How the ship was rolling! Thank Heaven I was awake! Thank Heaven I was

in my berth, and not in that horrible engine-room. But how was this?

The other Englishman was here too, standing by the lamp, looking at

me. Or--was it the other Englishman? It was some one who had a smudged

and smutty face. All the wonder in my mind had to do with that. I lay

for a while, between sleeping and waking, watching him. Then I saw him

reach across my feet to a little shelf above the berth. As he drew

back, something that was in his hand--the hand that rested on the edge

of my berth--glittered as the light fell upon it; and, wide awake, I

sprang to a sitting posture in my berth, and cried out for fear.

He was gone on the instant, and in the same second of time I was out

of bed and on the floor. A moment's hesitation, and I drew aside the

curtain, which still shook. The passage was still and empty. But

opposite my cabin and separated from it by the width of the passage

was the door of another cabin, which was, or had been when I went to

bed, unoccupied. Now the curtain, drawn across the doorway, was

shaking, and I did not doubt that the intruder was behind it. But

behind it also was darkness, and I was unarmed, whereas the thing upon

which the light had fallen in the man's hand was either a knife or a

pistol.

No wonder that I hesitated, or that discretion seemed the better part

of valour. To be sure I might call the steward and have the cabin

searched; but I feared to seem afraid. I stood on tiptoe listening.

All was still; and presently I shivered. The excitement was passing

away, I began to feel qualms. With a last glance at the opposite

cabin--had I really seen the curtain shake? might it not have been

caused by the motion of the ship?--I closed my sliding door, and

climbed hastily into my bunk. Robber or no robber I must be still. In

a short time, what with my qualms and my drowsiness, I fell asleep.

I slept until the morning light filled the cabin, and I was roused by

the cheery voice of the steward, bidding me "Buenos dias." The ship

was moving on an even keel. Overhead the deck was being swabbed. I

opened my little window and looked out--and the night's doings rose in

my memory. But who could think of dreams of midnight assassins with

the sea air in his nostrils, and before his eyes that vignette of blue

sea and grey rocks--grey, but sparkling, gemlike, ethereal under the

sun of Spain? Not I. I was gay as a lark, hungry as a hunter. Sallying

out before I was dressed, I satisfied myself that the opposite cabin

was empty, and came back laughing at my folly.

But when I found that something else was empty, I thought it no

laughing matter. I wanted a snack to stay my appetite until the

steward should bring my _cafe complet_, and I turned to the little

shelf over my berth where I had placed the biscuits. They were not

there. Curious! And I had not eaten them. Then it flashed upon my mind

that it was with this shelf my visitor had meddled.

After that I did not lose a moment. I examined my luggage and the

pockets of my clothes; the result relieved as much as it astonished

me; nothing was missing. My armed apparition had carried off two

captain's biscuits, and nothing else!

I passed the morning puzzling over it. Sleigh did not come near me.

Was he conscious of guilt, I wondered, or offended by the abruptness

of my leave-taking the night before? Or was he engaged about his work?

About noon we came to our moorings at Alicante. The sky was unclouded.

The shabby town and the barren hills that rose behind it--barren to

the eye, since the vines were not in leaf--looked baking hot. I had

found a cool corner of the ship, and was amusing myself with a copy of

"Don Quixote" and a dictionary, when the engineer approached.

"Not going ashore?" he said.

For the twentieth time I wondered what it was in his manner that made

everything he said a gibe. Whatever it was, I hated him for it; and I

gave my feelings vent by answering sullenly, "No, I am not." And

forthwith I turned to my books again.

"I thought you travellers for pleasure wanted to see everything," he

said. "Maybe you know Alicante?"

"No," I answered snappishly. "And in this heat I don't want to know

it!"

"All right, governor, all right!" he replied. "Think it might be too

hot for you, perhaps?" And with a hoarse laugh that lasted him from

stem to stern, and brought the blood to my cheeks, he left me. But I

could see that he did not lose sight of me, and at intervals I heard

him chuckling at his own wit for fully half an hour afterwards. But

where the joke came in I could not determine.

Towards evening I went ashore, slipping away at a time when he had

gone below for a moment. I found a public walk in an avenue of

palm-trees which ran beside the sea. The palms were laden with

clusters of yellow dates, that were more like dried sea-weed than

fruit. As darkness fell, and with it coolness, I sat here, and watched

the vessels in the port fade one by one into the gloom, and little

sparks of light take their places. A number of people were still

abroad, enjoying the air, but these sauntered in the indolent southern

fashion, so that when I heard the step of a man approaching in haste,

I looked up sharply. To my surprise, it was Sleigh, the engineer!

He passed close to me. I could not be mistaken, though he had put off

his slouching, shambling air, and was keenly on the alert, glancing

from this side to that, as if he were searching for some one. For

whom? I was one of half a dozen on a seat in deep shadow. If I were

the person he wanted, he overlooked me, and went on. I sat some time

after his step had died away in the distance, my thoughts not pleasant

ones. But he did not return, and I went up to the Hotel Bossio

prepared to eat an excellent dinner.

The _table d'hote_ in the big whitewashed room was half finished. I

was late; and perhaps for this reason the waiters eyed me, as I took

my seat, with odd attention; or possibly it was because the English

were not numerous at Alicante, or not popular; or, again, it was

possible that some one--Sleigh, for example--had been there making

inquiries for a foreigner--blond, middle-sized, and speaking very

little Spanish. Their notice made me uncomfortable. It seemed as if I

could nowhere escape from my Old Man of the Sea.

Nowhere indeed, for I was to have another rencontre that night, with

which my mind mixed him up, and which must be told because of the

light afterwards thrown upon it. Returning to my ship along the dark

wharf, I came upon figures loafing in the shadow of bales or barrels,

and, passing them, clutched my loaded stick more tightly. I got by

all, however, in safety and reached the spot where the ship lay. "San

Miguel! Bota!" I shouted in the approved fashion of that coast. "San

Miguel! Bota!"

The words had scarcely left my lips when there was a rustling close to

me. A single footstep sounded on the pebbles, and the light of a

lantern was flashed in my face. I recoiled. As I did so two or three

men sprang forward. Dazzled by the light, I had only an indistinct

view of figures about me, and was on the point of fighting or running,

or making an attempt at both, when by good luck the clink of steel

fell upon my ear.

By good luck! For they were police who had stopped me; and it is ill

work resisting the police in Spain. "What do you require, gentlemen?"

I asked in my best Spanish. "I am English."

"Perdone usted, senor," replied the leader, who held the light. "Will

you have the goodness to show me your papers?"

"Con mucho gusto!" I answered, delighted to find that things were no

worse. I was for producing my passport on the spot, but the sergeant,

with a polite but imperative "This way!" directed me to follow him. I

did so for a short distance, a door was flung open, and I found myself

in a well-lighted office, which I guessed was a custom-house. The

officer took his place behind a desk, and by a gesture of his cocked

hat signified his readiness to proceed.

I had had to do with the police before, but I was aware of a

suppressed excitement in the group, of strange glances which they cast

at me, of a general drawing round their chief as he bent over my

passport, which seemed to indicate that this was no ordinary case of

passport examination. Singular, too, was the disappointment they

evinced when they found that my passport bore, besides the ordinary

_vise_, the signatures of the Vice-Consul and Alcalde at Valencia. As

their faces fell my spirits rose. Full conviction took possession of

them after I had answered half a dozen questions; and the interview

ended with the same "Perdone usted, senor," with which it had begun. I

was bowed out; a boat was instantly procured for me, and in two

minutes I was climbing the ladder which hung from the _San Miguel's_

quarter.

The first person I saw on board was Sleigh. He was lolling on a bench

in the saloon--confound his impudence!--drinking aguardiente and

staring moodily at the table. I tried to pass by him and reach my

cabin unnoticed, but on the last step of the companion I slipped. With

an oath at the interruption he looked up, and our eyes met.

Never did I see a man more astonished. He gazed at me as if he could

not trust his sight. "Well, I never!" he cried, slapping his thigh

with an oath, and speaking in a jubilant tone. "Well, I am blest,

governor! So you did not go ashore after all! Here's a lark!"

I saw that he had been drinking. "I have been ashore," I answered, my

dislike increased tenfold by his condition.

"Honour bright?" he exclaimed.

"I have told you that I have been ashore," I replied.

He whistled. "You are a cool hand," he said, looking me over with a

new expression in his face. "I might have known that, precious mild as

you seemed! Dined at the Hotel Bossio, I warrant you did, and took

your walk in the Alameda like any other man?"

"I did."

"So you did! O Lord! O Lord! So you did!" Again he contemplated me at

arm's length. I could construe his new expression now--it was one of

admiration. "So you did, governor! And came aboard in the dark, as

bold as brass!"

That thawed me, for I thought that I had done rather a plucky thing in

coming on board alone at that time of night. But I told him nothing of

the affair with the police. I merely answered, "I do not understand

why I should not, Mr. Sleigh. And as I am tired, I will bid you good

night."

"Wait a bit, governor," he said, in a lower tone, arresting me by a

gesture as I turned away. "Don't you think you are playing it a bit

high? You are a cool one, I swear, and fly--there is nothing you are

not fly to, I'll be bound! But two heads are better than one--you take

me?--letting alone that it is every one for himself in this world. Do

you rise to it?"

"No, I don't rise to it," I answered, drawing back from his spirituous

breath and leering eyes. He was more drunk than I had fancied.

"You don't? Think again, mate," he said, almost as if he pleaded with

me. "Don't play it too high."

"Don't talk such confounded nonsense!" I retorted angrily.

He looked at me a moment, a scowl darkening his face and not improving

it. Then he answered, "All right, governor! All right! Pleasant

dreams! and a pleasant waking at Carthagena!"

"I have no doubt I shall enjoy both," I replied, "if you will have the

goodness not to disturb me as you did last night!" He should not think

he had escaped detection.

"It is your turn now," he replied more soberly. "I don't know what you

are up to now. I didn't disturb you last night."

"Some one did! And some one uncommonly like you."

"What did he do?" he asked, eyeing me with suspicion.

"I startled him," I answered, "or I do not know what he would have

done. As it was he did not do much. He took some biscuits."

"Took some biscuits!" He pretended that he did not believe me, and he

did it so well that I began to doubt. "You must have been dreaming,

mate."

"I could not dream the biscuits away," I retorted.

The stroke went home. He stood thinking, drawing patterns on the table

with his finger and a puddle of spilled water. Guilty or innocent, he

did not seem ashamed, but puzzled and perplexed. Once or twice he

glanced cunningly at me. But whether he wished to see how I took it,

or suspected me of fooling him, I could not tell.

"Good night!" I cried, losing patience at last; and I went to my

cabin. The last I saw of him, he was still standing at the table,

drawing patterns on it with his finger.

I turned in at once, satisfied that after what had passed between us

there would be no repetition of last night's disturbance. In a

pleasant state between waking and sleeping I was aware of the tramp of

feet overhead as the moorings were cast off. The first slow motion of

the engines was followed by the familiar swish and wash of the water

sliding by. The ship began to heel over a little. We had reached the

open sea. After that I slept.

I awoke suddenly, but in full possession of my senses. The cabin was

still lit by the lamp. I guessed that it was a little after midnight;

and "_O utinam!_" I sighed, "that I had not taken that cup of coffee

after dinner!" My portmanteau too had got loose. I could hear it

sliding about the floor, though, as I lay in the upper berth, I could

not see it. I must set that to rights.

I vaulted out after my usual fashion. But instead of alighting fairly

and squarely on the floor, my bare feet struck something soft, a good

distance short of it, and I came down on my hands and knees--to form

part of the queerest tableau upon which a cabin-lamp ever shone.

There was I, lightly clothed in pyjamas, glaring into the eyes of a

dingy-faced man, who was likewise on his hands and knees on the floor,

but with more than half the breath knocked out of his body by my

descent upon him. I do not know which was the more astonished.

"Hallo! how do you come here?" I cried, after we had stared at one

another for some seconds.

He raised his hand. "Hush!" he whispered: and obeying his gesture I

crouched where I was, while he listened. Then we rose to our feet as

by one motion. I had not time to feel afraid, though it was far from a

pretty countenance that was close to mine. Terror was written too

plainly upon it.

"You are English?" he said sullenly.

I nodded. I saw that he had a pistol half-hidden behind him, but

somehow I felt master of the position. His fear of being overheard

seemed so much greater than my fear of his pistol; and it is not easy

to do much with a pistol without being overheard. "You are English,

too," I added, below my breath. "Perhaps you will kindly tell me what

you are doing in my cabin?"

"You will not betray me?" he cried.

"Betray you, my man!" I replied, with a prudent remembrance of his

weapon and the late hour of the night. "If you have taken nothing of

mine, you may go to the deuce for me, so long as you don't pay me

another visit."

"Taken anything!" he retorted, almost forgetting his caution, "do you

take me for a thief? I will be bound----" he went on with a pride that

seemed to me very pitiable when I understood it--"that you are about

the only man in Spain who would not know me at sight. There is a

price upon my head! There are two thousand pesetas for whoever takes

me--dead or alive! There are bills of me in every town in Spain! Ay,

of me! in every town from Irun to Malaga!"

I knew now who he was. "You were at Carthagena," I said sternly,

thinking of the old grey-headed general who had died at his post.

He nodded. The momentary excitement was gone from his face, leaving

him what he was, a man, dirty, pallid, half famished. About my height,

he wore clothes, shabby and soiled, but like mine in make and

material. In his desperate desire for sympathy, for communion with

some one, he had already laid aside his fear of me. When I asked him

how he came to be in my cabin he told me freely.

"I intended to ship from Valencia to France, but they watched all the

boats. I crept on board this one in the night, thinking that as she

was bound for Carthagena she would not be searched. I was right; they

did not think I should venture back into the lion's jaws."

"But what will you do when we reach Carthagena?" I asked.

"Stay on board and, if possible, go with this ship to Cadiz. From

there I can easily get over to Tangier," he answered.

It sounded feasible. "And where have you been since we left Valencia?"

I asked.

"Behind this sailcloth." He pointed to a long roll of spare canvas

which was stowed away between the floor and the lower berth. I opened

my eyes.

"Ay!" he added, "they are close quarters, but there is room behind

there for a man lying on his face. What is more, except your two

biscuits I have had nothing to eat since the day before yesterday."

"Then it was you who took the biscuits?"

He nodded; then he fell back against my berth, all his strength gone

out of him. For from behind us came a more emphatic answer. "You may

take your oath to that, governor!" it ran; and briskly pushing aside

the door and curtain, Sleigh the engineer stood before us. "You may

bet upon that, I guess!" he added, an ugly smile playing about his

mouth.

The refugee's face changed to a sickly white. His hand toyed feebly

with the pistol, but he did not move. I think that we both felt we

were in the presence of a stronger mind.

"You had better put that plaything away," Sleigh said. He showed no

fear, but I observed that he watched us narrowly. "A shot would bring

the ship about your ears. There is no call for a long tale. I took the

governor here for you, but when he told me that some one was stealing

his biscuits, I thought I had got the right pig by the ear, and five

minutes outside this door have made it a certainty. Two thousand

pesetas! Why, hang me," he added brutally, "if I should have thought,

to look at you, that you were worth half the money!"

The other plucked up spirit at the insult. "Who are you? What do you

want?" he cried, with an attempt at bravado.

"Precisely. What do I want?" the engineer replied with a sneer.

"You are right to come to business. What do I want? A hundred pounds.

That is my price, mate. Fork it out and mum's the word. Turn rusty,

and----" He did not finish the sentence, but grasping his neck in both

hands, he pressed his thumbs upon his windpipe and dropped his jaw. It

was a ghastly performance. I had seen a garotte and I shuddered.

"You would not give the man up? Your own countryman?" I cried in

horror.

"Would I not?" he answered. "You will soon see, if he has not got the

cash!"

"A hundred pounds!" the wretched fellow moaned. Sleigh's performance

had completely unmanned him. "I have not a hundred pesetas with me."

As it happened--alas, it has often happened so with me!--I had but

three hundred pesetas, some twelve pounds odd, about me, nor any hope

of a remittance nearer than Malaga. Still, I did what I could. "Look

here," I said to Sleigh, "I can hardly believe that you are in

earnest, but I will do this. I will give you ten pounds to be silent

and let the man take his chance. It is no good to haggle with me," I

added, "because I have no more."

"Ten pounds!" he replied derisively, "when the police will give me

eighty! I am not such a fool."

"Better ten pounds and clean hands, than eighty pounds of blood

money," I retorted.

"Look here, Mister," he answered sternly; "do you mind your own

business and let us settle ours. I am sorry for you, mate, that is a

fact, but I cannot let the chance pass. If I do not get this money

some one else will. I'll tell you what I will do." As he paused I

breathed again, while the miserable man whose life was in the balance

looked up with renewed hope. "I will lower my terms," he said. "I

would rather get the money honestly, I am free to confess that. If you

will out with two thousand pesetas, I will keep my mouth shut, and

give you a helping hand besides."

"If not?" I said.

"If not," he answered, shrugging his shoulders--but I noticed that he

laid his hand on his knife--"if you do not accept my terms before we

are in port at Carthagena, I go to the first policeman and tell him

who is aboard. Those are my terms, and you have time to think about

them."

With that he left the cabin, keeping his face to us to the last.

Hateful and treacherous as he was, I could not help admiring his

coolness and courage, and his firm grasp of the men he had to do with.

For I felt that we were a sorry pair. I suppose that my companion, bad

as his position seemed, had cherished strong hopes of escape. Now he

was utterly unmanned. He sat on the couch, his elbows on his knees,

his head on his hands, the picture of despair. The pistol had vanished

into some pocket, and although capture meant death, I judged that he

would let himself be taken without striking a blow.

My own reflections were far from being comfortable. The man grovelling

before me might deserve death; knowing the stakes, he had gambled and

lost. Moreover, he was a complete stranger to me. But he was an

Englishman. He had trusted me. He had spent an hour--but it seemed

many--in my company, and I shrank from the pain of seeing him dragged

away to his death. My nature revolted against it; I forgot what the

consequences of interference might be to myself.

"Look here," I said, after a long interval of silence, "I will do what

I can. We shall not reach Carthagena until eight o'clock. Something

may turn up before that. At the worst I have a scheme, though I set

little store by it, and advise you to do the same. Put on these

clothes in place of those you wear." I handed to him a suit taken from

my portmanteau. "Wash and shave. Take my passport and papers. It is

just possible that if you play your part well they may not identify

you, and may arrest me--despite our friend upstairs. For myself, once

on shore I shall have no difficulty in proving my innocence."

Not that I was without misgivings. The Spanish civil guards give but

short shrift at times, and at the best I might be punished for

connivance at an escape. But to some extent I trusted to my

nationality; and for the rest, the avidity with which the hunted

wretch at my side clutched at the slender hope held out to him drove

hesitation from my mind.

As long as I live I shall remember the scene which ensued. The grey

light was beginning to steal through the port-hole, giving a sicklier

hue to my companion's features, as I helped him with trembling fingers

to dress. The odour of the expiring lamp hung upon the air. The

tumbled bed-clothes, the ransacked luggage, the coats swaying against

the bulkheads to the music of the creaking timbers, formed

surroundings deeply imprinted on the memory.

About seven o'clock I procured some coffee and biscuits and a little

fruit, and fed him. Then I gave him my papers, and charged him to

employ himself about the cabin. My plan was to be out of the way,

ashore, or elsewhere, when Sleigh fired his mine, and to trust my

companion to return my luggage and papers to my hotel at Malaga; until

I reached which place I must take my chance. In reality I played no

fine and magnanimous part, for, looking back, I do not think I

believed for a moment that the police would be deceived.

A little after eight o'clock I went on deck, to find that the ship was

steaming slowly between the fortified hills that frown upon the

harbour of Carthagena; a harbour so spacious that in its amphitheatre

of waters all the navies of the world might lie. For a time the

engineer was not visible on deck. The steward pointed out to me

some of the lions--the deeply embayed arsenal, the distant fort,

high-perched on a hill, which the mutineers had seized, the governor's

house over the gateway where the wounded general had died; and we were

within a cable's length of the wharf, crowded with idlers and flecked

with sentinels, when Sleigh came up from below.

Although the morning was fine, he was wearing the heavy pea-jacket

which I had seen in the engine-room. He cast a spiteful glance at me,

then, turning away, he affected to busy himself with other matters.

Bad as he was, I think that he was ashamed of the work he had in hand.

"Do we stay here all day?" I asked the steward.

"No, senor, no. Only until ten o'clock," I understood him to say. It

was close upon nine already. He explained that the town was still so

much disturbed that business was at a standstill. The _San Miguel_

would land her passengers by boat and go at once to Almeria, where

cargo awaited her. "Here is the police-boat," he added.

Then the time had come. I was quivering with excitement--and with

something else--a new idea! Darting from the steward's side, I flew

down the stairs, through the saloon and to my cabin, the door of which

I dragged open impatiently. "Give me my papers!" I cried, breathless

with haste. "The police are here!"

The man--he was pretending to pack, with his back to the door, but at

my entrance he rose with an assumption of ease--drew back. "Why? will

you desert me too?" he cried, his face blanched. "Will you betray me?

Then, my God! I am lost!" and he flung himself upon the sofa in a

paroxysm of terror.

Every moment was of priceless value. This a conspirator! I had no

patience with him. "Give them to me!" I cried imperatively,

desperately. "I have another plan. Do you hear?"

He heard, but he did not believe me. He was sure that my courage had

failed at the last moment. But--and let this be written on his side of

the account--he gave me the papers; it may be in pure generosity, it

may be because he had not the spirit to resist.

Armed with them I ran on deck as quickly as I had descended. I found

the position of things but slightly changed. The police-boat was now

alongside. The officer in command, attended by two or three

subordinates, was mounting the ladder. Close to the gangway Sleigh was

standing, evidently waiting for him. But he had his eye on the saloon

door also, for I had scarcely emerged before he stepped up to me.

"Have you changed your mind, governor? Are you going to buy him off?"

he muttered, looking askance at me as I moved forward with him by my

side.

My answer took him by surprise. "No, senor, no!" I exclaimed loudly

and repeatedly--so loudly that the attention of the group at the

gangway was drawn to us. When I saw this, I stepped in front of

Sleigh, and before he guessed what I would be at, I was at the

officer's side. "Sir," I said, raising my hat, "do you speak French?"

"Parfaitement, monsieur," he answered, politely returning my salute.

"I am an Englishman, and I wish to lay an information," I said,

speaking in French, and pausing there that I might look at Sleigh. As

I had expected, he did not understand French. His baffled and

perplexed face assured me of that. He tried to interrupt me, but the

courteous official waved him aside.

"The man who is trying to shut my mouth is a smuggler of foreign

watches," I resumed. "He has them about him, and is going to take them

ashore. They are in a number of pockets made for the purpose in the

lining of his coat. I am connected with the watch trade, and my firm

will give ten pounds reward to any one who will capture and prosecute

him."

"I understand," the officer replied. And, turning to Sleigh, who,

ignorant of what was going forward, was fretting and fuming in a fever

of distrust, he addressed some words to him. He spoke in Spanish and

quickly, and I could not understand what he said. That it was to the

point, however, the engineer's face betrayed. It fell amazingly, and

he cast a vengeful glance at me.

That which followed was ludicrous enough. My heart was beating fast,

but I could not suppress a smile as Sleigh, clasping the threatened

coat about him, backed from the police. He poured out a torrent of

fluent Spanish, and emphatically denied the charge; but, alas! he

cherished the coat--at which the police were making tentative

dives--overmuch for an innocent man with no secret pockets about him.

His "No, senor, no!" his "Por dios!" and "Madre de Dios!" and the rest

were breath wasted. At a sign from the grim-looking officer, two of

the policemen seized him, and in a twinkling, notwithstanding his

resistance, had the thick coat off him, and were probing its recesses.

It was the turn of the by-standers to cry, "Madre de Dios!" as from

pocket upon pocket came watch after watch, until five dozen lay in

sparkling rows upon the deck. I could see that there were those among

the ship's company besides the culprit who gazed at me with little

favour; but the eyes of the police officer twinkled with gratification

as each second added to the rich prize. And that was enough for me.

Still I knew that all was not done yet, and I stood on my guard.

Sleigh, taken into custody, had desisted from his prayers and oaths. I

saw, however, that he was telling a long story, of which I could make

out little more than the word "Inglese" repeated more than once. It

was his turn now. If he had not understood my French, neither could I

understand his Spanish. And I noticed that the officer, as the story

rolled on, looked at me doubtfully. I judged that the crisis was near,

and I interfered. "May I beg to know, sir, what he says?" I asked

courteously.

"He tells me a strange story, Mr. Englishman," was the answer; and the

speaker eyed me with curiosity. "He says that Morrissey, the

villainous Englishman--your pardon--who was at the bottom of the

affair of last Sunday, has had the temerity to return to the scene of

his crime, and is on this vessel."

I shrugged my shoulders. "A strange story!" I answered. "But it is for

Monsieur to do his duty. I am the only Englishman on board, as the

steward will inform you; and for me, permit me to hand you my papers.

Your prisoner wishes, no doubt, to be even with me!"

He nodded as he took the papers. And that upon which I counted

happened. The engineer in his rage and excitement had not made his

story plain. No one dreamt of the charge being aimed against another

Englishman. No one knew of another Englishman. The steward sullenly

corroborated me when I said that I was the only one on board; and all

who heard Sleigh--befogged, perhaps, by his Spanish, which, good

enough for ordinary occasions, may have failed him here--did not doubt

that his was a counter-accusation preferred _en revanche_.

For one thing, the improbability of Morrissey's return had weight with

them; and my credentials were ample and in order. Among these, too, a

note for two hundred and fifty pesetas had slipped, which had

disappeared when they were returned to me. Need I say how it ended? Or

that while the police officer bowed his courteous "Adios" to me, and

his men gathered up the watches, and the crew scowled, the prisoner

was removed to the boat, foaming at the mouth, and screaming to the

last threats which my ears were long in forgetting. I walked up and

down the deck, brazening it out, but very sick at heart.

However, the _San Miguel_, despite her engineer's mishap, duly left in

half an hour--a nervous half-hour to me. With a thankful heart I

watched the fort-crowned hills about Carthagena change from brown to

blue, and blue to purple, until at length they sank below the horizon.

But officers and men looked coldly on me; and that evening, at

Almeria, I took up bag and baggage and left the _San Miguel_. I had

had enough of the thanks, and more than enough of the company, of my

cabin-fellow, whom I left where I had found him--behind the sailcloth.

I believe that he succeeded in making his escape. For fully a month

later a friend of mine staying at the Hotel de la Paz, at Madrid, was

placed under arrest on suspicion of being Morrissey; so that the

latter must at that time have been at liberty.

KING PEPIN AND SWEET CLIVE.

KING PEPIN AND SWEET CLIVE.

Upon arriving at the middle of the Close the Dean stopped. He had been

walking briskly, his chin from custom a little tilted, but his eyes

beaming with condescension and goodwill, while an indulgent smile

playing about the lower part of his face relieved its massive

character. His walking-stick swung to and fro in a loose grasp, his

feet trod the pavement of the precincts with the step of an owner, he

felt the warmth of the sun, the balminess of the spring air, and

somewhere at the back of his mind he was conscious of a vacant

bishopric, and that he was the husband of one wife. In fine he

presented the appearance of a contented, placid, unruffled dignitary,

until he reached the middle of the Close. There, alas! the ferrel of

his stick came to the ground with a thud, and the sweetness and light

faded from his eyes as they rested upon Mr. Swainson's plot. The

condescension and goodwill became conspicuous only by their absence.

The Dean was undisguisedly angry; he disliked opposition as much

as lesser men, and met with it more rarely. For Bicester is

old-fashioned, and loves both Church and State, but especially the

former, and looks up to principalities and powers, and even now, on

account of a mistake he made, execrates the memory of a recreant

Bicestrian, otherwise reputable. It was at a public dinner. "I

remember," said this misguided man, "going in my young days to the old

and beautiful cathedral of this city. (Great applause.) I was only a

child then, and my head hardly rose above the top of the seat, but I

remember I thought the Dean the greatest of living men. (Whirlwinds of

applause.) Well (smiling), perhaps, I do not think quite that now."

(Dead silence.) And so dull at bottom may a man be whose name is known

in half the capitals of Europe, that this degenerate fellow never

guessed why the friends of his youth during the rest of the day turned

their backs upon him.

Such is the faith of Bicester, but even in Bicester there are

heretics. To say that the Dean rarely met with opposition is to say

that he rarely met with Mr. Swainson, and that he seldom saw Mr.

Swainson's plot. As a rule, when he crossed the Close he averted his

eyes by a happy impulse of custom, for he did not like Mr. Swainson,

and as for the latter's plot, it was _anathema maranatha_ to him. The

Dean was tall, Mr. Swainson was taller; the Dean was stubborn, Mr.

Swainson was obstinate; so that there arose between them the

antagonism that is born of similarity. On the other hand the Dean was

stout and Mr. Swainson a scarecrow; the Dean was comely and clerical,

but not over-rich, Mr. Swainson was pallid, lantern-jawed, wealthy,

and a lawyer, and hence the dislike born of difference. Moreover,

years ago, when Mr. Swainson had been Mayor of Bicester, there had

been a little dispute between the Chapter and the Bishop, and he had

shown so much energy upon the one side as to earn the nickname of the

"Mayor of the Palace." Finally Mr. Swainson delighted in opposition as

a cat in milk, and cared as little to have a good reason for his

antagonism as puss in the dairy about a sixty years' title to the

cream-pan.

But a sixty years' title to his plot was the very thing which Mr.

Swainson did claim to have. Exactly opposite his house--his father's

and grandfather's house in which, said his enemies, they have lived

and grown fat upon cathedral patronage--lay this debatable land. His

front windows commanded it, and on such a morning as this he loved to

stand upon his doorstep and gaze at it with the air of a dog watching

the spot where his bone lies buried. But if Mr. Swainson was right,

that was just what was not buried there; there were no bones there.

True, the smoothly shorn surface of the little patch was divided from

the green turf round the cathedral only by a slight iron railing, but,

said Mr. Swainson, ponderously seizing upon his opponent's weapon and

using it with effect, it was of another sort altogether; of a very

different nature. It had never been consecrated, and close as it lay

to the sacred pile, being separated from it on two sides but by a sunk

fence, it did not belong to it, it was not of it; it was private

property, the property of Erasmus John Swainson, and the appanage of

his substantial red-brick house just across the Close.

And no one could refute him, though several tried their best, to his

delight. It cannot now be computed by how many years the discovery of

his rights prolonged his life--but certainly by some. His liver

demanded activity, namely a quarrel, and what a coil this was! If he

had been given the choice of all possible opponents, he would have

selected the Dean and Chapter, they were so substantial, wealthy, and

formidable. And such a thorn in the side of those comfortable

personages as these rights of his were like to prove he could hardly

have imagined in his most sanguine dreams, or hoped for in his

happiest moments.

It was great fun stating his claim, flouting it in their faces,

displaying it through the city, brandishing it in season and out of

season; but when it came to making a hole in the smooth turf hitherto

so sacred, and setting up an unsightly post, and affixing to it a

board with "Trespassers will be prosecuted. E. J. Swainson," the fun

became furious. So did the Dean, so did the Chapter, so did every

sidesman and verger. Bicester was torn in pieces by the contending

parties, but Mr. Swainson was firm. The only concession which could be

wrung from him was the removal of the obnoxious board. Instead he set

a neat iron railing round his property, enclosing just thirty feet by

fifteen. Such was the _status in quo_ on this morning, and with it the

Dean had for some time been forced to rest content.

Yet, sooth to say, the greatest pleasure of the very reverend

gentleman's life was gone with this accession to the roundness and

fulness of Mr. Swainson's. No more with the thorough satisfaction of

the past could he conduct the American traveller through the ancient

crypt, or dilate to the Marquis of Bicester's visitors upon the beauty

of the quaint gargoyles. No; that railed-in spot became a plague-spot

to him, ever itching, an eyesore even when invisible, a thing to be

evaded and dodged and given the slip, as a Dean who is a Dean should

scorn to evade anything. He winced at the mere thought that the

inquisitive sightseer might touch upon it, and probe the matter with

questions. He hurried him past it with averted finger and voluble

tongue, nor recovered his air of kindly condescension, or polished

ease (as the case might be), until he was safe within his own hall.

Only in moments of forgetfulness could the Dean now walk in his Close

of Bicester with the grace of old times.

But on this particular morning the sunshine was so pleasant, the wind

so balmy, that he walked halfway across the Close as if the river of

Lethe flowed fathoms deep over Mr. Swainson's plot. Then it chanced

that his eyes in a heedless moment rested upon the enclosure: and he

saw that a man was at work in it, and he paused. The Dean knew Mr.

Swainson too well to trust him. What was this? By the man's side lay a

small heap of greyish-white things, and he was holding a short-handled

mallet, which he was using to drive one of the greyish-white things

into the ground. From him the Dean's eyes travelled to a couple of

parti-coloured sticks, one at each end of the plot. What was this? A

thing so terrible that the Dean stood still, and that change came over

him which we have described.

Great men rise to the occasion. It was only a moment he thus stood and

looked. Then he turned and walked to a house. A tall thin man was

standing upon the steps of the house, with the ghost of a smile upon

his face. For a moment the Dean could only stammer. It was such a

dreadful outrage.

"Is that," he said at last, "is that, sir, being done by your

authority?" With a shaking finger he pointed to Mr. Swainson's plot.

The tall man in a leisurely way settled a pair of eye-glasses upon his

nose and looked in the direction indicated. "Ah, I see what you mean,"

he said at last. "Certainly, Mr. Dean, certainly!"

"Are you aware, sir, what it is?" gasped the clergyman; "it is

sacrilege!"

"Nothing of the kind, I assure you, my dear sir. It's croquet!"

The tone was one of explanation, and the words were uttered with so

transparent an air of frankness, that the veins in the Dean's temples

swelled and his face grew, if possible, redder than before.

"I won't stay to bandy words with you!" he cried.

"Bandy!" returned the tall man, intensely amused. "Ha, ha, ha! you

thought it was hockey! Bandy! Oh, no, you play it with hoops and a

mallet. Drive the balls through--so!"

And to the intense delight of the Close people, many of whom were at

their windows, Mr. Swainson executed an ungainly kind of gambado upon

the steps. "Disgusting," the Dean called it afterwards, when talking

to sympathetic ears. Now he merely put it away from him with a wave of

the hand.

"I will not discuss it now, Mr. Swainson," he said. "If your feelings

of decency and of what is right and proper do not forbid this--this

profanity--I can call it nothing else--I have but one word to add. The

Chapter shall prevent it."

"The Chapter!" replied the other, in a tone of contempt, which gave

place to temper as he continued, "you are well read in history, Mr.

Dean, they tell me. Doubtless you remember what happened when King

Canute bade the tide come no further. I am the tide, and you and the

Chapter--sit in the chair of Canute."

The Dean, it must be confessed, was no little taken aback by this

defiance. He was amazed. The two glared at one another, and the

clergyman was the first to give way; baffled and disconcerted, yet

swelling with rage, he strode towards the Deanery. His antagonist

followed him with his eyes, then looked more airily than ever at his

plot and the progress made there, considered the weather with his chin

at the decanal angle, finally with a flirt of his long coat-tails he

went into the house, a happy man and the owner of a vastly improved

appetite.

But the Dean had more to suffer yet. At the door of his garden he ran

in his haste against some one coming out. Ordinarily, great man as he

was, he was also a gentleman. But this was too much. That, when the

father had insulted him, the son should collide with him on his own

threshold, was intolerable; at any rate at a moment when he was

smarting under a sense of defeat.

"Good morning, Mr. Dean," said the young fellow, raising his hat with

an evident desire to please that was the antipodes of his father's

manner--only the Dean was in no mood to discriminate--"I have just

been having a delightful game of croquet."

It is to be regretted, but here a short hiatus in the narrative

occurs. The minor canons, than whom no men are more wanting in

reverence, say that the Dean's answer consisted of two words, one of

them pithy and full of meaning, but in the mouth of a Dean, however

choleric, impossible. Accounting this as a gloss, we are driven to

conjecture that the Dean's answer expressed mild disapprobation of the

game of croquet. Certain it is that young Swainson, surprised by so

novel and original a sentiment, answered only--

"I beg your pardon."

"Hem!" the Dean exclaimed. "I mean to say that I do not approve of

this. I will come to the point. I must ask you to discontinue your

visits at my house." The young man stared as if he thought the excited

divine had gone mad; the Deanery was almost a home to him. "Your

father," the Dean went on more coherently, "has taken a step so

unseemly, so--so indecent, has used language so insulting to me, sir,

that I cannot, at any rate at present, receive you."

Young Swainson was a gentleman; moreover, for a very good reason, the

Dean failed to anger him. He raised his hat as respectfully as before,

bowed in token of acquiescence, and went on his way sorrowfully.

He had a singularly pleasant smile, this young man, though this was

not a time to display it. Mrs. Dean had once pronounced him a pippin

grafted on a crab-stock, and thereafter in certain circles he had

become known as King Pepin. He was tall and straight and open-eyed,

with faults enough, but of a generous youthful kind, easily overlooked

and more easily forgiven. Doubtless Mr. Swainson would have had his

son more practical, cool-headed, and precise, but the shoot did not

grow in the same way as the parent tree. Old Swainson would not have

been happy without an enemy, nor young Swainson as happy with one; and

if, as the former often said, the latter's worst enemy was himself, he

was likely to have a prosperous life.

In a space of time inconceivably short, the doings of the old

lawyer and the Dean's remonstrance were all over Bicester. Nay, fast

as the stone rolled, it gathered moss. It was asserted by people who

rapid-grew to be eye-witnesses, that Mr. Swainson had danced a

hornpipe in the middle of his plot, snapping his fingers at the Dean,

while the latter prodded him as well as he could through the railings

with his umbrella; finally that only the arrival of Mr. Swainson's son

had put an end to this disgraceful exhibition.

Neither side wasted time. The Dean, the Canon in residence, and the

Praecentor, an active young fellow, consulted their lawyer, and talked

largely of ejectment, title, and seisin. Mr. Swainson, having nine

points of the law in his favour, and as well acquainted with the tenth

as his opponent's legal adviser, devoted himself to the fighter

pursuit of the mallet and hoop. In a state of felicity undreamt of

before, he played, or affected to play, croquet, his right hand

against his left, the former giving the latter two hoops and a cage.

He played with a cage and a bell; it was more cheerful.

Of course all Bicester found occasion to pass through the Close and

see this great sight, while every window in the precincts was raised,

that visitors might hear the tap, tap of the sacrilegious mallet. The

Cathedral lawyer, urged to take some step, and well versed in the

strength of the enemy's position, was fairly nonplussed. While he

pondered, with a certain grim amusement, over Mr. Swainson's crotchet,

which did not present itself to his legal mind in so dreadful a light

as to the mind clerical, some unknown person took action, and made it

war to the knife.

"Who did it?" Bicester asked when it rose one morning, to find Mr.

Swainson in a state of mind which seemed to call for a padded room and

a strait waistcoat. Some one during the night had thrown down the iron

railing, taken up and broken the hoops, crushed the bell, and snapped

the pegs; all this in the neatest possible manner, and with no damage

to the turf. War to the knife indeed! Mr. Swainson, like the famous

Widdrington, would have fought upon his stumps on such a provocation.

He expressed his opinion with much heat that this was the work of

"that arrogant priest," and that he should smart for it. A clergyman

in this kind of context becomes a priest.

The Dean said, if hints went for anything, that it was a more or less

direct interposition of Providence.

Young Swainson said nothing.

The vergers followed his example, but smiled broadly.

The Dean's lawyer said it was a very foolish act, whoever did it. Mrs.

Dean said that she should like to give the man who did it five

shillings. Perhaps her inclination mastered her.

The Dean's daughter sighed.

And Bicester said everything except what young Swainson said.

I have not mentioned the Dean's daughter before. It is the popular

belief that she was christened Sweet Clive, and if people are mistaken

in this, and the name "Sweet" does not appear upon the favoured

register, what of it? It is but one proof the more of the utter want

of foresight of godfathers and godmothers. They send into the world

the future lounger in St. James's handicapped with the name of Joseph

or Zachary, and dub the country curate Tom or Jerry. No matter; Clive,

whatever her name, could be nothing but sweet. She was not tall nor

short; she was just as tall and just as short as she should have been,

with a well-rounded figure and a grave carriage of the head. Her hair

was wavy and brown, and sometimes it strayed over a white brow, on

which a frown came so rarely that its right of entry was barred

by the Statute of Limitations. There were a few freckles about her

well-shaped nose. But these charms grew upon one gradually; at first

her suitors were only conscious of her grey wide-open eyes, so kind

and frank and trustful, and so wise, that they filled every young man

upon whom she turned them with a certainty of her purity and goodness

and lovableness, and sent him away with a frantic desire to make her

his wife without loss of time. With all this, she overflowed with fun

and happiness--except when she sighed--and she was just nineteen. Such

was Sweet Clive. If her picture were painted to-day, there would be

this difference: she is older and more beautiful.

To return to Mr. Swainson's enclosure. Bicester watched with bated

breath to see what Mr. Swainson would do. No culprit was forthcoming,

and it seemed as if the day were going against him. He made no sign;

only the broken hoops, the cage and battered bell, so lately the

instruments and insignia of triumph, were cleared away and, at the

ex-mayor's strenuous request, taken in charge by the police. Even

the iron railing was removed. The excitement in the Close rose high.

Once more the Cathedral vicinage was undefiled by lay appropriation,

but the Dean knew Mr. Swainson too well to rejoice. The ground

was cleared, but only, as he foresaw, that it might be used for

some mysterious operations, of which the end and aim--his own

annoyance--were clear to him, but not the means. What would Mr.

Swainson do?

The strange unnatural calm lasted several days. The Cathedral

dignitaries moved in fear and trembling. At length the dwellers in the

Close were aroused one night by a peculiar hammering. It was frequent,

deep, and ominous, and it came from the direction of Mr. Swainson's

plot. To the nervous it seemed as the knocking of nails into an

untimely coffin; to the guilty--and this was near the Cathedral--like

the noise of a rising scaffold, to the brave and those with clear

consciences, such as Clive, it more nearly resembled the erection of a

hoarding. Indeed, that was the thing it was, and round Mr. Swainson's

plot.

But what a hoarding! When the light of day discovered it to waking

eyes, the Dean's fearful anticipations seemed slight to him, as the

boy's vision who dreaming he is about to be flogged, awakes to find

his father standing over him with a strap. It was so unsightly, so

gaunt, so unpainted, so terrible; the stones of the Cathedral seemed

to blush a deeper red at discovering it, and the oldest houses to turn

a darker purple. Had the Dean possessed the hundred tongues of Fame

(which in Bicester possessed many more) and the five hundred fingers

of Briareus, he could not hope to prevent the Marquis's visitors

asking questions about _that_, nor to divert the attention of the

least curious American. He recognised the truth at a glance,

and formed his plan. Many generals have formed it; before; it

was--retreat. He despatched his butler to borrow a continental

Bradshaw from the club, and he shut himself up in his study. The truly

great mind is never overwhelmed.

The vergers alone inspected the monster unmoved. They eyed it with

glances not only of curiosity, but of appreciative intelligence. Not

so, later in the day. Then Mr. Swainson appeared, leading by a strong

chain a brindled bull-dog, of the most ferocious description and about

sixty pounds dead weight. The animal contemplated the nearest verger

with satisfaction, and licked his chops; it might be at some grateful

memory. The verger, who was in a small way a student of natural

history, pronounced it a lick of anticipation, and appeared

disconcerted. Mr. Swainson entered with the dog by a small door at the

corner, and came out without him. The other vergers left.

Their coming and going was nothing to Mr. Swainson. It was enough for

him that he stood there the cynosure of every eye in the Close; even

Mrs. Dean was watching him from a distant garret window. In slow and

measured fashion he walked to the steps of his own house, and, taking

thence a board he had previously placed there, he returned to the

entrance of his plot, now enclosed to the height of about ten feet

by his terrible hoarding. Above the door he hung the board and drew

back a few feet to take in the effect. Mrs. Dean sent down for her

opera-glasses, but there was no need of them. The legend in huge black

letters on a white ground ran thus: "No Admittance! Beware of the

Dog!!!" A smile of content crept slowly over Mr. Swainson's face, and

he said aloud--

"Trump that card, Mr. Dean, if you can."

As he turned--Mrs. Dean saw it distinctly and declared herself ready

to swear to it in a court of justice--he snapped his fingers at the

Deanery. And the dog howled!

It was the first of many howls, for he was a dog of great width of

chest; not even the surgeon of an insurance company, if he had lived

twenty-four hours in Bicester Close, would have found fault with his

lungs. Why he howled during the night, for it was not the time of full

moon, became the burning question of each morning. That he joined in

the Cathedral services with a zest which rendered the organ

superfluous, and drove the organist to the verge of resignation, was

only to be expected. There was nothing strange in that, nor in his

rivalry of the Praecentor's best notes, whose voice was considered very

fine in the Litany. The voluntary, Tiger made his own; of the sermon

he expressed disapproval in so marked a manner that it was hard to say

which swelled more with rage, the Dean within or the dog without.

Their rage was equally impotent.

Things went so far that the Dean publicly wrung his hands at the

breakfast-table. "You could not hear the benediction this morning?" he

wailed, with tears in his eyes. "And I was in good voice too, my

dear!"

"You should appeal to the Marquis," his wife suggested. It must be

explained that the Marquis in Bicester ranks next to and little

beneath Providence. But the Dean shook his head. He put no faith in

the power even of the Marquis to handle Mr. Swainson. "I will lay it

before the Bishop, my dear," he said humbly. And then, then indeed,

Mrs. Dean knew that the iron had entered into his soul, and that the

hand of the Mayor of the Palace was very heavy upon him; and her good,

wifely heart grew so hot that she felt she could have no more patience

with her daughter.

For Clive's sympathies were no longer to be trusted. She was not the

Sweet Clive of a month ago, but a sadder and more sedate young woman,

who had a way of defending the absent foe, and of sighing in dark

corners, that was more than provoking. Duty demanded that she should

be an ocean, into which her father and mother might pour the streams

of their indignation and meet with a sympathising flood-tide. And lo!

this unfeeling girl declined to make herself useful in that way, and

instead sent forth a "bore" of light jesting that made little of the

enemy's enormities and a trifle of his outrages. More, she showed

herself for the first time disobedient; she refused to promise not to

speak to King Pepin if opportunity served, and, clever girl as she

was, laughed her father out of insisting upon it, and kissed her

mother into a not unwilling ally. A wise woman was her mother and

clear-sighted; she saw that Clive had a spirit, but no longer a heart

of her own. Yet at such a time as this, when her husband was wringing

his hands, Clive's insensibility to the family grievance tried Mrs.

Dean sorely. It was hard that the Canon's sleepless night, the

Praecentor's peevishness, the singing man's influenza, and all the

countless counts of the indictment against Mr. Swainson should fail to

awaken in the young lady's mind a tithe of the indignation felt by

every other person at the Deanery, from the Dean himself to the

scullery-maid. But then, love is blind, for which most of us may thank

Heaven.

Day after day went by and the hoarding still reared its gaunt height,

and the unclean beast of the Hebrews still made night hideous, and the

day a time for the expression of strong feelings. At length the Dean

met his lawyer in the Close, within a few feet of the obnoxious

erection. He kept his back to it with ridiculous care, while they

talked.

"We have come to something like a settlement at last," the lawyer said

briskly. "Con-fusion take the dog! I can hardly hear myself speak. We

are to meet at the Chapter House at five, Mr. Dean, if that will suit

you; Mr. Swainson, the Bishop, Canon Rowcliffe, and myself. I think he

is inclined to be reasonable at last."

The Dean shook his head gloomily.

"You will see it turn out better than you expect," the lawyer assured

him. "Let me whisper something to you. There is an action begun

against him for shutting up a road across one of his farms at

Middleton and it will be stoutly fought. One suit at a time will

satisfy even Mr. Swainson."

"You don't say so? This is good news!" the Dean cried, with

unmistakable pleasure. "Certainly, I will be there."

"And--I am sure I need not doubt it--you will be ready to meet Mr.

Swainson halfway?"

The Dean looked gloomy again. But at this moment a long howl, more

frenzied, more fiendish than any which had preceded it, seemed to

proclaim that the dog knew that his reign was menaced, and, like

Sardanapalus, was determined to go out right royally. It was more than

the Dean could stand. With an involuntary movement of his hands to his

ears, he nodded and fled in haste to a place less exposed, where he

could in a seemly and decanal manner relieve his feelings.

The best-laid plans even of lawyers will go astray, and when they do

so, the havoc is generally of a singularly wide-spread description.

The meeting in the Chapter-house proved stormy from the first. Whether

it was that the writ in the right-of-way case had not yet reached Mr.

Swainson, so that he clung to his only split-straw, or that the Dean

was soured by want of sleep, or that the Bishop was not thorough

enough--whatever was the cause, the spirit of compromise was absent;

and the discussion across the Chapter-house table threatened to make

matters worse and not better. Whether the Dean first called Mr.

Swainson's enclosure the "toadstool of a night," or Mr. Swainson took

the initiative by styling the Dean the "mushroom of a day" (the Dean

was not of old family), was a question afterwards much and hotly

debated in Bicester circles. Be that as it may, the high powers rose

from the table in dudgeon and much confusion.

There was behind the Dean at the end of the Chapter-house a large

window. It looked immediately-upon what he, in the course of the

discussion, had termed "The Profanation," and since the eventful day

of Mr. Swainson's match at croquet it had been, by the Dean's order,

kept shuttered, that he might not, when occupied in the Chapter-house,

have the Profanation directly before his eyes. At the meeting the

shutter remained closed; it may be that this phenomenon had weakened

Mr. Swainson's doubtful inclination towards peace.

The Dean was a choleric man. As the party rose, he stepped to this

shutter and flung it back. He turned to the others and cried with

indignation--

"Look, sir; look, my lord! Is that a sight becoming the threshold of a

cathedral? Is that a thing to be endured on consecrated ground?"

They stepped towards the window, a wide low-browed Tudor casement,

and looked out. The Dean himself stood aside, grasping the shutter

with a hand which shook with passion. His eyes were on the others'

faces. He expected little show of shame or contrition on that of Mr.

Swainson, but he did wish to bring this hideous thing home to the

Bishop, who had not been as thorough in the matter as he should have

been. Yet surely, as a bishop, he could not see that thing in its

horrid reality and be unmoved!

No, he certainly could not. Slowly, and as if reluctantly, his

lordship's face changed; it broke into a smile that broadened and

rippled wider and wider, second by second as he looked. His colour

deepened, until he became almost purple! And Mr. Swainson? His face

was the picture of horror; there could not be a doubt of that.

Confusion and astonishment were stamped on every feature. The Dean

could not believe his eyes. He turned in perplexity to the lawyer, who

was peeping between the others' heads. His shoulders were shaking, and

his face was puckered with laughter.

The Bishop stepped back. "Really, gentlemen, I think it is hardly fair

of us to--to use this window. This is no place for us." He was a

kindly man; there never was a more popular bishop in Bicester, and

never will be.

At this the Canon and the lawyer lost all control over themselves, and

their laughter, if not loud, was deep. The Dean was puzzled--confused,

perplexed, wholly angry. He did at last what he should have done at

first, instead of striking that attitude with the shutter in his hand.

He looked through the window. It was dusty, and he was somewhat

nearsighted, but at length he saw; and this was what he saw.

In the further comer of the enclosure, a couple of lovers billing and

cooing; about and round them Mr. Swainson's big dog cutting a hundred

uncouth gambols. Bad enough this; but it was not all. The ingenuous

couple were Frank Swainson and--the Dean's daughter. Frank's arm was

around her, and as the Dean looked, he stooped and kissed her, and

Clive, raising her face, returned his gaze with eyes full of love, and

scarcely blushed.

When the Dean turned he was alone.

Was it very wrong of them? There was nowhere else, since this

miserable fracas had begun, where freed from others' eyes, they could

steal a kiss. But into Mr. Swainson's plot no window, save a shuttered

one, could look; the door, too, was close to one of the side doors of

the cathedral, and they could pop in and out again unseen, and as for

the big dog, Frank and Tiger were great friends. So if it was very

wrong, it was very easy and very sweet and--_facilis descensus

Averni_.

For one hour the Dean remained shut up in his study. At the end of

that time he put on his hat and walked across the Close. He knocked at

Mr. Swainson's door, and, upon its being opened, went in, and did not

come out again for an hour and five minutes by Mrs. Canon Rowcliffe's

watch. I have not the slightest idea of what passed between them. More

than two score different and distinct accounts of the interview were

current next day in Bicester, but no one, and I have examined them all

with care, seems to me to account for the undoubted results. First the

disappearance next day from Mr. Swainson's plot of the famous

hoarding, which was not replaced even by the old iron railing.

Secondly, the marriage six weeks later of King Pepin and Sweet Clive.

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a

shoe-lace, having taken advantage for that purpose of the step of a

corner house in St. James's Square, when a man passing behind me

stopped.

"Well!" said he, after a short pause during which I wondered--I could

not see him--what he was doing, "the meanness of these rich folk is

disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be ashamed

to own a house and leave it like that!"

The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as

they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the

house. It was a great stone mansion with a balustrade atop, with many

windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was

shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too--a little

red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. "It is just possible," I suggested,

"that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order."

"Ugh! What has that to do with it?" my new friend answered

contemptuously. "He ought to think of the public."

"And your hat?" I asked with winning politeness. "It strikes me, an

unprejudiced observer, as a bad hat. Why do you not get a new one?"

"Cannot afford it!" he snapped out, his dull eyes sparkling with rage.

"Cannot afford it? But my good man, you ought to think of the public."

"You tom-cat! What have you to do with my hat? Smother you!" was his

kindly answer; and he went on his way muttering things uncomplimentary.

I was about to go mine, but was first falling back to gain a better

view of the house in question, when a chuckle close to me betrayed the

presence of a listener; a thin, grey-haired man, who, hidden by a

pillar of the porch, must have heard our discussion. His hands were

engaged with a white tablecloth, from which he had been shaking the

crumbs. He had the air of an upper servant of the best class. As our

eyes met he spoke.

"Neatly put, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so," he

observed, with a quiet dignity it was a pleasure to witness, "and we

are very much obliged to you. The man was a snob, sir."

"I am afraid he was," I answered; "and a fool too."

"And a fool, sir. Answer a fool after his folly. You did that, and he

was nowhere; nowhere at all, except in the swearing line. Now, might I

ask," he continued, "if you are an American, sir?"

"No, I am not," I answered; "but I have spent some time in the

States."

I could have fancied that he sighed.

"I thought--but never mind, sir," he began. "I was wrong. It is

curious how much alike gentlemen, that are real gentlemen, speak. Now

I dare swear, sir, that you have a taste for pictures."

I was inclined to humour the old fellow's mood. "I like a good

picture, I admit," I said.

"Then perhaps you would not be offended," he suggested timidly,

"if I asked you to step inside and look at one or two. I would not

take the liberty, sir, but there are some Van Dycks and a Rubens in

the dining-room that cost a mint of money in their day, I have heard;

and there is no one in the house but my wife and myself."

It was a strange invitation, strangely brought about. But I saw no

reason why I should not accept it, and I followed him into the hall.

It was spacious, but sparely furnished. The matted floor had a cold

look, and so had the gaunt stand which seemed to be a fixture, and

boasted but one umbrella, one sunshade, and one dog-whip. As I passed

a half-open door I caught a glimpse of a small room well furnished

with prints and water-colours on the walls. But these were of a common

order. A dozen replicas of each and all might be seen in a walk

through Bond Street. So that even this oasis of taste and comfort told

the same story as had the bare hall and dreary exterior; and laid, as

it were, a finger on one's heart. I trod softly as I followed my guide

along the strip of matting towards the rear of the house.

He opened a door at the inner end of the hall, and led me into a large

and lofty room, built out at the back, as a state dining-room or

ball-room. At present it resembled the latter, for it was without

furniture. "Now," said the old man, turning and respectfully touching

my sleeve to gain my attention, "now you will not consider your labour

lost in coming to see that, sir. It is a portrait of the second Lord

Wetherby by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and is judged to be one of the

finest specimens of his style in existence."

I was lost in astonishment; amazed, almost appalled! My companion

stood by my side, his face wearing a placid smile of satisfaction, his

hand pointing slightly upwards to the blank wall before us. The blank

wall! Of any picture, there or elsewhere in the room, there was no

sign. I turned to him and then from him, and I felt very sick at

heart. The poor old fellow was--must be--mad. I gazed blankly at the

blank wall. "By Van Dyck?" I repeated mechanically.

"Yes, sir, by Van Dyck," he replied, in the most matter-of-fact

tone imaginable. "So, too, is this one;" he moved as he spoke a few

feet to his left. "The second peer's first wife in the costume of a

lady-in-waiting. This portrait and the last are in as good a state of

preservation as on the day they were painted."

Oh, certainly mad! And yet so graphic was his manner, so crisp and

realistic were his words, that I rubbed my eyes; and looked and looked

again, and almost fancied that Walter, Lord Wetherby, and Anne, his

wife, grew into shape before me on the wall. Almost, but not quite;

and it was with a heart full of wonder and pity that I accompanied the

old man, in whose manner there was no trace of wildness or excitement,

round the walls; visiting in turn the Cuyp which my lord bought in

Holland, the Rubens, the four Lawrences, and the Philips--a very

Barmecide feast of art. I could not doubt that the old man saw the

pictures; but I saw only bare walls.

"Now I think you have seen them, family portraits and all," he

concluded, as we came to the doorway again; stating the fact, which

was no fact, with complacent pride. "They are fine pictures, sir.

They, at least, are left, though the house is not what it was."

"Very fine pictures," I remarked. I was minded to learn if he were

sane on other points. "Lord Wetherby," I said, "I suppose that he is

not in London?"

"I do not know, sir, one way or the other," the servant answered with

a new air of reserve. "This is not his lordship's house. Mrs. Wigram,

my late lord's daughter-in-law, lives here."

"But this is the Wetherby's town house," I persisted. I knew so much.

"It was my late lord's house. At his son's marriage it was settled

upon Mrs. Wigram; and little enough besides, God knows!" he exclaimed

querulously. "It was Mr. Alfred's wish that some land should be

settled upon his wife, but there was none out of the entail, and my

lord, who did not like the match, though he lived to be fond enough of

the mistress afterwards, said, 'Settle the house in town!' in a bitter

kind of joke like. So the house was settled, and five hundred pounds a

year. Mr. Alfred died abroad, as you may know, sir, and my lord was

not long in following him."

He was closing the shutters of one window after another as he spoke.

The room had sunk into deep gloom. I could imagine now that the

pictures were really where he fancied them. "And Lord Wetherby, the

late peer?" I asked after a pause, "did he leave his daughter-in-law

nothing?"

"My lord died suddenly, leaving no will," he replied sadly. "That is

how it is. And the present peer, who was only a second cousin--well, I

say nothing about him." A reticence which was calculated to consign

his lordship to the lowest deep.

"He did not help?" I asked.

"Devil a bit, begging your pardon, sir. But there, it is not my place

to talk of these things. I doubt I have wearied you with talk about

the family. It is not my way," he added, as if wondering at himself,

"only something in what you said seemed to touch a chord like."

By this time we were outside the room, standing at the inner end of

the hall, while he fumbled with the lock of the door. Short passages

ending in swing doors ran out right and left from this point, and

through one of these a tidy, middle-aged woman wearing an apron

suddenly emerged. At sight of me she looked much astonished. "I have

been showing the gentleman the pictures," said my guide, who was still

occupied with the door.

A flash of pain altered and hardened the woman's face. "I have been

very much interested, madam," I said softly.

Her gaze left me to dwell upon the old man with infinite affection.

"John had no right to bring you in, sir," she said primly. "I have

never known him do such a thing before, and--Lord a mercy! there is

the mistress's knock. Go, John, and let her in; and this gentleman,"

with an inquisitive look at me, "will not mind stepping a bit aside,

while her ladyship goes upstairs."

"Certainly not," I answered. I hastened to retire into one of the side

passages, into the darkest corner of it, and there stood leaning

against the cool panels, my hat in my hand.

In the short pause which ensued before John opened the door she

whispered to me, "You have not told him, sir?"

"About the pictures?"

"Yes, sir. He is blind, you see."

"Blind?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, sir, this year and more; and when the pictures were taken

away--by the present earl--that he had known all his life, and been so

proud to show to people just the same as if they had been his own, why

it seemed a shame to tell him. I have never had the heart to do it,

and he thinks they are there to this day."

Blind! I had never thought of that; and while I was grasping the idea,

and fitting it to the facts, a light footstep sounded in the hall and

a woman's voice on the stairs; such a voice and such a footstep, that,

it seemed to me, a man, if nothing else were left, might find home in

them. "Your mistress," I said presently, when the sounds had died away

upon the floor above, "has a sweet voice; but has not something

annoyed her?"

"Well, I never should have thought that you would have noticed that!"

exclaimed the housekeeper; who was, I daresay, many other things

besides housekeeper. "You have a sharp ear, sir; that I will say. Yes,

there is a something has gone wrong; but to think that an American

gentleman should notice it!"

"I am not American," I said, perhaps testily.

"Oh, indeed, sir. I beg your pardon, I am sure. It was just your way

of speaking made me think it," she replied. And then there came a

second louder rap at the door, as John, who had gone upstairs with his

mistress, came down in a leisurely fashion.

"That is Lord Wetherby, drat him!" he said, on his wife calling to him

in a low voice; he was ignorant, I think, of my presence. "He is to be

shown into the library, and the mistress will see him in five minutes;

and you are to go to her room. Oh, rap away!" he added, turning

towards the door, and shaking his fist at it. "There is many a better

man than you has waited longer at that door."

"Hush, John. Do you not see the gentleman?" his wife interposed, with

the simplicity of habit. "He will show you out," she added rapidly to

me, "as soon as his lordship has gone in, if you do not mind waiting

another minute."

"Not at all," I said, drawing back into the corner as they went on

their errands. But though I said, "Not at all," mine was an odd

position. The way in which I had come into the house, and my present

situation in a kind of hiding, would have made most men only anxious

to extricate themselves. But I, while I listened to John parleying

with some one at the door, conceived a strange desire, or a desire

which would have been strange in another man, to see this thing to the

end--conceived it and acted upon it.

The library? That was the room on the right of the hall, opposite to

Mrs. Wigrams's sitting-room. Probably, nay I was certain, it had

another door opening on the passage in which I stood. It would cost me

but a step to confirm my opinion. When John ushered in the visitor by

one door I had already, by way of the other, ensconced myself behind a

screen, which I seemed to know would mask it. I was going to listen.

Perhaps I had my reasons. Perhaps--but there, what matter? As a fact,

I listened.

The room was spacious but sombre, wainscoted and vaulted with oak. Its

only visible occupant was a thin, dark man of middle size, with a

narrow face, and a stubborn feather of black hair rising above his

forehead; a man of Welsh type. He was standing with his back to the

light, a roll of papers in one hand. The fingers of the other,

drumming upon the table, betrayed that he was both out of temper and

ill at ease. While I was still scanning him stealthily--I had never

seen him before--the door opened, and Mrs. Wigram came in. I sank back

behind the screen. I think some words passed, some greeting of the

most formal; but, though the room was still, I failed to hear it, and

when I recovered myself he was speaking.

"I am here at your wish, Mrs. Wigram, and your service, too," he said,

with an effort at gallantry which sat ill upon him. "Although I think

it would have been better if we had left the matter to our

solicitors."

"Indeed."

"Yes. I thought you were aware of my opinion."

"I was; and I perfectly understand, Lord Wetherby," she replied, with

a coldness which did not hide her dislike for him, "your preference

for that course. You naturally shrink from telling me your terms face

to face."

"Now, Mrs. Wigram! Now, Mrs. Wigram! Is not this a tone to be

deprecated?" he answered, lifting his hands. "I come to you as a man

of business upon business."

"Business!" she retorted. "Does that mean wringing advantage from my

weakness?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I do deprecate this tone," he repeated. "I

come in plain English to make you an offer; one which you can accept

or refuse as you please. I offer you five hundred a-year for this

house. It is immensely too large for your needs, and too expensive for

your income, and yet you have in strictness no power to let it. Very

well, I, who can release you from that restriction, offer you five

hundred a-year for the house. What can be more fair?"

"Fair? In plain English, Lord Wetherby, you are the only possible

purchaser, and you fix the price. Is that fair? The house would let

easily for fifteen hundred."

"Possibly," he retorted, "if it were in the open market. But it is

not."

"No," she answered rapidly. "And you, having the forty thousand a year

which, had my husband lived, would have been his and mine; you who, a

poor man, have stepped into this inheritance--you offer me five

hundred for the family house! For shame, my lord! for shame!"

"We are not acting a play," he answered doggedly, but I could see that

her words stung him. "The law is the law. I ask for nothing but my

rights, and one of those I am willing to waive in your favour. You

have my offer."

"And if I refuse it? If I let the house? You will not dare to enforce

the restriction."

"Try me," he rejoined, drumming with his fingers upon the table. "Try

me, and you will see."

"If my husband had lived----"

"But he did not live," he broke in, losing patience, "and that makes

all the difference. Now, for Heaven's sake, Mrs. Wigram, do not make a

scene! Do you accept my offer?"

For a moment she seemed about to break down, but, her pride coming to

the rescue, she recovered herself with wonderful quickness.

"I have no choice," she said with dignity.

"I am glad you accept," he answered, so much relieved that he gave way

to an absurd burst of generosity. "Come!" he cried, "we will say

guineas instead of pounds, and have done with it!"

She looked at him in wonder. "No, Lord Wetherby," she said, "I

accepted your terms. I prefer to keep to them. You said that you would

bring the necessary papers with you. If you have done so I will sign

them now, and my servants can witness them."

"I have the draft, and the lawyer's clerk is doubtless in the house,"

he answered. "I left directions for him to be here at eleven."

"I do not think that he is in the house," the lady answered. "I should

know if he were here."

"Not here!" he answered angrily. "Why not, I wonder! But I have the

skeleton lease; it is very short, and to save delay I will fill in the

particulars, names, and so forth myself, if you will permit me to do

so. It will not take twenty minutes."

"As you please. You will find a pen and ink on the table. If you will

ring the bell when you are ready, I will come and bring the servants."

"Thank you. You are very good," he said smoothly, adding, when she had

left the room, "and the devil take your impudence, madam! As for your

cursed pride--well, it has saved me twenty-five pounds a-year, and so

you are welcome to it. I was a fool to make the offer." With that, now

grumbling at the absence of the lawyer's clerk, and now congratulating

himself on the saving of a lawyer's fee, my lord sat down to his task.

A hansom cab, on its way to the East India Club rattled through the

square, and, under cover of the noise, I stole out from behind the

screen, and stood in the middle of the room, looking down at the

unconscious worker. If for a minute I felt the desire to raise my hand

and give his lordship such a surprise as he had never in his life

experienced, any other man might have felt the same; and as it was I

put it away and only looked quietly about me. Some rays of sunshine,

piercing the corner pane of a dulled window, fell on the Wetherby coat

of arms blazoned over the wide fireplace, and so created the one

bright spot in the bare, dismantled room; which had once, unless the

tiers of empty shelves and the lingering odour of Russia lied, been

lined from floor to ceiling with books. My lord had taken the

furniture; my lord had taken the books; my lord had taken--nothing but

his rights.

Retreating softly to the door by which I had entered, and rattling the

handle, I advanced afresh into the room. "Will your lordship allow

me?" I said, after I had in vain coughed to gain his attention.

He turned hastily and looked at me with a face full of suspicion. Some

surprise on finding another person in the room was natural; but

possibly also there was something in the atmosphere of that house

which threw his nerves off their balance. "Who are you?" he cried in a

tone which matched his face.

"You left orders, my lord," I explained, "with Messrs. Duggan and

Poole that a clerk should attend here at eleven. I very much regret

that some delay has been caused."

"Oh, you are the clerk!" he replied ungraciously. "You do not look

much like a lawyer's clerk."

Involuntarily I glanced aside, and saw in a mirror the reflection of a

tall man with a thick beard and moustaches, grey eyes, and an ugly

scar seaming the face from nose to ear. "Yet I hope to give you

satisfaction, my lord," I murmured, dropping my eyes. "It was

understood that you needed a confidential clerk."

"Well, well, sir, to your work!" he replied irritably. "Better

late than never; and after all it may be better that you should be

here and see it executed. Only you will not forget," he continued,

with a glance at the papers, "that I have myself copied four--well,

three--three full folios, for which an allowance must be made. But

there! Get on with your work. The handwriting will speak for itself."

I obeyed, and wrote on steadily, while the earl walked up and down the

room, or stood at a window. Upstairs sat Mrs. Wigram, schooling

herself, I dare swear, to take this one favour that was no favour from

the man who had dealt out to her such hard measure. Outside a casual

passer through the square glanced up at the great house, and seeing

the bent head of the secretary and the figure of his companion,

saw as he thought nothing unusual; nor had any presentiment--how

should he?--of the strange scene which the room with the dingy windows

was about to witness.

I had been writing for five minutes when Lord Wetherby stopped in his

passage behind me and looked over my shoulder. With a jerk his

eyeglasses fell, touching my shoulder.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "I have seen your handwriting

somewhere! And lately, too. Where, I wonder?"

"Probably among the family papers, my lord," I answered. "I have

several times been engaged in the family business in the time of the

late Lord Wetherby."

"Indeed." There was both curiosity and suspicion in his utterance of

the word. "You knew him?"

"Yes, my lord. I have written for him in this very room, and he has

walked up and down, and dictated to me, as you might be doing now."

His lordship stopped his pacing to and fro, and on the instant

retreated to the window. But I could see that he was interested, and I

was not surprised when he continued with transparent carelessness. "A

strange coincidence. And may I ask what it was upon which you were

engaged?"

"At that time?" I answered, looking him full in the face. "Upon a

will, my lord."

He started and frowned, and abruptly resumed his walk up and down. But

I saw that he had a better conscience than I had given him credit for

possessing. My shot had not struck where I had looked to place it;

and, finding this was so, I turned the thing over afresh, while I

pursued my copying. When I had finished, I asked him--I think he was

busy at the time cursing the absence of tact in the lower orders--if

he would go through the instrument. And he took my seat.

Where I stood behind him, I was not far from the fireplace. While he

muttered to himself the legal jargon in which he was as well versed as

a lawyer bred in an office, I moved to it; and; neither missed nor

suspected, stood looking from his bent figure to the blazoned shield,

which formed part of the mantelpiece. If I wavered, my hesitation

lasted but a few seconds. Then, raising my voice, I called sharply,

"My lord, there used to be here----"

He turned swiftly, and saw where I was. "What the deuce are you doing

there, sir?" he cried in astonishment, rising to his feet and coming

towards me, the pen in his hand and his face aflame with anger. "You

forget----"

"A safe--a concealed safe for papers," I continued, cutting him short

in my turn. "I have seen the late Lord Wetherby place papers in it

more than once. The spring worked from here. You touch this knob."

"Leave it alone, sir!" he cried furiously.

He spoke too late. The shield had swung outwards on a hinge,

door-fashion; and where it had been, gaped a small open safe lined

with cement. The rays of sunshine, that a few minutes before had

picked out the gaudy quarterings, now fell on a large envelope which

lay apart on a shelf. It was as clean as if it had been put there that

morning. No doubt the safe was air-tight. I laid my hand upon it. "My

lord!" I cried, turning to look at him with ill-concealed exultation,

"here is a paper--I think, a will!"

A moment before the veins of his forehead had been swollen, his face

had been dark with the rush of blood. But his anger died down at sight

of the packet. He regained his self-control, and a moment saw him pale

and calm, all show of resentment confined to a wicked gleam in his

eye. "A will?" he repeated, with a certain kind of dignity, though the

hand he stretched out to take the envelope shook. "Indeed, then it is

my place to examine it. I am the heir-at-law, and I am within my

rights, sir."

I feared that he was going to put the parcel into his pocket and

dismiss me, and I was considering what course I should take, when

instead he carried the envelope to the table by the window, and tore

off the cover without ceremony. "It is not in your handwriting?" were

his first words. And he looked at me with a distrust that was almost

superstitious. No doubt my sudden entrance, my ominous talk, and my

discovery seemed to him to savour of the devil.

"No," I replied unmoved. "I told your lordship that I had written a

will at the late Lord Wetherby's dictation. I did not say--for how

could I know?--that it was this one."

"Ah!" He hastily smoothed the sheets, and ran his eyes over their

contents. When he reached the last page there was a dark scowl on his

face, and he stood awhile staring at the signatures; not now reading,

I think, but collecting his thoughts. "You know the provisions of

this?" he presently burst forth, dashing the back of his hand against

the paper. "I say, sir, you know the provisions of this?"

"I do not, my lord," I answered. Nor did I.

"The unjust provisions of this will?" he repeated, passing over my

negative as if it had not been uttered.

"Fifty thousand pounds to a woman who had not a penny when she married

his son! And the interest on another fifty thousand for her life! Why,

it is a prodigious income, an abnormal income--for a woman! And out of

whose pocket? Out of mine, every stiver of it! It is monstrous! I say

it is! How am I to support the title on the income left to me, I

should like to know?"

I marvelled. I remembered how rich he was. I could not refrain from

suggesting that he had remaining all the real property. "And," I

added, "I understood, my lord, that the testator's personalty was

sworn under four hundred thousand pounds."

"You talk nonsense!" he snarled. "Look at the legacies! Five thousand

here, and a thousand there, and hundreds like berries on a bush! It is

a fortune, a decent fortune, clean frittered away! A barren title is

all that will be left to me!"

What was he going to do? His face was gloomy, his hands were

twitching. "Who are the witnesses, my lord?" I asked in a low voice.

So low--for under certain conditions a tone conveys much--that he shot

a stealthy glance towards the door before he answered, "John

Williams."

"Blind," I replied in the same low tone.

"William Williams."

"He is dead. He was Mr. Wigram's valet. I remember reading in the

newspaper that he was with his master, and was killed by the Indians

at the same time."

"True. I fancy that that was the case," he answered huskily. "And the

handwriting is Lord Wetherby's."

I assented.

Then for fully a minute we were silent, while he bent over the will,

and I stood behind him looking down at him with thoughts in my mind

which he could no more fathom than the senseless wood upon which I

leaned. Yet I mistook him. I thought him, to be plain, a scoundrel;

and--so he was--but a mean one. "What is to be done?" he muttered at

length, speaking rather to himself than to me.

I answered softly, "I am a poor man, my lord," while inwardly I was

quoting "_quem Deus vult perdere_."

My words startled him. He answered hurriedly, "Just so! just so! So

shall I be when this cursed paper takes effect. A very poor man! A

hundred and fifty thousand gone at a blow! But there, she shall have

it! She shall have every penny of it; only," he concluded slowly, "I

do not see what difference one more day will make."

I followed his downcast eyes, which moved from the will before him to

the agreement for the lease of the house; and I did see what

difference a day would make. I saw and understood and wondered. He had

not the courage to suppress the will; but if he could gain a slight

advantage by withholding it for a few hours, he had the mind to do

that. Mrs. Wigram, a rich woman, would no longer let the house; she

would not need to do so; and my lord would lose a cheap residence as

well as his hundred and fifty thousand pounds. To the latter loss he

had resigned himself; but he could not bear to forego the petty gain

for which he had schemed. "I think I understand, my lord," I replied.

"Of course," he resumed nervously, "you must be rewarded for making

this discovery. I will see that it is so. You may depend upon me. I

will mention the case to Mrs. Wigram, and--and, in fact, my friend,

you may depend upon me."

"That will not do," I said firmly. "If that be all, I had better go to

Mrs. Wigram at once, and claim my reward a day earlier."

He grew very red in the face at receiving this check. "You will not in

that event get my good word," he said.

"Which has no weight with the lady," I answered.

"How dare you speak so to me?" his lordship cried. "You are an

impertinent fellow! But there! How much do you want?"

"A hundred pounds."

"A hundred pounds for a mere day's delay? Which will do no one any

harm?"

"Except Mrs. Wigram," I retorted drily. "Come, Lord Wetherby, this

lease is worth a thousand a year to you. Mrs. Wigram, as you know,

will not voluntarily let the house to you. If you would have Wetherby

House you must pay me. That is the long and the short of it."

"You are an impertinent fellow!" he cried.

"So you have said before, my lord."

I expected him to burst into a furious passion, but I suppose there

was a hint of power in my tone, beyond the defiance which the words

expressed; for, instead of doing so, he eyed me with a thoughtful

gaze, and paused to consider. "You are at Poole and Duggan's," he said

slowly. "How was it that they did not search this cupboard, with which

you were acquainted?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I have not been in the house since Lord

Wetherby died," I said. "My employers did not consult me when the

papers he left were examined."

"You are not a member of the firm?"

"No, I am not," I answered. I was thinking that, if I knew those

respectable gentlemen, no one of them would have helped my lord in

this for ten times a hundred pounds.

He seemed satisfied, and taking out a note-case laid on the table a

little pile of notes. "There is your money," he said, counting them

over with reluctant fingers. "Be good enough to put the will and

envelope back into the cupboard. To-morrow you will oblige me by

rediscovering it--you can manage that, no doubt--and giving

information at once to Messrs. Duggan and Poole, or to Mrs. Wigram, as

you please. Now," he continued, when I had obeyed him, "will you be

good enough to ask the servants to tell Mrs. Wigram that I am

waiting?"

There was a slight noise behind us. "I am here," some one said. I am

sure that we both jumped at the sound, for though I did not look that

way, I knew that the voice was Mrs. Wigram's, and that she was in the

room. "I have come to tell you, Lord Wetherby," she went on, "that I

have an engagement at twelve. Do I understand that you are ready? If

so, I will summon Mrs. Williams."

"The papers are ready for signature," the peer answered, betraying

some confusion, "and I am ready to sign. I shall be glad to have the

matter settled as agreed." Then he turned to me, where I had fallen

back to the end of the room. "Be good enough to ring the bell if Mrs.

Wigram permit it," he said.

As I moved to the fireplace to do so, I was conscious that the lady

was regarding me with surprise. But when I had regained my position

and looked towards her, she was standing near the window gazing

steadily into the square, an expression of disdain rendered by face

and figure. Shall I confess that it was a joy to me to see her head so

high, and to read even in the outline of her form a contempt which I,

and I only, knew to be so justly based? For myself, I leant against

the edge of the screen by the door, and perhaps my hundred pounds lay

heavily on my heart. As for him, he fidgeted with his papers, although

they were all in order. He was visibly impatient to get his bit of

knavery accomplished. Oh! he was a worthy man! And Welshman!

"Perhaps," he presently suggested, for the sake of saying something,

"while your servant is coming, you will read the agreement, Mrs.

Wigram. It is very short, and, as you know, your solicitors have seen

it in the draft."

She bowed, and took the paper negligently. She read some way down the

first sheet with a smile, half careless, half contemptuous. Then

I saw her stop--she had turned her back to the window to obtain more

light--and dwell on a particular sentence. I saw--God! I had forgotten

the handwriting! I saw her eyes grow large, and fear leap into them,

as she grasped the paper with her other hand, and stepped nearer to

the peer's side. "Who?" she cried. "Who wrote this? Tell me! Do you

hear? Tell me quickly! Who wrote this?"

He was nervous on his own account, wrapt in his own piece of scheming,

and obtuse.

"I wrote it," he said, with maddening complacency. He put up his

glasses and glanced at the top of the page she held out to him. "I

wrote it myself, and I can assure you that it is quite right, and a

faithful copy. You do not think----"

"Think! Think! no! no. This, I mean! Who wrote this?" she repeated,

her voice hysterical with excitement. "This? This?"

He was confounded by her vehemence, as well as hampered by his evil

conscience.

"The clerk, Mrs. Wigram, the clerk," he said petulantly, still in his

fog of selfishness. "The clerk from Messrs. Duggan and Poole's."

"Where is he?" she cried breathlessly. I think she did not believe

him.

"Where is he?" he repeated in querulous surprise. "Why, here, of

course; where should he be, madam? He will witness my signature."

It was little of signatures I recked at that moment. I was praying to

Heaven that my folly might be forgiven me; and that my lightly planned

vengeance might not fall on my own head. "Joy does not kill," I said

to myself, repeating it over and over again, and clinging to it

desperately. "Joy does not kill!" But oh! was it true? in face of that

white-lipped woman!

"Here!" She did not say more, but she gazed at me with dazed eyes, she

raised her hand and beckoned to me. And I had no choice but to obey;

to go nearer to her, out into the light.

"Mrs. Wigram," I said hoarsely, my voice sounding to me as a whisper,

"I have news of your late--of your husband. It is good news."

"Good news?" Did she faintly echo my words? or, as her face from which

all colour had passed peered into mine, and searched it in infinite

hope and infinite fear, did our two minds speak without need of

physical lips? "Good news?"

"Yes," I whispered. "He is alive. The Indians did not----"

"Alfred!" Her cry rang through the room, and with it I caught her in

my arms as she fell. Beard and long hair, and scar and sunburn, and

strange dress--these which had deceived others were no disguise to

her--my wife. I bore her gently to the couch, and hung over her in a

new paroxysm of fear. "A doctor! Quick! A doctor!" I cried to Mrs.

Williams, who was already kneeling beside her. "Do not tell me," I

added piteously, "that I have killed her?"

"No! no! no!" the good woman answered, the tears running down her

face. "Joy does not kill!"

An hour later this fear had been lifted from me, and I was walking up

and down the library alone with my thankfulness; glad to be alone, yet

more glad, more thankful still, when John came in with a beaming face.

"You have come to tell me----" I cried, pleased that the tidings had

come by his lips--"to go to her? That she will see me?"

"Her ladyship is sitting up," he replied.

"And Lord Wetherby?" I asked, pausing at the door to put the question.

"He left the house at once?'

"Yes, my lord, Mr. Wigram has been gone some time."

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Laid up in Lavender, by Stanley J. Weyman