IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

‘Now, look here, Fred; you’ve exactly an hour and a half to get back in,’ said Mr Middleton after luncheon. ‘I shall be at the mill by three precisely. Are you sure you can manage it?’

‘Oh, quite certain of it, sir,’ was my confident reply. ‘Why, I could go to M—— and back within the hour, easy riding. I’ll not keep you waiting, depend upon it.’ So saying, I vaulted the low sill of a window which stood wide open, and approached a couple who were strolling upon the lawn in front of Holm Court, the aristocratic-looking dwelling I had quitted.

Of this couple, one was a young lady, very fair and, in my eyes at least, very beautiful. She was the elder child and only daughter of the Mr Middleton already mentioned; a mill-owner who had realised a gigantic fortune by manufacturing; and in three days she was to be my wife. I for my part was a young man of good family, possessed of an independent fortune, in my twenty-second year, and ardently attached to my intended bride. That this attachment was mutual, I was, moreover, well assured; and on that delicious summer afternoon life opened before me full of brilliant promise. So happy indeed did I feel, that it was with difficulty I could restrain my jubilation within bounds, and compel myself to walk along the ground at a reasonable and gentlemanly pace, instead of running or leaping as, in my ecstasy, inclination prompted.

As I neared her my darling stepped forward to meet me; and after a few words upon another subject, she administered an anxious caution apropos of an adventure in which I was about to join, and to which I shall advert immediately. I assured her in return that there was no danger connected with it; and with an affectionate temporary adieu, we parted. Looking back as I prepared to mount my horse, which, held by a groom, stood ready saddled before the hall door, I saw my sweet girl rejoined by the companion, who, upon my approach, had sauntered away from her to some short distance. This companion was a Mr Marmaduke Hesketh, a fine-looking handsome man, about thirty-five, second-cousin to Mr Middleton, and lately returned from America. That this gentleman entertained towards my humble self feelings of a no very friendly character, I was well aware, although he had never addressed to me a single discourteous word; and the cause of his antipathy I had divined. He too was in love with Clara Middleton; I was sure of it, although he had never told her so; and although Clara herself, when I mentioned my impression to her, laughed at me for it, and called me a ‘fanciful goose.’ Her rallying, however, did not shake my conviction of the truth, and I felt very sorry for the poor man. As his successful rival, I could afford to pity him; and I had too much confidence in Clara’s affection to feel an atom of jealousy, even when, as now, I left him alone in her company.

My foot in the stirrup, I was preparing for a spring to the saddle, when my name, called eagerly from behind, arrested the action; and turning, I saw Clara’s brother—a nice-looking lad of twelve or so—running breathlessly down the broad steps of the entrance-hall.

‘I say, Mr Carleton,’ he panted on reaching my side, ‘mamma wants you, please, to get her a bottle of chloroform from Pennick’s the druggist when you’re passing. And I say; mind you don’t forget my string, will you? It’s to be as strong as ever you can get it, you know, for it’s such a big kite; and two balls, mind—big ones. You’ll be sure and remember?’

‘Oh, I’ll remember, Charlie, safe enough,’ I returned, smiling. ‘String and chloroform—two important commissions. I’ll not forget. Bye-bye, my boy.’ And giving my horse his head, I trotted down the avenue, passed the lodge gates, and turned in the direction of the busy manufacturing town of M——.

My errand there was to see the clergyman who was to officiate at the marriage, and to arrange with him some slight alteration in the hour previously appointed for the ceremony. On my return from this visit I was, according to agreement, to meet Mr Middleton and Mr Hesketh on the site of a large cotton-mill in process of erection by the former. Of this mill one portion was already completed, namely, an enormous chimney—the broadest and tallest by far of any in the county. Mr Middleton, exceedingly proud of his chimney, and considering it a masterpiece of enterprise, had determined beforehand to ascend to its summit as soon as it should be finished; and in this expedition he had invited Mr Hesketh and myself to accompany him. The scaffolding used in building it having been removed, the ascent was to be made by means of a bucket or car (similar to those employed in the descent of coal-pits), affixed to two strong chains, passing over pulleys which ran on pins built into the chimney at the top; and the car was to be worked by a windlass.

It wanted exactly five minutes to three when I arrived at the rendezvous—my business at M—— transacted, and the chloroform and string I had been commissioned to purchase in my pocket. Giving my horse into the charge of one of Mr Middleton’s employés, of whom there were several about, I walked towards the subterranean entrance to the chimney, near which I perceived Mr Marmaduke Hesketh standing. He looked rather pale, I thought, as courteously advancing on my approach, he imparted to me the information that Mr Middleton had just received a telegram summoning him to the bedside of his brother, Captain Middleton. That gentleman, it appeared, had been taken suddenly and dangerously ill; and full of anxiety, Mr and Mrs Middleton had already started off for F—— Junction, in order to catch the first train thence to the town, some twenty miles distant, where the captain was stationed with his regiment. Mr Middleton had, however, my informant proceeded, expressed, before leaving, a desire that we would not allow his absence to interfere with our project of ascending the chimney; and he, Mr Hesketh, concluded by hoping that I would not object to accompany him alone, as he very much wished to see the view from the top, and would not, as I knew—for he was leaving Holm Court the next day—have another opportunity of doing so.

Young and fond of adventure, I had rather enjoyed the prospect of this enterprise, and though disappointed not to carry it out in my intended father-in-law’s company, I saw no reason for declining Mr Hesketh’s proposal to go with him alone. Accordingly, signifying my assent to it, we proceeded to enter the chimney together. Some half-dozen men were waiting within, in readiness to turn the crank of the windlass; and a moment later, swaying and vibrating in mid-air, we were slowly ascending through the gradually narrowing aperture of the great chimney. On gaining the top I was the first to step from the bucket; but Mr Hesketh was speedily by my side. The stone coping being fully two feet in width and having a narrow parapet a foot in height, presented a perfectly safe footing. I had a strong head, and had not expected to feel dizzy; yet, as I now gazed from that tremendous height, a singular feeling of insecurity seized upon me.

‘Will you not walk round?’ said my companion when we had stood together for a few seconds on the spot where we had alighted.

‘Oh, certainly,’ I replied with an assumption of boldness, but an inward shrinking from the ordeal; and with Mr Hesketh at my heels, I commenced the circuit.

About half the short distance was accomplished, when a hand laid on my arm arrested my steps. ‘We’ve a fine view from here—haven’t we?’ observed Mr Hesketh as I stopped, a sensation of dread thrilling through my nerves at his touch. ‘You see Holm Court there, down to the right, don’t you?’

‘Of course, quite plainly,’ I returned, clearing my throat to cover the strange nervous uneasiness I was experiencing.

‘So glad I persuaded you to come and see the view,’ he remarked next in a very peculiar tone, and at the same time tightening his grasp upon my arm. ‘But it’s an awful height, isn’t it; I hope you don’t feel giddy?’

‘Not at all,’ I replied, endeavouring to keep my composure as I gazed downwards at the long perpendicular wall of smooth brick, but feeling that I was trembling perceptibly.

‘And yet there is but a step between us and death,’ he pursued with a sneer. ‘Hollo! I’m quoting Scripture, I declare. You wouldn’t have expected that of me; would you?’

‘Oh, anybody can quote Scripture, you know,’ I responded with a ghastly attempt at airiness. ‘But I say, Hesketh, let go my arm, will you? You’re hurting me.’

‘Hurting you, am I? Ha, ha! I beg your pardon, I’m sure,’ he laughed, increasing instead of diminishing the vice-like pressure of his fingers. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you for the world; O no! But now, if you’ve quite finished with the scenery, Mr Frederick Carleton, I’ll trouble you to give me your attention for a moment. I’m going to ask you a question, which you may perhaps consider somewhat curiously timed. I am not a vain man, that I know of; but I should like to have your opinion respecting my personal appearance. Should you feel justified now, for instance, in describing me as a well-built, powerful kind of man?’

Considering that he was upwards of six feet in height, broad and stout in proportion, with well-developed sinewy limbs, the description would have been accurate; and I said so.

‘If you feel any doubt of it,’ he resumed, still in the same peculiar tone, ‘oblige me by examining that muscle.’ And he stretched out for my inspection an arm that could have felled an ox—firm and strong as a bar of iron.

‘I am quite satisfied of your muscular strength and powerful physical development, Mr Hesketh,’ I said, with an effort to appear unconcerned and amused, which I was conscious was a dead failure. ‘And now, with your permission, I think we had better descend.’

‘Not just this moment, my precious little bantam cock,’ was the startling rejoinder. ‘Sorry to detain you, believe me, but I must trouble you with another question. Supposing, now, that you and I, dear friend, were to have a tussle at the top of this chimney, and that each of us was trying to throw the other over, which, should you think, would have the better chance of accomplishing his purpose?’

Summoning to my aid all the manliness of which I was possessed, I courageously declined to answer this question—asserting that the case was not a supposable one, seeing that I entertained towards him no feelings of enmity, and that I felt sure he had no desire to injure me.

‘Look in my face and see if I haven’t!’ he rejoined in loud fierce accents, very different from those he had hitherto employed. ‘Look in my face, Mr Frederick Carleton, and see if I haven’t!’

I did look, and my heart died within me—for on the face of the man who still retained my arm in his iron grip on the top of that terrible chimney, I saw an expression of fiendish hate and malignance, of the like of which I could not have believed a human countenance capable.

As my eyes fell before the awful glare of his, he laughed. ‘You have read your answer, I see,’ he said. ‘And now, listen. Seat yourself upon the parapet exactly where you now stand; observe as closely as you please what I am about to do; but stir one step to hinder it, and as I live, I will hurl you below!’

The threat, I knew, was no vain one; the man who uttered it overtopped me by the head and shoulders, and possessed double my strength. Resistance, therefore, would have been entirely useless; and trembling in every limb, I obeyed the command, and seated myself. And this was what I then beheld. Approaching the mass of machinery against which rested the wooden box or car wherein we had ascended, Mr Hesketh leaned over the edge of the chimney, and deliberately lifted this up from one of the two strong iron hooks upon which it hung suspended. Then slipping the loosened chain over the pulley, he sent it clattering towards the ground below. A horrified shout from the men who stood by the windlass greeted this act, coming up hoarse and discordant from the distance; and bending forwards I answered that shout with an imploring cry for aid—a wild vain cry! The men, of course, could not help me; and with sickening despair I watched them retreating to the subterranean passage, to save themselves from danger—as mounted now upon the projecting machinery, Mr Hesketh loosened the remaining hook of the car and precipitated it into the abyss beneath.