 CHAPTER 60 Alive in Death Donnie Bullragh was indeed in trouble, not brought on by his evil deeds as good people might have imagined, or at any rate not so caused directly, according to the present knowledge, although in the end approved otherwise. It had seemed an astonishing thing to me, considering his haughtiness and shrewd perception, that he should have deigned to expose himself to that quiet rebuff from Miss Cold Pepper, and then that he had gone upon another quest of money, even more humiliating, showed that there must be some terrible straight, some crushing urgency in his affairs. He was not a man who lived extravagantly, he was rather of the mean and close-fisted order, even in his self-indulgence. From what had been said at Sam Henderson's dinner, it would seem that he had fallen into certain racing debts, but I could not believe that these were crippling him, for he generally managed to work them off and come out with a balance in his favour, but there was another thing in the background of which I had no knowledge yet, and when I speak of it now it must be understood that I do so from later information. An account in the globe which a clergyman showed me had been followed by further particulars in the journals of the following day, and by one or two extracts from private letters brought to England by the Simon Pure, but the ships had been parted by a sudden gale, and after a very brief interview and some dispatches, which were not quite ready, had lost their chance of delivery. There was nothing of interest to me except what I had seen at first, and no letter from the captain to my wife arrived by post, which surprised me for the moment, but that was explained by the likelihood that he might have been hurried with official reports, while intending to send his private letters with them, and thus had lost the chance of dispatching either, and as any such letter must have missed its mark there was no great disappointment, but the Simon Pure landed near Liverpool, as I came to know long afterwards, an unhappy and afflicted man welcomed to no person and to no place on the face of the habitable globe. An elderly man of great bodily strength and bulk of frame and large stature, he had better have gone beneath the earth, as the father of poets has it, than linger on it, lonesome, loathsome, shunned, abominated, and abhorred. His sins had been many in his merits few. He had lived for his own course pleasures only. He had never done good to man, woman, or child, yet he might have called any man worse than himself who refused to grieve for his awful grief, for this man was a leper. The captain of the Simon Pure was humane as well as resolute. This banyard, as he called himself, had looked under a tarpaulin, till the boat of the architis was far away, and the gale began to whistle through the shrouds and chains. Then he came forth and showed himself holding forth his hands, defying the sailors to throw him overboard. For a month he had been treated well by the crew of the exploring ship, who were all picked men of some education and ready to listen to reason. He had managed to quit them without their knowledge and cast his lot among a less enlightened crew. The boldest feared to touch him, but with nautical skill they encoiled him in ropes from a distance and were just beginning their yo-heave-ho chant when the captain rushed up and dashed them right and left. With his own hand he unbound the leper and led him forward and allotted him a place on the forecastle where none might come near him except to bring him food, and where he must abide if he cared to live. His chief desire was to get back to England and finding himself well in a way for that he indulged in strange antics and shouted and roared as if all the ship belonged to him. When the moon was high for the moon appears to have strange power over those outcasts, the sailors were afraid to keep the deck with his wild songs flowing after them, for he had belonged to a colony of Indian lepers and had learned their poetry. As soon as the ship was in the mercy he contrived to be quit of her. Perhaps he was afraid that his condition would be made known to the authorities who might find it in their duty to observe him, though they could not legally confine him. At any rate he escaped any such trouble by dropping into a boat and landing on the south side of the river. A purse had been made for him by the sailors, not a very heavy one, for they were short of cash, but enough to carry him to London at once the fountain in the cesspool of diseased humanity. Jonathan Bullrag had been unable, after his recovery, to put up with the control and order of his mother's house in Kensington. He had taken private rooms again in a little street near Berkeley Square, and though his mother was not well pleased, she had now to contend with a will as strong as her own and even firmer. He must have his own way in this. He must be indulged at every cost, rather than driven to mutiny when all depended on him. If once he were married to Lady Clara, all would be wealth and prosperity. She had hoped to see it done ere now, but a wicked chance had crossed her. It was nearly twelve o'clock one night, towards the end of February, and Bullrag, having returned from his club much earlier than usual, was sitting by the fire in his dressing-gown with a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of very old cognac on the table. He was not in a pleasant humour, for the luck had been against him and foreseeing worse he had come away for he was growing superstitious. He was dwelling gloomily on the dull necessity before him. The brilliant prospect his mother called it, but he disliked his intended bride, and this good thing alone, perhaps, may be said in his favour, he was not wholly mercenary. I would feign hope, though without much faith, that he might have felt some true regret at the cruel wrong he had done me, for verily the expiation was nigh. Suddenly the front door bell rang sharply, and the poor weary maid shuffled down the stairs. She had told him, when he came in that night, that a tall, strange looking gentleman, with his face muffled in a white cravat, had called about nine o'clock and left word that he would come again that evening. He had given his name as Sennhor Dias, and Bolrag, after wondering vainly, concluded that it must be someone connected with the sailor Migwell, whom he had seen in the autumn. Slow heavy steps approached his door, and the maid was dismissed with some gruff words in a foreign language quite unknown to Donovan. Then the door was opened without a knock, and a big man stood and looked at him. Who are you, and what do you mean by coming at this time of night? Bolrag's spoken as rough as tone, for the man was shabby and repulsive. A visitor coolly took a chair, handling it in a particular manner, for he seemed to have bags on instead of gloves. Then he crossed a pair of gigantic legs, and Bolrag saw that he wore no boots, but loose slops of hide with a hair on, in size and shape, much like the nose-bag of a horse. His hat was flapped over his ears and forehead, and he spoke not a word, but gazed at Downie with large, red eyes, having never a hair of lash or brow to shade them. Bolrag shuddered, and drew his chair away. He had never been looked at like this, and could not meet it. In the name of the devil, he could get no further for the eyes of this monster in the strange formation under the cloth where his face should have been declared that he was laughing. You have learned to swear that I don't very good. The voice sounded dead through the mufflings, and the accent was not like in Englishman's. Chip of the Old Block, I was famous for that at your age, young man. What do you know of my age? Who are you? What are you? What brings you here at this time of night? What do you want me to do for you? Even Downie Bolrag was hurried and confused, and lost his resources in the presence of this man, and a fearful idea made his blood run cold. He knows me not. He is not a wise son. The stranger still kept his red eyes on him. Where is the voice of nature that I am compelled to introduce myself? Speak out. Do you mean to stop here all night? Don't cover your face up like a thief. In the name of God, who are you? The stranger slowly uncovered his face, sliding the bandage from his cheekbones downward with a clumsy movement of his bagged hands. Then he rose to his full height and stood before the gas, and looking no longer at Bolrag, waited to be looked at by him. His face was transformed into that of a lion. You must go to a hospital. Don't come near me. Pull it up again, for God's sake. It is God who has done it if there is a God. And why should a man be ashamed of it? Embrace your father, as the Frenchmen say. In a few years you will be like him. Don't you come near me. I tell you again, I have a revolver in this drawer, none of your pop-guns, but a heavy bullet. I don't want to hurt you if you will only go away. My son, I do not intend to go away. It grieves me to hear you speak of it. Surely you never would cast off your father for such a sweet trifle as leprosy. Bolrag began to recover himself, which was more than most men of his years would have done. Nature had not endowed him with the largest head in London, without putting something inside it. His sitting-room was small and plainly furnished, but having been used by convivial men, it possessed a long table, now set against the wall, which would slide out to still greater length with levers. He drew this across the room, extended it, and closed the gap at the end with the one in common use. Then he threw up the window at his side of the room, after fastening back the curtains, and requested his visitor throw up the other, for the house was a corner one and the room had crossed lights. Couldn't do it, my son. Would you like to see my hands? No? Very well, you must take them upon trust. I have three fingers left, but the spot is upon them. However, you are a brave fellow so far, though infected with popular ignorance. Nine out of ten would have rushed away shouting murder, which you may put away your shooting irons, as the Yankees call them. A hole in my body does more good than harm under the circumstances. Once for all my complaint is not contagious, or at any rate not among well-fed people, and you are well-fed, if ever anybody was. Give me a cigar. You will do that gladly of your own interest, I dare say. I can smoke it with my bandage on. Now a glass of good brandy. No water with it. You may break the glass afterwards, if you think proper, as the fools did on board the Simon Pure, but never on the Archaetus. That was a ship of excellence. The Archaetus? Do you mean to say you have been in her? Without her and her glorious captain, my son, you would never have seen your beloved parent, and more than that, if there had not been a beautiful young lady on board that ship, I should never have been here. Ah, you may well be surprised to see me, if ever any man has been knocked about. Seventeen wounds, I could count, till this affair took five away. And one of them laid me five years by the heels, laid me underground, it was said, everywhere. I suppose you heard that I was dead? Yes, on very good authority, too, but I was too young to know much about it. Do you know what has happened in the family? The Spaniards are men for proverbs. Believe no man dead till he comes and proves it. A woman can always believe what they wish. Curse the women, she has caused all my troubles, but wait a little longer. The deep, thick voice and the glare his father's eyes made downy tremble. Surely you will not. In this condition, you will go to a hospital and get cured. You will leave the management of things to me. Well, I—no doctor in the world can cure me, or lengthen the months of my rotting away. And I got it by goodness, I took it by goodness. If I had stuck to my nature I should have been sound. No more goodness for me in this world, and none in the next. Can a leopard go to heaven? For a while they sat silent, the old man puffing his smoke through his muffler, and lifting the glass between his great wrists every now and then. And the young man absorbed in this awful puzzle with his vast head drooping on his breast. It had never even crossed his mind to ask whether this man might be an imposter. He felt that every word was true, and now what possible course remained for him. At length his father spoke again. Come, cheer up, my hearty, as the sailors said to me, though they took care to say it a long way off, you don't seem delighted to have found a father, and a man of such renown and rank. Why, I am the Marquis of Torobell, and you are the heir to the title. Lord Rormor doesn't sound much after that. But alas, I have nothing to keep up the title, and I dropped it among the Indians. I shall have to trouble you a little in that way, one cannot live on glory, but they treated me infamously, when I could do no more for them. They drove me across the Rio Negro into Patagonia, and paid a tribe of the wandering Indians never to let me back again. They passed me on to the Maluchus, and I tried to make my escape from them, but was caught and left for dead again, till a woman took pity on me. Then I married her, and lived on putrid fish with a roving horde of the Eastern tribes in a terrible country where no white man goes. Then I took the disease from the diet and the nursing of my poor woman and her illness, and for five years I was shut up in the Luppers den, as they called a wreaking peninsula, which explores, no, as St. Jacob, at the back of a place called the Bottomless Pit. There was no getting out. There were thirty of us, sometimes more and sometimes less. Sometimes we got vitals, and sometimes we starved. And I was the only white man there. Although we were quite close to the sea and almost surrounded by it, we were far away from all chance of ships in a desolate, barbarous coast and a curve a hundred leagues out of the line of traffic. And there I must have wasted into a sandy skeleton, for there was no possibility of escape inland, unless a good angel had been sent to fetch me. For the ship was taking soundings or something of that sort, having come far away from the usual course, to find the truth about the Bottomless Gulf, and all I could do would have gone for nothing except for that young lady. They were giving us a wide berth as if we were all savages. Then luckily for me she brought her spyglass to bear, and declared that she saw a white man among the rest. The others laughed at her, for you may be pretty sure that there was not much white about me just then. But she stuck to it and ran for the captain and insisted that a boat should be sent to sea about it. Oh, I could worship that girl I could, though it isn't much good to me after all. Come, you ought to say you will take care that it is and devote all your days and your money to the welfare of your persecuted parent. You must have expected me long ago at any rate some hopes of it, for I sent you a message several years ago in some documents too from Mendoza, before I was banished finally. A knock-about fellow swore to find all about you and deliver them the next time he was in London. Do you mean to say he has never done it? Not till last autumn, and it was so old I thought nothing more would come of it. A sort of half-Englishman, half-Spanish, what a fateful fellow and thought wonders of you. When he first came with your message he had got into a scrape before he could deliver it. He stabbed a man at the docks and had to bolt again, and he fought shy of London for years after that. But to see you like this was the last thing I could dream of. You said not a word of this in your letter. Because I had not got it, then. I took it from misery and starvation and living among the savages. I have seen a good deal of the world and met with some wonderful people. How small even London seems to me. Yes, I dare say, and how small the world is. You could tell many a tale, no doubt, but none more wonderful than your own. Do you know who it was that fetched you off, the captain of the Architis? Give me more brandy. It is good enough for that. The great stranger shook himself, though he might have had more manners, and his clothes rattled round him like mildewed pee-pods. I knew nothing about it at the time, of course, but since I came here I know everything. Why, it was the man who stepped into my shoes and a devilish sight too good to do it. Ah, he has had his hair combed once or twice, I doubt. Better almost have turned up leper at once. How good he was to me! No haughty heirs, no shudders, no keep your distance dog. He was not at all sure of contagion till he looked at his books in the cabin, but it made no difference to him. He could not tell who I was. He took me for a Spaniard. Diaz was the name I went by. But he treated me like a Christian as Christ himself would have treated me. The poor man lifted his hat as he spoke, from his naked yellow head, and the glare of his eyes was clouded. The power to weep was gone, but not the power of things that move it. And he did a good work for himself. He resumed, looking fiercely again at Downey. He did himself a better turn than me, without knowing anything about it. Every one of my troubles has been through that woman. She never knew what a man's wife is. She wanted to be a man and woman, too. The Pulchow Indians would have taught her something, top not come down. Your husband is a leper, and the man you have eaten up for years goes free. I am only waiting till the proper time comes. I have had a fine time of it, and so shall she. But I suppose you don't want to hurt your children, Donovan spoke in a surly voice, for he saw that this man was not one to be soothed. What harm have your children ever done you? By appearing now you would simply starve us, and what could we do to help you then? You have been in London for weeks, I daresay, and you have learned all you could about us. Did you learn that we are living in Fairthorn's house and on Fairthorn's money? And what becomes of that when you turn up? Did you learn that I am likely to marry a lady of great wealth and good position? What becomes of that if you turn up? You have not let my mother know a word as yet? Not I, not a syllable yet, my son. What a strange thing it seems to have a son again. No, I don't want to hurt you, or the two girls either. I have managed to get a look at them. How they would have stared if they had guessed it. I consider them to be a credit to me, and I hope they are better than their mother. And you are a credit in a certain way, a strong, plain-spoken fellow. Not much humbug about you, I should say. And, of course, I can't expect much affection, but I daresay you are sorry about your poor father. Father, I am, I am broken down about you. I have always thought well of you and made allowance for you. God knows that I have wanted it, my son. I would do all I can to help you now. I will live in some hole and not show myself for a time, but only for a time, mind you. My revenge I will have when I can't hurt you much. But you must give me money to support me to that day. What will you pay and how long will you want? Three months, perhaps four, and pay two pounds a week. It is all I can afford, for I am awfully hard up. After my marriage, five pounds, if you like. Give me your address. You can have two weeks' money now. It is all I have by me. But don't come here again. These people are very suspicious. I will arrange to meet you somewhere. The poor cripple managed to take the money, and after a few more words departed. Then Bolrag flung the other window up, cast the tumbler out of it, and lighted some pastiles. Then he took a draught of brandy neat, and went upstairs to sit in his bedroom, and brewed over this calamity. And of CHAPTER SIXTY CHAPTER SIXTY ONE OF KIT AND KITTY by Richard Dowdridge Blackmore. This LibriVox recording is in a public domain. CHAPTER SIXTY ONE ZINCA Of all those things I had no knowledge, till it came upon me suddenly, except that I heard from time to time both through Mrs. Marker and Mrs. Wilcox, and even Mrs. Goldpepper, that Donovan Bolrag was going on strangely, and no one could understand him. He was in such a state of mind that even his mother feared to cross him, and his sisters were afraid to ask him anything about it. And no one could tell what his motive was, but all agreed that he was now as anxious to marry Lady Clara as he had been careless about it last year. This, as so often seems to happen, diminished the ardor of the other side, and the Earl insisted more and more that he should bring something solid into settlement. The estates of his grandfather, Lord Rormor, were evidently encumbered, and that ancient nobleman himself now approaching his ninetieth year was almost incapable of business. Though I had been terribly afflicted for a year without the satisfaction of deserving it, there was one thing beyond denial, to wit that I had met with the most wonderful kindness from friends and neighbors and the world at large. If anyone says to me henceforth that there is no such thing as good feeling, or good will, and that everything is selfishness, I shall tell him that he judges all his neighbors by himself, and I wish to hear no more of him. And now when the fatal day came round, which would fill up the twelve-month of my misery, no less than six people were thoughtful enough to give me the honour of being from home, when it must be a bitter home to me. Uncle Corny, Aunt Parslow, and Mr. Goelightly, Sam Henderson and Mrs. Wilcox, and Widowcutlam, all entreated me to come to them, if I did nothing more than hear them talk. Mrs. Marker, if she had lived in her own house, would have added her invitation, and Mr. Rasp, the baker, though now getting on almost beyond recognition, got his wife to write to me and say that they would have a little card-party in the evening. But there were too many young ladies there for me, to be seen in the shop behind jam-pots and a style we could never enter into, and if I had meant to go to any place at all, that would have been the last of them, because I should have felt what Kitty would be thinking. Well, he does enjoy himself without me. Come to the derby, Sam Henderson said, meaning it all for my good, no doubt, and see old Chalks win the nutmeg greater. He is at forty to one, makes it all the sureer. The finest foal my old cinnamon-ta ever threw. Why, tomorrow, my son, I shall make four thou. Get on while you can, kept him dark as night. Tony came sniffing, but we gave him snuff. Before the flag falls he will be a four to one. Invest, my son, invest! If you wish to tool your Kitty in a foreign hand. Sam, you are up, or you would not talk so. He saw that he should not have said it and was dashed. Well, old fellow, I beg your pardon. But as sure as a horse has got four legs, you will have her back again within four months. Lay you ten to one in fivers. Do you think I would bet about a thing like that? Sam, you are a good friend, but this is not like you. Only wanted to keep your pecker up. The pluckiest fellow gets in the dump sometimes. Never take it crusty when a cove means well. Sorry you won't come to us tomorrow. Sally gives a rare spread at nine o'clock, but every man knows his own ways best. I shall look you up on my way home. Expect to have some news, but won't bother you till then. Good news, fine news, for you, Kit. He spoke to his glassy little nag and was off, before I could ask him what he meant. And I said to myself that it could only be some nonsense to keep my spirits up. The day of my trouble, the fifteenth of May, happened to be the Derby Day that year. And our quiet little village was disturbed with joy. Everyone who could raise a pair of shafts, or even of shanks, was agog right early, and I heard their shouts over my uncle's wall while they set forth as merry as Londoners. I resolved not to leave my work all day, except for a crust of bread and cheese, and there might be no room and no time for moping, which sits on our laps when we cross our legs. But when it grew dark, and I went home alone, I tried in vain to whistle, and my heart felt very low. What was the use of keeping up? It was only a sham and a self-deceit. Ten years were as likely to go by as one without bringing any consolation to me. All the prime of my life must pass in sorrow, empty, mysterious, lonely sorrow. Perhaps when I grew old and could care for no one, having no one to care for me, when it mattered very little how my life was to finish, the matter might be cleared up, all too late. Even my uncle Corny's trouble, heavy, incurable, and life long as it was, seemed light in comparison with mine, because all his history was manifest and all suspense was over. How much longer must this misery drag on? If my kitty were not dead, she must have come back long ago, or perhaps she had forgotten me and married some low villain. Not my greater, not my greater, not my greater, forever. Two merry fellows were shouting for their lives as they walked in wavering latitudes among the flowering pear-trees. Let me tell them. No, I'll tell them. What do you know about it? Why, you never saw them in your life. My heart gave a jump, for I thought it must be some grand news by this fuss about it. Right you are, Kit. Right you shall be. Not my greater and Kit forever. They shouted as they saw me sitting in the dusk on a big flower-pot outside my door. Shake hands, oh fellow, shake hands, here he is. He knows all about it. Major Monkhouse, let me introduce you. Mr. Kit Orchardson. Major Monkhouse. The two best fellows in the world together, and nutmeg greater is the third. I saw that Sam was a little in advance of his usual state, and the major not behind him. They were flourishing their hats full of skeleton dolls and striking attitudes and spinning round now and then against each other. What have you come to tell me, gentlemen? Is it about the race? I asked, trembling, to think it must be something more. The race be damned! cried Major Monkhouse, one of the most courteous of men, when sober as I discovered afterwards. As between man and man, sir. As between man and man, you know. The major's hat is full of money, said Sam, as if his own were empty. When that is the case, a confounded good fellow is better than ever, sir, better than ever. Shake hands! the major shouted, Sam, shake hands! and he took mine by mistake, but it made no difference. You have such a manner of expressing what you call it. Equal honour to his hands and head. This gentleman must not mistake my meaning. Mr. Orchardson, excuse me, you understand my sentiments? You might ride him, sir, with a daisy chain. Sit down, gentlemen. I was trying to be patient, and thought that the safest position for them. Not a drop, kid. Not a drop, my good fellow. I am all but a total abstainer now. And as for the major, why, his doctor tells him, No good, sir, no good at all. Doctor bangs, I says. You may be right, but you don't catch me taking any of your confounded shim—shimilers. Sam knows how hard he tried, but it wouldn't do, sir. Oh, but you were come to tell me something. I thought you came out of your way on purpose. Something of importance to me. Right you are, kid. Right as usual. There never was such a boy to hit the mark. Set you up, kid. Set you on your legs again. No more poking. No more potting. No more pottering under a wall. No more shirking the darby, mind you. A down, un-gentlemanly thing to do. Why, we wouldn't have known it but for that. Never should have seen her without that. Some major monkhouse solemnly. Put away too secretly among the lost tribes. Ah, she is a stunning woman. Now will you tell me what you mean? I felt that I should like to knock their tipsy heads together. This may be a very fine joke to you, but no excitement excuses it. Excitement? Cool as a cucumber, sir. Cried the Major with a countenance by no means cool. I should like to know what you mean by that insinuation. Leave it to me, Major. Leave it all to me. Our friend Kit is a little hasty," said Henderson, whispering to me. Don't mind him, a very grand fellow, but has had too much. Major monkhouse, it is our place to make every allowance for married men. They never know very well what they are about. Ah, George, sir, you are right. Mr. Archerson, shake hands. I honor you for your integrity, sir. Sorry for you. Very sorry, and apologize with candor. Every Englishman adds to his self-respect by that. Ah, he puts things. It comes of being in the army. Now go to sleep, Major. It will do you a lot of good. While I tell friend Kit all we have been doing for him. By this time my hopes are reduced to proper level, and I had ceased to glance through the trees behind them in search of somebody who might never come again. For these two men had come in with such a flourish that the wildest ideas ran through me. A drop of ice-cold water from your pump, said Sam, and then I'll tell you something that will please you. My coppers are hot because I have taken next to nothing. And the dust—you should have seen it. You have heard of the celebrated Zinka, haven't you? The most wonderful creature that was ever born? Well, my dear friend there, the very finest fellow that ever stepped this earth, sir. Don't deny it, Major. But go by and by. I met him in the corner on Monday, Kit. An old Potts was there, and that made me talk of you. Tell you what, he says, let us see the great Zinka. She can't help being there on Wednesday. It is the only day in a year you can catch her. But the stars always bring her to the derby. If he won't come, you bring something of his. Something is worn or had about him. If it is bad news, why we need not tell him, and if it is good, why it will be new life to him. Of course, I jumped at it, and it shows what a fool I am that it had never occurred to me. Zinka is the queen of all the Gypsies, although she is only five and twenty. The most beautiful woman in the face of the earth— Don't tell Sally that I said so. Why, she is Sinementa's daughter that my old mare is named from. So you may suppose that she knows everything. If we could only get her to spot the winners for us, but she won't, she won't for a hundred thousand pounds. Well, I prigged your handkerchief yesterday, my boy. No professional could have done a better, and a queer thing it was that it should be your wife's with her maiden name done in her own hair. Nothing could be luckier, and we had a rare laugh at it. Zinka was on the downs, not like a common Gypsy, but half a mile away towards Preston, in a beautiful tent of her own, and she never mixes with a common ruck. It takes an introduction, I can tell you, and a good one, too, to get a word from her, but the major manage that, for he knows something of her people. There is no flummary about her. You cross her hand with a five-pound note and a crown piece in it, and you tell her what you want, and whatever you give her to hold she keeps. You don't mean to say that a dirty Gypsy woman has got one of my kitty's pocket handkerchiefs? Dirty Gypsy woman! She's as clean as any queen, and for majesty and breed, I wish you could have seen her. A thoroughbred fellow three years old is more graceful than any woman that ever stepped. You can't expect two legs to go as well as four, you know? But Zinka, well, to see Sally walk after that, and Sally ain't clumsy in her paces, neither. But what do you think she said, when we had told her all about it? She shut her great eyes for a minute, and her lashes came down to the brown roses on her cheeks, and then, she whispered, I can see a great ship coming over the sea, no smoke to it, only white, white sails, and in the front of it I can see a beautiful young woman, looking towards England with tears in her eyes. The ship is sailing fast, but her heart is flying faster, and she never looks back, and answers no one, only to ask how much longer it will be. And how much longer will it be, we both asked her, because it was the very thing that you would want to know. I cannot say, perhaps three, four weeks. The sun is very hot, and there is a black cloud before them. Perhaps it will swallow them up, I cannot tell. No, there is a great bird with long white wings. It will take them through the cloud, and they will be safe. There it is all sliding from me like a mist. But I can see her eyes still, and they are full of tears and smiles. And another word could we get out of her kit. There were tears on her own cheeks when she opened her eyes, and she did not know a single word she had been saying. I wish you had asked her where the ship was to land, and what was the name of it, and how she came there, and whether it would be any good for me to go to meet it, and who it was the lady was thinking of all the while, and how long the storm that was before them was to last, and whether the people on board. Come, kit, that is all the things we get. Major, do you hear him? Now that chap is fast asleep. Between you and me, kit, he has had her drop too much. But a man in a small way doesn't win five hundred every day of his life, you know? By the way, I heard the downy was hard hit again. But Potts took my tip, and his pocket did a thousand. Why, you never congratulated me, my boy. I shall throw up the book now and invest it in my place. But we must be off, or Sally will blow up. Such a spread. You had better come. Cindy walks into the dining-room and drinks a bottle of champagne, and there will be some rattling good chaps there. There may be a thousand, Sam, but none better than yourself. I congratulate and thank you, Sam, with all my heart. Few fellows would have thought of a friend at such a time. But excuse me, I can't come to-night. Indeed, I can't. I want to think of this all by myself. You say that this beautiful queen is never wrong. And what a heart she must have. What a fine heart, Sam. I should like to have seen the tears on her lovely cheeks. Oh, I say, come, come, Kit. But she has never been known to be wrong, my dear fellow. All the tribe call her—well, I can't pronounce the name, but it means something like the infallible divine. And she does it all so simply. There is no humbug about her. Come along, Major. Why, you must be starved. I was partly ashamed of my own superstition, yet I could not help saying to myself, They believe it, and they are ten times clever than I shall ever be. End of chapter 61 Chapter 62 Of Kit and Kitty Beverage of Dodgeridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in a public domain. Chapter 62 Haste to the Wedding Things were not going very smoothly now with Mr. Donovan Bolrag. Three of the four months allowed him by his father had passed already, yet no date was fixed, or seemed likely to be fixed, for the great event which was to make a wealthy man of him. The old man was urgent, and could not be brought to postpone the revenge to the convenience of his son, for he had learned already that this chip of the old block was of a grain quite as crooked and cross-fibered as his own. His violent and vindictive heart was burning for the day when he should trample on the pride of the woman who had been his ruin, and had married again and lived in luxury while putrid fish was his diet. Neither was revenge his only motive. Some provision must be made for him, something better than two pounds a week in a wretched den in London, as soon as ever he chose to apply to his aged father's man of business, and this he could now do without upsetting all his plans until he had revealed himself to that haughty woman. If you choose to make your own son a beggar and to turn your daughters into the streets you must, that is all I can say, I can do no more, I lost a lot of money today all through you. I should never have invested six pence but for you, it does seem a little too hard upon a fellow when he is doing all he knows to please a man who never helped him. It was on the night of the derby day, and father and son were holding their usual weekly interview in the Green Park. The older man was much better dressed and cleaner than he had been, but the other kept at a prudent distance and took care to smoke throughout the time. He had looked into books and found that the disorder is sometimes contagious and sometimes not. Whose fault is it that I have never helped you? The cripple asked disdainfully, don't walk so fast, my feet are not like yours. You make me even pay for my cab both ways. I came to please you, you shall pay for my cab, and you shall pay for it a little further too. I demand to be established on the promises. You have plenty of room and as you said once it can be done without any one the wiser. How can I tell that she won't run away the moment you are married? And I want to be where I can see my daughters, in a lonely, rambling, ramshackle house like that you could put me up easily. I saw the very place when I went round there after dark, whoever goes near the captain's workshops. Three of them quite away from all the other rooms. I only want one and I will have it. It would save me ten shillings a week as well as cab fare. They won't take me anywhere in the vilest den for less than that. When they see what I am, Christian country, isn't it? Why, the Poltro-Indians are better Christians than you are. Get their room ready by this day week. If I do, you must give me another month's grace. It will be a terrible risk to take. Everyone watches us so about there. We have gained such a reputation. And I shall increase it, my son, as soon as known. Your mother never cared what was thought of her by anyone. She will now have a fine case to defy the public with. I will go into that room this day week. My goods are not as manifold as they were. I had twelve horses in my command at San Luis. Ah, we all have our ups and downs. I am on the upscale now. Downy was very loath to receive his father so. He knew that it might be done safely enough if the old man would only be cautious and discreet. But that was the very point he was sure to fail in. He would have been a great man by this time, perhaps a dictator of three sprawling states, if his prudence had been equal to his strong will and valor. Someday his history may be written. And if it should be done with any skill, the reader will be likely to conclude that he has come across yet another instance of good material thrown away. I don't like it, said the dutiful son. Why can't you stay where you are till it is over? That is to say his own wedding day, because I believe that you will make her bolt. At least nobody can make her do anything unless she chooses. But if she heard of me she would bolt like a shot, and a nice fool I should be after that. It is no good arguing. In I go this day week, or else I leave my card at the front door. Donovan Bullreg contended vainly. His father was as stubborn as himself and a hundredfold as reckless. What had this afflicted mortal to be afraid of now? His sense of paternity must have been strong in the staple of his nature something better than hardware. That he should have lain still so long in his misery, poverty, and ignominy, rather than assert himself and shock the public and destroy his son's last hope of high position. Down he showed more than his usual craft in this difficult crisis of his fortunes. He extorted from his father before he let him in a pledge that he would keep himself out of sight and never move without his leave, for at least another month. The room in which he stored him was cold and dark and damp and entirely out of view from all the people of the house, yet quite like a palace to the poor old man after all the low dens he had been lurking in. He was smuggled in at night and had to wait upon himself receiving all his food from his son's hands alone. The window had been fitted with dark wooden blinds for some of the professor's experiments, and the obscurity was deepened by the great illyxtree. The Earl of Clarenhouse, though one of the wealthiest men of the day, lived a very quiet life. His health was not strong and he hated all display and had no turn for sporting or gambling or politics or any other form of noise and push. He cared not for books or art or agriculture or women or the drama or the pleasures of the table. He was satisfied to take the world as he found it and to keep himself out of it whenever he could. Not for the sake of saving money, for no one could charge him with avarice, and when he saw good to be done he did it in the most generous and even lavish style. The few who knew him intimately loved him deeply for his gentleness, simplicity, and goodwill. And often it was said of him, and not untruely, that he had never spoken harshly to any human being. His father had been a great city-man, keen, energetic, and enterprising. But though the present Earl retained his interest in great houses founded by his father, he never concerned himself about the money market and entered into no speculations. The one ray of romance in his quiet life had fallen across it when he was quite young. When the bright sons of Sunbury were in their zenith he had been dazzled and smitten for a while by the luster of Miss Monica. Happily for him his suit was vain. He had too little go in him to suit her taste, and he married a lady better fitted for him, who left him a widower with one daughter. The arrogant beauty retained and asserted, when it became of importance to her, a certain strange influence upon his tranquil mind. He had never liked Donovan bullrag and shrank from entrusting his treasure to him. For his daughter Clara was the treasure of his life, the only object for which he cared to preserve his feeble vitality. Lady Clara, now in her twentieth year, resembled her father almost too closely. She was gentle, simple, and unpretending, apt to think the best of everybody, and to yield to a will more robust than her own. She was likely to make a most admirable wife for a strong and good man, who would cherish her, but with a coarse unfeeling husband she was certain to pine away and die, for her mind was very sensitive in her constitution weak. Seeing little of the world and knowing less about it this graceful and elegant girl had been induced, partly by the mother's heroic commendations, to fix her affections upon Donovan bullrag, how any girl could like that fellow it is hard to say. There was something so disgusting in his countenance to me, and his slow, deliberate, sarcastic speech as if he thought over every word he uttered and passed it through his mind to make it nasty. However, she considered him a hero, and so he was a hero of cold cunning and hot wickedness. You have at him, and I will have at her. Said this hero to his mother as they drove to Berkeley Square. It can't go on like this. Why, I scarcely dare go out. Why, the fellows of the fan-tail were talking all about me when I dropped in for an hour last night. I knew it by the way they began about the weather, and that ass of a grogan whispered, Hush, here he is. I shall tell her I'm off to Nova Zambla next week, and you lay it on thick about what Dr. Medley said, work the old muff upon that tack, and about the feeble heart action and the nervous system and all that stuff, but let me have the little doll all to myself. Mrs. Fairthorne sighed, for she had quick perception, and some good behind all her badness. I fear that the little doll is too good for you, she answered, and he smiled at her. How they managed it matters little, but they thought they had managed it rarely well. No doubt they told lies, pat as puddings, and plentiful as blackberries. The Lord, who settles all things well as we sometimes find out in the end, allowed them this little bit of triumph to increase their discomforture, but after all I have no ill will, and am sorry that they had so much. How beautifully everything has gone off, Don! said the lady when she had settled her stately form in the watered silk again. You see what a little tack can do. I put it as a favour to that poor thing. The objections have come from those wretched lawyers. The poor Earl would not hear a word about the money. I can't think what I have been about, not to take the bull by the horns long ago. But the fault was yours. I could never trust you. Well, I was never more pleased in my life. It will be in the morning post-tomorrow. Did you see how the poor Earl looked at me? I can wind him round my finger. The Professor may go to the bottom with his trawl, and then who knows what might happen? Donovan spoke with a bitter smile. He had never entirely forgiven his mother for her second marriage. Don't be so shocking, Don. I am ashamed of you. Well, the month is not very long to wait. And there is a great deal to see to. Fizzy and Jerry will be bridesmaids, of course, and I must not be quite a dowdy. How that pest of a delkamara will count, how? She threatened me with a queen's bench yesterday. I am not sure that I shall give her any order. I should like to break her heart, and I know how to do it. If I put the hole in the madam-free-prize hands, delkamara would never look up again. But her cut is so inferior to delkamara's. Well, I need not make my mind up until tomorrow. I think you had better keep the whole thing quiet and pull it off without any fuss at all. The Earl hates pumps and vanities, and so does Clara, and so do I. We had better have no humbug, and be married at a registry office, I suppose. None of that means shabby work for me. Everything shall be left in my hands, and I'll see that things are done properly. If it was only devexurant Arabella, after her trumpery rudeness to you, I should insist upon decency and comfort. I know how to cut her to the heart, and I intend to do it. The very day before the wedding I shall write, dearest Arabella, we have been disappointed at the last moment by the dear Duchess of Coventry. Her grace is afflicted with a bilious attack. Would you mind taking her place to-morrow and excuse the brevity of this invitation? I should like to see her passionate face when she gets that. Don't be a fool, mother. You know after all you and I are the proper heirs to her estates, though she can dispose of them as she likes. She dislikes us, but she is an upright woman. You'll be mad to offend her fatally. She has cheated me out of house and land. There is no primogeniture among women. I simply did the thing she was going to do. She has rolled in money and let me roll in the dirt. None of her posthumous benevolence for me. You'll never see me groveling at that woman's feet. At the rehearsal of her wrongs her violent temper rose and swelled as a dog's wrath waxes with its own bark. She stood up in the carriage and crushed her headdress. This doubled her fury and she turned upon her son. And you! I should like to know what you are doing in my house. My house, if you please, not yours. You think I know nothing about it, do you? No more of it. From this very hour you drop your disgraceful bachelor ways or I fetch the police and route out those rooms. Now remember what I say. When I say a thing I do it. You are all together wrong. There was nothing of the sort. Down he answered in a stern voice that cowed her. To the last day of your life you will repent it if you dare go meddling there. Dare is not a word to use to me. She answered in a sullen tone and closed her lips. If she feared anyone in the world she feared her own son Donovan. The difference between her will and his was a between a torrent and the sea hers was force and his was power. Sometimes she was sorry for her haste and fury but in him there was no repentance. He left her to herself and said no more. In one thing they were much alike. Neither of them had great faith in words. Whether used to them or by them. Having little faith in what they heard they expected little for what they said. It was no affront to either of them but an act of justice to doubt every word of their mouths because their mouths were wells of leasing. You'll have to clear out, poor old chap. Sit down he that night to his father whom he now regarded with rough affection as well as fitful pity. All settled now about you know what, in three weeks or so I shall have to slope. Who would bring you your grub but your dutiful son? What is it about the ravens and worse than that she has smoked you already in spite of all pledges you have been out at night? Who could stay mewed up night and day? Let her smoke what she likes. I have got a pipeful for her. Yes and for me and yourself too. Bedlam or hospital or workhouse for us all if she finds you here before the job is done. And after that have it out when you like. No dutiful son interferes between his parents. If this is broken off there will be no shilling left for you to have six pence out of. It may fairly be hoped that he had some other plan, though as yet he durst not mention it, for saving them both from the awful meeting of which he spoke so lightly. All might know that it is settled even now. You have put me off so many times. I might as well be in the Simon Pure again. I will show it you to-morrow in the paper, announced for an early day, and it needs to be an early one. Sorry to doubt you. Not at all a truthful family. Three weeks more, my son, and that's every hour. Let her come spying if she likes. She never could keep her nose out of anything, or perhaps I shouldn't be quite as I am. I am sorry for my lady. I only hope the pleasure will be mutual. END OF CHAPTER sixty-two While these things thus were growing near me, as I learned soon afterwards, in our place there was no sign yet of anything encouraging. My uncle Corny, who had always vowed that he never would bet a farthing, was now in a highly grumbling state, because he had not backed a nutmeg grater, a horse bred and born in our own fields, a colt I have seen through the hedge fifty times without caring to count his legs, almost. And he goes and wins five thousand pounds, and how much do I get? Not a penny. I think it was very unkind of Sam, unnatural and not neighborly, to let Ludrid get all the good of that, and not a three-penny bit come to Sunbury. Now, Uncle Corny, you talk of justice and everyone calls you a superior man. I said, with a desire to molify him, but the method misdirected, how many times have I heard Sam Henderson tell you to put a bit of money on that horse, but you said none of your gambling for me, and now, because the horse is one, you think you have been ill-treated. Get you stick to your own affairs. What do you know about things like this? I want none of their dirty money. I pay my way by honest work. They are a set of rogues all together. You never see anything clearly now. Your wits are always gone wool-gathering, while your own Aunt Parslow won a box of gloves, and you are satisfied with my getting nothing. It was true that my wits were wool-gathering now, but they traveled a long way for nothing. Ever since, Sam and Major Munkhouse brought me the story of that strange vision, it seemed to be dwelling in my brain and driving every solid sense out of it. All day long and all night too the same thing was before me, a ship, with white sails, piled on one another, like a tower of marble arches, the blue water breaking into silver at her steps, and upon the forefront of figure-standing, with arms extended and bright eyes yearning, and red lips open to say, Here I am! I went to the post three times a day, for we now had three deliveries, and who could wait for old Bob's slow round? And often in the middle of a mutton-chop, which Tabby would grind into my listless mouth, had a shadow on the window or the creaking of a door, I was up, and had my hat on and was listening in the lane. Anyone would laugh at the foolish things I did. I kept the kettle boiling day and night until there was a hole in it, and I had to buy another. I dusted all the chairs three times a day, I kept a bunch of roses on a windowsill and cut a fresh tea-rose every morning and evening to go into Kitty's bosom when she would appear. I ordered a cold chicken every day for Mr. Rasp and garnished it with parsley and handed it over with a sigh to Mrs. Tompkins, when nobody came to taste it, and I made Polly Tompkins sleep with a string around her arm, and the end hanging out of the window, every man on the place swore that I was cracked except Celci Bill, who stuck a spade up at my door. Before the rust coming down the blade of that there tool, you'll be a happy man, Master Kit. He said, and as he spoke, his little squinny eyes were bright with something that removes the rust of human nature's metal. At last I was truly getting genuinely cracked. Another week of burning hope and weltering dejection, of tossing to the sky and tumbling to the depths of darkness, must have left my dull brain empty of the little gift God put in it. When a whole month had expired from the day when hope awoke, reason fell upon me like a flail and hope was chaff, I made my usual preparations with a bitter grin at them and set the roses in a window with contempt of their loveliness. The last time of all this tomfoolery, I said, tomorrow I shall work hard again. Everything is lies and tricks and rot. Giddy is taken up with some fellow, and they are laughing at me in some gambling den. I have a great mind to smash it up all together. I shall sleep where that regular slept tonight. Much good I did by stealing him. Hard work is the only thing worth doing. It was the first time I had ever dared to think such a shameful thing of my pure wife, and I hoped that I did not think it now but said it by the devil's prompting. If anyone had said it in my hearing he would have said little else for another month, and I could have knocked my own self on the head with great pleasure when I came to think of it. We laugh very nicely when they cannot hear us at women for not knowing their own minds, but no woman ever born since they began to bear us could have gainsaid herself as a man did that day. I wandered about and lay under trees for now it was the fifteenth of June and the weather warm and sunny. Then I climbed up trees and watched the river and the roads and even the meadow-path where the cows were and the mushrooms grew. Then I went and had a talk with Widow Cutlam. And when she began to run down the race of women I went so much further that she grew quite sharp and extolled them and put all the blame upon us. It was a waste of time to reason with her so I let her have her own way as they always do. Then I went to the butchers and saw a fine sweetbread, the very thing for any one just come from a long journey, and perhaps a little giddy from the rolling of a ship, with a sigh of despair I pulled out half a crown and made him lend me a basket and a clean white napkin. Then I could not run home with it quick enough for it seemed as if someone would be dying without it. But as soon as I got to our door I set it down and could not bring myself even to enter the house. Away I went and got into the loneliest place I could find and being rather light of head from grief and want of food fell over an old apple-trunk and fell asleep beside it. When I awoke the sun was set and the men who were now working overtime to be ready for the strawberries were all gone home with their frills upon their backs and their little ones coming down the road to meet them. Dizzily I pushed my way into a grassy alley and sauntered homeward wishing only to go home forever. The front door was open which did not surprise me for I often left it so and the basket containing the sweetbread was gone and the roses were moved from the window. The sound of my boots did not ring as it used and the air seemed less empty and softer. In a stupefied hurry I opened the door of the parlor and there sat Kitty, Kitty looking at me with a strange and timid look as if she were not certain that I would be glad to see her as if she doubted whether I could love her any more as if her soul and earth and heaven hung on the next moment. I could not go to her, I could not say a word, and to tell the truth I don't know what I did, but I must have spread my arms by some gift of nature for before I could think of it there she was weeping as I never could have thought it possible for anyone, even in this world of tears, to weep. Then she put up her hand with the fingers thrown back and stroked my cheeks gently and said, How thin! How thin! And she threw both arms round my neck and drew my face down to her lips and covered every inch of it with sobbing kisses. I pressed her sweet bosom to mind and her heart seemed to beat into one another. Oh, Kitty, my own! Oh, dear old Kitty! Can you ever forgive me? Ever! She said this, I dare say, fifty times scarcely allowing me to speak, for she said it was not good for me withdrawing and feigning to be ashamed of her passionate love every now and then, and then rushing into my embrace again. Then she stood up and threw back her beautiful hair and said with a glance which she knew I adored. Well, how do you think I am looking, love? Don't you think it is high time to tell me? She was wearing some foreign dress, beautifully cut, which set off her figure, and she knew it very well. I never saw you looking half so lovely, I replied, though I thought it impossible to improve you. Sun burnt and freckled and mosquito-bitten. But never mind, dear, if you love your own wife we'll soon make all that right again. Oh, I have been too wild! Feel how my heart is jumping! She was threatened with hysterics, but I soothed her gently, and she rested on my breast with her eyes half closed. As I looked at her I felt that in this rapture I could die. Darling, I can hardly believe it yet! she whispered playing with my fingers to make sure. See, this is my wedding-ring, I never took it off. What fine gold it is not to tarnish with my tears. The drops that have fallen on it. Oh, I wonder there is any blue left in my eyes at all. Do you think there is blue, dear, as when you used to love them? They are bluer, heart of hearts. They are larger and deeper. The tears of true love have made them still more lovely. But yours are so worn and sad and harassed. I can't be from loving me more than I love you, because that is simply impossible. But you never have been— Tell me, tell me all the truth. Was there any truth, whatever, in that horrible tale? Remember I shall love you just the same. If you tore me to pieces I should love you. What horrible tale? I have never heard of any horrible tale except you're going away. And you don't know the reason. Oh, Kit! Oh, Kit! Have you taken me back like this without even knowing why I went? Darling, I have not the least idea why you went. I was too glad to get you back to think of anything else. Well, you are a true love. You are a husband such as no woman on earth deserves. I don't even think I could have taken you back, so if you had run away from me and I knew nothing of the cause— Oh, yes, you would, Kitty. I am sure you would. I believe in you, just as you would in me. And talking has nothing to do with it. But how did you expect me to know all about it? Why, of course, by the letter I sent you from Ascension, the moment we got your letter, the moment I could stop crying, crying, crying, I wrote you such a letter, darling. Oh, I thought it would have killed me with wonder and with joy. It was almost as sweet as this. Not quite—not quite. Nothing else can ever be quite so sweet as this. Then were you with your father? Were you with him all the time? To be sure I was, dearest. Do you think I would have gone with anyone else? Away from you? Away from my own husband? But I thought it quite impossible for you to be with him. He was far in the Atlantic, dear, before you ran away. Before I ran away—oh, Kit—oh, Kit—and you thought I had run away with somebody else. Oh, what has my misery been compared with yours? No wonder you are thin, dear. No wonder you are gone. Why, I can't think how you could have managed to keep alive. I am sure I should have been dead, buried and forgotten. Thirteen months, a year and a month to be thinking your own new married wife had run away. Like a bad woman. Oh, dear, don't stop me. I must cry again, or I may do something worse. And you have not even got my letter yet? No, but I dare say it will come by and by. I expect a no letter from you, of course, because I had no idea where you were, but every day I hope for one from your father. But they told me the males from Asensione are uncertain, because they take their chance of passing ships. Sometimes they don't come for months together. Now will you read this? she cried, jumping up with her old impetuosity. I am very glad I kept it, though it makes me creep every time I touch it. That explains everything. Who wrote that? It is like my writing, but I never wrote a word of it. I never saw or dreamed of it before. Whoever wrote that letter, Kit, my wife said very solemnly, ought to have his portion forever and ever in the bottomless pit where the fire is not quenched. I could never have believed that any human being could possibly have conceived such wickedness. But don't read it now. It would take too long and spoil our perfect happiness, darling. We must not be so selfish. No more kisses until we have done our duty. Just put me into the trim again and let me do my hair up, and we must both run down to Uncle Corny's. Nobody has seen me yet but you. What do you think I did? I was quite resolved that no one should see me but my own husband, so I left my things that felt them and ran all the way, flew all the way, I ought to say, and came through love lane all alone. We will never part again, not even for a day, Kit, or half a day. You must never let me out of your sight any more, and not out of my arms when I can help it. I said, with my dear wife still in clasp and her hair waving over my bounding heart, I took her through the quiet alleys of the summer night just to show her for a minute, for I could not spare her more, to the loyal and good Uncle Corny. End of Chapter 63 Chapter 64 of Kit and Kitty by Richard Dowdridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in a public domain. Chapter 64 Amensa et Toro It is out of my power to say because I have never studied human nature, having more than I can properly get through with trees and animals. But according to the little I have seen the spirit of revenge is stronger in women than it usually is in us. Whatever wrong a man may have done me, if he only says that he is sorry for it, or without that I have got the better of him, I am quite content that he should go and settle the question as between him and the Lord. I wish him no ill but what he may do himself. And even if I hear of his getting his desserts, I feel no elation but endeavour to be sorry. But my Uncle Corny, who understands the fair sex, at least according to his own account, declares that they not only cannot forgive a deadly wrong done to them, but continue to think that the world is a bad place and sadly neglected by Providence until they see the people who have made them unhappy paying out for it, as they ought to do. My Kitty was the very best of all her sex, which is saying a great deal more than some men may imagine, and means much more than if it were said of them. But still I could see that she was not contented, even with our new honeymoon, which was ten times sweeter than the first one, though that had been most delicious, from a lofty desire or perfect justice, which a man is quite satisfied to do without, knowing as he does that otherwise he never could have satisfaction at all. And yet I could see that she trembled, whenever she had hinted at the little drawback, for fear of the danger that it might invoke to me, for she never seemed to think that I could take care of myself, as well as she took care of me. It is not for me to say how things are, or rather how they ought to be, and I am free to acknowledge that if Downey Bolrag had come down meddling with my wife again, I should have killed him, and risked the chance of being hanged for a fellow unworthy of it, and when I had read aloud that wicked letter in the presence of Kitty in my uncle the next day, there were times when I longed to have him by the throat, and prevent more lies coming out of it, for the devil himself must have stood at his elbow, and gone into his brain as well, while he was about it, and he had made the ground ready for his lies to grow by a black mysterious note beforehand signed, a well-wisher in Sunbury. This we had not in our possession yet, but Kitty knew the effect of it upon her father's mind. As I read the vile forgery bearing my name, Uncle Corny fell back in his chair and shut his lips, and he closed his fist also, and from time to time he kept stamping with his boots as if his feet were tingling, but Kitty put her tender hand into mine, and her breath was short, and her bosom heaved, and her eyes flashed like the summer lightning, or sometimes filled with heavy drops. My dear and respected father-in-law, I have a sad confession to make to you, which I ought to have made long ago, but I knew that I must have lost your daughter by it. I will not pretend to excuse my conduct, for I know that I have behaved shamefully, but I could not foresee the frightful danger to which she is now exposed daily. My heart is almost broken, for I love her wildly, savagely, and in plain truth madly. Last autumn I committed a very base act, and I am justly punished for it. To keep your sweet Kitty here a little longer, and give me more chances of seeing her, I was mean enough to steal Miss Cold Pepper's favorite dog, a mongrel called Brigulus. I hid him in my uncle's garden while the country was being searched for him, and thus, as perhaps you remember, I obtained the honor of your acquaintance. But I was punished for that sneakish trick. The curb bit me thrice in the legs and thigh, and I am doomed to a horrible death I fear, for the dog has gone mad, and the disease was in him then. I have been without any one's knowledge to the first authority in London on such matters, and he says that I ought to be watched, and must hold aloof from all family ties for a while. He asked if I was married, and then he told me the most horrible story I ever heard. And he conjured me, unless I wished to kill my wife, to separate from her for at least two years, when I would not promise that he was anxious to write to her relatives himself, but I gave him a false address, and nothing came of that. I hoped that he might be mistaken, but now I feel that he was only too correct. Your kitty is not safe with me another day. I have the most awful sensation sometimes. The malady has got hold of me too surely, though nobody yet suspects it. I have felt a wild desire to tear her to pieces, and the only atonement I can make for my offense is to beg to you to take her immediately. You are likely to be away for about two years, and when you return, if I am still alive, which is most unlikely, I may safely reclaim her. I implore you not to let her know the cause of this sad parting. It would keep her in awful suspense and misery, and perhaps be as fatal to her as I myself should be. She is so good and dutiful and trusts me so entirely, that if you say it is my wish for reasons you approve of, however she may grieve about it she will not rebel. Come for her, or send for her, without my knowledge, without the knowledge of anyone near our place. For if the story got abroad I should go mad at once. My only hope lies in perfect quiet, therefore she must not write to me, and I must not hear a word even from yourself about her. She must not stop to pack up clothes or anything whatever, for if I came in I should destroy her if I saw it, but order particularly that she shall take every farthing in the house she knows of to equip her for her long voyage in a seaport town. The money is her own and she must take it. I send this by hand as I know not where you are, but the bearer knows how to find you. There is no answer except to do what I implore most pitifully, if you wish to save your only child from a fearful death at the hands of one who loves her so madly. I pray God that you may be yet in time. I feel a little calmer after writing this. This morning I was in agony at the sight of water. May the Lord have you and my darling in his keeping. O how base I have been, but I have done no murder yet. Your heart broken son-in-law, C. Orchardson. When I had finished, my uncle spoke, for Kitty could only press my hand and sometimes look at me and sometimes turn her eyes away and blush. These are the things, my uncle said, that make one ashamed of being called a man. No snake could do such a thing and no dog would, however mankind might train him, and the bit of piety towards the end. The father was a blackard, the mother of fury, the son is the devil with all his angels. Oh, kit, kit! I am old and have met with a great deal of wickedness, but none like this. But you know, Uncle Corny, you must not be disturbed, said Kitty, going up to him and kissing his forehead in her sweet and graceful way, just because there happen to be bad people in the world. It has always been so, and I fear it always must. And you must not imagine that Kit meant any harm by just borrowing anti-cold pepper's dog. He did it, oh so cleverly, just for the sake of seeing me, and he quite changed the character of that dog, but how can that bad man have found it out? Through Harker, I exclaimed, through that wretch of a Harker who was always spying on these promises. Sam Henderson knew it, most likely through him, but Sam would never have spoken of it. It is true, then, said my uncle, while I thought it was a lie. I am surprised to find that I have a dog-stealer for my nephew. It was Tabby made him do it, and I am very glad she did, but the first thing Dr. Cutler said to me when my heart was nearly broken with his message was, did your husband steal that dog? And of course I said yes, for Kit told me all about it when we were at Baycliff, and no doubt that convinced the good doctor that all the rest of that sad wicked letter was true. You know, Uncle Corny, that it was impossible for my father to leave the ship, and he sent his old friend, Dr. Cutler, to fetch me. Oh, I did cry all the way. I thought there never would be any more happiness for me. And of course they never told me why I was to go. I thought that Kit must be tired of me, and yet I could not quite believe that, you know. Oh, Kit, I shall never be tired of you. Don't cry, my darling, said my uncle kindly. We have had enough tears to drown that devilish letter. Now sit on Kit's lap and make sure of him, and tell me your own adventures, for I have only guessed them yet. Oh, I had no adventures, and I never noticed anything, only to ask how far we were from England, and to count the days till we should have finished all the work. I made a little calendar, as the girls do at school. The girls, I mean, who have real mothers, and I blotted out every day when it was over, and thought, one less now before I see Kit again. Of course I asked my father what had made him sin for me, and he said it was my husband's most earnest and treaty, and if I loved him I must ask no more but keep up my spirits and obey his orders. Father never showed me this letter, or I think, though I can't quite be sure, that I should have doubted about it. The writing is exactly like Kit's in some places, but in others it is different, and the style is not like Kit's. That wicked man stole several letters of Kit's, I suspected it then, and now I know it. My father had not the smallest doubt, of course, but he was puzzled when I spoke about that telegram. You know what I mean, the one from Captain Jenkins, a foul mouth, to say the ship was on her voyage, and to send good-bye to us. He had sent no such message, and had spoken no such ship, and said that it must be some extraordinary mistake. But you see now it was another piece of falsehood, to make it look impossible that I could be with my father. It was father himself who went to Bakeliffe to inquire, knowing that we had been there, and being near it. But he could not come here, and so he sent Dr. Cutler, who knows all this neighborhood well, and managed it all to perfection with the help of someone who was sent by agreement to meet him. Oh, dear! When I think of that dreadful time, and I was not allowed to leave a line for my husband except what I wrote on the sly in the prayer-book. Well, that did him some good at any rate, didn't it, my own darling? I am quite ashamed to talk of my own sorrow when I think of what Kit has been through for me. But I am sure I ate nothing for at least a month, and Dr. Cutler, who was in charge of the health of the ship's company, became quite uneasy about me. As for their experiments, deep sea dredging and soundings and temperatures and all that, I did not even care to look at them, and I am not a bit more scientific than when we went out, though perhaps I shall talk as if I was by and by. The only thing I felt any interest in was the rescue of a poor, afflicted man. I think they called him a Spaniard, though he seemed to be more like an Englishman, who was kept as prisoner among some savages in a desert place in South America. He was terribly afflicted with some horrible disease and the sailors would not go near him, until they were ashamed when they saw me do it. We were all very kind to him, but he left us and got on board another ship bound for home. Oh, how I used to tremble, Kit, whenever we saw a ship in the distance, hoping for news of you, my dear, and of Uncle Corny and everybody. But we met very few ships being generally employed and out of the way places, and only landing anywhere two or three times for water or fruit or vegetables. But when we got to a sensione island, which is an English place, you know, what a joyful surprise there was for me. I shall always bless that little rocky spot for it gave me back my life again. When Father received my husband's letter for the first time in his life he was in a real fury, something or other had occurred before besides that affair of the telegram, which made him a little doubtful about this wicked, wicked letter. And now he saw at once that he had been imposed upon most horribly. We were all afraid that he would have had a fit, but Dr. Cutler saved him. My poor injured child, he kept on exclaiming, pretched for the last year and injured for life by this monstrous villainy. He would have thrown up his command at once if he could have done it honorably, and brought me home by the very next ship. But if he had done so the cruise must have ended, for Lieutenant Morris, who was next to him, was invalided at Fort George. I was quite ready to come home alone by any ship, English or foreign, but as it happened Dr. Cutler received by the same mail an urgent request from his wife for his return, and so the very gentleman I ran away with brought me back to my husband. It was a long time before we could get a ship, and then it was only a sailing vessel, and oh how slowly she seemed to go. Then about a month ago we had a very heavy storm which drove us, I don't know how far, out of our course, and I thought that I never should see Kit again. But now it seems all like a horrible dream. Father will be home in November, I hope. I intend to work hard to help Uncle Corny, and Kit will soon be well again with me to mind him. End of Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Of Kit and Kitty By Richard Doddridge Blackmore This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 65 Her Own Way You must not let it drop, Kit. You can't let it drop. Sedant Parslow, as she said in our parlor the next day, having ordered Parker's fly as soon as she received my letter. For the sake of your sweet wife, you are absolutely bound to expose this horrid miscreant. I doubt if there ever was such a case before, though nothing ever surprises me. It was very nasty of you to steal that dog, why you might have come and stolen Jupiter and the very same principle of a pretty girl. And you have been punished even more than you deserved. You deserved a month and a stocks, perhaps, with all the dogs in a village sniffing at you, but you did not deserve to lose your own wife, just when you had time to get fond of her. I am not for revenge. I am too old to fancy that we can do much to right ourselves, even if the feeling was Christian. But I belong to an honourable family, in which the fair fame of a lady was never neglected. I declare I never thought once of that it never occurred to me in that light. I answered with perfect truth, for my kitty's fair name seemed to me so entirely above all question, that it could not need any assertion. But since it is capable of being looked at so, there is no doubt what my duty is. No husband of proper spirit could doubt for a moment what his duty is. Miss Parslow spoke very severely, but my wife looked at her reproachfully and ran up to me. No, Kit, no! You shall not go near him. There is nothing too bad for him to do. I have lost you quite long enough already. What do I care what anybody says? Miss Parslow, you have been wonderfully kind, and it is impossible to thank you. Don't spoil it all by putting this into his head. My dear, we shall send the two policemen with him. My aunt replied rather sarcastically. We know how precious he is, and we won't have him hurt. Or perhaps your uncle Cornelius might go. He has no wife to make it to do about him. Look, there he comes with somebody to tell us something. He walks like a man of thirty-five and how polite he always is. Uncle Cornelius had brought Mrs. Wilcox from his house, and that good lady was in great excitement. She fell upon Kitty and kissed and hugged her until I thought really there had been enough of that. And then she turned round and addressed us at large, casting forth her words with vehemence and throwing out her hands as if to catch them. Ladies and gents, oh, ladies and gents, such a thing have just come to my knowledge through Ted, which is the most intellectual boy, though my own child and was never such myself. I set off straight away when I heard it and begged to excuse of my present disappearal to catch the three-ten bus or else wait another hour. And if there is a good horse in the place, which by the look of it there must be many, I do beg of Master Kit to put him in once, if not too late, to prevent bloody murder. Them police is so slow, so slow, though I never join a single word against them, for all mortal men is fallible. I can't make out what it is, said Uncle Cornelius when we all looked at him for an explanation. This good lady must be allowed her own time. I am afraid that I have hurried her. Not at all, Mr. Orchardson, not at all. Nothing could be more gentlemanly, and I will say the same of all Sunbury. But the wedding was to be tomorrow, gents, regardless of expense at eleven o'clock at the Church of St. Nicholas the Virgin. It was not time for me to forbid the bands, though knowing of holy impediments. Very handsome it was to be with six bridesmaids, Ms. Frizzy and Ms. Jerry for two of them, Cook who was a very self-respected young woman, though Ted says she have turned forty-two, and no concern of his if she is even two and forty. She dropped in promiscuous and told me all about it, and all was as merry as a marriage-bell. But just as I was having my bit of dinner, in she comes with her cap ribbons flying off and her apron strings burst, being rather stout with running. For God's sakes, come up, Mrs. Wilcox. She says, or they'll be murdered on, murdered on, and nobody to see it. I was there in two minutes, as you may suppose, and there was Madame tearing up and down the front walk with her black silk cloak on that makes her look so tall, and her face, oh, you should have seen the colour of it, and the flashing of her eyes and the waving of her arms. I insist upon knowing, I insist upon going in. I am going to be locked out of my own house. Tomorrow, indeed. Don't talk to me of tomorrow. How dare you prevent me from entering my own door. I will find out your disgraceful tricks and expose you. You are not fit to marry a respectable girl. I'll send for a policeman and have the door forced. You won't do anything of the kind. Her son, Mr. Downey, made answer quietly. Although I could see he was awful pale, and he sat on a kitchen chair in front of the door, with his broad shoulders sat against it. And I tell you it is for your sake that I will not allow it. You may walk about all night, but you won't walk in here. Ladies and gents, she kept pacing up and down, like meows above more than a mortal woman, raving and ranting to such a degree, that a crowd of people came and looked over the gate, and they began to cry, Bravo, Rouse! Go it, old lady. Hit him hard. He ain't got no friends. And all that stuff. You know how free and easy a London crowd is. And then she marched up to the gate and looked at them. And they fell away, ashamed, and she walked into the house. But have her way, she will, before the sun goes down. She has sworn it, and she never breaks her oath. It is no concern of ours, said my uncle very sensibly. What have we to do with such family quarrels? What made you come to us, Mrs. Wilcox? Two things, sir. In the first place you know more of the law than any gentleman I know. You remember how you told me that last winter, and every word you said came true as gospel. And what is more than that poor Miss Jerry and Miss Frizzy backed her up in that same, she says to me, Oh, Miss Wilcox, do try to get that nice young man from Sunbury that married poor kid he fairthorn. He has more power over mother than any one on earth. She is afraid of him, that's the truth. Though she'd box my ears if she heard me say so. There might be time enough, she says, if you'd set off directly, and I'll pay all expenses. Well, I thought it must come from heaven that I should be thinking of the uncle and she of the nephew, and so come both gents I beg of you. There'll be murder between them, if you don't, for the police can't interfere, you know. Get, let us go, said my uncle Corny, as some new idea struck him. We cannot interfere, of course, but we can see the end of it. Kitty was very much against my going, and I would not have left her unless Miss Parslow had promised to stay with her until I return, although it would compel her to send back the fly and beg a bed for the night from her old friend Sallie. My uncle took a big stick, and so did I, and in a quarter of an hour we started in the tax cart with Mrs. Wilcox on the cushion. I was the driver and my uncle sat behind, for there was no room for three of us, all rather broad, in front, and certainly I was the calmest of the three, for the good lady was in a dreadful fright and fret, and my uncle sat heavily with his chin upon his stick, taking no notice of the roads or streets, but dwelling on the distance of bygone sorrow. The wrong he had suffered was greater than mine in one way, and less in another, greater because it was incurable, lighter because less cold-blooded and crafty, and not inflicted on him through his own wife. But I, with my Kitty recovered and still in the new delight of that recovery, had triumph already in the more important part, and was occupied rather with contempt than hatred, and it seemed to me too an extraordinary thing, and the last I should ever have predicted, that I should be entreated by the daughters of that most naughty and headstrong woman, to come and exert for her own good my imaginary power over her. We put up our cart at the bricklayer's arms where Ted had been pot-boy, or pot-man, he called himself, and then we all hurried towards Bullragh Park. The mid-summer sun had just gone down, and as the red light glanced along the broad stately roads I thought of the words of that violent lady, Before the sun goes down I will have my way. We passed between some posts into the open space, coveted vainly by builders where the old scotch furs, which had been my Kitty's landmark, still waved their black pillows against the western sky. Then a number of people came rushing by us, driven by that electric impulse which flasses through the human heart that human life is passing. With a contagion of haste we began to run. Can't come in, nowhere allow pass this rope. A posse of policemen had drawn a cord across the road outside the old gate, because that was a very poor obstacle, and now I dare say there were a hundred people pushing, and in five minutes there would be a thousand. I said, I am Professor Phaethon's son-in-law, and the two young ladies have sent for me, and Mrs. Wilcox is an old servant of the family who was sent in haste to fetch me. They dropped the rope at this, and let us in, being reasonable as the police are generally, unless you rub their coats up the wrong way of the cloth. But what a sight we had, when once we turned the corner. Having never been brought up in battlefields, but only where apples and pears grow, I found myself all abroad and felt my legs desirous to go away from one another. But my uncle laid hold of me and said, This is what it comes to, the man who has been a man may look on at the devil. Mrs. Wilcox turned back for her nerves are rheumatic, but they would not let her pass the rope again. I was looking round and saw it with a desire to do the same, but my uncle had me by the collar, and I knew that he was right, though I would rather not have known it. Stop, and see the works of God! He said, and I answered, No, I would rather not, if this is a sample of them. For before the front door there were things going on which made it impossible to let that house after it came into our possession, even to a most enlightened widow from America. Or at any rate she took it and then threw it up again. There were as good as three corpses laid out upon the lawn, with a doctor attending upon each and two policemen, one of them also had a magistrate. Uncle Corny drew me forward as I shrank behind the bay-tree where Kitty had been with me when the great snow began. You are only fit for a turtle dove. Where is your gall? He whispered. It may have been a very low default on my part, but when my worst enemy lies on the ground I would rather lift him up than walk over him. My uncle was of sterner stuff, or less live, softness, for his injury had been more deadly. He tried to drag me forward, but I would not budge, though I might make a beggar of myself by that refusal. Are you afraid to look at death, you white-levered young fool? He whispered and his face was black with a pitch of fury. I have been through ten times worse than death, I answered, looking at him steadfastly. And the lesson I have learned is mercy. Before he could answer with the bitterness of justice, which to him was greater, two young women ran across the grass, and they both got hold of me and shrieked. I could not make out what they said because I was mixed up with sobs, and they cried both together. But I left myself to them, and they drew me on to the place where their mother lay stretched upon the walk, with a medical man bending over her. Dr. Wiggins, he asked, and I answered, No, not a doctor at all. And he said, Clear out! I shall take the four ounces on my own responsibility. A friend of the family, a true friend of the family, Mr. Jerry exclaimed to my great surprise, but he answered, Let him get out of the way, and the sooner you go away, too, the better. The sour-faced woman, a faithful retainer, was supporting the poor lady's head on a cushion, and I scarcely allowed myself a glance at the proud face, now so deathly, but their one glance told me for ever what all human pride must come to. Oh, come and see Downey, he can't be dead, too. Oh, come and forgive him before he is dead. Which of the girls said this I know not, but I took up my hat, which I had thrown on the grass, and followed them to their brother. There lay the man who had robbed me of my wife, the cold-blooded, godless, miscreant, robbed by his own hand for ever of all hope of due repentance. Within a few yards of him lay his poor father, dead as a stone and cold as ice, slain by the wickedness he had begotten, shot through the heart by his heartless son. Donovan Volrag looked at me. He was sensible still, though before the waning light upon his ghastly face should vanish, light and darkness would be one to him. He knew me, and I am grieved to say for his own poor sake that he hated me still. He had not heard of Kitty's return, I suppose, having been so absorbed in his own affairs. And he muttered through the red foam that streaked his lying lips, for he had fired the ball through the roof of his mouth. How like, darling Kitty, run away with officer. She is with me. Her father found out your tricks and sent her home. She is well and very happy. She ran away with no officer. Then him alone, sir, don't excite him, said a surgeon who was stooping over him. I must have you removed if you come near him. Then with another turn of thought he said, If there has been ill will between you make it up, he cannot last half an hour. Will you take his hand if he wishes it? With pleasure, but I know that he does not wish it. Do you wish me to take your hand, Mr. Bolrag? If you do, look at me and nod your head. To my amazement the dying man turned his eyes on me and nodded his head. His eyes were clouded with the approach of death, and I saw very little expression in them. Then he moved his left hand feebly towards me, while the other dropped as if through exhaustion to the ground. My right hand lay in his clammy palm, and bending forward I watched his face for some token of goodwill and penitence. Suddenly a red glare as of lightning filled his eyes, his features worked horribly, and his great teeth clashed as he tried to jerk me towards him. Luckily for me I was poised upon both feet. At the flash of his eyes I sprang aside, a redder flash blinded me, and a roar rang in my ears, and upon the bosom of the dying man lay the short, thick curl. A love-lock kitty was so fond of playing with. The ball had passed within an inch of my temple, and my forehead was black with a pistol smoke. Narrow shave, said the doctor. That would be his last act. I hope he will have life enough to know that it has failed. I had not the least idea he had got that revolver under his coat flap. What are the police about? It's not my place to see to a thing of that sort. And he might have shot me while he was about it. There he goes. I thought so. Serve him right. The great head fell back, and the square chin dropped. A dull gaze spread upon the upturned eyes. A wan gray haze as a visey vapor crept across the relaxing face, and Donovan bullrag was gone to render an account of his doings in the flesh. Mrs. Wilcox ran up with a sob and fetched the heavy eyelids downward. Poor young man! He have run his course. I hope he is gone to heaven, she said, but my uncle Corny looked at me and at the fallen pistol. I wish him his only due, he said, and I hope he is gone to the devil. CHAPTER 66 ONE GOOD WISH There must have been a fearful scene about an hour before we reached that spot. Two powerful wills were in collision. One hard as steel, the other trenchant and restless as red hot iron. For many days the conflict had been gathering force and fury, as the rising wind collects its power before the outbreak of the storm. The mother was resolved to pierce the mystery of her crafty son. The son was equally resolute to keep his fatal secret, and the father, turbulent and headstrong, wrapped in his own vindictive mood, cared not when the outbreak came, but looked forward to it grimly. It had been impossible for Downey, as he had naturally foreseen, to keep entirely to himself the presence of a stranger in the house. Although the room was far away from the part his mother occupied, and darkened for the professor's use, and secluded by thick shrubbery, it soon became needful for the jailer to secure a confederate. With some misgivings he took the sour-faced woman into his confidence, knowing her to be close and faithful as well as clever and resourceful. But unluckily for himself he did not trust the woman wholly. Skinner, as she was called in the household, did not know the real import of the plan she aided. Falsehood was her master's nature, and he did no despite to it, by relapsing into truth. He told her a chapter of lies, and she had no inkling that the stowaway, whose face she was never allowed to see, was the husband of her mistress. Thus she was not on her guard so strictly as she would have been, had she known the truth. To learn the existence of a secret is to be halfway towards it. And the pride as well as curiosity of the mistress was soon afoot. But the room was securely locked, and vain was any prowling round it, till indignation and sense of outrage grew no longer bearable. After that public outbreak of passion which had scared the cook and Mrs. Wilcox, the lady of the house retreated to her room, and was taken or feigned to be taken ill. Her son was sent for in great haste, and found her prostrate and broken down, scarcely able to speak, and quite unlikely to attack his stronghold again. His sisters implored him to take a cab and follow the course of the only doctor who could relieve these perilous pains. And after seeing to his locks and bolts, he departed on that mission. No sooner had the front gate swung behind him than up-jump the feeble sufferer, rode a few lines to the nearest blacksmith and sent the boy in buttons to take them, with orders not to lose a moment. In a quarter of an hour the blacksmith and his foreman were at the obnoxious door, with sledgehammer, crowbar, cold chisel, and wrench. Someone within seemed inclined to help them, for they heard a heavy bolt shot back, but the door was fastened on the outside also with a heavy chain and padlock. The smith laid hold of this chain with his pincers, and so kept the padlock against the post, where a few swinging blows from the foreman shattered it like an eggshell. In a minute they cast the door back on its hinges, and a narrow dark passage was before them. "'Let no one follow me,' said the lady of the house, "'but wait till I return to you.' She closed the heavy door behind her, and passed through the gloom to an inner door. This was neither locked nor bolted, and she turned the handle and entered. The room was lofty but very dark, not only the bulk of the illyx tree. A close blinds fitted in the window frame obscured the fading sunlight. The lady marched in with a haughty air. She would soon let this poor vagrant know who was the owner of this house and who the gutter squatter. But suddenly she stopped, and speech was flown from her tongue to her eyes. She could only stare. Against the high mantelpiece, whose black marble covered with dust was as dull as slate, a tall and bulky man was leaning, peacefully smoking a long cigar. A cigar was fixed between two strips of muslin, concealing the chin, lips, and nose, if any, a slouched hat with a yellow feather in it, covered the hairless crown, and only the knotted forehead and the fierce red eyes showed that there was a human face alive. But the massive cast of figure and the attitude and slouch and even some remembrance of the fierce red glance told the haughty woman who it was that stood before her. In a moment fury changed to fear and triumph became trembling. Without a word she turned to fly, but a great muffled hand was laid on her. No hurry, faithful wife! You have insisted upon seeing me. Come to the light, and you shall have that pleasure. The great figure swept her to the window with one arm, while she vainly strove to cry or even to fall upon her knees, and throwing back the blind the leper drew her closer to him and tearing off his swathings, held her so that she must gaze at him. This is your work. Are you pleased with it? True love has never changed by trifles. Embrace me, my gentle one. You always were so loving. How you will rejoice to show a wife's affection. To tend me daily, for I mean to leave you never more. Monica, gentle, loving Monica, whisper your true love where my ears used to be. With the mad strength of horror she dashed from his arms and away through the passage and would have escaped, for the poor cripple could only limp in pursuit if she had not closed the outer door. By the time she had opened he was upon her, and they staggered together across the broad walk, when their son from the gate rushed up to them. Oh, save me! Save me from that beast! she cried. Off, and get back to your done! shouted Downey. A nice son depart his own parents. As the old man spoke he struck his son in the face with his maimed right hand, while he clung to his wife with the other. Then Donovan Bolrag in a fury of the moment drew his revolver and shot his father through the heart. The old man fell on his back a corpse, while the mother was dashed on the grass and lay senseless. Donovan looked at them both, gave a laugh, put the muzzle in his mouth, and shot himself. I have no intention to moralize, as a man always says when he begins to do it, but there ended three misguided lives, for although Mrs. Bolrag recovered slowly some of her bodily health and vigor, her mind was never restored to life again. That hectoring will and domineering spirit lapsed into the weakness of a weanling child, and if ever the memory of those haughty days returned, it waned into a shudder, or an abject smile. When Captain, or as he now is called Sir Humphrey Fairthorne, came home from his celebrated enterprise, he may do provision in a private asylum for the lady who could no longer pick his pockets. The marriage settlements fell to the ground, with the downfall of the marriage, and six acres of the most magnificently situated building land in London returned to the heritage of Kitty's mother. When my uncle and myself came sadly home from that shocking and distressing scene, the power of it lay upon us still, so that we did not care to speak. Thank God! said my wife as she fell upon my breast after trying to sponge off the blaze from my temple, which would take some days to heal. Thank God that he is dead at last! Those are the only words of hers I have ever felt displeased with. At the moment they seemed harsh to me by reason of the pity which the eye engenders, but the tongue cannot advance. If she had come from that piteous sight her heart would have been too soft for this. It is a good job for everybody else, and a bad one for him, said Uncle Corny. He is gone where he addressed himself. He labelled himself to the devil with care, to be delivered immediately. And then he goes and acts as his own porter. You need not look sentimental, Kit. What is England coming to? Lord bless my heart, the stuff they talk about, the sanctity of human life. A good man's life belongs to God and a bad ones to the devil, and they have got themselves to thank for it. A very broad saying has seldom deep, but the general vote was against me, and all being on the right side, of course, they backed it up with buttresses. Think of that poor man, said Kitty, who was always first to see things. From what you say of his sad condition, and his size and figure, I am quite sure that it is the afflicted prisoner we rescued from the savages. You may talk of things not being guided by a higher power, and you may look black if it is hinted that a man shouldn't shoot his father, and then try to kill my darling Kit. But what can you say when it comes to light, that but for his own wicked plot, the cruelest and wickedest that ever entered human heart or brain, for he never could have owned a heart, if it had not been for that, no doubt, he would have married a lovely girl. Though some may call her too pale and thin, and probably have stolen all her money, and no doubt broken her poor heart, as he did his utmost to break mine. And then, in the very stroke of death, he tries to murder Kit again. Oh, how can I be sorry that we are safe from him at last? Kit is right, Miss Parslow said. Kit would have killed that man if he caught him shooting Kitty, and that would have been the very next thing he would have done if the Lord had spared him. To this I could make no reply, for verily I believe it would have been. Take your wife home, Sir Uncle Corny, who always saw the right thing to do. She is much excited. Avoid this subject until you can speak of it calmly. Thank God for all his goodness to you, and let her nurse your wounded hair. This made Kitty laugh and pout, and without another word I led her home. I led my Kitty home, without any fear of losing her again, until, by the will of one who loves us, we bid each other a brief farewell. We live at honeysuckle cottage still, and wish to go no further, adding to it as little growers like roses cluster around us. We might lead a gayer and noisier life, if that were to our liking, but we have seen enough of the world to know how nice it is at a distance. Whatever the greatest people do, I can read to Kitty in the evening, and she smiles or sighs in proper places, without neglecting our own affairs. The puff of the passing world comes to us, like that of a train in the valley. Or even as the whiff of a smoker in the lane comes over our wall with a delicate waft, albeit his tobacco is not first rate. Moreover, we like to be, where pleasant friends drop in and say, What a sweet calm is here, and where Uncle Corny still toddles up at suppertime every evening and lays his now quivering hand upon the curls of his sturdy godson Cornelius, and says, You shall have all this place, my boy, for your rogue of a father is too rich to want it, with all that property in London. Let him grow houses while you grow trees. Keep the old place on, if you can, and sell your own fruit, if you want to get the money. Inditing of the higher fruit that suffers no decay and is melted in no earthly measure, the Reverend Peter Golightly enters, followed by his blooming daughter. He blesses all the little ones, and so does she, by kissing them with her pure, sweet lips. That's right, Mr. Bessie, keep your lips in practice, exclaims Uncle Corny in his ruffled style, and a healthy blush mantles where the hectic colour was, for the gentle young lady has worn the heart of the vicar. Not of brave, but a parish very near it, but which of them all can be thought of twice with Kitty looking at me? My words must be plentiful indeed if one can be spared for any other. Yet for two good reasons I will not attempt to praise her. Being a busy man I must forego all hopeless efforts, and again. What would success be? Simply that, which according to the proverb, is no recommendation. So all who are well-disposed can wish me nothing more complete than this, that I may live with her long enough to discover some defect in her, and in return I will inflict no moral but that of all true love. Let every kit be constant to his better self, his Kitty. THE END