CHAPTER IX.

MR. SHELDON ON THE WATCH.

Mr. Sheldon had occasion to see Captain Paget early the following day,

and questioned him closely about his _protégé's_ movements. He had

found Valentine a very useful tool in sundry intricate transactions of

the commercial kind, and he expected his tools to be ready for his

service. He was therefore considerably annoyed by Valentine's abrupt

departure.

"I think young Hawkehurst might have told me he was going out of town,"

he said. "What the deuce has taken him off in such a hurry?"

"He is going to see some mysterious old aunt at Dorking, from whom he

seems to expect money," the Captain answered carelessly. "I daresay I

can do what you want, Sheldon."

"Very likely. But how comes that young fellow to have an aunt at

Dorking? I fancy I've heard him say he was without a relative or a

friend in the world--always excepting yourself."

"The aunt may be another exception; some poor old soul that he's half

ashamed to own, I daresay--the inmate of an almshouse, perhaps. Val's

expectations may be limited to a few pounds hoarded in a china teapot."

"I should have thought Hawkehurst the last man in the world to care

about looking after that sort of thing. I could have given him plenty

to do if he had stopped in town. He and my brother George are

uncommonly intimate, by the bye," added Mr. Sheldon meditatively. It

was his habit to be rather distrustful of his brother and of all his

brother's acquaintance. "I suppose you can give me Hawkehurst's

address, in case I should want to write to him?" he said.

"He told me to send my letters to the post-office, Dorking," answered

the Captain, "which really looks as if the aunt's residence were

something in the way of an almshouse."

No more was said about Valentine's departure. Captain Paget concluded

his business with his patron and departed, leaving the stockbroker

leaning forward upon his desk in a thoughtful attitude and scribbling

purposeless figures upon his blotting-paper.

"There's something queer in this young man running away from town;

there's some mystification somewhere," he thought. "He has not gone to

Dorking, or he would scarcely have told Lotta that he was going a

hundred and fifty miles from town. He would be likely to be taken off

his guard by her questions, and would tell the truth. I wonder whether

Paget is in the secret. His manner seemed open enough; but that sort of

man can pretend anything. I've noticed that he and George have been

very confidential lately. I wonder whether there's any underhand game

on the cards between those two."

The game of which Mr. Sheldon thought as he leant over his

blotting-paper was a very different kind of game from that which really

occupied the attention of George and his friend.

"I'll go to his lodgings at once," he said to himself by-and-by, rising

and putting on his hat quickly in his eagerness to act upon his

resolution. "I'll see if he really has left town."

The stockbroker hailed the first empty hansom to be seen in the crowded

thoroughfare from which his shady court diverged. In less than an hour

he alighted before the door of the house in which Captain Paget lodged.

"Is Mr. Hawkehurst in?" he asked of the girl who admitted him.

"No, sir; he's just left to go into the country. He hasn't been gone

ten minutes. You might a'most have met him."

"Do you know where he has gone?"

"I heard say it was Dorking, sir."

"Humph! I should like to have seen him before he went. Did he take much

luggage?"

"One portmanter, sir."

"I suppose you didn't notice where he told the man to drive?"

"Yes, sir; it was Euston-square."

"Ah! Euston-square. I'll go there, then, on the chance of catching

him," said Mr. Sheldon.

He bestowed a donation upon the domestic, reentered his hansom, and

told the man to drive to Euston-square "like a shot."

"So! His destination is Dorking, and he goes from Euston-square!"

muttered Mr. Sheldon, in sombre meditation, as the hansom rattled and

rushed, and jingled and jolted, over the stones. "There's something

under the cards here."

Arrived at the great terminus, the stockbroker made his way to the down

platform. There was a lull in the day's traffic, and only a few

listless wretches lounging disconsolately here and there, with eyes

ever and anon lifted to the clock. Amongst these there was no Valentine

Hawkehurst.

Mr. Sheldon peered into all the waiting-rooms, and surveyed the

refreshment-counter; but there was still no sign of the man he sought.

He went back to the ticket-office; but here again all was desolate, the

shutters of the pigeon-holes hermetically closed, and no vestige of

Valentine Hawkehurst.

The stockbroker was disappointed, but not defeated. He returned to the

platform, looked about him for a few moments, and then addressed

himself to a porter of intelligent aspect.

"What trains have left here within the last half-hour?" he asked.

"Only one, sir; the 2.15 down, for Manchester."

"You didn't happen to notice a dark-eyed, dark-haired young man among

the passengers--second class?" asked Mr. Sheldon.

"No, sir. There are always a good many passengers by that train; I

haven't time to notice their faces."

The stockbroker asked no further questions. He was a man who did not

care to be obliged to others for information which he could obtain for

himself. He walked straight to a place where the time-tables were

pasted on the wall, and ran his finger along the figures till he came

to those he wanted.

The 2.15 train was a fast train, which stopped at only four

places--Rugby, Ullerton, Murford, and Manchester.

"I daresay he has gone to Manchester," thought Mr. Sheldon--"on some

racing business most likely, which he wants to keep dark from his

patron the Captain. What a fool I am to trouble myself about him, as if

he couldn't stir without meaning mischief to me! But I don't understand

the friendship between him and George. My brother George is not likely

to take up any man without some motive."

After these reflections Mr. Sheldon left the station and went back to

his office in another hansom, still extremely thoughtful and somewhat

disquieted.

"What does it matter to me where they go or what they do?" he asked

himself, impatient of some lurking weakness of his own; "what does it

matter to me whether those two are friendly or unfriendly? They can do

me no harm."

There happened to be a kind of lull in the stormy regions of the Stock

Exchange at the time of Valentine Hawkehurst's departure. Stagnation

had descended upon that commercial ocean, which is such a dismal waste

of waters for the professional speculator in its hour of calm. All the

Bulls in the zoological creation would have failed to elevate the

drooping stocks and shares and first-preference bonds and debentures,

which hung their feeble heads and declined day by day, the weaker of

them threatening to fade away and diminish to a vanishing-point, as it

seemed to some dejected holders who read the Stock-Exchange lists and

the money article in the Times with a persistent hopefulness which

struggled against the encroachments of despair. The Bears had been

busy, but were now idle--having burnt their fingers, commercial

gentlemen remarked. So Bulls and Bears alike hung listlessly about a

melancholy market, and conversed together dolefully in corners; and the

burden of all their lamentations was to the effect that there never had

been such times, and things never had been so bad, and it was a

question whether they would ever right themselves. Philip Sheldon

shared in the general depression. His face was gloomy, and his manner

for the time being lost something of its brisk, business-like

cheerfulness. The men who envied his better fortunes watched him

furtively when he showed himself amongst them, and wondered whether

Sheldon, of Jull, Girdlestone, and Sheldon, had been hit by these bad

times.

It was not entirely the pressure of that commercial stagnation which

weighed on the spirits of Philip Sheldon. The stockbroker was tormented

by private doubts and uncertainties which had nothing to do with the

money-market.

On the day after Valentine's journey to Ullerton, Mr. Sheldon the elder

presented himself at his brother's office in Gray's Inn. It was his

habit to throw waifs and strays of business in the attorney's way, and

to make use of him occasionally, though he had steadily refused to lend

or give him money; and it was his habit, as it were, to keep an eye

upon his younger brother--rather a jealous eye, which took note of all

George's doings, and kept suspicious watch upon all George's

associates. Going unannounced into his brother's office on this

particular morning, Philip Sheldon found him bending over an outspread

document--a great sheet of cartridge-paper covered with a net-work of

lines, dotted about with circles, and with little patches of writing in

red and black ink in the neatest possible penmanship. Mr. Sheldon the

elder, whose bright black eyes were as the eyes of the hawk, took note

of this paper, and had caught more than one stray word that stood out

in larger and bolder characters than its neighbours, before his brother

could fold it; for it is not an easy thing for a man to fold an

elephantine sheet of cartridge when he is nervously anxious to fold it

quickly, and is conscious that the eyes of an observant brother are

upon him.

Before George had mastered the folding of the elephantine sheet, Philip

had seen and taken note of two words. One of these was the word

INTESTATE, and the other the name HAYGARTH.

"You seem in a great hurry to get that document out of the way," said

Philip, as he seated himself in the client's chair.

"Well, to tell the truth, you rather startled me," answered George. "I

didn't know who it might be, you know; and I was expecting a fellow

who--" And then Mr. Sheldon the younger broke off abruptly, and asked,

with rather a suspicious air, "Why didn't that boy announce you?"

"Because I wouldn't let him. Why should he announce me? One would think

you were carrying on some political conspiracy, George, and had a

modern Thistlewood gang hidden in that cupboard yonder. How thick you

and Hawkehurst are, by the bye!"

In spite of the convenient "by the bye," this last remark of the

stockbroker's sounded rather irrelevant.

"I don't know about being 'thick.' Hawkehurst seems a very decent young

fellow, and he and I get on pretty well together. But I'm not as

'thick' with him as I was with Tom Halliday."

It was to be observed that Mr. Sheldon the younger was very apt to

refer to that friendship with the dead Yorkshireman in the course of

conversation with Philip.

"Hawkehurst has just left town," said Philip indifferently.

"Yes, I know he has."

"When did you hear it?"

"I saw him last night," answered George, taken off his guard by the

carelessness of his brother's manner.

"Did you?" cried Mr. Sheldon. "You make a mistake there. He left town

at two o'clock yesterday."

"How do you happen to know that?" asked George sharply.

"Because I happened to be at the station and saw him take his ticket.

There's something underhand in that journey of his by the way; for

Paget told me he was going to Dorking. I suppose he and Paget have some

game of their own on the cards. I was rather annoyed by the young man's

departure, as I had some work for him. However, I can find plenty of

fellows to do it as well as Hawkehurst could have done."

George was looking into an open drawer in his desk while his brother

said this. He had a habit of opening drawers and peering into them

absently during the progress of an interview, as if looking for some

particular paper, that was never to be found.

After this the conversation became less personal. The brothers talked a

little of the events of the day, the money-article in that morning's

Times, the probability or improbability of a change in the rate of

discount. But this conversation soon flagged, and Mr. Sheldon rose to

depart.

"I suppose that sheet of cartridge-paper which you had so much trouble

to fold is one of your genealogical tables," he said as he was going.

"You needn't try to keep things dark from me, George. I'm not likely to

steal a march upon you; my own business gives me more work than I can

do. But if you have really got a good thing at last, I shouldn't mind

going into it with you, and finding the money for the enterprise."

George Sheldon looked at his elder brother with a malicious flitter in

his eyes.

"On condition that you got the lion's share of the profits," he said.

"O yes; I know how generous you are, Phil. I have asked you for money

before today, and you have refused it."

Mr. Sheldon's face darkened just a little at this point. "Your manner

of asking it was offensive," he said.

"Well, I'm sorry for that," answered George politely. "However, you

refused me money when I did want it; so you needn't offer it me now I

don't want it. There are some people who think I have sacrificed my

life to a senseless theory; and perhaps you are one of them. But there

is one thing you may be certain of, Philip Sheldon: if ever I _do_ get

a good chance, I shall know how to keep it to myself."

There are men skilled in the concealment of their feelings on all

ordinary occasions, who will yet betray themselves in a crisis of

importance. George Sheldon would fain have kept his project hidden from

his elder brother; but in this one unguarded moment he forgot himself,

and allowed the sense of triumph to irradiate his face.

The stockbroker was a reader of men rather than books; and it is a

notable thing what superiority in all worldly wisdom is possessed by

men who eschew books. He was able to translate the meaning of George's

smile--a smile of mingled triumph and malice.

"The fellow _has_ got a good thing," he thought to himself, "and

Hawkehurst is in it. It must be a deuced good thing too, or he wouldn't

refuse my offer of money." Mr. Sheldon was the last man in the world to

reveal any mortification which he might experience from his brother's

conduct.

"Well, you're quite right to stick to your chance, George," he said,

with agreeable frankness. "You've waited long enough for it. As for me,

I've got my fingers in a good many pies just at present; so perhaps I

had better keep them out of yours, whatever plums there may be to be

picked out of it by an enterprising Jack Horner. Pick out your plums

for yourself, old fellow, and I'll be one of the first to call you a

good boy for your pains."

With this Mr. Sheldon slapped his brother's shoulder and departed.

"I think I've had the best of Master Phil for once," muttered George;

and then he thrust his sinewy hands into the depths of his

trousers-pocket, and indulged in a silent laugh, which displayed his

strong square white teeth to perfection. "I flatter myself I took a

rise out of Phil to-day," he muttered.

The sense of a malicious triumph over a social enemy is a very

delightful kind of thing,--so delightful that a man is apt to ignore

the possible cost of the enjoyment. It is like the pleasure of kicking

a man who is down--very delicious in its way; only one never knows how

soon the man may be up again.

George Sheldon, who was tolerably skilled in the science of human

nature, should have known that "taking a rise" out of his brother was

likely to be a rather costly operation. Philip was not the safest man

to deal with at any time; but he was most dangerous when he was "jolly."

BOOK THE FOURTH.

VALENTINE HAWKEHURST'S RECORD.

CHAPTER I.

THE OLDEST INHABITANT.

Black Swan Inn, Ullerton, October 2nd.

As the work I am now employed in is quite new to me, and I am to keep

Sheldon posted up in this business day by day, I have decided on

jotting down the results of my inquiries in a kind of diary. Instead of

writing my principal a formal letter, I shall send a copy of the

entries in the diary, revised and amended. This will insure exactitude;

and there is just the possibility that the record may be useful to me

hereafter. To remember all I hear and pick up about these departed

Haygarths without the aid of pen and ink would be out of the question;

so I mean to go in for unlimited pen and ink like a hero, not to say a

martyr.

And I am to do all this for twenty shillings a week, and the remote

possibility of three thousand pounds! O genius, genius! in all the

markets of this round world is there no better price for you than that?

How sweetly my Charlotte looked at me yesterday, when I told her I was

going away! If I could have dared to kneel at her feet under those

whispering elms,--unconscious of the children, unconscious of the

nursemaids,--if I could have dared to cry aloud to her, "I am a

penniless reprobate, but I love you; I am a disreputable pauper, but I

adore you! Have pity upon my love and forget my worthlessness!" If I

could have dared to carry her away from her prim suburban home and that

terrible black-whiskered stockbroking stepfather! But how is a man to

carry off the woman he adores when he has not the _de quoi_ for the

first stage of the journey?

With three thousand pounds in my pocket, I think I could dare anything.

Three thousand pounds! One year of splendour and happiness, and

then--the rest is chaos!

I have seen the oldest inhabitant. _Ay de mi_! Sheldon did not

exaggerate the prosiness of that intolerable man. I thought of the

luckless wedding guest in Coleridge's grim ballad as I sat listening to

this modern-ancient mariner. I had to remind myself of all the bright

things to be bought for three thousand pounds, every now and then, in

order to endure with fortitude, if not serenity. And now the day's work

is done, I begin to think it might as well have been left undone. How

am I to disintegrate the mass of prosiness which I have heard this day?

For three mortal hours did I listen to my ancient mariner; and how much

am I the wiser for my patience? Clever as you may fancy yourself, my

friend Hawkehurst, you don't seem to be the man for this business. You

have not the legal mind. Your genius is not the genius of

Scotland-yard, and I begin to fear that in your new line you may prove

yourself a failure.

However, where all is dark to me the astute Sheldon may see daylight,

so I'll observe the letter of my bond, and check off the residuum of

the ancient mariner's prosiness.

By dint of much pumping I obtained from my ancient, first, his father's

recollections of Matthew Haygarth a few years before his death, and

secondly, his grandfather's recollections of Matthew in his wild youth.

It seems that in those last years of his life Matthew was a most sober

and estimable citizen; attended the chapel of a nonconforming sect;

read the works of Baxter, and followed in the footsteps of his departed

father; was a kind husband to a woman who appears to me to have been

rather a pragmatical and icy personage, but who was esteemed a model of

womanly virtue, and who had money. Strange that these respectable and

wealthy citizens should be so eager to increase their store by alliance

with respectable and wealthy citizenesses.

In his later years Matthew Haygarth seems to have imitated his father

in many respects. Like his father, he executed more than one will; and,

like his father, he died intestate. The lawyer who drew up his will on

more than one occasion was a man called Brice--like his client,

eminently respectable.

After his marriage, our esteemed Matthew retired to a modest mansion in

the heart of the country, and some ten or fifteen miles from Ullerton.

The mansion in question is at a place called Dewsdale, and was the

property of the wife, and accrued to him through her.

This house and estate of some thirty acres was afterwards sold by the

rev. intestate, John Haygarth, shortly after his coming of age, and

within a year of his mother's death.

This much and no more could I extort from the oldest inhabitant

relative to the latter days of our Matthew.

Respecting his wild youth I obtained the following crumbs of

enlightenment. In the year 1741-2, being then one-and-twenty years of

age, he left Ullerton. It is my ancient mariner's belief that he ran

away from home, after some desperate quarrel with his father; and it is

also the belief of my ancient that he stayed away, without

intermission, for twenty years,--though on what precise fact that

belief is founded is much more than I can extract from the venerable

proser.

My ancient suggests--always in the haziest and most impracticable

manner--the possibility that Matthew in his wild days lodged somewhere

Clerkenwell way. He has a dim idea that he has heard his grandfather

speak of St. John's-gate, Clerkenwell, in connection with Matthew

Haygarth; but, as my ancient's grandfather seems to have been almost

imbecile at the time he made such remarks, _this_ is not much.

He has another idea--also very vague and impracticable--of having heard

his grandfather say something about an adventure of Matthew Haygarth's,

which was rather a heroic affair in its way--an adventure in which, in

some inexplicable manner, the wild Matthew is mixed up with a

dancing-girl, or player-girl, of Bartholomew Fair, and a nobleman.

This is the sum-total of the information to be extracted in three

mortal hours from my ancient. Altogether the day has been very

unsatisfactory; and I begin to think I'm not up to the sort of work

required of me.

_Oct. 3rd._ Another long interview with my ancient. I dropped

in directly after my breakfast, and about an hour after his

dinner. I sat up late last night, occupied till nearly ten in copying

my diary for Sheldon--which was just in time for the London post--and

lingering over my cigar till past midnight, thinking of Charlotte. So I

was late this morning.

My ancient received me graciously. I took him half a pound of mild

bird's-eye tobacco, on diplomatic grounds. He is evidently the sort of

person who would receive Mephistopheles graciously, if the fiend

presented him with tobacco.

I returned to the charge--diplomatically, of course; talked about

Ullerton and Ullerton people in general, insinuating occasional

questions about the Haygarths. I was rewarded by obtaining some little

information about Mrs. Matthew. That lady appears to have been a

devoted disciple of John Wesley, and was fonder of travelling to divers

towns and villages to hear the discourses of that preacher than her

husband approved. It seems they were wont to disagree upon this subject.

For some years before her marriage Mrs. Matthew was a member of a

Wesleyan confraternity, in those days newly established at Ullerton.

They held meetings and heard sermons in the warehouse of a wealthy

draper; and shortly before Mrs. Matthew's demise they built a chapel,

still extant, in a dingy little thoroughfare known as Waterhouse-lane.

On these points my ancient mariner is tolerably clear. They belong to

the period remembered by his father.

And now I believe him to be pumped dry. I gave him my benediction, and

left him smoking some of my tobacco, content with himself and with the

world--always excepting the authorities, or board, of the almshouses,

against whom he appears to nourish a grievance.

After leaving him, I walked about Ullerton for an hour or so before

returning to my humble hostelry. The streets of Ullerton are sealed

with the seal of desolation--the abomination of desolation reigns in

the market-place, where the grass flourishes greenly in the interstices

of the pavement. The place has known prosperity, and is prosperous no

longer; but although its chief trade has left it, there are still some

three or four factories in full swing. I heard clanging bells, and met

bare-headed women and uncouth-looking men hurrying to and fro. I went

to look at the Wesleyan chapel in Waterhouse-lane. It is a queer little

building, and bears some resemblance to a toy Noah's Ark in red brick.

Tall warehouses have arisen about it and hemmed it in, and the slim

chimney-shaft of a waterworks throws a black shadow aslant its

unpretending facade. I inquired the name of the present minister. He is

called Jonah Goodge, began life as a carpenter, and is accounted the

pink and pattern of piety. _Oct. 4th_. A letter from Sheldon awaited me

in the coffee-room letter-rack when I went downstairs to breakfast.

"MY DEAR HAWKEHURST,--Don't be disheartened if the work seems slow at

first. You'll soon get used to it.

"I should recommend you to adopt the following tactics:

"1st. Go to the house at Dewsdale, inhabited by M.H. and his wife. You

may have some difficulty in obtaining admission--and full liberty to

explore and examine--from the present servant or owner; but you are not

the man I take you for if you cannot overcome such a difficulty. I

enclose a few of my cards, which you can use at your discretion. They

show professional status. It would be as well to call yourself my

articled clerk, and to state that you are prosecuting an inquiry on the

behalf of a client of mine, who wishes to prove a certain event in the

past connected remotely with the H. family. If asked whether your

business relates to the property left by the rev. intestate, you must

reply decisively in the negative. But I must remind you that extreme

caution is required in every move you make. Wherever you can do your

work _without_ any reference to the name of Haygarth, avoid such

reference. Always remember that there may be other people on the same

scent.

"2nd. Examine the house in detail; look for old pictures, old

furniture, old needlework--if you are lucky enough to find the Haygarth

furniture was sold with the property, which I should think probable.

The rev. intestate must have been at the University when he made the

sale; and a young Cantab would in all likelihood pass over his

ancestral chairs and tables to the purchaser of his ancestral mansion,

as so much useless lumber. It is proverbial that walls have ears. I

hope the Dewsdale walls may have tongues, and favour you with a little

information.

"3rd. When you have done all that is to be done at Dewsdale, your next

work must be to hunt up any scion of the lawyer Brice, if such scion be

in existence at Ullerton. Or if not to be found in Ullerton, ascertain

where the descendant, or decendants, of Brice is, or are, to be found.

Brice, the lawyer, must have known the contents of those wills executed

and afterwards destroyed by Haygarth, and may have kept rough draughts,

copies, or memoranda of the same. This is most important.--Yours truly,

G.S."

This Sheldon is a wonderful man, and a cautious!--no Signature to his

letter.

I started for Dewsdale immediately after my breakfast. I have made

arrangements for boarding in this house, which is a second-rate

commercial inn. They have agreed to give me board and lodging for

twenty shillings a week--the full amount of my stipend: so all that I

gain by my researches in the affairs of the departed Matthew is food

and shelter. However, as this food and shelter is perhaps more honestly

obtained than those little dinners which I have so often eaten with the

great Horatio, I will try to fancy a sweetness in the tough steaks and

greasy legs of mutton. O sheep of Midlandshire! why cultivate such

ponderous calves, and why so incline to sinews? O cooks of

Midlandshire! why so superficial in the treatment of your roasts, so

impetuous and inconsiderate when you boil?

A railroad now penetrates the rural district in which the village of

Dewsdale is situated. There is a little station, something like a

wooden Dutch oven, within a mile of the village; and here I alighted.

The morning savoured of summer rather than autumn. The air was soft and

balmy, the sunshine steeped the landscape in warm light, and the red

and golden tints of the fading foliage took new splendour from that

yellow sunshine. A man whose life is spent in cities must be dull of

soul indeed if he does not feel a little touched by the beauty of

rustic scenery, when he finds himself suddenly in the heart of the

country. I had seen nothing so fair as those English fields and copses

since I left the pine-clad hills of Forêtdechêne. An idiotic boy

directed me across some fields to Dewsdale. He sent me a mile out of

the way; but I forgave and blest him, for I think the walk did me good.

I felt as if all manner of vicious vapours were being blown out of my

head as the soft wind lifted my hair.

And so to Dewsdale. Strolling leisurely through those quiet meadows, I

fell to thinking of many things that seldom came into my mind in

London. I thought of my dead mother--a poor gentle creature--too frail

to carry heroically the burden laid upon her, and so a little soured by

chronic debt and difficulty. I have reason to remember her tenderly; we

shared so much misery together. I believe my father married her in the

Rules of the Bench; and if I am not sure upon this point, I know for a

certainty that I was born within those mystic boundaries.

And then my mind wandered to those nomadic adventures in which poor

Diana Paget and I were so much together. I think we were a little fond

of each other in those days; but in that matter I was at least prudent;

and now the transient fancy has faded, on Di's part as well as on mine.

If I could be as prudent where Charlotte H. is concerned!

But prudence and Charlotte's eyes cannot hold their own in the same

brain. Of two things, one, as our neighbours say: a man must cease to

be prudent, or he must forget those bewitching gray eyes.

I know she was sorry when she heard of my intended departure.

This is her birthday. She is twenty-one years of age to-day. I remember

the two girls talking of it, and Miss Halliday declaring herself "quite

old." My dear one, I drink your health in this poor tavern liquor, with

every tender wish and holy thought befitting your innocent girlhood!

CHAPTER II.

MATTHEW HAYGARTH'S RESTING-PLACE.

I found the house at Dewsdale without difficulty. It is a stiff,

square, red-brick dwelling-place, with long narrow windows, a high

narrow door, and carved canopy; a house which savours of the _Tatler_

and _Spectator_; a house in which the short-faced gentleman might have

spent his summer holidays after Sir Roger's death. It stands behind a

high iron gate, surmounted by a handsome coat of arms; and before it

there lies a pleasant patch of greensward, with a pond and a colony of

cackling geese, which craned their necks and screamed at me as I passed

them.

The place is the simplest and smallest of rural villages. There is a

public-house--the Seven Stars; a sprinkling of humble cottages; a

general shop, which is at once a shoemaker's, a grocer's, a linen

draper's, a stationer's, and a post office. These habitations, a gray

old church with a square tower, half hidden by the sombre foliage of

yews and cedars, and the house once inhabited by the Haygarths,

comprise the whole of the village. The Haygarthian household is now the

rectory. I ascertained this fact from the landlord of the Seven Stars,

at which house of entertainment I took a bottle of soda-water, in order

to _sonder le terrain_ before commencing business.

The present rector is an elderly widower with seven children; an easy

good-natured soul, who is more prone to bestow his money in charity

than to punctuality in the payment of his debts.

Having discovered thus much, I rang the bell at the iron gate and

boarded the Haygarthian mansion. The rector was at home, and received

me in a very untidy apartment, _par excellence_ a study. A boy in a

holland blouse was smearing his face with his inky fingers, and

wrestling with a problem in Euclid, while his father stood on a

step-ladder exploring a high shelf of dusty books.

The rector, whose name is Wendover, descended from the step-ladder and

shook the dust from his garments. He is a little withered old man, with

a manner so lively as to be on the verge of flightiness. I observed

that he wiped his dusty palms on the skirts of his coat, and argued

therefrom that he would be an easy person to deal with. I soon found

that my deduction was correct.

I presented Sheldon's card and stated my business, of course acting on

that worthy's advice. Could Mr. Wendover give me any information

relating to the Haygarth family?

Fortune favoured me throughout this Dewsdale expedition. The rector is

a simple garrulous old soul, to whom to talk is bliss. He has occupied

the house five-and-thirty years. He rents it of the lord of the manor,

who bought it from John Haygarth. Not a stick of furniture has been

removed since our friend Matthew's time; and the rev. intestate may

have wrestled with the mysteries of Euclid on the same old-fashioned

mahogany table at which I saw the boy in brown holland.

Mr. Wendover left his books and manuscripts scattered on the floor of

the study, and conducted me to a cool shady drawing-room, very shabbily

furnished with the spindle-legged chairs and tables of the last

century. Here he begged me to be seated, and here we were ever and anon

interrupted by intruding juveniles, the banging of doors, and the

shrill clamour of young voices in the hall and garden.

I brought all the diplomacy of which I am master to bear in my long

interview with the rector; and the following is a transcript of our

conversation, after a good deal of polite skirmishing:--

_Myself_. You see, my dear sir, the business I am concerned in is

remotely connected with these Haygarths. Any information you will

kindly afford me, however apparently trivial, may be of service in the

affair I am prosecuting.

_The Rector._ To be sure, to be sure! But, you see, though I've heard a

good deal of the Haygarths, it is all gossip--the merest gossip. People

are so fond of gossip, you know--especially country people: I have no

doubt you have remarked that. Yes, I have heard a great deal about

Matthew Haygarth. My late clerk and sexton,--a very remarkable man,

ninety-one when he died, and able to perform his duties very creditably

within a year of his death--very creditably; but the hard winter of '56

took him off, poor fellow, and now I have a young man. Old Andrew

Hone--that was my late clerk's name--was employed in this house when a

lad, and was very fond of talking about Matthew Haygarth and his wife.

She was a rich woman, you know, a very rich woman--the daughter of a

brewer at Ullerton; and this house belonged to her--inherited from her

father.

_Myself_. And did you gather from your clerk that Matthew Haygarth and

his wife lived happily together?

_The Rector_. Well, yes, yes: I never heard anything to the contrary.

They were not a young couple, you know. Rebecca Caulfield was forty

years of age, and Matthew Haygarth was fifty-three when he married; so,

you see, one could hardly call it a love-match. [_Abrupt inroad of

bouncing damsel, exclaiming "Pa!"_] Don't you see I'm engaged, Sophia

Louisa? Why are you not at your practice? [_Sudden retreat of bouncing

damsel, followed by the scrambling performance of scale of C major in

adjoining chamber, which performance abruptly ceases after five

minutes_.] You see Mrs. Haygarth was _not_ young, as I was about to

observe when my daughter interrupted us; and she was perhaps a little

more steadfast in her adherence to the newly arisen sect of Wesleyans

than was pleasing to her husband, although he consented to become a

member of that sect. But as their married life lasted only a year, they

had little time for domestic unhappiness, even supposing them not to be

adapted to each other.

_Myself_. Mrs Matthew Haygarth did not marry again?

_The Rector_. No; she devoted herself to the education of her son, and

lived and died in this house. The room which is now my study she

furnished with a small reading-desk and a couple of benches, now in my

nursery, and made it into a kind of chapel, in which the keeper of the

general shop--who was, I believe, considered a shining light amongst

the Wesleyan community--was in the habit of holding forth every Sunday

morning to such few members of that sect as were within reach of

Dewsdale. She died when her son was nineteen years of age, and was

buried in the family vault in the churchyard yonder. Her son's

adherence to the Church of England was a very great trouble to her.

[_Inroad of boy in holland, very dejected and inky of aspect, also

exclaiming "Pa!"_] No, John; not till that problem is worked out. Take

that cricket-bat back to the lobby, sir, and return to your studies.

[_Sulky withdrawal of boy._] You see what it is to have a large family,

Mr.--Sheldon. I beg pardon, Mr.------

_Myself_. Hawkehurst, clerk to Mr. Sheldon.

_The Rector_. To be sure. I have some thoughts of the Law for one of my

elder sons; the Church is terribly overcrowded. However, as I was on

the point of saying when my boy John disturbed us, though I have heard

a great deal of gossip about the Haygarths, I fear I can give you very

little substantial information. Their connection with Dewsdale lasted

little more than twenty years. Matthew Haygarth was married in Dewsdale

church, his son John was christened in Dewsdale church, and he himself

is buried in the churchyard. That is about as much positive information

as I can give you; and you will perhaps remark that the parish register

would afford you as much.

After questioning the good-natured old rector rather closely, and

obtaining little more than the above information, I asked permission

to see the house.

"Old furniture and old pictures are apt to be suggestive," I said; "and

perhaps while we are going over the house you may happen to recall some

further particulars relating to the Haygarth family."

Mr. Wendover assented. He was evidently anxious to oblige me, and

accepted my explanation of my business in perfect good faith. He

conducted me from room to room, waiting patiently while I scrutinised

the panelled walls and stared at the attenuated old furniture. I was

determined to observe George Sheldon's advice to the very letter,

though I had little hope of making any grand melodramatic discovery in

the way of documents hidden in old cabinets, or mouldering behind

sliding panels.

I asked the rector if he had ever found papers of any kind in forgotten

nooks and corners of the house or the furniture. His reply was a

decided negative. He had explored and investigated every inch of the

old dwelling-place, and had found nothing.

So much for Sheldon's idea.

Mr. Wendover led me from basement to garret, encountering bouncing

daughters and boys in brown holland wherever we went; and from basement

to garret I found that all was barren. In the whole of the house there

was but one object which arrested my attention, and the interest which

that one object aroused in my mind had no relation to the Haygarthian

fortune.

Over a high carved chimney-piece in one of the bedchambers there hung a

little row of miniatures--old-fashioned oval miniatures, pale and

faded--pictures of men and women with the powdered hair of the Georgian

period, and the flowing full-bottomed wigs familiar to St. James's and

Tunbridge-wells in the days of inoffensive Anne. There were in all

seven miniatures, six of which specimens of antique portraiture were

prim and starched and artificial of aspect. But the seventh was

different in form and style: it was the picture of a girlish face

looking out of a frame of loose unpowdered locks; a bright innocent

face, with gray eyes and marked black eyebrows, pouting lips a little

parted, and white teeth gleaming between lips of rosy red; such a face

as one might fancy the inspiration of an old poet. I took the miniature

gently from the little brass hook on which it hung, and stood for some

time looking at the bright frank face.

It was the picture of Charlotte Halliday. Yes; I suppose there is a

fatality in these things. It was one of those marvellous accidental

resemblances which every man has met with in the course of his life.

Here was this dead-and-gone beauty of the days of George the Second

smiling upon me with the eyes and lips of Philip Sheldon's stepdaughter!

Or was it only a delusion of my own? Was my mind so steeped in the

thought of that girl--was my heart so impressed by her beauty, that I

could not look upon a fair woman's face without conjuring up her

likeness in the pictured countenance? However this may be, I looked

long and tenderly at the face which seemed to me to resemble the woman

I love.

Of course I questioned the rector as to the original of this particular

miniature. He could tell me nothing about it, except that he thought it

was not one of the Caulfields or Haygarths. The man in the

full-bottomed Queen-Anne wig was Jeremiah Caulfield, brewer, father of

the pious Rebecca; the woman with the high powdered head was the pious

Rebecca herself; the man in the George-the-Second wig was Matthew

Haygarth. The other three were kindred of Rebecca's. But the

wild-haired damsel was some unknown creature, for whose presence Mr.

Wendover was unable to account.

I examined the frame of the miniature, and found that it opened at the

back. Behind the ivory on which the portrait was painted there was a

lock of dark hair incased in crystal; and on the inside of the case,

which was of some worthless metal gilded, there was scratched the name

"Molly."

How this Molly with the loose dark locks came to be admitted among the

prim, and pious Caulfields is certainly more than I can understand.

My exploration of the house having resulted only in this little

romantic accident of the likeness to Charlotte, I prepared to take my

departure, no wiser than when I had first crossed the threshold. The

rector very politely proposed to show me the church; and as I

considered that it would be well to take a copy of the Haygarthian

entries in the register, I availed myself of his offer. He despatched a

maid-servant to summon his clerk, in order that that functionary might

assist in the investigation of the registers. The girl departed on this

errand, while her master conducted me across his garden, in which there

is now a gate opening into the churchyard.

It is the most picturesque of burial-grounds, darkened by the shadow of

those solemn yews and spreading cedars. We walked very slowly between

the crumbling old tombstones, which have almost all grown one-sided

with time. Mr. Wendover led me through a little labyrinth of lowly

graves to a high and ponderous iron railing surrounding a square space,

in the midst of which there is a stately stone monument. In the railing

there is a gate, from which a flight of stone step leads down to the

door of a vault. It is altogether rather a pretentious affair, wherein

one sees the evidence of substantial wealth unelevated by artistic

grace or poetic grandeur.

This is the family vault of the Caulfields and Haygarths.

"I've brought you to look at this tomb," said the rector, resting his

hand upon the rusted railing, "because there is rather a romantic story

connected with it--a story that concerns Matthew Haygarth, by the bye.

I did not think of it just now, when we were talking of him; but it

flashed on my memory as we came through the garden. It is rather a

mysterious affair; and though it is not very likely to have any bearing

upon the object of your inquiry, I may as well tell you about it,--as a

leaf out of family history, you know, Mr. Hawkehurst, and as a new

proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction."

I assured the rector that I should be glad to hear anything he could

tell me.

"I must premise that I only tell the story as I got it from my old

clerk, and that it may therefore seem rather indistinct; but there is

an entry in the register yonder to show that it is not without

foundation. However, I will waste no more words in preamble, but give

you the story, which is simply this:"--

The rector seated himself on a dilapidated old tombstone, while I

leaned against the rails of the Haygarth vault, looking down upon him.

"Within a month or two of Matthew Haygarth's death a kind of melancholy

came over him," said the rector. "Whether he was unhappy with his wife,

or whether he felt his health declining, is more than I can say. You

must remember that my informant was but a lad at the time of which I

speak, and that when he talked to me about the subject sixty years

afterwards he was a very old man, and his impressions were therefore

more or less vague. But upon certain facts he was sufficiently

positive; and amongst the circumstances he remembered most vividly are

those of the story I am going to tell you.

"It seems that within a very few weeks of Matthew's death, his wife,

Rebecca Haygarth, started on an expedition to the north, in the company

of an uncle, to hear John Wesley preach on some very special occasion,

and to assist at a love-feast. She was gone more than a fortnight; and

during her absence Matthew Haygarth mounted his horse early one morning

and rode away from Dewsdale.

"His household consisted of three maids, a man, and the lad Andrew

Hone, afterwards my sexton. Before departing on his journey Mr.

Haygarth had said that he would not return till late the next evening,

and had requested that only the man (whose name I forget) should sit up

for him." He was punctiliously obeyed. The household, always of early

habits, retired at nine, the accustomed hour; and the man-servant

waited to receive his master, while the lad Andrew, who slept in the

stables, sat up to keep his fellow-servant company.

"At ten o'clock Mr. Haygarth came home, gave his horse into the charge

of the lad, took his candle from the man-servant, and walked straight

upstairs, as if going to bed. The man-servant locked the doors, took

his master the key, and then went to his own quarters. The boy remained

up to feed and groom the horse, which had the appearance of having

performed a hard day's work.

"He had nearly concluded this business when he was startled by the

slamming of the back door opening into the courtyard, in which were the

stables and outhouses. Apprehending thieves, the boy opened the door of

the stable and looked out, doubtless with considerable caution.

"It was broad moonlight, and he saw at a glance that the person who had

opened the door was one who had a right to open it. Matthew Haygarth

was crossing the courtyard as the lad peeped out. He wore a long black

cloak, and his head drooped upon his breast as if he had been in

dejection. The lad--being, I suppose, inquisitive, after the manner of

country lads--made no more ado, but left his unfinished work and crept

stealthily after his master, who came straight to this

churchyard,--indeed to this very spot on which we are now standing.

"On this spot the boy Andrew Hone became the secret witness of a

strange scene. He saw an open grave close against the rails yonder, and

he saw a little coffin lowered silently into that grave by the sexton

of that time and a strange man, who afterwards went away in a mourning

coach, which was in waiting at the gate, and in which doubtless the

stranger and the little coffin had come.

"Before the man departed he assisted to fill up the grave; and when it

was filled Matthew Haygarth gave money to both the men--gold it seemed

to the lad Andrew, and several pieces to each person. The two men then

departed, but Mr. Haygarth still lingered.

"As soon as he fancied himself alone, he knelt down beside the little

grave, covered his face with his hands, and either wept or prayed,

Andrew Hone could not tell which. If he wept, he wept silently.

"From that night, my sexton said, Matthew Haygarth faded visibly.

Mistress Rebecca came home from her love-feast, and nursed and tended

her husband with considerable kindness, though, so far as I can make

out, she was at the best a stern woman. He died three weeks after the

event which I have described, and was buried in that vault close to the

little grave." I thanked Mr. Wendover for his succinct narrative, and

apologised for the trouble I had occasioned him.

"Do not speak of the trouble," he answered kindly; "I am used to

telling that story. I have heard it a great many times from poor old

Andrew, and I have told it a great many times."

"The story has rather a legendary tone," I said; "I should have

scarcely thought such a thing possible."

The rector shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture.

"In our own day," he replied, "such an occurrence would be almost

impossible; but you must remember that we are talking of the last

century--a century in which, I regret to say, the clergy of the Church

of England were sadly lax in the performance of their duties. The

followers of Wesley and Whitefield could scarcely have multiplied as

they did if the flocks had not been cruelly neglected by their proper

shepherds. It was a period in which benefices were bestowed constantly

on men obviously unfitted for the holy office--men who were gamblers

and drunkards, patrons of cock-pits, and in many cases open and

shameless reprobates. In such an age almost anything was possible; and

this midnight and unhallowed interment may very well have taken place

either with the consent or without the knowledge of the incumbent, who,

I am told, bore no high character for piety or morality."

"And you say there is an entry in the register?"

"Yes, a careless scrawl, dated Sept. 19th, 1774, recording the burial

of one Matthew Haygarth, aged four years, removed from the

burial-ground attached to the parish church of Spotswold."

"Then it was a reinterment?"

"Evidently."

"And is Spotswold in this county?"

"Yes; it is a very small village, about fifty miles from here."

"And Matthew Haygarth died very soon after this event?"

"He did. He died very suddenly--with an awful suddenness--and died

intestate. His widow was left the possessor of great wealth, which

increased in the hands of her son John Haygarth, a very prudent and

worthy gentleman, and a credit to the Church of which he was a member.

He only died very lately, I believe, and must therefore have attained a

great age."

It is quite evident that Mr. Wendover had not seen the advertisement in

the Times, and was ignorant of the fact that the accumulated wealth of

Haygarths and Caulfields is now waiting a claimant.

I asked permission to see the register containing the entry of the

mysterious interment; and after the administration of a shilling to the

clerk--a shilling at Dewsdale being equal to half a crown in

London--the vestry cupboard was opened by that functionary, and the

book I required was produced from a goodly pile of such mouldy brown

leather-bound volumes.

The following is a copy of the entry:--

"On Thursday last past, being ye 19 Sep'tr, A.D. 1774, was interr'd ye

bodie off onne Matthewe Haygarthe, ag'd foure yeres, remoov'd fromm ye

Churcheyarde off St. Marie, under ye hil, Spotswolde, in this Co. Pade

forr so doeing, sevven shill."

After having inspected the register, I asked many further questions,

but without eliciting much further information. So I expressed my

thanks for the courtesy that had been shown me, and took my departure,

not wishing to press the matter so closely as to render myself a

nuisance to the worthy Wendover, and bearing in mind that it would be

open to me to return at any future time.

And now I ask myself--and I ask the astute Sheldon--what is the meaning

of this mysterious burial, and is it likely to have any bearing on the

object of our search? These are questions for the consideration of the

astute S.

I spent my evening in jotting down the events of the day, in the above

free-and-easy fashion for my own guidance, and in a more precise and

business-like style for my employer. I posted my letter before ten

o'clock, the hour at which the London mail is made up, and then smoked

my cigar in the empty streets, overshadowed by gaunt square stacks of

building and tall black chimneys; and so back to my inn, where I took a

glass of ale and another cigar, and then to bed, as the worthy Pepys

might have concluded.

CHAPTER III.

MR. GOODGE'S WISDOM.

_Oct. 5th_. My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed

Molly, with her wild loose hair. She must needs have been a sweet

creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women

with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand. That she

should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play _rouge-et-noir_ at

Forêtdechêne in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat,

in my dreams last night--that I should meet her afterwards in the

little stucco temple on the Belgian hills, and stab her to the heart,

whereon she changed into Charlotte Halliday--is only in the nature of

dreams, and therefore no subject for wonder.

On referring to Sheldon's letter I found that the next people to be

looked up were descendants of Brice the lawyer; so I devoted my

breakfast-hour to the cultivation of an intimacy with the oldest of the

waiters--a very antique specimen of his brotherhood, with a white

stubble upon his chin and a tendency to confusion of mind in the matter

of forks and spoons.

"Do you know, or have you ever known, an attorney of the name of Brice

in this town?" I asked him.

He rubbed the white stubble contemplatively with his hand, and then

gave his poor old head a dejected shake. I felt at once that I should

get very little good out of _him_.

"No," he murmured despondently, "not that I can call to mind."

I should like to know what he _could_ call to mind, piteous old

meanderer!

"And yet you belong to Ullerton, I suppose?"

"Yes; and have belonged to it these seventy-five years, man and boy;"

whereby, no doubt, the dreary confusion of the unhappy being's mind.

Figurez donc, mon cher. Qui-que-ce-soit, fifty-five years or so of

commercial breakfasts and dinners in such a place as Ullerton!

Five-and-fifty years of steaks and chops; five-and-fifty years of ham

and eggs, indifferently buttered toasts, and perennial sixes of

brandy-and-water! After rambling to and fro with spoons and forks, and

while in progress of clearing my table, and dropping the different

items of my breakfast equipage, the poor soddened faded face of this

dreary wanderer became suddenly illumined with a faint glimmer that was

almost the light of reason.

"There were a Brice in Ullerton when I were a lad; I've heard father

tell on him," he murmured slowly.

"An attorney?"

"Yes. He were a rare wild one, he were! It was when the Prince of Wales

were Regent for his poor old mad father, as the saying is, and folks

was wilder like in general in those times, and wore spencers--lawyer

Brice wore a plum-coloured one."

Imagine then again, mon cher, an attorney in a plum-coloured spencer!

Who, in these enlightened days, would trust his business to such a

practitioner? I perked up considerably, believing that my aged imbecile

was going to be of real service to me.

"Yes, he were a rare wild one, he were," said my ancient friend with

excitement. "I can remember him as well as if it was yesterday, at

Tiverford races--there was races at Tiverford in those days, and

gentlemen jocks. Lawyer Brice rode his roan mare--Queen Charlotte they

called her. But after that he went wrong, folks said--speckilated with

some money, you see, that he didn't ought to have touched--and went to

America, and died."

"Died in America, did he? Why the deuce couldn't he die in Ullerton?

I should fancy it was a pleasanter place to die in than it is to

live in. And how about his sons?"

"Lawyer Brice's sons?"

"Yes, of course."

My imbecile's lips expanded into a broad grin.

"Lawyer Brice never had no sons," he exclaimed, with a tone which

seemed to express a contemptuous pity for my ignorance; "he never

married."

"Well, well; his brothers. He had brothers, I suppose?"

"Not as _I_ ever heard tell on," answered my imbecile, relapsing into

hopeless inanity.

It was clear that no further help was to be obtained from him. I went

to the landlord--a brisk business-like individual of Transatlantic

goaheadism. From him I learned that there were no Brices in Ullerton,

and never had been within the thirty years of his experience in that

town. He gave me an Ullerton directory in confirmation of that fact--a

neat little shilling volume, which I begged leave to keep for a quarter

of an hour before returning it.

Brice was evidently a failure. I turned to the letter G, and looked up

the name of Goodge. Goodge, Jonah, minister of Beulah Chapel, resided

at No. 7, Waterhouse-lane--the lane in which I had seen the chapel.

I determined upon waiting on the worthy Goodge. He may be able to

enlighten me as to the name of the pastor who preached to the Wesleyan

flock in the time of Rebecca Caulfield; and from the descendants of

such pastor I may glean some straws and shreds of information. The

pious Rebecca would have been likely to confide much to her spiritual

director. The early Wesleyans had all the exaltation of the Quietists,

and something of the lunatic fervour of the Convulsionists, who kicked

and screamed themselves into epilepsy under the influence of the

Unigenitus Bull. The pious Rebecca was no doubt an enthusiast.

* * * * *

I found No. 7, Waterhouse-lane. It is a neat little six-roomed house,

with preternaturally green palings enclosing about sixty square feet of

bright yellow gravel, adorned by a row of whitewashed shells. Some

scarlet geraniums bloomed in pots of still more vivid scarlet; and the

sight of those bright red blossoms recalled Philip Sheldon's garden at

Bayswater, and that sweet girl by whose side I have walked its trim

pathways.

But business is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte's

hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three

thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge's knocker, and

presently found myself in conversation with that gentleman.

Whether unordained piety has a natural tendency to become greasy of

aspect, and whether, among the many miracles vouchsafed to the amiable

and really great Wesley, he received for his disciples of all time to

come the gift of a miraculous straightness and lankiness of hair, I

know not; but I do know that every Methodist parson I have had the

honour to know has been of one pattern, and that Mr. Goodge is no

exception to the rule.

I am bound to record that I found him a very civil person, quite

willing to afford me any help in his power, and far more practical and

business-like than the rector of Dewsdale.

It seems that the gift of tongues descended on the Goodges during the

lifetime of John Wesley himself, and during the earlier part of that

teacher's career. It was a Goodge who preached in the draper's

warehouse, and it was the edifying discourse of a Goodge which

developed the piety of Miss Rebecca Caulfield, afterwards Mrs. Haygarth.

"That Goodge was my great-uncle," said the courteous Jonah, "and there

was no one in Ullerton better acquainted with Rebecca Caulfield. I've

heard my grandmother talk of her many a time. She used to send him

poultry and garden-stuff from her house at Dewsdale, and at his

instigation she contributed handsomely to the erection of the chapel in

which it is my privilege to preach."

I felt that I had struck upon a vein of gold. Here was a sharp-witted,

middle-aged man--not an ancient mariner, or a meandering imbecile--who

could remember the talk of a grandmother who had known Matthew

Haygarth's wife. And this visit to Mr. Goodge was my own idea, not

prompted by the far-seeing Sheldon. I felt myself advancing in the

insidious arts of a private inquirer.

"I am employed in the prosecution of a business which has a _remote_

relation to the Haygarth family history," I said; "and if you can

afford me any information on that subject I should be extremely

obliged."

I emphasised the adjective "remote," and felt myself, in my humble way,

a Talleyrand.

"What kind of information, do you require?" asked Mr. Goodge

thoughtfully.

"Any information respecting Matthew Haygarth or his wife."

Mr. Goodge became profoundly meditative after this.

"I am not given to act unadvisedly," he began--and I felt that I was in

for a little professional discourse: "the creatures of impulse are the

children of Satan, the babes of Lucifer, the infants of Beelzebub. I

take counsel in the silence of the night, and wait the whispers of

wisdom in the waking hours of darkness. You must allow me time to

ponder this business in my heart and to be still."

I told Mr. Goodge that I would willingly await his own time for

affording me any information in his power to give.

"That is pleasant," said the pastor blandly: "the worldly are apt to

rush blindly through life, as the roaring lion rushes through the

forest. I am not one of those rushing worldlings. I presume, by the

way, that such information as I may afford is likely to become a source

of pecuniary profit to your employer?"

I began to see that my friend Goodge and the rector of Dewsdale were

very different kind of people, and that I must play my cards

accordingly.

"That will depend upon the nature of your information," I replied

diplomatically; "it may be worth something to us, or it may be

worthless."

"And in case it should be worth something?"

"In that case my employer would be glad to remunerate the person from

whom he obtained it."

Mr. Goodge again became meditative.

"It was the habit of the sainted Wesley to take counsel from the

Scriptures," he said presently: "if you will call again tomorrow, young

man, I shall have taken counsel, and may be able to entreat with you."

I did not much relish being addressed as "young man," even by such a

shining light as the Rev. Jonah Goodge. But as I wanted the Rev.

Jonah's aid, I submitted with a tolerable grace to his patriarchal

familiarity, and bade him good morning, after promising to call again

on the following day. I returned to my inn and wrote to Sheldon in time

for the afternoon mail, recounting my interview with Mr. Goodge, and

asking how far I should be authorised to remunerate that gentleman, or

to pledge myself to remunerate him for such information as he might

have to dispose of.

_Oct. 6th_. A letter from Sheldon.

"DEAR HAWKEHURST,--There may be something very important behind that

mysterious burial at Dewsdale. Go without delay to Spotswold; examine

registers, tombstones, &c; hunt up oldest inhabitant or inhabitants,

from whom you may be able to discover whether any Haygarth or Haygarths

ever lived there, and all that is known respecting such Haygarth or

Haygarths. You have got a clue to _something_. Follow it up till it

breaks off short, as such clues often do, or till you find it is only

leading you on a wild-goose chase. The Dewsdale business is worth

investigation.

"Mem. How about descendants of lawyer Brice?--Yours truly, G.S.

"G.'s Inn, Oct. 5th."

Before starting for Spotswold it was necessary for me to see Mr.

Goodge. I found that gentleman in a pious and yet business-like frame

of mind. He had taken counsel from the Scriptures, like the founder of

his sect; but I fancy with rather less spiritual aspirations.

"The text upon which the lot fell was the 12th verse of the 9th chapter

in the Book of Proverbs, 'If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for

thyself,'" he said solemnly; "whereby I perceive that I shall not be

justified in parting with that which you seek without fitting

recompense. I ask you, therefore, young man, what are you prepared to

give?"

The Rev. Jonah's tone could scarcely have been more lofty, or his

manner more patronising, if he had been Saul and I the humble David;

but a man who is trying to earn three thousand pounds must put up with

a great deal. Finding that the minister was prepared to play the

huckster, I employed no further ceremony.

"The price must of course depend on the quality of the article you have

to sell," I said; "I must know that before I can propose terms."

"Suppose my information took the form of letters?"

"Letters from whom--to whom?"

"From Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth to my great-uncle, Samson Goodge."

"How many of such letters have you to sell?"

I put it very plainly; but the Rev. Jonah's susceptibilities were not

of the keenest order. He did not wince.

"Say forty odd letters."

I pricked up my ears; and it needed all my diplomacy to enable me to

conceal my sense of triumph. Forty odd letters! There must be an

enormous amount of information in forty odd letters; unless the woman

wrote the direst twaddle ever penned by a feminine correspondent.

"Over what period do the dates of these letters extend?" I asked.

"Over about seven years; from 1769 to 1776."

Four years prior to the marriage with our friend Matthew; three years

after the marriage.

"Are they tolerably long letters, or mere scrawls?"

"They were written in a period when nobody wrote short letters,"

answered Mr. Goodge sententiously,--"the period of Bath post and dear

postage. The greater number of the epistles cover three sides of a

sheet of letter-paper; and Mrs. Rebecca's caligraphy was small and

neat."

"Good!" I exclaimed. "I suppose it is no use my asking you to let me

see one of these letters before striking a bargain--eh, Mr. Goodge?"

"Well, I think not," answered the oily old hypocrite. "I have taken

counsel, and I will abide by the light that has been shown me. 'If thou

be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;' such are the words of

inspiration. No, I think not."

"And what do you ask for the forty odd letters?"

"Twenty pounds."

"A stiff sum, Mr. Goodge, for forty sheets of old letter-paper."

"But if they were not likely to be valuable, you would scarcely happen

to want them," answered the minister. "I have taken counsel, young man."

"And those are your lowest terms?"

"I cannot accept sixpence less. It is not in me to go from my word. As

Jacob served Laban seven years, and again another seven years, having

promised, so do I abide by my bond. Having said twenty pounds, young

man, Heaven forbid that I should take so much as twenty pence less than

those twenty pounds!"

The solemn unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond

description. The pretence of conscientious feeling which he contrived

to infuse into his sordid bargain-driving might have done honour to

Molière's Tartuffe. Seeing that he was determined to stick to his

terms, I departed. I telegraphed to Sheldon for instructions as to

whether I was to give Goodge the money he asked, and then went back to

my inn, where I devoted myself for the next ten minutes to the study of

a railway time-table, with a view to finding the best route to

Spotswold.

After a close perusal of bewildering strings of proper names and

dazzling columns of figures, I found a place called Black Harbour, "for

Wisborough, Spotswold, and Chilton." A train left Ullerton for Black

Harbour at six o'clock in the afternoon, and was due at the latter

place at 8.40.

This gave me an interval of some hours, in which I could do nothing,

unless I received a telegram from Sheldon. The chance of a reply from

him kept me a prisoner in the coffee-room of the Swan Inn, where I read

almost every line in the local and London newspapers pending the

arrival of the despatch, which came at last.

"Tell Goodge he shall have the sum asked, and get the letters at once.

Money by to-night's post."

This was Sheldon's message; sharp and short, and within the eighteen

penny limit. Acting upon this telegram, I returned to the abode of Mr.

Goodge, told him his terms were to be complied with, showed him the

telegram, at his request, and asked for the letters.

I ought to have known my reverend friend better than to imagine he

would part with those ancient documents except for money upon the

counter.

He smiled a smile which might have illuminated the visage of

Machiavelli.

"The letters have kept a long time, young man," he said, after having

studied the telegram as closely as if it had been written in Punic;

"and to you, they are in nowise the worse for keeping: so they will

keep yet longer. 'If thou be wise, then shalt be wise for thyself.' You

can come for the letters tomorrow, and bring the money with you. Say at

11 A.M."

I put on my hat and bade my friend good day. I have often been tempted

to throw things at people, and have withheld my hand; but I never felt

Satan so strong upon me as at that moment, and I very much fear that if

I had had anything in the way of a kitchen-poker or a carving-knife

about me, I should have flung that missile at the patriarchal head of

my saintly Jonah. As it was, I bade him good day and returned to the

Swan, where I took a hurried repast and started for the station,

carrying a light carpet-bag with me, as I was not likely to return till

the following night, at the earliest.

I arrived at the station ten minutes before the starting of the train,

and had to endure ten minutes of that weariness called waiting. I

exhausted the interest of all the advertisements on the station walls;

found out how I could have my furniture removed with the utmost

convenience--supposing myself to possess furniture; discovered where I

ought to buy a dinner-service, and the most agreeable kind of blind to

screen my windows in sunny weather. I was still lingering over the

description of this new invention in blinds, when a great bell set up a

sudden clanging, and the down train from London came thundering into

the station.

This was also the train for Black Harbour. There were a good many

passengers going northwards, a good many alighting at Ullerton; and in

the hurry and confusion I had some difficulty in finding a place in a

second-class carriage, the passengers therein blocking up the windows

with that unamiable exclusiveness peculiar to railway travellers. I

found a place at last, however; but in hurrying from carriage to

carriage I was startled by an occurrence which I have since pondered

very seriously.

I ran bolt against my respected friend and patron Horatio Paget.

We had only time to recognise each other with exclamations of mutual

surprise when the clanging bell rang again, and I was obliged to

scuffle into my seat. A moment's delay would have caused me to be left

behind. And to have remained behind would have been very awkward for

me; as the Captain would undoubtedly have questioned me as to my

business in Ullerton. Was I not supposed to be at Dorking, enjoying the

hospitality of an aged aunt?

It would have been unlucky to lose that train.

But what "makes" the gallant Captain in Ullerton? That is a question

which I deliberated as the train carried me towards Black Harbour.

Sheldon warned me of the necessity for secrecy, and I have been as

secret as the grave. It is therefore next to an impossibility that

Horatio Paget can have any idea of the business I am engaged in. He is

the very man of all others to try and supersede me if he had an inkling

of my plans; but I am convinced he can have no such inkling.

And yet the advertisement of the Haygarth property in the _Times_ was

as open to the notice of all the world as it was open to the notice of

George Sheldon. What if my patron should have been struck by the same

advertisement, and should have come to Ullerton on the same business?

It is possible, but it is not likely. When I left town the Captain was

engaged in Philip Sheldon's affairs. He has no doubt come to Ullerton

on Philip Sheldon's business. The town, which seems an abomination of

desolation to a man who is accustomed to London and Paris, is

nevertheless a commercial centre; and the stockbroker's schemes may

involve the simple Ullertonians, as well as the more experienced

children of the metropolis.

Having thought the business out thus, I gave myself no further trouble

about the unexpected appearance of my friend and benefactor.

At Black Harbour I found a coach, which carried me to Spotswold,

whither I travelled in a cramped and painful position as regards my

legs, and with a pervading sensation which was like a determination of

luggage to the brain, so close to my oppressed head was the

heavily-laden roof of the vehicle. It was pitch dark when I and two

fellow-passengers of agricultural aspect were turned out of the coach

at Spotswold, which in the gloom of night appeared to consist of half a

dozen houses shut in from the road by ghastly white palings, a grim

looming church, and a low-roofed inn with a feeble light glimmering

athwart a red stuff curtain.

At this inn I was fain to take up my abode for the night, and was

conducted to a little whitewashed bedchamber, draperied with scanty

dimity and smelling of apples--the humblest, commonest cottage chamber,

but clean and decent, and with a certain countrified aspect which was

pleasing to me. I fancied myself the host of such an inn, with

Charlotte for my wife; and it seemed to me that it would be nice to

live in that remote and unknown village, "the world forgetting, by the

world forgot." I beguiled myself by such foolish fancies--I, who have

been reared amidst the clamour and riot of the Strand!

Should I be happy with that dear girl if she were mine? Alas! I doubt

it. A man who has led a disreputable life up to the age of

seven-and-twenty is very likely to have lost all capacity for such pure

and perfect happiness as that which good men find in the tranquil haven

of a home.

Should I not hear the rattle of the billiard-balls, or the voice of the

_croupier_ calling the main, as I sat by my quiet fireside? Should I

not yearn for the glitter and confusion of West-end dancing-rooms, or

the mad excitement of the ring, while my innocent young wife was

sitting by my side and asking me to look at the blue eyes of my

first-born?

No; Charlotte is not for me. There must be always the two classes--the

sheep and the goats; and my lot has been cast among the goats.

And yet there are some people who laugh to scorn the doctrines of

Calvin, and say there is no such thing as predestination.

Is there not predestination? Was not I predestined to be born in a gaol

and reared in a gutter, educated among swindlers and scoundrels, fed

upon stolen victuals, and clad in garments never to be paid for? Did no

Eumenides preside over the birth of Richard Savage, so set apart for

misery that the laws of nature were reversed, and even his mother hated

him? Did no dismal fatality follow the footsteps of Chatterton? Has no

mysterious ban been laid upon the men who have been called Dukes of

Buckingham?

What foolish lamentations am I scribbling in this diary, which is

intended to be only the baldest record of events! It is so natural to

mankind to complain, that, having no ear in which to utter his

discontent, a man is fain to resort to pen and ink.

I devoted my evening to conversation with the landlord and his wife,

but found that the name of Haygarth was as strange to them as if it had

been taken from an inscription in the tomb of the Pharaohs. I inquired

about the few inhabitants of the village, and ascertained that the

oldest man in the place is the sexton, native-born, and supposed by

mine host never to have travelled twenty miles from his birthplace. His

name is Peter Drabbles. What extraordinary names that class of people

contrive to have! My first business to-morrow morning will be to find

my friend Drabbles--another ancient mariner, no doubt--and to examine

the parish registers.

_Oct. 7th_. A misty morning, and a perpetual drizzle--to say nothing of

a damp, penetrating cold, which creeps through the thickest overcoat,

and chills one to the bone. I do not think Spotswold can have much

brightness or prettiness even on the fairest summer morning that ever

beautified the earth. I know that, seen as I see it to-day, the place

is the very archetype of all that is darksome, dull, desolate, dismal,

and dreary. (How odd, by the way, that all that family of epithets

should have the same initial!) A wide stretch of moorland lies around

and about the little village, which crouches in a hollow, like some

poor dejected animal that seeks to shelter itself from the bitter

blast. On the edge of the moorland, and above the straggling cottages

and the little inn, rises the massive square tower of an old church, so

far out of proportion to the pitiful cluster of houses, that I imagine

it must be the remnant of some monastic settlement.

Towards this church I made my way, under the dispiriting drip, drip of

the rain, and accompanied by a feeble old man, who is sexton, clerk,

gravedigger, and anything or everything of an official nature.

We went into the church after my ancient mariner No. 2 had fumbled a

good deal with a bunch of ghostly-looking keys. The door opened with a

dismal scroop, and shut with an appalling bang. Grim and dark as the

church is without, it is grimmer and darker within, and damp and

vault-like, _à faire frémir_. There are all the mysterious cupboards

and corners peculiar to such edifices; an organ-loft, from which weird

noises issue at every opening or closing of a door; a vaulted roof,

which echoes one's footsteps with a moan, as of some outraged spirit

hovering in empty space, and ejaculating piteously, "Another impious

intruder after the sacramental plate! another plebeian sole trampling

on the brasses of the De Montacutes, lords of the manor!"

The vestry is, if anything, more ghostly than the general run of

vestries; but the business mind is compelled to waive all

considerations of a supernatural character. For the moment there

flashed across my brain the shadows of all the Christmas stories I had

ever read or heard concerning vestries; the phantom bridal, in which

the bride's beautiful white hand changed to the bony fingers of a

skeleton as she signed the register; the unearthly christening, in

which all at once, after the ceremony having been conducted with the

utmost respectability, to the edification of the unauthorised intruder

hiding behind a pillar, the godfathers and godmothers, nurse and baby,

priest and clerk, became in a moment dilapidated corpses; whereon the

appalled intruder fell prone at the foot of his pillar, there to be

discovered the next morning by his friends, and the public generally,

with his hair blanched to an awful whiteness, or his noble intellect

degraded to idiocy. For a moment, the memory of about a hundred

Christmas stories was too much for me--so weird of aspect and earthy of

atmosphere was the vestry at Spotswold. And then "being gone" the

shadows of the Christmas stories, I was a man and a lawyer's clerk

again, and set myself assiduously to search the registers and

interrogate my ancient.

I found that individual a creature of mental fogginess compared with

whom my oldest inhabitant of Ullerton would have been a Pitt, Earl of

Chatham. But I questioned and cross-questioned him until I had in a

manner turned his poor old wits the seamy side without, and had

discovered, first, that he had never known any one called Haygarth in

the whole course of those seventy-five years' vegetation which

politeness compelled me to speak of as his "life;" secondly, that he

had never known any one who knew a Haygarth; thirdly, that he was

intimately acquainted with every creature in the village, and that he

knew that no one of the inhabitants could give me the smallest shred of

such information as I required.

Having extorted so much as this from my ancient with unutterable

expenditure of time and trouble, I next set to work upon the registers.

If the ink manufactured in the present century is of no more durable

nature than that abominable fluid employed in the penmanship of a

hundred years ago, I profoundly pity the generations that are to come

after us. The registers of Spotswold might puzzle a Bunsen. However,

bearing in mind the incontrovertible fact that three thousand pounds is

a very agreeable sum of money, I stuck to my work for upwards of two

hours, and obtained as a result the following entries:--

"1. Matthew Haygarthe, aged foure yeares, berrid in this churcheyarde,

over against ye tombe off Mrs. Marttha Stileman, about 10 fete fromm ye

olde yue tre. Febevarie 6th, 1753."

"2. Mary Haygarthe, aged twentie sevene yeers, berrid under ye yue

tree, Nov. 21, 1754."

After copying these two entries, I went out into the churchyard to look

for Mary Haygarth's grave.

Under a fine old yew--which had been old a hundred years ago, it

seems--I found huddled amongst other headstones one so incrusted with

moss, that it was only after scraping the parasite verdure from the

stone with my penknife that I was able to discover the letters that had

been cut upon it. I found at last a brief inscription:

"Here lieth ye body of MARY HAYGARTH, aged 27. Born 1727. Died 1754.

This stone has been set up by one who sorroweth without hope of

consolation." A strange epitaph: no scrap of Latin, no text from

Scripture, no conventional testimony to the virtues and accomplishments

of the departed, no word to tell whether the dead woman had been maid,

wife, or widow. It was the most provoking inscription for a lawyer or a

genealogist, but such as might have pleased a poet.

I fancy this Mary Haygarth must have been some quiet creature, with

very few friends to sorrow for her loss; perhaps only that one person

who sorrowed without hope of consolation.

Such a tombstone might have been set above the grave of that simple

maid who dwelt "beside the banks of Dove."

This is the uttermost that my patience or ingenuity can do for me at

Spotswold. I have exhausted every possibility of obtaining further

information. So, having written and posted my report to Sheldon, I have

no more to do but to return to Ullerton. I take back with me nothing

but the copy of the two entries in the register of burials. Who this

Matthew Haygarth or this Mary Haygarth was, and how related to _the_

Matthew, is an enigma not to be solved at Spotswold.

Here the story of the Haygarths ends with the grave under the yew-tree.

BOOK THE FIFTH.

RELICS OF THE DEAD.

CHAPTER I.

BETRAYED BY A BLOTTING-PAD.

At an early hour upon the day on which Valentine Hawkehurst telegraphed

to his employer, Philip Sheldon presented himself again at the dingy

door of the office in Gray's Inn.

The dingy door was opened by the still more dingy boy; and Mr. Sheldon

the elder--who lived in a state of chronic hurry, and had a hansom cab

in attendance upon him at almost every step of his progress through

life--was aggravated by the discovery that his brother was out.

"Out!" he repeated, with supreme disgust; "he always _is_ out, I think.

Where is he to be found?"

The boy replied that his master would be back in half an hour, if Mr.

Sheldon would like to wait.

"Like to wait!" cried the stockbroker; "when will lawyers' clerks have

sense enough to know that nobody on this earth ever _liked_ to wait?

Where's your master gone?"

"I think he's just slipped round into Holborn, sir," the boy replied,

with some slight hesitation. He was very well aware that George had

secrets from his brother, and that it was not judicious to be too free

in his communications to the elder gentleman. But the black eyes and

white teeth of the stockbroker seemed very awful to him; and if Philip

chose to question him, he must needs answer the truth, not having been

provided by his master with any convenient falsehood in case of inquiry.

"What part of Holborn?" asked Philip sharply.

"I did hear tell as it was the telegraph office."

"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldon; and then he dashed downstairs, leaving

the lad on the threshold of the door staring after him with eyes of

wonder.

The telegraph office meant business; and any business of his brother's

was a matter of interest to Mr. Sheldon at this particular period. He

had meditated the meaning of George's triumphant smile in the secluded

calm of his own office; and the longer he had meditated, the more

deeply rooted had become his conviction that his brother was engaged in

some very deep and very profitable scheme, the nature of which it was

his bounden duty to discover.

Impressed by this idea, Mr. Sheldon returned to the hansom-cab, which

was waiting for him at the end of Warwick-court, and made his way to

the telegraph office. The ostensible motive of his call in Gray's Inn

was sufficient excuse for this following up of his brother's footsteps.

It was one of those waifs and strays of rather disreputable business

which the elder man sometimes threw in the way of the younger.

As the wheel of the hansom ground against the kerbstone in front of the

telegraph office, the figure of George Sheldon vanished in a little

court to the left of that establishment. Instead of pursuing this

receding figure, Philip Sheldon walked straight into the office.

It was empty. There was no one in any of the shaded compartments, so

painfully suggestive of pecuniary distress and the stealthy

hypothecation of portable property. A sound of rattling and bumping in

an inner office betrayed the neighbourhood of a clerk; but in the

office Mr. Sheldon was alone.

Upon the blotting-pad on the counter of the central partition the

stockbroker perceived one great blot of ink, still moist. Ha laid the

tip of his square forefinger upon it, to assure himself of that fact,

and then set himself deliberately to scrutinise the blotting-paper. He

was a man who seldom hesitated. His greatest _coups_ on the

money-market had been in a great measure the result of this faculty of

prompt decision. To-day he possessed himself of the blotting-pad, and

examined the half-formed syllables stamped upon it with as much

coolness and self-possession as if he had been seated in his own office

reading his own newspaper. A man given to hesitation would have looked

to the right and the left and watched for his opportunity--and lost it.

Philip Sheldon knew better than to waste his chances by needless

precaution; and he made himself master of all the intelligence the

blotting-pad could afford him before the clerk emerged from the inner

den where the rattling and stamping was going forward.

"I thought as much," muttered the stockbroker, as he recognised traces

of his brother's sprawling penmanship upon the pad. The message had

been written with a heavy hand and a spongy quill pen, and had left a

tolerably clear impression of its contents on the blotting-paper.

Here and there the words stood out bold and clear; here and there,

again, there was only one decipherable letter amongst a few broken

hieroglyphics. Mr. Sheldon was accustomed to the examination of very

illegible documents, and he was able to master the substance of that

random impression. If he could not decipher the whole, he made out

sufficient for his purpose. Money was to be offered to a man called

Goodge for certain letters. He knew his brother's affairs well enough

to know that these letters for which money was to be offered must needs

be letters of importance in some search for an heir-at-law. So far all

was clear and simple; but beyond this point he found himself at fault.

Where was this Goodge to be found? and who was the person that was to

offer him money for the letters? The names and address, which had been

written first, had left no impression on the blotting-pad, or an

impression so faint as to be useless for any practical purpose.

Mr. Sheldon put down the pad and lingered by the door of the office

deliberating, when the rattling and hammering came to an abrupt

termination, and the clerk emerged from the interior den.

"O," he exclaimed, "it's all right. Your message shall go directly."

The stockbroker, whose face was half averted from the clerk, and who

stood between that functionary and the light from the open doorway, at

once comprehended the error that had arisen. The clerk had mistaken him

for his brother.

"I'm not quite clear as to whether I gave the right address," he said

promptly, with his face still averted, and his attention apparently

occupied by a paper in his hand. "Just see how I wrote it, there's a

good fellow."

The clerk withdrew for a few minutes, and returned with the message in

his hand.

"From George Sheldon to Valentine Hawkehurst, Black Swan Inn,

Ullerton," he read aloud from the document.

"All right, and thanks," cried the stockbroker.

He gave one momentary glance at the clerk, and had just time to see

that individual's look of bewilderment as some difference in his voice

and person from the voice and person of the black-whiskered man who had

just left the office dawned upon his troubled senses. After that one

glance Mr. Sheldon darted across the pavement, sprang into his cab, and

called to the driver, "Literary Institution, Burton-street, as fast as

you can go."

"I'll try my luck in the second column of the _Times_," he said to

himself. "If George's scheme is what I take it to be, I shall get some

clue to it there." He took a little oblong memorandum-book from his

pocket, and looked at his memoranda of the past week. Among those

careless jottings he found one memorandum scrawled in pencil, amongst

notes and addresses in ink, "_Haygarth--intestate. G.S. to see after._"

"That's it," he exclaimed; "Haygarth--intestate; Valentine Hawkehurst

_not_ at Dorking, but working for my brother; Goodge--letters to be

paid for. It's all like the bits of mosaic that those antiquarian

fellows are always finding in the ruins of Somebody's Baths; a few

handfuls of coloured chips that look like rubbish, and can yet be

patched into a perfect geometric design. I'll hunt up a file of the

_Times_ at the Burton Institution, and find out this Haygarth, if he is

to be found there."

The Burton Institution was a somewhat dingy temple devoted to the

interests of science and literature, and next door to some baths that

were very popular among the denizens of Bloomsbury. People in quest of

the baths were apt to ascend the classic flight of steps leading to the

Institution, when they should have descended to a lowlier threshold

lurking modestly by the side of that edifice. The Baths and the

Institution had both been familiar to Mr. Sheldon in that period of

probation which he had spent in Fitzgeorge-street. He was sufficiently

acquainted with the librarian of the Institution to go in and out

uninterrogated, and to make any use he pleased of the reading-room. He

went in to-day, asked to see the latest bound volumes of the _Times_

and the latest files of unbound papers, and began his investigation,

working backwards. Rapidly and dexterously as he turned the big leaves

of the journals, the investigation occupied nearly three-quarters of an

hour; but at the expiration of that time he had alighted on the

advertisement published in the March of the preceding year.

He gave a very low whistle--a kind of phantom whistle--as he read this

advertisement. "John Haygarth!--a hundred thousand pounds!"

The fortune for which a claimant was lacking amounted to a hundred

thousand pounds! Mr. Sheldon knew commercial despots who counted their

wealth by millions, and whose fiat could sway the exchanges of Europe;

but a hundred thousand pounds seemed to him a very nice thing

nevertheless, and he was ready to dispute the prize the anticipation

whereof had rendered his brother so triumphant.

"He has rejected me as a coadjutor," he thought, as he went back to his

cab after having copied the advertisement; "he shall have me as an

antagonist."

"Omega-street, Chelsea, next call," he cried to the driver; and was

soon beyond the confines of Bloomsbury, and rattling away towards the

border-land of Belgravia. He had completed his search of the newspapers

at ten minutes past twelve, and at twenty minutes to one he presented

himself at the lodging-house in Omega-street, where he found Captain

Paget, in whose "promoting" business there happened to be a lull just

now. With this gentleman he had a long interview; and the result of

that interview was the departure of the Captain by the two o'clock

express for Ullerton. Thus had it happened that Valentine Hawkehurst

and his patron encountered each other on the platform of Ullerton

station.

CHAPTER II.

VALENTINE INVOKES THE PHANTOMS OF THE PAST.

_Oct. 7th, Midnight_. I was so fortunate as to get away from Spotswold

this morning very soon after the completion of my researches in the

vestry, and at five o'clock in the afternoon I found myself once more

in the streets of Ullerton. Coming home in the train I meditated

seriously upon the unexpected appearance of Horatio Paget at the

head-quarters of this Haygarthian investigation; and the more I

considered that fact, the more I felt inclined to doubt my patron's

motives, and to fear his interference. Can his presence in Ullerton

have any relation to the business that has brought me here? That is the

question which I asked myself a hundred times during my journey from

Spotswold; that is the question which I ask myself still.

I have no doubt I give myself unnecessary trouble; but I know that old

man's Machiavellian cleverness only too well; and I am inclined to look

with suspicion upon every action of his. My first business on returning

to this house was to ascertain whether any one bearing his name, or

answering to my description of him, had arrived during my absence. I

was relieved by finding that no stranger whatever had put up at the inn

since the previous forenoon. Who may have used the coffee-room is

another question, not so easily set at rest. In the evening a great

many people come in and go out; and my friend and patron may have taken

his favourite brandy-and-soda, skimmed his newspaper, and picked up

whatever information was to be obtained as to _my_ movements without

attracting any particular attention.

In the words of the immortal lessee of the Globe Theatre, "Why I should

fear I know not ... and yet I feel I fear!"

I found a registered letter from George Sheldon, enclosing twenty

pounds in notes, and furnished therewith I went straight to my friend

Jonah, whom I found engaged in the agreeable occupation of taking tea.

I showed him the money; but my estimate of the reverend gentleman's

honour being of a very limited nature, I took care not to give it to

him till he had produced the letters. On finding that I was really

prepared to give him his price, he went to an old-fashioned bureau, and

opened one of those secret recesses which cannot for three minutes

remain a secret to any investigator possessed of a tolerably accurate

eye or a three-foot rule. From this hiding-place--which he evidently

considered a triumph of mechanical art, worthy the cabinet of a

D'Argenson or a Fouché--he produced a packet of faded yellow letters,

about which there lurked a faint odour of dried rose-leaves and

lavender, which seemed the very perfume of the past.

When my reverend friend had laid the packet on the table within reach

of my hand, and not till then, I gave him the bank-notes. His fat old

fingers closed upon them greedily, and his fishy old eyes were

illumined by a faint glimmer which I believe nothing but bank-notes

could have kindled in them.

After having assured himself that they were genuine acknowledgments of

indebtedness on the part of the old lady in Thread-needle-street, and

not the base simulacra of Birmingham at five-and-twenty shillings a

dozen--thirteen as twelve--Mr. Goodge obligingly consented to sign a

simple form of receipt which I had drawn up for the satisfaction of my

principal.

"I think you said there were forty-odd letters," I remarked, before I

proceeded to count the documents in the presence of Mr. Goodge.

That gentleman looked at me with an air of astonishment, which, had I

not known him to be the most consummate of hypocrites, would have

seemed to be simplicity itself.

"I said from thirty to forty," he exclaimed; "I never said there were

forty-odd letters."

I looked at him and he looked at me. His face told me plainly enough

that he was trying to deceive me, and my face told him plainly enough

that he had no chance of succeeding in that attempt. Whether he was

keeping back some of the letters with a view to extorting more money

from me hereafter, or whether he was keeping them with the idea of

making a better bargain with somebody else, I could not tell; but of

the main fact I was certain--he had cheated me.

I untied the red tape which held the letters together. Yes, there was a

piece of circumstantial evidence which might have helped to convict my

friend had he been on his trial in a criminal court. The red tape bore

the mark of the place in which it had been tied for half a century; and

a little way within this mark the trace of a very recent tying. Some of

the letters had been extracted, and the tape had been tied anew.

I had no doubt that this had been done while my negotiation with Mr.

Goodge had been pending. What was I to do? Refuse the letters, and

demand to have my principal's money returned to me? I knew my friend

well enough to know that such a proceeding would be about as useless as

it would be to request the ocean to restore a cup of water that had

been poured into it. The letters he had given me might or might not

afford some slight link in the chain I was trying to put together; and

the letters withheld from me might be more or less valuable than those

given to me. In any case the transaction was altogether a speculative

one; and George Sheldon's money was hazarded as completely as if it had

been put upon an outsider for the Derby.

Before bidding him a polite farewell, I was determined to make Mr.

Goodge thoroughly aware that he had not taken me in.

"You said there were more than forty letters," I told him; "I remember

the phrase 'forty-odd,' which is a colloquialism one would scarcely

look for in Tillotson or in John Wesley, who cherished a prejudice in

favour of scholarship which does not distinguish all his followers. You

said there were forty-odd letters, and you have removed some of them

from the packet. I am quite aware that I have no legal remedy against

you, as our contract was a verbal one, made without witnesses; so I

must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter

yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You

are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave

enough to cheat every attorney in the Law List."

"Young man, are you aware----?"

"As I have suffered by the absence of any witness to our negotiation, I

may as well profit by the absence of any witness to our interview. You

are a cheat and a trickster, Mr. Goodge, and I have the honour to wish

you good afternoon!"

"Go forth, young man!" cried the infuriated Jonah whose fat round face

became beet-root colour with rage, and who involuntarily extended his

hand to the poker--for the purpose of defence and not defiance, I believe.

"Go forth, young man! I say unto you, as Abimelech said unto Jedediah,

go forth."

I am not quite clear as to the two scriptural proper names with which

the Rev. Jonah embellished his discourse on this occasion; but I know

that sort of man always has a leaning to the Abimelech and Jedediahs of

biblical history; solely, I believe, because the names have a sonorous

roll with them that is pleasant in the mouth of the charlatan.

As I was in the act of going forth--quite at my leisure, for I had no

fear of the clerical poker--my eye happened to alight on a small

side-table, covered with a chessboard-patterned cloth in gaudy colours,

and adorned with some of those sombre volumes which seem like an

outward evidence of the sober piety of their possessor. Among the

sombre volumes lay something which savoured of another hemisphere than

that to which those brown leather-bound books belonged. It was a

glove--a gentleman's glove, of pale lavender kid--small in size for a

masculine glove, and bearing upon it the evidence of the cleaner's art.

Such might be the glove of an exiled Brummel, but could never have

encased the squat paw of a Jonah Goodge. It was as if the _point

d'Alençon_ ruffle of Chesterfield had been dropped in the study of John

Wesley.

In a moment there flashed into my mind an idea which has haunted me

ever since. That glove had belonged to my respected patron, Horatio

Paget, and it was for his benefit the letters had been abstracted from

the packet. He had been with Jonah Goodge in the course of that day,

and had bought him over to cheat me.

And then I was obliged to go back to the old question, Was it possible

that the Captain could have any inkling of my business? Who could have

told him?

Who could have betrayed a secret which was known only to George Sheldon

and myself?

After all, are there not other people than Horatio Paget who wear

cleaned lavender gloves? But it always has been a habit with the

Captain to leave one loose glove behind him; and I daresay it was the

recollection of this which suggested the idea of his interference in

the Goodge business.

I devoted my evening to the perusal of Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters.

The pale ink, the quaint cramped hand, the old-fashioned abbreviations,

and very doubtful orthography rendered the task laborious; but I stuck

to my work bravely, and the old clock in the market-place struck two as

I began the last letter. As I get deeper into this business I find my

interest in it growing day by day--an interest _sui generis_, apart

from all prospect of gain--apart even from the consideration that by

means of this investigation I am obtaining a living which is earned

_almost_ honestly; for if I tell an occasional falsehood or act an

occasional hypocrisy, I am no worse than a secretary of legation of an

Old Bailey barrister.

The pleasure which I now take in the progress of this research is a

pleasure that is new to me: it is the stimulus which makes a breakneck

gallop across dreary fields gridironed with dykes and stone walls so

delicious to the sportsman; it is the stimulus which makes the task of

the mathematician sweet to him when he devotes laborious days to the

solution of an abstruse problem; it is the stimulus that sustains the

Indian trapper against all the miseries of cold and hunger, foul

weather, and aching limbs; it is the fever of the chase--that

inextinguishable fire which, once lighted in the human breast, is not

to be quenched until the hunt is ended.

I should like to earn three thousand pounds; but if I were to be none

the richer for my trouble, I think, now that I am so deeply involved in

this business, I should still go on. I want to fathom the mystery of

that midnight interment at Dewsdale; I want to know the story of that

Mary Haygarth who lies under the old yew-tree at Spotswold, and for

whose loss some one sorrowed without hope of consolation.

Was that a widower's commonplace, I wonder, and did the unknown mourner

console himself ultimately with a new wife? Who knows? as my Italian

friends say when they discuss the future of France. Shall I ever

penetrate that mystery of the past? My task seems to me almost as

hopeless as if George Sheldon had set me to hunt up the descendants of

King Solomon's ninety-ninth wife. A hundred years ago seems as far

away, for all practical purposes, as if it were on the other side of

the flood.