Front matter (continued 2)

"She--she--oh, Daniel, she says you're her grandfather, and a married man, and--and I'm frightened--very frightened of her."

"You needn't be, darling," he said, with a bitter laugh; "she's quite harmless, poor old thing. It's only a passing attack. She has these fits from time to time in the hot weather. She's very mad to-day. Never mind; I rode out to find her, and I'm glad I have. I've tried to keep the malady a secret, but female lunatics are so cunning."

"Madness is hereditary. Oh, Dan, Dan, if papa knows that your poor mother is so very eccentric, he will never consent."

"He has consented, my darling. Fear nothing. My mother's insanity is not hereditary. She fell out of a three-storey window on to her head when she was seventeen. Since then the ailment has appeared occasionally. Her customary hallucination is blue rats. You say she thinks I am her grandpapa! Poor old soul! Go home, dear joy of my life! We meet to-morrow, after the Squire and I have seen the lawyers."

He kissed her, put her back in her pony carriage, and then turned to me, after she had driven away.

"Now, you old devil," he said, making his heavy hunting crop whistle in my ear, "you march home in front of me. And mark this, if you dare to come between me and my amusements again, I'll get two doctors to sign a certificate, and have you under lock and key in Bedlam or Hanwell, before you can say 'knife.'"

CHAPTER XIV.

AT UPPER NORWOOD.

In a week from that horrible day grandpapa and I were on affectionate terms again, and living in furnished apartments at Upper Norwood, near the Crystal Palace. Events followed each other with such bewildering rapidity now, that I have a difficulty in remembering their correct sequence.

After grandpapa's brutal threat I felt my liberty, and even my life itself, began to be in danger; so that night, after a silent dinner, I waited until he went down to the stables to smoke, and then sending hastily for a cab, put one box, which I had already packed, into it, and drove away to Salisbury. I caught a late train to town, and lodged for the night at a little hotel near Waterloo. From here, next morning, I wrote to grandpapa, giving him my address, and telling him I was as ready as ever to help him and fight for him if he needed me. Then I went out and sold a brooch for five-and-twenty pounds, and bought myself a bottle of brandy. I want to hide nothing in this narrative. Of late my nerves had suffered not a little. Stimulant was the only thing that steadied them. I took more and more of it.

Three days later grandpapa turned up at the hotel. He had shaved off his moustache, was very frightened and cowed, and said the police were after him. He insisted on our changing our names, and getting off quietly into lodgings without delay. He studied an "A.B.C." Railway Guide, and said that Upper Norwood was a respectable sort of place, where they wouldn't be likely to look for him. Not until we were settled in furnished rooms, half-way up Gipsy Hill, and had ordered lunch, did he explain what had happened. Then he told the story.

"The day after you bolted I met old Talbot and his lawyer about a settlement. I talked rather big, and suggested fifty thousand. Then the brute of a lawyer said, after he had heard my name, 'How odd. Now there is a gentleman I have been wanting to find for the last two years nearly, and he is called Daniel Dolphin!' Like a fool, and forgetting the man he wanted must be years older than me, I lost my nerve, and the lawyer saw that I had. 'It's an odd name--perhaps a relative?' he said. 'The gentleman I mean used to live at Chislehurst. You will be doing me a kindness if you can tell me anything of him.' Instead of simply answering that I had never heard of the man, I replied that he was my uncle. 'How?' exclaimed the Squire, 'I thought you had no relations but your mother?' Then I tried to explain, and bungled it--I'm growing so damned young and silly now--and finally the matter dropped, but I could see that lawyer meant getting the truth out of me later on. I arranged the settlements and so on, and gave them a list of my imaginary investments, which, of course, I'd just picked out of the money columns in the papers. Then I wanted to marry at once, and get Mabel before they had time to find out my game. But the Squire said he wouldn't hear of it till the autumn. That wasn't good enough, so I saw Mabel and told her a yarn or two, and worked on her love for romance, and finally got her to run away with me. You needn't jump. The plot fell through. She weakly confided in a lady's maid. I saddled my horses myself, and rode out at midnight to abduct her in the good old style. I waited at a certain point by the Priory walls, and presently she arrived. But hardly had we galloped off--I meant to take her to Salisbury, and marry her before the registrar next morning--when we were confronted on the Plain by Squire Talbot and half-a-dozen mounted bounders he'd got to help him. The Squire collared his daughter, and left his friends to deal with me. They tried to take me prisoner, but I'm pretty fit just now, and pretty reckless too. I was mad to think they'd scored off me like this, and I hit out and knocked one chap off his horse, and nearly strangled another, and fired my revolver at a third. I missed him, and shot his mount. When they found I was armed, they cleared off. It was an exciting, old-fashioned scrimmage, and I enjoyed it while it lasted. But of course, there's the devil to pay. I rode into Salisbury, put up my horse at an inn, dodged around all night, and took the first train up this morning. The bobbies were prowling about at Salisbury station, but they didn't recognise me. I'd cut off my moustache in the night, and looked not more than eighteen in the morning. The lawyer, of course, wants me for Marie Rogers; and Talbot will want me; and the chap whose head I broke will want me; and the man whose horse I shot will want me. Let 'em want!"

"This is the beginning of the end, grandpapa," I said, sadly enough.

"Not it! You wait and see what the next six months bring! I shouldn't wonder if I was in a tight place six months hence. This is nothing. I'll make some of 'em squeak yet before they've done with me."

It was in this wicked and reckless frame of mind that he prepared to spend the remainder of his days. However, he rested from his labours for about six weeks, notwithstanding his boast to make people "squeak." He read the reports of his performance on Salisbury Plain with great delight, and he found, as the matter developed, that sundry unexpected names appeared in it. Daniel Dolphin was "wanted" by the representatives of one Mrs. Bangley-Brown, to whom he had promised marriage; a man of the same name had performed a similar action at Chislehurst, the victim in that case being Miss Marie Rogers. It also appeared that some impostor, calling himself Viscount Dolphin, and claiming Royalty for his kindred, had met and proposed to Princess Hopskipschoff in Paris. These were all different persons of different ages, the newspapers admitted, but they might have a connection with the vanished rascal of the Talbot Priory business near Salisbury. There was a mystery of some kind, and the police naturally had a clue.

Grandpapa gloated over this confusion. He had changed his name now to Abraham Whiting--"another prophet and another fish," as he put it--but he longed to go back to his true cognomen and "keep the pot boiling." This, with difficulty, I prevented him doing for a short time. His monetary affairs were much simplified now: he had about three thousand pounds in hand in notes and gold. All the furniture, and horses, and effects at Salisbury were sold, and what moneys were not claimed, under legal and other expenses, went, I believe, into Chancery. But grandpapa had about three thousand pounds left, which, as he said, would last his time with care.

His moustache did not grow again to any extent. He took to wearing a straw hat with a bright ribbon, a blue and red "blazer," white flannel trousers, and tan boots. Thus attired he spent much of his time in the Crystal Palace, choosing undesirable friends at the different stalls and "growing blue devils under glass," as he tersely put it.

CHAPTER XV.

SUSAN MARKS.

I may say at once that the police never found grandpapa. Neither Le Coq nor Edgar Allen Poe's amateur would have done so, for the simple reason that my grandparent was growing younger at the rate of one year every five weeks or so; and though there is not much difference between one year and the next in adult life, yet when we deal with the period of adolescence, great changes become visible in brief periods. He was about five-and-twenty when we went to Upper Norwood, and two-and-twenty when we left that desirable neighbourhood, after a residence of about three months.

"You look your age; there's no doubt about that, Martha," he said to me once, in a very uncalled-for way.

"So do most respectable people," I answered sharply. "We can't all go backwards. The terms wouldn't suit everybody."

"You needn't be personal," he answered; "and you needn't lose your temper. I say you look your age, and more than your age; and I'll tell you why----"

He broke off and tapped a bottle significantly. "Go your own way, of course, but don't say nobody ever tried to save you. Don't say your grandfather didn't warn you in time. You were as stupid as an owl last night when I came in. Yes, I know what you're going to say: I had better look to myself before I criticise other people. But, remember, I don't matter; my tour's booked through. Things are different with you, and I tell you frankly it's a sorry sight to see an old woman of your age going down the hill so fast. No grandfather could view such a spectacle calmly."

How I wept to be sure. It was the first kind, thoughtful word I had ever heard from him since the commencement of the New Scheme. For several days afterwards his manner quite changed. He devoted himself to me, and, amongst other things, purchased me two dozen bottles of non-alcoholic bitter beer, and a book of intemperate temperance addresses.

All too soon, however, I discovered the reasons for this sudden outburst of affection. Dear grandpapa began to feel that he could not get on without me, and he had another little affair in hand.

I found a morocco case in his room one morning. It contained a very exquisite gold bracelet. He had been late overnight, and I had taken his breakfast up to him. The parcel with the bracelet came on the preceding evening while he was out. He had opened it on returning and left it open. As he was asleep when I took in his morning meal, I had time to examine the trinket. I looked at the costly toy, and then at grandpapa reposing peacefully and sweetly, with a glow of health and youth on his face. He lived out of doors now, and spent most of his time at the Palace. Of course the bracelet spoke louder than words.

He awoke, saw what I had seen, sat up, ate three eggs, much toast, and other things, then made a clean breast of his latest entanglement.

"It's the purest, truest attachment--my first genuine love, so to speak, and my last. And she's a girl to whom I can tell my secret; I feel that. Susan would believe anything. She will see me through the next two years or so, and then she will be left free to marry again. Yes, we are engaged. Socially it is a bit of a come-down from Mabel Talbot, but I don't want to found a family or go in for a swagger connection. The girl loves me, and that's quite good enough for me."

"Who is she, grandpapa?"

"Nobody; at least I don't know anything about her family. She doesn't ever mention them, and I make no enquiries. I don't want to be within the radius of another mother-in-law again at my time of life--I know them. We're going to be married privately, and then run out to America. Susan keeps a stall at the Crystal Palace. She's a model girl, and sells chocolate and sweetstuff generally. You might go and see her without saying anything. Just stop in a casual way and hear her talk. Buy a pennyworth of something and study the girl a little. She's a perfect treasure of a woman in my opinion. I've reached an age now when goodness outweighs beauty and everything. But she is beautiful too. She hangs out under that statue of the lady and the horse--lady and horse both dressed alike. You'll find her there, and you'll recognise her if you go this afternoon by this bracelet, which she'll have on by that time. Draw her out and you'll find I'm right. She would cling to me and comfort my declining years. I shall tell her I'm going away to London for the afternoon; then you will have it all to yourself and see what a girl she is."

I obeyed him, and that afternoon visited the Palace, found Lady Godiva without difficulty, and Susan Marks selling chocolate below. I saw the bracelet immediately. It was on the wrist of a big, dark girl, very showily dressed. She had bold, black eyes, that twinkled at the men as they passed, and a hard voice, which she endeavoured to make seductive as she lured visitors to the chocolate. She was talking to a young man when I arrived, and kept me waiting a considerable time. But I did not mind that; I was listening to some interesting conversation.

"Yes, it ain't a bad bangle; my little mash, Dan Dolphin, gave it to me. He's fairly gone on me--that's straight. I've got fal-lals to the tune of three or four hundred quid out of him, and a promise of marriage."

"Promise what you like, Sue, but no kid. Mind what you said. I ain't jealous, but I'm No. 1, mind. He's only No. 2."

"No. 2! He's No. 20 more like. You're a fool, Tom, and you are jealous. And I like to see you angry. You know well enough, Tommy, that I never loved none but you. The fools come and the fools go, but Tom goes on for ever. This little chappie ought to be good for a hundred or two more--then we'll be married, you and me, and I'll cut the chocolate and the butterflies."

Had they arranged their conversation expressly for my benefit, neither could have made a more conclusive, satisfactory, and at the same time disgraceful statement.

My blood boiled when I thought of my grandfather's boyish passion being wasted on this minx.

"What are you starin' at?" asked the girl rudely, suddenly realising that I was standing by the stall.

"I'm waiting to be served," I answered. "I want one of those penny sticks of Cadbury's chocolate, when you can make it convenient to attend to me."

She gave me the refreshment, and I heard her utter a vulgar jest at my expense as I turned away. But, for all that, I hastened home with a light heart. Once more was I in a position to save grandpapa.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE RIVER.

It is not easy to describe grandpapa's indignation when I detailed the result of my interview with Susan Marks. I told him all about the young man to whom she had been talking, and he recognised the youth as one Tomkins. He had already quarrelled with Susan about him.

"But why, dear grandfather," I asked, "did you give this wretched woman your real name?"

"It was a safe thing to do," he answered. "All the old fusses have blown over. Besides, I should have had to give it when I married her. I meant most honourably by the jade, and this is the result. They're all alike, confusion take 'em. That's the last. I've done with women now. They don't interest me as they used to do. I shall go on amusing myself with the cats for another six months or so, till I'm a few years younger, but I'm blest if I ever take 'em seriously again. They're not worth it--excepting you. You're a good old daisy, Martha, and I'm much obliged to you."

Two days afterwards he gave Miss Marks a bit of his mind, and had it out with Tomkins, down among the firework apparatus. It appears that he punched Tomkins on the head, and then kicked him when he was down, and finally dropped him into one of the fountains.

"After that," said grandfather, as he gleefully narrated the circumstances to me, "I made tracks and hid among those great stone pre-adamite beasts at the bottom of the grounds. I squirmed down alongside of an ichthyosaurus or some such brute, and sat tight there until dark. Then I dodged out with the crowd. But they'll want me to-day, so I guess we must be toddling."

We talked the matter out, and he decided to go and rent lodgings somewhere near the river. He was now twenty-two, by the New Scheme, and his old love for athletics had returned.

"No more tomfoolery for me," said grandfather. "I've passed the silly stage now. I shall take up rowing again and join a cricket club, and lead a quiet, wholesome life. As the end approaches so rapidly, I begin to lose interest in worldly affairs. Let us go to the river, and I will row you about, over the peaceful waters, under the trees, among the swans. If I find I have kept any of my old form with the sculls, I shall very likely enter for the 'Diamonds' at Henley. It would be a record for a man of nearly one hundred and eight to win 'em. But I doubt how I should shape in these gimcrack, new-fangled wager-boats."

I encouraged his simple, boyish ambition, and we took our way to Twickenham. Grandpapa, finding himself better and happier for the peaceful life, actually thought once more of reformation. It was summer time, and a sort of holy calm would settle on my beloved grandfather, as he paddled me about the river and drew up sometimes in the cool shadows of overhanging trees.

He was a handsome boy of one-and-twenty now. His face grew tanned by the sun. He wore a picturesque green and yellow "blazer," with a blue handkerchief round his waist and a big sunflower embroidered on his grey felt hat. He began to get quite simple in speech, and his interest revolved about the river races and the cricket field. He seemed to forget the past, and I often prayed that the past would forget him. But grandpapa had sown the wind and the whirlwind was beginning to spring up. Time did not fly as quickly with the world as it seemed to do with us. The young fellow with his simple athletic interests and ambitions, training quietly for the Diamond Sculls, was not destined to escape the fruits of those many indiscretions committed in his maturer years; and it is hardly the least of my griefs and regrets that, in a measure, I was the cause of keeping grandpapa's name before the world, and before divers more or less malicious women, who refused to forget his past relationships with them. I thought that by the quiet waters of the Thames, hidden in snug but comfortable lodgings at Twickenham, we should have escaped notice; but I soon found my mistake, for the river is a highway, a pleasure ground (so to speak) whereon all meet. Representatives of every London suburb pass and repass; respectable and questionable rub shoulders in every lock, exchange repartees at every bend, drift side by side in every backwater.

We were out one day after lunch, and I, steering carelessly, nearly ran into a boatload of ladies and gentlemen. Grandpapa reprimanded me, and apologised to the other party. Then somebody said:

"Positively it is--it is Miss Dolphin."

The speaker was Mrs. Bangley-Brown. She insisted on stopping and asking after grandpapa; and the old man, like a fool, forgetting the altered conditions, answered:

"I'm all right. Glad to see you again. Jove! how well the gals look. And you as blooming as a four-year-old. D----d if I don't think you're going backwards too!"

Mrs. Bangley-Brown glared at the youth, and grandpapa, with wonderful readiness, explained himself.

"Awfully sorry. Thought you must know me. My pals call me 'grandfather,' 'cause I'm a bit old-fashioned. No offence meant, none taken I hope."

She turned from him with disgust, and the two girls in the boat and some young men looked at my escort and tittered.

"Where is your grandfather?" said Mrs. Bangley-Brown to me, leaning over the edge of the boat and whispering. "I have been wanting his address for five years. Perhaps you can favour me with it. There is something fatal about the name, I think. I have heard it often of late, associated in every case with some broken-hearted woman."

"He treated you badly, I know," I answered, also under my breath. "It was a bitter grief to me at the time. But things are better as they are. He would not have made you happy."

"Probably not," she answered bitterly, "but he might have made me comfortable. And it is not too late. We need not discuss his conduct. I know what an English jury would think of it. Give me his address, if you please."

"Don't do anything of the sort, Martha," said grandpapa, in a great state of excitement. He had overheard Mrs. Bangley-Brown's last remark, and now turned to her.

"I'm only a youngster," he began craftily, "but I know the rights of that story. I heard it from the old man, and it don't do you any credit. You're an awful designing woman, and ought to know better. I daresay you've been after a dozen old fogeys since that."

"You little horror!" screamed Mrs. Bangley-Brown, "if I could get to you I'd box your ears."

She rose and made the boat shake, and her daughters implored her to sit down, or they would all be in the river.

"Yes, you're a bad old lady--a regular old fossil-hunter, and no mistake," said grandpapa, shaking his head at her. "Shocking example for the gals!" Then he began to row away.

"Follow them! Don't lose sight of them!" cried the angry woman; but grandpapa was a fine oar and had a light load. He simply laughed at their efforts to keep pace with him, and fired off all sorts of jokes at the pursuers. Finally he spurted when near the "rollers," had our boat over them in a twinkling, and setting to work, bustled me up to Kingston with extraordinary celerity. After dark we paddled quietly home again.

"It is a warning to me," said grandpapa. "In future if we meet old friends, I am your young nephew from Oxford; and your grandfather, should they ask after him, has been dead for some years. I wish that was true."

CHAPTER XVII.

PHYLLIS.

Misfortunes never come singly. After the meeting with Mrs. Bangley-Brown I was nervous of going on the river at all, but upon the following Sunday grandpapa persuaded me to accompany him. Most young men would have chosen the society of their own sex, but grandfather was loyal to his old granddaughter; and I will say that with regard to my growing weakness for stimulant, he did everything in his power to shame me out of it. I tried my best, but alcohol had become a necessity, and, as I have said elsewhere, was the only thing I could rely upon to keep my nerves steady at a crisis.

To return, we proceeded that Sunday to Teddington Lock, when suddenly, alongside of us, waiting for the lock to open, appeared Susan Marks and the young man Tomkins. The woman recognised us both instantly, and proclaimed the fact.

"Lor! if that ain't that little beast Dolphin! Look, Tommy; and it was that old Guy Fawkes as 'eard me 'n you talking. She split an' told him. But it shan't wash; I swear it shan't. He's promised marriage, you know that; and all the old grandmothers in the world shan't save him!"

"Who are you, you brazen creature? I don't know you--never saw you before in my life," said grandfather, calmly.

"Don't you talk to me like that, you wretch," bawled the virago, "or I'll come over and wring your neck."

"Poor soul! Take her out of the sun and send for a medical man," said my grandfather.

Then Tomkins spoke. He was a small, weak person.

"You can't bounce it like that, you know," he said. "You're Dan Dolphin, engaged to Miss Marks; I ought to know you well enough; I've had a summons out against you for three months. You'd better give me your address, and not make a scene here."

"You're labouring under a case of mistaken identity," said grandfather, not taking any notice of the intimation to give his address. "And as for that beauty there, if she's engaged to me or some other fellow, what are you doing with her here on the river? Now row away, and try and behave yourselves. I'm afraid you're no better than you ought to be, either of you."

In this cool manner, with a quiet air of experience and superiority, did grandfather cow the man Tomkins. The woman Marks, however, was not cowed. She shook her fist and raved and disgraced her sex and made a scene; but grandfather only laughed and proceeded. As he truly remarked, they had got "precious little change" out of him.

Not less than an hour later, I saw another of grandpapa's old flames; one whom I had never met before. The Princess Hopskipschoff, with a party of younger sons and music-hall artistes, passed us in a steam-launch. Grandpapa was very excited, and his admiration for her, which waxed at forty-five and dwindled to nothing at thirty, now at twenty-one, burst out anew.

"A glorious woman--a goddess, by Jove! How sickening she must find the twaddle of those boys!" said grandpapa. "Ah, she doesn't know, as she glances at me from under her dark lids, that the young fellow in the yellow and green 'blazer' was once engaged to marry her. How sweet and fresh she is still! I wonder if she'll be at Henley?"

Then he sighed and caught a "crab" in the wash of the steamer. I was amazed to hear him talk thus, and ventured to expostulate.

"The big woman under the red-and-white parasol? Why, grandpapa, she's forty, and painted up to the eyes!"

"Don't blaspheme," he said. "Don't discuss her. You needn't be jealous of the princess. To think that she has never forgotten me, that she seeks me yet! But her dream would be rather rudely shattered if she knew. Well, well, let us talk of something else. What fiend made me leave her? To think of all I lost!"

From which I have since drawn the curious conclusion that very young men and quite middle-aged ones are often attracted by the same sort of women.

"A fellow cannot get on without woman's love," said grandpapa, suddenly, after a long silence. "At least, some fellows can't--I can't for one."

"A mother's love is what you will soon be needing, dear one. I shall do the best I can."

"Bosh!" he said angrily. "That's not love at all; it's instinct. And I don't want you to fuss over me when I become a child, mind that. Just keep me clean and tidy, and give me toys and tell me Bible stories. But don't pretend you're my mother then, because that's outraging the laws of Nature, and people will laugh at you. I'm not talking of those matters now; I'm alluding to love."

"You said, when you left Upper Norwood, that you had done with that for ever."

"Yes, very likely; young men say foolish things. You can't help fate. Marriages are made in heaven wholesale, though I admit they never guarantee the quality, and turn out a lot of goods that don't wear. You observe that lock ahead? We're going to lunch there. The lock-keeper is called Rose, and he has a daughter named Phyllis. She's the daintiest, most exquisite, human thing I ever saw. No brains, thank God--I've had enough of clever women--but the disposition of an angel, eyes like grey rainclouds with sunshine in 'em, hair brown, lily-white hands, tiny feet, and everything complete. What's more, the girl understands me."

"I may assume, then, grandfather, that you are engaged?"

"I will not deceive you, Martha; we are."

"How far has it gone?"

"To the 'second time of asking.' I mean business this journey. We're to be married after Henley. I didn't tell you, because it would only have worried you, and, I fear, make you take kinder than ever to stimulant. I've arranged it all. We're going to Scotland. Then, when I get a bit younger, I shall leave her a letter with all my money in it, and clear out and make away with myself. I was only pretending just now. I couldn't stand childhood again, not even with you, let alone as a married man. I want you to be friends with her, and live with her after I am gone."

His voice broke, and, at the same moment we reached the lock.

CHAPTER XVIII.

I FORBID THE BANNS.

"There you are!" said a soft, musical voice above us, and glancing up I saw Phyllis Rose. She was in truth a beautiful girl, dressed in her Sunday clothes, looking the pink of health and happiness.

"I've watched you ever so long, dear Dan; and this is your dear, dear grandmother? Oh, I hope she will let me love her for your sake."

She kissed me, and, I confess, my heart warmed to her. She was as pretty and tender a little soul as ever lived to make sunshine for other people. I soon found that she worshipped the ground my grandfather trod upon. She slipped her little hand into his as she walked up to her father's cottage, and talked pleasantly and happily with a London accent.

At her modest habitation an excellent meal and a bottle of very passable red wine were prepared. The girl's parents seemed delighted to see us, and welcomed me in a most hearty, but at the same time respectful manner. I tried to banish the real, fatal aspect of the position and live in the passing hour. Grandpapa seemed very cheerful.

"Were the banns called again to-day?" he asked.

"That they was," said Mr. Rose; "and Phyllis, the little silly, got as red as a peony, and her mother, no better, blushed like a school-girl, too. That's the second time of asking. Don't you have no more fruit pie, Dan. Remember Henley."

But my grandfather explained he had not gone into regular training yet. "Sam Sturgess and I begin hard work together on Monday week," he said. "We're both very fit, and if I don't pull off the 'Diamonds,' I ought to go near winning the 'double sculls' with Sam. It's a month next Monday."

The young things went off together presently, and I had a thimbleful of cold punch with Mr. and Mrs. Rose, and chatted to them. It was seldom I got an opportunity to talk to my fellow-creatures now, and I must admit that I enjoyed doing so. They were quite willing to listen, and tried to turn our talk to grandfather; but I said as little on that head as possible.

"What d' you think of her?" my grandfather asked, as he rowed me home in the evening.

"She is a pearl of a girl. But it must not be, grandfather. You contemplate a most wicked action. I pray you abandon the idea. Stop till Henley, if you must; then let us hurry away. We can write and break it off, and send her a present in money. They are poor, and it would be very welcome."

"You may talk yourself inside out, Martha, but it won't alter me," he said, with quiet determination. "This is the only girl I've ever really loved, and the Devil himself won't stop me. For that matter, he's the last who 'd try to, no doubt."

"It is necessary to have your banns called in your own parish as well, grandpapa."

"I know, I know. I wasn't married three times without getting a pretty good knowledge of the ropes. My banns have been called twice at St. Jude's. You never go to church now, or you'd have heard 'em."

"St. Jude's is not much patronised. The service is long and low, and the church half empty."

"So much the better."

Then he changed the subject, and as the moon rose and made the river look romantic, grandpapa tried to invent a bit of poetry about Phyllis, and failed.

"Oh, Phyllis mine, come let us twine our arms about each other's necks," he began. Then he turned to me and said--

"Put that flask away, Martha; you think I can't see you, but I can. 'Our arms about each other's necks.' Then, let me see, what rhymes with 'necks'?"

"Cheques," I answered, humouring him.

"Ah, that would come in if this was an ordinary, modern sort of love match, but it isn't. I want something pastoral or idyllic. Let me see, where 'd I got to? 'Come, Phyllis mine, and let us twine our arms about each other's necks.' Wrecks, decks, specks, flecks, pecks. Necks is 'off.' Let's try 'each other's waists.' Waste, raced, paste, taste, graced, laced, haste----"

Then he ran into the bank and abandoned verse, and fell back upon lurid prose, which he applied to me and my management of the rudder lines.

"What d' you think you're doing, you muddle-headed old mummy? Sit straight and look at the river, not at the moon. I'll make you sign the pledge to-morrow, blessed if I don't! You'll have more water with your whisky than you want in a moment. Oh, Lord! never again--never. Pull the right string--the right. Holy mouse! On Sunday evening too!"

Finally I gave up the lines, being really far from well, and he unshipped the rudder and made me sit in the bottom of the boat. I don't know what possessed me, but I felt quite happy in spite of my passing dizziness, and when a boat went by us, with a young man in it playing on a banjo and singing, I sang too. It was the first time I had done so for forty years.

"Shut up, you ruin!" gasped grandfather. "Stop it, for the love of the Lord. D' you think I want the whole river to know? It's like a cargo of corncrakes. You're enough to frighten a steam launch!"

I stopped then and cried at his cruelty.

"Don't be harsh, grandfather--don't be brutal to your only grandchild," I sobbed.

"Behave yourself, then. When you take to singing in public it's about time I spoke out."

We got home somehow, and never returned to the subject. He did not desire to be reminded of his poetry, and therefore was careful not to allude to my passing indisposition.

But I never hesitated to speak on the subject of poor Phyllis. I implored him, by everything that was sacred, to abandon this undertaking. Each day throughout that week I attacked him, until in sheer despair and rage he would take his hat and fly from the house. But nothing availed--grandfather would not alter his intention; and I therefore determined to forbid the banns. The thought was naturally very distasteful to me, but I could see no alternative. Grandpapa, never dreaming of such a thing, rowed up the river as usual on the following Sunday, and I went to St. Jude's.

In due course the minister published the banns of marriage "between Daniel Dolphin, of this parish, bachelor, and Phyllis Rose, of"--somewhere else, I forget the name of the place--"spinster." It was for the third and last time of asking.

I got up, grasped the pew in front of me, and exclaimed:

"This--this mustn't go on. I forbid the banns!"

"Which?" asked the minister. He had read out a string of names.

"Those between my grand--between Daniel Dolphin and Phyllis Rose."

"Will the individual who has forbidden these banns of marriage meet me in the vestry at the end of the service?" said the clergyman. Then he proceeded.

In the vestry he asked me for particulars.

"In the first place," I answered, "Mr. Dolphin is not a bachelor at all. He is married. He has been married three times."

"D' you mean to say that mere boy's been married three times?"

"It's the solemn truth."

"No wife alive, I trust?"

"Oh, no--the last died sixty years ago--at least--that is----"

"Woman," said the pastor sternly, "what do you mean? Mr. Dolphin came to see me himself. He is twenty, so he says, but does not look that. You have told me a transparent lie. Do you know Mr. Dolphin?"

"Know him! He's my grandfather."

The Vicar looked round to see if the coast was clear. He prepared to escape if I should grow violent. His manner instantly changed.

"Keep cool, dear madam. I quite understand. Let me get you a glass of water to drink."

Then he withdrew, and I heard him whispering to an old woman who opened the pews. He bid her run for a doctor and a policeman. Upon this I rose and came home.

To my surprise, grandpapa rowed back pretty early in the afternoon. He was in a terribly depressed and agitated condition, so I did not tell him just then what I had clone.

"What's the matter, grandfather? Phyllis is well?"

"No, she's not well. A brute got up at her wretched church and forbid the banns. She fainted, and her father met the person and somebody else afterwards. Whether it was Tomkins, or Talbot, or Rogers, or the Princess, I don't know. But it's all up. Old Rose is going to arrange an action for breach of promise. His wife came home from church and gave me the particulars, and some pretty peppery criticism at the same time. We must clear out of this, but I'll row for the 'Diamonds' if the heavens fall. Get your traps. We'll go up the river by easy stages, and lie low in the day-time. I can enter for the regatta under a feigned name."

Thus had my poor grandparent's banns been forbidden at both places of worship simultaneously.

CHAPTER XIX.

COUNSEL'S OPINION.

Grandpapa decided that Sunbury would be a likely sort of place to "lie low" in, so we went up after dark that same Sunday evening, reached our new halting-place soon after midnight, and took some lodgings by the water-side. The affair was in the papers next day, and the name of Daniel Dolphin echoed in people's mouths once more.

Grandfather now called himself Elisha Spratt, and he entered under that name at Henley. By a curious coincidence, the first heat for the Diamond Sculls fell on grandpapa's birthday. Nearly a month, however, had yet to pass by before that elate. Mr. Rose's added another to the long list of indictments against grandfather, but the old man cared nothing. He went on steadily and quietly with his practice and training, and the harder he trained, the younger he began to look.

A painful incident, out of which arose another still more trying, has here to be recorded. Grandpapa, while discussing the different processes at law which he had incurred, told me, in some glee, of matters I did not know.

"I did a smart thing recently," he began. "Of course, a man must help his chums where he can, and I've been able to do so without any hurt to myself. People on the river think I've got pots of money, because I spend very freely. On the strength of this I've been asked to lend my security on about twenty different occasions. I never refused. Men thought I was a fool, but I knew what I was about very well."

The old, cunning look came back into his eyes once more. It had a very painful appearance on the face of so young a man.

"What have you done now, dear grandfather? Hide nothing from me," I said.

"I've backed a lot of bills, and gone security for thousands and thousands. A good few of the Johnnies can't pay, and they'll come down on me like a ton of bricks. Ha, ha!"

"I don't see what there is to laugh at, grandpapa. So little amuses you now."

"Why, I'm under age. That's where the laugh comes in. I'm a legal infant, or something of that sort. They can't touch me."

"A legal infant! Why, grandfather, you're a hundred and eight years old in a few weeks' time."

"Not by the New Scheme."

"What's the New Scheme got to do with the money-lenders? They'll fight it out on the Old Scheme, and trace you back and back, and confront you with your past career. It was madness to do such a thing."

The old man grew rather wretched and uneasy, but he soon cheered up again.

"I thought it was such a smart move; and, after all, no harm's done, for I haven't got the money. In fact, fifteen hundred or less is about my limit now. I'm safe enough if you don't go and give me away. People recognise you, but, of course, I shall begin changing and dwindling at a deuce of a rate, after Henley. To think that my mental powers will begin to fade, too--that's what cuts me up."

What he called his mental powers had already begun to fade. He was stupid for his age now, and would be a mere clown of a boy in six months' time. But I did not tell him so. I said nothing; and soon afterwards he went to bed.

In the morning he came down to breakfast, fired with an extraordinary new project. And yet, in justice to myself, I cannot say strictly that it was a fresh idea. I had advised him to take the step he now contemplated any time this five years.

"I have been reading the agreement," said grandpapa, "and, upon my soul, it looks to me, duffer though I am, as if the thing didn't hold water. I don't know anything about law, but the question is simply a legal one, after all; and if there's a flaw anywhere, I don't see why I shouldn't benefit by it. Any way, it's good enough to get an opinion on. I shall go up to Lincoln's Inn Fields, and see Messrs. Tarrant and Hawker. They helped me in the matter of the Automatic Postcard swindle, if you remember. I shall pretend the agreement is a joke, and, of course, they won't know me from Adam. Just think if they discovered a flaw, now, at the eleventh hour, so to speak!"

"Go, by all means, grandpapa, but don't buoy yourself, my dearest. Recollect Who wrote that agreement. He may not be skilled in legal matters himself, but he must have had ample opportunities for submitting the draft to experts."

"That's the point," answered grandpapa. "He expressly said he'd drawn it up himself. It was a new thing in agreements, even for him. He fancied it too. But there may be a slip somewhere. I want a day off the river, and I'll go up with this document after lunch. You sit tight at home and don't show yourself. If people see you--Rose or any of the rest--they'll know I'm not far off."

"And take care yourself, grandpapa. They are on the look out, no doubt. If you are arrested, I shall go mad."

He started, and I spent the afternoon reading disquieting paragraphs about Daniel Dolphin. Many papers made mention of him, and certain of the comic organs printed what they doubtless regarded as jokes. My name appeared. There was much diversity of opinion about me. Some said that I was his daughter; others that we were brother and sister; others, again, that Daniel Dolphin's mother or grandmother or great-aunt assisted him in his pernicious career. The Star fancied that Daniel Dolphin often masqueraded as an old woman. Everybody agreed that the truth would soon be known, because the police had an undoubted clue, and the matter was in most experienced hands.

My grandpapa returned to dinner. He wept into his plate all through that meal, and showed me in a thousand ways that his enterprise had produced no good results.

"Speak, my treasure!" I cried at length, unable to bear the suspense; "is it as bad as you thought?"

"A million times worse!"

"Worse! What could be worse, grandpapa?"

"I'll explain. This fool--Nick, I mean--has drawn out the thing single-handed, and defeated his own object, and wrecked me utterly. I saw Mr. Hawker himself. He studied the agreement for an hour, then gave judgment on it. He said, tapping it with his eyeglass, 'Now this document is curious--very much so. The--the person who wrote it appears to have had a certain smattering of law terms, which he sprinkles over his remarks without any legal knowledge, without any familiarity with their forensic significance. The most remarkable thing about this agreement, however, is that by the processes to be applied to Daniel Dolphin, the said gentleman will absolutely cease to exist at the end of the specified time. The deed is amateurish in many respects, but in none more than this. It defeats its own object, for on the completion of the period herein set out, there will be nothing of Mr. Daniel Dolphin left to go anywhere! He said that, and I thanked him and paid six-and-eightpence, and came away, feeling about as cheap as a bad egg."

My grandfather flung himself on a sofa, and cried again.

"Then you can't go to--to--!" I said, with a thrill of exultation.

"I can't go anywhere at all," he moaned; "I go out like gas when it's turned off at the tap. You don't understand--it's terrible, it's unheard of. I'd rather have gone down below than nowhere at all--anybody would. But now--now I shall become as extinct as the dodo. He's spoofed himself, and squelched me. Talk about justice!"

I cannot dwell upon his sufferings. He had always believed firmly in a life beyond the grave. Now it was snatched from him by a juggling, muddle-headed, self-sufficient fiend, who ought never to have been allowed the use of writing materials. The matter was a logical one; the end of the New Scheme simply meant eternal annihilation for my unhappy old grandfather.

CHAPTER XX.

A CLIMAX.

Grandfather had little time to concern himself with his new and terrible sorrows. All his hopes and ambitions now centred in the race at Henley; but adequate training became very difficult, because we were marked people now, despite the fact that we had changed our names. Detectives were constantly watching us and taking photographs of us in a hand-camera, and doing all they could to identify grandpapa with Daniel Dolphin. We moved higher up the river, then proceeded above Henley, then retreated back again to Kew. This threw the police out for awhile, but as time went on they found us again, and finally the first writ arrived. But this and others concerned money affairs, and grandpapa brushed them away with contempt. Anon, however, a more serious injunction fell upon us. Mr. Rose, satisfied that grandfather was no other than Daniel Dolphin, and doubtless advised by those familiar with the law, brought an action in the name of his daughter for breach of promise of marriage.

"It's pretty rough on me," said grandpapa, "that the one girl of the lot that I really was faithful to, and wanted to marry, and meant to marry, should jump on me like this. I couldn't help the banns being forbidden. And now I have got to appear in the Queen's Bench Division, and very likely get run in for all I'm worth, and a bit over."

"D'you observe the date?" I asked, after looking at the document.

"By Jove! my twentieth birthday by the New Scheme--same date as first heat of the 'Diamonds.' Well, I can't attend, that's all. They'll have to put it off."

A sort of fatality attached to subsequent summonses for grandpapa. The Salisbury people got wind of his address too, and he was ordered to repair to that city on divers charges. I think about six detectives, all working in different interests, were now employed upon grandfather. He was commanded to appear in the Queen's Bench Division on no less than three different counts, for Marie Rogers brought a case against Daniel Dolphin, and Mrs. Bangley-Brown did the same.

"They'll look pretty complete fools, those women," said grandpapa grimly, "when I do turn up in the box--a callow, lanky lout of twenty. The detectives have marked you down, Martha, and associate you with the missing Daniel Dolphin. So they think they are on the right track. You'll have to come and swear anything I tell you to."

But I had my own troubles. There were several summonses out against me for "aiding and abetting" grandpapa in his different enterprises.

"Shall you employ a solicitor?" I asked.

"Not I," he answered. "No good chucking money away. I shall plead infancy, and if that won't wash, I shall throw myself on the mercy of the Court. I shall get up some legal expressions, like ultra vires, and sub judice, and suggestio falsi, and prima facie, and so on. With these I shall endeavour to conduct my own case. As a last resort I shall try an alibi. But my own impression is that these fools of women will cry off the moment they see me. I don't want to drag in the New Scheme if I can possibly help it. What a cur Nick is not to lend a hand at a time like this!"

"And what am I to do, grandfather?"

"Well, you'll have to stand your trial. As far as I can see, you'll get about five years if they're lenient. You might bounce it with an alibi. After all, what does it matter? Quiet rest in a prison cell would be luxury after this life. I've foreseen it for some time. In your case it might be the best thing that could happen. You'll have to be steady there. It's about the only thought that really worries me, to remember that when I'm a defenceless babe I shall be in the hands of a woman who drinks."

"Grandpapa! you know how I try."

"I know how you succeed. Any excuse is good enough for a whack with you now. Every time a new injunction or process or writ drops in, off you go to the brandy bottle and carouse, as though they were matters to rejoice about. What was the good of signing the pledge if you never meant to keep it?"

"I find my system must have stimulant now, and I take it medicinally."

"Oh, of course--the same old lie that's been on people's tongues ever since Noah invented it. It's your business after all, only you might look on ahead a little. Not long ago you were always telling me to do so. One of these days, after I'm a poor bawling infant in arms, you'll see purple centipedes or something just when I want your attention, and I shall get left."

The subject dropped, and I turned the conversation to a pleasanter theme. We were within a week of the race, and grandpapa, in the pink of condition, only hoped and prayed that the law would not put violent hands upon him before Henley Regatta. The complications of the position had now become impossible to describe in words. We were lodging at Henley, and already letters, signed "Verax" and "Scrutator," were appearing in the sporting papers hinting at matters mysteriously connecting the young sculler, Elisha Spratt, with the scoundrel, Daniel Dolphin. Mr. Rose was responsible for these; at least, grandpapa thought so.

But nobody interfered with him. He wound up his training, and backed himself with a thousand pounds, which was all we had left in the world. On the night before the race some policemen made an endeavour to arrest grandpapa, but he escaped, and joined me at a mean hotel near the river, where with great difficulty we succeeded in getting two adjoining bedrooms. A good night's rest was absolutely necessary for him.

"You see, I've got to win the Sculls at Henley, and answer for myself at Salisbury and in the Queen's Bench Division, and before a magistrate at Twickenham, and in three police-courts elsewhere, so I shall be fairly busy to-morrow," he said, with a rather pathetic smile. Then he kissed me, and went to bed in perfect good-temper. He was happily too young now to thoroughly realise his awful position.

CHAPTER XXI.

MY NIGHTMARE.

I did not sleep that night for many hours, and when I finally slumbered there came to me a nightmare, involving grandpapa, which took ten years off my life.

I dreamed that the morning had come, and that I went into grandfather's room to wish him many happy returns of the day--a thing I should certainly not have done in reality. But I was in the spirit, and never shall I forget the spectacle which greeted me as I stood by the old man's pillow. Instead of the ruddy, healthy boy I had left over-night--instead of the muscular, deep-chested, deep-voiced young athlete who was that day to row at Henley, there sat up in the bed an uncanny, wrinkled, decrepit mummy of a creature. It was bald, save for a thin tangle of white eyebrow over each bleared eye. Its mouth was a mere slit, its nose and chin nearly met, its cheeks had fallen in. One thin skeleton of a claw held the bedclothes up to its scraggy neck. Its head shook, its under jaw dropped, its back was round as a wheel; the thing manifested indications of profoundest age.

"What--what is this? Who are you?" I gasped, turning faint and clutching at a chair-back for support.

It laughed a little squeaky, wheezy laugh, and a cunning expression came into its dim eyes.

"Keep your nerve," it said. "The show's bust up; the New Scheme's broken down!"

"Grandpapa!"

"He--he--he! Yes. A hundred and eight, not twenty. I've downed him."

"Downed him, grandpapa?"

"That means bested him, beaten him, scored off him. Lord! Lord! You'd have laughed to see what went on here last night. Nick swore and cussed and stormed and stamped round and perspired brimstone; but it wasn't any manner of use. He'd given himself away by his own foolishness."

"Tell me, grandfather, tell me all about it. This is a happy day indeed!"

In my dream I gave the old hero an egg-and-milk with a little brandy. Then he sat up, and in a weak, trembling voice, broken with fits of senile chuckling, he told me about his interview.

"Nick came in just for a chat. He always goes to Henley. He mentioned the 'Diamonds,' and guaranteed I should win 'em. He was friendly as you please, and hoped I'd had a good time, and didn't regret my bargain.

"Then I told him of my visit to the lawyers, rapped out at him for a blundering, unbusiness-like ass, got the agreement out, went through it with him, and showed him what he'd really done. He was fairly mad, but he couldn't get away from facts. I said:

"'The point lies in a nutshell. There'll be nothing of me left to go anywhere; and even you cannot arrange for the eternity of a non-existent being, can you?'

"He had to admit he couldn't. He was properly cross. He tore the agreement to little pieces, and stamped on it. He argued some time with me, and pointed out a fact that I had fully grasped already. He said:

"'Yes, it's pretty clear I've over-reached myself. My fiendish conceit's always tripping me up. I ought to have got my lawyers to help me; but I thought I could thrash a simple thing like that out alone.'

"He said that much, and then I made some satirical remark which stung him, for he turned on me, about as short and nasty as they make 'em, and said:

"'Blest if I know what you want to snigger for! You don't seem to realise what a unique fix you're in. You won't go anywhere now! That's what's the matter with you. Nothing to chortle about, I should think?'

"'I'm not chortling at that,' I answered, 'I'm merely smiling a bit to see you getting so warm. You'd better listen to reason and leave the past alone. Is there any way out of this? Of course, I want to go somewhere. I've got a strong objection to becoming extinct. How would you like it? I suppose even you would rather hang on where you are than be blotted out altogether.'

"'We can't get away from a signed agreement,' he said sulkily.

"Yes we can, if we draw out another, cancelling the first,' I answered.

"'No more writing for me,' he said.

"'Well, then, let us have an oral understanding,' I suggested.

"'I'll entertain any proposal in reason,' he replied.

"But, of course, I was unprepared with suggestions. The interview had been sprung upon me, and I had not bestowed a moment's thought upon preparations.

"'You're in a fix, I know,' he remarked, 'a mere temporal quandary, only involving certain ladies and so forth, but still troublesome so far as it goes. I might do this; I might quash all these earthly suits by the simple expedient of restoring you to your real age. As it is, you will upset a good many of them, because old Bangley-Brown, for instance, is on the look-out for a man of seventy-five; and the publican's daughter, Marie Rogers, expects a man of five-and-forty or fifty. But, by returning to the ripe old age of one hundred-and-eight, you reduce the whole series of proceedings to a farce, and leave the different police courts and places without a stain on your character. In any case, you can only live one year more, but the difference is this: that if you go on as you're going, you go out altogether; whereas, if you consent to my alternative, you'll die in your bed, and have a future.'

"As you may imagine, Martha, I grew very excited.

"'A future--where?' I enquired, in my dream.

"Exactly. Where? There's the rub," grandfather answered. "I asked Nick the same question, and he said:

"'I wonder you can inquire. If you've got any sense of justice or gratitude, you ought to feel the extent of your debt and not hesitate to pay it. In any case, whatever your private ambitions may be, your past record is such that, if you go anywhere at all, your destination is practically determined.'

"I did not argue upon this point," continued grandfather, "feeling it would be better tact to slur it over, and leave a loop-hole, but he held me to it, and finally got me to promise that I would never attempt to reform or amend my ways during the last year of my life. He insisted all the time that it would not alter the result, but I could see, from his great anxiety upon the point, that he knew there might be plenty of opportunity for me to turn over a new leaf, and make a good end, if I chose to do so. However, I promised him to lead as abandoned and dissolute a life as could be expected from a man of one hundred and eight, so we effected the compromise. He was nervous about it to the last, but felt it to be the only way out of the cul-de-sac his own stupidity had placed him in. Then the change was made. I went to sleep a boy and woke as you find me. I'm all here, but stiff about the legs, and deucedly rheumatic. Go out and get me a tall hat and some black, ready-made clothes, and some easy felt boots and a few walking sticks, and the strongest spectacles you can buy. Then I'll get up."

So ended my clear grandpapa's astounding statement, but my dream went on. I made him some bread-and-milk, fed him with it, and then hurried out to purchase necessaries.

The world, had turned upside down for me. I expected the newspaper boys to be yelling out "Failure of the New Scheme!"

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DWINDLING OF GRANDPAPA.

But there was no truth in the vision. I awoke unrested--rose, and, of course, found grandpapa under the New Scheme, as usual. He had arranged to hide somewhere in a backwater, and only paddle out when the race for the Diamond Sculls was beginning. I tried hard to dissuade him from making the attempt. I pointed out that arrest was sure to follow the struggle, and that, once taken, there would be sufficient legal complications all over the country to last him much more than the remainder of his life. I said:

"In a year's time you will be ten; in two years you will be nothing. Let us hide this tragedy if we can. Publicity now means that the concluding catastrophes of your life will be watched by the whole of England--perhaps by the entire civilised world. Surely that would add another sting to extinction? Let me implore of you, dear one, to give up this aquatic enterprise. We will fly together. I have done up the accounts this morning, and find we have exactly nine hundred and ninety-eight pounds left. This is ample provision for your approaching childhood. Come and dwindle by the sea--at Margate or somewhere. Or let us go abroad, if that idea gives you pleasure."

"Not me," he said. "I shall flicker out in the old country. And as to not rowing, that's absurd. This race is my last flutter. In six months I shall be a boy of fifteen. I must make my final adult appearance to-day. It's jolly lucky there's only one other entry besides myself, as I certainly shall have no chance of appearing more than once. However, this morning I mean to row the course, and then keep on the river and pull quietly into the backwater, and lie low till dark. Meantime you can go to Margate if you like and find new diggings, and I'll join you to-morrow."

With this arrangement I had to be content. I took a train to London, and managed to escape comfortably in it with my box. I journeyed to Margate, took three fair rooms overlooking the sea, and waited with deepest anxiety for grandfather's arrival. On the following morning I purchased the Sportsman, to find that the dear old man had managed to elude the detectives and win the Diamond Sculls! I felt that this was probably the last piece of real joy he would ever have. But the report in the Sportsman quickly quenched my passing happiness. Satisfaction, indeed, was turned into black despair, when I read what my grandfather had done on the completion of the boat-race.

"Elisha Spratt," said the Sportsman, "the mysterious young oarsman who has suddenly burst into fame, won the 'Diamonds' with ridiculous ease, and simply played with his better-known opponent. The sensation of the race, however, was reserved for the finish. Hardly had Spratt passed the winning-post when a boat, full of police-constables, pulled quickly out from the crowd of craft that thronged the course and made towards him. Spratt, it seems, has been 'wanted' for some time, being mysteriously connected with what is known as the 'Dolphin Mystery'; and the preservers of law and order believed that by taking him in mid-stream, immediately after the race, they would ensure an easy capture. Their judgment, however, proved faulty. Spratt, who was nearly as fresh as when he began to row, made a vigorous defence, and when he ultimately succeeded in capsizing the boatload of Crown officials and escaping, the enthusiasm of the sightseers knew no bounds. Finally he disappeared up stream, and has not since been heard of. He is certainly a magnificent sculler, but we fear his next appearance in public will not be in a wager boat. The constables were all rescued, though one of them, a well-known detective, is said to lie still insensible, and little hopes are entertained of his recovery."

This was the end of it then--murder! My grandfather had taken a life. Now, if they caught him they would doubtless endeavour to hang him. Even the New Scheme could hardly continue if they succeeded in hanging grandfather. At least, so it struck me. But first they had to catch him. Luckily, he was just at a difficult age to catch. We had arranged I should wait for him at the station, and presently he came down from town, travelling third-class, in the same compartment with part of a Sunday school treat. He had disguised himself, and was wearing a false nose and little imitation whiskers hooked over his ears. He saw me, and followed at a distance as I walked from the station, but he did not join me until I had reached the doorstep of our lodgings. Then he approached and entered. He was very excited, and full of a new idea. He had already quite forgotten the race on the preceding day, and talked of nothing save the nearly-drowned detective.

"You see, if he pops off, they'd hang me," he explained eagerly.

"Grandfather, I implore you not to talk so," I sobbed, quite giving way.

"But I want 'em to. Nothing better could happen. The next two years won't be much of a catch from my point of view; and if I'm executed, of course, the New Scheme must be upset. I shall have to go somewhere then; I shan't become extinct anyway."

His hopes in this direction were doomed to disappointment, however. The detective recovered, and we were unmolested. We had, in fact, thrown the Scotland Yard people completely off the trail. But grandpapa still longed to be hanged. He even discussed the feasibility of a capital crime at Margate, and, as it was all one to him in the matter of a victim, he generously offered to put anybody I liked out of the way. He even bought a revolver.

"To be executed it is necessary to take a life," he explained. "The question is, whose life? If you've got an enemy, Martha, now's your time to name him or her. If you've no fancy, then I shall pip a prominent member of the Government."

But two months passed by, and my grandfather's horrid ambition gradually faded. When he was eighteen, and after we left Margate for Ramsgate, which step was taken about this period, he acquired a passing passion for sea-fishing, bought a rod and line, and angled uneventfully for days together off the pier-head or out of an open boat. From Ramsgate we proceeded to Deal, then lurked a week or two at Dover, and continued our tour of the south-coast watering-places, secreting our sorrows in turn at Folkestone, Hastings, St. Leonard's-on-Sea, Eastbourne, Brighton, and Bognor. I thought we might winter in the Isle of Wight, but grandfather was for Cornwall and conger-fishing, so we pushed onwards to Fowey, and arrived there shortly after Christmas, when my grandparent was about fifteen.

His wardrobe became a greater difficulty daily. The poor old sufferer shrank in a heartbreaking way. I had always to be taking in and turning up and reducing his different articles of apparel. He was now mercifully allowed to lose intelligence very rapidly. He lived more and more in the passing hour, and began to develop simple boyish ambitions and hopes and complaints. As he gradually fell completely under my control, a certain peace of mind, to which I had long been a stranger, returned. The position was harrowing enough, heaven knows, but whereas throughout grandfather's career under the New Scheme, he had played his own game, so to speak, and never paid much attention to the faithful woman always at his elbow, now the position was rapidly changing. He had to look to me and rely upon me more and more. Indeed, he did so as a matter of course. I held the purse, and took good care to keep it. The dear old man never wanted for anything, but I had to think of my own future. When he was gone, there would only be a few hundred pounds between me and starvation. However, I denied him nothing in reason, allowed him gradually decreasing pocket-money, and, as he grew younger, exercised entire authority. To this he submitted humbly enough now. He was a bad boy, as boys go--a sly, calculating, cruel boy; but a circumstance happened soon after we left Fowey which practically made grandfather helpless, and placed him under my complete control. It was this. With dwindling intellect his memory also waned, and ultimately broke down altogether. He forgot the past, he forgot his own extraordinary situation and destination, he quite forgot our relationship, and soon simply believed that things were as they seemed. One day he electrified me by talking with bright, boyish confidence of "growing up" and marrying a bonny bride, and becoming a smuggler. "Growing up"! Poor little darling, he was growing down at the rate of a year every six weeks. But now the old man's mental troubles were practically at an end, and I thanked heaven for it. Literally he was twice a child. He gave up cigarettes and took to chocolate, and stupid little toys. At rare intervals, inspired by the friends he picked up in our wanderings, he showed flashes of ambition, and pestered me to know when I was going to send him to school like other boys. He grumbled and said he believed he was backward. I denied it and temporised. I told him he was more than clever. Of course, to send him to school would have been frank and senseless waste of money. Besides, the New Scheme must have been discovered in a fortnight. He travelled half price now, for he was not more than ten years old when I took him to Dawlish. Before we had been at that small but delightful sea-side resort six weeks, grandfather openly bought a little iron spade and bucket, thereby proving that childhood had set in. I had him well in hand in Devonshire, and I may state that my own peace of mind was comparatively such that I had almost cured myself of a weakness I have not hidden here--a weakness brought on by the terrors of the past. And dear grandfather's own favourite beverage, subject to my sanction, was sherbet now. Indeed, taking one thing with another, that last summer in the West of England with my grandparent, proved the happiest time I spent from the beginning of the New Scheme to its close. He was quite happy too. He made sand castles, and tormented the shrimps which he caught from time to time, and otherwise conducted himself like a simple, healthy little lad of eight years old.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"FINE BY DEGREES, AND BEAUTIFULLY LESS."

I would willingly draw a veil over the last year of my grandfather's life, but I have set my hand to the pen and will not turn back, though nothing but grief and horror and the ghosts of dead miseries haunt me as I write.

When the old man was about eight years old, I put him into a blue sailor suit, bought him a wooden hoop, and took him to a new locality. We left Dawlish and went up to Tavybridge--a pretty spot on Dartmoor. Here I proposed staying for at least a month. It now became necessary to regulate his hours, see that he had fairly wholesome food, and keep him clean. His memory had long grown an absolute blank. He put his little hand in mine, trotted about over the moors and through the country, and clamoured first for a pony, secondly to be allowed to sing in the choir at a quaint old country place of worship. I did not see my way to gratifying either ambition. At Tavybridge grandpapa speedily waned. He called me "Granny" now, and quite believed it was so; I addressed him both in public and private as "Daniel," and let people believe that his parents were in India. Though I lacked the comfort and support of having a man in the house, to whom I could go with all my sorrows and anxieties, yet the loss was more than compensated by the relief of knowing that my ancient grandparent was now powerless to do further ill, either to himself or other people. But, strange to say, though absolute infancy now threatened him, his love for the sex was not even yet wholly dead. I well remember grandfather coming to me, hand in hand with a little village maid of some six summers, and acquainting me with the fact that they were engaged.

"This is Bessie Wiggles, grandma," said the venerable sufferer; "I met her down by the bridge over the river, and I gave her sweeties and a kite, and she gived me a kiss for them, and we's going to be married, Bessie Wiggles and me, when we's grown up."

I promised them they should be. This was an attachment which really mattered nothing. It kept grandfather out of mischief, and made him part with at least a proportion of the deleterious rubbish he bought with his weekly sixpence of pocket-money. I felt that two small stomachs might carry a load of toffee and other horrid stuffs, which must certainly upset one. It was an idyllic engagement. Bessie Wiggles came to tea constantly, and grandpapa would talk with confidence of his future and the great things he should do when he was a man. The children walked about the village hand in hand. The villagers smiled and said it was pretty to see them. Then one day a herd of cows, going to be milked, knocked grandfather down accidentally and bruised him, and terrified him to such an extent that he prayed I would take him away from Tavybridge instantly, to some remote spot where there were no more cows. He abandoned Bessie Wiggles without a murmur, and I took him away to Exeter. He was rapidly approaching the age of five years or one hundred and nine and a half, according from which Scheme you looked at him.

My stay at the old cathedral city was even shorter than I had intended, for grandfather got damp on a bleak December day, and abstracted some almonds and raisins out of a cupboard when I was not by. This combination of circumstances resulted for him in a bad attack of croup. Very foolishly, and forgetting that in such a case appearances must be much against me, I did not send for a doctor, but contented myself with patting the old man on the back and giving him repeated drinks of Eno's Fruit Salt. This I knew was not the right treatment for croup, but what did it matter? Grandfather would certainly be perfectly well again in the morning. After all his adventures, this paltry childish ailment was not going to destroy him now. I felt very certain of that. But, unfortunately, the landlady heard grandfather making a great deal of noise about two in the morning, and, being a mother, she recognised the sound, and was instantly up in arms to help me. When she found I did not intend sending for a medical man, she became both vulgar and offensive. She accused me of fooling a helpless child's life away. She said:

"I know what it is to be a mother, though you've forgotten, it seems. Eno's salts for croup! Lord! You be daft, I should think. What would that poor lamb's ma say if she knowed?"

I said:

"Its ma's in heaven long ago; probably she does know. I venture to think she would be quite satisfied with my treatment."

"Shame on 'e!" she answered. "A horphan--that makes it wus and wus. I guess you be no better 'n a baby-farmer--now then!"

Thereupon I declined further conversation, and gave her notice that I should leave that day week. She replied that it would be impossible for me to leave too soon for her, though her heart bled for the ill-used child, meaning my grandparent. Stung to anger, I was almost tempted to hint at the New Scheme, but bitter experience and my better judgment told me such an action, taking into consideration the mental calibre of the woman, must be worse than futile. So I bid her go to her room; she departed with the word "murderess" on her lips, and the incident terminated.

Of course, grandfather was pretty right the next day, but disorders now gained upon him rapidly, and I know I was to blame for adding a good deal of unnecessary suffering to those last fleeting years of his life. His stomach-aches, his rashes, his mumps, might all have been avoided had I understood better the care of the extremely youthful. Everywhere I went I heard expressions of open surprise that I, a woman of seventy-five apparently, and a grandmother, should know so precious little about babies. And, of course, the old man was shrivelling with such cruel rapidity now that my knowledge could not keep pace with him. When I understood the nature and requirements of a child of five he was already four; by the time I grasped his needs at this age he had sunk to three.

We were at Bideford when I put him into short frocks and kept flannel next his skin and looked round for a second-hand perambulator. He was always ailing at this stage, and frightfully fretful, owing to a complication of disorders. He had whooping-cough and a slight touch of congestion of the lungs, and measles and a sore throat. His teeth worried him terribly, too. God alone knows what was happening to them. The process put the poor old man to evident torment, and to hear him say again and again: "Oh, ganny, my toofs is hurtin' me so," would have made angels weep. For all I know it did. The celestial being who could gaze unmoved at Daniel Dolphin's sufferings during those last, awful, loathsome years of his earthly life would have been hard-hearted indeed. And heaven must have pitied me a trifle too--especially at Bideford, after I had put him into short frocks.

When he was one hundred and nine and three-quarters--when but three months remained before the climax--he lost the art of walking and talking about the same time. He seemed easy to manage without these accomplishments. I certainly missed his childish prattle as it gradually dwindled and ceased, but when command of locomotion slipped from him my work was much lightened. As a young child he had been very trying; now, on the dawn of babyhood, he enjoyed better health and got prettier to look at, at least, so it struck me. Indeed, he gradually grew to be the dearest, best-tempered little mite any woman ever loved and cuddled. I thought how proud his dear mother must have been of him more than a century ago. I also marvelled that so bonny a babe should have blossomed into such a funny child, and such an unsatisfactory man. Of course, I was led by appearances myself now. I could not revere the aged man I danced on my knee and fondled and hugged. I could not realise that this blue-eyed, thumb-sucking, crowing, kicking atom was my grandfather. My imagination was not equal to the task of grasping these facts. I only know that we lurked at Basingstoke three weeks, and then at Brixton; and that I lived night and day for grandfather, as his sun sank to the setting. I took him for long rides in his perambulator, and looked to his every want and joyed in his innocent, little, waning life. His curls went at Clapham Junction; the short, lanky locks of a year-old infant soon covered his bulbous skull; his proportions were those of tenderest youth. An awful expanse of brow and a triangular mouth had appeared; his nose had dwindled to a mere upturned lump, his eyes assumed the fatuous blear and blink of babyhood; he gasped and he gurgled, and jerked and panted, and stretched out fat fingers to me. He was always good-tempered to the last, though his intervals of weeping grew longer and longer. One thing he never could stand: my singing. When his first teeth were undergoing some unhallowed metamorphosis he had a succession of very bad nights, and at such times, until I realised the facts, I endeavoured to soothe him with musical lullabies. But I soon found my voice exercised a peculiarly irritating effect on grandfather. He had not enjoyed it even in the past, so I ceased from vocal efforts and never sang again.

Anon we went to Kilburn, when grandfather had but one year left to live by the New Scheme and rather more than five weeks by the old. Then he began to play with his toes, and that was the beginning of the end.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE PASSING OF GRANDPAPA.

I shall not set down here the hard words hurled at me by different lodging-house keepers, who took it upon themselves to criticise my management of grandfather. Because, for instance, I persisted in feeding him latterly on condensed milk, instead of wasting money upon a wet nurse, I was unmercifully abused. But I went my way, and soon had him in long frocks, and took him from Kilburn to Ravenscourt Park. Here I was accused of being a baby-thief, because I explained as usual that the infant's parents were in India.

"Its ma must be a pretty quick traveller then," said the sceptical landlady. "That hinfant ain't a day more than three weeks old, or I'm no judge."

She was nearly right. It wanted now but one month to make grandfather a hundred and ten or nothing at all. It was, in fact, twenty-nine days before he was born, or after, according as you look at it. I got very muddled over his age about this time myself. I only remembered the date of his birthday, and realised that on the night before that anniversary the New Scheme would come to an end. The old man was now a mere hairless, blotchy, howling fragment, needing ceaseless attention at all hours of night and day. A bitter thought often came to me while I was getting his bottle--that my tiny grandfather should be going to such an unsatisfactory place so soon. For I never could believe, despite what the lawyers said, that his fiendish opponent had made any radical blunder in the agreement.

As the long days followed each other I became overstrung and hysterical, and felt that a very little more of it would send me mad. I let grandpapa drop out of his perambulator one day in Ravenscourt Park, where I had taken him for an airing. Of course, he screamed as only a frightened baby can, and attracted the attention of a policeman. The constable merely addressed me good-humouredly, but a ribald crowd collected in no time. Boys chaffed, women cried shame on me; an officious old fool, who said he belonged to some institution for the Prevention of Brutality to Infants in Arms, insisted on taking my address. I gave it to him, trundled grandfather home, and moved to Turnham Green the same evening. At our new lodgings I told the truth for once, and said grandfather's poor mother was dead. The landlady here was young, and had a baby of her own, and showed me great kindness and sympathy. She prophesied all manner of hopeful things for grandfather, but feared that I should never live to see him grow up. There were reasonable grounds for such a doubt, for I was now much more than my age, and growing somewhat infirm. The last ten years had added not less than thirty to my own life. I looked pretty nearly eighty now, and felt considerably older.

A feeling of awe and horror daily gained ground upon me at this season. I was haunted by the thought of that awful night so close at hand, and I pictured a thousand terrors. I strung myself up to the task of facing the future alone, but I would have given all I possessed to feel that during those supreme last moments some fellow-creature--a medical man or one of the clergy for choice--would be with me. But I had kept my poor grandfather's secret for ten years, and meant keeping it to the end. The final problem, however, was quite full of horrid possibility. One night I thought of an idea that made me turn goose-flesh all over. What if on the expiring of the New Scheme grandfather should revert to the old? What if on the morning of his hundred and tenth birthday, instead of finding nothing in his cradle, I should rise and be confronted with the withered remains of a centenarian? Of course, it would not matter much to grandfather, but an event of that kind must leave me in a dilemma, beside which the New Scheme itself was a mere child's problem. What would the landlady say? What would anybody say? I determined that no one should have half a chance to say anything. It was merely justice to myself. I arranged a programme for that last night. The time of the year was late June, the weather beautiful, so a week before the end I took train to North London. I made up my mind to spend the last night of grandfather's life quite alone with him on the wilds of Hampstead Heath. Then, if he suffered any further outrageous transformation at the last, I could just leave him there, and he would be found and duly buried after a coroner's inquest, and I could put flowers on the grave anonymously afterwards. If, on the other hand, he simply went out, I should be able to rejoin my boxes, which would be waiting at the nearest railway station, and go upon my way unsuspected. If he suddenly disappeared in a lodging-house, it seemed clear to me that I should probably be arrested on suspicion of murder. I took two rooms not far from the Heath, and watched grandfather's last week pass away in ceaseless wailing. Then came the night before his birthday. That evening I gave up the lodgings, sent my boxes to the station, and after a meat tea and the first dose of stimulant I had taken for a year, went forth to the final scene. Every seat upon Hampstead Heath that night seemed to be engaged by parties of two. The daylight waned slowly. Not until nine o'clock did the moonlight begin to grow strong enough to throw shadows. By ten it flooded the Heath with soft grey light. The scene was extremely peaceful; it even soothed to some slight extent the chaos in my heart. Grandfather slept. He had been unusually silent all day. He had shrunk, of course, to a mere red, new-born atom now. I had him snugly in a bundle all done up with safety pins. I remember wondering, even at that solemn time, how the Devil would be able to get grandfather out of that bundle without undoing the pins.

About eleven o'clock I threw his bottle away, for I knew he would never want it again. It was a beautiful night for the passing of grandpapa. I only hoped and prayed that he would pass, and have done with it. I rambled about in the shadows cast by the moon, and peeped from time to time into the blanket I carried to see if anything was happening to grandfather; but he nestled there, silent and wide awake. I shivered as I looked into his round, open eyes, bright with moonlight. There was an unutterably weird expression in them, for they had intelligence once more; they were the eyes of a thinking being. It would hardly have surprised me at that moment if he had spoken and exchanged ideas with me. But he kept deadly silence, looking out of his blanket with those round moon-lit eyes that haunt me still. And then a strange thing happened. Despite my agitation, and the fact that I was now shaking with excitement, and suffering from palpitation of the heart, a great longing for sleep crept over me. I yearned to close my eyes; an astounding feeling, almost approaching indifference, rose within me. I actually heard myself saying, "I must sleep, I must sleep; it won't make any difference to him." I fought against the overpowering drowsiness, being sure that it was simply sent by some malevolent, supernatural power, in order to prevent me from being in at the finish, so to speak. But my efforts were unavailing. As a distant church clock chimed half-past eleven, I sank down at the top of a bank under some gorse bushes, and the last action of which I am conscious was that I drew grandfather close to me and put my arms tight round him--those poor old arms that had been of some use to him in the past, but were powerless now.

Doubtless I slept for half-an-hour. Then I was awakened suddenly by the wail of a new-born babe. I sat up wildly. The bundle with grandfather in it was not in my arms. It had apparently rolled to the bottom of the bank. But even as I rose to struggle after it, the shrill cry of the infant changed to the mumbling groan of one infinitely old, and across the gorse bushes, in the haze of the moonlight, I saw the passing of grandfather. Whether the vision came out of my own brain, or was actually visible to my eyes, I cannot say. All I remember is that I distinctly heard my name, "Martha, Martha!" called twice in weak but frenzied accents, and saw an old, bent figure, with the moonbeams shining on its bald head, move across the light. It was stretching thin, bony fingers out towards me, and wringing its hands at the same time. I struggled to reach it, but suddenly grew conscious of something that came between--something formless and unutterable. There was a laugh in the air, harsh, unearthly, like a parrot's. It died away, and the echo of a moan seemed to crawl as though alive through the high gorse. Then there was silence, and I, with my hands groping in front of me, fell forward unconscious.

I cannot have been insensible for very long, as facts proved. When I recovered again the moon still shone brightly, but the east already trembled with dawn, and it was cold. I staggered down the bank to where the baby's cry had come from, and there lay the bundle, just as I had clasped it to my heart. I opened it; it was still warm as a nest from which the sitting bird has just flown; but it was empty. At the moment I awoke I must have missed grandfather's birth or death, or departure or arrival, by the fraction of a second. I searched frantically round for him; I tore my face and my gloves in the furze and briars; I raised my voice and shrieked to him, and fell on my knees and prayed for him; but under my mad frenzy there throbbed a thought that spoke to me coldly and told me he was gone--clean gone, and vanished away for ever.

Presently I found a vacant seat, where I sat and collected myself. I dried the blood from a thorn scratch across my face, brushed the mud from my dress, and then, as a golden dawn flashed over the dew and woke the birds, I crawled away towards the railway station. A train for working men went at five, but I had to wait an hour and a half for it, and the time dragged. Every moment I expected to hear grandfather's cry, and once I found my foot mechanically rocking his cradle. Then they opened the station, and I took a ticket to Baker Street, and saw my two boxes labelled, and went back into the world--alone.

* * * * *

I have set this narrative out with my own hand, and left it in safe keeping. When I am gone, and not sooner, I have directed that it shall be given to my fellow creatures. There is nothing more to add. For my own part, I am passing the fag-end of my life in seclusion--unknown, forgotten. So I would have it. I recently put up a cenotaph to grandfather's memory in the little village church which I regularly attend. There can be no harm in that. I still think the old man was most unfairly treated, and I shall not hesitate to say so hereafter if opportunity ever offers. As for my own dismal part in probably the most awful tragedy earth's annals ever recorded, I need say nothing. Those ten ghastly, sunless years are always with me, and I should have hesitated before adding another sad book to the many in the world, but that I hold it my duty to record these facts. My object is that a materialistic age may be confounded, that those who do not believe in the principalities and powers by which mankind is secretly led and guided, blinded and befooled, may pause and reflect before they find themselves meshed in some muddling devil's web, from which there is no escape.

If an outrage of this sort can happen once, it may again. Who is safe?

FINIS.

PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS.

* * * * * * * *

TELEGRAMS: ASSIDUOUS, LONDON.

15, CRAVEN STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C. 1895.

A Catalogue of New Books and New Editions published by BLISS, SANDS, and FOSTER at 15 Craven Street, Strand, London, W.C.

To be obtained of all booksellers, and at all libraries; or of the publishers, post-free on remittance of the published price.

CONTENTS.

Biography and History Travel and Topography Miscellaneous Poetry Fiction:--The Modern Library " Novels " Novels (continued) " Novels (continued) " Novels (continued) Books for Children " " (continued)--The Story Book Series Works on Nature