BRUTE-FORCE.
We left Jasper Losely resting for the night at the small town near
Fawley. The next morning he walked on to the old Manor-house. It was
the same morning in which Lady Montfort had held her painful interview
with Darrell; and just when Losely neared the gate that led into the
small park, he saw her re-enter the hired vehicle in waiting for her. As
the carriage rapidly drove past the miscreant, Lady Montfort looked forth
from the window to snatch a last look at the scenes still so clear to
her, through eyes blinded by despairing tears. Jasper thus caught sight
of her countenance, and recognised her, though she did not even notice
him. Surprised at the sight, he halted by the palings. What could have
brought Lady Montfort there? Could the intimacy his fraud had broken off
so many years ago be renewed? If so, why the extreme sadness on the face
of which he had caught but a hurried, rapid glance? Be that as it might,
it was no longer of the interest to him it had once been; and after
pondering on the circumstance a minute or two, he advanced to the gate.
But while his hand was on the latch, he again paused; how should he
obtain admission to Darrell?--how announce himself? If in his own name,
would not exclusion be certain?--if as a stranger on business, would
Darrell be sure to receive him? As he was thus cogitating, his ear,
which, with all his other organs of sense, was constitutionally fine as a
savage's, caught sound of a faint rustle among the boughs of a thick
copse which covered a part of the little park, terminating at its pales.
The rustle came nearer and nearer; the branches were rudely displaced;
and in a few moments more Guy Darrell himself came out from the copse,
close by the gate, and opening it quickly, stood face to face with his
abhorrent son-in-law. Jasper was startled, but the opportunity was not
to be lost. "Mr. Darrell," he said, "I come here again to see you;
vouchsafe me, this time, a calmer hearing." So changed was Losely, so
absorbed in his own emotions Darrell, that the words did not at once
waken up remembrance. "Another time," said Darrell, hastily moving on
into the road; "I am not at leisure now." "Pardon me, NOW," said Losely,
unconsciously bringing himself back to the tones and bearing of his
earlier and more civilised years. "You do not remember me, sir; no
wonder. But my name is Jasper Losely."
Darrell halted; then, as if spellbound, looked fixedly at the broad-
shouldered burly frame before him, cased in its coarse pea-jacket, and in
that rude form, and that defeatured, bloated face, detected, though with
strong effort, the wrecks of the masculine beauty which had ensnared his
deceitful daughter. Jasper could not have selected a more unpropitious
moment for his cause. Darrell was still too much under the influence of
recent excitement and immense sorrow for that supremacy of prudence over
passion which could alone have made him a willing listener to overtures
from Jasper Losely. And about the man whose connection with himself was
a thought of such bitter shame, there was now so unmistakably the air of
settled degradation, that all Darrell's instincts of gentleman were
revolted--just at the very time, too, when his pride had been most chafed
and assailed by the obtrusion of all that rendered most galling to him
the very name of Jasper Losely. What! Was it that man's asserted child
whom Lionel Haughton desired as a wife?--was the alliance with that man
to be thus renewed and strengthened?--that man have another claim to him
and his in right of parentage to the bride of his nearest kinsman? What!
was it that man's child whom he was asked to recognise as of his own
flesh and blood?--the last representative of his line? That man!--that!
A flash shot from his bright eye, deepening its grey into dark; and,
turning on his heel, Darrell said, through his compressed lips--
"You have heard, sir, I believe, through Colonel Morley, that only on
condition of your permanent settlement in one of our distant colonies, or
America if you prefer it, would I consent to assist you. I am of the
same mind still. I can not parley with you myself. Colonel Morley is
abroad, I believe. I refer you to my solicitor; you have seen him years
ago; you know his address. No more, sir."
"This will not do, Mr. Darrell," said Losely, doggedly; and, planting
himself right before Darrell's way, "I have come here on purpose to have
all differences out with you, face to face--and I will--"
"You will!" said Darrell, pale with haughty anger, and with the impulse
of his passion, his hand clenched. In the bravery of his nature, and the
warmth of a temper constitutionally quick, he thought nothing of the
strength and bulk of the insolent obtruder--nothing of the peril of odds
so unequal in a personal encounter. But the dignity which pervaded all
his habits, and often supplied to him the place of discretion, came,
happily for himself, to his aid now. He strike a man whom he so
despised!--he raise that man to his own level by the honour of a blow
from his hand! Impossible! "You will!" he said. "Well, be it so. Are
you come again to tell me that a child of my daughter lives, and that you
won my daughter's fortune by a deliberate lie?"
"I am not come to speak of that girl, but of myself. I say that I have a
claim on you, Mr. Darrell; I say that turn and twist the truth as you
will, you are still my father-in-law, and that it is intolerable that I
should be wanting bread, or driven into actual robbery, while my wife's
father is a man of countless wealth, and has no heir except--but I will
not now urge that child's cause; I am content to abandon it if so
obnoxious to you. Do you wish me to cut a throat, and to be hanged, and
all the world to hear the last dying speech and confession of Guy
Darrell's son-in-law? Answer me, sir?"
"I answer you briefly and plainly. It is simply because I would not have
that last disgrace on Guy Darrell's name that I offer you a subsistence
in lands where you will be less exposed to those temptations which
induced you to invest the sums that, by your own tale, had been obtained
from me on false pretences, in the sink of a Paris gambling house. A
subsistence that, if it does not pamper vice, at least places you beyond
the necessity of crime, is at your option. Choose it or reject it as you
will."
"Look you, Mr. Darrell," said Jasper, whose temper was fast giving way
beneath the cold and galling scorn with which he was thus cast aside,
"I am in a state so desperate, that, rather than starve, I may take what
you so contemptuously fling to--your daughter's husband; but--"
"Knave!" cried Darrell, interrupting him, "do you again and again urge it
as a claim upon me, that you decoyed from her home, under a false name,
my only child; that she died in a foreign land-broken-hearted, if I have
rightly heard is that a claim upon your duped victim's father?"
"It seems so, since your pride is compelled to own that the world would
deem it one, if the jail chaplain took down the last words of your son-
in-law! But, /basta, basta!/ hear me out, and spare hard names; for the
blood is mounting into my brain, and I may become dangerous. Had any
other man eyed, and scoffed, and railed at me as you have done, he would
be lying dead and dumb as this stone at my foot; but you-are my father-
in-law! Now, I care not to bargain with you what be the precise amount
of my stipend if I obey your wish, and settle miserably in one of those
raw, comfortless corners into which they who burthen this Old World are
thrust out of sight. I would rather live my time out in this country--
live it out in peace and for half what you may agree to give in
transporting me. If you are to do anything for me, you had better do it
so as to make me contented on easy terms to your own pockets, rather than
to leave me dissatisfied, and willing to annoy you, which I could do
somehow or other, even on the far side of the Herring Pond. I might keep
to the letter of a bargain, live in Melbourne or Sydney, and take your
money, and yet molest and trouble you by deputy. That girl, for
instance--your grandchild; well, well, disown her if you please; but if I
find out where she is, which I own I have not done yet, I might contrive
to render her the plague of your life, even though I were in Australia."
"Ay," said Darrell, murmuring--"ay, ay; but"--(suddenly gathering himself
up)--"No! Man, if she were my grandchild, your own child, could you talk
of her thus? make her the object of so base a traffic, and such miserable
threats? Wicked though you be, this were against nature! even in
nature's wickedness--even in the son of a felon, and in the sharper of a
hell. Pooh! I despise your malice. I will listen to you no longer. Out
of my path."
"No!"
"No?"
"No, Guy Darrell, I have not yet done; you shall hear my terms, and
accept them--a moderate sum down; say a few hundreds, and two hundred a-
year to spend in London as I will--but out of your beat, out of your
sight and hearing. Grant this, and I will never cross you again--never
attempt to find, and, if I find by chance, never claim as my child by
your daughter that wandering girl. I will never shame you by naming our
connection. I will not offend the law, nor die by the hangman; yet I
shall not live long, for I suffer much, and I drink hard."
The last words were spoken gloomily, not altogether without a strange
dreary pathos. And amidst all his just scorn and anger, the large human
heart of Guy Darrell was for the moment touched. He was silent--his mind
hesitated; would it not be well--would it not be just as safe to his own
peace, and to that of the poor child, whom, no matter what her parentage,
Darrell could not but desire to free from the claim set up by so bold a
ruffian, to gratify Losely's wish, and let him remain in England, upon an
allowance that would suffice for his subsistence? Unluckily for Jasper,
it was while this doubt passed through Darrell's relenting mind, that the
miscreant, who was shrewd enough to see that he had gained ground, but
too coarse of apprehension to ascribe his advantage to its right cause,
thought to strengthen his case by additional arguments. "You see, sir,"
resumed Jasper, in almost familiar accents, "that there is no dog so
toothless but what he can bite, and no dog so savage but what, if you
give him plenty to eat, he will serve you."
Darrell looked up, and his brow darkened.
Jasper continued: "I have hinted how I might plague you; perhaps, on the
other hand, I might do you a good turn with that handsome lady who drove
from your park-gate as I came up. Ah! you were once to have been married
to her. I read in the newspapers that she has become a widow; you may
marry her yet. There was a story against you once; her mother made use
of it, and broke off an old engagement. I can set that story right."
"You can," said Darrell, with that exceeding calmness which comes from
exceeding wrath; "and perhaps, sir, that story, whatever it might be, you
invented. No dog so toothless as not to bite--eh, sir?"
"Well," returned Jasper, mistaking Darrell's composure, "at that time
certainly it seemed my interest that you should not marry again; but
/basta! basta!/ enough of bygones. If I bit once, I will serve now.
Come, sir, you are a man of the world, let us close the bargain."
All Darrell's soul was now up in arms. What, then! this infamous wretch
was the author of the tale by which the woman he had loved, as woman
never was loved before, had excused her breach of faith, and been lost to
him forever? And he learned this, while yet fresh from her presence--
fresh from the agonising conviction that his heart loved still, but could
not pardon. With a spring so sudden that it took Losely utterly by
surprise, he leaped on the bravo, swung aside that huge bulk which Jasper
had boasted four draymen could not stir against its will, cleared his
way; and turning back before Losely had recovered his amaze, cried out:
"Execrable villain! I revoke every offer to aid a life that has existed
but to darken and desolate those it was permitted to approach. Starve or
rob! perish miserably! And if I pour not on your head my parting curse,
it is only because I know that man has no right to curse; and casting you
back on your own evil self is the sole revenge which my belief in Heaven
permits me."
Thus saying, Darrell strode on-swiftly, but not as one who flies. Jasper
made three long bounds, and was almost at his side, when he was startled
by the explosion of a gun. A pheasant fell dead on the road, and
Darrell's gamekeeper, gun in hand, came through a gap in the hedge
opposite the park-pales, and, seeing his master close before him,
approached to apologise for the suddenness of the shot.
Whatever Losely's intention in hastening after Darrell, he had no option
now but to relinquish it, and drop back. The village itself was not many
hundred yards distant; and, after all, what good in violence, except the
gratified rage of the moment? Violence would not give to Jasper Losely
the income that had just been within his grasp, and had so unexpectedly
eluded it. He remained, therefore, in the lane, standing still, and
seeing Darrell turn quietly into his park through another gate close to
the Manor-house. The gamekeeper, meanwhile, picked up his bird, reloaded
his gun, and eyed Jasper suspiciously askant. The baffled gladiator at
length turned and walked slowly back to the town he had left. It was
late in the afternoon when he once more gained his corner in the coffee-
room of his commercial inn; and, to his annoyance, the room was crowded
--it was market-day. Farmers, their business over, came in and out in
quick succession; those who did not dine at the ordinaries taking their
hasty snack, or stirrup-cup, while their horses were being saddled;
others to look at the newspaper, or exchange a word on the state of
markets and the nation. Jasper, wearied and sullen, had to wait for the
refreshments he ordered, and meanwhile fell into a sort of half-doze, as
was not now unusual in him in the intervals between food and mischief.
From this creeping torpor he was suddenly roused by the sound of
Darrell's name. Three farmers standing close beside him, their backs to
the fire, were tenants to Darrell--two of them on the lands that Darrell
had purchased in the years of his territorial ambition; the third resided
in the hamlet of Fawley, and rented the larger portion of the
comparatively barren acres to which the old patrimonial estate was
circumscribed. These farmers were talking of their Squire's return to
the county--of his sequestered mode of life--of his peculiar habits--of
the great unfinished house which was left to rot. The Fawley tenant then
said that it might not, be left to rot after all, and that the village
workmen had been lately employed, and still were, in getting some of the
rooms into rough order; and then he spoke of the long gallery in which
the Squire had been arranging his fine pictures, and how he had run up a
passage between that gallery and his own room, and how he would spend
hours at day, and night too, in that awful long room as lone as a
churchyard; and that Mr. Mills had said that his master now lived almost
entirely either in that gallery or in the room in the roof of the old
house--quite cut off, as you might say, except from the eyes of those
dead pictures, or the rats, which had grown so excited at having their
quarters in the new building invaded, that if you peeped in at the
windows in moonlit nights you might see them in dozens, sitting on their
haunches, as if holding council, or peering at the curious old things
which lay beside the crates out of which they had been taken. Then the
rustic gossips went on to talk of the rent-day which was at hand--of the
audit feast, which, according to immemorial custom, was given at the old
Manor-house on that same rent-day--supposed that Mr. Fairthorn would
preside--that the Squire himself would not appear--made some incidental
observations on their respective rents and wheat-crops-remarked that they
should have a good moonlight for their ride back from the audit feast--
cautioned each other, laughing, not to drink too much of Mr. Fairthorn's
punch--and finally went their way, leaving on the mind of Jasper Losely
--who, leaning his scheming head on his powerful hand, had appeared in
dull sleep all the while--these two facts: 1st, That on the third day
from that which was then declining, sums amounting to thousands would
find their way into Fawley Manor-house; and, 2ndly, That a communication
existed between the unfinished, uninhabited building, and Darrell's own
solitary chamber. As soon as he had fortified himself by food and drink,
Jasper rose, paid for his refreshments and walked forth. Noiseless and
rapid, skirting the hedgerows by the lane that led to Fawley, and
scarcely distinguishable under their shadow, the human wild-beast strided
on in scent of its quarry. It was night when Jasper once more reached
the moss-grown pales round the demesnes of the old Manor-house. In a few
minutes he was standing under the black shadow of the buttresses to the
unfinished pile. His object was not, then, to assault, but to
reconnoitre. He prowled round the irregular walls, guided in his survey,
now and then, faintly by the stars--more constantly and clearly by the
lights from the contiguous Manor-house--especially the light from that
high chamber in the gable, close by which ran the thin framework of wood
which linked the two buildings of stone, just as any frail scheme links
together the Past which man has not enjoyed, with the Future he will not
complete. Jasper came to a large bay unglazed window, its sill but a few
feet from the ground, from which the boards, nailed across the mullions,
had been removed by the workmen whom Darrell had employed on the
interior, and were replaced but by a loose tarpaulin. Pulling aside this
slight obstacle, Jasper had no difficulty in entering through the wide
mullions into the dreary edifice. Finding himself in profound darkness,
he had recourse to a lucifer-box which he had about him, and the waste of
a dozen matches sufficed him to examine the ground. He was in a space
intended by the architect for the principal staircase; a tall ladder,
used by the recent workmen, was still left standing against the wall, the
top of it resting on a landing-place opposite a doorway, that, from the
richness of its half-finished architrave, obviously led to what had been
designed for the state apartments; between the pediments was a slight
temporary door of rough deal planks. Satisfied with his reconnoitre,
Losely quitted the skeleton pile, and retraced his steps to the inn he
had left. His musings by the way suggested to him the expediency, nay,
the necessity, of an accomplice. Implements might be needed--disguises
would be required--swift horses for flight to be hired--and, should the
robbery succeed, the bulk of the spoil would be no doubt in bank-notes,
which it would need some other hand than his own to dispose of, either at
the bank next morning at the earliest hour, or by transmission abroad.
For help in all this Jasper knew no one to compare to Cutts; nor did he
suspect his old ally of any share in the conspiracy against him, of which
he had been warned by Mrs. Crane. Resolving, therefore, to admit that
long-tried friend into his confidence, and a share of the spoils, he
quickened his pace, arrived at the railway-station in time for a late
train to London, and, disdainful of the dangers by which he was
threatened in return to any of the haunts of his late associates, gained
the dark court wherein he had effected a lodgment on the night of his
return to London, and roused Cutts from his slumbers with tales of an
enterprise so promising, that the small man began to recover his ancient
admiration for the genius to which he had bowed at Paris, but which had
fallen into his contempt in London.
Mr. Cutts held a very peculiar position in that section of the great
world to which he belonged. He possessed the advantage of an education
superior to that of the generality of his companions, having been
originally a clerk to an Old Bailey attorney, and having since that early
day accomplished his natural shrewdness by a variety of speculative
enterprises both at home and abroad. In these adventures he had not only
contrived to make money, but, what is very rare with the foes of law, to
save it. Being a bachelor, he was at small expenses, but besides his
bachelor's lodging in the dark court, he had an establishment in the
heart of the City, near the Thames, which was intrusted to the care of
a maiden sister, as covetous and as crafty as himself. At this
establishment, ostensibly a pawnbroker's, were received the goods which
Cutts knew at his residence in the court were to be sold a bargain,
having been obtained for nothing. It was chiefly by this business that
the man enriched himself. But his net was one that took in fishes of all
kinds. He was a general adviser to the invaders of law. If he shared in
the schemes he advised, they were so sure to be successful, that he
enjoyed the highest reputation for luck. It was but seldom that he did
actively share in those schemes--lucky in what he shunned as in what he
performed. He had made no untruthful boast to Mrs. Crane of the skill
with which he had kept himself out of the fangs of justice. With a
certain portion of the police he was indeed rather a favourite; for was
anything mysteriously "lost," for which the owner would give a reward
equal to its value in legal markets, Cutts was the man who would get it
back. Of violence he had a wholesome dislike; not that he did not admire
force in others--not that he was physically a coward--but that caution
was his predominant characteristic. He employed force when required--set
a just value on it--would plan a burglary, and dispose of the spoils; but
it was only where the prize was great and the danger small, that he lent
his hand to the work that his brain approved. When Losely proposed to
him the robbery of a lone country-house, in which Jasper, making light of
all perils, brought prominently forward the images of some thousands of
pounds in gold and notes, guarded by an elderly gentleman, and to be
approached with ease through an uninhabited building--Cutts thought it
well worth personal investigation. Nor did he consider himself bound,
by his general engagement to Mrs. Crane, to lose the chance of a sum so
immeasurably greater than he could expect to obtain from her by revealing
the plot and taking measures to frustate it. Cutts was a most faithful
and intelligent agent when he was properly paid, and had proved himself
so to Mrs. Crane on various occasions. But then, to be paid properly
meant a gain greater in serving than he could get in not serving.
Hitherto it had been extremely lucrative to obey Mrs. Crane in saving
Jasper from crime and danger. In this instance the lucre seemed all the
other way. Accordingly, the next morning, having filled a saddle-bag
with sundry necessaries, such as files, picklocks, masks--to which he
added a choice selection of political tracts and newspapers--he and
Jasper set out on two hired but strong and fleet hackneys to the
neighbourhood of Fawley. They put up at a town on the other side of the
Manor-house from that by which Jasper had approached it, and at about the
same distance. After baiting their steeds, they proceeded to Fawley by
the silent guide of a finger-post, gained the vicinity of the park, and
Cutts, dismounting, flitted across the turf, and plunged himself into the
hollows of the unfinished mansion while Jasper took charge of the horses
in a corner of the wooded lane. Cutts, pleased by the survey of the
forlorn interior, ventured, in the stillness that reigned around, to
mount the ladder, to apply a picklock to the door above, and, opening
this with ease, crept into the long gallery, its walls covered with
pictures. Through the crevices in another door at the extreme end
gleamed a faint light. Cutts applied his eye to the chinks and keyhole,
and saw that the light came from a room on the other side the narrow
passage which connected the new house with the old. The door of that
room was open, candles were on the table, and beside the table Cutts
could distinguish the outline of a man' s form seated--doubtless the
owner; but the form did not seem "elderly." If inferor to Jasper's in
physical power, it still was that of vigorous and unbroken manhood.
Cutts did not like the appearance of that form, and he retreated to outer
air with some misgivings. However, on rejoining Losely, he said: "As yet
things look promising-place still as death--only one door locked, and
that the common country lock, which a schoolboy might pick with his
knife."
"Or a crooked nail," said Jasper.
"Ay, no better picklock in good hands. But there are other things
besides locks to think of."
Cutts then hurried on to suggest that it was just the hour when some of
the workmen employed on the premises might be found in the Fawley public-
house; that he should ride on, dismount there, and take his chance of
picking up details of useful information as to localities and household.
He should represent himself as a commercial traveller on his road to the
town they had quitted; he should take out his cheap newspapers and
tracts; he should talk politics--all workmen love politics, especially
the politics of cheap newspapers and tracts. He would rejoin Losely in
an hour or so.
The bravo waited--his horse grazed--the moon came forth, stealing through
the trees, bringing into fantastic light the melancholy old dwelling-
house--the yet more melancholy new pile. Jasper was not, as we have
seen, without certain superstitious fancies, and they had grown on him
more of late as his brain had become chronically heated and his nerves
relaxed by pain. He began to feel the awe of the silence and the
moonlight; and some vague remembrances of earlier guiltless days--of a
father's genial love--of joyous sensations in the priceless possession of
youth and vigour--of the admiring smiles and cordial hands which his
beauty, his daring, and high spirits had attracted towards him--of the
all that he had been, mixed with the consciousness of what he was, and an
uneasy conjecture of the probable depth of the final fall--came dimly
over his thoughts, and seemed like the whispers of remorse. But it is
rarely that man continues to lay blame on himself; and Jasper hastened to
do, as many a better person does without a blush for his folly--viz.,
shift upon the innocent shoulders of fellow-men, or on the hazy outlines
of that clouded form which ancient schools and modern plagiarists call
sometimes "Circumstance," sometimes "Chance," sometimes "Fate," all the
guilt due to his own wilful abuse of irrevocable hours.
With this consolatory creed came, of necessity--the devil's grand luxury,
Revenge. Say to yourself, "For what I suffer I condemn another man, or I
accuse the Arch-Invisible, be it a Destiny, be it a Maker!" and the
logical sequel is to add evil to evil, folly to folly--to retort on the
man who so wrongs, or on the Arch-Invisible who so afflicts you. Of all
our passions, is not Revenge the one into which enters with the most zest
a devil? For what is a devil?--A being whose sole work on earth is some
revenge on God!
Jasper Losely was not by temperament vindictive; he was irascible, as the
vain are--combative, aggressive, turbulent, by the impulse of animal
spirits; but the premeditation of vengeance was foreign to a levity and
egotism which abjured the self-sacrifice that is equally necessary to
hatred as to love. But Guy Darrell had forced into his moral system a
passion not native to it. Jasper had expected so much from his marriage
with the great man's daughter--counted so thoroughly on her power to
obtain pardon and confer wealth--and his disappointment had been so keen
--been accompanied with such mortification--that he regarded the man whom
he had most injured as the man who had most injured him. But not till
now did his angry feelings assume the shape of a definite vengeance. So
long as there was a chance that he could extort from Darrell the money
that was the essential necessary to his life, he checked his thoughts
whenever they suggested a profitless gratification of rage. But now that
Darrell had so scornfully and so inexorably spurned all concession--now
that nothing was to be wrung from him except by force--force and
vengeance came together in his projects. And yet even in the daring
outrage he was meditating, murder itself did not stand out as a thought
accepted--no; what pleased his wild and turbid imagination was the idea
of humiliating by terror the man who had humbled him. To penetrate into
the home of this haughty scorner--to confront him in his own chamber at
the dead of night, man to man, force to force; to say to him, "None now
can deliver you from me--I come no more as a suppliant--I command you to
accept my terms"; to gloat over the fears which, the strong man felt
assured, would bow the rich man to beg for mercy at his feet;--this was
the picture which Jasper Losely conjured up; and even the spoil to be won
by violence smiled on him less than the grand position which the violence
itself would bestow. Are not nine murders out of ten fashioned thus from
conception into deed? "Oh that my enemy were but before me face to face
--none to part us!" says the vindictive dreamer. Well, and what then?
There, his imagination halts--there he drops the sable curtain; he goes
not on to say, "Why, then another murder will be added to the long
catalogue from Cain." He palters with his deadly wish, and mutters,
perhaps, at most, "Why, then--come what may!"
Losely continued to gaze on the pale walls gleaming through the wintry
boughs, as the moon rose high and higher. And now out broke the light
from Darrell's lofty casement, and Losely smiled fiercely, and muttered
--hark! the very words--"And then! come what may!"
Hoofs are now heard on the hard road, and Jasper is joined by his
accomplice.
"Well!" said Jasper.
"Mount!" returned Cutts; "I have much to say as we ride."
"This will not do," resumed Cutts, as they sped fast down the lane; "why,
you never told me all the drawbacks. There are no less than four men in
the house--two servants besides the master and his secretary; and one of
those servants, the butler or valet, has firearms, and knows how to use
them."
"Pshaw!" said Jasper scoffingly; "is that all? Am I not a match for
four?"
"No, it is not all; you told me the master of the house was a retired
elderly man, and you mentioned his name. But you never told me that your
Mr. Darrell was the famous lawyer and Parliament man--a man about whom
the newspapers have been writing the last six months."
"What does that signify?"
"Signify! Just this, that there will be ten times more row about the
affair you propose than there would be if it concerned only a stupid
old country squire, and therefore ten times as much danger. Besides,
on principle I don't like to have anything to do with lawyers--
a cantankerous, spiteful set of fellows. And this Guy Darrell! Why,
General Jas., I have seen the man. He cross-examined me once when I was
a witness on a case of fraud, and turned me inside out with as much ease
as if I had been an old pincushion stuffed with bran. I think I see his
eye now, and I would as lief have a loaded pistol at my head as that eye
again fixed on mine."
"Pooh! You have brought a mask; and, besides, YOU need not see him; I
can face him alone."
"No, no; there might be murder! I never mix myself with things of that
kind, on principle; your plan will not do. There might be a much safer
chance of more swag in a very different sort of scheme. I hear that the
pictures in that ghostly long room I crept through are worth a mint of
money. Now, pictures of great value are well known, and there are
collectors abroad who would pay almost any price for some pictures, and
never ask where they came from; hide them for some years perhaps, and not
bring them forth till any tales that would hurt us had died away. This
would be safe, I say. If the pictures are small, no one in the old house
need be disturbed. I can learn from some of the trade what pictures
Darrell really has that would fetch a high price, and then look out for
customers abroad. This will take a little time, but be worth waiting
for."
"I will not wait," said Jasper, fiercely; "and you are a coward. I have
resolved that to-morrow night I will be in that man's room, and that man
shall be on his knees before me."
Cutts turned sharply round on his saddle, and by the aid of the moonlight
surveyed Losely's countenance. "Oh, I see," he said, "there is more than
robbery in your mind. You have some feeling of hate--of vengeance; the
man has injured you?"
"He has treated me as if I were a dog," said Jasper; "and a dog can
bite."
Cutts mused a few moments. "I have heard you talk at times about some
rich relation or connection on whom you had claims; Darrell is the man, I
suppose?"
"He is; and hark ye, Cutts, if you try to balk me here, I will wring your
neck off. And since I have told you so much, I will tell you this much
more--that I don't think there is the danger you count on; for I don't
mean to take Darrell's blood, and I believe he would not take mine."
"But there may be a struggle-and then?"
"Ay, if so, and then--man to man," replied Jasper, mutteringly.
Nothing more was said, but both spurred on their horses to a quicker
pace. The sparks flashed from the hoofs. Now through the moonlight, now
under shade of the boughs, scoured on the riders--Losely's broad chest
and marked countenance, once beautiful, now fearful, formidably defined
even under the shadows--his comrade's unsubstantial figure and goblin
features flitting vague even under the moonlight.
The town they had left came in sight, and by this time Cutts had resolved
on the course his prudence suggested to him. The discovery that, in the
proposed enterprise, Losely had a personal feeling of revenge to satisfy
had sufficed to decide the accomplice peremptorily to have nothing to do
with the affair. It was his rule to abstain from all transactions in
which fierce passions were engaged. And the quarrels between relations
or connections were especially those which his experience of human nature
told him brought risk upon all intermeddlers. But he saw that Jasper was
desperate; that the rage of the bravo might be easily turned on himself;
and therefore, since it was no use to argue, it would be discreet to
dissimulate. Accordingly, when they reached their inn, and were seated
over their brandy-and-water, Cutts resumed the conversation, appeared
gradually to yield to Jasper's reasonings, concerted with him the whole
plan for the next night's operations, and took care meanwhile to pass the
brandy. The day had scarcely broken before Cutts was off, with his bag
of implements and tracts. He would have fain carried off also both the
horses; but the ostler, surly at being knocked up at so early an hour,
might not have surrendered the one ridden by Jasper, without Jasper's own
order to do so. Cutts, however, bade the ostler be sure and tell the
gentleman, before going away, that he, Cutts, strongly advised him "to
have nothing to do with the bullocks."
Cutts, on ariving in London, went straight to Mrs. Crane's old lodging
opposite to Jasper's. But she had now removed to Podden Place, and left
no address. On reaching his own home, Cutts, however, found a note from
her, stating that she should be at her old lodging that evening, if he
would call at half-past nine o'clock; for, indeed, she had been expecting
Jasper's promised visit--had learned that he had left his lodgings, and
was naturally anxious to learn from Cutts what had become of him. When
Cutts called at the appointed hour and told his story, Arabella Crane
immediately recognised all the danger which her informant had so
prudently shunned. Nor was she comforted by Cutts's assurance that
Jasper, on finding himself deserted, would have no option but to abandon,
or at least postpone, an enterprise that, undertaken singly, would be too
rash even for his reckless temerity. As it had become the object of her
life to save Losely from justice, so she now shrunk from denouncing to
justice his meditated crime; and the idea of recurring to Colonel Morley
happily flashed upon her.
Having thus explained to the reader these antecedents in the narrative,
we return to Jasper. He did not rise till late at noon; and as he was
generally somewhat stupefied on rising by the drink he had taken the
night before, and by the congested brain which the heaviness of such
sleep produced, he could not at first believe that Cutts had altogether
abandoned the enterprise--rather thought that, with his habitual
wariness, that Ulysses of the Profession had gone forth to collect
further information in the neighbourhood of the proposed scene of action.
He was not fully undeceived in this belief till somewhat late in the day,
when, strolling into the stable-yard, the ostler, concluding from the
gentleman's goodly thews and size that he was a north-country grazier,
delivered Cutts's allegorical caution against the bullocks.
Thus abandoned, Jasper's desperate project only acquired a still more
concentrated purpose and a ruder simplicity of action. His original
idea, on first conceiving the plan of robbery, had been to enter into
Darrell's presence disguised and masked. Even, however, before Cutts
deserted him; the mere hope of plunder had become subordinate to the
desire of a personal triumph; and now that Cutts had left him to himself,
and carried away the means of disguise, Jasper felt rather pleased than
otherwise at the thought that his design should have none of the
characteristics of a vulgar burglary. No mask now; his front should be
as open as his demand. Cutts's report of the facility of penetrating
into Darrell's very room also lessened the uses of an accomplice. And in
the remodification of his first hasty plan of common place midnight
stealthy robbery, he would no longer even require an assistant to dispose
of the plunder he might gain.
Darrell should now yield to his exactions, as a garrison surprised
accepts the terms of its conqueror. There would be no flight, no hiding,
no fear of notes stopped at banks. He would march out, hand on haunch,
with those immunities of booty that belong to the honours of war.
Pleasing his self-conceit with so gallant a view of his meditated
exploit, Jasper sauntered at dark into the town, bought a few long narrow
nails and a small hammer, and returning to his room, by the aid of the
fire, the tongs, and the hammer, he fashioned these nails, with an ease
and quickness which showed an expert practitioner, into instruments that
would readily move the wards of any common country-made lock. He did not
care for weapons. He trusted at need to his own powerful hands. It was
no longer, too, the affair of a robber unknown, unguessed, who might have
to fight his way out of an alarmed household. It was but the visit which
he, Jasper Losely, Esquire, thought fit to pay, however unceremoniously
and unseasonably, to the house of a father-in-law! At the worst, should
he fail in finding Darrell, or securing an unwitnessed interview--should
he, instead, alarm the household, it would be a proof of the integrity of
his intentions that he had no weapons save those which Nature bestows on
the wild man as the mightiest of her wild beasts. At night he mounted
his horse, but went out of his way, keeping the high-road for an hour or
two, in order to allow ample time for the farmers to have quitted the
rent-feast, and the old Manor-house to be hushed in sleep. At last, when
he judged the coast clear and the hour ripe, he wound back into the lane
towards Fawley; and when the spire of its hamlet-church came in sight
through the frosty starlit air, he dismounted--led the horse into one of
the thick beech-woods that make the prevailing characteristic of the wild
country round that sequestered dwelling-place--fastened the animal to a
tree, and stalked towards the park-pales on foot. Lightly, as a wolf
enters a sheepfold, he swung himself over the moss-grown fence; he gained
the buttresses of the great raw pile; high and clear above, from
Darrell's chamber, streamed the light; all the rest of the old house
was closed and dark, buried no doubt in slumber.
He is now in the hollows of the skeleton pile; he mounts the ladder; the
lock of the door before him yields to his rude implements but artful
hand. He is in the long gallery; the moonlight comes broad and clear
through the large casements. What wealth of art is on the walls! but how
profitless to the robber's greed. There, through the very halls which
the master had built in the day of his ambition, saying to himself,
"These are for far posterity," the step of Violence, it may be of Murder,
takes its stealthy way to the room of the childless man! Through the
uncompleted pile, towards the uncompleted life, strides the terrible
step.
The last door yields noiselessly. The small wooden corridor, narrow as
the drawbridge which in ancient fortresses was swung between the
commandant's room in the topmost story and some opposing wall, is before
him. And Darrell's own door is half open; lights on the table--logs
burning bright on the hearth. Cautiously Losely looked through the
aperture. Darrell was not there; the place was solitary; but the
opposite door was open also. Losely's fine ear caught the sound of a
slight movement of a footstep in the room just below, to which that
opposite door admitted. In an instant the robber glided within the
chamber--closed and locked the door by which he had entered, retaining
the key about his person. The next stride brought him to the hearth.
Beside it hung the bell-rope common in old-fashioned houses. Losely
looked round; on the table, by the writing implements, lay a pen-knife.
In another moment the rope was cut, high out of Darrell's reach, and
flung aside. The hearth, being adapted but for logwood fires, furnished
not those implements in which, at a moment of need, the owner may find an
available weapon--only a slight pair of brass wood-pincers, and a shovel
equally frail. Such as they were, however, Jasper quietly removed and
hid them behind a heavy old bureau. Steps were now heard mounting the
stair that led into the chamber; Losely shrunk back into the recess
beside the mantelpiece. Darrell entered, with a book in his hand, for
which he had indeed quitted his chamber--a volume containing the last Act
of Parliament relating to Public Trusts, which had been sent to him by
his solicitor; for he is creating a deed of trust, to insure to the
nation the Darrell antiquities, in the name of his father, the
antiquarian.
Darrell advanced to the writing-table, which stood in the centre of the
room; laid down the book, and sighed--the short, quick, impatient sigh
which had become one of his peculiar habits. The robber stole from the
recess, and, gliding round to the door by which Darrell had entered,
while the back of the master was still towards him, set fast the lock,
and appropriated the key as he had done at the door which had admitted
himself. Though the noise in that operation was but slight, it roused
Darrell from his abstracted thoughts. He turned quickly, and at the same
moment Losely advanced towards him.
At once Darrell comprehended his danger. His rapid glance took in all
the precautions by which the intruder proclaimed his lawless purpose--the
closed door, the bell rope cut off. There, between those four secret
walls, must pass the interview between himself and the desperado. He
was unarmed, but he was not daunted. It was but man to man. Losely had
for him his vast physical strength, his penury, despair, and vindictive
purpose. Darrell had in his favour the intellect which gives presence of
mind; the energy of nerve, which is no more to be seen in the sinew and
bone than the fluid which fells can be seen in the jars and the wires;
and that superb kind of pride, which, if terror be felt, makes its action
impossible, because a disgrace, and bravery a matter of course, simply
because it is honour.
As the bravo approached, by a calm and slight movement Darrell drew to
the other side of the table, placing that obstacle between himself and
Losely, and, extending his arm, said: "Hold, sir; I forbid you to advance
another step. You are here, no matter how, to re-urge your claims on me.
Be seated; I will listen to you."
Darrell's composure took Losely so by surprise that mechanically he
obeyed the command thus tranquilly laid upon him, and sunk into a chair--
facing Darrell with a sinister under-look from his sullen brow. "Ah!"
he said, "you will listen to me now; but my terms have risen."
Darrell, who had also seated himself, made no answer; but his face was
resolute and his eye watchful. The ruffian resumed, in a gruffer tone:
"My terms have risen, Mr. Darrell."
"Have they, sir? and why?"
"Why! Because no one can come to your aid here; because here you cannot
escape; because here you are in my power!"
"Rather, sir, I listen to you because here you are under my roof-tree;
and it is you who are in my power!"
"Yours! Look round; the doors are locked on you. Perhaps you think your
shouts, your cries might bring aid to you. Attempt it--raise your voice
--and I strangle you with these hands."
"If I do not raise my voice, it is, first, because I should be ashamed of
myself if I required aid against one man; and, secondly, because I would
not expose to my dependents a would-be assassin in him whom my lost child
called husband. Hush, sir, hush, or your own voice will alarm those who
sleep below. And now, what is it you ask? Be plain, sir, and be brief."
"Well, if you like to take matters coolly, I have no objection. These
are my terms. You have received large sums this day; those sums are in
your house, probably in that bureau; and your life is at my will."
"You ask the monies paid for rent to-day. True, they are in the house;
but they are not in my apartments. They were received by another; they
are kept by another. In vain, through the windings and passages of this
old house, would you seek to find the room in which he stores them.
In doing so you will pass by the door of a servant who sleeps so lightly
that the chances are that he will hear you; he is armed with a
blunderbuss, and with pistols. You say to me, 'Your money or your life.'
I say to you, in reply, 'Neither: attempt to seize the money, and your
own life is lost."
"Miser! I don't believe that sums so large are not in your own keeping.
And even if they are not, you shall show me where they are; you shall
lead me through those windings and passages of which you so tenderly warn
me, my hand on your throat. And if servants wake, or danger threaten me,
it is you who shall save me, or die! Ha! you do not fear me--eh, Mr.
Darrell!" And Losely rose.
"I do not fear you," replied Darrell, still seated. "I cannot conceive
that you are here with no other design than a profitless murder. You are
here, you say, to make terms; it will be time enough to see whose life is
endangered when all your propositions have been stated. As yet you have
only suggested a robbery, to which you ask me to assist you. Impossible!
Grant even that you were able to murder me, you would be just as far off
from your booty. And yet you say your terms have risen! To me they seem
fallen to nothing! Have you anything else to say?"
The calmness of Darrell, so supremely displayed in this irony, began to
tell upon the ruffian--the magnetism of the great man's eye and voice,
and steadfast courage, gradually gaining power over the wild, inferior
animal. Trying to recover his constitutional audacity, Jasper said, with
a tone of the old rollicking voice: "Well, Mr. Darrell, it is all one to
me how I wring from you, in your own house, what you refused me when I
was a suppliant on the road. Fair means are pleasanter than foul. I am
a gentleman--the grandson of Sir Julian Losely, of Losely Hall; I am your
son-in-law; and I am starving. This must not be; write me a cheque."
Darrell dipped his pen in the ink, and drew the paper towards him.
"Oho! you don't fear me, eh? This is not done from fear, mind--all out
of pure love and compassion, my kind father-in-law. You will write me a
cheque for five thousand pounds--come, I am moderate--your life is worth
a precious deal more than that. Hand me the cheque--I will trust to your
honour to give me no trouble in cashing it, and bid you good-night-my
father-in-law."
As Losely ceased with a mocking laugh, Darrell sprang up quickly, threw
open the small casement which was within his reach, and flung from it the
paper on which he had been writing, and which he wrapt round the heavy
armorial seal that lay on the table.
Losely bounded towards him. "What means that? What have you done?"
"Saved your life and mine, Jasper Losely," said Darrell, solemnly, and
catching the arm that was raised against him. "We are now upon equal
terms."
"I understand," growled the tiger, as the slaver gathered to his lips--
"you think by that paper to summon some one to your aid."
"Not so--that paper is useless while I live. Look forth--the moonlight
is on the roofs below--can you see where that paper has fallen? On the
ledge of a parapet that your foot could not reach. It faces the window
of a room in which one of my household sleeps; it will meet his eye in
the morning when the shutters are unbarred; and on that paper are writ
these words: 'If I am this night murdered, the murderer is Jasper
Losely,' and the paper is signed by my name. Back, sir--would you doom
yourself to the gibbet?"
Darrell released the dread arm he had arrested, and Losely stared at him,
amazed, bewildered.
Darrell resumed: "And now I tell you plainly that I can accede to no
terms put to me thus. I can sign my hand to no order that you may
dictate, because that would be to sign myself a coward--and my name is
Darrell!"
"Down on your knees, proud man--sign you shall, and on your knees!
I care not now for gold--I care not now a rush for my life. I came here
to humble the man who from first to last has so scornfully humbled me.
--And I will, I will! On your knees--on your knees!"
The robber flung himself forward; but Darrell, whose eye had never
quitted the foe, was prepared for and eluded the rush. Losely, missing
his object, lost his balance, struck against the edge of the table which
partially interposed between himself and his prey, and was only saved
from falling by the close neighbourhood of the wall, on which he came
with a shock that for the moment well-nigh stunned him. Meanwhile
Darrell had gained the hearth, and snatched from it a large log half-
burning. Jasper, recovering himself, dashed the long matted hair from
his eyes, and, seeing undismayed the formidable weapon with which he was
menaced, cowered for a second and deadlier spring.
"Stay, stay, stay, parricide and madman!" cried Darrell, his eye flashing
brighter than the brand. "It is not my life I plead for--it is yours.
Remember, if I fall by your hand, no hope and no refuge are left to you!
In the name of my dead child, and under the eye of avenging Heaven, I
strike down the fury that blinds you, and I scare back your soul from the
abyss!"
So ineffably grand were the man's look and gesture--so full of sonorous
terror the swell of his matchless all-conquering voice, that Losely, in
his midmost rage, stood awed and spellbound. His breast heaved, his eye
fell, his frame collapsed, even his very tongue seemed to cleave to the
parched roof of his mouth. Whether the effect so suddenly produced might
have continued, or whether the startled miscreant might not have lashed
himself into renewed wrath and inexpiable crime, passes out of
conjecture. At that instant simultaneously were heard hurried footsteps
in the corridor without, violent blows on the door, and voices
exclaiming, "Open, open!--Darrell, Darrell!"--while the bell at the
portals of the old house rang fast and shrill.
"Ho--is it so?" growled Losely, recovering himself at those unwelcome
sounds. "But do not think that I will be caught thus, like a rat in a
trap. No--I will--"
"Hist!" interrupted Darrell, dropping the brand, and advancing quickly on
the ruffian--" Hist!--let no one know that my daughter's husband came
here with a felon's purpose. Sit down--down I say; it is for my house's
honour that you should be safe." And suddenly placing both hands on
Losely's broad shoulder, he forced him into a seat. During these few
hurried words, the strokes at the door and the shouts without had been
continued, and the door shook on its yielding hinges.
"The key--the key!" whispered Darrell.
But the bravo was stupefied by the suddenness with which his rage had
been cowed, his design baffled, his position changed from the man
dictating laws and threatening life, to the man protected by his intended
victim. And he was so slow in even comprehending the meaning of
Darrell's order, that Darrell had scarcely snatched the keys less from
his hand than from the pouch to which he at last mechanically pointed,
when the door was burst open, and Lionel Haughton, Alban Morley, and the
Colonel's servant were in the room. Not one of them, at the first
glance, perceived the inmates of the chamber, who were at the right of
their entrance, by the angle of the wall and in shadow. But out came
Darrell's calm voice:
"Alban! Lionel!--welcome always; but what brings you hither at such an
hour, with such clamour? Armed too!"
The three men stood petrified. There sate, peaceably enough, a large
dark form, its hands on its knees, its head bent down, so that the
features were not, distinguishable; and over the chair in which this
bending figure was thus confusedly gathered up leant Guy Darrell, with
quiet ease--no trace of fear nor of past danger in his face, which,
though very pale, was serene, with a slight smile on the firm lips.
"Well," muttered Alban Morley, slowly lowering his pistol--"well, I am
surprised!--yes, for the first time in twenty years, I and surprised!"
"Surprised perhaps to find me at this hour still up, and with a person
upon business--the door locked. However, mutual explanations later. Of
course you stay here to night. My business with this--this visitor, is
now over. Lionel, open that door--here is the key.--Sir"--(he touched
Losely by the shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Rise and speak not,")
--(aloud) "Sir, I need not detain you longer. Allow me to show you the
way out of this rambling old house."
Jasper rose like one half asleep, and, still bending his form and hiding
his face, followed Darrell down the private stair, through the study, the
library, into the hall, the Colonel's servant lighting the way; and
Lionel and Morley, still too amazed for words, bringing up the rear. The
servant drew the heavy bolts from the front door; and now the household
had caught alarm. Mills first appeared with the blunderbuss, then the
footman, then Fairthorn.
"Stand back, there!" cried Darrell, and he opened the door himself to
Losely. "Sir," said he then, as they stood in the moonlight, "mark that
I told you truly--you were in my power; and if the events of this night
can lead you to acknowledge a watchful Providence, and recall with a
shudder the crime from which you have been saved, why, then, I too, out
of gratitude to Heaven, may think of means by which to free others from
the peril of your despair."
Losely made no answer, but slunk off with a fast, furtive stride,
hastening out of the moonlit sward into the gloom of the leafless trees.