expression of absolute triumph on his face. He appeared to lean forward
a little towards the woman in the corner, and his dead wide-open eyes
were fixed upon her. An empty opium box lay by his side. A revolver lay
across his knees, evidently fallen from his right hand, which hung over
the coffin edge. His Oriental pipe stood on the floor, and the amber
mouthpiece was still between his lips.
But the other two coffins contained the strangest part of the contents
of this room of horrors. To the right of the General lay the perfectly
preserved body of a woman, whose regular features and delicate skin had
only been slightly marred at the nostrils by the process of embalming.
She was dressed in white, and her hands were crossed upon her bosom.
A man, young and noble-looking, lay in the same position in the other
coffin upon the General's left.
But the most wonderful thing was that the necks of both the man and the
woman were bound about with a red cord drawn very tight midway between
the chin and the shoulder. Upon the breast of the man on the left were
written in red the words:
"FALSE FRIEND."
And on the breast of the fair woman upon the right the words:
"FALSE LOVE."
A row of tall candlesticks stood round the coffins, six on either side.
The great ceremonial candles which they had once contained had burned
down to the sockets and guttered over the tops. The floor was strewn
with the contents of drawers and papers, and with dainty articles of
female attire. A small glove of French make lay at the doctor's feet.
He lifted it and put it into his pocket mechanically, before turning
his attention to the bodies in this iron charnel-house. They were, of
course, all long since dead. The weasel-faced man on the floor had a
bullet through the centre of his forehead. The woman in the corner,
on the other hand, was wholly untouched by any wound; but from the
expression on her face she must have died in the most instant and
mortal terror.
When the first wild astonishment of the searchers had abated a little,
the lawyers ordered the men from Messrs. Cox & Roskell's to open the
various receptacles in the strong-room. Strangely enough, nothing
whatever was found in them, excepting some articles of jewelry and a
packet of letters in a woman's hand, which the lawyers took possession
of. The three confidential artificers from London remained in charge
till measures should be taken to clear out the strong-room.
The doctor examined Cleg with care and tact, for it was to him that
the lawyers looked for the explanation of the mystery. But first they
provided the mechanicians with very substantial reasons for secrecy,
if they would give their services to prevent a scandal in these very
remarkable family circumstances. The men, accustomed to secrecy, and
recognising the future and personal application of the lawyers' logic,
readily promised.
So far as the doctor could make out, this was what had happened. Cleg
told the truth fully, but he made no discovery of the relationship in
which he stood to the man who had so murderously attacked him. Nor yet
did he say anything of his knowledge of Sal Kavannah's identity. After
a little study and piecing of evidence, however, the process of events
seemed fairly clear.
When Cleg first sent his warning cry through the house, the General
had doubtless been engaged in arranging for his expected departure out
of the life which had brought so little happiness to him. For, like an
Oriental, he knew, or supposed that he knew, the exact moment of his
death—though, as we now know, his first impression had proved erroneous.
For some unknown purpose he had left the strong-room and hastened
through the passages till he had heard the hideous uproar in the
kitchen, whereupon he had promptly retreated to the strong-room, in all
probability to get his revolver. While there a mad idea had crossed his
mind to receive his visitors in his coffin. At any rate, upon entering
he left the red door open behind him. A few moments later Tim Kelly
came rushing in hot upon the trail, followed by the woman Kavannah. His
hands were wet and red with his son's blood. His heart was ripe for
murder. And this was the sight which met him—a room with open coffins
in a row and three dead folk laid upon them, six great candles burning
upon either side—all the horrors of a tomb in the place where he had
counted to lay his hand upon uncounted treasure.
Then, while Timothy Kelly and Sal Kavannah stood a moment looking with
fearful eyes on the tall ceremonial candles, which must have been
specially ghastly to them on account of their race, the strong door
swung noiselessly to upon its hinges; for the water balance had filled
up, and they found themselves trapped.
What happened after this was not so clear. Probably the robber was
proceeding in his desperation to rifle the open depositories of the
letters and gear, which the searchers found strewed up and down the
floor, when Theophilus Ruff sat up suddenly in the centre coffin, with
his revolver in his hand, just as Cleg had seen him the first time he
entered the chamber of death. Whether the ruffian had first attacked
the madman, or whether he had simply been shot down where he stood,
will never be known. But certain it is that he died instantly, and that
the horror of the sight killed Sal Kavannah where she sat crouched low
in the corner, as if trying to get as far as possible from the grisly
horrors of the three coffins.
Then, having done his work, Theophilus Ruff calmly swallowed all that
remained of his drugs, and slept himself into the land where vengeance
is not, with the mouthpiece of his pipe in his mouth and his revolver
upon his knees.
The heads of the embalmed bodies were turned so that they looked
towards Theophilus Ruff as he sat in his coffin. For twenty years it is
probable that he had gone to sleep every night with those dead faces
looking at him.
The coffins were buried as privately as possible, the two embalmed
bodies being laid within the private mausoleum at the foot of the
garden; for in noble families a private burying-place is a great
convenience in such emergencies. Here also Tim Kelly and Sal Kavannah
took their places with nobler sinners, and no doubt they lie there
still, mixing their vulgar earth with finer clay, and so will remain
until the final resurrection of good and evil.
Doctor Sidey certified truthfully that the death of General Theophilus
Ruff was due to an overdose of opium. And as there is no coroner's
inquest in Scotland (another convenience), matters were easily arranged
with the Procurator-Fiscal of the county—who was, in fact, a friend of
the distinguished and discreet firm of Hewitson & Graham at Drumnith.
ADVENTURE LIX.
THE BEECH HEDGE.
"And the queer thing o' it a' is," said Cleg, "that there's no as
muckle as a brass farthin's worth o' lyin' siller to be found."
"Ye tak' it brave and cool, my man," said Mistress Fraser. "My certes,
gin I had been left thirty thoosand pound, and then could find nane
o't, I wad be fair oot o' my mind wi' envy and spite. Save us a', man.
Ye hae nae spunk in ye ava."
"And what a wonderfu' thing is it," said Mirren Douglas, "that Maister
Iverach, the young lad frae Edinburgh, gets a' the land and the hooses,
but no a penny forbye!"
They were sitting—a large company for so small a place—in the little
ben room of Sandyknowes, with the roses again looking in the window.
For another spring had come, and a new year was already stretching
itself awake from its winter swaddling bands.
"What was it that the lawyer man wrote aboot your bequest?" asked
Mistress Fraser.
"But a' my lying money in the house o' Barnbogle and about the
precincts thereof, to be the property of Cleg Kelly, my present body
servant, in regard of his faithful tendance and unselfishness during
the past four years," quoted Cleg, leaning his head back with the air
of a languid prince. He was sitting on the great chest in which Mirren
kept all the best of her napery and household linen.
"My certes, ye tak' it braw and canny," repeated Mistress Fraser. "What
says Vara to a' this?"
Vara came out from the little inner room where she had been dressing
for the afternoon.
"What says Vara?" said Mistress Fraser, looking a little curiously at
the girl as she entered. Half-a-year of absolute freedom from care and
anxiety in the clear air of Sandyknowes had brought the fire to her eye
and the rose to her cheek.
"I think," she said, soberly, "that Cleg will find the siller yet. Or,
if he doesn't, he will be able to do withoot it!"
"It will make an awfu' difference to his plenishing when he comes to
set up a hoose," said the mother of eleven; "there's naebody in the
world kens what it tak's to furnish a hoose, but them that has begun
wi' naething and leeved through it!"
"Mr. Iverach is comin' frae Edinburgh the day," said Cleg, "to see
aboot knockin' doon the auld hoose o' Barnbogle."
"He's no willing to bide in it," said Mirren Douglas. "Lod, I dinna
wonder. Wha could bide in a place wi' siccan a chamber o' horrors doon
the cellar stairs as that was!"
Which showed that some one must have been telling tales.
"I'm to gang and meet him," said Cleg. "Vara, will ye come? Ye may
chance to forgather wi' a friend that ye ken."
Vara Kavannah nodded brightly, and glanced at the widow Douglas.
"If Mirren will gie a look to the bairns," she said.
At that moment there was a noisy rush past the window, and certain
ferocious yells came in at the door.
"Preserve me," said Mistress Fraser, "thae bairns are never hame frae
the schule already! Faith, I maun awa' hame, or my evil loons and
limmers will no leave a bite o' bread uneaten, or a dish o' last year's
jam unsupped in a' my hoose!"
But as she rose to go her husband's form darkened the doorway.
"Tam Fraser," she cried, "what are ye doing there? Are ye no awa' at
Auld Graham's funeral? A lawyer deid! The deil will dee next."
"I hae nae blacks guid enough to gang in," said Tam Fraser; "ye spend
a' my leevin' on thae bairns o' yours."
"Hoot, man," retorted his wife, "gang as ye are, an' tak' your
character on your back, and ye'll be black eneuch for ony funeral."
Tam Fraser stood a moment prospecting in his mind for a suitable reply.
"Meg," he said at last, "dinna learn to be ill-tongued. It doesna
become ye. D'ye ken, I was juist thinkin' as I cam' in that ye grow
younger every year. Ye are looking fell bonny the day!"
"Faith," said his wife sharply, "I am vexed I canna return the
compliment. Ye are lookin' juist like a craw-bogle, and that's a Guid's
truth."
"Aweel, guidwife," said Tam, seeing a chance now to get in his counter,
"if ye had only been ceevil eneuch, ye micht e'en hae telled a lee as
weel as mysel'!"
And with this he betook himself over the dyke, leaving his wife for
once without a shot in her locker.
Vara had gone quietly at Cleg's bidding and put on her hat. This
demurely sober lass had quite enough of beauty to make the country lads
hang a foot, and look after her with a desire to speak as she passed by
on her way to kirk and market.
Vara and Cleg walked quietly along down the avenue by the shortest road
to the house of Barnbogle.
"Vara," said Cleg, "I think we will do very well this year with the
flooers and the bees—forbye the milk."
"I am glad to hear it, for Mirren's sake," answered Vara, without,
however, letting her eyes rest on the lad.
"I selled baith my barrels o' milk and the ten pund o' butter forbye
this morning, a' in the inside o' an hour," said Cleg.
For during the last half year Cleg had been farming the produce of
Mirren's little holding with notable success.
"Vara," said Cleg, in a shy, hesitating manner, "in a year or twa I
micht be able to tak' in the Springfield as weel. Do ye think that ye
could"—Cleg paused for a word dry enough to express his meaning—"come
ower by and help me to tak' care o't? I hae aye likit ye, Vara, ye ken."
"I dinna ken, I'm sure, Cleg," said Vara soberly; "there's the bairns,
ye ken, Hugh and Gavin."
"Bring them too, of course," said Cleg. "I never thocht o' onything
else."
"But then there's Mirren, and she wad fair break her heart," protested
Vara.
"Bring her too!" said Cleg practically.
He had thought the whole subject over. They were now coming near the
old house of Barnbogle, which its new owner had doomed to destruction.
Cleg glanced up at the tall grey mass of it.
"I'm some dootfu' that we will never touch that siller," he said.
"Then," said Vara firmly, "we can work for mair. If we dinna get it,
it's a sign that we are better wantin' it."
She glanced at the youth by her side as she spoke.
"Vara," said Cleg quickly, "ye are awesome bonny when ye speak like
that."
Perhaps he remembered Tam Fraser, for he said no more.
Vara walked on with her eyes still demurely on the ground. They were
just where the high path looks down on the corner of the ancient
orchard.
"Vara," said Cleg, "what's your hurry for a minute? There's—there's a
terrible bonny view frae hereaboots."
Cleg, the uninstructed, was plunging into deep waters. Vara turned
towards the garden beneath at his word. There were three people to be
seen in it. First there was a young woman in a bright summer dress,
with a young man who walked very close beside her. Over a thick wall of
beech, which went half across the orchard, an older man was standing
meditatively with his hands clasped behind his back. He was apparently
engaged in trying how much tobacco smoke he could put upon the market
in a given time, for he was almost completely lost from sight in a blue
haze.
The young people walked up and down, now in view of their meditative
elder and now hidden from him by the hedge. And as Cleg and Vara
watched, they noticed a wonderful circumstance. As often as the young
man and his companion were behind the young beech hedge, his arm stole
round the waist of the summer dress; but so soon as they emerged upon
the gravel path, lo! they were again walking demurely at least a yard
apart.
The strangest thing about it all was, that the young woman appeared to
be entirely unconscious of the circumstance.
"That's an awesome nice view," said Cleg, when the pair beneath had
done this four or five times. And such is the fatal force of example
that he put his own arm about Vara's waist each time the young man in
the orchard below showed him how. And yet, stranger than all, Vara also
appeared to be entirely unconscious of the fact.
This went on till the pair beneath were at their tenth promenade—the
elderly man over the beech hedge was still studying intently an
overgrown bed of rhubarb—when, at the innermost corner, the young
lady in the summer dress paused to pluck a spray of honeysuckle. The
youth's arm was about her waist at the moment. Perhaps it was that she
had become conscious of it for the first time, or perhaps because it
cinctured the summer dress a little more tightly than the circumstances
absolutely demanded. However this may be, certain it is that the girl
turned her head a little back over her shoulder, perhaps to reproach
the young man, to request him to remove his property, and in the future
to keep it from trespassing on his neighbour's premises. Cleg and Vara
could not tell from the distance. But, at any rate, the young man and
the young woman stood thus a long moment, she looking up with her head
turned a little back and he looking intently down into her eyes. Then
their lips drew together, and softly, as if they sighed, rested a
moment upon each other.
"It's an _awesome_ nice view," said Cleg, with conviction and emphasis.
And forthwith did likewise.
The old man with his hands behind his back had a little while before
ceased his meditations upon the rhubarb leaves, and had walked quietly
all unperceived to the corner of the beech hedge. Here he stood looking
down towards the corner of the orchard, where the summer dress was
plainly in view. Then he raised his eyes to the road above, where stood
Vara and Cleg Kelly. His pipe fell from his mouth with astonishment,
but he did not stop to pick it up. He turned and stole hastily away on
tiptoe.
Then he too sighed, and that more than once, as soon as he had got out
of the orchard into the garden.
"It's just thirty years since—last July," he said.
And Mr. Robert Greg Tennant remained longer in meditation than ever,
this time upon a spindling rose which was drooping for want of water.
ADVENTURE LX.
CLEG'S TREASURE-TROVE COMES TO HIM.
Presently Cleg and Vara walked down, and when they came into the garden
they found Miss Celie Tennant in animated conversation with her father.
She was clinging very close to his arm, as though she never could be
induced upon any pretext to leave it for a moment. The old man was
smiling somewhat grimly. And Vara thought what a little hypocrite Celie
was. The Junior Partner was much interested in a curious pattern of
coloured stones, which the General had arranged with his own hand about
a toy fountain. Five more innocent and unconcerned people it would have
been impossible to meet with in broad Scotland.
But when Cleg Kelly was introduced to Mr. Robert Greg Tennant, he
was astonished to notice an unmistakable air of knowledge in that
gentleman's face. Indeed, something that was not far from a wink
wrinkled his cheek. The original Cleg rose triumphant—and he winked
back.
Then Mr. Greg Tennant put his hands into his pockets, and strolled off
whistling a refrain which was popular at that remote date—
"I saw Esau kissing Kate,
And he saw I saw Esau!"
Cleg went away with the Junior Partner to take another look at the
whole house, which was now wholly dismantled and about to be pulled
down to the foundations. The Junior Partner, who was henceforward to
be a sleeping partner only, intended to build a mansion on another
part of the property, so that all memory of the horrors which had been
contained within the Red Door was to be blotted out.
"And the sooner the better, sir," said Mr. Tennant, grimly. He had just
joined them.
"When I have money enough!" stammered the Junior Partner, not sure of
his meaning.
He looked about him. Cleg was still exploring far ahead in the ruined
tower, from the windows of which the frames and bars had been already
removed.
"I was going to speak to you, sir," said the Junior Partner, "but the
fact is, sir, till to-day I have had no permission and no right."
The elder man clapped the younger upon the back.
"All right," he said heartily; "I have been behind beech hedges myself
in my time. But I must say," he went on, "that I generally kept a
better watch on the old man!"
The Junior Partner blushed red as a rose—a peony rose.
"And if that is your meaning," continued Mr. Tennant, "why, get the
house built. I daresay there's tocher enough to go with my little lass
to pay for the stone and lime."
At this moment a whirlwind of primrose-coloured summer lawn, twinkling
black stockings, and silver-buckled shoes fell upon the two of them,
and reduced the Junior Partner to a state of smiling, vacuous inanity.
"Come, come quick!" Celie Tennant cried, with the most charming
impetuosity, seizing them each by a hand and dragging them forward
towards the brick kitchen. "We have found it—at least Vara has!
There's millions of gold—all new sovereigns and things. And I'm to be
bridesmaid!"
What the Junior Partner made out of this no one can tell; for at the
time he was certainly not in the full possession of his senses. But Mr.
Tennant was well used to his impetuous daughter's stormy moods, and
understood that something which had been lost was at last found.
Celie imperiously swept them along with her into the little brick
building.
"Not so fast, you small pocket hurricane!" cried her father,
breathlessly. "At my time of life I really cannot rush along like an
American trotter!"
They entered the kitchen. Vara was standing at the table at which Cleg
used to cut the bacon for the General's breakfast and his own. She
was calmly opening tin after tin of Chicago corned beef, cans of which
stood in rows round the walls. Each was full to the brim of bright
newly minted sovereigns.
"It is Cleg's money," cried Celie wildly, "and I found it all
myself—or, at least, Vara did, which is the same thing. There were just
two tins, one at each end, full of real, common, nasty beef for eating,
and the rest are all sovereigns. And I'm to be bridesmaid."
And, though a Sunday school teacher of long standing and infinite
gravity, the little lady danced a certain reckless breakdown which she
had learned in the Knuckle Dusters' Club from Cleaver's boy.
"Well, Miss Quicksilver, you had better go and tell him!" said her
father; "he is in the tower yonder."
Mr. Donald Iverach was starting out of the door to do it himself; but
Celie seized him tragically; "Father—Donald—how can you?" she cried
more in sorrow than in anger at their stupidity and ignorance. "Of
course, let _her_ go!"
And Vara went out of the door to seek for Cleg.
"Oh, I wish it was me!" Celie said wistfully and ungrammatically,
stamping her foot. "It's so splendidly romantic! Donald, why didn't you
make it turn out so that I could have come and said to you, 'I have a
secret. Hush! You are heir to a hidden treasure!' You never do anything
really nice for me!"
"Why, because the old man didn't leave it to me," said the Junior
Partner.
"And a good job for you, too, you great goose," cried Celie, daringly,
"for if he had I should certainly have made love to Cleg, and we would
have set up a market garden together. I am sure I should have liked
that very much."
And at that time Vara was telling Cleg in the tower that his treasure
had come to him at last.
And Cleg was sure of it.
LETTER INCLOSED.
(_Being a fragment from the postscript of a note, dated some years
later, from Mrs. Donald Iverach to the Girl over the Wall—who has been
her dearest friend ever since her engagement was announced._)
"And the funny thing is that, after all, they _have_ a market garden!
I've just been to see them, and they live in the loveliest little
house down near the sea. And Cleg says he is going to make their
little Donald (called after my Incumbrance, the old Dear) a market
gardener—'Fruits in their Seasons,' and that kind of thing, you know.
And I think it's so sensible of them. For, of course, they could
never have gone into society, though she is certainly most charmingly
behaved. But Cleg likes to go barefoot about the garden still, and you
know that is not quite usual. Gavin is at the Academy, and is dux of
his class. He is what is called a 'gyte,' which is a title of honour
there.
"And what do you think? Cleaver's boy is married, and they have got
a baby also—not so lovely as its father was, but the sweetest thing!
He is foreman now, and Janet never thinks of telling a fib, even to
afternoon callers. Don't you think that's rather much? Oh, I forgot!
Her uncle came in while I was there, and said to Mirren Douglas—that's
the little widow, you know, who lives with Cleg and Vara—'I saw Hugh
Kavannah walking to-day on Princes Street with little Miss Briggs!'
But I don't think there can be anything in it—do you? For, after
all, she's a lady, and he is only a student. Of course, when we were
girls—but then this is so different.
"Kit Kennedy has just been matriculated or rusticated or something.
Everybody is very pleased. He is going in for agriculture, and tells
Cleg when to sow his strawberry seed.
"And the man who used to be Netherby carrier has come to take their
stuff to market—so nice for him. And the baby is the prettiest you
ever saw. But you should see mine. _He_ is a darling, if you like.
He has four teeth, and I am quite sure he tries to say Papa!—though
Donald laughs, and says it is only wind in his little ——. That was
Donald who came and joggled my elbow. He is a HORROR!
"And just think, Cleg Kelly has built, and Donald has furnished, the
most wonderful Club in the South Back of the Canongate. It was opened
last week. Bailie Holden—who is now Lord Provost, and a very good
one—opened it. But Cleg made the best speech. 'Mind, you chaps,' he
said—and they were all as quiet as mice when he was speaking—'mind,
you chaps, if I hear o' ony yin o' ye making a disturbance, or as
muckle as spittin' on the floor—weel, ye ken me!'"
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _The Stickit Minister_, 10th edition, p. 153.
[2] Trust.
[3] _The Stickit Minister_, p. 192.
[4] The local technical term. It seems to have resulted from an attempt
to say "bucket" and "basket" at the same time.
[5] Shrewdly suspected it.
[6] The brave "Surfaceman," Mr. Alexander Anderson of Edinburgh, for a
volume of whose collected railway verse many besides Cleg are waiting
with eager expectation.
[7] Not neighbours.
[8] Dig.