a rough street near the station.
Then again Hogarth was whirled into night and space, and, toward
morning, after the bumping climb of a van, was bidden to alight on
moorland, where he spied, far off, set on a hill, a mighty palace of
Romance, all grim, aloof, which was Colmoor.
The next morning while the outdoor gangs were being searched on parade
before the exit, Hogarth saw a face which he knew; and “You, Bates”, he
said, “I thought you were in Eternity!”
But no: there stood Bates, all capped and arrowed, cropped and neat, not
wearing the filthy old scarf of liberty any more.
The neighbor of Hogarth now was a stout man, with black hair, and grey
eyes.
He it was who had been--a priest: and in “Black Maria” had given that
answer: “I am who I am”.
XIV
THE PRIEST
A year passed, during which John Loveday exhausted the resources of
civilization, (1)in seeking Margaret, and (2)in investigating the
innocence of Richard.
He had, however, a sprightly, adventurous nerve in the mind, and would
pull his velvet sleeves busily up--such was his little way. He began to
plot.
About the same time the ex-priest, in that far-off world of Colmoor,
said one day to Hogarth: “_You_ won't be here long!”
“You jest,” Hogarth answered; “if I had the chance of escape, I should
never take it. I am here by due legal process”.
“Tut, if I say that you will escape, it is not because I am a prophet,
but a man of the world, and know what happens in it”.
Converse with this deep, world-wise, and fluent man had now become to
Hogarth like manna, or rather a vice, like opium: for in those grey eyes
of the cleric was hinted anon the baleful glint of the cobra's.
That day, a Saturday, outdoor gangs were recalled early, to “clean up”
for Sunday, and out across the heath rang the great bell, Colmoor being
famous for its bell, its tone and great size, larger than even the
eight-ton “Mighty Tom” of Christ Church, for though its thickness was
only six inches, it weighed, bell and clapper, ten tons, and was seven
feet high and seven in diameter.
A busy Saturday afternoon ensued, and whatsoever Hogarth's hand found to
do he did it with his might, though his face now seemed all eyes--brown,
bloodshot, imperially large, morbidly staring.
He was giving the finishing touches of order to his wooden spoon and
salt-cellar, his tin knife, plate, and pint cup for gruel, when a Warder
Jennings peeped in with, “No. 76--you are to follow the assistant warder
at once”, and Hogarth descended to an ante-room where an official
handed him a letter, which had been read and initialed by governor and
chaplain.
An event!--a letter in Colmoor, like a shark's fin on the voyages of old
sailing ships.
It was from Loveday, and concluded with a reference to Hogarth's “poor
old grandmother”.
So Hogarth, who had no “grandmother”, propped his forehead to ponder
that thing; and presently said: “Oh, it is a cypher”.
And by noting little peculiarities in the shapes of the letters,
a double cross to a t, a q like a g, etc., he soon had
“flemecops-leftquary”--which he took to mean: “flee to me in the copse
to the left of the quarry”.
He smiled with tenderness at the dear heart planning and daring so
very much for him. But in his smile was a touch of disdain also, he not
intending to “flee”.
XV
MONSIGNOR
Hogarth's first thought, as getting-up bell clattered réveille through
the gallery, was of Loveday's cypher, and by the time the warder came
to ask if he would see governor or doctor, a thought of Monsignor O'Hara
had somehow mixed itself with the thought of the cypher; when an orderly
handed in the day's brown loaf, he was thinking, “Strange that he never
told me what he has done”; eating his pint of gruel, he thought: “If I
will not escape myself, I might perhaps let another.”
“What!” said O'Hara on the march out, “you still here?”
“Where should I be?” answered Hogarth, dull and sullen.
“Where palaces stand open for you, and bank-notes--have you ever
realized something very charming in the Helen pallor of a bank-note,
Hogarth? And gold-yellow, sparkling gold! Hogarth, I--_love_ gold! It is
a confession--”
“Is it that love which brought you here?” Hogarth asked with his
sideward stare.
Whereupon the priest turned a cold gaze upon him--had regarded Hogarth
as a well-bred man, or would hardly have conversed with him.
“I had a motive for asking”, said Hogarth, eyeing the face of the
prelate--a man of very coarse feature; a small head, made to receive the
tonsure, with a low brow; a stern bottom lip, and long upper; a fat neck
held majestically erect; and up stuck his double chin. In profile,
the part between the sharp edge of the bottom lip and the chin-tip was
divided, down near the chin tip, by an angle and crease; and the lower
face seemed too massive for the size of the head.
Nothing could be more exquisite than the contrast between his air of
force, authority and importance, and the knickerbockers, the coarse cap,
the canvas slop-jacket, which he wore.
Outwardly calm, he was yet very excited by that “I had a motive”; he
said to himself: “Suppose this man has some plan! He could invent ten,
if he only knew it. And suppose he would tell me it, if I make him
believe me innocent! It would be like him!”
When the eleven o'clock dinner-bell rang, and they two were again
together, O'Hara said: “Hogarth, I have for some time been intending to
give you my story. Have I in your eyes the air of a guilty man?”
“God knows,” answered Hogarth, with a shrug; “you talk nicely, and you
know much”.
“So much for the hollowness of friendship!”
“Don't be sentimental”, said Hogarth: “I never pretended to be any
friend of yours; but I do respect your talents, do pity your misery:
and if I knew the solid facts of, as you have said, your 'innocence', I
might--”
“_What_?” whispered O'Hara with a thievish, fierce glance.
“Help you”.
“_In God's truth?_”
“I might”.
O'Hara said: “I don't find it so cold as it was this morning. You must
have observed a certain peculiarity of moorland climates--the same
being true of the Roman Campagna, and of Irish peat-lands--that they
are colder than elsewhere in the absence of the sun, and warmer in its
presence. This afternoon--_I will tell you_--”
They had reached the great gates, and were marched to parade-ground for
the second of the four daily searches; then, after three ounces of fat
mutton and forty minutes' rest, the third search, the second march-out.
And immediately beyond the gates O'Hara began: “In order to paint you my
life, Hogarth, I must give you at once to understand what has been its
mainspring and secret: my passion for my Church--”
He paused, while his lips moved in prayer, and he crossed himself.
“From boyhood my dream was to see my Church supreme in the warfare of
the world, I being a King's College and Maynooth man, at twenty-three
was Senior Chancellor's Medallist, and seven years later, sent to Rome
was quickly received into the Vatican household. It was recognized that
I had a future: both gifts and graces; piety; a versatile tongue; a
powerful voice; some learning; could dine, I could look august; above
all, I knew my man and could talk him over. My great day came when, one
morning, in St. Gregory the Great on Mount Coelius, I was consecrated
Bishop Coadjutor to his Eminence the Archbishop of Westminster. Now
I was on the heights. My life during the next ten years was a life of
bustling action--and was led always with one unselfish object. No man
ever spoke a greater number of words than I, Hogarth. I have breakfasted
with the Prime Minister, lunched with a President of the Conference, and
dined with the Bishop of London: between the three meals I have written
a hundred letters and pitched into ten cabs. Such a life is very
exhilarating, in comparison, for example, with quarrying. Oh, my God
what am I fallen! Most of that time I was running over Europe: from
Madrid to Vienna, from Rouen to Rome. It happened that the Archbishop
of Paris was organizing a scheme of Church-workhouses in France, in the
absence of municipal ones, such as we have here.... Well, it was a grand
thing, but was falling through for lack of funds: so I, on my way to
Rome, undertook the mission to plead the cause before his Holiness, and
succeeded to this extent that, on my return, I had with me a casket from
the good old man containing seven diamonds, which I might either dispose
of personally, or hand over to the Paris fund. Now, it was during my
stay at Rome that that series of events, culminating in the Jewish
exodus from Europe, occurred; and on my journey home I was seized with
the mighty thought that, since many of the Jews were perishing of want,
_that_ was the moment to reach their spirit through the body, and add
their race to the trophies of the Church. Was it not a thought? You
yourself, who are a Jew--”
Hogarth's eyes opened in surprise.”_I_ am not a Jew “.
“No? I should have said that there was a hint of expression
somewhere--But to resume. I retained those seven diamonds, and disposed
of them”.
“Honest behaviour!”
“Perfectly honest! I acquainted the Pope--he sanctioned it! And now, I,
single-handed almost, threw myself into that task. I hired, I built, I
begged, I borrowed, I formed committees, I haunted Religious Houses, I
sweated, I ran, I wept, I visited dens, I smoked opium, I drank gin,
I framed memorials, I learned Yiddish, I read the Mishna and Gemara, I
interviewed Rabbonim, I wrote tracts: I was busy. In the midst of it, I
had to visit Rome ceremoniously, to assist at an interview between
the Duke of York and his Holiness--arrived on the Monday, and on the
Wednesday, I remember, attended a Court Ball in the suite of his Royal
Highness. That night, when I returned to the Vatican, I found all the
Piazza di San Pietro crowded. I do not know if you were free at the
time when my friend, M. Tissot, startled everybody by predicting the
collision of an asteroid with the earth? Tut, the silly being--he
should have known from the body's response to the spectroscope that its
condition was too friable to resist our atmosphere. But I never yet
knew an astronomer not imbued with sensationalism they acquire a certain
megalomania from their intercourse with space. But, at all events, the
people, dreading the destruction of everything, had crowded toward the
Vatican. The Duke of Genoa, I, and some of the College of Cardinals,
stood watching from a balcony; and very imposing, I remember, was the
moment when a glare appeared--I must stop--”
They were at the face of the rock, and the “halt” and “set to work”
parted them.
But again on the final march back at 5.15 when nightshades were falling
fast like snow, and the arm now felt the pick a load, O'Hara began his
muttering:
“I was telling you about the asteroid”, he said. “Now this body, it was
given out, contained diamonds in large evidence, and the mere thought of
such a thing bursting in mid-air, and scattering itself about was, I--I
confess, a little fascinating to my mind. A man might let his soul
gloat upon such a hope till he went lunatic with lust! I--I confess, the
thought was alluring to me. Diamond, my son: lucid--But when the body
burst, and none of it came my way, I drove it from my mind: in fact, I
never heard of a trace of it having been seen--hissed itself into gases
in mid-air. Except in one instance--one instance.
“When I reached Calais on my homeward way, stopped there a day, awaiting
the coming of Rouen, for whom I had nuncio communications, and in the
evening went to visit a cottage where I had once been a great favourite
with an old fellow called Santé-you know those Calais fishers, with
painted sabots, and ochred trousers. And 'What!' said I to Santé,
'the nets already spread at this hour?' 'Nothing to be done to-day, my
Father', he answered, and explained that he had attempted to pick up a
stone before his door, and--it had burned him: he showed it me: it had
the appearance of a piece of ferruginous rock, stuck with pieces of
dirty glass; and it had burned Santé on the midnight of the asteroid's
scattering.
“Imagine my excitement: 'The asteroid', I thought, 'may add fifty
thousand Jews to the Church'. I asked Santé for the stone--Do you blame
me?”
“Go on,” said Hogarth.
“That day two months I had the diamonds lying polished in a casket in
my house. My evil destiny, Hogarth, ordained that the casket was the
one given me for Paris by the Pope, the number of the new diamonds
the same--seven: and one day, about that time, the Vatican organ, the
_Osservatore Romano_, published a dreadful article, hinting that I had
applied to my own purposes seven diamonds entrusted me for Paris: the
Pope, just dead, must have left some record of his gift. My friend,
before I had heard a whisper of the attack upon me, the casket, whose
lid was mosaicked with the Papal fanon, was secretly searched by a
secretary in my house: the seven diamonds were seen.
“Imagine the horror of what followed: I was abandoned by all--superior
and inferior; the story of the meteor was received with sneers. The
scandal reached the public papers--the public prosecutor. And here now
is the wretch, Patrick O'Hara.”
The latter part of this narrative was fiction! The Pope's diamonds
O'Hara had duly handed to the Archbishop! and though there was such a
man as Santé, no asteroid had ever fallen at his door. In fact, O'Hara
was “serving time” for an assault upon a lady in a railway compartment
between Whitchurch and Salisbury.
But Hogarth spent that night in meditating the pros and cons as to
O'Hara's escaping; and, in a moment of destiny, said at last: “If he is
undeservedly doomed--” and swooned to sleep.
The very next day was foggy....
On the march out O'Hara said: “Here is something like a fog. On the
Carinthian Alps, where you have dense woolly fogs, there is a race of
goats, which--”
“Would you like to escape?” whispered Hogarth.
“_Who?_”
“You”.
“Hogarth--! My God--!”
A trembling seized the priest's leathery left cheek, he at that
instant seeing a vision of the world--Andalusian wines, hued ices, the
opera-house, and great greyhounds of the sea, and a snuff which his
gross nose loved at Gorey.
“Hogarth, you are not mocking me?” chattered the priest's jaws, hurrying
like a jarred spring.
“I am quite serious. You will have to run for it though”.
“_Run!_ I am not such a young man! Have pity Hogarth”.
“Bah! Be a man”.
The priest approached his mouth to Hogarth's ear: “_I should die of
fright!_ My heart--”
“What would it matter? I thought you had more beans”.
“But have you--a plan?”
“Yes. You must run to the copse--”
“I shall be shot!”
“Probably”.
“I _could_ not--”
“Then, do not”.
“Tell me, boy! Tell me, Hogarth...”
“Within the copse to the left of the quarry there is almost certainly
at this moment waiting a man who, as soon as you pronounce my name, will
help you--”
“You say _almost_ certainly”.
“I can't see him, O'Hara. But I should say he is there on a morning like
this”.
“_What_ a risk! _What_ a risk!” went the priest with lifted eyelids each
time.
“You cannot escape from prison without risk. But I, personally, would
venture upon ten times as much, if I thought it becoming. There is,
however, another risk: that you may not strike the part of the copse
where he is. But near the 1 middle it is high--”
“Why, it is nothing but risks!” whined O'Hara with opening arms.
“You are not bound to try it. By the way--can you swim?”
“Yes--I suppose so--yes”.
“Then lift yourself to it, and risk it. I should, if I were you. Think
of liberty, activity. Prick your spirit, grip at it, and spring it”.
“Do you think I shall be shot?”
“No! It does not matter! Crush your doubts, martyr yourself to your aim,
and your aim will give you the crown of martyrdom”.
“Well--God reward you--I will think of it--”
“_Do_ it!”
“I will!”
“In that case, don't trust to your own eyes--_I_ will give you the
signal with my handkerchief--so: you keep your eyes fixed on me. Then
run, zigzagging. And tell Loveday for me to look after you, and not make
any more plans for me. Good-bye, O'Hara! All this is very unselfish of
me, for I lose my old talky-talky O'Hara--”
They parted at the rock, and set to work.
As minutes, half-hours passed, the condition of O'Hara became piteous,
hideous. His knees knocked together. Like death he dreaded, like life
awaited, that signal. He said to himself: “This Hogarth will be my
ruin...God deal not with me after my sins...!”
Hogarth was waiting that the warders' morning watchfulness might yield
to the influence of use and time; but near nine, when the morning fog
showed signs of thinning, he approached the water-can to ask for a
drink, O'Hara being then two yards from him, wheeling a barrow.
As he stooped to the water, his huge stare ranged the moor, took in the
truth of it, and, after waiting ten, fifteen seconds, he upset the can.
As two officers, at the outcry, ran toward the spot, Hogarth, his eyes
fixed upon them, waited--and all at once, with a flourish, drew his
handkerchief.
O'Hara, with a heavy but impassioned run, was away...
He had not run five yards when a chorus of whistles was shrilling.
And quick, that monotony reels into a very frenzy of sensation: it is no
more the same world, the same men. Lo, in the Palace of Continuity is an
Event.
33 was off.
Five hundred pairs of eyes lit up, and the flurried warders ran in
random dismay to see to it! How if all the five hundred should do
the like, simultaneously?--a possibility underlying, through all its
breadth, the little social “system” which has produced Colmoor.
But the five hundred, exhorted, stamped at, shouted at, remained quiet,
though restive, only the wild eye showing the wild thought, while two
of the warders pursued O'Hara who had also to run the blockade of two
pickets of the civil guard.
The escaping convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is
strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a certain
ecstasy, everything can be accomplished.
So O'Hara separately dodged the two pickets, and was making bolt for the
copse before three rifles, aimed at a large vague ghost, rang out, and
did not hit. He plunged madly into the brambly bush.
Immediately a bleating like a child's trumpet was heard from its midst;
and in a few seconds, not one, but _four_, men were seen to rush toward
the river, all in convict knickerbockers, stockings, caps, all in black
overcoats: and one carried a bundle.
Beyond the river one was shot in the leg--a black sailor, who, with two
roughs, had undertaken the risk for lucre. The rest escaped.
XVI
THE ROPE
Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching at
Colmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his small
bony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all a light of
eyes.
Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had occurred
to the authorities, he now found himself transferred to another “graft”:
from quarrying was set to trenching.
Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; the
sea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be trenched and
quarried.
And in Hogarth's new gang was--Fred Bates.
One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, saw
that Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his hands.
“What, Fred, not giving in?” He went quickly and pressed his palm on
Bates' brow, saying: “Patience! Stiffen your back: look how _I_ slip
into it!”
“Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man”.
“So am I.”
“Yes, but _I_ was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, six
months; _you_ wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That touches
the nerve, don't it? Ah!”
“And how did you expect to be out?”
“I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment was
ordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the morning after
the missus was killed, I went early--for I knew I'd soon be arrested--to
a stableman at Beccles--you know old Harris--and I made him swear to
give a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in Southampton, and
to nobody else. In the letter I told Bob where he was to look for
so-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence--”
“But I don't understand a word of what you are saying”, interrupted
Hogarth.
“I'll tell you. I did not kill my Kit. The burn on her face, and on my
hand, wasn't any red-hot poker. Did you ever hear such bosh? Look here,
you mind, don't you, the talk that week about the world getting blowed
up by some comet? Well, about 3 P.M. on the comet day, as I was walking
home through Lagden Dip, an old gent, the same as took the farm over
after you, he comes up to me, and he says: 'If you should happen to see
anywhere in your travels', sez 'e, laughin' and rubbin' his hands, 'a
piece of hot iron after eleven to-night, you bring it to me, and I'll
put a cheque for One Thousand Pounds there in the middle of your palm'.
Well--I said it was a Wednesday, didn't I? And Wednesday bein' the
pay-day on the Eastern, me and the missus had a drop o' beer that
afternoon, and you know 'ow you come and catched me a-paying of
her--dirty dog that I was those days. But, Hogarth, you hadn't hardly
gone when we made it up between us, and the rest of that evening we was
just like--well--two bloomin', cooin' doves! kissin', blubblin', havin'
drinks, and doin' our week's shoppin' together. Well--stop, here's
Black--”
They were interrupted, and for two days found no other chance.
Two days during which Hogarth received another letter from Loveday, of
which one paragraph was as follows: “The fifteen pounds which you left
in Lloyd's Bank I have managed to withdraw for you on the authority of
your aunt, Miss Sarah Hogarth”, and at once he scented a cypher, having
no fifteen pounds, and no aunt.
When he had unravelled it as before, he had: “Why you failed?
Expect--Balloon--Rope”.
He was astounded: and could only conclude that O'Hara had not delivered
his message.
And as the image of O'Hara had mixed itself with his thoughts of the
copse, so now the image of Fred Bates mixed itself with the balloon.
It was partly through _his_ evidence that Bates was here...!
On the third day Bates, as though he had just left off, resumed his
story:
“You know Seely's, the general shop, at Priddlestone”, said he; “it was
there we always did our Wednesday-night marketin'--nobody would believe
what high old jinks those Wednesday pay-days was to us Great Eastern
blokes! By the time we reached Priddlestone, we had a quart of four-ale
down us, let alone what we'd had before, and, as the saying is, one
glass leads to another. By now we was feeling just nicely, thank you,
and instead of going to Seely's, we took a short cut to 'The Broom', and
it was going on for past eleven when we found ourselves in--you know the
beechwood between Priddlestone and Thring--she singing all the time with
her head thrown back, at the top of her voice.
“Hogarth, it gives me the creeps to think of! Suddenly it looked as if
the whole wood was lit up: there was the sky all cut up with streamers,
I saw my Kit quite plain, then all at once there was a whishin' and a
rushin' among the trees, like steam--and I saw my Kit drop smack. In two
ticks my head was sober: but, as I ran to her, I staggered sideways upon
my left hand, and I let such a _yell_ out of me--had put my hand upon
something flamin' hot.
“The minute I bent over my old woman I knew she was a deader; and I
dropped down, and I called of her, and I shook of her, and it was quite
two hours before I come to myself properly, by which time the affair
what struck her down was gone out in darkness. Of course, the first
thing I thought of was the old gent at Lagden. 'This should mean a cool
thou', says I to myself. But I knew I should be arrested first thing in
the morning, except I told plain out what had happened: and that, you
bet, I didn't mean to do, for if once I mentioned that there piece of
iron before I had it safe off the lord-o'-the-manor's land, I knew it
'ud be taken from me. But to take it off before another day or two was
out of the question--it was too hot. So says I to myself: 'I'll _get_
convicted; and to-night I'll write a letter to Bob, telling him where
to find the affair, how to get the thou, and _after_ he's got it, how to
set about gettin' the case retried '.