LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 428, 27 October 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A SEASIDE ADVENTURE. ( Concluded.') 4 5755 Raschkoff! charged with making his escape, resisting the police, insolence to the gate-keeper, and giving the assistantsurgeon unnecessary trouble. ’ All this the aforesaid portly gentleman read aloud, and then, without waiting to hear me plead, called upon my captors to give their story. This has already been told. It was a little embellished, no doubt, to glorify their courage. Next came Dunkley, of seven children, whom I, in my character of Raschkoff, was about to rob of their bread. Dunkley was about to plunge into details of the daring manner in which I had eluded his observation, when all at once his face fell. 4 Here, at last,’ I said, 4 is some one who knows I am not Raschkoff.’ 4 Go on, Mr Dunkley,’ go on,’ said the Governor. But Dunkley could not go on ; already, with self-interest quickening his intellect, it had dawned upon him that they had caught the wrong man, that Raschkoff was still at large, and that, therefore, the seven miniature Dunkleys were far from secure from want. I saw my opportunity. * I wish to observe ’ * Silence! ’ 4 1 wish to observe, ’ again. 4 Silence ! ’ again, and more peremptorily. 4 1 will speak ! ’ I said, growing resolute. 4 1 wish to observe that my name is John Wray of Crutched Friars.’ At which announcement the little court was immediately convulsed with laughter. Evidently, the joke of my alleged mistaken identity was considered highly amusing. 4 1 repeat, my name is Wray, and not Raschkoff. ’ The governor for a moment looked as if he would eat me, and his myrmidons were little less aghast at my persistent insolence. But Dunkley at last found his tongue. 4 He’s right, sir ! He’s not Raschkoff at all !’ 4 Not Raschkoff !’ from the governor, who felt himself still one short of his number. 4 Not Raschkoff!’ from the policeman, who felt himself a fool, and live pounds poorer. 4 Not Raschkoff !’ from the pious gatekeeper, from the first warder to the second, to the third, and so on along the scale, as all in turn expressed their surprise. But there was no doubt about it : Dunkley was positive ; and other officers corroborated his statement. There was plenty now who knew the real Raschkoff by sight; warders with whom he had been in daily contact, and who saw at once that 1 was quite a different man. It was my misfortune that on the previous evening, none of these had been on duty; but in a prison containing nearly two thousand felons, the mistake was more than possible. At last the governor spoke, and angrily : 4 Oh ! but this is too absurd. What were you about, all of you ? It’s disgraceful ! And you, sir !’ —this to me— 4 how dare yon come here to insult us, and make us look like fools ? One might have thought that I had been guilty of breaking into the prison by force, and that I had insisted they should keep me there for the rest of my life. 4 But let me tell you, sir !’ he went on, 4 that there is such a thing as connivance, and that it is felony to assist a convict to es cape ; and that, befoi e you are many hours older, you will be by the heels in Dorchester Jail for trial at the next assizes.’ 4 And let me tell you sir !’ I replied hotly in my turn, 4 that there is such a thing as action for false imprisonment; and that if you do not instantly set me free, if there is any law in the land, before you are many months older, you will be cast in heavy damages, in the Court of Queen’s Bench. ’ 4 Nonsense, sir! I must insist on hearing your explanation. ’ My explanation ! as if I hadn’t wanted to give it these twelve hours past ! Then, in a few hurried words, I told him the whole story. 4 But can this be corroborated ? Have you any one within reach to speak to your identity ? ’ 4 There is the innkeeper at Lulworth, and others there. Or, stay; telegraph to my firm, Stokes, Wray, and Co, of Crutched Friars. ’ 4 Will one of the partners come down ? ’ 4 Yes, no doubt, if it’s urgent.’ 4 It is urgent. I am sorry to appear discourteous, or to disbelieve your story; all I ask is, that you will remain here ’ 4 In prison ? ’ 4 By no means; in my house, as my guest,’ said the governor, with the bow of a finished courtier. 4 All I ask is, to be quite convinced. I trust you will understand that I am bound, in my serious and responsible situation, to take nothing for granted. ’ 4 And my clothes ? ’ 4 1 daresay we can fit you out,’ said the governor, with a slight smile. 4 We keep a large stock of ready-made clothes —no, not convicts’, but free men’s, for prisoners on discharge. Step into my private room, and you shall make the change at once.’ In half an hour I was at breakfast, and at the right side of the gates, with my host. 4 Our Mr Stokes’ arrived that evening by five, with full proof of my identity; the governor was satisfied ; and I left Fortland gladly enough within half-an-hour afterwards. Mr Stokes went back to town at

once, but I got out at Wool, intending to walk to the inn. Strangely enough, there was Vye, who had taken me and my luggage in his cart from the station at my first arrival three weeks before. I hailed him. He evidently did not recognise me in the least.

• No wonder you don’t know me,’ I said. ‘ A nice time I’ve been having of it these last four-and-twenty hours.’ My voice alone seemed to bring back a gleam of intelligence into his face. Slowly his eyes opened wide, and his lower jaw dropped.

‘ Surely, ’ he said. * I saw you again’ away last night quite late with the two ladies. They sends down to the Cove, and orders a fly just (afore ten— says they are obliged to go unexpect, and must catch the mail train ; and as I was a-comin’ over top o’ Church Hill I see you a-standing at corner o’ cross roads. Then I remember the moon was a shining pretty nigh as • bright as the sun at day. I was coming down towards you, when up comes the ladies’ fly, and in you gets long afore I could near you. I tells my missus, and she says: ‘ Pend upon it, the gentleman’s eloped ;’ and when I heard at the Cove this morning as you ’adn’t been home all night, I thought she was about right; mayhap’ Here Vye stopped abruptly, looked round as he saw the station-master coming out of the office, and called to him : ‘ Here, Muster Coombs, didn’t the ladies go away last night with the gentleman in blue barnacles and brown billy-cock, same as I drove over to the Cove three weeks ago ?’ Yes ; surely,’ answered Mr Coombs, but with a little hesitation as he looked at me.

4 1 certainly thought it was the same gentlemen, from his dress and short hair; but we were rather busy, and I didn’t take very close notice. Wasn’t it he, after all ? Now I look at you again, sir, how is it? You have just come from Weymouth. I don’t rightly remember you, either. Anyhow, I gave the two ladies and the gentlemen I took to be you, three first to Southampton, by the 10.45 last night; more, I can’t say.’ Here was a complication ! What association could there have been between the convict and those two ladies ? And was it really he, disguised in my dress, that Vye and Mr Coombs had seen ?

As I pondered for a moment, the stationmaster had gone back to his office, and come out again with a large brown paper parcel in his hand. 4 By the way, Vye, he said, 4 you may as well take this to Richards at the Cove. I’d almost forgotten it : came down mid-day ; there’s nothing to pay; ’ and he handed it to the fisherman.

Of course, it was not unusual to make Vye a carrier ; and very soon he and I were once again jolting towards Lulworth. The parcel lay in the bottom of the cart at my feet, and I remember observing quite casually that it was directed merely to the 4 Proprietor of the Cove Hotel, Lulworth,’ and that the handwriting was that of a lady, and had rather a foreign character about it. Intense consternation and wonder prevailed on my arrival at the inn. Everywhere it had been clearly settled that I had eloped ; and though none of the gossips I spoke to had seen the man in the -blue spectacles and brown billy-cock go off with the ladies, except Mr Vye, his account of that event, and my absence, were the two and two which, put together, left no doubt in the minds of the astute natives.

Indeed, I could not find that anybody, coast-guardsman, or the owner of the lady’s lodgings, had seen the fellow ; and but for the stationmaster’s confirmation of Vye’s story, I should not have believed it. My room and belongings had been left undisturbed, and it was with no small relief that I once more found myself wearing clothes of my own. Whilst I was setting myself a little to rights, |and puzzling over the connection which there seemed to be between the two ladies and the man to whom I owed so much misery, the landlord appeared, with the parcel we had brought from the station in his hand.

4 This ’ere’s for you, sir, I ’spect, ’cording to the direction inside it. ’

He had undone the outer cover, and within was a second parcel, directed as follows: 4 For the Gentleman who wears Blue Spectacles staying at the Cove Hotel. ’ I cut the string, and found —what ? My clothes and wide-awake, and the contents of the pocket intact !

As I examined them, a sheet of note paper fell to the floor : on it were written, in the same hand as that on the two directions, these words : 4 Beyond restoring the inclosed articles, it is improbable that any reparation can ever be made to the gentleman to whom they belong for the outrage to which he has been subjected. If his looks have not belied him, however, it is just possible that he may find some consolation, and an apology, in learning that his clothes have been the accidental means of restoring to a mother’s and sister’s arms an erring and repentant man. If the law has been outraged, the gentleman has been at least an unintentional accessory, and whether this fact allays his scruples or not, it is believed that, by the time these words are in his hands, the culprit will be beyond the reach of any efforts he may be the means of helping the authorities to make towards a recapture.’ As far off as ever, almost, from the details which led to this strange affair, broadly speaking, the letter, nevertheless, gave me inkling of the truth. Whether it was a preconcerted plan between the unhappy ladies and their unhappy relative, this meeting on the Dorsetshire coast; whether he had managed to escape for the second time, knowing where they were; whether they, in their misery, were led to that out-of-the-way retreat by a helpless longing to be near him, and had so for ever been sitting watching his rocky prison, and that he as accidentally lighted on them as he had on the opportunity my clothes gave him for getting out of the way, I shall never know. It was quite enough for me to remember that young girl’s face, to stay any promptings I might have had to aid the law. Her appealing look had more than once made me long to help her, and I had done so, if through no merit, at least through no fault of my own, and I was not a detective.

More than ten years have passed since all this happened. 1 have been long married, and it chanced that I spent last autumn at Weymouth with my family. One day I paid a visit to Portland prison —a second visit. How different from the first? Governors had been changed. The system of discipline, as is observable from late reports, so immensely improved as to render an event such as I have described next to impossible. The chief warder, though he did not remember me, remembered the escape of 4 5755 Raschkoff.’ 4 Yes, sir and 4 5755 Raschkoff is still at large !’