 CHAPTER 54 PRINCES MANCHAN When any man has once got into a racing state of mind it is not fair to his bodily health to keep him in a wheat field. Sam Henderson had been expected by his bride and her female relatives to walk about in country places and sit on stiles and admire the moon like a young man from Whitechapel coming to feel his way to be a teacher. Sam had borne it pretty well as a thing not likely to come twice, till he found it too much to come once, for he was not of my quiet nature and still less could it be supposed that his sally was like my kitty. He went off to some races at York, I think, or somewhere nicely convenient for they were on the eastern coast, and he offered as fairly as a man could do to let his bride come with him. But she said she saw too much of horses at home and preferred to remain with her landlady. He thought that she was too independent and she thought the same of him, but they soon made up that little matter and came home to Halliford as affectionate as need be. Sam was beginning to boast about his condition prematurely if any friend of his replied to his sudden invitations. Sam, I should be most delighted, but it might be inconvenient, you know, to Mrs. Henderson. Sam would look at him with a laugh and say, The best soul living, my dear boy, always proud to welcome any friend of mine at any time. We pull together and no mistake. You may come with your coat on inside out and she won't say a word till I do. To this I listen very gravely, knowing what a good wife is, but doubting whether it can be wise to take such liberties with her. And I knew that Sam was a pleasant fellow, probably because of his bounce and brag, whatever belonged to him became pure gold or glittering jewel, as there are oriental gems which glow at the touch of the owner. Nobody had such dogs or horses, nobody had such clever men. And now we were to believe that no one had ever owned such a wonder of a wife. Let's go and see how they get on, I said to my uncle Corny when a grand invitation on gilt paper was brought by a man in a pink silk jacket, riding a horse full of ringlets. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson begged to be favored with the company of Mr. Orchardson and his nephew Mr. Christopher Orchardson at dinner at half-past six o'clock on Tuesday the twelfth instant. And look at the top-and-gold letters, Uncle, Prince's Mansion, Halliford. Prince's Mansion! cried my uncle. Get my specs or I won't believe it. Well, there are fools in this world. I knew they had got into that old ramshackle house that was leapt to some foreign fellow who bolted from his creditors. Prince's Mansion! Oh, my goodness! Why don't they say Windsor Castle? You may go if you'd like, but you don't catch me. And half-past six I wouldn't wait till then. It's too late for dinner and too early for supper. You go and see them and say I won't come. But it must be answered on paper, Uncle, and you must never say you won't come. You must say you can't. I'm not going to tell any lie about it. I can go well enough if I choose, but I don't. You suppose that I don't know how to behave? I can behave as well as the best of them. You have got a blue coat with brass buttons, I said on purpose to irritate him. It was the fashion twenty years ago, but I'm afraid you have got too fat for it. You're getting horribly cheeky, Kit. You're catching it from that Henderson. What would Kitty say if she were here? There I never meant to vex you, lad. I will go if that will please you. When the great day came my uncle looked as well as the very best of them. He had an old Sunday coat let out, for he would not buy a new one. And he wore his big watch with three gold seals and black silk stockings and knee-breaches. Also he had a velvet waistcoat, double-breasted with coral buttons, which he had bought for my wedding-day, and a frilled shirt and his white curls brushed in a very becoming frizzle. I looketh like a bishop, old Tabby pronounced, though perhaps she had never seen one. But no bishop hath not got such legs as this he. And Parslow, as an old friend of Sally Chalker, was invited specially and came over in style with a pair of horses and her dinner-dress done up in a long silken package. She called to my uncles on her way to Prince's mansion, and they laughed so that I was surprised at their manners, considering who was to feed them that day. But perhaps they felt no gratitude before they got it. It was a good step to Sam's house, for Prince's mansion stood in the upper part of his grounds, nearly half a mile from his doctor's shop, as he called the place where he had feasted me and where he had been content to live. Though the days were now getting short again, and our road led away from the village it was likely enough that we might come across neighbors, who would be astonished at my uncle's appearance, and could hardly fail to run home and publish throughout the village that the grower was out of his right mind at last. To save any difficulty about this we sent for Sims and his ancient fly in putting up the windows went in state to the dinner at Prince's mansion. My uncle had been positive and almost snappish in asserting his knowledge of the world, and I had given him credit on the strength of that for knowing almost everything, but now he showed signs of some anxiety and doubt as we passed through the gate at the beginning of the drive, and he glanced at his nails which were a steady brown and his knuckles which resembled doorknobs. There won't be any ladies, of course," he said. Besides Mrs. Sam and Aunt Parslow, just look to my collar, this side-kit, it seems to cut uncommon hard. Ladies, I replied, why there'll be a dozen according to what Sam said yesterday. There are three Miss Chalkers, Sally's aunts, and three Miss Kemp's, her cousins, and Mrs. Spry from Tonebridge Wells, and three or four racing ladies, and a very fashionable one, and very beautiful, I believe, whose name is Lady Kickloose. So you see your velvet waistcoat won't be wasted, Uncle Corny. If I had known this, I would have stopped at home. I shall have one on each arm. I like people to talk with that I know all about. By the by, I forget which arm is considered the most polite to walk with. It does not matter much, but you would do very well if you don't begin to tell any of your long stories. People won't have them now. All they care for is what they call general conversation. If I am not allowed to tell my old stories, my uncle replied indignantly, all I can do is hold my tongue. What is good of bits and splinters? You can't make anybody laugh like that. You must take your time and let them think what's coming. It's just the same as carrying a pint of beer. If you are jogged on the elbow, all the froth runs over. I give a man his time, and I like to have my own. To be sure, though, I'll be glad enough to listen to you, when they have had their own talk out. But one thing I want you to do particularly, you are so sharp in seeing everything, you observe so much better than I do. But you can't expect to be equal to me yet. Though you are not a fool, Kit, not half so much a fool as some who think they are mighty clever, what is it you want me to notice, my boy? Why, I want you to notice particularly how Sally behaves her husband. To hear him talk one would suppose that he had got a perfect jewel, a model of a wife that worships him, and would crawl on her knees to please him. In fact, you would think she was fifty times the wonder that my kitty was, but from what I know of Sally Chalker I don't believe a word of it. Jealous is it? he answered most absurdly. I'll keep my eyes wide open, Kit, and report accordingly. Sam Henderson was a most hospitable fellow and not a single word shall pass my lips which might be twisted by capacious persons into a reflection upon him. He sat at the bottom of his table and never took his eyes from the plates on the right hand and left except when he was calling Tom his groom to change them or to fetch them that he might put more on each. Even Lady Kikloos, who was a very lovely woman, could not make demand keep pace with the quick abundance of supply. Hence it was more unreasonable, and I might even say despotic on the part of the new Mrs. Henderson, that she kept on calling down the table. Sam, look a father's plate. He will never mind himself, you know. Or, Sam, can't you see that Aunt Maggie has not got a morsel? Or, Mr. Henderson, Lady Kikloos has never had one drop of gravy. All right, my love, beg pardon, I'm sure. Tom, why don't you move a little quicker? Or, Sam Henderson would reply, but I thought it was not all right, my love, that a man who was doing his best for us all, and getting but a snap or two for his own mouth, should be hurried and flurried in the sort of way and almost accused of inattention to his guess. I could scarcely help saying, do let him alone, but I knew the propriety's too well for that. You're right, ma'am, she does look beautiful. I heard my uncle say to one of the three unmarried aunts, and then he gazed at her with as much admiration as if she had been, no matter who, but some one very different, and it was pleased to see a large piece of greens drop from his mouth into his grand breast-frill, which put him out of countenance for half an hour. In my poor opinion his admiration was as much out of place as that piece of greens, though I will not deny that our hostess was what is called a very fine young woman. She wore a dress of green satin, which I never could endure any more than Kitty could, and the way it was cut below the neck and shoulders filled me with surprise that Sam allowed it, but perhaps he could not help himself. I was glad to see Miss Parslow looking shocked, and I glanced at her and then at it, but she did not think fit to comprehend. Uncle Corny, on the other hand, surprised me by treating it as a joke rather than a scandal. Gentlemen wore cutaway coats, he said. Why should not ladies wear cutaway gowns? Presently I happened to catch some words from the lower end of the table, which drew my attention from Sam's wife and brought it back to my own affairs. The dinner was a very good and solid one, not fifty varieties of unknown substance, such as we too often meet with, and yet quite enough of change for the most inconstant person. There was very nice white soup and mock turtle, not the real such as my Aunt Parslow gave, but quite as good, if not better, than a cod of great size and high character, with oysters as fat as mushrooms, and after that a saddle of mutton at one end, and an H-bone not overboiled at the other, one lying down and the other standing up. Foreigners may disguise their stuff, which by their own confession requires it, but an Englishman likes to know what he is at, and his conscience may go with his stomach. These things are trifles in a way of speaking, but if they lead up to a pleasant state of mind it is not friendly to neglect them. And my Uncle Corny, who had kept himself to bread and cheese at his proper dinnertime, was rejoicing just as a man does in the victory of his merits. Such joy is generally premature, if he had only known what was to come he would have thrown down knife and fork and waited, for as if by magic there appeared in front of Sam himself and almost making him look trivial, the most magnificent bird that ever alighted on any table. I asked a young lady what it was, and she said, The swan of the Romans! It did not become me to contradict her, but I thought that the Romans must have owned a breed of swan superior to ours, for this one had a peacock's tail spread out. Everybody looked at everybody else while Sam turned his cuffs up and sharpened a new knife. Round with a champagne, Tom! We will drink to my wife's health! As he spoke he had his eyes upon the peacock's tail and rude as it was all the company laughed. A pair of large tongues had been put before me, and as I began to carve them I heard a lady say, No fear! Downy will be flush of money now. Be down on him sharp, that's the way to do it. Are you sure it will come off? asked the gentleman she was talking to, and I saw that it was Mr. Welch, a great man of the ring, speaking earnestly to Lady Kickloos. What is to prevent it? The fatal day is named. It is too good for him, as everybody says, but you know where marriages are made. And where they end, with a fellow of that sort. But I can't take it down. Even now I can't. Such a lot of brass, you know, my lady, and what has he got to show for it? Brass and his mother, replied the lady who had picked up the pithy style of the turf. The old Earl is a duffer. Mother Bull can walk round him any Saturday. Yes, but young ladies have wills of their own. It is out of my line, but I have always heard that Lady Clara would have the pick of England. What can there be in Downy to fetch her so? How can I tell you, Mr. Welch? Such things happen continually. All we have to do is to follow them up. I never liked the man, but there is no reason why she shouldn't. Bread sauce, I suppose, goes with peacock? Sam was in his glory all this time, and the dinner went on very merrily, with plenty of laughing and glasses, tinkling, and even the most endure ladies smiling. My uncle, who had cherished a pure contempt for sporting men, began to think better of them. And more and more, as his opinion was asked, delivered it on subjects he had never heard of. Aunt Parslow was exceedingly good-natured and held a very interesting talk with a lady who had heard of her father. And I took the opportunity, before we went away, to remind Mrs. Henderson of our old doings when she was the bell of leatherhead. And I thought that she looked at me very nicely and felt very deeply for my present sad condition, and after all I could not contradict my uncle when he said with five and six pence in his pocket, which he had won by a very fine play at Wist, that we had been treated most handsomely and kindly. And if he should be asked to their Christmas dinner, he meant to make a point of going. But what I had heard about Downey Bolrague rooted itself more and more in my mind. Since the departure of Tony Tonks, who would never have been invited to their grand dinner, for even racing people must draw the line somewhere, I had made up my mind to go and see the arch enemy as soon as ever he should be in his proper health again. And with an eye to that I had written to Mrs. Wilcox, requesting her to let me know of his first reappearance. It was not my desire to fall upon this villain at a time when he could not defend himself, for I did not intend a mince matters with him if once I could come to close quarters. And even of those who insist most strongly on the Christian duty of forgiveness and look down from the greatest height upon the littleness of resentment, probably few, if they cared to speak the truth, would have put up with the things as I did. It was all very fine for the people to say, Take it easily, my dear friend, with patience and the will of God you will find everything come right, and by and by you will be surprised at your own excitement about it. The thing that surprised me most of all was my own power of endurance, and sometimes I felt quite hot inside at having two strong arms and doing nothing with them. It was not thus you won your kitty but by knocking down Sam Henderson, the springy part of my conscience said sometimes to the spongy half of it. If you let rogues have their way, you are only a rogue yourself and a coward. This reproach I did not deserve. No fear of bodily harm to myself had crossed my thoughts for a moment, but the dread of some reckless act had been perpetually with me. It was easy enough to do violent things, to cut myself off forever from all hope of love and happiness, without much chance of even learning the secret of my misery. The enemy I feared in the burst of pent-up fury was myself. I began to forget this discretion now, that the man who had ruined my life to gorge some filthy spite of his own should now jump up in the world and crow and dance with gold in his pockets and love in his arms while I lay a widower on two chairs, that he should have grins on his vile yellow face, while my kitty was weeping her eyes out somewhere, and that everyone should take it as a thing of course and prize his sagacity and worship him. If justice had broken her beam like this, what law could there be to bind any one? The scoundrel had come to gloat upon my sorrow. I would just return the call and have a word with him. Fearing the loss of my self-command, I took not even a walking-stick, nor the true Britain's mainstay and umbrella, although the day was showery. Neither did I change my working-clothes, but without a word to any one saddled old spanker and started directly after breakfast. In an hour I dismounted at the door of Mrs. Wilcox and gave the sharp-boy my horse to lead about. Whatever can be the matter with you, Master Kit? His mother inquired very kindly. You don't look a bit like yourself, sir. Do come in. I have got a sight to tell you. Thank you. When I come back we'll do. I'm going to pay a little call, not more than half an hour. Before she could answer I was out of hearing. When I rang and knocked loudly at the door of the old house a man-serving came, and I was glad of that, for I could not have forced my way past a woman. I wished to see Mr. Bolrag, I said. Never sees any one at this time of day. He's not finished breakfast yet, answered the man. It does not matter. I must see him. I have heard that he is quite well again. Oh, yes, he is well enough. The man gave a smile which meant a great deal better than he deserves to be. But you must call again in the afternoon. Thank you. I intend to see him now. Show me the room, if you please, my friend. That is the room, but you must not go in. You offered no resistance when he saw that it would not stop me, and I knocked at the door and then entered. Donovan Bolrag wore a dressing-gown braided with gold and was lighting a cigar after making, as the dishes showed, a long and goodly breakfast. Hola! Who are you? His tone was rough and arrogant, but I saw by his eyes that he knew me, and his heavy mouth was twitching. What the devil do you mean by coming in like this? Are you in your usual health and strength? I would not have touched him if he had answered no. To be sure I am, but with business of that is yours. I always kick insolent cats out of the room. I will not foul my tongue with any words to you. My business is to lead you three times around the room by the nose. Now try to stop me. As I spoke I was putting on a gardening love. He struck at me with all his force, but I dashed up his fist with my left hand. But with the right I got a firm grip upon his bulky nose. In vain he let fly at me, right and left. I did not even feel his blows, though the marks were plain long afterwards. Then he tried to grapple me, but I would not have it. Three times round the room I led him, while he roared and shrieked with pain, and then I flung him backward into his easy chair. I cannot say how I was unable to do this, and I doubt whether anyone can explain it. But before I felt the difficulty it was over, and I was fit to do it again, if needful. Downey Bullreg had never been amazed before, because he was a cold-blooded fellow, and then made it all the worse for him when he could not avoid it. I am thankful to the Lord, who has always guided me when I do not depart too far from him, that this happens so, for my heart was up and my brain had not a whisper left in it. Life and death were mere gossamer at such moments. On the table lay a long, sharp ham-knife. If Bullreg had said a word, or even stirred, he would never have done one or the other again. That knife would have been in his heart. And I? Well, the gallows and the devil would be welcomed to me afterwards. He saw my eyes dwell on that blade, and he was cowed. He knew that he had a madman standing over him, and happily for both of us he fell into a faint. Black-art! I shouted. You have had a narrow shave. This comes of meddling between man and wife. I seized the long knife while he pawed with his fat hands and flung it just clear of his big yellow head. The blade cleft the panel of black oak behind him, and quivered, and rang like the tongue of a bell. Without another word I left him thus, flinging the door of the room wide open that everyone might see his condition. The footman, or whatever he called himself, fell back against the wall and let me pass, which was the only wise thing he could do. Then I walked away quietly, and found my horse, and declining all talk with Mrs. Wilcox, rode back to Sunbury with a great weight off my mind. As far as my experience goes, it has never been an easy thing to find a man in whom the sense of justice is adjusted perfectly, that is to say not overdrawn, nor strained to a pitch that is at discord with all human nature, neither on the other hand so lax and flabby that it yields to every breath, and has no distinctive tone. Therefore I cannot expect to be approved by everybody for my recent act. But the glow of a tender conscience told me that I had not behaved amiss. Yet the remembrance of my own rage and utter loss of self-command frightened me more than I can express, for a single word, a look, a gesture, even a flicker across my own will, would have made me then and there a murderer. What a thing for Kitty to hear, if ever she should hear of me again, that my unhappy love of her had been cut short by the hangmen. I formed the sensible resolve to keep out of Bullragh's way henceforth, unless he should come to seek me, and then his blood must be on his own head. At first I did not tell my uncle of that brief but hot engagement, because, as I came to think about it, the folly of it dawned on me. For the fierce enjoyment of a minute I had sacrificed all hope of tracing such faint clues as we had won, and I had shown the archenemy in the most palpable form my suspicions of him. This was unsound policy and I was loath to confess it yet, lest my chief friend should be discouraged as well as angry with me. However the whole thing soon came out, and with so much more tacked on to it that I was forced to recount the simple facts. But instead of being vexed, as in my opinion a truly wise man must have been, my uncle shouted with delight and shook his thick sides with laughter. So you pulled his nose? Kit Orchardson pulled the nose of the future Lord Rormor, and the son-in-law of Earl of Clarenhouse. Show me how you did it. This is too fine. No, I scarcely pulled his nose. I cannot be said to have pulled his nose. All I did was to take him by the nose, and he came after it wonderfully. I see, I see. He just followed his nose, and a lawyer could prove that there was no assault. A man follows his nose without assault or battery. Well, I never thought you were so clever, Kit. Because I never boast. I answered calmly, and it struck him for the first time that this might be so. What will he do? he asked. Whatever will he do? He can't very well put up with it. And yet how can he get satisfaction? You wouldn't fight him, I suppose, even if he deigned to ask you. I never thought of it. Let him try. He has done the wickedness. What I have done is nothing. Well, I think it was something good, the very best thing you could have done, much better than knocking him down or even cow-hiding him, as the Yankees say. How your Aunt Parslow will be delighted. She is coming over here to-morrow. You know what you put into her head. She will call on the parson again about it. The poor girl is very ill, worse than ever. I hope he will agree to it. Aunt Parslow seems very fond of Sunbury now. I replied with a curious glance at him. Why should she always be coming over here so? You had better ask her. I daresay she can answer for herself. You must not expect to pull everybody's nose. It had lately appeared to me, more and more, as if my Aunt Parslow were beginning to set her cap at my Uncle Corny. Or rather, to put it more politely, as if he were doffing his wide awake to her. A wide awake proceeding, no doubt, on his part, and a proof of capacity on hers. But not a thing at all to my liking. Nor in any way savoring of those lofty feelings which are so essential to wedlock. And without any mercenary motives whatever, or even a dream of self-seeking, I had felt with good grounds for it a delicate and genial interest in my dear Aunt's affairs. If after countless years of single blessedness she thought to double the rest by a joint-stock company, all I could do was to wish her well, and hope profoundly for her happiness. They were few better men than my Uncle Corny, and no woman better than my Aunt Parslow, and they might rub on together rarely, if each would let the other rub fair turn and turn about. But I feared that they scarcely had the given take for that, and being both of strong metal it would come to groans and sparks. Nevertheless I must put up with events, and the little inquiry I had offered, as above, had not been received with gratitude. The surest way to bring this wild idea into fact would be for me to show opposition to it. But I knew that Aunt Parslow was still romantic, as all women of true nature are. She had felt her own love affairs in early days, but she would not want to think that Uncle Corny had felt his, and then resolved to let her hear of them by his own size, if he could be brought to sigh about anything but markets. When she arrived the next day I saw that she was in fine spirits, but a little ashamed, as it seemed to me, of the exceedingly spirited dress she wore, quite as if she were going to the races. Moreover she had brought Jupiter as if to introduce him to someone who might influence his future life. And at this I ventured to express surprise, in a friendly manner, and with my hand upon his head. Oh, he does love a change, and it does him so much good, she exclaimed as if she had been in her teens. And I should like to hear what Mr. Orchitson thinks of him. He is a good judge of dogs, you said. Alas, if one ever tells a story how quick it is in kicking up its heels. In charity I had said something of the kind, when I wished to make good will between them. Here was Jupiter come to prove me a liar, and perhaps to sway my destinies. Don't get out with that lovely dress on, I said very craftily. Let us go down to Mr. Golightly's. I know that you want to see him. I will jump on the box and show Kochi the way. It will save you a lot of trouble. Accordingly we drove on to the Parsons and went in to announce her. She had called upon him twice before, and he liked her, and was grateful for her good intentions. He received us kindly, but we could see that his heart was in nothing he was talking of. He looked most sadly worn and thin, and his eyes fell every now and then, as a short low cough came from another room. And how is your sweet Bessie? Miss Parslow asked. You know, she is quite an old friend of mine. What a favour you could do me, if you only would. I have taken such a liking to her. And she to you. I will go and fetch her. I fear you will find her looking very little stronger. Call this furniture. I call it hardware, my aunt said in low tone when he had left the room. No wonder the poor girl is all bones. Now back me up, kid, about Bakeliff. It is your prescription, you remember? It was as much as my aunt could do, being of a very kindly nature, to keep a smile upon her face, when the sickly girl came towards her. And the father looked from one to the other and tried to make some little joke, but his eyes were sparkling with something else. You know what you promised me, my dear, if your good father would allow it. Miss Parslow stroked her silky hair and looked into her soft eyes as she spoke. And now everything is arranged and settled. I am sure you will not throw me over. The rooms are taken, and I cannot go alone. It would be so miserable for me. Your father will come to see you every week, and you shall teach him to catch prawns. And where do you suppose it is? Not any strange place at all, but a place my nephew knows quite well, and the very same house that he was in, and he would come down and be near us. Oh, that would be nice. I should not feel strange. Kit is so kind and gentle to me. I like to be where Kit is. She came and placed her thin hands in mine, for I had become like an elder brother to her. She knew of my sorrow and I of hers. It was not this world that she grieved to quit, but her father all alone in it. It was a terrible pain to me, and almost more than I could bear, to find myself in this lovely place without any love to respond to it. At every turn there was something to recall, at every view of gliding boat or breaking wave or flitting gull, some memory of a trifle said, and misery of having no one now to say it. But for the good of others I was forced to put these fancies by, for we could not have found another spot so suitable for the poor sick child, and as it proved, there was something even here to compensate me. It had not been thought worthwhile to take any lodgings for me in the place, as I could not be spared throughout the week from the busy fruit season at Sunbury. Whenever I found time to run down to Bakeliffe, I could get a bed at the end and spend the day with my aunt and her delicate charge. This suited me also much better because I did not like to be long away from the neighborhood of London, where, as I always felt somehow, the strange mystery of my life must be cleared up, if it ever were so. Mrs. Perone was a very nice person and deeply interested in our affairs. Kitty and I had lodged with her for a week, and although we could not afford to take her best rooms, she treated us exactly like first-floor people, and would have kept us for nothing as she assured us, if only she could have afforded it. And now it rejoiced me to do her a good turn by inducting my aunt at three guineas a week, which was nothing for her to think twice of. Six of the leather-head dogs came down for the refreshment of their systems, and Miss Golightly was delighted with them and spent half the day on the sands scratching their heads. The weather was all that could be wished, for we were come to the end of September now, and the summer as a whole had done its utmost to atone for the atrocities of the year before. Miss Perone and Miss Parslow were as good friends as any two people can be with money coming weekly between them, and they never spent less than an hour a day in talking of my loss and wondering, till a chance that the landlady called to mind a little thing that happened after we had left her. And to it she had paid no attention at the time, but my aunt considered it of some importance and begged her to tell me all about it, the very next Saturday I should come down. Well, Mr. Kitt, she said upon Sunday morning, for I had been too late on Saturday to see them. It may have been a week after you were gone, or it may have been no more than one day, but at any rate there came to this house a very quiet gentleman, not over young, about fifty, you might say, and not over tall, about half way between five feet and six feet, and he asked for you, Mr. Orchardson, by name, and then the new Mrs. Orchardson, and when our Jenny told him that you were gone he sighed, Jenny says, though you never must be certain of anything that Jenny says, just as if he had lost his pocketbook, and then he asked for me, and he was shown up here, the drawing-room floor being vacant, as you may remember, and I came up to see him, but I happened to be a little flustered about having all the house on my hands, so, and when I found that he was not even looking out for lodgings, perhaps I was a little short with him, but whether or not he did not push on with his questions, as some people do, but he took up his hat and begged me to excuse him for intruding upon my valuable time, and away he went with a very solid walk, and I was sorry afterwards. But what was he like? Can you at all describe him? Even his dress would help a little. I thought it most likely that this was the man who had come for my kitty in Philip Mogg's boat, and taken her doubtless in Clipson's cab from Sheperton to Walking Road. I think I should know him if I saw him again, but I won't be quite sure, replied Mrs. Perone. He was a gentleman, I should say, decidedly, though not in a fashionable cut of clothes, and I think he had gray hair, though I won't be sure, because so many people have that now. He looked highly educated, and his voice was very nice, and he wore a broad hat with a cord to it. Why, it must be the Professor himself, exclaimed my aunt. According to all I have heard of him, and according to your description, Kit, he came to see how you were getting on, and whether you and Kitty had fought yet. Oh, that reminds me of a curious thing, and I thought it so odd, said the landlady. He did seem to think that you must have quarreled, or at least there was something unpleasant between you. I remember now that he did quite well, because I was astonished at such an idea. For if ever there was a young couple suited, intended by the Lord for one another, it cannot have been the Professor, I broke in, for the simple reason that he must already have left the shores of England. We had a telegram from Fallmouth proving that, and her father would never for a moment have imagined that Kitty and I had fallen out already. What did this man say to show that he supposed it? Well, I don't know that he did exactly that, but he inquired particularly about your health, or rather I should say your state of mind, as if you were not quite, you know what I mean, as if you were rather flighty, sir. Well, and so I am, I answered, smiling, and a great many people would have flown off together, if they had been through half what I have. And now this again is another wicked puzzle for me. The only thing certain is that I shall never find it out. I always come just a bit too late. I hear of a thing when it is no good. I inquire of people when they have forgotten everything. This was rather rude of me, for Miss Peron had done her best to assist me, and she could not be blamed for not talking by the hour with a stranger about her late lodger's affairs. Did he say what he meant to do? I asked, for really all these things were very tantalizing. Did he give you any idea why he should take such an interest in us? Did he ask where we were? Did you mention my uncle? Did he go on, as if, I am truly sorry, Mr. Kitt? I am indeed. But I can't tell you another thing about him, and I am not sure that all I have told you occurred. Some of it may have come out of my own head. I can't carry everything. I can't indeed. Mrs. Peron was almost crying, and it was plainly useless to question her further, such as evidence, even with people who are not fools, and who do their very best, yet in a court of justice an unhappy witness is badgered and insulted by some brazen-headed fellow, who could not tell a tale himself in its true order if he had just read it in a spelling-book. The only conclusion I could come to was that Mrs. Peron's visitor, and the passenger in the boat and cab who had taken my wife away, were one and the same person, acting no doubt under Bullrag's orders, but why he should have shown himself in the first case plainly, and made his second visit in that furtive manner, was more than I could even pretend to explain. Another thing which I could not explain was of a different and delightful order, rejoicing in the sea air and in the sea itself, best he go lightly grew stronger every day. The wand delicacy and waxing clearness began to flush with a rosy gleam, her eyes looked darker and yet full of light, and her lips, instead of drooping at the corners, crisped their pretty curves with a lively smile. Miss Parslow was as proud as a hen that has struck an ant's nest, and took her to the china shop every day to be admired, and to the station to be weighed, and whenever her father came to see her, with six hours allowed at the seaside, he spent all the six in looking at her. I can easily get an introduction to him, I suppose you would forgive him if your dear wife were restored, it would be a noble thing to do. Too noble for me I greatly fear, but he will never forgive me. If he hated me when I had never harmed him, what is he likely to do now? As yet I had concealed from this conscientious pastor my recent act of rudeness, for I could not expect him to look upon it as the discharge of a Christian duty. But now it seemed better that he should have the story from me than from someone who might give an unkind turn to it. And he sensibly perceived that as the thing was done it was useless now to remonstrate. It was not a magnanimous act at all, he replied with a grave shake of his head. But allowance must be made for provocation, even Mr. Bolrag must feel that if he has it all a candid mind. I should not let that discourage me in the least, if you think fit to accept my services, and after all your kind acts to me and my dear child it would be a very happy day for me, one of the happiest of my life, if I could really help you. Let me try, I entreat you, it can do no harm and it may do good. You would only expose yourself to rudeness, he is rough and contemptuous in his manner and has no respect for anyone. His rudeness would not injure me, but I do not think that he would show any. I am well acquainted with a cousin of the lady whom he seeks to marry. He was my churchwarden at Nightsbridge and I became much attached to him. Mr. Bolrag for his own sake will not be rude to any one so introduced. This, of course, made a great difference, and as Mr. Coalightly pressed the matter I consented gratefully, though without seeing even the smallest chance of any good to come from it. However it would enable me to hear something of that scoundrel after whom I now began to feel a sort of stupid hankering such as the young robin has for the cat or the mallard on the mirror about the strange proceedings of that dog among the beads. A more unpromising embassy might no man ever undertake, and having still some pride alive in spite of deadly blows to it I begged my reverend and revered, as well as much beloved friend, to understand and to make it understood that he went as no envoy of mine but simply at his own suggestion. That shall be plain enough, he said. He shall not even know that I asked her leave. It must have been a strange and curious thing to see this encounter of two men as different as any two men can be and as far apart as heaven and hell. Not having been there I cannot describe it, and I could not have done so if I had been present, but from what was told me afterwards the result was much as follows. Donovan Bolrag received his unknown visitor politely. He offered him a cigar, but, whether in sport or courtesy, was not plain. And then he said with his usual slowness, leaning back in his chair and thinking, Sunbury? I think Sir Gilbert says Sunbury is a pretty village on the river. I know it a little, and I ought to know it better for my mother's family live there. And an aunt of mine, Miss Cold Pepper, must be one of your oldest inhabitants. At owing to family circumstances we do not see very much of her. How is she? I hope she supports the church, as all people of property should do. The church requires no support. Mr. Goldightly was always annoyed at the idea of the church being patronized, except what she has from above, Mr. Bolrag, and from the proper zeal of gratitude of her dutiful children. To be sure, that's exactly what I meant. I trust that my aunt is a dutiful child. But I know with sorrow that we do not all value our privileges as we should. You find that the case sometimes, I fear. Too often I regret to say I do. Mr. Goldightly was always grave with anyone who spoke gravely. But we do not restrict the opportunities of doing good to parishioners. We have many useful institutions in our parish. Perhaps you would like me to mention a few. And if, with your very kind feelings toward the church and anxiety about your aunt's discharge of Christian duties, you should feel impelled to contribute, I happen to have the subscription list of six of the most meritorious, all in urgent need of funds, and carry the receipt forms in my pocket. Down he was caught in his own net very neatly, and the parson heard him mutter. God, I've found that, sir Gilbert. This is a little too bad of him. Ah, I don't quite see. I am sure this is most kind of you, but with the many claims upon my small resources, perhaps it would be better to allow my mother the benefit of this opportunity. You must not blame, sir Gilbert, I did not come upon a begging errand. I entrewed upon you for quite a different purpose. A sad and most mysterious thing has happened in our parish. Mr. Goldightly watched him closely, to note the effect of every word. A lady, newly married to an excellent young man, one of our oldest families, suddenly disappeared last May, and has not since been heard of. You need not tell me that, I know all about it. Bullragg replied without any change of face, but in quite a different tone in speaking quickly. I could not help knowing it, considering that the girl's father was my mother's husband. She married without our knowledge, and is gone without it. My mother, who has been most kind to her, never met with such ingratitude. I do not entrewed into family matters. I have nothing to do with that part of the case. I am here simply to discharge my duty. I came by nobody's suggestion. Only as the curgement of the parish I feel myself bound to do all I can, to restore peace and happiness, and to right a great wrong. It is very good on your part, and I wish you all success. It would appear to be rather an affair for the police. I am sorry that I have an important engagement. Would you like to see my mother on the subject? No, thank you. My business is with you. I will speak plainly, and as an old man to a young one. All who know of this mysterious affair believe that it is of your doing. Hear me out, and without anger, as I speak. If from some ill will to either of those two, or for any other reason of your own, you have contrived apart them, be satisfied now with what you have done. For many months now you have caused the deepest misery, doubt, suspense, and almost despair. You have crushed two young hearts, which perhaps never will recover. You have desolated a simple, innocent, and tranquil home. Remember, I beseech you, what is manly, good, and just. I will not urge religion, because perhaps you have little sense of it. But even so you know how short our time is here, and how paltry it is to injure one another. Even now, if you will do what is right, I will pledge myself that you shall be forgiven. Your share in it shall not be published to the world. You will have had more revenge than the bitterest foe can long for, and you will escape the penalty. The clergyman urged that last point, because he saw whom, or rather what, he had to deal with, a thing that could not be called a man. For during his description of our misery he had detected a glow of fiendish exultation in the crafty eyes he was observing. This proved to him more clearly than if he had seen the deed that the guilt lay on that brutal soul. It is a sad loss to us, my dear sir, replied Bullragg, looking at him steadfastly, that we have not the privilege of living in your parish, not only for the sake of the deep interest you feel in the private affairs of your parishioners, but also because you possess very largely that extremely rare gift, eloquence. I should be trembling in my shoes if I had anything to tremble for, but knowing no more than you do, and perhaps much less about this strange affair, I am simply astonished at your waste of words. And if you are not a clergyman, I should say you're in pertinence. I have never been charged with impertinence before, even if I am wrong there is nothing of that about it. But if I have been mistaken I have done you much wrong as a gentleman, and I will beg your pardon if you will do this. Take a sheet of paper and write these words. Upon my honour as a gentleman I have had nothing whatever to do with the disappearance of Kitty Orchardson, signed Donovan Bolrag. It would be easy enough to do, but I do not choose to degrade myself. If you think again you will see that you were wrong in proposing a thing so disgraceful. If you will not apologise without that, I must even put up with your insult. I believe that you are a good man, Mr. Go lightly, and deeply attached to your parish, sir. But impulsive and hasty and illogical. A fault upon the right side, no doubt, but too hasty, sir, much too hasty. I must beg you to excuse the same fault in me for I cannot wait another moment. When Mr. Go lightly came back he declared that but for that glow in Bolrag's eyes he could well have believed in his innocence. For he had never known any one me to charge, when conscious of guilt, with the same entire self-possession and unfaltering readiness, and he feared that there was no such thing as mercy in his composition. He is a foe to be dreaded, Kit, he continued looking at me sadly. There is nothing, however bad, that he would stick at. He is resolute, calm, and resourceful. I have met with some men, not very many, in the course of my work as a clergyman, who seem to have forgotten and foregone all the good, all the kind, all the tender part of the nature which God has given us. St. Paul describes such beings, one can scarcely call them human, and so from a different point of view does Aristotle. It is useless to deny that they exist, although one would like to deny it, people in whom there does not remain one particle of good feeling to appeal to. Yet according to memoirs of some great Christians, they have been such at one time. I will not deny it, though I have never known an instance. It is possible that by the power of grace such a one may be converted and live, as a brand snatched from the burning. But I hope Bullrag won't be so at any rate, and I don't think there is much fear of it. I hope that he will have his portion. Hush, Kit, hush! I pray you not to imitate him. Why is he as he is, but from indulging the evil part in early days and famishing the better side? But I have brought you some news of your father-in-law, the learned and good Professor Fairthorne. You have looked in vain, I think, in that scientific journal, as it seems to be called, which you took in on the purpose. I saw this quite by accident in the globe as I came home, and although it cannot help you, I thought you might like to see it. He handed me the paper, and I read its follows among the short paragraphs of news received that morning. The steamship Archaetus, as our readers may remember, proceeded on a cruise of investigation and deep-sea soundings last April or May, being fitted out specially for that purpose, by a well-known learned society. Our government, with its usual penurious system, has left all these questions of prime importance to our commerce and intercourse with the world entirely to private enterprise, and we acknowledge with shame that we never could have laid a cable across the Atlantic without the knowledge for which we are indebted to the broader and more enlightened policy of the United States. Unhappily these are now involved in an internecine struggle, which must retard for many years the progress of civilization, and we think that England owes a debt of gratitude to the learned association which has stepped in to man the breach by voluntary efforts. Some uneasiness has been felt concerning the safety of this gallant band, which is under the charge, as we need not say, of one of our most distinguished servants, the well-known Professor Farathorn. For note tidings of the Archaetus and her gallant company had reached this country for many months, but we are happy to announce in advance of our contemporaries that the exploring ship was spoken in latitude and longitude not decipherable on the telegram, for it can hardly have been 361 and 758, which are the apparent figures, by the clippership Simon Pure, which arrived at Liverpool last night. The Simon Pure took letters from her, which will be recede with avidity, also instructions that any letters for the members of the expedition should be addressed to Ascension Island if posted in Great Britain before the end of November. We hope to give further particulars shortly. Without loss of a day I took advantage of this opportunity, but rather as a matter of duty than of hope or promise, and as my letter led to something, I will venture to insert it here, though a very old-fashioned production. My dear and respected father-in-law, you will be surprised and shocked to hear that shortly after your departure your daughter Kitty, my dear wife, left me apparently of her own accord, without a word of explanation or any cause that I can even imagine. We had lived in perfect happiness and love, no cross word had ever passed between us. Instead of growing tired of one another, we had become more and more united. I am well aware that the home I could give her was not such as she, with all her attractions, might have aspired to, but she knew that before she married me, and to all appearance she was perfectly satisfied, and as happy and lively as the day is long, and we had every hope, with kind friends round us, of improving our condition from year to year. And I say on the honour of an Englishman, and on the faith of a Christian, that never in thought, word, or deed had I wronged her, or been untrue to her. In short, she was all my life in this world, and I loved her even to infatuation, and fondly believe that she loved me likewise. Yet on the evening of May 15th, 1861, when I returned to our cottage at the time arranged, and in full expectation of finding my dear wife, she was gone without a single word, and from that day to this, although I have sought and others have sought high and low, not a trace of her can be obtained, except as mentioned afterwards, and not a line has come from her. It is the deepest mystery I have ever heard or read of, and, when it will end, God only knows. She was much too sensible and pure and loving to have left me thus for any trifle, or for the sake of any other man. Sometimes I fear the very worst, that she may have met with some fatal accident, or have been decoyed away and killed. But who could do that to my innocent kitty? Surely not the vilest man ever born. My suspicions rest very strongly on a person well known to you, Donovan Bullrag, but I cannot bring it home to him. We believe that we have traced my wife after a search of many weeks to Woking Road Station, on the London and Southwestern line, but they are all further clue vanishes, and we cannot identify or even guess at the elderly man who appears from our inquiries to have taken her thus far. My uncle Cornelius Orchardson and my aunt, Miss Parslow, of Leatherhead, have spared no pains or expense in helping me in my hopeless search, but nothing comes of it, and I almost despair. I need not ask you, if you know anything which can throw any light on this horrible puzzle, to write to me immediately. But my hopes are very faint, because you were far at sea before it happened, as was proved by your kind message received from the captain at Falmouth, which my dear kitty read to me and for which I beg to thank you. With all good wishes for your success and the important work you're engaged on, and hoping for your speedy return, I am with all respect and love your unfortunate son-in-law, Kit Orchardson. After finding out how much it would cost, I posted this letter with my own hands, and the gloomy winter closed upon me, with nothing but its dreary round of heavy ponderings and lonesome work. And of Chapter 57, Chapter 58 of Kit and Kitty by Richard Dondridge Blackmore. A discontented and sour man, said my uncle Cornelius Orchardson when Saturday night when I had dropped into supper, is as likely as not, unless he prays to God every morning of his life, to turn into a liberal. I have known a lot to do it, and being nabbed on the nail by the shady lot who are always near the corners, never get any chance again to come back to honesty. Kit, is that the sort of thing going on with you? Not likely, I answered, for my principles were sound. Is it likely that I would join a party including Lord Rormor and his grandson? Conservatives commit no outrage. My uncle considered that statement gravely. He was too large-minded and candid of nature to accept it without the support of fact. He was probing his memory to see if this were so. Well, he said at last, there is some truth in it, though it seems at first sight to go a little too far. I have known many very tranquil radicals, and one or two tories of an energetic turn. All I feared was that you might be driven by the vile wrongs you have suffered into that miserable frame of mind when people are hatched into radicals. They injured me, not quite so much as you, my lad, but bitterly. Very bitterly. Yet I carried my principles sound through it all. Oh, uncle, you promised to tell me the story of the wrong done to you in your early days. I have often longed to hear it, but was afraid to ask you because of the trouble it has been to you. But if you could bring yourself without feeling it too much, to tell me how that matter was, it would be a great satisfaction to me, and do me a lot of good, I do believe. Well, my boy, it is a frosty night. How soon the year comes round again, though I do not think we shall have a winter fit to compare with the last one. But the east wind is coming up the lane pretty sharp, and we are likely to have a week of it. Let Tabby take the things away, and bring another log or two. You had better come down here if the frost goes on. You'll get frozen up there all alone. Not I. I can keep the fire up, and I believe it is warmer up there than here, because of the wind from the river. How glad I am Bessie is still at Bakeliff. They never feel the cold wind there. Go ahead, uncle, according to your promise. I don't know how many times you have cheated me. Tabby looks sharp and go home before it snows now. Well, you must put up with my inn and outs. I can lay a tree in straight enough, but I am out of my line telling things. And you wouldn't believe to see me now that I was ever a brisk young chap, proud of the cut of his boots and breeches, for we used to wear no long slops then. And blushing at the mention of a pretty girl, and wondering what they were made of. But though you would not think it now, nor anybody else, except the young women that are dead and gone, I was quite as much the swell of Sunbury then, as you were before you fell into your bad luck. Not so tall, of course, but I dare say quite as strong, and the master of any lad about the village. Somehow or other, I was like you too, and your father as well, for that matter, in not making up to any damsel in the place. Although they were pretty ones then, I can tell you, as pretty as any of the young ones now, and prettier too, in my eyes, and ever so much modester and more becoming. But the queen of the neighborhood, in my opinion, and of the county too, was Myra Woodbridge, the daughter of a farmer near Bedfront, who held land under squire cold pepper. If I was to tell you what she was like, you would think I was trying to put you out of all conceit with almost everybody in the world. And her looks, although they were so sweet and gentle, were not the best part of her, or not the only good one. A kinder-hearted, truer-hearted maiden never lived. And you could talk to her by the hour, without her being tired, or you either, of what she had to say. Naturally enough, all the young men round about were hankering after this fair maid, and it did not go against her that her father was well off, having made a deal of money in the great wartime, by contracts for fodder for the troops, and so on. Myra was his favorite child, and pretty sure to come in for a good share of his wealth someday. She could play the piano and sing like an angel, and talk French, and keep accounts and do anything. The difficulty for me was to get near her, till I thrashed a young miller from Uxbridge who annoyed her, and then I thrashed two other fellows who were after her, for they never summoned people for such little matters then. And it made her begin to think kindly of me. And we used to walk by the brook every Sunday evening. All was going on quite as well as I could wish. An old Robert Woodbridge was quite coming round to the coaxing of his lovely daughter, and the bands were to be put up just before the grass was cut, so that we might have our wedding day between the hay and wheat, when suddenly everything was thrown abroad, and both our lives were spoiled forever. Give me the sugar-kit. I did think I should have someone to mix for me in my old days. A faithful companion of many years, or perhaps a daughter or grandchild. But God's will be done. It is useless to take on. Squire Colpepper's daughter, Monica, the younger of the two very handsome ladies, had taken a violent fancy to Myra, and now, when her elder sister Arabella was carrying on against her father's will, with that dashing young buck, as they called them then, the Honorable Tom Bolrague. Miss Monica, who never cared much for her sister, any more than two fire-brands rubbed together, she must need send for my sweet Myra to come and stay at the hall, for some purpose of her own, whether to plot against her sister or be company for herself, or what else I cannot tell. Myra was very loath to go, for she knew the temperatures she would have to deal with, and having a right pride of her own, she could not bear the way they treated her, partly as a friend and partly as a servant, for she might not have meals with a family, and partly no doubt as a sort of go-between, or what they call a buffer nowadays, and being a mean lot, as everybody knows, their practice was to make her earn her keep by sewing and doing handy jobs about the house, like a servant without any wages. But whether she liked it or not, she must go, for her father durst not disoblige his landlord, that peppery Squire Nicholas. Unluckily, while she was in the house, that strange thing happened that I told you of. Tom Bolrag was to have run away with the elder girl, Arabella. But, when everything was ready, she burst out about some trifle, and I'm blessed if he didn't make off with the other, thinking I dare say how sweet she was for taking his side in the shindy. It was out of the frying pan into the fire, and served him right, said everybody, if the elder was a fire-brand the younger was a fury, and which is the worst I should like to know. But they might have fought it out between themselves, and no harm done to good people, if Miss Monica had not carried Myra Woodbridge with her. She was forced to have someone, perhaps for her own sake, little as she cared for opinion, but one of the servants would have done as well, or better, if she had been older. How Myra allowed herself to be taken I could never quite understand, for it was not likely to help her father in the good graces of his landlord. Perhaps she thought herself in duty bound to stand by the one who was fond of her, or perhaps she hoped to see that things came right, and thought there might be a worse mess of it with no one of common sense to help. At any rate, she went off in the chase, and never had chance to come back again. You can understand what a storm there was at the manor when the truth came out. Our Miss Cold Pepper had been locked up, and could not get out till they found her. And then she was in such a state of mind that she could not speak her meaning clearly. The Runaways had at least six hours start, and it was hopeless to go after them, and in those days there were only coaches, no railways, and no telegraphs. Squire Nicholas swore himself into a fit, and it shortened his days, as the doctor said, though he vowed he would live all the longer for it. Myra was of a gentle nature, as a woman should be, yet proud to resent any charge against her when she knew she was innocent. The obstinate Squire, a pig-headed man, put all the blame upon her, or pretended to do it, to screen himself in his own lazy ways with his daughter, till anyone who listened to him would believe that the whole thing had been devised and carried out by a daughter of one of his tenants, so that when she wrote to her father, for the others left that job to her, to say that they were all at bath, and doing as well as could be expected, Squire Nicholas sent a most thundering message, through old Robert Woodbridge, that Myra had better never come near Bedfunt, or he would have her in prison for conspiring. Of course this was rubbish, but it frightened the poor girl and made her doubt what justice was. Then she wrote to me, a most pitiful letter, begging me to think the best of her, as if I could think anything else, saying how sorry she was for leaving home in that impulsive, foolish way under a mistaken view of right. Someday perhaps you have a letter of that sort from your kitty. And she asked me, as she could not ask her father, who would not forgive her till he saw her, to oblige her by just sending money enough to bring her back to Bedfunt. I came away with only half a crown, and there is none to be got from you know who. The poor thing said, she was most careful not to write names that might lead to mischief, but like a woman, exactly like a woman, who thinks that the whole world knows everything about her, or else is afraid of their doing so, the only address that she gave was Bath, in the county of Somerset. It was hard to send money by post in those days, you must enclose and risk it. But what was the use of putting money in a letter directed to Miss Myra Woodbridge Bath? There was nothing more precise in her letter to her father, and it took me three days to find out that, for the old man was gone from home on business. I went to Squire Nicholas to see if he knew, but he only stormed at me and told me to go to place he was fitting himself for, so that four days were lost before I could start with your grandfather's leave for the west of England. When I got to Bath, it took me two days more, as an entire stranger in the place, to find out where the bull rags had been stopping. And when I discovered their hotel at last, they had left it on the day before, and no one could tell me what their destination was. I came back to Sunbury in very bad spirits, fearing greatly that I never should see my dear again. And so it turned out, although I had one more letter from her, which was enough to break any one's heart almost. I have it upstairs, but I shall never show it. God only knows what a man goes through. When my time comes, you will find it, Kit, and I wish to have that and the other with me. There is more than a twelve-month between the two, and the second is dated from a German city. I could not understand it at the time, because I had no more thought of any other woman than you have since you lost your kitty. Afterwards I found out the whole. The poor girl became indispensable to them. She alone eeked out their resources, and kept them from going to the dogs before Bolrag learned some roguish way of turning money. And to keep her from quitting them and going home, they lied through thick and thin to her, about her father, and about myself, and backed up their lives with forgeries. They vowed that their father would never receive her, and that I was married to a sunberry girl. Her father could make no inquiries about her, for he had been taken with a paralytic stroke, and her brother's jealous wretches did not want her nearer home. As for me I could do nothing any more than you can now. I knew that they were all upon the Continent and trusted in her good faith and loyalty for many a sad day. And although she had been deeply hurt and wounded at my silence, which of course had been twisted to their selfish ends, I believed that she was faithful to me, to the very last. The old man died on the very day when I received her second letter, and I went to his funeral with it in my pocket. The brothers looked a scans at me, and smiled a sour smile as much to say, You don't cut in for any of it. And I did not even speak to them about their sister. But they soon came to grief by the will of the Lord, and the farm was now occupied by George Fletcher. I replied to that letter, which astounded me, I wrote to say that every word she had heard was false, that I had never forgotten her as she supposed, although she did not reproach me with it, that I cared for no one else and should never do so, and hoped, from the bottom of my heart, that her illness was not so serious as she believed. If she would only write that she wished to see me, I would go to her anywhere in the world. Then I told her of her poor father's death, and that he had loved her always, and been yearning for her. She was on her death bed when she received that letter, and it comforted her dearly, and she died with it in her hand. Now what do you think my dear girl died of? It was almost too bad to tell you, Kit, and I can scarcely commend myself to do it. I cannot prove it, if I only could, but vengeance belongs to the Lord in heaven. Slowly but surely it will fall, and the part is already upon them. Monaco Bolrag killed my Myra, not on the moment, but by slow death. That was why she was so scared with you. That is the reason that her power passes into terror when she tries to face any of us. That scoundrel her husband, growing tired of his wife, began to pay attentions to Miss Woodbridge. He began very craftily, for like his son he was cunning as well as furious, and the poor girl scarcely suspected it, or could not bring herself to believe it true, but his wife, knowing well what he was, saw through it, and you may suppose how her passion raged. She came in one day when they were together, Myra standing innocently by the window, Bolrag gazing at her in his vile, licentious way. That woman lost all self-command at the sight. She strode up to Myra, with all her weight and strength struck her in the bosom with her clenched fist. Myra fell backward and lay stunned upon the floor, her head being dashed against the sill as she fell. But it was not that which killed her, but the heavy blow on the chest the most dangerous part of the delicate frame. No doubt she would have left them if she could, though she might have to beg her way home again. And she even left the house, but could not get far. There had been some fatal harm done inside, by that blow of a brute beast, and the days of the best girl that ever lived were short in a land of strangers. She had trouble in breathing and some fainting fits. A good doctor could have saved her, I do believe. But those brutes were afraid to have medical advice, even if they desired it. She pined away and died. She did not care to live until it was too late to do it. But she died in happiness. Thank God for that. She died with the knowledge that her father had been her father to the last, and that I had never failed her. Well, my boy, it was a bitter time for me, and my heart was full of fury, as well as anguish. But it is arranged for us by a higher power that these crushing strokes come upon us from a mist. We know not the manner of their descending. We hope that they are not as they appear to be. We call up our faith in Heaven's justice to protect us, and we moan when it is useless. Nevertheless, for all of that I believe that truth and equity are vindicated before we die, if only we live long enough. And if not, let us be content. We are fitter for another world than those who have destroyed our life in this. I saw that my uncle had been overdone, brave and strong-hearted and stout as he was. People who complain can support that habit, and a habit it becomes, never touching them inside. But he was of a hearty and courageous fiber, yet now he lent over his long pipes to them, and his pipe had gone out, like the vapours of the past. Chapter 59 A Cool Request It was natural that my hatred of that heinous race should be doubled, violence and falsehood in the fiercer times, cunning and falsehood in these latter days, had robbed two generations of honest growers of all that they valued most on earth. No one, however light and careless, could help being struck with a strange resemblance between my uncle's sad story and my own. It was now quite manifest why he had striven against my affection for Kitty at first, and then when he saw that it could not be checked, had sympathized with me in the dark results. His wrongs must be avenged, as well as mine, and the sweet repose of Christian contentment must not be indulged in till justice had been fed. The fatal point was that I could see no way, but the way was being paid for it without my knowledge. It was out of my power and outside my nature to play the spy upon anybody. But we managed through good Mrs. Wilcox to keep a sharp eye on Downie Bullrag. I wrote up to see her at least once a week fearing above all things that he might give me the slip and be off as some foreign quarters, possibly even to my darling's prison, that she was immured and some out-of-the-way place was now my settled conviction, and I pondered a thousand wild plans for roaming the world at large in search for her. The money would have been at my disposal, for Aunt Parslow was most generous, but where to begin was a boundless question, and where to end would have been endless. The only thing possible was to wait, and the thing most reasonable was to hope, though impatience vowed it otherwise. The spring came back to a heavy heart, and there was no spring in my voice or gate. One April evening I went down to the Halliford Brook for water-crest for my Uncle Corny supper. He had not been very well of late and fancied this or disliked that in a manner quite unusual with him. I was uneasy and begged him daily to seek the advice of Dr. Sipitz, but he only laughed or bristled up as stubborn as a rusty nail and heart of oak. Then I told him not to smoke so much, and he replied by filling his biggest pipe. I passed the place where I first had kitty in my arms a year and a half ago. Then all had been storm and flood and roar. Now all was calm and sunny silence broken only by the lapping of the brook. I leaned against the old carved stone from which he had leapt into my embrace, and the budding shadows of the elderbush, like bars of sad music, stole over me. It seemed to me, in my disconsolent mood, that the young leaf had better spring back into the bud, and the flower get quickly through its work and die, but my thoughts were interrupted by a grating voice. Oh, my young man, you look down in the mouth. Not much luck for you in my house by all accounts. That was a scurvy trick! I answered not a word, for I disliked the man an ill-conditioned, ill-omend fellow, old Harker, who had meant to live rent-free forever in honeysuckle cottage. He looked very shabby and shaky and uncombed, as if he slept in a hay-rick and washed himself with it. You wouldn't be quite so uppish, my brave young cock, if you knew all that I could tell you. Give my love the old bonfire raker. Here he'll come to ashes himself pretty soon. This was so mean and ungrateful of him, after all my uncle's forbearance, that I seized him by the collar as he stepped upon the bridge and brought him back and made him look at me. Now, Harker, you'll just have the kindness, I said, to speak out like a man what your meaning is. I'm not going to hurt you if you do the right thing, otherwise you shall have a wash, and not before you want it. Out with it, out with everything that you can tell me, though I don't believe there's much of it. Very likely not, and I would not say a word of it, for such as it is, for any fear of you, but only because he has treated me shabby, promised me five pounds and only gave me one. That wasn't accurate, you know. I had hardly paid for shoe leather. What will you give me, Master Kitt, to tell you all I know of him and all his tricks about you? That depends upon what I find it worth. In the first place, who is the he you talk of? As if you didn't know. Well, you are a pretty muff if you don't know when a man hates you. I have no love for you mine because of the scurvy way I was treated, but I wouldn't go out of my way to hurt you, without being paid for it. What will you give? You'll be glad to know it, though I don't promise it will help you much. I am always accurate, I am. I promised him a pound if it should prove to be a value or a crown if I could make no use of it, and although it could help me but little for the future I considered it worth a larger sum when I had heard the whole of it, because it cleared up so many little points which had puzzled me up to that moment. This man Harker, by his own confession, had been employed for weeks to keep close, watch upon us, and report all our doings to Bullrag. That demon discovered that this low fellow bore a grudge against us because of his expulsion from the cottage. And what better spy could he wish for than one who had lived in the place, and knew every twig and stone? It is awful for a simple man who lives without much thought and says and does everything without looking round to find that all his little doings have been watched by an eye that was anything except the eye of God. We had kept a very distant sort of outlook upon Bullrag, but that was different altogether, and as a rogue he must long have been accustomed to it, to think that in our gardens, where every tree knew me and the line of every shadow was known to me, I could not even move without somebody behind me was enough to scatter all the light and simplicity and carelessness. Harker told me all about the secret of the door into Love Lane. I knew that it was bolted. I was sure it had been bolted. I could almost swear that it had not been opened by any honest person from the inside for a long time before Kitty vanished through it. It ought to have been locked as well, of course, as Tabby Tapscott, who had the true feminine knack of hitting a blot, observed. But now all that became plain as a pike staff. That sneak of a Harker knew a dodge for undoing the bolt from the outside by tapping on a sprung piece of tongue to board, when the bolt, which was loose in the socket, would glide back. I remembered what appeared to be a pretty turn of Kitty's when I asked her to come and take a walk in Love Lane. Not unless you seem to want it, my dear. We have our love inside, and it's not a gloomy Lane. For she always loved fruit trees and fair alleys in the way one looks up at the sky through balls of gold. However, that sort of thing was out of Harker's line, and I asked him a few questions with a sovereign in my hand at which he kept glancing, as a dog of better manners assures his master that he loves the hand ever so much more than the tit-bit inside it. He told me, for his mind was made up now, that he had suspected Bullragh's scheme, but had nothing to do with the final stroke except that he had opened the road for it. I conjured him by all that he valued if he valued anything besides himself to tell me where my dear wife was likely to be now if indeed she were in the world at all. He had no fine feeling to be appealed to, and having had a bad wife, his own fault, I daresay, could not at all enter into my concern, but he took a great weight from my heart by declaring that there was no fear of Kitty being made away with. It is a bit of a revenge and nothing more, he said. The man is so deep and slippery that you can never circumvent him. You are a baby altogether to him, although he employed me for weeks together. He never let me into any one of his devices. He never does anything as you expect it. When you find out this, if you live long enough to do it, you will find it come contrary to all your guesses. If you ask what I think is the best way, I will tell you. But I might be quite wrong for all that, you know. Very well, he said when I asked him most earnestly and promised him five pounds if it turned out well. You just do this and see what comes of it. Collect all your money, and get your uncle to sell a good piece of his land for building. They are talking of that sort of thing, you know, and there is sure to be a railway by and by, and the old topper's land is the pust in the parish. And when you have raised a thousand pounds, take it in a bag, or a purse with open mushes, and lay it on his table, not too near him, mind, and then be very humble and say, Mr. So-and-so, you have beaten me out and out, and I give in. You shall have all this, and I'll cry quits, and give you any undertaking you require as soon as I get my wife back soon. It is my belief, Master Kitt, that you would have her in a week, for that sort of man will do anything for money. This was altogether a new view to me, and I began to suspect things immediately. Possibly this man had even been sent to propose a bargain in this sly way. I could raise the thousand pounds by selling out what I possessed, and my wife was worth more than all the money in the world, or even in my own life to me. But my pride and sense of right swelled against the low idea, and I knew that even Kitty would condemn so vile a bargain. If that is the only way to do it, it will never be done, I answered sternly, but tell me one thing, did you see her go? Did you see the man who came to fetch her? No, it was managed too well for that. They got all they could out of me, and trusted me no further. I did not even know that it was going to be done. I was ordered off to Hampton on that very day. Seeing someone in the distance coming towards us from the village, I gave the man his sovereign and let him go, after learning where he might be found in case of being needed. And before I could even think the matter over, Mrs. Marker was crossing the planks towards me, dressed very prettily, and smiling at me pleasantly. What memories this spot does evoke? She had taken to rather fine language lately, and it seemed to become more and more romantic. Oh, Mr. Kitt, Mr. Kitt, is it possible that I meet you here again? Alas, I fear that you seek this spot, to heave the sad sigh, and to shed the briny tear. I replied that I was only come to look for water-cress, but was very glad to meet her, for we always had been friends, and perhaps she could tell me many things I wished to know. Whatever I know was at your command. My deep and heartfelt but unavailing pity he has followed your fortunes for many a long month, while the bridal mourn seems but yesterday, so to speak, and yet a rolling year has passed over us since then. Robbed of your bride in less than half the honeymoon, and before she understood the price of sugar, you remember that she was to have laid it in cheap, second whites before it went up for preserving. Oh, Mr. Kitt! We well may say inscrutable are the decrees of heaven. But all shall be well yet, all shall be well, if we trust in the Lord, and gird up our loins with troubling. Excuse the remark of two personal, but my heart does bleed for you. Any new light shed upon this dark dispensation? That is of every thing I was going to ask you. But first of all tell me, dear Mrs. Marker, are you convinced? Are you absolutely certain that my kitty would never prove false to me? I never put this question to any of my own sex, but it always did me good to receive from a woman, who must understand women so much better, the strong confirmation of my own strong faith, to their credit be it said that not one of them refused it. Fie! Fie! How can you ever bring yourself to ask the question? Though I am sure I am not surprised after all that has happened. But I will tell your kitty of it, and we will have a laugh together, for the triumph of the wicked cannot last much longer. I suppose that you have heard what the wretch is doing? Not very lately, I was going to ask you. We were told in the autumn by a lady who seemed to know that everything was settled, and even the day fixed for his marriage with a very rich young lady, the only child of a very wealthy earl, but it seems to hang fire, and I cannot discover that anything is settled even now. Do tell me what you have heard of it, Miss Cold Pepper surely ought to know. I should think she ought, considering what she has done. It appears that the lady is quite willing. She is under some foolish spell and thinks him such a hero. But her father, though he seemed to give in at first, heard something which induced him to change his mind, and now he insists as is only fair upon something being brought in by the gentlemen as well. They are doing all they can to get over the hitch. And what do you suppose he had the impudence to do? He came down here about a week ago, drove down in a handsome cab all the way. Nobody was to know it, of course, but I did, and then and there he had the face to ask his aunt to declare him the heir, and to bind herself to it, of all her estates and property. It quite took my brother away when I heard it, that anyone should have such assurance, and after all that has happened in the family. A nice lord of the manner he would make. Did his mother come down with him? Not she. She was too wide awake for that. The sisters can never be in one room half an hour without fighting. He went on about the honour of the family and adding to the estates with the old Earl's wealth, and taking the name of Gold Pepper, and I don't know what else. For, of course, I was not there. But she told me of it afterwards, and she laughed very heartily, I can tell you. It is a mere business arrangement, she replied, and it must be done in business form, if at all. Right to my solicitors on the subject proposing exactly what you have proposed to me. Give your reasons for wishing that it may be settled so, and add that there could have been no occasion for it if your mother had not run away with your aunt's lover. After locking her in a dark hole where she might have died, you may be quite certain of my consent as your mother was when she turned the key on me. Don't let me detain you for fear of losing time. Solicitors are never very rapid in their work. He could scarcely have been disappointed, but Charles said he did look savage when he showed him out. And now what do you think his next card is? How can I tell? Perhaps he'll come to Uncle Corny and ask him to sell his garden and settle it upon him. You're not so very far out at all. Your kitty has a very rich aunt in the north, no relative of his in any way, not even a connection, for she is related to kitty on her mother's side. But she has a reputation of being rather soft and so off he goes without telling anybody. But we heard of it, and we hear a great deal more now, because we've got a maid whose sister lives there, and waits upon the two young ladies who are always chattering about their brother, and our Mary can't do without her aunt for more than a week because they are twins. Every Sunday our Mary goes up to the park, or their aunt comes down to the manor, and perhaps you may know what ladies' maids are, Mr. Kitt. They really seem to take a deeper interest in the family they serve than the one they belong to. So we know all the young ladies know, and perhaps more than their mother knows, for being so masterful she has things kept from her as is only natural. And I can tell you one thing, Mr. Kitt, which you won't be sorry to hear perhaps, or at any rate, didn't ought to be. Mr. Downey Bullrag is in more trouble, not about money, I mean, but something worse, or at any rate deeper than money is. His sisters know this, but they don't know what it is, or else they are afraid to speak of it. I thought of Tony Tonks, and the man called Midgewell Bengoose, who appeared to Tony to be an English sailor, fallen into foreign ways. And I thought very likely that he might have brought bad news. He goes away at night, continued Mrs. Marker, without a word of notice to anybody, any sneers or as grumpy if they ask him about it. And he has been seen with very shabby-looking people, though he used to be so particular about that. And he carries one of those new-fangled pistols that go off a dozen times with one load, and every one is afraid to go near him almost, because of his temper and all that. From all I am told you may depend upon it. He is not enjoying himself, Mr. Kitt, so very much more than you are. And that is not very much to go by your face. Sorry as I am to see it, sir, after saving me from the jaws of death. Nonsense, Mrs. Marker, you saved yourself by your presence of mind and a light young foot. You say things beautifully, Mr. Kitt. It was always your gift as a child, I have heard, though not old enough here to remember it. And now, sir, remember that you have one good friend who will never be happy till you are. A feeble friend but a warm one, enable perhaps to do more than you think. Nothing shall go by me that you ought to hear of. Goodbye, sir, goodbye. Everything will come right, and you shall pay me for telling your fortune. End of chapter 59