‘My father,’ said the lieutenant, ‘was a gentleman of great property,
and a close friendship existed between him and the brother of his
wife—Sir Carnaby, to wit. They became mixed up with a discontented body
of people named Jacobites; and a short time before the unhappy affair
which we have been talking about, two warrants were issued for their
apprehension. My father was seized at once; but Sir Carnaby Vincent
contrived to make his escape for a time, till at length he closed his
flight at this place. You know what happened when he and his servant
arrived here; they were surprised by a party of military, who had
received notice of their movements; and my uncle was shot dead. His
attendant fortunately escaped, and returned, after a short time had
elapsed, to our family with the sad news. The proceedings against my
father, Sir Henry Ainslie, were suspended through want of sufficient
evidence, and he was allowed to come back to his home, only to die
shortly afterwards, broken both in spirits and in circumstances. Before
his death, he made an appalling disclosure to my mother, the sum of it
being this—that, trusting to the ultimate success of the revolution
which he had been hoping to raise, both he and Sir Carnaby had heavily
mortgaged their estates, and placed all their available money at the
service of the king that was to be. Where this large amount had been
placed, or to whom it had been intrusted, it is now impossible to say,
for my father breathed his last ere he could impart any additional
information. The consequences of this act proved most disastrous. Our
mansion and estates were immediately seized upon; and beyond a small
income which my mother possessed in her own right, we were left with
scarcely any means of support. From the scanty information we could
gather from Sir Carnaby’s attendant, it was considered not at all
improbable that the disposal of this wealth had been intrusted to his
master; and subsequent inquiries proved that he had actually taken with
him in his flight a number of valuable papers and documents. What these
papers referred to, it is equally impossible to say; but there has
always existed among us a strong impression that they related to the
immense sum which had been advanced upon the family estates.’
‘Well, sir,’ exclaimed old Hobb, when the narrative had arrived at this
stage, ‘you don’t suppose that the gentleman brought all that lump of
money here?’
‘Not the money exactly,’ answered Reginald, smiling. ‘I don’t credit my
plotting relative with being such a fool as to carry that about with
him.’
‘The soldiers found but little in them saddle-bags, an’ he brought
nought else with him; I can swear to that,’ said Dipping obstinately.
‘My good man,’ returned Ainslie, ‘the documents I refer to might have
been carried about his person.’
‘Nothin’ was found on the body when it was searched, before being
buried; I remember that right enough, sir,’ persisted old Hobb.
‘That is the very point I wished to come to,’ said the lieutenant
triumphantly. ‘You are sure that no papers of any kind were discovered
on his person?’
‘Quite sure, sir,’ replied Dipping emphatically.
‘Then just listen to what I have to say,’ continued Reginald, speaking
in an impressive voice and fixing his eyes upon the landlord’s
countenance. ‘The man-servant who accompanied Sir Carnaby to this place
swears that his master corresponded with no single person during his
flight; moreover, that he handled the saddle-bags you have just now
been speaking of, several times, and remembers to have noticed that one
of them contained a small black box.’
The wondering expression on old Hobb’s face had considerably increased
by this time.
‘We have now got to a critical point in my story,’ continued the
lieutenant. ‘Derrick—the man who accompanied Sir Carnaby hither—told
me he was the first to hear the sound of the approaching military,
and that, being apprehensive of danger, he stole along the gallery
with the intention of waking his master. When Sir Carnaby opened the
door of his room, the man was surprised to find him fully dressed.
Hurried as their conference must have been, Derrick was sharp enough
to notice that his master had been using some sort of a knife, and
that the black box which he had before seen that night on the table,
had now disappeared, and that the saddle-bags were empty. However, all
persuasion could not induce my unfortunate relative to flee, which in
itself appears to be very strange. He told his attendant that he would
follow him if he would take the horses to the place agreed upon—that
more lives than his own depended upon his not leaving the place at
once, and several other things equally incomprehensible. Derrick at
last unwillingly consented to obey his instructions, and left the
house, wondering much at his master’s conduct. The two, as you know,
never met again.—This man,’ resumed Ainslie, after a pause—‘this man,
Derrick, always expressed a belief—a strange one, truly—that Sir
Carnaby was so anxious for the safety of the contents of that precious
saddle-bag, that he would not retire to rest until he had placed it
in a secure hiding-place. He might possibly have just been concluding
his task as the attendant arrived at his door with the alarming news;
at any rate, it seems not at all unlikely that his object in sending
the man to a rendezvous was in order to gain time, while he made
a desperate attempt to unearth again this mysterious box prior to
escaping from the inn with it. Or, it is quite possible that my uncle,
being startled by the report of firearms, resolved to let this precious
property, which would implicate so many persons, remain in its place of
concealment, trusting, in the event of his escape, to return and secure
it once more.’
‘Do you mean to say that the gentleman hid it in this very house?’
gasped the landlord, with considerable astonishment depicted on his
countenance.
‘That is what I think.’
‘Well, well!’ exclaimed the old man, ‘to think that I should ha’
slept an’ eaten an’ drunk within them blessed walls for fifteen year,
with—who knows—half a million of property hidden about the place
unbeknown to me! Suppose there had been a fire, sir.’
‘It is fortunate there has not been one,’ replied Reginald.
‘Am I to understand that you wish to search the house?’ inquired old
Hobb, whose imagination was fired with a variety of wild speculations,
among which the probable discovery of a strong case of bullion figured
not the least conspicuously.
‘The whole house!—certainly not,’ answered Reginald with a faint smile.
‘I am afraid that would waste too much valuable time. What I want first
is a bed for the night.’
‘There’s the room which Sir Carnaby himself had: your honour wouldn’t
have no objection to that?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Ainslie. ‘The knowledge that the room has some
unpleasant circumstances connected with it will not affect me in the
least. I shall sleep as soundly in that apartment as in any other.’
‘Very good, sir.’ And mine host was about to leave the apartment, when
his visitor arrested him. ‘One word more, Mr Dipping.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘I have placed complete confidence in you,’ said Ainslie, ‘and have
intrusted to your keeping a secret, the importance of which you must be
well aware of. I wish you to guard it carefully. You have kept _that_
secret fairly enough,’ pointing to the scrap of writing; ‘try if you
cannot keep this one too.—Do you understand?’
The landlord intimated that he would do as his visitor wished, and then
departed, leaving Reginald to digest such thoughts as this conversation
had called up.
The twilight was by this time gray, and very little light remained,
while a few solitary objects that could be seen through the dimmed
glass in the old casements, looked shadowy and opaque. With the
exception of one small lamp, which Hobb Dipping had placed upon the
table, the room was but imperfectly lighted by the flickering fire.
Outside, the snow was silently falling, not thickly, but in large
steady flakes. The wind had dropped, and with it the whirling drift,
while the old walls of the _Saxonford Arms_ had ceased to groan and
creak.
‘Sir,’ said Hobb, reappearing once more, ‘the room’s ready. Shall I
show you the way?’
Reginald motioned to the landlord to lead on, and they passed out
together into a dark draughty passage.
‘This here’s the staircase, sir,’ remarked old Dipping, who was in
advance, bearing the light; ‘and that be the very place where the poor
gentleman fell.’
The landing before them was lighted by a gray ghostly window, which
faded into insignificance on the approach of the landlord’s yellow,
flaring lamp. When this apparition was passed, there came three
shallow steps up, then a short dusky gallery, and Reginald Ainslie
found himself in the room with which his departed relative had had so
mysterious a connection.
‘This, sir,’ said old Hobb, extending his right hand somewhat after the
manner of a travelling showman—‘this, sir, is Sir Carnaby’s room.’
‘Well, landlord,’ said Reginald, ‘I think I need detain you no longer.’
Bidding mine host good-night, Ainslie carefully fastened the door, and
then sat down before the fire, to ponder over his strange situation,
ere consigning himself to rest for the night.
WOUNDER AND HEALER.
(THE IDEA TAKEN FROM AGOUB’S TRANSLATION OF AN ARABIC SONG.)
Thy witching look is like a two-edged sword
To pierce his heart by whom thou art surveyed;
Thy rosy lips the precious balm afford
To heal the wound thy keen-edged sword has made.
I am its victim; I have felt the steel;
My heart now rankles with the smarting pain;
Give me thy lips the bitter wound to heal—
Thy lips to kiss, and I am whole again.
DAPHNIS.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._
* * * * *
[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.
Page 750: Hobbs to Hobb—“answered old Hobb slowly”.]