A Harvest of Weeds

Chapter I

Mr. Lovely was idle ! Not only in appearance — for that his calling constantly necessitated — but really and absolutely idle. He was not only a smart man, but he was thoroughly reliable and to be trusted, and, therefore, the heads of his department were in the habit of treating him in a confidential way quite apart from their business relations. On this present occasion, for instance, he was in a certain room not generally open indiscriminately to the men in Mr. Herzovny's employment. The fact was, he had been sent for by that gentleman himself for a littlo social hob-nob. But it happened that Mr. vol. iu. A HAEVEST OF AVEEDS. Herzovny was called away unexpectedly shortly after Lovely's arrival. " Don't go, Tom," he said, as he left the room. " Posky won't keep me long. Wait till I come back.

I want your opinion on Buttercup for the City and Suburban." So Tom was, for the time being, as we have said, idle. He strolled over to the window of Her zovny's office, Avith his hands in his pockets, and gazed out listlessly into the yard below. But there was nothing in the view itself that possessed the charm of novelty for him, neither was there anything going on of suffi cient interest to hold his attention. Being by nature as well as by calling a busy man, he found his enforced idleness irksome. Presently he turned his back on the yard and lolled against the window frame. While standing in this position, his gaze travelled mechanically along the rows of bulky volumes with which the walls of Herzovny's office were lined. Some of these books contained the cases of those criminals who had contrived to escape the reward of their misdeeds.

The records stretched back for any number of years. A look of interest gradually replaced the expression of waiting in Lovely's eyes as they rested on the dates inscribed on the backs of these books. " Thirty-five years ago," he muttered ; " that Avould take us back to '45 or there abouts. Now, I wonder if that little secret of Buxton's, Avhich this old Austen keeps so well, in spite of all my civility in the shape of brandy and water hot, ever found its way into those books of ours. I've heard Herzovny say that his old uncle was uncommon proud of those books, and that he used to say there wasn't such another complete record of un convicted criminals of the present reign to be found anywhere. I wonder where Buxton has got to. I've never seen him since that Sunday night at Graysbrook. I never saw such a look of mortal funk in a man's face as there Avas in his that night.

I'll swear there's something awfully black against him if we could only get at it." He had strolled across and taken down one of the books, and opened it about the middle. Now he drew up a chair and sat down to his self-imposed task. The clocks chimed the quarters one after the other without his noticing the flight of time, so interested was he in his work. By and by he drew his fat little note-book from his pocket with one hand, keeping his finger meantime pressed tightly on one particular spot on the page before him, almost as if he feared the information might run away if it got the chance. He read the page from top to bottom carefully again, and made one or two hieroglyphical notes in his book, thinking and considering carefully between every stroke of the pencil, which he turned round and round slowly in his mouth during these periods of musing, as if, in some mysterious way, he obtained inspiration for his next note from the intervening consumption of black-lead.

Sometimes he turned over a dozen pages of the large book quickly, after a merely cursory glance at their contents, and then, again, he would stop and muse over the details of one particular case, putting them together like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle, and fitting them to the person he had in his mind. AVEEDS. 5 Under this test they generally* broke down in some respect. When the dusk of the November afternoon closed in around him, and the need of further light drew his attention from his occupation, he had only found four cases worth taking notes on. He looked up in surprise. Some clock near was chiming the quarter after the hour. He dreAV out his watch, and uttered an exclamation of surprise. He had been there two hours and a half. " A quarter past four ! Where the dickens has Herzovny got to, I wonder !

Posky has got some big thing on, I suppose. Well, he won't come back here now, I should think. At any rate, he won't have expected me to wait all this time for him. So I'll be off before he comes back and catches me. I'd like to make trial of these names on old Austen to-night, and if I go at once I shall just catch him as he leaves his office." He returned his pocket-book to his breast-pocket, put the large book back in its place, put on his hat, and went out, locking the door behind him. The key he gave to an official downstairs, and passed out at A HARA'EST OF WEEDS. once. As he elbowed his way through the crowds of people who block the pavements round about Charing Cross just at that time in the evening he was making a mental ■resume of the notes in his book, in order to keep the facts fresh in his memory for conversational purposes.

" Daniel Bryson is the most likely of the lot," he mused. " I'll try him first, and see if the fish rises well to that fly. Allan M'Pherson isn't unlikely either, only I've a sort of recollection that he died just about the time I first joined the force. No ; I'll try Barrett after Bryson. There's the same initial, too. It's funny to see how they'll stick to their initial sometimes ; seems almost as if they thought keeping their initial was something to do with their respectability. Then, there's James Denvil. That would be a fish to land ! Two hundred pounds reward ! I'm afraid, though, Denvil would not venture back here, even after all these years. Nor, for that matter, neither would Bryson nor Barrett be likely to do it. It'll be tifteen years for either of 'em if they're ever caught, and fifteen years to a man over fifty* — which they must both be, seeing they made their little mistakes fully thirty - five years ago — fifteen years for either of 'em would mean a lifer.

They'd never come out. Let me see ! This is old cockalorum's crib, and here comes old cockalorum himself, a little more shuffly, shabby, and shaky than usual. Not had his general allowance of brandy, I suppose. Wonderful difference there is between him and Buxton. This old chap wouldn't have given me the slip like the other did three weeks ago, and yet I'd bet there ain't three years difference in their ages." At this point in his meditations Mr. Lovely crossed over the narrow street lead ing from the Strand, in which he was, and greeted our old acquaintance, the " shabby party" of Mason's report, as he came down the steps of the opposite house, buttoning his poor, thin coat across his chest, as he first met the wretched penetrating dampness of the outside air. " Good evening, Mr. Austen," said he, holding out his hand cordially.

" Quite a coincidence my meeting you just at this minute. I've been out the whole blessed day rushing about from one place to another without a minute to spare to get a bit of food. I'm famished. I'm just going round to Denny's to get a good square tea. Will you join me ? I won't ask you to drink tea with your food, though : you look as if you wanted something a little more comforting. This fog has fair nipped you up." " Thank you, sir : you're very kind. I won't say no. To speak the truth, I've not had much of a dinner to-day. Funds begin to get low about Friday, and I have to take just what I can afford instead of what I should like." His face looked woe-begone and wretched in the dim lamplight of the side street as he turned and walked by Lovely's side. " It's an astonishing thing to me, Mr. Austen, how a man of your experience and education should be in such low water.

Why, if I had half your learning I should expect to be earning my three 'undred a year comfortable, as managing clerk to some good firm by the time I was forty." " So you might if you got a fair start, and so I should, but I didn't get a fair start, you see, Mr. Lovely. At least, I was lamed so soon after the start that, to all intents and purposes, I was never in the race at all." Lovely looked at the shaking wreck of humanity a little inquisitively. " How did the laming happen ? " " I don't like to talk of it, Mr. Lovely, and that's the fact," he said, quaveringly. " You see, it happened such a very long time ago — it must be thirty-five years or more " — Lovely started — " and everyone has quite forgotten it, and I try to do the same. But it broke me — -broke me right down. I've never been worth a pinch of salt since."

"Here we are!" cried Lovely, pushing open a glass swinging door that led into a restaurant bright with gaslight, and white table-cloths, and shining glass. " And now, Mr. Austen, what will you have ? What have you got fresh and hot, Mrs. Denny ? " he asked of the beaming hostess behind the little counter at the upper end of the long room. " Sausages and mashed potatoes, stewed eels, poached eggs and ham, fried sole " " That's it ! Fried sole. I could eat a bit of sole," interrupted Austen. " And I'll have sausages, if you please, Mrs. Denny. And while they're coming we'll have a nip, eh ! Mr. Austen ? Just to give us an appetite." So the food was brought, and the two men settled themselves comfortably at one of the bright little tables. " Brandy cold for Mr. Austen, if you please, Polly, and a nice cup of tea for me, and don't you look too much at it as you bring it, my dear, or it will be too sweet to drink," said Lovely, as they fell to.

" Curious thing you mentioning that time — thirty-five years ago — -Mr. Austen," said Tom, presently*, when the first burst of enthusiasm was over, and as he spoke he drew the gas bracket towards his side of the table, so that its light fell full on the old man's face opposite. " Dreadful light these burners give," he murmured, parenthetically, fumbling at the handle as if trying to turn it up a little more, " for we came across some papers, in our search for something else to-day, that referred to a case that happened just about that time. I daresay you remember it. The case of Daniel Bryson, who absconded with eleven thousand pounds in the year '45 ? " " Daniel Bryson? " mused Austen, as he put his tumbler of brandy-and-water down on the table. " No, I don't remember the name. Was he ever caught, do you know ?

" " No go ! " said Lovely, mentally. " No where near the mark ! Now for shot number two." Then he said aloud : " No, he wasn't caught. It's really astonishing how many of these cases get off scot-free. My respects to you, sir." " Same to you, sir," returned Austen, not at all sorry for the excuse to have another pull at the brandy-and-water. " That was the same year that Clouston Barrett did his big forgeries," said Lovely quickly, while the other's face was still turned upward; and he muttered, "Bull's eye, by gum ! " as the tremulous lips opposite him set for an instant into a fixed rigidity which nothing but fear could have produced, and the wavering, restless eyes settled on his face in an anxious, terrified gaze. He struck at once, before the old man had time to recall his senses, scattered to the four winds by the suddenness of the attack.

" You've been a staunch friend to that fellow," he said, in a tone which implied that he had known Buxton and Clouston Barrett were the same person all through the piece. " He told me himself that you were the only person in the world avIio was able to establish his identity beyond a doubt. He's been very cute has Buxton, alias Barrett, to keep his head above water all these years without being so much as sus pected. Jolly clever chap ! That's what he is ! " " Is — is — he caught — at last ? " asked Austen, in a frightened whisper, leaning across the narrow table, and trying hard to steady the chattering of his teeth as he put the question. " Ah ! now you want to know too much," replied Lovely, jocosely, and his shrewd, little grey eyes twinkled triumphantly as he realised that he had unearthed his fox at last, and was at liberty to run him down the next time he picked up the scent.

" Come, I say, don't let my joking spoil your tea. No, we ain't caught him yet, if that's what's flurrying you so. He's dropped out of his London set for more than three weeks. When did you last see him ? " "Mr. Lovely, I'm upset, sir; so upset that I don't know what I'm saying or what I've said." The poor old creature almost wrung his trembling hands in the extremity of his terror. " So help me goodness, I never knew until this minute that you'd ever so much as set eyes on Buxton. If I'd known it I would not have taken a single drink from you — I would not, so surely as God is my maker, sir — for fear you might get something out of me unawares. How long have you known this ? " Lovely was not a bad sort of fellow. He would not wantonly torture the poor creature, so he did not acknowledge that Austen had himself given the information.

He passed over the question. "Look here," he said, "when Barrett"- Austen winced at the name—" Avhen Barrett turns up you take my advdce and keep quiet about what I've said. If you let on that anything is up, as sure as you're alive he'll think you have had some share in bringing it about. Just you go on with him the same as you've always done, and don't be making yourself too busy. Do you understand ? " " You mean I'm not to warn him that his alias is discovered ? " " Pre-cise-ly." " Well, I won't promise too much, Mr. Lovely. He and I are very old friends. We Avere in the same office when — you under stand. Old Clayton thought I had something to do with getting hold of the cheque-book, but I hadn't; he managed it all by himself. Our friendship ruined me, though. Clayton gave me a quarter's salary in lieu of notice, and would not give me a testimonial.

It was then I first took to the brandy to comfort me. It was hard on me, too, for the only share I had in the business was helping him off when the row came ; and I did that more on account of his wife than himself. She was only a child, and they had been married just three months, and I felt soft-hearted about her sorrow, and a pretty AVEEDS. price I paid for my soft-hearteclness. When Mr. Clayton found out I'd helped them to get out of the wa3*, he pretended to think that I was afraid of his being caught for fear I should be implicated by his confessions, and, as I've said, he sent me off without a character." " And you've gone down hill steadily ever since." " Ever since." There was a pathetic hopelessness in the tone of the two short words. They both sat silent for few seconds. Then Austen raised his poor, purposeless gaze to the detective again .

" Mind, I'm not complaining about it," he said. " As you know all about it, there can be no harm in my speaking of it to you, and so I'll tell you that he has been very good to me. He's often and often given me a sovereign, and sometimes he's even gone so far as to stand a note, when he's been very flush of money. He was always free-handed. Why, he gave me ten pounds the first time he came to see me after his long stay in foreign parts. That was the time he brought the newspaper with Lady Graysbrook's death in it to show me." Lcvely started violently. Sulliman had been right, then, when he conjectured that Buxton was himself Lady Graysbrook's first husband. "What did he want to show you Lady Graysbrook's death for ? What had it got to do with him ? " " She was his wife, and she had married Sir Eric Graysbrook, thinking her first hus band Avas dead.

He had been away from England for eleven years, and was reported drowned." " Very interesting. Quite a romance, in fact. Lucky thing for Lady G. she hooked it before this other turned up. He'd have made things rather w*arm for her, I should fancy. Six o'clock ! By Jove, I must be off. Have another brandy, Mr. Austen. Here, Polly ! another brandy for Mr. Austen. Good night ! See you again soon." Lovely felt rather pleased with himself as he took his way back up the Strand. Only one thing worried him. Thirty-five years ago was such a stretch of time to go back over. It was doubtful whether there was anybody living now who would care to take up the prosecution, even if he succeeded in nabbing his man. Never mind ! Prosecu tion or not, it would keep his hand in if he occupied his spare time in hunting out the details of this once-celebrated case, and that sort of information never did anyone any harm.

But when he got back to the office, he found he was wanted at once on a matter of present emergency. The new case turned out to be rather intricate; and so it hap pened that several weeks passed away before Thomas Lovely found himself at liberty to follow up the clue he had obtained on the subject of Buxton's identity. 2 VOL.

Chapter II

St. Martin's summer ! What a sweet little gem plucked from the jewelled gown of summer, and left behind to lighten the dreary time of depressing gloom that would otherwise stretch almost unbroken from mid-October to January in this sad climate of ours. Mercy feels almost happy this morning. She is not by any means in what one would call boisterous spirits, but there is a peaceful contentment about her heart, and she is willing to acknow ledge that life is endurable even under such sad circumstances as hers — for pretty Mercy Leyton has vowed a vow never to marry any man but Hubert Graysbrook, and, since he can't marry her, she is resolved to live and die a spinster," always nourishing that one love of her youth in her heart of hearts, until her time shall come to leave this world, with its loves and cares, for another, of whose joys she knows nothing, but humbly hopes a great deal.

A really steadfast woman is rather the exception than the rule, but when you do meet with her, she is a truly grand creature. Mercy would have been vastly surprised if she had heard this de scription applied to herself ; but it was a true one, nevertheless — she was a grand creature ! Grand in her simple honesty, her power of loving unselfishly, and, above all, in her splendid steadfastness. Having made up her mind so decisively as to her course of action, you would wonder that she should be alarmed at the prospect ot Eustace Graysbrook's visit ; but it was not herself she mistrusted, not her own strength of purpose she doubted, so much as the un pleasantness she feared he might create in the household. Of course, he was a very rich man now — all the Edsmead people knew how things were arranged between the two Grays brooks — and if he chose to press Lord Melford very much on the subject of his love for Mercy, she was afraid her father might be persuaded to exert his authority in favour of his suit.

This would be a pity, as it would most likely disturb the present pleasant under standing between her father and herself. So Mercy had started with the determina tion to show him from the first that nothing would induce her to give him the least encouragement. But Mr. Graysbrook had now been a guest at Edsmead for more than a week, and as yet had shown no inclination for love making. Mercy began to chaff herself mer cilessly in secret, and tell herself that she need not have been so alarmed concerning Mr. Graysbrook's intentions, since he evidently did not mean to bother her at all on the old subject. And all the time the truth was that Eustace Avas only biding time and opportunity. There was too much at stake for him to dare to risk anything by undue rashness. As we have said, on this particular morning of St. Martin's summer Mercy felt more content than usual.

She was going to give the village children who composed the choir a singing lesson, as she usually did twice a week when she was at home, and she stepped along in the cool bright autumn sunshine, crunching the crisp dead leaves under her feet at every step, feeling the con tagion of the outward brightness through every inch of her being. She was just wondering why she felt so unusually cheerful this morning, and had almost come to the conclusion that it was because she had not seen anything of Mr. Graysbrook, he having left the breakfast room to start for his own parish before she was down, when she heard a horse trotting along the road behind her. She looked over her shoulder, and to her extreme vexation discovered the young clergyman coming to wards her. This was the first time he had had the opportunity of a tete-a-tete since his arrival at Edsmead, and he would certainly not have had this had it not been for Mercy's unfortunate mistake as to his having started before.

There was no escape from it now. She must go through with it as best she could if he chose to take advantage of his opportunity. " Good morning, Miss Leyton. What a happy chance ! I wondered what made breakfast seem such a prosaic, uninteresting affair this morning. Now I know." He had swung himself from his saddle, and was walking by her side down the narrow lane that led, without house or turn ing, straight on for three-quarters of a mile to the village. If Mercy could only have foreseen this she would have brought Conny with her. " Good morning, Mr. Graysbrook. I heard you had " " Started for Graysbrook ? So I had, but I forgot a list of things, and I turned back for it." " They say it is unlucky to turn back." " That is one of the ' they says ' which I shall never believe in, then. To me it has proved the reverse of unlucky."

To this Mercy made no reply. She would not encourage a commonplace compliment even from him. He walked along silently for a few seconds, with his horse's bridle hangdnp loosely on his arm. Then he said : AVEEDS. " Will you forgive me if I touch on a very delicate topic, Miss Leyton ? I am so anxious to have news of Hubert. Have you heard from him lately ? " " I never hear from him, Mr. Grays brook." " No ? " Mercy detected a distinct accent of relief in the short syllable. " No. My father thought that under the very painful circumstances a correspondence would be the height of folly, and I so far agreed with him that I could not produce one really good reason for continuing the correspondence ; so I stopped it. You see, it might have seemed a sort of tie to Hubert, and that I was anxious to avoid, so I " " A tie ?

I don't quite understand." " I mean that Hubert might not have felt himself at liberty, while corresponding with me, to " She stopped a little awkwardly. " I see," he said. " You need not have been so considerate on those grounds. Hu bert will never marry." " Ah ! so he says now. But that will wear off, and then " " He will never marry, Miss Leyton ; never so long as he lives. I have his word for it — his given word." " Poor Hubert ! " It was pitiful to think of his life-long loneliness, and yet she could not help taking comfort from the thought that they were to be companions in their loneliness if in nothing else. If Eustace could have known how this assurance had strengthened the romantic bond that existed in Mercy's mind between herself and Hubert ; if he could have known that, as she walked down the lane by his side, she was hugging to her heart the knowledge that now she might always go on loving her one sweet heart without sin, he would have peppered his folly hot with bitter curses.

But he did not know it, and the quiet talk went on. " You are going to the village on business r "Yes. I am going to give the choir children a practice." " What a model parson's wife you would make." The words slipped out before he knew they were coming. The blood rushed up to Mercy's brow in an angry flush, and faded again, leaving her rather white. " I beg your pardon, humbly, for such a speech," he said, quickly. " I forgot how personal it must sound to you. The fact is that lately I often forget that I am a clergy man myself. I am thinking of resigning my parish and travelling for a time ; such an awful sense of the responsibilities of my position has weighed upon me lately as to sometimes quite unfit me for my duties." Mercy looked at him for the first time since the walk began, and wondered if this sudden humility were the cause of the terrible change she had noticed in his expression ; whether it was this new sense of unfitness that was lining his face so prematurely, and ageing him altogether so rapidly.

A sudden rush of pity threatened the barriers of her reserve for a moment. " No human being is perfect," she said, gently. " We all have our share of trials and temptations. He would be a wonderful man indeed who was always strong at the moment of attack. We all stumble more or less. We all have our secret sins " She stopped abruptly in what she was saying and looked at her companion. He was gazing at her fixedly, with fear and horror written in every feature. She was so surprised by tbe change in his face that she stood still, and asked him if he were not well. The question recalled him a little to himself. He lifted his hat, and pushed his hand through his hair two or three times as if he were trying to coUect his thoughts. " Well ? Oh, yes, I'm quite well, thank you," he returned, with an odd, nervous laugh that grated harshly on Mercy's hearing.

" You were saying something about — what was it ? I have forgotten." A new fear darted into Mercy's mind — an altogether unselfish one this time. Was Mr. Graysbrook's ill-health taking a mental form ? " I was just going to say that I should think you have as few sins to answer for as most people," she said, softly; "but I suppose that heavy responsibility you spoke of A HARA'EST OP WEEDS. just now is a burden that all conscientious clergymen labour under more or less." " Do you think so, really ? " he asked Avith eager quickness. Then his manner changed again, and he murmured — " But, then, you don't know — you don't know. No other person has quite as heavy a burden as I have." They walked on again — she, with all a true woman's sympathy for suffering, longing to comfort him, yet not knowing how ; he apparently absorbed in his own thoughts.

It was surprising how altered Mercy's feelings were towards him since the beginning of the walk ; all her resentment had vanished at the first appeal to her sympathy — such a divine thing is pity. " Do you place any faith in dreams, Miss Leyton ? " he asked after awhile, in an absent manner. The question was so unlike him that she glanced at him again in fresh surprise as she replied : " I don't think so ; at least, I try not to, but sometimes one can hardly help being impressed by them." " That is a most feminine answer," he said, almost in his own manner and with his old smile. But the brightness passed away again directly, as he went on : " According to Holy Writ, dreams have prophetic power under very exceptional circumstances, and the Talmud calls them ' the sixtieth part of a prophecy,' so I suppose we pigmies of these latter days ought not to ignore them ut terly when we are continually warned by them."