TWO SIDES OF THE FACE. 

MIDWINTER TALES. 

By

A. T. Quiller-Couch. 

CONTENTS

Stephen of Steens. 

The Horror on the Stair. 

The Mazed Election (1768). 

The Hotwells Duel. 

Cleeve Court. 

The Collaborators. 

The Rider in the Dawn. 

My Lady's Coach. 

STEPHEN OF STEENS. 

A Tale of Wild Justice. 

I. 

Beside a high-road in the extreme West of England stands a house which youmight pass many times without suspecting it of a dark history or, indeed, any history worth mention. The country itself, which here slopes westwardfrom the Mining District to Mount's Bay, has little beauty and--unless youhappen to have studied it--little interest. It is bare, and it comes nearto be savage without attaining to the romantic. It includes, to be sure, one or two spots of singular beauty; but they hide themselves and are notdiscoverable from the road, which rewards you only by its extravagantwealth of wild flowers, its clean sea-breeze, and perhaps a sunset flamingacross the low levels and silhouetting the long shoulder of Godolphin Hillbetween you and the Atlantic, five miles distant. 

Noting, as you passed, the size of the house, its evident marks of age, and the meanness of its more modern outbuildings, you would set it downfor the residence of an old yeoman family fallen on evil days. And yoursecond thought--if it suggested a second--might be that these old yeomen, not content with a lonely dwelling in a lonely angle of the land, hadchurlishly built themselves in and away from sight even of the infrequenttraveller; for a high wall enclosing a courtlage in front screens all butthe upper story with its slated roof, heavy chimneys and narrow upperwindows; and these again are half hidden by the boughs of two ragged yewtrees growing within the enclosure. Behind the house, on a rising slope, tilled fields have invaded a plantation of noble ash trees and cut it backto a thin and ugly quadrilateral. Ill-kept as they are, and alreadydilapidated, the modern farm-buildings wear a friendlier look than the oldmansion, and by contrast a cheerful air, as of inferiors out-at-elbows, indeed, but unashamed, having no lost dignities to brood upon. 

Yet it may happen that your driver--reading, as he thinks, some curiosityin your glance at Steens (for so the house is called), or politely anxiousto beguile the way--pulls up his horse and with a jerk of his whip drawsyour attention to certain pock-marks in the courtlage wall. Or perhaps, finding you really curious but unable from your seat in the vehicle todistinguish them, he dismounts and traces them out for you with the buttof his whip-handle. They are bullet-marks, he says, and there are plentyof others on the upper front of the house within--even grooves cut bybullets in the woodwork of the windows. Then follows a story which youwill find some difficulty in swallowing. That in 1734, when Walpole waskeeping England at peace--that almost at the moment when he boasted, "There are fifty thousand men slain this year in Europe, and not oneEnglishman, "--an unmilitary pewterer was here holding at bay the Sheriff, his posse and half a regiment of soldiers, slaying seven and woundingmany; and that for eight months he defied the law and defended himself, until cannon had to be dragged over the roads from Pendennis Castle toquell him--such a tale may well seem incredible to you unless you canpicture the isolation of Cornwall in days when this highway was a quagthrough which, perhaps twice a week, a train of pack-horses floundered. The man who brought Roger Stephen to justice, though tardily and halfagainst his sense of right, was Sir John Piers, of Nansclowan, hard by. And when Sir John--"the little baronet, " as he was called, aParliamentman, and the one whom Walpole never could bribe--married prettyMistress Catherine, the heiress of Sherrington across Tamar, his lady'sdowry was hauled down through the Duchy to Nansclowan in waggons--a wonderto behold--and stacked in Nansclowan cellars: ten thousand pounds, andevery doit of it in half-crowns. Eighty thousand half-crowns!

Be pleased to reflect upon these cellared piles of silver, and what theyindicate of Cornish life in those days: and bear in mind that they werestacked in place a short ten years before Roger Stephen, a mile-and-a-halfaway, first let fly his bullets at the Sheriff, on the principle that anEnglishman's house is his castle, and in firm conviction--shared by allthe countryside and in the bottom of his heart by Sir John himself--thatthis particular castle was Roger Stephen's; not perhaps by law, butassuredly by right. 

II. 

Four miles south of Steens, and a trifle over, lies the market town ofHelston (or 'Helleston' as men wrote it in 1734, and ought to write itstill); on the road to nowhere and somnolent then as now, but then as nowwaking up once a year, on the 8th of May, to celebrate the Feast of Floraand welcome back the summer. She is brought in at daybreak with greenboughs and singing, and at noon the citizens dance through the streets inher honour, the Mayor himself leading off as the town band strikes up itsimmemorial quickstep, the staid burgesses following with their partners. At first they walk or amble two and two, like animals coming out of Noah'sark; then, at a change in the tune, each man swings round to the ladybehind him, 'turns' her, regains his partner, 'turns' her too, and thewalk is resumed. And so, alternately walking and twirling, the processionsways down the steep main street and in and out of the houses left openfor it--along the passage from front door to court or garden, out at theback door, in at the back door of the next open house, and through to thestreet again--the beadles preceding with wreathed wands, the band withdecorated drum, the couples 'turning' duly at the break in the tune, though it catch them in the narrowest entrance or half-way down a flightof steps. 

On the 8th of May, 1734, at the foot of Coinage-hall Street, hard by theBowling Green, a pewterer's shop stood open, like its neighbours, to admitthe Flora. But the master of the shop and his assistant--he kept noapprentice--sat working as usual at their boards, perhaps the only two menin Helleston who disregarded the public holiday. But everyone knew RogerStephen to be a soured man, and what old Malachi Hancock did was of noaccount. 

Malachi sat at his bench in the rear of the shop turning the rim of apewter plate, and Roger Stephen in the front, for the sake of betterlight, peering into the bowels of a watch which had been brought to him tobe cleaned--a rare job, and one which in his sullen way he enjoyed. From youth up he had been badly used. His father, Humphrey Stephen, ownedSteens, and was a man of substance; a yeoman with money and land enough tomake him an esquire whenever he chose. In those days it was the custom inCornish families of the better class to send the eldest son to college(usually to Oxford), and thence, unless the care of his estates claimedhim at home, into one of the liberal professions. Sometimes the second sonwould follow him to college and proceed to Holy Orders, but oftener he hadto content himself as apprentice to an apothecary or an attorney. The third son would, like Roger Stephen, be bound to a pewterer orwatchmaker, the fourth to a mercer, and so on in a descending scale. But Roger, though the only child of a rich man, had been denied hisnatural ambition, and thrust as a boy into the third class. His motherhad died young, and from the hour of her death (which the young man setdown to harsh usage) he and his father had detested each other's sight. In truth, old Humphrey Stephen was a violent tyrant and habitually drunkafter two o'clock. Roger, self-repressed as a rule and sullen, found himmerely abhorrent. During his mother's lifetime, and because she could notdo without him, he had slept at Steens and walked to and from his shop inHelleston; but on the day after the funeral he packed and left home, taking with him old Malachi, a family retainer whom Humphrey had long agolamed for life by flinging a crowbar at him in a fit of passion. 

So for twelve years he had lodged and taught Malachi his trade in thedirty, low-browed shop, over which a pewter basin hung for sign andclashed against the tilt whenever a sea-breeze blew. Malachi did hismarketing: Roger himself rarely stepped across his threshold, and hadnever been known to gossip. To marriage he never gave a thought:"time enough for that, " he had decided, "when Steens became his, as someday it must;" for the estate ever since the first Stephen acquired it inthe Wars of the Roses and gave it his name ('Steens' being but 'Stephen's'contracted) had been a freehold patrimony descending regularly from fatherto son or next heir. All in good time Roger Stephen would marry andinstall his wife in the manor-house. But the shop in Coinagehall Streetwas no place for a woman. She would be a nuisance, sweeping the place outand upsetting him and Malachi; an expense, too, and Roger--always apenurious man--incurred no expense until obliged. 

But on a day, about two years before this 8th of May, 1734, word had comedown from Steens that his father wished to speak with him. 

"Not dying, is he?" Roger asked the messenger in Cornish. Half hiscustomers spoke the old language, and it came readier to his tongue. 

The messenger chuckled. "Dying? He'll live to be a hundred!Eh, it's not dying he's after, " and the man winked. He was near uponbursting with news--or gossip--of his own. 

"That's enough, " said Roger. "Go back and tell him that if he's well andwants to talk, he knows where to find me. " And he turned back to his work. 

Next day old Humphrey Stephen rode down into Helleston in a towering rage, reined up before his son's shop, and dismounted. 

"You're a pretty dutiful kind of son, " he snarled. "But I've a word thatconcerns you belike. I'm going to marry again. "

"Ah?" said Roger, drawing in his breath and eyeing the old man up and downin a way that disconcerted him. "Who's the poor soul?"

"She lives over to Porthleven, " answered his father, "and her name is MaryNankivell. She's--well, in fact she's a fisherman's daughter; but I'velived long enough to despise differences of that kind. "

"I wasn't asking _your_ age, " said Roger meditatively. "What's the woman's?"

"She'll be twenty next birthday. " The old man was sixty-five. "Well, what's your opinion?" he asked testily, for he knew he was doing awrong thing, and craved an excuse to work himself into a rage. 

"On which?" asked Roger, "--you, or the woman?"

"On the marriage. " Old Humphrey stood glowering under his eyebrows, and tapped his boot impatiently with the butt of his riding-whip. "I reckoned it might concern you, that's all. "

"I can't see that it does. " There was that in Roger's slow look which hisfather found maddening. 

"Oh, can't you?" he sneered. 

"No, for the life of me, " answered Roger. "'Tis wickedness of course, butI've no call to interfere. Take and marry the miserable fool, if you'reso minded. "

Humphrey Stephen had more to say, but gulped it down and mounted his horsewith a devilish grin. 

Roger Stephen went back to his work-bench. 

III. 

"Pack of fools!" growled old Malachi as the thump-thump of the drum drewnearer. He rose and shifted his stool to a corner, for the way to theback premises lay through the shop. Roger looked forth into the sunnystreet, blinked, and, picking up a pair of pincers, returned to his watch. 

The band came slowly down the street and halted outside--still in fullblast; for between the Market House and the Bowling Green there must be nopause in the Flora-dance or its music. And presently the Mayor himselfthrust his red face in at the shop-door. 

"Good-mornin'!" he nodded, jigging away with his feet. "You'll lev' uscome through, I suppose?"

"Welcome, " grunted Roger. 

"And, darn'ee, take care o' my cabbages!" added Malachi. "You ruined halfa score of 'em last year with your May-games. "

"Cab--" Here the inexorable tune forced His Worship to face about andtwirl his partner. "Cabbages?" he resumed. "You dare to use such a wordto me, you saucy rascal? Why, I've sent better men than you to prisonfor less!"

"I don't doubt it, " retorted Malachi. "But King George is above us, andholds even a Mayor responsible for what he treads on. Dance along out, that's a dear man, and if you want to be frolicsome, keep to the paths. "

"Of all the unpublicspirited houses I've danced into this day, thishere's the unpublicspiritedest!" exclaimed the Mayor. He had reached bythis time the door at the back of the shop, and would have said more; butagain the tune took him by the legs compelling him to twirl his partner, and, twirling her, he was swept out of sight. 

Roger Stephen still pored over his watch. Several of the dancers--had thewill to do it been enough--were minded to stop and rebuke him for hischurlishness. A tradesman at work in Helleston on Flora-day in themorning was a scandalous sight. But Roger stood six-foot-three in hissocks, and had been a famous wrestler in his youth. 

The giddy throng went by, his hunched shoulders expressing his contempt ofit. But when all the dancers had paraded through the shop and out intoMalachi's cabbage garden, a man appeared in the entrance and said--

"Arise, Master Roger, and dance--or otherwise as your feelings inclineyou! For Doctor Gaye sends down his compliments, and your father's had astroke. "

Roger Stephen dropped his pincers. "A stroke? Is it serious?"

"Middlin', " answered the man, a woodcutter on the Steens estate. "He took it at three in the morning and never said another word, butpassed away a little under two hours agone; and the funeral's onThursday. "

Roger laid down the watch and stood erect. The band in the street stillthumped out the Flora tune. 

"Malachi, " said he, "can you dance the Flora?"

"Bejimbers!" answered Malachi, "the old man did his best to spoil my legs, but I feel like trying. "

IV. 

Up at Steens the young widow spent the three days before the funeral in aflutter of the nerves. For reasons of her own she stood in fear of herstepson, and felt herself in hourly desperate need of a male champion. Yet she had pluck as well as a head on her shoulders. She might havesummoned--what more natural at such a time?--her old father, thefisherman, over from Porthleven; but she argued it out with herself, and decided that his presence would be a protection rather apparent thanreal, and might easily set Roger suspecting. Even less politic would bethe presence of her Penzance lawyer, Mr. Alfonso Trudgian. In the earlymorning hours after her husband's death she sat a long while with herhands in her lap, thinking. She was a young and pretty woman, and by nomeans a bad one. But she had not married old Humphrey for love, and shemeant to have her rights now. Also her having married Humphrey was proofof that courage which she now distrusted. While her heart sank at theprospect, she resolved to meet and face Roger alone. 

He came on horseback that same evening, with Malachi on horseback behindhim--both in their best black clothes with hideous black streamers pinnedto their hats and dangling. Mrs. Stephen, having made enquiries among theservants--it added to her helplessness that she had never prevailed onHumphrey to dismiss his old servants, though she had made more than oneattempt, and they knew it and hated her for it--had Roger's old roomprepared for him, and met him at the door with decorous politeness. 

Roger had never set eyes on her before. But she had long ago made it herbusiness to see him; had, in fact, put on bonnet and shawl one day andvisited Helleston on pretence of shopping, and had, across the width ofCoinagehall Street, been struck with terrified admiration of his sternface and great stature, recognising at a glance that here was a strongerman and better worth respecting than old Humphrey--a very dangerous manindeed for an enemy. 

Roger in return considered her merely as a hussy--a designing baggage whohad sold herself to an old fool. He came with a mind quite clear aboutthis, and was not the sort of man to dismiss a prejudice easily. But her greeting, though it did not disarm him, forced him to deferhostilities for the moment, and in his room he allowed to himself that thewoman had shown sense. He could not well send her packing while the oldman lay above ground, and to begin quarrelling, with his corpse in thehouse, would be indecent. Go the woman should, but during her three days'grace stepson and stepmother had best keep up appearances. 

He did not demur, when descending to supper, he found his father's chairremoved from its place at the head of the table and his own set at theside on the widow's right. She met him with a smile, too, of which he hadto approve; it seemed to say, "I do not forget that we are, and must be, antagonists; but in trifles, and for the short while permitted to us, letus do each other justice. " She discussed, in low tones but frankly, theold man's illness--told him what there was to tell, pausing now and thenwith a silent invitation to question her were he minded, and apologisedvery prettily for her shortcomings as a hostess. 

"But you will, of course, order just what you want. Luckily the servantsknow you and your ways, and you will forgive anything I have overlooked. In the circumstances--"

She broke off, and Roger found himself grunting that "she wasn't totrouble about that: he'd do well enough. " He did not actually thank herfor her preparations to make him comfortable, but discovered with a kindof indignant surprise that he had come very near to it. Somehow thiswoman, whom he had expected to find an ignorant fisher-wench, hoity-toityand brazen or tearful and sullen, was making him painfully conscious ofhis own boorishness. Out she must go, of course, after the funeral;but he wished he had seen a little more of good company in the past, and he kept up his temper by reminding himself that he had been ill-usedand denied a college education. 

The meal ended, she rose and swept him a curtsey, neither over-friendlynor standoffish. "Peggy will bring you the brandy and water, " she said, "or, if you prefer it, there is rum in the house. I thought, maybe, theweather was warm for a fire; but, as you see, it is laid, and only needs alight if you feel chilly. Your father liked to sit by a fire even onsummer evenings. " She did not add that he had invariably come drunk tobed. "But there, " she ended with a faint smile, "we have the oldservants, and they are not likely to neglect you. "

A second curtsey, and she was gone. Roger sat down by the cold hearthand stroked his chin. By-and-by he looked at his fingers, as if(absurdly enough) to make sure he had not shaken hands with her. 

Next day this armed but almost friendly neutrality continued. Roger spent the hours in striding about his acres, planning how to improvethem and curtail expenses here and there. The farm to be sure wasneglected; but here and there he noted improvements, and caught himselfwondering if the credit of them belonged to the old man. He left thehousehold to his stepmother, and returned to find his meals ready and hisappetite courted by some of his favourite dishes. 

At dinner Mrs. Stephen produced and handed to him a sheet of paper. "I thought it might save trouble, " she explained, "if I made out a list offolks to be invited to the funeral. You understand that I've only putdown those that occurred to me. Please take the list away and strike outor add any names you choose. "

Roger was within an ace of telling her to look after this for herself. He had forgotten that these invitations were necessary, and the writing ofthem would be a nuisance. But he recollected his suspicions, took thepaper, and carried it out into the fields to study it. The list was acareful one, and almost all the names belonged to neighbours or old familyfriends. Half a dozen at most were unfamiliar to him. He pored overthese one by one, but scratched none out. "Let the poor creature invitethem if they're friends of hers, " he decided; "'twill be her lastchance. " At supper he gave her back the list, and somewhat awkwardlyasked her to send the invitations. 

Had he been cleverer in the ways of women, he might still have failed toread the glint in her eyes as she folded the paper and thrust it into herbodice. 

So the three days passed. 

V. 

They buried Humphrey Stephen on the morning of the 11th, and if any of thewidow's own friends attended the funeral they forbore to obtrudethemselves during the ceremony or at the breakfast which followed it. While the guests drank sherry and ate cold chickens in the dining-room, Mrs. Stephen carried her grief off to her own apartment and left Roger todo the honours. She descended only when the throng had taken leave. 

The room, indeed, when she entered, was empty but for three persons. Roger and the family attorney--Mr. Jose, of Helleston--stood by one of thewindows in friendly converse, somewhat impatiently eyeing a single belatedguest who was helping himself to more sherry. 

"What the devil is _he_ doing here?" asked Mr. Jose, who knew the man. He turned and bowed as the young widow entered. "I was on the point, madam, " said he, "of sending up to request your presence. With yourleave, I think it is time to read the deceased's will. " He pulled out hiswatch and glanced again, with meaning, towards the stranger. 

He had lifted his voice purposely, and the stranger came forward at oncewith the half of a pasty in one hand and his glass of sherry in the other. 

"Certainly, " agreed the stranger, with his mouth full of pasty. He noddedfamiliarly to Mr. Jose, drained his glass, set it down, and wiped his dampfingers on the lappels of his coat. His habits were not pretty, and hismanners scarcely ingratiating. The foxy look in his eyes would havespoilt a pleasanter face, and his person left an impression that it had, at some time in the past and to save the expense of washing, been coatedwith oil and then profusely dusted over with snuff. "Shall we begin?" heasked, drawing a parcel of papers from his breast-pocket. 

Roger Stephen glared at him, somewhat as a bull-dog might eye ashrew-mouse. "Who is this?" he demanded. 

"This is Mr. Alfonso Trudgian, my lawyer from Penzance, " explained thewidow, and felt her voice shaking. 

"Then he's not wanted. "

"But excuse me, Mr. Stephen, this lady's interests--, " began Mr. Trudgian. 

"If my father's will makes any provision for her I can attend to itwithout your interference. " Roger glanced at Mr. Jose. 

"I think, " said that very respectable lawyer, "there can be no harm insuffering Mr. Trudgian to remain, as an act of courtesy to Mrs. Stephen. We need not detain him long. The will I have here was drawn by me on theinstruction of my late respected client, and was signed by him andwitnessed on the 17th of March, one thousand seven hundred andtwenty-five. It is his last and (I believe) his only one; for, like manyanother man otherwise sensible, the deceased had what I may call anunreasoning dislike--"

"What date?" put in Mr. Alfonso Trudgian pertly. 

"I beg your pardon?--the 17th of March, one thousand seven hundred andtwenty-five. "

"Then I'm sorry to interrupt ye, Jose, but since Mr. Roger wants me gone, I have here a will executed by Mr. Stephen on February the 14th last--St. Valentine's day. And it reads like a valentine, too. 'To my dear andlawful wife, Elizabeth Stephen, I devise and bequeath all my estate andeffects, be they real or personal, to be hers absolutely. And this I doin consideration of her faithful and constant care of me. --Signed, Humphrey Stephen. Witnesses, William Shapcott'--that's myclerk--'and Alfonso Trudgian. ' That's short enough, I hope, and sweet. "

Mr. Jose reached out a shaking hand for the document, but Roger was beforehim. At one stride he had reached Mr. Trudgian and gripped him by thecollar, while his other hand closed on the paper. 

The attorney shrank back, squealing like a rabbit. "Let me go! 'Tis onlya copy. Let me go, I say!"

"You dirty cur!" Roger's broad palm crumpled up the paper, and with aswift backward movement tossed it at Mrs. Stephen's feet. "Out of theway, Jose; he asks me to let him go, and I will. " He lifted the wretchedman, and, flinging him on the window-seat, pinned him there for a momentwith his knee while he groped for the latch and thrust open the broadlattice. 

A moment later, as she stood and shook, Mrs. Stephen saw her legal adviserswung up by his collar and the seat of his breeches and hurled, stillsquealing, out upon the flagstones of the courtlage; saw him tumblesprawling, pick himself up, and flee for the gate without even waiting topick up his wig or turning to shake his fist. Nay, without one backwardlook, but weakly clutching at his coat, which had been split up the backand dangled in halves from his neck, he broke for the open country and ran. 

"Thank you, " said she, as Roger swung round upon her in turn. Her lipswere smiling, but she scarcely recognised her own voice. "Am--am I tofollow by the same way?"

Roger did not smile, but took her by the wrist. 

"Gently, Mr. Stephen--gently, I implore you!" interposed Mr. Jose. 

Roger did not seem to hear, and the woman made no resistance. He led herthrough the hall, across the threshold of Steens, and up the courtlagepath. At the gate, as he pushed it wide for her, his grip on her wristrelaxed, and, releasing her, he stood aside. 

She paused for one instant, and gently inclined her head. 

"Stepson, you are a very foolish man, " said she. "Good-day to you!"

She passed out. Roger closed the gate grimly, slipped forward its bolt, and walked back to the house. 

But the woman without, as he turned his back, stepped aside quickly, foundthe wall, and, hidden by it, leaned a hand against the stonework and bowedher head. 

A moment later, and before Roger had reached the front door, her handslipped and she fell forward among the nettles in a swoon. 

VI. 

"Well, _that's_ over!" said Roger, returning to the dining-room andmopping his brow. "Upon my word, Jose, that nasty varmint gave me quite aturn for the moment, he spoke so confident. "

"Tut, tut!" ejaculated Mr. Jose, pacing the room with his hands claspedbeneath his coat-tails. 

"Do you know, " Roger continued musingly, "I'm not altogether sorry thewoman showed her hand. Sooner or later she had to be got rid of, and athing like that is easier done when your blood's up. But Lord! couldanyone have thought such wickedness was to be found in the world!"

The lawyer rounded on him impatiently. "Mr. Stephen, " said he, in thevery words the widow had used two minutes before, "you're very foolishman, if you'll excuse my saying it. "

"Certainly, " Roger assured him. "But be dashed to me if I see why. "

"Because, sir, you're on the wrong side of the law. Your father executedthat will, and it's genuine; or the vermin--as you call him--would neverhave taken that line with me. "

"I daresay. But what of that?"

"What of that? Why, you've cut yourself off from compromise--that's all. You don't think a fellow of that nature--I say nothing of the woman--willmeet you on any reasonable terms after the way you've behaved!"

"Compromise? Terms? Why, dang it all, Jose! You're not telling me theold fool could will away Steens, that has passed as freehold from fatherto son these two hundred years and more?"

"The law allows it, " began Mr. Jose; but his outraged client cut him short. 

"The law allows it!" he mimicked. "How soon d'ye think they'll get thecountry to allow it? Why, the thing's monstrous--'tis as plain as thenose on your face!"

"Oh, you'll get sympathy, no doubt!"

"Sympathy? What the devil do I want with sympathy? I want my rights, and I've got 'em. What's more, I'll keep 'em--you see! Man, if that limbof Satan dared to come back, d'ye think the whole countryside wouldn'tuphold me? But he won't; he won't dare. You heard him squeal, surely?"

"Drat the very name of politics!" exclaimed Mr. Jose so inconsequentlythat Roger had good excuse for staring. 

"I don't take ye, Jose. "

"No, I daresay not. I was thinking of Sir John. He's up at Westminsterspeechifying against corruption and Long Parliaments, and, thepamphleteers say, doing ten men's work to save the State; but for yoursake I wish he was home minding the affairs of his parish. For I dobelieve he'd be for you at the bottom of his heart, and, if he used hisinfluence, we might come to a settlement. "

"'Settlement'?" Roger well-nigh choked over the word. He took threepaces across the room and three paces back. His face twitched with fury, but for the moment he held himself in rein. "Look here, Jose, are you mylawyer or are you not? What in thunder do I want with Sir John?Right's right, and I'm going to stand on it. You _know_ I'm in the right, and yet, like a cowardly attorney, at the first threat you hum and haw andbethink you about surrender. I don't know what _you_ call it, sir, but_I_ call it treachery. 'Settlement?' I've a damned good mind to believethey've bought you over!"

Mr. Jose gathered up his papers. "After that speech, Mr. Stephen, itdon't become me to listen to more. As your father's friend I'm sorry foryou. You're an ill-used man, but you're going to be a worse-used one, andby your own choice. I wish indeed I may prove mistaken, but my warningis, you have set your feet in a desperate path. Good-day, sir. "

And so Roger Stephen quarrelled with his wisest friend. 

VII. 

Young Mrs. Stephen awoke in her bed of nettles, and sitting up with herback to the wall, pressed her hands to her temples and tried to think. She could not. For the moment the strain had broken her, and her mind ranonly on trifles--her wardrobe, a hundred small odds and ends of personalproperty left behind her in the house. 

She could not think, but by instinct she did the wisest thing--found herfeet and tottered off in the direction of Nansclowan. She had barelypassed the turning of the road shutting her off from his sight when Mr. Jose came riding out by the stable gate and turned his horse's headtowards Helleston. 

When Lady Piers heard that Mrs. Stephen was below in the morning-room andwished to speak with her, she descended promptly, but with no verygoodwill towards her visitor. She suspected something amiss, for the maidwho carried up the news had added that the widow was "in a pretty pore, "and wore not so much as a shawl over her indoor garments. Also she knew, as well as her commoner neighbours, that the situation at Steens must be adifficult one. Now Lady Piers was a devoted and gentle-hearted woman, a loving wife and an incomparable housekeeper (the news had found her busyin her still-room), but her judgment of the young fisher-girl who hadwheedled old Humphrey Stephen into matrimony was that of the rest of hersex; and even good and devout women can be a trifle hard, not to sayinhuman, towards such an offender. 

Therefore Lady Piers entered the morning-room with a face not entirelycordial, and, finding the pretty widow in tears, bowed and said, "Good-morning, Mrs. Stephen. What can I do for you?"

"He's turned me out!" Mrs. Stephen sobbed. 

"Indeed!" Lady Piers was not altogether surprised. "He used no violence, I hope?"

"I d--don't know what you'd c--call violence, my lady, but he pitched Mr. Trudgian through the window. "

"That seems to border on violence, " said Lady Piers with a faint smile. "But who is Mr. Trudgian?"

"He's my lawyer, and he comes from Penzance. "

"I see. " Lady Piers paused and added, "Was it not a little rash tointroduce this Mr. Trudgian? In the circumstances, "--she laid a slightstress here--"I should have thought it wiser to leave the house as quietlyas possible. "

"But--but the house is _mine_, my lady . . . Every stick of it willed tome, and the estate too! Mr. Trudgian had drawn up the will, and was thereto read it. "

"You don't mean to tell me--" Lady Piers started up from her chair. "'Tis atrocious!" she exclaimed, and a pink spot showed itself on each ofher delicate cheeks. "Indeed, Mrs. Stephen, you cannot dare to come to mefor help; and if you have come for my opinion, I must tell you what Ithink--that you are a wicked, designing young woman, and have met with nomore than your deserts. "

"But he called me a dear wife, and he spoke of my loving care. "

"Who did? Mr. Roger?"

"My husband did, my lady. "

"Oh!" There was a world of meaning in Lady Piers' "oh!" Even a good andhappy wife may be allowed to know something of men's weakness. "And Mr. Trudgian, I suppose, put that down on parchment?"

Mrs. Stephen gazed for a moment disconsolately out of the window, and roseto go. 

"Nay, " Lady Piers commanded, "you must sit down for a while and rest. Sir John is in London, as you know, and were he at home I feel sure youwould get little condolence from him. But you are weak and over-worn, andhave few friends, I doubt, between this and Porthleven. You cannot walkso far. Rest you here, and I will send you some food, and order JohnPenwartha to saddle a horse. I can lend you a cloak too, and you shallride behind him to Porthleven. A _friend_ I cannot find, to escort you;but John is a sensible fellow, and keeps his opinions to himself. "

VIII. 

Next day Roger went over the house with Jane Trewoofe, the cook, andcollected all his stepmother's belongings. These he did up carefully intothree bales, and had them ready at the gate by six o'clock on thefollowing morning, when Pete Nancarrow, the carrier between Helleston andPenzance, passed with his pack-ponies. 

"You're to deliver these to the woman's own cottage over to Porthleven, "was his order, conveyed by old Malachi. 

Two days later, towards evening, Roger himself happened to be mending afence on the slope behind the house, when he looked along the road, spiedPete returning, and stepped down to meet him. 

"You delivered the parcels?"

Pete nodded. 

"What's your charge?" asked Roger, dipping his hand in his pocket. 

"Bless you, they're paid for. I took the goods round by way of Penzance, meaning to deliver them on the return journey; but in Market-jew Streetwhom should I run up against but the widow herself, sporting it on the armof a lawyer-fellow called Trudgian. 'Hullo, mistress!' says I, 'I've apack of goods belonging to you that I'm taking round to Porthleven. 'So she asked what they were, and I told her. 'There's no need for you todrag them round to Porthleven, ' said she, 'for I'm lodging here just nowwhile Mr. Trudgian gets up my case. ' And with that they fetched me overto Trudgian's office and paid me down on the table; 'for, ' says thelawyer, 'we won't put expense on a man so poor as Roger Stephen is like tobe, though he _have_ given these fal-lals a useless journey. ' 'Tell yewhat, master; they mean to have you out of Steens if they can, that pair. "

"Let 'em come and try, " said Roger grimly. 

The packman laughed. "That's what I told the folks over to Penzance. That's the very speech I used: 'Let 'em come and try, ' I said. Everyone's prettily talking about the case. "

"What can it concern anyone over there?"

"Why, bless you, the wide world's ringing with it! And look here, master, I'll tell you another thing. The country's with you to a man. You've been shamefully used, they say, and they mean it. Why, you've onlyto lift a hand and you can have 'em at your back to defy the Sheriff andall his works--if ever it should come to that. "

"It won't, " said Roger, turning back to the house. 

This was the first news to reach him that his affairs were being publiclydiscussed, and for a moment it annoyed him. Of danger he had scarcely asuspicion. Here at Steens the days passed quietly, the servants obeyinghim as though he had been master for years. They brought him no gossip, and any rumours Malachi picked up Malachi kept to himself. Roger, never aman to talk with servants, brooded rather on the attempted wrong. That initself was enough to sour a man. He had met it with prompt action andbaulked it, but he nursed a sense of injury. He felt especially bittertowards Mr. Jose, first of all for permitting such a will to be madewithout discovering it, and next for shilly-shallying over the decisivecounter-stroke. To possible trouble ahead he gave no thought. 

The days drew on to hay-harvest, and on the 5th of June Roger and his menstarted to mow Behan Parc, a wide meadow to the east of the house. Roger took a scythe himself: he enjoyed mowing. 

By noon the field was half-shorn, and the master, pausing to whet hisscythe, had begun to think upon dinner, when at a call from Malachi helooked up to see a ragged wastrel of a man picking his way across theswathes towards him with a paper in his hand. 

"Hullo! What's this?" he demanded, taking the paper and unfolding it. 

As his eye took in its contents the blood surged up and about his temples. He tore the paper across and across again, flung the pieces on the ground, and stooped for his scythe. 

The wastrel cast a wild look about him and fled. As he turned, presentinghis back, Roger hurled his hone. It caught him a little above theshoulder-blades, almost on the neck, and broke in two pieces. The unhappyman pitched forward on his face. 

Some of the mowers ran to pick him up. "Thee'st killed him, master, for sure!" cried one. 

"Ch't!" snarled Roger, and strode back to the house without another look. 

The law was in motion, then, and in motion to oust him! He could scarcelybelieve it; indeed, it was scarcely thinkable. But over his first blind, incredulous rage there swept a passionate longing to be alone in the house--to sit in it and look about him and assure himself. Without thought ofwhat he did, he touched the door-jamb reverently as he stepped across thethreshold. He wandered from room to room, and even upstairs, feeling thegroove in the oaken stair-rail familiar under his palm. Yes, it was his, this home of dead and gone Stephens; it was here, and he was its master. And of this they would dare to deprive him--they, an interloping trollopand a dirty little attorney! No, it couldn't be done. He clenched andunclenched his fists. It could never be done in England; but the wrongwas monstrous, all the same. 

By-and-by he grew calmer, went down to the parlour, ate his dinner, andsallied out to the meadow again. The wastrel had disappeared. Roger asked no questions, but took up his scythe, stepped into the rank, and mowed. He mowed like a giant, working his men fairly to a standstill. They eyed him askance, and eyed each other as they fell behind. But disregarding the rank, he strode on and on, scything down the grass--his grass, grown on his earth, reaped with his sweat. 

IX. 

The hay had been gathered and stacked, and the stacks thatched;and still Roger lived on at Steens unmolested. He began to feel that thedanger had blown over, and for this security old Malachi was responsible. Malachi had witnessed the scene in the hayfield, and dreamed for nightsafter of the look on his master's face. The next time a messenger arrived(he told himself) there would be murder done; and the old man, hazy uponall other points of the law and its operations, had the clearest notion ofits answer to murder. He had seen gibbets in his time, and bodies danglingfrom them in chains. 

He began to watch the road for messengers, and never slackened his watch. Six in all he intercepted during the next three weeks and took theirpapers to carry to his master. It seemed to him to be raining papers. He could not read, and, had he been able, their contents would haveconveyed no meaning to him. He burned every one in secret. 

It is possible, and even likely, that had they reached Roger they wouldhave had no effect beyond angering him. He believed--as for miles aroundevery man not a lawyer believed--that freehold land which had oncedescended to an heir could not be alienated without the next heir'sconsent: nor in all the countryside had such a wrong been perpetratedwithin living memory. It would have taken twenty lawyers with their booksto shake him in this conviction. But it is a fact that he never received alast letter from Lawyer Jose imploring him to appear and fight the suitentered against him, and not to sit in obstinate slumber while his enemiesdestroyed him. 

After this for some weeks the stream of messengers ceased, and evenMalachi breathed more freely. He still, however, kept his eye lifting, and was able to intercept the document announcing that in the caseof "Stephen _versus_ Stephen, " judgment had been entered against thedefendant, who was hereby commanded to evade the premises and yield uppossession without delay. This also he destroyed. 

But there arrived a morning when, as Roger sat at breakfast, the old mancame running with news of a gang of men on the road, not six hundred yardsaway, and approaching the house. 

"Are the gates bolted?" asked Roger, rising and taking down two guns fromthe rack over the chimney-piece. 

"Ay, master, bolted and locked. " With some vague notion that thereby heasserted possession, Roger had bought new padlocks and clapped them on allthree gates--the wrought-iron one admitting to the courtlage, the sidewicket, and the great folding-doors of the stable-yard at the back. 

"Where's Joseph?"--this was the farm-hind. 

"In the challs. " [Cattle sheds. ]

"Take you this gun and give him the other, and you're to fire on anyonewho tries to force the stable gate. They're loaded, the pair of 'em, withbuckshot. Now, this fellow, "--he reached down a third gun--"is loadedblank, and here's another with a bullet in him. I'll take these out tothe front. "

"But, master, 'tis a hanging matter!"

"And I'll hang, and so shall you, before e'er a one o' these scoundrelssets foot in Steens. Go you off quick and tell Joseph, if there'strouble, to let slip the tether of the shorthorn bull. "

Roger crammed a powder-flask into one pocket with a handful of wadding, abag of bullets into another, took his two guns, and went forth into thecourtlage, in time to see a purple-faced man in an ill-fitting Dalmahoywig climb off his horse and advance to the gate, with half a dozenretainers behind him. 

He tried the latch, and, finding it locked, began to shake the gate by thebars. 

"Hullo!" said Roger. "And who may you be, making so bold?"

"Is your name Roger Stephen?" the purple-faced man demanded. 

"I asked you a question first. Drop shaking my gate and answer it, orelse take yourself off. "

"And I order you to open at once, sir! I'm the Under-Sheriff of Cornwall, and I've come with a writ of ejectment. You've defied the law longenough, Master Stephen; you've brought me far; and, if you've ever heardthe name of William Sandercock, you know he's one to stand no nonsense. "

"I never heard tell of you, " said Roger, appearing to search his memory;"but speaking off-hand and at first sight, I should say you was eitherhalf-drunk or tolerably unlucky in your face. " And indeed theUnder-Sheriff had set out from Truro at dawn and imbibed much brandy onthe road. 

"Open the gate!" he foamed. 

Roger stepped back and chose his gun. "You'd best lead him away quiet, "he advised the men in the road. "You won't? Then I'll give the fool tillI count three. One--two--three. " And he let off his gun full in theUnder-Sheriff's face. 

The poor man staggered back, clapped his hand to his jaw, and howled; forthe discharge was close enough to scorch his face and singe his wig. Also one eyebrow was burnt, and before he knew if he still retained hissight, his horse had plunged free and was galloping down the road with thewhole posse in pursuit, and only too glad of the excuse for running. 

"Turn loose the bull!" shouted Roger, swinging round towards the house. 

The Under-Sheriff found his legs, and bolted for dear life after his horse. 

X. 

Travellers in the Great Sahara report many marvels, but none so mysteriousand inexplicable as its power of carrying rumour. The desert (say they)is one vast echoing gossip-shop, and a man cannot be killed in the dawn atMabruk but his death will be whispered before night at Bel Abbas or Amara, and perhaps bruited before the next sun rises on the sea-coast or besidethe shores of Lake Chad. 

We need not wonder, therefore, that within a few hours the whole of WestCornwall knew how Roger Stephen had defied the Under-Sheriff and firedupon him. Indeed, it is likely enough that in the whole of West Cornwall, at the moment, Roger Stephen was the man least aware of the meaning of theUnder-Sheriff's visit and least alive to its consequences. Ever since hisfather's death that desolate county had been humming with his fame: hiswrongs had been discussed at every hearthside, and his probable action. There were cottages so far away as St. Ives where the dispute over Steenshad been followed intently through each step in the legal proceedings andthe issue of each step speculated on, while in Steens itself the mastersat inert and blind to all but the righteousness of his cause--thanks inpart to Malachi, but in part also to his own taciturn habit. Men did notgossip with him; they watched him. He was even ignorant that Mrs. Stephenhad been pelted with mud in the streets of Penzance, and forced to packand take refuge in Plymouth. 

Next morning Malachi brought word of another small body of men on theroad, advancing this time from the direction of Helleston. Three of them(he added) carried guns. 

Roger made his dispositions precisely as before, save that he now loadedeach of his guns with ball, and again met his visitors at the gate. 

"Don't fire, that's a dear man!" cried a voice through the bars; and Rogerwondered; for it belonged to a young yeoman from St. Keverne, and its tonewas friendly. 

"Hey, Trevarthen? What brings you here?" he demanded. 

"Goodwill to help ye, if you're not above taking it. You've been servedlike a dog, Stephen; but we'll stand by you, though we go to Launcestonjail for it. Open the gate, like a good man. "

"You'll swear 'tis no trick you're playing?"

"If we mean aught but neighbourliness, may our bones rot inside of us!"Trevarthen took oath. 

Roger opened the padlock and loosened the chain. "I take this very kindof you, friends, " he said slowly. 

"Why, man, 'tis but the beginning!" the cheerful Trevarthen assured him. "Once we've made the start, you'll find the whole country trooping in; itbut wants the signal. Lift your hand, and by nightfall you can havefivescore men at your back: ay, and I'm thinking you'll need 'em; forSandercock went back no farther than Nansclowan, and there he'll begetting the ear of Sir John, that arrived down from London but yesterday. "

"Right's right, " growled Roger, "and not even Sir John can alter it. "

"Ay, and he won't try nor wish to, if we stand to you and put a firm faceon it. But in dealing with Sandercock he deals with the law, and mustpoint to something stronger than you can be, standing here alone. Trust Sir John: he's your friend, and the stouter show we make the more wehelp him to prove it. "

"There's something in what you say, " agreed Roger. 

"Why, 'tis plain common sense. A fool like Sandercock wants a lesson hecan understand, and he'll understand naught but what stares him in hisugly face. "

All that day driblets of volunteers arrived at Steens' gate, and atnightfall a party of twoscore from Porthleven, the widow's native village, where it seemed that her conduct was peculiarly detested. Plainly thewhole country was roused and boiling over in righteous wrath. Roger, whohad brooded so long alone, could hardly credit what he saw and heard, butit touched him to the heart. That day of rallying was perhaps thesweetest in his life. Most of the men carried guns, and some had evenloaded themselves with provisions--a flitch of bacon or a bag ofpotatoes--against a possible siege. They chose their billets in thebarns, hay-lofts, granaries, the cider-house, even the emptycattle-stalls, and under the brisk captaincy of Trevarthen fell to workstockading the weak spots in the defence and piercing loopholes in theouter walls. Finding that the slope behind the house commanded an openspace in the south-west corner of the yard, they even began to erect abreastwork here, behind which they might defy musketry. 

That night fifty-six men supped in Steens kitchen, drank Roger's health, and laughed over their labours. But in the midst of their mirth Roger, onhis way to the cellar with a cider-keg under each arm, was intercepted byMalachi, who should have been standing sentry by the yard gate. 

"Go back to your post, you careless fool!" commanded Roger, but the oldman, beckoning mysteriously, led him out and across the dark yard to apent beside the gate, and there in the deep shadow he could just discernthe figure of a man--a very short man, but erect and somehow formidableeven before he spoke. 

"Good evening, Stephen!" said the stranger in a low, easy voice. 

"Sir John!" Roger drew back apace. 

"Ay, and very much at your service. I'm your friend, if you'll believeme, and I don't doubt you've been hardly used; but there's one thing to bedone, and you must do it at once. To be short, stop this fooling; andquit. "

"'Quit'?" echoed Roger. 

"This very night. You've put yourself on the wrong side of the law, orallowed yourself to be put there. You're in the ditch, my friend, andpretty deep. I won't say but I can get you righted in some fashion--youmay count on my trying, at least. But you've fired on the Under-Sheriff, the law's after you, and not a hand can I lift until you quit Steens andmake yourself scarce for awhile. "

"'Quit Steens'?" Roger echoed again with his hand to his forehead. "But, Sir John, you are fresh home from London, and you don't know therights o' this: 'tis just to bide in Steens and be left quiet that I'mfighting. And here's the whole country to back me, Sir John; over fiftymen in my kitchen at this moment, and all ready to burn powder rather thansee this wrong committed on me!"

"Yes, yes, so I've just discovered, " answered Sir John impatiently;"and there's your worst peril, Stephen. Man, I tell you this makesmatters worse; and to-morrow may turn them from worse to incurable. Now, don't argue. I'm your friend, and am risking something at thismoment to prove it. At the top of the lane here you'll find a horse:mount him, and ride to Helford Ferry for dear life. Two hundred yards upthe shore towards Frenchman's Creek there's a boat made fast, and down offDurgan a ketch anchored. She's bound for Havre, and the skipper willweigh as soon as you're aboard. Mount and ride like a sensible fellow, and I'll walk into your kitchen and convince every man Jack that you havedone well and wisely. Reach France and lie quiet for a time, till thisstorm blows over: the skipper will find lodgings for you and supply youwith money, and I shall know your address. Come, what say you?"

"Sir John, " Roger stammered hoarsely after a pause, "I--I say it humbly, your house and mine have known one another for long, and my fathers havestood beside yours afore now--and--and I didn't expect this from you, Sir John. "

"Why, what ails ye, man?"

"What ails me?" His voice was bitter. "I reckon 'tis an honest man'sright that ails me, and ails me cruel. But let God be my witness "--andRoger lifted his fist to the dark night--"they shall take my life from mewhen I quit Steens, and kill the man in me before I renounce it. Amen!"

"Is that your last word, Stephen?"

"It is, sir. "

"Then, " said the little man gravely, "as you may need me soon to beg mercyfor you, I have a bargain to make. You are fighting with one woman:beware how you fight with two. "

"I don't take ye. With what other woman should I fight?"

"When you turned Mrs. Stephen out at door she fled to my wife. And mywife, not liking her, but in common charity, gave her food and lent her ahorse to further her to her home. For this she has been attacked, andeven her life threatened, in a score of unsigned letters--and in myabsence, you understand. She is no coward; but the injustice of it--thecruelty--has told on her health, and I reached home to find her sick inbed. That you have had no hand in this, Stephen, I know well; but it isbeing done by your supporters. "

"If I catch the man, Sir John, he shall never write another letter in hislife. "

"I thank you. " Sir John stepped out into the yard and stood while Rogerunbarred the folding gates. Then, "I think if mischief comes, you hadbetter not let them take you alive, " said he quietly. 

"Thank you, Sir John; I won't, " was Roger's reply, and so he dismissedanother good friend. 

XI. 

Sir James Tillie, Knight, of Pentillie Castle by Tamar and High Sheriff ofCornwall, was an amiable gentleman of indolent habits and no great stock ofbrains. On receiving Sandercock's message and instant appeal for help, hecursed his Under-Sheriff for a drunken bungler, and reluctantly preparedto ride West and restore order. 

"Piers is a good fellow and a man of parts, " he told his wife;"but he gives up too much of his time to parliamenteering, and letshis neighbourhood get out of hand. I protest, my dear, the miners downthere are little better than naked savages, and the substantial farmersbut a degree better. Here's a fellow, if you please, who answers the lawwith armed violence--a man, too, of education, as education goes. Sandercock's a coward. On his own showing the gun was loaded blank, andby this time no doubt Master Stephen is quaking at his own temerity andwondering how to save his skin. A few firm words, and he'll be meek as alamb. What surprises me is that a man of affairs like Piers should losehis head and endorse Sandercock's sweating post; but I always say that, ifthe gentlemen of England are to maintain their influence, they should liveon their own acres. " From this it will be seen that Sir James was aprolix rather than a clear thinker. 

He took an affectionate leave of his wife, and travelling by easy stageswith a single groom for escort, on the third day reached Nansclowan, whereSir John and his lady made him welcome. 

"You have ridden ahead of your force?" said Sir John pleasantly. 

"My force?"

"How many are you bringing?"

"I don't quite take you. Eh? 'Soldiers'? My dear fellow--an affair ofthis kind--you surely didn't expect me to make myself ridiculous bymarching through Cornwall with a regiment!"

"You mean to say that you've brought none?"

"Oh, to serve a writ on a yeoman!" and Sir James laughed heartily. 

"Look here, Tillie, you shall ride over with me to-morrow at daybreakand look at the place. The man has sixty stout farmers at his back. They know that the soldiery has been sent for, and for five days they'vebeen working like niggers. The front of the house is loopholed, and alongthe rear, which was their weak point, they've opened a trench six feetwide by six deep. By to-night's report they have even begun as outworkstwo barricades across the high-road, and no traffic may pass withoutpermission. "

"It seems to me your part of the world needs looking after, " Sir Jamesexclaimed testily. 

Sir John ignored this shaft. "You'd better ride over to Pendennis Castleto-morrow and borrow as many men as the garrison can spare you. "

"A score should be plenty, " said Sir James. "It's astonishing--or so I'vealways heard--what a few trained men will do against irregulars. "

"Treble the number, and you may save bloodshed, " was Sir John's advice. 

Early next morning, after a cursory inspection of the defences, theSheriff rode over to Pendennis and held consultation with the Governor. The Governor, who had fifty men in garrison, agreed that twenty wouldsuffice for the job; so twenty were told off, under command of a sergeant, and that same afternoon marched with Sir James to Nansclowan. On theirway through Wendron church-town they were hissed and pelted with lumps ofturf; but this hint of popular feeling made slight impression on thesanguine Sheriff, who had convinced himself that the resistance of Steenswould collapse at the sight of his redcoats. 

Having rested them at Nansclowan for the night, he led them forth atdawn and along the high-road to within fifty yards of the barricade whichthe defenders had drawn across it. There was no thought of tactics. He consulted for a minute with the sergeant, who knew nothing of thestrength of the defence except from gossip (which he disbelieved), and thesoldiers were ordered to charge. 

Sir John Piers, seated on horseback a few paces off, had a mind toride forward and protest. To his mind the order spelt sheer lunacy. The barrier, to begin with, stood close on twenty feet high, built ofrough timbers staked in the ground and densely packed with furze. Nothing could be seen behind it but the top of the second barrier, which at fifty yards distance guarded the approach from Helleston. This nearer one stretched across the road from hedge to hedge, and, thoughnone were perceptible, loopholes there must be and eyes watching everymovement of the soldiers. 

But Sir John had already this morning proved himself a false prophet. All the way from Nansclowan he had been assuring the Sheriff that thewhole country would be advertised of the red-coats' arrival and agog for afray; that he would have not only the defenders of Steens to deal with buta sympathetic mob outside, and likely enough a large one. Nothing of thesort! They had overtaken indeed a few stragglers on the road: a knot ofboys had kept pace with them and halted a furlong behind, climbing thehedges and waiting to see the fun. But Steens itself stood apparentlydesolate. In the fields around not even a stray group of sightseers couldSir John perceive. It puzzled him completely; and the Sheriff, afterdemanding in gently satirical accents to be shown the whereabouts of thepromised mob, had somewhat pointedly ignored him and consulted with thesergeant alone. 

The soldiers charged well, holding their fire. And, again to Sir John'sflat astonishment, no volley met them. They reached the foot of thebarricade and began demolishing it, dragging out the furze-faggots, tearing a passage through. 

In less than a minute they had laid open a gap: and with that the mysterywas clear. Leaping through, they found themselves in the midst of acheerful and entirely passive crowd, lining the road in front of Steens'wall, the gate of which had been closed with large baulks of timber fromthe mines. The crowd numbered perhaps three hundred, and included men, women and children. Groups of them squatted by the roadside or sat in thehedges, quietly sharing out their breakfasts; and one and all, as theSheriff rode in through the gap on his grey horse, greeted him withlaughter, as a set of children might laugh over an innocent practicaljoke. 

Sir James lost his temper, and roughly ordered his soldiers to clear theroad. There was no difficulty about this. The men withdrew mostobligingly, collecting their breakfast cans, helping their wives andchildren over the hedge, laughing all the while. They scattered over thefields in front of Steens and sat down again in groups to watch. To disperse them farther with his handful of soldiers would be waste oftime, and the Sheriff turned his attention to the house, which faced himgrim and silent. 

He rode up to the gate, and rattling upon it with his riding-whip, demanded admittance. There was no answer. He looked along the wall toright and left, and for the first time began to understand that the placewas strong and his force perhaps inadequate. He could not retreat in theface of ridicule, and so--to gain time--ordered the barricade to be burnt. 

The soldiers set to work, and soon had two fine bonfires blazing, and theSheriff withdrew up the road with his sergeant to consult Sir John, thepair of them a trifle shamefacedly. Sir James tried to ease his own smartby an innuendo or two on the lawlessness of the West and theresponsibility of its Justices of the Peace. 

Sir John took his sneers very quietly. "My dear Tillie, " said he, "I am with you to support the law, and you will remember that I advisedyour bringing thrice your strength. But I tell you that the law is doingthis man a wrong, that all these people are convinced of it, and areinnocently scandalised to see me here; and that I at this moment amundoing myself in their esteem, destroying a good feeling of over thirtyyears' growth, and all for a cause I detest. Get that into your head; andthen, if you will, we'll ride round and examine the defences. "

Meanwhile, as if the bonfires had given a signal to half the population ofWest Cornwall, the roads were beginning to swarm with people. They poureddown from the north and up from the south, they spread over the fields andlined the hedges. They carried no weapons, they made no demonstration ofanger. There was no attempt to hustle or even to jeer at the red-coats, who stood with grounded arms in a clear space of the roadway and frettedunder the slow curious scrutiny of thousands, of eyes. Neighbours noddedand "passed the time of day, ": acquaintances from the two coasts of theDuchy met, exchanged greetings and enquiries, lit their pipes and strolledabout together. It might have been a gathering for a horse-race or a gameof hurling, but for the extreme orderliness of the throng and a note ofstrained expectancy in its buzz of talk; and the likeness was strengthenedabout nine o'clock, when, in the broad field to the south-west, half adozen merchants began to erect their sweet-meat booths or "standings, "--always an accompaniment of Cornish merrymaking. 

It was just then that Sir James rode back from his reconnaissance. He hadfetched a circuit of Steens without discovering a weak spot, and histemper had steadily risen with the increase of the crowd. His dignity nowstood fairly at stake. He moved his soldiers up the road and gave ordersto attack the gate. 

As they fell into rank, an old man, perched on the hedge hard by, roselazily and turned to the crowd on the far side. "Here, help me down, someof ye, " said he; "I knawed that there Sheriff was a fool the moment I seteyes on 'en. "

Sir James heard and rode straight on. If a fool, he was no coward. The soldiers carried axes at their belts, and, dismounting, he led them upto the gate and showed them where to attack. Blow after blow rained onthe stout timbers. At length two fell crashing. 

And then from a breastwork within, drawn across the flagged pathway of thecourtlage, a ragged volley rang out and a dozen bullets swept the opening. 

In the crowd across the road many women screamed. Two red-coats dropped, one of them striking the ironwork of the gate with his forehead. A thirdran back into the road, stared about him, flung up his arms and tumbleddead. The man who had fallen against the gate lifted himself by its bars, sank again, and was dragged aside by his comrades. The third soldier laycurled in a heap and did not stir. 

Across the smoke floating through the entrance Sir James looked at thesergeant. His own coat-cuff had been shorn through by a bullet. The sergeant shook his head. 

With a motion of his hand he gave the order to desist. In silence thesoldiers picked up their dead and wounded and began their retreat, thecrowd pressing forward to watch them--a line of faces peering through thehazel-boughs. It neither cheered nor hissed. 

As the enemy drew off, hundreds climbed down into the road and crowdedaround the pools of blood, gazing but saying little. 

XII. 

The assailants returned to Nansclowan, where the Sheriff opened his mindto Sir John in a bitter harangue and rode homeward in dudgeon. The soldiers were marched back to Pendennis. And so, to the scandal ofthe law, for four months the quarrel rested. 

It sounds incredible. Sir James reached his house and spent a week indrawing up a report alleging that he and his twenty soldiers had been metby a crowd of over a thousand people, all partisans of Stephen; and thaton attempting a forcible entry of Steens he had been murderously firedupon, with the loss of two killed and one wounded. There was not anincorrect statement in the report; and no one could read it withoutgathering that the whole of West Cornwall was up in arms and in openrebellion against the Crown. 

Walpole read it in due course, and sent for Sir John Piers, who hadreturned to London for a short visit on parliamentary business. The two men (you will remember) were deadly political foes, and Sir John'sfirst thought on receiving the message was, "Walpole is weakening, but hemust be hard put to it when he sends for _me_, to bribe me!" However, hewaited on the Minister. 

Walpole greeted him with a pleasant bow: he had always a soft spot in hisheart for the chubby-faced little Cornish baronet who always fought fair. "Let us be friends for ten minutes and talk like men of sense, " said he. "Cast your eye over this paper and tell me, for the love of Heaven, whatit means. "

Sir John read it through and burst out laughing. 

"The poor man has lost his head, hey? I guessed so, " said Walpole. 

"A reed shaken by the wind. As such he advertised an exhibition and thefolks came out to see--that is all. To be sure, they feel for thisStephen as an ill-used man; and so for that matter do I. "

"You were present. Tell me the whole story, if you will. "

So Sir John told it and put it back into its true colours. "As for openrebellion, I'll engage to set down what I've told you in a report whichshall be signed by every Justice between Truro and the Land's End. "

"I don't need it, " said Walpole. "But, when all's said, the fellow hasdefied the law and slaughtered two men. We must make an example of him. You agree, of course?"

"In due time I shall plead for mercy. But of course I agree. "

"Well, then, what do you advise?"

"Wait. "

"Hey?"

"He won't run. I--well, in fact, I could have shipped him off before thishappened, and tried to persuade him to go. "

"The deuce you did!"

"Yes, but he refused. And he won't budge now. My advice is--wait, andpick a strong sheriff for next year. There's a neighbour of Tillie's--William Symons, of Hatt--you had best choose someone who doesn't belong toour neighbourhood, for many reasons. "

The minister nodded. 

"Symons won't drop the business until he has pushed it through. "

"I will make a note of his name. "

So for four months Roger Stephen remained unmolested, Sir James Tilliehaving received an answer from London requesting him to hold his hand. 

And Sir John's counsel to the minister began to bear fruit even before thenew Sheriff took up the case. Until the day of the attack Roger's forceshad obeyed him cheerfully. They had volunteered to serve him, and putthemselves in jeopardy for his sake. His sense of gratitude had kept himunusually amiable, and when a sullen fit took him his lieutenantTrevarthen had served for an admirable buffer. Trevarthen was alwayscheerful. But since Roger had tasted blood Trevarthen and Malachi agreedthat his temper had entirely changed. He was, in fact, mad; and dailygrowing madder with confinement and brooding. What they saw was that histemper could no longer be trusted. And while he grew daily more morose, his supporters--left in idleness with the thought of what had been done--began to wish themselves out of the mess. Without excitement to keeptheir blood warm they had leisure to note Roger's ill humours and discussthem, and to tell each other that he showed very little of the gratitudehe certainly owed them. Also, since it was certain that no further attackcould be delivered at less than a few hours warning, and since their ownaffairs called them, the garrison divided itself into "shifts, " onemounting guard while the rest visited their homes. And when the men wereat home their wives talked to them. 

Roger himself never put his nose beyond the defences. In all the years atHelleston a sedentary life had not told on him; but it told on him now, and rapidly. The true cause no doubt lay in his own sullen heart. It is a fact, however, that by this time the state of Steens wasinsanitary to a high degree and the well water polluted. At little costof labour the garrison could have tapped and led down one of the manyfresh springs on the hillside, but to this no thought was given. The mangrew gaunt and livid in colour, and his flesh began to sag inwards at theback of the neck. By the middle of December he was far gone in what isnow called Bright's disease, and with this disease the madness in hisbrain kept pace. 

The crisis came with the New Year. Rumours had already reached Steensthat the new Sheriff meant business, and was collecting a regiment atPlymouth to march westward as soon as he took up office; also that Mrs. Stephen had travelled down ahead of him and taken lodgings at a farmhouseon the near side of Truro in readiness to witness her triumph. Confident now that no danger threatened before the New Year, all but tenof the garrison--but these ten included the faithful (and unmarried)Trevarthen--had dispersed to their homes to keep Christmas. 

Early in the morning of New Year's Day Trevarthen suggested riding intoHelleston to purchase fresh meat, their stock of which had run low withthe Christmas feasting. He had made many such expeditions--always, however, with an escort of four or five; for although the Justices heldtheir hands, and made no attempt to arrest the dispersed conspirators intheir own homes but suffered them there to go about their privateoccupations, the purchase of victuals for the besieged house was anothermatter, and rumour had more than once come to Steens that the Hellestonconstables meant to challenge it by force. So to-day, with Roger's leave, Trevarthen withdrew five of the garrison and rode off, leaving but fourmen on guard--Roger himself, Malachi, a labourer named Pascoe, and oneHickory Rodda--a schoolmaster from Wendron, whose elder brother, Nathaniel, a small farmer from the same parish, went with the expedition. 

The short day passed quietly enough, if tediously. Roger spent themorning in melting down lead for bullets and running it into moulds. Long strips from the roof and even some of the casement lattices had goneto provide his arsenal against the next assault; and at the worst he fullymeant to turn to his father's stacks of silver coin in the locked cellar. That afternoon he shut himself up with his Bible, and read until the printhurt his eyes. Then in the waning light he took his hat and started for astroll around the back defences and out-buildings. 

His way led through the kitchen, where Jane, the cook--the only woman leftat Steens--was peeling potatoes for the night's supper; and there besidethe open hearth sat Hickory Rodda writing by the glow of it, huddled on astool with a sheet of paper on his knee. 

At Roger's entrance the young man--he was scarce twenty, long-legged, overgrown, and in bearing somewhat furtive--slipped a hand over thewriting and affected to stare into the fire. 

"Hey? What's that you're doing?"

"Nun--nothing, Mr. Stephen; nothing particular--that is, I was writing aletter. "

"Hand it over. "

Hickory rose, upsetting his stool, and began to back away. 

"'Tis a private letter I was writing to a friend. "

Roger gripped him by the collar, plucked the paper from him, and took itto the door for better light. As he read the dark blood surged up in hisneck and face. It was addressed to Lady Piers--a foul letter, full ofobscene abuse and threats. Roger cast back one look at its author, andfrom the doorway shouted into the yard--

"Malachi! Pascoe!"

His voice was terrible. The two men heard it at their posts, and camerunning. 

"Fetch a wain-rope!" He caught Hickory by the collar again, and forced hisface up to the window against the red rays of the level sun. "Look onthat, you dirt! And look your last on it! Nay, you shall see it oncemore, as you swing yonder. "

He pointed across the courtlage to the boughs of an ash tree in thecorner, naked against the sky, and with that began to drag the youththrough the passage to the front door. Pascoe, not staying to comprehend, had run for a rope. But Malachi and Jane the cook broke into cries ofhorror. 

"Nay, master, nay--you'll do no such thing--you cannot! Let the poor boygo: he's half dead already. "

"'Cannot'? I'll see if I cannot!" grunted Roger, and panted with rage. "Open the door, you! He'll hang, I tell you, afore this sun goes down. "

"Surely, surely, master--'tis a sin unheard of! The good Lord deliver us;'tis mad you be to think of it!"

"Mad, am I? P'raps so, but 'twill be an ill madness for this coward. "He spurned the dragging body with his foot. "Ah, here's Pascoe! Quick, you: swarm up the tree here, and take a hitch round that branch. See theone I mean?--the third up. Take your hitch by the knot yonder, but climbout first and see if it bears. "

"What for?" demanded Pascoe stolidly. 

"Oh, stifle you and your questions! Can't you see what for?"

"Iss, " Pascoe answered, "I reckon I see, and I ben't goin' to do it. "

"Look here, "--Roger drew a pistol from his pocket, "who's master here--youor I?"

Malachi had run to the gate, and was dragging at the baulks of timber, shouting vain calls for help into the road. Jane had fled screamingthrough the house and out into the backyard. Pascoe alone kept his head. It seemed to him that he heard the distant tramp of horses. 

He looked up towards the bough. 

"'Tis a cruel thing to order, " said he, "and my limbs be old; but seemin'to me I might manage it. "

He began to climb laboriously, rope in hand. As his eyes drew level withthe wall's coping he saw to his joy Trevarthen's troop returning along theroad, though not from the direction he had expected. Better still, thenext moment they saw him on the bough, dark against the red sky. One rider waved his whip. 

He dropped the rope as if by accident, crying out at his clumsiness. "Curse your bungling!" yelled Roger, and stooped to pick it up. Pascoe descended again, full of apologies. He had used the instant well. The riders had seen the one frantic wave of his hand, and were gallopingdown the lane towards the rear of the house. 

Had Roger, as the sound of hoofs reached him, supposed it to beTrevarthen's troop returning, he might yet have persisted. But Trevarthenhad ridden towards Helleston, and these horsemen came apparently out ofthe north. His thoughts flew at once to a surprise, and he shouted toPascoe and Malachi to get their guns and hurry to their posts. The youthat his feet lay in a swoon of terror. He kicked the body savagely andran, too, for his gun. 

Half a minute later Jane came screaming back through the house. 

"Oh, master--they've caught her! They've caught her!"

"Caught whom?"

"Why, Jezebel herself! They've got her in the yard at this moment, andMaster Trevarthen's a-bringing her indoors!"

XIII. 

Trevarthen had planned the stroke, and brought it off dashingly. From the Helleston road that morning he and his troop had turned aside andgalloped across the moors to the outskirts of the village where Mrs. Stephen lodged. No man dared to oppose them, if any man wished to. They had dragged her from the house, hoisted her on horseback and headedfor home unpursued. It was all admirably simple as Trevarthen related it, swelling with honest pride, by the kitchen fire. The woman herself heardthe tale, cowering in a chair beside the hearth, wondering what her deathwould be. 

Roger Stephen looked at her. "Ah!"--he drew a long breath. 

Then Trevarthen went on to tell--for the wonders of the day were notover--how on their homeward road they had caught up with a messenger fromTruro hurrying towards Steens, with word that the new Sheriff was alreadyon the march with a regiment drawn off from the barracks at Plymouth, andhad reached Bodmin. In two days' time they might find themselves besiegedagain. 

Roger listened, but scarcely seemed to hear. His eyes were on the womanin the chair, and he drew another long breath. 

With that a man came crawling through the doorway--or stooping so low thathe seemed to crawl. 

It was young Rodda, and he ran to his brother Nathaniel with a sob, andclasped him about the legs. 

"Hullo!" cried Nathaniel. "Why, Hick, lad, what's taken 'ee?"

Said Roger carelessly, "I was going to hang him. But I can afford tostretch a point now. Carry the cur to the gate and fling him outside. "

"Dang it all, Mr. Stephen, " spoke up Nat; "you may be master in your ownhouse, but I reckon Hick and I didn' come here for our own pleasure, and Isee no sport in jokin' a lad till you've scared 'en pretty well out of hisfive senses. Why, see here, friends--he's tremblin' like a leaf!"

"He--he meant it!" sobbed Hickory. 

"Meant it? Of course I meant it--the dirty, thievin', letter-writer!"Roger's eyes blazed with madness, and the men by the hearth growled andshrank away from him. He pulled out his pistol and, walking up, presentedit at Nat Rodda's head. "Am I captain here, or amn't I? Very well, then:I caught that cur to-day writin' a letter--never you mind of what sort. 'Twas a sort of which I'd promised that the man I caught writing oneshould never write a second. "

"You're mighty tender to women, all of a sudden!" Nat--to do him credit--answered up pluckily enough for a man addressing the muzzle of a pistolnot two feet from his nose. 

"We'll see about that by-and-by, " said Roger grimly. "You've helped do mea favour, and I'll cry quits with you and your brother for't. But I wantno more of you or your haveage: yon's the door--walk!"

"Oh, if that's how you take it, "--Nat Rodda shrugged his shoulders andobeyed, his brother at his heels. One or two of the men would haveinterfered, but Trevarthen checked them. Malachi alone went with the pairto let them forth and bar the gates behind them. 

"I thank ye, Master Stephen, " said Nat, turning in the doorway with ashort laugh. "You've let two necks of your company out o' the halter. "He swung round and stepped out into the darkness. 

His words smote like the stroke of a bell upon one or two hearts in thekitchen. Trevarthen stepped forward briskly to undo the mischief. 

"We'll have forty of the boys back before daylight: Dick Eva's taken afresh horse to carry round the warning. Get to your posts, lads, andleave Jane here to cook supper. 'Tis 'one and all' now, and fight square;and if Hick Rodda has been sending his dirty threats to Nansclowan andfrightening women, he's a good riddance, say I. "

The woman in the chair heard all this, and saw Trevarthen draw Roger asideas the men filed out. They were muttering. By-and-by Roger commandedJane to go and set candles in the parlour. Again they fell to muttering, and so continued until she returned. 

Roger Stephen came slowly forward to the hearth. 

"Stand up!" he said, and Mrs. Stephen stood up. 

She could not raise her eyes to his face, but felt that he was motioningher to walk before him. Her limbs seemed weighted with lead, but sheobeyed. 

They passed out together and into the parlour, where Roger shut the doorbehind him and locked it. 

XIV. 

A dull fire burnt on the hearth, banked high upon a pile of white wood-ash. Beside it lay a curiously-shaped ladle with a curl at the end of its ironhandle. Two candles stood on the oval table in the centre of the room--the table at which she had been used to sit as mistress. She found heraccustomed chair and seated herself. She had no doubt but that this manmeant to kill her. In a dull way she wondered how it would be. 

Roger, having locked the door, came slowly forward and waited, lookingdown at her, with his back to the hearth. 

By-and-by she lifted her face. "How will you do it?" she asked, veryquietly, meeting his eyes. 

For the moment he did not seem to understand. Then, drawing in hisbreath, he laughed to himself--almost without sound, and yet she heard it. 

"There's more than one way, if you was woman. But I've been reading theBible: there's a deal about witches in the Bible, and so I came tounderstand ye. " He stared at her and nodded. 

Having once lifted her face, she could eye him steadily. But she made noanswer. 

He stooped and picked up the ladle at his feet. "You needn't be afraid, "he said slowly: "I promised Trevarthen I wouldn't hurt you beforehand. And afterwards--it'll be soon over. D'ye know what I use this for?It's for melting bullets. "

He felt in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a crown-piece, held it for amoment betwixt finger and thumb, and dropped it into the ladle. 

"They say 'tis the surest way with a witch, " said he; then, after a pause, "As for that lawyer-fellow of yours--"

And here he paused again, this time in some astonishment; for she hadrisen, and now with no fear in her eyes--only scorn. 

"Go on, " she commanded. 

"Well, " concluded Roger grimly, "where you fought me as my father's wifehe fought for dirty pay, and where you cheated me he lead you intocheating. Therefore, if I caught him, he'd die no such easy death. Isn't that enough?"

"I thank you, " she said, and her eyes seemed to lighten as they lookedinto his. "You are a violent man, but not vile--as some. You have gonedeep, and you meant to kill me to-morrow--or is it to-night? But I meanto save you from that. "

"I think not, mistress. "

"I think 'yes, ' stepson--that is, if you believe that, killing me, youwill kill also your father's child!"

For a moment he did not understand. His eyes travelled over her as shestood erect, stretching out her hands. 

Suddenly his head sank. He did not cry out, though he knew--as she knew--that the truth of it had killed him. Not for one moment--it wascharacteristic of him--did he doubt. In her worst enemy she found, in theact of killing him, her champion against the world. 

He groped for the door, unlocked it, and passed out. 

In the kitchen he spoke to Jane the cook, who ran and escorted Mrs. Stephen, not without difficulty, up to her own room. 

Roger remained as she left him, staring into the fire. 

XV. 

He served the supper himself, explaining Jane's absence by a lie. Towards midnight the volunteers began to arrive, dropping in by ones andtwos; and by four in the morning, when Roger withdrew to his attic tosnatch a few hours' sleep, the garrison seemed likely to resume its oldstrength. The news of the widow's capture exhilarated them all. Even those who had come dejectedly felt that they now possessed a hostageto play off, as a last card, against the law. 

That night Roger Stephen, in his attic, slept as he had not slept formonths, and awoke in the grey dawn to find Trevarthen shaking him by theshoulder. 

"Hist, man! Come and look, " said Trevarthen, and led him to the window. Roger rubbed his eyes, and at first could see nothing. A white sea-fogcovered the land and made the view a blank; but by-and-by, as he stared, the fog thinned a little, and disclosed, two fields away, a row of blurredwhite tents, and another row behind it. 

"How many do you reckon?" he asked quietly. 

"Soldiers? I put 'em down at a hundred and fifty. "

"And we've a bare forty. "

"Fifty-two. A dozen came in from Breage soon after five. They're allposted. "

"A nuisance, this fog, " said Roger, peering into it. Since the firstassault he and his men had levelled the hedge across the road, so that theapproach from the fields lay open, and could be swept from the loopholesin the courtlage wall. 

"I don't say that, " answered Trevarthen cheerfully. "We may find it helpus before the day is out. Anyway, there's no chance of its lifting ifthis wind holds. "

"I wonder, now, the fellow didn't try a surprise and attack at once. "

"He'll summon you in form, depend on't. Besides, he has to go gently. He knows by this time you hold the woman here, and he don't want herharmed if he can avoid it. "

"Ah!" said Roger. "To be sure--I forgot the woman. "

While the two men stood meditating a moan sounded in the room below. It seemed to rise through the planking close by their feet. 

Trevarthen caught Roger by the arm. "What's that? You haven't beenhurting her? You promised--"

"No, " Roger interrupted, "I haven't hurt her, nor tried to. She's sick, maybe. I'll step down and have a talk with Jane. "

On the landing outside Mrs. Stephen's room the two men shook hands, andTrevarthen hurried down to go the round of his posts in the out-buildings. They never saw one another again. Roger hesitated a moment, then tappedat the door. 

After a long pause Jane opened it with a scared face. She whispered withhim, and he turned and went heavily down the stairs; another moan fromwithin followed him. 

At the front door Malachi met him, his face twitching with excitement. The Sheriff (said he) was at the gate demanding word with Master Stephen. 

For the moment Roger did not seem to hear. Then he lounged across thecourtlage, fingering and examining the lock of his musket, with ne'er aglance nor a good morning for the dozen men posted beside their loopholes. Another half-dozen waited in the path for his orders; he halted, and toldthem curtly to march upstairs and man the attic windows, whence across thewall's coping their fire would sweep the approach from the fields; and sowalked on and up to the gate, on which the Sheriff was now hammeringimpatiently. 

"Who's there?" he demanded. 

"Are you Roger Stephen?" answered the Sheriff's voice. 

"Roger Stephen of Steens--ay, that's my name. "

"Then I command you to open to me, in the name of King George. "

"What if I don't?"

"Then 'twill be the worse for you and the ignorant men you're misleading. I'll give you five minutes to consider your answer. "

"You may have it in five seconds. What you want you must come and take. Anything more?"

"Yes, " said the Sheriff, "I am told that you have taken violent possessionof the plaintiff in this suit. I warn you to do her no hurt, and I callupon you to surrender her. "

Roger laughed, and through the gate it sounded a sinister laugh enough. "I doubt, " said he, "that she can come if she would. "

"I warn you also that any agreement or withdrawal of claim which you maywrest from her or force her to sign will under the circumstances be notworth the paper 'tis written on. "

Roger laughed again. "I never thought of such a thing. I leave suchdirty tricks to your side. Go back with ye, Master Sheriff, and call upyour soldiers, if you must. "

They tell that the first assault that day came nearest to succeeding. The Sheriff had provided himself with scaling ladders, and, concentratinghis attack on the front, ordered his storming party to charge across theroad. They came with a rush in close order, and were checked, at thepoint where the hedge had been levelled, by a withering fire from theloopholes and attic windows. Four men dropped. Two ladders reached thewalls, one of them carried by a couple of men, who planted it, and then, finding themselves unsupported, ran back to the main body. Six men withthe second ladder reached the wall, dropping a comrade on the way, andclimbed it. The first man leapt gallantly down among the defenders andfell on the flags of the courtlage, breaking his ankle. The second, as hepoised himself on the coping, was picked off by a shot from the attics andtoppled backwards. The others stood by the foot of the ladder bawling forsupport. 

But the momentary dismay of the main body had been fatal. Each man at theloopholes had two guns, and each pair an attendant to reload for them. Before the soldiers could pull themselves together a second volley pouredfrom the loop-holes, and again three men dropped. One or two belatedshots followed the volley, and a moment later the captain in command, ashe waved his men forward, let drop his sword, clenched his fists highabove him, and fell headlong in the roadway across their feet. Instincttold them that the course to which he had been yelling them on was, afterall, the safest--to rush the road between two volleys and get close underthe wall. Once there, they were safe from the marksmen, who could notdepress their guns sufficiently to take aim. And so, with a shout, atlength they carried the road; but too late to recover the first ladder, the foot of which swung suddenly high in air. This ladder was a tall one, overtopping the wall by several feet; and Pascoe, remembering thewain-rope lying beneath the ash tree, had run for it, cleverly lassoed itsprojecting top, and, with two men helping, jerked it high and dragged itinboard with a long slide and a crash. 

There were now about a hundred soldiers at the foot of the wall, and thefate of Steens appeared to be sealed, when help came as from the clouds. Throughout the struggle forms had been flitting in the rear of thesoldiers. The fog had concealed from the Sheriff that he was fighting, ashis predecessor had fought, within a ring of spectators many hundreds innumber; and to-day not a few of these spectators had brought guns. It is said that in the hottest of the fray Trevarthen broke out from therear of Steens and marshalled them. Certain it is that no sooner were thesoldiers huddled beneath the wall than a bullet sang down the road fromthe north, then another, then a volley; and as they faced round in panicon this flanking fire, another volley swept up the road from the south andtook them in the rear. 

They could see no enemy. Likely enough the enemy could not see them. But, packed as they were, the cross-fire could not fail to be deadly. The men in the courtlage had drawn back towards the house as the ladderbegan to sway above the wall. They waited, taking aim, but no head showedabove the coping. They heard, and wondered at, the firing in the road:then, while still they waited, one by one the ladders were withdrawn. 

The soldiers, maddened by the fire, having lost their captain, and beingnow out of hand, parted into two bodies and rushed, the one up the otherdown the road, to get at grips with their new assailants. But it is illchasing an invisible foe, and a gun is easily tossed over a hedge. After pursuing maybe for quarter of a mile they met indeed two or threeold men, innocent-looking but flushed about the face, sauntering towardsthe house with their hands in their pockets; and because their hands whenexamined were black and smelt of gunpowder, these innocent-looking old menwent back in custody to the post where the bugles were sounding therecall. The soldiers turned back sullenly enough, but presently quickenedtheir pace as a yellow glare in the fog gave the summons a new meaning. Their camp was ablaze from end to end!

This was a bitter pill for the Sheriff. He had come in force, determinedto prove to the rebels that they had a stronger man than Sir James Tillieto deal with, and he had failed even more ignominiously. He cursed theinhabitants of West Cornwall, and he cursed the fog; but he was not afool, and he wasted no time in a wild-goose chase over an unknown countrywhere his men could not see twenty yards before them. Having saved whathe could of the tents and trodden out the embers, he consulted with theyoung lieutenant now in command and came to two resolutions: to send toPendennis Castle for a couple of light six-pounders, and, since thesecould not arrive until the morrow, to keep the defence well harassedduring the remaining hours of daylight, not attempting a second assault inforce, but holding his men in shelter and feeling around the position fora weak point. 

The day had passed noon before these new dispositions were planned. Posting ten men and a corporal to guard the charred remains of the camp, and two small bodies to patrol the road east and west of the house and tokeep a portion of the defence busy in the courtlage, the lieutenant ledthe remainder of his force through an orchard divided from the south endof the house by a narrow lane, over which a barn abutted. Its high blankwall had been loopholed on both floors and was quite unassailable, but itsroof was of thatch. And as he studied it, keeping his men in cover, a happy inspiration occurred to him. He sent back to the camp for anoil-can and a parcel of cotton wadding, and by three o'clock had opened abrisk fire of flaming bullets on the thatch. Within twenty minutes themarksmen had it well ignited. Behind and close above it rose a gable ofthe house itself, with a solitary window overlooking the ridge, and theirhope was that the wind would carry the fire from one building to another. 

Thatch well sodden with winter's rain does not blaze or crackle. Dense clouds of smoke went up, and soon small lines of flame were runningalong the slope of the roof, dying down, and bursting forth anew. By the light of them, through the smoke, the soldiers saw a man at thewindow above, firing, reloading, and firing again. They sent many a shotat the window; but good aim from their cover was impossible, and theloopholes of the barn itself spat bullets viciously and kept the assaultfrom showing its head. 

The man at the window--it was Roger Stephen--exposed himself recklesslyeven when the fire from the loopholes ceased, as to the lieutenant'ssurprise it did quite suddenly. 

For a minute or so the thatch burned on in silence. Then from within thebuilding came the sound of an axe crashing, stroke on stroke, upon theposts and timbers of the roof. Some madman was bringing down thebarn-roof upon him to save the house. The man at the window went onloading and firing. 

The soldiers themselves held their breath, and almost let it go in a cheerwhen, with a rumble and a thunderous roar, the roof sank and collapsed, sending up one furious rush of flame in a column of dust. But as the dustpoured down the flame sank with it. The house was saved. They lookedabout them and saw the light fading out of the sky, and the lieutenantgave the order to return to camp. The man at the window sent a partingshot after them. 

And with that ended the great assault, but scarcely had the Sheriffreached camp when a voice came crying after him through the dusk, and, turning, he spied a figure waving a white rag on a stick. The messengerwas old Malachi, and he halted at a little distance, but continued to wavehis flag vigorously. 

"Hey?" bawled back the Sheriff. "What is it?"

"Flag o' truce!" bawled Malachi in answer. "Master's compliments, and ifyou've done for the day he wants to know if you've such a thing as asurgeon. "

"Pretty job for us if we hadn't, " growled the Sheriff. "I keep nosurgeons for lawbreakers. How many wounded have you?"

"Ne'er a man amongst us, 'cept poor Jack Trevarthen, and he's dead. 'Tisn' for a man, 'tis for a woman. Mistress Stephen's crying out, andthe master undertakes if you send a surgeon along he shall be treatedcareful. "

So back with Malachi went the regimental surgeon, who had done his workwith the wounded some hours before. Roger Stephen met him at the sidewicket, and, leading him indoors, pointed up the stairs. "When 'tisover, " said he, "you'll find me yonder in the parlour. " He turned away, and upstairs the young doctor went. 

Roger entered the parlour and shut the door behind him. The room was darkand the hearth cold; but he groped for a chair and sat for two hoursalone, motionless, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on hisclasped, smoke-begrimed hands. He was listening. Now and again a moanreached him from the room overhead. From the kitchen came the sound ofvoices cursing loudly at intervals, but for the most part muttering--muttering. . . 

The cursers were those who came in from their posts to snatch a handful ofsupper, and foraged about in larder and pantry demanding to know what hadbecome of Jane. Jane was upstairs. . . 

The mutterers were men who had abandoned their posts to discuss thesituation by the kitchen fire. A brisk assault just now could hardly havemissed success. Trevarthen's death had demoralised the garrison, andthese men by the fire were considering the risk to their necks. Roger knew what they were discussing. By rising and stepping into thekitchen he could at least have shamed them back to duty. He knew thisfull well, yet he sat on motionless. . . 

A sound fetched him to his feet--a child's wail. 

He stood up in the darkness lifting his arms . . . As a man might yawn andstretch himself awaking from a long dream. 

Someone tapped at the door, turned the handle, and stood irresolutelythere peering into the darkness. 

"Yes?" said Roger, advancing. 

"Ah!" it was the surgeon's voice--"I beg your pardon, but finding you indarkness--Yes, it's all right--a fine boy, and the mother, I should say, doing well. Do you wish to go up?"

"God forbid!" said Roger, and led him to the kitchen, where the whisperersstarted up at his entrance. In the middle of the room, on a board acrosstwo trestles, lay something hidden by a white sheet--Trevarthen's body, recovered from the ruins of the barn. 

"He was my friend, " said Roger simply, pausing by the corpse. Then he turned with a grim smile on the malcontents. "Where's thebrandy?" he asked. "The doctor'll have a drink afore he turns out intothe night. "

"No, I thank you, Mr. Stephen, " said the young surgeon. 

"Won't take it from me? Well, I thank ye all the same. " He led his guestforth, let him out by the wicket, and returned to the kitchen. 

"Lads, " said he, "the night's foggy yet. You may slip away to your homes, if you go quiet. Step and tell the others, and send Malachi to me. I--I thank ye, friends, but, as you've been arguing to yourselves, thegame's up; we won't stand another assault to-morrow. "

They filed out and left him, none asking--as Trevarthen would have asked--concerning his own safety. By Trevarthen's body Malachi found himstanding; and again, and in the same attitude, found him standing by it aquarter of an hour later, when, having muffled the horses' hoofs in straw, he returned to announce that all was ready, and the lane clear towards themoors. In so short a time the whole garrison had melted away. 

"He was my friend, " said Roger again, looking down on the sheet, andwondered why this man had loved him. Indeed, there was no explanationexcept that Trevarthen had been just Trevarthen. 

He followed Malachi, wondering the while if he had ever thrown Trevarthenan affectionate word. Yet this man had cheerfully given up life for him, as he, Roger Stephen, was at this moment giving up more than life for awoman he hated. 

He walked forth from Steens, leading his horse softly. At the foot of thelane he mounted, looked back in the darkness, and lifted a fist againstthe sky. 

Then they headed eastward, and rode, Malachi and he, over the soundlessturf and through the fog, breasting the moor together. 

A little after midnight, on the high ground, they reined up, strainingtheir ears at a rumbling sound borne up to them from the valley roadbelow--the sound (though they knew it not) of two cannon ploughing throughthe mire towards Steens. 

At eight o'clock next morning one of these guns opened fire, and with itsfirst shot ripped a breach through the courtlage wall. There came noanswer. When the Sheriff, taking courage, rode up to summon the house, its garrison consisted of two women and one sleeping babe. 

XVI. 

Four days later the fugitives were climbing a slope on the south-easternfringe of Dartmoor. They mounted through a mist as dense almost as thatin which they had ridden forth--a cloud resting on the hill's shoulder. But a very few yards above them the sky was blue, and to the south ofthem, had their eyes been able to pierce the short screen of vapour, thecountry lay clear for mile upon mile, away beyond Ashburton to Totnes, andbeyond Totnes to Dartmouth and the Channel. 

Roger Stephen's face was yellow with disease and hunger; he could hardlysit in his saddle. He panted, and beads stood out on his forehead asthough he felt every effort of his straining horse. Malachi's face waswhite but expressionless. Life had never promised him much, and for himthe bitterness of death was easily passed. 

By-and-by, as a waft of wind lifted the cloud's ragged edge, his eyessought the long slopes below, and then went up to a mass of dark granitetopping the white cumulus above, and frowning over it out of the blue. 

"Better get down here, " he said. 

Roger rode on unheeding. 

"Better get down here, master, " he repeated in a wheedling voice, and, dismounting, took Roger's rein. Roger obeyed at once, almostautomatically. As his feet felt earth he staggered, swayed, and droppedforward into Malachi's arms. 

"Surely! Surely!" the old man coaxed him, and took his arm. They lefttheir horses to graze, and mounted the slope, the old man holding theyounger's elbow, and supporting him. Each carried a gun slung at hisback. 

They reached the foot of the tor, and found a granite stairway, rudelycut, winding to its summit. Roger turned to Malachi with questioningeyes, like a child's. 

"Surely! Surely!" repeated Malachi, glancing behind him. His eye hadcaught a glint of scarlet far down on the uncoloured slope. 

With infinite labour and many pauses they climbed the stairway together, the old man always supporting the younger and coaxing him. In the broadstand of granite at the summit the rains had worn a basin, shallow, ampleto recline in, even for a man of Roger's stature. Here Malachi laid himdown, first drawing the gun-sling gently off his shoulders. Roger saidnothing, but lay and gasped, staring up into the blue sky. 

Malachi examined the two guns, looked to their locks, and, fishing in hispockets, drew forth a powder-horn and a bag of bullets. These he laidwith the guns on the granite ledge before him, and, crawling forward onhis stomach, peered over. 

The cloud had drifted by. It was as he expected--the soldiers wereclimbing the slope. For almost half an hour he kept his position, andbehind him Roger muttered on, staring up at the sky. Amid the mutteringsfrom time to time the old man heard a curse. They sank at length to amumble, senseless, rambling on and on, without intelligible words. 

Malachi put a hand out for a gun, raised himself deliberately on hiselbow, and fired. He did not look to see if his shot had told, but turnedat once and, in the act of fitting the cloth to his ramrod, lookedanxiously at his master. Even the mumbling had now ceased, but stillRoger gazed fixedly up into the sky and panted. He had not heeded thereport. 

Malachi reloaded carefully, stretched out his hand upon the second gun, and fired again. This time he watched his shot, and noted that it hadfound its man. He turned to his master with a smile, reaching out hishand for the reloaded gun, picked it up, laid it down again, and felt inhis pocket. 

"No good wasting time, " he muttered. 

He drew forth pipe and tinder-box, hunted out the last few crumbs oftobacco at the bottom of his pocket, and lit up, still keeping his eyes onRoger as he smoked. 

A voice challenged far down the slope. He crawled to his master's side. 

"There's one thing we two never could abide, master dear, could we? andthat was folks interruptin'. "

He took up the reloaded gun again, fired his last shot, and sat puffing. 

Minutes passed, and then once more a voice challenged angrily from thefoot of the tor. Malachi leaned across, closed the eyes that still staredup implacably, and arose, knocking out the ashes of his pipe against hisboot-heel. 

"Right you are!" he sang down bravely. "There be two men up here, and onewas a good man; but he's dead, and the law that killed 'en takes naughtfrom me but a few poor years that be worthless without 'en. Come ye up, friends, and welcome!"

THE HORROR ON THE STAIR. 

_Particulars concerning the end of Mistress Catherine Johnstone, late ofGivens, in Ayrshire; from a private relation made by the young womanKirstie Maclachlan to the Reverend James Souttar, A. M. , Minister of theParish of Wyliebank, and by him put into writing. _

I had been placed in my parish of Wyliebank about a twelvemonth beforemaking acquaintance with Mr. Johnstone, the minister at Givens, twelvemiles away. This would be in the year 1721, and from that until the dateof his death (which happened in the autumn of 1725) I saw him in all notabove a dozen times. To me he appeared a douce, quiet man, commonplace inthe pulpit and not over-learned, strict in his own behaviour, methodicalin his duties, averse from gossip of all kinds, having himself a greatcapacity for silence, whereby he seemed perhaps wiser than he was, but not(I think) more charitable. He had greatly advanced his fortunes bymarriage. 

This marriage made him remarkable, who else had passed as quite ordinary;but not for the money it brought him. Of his wife I knew no more than myneighbours. She was a daughter of Sir John Telfair, of Balgarnock, agentleman of note in Renfrewshire; and the story ran concerning her that, at the age of sixteen, having a spite against one of the maidservants, shehad pretended to be bewitched and persecuted by the devil, and upheld theimposture so cleverly, with rigors, convulsions, foaming at the mouth andspitting forth of straws, chips and cinders, pins and bent nails, that thePresbytery ordained a public fast against witchcraft, and by warrant ofPrivy Council a Commission visited Balgarnock to take evidence of hercondition. In the presence of these Commissioners, of whom the LordBlantyre was president, the young lady flatly accused one Janet Burns, hermother's still-room maid, of tormenting her with aid of the black art, andfor witness showed her back and shoulders covered with wales, some blueand others freshly bleeding; and further, in the midst of theirinterrogatories cast herself into a trance, muttering and offering faintcombat to divers unseen spirits, and all in so lifelike a manner that, notwithstanding they could discover no evident proof of guilt, these wisegentry were overawed and did commit the woman Janet Burns to take hertrial for witchcraft at Paisley. There, poor soul, as she was escorted tothe prison, the town rabble met her with sticks and stones and closed thecase; for on her way a cobble cast by some unknown hand struck her uponthe temple, and falling into the arms of the guard, she never spoke after, but breathed her last breath as they forced her through the mob to theprison gates. 

This was the tale told to me; and long before I heard it the reprobationof the vulgar had swung back from Janet Burns and settled upon heraccuser. Certain it was that swiftly upon the woman's murder--as I maywell call it--Miss Catherine made a recovery, nor was thereafter troubledwith fits, swoons or ailments calling for public notice. Indeed, she wasshunned by all, and lived (as well as I could discover) in completeseclusion for twenty years, until the minister of Givens sought her outwith an offer of marriage. 

By this time she was near forty; a thin, hard-featured spinster, dwelling alone with her mother the Lady Balgarnock. Her two youngersisters had married early--the one to Captain Luce, of Dunragit inWigtownshire, the other to a Mr. Forbes, of whom I know nothing save thathis house was in Edinburgh: and as they had no great love for MissCatherine, so they neither sought her company nor were invited toBalgarnock. Her father, Sir John, had deceased a few months before Mr. Johnstone presented himself. 

He made a short courtship of it. The common tongues accused him (as wasto be expected) of coming after her money; whereas she and her old motherlived a cat-and-dog life together, and she besides was of an age whenwomen will often marry the first man that offers. But I now believe, and(unless I mistake) the history will show, that the excuse vulgarly madefor her did not touch the real ground of her decision. At any rate, shemarried him and lived from 1718 to 1725 in the manse at Givens, where Imade her acquaintance. 

I had been warned what to expect. The parishioners of Givens seldom hadsight of her, and set it down to pride and contempt of her husband'sorigin. (He had been a weaver's son from Falkirk, who either had won hisway to the Marischal College of Aberdeen by strength of will and indefiance of natural dullness, or else had started with wits but bluntedthem in carving his way thither. ) She rarely set foot beyond the mansegarden, the most of her time being spent in a roomy garret under theslates, where she spun a fine yarn and worked it into thread of the kindwhich is yet known as "Balgarnock thread, " and was invented by her or byher mother--for accounts differ as to this. I have beside me anadvertisement clipped from one of the newspapers of twenty years ago, which says: "The Lady Balgarnock and her eldest daughter having attainedto great perfection in making whitening and twisting of SEWING THREEDwhich is as cheap and white, and known by experience to be much strongerthan the Dutch, to prevent people's being imposed upon by other Threedwhich may be sold under the name of Balgarnock Threed, the Papers in whichthe Lady Balgarnock at Balgarnock, or Mrs. Johnstone her eldest daughter, at Givens, do put up their Threed shall, for direction, have thereupontheir Coat of Arms, '_Azure_, a ram's head caboshed _or_. ' Those who wantthe said Threed, which is to be sold from fivepence to six shillings perounce, may write to the Lady Balgarnock at Balgarnock, or Mrs. Johnstoneat Givens, to the care of the Postmaster at Glasgow; and may call for thesame in Edinburgh at John Seton, Merchant, his shop in the ParliamentClose, where they will be served either in Wholesale or Retail, and willbe served in the same manner at Glasgow, by William Selkirk, Merchant, inTrongate. "

In this art, then, the woman spent most of her days, preparing the threadwith her own hands and bleaching her materials on a large slate raisedupon brackets in the window of her garret. And, if one may confess forall, glad enough were Mr. Johnstone's guests when this wife of his rosefrom the table and departed upstairs. For a colder, more taciturn anddiscomfortable hostess could not be conceived. She would scarcelyexchange a word through the meal--no, not with her husband, though hewatched and seemed to forestall her wants with a tender officiousness. To see her seated there in black (which was her only wear), with her backto the window, her eyes on the board, and, as it seemed, the shadow of along-past guilt brooding about her continually, gave me a feeling as ofcold water dripping down the spine. And even the husband, though hepretended to observe nothing, must have known my relief when she withdrewand left us with the decanters. 

Now I had tholed this penance, maybe, a dozen times, and could never win aspeech from Mrs. Johnstone, nor a look, to show that she regarded me whilepresent or remembered me after I had gone. So you may think I wassurprised one day when the minister came riding over with word that hiswife wanted a young girl for companion and to help her with the spinning, and had thought of me as likely to show judgment in recommending one. The girl must be sixteen, or thereabout, of decent behaviour andtractable, no gadder or lover of finery, healthy, able to read, an earlyriser, and, if possible, devout. For her parentage I need not troublemyself, if I knew of a girl suitable in these other respects. 

It happened that I had of late been contriving some odd work about themanse for the girl Kirstie Maclachlan, not that the work needed doing, butto help her old mother; for we had no assessment for the poor, and theSession was often at its wits' end to provide relief, wherein as a manwithout family cares I could better assist than some of my neighbours. The girl's mother was a poor feckless creature who had left Wyliebank inher youth to take service in Glasgow, and there, beguiled at first by somevillain, had gone from bad to worse through misguidance rather thanwantonness, and at last crept home to her native parish to starve, if bystarving she could save her child--then but an infant--from the city andits paths of destruction. This, in part by her own courage, and in partby the help of the charitable, she had managed to do, and lived to seeKirstie grow to be a decent, religiously minded young woman. Nor did thelass want for good looks in a sober way, nor for wit when it came toreading books; but in speech she was shy beyond reason, and would turn redand stammer if a stranger but addressed her. I think she could neverforget that her birth had been on the wrong side of the blanket, and, supposing folks to be pitying her for it, sought to avoid them and theirkindness. 

It was Kirstie, then, whom I ventured to commend to Mr. Johnstone for hislady's requirements; and after some talk between us the good man sent forher and was satisfied with her looks and the few answers which, in herstammering way, she managed to return to his questions. When he set offhomeward it was on the understanding that she should follow him to Givenson foot, which she did the next day with her stock of spare clothes in akerchief. Nor, although I twice visited Givens during her service there, did I ever see her at the manse, but twice only before she returned to uswith the tale I am to set down--the first time at the burying of hermother here in Wyliebank, and the second at Givens, when I was calledthither to inter her master who died very suddenly by the bursting of ablood-vessel in the brain. After that she went to live with the widow inlodgings in Edinburgh; and from her, some fifteen months later, I receivedthe news, in a letter most neatly indited, that Mrs. Johnstone hadperished by her own hand, and a request to impart it to all in this parishwhom it might concern. The main facts she told me then in writing, butthe circumstances (being ever a sensible girl) she kept to transmit to meby word of mouth, rightly judging that the public enquiry had no businesswith them. 

It seems, then, that Kirstie's first introduction to Mrs. Johnstone wasnone too cheerful; indeed, it came near to scaring her out of her senses. She arrived duly at Givens shortly before five of the afternoon(a warm day in June) and went straight to the manse, where the door wasopened to her by Mr. Johnstone, who had seen her from the parlour window. He led the way back to the parlour, and, after a question or two upon herjourney, took her up the main stairs to the landing. Here he halted anddirected her up a narrow flight to her garret, which lay off to the right, at the very top. 

The door stood ajar, and facing it was another door, wide open, through which a ray of the evening sun slanted across the stairhead. Kirstie, with her bundle in one hand and the other upon the hasp, turnedto look down upon the minister, to make sure she was entering the rightchamber. He stood at the foot of the stairs, and his eyes were followingher (as she thought) with a very curious expression; but before he couldnod she happened to throw a glance into the room opposite, and very nearlydropped her bundle. 

Yet there was nothing to be scared at; merely the figure of an elderlywoman in black bent over her spinning-wheel there in the dim light. It was Mrs. Johnstone, of course, seated at her work; but it came upon thegirl with suddenness, like an apparition, and the fright, instead ofpassing, began to take hold of her as the uncanny woman neither spoke norlooked up. The room about her was bare, save for some hanks of yarnlittered about the boards and a great pile of it drying on a tray by thewindow. The one ray of sunlight seemed to pass over this withoutsearching the corners under the sloping roof, and fell at Kirstie's feet. 

She has told me that she must have stood there for minutes with her heartworking like a pump. When she looked down the stair again the ministerwas gone. She pulled her wits together, stepped quickly into her ownroom, and, having closed the door behind her, sat down on the bed torecover. 

Being a lass of spirit, she quickly reasoned herself out of thisfoolishness, rose, washed, changed her stockings, put off her shawl forcap and apron, and--albeit in trepidation--presented herself once more atthe door of Mrs. Johnstone's garret. 

"Please you, mistress, " she managed to say, "I am Kirstie Maclachlan, thenew maid from Wyliebank. "

Mrs. Johnstone looked up and fixed her with a pair of eyes that(she declared) searched her through and through; but all she said was, "The minister tells me you can read. "

"Yes, mistress. "

"What books have you brought?"

Kirstie, to be sure, had two books in her bundle--a Bible and JohnBunyan's _Grace Abounding_, the both of them gifts from me. Mrs. Johnstone commanded her to fetch the second and start reading atonce; "for, " she explained, not unkindly, "it will suit you best, belike, to begin with something familiar; and if I find you read well andpleasantly, we will get a book from the manse library. "

So the girl found a stool in the corner, and, seating herself near thewindow, began to read by the waning light. She had, indeed, an agreeablevoice, and I had taken pains to teach her. She read on and on, gatheringcourage, yet uncertain if Mrs. Johnstone approved; who said no word, but continued her spinning until darkness settled down on the garret andblurred the print on the page. 

At last she looked up, and, much to Kirstie's surprise, with a sigh. "That will do, girl, you read very nicely. Run down and find your supper, and after that the sooner you get to bed the better. We rise early inthis house. To-morrow I will put you in the way of your duties. "

Downstairs Kirstie met the minister who had been taking a late stroll inthe garden and now entered by the back-door. He halted under the lamp inthe passage. "Well, " he asked, "what did she say?"

"She bade me get my supper and be early in the morning, " Kirstie answeredsimply. 

For some reason this seemed to relieve him. He hung up his hat and stoodpulling at his fingers until the joints cracked, which was a trick withhim. "She needs to be soothed, " he said. "If you read much with her, youmust come to me to choose the books; yet she must think she has chosenthem herself. We must manage that somehow. The great thing is to keepher mind soothed. "

Kirstie did not understand. A few minutes later as she went up the stairsto her room the door opposite still remained open. All was dark within, but whether or not Mrs. Johnstone sat there in the darkness she could nottell. 

The next morning she entered on her duties, which were light enough. Indeed, she soon suspected that her mistress had sought a companionrather than a servant, and at first had much to-do to find employment. Soon, however, Mrs. Johnstone took her into confidence, and began toimpart the mysteries of whitening and twisting the famous Balgarnockthread; and so by degrees, without much talk on either side, there grew astrange affection betwixt them. Sure, Kirstie must have been the first ofher sex to whom the strange woman showed any softness; and on her part thegirl asserts that she was attracted from the first by a sort of pity, without well knowing for what her pity was demanded. The minister went nofarther with his confidences: he could see that Kirstie suited, and seemedresolved to let well alone. The wife never spoke of herself; and albeit, if Kirstie's reading happened to touch on the sources of Christianconsolation, she showed some eagerness in discussing them, it was donewithout any personal or particular reference. Yet, even in those days, Kirstie grew to feel that terror was in some way the secret of hermistress's strangeness; that for the present the poor woman knew herselfsafe and protected from it, but also that there was ever a danger of thatbarrier falling--whatever it might be--and leaving her exposed to someenemy, from the thought of whom her soul shrank. 

I do not know how Kirstie became convinced that, whoever or whatever theenemy might be, Mr. Johnstone was the phylactery. She herself could giveno grounds for her conviction beyond his wife's anxiety for his health andwell-being. I myself never observed it in a woman, and if I had, shouldhave set it down to ordinary wifely concern. But Kirstie assures me, first, that it was not ordinary, and, secondly, that it was not at allwifely--that Mrs. Johnstone's care of her husband had less of theministering unselfishness of a woman in love than of the eager concern ofa gambler with his stake. The girl (I need not say) did not put it thus, yet this in effect was her report. And she added that this anxiety wasfitful to a degree: at times the minister could hardly take a walk withoutbeing fussed over and forced to change his socks on his return; at others, and for days together, his wife would resign the care of him toProvidence, or at any rate to Fate, and trouble herself not at all abouthis goings-out or his comings-in, nor whether he wore a great-coat or not, nor if he returned wet to the skin and neglected to change his wear. 

Well, the girl was right, as was proved on the afternoon whenMr. Johnstone, taking his customary walk upon the Kilmarnock road, felland burst a blood-vessel, and was borne home to the manse on a gate. The two women were seated in the garret as usual when the crowd enteredthe garden; and with the first sound of the bearers' feet upon the path, which was of smooth pebbles compacted in lime, Mrs. Johnstone rose up, with a face of a sudden so grey and terrible that Kirstie dropped the bookfrom her knee. 

"It has come!" said the poor lady under her breath, and put out a hand asif feeling for some stick of furniture to lean against. "It has come!"she repeated aloud, but still hoarsely; and with that she turned to thelass with a most piteous look, and "Oh, Kirstie, girl, " she cried, "you won't leave me? I have been kind to you--say you won't leave me!"

Before Kirstie well understood, her mistress's arms were about her and thegaunt woman clinging to her body and trembling like a child. "You willsave me, Kirstie? You will live here and not forsake me? There is nobodynow but you!" she kept crying over and over. 

The girl held her firmly with a grasp above the elbows to steady her andallay the trembling, and, albeit dazed herself, uttered what soothingwords came first to her tongue. "Why, mistress, who thinks of leavingyou? Not I, to be sure. But let me get you to bed, and in an hour youwill be better of this fancy, for fancy it must be. "

"He is dead, I tell you, " Mrs. Johnstone insisted, "and they are bringinghim home. Hark to the door--that was never your master's knock--and thevoices!"

She was still clinging about Kirstie when the cook came panting up thestairs and into the room with a white face; for it was true, and theminister had breathed his last between the garden gate and his house door. 

As I have said, I rode over from Wyliebank four days later to read theburial service. The widow was not to be seen, and of Kirstie, who everhid herself from the sight of strangers, I caught but a glimpse. She did not follow the coffin, but remained upstairs (as I suppose)comforting her mistress. The other poor distracted servants, betweentears and ignorance, made but a sorry business of entertaining thecompany, so that but half a dozen at most cared to return to the house, ofwhom I was not one. 

The manse had to be vacated, and within a week or two I heard that Mrs. Johnstone had sold a great part of her furniture, dismissed all herhousehold but Kirstie, and retired to a small cottage a little further upthe street and scarcely a stone's-throw from the manse. 

"She made, " says Kirstie, "little show of mourning for her husband, norfor months afterwards did she return to the terror she had shown that dayin the garret, yet I am sure that from the hour of his death she neverknew peace of mind. She had fitted up a room in the cottage with herwheel and bleaching boards, and we spent all our time in reading orthread-making. At night my cot would be strewn in her bedroom, and weslept with a candle burning on the table between us; but once or twice Iwoke to see her laid on her side, or resting on her elbow, with her facetowards me and her eyes fixed upon mine across the light. This used tofrighten me, and she must have seen it, for always she would stammer thatI need not be alarmed, and beg me to go to sleep again like a good child. I soon came to see that, whatever her own terror might be, she had theutmost dread of my catching it, and that her hope lay in keeping mecheerful. Since I had nothing on my mind at that time, and knew of nocause for fear, I used to sleep soundly enough; but I begin to think thatmy mistress slept scarcely at all. I cannot remember once waking withoutfinding her awake and her eyes watching me as I say. 

"She herself would not set foot outside the cottage for weeks together, and if by chance we did take a walk it would be towards sunset, when thefields were empty and the folk mostly gathered on the green at the far endof the village. There was a footpath led across these fields at the backof the cottage, and here at such an hour she would sometimes consent totake the air, leaning on my arm; but if any wayfarer happened to comealong the path I used to draw her aside into the field, where we madebelieve to be gathering of wild flowers. She had a dislike of meetingstrangers and a horror of being followed; the sound of footsteps on thepath behind us would drive her near crazy. "

I think 'twas this frequent pretence of theirs to be searching for wildflowers which brought the suspicion of witchcraft upon them among thepopulation of Givens. The story of the woman's youth was rememberedagainst her, if obscurely. Folks knew that she had once been afflicted orpossessed by an evil spirit, and from this 'twas a short step to accuseher of gathering herbs at nightfall for the instruction of Kirstie in theblack art. In the end the rumour drove them from Givens, and in thismanner. 

Though the widow so seldom showed herself abroad, in her care forKirstie's cheerfulness she persuaded the girl to take a short walk everymorning through the village. In truth Kirstie hated it. More and more asher mistress clung to her she grew to cling to her mistress; it seemed asif they two were in partnership against the world, and the part ofprotector which she played so watchfully and courageously for her yearstook its revenge upon her. For what makes a child so engaging as histrust in the fellow-creatures he meets and his willingness to expect thebest of them? To Kirstie, yet but a little way past childhood, all menand women were possible enemies, to be suspected and shunned. She tookher walk dutifully because Mrs. Johnstone commanded it, and because shopsmust be visited and groceries purchased; but it was penance to her, andshe would walk a mile about to avoid a knot of gossips or to wile the timeaway until a shop emptied. 

But one day in the long main street she was fairly caught by a mob of boyshunting and hooting after a negro man. They paid no heed to Kirstie, whoshrank into a doorway as he passed down the causeway--a seaman, belike, trudging to Irvine or Saltcoats. He seemed by his gait to be more thanhalf drunk, and by the way he shook his stick back at the boys and cursedthem; but they would not be shaken off, and in the end he took refuge inthe "Leaping Fish, " where his tormentors gathered about the doorway andcontinued their booing until the landlord came forth and dispersed them. 

By this time Kirstie had bolted from the doorway and run home. She said nothing of her adventure to Mrs. Johnstone; but in the dusk ofthe evening a riot began in the street a little way below the cottage. The black seaman had been drinking all day, and on leaving the"Leaping Fish, " had fallen into a savage quarrel with a drover. Two or three decent fellows stopped the fight and pulled him off; but theyhad done better by following up their kindness and seeing him out of thevillage, for he was now planted with his back to a railing, brandishinghis stick and furiously challenging the whole mob. So far as concernedhim the mischief ended by his overbalancing to aim a vicious blow at anurchin, and crashing down upon the kerb, where he lay and groaned, whilethe blood flowed from an ugly cut across the eyebrow. 

For a while the crowd stood about him in some dismay. A few were forcarrying him back to the public-house; but at some evil prompting a voicecried out, "Take him to the widow Johnstone's! A witch should know how todeal with her sib, the black man. " I believe so godless a jest wouldnever have been played, had not the cottage stood handy and (as one maysay) closer than their better thoughts. But certain it is that theyhoisted the poor creature and bore him into Mrs. Johnstone's garden, andbegan to fling handfuls of gravel at the upper windows, where a light wasburning. 

At the noise of it against the pane Mrs. Johnstone, who was bending overthe bedroom fire and heating milk for her supper, let the pan fall fromher hand. For the moment Kirstie thought she would swoon. But helpingher to a seat in the armchair, the brave lass bade her be comforted--itcould be naught but some roystering drunkard--and herself went downstairsand unbarred the door. At the sight of her--so frail a girl--quietlyconfronting them with a demand to know their business, the crowd fell backa step or two, and in that space of time by God's providence arrived PeterLawler, the constable, a very religious man, who gave the ringleaders someadvice and warning they were not likely to forget. Being by this madeheartily ashamed of themselves, they obeyed his order to pick up the manfrom the doorstep, where he lay at Kirstie's feet, and carry him back tothe "Leaping Fish;" and so slunk out of the garden. 

When all were gone Kirstie closed and bolted the door and returnedupstairs to her mistress, whom she found sitting in her chair andlistening intently. 

"Who was it?" she demanded. 

"Oh, nothing to trouble us, ma'am; but just a poor wandering blackamoor Imet in the street to-day. The people, it seems, were bringing him here bymistake. "

"A blackamoor!" cried Mrs. Johnstone, gasping. "A blackamoor!"

Now Kirstie was for running downstairs again to fetch some milk in placeof what was spilt, but at the sound of the woman's voice she faced about. 

"Pick together the silver, Kirstie, and fetch me my bonnet!" At firstMrs. Johnstone began to totter about the room without aim, but presentlyfell to choosing this and that of her small possessions and tossing theminto the seat of the armchair in a nervous hurry which seemed to gatherwith her strength. "Quick, lass! Did he see you? . . . Ah, but thatwould not tell him. What like was he?" She pulled herself together andher voice quavered across the room. "Lass, lass, you will not forsake me?Do not speir now, but do all that I say. You promised--you did promise!"All this while she was working in a fever of haste, pulling even the quiltfrom the bed and anon tossing it aside as too burdensome. She was pastall control. "Do not speir of me, " she kept repeating. 

"What, ma'am? Are we leaving?" Kirstie stammered once; but the strongwill of the woman--mad though she might be--was upon her, and by-and-bythe girl began packing in no less haste than her mistress. "But will younot tell me, ma'am?" she entreated between her labours. 

"Not here! not here!" Mrs. Johnstone insisted. "Help me to get away fromhere!"

It was two in the morning when the women unlatched the door of the cottageand crept forth across the threshold--and across the stain of blood whichlay thereon, only they could not see it. They took the footpath, eachwith a heavy bundle beneath her arm, and turning their backs on Givenswalked resolutely forward for three miles to the cross-roads where theGlasgow coach would be due to pass in the dawn. Upon the green therebeside the sign-post Kirstie believes that she slept while Mrs. Johnstonekept guard over the bundles; but she remembers little until she foundherself, as if by magic, on the coach-top and dozing on a seat behind thedriver. 

From Glasgow, after a day's halt, they took another coach to Edinburgh, and there found lodgings in a pair of attics high aloft in one of thegreat houses, or lands, which lie off Parliament Square to the north. The building--a warren you might call it--had six stories fronting thesquare, the uppermost far overhanging, and Kirstie affirms that herwindow, pierced in the very eaves, stood higher than the roof of St. Giles' Church. 

Hither in due course a carrier's cart conveyed Mrs. Johnstone's sticks offurniture, and here for fifteen months the two women lay as close as twoneedles in a bottle of hay. The house stood upon a ridge, and at the backof it a dozen double flights of stairs dived into courts and cellars farbelow the level of the front. It was by these--a journey in themselves--that Kirstie sometimes made exit and entrance when she had business at theshops, and she has counted up to me a list, which seemed without end, ofthe offices, workshops, and tenements she passed on her way, beginningwith a wine store in the basement, mounting to _perruquiers'_ andlaw-stationers' shops, and so up past bookbinders', felt-maker's, painters', die-sinkers', milliners' workrooms, to landings on which, asthe roof was neared, the tenants herded closer and yet closer in meanerand yet meaner poverty. 

The most of Kirstie's business was with Mr. John Seton, the agent, to whomshe carried the thread spun by her mistress in the attic, and from whomshe received the moneys and accounts of profits. Once or twice, at theirfirst coming, Mrs. Johnstone had descended for a walk in the streets; butby this time the unhappy lady had it fixed in her mind that she was beingwatched and followed, and shook with apprehension at every corner. So pitiable indeed were the glances she flung behind her, and so franticthe precautions she used to shake off her supposed pursuers and return bycircuitous ways, that Kirstie pressed her to no more such expeditions. 

To the girl, still ignorant of the cause of this terror, her mistress wasevidently mad. But mad or no, she grew daily weaker in health and herhandiwork began to worsen in quality, until Kirstie was forced to usedeceit and sell only her own thread to Mr. Seton, though she pretended todispose of Mrs. Johnstone's, and accounted for the falling off in profitby a feigned tale of brisker competition among their Dutch rivals--animposture in which the agent helped her, telling the same story inwriting; for Mrs. Johnstone, whose eye for a bargain continued as sharp asever, had actually begun to suspect the lass of robbing her. 

About this time as Kirstie passed down the stairs she took notice that anew tradesman had set up business on the landing below. At first shewondered that a barber--for this was his trade--should task his customersto climb so many flights from the street; but it seemed that the fellowknew what he was about, for after the first week she never descendedwithout meeting a customer or two mounting to his door or being followeddown by one with his wig powdered and chin freshly scraped. The barberhimself she never saw, though once, when the door stood ajar, she caught aglimpse of his white jacket and apron. 

She believed that he entered into occupation at Michaelmas; at any rate, he had been plying his trade for close on two months, when on November17th, 1739, and at a quarter to three in the afternoon, Kirstie went downto the Parliament Close to carry a packet of thread to Mr. Seton. The packet was smaller than usual, for Mrs. Johnstone had not been able tofinish her weekly quantity; but this did not matter, since for a monthpast she had made none that was saleworthy. 

Now this Mr. Seton was a pleasant man, in age almost threescore, and fullof interest in Mrs. Johnstone, having done business for her and hermother, the Lady Balgarnock, pretty well all his life. And so it oftenhappened that, while weighing the thread and making out his receipt forit, he would invite Kirstie to his office, in the rear of the shop, anddiscuss her mistress's health or some late news of the city, or advise herupon any small difficulty touching which she made bold to consult him--as, for instance, this pious deception in the matter of the thread. 

But to-day in the midst of their discourse Kirstie felt a suddenuneasiness. Explain it she could not. Yet there came to her a sense, almost amounting to certainty, that Mrs. Johnstone was in trouble and hadinstant need of her. She had left her but a few minutes, and in ordinaryhealth; there was no reason to be given for this apprehension. Nevertheless, as I say, she felt it as urgent as though her mistress's ownvoice were calling. Mr. Seton observed her change of colour, and brokeoff his chat to ask what was amiss. She knew that if she stayed toexplain he would laugh at her for a silly fancy; and if it were more thana fancy, why then to explain would be a loss of precious time. Pleading, therefore, some forgotten duty, she left the good man hurriedly, and hastening out through the shop ran across Parliament Close and up thegreat staircase as fast as her legs could take her. 

By the time she reached the fourth flight of stairs she began to feelashamed of the impulse which brought her, and to argue with herselfagainst it; but at the same time her ears were open and listening for anyunusual sound in the rooms above. There was no such sound until she hadmounted half-way up the sixth flight, when she heard a light footstepcross the landing, and, looking up, saw the barber's door very gentlyclosing and shutting out a glimpse of his white jacket. 

For the moment she thought little of this. The latch had scarcely clickedbefore she reached the landing outside, from which the last flight ranstraight up to her mistress's door. It stood open, though she had closedit less than a quarter of an hour before. This was the first time she hadfound it open on her return. 

She caught at the stair-rail. Through the door and over the line of thetopmost stair she could just see the upper panes of the window at the backof Mrs. Johnstone's room. A heavy beam crossed the ceiling in front ofthe window, and from it, from a hook she had used that morning fortwisting her yarn, depended a black bundle. 

The bundle--it was big and shapeless--swayed ever so slightly between herand the yellow light sifted through the window. She tottered up, herknees shaking, and flung herself into the room with a scream. 

While she fumbled, still screaming, at the bundle hanging from the beam, a step came swiftly up the stair, and the barber stood in the doorway. She recognised him by his white suit, and on the instant saw his face forthe first time. He was a negro. 

He laid a finger on his lips. Somehow the light showed them to herblood-red, although the rest of his features, barring the whites of hiseyes, were all but indiscernible in the dusk. And somehow Kirstie felt asilence imposed on her by this gesture. He stepped across the boardsswiftly and silently as a cat, found a stool, and set it under the beam. In the act of mounting it he signalled to Kirstie to run downstairs forhelp. 

Silent as he, Kirstie slipped out at the door: on the threshold sheglanced over her shoulder and saw him upon the stool fumbling with onehand at the yarn-rope, and with the other searching his apron pocket for aknife or razor. She ran down the garret stairs, down the nextflight. . . . 

Here, on the landing, she paused. She had not screamed since the blackman first appeared in the doorway. She was not screaming now; she feltthat she could not even raise the faintest cry. But a suspicion fastenedlike a hand on the back of her neck and held her. 

She hesitated for a short while, and began to climb the stairs again. From the landing she looked up into the room. The black man was still onthe stool, his hand still on the rope. He had not cut the bundle down--was no longer even searching for a knife. 

She had been deceived. The man, whoever he was, had dismissed her whenevery moment was precious, and was himself not even trying to help. Nay, it might be . . . 

She fought down the horror of it and rushed up the stair to fight thething, man or devil, and save her mistress. On her way she fumbled forthe scissors in her pocket. As she broke into the garret the barber, leaving the bundle to swing from its rope, stepped off the stool and, darting to a corner of the room, seemed to stand at bay there. Kirstie sprang toward the stool and hacked at the rope. As the bodydropped she faced around on the man's corner, meaning to kill or bekilled. 

But there was no man in the corner. Her eyes searched into its dusk, andmet only the shadow of the sloping attic. He had gone without a sound. There had been no sound in the room but the thud of Mrs. Johnstone's body, and this thud seemed to Kirstie to be taken up and echoed by the blow ofher own forehead upon the boards as she fell across the feet of hermistress. 

THE MAZED ELECTION (1768). 

A PASSAGE FROM THE ORAL HISTORY OF ARDEVORA. 

I. 

Woman Suffrage? It's surprising to me how light some folks will talk--with a Providence, for all they know, waiting round the corner to takethem at their word. I put my head in at the Working Man's Institutelast night, and there was the new Coastguard officer talking like a book, arguing about Woman Suffrage in a way that made me nervous. "Look 'eehere, " he was saying, "a woman must be either married, or unmarried, orotherwise. Keep they three divisions clear in your heads, and then I'llask you to follow me--" And all the company sitting round with theirmouths open. I came away: I couldn't stand it. It put me in mind how mypoor mother used to warn me against squinting for fun. "One of thesedays, " she'd say, "the wind'll take and change sudden while you're doingit; and there you'll be fixed and looking fifty ways for Sunday until wemeet in the land of marrow and fatness. "

And here in Ardevora, of all places!--where the womenkind be thatmasterful already, a man must get into his sea-boots before he can callhis soul his own. Why, there was a woman here once that never asked for avote in her life, and yet capsized an Election for Parliament--candidates, voters, and the whole apple-cart--as easy as you might turn over a plate. Did you ever hear tell of Kitty Lebow and her eight tall daughters?No; I daresay not. The world's old and losing its memory when it beginsto talk of Woman Suffrage. 

This Kitty, or Christian, or Christiana Lebow was by birth a Bottrell: anda finer family than the Bottrells, by their own account, you wouldn't findin all England. Not that it matters whether they came over with Williamthe Norman, nor whether they could once on a time ride from sea to sea ontheir own acres. For Kitty was the last to carry the name, and she leftit in Ardevora vestry the day she signed marriage with Paul Lebow (or, ashe wrote it, Lebeau--"b-e-a-u, "): and the property had gone generationsbefore. As she said 'pon her death-bed, "five-foot-six of church-hay willhold the only two achers left to me, " she being a little body and veryfacetious to the last, and meaning her legs, of course. 

Now the reason I can't tell you: but the mischief with the Bottrells wasthis: That for generation after generation all the spirit of the familywent to the females. The men just dandered away their time and theirmoney, fell into declines, or had fits and went out like the snuff of acandle. But the women couldn't be held nor bound, lived to any age theypleased, and either kept their sweethearts on the hook or married themand made their lives a burden. Oh, a bean-fed sex, sir, and monstroushandsome! And Kitty, though little, was as handsome as any, and walkedArdevora streets with her eight daughters, all tall as grenadiers andterrible as an army with banners. 

Her father, old Piers Bottrell, had been a ship's captain: a very tidy oldfellow in his behaviour, but muddled in mind, especially towards the end;so that when he died (which he did in his bed, quite peaceful) he mustneeds take and haunt the house. There wasn't a ha'porth of reason for it, that anyone could discover; and Kitty didn't mind it one farthing. But some say it frightened her husband into his grave: though I reckon hetook worse fright at Kitty presenting him with eight daughters one afterthe other. With a woman like that, you can't say where accident ends andlove of mischief begins. And for that matter, there was no telling whyshe'd married the man at all except for mischief: his father and motherbeing poor French refugees that had come to Ardevora, thirty years before, and been given shelter by the borough charity in the old Ugnes House[1]--the same that old Piers Bottrell afterwards bought and died in: and Lebowhimself, though born in the town and a fisherman by calling, never able toget his tongue round good plain English until the day he was drowned onthe whiting-grounds and left Kitty a widow-woman. 

All this, as you'll see by-and-by, has to do in one way or another withthe Great Election, which took place in the year '68. (The way I'm soglib with the date is that Kit Lebow was so proud of her doings on thatday, she had a silver cup made for a _momentum_ and used to measure outher guineas in it: and her great-great-gran'daughter, Mary Ann Cocking, has the cup to this day in her house in Nanjivvey Street, where I've seenit a score of times and spelled out the writing, "C. L. "--for ChristianLebow--"1768"). And concerning this Election you must know that "theDuke's interest, " as they called it--that's to say, the Whigs--had ruledthe roost in Ardevora for more than fifty years; mainly through the Duke'sagent, old Squire Martin of Tregoose, that collected the rents, heldpretty well all the public offices inside his ten fingers, and would saveup a grudge for time-out-of-mind against any man that crossed him. Two members we returned in those days, and in grown men's memories scarcea Tory among them. 

There was grumbling, you may be sure: but the old gang held their way, andthought to carry this Election as easy as the others, until word came downthat one of the Tory candidates would be Dr. Macann, the famous Bathphysician; and this was a facer. 

What made this Dr. Macann such a tearing hot candidate was his having beenborn at Trudgian, a mile out of town here to the west'ard. The Macannshad farmed Trudgian, for maybe a hundred years, having come over fromIreland to start with: a poor, hand-to-mouth lot, respected for nothingbut their haveage, [2] which was understood to be something out of thecommon. But this Samuel, as he was called, turned out a bright boy withhis books, and won his way somehow to Cambridge College; and from College, after doing famously, he took his foot in his hand and went up to walk theLondon hospitals; and so bloomed out into a great doctor, with agold-headed cane and a wonderful gift with the women--a personable man, too, with a neat leg, a high colour, and a voice like a church-organ. The best of the fellow was he helped his parents and never seemed ashamedof 'em. And for this, and because he'd done credit to the town, the folkscouldn't make too much of him. 

Well, as I said, this putting up of Macann was a facer for the Duke's men, and they met at the George and Dragon Inn to talk over their unpopularity. There was old Squire Martin, as wicked as a buck rat in a sink; and hisson Bob that had lately taken over the Duke's agency; and his brother Ned, the drunken Vicar of Trancells; and his second cousin John Martin, otherwise John a Hall, all wit and no character; and old Parson Polsue, with his curate, old Mr. Grandison, the one almost too shaky to hold achurchwarden pipe while the other lighted it; and Roger Newte, whosemonument you see over the hill--a dapper, youngish-looking man, verycareful of his finger-nails and smooth in his talk till he got you in acorner. Last but not least was this Roger Newte, who had settled here asCollector of Customs and meant to be Mayor next year; a man to go wherethe devil can't, and that's between the oak and the rind. 

Well, there they were met, drinking punch and smoking their clays anddiscussing this and that; and Mr. Newte keeping the peace between John aHall, with his ill-regulated tongue, and the old Parson, who, to saytruth, was half the cause of their unpopularity, the church serviceshaving sunk to a public scandal; and yet they durstn't cast him over, byreason that he owned eight ramshackle houses, and his curate a couplebesides, and by mock-sale could turn these into as many brand-new voters. 

"There's nothing for it but pluck, " said Mr. Newte. "We must make a newPoor Rate. They've been asking a new one for years; and, bejimbers!I hope they'll like the one they get. "

The old Squire stroked his chin. "That's a bit too dangerous, Newte. "

"Where's the danger? Churchwardens and Overseers, we can count on everyman. "

"The parish will appeal, as sure as a gun. King's Bench will send down a_mandamus_, and the game's up. I don't want to go to prison at my time oflife. "

"I know something of the law, " said Mr. Newte--and indeed he'd studied itat Lincoln's Inn, and kept more knowledge under his wig than any man inthe borough. "I know something of law, and there's no question of goingto prison. The Tories will appeal to the next Quarter Sessions, andQuarter Sessions will maybe quash the Rate; and that'll take time. Then the Overseers will sit still for a week or two, or a month or two, until the Tories lose patience and apply to London for a writ. Down comesthe writ, we'll say. Whereupon the Overseers will sit down and make out anew Rate just a shade different from the last, and the Tories will have tobegin again--Quarter Sessions, Court o' King's Bench, _mandamus_--"

"King's Bench will send down, more like, and attach the Overseers forcontempt of Court, " suggested young Bob Martin, who was one of them. 

"Not a bit of it; but I'll allow you may find it hard to keep their pluckto the sticking-point. Very well, then here's another plan: When it comesto the writ, the Overseers can make out a new Rate 'agreeable to the formand tenor of the same, ' as the words go. But a new Rate's worthless untilyou, Squire, and you, Parson, have signed the allowance for it asmagistrates: and now comes your turn to give trouble. "

"And how'm I to do that?" asked the old Squire. 

"Why, by keeping out of the way, to be sure. Take a holiday: find outsome little spa that suits your complaint, and go and drink the waters. "

"Ay, do, Parson, " chimed in John a Hall. "Take Grandison, here, alongwith you, and we'll all have a holiday together. "

"At the worst, " chipped in Newte, "they'll fine you fifty pounds formisbehaviour. "

"Fifty pounds! Fine me fifty pounds?" the Parson quavered, his pipe-stemwaggling. 

"Bless your heart, sir, we can work it in somehow with the Electionexpenses. But it may not come to that. Parliament's more than five yearsold already, and I'll warrant the King dissolves it by next spring atlatest: which reminds me that keeping an eye on the Voters' List is allvery well, but unless we can find a hot pair of candidates, this Macannmay unsaddle us after all. "

II. 

Well, this or something like it was the plan agreed on; and for candidatesthey managed to get the Duke's own son, Lord William, and a MajorDyngwall, a friend of his, very handsome to look at, but shy in themouth-speech. With Dr. Macann the Tories put up a Mr. Saule, fromBristol, who took a terrible deal of snuff and looked wise, but had somemaggot in his head that strong drink isn't good for a man. Why or howthis should be he might have known but couldn't tell, being a desperatepoor speaker, and, if possible, a worse hand at it than Major Dyngwall. 

I won't take you through all the battle over the Poor Rate. Youunderstand that the right of voting for Parliament belonged to all theinhabitants of the borough paying Scot and Lot; and who these were theRate-sheet determined. So you may fancy the pillaloo that went up whenthe Overseers posted their new assessment on the church door and 'twasfound they'd ruled out no less than sixty voters known, or suspected tobe, in Dr. Macann's interest. The Tories appealed to Quarter Sessions, ofcourse, and the Rate was quashed. On their side, Roger Newte and BobMartin kept the Overseers up to the proper mark of stubbornness: so toLondon the matter went, and from London down came the order for a newassessment. But by this time Parliament's days were numbered; and, speculating on this, Mr. Newte (who was now Mayor of the Borough) played astroke in a thousand. He persuaded the Overseers to make a return to thewrit certifying they had obeyed it to the best of their skill andconscience, and drawn up a new list: which list they posted a fortnightlater, and only seven days--as it turned out--before Parliament dissolved:and will you believe it, but the only difference between it and the oldone was that they'd added the name of Christiana Lebow, widow--who, beinga woman, hadn't a vote at all!

But wait a bit! The Overseers, choosing their time, had this new listposted in the church porch at ten o'clock one morning; and having postedit, stepped across the road to the "George and Dragon. " The old inn usedto stand slap opposite the church; and there, in the parlour-window, wereassembled all the Duke's men--Squire Martin and his son, Roger Newte, Johna Hall, the Parson, and, all the rest of the gang--as well to see how thepeople would take it as to give the timorous Overseers a backing. This was Newte's idea--to sit there in full view, put a bold face on it, and have the row--if row there was to be--over at once. And, to top itup, they had both the Whig candidates with them--these having arrived inArdevora three days before, and begun their canvass, knowing thatParliament must be dissolved and the new writs issued in a few days atfarthest. 

Well, a crowd gathered at once about the list, and some ran off with thedare-devil news of it, while others hung about and grumbled and let out afew oaths every now and then and looked like men in two minds aboutstoning the windows opposite, where the Duke's gang lounged as careless asbrass, sipping their punch and covering the poor Overseers, that halfexpected to be ducked in the harbour sooner or later for their morning'swork. 

For one solid hour they sat there, fairly daunting the crowd: but as thechurch clock struck eleven, Major Dyngwall, the candidate--that wastalking to old Parson Polsue, and carrying it off very fairly--puts hiseyeglass up of a sudden, and, says he, "Amazons, begad!" meaning, as Ihave heard it explained, that here were some out-of-the-common females. 

And out of the common they were--Kit Lebow with her eight daughters, allwafting up the street like a bevy of peacocks in their best hoops andbonnets: Kit herself sailing afore, with her long malacca stafftap-tapping the cobbles, and her tall daughters behind like a bodyguard--two and two--Maria, Constantia, Elizabeth Jane, Perilla, Christian theYounger, Marcella, Thomasine, and Lally. Along she comes, marches up tothe board--the crowd making way for her--and reads down the list. "H'm, " says she, and wheeling to the rightabout, marches straight acrossto the open window of the "George. "

"Give you good morning, gentlemen, " says she, dropping a curtsey. "I seeyou've a-put me on the Voters' List; and, with your leave, I'd like a lookat your candidates. "

"With pleasure, madam, " says Lord William, starting up from the tablewhere he was writing at the back of the room, and coming forward with abow. And Major Dyngwall bowed likewise to her and to the whole company ofher daughters spreading out behind her like a fan. "Take your glass downfrom your eye, young man, " she said, addressing herself to the Major. "One window should be shelter enough for a sojer--and la! you're none soill-featured for a pair of Whigs. "

"Ay, " put in John a Hall, "they'll stand comparisons with your SammyMacann, mistress. " And he pitched to sing a verse of his invention, thatthe Whigs of the town afterwards got by heart--

 "Doctor Macann 's an Irishman, He's got no business here; Mister Saule He's nothin' at all, He won't lev us have no beer. 

"Well, indeed now, " answered Kitty, pitching her voice back for the crowdto hear, "'tis the Martins should know if the Macanns be Irish, and whatbusiness an Irishman has in Ardevora: for, if I recollect, the firstMacann and the first Martin were shipwrecked together coming over fromDungarvan in a cattle-boat, and they do say 'twas Macann owned the cattleand Martin drove 'em. And as for Mr. Saule, " she went on, while the crowdgrinned to see John a Hall turning red in the gills, "if he stops off thebeer in this town, 'tis yourself will be the healthier for it, whoever'shurt. "

"May I have the pleasure to learn this lady's name?" asked Lord Williamvery politely, turning to the old Squire. 

"She's just an eccentric body, my Lord, " said he; "and, I'm sorry to say, a violent enemy to your Lordship's cause. "

"Hoity-me-toity!" says Kitty. "I'm Christian Lebow, that used to beBottrell: which means that your forefathers and mine, my Lord, came overto England together, like the Macanns and the Martins, though maybe sometime before, and not in a cattle-boat. No enemy am I to your Lordship, nor to the Major here, as I'll prove any day you choose to drink a dish oftea with me or to taste my White Ale; but only to the ill company you keepwith these Martins and Newtes, that have robbed sixty honest men of theirvotes and given one to me that can't use it. I can't use it to keep youout of Parliament-house. I would if I could--honest fighting betweengentlefolks; but I may use it before the Election's over to make theserogues laugh on the wrong side of their faces. "

She used to say afterwards that the words came into her mouth likeprophesying: but I believe she just spoke out in her temper, as womenwill. At any rate, Lord William smiled and bowed, and said he, "The Major and I will certainly do ourselves the pleasure of calling andtasting your ale, Mrs. Lebow. "

"The recipe is three hundred years old, " said Kitty, and swept him acurtsey, the like of which for stateliness you don't see nowadays: itwants practice and sea-room. And all her eight daughters curtsied to thedaps behind her in a half-moon, to the delight of Major Dyngwall, that hadbeen studying Lally the youngest (which is short for Eulalia), through hiseyeglass. And with that, to the admiration of the multitude, they facedabout and went sailing up the street. 

III. 

Well, I suppose in the heat of the fight--the nomination taking place afew days afterwards, and the struggle being a mighty doubtful one, for allthe trick of the Rating List, against which the Tories had sent up anappeal--Lord William forgot all about his promise to call and taste Mrs. Lebow's White Ale. It came into his mind of a sudden on the day beforethe Election, being Sunday morning, and he breakfasting with the Major andhalf a dozen of their supporters up at Tregoose, where old Squire Martinkept open house for the Whigs right through the contest. 

"Plague take it!" says he, running his eye down the Voters' List betweenhis sips of coffee. "I've clean neglected that old lady and her brew. I suppose 'tis dreadful stuff?" he goes on, rather anxious-like, liftingan eye towards the old Squire. 

"I've never had the privilege to taste it, " says the Squire. 

"Oh, 'tis none so bad, " puts in the Major carelessly. 

"Why, Dyngwall--how the Dickens alive do _you_ know?"

"I dropped in the other day--in fact, I've called once or twice. The oldlady's monstrous entertaining, " answered the Major, pretty pink in theface. 

"O-ho!" Lord William screwed up one eye. "And so, belike, are the eighthandsome daughters? But look ye here, Dyngwall, " says he, "I can't haveyou skirmishing on your own account in this fashion. If there's a babyleft to be kissed in this town--or anything older, for that matter--we goshares, my lad. "

"You needn't be so cussedly offensive, need you?" says the Major, firingup, to the astonishment of all. 

Lord William looks at him for a moment. "My dear fellow, " says he, "I beg your pardon. "

And the Major was mollified at once, the two (as I said) being oldfriends. 

"But all the same, " says his Lordship to himself, "I'd best go call onthis old lady without losing time. " So he put it to Squire Martin:"I've a promise to keep, and tomorrow we shall be busy-all. Couldn't westart early to-day, and pay Mrs. Lebow a visit on our way to church?"

"You won't get no comfort out of calling, " said the Squire: "but let it beas you please. "

So off they set: and as Kitty and her daughters were tying theirbonnet-strings for churchgoing--blue and gold every one of them(these being the Tory colours), and only Lally thinking to herself thatscarlet and orange might, maybe, suit her complexion better--there came aknock at the door, and squinting over her blind Kitty caught sight of LordWilliam and the Major, with the old Squire behind them, that had nevercrossed her doorstep in his life. 

She wasn't going to lower her colours, of course. But down she went inher blue and gold, opened the door, and curtseyed. (Oh! the pink ofmanners!) "No inconvenience at all, " she said, and if ever a cordial wasneeded it would be before sitting out one of old Parson Palsy'sforty-year-old sermons. So out came the famous White Ale, with thelong-stemmed glasses proper to drink it from, and a dish of ratafias tocorroborate the stomach. And behold, all was bowing and compliments andenmity forgot, till Lord William happened to say--

"Strong stuff, Squire--eh? The Major should look to his head with it, after his morning tankard: but for coffee-drinkers like you and me Ireckon there's no danger. "

Kitty gave a little gasp, all to herself. "Do you take coffee with yourbreakfast, my Lord?" she asked--and declared to her last day it seemedlike another person speaking, her voice sounded so faint and unnatural. 

"Ha-bitually, " says Lord William, and begins discoursing on thecoffee-bean, and how it cleared the brain. 

Kitty couldn't look at him steady, but was forced to glance away and outof window. The tears and the fun were rising together within her like aspring tide. Lord William thought that her mind was running on the clock, and she wished to be rid of them. So the bowing and compliments beganagain, and inside of ten minutes the visitors had made their congees andwere out in the street. The door was scarcely shut upon them when Kittysank down all of a heap in her armchair and began to rock herself to andfro. 

"Oh, oh, oh!" she began; and her daughters truly thought at first 'twashysterics. "I'll give it forty minutes, " she said. "Maria, if 'twasn't sonear upon church-time, I'd ask you to loosen my stays. White Ale uponcoffee! Oh, oh, oh!" And with that she started up. "Forty minutes!What it'll do in forty minutes no earthly power can tell. But get ready, girls, and follow close till I'm safe in church. "

So forth she sailed, and her eight daughters behind her, down the street, in by the churchyard gate, and up through the crowd to the porch with herface set like the calm of Doomsday. 

IV. 

Well, the congregation settled itself, and service began, and not a sign--as why should there be?--of any feelings but holy devotion. The Whigslooked at their books, and the Tories looked at their books; and poorold Curate Grandison lost his place and his spectacles, and poor oldParson Polsue dropped asleep in the First Lesson. He'd neglected twoparishes to come and preach the sermon: for Ardevora, you must know, wasone of three livings he held besides a canonry, and he kept Grandison toserve the three, that being all he could afford after paying for hiscarriage-and-pair and postillions to carry him back and forth between usand Penzance, where he lodged for the sake of his asthma and the littlecard-parties for which Penzance was famous in those days. But not even anElection Sunday could keep him properly awake. So on went the old comedy, as by law established; the congregation, Whig and Tory, not able to hearone word in ten, but taking their cues from Tommy Size, the parish clerk. 

The first sign of something amiss came about midway in the hymn before thesermon, with old Squire Martin's setting down his book and dropping intohis seat very sudden. Few noticed it, the pew being a tall one; but themusicianers overlooking it from the gallery saw him crossing his handsover his waistcoat, which caused one or two to play their notes false; andNance Julian in the pew behind heard him groan: "I can't sit it out!Not for a hundred pounds can I sit it out!"

By this time Parson Polsue, with his sermon tucked under his arm, wastottering up the pulpit stairs, and Churchwarden Hancock standingunderneath, as usual, to watch him arrive safe or to break his fall if hetumbled. And just as he reached the top and caught hold of the deskcushion to stay himself, Lord William dropped out of view in the face ofthe congregation, and the hymn--music and singing together--ciphered outlike an organ with its bellows slit. 

The next moment open flew the door of the Tregoose pew, and out pouredLord William and Squire Martin with judgment on their faces, making abee-line for the fresh air; and after them Major Dyngwall with a look ofconcern; and after him young Bob Martin, that had only waited to pick upthe others' hats. 

Well, you can't run a spark through a barrel of gunpowder. Like wildfireit flew about the church that the Duke's party and the Parson hadquarrelled, and this was a public protest. Whig and Tory settled thatwith one scrape of the feet, and Major Dyngwall turned in the porch tofind the whole crowd at his heels. 

"My good people, " says he, "pray don't alarm yourselves! I--I don't quiteknow what's the matter: a sudden indisposition--nothing serious. Do, please, go back!"

"Go back? Not a bit of it! You're quite right, sir--disgrace to aChristian country--high time for a public example--stand to it, sir, andthe Bishop will have to interfere. Three cheers for the Red and Orange!Three cheers for Religion and no Abuses! Three cheers for Lord Williamand Major Dyngwall! Hip-hip-hooray!" Do what the Major might, the crowdswept him and the poor sufferers through the churchyard and across thestreet, and hung cheering around the "George and Dragon, " while he dosedthe pair inside with hot brandy-and-water. 

And all this while Kitty stood--as she declared ever after--with thethoughts hissing in her head like eggs in a frying-pan. She heard thecrowd cheering outside, and felt the votes slipping away with every cheer. She cast her eyes up to the pulpit, and there, through a haze, saw oldParson Polsue rubbing his spectacles and shaking like an aspen. Her witsonly came back to her when the Tory candidates, in the pew before her, reached for their hats and prepared to follow the mob. Dr. Macann wasactually fumbling with the button of the door. Quick as thought then sheseized a hassock, sprang on it, and, reaching over the partition, presseda hand down on his chestnut wig. 

"Sit still--sit still, man!" she commanded. "Thee'rt throwing helve afterhatchet, I tell 'ee. What's a stomach-ache, after all?"

"I don't follow you, Mrs. Lebow, " said the Doctor: and small blame to him. 

"Never you mind about understanding, " said Kitty. "But sit you down andkeep your eye on the Parson. See the colour on him--that's anger, mydear! And see his jaw, full of blessed stubbornness! Nine good votes hehas, and old Grandison a couple beside: and every one of 'em as good ascast for you, if you'll sit it out. Sit quiet for two minutes now, andto-morrow you shall sit for Ardevora. "

"But the crowd?" the Doctor couldn't help murmuring, though none the lesshe obeyed. 

Kitty's eye began to twinkle. "Leave the crowd to me, " she was beginning, when her eye lit on John a Hall, that had entered and was making his waytowards the pulpit, from which in the fury of his anger old Polsue wasclimbing down with a nimbleness you wouldn't believe. And with that shealmost laughed out, for a worse peacemaker the Whigs couldn't have chosen. But Major Dyngwall had sent him, having none to advise, and being near tohis wits' end, poor young man. 

"Beg your pardon, Parson, " began John a Hall, stepping up with that grinon his face which he couldn't help and which the Parson abominated:"but I'm here to bring Lord William's compliments and apologies, andassure you from him that your sermon had nothing to do with hisstomach-ache. Nothing whatever!"

Parson Polsue opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it. I reckon he remembered the sacred edifice. At any rate he went past Johna Hall with a terrific turn of speed, and old Grandison after him: and thenext news was the vestry-door slammed-to behind them both, as 'twere withthe very wind of wrath. 

"And my poor mother used to recommend it for the colic!" said Kitty; whichpuzzled the Doctor worse than ever. 

V. 

Before evening 'twas known through Ardevora that the Parson's votes andinterests had been booked by the Tories; which, of course, only made theChurch rebels (as you might call them) the more set on standing by theirconversion and voting for the Whigs. Nobody could tell their numbers forcertain, but nobody put them down under twenty; and both the Doctor andMr. Saule called on Kitty that evening with faces like fiddles. But Kittywasn't to be daunted. "My dears, " she said, "if the worst comes to theworst, and you can't win these votes back by four o'clock to-morrow, I've a stocking full of guineas at your service; and I ha'n't lived inArdevora all this while without picking up the knowledge how to spend 'em;and _that's_ at your service too. But we'll try a cheaper way first, "says she, smiling to herself very comfortably. 

Up at Tregoose they'd put Lord William and the old Squire to bed: and ascore of Whig supporters spent the best part of the evening downstairs inthe dining-room, with Major Dyngwall in the chair, working out the Voters'List and making fresh calculations. On the whole they felt cheerfulenough, and showed it: but they had to own, first, that the Parson's voteswere almost as bad as lost, whereas the amount of gains couldn't bereckoned with certainty: and second, that, resting as they did upon aconfusion between religious feeling and the stomach-ache, 'twas importantthat Lord William should recover by next morning, show himself about thetown and at the hustings, and clinch the mistake. John a Hall, who had ahead on his shoulders when parsons weren't concerned, shook it at this. He didn't believe for a moment that Lord William could be brought up tothe poll; and as it turned out, he was right. But towards the end of thediscussion he put forward a very clever suggestion. 

"I don't know, " says he, "if the Major here's an early riser?"

"Moderately, " says Major Dyngwall, looking for the moment as if thequestion took him fairly aback. They didn't think much of this at thetime, but it came back to their minds later on. 

"Well, then, " says John a Hall, "you're all terrible certain about theParson's votes being lost; but dang me if I've lost hope of 'em yet. Though I can't do it myself, I believe the old fool could be handled. By five in the morning, say, we shall know about Lord William. If he can't leave his bed--and I'll bet he can't--I suggest that the Majorsteps down, pays an early call, and tells Parson the simple truth frombeginning to end. "

"An excellent suggestion!" put in Mr. Newte. "I was about to make itmyself. There's nothing like telling the truth, after all: and I'll takecare it doesn't get about the town till the poll's closed. "

Well, so it was arranged: and early next morning, after dressing himselfvery carefully and making sure that Lord William couldn't leave his room(he was as yellow as an egg, poor fellow, with a kind of mild janders), away the Major starts upon his errand, promising to be back by seven, tobe driven down to the poll behind a brass band. 

On the stroke of eight, when Roger Newte, as Mayor and Returning Officer, declared the poll open, down the street came the blue-and-gold band, withDr. Macann and Mr. Saule behind it bowing and smiling in a two-horse shay, and a fine pillaloo of supporters. They cheered like mad to findthemselves first in the field, though disappointed in their hearts(I believe), having counted on a turn-up with the opposition band, just tostart the day sociably. The Tory candidates climbed the hustings, andthere the Doctor fired off six speeches and Mr. Saule a couple, while thevotes came rolling in like pennies at the door of a menagerie. And stillno sign of the Whigs, nor sound of any band from the direction ofTregoose. By half-past eight Roger Newte was looking nervous, and beganto send off small boys to hurry his friends up. Towards nine o'clockDr. Macann made another speech, and set the crowd roaring with"'Tis the voice of the sluggard, " out of Dr. Watts's hymn-book. "But I don't even hear his voice!" said he, very facetious-like: and"Seriously, gentlemen, my Whig friends might be more careful of yourfeelings. We know that they consider Ardevora their own: but they mightat least avoid insulting the British Liberty they have injured, "--tellingwords, these, I can assure you. "Nor, " he went on, "is it quite fairtreatment of our worthy Mayor here, who cannot be expected, single-handed, to defy you as he defied the Court of King's Bench and treat your votes ashe treated your Rate List. " Newte had to stand there and swallow this, though it was poison to him, and he swore next day he'd willingly spendten years in the pit of the wicked for getting quits with Macann. But what fairly knocked the fight out of him was to see, five minuteslater, old Parson Polsue totter up the steps towards him with a jaw stuckout like a mule's, and Grandison behind, and all their contingent. Though made up of Tories to a man, the crowd couldn't help hissing; but itaffected the old Parson not a doit. 

"Macann and Saule, " said he, speaking up sharp and loud: and at the namesthe hissing became a cheer fit to lift the roofs off their eaves. 

Newte fairly forgot himself. "Ha--haven't you seen Major Dyngwall thismorning?" he managed to ask. 

And with that the crowd below parted, and John a Hall came roaring throughit like a bull. 

"Where's the Major? Major Dyngwall! Who's seen Major Dyngwall?"

"Ay, we're all asking that?" called out some person, sarcastic-like: andall began to laugh and to boo. But John a Hall caught at the rail andswung himself up the steps. 

"You thundering fools!" he bellowed. "Is it foul play that tickles you?One of our candidates you've contrived to poison, and I've left him atTregoose between life and death. What have you done with the other?"By this time he had the mob fairly hushed and gaping. "What have you donewith the other?" he shouted, banging his fist down on the ReturningOfficer's table. "Let Parson Polsue speak first, for to my knowledge theMajor was bound for his lodgings when last seen. "

"I haven't set eyes on him, " said Parson Polsue. 

"I saw him!" piped up a woman in the crowd. "I saw him about six thismorning. He was walking along the foreshore towards Mr. Grandison's. "

At this everyone turned to the Curate; but he shook his head. "Major Dyngwall has not called on me this morning. Indeed, I have notseen him. "

"Then run you and search--half a dozen of you!" commanded John a Hall. "I'll get to the bottom of this, I warn you. And as for you, Dr. Macann, and you, Mr. Saule--if you haven't learnt the difference between honestfighting and poisoning--kidnapping--murder, maybe--"

But he got no further. "That's enough of big words, " said a voice, veryquiet, but so that all had to listen: and behold, there was Kitty Lebowmounting the steps, as cool as cream in a dairy. 

She landed on the platform and took a glance about her, and the folk readin her eye that she had come to enjoy herself. "Reckon I have a righthere so well as the best of you, since you put me on the Rate List, " saysshe, with a dry sort of twinkle. And with that she rounded on John aHall. "I think I heard you talkin' of poison, Mr. Martin, " says she, "not to mention kidnapping, and worse. And you asked, or my ears deceivedme, if we knew the difference between poison and fair play? Well, we do. And likewise we know the difference between sickness and shamming; andlikewise, again, the difference between making a demonstration in churchand walking out because you've three fingers of White Ale inside you andit don't lie down with your other vittles. I ask ye, folks all, "--and hereshe swung round to the crowd--"did ever one of you hear that ChristianaLebow's White Ale was poison? Hasn't it been known and famous in thistown before ever a Martin came to trouble us? And hasn't it times andagain steadied my own inside when it rebelled against their attorney's--tricks? Well now, I tell you, I gave three fingers of it to Lord Williamyesterday when he called in the way of politeness on his road to church:and sorry I am for the young man; and wouldn't ha' done it if I guessedhe'd been taking coffee with his breakfast. For White Ale and coffee belike Bottrells and Martins: they weren't made to mix. And another threefingers I doled out to the old Squire, and more by token 'twas the firsttime he'd ever darkened my threshold. That's my story: 'tis truth from atruth-speaking woman. And now if any silly fellow is going to vote Whigbecause o' yesterday, all I can say is--let him drink a breakfast cup ofcoffee and come to me for a glass of the other stuff; and if in fortyminutes' time he's got any particular concern about Church matters, youmay call me a--a--Martin!"

"That's all very well, ma'am, " shouted John a Hall, as soon as he couldmake himself heard for the laughing. "But it don't account for theMajor. "

"'Twasn't meant to, my son, " snapped Kitty, by this time in high goodhumour over her success as a public speaker. "But you started to talkabout poison, so I thought I'd correct 'ee before you made a second gooseof yourself over kidnapping. "

But just at this moment a couple of men came running and shouting from thefar end of the street. 

"We've found 'en! We've found 'en!"

"Where is he _to_?" and "I told you so!" cried John a Hall and Kitty bothin one breath. 

"He's over 'pon the Island, making love to Mrs. Lebow's youngest daughter, Lally! The tide's cut 'em off; but Arch'laus Trebilcock's put off tofetch 'em home in his new boat!"

I've heard tell that Kitty took it steady as a regiment. It must havebeen a dreadful moment, the laughter turning on a sudden against her. But she stood for a while, and then to the surprise of everyone she liftedher head and smiled with the best. Then she caught old Polsue's eye, whowas watching her as only a parson can, and, like a woman, she fixed on himas the man to answer. 

"I reckon I can trust a daughter o' mine, " says she. 

It must have been nervous work for her, though, as they brought the pairalong the street: and poor Lally didn't help her much by looking a pictureof shame. But the Major stepped along gaily and up to the platform;and I'll warrant a tier of guns there couldn't have tried a man's courageworse. 

"I humbly beg your pardon, madam. The tide cut us off while I was engagedin persuading your daughter to accept my hand. I cannot tell you, "--herehe let fly a lover's glance at Lally--"if the delay helped me. But shehas accepted me, ma'am, and with your leave we shall be the happiestcouple in England. "

They _do_ say that Mrs. Lebow's hand went up to box the poor girl's ears. But the Bottrells had wits as well as breed, one and all; and it ended byher giving the Major two fingers and dropping him one of those curtseysthat I've described to you already. 

Ay, and the cream of the fun was that, what with her public speaking forone party and giving her daughter to the other, the doubtful voterscouldn't for the life of them tell how to please her. "I'll vote, if youplease, for Mrs. Lebow, " said more than one of them, "if you'll tell mewhich side she's for. " And I suppose that gave Newte his chance. At any rate, he returned Lord William and Major Dyngwall as polling 85 and127 against Dr. Macann 42 and Mr. Saule 36. And so Miss Lally became aMember of Parliament's wife and rode in her coach. 

"Indeed, and I'm sorry for Macann, " said Kitty that night, as she untiedher bonnet-strings; "but taking one thing with another, 'tis long sinceI've had such an enjoyable day. "

[1] Probably "Huguenot's House. "[2] Lineage. 

THE HOTWELLS DUEL. 

From the Memoirs of Joshua Frampton, Esq. , late Honorary Physician tothe Wells, and Surgeon. 

I cannot pass this year 1790 without speaking of a ridiculousadventure which, but that it providentially happened at the close ofour season, when the Spa was emptying and our fashionables talkedmore of packing their trunks than of the newest scandals, might havedone me some professional damage besides bringing unmerited publiclaughter upon the heads of two honest gentlemen. As it was, ourleading news-sheet, the _Hotwells Courant_, did not even smoke theaffair, and so lost a nine days' wonder; while the Whig _Examiner_, after printing an item which threw me into a two days' perspiration, forbore to follow up the scent--the reason being that Mr. Lemoine, its editor, was shortly expecting an addition to his family, and, knowing his nervousness upon these occasions and his singularconfidence in my skill, I was able to engage him by arguments towhich at another time he might have listened less amiably. 

I have already related how, on the approach of autumn, I advertisedfor an assistant. The young man whom I selected was a Scotsman fromthe University of Glasgow, Duncan MacRea by name, and no youth of hisage could have brought better testimonials to ability or character. Relying upon these, I did not stand out for an interview--his homelying so far away as Largs, in Ayrshire--but came to terms at once, and he arrived at my door with his valise at the untimely hour offive in the morning, the fifteenth of October, having travelled allthe way to Bristol in a ship laden with salted herrings. 

I will own that this apparition on my doorstep in the coldmorning light (he had rung the night-bell) surprised me somewhat. But I remembered the proverbial impetuosity of Scotsmen in pushingtheir fortunes, and his personal appearance may have helped toconciliate me, since my mind had misgiven me that I had done wiser toinsist on an interview, instead of buying a pig in a poke; for looksno less than knowledge are a physician's _passepartout_ among theladies who bring their ailments to our provincial spas. The facewhich the lad lifted towards my bedroom window was a remarkablyhandsome one, though pallid, and the voice in which he answered mychallenge had a foreign intonation, but musical and in no wayresembling the brogue for which I had been preparing myself. 

So delighted was I at this dissipation of my fears that, slipping onmy dressing-gown (I believe without removing my nightcap), andpausing only on the landing to call up to the maidservants to light afire and prepare coffee with all speed, I hurried downstairs andunbarred the door. Whereupon Master MacRea instantly and with greatcordiality shook me by the hand. 

"It is a great pleasure to me, Dr. Frampton, to make youracquaintance, more especially, sir, to find you surrounded by thoseevidences of a prosperous practice which I had indeed inferred fromyour genteel reticence and the quality of your notepaper. At the endof a long journey, undertaken on the strength of that inference, itis delightful to find my best hopes confirmed. "

He shook me by the hand again very warmly. Taken aback by thisextraordinary address, I gasped once or twice, and even then couldfind nothing better to say than that he must have found his journeyfatiguing. 

"Fatiguing, perhaps, but not tiresome. To the philosophic mind, Dr. Frampton, there should be no such thing as tedium, boredom, _ennui_, and I trust that mine is philosophic. You were much in mythoughts, sir, between the attacks of sea-sickness. By frequentperusal I had committed your two epistles to memory, and whilesilently rehearsing their well-turned sentences, in the words ofDr. Samuel Johnson I pursued in imagination the pleasures of hope, yet without listening to the whispers of credulity--for I wasprepared to find your flattering description fade upon a nearerprospect. But I am reassured!"

Positively he shook hands for a third time. Confound the fellow!I had merely hinted that my patients, or the most of them, were ofgood social position, and had offered him board and lodging, with asalary of forty pounds, rising five pounds annually. 

"And by Heavens!" he exclaimed, spinning round on his heel at a soundof hasty footsteps crossing the square, "here comes freshconfirmation! A black manservant--and, as I live, in a gold-lacedhat! Of such things I have read in books, but how much livelier, Dr. Frampton, is the ocular appeal of reality!"

It was, to be sure, Major Dignum's black valet Gumbo, and with a notefor me. The fellow's disordered dress and quick breathing spoke ofurgency, and I broke the seal at once, wondering the while what couldhave befallen the Major, a retired and gouty West Indian whom I hadbeen visiting daily for three months at his apartments in the GrandPump Hotel. The missive ran:--

 "My dear Dr. Frampton, --As a friend rather than a patient, I beg you to come to me without delay! Pray ask no questions of Gumbo, who knows nothing. You will need no spurring when I tell you that though in no worse than my usual health, a few hours may see me in eternity. Confidently yours, Orlando Dignum (Major). "

I folded the letter, and nodded to Gumbo. "Tell your master that Iwill delay only to shave and dress before calling on him. "

The faithful fellow had been watching me anxiously. "In the name ofgoodness, doctor, ain't you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"I know as little as you, " said I. "But, whatever it is, the Majorthinks it serious; so run, my man, and say that I am following. "

With something like a groan, Gumbo started off, and I turned to Mr. MacRea. "You will find a cup of coffee in your room, " I said. "I must attend to this sudden call; but possibly by the time you havewashed and changed, I may be free to rejoin you at breakfast, when wecan talk at leisure. "

The young man had caught up his valise, but set it down again andlaid three fingers on my sleeve. "You speak of a change of clothes, sir. I will be frank with you--these breeches in which you behold meare my only ones. They were a present from my mother's sister, resident in Paisley, and I misdoubt there will have been somethingamiss in her instructions to the tailor, for they gall me woundily--though in justice to her and the honest tradesman I should add thatmy legs, maybe, are out of practice since leaving Glasgow. At Largs, sir, I have been reverting to the ancestral garb. "

"You'll wear no such thing about the Hotwells, " I interposed. 

"Indeed, I was not thinking it likely. My purpose was to procureanother pair on my arrival--aye, and I would do so before breakingfast, had not circumstances which I will not detain you by relatingput this for the moment out of the question. Do not mistake me, Dr. Frampton. In public I will thole these dreadful articles, though itcost me my skin; but in private, sir, if as a favour you will allowme--if, as a bachelor yourself, you will take it _sans gene_. And, by-the-by, I trust you will not scruple to point out any smalldefects in my French accent, which has been acquired entirely frombooks. "

He had, in fact, pronounced it "jeen, " but I put this by. "Quite impossible, Mr. MacRea! I have to think of the servants. "

"Eh? You have servants!"

"Four or five, " said I. 

His eyes seemed ready to start out of his head. "I had opined by theway you opened the door with your own hand--" He broke off, andexclaimed: "Four or five servants! It will be a grand practice ofyours! Well, go your ways, Dr. Frampton--I must e'en study to liveup to you. "

Having piloted my eccentric upstairs and left him to his toilet, I lost no time in dressing and presenting myself at the Grand PumpHotel, where I found my West Indian friend in a truly deplorablestate of agitation. His face, ordinarily rubicund, bore traces of asleepless night; indeed, it was plain that he had not changed hisclothes since leaving the Assembly Rooms, where he invariably spenthis evenings at a game of _faro_ for modest stakes. He grasped myhand, springing up to do so from a writing-table whereon lay severalsheets of foolscap paper. 

"Ah! my dear friend, you are late!" was his greeting. 

"I thought I had been moderately expeditious, " said I. 

"Yes, yes--perhaps so. " He consulted his watch. "But with an affairof this sort hanging over one, the minutes drag. And yet, Heavenknows, mine may be few enough. "

"Pardon me, " I said, "but to what sort of affair are you alluding?"

"An affair of honour, " he answered tragically. 

"Eh?" I said. "A duel! You have engaged yourself to fight a duel?"He nodded. "Then I will have nothing to do with it, " I announcedwith decision. 

"Aye, " said he with marked irony, "it is at such a pinch that onediscovers his true friends! But fortunately I had no soonerdispatched Gumbo in search of you than I foresaw some chance of thispusillanimity of which you give me proof. "

"Pusillanimity?" I interjected. "It is nothing of the kind. But youseem to forget my position here as honorary physician to theHotwells. "

"We'll call it lukewarmness, then, " he went on in yet more bitingtones. "At the risk of seeming intrusive, I at once knocked up twoIrish gentlemen on the landing above who had been audibly making anight of it while I sat here endeavouring to compose my thoughts tothe calmness proper for framing a testamentary disposition. Although perfect strangers to me, they cheerfully granted what youhave denied me; consented with alacrity--nay, with enthusiasm--to actas my seconds in this affair; and started to carry my cartel--which, having gone to bed in their boots, they were able to do with thesmallest possible delay. "

"You have not yet told me the nature of the quarrel, " I suggested. 

His face at once resumed its wonted colour--nay, took on an extratinge inclining to purple. "And I don't intend to!" he snapped. 

"Then you no longer need my services?"

"Fortunately no, since you make such a pother of granting them. Stay--you might witness my will here, to which I am about to affix mysignature. "

"With pleasure, " said I. "But who is to be the other witness?The law requires two, you know. "

"Confound it--so it does! I had forgotten. We might ring up theBoots, eh?"

"Better avoid dragging the servants of the hotel into this business, especially if you would keep your intention secret. How aboutGumbo?"

"He's black, to begin with, and moreover he benefits under thedocument to the extent of a small legacy. "

"That rules him out, at any rate. Ha!" I exclaimed, glancing out ofwindow, "the very man!"

"Who?"

"An excellent fellow at this moment crossing the gardens towards theMall--he is early this morning; a discreet, solid citizen, and ableto keep his counsel as well as any man in the Hotwells; our leadingjeweller, Mr. Jenkinson. "

I turned sharply, for the Major had sunk into his chair with a groan. 

"Jenkinson!" he gasped. "Jenkinson! The man's insatiable--he hasbeen watching the hotel in his lust for blood! He threatened lastnight to cut my liver out and give it to the crows--my unfortunateliver on which you, doctor, have wasted so much solicitude. He usedthe most extraordinary language--not, " the Major added, gripping thearms of his chair and sitting erect, "not that he shall find me slowin answering his threats. "

"My dear Major, " I cried, "under what delusion are you labouring?Mr. Jenkinson, believe me, is incapable of hurting a fly. You musthave mistaken your man. Come and see him for yourself. " And drawinghim to the window, I pointed after the figure of the retreatingjeweller. 

The Major's brow cleared. "No, " he admitted, "that is not in theleast like him. Still, he gave me his name as Jenkinson. Oh! decidedly that is not the man. "

"The name is not uncommon, " said I. "Excuse me, I must hurry, or hewill be out of sight!" And I ran downstairs and out into the streetas Mr. Jenkinson disappeared around the corner. Following briskly, Ibrought him into sight again a moment before he turned aside into asmall tavern--'The Lamb and the Flag'--half-way down the Mall. 

Now 'The Lamb and the Flag' enjoyed a low reputation, and for acitizen of ordinary respectability to be seen entering it at thathour--well, it invited surmise. But I knew Mr. Jenkinson to be abovesuspicion; he might be the ground-landlord--I had heard of hispurchasing several small bits of property about the town. In short, it was almost with consternation that, following into the dirty bar, I surprised him in the act of raising a glass of brandy to his lipswith a trembling hand. 

I certainly took him aback, and he almost dropped the glass. "Excuse me, Dr. Frampton, " he stammered, "pray do not think--thisindulgence--not a habit, I assure you. Oh, doctor! I have passed afearful night!"

"Indeed?" said I sympathetically. "If my services can be of use--"

"No, no, " he interrupted, paused, and seemed to consider. "At least, not yet. "

"It seems, then, that I am doubly inopportune, " I said, "for I havebeen following you to ask a small favour--not for myself, but for acertain Major Dignum, at the Grand Pump Hotel; nothing more than theattesting of a signature--a mere matter of form. "

"Major Dignum? Ah, yes! the name is familiar to me from the_Courant's_ Visitors' List. " Mr. Jenkinson passed an agitated handacross his forehead. "I cannot recall seeing him in my shop. By allmeans, doctor--to oblige the gentleman--in my unhappy frame of mind--it will be a--a distraction. "

So back I led the jeweller, explaining on the way how I had caughtsight of him from the hotel window, and ushered him up to theapartment where the Major sat impatiently awaiting us. 

"Good morning, sir, " the Major began, with a bow. "So your name'sJenkinson? Most extraordinary! I--I am pleased to hear it, sir. "

"Extraordinary!" the Major repeated, as he bent over the papers tosign them. "I am asking you, Mr. Jenkinson, to witness thissignature to my last will and testament. In the midst of life--bythe way, what is your Christian name?"

"William, sir. "

"Incredible!" The Major bounced up from his chair and sat down againtrembling, while he fumbled with his waistcoat pocket. "Ah, no!--tobe sure--I gave it to my seconds, " he muttered. "In the midst oflife--"

"You may well say so, sir!" The jeweller took a seat and adjustedhis spectacles as I sanded the Major's signature and pushed thedocument across the table. "A man, " Mr. Jenkinson continued, dippinghis pen wide of the ink-pot, "on the point of exchanging time foreternity--"

"That thought is peculiarly unpleasant to me just now, " the Majorinterrupted. "May I beg you not to enlarge upon it?"

"But I _must_, sir!" cried out Mr. Jenkinson, as though the wordswere wrested from him by an inward agony; and tearing open his coat, he plucked a packet of folded papers from his breast-pocket andslapped it down upon the table. "You have called me in, gentlemen, to witness a will. I ask you in return to witness mine--which mustbe at least ten times as urgent. "

"Another will!" I glanced at the Major, who stared wildly about him, but could only mutter: "Jenkinson! William Jenkinson!"

"To-morrow, sir, " pursued the jeweller, his voice rising almost to ascream, "you may have forgotten the transient fears which drove youto this highly proper precaution. For you the sun will shine, thelarks sing, your blood will course with its accustomed liveliness, and your breast expand to the health-giving breeze. I don't blameyou for it--oh, dear, no! not in the least. But you will admit it'sa totally different thing to repose beneath the churchyard sod on amere point of honour, with an assassin's bullet in your heart--not tomention that he threatened to tear it out and fling it to the crows!"

"The deuce!" shouted the Major, "your heart, did you say?"

"I did, sir. "

"You are quite sure! Your heart?--you are certain it was your heart?Not your liver? Think, man!"

"He did not so much as allude to that organ, sir, though I have nodoubt he was capable of it. "

While we gazed upon one another, lost in a maze of extravagantsurmise, a riotous rush of feet took the staircase by storm, and thedoor crashed open before two hilarious Irishmen, of whom thespokesman wore the reddest thatch of hair it has ever been my lot tocast eyes on. The other, so far as I can remember, confined hisutterances to frequent, vociferous, and wholly inarticulate cries ofthe chase. 

The Major presented them to us as Captain Tom O'Halloran and Mr. Finucane. 

"And we've had the divvle's own luck, Major, dear, " announced TomO'Halloran. "The blayguard's from home. Ah, now! don't bedispirited, 'tis an early walk he's after takin'; at laste, that'swhat the slip of a gurrl towld us who answered the door; and mightysurprised she seemed to open it to a pair of customers at such anhour. For what d'ye suppose he calls himself when he's at home?A jooler, sorr; a dirthy jooler. "

"A jeweller!" I cried aloud. 

"No more, no less. Says I, there's quare gentlefolks going in thesetimes, but I don't cool my heels waitin' in a jooler's shop with achallenge for the principal when he chooses to walk in to business. So I said to the gurrl: 'You may tell your master, ' I said, 'there'stwo gentlemen have called, and will have his blood yet in a bottle, 'I said; 'but any time will do between this and to-morrow. ' And withthat I came away. But Mr. Finucane here suggested that, whilst wewere at it, we might save time and engage the surgeon. So on our wayback we rang up Dr. Frampton. No luck again; the doctor was out. Faix! early walkin' seems the fashion at this health resort. But we've brought along his assistant, if that's any use to you, andhe's downstairs at this moment on the door-mat. "

The captain put his head outside and whistled. Mr. Finucane assistedwith a lifelike imitation of a coach-horn, and Mr. MacRea, thussummoned, appeared upon the threshold. 

I cannot accurately describe what followed, for the jeweller, bycasting himself into my arms, engaged a disproportionate share of myattention. I believe the Major caught up a loo table and held itbefore him as a shield. 

"You see, " said Mr. MacRea, that afternoon, as I escorted him to theoffice of the Bath Coaching Company, to book his seat for that city, "on arriving at the Hotwells last evening, I naturally wished, Dr. Frampton, to assure myself that your position as a medical mananswered to the glowing descriptions of it in your correspondence. I could think of no better method to arrive at this than by minglingwith the gay throng in the Assembly Rooms; and I deemed that to takea hand at cards at the public tables would be the surest way tooverhear the chit-chat of the fashionable world, and maybe elicit itsopinion of you. But alas, sir! a man cannot play at the cardswithout exposing himself to the risk of losing. At the first table Ilost--not heavily indeed, yet considerably. I rose and changed toanother table; again I lost--this time the last sixpence in mypocket. Now, it is an idiosyncrasy of mine, maybe, but I cannot loseat the cards without losing also my temper; and the form it takeswith me, Dr. Frampton, is too often an incontrollable impulse to pullthe winner's nose. I have argued with myself against this tendency ascore of times, but it will not be denied. So, sir, last night, penniless and in a foreign land, I paced to and fro beneath the treesin front of the Assembly Rooms, and when this Mr. Jenkinson emerged, I accosted him and pulled his nose. To my astonishment he gave me aticket and assured me that I should hear from him. Sir, we have nosuch practice at Largs, but it is my desire to conform with thecustoms of this country, especially in matters of etiquette. Consequently, after pulling the second gentleman's nose, I handed himthe first gentleman's ticket, having none of my own and beingignorant (in the darkness) that it bore the first gentleman's name. It was a mischance, sir, but so far as I can see one that might havehappened to anybody. You say that even after apologising--for onreflection I am always willing to apologise for any conduct intowhich my infirmity of temper may have betrayed me--it is impossiblefor me to continue here as your assistant. I am glad, then, thatprudence counselled me to provide two strings to my bow, and engagemyself to Dr. Mathers of Bath, on the chance that you provedunsatisfactory; and I thank you for the month's salary, which I couldnot perhaps claim under the circumstances as a right, but which I amhappy to accept as a favour. "

CLEEVE COURT. 

I. 

Cleeve Court, known now as Cleeve Old Court, sits deep in a valley besidea brook and a level meadow, across which it looks southward upon climbingwoods and glades descending here and there between them like broad greenrivers. Above, the valley narrows almost to a gorge, with scarps oflimestone, grey and red-streaked, jutting sheer over its alder beds andfern-screened waterfalls; and so zigzags up to the mill and hamlet ofIpplewell, beyond which spread the moors. Below, it bends southward andwidens gradually for a mile to the market-town of Cleeve Abbots, where bya Norman bridge of ten arches its brook joins a large river, and theirwaters, scarcely mingled, are met by the sea tides, spent and warm withcrawling over the sandbanks of a six-mile estuary. 

Cleeve Old Court sees neither the limestone crags above nor the townbelow, but sits sequestered in its own bend of the valley, in its ownclearing amid the heavy elms; so sheltered that, even in March andNovember, when the wind sings aloft on the ridges, the smoke mountsstraight from its chimneys and the trees drip as steadily as though theywere clocks and marked the seconds perfunctorily, with no real interest inthe lapse of time. For the house, with its round-shouldered Jacobeangables, its stone-cropped roof, lichen-spotted plaster, and ill-kept yewhedge, has an air of resignation to decay, well-bred but spiritless, andcommunicates it to the whole of its small landscape. Our old builderschose their sites for shelter rather than for view; and this--and perhapsa well of exquisite water bubbling by the garden gate on the very lip ofthe brook--must explain the situation of the Old Court. Its presentowner--being inordinately rich--had abandoned it to his bailiff, and builthimself a lordly barrack on the ridge, commanding views that stretch fromthe moors to the sea. For this nine out of ten would commend him; but notrue a Cleeve would ever have owned so much of audacity or disowned somuch of tradition, and he has wasted a compliment on the perished familyby assuming its name. 

The last a Cleeve who should have inherited Cleeve Court returned to itfor the last time on a grey and dripping afternoon in 1805--on the sameday and at the same hour, in fact, when, hundreds of miles to thesouthward, our guns were banging to victory off Cape Trafalgar. Here, at home, on the edge of the Cleeve woods, the air hung heavy andsoundless, its silence emphasised rather than broken now and again by the_kuk-kuk_ of a pheasant in the undergrowth. Above the plantations, alongthe stubbled uplands, long inert banks of vapour hid the sky-line; and outof these Walter a Cleeve came limping across the ridge, his figure loomingunnaturally. 

He limped because he had walked all the way from Plymouth in a pair ofFrench sabots--a penitential tramp for a youth who loathed walking at thebest of times. He knew his way perfectly, although he followed no path;yet, coming to the fringe of the woodland, he turned aside and skirted thefence as if unexpectedly headed off by it. And this behaviour seemedhighly suspicious to Jim Burdon, the under-keeper, who, not recognisinghis young master, decided that here was a stranger up to no good. 

Jim's mind ran on poachers this year. Indeed he had little else to broodover and very little else to discuss with Macklin, the head-keeper. The Cleeve coverts had come to a pretty pass, and, as things were going, could only end in worse. Here they were close on the third week inOctober, and not a gun had been fired. Last season it had been badenough, and indeed ever since the black day which brought news that youngMr. Walter was a prisoner among the French. No more shooting-parties, nomore big beats, no more handsome gratuities for Macklin and windfalls forJim Burdon! Nevertheless, the Squire, with a friend or two, had shot thecoverts after a fashion. The blow had shaken him: uncertainty, anxiety ofthis sort for his heir and only child, must prey upon any man's mind. Still (his friends argued) the cure lay in his lifelong habits; these werethe firm ground on which he would feel his footing again and recoverhimself--since, if so colourless a man could be said to nurse a passion, it was for his game. A strict Tory by breeding, and less by any processof intellectual conviction than from sheer inability to see himself in anyother light, indolent and contemptuous of politics, in game-preservingalone he let his Toryism run into activity, even to a fine excess. The Cleeve coverts, for instance, harboured none but pheasants of the oldpure breed, since extinct in England--the true Colchian--and the Squirewas capable of maintaining that these not only gave honester sport(whatever he meant by this), but were better eating than any birds oflater importation (which was absurd). The appearance--old Macklindeclared--of a single green-plumed or white-ringed bird within a mile ofCleeve Court was enough to give him a fit: certainly it would irritate himmore than any poacher could--though poachers, too, were poison. 

When first the Squire took to neglecting his guns all set it down to apassing dejection of spirit. He alone knew that he nursed a woundincurable unless his son returned, and that this distaste was but an earlystage in his ailing. Being a man of reserved and sensitive soul, intowhich no fellow-creature had been allowed to look, he told his secret tono one, not even to his wife. She--a Roman Catholic and devout--had livedfor many years almost entirely apart from him, occupying her own rooms, divided between her books and the spiritual consolations of FatherHalloran, who had a lodging at the Court and a board of his own. In spite of the priest's demure eye and neat Irish wit, the three made amelancholy household. 

"As melancholy as a nest of gib cats, " said old Macklin. "And I feel itcoming over me at nights up at my cottage. How's a man to sleep, knowingthe whole place so scandalously overstocked--the birds that tame they runbetween your legs--and no leave to use a gun, even to club 'em into goodmanners?"

"Leave it to Charley Hannaford, " growled Jim bitterly. "He'll soon weedus out neat and clean. I wonder the Squire don't pay him for doing ourwork. "

The head-keeper looked up sharply. "Know anything?" he asked laconically. 

Jim answered one question with another. "See Hannaford's wife in churchlast Sunday?"

"Wasn't there--had too much to employ me walking the coverts. I believe aman's duty comes before his church-going at this time o' year; but Isuppose there's no use to argue with a lad when he's courting. "

"Courting or not, I was there; and, what's more, I had it reckoned up forme how much money Bess Hannaford wore on her back. So even going tochurch may come in useful, Sam Macklin, if a man's got eyes in his head. "

"Argyments!" sniffed the head-keeper. "You'll be some time laggingCharley Hannaford with argyments. Coverts is coverts, my son, and BowStreet is Bow Street. Keep 'em separate. "

"Stop a minute. That long-legg'd boy of his is home from service atExeter. Back in the summer I heard tell he was getting on famous as afootman, and liked his place. Seems to have changed his mind, or else theHannafords are settin' up a footman of their own. " (Jim, when put out, had a gift of sarcasm. )

"Bow Street again, " said Macklin stolidly, puffing at his pipe. "Anything more?"

"Well, yes, "--Jim at this point began to drawl his words--"you've cast aneye, no doubt, over the apple heaps in Hannaford's back orchard?"

Macklin nodded. 

"Like the looks o' them?"

"Not much. Anything more?"

Jim's gaze wandered carelessly to the horizon, and his drawl grewslower yet as he led up to his triumph. "Not much--only I took a strolldown to town Saturday night, and dropped in upon Bearne, the chemist. Hannaford had been there that afternoon buying nux vomica. "

"No?" The elder man was startled, and showed it. "The gormed rascal!That was a clever stroke of yours, though, I will say. "

Jim managed to conceal his satisfaction with a frown. "If I don't get acharge of buckshot somewhere into Charles Hannaford between this andChristmas I'm going to enlist!" he announced. 

But Macklin did not hear, being occupied for the moment with this newevidence of Hannaford's guile, which he contemplated, be it said, moredispassionately than did Jim. In Jim there rankled a venomous personalgrudge, dating from the day when, having paid an Exeter taxidermist for abeautifully stuffed _Phasianus colchicus_, he had borne the bird home, cunningly affixed it to a roosting-bough, and left it there looking asnatural as life. On arriving at the tree early next morning he foundMacklin (to whom he had not imparted the secret) already there, andstaring aloft with a puzzled grin. Someone had decorated the bird duringthe night with a thin collar of white linen. "Very curious, " explainedMacklin; "I got a 'nonamous letter last night, pushed under my door, andtellin' me there was a scandalous ring-necked bird roosting hereabouts. The fellow went on to say he wouldn't have troubled me but for knowing theSquire to be so particular set against this breed, and wound up by signinghimself 'Yours truly, A WELL WISHER. '"

The worse of it was that Macklin found the joke too good to keep it tohimself: by this time the whole countryside knew of Jim's visit to the"tackydermatist, " and maddening allusions to it had kept Jim's temper rawand his fists pretty active. 

So it was that, on the misty afternoon when young Mr. Walter a Cleevepassed him unawares, Jim had been standing for twenty minutes flat againsta tree on the upper outskirts of the plantation, sunk in a brown study. The apparition startled him, for the thick air deadened the sound offootsteps; and the sound, when it fell on his ears, held somethingunfamiliar. (Jim was unacquainted with sabots. ) He stood perfectlystill, let it go by, and at once prepared to follow--not that hissuspicions connected this stranger with Charley Hannaford, who habituallyworked alone, but because the man's gait ("He lopped like a hare, " saidJim afterwards) and peculiar slouch of the shoulders somehow aroused hismisgivings. Who could this be? And what might be his business that hefollowed no path, yet seemed to be walking with a purpose?

A shallow ditch ran along the inner side of the fence, clear ofundergrowth and half filled with rotted leaves. Along this Jim followed, gun in hand, keeping his quarry's head-and shoulders well in sight overthe coping. This was laborious work, for he plunged ankle-deep at everystep; but the leaves, sodden with a week's rain, made a noiseless carpet, whereas the brushwood might have crackled and betrayed him. 

Walter a Cleeve limped forward, not once turning his head. These were hispaternal acres, and he knew every inch of them, almost every spot oflichen along the fence. Abroad he had dreamed of them, night after night;but he did not pause to regreet them now, for his thoughts were busyahead, in the Court now directly beneath him in the valley; and in histhoughts he was there already, announcing himself, facing his mother inher unchanged room, and his father in the library. 

Amid these thoughts (and they were anxious ones) he reached the point forwhich he had been steering, a platform of rock and thin turf from which alimestone cliff, parting the woods, descended almost sheer to the valley. The White Rock it was called, and as a child Walter a Cleeve had climbedabout it a score of times in search of madrepores; for a gully ran downbeside it, half choked with fern and scree, and from the gully here andthere a ledge ran out across the cliff-face, otherwise inaccessible. The gully itself, though daunting at first sight, gave, in fact, a shortcut down to the meadows above Cleeve Court, easy and moderately safe. Walter a Cleeve plunged into it without hesitation. 

Now it so happened that at this moment, some fifty yards down the gully, and well screened by the overhanging rock, Charley Hannaford was crouchingwith a wire in his hand. Even had you known his whereabouts and hisbusiness, it would have been hard to stalk Charley Hannaford single-handedon the face of the White Rock. But the wiliest poacher cannot provideagainst such an accident as this--that a young gentleman, supposed to bein France, should return by an unfrequented path, and by reason of anawkward French boot catch his toe and slide precipitately, withoutwarning, down twenty feet of scree, to drop another six feet on to agrassy ledge. Yet this is just what happened. Charley Hannaford, alreadypricking up his ears at the unfamiliar footfall up the gully had scarcelytime to rise on his knees in readiness for retreat, when Walter a Cleevecame sprawling almost on top of him. 

"Hallo!" gasped Walter, scarcely more confused by his fall than by thesingular meeting. "Clumsy of me--" His eyes fell on the wire whichHannaford was stealthily trying to pocket, and grew wide withunderstanding. Then they sought the ground by Hannaford's feet, andglanced from that up to the fence of the plantation overhanging the farside of the gully. 

"Well, Charles Hannaford, you don't look overjoyed to see me home again!"

The poacher grinned awkwardly. He was caught, for certain: nevertheless, his wariness did not desert him. 

"You took me rather sudden, Mister Walter. "

"That's fairly evident. Maize, eh?" He scooped a few grains into hispalm and sniffed at them. "Better maize than my father's, no doubt. Where's Macklin?"

"Somewhere's about. I say, Mister Walter--"

"And Jim Burdon?"

"Near abouts, too. Be you goin' to tell on me?"

"Why on earth shouldn't I? It's robbery, you know, and I don't care anymore than my father does for being robbed. "

"That was a nasty tumble of yours, sir. "

"Yes, I suppose it _was_ something of a spill. But I'm not hurt, thankyou. "

"It might ha' been a sight worse, " said Charley Hannaford reflectively. "A foot or two more, now--and the rock, if I remember, sloping outwardsjust here below. " He leaned his head sideways and seemed to drop a casualglance over the ledge. 

Walter knew that the drop just there was a very nasty one indeed. "Oh, but yon's where I came over--I couldn't have fallen quite so wide--"he began to explain, and checked himself, reading the queer strained smileon Hannaford's face. 

"I--I reckon we'll call it Providence, all the same, " said the poacher. 

Then Walter understood. The man was desperate, and _he_--he, Walter aCleeve, was a coward. 

Had he known it, across the gully a pair of eyes were watching. He had help within call. Jim Burdon had come to the upper end of theplantation a few seconds too late to witness the accident. By the time hereached the hedge there and peered over, Walter had disappeared; and Jim--considerably puzzled, half inclined to believe that the stranger hadwalked over the edge of the White Rock and broken his neck--worked his waydown the lateral fence beside the gully, to be brought up standing by thesight of the man he sought, safe and sound, and apparently engaged infriendly chat with Charley Hannaford. 

But Walter a Cleeve's back was turned towards the fence, and again Jimfailed to recognise him. And Jim peered over the fence through agorse-whin, undetected even by the poacher's clever eyes. 

"It's queer, too, " went on Charley Hannaford slowly, as if chewing eachword. "I hadn't even heard tell they was expectin' you, down at theCourt. "

"They are not, " Walter answered. He scarcely thought of the words, whichindeed seemed to him to be spoken by somebody else. He was evenastonished at the firmness of their sound; but he knew that his face waswhite, and all the while he was measuring Hannaford's lithe figure, andcalculating rapidly. Just here he stood at a disadvantage: a sidelongspring might save him: it would take but a second. On the other hand, ifduring that second or less . . . His eyes were averted from the verge, andyet he saw it, and his senses apprised every foot of the long fall beyond. While he thought it out, keeping tension on himself to meet CharleyHannaford's gaze with a deceptive indifference, his heart swelled at thehumiliation of it all. He had escaped from a two years' captivity--and, Heavens! how he had suffered over there, in France! He had run risks: hisadventures--bating one unhappy blot upon them, which surely did not infectthe whole--might almost be called heroic. And here he was, within a fewhundred yards of home, ignominiously trapped. The worst of it was thatdeath refused to present itself to him as possible. He knew that he couldsave himself by a word: he foresaw quite clearly that he was going toutter it. What enraged him was the equal certainty that a courageousman--one with the tradition he ought to have inherited--would behave quitedifferently. It was not death, but his own shameful cowardice, that helooked in the face during those moments. 

Into the poacher's eyes there crept his habitual shifty smile. "You'll have a lot to tell 'em down there, Mr. Walter, without troublin'about me. "

The unhappy lad forced a laugh. "You might say so, if you knew what I'vebeen through. One doesn't escape out of France in these days withoutadventures, and mine would make pretty good reading. "

"Surely, sir. "

"But if I--if I overlook this affair, it's not to be a precedent, youunderstand. I intend to live at home now and look after the estate. My father will wish it. "

"To be sure. "

"And stealing's stealing. If I choose to keep my own counsel about this, you are not to suppose I shall forget it. The others suspect only, but I_know_; and henceforth I advise you to bear that in mind. "

"And much obliged to you, sir. I know a gentleman and can trust hisword. "

"So the best advice I can give you is to turn over a new leaf. "Walter turned to go with an air of careless magnanimity, conscious of thesorry part he was playing, yet not wholly without hope that it imposedupon the other. "I want to be friends with all my neighbours, youunderstand. Good-bye. "

He nodded curtly and began to pick his way down the gully with a slownessalmost ostentatious. And as he went he cursed his weakness, and broke offcursing to reconstruct the scene from the beginning and imagine himselfcarrying it off with contemptuous fearlessness, at hand-grips with CharleyHannaford and defying him. He would (he felt) give the world to see thelook Charley Hannaford flung after him. 

The poacher's eyes did indeed follow him till he disappeared, but it wouldhave taken a wise man to read them. After a meditative minute or so hecoiled up his wire, pocketed it, and made off across the face of the rockby a giddy track which withdrew him at once from Jim Burdon's sight. 

And Jim Burdon, pondering what he had seen, withdrew himself from hidingand went off to report to Macklin that Charley Hannaford had anaccomplice, that the pair were laying snares on the White Rock, and that alittle caution would lay them both by the heels. 

II. 

Walter a Cleeve did not arrive at the Court by the front entrance, but bya door which admitted to his mother's wing of the house, through theeastern garden secluded and reserved for her use. This was his way. From childhood he and his mother had lived in a sort of conspiracy--intending no guile, be it understood. She was a Roman Catholic. Her husband, good easy man, held to the Church of England, in which he hadbeen bred; but held to it without bigotry, and supposed heaven within thereach of all who went through life cleanly and honourably. By consequencethe lady had her way, and reared the boy in her own faith. She haddelicate health, too--a weapon which makes a woman all but invincible whenpitted against a man of delicate feeling. 

The Squire, though shy, was affectionate. He sincerely loved his boy, andthere was really no good reason why he and Walter should not open theirhearts to one another. But somehow the religious barrier, which he didhis best to ignore, had gradually risen like an impalpable fence abouthim, and kept him a dignified exile in his own house. For years all theindoor servants, chosen by Mrs. A Cleeve, had been Roman Catholics. In his own sphere--in the management of the estate--he did as he wished;in hers he was less often consulted than Father Halloran, and had ceasedto resent this, having stifled his first angry feelings and told himselfthat it did not become a man to wrangle with women and priests. He foundit less tolerable that Walter and his mother laid their plans togetherbefore coming to him. Why? Good Heavens! (he reflected testily) the boymight come and ask for anything in reason, and welcome! To give, evenafter grumbling a bit, is one of a father's dearest privileges. But no:when Walter wanted anything--which was seldom--he must go to his motherand tell her, and his mother promised to "manage it. " In his secret heartthe Squire loathed this roundabout management, and tried to wean Walter byconsulting him frankly on the daily business of the estate. But no again:Walter seemingly cared little for these confidences: and again, althoughhe learned to shoot and was a fair horseman, he put no heart into hissports. His religion debarred him from a public school; or, rather--inMrs. A Cleeve's view--it made all the public schools undesirable. When she first suggested Dinan (and in a way which convinced the Squirethat she and Father Halloran had made up their minds months before), for amoment he feared indignantly that they meant to make a priest of his boy. But Mrs. A Cleeve resigned that prospect with a sigh. Walter must marryand continue the family. Nevertheless, when Great Britain formallyrenounced the Peace of Amiens, and Master Walter found himself among the_detenus_, his mother sighed again to think that, had he been designed forthe priesthood, he would have escaped molestation; while his father noless ruefully cursed the folly which had brought him within Bonaparte'sclutches. 

Mrs. A Cleeve sat by her boudoir fire embroidering an altar frontal forthe private chapel. At the sound of a footstep in the passage she stoppedher work with a sharp contraction of the heart: even the clattering woodenshoes could not wholly disguise that footstep for her. She was risingfrom her deep chair as Walter opened the door; but sank back trembling, and put a hand over her white face. 

"Mother!"

It was he. He was kneeling: she felt his hands go about her waist and hishead sink in her lap. 

"Oh, Walter! Oh, my son!"

"Mother!" he repeated with a sob. She bent her face and kissed him. 

"Those horrible clothes--you have suffered! But you have escaped!Tell me--"

In broken sentences he began to tell her. 

"You have seen your father?" she asked, interrupting him. 

"Not yet. I have seen nobody: I came straight to you. "

"He is greatly aged. "

There came a knock at the door, and Father Halloran stood on the thresholdconfounded. 

The priest was a tall and handsome Irishman, white-haired, with a geniallaughing eye, and a touch of grave wisdom behind his geniality. 

"Walter, dear lad! For the love of the saints tell us--how does thishappen?"

Walter began his story again. The mother gazed into his face in arapture. But the priest's brow, at first jolly, little by littlecontracted with a puzzled frown. 

"I don't altogether understand, " he said. "They scarcely watched you atall, it seems?"

"Thank God for their carelessness!" put in Mrs. A Cleeve fervently. 

"And you escaped. There was nothing to prevent? They hadn't exacted anysort of parole?"

"Well, there was a sort of promise, "--the boy flushed hotly--"not whatyou'd call a real promise. The fellow--a sort of prefect in a tricoloursash--had us up in a room before him, and gabbled through some form ofwords that not one of us rightly understood. I heard afterwards somepretty stories of this gentleman. He had been a contractor to the lateRepublic, in horse-forage, and had swindled the Government (people said)to the tune of some millions of francs. Marengo finished him: he had beenspeculating against it on the sly, which lost his plunder and the most ofhis credit. On the remains of it he had managed to scrape into thisprefecture. A nice sort of man to administer oaths!"

Father Halloran turned impatiently to the window, and, leaning ahand on one of the stone mullions, gazed out upon the small garden. Daylight was failing, and the dusk out there on the few autumn flowersseemed one with the chill shadow touching his hopes and robbing them ofcolour. He shivered: and as with a small shiver men sometimes greet adeadly sickness, so Father Halloran's shiver presaged the doom of a life'shope. He had been Walter's tutor, and had built much on the boy: he hadread warnings from time to time, and tried at once to obey them andpersuade himself that they were not serious--that his anxiety magnifiedthem. If honour could be inherited, it surely ran in Walter's blood; inhonour--the priest could assert with a good conscience--he had beeninstructed. And yet--

The lad had turned to his mother, and went on with a kind of sulleneagerness: "There were sixteen of us, including an English clergyman, hiswife and two young children, and a young couple travelling on theirhoneymoon. It wasn't as if they had taken our word and let us go: theymarched us off at once to special quarters--billeted us all in one house, over a greengrocer's shop, with a Government _concierge_ below stairs tokeep watch on our going and coming. A roll was called every night ateight--you see, there was no liberty about it. The whole thing was afraud. Father Halloran may say what he likes, but there are two sides toa bargain; and if one party breaks faith, what becomes of the other'spromise?"

Mrs. A Cleeve cast a pitiful glance at Father Halloran's back. The priestneither answered nor turned. 

"Besides, they stole my money. All that father sent passed through theprefect's hands and again through the _concierge's_; yes, and was handledby half a dozen other rascals, perhaps, before ever it reached me. They didn't even trouble themselves to hide the cheat. One week I mightbe lucky and pick up a whole louis; the next I'd be handed five francs andan odd sou or two, with a grin. "

"And all the while your father was sending out your allowance as usual--twenty pounds to reach you on the first of every month--and Dickinson'sagents in Paris sending back assurances that it would be transmitted andreach you as surely as if France and England were at peace!"

Father Halloran caught the note of anxious justification in Mrs. ACleeve's voice, and knew that it was meant for him. He turned now with ahalf audible "Pish!" but controlled his features--superfluously, since hestood now with his back to the waning light. 

"Have you seen him?" he asked abruptly. 

"Seen whom?"

"Your father. "

"I came around by the east door, meaning to surprise mother. I onlyarrived here two minutes before you knocked. "

"For God's sake answer me 'yes' or 'no, ' like a man!" thundered FatherHalloran, suddenly giving vent to his anger: as suddenly checking it witha tight curb, he addressed Mrs. A Cleeve. "Your pardon!" said he. 

The woman almost whimpered. She could not use upon her confessor the cardof weak nerves she would have played at once and unhesitatingly upon herhusband. "I think you are horribly unjust, " she said. "God knows how Ihave looked forward to this moment: and you are spoiling all! One wouldsay you are not glad to see our boy back!"

The priest ignored the querulous words. "You must see your father atonce, " he said gravely. "At once, " he repeated, noting how Walter's eyessought his mother's. 

"Of course, if you think it wise--" she began. 

"I cannot say if it be wise--in your meaning. It is his duty. "

"We can go with him--"

"No. "

"But we might help to explain?"

Father Halloran looked at her with pity. "I think we have done that toooften, " he answered; and to himself he added: "She is afraid of him. Uponmy soul, I am half afraid of him myself. "

"You think his father will understand?" she asked, clutching at comfort. 

"It depends upon what you mean by 'understanding. ' It is better thatWalter should go: afterwards I will speak to him. " The priest seemed tohesitate before adding, "He loves the boy. By the way, Walter, you mighttell us exactly how you escaped. "

"The greengrocer's wife helped me, " said Walter sullenly. "She had takena sort of fancy to me, and--she understood the injustice of it better thanFather Halloran seems to. She agreed that there was no wrong in escaping. She had a friend at Yvignac, and it was agreed that I should walk outthere early one morning and find a change of clothes ready. The master ofthe house earned his living by travelling the country with a small waggonof earthenware, and that night he carried me, hidden in the hay among hispitchers and flower-pots, as far as Lamballe. I meant to strike the coastwestward, for the road to St. Malo would be searched at once as soon asthe _concierge_ reported me missing. From Lamballe I trudged throughSt. Brisac to Guingamp, hiding by day and walking by night, and atGuingamp called at the house of an onion-merchant, to whom I had beendirected. At this season he works his business by hiring gangs of boys ofall ages from fourteen to twenty, marching them down to Pampol or Morlaix, and shipping them up the coast to sell his onions along the Seine valley, or by another route southward from Etaples and Boulogne. I joined a partyof six bound for Morlaix, and tramped all the way in these shoes with adozen strings of onions slung on a stick across my shoulders. At MorlaixI shipped on a small trader, or so the skipper called it: he was bound, infact, for Guernsey, and laden down to the bulwarks with kegs of brandy, and at St. Peter's Port he handed me over to the captain of a Cawsandboat, with whom he did business. I'm giving you just the outline, youunderstand. I have been through some rough adventures in the last twoweeks, "--the lad paused and shivered--"but I don't ask you to think ofthat. The Cawsand skipper sunk his cargo last night about a mile outsidethe Rame, and just before daybreak set me ashore in Cawsand village. I have been walking ever since. "

Father Halloran stepped to the bell-rope. 

"Shall I ring? The boy should drink a glass of wine, I think, and then goto his father without delay. "

III. 

"So far as I understand your story, sir, it leaves me with but one course. You will go at once to your room for the night, where a meal shall be sentto you. At eight o'clock to-morrow morning you will be ready to drivewith me to Plymouth, where doubtless I shall discover, from the OfficerCommanding, the promptest way of returning you to Dinan. "

The Squire spoke slowly, resting his elbow on the library table andshading his eyes with his palm, under which, however, they looked out withfiery directness at Walter, standing upright before him. 

The boy's face went white before his brain grasped the sentence. His first sense was of utter helplessness, almost of betrayal. From the day of his escape he had been conscious of a weak spot in hisstory. To himself he could justify his conduct throughout; and by dint ofrehearsing over and over again the pros and contras, always as an advocatefor the defence, he had persuaded himself at times that every sensibleperson must agree with him. What consideration, to begin with, could anyof the English _detenus_ owe to Bonaparte, who by seizing them had brokenthe good faith between nations? Promises, again, are not unconditional;they hold so long as he to whom they are given abides by hiscounter-obligations, stated or implied. . . . Walter had a score of goodarguments to satisfy himself. Nevertheless he had felt that to satisfyhis father they would need to be well presented. He had counted on hismother's help and Father Halloran's. Why, for the first time in his life, had these two deserted him? Never in the same degree had he wanted theirprotection. His mind groped in a void. He felt horribly alone. 

And yet, while he sought for reasons against this sentence, he knew thereal reason to be that he could not face it. He hated suffering: a worldwhich demanded suffering of him was wholly detestable, irrational, monstrous: he desired no more to do with it. What had he done to be usedso? He knew himself for a harmless fellow, wishing hurt to no man. Then why on earth could he not be let alone? He had never asked to beborn: he had no wish to live at all, if living involved all this misery. It had been bad enough in Dinan before his escape; but to tread back thatweary road in proclaimed dishonour, exposed to contemptuous eyes at everyhalting-place, and to take up the burden again plus the shame--it wasunthinkable, and he came near to a hysterical laugh at the command. He felt as a horse might feel when spurred up to a fence which it cannotface and foresees it must refuse at the last moment. 

"Return--return to Dinan?" he echoed, his white lips shaking on each word. 

"Certainly you will return to Dinan. For God's sake--" The Squirechecked himself, and his tenderness swelled suddenly above his scorn. He rose from the table, stepped to the boy, and laid a hand on hisshoulder. "Walter, " he said, "we have somehow managed to make a mess ofit. You have behaved disreputably; and if the blame of it, starting fromsomewhere in the past, lies at your mother's door or mine, we mustsorrowfully beg your pardon. The thing is done: it is reparable, but onlythrough your suffering. You are the last a Cleeve, and with our faults wea Cleeves have lived cleanly and honourably. Be a man: take up thisburden which I impose, and redeem your honour. For your mother's sake andmine I could ask it: but how can we separate ourselves from you?Look in my face. Are there no traces in it of these last two years?Boy, boy, you have not been the only one to suffer! If further sufferingof ours could help you, would it not be given? But a man's honour liesultimately in his own hands. Go, lad--endure what you must--and Godsupport you with the thought that we are learning pride in you!"

"It will kill me!"

The lad blurted it out with a sob. His father's hand dropped from hisshoulder. 

"Are you incapable of understanding that it might do worse?" he askedcoldly, and turned his back in despair. 

Walter went out unsteadily, fumbling his way. 

The Squire dined alone that night, and after dinner sat long alone beforehis library fire--how long he scarcely knew; but Narracott, the butler, had put up the bolts and retired, leaving only the staircase-lanternburning, when Father Halloran knocked at the library door and was biddento enter. 

"I wished to speak with you about Walter--to learn your decision, " heexplained. 

"You have not seen him?"

"Not since he came to explain himself. "

"He is in his room, I believe. He is to be ready at eight to-morrow tostart with me for Plymouth. "

"I looked for that decision, " said the priest, after a moment's silence. 

"Would you have suggested another?" The question came sharp and stern;but a moment later the Squire mollified it, turning to the priest andlooking him straight in the eyes. "Excuse me; I am sure you would not. "

"I thank you, " was the answer. "No: since I have leave to say so, I thinkyou have taken the only right course. "

The two men still faced one another. Fate had made them antagonists inthis house, and the antagonism had lasted over many years. But nopetulant word had ever broken down the barrier of courtesy between them:each knew the other to be a gentleman. 

"Father Halloran, " said the Squire gravely, "I will confess to you that Ihave been tempted. If I could honestly have spared the lad--"

"I know, " said the priest, and nodded while Mr. A Cleeve seemed to searchfor a word. "If any sacrifice of your own could stand for payment, youcould have offered it, sir. "

"What I fear most is that it may kill his mother. " The Squire said itmusingly, but his voice held a question. 

"She will suffer. " The priest pondered his opinion as he gave it, and hiswords came irregularly by twos and threes. "It may be hard--for somewhile--to make her see the--the necessity. Women fight for their own byinstinct--right or wrong, they do not ask themselves. If you reason, theywill seize upon any sophistry to confute you--to persuade themselves. Doubtless the instinct comes from God; but to men, sometimes, it makesthem seem quite unscrupulous. "

"We have built much upon Walter. If our hopes have come down with acrash, we must rebuild, and build them better. I think that, for thefuture, you and I must consult one another and make allowances. The fact is, I am asking you--as it were--to make terms with me over thelad. 'A house divided, ' you know. . . Let us have an end of divisions. I am feeling terribly old to-night. "

The priest met his gaze frankly, and had half extended his hand, when asudden sound arrested him--a sound at which the eyes of both men widenedwith surprise and their lips were parted--the sharp report of a gun. Not until it shattered the silence of the woods around Cleeve Court couldyou have been aware how deep the silence had lain. Its echoes banged fromside to side of the valley, and in the midst of their reverberation asecond gun rang out. 

"The mischief!" exclaimed the Squire. "That means poachers, or I'm aDutchman. Macklin's in trouble. Will you come?" He stepped quickly tothe door. "Where did you fix the sound? Somewhere up the valley, nearthe White Rock, eh?"

Father Halloran's face was white as a ghost's. "It--it was outside thehouse, " he stammered. 

"Outside? What the deuce--Of course it was outside!" He paused, andseemed to read the priest's thought. "Oh, for God's sake, man--"Hurrying into the passage, and along it to the hall, he called up, "Walter! Walter!" from the foot of the staircase. "There, you see!" hemuttered, as Walter's voice answered from above. 

But almost on the instant a woman's voice took up the cry. "Walter! Whathas happened to Walter?" and as her son stepped out upon the landing Mrs. A Cleeve came tottering through the corridor leading to her rooms--came indisarray, a dressing-gown hastily caught about her, and a wisp of greyhair straggling across her shoulder. Catching sight of Walter, she almostfell into his arms. 

"Thank God! Thank God you are safe!"

"But what on earth is the matter?" demanded Walter, scarcely yet arousedfrom the torpor of his private misery. 

"Poachers, no doubt. " his father answered. "Macklin has been warning meof this for some time. Take your mother back to her room. There is nocause for alarm, Lucetta--if the affair were serious, we should have heardmore guns before this. You had best return to bed at once. When I learnwhat has happened I will bring you word. "

He strode away down the lower corridor, calling as he went to Narracott, the butler, to fetch a lantern and unbolt the hall-door, and entered thegunroom with Father Halloran at his heels. 

"I cannot ask you to take a hand in this, " he said, finding his favouritegun and noiselessly disengaging it from the rack, pitch dark though theroom was. 

"I may carry a spare weapon for you, I hope?"

"Ah, you will go with me? Thank you: I shall be glad of someone to carrythe lantern. We may have to do some scrambling: Narracott is infirm, andRoger, "--this was the footman--"is a chicken-hearted fellow, I suspect. "

The two men armed themselves and went back to the hall, where FatherHalloran in silence took the lantern from the butler. Then they steppedout into the night. 

Masses of cloud obscured the stars, and the two walked forward into a wallof darkness which the rays of the priest's lantern pierced for a few yardsahead. Here in the valley the night air lay stagnant: scarcely a leafrustled: their ears caught no sound but that of the brook alongside ofwhich they mounted the coombe. 

"Better set down the lantern and stand wide of it, " said the Squire, asthey reached the foot of the White Rock gully. "If they are armed, andmean business, we are only offering them a shot. " He paused at the soundof a quick, light footstep behind him, not many paces away, and wheeledabout. "Who's there?" he challenged in a low, firm voice. 

"It's I, father. " Walter, also with a gun under his arm, came forward andhalted in the outer ring of light. 

"H'm, " the Squire muttered testily. "Better you were in bed, I shouldsay. This may be a whole night's business, and you have a long journeybefore you tomorrow. "

The boy's face was white: he seemed to shiver at his father's words, andFather Halloran, accustomed to read his face, saw, or thought he saw--years afterwards told himself that he saw--a hunted, desperate look in it, as of one who forces himself into the company he most dreads rather thanremain alone with his own thoughts. And yet, whenever he remembered thislook, always he remembered too that the lad's jaw had closed obstinately, as though upon a resolve long in making but made at last. 

But as the three stood there a soft whistle sounded from the bushes acrossthe gully, and Jim Burdon pushed a ghostly face into the penumbra. 

"Is that you, sir? Then we'll have them for sure. "

"Who is it, Jim?"

"Hannaford and that long-legged boy of his. Macklin's up a-top keepingwatch, sir. I've winged one of 'em; can't be sure which. If you and hisReverence--"

Jim paused suddenly, with his eyes on the half-lit figure of Walter aCleeve, recognising him not only as his young master, supposed to be inFrance, but as the stranger he had seen that afternoon talking withHannaford. For Walter had changed only his sabots. 

The Squire saw and interpreted his dismay. "Go on, man, " he saidhoarsely; "it's no ghost. "

Jim's face cleared. "Your servant, Mr. Walter! A rum mistake I madethen, this afternoon; but it's all right as things turn out. They're bothhereabout, sir, somewheres on the face of the rock, and the one of 'emhurt, I reckon. Macklin'll keep the top: there's no way off the westside; and if you and his Reverence'll work up along the gully here while Itry up the face, we'll have the pair for a certainty. Better douse thelight though; I've a bull's-eye here that'll search every foot of the way, and they haven't a gun. "

"That's right enough, " the Squire answered; "but it's foolishness to dousethe light. We'll set it up on the stones here at the mouth of the gullywhile Walter and I work up to the left of the gully and you up the rock. It will light up their only bolt-hole; and if you, Father Halloran, willkeep an eye on it from the bushes here you will have light enough to seetheir faces to swear by before they reach it. No need to shoot: only keepyour eyes open before they come abreast of it; for they'll make for it atonce, to kick it over--if they risk a bolt this way, which I doubt. "

"Why not let me try up the gully between you and Jim?" Walter suggested. 

His father considered a moment. "Very well, I'll flank you on the left upthe hedge, and Jim will take the rock. You're pretty sure they're there, Jim?"

"I'd put a year's wages on it, " answered Jim. 

So the three began their climb. At his post below Father Halloran judgedfrom the pace at which Walter started that he would soon lead the others;for Jim had a climb to negotiate which was none too easy, even bydaylight, and the Squire must fetch a considerable _detour_ before hestruck the hedge, along which, moreover, he would be impeded by bramblesand undergrowth. He saw this, but it was too late to call a warning. 

Walter, beyond reach of the lantern's rays, ascended silently enough, butat a gathering pace. He forgot the necessity of keeping in line. It didnot occur to him that his father must be dropping far behind: rather, hispresence seemed beside him, inexorable, dogging him with the morrow'sunthinkable compulsion. What mad adventure was this? Here he was at homehunting Charley Hannaford. Well, but his father was close at hand, andFather Halloran just below, who had always protected him. At this game hecould go on for ever, if only it would stave off tomorrow. To-morrow--

A couple of lithe arms went about him in the darkness. A voice spokehoarse and quick in his ear--spoke, though for the moment he was chieflyaware of its hot breath. 

"Broke your word, did ye? Set them on to us, you blasted young sprig!Look 'ee here--I've a knife to your ribs, and you can't use your gun. Stand still while my boy slips across, or I'll cut your white heartout. . . "

Walter a Cleeve stood still. He felt, rather than heard, a figure limp byand steal across the gully. A slight sound of a little loose earthdribbling reached him a moment later from the opposite bank of the gully. Then, after a long pause, the arms about him relaxed. Charles Hannafordwas gone. 

Still Walter a Cleeve did not move. He stared up into the wall ofdarkness on his left, wondering stupidly why his father did not shoot. 

Then he put out his hand: it encountered a bramble bush. 

He drew a long spray of the bramble towards him, fingering it verycarefully, following the spines of its curved prickles, and, having foundits leafy end, drew it meditatively through the trigger-guard of his gun. 

The countryside scoffed at the finding of the coroner's jury that the lastheir of the a Cleeves had met his death by misadventure. Shortly afterthe inquest Charley Hannaford disappeared with his family, and this lentcolour to their gossip. But Jim Burdon, who had been the first to arriveon the scene, told his plain tale, and, for the rest, kept his counsel. And so did Father Halloran and the Squire. 

THE COLABORATORS. 

OR, THE COMEDY THAT WROTE ITSELF AS RELATED BY G. A. RICHARDSON. 

I. 

 How pleasant it is to have money, heigho! How pleasant it is to have money!

Sings (I think) Clough. Well, I had money, and more of it than I feltany desire to spend; which is as much as any reasonable man can want. My age was five-and-twenty, my health good, my conscience moderatelyclean, and my appetite excellent: I had fame in some degree, and a fairprospect of adding to it: and I was unmarried. In later life a man mayseek marriage for its own sake, but at five-and-twenty he marries againsthis will--because he has fallen in love with a woman; and this had not yethappened to me. I was a bachelor, and content to remain one. 

To come to smaller matters--The month was early June, the weather perfect, the solitude of my own choosing, and my posture comfortable enough toinvite drowsiness. I had bathed and, stretched supine in the shade of ahigh sand-bank, was smoking the day's first cigarette. Behind me layAmbleteuse; before me, the sea. On the edge of it, their shrillchallenges softened by the distance to music, a score of children playedwith spades and buckets, innocently composing a hundred pretty groups ofbrown legs, fluttered hair, bright frocks and jerseys, and innocentlyconspiring with morning to put a spirit of youth into the whole picture. Beyond them the blue sea flashed with its own smiles, and the blue heavenover them with the glancing wings of gulls. On this showing it is evidentthat I, George Anthony Richardson, ought to have been happy; whereas, infact, Richardson was cheerful enough, but George Anthony restless andill-content: by reason that Richardson, remembering the past, enjoyed bycontrast the present, and knew himself to be jolly well off; while GeorgeAnthony, likewise remembering the past, felt gravely concerned for thefuture. 

Let me explain. A year ago I had been a clerk in the Office of the LocalGovernment Board--a detested calling with a derisory stipend. It was allthat a University education (a second in Moderations and a third in_Literae Humaniores_) had enabled me to win, and I stuck to it because Ipossessed no patrimony and had no 'prospects' save one, which stoodprecariously on the favour of an uncle--my mother's brother, Major-GeneralAllan Mclntosh, C. B. Now the General could not be called an indulgentman. He had retired from active service to concentrate upon his kinsfolkthose military gifts which even on the wide plains of Hindostan had kepthim the terror of his country's foes and the bugbear of his own soldiery. He had an iron sense of discipline and a passion for it; he detested allforms of amusement; in religion he belonged to the sect of the PeculiarPeople; and he owned a gloomy house near the western end of the CromwellRoad, where he dwelt and had for butler, valet, and factotum a PeculiarPerson named Trewlove. 

In those days I found my chief recreation in the theatre; and by-and-by, when I essayed to write for it, and began to pester managers withcurtain-raisers, small vaudevilles, comic libretti and the like, you willguess that in common prudence I called myself by a _nom de guerre_. Dropping the 'Richardson, ' I signed my productions 'George Anthony, ' andas 'George Anthony' the playgoing public now discusses me. For somewhile, I will confess, the precaution was superfluous, the managers havingapparently entered into league to ensure me as much obscurity as I had anyuse for. But at length in an unguarded moment the manager of the Duke ofCornwall's Theatre (formerly the Euterpe) accepted a three-act farce. It was poorly acted, yet for some reason it took the town. '_Larks inAspic_, a Farcical Comedy by George Anthony, ' ran for a solid threehundred nights; and before it ceased my unsuspecting uncle had closed hisearthly career, leaving me with seventy thousand pounds (the bulk of itinvested in India Government stock), the house in the Cromwell Road, and, lastly, in sacred trust, his faithful body-servant, William John Trewlove. 

Here let me pause to deplore man's weakness and the allurement ofsplendid possessions. I had been happy enough in my lodgings in JermynStreet, and, thanks to _Larks in Aspic_, they were decently furnished. At the prompting, surely, of some malignant spirit, I exchanged them for ahouse too large for me in a street too long for life, for my uncle'sfurniture (of the Great Exhibition period), and for the unnecessary anddetested services of Trewlove. 

This man enjoyed, by my uncle's will, an annuity of fifty pounds. He had the look, too, of one who denied himself small pleasures, not onlyon religious grounds, but because they cost money. Somehow, I neverdoubted that he owned a balance at the bank, or that, after a briefinterval spent in demonstrating that our ways were uncongenial, he wouldretire on a competence and await translation to join my uncle in an equalsky--equal, that is, within the fence of the elect. But not a bit of it!I had been adjured in the will to look after him: and at first I supposedthat he clung to me against inclination, from a conscientious resolve togive me every chance. By-and-by, however, I grew aware of a change inhim; or, rather, of some internal disquiet, suppressed but volcanic, working towards a change. Once or twice he staggered me by answering somecasual question in a tone which, to say the least of it, suggested anungainly attempt at facetiousness. A look at his sepulchral face wouldreassure me, but did not clear up the mystery. Something was amiss withTrewlove. 

The horrid truth broke upon me one day as we discussed the conduct of oneof my two housemaids. Trewlove, returning one evening (as I gathered)from a small _reunion_ of his fellow-sectarians in the Earl's Court Road, had caught her in the act of exchanging railleries from an upper windowwith a trooper in the 2nd Life Guards, and had reported her. 

"Most unbecoming, " said I. 

"Unwomanly, " said Trewlove, with a sudden contortion of the face;"unwomanly, sir!--but ah, how like a woman!"

I stared at him for one wild moment, and turned abruptly to the window. The rascal had flung a quotation at me--out of _Larks in Aspic!_ He knew, then! He had penetrated the disguise of "George Anthony, " and, worsestill, he meant to forgive it. His eye had conveyed a dreadful promise ofcomplicity. Almost--I would have given worlds to know, and yet I darednot face it--almost it had been essaying a wink!

I dismissed him with instructions--not very coherent, I fear--to give thegirl a talking-to, and sat down to think. How long had he known?--thatwas my first question, and in justice to him it had to be considered:since, had he known and kept the secret in my uncle's lifetime, beyond adoubt, and unpleasant as the thought might be, I was enormously hisdebtor. That stern warrior's attitude towards the playhouse had ever beenuncompromising. Stalls, pit, and circles--the very names suggestedDantesque images and provided illustrations for many a discourse. Themselves verbose, these discourses indicated A Short Way withStage-players, and it stood in no doubt that the authorship of _Larks inAspic_ had only to be disclosed to him to provide me with the shortestpossible cut out of seventy thousand pounds. 

I might, and did, mentally consign Trewlove to all manner of painfulplaces, as, for instance, the bottom of the sea; but I could not will awaythis obligation. After cogitating for awhile I rang for him. 

"Trewlove, " said I, "you know, it seems, that I have written a play. "

"Yessir! _Larks in Aspic_, sir. "

I winced. "Since when have you known this?"

The dog, I am sure, took the bearings of this question at once. But helaid his head on one side, and while he pulled one whisker, as if ringingup the information, his eyes grew dull and seemed to be withdrawing intovisions of a far-away past. "I have been many times to see it, Mr. George, and would be hard put to it to specify the first occasion. But itwas a mattinay. "

"That is not what I asked, Trewlove. I want to know when you firstsuspected or satisfied yourself that I was the author. "

"Oh, at once, sir! The style, if I may say so, was unmistakable:_in_-nimitable, sir, if I may take the libbaty. "

"Excuse me, " I began; but he did not hear. He had passed for the momentbeyond decorum, and his eyes began to roll in a manner expressive ofinward rapture, but not pretty to watch. 

"I had not listened to your talk, sir, in private life--I had not, as onemight say, imbibed it--for nothink. The General, sir--your lamenteduncle--had a flow: he would, if allowed, and meaning no disrespect, talkthe hind leg off a jackass; but I found him lacking in 'umour. Now you, Mr. George, 'ave 'umour. You 'ave not your uncle's flow, sir--the Lordforbid! But in give-and-take, as one might say, you are igstreamly droll. On many occasions, sir, when you were extra sparkling I do assure you itrequired pressure not to igsplode. "

"I thank you, Trewlove, " said I coldly. "But will you, please, waivethese unsolicited testimonials and answer my question? Let me put it inanother form. Was it in my uncle's lifetime that you first witnessed myplay?"

Trewlove's eyes ceased to roll, and, meeting mine, withdrew themselvespolitely behind impenetrable mists. "The General, sir, was opposed totheatre-going _in toto_; anathemum was no word for what he thought of it. And if it had come to _Larks in Aspic_, with your permission I will onlysay 'Great Scot!'"

"I may take it then that you did not see the play and surprise my secretuntil after his death?". 

Trewlove drew himself up with fine reserve and dignity. "There is such athing, sir, I 'ope, as Libbaty of Conscience. "

With that I let him go. The colloquy had not only done me no service, but had positively emboldened him--or so I seemed to perceive as the weekswent on--in his efforts to cast off his old slough and become a travestyof me, as he had been a travesty of my uncle. I am willing to believethat they caused him pain. A crust of habit so inveterate as his cannotbe rent without throes, to the severity of which his facial contortionsbore witness whenever he attempted a witticism. Warned by them, I wouldsometimes admonish him--

"Mirth without vulgarity, Trewlove!"

"Yessir, " he would answer, and add with a sigh, "it's the best sort, sir--_ad_-mittedly. "

But if painful to him, this metamorphosis was torture to my nerves. I should explain that, flushed with the success of _Larks in Aspic_, I had cheerfully engaged myself to provide the Duke of Cornwall's with aplay to succeed it. At the moment of signing the contract my bosom's lordhad sat lightly on its throne, for I felt my head to be humming withideas. But affluence, or the air of the Cromwell Road, seemed uncongenialto the Muse. 

Three months had slipped away. I had not written a line. My ideas, whichhad seemed on the point of precipitation, surrendering to some centrifugaleddy, slipped one by one beyond grasp. I suppose every writer ofexperience knows these vacant terrifying intervals; but they were strangeto me then, and I had not learnt the virtue of waiting. I grew flurried, and saw myself doomed to be the writer of one play. 

In this infirmity the daily presence of Trewlove became intolerable. There arrived an evening when I found myself toying with the knives atdinner, and wondering where precisely lay the level of his fifth rib atthe back of my chair. 

I dropped the weapon and pushed forward my glass to be refilled. "Trewlove, " said I, "you shall pack for me to-morrow, and send off theservants on board wages. I need a holiday. I--I trust this will not beinconvenient to you?"

"I thank you, sir; not in the least. " He coughed, and I bent my head, some instinct forewarning me. 

"I shall be away for three months at least, " I put in quickly. (Five minutes before I had not dreamed of leaving home. )

But the stroke was not to be averted. For months it had been preparing. 

"As for inconvenience, sir--if I may remind you--the course of Trewlovenever did--"

"For three months at least, " I repeated, rapping sharply on the table. 

Next day I crossed the Channel and found myself at Ambleteuse. 

II. 

I chose Ambleteuse because it was there that I had written the greaterpart of _Larks in Aspic_. I went again to my old quarters at MadamePeyron's. As before, I eschewed company, excursions, all forms of violentexercise. I bathed, ate, drank, slept, rambled along the sands, or lay onmy back and stared at the sky, smoking and inviting my soul. In short, Ireproduced all the old conditions. But in vain! At Ambleteuse, no lessthan in London, the Muse either retreated before my advances, or, when Isat still and waited, kept her distance, declining to be coaxed. 

Matters were really growing serious. Three weeks had drifted by with nota line and scarcely an idea to show for them; and the morning's post hadbrought me a letter from Cozens, of the Duke of Cornwall's, begging for(at least) a scenario of the new piece. My play (he said) would easilylast this season out; but he must reopen in the autumn with a new one, and--in short, weren't we beginning to run some risk?

I groaned, crushed the letter into my pocket, and by an effort of will putthe tormenting question from me until after my morning bath. But now thetime was come to face it. I began weakly by asking myself why thedickens I--with enough for my needs--had bound myself to write thisthing within a given time, at the risk of turning out inferior work. For that matter, why should I write a comedy at all if I didn't want to?These were reasonable questions, and yet they missed the point. The point was that I had given my promise to Cozens, and that Cozensdepended on it. Useless to ask now why I had given it! At the time Icould have promised cheerfully to write him three plays within as manymonths. 

So full my head was then, and so empty now! A grotesque and dreadfulsuspicion took me. While Trewlove tortured himself to my model, was I, by painful degrees, exchanging brains with him? I laughed; but Iwas unhinged. I had been smoking too many cigarettes during these threeweeks, and the vampire thought continued to flit obscenely between me andthe pure seascape. I saw myself the inheritor of Trewlove's cast-offpersonality, his inelegancies of movement, his religious opinions, hisbagginess at the knees, his mournful, pensile whiskers--

This would never do! I must concentrate my mind on the play. Let me see--The title can wait. Two married couples have just beenexamined at Dunmow, and awarded the 'historic' flitch for conjugalhappiness. Call them A and Mrs. A, B and Mrs. B. On returning to thehotel with their trophies, it is discovered that B and Mrs. A are oldflames, while each finds a mistaken reason to suspect that A and Mrs. Bhave also met years before, and at least dallied with courtship. Thuswhile their spouses alternately rage with suspicion and invent devices toconceal their own defaults, A and Mrs. B sit innocently nursing theirillusions and their symbolical flitches. The situation holds plenty ofcomedy, and the main motive begins to explain itself. Now then foranagnorisis, comic peripeteia, division into acts, and the rest of thewallet!

I smoked another two cigarettes and flung away a third in despair. Useless! The plaguey thing refused to take shape. I sprang up and pacedthe sands, dogged by an invisible Cozens piping thin reproaches above thehum of the breakers. 

Suddenly I came to a halt. Why _this_ play? Why expend vain efforts onthis particular complication when in a drawer at home lay two acts of acomedy ready written, and the third and final act sketched out? Theburden of months broke its straps and fell from me as I pondered. _MyTenant_ was the name of the thing, and I had thrust it aside only when theidea of _Larks in Aspic_ occurred to me--not in any disgust. And really, now, what I remembered of it seemed to me astonishingly good!

I pulled out my watch, and as I did so there flashed on me--in that suddenfreakish way which the best ideas affect--a new and brilliant idea for theplot of _My Tenant_. The whole of the third and concluding act spreaditself instantaneously before me. I knew then and there why the play hadbeen laid aside. It had waited for this, and it wanted only this. I heldthe thing now, compact and tight, within my five fingers: as tight andcompact as the mechanism of the watch in my hand. 

But why had I pulled out the watch? Because the manuscript of_My Tenant_ lay in the drawer of my writing-table in the Cromwell Road, and I was calculating how quickly a telegram would reach Trewlove withinstructions to find and forward it. Then I bethought me that the lockwas a patent one, and that I carried the key with me on my privatekey-chain. Why should I not cross from Calais by the next boat andrecover my treasure? It would be the sooner in my possession. I might bereading it again that very night in my own home and testing my discovery. I might return with it on the morrow--that is, if I desired to return. After all, Ambleteuse had failed me. In London, I could shut myself upand work at white heat. In London, I should be near Cozens: a telegramwould fetch him out to South Kensington within the hour, to listen andapprove. (I had no doubt of his approval. ) In London, I should renewrelations with the real Trewlove--the familiar, the absurd. I will notswear that for the moment I thought of Trewlove at all: but he remained atthe back of my mind, and at Calais I began the process of precipitatinghim (so to speak) by a telegram advertising him of my return, andrequesting that my room might be prepared. 

I had missed the midday boat, and reached Dover by the later and slowerone as the June night began to descend. From Victoria I drove straight tomy club, and snatched a supper of cold meats in its half-lit dining-room. Twenty minutes later I was in my hansom again and swiftly bowlingwestward--I say 'bowling' because it is the usual word, and I was in fartoo fierce a hurry to think of a better. 

I had dropped back upon London in the fastest whirl of the season, and atthe hour when all the world rolls homeward from the theatres. Two hansomsraced with mine, and red lights by the score dotted the noble slope ofPiccadilly. To the left the street-lamps flung splashes of theatricalgreen on the sombre boughs of the Green Park. In one of the porticos tothe right half a dozen guests lingered for a moment and laughed togetherbefore taking their leave. One of them stood on the topmost steps, lighting a cigarette: he carried his silk-lined Inverness over his arm--sosultry the night was--and the ladies wore but the slightest of wraps overtheir bright frocks and jewels. One of them as we passed stepped forward, and I saw her dismissing her brougham. A night for walking, thought theparty: and a fine night for sleeping out of doors, thought theroad-watchman close by, watching them and meditatively smoking behind hisbarricade hung with danger-lanterns. Overhead rode the round moon. 

It is the fashion to cry down London, and I have taken my part in thechorus; but always--be the absence never so short--I come back to her withthe same lift of the heart. Why did I ever leave her? What had I gonea-seeking in Ambleteuse?--a place where a man leaves his room only tocarry his writing-desk with him and plant it by the sea. London offeredthe only true recreation. In London a man might turn the key on himselfand work for so long as it pleased him. But let him emerge, and--pf!--thejostle of the streets shook his head clear of the whole stuffy business. No; decidedly I would not return to Madame Peyron's. London for me, untilmy comedy should be written, down to the last word on the last page!

We were half way down the Cromwell Road when I took this resolution, andat once I was aware of a gathering of carriages drawn up in line ahead andclose beside the pavement. At intervals the carriages moved forward a fewpaces and the line closed up; but it stretched so far that I soon began towonder which of my neighbours could be entertaining on a scale somagnificent. 

"What number did you say, sir?" the cabman asked through his trap. 

"Number 402, " I called up. 

"Blest if I can get alongside the pavement then, " he grumbled. He was a surly man. 

"Never mind that. Pull up opposite Number 402 and I'll slip between. I've only my bag to carry. "

"Didn't know folks was so gay in these outlyin' parts, " hecommented sourly, and closed the trap, but presently opened it again. His horse had dropped to a walk. "Did you say four-nought-two?" he asked. 

"Oh, confound it--yes!" I was growing impatient. 

He pulled up and began to turn the horse's head. 

"Hi! What are you doing?"

"Goin' back to the end of the line--back to take our bloomin' turn, " heanswered wearily. "Four-nought-two, you said, didn't you?"

"Yes, yes; are you deaf? What have I to do with this crowd?"

"I hain't deaf, but I got eyes. Four-nought-two's where the horning's up, that's all. "

"The horning? What's that?"

"Oh, I'm tired of egsplanations. A horning's a horning, what they put upwhen they gives a party; leastways, " he added reflectively, "_Hi_ don't. "

"But there's no party at Number 402, " I insisted. "The thing'simpossible. "

"Very well, then; I'm a liar, and that ends it. " He wheeled again andbegan to walk his horse sullenly forward. "'Oo's blind this time?" hedemanded, coming to a standstill in front of the house. 

An awning stretched down from the front door and across the pavement, where two policemen guarded the alighting guests from pressure by a smallbut highly curious crowd. Overhead, the first-floor windows had beenflung wide; the rooms within were aflame with light; and, as I grasped therail of the splashboard, and, straightening myself up, gazed over thecab-roof with a wild surmise into the driver's face, a powerful butinvisible string band struck up the 'Country Girl' Lancers!

"'Oo's a liar now?" He jerked his whip towards the number "402" staringdown at me from the illuminated pane above the awning. 

"But it 'is my own house!" I gasped. 

"Hoh?" said he. "Well, it _may_ be. _I_ don't conteraddict. "

"Here, give me my bag!" I fumbled in my pocket for his fare. 

"Cook giving a party? Well, you're handy for the Wild West out here--goodold Earl's Court!" He jerked his whip again towards the awning as a NorthAmerican Indian in full war-paint passed up the steps and into the house, followed by the applause of the crowd. 

I must have overpaid the man extravagantly, for his tone changed suddenlyas he examined the coins in his hand. "Look here, guvnor, if you want anylittle 'elp, I was barman one time at the 'Elephant'--"

But I caught up my bag, swung off the step, and, squeezing between ahorse's wet nose and the back of a brougham, gained the pavement, where ared-baize carpet divided the ranks of the crowd. 

"Hullo!" One of the policemen put out a hand to detain me. 

"It's all right, " I assured him; "I belong to the house. " It seemed asafer explanation than that the house belonged to me. 

"Is it the ices?" he asked. 

But I ran up the porchway, eager to get to grips with Trewlove. 

On the threshold a young and extremely elegant footman confronted me. 

"Where is Trewlove?" I demanded. 

The footman was glorious in a tasselled coat and knee-breeches, both ofbright blue. He wore his hair in powder, and eyed me with suspicion ifnot with absolute disfavour. 

"Where is Trewlove?" I repeated, dwelling fiercely on each syllable. 

The ass became lightly satirical. "Well we may wonder, " said he; "searchthe wide world over! But reely and truly you've come to the wrong 'ousethis time. Here, stand to one side!" he commanded, as a lady in thecostume of La Pompadour, followed by an Old English Gentleman with ananachronistic Hebrew nose, swept past me into the hall. He boweddeferentially while he mastered their names, "Mr. And Mrs. Levi-Levy!" hecried, and a second footman came forward to escort them up the stairs. Toconvince myself that this was my own house I stared hard at a bust ofHavelock--my late uncle's chief, and for religious as well as militaryreasons his _beau ideal_ of a British warrior. 

The young footman resumed. "When you've had a good look round and seenall you want to see--"

"I am Mr. Richardson, " I interrupted; "and up to a few minutes ago Isupposed myself to be the owner of this house. Here--if you wish toassure yourself--is my card. "

His face fell instantly, fell so completely and woefully that I could nothelp feeling sorry for him. "I beg pardon, sir--most 'umbly, I do indeed. You will do me the justice, sir--I had no idea, as _per_ description, sir, being led to expect a different kind of gentleman altogether. 

"You had my telegram, then?"

"Telegram, sir?" He hesitated, searching his memory. 

"Certainly--a telegram sent by me at one o'clock this afternoon, orthereabouts--"

Here, with an apology, he left me to attend to a new arrival--a YellowDwarf with a decidedly music-hall manner, who nudged him in the stomachand fell upon his neck exclaiming, "My long-lost brother!"

"Cert'nly, sir. You will find the _company_ upstairs, sir. "The young man disengaged himself with admirable dignity and turned againto me. "A telegram did you say--"

"Addressed to 'Trewlove, 402, Cromwell Road. '"

"William!" He summoned another footman forward. "This gentleman isinquiring for a telegram sent here this afternoon, addressed 'Trewlove'. "

"There was such a telegram, " said William. "I heard Mr. Horrexa-discussing of it in the pantry. The mistress took the name for atelegraphic address, and sent it back to the office, saying there must besome mistake. "

"But I sent it myself!"

"Indeed, sir?"

"It contained an order to get my room ready. "

"This gentleman is Mr. Richardson, " explained the younger footman. 

"Indeed, sir?" William's face brightened. "In that case there's no 'armdone, for your room is ready, and I laid out your dress myself. Mr. 'Erbert gave particular instructions before going out. "

"Mr. Herbert?" I gazed around me blankly. Who in the name of wonder wasMr. Herbert?

"If you will allow me, sir, " suggested William, taking my bag, while theother went back to his post. 

"Thank you, " said I, "but I know my own room, I hope. "

He shook his head. "The mistress made some alterations at the lastmoment, and you're on the fourth floor over the street. Mr. 'Erbert'slast words were that if you arrived before him I was to 'ope you didn'tmind being so near the roof. "

Well, of one thing at least I could be sure: I was in my own house. For the rest, I might be Rip van Winkle or the Sleeper Awakened. Who was this lady called "the mistress "? Who was Mr. Herbert?How came they here? And--deepest mystery of all--how came they to beexpecting _me?_ Some villainy of Trewlove's must be the clue of thistangle; and, holding to this clue, I resolved to follow whither fate mightlead. 

III. 

William lifted my bag and led the way. On the first landing, where thedoors stood open and the music went merrily to the last figure of theLancers, we had to pick our way through a fantastic crowd which eyed mewith polite curiosity. Couples seated on the next flight drew aside tolet us pass. But the second landing was empty, and I halted for a momentat the door of my own workroom, within which lay my precious manuscript. 

"This room is unoccupied?"

"Indeed, no, sir. The mistress considers it the cheerfullest in the'ouse. "

"Our tastes agree then. "

"She had her bed moved in there the very first night. "

"Indeed. " I swung round on him hastily. "By-the-by, what is yourmistress's name?"

He drew back a pace and eyed me with some embarrassment. "You'll excuseme, sir, but that ain't quite a fair question as between you and me. "

"No? I should have thought it innocent enough. "

"Of course, it's a hopen secret, and you're only askin' it to try me. But so long as the mistress fancies a hincog--"

"Lead on, " said I. "You are an exemplary young man, and I, too, amplaying the game to the best of my lights. "

"Yes, sir. " He led me up to a room prepared for me--with candles lit, hotwater ready, and bed neatly turned down. On the bed lay the full costumeof a Punchinello: striped stockings, breeches with rosettes, tinselledcoat with protuberant stomach and hump, cocked hat, and all properaccessories--even to a false nose. 

"Am I expected to get into these things?" I asked. 

"If I can be of any assistance, sir--"

"Thank you: no. " I handed him the key of my bag, flung off coat andwaistcoat, and sat down to unlace my boots. "Your mistress is in thedrawing-room, I suppose, with her guests?"

"She is, sir. "

"And Mr. Herbert?"

"Mr. 'Erbert was to have been 'ome by ten-thirty. He is--as you know, sir--a little irregilar. But youth, "--William arranged my brushescarefully--"youth must 'ave its fling. Oh, he's a caution!" A chuckleescaped him; he checked it and was instantly demure. Almost, indeed, heeyed me with a look of rebuke. "Anything more, sir?"

"Nothing more, thank you. "

He withdrew. I thrust my feet into the dressing slippers he had set outfor me, and, dropping into an armchair, began to take stock of thesituation. "The one thing certain, " I told myself, "is that Trewlove inmy absence has let my house. Therefore Trewlove is certainly an impudentscoundrel, and any grand jury would bring in a true bill against him for aswindler. My tenants are a lady whose servants may not reveal her name, and a young man--her husband perhaps--described as 'a little irregilar. 'They are giving a large fancy-dress ball below--which seems to provethat, at any rate, they don't fear publicity. And, further, althoughentire strangers to me, they are expecting my arrival and have prepared aroom. Now, why?"

Here lay the real puzzle, and for some minutes I could make nothing of it. Then I remembered my telegram. According to William it had been referredback to the post office. But William on his own admission had butretailed pantry gossip caught up from Mr. Horrex (presumably the butler). Had the telegram been sent back _unopened?_ William's statement left thisin doubt. Now supposing these people to be in league with Trewlove, theymight have opened the telegram, and, finding to their consternation that Iwas already on the road and an exposure inevitable, have ordered my roomto be prepared, trusting to throw themselves on my forgiveness, whileTrewlove lay a-hiding or fled from vengeance across the high seas. Here was a possible explanation; but I will admit that it seemed, onsecond thoughts, an unlikely one. An irate landlord, returningunexpectedly and finding his house in possession of unauthorisedtenants--catching them, moreover, in the act of turning it upside-downwith a fancy-dress ball--would naturally begin to be nasty on thedoorstep. The idea of placating him by a bedroom near the roof and thecostume of a Punchinello was too bold altogether, and relied too much onhis unproved fund of goodnature. Moreover, Mr. Herbert (whoever he mightbe) would not have treated the situation so cavalierly. At the least (andhowever 'irregilar'), Mr. Herbert would have been waiting to deprecatevengeance. A wild suspicion occurred to me that 'Mr. Herbert' might beanother name for Trewlove, and that Trewlove under that name was gaining ashort start from justice. But no: William had alluded to Mr. Herbert asto a youth sowing his wild oats. Impossible to contemplate Trewlove underthis guise! Where then did Trewlove come in? Was he, perchance, 'Mr. Horrex, ' the butler?

I gave it up and began thoughtfully, and not without difficulty, to casemyself in the disguise of Punchinello. I resolved to see this thingthrough. The costume had evidently not been made to my measure, and inthe process of induing it I paused once or twice to speculate on theeccentricities of the figure to which it had been shaped or the abstractanatomical knowledge of the tailor who had shaped it. I declare that thehump seemed the one normal thing about it. But by this time mydetective-hunger--not to call it a thirst for vengeance--was assertingitself above petty vanity. I squeezed myself into the costume; and then, clapping on the false nose, stood arrayed--as queer a figure, surely, asever was assumed by retributive Justice. 

So, with a heart hardened by indignation and prepared for the severestmeasures, I descended to the drawing-room landing. Two doors opened uponit--that of the drawing-room itself, which faced over a terrace roofingthe kitchens and across it to a garden in the rear of the house, and thatof a room overlooking the street and scarcely less spacious. This hadbeen the deceased General's bedroom, and in indolence rather than impietyI had left it unused with all its hideous furniture--including thecamp-bed which his martial habits affected. And this was the apartment Ientered, curious to learn how it had been converted into a reception-roomfor the throng which now filled it. 

I recognised only the wall-paper. The furniture had been removed, thecarpet taken up, the boards waxed to a high degree of slipperiness; andacross the far end stretched a buffet-table presided over by a venerableperson in black, with white hair, a high clear complexion, and adeportment which hit a nice mean between the military and the episcopal. 

I had scarcely time to tell myself that this must be Mr. Horrex, before helooked up and caught sight of me. His features underwent a sudden andastonishing change; and almost dropping a bottle of champagne in hisflurry, he came swiftly round the end of the buffet towards me. 

I knew not how to interpret his expression: surprise was in it, andeagerness, and suppressed agitation, and an appeal for secrecy, and at thesame time (if I mistook not) a deep relief. 

"I beg your pardon, sir, " he began, in a sort of confidential whisper, very quick and low, "but I was not aware you had arrived. "

I gazed at him with stern inquiry. 

"You are Mr. Richardson, are you not?" he asked. There could be no doubtof his agitation. 

"I am; and I have been in this, my house, for some three-quarters of anhour. "

"They never told me, " he groaned. "And I left particular instructions--But perhaps you have already seen the mistress?"

"I have not. May I ask you to take me to her--since I have not thepleasure of her acquaintance?"

"Cert'nly, sir. Oh, at once! She is in the drawing-room putting the bestface on it. Twice she has sent in to know if you have arrived, and I sentword, 'No, not yet, ' though it cut me to the 'eart. "

"She is anxious to see me?"

"Desprit, sir. "

"She thinks to avoid exposure, then?" said I darkly, keeping a set face. 

"She 'opes, sir: she devoutly 'opes. " He groaned and led the way. "It may, after all, be a lesson to Mr. 'Erbert, " he muttered as we reachedthe landing. 

"I fancy it's going to be a lesson to several of you. "

"The things we've 'ad to keep dark, sir--the goings-on!"

"I can well believe it. "

"I was in some doubts about you, sir--begging your pardon: but in spite ofthe dress, sir--which gives a larky appearance, if I may say it--anddoubtless is so meant--you reassure me, sir: you do indeed. I feel theworst is over. We can put ourselves in your 'ands. "

"You have certainly done that, " said I. "As for the worst being over--"

We were within the drawing-room by this time, and he plucked me by thesleeve in his excitement, yet deferentially. "Yonder is the mistress, sir--in the yellow h'Empire satin--talking with the gentleman in sky-bluerationals. Ah, she sees you!"

She did. And I read at once in her beautiful eyes that while talking withher partner she had been watching the door for me. She came towards mewith an eager catch of the breath--one so very like a cry of relief thatin the act of holding out her hand she had to turn to the nearest guestsand explain. 

"It's Mr. Richardson--'George Anthony, ' you know--who wrote _Larks inAspic!_ I had set my heart on his coming, and had almost given him up. Why are you so cruelly late?" she demanded, turning her eyes on mine. 

Her hand was still held out to me. I had meant to hold myself up stifflyand decline it; but somehow I could not. She was a woman, after all, andher look told me--and me only--that she was in trouble. Also I knew herby face and by report. I had seen her acting in more than one exceedinglystupid musical comedy, and wondered why 'Clara Joy' condescended to wasteherself upon such inanities. I recalled certain notes in her voice, certain moments when, in the midst of the service of folly, she had seemedto isolate herself and stand watching, aloof from the audience and herfellow-actors, almost pathetically alone. Report said, too, that she wasgood, and that she had domestic troubles, though it had not reached mewhat these troubles were. Certainly she appeared altogether too good forthese third-rate guests--for third-rate they were to the most casual eye. And the trouble, which signalled to me now in her look, clearly and to myastonishment included no remorse for having walked into a stranger'shouse and turned it up-side down without so much as a by-your-leave. She claimed my goodwill confidently, without any appeal to be forgiven. I held my feelings under rein and took her hand. 

As I released it she motioned me to give her my arm. "I must find yousupper at once, " she said quietly, in a tone that warned me not todecline. "Not--not in there; we will try the library downstairs. "

Down to the library I led her accordingly, and somehow was aware--by thatsupernumerary sense which works at times in the back of a man's head--ofHorrex discreetly following us. At the library-door she turned to him. "When I ring, " she said. He bowed and withdrew. 

The room was empty and dark. She switched on the electric light andnodded to me to close the door. 

"Take that off, please, " she commanded. 

"I beg your pardon? . . . Ah, to be sure!" I had forgotten my false nose. 

"How did Herbert pick up with you?" she asked musingly. "His friends arenot usually so--so--"

"Respectable?" I suggested. 

"I think I meant to say 'presentable. ' They are never respectable by anychance. "

"Then, happily, it still remains to be proved that I am one of them. "

"He seems, at any rate, to reckon you high amongst them, since he gaveyour name. "

"Gave my name? To whom?"

"Oh, I don't know--to the magistrate--or the policeman--or whoever it is. I have never been in a police-cell myself, " she added, with a small smile. 

"Is Herbert, then, in a police-cell?"

She nodded. "At Vine Street. He wants to be bailed out. "

"What amount?"

"Himself in ten pounds and a friend in another ten. He gave your name;and the policeman is waiting for the answer. "

"I see, " said I; "but excuse me if I fail to see why, being apparentlyso impatient to bail him out, you have waited for me. To be sure(for reasons which are dark to me) he appears to have given my name to thepolice; but we will put that riddle aside for the moment. Any respectablecitizen would have served, with the money to back him. Why not have sentHorrex, for example?"

"But I thought the--the--"

"Surety?" I suggested. "I thought he must be a householder. No, " shecried, as I turned away with a slight shrug of the shoulder, "that was notthe real reason! Herbert is--oh, why will you force me to say it?"

"I beg your pardon, " said I. "He is at certain times not too tractable;Horrex, in particular, cannot be trusted to manage him; and--and in shortyou wish him released as soon as possible, but not brought home to thishouse until your guests have taken leave?"

She nodded at me with swimming eyes. She was passing beautiful, morebeautiful than I had thought. 

"Yes, yes; you understand! And I thought that--as his friend--and withyour influence over him--"

I pulled out my watch. "Has Horrex a hansom in waiting?"

"A four-wheeler, " she corrected me. Our eyes met, and with a great pity Iread in hers that she knew only too well the kind of cab suitable. 

"Then let us have in the policeman. A four-wheeler will be better, as you suggest, since with your leave I am going to take Horrex with me. The fact is, I am a little in doubt as to my influence: for to tell youthe plain truth, I have never to my knowledge set eyes on your husband. "

"My husband?" She paused with her hand on the bell-pull, and gazed at meblankly. "My husband?" She began to laugh softly, uncannily, in a waythat tore my heart. "Herbert is my brother. "

"Oh!" said I, feeling pretty much of a fool. 

"But what gave you--what do you mean--"

"Lord knows, " I interrupted her; "but if you will tell Horrex to gethimself and the policeman into the cab, I will run upstairs, dress, andjoin them in five minutes. "

IV. 

In five minutes I had donned my ordinary clothes again and, descendingthrough the pack of guests to the front door, found a four-wheelerwaiting, with Horrex inside and a policeman whom, as I guessed, he hadbeen drugging with strong waters for an hour past in some secluded chamberof the house. The fellow was somnolent, and in sepulchral silence wejourneyed to Vine Street. There I chose to be conducted to the cellalone, and Mr. Horrex, hearing my decision, said fervently, "May you berewarded for your goodness to me and mine!"

I discovered afterwards that he had a growing family of six dependent onhim, and think this must explain a gratefulness which puzzled me at thetime. 

"He's quieter this last half-hour, " said the police sergeant, unlockingthe cell and opening the door with extreme caution. 

The light fell and my eyes rested on a sandy-haired youth with a recedingchin, a black eye, a crumpled shirt-front smeared with blood, and adress-suit split and soiled with much rolling in the dust. 

"Friend of yours, sir, to bail you out, " announced the sergeant. 

"I have no friends, " answered the prisoner in hollow tones. "Who's thisJohnny?"

"My name is Richardson, " I began. 

"From the Grampian Hills? Al' ri', old man; what can I do for you?"

"Well, if you've no objection, I've come to bail you out. "

"Norra a bit of it. Go 'way: I want t'other Richardson, good oldlarks-in-aspic! Sergeant--"

"Yessir. "

"I protest--you hear?--protest in sacred name of law; case of mish--caseof mistaken 'dentity. Not this Richardson--take him away! Don't blameyou: common name. Richardson _I_ want has whiskers down to here, tiddy-fol-ol; calls 'em 'Piccadilly weepers. ' Can't mistake him. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. "

"Look here, " said I, "just you listen to this; I'm Richardson, and I'mhere to bail you out. "

"Can't do it, old man; mean well, no doubt, but can't do it. One man leada horse to the water--twenty can't bail him out. Go 'way and don't fuss. "

I glanced at the sergeant. "You'll let me deal with him as I like?" Iasked. 

He grinned. "Bless you, sir, we're used to it. _I_ ain't listening. "

"Thank you. " I turned to the prisoner. "Now, then, you drunken littlehog, stand up and walk, " said I, taking him by the ear and keeping my leftready. 

I suppose that the drink suddenly left him weak, for he stood up at once. 

"There's some ho--horrible mistake, " he began to whimper. "But if theworst comes to the worst, you'll _adopt_ me, won't you?"

Still holding him by the ear, I led him forth and flung him into the cab, in a corner of which the trembling Horrex had already huddled himself. He fell, indeed, across Horrex's knees, and at once screamed aloud. 

"Softly, softly, Master 'Erbert, " whispered the poor man soothingly. "It's only poor old Horrex, that you've known since a boy. "

"Horrex?" Master Herbert straightened himself up. "Do I understand youto say, sir, that your name is Horrex? Then allow me to tell you, Horrex, that you are no gentleman. You hear?" He spoke with anxious lucidity, leaning forward and tapping the butler on the knee. "No gentleman. "

"No, sir, " assented Horrex. 

"That being the case, we'll say no more about it. I decline to arguewith you. If you're waking, call me early--there's many a black, blackeye, Horrex, but none so black as mine. Call me at eleven-fifteen, bringing with you this gentleman's blood in a bottle. Goo'-night, go tobye-bye. . . . "

By the fleeting light of a street-lamp I saw his head drop forward, and aminute later he was gently snoring. 

It was agreed that on reaching home Master Herbert must be smuggled intothe basement of No. 402 and put to rest on Horrex's own bed; also that, to avoid the line of carriages waiting in the Cromwell Road for thedeparting guests, the cab should take us round to the gardens at the back. I carried on my chain a key which would admit us to these and unlock thesmall gate between them and the kitchens. This plan of action sodelighted Horrex that for a moment I feared he was going to clasp myhands. 

"If it wasn't irreverent, sir, I could almost say you had dropped on mefrom heaven!"

"You may alter your opinion, " said I grimly, "before I've done dropping. "

At the garden entrance we paid and dismissed the cab. I took MasterHerbert's shoulders and Horrex his heels, and between us we carried hislimp body across the turf--a procession so suggestive of dark and secrettragedy that I blessed our luck for protecting us from the casualintrusive policeman. Our entrance by the kitchen passage, however, wasnot so fortunate. Stealthily as we trod, our footsteps reached the earsin the servants' hall, and we were met by William and a small but compactbody of female servants urging him to armed resistance. A kitchen-maidfainted away as soon as we were recognised, and the strain of terrorrelaxed. 

I saw at once that Master Herbert's condition caused them no surprise. We carried him to the servants' hall and laid him in an armchair, to restour arms, while the motherly cook lifted his unconscious head to lay apillow beneath it. 

As she did so, a bell jangled furiously on the wall above. 

"Good Lord!" Horrex turned a scared face up at it. "The library!"

"What's the matter in the library?"

But he was gone: to reappear, a minute later, with a face whiter thanever. 

"The mistress wants you at on'st, sir, if you'll follow me. William, runout and see if you can raise another cab--four-wheeler. "

"What, at this time of night?" answered William. "Get along with you!"

"Do your best, lad. " Mr. Horrex appealed gently but with patheticdignity. "If there's miracles indoors there may be miracles outside. This way, sir!"

He led me to the library-door, knocked softly, opened it, and stood asidefor me to enter. 

Within stood his mistress, confronting another policeman!

Her hands rested on the back of a library-chair: and though she stood upbravely and held herself erect with her finger-tips pressed hard into theleather, I saw that she was swaying on the verge of hysterics, and I hadthe sense to speak sharply. 

"What's the meaning of this?" I demanded. 

"This one--comes from Marlborough Street!" she gasped. 

I stepped back to the door, opened it, and, as I expected, discoveredHorrex listening. 

"A bottle of champagne and a glass at once, " I commanded, and he sped. "And now, Miss Joy, if you please, the constable and I will do thetalking. What's your business?"

"Prisoner wants bail, " answered the policeman. 

"Name?"

"George Anthony Richardson. "

"Yes, yes--but I mean the prisoner's name. "

"That's what I'm telling you. 'George Anthony Richardson, four-nought-two, Cromwell Road'--that's the name on the sheet, and I heard him give it myself. "

"And I thought, of course, it must be you, " put in Clara; "and I wonderedwhat dreadful thing could have happened--until Horrex appeared and told meyou were safe, and Herbert too--"

"I think, " said I, going to the door again and taking the tray fromHorrex, "that you were not to talk. Drink this, please. "

She took the glass, but with a rebellious face. "Oh, if you take thattone with me--"

"I do. And now, " I turned to the constable, "what name did he give forhis surety?"

"Herbert Jarmayne, same address. "

"Herbert Jarmayne?" I glanced at Clara, who nodded back, pausing as shelifted her glass! "Ah! yes--yes, of course. How much?"

"Two tenners. "

"Deep answering deep. Drunk and disorderly, I suppose?"

"Blind. He was breaking glasses at Toscano's and swearing he was SirCharles Wyndham in _David Garrick_: but he settled down quiet at thestation, and when I left he was talking religious and saying he pitiednine-tenths of the world, for they were going to get it hot. "

"Trewlove!" I almost shouted, wheeling round upon Clara. 

"I beg your pardon?"

"No, of course--you wouldn't understand. But all the same it's Trewlove, "I cried, radiant. "Eh?"--this to Horrex, mumbling in the doorway--"thecab outside? Step along, constable: I'll follow in a moment--to identifyyour prisoner, not to bail him out. " Then as he touched his hat andmarched out after Horrex, "By George, though! Trewlove!" I muttered, meeting Clara's eye and laughing. 

"So you've said, " she agreed doubtfully; "but it seems a funny sort ofexplanation. "

"It's as simple as A B C, " I assured her. "The man at Marlborough Streetis the man who let you this house. "

"I took it through an agent. "

"I'm delighted to hear it. Then the man at Marlborough Street is the manfor whom the agent let the house. "

"Then you are not Mr. Richardson--not 'George Anthony'--and you didn'twrite _Larks in Aspic?_" said she, with a flattering shade ofdisappointment in her tone. 

"Oh! yes, I did. "

"Then I don't understand in the least--unless--unless--" She put out twodeprecating hands. "You don't mean to tell me that this is your house, and we've been living in it without your knowledge! Oh! why didn't youtell me?"

"Come, I like that!" said I. "You'll admit, on reflection, that youhaven't given me much time. "

But she stamped her foot. "I'll go upstairs and pack at once, " shedeclared. 

"That will hardly meet the case, I'm afraid. You forget that your brotheris downstairs: and by his look, when I left him, he'll take a deal ofpacking. "

"Herbert?" She put a hand to her brow. "I was forgetting. Then you arenot Herbert's friend after all?"

"I have made a beginning. But in fact, I made his acquaintance at VineStreet just now. Trewlove--that's my scoundrel of a butler--has beenmaking up to him under my name. They met at the house-agent's, probably. The rogue models himself upon me: but when it comes to letting my house--By the way, have you paid him by cheque?"

"I paid the agent. I knew nothing of you until Herbert announced thathe'd made your acquaintance--"

"Pray go on, " said I, watching her troubled eyes. "It would beinteresting to hear how he described me. "

"He used a very funny word. He said you were the rummiest thing inplaters he'd struck for a long while. But, of course, he was talking ofthe other man. "

"Of course, " said I gravely: whereupon our eyes met, and we both laughed. 

"Ah, but you are kind!" she cried. "And when I think how we have treatedyou--if only I _could_ think--" Her hand went up again to her forehead. 

"It will need some reparation, " said I. "But we'll discuss that when Icome back. "

"Was--was Herbert very bad?" She attempted to laugh, but tears suddenlybrimmed her eyes. 

"I scarcely noticed, " said I; and, picking up my hat, went out hurriedly. 

V. 

Trewlove in his Marlborough Street cell was a disgusting object--offensive to the eye and to one's sense of the dignity of man. At sight of me he sprawled, and when the shock of it was over hecontinued to grovel until the sight bred a shame in me for being thecause of it. What made it ten times worse was his curiousinsensibility--even while he grovelled--to the moral aspect of hisbehaviour. 

"You will lie here, " said I, "until to-morrow morning, when you willprobably be fined fifty shillings and costs, _plus_ the cost of thebroken glass at Toscano's. I take it for granted that the money willbe paid?"

"I will send, sir, to my lodgings for my cheque-book. "

"It's a trifling matter, no doubt, but since you will be chargedunder the name of William John Trewlove, it will be a mistake to put'G. A. Richardson' on the cheque. "

"It was an error of judgment, sir, my giving your name here. "

"It was a worse one, " I assured him, "to append it to the receipt forMiss Jarmayne's rent. "

"You don't intend to prosecute, Mr. George?"

"Why not?"

"But you don't, sir; something tells me that you don't. "

Well, in fact (as you may have guessed), I did not. I had no desireto drag Miss Jarmayne into further trouble; but I resented that thedog should so count on my clemency without knowing the reason of it. 

"In justice to myself, sir, I 'ave to tell you that I shouldn't 'avelet the 'ouse to _hany_-body. It was only that, she being connectedwith the stage, I saw a hopening. Mr. 'Erbert was, as you might say, a hafterthought: which, finding him so affable, I thought I might goone better. He cost me a pretty penny first and last. But when heoffered to introjuice me--and me, at his invite, going back to be putup at No. 402 like any other gentleman--why, 'ow could I resist it?"

"If I forbear to have you arrested, Trewlove, it will be on conditionthat you efface yourself. May I suggest some foreign country, where, in a colony of the Peculiar People--unacquainted with your past--"

"I'm tired of them, sir. Your style of life don't suit me--I'vetried it, as you see, and I give it up--I'm too late to learn; butI'll say this for it, it cures you of wantin' to go back and be aPeculiar. Now, if you've no objection, sir, I thought of takin' alittle public down Putney way. "

"You mean it?" asked Clara, a couple of hours later. 

"I mean it, " said I. 

"And I am to live on here alone as your tenant?"

"As my tenant, and so long as it pleases you. " I struck a match tolight her bedroom candle, and with that we both laughed, for the Junedawn was pouring down on us through the stairway skylight. 

"Shall I see you to-morrow, to say good-bye?"

"I expect not. We shall catch the first boat. "

"The question is, will you get Herbert awake in time to explainmatters?"

"I'll undertake that. Horrex has already packed for him. Oh, youneedn't fear: he'll be right enough at Ambleteuse, under my eye. "

"It's good of you, " she said slowly; "but why are you doing it?"

"Can't say, " I answered lightly. 

"Well, good-bye, and God bless you!" She put out her hand. "There's nothing I can say or do to--"

"Oh, yes, by the way, there is, " I interrupted, tugging a key off mychain. "You see this? It unlocks the drawers of a writing-table inyour room. In the top left-hand drawer you will find a bundle ofpapers. "

She passed up the stair before me and into the room. "Is this whatyou want?" she asked, reappearing after a minute with my manuscriptin her hand. "What is it? A new comedy?"

"The makings of one, " said I. "It was to fetch it that I came acrossfrom Ambleteuse. "

"And dropped into another. "

"Upon my word, " said I, "you are right, and to-night's is a betterone--up to a point. "

"What are you going to call it?"

"_My Tenant_. "

For a moment she seemed to be puzzled. "But I mean the other, " saidshe, nodding towards the manuscript in my hand. 

"Indeed, that is its name, " said I, and showed her the title on thefirst page. "And I've a really splendid idea for the third act, " Iadded, as we shook hands. 

I mounted the stairs to my room, tossed the manuscript into a chair, and began to wind up my watch. 

"But this other wants a third act too!" I told myself suddenly. 

You will observe that once or twice in the course of this narrativemy pen has slipped and inadvertently called Miss Jarmayne "Clara. "

THE RIDER IN THE DAWN. 

_A passage from the Memoirs of Manuel (or Manus) McNeill, agent in theSecret Service of Great Britain during the campaigns of the Peninsula(1808-1813). A Spanish subject by birth, and a Spaniard in all hisup-bringing, he traces in the first chapter of his Memoirs his descentfrom an old Highland family through one Mantis McNeill, a Jacobite agentin the Court of Madrid at the time of the War of Succession, who marriedand settled at Aranjuez. The second chapter he devotes to his youthfuladventures in the contraband trade on the Biscayan Coast and the Frenchfrontier, his capture and imprisonment at Bilbao under a two years'sentence, which was remitted on the discovery of his familiar andinherited conversance with the English tongue, and his imprisonmentexchanged for a secret mission to Corsica (1794). The following extracttells of this, his first essay in the calling in which he afterwardsrendered signal service to the Allies under Lord Wellington. --Q. _

If I take small pleasure in remembering this youthful expedition it is notbecause I failed of success. It was a fool's errand from start to finish;and the Minister, Don Manuel Godoy, never meant or expected it to succeed, but furthered it only to keep his master in humour. You must know thatjust at this time, May, 1794, the English troops and Paoli's nativepatriots were between them dislodging the French from the last few townsto which they yet clung on the Corsican coast. Paoli held all theinterior: the British fleet commanded the sea and from it hammered thegarrisons; and, in short, the French game was up. But now came thequestion, What would happen when they evacuated the island? Some believedthat Paoli would continue in command of his little republic, others thatthe crown would be offered to King George of England, or that it might goa-begging as the patriots were left to discover their weakness. I understand that, on the chance of this, two or three claimants had begunto look up their titles; and at this juncture our own Most Catholic Kingbethought him that once upon a time the island had actually been grantedto Aragon by a certain Pope Boniface--with what right nobody could tell;but a very little right might suffice to admit Spain's hand into the luckybag. In brief, my business was to reach the island, find Paoli (alreadyby shabby treatment incensed against the English, as Godoy assured me), and sound him on my master's chances. Among the islanders I could passmyself off as a British agent, and some likely falsehood would have toserve me if by ill-luck I fell foul of the British soldiery. The King, who--saving his majesty--had turned the least bit childish in his old age, actually clapped his hands once or twice while his Minister gave me myinstructions, which he did with a face as wooden as a grenadier's. I would give something, even at this distance of time, to know whatGodoy's real thoughts were. Likely enough he and the Queen had inventedthis toy to amuse the husband they were both deceiving. Or Godoy may havewanted my information for his own purpose, to sell it to the French, with whom--though our armies were fighting them--he had begun totreat in private for the peace and the alliance which soon followed, and still move good Spaniards to spit at the mention of his name. But, whatever the farce was, he played it solemnly, and I took hisinstructions respectfully, as became me. 

No: my mission was never meant to succeed: and if in my laterprofessional pride I now think shame of it--if to this day I wince at theremembrance of Corsica--the shame comes simply from this, that I began mycareer as a scout by losing my way like any schoolboy. But, after all, even genius must make a beginning; and I was fated to make mine in theCorsican _macchia_. 

Do you know it? If not--that is to say, if you have never visitedCorsica--I despair of giving you any conception of it. But if chance hasever carried you near its coast, you will have wondered--as I did when aninnocent-looking felucca from Barcelona brought me off the Gulf of Porto--at an extraordinary verdure spreading up the mountains and cut short onlyby the snows on their summits. You ask what this verdure may be, of whichyou have never seen the like. It is the _macchia_. 

I declare that the scent of it--or rather, its thousand scents--camewafted down on the night air and met me on the shore as I landedat moonrise below the ruined tower, planted by the Genoese of old, at the mouth of the vale which winds up from Porto to the mountains. We had pushed in under cover of the darkness, for fear of cruisers: and asI took leave of my comrades (who were mostly Neapolitan fishermen), their skipper, a Corsican from Bastia, gave me my route. A good roadwould lead me up the valley to the village of Otta, where a mule might behired to carry me on past Evvisa, through the great forest of Aitone, andso across the pass over Monte Artica, whence below me I should see theplain of the Niolo stretching towards Corte and my goal: for at Corte, hiscapital, I was sure either to find Paoli or to get news of him, and if hehad gone northward to rest himself (as his custom was) at his favouriteConvent of Morosaglia, why the best road in Corsica would take me afterhim. 

In the wash of the waves under the old tower I bade the skipper farewell, sprang ashore, and made my way up the valley by the light of the risingmoon. Of the wonders of the island, which had shone with such promise ofwonders against yesterday's sunset, it showed me little--only a white roadclimbing beside a deepening gorge with dark masses of foliage on eitherhand, and, above these, grey points and needles of granite glimmeringagainst the night. But at every stride I drank in the odours of the_macchia_, my very skin seeming to absorb them, as my clothes undoubtedlydid before my journey's end; for years later I had only to open the cofferin which they reposed, and all Corsica saluted my nostrils. 

Day broke as I climbed; and soon this marvellous brushwood was holding meat gaze for minutes at a time, my eyes feasting upon it as the sun beganto open its flowers and subdue the scents of night with others yet morearomatic. In Spain we know _montebaxos_, or coppice shrubs (as you mightcall them), and we know _tomillares_, or undergrowth; but in Corsicanature heaps these together with both hands, and the Corsican, in despairof separating them, calls them all _macchia_. Cistus, myrtle and cactus;cytisus, lentisk, arbutus; daphne, heath, broom, juniper and ilex--thesefew I recognised, but there was no end to their varieties and none totheir tangle of colours. The slopes flamed with heather bells red asblood, or were snowed white with myrtle blossom: wild roses trailedeverywhere, and blue vetches: on the rock ledges the cistus kept its lateflowers, white, yellow, or crimson: while from shrub to shrub away to therock pinnacles high over my left shoulder honeysuckles and clematis loopedthemselves in festoons as thick as a man's waist, or flung themselves overthe chasm on my right, smothering the ilex saplings which clung to itssides, and hiding the water which roared three hundred feet below. I think that my month in prison must have sharpened my appetite for wildand natural beauty, for I skipped as I went, and whistled in sheerlightness of heart. "O Corsicans!" I exclaimed, "O favoured race ofmortals, who spend your pastoral days in scenes so romantic, far from thenoise of cities, the restless ambition of courts!"

At the first village of Otta, where the pass narrows to a reallystupendous gorge and winds its way up between pyramidal crags soaring outof a sea of green chestnut groves, one of this favoured race (by nameGiuse) attempted to sell me a mule at something like twice its value. I hired the beast instead, and also the services of its master to guide methrough the two great forests which lay between me and the plain of theNiolo, one on either side of the ridge ahead. He carried a gun, and worean air of extreme ferocity which daunted me until I perceived that all therest of the village-men were similarly favoured. Of his politeness afterstriking the bargain I had no cause to complain. He accepted--andapparently with the simplest credulity--my account of myself, that I wasan Englishman bound in the service of the Government to inspect and reporton the forests of the interior, on the timber of which King George wasprepared to lend money in support of the patriot troops. He himself hadserved as a stripling in Paoli's militia across the mountains on the greatand terrible day of Ponte Nuovo, and by fits and starts, whenever the roadallowed our two mules to travel abreast in safety, he told me the story ofit, in a dialect of which I understood but one word in three, so differentwere its harsh aspirates and gutturals from any sounds in the Italianfamiliar to me. 

The mules stepped out well, and in the shade of the ravine we pushed onsteadily through the heat of the day. We had left the _macchia_ farbelow us, and the road wound between and around sheer scarps of greygranite on the edge of precipices echoing the trickle of waters far below. We rode now in single file, and so continued until Evvisa was reached, andthe upper hills began to open their folds. From Evvisa a rough track, yetscored with winter ruts, led us around the southern side of one of thesemountain basins, and so to the skirts of the forest of Aitone, into theglooms of which we plunged, my guide promising to bring me out long beforenightfall upon the ridge of the pass, where he would either encamp withme, or (if I preferred it) would leave me to encamp alone and find his wayback to Evvisa. 

So, with the sun at our backs and now almost half-way below its meridian, we threaded our way up between the enormous pine-trunks, in a gloom fullof pillars which set me in mind of Cordova Cathedral. From their darkroof hung myriads of cocoons white as satin and shone in every glint ofsunlight. And, whether over the carpet of pine-needles or the deepercarpet of husks where the pines gave place to beech groves, our going wasalways easy and even luxurious. I began to think that the difficulties ofmy journey were over; and as we gained the _bocca_ at the top of the passand, emerging from the last outskirt of pines, looked down on the wealdbeyond, I felt sure of it. 

The plain lay at my feet like a huge saucer filled with shadow andrimmed with snowy mountains on which the sunlight yet lingered. A good road plunged down into the gloom of Valdoniello--a forest at firstglance very like that through which we had been riding, but smaller insize. Its dark green tops climbed almost to our feet, and over them Giusepointed to the town of Niolo midway across the plain, traced with hisfinger the course of the Golo, and pointed to the right of it where a passwould lead me through the hill-chain to Corte. 

I hesitated no longer: but thanked him, paid him his price and a trifleover, and, leaving him on the ridge, struck boldly downhill on foottowards the forest. 

As with Aitone so with Valdoniello. The road shunned its depths and, leading me down through the magnificent fringe of it, brought me out uponan open slope, if that can be called open which is densely covered to theheight of a man's knees at times, and again to the height of his breast, with my old friend the _macchia_. 

It was now twilight and I felt myself weary. Choosing an aromatic bed bythe roadside where no prickly cactus thrust its way through the heather, Iopened my wallet; pulled forth a sausage, a crust, and a skin of wine;supped; and stretched myself to sleep through the short summer night. 

"The howly Mother presarve us! Whist now, Daniel Cullinan, did ye'verhear the like of it?"

I am glad to remember now that, even as the voice fell on my ear and awokeme, I had presence enough of mind to roll quickly off my bed of heath awayfrom the road and towards the shelter of a laurestinus bush a few pacesfrom my elbow. But between me and the shrub lay a fern-masked hollowbetween two boulders, into which I fell with a shock, and so lay staringup at the heavens. 

The wasted moon hung directly overhead in a sky already paling with dawn. And while I stared up at her, taking stock of my senses and wondering ifhere--here in Corsica--I had really heard that inappropriate sound, soonacross the hillside on my left echoed an even stranger one--yet one Irecognised at once as having mingled with my dreams; a woman's voicepitched at first in a long monotonous wail and then undulating insemitones above and below the keynote--a voice which seemed to call frommiles away--a sound as dismal as ever fell on a man's ears. 

"Arrah, let me go, Corp'ril! let me go, I tell yez! 'Tis the _banshee_--who knows it better than I?--that heard the very spit of it the day mybrother Mick was drowned in Waterford harbour, and me at Ballyroan thattime in Queen's County, and a long twenty-five miles away as ever the crowflies!"

"Ah, hold your whist, my son! Mebbee 'tis but some bird of the country--bad end to it!--or belike the man we're after, that has spied us, and isputting a game on us. "

"Bird!" exclaimed the man he had called Daniel Cullinan, as again the wailrang down from the hills. "Catch the bird can talk like yondhar, and Igive ye lave to eat him and me off the same dish. And if 'tis a man, andhe's anywhere but on the road, here's a rare bottle of hay we'll searchthrough for him. Rest aisy now, Corp'ril, and give it up. That man withthe mules, we'll say, was a liar; and turn back before the worse befallsus!"

Through my ferny screen I saw them--two redcoats in British uniformdisputing on the road not ten paces from my shelter. They moved on somefifty yards, still disputing, the first sunrays glinting on the barrels ofthe rifles they shouldered: and almost as soon as their backs were turnedI broke cover and crept away into the _macchia_. 

Now the _macchia_, as I soon discovered, is prettier to look at than toclimb through. I was a fool not to content myself with keeping at atolerably safe distance from the road. As it was, with fear at my heelsand a plenty of inexperience to guide me, I crawled through thickets andblundered over sharply pointed rocks; found myself on the verge of fallsfrom twenty to thirty feet in depth; twisted my ankles, pushed my headinto cactus, tangled myself in creepers; found and followed goat-trackswhich led into other goat-tracks and ended nowhere; tore my hands withbriers and my shoes on jagged granite; tumbled into beds of fern, sweated, plucked at arresting thorns, and at the end of twenty minutes discoveredwhat every Corsican knows from infancy--that to lose one's way in the_macchia_ is the simplest thing in life. 

I had lost mine pretty thoroughly when, happening on what seemed at leasta promising track, I cast my eyes up and saw, on a ridge some two or threehundred yards ahead and sharply outlined against the blue morning sky, ahorse and rider descending the slope towards me. 

The horse I presently discerned to be a light roan of the island breed:and my first thought was that he seemed overweighted by his rider, who saterect--astonishingly erect--with his head cased in a pointed hood and hisbody in a long dark cloak which fell from his shoulders to his knees. Although he rode with saddle and bridle, he apparently used neitherstirrups nor reins, and it was a wonder to see how the man kept his seatas he did with his legs sticking out rigid as two vine-props and his armsheld stiffly against his sides. I wasted no time, however, in marvelling, but ran forward as he approached and stretched out my hand to his rein, panting out, "O, friend, be good enough to guide me out of this tangle!--for I am a stranger and indeed utterly lost. "

And with that all speech froze suddenly within me: and with good excuse--for I was looking up into the face of a corpse!

His eyes, shaded by the hood he wore, were glazed and wide, his features--the features of an old man--livid in death. As I blenched before them, Isaw that a stout pole held his body upright, a pole lashed firmly at thetail of his crupper, and terminating in two forking branches like aninverted V, against which his legs had been bound with leathern thongs. 

And again as I blenched from the horrible face my eyes fell on the horse, and I saw that the poor little beast was no less than distraught withfright. What I had taken for grey streaks in his roan coat were in factlathery flakes of sweat, and he nuzzled towards me as a horse will rarelynuzzle towards a stranger and only in extremest terror. A glance told methat he had been galloping wildly and bucking to free himself of hisburden, but was now worn out and thoroughly cowed. His knees quivered asI soothed and patted him; and when I pulled out a knife to cut the corpsefree from its lashings, he seemed to understand at once, and rubbed hisnose gratefully against my waistcoat. 

A moment later the knife almost dropped from my hand at the sound of abrisk hurrah from above, and looking up I saw the stalwart form of theIrish corporal wriggling along the branch of a cork-oak which overhung theslope. He carried his rifle, and, anchoring himself in a fork of theboughs, stared down triumphantly. 

"Arrah now, " he hailed, "which of you's the man that came ashore at Portoand passed through Evvisa overnight? Spake up quick now, and surrender, for I have ye covered!"

He lifted his rifle. I cast my eye over the space of _macchia_ betweenus, and decided that I had only his bullet to fear. 

"_A poco, a poco_, " I called back. "Be in no hurry--_piano_, my friend:this gentleman has met with an accident to his stirrup!"

"The divvle take your impudence! Step forward this moment and surrender, or it's meat I'll be making of the pair of you!"

And he meant it. I slipped behind the corpse, and hacked at its lashingsas his rifle roared out; and for aught I know the corpse received thebullet. With a heave I toppled it and its ghastly frame together headlonginto the fern, sprang to the saddle in its place, pointed to it, and witha shout of "Assassino! Assassino!" shook rein and galloped down the path. 

A few strides removed me out of further danger from the corporal, perchedas he was in an attitude extremely inconvenient for reloading. Of hiscomrade I saw no signs, but judged him to be foundered somewhere in the_macchia_. The little roan had regained his wind. He took me down theprecipitous track without a blunder, picked his way across the dry bed ofa mountain torrent, and on the farther side struck off at right anglesinto a path which mounted through the _macchia_ towards a wedge-shapedcleft in the foothills to the north. Now and again this path returned tothe very lip of the torrent, across which I looked upon cliffs descendingsheer for many scores of feet from the heathery slope to the bouldersbelow. At the pace we held it was a sight to make me shiver. But thegood little horse knew his road, and I let him take it. Up and up wemounted, his pace dropping at length to a slow canter, and so at an angleof the gorge came suddenly into full view of a grassy plateau with a houseperched upon it--a house so high and narrow that at first glance I took itfor a tower, with the more excuse because at first glance I could discernno windows. 

As we approached it, however, I saw it to be a dwelling-house, and that ithad windows, though these were shuttered, and the shutters painted a lightstone colour; and I had scarcely made this discovery when one of themjetted out a sudden puff of smoke and a bullet sang over my head. 

The roan, which had fallen to a walk--so steep was the pitch of groundimmediately beneath the house--halted at once as if puzzled; and you mayguess if his dismay exceeded mine. But I reasoned from his behaviour onthe road that this must be his home, and the folks behind the windowshutters must recognise him. So standing high in my stirrups I waved ahand and pointed at him, at the same time shouting "Amico! Amico!"

There was no answer. The windows still stared down upon us blankly, butto my relief the shot was not repeated. "Amico! Amico!" I shouted again, and, alighting, led the horse towards the door. 

It was opened cautiously and held a little ajar--just wide enough to giveme a glimpse of a black-bearded face. 

"Who are you?" a voice demanded in harsh Corsican. 

"A friend, " I answered, "and unarmed: and see, I have brought you backyour horse!"

The man called to someone within the house: then addressed me again. "Yes, it is indeed Nello. But how come you by him?"

"That is a long story, " said I. "Be so good as either to step out or toopen and admit me to your hospitality, that we may talk in comfort. "

"To the house, O stranger, I have not the slightest intention of admittingyou, seeing that the windows are stuffed with mattresses, and there is nolight within--no, not so much as would show your face. And even lessintention have I of stepping outside, since, without calling you a liar, Igreatly suspect you are here to lead me into ambush. "

"Oho!" said I, as a light broke on me. "Is this _vendetta?_"

"It is _vendetta_, and has been _vendetta_ any day since the Saturdaybefore last, when old Stephanu Ceccaldi swindled me out of that very horsefrom which you have alighted: and it fills me with wonder to see himhere. "

"My tale will not lessen your wonder, " said I, "when you learn how I cameby him. But as touching this Stephanu Ceccaldi?"

"As we hear, they were to have buried him last night at moonrise: for aweek had not passed before my knife found him--the knife of me, Marcantonio Dezio. All night the _voceri_ of the Ceccalde's women-folkhave been sounding across the hills. "

"Agreeable sir, I have later news of him. The Ceccalde (let us doubt not)did their best. They mounted him upon Nello here, the innocent cause oftheir affliction. They waked him with dirges which--now you come tomention them--were melancholy enough to drive a cat to suicide. They tied him upright, and rode him forth to the burial. But it wouldseem that Nello, here, is a true son of your clan: he cannot bear aCeccaldi on top of him. For I met him scouring the hills with the corpseon his back, having given leg-bail to all his escort. "

The Corsican has a heart, if you only know where to find it. Forgettinghis dread of an ambush, or disregarding it in the violence of his emotion, Marcantonio flung wide the door, stepped forth, and casting both armsabout the horse's neck and mane, caressed him passionately and even withtears. 

"O Nello! O brave spirit! O true son of the Dezii!"

He called forth his family, and they came trooping through the doorway--anold man, two old women, a middle-aged matron whom I took for Marcantonio'swife, three stalwart girls, a stunted lad of about fourteen and foursmaller and very dirty children. Their movements were dignified--even aninfant Corsican rarely forgets his gravity--but they surrounded Nello oneand all, and embraced him, and fed him on lumps of sugar. (Sugar, I maysay, is a luxury in Corsica, and scarce at that. ) They wept upon his maneand called him their little hero. They shook their fists towards thatquarter, across the valley, in which I supposed the Ceccalde to reside. They chanted a song over the little beast while he munched his sugar withan air of conscious worth. And in short I imagined myself to be whollyforgotten in their delight at recovering him, until Marcantonio swunground suddenly and asked me to name a price for him. 

"Eh?" said I. "What--for Nello? Surely, after what has happened, you canhardly bring yourself to part with him?"

"Hardly, indeed. O stranger, it will tear my heart! But where am I tobestow him? The Ceccalde will be here presently; beyond doubt they arealready climbing the pass. And for you also it will be awkward if theycatch you here. "

I had not thought of this danger. "The valley below will be barred then?"I asked. 

"Undoubtedly. "

"I might perhaps stay and lend you some help. "

"This is the Dezii's private quarrel, " he assured me with dignity. "But never fear for us, O stranger. We will give them as good as theybring. "

"I am bound for Corte, " said I. 

"By following the track up to the _bocca_ you will come in sight of thehigh-road. But you will never reach it without Nello's help, seeing thatmy private affairs hinder me from accompanying you. Now concerning thishorse, he is one in a thousand: you might indeed say that he is worth hisweight in gold. "

"At all events, " said I smiling, "he is a ticklish horse to pay too littlefor. "

"A price is a price, " answered Marcantonio gravely. "Old StephanuCeccaldi, catching me drunk, thought to pay but half of it, but theresidue I took when I was sober. Now, between gentlefolks, what disputecould there be over eighty livres? Eighty livres!--why it is scarce theprice of a good mare!"

Well, bating the question of his right to sell the horse, eighty livreswas assuredly cheap: and after a moment's calculation I resolved to closewith him and accept the risk rather than by higgling over a point ofhonesty, which after all concerned his conscience rather than mine, toincur the more unpleasant one of a Ceccaldi bullet. I searched in mywallet and paid the money, while the Dezii with many sobs, mixed ahalf-pint of wine in a mash and offered this last tribute to thevindicator of their family honour. 

So when Nello had fed and I had drunk a cup to their very long life, Imounted and jogged away up the pass. Once or twice I reined up on theascent for a look back at the plateau. And always the Dezii stood there, straining their eyes after Nello and waving farewells. 

On the far side of the ridge my ears were saluted by sounds of irregularmusketry in the vale behind; and I knew that the second stage in theDezio-Ceccaldi _vendetta_ had opened with vigour. 

Three days later I had audience with the great Paoli in his rooms in theConvent of Marosaglia. He listened to my message with patience and to thenarrative of my adventures with unfeigned interest. At the end he said--

"I think you had best quit Corsica with the least possible delay. And, if I may advise you further, you will follow the road northwards toBastia, avoiding all short cuts. In any case, avoid the Niolo. I happen to know something of the Ceccalde, and their temper; and, believeme, I am counselling you for the best. "

MY LADY'S COACH. 

_From the Military Memoir of Capt. J. De Courcy, late of the North WiltsRegiment_. 

There were four of us on top of the coach that night--the driver, the guard, the corporal and I--all well muffled up and swathed about thethroat against the northwest wind; and we carried but one insidepassenger, though he snored enough for six. You could hear him above thechink of the swingle-bars and the drumming of our horses' hoofs on themiry road. What this inside fare was like I had no means of telling;for when the corporal and I overtook the coach at Torpoint Ferry he wasalready seated, and being served through the door with hot kidney pastyand hot brandy-and-water. He had travelled down from London--so I learnedfrom the coachman by whose side I sat; and as soon as he ceased cursingthe roads, the inns, the waiters, the weather and the country generally, his snores began to shake the vehicle under us as with the throes of Etnain labour. 

The corporal squatted behind me with his feet on the treasure-chest andhis loaded musket across his thighs, and the guard yet farther back on theroof nursing a blunderbuss and chanting to himself the dolefullest tune. For me I sat drumming my heels, with chin sunk deep within the collar ofmy greatcoat, one hand in its left hip-pocket and the other thrust throughthe breast-opening, where my fingers touched the butts of a brace oftravelling pistols. 

I was senior ensign of my regiment (the North Wilts), and my business wasto overtake a couple of waggons that had started some seven or eight hoursahead of us with a consignment of pay-money to be delivered at Falmouth, where two of His Majesty's cruisers lay on the point of sailing for theWest Indies. The chest over which I mounted guard had arrived late fromLondon: it was labelled "supplementary, " and my responsibilities would endas soon as I transferred it to the lieutenant in charge of the waggons, which never moved above a walking-pace, and always, when conveyingtreasure, under escort of eight or ten soldiers or marines. "Russell's Waggons, " they were called, and there was no record of theirhaving being attacked. 

The country, to which I was a stranger, appeared wild enough, withhedgeless downs rolling up black and unshapely against the night. But the coachman, who guessed what we carried, assured me that he hadalways found the road perfectly safe. I remember asking him how long hehad been driving upon it: to which he gave no more direct answer than thathe had been born in these parts and knew them better than his Bible. "And the same you may say of Jim, " he added, with a jerk of his whip backtowards the guard. 

"He has a cheerful taste in tunes, " I remarked. 

The fellow chuckled. "That's his favourite. 'My Lady's Coach' he callsit, and--come to think of it--I never heard him sing any other. "

"It doesn't sound like Tantivey. " I strained my ears for the words of theguard's song, and heard--

 "The wheels go round without a sound Or tramp or [inaudible] of whip--"

The words next following were either drowned by the wind or muffled andsmothered in the man's neck-cloths; but by-and-by I caught another line ortwo--

 "Ho! ho! my lady saith, Step in and ride with me: She takes the baby, white as death, And jigs him on her knee. The wheels go round without a sound--"

This seemed to be the refrain. 

 "The wheels go round without a sound Or [inaudible again] horse's tread, My lady's breath is foul as death, Her driver has no head--"

"Huh!" grunted I, sinking my shoulders deeper in my overcoat. "A nice sortof vehicle to meet, say on a night like this, at the next turn of theroad!"

The man peered at me suddenly, and leaned forward to shorten his reins, for we were on the edge of a steepish dip downhill. The lamplight shoneon his huge forearm (as thick as an ordinary man's thigh) and on hisclumsy, muffled hands. 

"Well, and so we might, " he answered, picking up his whip again andindicating the dark moorland on our left. "That's if half the tales betrue. "

"Haunted?" I asked, scanning the darkness. 

"Opposition coach--hearse and pair, driven by the Old Gentleman hisself. For my part, I don't believe a word of it. Leastways, I've driven alonghere often enough, and in most weathers, and I ha'n't met it yet. "

"You're taking this bit pretty confidently anyhow, " was my comment, as heshortened rein again; for the hill proved to be a precipitous one, and thehorses, held back against the weight of the coach, went down the slopewith much sprawling of hind-quarters and kicking up of loose stones. "Don't you put on the skid for this, as a rule?"

"Well, now, as you say, it might be wiser. This half-thaw makes the roadscruel greasy. " With a tremendous wrench he dragged the team to astandstill. "Jim, my lad, hop down and give her the shoe. "

I heard Jim clambering down, then the loud rattle of the chain as heunhitched the shoe, not interrupting his song, however--

 "Ho! ho! my lady saith, Step in and ride with me: She takes the bride as white as death--"

"Hold up, there!" commanded a voice out of the darkness on my left. 

"Hullo!" I whipped out one of my pistols and faced the sound, at the sameinstant shouting to the driver: "Quick, man! duck your head and give 'emthe whip! Curse you for a coward--don't sit there hesitating!--the whip, I say, and put 'em at it!"

But the fellow would not budge. I turned, leaned past him, plucked thewhip from its socket, and lashed out at the leaders. They plunged forwardas a bullet sang over my head; but before they could break into a gallopthe driver had wrenched them back again on their haunches. The coach gavea lurch or two and once more came to a standstill. 

"Look here, " said a voice almost at my feet, "you take it quiet, or you'llbe hurt!" and a pair of hands reached up and gripped the footboard. I let fly at the man with my pistol and at the same moment heard thecorporal's musket roar out behind my ear. Then I tried to do what Ishould have done at first, and whipped out my second pistol to lay itsmuzzle against the driver's cheek. 

But by this time half a dozen dark figures were scrambling along the rooffrom the rear, and as I swung round I felt a sudden heavy push against myshoulder, tottered for a moment, trod forward upon air, and wentsprawling, almost headlong, over the side of the coach. 

Luckily I struck a furze-bush first, but for all that I hit the turf witha thud that stunned me, as I must believe, for a minute at least. For when next I opened my eyes driver and guard were standing helpless inthe light of the lamps, while a couple of highwaymen dragged my chest offthe roof. Another stood by the heads of the leaders, and yet another wasspread on the footboard, with his head and shoulders well buried in theboot. The rest had gathered in the rear about the coach door inaltercation with the inside passenger. Close behind the near hind wheellay the corporal, huddled and motionless. 

My head darted pain as though it had been opened with a saw, and as Ilifted myself and groped about for my pistols, I discovered that mycollar-bone was broken and my hip-muscles had taken a bad wrench. Hurt as I was, though, I managed to find one of my pistols, and crawlinguntil I had the coach-door in view, sank into the ditch and began toreload. 

The men at the rear of the coach were inviting the inside fare to comeforth and hand over his money; which he very roundly refused to do, usingthe oddest argument; for he declared himself so far gone in consumptionthat the night air was as bad as death to him, the while that the noise hemade proclaimed his lungs as strong as a horse's. This inconsistencystruck the robbers, no doubt, for after a while a pistol was clapped in atthe window and he was bidden to step forth without more ado. 

But for my misery I could have laughed aloud at the queer figure that atlength shuffled out and stood in the light of a lantern held to examinehis money. In height he could not have been more than five feet two; andto say that he was as broad as he was long would be no lie, for never inmy life have I seen a man so wrapped up. He wore a travelling cap tightlydrawn about the ears, and round his neck a woollen comforter so voluminousthat his head, though large (as I afterwards discovered), seemed a buttonset on top of it. I dare be sworn that he unbuttoned six overcoats beforehe reached his fob and drew out watch and purse. 

"There, " he said, handing over the money, "take it--seven good guineas--with my very hearty curse. "

The robbers--they were masked to a man--pressed forward around the lanternto count the coins. 

"Give us your word, " said one, "that you've no more stowed about you. "

"I won't, " answered the old gentleman. "All the word you'll get from meis to see you hanged if I can. If you think it worth while, search me. "

Just then they were summoned by a shout from the coach roof to help inlowering my treasure. My pistol was reloaded by this time, and I liftedmyself to take aim and account for one of the scoundrels at least: but inthe effort my broken bone played me false; my hand shook, then dropped, and I sank upon my face in a swoon of pain. 

I came back to consciousness to find myself propped on the edge of theditch against a milestone. The coach was gone. Driver, guard, highwaymen, even the corporal's body, had disappeared also. But justbefore me in the road, under the light of a newly-risen waning moon, stoodthe inside passenger, hopping first on one leg then on the other forwarmth; and indeed the villains had despoiled him of three of hisgreatcoats. 

I sat up, groaned, and tried to lift my hands to my face. My companionceased hopping about and regarded me with interest. 

"Lost money?" he inquired. 

"Public money, " I answered, and groaned again. "It means ruin for me, " Iadded. 

"Well, " said he, "I've lost my own--every stiver about me. " He began tohop about again, halted, and began to wag his forefinger at me slowly. "Come, come, what's the use? I'm sorry for you, but where's your heart?"

I stared, not well knowing what to make of his manner. 

"Look here, " he went on after awhile, "you're thinking that you've lostyour character. Very well; any bones broken?"

"My collar-bone, I think. "

"Which, at your age, will heal in no time. Anything else?"

"A twist of the hip, here, and a cut in the head, I believe. "

"Tut, tut! Good appetite?"

He had approached, unwound his enormous woollen comforter, and wasbeginning to bandage me with it, by no means unskilfully. I thought hisquestion a mad one, and no doubt my face, as he peered into it, told himso. 

"I mean, " he explained, "will you ever be able to eat a beef-steak again--say, a trifle underdone, with a dozen of oysters for prelude--and drinkbeer, d'ye think, and enjoy them both?"

"No doubt. "

"And kiss a pretty girl, and be glad to do it?"

"Very likely. "

"And fight?"

He eyed his bandage critically, stepped back upon the road and dancedabout, stamping with his feet while he cut and thrust at an imaginaryenemy. "And fight, hey?"

"I suppose so. "

"Then, bless the lad, " he exclaimed, stopping and looking at me as fierceas a rat, "get on your legs, and don't sit moping as if life were a spiltposset!"

There was no disobeying this masterful old gentleman, so I made shift tostand up. 

"We have but one life to live, " said he. 

"I beg your pardon?"

"--In this world. God forgive me, I'd almost forgotten my cloth!We have, I say, only one life to live in this world, and must make thebest of it. I tell you so, and I'm a clergyman. "

"Indeed, sir?"

"Damme, yes; and, what's more, I'll take odds that I'm not the rector ofthis very parish. "

By this time, as you will guess, I had no doubt of his madness. To beginwith, anyone less like a parson it would be hard to pick in a crowd, and, besides, I remembered some of his language to the highwaymen. 

"It _ought_ to be hereabouts, " he went on meditatively. "And if it shouldturn out to be my parish we must make an effort to get your money back, ifonly for our credit's sake, hey?"

"Oh, " said I, suspicious all of a sudden, "if these ruffians are yourparishioners and you know them--"

"Know them?" he caught me up. "How the devil should I know them?I've never been within a hundred miles of this country in my life. "

"You say 'tis your parish--"

"I don't. I only say that it may be. "

"But, excuse me, if you've never seen it before--"

"I don't see it now, " he snapped. 

"Then excuse me again, but how on earth do you propose--here in the deadof night, on an outlandish moorland, in a country you have never seen--todiscover a chest of treasure which seven or eight scoundrelly, able-bodiednatives are at this moment making off with and hiding?"

"The problem, my friend, as you state it is too easy; too ridiculouslyeasy. 'Natives' you say: I only hope they may be. The difficulty willonly begin if we discover them to be strangers to these parts. "

"Have mercy then on my poor dull wits, sir, and take the case at itseasiest. We'll suppose these fellows to be natives. Still, how are youto discover their whereabouts and the whereabouts of my pay-chest?"

"Why, man alive, by the simple expedient of finding a house, knocking atthe door, and asking! You don't suppose, do you, that seven or eightable-bodied men can commit highway robbery upon one of His Majesty'scoaches and their neighbours be none the wiser? I tell you, these ruralparishes are the veriest gossip-shops on earth. Go to a city if you wantto lose a secret, not to a God-forsaken moor like this around us, whereevery labourer's thatch hums with rumour. Moreover, you forget that as aparish priest among this folk--as curator of their souls--I may haveunusually good opportunities--" Here he checked himself, while I shruggedmy shoulders. "By the way, it may interest you to hear how I came by thisbenefice. Can you manage to walk? If so, I will tell you on the road, and we shall be losing no time. "

I stood up and announced that I could limp a little. He offered me hisarm. 

"It's an instructive story, " he went on, paying no heed to my dejection;"and it may teach you how a man should comport himself in adversity. Six weeks ago this very night I lost two fortunes in less than six hours. You are listening?"

"With what patience I can. "

"Right. You see, I was born with a taste for adventure. At this moment--you may believe it or not--I'm enjoying myself thoroughly. But the deuceof it is that I was also born with a poor flimsy body. Come, I'm nothandsomely built, am I?"

"Not particularly, " I answered; and indeed his body was shaped like anegg. 

"Confound it, sir, you needn't agree quite so offensively. You're nonetoo straight in the legs yourself, if it comes to that! However, " hecontinued in a more equable tone, "being weak in body, I sought myadventures in a quarter where a long head serves one better than longlegs--I mean the gaming table. Now comes my story. Six weeks ago I tooka hand at lasquenet in a company which included a nobleman whom forobvious reasons I will only call the Duke. He is of the blood royal, sir;but I mention him no more closely, and you as a gentleman will not pressme. Eh? Very well. By three o'clock in the morning I had lost fifteenthousand pounds. In such a case, young man, you would probably have takenyour head in your hands and groaned. We called for wine, drank, and wenton again. By seven in the morning I had won my money back, and was theDuke's creditor for twenty-two thousand pounds to boot. "

"But, " said I, "a minute ago you told me you had lost two fortunes. "

"I am coming to that. Later in the day the Duke met me in St. James'Street, and said, 'Noy'--my name is Noy, sir, Timothy Noy--'Noy, ' said he, 'I owe you twenty-two thousand pounds; and begad, sir, it's a desperatebusiness for I haven't the money, nor the half of it. ' Well, I didn't flyout in a rage, but stood there beside him on the pavement, tapping my shoewith my walking-cane and considering. At last I looked up, and said I, 'Your Grace must forgive my offering a suggestion; for 'tis a cursedlyawkward fix your Grace is in, and one to excuse boldness in a friend, however humble. ' 'Don't put it so, I beg, ' said he. 'My dear Noy, if youcan only tell me how to get quits with you, I'll be your debtoreternally. '"

The old gentleman paused, lightly disengaged his arm from mine, andfumbled among his many waistcoats till he found a pocket and in it asnuff-box. 

"Now that, " he pursued as he helped himself to a pinch, "was, for soexalted a personage, passably near a _mot_. 'Your Grace, ' said I, 'has alarge Church patronage. ' 'To be sure I have. ' 'And possibly aliving--with an adequate stipend for a bachelor--might be vacant justnow?' 'As it happens, ' said the Duke, 'I have a couple at this momentwaiting for my presentation, and two stacks of letters, each a foot high, from applicants and the friends of applicants, waiting for my perusal. ''Might I make bold, ' I asked, 'to enquire their worth?' 'There's one inNorwich worth 900 pounds a year, and another in Cornwall worth 400. But how the deuce can this concern you, man?' 'The cards are tooexpensive for me, your Grace, and I have often made terms with myself thatI would repent of them and end my days in a country living. This comessuddenly, to be sure; but so, for that matter, does death itself, and aman who makes a vow should hold himself ready to be taken at his word. ''But, my dear fellow, ' cries his Grace, 'with the best will in the worldyou can't repent and end your days in two livings at once. ' 'I might trymy best, ' said I; 'there are such things as curates to be hired, Ibelieve, and, at the worst, I was always fond of travelling. '"

The Reverend Timothy stowed away his snuff-box and gave me his arm again. 

"The Duke, " he continued, "took my point. He is, by the way, not halfsuch a fool as he looks and is vulgarly supposed to be. He wrote thatsame day to his brother-in-law (whom I will take leave to call the Bishopof Wexcester), and made me its bearer. It is worth quotation. It ran:'Dear Ted, --Ordain Noy, and oblige yours, Fred. ' The answer which Icarried back two days later was equally laconic. 'Dear Fred, --Noyordained. Yours, Ted. ' Consequently, " wound up Mr. Noy, "I am down hereto take over my cure of souls, and had in one of my pockets a sermoncomposed for my induction by a gifted young scholar of the University ofOxford. I paid him fifteen shillings and the best part of a bottle ofbrandy for it. The rascals have taken it, and I think they will find somedifficulty in converting it into cash. Hullo! is that a cottage yonder?"

It was a small cottage, thatched and whitewashed, and glimmering in themoonlight beside the road on which its whitewashed garden-wall abutted. The moonlight, too, showed that its upper windows were closed with woodenshutters. Mr. Noy halted before the garden-gate. 

"H'm, we shall have trouble here belike. Poor cottagers living beside ahighroad don't open too easily at this hour to a couple of come-by-chancewayfarers. To be sure, you wear the King's uniform, and that may be arecommendation. What's that track yonder, and where does it lead, thinkyou?"

The track to which he pointed led off the road at right angles, past thegable-end of the cottage, and thence (as it seemed to me) up into themoorland, where it was quickly lost in darkness, being but a ruttedcartway overgrown with grass. But as I stepped close to examine it my eyecaught the moon's ray softly reflected by a pile of masonry against theuncertain sky-line, and by-and-by discerned the roof and chimney-stacks ofa farmhouse, with a grey cluster of outbuildings and the quadrilateral ofa high-walled garden. 

"A farmhouse?" cried his reverence, when I reported my discovery. "That's more in our line by a long way. Only beware of dogs. "

Sure enough, when we reached the courtlage gate in front of the mainbuilding his lifting of the latch was the signal for half a dozen dogs togive tongue. By the mercy of heaven, however, they were all within doorsor chained, and after an anxious and unpleasant half-minute we made boldto defy their clamour and step within the gate. Almost as we entered awindow was opened overhead, and a man's voice challenged us. 

"Whoever you be, I've a gun in my hand here!" he announced. 

"We are two travellers by the mail coach, " Mr. Noy announced; "one aclergyman and the other an officer in the King's service. "

"You don't tell me the coach is upset?"

"And one of us has a broken collar-bone, and craves shelter in Christiancharity. What's the name of this parish?"

"Hey?" The man broke off to silence the noise of his dogs. 

"What's the name of this parish?"

"Braddock. "

"I thought so. Then mine is Noy--Timothy Noy--and I'm your rector. Weren't you expecting me?"

"Indeed, sir, if you're Mr. Noy, the Squire had word you might be comingdown this week; and 'twas I, as churchwarden, that posted your name on thechurch door. If you'll wait a moment, sir--the coach upset, you say!"

He disappeared from the window, and we heard him shouting to awaken thehousehold. By-and-by the door was unchained and he admitted us, exclaiming again, "The coach upset, you say, sir!"

"Worse than that: it has been robbed. We keep some bad characters in ourparish, Mr. --"

"Menhennick, sir; George Menhennick--and this is Tresaher Farm. Bad characters, sir? I hope not. We keep no highway robbers in thisparish. "

He faced us, rush-lamp in hand, in his great vaulted kitchen, and thelight fell on an honest, puzzled face. As for Mr. Noy's face, I regret tosay that it fell when he heard this vindication of his flock. 

"I brought ye into the kitchen, sirs, " went on Farmer Menhennick, "because 'tis cosier. We keep a fire banked up here all night. "He bent to revive it, but desisted as his wife entered with one of thehouse-wenches, and gave them orders to light a lamp, fetch a billet or twoof wood, and make the place cheerful. 

My face, I daresay, and the news of the robbery, scared the two women, whowent about their work at once with a commendable quietness. But I thinkit was a whisper from the maidservant which caused the farmer toejaculate, as he helped me to a chair:

"And you've walked across Blackadon Down at this hour of night! My word, sirs, and saving your reverence, but you had a nerve, if you'd only knownit!"

"Why, what's the matter with Blackadon?" asked Mr. Noy sharply. 

Farmer Menhennick faced him with a deprecatory grin. 

"Nothing, sir--leastways, nothing more than old woman's tales, not worth aman's heeding. "

"Has it by chance, " said I, "anything to do with a hearse?"

"A hearse!" Mr. Noy stared at me, and then his eye fell on the farmer, who had been helping to unbutton my tunic, but was now drawn back a pacefrom me with amazement written all over his honest face. "A hearse?"repeated Mr. Noy. 

"Why, however--" began the farmer, with his eyes slowly widening. 

"A hearse, " said I, "with black nodding plumes and (I believe) a headlessdriver. Let me see--" I began to hum the air sung by Jim the guard:--

 "The wheels go round without a sound--"

The two women had dropped their work and stood peering at me, the pair ofthem quaking. 

"He's seen it--he's seen it!" gasped the farmer's wife. 

"A hearse?" cried Mr. Noy once more, and this time almost in a scream. "When? where?"

"On Blackadon Down, sir, " answered Mr. Menhennick. "'Tis an old storythat the moor's haunted, and folks have been putting it round that thething's been seen two or three times lately. But there--'tis nothing topay any heed to. "

"Oh, isn't it!"

"You understand, sir, 'tisn't a _real_ hearse--"

"Oh, isn't it!" repeated Mr. Noy in scorn. 

"And _you_, sir--" He had almost caught and shaken me by the collar, but remembered my hurt just in time. "And do you, sir, sit there and tellme that you've known this all along, and yet--oh, you numskull!" He flungup two protesting hands. 

"But even if it's a real hearse--" I began. 

"That's the kind most frequently met, I believe. And 'the wheels goround without a sound. ' Yes, they _would_--on Blackadon turf! Any morequestions? No? Then I'll take my turn with a few. " He wheeled roundupon the farmer. "Ever seen it yourself?"

"No, sir. "

"Has anyone here seen it?"

No; but the maidservant's father had seen it, three weeks ago--the verynight that Squire Granville's house was tried--

Mr. Noy was almost capering. "Splendid!" he cried. "Splendid! That willsharpen his temper if it don't his wits. The Squire's house was tried, you say?" He turned on the farmer again. "Hullo, my friend! I understoodthere were no law-breakers in this parish?"

"'Tisn't known for certain that the house was tried, " the farmerexplained. "'Tis thought that some of the lads was giving the old boy ascare, he having been extra sharp on the poaching this year. All that'sknown is, he heard some person trying his shutters, and let fly out of hisbedroom window with a gun; and what you can build on that I don't see. "

"You shall though. " He began to cross-examine the girl. "At what timethat night did your father see the hearse?"

"I believe, sir, 'twas soon after eleven. He has a cow, sir, in calf, andwent round to the chall to make sure she was all right--"

Mr. Noy nodded. "And the hearse was passing--in what direction?"

"Towards the church town, sir; or, as you may say, towards St. Neotparish. "

"Inland, that is?"

"Yes, sir. But later on that same night Reub Clyma, up to Taphouse, sawit too; and this time 'twas moving fast and making towards Polperro. "

"Fits like a puzzle. Is Polperro a seaport town?" he asked the farmer. 

"A sort of fishing town, sir. "

"Your nearest? Good. And you reach it by a road running north and southacross the coach-road? Good. Now if you wanted to drive to Polperro youcould do so across the downs for some distance, eh? before striking thisroad. Good again. How far?"

"You'll excuse me, but I don't know that I rightly take your meaning. "

"Then we'll go slower. Suppose that you wished to drive towards Polperroover turf, never minding the jolts, and not to strike into the hard roaduntil you were compelled. How far could you contrive to travel in thisway?"

Farmer Menhennick found a seat and sat scratching his head. "Three miles, maybe, " he decided at length. 

"And what sort of road is this when you strike it?"

"Turnpike. "

"Indeed? And where's the pike?"

"At Cann's Gate. "

"That tells me nothing, I'm afraid; but we'll put the question in anotherform. Suppose that we are forced at length to leave the turf and fieldsand strike into the road for Polperro. Now where would this happen?Some way beyond the turnpike, I imagine. "

"Indeed no, sir: it would be a mile on this side of the pike, orthreequarters at the least. "

"You are sure?"

"Sure as I sit here. Why the road goes down a coombe; and before you getnear the turnpike, the coombe narrows _so_. " The farmer illustrated the Vby placing his hands at an angle. 

Mr. Noy found his snuff-box, took a heavy pinch, inhaled it, and closedhis box with a snap. Then he faced the farmer's wife with a low bow. 

"Madam, " said he, "you may put this young gentleman to bed, and the soonerthe better. He has lost a large sum of money, which I am fairlyconfident I can recover for him without his help; and your parish--whichis also mine--has lost its character, and this also I propose to recover. But to that end I must require your excellent husband to fetch out histrap and drive me with all speed to Squire Granville's. " He paused, andadded, "We are in luck to-night undoubtedly; but I fear I can promise himno such luck as to meet a hearse and headless driver on the way. . . . One moment, Mr. Menhennick! Have you such things as pen, ink and paper, and a farm-boy able to ride?"

"Certainly I have, sir. "

"Then while you are harnessing your nag, I'll drop a line to theriding-officer at Polperro; and if after receipt of it he allows a singlefishing-boat to leave the harbour, he'll be sorry--that's all. Now, sir--Eh? Why are you hesitating?"

"Well, indeed, your reverence knows best; and if you force me to driveover to Squire Granville's, why then I must. But I warn you, sir, that hehunts to-morrow; and if, begging your pardon, you knew the old varmint'stemper on a hunting day in the morning--"

"Hunts, does he? D'ye mean that he keeps a pack of hounds?"

"Why, of course, sir!"

Farmer Menhennick's accent was pathetically reproachful. 

"God forgive me! And I didn't know it--I, your rector! Your rebuke isjust, Mr. Menhennick. And this Church of England of ours--I say it withshame--is full of scandals. Where do they meet to-day?"

"Four-barrow Hill, your reverence. "

"Oh, no, they don't. On that point you really must allow me to correctyou. If they meet at all, it will be at--what d'ye call it?--Cann's Gate. "

And so they did. The Granville Hounds are, or were, a famous pack; butthe great and golden day in their annals remains one on which they killednever a fox; a day's hunting from which they trailed homewards behind ahearse driven in triumph by a very small clergyman without a head (for Mr. Noy had donned the very suit worn by Satan's understudy, even to its highstock-collar pierced with eye-holes). That hearse contained my chest oftreasure; and that procession is remembered in the parishes of Talland, Pelynt, Lanreath, and Braddock to this day. 

I did not see it, alas! Bed claimed the invalid, and Mrs. Menhennicksoothed him with her ministering attentions. But Parson Noy reported theday's doings to me in a voice reasonably affected by deep potations at the"Punch Bowl Inn, " Lanreath. 

"My son, it was glorious! First of all we ran the turnpike-man to earth, and frightened him into turning King's evidence. He was at the bottom ofthe mischief, of course; and the hearse we found--where d'ye think?Close behind his house, sir, in a haystack--a haystack so neatly hollowedthat it beat belief--with a movable screen of hay, which the roguesreplaced when the coach was stowed! We found everything inside--masks, mourners' hatbands, the whole bag of tricks; everything, barring yourtreasure, and that the preventive men dug out of the hold of aninnocent-looking lugger on the point to sail for Guernsey. Four of therascals, too, they routed up, that were stowed under decks and sleepinglike angels. "

"And the coachman? And the guard?"

"Squire Granville has posted off half a dozen constables towards Falmouth;but I'll lay odds that precious pair are on shipboard before this andheading out to sea. I'm sorry, too, for they were the wickedest villainsof the piece; but they'll be sorry before they have finished waiting atGuernsey. One can't expect everything; and Providence has been mightykind to us. "

"To me, at all events. "

"And to me, and to my parish. "

"Yes, to be sure, " said I; "the parish is well rid of such a bogey. "

"I wasn't thinking of that, " said he dryly. "I've recovered my sermon. "