Chapter II (1)

My grandfather went off to unlock the tool-shed, and the Parson back to comfort Mrs. Polwhele--which was no easy matter. "There's something wrong with the parish since I've been away, and that you can't deny," she declared. "It don't feel like home any longer, and my poor flesh is shivering like a jelly, and my hand almost too hot to make the butter." She kept up this lidden all through breakfast, and the meal was no sooner cleared away than she slipped on a shawl and stepped across to the churchyard to discuss the robbery.

The Parson drew a chair to the window, lit his pipe, and pulled out his pocket-Bible to choose a text for his next day's sermon. But he couldn't fix his thoughts. Try how he would, they kept harking back to his travels in the post-chaise, and his wife's story, and those unaccountable flags and splashes of whitewash. His pipe went out, and he was getting up to find a light for it, when just at that moment the garden-gate rattled, and, looking down the path towards the sound, his eyes fell on a square-cut, fierce-looking man in blue, standing there with a dirty bag in one hand and a sheaf of tools over his right shoulder.

The man caught sight of the Parson at the window, and set down his tools inside the gate--shovel and pick and biddicks.

"Good-mornin'! I may come inside, I suppose?" says he, in a gruff tone of voice. He came up the path and the Parson unlatched the window, which was one of the long sort reaching down to the ground.

"My name's Bligh," said the visitor, gruff as before. "You're the Parson, eh? Bit of an antiquarian, I'm given to understand? These things ought to be in your line, then, and I hope they are not broken: I carried them as careful as I could." He opened the bag and emptied it out upon the table--an old earthenware pot, a rusted iron ring, four or five burnt bones, and a handful or so of ashes. "Human, you see," said he, picking up one of the bones and holding it under the Parson's nose. "One of your ancient Romans, no doubt."

"Ancient Romans? Ancient Romans?" stammered Parson Polwhele. "Pray, Sir, where did you get these--these articles?"

"By digging for them, Sir; in a mound just outside that old Roman camp of yours."

"Roman camp? There's no Roman camp within thirty miles of us as the crow flies: and I doubt if there's one within fifty!"

"Shows how much you know about it. That's what I complain about in you parsons: never glimpse a thing that's under your noses. Now, I come along, making no pretence to be an antiquarian, and the first thing I see out on your headland yonder, is a Roman camp, with a great mound beside it----"

"No such thing, Sir!" the Parson couldn't help interrupting.

Bligh stared at him for a moment, like a man hurt in his feelings but keeping hold on his Christian compassion. "Look here," he said; "you mayn't know it, but I'm a bad man to contradict. This here Roman camp, as I was sayin'----"

"If you mean Little Dinnis Camp, Sir, 'tis as round as my hat."

"Damme, if you interrupt again----"

"But I will. Here, in my own parlour, I tell you that Little Dinnis is as round as my hat!"

"All right; don't lose your temper, shouting out what I never denied. Round or square, it don't matter a ha'porth to me. This here round Roman camp----"

"But I tell you, once more, there's no such thing!" cried the Parson, stamping his foot. "The Romans never made a round camp in their lives. Little Dinnis is British; the encampment's British; the mound, as you call it, is a British barrow; and as for you----"

"As for me," thunders Bligh, "I'm British too, and don't you forget it. Confound you, Sir! What the devil do I care for your pettifogging bones? I'm a British sailor, Sir; I come to your God-forsaken parish on a Government job, and I happen on a whole shopful of ancient remains. In pure kindness--pure kindness, mark you--I interrupt my work to dig 'em up; and this is all the thanks I get!"

"Thanks!" fairly yelled the Parson. "You ought to be horsewhipped, rather, for disturbing an ancient tomb that's been the apple of my eye ever since I was inducted to this parish!" Then, as Bligh drew back, staring: "My poor barrow!" he went on; "my poor, ransacked barrow! But there may be something to save yet----" and he fairly ran for the door, leaving Bligh at a standstill.

For awhile the man stood there like a fellow in a trance, opening and shutting his mouth, with his eyes set on the doorway where the Parson had disappeared. Then, his temper overmastering him, with a sweep of his arm he sent the whole bag of tricks flying on to the floor, kicked them to right and left through the garden, slammed the gate, pitched across the road, and flung through the churchyard towards the river like a whirlwind.

Now, while this was happening, Mrs. Polwhele had picked her way across the churchyard, and after chatting a bit with my grandfather over the theft of his tools, had stepped into the church to see that the place, and specially the table and communion-rails and the parsonage pew, was neat and dusted, this being her regular custom after a trip to Plymouth. And no sooner was she within the porch than who should come dandering along the road but Arch'laus Spry. The road, as you know, goes downhill after passing the parsonage gate, and holds on round the churchyard wall like a sunk way, the soil inside being piled up to the wall's coping. But, my grandfather being still behindhand with his job, his head and shoulders showed over the grave's edge. So Arch'laus Spry caught sight of him.

"Why, you're the very man I was looking for," says Arch'laus, stopping.

"Death halts for no man," answers my grandfather, shovelling away.

"That furrin' fellow is somewheres in this neighbourhood at this very moment," says Arch'laus, wagging his head. "I saw his boat moored down by the Passage as I landed. And I've a-got something to report. He was up and off by three o 'clock this morning, and knocked up the Widow Polkinghorne, trying to borrow a pick and shovel."

"Pick and shovel!" My grandfather stopped working and slapped his thigh. "Then he's the man that've walked off with mine: and a biddicks too."

"He said nothing of a biddicks, but he's quite capable of it."

"Surely in the midst of life we are in death," said my grandfather. "I was al'ays inclined to believe that text, and now I'm sure of it. Let's go and see the Parson."

He tossed his shovel on to the loose earth above the grave and was just about to scramble out after it when the churchyard gate shook on its hinges and across the path and by the church porch went Bligh, as I've said, like a whirlwind. Arch'laus Spry, that had pulled his chin up level with the coping, ducked at the sight of him, and even my grandfather ducked down a little in the grave as he passed.

"The very man!" said Spry, under his breath.

"The wicked flee, whom no man pursueth," said my grandfather, looking after the man; but Bligh turned his head neither to the right hand nor to the left.

"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed a voice inside the church.

"Whatever was _that_," cries Arch'laus Spry, giving a jump. They both stared at the porch.

"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed the voice again.

"It certainly comes from inside," said Arch'laus Spry.

"It's Mrs. Polwhele!" said my grandfather; "and by the noise of it she's having hysterics."

And with that he scrambled up and ran; and Spry heaved himself over the wall and followed. And there, in the south aisle, they found Mrs. Polwhele lying back in a pew and kicking like a stallion in a loose-box.

My grandfather took her by the shoulders, while Spry ran for the jug of holy water that stood by the font. As it happened, 'twas empty: but the sight of it fetched her to, and she raised herself up with a shiver.

"The Frenchman!" she cries out, pointing. "The Frenchman--on the coach! O Lord, deliver us!"

For a moment, as you'll guess, my grandfather was puzzled: but he stared where the poor lady pointed, and after a bit he began to understand. I daresay you've seen our church, Sir, and if so, you must have taken note of a monstrous fine fig-tree growing out of the south wall--"the marvel of Manaccan," we used to call it. When they restored the church the other day nobody had the heart to destroy the tree, for all the damage it did to the building--having come there the Lord knows how, and grown there since the Lord knows when. So they took and patched up the wall around it, and there it thrives. But in the times I'm telling of, it had split the wall so that from inside you could look straight through the crack into the churchyard; and 'twas to this crack that Mrs. Polwhele's finger pointed.

"Eh?" said my grandfather. "The furriner[4] that went by just now, was it he that frightened ye, Ma'am?"

[Footnote 4: In Cornwall a "foreigner" is anyone from east of the Tamar.]

Mrs. Polwhele nodded.

"But what put it into your head that he's a Frenchman?"

"Because French is his language. With these very ears I heard him talk it! He joined the coach at Torpoint, and when I spoke him fair in honest English not a word could he answer me. Oh, Calvin, Calvin! what have I done--a poor weak woman--to be mixed up in these plots and invasions?"

But my grandfather couldn't stop to answer that question, for a terrible light was breaking in upon him. "A Frenchman?" he called out. "And for these twenty-four hours he's been marking out the river and taking soundings!" He glared at Arch'laus Spry, and Arch'laus dropped the brazen ewer upon the pavement and smote his forehead. "The Devil," says he, "is among us, having great wrath!"

"And for aught we know," says my grandfather, speaking in a slow and fearsome whisper, "the French ships may be hanging off the coast while we'm talking here!"

"You don't mean to tell us," cried Mrs. Polwhele, sitting up stiff in the pew, "that this man has been mapping out the river under your very noses!"

"He has, Ma'am. Oh, I see it all! What likelier place could they choose on the whole coast? And from here to Falmouth what is it but a step?"

"Let them that be in Judæa flee to the mountains," said Arch'laus Spry solemn-like.

"And me just home from Plymouth with a fine new roasting-jack!" chimed in Mrs. Polwhele. "As though the day of wrath weren't bad enough without _that_ waste o' money! Run, Calvin--run and tell the Vicar this instant--no, no, don't leave me behind! Take me home, that's a good man: else I shall faint at my own shadow!"

Well, they hurried off to the Vicarage: but, of course, there was no Parson to be found, for by this time he was half-way towards Little Dinnis, and running like a madman under the hot sun to see what damage had befallen his dearly-loved camp. The servants hadn't seen him leave the house; ne'er a word could they tell of him except that Martha, the cook, when she cleared away the breakfast things, had left him seated in his chair and smoking.

"But what's the meaning of this?" cried out Mrs. Polwhele, pointing to the tablecloth that Bligh had pulled all awry in his temper. "And the window open too!"

"And--hulloa!" says my grandfather, staring across the patch of turf outside. "Surely here's signs of a violent struggle. Human, by the look of it," says he, picking up a thigh-bone and holding it out towards Mrs. Polwhele.

She began to shake like a leaf. "Oh, Calvin!" she gasps out. "Oh, Calvin, not in this short time--it couldn't be!"

"Charred, too," says my grandfather, inspecting it: and with that they turned at a cry from Martha the cook, that was down on hands and knees upon the carpet.

"Ashes! See here, mistress--ashes all over your best carpet!"

The two women stared at the fireplace: but, of course, that told them nothing, being empty, as usual at the time of year, with only a few shavings stuck about it by way of ornament. Martha, the first to pick up her wits, dashed out into the front hall.

"Gone without his hat, too!" she fairly screamed, running her eye along the row of pegs.

Mrs. Polwhele clasped her hands. "In the midst of life we are in death," said Arch'laus Spry: "that's my opinion if you ask it."

"Gone! Gone without his hat, like the snuff of a candle!" Mrs. Polwhele dropped into a chair and rocked herself and moaned.

My grandfather banged his fist on the table. He never could abide the sight of a woman in trouble.

"Missus," says he, "if the Parson's anywhere alive, we'll find 'en: and if that Frenchman be Old Nick himself, he shall rue the day he ever set foot in Manaccan parish! Come'st along, Arch'laus----"

He took Spry by the arm and marched him out and down the garden path. There, by the gate, what should his eyes light upon but his own stolen tools! But by this time all power of astonishment was dried up within him. He just raised his eyes aloft, as much as to say, "Let the sky open and rain miracles!" and then and there he saw, coming down the road, the funeral that both he and the Parson had clean forgotten.

The corpse was an old man called 'Pollas Hockaday; and Sam Trewhella, a fish-curer that had married Hockaday's eldest daughter, walked next behind the coffin as chief mourner. My grandfather waited by the gate for the procession to come by, and with that Trewhella caught sight of him, and, says he, taking down the handkerchief from his nose--

"Well, you're a pretty fellow, I must say! What in thunder d'ee mean by not tolling the minute-bell?"

"Take 'en back," answers my grandfather, pointing to the coffin. "Take 'en back, 'co!"

"Eh?" says Trewhella. "Answer my question, I tell 'ee. You've hurt my feelings and the feelings of everyone connected with the deceased: and if this weren't not-azackly the place for it, I'd up and give you a dashed good hiding," says he.

"Aw, take 'en back," my grandfather goes on. "Take 'en back, my dears, and put 'en somewhere, cool and temporary! The grave's not digged, and the Parson's kidnapped, and the French be upon us, and down by the river ther's a furrin spy taking soundings at this moment! In the name of King George," said he, remembering that he was constable, "I command you all except the females to come along and collar 'en!"

* * * * *

While this was going on, Sir, Bligh had found his boat--which he'd left by the shore--and was pulling up the river to work off his rage. Ne'er a thought had he, as he flounced through the churchyard, of the train of powder he dribbled behind him: but all the way he blew off steam, cursing Parson Polwhele and the whole cloth from Land's End to Johnny Groats, and glowering at the very gates by the road as though he wanted to kick 'em to relieve his feelings. But when he reached his boat and began rowing, by little and little the exercise tamed him. With his flags and whitewash he'd marked out most of the lines he wanted for soundings: but there were two creeks he hadn't yet found time to explore--Porthnavas, on the opposite side, and the very creek by which we're sitting. So, as he came abreast of this one, he determined to have a look at it; and after rowing a hundred yards or so, lay on his oars, lit his pipe, and let his boat drift up with the tide.

The creek was just the same lonesome place that it is to-day, the only difference being that the pallace[5] at the entrance had a roof on it then, and was rented by Sam Trewhella--the same that followed old Hockaday's coffin, as I've told you. But above the pallace the woods grew close to the water's edge, and lined both shores with never a clearing till you reached the end, where the cottage stands now and the stream comes down beside it: in those days there wasn't any cottage, only a piece of swampy ground. I don't know that Bligh saw much in the scenery, but it may have helped to soothe his mind: for by-and-by he settled himself on the bottom-boards, lit another pipe, pulled his hat over his nose, and lay there blinking at the sky, while the boat drifted up, hitching sometimes in a bough and sometimes floating broadside-on to the current, until she reached this bit of marsh and took the mud very gently.

[Footnote 5: Fish-store.]

After a while, finding she didn't move, Bligh lifted his head for a look about him and found that he'd come to the end of the creek. He put out a hand and felt the water, that was almost luke-warm with running over the mud. The trees shut him in; not a living soul was in sight; and by the quietness he might have been a hundred miles from anywhere. So what does my gentleman do but strip himself for a comfortable bathe.

He folded his clothes very neatly in the stern-sheets, waded out across the shallows as naked as a babe, and took to the water with so much delight that after a minute or so he must needs lie on his back and kick. He splashed away, one leg after the other, with his face turned towards the shore, and was just on the point of rolling over for another swim, when, as he lifted a leg for one last kick, his eyes fell on the boat. And there on the top of his clothes, in the stern of her, sat my grandfather sucking a pipe.

Bligh let down his legs and stood up, touching bottom, but neck-deep in water.

"Hi, you there!" he sings out.

"Wee, wee, parleyvou!" my grandfather answers, making use of pretty well all the French he knew.

"Confound you, Sir, for an impident dirty dog! What in the name of jiminy"--I can't give you, Sir, the exact words, for my grandfather could never be got to repeat 'em--"What in the name of jiminy d'ee mean by sitting on my clothes!"

"Wee, wee," my grandfather took him up, calm as you please. "You shocked me dreadful yesterday with your blasphemious talk: but now, seeing 'tis French, I don't mind so much. Take your time: but when you come out you go to prison. Wee, wee--preeson," says my grandfather.

"Are you drunk?" yells Bligh. "Get off my clothes this instant, you hobnailed son of a something-or-other!" And he began striding for shore.

"In the name of his Majesty King George the Third I charge you to come along quiet," says my grandfather, picking up a stretcher.

Bligh, being naked and unarmed, casts a look round for some way to help himself. He was a plucky fellow enough in a fight, as I've said: but I leave you to guess what he felt like when to right and left of him the bushes parted, and forth stepped half-a-dozen men in black suits with black silk weepers a foot and a half wide tied in great bunches round their hats. These were Sam Trewhella, of course, and the rest of the funeral-party, that had left the coffin in a nice shady spot inside the Vicarage garden-gate, and come along to assist the law. They had brought along pretty nearly all the menkind of the parish beside: but these, being in their work-a-day clothes, didn't appear, and for a reason you'll learn by-and-by. All that Bligh saw was this dismal company of mourners backed by a rabble of school-children, the little ones lining the shore and staring at him fearsomely with their fingers in their mouths.

For the moment Bligh must have thought himself dreaming. But there they stood, the men in black and the crowd of children, and my grandfather with the stretcher ready, and the green woods so quiet all round. And there he stood up to the ribs in water, and the tide and his temper rising.

"Look here, you something-or-other yokels," he called out, "if this is one of your village jokes, I promise you shall smart for it. Leave the spot this moment, fetch that idiot out of the boat, and take away the children. I want to dress, and it isn't decent!"

"Mounseer," answers my grandfather, "I daresay you've a-done it for your country; but we've a-caught you, and now you must go to prison--wee, wee, to preeson," he says, lisping it in a Frenchified way so as to make himself understood.

Bligh began to foam. "The longer you keep up this farce, my fine fellows, the worse you'll smart for it! There's a magistrate in this parish, as I happen to know."

"There _was_," said my grandfather; "but we've strong reasons to believe he's been made away with."

"The only thing we could find of 'en," put in Arch'laus Spry, "was a shin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticed it, but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about the premises; and I've always been remarkable for my sense of smell."

"You won't deny," my grandfather went on, "that you've been making a map of this here river; for here it is in your tail-coat pocket."

"You insolent ruffian, put that down at once! I tell you that I'm a British officer and a gentleman!"

"_And_ a Papist," went on my grandfather, holding up a ribbon with a bullet threaded to it. ('Twas the bullet Bligh used to weigh out allowances with on his voyage in the open boat after the mutineers had turned him adrift from the _Bounty_, and he wore it ever after.) "See here, friends: did you ever know an honest Protestant to wear such a thing about him inside his clothes?"

"Whether you're a joker or a numskull is more than I can fathom," says Bligh; "but for the last time I warn you I'm a British officer, and you'll go to jail for this as sure as eggs."

"The question is, Will you surrender and come along quiet?"

"No, I won't," says Bligh, sulky as a bear; "not if I stay here all night!"

With that my grandfather gave a wink to Sam Trewhella, and Sam Trewhella gave a whistle, and round the point came Trewhella's sean-boat that the village lads had fetched out and launched from his store at the mouth of the creek. Four men pulled her with all their might; in the stern stood Trewhella's foreman, Jim Bunt, with his two-hundred-fathom net: and along the shore came running the rest of the lads to see the fun.

"Heva, heva!" yelled Sam Trewhella, waving his hat with the black streamers.

The sean-boat swooped up to Bligh with a rush, and then, just as he faced upon it with his fists up, to die fighting, it swerved off on a curve round him, and Jim Bunt began shooting the sean hand over hand like lightning. Then the poor man understood, and having no mind to be rolled up and afterwards tucked in a sean-net, he let out an oath, ducked his head, and broke for the shore like a bull. But 'twas no manner of use. As soon as he touched land a dozen jumped for him and pulled him down. They handled him as gentle as they could, for he fought with fists, legs, and teeth, and his language was awful: but my grandfather in his foresight had brought along a couple of wainropes, and within ten minutes they had my gentleman trussed, heaved him into the boat, covered him over, and were rowing him off and down the creek to land him at Helford quay.

* * * * *

By this 'twas past noon; and at one o'clock, or a little before, Parson Polwhele come striding along home from Little Dinnis. He had tied a handkerchief about his head to keep off the sun; his hands and knees were coated with earth; and he sweated like a furze-bush in a mist, for the footpath led through cornfields and the heat was something terrible. Moreover, he had just called the funeral to mind; and this and the damage he'd left at Little Dinnis fairly hurried him into a fever.

But worse was in store. As he drew near the Parsonage, he spied a man running towards him: and behind the man the most dreadful noises were sounding from the house. The Parson came to a halt and swayed where he stood.

"Oh, Calvin! Calvin!" he cried--for the man running was my grandfather--"don't try to break it gently, but let me know the worst!"

"Oh, blessed day! Oh, fearful and yet blessed day!" cries my grandfather, almost catching him in both arms. "So you're not dead! So you're not dead, the Lord be praised, but only hurt!"

"Hurt?" says the Parson. "Not a bit of it--or only in my feelings. Oh, 'tis the handkerchief you're looking at? I put that up against sunstroke. But whatever do these dreadful sounds mean? Tell me the worst, Calvin, I implore you!"

"Oh, as for that," says my grandfather cheerfully, "the Frenchman's the worst by a long way--not but what your good lady made noise enough when she thought you'd been made away with: and afterwards, when she went upstairs and, taking a glance out of window, spied a long black coffin laid out under the lilac bushes, I'm told you could hear her a mile away. But she've been weakening this half-hour: her nature couldn't keep it up: whereas the longer we keep that Frenchman, the louder he seems to bellow."

"Heaven defend us, Calvin!"--the Parson's eyes fairly rolled in his head--"are you gone clean crazed? Frenchman! What Frenchman?"

"The same that frightened Mrs. Polwhele, Sir, upon the coach. We caught him drawing maps of the river, and very nigh tucked him in Sam Trewhella's sean: and now he's in your tool-shed right and tight, and here's the key, Sir, making so bold, that you gave me this morning. But I didn't like to take him into the house, with your good lady tumbling out of one fit into another. Hark to 'en, now! Would you ever believe one man could make such a noise."

"Fits! My poor, dear, tender Mary having fits!" The Parson broke away for the house and dashed upstairs three steps at a time: and when she caught sight of him, Mrs. Polwhele let out a louder squeal than ever. But the next moment she was hanging round his neck, and laughing and sobbing by turns. And how long they'd have clung to one another there's no knowing, if it hadn't been for the language pouring from the tool-shed.

"My dear," said the Parson, holding himself up and listening, "I don't think that can possibly be a Frenchman. He's too fluent."

Mrs. Polwhele listened too, but after a while she was forced to cover her face with both hands. "Oh, Richard, I've often heard 'em described as gay, but--but they can't surely be so gay as all that!"

The Parson eased her into an armchair and went downstairs to the courtyard, and there, as you may suppose, he found the parish gathered.

"Stand back all of you," he ordered. "I've a notion that some mistake has been committed: but you had best hold yourselves ready in case the prisoner tries to escape."

"But, Parson dear, you're never going to unlock that door!" cried my grandfather.

"If you'll stand by me, Calvin," says the Parson, plucky as ginger, and up he steps to the very door, all the parish holding its breath.

He tapped once--no answer: twice--and no more answer than before. There was a small trap open in the roof and through this the language kept pouring with never a stop, only now and then a roar like a bull's. But at the third knock it died down to a sort of rumbling, and presently came a shout, "Who's there?"

"A clergyman and justice of the peace," answers the Parson.

"I'll have your skin for this!"

"But you'll excuse me----"

"I'll have your skin for this, and your blood in a bottle! I'm a British officer and a gentleman, and I'll have you stuffed and put in a glass case, so sure as my name's Bligh!"

"Bligh?" says the Parson, opening the door.

"Any relation to the Blighs of St. Tudy? Oh, no--it can't be!" he stammered, taken all aback to see the man stark naked on the threshold. "Why--why, you're the gentleman that called this morning!" he went on, the light breaking in upon him: "excuse me, I recognise you by--by the slight scar on your face."

* * * * *

Well, Sir, there was nothing for Bligh to do--the whole parish staring at him--but to slip back into the shed and put on the clothes my grandfather handed in at the door: and while he was dressing the whole truth came out. I won't say that he took the Parson's explanations in a nice spirit: for he vowed to have the law on every one concerned. But that night he walked back to Falmouth and took the London coach. As for Helford River, 'twasn't charted that year nor for a score of years after. And now you know how this creek came by its name; and I'll say again, as I began, that a bad temper is an affliction, whoever owns it.

THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

AN EXTRACT FROM THE MEMOIRS OF GABRIEL FOOT, HIGHWAYMAN

I sit down to this chapter of my Memoirs with an unwonted relish, because it exhibits me as an instrument in the hands of Providence. Doubtless, in our business, we perform that function oftener than the law recognises, but seldom so directly, so unequivocally, as in the adventure I shall now relate. And I say this, not because it left me with a title to one of the neatest little estates in the West of England, but because I, the one man necessary to the situation, dropped upon it (so to speak) with my hands in my pockets. I had never before happened within thirty miles of Tregarrick town: I walked in at one end purposing only to walk out at the other: and, but for a child's practical joke, I had done so and forgotten the place. It was touch and go, in short: the sort of thing to set you speculating on the possible extent of man's missed opportunities.

I had stepped ashore, after a voyage from Hull (undertaken from expedience and not for health), upon the Market Strand at Falmouth, with one shilling and fourpence in my pocket. I have been in lower water, but never with such a job before me; and I started to tramp it back to London with little more than a dog's determination to get there somehow. The third afternoon found me in Tregarrick, wet through, sullen, and moderately hungry. The time of year was October: all day it had been raining and blowing chilly from the north-west; and traffic had deserted the unlovely Fore Street when, as the town-clock chimed a quarter to five, I passed the windows and open archway of the Red Hart Hotel. A gust from the archway brought me up staggering and clutching my hat: I faced round to it, and, in so doing, caught a momentary glimpse, above the wire blind in a lower window, of a bald-headed man within standing with his back to the street; and at the same instant heard a coin drop on the pavement behind me.

A richer man would have halted, turned and scanned the pavement as I did. But a richer man would probably have taken longer to assure himself that nothing had been lost from his pocket, and would certainly have taken longer to suspect that the coin might have been tossed to him in charity. I flung a glance up at the window overhead, and spied a penny dangling over the sill by a string.

At once I recognised the secular jest; and stepped across the roadway to get a look at the performer. As I did so, an elderly man in an Inverness cape and rusty hat and suit emerged briskly from the archway of the inn, glanced up at the weather, and passed along the pavement beneath the window.

Thereupon, I saw the trick played to perfection. A curly-headed youngster popped into view, leaned out, rang the coin down at the very heels of the pedestrian, and whisked it as nimbly up. The man whipped round and, seeing nothing, pulled out a pair of spectacles and began to adjust them. I heard the youngster chuckle overhead as he stooped and a deflected gust from the archway, skimming his hat into the gutter, revealed the same bald head I had observed above the wire blind.

Just then, three other faces appeared; one above the same blind and two at the upper window behind the child. And a moment later I had spun right-about on my heel and was apparently in deep study of a damp placard upon a hoarding opposite.

The two faces at the upper window were interesting, had there been time to consider them; and one--that of a lady, obviously the child's mother--struck me as uncommonly beautiful, though pale and desperately sad. Beside her stood a man, as obviously the father; a handsome gentleman, with the flushed face and glassy stare of a drunkard. He stood there chuckling at the trick, and even the lady was smiling indulgently until she leaned out and caught a glimpse of the victim: whereupon, with a sudden terrified snatch, she drew the boy back from the window, and out of sight.

It was then, as I looked at the bald-headed man, seeking some explanation of her terror, that I caught sight of the face staring over the wire blind in the lower window, and lost not a second in presenting my back to it.

It belonged to an old acquaintance of mine. "Acquaintance," I say, because Robert Leggat and I had never been able to stomach each other. There was perhaps a trifle too much of the gentleman about both of us--enough, at any rate, to suggest rivalry, though we hunted different game. "Buck" Leggat was by gifts and election a sedentary scoundrel, with a tongue and a presence fatally plausible among women and clergymen, and a neat adaptable pen. Whence he came, or of what upbringing, I could never discover. I had heard some hint of an Oxford education, but he never alluded to that University in my company. Flash notes had brought him to the Old Bailey, and then his elegant deportment and a nice point of circumstantial evidence had saved his neck. This was about four years ago, and I had supposed him to be somewhere in the Plantations when his bad handsome face confounded me across Tregarrick Fore Street. He wore a clergyman's bands, too.

By good luck he had not recognised me, but was occupied with the bald-headed man who still groped on the pavement. The placard which I appeared to be studying announced the Sale by Auction of a considerable country estate, and my eyes roamed among such words as "farms," "tenements," "messuages," "acres," while I cast up the possible profit of my discovery. Here was I, pretty hungry, with barely the coin for a night's lodging. Here was Leggat, escaped convict, lording it in the coffee-room of a hotel, masquerading as a parson; therefore up to some game--a bold one--by the look of it a paying one. Decidedly I ought, with a little prudence, to handle a percentage.

I edged away from the hoarding to the shop-front on my left--a watchmaker's; and so, still presenting my back to the Red Hart, past a saddler's, a tailor's, the entrance of the County Hall, and the Town Clerk's office. Here, out of view from Leggat's window, I turned, stepped across the street into the hotel archway, and walked boldly into the coffee-room which opened out of it on the left.

Leggat had disappeared. The room in fact was empty.

I rang the bell, and after some minutes it was answered by a waitress, a decent girl, though somewhat towzled.

"There was a clergyman here a moment since," said I.

"That will be Mr. Addison. Do you wish to see him?" She eyed me with no great favour, and indeed my clothes ill agreed with the respectable dinginess of the coffee-room.

"So Addison's the name!" thought I, "and a pretty good one too. I wonder if Leggat has the face to claim descent from the essayist. He's capable of it." I pulled out my only shilling. "Well, yes, I want to have a talk with him: but I'll sit down and wait till he comes, and meanwhile you might bring me a glass of rum hot, with one slice of lemon. Mr. Addison is staying the night here, I suppose?"

"I don't know," she answered. "Anyhow, he won't be riding home to Welland till late. But hadn't you better come to the bar for your rum?"

"Well," said I, "if it's all the same to you, I'll stay where I am. To tell the truth, my dear, I've come to see Mr. Addison about putting up my banns: and that's a delicate matter, eh!"

Upon this she began to eye me more favourably, as I expected. There's an _esprit de corps_ among women--or an _esprit de sexe_, if you will--which softens them towards the marrying man. Surrender to one, surrender to all. "But you don't belong to Welland parish," said she.

"Quite right. It takes two to make a wedding, and the young woman belongs to Welland."

"Who is she?"

"Aha!" I winked at her knowingly.

"I come from Welland parish myself," she went on, her curiosity fairly piqued.

"Then if you happen to be going home to church next Sunday keep your ears open after the second lesson."

She tossed her chin and went off on her errand, but returning in three minutes with the grog, must needs have another try. "I reckon it's Susie Martin," she declared, and nodded at me with conviction in her eye.

"Well, now, supposing it's Susie--and, mind you, I'm not admitting it--you won't forbid the banns, I hope?"

"La, no! And I'll wager Mr. Addison won't, either," she tittered.

Plainly, here was an answer worth pondering. "You seem to be pretty full in the bar, to-night?" I observed, casually, to gain time; and, indeed, a hubbub of voices from across the archway smote on our ears through the double baize doors.

"The auctioneer is standing treat."

"Oh!--ah, yes--the auctioneer, to be sure," I murmured.

"The sale won't begin in the Long Room before six: he has half-an-hour for wetting their whistles. Seeming to me, you'll be lucky if you get Mr. Addison to attend to _your_ business before it's over. But, perhaps," she added archly, "you'll like to have a word with Susie, to fill up the time? Shall I send her word that you are here? I dare say she'll find a chance to slip down to you; that is, if her mistress attends the auction."

"But will she?" I asked, doing my best to look wise.

She nodded sagely. "I shouldn't wonder. She'll want to look after the squire; he's more than half drunk already."

"It's plain you're a clever girl," I said; "but we'll let Susie wait for a while. And my business can wait on Mr. Addison. If his is an auction, mine is notoriously a lottery."

"There's one thing to console you," she answered smartly and (in the light of later knowledge I am bound to add) wittily; "you aren't drawing a blank." And with this shaft she left me.

Now the girl's talk was nothing short of heathen Greek to me, as doubtless it is to the reader, and I sat for ten minutes at least digesting it with the aid of my grog. Here was Leggat, my quarry, identified with a Mr. Addison, incumbent or curate of a country parish within riding distance of Tregarrick. He was here to attend an auction. My thoughts flew to the bill I had been pretending to study half-an-hour before; but unfortunately I had given it no particular attention, and could only remember now that it advertised an estate of good acreage. The name "Welland," indeed, struck me as familiar, but I could not refer it to the bill, and must pull up for the moment and try a cast upon a fresh scent--Susie Martin. Mr. Addison, _alias_ Leggat, is not likely to forbid her banns, whoever she may be; in other words, won't be sorry to see her married. And Susie is a servant--of a mistress who will probably be attending this auction--to look after a drunken husband, who presumably, therefore, is also concerned in the auction. I recalled the two faces at the upper window, the one tipsy and the other sad, and felt pretty sure of having fixed Susie's employers. I recalled the lady's start of terror as she had caught sight of the bald-headed man below, and that I had first seen the bald head behind the window out of which Leggat had looked a minute later. If the bald-headed man had been talking with Leggat, this might connect her terror with Leggat. And both she and Leggat were to attend the auction. But what was this auction? And who the dickens was the bald-headed man?

The tangle--as the reader will admit--was a complicated one. But so far fortune had served me fairly; and considering the adventure as a game, in my knowledge of Leggat and his ignorance of my being anywhere in the neighborhood, I still held the two best trumps. In speculating on the possible strength of these two cards a new opening occurred to me. I had come with the purpose of forcing Leggat to buy me off or admit me into his game. But might there not be more profit, as there would certainly be less risk, in taking a hand against him? I had no fancy for him as a partner. I knew him for an unhealthy villain, with an instinct for preying on the weak, a born enemy of widows and orphans. If only I could discover what the stakes were, and what cards the other side held! Well, but I could have a try for this, even. I could, for instance, apply to the squire for a job, and this might throw me in the way of Susie Martin.

I stepped to the baize door, and passed out upon the archway. Six yards to the right, the Boots, with his back to me, was fixing a ladder to climb it and light the great lantern over the entrance. To my left a broad staircase ran up into the darkness. I tip-toed towards it, gained the stairs, and mounted them swiftly, but without noise, guiding myself by the handrail.

The stairs ran up to the first floor in two flights, with a bend about half-way. At the top of the second flight I found myself facing a pitch-dark corridor. The rooms facing the street must (I knew) be on my right; but as I groped along, my palm found the recess of a doorway on my left, and pressed open the door which stood just ajar. I drew back and listened: then, hearing no sound, poked my head cautiously within.

The room was dark, but the glow of a dying fire at the farther end gave me some idea of its dimensions. A faint reflection of this glow fell upon the polished surface of something which I guessed to be a mahogany table-leg, and, after a second or two, I perceived, or thought I perceived, two heavily-curtained windows, reaching almost to the top of the wall opposite.

I was reconnoitring so, in the recess of the doorway, when I heard a low tapping far up the corridor, and withdrew my head in time to see a door open and the faint ray of a candle fall upon a figure standing there, about twenty yards from my hiding-place; the black-coated figure of Mark Leggat.

"Hullo!" I said to myself. "Now for Susie!"

It was not Susie, however, who stepped out and, closing the door behind her, confronted Leggat, candle in hand. It was the pale lady I had seen at the window.

They stood for a moment conversing--so their attitude told me--in short whispers; and then came slowly down the passage towards me, the lady appearing to protest whilst Leggat persuaded and reassured her. At first I took it for granted they would enter one of the doors opposite; but, as they still came on, I saw that I must either retreat or be discovered.

I backed, therefore, around the half-open door and into the room. Then, as their voices drew near, it flashed on me that this might be the room they were seeking. I took three breathless paces across it, and found the table's edge. Guiding myself by this, and guided by the mercy of Heaven, which kept my feet from striking against the furniture, I found myself within three yards of the window nearest to the fireplace, with just time enough to make a dash for cover, and whip behind the curtain before Leggat pushed the door wide, and the pair entered the room.

"You _must_ give me five minutes!" Leggat was saying. "I tell you it's not for my sake, but for yours; it's your last chance!" Then, as the lady made no answer--"You did not believe you had another chance?" he asked.

"There can be none!" she answered now. "You have ruined me; you have ruined us all: and it was my fault for not warning Harry in time."

"My dear Ethel," he began; but a gesture of hers must have interrupted him, for he checked himself, and went on--"Very well, then, my dear Mrs. Carthew, if you prefer it; you are at once too weak and too scrupulous. A fatal defect, although you make it charming! Until too late, you hid from yourself that you loved me. When that became impossible you ran for shelter behind your vows and a theory--which you know in your heart to be impossible--that I, who had ventured so much for you, did not love you."

"Love!" she echoed hoarsely. "What love could it have been that sought this way?"

"Well, as it happens, it _was_ a way. Harry? Tut-tut, with Harry I was merely the handiest excuse for going to the devil. Suppose you had never set eyes on me. You know well enough he was bound to gamble away Welland sooner or later, just as he will sooner or later drink himself dead. I am sorry for the child; but, look you, I am going to be frank. It was just through the child I hoped to get you. To save Welland for _him_ I believed you would follow your heart and take my help with my love. You wouldn't. You couldn't help loving me, but--as you put it--you are a good woman: and even now, with the sale but an hour away and a sot of a husband to lead off with poverty, you won't."

She had set down the candle on the table; and now, having made a peephole between the two curtains, I saw her lift her head proudly.

"No," she said, "to my shame I loved you; but you would buy me, and I am not to be bought."

"I know it," he answered, and let out a grim laugh. "But on one point I am going to prove you mistaken. You believe that because I tried bribery I did not love you. You win by that error; but it is an error nevertheless, as I am going to prove."

While her eyes questioned him he drew a roll of notes from his pocket.

"Your fond brother-in-law intends to buy Welland," said he.

"James?"

"To be sure," he nodded while he ran through the notes with finger and thumb. "As the eldest brother, James Carthew wants Welland, to add it to the entailed estates. He has always wanted it: but these eight months, since that infant was born to him, he has wanted it ten times more. To-night he bids for it: and for decency's sake he bids through me--which is precisely where he comes to grief."

"I don't understand."

Leggat went on silently counting the notes. "Three thousand, five hundred," he answered; "the deposit money and a trifle over, in case of accidents. James Carthew is a rich man. I should reckon him up at a hundred and twenty thousand, and be within the mark."

"But why should he employ you?"

"In the first place, I suppose, because I've played the game for him throughout, and played it pretty successfully."

"_You?_"

He nodded. "You don't suppose Harry was playing against _me_ all this while? My dear lady, you cannot ruin a man at the cards without some capital of your own; that is, supposing you play straight, as I beg to observe that I did. No, no: I had a backer, and that backer was your amiable brother-in-law."

"But why?"

"Simply because a steady-going man like James, however much he inherits by entail, resents the choicest portion of the property--which does not happen to be entailed--being willed away to a loose dog of a younger brother. And when that younger brother marries and has a son, whereas he has married a childless woman, he resents it yet more bitterly. He cannot digest the grievance that, when he dies, the whole must go to the son of the brother who sits and drinks the wine in Naboth's vineyard. But, as it happens, his childless wife dies, and presto! he marries again. At a decent interval a child is born, and now is his time to play a tit-for-tat."

"He always hated us, I know," she murmured. "But _you_----"

"But I," he answered gaily, "am about to spoil that pretty game--and for your sake. Yes, and although you don't know how, and will never know how, I am going to risk my neck for it." He tossed the bundle of notes across the table towards her. She put out a hand as it rolled off the table's edge and dropped at her feet. "Count them: because I have to use them to-night to buy Welland back for you." And now there was a real thrill in his voice. "Count them," he insisted: "they are only the first-fruits, and after to-night you may never see me again: they are only the deposit on the price, and after the auction I shall ride away--not back to Welland Vicarage. But I have a word to leave, or to send, for Master James Carthew, and if these notes do not buy Welland back for you I am mistaken. I am what I am, and from what we are such poor devils as I cannot escape. But at least I have loved you, and in the end you shall be sure of it. Count them!"

He wheeled about on the words as the door was flung open. On the threshold stood Squire Harry Carthew.

He was white in the face and more than half-drunk. Under one arm he carried a leather-covered case and a pair of foils. His gaze wandered from his wife to Leggat, then back again to his wife.

"I want," said he, addressing her with husky solemnity, "a word with Mr. Addison in private." She bent her head and moved from the room, and he bowed as she passed, but somewhat spoiled the effect by shutting the door upon her train.

"I think," he said, closing the door a second time and locking it upon her--and his tone grew suddenly sharp, though he remained none the less drunk--"I think, Mr. Addison, we need waste no time. My wife's maid, Susie, has told me all that is necessary. You will choose one of those pistols, and we can settle the matter here and now. No!"--for Leggat had begun to edge towards the packet of notes lying on the floor--"you are not to stir, please, until we understand one another." He laid the foils on the table and held out the case. Leggat took the pistol next to his hand.

"You are drunk, Carthew."