women. The faithful Selina, with all the best-hearted intentions in
the world of spoiling the child, was foiled, partly by Sir Tancred's
watchfulness, and partly by the uncertainty of her own temper. She was
liable to the sudden, gusty rages of her class; and one of these rages
undid the harm of many days' indulgence. When, however, Tinker was
nine, she resigned with many misgivings, tears, and upbraidings of
conscience, her charge of him, to marry a middle-aged Parisian
hairdresser of Scotch nationality and the name of Angus McNeill. Sir
Tancred had far more trouble with the women who fell in love with him;
and many women fell in love with him or thought themselves in love with
him, for his handsome, melancholy face, his reputation for
recklessness, and above all for his cold insensibility to their charm.
In ten years of the strenuous, smart life, his name was never coupled
with that of any woman. All and each of these made a pet of Tinker,
since they found it the surest way to abate his father's coldness. On
the other hand the great ladies of the Faubourg de St. Germain petted
him because his seraph's face and delightful manners charmed them;
while any nice woman petted him because she could not help it.
Fortunately Tinker did not like being petted; his sentiments, indeed,
on the matter of being kissed by the effusive verged on the ungallant.
He liked to be a nice woman's familiar friend; his attitude toward her
could be almost avuncular; but if a woman would pet him, he endured it
with the exquisite patience with which his father forever taught him to
treat the sex. In weaker hands than those of his father, he would
doubtless have become a precocious and irritating monkey, always and
painfully in evidence. But Sir Tancred and his creditors saw to it
that his life in the world was broken by spells of healthy, boyish
life, and he remained modest enough and simple-hearted.
As to his nerves, though they were always high-strung, the effects of
his cruel treatment as a baby wore little by little and slowly away,
until there was left only a faint dread, or rather dislike, of being
alone in the dark, and a tendency to awake once in a month or so,
crying out from a bad dream.
CHAPTER FIVE
TINKER'S BIRTHDAY BLOODHOUND
Hildebrand Anne came out of the long glass doors of the morning room of
the Refuge, as Sir Tancred had happily named the cottage at
Farndon-Pryze, which he had bought soon after Jeddah won the Derby at a
hundred to one, and whither he retired when he was at loggerheads with
Fortune, or Hildebrand Anne began to look fagged by London life. His
father was reading a newspaper at the end of the lawn, and he walked
across to him.
Sir Tancred looked up from his paper, and said with a sigh:
"I'm afraid there's no birthday present for you, Tinker."
"That's all right, sir," said Tinker cheerfully.
Father and son made an admirable pair, a pair of an extraordinary
distinction. Reckless pride and sorrow had impressed on Sir Tancred's
dark, sombre face much of the look of Lucifer, Son of the Morning;
Tinker was very fair with close-cropped golden curls clustering round
his small head, features as finely cut as those of his father, sunny
blue eyes, lips curved like Cupid's bow, and the air of a seraph. The
name had clung to him from its perfect inappropriateness. A tinker is
but a gritty sight, and Hildebrand Anne had grown up, to the eye, an
angel child, of a cleanliness uncanny in a small boy.
"Even if there were anything to buy in Farndon-Pryze, our fortunes are
at a low ebb," said Sir Tancred with faint sorrow.
Tinker heaved a sympathetic sigh, and said again, "Oh, that's all
right, sir."
"And the papers offer no suggestions for a new campaign," and Sir
Tancred, looking with some contempt at the score of grey, pink, yellow,
and green sheets which littered the grass around his long cane chair,
fanned himself with his panama; for, though the month was May, the
morning was hot.
"We shall have lots of money soon," said Tinker cheerily.
"Well, I hope so. It is no use my reading these wretched rags, unless
they put me in the way of a coup."
"We always do," said Tinker with conviction; and he strolled away,
pondering idly the question of riches.
From the end of the garden of the Refuge, Tinker scanned the country
round with dissatisfied eyes. None of the low hills was hollowed by a
pirates', or brigands', or even a smugglers' cave with its buried
hoard, no ruin tottered above a secret treasure-chamber. For himself
he did not mind; it was all one to him whether he hunted his prey in
the Champs Elysées or the long, straggling street of Farndon-Pryze.
There were men in both places; and, though the methods of enraging them
were different, they grew crimson to much the same fieriness. He
found, indeed, an angry Frenchman more entertaining than an angry
Englishman, but he was no epicure in sensations: only, he liked them
exciting. But he would fain have discovered treasure for the sake of
his father who, as he well knew, did not find in Farndon-Pryze the
entertainment which satisfied his simpler, boyish heart.
As he scanned the unsatisfactory landscape, he heard the sound of
hoofs, and looking round, saw James Alloway, a young farmer of the
neighbourhood, riding along the highway. His face brightened; the
coast was clear; it was the very morning to play toreador. In a breath
he was through the hedge, and on the way to the village. He approached
it after the manner of a red Indian, only pausing to cut a switch from
a hedge. He had a score to settle with Josiah Wilby, a boy whose
talebearing had procured him his last, well-earned whacking. Fortune
favoured him: he spied his prey playing in careless security with two
other boys on the village green; crept between two cottages; and was
out on him or ever he was aware of the coming of an avenger. At the
sight of Tinker, Josiah bolted for home; but he had not gone twenty
yards before the stinging switch was curling round him. He ran the
harder, howling and roaring; and Tinker accompanied him to the door of
his father's cottage. As the roaring Josiah rushed in, the infuriated
Mrs. Wilby rushed out, and Tinker withdrew. From a convenient
distance, he raised his hat, and protested his regret at having had to
instruct her son in the first principles of honour. Mrs. Wilby took
his politeness as an insult, and with a rustic disregard of his pretty
manners called him a limb, and threatened him with merciless punishment
on the return of her husband. Tinker shrugged his shoulders, spread
out his hands, gestures he had acquired in France, and hurried off on
his main errand.
He came swiftly to a small field in which there browsed a large and
solitary ram, by name Billy, Tinker's playfellow in the game of
bull-fighting. With a somewhat unfair casting of the star part, Tinker
always played the matador, Billy played the bull.
Drawing a stout wooden sword, the handiwork of Sir Tancred, who never
dreamed of the purpose it served, from its hiding-place in the hedge,
Tinker slipped over the gate. Billy greeted his playfellow with an
ill-conditioned grunt expressive of no joy at all. Tinker saluted,
walked up to within ten yards, and waved his hat at him. Billy watched
him with a wicked eye, affected to graze, and of a sudden charged with
all his speed. Tinker sprang aside as the ram's head went down to
butt, and as he hurtled past, prodded him with the sword behind the
shoulder.
Billy pulled himself up as soon as he could check his momentum, and
turned and stood blinking. Twice he rapped the ground hard with his
forefoot. Tinker again drew to within ten yards of him; again Billy
charged; and again he was prodded behind the shoulder. It was a
beautiful game, and Tinker's lightness of foot, quickness of eye, and
coolness of head did every credit to the education he had received from
his father.
It was, indeed, a fine game, but as dangerous as it was fine; if Billy
had once downed the boy, he would never have left him till he had
ground the life out of him. This Tinker did not know, so that he did
not draw all the excitement out of the game he would have done. It had
grown more and more dangerous, also; for, by dint of playing it, Billy,
who had started as a fat, clumsy, and sulky beast, had grown thin,
nimble, and vicious. Alloway, indeed, often declared that he did not
know what ailed the ram; his food never seemed to be doing him any
good, and neither man, woman, nor child dare cross the field in which
he browsed.
The game lasted some twenty minutes; and Tinker's skill, sureness, and
lightness of movement was the prettiest sight. Sometimes, with a
snorting bleat, Billy would turn sharply at the end of his charge, and
charge again; then the concentration on the matter in hand, which his
father had so carefully cultivated in Tinker, proved a most fortunate
possession: he was never caught off his guard. But he was beginning to
think that he had had enough of it, and Billy was sure that he had,
when there came a roar from the road, and there sat Alloway on his
horse. Or rather, he was no longer sitting on his horse, he was
throwing himself off it.
Without one word of thanks to his playfellow for the pleasant game he
had enjoyed with him, Tinker bolted for the further hedge, Billy after
him, and Alloway after both. Tinker knew the ground, ran for a post
and rails which filled a gap, and skipped over them a few yards ahead
of his energetic playfellow, who stood gazing after him with a rueful
vindictiveness. Alloway came rushing up, and took no heed of the
disappointed ram, who butted his right leg against the rails with great
promptitude and violence. Alloway emulated his violence not only in
his language, but by cutting him as hard as he could with the whip he
carried, and rushed on after Tinker. Tinker could run at an admirable
pace for a boy of eleven, and he was used to keeping it up longer than
the rustic wind would last. But Alloway was brisker than a farm hand,
or a keeper, and at the end of a couple of fields he began to gain.
Tinker was soon aware of the painful fact, and knew that retribution
was on him. But, though he could not escape, he could postpone; and
his quick mind leaped to the fact that the more done Alloway was, the
less vigorously would he ply his whip; besides, there was a chance that
he might suddenly collapse.
At the entrance to the village there was a bare fifty yards between
them. As he came up to the smithy, Blazer, the blacksmith's dog, the
terror of the village, began to bark; and Tinker's saving idea came to
him. He ran into the yard, and walked quietly up to Blazer, who barked
and strained at his chain with every advertisement of savage fury.
Tinker knew a good deal about dogs; he came quietly up to him, and
tried to pat his head. Blazer caught at the hand, and Tinker left it
passive in his teeth. Blazer's teeth bruised the skin, but did not
pierce: and suddenly he realised that he did not know what to do with
it.
With a sheepish air he let it go, and resumed his barking. Tinker
stepped right up to his kennel, and the barking Blazer danced about him
in an agony of indecision. Alloway rushed into the yard, and crying,
"I've got you, you young devil! Have I?" made for Tinker.
Blazer saw a happy way out of his awkward uncertainty, and bit
Alloway's leg.
Alloway jumped back with a roar; and, lashing at Blazer, hopped about.
The blacksmith ran out of the smithy, and took in the situation at a
glance.
"Take away your dog, Green! Take him away!" shouted Alloway. "I'm
going to warm the young gentleman's jacket! He's been worriting my
ram!"
Alloway was a good customer; but Tinker was a familiar friend, and the
astute blacksmith scratched his head at great length before he said
slowly, "If zo be as you've 'it Blaazer, you'll 'av ter tak 'im away
yoursel'. I dussn't go near 'im; no, not wuz it ever so."
"I'm going to larrup the young limb!" cried Alloway obstinately.
"You'll 'ave to wait, then, till Blaazer gits quiet. I dussn't meddle
with 'im; an' I'm shoeing Mr. 'Utton's graay maare." And with a
natural, untrained diplomacy the blacksmith retired quickly into the
smithy.
For a minute or two Alloway cursed and Blazer barked. Then Tinker sat
quietly down on the threshold of the kennel, and fanned himself with
his hat. The empurpled Alloway grew purpler at the sight of a coolness
he did not share.
"You young rip!" he roared, dancing lightly in his exasperation, "I'll
larrup you if I stay here till to-morrow morning!"
"If you're speaking to me, Mr. Alloway, you needn't speak so loud. I'm
not deaf," said Tinker with gentle severity.
Mr. Alloway in his violent, rustic way, uttered a good many remarks
quite unfit for boyish ears.
Tinker paid no heed to him, but chirrupped to Blazer, who came to him
in a wondering sulkiness, and with many protesting growls suffered
himself to be patted. Alloway put his hands in his pockets, and stood
stolidly with his legs wide apart, a picture of florid manliness and
grim, but whiskered determination. Some small boys, heavy with their
midday meal, came to the gate of the yard, and in an idle repletion
exhausted themselves in conjectures as to the true inwardness of
Tinker's relation with Blazer, and Alloway's absorption in it. Twice
the blacksmith came to the smithy door, and a large, slow grin spread
painfully over his bovine face.
Tinker continued to pet Blazer till the surprised and mollified dog sat
down between his feet, and put his head on his knee. Then Tinker began
to apply that power of concentration in which he had been trained by
his father to the discovery of a method of final escape. Presently
Alloway went to the gate, and, climbing onto it, sat waiting for his
triumph in a stubborn doggedness.
After a while Tinker said gently, "That's a good horse you ride, Mr.
Alloway."
The farmer said nothing.
"He's young, isn't he?" said Tinker.
An acute and scornful expression of "You don't get round me!" filled
all of the farmer's face that was not covered with whiskers.
"Did you think to tie him up before you ran after me?" said Tinker
earnestly.
Alloway sprang from the gate as though a very sharp nail had of a
sudden sprouted up immediately beneath him, slapped his thigh, and
stood shaking his whip at Tinker with expressive, but starting eyes.
"I dare say he's out of the county by now," said Tinker thoughtfully.
"You young blackguard!" said Alloway, and stepped towards the kennel.
Blazer shot out to the length of his chain; and Alloway, in his fury,
cut him savagely with his whip. Blazer roared rather than barked; the
noise stimulated Tinker's wits; and he saw his way.
Alloway recovered himself sufficiently to say with choking emphasis,
"Horse, or no horse, you don't get me to leave here!" and went back to
the gate.
Tinker let him climb on it, and then he said gently, "Have you ever
played at being a runaway slave hunted by bloodhounds, Mr. Alloway?"
Alloway scowled at him most malignantly.
"I should think it would be quite an exciting game. It doesn't really
matter that Blazer's only a bull terrier; we can call him a bloodhound,
you know," Tinker went on, looking at the dog a little regretfully.
Alloway, coddling his fury, scarcely heard him.
"I'll be the slave-owner," said Tinker, fumbling with the chain.
It came out of the staple; and Alloway roared, "What are you doing, you
young rascal?"
"Oh, it's all right," said Tinker. "Don't be frightened; I'll keep him
on leash till you get a good lead."
Alloway jumped down from the gate, on the other side of it, his anger
changed to uncertainty spiced with discomfort.
Blazer felt the chain loosen, and darted forward, jerking Tinker after
him.
"I can't hold him!" yelled Tinker.
[Illustration: "I can't hold him!"]
Alloway turned, dropped his whip, and bolted up through the village.
Blazer dashed at the gate, clawing it; Tinker got a better grip on the
chain, opened the gate, snatched up the whip as Blazer jerked him
through; and they set off down the road after Alloway. The farmer ran
better than ever, faster than he had run after Tinker, faster,
probably, than he had ever run before in his life.
Blazer, though Tinker dragged for all he was worth, made a very fair
pace after him. But by the time they were a hundred yards beyond the
village, the throttling drag began to tell; Blazer slowed down; and
Alloway, still going hard, disappeared round the corner.
Blazer and Tinker fell into a walk, and then stopped.
Sir Tancred Beauleigh, on his quiet way to the village post-office, was
surprised at being nearly knocked down by one of the most respectable
young farmers of the neighbourhood, who was running with the speed and
face of a man pursued by all the tigers of Bengal. A hundred yards
further on he heard yells and screams, and shouts of laughter; and
coming round a corner, he saw a small boy rolling in recurring
paroxysms of joy on the grass by the roadside, watched by a puzzled
bull-terrier. He had no difficulty in connecting them with the flying
farmer.
He came up to the absorbed pair unnoticed, and standing over them, said
quietly, "What's the joke, Tinker?"
Tinker sprang to his feet, and wiping away the joyful tears, said, "I
have been playing at hunting runaway slaves."
"Ah, Alloway was the slave?" said Sir Tancred.
"Yes, sir," said Tinker.
Sir Tancred dropped the subject; he knew by experience that the truth
might be painful hearing, and that he would probably hear it from
Tinker's flying partner in the game quite soon enough.
"What are you doing with that dog?" he said.
"I borrowed him," said Tinker.
Sir Tancred looked Blazer carefully over. "He's a very good dog," he
said. "How would you like him for a birthday present?"
Tinker's eyes shone as a long vista of scrapes, out of which Blazer's
teeth might help him, opened before his mind.
"Ever so much!" he said quickly.
"Come on, then, we'll go and try to buy him." And they set out for the
village.
Mr. Green stood in the door of the smithy, and grinned enormously at
the sight of the returning Tinker. Sir Tancred said, "Good-morning,
Green; do you care to sell this dog? I'll give you three pounds for
him."
Mr. Green said, "Three pound," and stared helplessly at the cottages
opposite, confused by the need to assimilate, on the spur of the
moment, a new idea.
"Three pounds?" said Tinker quickly. "Why, he only cost fifteen
shillings a year ago!"
"An orfer is an orfer!" said Mr. Green quickly, his wits spurred at the
sudden prospect of a lowering of the price. "And I takes it."
As he led away Blazer, with a new proprietary pride Tinker said firmly
to Sir Tancred, "I shall go on considering him a bloodhound, sir."
CHAPTER SIX
THE RESCUE OF ELIZABETH KERNABY
Sir Tancred paused now and again in his leisurely breakfast to scowl
across the dining room at Mr. Biggleswade, who, with his sour-looking
wife and woebegone little girl, was breakfasting at an opposite table.
The Royal Victoria Hotel was second-rate. The cooking was poor, the
wine was bad, and Solesgate itself was dull. But these misfortunes Sir
Tancred would have endured cheerfully because the place suited
Hildebrand Anne, who had but lately recovered from an attack of scarlet
fever at Farndon-Pryze, but he could not endure Mr. Biggleswade. It
was not so much that he had reckoned up Mr. Biggleswade as a large,
fat, greasy rogue, nor was it that no snub once and for all stopped Mr.
Biggleswade from thrusting himself upon him with a snobbish
obsequiousness; it was Mr. Biggleswade's noisy and haphazard methods of
disposing of his food, which left small portions of each course
nestling in his straggling beard, and filled the air with the sound of
the feeding of pigs.
This Sir Tancred found unendurable, and the more unendurable that Mr.
Biggleswade had made up his mind that he enjoyed his meals more in the
presence of a baronet, and always waited for his coming.
Sir Tancred was eating his breakfast mournfully, therefore, reflecting
on the unkindness of Fortune, who had afflicted Tinker with his fever
at so inconvenient a time. For he had not been able to raise the money
to take him to make his convalescence at one of the more expensive
watering places, whither resort millionaires and the smart, whose
fondness for games of chance and skill would have kept him in careless
luxury. He had been driven to bring him to Solesgate, a town of six
bathing-machines; and there the rest of his ready money dwindled to a
few shillings. A sudden cessation of the sound of the feeding of pigs
caught him from his mournful reflections. He looked up quickly, to see
Mr. Biggleswade staring at his newspaper with a most striking
expression of triumphant greed.
On the instant Sir Tancred filled with the liveliest interest; emotion,
especially curious emotion, in his fellow creatures always aroused his
interest, and not infrequently brought him profit, and Mr.
Biggleswade's emotion seemed to him curiously violent to be excited by
the perusal of a newspaper. He made half a movement to show it to his
wife, caught Sir Tancred's eye, and setting it down, went on hastily
with his breakfast. He had not been so quick but that Sir Tancred had
seen that the paper was _The Daily Telegraph_, and the exciting
paragraph on the first page.
Sir Tancred brightened to the rest of his breakfast; he had little
doubt that he was on the track of some roguery or other, and he
promised himself a hunt through the paper till he found it. When the
Biggleswades, having finished their breakfast, went down to the beach,
he lighted a cigar, took his folding-chair and his pile of newspapers,
and settled down sixty yards away from them. As he had expected, their
first act was to discuss the newspaper with great animation, handing it
backwards and forwards to one another. And he took _The Daily
Telegraph_ from his pile, and set about seeking the source of their
excitement. He passed over the first advertisement in the agony
column, the offer of a reward for the recovery of the stolen child of
Kernaby, the Marmalade Millionaire, merely noting that it had been
raised to 4000 pounds, and came to the conclusion that the second
advertisement was genuine, while the third, which set forth at great
length the woes of a young woman parted from a young man, seemed to him
to read like thieves communicating. He had begun to eliminate the
superfluous words, when Tinker, with Blazer, his bull-terrier, came
suddenly up to him from behind, and bade him good-morning.
Tinker had breakfasted some three hours earlier, probably in the hotel
kitchen, for, as was his invariable custom, he was on the best of terms
with the servants; and for all that he had spent the intervening hours
on the uncovered slimy rocks, was in his usual state of spotless
cleanliness. He is the one living boy to whom dirt does not cling.
"How have you been amusing yourself?" said his father, his stern face
lighting up with a delightful smile.
"I'm still teaching Blazer to be a bloodhound. He's slow--very slow."
Blazer cocked an apologetic ear and sniffed.
"It must be tiring work."
"Yes," said Tinker sadly, and his eyes wandered slowly along the shore.
Sir Tancred flipped the ash off his cigar.
"Those Biggleswades are beasts!" Tinker broke out suddenly when his
eyes fell on them. "They treat that little girl of theirs shamefully!
When I went to bed last night she was crying again. She always is. I
don't believe she's their little girl at all. I believe they've stolen
her."
"The deuce!" cried Sir Tancred, and catching up his _Daily Telegraph_,
he read again the Marmalade Millionaire's advertisement. It ran:
4000 POUND REWARD. 4000 POUND REWARD. 4000 POUND REWARD.
The above sum will be paid to any person giving information leading to
the recovery of Elizabeth E. Kernaby, aged seven years. She strayed or
was stolen in Kensington Gardens between the hours of 10 and 11 a. m.,
on the 19th ultimo. She is fair with blue eyes, and long flaxen hair,
speaks with a lisp, and answers to the name of Bessie. Any person
bringing information to Messrs. Datchett & Hobb's, 127, Lincoln's Inn
Fields, or to Mr. Joseph W. Kernaby, 11a, Cadogan Square, will receive:
4000 POUND REWARD. 4000 POUND REWARD. 4000 POUND REWARD.
He laid the paper on his knee, and began to consider the facts of the
kidnapping, as he remembered them from the newspaper reports. Her
nurse had taken her to Kensington Gardens, where she had foregathered
with the little daughters of Sir William Uglow. The children's play
had little by little drawn them away from their gossipping nurses,
right out of their sight; and when their nurses went to look for them
they found only the little Uglows; Elizabeth Kernaby had gone. The
children said that a tall gentleman had come to them and, telling her
that her mamma had sent him for her, had taken her away in a cab. The
nurse had thought it strange, but suspected nothing wrong till she
reached home and found that Elizabeth had not returned. She did not
return; and since that day, in spite of all the efforts of Scotland
Yard and the private-detective agencies, nothing had been seen or heard
of her. The reward offered for her recovery had risen from 1000 pounds
to 4000 pounds.