The Magic Ink, and other tales

Front matter

THE MAGIC INK AND OTHER TALES. THE MAGIC INK AND OTHER TALES BY WILLIAM BLACK —t< LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MAESTON & COMPANY LIMITED St. Sunstan's gouse Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. 1892 [All rights reserved.) LONDON : rKINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. CONTENTS. THE MAGIC INK. CHAP. PAGE I. The Eobbery ...... 1 II. The Writing of the Letters ... 22 III. A Mystery 48 IV. A Eeunion ....... 68 A HALLOWE'EN WEAITH. 1 83 II 95 III 102 IT 108 V 119 NANCIEBEL. I. " Go fetch your Alice here "... 127 II. A Presentation . . . . . .150 IU. "Adieu, my dear!" 175 IV. New Friends 202 V. Flight 229 VI. Checkmate .......

Chapter I. The Robbery

At the very busiest hour of the afternoon a young man of about one-ancl-twenty was making his way along the crowded thoroughfare of the Strand, carrying in his hand a satchel that had stamped on it in gold letters, " Cripps's Bank." He was rather a good-looking young fellow, with pale, refined features, a sensitive mouth, jet black hair, and mild, contemplative grey eyes. Eyes were meant for seeing ; but sometimes they refuse to perform their office ; at this precise moment, for example, this young bank clerk beheld nothing of St. Clement's Church, nor of the frontage of the Law Courts, nor yet of the fearful wild-fowl that marks the site of Temple Bar. What he did see before him — here B in the heart of the great commercial centre of the world — was a dream-picture of a small slate quarrying village in the west of AVales, its rows of cottages, its terraced black cliffs, its squalid little harbour, and the ruffled blue sea beyond.

And if the schoolmaster's daughter — Miss Winifred — she of the raven hair, and the violet eyes, and the pleasant smile — were to come along by those cottages, and past the AVesleyan chapel, and go away up into the wooded vale running inland, so that she might secure a perfect solitude in which to read her last letter from London ? Llanly is a commonplace little hamlet ; and the slate-quarries are not pictur esque ; but youth and love combined can throw a mystic glamour over anything. AVhat was this song that was running through his head % He had got the words, such as they were, scribbled out all right ; and now he was seeking for an air for them — something pensive and wistful, and yet not too sad either : Sweet Winnie Davies, down by the sea, Sweet Winnie Davies, do you still think of me ?

Do you think of the long days you and I together Went wandering by Llanly in the fair summer weather ? So the words began ; but they were of less importance ; it was the setting of them — to some air worthy of sweet AVinnie Davies herself — that more particularly claimed his attention. For this young Welshman, his Celtic nature all compact of imagination, and poetry, and romantic sympathy and sentiment, was chiefly a musician ; his tentative performances had been in that sphere ; there also lay his far-reaching hopes. That he was also a bank-clerk may be ascribed to the irony of fate ; but he did not complain ; and sweet AVinnie Davies had considered him a very sensible young man in accepting this post when it was offered him, seeing that he was anxious above all things to get to London. As to whether he carried with him a conductor's baton in his knapsack, who was to foresee ?

AVhen this young Arthur Hughes reached the offices of the Temple Bar Branch of the London and Westminster Bank, he entered by the heavily-swinging doors, and approached the counter. There were a good many people coming and going ; the clerks at the various desks were occupied. Young Hughes perceived that he would have to wait his turn before he could get his business transacted, so he placed his satchel on the counter beside him, and remained ab- B sently attentive, if the phrase is permissible. There is a hushed somnolence about the atmo sphere of a bank, a drowsy whispering of pens and shuffling of feet, that invites to contem plation, when one has nothing to do but wait. And when one has been, but a few seconds before (if only dream-wise) in a little AVelsh village — looking at the harbour, and the quarries, and the cottages, and the slim little figure of the schoolmaster's daughter — it is perhaps easy to return thither.

There are times and seasons when the imagination becomes a powerful necro mancer ; hey, presto ! — and the bare walls of this place of business suddenly vanish, and in their stead there stands revealed once more that AVelsh landscape — the cliffs and woods, the scattered cottages, the breadth of sea beyond. But it is with that solitary figure he is wholly concerned ; he follows her with entranced eyes, watching every grace and charm of movement, and glad that the sunlight is around her. Nor does she seem at all downcast, notwithstanding that her sweetheart is so far away. On the contrary, there is an abundant cheerfulness in her expression ; her step is free and light ; perhaps she is singing to herself — only the immeasurable distance deadens the sound. And now, what is this ? She pauses in her aimless stroll ; she turns and looks along the road, as if to make sure there is no one in sight ; then she produces from her pocket a small hand-mirror, and proceeds to scrutinise her appearance in it.

And a very pretty picture she undoubtedly finds there — the black eyelashes and violet eyes, the clear and fresh complexion, the waving black hair ; and is her vanity so great that she must needs smile and look pleased, and even begin to talk to herself? Arthur Hughes knows better. It is not vanity — nor anything like vanity. He can remember how she wrote to him shortly after his coming to London : " AVill you be desperately shocked, dear Arthur, if I tell you that I have found a new companion ? But wait a moment — don't be alarmed ! — wait a moment, and I will explain. The fact is, I found myself so lonely after you left that I was absolutely driven to do some thing ; and do you know what I did ? — I cut myself in two. Yes ; I divided myself into two persons, my Ordinary Self and my Other Self ; and I find the system works admirably.

For my Ordinary Self is a most commonplace, uninteresting, useless kind of creature — indeed, indeed, 'tis too true — living a humdrum, monotonous, worth less life, with a sigh now and again for certain things that are past, and another sigh for other things that are far away in the future ; but my Other Self— ah, that is different !— my Other Self is the young lady that Arthur praised, and petted, and teased, and made much of : and she, I can tell you, is entitled to some consideration ! And now, when my Ordinary Self takes my Other Self out for a walk, don't you under stand that I have some right to be proud of my companion ? I have got a little pocket-mirror, Arthur ; I go away up the As egan road ; I take it out ; and then the Ordinary AVinnie says ' Good morning ! ' to the other AVinnie. ' Good morning, Aliss Other One : let me see how you look.

It is of no consequence how / look. My appearance is of not the least consequence to any one ; but you — you whom Arthur imagined into existence — it is of the utmost importance that you should be trim and neat and nice, for you know he is very particular. Yes — - pretty well — not so bad — the sea-shell brooch on the black velvet band is what he approved. The saffron frill might be a little broader ; attend to that. Now, go on, and tell me all the things he has said about you.' ' All of them ? ' says my Other Self. ' AVell he has called me good, and sweet, and kind, and charming, and good-tempered, and clever, and affectionate, and true, and tender, and wonderful, and delightful ' ' It is not surprising you should give yourself airs ! ' ' and stupid, and silly, and perverse, and ill-natured, and cross, and unyielding, and unjust, and quarrelsome, and obstinate ' ' Not so much to boast of, after all ! ' says my Ordinary Self. ' But now let me hear some of the things you have said about him, to himself, or to yourself, or to other people.' ' Oh, no, you don't ! ' says my Other Self, laughing at me from the mirror. ' Telling's telling.

You might go away and write it all down ; and send it over to London ; and then there would be such an exhibition of vanity as was never seen in the world before. It wouldn't be at all wholesome. You often say things you don't quite mean ; and it isn't safe to put them down on paper ; at the same time, if Arthur were to appear here just now — well — I should most likely ask you to go away — you would not be wanted here at all — and then, if he and I were left together, then I might say some of those things over again. But to have them written down — no, thank you ! ' So, you see, dear Arthur, the companion I have invented — or, rather, whom you imagined into existence for me — is not at all monotonously civil and acquiescent ; sometimes we have dread ful quarrels ; but in such cases my Ordinary Self is easily triumphant ; my Ordinary Self claps the mirror into her pocket — and then walks home alone."

Thus it was that Arthur Hughes, standing in the London and AVestminster Bank, and gazing through the opaque walls at that distant dream land, knew it was no personal vanity that prompted AVinnie Davies to carry a little hand glass with her on her solitary wanderings. No, it was rather a pretty fancy, that lent charm and piquancy to many a letter ; for sometimes, if the truth must be told, the Ordinary AVinnie con siderately allowed the Other Winnie to have far the larger part of the conversation, she merely acting the part of reporter, and not holding herself responsible when any dark and mysterious secrets had to be confessed. It was at this moment that some one touched Arthur Hughes's arm : instantly the dream picture (that had been before his eyes for perhaps not more than three seconds or so) disappeared : he was again in the Strand.

"I beg your pardon," said a voice close to him, " but can you direct me to the London and Counties Bank ? " Naturally he faced round to see who the questioner was. He found before him a tall, meagre, grey-complexioned man, with an aquiline nose, steely eyes, and a " goatee " ; and he was just about to give the desired information when some curious instinct caused him to turn again, to see that his hand-bag was safe. It was gone ! In that brief instant it had been snatched away — no doubt by a confederate of the American looking stranger. But that was not what Arthur Hughes understood just then ; he thought of neither why nor wherefore ; blank horror had fallen over him ; he seemed to be drowning and choking, and to have lost the power of speech. The satchel — and its £7,560 belonging to his employers — vanished into air : it was as if he had been dealt some violent blow, depriving him of reason.

His haggard eyes stared up and down ; the world around him appeared strangely empty ; and then, as the clerk on the other side of the counter, seeing that something was wrong, asked him a question, he managed to stammer out, in panting accents — "Aly bag — there were £7,560 in bank-notes in it — belonging to Cripps's — I had it a moment ago " The next instant the truth flashed in upon him : he had been robbed — and the tall man who had touched him on the arm, to distract his attention, was one of the thieves. Blindly and wildly he made for the swinging-door and rushed into the street. He could easily recognise the tall man ; the confederates could not be far away ; was there not yet a frantic chance of recovery ? But, alas ! what was this that confronted him — this endless surging sea of hu man beings into which those two had disap peared ?

He ran this way and that ; he hurriedly searched the hall of the Law Courts opposite ; he glanced breathlessly in at the bars of the neigh bouring taverns — but with an ever-increasino* and terrible consciousness that his pursuit was hopeless, that already the thieves were well away with their booty, and that a calamity too awful to be calculated or even thought of had befallen him. It had all happened so rapidly as to be quite incredible. He kept trying to assure him self that it was impossible. AVhy, only a few minutes ago he had nothing more important to think of than the setting of a song for Winifred Davies. The hand-bag must be somewhere — somewhere near : there may have been a mis take. And so he went quickly back to the bank. The cashier to whom he had formerly spoken was engaged ; but in his agony of haste he made bold to interrupt.

" I beg your pardon," he said breathlessly, " but — but have you seen anything yet of my bag ? I — I had it only a few moments ago — here — here on this counter " The cashier looked up from his cheques. " Your bag ? — no. Have you lost it ? " " It must have been stolen — only a few mo ments ago ! " he exclaimed ; " here — just where I am standing. I set it on the counter— some one spoke to me, and I turned for a moment. It cannot be in the bank, then ? They must have stolen it ! " " If that is so," said the cashier, " you'd better jump into a hansom and drive along to Scotland Yard." " But they cannot have gone far- He rushed again into the street, and with distracted eyes looked everywhere around, and looked in vain : the dread thing was that this moving phantasmagoria was full of features, but no one of them of any import to him.

The pavements showed him nothing ; the cab-rank showed him nothing ; the passing omnibuses took no heed of him. He hurried hither and thither, searching the many places he had searched a few moments before — the bars of the adjacent taverns, the entrance to the Law Courts, and what not ; but nowhere could he find anyone resembling the man who had asked him for the whereabouts of the London and Counties. And at last conviction and despair confronted him, and would not be denied. The money was gone. No one would believe the improbable tale he would have to tell of the manner of its disappearance. There would be a prosecution — con viction — a prison ; disgrace would fall on his old father, the white-haired AVesleyan minister, whose chief pride in life was his only son. And as for AVinifred Davies ?

Well, she had made many promises before he left Llanly, but she never undertook to correspond with a jail-bird. Now, if in this sudden and terrible crisis Arthur Hughes had managed to keep his wits about him, he would have perceived that the best, the only, thing for him to do, was to go straight away back to Cripps's, tell the officials of the bank (whether they believed him or not) precisely what had occurred, and let them place the whole matter at once in the hands of the police. But this young man was of a highly nervous, sensitive, high-strung temperament ; his imagi nation magnified clangers, ancl even created them ; and, above all, it was not so much of himself as of those nearest ancl dearest to him that he was now thinking, so far as he was able to think. And in truth he was not able to think very clearly.

Dazed, bewildered, desperate, to him this roaring thoroughfare of the Strand was a dreadful and hideous place ; the noise of the cabs and carriages, the waggons and omnibuses, seemed to stupefy him ; he was driven to go elsewhere for some brief space of self-communion. And so, hardly knowing what he did, he turned into one of the narrow thoroughfares leading down to the Thames Embankment : there he would find quietude, and a chance of realising to himself what this ghastly thing was that had just happened, and what its consequences were likely to be. But here a singular and unexpected little incident occurred, that he afterwards, in less distracted moments, was able to recall. Some short distance down the narrow street the way was blocked, or nearly blocked, by a number of vans being loaded ; indeed, one of these was nearly putting a summary end to this young man's troubles, for, being backed on to the pavement, it swung round just as he was passing, and was like to have pinned him against the wall.

Alore by quick instinct than by conscious effort he managed to avoid it ; but in doing so he ran full tilt against a stranger, whom he knocked over. He was very sorry. He raised the man up. He did not notice the swift malevolent glance of the two dull black eyes of this little yellow-skinned person, nor yet the change to a fawning obsequiousness that almost instantly came over the man's manner. The street was muddy after rain ; this foreigner — : Malay, Chinese, Hindoo, whatever he was — took ■5 out a handkerchief, and began to clean his clothes after a fashion. " I'm very sorry," Arthur Hughes said. " The man in charge of the van did not call out until it was too late — I did not see you were on the other side — I'm exceedingly sorry " But the baleful fire had vanished from those small, dull black eyes.

" Oh, me solly too if you solly," said the little foreigner, regarding the young man. " We make fiends now. Ale show you we make fiends ; me give you little plesent. See ! " It was a small ink-bottle he produced — an ordinary -looking thing. " Take it — yes, yes, make fiends," he said. " Make fiends ! Me solly if you solly. English good people — kind people." AVell, in other circumstances, Arthur Hughes would doubtless have declined to take an ink bottle or any similar thing from an entire stranger encountered accidentally in the streets of London ; but in his present tragic case he was quite indifferent. He was bewildered ; he did not understand ; only, the man seemed anxious he should accept the little present ; and it was a token of goodwill from one whom he had unintentionally injured.

So, hardly looking at it, and thinking nothing of it, he accepted it, put it in his pocket, thanked the Eastern-looking person, and blindly went on his way. AVhat happened to him in the matter of small trifles was of little moment now. Down on the Embankment, near to one of the stations on the Underground Railway, he saw a policeman ; and he regarded him with a strange sensation of fear. There was another man driving a mud-sweeping machine ; and him he envied with a bitter heart. " How little you know of your own happiness ! " he was saying, almost in reproach. " Perched up there, you are as proud as any king on any throne. You have nothing to dread. The law cannot touch you. Your conscience is clear. You might be singing for very joy if you only knew." For this hyper-sensitive young man, in the first shock of his alarm and consternation, had come to regard himself as being to all intents and purposes a criminal.

He was convinced that the people at the bank — and still more the people at Scotland Yard — would not for a moment believe his tale of the two unknown persons who had spirited away his satchel ; they would assume — and especially the people at Scotland Yard would assume — that he had secreted the money for his own uses and invented this cock-and-bull story about the mysterious thieves. Nor did he perceive that he was at this moment doing his very best to lend colour to such a charge. He was putting himself into the position of an absconding clerk. Had he gone boldly back to the bank, told his story, and challenged inquiry, the situation would no doubt have been very unpleasant for a time, but probably no harm would have come to him in the end. But in the overwhelming dismay that fell upon him on his discovering his loss, going back to the bank seemed to him to mean nothing else than being confronted with detectives arrest — trial — perhaps a prison.

A prison ! Even now, as he wandered, stunned and demented, along the Embankment, he began with a morbid vividness to recall such descriptions of prison-life as he had read. Formerly it used to be rather a jolly life — hob-nobbing with friendly turn keys — sending out for further measures of claret — receiving relatives and acquaintances and borrowing money from them — throwing dice and playing cards — anything to pass the time. Perhaps that condition of affairs was all over now ; but whether or not was of little consequence to him ; there would be for him but the one result of his going to prison — he would never lift up his head again. His conscience might assure him he was innocent ; his friends might pity and forgive ; but once the iron had entered his soul, for him there would be no recovery, no resto ration to life.

And the venerable old minister who had lived all these years in the love and respect and affection of his flock — for him to have his white head brought clown to the dust : it was too piteous to think of. AVinnie Davies : but AVinnie Davies was young, and pretty, and fascinating ; a few years would go by ; new springs and summers would come to her, with the thrushes singing in the evening woods, and a lover walking by her side, linking his arm with hers. And if in after times she should ever think of a former lover — of one who had gone away to London to do great things for her sake — it would be with anger, it would be without consideration : why had he brought shame upon her in the clays of her maidenhood ? He was a sensitive lad : in spite of himself tears rose to his eyes. " Father — Winnie " — he murmured to himself, " you need not fear.

It will not come to that. There must be some other way." There teas another way, as it seemed to his unhinged and distracted mind : a way sombre and dark, but sure. All the forces of Scotland Yard combined could not entrap, or prosecute, or hale to prison, one who had slipped quietly ancl unseen into the deeps of the sea. No tele graphing to foreign ports could secure the arrest of him whose last adieu to the world was a secret confided to the night, and the stars, and the lone Atlantic. " Do not be afraid, father," he said inwardly, amid all those wild and storm-tost emotions that were now being narrowed down to one stern re solve. " There will be no trial. There will be no reading of newspaper reports — no whisperings among the members of the congregation. Do not be afraid, AVinnie : no shame shall come to you through me.

If there had been a prosecution, I think you would have believed me innocent, whatever happened ; but there will be no prose cution. Those I left behind me in Llanly will have no cause to hang their heads on my account. AVhat becomes of me is nothing." C And this that he was about to give up — to save his clear ones from scorn ? Well, youth is naturally tenacious of life ; it takes little heed of the pains and struggles and rebuffs involved in its own eager aspirations and ambitions ; there is the joy of pressing forward, to see what the world has in store, to act one's part, to earn the quiet of old age and retrospect. Aloreover, in his case, there were other and more idyllic visions, with Winifred Davies as their central figure. These were harder to abandon. He thought of bygone days ; of long walks by sea and shore, he and she together ; of murmured confessions, with downcast lashes ; of eyes up turned to his, full of love, and hope, ancl pride.

For who was it that had been most eager to prophesy great things of his going to London ? AVho had boldly declared that his " Cadwallon's Army-Call " had more of fire in it, had a more martial and stately tread, than even the famous " Forth to the Battle," the Rhyfelgyrch Cadpen Horgan, the war-march of Morgan of Morganog ? AVho had sung his "Bells of Llanly" to the school children at their annual treat, and had maintained, in public hearing, that in her opinion it was more touching and sympathetic, more characteristically AVelsh, than even the " Bells of Aberdovey " ? Nay, had she not gone further, and in wistful confidences to himself talked of the Crystal Palace, and of a young conductor standing in front of the great attentive choir, and of a AVelsh girl seated among the audience, and saying to herself (while trembling a little), " Ah ! now, you Enghsh people will hear some thing.

AVales has sent you many musicians : judge now, by this Army-Call of Cadwallon, whether another has not been added to the list. And it was I who urged him to go away from Llanly and try his fortune in the great city — though the parting was cruel enough." Yes ; it was much to give up — life, love, ambition ; but he could see no alternative. The only thing to do now was to guard against his friends in Llanly forming any suspicion as to the manner of his disappearance. He would write a letter to his father, another to Winifred, and another to Mr. Cyrus Brangwyn — a junior partner in Cripps's, who had interested himself in the young man's behalf; and in these he would give such plausible explanations as he could invent. Then a quick vanishing — and silence. Black night and the Atlantic would hold his secret ; his troubles would be peacefully over ; and there would be no finger of scorn uplifted against those whom he had left behind him in the distant little Welsh village, the home of his youth.

Chapter II. The Writing Of The Letters

Thus it was that his first frantic apprehensions were succeeded by a period of calm — the calm of resignation rather than despair. For he did not pity himself in the least ; indeed, he was not thinking of himself at all. A great calamity had occurred — how, he was almost yet too bewil dered to know ; but his first and sole care was to shield from its consequences those dear ones whose welfare, whose happiness, whose good name, were of more concern to him than his own life. Nay, even now, in the dull and dazed condition into which he had fallen, his mind was occupied with but the one idea — to frame such excuses for his going away as would cause them neither alarm nor grief. His subsequent silence they would no doubt explain to themselves somehow or another. The old man would say : " My boy has gone away to the Colonies, to seek his fortune ; and he is proud ; we shall not hear from him, perhaps, until he can announce to us that he has succeeded."

And AVinnie Davies? She would wonder for a time. Then she would grow indignant and resentful. Then her eyes — as the eyes of a young maiden are apt to do — would begin to rove ; recollections, memories would become gradually obliterated ; she would take it that in those distant climes he had forgotten all about her and the little AVelsh village ; she would feel herself justified in choosing another mate. Sweet Winnie Davies, down by the sea, Sweet Winnie Davies, do you still think of me ? Do you think of the long days you and I together Went wandering by Llanly in the fair summer weather f — that was all very well as a bit of idle rhyme ; but the way of the world was the way of the world ; a young maiden's imaginative fancies are soon free to grace and adorn a new comer. Indeed, what else could he wish for her ?