WHEREIN MR. BELCHER, HAVING EXHIBITED HIS DIRTY RECORD, SHOWS A CLEAN
PAIR OF HEELS.
The first face that Mr. Belcher met upon leaving the Court-House was
that of Mr. Talbot.
"Get into my coupe," said Talbot. "I will take you home."
Mr. Belcher got into the coupe quickly, as if he were hiding from some
pursuing danger. "Home!" said he, huskily, and in a whimpering voice.
"Home! Good God! I wish I knew where it was."
"What's the matter, General? How has the case gone?"
"Gone? Haven't you been in the house?"
"No; how has it gone?"
"Gone to hell," said Mr. Belcher, leaning over heavily upon Talbot, and
whispering it in his ear.
"Not so bad as that, I hope," said Talbot, pushing him off.
"Toll," said the suffering man, "haven't I always used you well? You are
not going to turn against the General? You've made a good thing out of
him, Toll."
"What's happened, General? Tell me."
"Toll, you'll be shut up to-morrow. Play your cards right. Make friends
with the mammon of unrighteousness."
Talbot sat and thought very fast. He saw that there was serious trouble,
and questioned whether he were not compromising himself. Still, the fact
that the General had enriched him, determined him to stand by his old
principal as far as he could, consistently with his own safety.
"What can I do for you, General?" he said.
"Get me out of the city. Get me off to Europe. You know I have funds
there."
"I'll do what I can, General."
"You're a jewel, Toll."
"By the way," said Talbot, "the Crooked Valley corporation held its
annual meeting to-day. You are out, and they have a new deal."
"They'll find out something to-morrow, Toll. It all comes together."
When the coupe drove up at Palgrave's Folly, and the General alighted,
he found one of his brokers on the steps, with a pale face. "What's the
matter?" said Mr. Belcher.
"The devil's to pay."
"I'm glad of it," said he. "I hope you'll get it all out of him."
"It's too late for joking," responded the man seriously. "We want to see
you at once. You've been over-reached in this matter of the Air Line,
and you've got some very ugly accounts to settle."
"I'll be down to-morrow early," said the General.
"We want to see you to-night," said the broker.
"Very well, come here at nine o'clock."
Then the broker went away, and Mr. Belcher and Mr. Talbot went in. They
ascended to the library, and there, in a few minutes, arranged their
plans. Mrs. Belcher was not to be informed of them, but was to be left
to get the news of her husband's overthrow after his departure. "Sarah's
been a good wife, Toll," he said, "but she was unequally yoked with an
unbeliever and hasn't been happy for a good many years. I hope you'll
look after her a little, Toll. Save something for her, if you can. Of
course, she'll have to leave here, and it won't trouble her much."
At this moment the merry voices of his children came through an opening
door.
The General gave a great gulp in the endeavor to swallow his emotion.
After all, there was a tender spot in him.
"Toll, shut the door; I can't stand that. Poor little devils! What's
going to become of them?"
The General was busy with his packing. In half an hour his arrangements
were completed. Then Talbot went to one of the front rooms of the house,
and, looking from the window, saw a man talking with the driver of his
coupe. It was an officer. Mr. Belcher peeped through the curtain, and
knew him. What was to be done? A plan of escape was immediately made and
executed. There was a covered passage into the stable from the rear of
the house, and through that both the proprietor and Talbot made their
way. Now that Phipps had left him, Mr. Belcher had but a single servant
who could drive. He was told to prepare the horses at once, and to make
himself ready for service. After everything was done, but the opening of
the doors, Talbot went back through the house, and, on appearing at the
front door of the mansion, was met by the officer, who inquired for Mr.
Belcher. Mr. Talbot let him in, calling for a servant at the same time,
and went out and closed the door behind him.
Simultaneously with this movement, the stable-doors flew open, and the
horses sprang out upon the street, and were half a mile on their way to
one of the upper ferries, leading to Jersey City, before the officer
could get an answer to his inquiries for Mr. Belcher. Mr. Belcher had
been there only five minutes before, but he had evidently gone out. He
would certainly be back to dinner. So the officer waited until convinced
that his bird had flown, and until the proprietor was across the river
in search of a comfortable bed among the obscure hotels of the town.
It had been arranged that Talbot should secure a state-room on the
Aladdin to sail on the following day, and make an arrangement with the
steward to admit Mr. Belcher to it on his arrival, and assist in keeping
him from sight.
Mr. Belcher sent back his carriage by the uppermost ferry, ate a
wretched dinner, and threw himself upon his bed, where he tossed his
feverish limbs until day-break. It was a night thronged with nervous
fears. He knew that New York would resound with his name on the
following day. Could he reach his state-room on the Aladdin without
being discovered? He resolved to try it early the next morning, though
he knew the steamer would not sail until noon. Accordingly, as the day
began to break, he rose and looked out of his dingy window. The milk-men
only were stirring. At the lower end of the street he could see masts,
and the pipes of the great steamers, and a ferry-boat crossing to get
its first batch of passengers for an early train. Then a wretched man
walked under his window, looking for something,--hoping, after the
accidents of the evening, to find money for his breakfast. Mr. Belcher
dropped him a dollar, and the man looked up and said feebly: "May God
bless you, sir!"
This little benediction was received gratefully. It would do to start
on. He felt his way down stairs, called for his reckoning, and when,
after an uncomfortable and vexatious delay, he had found a sleepy,
half-dressed man to receive his money, he went out upon the street,
satchel in hand, and walked rapidly toward the slip where the Aladdin
lay asleep.
Talbot's money had done its work well, and the fugitive had only to make
himself known to the officer in charge to secure an immediate entrance
into the state-room that had been purchased for him. He shut to the door
and locked it; then he took off his clothes and went to bed.
Mr. Belcher's entrance upon the vessel had been observed by a policeman,
but, though it was an unusual occurrence, the fact that he was received
showed that he had been expected. As the policeman was soon relieved
from duty, he gave the matter no farther thought, so that Mr. Belcher
had practically made the passage from his library to his state-room
unobserved.
After the terrible excitements of the two preceding days, and the
sleeplessness of the night, Mr. Belcher with the first sense of security
fell into a heavy slumber. All through the morning there were officers
on the vessel who knew that he was wanted, but his state-room had been
engaged for an invalid lady, and the steward assured the officers that
she was in the room, and was not to be disturbed.
The first consciousness that came to the sleeper was with the first
motion of the vessel as she pushed out from her dock. He rose and
dressed, and found himself exceedingly hungry. There was nothing to do,
however, but to wait. The steamer would go down so as to pass the bar at
high tide, and lay to for the mails and the latest passengers, to be
brought down the bay by a tug. He knew that he could not step from his
hiding until the last policeman had left the vessel, with the casting
off of its tender, and so sat and watched from the little port-hole
which illuminated his room the panorama of the Jersey and the Staten
Island shores.
His hard, exciting life was retiring. He was leaving his foul
reputation, his wife and children, his old pursuits and his fondly
cherished idol behind him. He was leaving danger behind. He was leaving
Sing Sing behind! He had all Europe, with plenty of money, before him.
His spirits began to rise. He even took a look into his mirror, to be a
witness of his own triumph.
At four o'clock, after the steamer had lain at anchor for two or three
hours, the tug arrived, and as his was the leeward side of the vessel,
she unloaded her passengers upon the steamer where he could see them.
There were no faces that he knew, and he was relieved. He heard a great
deal of tramping about the decks, and through the cabin. Once, two men
came into the little passage into which his door opened. He heard his
name spoken, and the whispered assurance that his room was occupied by a
sick woman; and then they went away.
At last, the orders were given to cast off the tug. He saw the anxious
looks of officers as they slid by his port-hole, and then he realized
that he was free.
The anchor was hoisted, the great engine lifted itself to its mighty
task, and the voyage was begun. They had gone down a mile, perhaps,
when Mr. Belcher came out of his state-room. Supper was not ready--would
not be ready for an hour. He took a hurried survey of the passengers,
none of whom he knew. They were evidently gentle-folk, mostly from
inland cities, who were going to Europe for pleasure. He was glad to see
that he attracted little attention. He sat down on deck, and took up a
newspaper which a passenger had left behind him.
The case of "Benedict _vs._ Belcher" absorbed three or four columns,
besides a column of editorial comment, in which the General's character
and his crime were painted with a free hand and in startling colors.
Then, in the financial column, he found a record of the meeting of the
Crooked Valley Corporation, to which was added the statement that
suspicions were abroad that the retiring President had been guilty of
criminal irregularities in connection with the bonds of the
Company--irregularities which would immediately become a matter of
official investigation. There was also an account of his operations in
Muscogee Air Line, and a rumor that he had fled from the city, by some
of the numerous out-going lines of steamers, and that steps had already
been taken to head him off at every possible point of landing in this
country and Europe.
This last rumor was not calculated to increase his appetite, or restore
his self-complacency and self-assurance. He looked all these accounts
over a second time, in a cursory way, and was about to fold the paper,
so as to hide or destroy it, when his eye fell upon a column of foreign
despatches. He had never been greatly interested in this department of
his newspaper, but now that he was on his way to Europe, they assumed a
new significance; and, beginning at the top, he read them through. At
the foot of the column, he read the words: "Heavy Failure of a Banking
House;" and his attention was absorbed at once by the item which
followed:
"The House of Tempin Brothers, of Berlin, has gone down. The failure is
said to be utterly disastrous, even the special deposits in the hands
of the house having been used. The House was a favorite with Americans,
and the failure will inevitably produce great distress among those who
are traveling for pleasure. The house is said to have no assets, and the
members are not to be found."
Mr. Belcher's "Anchor to windward" had snapped its cable, and he was
wildly afloat, with ruin behind him, and starvation or immediate arrest
before. With curses on his white lips, and with a trembling hand, he cut
out the item, walked to his state-room, and threw the record of his
crime and shame out of the port-hole. Then, placing the little excerpt
in the pocket of his waistcoat, he went on deck.
There sat the happy passengers, wrapped in shawls, watching the setting
sun, thinking of the friends and scenes they had left behind them, and
dreaming of the unknown world that lay before. Three or four elderly
gentlemen were gathered in a group, discussing Mr. Belcher himself; but
none of them knew him. He had no part in the world of honor and of
innocence in which all these lived. He was an outlaw. He groaned when
the overwhelming consciousness of his disgrace came upon him--groaned to
think that not one of all the pleasant people around could know him
without shrinking from him as a monster.
He was looking for some one. A sailor engaged in service passed near
him. Stepping to his side, Mr. Belcher asked him to show him the
captain. The man pointed to the bridge. "There's the Cap'n, sir--the man
in the blue coat and brass buttons." Then he went along.
Mr. Belcher immediately made his way to the bridge. He touched his hat
to the gruff old officer, and begged his pardon for obtruding himself
upon him, but he was in trouble, and wanted advice.
"Very well, out with it: what's the matter?" said the Captain.
Mr. Belcher drew out the little item he had saved, and said: "Captain, I
have seen this bit of news for the first time since I started. This
firm held all the money I have in the world. Is there any possible way
for me to get back to my home?"
"I don't know of any," said the captain.
"But I must go back."
"You'll have to swim for it, then."
Mr. Belcher was just turning away in despair, with a thought of suicide
in his mind, when the captain said: "There's Pilot-boat Number 10. She's
coming round to get some papers. Perhaps I can get you aboard of her,
but you are rather heavy for a jump."
The wind was blowing briskly off shore, and the beautiful pilot-boat,
with her wonderful spread of canvass, was cutting the water as a bird
cleaves the air. She had been beating toward land, but, as she saw the
steamer, she rounded to, gave way before the wind, worked toward the
steamer's track on the windward side, and would soon run keel to keel
with her.
"Fetch your traps," said the captain. "I can get you on board, if you
are in time."
Mr. Belcher ran to his state-room, seized his valise, and was soon again
on deck. The pilot-boat was within ten rods of the steamer, curving in
gracefully toward the monster, and running like a race-horse. The
Captain had a bundle of papers in his hand. He held them while Mr.
Belcher went over the side of the vessel, down the ladder, and turned
himself for his jump. There was peril in the venture, but desperation
had strung his nerves. The captain shouted, and asked the bluff fellows
on the little craft to do him the personal favor to take his passenger
on shore, at their convenience. Then a sailor tossed them the valise,
and the captain tossed them the papers. Close in came the little boat.
It was almost under Mr. Belcher. "Jump!" shouted half a dozen voices
together, and the heavy man lay sprawling upon the deck among the
laughing crew. A shout and a clapping of hands was heard from the
steamer, "Number 10" sheered off, and continued her cruise, and,
stunned and bruised, the General crawled into the little cabin, where it
took only ten minutes of the new motion to make him so sick that his
hunger departed, and he was glad to lie where, during the week that he
tossed about in the cruise for in-coming vessels, he would have been
glad to die.
One, two, three, four steamers were supplied with pilots, and an
opportunity was given him on each occasion to go into port, but he would
wait. He had told the story of his bankers, given a fictitious name to
himself, and managed to win the good will of the simple men around him.
His bottle of brandy and his box of cigars were at their service, and
his dress was that of a gentleman. His natural drollery took on a very
amusing form during his sickness, and the men found him a source of
pleasure rather than an incumbrance.
At length the last pilot was disposed of, and "Number 10" made for home;
and on a dark midnight she ran in among the shipping above the Battery,
on the North River, and was still.
Mr. Belcher was not without ready money. He was in the habit of carrying
a considerable sum, and, before leaving Talbot, he had drained that
gentleman's purse. He gave a handsome fee to the men, and, taking his
satchel in his hand, went on shore. He was weak and wretched with long
seasickness and loss of sleep, and staggered as he walked along the
wharf like a drunken man. He tried to get one of the men to go with him,
and carry his burden, but each wanted the time with his family, and
declined to serve him at any price. So he followed up the line of
shipping for a few blocks, went by the dens where drunken sailors and
river-thieves were carousing, and then turned up Fulton Street toward
Broadway. He knew that the city cars ran all night, but he did not dare
to enter one of them. Reaching the Astor, he crossed over, and, seeing
an up-town car starting off without a passenger, he stepped upon the
front platform, where he deposited his satchel, and sat down upon it.
People came into the car and stepped off, but they could not see him.
He was oppressed with drowsiness, yet he was painfully wide awake.
At length he reached the vicinity of his old splendors. The car was
stopped, and, resuming his burden, he crossed over to Fifth Avenue, and
stood in front of the palace which had been his home. It was dark at
every window. Where were his wife and children? Who had the house in
keeping? He was tired, and sat down on the curb-stone, under the very
window where Mr. Balfour was at that moment sleeping. He put his dizzy
head between his hands, and whimpered like a sick boy. "Played out!"
said he; "played out!"
He heard a measured step in the distance. He must not be seen by the
watch; so he rose and bent his steps toward Mrs. Dillingham's. Opposite
to her house, he sat down upon the curb-stone again, and recalled his
old passion for her. The thought of her treachery and of his own
fatuitous vanity--the reflection that he had been so blind in his
self-conceit that she had led him to his ruin, stung him to the quick.
He saw a stone at his feet. He picked it up, and, taking his satchel in
one hand, went half across the street, and hurled the little missile at
her window. He heard the crash of glass and a shrill scream, and then
walked rapidly off. Then he heard a watchman running from a distance;
for the noise was peculiar, and resounded along the street. The watchman
met him and made an inquiry, but passed on without suspecting the
fugitive's connection with the alarm.
As soon as he was out of the street, he quickened his pace, and went
directly to Talbot's. Then he rang the door-bell, once, twice, thrice.
Mr. Talbot put his head out of the window, looked down, and, in the
light of a street lamp, discovered the familiar figure of his old
principal. "I'll come down," he said, "and let you in."
The conference was a long one, and it ended in both going into the
street, and making their way to Talbot's stable, two or three blocks
distant. There the coachman was roused, and there Talbot gave Mr.
Belcher the privilege of sleeping until he was wanted.
Mr. Talbot had assured Mr. Belcher that he would not be safe in his
house, that the whole town was alive with rumors about him, and that
while some believed he had escaped and was on his way to Europe, others
felt certain that he had not left the city.
Mr. Belcher had been a railroad man, and Mr. Talbot was sure that the
railroad men would help him. He would secure a special car at his own
cost, on a train that would leave on the following night. He would see
that the train should stop before crossing Harlem Bridge. At that moment
the General must be there. Mr. Talbot would send him up, to sit in his
cab until the train should stop, and then to take the last car, which
should be locked after him; and he could go through in it without
observation.
A breakfast was smuggled into the stable early, where Mr. Belcher lay
concealed, of which he ate greedily. Then he was locked into the room,
where he slept all day. At eight o'clock in the evening, a cab stood in
the stable, ready to issue forth on the opening of the doors. Mr.
Belcher took his seat in it, in the darkness, and then the vehicle was
rapidly driven to Harlem. After ten minutes of waiting, the dazzling
head-light of a great train, crawling out of the city, showed down the
Avenue. He unlatched the door of his cab, took his satchel in his hand,
and, as the last car on the train came up to him, he leaped out, mounted
the platform, and vanished in the car, closing the door behind him. "All
right!" was shouted from the rear; the conductor swung his lantern, and
the train thundered over the bridge and went roaring off into the night.
The General had escaped. All night he traveled on, and, some time during
the forenoon, his car was shunted from the Trunk line upon the branch
that led toward Sevenoaks. It was nearly sunset when he reached the
terminus. The railroad sympathy had helped and shielded him thus far,
but the railroad ended there, and its sympathy and help were cut off
short with the last rail.
Mr. Belcher sent for the keeper of a public stable whom he knew, and
with whom he had always been in sympathy, through the love of
horse-flesh which they entertained in common. As he had no personal
friendship to rely on in his hour of need, he resorted to that which had
grown up between men who had done their best to cheat each other by
systematic lying in the trading of horses.
"Old Man Coates," for that was the name by which the stable keeper was
known, found his way to the car where Mr. Belcher still remained hidden.
The two men met as old cronies, and Mr. Belcher said: "Coates, I'm in
trouble, and am bound for Canada. How is Old Calamity?"
Now in all old and well regulated stables there is one horse of
exceptional renown for endurance. "Old Calamity" was a roan, with one
wicked white eye, that in his best days had done a hundred miles in ten
hours. A great deal of money had been won and lost on him, first and
last, but he had grown old, and had degenerated into a raw-boned, tough
beast, that was resorted to in great emergencies, and relied upon for
long stretches of travel that involved extraordinary hardship.
"Well, he's good yet," replied Old Man Coates.
"You must sell him to me, with a light wagon," said Mr. Belcher.
"I could make more money by telling a man who is looking for you in the
hotel that you are here," said the old man, with a wicked leer.
"But you won't do it," responded the General. "You can't turn on a man
who has loved the same horse with you, old man; you know you can't."
"Well, I can, but in course I won't;" and the stable-keeper went into a
calculation of the value of the horse and harness, with a wagon "that
couldn't be broke down."
Old Man Coates had Belcher at a disadvantage, and, of course, availed
himself of it, and had no difficulty in making a bargain which reduced
the fugitive's stock of ready money in a fearful degree.
At half-past nine, that night, "Old Calamity" was driven down to the
side of the car by Coates' own hands, and in a moment the old man was
out of the wagon and the new owner was in it. The horse, the moment Mr.
Belcher took the reins, had a telegraphic communication concerning the
kind of man who was behind him, and the nature of the task that lay
before him, and struck off up the road toward Sevenoaks with a long,
swinging trot that gave the driver a sense of being lifted at every
stride.
It was a curious incident in the history of Mr. Belcher's flight to
Canada, which practically began when he leaped upon the deck of
Pilot-Boat Number 10, that he desired to see every spot that had been
connected with his previous life. A more sensitive man would have
shunned the scenes which had been associated with his prosperous and
nominally respectable career, but he seemed possessed with a morbid
desire to look once more upon the localities in which he had moved as
king.
He had not once returned to Sevenoaks since he left the village for the
metropolis; and although he was in bitter haste, with men near him in
pursuit, he was determined to take the longer road to safety, in order
to revisit the scene of his early enterprise and his first successes. He
knew that Old Calamity would take him to Sevenoaks in two hours, and
that then the whole village would be in its first nap. The road was
familiar, and the night not too dark. Dogs came out from farm-houses as
he rattled by, and barked furiously. He found a cow asleep in the road,
and came near being upset by her. He encountered one or two tramps, who
tried to speak to him, but he flew on until the spires of the little
town, where he had once held the supreme life, defined themselves
against the sky, far up the river. Here he brought his horse down to a
walk. The moment he was still, for he had not yet reached the roar of
the falls, he became conscious that a wagon was following him in the
distance. Old Man Coates had not only sold him his horse, but he had
sold his secret!
Old Calamity was once more put into a trot, and in ten minutes he was by
the side of his mill. Seeing the watchman in front, he pulled up, and,
in a disguised voice, inquired the way to the hotel. Having received a
rough answer, he inquired of the man whose mill he was watching.
"I don't know," responded the man. "It's stopped now. It was old
Belcher's once, but he's gone up, they say."
Mr. Belcher started on. He crossed the bridge, and drove up the steep
hill toward his mansion. Arriving at the hight, he stood still by the
side of the Seven Oaks, which had once been the glory of his country
home. Looking down into the town, he saw lights at the little tavern,
and, by the revelations of the lantern that came to the door, a horse
and wagon. At this moment, his great Newfoundland dog came bounding
toward him, growling like a lion. He had alighted to stretch his limbs,
and examine into the condition of his horse. The dog came toward him
faster and faster, and more and more menacingly, till he reached him,
and heard his own name called. Then he went down into the dust, and
fawned upon his old master pitifully. Mr. Belcher caressed him. There
was still one creature living that recognized him, and acknowledged him
as his lord. He looked up at his house and took a final survey of the
dim outlines of the village. Then he mounted his wagon, turned his horse
around, and went slowly down the hill, calling to his dog to follow. The
huge creature followed a few steps, then hesitated, then, almost
crawling, he turned and sneaked away, and finally broke into a run and
went back to the house, where he stopped and with a short, gruff bark
scouted his retiring master.
Mr. Belcher looked back. His last friend had left him. "Blast the
brute!" he exclaimed. "He is like the rest of 'em."
As he came down the road to turn into the main highway, a man stepped
out from the bushes and seized Old Calamity by the bridle. Mr. Belcher
struck his horse a heavy blow, and the angry beast, by a single leap,
not only shook himself clear of the grasp upon his bit, but hurled the
intercepting figure upon the ground. A second man stood ready to deal
with Mr. Belcher, but the latter in passing gave him a furious cut with
his whip, and Old Calamity was, in twenty seconds, as many rods away
from both of them, sweeping up the long hill at a trot that none but
iron sinews could long sustain.
The huge pile that constituted the Sevenoaks poor-house was left upon
his right, and in half an hour he began a long descent, which so far
relieved his laboring horse, that when he reached the level he could
hardly hold him. The old fire of the brute was burning at its hottest.
Mr. Belcher pulled him in, to listen for the pursuit. Half a mile
behind, he could hear wheels tearing madly down the hill, and he
laughed. The race had, for the time, banished from his mind the history
of the previous week, banished the memory of his horrible losses,
banished his sense of danger, banished his nervous fears. It was a stern
chase, proverbially a long one, and he had the best horse, and knew that
he could not be overtaken. The sound of the pursuing wheels grew fainter
and fainter, until they ceased altogether.
Just as the day was breaking, he turned from the main road into the
woods, and as the occupants of a cabin were rising, he drove up and
asked for shelter and a breakfast.
He remained there all day, and, just before night, passed through the
forest to another road, and in the early morning was driving quietly
along a Canadian highway, surveying his "adopted country," and assuming
the character of a loyal subject of the good Queen of England.