John C. Hutcheson (continued 6)

“For men must work! and women must weep! And the sooner ’tis over, the sooner to sleep!”

The weary weeks glided by slowly after Tom’s departure, and Lizzie’s little world was changed. But greater changes were coming soon, if not to her spiritual, at least to her temporal state.

Lizzie had been made aware, of course, long since, of her brother’s engagement with Laura Inskip; but she had been so much taken up with her own troubles that she had not had spirit enough to enter into Herbert’s “little roman” with all the good-natured enthusiasm of which her bursting: little heart was capable. Events had rolled on so rapidly that she became confused between them all, and the engagement with Laura was not looked upon with that surprise and interest with which any enterprise or suit of her brother’s was usually regarded.

But time went on, and Lizzie could not but interest herself now in the progress of change around her. She had liked the languid Laura in her way; but she was not the sort of girl—being a very energetic and hopeful little sister—that she would have selected for her brother’s mate. She would have had a little goddess or empress for Herbert; still as Herbert had chosen for himself, she made up her mind to love her expected sister-in-law with all her heart.

With these thoughts, Lizzie made many advances to the Inskips, but the old campaigner was very disagreeable to her, and treated her as a nonentity; and Laura was too lazy to share her future sister’s enthusiasm, so Lizzie’s feelings were damped. Carry, she thought very “nice,” but she was too noisy and gushing for Lizzie, just so heavily bereaved; consequently the little maiden was forced to withdraw herself within herself, and think of the future and Tom, and build very unstable castles in the air.

And so the autumn passed by, and winter was nigh, and the change changed still.

Herbert Pringle was to be married early in the new year. It was to be quite a grand affair, and from the hints dropped, Bigton and Hartwood village were all agog with the news and their anticipations, for you may be sure the campaigner was not one to hide her light under a bushel.

But Lizzie felt alone! Poor Andromeda. Perseus had gone! not in a classic trireme! but by one of the P. and O. steamers.

Volume Three—Chapter Five.

Before the Juge de Paix.

Following the Chef, on her arrival at the office, Miss Kingscott found Monsieur le Juge de Paix to be an oldish man, with sharp striking features, his nose having an unfair advantage over the others; and his skin, tightly drawn over the face, was of that saffron hue which adapts itself to the complexion of most Frenchmen, and Messieurs les Espagnols as well, after they have entered their eighth lustrum. He was seated in his official chamber, surrounded with all the majesty of the law, as suited his elevated position. A clerk occupied a lower desk in the same room, and the majestic demeanour of his superior seemed reflected, although in an inferior degree, on him.

Dèchemal and Auguste, the Chefs aides, were both there. So also was the Mère Cliquelle and her husband, appearing terribly frightened, and imagining that they were going to be guillotined at the least. A bust of Napoleon the Third looked down from a niche in the wall, facing the judge, sternly on all, giving an air of dignity to the whole proceedings. The judge was taking notes, his clerk following suit; the mouchards contemplating the impassable physiognomy of the “Man of Destiny;” the Mère Cliquelle and her small better-half awaiting their turn for examination in the background. There was no crowd, no troops of friends and spectators and idlers, such as you would see in a disorderly English court-room; no, they manage these things very differently in France. There were only those persons present who were absolutely necessary for conducting the enquiry; all was silent and quiet, although the machinery of the law Gallic was in rapid motion.

The wheels of justice run in greased grooves on the other side of the Channel.

The arrival of the Chef and his important witness, Miss Kingscott, accelerated movements.

The governess deposed, on oath, as follows:—That on the previous day she had crossed over from Southampton, Angleterre, to Havre, par la vapeur; her object was to see a certain Monsieur Anglais, by name Allynne Markworth (the judge had some difficulty in arriving at the exact etymology of the name, being inclined more than persistently to call it “Makervorts;” so Miss Kingscott had to spell it succinctly, and afterwards write it down for the correct information of the clerk). This gentleman lived, when at Havre, at the house Numéro 7, Rue Montmartre; he had lived there for the last three months, she believed, with his wife—that is a lady whom he had married in England, after abducting her from her home; it was not yet settled whether she was legally his wife or not—there was a law-suit, or procès civil, at present pending in England on the subject. She (Miss Kingscott) knew this lady—Markworth’s wife—very well; she had, indeed, been her gouvernante at her mother’s house for some months; she had reason to know her, she should think, and would not have any difficulty in recognising her. Her name was Susan Hartshorne. This Susan Hartshorne came from the département de Sussex, au sud de l’Angleterre; her mother was une veuve, and a large propriétaire; her address was The Poplars, Sussex, England (direction given by the judge, and note taken by clerk to forward information to said address); she (Miss Kingscott) had crossed in the boat, as she had said, yesterday, and arrived at Havre about mid-day. Perhaps it was before that time, she could not be certain, and, at all events, it did not matter. (Witness was here cautioned by the judge not to make any irrelevant observations. Nothing was too insignificant to be taken note of; the eye of justice was wide, and comprehended everything in its vision.) Markworth probably came over in the same boat with her.

“Did Mademoiselle see ce Monsieur là on board?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle did see him on board; it was at night, and dark; but she saw him come on the boat at Southampton, and she saw him leave it yesterday when they arrived at Havre; she had been watching him.”

“Did Mademoiselle accompany Monsieur?”

“No, certainly not; she had not spoken to him all the time they were on board; she did not think that he knew she was there.”

“It is very strange. I thought Mademoiselle came over especially to see this Monsieur Markworth? Mon Dieu! Here she was on board with him all the time on the boat, and she had not spoken to him! She did not think even that this monsieur knew she was there! It was very strange!”

“Yes, it might be strange; but she had her own reasons for acting as she did. She did not wish this Markworth to know that she was there, or to meet him until after he had landed and gone home; she had her reasons.”

“Mademoiselle then had Monsieur under surveillance?”

“Well, they might call it spying if they liked. She had watched this Markworth enter the house already pointed out in the Rue Montmartre. She had then herself gone to the Hotel du Côte d’Or, and secured an appartement. After this she had returned to the Rue Montmartre, and asked at the house of the Mère Cliquelle to see M. Markworth. She had been refused admittance, although she knew he was chez lui. In carrying out her purpose of watching his movements, she had gone over to a café on the opposite side of the street, from the upper room of which she was able to observe the house at Numéro Sept. She watched there until late in the afternoon—evening it was, for it was after seven—nearly eight o’clock she thought. At that time she then saw Markworth come out of the house along with his wife—the girl Susan Hartshorne, to whom she had before referred.”

“Can you swear it was her?”

“Je le jure” responded Miss Kingscott, and then went on with her deposition. She went out from her place of observation quickly after them. They went in the direction of Ingouville, up the heights; Markworth walking by the side of his wife, or reputed wife, and she, Miss Kingscott some little distance behind them. She did not speak to them, and did not think that they knew of her propinquity. She let them get on some distance ahead of her, although she still followed and kept them in sight. When they got on the heights they stopped walking, and she hid herself behind a projecting wall. She feared some mischief, and watched to see what Markworth was going to do. Presently she heard his voice raised as if in anger, and then the voice of the girl Susan as if in supplication. She then heard a scream from the unfortunate girl. She, Miss Kingscott, rushed forward to help her. She was too late. Hélas! She saw this Markworth, this villain, throw the girl over the precipice.

“You saw him throw her over?”

“Yes, I swear it. I then tried to stop the murderer, but he escaped from my hands, knocked me senseless with a blow—here is the cut on my forehead now—and he got off, heaven only knows where. I had cried, ‘à voleur’ and ‘assassinat’ as loud as I could before I became insensible, but no one came to my help. When I recovered my consciousness I walked feebly down the path, and meeting a sergent de ville, told him all about the murder, but he arrested me, thinking, he says, I was drunk, and I was locked up in a cell till this evening, when the Chef released me, apologising for the mistake of his subordinate. I have only to add,” observed Miss Kingscott, after she had finished answering the questions put to her, “that had it not been for this mistake on the part of your boasted sergents de ville, which could only have arisen from sheer stupidity, the murderer might never have got off.”

“C’est possible!” said the judge, making a note against the name of the unfortunate guardian of the peace who had arrested the governess. “But Mademoiselle will recollect that according to her statement it was several hours after the escape of her assailant that she was thus arrêtée. Call the next witnesses!”

And the interrogatory went on.

The Mère Cliquelle and her husband, “son petit bon homme,” as she called him, were then examined to the same purport as already detailed by the Chef to Miss Kingscott, Dèchemal corroborating what had been previously told him, and certifying to their arrest by him, and importation before the Juge de Paix.

Auguste, the other of the Chefs inquisitors, had little to tell. He had searched the cabarets and hotels, and enquired at the office of the Steamboat Company, and along the quays. No Englishman, or any one else resembling Markworth’s description had been seen or heard of since yesterday evening, or had taken passage for England.

This was all the evidence that could be obtained, and on it Monsieur le Juge de Paix framed the acte d’accusation, by which the charge of wilful murder was established against Markworth, and a warrant issued for his arrest.

The police, therefore, acting under the orders of the Chef, were on the alert.

Directions were also given to the fishermen and sailors about the quays to look out for a body in the river: the Seine was then dragged with better effect, for the very next day the surmises of the Judge and the Chef were set at rest.

The body of a fair woman, with light brown hair and about twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, was discovered floating beneath the battlements of the centre quay. The features were nearly indistinguishable from the action of the water or the attacks of crustacea, but the remains of a crimson merino dress still clung around the body, which Miss Kingscott immediately recognised and identified as that of Susan Hartshorne. The Mère Cliquelle and her husband were also certain that the remains were those of the poor English lady, although neither were positive about the dress. Madame Cliquelle said that she had never observed any particular colour in the dress of Madame (Miss Kingscott had testified in her deposition that Susan Hartshorne always wore robes of bright hue, different, as a rule, from anyone else), but she might have worn this particular dress and gone out in it that evening without her having noticed it. Hélas! however, what need had they to be particular about a worthless dress when they had the body of the poor Madame before them! The Mère Cliquelle wept over the lifeless shell of humanity; and even her little husband shed tears as he recounted how he and la pauvre belle ange Anglaise used to “spik Inglese togeders.”

The afternoon of the same day, too, a fisherman from Honfleur communicated with the police, and gave evidence that about ten o’clock on the night of the murder he had conveyed an Englishman, answering in every respect to the description of Markworth, across from Havre to his own village: he had been out to sea and along the coast since then, and had consequently not heard of the inquiry before.

There was no doubt of this being Markworth, as the fisherman described him to a hair with two or three telling word-strokes. The landlord of the Auberge, also, where he had stopped at Honfleur, produced a torn envelope which had been carelessly dropped by his guest. It was addressed “Allynne Markworth, Esqr.;” that settled the question.

Two clear days, however, had passed; and although the object of their search was traced to Paris, all further clue of his track was lost, and where he had gone remained an unsolved problem.

The French police, with all their acuteness and finesse, in the exercise of which they are far ahead of our blundering English detectives (and those vile, social-inquisitorial dens of humbug and area-sneakishness called “Private Inquiry Offices,” too) were at fault, and the game had to be given up. From some papers found amongst the things he had left behind him at the Rue Montmartre, it was surmised that Markworth had gone to America; a photograph of himself was also discovered, which he had had taken with one of his wife—it may be remembered that Markworth had shown a carte de visite of Susan to Mr Trump, when he had gone to the lawyers to tell of his marriage, and claim the reward for the missing girl. These photographs were carefully preserved by the police, and copies of Markworth’s likeness despatched to various points to secure his arrest in case he put foot on French ground.

Nothing more could be done, however, by the Juge de Paix or the Chef. The machinery of justice had been set in motion; and although its wheels were greased it had to stop working; its bût was non-apparent.

The depositions and evidence of the witnesses, who were now released from surveillance, were preserved until the occasion should arise for their utility.

Miss Kingscott was a potent pursuer, but the prey had escaped her again: she had still to wait for vengeance.

In the meantime the body of the girl was kept for burial until word should be received from England,

The chief of the police had communicated with the mother of Markworth’s victim, having written to the veuve Hartshorne, according to the address given by Miss Kingscott; the latter personage had also sent her version of the affair to the widow lady’s lawyers, and both were now awaiting response.

Volume Three—Chapter Six.

The Dowager Aroused—the Dowager Struck Down!

Dead!

“What? Susan dead!” She could not believe it; she wouldn’t, and that was a fact. “Stuff and nonsense! don’t tell me,” she exclaimed; “I won’t believe it.”

“But, my dear madam,” interposed Mr Trump, who had come down especially to The Poplars, for the purpose of breaking the news, and considering what was to be done on receiving Miss Kingscott’s letter. “But, my dear madam, I have received the most satisfactory intelligence about the unfortunate event, and we must do something.”

“Nonsense! don’t tell me! Susan dead, indeed! What should make her die? She is a hale, strong girl, much stronger than I am, and I am not going to die yet. It’s all some lying nonsense or other; that woman, the governess, who wrote to you, is capable of anything, after what you told me of her helping that villain to go away—and she as meek as a mouse all the time as if butter would not melt in her mouth! Stuff and nonsense! It’s all a lie from beginning to end.” But the old dowager did not speak with her customary absolute quality of expression. There was a lingering dread in her voice as if she wanted to be assured of the truth of what she herself had declared, and as if she feared the worst to be confirmed.

Mr Trump, from his previous knowledge of the family, did not think that Mrs Hartshorne would grieve very much about her daughter, and so he did not mince matters. He took out Miss Kingscott’s letter, and showed it her.

The old lady grasped it with trembling hands, and read it from first to last in silence, although her fingers shook, and the paper rustled in her clutch.

“I can’t read it,” she said, after a long pause, in a faint voice, without its usual querulous intonation. “My eyes are weak; they are not so strong as they were. The light to-day is very bad. That handwriting is so small, I cannot make it out. Here, take the worthless thing and read it out to me yourself. I cannot make head or tail of it.”

Mr Trump resumed possession of the document; his sight was not deficient, nor the light too bad for him, or the calligraphy beyond his comprehension. He read as follows, in his loud, clear voice:—

“Havre.

“Mr Trump,—

“Sir,—You will remember our conversation some days since with reference to the abduction of Susan Hartshorne by Markworth, and the desire I expressed to avow my share in the conspiracy? I have something now far more dreadful to communicate; the poor girl Susan has been murdered by that villain, Markworth! Finding, I suppose, all his hopes of gaining the girl’s fortune fruitless, after his explanation with you, he returned to Havre the same evening. For reasons of my own, I followed him over from England. The very same evening he returned here he took out the girl for a walk, and this ended in his throwing her over a precipice and murdering her—I suppose, in order to get rid of her, as he could not secure the money. How I came to be present will be explained in the accompanying attested copies of my deposition, and that of the other witnesses taken before the Juge de Paix, or principal magistrate of this town. The body of the poor girl was found this afternoon, floating in the river Seine, close to the scene of the brutal murder. I have seen it, and there is no doubt of its being Susan Hartshorne, but the authorities need some further identification by some member of the unfortunate victim’s family (or by some person authorised by them) before it is buried, or any further proceedings taken. I entreat you, my dear sir, to come over here at once. The murderer has escaped, the police seem undetermined; and although I have done all I could to stir them up, still I am only a woman, and cannot have that influence over them which a man would possess. They say that Markworth has gone to America, but surely something ought to be done, so you had better come over here, if you have got any interest in the fate of the poor girl. I believe the chief of the police has written to Mrs Hartshorne, but whether she will be able to come I do not know, and I think she had better not. Pray come yourself at once, or else the murderer will escape, and his crime be unavenged; and, besides, there are many other things to be attended to, notwithstanding that I have done my best. Come at once, and see what is to be done; you can take the night boat, which leaves Southampton at midnight, after seeing Mrs Hartshorne on your way.

“Yours, in haste,

“Clara Kingscott.

“Messrs Trump, Sequence, and Co.,

“Bedford Row, London.”

The old lady never moved, or spoke once during the time which Mr Trump was occupied in reading the governess’s long letter and the legal documents that accompanied it, although if the lawyer had looked at her, instead of at the papers, which he was perusing, he would have observed a strange and wonderful change in her face.

“Is that all? Have you done?” she asked, in a deep, hollow voice, so unlike her own, that the lawyer started and looked at her inquiringly.

“That is all,” he answered.

The old dowager had received no intimation before of the startling news. The Chef had undoubtedly forwarded a communication to the veuve bereaved; but, addressed as it was au sud de l’Angleterre, it would take some weeks for it to reach The Poplars, if it ever got there.

Mr Trump waited in vain for some time for what the old lady would say, glancing over the depositions, which Clara Kingscott had had translated for his benefit.

At last the dowager spoke.

“Go! Go!” she screamed out in a shrill, unearthly voice. “Pursue him! The murderer! The villain! The swindling rogue!”

As Mr Trump looked at her in amazement her face became of a blue and livid colour.

“I—I will go too! Get my—” The blue colour had now turned to black, and the old lady seemed to draw herself up as she exclaimed in disjointed sentences. “Get my—Susan!—Husband!—Where am I!”

And with a still shriller shriek she fell forward on her face on the floor.

“Apoplexy, my dear sir,” as Mr Trump said afterwards in detailing the circumstance to a confrère. “Apoplexy, my dear sir! It often happens to people like her from a sudden shock!” But he was wrong, it was a more insidious if not so fatal a disease—it was paralysis, the fell enemy of muscularity.

The lawyer at once sent for a doctor; and “Garge,” the messenger despatched, went to Bigton for Doctor Jolly, as he was the only medical man recognised in the country round. But our old friend was not at home, he had not returned yet from his unusual absence abroad; and Dobbins, the whilom coal merchant, who was acting in his stead, shortly came to see the dowager. After a hasty inspection he saw what was the case, and telling Mr Trump that further assistance would be required, the lawyer telegraphed up to London for the great doctor, Stephanos Jenner, who arrived in the evening. This great authority confirmed the opinion of the lesser medical light. He said, after a preliminary “Ha! Hum!” that the treatment of the patient was everything that could be desired; and, accepting a fee of fifty guineas, which Mr Trump presented him by cheque, went off again to London after a few minutes’ consultation, leaving the dowager in the hands of Dobbins, who, to do him justice, knew what he was about; and of Mr Trump, who hardly knew what to do.

The lawyer was puzzled at the first; but his logical mind, keen to action, comprehended the situation, and prepared to act. He could not help moralising for a moment, however, on the vanity of human wishes, and the truthfulness of the proverb which tells us that “L’homme propose mais le bon Dieu dispose.” The dowager had not been “going to die yet;” she had been ready to do anything and everything, and derided the idea of death and sickness; but here she was struck down in all her strength, and lying stretched out there a senseless lump of humanity without either the power or even the will to do anything. Tali sunt solicitae vitae!

However, as she could not, he had to act. So, after a hasty whisper with Dobbins—it was now getting late in the December night—he determined to proceed to Havre alone. Somebody had to go, for much had to be done; so much does not fall on all lawyer’s shoulders as rested on Mr Trump’s then. The dowager was accordingly left in the hands of Dobbins—who said that Doctor Jolly would probably return the next day, when he would undoubtedly take charge—and of the old woman-servant, who had described herself as being as hard-worked as “a pore nigger slave,” but who now cheerfully attended to her mistress, with whom she had lived for some twenty years, having treated with indignation the suggestion of calling in a hired nurse. “Not if I knows it,” she said, vehemently, “these hands wot ’ave worked for her twenty year will nuss her now; I should like ter know who else has any right to displace I?” So Dobbins conceded the points, at all events until Aesculapius proper should return; and he and the old woman nursed the dowager between them, and got her to bed, while Mr Trump went off on his travels. There was quite a revolution and a dark shadow in the old house, while the leafless poplars which encircled it seemed like funeral plumes, and the old house itself a hearse, in the hazy light of the dull December night.

The lawyer’s journey was a comparatively easy one in comparison with that which our old friend the doctor had taken some time before.

He travelled rapidly to Southampton by the express, which he caught at Bigton—only occasional trains stopped at Hartwood—and was in plenty of time to despatch sundry telegraphic instructions to his clerks in London before embarking in the night boat for Havre. At midnight, instead of going to his warm bed in his comfortable suburban retreat, as he usually did at that hour, Mr Trump had to pull on his nightcap between the rolls of the waves, and ensconce himself in the narrow bunk that fell to his share of the cabin in the channel-crossing steam-packet. However, Mr Trump was a man of the world besides being a man of business, and knew how to accommodate himself to circumstances, and make matters as comfortable as he could under unforeseen data. So there is little doubt that he went to sleep at last, in spite of the narrowness of his lodging, and just as probably, he snored harmoniously to the accompaniment of the steamboat’s paddles.

The morning found him at Havre, prepared to set about his business as methodically as if he were only going down to his chambers in Bedford Row as usual, instead of being in a strange country.

He first went to the police office, and subsequently to the address given by Miss Kingscott. Mr Trump never trusted to individual evidence. With the governess and Monsieur le Chef, he proceeded to view the remains of what had been Susan Hartshorne, and identify them. The inspection was merely a work of detail, for the face was irrecognisable, even more so now than when it had been first taken out of the water. The lawyer, to the best of his belief, thought it to be Susan. And then the corpse was buried in the cemetery with a single headstone above the grave, on which the name “Susan,” alone was inscribed, and her age.

Mr Trump had already explained his position, and stated himself to be the representative of the deceased’s family to the chief of the police, who was most cordial and polite to him on learning that he was un avocat Anglais. The chef, to the lawyer’s astonishment, spoke English fluently, just as if he were a native, and told him he knew Bedford Row as well as the Palais Royal in Paris. From him also, Mr Trump learnt a more coherent, and less one-sided story than from Miss Kingscott, although her statements were confirmed. From the evidence of the one witness, the case was evidently strong against Markworth, both the chef and the lawyer determined; but then the one witness was, on her own testimony, and from Mr Trump’s previous knowledge, strongly antagonistic to Markworth; and his legal mind compassed the probabilities of something to be said on the other side. Markworth’s disappearance was the great thing against him, for the girl might have drowned herself, and the scene which Clara Kingscott described never have taken place at all. It is true her story was somewhat corroborated, and the doctors had said, on the examination of the dead girl’s body, that death might have ensued from a jagged wound in the head which probably had been caused by a fall; but they had only said this when they had been asked their opinion on these points, and Miss Kingscott’s revelations been told them.

Altogether, Mr Trump thought it better to let the French police pursue their own course in the matter, and not interfere with them by any proceedings of his own. He also gave up to their possession all the poor girl’s things which had been left behind at the Rue Montmartre; and he had a kindly word to say to the Mère Cliquelle and her husband for their kindness and treatment towards the ill-fated Susan.

Miss Kingscott was in a rage of mortification at the lawyer’s apparent apathy; but her words had no weight with him; he had conceived a species of aversion towards her ever since her disclosure to him that night in Bedford Row; and the avowal of her purpose since, to track Markworth to the death, had not increased his regard, although it heightened his judgment on her as a “woman with a purpose.”

After an absence of three days or more, Mr Trump returned to England. His hands drew up the advertisement of Susan’s death, which he caused to be inserted in the Times. The circumstances of the mystery had not got abroad, and he did not wish to court public enquiry as yet, so he worded the announcement very simply:

At Havre, on the 27th ultimo, from an accident, Susan, wife of Allynne Markworth, and only daughter of Roger Hartshorne, Esq., of The Poplars, Sussex.

The lawyer then went down to see how the old lady was getting on.

She was still speechless—thoughtless—lying as it were on the brink of eternity; and Doctor Jolly, who had now returned, and was attending her, did not yet know whether she would recover or not. The doctor and Mr Trump had a long conversation together, and mutual explanations. The lawyer was more than ever glad that he had taken no further proceedings about Susan’s death, although he wrote out to Tom Hartshorne, now among the heights of Abyssinia, telling him all about it.

Meanwhile, the old lady—struck down in her prime—was hovering on the edge of the grave, in her great, old solitary house at The Poplars. Her son had flown away, her daughter was among the departed, and she alone was left to struggle with the Mower’s scythe, alone—although she neither seemed to think nor feel—Doctor Jolly and strangers ministering to her. It is sad being alone—sadder being alone at the last! May you, reader, never feel it!

Volume Three—Chapter Seven.

Bigton Bewitched.

The quiet, little unpretending, out-of-the-way and not-of-much-account watering place of Bigton, was emphatically upside-down and out of its mind.

Bigton was, in a word, bewitched—good reason, too, if all things were taken into consideration. It is not every day, according to our Hibernian friends, that “Morris kills a pig.” Following out the analogy, it was not every day that Bigton had a wedding—a wedding, moreover, where the bride was the daughter of a lady, “in her own right;” and the happy man, if not “a lord of high degree,” a shining light in the church, and closely related to a high and eminent political personage, such as Sir Boanerges Todhunter.

Besides, the nuptial ceremony was to be celebrated by the right reverend prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chumpchopster, who was renowned far and wide as the most imposing of confirmists in the annual laying on of hands; and distinguished, not only as being one of the most ornate of orators, but for having published the well-known refutation of Judaism on the part of the pork-consuming portion of the population. A treatise which proclaimed his unswerving adherence to the time-honoured thirty-nine articles and undoubted hostility to the pre-adamite theologians. The fact that he would be there was quite enough to set Bigton in a whirligig of wonder and expectation, quite apart from the contingent circumstances attending the auspicious event.

The engagement between the present contracting parties had not been a very long one, the campaigner being in favour of early marriages, she said—having daughters to dispose of; but her probable reason was to get the irrevocable knot tied so that there might be no backing-out and no backsliding on the part of I promessi sposi.

Lady Inskip took all the arrangements in her own hands. Having brought Pringle to book, she decided upon the length of the engagement, fixed the wedding day, and then told the languid Laura and her expectant son-in-law all about it. They had nothing whatever to do with the affair at all; they were to be married, and that was sufficient for them. She considered the pair as children in her hands, who had only to do as they were told. Hers be it to act, and plan, and settle everything; theirs to acquiesce in what she planned, and be thankful for the considerate forethought of their mamma-of-action.

Pringle glided readily and easily into such an improved order of things; he accepted the gifts the gods gave him with admirable complacency. He consented to every arrangement that was made; indeed, it was well that the campaigner took matters in her own hands, for the young incumbent was of such an easy-going temperament, that even if he had gone to the length of popping the question to the languid Laura on his own behalf, it might have been years before he summoned up resolution enough to take the final plunge into matrimony. All things considered, therefore, it was better for the campaigner to act; and act she did, with promptitude and despatch.

The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., behaved, throughout, as a very decorous, about-to-be-married man, and expectant filial. Of course he paid a regular visit every day to the cottage on the esplanade to see his fiancée. He enjoyed her placid society, and went through all the formulas expected and required of him—even to the extent of going shopping for his presumptive mother-in-law, and selecting gaudy wools of many colours for mat manufacture, and purchasing garden seeds, besides attending to the redecoration and preparation of the parsonage for the reception of his bride, under the stern and uncompromising eye of the campaigner, who would have “this” done, and “that” altered, as she pleased: her word was already law to him.

The gloom that had fallen over the house of Hartshorne did not, in any way, affect the approaching marriage.

A rumour had got abroad that something was wrong at The Poplars, from the chattering of the villagers, but no real facts had leaked out; and everybody put down the old dowager’s attack of paralysis and subsequent long illness to the news of her daughter Susan’s sudden death, which they had read of in the necropolitan portion of the Times newspaper. Doctor Jolly, with the exception of such observations as, “Bless my soul! Sad pity! sad pity!” and “By Gad!” ’Twas a fearful “shock to the old woman!” kept a sealed tongue in his head; and the lawyer, who was the only other person that now had the entrée at The Poplars, was naturally and professionally reticent. At the parsonage, the calamities of the “big house” had, of course, created interest. Herbert Pringle thought, from his religious position, and Lizzie, from her sympathetic little heart, which naturally yearned towards anyone in affliction—particularly now, and when the object of her sympathy was the mother of her lover—both made attempts to minister at The Poplars, and both were unsuccessful.

The old lady was, for weeks, speechless; and so ill, as not to be able to bear the sight of a new face. Doctor Jolly would not hear of the young incumbent seeing her; she could not understand anything said to her, and, for the present—the doctor told him gravely—any religious question which she wanted settled must rest between herself and her God! The doctor thought that but little spiritual consolation could be imparted by a flippant young man, who only wore a cassock for temporal purposes: as the means of obtaining a living, to a woman old enough to be his mother, and who was already, even now, struggling, with the Infinite!

To Lizzie, however, the doctor spoke kindly. He recognised the spirit in which her sympathy was tendered; and he told her that as soon as the old lady got round a bit he would be glad of her services. When she recovered her consciousness, a brighter face around her than that of the old servant, who now attended her, would conduce to her recovery; and Lizzie, you may be sure, was very glad to hear this, and longed for the time when she could be of use to “Tom’s mother.”

Although the old dowager, therefore, lay sick unto death, the marriage preparations were not set aside. Pringle, indeed, had hinted to the campaigner that perhaps it would not be in good taste to celebrate the festival while the great proprietress of the county, his especial patroness, was in this state, but that intrepid lady had incontinently derided the notion, asking what was the dowager to them? following up the question with another and more potent one, as to whether he wished to postpone the marriage with her darling girl in a very aggrieved tone of voice. Upon this Pringle was hastily “shut up,” and had to pour out a hundred apologies of, “Really, Lady Inskip, not for the world!” and so on.

The end of the old year came, and the beginning of the new ushered in the wedding morn.

Many things had been achieved before this, however, as may have been expected, from the great preparations which had been going on ever since Pringle’s proposal, ex parte the campaigner, and the settlement of the engagement.

The parsonage had been newly decorated and painted throughout from top to basement; on the campaigner’s express stipulation, the drawing-room had been refurnished in a gorgeous suite of velvet and gold; and, although Lizzie’s special domain in the garden had not been interfered with, everything else about the young incumbent’s mansion had been altered and duly prepared for the coming event. At Laburnum Cottage, too, the occasion was not disregarded.

To do her the justice, the campaigner was not stingy in her present expenditure. Whether it was the joy of marrying off one of her marriageable daughters opened her purse-strings in the same extent as it gladdened her heart, or that it arose from a desire to shine amidst the thing, or that it was owing to a union of both sentiments, cannot be exactly decided: suffice it to say that the campaigner opened her purse with a lavish hand.

For many days large boxes had come down from various haberdashers—“dry goods establishments,” the Americans call them—and milliners in London; and every little shop in Bigton had been ransacked to the same intent by Lady Inskip and her daughters. The languid Laura was provided with such a gigantic trousseau that she would probably attain the rank of grandmother before she wore out one half the number of “dozens” provided, while a perfect corps of needlewomen was kept in constant employment, basting, fitting, hemming, stitching, cutting out, felling, “goring,” and trying on, for upwards of a fortnight or more.

The campaigner had an additional motive in thus providing for her eldest darling. You see, Lady Inskip had no dôt, as she elegantly phrased it, with which to endow her “poor, portionless darlings,” and the fact of giving them a handsome “rig-out,” as their brother Mortimer said, would perhaps blind the eyes of Caelebs in search of a wife. Be that as it may, however, the needlewomen worked apace, the trousseau was fully provided, and Monday night, the eve of the wedding day, Tuesday, the seventh of January, anno domini 1868, found everything ready for the auspicious event.

Lizzie was necessarily one of the bridesmaids—that highly necessary corps d’armée, without which no bride of any pretensions will allow herself to be conducted to Hymen’s sacrificial font. Carry, the bride’s sister, was another; and the places of the two additional ladies-in-waiting (for espousal themselves) were supplied by two distant cousins of the Inskips, who had already officiated in a similar capacity so many times that they had most probably made up their maiden minds that this was the only problematical manner in which they would ever officiate at a wedding. Some people seem doomed always to play second fiddle through life, and bridesmaids are no exceptions to the rule.

The campaigner had spared no pains, as she had grudged no expense. All her influence, whether important or slight, was brought to bear on the contingent circumstances of the affair.

By back-stairs beseeching she so worked round the maternal aunt of the Bishop of Chumpchopster, that the right reverend prelate was persuaded—inasmuch as he had temporal expectations from the said maternal aunt—to accompany her to Bigton, and officiate in the tying of the matrimonial noose between Herbert Pringle, of whom his lordship was pleased to take some considerable notice, and Laura. The prelate and his maternal aunt became the honoured guests of Lady Inskip for a day and a night in consequence; but how on earth they were stowed in Laburnum Cottage, and what accommodation was provided for them, remains to this day a puzzle.

“The blushing orb of day at length gilded the sky,” and “Phoebus” announced the wedding morn.

Enormous dressings of bride and bridesmaids. White and scarlet were the colours adopted, if you’ve a fancy for knowing them, although the campaigner had a strong leaning, which she subsequently quenched, towards mauve and yellow. Multitudinous errands and scurryings to and fro of “slavies” and domestics, including “Buttons” and several hired menials, now addicted to Berlin gloves, although displaying raw, beefsteaky hands in every-day life. Manifold preparations for the déjeuner, and consequent encroachments of pastry-cook’s boys with superincumbent trays and oblong covered boxes with horizontal S handles; Laburnum Cottage turned inside out, and outside in; Bigton church bells clanging “fit to bust ’emselves,” as the villagers said; Bigton upside-down—in a word, bewitched.

In the early morning two cavaliers might have been seen wending their way towards the scene of the festivities; not “clad in Lincoln green,” as the late lamented G.P.R. James would have described, but dressed en règle: these were Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, who had received pressing invitations from Lady Inskip to come over from Brighton in order to be present at the ceremony. Neither was averse to coming, and, indeed, Captain Miles had certain reasons of his own, which will be detailed presently, for jumping at the offer; so the two cavaliers set out early, and wended their way to Bigton, as already chronicled in the language of the ancient “romancist.” The Americans will add an “ist” or a “cist” to every known trade or substantive under the sun, to describe the person or individual who practises or has any connection with the same: thus, a “paragraphist” is a man who writes a paragraph, and they carry it down to a “pipist,” who uses a pipe—whether for smoking or musical purposes it does not matter—and “chawist,” he who masticates tobacco—a remarkably dirty habit!

Captain Miles and Lieutenant Harrowby, however, were not the only guests. Besides these were others, great and important too, although it must be observed that there was an especial lack of young men in the campaigner’s “goodlie compagnie;” whether it was because she deprecated their presence or feared their worldly ways cannot be exactly decided. The campaigner was acquainted with the truism that “young people will be young people,” and fenced herself in accordingly, as she had fears on the subject of her youngest daughter Carry, who was far too frivolous to suit her more prudent expectations, and she wanted to put temptation out of the way of the “dear girl” that she might not be led to throw herself away on an “ineligible parti.” The campaigner thought that she knew Captain Miles very well; he had nothing but his pay, and if he were younger she would not put him in the way of any young lady whom she wished to marry well, but she was certain that the captain was no fool to let his beautiful Dundreary whiskers be sold for nothing, so she had no fears for Carry with him. Lieutenant Harrowby was perfectly allowable too: he was a simpleton, and had a very snug little fortune of five “thou” per annum.

Besides the Bishop of Chumpchopster and his maternal aunt, the next most important guest who would grace the festal board at the wedding breakfast would be Sir Boanerges Todhunter, the great Conservative Reformer. He was stopping at the parsonage now with the Reverend Herbert Pringle, his distant cousin, but he had already accepted an invitation to the déjeuner, and had in fact come over for the purpose, on the grounds of his relationship with the bridegroom, to assist in the demolition of the Strasbourg paté, and propose the health of the about-to-be-newly-spliced pair.

In the list also of the fashionable world present might have been seen the names of Captain Curry Cucumber, of the Honorable and defunct East India Company’s Service, Miss Blandish, Lady Sparrowhawk and sister, the Honorable Miss Bigges (pray be particular about the final e), the Reverend Jabez Heavieman—invited in virtue of his office more than on account of his convivial proclivities—and others.

Suppose the wedding over. Picture the bride in her orange blossoms, the bridegroom in his magpie dress—he could not adopt the time-honoured blue frock, being a cleric—the bridesmaids in their scarlet and white trains of tulle and tulips—the Bishop of Chumpchopster in his voluminous lawn sleeves pronouncing the blessing in his well-known and to be-much-admired Alcaic manner. Imagine the bells of Bigton clanging out their merry peal in the frosty air: paint to yourself the gallant and gay assemblage. Fancy, in a word, the marriage to be un fait accompli; the guests returned to Laburnum Cottage; the toast of the day proposed in that highly-declamatory style which makes the name of Sir Boanerges Todhunter synonymous with that of Cicero; thanks responded in the usual halting manner by the bridegroom; the happy pair started on their tour with the customary shower of shoes; the banquet concluded. Imagine all this. Aha! and now I will a tale unfold.

The campaigner had been in ecstasies with the way in which everything had gone off. The Bishop and Sir Boanerges had just driven away, late in the evening, after partaking of a hasty dinner, which had been scrambled out of the remains of the previous feast; Captain Curry Cucumber was detailing some highly-spiced Indian anecdotes to Miss Blandish, who was in a holy state of maiden indignation at some of the particulars with which the captain thought it incumbent on him to furnish her, although she listened eagerly all the while; Lieutenant Harrowby was indulging in platitudes with the Hon. Miss Bigges, while poor Lizzie was being swamped by the veteran Lady Sparrowhawk, who was imparting to our little friend—who found the whole thing fearfully dreary—her views on the girls of the present day, contrasting them, sadly to the disadvantage of the former, with the time when she was young: all, in fact, was going on just as the campaigner wished.

When, suddenly, just as Lady Inskip proposed a carpet dance to break the monotony of the evening, she discovered that her darling girl Carry and Captain Miles were both missing!

Horror! Where could they be? Could her worst fears be realised? The skeleton which had lurked behind the banquet now stepped forth. Her atra cura now confronted the campaigner! Uneasy was the head that wore the crown of manoeuvring triumph that day: Carry and the Captain had gone off nulla vestigia retrorsum, leaving not a trace behind.

Mortimer was first dispatched to search for the fugitives; but when he returned unsuccessfully, and no trace of the delinquents was to be found, either in and about the house or in the adjacent garden, the campaigner, whose nerves had been in a state of tension all day, fairly broke down. She proclaimed her calamities to her astonished company, bursting into a passion of tears, as she threw her arms round the neck of her boy, that young imp, and exclaimed, “Oh! Morti-mer! Morti-mer! I told you so! I told you so!” over and over again, insisting all the time that she had him still left to her!

The fiasco of the pic-nic was comparatively nothing to the present scene; and the excitement culminated when a note was brought in at this juncture by the campaigner’s abigail (who said she had just found it on the dressing-table in Miss Carry’s room, although she had known of its existence some hours before, and Lady Inskip discharged her, “by the same token,” as Paddy says, the next day for her complicity in the affair), telling how the young lady—somewhat “fast” on her part, it must be confessed—had gone off with Captain Miles to get married, spurred up to the point probably by the events of the day.

The note, which was handed round for general perusal, in consequence of Lady Inskip’s temporary abstraction, ran as follows, in Carry’s neat calligraphy, described in violet ink, on cream-laid note:—

“Dear Ma,—

“Algernon and I having determined to unite our lot—(we have been in correspondence for a long time without your knowledge)—have gone off to get married without any bother. We knew you would object and ‘kick up a row,’ as dear Algernon says, and have therefore thought it best to go off without letting you know anything about the state of our affections. Any pursuit will be vain, as we are both determined. We will be married to-morrow morning. Hoping you will not be vexed very much with your ‘darling girl,’ and that Laura will be as happy as I intend to be, with the ‘prig,’ as I used to call the poor little parson,

“Believe me,

“Your affectionate daughter,

“Carry.

“P.S.—Algernon says to give you his love, and he tells you to ‘keep your pecker up.’ Tell Mortimer he can have my Persian kitten. Please excuse Abigail for helping me off. I bullied her into doing it. Forgive me, dear ma! I know I shall be as happy as a butterfly, and, at all events, I shall ever be your loving daughter, Carry.”

The comments that were made on this missive may be imagined; and in the commotion that ensued the characters of the campaigner’s guests soon developed themselves, as is usually the case in moments of excitement, particularly when an esclandre arises.

Old Lady Sparrowhawk and the antiquated virgin, Miss Bigges, thought it highly immoral on Lady Inskip’s part to invite them to a house where any such thing could possibly have happened. Of course they would not mention anything about it, they said, as they retired from the scene; but, strange to say, in a very little while after, the mutual friends of Lady Sparrowhawk and the campaigner were acquainted with every incident of the elopement. Indeed, from the statements of these people, you would be led to suppose that they knew a good deal more about it than had as yet transpired, with much noddings and sly gestures, and confidential “you knows.”

To say that Captain Curry Cucumber was wrath, would convey but a feeble idea of his state of mind and volubility of expression, when he, too, got up to go. In the first place, he had had a slight penchant for the fair Carry, which Lady Inskip had fostered and encouraged; the remnant of his liver was consequently wrung with jealousy and baffled love—if love it may be called—which empurpled his saffron face; and he looked upon it is a special affront and injury to himself that the campaigner should have allowed her daughter thus to run away.

“By Gad! sir!” he said, to Lieutenant Harrowby, who, having been a confidant of Captain Miles, was dreading in much fear and trembling that the onus of the whole affair would be laid upon his weak shoulders. “By Gad! sir, I have never been so scandalously treated in my life; not even by the Begum of Ferozesha!”

He said this in sufficiently angry tones, ere he left the room; but when he got into the hall, his wrath rose to thunder, and was terrific to behold.

The magnificent gold-mounted bamboo cane which he had left there, which had been presented to him by Rumagee Bumagee, the Rajah of Bugpoor, and which he valued at ever so many lakhs of rupees, was missing. The captain boiled over with indignation, called Laburnum Cottage a den of thieves, and heaped such reams of violent epithets on the heads of Lady Inskip, her daughter, and all her family, even unto the third and fourth generation, as made Miss Blandish’s scanty locks stand on end with fright, and even restored the campaigner to her senses.

Captain Curry Cucumber then went out of Laburnum Cottage, for good and all, and he vowed he would never set foot within another house in Bigton for social purposes or otherwise. For the remainder of his term of residence in the sea-side retreat, he shut himself up in the red brick corner house of the terrace he inhabited, where he spent his time, it is believed, from morning until night, swearing at his Kitmaghar, a lascar servant, and eating chutney and prawn curries. The poor unhappy half caste servant’s life must have been a sad burden to him, for the captain was continually calling him an “Ooloo ka bucka,” or son of an owl, and associating his name in Hindostanee with a big black monkey, who was being perpetually consigned to the lower regions.

Carry Inskip’s elopement was a “nine days’ wonder” in Bigton, and then was forgotten. It is supposed that the young lady made a better bargain of it than most runaway matches turn out, and she lives very happily on a somewhat limited income, with the gallant son of Mars, whom she espoused the day after their elopement, not at Gretna Green, but by licence at Chumpchopster, the adjacent cathedral town to Bigton.

The campaigner’s star was certainly under an eclipse. She had done well for her eldest, but Carry turned out “a bold, ungrateful hussie,” as she called her. Yet she quickly recovered from the blow. In bewitching Bigton she had been bewitched herself; but she was not one to be daunted, and now that her “darling Laura” was so comfortably established, the campaigner began to agitate a most notable scheme in her worldly-wise head.

Volume Three—Chapter Eight.

Foiled!

The winter passed by and fled. Ships from foreign parts came and went from Havre; and still, although the police with the able Chef at their head kept a strict look out and surveillance on all comers and goers, nothing was heard or seen of Markworth, and no circumstances arose to unravel the web of mystery in which his disappearance and the murder of the girl were enwrapped.

Clara Kingscott still remained at Havre. She was loth to leave the scene where her enemy had made his last coup, and she was hoping on against hope that something might arise to mature her vengeance—but nothing came.

So at last in disgust, having made the Chef promise her, as he did willingly in the interests of the law, to forward her the first intimation should anything be heard of Markworth, she quitted Havre and returned to England in order to prosecute her watch here.

She went back to the lodgings she had previously occupied in Bloomsbury. It may be remembered that these were the same where Markworth used formerly to live; and besides their being comfortable and suited to her in every way as a point of attack, the governess hoped that perchance he of whom she was in search might perchance come there unexpectedly. He would probably have seen the news of Susan’s death in the paper, and thinking that nothing had been discovered of his crime, as she thought, return again some time to London: where would he be more likely to come than here? No one connected with the after circumstances of his life knew of his having lived here but herself, and it was on the cards that the first place that he would go to, should he return again, as was most probable, to the scenes of his old life, when he thought pursuit had died out, would be Mrs Martin’s old apartments.

Here, therefore, Miss Kingscott sat herself down to bide her time. Patience was never a virtue that she possessed, and it can be no wonder that time hung heavy on her hands, and her heart was gnawed through with vexation and impatience at the delay in all her plans, the failure of her vengeance. Nemesis was at fault, and Nemesis showed the traces of her mental struggles in her face: this last year had aged her more than ten.

She paid repeated visits to the offices of Messrs Trump, Sequence, and Co., in Bedford Row, all to no purpose.

Mr Trump had first heard her placidly and promised assistance when she should have secured her prey; he had next, after being sufficiently bored, told her that it was no business of his, and washed his hands of it; he also said that if she took his advice she too would wash her hands of it, and leave it alone, to which Sequence, parrot-like, had re-echoed “leave it alone!” The lawyer finally, when he had been bored too much and had lost his admiration at the woman’s fixity of purpose, gave directions in his office that he was to be “never in” when she called. Clara Kingscott after this waited long hours, sitting determinedly in the outer room, amid the ill-concealed ridicule and chaff of “sucking sheepskins,” the clerks, and had finally to give up the lawyers in the chronic disgust which was now enveloping everything in her life.

Solomonson and Isaacs, the Jew creditors of Markworth, she also haunted; but they, too, could not see what was to be done, and did not take that interest in Clara Kingscott’s plans which she had supposed they would have done. To tell the truth the name of Markworth and all that was connected with their former client stunk in their nostrils; it was not a pleasant subject for them to dwell upon; so while their debtor was out of their reach,—although they were ready to pounce upon him vi et armis, with warrants and detainers, should he venture within the precincts of the lion’s den, id est, be again within the realm—they preferred taking a dignified, albeit Hebrews, silence on the matter, and let it lie perdu for the present.

Ousted on all sides, therefore, and disappointed of her prey, Clara Kingscott’s life during this interregnum of affairs was not a happy one, although she tried to make the best of it that she could. As she had plenty of money for her wants she was not obliged to seek employment, and she could afford to wait awhile and watch. But watching without occupation, and waiting with nothing to do, is poor work at the best for an impatient mind.

In the meantime she cultivated relationship with the lodging-house keeper Mrs Martin, in the furtherance of her projects: “the parlours” and the basement were on the best of terms.

The spring came and passed, the days spun out their weary length, summer was nigh, summer had come, and yet Clara Kingscott’s vengeance was not matured; the fly kept away from the web which the spider had so cunningly woven for him.

But her gratification came at last in reward for her patience.

One night—it was far now advanced in the summer—as she was perspiring in the dingy parlours which she would not relinquish even in the hot weather, notwithstanding that she had nothing to keep her in town, she heard a double knock at the street door.

The knock was nothing unusual in itself. It was a knock which perhaps any gentleman or lady might have given—but there was this point about it, it was undecided. Miss Kingscott had been previously reviewing in her mind all the chain of events that had interwoven her life and her purpose with that of Markworth. She had been tracing down the panorama of the last year from its inception to the part where the canvas had been roughly torn across. There was nothing unusual in this, it was her constant practice to do this nearly every night—to evolve the various thoughts which had been passing through her mind during the day, as they did every day. But by one of those sudden mental clutches which strike across our brain sometimes, she seized upon the past and worked it into the present. Like as a sudden noise which we hear in our sleep—such as the report of a gun, or the sudden exclamation of someone who intrudes on our slumbers—is worked into our dreams and forms the subject of a complete mental phantasmagoria, so this stray knock at the street door of Mrs Martin’s lodgings was worked by Clara Kingscott into her present thoughts. “He’s here!” she exclaimed to herself in the tumultuous throbbing of her excited imagination. “He’s here! I feel it! I have waited long, but he is caught at last!” But she did not go to the door, she waited and watched still: in spite of all, however, she was right for once.

It was Markworth.

By and bye, later in the evening, Mrs Martin came up to tell her the important news. Her former lodger had returned—so poor—so ill-dressed—so changed from what she had formerly remembered him.

What did he want? Had she sent him about his business?

Not she! The worldly lodging-house keeper had still a heart left; and the poor wanderer who had returned had been one of her best tenants. He was worn out, poor fellow—she said—and she had put him in one of her best bedrooms, where she hoped he was sleeping comfortably after all the troubles he had gone through. “It made her heart bleed to hear ’im,” said the twenty-five-shillings-a-week-and-coals-extra vampire. There is charity in all of us, friend, if you can find it out; even in a London lodging-house keeper; and some of us, returning prodigals, can quote with the poet, that they found their warmest welcome at an inn. Strangers are sometimes even more compassionate than friends!

“At last! At last!” murmured Miss Kingscott; and she had planned well before what she should do in such an emergency.

Early the next morning, while the wanderer was yet enjoying the soundest sleep he had had since the night he fled like a hunted animal from Havre, the ex-governess was up and doing.

Pressing business this time with Solomonson and Isaacs: they did not refuse now to hear her news, and act upon it too.

Disruption of the prodigal’s dreams.

Dire disgust in the Bloomsbury lodgings!

Before twelve o’clock that day, Allynne Markworth was removed in a cab under the escort of two sheriffs officers (much to the disgust of Mrs Martin, who had lent her prodigal lodger five pounds “until he could go to the bank,” as he said) to Chancery Lane—or rather a small street running out of the same.

He changed his lodgings a second time, from the worthy Mrs Martin’s first-floor to the apartments of a certain Abednego in Curseover Street, who keeps a court of reception—popularly know as a sponging-house, of the class immortalised by Hogarth—for gentlemen under a pecuniary cloud.

Markworth was arrested at the suit of certain confrères of Mister Abednego, twixt “Solomonson and Isaacs, solicitors,” on a writ for a largish sum of money, which he certainly could not pay.

Was the detainer heavy!

3,000 pounds and costs!

And he hadn’t a penny in his pocket but Mrs Martin’s five pounds!

Pleasant!

“But your friends will soon come and see you,” said the Cerberus of the sponging-house in words of comfort. If Markworth had been arrested for a trifling sum, he would have taken no notice of him whatever. There is a dignity even in debt, if it be large enough! Your paltry insolvents are but small fry: a colossal defaulter is a man to be looked up to and envied, vide the annals of the Bankruptcy Court. So Markworth was comfortably treated, and had a private room, as he owed a heavy sum, and, moreover, had money in his pocket.

Oh! yes, there was not the least doubt Markworth’s friends would look after him. He had a visitor the very first day of his incarceration, and who it was may easily be guessed.

Volume Three—Chapter Nine.

Pringle “Pecked.”

The nuptial couch is not always a bed of roses, and so the young incumbent of Hartwood found out after a time. Not that it was all the fault of his newly-married spouse. Laura loved him in her languid way, and would have endeavoured to make his home happy if she had been left to herself; but the old campaigner stood in the gap: she had became Herbert Pringle’s bête noir.

Shortly after the happy pair came back from their honeymoon to the parsonage, Lady Inskip made a proposition, which by dint of judicious manoeuvring she managed to carry into operation. Now that her eldest daughter was married, and Carry, “the bold, ungrateful girl,” had left her in that scandalous manner, there was no need for her to keep up any longer a special establishment as she had formerly done. She only had her darling boy, Mortimer, now to care for, and Laburnum Cottage would be too big for herself and him only. She suggested to her dear, kind, clever son-in-law what she would do. She would give up the cottage—her time would be out on Lady-day, and it did not want such a very long time now to that date, and come and live at the parsonage with her affectionate children. Nothing could be better! Of course she would insist on paying her share of the housekeeping expenses; but then she did eat so very little; that would be of little count. Would not her dear Herbert and Laura—she put it to them—welcome her? She was such a good manager, and they were so ignorant of the world.

“Of course, dear ma!” said Laura. “That will be so nice; and then I should not have any trouble with the house and that horrid cookery book. I hate it! I wish Soyer had never been born. I’m sure I cannot make head or tail of all his ‘economical dishes,’ as he calls them.”

“Certainly, my love!” responded the campaigner with alacrity. It was wonderful how very sweet and affectionate she could be when she had any point to gain. “I should take charge of all that off your hands, my dear! It would be hard if I could not be of use to my own children, whom I only have left to care for.”

“That’ll be all right, ma, then?” said Laura, considering the matter settled; but the campaigner was not so sure, for her son-in-law had not made any response yet to the offer.

“What does Herbert say, my pet?” exclaimed the old general, playfully, and looked the Rev. Herbert full in the face. “Will he turn his old mother into the street, or—?”

“Oh! certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!” promptly answered up the young divine, confused at being appealed to. “That is, of course we’ll be glad to have you here for a time, and—”

“Oh! I see,” interposed the campaigner, with a capital assumption of offended pride and wounded feeling, “I should be intruding when I only offered to come here and help my darling child. Oh! that I have lived to hear this.”

“Oh! ma,” said Laura, “don’t go on so. Herbert didn’t mean anything of the kind.”

“That I have lived to see this day!” repeated the campaigner, with solemn emphasis, and looking as if she were going to cry; however as she was seldom given to lachrymals, tears did not come so readily as would have now suited her purpose, but she twisted up her eyes, nevertheless, and sniffed ominously.

“Pray don’t say so, ma! Don’t say so! Say something, Herbert, to her, and don’t be so unfeeling!” eagerly ejaculated Laura, turning to her husband, who did not know what to say. He certainly had hoped that he and his wife could have lived together without the services of his honoured mother-in-law, the lady in her own right; but what could he do? Here was she asking, and Laura urging it; and he was a single man against two energetic females. He was helpless, although he wished to do battle on his sister Lizzie’s behalf, being certain that she and the campaigner would not get on well together. He was driven to the wall, however, for Laura had called on him to say something, and he must speak!

“Certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!” he began. “That is, I mean to say, we will be most happy, Laura, and myself, to have you to live with us. Delighted, I’m sure; and Laura can make all the arrangements; but if there’s anything you want me to see to, you have only to ask. That’s all, and—and—”

“You dear, impulsive creature,” interrupted the campaigner; “you are so good. I thought you did not mean to be unkind; but my feelings have been so lacerated of late that a very little affects me now.” The campaigner spoke of a very little affecting her as if she were alluding to the imbibition of gin, or some other stimulant. “And so that’s all arranged, and I can give up the cottage at once. It will be delightful to live here altogether; just like the happy family, won’t it?”

“Quite so, Lady Inskip, quite so!” responded the Reverend Herbert; but he did not speak cheerfully, and I fear he had other views in his own mind of what a “happy family” arrangement might be.

“Charming, ma!” chorused Laura. “We’ll see about making the arrangements at once, in order to prevent you from changing your mind.”

The incumbent’s wife need not, however, have been under any anxiety on that score: the campaigner knew very well when she had made a bargain, and she was not going to back out of it.

“I must send the darling boy Mortimer to school, however. It will be so sad parting with him, but it must be done. It would never do to have him here, would it?”

And she looked inquiringly at her son-in-law.

Pringle had sundry experiences of the darling boy’s tractable disposition, and was rather disinclined in being so intimately associated with the young hopeful, so he combatted the point.

“You’re quite right, Lady Inskip. He’d better be sent to school; not that I’d have any objections to his coming here, but then—”

“Yes,” sighed the campaigner, “I suppose he must go; it would be too much to ask.”

“Oh! have him here, ma. Don’t send him to school, poor little fellow! Herbert won’t mind, will you?” struck in Laura.

The incumbent was again doomed to defeat. He could refuse his young wife nothing when she was so judiciously “backed up” by the campaigner.

“Oh! certainly not, Lady Inskip. Have him here by all means.”

He gave in. He thought as the campaigner was coming the mischief was done; and he would be equally willing now to receive all the rest of the family; even Carry and her military husband, if it was suggested that they should all be invited; and the green parrot, too, the Persian cats, and all the other pets of My Lady’s. He succumbed hopelessly, and was thenceforth a pecked man.

I remember once coming across a little Oriental anecdote which lays particular stress on the relations of connubial folk. Pity that Pringle was not acquainted with it before he committed himself. The story runs as follows:—Once upon a time a gay young fellow married the widow of a great Khan—the scene is laid in Persia. On the wedding night the lady determined to assert her authority, and show who was the real lord and master. She accordingly treated her spouse with great contempt when he entered the ante-room, where she was seated on rose-leaf cushions caressing a large white cat, of which she pretended to be very fond indeed. She appeared very much annoyed at her husband’s entrance, and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes with cold disdain as he came in.

“I hate cats,” observed the young husband, blandly, as if he were only making a casual observation; “they offend my sight.”

If his wife had looked at him with glances of cold disdain before, her eyes now wore an expression of anger and contempt, such as no words can express. She did not even deign to answer him, but took the cat to her bosom and fondled it passionately: her whole heart seemed to be in the cat, and cold was the shoulder that she turned to her husband.

“When any one offends me,” continued her gallant, gaily, “I cut off his head. It is a peculiarity of mine which I am sure will only make me dearer to you.”

Then, drawing his sword, he took the cat gently but firmly from her arms, cut off its head, wiped the blade, sheathed it, and sitting down continued to talk affectionately to his wife as if nothing had happened. After which, says tradition, she became the best and most submissive wife in the world.

A hen-pecked fellow, meeting him the next day as he rode with a gallant train through the market place, began to condole with him.

“Ah!” said the hen-pecked one with deep feeling, “you, too, have taken a wife, and got a tyrant. You had better have remained the poor soldier that you were. I pity you from my very heart!”

“Not so,” replied the other, jollily; “keep your sighs to cool yourself next summer.”

He then related the events of his wedding night with their satisfactory results.

The hen-pecked man listened attentively, and pondered long.

“I also have a sword,” said he, “though it is rusty, and my wife is likewise fond of cats. I will cut off the head of my wife’s favourite cat at once.”

He did so, and received a sound beating. His wife, moreover, made him go down upon his knees and tell her what djinn, or evil spirit, had prompted him to do the bloody deed.

“Fool!” said the lady, when she had possessed herself of the hen-pecked’s secret, with a vixenish vinegar smile on her sallow lips, “you should have done it the first night!”

The moral is obvious: the Persians say “Advice is useless to fools!”

Pringle did not kill the cat at once; hence his position.

The old campaigner sold out at Laburnum Cottage in another week or two, and came with the young imp Mortimer, her Persian cats, and green parrot, and all her multitudinous belongings, settling down like a swarm of locusts on the devoted parsonage. Gone thenceforth were all its tranquil joys.

After a time the Lucca-oil-like-suavity which had formerly distinguished Lady Inskip in Pringle’s mind, disappeared. She appeared now as the concentrated essence of verjuice or tartaric acid, and ruled the whole house with a rod of iron, becoming in truth the master of all. Poor Lizzie’s life was made a burden to her; and she was treated as if she were a presumptuous intruder in her brother’s house. The old campaigner wrung her little heart with continual allusions to the “Young Squire,” and said how glad she “would have been to get him, miss!” making bitter comments on the way she said Lizzie had angled for Tom, and how he had gone off now and left her. “Served her right, too,” she ought not to be “pining and whining and breaking her heart after a man who never cared for her!” When, you may be sure, our little friend answered and stuck up for her rights, whereupon the campaigner would go and complain to the supposed head of the family, and declare that she could not stop in the house with “that virago of a girl,” and Pringle had to timidly urge that he would not keep Lady Inskip against her will for the world. Then the campaigner would commence with a stern philippic on ingratitude, and wind up by bursting into tears and wishing she had never been born to observe that particular day. Here Laura would interfere, Herbert Pringle beg the pardon of his mamma-in-law, and all would be soothed over for a time, and the campaigner would establish a fresh gap in the trenches she was engineering for universal sovereignty.

Pringle suffered in more ways than one. He had to walk now through the parish in discharging his parochial duties, for he could no more “prance about,” as Mrs Hartshorne called it, on his dapple grey pony. The campaigner had impounded that valuable little animal, and no more was it bestridden by the well shaped, albeit diminutive legs of the incumbent. The Macchiaevelli in petticoats said that “her daughter” must have a carriage to go about in, considering she could no longer afford to keep one of her own, which otherwise she would have been happy for Laura to have made free use of. The campaigner had sold her equipage when she cleared out from Laburnum Cottage along with other sundry theatrical “effects” which she had kept up for the sales of entrapping suitors for her daughters’ hands, and now they were both off her hands she melted down her appurtenances into the handier form of a banker’s balance. “No one knew what might come,” as she said to herself, sagely reflective.

She accordingly made Pringle buy a neat basket carriage, and build an enlargement to the parsonage stable for its accommodation. To this vehicle, dapple grey was thenceforth attached, and the campaigner used to drive out in it every afternoon, occasionally but seldom, accompanied by her daughter, and the small boy with the eruption of buttons on him, whom she had retained in her own service when she migrated to the house of her son-in-law. “It was so respectable to have a page,” as she said. Lizzie she never invited to drive with her, not that she would for a moment have consented to the penance of a tête-à-tête with the campaigner, whom she disliked as much almost as the other did her, although she tried to bear with her for her brother’s sake, whom she pitied. Lizzie in fact saw clearly that poor Herbert was sadly hen-pecked, not by his wife, for she was two apathetic, but by his mother-in-law.

Instead of the paradise of bliss which he had hoped to enter, by allying himself with Lady Inskip’s eldest daughter, the young incumbent found himself in a very miserable position; and I am inclined to think that he somewhat regretted his hasty step. He loved Laura as much as it was in his nature to do so, and so did she him; but both were very young—he just a boy from College, one might say; and they had yet much to learn of that mutual forbearance principle, and earnest trust and love, without which too many find marriage the “lottery” they declare it. What chance of happiness they had depended upon their being to themselves, without the odious presence of the campaigner; but she had established herself as a fixture, and was not going to stir herself in a hurry; and as Laura as yet took her part, principally because Herbert Pringle had his sister on his side, the pecktive state continued, unhappily for all parties.

No more did the ritualistic young divine devote much attention to his sermons; and the Ciceronian phraseology, which purely distinguished those works of composition, disappeared. He had no heart in his work—for the campaigner was always “nagging” at him at home, and no longer praised his eloquence as she had done at first.

No more did he chant in melodious strains the Psalms to his elaborately embroidered and besmocked congregation of farmers, but read them over hurriedly, in order to get rid of them. Even his ritualistic tendencies began to be toned down: the lectern was seldom made use of, and the white surplices were dispensed with for the boys of the choir.

Pringle was pecked with a vengeance, and its effect was shown, not only in his outward ways, but in his adornment—he became careless about his dress, and not half so particular as he had been for appearances before he became a Benedict. Bottom was very much translated, indeed. Pringle was pecked!

Lizzie saw all that was going on, and sympathised with her brother. The old campaigner she detested, and only the desire not to increase her brother’s miseries by having home broils, made her keep her hostility subdued; she even tried to coax the artful Macchiaevelli for him, all to no effect, as also her endeavours to awaken the languid Laura to a sense of the responsibility owing to her husband.

The campaigner ruled the roast in spite of all; and showed not the slightest desire to conceal her dislike for Lizzie. She tormented her constantly with spiteful allusions to the past, and Lizzie would not have minded so much what she said about herself, but she would abuse Tom, and that she could not stand. Besides, she encouraged the horrid imp Mortimer to spoil all poor Lizzie’s garden, and disarrange her pet conservatory, and even to break up a little artful contrivance for holding plants, which Tom had specially given her. It is true Pringle made up a row on that subject, and threatening to chastise the boy, somewhat checking his horticultural tendencies to the detriment of Lizzie in future. Still, the place was made very unhappy to her, and Lizzie would have been miserable and wished herself dead and out of the way if some consolation had not turned up suddenly for her in a most unexpected manner.

Thenceforth she bore the campaigner’s taunts with stolid and aggravating silence, making that lady wish time and again that Lizzie were “her child,” and she “would soon teach her manners.” Notwithstanding that poor Pringle was so sadly pecked, and the parsonage lost its Eden-like character since the invasion of the serpent, there was balm yet in Gilead for Lizzie.

What had happened? Whence came Lizzie’s consolation?

You would never suspect.

Volume Three—Chapter Ten.

Caught at Last.

“Even the worst laws are so necessary for our guidance, that without them, men would devour one another,” remarks Epicurus—in order to exemplify the frailty of human nature, according to Plutarch, the moralist. Putting the point of cannibalism aside, and thus obviating a trip to the Feejee Islands, or New Zealand, for example, it cannot be disputed that the dictum of the Epicurean philosopher is based on a fundamental truth, which is fairly exhibited in every-day life. Granting, however, that laws are necessary for human progress, the philosophical enquirer is still as much at fault as ever, for he becomes, as it were, like Hamlet, plunged into a sea of troubles, which no opposition will limit, the moment he begins his search into the mysteries of jurisprudence. The progress of the blind goddess with the sinister and dexter scale has been by no means commensurate with the advancement of civilisation, for the name of laws is legion; and between good laws and bad laws, and what may be termed legal laws and moral laws, there are as wide differences and as great discrepancies as exist among the several offenders and offences against the same.

A law may be a good law, and a necessary law, and yet be a bad law, speaking according to law; while a bad and unjust law, merely regarded as a piece of law-making, becomes good when weighed in the same forensic balance. This seems paradoxical, but can be verified readily in overlooking the legal code. Law, itself, is wise, and good, and necessary; but, “too many cooks spoil the broth,” so our original Magna Charta of Liberty has become a hotch-potch pie of precedents, thanks to the many law-makers we have had, who lead the blind goddess into the gutter, and so transform Themis that no one would know her again in her original guise. There are so many cities of refuge provided for criminals within the statutes of the justice book, so many loopholes for chicanery and fraud to sneak through, that no criminal need trouble himself for fear of consequences at committing any offence in the decalogue or calendar, short of murder—even that often becomes justified under the appellative “homicide” in the minds, and under the verdict of “a free and enlightened jury!”—save the mark.

The various turnings and windings of our great national bulwark—the Law—are many and wonderful.

A man who commits a greater offence can only be, perhaps, indicted under a lesser plea, and the small criminal again is treated proportionately more severely than the man who deals in crime wholesale. Some reforms have, indeed, been made already, but more are still needed. Perhaps one of the greatest agitated of late has been the abolishment of imprisonment for debt, one of the most iniquitous statutes we have been cursed with. The debtor had been held on a par with the thief and the murderer, and has often been condemned to a greater term of imprisonment than the criminal who commits a burglary or takes human life. However, this will soon be numbered amongst the other mistakes of the past, like the old Fleet prison.

Following out the analogy, it seems strange that Markworth, who had been deemed guilty of graver offences under the eye of the law should only be caught at last through a ca ça, ex parte Solomonson, the Jew money lender.

He had puzzled Mrs Hartshorne’s lawyers in proving the abduction; he would have gained a large fortune by his scheming, but through the little mistake of a date; he had evaded the French police, and escaped the arrest of a murderer; and here he was imprisoned at last, in a sponging-house, only on a question of debt—a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. Oh, the anachronisms of the law! But enough has been already said in these pages of its Penelopean web of trickery and evasion.

To return to our hero, perhaps the best example of terror which could be mentioned, is that of seeing a drove of wild animals on the prairies of the far west, flying from a bush fire. The herds of buffalo, deer, and even bears and panthers, are then seized with a maddening influence of fright and flight combined, and rush pell mell in front of the blazing torrent of fire which spreads behind them. They do not care where they go, and will encroach even upon the haunts of men, of whom they are generally afraid, the panther running by the side of the bison, which does not now mind the proximity of its enemy, all flying in their wild scare for safety, with heaving flanks and panting breath.

It was under the influence of such a fright that Markworth fled from the heights of Ingouville, when he escaped from Clara Kingscott’s clutches: he could fancy that he still heard Susan’s wild shriek ringing in his ears.

The accusation of Clara Kingscott had paralysed him with a morbid terror. His first impulse was, when Susan disappeared over the precipice, to rush down and save her. Then he had been stopped so unexpectedly, and on the governess accusing him of murdering the girl, his mind had rapidly grasped the circumstances attending, and he saw how strong the proof of circumstantial evidence would be against him.

The cries of Clara Kingscott would now have alarmed the neighbourhood. Morbid terror possessed him. How to escape! Was there time to fly?

And he fled with all the fear of a hunted animal.

He did not know in which direction he went, but he suddenly arrested his fleeing footsteps: he saw somebody in the distance, and turned back.

It would never do to continue the path down which the body of Susan might be lying; if he were to be found near at hand he might be lost.

He bent aside and rapidly made his way down the steep incline, and after wheeling around in various directions so as to discern any possible pursuit, he made up his mind to go first to the lodgings in the Rue Montmartre. He must get off out of the way, and as nobody would search for him yet awhile—it was so late, and quiet, and dark—he could find time to collect his things, and get on board some steamer in the harbour before anyone would dream of searching for him. Besides, there might be no pursuit at all, he thought to himself, his native courage rapidly returning as he got further and further from the scene of action. He would proceed cautiously; but he must go away: yes, it was best to go away. What was the use in remaining now? Susan was the only link that bound him to Havre, and now she was providentially put out of his way. Poor girl! He pitied her; but it was, perhaps, best as it was, and somebody else would see after her now. It would have been an unpleasant business if he had stopped by her at any rate. She even might not be dead after all: somebody else would see to her; that devil Clara was there at all events.

These thoughts flitted through his brain, as he walked leisurely along the now deserted streets of the town. It would never do to appear in a hurry, for Havre was respectable, and went to bed at an early hour, with the exception of the fisher folk, who were still carousing in the low cabarets down by the quays.

By this time he had reached his door, and opening it with his pass key, he let himself in.

In the passage he met the little husband of the Mère Cliquelle, whom he told that Madame sa femme, was unwell and stopping at a friends, and he was going out again for her. He then went into his rooms and began to pack a portmanteau leisurely, for he thought “if they are hunting for me this is the last place they would seek for me.” And so he arranged matters quite at his ease.

He had nearly a hundred pounds left in money, and that he thought would see him through a good deal. He could not stop in England, he considered, and on the other hand Clara Kingscott would make the Continent too hot to hold him. Where should he go?

America, he decided, in a moment. That blessed land for aliens and criminals would receive him and offer him a convenient shelter; besides, if all he heard was true, he was in no doubt that he could pick up a living by his wits amongst his transatlantic cousins. The moment he came to this determination he proceeded to act upon it.

At all events, there was no use in stopping in the Rue Montmartre any longer, so he opened the door, after putting the things in order, and taking up the valise in his hand, he walked towards the passage.

“Bon soir!” he shouted to the Mère Cliquelle and her husband above, who thought the evening’s proceedings rather strange on the whole but consoled themselves with the reflection that “Ces Anglais sont drôles!”

“Bon soir, Monsieur! Au revoir!” they responded; and Markworth walked out of the Mère Cliquelle’s house for the last time. It was now nearly ten o’clock, and all was quiet about the street, which was quite dark. He was unnoticed, and free to go where he pleased, and so he turned his steps this time down towards the steamboat quay. There, although it was so late, he managed to come across a fisherman, who was just starting off in his little boat.

For a small consideration, as it lay in his way, the man consented to land him over at Honfleur, on the opposite banks of the Seine, Markworth telling him that he had a sick wife, whom he must visit that night.

“Pauvre fille!” said the Ignobile Pescatore, with a sympathetic shrug, “we must take you to madame;” and setting his brawny arms to work, in addition to the lugsail, for there was little wind, Markworth was, after the lapse of a short interval, set ashore at length at Honfleur, leaving the broad and muddy Seine between himself and his Nemesis. He could now breathe freely. His plans were made up, and he had only to wait until the early morning for carrying them into execution.

At an auberge in the centre of the town he got a lodging for the night, and in the early morning was travelling north.

From Paris to Brussels—train again—miles of railroad—on, on to Bremen, or rather Bremenhaven as the port is properly called. Time to catch one of the German American steamships of the Nord Deutsche line, that ply between that port and New York, touching at Southampton on the way. Caught it! Be certain tho’ that Markworth landed not at the stopping-place on the route! He had too wholesome a dread of his creditor, Solomonson, and the possibilities of a “capias” or “ca ça” administered by one of the greasy hands of mine host of Curseover Street, Chancery Lane. No more treading on British soil for him!

Bremen to Southampton—a two days’ trip. One day more lying there alongside the railroad dock, and afterwards far out in the harbour, where the hull of the steamer looked like a gigantic lizard, or the far-famed sea-serpent. Then, on a Wednesday morning, he finally sailed for the land of the setting sun—“the home of the brave and free;” where, according to the poetical license of transatlantic eulogists, “the Bird o’ Freedom claps her wings in exultation over the star-spangled banner in the ethereal expanse of perennial blue.”

On landing in New York, Markworth found it very similar to any other city of the old world in which he had been. There was no Eldorado here: the streets were not profusely strewn with gold for the needy to pick up. New York was only another temple of Mammon, where he who had money was a brave gentleman, and he who had none might starve and be hanged to him!