X. A DAY OF PLEASURE…

X. A DAY OF PLEASURE

We all liked Captain Sanker; a post-captain in the navy, ages since on half-pay; who came into Worcestershire, and brought a letter of introduction to the Squire. He was about a seventeenth cousin of the Sankers of Wales, and a twenty-seventh of Mrs. Todhetley. The captain and his wife and family, six children, had lived in Ireland and the Channel Islands, and other cheap localities, making both ends of their income meet as well as they could--and nobody need be told how poor is the half-pay of naval officers, and what a fight and a struggle it is to rub along. At last, through the death of a relative of Mrs. Sanker, they dropped into quite a fortune, and came over to settle at Worcester.

A Dr. Teal, who had also recently come to Worcester, and was an old friend of Captain Sanker, proposed it to them. He wrote a flaming account of the pretty place that Worcester was, of the loveliness of the surrounding country; and of the great advantage the college school would be to the young Sankers, in giving them a free education if they could be got into it. The prospect of a free education for his boys took with the captain, and he lost no time in removing to Worcester, the Welsh Sankers giving him an introduction to us. We grew pretty intimate: calling on them when we went to Worcester for a day, and having them over to spend days with us.

All the young Sankers were got into the college school by degrees, and became four of the forty king's scholars. At that time--it is long past now--the school was not thought much of, for the boys were taught little but the classics, so entrance was easy: Latin, Greek, bad writing, and the first rule in arithmetic: there it ended. Captain Sanker thought the education first-rate, and had them all enrolled: Frederick, Daniel, King, and Toby. As to Toby, I fancy his real name was Alfred, but I never heard him called by it.

They had been in Worcester between one and two years, when Tod and I went over to them on a visit. The captain had come to spend a summer's day at Crabb Cot, and in his jolly, open-hearted fashion insisted on taking us two back with him. He was a short, stout man, with grey hair, and merry bright blue eyes all alight with smiles. The college school would be breaking up for its long holidays in a week or so, and it would have been better for us to have gone then; but the captain always did things on impulse, and had no more forethought than young Toby. The holidays were taken late that year, and would be very long, because the college hall, which was the schoolroom, would be wanted for the music-meeting in September.

The Sankers' was a funny household, and we pitched down amongst them without ceremony on either side. The house was at the corner of an open road, not very far from the cathedral. It was a commodious house as to size; but all the rooms were in an everlasting litter, so that you could never find a chair to sit down on. The captain was good-humoured always, going in and out a hundred times a day. There seemed to be no fixed hour for meals, and sometimes no meals to eat: Mrs. Sanker would forget to order them. She was a little lady, who went about as if she were dreaming, in a white petticoat and loose buff jacket; or else she'd be sitting aloft in the turret, darning stockings and saying poetry. She was the least excitable person I ever knew; all events, good and bad, she took as a matter of course: had the house caught fire she would have looked on quietly--as Nero did when Rome was burning. Why they called the room the turret did not appear. It had a great high beam running through it on the floor: and Mrs. Sanker would sit on that, reading poetry to us or telling her dreams, her light hair all down.

At seven o'clock the boys had to be in school. Being summer weather, that was no hardship. At nine they came in again with a rush, wild for breakfast. If Mrs. Sanker was not down to give it them, the four boys would begin and eat up the piles of bread-and-butter; upon which Hetta Sanker would call them tigers, and go to the kitchen to tell the maids to cut more. Which was the cook of the two servants and which the housemaid, they did not themselves seem to know: both did the work indiscriminately. Breakfast over, the boys went out again, Tod and I with them. At ten they must be in school. At one they came home to dinner; it might be ready, or it might not: if not, they'd go in and polish off anything cold that might be in the larder. It didn't seem to spoil their dinners. Afternoon school again until four o'clock; and then at liberty for good. Tea was at any time; a scrambling sort of meal that stayed on the table for hours, and was taken just as we chanced to go in for it. Jam and boiled eggs would be on the table, with the loaf and butter ad libitum. Sometimes toast and dripping, and there used to be a scuffle for that. As to dinner, when Mrs. Sanker forgot it, the servants would bring in a big dish of poached eggs, and we made it up with bread-and-cheese. Or Dan or Toby would be sent tearing off to High Street for a lot of penny pork-pies and apple-tarts. At night we had prayers, which the captain read.

Now I dare say that to people accustomed to a domestic life like clock-work, this would have been unbearable. I thought it delightful; as did Tod. It was like a perpetual picnic. But it was from one of these dinnerless episodes we found out that Captain Sanker had a temper. Generally speaking, he took disasters with equanimity.

It was on a Thursday. We were to have had four ducks for dinner, which the captain had bought at market the day before. Fine ducks that he was proud of: he carried them home himself, and brought them into the parlour to show us. On this day, Thursday, Tod and I had been into the Town Hall in the morning, listening to a trial before the magistrates--some fellow who had stolen his neighbour's clothes-props and cut them up for firewood. We reached home just as the boys and their books did, as hungry as they were. There was no cloth laid, and Fred shouted out for Biddy, asking whether we were to dine to-day or to-morrow. Biddy heard, and came rushing in with the cloth and knife-tray.

"What's for dinner besides the four ducks?" asked Dan. "Any pudding? Have you put plenty of stuffing?"

"Indeed then, and I don't think there's much for dinner," replied Biddy. "I've been in the turret with the missis all the morning, helping to stuff a pillow."

She laid the cloth, and Mrs. Sanker came mooning down in the short white petticoat and buff jacket, darning a sock of Dan's. The dreadful truth came out--busy over beds and pillows, nobody had thought of dinner, and the ducks were hanging in the larder, uncooked. Before speechless tongues could find words, Captain Sanker came in, bringing his friend Dr. Teal to taste the ducks. All the Teals were as intimate at the house as we were. Years before, when the captain was a middy, Dr. Teal had been assistant-surgeon on the same ship.

"They've a cold dinner at Teal's to-day," said the captain to his wife, as she was shaking hands with the doctor, "so he has come to share ours. Fine ducks they are, Teal!"

Then the news had to be told. The ducks were not cooked: dinner altogether had been forgotten.

I saw Captain Sanker's face turn white--quite white; but he did not say a word. Dr. Teal--a scientific Scotchman, who walked with his nose in the air and his spectacles turned to the skies, as if always looking for a lunar rainbow--made the best of it. Laughing, he said he would come in another day, and went out.

Then it began. Captain Sanker gave vent to passion in a way that startled me, and made Tod stare. I don't believe he knew for a few moments what he was doing or saying. Nora, the other servant--both girls had come with them from Ireland, and were as thoughtless as their mistress--came in with a dish of some hastily concocted pudding: a sort of batter. The captain, who still had his stick in his hand, lifted it and spattered the pudding all about the cloth. Then he stamped out of the house with a bang.

"Sit down, dears," said Mrs. Sanker, not at all moved, as she began to collect the pudding with a spoon. "Bring in the cheese, Nora, and do some eggs. Here's a corner seat for you, Johnny; can you squeeze in? The captain will have his dinner with the Teals, no doubt. He has been tasting the doctor's port wine, I think; or he wouldn't have been so put up."

And somehow we gathered, then or later, that the captain was easy as an old glove at all times and over all crosses, unless he was a little "put up" by artificial help. He told us himself one day (not, of course, alluding to anything of this sort) that he had had naturally an awful temper, would go into passions of absolute madness for a minute or two, when he was younger; but that he had by much self-restraint chiefly if not quite subdued it. It was true; and the temper never need be feared now unless he took anything to excite him. Dan had the same temper; but without the good-nature. And they said Hetta had; but we saw nothing of it in her. Hetta was eighteen, a nice-looking girl, who was governess to little Ruth, or pretended to be; but Ruth would manage to escape her lessons five days in the week. It was all the same to Mrs. Sanker whether she did them or whether she didn't.

At the time of this visit of ours to Worcester, the college school was in a ferment. Between the Cathedral and St. Peter's Church was situated a poor, back district called Frog Lane. It had been rechristened Diglis Street, but was chiefly called by the old name still. Crowded dwellings, narrow streets, noise and dirt--that's how the place struck me. The inhabitants were chiefly workmen belonging to the glove and china manufactories of the town. In this district was the parish school, always filled with boys, sons of the working-men, and under the superintendence of Mr. Jones, the portly parish clerk. Now there was wont to spring up from time to time a tide of animosity between these boys and the boys of the college school. Captain Sanker said it was the fault of the college boys: had they let the St. Peter's boys alone, St. Peter's boys would never have presumed to interfere with them: but the college boys could be downright contemptuous and overbearing when they pleased. They scornfully called the St. Peter's boys the Frogs, "charity boys;" and the Frogs retorted by calling them the College Caws--after the rooks that had their homes in the old trees of the college green and kept up a perpetual cawing. The animosity generally ended in a grand battle; and then hostilities would be dropped for months, perhaps years. One of these quarrels was going on while we were at Worcester; it had kept both schools in a ferment for some weeks, and there was every sign of a culminating fight. Of course we went in heart and soul with the king's scholars: but the boys on both sides held a code of honour--if you can call it so--that no stranger must take part in the engagements. The college boys were only forty, all told; the Frogs seemed to number four times as many.

Skirmishes took place daily--the scene being the top of Edgar Street. St. Peter's boys (let out of school at twelve, whereas the others did not get out till one) would collect in the narrow neck of their district opening on Edgar Street, and wait for the enemy. As soon as the college boys' steps were heard racing under the dark gateway of Edgar Tower, hisses and groans began. "Caw, caw, caw! Hiss, hiss, hiss! How's your Latin to-day?--what birchings has you had? Call yourselves gents, does you, you College Caws? You daren't come on fair, and fight it out with us, you Caws. Caw, caw, caw!" Sometimes the college boys would pass on, only calling back their contemptuous retorts; sometimes they'd halt, and a fierce storm of abuse would be interchanged, to the edification of Edgar Street in general and the clerks in Mr. Clifton's Registry Office. "You beggarly Frogs! We don't care to soil our hands with you! Had you been gentlemen, we'd have polished you off long ago, and sent you into next week. Croak, Frogs! Croak!" Not a third of the college boys need have taken Edgar Tower on their way home; through the cloisters and out by St. Michael's churchyard would have been their direct way; but they chose to meet the Frogs. Once in a way there'd be a single combat; but as a rule nothing came of it but abuse. When that was exhausted, each lot would rush home their separate ways: the Frogs back down Frog Lane; the others up the steps, or onwards down Edgar Street, as their road might lie, and remain apart till the same hour next day.

I have not said much yet about King Sanker. He was lame: something was wrong with his knee. Gatherings would come in it, and then he'd be in bed for weeks together. He was nearly thirteen then; next to Dan: and Dan was over fourteen. King was a nice little fellow, with mild eyes as blue as the captain's: Fred would order him to keep "out of the ruck" in the skirmishes with the Frogs, and he generally did. If it came to a fight, you see, King might have been hurt; he had no fighting in him, was frightened at it, and he could not run much. King was just like his mother in ideas: he would tell us his dreams as she did, and recite pieces of poetry a mile long. Dan and King slept together in the room next to ours; it was in the garret, close to the turret-room. King would keep us awake singing; sometimes chants, sometimes hymns, sometimes songs. They'd have let him try for the choir, but the head-master of the college school thought his knee would not do for it.

It was Saturday, and a pouring wet afternoon. Our visit was drawing to an end; on the following Wednesday we should bid the Sankers good-bye. Captain Sanker, always trying to find out ways of making folk happy, had devised a day of pleasure for the last day of our stay, Tuesday. We were to go to Malvern; a whole lot of us: ourselves, and the Teals, and the Squire, and Mrs. Todhetley, and take our dinner on the hill. It was so settled; and the arrangements were planned and made.

But this was yet only Saturday. We dined at twelve: whether for any one's convenience or that the servants made a mistake in an hour, I don't remember. It happened to be a saint's day, so the boys had no school; and, being wet, came home after morning service in the cathedral. After a jolly dinner of peas and bacon and pancakes, we looked at the skies for a bit, and then (all but Fred and Hetta) went up to the turret-room. Dan said the rain had come to spite us; for the whole school had meant to race to Berwick's Bridge after afternoon service and hold a mock review in the fields there. It was coming down in torrents, peppering the roof and the windows. Mrs. Sanker sat in the middle of the old beam, mending one of Toby's shirts, "Lalla Rookh" open on her knee, out of which she was singing softly; the floor was strewed with patches, and scissors, and tapes, and the combs were out of one side of her hair.

"Read it out loud to us, mamma," cried King.

"I can't spare time to read, King," she said. "Look here"--holding out the work, all rags and tatters. "If I don't mend this, Toby won't have a shirt to put on to-morrow."

"I shan't mind about that," said Toby.

"Oh, but, dear, I don't think you could go without a shirt. Has any one seen my cotton?"

"Then say something over to us that you know, mamma," returned King, as Toby found the cotton.

"Very well. I can do that and work too. Sit down, all of you."

We sat down, King and Toby on the floor before her, the rest of on the beam on either side her. Dan, who did not care for poetry, got some Brazil nuts out of his pocket and cracked them while he listened.

Mrs. Sanker might as well have read "Lalla Rookh." She began to recite "The Friar of Orders Grey." But what with gazing up at the sky through the rain to give it due emphasis, and shaking her head at pathetic parts, the sewing did not get on. She had finished the verse--

"Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain; For violets plucked, the sweetest showers Will ne'er make grow again,"

when King surprised us by bursting into tears. But as Mrs. Sanker took no notice, I supposed it was nothing unusual.

"You young donkey!" cried Dan, when the poem was finished. "You'll never be a man, King."

"It is such a nice verse, Dan," replied young King, meekly. "I whisper it over sometimes to myself in bed. Mamma, won't you say the 'Barber's Ghost'? Johnny Ludlow would like to hear that, I know."

We had the "Barber's Ghost," which was humorous, and we had other things. After that, Mrs. Sanker told a dreadful story about a real ghost, one that she said haunted her family, and another of a murder that was discovered by a dream. Some of the young Sankers were the oddest mixtures of timidity and bravery--personally brave in fighting; frightfully timid as to being alone in the dark--and I no longer wondered at it if she brought them up on these ghostly dishes.

"I should not like to have dreams that would tell me of murders," said King, thoughtfully. "But I do dream very strange dreams sometimes. When I awake, I lie and wonder what they mean. Once I dreamt I saw heaven--didn't I, mamma? It was so beautiful."

"Ay; my family have always been dreamers," replied Mrs. Sanker.

Thus, what with ghosts and poetry and talking, the afternoon wore on unconsciously. Dan suddenly started up with a shout--

"By Jove!"

The sun had come out. Come out, and we had never noticed it. It was shining as brightly as could be on the slates of all the houses. The rain had ceased.

"I say, we shall have the review yet!" cried Dan. "And, by Jupiter, that's the college bell! Make a rush, you fellows, or you'll be marked late. There's three o'clock striking."

The king's scholars thought it a great shame that they should have to attend prayers in the cathedral morning and afternoon on saints' days, instead of wholly benefiting by the holiday. They had to do it, however. The three went flying out towards the cathedral, and I gave King my arm to help him after them. Tod and I--intending to take part in the review at Berwick's Bridge--went to college also, and sat behind the surpliced king's scholars on the decani side, in the stalls next to the chanter.

But for a little mud, you'd hardly have thought there had been any rain when we got out again; and the sun was glowing in the blue sky. Not a single fellow was absent: even King limped along. We took the way by the Severn, past the boat-house at the end of the college boundaries, and went leisurely along the towing-path, intending to get into the fields beyond Diglis Wharf, and so onwards.

I don't believe there was a thought in any one's mind that afternoon of the enemy. The talk--and a good hubbub it was--turned wholly upon soldiers and reviews. A regular review of the Worcestershire militia took place once a year on Kempsey Ham, and some of the boys' heads got a trifle turned with it. They were envying Lord Ward, now, as they went along: saying they should like to be him, and look as well as he did, and sit his horse as proudly.

"Of course he's proud," squeaked out the biggest Teal, whose voice was uncertain. "Think of his money!--and his horses!--and see how good-looking he is! If Lord Ward hasn't a right to be proud, I should like to know who has. Why, he--oh, by George! I say, look here!"

Turning into the first field, we found we had turned into a company of Frogs. All the whole lot, it seemed. Caws and croaks and hoots and groans from either side rose at once on the air. Which army commenced hostilities, I couldn't tell; the one was as eager for it as the other; and in two minutes the battle had begun--begun in earnest. Up dashed the senior boy.

"Look here," said he to me and Tod; "you understand our rules. You must neither of you attempt to meddle in this. Stay and look on, if you please; but keep at a sufficient distance where it may be seen that you are simply spectators. These beggars shan't have it to say that we were helped."

He dashed back again. Tod ground his teeth with the effort it took to keep himself from going in to pummel some of the Frogs. Being upon honour, he had to refrain; and he did it somehow.

The Frogs had the blazing sun in their eyes; our side had it at their backs--which was against the Frogs. There were no weapons of any sort; only arms and hands. It looked like the scrimmage of an Irish row. Sometimes there was closing-in, and fighting hand to hand; sometimes the forces were drawn back again, each to its respective ground. During the first of these interludes, just as the sides were preparing to charge, a big Frog, with broad awkward shoulders, a red, rugged face, and a bleeding nose, came dashing forward alone into the ranks of the college boys, caught up poor lame helpless King Sanker, bore him bravely right through, and put him down in safety beyond, in spite of the blows freely showered upon him. Not a soul on our side had thought of King; and the college boys were too excited to see what the big Frog was about, or they'd perhaps have granted him grace to pass unmolested. King sat down on the wet grass for a bit, and gazed about him like a fellow bewildered. Seeing me and Tod he came limping round to us.

"It was good-natured of that big Frog, wasn't it, Johnny Ludlow?"

"Very. He'd make a brave soldier. I mean a real soldier."

"Perhaps I should have been killed, but for him. I was frightened, you see; and there was no way out. I couldn't have kept on my legs a minute longer."

The battle raged. The cawing and the croaking, that had been kept up like an array of trumpets, fell off as the fighting waxed hotter. The work grew too fierce and real for abuse of tongue. We could hear the blows dealt on the upturned faces. King, who had a natural horror of fighting, trembled inwardly from head to foot, and hid his face behind me. Tod was dancing with excitement, flinging his closed fists outward in imaginary battle, and roaring out like a dragon.

I can't say who would have won had they been left alone. Probably the Frogs, for there were a great many more of them. But on the other hand, none of them were so old as some of the college boys. When the fight was at the thickest, we heard a sudden shout from a bass, gruff, authoritative voice: "Now then, boys, how dare you!" and saw a big, portly gentleman in black clothes and a white necktie, appear behind the Frogs, with a stout stick in his hand.

It was Clerk Jones, their master. His presence and his voice acted like magic. Not a Frog of them all but dropped his blows and his rage. The college boys had to drop theirs, as the enemy receded. Clerk Jones put himself between the two sets of combatants.

The way he went on at both sides was something good to hear. Shaking his stick at his own boys, they turned tail softly, and then rushed away through the mud like wild horses, not waiting to hear the close: so the college boys had the pepper intended for the lot. He vowed and declared by the stick that was in his hand--and he had the greatest mind, he interrupted himself to say, to put it about their backs--that if ever they molested his boys again, or another quarrel was got up, he would appeal publicly to the dean and chapter. If one of the college boys made a move in future to so much as cast an insulting look towards a boy in St. Peter's School, that boy should go before the dean; and it would not be his fault (the clerk's) if he was not expelled the cathedral. He would take care, and precious good care, that his boys should preserve civility henceforth; and it was no great favour to expect that the college boys would do so. For his part he should feel ashamed in their places to oppress lads in an inferior class of life to themselves; and he should make it his business before he slept to see the head-master of the college school, and report this present disgraceful scene to him: the head-master could deal with it as he pleased.

Mr. Jones went off, flourishing his stick; and our side began to sum up its damages: closed eyes, scratched faces, swollen noses, and torn clothes. Dan Sanker's nose was as big as a beer barrel, and his shirt-front hung in ribbons. Fred's eyes were black. Toby's jacket had a sleeve slit up, and one of his boots had disappeared for good.

The spectacle we made, going home down the Gloucester Road, could not be easily forgotten. Folks collected on the pavement, and came to the windows and doors to see the sight. It was like an army of soldiers returning from battle. Bleeding faces, black eyes, clothes tattered and bespattered with mud. Farmers going back from market drew up their gigs to the roadside, to stare at us while we passed. One little girl, in a pony-chaise, wedged between a fat old lady in a red shawl and a gentleman in top-boots, was frightened nearly into fits. She shrieked and cried, till you might have heard her up at Mr. Allies's; and the old lady could not pacify her. The captain was out when we got in: and Mrs. Sanker took it all with her usual apathy, only saying we had better have come straight home from college to hear some more poetry.

An awful fuss was made by the head-master. Especially as the boys had to appear on Sunday at the cathedral services. Damages were visible on many of them; and their white surplices only helped to show the faces off the more. The chorister who took the solo in the afternoon anthem was decorated with cuttings of sticking-plaster; he looked like a tattooed young Indian.

The school broke up on the Monday: and on that day Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley drove into Worcester, and put up at the Star and Garter. They came to us in the afternoon, as had been agreed upon; dinner being ordered by Captain Sanker for five o'clock. It was rather a profuse dinner; fish and meat and pies and dessert, but quite a scramble of confusion: which none of the Sankers seemed to notice or to mind.

"Johnny dear, is it always like this?" Mrs. Todhetley could not help asking me, in a whisper. "I should be in a lunatic asylum in a week."

We started for Malvern on Tuesday at eleven o'clock. The Squire drove Bob and Blister in his high carriage: Dr. Teal, Captain Sanker, and Fred sitting with him. There was no railroad then. The ladies and the girls crammed themselves into a post-carriage from the Star, and a big waggonette was lent by some friend of Dr. Teal for the rest. The boys were losing the signs of their damages; nothing being very conspicuous now but Dan's nose. It refused to go down at all in size, and in colour was brighter than a rainbow. The Teals kept laughing at it, which made Dan savage; once he burst out in a passion, wishing all the Frogs were shot.

I remember that drive still. John Teal and I sat on the box of the post-carriage, the post-boy riding his horses. I remember the different features of the road as we passed them--not but that I knew them well before; I remember the laden orchards, and the sweet scent of the bean-fields, in flower then. Over the bridge from Worcester went we, up the New Road and through St. John's, and then into the open country; past Lower Wick, where Mrs. Sherwood lived, and on to Powick across its bridge. I remember that a hearse and three mourning-coaches stood before the Lion, the men refreshing themselves with drink; and we wondered who was being buried that day. Down that steep and awkward hill next, where so many accidents occurred before it was altered, and so on to the Link; the glorious hills always before us from the turning where they had first burst into view; their clumps of gorse and broom, their paths and their sheep-tracks growing gradually plainer to the sight the nearer we drew. The light and shade cast by the sun swept over them perpetually, a landscape ever changing; the white houses of the village, nestling amidst their dark foliage, looked fair for the eye to rest upon. Youth, as we all get to learn when it has gone by, lends a charm that later life cannot know: but never a scene that I have seen since, abroad or at home, lies on my memory with half the beauty as does that old approach to Malvern. Turning round to the left at the top of the Link, we drove into Great Malvern.

The carriages were left at the Crown. An old pony was chartered for some of the provisions, and we boys carried the rest. The people at St. Ann's Well had been written to, and the room behind the well was in readiness for us. Once the baskets were deposited there, we were at liberty till dinner-time, and went on up the hill. Turning a corner which had hidden the upper landscape from view, we came upon Dan Sanker, who had got on first. He was standing to confront us, his face big with excitement, his nose flaming.

"If you'll believe me, those cursed Frogs are here!"

In angry consternation--for the Frogs seemed to have no business to be at Malvern--we rushed on, turned another corner, and so brought ourselves into a wide expanse of upper prospect. Sure enough! About a hundred of the Frogs in their Sunday clothes were trooping down the hill. They had the start of us in arriving at Malvern, and had been to the top already.

"I'll--be--jiggered!" cried Dan, savagely. "What a horrid lot they are! Look at their sneaking tail-coats. Wouldn't I like to pitch into them!"

The college school wore the Eton jacket. Those preposterous coats, the tails docked to the size of the boys, did not improve the appearance of the Frogs. But as to pitching-in, Dan did not dare to do it after what had passed. It was his nose that made him so resentful.

"I desire that you will behave as gentlemen," said Captain Sanker, who was behind with the Squire, and bid us halt. "Those poor boys are here, I see; but they will not, I am sure, molest you, neither must you molest them. Civility costs nothing, remember. What are you looking so cross for, Dan?"

"Oh, well, papa, it's like their impudence, to come here to-day!" muttered Dan.

The captain laughed. "They may say it's like yours, to come, Dan: they were here first. Go on, lads, and don't forget yourselves."

Tod's whistle below was heard just then; and Dan, not caring to show his nose to the enemy, responded, and galloped back. We went on. The paths there are narrow, you know, and we expected to have all the string of Frogs sweeping past us, their coats brushing our jackets. But--perhaps not caring to meet us any more than we cared to meet them--most of them broke off on a detour down the steep of the hill, and so avoided us. About half-a-dozen came on. One of them was a big-shouldered, awkward, red-faced boy, taller than the rest of them and not unlike a real frog; he walked with his cap in his hand, and his brown hair stood on end like a porcupine's. Indisputably ugly was he, with a mouth as wide as a frying-pan; but it was a pleasant and honest face, for all that. King suddenly darted to him as he was passing, and pulled him towards Captain Sanker, in excitement.

"Papa, this is the one I told you of; the one who saved me and didn't mind the blows he got in doing it. I should have been knocked down, and my knee trampled on, but for him."

Out went Captain Sanker's hand to shake the boy's. He did it heartily. As to the Frog, he blushed redder than before with modesty.

"You are a brave lad, and I thank you heartily," said the captain, wringing his hand as though he'd wring it off. "You do honour to yourself, whoever you may be. There was not one of his own companions to think of him, and save him, and you did it in the midst of danger. Thank you, my lad."

The captain slid half-a-crown into his hand, telling him to get some Malvern cakes. The boy stood back for us to go by. I was the last, and he spoke as if he knew me.

"Good-day, Master Johnny."

Why, who was he? And, now I came to look at his freckled face, it seemed quite familiar. His great wide mouth brought me remembrance.

"Why, it's Mark Ferrar! I didn't know you at first, Mark."

"We've come over here for the day in two vans," said Mark, putting his grey cap on. "Eighty of the biggest of us; the rest are to come to-morrow. Some gent that's visiting at St. Peter's parsonage has given us the treat, sir."

"All right, Mark. I'm glad you thought of King Sanker on Saturday."

Ferrar touched his cap, and went vaulting down after his comrades. He was related to Daniel Ferrar, the Squire's bailiff, of whom you have heard before, poor fellow, and also to the Batleys of South Crabb. He used to come over to Crabb, that's where I had seen him.

Some donkeys came running down the hill, their white cloths flying. Captain Sanker stopped one and put King on him--for King was tired already. We soon got to the top then, and to Lady Harcourt's Tower. Oh, it was a glorious day! The great wide prospect around stood out in all its beauty. The vale of Herefordshire on the one side with its rural plains and woods basked in the sunshine, its crops of ruddy pears and apples giving token of the perry and cider to come; on the other side rose the more diversified landscape that has been so much told and talked of. Over the green meadows and the ripening corn-fields lay Worcester itself: the cathedral showing out well, and the summit of the high church-spire of St. Andrew's catching a glint of the sunlight. Hills caught the eye wherever it turned: Bredon Hill, Abberleigh Hills, the Old Hills; homesteads lay upon their lands, half hidden by their rick-yards and clustering trees; cattle and sheep browsed on the grass or lay in the shade to shelter themselves from the midday sun. To the right, on the verge of the horizon, far, far away, might be caught a glimpse of something that sparkled like a bed of stars--the Bristol Channel. It is not often you can discern that from Malvern, but this day that I am telling of was one of the clearest ever seen there; the atmosphere looking quite rarefied in spite of the sunlight.

King's donkey regaled himself with morsels of herbage, the donkey-boy lay stretched beside him, and we boys raced about. When an hour or two had passed, and we were as hot as fire and more hungry than hunters, we bethought ourselves of dinner. King got on his donkey again, and the rest of us whipped him up. When half-way down we saw Dr. Teal gesticulating and shouting, telling us to come on and not keep dinner waiting longer.

We had it in the room behind the well. It was a squeeze to sit round the table. Cold meats, and salad, and pastry, and all sorts of good things. Dan was next to me; he said he could hardly eat for thirst, and kept drinking away at the bottled ale.

"My dear," said Mrs. Todhetley to him by-and-by, "don't you think you had better drink some water instead--or lemonade? This bottled ale is very strong."

"I am afraid it is," said Dan. "I'll go in for the tarts now."

The room was stuffy; and after dinner a table was carried out to a sheltered place near the well: not much better than a little ledge of a path, but where we could not be overlooked, and should be quite out of the way of the hill-climbers. The bank rose perpendicularly above us, banks descended beneath to goodness knew where; there we sat at dessert, all sheltered. I think dark trees and shrubs overshaded us; but I am not altogether sure.

How it came about, I hardly know: but something was brought up about King's store of ballads, and he was asked to give us his favourite one, "Lord Bateman," for the benefit of the company. He turned very shy, but Captain Sanker told him not to be silly: and after going white and red for a bit, he began. Perhaps the reader would like to hear it. I never repeat it to myself, no, nor even a verse of it, but poor King Sanker comes before me just as I saw him that day, his back to the ravine below, his eyes looking at nothing, his thin hands nervously twisting some paper about that had covered the basket of raspberries.

Lord Bateman was a noble lord, A noble lord of high degree: He shipped himself on board a ship; Some foreign country he would see.

He sailed east, he sailèd west, Until he came unto Turkey, Where he was taken, and put in prison Until his life was quite weary.

In this prison there grew a tree: It grew so very stout and strong: And he was chained by the middle Until his life was almost gone.

The Turk, he had one only daughter, The fairest creature eye e'er did see: She stole the keys of her father's prison, And said she'd set Lord Bateman free.

"Have you got houses?--have you got lands Or does Northumberland belong to thee? And what would you give to the fair young I Who out of prison would set you free?"

"Oh, I've got houses, and I've got lands, And half Northumberland belongs to me; And I'd give it all to the fair young lady That out of prison would set me free."

Then she took him to her father's palace, And gave to him the best of wine; And every health that she drank to him Was "I wish, Lord Bateman, you were mine.

"For seven long years I'll make a vow; And seven long years I'll keep it strong: If you will wed no other woman, I will wed no other man."

Then she took him to her father's harbour, And gave to him a ship of fame; "Farewell, farewell to you, Lord Bateman; I fear I never shall see you again."

When seven long years were gone and past, And fourteen days, well known to me; She packed up her gay gold and clothing, And said Lord Bateman she would see.

When she came to Lord Bateman's castle, So boldly there she rang the bell: "Who's there, who's there?" cried the young proud porter: "Who's there, who's there, unto me tell?"

"Oh, is this Lord's Bateman's castle? And is his lordship here within?" "Oh yes, oh yes," cried the young proud porter: "He has just now taken his young bride in."

"Tell him to send me a slice of cake, And a bottle of the best of wine; And not to forget the fair young lady That did release him when close confined."

Away, away went this young proud porter, Away, away, away went he; Until he came unto Lord Bateman, When on his bended knees fell he.

"What news, what news, my young porter; What news, what news have you brought unto me?" "Oh, there is the fairest of all young ladies That ever my two eyes did see.

"She has got rings on every finger, And on one of them she has got three; And she has as much gold round her middle As would buy Northumberland of thee.

"She tells you to send her a slice of cake, And a bottle of the best of wine; And not to forget the fair young lady That did release you when close confined."

Lord Bateman in a passion flew; He broke his sword in splinters three; "I'll give all my father's wealth and riches Now, if Sophia has crossed the sea."

Then up spoke his young bride's mother-- Who never was heard to speak so free: "Don't you forget my only daughter, Although Sophia has crossed the sea."

"I own I've made a bride of your daughter She's none the better nor worse for me; She came to me on a horse and saddle, And she may go back in a carriage and three."

Then another marriage was prepared, With both their hearts so full of glee: "I'll range no more to foreign countries, Since my Sophia has crossed the sea."

King stopped, just as shyly as he had begun. Some laughed, others applauded him; and the Squire told us that the first time he had ever heard "Lord Bateman" was in Sconton's show, on Worcester racecourse, many a year ago.

After that, we broke up. I and some of the boys climbed up straight to Lady Harcourt's Tower again. A few Frogs were about the hills, but they did not come in contact with us. When we got back to St. Ann's the tea was ready in the room.

"And I wish to goodness they'd have it," cried Dan, "for I'm as thirsty as a fish. I've been asleep out there all the while on the bench in the sun. Can't we have tea, mother?"

"As soon as ever the gentlemen come back," spoke up Mrs. Teal, who seemed to like order. "They went down to look at the Abbey."

They were coming up then, puffing over the walk; Tod and Fred Sanker with them. We sat down to tea; and it was half over when the two young Sankers, King and Toby, were missed.

"Tiresome monkeys!" cried the captain. "I never came over here with a party yet, but we had to spend the last hour or two hunting some of them up. Well, I'll not bother myself over it: they shall find their way home as they can."

Toby ran in presently. He had only been about the hills, he said, and had not seen King.

"I dare say King's still in the place where we had dessert," said Hetta Sanker, just then thinking of it. "He stayed behind us all, saying he was tired. You boys can go and see."

I and Jim Teal ran off together. King was not there. One of the women at the well said that when she went out for the chairs and things, just before tea-time, nobody was there.

"Oh, he'll turn up presently," said the captain. And we went on with our tea, and forgot him.

It was twilight when we got down to the village to start for home. The Squire set off first: the same party with him as in the morning, except that Mrs. Teal took her husband's place. When they were bringing out the post-carriage, King was again thought of.

"He has stayed somewhere singing to himself," said Mrs. Sanker.

We went off in different directions, shouting our throats hoarse. Up as far as St. Ann's, and along the hill underneath, and in all the corners of the village: no King. It was getting strange.

"I should hope none of those impudent Frogs have made off with him!" cried Toby Sanker.

"They are capable of anything, mind you," added Dan.

One vanload of Frogs had started; the other was getting ready to start. The boys, gaping and listening about, saw and heard all our consternation at the dilemma we were in. Mrs. Todhetley, who did not understand the state of social politics, as between them and the college school, turned and inquired whether they had seen King.

"A delicate lad, who walks lame," she explained. "We think he must have fallen asleep somewhere on the hill: and we cannot start without him."

The Frogs showed themselves good-natured; and went tearing up towards the hill to look for King. In passing the Unicorn, a pleasure-party of young men and women, carrying their empty provision-baskets, came running downwards, saying that they had heard groaning under a part of the hill--and described where. I seemed to catch the right place, as if by instinct, and was up there first. King was lying there; not groaning then, but senseless or dead.

Looking upwards to note the position, we thought he must have fallen down from the place where we had sat at dessert. Hetta Sanker said she had left him there by himself, to rest.

"He must have dropped asleep, and fallen down," cried Dr. Teal.

King came to as they lifted him, and walked a few steps; but looked around and fell aside as though his head were dazed. Dr. Teal thought that there was not much the matter, and that he might be conveyed to Worcester. Ferrar helped to carry him down the hill, and the other Frogs followed. A fine fury their van-driver was in, at their having kept him waiting!

King was made comfortable along the floor of the waggonette, upon some rugs and blankets lent by the Crown; and so was taken home. When Captain Sanker found what had happened, he grew excited, and went knocking at half the doctors' doors in Worcester. Mr. Woodward was the first in, then Dr. Malden and Mr. Carden came running together. By what the captain had said, they expected to find all the house dead.

King seemed better in the morning. The injury lay chiefly in his head. We did not hear what the doctors made of it. He was sensible, and talked a little. When asked how he came to fall, all he said was that he "went over and could not save himself."

Coming in, from carrying the news of how he was to the Squire and Mrs. Todhetley at the Star, I found Mark Ferrar at the door.

"Mr. Johnny," said he, in a low voice, his plain face all concern, "how did it happen? Sure he was not pushed over?"

"Of course not. Why do you ask it?"

Ferrar paused. "Master Johnny, when boys are lame they are more cautious. He'd hardly be likely to slip."

"He might in walking. It's only a narrow ledge there. And his sister says she thinks he went to sleep when she left him. She was the last who saw him."

Mark's wide mouth went into all sorts of contortions, and the freckles shone in the sun in his effort to get the next words out.

"I fancy it was me that saw him last, Master Johnny. Leastways, later than his sister."

"Did you? How was that?"

"He must have seen me near the place, and he called to me. There was nobody there but him, and some chairs and a table and glasses and things. He asked me to sit down, and began telling me he had been saying 'Lord Bateman' to them all. I didn't know what 'Lord Bateman' meant, Master Johnny--and he said he would tell it me; he should not mind then, but he had minded saying it to the company. It was poetry, I found; but he stopped in the middle, and told me to go then, for he saw some of them coming----"

"Some of what?" I interrupted.

"Well, I took it to mean some of his grown-up party, or else the college boys. Anyway, he seemed to want me gone, sir, and I went off at once. I didn't see him after that."

"He must have fallen asleep, and somehow slipped over."

"Yes, sir. What a pity he was left in that shallow place!"

King seemed to have all his wits about him, but his face had a white, odd look in it. He lay in a room on the first floor, that belonged in general to the two girls. When I said Mark Ferrar was outside, King asked me to take him up. But I did not like taking him without speaking to Captain Sanker; and I went to him in the parlour.

"The idea of a Frog coming into our house!" cried resentful Dan, as he heard me. "It's like his impudence to stop outside it! What next? Let him wait till King's well."

"You hold your tongue, Dan," cried the captain. "The boy shall go up, whether he's a Frog, or whether he's one of you. Take him up, Johnny."

He did not look unlike a frog when he got into the room, with his wide, red, freckled face and his great wide mouth--but, as I have said, it was a face to be trusted. The first thing he did, looking at King, was to burst into a great blubber of tears.

"I hope you'll get well," said he.

"I might have been as bad as this in the fight, but for your pulling me out of it, Frog," said King, in his faint voice. And he did not call him Frog in any contempt, but as though it were his name: he knew him by no other. "Was that bump done in the battle?"

Mark had his cap off: on one side of his forehead, under the hair, we saw a big lump the size of an egg. "Yes," he answered, "it was got in the fight. Father thinks it never means to go down. It's pretty stiff and sore yet."

King sighed. He was gazing up at the lump with his nice blue eyes.

"I don't think there'll be any fighting in heaven," said King. "And I wrote out 'Lord Bateman' the other day, and they shall give it you to keep. I didn't finish telling it to you. He owned half Northumberland; and he married her after all. She had set him free from the prison, you know, Frog."

"Yes," replied Frog, quite bewildered, and looking as though he could not make top or tail of the story. "I hope you'll get well, sir. How came you to fall?"

"I don't think they expect me to get well: they wouldn't have so many doctors if they did. I shan't be lame, Frog, up there."

"Did you slip?--or did anybody push you?" went on Frog, lowering his voice.

"Hush!" said King, glancing at the door. "If papa heard you say that, he might go into a passion."

"But--was it a slip--or were you pushed over?" persisted Frog.

"My leg is always slipping: it has never been of much good to me," answered King. "When you come up there, and see me with a beautiful strong body and straight limbs, you won't know me again at first. Good-bye, till then, Frog; good-bye. It was very kind of you to carry me out of the fight, and God saw you."

"Good-bye, sir," said Frog, with another burst, as he put out his hand to meet poor King's white one. "Perhaps you'll get over it yet."

Tod and I took leave of them in the afternoon, and went up to the Star. The Squire wanted to be home early. The carriage was waiting before the gateway, the ostler holding the heads of Bob and Blister, when Captain Sanker came up in dreadful excitement.

"He's gone," he exclaimed. "My poor King's gone. He died as the clock was striking four."

And we had supposed King to be going on well! The Squire ordered the horses to be put up again, and we went down to the house. The boys and girls were all crying.

King lay stretched on the bed, his face very peaceful and looking less white than I had sometimes seen it look in life. On the cheeks there lingered a faint colour; his forehead felt warm; you could hardly believe he was dead.

"He has gone to the heaven he talked of," said Mrs. Sanker, through her tears. "He has been talking about it at intervals all day--and now he is there; and has his harp amongst the angels."

And that was the result of our Day of Pleasure! The force of those solemn words has rarely been brought home to hearts as it was to ours then: "In the midst of life we are in death."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XI. THE FINAL ENDING TO IT

Of all the gloomy houses any one ever stayed in, Captain Sanker's was the worst. Nothing but coffins coming into it, and all of us stealing about on tip-toe. King lay in the room where he died. There was to be an inquest: at which the captain was angry. But he was so excited and sorrowful just then as to have no head at all.

Which might well be excused in him. Picture what it was! Three carriages full of us had started on the Tuesday morning, expecting to have a day of charming pleasure on the Malvern Hills in the July sunshine; no more thinking of death or any other catastrophe, than if the world had never contained such! And poor King--poor lame King, whose weakness made him more helpless than were we strong ones, and who only on the previous Saturday had been plucked out of the fight in Diglis Meadow and been saved--King must fall asleep on a dangerous part of the hill and roll down it and come home to die! "Better King than any of the rest of you," cried Mrs. Sanker, more than once, in her dreamy way, and with her eyes dry, for she seemed tired of tears; "he could never have done battle with the world as you will have to do it; and he was quite ready for heaven."

Instead of going home with our people the day after the death, as Tod did, I had to wait at Worcester for the inquest. When the beadle (or whoever the officer might be; he had gold cord on his hat and white ribbed stockings below his breeches: which stockings might have been fellows to old Jones's of Church Dykely) came to Captain Sanker's to make inquiries the night of the death, and heard that I had been first up with King after his fall, he said I should have to give evidence. So I stayed on with them--much to my uneasiness.

If I had thought the Sankers queer people before, I thought them queerer now. Not one of the boys and girls, except Fred, cared to go alone by the door of the room where King lay. And, talking of King, it was not until I saw the name on the coffin-lid that I knew his name was not King, but Kingsley. He looked as nice and peaceful as any dead lad with a nice face could look; and yet they were afraid to pass by outside. Dan and Ruth were the worst. I did not wonder at her--she was a little girl; but I did at Dan. Fred told me that when they were children a servant used to tell them stories of ghosts and dreams and banshees; Hetta and he were too old to be frightened, but the rest had taken it all into their nature. I privately thought that Mrs. Sanker was no better than the fool of a servant, reciting to them her dreams and accounts of apparitions.

King died on the Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon the inquest took place. It was held at the Angel Inn, in Sidbury, and Mr. Robert Allies was the foreman. Boys don't give evidence on inquests every day: I felt shy and uncomfortable at having to do it; and perhaps that may be the reason why the particulars remain so strongly on my memory. The time fixed was three o'clock, but it was nearly four when they came down to look at King: the coroner explained to the jury that he had been detained. When they went back to the Angel Inn we followed them--Captain Sanker, Fred, and I.

All sorts of nonsense ran about the town. It was reported that there had been a fight with the Frogs on Malvern Hill, during which King had been pitched over. This was only laughed at by those who knew how foundationless it was. Not a shadow of cause existed for supposing it to have been anything but a pure accident.

The coroner and jury sat at a long table covered with green baize. The coroner had his clerk by him; and on one side Mr. Allies sat Captain Chamberlain, on the other side Mr. Allcroft. Dr. Teal and Mr. Woodward were present, and gave the medical evidence in a most learned manner. Reduced to plainness, it meant that King had died of an injury to the head.

When my turn came, what they chiefly asked me was, whether I had seen or heard any quarrelling with St. Peter's boys that day at Malvern. None whatever, I answered. Was I quite sure of that? pursued one--it was Mr. Allcroft. I did not think there had been, or could have been, I repeated: we and the charity boys had kept apart from each other all day. Then another of the jury, Mr. Stone, put some questions, and then Mr. Allen--I thought they were never going to believe me. So I said it was the opposite of quarrelling, and told of Captain Sanker's giving one of them half-a-crown because he had been kind to King on Saturday, and of some of the boys--all who had not gone home in the first van--having helped us to look for King at night. After they had turned me inside out, the coroner could say that these questions were merely put for form's sake and for the satisfaction of the public.

When the witnesses were done with, the coroner spoke to the jury. I suppose it was his charge. It seemed all as plain as a turnpike, he said: the poor little lame boy had slipped and fallen. The probability was that he had dropped asleep too near the edge of the perpendicular bank, and had either fallen over in his sleep, or in the act of awaking. He (the coroner) thought it must have been the former, as no cry appeared to have been made, or heard. Under these circumstances, he believed the jury could have no difficulty in arriving at their verdict.

The last word, "verdict," was still on his tongue, when some commotion took place at the end of the room. A working-man, in his shirt-sleeves and a leather apron on, was pushing in through the crowd at the door, making straight for the table and the coroner. Some of the jury knew him for John Dance, a glove-cutter at a Quaker gentleman's manufactory hard by. He begged pardon of the gentlefolk for coming amid 'em abrupt like that, he said, just as he was, but something had but now come to his hearing about the poor little boy who had died. It made him fear he had not fell of himself, but been flung over, and he had thought it his duty to come and tell it.

The consternation this suggestion created, delivered in its homely words, would not be easy to describe. Captain Sanker, who had been sitting against the wall, got up in agitation. John Dance was asked his grounds for what he said, and was entering into a long rigmarole of a tale when the coroner stopped him, and bade him simply say how it had come to his own knowledge. He answered that upon going home just now to tea, from his work, his son Harry, who was in St. Peter's School, told him of it, having been sent to do so by the master, Clerk Jones. His son was with him, waiting to be questioned.

The boy came forward, very red and sheepish, looking as though he thought he was going to be hung. He stammered and stuttered in giving his answers to the coroner.

The tale he told was this. His name was Henry Dance, aged thirteen. He was on the hill, not very far from St. Ann's Well, on the Tuesday afternoon, looking about for Mark Ferrar. All on a sudden he heard some quarrelling below him: somebody seemed to be in a foaming passion, and little King the lame boy called out in a fright, "Oh, don't! don't! you'll throw me over!" Heard then a sort of rustle of shrubs--as it sounded to him--and then heard the steps of some one running away along the path below the upright bank. Couldn't see anything of this; the bank prevented him; but did see the arm of the boy who was running as he turned round the corner. Didn't see the boy; only saw his left arm swaying; he had a green handkerchief in his hand. Could not tell whether it was one of their boys (St. Peter's) or one of the college boys; didn't see enough of him for that. Didn't know then that anything bad had happened, and thought no more about it at all; didn't hear of it till the next morning: he had been in the first van that left Malvern, and went to bed as soon as he got home.

The account was listened to breathlessly. The boy was in a regular fright while he told it, but his tones and looks seemed honest and true.

"How did you know it was King Sanker's voice you heard?" asked the coroner.

"Please, sir, I didn't know it," was the answer. "When I came to hear of his fall the next day, I supposed it must ha' been his. I didn't know anybody had fell down; I didn't hear any cry."

"What time in the afternoon was this?"

"Please, sir, I don't know exact. We had our tea at four: it wasn't over-long after that."

"Did you recognize the other voice?"

"No, sir. It was a boy's voice."

"Was it one you had ever heard before?"

"I couldn't tell, sir; I wasn't near enough to hear or to catch the words. King Sanker spoke last, just as I got over the spot."

"You heard of the accident the next morning, you say. Did you hear of it early?"

"It was afore breakfast, sir. Some of our boys that waited for the last van telled me; and Ferrar, he telled me. They said they had helped to look for him."

"And then it came into your mind, that it was King Sanker you had heard speak?"

"Yes, sir, it did. It come right into my mind, all sudden like, that he might have been throwed over."

"Well now, Mr. Harry Dance, how was it that you did not at once hasten to report this? How is it that you have kept it in till now?"

Harry Dance looked too confused and frightened to answer. He picked at the band of his grey cap and stood, first on one foot, then on the other. The coroner pressed the question sharply, and he replied in confusion.

Didn't like to tell it. Knew people were saying it might have been one of their boys that had pitched him over. Was afraid to tell. Did say a word to Mark Ferrar; not much: Ferrar wanted to know more, and what it was he meant, but didn't tell him. That was yesterday morning. Had felt uncomfortable ever since then, wanting to tell, but not liking to. This afternoon, in school, writing their copies at the desk, he had told Tom Wood'art, the carpenter's son, who sat next him; leastways, had said the college boy had not fell of himself, but been pitched over; and Tom Wood'art had made him tell it to another boy, Collins; and then the two had went up to the desk and telled their master, Mr. Jones; and Mr. Jones, after calling him up to ask about it, had ordered him home to tell it all to his father; and his father said he must come and tell it here.

The father, John Dance, spoke up again to confirm this, so far as his part went. He was so anxious it should be told to the gentlemen at once, he repeated, that he had come out all untidy as he was, not stopping to put himself to rights in any way.

The next person to step forward was Mr. Jones, in his white cravat and black clothes. He stated that the two boys, Thomas Woodward and James Collins, had made this strange communication to him. Upon which he had questioned Dance, and at once despatched him home to acquaint his father.

"What sort of a boy is Harry Dance, Mr. Jones?" inquired the coroner. "A truthful boy?--one to be depended on? Some boys, as I dare say you know, are capable of romancing in the most unaccountable manner: inventing lies by the bushel."

"The boy is truthful, sir; a sufficiently good boy," was the reply. "Some of them are just what you describe; but Dance, so far as I believe, may be relied upon."

"Well, now, if this is to be credited, it must have been one of St. Peter's boys who threw the deceased over," observed a juryman at the other end. "Did you do it yourself, Harry Dance? Stand straight, and answer."

"No, sir; I shouldn't never like to do such a cowardly thing," was the answer, given with a rush of fear--if the look of his face might be trusted. "I was not anigh him."

"It must have been one of you. This is the result of that fight you two sets of boys held on Saturday. You have been harbouring malice."

"Please, sir, I wasn't in the fight on Saturday. I had went over to Clains on an errand for mother."

"That's true," said Clerk Jones. "Dance was not in the fight at all. As far as I can ascertain, there was no ill-feeling displayed on either side at Malvern; no quarrelling of any kind." And Captain Sanker, who was standing up to listen, confirmed this.

"The natural deduction to be drawn is, that if the deceased was flung over, it was by one of St. Peter's boys--though the probability is that he did not intend to inflict much injury," observed one of the jury to the rest. "Boys are so reprehensibly thoughtless. Come, Harry Dance! if you did not give him a push yourself, you can tell, I dare say, who did."

But Dance, with tears in his eyes, affirmed that he knew no more than he had told: he had not the least notion who the boy was that had been quarrelling with King. He saw none of the boys, St. Peter's boys or college boys, about the hill at that time; though he was looking out for them, because he wanted to find Ferrar: and he knew no more than the dead what boy it was who had run away, for he saw nothing but his arm and a green handkerchief.

"Did you find Ferrar after that?" resumed the coroner.

"Yes, sir; not long after. I found him looking for me round on t'other side of St. Ann's Well."

"By the way--on which side of St. Ann's Well is situated the spot where you heard the quarrel?"

"On the right-hand side, sir, looking down the hill," said the boy. And by the stress laid on the "down" I judged him to be given to exactness. "I know the place, sir. If you take a sideway path from the Well bearing down'ards, you come to it. It's shady and quiet there; a place that nobody hardly finds out."

"Did you say anything to Ferrar, when you found him, of what you had heard?"

"No, sir. I didn't think any more about it. I didn't think any harm had been done."

"But you did mention it to Ferrar the next morning?"

"Yes, sir, I had heard of it, then."

"What did you say?"

"I only said I was afeard he might have been throwed over. Ferrar asked me why, but I didn't like to say no more, for fear of doing mischief. It wasn't me," added Dance, appealing piteously to the jury. "I wouldn't have hurt a hair of his head: he was weak and lame."

"Is Ferrar here?" cried the coroner. "We must have him."

Ferrar was not there. And Mr. Jones, speaking up, said he had seen nothing of Ferrar since the previous day. He was informed that he had taken French leave to go off somewhere--which kind of leave, in point of fact, he added, Master Ferrar was much in the habit of taking.

"But where has he gone?" cried the coroner. "You don't mean he has decamped?"

"Decamped for the time being," said Mr. Jones. "He will no doubt put in an appearance in a day or two."

Not one of the jury but pricked up his ears; not one, I could see it in their faces, but was beginning to speculate on this absence of Ferrar's. The coroner was staring straight before him, speculating too: and just then Fred Sanker said something in a half-whisper.

"Ferrar was with my brother King at the spot where he fell from. As far as we know he was the last person who ever saw him alive."

"And not here!" cried the coroner. "Why is he not? Where does the neglect lie, I wonder? Gentlemen, I think we had better send round for his father, and ask an explanation."

In a small town like Worcester (small in comparison with great capitals) the inhabitants, rich and poor, mostly know one another, what they are, and where their dwelling is. Old Ferrar lived within a stone's-throw of the Angel; he was a china painter, employed by the Messrs. Chamberlain. Some one ran for him; and he came; a tidy-looking man in a good coat, with grey whiskers and grey hair. He bowed civilly to the room, and gave his name as Thomas Ferrar.

As far as anything connected with what took place at Malvern he was in total ignorance, he said. When his son Mark got home on the Tuesday night, he had told him that Captain Sanker's little boy had fallen down a part of the hill, and that he, Mark, had been one of those who helped to find him. In the afternoon of the same day they heard the little boy had died.

"Where is your son?" asked the coroner.

"I am not sure where he is," replied Thomas Ferrar. "When I and his brother got home from the factory on Wednesday evening, my daughter told me Mark had gone off again. Somebody had given him half-a-crown, I believe. With that in his pocket, he was pretty sure to go off on one of his rovings."

"He is in the habit of going off, then?"

"Yes, sir, he has done it on occasion almost ever since he could run alone. I used to leather him well for it, but it was of no use; it didn't stop it. It's his only fault. Barring that, he's as good and upright a lad as anybody need have. He does not go off for the purpose of doing harm: neither does he get into any."

"Where does he go to?"

"Always to one of two places; to South Crabb, or to his grandfather's at Pinvin. It's generally to South Crabb, to see the Batleys, who are cousins of my late wife's. They've boys and girls of Mark's own age, and he likes to be there."

"You conclude, then, that he is at one of these places now?"

"Sure to be, sir; and I think it's sure to be South Crabb. He was at Pinvin a fortnight ago; for I walked over on the Sunday morning and took him with me. Mark is of a roving turn; he is always talking of wanting to see the world. I don't believe he'll ever settle down to steady work at home."

"Well, we want him here, Mr. Ferrar; and must have him too. Could you send after him--and get him here by to-morrow?"

"I can send his brother after him, if you say it must be. The likelihood is that he will come home of himself to-morrow evening."

"Ay, but we must have him here in the afternoon, you see. We want to hear what he can tell us about the deceased. It is thought that he was the last person with him before the fall. And, gentlemen," added the coroner, turning to the jury, "I will adjourn proceedings to the same hour to-morrow--three o'clock."

So the inquest was adjourned accordingly, and the room slowly cleared itself. Very slowly. People stood in groups of threes and fours to talk to each other. This new evidence was startling: and the impression it made was, that one of the Frogs had certainly thrown King down.

The green handkerchief was mentioned. Coloured silk pocket-handkerchiefs were much patronized by gentlemen then, and the one used by Dr. Teal that day happened to be green. The doctor said he had missed his handkerchief when they were down at the Abbey before tea, but could not tell where he had left it. He found it in the room at St. Ann's when they got up again, and supposed it had been there all along. So that handkerchief was not much thought of: especially as several of the Frogs had green neckerchiefs on, and might have taken them off, as it was very hot. That a Frog had flung King over, appeared to be, to use the coroner's words on another part of the subject, as plain as a turnpike. The Sankers, one and all, adopted it as conclusive; Captain Sanker in particular was nearly wild, and said bitter things of the Frogs. Poor King still lay in the same room, and none of them, as before, cared to go by the door.

It must have been in the middle of the night. Anyway, it looked pitch-dark. I was asleep, and dreaming that we were sorting handkerchiefs: all colours seemed to be there but a green one, and that--the one being looked for--we could not find: when something suddenly woke me. A hand was grasping at my shoulder.

"Halloa! who's there?"

"I say, Johnny, I can't stop in my bed; I've come to yours. If you mind my getting in, I'll lie across the foot, and get to sleep that way."

The voice was Dan's, and it had no end of horror in it. He was standing by the bed in his night-shirt, shivering. And yet the summer's night was hot.

"Get in, if you like, Dan: there's plenty of room. What's the matter with your own bed?"

"King's there," he said, in a dreadful whisper, as he crept trembling in.

"King! Why, what do you mean?"

"He comes in and lies down in his place just as he used to lie," shivered Dan. "I asked Toby to sleep with me to-night, and Fred wouldn't let him. Fred ought to be ashamed; it's all his ill-nature. He's bigger than I am, one of the seniors, and he never cares whether he sleeps alone or not."

"But, Dan, you should not get these fancies into your head about King. You know it's not true."

"I tell you it is true. King's there. First of all, he stood at the foot of the bed and looked at me; and then, when I hid my face, I found he had got into it. He's lying there, just as he used to lie, his face turned to the wall."

"To begin with, you couldn't see him--him, or any one else. It's too dark."

"It's not dark. My room's lighter than this; it has a bigger window: and the sky was bright and the stars were out. Anyway, Johnny, it was light enough to see King--and there he was. Do you think I'd tell a lie over it?"

I can't say I felt very comfortable myself. It's not pleasant to be woke up with this kind of thing at the top of a house when somebody's lying dead underneath. Dan's voice was enough to give one the shivers, let alone his words. Some stars came out, and I could see the outline of the furniture: or perhaps the stars had been shining all along; only, on first awaking, the eye is not accustomed to the darkness.

"Try and go to sleep, Dan. You'll be all right in the morning."

To go to sleep seemed, however, to be far enough from Dan's thoughts. After a bit of uneasy turning and trembling--and I'm sure any one would have said his legs had caught St. Vitus's dance--he gave sleep up as a bad job, and broke out now and again with all sorts of detached comments. I could only lie and listen.

Wondered whether he should be seeing King always?--if so, would rather be dead. Wished he had not gone to sleep on that confounded bench outside St. Ann's Well--might have been at hand near King, and saved him, if he had not. It was that beastly bottled ale that made him. Wished bottled ale had not been invented. Wished he could wring Dance's neck--or Ferrar's--or that Wood'arts, whichever of the lot it was that had struck King. Knew it was one of the three. What on earth could have taken the Frogs to Malvern that day?--Wished every Frog ever born was hanged or drowned. Thought it must be Ferrar--else why had the fellow decamped? Thought the whole boiling of Frogs should be driven from the town--how dared they, the insolent charity beggars, have their school near the college school? Wondered what would be done to Ferrar if it was proved against him? Wished it had been Ferrar to fall down in place of King. Wished it had been himself (Dan) rather than King. Poor King!--who was always so gentle--and never gave offence to any of them--and was so happy with his hymns and his fancies, and his poetry!--and had said "Lord Bateman" for them that day when told to say it, and--and----

At this thought Dan broke fairly down and sobbed as though his heart were breaking. I felt uncommonly sorry for him; he had been very fond of King; and I was sorry for his superstition. What a mistake it seemed for Mrs. Sanker to have allowed them to grow up in it.

At three o'clock the next day the inquest met again. The coroner and jury, who seemed to have got thoroughly interested in the case now, kept their time to a minute. There was much stir in the neighbourhood, and the street was full before the Angel Inn. As to Frog Lane, it was said the excitement there had never been equalled. The report that it was one of St. Peter's boys who had done it, went echoing everywhere; no one thought of doubting it. I did not. Watching Harry Dance's face when he had given his evidence, I felt sure that every word he said was true. Some one had flung King over: and that some one, there could be no question of it, was one of those common adversaries, the Frogs. If King must have gone to sleep that afternoon, better that Dan, as he had said, or one of the rest of us, had stayed by to protect him!

Mark Ferrar had turned up. His brother found him at South Crabb. He came to the inquest in his best clothes, those he had worn at Malvern. I noticed then, but I had not remembered it, that he had a grass-green neckerchief on, tied with a large bow and ends. His good-natured, ugly, honest face was redder than ever as he stood to give his evidence. He did not show any of the stammering confusion that Dance had done, but spoke out with modest self-possession.

His name was Mark Ferrar, aged nearly fourteen (and looking ever so much older), second son of Thomas Ferrar, china painter. He had seen the deceased boy, King Sanker, at Malvern on Tuesday. When he and some more of St. Peter's boys were coming down the hill they had met King and his party. King spoke to him and told his father, Captain Sanker, that he was the Frog--the college boys called them Frogs--who had picked him up out of the fight on Saturday to save him from being crushed: and Captain Sanker thanked him and gave him half-a-crown to spend in Malvern cakes. Master Johnny Ludlow was with the Sankers, and saw and heard this. Did not buy the Malvern cakes: had meant to, and treat the rest of the boys; but dinner was ready near the foot of the hill when they got down, and forgot it afterwards. After dinner he and a lot more boys went up another of the beacons and down on the Herefordshire side. They got back about four o'clock, and had bread-and-butter and cider for tea. Then he and Harry Dance went up the hill again, taking two ways, to see which would be at St. Ann's Well first. Couldn't see Dance when he got up, thought he might be hiding, and went looking about for him. Went along a side-path leading off from St. Ann's; 'twas sheltered, and thought Dance might be there. Suddenly heard himself called to: looked onwards, and saw the lame boy, King Sanker, there, and some chairs and glasses on a table. Went on, and King asked him to sit down, and began talking to him, saying he had had to say "Lord Bateman" before them all. He, Ferrar, did not know what "Lord Bateman" was, and King said he would say it to him. Began to say it; found it was poetry verses: King had said a good many when he broke off in the middle of one, and told him to go then, for they were coming. Did not know who "they" meant, did not see or hear anybody himself; but went away accordingly. Went looking all about for Dance again; found him by-and-by on a kind of plateau on the other side of St. Ann's. They went up the hill together, and only got down again when it was time to start for Worcester. He did not go in the first van; there was no room; waited for the second. Saw the other party starting: heard that some one was missing: found it was King; offered to help to look for him. Was going up with the rest past the Unicorn, when some people met them, saying they'd heard groans. Ran on, and found it was King Sanker. He seemed to have fallen right down from the place where he had been sitting in the afternoon, and where he, Ferrar, had left him.

Such in substance was the evidence he gave. Some of it I could corroborate, and did. I told of King's asking that Ferrar might go up to him the next day, and of his promising him "Lord Bateman," which he had got by him, written out.

But Ferrar was not done with. Important questions had to be asked him yet. Sometimes it was the coroner who put them, sometimes one or other of the jury.

"Did you see anything at all of the deceased after leaving him as you have described, Mark Ferrar?"

"No, sir. I never saw him again till night, when we found him lying under a part of the hill."

"When you quitted him at his bidding, did you see any boys about, either college boys or St. Peter's boys?"

"No, sir, I did not see any; not one. The hills about there seemed as lonely as could be."

"Which way did you take when you left him?"

"I ran straight past St. Ann's, and got on to the part that divides the Worcestershire beacon from the next. Waiting for Dance, I sat down on the slope, and looked at Worcester for a bit, trying how much of the town I could make out, and how many of the churches, and that. As I was going back toward St. Ann's I met Dance."

"What did Dance say to you?"

"He said he had been hunting for me, and wanted to know where I had hid myself, and I said I had been hunting for him. We went on up the hill then and met some more of our boys; and we stayed all together till it was time to go down."

"Did Dance say that he had heard sounds of quarrelling?"

"No, sir, never a word."

"What communication did Dance make to you on the subject the following morning?"

"Nothing certain, sir. Dance went home in the first van, and he didn't hear about King Sanker till the morning. I was saying then how we found him, and that he must have fell straight off from the place above. Dance stopped me, and said was it sure that he fell--was it sure he had not been pushed off? I asked why he said that, but he wouldn't answer."

"Did he refuse to answer?"

"I kept asking him to tell me, but he just said it was only a fancy that came to him. He had interrupted so eager like, that I thought he must have heard something. Later, I asked Master Johnny Ludlow whether the boy had been pushed off, but he said no. I couldn't get it out of my head, however."

"What clothes did you wear, witness, that day at Malvern?"

"These here that I've got on now, sir."

"Did you wear that same green neckerchief?"

"Yes, sir. My sister Sally bought it new for me to go in."

"Did you take it off at Malvern?"

"No, sir."

"Not at all?"

"No, sir. Some of them took their handkerchers off at dinner, because it was hot, but I didn't."

"Why did you not?"

For the first time Ferrar hesitated. His face turned scarlet.

"Come, speak up. The truth, mind."

"Sally had told me not to mess my new silk handkercher, for I wasn't likely to have another of one while; and I thought if I got untying and re-tying of it, I should mess it." It seemed quite a task to Ferrar to confess this. He feared the boys would laugh at him. But I think no one doubted that it was the true reason.

"You did not take it off while you were sitting with the deceased?"

"No, sir. I never took it off all day."

"Take it off now."

Mark Ferrar looked too surprised to understand the order, and did nothing. The coroner repeated it.

"Take off this here handkercher, sir? Now?"

"Yes. The jury wish to see it open."

Mark untied the bow and pulled it off, his very freckles showing out red. It was a three-cornered silk neckerchief, as green as grass.

"Was this like the kerchief you saw being swung about, Harry Dance?" asked the coroner, holding it up, and then letting it drop on the table.

Harry Dance gazed at it as it lay, and shook his head. "I don't think it were the one, sir," he said.

"Why don't you think it?"

"That there looks smaller and brighter, and t'other was bigger and darker. Leastways, I think it were."

"Was it more like this?" interrupted Dr. Teal, shaking out his handkerchief from his pocket.

"I don't know, sir. It seemed like a big handkerchief, and was about that there colour o' your'n."

Some inquiry was made at this point as to the neckerchiefs worn by the other boys. It turned out that two or three had worn very large ones, something the colour of Dr. Teal's. So that passed.

"One word, Harry Dance. Did you see Ferrar with his handkerchief off that day?"

"I didn't notice, sir: I don't remember. Some of us took 'em off on the hills--'twas very hot--and never put 'em on again all day."

The coroner and jury talked together, and then Harry Dance was told to repeat the evidence he had given the day before. He went over it again: the sounds of quarrelling, and the words in the voice he had supposed to be King's: "Oh, don't--don't! you'll throw me over."

"Had Ferrar his neckerchief on when you met him soon after this?" questioned Captain Chamberlain.

"I think he had, sir. I think if he had not I should ha' noticed it. I'm nearly as sure as I can be that it wasn't off."

When Dance was done with, Mark Ferrar was begun upon again.

"What induced you to go off from your home on Wednesday evening without notice?" asked the coroner.

"I went to South Crabb, sir."

"I don't ask you where you went, I ask why you went?"

"I go over there sometimes, sir. I told Sally I was going."

"Can't you understand my question? Why did you go?"

"Nothing particular made me go, sir. Only that I had got some money; and I was feeling so sorry that the little lame boy was dead, I couldn't bear to be still."

"You have been punished often, Mark Ferrar, for going off on these expeditions?" cried one of the jury.

"I used to be, sir. Father has leathered me for it at home, and Clerk Jones at school. I can't do without going out a bit. I wish I was a sailor."

"Oh, indeed! Well--is there one of your companions that you can suspect of having harmed this poor little boy--accidentally or otherwise?"

"No, sir. It is being said that he was pushed over in ill-feeling, or else by accident; but it don't seem likely."

"Did you push him over yourself?"

"Me!" returned Ferrar, in surprise. "Me push him over!"

"As far as we can learn yet, no one was with him there but you."

"I'd have saved him from it, sir, if I had been there, instead of harming him. When he sent me away he was all right, and not sitting anigh the edge. If it was me that had done it, sir, he'd not have asked for me to go up to him in his room--and shook hands--and said I should see him in heaven."

Mark Ferrar broke down at the remembrance, and sobbed like a child. I don't think one single person present thought it was he, especially the coroner and jury. But the question was--which of the other boys could it have been?

Several of them were called before the coroner. One and all declared they had done no harm to the deceased--had not been near him to do it--would not have done it if they had been--did not know he had been sitting in the place talked of--did not (most of them) know where the spot was now. In short, they denied it utterly.

Mr. Jones stepped forward then. He told the coroner and jury that he had done his best to come to the bottom of the affair, but could not find out anything. He did not believe one of his boys had been in it; they were mischievous enough, as he well knew, and sometimes deceitful enough; but they all seemed to be, and he honestly believed were, innocent of this.

The room was cleared while the jury deliberated. Their verdict was to the effect that Kingsley Sanker had died from falling over a portion of one of the Malvern hills; but whether the fall was caused by accident, or not, there was not sufficient evidence to show.

It was late when it was over. Growing dusk. In turning out of the inn passage to the street, I remember the great buzz around, and the people pushing one's elbows; and I can't remember much more. If one Frog was there, it seemed to me that there were hundreds.

I stayed at Captain Sanker's again that night. We all went up to bed after supper and prayers--which the captain read. He said he could not divest himself of the idea that it was a pure accident--for who would be likely to harm a helpless lad?--and that what Dance heard must have been some passing dispute connected with other people.

"Come along, Johnny: this one candle'll do for us both," cried Dan, taking up a bed candlestick and waiting for me to follow him.

I kept close to him as we went by the room--the room, you know--for Dan was worse than any of them for passing it. He and King had been much together. King followed him in age; they had always slept together and gone to school together; the rest were older or younger--and naturally Dan felt it most.

"I shan't be a minute, Johnny, and then you can take the candle," said he, when we got to the top. "Come in."

Before I had well turned round, after getting in, I declare Dan had rushed all his things off in a heap and leaped into bed. Poor King used not to be so quick, and Dan always made him put the light out.

"Good-night, Dan."

"Good-night, Johnny. I hope I shall get to sleep."

He put his head under the bedclothes as I went away with the candle. I was not long getting into bed either. The stars were bright in the sky.

Before there was time to get to sleep, Dan came bursting in, shivering as on the past night, and asking to be let get into the bed. I did not mind his being in the bed--liked it rather, for company--but I did think it a great stupid pity that he should be giving way to these superstitious fears as though he were a girl.

"Look here, Dan: I should be above it. One of the smallest of those Frogs couldn't show out more silly than this."

"He's in my bed again, Johnny. Lying down. I can't sleep there another night."

"You know that he is below in his coffin--with the room-door locked."

"I don't care--he's there in the bed. You had no sooner gone with the light than King crept in and lay down beside me. He used to have a way of putting his left arm over me outside the clothes, and he put it so to-night."

"Dan!"

"I tell you he did. Nobody would believe it, but he did. I felt it like a weight. It was heavy, just as dead arms are. Johnny, if this goes on, I shall die. Have you heard what mamma says?"

"No. What?"

"She says she saw King last night. She couldn't sleep; and by-and-by, happening to look out of bed, she saw him standing there. He was looking very solemn, and did not speak. She turned to awake papa, in spite of the way he goes on ridiculing such things, but when she looked next King had gone. I wish he was buried, Johnny; I shouldn't think he could come back into the house then. Should you?"

"He's not in it now--in that sense. It's all imagination."

"Is it! I should like you to have been in my bed, instead of me; you'd have seen whether it was imagination or not. Do you suppose his heavy arm across me was fancy?"

"Well, he does not come in here. Let us go to sleep. Good-night, Dan."

Dan lay still for a good bit, and I was nearly asleep when he awoke me sobbing. His face was turned the other way.

"I wish you'd kill me, Johnny."

"Kill you!"

"I don't care to live any longer without King. It is so lonely. There's nobody now. Fred's getting to be almost a man, and Toby's a little duffer. King was best. I've many a time snubbed him and boxed him, and I always put upon him; and--and now he's gone. I wish I had fallen down instead of him."

"You'll get over it, Dan."

"Perhaps. But it's such a thing to get over. And the time goes so slowly. I wish it was this time next year!"

"Do you know what some of the doctors say?"

"What do they say?" returned Dan, putting the tip of his nose out of bed.

"Dr. Teal told Captain Sanker of it; I was by and heard him. They think that poor King would not have lived above another year, or so: that there was no chance of his living to grow up. So you might have lost him soon in any case, Dan."

"But he'd have been here till then; he wouldn't have died through falling down Malvern Hill. Oh, and to think that I was rough with him often!--and didn't try to help him when he wanted it! and laughed at his poetry! Johnny, I wish you'd kill me! I wish it had been me to fall over instead of him!"

There was not one of them that felt it as keenly as Dan did: but the chances were that he would forget King the soonest. Dan was of that impetuous warm nature that's all fire at first; and all forgetfulness when the fire goes out.

I went home the next day to Crabb Cot. Mr. Coney came into Worcester to attend the corn-market, and offered to drive me back in his gig. So I took my leave of the Sankers, and my last look at poor King in his coffin. He was to be buried on Monday in St. Peter's churchyard.

* * * * *

The next news we had from Worcester was that Mark Ferrar had gone to sea. His people had wanted him to take up some trade at home; but Mark said he was not going to stay there to be told every day of his life that he killed King Sanker. For some of the Frogs had taken up the notion that it must have been he--why else, they asked, did the coroner and the rest of 'em want to see his green handkercher shook out? So his father, who was just as much hurt at the aspersions as Mark, allowed him to have his way and go to sea; in spite of Sally crying her eyes out, and foretelling that he would come home drowned. Mark was sent to London to some friend, who undertook to make the necessary arrangements; he was bound apprentice to the sea, and shipped off in a trading vessel sailing for Spain.

It was Michaelmas when we next went in to Worcester (save for a day at the festival), driving in from Dyke Manor: the Squire, Mrs. Todhetley, and I. You have heard the expedition mentioned before, for it was the one when we hired the dairymaid, Grizzel, at St. John's mop. That business over, we went down to Captain Sanker's and found them at home.

They were all getting pretty well over the death now, except Dan. Dan's grief and nervousness were as bad as ever. Worse, even. Captain and Mrs. Sanker enlarged upon it.

"Dan grieves after his brother dreadfully: they were always companions, you see," said the captain. "He has foolish fancies also: thinks he sees King continually. We have had to put him to sleep with Fred downstairs, for nothing would persuade him that King, poor fellow, did not come and get into his old place in bed. The night the poor lad was buried, Dan startled the whole house up; he flew down the stairs crying and shrieking, and saying that King was there. We don't know what to do: he seems to get worse, rather than better. Did you notice how thin he has become? You saw him as you came in."

"Like a bag of bones," said the Squire.

"Ay. Some days he is so nervous and ill he can't go to school. I never knew such a thing, for my part. I was for trying flogging, but his mother wouldn't have it."

"But--do you mean to tell us, Sanker, that he fancies he sees King's ghost?" cried the Squire, in great amazement.

"Well, I suppose so," answered the captain. "He fancies he sees him: and poor King, as far as this world's concerned, can be nothing but a ghost now. The other evening, when Dan had been commanded to the head-master's house for something connected with the studies and detained till after dark, he came rushing in with a white face and his hair all wet, saying he had met King under the elm-trees, as he was running back through the green towards Edgar Tower. How can you deal with such a case?"

"I should say flogging would be as good as anything," said the Squire, decidedly.

"So I thought at first. He's too ill for it now. There's nothing, hardly, left of him to flog."

"Captain Sanker, there is only one thing for you to do," put in Mrs. Todhetley. "And that is, consult a clever medical man."

"Why, my dear lady, we have taken him to pretty nearly all the medical men in Worcester," cried the captain. "He goes regularly to Dr. Hastings."

"And what do the doctors say?"

"They think that the catastrophe of King's unhappy death has seized upon the lad's mind, and brought on a sort of hypochondriacal affection. One of them said it was what the French would call a maladie des nerfs. Dan seems so full of self-reproach, too."

"What for?"

"Well, for not having made more of King when he was living. And also, I think, for having suffered himself to fall asleep that afternoon on the bench outside the Well: he says had he kept awake he might have been with King, and so saved him. But, as I tell Dan, there's nothing to reproach himself with in that: he could not foresee that King would meet with the accident. The doctors say now that he must have change of air, and be got away altogether. They recommend the sea."

"The sea! Do you mean sea-air?"

"No; the sea itself; a voyage: and Dan's wild to go. A less complete change than that, they think, will be of little avail, for his illness borders almost--almost upon lunacy. I'm sure, what with one thing and another, we seem to be in for a peck of misfortunes," added the captain, rumpling his hair helplessly.

"And shall you let him go to sea?"

"Well, I don't know. I stood out against it at first. Never meant to send a son of mine to sea; that has always been my resolution. Look at what I had to starve upon for ever so many years--a lieutenant's half-pay--and to keep my wife and bring up my children upon it! You can't imagine it, Squire; it's cruel. Dan's too old for the navy, however; and, if he does go, it must be into the merchant service. I don't like that, either; we regular sailors never do like it, we hold ourselves above it; but there's a better chance of getting on in it and of making money."

"I'm sure I am very sorry for it altogether," said Mrs. Todhetley. "A sailor cannot have any comfort."

"I expect he'll have to go," said the captain, ruefully: "he must get these ideas out of his head. It's such a thing, you see, for him to be always fancying he sees King."

"It is a dreadful thing."

"My wife had a brother once who was always seeing odd colours wherever he looked: colours and shadows and things. But that was not as bad as this. His doctor called it nerves: and I conclude Dan takes after him."

"My dear, I think Dan takes after your side, not mine," calmly put in Mrs Sanker, who had her light hair flowing and something black in it that looked like a feather. "He is so very passionate, you know: and I could not go into a passion if I tried."

"I suppose he takes after us both," returned Captain Sanker. "I know he never got his superstitious fancies from me, or from any one belonging to me. We may be of a passionate nature, we Sankers, but we don't see ghosts."

In a week or two's time after that, Dan was off to sea. A large shipping firm, trading from London to India, took him as midshipman. The ship was called the Bangalore; a fine vessel of about fourteen hundred tons, bound for some port out there. When Captain Sanker came back from shipping him off, he was full of spirits, and said Dan was cured already. No sooner was Dan amidst the bustle of London, than his fears and fancies left him.

It was some time in the course of the next spring--getting on for summer, I think--that Captain Sanker gave up his house in Worcester, and went abroad, somewhere into Germany. Partly from motives of economy, for they had no idea of saving, and somehow spent more than their income; partly to see if change would get up Mrs. Sanker's health, which was failing. After that, we heard nothing more of them: and a year or two went on.

* * * * *

"Please, sir, here's a young man asking to see you."

"A young man asking to see me," cried the Squire--we were just finishing dinner. "Who is it, Thomas?"

"I don't know, sir," replied old Thomas. "Some smart young fellow dressed as a sailor. I've showed him into your room, sir."

"Go and see who it is, Johnny."

It was summer-time, and we were at home at Dyke Manor. I went on to the little square room. You have been in it too. Opposite the Squire's old bureau and underneath the map of Warwickshire on the wall, sat the sailor. He had good blue clothes on and a turned-down white collar, and held a straw hat in his hand. Where had I seen the face? A very red-brown honest face, with a mouth as wide as Molly's rolling-pin. Wider, now that it was smiling.

He stood up, and turned his straw hat about a little nervously. "You've forgotten me, Master Johnny. Mark Ferrar, please, sir."

Mark Ferrar it was, looking shorter and broader; and I put out my hand to him. I take my likes and dislikes, as you have already heard, and can't help taking them; and Ferrar was one whom I had always liked.

"Please, sir, I've made bold to come over here," he went on. "Captain Sanker's left Worcester, they tell me, and I can't hear where he is to be found: and the Teals, they have left. I've brought news to him from his son, Mr. Dan: and father said I had better come over here and tell it, and maybe Squire Todhetley might get it sent to the captain."

"Have you seen anything of Mr. Dan, then?"

"I've been with him nearly all the time, Master Johnny. We served on the same ship: he as middy and I as working apprentice. Not but what the middies are apprenticed just as sure as we are. They don't do our rough work, the cleaning and that, and they mess apart; but that's pretty nigh all the difference."

"And how are you getting on, Mark?"

"First-rate, sir. The captain and officers are satisfied with me, and when I've served my four years I shall go up to pass for second mate. I try to improve myself a bit in general learning at odd moments too, sir, seeing I didn't have much. It may be of use to me if I ever get up a bit in life. Mr. Dan----"

"But look here, Ferrar," I interrupted, the recollection striking me. "How came you and Mr. Dan to sail together? You were on a small home-coasting barque: he went in an Indiaman."

"I was in the barque first of all, Master Johnny, and took a voyage to Spain and back. But our owners, hearing a good report of me, that I was likely to make a smart and steady sailor, put me on their big ship, the Bangalore. In a day or two Mr. Dan Sanker came on board."

"And how is he getting on? Does he----"

"If you please, Master Johnny, I'd like to tell what I've got to tell about him to the Squire," he interrupted. "It is for that, sir, I have come all the way over here."

So I called the Squire in. The following was the condensed substance of Ferrar's narrative. What with his way of telling it, and what with the Squire's interruptions, it was rather long.

"Mr. Dan joined the Bangalore the day we sailed, sir. When he saw me as one of the sailors he started back as if I shocked him. But in a week or two, when he had got round from his sea-sickness, he grew friendly, and sometimes talked a bit. I used to bring up Master King's death, and say how sorry I was for it--for you see, sir, I couldn't bear that he should think it true that I had had a hand in it. But he seemed to hate the subject; he'd walk away if I began it, and at last he said he couldn't stand the talking about King; so I let it be. Our voyage was a long one, for the ship went about from port to port. Mr. Dan----"

"What sort of a sailor did he make?" interrupted the Squire.

"Well, sir, he was a good smart sailor at his work, but he got to be looked upon as rather a queer kind of young man. He couldn't bear to keep his night watches--it was too lonely, he said; and several times he fell into trouble for calling up the hands when there was nothing to call them up for. At Hong Kong he had a fever, and they shaved his head; but he got well again. One evening, after we had left Hong Kong and were on our way to San Francisco, I was on deck--almost dark it was--when Mr. Dan comes down the rigging all in a heap, just as if a wild-cat was after him. 'There's King up there,' he says to me: and Mr. Conroy, do what he would, couldn't get him up again. After that he went about the ship peeping and peering, always fancying King was hiding somewhere and going to pounce out upon him. The captain said his fever was coming back: Mr. Dan said it was not fever, it was King. I told him one day what I thought--that Master King had been flung down; that it was not an accident--I felt as sure of it as though I had seen it done; and what I said seemed to put him up, sir. Who did I fancy had done it, or would do it? he asked me all in anger: and I said I did not know who, but if ever I got back to Worcester I'd leave not a stone unturned to find out. Well, sir, he got worse: worse in his fancies, and worse as to sickness. He was seeing King always at night, and he had dysentery and ague, and grew so weak that he could hardly stand. One of the cabin-boys took sick and died on board. The night he lay below, dead, Mr. Dan burst into the saloon saying it was King who was below, and that he'd never be got out of the ship again. Mr. Conroy--he was the chief mate, sir--humoured him, telling him not to fear, that if it was King he would be buried deep in the sea on the morrow: but Mr. Dan said he'd not stop in the sea, any more than he had stopped in his grave in St. Peter's churchyard at home; he'd be back in the ship again."

"Dan Sanker must have been mad," observed the Squire.

"Yes, sir, I think he was; leastways not right. In a day or two he had to be fastened down in his berth with brain-fever, and Mr. Conroy said that as he had known me in the past days I had better be the one to sit with him, for he couldn't be left. I was quite taken aback to hear what he said in his mutterings, and hoped it wasn't true."

"Did he get well again?"

"Just for a day or two, sir. The fever left him, but he was in the shockingest state of weakness you could imagine. The night before he died----"

The Squire started up. "Dan Sanker's not dead, Ferrar!"

"Yes he is, sir. It's what I have come to tell of."

"Goodness bless me! Poor Dan dead! Only think of it, Johnny!"

But I was not surprised. From the moment Ferrar first spoke, an instinct had been upon me that it was so. He resumed.

"Everything was done for him that could be, sir. We had a doctor on board--a passenger going to California--but he could not save him. He said when it came to such awful weakness as that, there could be no saving. Mr. Conroy and the other officers were very kind to him--the skipper too; but they could do nothing. All his fears seemed to be gone then; we could hardly hear his whispers, but he was sensible and calm. He said he knew God had forgave him for what he did, and would blot his sin out, and King had forgave him too, and had come to tell him so: he had been to him in the night and talked and smiled happily and said over to him a verse of 'Lord Bateman'----"

"And you say he was in his senses, Ferrar?"

"Yes, sir, that he was. That night he made a confession, Mr. Conroy and the doctor and me being by him. It was he that killed King."

"Bless my heart!" cried the Squire.

"He had seen me sitting with King that afternoon at Malvern, and heard him saying the verses to me. It put his temper up frightful, sir, I being one of their enemies the Frogs; but he says if he'd known it was me that snatched King out of the fight on Saturday, he'd not have minded so much. It must have been him that King saw coming, Master Johnny," added Ferrar, turning momentarily from the Squire to address me; "when he broke off in the midst of 'Lord Bateman,' and told me, all in a hurry, to go away. He waited till I was gone, and then rushed on to King and began abusing him and knocking him about. King was unsteady through his weak leg, and one of the knocks sent him over the bank. Dan says he was frightened almost to death; he caught up Dr. Teal's green handkercher from a chair and ran to the Well with it; he was too frightened to go and see after King, thinking he had killed him; and he sat down outside the Well and made as if he went to sleep. He never meant to hurt King, he said; it was only passion; but he had drunk a lot of strong ale and some wine upon it, and hardly knew what he was about. He said there was never a minute since but what he had been sorry for it, and he had been always seeing King. He asked me to show him the verses that had been given to me, that King wrote out, 'Lord Bateman'--for I had got them with me at sea, sir--and he kissed them and held them to him till he died."

"Dear, dear!" sighed the Squire.

"And that's all, sir," concluded Ferrar. "Mr. Conroy wrote out a copy of his confession, which I brought along with me to Worcester. Mr. Dan charged me to tell his father, and my own folks, and any other friends I liked that had thought me guilty, and I promised him. He was as placid as a child all the day after that, and died at sundown, so happy and peaceful that it was almost like heaven."

Ferrar broke off with a sob. Poor Dan!

And that was the final ending of the Day of Pleasure. He and King are together again.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XII. MARGARET RYMER

They had gone through the snow to evening service at North Crabb, the Squire, Mrs. Todhetley, and Tod, leaving me at home with one of my splitting headaches. Thomas had come in to ask if I would have the lamp, but I told him I would rather be without it. So there I sat on alone, beside the fire, listening to Hannah putting the children to bed upstairs, and looking sleepily out at the snowy landscape.

As the fire became dim, sending the room into gloom, the light outside grew stronger. The moon was high; clear and bright as crystal; what with that, and the perfectly white snow that lay on everything, the night seemed nearly as light as day. The grass plat outside was a smooth white plain, the clustering shrubs beyond it being also white.

I knew the fire wanted replenishing: I knew that if I sat on much longer, I should fall asleep; but sit on I did, letting the fire go, too listless to move. My eyes were fixed dreamily on the plain of snow, with the still moonlight lying across it. The room grew darker, the landscape lighter.

And asleep, in another minute, I should inevitably have been, but for a circumstance that suddenly arose. All in a moment--I saw not how or whence it came--a dark figure appeared on the grass plat, close before the bank of shrubs, right in front of me; the figure of a man, wrapped in a big great-coat. He was standing still and gazing fixedly at the house. Gazing, as it seemed (though that was impossible) at me. I was wide awake at once, and sitting bolt upright in the chair.

Yes, there could be no mistake; and it was no delusion. The man appeared to be a tall man, strong and muscular, with a mass of hair on his face. What could he want? Was it a robber reconnoitring the premises; peering and peeping to ascertain whether all the world was at church, before he broke in to rifle the house?

No one, void of such an experience, can imagine how dark he looked standing there, amidst the whiteness of all the scene around. In one sense, he stood out plainer than he could have done by daylight, because the contrast was greater. But this sort of light did not show his features, which were shrouded in obscurity.

Presently he moved. Looking to right and left, he took a step forward. Evidently he was trying to see whether the parlour where I sat was empty or occupied. Should I go out to him? Or should I fling up the window and ask what he wanted? I was not frightened: don't let any one think that: but watching him brought rather a creepy kind of sensation.

And, just then, as I left the chair quietly to open the window, I heard the catch of the garden-gate, and some one came whistling up the path. The man vanished as if by magic. Whilst I looked, he was gone. It seemed to me that I did not take my eyes off him; but where he went to, or what became of him, I knew not.

"Anybody at home?" called out Tom Coney, as he broke off his whistling and opened the hall-door.

"All right, Tom. Come along."

And, to tell the truth, I was not sorry to see Tom's hearty face. He had stayed away from evening service to sit with his mother.

"I say, Tom, did you see any fellow on the snow there, as you came in?"

"On the snow where?" asked Tom.

"There; just before the shrubs." And I pointed the spot out to him, and told him what had happened. Tom, one of the most practical fellows living, more so, I think, than even Tod, and with less imagination than an ostrich, received the account with incredulity.

"You dropped asleep, Johnny, and fancied it."

"I did not drop asleep, and I did not fancy it. When you came into the garden I was about to open the window and call to him."

"Those headaches are downright stupefying things, Johnny. Jane has them, you know. One day I remember she fell asleep with a bad one, and woke up and said the sofa was on fire."

"Tom, I tell you the man was there. A tall, strong-looking fellow, with a beard. He was staring at the house with all his might, at this room, as it seemed to me, wanting to come forward, I think, but afraid to. He kept close to the laurels, as if he did not wish to be seen, forgetting perhaps that they were white and betrayed him. When you opened the gate, he was there."

"It's odd, then, where he could have put himself," said Tom Coney, not giving in an inch. "I'll vow not a soul was there, man or woman, when I came up the path."

"That's true. He vanished in a moment. Whilst I was looking at him he disappeared."

"Vanished! Disappeared! You talk as though you thought it a ghost, Johnny."

"Ghost be hanged! It was some ill-doing tramp, I expect, trying to look if he might steal into the house."

"Much you know of the ways of tramps, Johnny Ludlow! Tramps don't come showing themselves on snow-lighted, open lawns, in the face and eyes of the front windows: they hide themselves in obscure hedges and byways. It's a case of headachy sleep, young man, and nothing else."

"Look here, Tom. If the man was there, his footprints will be there; if he was not, as you say, the snow will be smooth and level: come out and see."

We went out at once, Tom catching up a stick in the hall, and crossed the lawn. I was right, and Tom wrong. Sure enough, there were the footprints, plenty of them, indented in the deep snow. Tom gave in then.

"I wish to goodness I had seen him! The fellow should not have got off scot-free, I can tell him that. What tremendous feet he must have! Just look at the size, Johnny. Regular crushers."

"Don't you go and say again I was asleep! He must have stepped back and got away through these laurels; yes, here are the marks. I say, Tom"--dropping my voice to a whisper--"perhaps he's here now."

"We'll soon see that," said Tom Coney, plunging amidst the laurels with a crash, and beating about with the stick.

But there was no trace of him. Tom came out presently, covered with the beaten snow, and we went indoors; he veering round partly to his first opinion, and a little incredulous, in spite of the footprints.

"If any man was there, Johnny, how did he get away? I don't see, for my part, what he could possibly want. A thief would have gone to work in a different manner."

"Well, let it be so. I shall say nothing about it to them when they come home. Mrs. Todhetley's timid, you know, she would fancy the man was outside still, and be lying awake all night, listening for the smashing in of doors and windows."

Cracking the fire into a blaze; as much of a blaze, that is, as its dilapidated state allowed; I called Thomas to light the lamp and shut the shutters. When I told him of the affair, bidding him not mention it, he took a different view of it altogether, and put it down to the score of one of the younger maid-servants.

"They've got sweethearts, Master Johnny, the huzzies have; lots of sweethearts. One or the t'other of 'em is always a sidling sheepfaced up to the house, as though he didn't dare to say his soul was his own."

They came in from church before the fire had burnt up, and the Squire scolded me for letting it go so low. The coal we get in Worcestershire is the Staffordshire coal; it does not burn up in a minute as London coal does, but must have time.

Nothing of course was said about the man; I and Tom Coney--who stayed supper--held our tongues, as agreed upon. But I told Tod in going up to bed. He was sleepy, and did not think much of it. The fact was, as I could plainly perceive, that to any of them, when related, it did not seem to be much. They had not seen it as I had.

* * * * *

Timberdale Rectory, a cosy, old-fashioned house, its front walls covered with ivy, stood by itself amidst pasture-land, a field's length from the church. Mrs. Todhetley sent me there on the Monday morning, to invite the Rector, Herbert Tanerton, and his wife to dine with us the next evening, for we had a prime codfish sent as a present from London. The Squire and Tod had gone out shooting. It was January weather; cold and bright, with a frosty sky. Icicles drooped from the trees, and the snow in Crabb Ravine was above my ankles. The mater had said to me, "I should go the road way, Johnny;" but I did not mind the snow.

In Timberdale I met Margaret Rymer. She had her black cloak on, and her natty little black bonnet; and the gentle and refined face under it, with its mild brown eyes, put me more than ever in mind of her dead father.

Does any one remember her? I told something about her and her people early in this volume. When Thomas Rymer died, partly of a broken heart, Benjamin had again gone off, and Margaret continued to keep the business going. She understood the drugs thoroughly. During all the months that had elapsed since, the son had not made his appearance at home. Timberdale would say, "Why does not Benjamin come back to carry on affairs in his father's place?" but it had no satisfactory answer. Latterly, Timberdale had let Benjamin alone, and busied itself with Margaret.

Six months ago, the Reverend Isaac Sale had come to Timberdale as curate. He was a plain, dark little man of sterling worth, and some thirty years of age--older than the Rector. Margaret Rymer met him at the Sunday School, where she taught regularly, and he fell desperately in love with her--if it's not wrong to say that of a parson. As a rule, men and women like contrasts; and perhaps the somewhat abrupt-mannered man with the plain and rugged features had been irresistibly attracted by the delicate face of Margaret, and by her singularly gentle ways. In position she was not his equal; but Mr. Sale made no secret of his attachment, or that he wanted Margaret to be his wife. Mrs. Rymer entirely opposed it: how was the business to be kept going without Margaret, she demanded; or herself, either?

Mr. Sale had taken the curacy as a temporary thing. He was waiting for some expected appointment abroad. When it fell to him, Margaret Rymer would have to choose between sailing with him as his wife, or staying at home and giving him up for good. So said Timberdale.

After standing to talk a bit with Margaret, who had come out on an errand for her mother, I ran on to the Rectory. Mr. Tanerton and his wife were in the snug little bow-windowed front-room. He, spare and colourless, young yet, with cold grey eyes and thin light whiskers, sat by the blazing fire of wood and coal, that went roaring and sparkling up the chimney. Somehow Herbert Tanerton gave you the idea of being always in a chill. Well meaning, and kind in the main, he was yet severe, taking too much note of offences, and expecting all the world, and especially his own flock, to be better than gold.

His wife, kind, genial, and open-hearted, sat at the window, stitching a wristband for one of her husband's new shirts--he was as particular over them as he was over the parish sins--and glancing cheerfully out between whiles at the snowy landscape. When she was Grace Coney, and niece at the farm, we were very intimate; a nice, merry-hearted, capable girl, rather tall and slender, with bright dark hazel eyes, and a wide mouth that seemed always to be smiling to show its pretty white teeth. Seeing me coming, she ran to open the porch-door. As yet, she and Herbert had no children.

"Come in, Johnny! Is it not a lovely day? Herbert thinks it the coldest morning we have had; but I tell him that is because he does not feel very well. And he has been put out a little."

"What about?" I asked, as the Rector turned in his chair to shake hands with me. For she had said all that in his hearing.

"Oh, there are one or two things. Sam Mullett----"

"Where's the use of talking of the stupid old man, Grace?" cried the parson, crossly. "He is getting too old for his place."

"And Mr. Sale is going to leave," added Mrs. Tanerton, as I sat down by the table, after delivering the invitation. "The appointment he expected has been offered to him; it is a chaplaincy at the Bahama Islands. Mr. Sale has known of it for a week, and never told Herbert until yesterday."

"He spoke to me in the vestry after morning service," said the Rector, in an injured tone. "And he said at the same time that he was not sure he should accept it; it did not quite depend upon himself. I saw as clearly what he meant to imply as though he had avowed it; that it depended upon that girl, Margaret Rymer. It is a preposterous thing. The idea of a clergyman and a gentleman wanting to marry her! She keeps a chemist's shop!"

"It was her father who kept it," I said eagerly, for I liked Margaret Rymer, and did not care to hear her disparaged. "And he was a gentleman born."

"What has that to do with it?" retorted the parson, who was in one of his most touchy humours. "Had her grandfather been a duke, it would make no difference to what she is. Look at the mother!"

"Margaret is a lady in mind, in looks, and in manners," I persisted. "If I loved Margaret Rymer, I would marry her, though I were an archdeacon."

"That's just like you, Johnny Ludlow! you have no more sense than a child in some things," said the parson, crustily. Grace glanced up from her work and laughed; and looked as if she would like to take part with me.

"I never could have suspected Sale of such folly," went on the Rector, warming his hands over the blaze. "Grace, do you think that soup's ready?"

"I will see," answered Grace, putting the wristband on the little work-table; and she touched my shoulder playfully in passing.

Herbert Tanerton sat in silence; knitting his brow into lines. I took the chair on the other side the fireplace opposite to him, thinking of this and that, and fingering the tongs to help me: a habit I was often scolded for at home--that of fingering things.

"Look here, Mr. Tanerton. If they go all the way out to settle at the Bahamas, it will not signify there who Margaret has been here. Whether she may have helped in her father's business, or whether she may have been--as you said--a duke's granddaughter, and brought up accordingly, it will be all one to the Bahamas. Mr. Sale need not say to the Bahamas, 'My wife used to sell pennyworths of rhubarb and magnesia.'"

"It is not that," crossly responded the Rector--"what people will think or say; it is for Sale's own sake that I object. He cannot like the connection. A clergyman should marry in his own sphere."

"I suppose men are differently constituted, clergymen as well as others," said I, with deprecation, remembering that I was a plain, inexperienced lad, and he was the Rector of Timberdale. "Some persons don't care for social distinctions as others do, don't even see them: perhaps Mr. Sale is one."

"He cares for probity and honour--he would not choose to ally himself to crime, to disgrace," sternly spoke the Rector. "And he would do that in marrying Margaret Rymer. Remember what the son did, that ill-doing Benjamin," added he, dropping his voice. "You know all about it, Johnny. The affair of the bank-note, I mean."

And if Herbert Tanerton had said to me the affair of the moon and planets, I could not have been more surprised. "How did you get to know of it?" I asked, when speech came to me.

"Mr. Rymer told me on his death-bed. I was attending him spiritually. Of course, I have never spoken of it, even to my wife--I should not think of speaking of it; but I consider that it lies in my duty to disclose the facts to Mr. Sale."

"Oh no, don't--don't, please, Mr. Tanerton!" I cried out, starting up in a sort of distress, for the words seemed to take hold of me. "No one knows of it: no one but the Squire, and I, as you say, and Mrs. Rymer, and you, and Ben himself; Jelf's dead, you know. It need never be brought up again in this world; and I dare say it never will be. Pray don't tell Mr. Sale--for Margaret's sake."

"But I have said that I consider it my duty to tell him," replied the parson, steadily. "Here he comes!"

I turned to the window, and saw Sale trudging up to the parsonage through the snowy field pathway, his black hair and red rugged face presenting a sort of contrast to the white glare around. Ugly, he might be called; but it was a face to be liked, for all that. And the ring of his voice was true and earnest.

The affair of the bank-note had helped to kill Thomas Rymer, and sent Mr. Ben off on his wanderings again. It was a bit of ill-luck for Ben, for he had really pulled up, was reading hard at his medical books, and become as steady as could be. Never since then--some ten months ago now--had Ben been heard of; never had it been spoken of to man or woman. Need Herbert Tanerton disclose it to the curate? No: and I did not think he would do it.

"We were just talking of you," was the Rector's greeting to Mr. Sale, as the curate came into the room. "Bring a chair to the front of the fire: Johnny, keep your seat. I'm sure it's cold enough to make one wish to be in the fire to-day, instead of before it."

"What were you saying about me?" asked Mr. Sale, drawing forward the chair to sit down, as bidden, and giving me a nod in his short way.

"Have you come to tell me your decision--to go or stay?" asked the Rector, neglecting to answer the question.

"Not this morning. My decision is not yet made. I came to tell you how very ill Jael Batty is. I'm not at all sure that she will get over this bout."

"Oh," said the Rector, in a slighting tone, as if Jael Batty had no right to intrude herself into more momentous conversation. "Jael Batty is careless and indifferent in her duties, anything but what she ought to be, and makes her deafness an excuse for not coming to church. I'll try and get out to see her in the course of the day. She is always having these attacks. What we were speaking of was your friendship with Miss Rymer."

Herbert Tanerton, as I have said, meant to be kind, and I believe he had people's welfare at heart; but he had a severe way of saying things that seemed to take all the kindness out of his words. He was a great stickler for "duty," and if once he considered it was his duty to tell a fellow of his faults, tell he did, face to face, in the most uncompromising manner. He had decided that it was his duty to hold forth to Mr. Sale, and he plunged into the discourse without ceremony. The curate did not seem in the least put out, but talked back again, quietly and freely. I sat balancing the tongs over the fender and listening.

"Miss Rymer is not my equal, you say," observed Sale. "I don't know that. Her father was a curate's son: I am a curate's son. Circumstances, it would seem, kept Mr. Rymer down in the world. Perhaps they will keep me down--I cannot tell."

"But you are a gentleman in position, a clergyman; Rymer served customers," retorted Mr. Tanerton, harping upon that bête noire of his, the chemist's shop. "Can't you perceive the difference? A gentleman ought to be a gentleman."

"Thomas Rymer was a gentleman, as I hear, in mind and manners and conduct; educated, and courteous, and----"

"He was one of the truest gentlemen I ever met," I could not help putting in, though it interrupted the curate. "For my part, when speaking with him I forgot the counter he served at."

"And a true Christian, I was about to say," added Mr. Sale.

There was a pause. Herbert Tanerton, who had been fidgeting in his chair, spoke:

"Am I mistaken in assuming that your acceptance of this chaplaincy depends upon Miss Rymer?"

"No, you are not mistaken," said Sale, readily. "It does depend upon her. If she will go with me--my wife--I shall accept it; if she will not, I remain at home."

"Margaret is as nice as her father was; she is exactly like him," I said. "Were I you, Mr. Sale, I should just take her out of the place and end it."

"But if she won't come with me?" returned he, with a half-smile.

"She is wanted at home," observed Herbert Tanerton, casting a severe look at me with his cold light eyes. "That shop could not get on without her." But Sale interrupted:

"I cannot imagine why the son is not at home to attend to things. It is his place to be there doing it, not his sister's. He is inclined to be wild, it is said, and given to roving."

"Wildness is not Benjamin Rymer's worst fault, or roving either," cried the Rector, in his hardest voice, though he dropped it to a low key. And forthwith he opened the ball, and told the unfortunate story in a very few words. I let the tongs fall with a rattle.

"I would not have mentioned this," pursued he, "but that I consider it lies in my duty to tell you of it. To any one else it would never be allowed to pass my lips; it never has passed them since Mr. Rymer disclosed it to me a day or two before he died. Margaret Rymer may be desirable in herself; but there's her position, and--there's this. It is for your own sake I have spoken, Mr. Sale."

Sale had sat still and quiet while he listened. There was nothing outward to show that the tale affected him, but instinct told me that it did. Just a question or two he put, as to the details, and then he rose to leave.

"Will you not let it sway you?" asked the Rector, perseveringly, as he held out his hand to his curate. And I was sure he thought he had been doing him the greatest good in the world.

"I cannot tell," replied Mr. Sale.

He went out, walked across the garden, and through the gate to the field, with his head down. A dreadful listlessness--as it seemed to me--had taken the place of his brisk bearing. Just for a minute I stood in the parlour where I was, feeling as though I had had a shower of ice thrown down upon me and might never be warm again. Saying a short good-morning, I rushed out after him, nearly upsetting Mrs. Tanerton in the hall, and a basin of soup she was carrying in on a plate. How cruel it seemed; how cruel! Why can't people let one another alone? He was half-way across the field when I overtook him.

"Mr. Sale, I want to tell you--I ought to tell you--that the story, as repeated to you by Mr. Tanerton, bears a worse aspect than the reality would warrant. It is true that Benjamin Rymer did change the note in the letter; but that was the best and the worst of it. He had become mixed up with some reckless men when at Tewkesbury, and they persuaded him to get the stolen note changed for a safe one. I am sure he repented of it truly. When he came home later to his father's, he had left all his random ways and bad companions behind him. Nobody could be steadier than he was; kind to Margaret, considerate to his father and mother, attentive to business, and reading hard all his spare time. It was only through an ill fellow coming here to hunt him up--one Cotton, who was the man that induced him to play the trick with the note--that he was disturbed again."

"How disturbed?"

"He grew frightened, I mean, and went away. That fellow Cotton deserved hanging. When he found that Ben Rymer would have nothing more to do with him, or with the rest of the bad lot, he, in revenge, told Jelf, the landlord of the Plough and Harrow (where Cotton ran up a score, and decamped without paying), saying that it was Ben Rymer who had changed the note--for, you see, it had always remained a mystery to Timberdale. Jelf--he is dead now--was foolish enough to let Ben Rymer know what Cotton had said, and Ben made off in alarm. In a week's time Mr. Rymer was dead. He had been ailing in mind and body for a long while, and the new fear finished him up."

A pause ensued. Sale broke it. "Did Miss Rymer know of this?"

"Of Ben and the bank-note? I don't believe she knows of it to this hour."

"No, I feel sure she does not," added Sale, speaking more to himself than to me. "She is truth and candour itself; and she has repeatedly said to me she cannot tell why her brother keeps away; cannot imagine why."

"You see," I went on, "no one knows of it, except myself, but Squire Todhetley and Mr. Tanerton. We should never, never think of bringing it up, any one of us; Mr. Tanerton only spoke of it, as he said, because he thought he ought to tell you; he will never speak of it again. Indeed, Mr. Sale, you need not fear it will be known. Benjamin Rymer is quite safe."

"What sort of a man is he, this Benjamin?" resumed Sale, halting at the outer gate of the field as we were going through it. "Like the father, or like the mother?"

"Like the mother. But not as vulgar as she is. Ben has been educated; she was not; and though he does take after her, there's a little bit of his father in him as well. Which makes a great difference."

Without another word, Mr. Sale turned abruptly off to the right, as though he were going for a country ramble. I shut the gate, and made the best of my way home, bearing back the message from the Rector and Grace--that they would come and help eat the codfish.

* * * * *

The Reverend Isaac Sale was that day sorely exercised in mind. The story he had heard shook his equanimity to the centre. To marry a young lady whose brother stood a chance of being prosecuted for felony looked like a very black prospect indeed; but, on the other hand, Margaret at least was innocent, and he loved and respected her with his whole heart and soul. Not until the evening was his mind made up; he had debated the question with himself in all its bearings (seated on the stump of a snowy tree); and the decision he arrived at, was--to take Margaret all the same. He could not leave her.

About nine o'clock he went to Mrs. Rymer's. The shop was closed, and Mr. Sale entered by the private door. Margaret sat in the parlour alone, reading; Mrs. Rymer was out. In her soft black dress, with its white frilling at the throat, Margaret did not look anything like her nearly twenty years. Her mild brown eyes and tale-telling cheeks lighted up at the entrance of the curate. Letting her nervous little hand meet his strong one, she would have drawn a chair forward for him, but he kept her standing by him on the hearthrug.

"I have come this evening to have some final conversation with you, Margaret, and I am glad your mother is out," he began. "Will you hear me, my dear?"

"You know I am always glad to hear you," she said in low, timid tones. And Mr. Sale made no more ado, but turned and kissed her. Then he released her hand, sat down opposite to her on the other side of the hearth, and entered on his argument.

It was no more, or other, than she had heard from him before--the whole sum and substance of it consisted of representations why he must accept this chaplaincy at the Bahamas, and why she must accompany him thither. In the midst of it Margaret burst into tears.

"Oh, Isaac, why prolong the pain?" she said. "You know I cannot go: to refuse is as painful to me as to you. Don't you see that I have no alternative but to remain here?"

"No, I do not see it," replied Mr. Sale, stoutly. "I think your mother could do without you. She is an active, bustling woman, hardly to be called middle-aged yet. It is not right that you should sacrifice yourself and your prospects in life. At least, it seems to me that it is not."

Margaret's hand was covering her face; the silent tears were dropping. To see him depart, leaving her behind, was a prospect intensely bitter. Her heart ached when she thought of it: but she saw no hope of its being otherwise.

"It is a week and a day since I told you that the promotion was at length offered me," resumed Mr. Sale, "and we do not seem to be any nearer a decision than we were then. I have kept it to myself and said nothing about it abroad, waiting for you to speak to me, Margaret; and the Rector--to whom I at length spoke yesterday--is angry with me, and says I ought to have told him at once. In three days from this--on Thursday next--I must give an answer: accept the post, or throw it up."

Margaret took her hand from her face. Mr. Sale could see how great was the conflict at work within her.

"There is nothing to wait for, Isaac. I wish there was. You must go by yourself, and leave me."

"I have told you that I will not. If you stay here, I stay."

"Oh, pray don't do that! It would be so intense a disappointment to you to give it up."

"The greatest disappointment I have ever had in life," he answered. "You must go with me."

"I wish I could! I wish I could! But it is impossible. My duty lies here, Isaac. I wish you could see that fact as strongly as I see it. My poor father always enjoined me to do my duty, no matter at what personal cost."

"It is your brother's duty to be here, Margaret; not yours. Where is he?"

"In London, I believe," she replied, and a faint colour flew into her pale face. She put up her handkerchief to hide it.

It had come to Margaret's knowledge that during the past few months her mother had occasionally written to Benjamin. But Mrs. Rymer would not allow Margaret to write or give her his address. It chanced, however, that about a fortnight ago Mrs. Rymer incautiously left a letter on the table addressed to him, and her daughter saw it. When, some days subsequently, Mr. Sale received the offer of the chaplaincy, and laid it and himself before Margaret, urging her to accompany him, saying that he could not go without her, she took courage to write to Benjamin. She did not ask him to return and release her; she only asked him whether he had any intention of returning, and if so, when; and she gave him in simple words the history of her acquaintanceship with Mr. Sale, and said that he wanted her to go out with him to the Bahamas. To this letter Margaret had not received any answer. She therefore concluded that it had either not reached her brother, or else that he did not mean to return at all to Timberdale; and so she gave up all hopes of it.

"Life is not very long, Margaret, and God has placed us in it to do the best we can in all ways; for Him first, for social obligations afterwards. But He has not meant it to be all trial, all self-denial. If you and I part now, the probability is that we part for ever. Amidst the world's chances and changes we may never meet again, howsoever our wills might prompt it."

"True," she faintly answered.

"And I say that you ought not to enforce this weighty penance upon me and yourself. It is for your brother's sake, as I look upon it, that you are making the sacrifice, and it is he, not you, who ought to be here. Why did he go away?"

"I never knew," said Margaret, lifting her eyes to her lover's, and speaking so confidingly and earnestly that, had he needed proof to convince him she was ignorant of the story he had that day been regaled with, it would have amply afforded it. "Benjamin was at home, and so steady and good as to be a comfort to papa; when quite suddenly he left without giving a reason. Papa seemed to be in trouble about it--it was only a few days before he died--and I have thought that perhaps poor Benjamin was unexpectedly called upon to pay some debt or other, and could not find the money to do it. He had not always been quite so steady."

"Well, Margaret, I think----"

A loud bang of the entrance-door, and a noisy burst into the room, proclaimed the return of Mrs. Rymer. Her mass of scarlet curls garnished her face on either side, and looked particularly incongruous with her widow's cap and bonnet. Mr. Sale, rising to hand her a chair, broke off what he had been about to say to Margaret, and addressed Mrs. Rymer instead; simply saying that the decision, as to her going out with him, or not going, could no longer be put off, but must be made.

"It has been made," returned Mrs. Rymer, disregarding the offered chair, and standing to hold her boots, one after the other, to the fire. "Margaret can't go, Mr. Sale; you know it."

"But I wish her to go, and she wishes it."

"It's a puzzle to me what on earth you can see in her," cried Mrs. Rymer, flinging her grey muff on the table, and untying her black bonnet-strings to tilt back the bonnet. "Margaret won't have any money. Not a penny piece."

"I am not thinking about money," replied the curate; who somehow could never keep his temper long in the presence of this strong-minded Amazon. "It is Margaret that I want; not money."

"And it's Margaret, then, that you can't have," she retorted. "Who is to keep the shop on if she leaves it?--it can't go to rack and ruin."

"I see you serving in it yourself sometimes."

"I can serve the stationery--and the pickles and fish sauce--and the pearl barley," contended she, "but not the drugs. I don't meddle with them. When a prescription comes in to be made up, if I attempted to do it I might put opium for senna, and poison people. I have not learnt Latin, as Margaret has."

"But, Mrs. Rymer----"

"Now we'll just drop the subject, sir, if it's all the same to you," loudly put in Mrs. Rymer. "I have told you before that Margaret must stay where she is, and keep the business together for me and her brother. No need to repeat it fifty times over."

She caught up her muff, and went out of the room and up the stairs as she delivered this final edict. Mr. Sale rose.

"You see how it is," said Margaret, in a low tone of emotion, and keeping her eyelids down to hide the tears. "You must go without me. I cannot leave. I can only say, God speed you."

"There are many wrongs enacted in this world, and this is one," he replied in a hard voice--not hard for her--as he took her hands in his, and stood before her. "I don't know that I altogether blame you, Margaret; but it is cruel upon you and upon me. Good-night."

He went out quite abruptly without kissing her, leaving her alone with her aching heart.

* * * * *

Tuesday afternoon, and the ice and the snow on the ground still. We were to dine at five o'clock--the London codfish and a prime turkey--and the Coneys were coming in as well as the Rector and his wife.

But Mrs. Coney did not come; old Coney and Tom brought in word that she was not feeling well enough; and the Tanertons only drove up on the stroke of five. As I helped Grace down from the pony-chaise, muffled up to the chin in furs, for the cold was enough to freeze an Icelander's nose off, I told her her aunt was not well enough to come.

"Aunt Coney not well enough to come!" returned Grace. "What a pity! Have I time to run in to see her before dinner, Johnny?"

"That you've not. You are late, as it is. The Squire has been telling us all that the fish must be in rags already."

Grace laughed as she ran in; her husband followed her unwinding the folds of his white woollen comforter. There was a general greeting and much laughter, especially when old Coney told Grace that her cheeks were as purple as his Sunday necktie. In the midst of it Thomas announced dinner.

The codfish came up all right, and the oyster sauce was in Molly's best style--made of cream, and plenty of oysters in it. The turkey was fine: the plum-pudding better than good. Hugh and Lena sat at the table; and altogether we had a downright merry dinner. Not a sober face amongst us, except Herbert Tanerton's: as to his face--well, you might have thought he was perpetually saying "For what we are going to receive----" It had struck eight ever so long when the last nut was eaten.

"Will you run over with me to my aunt's, Johnny?" whispered Grace as she passed my chair. "I should like to go at once, if you will."

So I followed her out of the room. She put her wraps on, and we went trudging across the road in the moonlight, over the crunching snow. Grace's foot went into a soft rut, and she gave a squeal.

"I shall have to borrow a shoe whilst this dries," said she. "Do you care to come in, Johnny?"

"No, I'll go back. I can run over for you presently."

"Don't do that. One of the servants will see me safe across."

"All right. Tell Mrs. Coney what a jolly dinner it was. We were all sorry she did not come."

Grace went in and shut the door. I was rushing back through our own gate, when some tall fellow glided out of the laurels, and put his hand on my arm. The moonlight fell upon his face and its reddish beard--and, to my intense surprise, I recognized Benjamin Rymer. I knew him then for the man who had been dodging in and out of the shrubs the night but one before.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "It is, as I am well aware, a very unusual and unceremonious way of accosting you, or any one else, but I want particularly to speak with you, in private, Mr. Ludlow."

"You were here on Sunday night!"

"Yes. I saw the Squire and the rest of them go out to church, but I did not see you go, and I was trying to ascertain whether you were at home and alone. Tom Coney's coming in startled me and sent me away."

We had been speaking in a low key, but Ben Rymer dropped his to a lower, as he explained. When he went away ten months before, it was in fear and dread that the truth of the escapade he had been guilty of, in regard to the bank-note, was coming out to the world, and that he might be called upon to answer for it. His mother had since assured him he had nothing to fear; but Ben was evidently a cautious man, and preferred to ascertain that fact before showing himself openly at Timberdale. Knowing I was to be trusted not to injure a fellow (as he was pleased to say), he had come down here to ask me my opinion as to whether the Squire would harm him, or not. There was no one else to fear now Jelf was dead.

"Harm you!" I exclaimed in my enthusiasm, my head full of poor, patient Margaret; "why, the Squire would be the very one to hold you free of harm, Mr. Rymer. I remember his saying, at the time, Heaven forbid that he, having sons of his own, should put a stumbling-block in your path, when you were intending to turn over a new leaf. He will help you on, instead of harming you."

"It's very good of him," said Ben. "I was an awful fool, and nothing else. That was the only dangerous thing I ever did, and I have been punished severely for it. I believe it was nothing but the fear and remorse it brought that induced me to pull up, and throw ill ways behind me."

"I'm sure I am glad that you do," I answered, for something in Ben's tone seemed to imply that the bad ways were thrown behind him for good. "Are you thinking of coming back to Timberdale?"

"Not until I shall have passed for a surgeon--which will not be long now. I have been with a surgeon in London as assistant, since I left here. It was a letter from Margaret that induced me to come down. She--do you know anything about her, Mr. Johnny?"

"I know that a parson wants her to go out with him to the Bahamas; he is Tanerton's curate; and that the pills and powders stand in the way of it."

"Just so. Is he a good fellow, this parson?"

"Good in himself. Not much to look at."

"Maggie shall go with him, then. I should be the last to stand willingly in her way. You see, I have not known whether it was safe for me at Timberdale: or I should never have left Maggie to the shop alone. Does any one know of the past--my past--besides you and the Squire?"

"Yes; Herbert Tanerton knows of it; and--and the curate, Mr. Sale." And I told him what had passed only on the previous day, softening the Rector's speeches--and it seemed a curious coincidence, taken with this visit of Ben's, that it should have passed. His mouth fell as he listened.

"It is another mortification for me," he said. "I should like to have stood as well as might be with Margaret's husband. Perhaps, knowing this, he will not think more of her."

"I don't believe he will let it make any difference. I don't think he is the man to let it. Perhaps--if you were to go to him--and show him how straight things are with you now--and----"

I broke down in my hesitating suggestion. Ben was years older than I, miles taller and broader, and it sounded like the mouse attempting to help the lion.

"Yes, I will go to him," he said slowly. "It is the only plan. And--and you think there's no fear that Herbert Tanerton will get talking to others?"

"I'm sure there's none. He is indoors now, dining with us. I am sure you are quite safe in all respects. The thing is buried in the past, and even its remembrance will pass away. The old postman, Lee, thinks it was Cotton; the Squire persuaded him into the belief at the time. Where is Cotton?"

"Where all such rogues deserve to be--transported. But for him and his friends I should never have done much that's wrong. Thank you for the encouragement you give me."

He half put out his hand to endorse the thanks, and drew it back again; but I put mine freely into his. Ben Rymer was Ben Rymer, and no favourite of mine to boot; but when a man has been down and is trying to get up again, he deserves respect and sympathy.

"I was about here all last evening, hoping to get sight of you," he remarked, as he went out at the gate. "I never saw such light nights in all my life as these few last have been, what with the moon and the snow. Good-night, Mr. Johnny. By the way, though, where does the curate live?"

"At Mrs. Boughton's. Nearly the last house, you know, before you come to the churchyard."

Ben Rymer went striding towards Timberdale, putting his coat-collar well up, that he might not be recognized when going through the village, and arrived at the curate's lodgings. Mr. Sale was at home, sitting by the fire in a brown study, that seemed to have no light at all in it. Ben, as I knew later, sat down by him, and made a clean breast of everything: his temptation, his fall, and his later endeavours to do right.

"Please God, I shall get on in the world now," he said; "and I think make a name in my profession. I don't wish to boast--and time of course will alone prove it--but I believe I have a special aptitude for surgery. My mother will be my care now; and Margaret--as you are good enough to say you still wish for her--shall be your care in future. There are few girls so deserving as she is."

"I know that," said the curate. And he shook Ben's hand upon it as heartily as though it had been a duke royal's.

It was close upon ten when Ben left him. Mrs. Rymer about that same time was making her usual preparations before retiring--namely, putting her curls in paper by the parlour fire. Margaret sat at the table, reading the Bible in silence, and so trying to school her aching heart. Her mother had been cross and trying all the evening: which did not mend the inward pain.

"What are you crying for?" suddenly demanded Mrs. Rymer, her sharp eyes seeing a tear fall on the book.

"For nothing," faintly replied Margaret.

"Nothing! Don't tell me. You are frizzling your bones over that curate, Sale. I'm sure he is a beauty to look at."

Margaret made no rejoinder; and just then the young servant put in her head.

"Be there anything else wanted, missis?"

"No," snapped Mrs. Rymer. "You can be off to bed."

But, before the girl had shut the parlour-door, a loud ring came to the outer one. Such late summonses were not unusual; they generally meant a prescription to be made up. Whilst the girl went to the door, Margaret closed the Bible, dried her eyes, and rose up to be in readiness.

But instead of a prescription, there entered Mr. Benjamin Rymer. His mother stood up, staring, her hair a mass of white corkscrews. Ben clasped Margaret in his arms, and kissed her heartily.

"My goodness me!" cried Mrs. Rymer. "Is it you, Ben?"

"Yes, it is, mother," said Ben, turning to her. "Maggie, dear, you look as though you did not know me."

"Why, what on earth have you come for, in this startling way?" demanded Mrs. Rymer. "I don't believe your bed's aired."

"I'll sleep between the blankets--the best place to-night. What have I come for, you ask, mother? I have come home to stay."

Margaret was gazing at him, her mild eyes wide open, a spot of hectic on each cheek.

"For your sake, Maggie," he whispered, putting his arm round her waist, and bending his great red head (but not so red as his mother's) down on her. "I shall not much like to lose you, though, my little sister. The Bahamas are further off than I could have wished."

And, for answer, poor Margaret, what with one thing and another, sank quietly down in her chair, and fainted. Ben strode into the shop--as much at home amongst the bottles as though he had never quitted them--and came back with some sal volatile.

* * * * *

They were married in less than a month; for Mr. Sale's chaplaincy would not wait for him. The Rector was ailing as usual, or said he was, and Charles Ashton came over to perform the ceremony. Margaret was in a bright dark silk, a light shawl, and a plain bonnet; they were to go away from the church door, and the boxes were already at the station. Ben, dressed well, and looking not unlike a gentleman, gave her away; but there was no wedding-party. Mrs. Rymer stayed at home in a temper, which I dare say nobody regretted: she considered Margaret ought to have remained single. And after a day or two spent in the seaport town they were to sail from, regaling their eyes with the ships crowding the water, the Reverend Isaac Sale and his wife embarked for their future home in the Bahama Isles.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIII. THE OTHER EARRING

"And if I could make sure that you two boys would behave yourselves and give me no trouble, possibly I might take you this year just for a treat."

"Behave ourselves!" exclaimed Tod, indignantly. "Do you think we are two children, sir?"

"We would be as good as gold, sir," I added, turning eagerly to the Squire.

"Well, Johnny, I'm not much afraid but that you would. Perhaps I'll trust you both, then, Joe."

"Thank you, father."

"I shall see," added the pater, thinking it well to put in a little qualification. "It's not quite a promise, mind. But it must be two or three years now, I think, since you went to them."

"It seems like six," said Tod. "I know it's four."

We were talking of Worcester Races. At that period they used to take place early in August. Dr. Frost had an unpleasant habit of reassembling his pupils either the race-week or the previous one; and to get over to the races was almost as difficult for Tod and for me as though they had been run in California. To hear the pater say he might perhaps take us this year, just as the Midsummer holidays were drawing to an end, and say it voluntarily, was as good as it was unexpected. He meant it, too; in spite of the reservation: and Dr. Frost was warned that he need not expect us until the race-week was at its close.

The Squire drove into Worcester on the Monday, to be ready for the races on Tuesday morning, with Tod, myself, and the groom--Giles; and put up, as usual, at the Star and Garter. Sometimes he only drove in and back on each of the three race-days; or perhaps on two of them: this he could do very well from Crabb Cot, but it was a good pull for the horses from Dyke Manor. This year, to our intense gratification, he meant to stay in the town.

The Faithful City was already in a bustle. It had put on its best appearance, and had its windows cleaned; some of the shop-fronts were being polished off as we drove slowly up the streets. Families were, like ourselves, coming in: more would come before night. The theatre was open, and we went to it after dinner; and saw, I remember, "Guy Mannering" (over which the pater went to sleep), and an after-piece with a ghost in it.

The next morning I took the nearest way from the hotel to Sansome Walk, and went up it to call on one of our fellows who lived near the top. His friends always let him stay at home for the race-week. A maid-servant came running to answer my knock at the door.

"Is Harry Parker at home?"

"No, sir," answered the girl, who seemed to be cleaning up for the races on her own account, for her face and arms were all "colly." "Master Harry have gone down to Pitchcroft, I think."

"I hope he has gone early enough!" said I, feeling disappointed. "Why, the races won't begin for hours yet."

"Well, sir," she said, "I suppose there's a deal more life to be seen there than here, though it is early in the day."

That might easily be. For of all solitary places Sansome Walk was, in those days, the dreariest, especially portions of it. What with the overhanging horse-chestnut trees, and the high dead wall behind those on the one hand, and the flat stretch of lonely fields on the other, Sansome Walk was what Harry Parker used to call a caution. You might pass through all its long length from end to end and never meet a soul.

Taking that narrow by-path on my way back that leads into the Tything by St. Oswald's Chapel, and whistling a bar of the sweet song I had heard at the theatre overnight, "There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream," some one came swiftly advancing down the same narrow path, and I prepared to back sideways to give her room to pass--a young woman, with a large shabby shawl on, and the remains of faded gentility about her.

It was Lucy Bird! As she drew near, lifting her sad sweet eyes to mine with a mournful smile, my heart gave a great throb of pity. Faded, worn, anxious, reduced!--oh, how unlike she was, poor girl, to the once gay and charming Lucy Ashton!

"Why, Lucy! I did not expect to see you in Worcester! We heard you had left it months ago."

"Yes, we left last February for London," she answered. "Captain Bird has only come down for the races."

As she took her hand from under her shawl to respond to mine, I saw that she was carrying some cheese and a paper of cold cooked meat. She must have been buying the meat at the cook's shop, as the Worcester people called it, which was in the middle of High Street. Oh! what a change--what a change for the delicately-bred Lucy Ashton! Better that her Master of Ravenswood had buried his horse and himself in the flooded land, as the other one did, than have brought her to this.

"Where are you going to, down this dismal place, Lucy?"

"Home," she answered. "We have taken lodgings at the top of Sansome Walk."

"At one of the cottages a little beyond it?"

"Yes, at one of those. How are you all, Johnny? How is Mrs. Todhetley?"

"Oh, she's first-rate. Got no neuralgia just now."

"Is she at Worcester?"

"No; at Dyke Manor. She would not come. The Squire drove us in yesterday. We are at the Star."

"Ah! yes," she said, her eyes taking a dreamy, far-off look. "I remember staying at the Star myself one race-week. Papa brought me. It was the year I left school. Have you heard or seen anything of my brothers lately, Johnny Ludlow?"

"Not since we were last staying at Crabb Cot. We went to Timberdale Church one day and heard your brother Charles preach; and we dined once with Robert at the Court, and he and his wife came once to dine with us. But--have you not seen your brother James here?"

"No--and I would rather not see him. He would be sure to ask me painful questions."

"But he is always about the streets here, seeing after his patients, Lucy. I wonder you have not met him."

"We only came down last Saturday: and I go out as little as I can," she said; a hesitation in her tone and manner that struck me. "I did think I saw James's carriage before me just now as I came up the Tything. It turned into Britannia Square."

"I dare say. We met it yesterday in Sidbury as we drove in."

"His practice grows large, I suppose. You say Charles was preaching at Timberdale?" she added: "was Herbert Tanerton ill?"

"Yes. Ailing, that is. Your brother came over to take the duty for the day. Will you call at the Star to see the Squire, Lucy? You know how pleased he would be."

"N--o," she answered, her manner still more hesitating; and she seemed to be debating some matter mentally. "I--I would have come after dark, had Mrs. Todhetley been there. At least I think I would--I don't know."

"You can come all the same, Lucy."

"But no--that would not have done," she went on to herself, in a half-whisper. "I might have been seen. It would never have done to risk it. The truth is, Johnny, I ought to see Mrs. Todhetley on a matter of business. Though even if she were here, I do not know that I might dare to see her. It is--not exactly my own business--and--and mischief might come of it."

"Is it anything I can say to her for you?"

"I--think--you might," she returned slowly, pausing, as before, between her words. "I know you are to be trusted, Johnny."

"That I am. I wouldn't forget a single item of the message."

"I did not mean in that way. I shall have to entrust to you a private matter--a disagreeable secret. It is a long time that I have wanted to tell some of you; ever since last winter: and yet, now that the opportunity has come that I may do it, I scarcely dare. The Squire is hasty and impulsive, his son is proud; but I think I may confide in you, Johnny."

"Only try me, Lucy."

"Well, I will. I will. I know you are true as steel. Not this morning, for I cannot stop--and I am not prepared. Let me see: where shall we meet again? No, no, Johnny, I cannot venture to the hotel: it is of no use to suggest that."

"Shall I come to your lodgings?"

She just shook her head by way of dissent, and remained in silent thought. I could not imagine what it was she had to tell me that required all this preparation; but it came into my mind to be glad that I had chanced to go that morning to Harry Parker's.

"Suppose you meet me in Sansome Walk this afternoon, Johnny Ludlow? Say at"--considering--"yes, at four o'clock. That will be a safe hour, for they will be on the racecourse and out of the way. People will, I mean," she added hastily: but somehow I did not think she had meant people. "Can you come?"

"I will manage it."

"And, if you don't meet me at that time--it is just possible that I may be prevented coming out--I will be there at eight o'clock this evening instead," she continued. "That I know I can do."

"Very well. I'll be sure to be there."

Hardly waiting another minute to say good-morning, she went swiftly on. I began wondering what excuse I could make for leaving the Squire's carriage in the midst of the sport, and whether he would let me leave it.

But the way for that was paved without any effort of mine. At the early lunch, the Squire, in the openness of his heart, offered a seat in the phaeton to some old acquaintance from Martley. Which of course would involve Tod's sitting behind with me, and Giles's being left out altogether.

"Catch me at it," cried Tod. "You can do as you please, Johnny: I shall go to the course on foot."

"I will also," I said--though you, naturally, understand that I had never expected to sit elsewhere than behind. And I knew it would be easier for me to lose Tod in the crowd, and so get away to keep the appointment, than it would have been to elude the Squire's questioning as to why I could want to leave the carriage.

Lunch over, Tod said he would go to the Bell, to see whether the Letstoms had come in; and we started off. No; the waiter had seen nothing of them. Onwards, down Broad Street we went, took the Quay, and so got on that way to Pitchcroft--as the racecourse is called. The booths and shows were at this end, and the chief part of the crowd. Before us lay stretched the long expanse of the course, green and level as a bowling-green. The grand-stand (comparatively speaking a new erection there) lay on the left, higher up, the winning-chair and distance-post facing it. Behind the stand, flanking all that side of Pitchcroft, the beautiful river Severn flowed along between its green banks, the houses of Henwick, opposite, looking down upon it from their great height, over their sloping gardens. It was a hot day, the blue sky dark and cloudless.

"True and correct card of all the running horses, gentlemen: the names, weights, and colours o' the riders!" The words, echoing on all sides from the men who held these cards for sale, are repeated in my brain now; as are other sounds and sights. I was somewhat older then than I had been; but it was not very long since those shows, ranged round there side by side, a long line of them, held the greatest attraction for me in life. "Guy Mannering," the past night, had been very nice to see, very enjoyable; but it possessed not the nameless charm of that first "play" I went to in Scowton's Show on the racecourse. That charm could never come again. And I was but a lad yet.

The lightning with which the play opened had been real lightning to me; the thunder, real thunder. The gentleman who stood, when the curtain rose, gorgeously attired in a scarlet doublet slashed with gold (something between a king and a bandit), with uplifted face of terror and drawn sword, calling the war of the elements "tremendious," was to me a greater potentate than the world could almost contain! The young lady, his daughter, in ringlets and spangles, who came flying on in the midst of the storm, and fell at his feet, with upraised arms and a piteous appeal, "Alas! my father, and will you not consent to my marriage with Alphonso?" seemed more lovely to me than the Sultanas in the "Arabian Nights," or the Princesses in Fairyland. I sat there entranced and speechless. A new world had opened to me--a world of delight. For weeks and weeks afterwards, that play, with its wondrous beauties, its shifting scenes, was present to me sleeping and waking.

The ladies in spangles, the gentlemen in slashed doublets, were on the platforms of their respective shows to-day, dancing for the benefit of Pitchcroft. Now and again a set would leave off, the music ceasing also, to announce that the performance was about to commence. I am not sure but I should have gone up to see one, but for the presence of Tod and Harry Parker--whom we had met on the course. There were learned pigs, and spotted calves, and striped zebras; and gingerbread and cake stalls; and boat-swings and merry-go-rounds--which had made me frightfully sick once when Hannah let me go in one. And there was the ever-increasing throng, augmenting incessantly; carriages, horsemen, shoals of foot-passengers; conjurers and fortune-tellers; small tables for the game of "thimble-rig," their owners looking out very sharply for the constables who might chance to be looking for them; and the movable exhibitions of dancing dolls and Punch and Judy. Ay, the sounds and the sights are in my brain now. The bands of the different shows, mostly attired in scarlet and gold, all blowing and drumming as hard as they could blow and drum; the shouted invitations to the admiring spectators, "Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, the performance is just a-going to begin;" the scraping of the blind fiddlers; the screeching of the ballad-singers; the sudden uproar as a stray dog, attempting to cross the course, is hunted off it; the incessant jabber and the Babel of tongues; and the soft roll of wheels on the turf.

Hark! The bell rings for the clearing of the course. People know what it means, and those who are cautious hasten at once to escape under the cords on either side. The gallop of a horse is heard, its rider, in his red coat and white smalls, loudly smacking his whip to effect the clearance. The first race is about to begin. All the world presses towards the environs of the grand-stand to get a sight of the several horses entered for it. Here they come; the jockeys in their distinguishing colours, trying their horses in a brisk canter, after having been weighed in the paddock. A few minutes, and the start is effected; they are off!

It is only a two-mile heat. The carriages are all drawn up against the cords; the foot-passengers press it; horsemen get where they can. And now the excitement is at its height; the rush of the racers coming in to the winning-post breaks on the ear. They fly like the wind.

At that moment I caught sight of the sharply eager face of a good-looking, dashing man, got up to perfection--you might have taken him for a lord at least. Arm-in-arm with him stood another, well-got-up also, as a sporting country gentleman; he wore a green cut-away coat, top-boots, and a broad-brimmed hat which shaded his face. If I say "got-up," it is because I knew the one, and I fancied I knew the other. But the latter's face was partly turned from me, and hidden, as I have said, by the hat. Both watched the swiftly-coming racehorses with ill-concealed anxiety: and both, as well-got-up gentlemen at ease, strove to appear indifferent.

"Tod, there's Captain Bird."

"Captain Bird! Where? You are always fancying things, Johnny."

"A few yards lower down. Close to the cords."

"Oh, be shot to the scoundrel, and so it is! What a swell! Don't bother. Here they come."

"Blue cap wins!" "No! red sleeves gains on him!" "Yellow stripes is first!" "Pink jacket has it!" "By Jove! the bay colt is distanced!" "Purple wins by a neck!"

With a hubbub of these different versions from the bystanders echoing on our ears, the horses flew past in a rush and a whirl. Black cap and white jacket was the winner.

Amidst the crowding and the pushing and the excitement that ensued, I tried to get nearer to Captain Bird. Not to see him: it was impossible to look at him with any patience and contrast his dashing appearance with that of poor, faded Lucy's: but to see the other man. For he put me in mind of the gentleman-detective Eccles, who had loomed upon us at Crabb Cot that Sunday afternoon in the past winter, polished off the sirloin of beef, crammed the Squire with anecdotes of his college life, and finally made off with the other earring.

You can turn back to the paper called "Mrs. Todhetley's Earrings," and recall the circumstances. How she lost an earring out of her ear: a pink topaz encircled with diamonds. It was supposed a tramp had picked it up; and the Squire went about it to the police at Worcester. On the following Sunday a gentleman called introducing himself as Mr. Eccles, a private detective, and asking to look at the other earring. The Squire was marvellously taken with him, ordered in the beef, not long gone out from the dinner, and was as eager to entrust the earring to him as he was to take it. That Eccles had been a gentleman once--at least, that he had mixed with gentlemen, was easy to be seen: and perhaps had also been an Oxford man, as he asserted; but he was certainly a swindler now. He carried off the earring; and we had never seen him, or it, from that day to this. But I did think I saw him now on the racecourse. In the side face, and the tall, well-shaped figure of the top-booted country gentleman, with the heavy bunch of seals hanging from his watch-chain, who leaned on that man Captain Bird's arm, there was a great resemblance to him. The other earring, lost first, was found in the garden under a small fir-tree when the snow melted away, where it must have dropped unseen from Mrs. Todhetley's ear, as she stopped in the path to shake the snow from the tree.

But the rush of people sweeping by was too great. Captain Bird and he were nowhere to be seen. In the confusion also I lost Tod and Harry Parker. The country gentleman I meant to find if I could, and went looking about for him.

The carriages were coming away from their standing-places near the ropes to drive about the course, as was the custom in those days. Such a thing as taking the horses out of a carriage and letting it stay where it was until the end of the day was not known on Worcester racecourse. You might count the carriages-and-four there then, their inmates exchanging greetings with each other in passing, as they drove to and fro. It was a sight to see the noblemen's turn-outs; the glittering harness, the array of servants in their sumptuous liveries; for they came in style to the races. The meeting on the course was the chief local event of the year, when all the county assembled to see each other and look their best.

"Will you get up now, Johnny?"

The soft bowling of the Squire's carriage-wheels arrested itself, as he drew up to speak to me. The Martley old gentleman sat with him, and there was a vacant place by Giles behind.

"No, thank you, sir. I would rather be on foot."

"As you will, lad. Is your watch safe?"

"Oh yes."

"Where's Joe?"

"Somewhere about. He is with Harry Parker. I have only just missed them."

"Missed them! Oh, and I suppose you are looking for them. A capital race, that last."

"Yes, sir."

"Mind you take care of yourself, Johnny," he called back, as he touched up Bob and Blister, to drive on. I generally did take care of myself, but the Squire never forgot to remind me to do it.

The afternoon went on, and my search with it in the intervals of the racing. I could see nothing of those I wanted to see, or of Tod and Harry Parker. Our meeting, or not meeting, was just a chance, amidst those crowds and crowds of human beings, constantly moving. Three o'clock had struck, and as soon as the next race should be over--a four-mile heat--it would be nearly time to think about keeping my appointment with Lucy Bird.

And now once more set in all the excitement of the running. A good field started for the four-mile heat, more horses than had run yet.

I liked those four-mile heats on Worcester racecourse: when we watched the jockeys in their gay and varied colours twice round the course, describing the figure of eight, and coming in, hot and panting, at the end. The favourites this time were two horses named "Swallower" and "Master Ben." Each horse was well liked: and some betters backed one, some the other. Now they are off!

The running began slowly and steadily; the two favourites just ahead; a black horse (I forget his name, but his jockey wore crimson and purple) hanging on to them; most of the other horses lying outside. The two kept together all the way, and as they came in for the final run the excitement was intense.

"Swallower has it by a neck!" "No! Master Ben heads him!" "Ben wins! Swallower loses!" "Swallower has it! Ben's jockey is beat!" and so on, and so on. Amidst the shouts and the commotion the result was announced--a dead heat.

So the race must be run again. I looked at my watch (which you may be sure I had kept carefully buttoned up under my jacket), wondering whether I could stay for it. That was uncertain; there was no knowing how long an interval would be allowed for breathing-time.

Suddenly there arose a frightful commotion above all the natural commotion of the course. People rushed towards one point; horsemen galloped thither, carriages bowled cautiously in their wake. The centre of attraction appeared to be on the banks of the river, just beyond the grand-stand. What was it? What had occurred? The yells were deafening; the pushing fearful. At last the cause was known: King Mob was ducking some offender in the Severn.

To get near, so as to see anything of the fun, was impossible; it was equally impossible to gather what he had done; whether picked a pocket, or cheated at betting. Those are the two offences that on Pitchcroft were then deemed deserving of the water. This time, I think, it was connected with betting.

Soon the yells became louder and nearer. Execrations filled the air. The crowd opened, and a wretched-looking individual emerged out of it on the hard run, his clothes dripping, his hair hanging about his face like rat's tails.

On he came, the mob shouting and hallooing in his wake, and brushed close past me. Why! it was surely the country gentleman I had seen with Bird! I knew him again at once. But whether it was the man Eccles or not, I did not see; he tore by swiftly, his head kept down. A broad-brimmed hat came flying after him, propelled by the feet of the crowd. He stooped to catch it up, and then kept on his way right across the course, no doubt to make his escape from it. Yes, it was the same man in his top-boots. I was sure of that. Scampering close to his heels, fretting and yelling furiously, was a half-starved white dog with a tin kettle tied to its tail. I wondered which of the two was the more frightened--the dog or the man.

And standing very nearly close to me, as I saw then, was Captain Bird. Not running, not shouting; simply looking on with a countenance of supreme indifference, that seemed to express no end of languid contempt of the fun. Not a sign of recognition crossed his face as the half-drowned wight swept past him: no one could have supposed he ever set eyes on him before. And when the surging crowd had passed, he sauntered away in the direction of the saddling-place.

But I lost the race. Though I stayed a little late, hoping to at last see the horses come out for the second start, and to count how many of the former field would compete for it, the minutes flew all too swiftly by, and I had to go, and to put the steam on. Making a bolt across Pitchcroft and up Salt Lane, went I, full split, over the Tything, and so down to Sansome Walk. St. Oswald's clock was tinkling out four as I reached it.

Lucy did not come. She had indicated the spot where the meeting should be; and I waited there, making the best I could of it; cooling myself, and looking out for her. At half-past four I gave her up in my own mind; and when five o'clock struck, I knew it was useless to stay longer. So I began to take my way back slower than I had come; and on turning out by St. Oswald's, I saw the carriages and people flocking up on their way from Pitchcroft. The first day's racing was over.

There was a crowd at the top of Salt Lane, and I had to wait before I could get across. In the wake of a carriage-and-four that was turning out of it came Captain Bird, not a feather of his plumage ruffled, not a speck (except dust) on his superfine coat, not a wristband soiled. He had not been ducked, if his friend had.

"How d'ye do, Master Ludlow?" said he, with a grandly patronizing air, and a flourish of his cane, as if it were a condescension to notice me. And I answered him civilly; though he must have been aware I knew what a scamp he was.

"I wish he'd steal away to America some moonlight night," ran my thoughts, "and leave poor Lucy in peace."

The Squire's carriage dashed up to the hotel as I reached it, Tod sitting behind with Giles. I asked which of the two horses had won. Swallower: won by half-a-neck. The Squire was in a glow of satisfaction, boasting of the well-contested race.

And now, to make things intelligible, I must refer again for a minute or two to that past paper. It may be remembered that when "Detective Eccles" called on us that Sunday afternoon, asking to look at the fellow-earring to the one lost, Mrs. Todhetley had gone in to the Coneys', and the Squire sent me for her. When I arrived there, Lucy Bird was in the drawing-room alone, the mater being upstairs with Mrs. Coney. Poor Lucy told me she had been spending a day or two at Timberdale Court (her happy childhood's home), and had come over to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Coney, who were always kind to her, she added with a sigh; but she was going back to Worcester by the next train. I told her what I had come for--of the detective's visit and his request to see the other earring. Mrs. Todhetley felt nervous at meeting a real live detective, and asked me no end of questions as to what this particular one was like. I said he was no tiger to be afraid of, and described him as well as I could: a tall, slender, gentlemanly man, well-dressed; gold studs, a ring on his finger, a blue necktie, and a black moustache. Lucy (I had noticed at the time) seemed struck with the description; but she made no remark. Before we turned in at our gate we saw her leave the Coneys' house, and come stepping through the snow on her way to the station. Since then, until now, we had not seen anything of Lucy Bird.

* * * * *

The stars flickered through the trees in Sansome Walk as I turned into it. A fine trouble I had had to come! Some entertainment was in full swing that evening at the Saracen's Head--a sort of circus, combined with rope-dancing. Worcester would be filled with shows during the race-week (I don't mean those on Pitchcroft), and we went to as many as we could get money for. We had made the bargain with Harry Parker on the course to go to this one, and during the crowded dinner Tod asked the Squire's leave. He gave it with the usual injunctions to take care of ourselves, and on condition that we left our watches at home. So, there I was in a fix; neither daring to say at the dinner-table that I could not go, nor daring to say what prevented it, for Lucy had bound me to secrecy.

"What time is this thing going to be over to-night, Joe?" had questioned the Squire, who was drinking port wine with some more old gentlemen at one end of the table, as we rose to depart.

"Oh, I don't know," answered Tod. "About ten o'clock, I dare say."

"Well, mind you come straight home, you two. I won't have you getting into mischief. Do you hear, Johnny?"

"What mischief do you suppose, sir, we are likely to get into?" fired Tod.

"I don't know," answered the Squire. "When I was a young lad--younger than you--staying here for the races with my father--but we stayed at the Hop-pole, next door, which was the first inn then--I remember we were so wicked one night as to go about ringing and knocking at all the doors----"

"You and your father, sir?" asked Tod, innocently.

"My father! no!" roared the Squire. "What do you mean, Joe? How dare you! My father go about the town knocking at doors and ringing at bells! How dare you suggest such an idea! We left my father, sir, at the hotel with his friends at their wine, as you are leaving me with my friends here now. It was I and half-a-dozen other young rascals who did it--more shame for us. I can't be sure how many bell-wires we broke. The world has grown wiser since then, though I don't think it's better; and--and mind you walk quietly home. Don't get into a fight, or quarrel, or anything of that kind. The streets are sure to be full of rough people and pickpockets."

Harry Parker was waiting for us in the hotel gateway. He said he feared we should be late, and thought we must have been eating dinner for a week by the time we took over it.

"I'm not coming with you, Tod," I said; "I'll join you presently."

Tod turned round and faced me. "What on earth's that for, Johnny?"

"Oh, nothing. I'll come soon. You two go on."

"Suppose you don't get a place!" cried Parker to me.

"Oh, I shall get one fast enough: it won't be so crowded as all that."

"Now, look here, lad," said Tod, with his face of resolution; "you are up to some dodge. What is it?"

"My head aches badly," I said--and that was true. "I can't go into that hot place until I have had a spell of fresh air. But I shall be sure to join you later, if I can."

My headaches were always allowed. I had them rather often. Not the splitting, roaring pain that Tod would get in his head on rare occasions, once a twelvemonth, or so, when anything greatly worried him; but bad enough in all conscience. He said no more; and set off with Harry Parker up the street towards the Saracen's Head.

The stars were flickering through the trees in Sansome Walk, looking as bright as though it were a frosty night in winter. It was cool and pleasant: the great heat of the day--which must have given me my headache--had passed. Mrs. Bird was already at the spot. She drew me underneath the trees on the side, looking up the walk as though she feared she had been followed. A burst of distant music crashed out and was borne towards us on the air: the circus band, at the Saracen's Head. Lucy still glanced back the way she had come.

"Are you afraid of anything, Lucy?"

"There is no danger, I believe," she answered; "but I cannot help being timid: for, if what I am doing were discovered, I--I--I don't know what they would do to me."

"You did not come this afternoon."

"No. I was very sorry, but I could not," she said, as we paced slowly about, side by side. "I had my shawl and bonnet on, when Edwards came in--a friend of my husband's, who is staying with him. He had somehow got into the Severn, and looked quite an object, his hair and clothes dripping wet, and his forehead bruised."

"Why, Lucy, he was ducked!" I cried excitedly. "I saw it all. That is, I saw the row; and I saw him when he made his escape across Pitchcroft. He had on a smart green cut-away coat, and top-boots."

"Yes, yes," she said; "I was sure it was something of that kind. When my husband came home later they were talking together in an undertone, Edwards cursing some betting-man, and Captain Bird telling Edwards that it was his own fault for not being more cautious. However, I could not come out, Johnny, though I knew you were waiting for me. Edwards asked, as impertinently as he dared, where I was off to. To buy some tea, I answered, but that it did not matter particularly, as I had enough for the evening. They think I have come out to buy it now."

"Do you mean to say, Lucy, that Captain Bird denies you free liberty?--watches you as a cat does a mouse?"

"No, no; you must not take up wrong notions of my husband, Johnny Ludlow. Bad though the estimation in which he is held by most people is, he has never been really unkind to me. Trouble, frightful trouble he does bring upon me, for I am his wife and have to share it, but personally unkind to me he has never yet been."

"Well, I should think it unkind in your place, if I could not go out when I pleased, without being questioned. What do they suspect you would be after?"

"It is not Captain Bird; it is Edwards. As to what he suspects, I am sure he does not know himself; but he seems to be generally suspicious of every one, and he sees I do not like him. I suppose he lives in general fear of being denounced to the police, for he is always doing what he calls 'shady' things; but he must know that he is safe with us. I heard him say to my husband the day before we left London, 'Why do you take your wife down?' Perhaps he thinks my brothers might be coming to call on me, and of course he does not want attention drawn to the place he may chance to be located in, whether here or elsewhere."

"What is his name, Lucy?"

"His name? Edwards."

"It's not Eccles, is it?"

She glanced quickly round as we walked, searching my face in the dusk.

"Why do you ask that?"

"Because, when I first saw him to-day on the racecourse with Captain Bird, he put me in mind of the fine gentleman who came to us that Sunday at Crabb Cot, calling himself Detective Eccles, and carried off Mrs. Todhetley's other earring."

Mrs. Bird looked straight before her, making no answer.

"You must remember that afternoon, Lucy. When I ran over to old Coney's for Mrs. Todhetley, you were there, you know; and I told you all about the earrings and the detective officer, then making his dinner of cold beef at our house while he waited for the mother to come home and produce the earring. Don't you remember? You were just going back to Worcester."

Still she said not a word.

"Lucy, I think it is the same man. Although his black moustache is gone, I feel sure it is he. The face and the tall slender figure are just like his."

"How singular!" she exclaimed, in a low tone to herself. "How strangely things come about!"

"But is it Eccles?"

"Johnny Ludlow," she said, catching my arm, and speaking in an excited, breathless whisper, "if you were to bring harm on me--that is, on him or on my husband through me, I should pray to die."

"But you need not be afraid. Goodness me, Lucy! don't you know that I wouldn't bring harm on any one in the world, least of all on you? Why, you said to me this morning that I was true as steel."

"Yes, yes," she said, bursting into tears. "We have always been good friends, have we not. Johnny, since you, a little mite of a child in a tunic and turned-down frill, came to see me one day at school, a nearly grown-up young lady, and wanted to leave me your bright sixpence to buy gingerbread? Oh, Johnny, if all people were only as loyal and true-hearted as you are!"

"Then, Lucy, why need you doubt me?"

"Do you not see the shadows of those leaves playing on the ground cast by the light of that gas-lamp?" she asked. "Just as many shadows, dark as those, lie in the path of my life. They have taught me to fear an enemy where I ought to look for a friend; they have taught me that life is so full of unexpected windings and turnings, that we know not one minute what new fear the next may bring forth."

"Well, Lucy, you need not fear me. I have promised you to say nothing of having met you here; and I will say nothing, or of what you tell me."

"Promise it me again, Johnny. Faithfully."

Just a shade of vexation crossed me that she should think it needful to reiterate this; but I would not let my face or voice betray it.

"I promise it again, Lucy. Faithfully and truly."

"Ever since last winter I have wanted to hold communication with one of you at your home, and to restore something that had been lost. But it had to be done very, very cautiously, without bringing trouble on me or on any one connected with me. Many a solitary hour, sitting by myself in our poor lodgings in London, have I deliberated whether I might venture to restore this, and how it was to be done: many a sleepless night have I passed, dwelling on it. Sometimes I thought I would send it anonymously by the post, but it might have been stolen by the way; sometimes it would occur to me to make a parcel of it and despatch it in that way. I never did either. I waited until some chance should bring me again near Mrs. Todhetley. But to-day I saw that it would be better to trust you. She is true also, and kind; but she might not be able to keep the secret from the Squire, and he--he would be sure to betray it, though perhaps not intentionally, to all Timberdale, and there's no knowing what mischief might come of it."

Light flashed upon me as she spoke. As surely as though it were already before me in black and white, I knew what she was about to disclose.

"Lucy, it is the lost earring! The man staying with you is Eccles."

"Hush!" she whispered in extreme terror, for a footstep suddenly sounded close to us. Lucy glided behind the tree we were passing, which in a degree served to hide her. How timid she was!--what induced it?

The intruder was a shop-boy with an apron on, carrying a basket of grocery parcels to one of the few houses higher up. He turned his head and gave us a good stare, probably taking us for a pair of lovers enjoying a stolen ramble by starlight. Setting up a shrill whistle, he passed on.

"I don't know what has come to me lately; my heart seems to beat at nothing," said poor Mrs. Bird, coming from behind the tree with her hand to her side. "And it was doubly foolish of me to go there; better that I had kept quietly walking on with you, Johnny."

"What is it that you are afraid of, Lucy?"

"Only of their seeing me; seeing me with you. Were they to do so, and it were to come out that the earring had been returned, they would know I had done it. They suspected me at the time--at least, Edwards did. For it is the earring I am about to restore to you, Johnny."

She put a little soft white paper packet in my hand, that felt as if it had wool inside it. I hardly knew whether I was awake or asleep. The beautiful earring that we had given up for good, come back again! And the sound of the drums and trumpets burst once more upon our ears.

"You will give it to Mrs. Todhetley when you go home, Johnny. And I must leave it to your discretion to tell her what you think proper of whence you obtained it. Somewhat of course you must tell her, but how much or how little I leave with you. Only take care you bring no harm upon me."

"I am sure, Lucy, that Mrs. Todhetley may be trusted."

"Very well. Both of you must be secret as the grave. It is for my sake, tell her, that I implore it. Perhaps she will keep the earring by her for a few months, saying nothing, so that this visit of ours into Worcestershire may be quite a thing of the past, and no suspicion, in consequence of it, as connected with the earring, may arise in my husband's mind. After that, when months have elapsed, she must contrive to let it appear that the earring is then, in some plausible way or other, returned to her."

"Rely upon it, we will take care. It will be managed very easily. But how did you get the earring, Lucy?"

"It has been in my possession ever since the night of the day you lost it; that Sunday afternoon, you know. I have carried it about with me everywhere."

"Do you mean carried it upon you?"

"Yes; upon me."

"I wonder you never lost it--a little thing like this!" I said, touching the soft packet that lay in my jacket pocket.

"I could not lose it," she whispered. "It was sewn into my clothes."

"But, Lucy, how did you manage to get it?"

She gave me the explanation in a few low, rapid words, glancing about her as she did it. Perhaps I had better repeat it in my own way; and to do that we must go back to the Sunday afternoon. At least, that will render it more intelligible and ship-shape. But I did not learn one-half of the details then; no, nor for a long time afterwards. And so, we go back again in imagination to the time of that January day, when we were honoured by the visit of "Detective Eccles," and the snow was lying on the ground, and Farmer Coney's fires were blazing hospitably.

* * * * *

Lucy Bird quitted the warm fires and her kind friends, the Coneys, and followed us out--me and Mrs. Todhetley--she saw us turn in at our own gate, and then she picked her way through the snow to the station at South Crabb. It was a long walk for her in that inclement weather; but she had been away from home (if the poor lodgings they then occupied in Worcester could be called home) two days, and was anxious to get back again. During her brief absences from it, she was always haunted by the fear of some ill falling on that precious husband of hers, Captain Bird; but he was nothing but an ex-captain, as you know. All the way to the station she was thinking about the earrings, and of my description of Detective Eccles. The description was exactly that of her husband's friend, Edwards, both as to person and dress; not that she supposed it could be he. When she left Worcester nearly two days before, Edwards had just arrived. She knew him to be an educated man, of superior manners, and full of anecdote, when he chose, about college life. Like her husband, he had, by recklessness and ill-conduct, sunk lower and lower in the world, until he had to depend on "luck" or "chance" for a living.

Barely had Lucy reached the station, walking slowly, when the train shot in. She took her seat; and, after a short halt the train moved on again. At that moment there strode into the station that self-same man, Edwards, who began shouting furiously for the train to stop, putting up his hands, running and gesticulating. The train declined to stop; trains generally do decline to stop for late passengers, however frantically adjured; and Edwards was left behind. His appearance astonished Lucy considerably. Had he, in truth, been passing himself off as a detective officer to Squire Todhetley? If so, with what motive? Lucy could not see any motive, and still thought it could not be; that Edwards must be over here on some business of his own. The matter passed from her mind as she drew near Worcester, and reached their lodgings, which were down Lowesmoor way.

Experience had taught Lucy not to ask questions. She was either not answered at all, or the answer would be sure to give her trouble. Captain Bird had grown tolerably careless as to whether his hazardous doings reached, or did not reach, the ears of his wife, but he did not willingly tell her of them. She said not a word of having seen Edwards, or of what she had heard about the loss of Mrs. Todhetley's earring, or of the detective's visit to Crabb Cot. Lucy's whole life was one of dread and fear, and she never knew whether any remark of hers might not bear upon some dangerous subject. But while getting the tea, she did just inquire after Edwards.

"Has Edwards left?" she asked carelessly.

"No," replied Captain Bird, who was stretched out before the fire in his slippers, smoking a long pipe, and drinking spirits. "He is out on the loose, though, somewhere, to-day."

It was late at night when Edwards entered. He was in a rage. Trains did not run frequently on Sundays, and he had been kept all that time at South Crabb Junction, waiting for one. Lucy went upstairs to bed, leaving Edwards and her husband drinking brandy-and-water. Both of them had had quite enough already.

The matter of the earrings and the doubt whether Mr. Edwards had been playing at amateur detectiveship would have ended there, but for the accident of Lucy's having to come downstairs again for the small travelling-bag in which she had carried her combs and brushes. She had put it just inside the little back parlour, where a bed on chairs had been extemporized for Edwards, their lodgings not being very extensive. Lucy was picking up the bag in the dark, when some words in the sitting-room caught her ear; the door between the two rooms being partly open. Before a minute elapsed she had heard too much. Edwards, in a loud, gleeful, boasting tone, was telling how he had been acting the detective, and done the old Squire and his wife out of the other earring. Lucy, looking in through the opening, saw him holding it up; she saw the colours of the long pink topaz, and the diamonds flash in the candle-light.

"I thought I could relieve them of it," he said. "When I read that advertisement in the paper, it struck me there might be a field open to do a little stroke of business; and I've done it."

"You are a fool for your pains," growled Captain Bird. "There's sure to be a row."

"The row won't touch me. I'm off to London to-morrow morning, and the earring with me. I wonder what the thing will turn us in? Twenty pounds. There, put it in the box, Bird, and get out the dice."

The dice on a Sunday night!

Lucy felt quite sick as she went back upstairs. What would be the end of all this? Not of this one transaction in particular, but of all the other disgraceful transactions with which her husband was connected? It might come to some public exposure, some criminal trial at the Bar of Justice; and of that she had a horrible dread ever haunting her like a nightmare.

She undressed, and went to bed. One hour passed, two hours passed, three hours passed. Lucy turned and turned on her uneasy pillow, feeling ready to die. Besides her own anguish arising from their share in it, she was dwelling on the shameful wrong it did their kind friends at Crabb Cot.

The fourth hour was passing. Captain Bird had not come up, and Lucy grew uneasy on that score. Once, when he had taken too much (but as a general rule the ex-captain's delinquencies did not lie in that direction), he had set his shirt-sleeve on fire, and burnt his hands badly in putting it out. Slipping out of bed, Lucy put on her slippers and the large old shawl, and crept down to see after him.

Opening the sitting-room door very softly, she looked in. The candles were alight still, but had burnt nearly down to the socket; the dice and some cards were scattered on the table.

Edwards lay at full length on the old red stuff sofa; Captain Bird had thrown himself outside the bed in the other room, the door of which was now wide open, neither of them having undressed. That both were wholly or partially intoxicated, Lucy felt not a doubt of.

Well, she could only leave them as they were. They would come to no harm asleep. Neither would the candles: which must soon burn themselves out. Lucy was about to shut the door again, when her eye fell on the little pasteboard box that contained the earring.

Without a moment's reflection, acting on the spur of impulse, she softly stepped to the table, lifted the lid, and took the earring out.

"I will remedy the wrong they have done Mrs. Todhetley," she said to herself. "They will never suspect me."

Up in her room again, she lighted her candle and looked about for some place to conceal the earring; and, just as the idea to secure it had come unbidden to her, so did that of a safe place of concealment. With feverish hands she undid a bit of the quilting of her petticoat, one that she had but just made for herself out of an old merino gown, slipped the earring into the wadding, and sewed it up again. It could neither be seen nor suspected there; no, nor even felt, let the skirt be examined as it might. That done, poor Lucy went to bed again and at length fell asleep.

She was awakened by a commotion. It was broad daylight, and her husband (not yet as sober as he might be) was shaking her by the arm. Edwards was standing outside the door, calling out to know whether Mrs. Bird had "got it."

"What is the matter, George?" she cried, starting up in a fright, and for the moment completely forgetting where she was, for she had been aroused from a vivid dream of Timberdale.

"Have you been bringing anything up here from the sitting-room, Lucy?" asked Captain Bird.

"No, nothing," she replied promptly, and he saw that she spoke with truth. For Lucy's recollection had not come to her; she remembered nothing yet about the earring.

"There's something missing," said Captain Bird, speaking thickly.

"It has disappeared mysteriously off the sitting-room table. You are sure you have not been down and collared it, Lucy?"

The earring and the theft--her own theft--flashed into her memory together. Oh, if she could only avert suspicion from herself! And she strove to call up no end of surprise in her voice.

"Why, how could I have been down, George? Did you not see that I was fast asleep? What have you missed? Some money?"

"Money, no. It was--something of Edwards's. Had it close by him on the table when he went to sleep, he says--he lay on the sofa last night, and I had his bed--and this morning it was gone. I thought the house was on fire by the way he came and shook me."

"I'll look for it when I come down, if you tell me what it is," said poor Lucy. "How late I have slept! It must have been the cold journey."

"She has not got it," said Captain Bird, retreating to his friend outside, and closing the door on Lucy. "Knows nothing about it. Was asleep till I awoke her."

"Search the room, you fool," cried the excited Edwards. "I'd never trust the word of a woman. No offence to your wife, Bird, but it is not to be trusted."

"Rubbish!" said Captain Bird.

"Either she or you must have got it. It could not disappear without hands. The people down below have not been to our rooms, as you must know."

"She or I--what do you mean by that?" retorted Captain Bird; and a short sharp quarrel ensued. That the captain had not touched the earring, Edwards knew full well. It was Edwards who had helped him to reach the bed the previous night: and since then Bird had been in the deep sleep of stupor. But Edwards did think the captain's wife had. The result was that Captain Bird re-entered; and, ordering Lucy to lie still, he made as exact a search of the room as his semi-sobered faculties allowed. Lucy watched it from her bed. Amidst the general hunting and turning-over of drawers and places, she saw him pick up her gown and petticoats one by one and shake them thoroughly, but he found no signs of the earring.

From that time to this the affair had remained a mystery. There had been no one in the house that night, except the proprietor and his wife, two quiet old people who never concerned themselves with their lodgers. They protested that the street-door had been fast, and that no midnight marauder could have broken in and slipped upstairs to steal a pearl brooch (as Edwards put it) or any other article. So, failing other sources of suspicion, Edwards continued to suspect Lucy. There were moments when Bird did also: though he trusted her, in regard to it, on the whole. At any rate, Lucy was obliged to be most cautious. The quilted skirt had never been off her since, except at night: through the warm genial days of spring and the sultry heat of summer she had worn the clumsy wadded thing constantly: and the earring had never been disturbed until this afternoon.

"You see how it is, Johnny," she said to me, with one of her long-drawn sighs.

But at that moment the grocer's young man in the white apron came back down the walk, swinging his empty basket by the handle; and he took another good stare at us in passing.

"I mean as to the peril I should be in if you suffer the restoration of the earring to transpire," she continued in a whisper, when he was at a safe distance. "Oh, Johnny Ludlow! do you and Mrs. Todhetley take care, for my poor sake."

"Lucy, you need not doubt either of us," I said earnestly. "We will be, as you phrased it to-day, true as steel--and as cautious. Are you going back? Let me walk up to the top with you."

"No, no; we part here. Seeing us together might arouse some suspicion, and there is no absolute certainty that they may not come out, though I don't think they will. Edwards is for ever thinking of that earring: he does not feel safe about it, you perceive. Go you that way: I go this. Farewell, Johnny Ludlow; farewell."

"Good-night, Lucy. I am off to the circus now."

She went with a brisk step up the walk. I ran out by St. Oswald's, and so on to the Saracen's Head. The place was crammed. I could not get near Tod and Harry Parker; but they whistled at me across the sawdust and the fancy steeds performing on it.

* * * * *

We sat together in Mrs. Todhetley's bedroom at Dyke Manor, the door bolted against intruders: she, in her astonishment at the tale I told, hardly daring to touch the earring. It was Saturday morning; we had come home from Worcester the previous evening; and should now be off to school in an hour. Tod had gone strolling out with the Squire; which gave me my opportunity.

"You see, good mother, how it all is, and the risk we run. Do you know, I had half a mind to keep the earring myself for some months and say never a word to you; only I was not sure of pitching on a safe hiding-place. It would be so dreadful a thing for Lucy Bird if it were to get known."

"Poor Lucy, poor Lucy!" she said, the tears on her light eyelashes. "Oh, Johnny, if she could only be induced to leave that man!"

"But she can't, you know. Robert Ashton has tried over and over again to get her back to the Court--and tried in vain. See how it glitters!"

I was holding the earring so that the rays of the sun fell upon it, flashing and sparkling. It seemed more beautiful than it used to be.

"I am very, very glad to have it back, Johnny; the other was useless without it. You have not," with a tone of apprehension in her voice, "told Joseph?"

I shook my head. The truth was, I had never longed to tell anything so much in my life; for what did I ever conceal from him? It was hard work, I can assure you. The earring burning a hole in my pocket, and I not able to show Tod that it was there!

"And now, mother, where will you put it?"

She rose to unlock a drawer, took from it a small blue box in the shape of a trunk, and unlocked that.

"It is in this that I keep all my little valuables, Johnny. It will be quite safe here. By-and-by we must invent some mode of 'recovering the earring,' as poor Lucy said."

Lifting the lid of a little pasteboard box, she showed me the fellow-earring, lying in a nest of cotton. I took it out.

"Put them both into your ears for a minute, good mother! Do!"

She smiled, hesitated; then took out the plain rings that were in her ears, and put in those of the beautiful pink topaz and diamonds. Going to the glass to look at herself, she saw the Squire and Tod advancing in the distance. It sent us into a panic. Scuffling the earrings out of her ears, she laid them together on the wool in the cardboard box, put the lid on, and folded it round with white paper.

"Light one of the candles on my dressing-table, Johnny. We will seal it up for greater security: there's a bit of red sealing-wax in the tray." And I did so at her direction: stamping it with the seal that had been my father's, and which with his watch they had only recently allowed me to take into wearing.

"There," she said, "should any one by chance see that packet, though it is not likely, and be curious to know what it contains, I shall say that I cannot satisfy them, as it concerns Johnny Ludlow."

"Are you upstairs, Johnny? What in the world are you doing there?"

I went leaping down at Tod's call. All was safe now.

That's how the other earring came back. And "Eccles" had to be let off scot free. But I was glad he had the ducking.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us