HOW I CAME TO LONDON
Justly to narrate all that befell me during my flight and journey to
London, would fill many pages, and therefore, as this book of mine is
already of a magnitude far beyond my first expectations, I shall hurry
on to the end of my story.
Acting upon the advice of the saturnine Jeremy, I lay hidden by day,
and traveled by night, avoiding the highway. But in so doing I became
so often involved in the maze of cross-roads, bylanes, cow-paths, and
cart-tracks, that twice the dawn found me as completely lost as though
I had been set down in the midst of the Sahara. I thus wasted much
time, and wandered many miles out of my way; wherefore, to put an end
to these futile ramblings, I set my face westward, hoping to strike the
highroad somewhere between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks; determined rather
to run the extra chance of capture than follow haphazard these tortuous
and interminable byways.
It was, then, upon the third night since my escape that, faint and
spent with hunger, I saw before me the welcome sight of a finger-post,
and hurrying forward, eager to learn my whereabouts, came full upon a
man who sat beneath the finger-post, with a hunch of bread and meat
upon his knee, which he was eating by means of a clasp-knife.
Now I had tasted nothing save two apples all day, and but little the
day before—thus, at sight of this appetizing food, my hunger grew, and
increased to a violent desire before which prudence vanished and
caution flew away. Therefore I approached the man, with my eyes upon
his bread and meat.
But, as I drew nearer, my attention was attracted by something white
that was nailed up against the finger-post, and I stopped dead, with my
eyes riveted by a word printed in great black capitals, and stood
oblivious alike of the man who had stopped eating to stare at me, and
the bread and meat that he had set down upon the grass; for what I saw
was this:
G. R.
MURDER
L500———REWARD
WHEREAS, PETER SMITH, blacksmith, late of
SISSINGHURST, in the county of Kent,
suspected of the crime of WILFUL MURDER,
did upon the Tenth of August last, make his
escape from his gaolers, upon the Tonbridge
road, somewhere between SISSINGHURST and
PEMBRY; the above REWARD, namely, FIVE HUNDRED
POUNDS, will be paid to such person, or persons
who shall give such INFORMATION as shall lead
to the ARREST, and APPREHENSION of the aforesaid
PETER SMITH. In the furtherance of which, is
hereunto added a just and close description of
the same—VIZ.—He is six foot tall, and a
sizable ROGUE. His hair, black, his eyes dark
and piercing. Clad, when last seen, in a worn
velveteen jacket, kneebreeches buckled at the
knees, gray worsted stockings, and patched shoes.
The coat TORN at the RIGHT shoulder. Upon his
wrists, a pair of steel HANDCUFFS. Last seen
in the vicinity of PEMBRY.
While I yet stared at this, I was conscious that the man had risen, and
now stood at my elbow; also, that in one hand his carried a short,
heavy stick. He stood very still, and with bent head, apparently
absorbed in the printed words before him, but more than once I saw his
eyes gleam in the shadow of his hat-brim, as they turned to scan me
furtively up and down. Yet he did not speak or move, and there was
something threatening, I thought, in his immobility. Wherefore I, in
turn, watched him narrowly from the corner of my eye, and thus it
chanced that our glances met.
"You seem thoughtful?" said I.
"Ah!—I be that."
"And what might you be thinking?"
"Why—since you ax me, I was thinkin' as your eye was mighty sharp and
piercin'."
"Ah!" said I; "and what more?"
"That your coat was tore at the shoulder."
"So it is," I nodded; "well?"
"You likewise wears buckled breeches, and gray worsted stockings."
"You are a very observant man!" said I.
"Though, to be sure," said he, shaking his head, "I don't see no
'andcuffs."
"That is because they are hidden under my sleeves."
"A-h-h!" said he, and I saw the stick quiver in his grip.
"As I said before, you are a very observant man!" said I, watching the
stick.
"Well, I've got eyes, and can see as much as most folk," he retorted,
and here the stick quivered again.
"Yes," I nodded; "you also possess legs, and can probably walk fast?"
"Ah!—and run, too, if need be," he added significantly.
"Then suppose you start."
"Start where?"
"Anywhere, so long as you do start."
"Not wi'out you, my buck! I've took a powerful fancy to you, and that
there five hundred pounds"—here his left hand shot out and grasped my
collar—"so s'posin' you come along o' me. And no tricks, mind—no
tricks, or—ah!—would ye?" The heavy stick whirled up, but, quick as
he, I had caught his wrist, and now presented my pistol full in his
face.
"Drop that stick!" said I, pressing the muzzle of the weapon lightly
against his forehead as I spoke. At the touch of the cold steel his
body suddenly stiffened and grew rigid, his eyes opened in a horrified
stare, and the stick clattered down on the road.
"Talking of fancies," I pursued, "I have a great mind to that
smock-frock of yours, so take it off, and quick about it." In a fever
of haste he tore off the garment in question, and, he thrusting it
eagerly upon me, I folded it over my arm.
"Now," said I, "since you say you can run, supposing you show me what
you can do. This is a good straight lane—off with you and do your
best, and no turning or stopping, mind, for the moon is very bright,
and I am a pretty good shot." Hardly waiting to hear me out, the
fellow set off up the lane, running like the wind; whereupon, I
(waiting only to snatch up his forgotten bread and meat) took to my
heels—down the lane, so that, when I presently stopped to don the
smock-frock, its late possessor had vanished as though he had never
been.
I hurried on, nevertheless, eating greedily as I went, and, after some
while, left the narrow lane behind, and came out on the broad highway
that stretched like a great, white riband, unrolled beneath the moon.
And here was another finger-post with the words
"To Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, and the Wells.—To Bromley and London."
And here, also, was another placard, headed by that awful word:
MURDER—which seemed to leap out at me from the rest. And, with that
word, there rushed over me the memory of Charmian as I had seen her
stand—white-lipped, haggard of eye, and—with one hand hidden in the
folds of her gown.
So I turned and strove to flee from this hideous word, and, as I went,
I clenched my fists and cried within myself: "I love her—love her—no
doubt can come between us more—I love her—love her—love her!" Thus
I hurried on along the great highroad, but, wherever I looked, I saw
this most hateful word; it shone out palely from the shadows; it was
scored into the dust at my feet; even across the splendor of the moon,
in jagged characters, I seemed to read that awful word: MURDER.
And the soft night-wind woke voices to whisper it as I passed; the
somber trees and gloomy hedgerows were full of it; I heard it in the
echo of my step—MURDER! MURDER! It was always there, whether I walked
or ran, in rough and stony places, in the deep, soft dust, in the dewy,
tender grass—it was always there, whispering at my heels, and refusing
to be silenced.
I had gone on, in this way, for an hour or more, avoiding the middle of
the road, because of the brilliance of the moon, when I overtook
something that crawled in the gloom of the hedge, and approaching,
pistol in hand, saw that it was a man.
He was creeping forward slowly and painfully on his hands and knees,
but, all at once, sank down on his face in the grass, only to rise,
groaning, and creep on once more; and, as he went, I heard him praying:
"Lord, give me strength—O Lord, give me strength. Angela! Angela! It
is so far—so far—" And groaning, he sank down again, upon his face.
"You are ill!" said I, bending over him.
"I must reach Deptford—she's buried at Deptford, and I shall die
to-night—O Lord, give me strength!" he panted.
"Deptford is miles away," said I.
Now, as I spoke, he lifted himself upon his hands and stared up at me.
I saw a haggard, hairy face, very thin and sunken, but a fire burned in
the eyes, and the eyes seemed, somehow, familiar.
"You!" he cried, and spat up in the air towards me; "devil!" he cried,
"Devil Vibart." I recoiled instinctively before the man's sudden, wild
ferocity, but, propping himself against the bank, he shook his hand at
me, and laughed.
"Devil!" he repeated; "shade!—ghost of a devil!—have you come back to
see me die?"
"Who are you?" I cried, bending to look into the pale, emaciated face;
"who are you?"
"A shadow," he answered, passing a shaking hand up over his face and
brow, "a ghost—a phantom—as you are; but my name was Strickland once,
as yours was Devil Vibart. I am changed of late—you said so in the
Hollow, and—laughed. You don't laugh now, Devil Vibart, you remember
poor John Strickland now."
"You are the Outside Passenger!" I exclaimed, "the madman who followed
and shot at me in a wood—"
"Followed? Yes, I was a shadow that was always behind you—following
and following you, Satan Vibart, tracking and tracking you to hell and
damnation. And you fled here, and you fled there, but I was always
behind you; you hid from me among lowly folk, but you could not escape
the shadow. Many times I would have killed you—but she was
between—the Woman. I came once to your cottage; it was night, and the
door opened beneath my hand—but your time was not then. But—ha!—I
met you among trees, as I did once before, and I told you my name—as I
did once before, and I spoke of her—of Angela, and cried her name—and
shot you—just here, above the brow; and so you died, Devil Vibart, as
soon I must, for my mission is accomplished—"
"It was you!" I cried, kneeling beside him, "it was your hand that shot
Sir Maurice Vibart?"
"Yes," he answered, his voice growing very gentle as he went on, "for
Angela's sake—my dead wife," and, fumbling in his pocket, he drew out
a woman's small, lace-edged handkerchief, and I saw that it was
thickened and black with blood. "This was hers," he continued, "in her
hand, the night she died—I had meant to lay it on her grave—the blood
of atonement—but now—"
A sudden crash in the hedge above; a figure silhouetted against the
sky; a shadowy arm, that, falling, struck the moon out of heaven, and,
in the darkness, I was down upon my knees, and fingers were upon my
throat.
"Oh, Darby!" cried a voice, "I've got him—this way—quick—oh, Darb—"
My fist drove into his ribs; I struggled up under a rain of blows, and
we struck and swayed and staggered and struck—trampling the groaning
wretch who lay dying in the ditch. And before me was the pale oval of
a face, and I smote it twice with my pistol-butt, and it was gone, and
I—was running along the road.
"Charmian spoke truth! O God, I thank thee!"
I burst through a hedge, running on, and on—careless alike of being
seen, of capture or escape, of prison or freedom, for in my heart was a
great joy.
I was conscious of shouts and cries, but I heeded them no more,
listening only to the song of happiness my heart was singing:
"Charmian spoke truth, her hands are clean. O God, I thank thee!"
And, as I went, I presently espied a caravan, and before it a fire of
sticks, above which a man was bending, who, raising his head, stared at
me as I approached. He was a strange-looking man, who glared at me
with one eye and leered jocosely with the other; and, being spent and
short of breath, I stopped, and wiping the sweat from my eyes I saw
that it was blood.
"How—is Lewis?" I panted.
"What," exclaimed the man, drawing nearer, "is it you?—James! but
you're a picter, you are—hallo!" he stopped, as his glance encountered
the steel that glittered upon my wrist; while upon the silence the
shouts swelled, drawing near and nearer.
"So—the Runners is arter you, are they, young feller?"
"Yes," said I; "yes. You have only to cry out, and they will take me,
for I can fight no more, nor run any farther; this knock on the head
has made me very dizzy."
"Then—take a pull at this 'ere," said he, and thrust a flat bottle
into my hand. The fiery spirit burned my throat, but almost
immediately my strength and courage revived.
"Better?"
"Much better," I answered, returning the bottle, "and I thank you—"
"Don't go for to thank _me_, young feller," said he, driving the cork
into the bottle with a blow of his fist, "you thank that young feller
as once done as much for me—at a fair. An' now—cut away—run!—the
'edge is good and dark, up yonder—lay low a bit, and leave these
damned Runners to me." I obeyed without more ado, and, as I ran up the
lane, I heard him shouting and swearing as though engaged in a
desperate encounter; and, turning in the shadow of the hedge, I saw him
met by two men, with whom, still shouting and gesticulating excitedly,
he set off, running—down the lane.
And so I, once more, turned my face London-wards.
The blood still flowed from the cut in my head, getting often into my
eyes, yet I made good progress notwithstanding. But, little by little,
the effect of the spirits wore off, a drowsiness stole over me, my
limbs felt numbed and heavy. And with this came strange fancies and a
dread of the dark. Sometimes it seemed that odd lights danced before my
eyes, like marsh-fires, and strange voices gabbled in my ears,
furiously unintelligible, with laughter in a high-pitched key;
sometimes I cast myself down in the dewy grass, only to start up again,
trembling, and run on till I was breathless; but ever I struggled
forward, despite the throbbing of my broken head, and the gnawing
hunger that consumed me.
After a while, a mist came on, a mist that formed itself into deep
valleys, or rose in jagged spires and pinnacles, but constantly
changing; a mist that moved and writhed within itself. And in this mist
were forms, nebulous and indistinct, multitudes that moved in time with
me, and the voices seemed louder than before, and the laughter much
shriller, while repeated over and over again, I caught that awful word:
MURDER, MURDER.
Chief among this host walked one whose head and face were muffled from
my sight, but who watched me, I knew, through the folds, with eyes that
stared fixed and wide.
But now, indeed, the mist seemed to have got into my brain, and all
things were hazy, and my memory of them is dim. Yet I recall passing
Bromley village, and slinking furtively through the shadows of the
deserted High Street, but thereafter all is blank save a memory of pain
and toil and deadly fatigue.
I was stumbling up steps—the steps of a terrace; a great house lay
before me, with lighted windows here and there, but these I feared, and
so came creeping to one that I knew well, and whose dark panes
glittered palely under the dying moon. And now I took out my
clasp-knife, and, fumbling blindly, put back the catch (as I had often
done as a boy), and so, the window opening, I clambered into the
dimness beyond.
Now as I stumbled forward my hand touched something, a long, dark
object that was covered with a cloth, and, hardly knowing what I did, I
drew back this cloth and looked down at that which it had covered, and
sank down upon my knees, groaning. For there, staring up at me, cold,
contemptuous, and set like marble, was the smiling, dead face of my
cousin Maurice.
As I knelt there, I was conscious that the door had opened, that some
one approached, bearing a light, but I did not move or heed.
"Peter?—good God in heaven!—is it Peter?" I looked up and into the
dilated eyes of Sir Richard. "Is it really Peter?" he whispered.
"Yes, sir—dying, I think."
"No, no—Peter—dear boy," he stammered. "You didn't know—you hadn't
heard—poor Maurice—murdered—fellow—name of Smith—!"
"Yes, Sir Richard, I know more about it than most. You see, I am Peter
Smith." Sir Richard fell back from me, and I saw the candle swaying in
his grasp.
"You?" he whispered, "you? Oh, Peter!—oh, my boy!"
"But I am innocent—innocent—you believe me—you who were my earliest
friend—my good, kind friend—you believe me?" and I stretched out my
hands appealingly, but, as I did so, the light fell gleaming upon my
shameful wristlets; and, even as we gazed into each other's eyes, mute
and breathless, came the sound of steps and hushed voices. Sir Richard
sprang forward, and, catching me in a powerful hand, half led, half
dragged me behind a tall leather screen beside the hearth, and
thrusting me into a chair, turned and hurried to meet the intruders.
They were three, as I soon discovered by their voices, one of which I
thought I recognized.
"It's a devilish shame!" the first was saying; "not a soul here for the
funeral but our four selves—I say it's a shame—a burning shame!"
"That, sir, depends entirely on the point of view," answered the
second, a somewhat aggressive voice, and this it was I seemed to
recognize.
"Point of view, sir? Where, I should like to know, are all those
smiling nonentities—those fawning sycophants who were once so proud of
his patronage, who openly modelled themselves upon him, whose highest
ambition was to be called a friend of the famous 'Buck' Vibart—where
are they now?"
"Doing the same by the present favorite, as is the nature of their
kind," responded the third; "poor Maurice is already forgotten."
"The Prince," said the harsh voice, "the Prince would never have
forgiven him for crossing him in the affair of the Lady Sophia Sefton;
the day he ran off with her he was as surely dead—in a social
sense—as he is now in every sense."
Here the mist settled down upon my brain once more, and I heard nothing
but a confused murmur of voices, and it seemed to me that I was back on
the road again, hemmed in by those gibbering phantoms that spoke so
much, and yet said but one word: "Murder."
"Quick—a candle here—a candle—bring a light—" There came a glare
before my smarting eyes, and I struggled up to my feet.
"Why—I have seen this fellow's face somewhere—ah!—yes, at an inn—a
hang-dog rogue—I threatened to pull his nose, I remember, and—by
Heaven!—handcuffs! He has been roughly handled, too! Gentlemen, I'll
lay my life the murderer is found—though how he should come here of
all places—extraordinary. Sir Richard—you and I, as
magistrates—duty—" But the mist was very thick, and the voices grew
confused again; only I knew that hands were upon me, that I was led
into another room, where were lights that glittered upon the silver,
the decanters and glasses of a supper table.
"Yes," I was saying, slowly and heavily; "yes, I am Peter Smith—a
blacksmith—who escaped from his gaolers on the Tonbridge Road—but I
am innocent—before God—I am innocent. And now—do with me as you
will—for I am—very weary—"
Sir Richard's arm was about me, and his voice sounded in my ears, but
as though a great way off:
"Sirs," said he, "this is my friend—Sir Peter Vibart." There was a
moment's pause, then—a chair fell with a crash, and there rose a
confusion of excited voices which grew suddenly silent, for the door
had opened, and on the threshold stood a woman, tall and proud and
richly dressed, from the little dusty boot that peeped beneath her
habit to the wide-sweeping hat-brim that shaded the high beauty of her
face. And I would have gone to her but that my strength failed me.
"Charmian!"
She started, and, turning, uttered a cry, and ran to me.
"Charmian," said I; "oh, Charmian!" And so, with her tender arms about
me, and her kisses on my lips, the mist settled down upon me, thicker
and darker than ever.