.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But Miss Belmont, with instinctive repulsion, had put her hands behind

-her back and retreated before him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jim!” she said sickly. “<i>What</i> have you got? What do you mean? I’ll

-take nothing from you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, go along!” he insisted. His cough was gone. He seemed animated

-with a new masterfulness. “Ain’t I in the know? It’s yourn, anyhow,

-and”&mdash;his eye closed in an ineffable rapture&mdash;“I done the devil out of

-his own when I heard I be booked to go to him. He’ll pay me, I reckon;

-but I don’t care. You take it. It’s your dooty as a good woman.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, no,” cried Miss Belmont, beating him away with her hands. “Don’t

-let me even see it to know. How could you suppose such a thing? Take

-it back while you’ve time.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-B’s 33 and 90 wore their list-footed boots; but Jim’s ear was a

-practised one. Swiftly summoned, they had raced on his tracks from the

-Assembly Rooms. He had known it, and had laboured merely to keep his

-start of them by three minutes&mdash;two&mdash;one. Now, while their sole was

-yet on the threshold, he darted into the dining-room and was under the

-table at a dive. They had him out and handcuffed, of course, in a

-jiffy; and then they stood to explain and expostulate.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, you ain’t a cheeked one neither, Hurley! To run up here of all

-places for cover! Don’t you mind him, Miss.” (She stood pale and

-shivering. “The shock!” she had murmured confusedly.) “Why,” said 33,

-“the man was heard by plenty proposing of hisself to visit you; and

-looked to your hold kindness to him to take and shelter, is supposed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She found voice to ask: “What’s he done?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Done!” said 33. “Why, bless you, Miss! Treating of you as if you was

-in collusion, ain’t I?” (She shivered.) “Why, he grabbed a jewel&mdash;a

-gold button, as I understand&mdash;out o’ the buzzim o’ your own late

-brother’s good lady as she was a-stepping into her broom, and bolted

-with it. It’ll be on ’im now if we’re lucky.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You ain’t then, old cock,” said Jim, with a little hoarse laugh and

-choke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Chuck it!” said 90, a saturnine man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s what I done, Kroojer,” said Jim. “You go and ’unt in the

-bloomin’ ’edges if you don’t believe me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It’s my duty to tell you,” said 33, “that whatever you says will be

-took down in evidence agen you.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not by you,” said Jim. “Why, you can’t spell.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They carried him off dispassionately, with some rough, kindly

-apologies to Miss Belmont for the trouble to which they had put her.

-She locked and bolted the door when they were gone; mechanically saw

-to the lamps, and went upstairs to bed in a sort of stunned dream. So

-she committed herself to the sheets, and so, in a sort of waking

-delirium, passed the remaining hours of slumber. She felt as if the

-even tenor of her way, her stream of placid days, had been suddenly

-dammed by a dead body, the self-destroyed corpse of her own character.

-Sometimes she would start from a suffering negation to feel B 90’s

-hand upon her shoulder. “What have I done&mdash;O! what have I done?” she

-would moan in anguish; and B 90 would glower from under his helmet

-like a passionless Rhadamanthus&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What have you done? What but, like our second Henry, meanly, by

-inference and innuendo, imposed upon your wretched tool the

-responsibility for a deed which you dared not seek to compass by the

-open processes of the law. Did you dispute the right ownership of the

-button? Then why choose for your confidant an ex-thief and poacher? No

-use to say you designed no harm. By the flower be known the seed. Come

-along o’ me!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-She rose late, ate no breakfast, and sat awaiting, pinched and grey,

-the inevitable ordeal. It opened, early enough, with the advent of

-Mrs. John. The little widow came sailing in, with a face of floured

-steel. When she saw, the edge of her tongue seemed to whet itself on

-her lips. Miss Emma broke out at once in an unendurable cry&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Inez! You can’t think I was a party to this!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Who said so, dear? Though the man was a protégé of yours, and was

-known to have remained where he encountered me by your instructions.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It is not true.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Isn’t it? Well, at least, the plan miscarried. Now, give me the

-button, and I promise, to the best of my power, to hush the matter

-up.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I haven’t got it, indeed; O, you must believe me! He told the

-policeman himself that he had thrown it away while escaping.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, yes. I give him credit for his loyalty to you. But, Emma&mdash;you

-know I never put much faith in your sanctimoniousness. Don’t be a

-fool, and drive me to extremities.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You can’t mean it. I blame my covetous heart. I envied you&mdash;I admit

-it&mdash;this dear fetish of our family. But to think me capable of such a

-wickedness! O, Inez!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then Mrs. John Belmont exploded. I muffle the report. It left Miss

-Belmont flaccid and invertebrate, weakly sobbing that she would see

-Hurley; would try to get him to identify the exact spot where he had

-parted with the bauble; would move heaven and earth to make her

-guiltless restitution. Yet all the time, remembering the scene of last

-night, she must have known her promise vain. Jim had sought to thrust

-no shadow of a fact upon her. He had not thrown the button away. He

-alone knew where it now was; but would he so far play into the hands

-of her enemy as to tell? She felt faint in the horror of this doubt;

-and Mrs. John perceived the horror.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As for her, she was utterly hateful and incredulous. She had friends,

-she screamed&mdash;one in particular&mdash;who would act, and unmercifully, to

-see her righted. She hardly refrained from striking her sister-in-law,

-as she rushed out in a storm of hysterics.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And at this point I was called in&mdash;by Miss Belmont, that is to say.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I found her utterly prostrated&mdash;within step of the brink of the final

-collapse.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I coaxed her back, foot by foot; won the whole truth from her; laughed

-her terrors to scorn, and staked her my professional credit to have

-the matter put right, or on the way to right, by our next meeting.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And I meant it, and was confident. For that very day&mdash;though of this

-she did not know&mdash;I had officially ordered Jim Hurley’s removal from

-the cell in which he had been lodged to the County Hospital. The man

-was dying, that was the fact; and a fact which he had known perfectly

-when he staked at one throw for an easy bed for himself, and a

-repayment of his debt to his old benefactress.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He was ensconced in a little ward by himself, when I visited him and

-sat down to my task. He cocked an eye at me from a red tangle, and

-grinned.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, Hurley,” I said, “I come straight from Miss Emma, by her

-authority, to acquaint you with the results of your deed.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” he answered. “Hev the peelers been a-dirtyin’ of their pore knees

-lookin’ for it in the ’edgerows? I ’opes as they found it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You know they couldn’t. You’ve got it yourself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“S’elp me, I haven’t!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Then I informed him, carefully and in detail, of the awful miscarriage

-of his intentions. He was patently dumbfounded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I’m blowed!” he whispered, quite amazed. “Well, I <i>am</i> blowed!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must undo this,” I said. “There’s only one way. Where <i>is</i> the

-button?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He gauged me profoundly a moment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“On a ledge under the table,” he said. Then he thrust out a claw.

-“Don’t you go lettin’ ’<i>er</i> ’ave it back,” he said, “or I’ll ’aunt

-you!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I considered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You must undo what you’ve done,” I repeated. “Don’t you see? Unless

-you can prove that it’s been in your possession all the time, <i>and is

-now</i>, her character’s gone for ever. Mrs. John will see to that.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He did not, professionally, lack wits. He understood perfectly.

-“You’re ’er friend?” he asked.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I nodded.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“All right,” he said, “you get ’old of it private, and smuggle of it

-’ere, and I’ll manage the rest.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But, my good fellow! You’ve been overhauled, I suppose, and pretty

-thoroughly. How can you convince&mdash;<i>convince</i>, you understand&mdash;that

-you’ve kept the thing snug through it all?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You go and smuggle of it ’ere,” he repeated doggedly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It needed only a very little manœuvring. I hurried back to Miss

-Belmont’s, heard the lady was still confined to her room, forbade the

-servant to report me, and claimed the privacy of the dining-room for

-the purpose of writing a prescription. The moment I was alone, I made

-an excited and perfectly undignified plunge under the table, found the

-ledge (the thing, in auctioneer’s parlance, was a “capital set,” in

-four leaves), and the button, which in a feverish ecstasy I pocketed.

-Then, very well satisfied, I hurried back to Mr. Hurley.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I found him, even in that short interval, changed for the worse; so

-much changed, that, in face of his condition, a certain sense of novel

-vigour, an overweening confidence in my own importance which had grown

-up, and lusty, in me during my return journey, seemed nothing less

-than an indecency. However, curiously enough, this mood began to ebb

-and sober from the very moment of my handing over the <i>pièce de

-conviction</i> to its purloiner. He “palmed” it professionally, cleared

-his throat, and took instant command of the occasion. “Now,” he said,

-“tell ’em I’ve confessed to you, and let ’em all come.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-His confidence mastered the depression which had overtaken me. I

-returned, with fair assurance, to Miss Belmont, who received my news

-with a perfect rapture of relief. What she had suffered, poor good

-woman, none but herself might know.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Did he own to you where he had hidden it?” she asked. And “Yes,” I

-could answer, perfectly truthfully.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-By my advice, she prepared at once to go and fetch her sister-in-law

-to the hospital&mdash;with a friend, if she desired it&mdash;that all might

-witness to the details of the restitution.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-In the meanwhile I myself paid a visit to the police station, and

-thence returned to my post to await the arrival of my company.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It came in about an hour: Miss Belmont, tearfully expectant; Mrs. John

-Belmont, shrill and incredulous; an immaculate tall gentleman, Captain

-Naylor by name, whose chin was propped on a very high collar, that he

-might perpetually sniff the incense of his own superiority; and,

-lastly, and officially to the occasion, B 90.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I lost no time in conducting them to the bedside of the patient. He

-had rallied wonderfully since our last encounter. He was sitting up

-against his pillow, his red hair fluffed out like the aureole of a

-dissipated angel, an expression on his face of a quite sanctimonious

-relish. I fancy he even winked at me.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, Hurley,” I said gravely, “as one on the threshold of the grave”

-(which, nevertheless, I had my doubts about), “speak out and tell the

-truth.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He cleared his throat, and started at once in a loud voice, as if

-repeating a lesson he had set himself&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Earing as ’ow my rash hact ’ave brought suspicion on a innercent

-lady, I ’ereby makes affirmation of the fac’s. I stole the button, and

-’id it in my boot, where it is now.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, it ain’t,” said B 90 suddenly. “Stow that.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Hurley smiled pityingly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, ain’t it, sir?” he said. “&hairsp;’Ow do you know?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Because I searched you myself,” said B 90 shortly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The patient, infinitely tolerant, waved his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’E searched me, ladies and gentlemen! Ho, lor! Look at ’im; I only

-arsks that&mdash;look at ’im! Why, he doesn’t even know as there’s a smut

-on his nose at this moment.” (B 90 hastily rubbed that organ, and

-remembering himself, lapsed into stolidity once more.) Mr. Hurley

-addressed him with exaggerated politeness&mdash;“<i>Would</i> you be so good,

-sir, as to go and fetch my boots?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-B 90 thought profoundly, and officially, a minute; wheeled suddenly,

-withdrew, and returned shortly with the articles, very massive and

-muddy, which he laid on the counterpane before the prisoner. The

-latter, cherishing the ineffable <i>dénouement</i>, deliberately took and

-examined the left one, paused a moment, smilingly canvassing his

-company, and then quickly, with an almost imperceptible wrench and

-twirl, had unscrewed the heel bodily from its place and held it out.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Ere!” he said; and, with his arm extended, sank back in an

-invertebrate ecstasy upon his pillow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The heel was pierced with a tiny compartment on its inner side, and

-within the aperture lay the button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-They all saw it, but not as I, who, standing as I did at the bed-head,

-and being something of an amateur conjurer myself, was conscious in a

-flash of the rascal “passing” the trinket into its receptacle even as

-he exposed it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There followed an exclamation or two, and silence. Then Captain Naylor

-said “Haw!” and Miss Belmont, with a gasp, turned a mild reproachful

-gaze upon her sister-in-law. But Mrs. John had not the grace to accept

-it. She gave a little vexed, covetous laugh, and stepped forward.

-“Well,” she said to Miss Emma, “you must go without it still, dear, it

-seems.” Then, coldly, to Hurley: “Give it me, please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, so far so good; and, though I was enraged with, I could not

-combat the decision. But truly I was not prepared for the upshot.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Jim, at Mrs. John’s first movement, had recovered possession of the

-button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No, you don’t!” he said quite savagely. “I know all about it, and

-’tain’t yourn by rights.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Jim, Jim,” cried Miss Belmont in great agitation; “it is hers,

-indeed; please give it up. You don’t think what you make me suffer!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-But the man was black with a lowering determination.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“&hairsp;’Tain’t,” he said. “Keep off, you! I’ve not thrown agen the devil for

-nothing. It’s goin’ to be Miss Emma’s or nobody’s.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not mine,” cried the poor lady again. “I don’t want it. Not for

-worlds. I wouldn’t take it now!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-And then Mrs. John Belmont, in one discordant explosion of fury, gave

-away her case for ever.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Insolent! Beyond endurance!” she shrieked, and whirled, with a

-flaming face, upon her cavalier.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Archibald! why do you stand grinning there? Why don’t you take it

-from him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Thus prompted, Archibald, in great confusion, uttered an inarticulate

-“Haw!” explained himself in a second and clearer one, and strode

-threateningly towards the bed. Watching, with glittering eyes, the

-advance, Jim, at the last moment, <i>whipped the button into his mouth

-and swallowed it!</i>

-</p>

-

-<p class="spacer">

-* * * * *

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The case, as a pathological no less than as a criminological

-curiosity, was unique. I will state a few particulars. The button

-lodged in the pancreas, in which it was presently detected,

-comfortably ensconced, by means of the Röntgen rays. And it is a fact

-that, from the moment it settled there&mdash;<i>never</i> apparently (I use the

-emphasis with a full sense of my responsibility) to be evicted&mdash;Mr.

-Hurley began to recover, and from recovering to thrive&mdash;on anything.

-Croton-oil&mdash;I give only one instance&mdash;was a very cream of nourishment

-to him. Galvanic batteries but shook him into the laughter which makes

-fat, but without stirring the button. It was ridiculous to suggest an

-operation, though the point was long considered. But in the meanwhile

-the button had continued piling up over itself such impenetrable

-defences of adipose tissue that its very locality had become

-conjectural. The question was dropped, only to give rise to another.

-How could one any longer detain this luxuriant man in hospital as an

-invalid? He was removed, therefore, beaming, to the police court;

-received, for some inexplicable reason, a nominal sentence, dating

-from the time of his arrest (everything, in fact, was henceforward to

-prosper with him), and trundled himself out into the world, where he

-disappeared. I have seen him occasionally since at years-long

-intervals. He grows ever more sleek and portly, till the shadows of

-the three dead Belmonts together would not suffice to make him a pair

-of breeches. He has a colossal fortune; he is respectable, and, of

-course, respected&mdash;a genial monster of benevolence; and he never fails

-to remind me, when we meet, of the time when I could pronounce his

-life not worth a button.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-I have, can only have, one theory. The button, after many cross

-adventures, “got home” at last&mdash;fatally for Mrs. John Belmont, who

-fell into a vicious decline upon its loss, and, tenderly nursed by her

-sister-in-law, departed this sphere in an uncertain year of her life.

-And, unless the button itself comes to dissolve, Jim, I fear, is

-immortal.

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch21">

-DOG TRUST

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<span class="sc">There</span> was no reason why Richard Le Shore should not have made a

-straightforward appeal for the hand of Miss Molly Tregarthen to her

-papa. His credentials&mdash;of fortune, condition, and character&mdash;were

-unexceptionable; the girl’s kind inclinations were confessed; the

-father himself was an unexacting, indulgent, and ease-loving

-Democritus. It was but a question of those two and of Mr. Dicky, their

-favoured, their intimately favoured, guest.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-There was no reason, and for the reason that the spirit of Romance

-abhors reason; and that was why, without any reason, Richard persuaded

-Mollinda to a clandestine engagement, to stolen interviews, to a

-belief that love franked by authority was only the skim-milk of human

-kindness. At least he chose to persuade himself that he persuaded her,

-at all times when he could coax a certain bewildered honesty in her

-eyes from dumbly questioning the necessity of such tactics. In reality

-he loved that look, as the sweetest earnest of a sweet quality. It was

-not her he studied to deceive, but himself. Incurably eligible, he

-could never taste but through make-believe, like the “Marchioness,”

-the sweet stimulant of paternal interdiction.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-At the end of the season he accompanied father and child to

-“Tregarthen.” Here, you may be sure, he had not been twenty-four hours

-without making choice for his love’s rendezvous of a little wood

-which, approached through a tangled shrubbery, covered the slopes

-which ran up from the back of the house to the high beeches above.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now Dicky would himself have allowed that everything (desirable) had

-shone upon his suit save moonlight. That only, of all poetic glamours,

-was yet lacking. And so he prevailed with Molly Tregarthen to consent

-to a postprandial trysting among the trees, on the very evening

-subsequent to that of his arrival.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had no difficulty in escaping from papa, the imperturbable

-sybarite. Seated in an open window over against shrouded lawns, and a

-moon which rose like a bubble in liquid darkness; dreaming betwixt

-decanter and cigar-case, papa would not have had his luminous coma

-disturbed for anything less than a serious fire. So Dicky left him,

-and going up alone to the woods, leaned his back against a tree and

-smoked placidly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was very quiet, and fragrant, and beautiful there; and presently

-the young gentleman lost himself somewhat in reflections. The

-moonlight, penetrating the leaves, made of the sward a ghostly Tom

-Tiddler’s Ground, which was all mottled with disks of faint gold. What

-a soft, fine shower to fall upon the head of his Danae, as she should

-come stealing up the alleys of light! Stealing&mdash;stealing! There was a

-little thrill of ecstasy in the word. How wide her eyes would be, and

-how would her bosom rise and fall in the breathlessness of some

-phantom guilt!

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Quite a nice little debauch of expectation, only&mdash;she did not come. He

-waited on, desirous, impatient, hungry; and at last, it must be said,

-cross. The touch of her hand, her lips, had never seemed so

-indispensable to him; but he would not cheapen the virtues of his own

-by carrying them back to market to a coquette. If she wanted them, she

-knew where to find them. As for him, he was quite placid and content;

-in proof of which he threw away his cigar-butt, and began pacing with

-a noisy recklessness up and down.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-That did not conjure her to him, but it seemed to evoke occasional

-responsive rustlings, or the fancy of them, which would bring his

-heart into his throat. They were only the stirring of woodland things,

-it seemed. He got very angry, resentful, cruel in his thoughts. The

-moon, the bubble of light, rose higher and higher&mdash;to the very surface

-of night, where it floated a little, and then burst. At least, so it

-seemed; for, all of a sudden, where it had been was a black cloud, and

-drops began to patter on the leaves. Then Richard realized all in a

-moment that his tryst had failed, that the moonlight was quenched, and

-that it was beginning to rain. With a naughty word or two, he braced

-up his loins, left the wood, and descended towards the house.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he went down, he heard the stable clock strike twelve. He startled,

-and strode faster, faster, until he was fairly scuttling. It was in

-vain. The Tregarthens were early people, and, even before he reached

-the house, he knew that its every window was blind and black. The

-whole family was abed, and he was shut out into the night.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Twice, and vainly, he made the entire round of the building, seeking

-for any loophole to enter by. The rain by then was pelting, yet he did

-not dare raise a clatter on the front door, for fear he should be

-pistolled from a window. The inmates knew nothing of his absence, and

-the Squire held, for a Democritus, strong views on the subject of

-undisturbed repose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Coming to the porch again from his second circuit, and putting a hand

-to rest upon one of its columns, he jumped, as if he had touched a

-charged battery, to see a figure standing motionless in the shadow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Hullo!” he gasped, in the sudden shock; then rallying, muttered out

-in a fury at his own weakness, “Who the devil are you?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Some faint gleam of moonshine, weltering through the flood,

-enlightened him even as he spoke.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why, if it ain’t the butler!” he said.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It was the butler. The figure admitted it in a curt word. Le Shore had

-already, on the occasions of his two dinners at “Tregarthen,” noticed

-this man, and had taken a quite violent exception in his own

-conscience to his manner and appearance. He thought he had never known

-a leading trust bestowed upon one whose face so expressed the very

-moral of acquisitiveness, whose conduct was marked by such an uncouth

-inurbanity. Here, if there was any value in biology, was Bill Sikes in

-broadcloth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The tone of the fellow’s answer grated confoundedly on him&mdash;he hardly

-knew why.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Are you locked out, like me?” he said, putting violence on himself to

-speak civilly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but for a better reason.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you mean by that?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The creature was as thick-set as a bull. He could have broken this

-elegant like a stick across his knee. He commanded the situation,

-massive and impassive, from his own standpoint.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Look’ee here, sir,” he said, speaking through a grip of little strong

-teeth in a square jaw, “I’m going to tell you what I mean. I’m going

-to make no bones about it. You meet Miss Molly fair and open, or you

-don’t meet her at all. Do I know what I’m saying? Yes, I do know. She

-didn’t come to you to-night&mdash;because why? Because <i>I</i> interdicted of

-her. That’s it. She might have thought better&mdash;or worse&mdash;of it, bein’

-a woman, and soft; and that’s why I laid by, watchin’ that no harm

-should come of it if she did. But she was wise, and didn’t. I seen you

-all the time in the wood, and I tell you this. A word’s got to be

-enough. You meet her by fair means, or not at all. Never mind the

-Squire there. It’s me that says it. If she admires you, nine stun

-ten&mdash;which there’s no accounting for tastes&mdash;I’m not the one to make

-difficulties. But you go like a honest man and ask her straight of her

-father. That’s the ticket, and don’t you make no error. Don’t you

-flatter your fancy no more with randy-voos in the moonshine. Why, if

-ever there’s a light calc’lated to lead a gentleman astray, it’s that.

-I say it, and I know. You go to the girl’s father; and, after, we’ll

-see what we’ll see.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He cleared his throat with a quarrelling sound, and came out of the

-shadow.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now,” said he, “here’s a house you’ve been locked out of, and you

-want to get in without disturbin’ of the family&mdash;is that it? Very

-well, sir; now we understand everything; and step this way, if <i>you</i>

-please.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Almost with the words, he had clawed himself up to a window-sill of

-the ground-floor, and was very softly manipulating the sash. Mr. Le

-Shore, voiceless, hardly gasping, stood, just conscious of himself, in

-an absolute rigor of fury and astonishment. He was “stound,” as

-Spenser would have put it. Presently he snapped his eyelids, and woke

-aware that Mr. Hissey, standing on the grass, was loweringly inviting

-him to enter by way of an opened window. With a shock, he recovered

-his nerves of motion, and, stalking to the place, vaulted stiffly to

-the sill, and sat thereon like a cavalryman.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’ve just a word or two for you, before I&mdash;I avail myself of this,”

-he said. “You’ve been gadding, and got drunk, I suppose; and this is

-your way of trying to make capital of a belated guest. Perhaps the

-means you’ve adopted ’ll appear less excellent to you in the sober

-morning. As to your method of entry, there’s nothing in it

-incompatible with the character I’d already formed of you. But that,

-and your quite outrageous insolence, will be made matters for your

-master’s consideration to-morrow. I mention this in honour, before

-I&mdash;&mdash;” He waved his hand towards the room.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I could twist your neck with two fingers, here and now,” said the

-man.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Exactly,” said Dicky. “And that’s why I decline to make use of this

-window except on the plain understanding.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The butler cleared his throat again, even with a strange note of

-approval in the unseemly sound.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mayhap you’ll do,” he said. “Now go to bed, and don’t forgit your

-prayers in your disappyntment.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Le Shore hissed-in a breath, as though the rain had suddenly

-become boiling spray, then tiptoed rigidly to his room.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-The opening of the window, framed with creepers, whose shadows shrank

-or dilated softly in the muslin curtains, gave on to a soothful

-picture of lawn and herbaceous border which, withdrawing to cool

-caverns of leafiness under a remote cedar tree, seemed to gather

-themselves to a head of prettiest expression in the person of little

-Miss Mollinda swinging there in a hammock. Within, at the

-luncheon-table, Tregarthen poured himself out a glass of Madeira with

-a hand so limp and white in appearance that one would have thought it

-incapable of the task of poising the heavy decanter. Here was delicate

-seeming only, however. The perpetual sybarite reads an incorruptible

-constitution. The white hand held the bottle horizontal, as steady as

-a rock, during the minute the indolent, good-humoured eyes of its

-owner were directed to those of his visitor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My dear good Richard, the man <i>is</i> a burglar.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He laughed at the other’s expression, filled his glass, sipped at it,

-and, hooking his thumbs in his arm-holes, lolled back in his chair.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I am not justified in the confidence, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyhow,

-it is the short way out of a fatiguing explanation. The man <i>is</i> a

-burglar&mdash;not figuratively, but actually, by breeding, education,

-profession&mdash;<i>appelez-le comme vous voudrez</i>. He has the stamp of it so

-distinctly on him that one need not ask him to produce his skeleton

-key.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then I have nothing more to say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! the devil take the honest thief! Your obvious grievance forces me

-to the explanation, after all. My dear boy, I imply nothing, argue

-from no premises but such as a long experience of this capital,

-troublesome fellow suggest to me. Speaking from these (I may be

-wrong), I should conclude that he is somehow in process of

-safeguarding, as he thinks, the interests of my girl, to whom he is

-quite romantically attached. Honestly, I don’t know to whom I would

-rather commit them. Poor motherless child!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He had, it seemed, no thought of himself as pledged to the task.

-‘Himself’ should be a fair one-man’s burden.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He is very right to be attached to Miss Tregarthen,” muttered Le

-Shore dryly, and a little sullenly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He is very right indeed,” answered his host; “righter (pardon the

-solecism) than you might think. In this excellent rogue is provided

-such an illustration of the ‘harmony not understood’ of discords, as

-circumstance has ever given to an <i>ennuyé</i> world. The dear creature

-has decided to stultify his every instinct for a sentiment. It is the

-most interesting psychological phenomenon you can imagine. He has

-conceded nothing of his nature but the means to its practical

-achievement. Conceive a wolf of his own determination forgoing blood.

-Such is this dear, admirable brute. <i>Perfossor parietum nascitur.</i> He

-cannot change his spots. To this day, I think, he will always of

-choice enter by a window rather than a door; to this day he regards

-plate with a most <i>melting</i> look. But for all that, I think I may

-swear that at the present moment the tally of my spoons is to an ounce

-what it was when he took service with me eighteen years ago.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Your servant for eighteen years!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My servant&mdash;titularly: in reality, my mentor, my vizier. Dog Trust is

-a rather sweetly demoralizing acquisition. He takes the burden of

-conscience from one&mdash;steals it, in this case, I may say. But then,

-after all, he may use his vicegerency to ends so far beyond the moral

-grasp of the master he represents, as more than to vindicate that

-master in his withdrawal from the vexatious problems of duty. Through

-sheer force of affection this admirable George has mastered himself,

-and bettered his master in the parental ethics.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Indeed, sir?” (Mr. Dicky spoke very dryly.) “And how does Miss

-Tregarthen approve the viziership?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As she loves and respects the vizier, Richard. I do not think she

-would willingly run counter to his dictates, which, by the way, he

-never imposes in a manner to alarm one’s pride. Ah! did you catch that

-whiff of scabious? There is a bush of it under the window there. It

-always seems to me to embody in itself the whole warmth and fragrance

-of summer. My dear fellow, your eyes are relentless inquisitors. No

-more wine? Well, I suppose I shall have to tell you how it came

-about.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He sighed, drained his glass, laughed slightly, and smoothed a stray

-wisp of hair from his forehead.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Once,” he said&mdash;“it was particularly disagreeable to a person of my

-temperament&mdash;I was called upon by Fate to suffer the ugly and sordid

-experience of a conflagration in my house. You, who are also a little

-inclined, I believe, to create for yourself an atmosphere of romance,

-to regard the great world only as a quarry, from which to gather

-materials most exquisite and most apt to the enrichment of the

-hermitage, which it is your design and your delight to build apart for

-your soul, will appreciate what were my feelings upon seeing my fairy

-fabric doomed to destruction, to positive annihilation, by the flames.

-I have never spoken to you of the disaster before. You will know that

-I do so now under the mere stress of fitness, as a means to your

-proper understanding of George Hissey’s conduct. The recollection is

-painful and horrible to a degree.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The alarm, the escape, the catastrophe were all accomplished in the

-dark hours of a winter’s morning. My dear wife (she sleeps, awaiting

-my coming, in Elysium) followed me down the stairs and out of the

-house at a short interval. She found me devoted to a frantic endeavour

-to secure from destruction such of my poor treasures as were

-accessible&mdash;few enough, alas! though the tears I shed should have

-quenched the hate of a Hecla. What had I done with her child? she

-cried to me&mdash;with our sweet Molly, our little three-year-old babe?

-Richard, I felt as stunned as if she, the pretty, gentle mother, had

-struck me across the mouth. I could only stare and gasp. She uttered a

-heart-shaking scream, and turned to where the servants stood huddled

-together in the garden. They were all there, and the two nurses were

-crying and moaning and accusing one another. My God! mad with terror,

-they had deserted their charge to perish by itself in the burning

-house!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He paused. “Don’t go on, sir, if it distresses you,” said Le Shore

-quietly.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” answered Tregarthen. “Like the Ancient Mariner, I must be quit

-of it now I have begun. But I will have a glass of wine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He poured himself out one, daintily as to the drop on the decanter

-lip.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“There followed a fearful scene,” he said. “It was all I could do to

-prevent my angel from precipitating herself through the blazing

-doorway. The whole building seemed by now a furnace&mdash;no possibility of

-further salvage from those priceless accumulations&mdash;not, of course,

-that at such a pass it was to be thought of. I mingled my tears with

-my wife’s. I offered half my fortune to any one of the crowd who would

-save, and a large reward to any one who would venture to save, our

-darling. But it was in vain; and in my heart I knew it.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, in this extremity of despair, a sudden roar went up from a

-hundred throats, and passed on the instant. Richard, a man, shedding

-flakes of fire as Venus cast her birth-slough of spray, had emerged

-overhead from the sea of flame, and in his arms was our child. Who was

-he? Whence did he come? No one knew. Our house was isolated. The

-engine from the neighbouring town had not arrived. He was not a

-friend, nor a neighbour, nor an employé. It was only evident that

-innocence had somehow evolved its champion.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We watched, stricken, as castaways watch the glimmer of a remote

-sail. The figure had broken its way through the skylight in the roof,

-only, it might be, to symbolize in the burden it bore the leaping of a

-little flame heavenward. The situation was the very sublimity of

-tragedy. Beneath those two the roof, sown with a very garden of fire,

-dropped at a sickening angle.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Suddenly, shutting, as it seemed, upon his charge, the man rolled

-himself up like a hedgehog, and came bowling down the slope. It was a

-terrible and gasping moment. His body, as it whirled, reeled out a

-hiss of sparks. The next instant it had bounded over the edge, and

-plunged among the smoking bushes beneath.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They broke his fall; but it was the verandah awning which in the

-first instance saved his life&mdash;his, and our dear devoted cherub’s. But

-he had never once, through all the stunning vertigo of his descent,

-failed to shield the little body which his own enwrapped.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Now, my dear Richard, comes the strange part. When I was sufficiently

-recovered to seek our preserver, I found him sitting handcuffed, in

-charge of the local policeman. He was very white, with two or three

-ribs broken; but he took it all unconcerned, as being in the day’s, or

-the night’s, business. Who was he? Well, here is the explanation. He

-was a renowned cracksman, as I think they call it, who had been

-operating in the neighbourhood for some weeks past&mdash;the hero of many a

-shuddering midnight adventure. Without doubt he had taken his toll of

-<i>my</i> ‘crib,’ had not circumstance dropped him ripe into the gaping

-mouth of the law. He had entered, and was actually at work, when fire

-cut the ground, as it were, from under his feet. Almost before,

-intensely occupied, he realized his position, escape by the lower

-rooms was debarred him. Was ever situation so dramatic? It was to be

-compared only with that of a huntsman who, entering some cave to steal

-bear cubs, turns to find the dam blocking his outlet. Still, Mr.

-Hissey <i>might</i> have escaped, and without detection, by dropping to the

-lawn from a back window, had his burglarious ears not pricked suddenly

-to the wailing of a child.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“My dear fellow, need I explain further? The child he risked his own

-life to rescue was our&mdash;I may almost say, at this day, was <i>his</i>

-Molly. It was the strangest thing. I did not, as a consequence, quite

-see my way to holding him altogether absolved; but my dear, emotional

-partner was of a different opinion. We had quite a little scene about

-it. In the end she prevailed&mdash;with the whole boiling of the law, too;

-and the man was sentenced to come up for judgment if called upon. Then

-straightway, and by his own desire, she took the disinfected burglar

-into her service. It was one of those daring psychologic essays which

-may once and again be carried to a successful issue through the

-white-hot faith of the experimenter; but which must not be given

-authority as a precedent. My wife fairly redeemed this burglar, by

-committing, without hesitation, to his loyal trust the little waif of

-fire whose destinies he had earned the right to a voice in. From that

-day to this, I will say, he has never abused the faith we reposed in

-him. On her deathbed, my dear girl (pardon me a moment, Le Shore), my

-dear wife most solemnly recommitted her child to his care. I did not

-complain, I do not complain now. I, who make no pretence of competence

-in the paternal rôle, thank the gods only for my vizier, who is quite

-willing to accord me the ritual of authority, while taking its

-practical business on his own shoulders. With a man of my temperament

-it works; and I am satisfied, if Molly gives me her respect, that she

-should give Hissey her duty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He ceased, with a little smiling sigh, and lifted a cigarette from a

-silver case which lay on the table. Le Shore regarded him steadily.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, “Molly and I are engaged. I should have

-told you before.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The older man did not pause in the act of lighting his cigarette; but

-enjoyed an inhalation of smoke before he answered&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I plead guilty to a suspicion, Richard. I am confident our vizier has

-been safeguarding the proprieties. You remember what I said to you in

-his excuse just now?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I have your sanction, sir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Certainly, as a form. But I am afraid, from the practical side, you

-will have to satisfy that same inquisitor.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-“Mr. George Hissey,” said Dicky, “I have papa’s authority to marry

-Miss Molly. Now, with your permission, I will relieve you of your

-trust.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Dicky!” cried the girl reproachfully; and she put her kind young arms

-round the ex-burglar’s neck.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Unless,” said Le Shore, “you care to transfer that to my ‘crib,’ Mr.

-Hissey.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The butler cleared his throat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I do care, sir,” he said, hoarsely, nevertheless, “since you

-seen fit to cut that moonshinin’ lay, And as to cribs&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Molly” said Richard, “there’s papa calling.”

-</p>

-

-

-<h3 id="ch22">

-A MARTYR TO CONSCIENCE

-</h3>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-“<span class="sc">I have</span> nothing to do with your scruples,” said the magistrate; “the

-law is the law, and I am here to administer it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley licked his hand, and stolidly smoothing down his black

-hair with it, answered, as if at a distance, being a well-fed,

-unctuous man, “too full for sound and foam,” “I’m a conscientious

-objector.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Passive resister!” corrected a friend, a little eager man, among the

-audience near him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Eh?” said Mr. Plumley immovably, and without a glance in the

-direction of the voice, “I said passive resister, didn’t I?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Whether you said it or not,” answered the magistrate sharply, “you

-look it. I make an order against you for the amount.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As man to man&mdash;&mdash;” began Mr. Plumley.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not in the least,” said the magistrate; “as debtor to creditor. Stand

-down.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I shan’t pay it,” said Mr. Plumley, preparing to obey.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“If you say another word, I’ll commit you for contempt,” said the

-magistrate. “Stand down, sir!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley stood down, with an unspeakable expression&mdash;it might have

-been of satisfaction&mdash;on his huge, stolid face. Arrived at the floor,

-he beckoned his little friend to follow him, and heavily left the

-court.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He steered&mdash;the other acting as his rudder, as it were, and keeping

-his position behind&mdash;straight for his own domestic shrine, hight

-Primrose Villa, semi-detached. It was a beautiful little home for a

-widower unencumbered, calculated, like an india-rubber collar, to

-afford the maximum of display at a minimum of cost in washing. The

-doorsteps were laid with a flaming pattern in tiles; red-aspinalled

-flower pots, embellished with little dull glazed shrubs, stood on the

-lowest window-sill; the bell-knob was of handsome porcelain, painted

-with the gaudiest flowers in miniature. Within, too, it was all

-furnished on a like hard principle of lustre&mdash;red and yellow oilcloth

-in the hall, with marbled paper to match; earthenware-panned mahogany

-hat-rack and umbrella-stand combined, as red as rhubarb, and as acrid

-in suggestion to one’s feelings; more oilcloth in the parlour; more

-mahogany, also, with a pert disposition in its doors and drawers to

-resent being shut up; glass bead mats and charity bazaar photograph

-frames on the whatnots, all so clean and pungent with sharp furniture

-stain that the rudder&mdash;Gardener by name&mdash;felt, as usual, the necessity

-of a humble apology for bringing his five feet four of shabbiness into

-the midst of so much splendour and selectness.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley rumbled condescendingly in reply&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’d get used to it, Robert, you’d get used to it, if you’d lived

-familiar with it all your life, as I have.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah!” said Gardener, “but I wasn’t born like you, sir, to shine.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-If he meant that the other was a light in his way&mdash;a little tallowy,

-perhaps&mdash;his own dry, hungry cheeks certainly justified him in the

-self-depreciation. They justified him, moreover&mdash;or he fancied they

-did, which was all the same as to the moral&mdash;in continuing to act

-jackal to this social lion, who had once been his employer in the

-cheap furniture-removal line. He lived&mdash;hung, it would seem more

-apposite to say&mdash;on his traditions of the great man’s business

-capacities, capacities whose fruits were here to witness, for evidence

-of the competence upon which his principal had retired. He got, in

-fact, little else than his traditions out of his former master at this

-date; yet it was strange how they served to delude him into a belief

-in his continued profit at the hands of the old patronage. The moral

-benefit he acquired from stealing into the local chapel to hear Mr.

-Plumley take a Sunday-school class, was at least worth as much to him

-as the occasional pipe of tobacco, or glass of whisky and water, which

-his idol vouchsafed him. For Mr. Gardener, as a true ‘poor relation’

-of the gods, was humbly thankful for their cheapest condescensions.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You stuck to your principles, sir,” he said, standing on one leg and

-the toe of the other, in humble deprecation of his right to any but

-the smallest possible allowance of oilcloth. Perhaps he would have

-brought his foot down, even he, could he have guessed the true

-significance of his own remark.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I did, Robert,” said Mr. Plumley, placidly sleeking his hair. “I

-always do. Have a pipe, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the man. “That was a mistake you made,

-sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Mistakes,” said Mr. Plumley, “will occur. Have some whisky, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re very good, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You don’t like it too strong, I think, Robert? And how’s the world

-treating you, my friend?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Much as usual, sir. From hand to mouth’s my motto.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Sad, sad to be sure. They’ll distrain upon me, I suppose.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I’m afraid so, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The inhumanity of the world, Robert! You do pretty reg’lar porter’s

-work for Bull and Hacker, the auctioneers, don’t you, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“That’s so, Mr. Plumley,” said the man, wondering. “But the work’s

-heavier than the wages.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“They’ll be commissioned to seize the necessary goods. I wish you’d

-manage to give ’em a hint, Robert&mdash;over the left, you know, without

-any reference to me&mdash;that there’s a picture I prize (and that I’ve

-reason to believe a dealer is after), what would more than pay the two

-pun odd of the distraint if put up first. O’ course, I can’t appear to

-favour the matter myself, being a con&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Passive resister, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Thank you, Robert; being the one most concerned in disputin’ the

-justice of the law. But a hint from you might settle the question at

-once. We aren’t very good friends, Bull and me; and, if he thought I

-prized the article, he’d be moral sure to seize it, slap away, to

-spite me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The picter?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The picture, Robert. There it is.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It hung in an obscure corner, a dingy enough article, in an old

-damaged frame.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It don’t look the price,” said Gardener doubtfully.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It cost me more in a bad debt,” said the ex-remover, busying himself

-with the whisky in his heavy, observant way.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Very like, sir,” answered the other, and coughed behind his hand.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I know what you mean,” said his patron; “that I was took in. Well,

-I’ve reason to think not, my man. I’ve reason to think that picture’s

-worth a deal&mdash;say, fifty pun. Anyhow, I mean to try.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“A dealer’s after it, you say?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, I do say.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Then why&mdash;with deference, sir&mdash;don’t you sell direct to him?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Why don’t I? Am I a man of business, Robert? Look about you. Have I

-learned, do you think, to take a hexpert’s word as to the precise

-vally of a article that I see his heye’s on, or to argy by induction

-that a good private offer means a better public one? When it comes to

-overreaching&mdash;hem!&mdash;a connoyser’s a man like myself; so we’ll just, by

-your leave, put the picture up to auction.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He carried the decanter back to its place in one of the shiny

-cupboards.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Besides, my friend,” said he, talking over his shoulder, “don’t you

-see as how my conscience demands this seizure?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not quite, sir, <i>with</i> humility, if so be as&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’re dense, Robert. Look here, I’m a conscientious resister, ain’t

-I? Law ain’t necessarily equity because the devil and Mr. Chamberlain

-frames it. There’s some lawgivers that are Vicars of Jehovah, and some

-of&mdash;&mdash;but perhaps you’ve never heard of Abaddon?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“<i>Haven’t</i> I?” said Mr. Gardener ruefully. “I was near run in once for

-tendering one as had been passed on me.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“He was king of the bottomless pit,” said Mr. Plumley patiently. “<i>He</i>

-framed this here law what’s made a passive objector of me. Well, if,

-in resigning myself to his unjust processes, I force the

-picture-dealer’s hand, thereby making a profit elsewise denied me,

-don’t you see how I round on the law&mdash;triumph over it&mdash;kill two birds

-with one stone, as it might be?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Yes, sir; I see that,” said Mr. Gardener, though still doubtfully.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You do, do you?” responded the other. “Well, then, the only thing is

-to make the law pay as heavy as possible by getting the picture run up

-to the dealer’s figure.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But the law wouldn’t go for more’n its two pun odd,” protested the

-jackal.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, you fool!” snarled the lion. “It’s the moral profit’s the game,

-don’t you see? <i>I</i> gain by the very hact what starts of itself to ruin

-me. It’s as plain as two pins.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Gardener scratched his head, and broke into a short laugh.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bless you sir,” said he, “it’s clear enough; if on’y you’ll tell me

-who in all this here place is a-going to run up the dealer, since you

-can’t yourself.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley, bending at the cupboard, did not answer for a moment.

-When at last he did, rising and facing round, there was a curious

-pallor on his lips, and he had to clear his throat before he could

-articulate&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You, Robert.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Me, sir! You’re joking.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Never less so, Robert.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I ain’t worth a sixpence in the world, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The ex-remover walked shakily across, and put a flabby, insinuative

-hand on the other’s shoulder.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I think I may say I’ve been a good friend to you, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Gardener muttered an uneasy affirmative.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To justify a great principle, Robert? It’s a mere matter of form;

-its&mdash;&mdash;humph! A moment, if you please. Think of it while I’m gone.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A rap at the front door had obtruded itself. Mr. Plumley tiptoed

-elephantinely out, was heard murmuring a few minutes in the hall, and

-returned shortly in a state of suavely perspiring mystery.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It’s the dealer himself, Robert,” he whispered, his little eyes

-twinkling. “He’s come to make another attempt. I’ll humour him&mdash;humour

-him, never fear. Now, you must be quick. Will you do this little thing

-to oblige me?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Supposing I were let in, sir?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley coughed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I guarantee you, of course. It’s just a confidence between us. Go to

-fifty pound&mdash;not a penny less nor more&mdash;and let him take it at any

-figure he likes, beyond. He won’t fail you. You’ll do it, Robert?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I don’t favour the job, sir.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“But you’ll do it?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, yes, then.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley showed him out, returned to the parlour, finished his

-whisky and water, and called in the dealer from some hidden corner of

-the hall where he had lain concealed. He had braced his nerves in the

-interval. His attitude all at once was scowling and truculent&mdash;meet

-for the reception of the shabby loafer who now presented himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What are you grinning at, sir?” he roared. “This ain’t the face to

-bring to business.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O! isn’t it?” said the man. “Then I’ll change it&mdash;&mdash;” which he did,

-so suddenly and terrifically that the other cowered. The stranger

-snorted, and relaxed.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What now, minion?” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Bah!” snarled Mr. Plumley: “it comes easy to a barnstormer.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Roscius, ye fat old Philistine,” cried the actor, striking his breast

-with a ragged-gloved hand: “Roscius, thou ‘villainous, obscene, greasy

-tallow-ketch!’&hairsp;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well,” said Mr. Plumley, wiping his brow, “I meant no offence,

-anyhow. Have a drink?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The stranger breathed heavily, and assumed a Napoleonic pose.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I will have a drink,” he said; and, in fact, before he would

-condescend to utter another word, he had two.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ha!” he said then, ejaculating a little spirituous cloud, and his

-lean, pantomimic face was all at once benign. “Richard’s himself

-again, and eager for the fray! To the charge, my passive resister, my

-heavy lead! Ye need Theophilus Bolton! Ye must pay!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to that there,” began Mr. Plumley, stuttering and glowering; but

-the other took him up coolly&mdash;&mdash;

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“As to that, dear boy, there’s no question. You’ve withheld me from a

-profitable engagement&mdash;&mdash;”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, blow profitable!” interposed Mr. Plumley. “And you didn’t jump at

-the chanst neither!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“To play a part for you,” went on the actor unruffled “Well, am I to

-be Agnew, or Christie, or Sotheby, or who? My commission’s five per

-cent.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I don’t object to that,” said Plumley, relieved. “On the vally

-of the picture to Gardener, that’s to say. Call it done, and call

-yourself what you like.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“One man in his time plays many parts,” murmured Mr. Bolton. “Put it

-on paper, dear boy. I have a weakness for testaments.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley protested; the actor whistled. In the end, the latter

-pocketed a document to the effect that Joshua Plumley agreed to pay

-Theophilus Bolton a sum to be calculated at the rate of five per cent

-on the ultimate selling price at auction (on a date hereafter to be

-filled in) of a picture known as the “The Wood Shop.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’ll be close?” said Mr. Plumley uneasily. “It might&mdash;it might

-injure me, you know, if it got about. Short o’ fifty pound’s the

-figger&mdash;you understand? Let Gardener secure it at that. I’ve my

-reasons. You come to me quick and quiet after the sale, and you shall

-have your two pound ten on the nail, and slip off with it as private

-as you wish.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Now, what was Plumley’s little game? And wasn’t he anyhow a good man

-of business?

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-He was at least such a sure student of human nature as to have made no

-miscalculation in the matter of Bull and Hacker’s predilections. They

-seized, on the strength of Mr. Gardener’s artful insinuations, the

-very picture on which the defaulter was supposed to set a value, and

-put it up to sale one afternoon on the tail of a general auction. Mr.

-Gardener bid for it (the practice was common enough amongst the firm’s

-employés, acting for private clients, and Bull rather admired the

-man’s astuteness in having suggested a seizure so prospectively

-profitable to himself), and a strange dealer opposed him. They ran one

-another up merrily, and the room gaped and sniggered and whispered. It

-was an afternoon of surprises.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-six,” cried the auctioneer&mdash;“any advance on forty-six?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A local lawyer, Bittern by name, was observed pushing his way through

-the crowd.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Good Lord!” he was muttering; “is the man daft!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-seven,” said the dealer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-eight,” bawled Gardener.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Forty-nine,” said the dealer monotonously.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Fifty!” cried Gardener stoutly; and hung on the bid which was to quit

-and relieve him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-It did not come.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The auctioneer raised his stereotyped wail: It was giving the lot

-away; a chance like that might never occur again; let him say

-fifty-one. “Come, gentlemen! Shall I say fifty-one? No?” He would sell

-at fifty, then&mdash;sell this unique work at the low figure of fifty

-pounds. “Any advance on fifty pounds?” He raised his hammer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not for me,” said the dealer, turning away. “Let him have it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Down came the hammer. “Gardener: fifty pounds,” murmured Mr. Bull,

-with a very satisfied face. The purchaser stood stupefied.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Two flurried gentlemen at this moment entered the room. They seemed

-more rivals than friends, and each shouldered the other rather rudely.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Too late, by gosh!” growled one.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Not a bit,” said the second, pushing past. “We’ll get the vendee to

-put it up again. I dare say he’ll do it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Here!” cried the first, grasping at the other’s receding figure.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Jibbing together, they made their way towards Gardener, who was

-standing in rueful and dumbfoundered altercation with the lawyer. A

-brief but very earnest discussion took place among the four. At the

-end, the rostrum was invoked, the picture was replaced on the table,

-the two new-comers took up position. Gardener, mute and dazed, fell

-back, in custody of the lawyer, who stood with a hard, shrewd glitter

-in his eyes, and the auctioneer, blandly elated, raised his voice,

-justifying his own judgment.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The picture, he said&mdash;as he had already informed the company, in

-fact&mdash;was a desirable one, a rare example of that peerless master

-Adrian Ostade; and the recent purchaser&mdash;whose property it was now

-become&mdash;had been persuaded generously to put it up to auction again on

-his own account, in answer to the representations of certain would-be

-bidders, whom an unforeseen delay on the railway had prevented from

-attending earlier.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“We will start at fifty pounds, gentlemen, if you please,” said he.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Bolton, in the background, pulled his hat over his eyes, and

-settled himself to listen.

-</p>

-

-<p class="mt1">

-That great financial strategist, Mr. Plumley, sat drinking whisky and

-water by lamplight. His pipe lay at his side. He had tried to smoke

-it; but tobacco flurried him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It should be about settled by now,” he muttered. “Where’s that

-Bolton?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Rap!” came the answer, upon such an acute nervous centre, that he

-started as if he had been stung.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He rose, made an effort to compose himself, and went to the door.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-A spare tall figure detached itself from the dark, and entered.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What the devil’s been keeping you?” growled the ex-remover.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ah! you’re short-sighted, my friend,” said Mr. Bittern, and walked

-coolly into the parlour.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley stared, felt suddenly wet, shook himself, and followed.

-When it came to creeping flesh, he felt the full aggravation of his

-size. The slow march of apprehensions, taking time from a sluggish but

-persistent brain, seemed minutes encompassing him.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“So,” said the lawyer, dry and wintry, the moment he was in, “you

-coveted your neighbours one ewe lamb?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe, blew through it, put it down again, and

-said nothing.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“You’d heard of Gardener’s aunt’s little bequest to him of fifty

-pounds, duty free, eh?” asked the lawyer.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“No,” said Mr. Plumley.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O!” said the lawyer. “He bid fifty pounds for that picture of yours

-this afternoon, and got it. On whose instructions?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Ask him, sir. He acts for many.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It wasn’t on yours, then?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Is that reasonable, Mr. Bittern, when to my knowledge the man wasn’t

-worth a brass farden?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What do you say about holding him to his bargain?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I say, if he’s bought the picture, he must pay for it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And who bid against him? You don’t know that either, I suppose?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Nat’rally. Was I there?”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Well, I’ve settled for him with Bull and Hacker, and brought you

-their cheque, less commission and distraint. Give me a receipt for

-it.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The great creature, elated with his own strategy as he was, could

-hardly draw it out, his hands shook so. But he managed the business

-somehow. The lawyer examined the paper, and buttoning it into his

-pocket, took up his hat.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“O, by the way!” he said, as if on an afterthought, “I was forgetting

-to mention that Gardener, after securing the picture, put it up to

-auction again, at the particular request of some late arrivals, and

-was bid a thousand pounds for it. It turned out to be a very good

-work.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Plumley took up his pipe again quite softly, looked at it a

-moment, and suddenly dashed it to smithereens on the floor.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It was a plant!” he cried in a fat, hoarse scream. “I’ll be even with

-him&mdash;I’ll have the money&mdash;the picture was mine&mdash;I’ll&mdash;by God, I say,

-it was a conspiracy!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-The lawyer at the door lashed round on him like whipcord.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“And that’s what I think,” he shouted. “The meanest, dirtiest trick

-that was ever played by a canting scoundrel on a poor brother. But I

-may get to the bottom of it yet, from the opening scheme to enlist

-Gardener’s sympathies for a poor martyr to conscience, to the last

-wicked design upon him in the saleroom. I may get to the bottom of it,

-cunning as it was planned; and, when I do, let some look out!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-As he flung away, he let in a new-comer, Mr. Bolton, by the opened

-door. Mr. Plumley, choking in the backwater of his own fury, had sunk

-into a chair, gasping betwixt bitterness and panic. He could not, for

-the moment, remember how far he had committed himself. He looked up to

-meet the insolent, ironic smile of his confederate. “Come along, dear

-boy,” said Mr. Bolton. “Curtain’s down. Cash up!”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-He presented a claim for fifty pounds, and stood, his hat cocked on

-his head, picking his teeth.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“What’s this curst gammon?” sneered Mr. Plumley, rousing himself.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Commission,” said the actor airily. “Five per cent. on the ultimate

-selling price of a picture.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“It went at fifty.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Pardon <i>me</i>, sir. <i>Ultimate&mdash;ultimate</i>, see agreement” (he smacked

-his chest). “One thou’ was the figure, and dirt cheap. Fine example.

-I’ll trouble you for a cheque.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“Two pound ten. I’ll give it you in cash.”

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Mr. Bolton whistled a stave, and turned round, his hands deep in his

-breeches’ pockets.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“I can sell to the other party. Good day to you, and look out.”

-</p>

-

-<p class="center mt1">

-[The End]

-</p>

-

-

-<h2>

-TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

-</h2>

-

-<p>

-Minor spelling inconsistencies (<i>e.g.</i> cash-box/cash box,

-frockcoat/frock-coat, etc.) have been preserved.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-<b>Alterations to the text</b>:

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[A gallows-bird]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-Change “convolutions of war, the merry, the <i>dance-maccabre</i>” to

-<i>danse-macabre</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[Our lady of refuge]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“fort of San Fernando. and the cursed French garrison,” change period

-to comma.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[The five insides]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-(“&hairsp;‘Eh, says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting) add right single

-quotation mark after <i>Eh</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“a bit forward&mdash;‘No, no, no no, no, no, no&mdash;’&hairsp;” add comma after

-third <i>no</i>.

-</p>

-

-<p class="noindent">

-[The jade button]

-</p>

-

-<p>

-“The property was recovered&mdash;but for the heir…” add period to

-sentence.

-</p>

-

-<p class="center mt1">

-[End of text]

-</p>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'></div>

-<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-footer' lang='en' >

-<div id='pg-end-separator'>

-<span>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOAVES AND FISHES ***</span>

-</div>

-

-<div>

-Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will

-be renamed.

-</div>

-<div>

-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright

-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,

-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United

-States without permission and without paying copyright

-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part

-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™

-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,

-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following

-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use

-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for

-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very

-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation

-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project

-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may

-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected

-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark

-license, especially commercial redistribution.

-</div>

-

-<div id='project-gutenberg-license'>START: FULL LICENSE</div>

-<h2 id='pg-footer-heading'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</h2>

-<div class='agate'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div>

-

-<div>

-To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work

-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full

-Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at

-www.gutenberg.org/license.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-</div>

-<div>

-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™

-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to

-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property

-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all

-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or

-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your

-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a

-Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound

-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person

-or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who

-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few

-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See

-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this

-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the

-Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection

-of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual

-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United

-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the

-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not

-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,

-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as

-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope

-that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting

-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™

-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the

-Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily

-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the

-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when

-you share it without charge with others.

-</div>

-

-<div>

-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern

-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are

-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,

-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this

-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,

-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any

-other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no

-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any

-country other than the United States.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear

-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work

-on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the

-phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,

-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

-</div>

-<blockquote>

-  <div>

-    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms

-    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online

-    at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you

-    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws

-    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

-  </div>

-</blockquote>

-<div>

-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not

-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the

-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in

-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are

-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project

-Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply

-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or

-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™

-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution

-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any

-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms

-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works

-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the

-beginning of this work.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™

-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this

-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without

-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project

-Gutenberg™ License.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,

-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including

-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access

-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format

-other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official

-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website

-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense

-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means

-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain

-Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the

-full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works

-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-provided that:

-</div>

-<ul>

-    <li>• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from

-        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method

-        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed

-        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has

-        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid

-        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are

-        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty

-        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project

-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in

-        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg

-        Literary Archive Foundation.”

-    </li>

-    <li>• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies

-        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he

-        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™

-        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all

-        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue

-        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™

-        works.

-    </li>

-    <li>• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

-        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the

-        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of

-        receipt of the work.

-    </li>

-    <li>• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free

-        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

-    </li>

-</ul>

-<div>

-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than

-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing

-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of

-the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set

-forth in Section 3 below.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread

-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project

-Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may

-contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate

-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other

-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or

-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or

-cannot be read by your equipment.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right

-of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project

-Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project

-Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all

-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal

-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

-DAMAGE.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can

-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a

-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you

-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium

-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you

-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in

-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person

-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second

-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If

-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing

-without further opportunities to fix the problem.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth

-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO

-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT

-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of

-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement

-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the

-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or

-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or

-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the

-remaining provisions.

-</div>

-<div>

-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone

-providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in

-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the

-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™

-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,

-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of

-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this

-or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or

-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any

-Defect you cause.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

-</div>

-<div>

-Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of

-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of

-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It

-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations

-from people in all walks of life.

-</div>

-<div>

-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s

-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will

-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project

-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure

-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future

-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see

-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-</div>

-<div>

-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit

-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the

-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal

-Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification

-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by

-U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

-</div>

-<div>

-The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up

-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website

-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

-</div>

-<div>

-Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread

-public support and donations to carry out its mission of

-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be

-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest

-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations

-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt

-status with the IRS.

-</div>

-<div>

-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United

-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a

-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up

-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations

-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND

-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state

-visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.

-</div>

-<div>

-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition

-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who

-approach us with offers to donate.

-</div>

-<div>

-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from

-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

-</div>

-<div>

-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation

-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other

-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To

-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

-</div>

-<div class='secthead'>

-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

-</div>

-<div>

-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project

-Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be

-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and

-distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of

-volunteer support.

-</div>

-<div>

-Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed

-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in

-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not

-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper

-edition.

-</div>

-<div>

-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search

-facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.

-</div>

-<div>

-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary

-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to

-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

-</div>

-

-</section>

-</body>

-</html>