 CHAPTER XIV of Kit and Kitty by Richard Dodgeridge-Blackmore. I did not want any pot of money, and even if I had been filled with that general desire Henderson's suggestion would have no charm for me, but I resolved to do a much wiser thing to stick to my work with head and hands and let the heart come after them if it could, as it grew wiser. The police had made nothing of my case, although they had done their best, no doubt. Whoever had compassed my wife's departure, for I could not call it flight, had managed it with much craft and luck, according to the ancient proverb, and shown a kinsman's love for craft. The lane at the back of our lonely cottage was little frequented except on Sundays, and then an evening only, for that study of mutual tastes and feelings which is known as keeping company, for this was a popular resort, and therefore as usual called Love Lane, by blushing youth and maiden. At other times its chief use was to give access to some meadowland, and its chief wayfarers were four cows, a donkey, and a nanny-goat belonging to Farmer Osborne, but it wound into diverse other lanes, towards Hampton, Tangley Park, and Bedvunt, and through some of them to Feltham Station, on the London and Southwestern line. It was one of the places where I had made first inquiry, but Sergeant Biggs had been before me, and so he had at Twickenham, and in fact he had sought far and near, and been put upon false sense sometimes, but had hit on nothing genuine. Whatever any man may say or even think or dream of, the opinions of his fellow men go into his mind and work there. No one is certain what he believes, or at any rate how he believes it, and the harder he toils to establish his faith the more apt he is to undermine it. His best plan is never to argue about whatever he longs to trust in, or if his good friends will not let him alone, he should choose for his disputant the skeptic. This will build him up a good deal, not because he has convinced the other man, but because he knows that he must have done so if the other had been gifted with reason. And now I was more convinced than ever by the firm convictions of my uncle and Sam, that they both were quite wrong, and that I was quite right, that they had only said that there might be some mistake, something that admitted of a simple explanation and with patience on our part must receive it, in that case the chances are that they should have been doubtful whether they had any grounds for putting it in that way. But when they came and put it, without asking my opinion, in the very opposite way to that, and the opposite one to what I wanted to believe, their conclusion was a springboard to send me heels overhead to the counter one. My good Aunt Parslow had been over twice and held very long talks with Uncle Corny, but I had simply refused to take part in them. To go into all the pros and cons and hear one say this and the other say that, all assuming in the calmest manner, that they knew at least ten times as much about my poor self and my richer self, as both of us together knew in our most conscientious moments. Grateful as I was I offered them that view of gratitude which alone can make a slow shot at her fleeting speed, the instantaneous process. In the twenty-four millionth part of a moment all her legs have spurned the wind and the fool who thought the chronicle her finds her dust upon his glass. Therein I was not just or fair and have lived to be ashamed of it, but up to this present time of search I have not come across the man who continued to be just and fair while the wrong that went to the bottom of his soul was fresh and hot and turbid. Such men there may be a vast philosophy or profound religion, but I have never met them yet, and if I do I shall be afraid of them. Thus I waited day by day slowly quitting hold of hope, hardening myself to do without her by incessant work of hand. In this I took no pride or pleasure as a mill finds none in perpetual grind, of from morning twilight till evening dusk I labored among the lonely trees. My uncle begged me to go to London, if only for a little change and stir, as the strawberry season came, and he began to use his stand again. But I felt myself unfit for this, and knew that in my present vein I should only do a mischief to him among his ancient customers, for a happy face and a cheerful spirit do best among the buyers, and a bit of chaff or a turn of slang will sometimes help a lame market through. I knew a man once, Amir Carter he was, who had never been near common garden before, but was sent up by a neighbouring grower as a last resource when a salesman fell ill. Amir bumpkin he was, and he wore a smock frock and cord trousers tied below the knee, but his round, merry face and broad country brogue, and native simplicity in twinkling eyes took the humour of the crowd, and he sold out all his lot at top prices by looking as fresh as his fruit before anybody else had got rid of a dozen. Well, if you won't go up you won't, my uncle said to me one day, but you will break down going on like this. I like a young fellow to work, but I can't abide for him to do nothing else, and never think twice of his vitals, and you are spoiling your own chance altogether and another in a very important affair. Your Aunt Parslow took a great fancy to you, and she meant to come downhandsome when she dies. She told me that almost in so many words, and now you are setting her quite against you. You know how you behave, the last time she came over. I could not endure her perpetual talk. You can't say that I was rude to her, but I don't want her money. What good is it to me? I wish she had never given us a farling. It is nasty rubbish to talk like that, Kit, and every one will turn against you. You used to have such a lot of common sense. Well, perhaps you were not exactly rude to her, or at least you did not mean to be. But there is nothing ruder as women look at it than to let them have all the talk to themselves, although they insist upon it if you don't. You must not interrupt them, of course, but still you must say enough to show that you are listening, and that you think highly of what they are saying, though of course you knew it all before they began. Instead of that what did you do? You crossed your legs, women never like that when they are talking to you any more than a lap dog who wants to jump up. I don't know why it is, but they never can bear it. And you did worse than that. The clock struck five and you began to count it. You young fellows never behave well, the ladies. I am sure I did not mean to offend her, uncle, I never thought twice of what I was doing. Exactly, and you should have thought of nothing else while you seemed to think only of what she was saying. But I want you to do me a favor, Kit, I suppose you don't wish to offend me too. Certainly not, because you are reasonable and have always been so good to me. I will do anything to oblige you, uncle Corny, and by doing it you will oblige yourself. You are wearing your fingers to the bone and all the flesh off your other bones by this confounded stubbornness. I hate to hear the tap of your hammer almost as much as I used to like it. Now just take old spanker to-morrow-afternoon and drive over to your aunts at Leatherhead, with a basket of strawberries, I promised her. She doesn't know what a good strawberry is, eleven people out of a dozen don't, any more than a babe that just opens his mouth. She has plenty of her own, I know, but none worth the trouble of eating. Tomorrow will be Saturday, you can stop till Monday. And it will do you a lot of good and set you up again almost. There is nothing like a woman in a case like yours. You let her talk on and you never contradict her and she says to herself, Well I have done him good, and so she has. Not the way she meant it, but by making you think that they are all alike and not a bit of solid sense among them. And it is not only that, but you are pleased to think how much better you know things than they do, though you don't say one word to their fifty. Whenever I am bothered or cheated or insulted I get a nice woman to talk to me, and it is as good as a pipe of the best bird's eye, which you can have at the same time, if you know how to do it. You seem to look at things for your own advantage only, I answered, because I thought these views low. However I will do as you wish, and Sunday is a dreadful day for me here without any work. I thought last Sunday would never end, and not being a woman I could not come and comfort you. I was pleased with his rapid hymn because I could not see what business he had with nice women and so on, whether they came to his house to talk with him or whether he went to have his pipe at theirs, as he had almost let out by his last words. For there never was a woman who could stop him of a pipe in his own house, that was certain, but that he should talk of my being stubborn amused me every time I thought of it. Barely if I had a splinter of that substance in me. He was the oak from which it came, and he might have spared enough to roof a church without anybody asking how he was. Now he wrote to my aunt that I was coming according to her proposal, and he made Tabby Tapscott come up to the cottage and pack up a few things for me, in as much as I had no one now to do it, and he had his best strawberries picked in the morning before the sun margerin them, and kept in a cold place till I was ready, and then packed so that no heat could get at them. And as Spanker had not been the London for three days he was sure to strike out at a merry pace, when he found himself free of the country, for I never saw a horse that liked to go to London any more than a man loves a cemetery. Spanker was as gay as May as soon as he knew where he was going, and he roused up each hill with a rush from the other, which showed a deep sense of mechanics. Spanker would have believed his age even if he had told it truly, which he had strong human reason for not attempting having found his teeth filed quite early. What with the brisk air of those hills and the soft turn of the valleys and the gaiety of the time of year or quantity of heaviness went from me, and a vein of health flowed in, not that I ever said to myself, as people of inconstant nature do, there are better fish in the sea, etc., or if she be not fair to me, or even so much as, care killed the cat. My mood was neither independent nor defiant, and I felt as respectful towards women as ever. It was only that more hope came inside me from seeing so much in the world outside, and perhaps more faith in the Lord because he was doing his best so largely. However, I never thought twice about that and must claim no credit for it. Aunt Parsley was not very gracious at first, though she could not find fault with the strawberries. She pretended that she had some quite as good, though she declared herself to be most grateful. But as soon as I said, send for some of your own, that will be the true proof of the pudding, Aunt, she discovered that her own were not quite at their best just now, and in fact they had been so good that the slugs and the blackbirds could not resist them. This showed very little self-command on their part, for there was not a good fruit among them as I found out on Sunday, the beds being a mixture of some twenty kinds growing in great tussocks, and for the most part barren, which was just as well. I let my aunt have her own way, as a man should let all women do except those of his own household, and by and by she became more pleasant, especially when she had discovered, as she did at dinnertime, that my present state of health required a bottle of her dry champagne. Being compelled myself, I thought it just to use coercion too, and had the satisfaction soon of finding her much more ladylike, her coldness towards me passed away, and when we had clinked our glasses twice, we resumed our proper footing. You don't fill up, she said more than once, and I found the same fault with her, and when that error had been removed we could enter into one another's feelings. The great thing you want is nourishment, she said when I had made a noble dinner. People in the present age never attach sufficient importance to that point. They indulge too much in stimulants. No more, Kit, no more, or at the outside only half fill your own for you require it, while they scarcely allow themselves time to take the proper amount of substance. Through a very old and deeply respected friend of our family in the city, a man of the loftiest principles, I am enabled to get the real turtle at half price, and it has been instrumental under providence in the restoration of your health. I have sent him a telegram, and to-morrow, although it is the sabbath day, we shall find a tin here, when we return from church. It is better than groves or any that you see in the windows going down cheapside. A turtle should never be allowed to sprawl about barbarously in the sun. It is against his nature, and it does him harm. He becomes demoralized and loses firmness. They say that we all spring from turtles now, but I cannot believe it, for cannibalism is never nice, and turtle is. What a turtle your uncle Cornelius would have made! I am glad that you find him so nice, I replied, but he would always have tasted of tobacco. Well, we must allow for one another, and there is no accounting for taste. Jupiter likes turtle, but the other dogs won't touch it. I had a dog once who would eat cigars. If he found a stump in the road it was quite as good as a bone to him, but he did not live very long, poor fellow. Now let them take away the things, and when you have had your glass of port come to see me in the drawing-room. Don't hurry, because I mean to have my nap. As yet she had never mentioned Kitty's name, which surprised me not a little, but I thought it likely that she was still rather sore at my behavior, for when she had come to see us lately it had been more than I could bear to listen calmly while everybody offered any sort of guess, just as they might discuss a case of abduction in the papers, or the theft of a female dog who answered to the name of Kitty. CHAPTER 41. Every allowance should be made for a man who is in deep trouble. Not because it is his due, for that would count but a little, but because he expects it, which he never does of his other debts after experience. But he does hope to receive fine feeling when he knows how cheap it is, and a sense of bad luck blackens in him when he cannot even get that much. And yet he ought to feel how trumpery are his trivial joys and sorrows in the whirly gig of this great world. He does his utmost thus to take it, to shudder at the wrongs of others, and to glow at their redress, to suck his fingers more and more with the relish of his neighbor's pie, and perhaps with practice he begins to get some moonlight pleasure thus. But alas, before he is perfect in it, some little turn of thought comes home, some soft remembrance thrills his heart as the sun quivers in a well-spring, and all his nature lets him know that he belongs to it and is itself. A little touch of this kind took me, when I was full of higher things, or at least was trying so to be. I had not been to church since my day of dole, my day of doom and desolation. How could I go to Sunbury Church and see the spot where Kitty stood and stole my whole devotion, and see the altar rails where she had knelt and vowed her self-mind for ever, and now, with no Kitty at my side, be stared at by a hundred eyes, all asking, Well, how do you get on? But now in this strange place I went to the Sunday morning service, though Kitty had been there, too, with me, in the happy days not long gone by. My aunt came with me, and with much fine feeling allowed me to sit where my dear had sat, and to put my hat on the self-same peg on which she had placed it for me. At first it was a bitter time, but I went through it bravely, though at first I could not bring myself to open the prayer-book which I had brought in the bag with my clothes from Sunbury. My wife had given it to me at Bakeliff, when I happened to admire it in a window, and I remembered that she had written, Kit, and nothing else on the fly-leaf. But the first Psalm for that morning service, being a very sad one, suited my state of mind so well that I opened my book to follow it. And I remember reading with all my heart, my heart is smitten down and withered like grass so that I forget to eat my bread. I am become like a pelican in the wilderness, and like an owl that is in the desert. Perhaps through the shaking of my thumb the cover of the book fell back and showed me some words on the fly-leaf written with a pencil by my own dear wife. Before the word Kit, which was an ink, she had written with a pencil, darling, and after it, God's will be done. The writing was faint as if the pencil wanted cutting, and it seemed to have been dashed off in great haste. This then was her farewell to me. I was sure that the words had not been there the last time I used the prayer-book, and indeed there would have been no meaning in them. Over and over again I read them. Forgetting everything else I fear, and standing up after the first lesson had begun, until my aunt gave my coat a jerk, I longed to rush out of the church and think. And the rest of the service went by me as a dream. Though very little light was thrown here by upon my dark enigma I found more comfort perhaps than reason would warrant in this discovery. In the first place if my wife had left me in bitterness at some fancied wrong she would never have addressed me thus, and this alone removed a weight of misery from my bosom, for it had been agony to me to think, as I could not help doing, that my own kitty all the while was nursing bitterness against me as if it had been possible for me to wrong her, and again, that she should not have gone entirely without a word, was a piece of real comfort to me, though others who have been not so placed may think that I was foolish there. Very likely I was, but never mind. The prayer-book, as we all acknowledge, is a very noble work and nobody can write such English now as is to be found in it at every page, and I think the kitty was quite right in choosing it for her last word to me. But if it comes to that, she was always right, at least according to my ideas. Stranges it may seem to some who cannot enter into odd states of mine such as long had been my lot. I did not say a word as yet to my Aunt Parslow about this matter. She had formed her own theory like everybody else and I meant to let her go through with it, and so she did that afternoon having put great pressure upon herself, for my sake, as she told me, to enable her to hold her tongue until she could speak with advantage and without any risk of being taken by any one for a meddler. For she liked to dine early on Sundays and she always denied herself the pleasure of going to church in the afternoon, being one of the most unselfish persons I have ever met with. After a dinner not to be gained, said, at any rate till supper time, we sat in the garden and listened to the bells, and thought with pleasure of the congregation now going to have a hot time of it. I was full of tender recollections for this was the very spot where Kitty had shown some delightful want of reason about Sally Chalker, and I told my Aunt all about it now, with a sigh at the back of every smile, then she laughed with superior wisdom and no longer could contain herself. I knew she was a jealous little puss. Every woman has her fault, almost as much as men have. It took me a long time to discover any fault in her until I started that idea myself. To make up for the want of other faults she has that one to an extreme, you see. And that is at the bottom of your present trouble, my poor boy. But she has carried it to an extreme, I admit. It seems a little too absurd. It is too absurd to be thought of twice, I answered rather savagely. My Kitty is not quite a fool, and she would have been something worse than a fool if she had acted from that motive. She would have been unjust and cruel not to afford me so much as a chance of clearing myself from wicked lies. Our married life was short indeed, but long enough for her to learn that I am not a scoundrel. Don't be so hot, Kit. You have no idea what a woman's mind is. She thought you, of course, a perfect angel and herself not good enough to wipe your shoes. She was always humble, as you know, and that tyrant of a woman must have beaten into her poor head a bitter sense of her own defects. It is only natural, she would think, that this great wonder of a man should want someone better than poor me. And when some villain laid before her some strong evidence, we know not what, she would say to herself, It is as I thought. I will not trouble him to explain. I will leave him for a while, and perhaps his love will return when he has lost me. With this in my heart I could not bear to look at him, and know all the while he was longing to be rid of me. I will have no scene which would only make him think even less of me than he does. And so she would go without caring where. Possibly aunt, some women might have done so, but not kitty. She felt to her heart my affection for her, and she trusted me, as I trusted her. Do you suppose that of what you say had even seemed possible to me I should have remained as I have done, waiting for some news of her? I should have rushed up to everyone who had any motive for deceiving her and taken them by the throat, and wrung their wicked, murderous lies out. No, it is something much worse than that. If kitty had left me in pestilence, would she have written these last words? Would she have called me her darling-kit? See what I found this morning? That proves nothing, resumed my aunt when I had shown her my prayer-book, and we had discussed that matter. She may very well have relented at the last moment and written that to you, than would she have taken all our money. Was that the way to cure my jealousy and bring me back to her impenitence? She had a right to the money because you put it into her own hand, but I am astonished at her taking it. Miss Parslow was even more astonished when I told her that part of the tale which I had begged Uncle Corny not to do. It grieved me that she should ever hear of it, but she certainly had the right to know. Perhaps you told her in so many words that you meant it entirely for herself, I suggested hoping that it might be so, for little as I cared for that trumpery loss, I was cut to the quick that my wife should have inflicted it. Kitty must have believed in her own, or she never would have touched it. I said nothing of the kind, my aunt replied indignantly. I gave it to her, but I meant it for you, that is to say conjointly, her taking it was robbery and nothing else. I laughed a little at these words, which I had heard from other quarters, that my kitty should be called a robber seemed a little too absurd, but I could not be angry in the teeth of facts, at any rate with a donor. I'll tell you what it is," she said, even as I had been told before. Either your wife is as deep a little hypocrite as ever lived, which I cannot believe, or I should never trust any one again if I did. Or else she ran away from you in a moment of insanity. My poor boy, I'm so sorry for you. I cannot bear to ask you, but have you ever noticed any tendency that way? Anything even odd or absent or inconsequential in her manner? The professor is a very queer man, I have heard. All great men of science are, well, to say the least, eccentric. Captain Fairthorne is perfectly sound and clear-headed, though not a good man of business, and his daughter is as rational as I am, much more so, if I am to endure much more of this. She is quick and bright-witted and full of common sense, except that, like her father, she is a little too confiding. I never saw a token of even the slightest absence of mind about her. Her only insanity was that she loved me a great deal better than she loved herself. I believe she would have laid down her life with pleasure. Don't talk about it, my dear kid. I think you have borne things wonderfully well now that I know all you have told me, and you must not break down now, my dear. All will come right in the end, be sure, although we are in thick darkness now. In spite of all difficulties I still hold to my idea of jealousy. However, we won't talk about that any more. You know that I called upon Miss Cold Pepper the last time I was at Sunbury? Yes, but I never heard what she said. I cannot see how she could help us at all. Well I thought it worth while to try, and I found her much kinder than I expected. A little bit stiff at first, perhaps, and rather of the grand lady's style, but I am sure that she would help you if she could. She likes Kitty better than her own nieces. That I am quite sure of, and she does not side a bit without horror at Mrs. Fairthorne, at least as everybody makes her out, although I always form my own opinion. She perceived, of course, that I was a lady and not to be treated as a fruit grower, might be, such as everybody looks upon as a sort of apple pie. I explained that my connection with your uncle Orchardson was casual and had been against my wishes while my family had been in the China trade, and she asked very kindly if I would have a cup of tea. I accepted because I knew how it makes ladies talk. When she asked me what I thought of it, I said it was poor stuff, for I had no idea of being patronized by her, and I saw that she had sense enough to like the truth, especially when it was to her advantage, although not very complementary. Then she asked me where she could get a better article, and I told her that I never recommended any place, having nothing to do with any business now, but living in a very pretty place of my own. Finally this made her press me more, and not liking to be disagreeable, I told her of a place, whereby taking twelve pounds she could get a tea worth two of hers, for fifteen pence a pound less money. And this made a very fine impression upon her, for she loves good value for her money. Then she became very gracious indeed, especially after her curve of a dog came in and smelling souvenirs of my high breed, it is utmost to improve himself by licking them. For your sake, Kit, I was obliged to say that the wretched mongrel looked well bred. Oh, dear, oh, dear! Well, never mind, Aunt, he has done me a good turn, I remembered in time to stop sharply. My Aunt Parslow would take it as worse than high treason that I should ever have stolen such a dog, and how could I call it a good turn now? No dog would do you a bad turn, Kit, she continued quite serenely, at any rate no well-bred dog. They are as good as a woman, and infinitely better than any man, in judging human character. Now listen to what I have to say. I am not very sharp, for I live out of the world, and everybody owns that it gets much worse from year to year and from day to day. But I don't care two pence for that, my dear, because nothing I can do will alter it, only I am as sure as I am of the nature of the very best dog I ever had—and there he lies beneath that tree—that your kitty has never done a thing to wrong you, at least according to her view of things. I will not attempt to explain that money matter, for it is beyond me, and I am sorry that I spoke so harshly. I should have considered your feelings more, for I know that you are as true as steel. There is some black secret that we cannot pierce. It will all become clear as the day and time, and in time I hope for your happiness. I can well understand that you have been stopped in all your inquiries, by that strange device, for I believe it to be another device on the part of some very crafty foe. You have let some weeks go by through that. No good has ever come so far as I know of any of those private inquiry places, and I hate the very name of them, but I think that you are bound to watch the proceedings of those two villains who carried off your kitty to that vile place near Hounslow. Of course they would never take her there again, that you have ascertained long ago, and I do not believe that they have got her now. She should be no good to them, as a married woman. But they know where she is, I am sure of that. You have been in a maze of dejection and distress. Your pride has prevented you from doing what you should have done. Go and see those two men. Hunt them out. Take the matter entirely into your own hands. Your uncle Cornelius is very good and kind. But it is not his wife who is missing. Those two men are not in London. That much has been ascertained, I said, and it does not appear that they were in London at the time of my trouble. Never mind. Find out where they are. Follow them. Never mind where it is. As for money you shall have another hundred pounds, and a thousand if it proves needful. Don't thank me, Kit. It is for my own peace. I have not enjoyed seeing a dog eat his dinner since this wickedness was done. You shall thank me as much as ever you like when you have got your kitty back again. And she will love you ten times more than ever. CHAPTER 42 BEHIND THE FITTLE It is vain for any man to say that in the deepest steps of woe he can receive no scrap of comfort from the tenderness of others. Marriage may help him very little. Commonplace exhortations are a weariness to the worn-out soul. He lays at the bottom of his own distress and does not want it probed or touched. But gradually a little light and warmth steal through the darkness, not direct from heaven alone, but reflected from kind eyes and hearts, he is not alone in the world, although he ever must be lonely, and the sense of other life than his restores him slowly to his own. After all the kindness shown me and the goodwill wholly undeserved, I felt ashamed to be so swallowed up in my own sorrow. Some indulgence I might claim from people of kindly nature on the ground that it was not sorrow only, but dark mystery and doubt, and even some sense of black disgrace, which had robbed me of my proper vigor and due power of manhood. And it is more than likely that the long and wasting illness from which I had not yet quite recovered still impaired the force and tone of mind as well as body, for they do not want to make excuses as people nearly always say in the very breath they make them with. Only I was now resolved that no more should be needed. On the Monday I drove Spanker home, which was a great delight to him, and to me as well, for the world looked brighter when my face was set to fight it, or rather I should say to fight that vile and wicked part of it, which had robbed me of my just claim to a happy, though humble place in it. In my breast pocket I carried the book containing my wife's last words to me, for my good Aunt Parslow had kindly stitched it in a white kid-glove or a pair of them, which had been white in their early days, and in the pocket on the other side I carried fifty pounds in bank notes so as to be able to start well and procure better judgment than my own, if it should appear advisable. But about that I was not sure as yet, being very loath to ask any other man's opinion, however old he might be about my pretty kitty. It was now the longest day which was the most excellent and perfect time of year in at least three years out of every four. Sometimes there arises a strong hot June, but scarcely more than once in twenty summers, and then before the days come to their turn leaves are getting flabby and grass is overripe, and the petals of the wild rose lie in the ditch, and the blossom of the weed has dropped its little quivery beeswing. More often there has been a black Pentecost, a may of lowering skies and blight with every animal's coat put in the wrong way on his back, and then a June of shrink and shiver, without a fair flower in the garden, and with the hedge-rows full of black caterpillars, and every man flaps himself with his arms like a cock when he springs up to crow, but the hedger and the ditcher has nothing to crow at, and is too hoarse to do it if he had. But now we had a very fair mid-summer, neither too hot nor too cold, and the air was not only fresh but soft, and full of sweet yet invigorating smells. At the top of every hill one seemed to sniff the rich calm of the valley, and again in the valley to feel the crisp air of the hill coming down for a change of mood. There was nothing to make much fuss about it in the way of striking scenery, but a pretty peep could be had at almost every turn of traveling, where green leaves softened the brilliant sky and sheep and cattle and quiet pastures showed that they accepted life as if it were a blessing. But I found my uncle regarding life from a very different point of view. He had brought all his strawberry pickers in at three o'clock that morning to make the great hit of the summer, as he hoped in the Monday-Fournoon Market. At six a.m. he had sent off about five hundred weight of prime fruit, all in pound-punnets with dewy leaves as fresh as the daybreak and as bright as the sun before it leaves off blushing. But there he could put one upon a stand one hundred and twenty tons of French stuff, which had been discharged the night before we're running, like a flood from some horse-knackers in every alley of the market. This refuse was offered by the bucketful at a penny a pound, which was too much for it, a dumpy and flabby and slimy mass fit for children to make dirt pies of. Of course the good-buyers would not look at it, for no man could put it in his window. But the British public could put it in their stomachs, which is not at all a choice receptacle, and the mere fact of its presence took the shine out of all fair English fruit. Uncle Corny's choice presidents and Dr. Hogs, as good as if they leapt from stalk to lip, became jam for the juggernaut of free trade, and he was left lamenting as well as swearing very hard. Whenever he had used strong language, however well justified by international law, he was apt to show less of true penitence than of anger with the world that had made him do it. Being a righteous man he always felt ashamed, but he was never known to retract an expression, though he often declared that his words had been too weak, and he wished that he had said what he was charged with saying, but Celsy Bill told me that he had been just awful, and they were expecting beer all round as a token of remorse. Said it would sack every son of a gun of us. Never knowed him to say that without son and can out by and by. Ah, he's a just man, Master Kitt, if ever was one. Glad to see you, Kitt, said my uncle who was getting with the aid of a pipe into his right mind. You are looking ever so much better, my boy, can't return the compliment, I fear. The fact is I've been a little put out, though I never lost my temper as most people would have done. Fearful smash this morning at the garden, but all the poor fellows did their very best and it would not be fair to punish them. They have been hard at it ever since three o'clock. You might take the four-gallon can, if you like, just to show them that you are come home again, and I dare say you'll be glad of a glass yourself, for the roads are getting dusty. You can come and talk to me when you've been round. Only half a pint each for the women, mind, it would never do to get them into bad habits, unless any of them has a baby. When I had discharged that little duty I told him of all that my aunt had said, and showed him the message to me in the book, if indeed it could be called a message, he shook his head very wisely over this, and told me that he must think about it, for he could not at present see the meaning of it, but he saw that it altered his opinion of the case. You have been up to the cottage already, I see. He continued as I sat quietly after vainly searching once more the columns of his paper the standard, as I daily did. You'll never find any notice there, my boy, nor in any other paper. It is the blackest puzzle I ever came across, and this only makes it the blacker. Mother Bull has come back. He should have said, the Honorable Mrs. Bullrag Fairthorne, I was told so yesterday by that good woman who came down when you were so ill. You know that woman, I mean, Mrs. Wilcox? She was down here yesterday to ask for you, and was very sorry not to find you. She said that if Mother Bull had not been away she could have sworn that it was all her doing, but now she doubts whether she knew anything about it. For when she does a thing she always does it by herself and never trusts anyone with her wicked works. Mrs. Wilcox has not heard a word from your wife, as I need not tell you, but she flies in a fury at the smallest hint that there can be any fault on her part. She says that poor Kitty would never plot anything even if she wished it. Her mind is too simple, and she could never carry out any plan requiring sharp management. I asked her what she thought of it all, and she could think of nothing at all worth speaking of. Only that there is something we don't know, which I could have told her without walking a mile. But I think it might do you good to go and see her, and it would comfort you at any rate, for she holds all your own opinions. And she said one thing which I thought right and sharper than I had expected, or had never had occurred to me, that you should take in one of those scientific journals, which give an account of discoveries and all that, so as to find out if you can where Professor Fairthorne is. How can that do any good? I asked. He had sailed at least ten days before I was forsaken, and while we were down at Baycliff, the telegram from Falmouth proved all that. That is clear enough, and of course he cannot help us while he is far away at sea. But for all that we are bound to let him know if there should be any chance. You would write to him, or write at him, if his daughter was dead, and it is very much the same case now. Uncle Corny, you have the most cold-blooded ways sometimes, though you never mean it. Only I am bound to let him know, if I can, and I ought to have thought of it before, but he has given us little of his company. I will go and see Mrs. Wilcox to-morrow, if only to find out what paper to get, for she will know what they used to take in, and she'll find out what is going on up there, though I don't see how it will help me much. When that dog was stolen from Miss Colpepper, said my uncle without meaning any harm, by some rogue in London, what did she do? Why, she offered a reward at once, and sent posters right and left. And what was the result? Why, the dog came back almost before she had time to miss him. But if he came back without any reward, what could the reward have to do with it? How do you know that no reward was paid? My uncle seemed quite the look suspicious, but perhaps it was my conscience that made him do it. We can't tell what happened between them up there. Certainly not," I replied with haste, but I don't like talking about a dog in the same breath with my kitty. I do not mean to annoy you, Kit," he answered very humbly, although the poor lady may have felt it bitterly in her little way. All I meant was that we might have offered a large reward for any information. It could have done no harm, you know, and it might have come to Kitty's ears and inclined her to come back to us. Men are so glad to save expense. How can you understand such things, as if I could bear to fetch my wife home by jingling a purse before the world? If she won't come back without that, she had better—she had better almost stay away. Very well, I can understand your feelings, and very likely I should have the same. You are like me, Kit, in many things, although a deal more obstinate. My uncle was fond of saying this, but it always took my breath away from the sublimity of his self-ignorance. It was like an oak tree, bidding an osier not to be so gnarled and stiff. Now, remember one thing. He went on, as he saw me smiling just a little. In spite of your stubbornness you shall obey me, or I will know the reason why. You have tried what good hard work would do, and it has done you more harm than good, because your mind has not been in it, and you have only been fretting at every stroke, though you stuck to it like a Briton. Today you are twice the man, because you have had a little change, and seen a little of a different life, and allowed yourself to speak more freely of your sad affairs instead of snapping at everyone who mentioned them. Henceforth you shall never do more than eight hours work in these gardens in one day. I mean, of course, all by yourself. For sixteen hours every day you have avoided everyone and carried on work, work, all alone as if you never meant to speak again. I am pretty tough, but it would have killed me, although I am no chatterbox. And it has gone some way towards killing you. I left you to your own foolish plan because of your confounded obstancy, but now I will try to be as stubborn myself. I will come after you with my supple-jack, unless you give me your word on this, and another thing you must bear in mind. You have taken your good-aunt's money for a particular purpose, and you will have had it on false pretenses if you go on thus. I intend to use it for what she meant. I would never have taken it otherwise. You shall not complain of my sticking too close, but rather of my absence, but I do not draw my weekly money from you unless I have done a good week's work. Tomorrow I shall do very little because I am going to London, and I shall work for an hour or two because I have a job to finish, and I will look in when you are having your last pipe. There was every promise of a fruitful season, though not without plenty to grumble at, for I never knew a season good all round, such as more favoured countries have. After getting myself into working trim I left my lonely little dwelling with the front door so arranged so that any one who knew the trick could enter without knocking, and in the kitchen fireplace, for I never used the parlour now, I left a little coke alight, so that it would smolder on for hours and could soon but the aid of wood and coal be nursed into glow enough to boil the kettle, which stood ready upon the hob, for I always fancied when I went to work that I might find my wife when I should come home making it a home for me once more, and listening to the singing of the kettle, and I left the lane door on Fast and Two that she might have no trouble to get in. Somehow or other I seemed to feel that something strange would befall me that night, but I went about my work as usual. I had a large peach tree to go over for the second time that season fetching every chute into place, checking or sometimes cutting out the over-course and sappy growth, nipping every blistered leaf, removing the fruit where it grew too thick or had no chance of swelling, and offering the many other trivial attentions without which fine fruit may not be. And outside the border on the gravel walk I had the garden engine full of water for the nightly bath, which fruit and foliage and warm weather love as much as vermin hated. The sun had been down for an hour or more and the dusk was deepening into night, and I was just at the point of leaving off for fear of hammering the wrong sort of nail when I heard a little sound, like the scraping of a twig. And turning my head without any great hurry beheld as distinctly as I see this paper, the face of a man looking steadfastly at me. It was a large and solid face, as calm and unmoved as the full moon appears rising out of the haze on a fine summer night. I could see no hat above the face, nor any human figure below it, only a face looking through a gap in a clipped arbor-vito tree, about fifteen yards from where I stood. It was gazing at me quite serenely, and as if I were hardly worth the trouble. Although all the time in my long distress I had wholly lost the sense of fear, bodily fear I mean, and nervous trembling, such as brave men have, this had surprised me more than once. Things that used to make me jump had not the least effect on me. The reason was simply that my life was not of the smallest value to me. And I wondered that I was not frightened now, because I knew that I ought to be. Without even taking my hammer up I leapt across the border to seize this fellow, but my foot caught on something and down I went. A heavy garden-line had been left stretched along by one of our men, who had been making up the edge that day. I knew it was there but had not thought of it in my hurry, and now I was lame in both knees for a minute, for the shock had been very violent. At first I thought that my left leg was broken, but after a bit of rubbing it got better, and I hobbled towards the thuja tree, which had been clipped into the shape of a fiddle by Bill Tompkins. I dragged myself round it but saw no one, nor even a footprint in the waning of the light. Neither was there any sound among the trees beyond it, wondering greatly and very angry with the fellow who had left the line there. I collected my tools with some difficulty and was obliged to leave the tree unsurringed. Then as I went stiffly home I thought of the fuss my kitty would have made to see me in that bleeding hobble, and if I was weak in my body through it I fear that I was weaker still in mind. And of Chapter 42. Chapter 43 of Kit and Kitty by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. Chapter 43 The Great Lady. At this time I slept or lay down to sleep on a couple of good-sized chairs in the kitchen, with a cushion laid along them which had come from my uncle's pew in the Sunbury Church. He had established a new cushion there on the strength of my marriage in Kitty's good clothes, and the old one being stuffed with sound horse hair was not to be despised when upside down. In a save-all risk of rolling I set it against the front legs of the dresser. The door of the room was left wide-opened and the front door also, unless the night was windy, for I had nothing to lose having lost my all, and I only wished that anybody would come and try to rob me. It would have been bad for him unless he had been either Hercules or Ulysses, for I was armed with recklessness and eager to tackle any open foe. This, such as a happy man may feel when he hears a strange noise in the dead of the night, was an unknown power to me now, and I would have fought like a bulldog in his own kennel and enjoyed it. This was not the proper turn of mind for a young man to indulge in. That I knew as well as could be, but the blame lay elsewhere. Although I was very stiff and sore from the business of that awkward fall, and when at daylight to examine the place where the stranger must have stood, the ground was dry and hard just there, but I found enough to show me that I had not been deceived by any trick of the imagination. Not only had the soil been trodden by a foot unlike my own, but the thick mat of the thugetry had some of the lobed leaves, which composed it and stood together like moss compressed, ruffled and crushed into one another as if by the thrust of a heavy form. When I went to the place where I had stood over by the peach-tree, and put my hat on the nail to represent my height, and returning to the clipped tree gazed through the nick of the fiddle at it, just as the face had gazed at me, I was obliged to stoop to bring my eyes to the level at which those eyes had been, which showed me that my visitor had been of some three or four inches lower stature, probably not more than five feet ten. I could not trace his footsteps far, nor make out what kind of boots he wore, except that there was no sign of hobnails such as all our workmen had. It struck me that a man with such a face was not very likely to hurry himself, and the ground bore no traces of hasty flight. Neither were the branches of the plum trees, through which he must have retreated broken. Probably he had retired at his leisure while I was disabled from following. There were no signs of entrance to be discovered at or near the door into Love's Lane, for all our men left work at the time of his visit, and no one had seen any stranger. What on earth had he come for, was the question which arose and could not be answered, there was nothing much to steal just there, for none of the tree-fruit was ripe. And though darkness forbade entire certainty, I felt pretty sure that the owner of that face would call himself a gentleman. It seemed to me better upon the whole to say nothing about the matter for my uncle would probably laugh at it as the product of my imagination, and as for the police I knew too well that they would make nothing out of it. Only it was evident to my mind that this little adventure had some bearing on my trouble, and in spite of the dusk I could swear to that face wherever I should come across it. My uncle would have stopped me from going to London on account of the injuries which I could not hide, for my hands as well as my knees were cut, but I went by the bus, being very lame as yet and unable to walk without aid of a stick. Mrs. Wilcox received me very kindly, and I was glad to find her business thriving, and the sharp boy released from the pots, and growing very useful at the counter. It is done him a deal of good, it has, Mr. Kitt. She said, when I ventured to hint that his employment had not been elevating, he knows every soul that is safe to give tick to, and as for bad shillings, of which I had a dozen, not one that we took since he came back. Ah, what a tradesman he will make! But now, sir, about your poor dear self! No one to stitch your knees better than that. The righteous is always punished in this earth. I told her exactly how things stood, that everything was as dark as ever, that the neighborhood had been searched in vain as might have been expected, that one or two false clues had been followed, not by myself but by the police, and that now I meant to take the matter entirely into my own hands, as I should have done at first except for a private reason which I told her to wit the disappearance of the money. She was angry that this should have been allowed to hinder me even for a day. But when I told her how it weighed upon my spirits and seemed to show that my wife was not at all in her duty to me, Mrs. Wilcox sided with me, and said that every one must do the same, whether I were right in the end or wrong. And then I asked her what she thought, and she said that she was afraid to say, "'Not that I don't know her, sir,' she proceeded when she saw my disappointment, as well as the inside of my own shoe, having had her almost from a bottle, and cut the best of her teeth upon my own thumb. But they changed so when they falls in love as I know from my own experience, though going on then for thirty-five, that to make a prediction comes back on the mouth. I began it already, but it turned out wrong, and I said to myself, "'If you want to be considered above the average as you always was, you better wait and see how the cat jumps first. For that is a way of the women, sir, in general. I was not in the mood to be satisfied with this, especially as she had said the same thing to my uncle as late as last Sunday, and gradually by coaxing her to begin, and then contradicting her upon some little point of fact, I knew her opinions even better than my own, for my own had less to go upon. For it must be borne in mind that most of what I have entered about Sir Cumberlay Hodgepot, and Mr. Donovan Bolrag, comes from knowledge which I obtained long afterwards, and none of it was in my mind yet, beyond what my uncle Corny and Sam Henderson had said, and the little that had been dropped by Kitty, who had scarcely had three weeks as yet to talk. "'Well, I shall do this,' I said at last to Mrs. Wilcox. "'You have told me many things which will enable me to get on. Nothing can be worse than the things are now, and the greatest enemy I have got, if I am good enough to have an enemy, cannot say that I have shown impatience. I have felt enough of it, but nobody knows by myself how close I have kept it. I mean to make no disturbance now, but I shall just go and see the great lady.' "'You'd better not, sir,' cried Mrs. Wilcox. "'You would be like a dummy if she chose to speak out, and the humor might be on her. And you can't get nothing out of her except hard knocks. Hard words break no bones any more than soft ones butter-har snips. I shall go and see her, if I can, and that villain of a son of hers as well. It is my duty to discover where my Kitty's father is. She won't see you, Mr. Kitt, unless it is to triumph over you. She loves doing that, when any one is down. But you won't have a chance of seeing Mr. Downey. They say he is out of the country altogether, although my little teddy swears he saw him Sunday night, and I never knew him to go wrong about a face before. But he must be wrong this time, if there is any truth in words. And generally always he comes down this road whenever he is at home. At any rate I shall ask for him. By the by what is he like, if I should chance to meet him? He have a great square face, sir, like the front of a big head, with a lot of sandy hair just above it and below, and he comes along the road with his eyes half shut just as if there was nothing worth looking at, and his eyes are as yellow as new-run honey, and a few butterspots upon his cheeks, where you can see them. He is a square-built young man, not so tall as you, but thicker, and his legs come after him as he walks, and he looks as if he never could be in a hurry. Thank you. I think I ought to know him now. It would be my own fault, if I don't. Not a pleasant man to look at, if you do him justice, Mrs. Wilcox. No wonder that people don't seem to like him very much. Ever so much worth the deal with, and he is to look at, Mr. Kit. Keep out of his way, sir, that's my advice. I believe he is at the bottom of your trouble, somehow, but what good he can get out of it surpasses me. After begging her to keep a sharp look out and to send for me at once, if she saw anything suspicious, I made the best of my way towards Bullrag Park, and was amazed at the change a few months had wrought. All the wilderness of work stood thick with houses. All the sloughs of Dustbun were firm hard roads. Young trees were in leaf where surveyors' flags had waved, and public houses blazed with glass and gilt where bricks had smoldered. The great exhibition was in full swing, and the long streets were alive with calves and brofums. However, the old house still looked grim and gaunt in its dark retirement, and the scotch furs near it were as black as ever, and I passed with a throbbing heart the bay tree which had sheltered my love and myself from the snow. I ventured to gather a spray of this and put it as a keepsake beside my prayer-book. After two or three rings I was admitted and shone into the place I knew so well, and it seemed to my fancy to be glistening still with the tearful eyes of my darling. Then Miss Geraldine, the younger and more gentle of the daughters, came and looked at me with some surprise, and said that she would show me where her mother was, and I followed her into a morning-room. The great lady looked as well as ever and received me with a statelyness which reminded me of her sister. She was beautifully dressed so far as I could judge, and seemed in high good humor and inclined to patronize me. Mr. Orchardson, I think you said, my dear. Mr. Orchardson, who married our poor kitty. Well, Mr. Orchardson, I hope you are happy. But surely, surely she did not do this. And if she did you must not appeal to us. Sometimes she forgot herself, but still, and quite in the honeymoon. No, I'm sure, it cannot be. I was determined not to be provoked, although it was very hard upon me. This violent woman was pretending to believe that the scratches on my face from last night's fall were inflicted by my dear wife's nails. I did not condescend to answer that. And was certain that she knew I had no kitty now. I have ventured to intrude upon you, I said. Upon a matter of important business, madam, to ask if you will kindly tell me how I can send a letter so as to reach Captain Fairthorne. He is at sea, I know, upon a voyage of exploration or something like that. And it may be very difficult to communicate with him, but I have a very important message. Nothing amiss with your poor wife, I hope. Oh, I should be so grieved if there were anything of that sort. She was flighty and wild, but with all her faults there was much that was good about her. You could never see it, Geraldine, as I did. Please don't tell me, Mr. Orchardson, that after all your goodness to her, for a few would have married her knowing what she was, she has had the heart to deceive you. No, she has never deceived me, madam. There is no deceit in her nature, but for some good reason, doubtless, for the present, she has left me. No one can tell what it cost me to drag out these words to her arch-enemy, who was taking them in like a draft of nectar, not only for the fact which she had known when it occurred, but for the anguish they were costing me. But she kept her countenance, like a mighty actress, that she might quaff her enjoyment at leisure to the dregs. I cannot understand what you say, Mr. Orchardson. It is simply impossible that poor Kitty, that your bride, that your dear wife you were so wrapped up in, should have run away from you? I cannot say whether she ran or walked or how she went, but she is gone. You astound me! Geraldine, you had better leave the room. Such things are not fit for good young girls to listen to. Now Mr. Orchardson, tell me all about it, but first accept my sincere condolence, although as you know I was against the marriage, mainly for your sake, I can assure you. I knew her so well, but so soon, oh, so soon, I could not have expected it even of her. And did she inflict these sad wounds before she went? A tender remembrance? Oh, it is so sad, but one thing I must beg of you, to not be scoured by it? To not conclude, as most young men would, that all women are bad, because this one has proved so ungrateful to you? And after seven years of desertion I believe you will be at liberty to take a better wife. I want no better wife. There could be no better wife. I love her with all my heart, in spite of this mistake, and I will never look at another woman while I live. What a noble husband! How could she run away? And doubtless was some ignoble wretch! No other would have taken her from your arms. But when did it happen? Do tell me all about it. And who has supplanted you so very, very quickly? One would hardly believe it in any story-book. And you, so devoted, oh, how your heart must ache! Do let me order you a glass of wine. No wine, thank you, I cannot tell the story which would only increase your affliction, madam. Only one thing injustice to my wife. No one has supplanted me in her affection. She is as true to me as I am to her. She has been misled by some despicable trick, and by the God of Heaven I will kill the man who did it. No horrible oce before me, young man! Her face, lips and all, turned as white as a sheet as I spoke with the whole fury of my soul in voice and eyes, the wrath of a quiet man wronged of his life. Then we gazed into each other's eyes, till she was obliged to turn away. I could not expect you to have good manners, she said after sitting down and expecting me to begin. If you behaved like this before your wife there might be some excuse for her running away. She has been used to the society of gentlemen, and that she has had in a humble way since she became my wife. You must thank yourself for what I said, for you laboured to goad me up to it. And I mean it, madam. I spoke with no profanity I am not given to swearing. Whoever has done me this foul wrong has ruined my life, and shall pay for it with his own. Give him warning of this if you know who he is, I have nothing more to say than that. Fear for the moment overcame her fury, and I left that house with the firm conviction that my misery as well as my happiness had proceeded from it. CHAPTER 44 Hodgepot Hall has been a fine old place, as anyone would say who looks at it, and it would have been a fine place still if the owners had been of like quality. It takeeth its name, says an old county-book, from a very ancient rule of law, that if sisters be in coparsonary, as erases to land at estate, and one of them hath from the same source a several estate by frank marriage, she shall, as is just and seemly, bring that into Hodgepot, which signifyeth a mixture for a pudding ere ever she can enjoy rites with the rest. Whether that be correct or otherwise is far beyond my power to say, for I know not what frank marriage is, nor for the matter of that coparsonary. But at any rate there stands the house, which savers in some degree of a pudding, being built of many-colored stones, and the people for several generations have taken their name from this old place, though it stands in the midst of a flat and dreary country, with good corn lands spread among desert fens, and fewer and smaller trees than ours, for the glory of middle sex is the noble alms. But the house has the advantage of a fine rise towards it, and a wide and open view for many miles across the level. This gives it the air of an important mansion, and one that deserves to be kept in good repair. But for three generations now the owners have been coming down in the world by reason of bad times as they themselves declared, but as anybody else would say, of their own badness, till the last successor had scarcely the right to call himself the owner. Sir Cumberlay Hatchpot was of good descent, if name may stand for nature, on his mother's as well as his father's side, for his mother had been Lady Frances Cumberlay, the daughter of a north country earl, but she had brought no increase to the family estates and had rather assisted to lessen them. And her son had pursued the same course by gambling and dissipated and rambling life, who was only by sufferance now that he dwelt, when he fled from London creditors in one wing of the old house, till someone could be found who would take it upon a repairing lease, for it could not be sold to advantage. This baronet was cunning, though he was not wise, and in spite of all misfortune he relied on little tricks to keep himself going, while he still hoped to indulge in devices on a larger scale and fetch himself round. He took good care to reap his gains with the keenest promptitude, while he left his losses to be gleaned by very tardy process, and this had tended more than once to impair his popularity. Sam Henderson came and said to me while I was thinking what next to do? After getting the better of one enemy, would you like to see old crumbly pots? Sam had been making money lately and scorned anybody who could not pay up. He might do some good and can do no harm. He's ducking his head among his moats and mirrors, because he was hard hit at Ascot. He owes me five ponies. He was ass enough to back that cursed Sylvester, a nag who lays his ears back the moment he is collared. I'm pretty flush now, and I don't care to squeeze him, but I'm going to the July for one more spree before being tethered finally. He won't dare to show his mug there, but you and I could tattle on to his earth afterwards. I told Sam plainly that I did not understand the meaning of his overture. But he only replied, Then the more fool you, can you understand this, I'm going to the July meeting in Newmarket, where the best two-year-olds of the season come out, and you may see five or six of old chockers string. It would do you a deal of good to see them, and take your mind off your own hat, though you don't know a race horse from your old spanker. If you like to come with me, I will stand Sam, according to the meaning of my name and nature. I shall make another hat full of money there for cockering up the bridesmaids and that sort of thing, and after that we might rout up old Hodgepot. I perceived that Sam's meeting was most friendly, and after consulting Uncle Corny, who thought I had sadly wanted change of scene and a little more experience of the world, I arranged to go with Sam to headquarters, as he called it, and after the racing should be over to proceed to Hodgepot Hall in Lincolnshire. Sam could procure me admittance there, and I longed to come face to face with my old rival. With the racing I was pleased as any man must be a beholding noble animal and hoping that the best of them may win. Of the thousand guiles and wiles that defraud them a fair play I was happy enough to know nothing and believe that the two legs across them were as honest as their fore. Yet I wondered sometimes and it proved how little one may judge of quality by appearance, and how true the holy scriptures are when the horse that seemed likely to be last came first. Of Sam I saw little for he was too busy going the round both of stables and of houses, informing opinion less by eyes than ears, and most of all by his own conscience which told him how he would have acted in the position of the rest. Sam had a conscience not only nimble but extremely sensitive, which enabled him to judge that of other sporting men perhaps less highly gifted. For these he charitably made allowance for giving their defects when he pocketed their money. I have not done so badly, he said on Friday night. I made a fine hit through old Roper. That old chap is worth a mint to me, for I know every twist of his grand old mind. The professionals were cocksure that Columbine was meant, and she should not have lost if she had been. How much of you one, Kit? I put you up neatly. You might have made a hundred without risk of a hair. Well, I only bet half a crown and that I lost. I think Spanker could have beaten most of them. They don't seem to me to go at any pace at all. That is what a greenhorn always thinks. If you were on their backs you would soon find out the difference. Well, let's have some supper and be off by the night mail. Would you look queer? Have you met any one you know, old chap? Not a soul that I know, except Mr. Chalker. And I only know him by sight. But this afternoon I saw a face that I have seen before, though I have no idea who the owner is. I look for you to tell me, but I could not find you. Very likely not. I went to see the saddling. You seem in a way about it. What makes you take it up so? Upon this I told Henderson about the man who gazed at me so through the clipped arborvita, and that now I had seen the same man in the throng on the heath, and could swear to him anywhere. At first he was inclined to laugh and thought I must have dreamed it. But seeing how serious and positive I was he naturally asked how it was I let him go, without at least ascertaining who he was. I told him that I had done my best, and that I believed the man knew me, for our eyes met point blank until he turned his away. And then I pushed through the crowd to seize him, but a fat man on horseback came clearing the course, and a rush of some hundreds of people swept us back, and when I could get out of it the man disappeared. I described him in his dress to the best of my ability, then Sam gave a whistle and said, I don't think it can be. He can scarcely have been here without my knowledge. You recognize him? Who is he? I asked with some excitement. Don't keep it back, Sam. It is most important to me. Well, the face and the hat and the green pearl and the scarf pin remind me uncommonly of Downey Bullrag, though I do not know him very well. And it can hardly be. He is out of England, I am told, and if he had been here I should have met him in the ring, for he always comes to bet, and he is a very deep file, though he knows very little of racing. He comes to invest for old pots sometimes, and it is the only time pot ever makes any money. But he may have gone off when he saw me, I said. He would hardly dare to run the risk of meeting me again. Wouldn't he? It would take ten of you to drive him. Downey Bullrag is the coolest hand I ever came across. I gave him a wide berth myself, for there is nothing but bad luck to be made out of him. He is worse than his mother a thousand times, and everybody knows what she is. And I am very glad you missed him, for he would have had the best of you. Would he indeed? I exclaimed rather hotly. I am not a milk-sop, Sam, and I fear no man on earth when I have reason to believe that he is wronged me. You are strong enough, Kit. Sam returned with some contempt. We are all the way of that, my friend. You are stronger, I dare say, than Downey Bullrag, although he is no chicken. But he is one of the first boxers in England. He has made a hobby of it. He can hold his own with the biggest prize fighters. He could double you up before you got near him. And it's not only that, my boy. Likely enough he would not have touched you, for he never loses his temper, they say. He would have had you up before the bench to-morrow. He can always put anybody in the wrong. Then how should we have gone on tonight? Now it was a lucky thing that you got no chance to tackle him, supposing it was Downey, which I scarce he can believe. All the fellows are gone who could have told me. But I dare say I shall find out in London. Now let us have some grob, or we shall miss our train. Sam Henderson's words sent me pondering deeply. I had not intended to assault that stranger, whoever he might be, but just to bring him to a halt, to make him tell me who he was, and what he meant by coming on the slide of my uncle's garden and watching me in that peculiar manner. Now I felt pretty certain as to who he was, in spite of the difficulties Sam had found about it, if my description tallied so closely with that of Donovan bull-rag, it was likely to be no one else who had come so to spy upon me, for there was the motive at once made plain. The man who had robbed me of my wife would naturally come to see how I bore it, to learn perhaps what sort of adverse area I was, and to gloat upon my lonely misery. I felt delighted when I called to mind that I had indulged in no size or soliloquy that evening, but worked away steadily and even cheerfully whistling every now and then for company to myself. My deadly enemy could not say, O, devil, how miserable he looks! And then why should I have such a bitter enemy? I had never done harm to this bull-rag, except by marrying a young lady upon whom he had set his wicked heart, but who never would have had him, whatever he had done. And again I had defied his mother and thrown her into one of her furious fits, but even if he had heard of that, it could not have moved him to any great wrath. From all I had heard he was not so very deeply attached to his mother, and he must know, as everybody else did, how little was enough to infuriate her. As I thought of all these things in the train as Sam Henderson snoring or rather roaring in his sleep like a celebrated horse who had won a race that day, the only conclusion I could come to was that my case was more mysterious than ever, that some fiendish trick had been played upon my wife and me. But how, and why, and by whom, was more than my simple, half-educated country wits could discover as yet, or perhaps at any future time? All the less I resolved to go on and get to the end of it, whether round or square, whether it might be another sweet circle of happiness or a coffin. And in this state of mind being lifted for the moment out of the body by the hoisting of the mind, I set my hands together, for it was a first-class carriage and it was room to do it, though it seemed to me a showy thing upon the part of Sam when the third-class tickets would have done as well, and I prayed to the Lord which I had not done lately, having found it lead to nothing, that he would interfere and not allow everything to be under the control of the evil one. After that I felt better, for faith is a fruit-tree which requires, in a common soil, the choicest cultivation. Here we are! cried Sam, who could sleep by the mile and be wide awake at the direction post. Just look to our bags while they see about a trap. We have five miles to drive when we put up at old Crankies. There we have a shakedown and I fair to want it, as the folk in this part of the world express it. They all know me here, and they have a black mare who can travel. For five miles we drove through a sleepy-looking land with scarcely anybody yet to stir, but a multitude of birds quite wide awake. And then we put up at a wayside inn where Sam seemed, as usual, to be well known. He told me to take it easy, and he set a fine example for he very soon peopled the house with his sleep, while I wandered about to see how the land lay. Pots is never up till twelve o'clock, Sam explained at breakfast time. So you see we may just well keep our hay and cocks. I say, Cranky! he addressed the landlord, who was coming in and out, having no maid to attend to us. What's his name been coming down this way, lately? Fancy we saw something of him yesterday? No, sir, none a sign of him, since you was here last. They don't seem to hit it off together as they did. These ways that was what my misses heard. More chance of honest people coming by their due. How much does sir Cumberlay owe you, Cranky? Take thy bill and write down quickly. Or sir would take a week to make it out, and what good would come of it when done? Sir Cumberlay never pays nobody, no more than his father before him. It were vain of my part to attempt to express the long suffering of Mr. Cranky's drawl. These are wonderful fellows, Sam declared aloud to me while the landlord looked at him as if to say, and so are you, and then turned to me to see if I were likewise. They never seemed to expect to get their money from their butters, as they call them. That cock would never fight in our part of the world. Any lady been down at the hall this summer, Cranky? I mean any one who has never been before? You need not be afraid of telling me, you know, I am an old friend of sir Cumberlay. This question was put in such a common sort of way that I dropped my knife in fork and looked furiously at Sam, for I knew what he meant and it appeared to me too bad. No, sir! answered Cranky, leaning over him confidentially as if he were uncertain about speaking before me. None but the two has come last winter, and not so very much of them. My Mrs. did hear as sir Cumberlay were going to pull up and to enter into holy matrimony with a beautiful young lady from London Town, as had sixty thousand pounds of her own, and then we should all be paid on the nail in full, and the hall was to be made new, and I know not what. But I said it was too good to be true, and so it seemeth. Hope for ever, good Cranky! Hope can do no harm to the hotspot arms! But how goes the time? We are going to call upon this reform, gentlemen, as soon as he is up. CHAPTER 45 ROGES FALL OUT As we walk very slowly through the wilderness of Thessels which had once been a fair park, trimly kept, and disturbed the mind of Sam, which was busy with obtruse calculations of all sorts of odds, by asking rather suddenly what I was to say and how I should conduct myself in the presence of this man, for I felt a deep dislike to him, not only because he had been such a plague to kitty, but on account of his bad character in loose ways, and my ill will towards him had been increased by his cowardly treatment, as it seemed to me, of the patient people round him and encroachment on their loyalty. You mustn't ask me, my dear fellow, answered Sam. The thing is out of my line altogether. You wanted to see him, and here he is. I must leave you to the light of nature, although he is rather a dark specimen. Perhaps he knows nothing about your trouble, but he is up to most downy bull-rags tricks, or at any rate knows when to suspect him, and if he is head or raw with bull-rag and can see his way to harm him, he will do it. For Potts is a very spiteful fellow. You had better appear first as my companion. I can manage not to let him catch your name, for he is rather hard of hearing, although he won't allow it. I shall work matters round till downy's name comes up, and your business will be to hold your tongue and listen until you can strike in with advantage. You will see me, I think, because I wrote to tell him that I had a little money for him. There is nothing like that to fetch Potts. After a little reconnoitering from a window at the flank, we were admitted by an ancient footman, who looked as if he never got his wages, and shone into a shabby room, fusty, damp, and comfortless. Here we waited nearly half an hour, while Henderson drummed on the floor with his stick, and at last began to blow a horn which he had found behind a looking-glass. Then the master of the house appeared and shook hands with Sam and bowed to me. It is easy enough to introduce a stranger so that his name shall be still unknown, and Sir Cumberlay, not being quick of hearing, received my name as Johnson. On the turf, he inquired, and Sam said, Yes, he has been on it every day this week. Which was true enough in months since, and I long to be back in a garden again, where we grow rogues but nothing like so many. Very glad to see you, very glad indeed, young sir. This gentleman offered his hand as he spoke, but I bowed as if I had not seen it. It may be a stupid bit of prigary, but no man's hand comes into mine while I am longing to smite him in the face, and I could not help smiling at our host's new manners, so different entirely from what he showed in London, unless he had been vastly misdescribed to me. He pretended now to dignity and distance in a fine amount of grandeur, for no other reason that I could guess except that he was upon his native soil, reading the air of his ancestral vaults, and cheating folk who let him cheat because his fathers did it. But all this air of loftiness had no effect on Sam, who had rubbed whiskers many times even with a duke when their minds were moving on a good thing together. I got a bit of rhino for you, Potts. He said, and I thought it showed little good taste on his part for Sam's ancestors had been stable boys, and I have always been a good conservative. Not so much as I could wish, but every little is a help, and everybody says that you are awfully hard up. Hope it isn't true, but we must have seen you at the July if you had been at all flush. I have not been very fortunate of late, replied the Baronet still keeping his dignity on my account, and my property here has been much impaired by a lot of things that did not come off. I was not at new market because I intend to have nothing more to do with racing matters, which I must leave to people who are sharper than myself, and have different views of integrity, but anything really do to me. Perhaps I'd better not say any more about it," Hennison's black eyes were twinkling with contempt. I had no right property to receive the money, and if I had thought twice about it I should have refused, for I had no commission from you to collect it. But Georgie Roberts knew that I was coming to see you and knowing me so well he took my receipt upon your behalf, because he was anxious to square up. I'll just return it to him, and he can send you a check. I heard a thing afterwards that put me in the wrong. Bullrag is a proper chap to act for you, and he seems to have been there after all, but he cannot have turned up till Friday. I'll send back these notes and his receipt to Georgie. Sam put away his pocketbook and looked contented, but Sir Cumberlay did not see it so. No, Sam, no. Business is business. I'll write you a receipt. How much did you say it was? Let me see, I forget these trifles. Somewhere about eighty-five, if I remember? Forty-five," said Sam, and I was struck with the amount, because it was a very sum that had so grieved me. He had forty against you upon the Levant. Downey managed that for you. Downey Bullrag never did me any good, and he never will, so the Baronet sternly, yet looking round as if afraid of echoes, he is always getting me into some vile scrape. For instance about the young lady at Hounslow, did he carry on any more with that affair? Sam put this question in the most offhanded manner, just as if he had said any news to-day, but being unused to any mystery unshuffling, I looked for the answer with extreme anxiety, and Sir Cumberlay observed it, and was put on his guard. How can I tell? I know nothing of his doings. He answered with his eyes on me while speaking to my friend. Downey is too deep for me. He is always up to something. Mr. Johnson, do you know him? You almost look as if you did. No, I could never have had that honour. I answered as calmly as I could. I live in the country and have little to do with London, except when I am there on business. Very well, then. I may tell you, Henderson. Our host continued as he put aside the notes after counting them and giving his receipt. That Mr. Downey has not behaved of late in a very friendly matter towards myself. He has not the high principle, I am afraid, as has always governed my conduct, at least in all matters of friendship and money. My rule is rather to wrong myself than any other living being. We have held these estates for some centuries, Mr. Johnson, and no watch-bot has ever yet sullied the name. Fortune has continually been against us, but we have borne ourselves bravely and won universal esteem and even affection. I never praised myself, but when my time is over, the same thing will always be said of me. He spoke with such firm conviction that I was impressed with his words and began to feel sure that report must have wronged him, until I thought of Kitty, who was no harsh judge of character. Here, here, cried Sam, you have done it well, bots. After that you can scarcely do less than invite us to drink your good health in a bottle of champagne. And I will, with pleasure. Only you must excuse me while I see to it myself. The hot spots are down in the world, Mr. Johnson, because we could never curry favour. We cannot keep our butlers and our coach and fore in our dear park as we used to. Instead of that I keep the key of my own cellar, but I feel no shame in that. The shame lies rather, look sharp, old chap, I'm as dry as a herring. Sam was always rough and rude in his discourse, and Sir Cumberlay set off with a significant glance at me. He has taken a liking to you, the old rogue. Henderson informed me when the door was shut, because he believes that you suck all his brag in like a child. You stick to that, it suits you well. For your face is no end of innocent. An old stoop like that can be buttered up to anything if it is laid on by the right card. You don't suck up to him, you see, but you let him suck up to himself. We shall draw him of everything he knows and what matters more, everything he suspects. Only you leave the whip hand to me, green as you are, and green as you will be to the last. You are all together out in that, I said, though I knew it was hopeless to reason with him. You fellows who see such a lot of fast life are none the more sagacious for it. You doubt what everybody says, unless you can find a bad motive for it, and you generally go wrong in the end because you can only see black all round. But if this is a black sheep, you take the shearing of him. Only I hate to go under a wrong name. These words of mine prove that I was not a fool, at least to my own satisfaction. Sam stared at me as much to say, There is more in you than I thought there was. But I did not care to press the point, for he might take a huff and say, Do it yourself, then. Only I resolve to listen carefully and see if there was anything to be learned, and before he could answer our host returned with a bottle of champagne under each arm, and the old retainer following with glasses and a corkscrew having a blade attached to it. And I thought that he could not be bad altogether, but must at least have intervals. Anderson, will you oblige me by being our—what's his name?—Diamede or something? I have a touch of rheumatism in one wrist. No corkscrew wanted if the cork is cork and not wood as great many of them are, but he understands it. Well done, Sam! Fill for Mr. Johnson first. Ah, this is a right start. Now we know where we're up to, Mr. Johnson. You're good health and the same to you, Sam. Sir Cumberlay hears confusion to your enemies, cried Sam, standing up to give force to it, and especially to one whom I could name. Ah, he has led you a pretty dance and feathered his own nest out of it. However, we won't say any more about him. A Downey fellow can't help being Downey. Every man for his own hand in this little world. Sam, you know more than you have said. You go about more than I do now. Do you mean to say that he has let me in purposely? No, I never could believe that he would do it. It looks rather queer, but it must be straight enough. No doubt everything can be explained. You remember about flying ghosts, at least? They began to talk a quantity of racing stuff which was nothing but jargon to me, till Sir Cumberlay rose from his chair and struck the table, glaring with his eyes and turning purple in the face. Then his name is not Bullragma Blockard! He exclaimed, turning round to me, to attest it. And as soon as we meet, I shall tell him so. Then he swore a round of oaths which were of no effect but to hurt himself and turn up the corners of the pity we were spreading for him. But what had he lost? Money only. I had lost more. I held my tongue. You must not be too hard upon him! Sam began to soften to make him harder. Every man for his own hand. Fair play, Pots! You would do it yourself. Not for anyone who trusted me. That makes all the difference. He thinks he can do what he likes with me. He shall find the difference. I know a trick or two of his that would send him to the double, if I let out. Well, we won't talk about any secrets now, said Sam, as cool as a cucumber while I was like a red-hot iron. It is private affairs and no concern of ours, and we don't want to hear of them. Johnson is of every steady going chap, with a wife and six kids. We won't corrupt him, Pots. Not much fear of that if he is on the turf. Sir Cumberlay replied with a wink at me. See a good bit of the world there, don't you, Mr. Johnson? I nodded my head and turned away, for I never was much of an actor, and now I could not trust my voice for words. But Sir Cumberlay was full of his own wrongs, as I was of mine in a different way. I know a thing or two. He went on, becoming more determined as we feigned to check him. That would stop his little tricks for a time to come. He would have to be off to the Continent again if I were to treat him as he deserves. And don't do it, Pots. Forgive and forget, that's the proper tip nowadays. Who doesn't try to let you in? It is no concern of mine, but let us talk of something else. I dare say he is a good fellow after all. Is he? cried Sir Cumberlay, working himself up. I may have done a thing or two of my time, but I never harmed man or woman out of pure spite. Every man must consider his own interest and try to hurt no one when it does not help himself. That is my idea, the rule of life. But it is not, Master Downeyes, I can tell you that. Never mind, old fellow, let us drink his good health. Sam lifted his glass, but our host sat down his. Whenever I hear a poor fellow run down I begin to think of all that is good in him, and I don't believe Downey would hurt anyone unless he was obliged to do it on his own account. He made a pot of money and he dropped a bit of yours. But you must not score against him for a little thing like that. It is useless to talk to you, Henderson. You have not been hit, and you may whistle over it, but I'll just ask Mr. Johnson what he thinks, for I can see that he is a man of proper feeling. Now, what should you say, Mr. Johnson, of a fellow who wanted to marry a girl who did not like him because he thought she had a lot of money? And then when she married a very quiet man who took her without a half-penny, could not let them be happy with one another, but got up some infernal scheme to separate them. I should say he was a scoundrel too bad to be hanged, I answered with warmth unaffected. And I was going to say more, but Sam checked me with a glance. Oh, come, no fellow would ever do such a thing as that! he spoke with contemptuous disbelief. Any man must be a fool who would get into such a scrape for nothing. And down he bull-ruggers a fool, as well as what you called him, Mr. Johnson. I could tell you the story if I chose, or at least I could tell you a part of it, but it would not interest you, and it is a long in and out of rascality. Well, I won't say any more about it, and I don't know how he managed it, and he will have a score to settle about that some day. And he will, and a bitter one. I began with hands clenched and heart throbbing, but Sam kicked me under the table and whispered while Sir Cumberlay was reaching for another bottle. Don't be such a gone idiot! Leave it to me, can't you? I should have thought down he was too sharp for that. Sam stroked his chin and looked skeptical. Of course, I don't know him as you do, Potts, but I should have thought he was about the last man you could find to risk his hide for mere lockiness. I don't know that he risked very much. Young man is in the agricultural line, and they are fair game for anyone who have been so for the last twenty years. You may stamp on those fellows, and they'd rather like it. By George, if we treated the mill owners so, they would have marched upon London long ago, but a fellow with no kick in him must expect to get plenty of it from his neighbors. These were my sentiments to a hare, coming straight to me from Uncle Corny, and at any other time I should have struck in boldly with larger capacity of speech than thought, but to him who has no home to defend politics are a tinkling symbol, instead of a loaded cannon. Well, part of the world was it in, Sam Henderson asked that the subject might not slip away. That sort of thing would never do in our part of the world, though we call ourselves pretty rural still. Well, I don't know exactly where it was, and we had better not say any more about it. Sir Cumberlay became suspicious at the first sign of direct inquiry. After all, I dare say there was no harm done, and perhaps a young fellow was glad to be quit of all before she had time to run up any bills. Although she was a devilish nice girl, I believe. But who could want more than three weeks of any woman, except for the sake of her tin, of course? Mr. Johnson, you agree with me about that, I can see? Nothing of the sort, I answered sternly, forgetting how I wrecked my purpose by my indignation. A good wife is the greatest blessing any man can have, and a man who robs him of her is no man, but is a devil. He had better set Johnson after your friend Downey. Sam Henderson struck in as Sir Cumberlay stared at me. He see how a Benedict regards the subject, and I shall have to be of his opinion soon. Next week I shall lead to the Hymeniel Halter. Who do you think? Give you three guesses, and lay if I ever you don't hit it. Done with you! cried our host, for I believe he knew. Three chances, Mr. Johnson, you heard what he said. Number one, violent hunter, such a stunning girl. Wrong! Try again, no vile hunter for me. Wouldn't have her if she was dipped in diamonds. Well, then, must be Gertie Triggs, a fine young woman, and five thousand pounds. Wrong again. Only one more to go. Have your flimsy ready. Oh, I say, it can't be Sally Chalker. That would be too much luck for a chap like you. It is Sally Chalker a no mistake, although I'll trouble you to call her Miss Chalker Pots, until she is Mrs. Henderson, and I'd like to see any fellow come between us. And over, said Mr. Cumberlay. Well, Sam, you are in luck. What a lot of things you will put us up to, then. Here's to your happiness. Well, this is good news, indeed. Stop the dinner, we can have it early. But Sam declined the honor, and we soon set forth for home, as nothing more could be extracted from our host, concerning the matter which had brought us here. And Sam, who understood him pretty thoroughly, felt sure that he had already told us all he knew, and perhaps even more in the way of mere suspicion. CHAPTER 46 TONK'S I once met a man who was a mighty swimmer, spending half his waking time in the water, and even sleeping there sometimes according to his own account, though I find it rather hard to believe that altogether. But one thing he told me, which I do believe, because it is not so far out of the way, and the same thing might have happened to myself, almost. He had made a wager to swim across one of those inlets, or arms of the sea which may be found upon our western coast, where the tide runs in with great force and speed over a vast expanse of sands. The distance from headland to headland was less than he had often been able to traverse. But, being a stranger on that coast, he had not reckoned, as he should have done, upon the power and strong swirl of the tide. By these he was soon so swung about and almost carried under that the sand hills where the people stood to watch him stood still themselves, instead of slowly gliding by, and a yellow current flaked with white across which he was striving, seemed to be the only thing that moved. He began to doubt about his destination, whether in this world or the next, for the cup of his hands as he fetched them back and the concave impulse of his feet as he spread his toes behind him, seemed to tell nothing upon the vast body of water he was involved in. There was no slide of surface along his shoulder blades, as his chin rose and fell at each laboring stroke. Without budging an inch from the deep or the rise he began to feel that he was beaten, and a quiet resignation sank into the stoutness of his heart, such as a brave man feels at death. And he never would have lived to tell the tale, except for a big voice from the shore, the voice of the very man who had the money hanging on it. Put your feet down, Tom! he cried. For God's sake, put your feet down! The vanquished swimmer put his feet down, though he thought it was his death to do it. And there he felt firm sand, and stood with the tide which had threatened to engulf him rippling around his panting breast and lapping his poor weary arms. There happened to be a spit of sand there far away from the shore and rock and known to the boatman only. There he stood and renewed his strength with cheers of encouragement from the shore. And then as the rush of the tide was slackening after filling the depths in shore he drew his chest forward upon the water and fought his way safely to the landing-place. But I would not take the money, he said. If I had taken that man's money I should have deserved to be drowned next time. This appeared to me to be a noble tale, showing goodness on both sides which is the true nobility. And it came to my memory now because it seemed to apply to my present state. I had battled long with unknown waters, and against the tide too strong for me, and now, though still far away from land, I had obtained firm footing. By what cross-purpose and crooked inrush my power and pride had been washed away was a question still as dark as ever. But now I could rest on the firm conviction, which had been only faith before, that my kitty still was true to me, though beguiled by some low stratagem. And I knew pretty surely who had done it, though it might be very hard to prove. Don't lose a day! said Uncle Corny when I told him all we had done and heard. Never mind me or the garden. You can make up for all that by and by, and you have left your part in first-rate order. That scoundrel follows in his mother's track, but he is ten times worse than she is because he keeps his temper. You must try to do the same, my lad. You would never do to have a row with him, and to take him by the throat as he deserves. There is nothing you can prove at present, and the moment that he knows that you suspect him, he will double all his wiles and dodges. You might even make away with your poor wife. You would rather do that than you regain her and convict him of his tricks. Bad as he is he could never do that. I cannot believe that any person living who knows what kitty is could raise his hand against her. But the wonder is, where can he have put her? Gentle as she is she is not a fool. She would never submit to be restrained by force. And all that sort of thing is quite out of date now at any rate in England. So people suppose. But stranger things are done even in this country still. You may even have got her in a lunatic asylum after driving her out of her senses first, or more likely still on the Continent somewhere. Why, they do worse things than that in Spain and Italy too, from what I have heard. And as for Turkey, why, bless my heart, they keep the women in sacks and feed them till they are fat enough for the Sultan. And you heard that he is gone abroad. Mrs. Wilcox said so. That is what he has done with her. You may depend upon it. But she would not have traveled with him, Uncle. You would not have dared to take her into any public place. But don't talk about it, it drives me wild. I see nothing to do but to force him to confess to get him away somewhere by himself and hold a pistol to his head. A black-art is always a coward, you know. Nine out of ten are, but the tenth is not, my uncle replied sententiously. No sort of violence will serve our turn. We must try to be crafty as he is. The only plan I can see is to have him watched, followed everywhere without his knowledge, and not put upon his guard by a syllable from us. We had no reason to do that till now, but now we have, for I feel pretty sure that old Hodgepot was right. You ought to have got more out of him. It was not to be done. We tried everything. And I believe he knows no more than this. That before they quarreled the younger villain made a boast of it that he would have his revenge, but never let out what his plan was. And when Hodgepot heard that it had been done, he naturally concluded who had done it. When we compared notes Sam and I agreed that in all probability there is nothing more than that. It is very unlucky for us, said my uncle, that Henderson is going to be married so soon. We cannot expect him to help us any more for a long time to come. And he has twice the head that you have. I don't mean to say for useful work for there you would beat him hollow, but for plotting and scheming and all sorts of dirty tricks. He has been brought up to those things from the cradle and he can tell a lie splendidly which you cannot. You are much too simple and truthful, Kit, just as I am, for dealing with rogues and naves. And he knows a lot more of the bad world than we do. He is hand in glove also with a host of swells such as you and I never spoke to. Why, I never shook hands with a lord in my life, although I should do it like a man if he offered, mind, for I should wait for that. And you are in the same condition. Not a bit of it. I shook hands with two at Newmarket and they seemed to think very well of me, for that reminds me that I met the very man for our job if he would undertake it, and I believe he would if we paid him well. For spying on bull-rag, you mean, Kit? I can't bear the idea of spying even on that fellow. But I fear we must make up our minds to it, just as the police watch a murderer. And as for the cost of it I would go half, and I am sure your Aunt Parslow would pay the other half. But what makes you think that he would suit a very sharp fellow as wanted, mind, not a bit like Celsy Bill? If it must be done he is the very man, but you shall not pay a far thing, Uncle Corny. You have plenty to do with your money. At any rate I will not ask you until I have spent all I have for the purpose. Your advice is quite enough for you to give and it is worth more than money. See what I should have done without you now. I had made up my mind to pursue that fellow and seize him and shake the truth out of him. But I should only have shaken out a heap of lies and probably got locked up for my trouble. But I see that your plan is the only wise one. You are a sensible young fellow, Kit, when you have good advisers. But who is this man of craft you're speaking of and how has he got experience for a job like this? He has been brought up to every kind of nasty work and the nastier it is the more he likes it. He is a spy on horses to watch him on their trails and sneak into their boxes and learn everything they think of. It seems to be a regular profession where they keep race horses and Sam knows all about this man. They call him touts or ditch frogs or sky blinkers or a half a dozen other names. But they get well paid and they don't care. His name or nickname is Tony Tonks, which he takes from some storybook, I believe. He is a very queer sort of fellow if you saw him once you would know him always, but not a bit like any of our folk down here. Sam says he could canter around any of his chaps, and he would try to afford him if he did crooked work, but Tony is a costly luxury. Never mind the cost your aunt shall pay, she has nothing to do with all her cash except to blow it on a lot of dogs like footballs. But is this Tony to be trusted? He might be a jack of both sides. It is just what he isn't, and that is how he gets double the wages of any other tout. He puts his whole heart into anything he takes up and yet he is cool as a weasel. He makes a point of honor of winning, Sam told me, and he would rather pay money out of his own pocket than be beaten whenever he takes up a job, and he is very small. He can slip in and out while people say, oh, what boy was that? But I doubt whether he would take up this. He would have made a wonderful jockey, I was told, and he rides as well as the best of them, but he loses his head when he is put upon a horse, or he might be now making ten thousand a year. Nobody can explain such things. Nobody can explain anything, my hunkle replied with his usual wisdom. Look at me! I have been in a garden all my life, and I have kept my eyes open, and I am no fool. But if you ask what a canker is in an apple-tree or pear or blister in a peach or silver leaf or shanking in grapes, or sudden death in a moor-park, or fifty other things that we meet with every day, all I can say is, go and ask the men of science, and if two of them tell you the same thing, believe it. No, my lad, we know nothing yet, though we find bigger words than used to serve the turn. Have you told young Henderson that you would like to try this fellow, Tony Tonks? No, I never thought of it, until just now, when you suggested that the villain should be watched, to find out where he goes, and all his dirty doings. It is fair play with such a deadly sneak, but for all that I hate the thought of it. We must meet the devil with his own weapons. Sam is going to be married at Ludred, I suppose. Yes, next Thursday, and I have promised to be there, although it would be a bad time for me. Never mind, Kit, you shall have your time again, as I have told you more than once. I am an old man now and have seen a lot of wickedness, but I never knew it triumph in the end. Go up at once to Halliford and get your friend to write to this fellow by the afternoon post. We might have him here to-morrow night, and settle matters with him while we have Henderson to help us. I was lucky enough to find Henderson at home, and he entered into our plan with Zeal, for he had his own grudge with Bolrag, but he told me that we must be prepared apart with a heap of money if we began it, and he could not tell how long it might last. I answered that we had a good bank to draw on, and that I should be able to repay it in the end out of my own little property, which I should insist upon doing. Tony will want five pounds a week, and all expense is covered, and you may put that probably a five pounds more. Sam looked as if he thought I could not afford it, and then if he does any good he will expect a handsome tip, and you must let him have his own head. He is the best man in England for the job if he will take it. And perhaps he will. There is nothing on now in his line of business much till the ledger comes on. Tony will do a good deal for me. I shall put it as a personal favor, you know, but we won't tell him what it is until he comes to see. Busy as he was with his own affairs Henderson wrote to the great horse watcher in receiving reply by telegraph we met him at Feltham the following afternoon, and after showing him all over his own places brought him to supper with us at my uncle's cottage at nine o'clock, as had been arranged in the morning, and it was as good as a play as we express it, and better than most of the French plays now in vogue to see my solid uncle with his English contempt for a spy in strong habit of speaking his mind, yet doing his utmost to be hospitable and checking himself in his blunt deliveries, and catching up any words that might be too honest for the convenience of his visitor. He told me afterwards that he felt like a rogue and was afraid of sitting square to his own table. The visitor, however, did not in the least appreciate his exertions or even perceive their existence. He was perfectly contented with his own moral state, and although he said little, I could almost have believed that he regarded my good uncle with as much superiority as was Felth, but not shown towards himself, and his principal ambition was to take in a good supper. Being concerned more than all the rest in his qualities I observed him closely and became disappointed when he said nothing of any particular astuteness. But perhaps like most men do, who have to work with their brains hard, he allowed them a holiday when off duty, and cared very little what was thought of them then. But they came up to the scratch at signal. And although he said little, what he said was to the point, and he did not expend great ability in proving, as most men do, that two and two make four. His outer man was of such puny build that when he sapped on my uncle's elbow it seemed as if he might have jumped into the big pocket, wherein the fruit grower was wont to carry a hammer, a stick of string, a twist of bast, a spectacle case full of wall nails, a peach knife, a pair of clips, little copper wire, and a few other things to suit the season, according to its latest needs. Tony Tonks glanced every now and then with great curiosity at my uncle, and had his pocket which was hanging with its weight under the arm of a curved Windsor chair, as a fisherman likes to see his bag hang down but only once in his lifetime has that pleasure. But though Tony Tonks might go, more readily than the fish who won't come at all, into that pocket, nature had provided him with compensation for his want of magnitude. He never lived a very small man yet who was not, in his own opinion, big, great qualities combined in him of mind and soul and even of the body for the sake of paradox, so that no one knows what he can amount to but himself, and as the looking glass presents us with ourselves at wrong, so the mirror of the man who weighs but half the proper weight may exalt him to the ceiling if he slopes it to his mind. Tony spoke little, but he spoke with weight and expected to be followed closely when he gave us anything, and it became pleasant to behold my uncle gradually forming a great opinion of him because he was not offered much to build it on. Sam Henderson nodded very knowingly to me and I returned it with a wink behind my uncle Corny's head. When the pipes were put upon the table and the grower took the clean one he intended for himself and gave it with a grunt at his own generosity to Tonks. Now we all know where we are, began my uncle as if a puffing pipe had been the cloudy pillar. The best thing, as I have always found in life, is for people to know what they are at, before they do it. Tony Tonks nodded and my uncle was well pleased, both to have the discourse to himself and to perceive that the visitor smoked slowly and could dwell upon good things. You give us your experience and skill for the period of one month at least if needful, for the sum of five pounds a week payable in advance as well as travelling expenses if required in lodgings. You report to us by post when there is anything to tell, and you come down at the end of every week to let us know how you get on, and to draw your money for the next week, and you attend to nothing else but the job you are engaged on. Nothing else. Never take two things in hand at once. And the business you undertake for us is to find out everything that can be found about the doings of Donovan Bolrag. Where he goes, who his companions are, what messages he receives or sends, how he employs his time, what he is up to, everything about him that is of interest to us. It seems a nasty, shabby thing, but he has brought it on himself. We can't bear doing it, but it must be done. Nothing shabby in it, Tonks exclaimed the spirit in a quick flash of his small gray eyes. Tricky people must be tricked. And a man who has wronged another man, said my uncle, putting it on a larger footing, as that low scoundrel has wronged us, has put himself outside of all honour. You know the man very well by sight, I believe. And by more than sight, answered Tony, in a voice that made us look at him, but he offered no explanation. We did not ask him what he meant, but concluded that he had his own bone to pick with his crafty enemy.