We were admitted to the pavilion by Clara, and I was surprised by the
completeness and security of the defenses. A barricade of great strength,
and yet easy to displace, supported the door against any violence from
without; and the shutters of the dining-room, into which I was led
directly, and which was feebly illuminated by a lamp, were even more
elaborately fortified. The panels were strengthened by bars and crossbars;
and these, in their turn, were kept in position by a system of braces and
struts, some abutting on the floor, some on the roof, and others, in fine,
against the opposite wall of the apartment. It was at once a solid and
well-designed piece of carpentry; and I did not seek to conceal my
admiration.
"I am the engineer," said Northmour. "You remember the planks in the
garden? Behold them?"
"I did not know you had so many talents," said I.
"Are you armed?" he continued, pointing to an array of guns and pistols,
all in admirable order, which stood in line against the wall or were
displayed upon the sideboard.
"Thank you," I returned; "I have gone armed since our last encounter. But,
to tell you the truth, I have had nothing to eat since early yesterday
evening."
Northmour produced some cold meat, to which I eagerly set myself, and a
bottle of good Burgundy, by which, wet as I was, I did not scruple to
profit. I have always been an extreme temperance man on principle; but it
is useless to push principle to excess, and on this occasion I believe
that I finished three quarters of the bottle. As I eat, I still continued
to admire the preparations for defense.
"We could stand a siege," I said at length.
"Ye--es," drawled Northmour; "a very little one, per--haps. It is not so
much the strength of the pavilion I misdoubt; it is the double danger that
kills me. If we get to shooting, wild as the country is, some one is sure
to hear it, and then--why then it's the same thing, only different, as
they say: caged by law, or killed by _carbonari_. There's the choice. It
is a devilish bad thing to have the law against you in this world, and so
I tell the old gentleman upstairs. He is quite of my way of thinking."
"Speaking of that," said I, "what kind of person is he?"
"Oh, he!" cried the other; "he's a rancid fellow, as far as he goes. I
should like to have his neck wrung to-morrow by all the devils in Italy. I
am not in this affair for him. You take me? I made a bargain for missy's
hand, and I mean to have it too."
"That, by the way," said I. "I understand. But how will Mr. Huddlestone
take my intrusion?"
"Leave that to Clara," returned Northmour.
I could have struck him in the face for his coarse familiarity; but I
respected the truce, as, I am bound to say, did Northmour, and so long as
the danger continued not a cloud arose in our relation. I bear him this
testimony with the most unfeigned satisfaction; nor am I without pride
when I look back upon my own behavior. For surely no two men were ever
left in a position so invidious and irritating.
As soon as I had done eating, we proceeded to inspect the lower floor.
Window by window we tried the different supports, now and then making an
inconsiderable change; and the strokes of the hammer sounded with
startling loudness through the house. I proposed, I remember, to make
loop-holes; but he told me they were already made in the windows of the
upper story. It was an anxious business, this inspection, and left me
down-hearted. There were two doors and five windows to protect, and,
counting Clara, only four of us to defend them against an unknown number
of foes. I communicated my doubts to Northmour, who assured me, with
unmoved composure, that he entirely shared them.
"Before morning," said he, "we shall all be butchered and buried in Graden
Floe. For me, that is written."
I could not help shuddering at the mention of the quicksand, but reminded
Northmour that our enemies had spared me in the wood.
"Do not flatter yourself," said he. "Then you were not in the same boat
with the old gentleman; now you are. It's the floe for all of us, mark my
words."
I trembled for Clara; and just then her dear voice was heard calling us to
come upstairs. Northmour showed me the way, and, when he had reached the
landing, knocked at the door of what used to be called My Uncle's Bedroom,
as the founder of the pavilion had designed it especially for himself.
"Come in, Northmour; come in, dear Mr. Cassilis," said a voice from
within.
Pushing open the door, Northmour admitted me before him into the
apartment. As I came in I could see the daughter slipping out by the side
door into the study, which had been prepared as her bedroom. In the bed,
which was drawn back against the wall, instead of standing, as I had last
seen it, boldly across the window, sat Bernard Huddlestone, the defaulting
banker. Little as I had seen of him by the shifting light of the lantern
on the links, I had no difficulty in recognizing him for the same. He had
a long and sallow countenance, surrounded by a long red beard and
side-whiskers. His broken nose and high cheek-bones gave him somewhat the
air of a Kalmuck, and his light eyes shone with the excitement of a high
fever. He wore a skull-cap of black silk; a huge Bible lay open before him
on the bed, with a pair of gold spectacles in the place, and a pile of
other books lay on the stand by his side. The green curtains lent a
cadaverous shade to his cheek; and, as he sat propped on pillows, his
great stature was painfully hunched, and his head protruded till it
overhung his knees. I believe if he had not died otherwise, he must have
fallen a victim to consumption in the course of but a very few weeks.
He held out to me a hand, long, thin, and disagreeably hairy.
"Come in, come in, Mr. Cassilis," said he. "Another
protector--ahem!--another protector. Always welcome as a friend of my
daughter's, Mr. Cassilis. How they have rallied about me, my daughter's
friends! May God in heaven bless and reward them for it!"
I gave him my hand, of course, because I could not help it; but the
sympathy I had been prepared to feel for Clara's father was immediately
soured by his appearance, and the wheedling, unreal tones in which he
spoke.
"Cassilis is a good man," said Northmour; "worth ten."
"So I hear," cried Mr. Huddlestone eagerly; "so my girl tells me. Ah, Mr.
Cassilis, my sin has found me out, you see! I am very low, very low; but I
hope equally penitent. We must all come to the throne of grace at last,
Mr. Cassilis. For my part, I come late indeed; but with unfeigned
humility, I trust."
"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Northmour roughly.
"No, no, dear Northmour!" cried the banker. "You must not say that; you
must not try to shake me. You forget, my dear, good boy, you forget I may
be called this very night before my Maker."
His excitement was pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow indignant
with Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily despised,
as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his humor of repentance.
"Pooh, my dear Huddlestone!" said he. "You do yourself injustice. You are
a man of the world inside and out, and were up to all kinds of mischief
before I was born. Your conscience is tanned like South American
leather--only you forgot to tan your liver, and that, if you will believe
me, is the seat of the annoyance."
"Rogue, rogue! bad boy!" said Mr. Huddlestone, shaking his finger. "I am
no precisian, if you come to that; I always hated a precisian; but I never
lost hold of something better through it all. I have been a bad boy, Mr.
Cassilis; I do not seek to deny that; but it was after my wife's death,
and you know, with a widower, it's a different thing: sinful--I won't say
no; but there is a gradation, we shall hope. And talking of that--Hark!"
he broke out suddenly, his hand raised, his fingers spread, his face
racked with interest and terror. "Only the rain, bless God!" he added,
after a pause, and with indescribable relief.
For some seconds he lay back among the pillows like a man near to
fainting; then he gathered himself together, and, in somewhat tremulous
tones, began once more to thank me for the share I was prepared to take in
his defense.
"One question, sir," said I, when he had paused. "Is it true that you have
money with you?"
He seemed annoyed by the question, but admitted with reluctance that he
had a little.
"Well," I continued, "it is their money they are after, is it not? Why not
give it up to them?"
"Ah!" replied he, shaking his head, "I have tried that already, Mr.
Cassilis; and alas! that it should be so, but it is blood they want."
"Huddlestone, that's a little less than fair," said Northmour. "You should
mention that what you offered them was upward of two hundred thousand
short. The deficit is worth a reference; it is for what they call a cool
sum, Frank. Then, you see, the fellows reason in their clear Italian way;
and it seems to them, as indeed it seems to me, that they may just as well
have both while they're about it--money and blood together, by George, and
no more trouble for the extra pleasure."
"Is it in the pavilion?" I asked.
"It is; and I wish it were in the bottom of the sea instead," said
Northmour; and then suddenly--"What are you making faces at me for?" he
cried to Mr. Huddlestone, on whom I had unconsciously turned my back. "Do
you think Cassilis would sell you?"
Mr. Huddlestone protested that nothing had been further from his mind.
"It is a good thing," retorted Northmour in his ugliest manner. "You might
end by wearying us. What were you going to say?" he added, turning to me.
"I was going to propose an occupation for the afternoon," said I. "Let us
carry that money out, piece by piece, and lay it down before the pavilion
door. If the _carbonari_ come, why, it's theirs at any rate."
"No, no," cried Mr. Huddlestone; "it does not, it cannot, belong to them!
It should be distributed _pro rata_ among all my creditors."
"Come now, Huddlestone," said Northmour, "none of that."
"Well, but my daughter," moaned the wretched man.
"Your daughter will do well enough. Here are two suitors, Cassilis and I,
neither of us beggars, between whom she has to choose. And as for
yourself, to make an end of arguments, you have no right to a farthing,
and, unless I'm much mistaken, you are going to die."
It was certainly very cruelly said; but Mr. Huddlestone was a man who
attracted little sympathy; and, although I saw him wince and shudder, I
mentally indorsed the rebuke; nay, I added a contribution of my own.
"Northmour and I," I said, "are willing enough to help you to save your
life, but not to escape with stolen property."
He struggled for awhile with himself, as though he were on the point of
giving way to anger, but prudence had the best of the controversy.
"My dear boys," he said, "do with me or my money what you will. I leave
all in your hands. Let me compose myself."
And so we left him, gladly enough I am sure.
The last that I saw, he had once more taken up his great Bible, and with
tremulous hands was adjusting his spectacles to read.