Humphrey Dyot. A novel

Chapter I. In Which Mr

DYOT AVAILS HIMSELF OF THE SERVICES OF A MUSICAL TINKER, "WHO GIVES PROMISE OF TURNING TRAITOR. It would not have gone so hard against the unlucky thief, only that, when he lost his hold of the edge of the trap-hole and came headlong down, the summit of his cranium came in violent collision with the corner of the massive table that stood immediately beneath. The result was that the huddled heap on the floor of Mr. Dyot's bed-room representing Micah Blake displayed no more evidences of life in it than there are in a log. It is doubtful, however, if such parts of VOL. III. the prostate man's face as were neither black nor red presented an appearance of such ghastly pallor as overspread the coun tenance of the poor gentleman, as he gazed on the result of his sudden act. Jumping out of bed, he raised the man's helpless form as well as he was able, and turned its face to the light ; and then, with horror, discovered the terrible wound in the forehead the iron candlestick had caused, and that other wound, for which the corner of the table was responsible, and from which the blood was rapidly welling.

There was a ewer with water in the room, and to this Mr. Dyot frantically applied, laving the hideous face and head, and, for lack of something handier, tearing out one of his own shirt-sleeves to make bandages to stanch the flow of blood. But all his efforts to rouse the man, who, thanks to his disfigurement, he recognized no more than though he had never before set eyes on him, were vain. There he lay, ghastly and motionless ; to all appearance dead as dead could be. Not a handsome corpse either, with his long, sooty visage swathed about with the saturated rags ; one binding it from front to rear, and the other compassing his head, with the stained and tousled hair upon it, and meeting in a wispish tie under his chin. Matters assuming this serious aspect, it occurred to Mr. Dyot to rouse the house, but when he laid his hand on the bell-strings the imprudence of the proceeding was made apparent to him.

What was the aspect of affairs that would be revealed to the person who responded to his summons ? To be sure, the open trap would be suffi cient evidence that his room had been burglariously entered ; but what about the condition of the burglar ? What about this dressing of his wounds, to which his sleeveless shirt and the rough-and-ready bandages attested ? There would certainly be strict inquiry into the matter. The coroner's jury, inquisitive and clever at mare's-nesting as they most frequently are, would, without doubt, ply him with endless questions as to his motives for succouring the thief as well as to the object of the latter in attempting so daring and desperate an outrage. It was not a common occur rence for men too poor to lodge elsewhere but at a common lodging-house to run great risks on the chance of obtaining plunder from their needy fellows ; what was the inducement in this case ?

They, the gentlemen of the jury, would be curious to see the said inducement, and examine it inside and out. This last reflection decided him. " That must not be," he exclaimed, starting up and busying himself in hurrying on his clothes ; " I will go away." Before he did so, however, with grim determination he took from the treasured bag, the ledger before mentioned, and on a new leaf of it inscribed the particulars of the tragedy so recently enacted. He did not spare himself for his share in it, or in the least degree endeavour to extenuate his conduct. With cruel exactness he described the position of the unlucky wretch (" the unfortunate man lured by the temptation it was my fate to expose to him," to quote Mr. Dyot's own words) when he hurled the implement at him, with the size and shape of the wound made.

Without scruple, he called it a murder and himself a murderer. Then, with a manner cold and hard, as though convinced that, so long as he did his duty with unquestionable fidelity, it mattered little what followed, he replaced the book in the leather bag, and this again in the bag of serge ; and, with his slouch cap concealing his pale face, descended the stairs and passed out of the house without ohalleuge. He had very little money, not more than between two or three pounds, when he made his escape from Rufford's Terrace, •and by this time that sum was reduced by more than one half. But the insufficiency of this sum for the purposes of a man who was " going away," never for a moment presented itself to his terror-stricken and ■distracted mind. Matters of much more moment did not ; such, for instance, as where he was going to.

It made no difference which way he went, and it merely happened that, in turning out of the lodging house (it was nothing remarkable that a man should be early astir at such a place) he took the road to the left ; and so, by the simple process of keeping straight on, in the course of an hour or so he found that he was on the highway to Dartford. He still kept straight on, however, as he would have done had he discovered that he was travelling in the direction of Brighton or York. He kept on hour after hour till he was aware that it was inconvenient to set one les: before the other, and that his mouth was aching with thirst, and then, hearing the clinking of dairy apparatus at a place in a lane he was passing through, he went in and asked them to sell him some milk. There was no objection. In appearance he was merely a dusty wayworn traveller; there was no mark of Cain on his forehead, and he neither stammered in his speech nor evaded other men's eyes guiltily.

True, he had inscribed himself a murderer in his book ; but, as he himself some little time before remarked, the man whom he assumed to be dead, owed his decease not to him but to the merciless impelling power that possessed him according to contract, to make him helpless. It was by this time afternoon, and his slight refreshment making him the more conscious of hi_. weariness, as a little candle-light makes. more perceptible the darkness it is thrust into, when he reached the end of the lane he entered a coppice there, and, penetrating it to a short distance, sat down on the cool grass to rest. Then fell on him the yearning that seems to be as inseparable from men who shed blood as are the reproaches of their conscience. It may be said that the two are one and the same — that it is out of the said reproaches that the yearning grows ; but this was not the case with the poor gentleman, whose conscience was rather froststricken and benumbed than disturbed.

His yearning was to contemplate some phase of his late terrible work. Had he still remained in the lodging-house the chances are that he would have gone stealthily to the room where he had left the prostrate burglar ; but, as he could not do this, he was compelled to be content with a peep at the entry of the affair he had made at the time and on the spot; and to this end, making quite sure that he was unobserved, he untied the strings of the serge bag and took out the other one. And now he made a discovery that caused him no httle consternation. It will be remembered that it was no more than twilight when his encounter with Micah occurred, and that the leather bag stood on the table on which that unfortunate ruffian knocked his head in falling. It was anything but broad daylight when, having entered the transaction in his account-book, he packed up his luggage and came away.

His hurry, too, most probably had to do with the oversight, which was that the one side of the leather bag was all splashed with blood. The hard and glossy sur face of the material had not allowed the shocking crimson stain to sink in and blacken, so there it had dried vivid and staring. It was like looking on the man himself, or rather, on the ghastly wound that had brought him down, and, with a shudder, he let fall the bag, and turned away his head, covering his eyes with his hands. Bad enough to be driven to carry about a written confession of the share he had in the man's death, but to have it attested by this sprinkling of his blood, was a horror to which even Mr. Dyot's benumbed sensibility was not invulnerable ; and when he again mustered courage to gaze on the ugly thing, it was but through his fingers, that were still held before his eyes ; and there it lay, the tiny crimson spears on ihe black ground showing boldly as the afternoon sun glared down on them.

" I can never carry it with me again," he groaned. "It would seem that the weight within was that of the poor fellow's murdered body. I must get rid of it. Why not ? The serge bag is cover enough, and I shall be able to make a less bulky and conspicuous parcel." But he was loth to touch it, though for the last time. The key that opened the leather bag was one of curious workman ship, and attached to his watch-chain. As though it were a pestilence he approached it, unlocked it, and transferred its contents to the serge bag,' the mouth of which he bound round with its strings and knotted. Then he cast about, and discovered several large stones and clods of clay, and these he packed into the late repository of his precious secret until it was quite full, and locked the bag. In a meadow, close at hand, was a pond at which the cows came to drink, and, skulking in the shadow of the hedges down to this, he cast it in ; and there was an end of it.

And so, for a time, was there an end to his frightful apprehensions. He felt like a man who had miraculously escaped some impending peril, and when he had rested he took up his diminished load and recom menced to " go away," aimlessly as when he at first started. He slept that night at a wayside ale house about twenty-five miles from London. Or, more correctly, he put up there to sleep, and got all that he bargained for, a comfortable bed-room and a soft bed ; but sleep was out of the question — he was in such mortal terror about his treasure. True, he placed it beneath his shoulders ; but, tired as he was, he dared not trust himself to slumber ; he certainly should sleep heavily, and then where was his security ? A child might draw the flimsy bag from beneath him, and then it would need but the cutting of a string, and all that he had so long and so painfully struggled to hide would in an instant be betrayed.

A hundred times over he cursed his folly of destroying the leather bag — the bag with so cunning a lock that no other key except the one hanging about his neck would open. This should be the last night he would suffer such torture. To-morrow he would buy another leather bag. No ; he would not. He would have his ledger clasped with brass and locked, that would be better still. And, nursing this last idea in his poor bemuddled brain, and planning how it might be accomplished, he passed the hours till morning. The great difficulty, and one that he had been unable to solve through his long hours of deliberation, was this — to whom could he intrust the job of fixing clasps to his book ? One might rely on a locksmith putting a lock on a door or a drawer with out troubhng himself beyond his work ; but who could resist looking into a book that was placed in his hands to be clasped for no other reason than that it was of all things undesirable that anyone should pry into it ?

If he were able to enter the workshop and sit by while the workman did the job, it would be another matter ; but how could he make such a request without exciting suspicion ? By and by, however, and by dint of bemuddling his brain more and more, he contrived to hit on what appeared a most excellent plan. The next town he entered he discovered a locksmith ; and wath a precise pattern in paper of what he required (he had provided himself with this before he left the alehouse), he engaged the man to make a pair of brass book-clasps, fitted with a lock, and with holes already drilled for setting in the rivets. " If you will bring the book, sir, we can fix the clasps in ten minutes for you. We shall charge you no more," said the locksmith. " Thank you; it will be needless for you to do more than you are bid," returned Mr. Dyot.

And he wasn't such a foolish locksmith as to insist on doing work for which he should not be thanked even. Mr. Dyot loitered about the town until such time as the clasps were promised, and then he called for them ; and, finding them satisfactory, paid for them and took them away ; and so urgent had he been that the man should hurry over his job, that, after all, it wras no more than noon. On again, with but one aim in view — the discovery of an eligible tinker. But tinkers are not over common anywhere, and least of all out in the country. Country folk reserve their tinkering, so that when the man comes round there is a batch of jobs ready for him — enough to occupy him half a day or more — sitting on the wayside smoking and singing, and hammering and soldering, while his donkey has an easy time of it, released from the barrow shafts and free to crop nettles that grow by the ditch.

Mile after mile the fugitive tramped along, experiencing neither hunger nor fatigue, although he had not eaten or rested since the morning ; so he kept on till dusk of evening when the Fates, wrought to compassion by his uncomplaining, took pity on him, and threw a tinker in his way. Or rather, threw him in the way of a tinker, for, judging from the appearance of the individual in question, he had settled where he was discovered some time before. He wasn't at work. His barrow (he had no donkey) was drawn up in a shady lane ; the tools of his craft were stowed away in the box that formed his seat when he was grinding, and he was lying his length along, with his face to the grass, learning a ballad. He had a stone bottle with beer in it at his side, and his iron tobacco-box lay open. His fire in the skillet was glowing comfortably, and had evidently been recently replenished with fuel.

It was plain at a glance that the tinker's day's work was over, and that he was going in for recreation in a proper and leisurely manner. Mr. Dyot halted some few yards from where the tinker was lying, and sat down on a bank ; but the singer, beyond raising his eyes for a moment from the balladsheet he was conning, and winking gravely, took no notice of him. He had a tolerable voice, although it was tainted with huski ness that is not unfrequently the result of overmuch beer. The song he was singing, •entitled " Irish Molly 0," was new at that period, and the tinker sung it with great .gusto — " She is young and she is beautiful, the fairest one I know ; The primrose of Ireland, before my guinea go ; The only one that ti-ced me was Irish Molly, O !" After every verse he called " Chorus — altogether !" and sang the last line over again, flourishing his legs ; those members, as might be assumed, representing the con vivial company that were moved by the tinker's stave.

This he repeated with strict punctuality through four verses (it was a tremendously long song), and then it seemed suddenly to occur to him that there was no reason why he shouldn't admit another jolly companion to the chorus ; and when the time for it came, having fairly started his legs, he raised his head and nodded emphatically in Mr. Dyot's direction, as much as to say, " Now's your time; fire away!" Evi dently he was disappointed that his invita tion was neglected, for he suddenly paused, and, reining in his legs, looked up. " Don't you know it ?" he exclaimed, in great disgust. "I do not, my friend," the poor gentleman civilly answered. " Then come and lay alongside of me, and look over," returned the tinker, drawing the stone bottle closer to him to make room, and then going on with the ballad, as though making no doubt that the stranger would at once avail himself of such a splendid opportunity.

" Ain't you coming ?" he inquired,. breaking off in the song. " There is no use in my coming. I can't sing, my friend." " Can't sing !" said the tinker, incredu lously. "Why, how did you lose your woice?" " I never had any talent for music, my good man," Mr. Dyot replied, anxious above all things to be on good terms with him. For several seconds the musical tinker leant on his elbows and regarded Mr. Dyot curiously. Judging from the expression of his countenance, it might be that his first impulse was to pity a man so shockingly deficient, and to extend to him the hand of sympathy and friendship ; but, again judging from the expression of his counte nance, it opportunely occurred to the tinker that there possibly existed some mysterious and dreadful reason why the gift of sing ing was denied the stranger, and that it would be the safest to have no deahngs with him.

" If you can't sing, you can't want to hear singin'," said he ; "it stands to natur'. Good evenin'. If you keep about a quarter of a mile up the road, you'll find a spot wot's a good deal pleasanter sittin' than where you are." " I halted here neither to hear you sing nor to sing myself," observed Mr. Dyot, endeavouring to speak pleasantly ; " I merely wished to ask you " " For a bit of bacca, I suppose," inter rupted the tinker, holding out the iron box. " Help yourself, and hook it, good luck to you. My legs is getting cold." " I've got a little job I should be glad if you would do for me," said the poor gen tleman, thinking it best to break the ice at once. 2 VOL. But the tinker, waving him off with a frown, struck into his song again, inciting his legs to join in the chorus with a vehe mence that made it dangerous to approach within a yard of them.

" I can afford to give you a crown for work that will not take you more than an hour to do. You had better make haste and begin it, or you will miss the job for want of daylight." " Chorus !" roared the tinker. " Alto gether ; louder un last time." " I will give you ten shillings," urged the strange customer. " Chor — us !" again roared the tinker, this time sparing an arm to add to the flour ishing effect, as he brought the song to a conclusion. " There, that's the end of it ; how did we do it ?" " Very well indeed, I should say. But about the job I mentioned to you !" " About that ten shillin's you was speakin' about. How much of that was gammon ? Nine and sixpence of it, I'll lay a farden," rejoined the tinker, eyeing the poor gentleman's wayworn and dusty figure with contumely. Mr. Dyot produced half a sovereign, which the tinker reached up his hand for, and rubbed between his raspy thumb and forefinger, and bit wath his teeth.

"Yes, it's a good un; what of it ?" he inquired. " You shall have it, provided you per form the little job I wish done." " And it won't take more than an hour ?" " Less, I should say." " Show it to us," exclaimed the tinker, leaping to his feet with alacrity. " Show us what sort of a job it is." " First of all, though," said the strange customer, as though the thought had sud denly occurred to him, "can you read? But why need I ask ? I saw you reading the song but a moment since." And a shade of disappointment crossed his face. " I can read printin' when it's big," remarked the tinker; "when it's werry big and there's a stop at the end of the row. I can't a-bear reading what don't come to a stop, but turns over and begins another row with only a little un. It reg'lar throws me out, that do."

" You appeared to be reading the song correctly, however," said the poor gentle man, suspiciously. " That's what I say. Tbe readin' is all in rows, and every row has got it's own big un — the sarjent; that's what I call the big un, because he makes the little 'uns toe the line and keeps 'em from runnin' agin one another." And, to make this explanation clearer, the tinker displayed the ballad of " Irish Molly" to Mr. Dyot, and pointed out to him that the lines each began vvdth a capital letter, or sergeant. " You can't read writing, then ?" " I never tried, so I wouldn't venture to say. You don't mean to tell me that it's a job of readin' writin' what you want me to do ?" And the tinker's brow lowered darkly. " Oh, no!" returned Mr. Dyot, hurriedly (he was immensely relieved to hear the tinker so unmistakably demonstrate his inability to read writing) ; "what I want you to do is to fix a pair of clasps to an account-book.

Here is the book; these are the clasps." "And you'll give me half a sovereign for a job like that?" "You may take the money first, if you hke. How long will it take you?" " Why, next door to no time," returned the jolly tinker, having secured and pocketed the money. "I should hke to tumble on a customer such as you every day, mister. D'ye often have jobs like this ?" "Not often," rephed Mr. Dyot, shortly. " Did you ever have one before ?" And the tinker wiped his black hands on his blacker apron lest he might dirty the book's delicate vellum binding. " That can't interest you, so that you are well paid for this one." " To be sure. What's it about? It's a picter-book, I'll lay a farden." And, with all the impudence imaginable, he opened the leaves just at that spot, as it happened, where the last entry was made.

Forgetting that there was no danger in the ignorant fellow so doing, with a hasty ejaculation of impatience, the strange customer snatched it out of his hand. "Don't be mean," cried he; " it's no affair of yours what's in the book." " I don't care what's in it, if it ain't picters," returned the tinker, with a laugh. " Give us hold on it. You're a rum 'un, you are." Now, although the tinker made this last observation quite in his ordinary tone, had Mr. Dyot observed him closely he would have perceived a decided change come over the fellow's face. It was as though the liquor he had drank was suddenly bereft of its intoxicating qualities, leaving him sober, or nearly. But as though nothing had happened, he went jingling amongst his tools to find the ones he wanted, chattering the while in a cheerful manner.

"Isn't it rum now, mister, that I, as was always running books down, should come to get half a sovereign out o' one ?" "Why did you run them down?" Mr. Dyot asked, glad to keep the tinker in con versation, and so distract his thoughts from the interior of the ledger. " 'Cause I never could see anything in 'em to run up," rephed the logical tinker. *' They're the foohshest things as is made, books is." " Indeed ! How do you' make it out ?" Mr. Dyot asked. " How do I make it out ? Oh, easy ; look how jolly iggerant they makes people." " That's a new view," observed Mr. Dyot, smiling, as he sat down on a con venient tree stump, in the warmth of the tinker's fire. "It is so; it ain't nothing like the old view, which was a easy view," said the tinker, getting on with his job. " There wasn't always books, you knows, mister.

I ain't such a dunce but that I know that." " No ; there were not always books." " It used to be word o' mouth. Warn't that a easy view ? No trouble about spellin', and mindin' your werbs, and your grammars, and them there sort o' jigger-me-tights. What's the good ■of stuffin' learnin' into books, and clappin' covers on 'em jest for the sake of givin' fellers trouble in ferretin' the learnin' out of 'em agin ?" " There's something in that," replied Mr. Dyot, wearily. The warmth of the tinker's fire made him feel drowsy, and where was the use of argument ? " Not but what I've heard some rummy thinks out of books," pursued the tinker, after a pause. "Did you ever hear tell of the one what they keeps the Newgate Culender in, mister?" "The 'Newgate Calendar'; yes, I've heard of that," returned the strange custo mer, with a start and a shiver that were not lost on the tinker.

" Get on, man ; get on. You won't finish the job to-night." " Must make the rivets hot, or they won't clinch, mister. All about highway robberies and hangin's, the Newgate book is. 'Bout murders and that." " For God's sake, man, hold your tongue, if you haven't anything more pleasant to talk about." And Mr. Dyot rose from his seat, and walked uneasily up and down. " I must do something, mister, while I work," laughed the man ; " so if I mustn't talk I'll sing if you don't mind." And straightway he struck up a droning,. humdrum song all about a wicked lord and a faithless sweetheart and a young man driven to the wars ; and, after a few turns under the trees, Mr. Dyot returned again to his seat in the warmth of the tinker's fire. All the fatigue he had of late endured seemed now to culminate and beset him overpoweringly.

The tune of the song the tinker was singing, the soft rustling of the boughs over his head, the comforting heat of the fire in the brazier, wove about his tired senses a spell holding them power less. " HaVe you nearly finished ?" he asked, rousing, and looking up at the tinker. " Just half done, mister. You gave me an hour ; it isn't half gone yet." With a shrug of impatience, the strange customer folded his arms with the serge bag safely secured within them ; and the man's droning song continued, and the leaves overhead rustled yet more lazily. Besides these sounds there were no others to be heard, and the strange customer's head sank gradually on to his arms and he fell asleep. It seemed that the tinker was expecting that something of this kind might happen, for presently he looked up furtively from under his cap and grinned.

He did not cease from working at his job, however ; he only worked with less noise and sung softer. This he continued for fully five minutes — until, indeed, he was quite convinced that his strange customer was asleep. Then he proceeded to occupy himself in a manner scarcely to be expected of him, judging from the careless, happy-go-lucky disposition he had hitherto evinced. Still singing, he opened the ledger, making a slight jingling amongst his tools with one hand as he did so, to cover the noise attending the operation. He turned over leaf after leaf until he came to the last one on which there was writing ; but he still turned on. It was plain that the tinker's impression was that there were papers of value — bank notes, perhaps — concealed between the leaves of the book. In this he was disappointed, however ; and, scratching his head, with a puzzled expres sion of countenance, he went back to the last page of writing.

It was in a round fair hand, and the nearest approach to printing the tinker had ever met, and this made it the more tantalizing when he found that, try hard as he might, he could not make out a word of it. But his curiosity was aroused, and he was an ingenious fellow, and not easily baffled when once he set his mind on a thing. A small square of bright tin lay close at hand, and this he took, and a bradawl, and with much patience and dexterity copied on to it the shape of the letters that went to make the last sentence, over which a " sergeant" presided. This completed to his satisfaction, he put the tin plate away, and worked with a will at his job of clasp-fixing. The strange customer was still sleeping when the work was finished. " Hallo, mister ! hallo ! Why, I declare you've been asleep.