THE WANDERER.
We must now ask the reader to traverse with greater speed than even
the electric wire possesses, both sea and land, and, annihilating
time and space, accompany us once more to the opening scenes of our
story--even to the grey, sea-beaten cliffs, and broad brown moors of
Cornwall.
In an early chapter we referred to a certain hostelry named the
Trevanion Tavern, as a place where sundry beverages were procurable,
and to which General Trecarrel (whose poor old bones were whitening
now with others in the Khyber Pass) sent Mike Treherne and his
comrades on that exciting evening when Audley Trevelyan rescued Sybil
Devereaux from the terrors of the gloomy Pixies' Hole.
It was the sweet season of spring, and the flowers of balmy April
were in all their bloom; the young and fragrant buds were bursting in
the woods of Rhoscadzhel, and the willows that gave a name to the
long narrow glen, forming the avenue to Porthellick, were as green,
as leafy, and as graceful in their droop, as when Constance,
dark-eyed and pale-faced, sat at the windows of the pretty white
villa, watching for her husband, Richard, cantering his horse to the
little portico, where Derrick Braddon awaited him; Denzil going forth
to whip the trouting-stream, or Sybil sitting, sketch-book in hand,
under a tree, to shade her from the sunshine.
The Trevanion Arms, over which creaked and swung a signboard
decorated with the arms of that old surname, a fesse between two
chevrons, with three escallops (for old Jack, like every Cornishman,
had a pedigree), is a picturesque little old-fashioned house, partly
built of granite and partly of straw and mud beaten into a
consistency that is pretty enduring. Four boulders that had lain for
ages on the promontory where it stands, had been improvised as
corner-stones by the first builders of the edifice, and then the
erection proved easy enough. It is square, with a trellised porch,
which is always a mass of flowers and leaves; two windows are on each
side of this, and five above, while there are other little quaint
dormers that abut from the roof, which is conical, or
pavilion-shaped, to write more correctly: and the edifice was then,
from its foundation to its apex, chimneys included, literally a mass
of clematis, dark green ivy, jasmine and sweet briar, so matted and
interwoven as completely to conceal where the wall ended and the roof
began; and in the pairing season the snug recesses of this leafy
covering were all alive with teeming nests and twittering birds,
whose gaping bills and glittering eyes peeped forth at times when a
frocked waggoner or dusky-visaged miner drew up at the door for a pot
of creamy ale, or a quart of sharp, foaming Devonshire cider.
Though April, the night on which we visit this place is bleak; the
rain is swooping in torrents on the drenched land, and tossing sea;
black clouds envelop all the Bristol Channel, the wild waves of which
were rolling in snowy foam against the bluffs of Tintagel, along
Trebarreth Strand, and all that iron shore from thence, perhaps, to
Cape Cornwall, for it was just such a night of storm as the old
Cornish wreckers would have loved, and hung their lanterns on the
cliffs to mislead doomed ships at sea.
Seated alone, gazing intently into the sea-coal fire that burned low
in the grate of the humble tavern parlour, smoking a short pipe, and
taking occasional sips from a tankard of ale, was a somewhat
tattered, but well-bearded, grizzled, and weather-beaten man, about
sixty years of age. His features were rather Cornish or Celtic in
type; the nose and cheek bones high, the eyes keen and glittering,
when the firelight shone on them; his sturdy figure and
well-embrowned hands showed that his life had been one of hard work,
and, by the peculiar mode in which he carried his head, it was easy
to see that he had been drilled as a soldier in the ranks.
Intently thinking, he sighed deeply once or twice, and, looking round
the room as a gust of the storm without roused him from reverie, he
said aloud,--
"So here you are at last, after all that has come and gone--here at
last, and for what, Derrick Braddon?"
For Derrick Braddon he was--Derrick, the faithful attendant and
follower of the late Richard Pencarrow Trevelyan--Lord Lamorna! His
fate and adventures had been strange; for since the steamer
_Admiral_, of Montreal, had perished at sea, Braddon had seen more of
the world than he ever expected to behold again, and been so
circumstanced, that he could never communicate with England, even in
this age of ease and appliances; or his letters had miscarried; and
now when he found himself once more at home--but, as it eventually
proved, a home filled with strangers--his heart grew soft, and his
eyes suffused, albeit that he was somewhat unused to the melting mood.
The purple moorlands, the great grey standing stones, the mines
teeming with men and lights, and strange sounds, their giant works
and grimy gearing; the granite carns and the dark oak woodlands had
all spoken of home and his boyhood to the returned wanderer, the
faithful old soldier, and caused him to be doubly sad; nature was the
same, but many a voice was hushed, and many a familiar face was gone
for ever.
The Trevanion tavern was unchanged even to the leafy tendrils that
clambered over it, shrouding every inch of wall and roof, and hiding
more than the half of each window; but his old comrade, Jack
Trevanion, whilom drum-major of the Cornish Light Infantry, who had
left a leg in the Punjaub, and with whom he had smoked many a pipe,
by that same hearth (where he now sat alone), talking of old times,
and of the old regiment, where even their names were forgotten, was
gone to his last home by Lanteglos church (the burial place of the
Trecarrels, too), and another host occupied Jack's place in the
bar-parlour.
Old Mike Treherne and Winny Braddon had quitted their native place,
and gone to Plymouth, from whence Derrick had travelled thus far on a
pilgrimage to Rhoscadzhel, when his heart began utterly to fail him.
From his sister Winny, the old nurse of Sybil, he had heard, with
honest indignation, the details of that futile and remarkable visit
paid to Rhoscadzhel, and how Downie Trevelyan had treated their now
dead mistress. He was told, too, of her hapless lawsuit, marred, as
it was believed, by the low practitioner, who, to gain some
notoriety, had thrust himself unasked into the case. But he could
only further learn "that Master Denzil was somewhere far away in the
Ingies," and that Miss Sybil, the sweet-voiced and gentle-eyed Sybil,
who had slept in her bosom in infancy, and whom she had seen develope
into a lovely young woman, had, after seeking in vain to sell her
drawings, gone penniless to London, after which she could hear of her
no more.
"Gone to London?" repeated Braddon, with a groan; "and penniless,
too!"
He knew that amid the human tide of that mighty Babylon she might be
lost as surely as if she were among the waves of the ocean; and then,
as the old soldier thought of his proud dead master, and how he had
loved that little daughter, he sighed again bitterly.
From the breast-pocket of his well-worn pea-jacket (Derrick was
attired somewhat like a sailor) he drew forth a rusted and battered
tin case. It was thin and flat in form, and he surveyed it long and
silently. Then he opened the lid, as if he was often in the habit of
doing so, mechanically and as if to assure himself that the contents
were safe; and he was, perhaps, about to draw them forth for
inspection, when a sound startled him, and he hastily consigned the
case to its keeping-place, just as the landlord ushered in a man, who
was dripping with rain, and whose personal appearance, the soaking of
his somewhat seedy habiliments had by no means improved.
Derrick courteously made way for the stranger, who ordered some "gin
and water hot," and after desiring the landlord to let him know when
the "first return fly," by which he meant a brougham, passed for some
town that he named, he proceeded to drink Braddon's health, and to
dry his shabby black garments by the rotary process of turning, as if
in a roasting-jack before the fire, raising the limp tails of his
coat from time to time over his long and awkward-looking arms and
lean bony hands.
"A wet night, sir," said he.
"Yes; but I have seen a wetter," replied Braddon.
"The dooce you have!"
"Aye, at sea; on a night when I was precious near having a cold water
cure for all my sufferings."
"How?"
"By being drowned."
"Your fate is perhaps a drier one. You are, I suppose, a seafaring
man?"
"I am an old soldier, and have served in the Cornish Light Infantry,
as boy and man, for one-and-twenty years, and have earned my shilling
a day from the Queen, God bless her! so don't crack your stale joke
on me," said Derrick grimly and emphatically, as he surveyed the
new-comer, whose face, somehow, seemed not unfamiliar to him.
He was attired in clothes a world too wide for him; the collar of his
coat rested on the nape of his neck, and its sleeve cuffs fell well
nigh over his fingers; the legs of his trousers flapped loosely over
his broken boots, and the tall shiny hat which he had deposited on
the deal table, after carefully wiping it with a coloured
handkerchief, had evidently seen better days upon another and perhaps
honester head. His brow was low and narrow; the frontal bones
projecting over keen eyes of a nondescript colour, and a mean
turned-up nose. Mistrust, acuteness, suspicion and avarice, were the
leading expressions of his face, which would have horrified a
disciple of Lavater; yet, in the tone of his voice, and in his
manner, there was an affectation of deferential suavity, as if he
sought to win rather than to repel a confidence that few, unless very
simple indeed, would accord to one with lips so thin and cruel, and
whose ears, like those of a cat, were nearly on the line of his
pericranium, which was covered by a few wisps of thin, grey, and
dead-looking hair. Yet this ugly personage has been described to the
reader before.
Perceiving that his jest had not been appreciated by the veteran, he
resumed the conversation in a different style.
"Know these parts?" said he, drinking his gin-and-water, and fixing
his eyes furtively on Derrick.
"Think I should," was the curt response.
"Ah"--
There was a pause; then the other said,--
"Many hereabout will be surprised to hear of old Derrick Braddon
coming to earth again."
The shabby stranger started, and the iris of his cunning eyes dilated
and shrunk again in a somewhat feline fashion, as he asked eagerly,--
"What! were you the groom to Captain Devereaux who--well,
occasionally--lived at Porthellick?"
"To the Right Honorable Lord Lamorna, if it is all the same to you,"
replied Derrick, stiffly.
"It is quite the same. What on earth is up! Is the sky about to
rain larks, eh?"
"It is pouring a torrent anyhow, at this moment," was the dry
response, as a fresh gust without clashed the leaves against the
window-panes, and the cry of the red-legged Cornish chough, driven
from his eyrie in the cliffs, was heard on the passing tempest.
"Where have you been all this time--nearly nine months, now?"
"That is too long a story to tell a stranger."
"And where is your master?"
"In his grave, God rest him!--in his grave, if the great sea can be
called so."
"How long have you been in England?"
"Three weeks."
"And in Cornwall?"
"I have just arrived."
"Then you may not have heard of me, William Schotten Sharkley,
solicitor, who acted as your mistress's agent in her case which
failed for want of legal or documentary proofs. I did all that I
could to befriend her--"
"And pocketed her last shilling, as I have heard."
"Law is an expensive amusement, and lawyers must be paid. I did my
best."
"For that I thank you, Lawyer Sharkley," replied Braddon, taking in
his hard honest hand the damp, unwholesome fingers of the solicitor,
adding somewhat awkwardly, "if you have a bad name, perhaps you can't
help it."
Mr. William S. Sharkley's face darkened, and his eyes dilated and
shrunk, but he was too craven in spirit to manifest the least
annoyance.
"And it was through the lack of certain papers," resumed Braddon,
"that my lady's case was lost, and her heart broken?"
"Yes; the doubtful letter she produced referred to a certificate of
marriage and a will in favour of her and her two children; but these
documents, if they ever existed, no doubt perished with the captain,
your master."
"They did not, as they are here--_here_--in the pocket of my old
coat, Master Sharkley; so it is of more value than it looks, for it
contains a peerage and an estate," replied Braddon, with gleaming
eyes, as he slapped his breast emphatically.
For a moment Sharkley sat silent and bewildered, for the energy and
perfect confidence of the speaker could not fail to impress him.
Then he said,--
"You of course mean to turn them to account somehow?"
"When the right time comes."
"And to show them--"
"To the right man when _he_ comes."
"And who, and where is he?"
"Young Denzil Trevelyan--Lord Lamorna--now in India, with the old
Regiment. Could I but get there--there to the young master--"
continued old Derrick with fervour; "but I might as well wish myself
in the moon; for I am a poor friendless old fellow. One thing,
Master Sharkley, I sha'n't trust the papers with you."
Sharkley was silent again; Braddon's mistrust of him was open and
unconcealed, and he saw but one way of obtaining a sight of papers so
important, and that was by exciting his indignation by a sneer.
"Ah--the lady at the villa was very much attached to your
master--very handsome, and I doubt not--"
"What more?"
"Very expensive, as these kind of folks usually are."
"What do you mean, sir?" asked Braddon, sternly.
"I mean what my words imply; she could not prove herself a wedded
wife, so her case had not a leg to stand on; yet I was her friend and
adviser."
"You think thus ill of her, and yet thrust yourself into her case."
"My dear sir, I am a lawyer, and lawyers must feed."
"Which is too often feeding what ought to be hung," replied Braddon,
with all a soldier's contempt for the other's cloth.
"I repeat that I was her friend," urged Sharkley.
"God keep us from such friends, if all I have been told is true."
"But giving a mere sight of those papers can do you no harm."
"And you small good; however, see them you shall," replied Braddon,
with something of grim triumph, as he drew them from the
before-mentioned tin case.