Chapter IV · —AT THE TRAVELLER’S REST.

‘Person of the name of Hold? I should think so, rather. Want to see him, do you? Turn to your right, then; get up them stone steps, and just keep straight till you’re past the water-butt, and you’ll twig the tap-room door.’

It was a sharp-eyed sharp-tongued boy who spoke, a boy in a tattered jacket that had once been blue, and had once been garnished with brass anchor buttons; but who retained his Cockney accent and his air of brisk effrontery, like that of a London sparrow.

‘Can’t you make out Her Majesty’s English, Mr Stiffback?’ said this impudent servitor of The Traveller’s Rest, seeing that Sir Sykes hesitated.

‘You keep a civil tongue, Deputy,’ broke in a deeper voice from within the darkling passage. ‘This, I suppose, is the gentleman who received a letter from a party called Hold? Very good. This way, sir, please; and mind you don’t hurt your head against the beam, for the ceiling’s low and light’s scarce. So. Here we are; and this is the tap-room, and my name is Hold. At this end of the room we’ll be quietest.’

And the baronet passively permitted himself to be led up some stone steps and down some brick steps, and finally into a long low room, at one end of which, although the weather was warm and the season summer, there glowed and crackled a large fire of mingled peat and wood, around which were clustered seven or eight persons male and female, two of whom were smoking short discoloured pipes, while the others were conversing in hoarse tones, or sniffing, with somewhat of a wolfish expression of countenance, the savoury fumes that arose from a frying-pan which a gaunt man in frowsy black was carefully holding over the hottest part of the fire.

There was a low wooden screen or partition, about breast-high, which stretched across some three-fourths of this delectable apartment, which was rudely furnished with some wooden settles and rush-bottomed chairs, and a couple of greasy tables, vamped and clamped with sheet-iron to repair the injury which excitable customers had done to the woodwork.

‘My name, Sir Sykes, is Hold,’ said the owner of the name, when the baronet had taken his seat on one of the mean-looking chairs, and his singular correspondent had placed himself on one of the benches opposite.

‘I never heard it before, nor, to the best of my recollection, have we ever met,’ said Sir Sykes dryly.

‘Ah, yes, but we have met, Sir Sykes Denzil, Baronet,’ returned Hold, with a twinkle of satisfaction in his bold black eyes; ‘not that it’s any wonder you do not remember so humble a chap as yours truly. I have the advantage of you.’

These last words were uttered with a malicious emphasis which caused Sir Sykes to look again and keenly in the man’s face, while cudgelling his memory, though in vain, to find some guiding clue. He saw a hard, fierce, swarthy countenance, dark hair partly grizzled, and a powerfully built frame, such as matched well with the face. Had Sir Sykes on the Bench been consulted by his brother magistrates as to the number of calendar months of imprisonment with hard labour to be allotted to such a one as Hold, he would have said at once: ‘Give him the heaviest sentence warranted by law, for, unless Lavater’s science be false, there could scarcely exist a more dangerous scoundrel.’

Sir Sykes, however, was not on the bench, nor Hold in the dock at quarter-sessions. So he merely replied with a steady look: ‘No, Mr Hold, or whatever your name may be. To the best of my belief, I never in my life saw you.’

‘Very good,’ quietly returned the man, taking out a black pocket-book much frayed and battered, and rustling over the dog’s-eared leaves. ‘Let me see; yes, March the twenty-fourth is the first important date.’

‘And may I ask,’ interposed Sir Sykes, with somewhat of the cold haughtiness which had stood him in good stead in many a moral duel, ‘what is the meaning of these perpetual references to a specified day in March?’

Hold’s low inward laugh was one of sincere enjoyment. ‘It’s not only at cards, Sir Sykes,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘that the game of brag can be played. But come, it’s of no use, Sir Sykes Denzil, Baronet. My hand’s too strong—chokeful of court-cards, kings, queens, knaves, and aces—to give you a chance. I have entries here’—slapping the black pocket-book—‘for more days than one. Take one of ’em at random. You have cause to remember the ninth of April in the same year, Sir Sykes. So have I.’ And with a nod and a wink, Hold slid back the book into an inner pocket of his rough coat.

The baronet’s blanched face and anxious eye betrayed how deeply he was agitated by what he had heard.

‘What do you want of me?’ he asked abruptly, but in a tremulous voice.

‘Hark ye, shipmate!’ rejoined the other, leaning his head on his hand, while his elbow rested on the stained and chipped table beside him; ‘all in good time. Business is business, and is not to be disposed of in that sort of hop, skip, and jump way. Take another look at me, if you like; and since you can’t tell who I am, say what I am.’

‘I should say,’ answered Sir Sykes, gazing with undisguised repugnance at the outward man of his dubious acquaintance, ‘that you have been a sailor.’

‘No great wit wanted, I reckon,’ retorted Hold roughly, ‘to make out that much. The very mermaid on my arm here, and the crown and the anchor,’ he continued, baring his brawny wrist so as to exhibit the blue tattoo marks which it bore, ‘would tell you that. But I’ve followed more trades than one; tried them all in turn, sir. How does that idle string of words that schoolboys say, come off the tongue? Ay, I have it—Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor. Why, I’ve been everything on the urchin’s roll-call except thief; I never was quite that—or gentleman, which is a cut above me.’

‘You have seen the world evidently,’ said Sir Sykes in a bland tone; ‘but you must remember, Mr Hold, that you have not as yet explained to me with sufficient clearness the nature of your business with me.’

‘Labour lost, if I did,’ rejoined Hold with a cynical smile. ‘A secret is best of course when it belongs to one only. Two may get some good out of it; but once it’s common property, the goose that laid the golden eggs is picked bare to the last bone. Do you see,’ he added, dropping his voice, ‘our good friends yonder, and do you suppose that such as they are not all ears, as it were, to snap up any odds and ends of our talk? He with the frying-pan is as knowing a hand as any in England—a begging-letter writer, as the newspaper paragraphs call it. And the others, well! the others are all on the lay more or less, to scratch up a living by their wits. It’s only the cream of the cadging profession that can afford to patronise the Rest. It’s quite a genteel hotel of its class, I assure you. But now you know why I don’t speak out. Better deal with me singly, than with all these blood-suckers, I should say. And so, as we understand each other, we need not enlighten others.’

‘Is there no more private place?’ the baronet began.

But Hold broke curtly in: ‘None, Sir Sykes, in a crib like this. Up-stairs, we’d double the risk of being overheard. Walls have ears, you know. Now here, where we can see into the garden from this open window at my elbow, we’re pretty safe.—Deputy!’ (this was addressed to the sharp boy in the ragged jacket) ‘two glasses of rum, d’ye hear?’

Sir Sykes had had time to think, and it was in a firm tone that he now spoke.

‘Now, Mr Hold,’ he said, ‘I am a man of the world, and as such will not affect indignation or astonishment in the fact that you wish to bargain with me, for your own advantage, as to certain painful events of my earlier life. Name your terms, but be moderate. The law, as you are aware, is not very indulgent towards those who extort money by means of threats or calumnies.’

Hold’s face, hitherto good-humoured, wore an ugly scowl. ‘Drop that style of argument, if you’re wise, baronet,’ he said resolutely. ‘Dick Hold is not often backward, when folks will fire shotted guns instead of harmless blank cartridge. Come, come, commodore; if you dared to indict me, you’d hardly be here. Try that game, if you choose. It only serves the turn of those who can come into court with clean hands. Yours mayhap would shew a stain or so.—Here is Deputy with the rum. Let us drink, sir, to our better acquaintance, and be friends.’

Sir Sykes, however, pushed back the glass which Hold proffered him. Sunk in his own estimation though he might be, he could not stoop to pledge a ruffian of the stamp of this one.

‘Your very good health, Sir Sykes Denzil, Baronet,’ said Hold unconcernedly, as he tossed off his liquor. ‘We wear well, both of us; though many a year has gone over our heads since that ninth of April that you know of.’

‘Were you at Sandston, then, on that day?’ asked the baronet, thrown off his guard, and a slight quivering of Hold’s eyelid told that a point had been scored against his incautious opponent.

‘Not so. At Tunbridge Wells rather,’ returned Hold slowly. ‘I remember seeing the funeral—that of the poor little girl of yours who died, Sir Sykes.’

Sir Sykes grew almost as white as he had done when first he began the reading of the letter which had drawn him to such a rendezvous.

‘You will oblige me, sir,’ he said in a voice that he vainly tried to render firm and calm, ‘by being silent in future as to—as to’——

‘So that we understand one another, I agree to anything,’ was Hold’s half-sullen rejoinder.

‘And now to come to terms. You want money, no doubt?’ said Sir Sykes more composedly.

‘All people, to the best of my belief, want money,’ replied Hold with a grin. ‘I am no cormorant, no shearer and skinner of such as come under my handling. Just now, Sir Sykes, I will only ask you for five hundred—a fleabite!’

The demand, considering the baronet’s rank and means, was unexpectedly moderate. Sir Sykes in turn produced his pocket-book. ‘Few men,’ he said, ‘keep such a sum in ready cash. But it so happens’—laying down a roll of bank-notes upon the squalid table—‘that I have money, two hundred and thirty pounds, with me; and here’—pencilling a few words on a leaf which he tore out of the book—‘is my written promise for two seventy. I will send you a cheque to-morrow.’

‘Nothing,’ observed Hold, ‘could be more satisfactory. Don’t send a groom; grooms chatter; the post is safer. You won’t drink the rum, Sir Sykes? I will.’ And he swallowed the alcohol at a gulp, and then swept notes and paper into his pocket. ‘One thing more, Sir Sykes. I did not come here for hush-money and nothing else. I want you to take into your house and as a member of your family a person—of my recommending, Sir Sykes.’

‘I fail to comprehend you, Mr Hold,’ said the baronet stiffly.

The other laughed. ‘Her name,’ he said, ‘is Ruth.’

‘Ruth!’ exclaimed Sir Sykes, starting from his seat, and speaking so unguardedly that the unwashed crew at the firelit end of the room turned to peer at him.

‘Yes, Ruth. Don’t you like the name?’ asked the fellow coarsely. ‘My sister, Ruth Hold.’

‘Ruth—your sister—yours—at Carbery?’ gasped out the bewildered baronet.

‘You need not be afraid,’ was the rough reply: ‘she won’t disgrace your fine house or your dainty ways. I doubt if your misses at home are more thoroughly the lady than Ruth Hold—my—sister.’

‘You must see, your own good sense must shew you,’ stammered out Sir Sykes, looking the picture of abject terror, as the smoky glare of the lamp fell on his pale face, ‘that even were I willing to consent to so extraordinary—— In short it cannot be.’

‘Sorry for you, then!’ returned Hold with a shrug; ‘for on your acceptance of these terms alone is my silence to be bought. Come, come, shipmate! hear reason. Ruth shall bear any surname you like, and it can’t be hard to account for her coming to Carbery. You knew her father—an old friend—military—died in India—left you her guardian, Ruth’s guardian; eh, Sir Sykes?’

‘I—I will take time to think of it,’ said the baronet confusedly. ‘You shall hear from me to-morrow. And now, I had better go.’

And he rose. Hold re-conducted him, civilly enough, as far as the outer door, and watched him depart through the howling wind and driving rain towards Carbery. But what neither Hold nor Sir Sykes could have conjectured was that Jasper Denzil, hidden in a crazy arbour among the sunflowers and pot-herbs of the inn garden, hard by the open window, had during the greater portion of the interview played the part of an unsuspected eavesdropper, and was now on his way by another route to Carbery Chase.