Challoner was stricken to the heart. He perceived by what facility, by
what unmanly fear of ridicule, he had been brought down to be the gull of
this intriguer; and his wrath flowed forth in almost equal measure
against himself, against the woman, and against Somerset, whose idle
counsels had impelled him to embark on that adventure. At the same time
a great and troubled curiosity, and a certain chill of fear, possessed
his spirit. The conduct of the man with the chin-beard, the terms of the
letter, and the explosion of the early morning, fitted together like
parts in some obscure and mischievous imbroglio. Evil was certainly
afoot; evil, secrecy, terror, and falsehood were the conditions and the
passions of the people among whom he had begun to move, like a blind
puppet; and he who began as a puppet, his experience told him, was often
doomed to perish as a victim.
From the stupor of deep thought into which he had glided with the letter
in his hand, he was awakened by the clatter of the bell. He glanced from
the window; and, conceive his horror and surprise when he beheld,
clustered on the steps, in the front garden and on the pavement of the
street, a formidable posse of police! He started to the full possession
of his powers and courage. Escape, and escape at any cost, was the one
idea that possessed him. Swiftly and silently he redescended the
creaking stairs; he was already in the passage when a second and more
imperious summons from the door awoke the echoes of the empty house; nor
had the bell ceased to jangle before he had bestridden the window-sill of
the parlour and was lowering himself into the garden. His coat was
hooked upon the iron flower-basket; for a moment he hung dependent heels
and head below; and then, with the noise of rending cloth, and followed
by several pots, he dropped upon the sod. Once more the bell was rung,
and now with furious and repeated peals. The desperate Challoner turned
his eyes on every side. They fell upon the ladder, and he ran to it, and
with strenuous but unavailing effort sought to raise it from the ground.
Suddenly the weight, which was thus resisting his whole strength, began
to lighten in his hands; the ladder, like a thing of life, reared its
bulk from off the sod; and Challoner, leaping back with a cry of almost
superstitious terror, beheld the whole structure mount, foot by foot,
against the face of the retaining wall. At the same time, two heads were
dimly visible above the parapet, and he was hailed by a guarded whistle.
Something in its modulation recalled, like an echo, the whistle of the
man with the chin-beard.
Had he chanced upon a means of escape prepared beforehand by those very
miscreants whose messenger and gull he had become? Was this, indeed, a
means of safety, or but the starting-point of further complication and
disaster? He paused not to reflect. Scarce was the ladder reared to its
full length than he had sprung already on the rounds; hand over hand,
swift as an ape, he scaled the tottering stairway. Strong arms received,
embraced, and helped him; he was lifted and set once more upon the earth;
and with the spasm of his alarm yet unsubsided, found himself in the
company of two rough-looking men, in the paved back yard of one of the
tall houses that crowned the summit of the hill. Meanwhile, from below,
the note of the bell had been succeeded by the sound of vigorous and
redoubling blows.
‘Are you all out?’ asked one of his companions; and, as soon as he had
babbled an answer in the affirmative, the rope was cut from the top
round, and the ladder thrust roughly back into the garden, where it fell
and broke with clattering reverberations. Its fall was hailed with many
broken cries; for the whole of Richard Street was now in high emotion,
the people crowding to the windows or clambering on the garden walls.
The same man who had already addressed Challoner seized him by the arm;
whisked him through the basement of the house and across the street upon
the other side; and before the unfortunate adventurer had time to realise
his situation, a door was opened, and he was thrust into a low and dark
compartment.
‘Bedad,’ observed his guide, ‘there was no time to lose. Is M’Guire
gone, or was it you that whistled?
‘M’Guire is gone,’ said Challoner.
The guide now struck a light. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘this will never do. You
dare not go upon the streets in such a figure. Wait quietly here and I
will bring you something decent.’
With that the man was gone, and Challoner, his attention thus rudely
awakened, began ruefully to consider the havoc that had been worked in
his attire. His hat was gone; his trousers were cruelly ripped; and the
best part of one tail of his very elegant frockcoat had been left hanging
from the iron crockets of the window. He had scarce had time to measure
these disasters when his host re-entered the apartment and proceeded,
without a word, to envelop the refined and urbane Challoner in a long
ulster of the cheapest material, and of a pattern so gross and vulgar
that his spirit sickened at the sight. This calumnious disguise was
crowned and completed by a soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, and
several sizes too small. At another moment Challoner would simply have
refused to issue forth upon the world thus travestied; but the desire to
escape from Glasgow was now too strongly and too exclusively impressed
upon his mind. With one haggard glance at the spotted tails of his new
coat, he inquired what was to pay for this accoutrement. The man assured
him that the whole expense was easily met from funds in his possession,
and begged him, instead of wasting time, to make his best speed out of
the neighbourhood.
The young man was not loath to take the hint. True to his usual
courtesy, he thanked the speaker and complimented him upon his taste in
greatcoats; and leaving the man somewhat abashed by these remarks and the
manner of their delivery, he hurried forth into the lamplit city. The
last train was gone ere, after many deviations, he had reached the
terminus. Attired as he was he dared not present himself at any
reputable inn; and he felt keenly that the unassuming dignity of his
demeanour would serve to attract attention, perhaps mirth and possibly
suspicion, in any humbler hostelry. He was thus condemned to pass the
solemn and uneventful hours of a whole night in pacing the streets of
Glasgow; supperless; a figure of fun for all beholders; waiting the dawn,
with hope indeed, but with unconquerable shrinkings; and above all
things, filled with a profound sense of the folly and weakness of his
conduct. It may be conceived with what curses he assailed the memory of
the fair narrator of Hyde Park; her parting laughter rang in his ears all
night with damning mockery and iteration; and when he could spare a
thought from this chief artificer of his confusion, it was to expend his
wrath on Somerset and the career of the amateur detective. With the
coming of day, he found in a shy milk-shop the means to appease his
hunger. There were still many hours to wait before the departure of the
South express; these he passed wandering with indescribable fatigue in
the obscurer by-streets of the city; and at length slipped quietly into
the station and took his place in the darkest corner of a third-class
carriage. Here, all day long, he jolted on the bare boards, distressed
by heat and continually reawakened from uneasy slumbers. By the half
return ticket in his purse, he was entitled to make the journey on the
easy cushions and with the ample space of the first-class; but alas! in
his absurd attire, he durst not, for decency, commingle with his equals;
and this small annoyance, coming last in such a series of disasters, cut
him to the heart.
That night, when, in his Putney lodging, he reviewed the expense,
anxiety, and weariness of his adventure; when he beheld the ruins of his
last good trousers and his last presentable coat; and above all, when his
eye by any chance alighted on the Tyrolese hat or the degrading ulster,
his heart would overflow with bitterness, and it was only by a serious
call on his philosophy that he maintained the dignity of his demeanour.