Chapter XIII: Rampick Speaks

You remember old Jacob? ’Twas he seconded Harry so unhandsomely in the great fight. He had retired upon his savings now, and did no work, save when a still night persuaded him forth with line and trawling-net, and the loan of a friend’s boat could be procured. Such had been the case when we ran across him. He had taken advantage of the holiday spirit, which kept all “afternoon farmers” of the sea scrupulously away from it, to pull a few miles out in a borrowed craft, and try for a basket of fish to make a welcome garnish to his Christmas pot.

He was lying, when he picked us up, off the banks some four miles from land in a southerly direction, and in a few minutes was to have hauled in and returned home. By so narrow a margin of Providence were we acquitted. In all these hours, it appeared, we had made no nearer the coast than this; had just swung hither and thither gently, drifting south, on the whole, and making two feet shoreward, perhaps, for every one we retired. Probably, in the end, we should have dropped sluggishly on the banks again, unless the outward race of the tide, more vicious than the inward, had swept us over them. In either case, however, the result would have been the same, I believe. Another hour or two must have seen the finish of our endurance.

As it was, I don’t know how they got me on board. Harry, with his stronger fibre, rallied immediately under the excitement: the strain off, I collapsed--that was the difference between us. I was physically and mentally frozen; I could not make an effort on my own account; but lay on the planks, my head on my friend’s knees, listening, in a sort of staring dream, to the murmur of voices above me punctuated by old Jacob’s exclamations. They were telling him, I knew, enough of the facts to explain our situation; and I heard Harry impress upon him the necessity of keeping all to himself, until we had seen Mr. Sant, and learned what course he proposed to take. Old Jacob made no demur. He was honoured in their confidence for one thing, and, for another, his admiration for his former master was still so unspeakable, that he chuckled at the mere idea of temporarily sharing a secret with that great man.

Harry questioned him about Rampick’s doings since our abandonment on the sands. He knew nothing of the fellow; had neither seen nor heard of him. Probably, he thought, if he were convinced no one had witnessed our departure, he would, after deserting us, have pulled oblique up or down the coast, to some outlying station on it, in order to establish an _alibi_ in case of inquiry.

“He were free to go his gait, without risk o’ being observed in these merry times,” said he. “Reckon he’s turned up late, with his story of Jack or Jim visited, and the wur-rds spoke, and mayhap some proof of what Jack give him or Jim lent, to the very tune of innercence.”

I heard them all. Their speech drummed on my brain, as if it were parchment, which was just what it felt like. I lay staring at the light of the moon, for my back was turned to the beautiful thing herself; and I was not unhappy, only utterly cold-blooded. I thought, perhaps, from my long semi-immersion I had become a fish. What a fate, to go gasping through the world, with round lidless eyes and ears palpitating like gills, and never to feel warm again!

Presently we came to shore; and they tilted me up, as if I were a board, and stood me on end, so that I could not help laughing. But even then, in the most extraordinary way, _cold_ air seemed to come from my lungs. Some one, with a whisper and nudge, as if to fire my interest, pointed out to me a boat, Rampick’s, pulled up on the beach, its sides gleaming wet in the moonshine. I crowed and acquiesced, very knowing about nothing, as they seemed to wish me to be; and then, having my legs pointed out to me, tried seriously to remonstrate with and command them, for they were in the most drunken condition. I supposed, indeed, that they were quite detached from me, until, between Harry’s and Jacob’s support, I set them moving; and then I understood that they still acknowledged my control, and I was gigglingly interested in them, looking down on them idiotically as they went splayed, and giving, and pulling themselves respectable over the hard. They found the Gap a tough business; but once up and over it, the descent beyond appeared a matter of moments. While I was still chuckling to Harry, and failing in words to express to him what the joke was, there close before our faces was the door of number three, the Playstow; and I gaped and grinned and delightedly pointed out my discovery to my friends. While I was yet in the act, it opened hurriedly to a great surge of light; and I saw the figures of Uncle Jenico and Mr. Sant, standing blowzed and flurried, in the midst of the furnace. Suddenly they moved and came towards us; and at that I tried to hail them with a shout of laughter; but, instead, staggered and slipped down into their midst. It was very restful, after all; and I thought I would stop where I was. But the jangle of many voices worried me, and I closed my eyes. Then, instantly, as it seemed to me, I was lifted up, and borne aloft, and smothered in down, or snow, which embraced me very cold and peaceful. The light sunk low, and the voices to a whisper. I was quite content, so long as they would leave me packed there frozen. But presently I was conscious that this was not to be. Something, by creeping degrees, tickled, and bit, and stung at my feet. The poison rose, giving me intolerable pain. I moaned and cried; and, at the sound of my voice, they lifted me up and poured fire down my throat. The rising and the falling heat met, it seemed, at my heart, and I believed it was consuming. I struggled to beat out the flames, to reproach these demons with their cruelty--and then in a moment, in a blazing swerve to consciousness, I saw them. They, or their shadows, leapt gigantic on the ceiling; furious, gnashing caricatures of my uncle, Mrs. Puddephatt, Mr. Sant, Fancy-Maria. A furnace glared and reverberated behind them. They sprang and held me down, and rasped my limbs till they crackled and smoked. From prayers and anguish I passed to frenzied defiance. If they would torture me so pitilessly, I would of myself stultify their efforts. I felt the waters of revolt rising within me. An instant, and they gushed to the surface of my body, putting out the fires all over. Surcease from pain, a delicious oblivion overwhelmed me, and I sank back and forgot everything.

Once out of dreams of dewy meadows I awoke, and found my hand in the hand of my uncle, who sat beside the bed. He was himself once more, the real loving normal Uncle Jenico, and I smiled drowzily on him, and dropped away again. A second time I awoke; and there was Fancy-Maria beside my pillow, softly rubbing a smut into her nose with her thumb, and repeating to herself the multiplication table to keep from nodding.

“Three sevens ain’t twenty-four, Fancy-Maria,” I said, and off I went again.

At last, and finally, after unravelling a great endless jest of a rope, I stuck at a prodigious knot, and gasped, and opened my eyes.

“I thought that last snore would finish you,” said a voice.

I sat up. I was in bed in my own room; the noonday sun glowed on the blind, and squatted down before the dead embers of the fire, sniggering like a Bonanza, was Harry. He rose, yawning, and came across to me.

“All right?” he said.

“Right as a trivet.”

“Hungry?”

“Just!”

“You’ll do, then.”

“Think I should--when I’ve had something to eat.”

Sweet is the constitution of youth. It all came back to me now, and without distress.

He sat down on the bed.

“Why, whatever was up with you last night?” he asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” I answered, shame-faced. “Didn’t you feel it?”

“Not much. Not in that way. It was good enough for me to be safe. I say, you gave us a precious fright.”

“I’m very sorry. I couldn’t help it. What happened? Was Uncle Jenico very put out about our not coming home?”

“Near off his head, I should think. He’d sent for Sant. Nobody had heard or knew anything about us. But, of course, they never supposed it was quite so bad as it was.”

“Poor old chap! I was an ass to go off like that. Well, what was decided?”

His face fell a little sombre.

“Sure you’re in a fit state to hear?”

“O, I’m all right, I tell you. It would worry me not to know.”

“Very well. Then, when we’d got rid of you at last, and had something to eat and drink, we held a council of war. Mr. Paxton was in a rare state. I think he’d have liked to shoot that beast at sight. I’d never thought he could be like that, and I tell you it made me crow to see him. But your friend Joshua was for a postponement, until he could visit the crypts. He went through his whole story again, just as he’d said it to us. We told your uncle everything, of course, from first to last; and Sant, naturally. And then _he_ came down. He would hear of no course but the direct one. He’d go straight up to the Court for a warrant against Rampick for attempted murder; and, after that, to wring out and air the whole dirty business. He didn’t mind about risking his own popularity; he didn’t value at a brass piece the insane flummery of the treasure, as he called it. He and Mr. Pilbrow near came to words about it; and then----”

“What then?” I asked him, for he had stopped.

“I hardly like to tell you,” he said. “Sure you’re all right?”

“O yes, of course!” I said impatiently. “Do go on!”

“Well, we’d all gone out on the step, to see Mr. Pilbrow off, and he and Sant were standing wrangling there, when who should come slouching past but Rampick himself.

“I tell you he gave a screech, and dropped in a heap where he stood. We all ran out, thinking him dead. I don’t know now whether he is or not.”

“It would be the best way out of it all, perhaps,” I muttered.

“Maybe it would,” said Harry. “They got help and carried him home, and Sant went with him. He’s been there ever since, I think. At least he’s not come back here. Anyhow it stops the warrant business for the time. And there we are. Nobody knows the real truth but old Jacob; and Sant bound him to silence for the present. We’ve been looking after you ever since, young gentleman; and here I am, having taken my turn by the fire.”

“It’s very good of you, you old idiot,” I said rather tremulously. “Harry, if--if he’s rested, do you think you could send Uncle Jenico to me now?”

He nodded, comprehending perfectly, and went out. I don’t intend to recount the meeting that followed. If I had loved the old man before, you may understand what penitence now made of my feelings. I was painfully suspicious that that secrecy as to my own movements had been dictated rather by private selfishness than consideration for my relative. Certainly I had feared that, had he been told of our purposed trip to the sands, he would, in his uneasiness of mind, have put forward all sorts of objections, even, perhaps, had I proved obstinate, to a personal appeal to me not to desert him in his depressed condition. And now, supposing that eternal seal _had_ been put on our actions, what a heritage of mental torture, of unfounded self-accusations to impose on that blameless soul! I ended by swearing that for the future no simplest scheme of mine should take shape without his sanction. And then he was pacified, though still, while Rampick’s fate was undecided, in a fever of nervousness to keep me within sight and touch.

I came down to dinner, at which Harry was an invited guest, and made up handsomely for my late abstinence. We had a merry meal, though still in some perturbation as to Mr. Sant’s prolonged absence. During the course of it, I suddenly found a huge 21, scrawled on a scrap of paper, lying on the table beside me. A smutty thumb print in one corner informed me at once of the authorship.

“Three times seven, Fancy-Maria?” I said. “That’s a good girl! I knew you’d come round to my point of view in the end.”

She backed, giggling, out of the room; and a heavy sound in the hall which followed, endorsed, so to speak, by a pasty disc on her bustle when she reappeared, showed us that she had sat down in the pudding. But that, fortunately, was when we were at the cheese.

Mrs. Puddephatt was genteel and a little distant in her visitations during the meal; and, finally, with such spectral significance, that Uncle Jenico, though she had not spoken, felt constrained to offer her a sort of apology.

“There’s something behind, you think,” said he. “Well, candidly, there is, but it’s not exactly our secret as yet, my dear woman. When it is, you shall have all the facts.”

She gave a sharp wince, as if suddenly recalled to herself with a pin; and, drawing herself up with her arms folded, gazed at him with stony abstraction.

“Which you was addressing me, Mr. Paxton?” she said. “Would you take the liberty now to repeat yourself?”

Much confused, Uncle Jenico did.

“Ho!” she exclaimed, with decision. “Well, I must believe my ears for the future, I suppose, when they accuses me of curihosity, and pryingness into things which people no doubt has their very good reasons for keeping dark, and not becoming to a decent woman to pollute herself with hearing. I thank you for your consideration, Mr. Paxton, venturing to remark honly as it were uncalled for; me being the last person to worrit herself about her neighbour’s concerns, nor accustomed in London to know so much as the name of the next door, which is a feature of the metropulis neither hunderstood nor hemulated by provincial rustication.”

“I’m very sorry,” began Uncle Jenico. “I really thought----”

“Permit me to say, sir,” she broke in rather shrilly, “that you should not think about a woman at all, save in the way of kindness; and leastways, not to adopt her to your fancies. Suspicion begets the shadows of its own rising, Mr. Paxton.”

And, with these enigmatical words, she left us quite crushed and flabby.

We had hardly recovered, indeed, when steps outside woke us alert, and the next instant Mr. Sant entered.

He looked pale, and worn, and unshaved; but his eyes lightened at sight of me sitting there rested and confident.

“Ha, Dick!” he said. “What a brave constitution, you little dog! Is it fit for another strain yet, do you think?”

He came and put an affectionate arm over my shoulders.

“Is it fit?” he repeated, while Harry and Uncle Jenico stood wondering.

“You’ve nothing else for him at present?” said my uncle suddenly, and almost fiercely. “I’m not going to have him overtired, Sant.”

The rector said “Hush!” and crossing over to see that the door was tight shut, turned to us with his back against it.

“He’s dying,” he said. “It was a stroke, or fit, and the heart is just doing time for a little. The hope of your forgiveness is all, I do believe, that keeps it going.”

He looked intently at us. None of us spoke.

“He knows the truth now, and in his turn confesses everything,” said the clergyman, clearly. “He understands the terrible mistake he made. His brain clears of its delusions in the searching atmosphere of death. If you can forgive him, forgive the great wrong he designed you, he may be saved for God yet. But there is no time to lose.”

I felt that the blood had left my face, making my head swim and my heart beat suffocatingly. This was a hard relapse upon horror. But had we not learned to hit and be hit and nurse no resentment? I pulled myself together.

“Broughton regulations, sir,” I said, with a rather shaky smile. “Come on, Harry. Let’s go and find Mr. Pilbrow, and bring him, too.”

“Stay,” said our tutor, in a very sweet voice. “I’ve fetched him already. He’s waiting outside now. He will abide by your decision, Richard.”

“Then, let him be my dear boy’s deputy to forgive,” spoke up Uncle Jenico, sharply. “There’s no occasion to submit Richard to this fresh ordeal.”

Mr. Sant looked at me.

“He’s got a bad enough road to go, uncle,” I said. “I don’t want to lay up more remorse for myself. We’ll cheer him on his way. Come, Mr. Sant!”

My uncle uttered what sounded like an oath. But he objected no further.

“In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum suum!” I heard him mutter viciously; and I ran up, and shook his hand hard, and hurried out.

In the little garden we found Joshua. He understood without a word. He was very sombre; but quiet, and glad, by his glistening eyes, to see me well.

We hastened up the village street. News of our mission had got abroad; vague and speculative as yet, for Jacob had been loyal. But the people we passed looked at us covertly and curiously, scenting strange revelations in the air.

The ex-smuggler lived, was dying, in a little cottage up a squalid alley near the head of the village. It was a poor, dreary hovel, the mere lair of a beast, self-degraded, God-forsaken. His wretched wife, the real scapegoat of his sins, took us in to him.

“He’s dyin’ hard,” she said, in a thin fretful voice; “hard as a lord, wi’ the whole world to lose. He allers was above his station, was Jole. Lived on dreams, he did. I mind the time he promised me a kerridge; and now we’ll be bad set to find a hearse.”

He sat propped up under a frowzy patchwork quilt. A silhouette under broken glass was clutched in one of his hands. The whole man was sunk in upon his frame; his breath, always difficult to him to draw, laboured heavily; his eyes, in their livid halos, were quite unearthly. The woman went to him, and made some show of easing the coverlet on his chest.

“I was telling the gentlemen,” she said, shrilly, “that time was we was to have our kerridge, and now summut less than a hearse must serve.”

He nodded, and moved his ashy lips, and fingered the picture in his hand.

“He’s daft on it,” she said, turning to address us. “’Tis our little Martha, gentlemen, took at the fair before her going. I tell him he needn’t look to join her where she sings among the angels. He should have thought about it earlier, if he wanted to curry favour. Better to pass on what he can get from you, if so be as you’re agreeable.”

I felt a sudden thickness in my throat.

“We forgive you, Mr. Rampick!” I cried out, and hung my head, and turned in dumb entreaty to Mr. Sant. He hurried to the bed-head, and put a gentle manly arm about the dying sinner.

“Do you hear, Rampick?” he said. “As God witnesses, they forgive you.”

The smuggler moved his exhausted hands. Mr. Sant, understanding, lifted them both for him in an attitude of prayer.

“Mr. Pilbrow,” he said softly, “he wants you to hear the truth, if possible, from his own lips. Will you come?”

Joshua moved up, and knelt by the bed. We all heard the broken, gasping confession--

“Tuk you--_fur_ him, I did. ’Twas in the days--afore the--’arthquake. We had our store--_where_ you know, in the underground vaults of th’ old abbey. Over above, in the hopen, was a knot of arches--running together, like the bow ribs of a ship; and--set in the pavement under--_in_ a dark corner behind ruins, were a stone moving _on_ a pivot--what let down him--as knew the trick--_by_ a flight of steps, to the crypts. The powder--was kep’ handy--just below; and beyond--in th’ old cellars running seaward--till they bruk off--in a choke of ruin, behind the cliff face--lay the tea _and_ brandy.

“At that time we was a good deal chafed--_as_ one might call it. What with a revenue cutter--and a sloop of war to back it--our last run had been a run _fur_ life--and--at the end it were touch and go to get--the stuff housed. And in the thick, _of_ the excitement, who should be sprung--upon us--as we thought, _but_ a spy. He come from nowhere--it seemed. He was just up there one day poking--_and_ prying--among the ruins--and I see him. For hours he went--sniffing round--while I watched secret. He squinted, and he tapped, and he went--in and out--cautious; and sometimes, he’d stamp _on_ the ground, and listen--_fur_ the holler echer--with his ear down like a dog. Then--by-and-by--off he went, _on_ tiptoe, and I follered, tracken en--_to_ the Flask. They could tell me nothing--about en there; save _as_ he’d walked over--by his own statement--from Yokestone. The thing looked as black _as_ hell; and what we done--we done--in justice to ourselves as we thought--because we was druv, _to_ it. I had no hand _in_ what follered. I wouldn’t have: I never--could abide--the sight of death.

“We was stowing--the last of the cargo--_by_ starlight, when I see--the man agen. He was setting, behind a stone, his eyes shining--like a cat’s--upon each of us--tradesmen--_as_ we disappeared, down the hole. We was druv to it--_as_ we thought--and tuk our plans--cautious and seized en. He was a cat--he was. We bled, a few on us. But we got en down, he screeching--all the time--about some treasure, he was come arter,--and then I left en, _and_ went up--to keep watch. I couldn’t stand--what I knew was to foller. I’m a peaceable man--by disposition, I am. It was a providence--arter all. _Fur_ I hadn’t abin--there not a minute--when all hell bruk--underneath me, and went out _with_ a roar. The blessed ground--heaved itself--_like_ so much bed-clothes; the arches--come thumping down, and all--in a noise--_as_ if, the Almighty was a tearing--of His world--to tatters. I were spilt on my face--lucky, _fur_ me, I’d moved away to git--out o’ earshot--of the thing, under--and when I come--to my senses, I didn’t know myself--or the place. I crep’ home--dazed-like--to bed; _and_ kep’ it--_fur_ a week--hearing of the ’arthquake. But I knew, in my heart, what had happened. Some fool had fired--the powder--_and_ closed up, the hill. It were so--I was sure--when I come at last--to look. It seemed all fallen, _in_ upon itself. Where the passage--had been--were just, a shipload, of ruin, the half of it turned over--_and_ sunk, into the herth. I never believed--from that moment--_till_ the day I seen it, proved otherwise--that so much--_as_ a babby--could find its way agen--_into_ them shattered vaults. But the Lord--has His way.”

He ended, amidst a deep silence, and sank back exhausted. Joshua got quietly to his feet.

“You are forgiven, Rampick,” he said, “by me and by us all. Make your peace with God.”

Mr. Sant motioned to us.

Silently we filed out, and left the dying and his minister alone.