Clement did not let the grass grow under his feet. An hour later he was
rattling over the stony pavements and through the crowded streets of
the busy town, which had grown in a short hundred years from something
little more than a village, to be the second centre of wealth and
population, of poverty and crime, within the seas; a centre on which
the eye of Government rested with unwinking vigilance, for without a
voice in Parliament and with half of its citizens deprived of civic
rights—since half were Nonconformists—it was the focus of all the
discontent in the country. In Manchester, if anywhere, flourished the
agitation against the Test Acts and the movement for Reform. Thence had
started the famous Blanketeers, there six years before had taken place
the Peterloo massacre. Thence as by the million filaments of some great
web was roused or calmed the vast industrial world of Lancashire. The
thunder of the power-loom that had created it, the roar of the laden
drays that shook it, deafened the wondering stranger, but more
formidable and momentous than either, had he known it, was the
half-heard murmur of an underworld striving to be free.
Clement had never visited the cotton-town before, and on a more
commonplace errand he might have allowed himself to be daunted by a
turmoil and bustle as new to him as it was uncongenial. But with his
mind set on one thing, he heeded his surroundings only as they
threatened to balk his aim, and he had himself driven directly to the
Police Office, over which the notorious Nadin had so lately presided
that for most people it still went by his name. Fearless, resolute, and
not too scrupulous, the man had through twenty troublous years combated
the forces alike of disorder and of liberty; and before London had yet
acquired an efficient police, he had gathered round him a body of men
equal at least to the Bow Street Runners. He had passed, but his
methods survived; and half an hour after Clement had entered the office
he issued from it accompanied by a hard-bitten, sharp-eyed man in a
tall beaver hat and a long wide-skirted coat.
“The Apple Tree? Oh, the Apple Tree’s on the square,” he informed
Clement. “And Jerry Stott? No harm in him, sir, either. He’ll speak
when he sees me.”
“You don’t think we need another man?”
“There’s one following. No use to go in a bunch. He’ll watch the front,
and we’ll go in by the yard. Got a barker, sir?”
“Yes.”
“’Fraid so. Well, don’t use it—show it if you like. Law’s law, and a
live dog’s worth more than its hide. Ay, that’s Chetham’s. Queer old
place, and—sharp’s the word, here we are,” as they turned off Long Mill
Gate, and entered the yard of an old-fashioned house, over the door of
which hung the sign of an apple-tree. The place was quiet, in
comparison with the street they had left, and “Here’s Jerry,” the
officer added, as they espied a young fellow, who in a corner of the
enclosure was striving to raise to his shoulder a truss of hay. He
ceased his efforts when he saw them.
“We want a word with you,” said the officer.
The man eyed them with dismay. “I never thout ’at he’d come to thee,”
he said.
“The chap you brought in this morning?”
“Ay, sure.”
“Happen yes and happen no,” the policeman replied. “What’s it all
about?”
“If he says I took his eauts he be a leear. I wurna wi’ the sack, not
to say alone ’at is, not five minutes, and yo’ may look at t’ sack and
see all’s theer as ever was! Never a handfu’ missing, tho’ the chap he
cursed and swore an’ took on, the mout ha’ been eauts o’ gowd! He’s a
leear iv he says I tetched ’em, but I never thout he’d t’ brass to come
to thee.”
“Why not, lad?”
“’Cause i’ the end he let up and steared at t’ sack leek a steck pig,
and then he fell a shriking ’i worse shap than ever, and away he goes
as iv a dog had bit him and down t’ Long Gate hell for leather!”
“Which way? I see. Did he take the oats?”
“Not he, nor t’ bag. An after mekking setch a din about his eauts! I
war no wi’ ’em five minutes.”
The officer declined to commit himself. “Let us see them,” he said.
Jerry led them to a tumble-down, black and white building at the rear
of the yard, with lattice work in its crazy windows and an old date
over the door. They followed him up a ladder and into a loft, where
were a frowsy bed or two, some old pack-saddles, and two or three
stools made out of casks sawn in two. On the floor in one place lay a
heap of oats trampled this way and that, and beside the heap an empty
sack. The officer picked up the sack, shook it and examined it.
“What do you make of it?” Clement asked.
“I don’t know what to make of it. Here, you, Jerry, fetch me a corn
measure!” And when he had thus rid them of the lad, “He may be carrying
out orders and telling a flash tale to put us off. Or he may be telling
the truth, and in that case it looks as if someone had been a mite
brighter than your man and cleared his stuff.”
“But where is it?”
“Ah! Just so, I’d like to know,” shaking his head. “Yes, Jerry, measure
it back into the sack. How much is there?”
The lad began to gather up the oats and replace them in the bag, while
the two men looked on, perplexed and undecided. Suddenly Clement
stooped—a scrap of cord, doubtless the cord which had tied the neck of
the sack, had caught his eye. He picked it up, looked at it, then, with
a word, he handed it to the officer. “I think that settles it,” he
said, his eyes shining. There was a tiny twist of straw-plait, like a
rosette, knotted about the cord and still adhering to it.
Nadin’s man looked at the plait and for a moment did not understand.
Then his face cleared. “By Joseph! You’re right, sir!” he exclaimed,
and slapped his thigh. “And sharp, sharp too. You’d ought to be one of
us! That settles it, it’s the backtrack we’ve to look to, but I’ll take
no chances.” And turning to the lad and addressing him in his harshest
voice, “See here, in an hour we shall know if you’ve told us the truth.
If you’ve not it will be the New Bailey and a pair of iron garters for
you. So if you’ve aught to add, out with it! It’s your last chance,
Jerry Stott.”
But the lad protested that he’d told all the truth. It had happened
just as he had told them.
The officer turned to Clement. “I think he’s on the square,” he said,
“but I’ll have him watched.” And he led the way down the ladder. When
they reached the street, he stepped out smartly, making nothing of the
crowd and bustle, the lumbering drays and over-hanging cranes through
which they had to thread their way. “We’ll catch the Altringham stage
at the Cross if we’re sharp,” he said. “It’ll be quicker than getting
out a po’chay and a lot cheaper.”
They caught the stage, and alighted in Altringham before five. A walk
of as many minutes brought them to the Barley Sheaf, a wagoner’s house
at the corner of a lane in the poorest part of the town. The ostler,
from whom Clement had so lately parted, stood leaning against a post at
the entrance to the yard, his hands still in his pockets and the straw
still in his mouth. When he saw them a grin broke up his ugly face.
“He’ve been here,” he cried, “but,” triumphantly, “I’ve routed him,
mister! I sent him all ways!”
The officer did not respond. “Why, the devil, didn’t you seize him?” he
growled.
“What, me? And him double my size? And a desperate villain? ’Deed, I’d
to save my skin, mister, and only yon lad and a couple of childer in
the yard when he come. I see him first, sneaking a look round this yere
post, and thinks I, it’ll be a knife in the back or a punch in the face
for me if he’s heard I’ve rapped. So, first’s better than last, thinks
I, and seeing as he hung back I up to him bold as brass, but with one
eye on the lad too, and sez I, ‘Can you read?’ sez I. He looked at me’s
if he’d have my blood, but there was the lad and the childer a-staring,
so ‘Ay, I can,’ says he, ‘and can read you, you thieving villain!’
‘Well, if you can read, read that,’ sez I, and pointed to a bill as was
posted on the gate. ‘I can’t,’ sez he, ‘and, happen you can tell me
what ’tis all about.’ He looks, and he sees ’tis the bill about he, and
painting him to the life. Anyways, he turns the color o’ whey and he
gives me a look as if he’d cut out my inwards, but he sees it’s no
good, for there was the lad and the childer, and he slinks off. Ay, I
routed him, I did, little as I be, mister!”
“Right!” said Nadin’s man. “And now do you show us the sack as you
changed for his.”
The man’s face fell amazingly, but Clement noted that he looked
surprised rather than frightened. “Eh?” he exclaimed. “Lord, now, who
told you, mister? He didn’t know.”
“Never mind who told us. We know, and that’s enough. There was a twist
o’ plait round the cord?”
“There were.”
“You said nothing about it before. But out with it now, and do you take
care, my lad.”
“Well, who axed me? Exchange is no robbery and I ain’t afeard. ’Twas
just this way. He sold me three sacks, ’s I told you, squire, and I was
hauling ’em off to stable when ‘Not that one!’ says he sharp. So then I
look at t’ one he was so set on keeping, and when his back was turned I
hefted it sly-like, and it seemed to me a good bit heavier than t’
others. Then I spied the bit o’ plait about the cord, and thinks I,
being no fule, ’tis a mark. And when he went in for a squib o’ cordial
wi’ Jerry Stott I shifted t’ mark to another sack and loaded up, and
off he goes and he none the wiser, and no harm done. Exchange is no
robbery and you can’t do nowt to me for that.”
“I don’t know,” said the officer darkly. “Let us see the sack.”
“You’re not agoing——”
“Do you hear? Jump, unless you want to get into trouble. You show us
that sack, and be quick about it, my lad.”
Grumbling, but not daring to refuse, the old man led the way into the
stables, and there in an empty stall the three sacks stood upright.
“Which is the one you filched?” asked the man from Manchester.
Reluctantly the ostler pointed it out. “Then you get me a horse-cloth.”
“You’re not going—well, a wilful man must have his way. Will that serve
you? But if my oats is spilled and spiled——”
Nadin’s man paid no heed to his remonstrance, but in a trice cut the
cord that tied the sack’s mouth, tipped it on its side, and let the
grain pour out in a golden stream. A golden stream it proved to be, for
in a twinkling something sparkled amid the corn, and here and there a
sovereign glittered. To Clement and the officer who had read the
riddle, this was no great surprise, though they viewed it with smiling
satisfaction. But the old man, stuck dumb by the sight of the treasure
that had been for a time in his power, turned a dirty white. He stood
gazing at the vision of wealth, greed in his eyes, his hands working
convulsively; and presently in a choked voice, “O, Lord! O, Lord!” he
muttered. “You’ll not take t’ all! You’ll not take t’ all! . It were
mine. I bought it.”
“You came nigh to buying a pair o’ bracelets,” the officer replied
grimly. “You with stolen property in your possession to talk o’—thank
your stars your neck’s not to answer for it! No, we don’t need your
help. You sheer off. We can count it without you. You’ve done pretty
well as it is. Sheer off, unless you want the handcuffs on you!”
The old ostler went, measuring the five pounds which he had made by the
treasure he had lost, and finding no comfort in the possession of that
which only an hour before had been a fortune to gloat over. But there
was no help for it. He had to swallow his rage. The officer called
after him to bring a sieve. He brought it sullenly, and his part was
done. All that was left to him was a vision of gold that grew more
dazzling with each telling of the tale. And very, very often he told
it.
When he was gone they gathered up the oats and riddled them through the
sieve and recovered four hundred and thirty pounds. Thomas had taken a
mere handful for his spending. As Clement counted it, sovereign by
sovereign, into a knotted handkerchief which the other held, he, too,
gloated over it, for it spelled success. But the money reckoned and the
handkerchief knotted up, “And now for the man,” he said.
But Nadin’s man shook his head. “We’d be weeks and not get him,” he
said. “You’d best leave him to us, sir. We’ll bill him in Manchester
and make the flash kens too hot for him. But there’s no knowing which
way he’ll turn. May be to Liverpool, or as like as not to Aldersbury.
Chaps like him are pigeons for homing. Back they go, though they know
they’ll be taken.”
In the end Clement decided to stand content, and having given his
assistant a liberal fee, he took his seat next morning on the Victory
coach, travelling by Chester to Aldersbury. He was not vain, but it was
with some exultation that he began his journey, that he faced again the
free-blowing winds and the open pastures, heard the cheery notes of the
bugle, and viewed the old-fashioned marketplaces and roistering inns,
some of which he had passed three days before. He had not failed. He
had done something; and he thought of Jos, and he thought of the
Squire, and he thanked Providence that had put it in his power to turn
the tables on the old man. Surely after what he had done the Squire
must consider him. Surely after services so notable—and Lord, what luck
he had had—the Squire would be willing to listen to him? He recalled
the desperate struggle in the road, and the old man’s “At him, good
lad! At him!” and he thought of the sum—no small sum, and the old man
was avaricious—which his promptness had recovered. His hopes ran high.
To be sure, there was another side to it. The Squire might not recover,
and then—but he refused to dwell on that contingency. No, the Squire
must recover, must receive and reward him, must own that after all he
was something better than a clerk or a shopboy. And all things would be
well, all roads be made smooth, all difficulties be cleared away. And
in time he and Jos—his eyes shone.
Of course in the elation of the hour and flushed by success, he ignored
facts which he would have been wiser to remember, and over-leapt
obstacles which were not small. A little thought would have taught him
that the Squire was not the man to change his views in an hour, or to
swallow the prejudices of a life-time because a young chap had done him
a service. To be beholden to a man, and to give him your daughter, are
things far apart.
And this Clement in cooler moments would have seen. But he was young
and in love, and he had done something; and the sun shone and the air
was sweet, and if, as the coach swung gaily up the Foregate between
School and Castle, his heart beat high and he already foresaw a
triumphant issue, who shall blame him? At any rate his case was
altered, and in comparison with his position a few days before, he
stood well.
He alighted at the door of the Lion, and by a coincidence which was to
have its consequences the first person he met in the High Street was
Arthur Bourdillon. “Hallo!” Arthur cried, his face lighting up. “Back
already, man? Have you done anything?”
“I’ve got the money,” Clement replied. And he waved the bag.
“And Thomas?”
“No, he gave us the slip for the time. But I’ve got the money, except a
dozen pounds or so.”
“The deuce you have!” the other answered—and it was not quite clear
whether he were pleased or not. “How did you do it? Tell us all about
it.” He drew Clement aside on to some steps at the foot of St.
Juliana’s church.
Clement ran briefly over his adventures. When he had done, “Deuced
sharp of you,” Arthur said. “Devilish sharp, I must say! Now, if you’ll
hand over I’ll take it out to Garth. I am on my way there, I’m just
starting, and I haven’t a moment to spare. If you’ll hand over——”
But Clement made no move to hand over. Instead, “How is he?” he asked.
“Oh, pretty bad.”
“Will he get over it?”
“Farmer thinks so. But there’s no hope for the eye, and he doubts about
the other eye. He’s not to use it for six weeks at least.”
“He’s in bed?”
“Lord, yes, and will be in bed for heaven knows how long—if he ever
gets up from it. Why, man, he’s had the deuce of a shake. The wonder is
that he’s alive, and it’s long odds that he’ll never be the same man
again.”
“That’s bad,” Clement said. “And how is——” He was going to inquire
after Miss Griffin, but Arthur broke in on him.
“Ask the rest another time,” he said. “I can’t stay now. I’m taking out
things that are wanted in a hurry and the curricle is waiting. This is
the first day I’ve been in town, for there’s no one there to do
anything except my cousin and the old Peahen. So hand over, old chap,
and I’ll take the stuff out. It will do the old man more good than all
the doctor’s medicine.”
Clement hesitated. If he had not been carrying the money, he might have
made an excuse. He might at any rate have delayed the act. But the
money was the Squire’s, he could give no reason for taking it to the
bank, and he had not that hardness of fibre, that indifference to the
feelings of others which was needed if he was to say boldly that it was
he who had recovered the money and he who was going to hand it over.
Still he did hesitate, something telling him that the demand was
unreasonable. Then Arthur’s coolness, his assumption that what he
proposed was the natural course did its work. Clement handed over the
bag.
“Right,” Arthur said, weighing it in his hand. “You counted it, I
suppose? Four hundred and thirty, or thereabouts?”
“That’s it.”
“Good! See you soon. Good-bye!” And well pleased with himself,
chuckling a little—for Clement’s discomfiture had not escaped
him—Arthur hurried away.
And Clement went his way. But reality had touched his golden dreams,
and they had melted. The sun still shone, but it did not shine for him,
and he no longer walked with his head in the air. It was not only that,
by resigning the money and entrusting its return to another, he had
lost the advantage on which he had counted, but he had been worsted. He
had failed, in the contest of wits and wills, and, abuse his ill-luck
as he might, he owed the failure to himself—to his own weakness. He saw
it.
It was possible that Arthur had acted in innocence. But Clement doubted
this, and he doubted it the more the longer he thought of it. He
fancied that he recognized a thing which had happened before: that this
was not the first time that Arthur had taken the upper hand with him
and jockeyed him into the worse position. As he crossed the threshold
of the bank, his self-confidence fell from him, he felt himself slip
into the old atmosphere, he became once more the inefficient.
Nor was it any comfort to him that his father saw the matter in the
same light, and after listening with an appreciative face and some
surprise to his earlier adventures, made no effort to hide the chagrin
that he felt at the _dénouement_. “But why—why in the world did you do
that?” he exclaimed. “Give up the money after you had done the work?
And to Bourdillon, who had no more right to it than you had? Good
heavens, lad, it was the act of a fool! I’d not be surprised if old
Griffin never heard your name in connection with it!”
“Oh, I don’t think Arthur——”
“Well, I do.” The banker was vexed. “It’s clear that Arthur is a deal
sharper than you. As for the Squire, I hear that he is only
half-conscious, and what he hears, if he ever hears the tale at all,
will make little impression on him. Now if he had seen you, and you’d
handed over the money—if he had seen you, then the bank and you would
have got the credit.”
“Still, Clem did recover it,” Betty said.
“Ay, but who will ever know that he did?”
“Still he did, and I believe that he’ll get a message from Garth
to-morrow. Now, see if you don’t, Clem. Or the next day.”
But no message came on the morrow, or on the next day. No message came
at all; and though it was possible to attribute this to the Squire’s
condition—for he was reported to be very ill—and Clement did his best
to attribute it to that and to keep up his spirits, the tide of time
wears away even hope, and presently he began to see that he had built
on the sand.
At any rate no message and no acknowledgment came, unless a perfunctory
word of thanks dropped by Arthur counted as such. And Clement had soon
to recognize that what he had done, he might as well, for any good it
was likely to do him, have left undone. His father, who had no thought
of anything but his son’s credit, was merely chagrined. But with
Clement, who had built high hopes upon the event, hopes of which his
father and Betty little dreamed, the wound went far deeper.