George Manville Fenn (continued 8)

To have seen Jared then, it might have been supposed that he was in the best of spirits, for he began to hum scraps of airs, beginning with “Pergolesi,” and ending with “Jim Crow.”

Having no work of his own, he attended to the fire, to clear away its dulness; but he never well succeeded, for the coals were small, and the stock very low.

Then he nursed the baby for ten minutes; in short, he tried every possible plan to raise the bitter temperature of the place. “Let it come in its own good time,” he muttered; “there’s no occasion for them to meet the trouble half-way.”

Six different times, though, was Jared at that window, watching, with beating heart, figures dimly seen through the grating bars—figures which had slackened pace, or stopped, as if about to call. Once Jared turned with a deceptive smile, declaring that an old gentleman had passed, so like the vicar that he was not even sure that it was not he gone by in mistake.

“Nonsense!” said Mrs Jared, sadly, rejecting the comfort intended for her. And no one called at Jared’s house, while he felt that it would be impossible for him to ask for the money. Had he been differently circumstanced, he would have refused it altogether; but with a wife and large family, debts, and no regular income, it would have been madness.

Once he had decided that he would tell all, and be out of his miserable state of suspense; but the next minute, with a shiver, he had again put off the disclosure, and moodily began to think over the treatment he had received where he had asked counsel and advice, the hot blood rising to his cheeks as he recalled the manner in which the behaviour of his child had been interpreted.

Five o’clock, and no vicar, no money; and Jared to some extent rejoiced, for he dreaded the vicar’s coming, lest the reason of his leaving should be mentioned. And now he brightened up with the thought that it might be possible to conceal the true cause of his leaving the church from those at home, for, instead of looking there for advice and comfort, he shivered with dread lest it should come to their ears. As to Purkis, and the Ruggleses, he would move—go somewhere where he was not known, and where his friends could not find him, making what excuse he could.

“Business could not be worse,” muttered Jared to himself; and then he turned to the social meal, resting his hand for a moment upon the head of Patty, who was deepening the hue of her cheeks by making toast, half sitting, half reclining upon the little patchwork hearthrug, in an attitude which bespoke strait-waistcoats and padded rooms for any artists who might have seen her. For, if Patty’s face was not beautiful, the same could not be said of her figure, wrapped by the fire in a rich warm glow, which caressed the smooth long braids of her rich brown hair, and flashed again from her eyes. And all this ready to be Harry Clayton’s for the asking. Well might Patty sigh that there was no Harry there to ask.

“There’s some one now,” cried Jared, excitedly, as the scraping of feet was heard upon the bars of the grating, and then a footstep stopped at the door, followed directly by a heavy knock which reverberated through the little house. “Here, Patty, show a light.”

But before Patty could get half-way up the kitchen-stairs, she heard the front door opened, and a gruff voice exclaimed—

“For Mr Morrison, and wait for an answer.”

“Next door,” said Jared, in a disappointed tone.

“Why don’t you get yer numbers painted over again, then?” grunted the voice, which seemed to consider an apology as a work of supererogation. “Who’s to tell eights from nines, I should like to know?”

“No message for any one of the name of Pellet, eh?” said Jared.

The visitor muttered something inaudible, and then came the noise of a heavy thump on the door of the next house, when Jared sighed, closed his own door, and turned to meet Patty.

“I would not have that man’s unpleasant disposition for a trifle, my child, that I would not,” said Jared; and then he descended to find his wife in tears, Patty trying hard the while to keep her own back; and, do what he could, Jared Pellet, organist of St Runwald’s, could not pull out a stop that should produce a cheerful strain where all seemed sadness and woe.

The tea was fragrant, though weak; the toast just brown enough without being burned; while the children ate bread and dripping, just as if—Mrs Jared said—it grew upon the hedges.

But the social meal was now unsocial to a degree. Mrs Pellet hardly spoke, while Jared drank his tea mechanically—three cups—and would have gone on pouring it down for any length of time, if a reference to the Dutch clock had not shown the time to be a quarter to six.

Jared hurriedly rose, to keep his appointment at the church, and prepared to start.

“If—if,” he said, “the vicar, or a messenger, should come, don’t let him in, but send him to me at the church.”

Volume Three—Chapter Ten.

In the Church.

Out into the keen night air went Jared Pellet; but as soon as he was outside his own door, his heart seemed to sink down, heavy, heavier, heaviest, for he was going for his last practice. The old church was to peal with chords from his hands for the very last time; and, filled with bitterness, he strode on, thinking of the day of his triumph, when, in preference to so many, he was chosen organist; of the bright visions of prosperity he had then conjured up, all now faded away, leaving nothing but desolation. There had been a heavy fall of snow, and the streets were hushed and still, even the wheels of the few vehicles seemed muffled.

He shivered with the cold, and at the silence, which seemed oppressive. There were few people about, and though, as he saw them coming, the sight was welcome, Jared Pellet shrank away lest they might divine his misery. He could hardly believe in such sorrow as now seemed his lot; while he was ready to utter maledictions upon the head of his brother, who heeded them not, but upon whom he laid the blame of making him flinch from telling his wife and daughter the whole story. Was he not now a suspected thief—a beggar? and should he not soon be looked upon at home as a hypocrite and deceiver? Well might he, in his abstraction, be hustled and jostled by those he met, for at times his gait was almost that of a drunken man.

Six o’clock was striking as he reached St Runwald’s, but there was no Ichabod waiting, neither was he overing the little fat tombstone that had sunk so far into the earth, nor making snowballs in the path; so Jared kicked the snow from his boots, unlocked the great door, walked in, and, in an absent fit, locked himself into the great gloomy church. Not that it mattered, for Ichabod Gunnis had forgotten the practice, and at this time, in company with three or four birds of a feather, he was lying in ambush in a cour at a little distance, whence he could throw snowballs at the drivers and conductors of the various ’buses.

So Jared Pellet told himself that it was for the last time that he was standing in the gloomy edifice; and rapping his teeth with the key, he slowly made his way to the organ-loft, where, after five minutes’ fumbling, he found his match-box, and lit the single candle by which he practised, abstaining from touching the blower’s dip, till such time as that functionary should arrive.

And there sat, with bended head, the desolate man, the centre of a halo of light, which dimly displayed his music, the reflector, and the keys and stops. Above him towered the huge, gilt pipes; while from every corner looked down the carven cherubim, here and there one with a flush of light upon its swollen cheeks. The building was very dark, for the light from street lamp or shop shone but faintly through the windows. The snow from without sent in a ghastly glimmer, sufficient to show the black beams and rafters high up in the open roof, where dust and cobwebs ruled supreme. The tall aisle pillars stood in two ghostly rows; while upon the funereal hatchments between, lay here and there a streak of light, shot through some coloured pane, to lend a bar sinister never intended by the heraldic painter. Now it was the tablet-supported napkin, draped over a carved angel, that caught the light, and stood out strangely from the surrounding darkness, while all below was black, deep, and impenetrable—a sea of shadows, with pew-like waves and a holland-covered pulpit and reading-desk for vessels, to stand out dimly from the surrounding gloom.

Patchy and ill diffused was the light; as if tired and worn with its efforts to struggle through the wire-protected, stained-glass windows, it rested where it fell, to peer down grimly upon the darkness in the nave.

Four times over, eight times over, times uncounted, had the chimes rung out the quarters, and stroke by stroke the hours were told, vibrating heavily through the church, and still Jared sat in the organ-loft in his old position. He was alone, for no Ichabod had come to rattle the handle and kick the big oaken door. But Jared thought not of cold or gloom, for his soul was dead within him as he mourned, in the sadness of his heart, for the poverty and misery which clung to him, and his inability to ward them off. He could tell himself that he had struggled manfully, hiding his sorrows from those who were dear to him; but now he felt that he was beaten, conquered—that the hard fight had gone against him, and that he must give up.

But where had that money gone? Who had taken it? Had they still watched and tried to find the thief, or rested satisfied with their discovery? He knew not, though strenuous efforts had been made by more than one; but, excepting in a single case, the money marked and left in the boxes had not been taken—a fact which vicar and churchwarden interpreted to mean that the guilty party was found. They had now therefore ceased watching, believing that the treasure was no longer interfered with; though had they once more examined the money, they would have found that two marked half-crowns and a florin had been extracted, as if the thief had seized his last chance of appropriating a portion of the little store.

“What will become of me? Where are we to go?” muttered Jared; and then he wrung his hands, and pressed them to his aching head. “And if they prosecute, what then?”

Jared Pellet shivered as he asked himself the question, while in fancy he could see reflected in the mirror before him every horror with which for days past he had been torturing himself, beginning with the bar of a police court, and ending with masked convicts in prison yards, toiling at some bitter task, and, like him, dreaming—dreams within dreams—of wives and children shivering at a workhouse door. He knew that he was making the worst of it, but he excused himself upon the plea that it was the first time that he had done so, and that never until now had he given up, for he was very miserable, and he again wrung his hands until the bones cracked.

“What—what shall I do?” groaned the wretched man. “The cheque will not come now; and if they should have sent to arrest me now upon this last day!” And then again in that reflector he conjured up before him the summons at his own door, the eager step of Patty, expecting a messenger from the vicar, and then the poor girl’s horror to find the police were upon her father’s track. He could see it all plainly enough in that old mirror, and he covered his face with his hands, and groaned again—“What shall I do? What shall I do?” in a helpless, childish fashion.

“Curse God and die,” seemed hissed in his ears; and Jared started and roused himself. He had read and heard of men being tempted into rebellion against their Maker; he had known of those who, in their despair, had been seized by some horrible impulse which had led them to rush headlong into the presence of the Judge—men rich in this world’s goods, high in the opinion of their fellows—men to whom high honours had been awarded in the temple of fame,—and yet unaccountably attacked by that dread horror which so often tempts the wretched prisoner to shorten the term of his punishment. Might not this be akin? Was not this some temptation? Oh! that wandering imagination—that too faithful mirror! Jared shuddered as in it he pictured more than one fearful termination of his career, and saw his wretched wife upon her knees beside something—something against which he closed his eyes, and upon whose horrors he dared not gaze.

Yes, this was some such temptation; but he was a man who could defy it; and starting forward, he seized two or three stops on either side of the instrument, and dragged them out, before running his fingers rapidly along the keys; but the next instant he paused and shuddered, for in place of the organ’s swelling tones came the low dull rattling bone-like sound of the keys, to rise and fall and go floating through the silent nave of the old church in a strangely weird, dumb cadence.

He gazed before him into his mirror, but it was a black depth, which gave but one reflection—his own ghastly face. Again he leaned forward and swept his fingers over the keys, as if engaged in playing one of his favourite voluntaries; but he ran through only a few lines, for the low soft rattle again floated through the church, and then he shuddered as he drew back his hands, for the scrap of candle in the sconce fell through, darting up one sharp blue flame, by whose rays the keys of the instrument seemed to grin at him like the teeth of some huge monster. Then all was silence and gloom, suited to his morbid imaginings, and the visions seemed to float before him once more in the mirror—old dreams—new dreams—old dreams with fresh incidents—dreams of his brother, mocking and jeering at his poverty, and in his prosperity ever crushing him down—dreams of misery—dreams of happiness, wooing and wedding, and joy-bells clashing out jubilant and merry—dreams—dreams—dreams pictured in the depths of that old mirror, and then darkness—a blank.

Cold and shuddering, he started up, for it seemed that a cold breath of air passed across his brow; then he was listening to a noise as of a closing door; then there was the soft pat as of footsteps—a rustling—the creak of a pew-door turning upon its hinges; and slowly turning his head, Jared Pellet sat with dilated eyes, there in the darkness and silence of the old church—listening.

Volume Three—Chapter Eleven.

“Was it Ghostly?”

“Was it ghostly—was it spiritual?” Jared Pellet asked himself, as he sat with strained nerves eager to catch the slightest sound. But now all was silent, and he listened in vain. Cold, almost numbed, he rubbed his hands together and left his place slowly, descending into the body of the church, confused as one just awakening from a state of torpor. Once he halted upon the stairs for a minute or two and listened; but he heard nothing, and continued his descent, telling himself that his imagination was wild and overstrained. Then pausing suddenly upon the matting which covered the nave, his heart’s pulsation seemed checked, for from the direction of the north door came all at once, loud and distinct in the empty church, a sharp metallic click; and then, at short intervals three more sounds each clear and sharp in the silence, as of money falling upon money.

At any other time Jared would have ridiculed as absurd the idea of being alarmed by supernatural visitations: the church at midnight was the same place to him, but for its darkness, as the church at midday; but now, broken, unnerved, and trembling in every limb, he stood by the south door as if fixed, listening eagerly.

For a while there was silence, so that he could hear his own heart beat, and he tried to make out what all this could mean. Was it—could it be—some strange influence of the mind caused by constantly dwelling upon the abstraction of the poor-box money? or had he really heard the chinking of falling coin? He was beginning to think, from the silence that reigned, that it was all a delusion. He strained his eyes in the direction, but they could not penetrate the thick darkness, and at last a bitter smile crossed his features, as he thought that his mind was becoming disturbed with trouble, and that while he was yet able, he had better seek home and try to rest. Should he walk across the church to the other door and see if there was anything? Pooh! it was but fancy—a rat, perhaps, under the flooring of the old pews.

Jared felt in his pocket for the key of the door, but it had slipped through into the lining. His hands were numbed with the cold, and he could not extricate it, for the wards were entangled with the rags.

But that was not fancy, that was no stretch of the imagination. There was a faint rustling noise, similar to that which he had heard at first, and now, apparently, coming towards him.

Jared Pellet was probably as bold as most men of his condition; but now, freshly awakened, as it were, from a strange stupor, in a dark church, at probably midnight, his blood seemed to freeze, and his teeth chattered with horror. What did it mean? What could it be—that invisible thing, that softly rustling noise, coming nearer and nearer? He could not even see the pew by his side. Should he go? The door was locked, and he could not get the key from his pocket; and besides, in the horror of that moment, he had stretched out his hands to keep off that something strange and rustling that came nearer and nearer, till he fancied that he could hear breathing, and then the rustling ceased, to be succeeded by a low dull beat, which he knew directly after to be that of his own heart.

But at last, as with a flash, a ray of light crossed his mind, which chased away all superstitious fancies. Here now, almost within his reach, was the robber of the poor-boxes returning from his unholy errand. The click he had heard was that of falling money; and the blood flushed to his face as he felt that now was the time for action—now was the moment which should decide his fate. How he longed for a light. The night before had been clear and moonlit, so that he could have seen distinctly; but from the snow-clouds, the darkness was intense. What should he do?

“Whoever it is shall not pass out of the church while I have life,” he thought, as he smiled at his superstitious folly. But, for all that, as he stood there, with arms outstretched in the intense darkness, his heart still beat violently. Whoever it was had evidently taken the alarm, and was listening intently. But now came once more the rustling, accompanied by a sound that Jared made out to be that of a hand drawn along the sides of the pews.

Closer, closer—he could hear the breathing distinctly; but again there was a halt, during which Jared remained motionless, till the rustling began again, and a hand touched his own.

All the blood in his body seemed to rush to his heart as he felt the contact of that icy hand; the superstitious dread came back; but he threw, himself forward, nerved, as it were, by despair, and clutched an arm, but only to be dashed violently back, trip over a hassock, and strike his head a sickening blow against one of the stone steps of the font.

That fall drove out the last dread of a supernatural visitation, and, springing up, Jared gave chase to the rustling figure, which he now heard half-way down the south aisle.

It was slow work in the dark, but Jared pushed on, now striking violently against some pew-door, now stopping half confused in the dark as to where he was; but there was the rustling noise in front, and as well as he could he followed up one aisle and down the nave, then along the other aisle, but apparently losing ground. The flying one was as corporeal as himself, that was plain enough, for more than once there was the noise of collision with open pew-doors, which banged to and then flew open again, ready for him to strike against violently.

Twice had pursuer and pursued made the circuit of the church, when, feeling that he had neared the flying figure, Jared sprang forward to grasp—nothing, for the noise suddenly ceased. He stopped to listen, but the only sound he could detect was the beating of his own heart.

This was unexpected. He listened again; no sound. He ran his hand along by the sides of the pews, first here and then there; he went forward, panting heavily the while; he came back, but he was still at fault. The quarry had doubled somehow, and escaped him for the time, and would perhaps reach one of the doors; and in dread of losing his opportunity, Jared ran hastily towards the south door, but only to recollect that there were the north, west, and chancel doors, through any one of which the fugitive might escape while he guarded the south. Then it struck him where he had been at fault: the enemy of his peace must have crept softly into an open pew and allowed him to pass. That was it, no doubt; and hurrying back, he was in time to hear the rustling noise very softly at the end of the north aisle, as though his enemy were stealing away. Swiftly as the darkness would allow he hurried on, and once more the chase began. They had passed round the church again, and Jared felt that he was gaining ground, when he caught his foot in the matting where it had slightly turned up, and fell heavily, to gather himself up again just in time to feel once more the rush of cold air upon his cheek, and hear the door locked just as he came up.

Jared’s hands trembled with agitation as he tore at his pocket to free the key, dragging out the lining; and then, as he held the cold iron in his hand, he could hardly find the hole, so that quite a minute had elapsed before he had dragged the heavy door open, stood amongst the drifted snow in the porch, and taken up the pursuit.

There, in the faint glimmering light, were the deep impressions of footsteps to the church gates, and Jared grimly smiled as he muttered to himself, “A heavy step for a ghost;” but no sooner was he outside the gate than his power of tracking his enemy was gone, for the snow was trampled with footprints crossing and re-crossing, while, though he looked up and down the street, there was nothing to be seen but the glimmering lamps, nor to be heard but the sighing of the cold night wind.

Suddenly he fancied that in the distance he saw a figure crossing the road, and dashed after it as hard as he could run. It turned down a street that he knew well, and, by taking a short cut, Jared felt that he should meet his enemy, if it was the object of his chase; so running down first one street and then another, he neared the bottom outlet of the place he sought, paused a moment to listen, and then could make out the dull deadened sound of coming steps in the snow, apparently nearing him slowly.

To dart round the corner, and grasp the new-comer, was the work of an instant, but it only resulted in his being grasped in return, for the organist was in the hands of the police.

“What time is it?” queried Jared, in a confused manner, as soon as he could open his lips.

“Time you was in bed, I think,” said the policeman; and Jared shrank beneath his suspicious looks.

Volume Three—Chapter Twelve.

Another Missing.

“One o’clock, mum,” said Mr James Chawner, cordwainer, and member of the society of Campanological Brothers, commonly known by the soubriquet of Beaky Jem, tenor in St Runwald’s peal. “One o’clock, mum; it’s better nor ’arf past. But if you and Miss here is so wery oneasy, I’ll get one of my mates to rouse up and search the place; that is, if you like,” thereby clearly indicating that he—Beaky Jem of the Roman nose—did not much approve of the task.

“It is so very strange,” said Mrs Jared; “he left here to go to the church, and he must be there.”

“Why, bless your ’art, mum, he ain’t been there, or we must have heerd him in the belfry.”

“You’ve been there all the evening then?” said Mrs Jared.

“Ah! that we have, mum—’leven of us, practising for Chrismus. We pulled grand-sire caters, ’sire tribbles, and s’perlative s’prise major. Never had a finer night, nor more beer up in my time.”

“But could you have heard the organ up in the belfry?” said Patty, who had been escorted home by Monsieur Canau quite late in the evening from the shadowed house in Decadia.

“Heard it! bless your ’art, yes, Miss, a rooring away sometimes loud enough to put yer out, and drown the one that leads and cries ‘go,’ when we makes the change, you know. That there organ ain’t blowed a note, nor there ain’t been no light in the church this side o’ eight o’clock. And besides, I seed the pleece a kickin’ and a cuffin’ of young Leathers for shyin’ snowballs at the busties.”

“Who?” exclaimed Mrs Jared and Patty in a breath.

“Young Charity, mum, young Ikey Gunnis. Howsomever, if it’s a coming to who’ll go, I’ll go, you know; but I’m afeard most of our chaps is about tight—just a little sunny, you know,” he added by way of explanation, “for the beer did run free to-night, and no mistake—and I hardly know who else to get, without it’s a pleeceman, and they’re so precious ’ficious. You see, people’s abed now; and I should ha’ been there myself if the young missus hadn’t come and roused me out. I was asleep aside the kitchen-fire when she come, for there was a sight o’ beer up the belfry to-night sewerly.”

“I still think that he must have gone to the vicar’s,” said Patty to her mother. “I knocked as loudly as I could at the church-door, and there seemed to be no one there.”

“Perhaps, after all, we had better wait another half-hour,” said Mrs Jared.

“Let me go with Mr Chawner,” said Patty, eagerly. “The Purkises may have come back now, and they would not mind giving us the keys. I dare say Mr Purkis would go with us, late as it is. He would have gone with me before, I am sure, had he been at home.”

“I don’t like disturbing people so late; but it makes me very uneasy. Do you think the little ones would be quiet while we both went?”

The suggestion now offered by Beaky Jem, that the governor might be “a bit on,” was, when interpreted, scouted with indignation; and it was at last determined that Patty should stay, while Mrs Jared and Beaky Jem went to Purkis’s for the keys, and then searched the church, with or without the beadle’s aid.

“Which he won’t turn out of his warm bed, bless you,” said Mr Chawner; “he’s too—”

He did not finish his sentence, for as Mrs Jared, bonneted and shawled, stood with the others in the passage, there came a buzz of voices at the front door, and, directly after, a gentle double knock.

“There’s something wrong, Patty,” gasped Mrs Jared, holding her hand to her side, while the one apostrophised admitted Mr Timson, the vicar, and Purkis the beadle, all very muffled and snowy.

“Something struck me that you wouldn’t be in bed,” began Mr Timson; but he was stopped by the vicar, who brushed by him just in time to catch Mrs Jared as she was staggering to fall.

“Is—is he dead?” she gasped, recovering herself by a strong effort.

“Who? who?” exclaimed the vicar.

“My husband,” panted Mrs Jared.

“God forbid!” ejaculated the vicar, piously; “no, where is he?”

“He went out before six to the church, and he has not been back,” cried Patty, in agitated tones. “They were going now to search for him. Here—here he is!” she cried, as Jared made his appearance, pale and scared-looking, while Patty flung her arms round his neck.

“There, there, there! shut the door,” cried Timson, hastily; “it’s all right, it’s all right! And now, what do you want here, you sir? You’re one of the bell-ringers, ain’t you?”

“Right you are, sir,” said Beaky Jem, staring with all his eyes.

“Just so—just so. And now you’re not wanted, are you? No one wants you—eh? There then, take that, and be off.”

Mr Chawner took “that,” and went off—“that” wearing very much the appearance of a warm half-crown from Mr Timson’s pocket.

But before Mr Chawner was outside the door, he was muttering, “I knowed he was a bit on; but there was a sight o’ beer up our way to-night, sewerly.”

“We should have been here hours ago,” said the vicar, “but the train was stopped by the snow.”

“And he wouldn’t have come on till the morning, if it hadn’t been for me,” broke in Mr Timson.

“Let me speak, Timson—let me speak,” exclaimed the vicar.

“I won’t, I’m—blessed if I do,” exclaimed Timson, excitedly, altering the run of his sentence. “It was my doing, and Purkis’s here; and you know I made you come on to-night.”

The temperature was bitter, but upon Mr Purkis being referred to, he grunted as he stood behind the door busily wiping the perspiration from his head and neck.

“I won’t give up to nobody,” exclaimed Timson, pushing past one and then another into the little parlour, so that he might get to Jared.

“There, sir,—there, Mr Pellet! It’s all right, sir!—it’s all jolly, sir; and there’s my hand,—there it is. There’s both of them, sir, and hang the grammar. Shake hands, sir,—shake hands! There’s four honest hands together, and God bless you, sir!” and old Timson shook the tears into Jared’s eyes, while his own brimmed over from a different cause. “Now you may talk to him, sir,” said Timson, who, to further relieve his feelings, caught Patty in his arms and kissed her three times,—once on each cheek, and once upon her lips.

“I only meant one, my dear, but they were so good,” cried Timson, who seemed half mad, for he now shouted, “Hooray!” and tossed up his hat, kicking it, as it fell, right into the window, to the total destruction of the cracked pane of glass, with the dab of putty in the centre.

“I say, ‘Amen!’ to my eccentric friend Timson’s remark, Mr Pellet,” exclaimed the vicar, seizing the disengaged hands, and shaking them warmly. “Mr Pellet, sir, you have been an ill-used man, and I beg your pardon. The sinner is found. God bless you, Mr Pellet! I hope you forgive me.”

“O Mr Gray, sir! how could you suspect me?” cried Jared.

“Weakness, sir, weakness. I am but an erring man. We all err; and but for my faithful old friend Purkis, I should have gone on erring.”

Mr Purkis grunted again, and continued dabbing himself.

“He set me right,” continued the vicar, still shaking at the organist’s hands.

“And me,” broke in Timson. “I helped, to put him right. But there’s my hand, Mr Pellet—there it is, sir, and I’m glad to shake hands with you once more. I always wanted to; but I kept my hands to myself on principle, sir. But I always said it wasn’t you—I told him so, sir, scores of times, but he wouldn’t believe me.”

“O Timson, Timson!” said the vicar, reprovingly; “you know that you were one of the first to suspect him.”

“Well, how could I help it, when it looked so suspicious?” cried the churchwarden, fiercely. “Don’t get putting it all on my shoulders, John Gray—don’t, please.”

“Shake hands, Timson—shake hands; and let’s say fervently, ‘Thank God, it is all found out at last.’”

“So we will,” said Timson, “so we will; but really, you know,” he said, “if I had given my honest opinion—honest opinion you know,” and his eyes twinkled,—“I should have declared that it was that old rogue of a beadle of ours in the corner.”

Mr Purkis ceased his dabbing, and stared.

“But we could not afford to lose so great an ornament to our church, eh? Mr Gray, sir, eh?” he chuckled; and, by that time, Mr Purkis saw through the joke, and chuckled too, though he had at first thought it rather a serious matter.

Jared was too agitated and too unnerved with the proceedings of the past few hours to do more than shake hands again and again with his visitors. He wanted to tell them of his adventure at the church, but he could not speak; and besides, there were Mrs Jared and Patty looking perfectly astounded as they tried to interpret the meaning of the scene.

“There, there, there!” exclaimed the vicar, kindly, “It is late, and they want to be alone, Timson. Let us go, for you are such a boisterous youth. Let them be, Timson, and come away. But tell me first that you forgive me for my injustice, Mr Pellet.”

“Forgive you, sir!” said Jared, in a choking voice.

“There, there!” said the vicar, shaking hands again. “What does it all mean, Mrs Pellet? What! don’t you know? More reason for us to go. Come away, Timson, come away. There! you’ll wake the children,” he exclaimed, as a wail came from up-stairs. “Come away, and let Mr Pellet set the heart of his wife at rest. That’s right, Purkis, go first. We should not have been so late; but I was in the country when these two came down after me; and then the snow stopped us.”

“And he said it was too late to come on to-night,” cried Timson, again; “but I would have my way. There’s my hand, Mr Pellet, sir. There it is, and—there, I never felt happier in my life.” And to prove it, Timson made a charge at Patty, who escaped him, however, by running up to quiet the children, who were like skittles, and upsetting one another till there was quite a chorus.

“God bless all here!” said the vicar, fervently, by way of benediction, as he stood in the passage; and then they would have departed, but for Timson, who turned back to shake hands once more with Jared, exclaiming—

“There’s my hand, Mr Pellet, sir: I always declared it wasn’t you.”

And again, as Jared stood at the door, watching the two down the street, Timson turned again to shout,—“I always said it wasn’t;” while the gentle, reproving voice of the old vicar was heard to ejaculate—

“Oh, Timson!”

Volume Three—Chapter Thirteen.

An Accident.

“No news,” day after day—day after day, till Harry was weary of repeating the words to the troubled father. Sergeant Falkner came often enough to repeat his story, that so far he had done everything possible; but that he had scent of something which he felt sure must turn out right.

At last Harry was wandering one evening towards Decadia, he knew not why, he said, but it always appeared to him as if elucidation of the mystery must come from that direction; and though he would not own to it, he made this surmise his excuse for going often to Brownjohn Street, seeing Janet but seldom—Canau often—quite an intimacy having arisen between the latter and himself.

Harry wandered thoughtfully on, till, nearing the end of St Martin’s Lane, he started back, for from out of a busy street there came a sharp rattling of wheels, a shout, a dull heavy sound; then the customary rush of sight-seers till a crowd had collected.

“There, that’s the seccun’ acciden’ I’ve seen at that there corner with my own blessed eyes,” said a man. “Them cabs comes cutting along fierce, never thinking as they’ve got anything to do but shout, and everybody’s to get out o’ the way in a instan’. If its panels as scratches, they pulls up; but if its human flesh and blood, drive on. It ought to be put a stop to—that it ought.”

There was a chorus of indignant acquiescent growls, though no one said what ought to be stopped; and Harry Clayton pressed forward through the swaying crowd, in the midst of which the shiny crown of a policeman’s hat was to be seen.

“Get a stretcher—Take him to the hospital—Poor creature!” exclaimed various voices; and then came a score of indignant commands: “Give him air!—Stand back, will yer!”—the speakers never seeing the necessity of themselves moving.

“Why don’t you look alive, and take him to the hospital!” exclaimed a strident voice again.

“Non—non! chez moi—chez moi!” groaned the sufferer.

“What’s he say? He’s foreign! Any one here understand Dutch? Anybody know who he is?”

“I do,” said Harry, pushing foward. “He wishes to be taken home,” just as, half insensible, the sufferer babbled a few words in his native tongue, to which he seemed naturally to revert; and then, under the young man’s guidance, poor Canau was borne to his lodgings, and a surgeon procured—one who came the more willingly upon Harry furnishing him with his address, and undertaking, if necessary, to defray all expense.

“I did try to get away; but I was confused, and stumbled; and ah! ma belle patrie!” muttered Canau, “I shall see thee no more.”

For the surgeon had made his examination, bandaged, and done all that was possible to ease the sufferer, and then taken his departure.

“I am hurt—much hurt,” said Canau, feebly, as he reached out a withered hand to Harry; “but I should like just once—”

He turned his eyes towards a violin hung upon the wall; but when Janet eagerly reached it down, and Canau tried to raise the bow, his bruised muscles refused to act, and he shook his head.

“Had you not better try and sleep?” said Harry to the injured man, who seemed momentarily to grow more feverish and excited.

“Sleep!” he exclaimed, hoarsely, “sleep now? Shall I not soon sleep without waking? No, no—no, no! Look here! you are a gentleman—you have feelings. Listen! Years ago—many now—I fled from my country. I was sought for; I was called ‘traitor!’ But why? mon Dieu, why? Because I loved my rightful monarch, and would have seen him on the throne. But might is right, even as you say it here; and I fled to beggary and wretchedness amongst these poor—I, a gentleman—to drink at last to drown my misery, till I tried to live by my violin, and then I took to that poor child, saved her from misery and death, and now she loves me.”

Worn out at last, and half delirious with the fever from the injuries he had received, the Frenchman at last dozed off, when Harry rose to leave, wondering whether, after all, Canau knew what had become of Lionel, and hopeful that, if he did, his prostrate and weak state would offer opportunities for arriving at the truth.

As Harry reached the bottom, D. Wragg, pipe in hand, made his appearance, craning his neck, and thrusting his face forward in disagreeable proximity to that of his visitor, as in answer to Harry’s “Good night,” he exclaimed—

“I know!”

“Know what,” said Harry, sharply, his thoughts instantly reverting to Lionel, and the hope that if D. Wragg knew anything, now in his state of semi-intoxication, he might divulge some clue to the mystery that had troubled them for so long. But if D. Wragg possessed a secret, it seemed to be one from which he felt in no haste to part; for, with drunken solemnity, he merely shook his head a great many times, and then drew back softly into his shop, closing the door after him; but only to open it again a few inches, so as to allow the passage of his head as he muttered gruffly, throwing the words, as it were, at his visitor—

“Never mind!”

Volume Three—Chapter Fourteen.

A Question.

“Been here five minutes, sir,” said Sergeant Falkner, as Harry Clayton entered the passage of the Regent Street house. “Yes, five minutes exactly,” he continued, referring to his watch. “I’d allowed myself ten minutes to wait and see if Sir Richard woke up; and if he had not at the end of that time, I was off. But as you’ve come, sir, that’ll do as well, for I promised him I’d look in and state progress every day.”

“What news have you, then?” said Harry.

“I don’t know as I have any as yet, sir.”

Harry gave a fresh gesture of impatience.

“Slow and sure, sir, ’s my motto,” said the sergeant. “’Tain’t always that one can make a dead swoop down. I should have liked to have brought you word that I had found next day after getting instructions; but a case of this sort is like hatching chickens—it takes time. You’ve been thinking as the eggs are all addled, but p’raps you’re wrong, sir. I don’t know. I won’t say but what I might have heard one little thing beginning to peck inside, and one may have a good brood yet—who knows!”

“But have you anything authentic you can tell me?” said Harry, who was wearied out with these many purposeless visits, the endless consultations, the trivial information demanded, and after all the small result.

“Nothing, sir, as yet. Only I tell you this, I think I shall have something for you directly.”

“Hope deferred,” said Harry, bitterly.

“Maketh the heart sick—eh, sir? Exactly so, and good news is the physic as makes it well again. Have a little more patience with me, and you may be satisfied yet.”

Harry bent his head.

“Look here, sir,” said the sergeant; “just another word before I go. You’ve been very often to Decadia lately.”

“Yes,” said Harry.

“Well, sir, if you’ll take my advice, you won’t go there so often. Why not? you think. My answer to that is—We haven’t found your friend yet; and my experience of some parts of London is, that there are men in it who think a deal more of a pound or two than they do of a man’s life.”

Here Sergeant Falkner fixed a bold clear eye upon that of the young man for a few seconds, nodded sagely, and then departed.

Left alone, Harry stood thoughtful and half startled for a few minutes before going up to Sir Francis’ room, where the baronet still remained sleeping, evidently under the influence of some sedative, for there was a graduated bottle upon the little table by the head of his couch, and a faint odour that reminded Harry of visits to a photographer’s pervaded the room.

“Must be ether!” he said, softly, as he went on tip-toe to the bedside, and anxiously looked down on the pallid troubled face, whose expression—even in sleep—told of the tortured mind, and the pangs which the old man was called upon to suffer.

“Let him sleep,” said Harry to himself, and he stole gently from the room to sit and think for a while, when, the hour being far too early for bed, he lit a cigar, and went out for half-an-hour’s stroll before retiring for the night.

“I wonder whether we shall ever see him again?” thought Harry, as he turned down one of the quiet streets, intending to make a circuit and return to the chambers by another route. His thoughts were busy now,—he was running over in a half-troubled way the words of the sergeant that night, for they had left their impression; then he felt disheartened and sad, as he thought of Patty’s intimacy with the Decadia people, and the way in which she was dragged into the affair, trembling, too, as it struck him that there might be legal inquiry, and she called upon to give evidence. At last he came to the conclusion that he would go and boldly beg of Jared Pellet to keep her away from the wretched district, and quickened his steps as if about to go at once, till he recollected the hour, and once more slackened his pace.

The street was perfectly empty, the lines of lamps looking in the distance like a vista of golden beads hung in the air.

Suddenly he was aroused from his musings, and, turning sharply, he was face to face with, and so close as to be even touching, his follower, who, with one arm upraised, was about to seize him by the neck, the gaslight falling full upon the features of Mr John Screwby.

Mr John Screwby had indeed been about to administer the garotter’s hug, for he had followed Harry through the frequented streets till he had turned into one that was retired, and afforded an opportunity that this gentleman did not feel disposed to resist.

Times had been what he termed “hardish” lately. Buoyed up by the hope of obtaining the reward, he had fallen into the habit, while hope lasted, of boasting among his companions of the luck about to fall to his share. That luck, though, had never been his; and the failure of several little adventures had also tended to lower Mr Screwby’s banking account. Hence, then, he had been on the look out for an unconsidered trifle or two.

The opportunity was excellent—the hour was late. A glance up and down the street had shown him that there was not a soul in sight, while as to the houses, for the most part the lights were now in the upper stories.

Mr John Screwby’s teeth glistened brightly, and with rapid action he stepped forward, at the same time softly turning up his cuffs as if to strike.

It was a chance and no mistake, he thought. Nothing could have happened better—cash, a watch and chain, and a bit of revenge, all at one swoop. For if it had not been for this swell, the old gentleman would have written his cheque for the reward, and it would have been cashed, and there would have been an end of it.

A quarter—one half of the street had been traversed, and Screwby told himself that it was time to close. He gave another glance behind him—all right. If he had only had a mate now, how easy the job would have been. But then a mate would have wanted half the proceeds, and there might have been a row afterwards, and a split, so that it was better so.

Hunting—sporting of any kind—pooh! what could they be to such sport as this—so exciting, and dashed with a tinge of danger? And then the game was so profitable!

Mr Screwby licked his lips as, with head down and hands held in true pedestrian fashion, he pressed on.

Now was the time, he felt. He had closed to within a yard—a dash in and it would be done—the arm thrown round the victim’s neck, a sharp twist, a kick at his legs, and he would be down upon the pavement, which would effectually stun him. Then a little rapid manipulation, and all would be right.

“Now for it, then!” he resolutely exclaimed, and he raised his arm.

Is there, or is there not, some instinct of coming danger—some strange, ethereal, electric wire of sympathy, along which, as rapidly as thought, speeds the warning “Look out!” What do psychologists say? Some are for, some against the possibility of such influences: take, then, your own experience and judge. See how often, as if feeling the wind of the coming peril, people have been known to swerve aside, or halt, or hurry on, or stay away scores of times, and escape. Instances innumerable might be cited of where the preyer has been balked of his quarry, even as here, when, just as Screwby was in the act of making his spring, Harry turned and faced his enemy, and both stood for a brief minute without moving.

The next moment Screwby drew back to gather force, then, with fingers crooked like a beast’s talons, he leaped at Harry’s throat, but only to receive full upon that flat and ugly nose a tremendous blow sent right from a desperate man’s shoulder.

In itself the stroke seemed hard enough to have made the organ flat; but, joined to it, there was the force with which Screwby was making at his destined prey—the two forces added forming a total whose result was a dull, unpleasant-sounding thud—a heavy, drunken stagger—and then Mr John Screwby seemed to collapse, his legs doubling beneath him, his whole body assuming a wavy motion, and he was upon the pavement in a curious heap, emitting as he went down a groan that sounded as if the collapse were total.

“’Ullo! what’s up now?” greeted Harry’s ears, as he stood binding a handkerchief around his bleeding knuckles, and gazing at his fallen assailant.

Harry turned to find that a policeman had made his appearance.

“This man attacked me, and I struck him down,” replied Harry.

“Then you must come on, and enter the charge,” said the constable. “Now, then rouse up here,” he continued, giving Mr Screwby a shake which made his bull head tap the pavement in a most unpleasant manner, till in a confused fashion he rose to his knees, and then stood up, staring hard at the proximate area railings, as if he were in doubt as to where he was, and evidently took the iron bars for those of a very different place. A moment later, though, he saw more clearly his position, and, thrusting the constable back, he darted off, and would have escaped, but for the appearance of another officer from round the corner—the shouts of his fellow galvanising him into activity.

Then there was a rush, a struggle, and the rending off of buttons, the loud bang of a heavy hat falling upon the pavement, and but for the coming up of Harry and the other constable, Mr Screwby would once more have been on the way to his den. The reinforcements, though, prevailed, and the next instant the ruffian was prone upon his back, and swearing powerfully.

This time the ignominious bracelets of the ill-doer were produced, and a sharp “click, click” told that they were ornamenting the wrists for which they were destined.

“I’d put a pair round his legs if I had my will,” growled the first constable. “What d’yer mean by falling in that ere way?”

The man took a great cotton handkerchief from his hat, and with it mopped his head hard, for he was tightly buttoned up in his coarse, heavy greatcoat.

“Yer might ha’ known you’d ha’ been ketched without coming these games,” he growled again, taking it as a deep offence against his own dignity that the culprit had tried to escape after being “took.”

But Mr Screwby did not condescend to reply with words. His responses were all looks, and those of a class that the second constable, who had found a dent in his hat, stigmatised as “gallows;” but whether deserving of that appellation or no, they were sufficiently evil, heightened as they were by a stained countenance and eyes swollen sufficiently to startle any one who met their gaze.

Mr John Screwby was caught and handcuffed, but he was not caged; but lay upon the pavement sullen and heavy, refusing to hearken to the voice of the charmer when requested to rise; even a playful tap or two from a staff, and a sharp twist of the handcuffs had no effect; the result being that one constable had to seek the station for more help, and Mr Screwby rode off in triumph, his chariot being a stretcher, and the paean of praise the mutterings and growlings of the perspiring police.

It was too late for there to be much of a popular gathering; such as there was, though, was decidedly of a sympathetic cast. Fortunately the station was near at hand, in which place of security Harry saw his assailant safely lodged, and then sought his temporary home, wondering the while whether a similar attack had caused the disappearance of Lionel Redgrave, and also whether the man was taken who could bring the affair to light.

Volume Three—Chapter Fifteen.

“Coming Events.”

The morning dawned before Harry Clayton fell asleep. After an early walk, he met Sir Richard at breakfast, to find him pale, but calm and composed.

It was very evident to the young man that the father was losing hope, and that he was having a hard struggle to resign himself to what had fallen to his lot. Two months had now elapsed, and not the faintest trace of a clue by which Lionel could be traced had been found.

“I have been thinking, Clayton,” said Sir Francis, as they sat over their meal, “that it would be cruel and unjust on my part to retain you here any longer. You have your career mapped out, and every day that I keep you is to your injury.”

“Never mind that, Sir Francis,” said Harry. “I am as deeply interested in the search as yourself, and I cannot give up hope so easily. When I feel despair creeping upon me I will give up—not before. But you are better this morning?”

“More resigned, Clayton—more resigned,” said the old man, sadly. “It is time to try and bear it.”

Harry reminded him that the sergeant was still hopeful, and also told him of the man’s last words; but Sir Francis only shook his head sadly. He grew more interested, though, when Harry related his adventures of the past night, and also laid bare a few of his thoughts; but they seemed to make no lasting impression; and soon after, leaving the room, Harry made his way anxiously to the police court, for the feeling grew stronger that he had at last run the villain to earth—this man whom he had recognised on the previous night as the informer, and also as the low-browed scoundrel who had watched them at the bird-dealer’s.

Might not this be poor Lionel’s destroyer? It was mere suspicion, but might he not have committed some foul deed, with Lionel Redgrave for victim, even as he had essayed on the previous night, for it was by the narrowest shade that he had himself escaped. Poor Lionel was perhaps caught in one of the vile purlieus of Decadia, and had been dragged away and hidden after being plundered; while to divert suspicion, with extra cunning—where no suspicion existed—this scoundrel had essayed to lay the blame upon the house of Wragg.

Suspicions these, certainly; but as Harry walked on, from being shadowy they gradually grew more solid and firm, so that he eagerly waited at the court the turn of Mr John Screwby, whose vile countenance, when placed in the dock, wore anything but an improved aspect, with the addition of a damaged nose and a pair of hideously discoloured eyes.

The case was plain enough as far as the attempt was concerned. Suspicion of other matters, of course, could not be raised. But there were several little ugly facts brought forward respecting Mr John Screwby’s character—touching six months’ imprisonment for this, three months’ imprisonment for that, a year for something else,—altogether a total of four years for different offences that the warders of different prisons could declare to. Consequently, as Mr Screwby’s name stank in the nostrils of the law, he was remanded, with the certain prospect of being committed for trial at the next hearing.

Weary and unsettled, Harry strolled down the next evening to Decadia. The first face he encountered was that of D. Wragg, who was seated behind his counter with the shutters up, and the gas turned down very low.

“Oh, yes! you can go up,” said the little man, gloomily; “but don’t you make no mistake, and think I ain’t so sharp as I should be, because I’ve seemed a bit queer lately. It was all through a drop o’ drink, and I shouldn’t ha’ taken that if it hadn’t been along o’ that friend o’ yours. Cuss him! what did he want to go losing dorgs for, and come here bringing mis’ry into a pore man’s home?”

D. Wragg ended his speech almost with a whine, wiping away two or three maudlin drink-begotten tears; when, seeing from the man’s state that it would be of little avail to remind him of the cause of Lionel’s first visit, Harry ascended to find Canau sitting up in bed, holding one of Janet’s hands in his.

“Aha!” he said, softly; “then you have come again. What news of your friend? None? Aha! I suspect D. Wragg once, and he trapped me like one of his pigeons; but there—he is innocent; he has no secrets but about wretched dogs. He is not bad, but he is little—little at heart. He has no soul for a great crime. He hides away dogs in holes and cupboards and corners, and we hear mysterious cries, and think them dreadful, here in this house, and the good Madame Vink faints away. Then I go looking—to find what? Ma foi! dogs—dogs—dogs. Nothing more. There was nothing to find.”

“Are you an arch-traitor?” thought Harry for a moment, as he sat gazing at the injured man. “If your heart could be laid bare, would it disclose anything?” The sad calm look upon the little Frenchman’s face disarmed him, though, the next instant, and he felt half angry at the flash of suspicion, as Canau continued—

“We have strange ideas all of us; and we all suspect one another. I have often think D. Wragg knows where your poor foolish friend has gone, and he think the same of me; and the work-people outside say it is a judgment on me that I am struck down, and that it will save me from what they call ‘scragg.’ But no, no! I shall not be hung at Vieux Bailee. But they are sots—fools all.”

Harry sat by the bed half-disposed to tell of Screwby’s attack, but he refrained.

“Monsieur,” said Canau, after a pause, “I think I shall be the better for this hurt. It has made me think of how I have let myself drift—drift away, when I ought to have fought, and been something better. There is only one thing that I have kept of the past, when I was another man, and that is my music. Janet, my child, when I am well, we will go from here and live otherwise: I have not been just to you. But D. Wragg has been good to me, and a friend when I was in despair with life; still I must change. Yes, we will go and live away from this wretched place. Pah! how could I have kept you here so long? Only let me get well, for I shall not die of this hurt. I wish that you too were glad and happy as I feel. Poor Janet, too, would be glad of heart did she know that your friend was found, and the old man his father at peace.”

Janet listened eagerly as Harry spoke of the inutility of their search, and then the poor girl shrank back; but attention was drawn from her by a sharp cry of pain from Canau.

“Shall I fetch a doctor?” said Harry earnestly.

“No, no; I shall be better—well directly. The pain is sometimes sharp. But ah, bah! it is nothing. I shall live—I shall be well soon. I do not trouble myself at all. But hark! Mon Dieu! listen! Is there fresh trouble in the house? They will not search again—I cannot have it! Monsieur, I am weak.”

Harry, as he started up, gazed curiously at the injured man, for there was a strange dread in his tones that again raised suspicion. But there was evidently something important on the wing. Amidst a good deal of noise, there arose the sound of voices in loud altercation; and as he opened the door D. Wragg could easily be heard as he exclaimed—

“Don’t you make no mistake now; I’m not going to have my place searched again; so now, then!”

“Ah-h-h! Ma foi!” ejaculated Canau, and a spasm sent its trace across his features, while Janet, wild-eyed and strained, held tightly by his hand.

“There is something coming now!” thought Harry, and his heart beat painfully as D. Wragg’s voice was again heard.

“Yes; he is here! And if he is here, what o’ that? Don’t you make no mistake. There ain’t no harm in his coming here if he likes, is there? No one ain’t a-going to burke him. I’ll fetch him down, for I ain’t going to have no more searchings in my house.”

“Searching! Ah! I cannot bear it!” groaned the Frenchman.

Directly after there was the thump, thump, of D. Wragg’s heavy boot on the stairs.

“’Tis for me,” said Harry, turning to Canau. “There seems to be news;” and then, with a feeling of compassion, he continued, “but do you know anything of it all?—speak if you do.”

“I know! No, no; not a word!” exclaimed Canau, when, waiting to hear no more, Harry hurried excitedly to the door, to encounter Sergeant Falkner, while closely following him came D. Wragg, growling viciously, and tearing at his spikey hair, as he set his boot down violently upon each stair, as if crushing under it vermin in the shape of the police.

A few words, though, from the sergeant had the effect of setting D. Wragg off into a set of terpsichorean evolutions that were grotesque in the extreme. Certainly a triumphal dance was intended, with accompanying stamps of the thick boot and snappings of his fingers; but how he could possibly have contrived to jerk, and start, and jig as he did, and yet live, was a puzzle that brought down the far-famed Gordian knot into a contemptible cat’s-cradle of Berlin wool. Dislocation! It might have been thought that he was out of joint from head to toe, and india-rubber had taken the place of his muscles.

“I told you so—I told you so!” he shouted. “There! don’t you make no more mistakes, any on you, because—Hip—hip—hip—hooray! I say, though, Mr Canau, ain’t it glorious? But I say, sir, Mr Clayton, sir, is there any little thing in the shop? Don’t you make—there! ain’t I glad!”

Another triumphal dance succeeded D. Wragg’s burst of eloquence, when he stumped off, sowing turnips as he went, to find Mrs Winks; while Harry hurried back into the room to whisper one word—a word which made the Frenchman fall back upon his pillow with a sigh of content, as Janet turned to the window to hide her face from those who were too much engrossed with their own thoughts to think of the poor girl’s feelings.

“I am content now, Monsieur Clayton,” sighed Canau. “There will be no more suspicion, and you will come and see me when I am a different man. But I could not bear that there should be a slur upon the place where we have lived so long. But there! go—you are anxious;” and as Harry hurried from the room, Canau repeated, with brightening eye, that most important word which Harry had uttered, and that word was—

“Found!”

Volume Three—Chapter Sixteen.

Mr Purkis does his Dooty.

Mr Purkis stood in his shop carefully cutting out strips of white paper for the measurement of future customers’ feet, when he heard the pattering of feet, and anticipating trade for the establishment, he raised his eyes, slowly, and with due importance.

“What’s this, Mr Purkis, sir?” cried the visitor, rushing into the shop with a violence that made the little bell give tongue furiously—so furiously that it seemed as if disposed to compete with little Tim Ruggles, excited and hot as he was with running. “What does all this mean, sir? How is it—when was it—and how did it happen? I must know—must, indeed.”

Mr Purkis stood erect, with his hands beneath his black linen apron, and puffed out and collapsed his cheeks again and again, but without answering his visitor.

“I must know, Mr Purkis, sir,” cried Tim again, as he took off his hat, put it on, and walked about the shop in his excitement. “I’ve been to Mr Pellet’s, sir, and he won’t tell me a word, so I’ve come to you.”

“Well, you see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, slowly, as if he sold his speech by the yard like shoe-string, after puffing and gasping three or four times like a fat old tench,—“you see—”

“Don’t say a word, Joseph—don’t commit yourself,” exclaimed Mrs Purkis, coming forth in a great hurry from the back regions, and busily rolling her arms up in her apron as she came, perhaps to hide their red and chappy state—perhaps from modesty or for comfort.

Mr Purkis looked at his wife, and then again at restless Tim, gave a gasp or two, puffed out his cheeks beadle-wise, and then opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came.

“Don’t say a word—don’t say anything about it!” exclaimed Mrs Purkis again in a great state of excitement, but unrolling one arm to place it through her husband’s, as if for protection, as she looked defiantly at Tim. “You know what the pleece said to the boy when he took him up for stealing the list-slippers. What you say now ’ll be used in evidence agen you! You’re mixed up enough with it as it is.”

“Oh! please don’t stop him,” cried Tim Ruggles, in agony, as he wrung his hands and looked imploringly from one to the other. “What does it mean?”

“Well you see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, after another tenchy gasp.

“Now, Joseph, don’t,” cried Mrs Purkis.

“Hold your tongue, woman,” cried Mr Purkis, majestically—the beadle asserting itself over the husband.

“Don’t stop him; pray don’t stop him, Mrs Purkis, ma’am,” cried Tim. “What, does it mean? Mrs Pellet began to tell me, when Mr Pellet stopped her; and now Mr Purkis begins to tell me, and you stop him.”

Mrs Purkis shook her head fiercely, so that something, probably curl papers—for she was strong in crackers—rattled.

“Please tell me,” implored Tim. “It’s about that robbery at the church; and Mrs Pellet says that you, sir, saw Mrs Ruggles at the boxes, and then Mr Pellet wouldn’t let her say another word.”

“And so I did see her,” gasped Mr Purkis, rattling his halfpence as he spoke; “kiss the book and take my Bible oath I did—”

“Now, Joseph—now, Joseph,” cried Mrs Purkis, interrupting him; “don’t say another word, or you’ll never forgive yourself.”

“Hold your tongue, woman!” cried Mr Purkis again, more importantly, but without looking down at her, or taking his hands from where he had deeply thrust them—into his pockets.

“Don’t speak to me in that rough way before people, Joseph!” cried Mrs Purkis, indignantly, and she gave the arm to which she clung a sharp shake.

“Be quiet, then,” said Mr Purkis, importantly, and then he gave two or three more puffs out to his cheeks. “You see, Mr Ruggles,” he continued, “I’ve a great feeling of esteem for Mr Pellet, who is a fine musician, and not a better in London. It was through him, sir, that Mrs Ruggles got that there appointment of pew-opener, for if it hadn’t been for Mr Pellet, sir, I shouldn’t have stirred in the matter.”

“O Joseph!” whimpered Mrs Purkis, “I thought you would. You’re a committing yourself, and laying yourself open.”

“Be quiet, woman!” roared Purkis, looking his beadlest.

There was only Joseph Purkis of the boot and shoe emporium, in his black linen apron and shirt-sleeves, list-slippers, and, like a chain of office, a few slips of measuring paper over his shoulders, while he certainly had not been shaved for two or three days, and was consequently very stubbly; yet you could see a cocked-hat with broad gold lace in the pose of his large hair-streaked head; there was the broad red velvet and gold cape spreading over his shoulders, and his ponderous gilt mace of office seemed to recline in the hollow of his arm as he spoke. There was a majestic look about the man which told of habitual command, and he showed it in the way in which he crushed his wife with a side look.

“Mr Ruggles, you see, I felt hurt to see Mr Pellet in trouble, and losing his organist-ship on account of that poor-box being robbed, for I knew as he was going, being p’raps the only man as did; and it troubled me, sir, dreadful, being plundered again and again; and more than once I was that uncomfortable about it that I could have sent in my uniform to Mr Timson, sir, which would have shown as I meant to resign; only I knew as my enemy the greengrocer would have took the post, and worn that hat in triumph—too big for him though it was—sizes—and padded with brown paper. So I wouldn’t send it in, sir, though an independent man, and able to live on my business.”

“O Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!” whimpered his wife, “this’ll all be used in evidence; and you don’t know as the income-tax people ain’t listening, and you never paid a penny yet.”

“Hush-sh-sh!” ejaculated Mr Purkis, as if he were in the loft amongst the whispering boys of Gunnis’ gift of charity, and removing one hand from his pocket, he seized a lady’s slipper, and slapped the counter with the sole; while poor Tim Ruggles stood wringing his hands, and looking appealingly from one to the other.

“You see, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, waving the shoe, “having the cleaning and polishing of those poor-boxes, I felt as if I was answerable for them, and as if it was me as ought to know where the money went. They weren’t my tills, sir, but they was in my church; and the people as that there money was for was my poor people, as I’ve presided over in the giving of scores of doles at the vestry—people as respex me, sir; and, after a deal of consideration, I says to myself, I says—It’s some one as goes to the church on week days, and it’s either me—”

“O Joseph, Joseph!” cried Mrs Purkis, beginning to sob.

“Why can’t you be quiet, and let a man speak?” exclaimed Mr Purkis, in injured tones.

“But—but—you’ll be getting yourself into trouble about it,” sobbed Mrs Purkis. “Please don’t let him say no more, Mr Ruggles.”

“Women is so soft, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, benevolently.

“Not always, sir—not always,” said Tim, standing first upon one leg, then upon the other, and rubbing the nap off his shabby hat till there was quite a bald place. “Not always, sir; I’ve known them as was very hard.”

“So have I, sir,” said Mr Purkis, importantly, as a county magistrate pronouncing a sentence,—“so have I, sir; and I says to myself—Joseph Purkis, you’ve been parish officer at St Runnle’s a many years now, and with that there stain about the church, your uniform is a getting tarnished, and your sooperiors will look down upon you till you clear it away. Them boxes are in your charge, and therefore you owe a dooty to yourself to set all right. He didn’t look at you at all last Sunday, the vicar didn’t; and how do you know but what he suspects you, same as he may any innercent person? He may even now think as you have a hand in it, and be writing out your resignation for you. And really, Joseph Purkis, I says, it looks as if it were either you—”

“O Joseph—Joseph!” sobbed Mrs Purkis.

“Be quiet, woman, can’t you?” shouted Purkis. “Either you,” he continued, slapping the counter with the shoe, “or some one else familiar with the place.”

“Oh!” gasped Mrs Purkis.

“Now, just you go in there, and shut that door after you, Mrs Purkis, if you please,” said the beadle, more importantly than ever; and, taking his other hand from his pocket, he opened the parlour door as if it had been a pew, and made way with a flourish of the shoe for his wife to enter; while that lady, whose society had now become too demonstrative to be pleasant, raised her hands appealingly to the Wellingtons hung around the shop, as if to ask them to bear witness that it was in spite of her advice Mr Purkis persisted in committing himself. But the next minute she was invisible, on account of the dingy muslin blind over the half glass-door, and Mr Purkis walked back Astur-like in his stately stride.

“So, Mr Ruggles,” he said, “speaking as a man to a man, I felt it to be my dooty, for the benefit of all parties concerned, to watch, sir; and I did watch, sir, night after night, sir, day after day, sir; and where do you think I was, sir? Why, high up, sir, in the pulpit, with the door jest ajar, and a few cushions, to make the place a bit easy. Ah! sir, I’ve seen Mr Jared Pellet and Ichabod Gunnis come, sir, and go; and often, when that dog of a boy has come by himself a waiting for the organist, I’ve been at my wits’ ends, sir, to see that there young dog a sliding down the bannisters of the gallery, or a swinging on the pew-doors, and my fingers have itched to that degree, sir, to get hold of my cane, that I ain’t been hardly able to bear it. It’s been orful, sir, sometimes—orful to see the wicked young villin! What do you think of a boy getting into the reading-desk, and beginning, ‘Dearly beloved brethren,’ and then going down to the clerk’s desk and singing ‘Amen,’ just like our old man? Why, sir, one night I felt a’most ready to bust with indignation when he came down first, with Mr Pellet stopping up in the loft to think, I s’pose. What do you think the young dog did, sir? Why, he took the kiver off the font, sir, and then if he didn’t go and commit sacrilege, and defame and disgrace the beautiful old stone thing by climbing up and standing upon his head, sir, in the font, and kicking his heels together, and playing up the what’s-his-name’s delight.

“Ah! he’s a bad un, that boy. What do you think he did another night, sir? Put me in a cold prespiration he did, and then made me rise up with that big pulpit-cushion in my two hands. I should have heaved it and knocked him over like a skittle; only I knew it would not only upset him but all my plans as well; so I sat down again and filled my mouth full of pocket-handkerchief to stop back the indignation, for my pot was hot with thorns. What was he a doing of, sir? Why, I’ll tell you. A dog! he’d got both his shoes off, and one in each hand, a walking all over the church backards and forrards and ziggery-zaggery, balancing hisself like a monkey the while. Not very wrong that you’ll think, Mr Ruggles; but he was doing of it all on the narrow tops of the pews; and hang me, sir, if he didn’t try to jump across the middle aisle, only he came down flop on his back, and got up whimpering, and limped out of the church as hard as he could go. Then, I’ve seen Mr—what, sir?”

“Pray put me out of my misery,” implored poor Tim.

“I’m a coming to it fast, sir,” said Purkis. “I’ve seen Mr Pellet come down and stop by the poor-box on the side where the door was open, and sigh bitterly, and go away again; and though I’ve watched a deal that way, I couldn’t see nothing wrong out of the pulpit; so, to the utter neglect of Purkis’s boot and shoe emporium, and to the constant annoyance of Mrs Purkis, which said it was no business of mine, I kep’ on the watching, for I never give way, sir, in anything—not a peg. Why, sir, I’m a lion to that woman, sir; and as long as I’m a lion, why she’s a lamb; but if I was to stop being a lion, sir, it’s my belief she’d grow into a fierce tiger-cat, sir, and I should only be a mouse. Never give way to a woman, sir; they’re made on purpose to be ruled; and if you don’t rule ’em, sir, why, they’ll know as there’s something wrong, and they’ll rule you.

“Well, sir, I took to t’other side then, and used to sit in the reading-desk; and there I never saw anything but aggravation. Young Ichabod playing pitch-and-nickem with buttons and nickers in the middle aisle, or turning summersets over the hassocks; and once, I declare solemnly, I could hardly bear it, for if he didn’t get my mace, sir, and begin by walking up and down, and making believe it was me; then he must get to balancing it on his chin till he let it go agen one of the lamp glasses and cracked it, and I’ll crack him for it now the thing’s found out, with the very cane too as he took and stole out of mischief. But the worst of all was when he took and put that there staff across a couple of the free-seats, and began taking races and jumps over it, just as if he was in a playground instead of the Holy Catholic Church. Why, sir, it was enough to make the stone images on the monnyments tumble on him and crush him into the pavement—a bad dog!

“Then I tried the galleries; but I found out nothing there; and at last I took to the churchwarden’s pew, for I was determined to keep it up; though I must own, sir, as a man as always speaks the truth—for the truth may be blamed but can never be shamed—and as one who may soon be on his oath, but who respex you, and is sorry for you, Mr Ruggles—that I should have found it out sooner if it hadn’t been for the church being that bitter of a night that I was obliged to take a drop of something to keep the cold out of me for fear it might affect me so as to make me sneeze just at the most partickler time.”

“Please, sir, do—oh! do go on,” cried Tim, imploringly.

“Yes, yes! I’m going on,” said Purkis, solemnly. “So, sir, more than once I’m afraid I went to sleep in the big pew, same as I did on the night when I woke up and felt horribly frightened at hearing a something rattling about in the middle of the church; and for a time, sir, waking up fresh out of a long dream where I’d been heading a procession of thieves and poor-boxes, and policemen on the way to the Clerkenwell Police Court, I thought it had been something of what my old Scotch friend Sergeant Pike used to call ‘no canny.’ But there, sir, I soon shook that off, and rising very gently, I peeped over the edge of the pew, and I could just make out some one going along the middle aisle, and I knew the step as well as could be, besides a crackling staybone-and-busky noise as the figure made every time it stooped, while it never turned to the right or left without going altogether as if the neck was stiff.”

“Then it was a figure?” said Tim, wringing his hands.

“Oh yes, sir, it was a figure,” said Purkis, waving the slipper more and more; “a stiff figure, as went softly to first one and then the other poor-box; and I heard a key go and money chink after the figure had been well round the church. It sounded just like Mrs Purkis emptying out the till on Saturday nights.”

“But pray—” exclaimed Tim.

“Don’t interrupt, sir! Hush!” exclaimed Purkis pompously, as if he were frowning down a pack of boys, and making the chattering young dogs shake in their leather breeches; while gazing mournfully at him, as if he knew all now, Tim Ruggles, with his face full of wrinkles, waited to hear more.

“I knew the step, sir,” said Purkis, “and I could see the figure turn all round at once, sir, without moving its head; and then, in my lair, I watched and watched with my heart beating fierce, for I knew that the time was come for me to vindicate innocence, and to—to—er—er—wait Mr Ruggles, sir. And I did wait, Mr Ruggles, sir, till I heard the church-door shut softly, when all was so still that I couldn’t help thinking it might be fancy.”

“And it was fancy, Mr Purkis, wasn’t it?” exclaimed Tim, eagerly.

“No, sir, it warn’t fancy,” said Purkis, austerely, as he waved Tim back with the slipper. It was all true as true; and I slapped my knees and rubbed my hands, and then I looked up towards the old organ and nodded at it; for I thought of the vally of what I’d found out, sir, to a good man, and no end of a family of children. And then, when I thought I’d waited long enough not to be seen, I went and knocked up Mr Timson, our churchwarden; fetched him out of bed, for it was one o’clock and past; and when he got down to me in his dressing-gown, he began a bullying me like anything; for he thought, you know, I’d come boxing with my Christmas-piece.

“But, ‘gently, sir,’ I says; ‘don’t be rash—don’t be hasty.’ ‘Hasty!’ he says: ‘I’ll report you to Mr Grey. Get out, sir, you’re drunk: I can smell rum here.’ ‘And a good thing, too,’ I says, ‘for keeping cold out when you’re watching poor-boxes at night in a empty church?’ ‘What?’ he says, ‘what did you say, Purkis?’ he says. For answer, sir, I laid a finger solemn-like against one side of my nose, and looks at him out of the corners of my eyes. ‘Purkis,’ he says, ‘Purkis: you don’t mean as you have found it out?’ ‘But I do, sir,’ I says; and then I told him all, and he begged my pardon; and then, if he didn’t go into fits of delight, hopping about ‘I always said as it wasn’t Pellet,’ he kept on saying. Then he danced round the room, with his little bare legs popping out of the bottom of his dressing-gown, and he slapped me on the back over and over again. ‘Poor old Pellet!’ he says; ‘I’m glad: out and out glad!’ Then he called me a trump, which, though it was well meant, didn’t sound respectful to a man in my position in life, and beadle of St Runnle’s for all the years as I’ve been.

“But I didn’t show no temper, sir, for he meant well, as I said before; and he gets out something in an ugly little bottle, as he poured into two of the wretchedest little glasses you ever see; but when you come to taste it, my! it was just like what he called it; ‘gold water,’ he said it was, and he chuckled and danced as he poured it out. ’Pon my word, sir, it was like swallowing melted sovereigns.”

Tim groaned, but remained patient and motionless.

“Then, sir,” continued Purkis, “I went away a happy man, promising that I’d be with him next morning—no, it wasn’t, though, it was the same morning—to run down with him to see the vicar, as was in the country.

“‘Do you mean to report me, sir?’ I says. ‘Don’t be a fool, Purkis,’ he says. ‘I want you to tell him with your own lips.’”

“Tell him what, sir?—tell him what?” said Tim, piteously.

“That I’d seen—”

“Stop—stop!” exclaimed Tim, imploringly, as if, now that it had come to the point, and he was about to have that which he already knew corroborated, he could not bear it. “I don’t think I can quite take it yet; but there!—yes—please go on.”

“That I’d seen her, sir, as I could swear to, go to the poor-boxes one after another, and take something out, just like Mrs Purkis emptying the till, and then steal off, sir, so still that you could hardly hear her, only for the clicking of the key in the lock, and then she was gone.”

“She was—she was gone?” faltered Tim.

“Yes, sir; she was. Dark as it was, I could make out all I have said; and then it puzzled me that we should never have settled it upon her before, when we found the money missing. But, you see, she was always so prim, and clean, and neat, and respectable.”

“Always, Mr Purkis, sir,” said Tim; “always.”

“And no one never would have thought it of her,” said Purkis.

“No, sir; no one,” responded Tim, and then, sinking his voice to a whisper, he looked anxiously round the shop, dropping his hat, and then starting as he caught Purkis by one of his buttons—“Who was it, sir?—who was it?” he said, in a voice hardly above his breath.

“Why, you don’t want me to tell you, I’m sure, sir?” said Purkis, stoutly.

“Oh yes, I do!—oh yes, I do!” groaned Tim.

“Then,” said the beadle, “I’ll tell you!” When there came the words “O Joseph!” plainly heard from the inner room, pointing to the fact that Mrs Purkis had been listening the whole time. But her lord heeded not the soft appeal, but, leaning forward, he placed a hand upon Tim’s shoulder, his lips close to his ear, and whispered the words.

With a cry, the little tailor caught up his hat and dashed out of the shop, then, after silencing the irritated bell, Mr Purkis gave one of his customer-seeking looks up and down the street, but it was only to see poor Tim Ruggles disappear round the corner.

“I knowed you’d commit yourself, Joseph,” whimpered Mrs Purkis, standing at the inner door, and rolling her arms tightly in her apron.

“My dear,” said Mr Purkis pompously, “it was only my dooty!”

Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.

John Brown.

“It’s all against rule and regulation, and that sort of thing,” said the sergeant, as he and Harry Clayton were being jolted over the stones in a Hansom cab; “but ours is a particular case. The old gentleman’s there long before this, sir. He seemed to revive like magic as soon as ever I told him the news. He just hid his face for a few moments, and then said quite sharp, ‘Go and fetch Mr Clayton, and bring him after me,’ telling me, of course, where you were gone; and here I am, sir.”

“But it seems so strange,” said Clayton. “I can’t understand it.”

“Strange, sir! ’Pon my soul, sir, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, I’m quite ashamed of myself. Thought I was up to more than that. And yet, here’s all the wind taken out of my sails, and I’m nowhere.”

Harry nodded, for he wanted to think, but the sergeant rattled on—

“It’s always the way with your biggest puzzles, sir: the way to find them out is the simplest way—the way that’s so easy that you never even give it a thought if it occurs to you. Perhaps you remember that chap in the story, sir, as wanted to keep a certain dockyment out of the way of the foreign detectives—French police—over the water—secret police, I think they call themselves; not that there’s one of them who can hold a candle to our fellows. Spies, perhaps, would be the better name for them. Well, he knew that as soon as he was out, they’d search the place from top to bottom. Well, what does he do? Hide it in the most secret place he could think of? Not he; for places that he could think of as being the safest, perhaps they might think of too. He was too foxy, sir; and he just folds it up like a letter, sticks it in a dirty old envelope, and pops it into the card-rack over the chimney-piece,—plain, for all folk to see; and, as a matter of course, they never so much as look at it. That’s just been the case with the young squire here; he’s been stuck up in the card-rack over the chimney-piece, chock before my eyes, and I’ve been shutting ’em up close so as not to see him, when he’s been as good as asking me to look. There, sir! I haven’t patience with myself; and I’m going to ask to be put on the sooperannuation list, along with the pensioners as I call ’em. Mysterious disappearance! why, it wasn’t anything of the sort, sir. But here we are!”

The cab was checked as he spoke, and alighting before a great gloomy looking building, the sergeant led the way up a flight of stone steps, and into a hall, where a liveried porter saluted him with a nod.

“Here, bring us the book again, Tomkins,” said the sergeant; and the porter reached a large folio from a desk, and placed it before the sergeant upon a side-table.

“Here you are, sir,” said the sergeant, eagerly, as he turned back some leaves, till he came to one which bore the date of Lionel’s disappearance. “Now, look here!”

He pointed to an entry in the accident register; for they were in the entrance-hall of a large hospital.

“Look at that, sir,” said the sergeant again; “and tell me what you think of it.”

Harry Clayton bent over the book, and read—

“Brown, John, stableman, run over by a cab. Severe concussion of the brain.”

“Now, sir, what do you make of that?”

“Nothing at all,” said Clayton, blankly.

“No more did I, sir. I wasn’t looking after John Brown, a stableman; but Lionel Redgrave, Esq. But that wasn’t all. I’ve seen this case—I’ve been to the bedside, and then I didn’t think anything of it. I was so clever.”

“But does that relate to him?”

“To be sure it does, sir. I tell you it’s easy enough, now one can see through it; but I couldn’t put that and that together before. Name never struck me a bit, when it ought to have been the very key to it all. He was knocked down, and run over by a cab, when out on his larks. Got his hair cut short, and his mustacher shaved off. There’s his clothes too, up-stairs—reg’lar stableman’s suit—masquerading things—such togs for a gent like him to wear! Poor chap, it was a bad case, though, for he was nearly killed. Well, of course, they brought him here, and asked him his name, when, just being able to speak, he says the very last thing that was in his poor head, before the sense was knocked out of it, and all its works were brought to a stand still. ‘What’s your name?’ they says; and as I said before, he answers the very last thing as was in his head before he was stopped short, and that was the name of the place he had been to—Brownjohn Street; and, saying it, no doubt, very feebly, they didn’t hear any more than the Brownjohn, so they put him down as Brown, and his Christian name after it, as is their custom, John—Brown, John; and here he’s lain insensible to this day. But come on up, sir.”

Following an attendant, Harry and the sergeant were ushered into a long, whitewashed ward, where, on either side, in their iron bedsteads, lay sufferers from the many accidents constantly occurring in the London streets. Here was a man who had fallen from a scaffold; there one who had had his arm crushed by machinery, and, all around, suffering enough to affect the stoutest heart. The sergeant, though, had no eye for these, and swiftly leading the way down the centre, he conducted Harry to where, weak, pale, and helpless, on his bed of suffering, lay Lionel Redgrave,—his hair shaven from his temples, and the large surgical bandages about his head adding greatly to the cadaverous expression of his countenance.

There was not the slightest doubt of his having suffered severely—it was written too plainly on his face; but he seemed now to be perfectly sensible, and as Clayton approached, he tried feebly to hold out his hand, whispering as he did so, the one word—

“Harry!”

Sir Francis sat holding the other hand, anxiously watching his son’s face, and hardly reassured by the house-surgeon’s declaration that, with anything like care, the young man was now out of danger.

“Don’t speak to him, Clayton,” said Sir Francis. “Don’t talk, my dear boy. Pray remember your condition.”

“All right,” was the reply, but in very feeble tones. “Seems as if I had been to sleep, and only just woke up. Confounded Hansom!—over me in a moment—Martin’s Lane—remember no more.”

“Yes, yes, we know all,” said Sir Francis; “but for my sake now be silent.”

“I must put in a word, too,” said the house-surgeon, approaching. “I think he has borne as much as will be beneficial for one day. I must ask you to leave now. To-morrow he will be better able to bear a visit.”

“Another ten minutes,” pleaded Sir Francis. “Not one instant more. We will not talk.”

The surgeon bowed his head, when Harry, after warmly pressing the young man’s hand—for he somehow felt thoroughly at ease within his own breast—retired with the surgeon and the detective to another part of the ward.

“Curious case this, sir, eh?” said the sergeant.

“Well, yes,” said the surgeon. “But what a strange whim! We had not the most remote idea but that he was some young groom out of place. I judged the latter from the whiteness of his hands, and I must really do our young friend the credit of saying that he thoroughly looked his part.”

“I believe you, sir,” said the sergeant, “for I was took in,—as reg’lar as I was ever took in before. But they will do this sort of thing, these young gents, with nothing else upon their hands. I don’t wonder at it. Must be a miserable life!”