“_Enter Tritculento brandishing a rapier. Ordnance shot off 'without._”
--Old Stage Direction.
[Illustration: 9311]
HAT day slipped by smoothly and swiftly as a draught of some delicious
opiate, and every moment my fancy became anchored more securely to
Helmscote. But upon the next morning I received a letter from my Halfred
which, though it amused and moved me by the good fellow's own happiness,
yet contained one perplexing piece of news. I give the epistle in his
own words and spelling.
“_DEAR Sir,--Hopping the close reached you safely i added the waterprove
coat for shooting in rain supposing such happened. Miss Titch has
concented to marry me some day but not now you being sir the objec of my
attentions for the present hence i am happy beyond expression also
she is and i hop you approve sir. Another package has come for Mister
Balfour not to be oppened and marked u d t which Mr. Titch says means
undertake to return but I have done nothing hopping I am right yours
obediently ALFRED WINKES._”
No, Halfred, U. D. T. did not mean “Undertake to return,” but bore a
much graver significance, and this news made me so thoughtful that at
least one pair of bright eyes remarked it at breakfast.
“No bad news, I hope,” said Daisy, as we went together to the door to
inspect the weather.
“None that you cannot make me forget,” I replied, with a more serious
gallantry than I had yet shown towards her.
A little rise of color in her face did indeed make me forget all less
absorbing matters.
“By the time you leave us, you perhaps won't find us still so
consoling,” she replied, with a smile.
“Don't remind me of that day,” I said. “It is a long way off--a hundred
years, I try to persuade myself!”
Little did I think how soon fate would laugh at my confidence.
To-day we were to shoot pheasants. The baronet had his arm out of the
sling for the first time, and this so raised his spirits that I felt
sure Dick's six months' probation were already divided by two, at least.
Two friends were coming from a neighboring house, and the other gun
was to be my second, Tonks, who was expected to stay for the night.
Presently he appeared and greeted me with a friendly grin.
“You haven't got Lumme to fire at to-day,” he remarked.
I drew him aside.
“Tonks,” I said, “that incident is forgotten--also the cause of it. You
understand?”
He had the uncomfortable perspicacity to glance over at Daisy as he
replied:
“Right O; I won't spoil any one's sport.”
This game of pheasant-shooting is played in England with that gravity
and seriousness that the Briton displays in all his sports. No
preparations are wanting, no precautions omitted. You stand in a
specially prepared opening in a specially grown plantation, while a
specially trained company of beaters scientifically drive towards you
several hundred artificially incubated birds invigorated by a patent
pheasant food. Owing to the regulated height of the trees and the
measured distance at which you stand these birds pass over you at such a
height (and, owing to the qualities of the patent food, at such a pace),
and the shot is rendered what they call “sporting.” Then, at a certain
distance from his gun and a certain angle, the skilful marksman
discharges both barrels, converts two pheasants into collapsed bundles
of feathers, snatches a second gun from an attendant, and in precisely
similar fashion accounts for two more. The flight of the bird is so
calculated that the bad shot has little chance of hitting anything at
all, so that the pheasant may return to his coop and be preserved intact
for another day. When such a shot is firing, you will hear the host
anxiously say to the keeper at the end of the day: “Did he miss them all
clean?”
And if the answer is in the affirmative, he will add:
“Excellent! I shall ask him to shoot again.”
A clean miss or a clean kill--that is what is demanded in order that you
may strictly obey the rules of the sport, and at my first stand, where
I was able to exhibit five severed tails, a mangled mass which had
received both barrels at three paces, and seven swiftly running
invalids, my enthusiasm was quickly damped by the face Sir Philip pulled
on hearing my prowess.
“Never mind,” said Daisy, who had come to see the sport, “you couldn't
expect to get into it just at first.”
“Come and give me instruction,” I implored her. “Don't be in such a
hurry!” she cried, as she stood beside me at the next beat. “Look before
you shoot--that's what Dick always says you ought to do. Now you've
forgotten to put in your--wait! Of course! No wonder nothing happened;
you had forgotten to put in the cartridges. Steady, now. Oh, but don't
wait till it's past you! Dick says--Good shot! Was that the bird you
aimed at?”
“Mademoiselle, it was the bird a far-seeing Providence placed within the
radius of my shot. 'L'homme propose; Dieu dispose.'”
“I shouldn't trust to Providence _too_ much,” said she.
Well, between Heaven and Miss Shafthead, aided, I must say for myself,
by a hand and eye that were naturally quick and not unaccustomed to
exercises of skill, I managed by the end of the day to successfully
uphold the honor of my country. The light was fading when we stopped
the battue, the air was sharp, and the ground crisp with frost. My fair
adviser had gone home a little time before, and, wrapped in pleasant
recollections and meditations, I had fallen some way behind the others
as we walked homeward across a stubble-field. The guns in front passed
out through a gate into a lane, and I was just following them when a man
stepped from the shadow of the hedge and said to me:
“A gentleman would speak to you.”
I looked at him in astonishment.
He was an absolute stranger, and his manner was serious and impressive.
Behind him, in the opposite direction from that in which my friends had
turned, stood a covered carriage, with another man wrapped in a cloak
a few paces in front of it, and a third individual holding the horse's
head.
“That is the gentleman,” added the stranger, indicating the man in the
cloak.
In considerable surprise I turned towards the carriage.
“M. d'Haricot,” said the shrouded individual.
“M. le Marquis!” I cried, in astonishment.
It was indeed none other than he whom I have before mentioned under
the name of F. II, secretary of the league, conspirator by instinct and
profession, by rank and name the Marquis de la Carrabasse.
“What are you doing here, my dear Marquis?” I exclaimed.
He regarded me with a fixed and searching expression.
“The hour is ripe,” he said. “The moment has come to strike! Here is my
carriage. Come!”
For a moment I was too astonished to reply. Then, in a reasonable tone,
I said:
“Pardon, Marquis, but I must first take leave of my hosts.”
“You cannot.”
“That is to be seen,” I replied, losing my temper a little.
Before I could make a movement the Marquis was covering me with a
revolver, and from the corner of my eye I could see that the man who had
first spoken to me had drawn one, too.
“Enter the carriage,” said the Marquis. “I do not trust you.”
[Illustration: 0317]
“Since you give me no alternative between a somewhat prolonged rest in
this ditch and the pleasure of your society, I shall choose the latter,”
I replied, with as light an air as possible. “But I warn you, Marquis,
that this conduct requires an explanation.”
He continued to look sternly at me, holding his revolver to my head, but
making no reply, while, in as easy a fashion as possible, I strolled up
to the carriage.
Then, to my surprise, I saw that they had employed one of the beaters to
hold their horse, a man whom I recognized at once as having carried my
cartridge-bag.
“You may now go,” said the Marquis to this man, handing him coin. “And
for your own sake be silent!”
I could have laughed aloud at the delightful simplicity of thus hiring a
stranger at random to aid in an abduction and then expecting him to
keep his counsel, had I not seen in it an omen of further failures. So
certain was I that the news of my departure would now reach Helmscote
before night that I did not even trouble to send a message by him.
The man who had first spoken to me jumped upon the box and took the
reins, the Marquis and I entered the carriage, and through the dusk of
that winter evening I was carried off from Helmscote.
“Now, M. le Marquis,” I said, sternly, “have the goodness to explain
your words and conduct to me.”
He looked at me intently for a moment and then answered:
“On your honor, are you still faithful?”
“What do you mean, monsieur?”
“Lumme has not betrayed us?”
“Lumme!” I exclaimed, in astonishment, and then suddenly remembered the
warning paper. “Did you throw that paper into my bedroom?”
“An agent threw it for me. Did you obey the warning?”
“Again I must ask for an explanation. What has M. Lumme to do with it
and what do you suspect me of?”
“M. Lumme is in the English Foreign Office,” said the Marquis, with
emphasis.
[Illustration: 0319]
“And you suspect me of having betrayed my cause to him? On my honor,
monsieur, even were I inclined to treason I should as soon think of
confiding in that man whom you so rashly employed to hold your horse!”
“Sir Shafthead is in the English government.” said the Marquis, unmoved
by my sarcasm.
“Sir Philip Shafthead was at one time a member of Parliament, but is so
no longer. But what of that?”
“You have told him nothing?”
“I have not.”
“You have been watched,” said he. “Every movement you have made is known
to me.”
“And why?” I exclaimed. “Why should you think it necessary to watch me?”
“Why did you not send me any report yourself?”
“You did not ask for one.”
“I had not the honor to be informed of your address,” said he.
“I wrote to you as soon as I was settled in London, and to this day have
never received a reply.”
“You wrote?” he exclaimed, with some sign of disturbance.
“I did, I repeated, and I quoted some words I remembered from my letter.
“Pardon!” said the Marquis, “I do remember now receiving that letter, but
I must have mislaid it, and I certainly forgot that you had written.”
“And, having forgotten an important communication, you proceed to
suspect me of treason! This is excellent, M. le Marquis!”
“My dear friend,” he replied, in an agitated voice, “you then assure me
I was wrong in mistrusting you?”
“Absolutely!”
“Pardon me, my friend! I am overwhelmed with confusion!”
He was so genuinely distressed, and the sincerity of his contrition
was so apparent, that what could I do but forgive him? But what
carelessness, what waste of time in dogging the steps of a friend, what
indications of mismanagement at every turn! And even at that moment I
was apparently embarked under this leader upon some secret and hazardous
undertaking. Well, there was nothing for it but to do my best so far as
I was concerned.
“Ah, here is the station,” said he. “The train should now be almost
due.”
“Train for London, sir?” said the porter. “Gone ten minutes ago. No,
sir, no more trains tonight.”
“Peste!” cried the Marquis. “Ah, well, my friend, we must look for some
lodging for the night.”
“But perhaps we might catch a train at another station,” I suggested.
Yes, by driving ten miles we could just catch an express.
“Bravo!” said the Marquis. “You are full of ideas, my dear d'Haricot.”
“And you?” I said to myself, with a shrug.
We arrived just in time, and on the platform were joined by our driver.
“Let me introduce Mr. Hankey,” said the Marquis.
So this was the elusive Hankey. Well, I shall not take the trouble to
describe him. Imagine a scoundrel, and you have his portrait. I
was thankful he did not travel in the same compartment with us, but
evidently regarded himself as in an inferior position.
“You trust that man implicitly?” I asked the Marquis, when we had
started.
“Implicitly!” he replied, with emphasis.
“I do not,” I said to myself.
By ten o'clock that night I was seated with the Marquis de la Carrabasse
in my own rooms, thinking, I must confess, not so much of politics and
dynasties as of the friends I had just lost for who could say how long.
[Illustration: 8000]