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|
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<span epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">I</span>
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@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
|
|||
<p>When Sibbold met with his death at the hands of highwaymen, the farm and waste lands, in the natural course of things, would have passed to his eldest son, Arthur, but he having disappeared, and not appearing to make a claim, James Sibbold, the younger son, took the property. The majority of people always thought, from the fact of Arthur’s not returning to claim his birthright, that he had had a hand in the slaughter of old Will Baskette, and that his conscience drove him away.</p>
|
||||
<p>James Sibbold, after a while, married, and had several sons. In time he died, and these sons, though married, still all remained living on the farmstead, or in the outhouses; for as it was known that James’ right was doubtful, they could not agree about the succession, and preferred to live like pigs rather than go to law and have it settled, since the result was so uncertain. At the same time the squatters, basket-makers, reed-cutters, clothes-peg makers, etc, who resided in the Swamp which the rat had caused, had considerably increased in numbers, and were always called, after their former chief, by the name of Baskette.</p>
|
||||
<p>This chief at the date of his death had two sons. The eldest went off with his mother, and joined the original gypsy tribe; the youngest, whose name or nickname was Romy, entered the service of the clergyman. The eldest was never heard of more; but Romy prospered, and in early middle age bought an estate and country mansion, not far from his birthplace.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was he who opened up the concealed mineral wealth of coal and iron, and thus, as everything goes by contradiction in this world, it happened that the descendant of gipsies, notorious for their wandering habits and dislike of houses, was the founder of one of the largest cities in the world.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was he who opened up the concealed mineral wealth of coal and iron, and thus, as everything goes by contradiction in this world, it happened that the descendant of gypsies, notorious for their wandering habits and dislike of houses, was the founder of one of the largest cities in the world.</p>
|
||||
<p>He married with every legal formality, and his son, Sternhold Baskette, imbued with the firmest convictions that in the future the young city would prosper to an unprecedented extent, employed the whole of the wealth he inherited in purchasing land and erecting houses.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the course of his transactions he desired to purchase the Wick Farm, where old Sibbold had dwelt, and the Swamp where the Baskette tribe flourished. Finding the title of the vendors imperfect, he devised the strongest safeguard he could think of, which was to make all the Sibbolds then living or known, to sign one document, and all the reputed Baskettes to sign another. He then transhipped them all to America—first, to get complete possession; secondly, in the hope that they would never return to trouble him.</p>
|
||||
<p>He proceeded to drain the Swamp, and to convert it into the Belgravia of Stirmingham. But this project required an enormous expenditure, and just at that moment the first railway to the place, which he had largely supported, came to a standstill, and ate up all his available capital. When, therefore, a return of commercial prosperity took place, he found it impossible alone to complete the vast scheme of streets, squares, etc, which had been commenced.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -19,14 +19,14 @@
|
|||
<p>The Baskette Battalion was therefore made up of—1st. The Pure Blood Baskettes; 2nd. The True Swampers; 3rd. Demi-Baskettes, who had that name added to another; 4th. Nominal Baskettes, whose names had an accidental resemblance; 5th. The Feminine Baskettes, descended from women of Baskette strain; 6th. Independent Squatters, not Baskettes, but companions; 7th. Illegitimate Baskettes!</p>
|
||||
<p>Then there were the Sibbolds—such a catalogue! These had been slower to wake up to their “rights” than the Baskettes, but when they did discover them they came in crowds. First, there were the descendants, in a straight line, of the eight sons of James Sibbold, shipped (six with families) to New York. They had multiplied exceedingly, and there was no end to them. The simply Sibbolds, as we may call them, numbered no less than two hundred and eighteen, all told—men, women, and children. Every one of these had some register, some old book—many of these books were worm-eaten copies of Tom Paine’s “Rights of Man”—some piece of paper or other to prove that they had the blood of James Sibbold in their veins.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then there were all the ramifications, pretty much like the Baskette branches; innumerable cadets distantly related, innumerable people whose wife’s uncle’s mother or cousin’s name was Sibbold; and all the various Sibbolde, Sibboldes, Sibald, Sigbeld, Sybels, Sibils, Sibelus, Sibilsons, ad libitum. Illegitimate Sibbolds were as plentiful as blackberries, and all ready to argue the merits of the case with revolver and bowie. If the Baskettes made up a battalion, the Sibbolds formed an army!</p>
|
||||
<p>Between these two great divisions there was the bitterest enmity. The Baskettes derided the claims of the Sibbolds; the Sibbolds derided those of the Baskettes. The Sibbolds told the Baskettes that they were an ill-conditioned lot; if they had been respectable people, and really his relations, old Sternhold would never have shipped them to America out of his sight. The Baskettes retorted that the Sibbolds were ashamed to stay in England, for they were the sons of a murderer; they were the descendants of a dastardly coward, who shot a man through a window. The Sibbolds snarled, and pointed out that the great chief of the Baskettes was nothing but a thief, caught in the act and deservedly punished; a lot of semi-gipsies, rogues, and vagabonds. Their very name showed that they were but basket-makers; they were not even pure gypsy blood—miserable squatters on another man’s property.</p>
|
||||
<p>Between these two great divisions there was the bitterest enmity. The Baskettes derided the claims of the Sibbolds; the Sibbolds derided those of the Baskettes. The Sibbolds told the Baskettes that they were an ill-conditioned lot; if they had been respectable people, and really his relations, old Sternhold would never have shipped them to America out of his sight. The Baskettes retorted that the Sibbolds were ashamed to stay in England, for they were the sons of a murderer; they were the descendants of a dastardly coward, who shot a man through a window. The Sibbolds snarled, and pointed out that the great chief of the Baskettes was nothing but a thief, caught in the act and deservedly punished; a lot of semi-gypsies, rogues, and vagabonds. Their very name showed that they were but basket-makers; they were not even pure gypsy blood—miserable squatters on another man’s property.</p>
|
||||
<p>Blows were not unfrequently exchanged in the saloons and drinking-stores over these quarrels. The result was the formation of two distinct societies, each determined to prosecute its own claim and to oust the other at all hazards. The Baskette battalion relied upon the admitted nonpayment of rent by their forefathers to upset all subsequent agreements, and they agreed also that this agreement which their forefathers had signed was not binding on the remote descendants. The document was obtained by trickery, and the land was not put to the use the vendors had understood it was to be put, as the representatives now alleged, to simple agricultural purposes. Further, each of those who signed the document only gave up his cottage and the small plot of garden round it; they did not sell the waste land between the islands.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Sibbolds principal argument was that their forefathers could not sign away an entailed estate without previously cutting off the entail, and it was acknowledged that this had not been done. But, said the Baskettes, there was a question if the land ever was entailed; let the Sibbolds produce the deed, and if it was not entailed, where was their claim?</p>
|
||||
<p>Each of these divisions formed itself into a society, with a regular committee and place of meeting, a minute-book to record accumulated evidence, legal gentlemen to advise, corresponding secretaries, and Heaven knows what. They actually issued gazettes—printed sheets of intelligence. There was the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Baskette Gazette</i> and the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Sibbold Gazette</i>, which papers carefully recorded all deaths, marriages, and new claims. There was a complete organisation, and a—fine thing it was for the lawyers and some few sharp young men.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of late these societies had received more or less cordial overtures from the eight building societies at Stirmingham who held the leases. The first four societies encouraged the Baskette battalion, the second held out hopes to the Sibbolds. The cunning building societies, without committing themselves, desired nothing better than protracted litigation between these claimants and the heir, in the certainty that meantime they should reap the benefit.</p>
|
||||
<p>Among the American corps of claimants there were men of all classes—from common labourers, saloon-keepers, etc, up to judges, editors, financiers, merchants; and many of them were clever, farseeing persons, who, without putting any weight upon the somewhat strained “rights” they professed to believe in, still thought that there was “something in it, you know,” and money might be got by persistent agitation, if it was only hush-money.</p>
|
||||
<p>Throughout many turbulent States there was at one time quite a feeling aroused against England (which added its venom to the unfortunate Alabama business), as having unjustly kept what was due to American citizens. These societies had their regular agents in Stirmingham and London, whose duty it was to report every change that took place, every variation of the case, and to accumulate evidence and transmit it. These bulletins were received by the “caucuses,” and sometimes printed in the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Gazettes</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Besides these regular organisations, who had money at disposal and were really formidable, there were several free lances careering over the country, representing themselves as the sons of the elder brother of Romy Baskette, the brother who had disappeared with the gipsies. These were downright impostors, and yet got a living out of the case. Several lecturers also promenaded the States, who made a good thing of it by giving a popular version of the story, illustrated by a diorama of incidents in the lives of the principal actors, from the shooting of Will Baskette to the appearance of Lucia Marese as Lady Godiva. It was singular that no one presented himself as a descendant of Arthur Sibbold; he seemed to have been quite forgotten. So much for America.</p>
|
||||
<p>Besides these regular organisations, who had money at disposal and were really formidable, there were several free lances careering over the country, representing themselves as the sons of the elder brother of Romy Baskette, the brother who had disappeared with the gypsies. These were downright impostors, and yet got a living out of the case. Several lecturers also promenaded the States, who made a good thing of it by giving a popular version of the story, illustrated by a diorama of incidents in the lives of the principal actors, from the shooting of Will Baskette to the appearance of Lucia Marese as Lady Godiva. It was singular that no one presented himself as a descendant of Arthur Sibbold; he seemed to have been quite forgotten. So much for America.</p>
|
||||
<p>From Australia there came, time after time, the most startling reports, as is usual when any cause célèbre is proceeding in the Old World. Now, it was a miner at the diggings who had made extraordinary disclosures; now, some shepherd on a sheep-run, after a fit of illness, found his memory returned, and recollected where important deeds were deposited.</p>
|
||||
<p>Nothing, however, came of it. The principal seats of disturbance were America and England; for England produced a crop of what we may call Provisional, or Partial Claimants. Here and there, scattered all over the country—from Kent to Cornwall, from Hampshire to Northumberland—were people of the name of Baskette, which is a very ancient English cognomen, and to be found in every collection of surnames.</p>
|
||||
<p>Most of these were of little or no consequence, but one or two held good positions as gentlemen or merchants. None of these latter made the shadow of a pretence to the estate, but they were fond of speculating as to their possible remote connection with the now famous Baskette stock; and some said that if anything did turn up, if any practical results followed the American attempt, it would be as well to be prepared to take a share in the spoil.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -27,12 +27,12 @@
|
|||
<p>“Now,” said Theodore, “what is the use of destroying the American claimants en masse if this even greater danger is to be allowed to remain close at home, within easy reach of the estate, ready at any moment to burst upon us and render nugatory all our risk and labour?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Marese was thunderstruck. For a time it seemed that their enemies were hydra-headed—no sooner was one head cut off than three sprouted up in the place. But the man was not one to be daunted. This also must be done, he said. They had not much time now to lose. It was already the middle of September, and a fortnight must be reckoned for the passage of the yacht to New York. They spent anxious days and nights considering a variety of plans. There is not time to unravel the strange mazes of the mind and trace the genesis of the idea which at last suggested itself to Theodore. It was only one degree less ingenious, and if anything still more horrible, than the infernal machine of Marese.</p>
|
||||
<p>Theodore still continued the asylum at Stirmingham. It was an important source of income, in fact. In that asylum there were confined lunatics of all degrees of insanity, most of them having wealthy friends, and some the representatives of large properties. Among these was one more remarkable than the rest. He was the representative of a long line of lunatics, or semi-lunatics. Popular tradition accused a progenitor living two centuries before of a crime too dark to be mentioned, and believed that the lunacy of his descendants was a special punishment from heaven. This particular individual had seemed tolerably sane till he was permitted to marry—a cruel thing. He then rapidly developed his inherited tendencies, living as a married man, left more free from restraint by friends and others.</p>
|
||||
<p>Though the owner of broad acres and lovely woodlands, he delighted in the society of tinkers, and was himself a clever hand at mending pots and kettles. He had such a fancy for tinkering that he actually promenaded the country for miles in company with gipsies, calling at the farmhouses—on his own tenants—asking for things to mend.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was also absurdly fond of dogs, and filled the house with them—especially the large mastiff breed, of which he was particularly enraptured, till no one could approach it, and his poor wife was frightened out of her senses. Tinkering, fondling these dogs, and playing the tin whistle occupied his time. His money he scattered far and wide among the gipsies, pedlars, and tinkers, and gave enormous sums for the purebred mastiffs.</p>
|
||||
<p>Though the owner of broad acres and lovely woodlands, he delighted in the society of tinkers, and was himself a clever hand at mending pots and kettles. He had such a fancy for tinkering that he actually promenaded the country for miles in company with gypsies, calling at the farmhouses—on his own tenants—asking for things to mend.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was also absurdly fond of dogs, and filled the house with them—especially the large mastiff breed, of which he was particularly enraptured, till no one could approach it, and his poor wife was frightened out of her senses. Tinkering, fondling these dogs, and playing the tin whistle occupied his time. His money he scattered far and wide among the gypsies, pedlars, and tinkers, and gave enormous sums for the purebred mastiffs.</p>
|
||||
<p>The countenance of the man expressed the most intense melancholy—that hopeless incurable vacancy of look which is seen on the features of some monkeys while in captivity. His face, and the shape of his head, in fact, much resembled a monkey’s; and the ears protruding from the side of the skull, very large and ill-formed, completed the resemblance. He had a favourite resort in one of the woods surrounding the family mansion. Through this wood there ran a stream, and a tree had fallen across it, making a natural bridge.</p>
|
||||
<p>On this tree, over the stream, he would perch himself astride, his feet nearly in the water, and play for hours upon the tin whistle, while his troop of dogs disported in the woods around. He had a wonderful instinct of music, and really played in a marvellous manner upon this simple instrument, exhibiting skill even in the choice of the whistle—for it is difficult to find one that has a mellow tone.</p>
|
||||
<p>The spectacle of this being, sitting on the tree trunk in the gloom of the woods, his long legs dangling down to the water, with his melancholy baboon face, performing extraordinary fantasias upon a tin whistle, could hardly be matched.</p>
|
||||
<p>But he was as cunning as he was mad. Probably from his companions, the gipsies, he had learnt that his ancestors had all been confined in the madhouse. He had sufficient sense to foresee that the moment a son was born to his wife he would himself be confined. But, with the inherent insanity of his nature, he thought that by killing the wife or the son he should escape this danger.</p>
|
||||
<p>But he was as cunning as he was mad. Probably from his companions, the gypsies, he had learnt that his ancestors had all been confined in the madhouse. He had sufficient sense to foresee that the moment a son was born to his wife he would himself be confined. But, with the inherent insanity of his nature, he thought that by killing the wife or the son he should escape this danger.</p>
|
||||
<p>So soon as ever the wretched wife’s confinement approached he slew her—and slew her in true fantastic fashion. With his tinker’s hammer he drove a nail into her head as she slept. He fled from the place, but was captured; and that was the last time Odo Lechester used his tinker’s hammer for some time to come. The dreadful deed, the sight of blood, had developed in him the homicidal tendency—he tried hard to stab his captors. In Aurelian’s asylum at Stirmingham he desperately wounded a warder.</p>
|
||||
<p>This was the being Theodore selected for his purpose. The man had made many violent attempts to escape—he was like a wild beast in a cage, pacing to and fro.</p>
|
||||
<p>Theodore went down to Stirmingham to his private residence, which adjoined the asylum, to prepare his tool for the deed. It was easy for him, as a physician and the owner of the establishment, to have full and private access to Odo Lechester. He had a fortnight for his task. In that time he succeeded in impressing upon Odo’s mind that the persons whose name and address he gave him were those who were responsible for his confinement.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
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|
@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Old Sibbold stood like a stone; but presently put his hand in his pocket and held out his purse.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No,” said Arthur; “not a penny of that, it would be blood money.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He went, and evil report went after him. Perhaps it was James who fanned the flame, but for years afterwards it was always believed that Arthur had shot the basket-maker. Only the Swamp people combated the notion. Arthur was one of them, and understood their language—it was impossible. Not to have to return to these times, it will be, perhaps, best to at once finish with old Sibbold; though the event did not really happen till some time after Arthur’s departure.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sibbold went to a fair at some twenty miles distance—a yearly custom of his; and returning home in the evening, he was met by highwaymen, it is supposed, and refusing to give up his money bag, was shot. At all events his horse came home riderless, and the body of the old man was found on the heath divested of every article of value. Suspicion at once fell on his known enemies, the Swamp people. Their cottages were searched and nothing found. Their men were interrogated, but had all been either at home or in another direction. Calm reason put down Sibbold’s death to misadventure with highwaymen, common enough in those times; but there were those who always held that it was done in revenge, as it was believed that the gipsies retained the old vendetta creed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sibbold went to a fair at some twenty miles distance—a yearly custom of his; and returning home in the evening, he was met by highwaymen, it is supposed, and refusing to give up his money bag, was shot. At all events his horse came home riderless, and the body of the old man was found on the heath divested of every article of value. Suspicion at once fell on his known enemies, the Swamp people. Their cottages were searched and nothing found. Their men were interrogated, but had all been either at home or in another direction. Calm reason put down Sibbold’s death to misadventure with highwaymen, common enough in those times; but there were those who always held that it was done in revenge, as it was believed that the gypsies retained the old vendetta creed.</p>
|
||||
<p>As Arthur did not return, James took possession, and went on as usual; but he did not disturb the Swamp settlement. He avoided them, and they avoided him.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Will Baskette was shot he left a widow and two sons, one of them was strong and hardy, the other, about sixteen, was delicate and unfit for rough outdoor life. This fact was well-known to the clergyman at Wolf’s Glow, the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Ralph Boteler, who was really a benevolently-minded man.</p>
|
||||
<p>The widow and her eldest son joined the gypsy tribe and abandoned the Swamp. The <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Ralph Boteler took the delicate Romy Baskette into his service as man of all work, meaning to help in the garden and clean the parson’s nag. Romy could not read, and the parson taught him—also to write. Being quiet and good-looking, the lad won on the vicar, who after a time found himself taking a deep interest in the friendless orphan. It ended in Romy leaving the garden and the stable, and being domiciled in the studio, where the parson filled his head with learning, not forgetting Latin and Greek.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Large as were the sums derived from his other properties—houses and shops and land, which were occupied—it was all eaten up in the attempt to finish this <em>marble</em> Rome in the middle of a brick Babylon. Heavy amounts too had to be disbursed to keep the railway going, for it did not pay a fraction of dividend yet. Men of business pressed on Sternhold. “Let us complete the place,” they said. “Sell it to us on building leases; no one man can do the whole. Then we will form three or four companies or syndicates, lease it of you, complete the buildings, and after seventy years the whole will revert to you or your heirs.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Still Sternhold hesitated. At last he did lease a street or two in this way to a company, who went to work like mad, paid the masons and bricklayers double wages, kept them at it day and night, and speedily were paying twenty percent, dividends on their shares out of the rents of the completed buildings. This caused a rush. Company after company was formed. They gave Sternhold heavy premiums for the privilege to buy of him; even then it was difficult to get him to grant the leases. When he did accept the terms and the ready cash, every halfpenny of it went to complete streets on his own account; and so he lived, as it were, from hand to mouth.</p>
|
||||
<p>After all this excitement and rush, after some thousands of workmen were put at it, they did not seem to make much impression upon the huge desolation of brick and mortar. Streets and squares rose up, and still there were acres upon acres of wilderness, foundations half-dug out and full of dirty water, walls three feet high, cellars extending heaven only knew where.</p>
|
||||
<p>People came for miles to see it, and called it “Baskette’s Folly.” After a while, however, they carefully avoided it, and called it something worse—<abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">i.e.</abbr> “The Rookery;” for all the scum and ruffianism of an exceptionally scummy and ruffianly residuum chose it as their stronghold. Thieves and worse—ill-conditioned women—crowds of lads, gipsies, pedlars—the catalogue would be as long as Homer’s—took up their residence in these foundations and cellars. They seized on the planks which were lying about in enormous piles, and roofed over the low walls; and where planks would not do they got canvas.</p>
|
||||
<p>People came for miles to see it, and called it “Baskette’s Folly.” After a while, however, they carefully avoided it, and called it something worse—<abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">i.e.</abbr> “The Rookery;” for all the scum and ruffianism of an exceptionally scummy and ruffianly residuum chose it as their stronghold. Thieves and worse—ill-conditioned women—crowds of lads, gypsies, pedlars—the catalogue would be as long as Homer’s—took up their residence in these foundations and cellars. They seized on the planks which were lying about in enormous piles, and roofed over the low walls; and where planks would not do they got canvas.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, it is well-known that this class of people do not do much harm when they are scattered about and separated here, there, and everywhere over a city; but as soon as they are concentrated in one spot, then it becomes serious. Gangs are formed, they increase in boldness; the police are defied, and not a house is safe.</p>
|
||||
<p>This place became a crying evil. The papers raved about it, the police (there were police now) complained and reported it to headquarters. There was a universal clamour. By this time Stirmingham had got a corporation, aldermen, and mayor, who met in a gorgeous Guildhall, and were all sharp men of business. Now the corporation began to move in this matter of “Baskette’s Folly.” Outside people gave them the credit of being good citizens, animated by patriotic motives, anxious for the honour of their town, and desirous of repressing crime. Keen thinkers knew better—the Corporation was not above a good stroke of business. However, what they did was this: After a great deal of talk and palaver, and passing resolutions, and consulting attorneys, and goodness knows what, one morning a deputation waited upon Sternhold Baskette, <abbr>Esq.</abbr>, at his hotel (he always lived at an hotel), and laid before him a handsome proposition. It was to the effect that he should lease them the said “Folly,” or incomplete embryo city, for a term of years, in consideration whereof they would pay down a certain sum, and contract to erect buildings according to plans and specifications agreed upon, the whole to revert in seventy years to Sternhold or his heirs.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sternhold fought hard—he asked for extravagant terms, and had to be brought to reason by a threat of an appeal by the Corporation to Parliament for a private Act.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Yet this very economy increased the popular belief in his riches. He was a miser. Give a man that name, let it once stick to him, and there is no limit to the fables that will be eagerly received as truth. Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Call a man a miser, and, if he is so inclined, he can roll in borrowed money, dine every day on presents of game and fish, and marry anyone he chooses. I only wish I had the reputation.</p>
|
||||
<p>No one listened to Sternhold’s constant reiteration of what was true—that he was really poor. It was looked upon as the usual stock-in-trade language of a miser. His fame spread. Popular rumour magnified and magnified the tale till it became like a chapter from the Arabian Nights.</p>
|
||||
<p>After all, there was some grain of truth in it. If he could have grasped all that was his, he would have surpassed all that was said about his riches.</p>
|
||||
<p>At last the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily News</i> hit upon a good idea to outdistance its great rival the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily Post</i>. This idea was a “Life of Sternhold Baskette, the Miser of Stirmingham.” After, the editor had considered a little, he struck out “miser,” and wrote “capitalist”—it had a bigger sound.</p>
|
||||
<p>At last the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily News</i> hit upon a good idea to outdistance its great rival the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily Post</i>. This idea was a “Life of Sternhold Baskette, the Miser of Stirmingham.” After the editor had considered a little, he struck out “miser,” and wrote “capitalist”—it had a bigger sound.</p>
|
||||
<p>The manuscript was carefully got up in secret by the able editor and two of his staff, who watched Sternhold like detectives, and noted all his peculiarities of physiognomy and manner. They knew—these able editors know everything—that the public are particularly curious how much salt and pepper their heroes use, what colour necktie they wear, and so on. As the editor said, they wanted to make Sternhold the one grand central figure—perfect, complete in every detail. And they did it.</p>
|
||||
<p>They traced his origin and pedigree—this last was not quite accurate, but near enough. They devoted 150 pages to a mere catalogue of his houses, his streets, his squares, clubhouses, theatres, hotels, railways, collieries, ironworks, nail factories, estates, country mansions, <abbr class="eoc">etc.</abbr> They wrote 200 pages of speculations as to the actual value of this enormous property; and modestly put the total figure at “something under twenty millions, and will be worth half as much again in ten years.” They did not forget the building leases; when these fell in, said the memoir, he or his heirs would have an income of 750,000 pounds per annum.</p>
|
||||
<p>They carefully chronicled the fact that the capitalist had never married, that he had no son or daughter, that he was growing old, or, at least, past middle age, and had never been known to recognise anyone as his relation (having, in fact, shipped the whole family to America). What a glorious thing this would be for some lucky fellow! They finished up with a photograph of Sternhold himself. This was difficult to obtain. He was a morose, retiring man—he had never, so far as was known, had his portrait taken. It was quite certain that no persuasion would induce him to sit for it. The able editor, however, was not to be done. On some pretext or other Sternhold was got to the office of the paper, and while he sat conversing with the editor, the photographer “took him” through a hole made for the purpose in the wooden partition between the editor’s and subeditor’s room. As Sternhold was quite unconscious, the portrait was really a very good one. Suddenly the world was taken by storm with a “Life of Sternhold Baskette, the Capitalist of Stirmingham. His enormous riches, pedigree, etc, 500 pages, post octavo, illustrated, price 7 shillings 6 pence.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
|
|||
<p>No change took place. Aurelian congratulated himself that all was going on favourably. The boy, who had little or no idea of the meaning of the word “father,” was constantly at Aurelian’s residence—the asylum where his parent was confined—playing with Aurelian’s son, who was carefully instructed to please him, and indeed was sharp enough already to require little instruction.</p>
|
||||
<p>Sternhold lingered in his melancholy state. He was no longer violent—simply dejected. He did not seem able to answer the simplest question. If asked if he was hungry, he would stare, and say something relating to his schooldays.</p>
|
||||
<p>And this was the man who had built Stirmingham. For five years he remained in this state, and then suddenly brightened up; and it was thought and <em>feared</em> that he would recover the use of his faculties. It lasted but three days. In that short time he wrote three important documents.</p>
|
||||
<p>The first was a statement to the effect that he had wronged Lucia. He now saw his folly—he had been led into his persecution of her by designing people, and blamed himself for his subsequent conduct. He earnestly entreated her forgiveness. The second was a species of family history, short but complete, refuting the claims of the American Baskettes. They were indeed of the same name, he wrote, but not of the same blood. The truth was that the cotters who had lived in the Swamp, now covered with mansions, had no name. They were half gipsies; they had no registered or baptismal name.</p>
|
||||
<p>The first was a statement to the effect that he had wronged Lucia. He now saw his folly—he had been led into his persecution of her by designing people, and blamed himself for his subsequent conduct. He earnestly entreated her forgiveness. The second was a species of family history, short but complete, refuting the claims of the American Baskettes. They were indeed of the same name, he wrote, but not of the same blood. The truth was that the cotters who had lived in the Swamp, now covered with mansions, had no name. They were half gypsies; they had no registered or baptismal name.</p>
|
||||
<p>Will Baskette, who had been shot, was the chief man among them, and gradually they came by the country people to be called by his name. They were not blood relations in any sense of the term. This paper also gave the writer’s views of his transactions with the Sibbolds and the cotters or “Baskettes,” and concluded with the firmly expressed conviction—the honest statement of a man near his end—that his title was irrefutable, and he knew of no genuine claim.</p>
|
||||
<p>The third document was his Will. For now it appeared that hitherto he had never made a will at all. It was extremely short, but terse and unmistakable. It left the whole of his property, real and personal (with the single exception of the gift to Lucia), to his son, John Marese Baskette.</p>
|
||||
<p>The will Aurelian took care was properly attested, and by independent witnesses whom he sent for.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
|||
<p>A spectator standing upon the Downs had the whole of this Plain, as it was called, at once under his eye; could see a horse start and watch it gallop to the goal. From an ancient earthwork camp or “castle,” this Down was known as Berbury Hill, and the level plain was often called Berbury racecourse.</p>
|
||||
<p>For from time immemorial rustic sports, and local races between the horses of the neighbouring farmers, had taken place twice a year under the Berbury Hill. The sports were held in the early spring; the races proper, according to custom, came off in October. They were of the most primitive character, as may be judged from the following poster, which the kindness of a printer and bookbinder at Barnham—the nearest town—enables us to present to the reader. He had preserved a copy of it, having returned the original to the committee, who sat at the Shepherd’s Bush Inn upon the Downs:—</p>
|
||||
<p>“Take Notiss. The Public is hereby Invite to the Grand open and Hurdle Rases and Steple-Chases at Wurdel’s End which is to come off on Wensday after old Michelmuss Day. All particlars of the Stewards which is Martin Brown, William Smith, Philip Lewis, Ted Pontin. Illegul Beting is stoped.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This copy had in the corner, “Please print two Score and send by Carrier,” and the unfortunate printer, ashamed to issue such a circular, sent it back with an amended form for approval; but the carrier forgot the letter, and it was not delivered till a week after the event—not that much was lost by the failure to give this species of publicity to the races. The day was well-known to all those who were likely to attend. The half-dozen gipsies, with the coconut sticks and gingerbread stall, duly arrived, and took up their quarters in a fir copse where the ground was dry, and the tree-trunks sheltered them somewhat from the breeze which always blows over the Downs.</p>
|
||||
<p>This copy had in the corner, “Please print two Score and send by Carrier,” and the unfortunate printer, ashamed to issue such a circular, sent it back with an amended form for approval; but the carrier forgot the letter, and it was not delivered till a week after the event—not that much was lost by the failure to give this species of publicity to the races. The day was well-known to all those who were likely to attend. The half-dozen gypsies, with the coconut sticks and gingerbread stall, duly arrived, and took up their quarters in a fir copse where the ground was dry, and the tree-trunks sheltered them somewhat from the breeze which always blows over the Downs.</p>
|
||||
<p>Most of the spectators were hill men. There still lingers the old feud between the hill and vale—not so fierce, toned down to an occasional growl—but Nature herself seems to have provided a never-ceasing ground of quarrel. These two races, the hill and the vale men, must always put up opposing prayers to heaven. The vale prays for fine and dry weather; the hill prays for wet. How then can they possibly agree? Not more than three knots of men and half a dozen wenches came up from the vale, and these gave pretty good evidence that they had called en route at the Shepherd’s Bush, for they were singing in chorus the lament of the young woman who went to the trysting place to meet her faithless swain:—</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:song">
|
||||
<p>
|
||||
|
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|
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|
@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“It appears that the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> started at noon on the Friday, as per bond, with a full complement of crew, but a short list of passengers. About two hours after she had left, the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Gloire de Dijon</i> put out to sea. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Baskette was at that time still at Imola, unable to get to New York. He and his cousin, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> T. Marese, were to have gone together in the yacht to London, where <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore’s business was very pressing.</p>
|
||||
<p>“When <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Baskette found himself unable to reach New York, he telegraphed to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore telling him to take the yacht and go on to London as had been previously arranged, thereby showing the same character of consideration for others which he has since exhibited to me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore put to sea in the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Gloire de Dijon</i>, and says that next morning they overtook the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>, or nearly so, the yacht being extremely swift. It occurred to him that, after all, as the Atlantic is still the Atlantic, notwithstanding steam, and there are such things as breaking machinery, it would be well to keep in company with a powerful vessel like the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> as far as the coast of Ireland.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They did so, and even once spoke the steamship, which replied, ‘All well.’ All that day the two ships were not half a mile apart, and the night being moonlit, the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Gloire de Dijon</i> followed close in the other’s wake till about four in the morning, when, as often happens at thick fog came on. Afraid of collision, the captain of the yacht now slackened speed to about six knots, and kept a course a little to the starboard of the steamer ahead.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They did so, and even once spoke the steamship, which replied, ‘All well.’ All that day the two ships were not half a mile apart, and the night being moonlit, the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Gloire de Dijon</i> followed close in the other’s wake till about four in the morning, when, as often happens at sea, a thick fog came on. Afraid of collision, the captain of the yacht now slackened speed to about six knots, and kept a course a little to the starboard of the steamer ahead.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The fog continued very thick till past noon, and then suddenly lifted, and they saw seven or eight sail in sight, one of which was the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> on their port bow, and about four miles off. She was running, as usual, at a good pace, and the sea being quiet, was making all thirteen knots. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Gloire de Dijon</i> increased speed, and drew up to within a mile and a half by three in the afternoon. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> then bore due east, and they were in her wake. The wind was west, with a little southerly, and just ahead of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> was a large square-rigged ship, with all sail set, but making very little way on account of the trifling breeze.</p>
|
||||
<p>“An extraordinary thing now happened. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> was observed by the captain of the yacht to be making straight for the sailing ship ahead, and had now got so close that a collision appeared inevitable. He called to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore, who came up from below. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> ran dead at the sailing ship, though she was making thirteen knots to the other’s four, and the slightest turn of her wheel would have carried her free. On account of the direction of the wind, the ship was sailing almost right before it, and the steamer appeared to be aiming at her stern.</p>
|
||||
<p>“On the yacht they could see the crew of the sailing ship making frantic signs over the quarter to the steamer, but not the slightest notice was taken. The captain of the sailing ship had relied upon the steamer giving way, as is usual, and had allowed her to come so close that, it seems, he lost his head. Seeing this, the mate sang out to put the helm a-starboard, and run straight before the wind. This was done, and only just in time, for the steamer actually grazed her quarter, and carried away their boom. Knowing that the captain of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> was an old sailor, and a steady, experienced man, they were astonished at this behaviour, especially as, without staying to inquire what damage had been done, she kept on her course at still greater speed.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
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|
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“It appeared that the whole ship’s crew and all the passengers had perished; but one of the sailors searching about found a man in the wheelhouse on deck, who on being lifted up showed some slight trace of life. The sailors crowded round, and the excitement was intense. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore, who is a physician by profession, lent the aid of his skill, and after a while the man began to come round, though unable to speak.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The captain of the yacht had now come on board, and a consultation was held, at which it was decided to run back to New York. But as the wind was strong and the sea high, and the hawsers strained a good deal, it was arranged to put a part of the crew of the yacht on board the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>, to get up steam in her boilers, and shape a course for the States. To this the crew of the yacht strongly objected—they came aft in a body and respectfully begged not to be asked to stay on board the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>. They dreaded a similar fate to that which befel the crew and passengers of that unfortunate steamer.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The end of it was that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore ordered the hawsers to be kept attached, and the yacht was to partly tow the steamer and she was to partly steam ahead herself—the steam was to be got up, and the engines driven at half speed. This would ease the hawsers and the yacht, and at the same time the crew on board the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i> would be in communication with the yacht, and able to convey their wishes at once.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All agreed to this. Steam was easily got up, and the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>’s boilers and her engines were soon working, for the machinery was found to be in perfect order. By the time that this arrangement was perfected, and the ships were, got well under weigh, the short day was nearly over, and with the night came anew the superstitions of the sailors. They murmured, and demurred to working a ship with a whole cargo of dead bodies. They would not move even across the deck alone, and as to going below it required them at once to face the mystery.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All agreed to this. Steam was easily got up, and the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>’s boilers and her engines were soon working, for the machinery was found to be in perfect order. By the time that this arrangement was perfected, and the ships were got well under weigh, the short day was nearly over, and with the night came anew the superstitions of the sailors. They murmured, and demurred to working a ship with a whole cargo of dead bodies. They would not move even across the deck alone, and as to going below it required them at once to face the mystery.</p>
|
||||
<p>“After an hour or so a clamour arose to pitch the dead overboard. What on earth was the use of keeping them? An abominable stench came up from between decks, and many of them could barely stand it. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore and the captain begged them to be calm, but it was in vain. They rose en masse, and in a short space of time every one of these dead bodies had been heaved overboard.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The gale had moderated, and the splash of each corpse as it fell into the water could be distinctly heard on board the yacht ahead. Such conduct cannot be too much deplored, and there was a talk of prosecuting the men for mutiny; but, on the other hand, there appears to be some excuse in the extraordinary and unprecedented horrors of the situation.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore remained on board the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>, doing all that science and patience could do for the sole survivor, who proved to be the third officer. Towards sunrise he rallied considerably, but <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore never had any hopes, and advised the captain to take a note of his depositions, which was done.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -23,8 +23,8 @@
|
|||
<p>The method pursued in the sections was delightfully simple and gratifying to every member’s vanity. He was supplied with pen and ink, and told to put down all he could recollect about his family. The result was that in each section there were five or six people—and in some more—all busily at work, writing autobiographies; and as everybody considered himself of quite as much consequence as his neighbour, the bulk of these autobiographies can easily be imagined.</p>
|
||||
<p>If anyone had taken the trouble to wade through these personal histories, he would have been highly gratified with the fertility of the United States in breeding truly benevolent, upright, and distinguished men!</p>
|
||||
<p>Out of all that one hundred and fifty there was not one who did not merit the gratitude of his township at least, and some were fully worthy of the President’s chair at the White House. Their labours for the good of others were most carefully recorded—the subscriptions they had made to local charities far away on the other side of the Atlantic, to schoolhouses, and chapels, town-halls, and whatnot.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There,” ran many a proud record—“you will see my initials upon the cornerstone—‘J.I.B.,’ for ‘Jonathan Ithuriel Baskette,’ and the date (186-), which is in itself good evidence towards my case.”</p>
|
||||
<p>All this mass of rubbish had to be sifted by the central, committee, to be docketed, indexed, arranged, and a general analysis made of it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“There,” ran many a proud record—“you will see my initials upon the cornerstone—‘<abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">J. I. B.</abbr>,’ for ‘Jonathan Ithuriel Baskette,’ and the date (186—), which is in itself good evidence towards my case.”</p>
|
||||
<p>All this mass of rubbish had to be sifted by the central committee, to be docketed, indexed, arranged, and a general analysis made of it.</p>
|
||||
<p>They worked for a while without a murmur, and suddenly collapsed. It was impossible to meet the flood of writing. Fancy one hundred and fifty people writing their autobiographies all at once, and each determined to do himself justice! Such a spectacle was never witnessed since the world began, and was worthy of the nineteenth century. The central committee flung up their hands in despair. A resource was presently found in the printing-press.</p>
|
||||
<p>When once the idea was started, the cry spread to all corners of the hall, and rose in a volume of sound to be echoed from the roof. The Press! The Spirit evoked by Faust which he could not control, nor any who have followed him.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was unanimously decided that everything should be printed—sectional summaries, minutes of evidence, central committees analysis, solicitors arguments, references and all. There was rejoicing in the printing offices at Stirmingham that day. Now the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily Post</i> reaped the reward of its long attack upon the family of the heir, upon Sternhold Baskette, and Marese, his son. The contract was offered to the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Daily Post</i>, the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Daily Post</i> accepted it, and set to work, but soon found it necessary to obtain the aid of other local printers.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -34,13 +34,13 @@
|
|||
<p>When at last the scribbling was over; when the proofs had been read and reread and corrected till the compositors went mad; then the speechifying had to begin. This to Aymer was even more wearisome than the other. For <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton having discovered his literary talent, employed him to listen to the debate and write a daily précis of its progress, which it would be less trouble to him to read than the copious and interminable notes of the shorthand writer.</p>
|
||||
<p>This order compelled Aymer to pay close attention to every speech from first to last; and as they one and all followed the American plan of writing out their speeches and reading them, most were of inordinate length. To suit the speakers a new arrangement of the hall had to be made. The screens were now removed, and the sections placed in a kind of semicircle, with the central section in front. Those who desired to speak gave in their names, and were called upon by the president in regular rotation.</p>
|
||||
<p>The first subject discussed was the method to be pursued. Some recommended that the whole body of claimants should combine and present their claims en masse. Others thought that this plan might sacrifice those who had good claims to those who had bad ones. Many were for forming a committee, chosen from the various sections, to remain in England and instruct the solicitors; others were for forming at once a committee of solicitors.</p>
|
||||
<p>After four or five days of fierce discussion the subject was still unsettled, and a new one occupied its place. This was—how should the plunder be divided? Such a topic seemed to outsiders very much like reckoning the chickens before they were hatched. But not so to these enthusiastic gentlemen. They were certain of wresting the properly from the hands of the “Britishers,” who had so long kept them out of their rights—the Stars and Stripes would yet float over the city of Stirmingham, and the President of the United States should be invited to a grand dinner in that very hall!</p>
|
||||
<p>After four or five days of fierce discussion the subject was still unsettled, and a new one occupied its place. This was—how should the plunder be divided? Such a topic seemed to outsiders very much like reckoning the chickens before they were hatched. But not so to these enthusiastic gentlemen. They were certain of wresting the property from the hands of the “Britishers,” who had so long kept them out of their rights—the Stars and Stripes would yet float over the city of Stirmingham, and the President of the United States should be invited to a grand dinner in that very hall!</p>
|
||||
<p>The division of the property caused more dissension than everything else taken together. One section—that of the Original Swampers—declared that it <em>would</em> have, nothing should prevent its having, the whole of the streets, etc, built on the site of the Swamp. The Sibbolds cared not a rap for the Swamp; they <em>would</em> have all the property which had grown upon the site of old Sibbold’s farm at Wolfs Glow. The Illegitimates claimed pieces here and there, corresponding to the islands of the Swamp. Someone proposed that the meeting should be provided with maps of Stirmingham, and the idea was unanimously adopted.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the day of the surveyors. One vast map was ordered—it had to be made in sections—and was estimated to cover, when extended, a mile in length by three hundred yards in breadth; and then it did not satisfy some of the claimants. Then followed a terrible wrangle over the maps. Everybody wanted to mark his possession upon it with red ink, and these red ink lines invariably interfered with one another. One gentleman proposed, with true American ingenuity, to have the map traced in squares—like the outlying territories and backwoods of America—and to assign to each section a square! But this was too equal a mode to satisfy the more grasping.</p>
|
||||
<p>Finally, it was resolved that all the minutes of evidence should be gone through by the central committee, and that they should sketch out those portions of the city to which each section was entitled. This took some time. At the end of that time the great Sternhold Hall presented an extraordinary spectacle. The walls of the hall, from the ceiling to the floor, and all round, and the very ceiling itself, were papered with these sections of the map, each strongly marked with lines in red ink. Near the stage there was a vast library of books, reaching halfway to the ceiling; this was composed of the summaries, minutes of evidence, <abbr class="eoc">etc.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>All round the room wandered the claimants in knots of two or three, examining their claims as marked upon the sections of the map. Many had opera-glasses to distinguish the claims which were “skyed;” some affected to lie down on their backs and examine the ceiling with telescopes; scores had their volume of evidence in their hands, and were trying to discover upon what principle the central committee had apportioned out the city.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of course there was a general outcry of dissatisfaction—one section had too much, another too little, and some sections, it was contended, had no right to any. The meeting then resolved that each section should visit the spaces marked out for its claim, and should report to the central committee upon its value. Away went the sections, and there might have been seen five or six gentlemen in one street, and ten or twelve round the corner, with maps and pencils, talking eagerly, and curiously scanning the shops and houses—poking their noses into back courts and alleys—measuring the frontage of clubhouses and theatres. The result was an uproar, for each section declared that the other had had a more valuable portion of the city given to it; and one utterly rejected its section, for it had got the Wolf’s Glow district—the lowest den in Stirmingham!</p>
|
||||
<p>After a long discussion, it was at last arranged that each section should retain, pro tem, its claim as marked out, and that <em>token the property was realised</em>, any excess of one section over the other should be equally divided. These people actually contemplated the possibility of putting the city up to auction! To such lengths will the desire of wealth drive the astutest of men, blinding their eyes to their own absurdity.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a long discussion, it was at last arranged that each section should retain, pro tem, its claim as marked out, and that <em>when the property was realised</em>, any excess of one section over the other should be equally divided. These people actually contemplated the possibility of putting the city up to auction! To such lengths will the desire of wealth drive the astutest of men, blinding their eyes to their own absurdity.</p>
|
||||
<p>After these preliminary points were settled, the meeting at last resolved itself into a committee of the whole house, and proceeded to business. The first business was to verify the evidence. This necessitated visits to the churches, and public record office to make extracts, etc, and two days were set apart for that purpose. It was a rich harvest for the parish clerks of Stirmingham, and especially for the fortunate clerk at Wolf’s Glow. After this the meeting, beginning to be alarmed at the enormous expense it had incurred, resolved on action, and with that object it decided to hold a secret session, and to exclude all persons not strictly claimants.</p>
|
||||
<p>This relieved Aymer from his wearisome task of chronicling the proceedings; but he could not leave or get a day to visit Violet. As he left the hall he stopped a moment to look at the stock-in-trade of an itinerant bookseller, who had established his track in front of the building since the family congress began. His stock was principally genealogical, antiquarian, and topographical—mostly old rubbish, that no one would imagine to be worth a sixpence, and yet which, among a certain class, commands a good sale.</p>
|
||||
<p>The title of a more modern-looking volume caught Aymer’s eye. It was “A Fortune for a Shilling,” and consisted of a list of unclaimed estates, next of kin, persons advertised for, <abbr class="eoc">etc.</abbr> He weighed it in his hand—it tempted him; yet he despised himself for his weakness. But Violet? He should serve her best by saving his shilling. He put it down, and went his way.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
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|
|
@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
|
|||
<section data-parent="book-2" id="chapter-2-15" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title ordinal z3998:roman">XV</h3>
|
||||
<p>Their mouths watered for the great city, yet it seemed no nearer to them than when three thousand miles away on the other side of the Atlantic. They talked loudly of their rights, but there was the little difficulty of possession, which is sometimes a trifle more than nine points of the law. I have conversed with unreasonable members of a certain Church, which claims to be universal, who considered that half England—half the vast domains owned by lords and ladies, by the two hundred and fifty proprietors of Great Britain—was really the property of the Church, if she had her rights.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are those who consider that Algeria ought to belong to the Arabs, that Africa belongs to the blacks, and India to the Hindus. Sat there comes this awkward item of possession. You have to buy the man in possession out, or else pitch him out; and the difficulty in this case was that there were so many in possession. Eight companies and a Corporation are not easily ejected.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are those who consider that Algeria ought to belong to the Arabs, that Africa belongs to the blacks, and India to the Hindus. But there comes this awkward item of possession. You have to buy the man in possession out, or else pitch him out; and the difficulty in this case was that there were so many in possession. Eight companies and a Corporation are not easily ejected.</p>
|
||||
<p>The fact was, the grand family council was a farce, and fell through. Even as a demonstration it completely failed. The members of it might just as well have stayed at home, and sent a monster petition to the House of Lords, several hundred yards long (as per the usual custom nowadays), and their progress would have been about as great.</p>
|
||||
<p>The <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily News</i>, which had published the life of Sternhold Baskette, and defended his legitimate line, poured bitter satire upon it, and held the whole business up to ridicule—as well it might. The <em>News</em> was now Conservative. The intense self-conceit of the Yankees—to imagine that they were going to quietly take possession of a great English city, and hoist the Stars and Stripes on Saint George’s Cathedral at Stirmingham!</p>
|
||||
<p>The American gentlemen fumed and fussed, and uttered threats of making the Stirmingham claim a feature in the next Presidential election—it should “leave the low sphere of personal contention, and enter the arena of political discussion;” so they said. It should be a new <em>Alabama</em> case; and if they could not have Stirmingham, they would have—the Dollars!</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Aymer was indeed glad; now he should be able to see Violet again, and resume his book so long laid aside. But no; there came a new surprise. A certain recalcitrant borough in the West returned unexpectedly a member of the wrong colour to Parliament, and the House was dissolved, and writs were issued for a general election. Three days afterwards an address appeared in the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily News</i>, announcing Marese Baskette as a candidate for that place in the Conservative interest. The heir had resolved to enter the House if possible, and his proclamation fell on Stirmingham, not like a thunderbolt, but like the very apple of discord dropped from heaven.</p>
|
||||
<p>First, it upset poor Aymer’s little plans and hopes. The companies were desperately alarmed, and not without reason; for if Marese got into Parliament he would, no doubt, very quickly become in himself a power, and would be supported by his party in his claim upon the building societies. It would be to the interest of his party that he should obtain his property—it would be so much substantial gain to them. Practically, Marese Baskette would have the important borough of Stirmingham in his pocket; therefore the party would be sure to do all they could to get his claim fully admitted. Imagine that party in power; fancy the chief at the head of Government!</p>
|
||||
<p>Everyone knows that justice and equity are immaculate in England, and that no strain is ever put upon them for political purposes, or to gratify political supporters. The fact is so well understood, so patent, that it is unnecessary to adduce any proof of it. But there is, nevertheless, a certain indefinite feeling that the complexion of the political party in power extends very widely, and penetrates into quarters supposed to be remote from its centre. Whichever happens to be uppermost—but let us not even think such treasonable things.</p>
|
||||
<p>At all events the companies had a real dread—a heartfelt fear—lest Marese Baskette should get into Parliament, and so obtain political support to his claim. They had foreseen something of the kind; they had dreaded its happening any time ever since he came of age; but they had reckoned that his known poverty would keep him out, especially as there was a very popular landlord in the county, Sir Jasper Norton, who, with another prominent supporter of the Liberal Government, had hitherto proved invincible. It had hung over their heads for years; now it had fallen, and fallen, of all other times, just at the very moment when their leases were on the point of expiring. A more unfortunate moment for them could not have been chosen. With one consent they resolved to fight him tooth and nail. This was fatal to poor Aymer’s hopes. For the company (Number 6) which employed Shaw, Shaw, and Simson could not possibly spare <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton’s energetic spirit; he must help them fight the coming man. Broughton, seeing good fees and some sport, resolved, to stay, and with him poor Aymer had to remain.</p>
|
||||
<p>At all events the companies had a real dread—a heartfelt fear—lest Marese Baskette should get into Parliament, and so obtain political support to his claim. They had foreseen something of the kind; they had dreaded its happening any time ever since he came of age; but they had reckoned that his known poverty would keep him out, especially as there was a very popular landlord in the county, Sir Jasper Norton, who, with another prominent supporter of the Liberal Government, had hitherto proved invincible. It had hung over their heads for years; now it had fallen, and fallen, of all other times, just at the very moment when their leases were on the point of expiring. A more unfortunate moment for them could not have been chosen. With one consent they resolved to fight him tooth and nail. This was fatal to poor Aymer’s hopes. For the company (Number 6) which employed Shaw, Shaw, and Simson could not possibly spare <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton’s energetic spirit; he must help them fight the coming man. Broughton, seeing good fees and some sport, resolved to stay, and with him poor Aymer had to remain.</p>
|
||||
<p>The whole city was in a ferment. Marese Baskette’s name was upon every lip, and as the murmur swelled into a roar it grew into something very like a cheer for the heir. That cheer penetrated the thick walls of many a fashionable villa and mansion, and was listened to with ill-concealed anxiety. Many a portly gentleman, dressed in the tailor’s best, with broad shirtfront, gold studs, and heavy ring, rubicund with good living, as he stood upon his hearthrug, with his back to the fire, in the midst of his family circle, surrounded with luxury, grew thoughtful and absent as that dull distant roar reached his ears. Banker and speculator, city man, merchant, ironworker, coalowner, millowner, heard and trembled. For the first time they began to comprehend the meaning of the word Mob.</p>
|
||||
<p>That word is well understood in America; twice it has been thoroughly spelt and learnt by heart in France. Will it ever be learnt in England? Outside those thick walls and strong shutters in the dingy street or dimly-lit suburban road, where the bitter winter wind drove the cold rain and sleet along, there roamed abroad a mighty monster roused from his den. They heard and trembled. Before that monster the safeguards of civilisation are as cobwebs. He may be scotched with Horse Guards and Snider rifles, beaten back into his caverns; but of what avail is that after the mischief is done? In sober earnest, the middle classes began to fear for the safety of Stirmingham. You see, the grey sewer-rats had undermined it from end to end!</p>
|
||||
<p>It happened that the ironmasters and the coalowners, and some of the millowners, had held out long and successfully against a mighty strike: a strike that extended almost to a million of hearths and homes. They had won in the struggle, but the mind of the monster was bitter against them. They were Liberal—nearly all. Let them and their candidates keep a good lookout!</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Aymer, having by this time made for himself some little reputation for intelligence and quick observation, was sent out by the committee, of which Broughton was chairman, to watch the temper of the people; to penetrate into all the corners and out-of-the-way places; to hang on the skirts of the crowd and pick up their hopes and wishes, and to make reports from time to time as anything struck him. He was even to bring in the lampoons and squibs that were circulated, and, if possible, to spy out the secret doings of the other party—a commission which gave him liberty to roam. He wished to be gone, but this was better than the close office-work. He should see something of life; he should see man face to face. (In gilded salons and well-bred society it is only the profile one sees—the full face is averted.) He put on his roughest suit, took his notebook, and strolled out into the city.</p>
|
||||
<p>The first thing he had to report was that an insinuation which had been spread abroad against Baskette was actually working in his favour. It had been thrown out that he was upon too familiar terms with a certain lady, singer and actress, the fame of whose wonderful beauty was sullied with suspicions of her frailty. With a certain section of the people, who prided themselves upon being “English to the backbone,” this was resented as unfair. With a far larger portion it was at once believed, and, amid sly nods and winks, taken as another proof that Baskette was one of themselves.</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer wandered about the city; he saw its horrors, its crime. At such a period the sin, the wickedness and misery which commonly lurks in corners, came out and flaunted in the daylight. A great horror fell upon him—a horror of the drunkenness, the cursing, the immorality, the fierce brutishness. He shuddered. Not that he was himself pure, but he was sensitive and quick to understand, to see beneath the surface. He was of an age when the mind deals with broad generalities. If this was the state of one city only—then, poor England!</p>
|
||||
<p>His imagination pictured a time when this monster might be uppermost. One night he ascended the tower of a great brewery and looked down upon the city, all flaring with gas. Up from the depth came the shouting, the hum of thousands, the tramp of the multitudes. He looked afar. The horizon was bright with blazing fires—the sky red with a crimson and yellow glow. Not a star, was visible, a dense cloud of smoke hid everything. The iron furnaces shot forth their glowing flames, the engines puffed and snorted. He thought of Violet and trembled: when the monster was let loose, what then?</p>
|
||||
<p>His imagination pictured a time when this monster might be uppermost. One night he ascended the tower of a great brewery and looked down upon the city, all flaring with gas. Up from the depth came the shouting, the hum of thousands, the tramp of the multitudes. He looked afar. The horizon was bright with blazing fires—the sky red with a crimson and yellow glow. Not a star was visible, a dense cloud of smoke hid everything. The iron furnaces shot forth their glowing flames, the engines puffed and snorted. He thought of Violet and trembled: when the monster was let loose, what then?</p>
|
||||
<p>He descended and wandered away he knew not exactly whither, but he found himself towards midnight mixed in a crowd around the police station. Jammed in amid the throng he was shoved against the wall, but fortunately a lamppost preserved him from the crush. However, he could not move. The gaslight fell upon the wall and lit up the proclamations of “<abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">V.R.</abbr>”—the advertisements of missing and lost, the descriptions of persons who were wanted, <abbr class="eoc">etc.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>One sheet, half-defaced with the wind and rain and mud splashed against it, caught his eye—</p>
|
||||
<p>“Escaped,” so ran the fragment, “from … mingham Asylum, a lunatic of homicidal tendencies … Stabbed a warder … killed his wife by driving a nail into her head … Is at large. His description—Long grey hair, restless eye, peculiar ears, walks with a shambling gait, and has a melancholy expression of countenance. Plays fantastic airs upon a tin whistle, and is particularly fond of tinkering.”</p>
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|
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<p>“Oh! my love,” wrote Aymer to Violet, “this is, indeed, an awful place. I begin to live in dread of my fellow-creatures. Not for worlds—no, not for worlds, would I be the owner of this city (as so many are striving to be), lest I should be held, partly at least, responsible hereafter for its miseries, its crimes, its drunkenness, its nameless, indefinable horrors.”</p>
|
||||
<p>These words, read by what afterwards happened, are remarkable. Aymer’s last vision of Stirmingham was the same man drawn again in his carriage amid tenfold louder shouts than before, “Baskette forever!” He headed the poll by over 1000 votes.</p>
|
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<p>The grey rats were triumphant.</p>
|
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<p>End of Volume Two.</p>
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<p>Even yet Aymer had not thought of marriage; even yet he had not overcome his constitutional sensitiveness so much as to contemplate such a possibility. It was enough to dwell in the sunshine of her presence. Thoroughly happy in her love, he never thought of tomorrow. Perhaps it is a matter to be regretted that we cannot always remain in this state—ever enjoying the ideal without approaching nearer to the realisation, for the realisation, let it be never so glorious, is of the earth, earthy.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is quite true that women like courage, and that boldness often goes a long way; but it is questionable whether with high-bred natures a subdued, quiet, and delicate manner does not go still further. Aymer was incapable of self-laudation, of that detestable conceit which some think it proper to show when they have made what they are pleased to call “a conquest.” Pity the poor castles that have stooped to them!</p>
|
||||
<p>His happiness had but one alloy—the perpetual remembrance of his own unworthiness, the immeasurable difference in his worldly position, which made it a presumption in him even to frequent her presence, much less to bask in her love. There were plenty who did not fail to remind him of this discrepancy in their mutual positions, for his intimacy at The Place could not, of course, pass unnoticed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Martin Brown said nothing whatever. If there was any alteration in his manner as the truth dawned on him, it was in favour of Aymer. With such men everything is judged by results. While Aymer went about sketching alone, he despised him and his pencil; the moment the very same talent obtained him the notice of those in a superior station, then Aymer was do longer such a fool. Martin said nothing. He refrained from his former jeers, and abstained from telling Aymer to go and mind the sheep.</p>
|
||||
<p>Martin Brown said nothing whatever. If there was any alteration in his manner as the truth dawned on him, it was in favour of Aymer. With such men everything is judged by results. While Aymer went about sketching alone, he despised him and his pencil; the moment the very same talent obtained him the notice of those in a superior station, then Aymer was no longer such a fool. Martin said nothing. He refrained from his former jeers, and abstained from telling Aymer to go and mind the sheep.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was also to his advantage that Aymer should get rich acquaintances, and so possibly obtain a livelihood, and relieve him of an expense, which, however small, was always a bitter subject with him.</p>
|
||||
<p>But there were others—farmers’ sons—in the district who did not spare Aymer. They despised him; they could not understand him; and they hated him for his luck in carrying off the squire’s daughter. They credited him with the most mercenary motives, and called him a beggarly upstart. If Aymer chanced to pass near them he was saluted with ironical bows and cheers, and hats were obsequiously doffed to “My Lord Muck,” or “My Lord Would-Be.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He made no reply, but the insult went home. He knew that there was a great deal of ground for this treatment. He knew that his conduct must appear in such a light to others; and yet how welcome they always made him at The Place. He questioned himself if he was doing right; sometimes his pride said “Go; carve yourself a fortune, and then return for her;” but love, strong love always conquered and drove him forward. He deemed that, with the exception of Violet and Waldron, all the world looked upon him with contempt. He was wrong.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the spring, Violet began to ride again over the Downs. This habit for a moment again lowered Aymer in his own estimation, for he had no horse to accompany her. What was his delight and astonishment when one day Violet took him to the stables and asked him how he liked the new grey horse. It was a handsome animal—Aymer admired it, as in duty bound, and as, indeed, he could not help, yet with a heart full of mortification, when Violet whispered that papa had bought it for him to ride with her. She flung her arms, in her own impulsive way, round his neck, kissed him, and rushed away to don her riding-habit before he could recover from his astonishment.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was true. In an hour’s time they were galloping over the soft springy turf of the Downs, trying the paces of the grey, who proved faster than the black. The rides were repeated day by day; and it often happened that, while thus enjoying themselves, they passed one or more of those very persons who had so often insulted Aymer.</p>
|
||||
<p>Instead of sitting firmer and with pride in his saddle, Aymer felt that he all the more deserved their censure, and looked the other way as he went by.</p>
|
||||
<p>He did not know that there was one eye at least that watched him with pleasure, and with something like a quiet envy. It was the same grey eye that had observed, him in the Palazzo at Florence.</p>
|
||||
<p>He did not know that there was one eye at least that watched him with pleasure, and with something like a quiet envy. It was the same grey eye that had observed him in the Palazzo at Florence.</p>
|
||||
<p>Agnes Lechester had returned to England to spend some time at the old Towers, and had not failed to make inquiries for the young pilgrim who, in coarse garb, she had seen at the shrine of art. She heard of the intimacy with Waldron, whom she had once or twice spoken to; and as the lovers rode slowly beneath her grand and comfortless home, she sat at her window, and paused in her artwork, and looked down upon them and sighed. She could not but envy them their joy and youth, their path strewn with roses and lighted by love. She had no need to envy Violet’s beauty, for, although no longer young, Agnes Lechester was a fine woman. It was the life, the full glowing life, she deemed so desirable. And she rejoiced that the poor pilgrim had found so fair a ladylove. So that there was one eye at least which, unknown to Aymer, watched him with a quiet pleasure and approval. Had he known it, it would have encouraged him greatly. By precipitating matters it might have prevented—but let us proceed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jason Waldron knew that his daughter loved, and was beloved. He was no ordinary man. His life had been spent far from those moneymaking centres where, in time, the best of natures loses its original bias, and sees nothing but gold. Age, he believed, had given him some power of penetration; and in Aymer he thought he had found one in a thousand—one with whom his darling daughter’s future would be safe. “He will not follow the universal idol,” thought the old man. “He will be content with art and literature, with nature and with Violet. I can see nothing in store for them but the happiest of lives.” He waited long, expecting Aymer to approach the subject in some distant manner. At last he comprehended his reluctance. “He is poor and proud—he is afraid, and no wonder,” he thought. “He shall not suffer for that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The benevolent old man, anxious only to complete the happiness of those he loved, resolved to be the first, and to hold out a welcoming hand. One day he called for Aymer to his study, and motioning him to a seat, averted his face, not to confuse him, and said that he had long seen the mutual affection between Violet and him. He understood why Aymer had refrained from taking him into his confidence—he could appreciate the difficulties of his position. Without any hesitation, he approved of Violet’s choice. His own years had now begun to weigh upon him, and he grew daily more anxious that Violet should be settled. He proposed, therefore, that if Aymer would not mind the arrangement, they should be united as speedily as possible, and that after a short trip they should return and live with him at The Place. He could not spare Violet entirely—he must hear the sound of her voice, and see the light of her eyes, while yet the power to do so remained with him. He was not really rich. In that poor district, indeed, he appeared so, but it was only by comparison. Were he to be placed in some great city, side by side with the men whose trade was gold, his little all would sink into the utmost insignificance. Beside rude rustics, who lived from hand to mouth, content if they paid the rent, and perhaps put by a hundred guineas in the county bant, he was well off; but not when weighed against the world.</p>
|
||||
<p>The benevolent old man, anxious only to complete the happiness of those he loved, resolved to be the first, and to hold out a welcoming hand. One day he called for Aymer to his study, and motioning him to a seat, averted his face, not to confuse him, and said that he had long seen the mutual affection between Violet and him. He understood why Aymer had refrained from taking him into his confidence—he could appreciate the difficulties of his position. Without any hesitation, he approved of Violet’s choice. His own years had now begun to weigh upon him, and he grew daily more anxious that Violet should be settled. He proposed, therefore, that if Aymer would not mind the arrangement, they should be united as speedily as possible, and that after a short trip they should return and live with him at The Place. He could not spare Violet entirely—he must hear the sound of her voice, and see the light of her eyes, while yet the power to do so remained with him. He was not really rich. In that poor district, indeed, he appeared so, but it was only by comparison. Were he to be placed in some great city, side by side with the men whose trade was gold, his little all would sink into the utmost insignificance. Beside rude rustics, who lived from hand to mouth, content if they paid the rent, and perhaps put by a hundred guineas in the county bank, he was well off; but not when weighed against the world.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had but the house he dwelt in, a few acres of surrounding pasture, and three thousand pounds placed out on loan. This money brought in a good interest, but he had lately thought of calling it in for greater safety, as he felt himself to be getting old in every sense of the term.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was obvious, therefore, that on the score of expense alone it would be difficult for him to give a dower to Violet sufficient to support a second home. If they could be happy with him, why he should be content.</p>
|
||||
<p>He turned and held out his hand to Aymer. Aymer took it, but could say nothing. He was literally overwhelmed. To him, after so long a solitude, after so much contempt, this marvellous good fortune was overpowering. Jason pretended not to notice his confusion.</p>
|
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@ -49,7 +49,7 @@
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<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Merton had not arrived yet. He had arranged to bring his carriage; at The Place they had nothing grander than the pony-carriage. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Merton, anxious to do the thing well, as he expressed it, had sent word that he should bring his carriage and pair of greys, to take the bride to the church.</p>
|
||||
<p>From the earliest dawn the bells at Bury Church had been going from time to time; and every now and then there was a scattered fire of musketry, like skirmishing; it was the young farmers and their friends arriving with their guns, and saluting.</p>
|
||||
<p>But at a quarter-past ten there was a commotion. The bells burst out merrier than ever; there was volley after volley of musketry, and cheering which penetrated even to the chamber of the bride, where she sat before the mirror with the pearls round her neck. It was Merton driving up in style, with his greys decorated with wedding favours.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bang! clang! shout, and hurrah! The hand from Barnham struck up. “See the Conquering Hero comes!” There never was such a glorious day before or since at World’s End.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bang! clang! shout, and hurrah! The band from Barnham struck up. “See the Conquering Hero comes!” There never was such a glorious day before or since at World’s End.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nevvy,” said old Martin, already a little warm, and slapping Aymer on the back, “nevvy, my buoy! Thee bist th’ luckiest dog in Inglandt—champagne and purls—Ha! ha! ha!”</p>
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</section>
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<p>A dead silence followed. Men understood what he meant. Already public suspicion had fallen upon the gardener.</p>
|
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<p>And Violet? Violet was calm and tearless, but heartbroken. She would not see Aymer till the third day—it was the morning of the inquest, though she did not know it. She saw him in her own room, still darkened. A thrush was singing loud and clear in the tree below the window. The sun still shone as it had done upon the bridal day, but the room was dark.</p>
|
||||
<p>Miss Merton, despite her horror, had remained by her friend. She left the apartment as Aymer entered, Violet could not speak to him. Her head drooped on his shoulder, and convulsive sobs shook her form.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is better to leave them together. The soled wedding-dress, the beautiful pearl necklace tinged with the horrible hue of blood, had been carefully put out of sight. People were searching for the wedding-ring in the chancel at the church, but could not find it.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is better to leave them together. The soiled wedding-dress, the beautiful pearl necklace tinged with the horrible hue of blood, had been carefully put out of sight. People were searching for the wedding-ring in the chancel at the church, but could not find it.</p>
|
||||
<p>The inquest was held at the Shepherd’s Bush. As had been the case at another inquest a century before, held at a place then almost as retired—at Wolf’s Glow—so here the jury was formed of the farmers of the district.</p>
|
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<p>Bury Wick village was so small it had no inn, which was accounted for by the fact that no through road ran by it. The village inn was half a mile from the houses, alone by itself, on the edge of the highway. The Shepherd’s Bush was small, merely a cottage made into a tavern, and the largest room barely held the jury.</p>
|
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<p>It is not material to us to go into every detail; the main features of that painful inquiry will be sufficient.</p>
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<p>“What did witness do?”</p>
|
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<p>For a moment he did nothing—it did not strike him as anything extraordinary. That morning there had been scores of people about the house, and numbers of strangers whom he did not know. They were attracted by the talk about the wedding, and he thought no harm. He went on with his work as hastily as he could, for he still hoped to have finished in time to make a shortcut across the fields, and see a part of the marriage ceremony.</p>
|
||||
<p>He became so excited with the wish to see the ceremony that he left part of his work undone. As he went he had to pass the open window of the dining-room, where “master” was sitting. He was running, and actually passed the window without noticing anything; but before he had got to the front door he heard a groan. He ran back, and found his master prone on the floor of the apartment, in a pool of blood. He had evidently fallen out of his armchair forwards—started up and fallen. Witness, excessively frightened, lifted him up, and placed him in the chair, and it was in so doing that his shirtfront became saturated with the sanguinary stream, which also dyed his hands. He had on a shirtfront and a black suit, in order to wait at table at the wedding-breakfast. “Master” never spoke or groaned again. So soon as he was placed in the armchair his head dropped on one side as if quite dead, and witness then ran as fast as he could to the church, and crossed the fields by a shortcut which brought him to the chancel-door.</p>
|
||||
<p>The stranger, who had crossed, the narrow “green” or lawn before the house, had entirely disappeared, and he saw nothing of him in the house. In his haste and confusion, he did not see with what the deed had been committed.</p>
|
||||
<p>The stranger, who had crossed the narrow “green” or lawn before the house, had entirely disappeared, and he saw nothing of him in the house. In his haste and confusion, he did not see with what the deed had been committed.</p>
|
||||
<p>This was the substance of his evidence. Cross-examine him as they might, neither the Coroner nor the jury, nor <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Merton, could get any further light. The witness was evidently much perturbed. There were those who thought his manner that of a guilty man—or, at least, of a man who knew more than he chose to tell. On the other hand, it might be the manner of an aged and weakly man, greatly upset in mind and body by the frightful discovery he had made. All the jury knew the relations between the witness and the deceased. Jenkins had lived in the service of the Waldrons all his life, as had his father before him, and the deceased had always exhibited the greatest interest in his welfare. He had good wages, an easy occupation, and was well cared for in every way. The most suspicious could conceive of no ground of quarrel or ill-will.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Coroner directed the witness to remain in attendance, and the first person who had seen the deceased after the alarm was given was called.</p>
|
||||
<p>This was Phillip Lewis, a farmer’s son (one of the stewards at World’s End Races), who being swift of foot had outstripped the others in the run from the church to The Place.</p>
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<p>The taps were repeated. Violet and Aymer looked at each other.</p>
|
||||
<p>Something very like a moan penetrated into the apartment. Aymer immediately rose and went to the front door. He asked if anyone was without; there was no answer. He opened the door; the bitter wind, bearing with it flakes of snow, drove into his face. For a moment, in the darkness, he could distinguish nothing; the next, brave as he was, he recoiled; for there lay what looked like a body at his feet. Overcoming his dread he stooped and touched—a woman’s dress. He lifted her up—the form was heavy and inanimate in his hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Violet, dear!” he said, “it is a woman—she has fainted; may I bring her in?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet’s sympathies were at once on the alert. The woman was carried in and laid upon the rug before the fire, the servant came crowding in to render assistance brandy was brought, and the stranger opened her eyes and moaned faintly. Then they saw that, although stained with travel and damp from exposure to the drifting snow her dress was that of a lady.</p>
|
||||
<p>Under the influence of the warm fire and the brandy she soon recovered sufficiently to sit up. She was not handsome nor young her best features were a broad, intellectual looking forehead, and fine dark eyes. So soon as ever she was strong enough to speak she turned to Violet, and begged to be alone with her for a little while.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet’s sympathies were at once on the alert. The woman was carried in and laid upon the rug before the fire, the servants came crowding in to render assistance, brandy was brought, and the stranger opened her eyes and moaned faintly. Then they saw that, although stained with travel and damp from exposure to the drifting snowi, her dress was that of a lady.</p>
|
||||
<p>Under the influence of the warm fire and the brandy she soon recovered sufficiently to sit up. She was not handsome nor young; her best features were a broad, intellectual looking forehead, and fine dark eyes. So soon as ever she was strong enough to speak she turned to Violet, and begged to be alone with her for a little while.</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer, with all a lover’s suspicions, demurred, but Violet insisted, and he had to be content with remaining within easy call.</p>
|
||||
<p>He had no sooner left the room than the lady, for such she appeared to be, fell upon her knees at Violet’s feet, and begged her for the sake of her father’s memory to show mercy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh! spare us,” cried the unhappy creature, bursting into tears, and wringing her hands, “spare us—we are penniless. Indeed we did not do it purposely. We never knew—I am Esther Herring!”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was long before Violet could gather her meaning from these incoherent sentences. At last, under her kind words and gentle questions, Esther became calmer and explained the miserable state of affairs. Violet sighed deeply. In one moment her hopes were dashed to the ground: her money was gone; how could she and Aymer—</p>
|
||||
<p>But she bore up bravely, and listened patiently to Esther’s story. How the widow’s heart was breaking, how the sons were despairing, and the daughters looking forward to begging their bread. How the sale approached—only five days more; and that thinking, and thinking day and night over the misery of it, Esther had at last fled to Violet for mercy—to Violet, who was ignorant of the whole matter. Fled on foot—for all their horses were seized—on that wild winter afternoon, facing the bitter wind, the snow, and the steep hills for ten long miles to World’s End. Fled to fling herself at Violet’s feet, and beg for mercy upon the widow and the fatherless children. The fatigue and her excitement had proved too much, and she had fainted at the very door. Esther dwelt much upon <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Merton’s cruelty, for his insults had out her to the quick.</p>
|
||||
<p>But she bore up bravely, and listened patiently to Esther’s story. How the widow’s heart was breaking, how the sons were despairing, and the daughters looking forward to begging their bread. How the sale approached—only five days more; and that thinking, and thinking day and night over the misery of it, Esther had at last fled to Violet for mercy—to Violet, who was ignorant of the whole matter. Fled on foot—for all their horses were seized—on that wild winter afternoon, facing the bitter wind, the snow, and the steep hills for ten long miles to World’s End. Fled to fling herself at Violet’s feet, and beg for mercy upon the widow and the fatherless children. The fatigue and her excitement had proved too much, and she had fainted at the very door. Esther dwelt much upon <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Merton’s cruelty, for his insults had cut her to the quick.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet became very pale. She went to the door and called softly, “Aymer.” He came, and Esther attempted to dry her tears. Violet told him all, and took his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This cannot be,” she said; “this surely must not be. I will do—we will do—as of a surety my father would have done. The innocent shall not suffer for the guilty. We, Aymer and I, will give up our claim. Tell them at your home to be comforted and to fear not.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Esther saw that her mission was accomplished, and the reaction set in. She became ill and feverish. Violet had her taken upstairs and waited upon her. Aymer was left alone. He walked to the window, opened the shutters, and looked forth. The scud flew over the sky, and the wan moon was now hidden, and now shone forth with a pale feeble light. The heart within him was very bitter. He did not repent the renunciation which he had confirmed; he felt that it was right and just. But it was a terrible blow. It cut away the very ground from beneath his feet.</p>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
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<section data-parent="book-2" id="chapter-2-9" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title ordinal z3998:roman">IX</h3>
|
||||
<p>Down to one firm faith in this day of scepticism and cynicism. It may be a despicable weakness—that cannot be helped—but nothing will ever overthrow it. My faith is firm in the good which is possible in woman.</p>
|
||||
<p>I own to one firm faith in this day of scepticism and cynicism. It may be a despicable weakness—that cannot be helped—but nothing will ever overthrow it. My faith is firm in the good which is possible in woman.</p>
|
||||
<p>There is much vice, much evil, much folly; but, after all, these faults are chiefly caused by weakness, therefore they are more or less excusable. It is difficult for women to do good—so many and so complex are the restraints which surround them as in a net—yet they do it. Were I in sorrow, in trouble, or in fear, to them I should go, as hundreds—ay, countless numbers—have previously gone, certain of assistance if assistance were possible, and of compassion and sympathy, even if my crimes were too evil to speak of.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was heard one afternoon at The Place the roll of carriage-wheels—a sound that had not been heard since the fatal bridal day. It was a damp, cold day, and Violet had been unable to go out. A fog hung over the fields, creeping slowly along the fallows, clinging in shapeless clouds upon the hill tops. There was no rain, but the bare hedges were dripping large drops of water condensed from the mist, and the dead leaves upon the ground were soddened with damp. On such days as these, when she could not walk out and dispel her gloom by exercise, Violet naturally felt the loss of poor Jason the more.</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer could not be always with her. Although their intercourse was little, if at all, fettered by the etiquette which would have barred it in more civilised neighbourhoods, yet he could not be always at The Place, and of late he had been working hard at sketches and literary matters, which occupied time and kept him from her side.</p>
|
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@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton will be here in a day or two,” she said; “tell <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Malet to come with him. The mortgages I have told you of are to be paid off; Broughton will manage it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>From which it was evident that a definite understanding had been come to with Marese. Agnes was silent and thoughtful all the evening. Towards the hour when they usually retired, she called Violet to the window, and put her arm round her neck.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Suppose,” she said, “all the meadows and hills you see out there were yours, and had been your ancestors for so many centuries—remember, too, that we may die however well we feel—should you like to think that the estate would then fall into the helpless hands of one of two lunatics?”</p>
|
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<p>It was clear that the natural hope of children to inherit had influenced her. Violet had heard something of the lunacy inherent in certain branches of the Lechester family:</p>
|
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<p>It was clear that the natural hope of children to inherit had influenced her. Violet had heard something of the lunacy inherent in certain branches of the Lechester family.</p>
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</section>
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@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
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<p>“Very well, but do keep calm; we shall be out all the sooner, unless indeed some unforeseen circumstance stops it, as it has hitherto done. <i xml:lang="la">Ay di me!</i>”</p>
|
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<p>“Do you know anything of Jason Waldron’s murder?” asked Aymer, impatiently.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I do; you have yourself told me. I had my suspicions—almost certainty—before, but I could not see the motive; now I see the motive—poor, miserable Odo!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Odo! what has Odo, to do with it? Do go on; I am wild.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Odo! what has Odo to do with it? Do go on; I am wild.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very well. Odo Lechester murdered your friend Jason Waldron!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“But Odo Lechester is in a lunatic asylum, incurable.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Odo Lechester was in this very asylum, but he escaped nearly a year ago. He escaped by permission.”</p>
|
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|
|
@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
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|||
<p>“Homicidal tendencies!—escaped! Stay a minute, let me think. I remember now. Oh! what a fool I have been. Why, I saw the description of him posted up against the police station in Stirmingham, during the election; it was partly destroyed—evidently an old bill. I see—I see. But why should Odo Lechester kill Jason?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He was instructed to do so. Your dear friend Theodore, who so kindly offered you a secretaryship at seven hundred and fifty pounds a year, told him to do so.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why—how—how could he—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Work on Odo’s mind? Easily enough. Poor Odo—he is a beast, born in the shape of a man: it is not his fault—he is not responsible. Odo is a tinker and a whistler; he is at home among the gipsies and the woods, playing on his tin whistle, mending pots and kettles. His three great passions are tinkering, dogs, and—liberty. Theodore simply assured him that it was Waldron who was the cause of his confinement. Jason dead, Odo would be forever free. Shall I add one more word? If Jason’s daughter were also dead, Odo would be still safer in his freedom.”</p>
|
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<p>“Work on Odo’s mind? Easily enough. Poor Odo—he is a beast, born in the shape of a man: it is not his fault—he is not responsible. Odo is a tinker and a whistler; he is at home among the gypsies and the woods, playing on his tin whistle, mending pots and kettles. His three great passions are tinkering, dogs, and—liberty. Theodore simply assured him that it was Waldron who was the cause of his confinement. Jason dead, Odo would be forever free. Shall I add one more word? If Jason’s daughter were also dead, Odo would be still safer in his freedom.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good God! he may be killing her now. Let me out—help me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Silence! Be quiet. She is safe—your cries will ruin all. She is safe in this very building.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Impossible—I can’t believe it; it is all a blind. I must go to Belthrop; I must see Broughton. Good God, how weak I am!”</p>
|
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@ -124,8 +124,7 @@
|
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<p>“<em>Now</em>,” said Fulk; “I have got the rope ready. Take the picture down, and scramble through the hole. No; hand me your change of dress first. There is the rope.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer had no difficulty in getting through, and at once picked up the rope. At one end he found a heavy knob of coal fastened.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That is to throw it up by,” said Fulk, “and to make the rope hang down the other side. I hid it for that purpose.”</p>
|
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<p>Fulk put the window open, shading the gas by the blind. Aymer coiled up the rope on his left arm to let it run out easily; and was glad now of the physical education he had unwillingly imbibed at old Martin Brown’s. Many a time he had cast the cart-line over a tall wagon-load of straw. He looked out, measured the height, and hurled the knob of coal. It flew straight up into the air, carrying with it the destinies of two men, like a shot from a mortar over a ship in distress. A moment of suspense—it cleared the wall, the rope ran out quickly, till but a few feet were left in Aymer’s hands. Fulk opened the other half of the window; the rope was passed round the upright and secured. Next the air-belt had to be fastened under Fulk’s chest and inflated. Aymer tied his change of clothes and Fulk’s in the other air-belt, and adjusted them to his back. These incumbrances gave him some little uneasiness. He pulled at the rope—it was firm; the ruler had caught the crenelations. Then arose the difficulty as to who should go first; Aymer, with a lurking suspicion lest Fulk’s heart should fail, compelled him to take the lead. He helped him at the window, and saw a new danger. Their shadows were projected on the wall opposite; if anyone looked that way it would be seen in an instant that something was going forward. Below on the right was a bow window, and from this bow window a stream of light fell upon the rope. However it was too late to hesitate.</p>
|
||||
<p>Folk clung like a cat till he got his foot into the first loop, then he went up fairly well. As soon as he was up, and Aymer could see his form dimly astride of the wall, he followed. Halfway up, as he looked down, he saw a man in the bow window approach and draw down the blind. If he had looked out he must have seen the rope and Aymer, but he did not. When the blinds were down the rope became invisible. With a beating heart Aymer found himself at the top of the wall, astride, facing Fulk, who pressed his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>Fulk put the window open, shading the gas by the blind. Aymer coiled up the rope on his left arm to let it run out easily; and was glad now of the physical education he had unwillingly imbibed at old Martin Brown’s. Many a time he had cast the cart-line over a tall wagon-load of straw. He looked out, measured the height, and hurled the knob of coal. It flew straight up into the air, carrying with it the destinies of two men, like a shot from a mortar over a ship in distress. A moment of suspense—it cleared the wall, the rope ran out quickly, till but a few feet were left in Aymer’s hands. Fulk opened the other half of the window; the rope was passed round the upright and secured. Next the air-belt had to be fastened under Fulk’s chest and inflated. Aymer tied his change of clothes and Fulk’s in the other air-belt, and adjusted them to his back. These incumbrances gave him some little uneasiness. He pulled at the rope—it was firm; the ruler had caught the crenelations. Then arose the difficulty as to who should go first; Aymer, with a lurking suspicion lest Fulk’s heart should fail, compelled him to take the lead. He helped him at the window, and saw a new danger. Their shadows were projected on the wall opposite; if anyone looked that way it would be seen in an instant that something was going forward. Below on the right was a bow window, and from this bow window a stream of light fell upon the rope. However it was too late to hesitate. Fulk clung like a cat till he got his foot into the first loop, then he went up fairly well. As soon as he was up, and Aymer could see his form dimly astride of the wall, he followed. Halfway up, as he looked down, he saw a man in the bow window approach and draw down the blind. If he had looked out he must have seen the rope and Aymer, but he did not. When the blinds were down the rope became invisible. With a beating heart Aymer found himself at the top of the wall, astride, facing Fulk, who pressed his hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I feel all right now we have started,” he whispered; “I think I shall manage it yet.”</p>
|
||||
<p>There were no loops for the descent. Aymer, after one glance at the city lights before him, slid down first, and let himself into the water gently. He adjusted the load on his back on the float: then shook the line as a signal to Fulk, who came halfway down well, but his nervous excitement overcame him, and he rather fell than slid the remainder, reaching the water with a splash. His head did not go under, but they feared lest anyone had heard it. In a few seconds, as all was quiet, Aymer struck out, pushing the float in front and dragging Fulk behind. He had no load to support, but simply to force his way through the water. It was chilly, but not so cold as he had feared. It smelt unpleasant—some chemical works discharged into it. Though a fairly good swimmer, Aymer had a hard struggle to cross the broad canal, and more than once paused to recover his strength. At last they landed on the towing path, and without a moment’s delay got over a low wall into some back garden and changed their clothes, wrapping the wet things round a loose brick from the wall and dropping them in the water. They then made haste along the towing path, Aymer leading, and emerged at a bridge into a broad thoroughfare, gaslit but deserted.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come on,” whispered Aymer. “There is the station; we shall catch the up 10:15 train to London.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -137,7 +136,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Aymer insisted upon dividing the sixty-five pounds he had left. Then they shook hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Stay,” said Fulk, “our rendezvous?—Where shall we meet again? Quick!—your train.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“At The Place, World’s End,” said Aymer at a venture, and with one more rapid handshake ran off. He caught his train, and by one in the morning was in London.</p>
|
||||
<p>Poor Fulk, wandering he hardly knew where on the look out for a quiet inn, came suddenly into a crowded street, and amidst a number of carriages evidently waiting. He looked up—it was some theatre or other. There was a large poster announcing that the famous singer Mademoiselle F—o would perform that evening in the Sternhold Hall, and as he read, he heard a loud encore which reached even to the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>Poor Fulk, wandering he hardly knew where on the look out for a quiet inn, came suddenly into a crowded street, and amidst a number of carriages evidently waiting. He looked up—it was some theatre or other. There was a large poster announcing that the famous singer Mademoiselle F⸺o would perform that evening in the Sternhold Hall, and as he read, he heard a loud encore which reached even to the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I remember her,” he thought. “I saw her at Vienna the year before I was captured. They said she was this Marese Baskette’s mistress—a splendid creature. I’ve half a mind—I haven’t heard a song for so long—”</p>
|
||||
<p>He hesitated. Prudence told him to go away; but talk of prudence to a man who has just escaped into liberty! He walked in; the performance was nearly over, but he paid and went into the pit. “After all,” he tried to persuade himself, “there’s more safety in a crowd. When I go out, I can take a cab and drive to an hotel and say I’ve lost my train through the theatre; that will account for my having no luggage.”</p>
|
||||
<p>As he struggled in among the crowd, he glanced up at the boxes; his pushing caused a little movement, and people in the boxes looked down. He caught an eye watching him—he turned pale. It was Theodore, who rose at once and left his box. Poor Fulk gasped for breath; he pushed to get out. The audience was annoyed at the movement and disturbance—some gentlemen held him down—the notes of the singer’s voice floated over, musically sweet. Poor Fulk!</p>
|
||||
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|
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|
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@ -16,15 +16,15 @@
|
|||
<p>“I am extremely sorry,” said Theodore Marese, meeting Violet at the railway station, and handing her to a carriage; “I regret very much that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Malet could not come. He has, in fact, gone upon a special mission. A gentleman in the Isle of Man, who owed us a large sum, died suddenly; his affairs are in confusion, and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Malet was obliged to start this afternoon to see to our debt. I am the bearer of his regrets. At all events, he will not be absent more than a week.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet was naturally much disappointed, but after all, it was only a week or ten days, and they treated her with great courtesy at the residence at the asylum. A matron was always ready to afford her companionship; no intrusion was made upon her privacy. Theodore occasionally called upon her in the most respectful way. Books, papers, anything she seemed to wish for came at once. The matron, a ladylike person, took her into the town to do some shopping. Everything but a letter from Aymer. However, that was easily explained—the sea-post was always uncertain. Theodore took her over a great part of the asylum; she was astonished at its size, and the number of its inmates. It saddened her, and she still more longed for Aymer to return.</p>
|
||||
<p>Why it was that she was not confined like Aymer was never wholly explained, but there is some reason to think that Marese Baskette had a faint idea of marrying her himself. He was, as we have seen, nervous about his marriage with Lady Lechester: lest anything should happen to prevent or delay it. This girl, Violet, he well knew, had a good claim to the estate; suppose he married her? She was a second string to his bow. As to the rumour of his being her father’s murderer, he would trust to his own wit and handsome face to overcome that. He never questioned his power to have her if he chose—but Lady Lechester first. Theodore had therefore his instructions to treat her well, and give her seeming liberty, and above all to keep her in good temper. Theodore did as he was bid. This seems the natural solution of the problem. If she had known that Aymer was so near!</p>
|
||||
<p>It happened at this time that, on the seventh day after Violet’s arrival, the famous singer, Mademoiselle F—o, of whom all the world was talking, was to sing for one night only in the Sternhold Hall. Theodore, finding that she was getting restless and thoughtful, seized upon this opportunity to while away her gloom. He proposed that she should accompany him to the theatre or hall, and Violet, who had never heard an opera in her life, was naturally enough delighted to go. They went, and as it chanced it was the very night that Aymer and poor Fulk chose to make their escape. Thus it was that Theodore’s eye caught sight of Fulk, the moment the commotion caused by his late entrance attracted his attention. Violet was extremely pleased; the notes of the music and song filled her with an exquisite enjoyment. She was very beautiful, leaning over the front of her box, and scores of glasses were directed at her. Had she known that at that very moment Aymer was risking his life to escape!</p>
|
||||
<p>It happened at this time that, on the seventh day after Violet’s arrival, the famous singer, Mademoiselle F⸺o, of whom all the world was talking, was to sing for one night only in the Sternhold Hall. Theodore, finding that she was getting restless and thoughtful, seized upon this opportunity to while away her gloom. He proposed that she should accompany him to the theatre or hall, and Violet, who had never heard an opera in her life, was naturally enough delighted to go. They went, and as it chanced it was the very night that Aymer and poor Fulk chose to make their escape. Thus it was that Theodore’s eye caught sight of Fulk, the moment the commotion caused by his late entrance attracted his attention. Violet was extremely pleased; the notes of the music and song filled her with an exquisite enjoyment. She was very beautiful, leaning over the front of her box, and scores of glasses were directed at her. Had she known that at that very moment Aymer was risking his life to escape!</p>
|
||||
<p>The difficulty in this history-writing is to describe two or three events at the same moment. The eye can only read one line at a time, how then are you to bring two scenes at once before it? Some allowance must be made for the infirmities of the pen. There were two scenes proceeding at the moment that Theodore’s eye fell upon Fulk—three scenes, if you reckon the opera on the stage. First, poor Fulk shivering with terror, struggling to escape, the crowd round execrating him, his mind in a whirl, reproaching himself with his folly, and the tall figure of Theodore, who had come down from the box, pointing him out to an attendant and pushing forward to seize him. On the stage, La Sonnambula was uttering her sweetest trill; Marese Baskette’s mistress in the full height of her glory, with hundreds upon hundreds of the élite of that great city intent upon her every accent—hundreds upon hundreds of well-dressed, fashionable, wealthy ladies and gentlemen, most of whom knew her connection with Marese, the popular M.P., were there. This very knowledge attracted them in shoals. This was scene two.</p>
|
||||
<p>The third scene was underneath. There in the darkness and gloom of the cellars, amid the slimy pools of water, the hideous fungi, the loathsome toads and creeping things, the grey sewer-rats were at work. You have seen a ship launched—she stands firm as a rock till the last wedge is knocked away, then glides into the water. Something of the same kind was going on here beneath the feet of several hundred human beings. These musty cellars and vaults under the Sternhold Hall, with their awkward approach, had been let at last. A London firm had given a small sum for them, and established a store of whisky casks. A dozen or so of whisky casks had been rolled down, a name put upon the door, and an advertisement in the newspaper. Nobody could do business with this firm, their terms were too high. The whisky casks, in truth, contained pure spring water. It was an excuse, however, for men in rough jackets, who had evidently been at work, to go in and out of these vaults, and to take with them saws and chisels, hammers, and other harmless tools. The firm was, in fact, composed of a dozen or more of the sharpest sewer-rats in Stirmingham. Their little game was so delightfully simple—only a little gnawing to be done! When Theodore and Baskette went down into this place, they found the floor supported by timber pillars. Their idea was to blow it up. The sewer-rats were much cleverer—their idea was to saw through the wooden pillars, and let the roof or floor down, and with it many hundred shrieking, maimed, and mutilated human beings. How simple great ideas appear when once they are described! There is nothing novel in the idea either: the holy Saint Dunstan tried it at Calne, and found it answer admirably.</p>
|
||||
<p>Some say odd accidents have happened to grand stands at race meetings, through iron bolts being inadvertently removed. When hundreds of well-dressed, fashionable people, ladies and gentlemen, with gold rings and diamonds, earrings and bracelets, watches, money, banknotes, and similar valuables about them, not to mention rich cloaks and perhaps furs, were shrieking, struggling, groaning, maimed, mutilated, and broken to pieces, with jagged ends and splinters of deal sticking into their bodies, how nice and benevolent it would be to go in among and assist them; to lift up the broken arm, and lighten it of the massive gold bracelet; to pull the horrid splinter out of the leg, and extract the well-filled purse; to alleviate the agony of the bruised shoulder or the broken back, and remove the choice fur or necklace of diamonds! Thoughtful of the sewer-rats to provide this banquet of Christian charity!</p>
|
||||
<p>The one difficulty had been to get the several hundred people there. They had all in readiness for months, watching. They had it ready while the family council sat, and had deliberated about knocking the last wedge out at that time, but on reflection it was doubtful whether the Americans had much coin about them. Finally, one shrewd sewer-rat hit upon the idea of engaging Mademoiselle F—o to come down and sing. They paid her one hundred pounds in advance, with travelling expenses to come afterwards; and it would have been a good speculation in itself, for they took three hundred and fifty pounds, including the boxes. These boxes were a worry. They could not be let down, they were not built on wooden pillars; however, it was easy to shut one of the folding-doors at the entrance, and let the bolt drop into the stone—easy to raise a cry of “Fire!”—easy to imagine the crush at the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>The one difficulty had been to get the several hundred people there. They had all in readiness for months, watching. They had it ready while the family council sat, and had deliberated about knocking the last wedge out at that time, but on reflection it was doubtful whether the Americans had much coin about them. Finally, one shrewd sewer-rat hit upon the idea of engaging Mademoiselle F⸺o to come down and sing. They paid her one hundred pounds in advance, with travelling expenses to come afterwards; and it would have been a good speculation in itself, for they took three hundred and fifty pounds, including the boxes. These boxes were a worry. They could not be let down, they were not built on wooden pillars; however, it was easy to shut one of the folding-doors at the entrance, and let the bolt drop into the stone—easy to raise a cry of “Fire!”—easy to imagine the crush at the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>Easy also for me to enter into a catalogue of broken limbs, ribs, fractures, contusions, gashes, etc, etc—I shall leave it to the surgical imagination. But when hundreds of people, closely packed, are suddenly precipitated eighteen feet, amid splintering planks and crushing beams, it is probable that the hospitals will be full. This was the third scene preparing underneath.</p>
|
||||
<p>Just as Fulk felt Theodore close to him—just as F—o uttered her sweetest trill—just as Violet was in the height of her enjoyment—the grey rat gave his last nibble—the last wedge was knocked away; and the floor went down. Poor Violet saw it all. She saw fourteen hundred hands suddenly thrown up into the air; she heard one awful cry, she felt the box tremble and vibrate, and the whole audience sank—sank as into one great pit. She turned deadly pale; she clung with both hands to the balustrade; but she did not faint. It was all too quick.</p>
|
||||
<p>Just as Fulk felt Theodore close to him—just as F⸺o uttered her sweetest trill—just as Violet was in the height of her enjoyment—the grey rat gave his last nibble—the last wedge was knocked away; and the floor went down. Poor Violet saw it all. She saw fourteen hundred hands suddenly thrown up into the air; she heard one awful cry, she felt the box tremble and vibrate, and the whole audience sank—sank as into one great pit. She turned deadly pale; she clung with both hands to the balustrade; but she did not faint. It was all too quick.</p>
|
||||
<p>Fulk was in a stooping position, struggling to escape. That saved him. He fell with his body across a joist, which with a few others had not been sawn—some few had to be left to keep the floor apparently safe. His arms flew out in front, his legs struggling behind; he was poised on the centre of his body. At any other time one might have laughed. In that terrible moment the instinctive love of life endowed him with unusual strength. He knew not how he did it, but he got astride of the joist; he worked himself along it; he reached one of the slender iron columns or shafts which supported the boxes and gallery. He who mistrusted his power to climb a rope, in that hour of horrors went up that shaft with ease, assisted by the scroll-work on it. He got into the very box where Violet sat, with straining eyes gazing into that bottomless pit. Exhausted, he fell on his knees beside her. Exhausted, he heard the cry of “Fire!”—heard the rush to the doors. He remained on his knees, gazing, like her, down into the pit.</p>
|
||||
<p>The cry that rose up—the shouts, the groans, the shrieks—will ring in Fulk’s ears till his death. Violet never heard a sound; her whole faculties were concentrated in her eyes. Heaps of human beings striving, heaving; fragments of dresses, opera cloaks fluttering from joists in midair; splinters with pieces of torn coats—Ah! I cannot write it; and she dares not tell me. One dares not dwell on this scene. One more word only. Fulk glanced at the stage: still the lights burnt there; the painted scene was untouched; the singer, F—o, had fled by the stage staircase.</p>
|
||||
<p>The cry that rose up—the shouts, the groans, the shrieks—will ring in Fulk’s ears till his death. Violet never heard a sound; her whole faculties were concentrated in her eyes. Heaps of human beings striving, heaving; fragments of dresses, opera cloaks fluttering from joists in midair; splinters with pieces of torn coats—Ah! I cannot write it; and she dares not tell me. One dares not dwell on this scene. One more word only. Fulk glanced at the stage: still the lights burnt there; the painted scene was untouched; the singer, F⸺o, had fled by the stage staircase.</p>
|
||||
<p>It is odd, but the idea since came to me—she was the cheese; the hall, the trap. The simile will hardly bear close investigation.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was those few minutes that Fulk and Violet spent in motionless horror that saved them. They thereby escaped the crush at the door; that is to say, they escaped being in it; it was impossible to go out without seeing it. Fulk recovered himself a little: his first instinct was that of a gentleman—the lady beside him. He caught her arm, and dragged her up from her seat; and she came with him unresistingly out of the box into the corridor: he could feel her whole frame tremble. Perhaps, reasoning after the event, they might as well have sat still; but remember the awful cry of fire, the instinctive desire to escape, and that Fulk was still fearful of being recaptured! They reached the staircase—descended it to within a few feet of the passage. There they saw a black mass, writhing, heaving: it was a mass of men and women who had fallen, and been trodden down. It extended along the whole passage to the open air. Then Violet fainted, and hung in his arms inert, helpless. Poor girl! it was enough to unnerve the boldest man. Fulk grasped her round the waist—he was short remember—he struggled with her; got his feet on that awful floor of moving bodies; he stumbled, and staggered towards the air, gasping for breath, dragging, half-trailing her behind him. He cried for help—his arms failed him; his poor, weak leg—the one that had been broken—slipped down into a crevice between two fallen men, and strive how he would he could not get it out. A mist swam before his eyes; but he did not let go—gallant little Fulk!</p>
|
||||
<p>Strong arms seized him. Cabmen, police, coachmen, grooms—idlers who had rushed to the doors—seized him, and pulled him out, and set him on his legs, and pushed the brandy flask between his teeth. And still Fulk instinctively held tight to his burden.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“The ‘Dragon,’ sir.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Help to lift her in.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Fifteen minutes afterwards they were at the “Dragon.” Fortunate, indeed; for all the city—the great city—was pouring in vast crowds to that horrible doorway; and those who were extricated found it difficult to get away.</p>
|
||||
<p>Fulk and Violet were well cared for at the “Dragon,” as, indeed, they would be after so terrible a catastrophe had brought out all the sympathy there was latent in that city. Besides, they were well-dressed, and Fulk was found to have money in his pocket-money, to do them justice, not one farthing of which was touched while he and Violet lay in adjoining rooms helpless—for they were helpless, utterly exhausted for six whole days. When Fulk, conscious that he must be stirring, did pull himself together and got out of bed, and into the sitting apartment, the first thing he saw was a newspaper on the table, the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily News</i>, which had come out with a deep line of black round every page, and in which was a list of the dead and wounded; the killed were very few in proportion to the injured. Fulk looked for Theodore Marese; he found his name among the dead. Theodore was gone to his account; he had been found on the floor of the vault face downwards, quite dead. There was a deep wound in his forehead, and it was thought that, in falling, his head had struck the iron-bound edge of one of the supposed whisky casks.</p>
|
||||
<p>Fulk and Violet were well cared for at the “Dragon,” as, indeed, they would be after so terrible a catastrophe had brought out all the sympathy there was latent in that city. Besides, they were well-dressed, and Fulk was found to have money in his pocket—money, to do them justice, not one farthing of which was touched while he and Violet lay in adjoining rooms helpless—for they were helpless, utterly exhausted for six whole days. When Fulk, conscious that he must be stirring, did pull himself together and got out of bed, and into the sitting apartment, the first thing he saw was a newspaper on the table, the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Stirmingham Daily News</i>, which had come out with a deep line of black round every page, and in which was a list of the dead and wounded; the killed were very few in proportion to the injured. Fulk looked for Theodore Marese; he found his name among the dead. Theodore was gone to his account; he had been found on the floor of the vault face downwards, quite dead. There was a deep wound in his forehead, and it was thought that, in falling, his head had struck the iron-bound edge of one of the supposed whisky casks.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet, when she heard that Fulk was up, came out of her room and held out her hand. She was still dreadfully pale; but Fulk thought he had never seen a more beautiful face. She thanked him with tears in her eyes; and Fulk in vain tried to make her think that he had done nothing. “I was up yesterday,” she said, “but I could not go till you were better. Now, will you please take me back to the asylum?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The asylum?” said Fulk, in amazement.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes; <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Theodore will be anxious about me. I sent a message yesterday to him, but I have had no reply.”</p>
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<p>“I know this man,” he said. “He is a lunatic; he has escaped from my cousin’s asylum at Stirmingham. He is very dangerous: without a doubt, this is the guilty party.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer denied it. All his efforts were to make people believe that he was not mad. As yet he had no conception of the darker shadow hanging over him: his one idea was, that he had been pursued and captured—that he should be sent back to the asylum. Therefore he had refused to give his name, or to describe the road by which he had come to Barnham. This very mistake increased the suspicion against him of a knowledge of Lady Lechester’s disappearance. It will now be understood why Fulk burnt the paper that Violet might not read it, and why The Place was dark and cheerless when they reached it. These events had happened just before they arrived.</p>
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||||
<p>Marese never lost his presence of mind for a moment, not even when he heard of Theodore’s awful death. Turn the mind to the present, was his maxim: do the best with it you can. His one concern was the disappearance of Violet: still he felt certain that he should be able to trace her. At present, the one thing needful was to crush Aymer Malet. He held that enemy now in the hollow of his hand: he should “taste his finger,” as the Orientals say.</p>
|
||||
<p>The magistrates on hearing the evidence at once made out a warrant, and Aymer was remanded, while the search went on for the body, which still eluded all search. Upon the third day, however, some important evidence turned up, and it was thought best to take it in the presence of the prisoner. Aymer was in consequence led into the large apartment used for such purposes at the police station, still wearing the handcuffs, for Marese had industriously spread the belief that he was a dangerous lunatic. The general public were not admitted; but a few gentlemen were present, and among these was <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton, who at once recognised Aymer, rough as his present appearance wan, and came forward and spoke to him. Aymer asked him to defend him, and Broughton, to his credit, said he would. To his credit, for his interest in the Lechester estates was large.</p>
|
||||
<p>The magistrates on hearing the evidence at once made out a warrant, and Aymer was remanded, while the search went on for the body, which still eluded all search. Upon the third day, however, some important evidence turned up, and it was thought best to take it in the presence of the prisoner. Aymer was in consequence led into the large apartment used for such purposes at the police station, still wearing the handcuffs, for Marese had industriously spread the belief that he was a dangerous lunatic. The general public were not admitted; but a few gentlemen were present, and among these was <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton, who at once recognised Aymer, rough as his present appearance was, and came forward and spoke to him. Aymer asked him to defend him, and Broughton, to his credit, said he would. To his credit, for his interest in the Lechester estates was large.</p>
|
||||
<p>The magistrates seeing so respectable a solicitor as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton taking an interest in the prisoner, consulted, and to Marese’s intense disgust offered to allow the prisoner half an hour to confer with his attorney. In that brief period poor Aymer had to relate his confinement and his escape. Broughton listened attentively; then he said—</p>
|
||||
<p>“Your story is strange, almost incredible; still you are in a position where nothing will do you much good but public opinion. My usual advice would be to reserve your defence; my present advice to you is to tell the Bench exactly what you have told me, only much more fully. There are no reporters admitted; but I will see that your statement is published. I believe you myself. If the public show any signs of believing you, the prosecutors will withdraw. It is your only chance; for, to be candid, the evidence is terribly against you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They returned to the justice-room. The first witness called was the policeman who had detected Aymer and the dog in the street. He described Aymer as walking very fast, and dodging from house to house as if trying to escape notice. This was point Number 1 against him. Then came the evidence as to his furious struggle with the police. One constable could barely make himself understood; a blow straight from the shoulder had knocked a tooth out, and his voice sounded hollow and indistinct. Such a violent resistance obviously indicated a guilty conscience. This was point Number 2 against him. Next it was stated, and stated with perfect truth, that the prisoner had refused to give his name, his place of residence, or any information about himself; and that, finally, he had totally denied even so much as knowing that there was such a person as Lady Lechester. He had tried to conceal his identity in every way, and had deliberately told an untruth, for after living so long at World’s End, how could he have failed to know Lady Lechester? This was point Number 3. Then he gave a very vague, unsatisfactory account of how the dog had followed him. He declared that the dog was a strange dog to him—that he had never seen it before. Now this must be also a wilful falsehood. Point Number 4. But the darkest evidence of all was reserved to the last. There was brought into the room an “iron-witted” ploughboy, with a shock head of light hair, small eyes, heavy jowl, and low forehead—the very class of witness most to be dreaded, for nothing on earth can make them understand that it is possible for them to be mistaken.</p>
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<p>Then followed an anxious time. Violet grew more and more restless. Although The Place was so retired, yet people began to know that it was again inhabited. Fulk had heard of strangers being seen about, and he at once guessed that Marese had his spies searching for Aymer Malet’s companion in the escape. Every night he went out upon his strange errand, hunting the wild man of the woods. Meantime, an inquest was held upon poor Lady Lechester, and a verdict of murder returned against Aymer Malet. Days and nights passed, and hunt and search how he would, still Odo eluded him.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was a warm, beautiful evening. The same lucent planet that had so often shone upon Lady Lechester during her visit to the fatal “Pot,” glittered in the western sky: but its beams were somewhat dimmed by the new moon, whose crescent was on the point of disappearing below the horizon. Fulk, pushing slowly and sadly through the woods and copses, inhaled the fragrance of the pine tree. The rabbits scattered at his approach; now and then a wood pigeon rose into the air, with a tremendous clatter. In the open it was still light; under the trees a dusky shadow brooded. At a distance, he could faintly hear the sound of rushing water, and the fidgety chirping of the restless brook-sparrows and sedge-warblers. Suddenly there rose a shrill, piping sound; and Fulk started, and his heart for a moment stood still. He listened; then came a strange weird music—if music it could be called—for in its indescribable cadences it reminded him of the playing of the savages in far-off shores, visited years ago. But he recognised it in an instant. He had heard Odo play similar notes when they were boys. Gently, gently, he crept through the brushwood, and holding a branch aside, looked down from the bank upon the stream. It rushed along swiftly with a murmuring sound, reflecting upon its surface the image of the bright planet. The sedges and reeds rustled in the light breeze; and there was Odo. Across the stream there was a fallen tree—the very tree Odo had loved in his youth—and astride upon that tree sat the Beast-Man, his feet nearly touching the water, playing upon a tin whistle. Before him was the dog Dando, standing on his hind legs, and moving in grotesque time to the music. Odo reproached the dog, and told him that he was an unworthy son of his father, and could not dance half so well—had he already forgotten his beating? But perhaps it was the fault of his whistle. Ah, he had lost his best whistle—the one he had made with selected tin, and ornamented with pictures of his dogs—among them Dando’s father, who danced so much better. Then he muttered incoherent, half-articulate sounds to the dog, sighed deeply, and began to play again. Poor Odo!</p>
|
||||
<p>Fulk hesitated. There was a large soul in his little body—he pitied the poor fellow before him from the bottom of his heart. All that singular being wanted was the open air, and freedom to play his tin whistle, fondle his dogs, roam in the woods, and tinker up pots and kettles. Had he been permitted to follow these inclinations, it was doubtful if he would ever have committed crime; but civilisation would not permit it. For a whole year he had been roaming from wood to wood, from wilderness to wilderness, whistling, tinkering sometimes, always happy in simple freedom. Probably he had destroyed Lady Agnes to obtain the dog, the progenitor of which appeared to have been a favourite in old times. But Fulk reflected that, while he hesitated, Aymer languished in the cell, Violet was wearing her heart out, and his own liberty was endangered. Moreover, there was a duty to society: such beings must not go wholly at large, or no one would be safe.</p>
|
||||
<p>The lasso hissed through the air, the noose dropped round Odo’s neck, and was drawn tight in an instant. It had taken his neck and one shoulder. He roared aloud with pain and anger, but the cord choked him. His arms struck out, but he had nothing to grasp. He was dragged on shore in a moment. He floundered—leapt up, and fell again, tearing at the rope like a wild beast taken in the toils. With a swift, dexterous turn of the hand, Fulk wound the cord about his arms and legs, much as a spider might its web about a fly, till Odo lay panting on the sward, helpless, but still hoarsely murmuring and grunting. Then Fulk loosened the lasso round his neck, and proceeded to tie the limbs tighten, finally binding him hard and fast to a tree. Odo’s frame quivered; and Fulk, in the dim light, fancied that great tears gathered in his eyes. After binding Odo, there was still a piece of the rope left: with this Fulk secured the dog, which, frightened and astonished, had cowered on the earth. Dando evidently had no affection for Odo: he had been wiled away by gypsy arts only. Then, leading Dando, Fulk set off at a run, tearing through wood and hedge, mounting the steep Downs, fast as his strength could carry him, away for Barnham town.</p>
|
||||
<p>The lasso hissed through the air, the noose dropped round Odo’s neck, and was drawn tight in an instant. It had taken his neck and one shoulder. He roared aloud with pain and anger, but the cord choked him. His arms struck out, but he had nothing to grasp. He was dragged on shore in a moment. He floundered—leapt up, and fell again, tearing at the rope like a wild beast taken in the toils. With a swift, dexterous turn of the hand, Fulk wound the cord about his arms and legs, much as a spider might its web about a fly, till Odo lay panting on the sward, helpless, but still hoarsely murmuring and grunting. Then Fulk loosened the lasso round his neck, and proceeded to tie the limbs tighter, finally binding him hard and fast to a tree. Odo’s frame quivered; and Fulk, in the dim light, fancied that great tears gathered in his eyes. After binding Odo, there was still a piece of the rope left: with this Fulk secured the dog, which, frightened and astonished, had cowered on the earth. Dando evidently had no affection for Odo: he had been wiled away by gypsy arts only. Then, leading Dando, Fulk set off at a run, tearing through wood and hedge, mounting the steep Downs, fast as his strength could carry him, away for Barnham town.</p>
|
||||
<p>At that very time, late into the night, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton was conferring with the prisoner in his cell. He had been sent for in haste, and went quickly fearing lest Aymer should be ill. The parcel addressed to Aymer Malet in Lady Lechester’s handwriting was a large antique Bible, which Aymer recognised in a moment as having belonged to old Jenkins, the gardener at The Place. He had seen it lying about, but had taken no notice of it. It was in fact the very Bible Lady Agnes had purchased of the gardener’s wife when left in destitution by her husband’s imprisonment. Inside the Bible was a short formal note, dated the very day in the evening of which Lady Agnes was drowned, stating that the writer when she bought the book was unaware to whom it had belonged, and therefore returned it to Aymer’s address—not knowing Violet’s—as she desired to retain nothing of theirs. She added that she would return the dog Dando if they would receive it, and tell her where to send it. Aymer, having no occupation in his cell but melancholy thoughts and anxious cares about Violet, naturally turned over the leaves of the noble old book, and looking at it closer than before he found at the end, upon one of the spare leaves, a curious inscription which purported to be a copy from a tomb. It was in Latin, English, and Greek—a strange, fantastic mixture—and when translated, read to the effect that Arthur Sibbold Waldron, whilom of Wolf’s Glow, born Sibbold, afterwards Sibbold Waldron, was married at Saint S—Church, Middlesex, and was buried at Penge in Kent—with dates, and the usual sentiments. The entry in the Bible simply added: “Copy of ye inscription, now defaced. Mem. To have the same re-cut. B.W.” Here was the clue Aymer had searched for in vain, thrown into his hands, by the operation of those strange and mysterious circumstances over which no one has any control. He sent for <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton; and so it was that when Fulk found that gentleman it was in the cell. The surprise of Aymer, and his pleasure at seeing Fulk, his still greater joy and relief when Fulk in his first sentence announced that Violet was safe, can easily be imagined. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton had no sooner heard Fulk’s explanation than he at once comprehended the importance of securing Odo. He and Fulk with two assistants drove as near the wood as practicable, and after much trouble safely lodged the unfortunate lunatic in the hands of the police. Fulk remained with Broughton, who very considerately went in his carriage in the morning over to The Place, and brought Violet and Hannah Bond to his own private residence in Barnham.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the inquiry that followed, the first step was the release of Aymer on bail, on the testimony of Hannah Bond, that he had not left the cottage at Belthrop till eight o’clock. The ploughboy, when shown Odo, at once declared that this was the man he had seen—“A’ had such mortal big ears—a’ minded that, now.” And Marese? His position became extremely awkward. It was easy to declare that Aymer was a lunatic; but when Fulk was produced—when the clever escape was related in exactly the same manner by both—when Fulk added what he had overheard about the murder of Jason Waldron, Marese could not but notice that the magistrates and the Court looked coldly upon him. He claimed them both as escaped lunatics. Said the Bench—</p>
|
||||
<p>“We don’t see what right you have to them. The owner of the asylum is dead. We will take it upon ourselves to say, that the lunatics, for lunatics, have a remarkably sane way of talking.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The result was, that Marese withdrew; the more he meddled with the matter, the worse it became for him. To add to the evil complexion of affairs, Odo confessed in his cell to the murder of Jason Waldron. He strenuously denied having touched Lady Agnes; he declared that his sole object was the dog. The dog was the descendant of an old favourite, and he had once followed Miss Merton to Torquay to get it. But as he stole round from behind the oak trunk to seize the dog, Lady Agnes saw him, started, missed her footing, and fell down “The Pot.” He knew her—she was his cousin, and he had no feeling against her. In all probability this story was true, as no marks of violence were found on the body. But he frankly confessed hitting Jason Waldron on the head with the billhook; and stated exactly what Fulk had already said—that he was told by Theodore Marese, if he killed that man, <em>and his daughter</em> (Aymer shuddered), he should be always free. He had laid in wait for the daughter; but she was out of his reach at The Towers.</p>
|
||||
<p>Odo concluded with a cunning wink, and called <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton to come near. He whispered to him that he should be the richest man in the world if he would give him liberty. Broughton humoured the miserable creature, and told the rest to leave the cell.</p>
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||||
<p>Then Odo disclosed his bribe. He said that years ago the gipsies with whom he consorted had shown him a deed, to which they attached a species of superstitious reverence, and asked him to read it, it being in law characters, and in Latin. It was a deed conferring an entail upon the estate at Wolfs Glow—“the very estate,” whispered Odo, “that all the people are trying for.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Odo ascertained that this deed had been stolen by Romy Baskette’s elder brother—the man who, with his mother, left the Swamp when old Will Baskette was shot—stolen with the intention of injuring the Sibbolds, his father’s murderers. He had watched old Sibbold poring over this deed, therefore thought it valuable, seized his opportunity, and stole it. With the strangest, maddest mixture of shrewdness and lunacy, Odo in his turn stole the deed from the gipsies who had preserved it, and held it, to be used as a bribe in case he should be captured. He now offered it to Broughton, if Broughton would only let him go free.</p>
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||||
<p>Then Odo disclosed his bribe. He said that years ago the gypsies with whom he consorted had shown him a deed, to which they attached a species of superstitious reverence, and asked him to read it, it being in law characters, and in Latin. It was a deed conferring an entail upon the estate at Wolfs Glow—“the very estate,” whispered Odo, “that all the people are trying for.”</p>
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||||
<p>Odo ascertained that this deed had been stolen by Romy Baskette’s elder brother—the man who, with his mother, left the Swamp when old Will Baskette was shot—stolen with the intention of injuring the Sibbolds, his father’s murderers. He had watched old Sibbold poring over this deed, therefore thought it valuable, seized his opportunity, and stole it. With the strangest, maddest mixture of shrewdness and lunacy, Odo in his turn stole the deed from the gypsies who had preserved it, and held it, to be used as a bribe in case he should be captured. He now offered it to Broughton, if Broughton would only let him go free.</p>
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||||
<p>The lawyer must be forgiven if he told a falsehood, and promised. Odo told him where the deed was hidden; and, as he had described, so they found it. In that tree which had fallen across the stream where he had used to sit astride and whistle, halfway across was a knot. This knot with his tools he had cut out—excavated a cavity, and used the knot to hide it; so that the closest inspection must have failed to find it. They found the tree and the knot. They got the knot out; there was a small tin box—Odo’s own workmanship—and in the box was the long-lost deed.</p>
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<p>Poor Odo of course never got his freedom; but there were friends who saw that he was as well cared for as under the circumstances was possible. Who could harbour revenge against such a creature? He was but the instrument in the hands of others, and not truly guilty of poor Jason’s death. That lay at the door of Marese and Theodore. Theodore was dead. Morally speaking, Fulk slew Marese. He wrote a full account of what he had overheard, and it was published in a great London paper. The asylum was searched, and the holes in the wall found as described. By this letter Fulk secured two objects: first his own liberty in future—for popular opinion rose with irresistible violence in his favour; secondly, he destroyed Marese. Yet it was not the murder of Jason Waldron which did it; it was the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>. There were people who had lost heavily over the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.boat">Lucca</i>, these people pursued Marese Baskette, threatened him with criminal, civil, and every kind of proceedings. He fled, escaping arrest by a few hours only, taking with him five thousand pounds in gold. He is believed to have reached California, but has not been heard of since. Whether the Nemesis of these modern days—“circumstances over which we have no control”—engulfed him in still deadlier ruin, was never known. His fall, as it was, was great indeed.</p>
|
||||
<p>By the death of Lady Agnes Lechester, Fulk succeeded to her estates, which, added to those already his, made him one of the largest landholders in the county. If he survives Odo, he will be a still more wealthy man. He never left Aymer’s side till all was well.</p>
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@ -29,7 +29,6 @@
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<p>And the great estate—the city of Stirmingham? To this very hour that Gordian knot remains untied; to this very hour claimants every now and then startle the world with extraordinary statements; and the companies having nothing else to do, have fallen to loggerheads between themselves, and spend their vast incomes in litigation. But aided by Fulk’s money, and the influence his family connections possessed, Violet did at last receive a portion of her rights; the chain of evidence proving her descent from Arthur Sibbold was completed down to the smallest link.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Corporation of Stirmingham, after much law and talk, were finally compelled to acknowledge her claim. By arbitration it was settled that they were to pay her eight thousand pounds per annum for ten years, and at the expiration of that period, ten thousand pounds per annum to herself and heirs, in perpetual ground rent. The companies still hold out, but it is only as to the amount they shall contribute in the same way; and they will have to come to terms. Violet will thus receive a large income without compromising her rights, which are specially reserved. She has not forgotten poor Jenkins, whose Bible gave the clue to the register of Arthur Sibbold’s marriage. The old man is at last recompensed for his long-suffering—the imprisonment expired in due time. He and his wife live in the old cottage at The Place, tending the gardens as of yore, being made comfortable with an ample provision from Violet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet and Aymer once a year visit The Place and the tomb of poor Jason. They have taken a mansion at Tunbridge Wells, but spend much time in Aymer’s beloved Florence, with Fulk. They love the old house, and yet they do not care to live where everything recalls such gloomy memories as at The Place.</p>
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<p>The End.</p>
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<p>Ever since the world began it has been the belief of mankind that desolate places are the special haunt of supernatural beings. To this day the merchants who travel upon camels across the deserts of the East, are firmly persuaded that they can hear strange voices calling them from among the sandhills, and that at dusk wild figures may be seen gliding over the ruins of long-lost cities. It is useless to demonstrate that the curious noises of the desert, are caused by the tension which the dead silence causes upon the nerves of the ear, or by the shifting of the sand, and the currents of air which the heated surface of the sand makes whirl about. The belief is so natural that it cannot be entirely eradicated. In the olden times in our own fair England, and not so very long ago either, there was not a wild and unfrequented place which had not got its spirit. The woods had their elves and wild huntsmen, the meadows their fairies, the fountains their nymphs, the rocks and caves their dwarfs, and the air at night was crowded with witches travelling to and fro.</p>
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<p>Let anyone who possesses a vivid imagination and a highly-wrought nervous system, even now, in this nineteenth century, with all the advantages of learning and science, go and sit among the rocks, or in the depths of the wood and think of immortality, and all that that word really means, and by-and-by a mysterious awe will creep into the mind, and it will half believe in the possibility of seeing or meeting something—<em>something</em>—it knows not exactly what.</p>
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<p>Agnes Lechester went into the desolate places fully expecting to meet her lover, and she met—</p>
|
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<p>A more desolate place than the Kickwell Pot could not easily be found in highly-cultivated England, so near to an inhabited mansion. Even in winter, when the leaves were off the trees, there was not a place where a view could be got of it from the mansion, and when there the visitor was, to all intents and purposes, isolated from the world. In summer it was still more hidden, for the thick leaves above, and the tall brake fern growing luxuriantly beneath, obstructed the view, and it was impossible to see for more than a dozen yards. There was but one spot from whence it was possible to overlook “The Pot,” and that was from the summit of the Down on the right. But this Down was totally deserted. The very sheep kept aloof from it. Its steep sides were almost inaccessible even to their nimble feet, and the soil was so thin—that no herbage grew to reward the bold climber. Shepherds kept their flocks away from that neighbourhood, for if a sheep lost its footing and stumbled, there was no escape. The body must roll and rebound till it reached the swift river below, which running between steep banks was not easy to get at, and death by drowning was certain. In the course of time many had been lost in this way, and now care was taken that the flocks should not travel in that direction. Animal life almost entirely avoided the bare chalk cliffs. Sometimes a hawk would linger on the edge, as it were, poising himself on his wings but a few feet above the ridge, as if glorying in defiance of the depth below. Sometimes a solitary crow would alight upon the hill, to devour the spoil it had carried off, in peace and undisturbed. In the fir plantation on the other side of the river a few pigeons built, and now and then a loud jay chattered, and a squirrel peeped out from the topmost branches among the cones. The woodpecker might be heard now and then tapping in the great beech trees, and a brown rabbit would start out from among the fern. But so far as man was concerned the spot was totally desolate: no path passed near, the common people avoided it. It was a desolate place.</p>
|
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<p>A more desolate place than the Kickwell Pot could not easily be found in highly-cultivated England, so near to an inhabited mansion. Even in winter, when the leaves were off the trees, there was not a place where a view could be got of it from the mansion, and when there the visitor was, to all intents and purposes, isolated from the world. In summer it was still more hidden, for the thick leaves above, and the tall brake fern growing luxuriantly beneath, obstructed the view, and it was impossible to see for more than a dozen yards. There was but one spot from whence it was possible to overlook “The Pot,” and that was from the summit of the Down on the right. But this Down was totally deserted. The very sheep kept aloof from it. Its steep sides were almost inaccessible even to their nimble feet, and the soil was so thin that no herbage grew to reward the bold climber. Shepherds kept their flocks away from that neighbourhood, for if a sheep lost its footing and stumbled, there was no escape. The body must roll and rebound till it reached the swift river below, which running between steep banks was not easy to get at, and death by drowning was certain. In the course of time many had been lost in this way, and now care was taken that the flocks should not travel in that direction. Animal life almost entirely avoided the bare chalk cliffs. Sometimes a hawk would linger on the edge, as it were, poising himself on his wings but a few feet above the ridge, as if glorying in defiance of the depth below. Sometimes a solitary crow would alight upon the hill, to devour the spoil it had carried off, in peace and undisturbed. In the fir plantation on the other side of the river a few pigeons built, and now and then a loud jay chattered, and a squirrel peeped out from the topmost branches among the cones. The woodpecker might be heard now and then tapping in the great beech trees, and a brown rabbit would start out from among the fern. But so far as man was concerned the spot was totally desolate: no path passed near, the common people avoided it. It was a desolate place.</p>
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<p>In summer time a place to meditate in. To sit upon the sward, leaning back against the vast trunk of the dead oak tree, listening to the gentle murmur of the river, as it rose up out of the mouth of “The Pot” close to the feet. In winter a weird and sinister spot, when the trees were bare and dark, the fir trees gloomy and black, when the snow lodged in great drifts upon the Downs, and the murmur of the river rose to a dull, sullen roar, resounding up the strange, natural funnel. When the grey clouds hung over the sky, and the mist clung to the hill, and the occasional gusts of bitter wind rustled the dead beech leaves—then indeed it was a desolate place. It was here that the darkness, the thin column of smoke-like darkness, began to grow into form and shape; and as it took to itself a figure, so the vision of poor Walter faded away, and lost its distinctness of outline.</p>
|
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<p>Agnes saw before her a something that was half-human and half-divine; and yet which a species of instinct told her was not wholly good, perhaps only apparently good. The face was human and yet not human—so much grander, nobler, full of passions, stronger, more irresistible than ever yet played upon the features of a man. The brow spoke of power illimitable, of foresight infinite, of design, and deep, fathomless thought. The chin and mouth spoke of iron will, of strength to rive the solid rock and overthrow a tower, of a purpose relentlessly pursued. The eyes were unbearable, searching, burning like a flame of fire. The form uncertain, ill-defined, yet full of a flowing grace and majestic grandeur. It was winged. There was a general resemblance between this being and those strange creatures—half man, half deity—which are depicted upon the slabs from the palace at Nineveh; only that those pictures are flat and tame, spiritless, mere outline representations. This was full of an intense vitality—a magnetic vigour.</p>
|
||||
<p>It did not speak; yet she understood its thoughts and its wishes. They filled her with a swelling hope, and yet with unutterable dread:—to place herself willingly, unhesitatingly, without a grain of distrust, within those arms; to be folded to its breast; to feel the wings spread out, and to rush with breathless haste into space, seeking the home of the immortals, the bride of a spirit. The pride of her mind found an unspeakable joy in the belief that such a fate was possible for her—nay, was ever waiting for her—it was but for her to step forward, and in a moment—</p>
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<p>It seemed as if the value of the dog was well known, for at least two deliberate attempts had been made to steal it within a few days. And these attempts had not a little alarmed Miss Merton. To find that her steps were watched and followed by a wild-looking tramp, or tinker fellow, bent upon carrying off the dog was, to say the least, extremely unpleasant.</p>
|
||||
<p>The man—an ill-looking fellow—was always about the house, and would not go away. He played a tin whistle, and whenever the dog heard some peculiar notes, he became greatly excited, and began to dance about in a curious manner. Not only that, but if the tramp varied the tune in some way, then the dog grew frantic to run after him, and twice she had the utmost difficulty to recover him.</p>
|
||||
<p>What was she to do? She did not like to part with the dog, and yet really it was very awkward.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet in reply asked Miss Merton to send her Dando. She had now got over her prejudice against him and felt that her anger had been unjust. She should like to have him back again. As to the tramp, she was not surprised, for she remembered that her poor father had bought the dog, when quite young, from a band of strolling gipsies, and there were certain tunes which had always excited him to dance and frisk about as if he had been trained to do so.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet in reply asked Miss Merton to send her Dando. She had now got over her prejudice against him and felt that her anger had been unjust. She should like to have him back again. As to the tramp, she was not surprised, for she remembered that her poor father had bought the dog, when quite young, from a band of strolling gypsies, and there were certain tunes which had always excited him to dance and frisk about as if he had been trained to do so.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet, of course, asked Lady Lechester’s permission, whose reply was that she should be glad to have the dog; there was plenty of room for him, and he would be company, and add to the safety of the somewhat lonely Towers. Violet herself thought that it would be a great advantage if Dando should happen to please Agnes’ fancy; he might be allowed to accompany her in her lonely dark walks, and would be some protection.</p>
|
||||
<p>A week afterwards Dando came, and at once recognised Violet. He had grown considerably larger, and was a fine, noble animal.</p>
|
||||
<p>As Violet had hoped, Agnes took a great fancy to him, and the dog returning it, they became inseparable companions. This <em>relieved</em> Violet of much of her anxiety.</p>
|
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@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
|
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<p>In truth, she wondered why he had never asked her to come to him—to be married and live with him in his humble lodgings at Barnham. She would have been happy and content. But to Aymer the idea was impossible. All the romance of his life was woven around her head; he would not bring her to miserable back rooms, to a confined narrow life in a third-class street. It would have been to admit that his whole being was a failure; that he had formed hopes and dreamed dreams beyond his power ever to grasp, and his spirit was not yet broken to that. No, he would struggle and work, and bear anything for Violet’s sake. Anything but this miserable monotony without progress. Had there been progress, however slow, he might have tamed his impatient mind and forced himself to endure it.</p>
|
||||
<p>Day after day passed, the nights came and went, and each morning found him precisely in the same position as before. His organisation was too sensitive, too highly wrought, eager, nervous, for the dull plodding of daily life. He chafed against it, till dark circles formed themselves under his eyelids—circles which sleep would not remove. These were partly caused by overwork.</p>
|
||||
<p>Broughton, on returning from Stirmingham, found his affairs at Barnham had got into a fearful state of muddle, and Aymer had to assist him to clear the Augean stable of accumulated correspondence, and satisfy neglected clients. Often, after a long day’s work, he had to carry accounts or correspondence home with him and finish it there, and then after that he would open his own plain simple desk—much such a desk as the one that had belonged to poor Cornet De Warren—and resume his interrupted <abbr class="eoc">MS.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>After a while it became unbearable; the poor fellow grew desperate. He might not have so soon given way, had not a slight attack of illness, not sufficient to confine him indoors, added to the tension of his nerves. He determined to stay on until his MS was finished—till the last word had been written, and the last sketch elaborated—then he would go to London, no matter what became of him. If all else failed he could, at the last, return to Wick Farm; they would give him a bed and a crust, and he would be no worse off than before.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a while it became unbearable; the poor fellow grew desperate. He might not have so soon given way, had not a slight attack of illness, not sufficient to confine him indoors, added to the tension of his nerves. He determined to stay on until his <abbr>MS.</abbr> was finished—till the last word had been written, and the last sketch elaborated—then he would go to London, no matter what became of him. If all else failed he could, at the last, return to Wick Farm; they would give him a bed and a crust, and he would be no worse off than before.</p>
|
||||
<p>He toiled at his book at midnight, and long hours afterwards, when the good people of Barnham town were calmly sleeping the sleep of the just, and permitting the talent in their midst to eat its own heart. At last it was finished, and he left.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton wished him to stay, offered to increase his salary, said that he had become really useful, and even, as a personal favour, begged him to remain. Aymer thanked him sincerely, but was firm—he must go. So far as was possible he explained to Broughton the reason, and the lawyer, hard as he was, had sufficient power of understanding others to perceive the real state of affairs. He warned Aymer that certain disappointment awaited him in London, that no publisher would issue a book by an unknown author unless paid for it. Aymer shook his head sadly—he had known that well enough long ago, but he must go.</p>
|
||||
<p>Broughton shook hands with him, gave him a five-pound note over and above his salary, and told him if in distress, as he prophesied he would certainly soon be, to write to him, or else return.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -32,14 +32,14 @@
|
|||
<p>“You did not say farewell here?” said Agnes, with emphasis.</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet admitted it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good Heavens—what an evil omen!” muttered Agnes, and drew her from the spot.</p>
|
||||
<p>From that very room De Warren had gone, forth to his fate: from that room Aymer had started to win himself a way in the world.</p>
|
||||
<p>From that very room De Warren had gone forth to his fate: from that room Aymer had started to win himself a way in the world.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was late at night when he reached London. Nothing could be done till the morning. As he had no experience of the ways of the metropolis, Aymer naturally paid about half as much again as was necessary, and reckoning up his slender stock of money, foresaw that he could not long remain in town at this rate.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton had given him a written introduction to a firm of law-publishers and stationers with whom he dealt—not that they would be of any use to him in themselves, but in the idea that they might have connections who could serve him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Upon these gentlemen he waited in the morning, and was fairly well received. They gave him a note to another firm who were in a more popular line of business. Aymer trudged thither, and found these people very offhanded and very busy. They glanced at his manuscript—not in their line. Had he anything that would be likely to take with boys?—illustrated fiction sold best for boys and girls. Ah, well! they were sorry and very busy. Suppose he tried so-and-so?</p>
|
||||
<p>This process, or pretty much the same process, was repeated for two or three days, until poor Aymer, naturally enough, lost heart.</p>
|
||||
<p>As he left one publisher’s shop, a clerk, who was writing at his desk near the door, noticed his careworn look, and having once gone through a somewhat similar experience, and seeing “gentleman” marked upon his features, asked him if he would show him the work.</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer did so. The clerk, an experienced man, turned over the illustrations carefully, and then appeared to ponder.</p>
|
||||
<p>“These are good,” he said; “they would certainly take if they were published. But so also would a great many other things. The difficulty is to get them published, unless you have a name. Now take my advice—It is useless carrying the MS from door to door. You may tramp over London without success. Your best plan will be to bring it out at your own cost; once out you will get a reputation, and then you can sell your next. I don’t want to be personal, but have you any money? I see—you have a little. Well, you need not pay all the cost. Go to so-and-so—offer them, let me see, such-and-such a sum, and not a shilling more, and your business is done.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“These are good,” he said; “they would certainly take if they were published. But so also would a great many other things. The difficulty is to get them published, unless you have a name. Now take my advice—It is useless carrying the <abbr>MS.</abbr> from door to door. You may tramp over London without success. Your best plan will be to bring it out at your own cost; once out you will get a reputation, and then you can sell your next. I don’t want to be personal, but have you any money? I see—you have a little. Well, you need not pay all the cost. Go to so-and-so—offer them, let me see, such-and-such a sum, and not a shilling more, and your business is done.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer, as he walked along busy Fleet Street and up into the Strand, thought over this advice, and it sounded reasonable enough—too reasonable. For he had so little money. When all he had saved from the gift of fifty pounds, his salary, and Broughton’s present, were added together, he had but forty-seven pounds. Out of this he was advised to expend forty pounds in one lump; to him it seemed like risking a fortune. But Violet? His book? He could not help, even after all his disappointments, feeling a certain faith in his book.</p>
|
||||
<p>Westwards he walked, past the famous bronze lions, and the idea came into his mind—How did the hero of Trafalgar win his fame? Was it not by courage only—simple courage? On, then. He went to the firm mentioned. They haggled for a larger sum; but Aymer was firm, for the simple reason that he had no more to give. Then they wanted a few days to consider.</p>
|
||||
<p>This he could not refuse; and these days passed slowly, while his stock of money diminished every hour. Finally they agreed to publish the work, but bound him down to such conditions, that it was hard to see how he could recover a tenth part of his investment, much less obtain a profit. He signed the agreement, paid the money, and walked forth.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
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|
|
@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
|
|||
<p>He was too much excited to sleep. Despite of all these drawbacks—the disappearance of the deed, and the absence of the marriage certificate—there was no reasonable doubt that Violet was the heiress of the Stirmingham estates. The difficulties that were in the way appeared to him as nothing; he would force his way through them. She should have her rights—and then! He would search every church in London till he did find the register of Arthur Sibbold’s marriage. It must be in existence somewhere. If it was in existence he would find it. Towards two o’clock in the morning he fell asleep, and, as a result, did not wake till ten next day. Hurrying to his daily task, he was met with frowns and curses for neglect, and venturing to remonstrate, was discharged upon the spot.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here seemed an end at once to all his golden dreams. He walked back into the City, and passing along Fleet Street, was stopped for a moment by a crowd of people staring into the window of a print and bookshop, and talking excitedly. A momentary curiosity led him to press through the crowd, till he could obtain a view of the window. There he saw—wonder of wonders—one of his own sketches, an illustration from his book, greatly enlarged, and printed in colours. It was this that had attracted the crowd. The humour and yet the pathos of the picture—the touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin—had gone straight to their hearts. On every side he heard the question, “Whose is it?”—“Who drew it?”—“What’s the artist’s name?” Then the title of the book was repeated, and “Who’s it by?”—“Who wrote it?”—“I’ll get a copy! Third Edition already—it must be good.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gratified, wonder-stricken, proud, and yet bewildered, Aymer at last got into the shop and made inquiries. Then he learnt that the publisher had stolen a march upon him. They had never sent him the proofs; they had in fact thought very little of the book, till one day it happened (it happened again) a famous artist came into the office, and chanced to turn over a leaf of the MS, which was lying where Aymer had left it, on the publisher’s wide desk. This man had a worldwide reputation, and feared no competitor; he could therefore do justice to others. He was greatly struck with the sketches.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This man will make hid fortune,” he said. “Why on earth do you let the book lie here mouldering?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“This man will make his fortune,” he said. “Why on earth do you let the book lie here mouldering?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The publisher said nothing, but next day the manuscript was put in hand, hurried out, and well advertised. The first and second edition sold out in a week, and Aymer heard nothing of it till accident led him into the crowd round the shop window in Fleet Street.</p>
|
||||
<p>It will be pardoned if I say that Aymer was prouder that day than ever he had been in his life. He went straight to the publisher’s with a glowing heart. The agreement had been that the publisher should have two editions for his trouble and the use of his name; in the third, the author and artist was to share. In point of fact, the publisher had never dreamt of the book reaching even a second edition.</p>
|
||||
<p>Aymer was received coldly. He asked for his share. Impossible—the booksellers had not paid yet—the expense had been enormous—advertising, etc, there would barely be a balance when all was said and done. Aymer lost his temper, as well he might, and was very politely requested to leave the premises. He did so, but hastened at once to his adviser—the clerk who had told him to publish at his own risk. This man, or rather gentleman, said he had expected him for days, and wondered why he had not come.</p>
|
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@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
|
|||
<p>On the outskirts of Belthrop dwelt an old woman who in her youth had lived at World’s End, and had carried Violet in her arms many and many a time. She married, and removed to her husband’s parish, and was now a widow.</p>
|
||||
<p>Astonished beyond measure, but also delighted, the honest old lady jumped at Violet’s proposal that she should be her lodger. The modest sum per week which Violet offered seemed in that outlying spot a mine of silver. Hannah Bond was only afraid lest her humble cottage should be too small—she had really good furniture for a cottage, having had many presents from the persons she had nursed, and particularly prided herself upon her feather beds. Here Violet found an asylum—quiet and retired, and yet not altogether uncomfortable. Her only fear was lest Aymer should be alarmed, and she tried to devise some means of assuring him of her safety, without letting him know her whereabouts.</p>
|
||||
<p>Circumstances over which no one as usual had had any control, made that spring a memorable one in the quiet annals of Belthrop. The great agricultural labourers’ movement of the Eastern counties had extended even to this village; a branch of the Union had been formed, meetings held, and fiery language indulged in. The delegate despatched to organise the branch, looked about him for a labourer of some little education to officiate as secretary, and to receive the monthly contributions from the members.</p>
|
||||
<p>Chance again led him to fix upon poor old Edward Jenkins, the gardener, who still worked for <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Albert Herring, doing a man’s labour for a boy’s pay. The gardener could write and read and cipher; he was a man of some little intelligence, and, though a newcomer, the working men regarded him as a kind of “scholar.” He was just the very man, for he was a man with a grievance. He very naturally resented what he considered the harsh treatment he had met with after so many years faithful service, and he equally resented the low pay which circumstances compelled him to put up with. Jenkins became the secretary of the branch, and this did not improve his relations with Albert Herring. Always a harsh and unjust man, his temper of late had been aroused by repeated losses—cattle had died, crops gone wrong; above all, an investment he had made of a thousand pounds of the money that should have been Violet’s, in some shares that promised well, had turned out an utter failure. He therefore felt the gradual rise in wages more severely than he would have done, and was particularly sore against the Union. He abused Jenkins right and left, and yet did not discharge him, for Jenkins was a cheap machine. His insults were so coarse and so frequent that the poor old man lost his temper, and so far forgot himself (as indeed he might very easily do) as to hope that the Almighty would punish his tormentor, and <em>burn down, his home over his head</em>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Chance again led him to fix upon poor old Edward Jenkins, the gardener, who still worked for <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Albert Herring, doing a man’s labour for a boy’s pay. The gardener could write and read and cipher; he was a man of some little intelligence, and, though a newcomer, the working men regarded him as a kind of “scholar.” He was just the very man, for he was a man with a grievance. He very naturally resented what he considered the harsh treatment he had met with after so many years faithful service, and he equally resented the low pay which circumstances compelled him to put up with. Jenkins became the secretary of the branch, and this did not improve his relations with Albert Herring. Always a harsh and unjust man, his temper of late had been aroused by repeated losses—cattle had died, crops gone wrong; above all, an investment he had made of a thousand pounds of the money that should have been Violet’s, in some shares that promised well, had turned out an utter failure. He therefore felt the gradual rise in wages more severely than he would have done, and was particularly sore against the Union. He abused Jenkins right and left, and yet did not discharge him, for Jenkins was a cheap machine. His insults were so coarse and so frequent that the poor old man lost his temper, and so far forgot himself (as indeed he might very easily do) as to hope that the Almighty would punish his tormentor, and <em>burn down his house over his head</em>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Early in the spring the labourers struck, and the strike extended to Belthrop. The months passed on, the farmers were in difficulty, and meantime the wretched labourers were half-starved. Albert was furious, for he could not get his wheat sown, and upon that crop he depended to meet his engagements. Yet he was the one of all others, at a meeting which was called, to persuade the farmers to hold out; and above all he abused Jenkins, the secretary; called him a traitor, a firebrand, an incendiary. The meeting broke up without result; and it was on that very evening that Violet arrived. The third evening afterwards she was suddenly called out by gossiping old Hannah Bond, who rushed in, in a state of intense excitement—</p>
|
||||
<p>“Farmer Herring’s ricks be all ablaze!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Violet was dragged out by the old woman, and beheld a magnificent, and yet a sad sight. Eight and thirty ricks, placed in a double row, were on fire. About half had caught when she came out. As she stood watching, with the glare in the sky reflected upon her face, she saw the flames run along from one to another, till the whole rickyard was one mass of roaring fire. The outbuildings, the stables, and cow-houses, all thatched, caught soon after—finally the dwelling-house.</p>
|
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@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
|
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<p>All the pride of her nature rose up in almost savage resentment. Her first impulse was to tear up the letters and burn them; but this she refrained from doing, for on second thoughts they might be instrumental in obtaining the punishment of the slanderer. It was all the more bitter, because she felt that she had done her best both for Aymer and Violet, and the latter she had really loved. Certainly Agnes was far too proud and high-minded to regret for one moment a single shilling that she had spent for the benefit of others; but the reflection of Violet’s ingratitude did add a sharper sting. Agnes was in truth touched in her tenderest place—her pride:—she engaged, or partially engaged to a pretender, and worse than that, to a murderer—a Lechester, impossible!</p>
|
||||
<p>Before she had decided what to do, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton arrived from Barnham, bringing with him Aymer’s letter to him. He was utterly unprepared for the mood in which he found Agnes, and unwittingly added fuel to the fire by saying that he had searched the file of old newspapers, and found the very advertisement mentioned by Aymer.</p>
|
||||
<p>Lady Agnes’ indignation knew no bounds. She reproached him for even so much as daring to investigate the matter—for deeming it possible that anything of the kind could be. Let him leave the house immediately—she regretted that she had demeaned herself so much as to admit him to see her.</p>
|
||||
<p>This aroused <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton—who was not without his professional pride—and he answered rather smartly, that Lady Lechester seemed to be forgetting the very dignity to which, she laid claim; and added that if he should mention Aymer’s discovery to the building society in Stirmingham, who were his clients, <em>they</em> at least would think Miss Waldron’s claim one well worth supporting. With this parting shot he bowed and left the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>This aroused <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton—who was not without his professional pride—and he answered rather smartly, that Lady Lechester seemed to be forgetting the very dignity to which she laid claim; and added that if he should mention Aymer’s discovery to the building society in Stirmingham, who were his clients, <em>they</em> at least would think Miss Waldron’s claim one well worth supporting. With this parting shot he bowed and left the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>No sooner was he gone, than Agnes took up her pen and wrote direct to Marese Baskette, enclosing Aymer’s second letter—which accused Marese of being the instigator of the murder—and giving the fullest particulars she could remember of his first—relating to Violet’s claim. She did not forget to describe her interview with <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Broughton, nor to mention his threat of the building society taking the matter up. She assured him that she looked upon the matter as a hoax and an insult; and only related the story to him in order that he might take the proper proceedings to punish the author of the calumny.</p>
|
||||
<p>This letter reached Marese at his club in London, and, hardened man that he was, it filled him with well-founded alarm. Till that moment he had believed that no one on earth was aware of the Waldron claims but himself and Theodore, who had learnt it from perusal of his father Aurelian’s papers. As for anyone suspecting him of complicity in the death of Jason Waldron, he had never dreamt that detection was possible.</p>
|
||||
<p>If ever a crime was managed skilfully, that had been; and as to the old story that “murder will out,” it was of course an exploded superstition. Had it been Aymer alone who was on his track, he would not so much have cared; but Aymer had not kept the secret to himself: he had written to a lawyer, giving his proofs; the lawyer had verified one of them, at least, and Marese well knew what lawyers were. Then there was the threat of the building society, just as he was on the point of making a favourable composition with them, and was actually to receive a surrender of some part of the property in a few weeks’ time. He appreciated the full force of Broughton’s remark, repeated by Lady Agnes, that the building society, his client, would be sure to support Violet Waldron’s claim. Of course they would. A fresh litigation would be set on foot, and possession of the estate indefinitely delayed; if that was delayed, his marriage with Lady Lechester would be also thrown back.</p>
|
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@ -1,42 +1,41 @@
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<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">World’s End</i><br/>
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<b>January 1, 1900, 12:00 <abbr class="eoc">a.m.</abbr></b><br/>
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|
||||
<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37079">Project Gutenberg</a><br/>
|
||||
and on digital scans from the<br/>
|
||||
<a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/richard-jefferies/worlds-end#page-scans">Internet Archive</a>.</p>
|
||||
<p>The cover page is adapted from<br/>
|
||||
<i epub:type="se:name.visual-art.painting">PAINTING</i>,<br/>
|
||||
a painting completed in YEAR by<br/>
|
||||
<a href="COVER_ARTIST_WIKI_URL">COVER_ARTIST</a>.<br/>
|
||||
The cover and title pages feature the<br/>
|
||||
<b epub:type="se:name.visual-art.typeface">League Spartan</b> and <b epub:type="se:name.visual-art.typeface">Sorts Mill Goudy</b><br/>
|
||||
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by<br/>
|
||||
<a href="https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com">The League of Moveable Type</a>.</p>
|
||||
<p>The first edition of this ebook was released on<br/>
|
||||
<b>January 1, 1900, 12:00 <abbr class="eoc">a.m.</abbr></b><br/>
|
||||
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at<br/>
|
||||
<a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/richard-jefferies/worlds-end">standardebooks.org/ebooks/richard-jefferies/worlds-end</a>.</p>
|
||||
<p>The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at <a href="https://standardebooks.org">standardebooks.org</a>.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
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|
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</html>
|
||||
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|||
<img alt="The Standard Ebooks logo." src="../images/logo.svg" epub:type="z3998:publisher-logo se:image.color-depth.black-on-transparent"/>
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</header>
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<p>This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for <a href="https://standardebooks.org">Standard Ebooks</a>, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.</p>
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<p>This particular ebook is based on a transcription from <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37079">Project Gutenberg</a> and on digital scans from the <a href="IA_URL">Internet Archive</a>.</p>
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||||
<p>This particular ebook is based on a transcription from <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37079">Project Gutenberg</a> and on digital scans from the <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/richard-jefferies/worlds-end#page-scans">Internet Archive</a>.</p>
|
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<p>The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication</a>. For full license information, see the <a href="uncopyright.xhtml">Uncopyright</a> at the end of this ebook.</p>
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<p>Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at <a href="https://standardebooks.org">standardebooks.org</a>.</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="text/book-3.xhtml">Book <span epub:type="z3998:roman">III</span>: Results</a>
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||||
</li>
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<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-1.xhtml">I</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-2.xhtml">II</a>
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||||
</li>
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<li>
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||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-3.xhtml">III</a>
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||||
</li>
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||||
<li>
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||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-4.xhtml">IV</a>
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</li>
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||||
<li>
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||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-5.xhtml">V</a>
|
||||
</li>
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||||
<li>
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||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-6.xhtml">VI</a>
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||||
</li>
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||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-7.xhtml">VII</a>
|
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</li>
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<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-8.xhtml">VIII</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-9.xhtml">IX</a>
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||||
</li>
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||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-10.xhtml">X</a>
|
||||
</li>
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||||
<li>
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||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-11.xhtml">XI</a>
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||||
</li>
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||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-12.xhtml">XII</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-13.xhtml">XIII</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-14.xhtml">XIV</a>
|
||||
<ol>
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||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-1.xhtml">I</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-2.xhtml">II</a>
|
||||
</li>
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||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-3.xhtml">III</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-4.xhtml">IV</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-5.xhtml">V</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-6.xhtml">VI</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-7.xhtml">VII</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-8.xhtml">VIII</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-9.xhtml">IX</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-10.xhtml">X</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-11.xhtml">XI</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-12.xhtml">XII</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-13.xhtml">XIII</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/chapter-3-14.xhtml">XIV</a>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
<li>
|
||||
<a href="text/colophon.xhtml">Colophon</a>
|
||||
|
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|
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