"Man, man!" he cried, "how could you be such an idiot as to write that
document and leave it where it could be found?"
"I did it for the best, sir," I said humbly.
"Best? The worst," he cried. "No, no; I cannot forgive. Disgrace or
no disgrace, I must have in the police."
"No, no, no!" I cried piteously. "He is your own son, Sir John, your
own son; and it is that wretched woman who has driven him mad."
"Mad? Burdon, mad? No; it is something worse."
"But it is not too late," I said humbly.
"Yes, too late--too late! I disown him. He is no longer son of mine."
"And you sit there in that dining-room every night, Sir John," I said,
"with all us servants gathered round, and read that half a chapter and
then say, `As we forgive them that trespass against us.' Sir John--
master--he is your own son, and I love him as if he was my own."
There wasn't a sound in that place for a minute, and then he drew his
breath in a catching way that startled me, for it was as if he was going
to have a fit. But his face was very calm and stern now, as he says to
me gently:
"You are right, old friend;"--and my heart gave quite a bound--"old
friend."
"Let's go to him and save him, master, from his sin."
"Two weak old men, Burdon, and him strong, desperate, and taken by
surprise. My good fellow, what would follow then?"
"I don't know, Sir John. I can only see one thing, and that is, that we
should have done our duty by the lad. Let's leave the rest to Him."
He drew a long deep breath.
"Yes," he says. "Come along."
We went back in the darkness to the cellar door and listened; but all
seemed very still, and I turned the key in the patent Bramah lock
without a sound. We went in, and stood there on the sawdust, with that
hot smell of burnt oil seeming to get stronger, and there was a faint
light in the inner cellar now, and a curious rustling, panting sound.
We crept forward, one on each side of the opening; and as we looked in,
my hand went down on one of the sherry bottles in the bin by my arm, and
it made a faint click, which sounded quite loud.
I forgot all about Sir John; I didn't even know that he was there, as I
stared in from the darkness at the scene before me. They--I say they,
for the whispering had taught me that there was more than one--had got
the stone up while we had been away. It had been pushed aside on to the
sawdust, and a soft yellow light shone up now out of the hole, showing
me my young master, looking so strange and staring-eyed and ghastly,
that I could hardly believe it was he. But it was, sure enough, though
dressed in rough workman's clothes, and stained and daubed with clay.
It wasn't that, though, which took my attention, but his face; and as I
looked, I thought of what had been said a little while ago in my place,
and I felt it was true, and that he was mad. He had just crept up out
of the hole, when he uttered a low groan and sank down on his knees, and
then fell sidewise across the hole in the floor. He was not there many
moments before there was a low angry whispering; he seemed to be heaved
up, and, a big workman-looking fellow came struggling up till he sat on
the sawdust with his legs in the hole, and spoke down to some one.
"It's all right," he said. "The chests are here; but the fool has
fainted away. Quick the lamp, and then the tools."
He bent down and took a smoky oil lamp that was handed to him, and I
drew a deep breath, for the sound of his voice had seemed familiar; but
the light which shone on his face made me sure in spite of his rough
clothes and the beard he had grown. It was Edward Gunning, our old
servant, who was discharged for being too fond of drink, turned
bricklayer once again.
As he took the lamp, he got up, held it above his head, looked round,
and then, with a grin of satisfaction at the sight of the chests,
stepped softly toward the opening into the outer cellar, where Sir John
and I were watching.
It didn't take many moments, and I hardly know now how it happened, but
I just saw young Mr Barclay lying helpless on the sawdust, another head
appearing at the hole, and then, with the light full upon it, Edward
Gunning's face being thrust out of the opening into the cellar where we
were, and his eyes gleaming curiously before they seemed to shut with a
snap. For, all at once--perhaps it was me being a butler and so used to
wine--my hand closed upon the neck of one of those bottles, which rose
up sudden-like above my head, and came down with a crash upon that of
this wretched man.
There was a crash; the splash of wine; the splintering of glass; the
smell of sherry--fine old sherry, yellow seal--and I stood for a moment
with the bottle neck and some sawdust in my hand, startled by the yell
the man gave, by the heavy fall, and the sudden darkness which had come
upon us.
Then--I suppose it was all like a flash--I had rushed to the inner
cellar and was dragging the slab over the hole, listening the while to a
hollow rustling noise which ended as I got the slab across and sat on it
to keep it down.
"Where are you, Burdon?" says Sir John.
"Here, sir!--Quick! A light!"
I heard him hurry off; and it seemed an hour before he came back, while
I sat listening to a terrible moaning, and smelling the spilt sherry and
the oily knocked-out lamp. Then Sir John came in, quite pale, but
looking full of fight, and the first thing he did was to stoop down over
Edward Gunning and take a pistol from his breast. "You take that,
Burdon," he said, "and use it if we are attacked."
"Which we shan't be, Sir John, if you help me to get this stone back in
its place."
He set the lamp on one of the chests and lent a hand, when the stone
dropped tightly into its place; and we dragged a couple of chests
across, side by side, before turning to young Mr Barclay, who lay there
on his side as if asleep.
"Now," says Sir John, as he laid his hand upon the young man's collar
and dragged him over on to his back, "I think we had better hand this
fellow over to the police."
"The doctor, you mean, sir. Look at him."