Ill-gotten Gold. A story of a great wrong and a great revenge

Front matter

ILL=QOTTEN GOLD ILL=GOTTEN GOLD A Story of a Great Wrong and a Great Revenge B V W. G. T AE.BE T CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited LONDON, rARIS it MELBOURNE 1S97 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter I. 1 Chapter II 14 Chapter III 23 Chapter IV. ...... 32 Chapter V. ....... 44 Chapter VI. ....... 53 Chapter VII . (17 Chapter VIII 79 Chapter IX 87 Chapter X 104 Chapter XI. . . . . . . .116 CONTENTS. VIII PAGE Chapter XII 125 Chapter XIII 143 Chapter XIV 153 Chapter XV 177 Chapter XVI 202 Chapter XVII 224 Chapter XVIII 243 Chapter XIX 261 Chapter XX 281 Chapter XXI

Chapter I

" Gude licht liarness frae that time used he ever For sudden strife ; frae it he would nocht sever." My father was a silent man. Within his silence lay his greatest enemy ; for which of us is not vexed by the mysterious ? Which of us is inclined to say, " What a guard such an one holds o'er his tongue lest it should tell of the good he has done " ? But rather we say, " He speaks not of the past — therefore it is of the blackest." Thus, as he walked constantly to and fro with my lord, men bowed meekly and spoke softly before the twain, but, when their backs were turned, B would thrust the tongue into the cheek and say, " The de'il's bairns are brithers " ; yet, withal, do their bidding in no sluggish way, and when a black look came from my father's eyes, he who earned it straightway thought of " flitting," and rarely was he disappointed.

That my lord and he had been in the Muscovy service was known, when my father appeared with me, a motherless child of four, in his arms, accompanying my lord in his first coming to the estate — and that was in 1655; but although he lived seventeen years among the tenants after that time, never another fact could they add to their knowledge. My lord was such another as my father, both in silence and in build, so much so that, as the twain walked, at a distance none could say that this was that — had not my father ever insisted on MASTER AND MAN. 3 his right to walk a pace or two paces behind my lord. This was for long the cause of much annoyance to my lord, till, wearying of his unavailing remonstrances, he would set traps for my father, and, walking one behind the other, he would draw up suddenly till my father, with the impetus of his gait, was alongside ; then he would engross him in some subject of interest, till his attention being wholly involved in the talk, he would manage to draw my father by his side for a little distance.

Yet this strategy soon failed, as it became old and oft repeated, and was the cause of great amusement to the people who, watching from behind trees, would follow the comedy with interest, and, strange to say, were the more pleased when my father was ensnared than when my lord was defeated. B This attachment of servant and master would, methought, have been of service, yet to the people it became only another subject of distrust, for they said, "It was unnateral that a servant should be sae terrel humble, or a maister sae terrel kind." In this they were most assuredly wrong, for my lord loved my father because my father had oft saved his limbs, if not his life, and the respect that my father so insisted upon was but the respect of a good servant, for if the servant lowereth the station of his master, he lowereth his own also, inasmuch as the twain are linked, in a measure, together.

The Muscovy service was reputed a school of cruelty, the like of which was not to be found elsewhere ; yet, as this was but mere hearsay among his tenants, the dislike they MY DREAM. 5 bore to my lord and my father was the anger of a curiosit}r unsatisfied. Only to me the cruelty of the past was revealed in what, my father always insisted, must have been a dream. That it was real I am convinced, in spite of many blows and buffets I have borne, when, in an unguarded moment, I would talk of it to my father, and for my pains would be stretched on the floor, my father being a tender man only knowing not his strength. Thus it happened : — I was at the tender age of seven, yet, de spite my youth, my father had forged with his own hands a rapier fitted for my strength, and we were at our regular practice by the light of the fire in the great room that served my father for all in all.

The one door was barred with arms of oak, and the sole window was closed with a shutter whose thickness was a matter of laughter for the wright who had made it. " Ye're shairly expectin' a Samson ? " the wright had said. " Yes," said my father ; " I come from a strong land ! " and he held forth his hand as if to say " Good-bye." The wright, surprised, but not to be behindhand " in thae foreign customs," put out his hand also, and will remember to his dying day that grasp, and will also know that silence with silent men is a golden rule. The night was in December, and a roaring fire spake of the frost without. In the strong glow of living peat and wood, the rapiers danced in dazzling circles and lines, leaving touch of each other but for the moment, then THE FACE IN THE FIRE. 7 joining, and seemingly glowing brighter in the moment of reunion.

This was only a wrist practice, my father had said, so that in the regular drill my mind was not so engaged as in the other and newer lessons that my father constantly gave me. So far, my father hath said, I am in the right, but what follows he declares is but a dream. Changing ground slightly, my father came between me and the fire. Standing thus, I saw the flames from the fire appear above his shoulder ere they were hidden by the lintel of the fireplace. Suddenly a dark mass took the place of the flames ; but this, too, dis appearing in a trice, gave place to a face. The eyes glittered as brightly as ever the rapiers had done, and teeth and lips closed over a long knife, whose black handle projected on one side of the face, while the blade stood out on the other. It seemed to catch every gleam of the fire on its sharp edge and shining back, and served to illumine the defined, desperate lines that ran down from the cheekbone till stopped by the glittering steel.

Scarcely a moment did it stay there ere the face had disappeared, and a man leapt to the floor. Then the scene became a different matter to me : a man's face in the fire came not within my bounds of reasoning, but a man in my father's house, who had chosen this means of entrance, meant danger, and in a second I gave my father the signal he had taught me. Directed by my gaze, he wheeled round and sprang for the figure ; but ere he could near it the man had flung the knife with such adroitness that it struck my father straight above the heart. THE FIRST ATTACK. 9 A crj" was drawn from my lips as I saw my father's danger, and a low howl came from the man, as, with bared lips (as when a vicious horse bites at a groom) and hate-glaring eyes, he watched the success of his blow. In the moment of throwing, his cap or headpiece of fur had shifted back from his brow, and on the skin thereof I saw some two or three letters or numbers printed, as if burnt in with hot iron.

Of a sudden his face changed, and I heard the fall of some metal thing. Looking at my father, I saw that the knife had fallen, and where it had struck the cloth was torn ; yet no blood came, but instead, the glitter of steel chain showed in the firelight. The face of the creature (for distorted, scared, and drawn, it was like no human being's) sank as he saw victory snatched from his grasp, and with a hopeless sort of gesture he launched himself at his enemy. My father dropped his rapier (which was buttoned, and, even bare, was but a weak, childish thing for the defence of a life), and, springing up and aside, allowed the creature to fly past, and in thj moment of passing leant and caught him round the waist. A moving mass, a flying figure, and a crash, seemed to come to me in one and the same instant, and then — silence.

Away back in the shadow of a corner I saw a Thing lie motionless, whether dead or living I knew not ; and my father's face, as he came to me and lifted me up, did not seem to sue questioning. " Come to bed, little one," he said in gentle tones,' although his face was firm set and his teeth showed through the scanty beard that covered lips and chin. THE THING! 11 " And the Thing ? " I whispered. " Of what speak ye ? " he asked sternly. "Of that!''' and taking courage I pointed to the corner. "Ye dream, simpleton," my father said; yet he did not offer to take me to the spot. " Now, go to bed." When I had laid me down in quivering terror on the bed that was hid by the shutters, he came to me, and, betrayed by the chattering of my teeth, learned of my terror. Kindly he strove to prove to me that I was mistaken, till, angered by my repeated declaration that I had seen the Thing, he sternly forbade me ever to mention the matter again on pain of punish ment ; and, drawing the shutter close, left me to my anguish.

At seven years of age life is in the body more than in the mind, and, despite the mortal fear of the Thing, I soon fell asleep, with a smell of burning clothing in my nostrils and a spitting sound in my ears that made me think the rain had come on, and was, down the wide chimney, landing its drops in the fire. In the morning when I awoke, the shutters were still closed, and drawing one of them aside, I looked into the room and saw my father dusting the furniture. This did not surprise me, for he did not allow any woman to come near the house ; but what caught my attention was the amount of black, fine smuts on floor, table, dresser, everywhere, and above all on my father's hands and face, so that he looked more like a negro than a Christian. " Father," I cried, " from whence comes all this dust ?

Has the chimney tumbled in ? " " THE WAY HE CAME." 13 " Draw in your head, curious one, and get to sleep again," he said in a voice that made me glad to get back into the comparative safety of the shuttered bed. When he called me for breakfast the whole room was as it had ever been ; and when I put my question of the Thing of the previous night, I met with a hard stare and a blank countenance, with the answer that I had dreamed. But since then I know what were these smuts that still appeared now and again in the room that day ; and since then I understand what I overheard my father tell my lord that same day and at the end of a long talk — " My lord, he went the way he came."

Chapter II

"Bid ah! who can deceive his destiny Or ween by warning to avoid his fate ? " These things are written that some points of this history may be read in the light of past events, for the child is father to the man — a saying that is true in a measure but whose fault is that it is of no practical use, inasmuch as since none can tell a man, unless he knoweth his secret thoughts, so none can fathom the mysteriously acquired knowledge of a child. Thus I, who they fancied was but a thought less boy, intelligent as far as fencing lessons went, understood them better than they ex pected, and knew why they kept together in their walks, why both mansion and hut were MY LADY. 15 so securely guarded, and why my father and (I guessed) my lord wore mail-shirts under their garments. Also I got the idea of per sonal danger from this remark of my lord's : " Our children, too, they swore to slay," and the answering gloomy nod from my father.

From this dates the constant guard I kept over my Lady Judith, or " Lady Judy," as I had it on my childish tongue. My lord's wife had, so I heard, been of the gayest when she came to the estate, and, young as I must have been at the time, I remember a lady who would chase me in the avenue, while I, shrieking with laughter, would run away over the short-cropped grass as fast as my legs would carry me. Now there dwelt confined in the mansion a lady whose face was of one who hath seen a ghost, whose small gaieties were of the past and who was a " feckless, fushionless cratur wi' as little spirit as a drookit hen," as the maids had it. So with her mother confined in the house Lad}' Judith was more in the charge of her nurse than would otherwise have been the case, and as nurses are ever fickle to their charges where men are about, it often happened that Lady Judith and I escaped her gaze and flying to the thick woods, would hide or ramble till hunger drove us back to house and victuals.

Thus was a comradeship begun, which strengthened as time went past, till where Lady Judith was, there was I also. My lord, walking with my father in the woods one day, saw us as we lay in the shade of a beech, I full length on the turf with LADY JUDY. 17 Lady Judith's head and arm making a pillow of my body. She had fallen asleep, and as I made to rise at the sight of my lord, he laughed pleasantly and said, "Nay, lad, lie still. Sweeter dreamer had ne'er a better pillow," and turning to my father said — "A well-matched pair." My father flushed up at this, and would have made me rise and go, had not my lord drawn him away saying, "Nay, nay, they do but play. Let be. Yet if he be but like his father, a better bridegroom she could not wish ; and if she be but like her mother, ill speed the day he gets her for his bride."

Thereat they disappeared into the woods, and I heard no more on't till the evening, when my father with a black look said, " In this I shall be obeyed. Henceforth ye shall c not go within reach of my young lady's voice. Dost hear, knave ? " " Why, father ? " I mustered courage to ask, for when my father or my lord stared into one's eyes one felt how miserable a man could be and yet remain in health. " Because ye are no fit comrade for her," he said ; and hastily to put away such an idea I said — " Nay, I do but keep a guard over her as ye do to her father." My father stared at me so long that my eyes fell before his, and my only thought was for what might follow. " Stand up, sirrah ! How old are ye ? " "Eleven, sir." "And what do ye know?" "I know my lessons of the school. I can MY LADY'S GUARDIAN. 19 shoot an arrow, load a gun though I have not fired one, and as ye know, I have some sword skill."

Thereat my father laughed scornfully. " Yea, ye have some sword skill indeed, but have ye a sword ? " " That is no fault of mine, sir." " Then how do ye intend to kill the man that might attack your charge? Show me." " Thus and thus would I kill him," I said, and plucking out a dirk from my belt I sprang at my father and struck him gently where the Thing had thrown his knife. He caught me up in his strong hands. " Gently, boy. Ye might have cut me with your fork," he said as he put me down. " Nay, father," I said, " I knew of this," and I made the blade of my dirk ring against the chain shirt. c "Lad, ye both know too little and too much," my father said grimly, yet from that moment my walks with Lady Judith were unrebuked, and, which was not altogether so delightful, my fencing lessons were doubled, ay and more than doubled.

When my father taught me some new stroke he would illustrate it by showing me the method, then bidding me stand up to him he would say as wre fenced, " Thus did I guard with the soldier at the ford, and thus did he strike ! " and quickly he would try the cut, and, if I were not prepared, a shrewd rap on the ribs would be my portion. Often when I caught him with the proper guard, I would entreat him to tell me how he had done it, and what had been the result; but ever the glow would go from his face, A FENCING LESSON. 21 the stern lips grow sterner, and the rebuke would come slowly, but oh, so surely. Once, and once only, in irritation he added, " Time will be mayhap, lad, when ye will sooner hear of my death than of my deeds." One stroke in particular he taught me, and this was accompanied by no tale of its own, but he called it simply the " funny-bone " stroke.

It is so difficult to describe a stroke that is easy to show when the rapier instead of the pen is in one's grasp ! This was the feint of a neck cut followed by a swift under cut that, if successful, jarred the right elbow so much that the tingling fingers of the hand lost their grip, and, with the curl of the op ponent's weapon, the sword was thrown. When he taught me this he said — " Yet try not this stroke on the people that ye dreamt of, for they have an answer that is fatal." " Teach me it," I said. " Nay, lad, if I but knew it I could rest in greater peace." These things, as I have said, have no im mediate connection with my tale, yet they show in what way I was brought up until I was seventeen.

Chapter III

" But, foolish boy, what boots thy service base To her Thou, a mean squire of iwek and lowly place." On my seventeenth birthday Lady Judith gave to me a dirk, curiously chased in the blade with gold; and at the sight of it and of the chasing, so different from the plain steel of the rapier, I determined to ask my father for a sword. Being at this time in the woods, and seeing my lord and my father coming towards me, I plucked up courage and made my request. " Sir," I said, cap in hand, " I would have a sword if ye see fit." " A sword ! " he cried; "a rod to thy back would be more like." " Nay, nay, be not harsh with the lad, but grant him his asking," said my lord. " But he is no gentleman to wear a sword unless on service," said my father. " I am the son of my father," I said stoutly, angered that my request should thus be made light of, " and my father wears a sword.

If my father wears a sword he must be either a gentleman or on service. If he be a gentle man, I am the son of a gentleman ; and if he be on service, I also am on the same service." " And ye need your tongue shortened and your logic brought to naught with the stroke of the birch. Get ye gone, lad ! " my father said in anger, that I should thus talk freely before my lord. But I, intent only on my object, pursued it thus — "Then do ye refuse, sir?" I ASK FOR A SWORD. 25 " Yea." " Then, sir, I cannot be your son if I am not allowed to wear a sword. Tell me, I en treat, is this so? Are ye my father, and who was my mother? " My father caught me by the shoulders with a grip that hurt, and stared into my face for an instant, then flinging me aside with no word for me, nor even a reverence for my lord, stalked into the woods alone.

My lord caught me as I would have followed. " Nay, lad," said he, " he wishes to be alone. As to your sword, come to the house to-night and we will try and equip ye; but never speak to your father of your mother again. Your father, lad, was a brave soldier and is a brave man ; yet some things are harder to bear than wounds on the battle-field or dread of death in life. Your mother's death killed the dread of death within him, so that ye must awaken the torture anew. Dost see, lad? Well, adieu till evening." But when evening came, the mansion did not behold me, for in the hut my father told me of my mother and my mother's death. " Thus, my boy," added he, " there is your path. I promised that ye should not be a soldier, and that ye should not be at Court. Take any other step that ye fancy, and I will do my best that ye shall succeed."

" I had no other thought but as a soldier I should live and die," I said. " That ye cannot be, unless ye would dis credit my word and break my promise," said my father calmly. I AM SENT TO COLLEGE. 27 " Nay, sir, there is no question of that," I answered ; " while ye live camp and Court will not see me." " I thank ye for that," said my father courteously and graciously, for none knew better than he how useless it would have been to struggle against him. " Then what else can ye think on, lad ? A minister — yet a minister's is but a scurvy trade in these days of hair splitting." " If I were but learned deep enough, sir, a tutor's post seems to me no ill one," I said. "Then a tutor be it. To-morrow ye shall go to Glasgow and I will accompany ye thither. I have some little acquaintance of the Regent of the College, and will request his good fellowship for ye."

"Why so fast, sir?" I asked. "Because I will it," he said, losing the kindly manner of speaking, and commanding in the old grim way. And thus, even as he had said, I bade good bye to all that I loved — men, women, cattle, trees, all that I had known since my birth — and mounted on a Galloway mare rode beside my father in the early morn of an autumn day towards the college town where I was to abide for the next four years. Scarce had we ridden three miles, taking the road quietly that we might not distress our beasts ere nightfall, when a fellow of my lord's came full tilt after us, and delivered a missive to my father. My father read it and told the servant to ride back. When we had ridden on he said, " Here is a pupil that will be ready for ye when ye are ready for him," and gave me the missive.

MY JOURNEY. 29 Thereon was written, " My lady hath borne me a son." -•> The sun had risen ; my father rode between its light and me, so that what I saw of his profile was in the shadow. Grim it was at the news, and grimmer it grew as the time passed. His right haud left his hip, and tugged at the scanty beard with a nervous force that spoke ill of the thoughts that filled his mind. As we rode, used as I was to his silence, rebuff seemed less terrible than this quiet. I said, " My lord's heart will rejoice at this." But that I had not spoken was my wish, for terrible it is to see a silent man forced to break his bonds irresistibly. " Fool ! " he hissed between his closed teeth, and his right hand clenched till the skin grew dead white. " Fool ! Have ye not eyes to have seen, have ye not ears to have heard, have ye not brains to have understood, that this is but another limb to lop, another to torture ?

When always my prayer has been ' dust to dust, that the dust may cover the glitter of the illgotten gold.' My lord has got a son, and ye say, ' My lord's heart will rejoice.' It mil rejoice with the vanity of an heir being born unto him. When that is over, what will remain but the pitiful fear of a powerless father, powerless to turn the revengeful shot, powerless, if he would, to offer his blood for satisfaction in the place of his son's ? And ye say, ' My lord's heart will rejoice.' Ye have said foolish things, ye have done foolish things, and e'en in the years that will come ye will not stop from babbling ; but never have ye done a more foolish thing, never will ye say a more foolish MY FATHER'S WRATH. 31 thing than ' My lord's heart will rejoice.' Peace, knave ! " And my father returned to his silence, to his thoughts, and to the pulling of his beard ; while I, still in the dark, wondering what it all meant, dreading yet anxious to know, could but ride on, not daring to ask one question that would serve to enlighten me.

Chapter IV

Reproach, sharp stings ; Repentance, whips entwined; Shame, burning brand irons, in her hand did hold .' All three, to each unlike — yet all made in one mould. Four years pass quietly and half-unconsciously when one lives but in the printed page, and thus would I have ye pass these years with me as a quiet student — years in which naught occurred till one spring evening, three years and eight months after I had entered the college. Brilliant in its momentary sunlight, treacherous in its showers, the day had been ; and as in one of the dry blinks I hurried home from the college, a clatter of hoofs from behind made me turn my head. Then in a trice I knew that I had dreaded RIDE— RIDE— RIDE. 33 or dreamt something like this: a hasty messenger — ride, ride, ride — these for ye — ride sharp spurred shouldst thou wish to see in life thy father or my lord.

As I had dreamt, so it turned out. The one thought as I took the missive from the fellow's hand was, " Is it my lord or my father ? " Both ! The fellow had dismounted, and I took his place. A hasty shout came, " A relay is stationed at the Hauf-w'y Hoose ; " then stunned, incapable of thought, I galloped out of the town. Y"et though I felt naught but the necessity of haste, methinks there was an un formed prayer for courage to stand as a man in whate'er might befall me came speeding along with me as I darted past the last house into the country road and into the rapidly darkening night. D The "Hauf-w'y Hoose" reached, I got my relay, and this happening to be a high, vicious black mare, waked me from my stupor. As she sidled in irritating circles I tried to mount her, till at last, losing patience, I vaulted upon her back anyhow, and, clinging at first with hands and knees, I managed to seat myself, and the struggle for mastery began.

Should a wayward horse keep me ? Nay ; that were childishness. A moment, two moments, I gave her to settle down in ; but, leaping and plunging, she still wasted the precious time. Then, and not till then, I taught her with my rowels to obey the rein, and the mad gallop commenced. The dread was forgotten ; nothing remained but the physical enjoyment of the reckless race. No need for care, for what cared she for a strain on her mouth when the bit was between her A MOONLIGHT GALLOP. 35 teeth? On, till the moon came from behind the clouds, and showed the road lying white before us. On, on, till the gallop dwindled into a canter, and the bit slipped back into her mouth. Then she would have eased up, but between life and death there lies but a second. Had I gained it? I wondered grimly as I looked into the ostler's eyes when he took my horse at the mansion.