Five days later, Mr. Caryll--whose recovery had so far progressed that
he might now be said to be his own man again--came briskly up from
Charing Cross one evening at dusk, to the house at the corner of Maiden
Lane where Sir Richard Everard was lodged. He observed three or four
fellows lounging about the corner of Chandos street and Bedford street,
but it did not occur to him that from that point they could command Sir
Richard's door--nor that such could be their object--until, as he swung
sharply round the corner, he hurtled violently into a man who was moving
in the opposite direction without looking whither he was going. The
man stepped quickly aside with a murmured word of apology, to give Mr.
Caryll the wall that he might pass on. But Mr. Caryll paused.
“Ah, Mr. Green!” said he very pleasantly. “How d'ye? Have ye been
searching folk of late?”
Mr. Green endeavored to dissemble his startled expression in a grin
that revealed his white teeth. “Ye can't forgive me that blunder, Mr.
Caryll,” said he.
Mr. Caryll smiled fondly upon him. “From your manner I take it that on
your side you practice a more Christian virtue. It is plain that you
forgive me the sequel.”
Mr. Green shrugged and spread his hands. “You were in the right, sir;
you were in the right,” he explained. “Those are the risks a man of my
calling must run. I must suffer for my blunders.”
Mr. Caryll continued to smile. But that the light was failing, the spy
might have observed a certain hardening in the lines of his mouth.
“Here is a very humble mood,” said he. “It is like the crouch before
the spring. In whom do you design to plant your claws?--yours and your
friends yonder.” And he pointed with his cane across the street towards
the loungers he had observed.
“My friends?” quoth Mr. Green, in a voice of disgust. “Nay, your honor!
No friends of mine, ecod! Indeed, no!”
“No? I am at fault, then. Yet they look as if they might be bumbailiffs.
'Tis the kind ye herd with, is't not? Give you good-even, Mr. Green.”
And he went on, cool and unconcerned, and turned in through the narrow
doorway by the glover's shop to mount the stairs to Sir Richard's
lodging.
Mr. Green stood still to watch him go. Then he swore through his teeth,
and beckoned one of those whose acquaintance he had disclaimed.
“'Tis like him, ecod! to have gone in in spite of seeing me and you!
He's cool! Damned cool! But he'll be cooler yet, codso!” Then, briskly
questioning his satellite: “Is Sir Richard within, Jerry?”
“Ay,” answered Jerry--a rough, heavily-built tatterdemalion. “He's been
there these two hours.”
“'Tis our chance to nab 'em both, then-our last chance, maybe. The game
is up. That fine gentleman has smoked it.” He was angry beyond measure.
Their plans were far from ripe, and yet to delay longer now that their
vigilance was detected was, perhaps, to allow Sir Richard to slip
through their fingers, as well as the other. “Have ye your barkers?” he
asked harshly.
Jerry tapped a heavily bulging pocket, and winked. Mr. Green thrust his
three-cornered hat a-cock over one eye, and with his hands behind the
tails of his coat, stood pondering. “Ay, pox on't!” he grumbled. “It
must be done to-night. I dursn't delay longer. We'll give the gentlemen
time to settle comfortably; then up we go to make things merry for 'em.”
And he beckoned the others across.
Meanwhile Mr. Caryll had gone up with considerable misgivings. The last
letter he had received from Sir Richard--that day at Stretton House--had
been to apprise him that his adoptive father was on the point of leaving
town but that he would be returned within the week. The business that
had taken him had been again concerned with Atterbury the obstinate.
Upon another vain endeavor to dissuade the bishop from a scheme his king
did not approve had Sir Richard journeyed to Rochester. He had had his
pains for nothing. Atterbury had kept him there, entertaining him,
and seeking in his turn to engulf the agent in the business that was
toward--business which was ultimately to suck down Atterbury and his
associates. Sir Richard, however, was very firm. And when at last he
left Rochester to return to town and his adoptive son, a coolness marked
the parting of those two adherents of the Stuart dynasty.
Returned to London--whence his absence had been marked with alarm by Mr.
Green--Sir Richard had sent a message to Mr. Caryll, and the latter made
haste to answer it in person.
His adoptive father received him with open arms, and such a joy in his
face, such a light in his old eyes as should have gladdened his visitor,
yet only served sadden him the more. He sighed as Sir Richard thrust him
back that he might look at him.
“Ye're pale, boy,” he said, “and ye look thinner.” And with that he fell
to reviling the deed that was the cause of this, Rotherby and the whole
brood of Ostermore.
“Let be,” said Mr. Caryll, as he dropped into a chair. “Rotherby is
undergoing his punishment. The town looks on him as a cut-throat who has
narrowly escaped the gallows. I marvel that he tarries here. An I were
he, I think I'd travel for a year or two.”
“What weakness made you spare him when ye had him at the point of your
sword?”
“That which made me regret that I had him there; the reflection that he
is my brother.”
Sir Richard looked at him in some surprise. “I thought you of sterner
stuff, Justin,” he said presently, and sighed, passing a long white hand
across his bony brow. “I thought I had reared you to a finer strength.
But there! What of Ostermore himself?”
“What of him?”
“Have you not talked again with him of the matter of going over to King
James?”
“To what end, since the chance is lost? His betrayal now would involve
the betrayal of Atterbury and the others--for he has been in touch with
them.”
“Has he though? The bishop said naught of this.”
“I have it from my lord himself--and I know the man. Were he taken
they'd wring out of him whatever happened to be in him. He has no
discretion. Indeed, he's but a clod, too stupid even to be aware of his
own stupidity.”
“Then what is to be done?” inquired Sir Richard, frowning.
“We'd best get home to France again.”
“And leave matters thus?” He considered a moment, and shook his head,
smiling bitterly. “Could that content you, Justin? Could you go as you
have come--taking no more than you brought; leaving that man as you
found him? Could you?”
Mr. Caryll looked at the baronet, and wondered for a moment whether he
should persevere in the rule of his life and deal quite frankly with
him, telling him precisely what he felt. Then he realized that he would
not be understood. He could not combat the fanaticism that was Sir
Richard's in this matter. If he told him the truth; how he loathed
the task; how he rejoiced that circumstances had now put it beyond
his reach--all he would achieve would be to wound Sir Richard in his
tenderest place and to no purpose.
“It is not a matter of what I would,” he answered slowly, wearily
almost. “It is a matter of what I must. Here in England is no more to
be done. Moreover, there's danger for you in lingering, or I'm much
mistaken else.”
“Danger of what?” asked Sir Richard, with indifference.
“You are being spied upon.”
“Pho! I am accustomed to it. I have been spied upon all my life.”
“Like enough. But this time the spies are messengers from the secretary
of state. I caught a glimpse of them lurking about your doorway--three
or four at least--and as I entered I all but fell over a Mr. Green--a
most pertinacious gentleman with whom I have already some acquaintance.
He is the very man who searched me at Maidstone; he has kept his eye
upon me ever since, which has not troubled me. But that he should keep
an eye on you means that your identity is suspected, and if that be
so--well, the sooner we are out of England the better for your health.”
Sir Richard shook his head calmly. The fine-featured, lean old face
showed no sign of uneasiness. “A fig for all that!” said he. “I go not
thus--empty-handed as I came. After all these years of waiting.”
A knock fell upon the door, and Sir Richard's man entered. His face was
white, his eyes startled.
“Sir Richard,” he announced, his voice lowered portentously, “there are
some men here who insist upon seeing you.”
Mr. Caryll wheeled in his chair. “Surely they did not ask for him by
name?” he inquired in the same low key employed by the valet.
The man nodded in silence. Mr. Caryll swore through his teeth. Sir
Richard rose.
“I am occupied at present,” he said in a calm voice. “I can receive
nobody. Desire to know their business. If it imports, bid them come
again to-morrow.”
“It is over-urgent for that, Sir Richard Everard,” came the soft voice
of Mr. Green, who thrust himself suddenly forward past the servant.
Other figures were seen moving behind him in the ante-room.
“Sir,” cried Sir Richard angrily. “This is a most insolent intrusion.
Bentley, show this fellow the door.”
Bentley set a hand on Mr. Green's shoulder. Mr. Green nimbly twisted
out of it, and produced a paper. “I have here a warrant for your
apprehension, Sir Richard, from my Lord Carteret, the secretary of
state.”
Mr. Caryll advanced menacingly upon the tipstaff. Mr. Green stepped
back, and fell into a defensive attitude, balancing a short but
formidable-looking life-preserver.
“Keep your distance, sir, or 'twill be the worse for you,” he
threatened. “Hi!” he called. “Jerry! Beattie!”
Jerry, Beattie, and two other ruffians crowded to the doorway, but
advanced little beyond the threshold. Mr. Caryll turned to Sir Richard.
But Mr. Green was the first to speak.
“Sir Richard,” said he, “you'll see that we are but instruments of the
law. It grieves me profoundly to have you for our object. But ye'll
see that 'tis no affair of ours, who have but to do the duty that we're
ordered. Ye'll not give these poor fellows trouble, I trust. Ye'll
surrender quietly.”
Sir Richard's answer was to pull open a drawer in the writing-table, by
which he was standing, and whip out a pistol.
What exactly he may have intended, he was never allowed to announce. An
explosion shook the room, coming from the doorway, upon which Mr. Caryll
had turned his shoulder; there was a spurt of flame, and Sir Richard
collapsed forward onto the table, and slithered thence to the ground.
Jerry, taking fright at the sight of the pistol Sir Richard had
produced, had forestalled what he supposed to be the baronet's
intentions by firing instantly upon him, with this disastrous result.
Confusion ensued. Mr. Caryll, with no more thought for the tipstaves
than he had for the smoke in his eyes or the stench of powder in his
nostrils, sped to Sir Richard. In a passion of grief and anxiety, he
raised his adoptive father, aided by Bentley, what time Mr. Green was
abusing Jerry, and Jerry was urging in exculpation how he had acted
purely in Mr. Green's interest, fearing that Sir Richard might have been
on the point of shooting him.
The spy went forward to Mr. Caryll. “I am most profoundly sorry--” he
began.
“Take your sorrow to hell,” snarled Mr. Caryll, his face livid, his eyes
blazing uncannily. “I believe ye've murdered him.”
“Ecod! the fool shall smart for't if Sir Richard dies,” grumbled Mr.
Green.
“What's that to me? You may hang the muckworm, and what shall that
profit any one? Will it restore me Sir Richard's life? Send one of your
ruffians for a doctor, man. And bid him hasten.”
Mr. Green obeyed with alacrity. Apart from his regrets at this happening
for its own sake, it would suit his interests not at all that Sir
Richard should perish thus. Meanwhile, with the help of the valet, who
was blubbering like a child--for he had been with Sir Richard for over
ten years, and was attached to him as a dog to its master--they opened
the wounded man's sodden waistcoat and shirt, and reached the hurt,
which was on the right side of the breast.
Between them they lifted him up gently. Mr. Green would have lent a
hand, but a snarl from Mr. Caryll drove him back in sheer terror, and
alone those two bore the baronet into the next room and laid him on
his bed. Here they did the little that they could; propping him up
and stemming the bleeding, what time they waited through what seemed
a century for the doctor's coming, Mr. Caryll mad--stark mad for the
time--with grief and rage.
The physician arrived at last--a small, bird-like man under a great
gray periwig, with pointed features and little eyes that beamed brightly
behind horn-rimmed spectacles.
In the ante-room he was met by Mr. Green, who in in a few words told
him what had happened. Then the doctor entered the bedchamber alone, and
deposing hat and cane, went forward to make his examination.
Mr. Caryll and Bentley stood aside to give place to him. He stooped,
felt the pulse, examined the lips of the wound, estimating the locality
and direction of the bullet, and his mouth made a clucking sound as of
deprecation.
“Very deplorable, very deplorable!” he muttered. “So hale a man, too,
despite his years. Very deplorable!” He looked up. “A Jacobite, ye say
he is, sir?”
“Will he live?” inquired Mr. Caryll shortly, by way of recalling the man
of medicine to the fact that politics was not the business on which he
had been summoned.
The doctor pursed his lips, and looked at Mr. Caryll over the top of his
spectacles. “He will live--”
“Thank God!” breathed Mr. Caryll.
“--perhaps an hour,” the doctor concluded, and never knew how near was
Mr. Caryll to striking him. He turned again to his patient, producing a
probe. “Very deplorable!” Mr. Caryll heard him muttering, parrot-like.
A pause ensued, and a silence broken only by occasional cluckings from
the little doctor, and Mr. Caryll stood by, a prey to an anguish more
poignant than he had ever known. At last there was a groan from the
wounded man. Mr. Caryll started forward.
Sir Richard's eyes were open, and he was looking about him at the
doctor, the valet, and, lastly, at his adopted son. He smiled faintly
at the latter. Then the doctor touched Mr. Caryll's sleeve, and drew him
aside.
“I cannot reach the bullet,” he said. “But 'tis no matter for that.” He
shook his head solemnly. “The lung has been pierced. A little time now,
and--I can do nothing more.”
Mr. Caryll nodded in silence, his face drawn with pain. With a gesture
he dismissed the doctor, who went out with Bentley.
When the valet returned, Mr. Caryll was on his knees beside the bed, Sir
Richard's hand in his, and Sir Richard was speaking in a feeble, hoarse
voice--gasping and coughing at intervals.
“Don't--don't grieve, Justin,” he was saying. “I am an old man. My
time must have been very near. I--I am glad that it is thus. It is much
better than if they had taken me. They'd ha' shown me no mercy. 'Tis
swifter thus, and--and easier.”
Silently Justin wrung the hand he held.
“You'll miss me a little, Justin,” the old man resumed presently. “We
have been good friends, lad--good friends for thirty years.”
“Father!” Justin cried, a sob in his voice.
Sir Richard smiled. “I would I were your father in more than name,
Justin. Hast been a good son to me--no son could have been more than
you.”
Bentley drew nigh with a long glass containing a cordial the doctor had
advised. Sir Richard drank avidly, and sighed content when he returned
the glass. “How long yet, Justin?” he inquired.
“Not long, father,” was the gloomy answer.
“It is well. I am content. I am happy, Justin. Believe me, I am happy.
What has my life been? Dissipated in the pursuit of a phantom.” He
spoke musingly, critically calm, as one who already upon the brink of
dissolution takes already but an impersonal interest in the course he
has run in life.
Judging so, his judgment was clearer than it had yet been; it grew sane,
and was freed at last from the hackles of fanaticism; and there was
something that he saw in its true proportions. He sighed heavily.
“This is a judgment upon me,” he said presently. He turned his great
eyes full upon Justin, and their dance was infinitely wistful. “Do you
remember, Justin, that night at your lodging--that first night on which
we talked here in London of the thing you were come to do--the thing to
which I urged you? Do you recall how you upbraided me for having set you
a task that was unworthy and revolting?”
“I remember,” answered Justin, with an inward shudder, fearful of what
might follow.
“Oh, you were right, Justin; right, and I was entirely wrong--wickedly
wrong. I should have left vengeance to God. He is wreaking it.
Ostermore's whole life has been a punishment; his end will be a
punishment. I understand it now. We do no wrong in life, Justin, for
which in this same life payment is not exacted. Ostermore has been
paying. I should have been content with that. After all, he is your
father in the flesh, and it was not for you to raise your hand against
him. 'Tis what you have felt, and I am glad you should have felt it, for
it proves your worthiness. Can you forgive me?”
“Nay, nay, father! Speak not of forgiveness.”
“I have sore need of it.”
“Ah, but not from me; not from me! What is there I should forgive? There
is a debt between us I had hoped to repay some day when you were grown
truly old. I had looked to tend you in your old age, to be the comfort
of it, and the support that you were to my infancy.”
“It had been sweet, Justin,” sighed Sir Richard, smiling upon his
adopted son, and putting forth an unsteady hand to stroke the white,
drawn face. “It had been sweet. It is sweet to hear that you so
proposed.”
A shudder convulsed him. He sank back coughing, and there was froth
and blood on his lips. Reverently Justin wiped them, and signed for the
cordial to Bentley, who stood, numbed, in the background.
“It is the end,” said Sir Richard feebly. “God has been good to me
beyond my deserts, and this is a crowning mercy. Consider, Justin, it
might have been the gibbet and a crowd--instead of this snug bed, and
you and Bentley here--just two good friends.”
Bentley, losing all self-control at this mention of himself, sank
weeping to his knees. Sir Richard put out a hand, and touched his head.
“You will serve Mr. Caryll, Bentley. You'll find him a good master if
you are as good a servant to him as you have been to me.”
Then suddenly he made the quick movement of one who bethinks himself of
something. He waved Bentley away.
“There is a case in the drawer yonder,” he said, when the servant was
beyond earshot. “It contains papers that concern you--certificates of
your birth and of your mothers death. I brought them with me as proofs
of your identity, against the time when the hour of vengeance upon
Ostermore should strike. They twill serve no purpose now. Burn them.
They are best destroyed.”
Mr. Caryll nodded understanding, and on Sir Richard's part there
followed another fight for breath, another attack of coughing, during
which Bentley instinctively approached again.
When the paroxysm was past, Sir Richard turned once more to Justin, who
was holding him in his arms, upright, to ease his breathing. “Be good to
Bentley,” he murmured, his voice very faint and exhausted now. “You are
my heir, Justin. All that I have--I set all in order ere I left Paris.
It--it is growing dark. You have not snuffed the candles, Bentley. They
are burning very low.”
Suddenly he started forward, held as he was in Justin's arms. He
half-raised his arms, holding out his hands toward the foot of the bed.
His eyes dilated; the expression of his livid face grew first surprised,
then joyous--beatific. “Antoinette!” he cried in a loud voice. “Antoi--”
And thus, abruptly, but in great happiness, he passed.