Part 21 (1/2)

”I'd put a year's wages on it,” answered Jim.

So the three began their climb. At his post below Father Halloran judged from the pace at which Walter started that he would soon lead the others; for Jim had a climb to negotiate which was none too easy, even by daylight, and the Squire must fetch a considerable _detour_ before he struck the hedge, along which, moreover, he would be impeded by brambles and undergrowth. He saw this, but it was too late to call a warning.

Walter, beyond reach of the lantern's rays, ascended silently enough, but at a gathering pace. He forgot the necessity of keeping in line. It did not occur to him that his father must be dropping far behind: rather, his presence seemed beside him, inexorable, d.o.g.g.i.ng him with the morrow's unthinkable compulsion. What mad adventure was this? Here he was at home hunting Charley Hannaford. Well, but his father was close at hand, and Father Halloran just below, who had always protected him. At this game he could go on for ever, if only it would stave off tomorrow. To-morrow--

A couple of lithe arms went about him in the darkness. A voice spoke hoa.r.s.e and quick in his ear--spoke, though for the moment he was chiefly aware of its hot breath.

”Broke your word, did ye? Set them on to us, you blasted young sprig!

Look 'ee here--I've a knife to your ribs, and you can't use your gun.

Stand still while my boy slips across, or I'll cut your white heart out. . .”

Walter a Cleeve stood still. He felt, rather than heard, a figure limp by and steal across the gully. A slight sound of a little loose earth dribbling reached him a moment later from the opposite bank of the gully.

Then, after a long pause, the arms about him relaxed. Charles Hannaford was gone.

Still Walter a Cleeve did not move. He stared up into the wall of darkness on his left, wondering stupidly why his father did not shoot.

Then he put out his hand: it encountered a bramble bush.

He drew a long spray of the bramble towards him, fingering it very carefully, following the spines of its curved p.r.i.c.kles, and, having found its leafy end, drew it meditatively through the trigger-guard of his gun.

The countryside scoffed at the finding of the coroner's jury that the last heir of the a Cleeves had met his death by misadventure. Shortly after the inquest Charley Hannaford disappeared with his family, and this lent colour to their gossip. But Jim Burdon, who had been the first to arrive on the scene, told his plain tale, and, for the rest, kept his counsel.

And so did Father Halloran and the Squire.

THE COLABORATORS.

OR, THE COMEDY THAT WROTE ITSELF AS RELATED BY G. A. RICHARDSON.

I.

How pleasant it is to have money, heigho!

How pleasant it is to have money!

Sings (I think) Clough. Well, I had money, and more of it than I felt any desire to spend; which is as much as any reasonable man can want.

My age was five-and-twenty, my health good, my conscience moderately clean, and my appet.i.te excellent: I had fame in some degree, and a fair prospect of adding to it: and I was unmarried. In later life a man may seek marriage for its own sake, but at five-and-twenty he marries against his will--because he has fallen in love with a woman; and this had not yet happened to me. I was a bachelor, and content to remain one.

To come to smaller matters--The month was early June, the weather perfect, the solitude of my own choosing, and my posture comfortable enough to invite drowsiness. I had bathed and, stretched supine in the shade of a high sand-bank, was smoking the day's first cigarette. Behind me lay Ambleteuse; before me, the sea. On the edge of it, their shrill challenges softened by the distance to music, a score of children played with spades and buckets, innocently composing a hundred pretty groups of brown legs, fluttered hair, bright frocks and jerseys, and innocently conspiring with morning to put a spirit of youth into the whole picture.

Beyond them the blue sea flashed with its own smiles, and the blue heaven over them with the glancing wings of gulls. On this showing it is evident that I, George Anthony Richardson, ought to have been happy; whereas, in fact, Richardson was cheerful enough, but George Anthony restless and ill-content: by reason that Richardson, remembering the past, enjoyed by contrast the present, and knew himself to be jolly well off; while George Anthony, likewise remembering the past, felt gravely concerned for the future.

Let me explain. A year ago I had been a clerk in the Office of the Local Government Board--a detested calling with a derisory stipend. It was all that a University education (a second in Moderations and a third in _Literae Humaniores_) had enabled me to win, and I stuck to it because I possessed no patrimony and had no 'prospects' save one, which stood precariously on the favour of an uncle--my mother's brother, Major-General Allan Mclntosh, C.B. Now the General could not be called an indulgent man. He had retired from active service to concentrate upon his kinsfolk those military gifts which even on the wide plains of Hindostan had kept him the terror of his country's foes and the bugbear of his own soldiery.

He had an iron sense of discipline and a pa.s.sion for it; he detested all forms of amus.e.m.e.nt; in religion he belonged to the sect of the Peculiar People; and he owned a gloomy house near the western end of the Cromwell Road, where he dwelt and had for butler, valet, and factotum a Peculiar Person named Trewlove.

In those days I found my chief recreation in the theatre; and by-and-by, when I essayed to write for it, and began to pester managers with curtain-raisers, small vaudevilles, comic libretti and the like, you will guess that in common prudence I called myself by a _nom de guerre_.

Dropping the 'Richardson,' I signed my productions 'George Anthony,' and as 'George Anthony' the playgoing public now discusses me. For some while, I will confess, the precaution was superfluous, the managers having apparently entered into league to ensure me as much obscurity as I had any use for. But at length in an unguarded moment the manager of the Duke of Cornwall's Theatre (formerly the Euterpe) accepted a three-act farce.

It was poorly acted, yet for some reason it took the town. '_Larks in Aspic_, a Farcical Comedy by George Anthony,' ran for a solid three hundred nights; and before it ceased my unsuspecting uncle had closed his earthly career, leaving me with seventy thousand pounds (the bulk of it invested in India Government stock), the house in the Cromwell Road, and, lastly, in sacred trust, his faithful body-servant, William John Trewlove.

Here let me pause to deplore man's weakness and the allurement of splendid possessions. I had been happy enough in my lodgings in Jermyn Street, and, thanks to _Larks in Aspic_, they were decently furnished.