THE MOCK-ORANGE BUSH.
To my dismay, he halted but five paces from me.
"Is that you, Leicester?" he whispered.
"Sergeant Letcher, if you please," answered a quiet voice close by;
"unless you wish to be called Pickthall."
"Not so loud--the windows are open. How on earth did you come here?
You're not with the van to-night?"
"I came on a horse, and a lame one: one of your tub-carriers.
The captain saw me mount him, down at the cove, and sent me off to
scour the country for evidence. I guessed pretty well in what
direction he'd take me. But you're a careless lot, I will say.
Look at this bit of rope."
"For God's sake don't talk so loud! Rope? What rope?"
"Oh, you needn't be afraid! It's not _your_ sort! Here--if you can't
see, take hold and feel it. Left-handed, you'll notice--French
sling-stuff. And that Belcher woman has no more sense of caution
than to tie up her roses with it! Now see here, my son"--and his
voice became a snarl--"it may do for her to play tricks. All the
country knows her, the magistrates included. But for the likes of
you this dancing on the edge of the law is risky, and I can't afford
it. Understand? Why the devil you haunt the house as you do is more
than I can fathom, unless maybe you're making up to marry the old
fool." He paused and added contemplatively, "'Twould be something in
your line to be sure. Women were always your game."
"You didn't whistle me out to tell me this," said Mr. Whitmore
stiffly.
"No, I did not. I want ten pounds."
Mr. Whitmore groaned. "Look here, Leicst--"
"Be careful!"
"But this makes twice in ten days. It's pushing a man too hard
altogether!"
"Not a bit of it," Letcher assured him cheerfully. "You're too
devilish fond of your own neck, my lad; and I know it too devilish
well to be come over by that talk." He chuckled to himself.
"How's the beauty down at the cottage?"
"I don't know," Mr. Whitmore answered sulkily. "Is Plinlimmon
there?"
"No, he's not; and you ought to know he's not. Where have you been,
all day?"
The curate was silent.
"He'll be down again on Saturday, though. Leave of absence is going
cheap, just now. I've an idea that our marching orders must be about
due. Maybe I'll be able to run down myself, though my father hadn't
the luck to be a friend of the Colonel's. If I don't, you're to keep
your eye lifting, and report."
"Is there really a chance of the order coming?" asked Mr. Whitmore,
with a shake in his low voice.
"Dissemble your joy, my friend! When it comes, I shall call on
you for fifty. Meanwhile I tell you to keep your eye lifting.
The battalion's raw, yet. About the order, it's only my guesswork,
and before we sail you may yet do the christening."
"It's damnable!"
"Hush, you fool! Gad, if somebody hasn't heard you! Who's _that_?"
They held their breath; and I held mine, pressing my body into the
mock-orange bush until the twigs cracked. Mr. Jack Rogers stepped
out upon the verandah, and stood by one of the pillars, not a dozen
yards from me, contemplating the sky where the dawn was now beginning
to break over the dark shrubberies. I heard the two men tip-toeing
away through the laurels.
He, too, seemed to catch the sound, for he turned his head sharply.
But at that moment Miss Belcher's voice called him back into the
room.
A minute later he reappeared with a loaf of bread in either hand, and
walked moodily past my bush without turning his head or observing me.
I faced about cautiously and looked after him. From the end of the
verandah the ground, sheltered on the right by a belt of evergreen
trees, fell away steeply to a valley where, under the paling sky, a
sheet of water glimmered. Towards this, down the grassy slope, Mr.
Rogers went with long strides. I broke cover, and ran after him.
I ran as fast as my hurt hip and the trailing folds of the rug
allowed. The grass underfoot was grey with dew, and overhead the
birds were singing. An old horse that had been sleeping in his
pasture heaved himself up and gazed at me as I went by, and either
his snort of contempt or the sound of my footsteps must have struck
on Mr. Rogers's ear. He turned and allowed me to catch up with him.
"It's you, eh?" He eyed me between pity and distrust. "Here, catch
hold, if you're feeling peckish."
He thrust a loaf into my hands and I fell on it ravenously, plucking
off a crust and gnawing it while I trotted beside him.
"Got to feed her blessed swans now!" he muttered. "The deuce is in
her for perversity to-night."
He kept growling to himself, knitting his brow and pausing once or
twice for a moody stare. He was not drunk, and his high complexion
showed no trace of his all-night sitting; and yet something had
changed him utterly from the cheerful gentleman of a few hours back.
The water in the valley bottom proved to be an artificial lake, very
cunningly contrived to resemble a wild one. At the head of it, where
we trod on asphodels and sweet-smelling mints and brushed the young
stalks of the loose-strife, stood a rustic bridge partly screened by
alders. Here Mr. Rogers halted, and a couple of fine swans came
steering towards him out of the shadows.
He broke his loaf into two pieces. "That's for you," he exclaimed,
hurling the first chunk viciously at the male bird. The pair turned
in alarm at the splash and paddled away, hissing. "And that's for
you!" The second chunk caught the female full astern, and Mr. Rogers
leaned on the rail and laughed grimly. He thrust his hand into his
breeches pocket and drew forth a guinea. The young daylight touched
its edge as it lay in his palm.
"I'm a Justice of the Peace; or I'd toss that after the bread."
"What's the matter with it, sir?"
He turned it over gingerly with his forefinger. "See?" he said.
"I put that mark on it myself, for sport, three weeks ago, and this
very night I won it back."
"Was it one you sold to Mr. Rodriguez?"
"Hey?" I thought he would have taken me by the collar. "So you
_are_ the boy! What do you know of Rodriguez, boy?"
"I--I was listening in the verandah, sir. And oh, but I've something
to tell you! I'm the boy, sir, that Mr. Whitmore spoke about--the
boy that's being searched for--"
"Look here," Mr. Rogers interrupted, "I'm a Justice of the Peace, you
know."
"I can't help it, sir--begging your pardon. But I was in the house,
and I saw things: and if they catch me, I must tell."
"Tell the truth and shame the devil," said Mr. Rogers.
"But the more truth I told, sir, the worse it would look for someone
who's innocent."
"Whitmore?"
"You changed a note with Mr. Whitmore, didn't you, sir?"
This confused him. "You've been using your ears to some purpose," he
growled.
"I don't know how Mr. Whitmore comes to be mixed up in it.
But here's another thing, sir--You remember that he walked out after
the game--for fresh air, he said?"
"Well?"
"And he didn't come back?"
"Well?"
"He stepped out because he was whistled out. There was a man waiting
for him."
"What man?"
"His name's Letcher--at least--"
"I don't know the name."
"He was one of the soldiers on the beach this evening."
"The devil!"
"But he hadn't come about _that_ business."
"About what, then?"
"Well now, sir, I must ask you a question. They were talking about
'the beauty down at the cottage.' Who would that be?"
"That," said he slowly, "would be Isabel Brooks, for a certainty."
"And the cottage?"
"Remember the one we passed on the road?--the one with a light
downstairs? That's it. She lives there with her father--an old
soldier and three-parts blind. There's no mischief brewing against
_her_, I hope?"
"I don't know sir," I went on breathlessly. "But if you please, go
on answering me. Do you know a young man called Plinlimmon--
Archibald Plinlimmon?"
"Plinlimmon? Ay, to be sure I do. Met him there once--another
soldier, youngish and good-looking--in the ranks, but seemed a
gentleman--didn't catch his Christian name. The Major introduced him
as the son of an old friend--comrade-in-arms, he said, if I remember.
He was there with a black-faced fellow, whose name I didn't catch
either."
"That was Letcher!"
"What? The man Whitmore was talking with? What were they saying?"
"They said something about a christening. And Letcher asked for
money."
"A christening? What in thunder has a christening to do with it?"
"That's what I don't know, sir."
Mr. Rogers looked at me and rubbed his chin. "I meant to take you to
Lydia," he said; "but now that Whitmore's mixed up in this, I'll be
shot if I do. That fellow has bewitched her somehow, and where he's
concerned--" He glanced up the slope and clutched me suddenly by the
shoulder: for Whitmore himself was there, walking alone, and coming
straight towards us. "Talk of the devil--here, hide, boy--duck down,
I tell you, there behind the bushes! No! Through the hedge, then--"
I burst across the hedge and dropped through a mat of brambles,
dragging my rug after me. The fall landed me on all-fours upon the
sunken high road, along which I ran as one demented--stark naked,
too--a small Jack of Bedlam under the broadening eye of day; ran past
Miss Belcher's entrance gate with its sentinel masses of tall
laurels, and had reached the bend of the road opening the low cottage
into view, when a sudden jingling of bells and tramp of horses drove
me aside through a gate on the left, to cower behind a hedge there
while they passed.
Two wagons came rumbling by, each drawn by six horses and covered by
a huge white tilt bearing in great letters the words "Russell and
Co., Falmouth to London." On the front of each a lantern shone pale
against the daylight. At the head of each team rode a wagoner,
mounted on a separate horse and carrying a long whip. Beside the
wagons tramped four soldiers with fixed bayonets, and two followed
behind: they wore the uniform of the North Wilts Regiment.
I knew them well enough by repute--these famous wagons conveying
untold treasure between London and the Falmouth Packets.
They passed, and I crept out into the road again, to stare after
them.
With that, turning my head, I was aware of a girl in the roadway
outside the cottage door. But if she had come out to gaze after the
wagons, she was gazing now at me. It was too late to hide, and
moreover I had come almost to the end of my powers. With a cry for
pity I ran towards her.