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KITTY ALONE
MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
KITTY ALONE
A STORY OF THREE FIRES
BY
S. BARING GOULD
AUTHOR OF
“IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA” “THE QUEEN OF LOVE”
“MEHALAH” “CHEAP JACK ZITA” ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1894
CONTENTS OF VOL. II
----------
CHAP. PAGE
XIX. SUGGESTIONS OF EVIL 7
XX. A FACE IN THE WATER 19
XXI. AN OFFER 28
XXII. A RACE FOR LIFE 37
XXIII. BORROWING 45
XXIV. SHAVINGS 55
XXV. BORROWING AGAIN 64
XXVI. SILVER PENINKS 73
XXVII. TROUBLE 83
XXVIII. ALTERNATIVES 92
XXIX. A FRIEND GAINED 104
XXX. UNDER THE MULBERRY TREE 111
XXXI. ON MISCHIEF BENT 122
XXXII. JASON IN THE WAY 132
XXXIII. ONE CRIME LEADS TO ANOTHER 140
XXXIV. AND YET ANOTHER 149
XXXV. UNSUCCESSFUL 159
XXXVI. ALL IN VAIN 168
------------------------------------------------------------------------
KITTY ALONE
CHAPTER XIX
SUGGESTIONS OF EVIL
The crowd in the market-place and in the streets of Ashburton began to
thin as the afternoon crept on. In vain did the showmen blow their
trumpets, ring their bells, and invite to their entertainments. Those
who had come to the fair had spent their loose cash. The proprietors of
the stalls offered their wares at reduced prices, but found few
purchasers. Young men who had been hired by the farmers swaggered about
singing or shouting, some tipsy, others merely on the road to tipsiness.
The ostlers in the inns were harnessing horses to the traps, market
carts, gigs, dog-carts, that had brought in the farmers and their wives.
Empty waggons were departing. The roads were full of streams of people
flowing homeward to the surrounding villages.
Pasco Pepperill started with the schoolmaster. He had surrendered Kate
to her father. The reins were in his hand, and he had whipped the cob,
when he saw Coaker, the man from whom he had bought the wool, coming
towards him.
The blood rushed into Pepperill’s face.
“How d’ye do?” asked the farmer. “Going home?”
“I be,” answered Pasco, with constrained anger.
“You’ll find all the wool there. I sent off the lot this morning—three
waggon-loads.”
“Why did you not inform me?—and I would have waited for it, and not come
to the fair.”
“I did not know how the weather might be—and I wished to be rid of it.”
Coaker laughed.
This angered Pasco further, and, losing command of himself, he said,
“’Twas scurvy—that selling me at such a price when you knew wool was
down.”
“That was your concern. Each man for himself. But I reckon you’ve made a
worse bargain at Brimpts, if, as they tell me, you have bought the
wood.”
“How so? Is not the timber first-rate?”
“Oh, the timber is good enough.”
“Then what is wrong?”
“Have you been to Brimpts?”
“No—but Quarm has.”
“Then you don’t know the road. It is thus”—Coaker made a motion with his
hand up and down. “The waves of the sea mountains high is nothing to
it—and bad—the road is! Lor’ bless y’! the cost o’ moving the timber
when cut will swallow up all the profits.”
“Pshaw! The distance from Ashburton is only three miles.”
“Better ten on a decent road. You’ll never get the timber drawn, or, if
you do, farewell to all profits. But when you have got it to
Ashburton—who will buy it there?”
“Oh, Quarm has an idea of disposing of the oak to the Government—selling
it to the dockyard at Devonport.”
“How far off is that? Some five-and-twenty miles—and over the moor!”
Coaker laughed.
“If I don’t sell the oak, I am a”—Pasco’s face was as red as blood. He
checked himself from the confession that he would be a ruined man, and
said between his teeth, “I’ll never speak to Quarm again. He’s led me
into a pretty quandary.”
“Quarm? He’s a Jack-o’-lantern—don’t trust he.”
Coaker waved his hand, and, still laughing, went his way to the
stable-yard to get his cob.
Pasco whipped his horse and drove homewards. His lips were closed, his
brows knitted, he looked straight before him at the ears of his horse.
He was in no disposition to speak. Nor, for the matter of that, was his
companion. Bramber was thinking of Kitty, of the uncongenial
surroundings, the hot-headed father, running himself and his
brother-in-law into speculative ventures that must lead them to ruin; of
the uncle, boastful, conceited, and withal stupid; of the hard, selfish
aunt. He saw that young Pooke admired her, and this did not altogether
please Bramber. Pooke might be well off and amiable, but he was dull of
intellect—a boor—and could never be a suitable companion to the eager
Kitty, whose mind was greedy for knowledge, and whose tastes were those
of a class above that in which she was cast. The admiration of Jan Pooke
brought on her contrariety. It had involved her in the quarrel between
Jan and Noah, and had roused the jealousy of Rose Ash.
As the trap passed out of Ashburton, many a salutation was cast at
Pepperill, but he hardly acknowledged any. He put up his hand and beat
his hat down over his brows, then lashed savagely at his cob.
All at once something arrested his eye, and he instinctively drew up,
then muttered, and whipped his brute again. What he had observed was a
little plate, affixed to a house, with the title of the Insurance
Company on it, with which he had that day had dealings.
“I wonder,” thought Pasco, “what that house is insured for? Not for
twelve hundred pounds, I’ll swear.”
Then a sense of bitterness rose in his heart against his brother-in-law
for drawing him into this expense of insuring his property;—he had that
day expended all the gold he had about him in paying the first premium.
There remained only some silver in one pocket, and coppers in the other.
Where was he to find the money for the payment of the oaks he had
bought? Where that to meet the bill for the wool? The tanner would not
pay enough for the bark to cover the cost of rending. Quarm had told him
that the sap rose badly, and that it would involve much labour and waste
of time to attempt to bark the trees.
Fevered with anxiety and disappointment, Pasco thrashed his cob
savagely, and sent it along at its fullest pace, whirling past the gigs
and waggons returning from the fair, and giving the drivers hardly time
to get on one side to avoid him. He relieved his breast by swearing at
them for their sluggishness in making way, and some retaliated with
oaths, as, in order to escape him, they ran into the hedge or over a
heap of stones.
Presently his horse slackened speed, as it reached a sharp ascent, and
there Pasco met an empty waggon, with “Coaker—Dart-meet” on it. He
stopped his panting horse, and shouted to the driver of the team, and
asked whence he came.
“I’ve been to your place—Coombe Cellars,” answered the waggoner. “Master
sent me with a load of fleeces.”
“Did my wife give you anything?”
“Not a glass of cider,” answered the man. “We had to unload and do the
work of hoisting into the warehouse ourselves—no one was about.”
“She left it for me—she knew you would meet us.”
Tossing his head, to shake off the depression that had come upon him,
and with a flash of his vanity through the gloom, he put his hand in his
pocket and drew out a couple of shillings.
“There,” said he; “you’d have had more, but I have spent most of my cash
at the fair. Buying, buying, buying, that’s my trade. Go and drink a
glass to my health.”
Then he drove on.
On descending the hill another waggon was encountered. This was also one
that had conveyed fleeces to Coombe Cellars. Pasco gave this driver a
couple of shillings. Then he turned to Bramber and said, “Two years of
wool—I paid as much as thirteen pence a pound, and I can’t sell at
tenpence. They say it is going down to sevenpence; that is nearly half
what I gave. A loss to me of sixpence a pound; I have bought three
waggonload. A good sheep may have sixteen pounds on his back, but the
average is ten or eleven. Coaker must keep a couple of hundred. You’re a
schoolmaster; reckon that up—two hundred sheep at eleven. I’m not a
quick man at figures myself.”
“Nothing can be simpler than that calculation. Two thousand two
hundred.”
“Ah! But two years’ wool?”
“Well, that is four thousand four hundred.”
“And I have lost, say, sixpence a pound.”
“Then you lose a hundred and ten pounds by the transaction.”
“Think of that. A hundred and ten pounds—say a hundred and twenty. That
is something for a man to lose and make no account of.” The vanity of
the man was flattered by the thought of the amount of his loss. “And
then,” said he, “there was what Coaker said about the oak. I’ve
undertaken to lay out two hundred pounds on that; and there is the
fellin’ and cartin’—say another hundred. Suppose I lose this also—that
is a matter of three hundred. With the wool, four hundred and twenty
pound. I reckon, schoolmaster, you’ve never had the fingering of so much
money as I am losing.”
Bramber looked round at Pasco with surprise. He could not understand the
sort of pride that was manifesting itself in the man.
“Are you able to meet such losses?”
“If not—I can but fail. It’s something to fail for a good sum. But I’ll
not fail; I am full of resources.” He beat the horse. “I shall sell the
wool. It will go up. I shall sell the timber at a good figure, and
pocket a thousand pounds. I am sorry I did not give those men half a
crown each, but I have spent most of my money, and”—
Crash! He drove against a post, and upset the trap.
Pasco staggered to his feet.
“Schoolmaister—are you hurt?”
“No.” Walter sprang to the horse and seized its head.
“It would have been best had I broken my neck and finished so,” said
Pepperill. Then he regretted the sudden outburst of despair, and added,
“So some folks might ha’ said, but I’ve disappointed ’em. I may have a
chuck down, but I’m up again in a jiffy. That’s been my way all along,
and will be to the end.”
One of the shafts was broken, and there ensued delay whilst it was being
patched up with rope. Then, when they were able to pursue their career,
Pasco was constrained to drive more carefully and less rapidly. Night
was coming on as they neared Newton Abbot.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Pasco; “I’m uncommon hungry, and I’ll
just go into the first public-house and have a mouthful of something,
and you shall do the same. The cob is a bit shaken with that spill, and
I’ll have the shaft fastened up firmer before we proceed. What say you?
Here’s the ‘Crown and Anchor.’ How the place is changed. Ah, ha! It is
insured at the same office as I am. Why—bless my life!—the old inn was a
ramshackle sort of a place.”
Pepperill descended from his trap, and gave instructions to the ostler
what he was to do to the broken shaft. “I’ll pay you well if you do your
work,” said he. Then to Bramber, “Come in! Cold meat and
bread-and-cheese, and a glass of ale. We need refreshment, and the house
looks as if it could provide it. Don’t be concerned about the cost. I
don’t suppose you are overflush with cash. I’ll pay—you are my guest.”
Pasco’s self-conceit was a constant spring of energy in him. Dashed his
spirits might be by disaster, but he speedily recovered his buoyancy,
owing to this characteristic element in his nature. It is said that the
fertility of Manitoba is due to the fact that below the surface the soil
is frozen hard in winter, and during the summer the warmth of the sun
penetrating ever farther thaws the ice, and thus water incessantly wells
up, nourishing and moistening the roots of the corn. There was a
perennial body of self-esteem deep in the heart of Pasco Pepperill, and
this fed and sustained in vigorous growth a harvest of generosity in
dealing with his inferiors, of liberality towards the poor, of display
in his mercantile transactions, that imposed on the public and made it
suppose that he was prosperous in his many affairs.
The landlord came to the door.
“How do you do, Mr. Pepperill?—glad to see you. You do not often favour
me.”
“Well—no. If I come this way I mostly stop at the Golden Sun. You see,
you are rather near my home.”
“I hope this, though the first visit, is not the last!”
“I daresay not. What brings me now is an accident. Can you let us have
some supper?”
“Certainly. What would you like—cold beef, cold mutton, or chops and
potatoes?”
“You have a supply of good things.”
“I am obliged to have. I get plenty of custom now.”
“What! more than of old?”
“Oh, double, since I have rebuilt my house.”
“I see. The place is completely changed. You had but a poor sort of a
tavern.”
“Yes; and now”—the landlord looked round, smiled, and put his hands into
his waistband—"middling good, I think."
“Uncommon,” said Pasco. “I suppose it is the better look of the house
that has brought better custom.”
“That’s just it. I had only common wayfarers before—mostly tramps.
Now—the better sort altogether. Where I turned over a penny before, I
turn over a shilling now.”
“So you rebuilt your public-house to get better business?”
“Well, you see, I couldn’t help myself. The old place caught fire and
burnt down.”
“And it did not ruin you?”
“Dear me, no. I was insured.”
“So—that set you on your legs again?”
“It was the making of me, was that fire.”
“How long had you been insured before you were burnt out?”
“Well, now, that is the curious part of the story,” said the landlord;
“hardly a week.”
“And how did your place catch fire?”
“There was a tramp. I refused to take him in, as he had no money. That
was the best stroke of business I ever did in my life. He hid himself in
a sort o’ lean-to there was over the pigs’ houses, joined on to the
house, and in it was straw. I reckon he went to sleep there with his
pipe alight, and he set fire to the place.”
“Was he burnt?”
“No; he got away all right; but the straw set fire to the rafters, and
they ran into the wall. It was a poor old wall, with no mortar in it,
and the rafters came in just under those of the upstairs chambers, so
that when the roof of the linhay was afire, it set the house in a blaze
too. That was how it all came about.”
“And a good job it was for you!”
“It was the making of me.”
Pasco was silent through the meal. He seemed hardly to taste what he was
eating. He gulped down his food and drank copiously.
Bramber was relieved when he left. He was afraid Pepperill would drink
more than he could bear. At the entrance to the village he left the
cart, and thanked Pasco for the lift.
Pepperill drove on to Coombe Cellars.
As he came up, he saw his wife standing at the door with a light in her
hand.
“Pasco, is that you?”
“Who else?”
“So, you are home at last. There has been the coal merchant here; he
swears he will bring you no more, and that, unless you pay up this
month, he will set the lawyers on you.”
Pepperill flung himself from his cart.
“Heavens!” said he, looking sullenly at his stores; “if they would but
burn!”
“Burn—what burn?” asked Mrs. Pepperill sharply. “Do you think you cannot
leave the house for a day but some mischief must come on it? As if I
were not to be trusted, and everything lay with you.”
“I did not mean that, Zerah.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant that it might have got me out of difficulties.”
“What might?”
Pasco did not answer.
“I should like to know how, if the store were to be burnt, any good
would come of that. You’ve been drinking, Pasco.”
“I’m insured,” said he in a low tone.
“Oh, it has come to that, has it? Heaven help us!”
The woman beat her face with her open palms, turned, and went within.