Alone with the sleeping man, Hugh Ritson stood and looked down at him
intently. The fire had burned to a steady glow of red coal without
flame. There was no other light in the room.
The sleeper began to stir with the uneasy movement of one who is
struggling against the effect of a fixed gaze bent upon him. Then, with
a shake of the head and a shrug of the shoulders, he sat up in his
chair. He tossed his hat back from his forehead, and a tuft of wavy
brown hair tumbled over it. His head was held down, and his eyes were on
the fire. Hugh Ritson took a step toward him and put one hand on his
arm.
"Paul Drayton," he said, and the man shrunk under his touch and slowly
turned his face full upon him.
When their eyes met Hugh Ritson saw what he had expected to see--the
face of Paul Ritson. In that low, red light, every feature was the same.
By the swift impulse of sense it seemed as if it could be the same man
and no other; as if Paul Drayton and Paul Ritson were one man.
Drayton got on to his feet with an uncertain shuffle, and then in a
moment the hallucination was dispelled. He kicked, with a heavy boot, at
the slumbering coals, and the fire broke into a sharp crackle and bright
blaze. The white light fell on his face. It was a fine face brutalized
by excess. The features were strong, manly, and impressive. What God had
done was very good; but the eyes were bleared, and the lips discolored,
and the expression, which might have been frank, was sullen.
"I don't wonder that you were tired after your journey; it was a long
one," said Hugh Ritson. He affected an easy manner, but there was a
tremor in his voice. "You caught the early Scotch mail from Penrith," he
added, and drew a bench nearer to the fire and sat down.
Drayton made a half-dazed scrutiny of his visitor, and said:
"Damme, if you're not the fence as was here afore, criss-crossing at our
old woman! Tell us your name."
The voice was husky, but it had, nevertheless, a note or two of the
voice of Paul Ritson.
"That will be unnecessary," said Hugh Ritson, with complete
self-possession. "We've met before," he added, smiling.
"The deuce we have--where?"
"You slept at the Pack Horse at Keswick rather more than a week ago,"
said Hugh.
Drayton betrayed no surprise.
"Last Saturday night you were active at the fire that almost destroyed
the old mill at Newlands."
Drayton's sullen face was immovable.
"By the way," said Hugh, elevating his voice and affecting a sudden flow
of spirits, "I owe you my personal thanks for your exertions. What do
you drink--brandy?"
Going to the door, he called for a bottle of brandy and glasses.
"Then, again, on Monday night," he added, turning into the room, "you
did me the honor to visit my own house."
Drayton was still standing.
"I know you," he said. "Shall I tell you your name?"
Hugh smiled with undisturbed humor. "That also will be unnecessary," he
said; and leisurely drew off his gloves.
"What d'ye want? I ain't got no time to waste--that's flat."
"Well, let me see, it's just ten o'clock," said Hugh Ritson, taking out
his watch. "I want you to earn twenty pounds before twelve."
Mr. Drayton gave vent to a grim laugh.
"I'll pound it as I'm fly to what that means! You're looking to earn two
hundred before midnight."
Mr. Drayton gave Hugh a sidelong glance of great astuteness.
Hugh lifted his eyebrows and shook his head.
"Money is not my object."
"Oh, it ain't, eh? Well, I'm not afraid for you to know as it's
mine--very much so." And Mr. Drayton gave vent to another grim laugh.
Mrs. Drayton entered the room at this moment, and set down the brandy,
two glasses, and a water-bottle on the deal table.
"Let me offer you a little refreshment," and Hugh took up the brandy and
poured out half a tumbler.
"Thankee, thankee!"
"Water? Say when."
But Mr. Drayton stopped the dilution by snatching up his tumbler. His
manner had undergone a change. The watchfulness of a ferocious creature
dogged and all but trapped gave way to reckless abandonment, bravado and
audacity.
"What's the lay?" he said, with a chuckle.
"To accompany a lady to Kentish Town Junction, and see her safe into the
midnight train--that's all."
Drayton laughed outright.
"Of course it is," he said.
"The lady will be here shortly before midnight."
"Of course she will."
Hugh Ritson's face lost its smiles.
"Don't laugh like that--I won't have it!"
Mr. Drayton made another application to the spirit bottle, and then
leaned toward Hugh Ritson over the arm of his chair.
"Look here," he said, "it's just a matter o' thirty years gone August
since my mother put me into swaddling clothes, and deng my buttons if
I'm wearing 'em yet!"
"What do you mean, my friend?" said Hugh.
Drayton chuckled contemptuously.
"Speak out plain," he said. "Give the work its right name. I ain't
afraid for you to say it. A man don't give twenty pounds for the like o'
that. Not if he works for it honest, same as me. I'm a licensed
victualer, and a gentleman--that's what I am, if you want to know."
Hugh Ritson repudiated all unnecessary curiosity, whereupon Mr. Drayton
again had recourse to the spirit bottle, mentioned afresh his profession
and pretensions, and wound up by a relative inquiry, "And what do you
call yourself?"
Hugh did not immediately gratify Mr. Drayton's curiosity.
"Quite right, Mr. Drayton," he said; "I know all about you. Shall I tell
you why you went to Cumberland?"
Remarking that it was easy to repeat an old woman's gossip, Mr. Drayton
took out of his pocket a goat-skin tobacco-pouch, and proceeded to
charge a discolored meerschaum pipe.
"Thirty years ago," said Hugh Ritson, "a young lady tried to drown
herself and her child. She was rescued and committed to an asylum. Her
child, a son, was given into the care of the good woman with whom she
had lodged."
Mr. Drayton interrupted. "Thankee; but, as the wice-chairman says,
'we'll take it as read,' so we will."
Hugh Ritson nodded his head, and continued, while Mr. Drayton smoked
vigorously: "You have never heard of your mother from that hour to this;
but one day you were told by the young girl whom circumstances had cast
on your foster-mother's care, that among the mountains of Cumberland
there lived another man who bore you the most extraordinary resemblance.
That excited your curiosity. You had reasons for thinking that if your
mother were alive she might be rich. Now, you yourself had the
misfortune to be poor."
"And I'm not afraid for anybody to know it," interrupted Mr. Drayton.
"Come to the point honest. Look here, we are like two hyenas I saw one
day at the Zoo. One got a bone in his tooth at feeding time, and blest
if the other didn't fight for that bone I don't know how long and all."
"Well," continued Hugh Ritson, with a dubious smile that the cloud of
smoke might have hidden from a closer observer, "being a man of spirit,
and not without knowledge of the world, having inherited brains, in
short, from the parents who bequeathed you nothing else--"
Mr. Drayton puffed volumes, then poured himself half a tumbler of the
raw spirit and tossed it off.
--"You determined on seeing if, after all, this were only a fortuitous
resemblance."
Mr. Drayton raised his hand. "I am a licensed victualer, that's what I
am, and I ain't flowery," he said, in an apologetic tone; "I hain't had
the chance of it, being as I'd no schooling--but, deng me, you've just
hit it!" And the gentleman who could not be flowery shook hands
effusively with the gentleman who could.
"Precisely, Mr. Drayton, precisely," said Hugh Ritson. He paused and
watched Drayton closely. That worthy had removed his pipe, and was
staring, with stupid eyes and open mouth, into the fire.
"But you found nothing."
"How d'ye know?"
"Your face at this moment says so."
"Pooh! Don't you go along trusting this here time-piece for the time o'
day. It ain't been brought up in habits o' truthfulness same as yours."
Hugh Ritson laughed.
"You and I are meant to be friends, Mr. Drayton," he said. "But let us
first understand each other. Your idea that you could find your parents
in Cumberland was a pure fallacy."
"Eh! Why?"
"Because your mother is dead."
Drayton shook off the stupor of liquor, and betrayed a keen if momentary
interest.
"The book of the asylum in which she was confined, after the attempted
suicide, contains the record--"
"But she escaped," interrupted Drayton.
"Contains the record of her escape and subsequent recovery--dead. The
body was picked out of the river, recognized by the authorities as that
of the unknown woman, and buried in the name she gave."
"What name?" said Drayton.
Hugh Ritson's face underwent a momentary change.
"That is indifferent," he said; "I forget."
"Sure you forget?" said Drayton. "Couldn't be Ritson, eh?"
Hugh struck the table.
"Assuredly not--the name was not Ritson."
The tone irritated Mr. Drayton. He glanced down with a look that seemed
to say that Hugh Ritson had his Maker to thank for giving him the
benefit of an infirm foot.
Hugh Ritson mollified him by explaining that if he had any curiosity as
to the name, he could discover it for himself. "Besides," said Hugh,
"what matter about the name if your mother is dead?"
"That's true," said Drayton, who, being now appeased, began to see that
his anger had been puerile.
"Depend upon it, your father, wherever he is, is a cipher," said Hugh
Ritson.
Drayton got on to his feet and trudged the floor uneasily. An idea had
occurred to him. "The person picked out of the river may have been
another woman. I've heard of such."
"Possibly; but the chance of error is worth little to you." Hugh looked
uncomfortable as he said this, but Drayton saw nothing.
"Bah! What matter?" said Drayton, and, determined to cudgel his brains
no longer, he reached for the brandy and drank another half glass. There
was then an interchange of deep amity.
"Tell me," said Hugh, "what passed at the Ghyll on Monday night?"
"The Ghyll? Monday? That was the night of the snow. What passed?
Nothing."
"Why did you go?"
"Wanted to see your mother. Saw your brother one night late at the door
of the parson's house. Saw you at the fire. At the fire?--certainly.
Stood a matter of a dozen yards away when that young buck of a stableman
drove up with the trap. What excuse for going? Blest if I
remember--summat or other; knocked, and no one came. I don't know how
long and all I stood cooling my heels at the door. Then I saw a light
coming from a room on the first floor, and up I went and knocked. 'Come
in,' says somebody. I went in. Withered old party got up. Black crape
and beads, you know. But, afore I could speak, she reeled like a top and
fell all of a heap. Blest if the old girl didn't take me for a ghost!"
Mr. Drayton elevated his eyebrows, and added with emphasis, "I got out."
"And on the way back you frightened a young lady in the lane, who, like
my mother, mistook you for the ghost of my brother Paul. Well, that
young lady was married to my brother this morning. They are now on their
way to London. They intend to leave England on Wednesday next, and they
mean to pass to-night in your house."
Mr. Drayton's eyebrows went up again.
"It is certainly hard to understand--but look," and Hugh Ritson handed
to Drayton the telegram he had received from Bonnithorne. That worthy
examined it minutely, back and front, with bleared and bewildered eyes,
and then looked to his visitor for explanation.
"The lady must not leave England," said Hugh.
Drayton steadied himself, and tried hard to look appalled.
"Upon my soul, you make my flesh creep!" he said. "What do you want for
your twenty pounds? Speak out plain. I'm not flowery, I'm not. I'm a
licensed victualer and a gentleman--"
"What do I want? Only that you should send the lady home again by the
first train."
Drayton began to laugh.
"You see, there was no cause for alarm," said Hugh, with an innocent
smile.
Drayton's laughter became boisterous.
"I am to decoy the young thing away by making her believe as I'm her
husband, eh?"
"Mr. Drayton, you are a shrewd fellow."
"And what about the husband--ain't he another shrewd fellow?"
"Leave him to me. When the time comes, make no delay. Don't expose
yourself unnecessarily. Wear that ulster you have on at present. Say as
little as possible--nothing if practicable. Get the lady into the fly
that shall be waiting at the door; drive to the station; book her to
Keswick; put her into the carriage at the last moment; then clear away
with all expedition. The midnight train never stops this side of
Bedford."
Drayton was shuffling across the room, chuckling audibly. "He, he, he!
haw! haw!--so I'm to leave her at the station, eh? Poor young thing; I
hain't got the heart--I hain't got it in me to be so cruel. No, no, I
couldn't be such a vagabond of a husband--he, he! haw, haw!--and on the
poor thing's wedding day, too."
Hugh Ritson rose to his feet.
"If you go an inch further than the station, you'll repent it to your
dying day!" he said, once more bringing down his fist heavily on the
table.
At this Drayton chuckled and crowed yet louder, and declared that it
would be necessary to have another half glass in order to take the taste
of the observation out of his mouth.
Then his laughter ceased.
"Look here: you want me to do a job as can only be done by one man
alive. And what do you offer me--twenty pounds? Keep it," he said; "it
won't pass, sir!"
The fire had burned very low, the cheerless room was dense with smoke
and noisome with the smell of dead tobacco. Drayton buttoned up to the
throat the long coat he wore.
"I've summat on," he said; "good-night."
The sound of children's voices came from the bar. The little ones were
going home.
"Good-night, missy, and thank you." It was a woman's voice.
"Good-night, Mercy," cried the children.
Drayton was opening the door.
"Think again," said Hugh Ritson. "You run no risk. Eleven forty-five
prompt will do."