A MIDNIGHT MEETING.
A couple of days passed; and now I must ask you to suppose yourself
placed, at night, in the centre of a vast heath, undulating here and
there like a sea arrested in a ground-swell, lost in a horizon of
monotonous darkness all round. Here and there rises a scrubby hillock of
furze, black and rough as the head of a monster. The eye aches as it
strains to discover objects or measure distances over the blurred and
black expanse. Here stand two trees pretty close together--one in thick
foliage, a black elm, with a funereal and plume-like stillness, and
blotting out many stars with its gigantic canopy; the other, about fifty
paces off, a withered and half barkless fir, with one white branch left,
stretching forth like the arm of a gibbet. Nearly under this is a flat
rock, with one end slanting downwards, and half buried in the ferns and
the grass that grow about that spot. One other fir stands a little way
off, smaller than these two trees, which in daylight are conspicuous far
away as landmarks on a trackless waste. Overhead the stars are blinking,
but the desolate landscape lies beneath in shapeless obscurity, like
drifts of black mist melting together into one wide vague sea of
darkness that forms the horizon. Over this comes, in fitful moanings, a
melancholy wind. The eye stretches vainly to define the objects that
fancy sometimes suggests, and the ear is strained to discriminate the
sounds, real or unreal, that seem to mingle in the uncertain distance.
If you can conjure up all this, and the superstitious freaks that in
such a situation imagination will play in even the hardest and coarsest
natures, you have a pretty distinct idea of the feelings and
surroundings of a tall man who lay that night his length under the
blighted tree I have mentioned, stretched on its roots, with his chin
supported on his hands, and looking vaguely into the darkness. He had
been smoking, but his pipe was out now, and he had no occupation but
that of forming pictures on the dark back-ground, and listening to the
moan and rush of the distant wind, and imagining sometimes a voice
shouting, sometimes the drumming of a horse's hoofs approaching over the
plain. There was a chill in the air that made this man now and then
shiver a little, and get up and take a turn back and forward, and stamp
sharply as he did so, to keep the blood stirring in his legs and feet.
Then down he would lay again, with his elbows on the ground, and his
hands propping his chin. Perhaps he brought his head near the ground,
thinking that thus he could hear distant sounds more sharply. He was
growing impatient, and well he might.
The moon now began to break through the mist in fierce red over the far
horizon. A streak of crimson, that glowed without illuminating anything,
showed through the distant cloud close along the level of the heath.
Even this was a cheer, like a red ember or two in a pitch-dark room.
Very far away he thought now he heard the tread of a horse. One can hear
miles away over that level expanse of death-like silence. He pricked his
ears, he raised himself on his hands, and listened with open mouth. He
lost the sound, but on leaning his head again to the ground, that vast
sounding-board carried its vibration once more to his ear. It was the
canter of a horse upon the heath. He was doubtful whether it was
approaching, for the sound subsided sometimes; but afterwards it was
renewed, and gradually he became certain that it was coming nearer. And
now, like a huge, red-hot dome of copper, the moon rose above the level
strips of cloud that lay upon the horizon of the heath, and objects
began to reveal themselves. The stunted fir, that had looked to the
fancy of the solitary watcher like a ghostly policeman, with arm and
truncheon raised, just starting in pursuit, now showed some lesser
branches, and was more satisfactorily a tree; distances became
measurable, though not yet accurately, by the eye; and ridges and
hillocks caught faintly the dusky light, and threw blurred but deep
shadows backward.
The tread of the horse approaching had become a gallop as the light
improved, and horse and horseman were soon visible. Paul Davies stood
erect, and took up a position a few steps in advance of the blighted
tree at whose foot he had been stretched. The figure, seen against the
dusky glare of the moon, would have answered well enough for one of
those highwaymen who in old times made the heath famous. His low-crowned
felt hat, his short coat with a cape to it, and the leather casings,
which looked like jack-boots, gave this horseman, seen in dark outline
against the glow, a character not unpicturesque. With a sudden strain of
the bridle, the gaunt rider pulled up before the man who awaited him.
"What are you doing there?" said the horseman roughly.
"Counting the stars," answered he.
Thus the signs and countersigns were exchanged, and the stranger said--
"You're alone, Paul Davies, I take it."
"No company but ourselves, mate," answered Davies.
"You're up to half a dozen dodges, Paul, and knows how to lime a twig;
that's your little game, you know. This here tree is clean enough, but
that 'ere has a hatful o' leaves on it."
"I didn't put them there," said Paul, a little sulkily.
"Well, no. I do suppose a sight o' you wouldn't exactly put a tree in
leaf, or a rose-bush in blossom; nor even make wegitables grow. More
like to blast 'em, like that rum un over your head."
"What's up?" asked the ex-detective.
"Jest this--there's leaves enough for a bird to roost there, so this
won't do. Now, then, move on you with me."
As the gaunt rider thus spoke, his long red beard was blowing this way
and that in the breeze; and he turned his horse, and walked him towards
that lonely tree in which, as he lay gazing on its black outline, Paul
had fancied the shape of a phantom policeman.
"I don't care a cuss," said Davies. "I'm half sorry I came a leg to meet
yer."
"Growlin', eh?" said the horseman.
"I wish you was as cold as me, and you'd growl a bit, maybe, yourself,"
said Paul. "I'm jolly cold."
"Cold, are ye?"
"Cold as a lock-up."
"Why didn't ye fetch a line o' the old author with you?" asked the
rider--meaning brandy.
"I had a pipe or two."
"Who'd a-guessed we was to have a night like this in summer-time?"
"I do believe it freezes all the year round in this queer place."
"Would ye like a drop of the South-Sea mountain (gin)?" said the
stranger, producing a flask from his pocket, which Paul Davies took with
a great deal of good-will, much to the donor's content, for he wished to
find that gentleman in good-humour in the conversation that was to
follow.
"Drink what's there, mate. D'ye like it?"
"It ain't to be by no means sneezed at," said Paul Davies.
The horseman looked back over his shoulder. Paul Davies remarked that
his shoulders were round enough to amount almost to a deformity. He and
his companion were now a long way from the tree whose foliage he feared
might afford cover to some eavesdropper.
"This tree will answer. I suppose you like a post to clap your back to
while we are palaverin'," said the rider. "Make a finish of it, Mr.
Davies," he continued, as that person presented the half-emptied flask
to his hand. "I'm as hot as steam, myself, and I'd rather have a smoke
by-and-by."
He touched the bridle here, and the horse stood still, and the rider
patted his reeking neck, as he stooped with a shake of his ears and a
snort, and began to sniff the scant herbage at his feet.
"I don't mind if I have another pull," said Paul, replenishing the
goblet that fitted over the bottom of the flask.
"Fill it again, and no heel-taps," said his companion.
Mr. Davies sat down, with his mug in his hand, on the ground, and his
back against the tree. Had there been a donkey near, to personate the
immortal Dapple, you might have fancied, in that uncertain gloom, the
Knight and Squire of La Mancha overtaken by darkness, and making one of
their adventurous bivouacs under the boughs of the tree.
"What you saw in the papers three days ago did give you a twist, I take
it?" observed the gentleman on horseback, with a grin that made the red
bristles on his upper lip curl upwards and twist like worms.
"I can't tumble to a right guess what you means," said Mr. Davies.
"Come, Paul, that won't never do. You read every line of that there
inquest on the French cove at the Saloon, and you have by rote every
word Mr. Longcluse said. It must be a queer turning of the tables, for a
clever chap like you to have to look slippy, for fear other dogs should
lag you."
"'Tain't me that 'ill be looking slippy, as you and me well knows; and
it's jest because you knows it well you're here. I suppose it ain't for
love of _me_ quite?" sneered Paul Davies.
"I don't care a rush for Mr. Longcluse, no more nor I care for you; and
I see he's goin' where he pleases. He made a speech in yesterday's
paper, at the meetin' at the Surrey Gardens. He was canvassin' for
Parliament down in Derbyshire a week ago; and he printed a letter to the
electors only yesterday. He don't care two pins for you."
"A good many rows o' pins, I'm thinkin'," sneered Mr. Davies.
"Thinkin' won't make a loaf, Mr. Davies. Many a man has bin too clever,
and _thought_ himself into the block-house. You're making too fine a
game, Mr. Davies; a playin' a bit too much with edged tools, and
fiddlin' a bit too freely with fire. You'll burn your fingers, and cut
'em too, do ye mind? unless you be advised, and close the game where you
stand to win, as I rather think you do now."
"So do I, mate," said Paul Davies, who could play at brag as well as his
neighbour.
"I'm on another lay, a safer one by a long sight. My maxim is the same
as yours, 'Grab all you can;' but _I_ do it safe, d'ye see? You are in a
fair way to end your days on the twister."
"Not if I knows it," said Paul Davies. "I'm afeared o' no man livin'.
Who can say black's the white o' my eye? Do ye take me for a child? What
do ye take me for?"
"I take you for the man that robbed and done for the French cove in the
Saloon. That's the child I take ye for," answered the horseman
cynically.
"You lie! You don't! You know I han't a pig of his money, and never hurt
a hair of his head. You say that to rile me, jest."
"Why should I care a cuss whether you're riled or no? Do you think I
want to get anything out o' yer? I knows everything as well as you do
yourself. You take me for a queer gill, I'm thinking; that's not my lay.
I wouldn't wait here while you'd walk round my hoss to have every secret
you ever know'd."
"A queer gill, mayhap. I think I know you," said Mr. Davies, archly.
"You do, do ye? Well, come, who do you take me for?" said the stranger,
turning towards him, and sitting erect in the saddle, with his hand on
his thigh, to afford him the amplest view of his face and figure.
"Then I take you for Mr. Longcluse," said Paul Davies, with a wag of his
head.
"For Mr. Longcluse!" echoed the horseman, with a boisterous laugh.
"Well, _there's_ a guess to tumble to! The worst guess I ever heer'd
made. Did you ever see him? Why, there's not two bones in our two bodies
the same length, and not two inches of our two faces alike. There's a
guess for a detective! Be my soul, it's well for you it ain't him, for I
think he'd a shot ye!"
The rider lifted his hand from his coat-pocket as he said this, but
there was no weapon in it. Mistaking his intention, however, Paul Davies
skipped behind the tree, and levelled a revolver at him.
"Down with that, you fool!" cried the horseman. "There's nothing here."
And he gave his horse the spur, and made him plunge to a little
distance, as he held up his right hand. "But I'm not such a fool as to
meet a cove like you without the lead towels, too, in case you should
try that dodge." And dipping his hand swiftly into his pocket again, he
also showed in the air the glimmering barrels of a pistol. "If you must
be pullin' out your barkers every minute, and can't talk like a man,
where's the good of coming all this way to palaver with a cove. It ain't
not tuppence to me. Crack away if you likes it, and see who shoots best;
or, if you likes it better, I don't mind if I get down and try who can
hit hardest t'other way, and you'll find my fist tastes very strong of
the hammer."
"I thought you were up for mischief," said Davies, "and I won't be
polished off simple, that's all. It's best to keep as we are, and no
nearer; we can hear one another well enough where we stand."
"It's a bargain," said the stranger, "and I don't care a cuss who you
take me for. I'm not Mr. Longcluse; but you're welcome, if it pleases
you, to give me his name, and I wish I could have the old bloke's tin as
easy. Now here's my little game, and I don't find it a bad one. When two
gentlemen--we'll say, for instance, you and Mr. Longcluse--differs in
opinion (you says he did a certain thing, and he says he didn't, or goes
the whole hog and says _you_ did it, and not him), it's plain, if the
matter is to be settled amigable, it's best to have a man as knows what
he's about, and can find out the cove as threatens the rich fellow, and
deal with him handsome, according to circumstances. My terms is
moderate. I takes five shillins in the pound, and not a pig under; and
that puts you and I in the same boat, d'ye see? Well, I gets all I can
out of him, and no harm can happen me, for I'm but a cove a-carryin' of
messages betwixt you, and the more I gets for you the better for me. I
settled many a business amigable the last five years that would never
have bin settled without me. I'm well knowing to some of the swellest
lawyers in town, and whenever they has a dilikite case, like a gentleman
threatened with informations or the like, they sends for me, and I
arranges it amigable, to the satisfacshing of both parties. It's the
only way to settle sich affairs with good profit and no risk. I have
spoke to Mr. Longcluse. He was all for having your four bones in the
block-house, and yourself on the twister; and he's not a cove to be
bilked out of his tin. But he would not like the bother of your
cross-charge, either, and I think I could make all square between ye.
What do you say?"
"How can I tell that you ever set eyes on Mr. Longcluse?" said Davies,
more satisfied as the conference proceeded that he had misdirected his
first guess at the identity of the horseman. "How can I tell you're not
just a-gettin' all you can out o' me, to make what you can of it on your
own account in that market?"
"That's true, you can't tell, mate."
"And what do I know about you? What's your name?" pursued Paul Davies.
"I forgot my name, I left it at home in the cupboard; and you know
nothing about me, that's true, excepting what I told you, and you'll
hear no more."
"I'm too old a bird for that; you're a born genius, only spoilt in the
baking. I'm thinking, mate, I may as well paddle my own canoe, and sell
my own secret on my own account. What can you do for me that I can't do
as well for myself?"
"You don't think that, Paul. You dare not show to Mr. Longcluse, and you
know he's in a wax; and who can you send to him? You'll make nothing o'
that brag. Where's the good of talking like a blast to a chap like me?
Don't you suppose I take all that at its vally? I tell you what, if it
ain't settled now, you'll see me no more, for I'll not undertake it." He
pulled up his horse's head, preparatory to starting.
"Well, what's up now?--what's the hurry?" demanded Mr. Davies.
"Why, if this here meetin' won't lead to business, the sooner we two
parts and gets home again, the less time wasted," answered the cavalier,
with his hand on the crupper of the saddle, as he turned to speak.
Each seemed to wait for the other to add something.