Tales and Sketches.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 20, 10 June 1871, Page 16

Tales and Sketches.

THE WINNING HAZARD. (From Chambers’s Journal.) chapter XVI. ‘To-morrow? Oh, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him!’ 1 My niece,’ said the rector loftily, ‘ is my confidential amanuensis, and will be present at this interview.’ # # . * Proud of her company, sir,' said Mr Good, rubbing his forehead with his handkerchief.—* Aren’t we Joe ?’ * Ay, lad, so we are.’ There was a short embarrassed pause. Good kicked Barker under the table : * Why don’t thou begin ?’ he whispered, loudly. . ‘ Nay; do thou begin--it’s thy business. ‘ What do I pay thee for, thou collop, if thou won’t speak up for me ?’ ‘Now, Good thou doesn’t know how to behave afore gentlefolks. —You must excuse him, miss ; he’s very bashful with women, but he’s a good hearted chap in the main.’ The rector was about to make some angry observation, but Sarah checked him, laying her hand on his arm. ‘ Don’t you think, Mr Barker,’ she said in her sweetest manner —‘ don t you think that you and I had better talk this matter over? Poor uncle has such a shocking head for business, and your friend doesn fc seem to be much better.’ ‘Now, miss,’ cried Good in sheepish expostulation— ‘ now, miss ; I aren t good in the palavering business ; but if it comes to buying a cargo o’ wheat’ i ‘ Ay, you’re all there in corn market, Good.-—Well, miss, as you say, suppose you and I talk the matter over, and these two chaps can listen to us. You known, miss, that this is a very serious business.' ‘ The loss of all this money ? Yes it is.’ ‘ No, I don’t mean only the loss of the money—we don’t care so much about brass, Good, do we?—it’s the forgery as is a serious business, miss.’ Sarah faltered and turned pale. She had hoped almost against hope that the rector’s apprehensions had been ground-. l ess —that there was no question of imputation upon him —that it was simply an affair of raising so much money. But now the terrible suspicion had taken form and shape, and was confronting them in all its naked horror. ‘ The forgery is, as you say, a serious business ; no pains on our side shall be spared to trace the matter to the bottom, and punish the guilty.’ ‘|Ay, miss, but we don’t want any assistance on that point. We have traced the matter to the bottom; but as for punishing the guilty, I think, miss, when you know all ye’ll go down on your bended knees and ask that the guilty may not be punished, for, as sure as I’m a sinful man, the guilty party is Septimus Lowther, the parson of Guisethrope.’ Sarah looked at her uncle expecting to see him rise and spring upon the man who had spoken thus of him ; but he sat still in his chair, pale and nerveless. _ He waved his hand ohee or twice, as if in denial or deprecation, and his lips parted as though he were trying to speak ; but he did not utter a sound. ‘ You’re a very wicked man to say suah things—things you can’t prove—things which are utter lies. But you see my uncle : you have killed him. Come what are your terms? What do you want? What will you take to leave us in peace? We have no money. We have been robbed of all—robbed by Mr Good and his friends. But there are some who will perhaps help us. Put it into money. How much will you take ?’ * We won’ttake nought!’ said the miller, bringing his fist on to the table with a bang. ‘ Robbery, indeed ! I should like to know who’s been robber? Nay, nay, if this is to be sort of work going on, I shall say no more. Only, law must take its course.’ •Sarah saw that she was mismanaging the affair, that she was only precipitating the crisis. * I was wrong, Mr Good,’ she cried ; * I oughtn’t to have said what I did. But we have had so many troubles, I have lost the command of my temper. Will ,you forgive me ?’ Good turned his shoulder to the table, and sat with his face averted, biting at the stump of a quill pen, and muttering to himself. ‘ Willum,’ said Barker, getting up and laying his hand on his friend’s shoulder—- ‘ Willum, here’s a young and lovely female asking you to forgive her, and you sit there like a Pig. Will, I’m ashamed of you !’ ‘ Oh, bother !’ said Good, facing round to the table however. ‘Come Joe, let’s make ah end of this business one way or t’ other. I’m getting dry.’ * I should have thought of that before,' said Sarah ; * you will have some wine or spirits.’ She placed decanters and glasses on the table. Joe watched her admiringly, as she moved about the room. He nudged Good in the ribs with his elbow. * See thee, Good, look yonder! There’s a figger for you—there’s haction! Think

of having a young female like yon to mix yonr grog of a night, and sit up for you when you’re at a public house!’ So Barker whispered to his confederate. He said aloud: ‘Ay, miss, I always think as-business goes on more comfortable if you’ve got a sup of drink afore you. But I tell you what, I think you and I, miss, could settle this matter between ourselves. Suppose we leave the old gent and Willum to have a chat together, while you and I have a private confab. You don’t need to be afeard, miss ; I’ve a wife and sixteen bairns at home.’

* Sarah,’ said Septirhus, getting up and speaking rapidly, * I won’t permit this.Mr Good whatever your demands upon me may be, I have no means of meeting them. As for this other matter, this—this —this forgery, I can only say I know nothing about it. Take your own course. Give me into custody if it so please so : you have the constable at hand.’ He sunk into his chair again, quite exhausted.

‘ There's the old gent going off at score,’ said Joe : ‘let you and I come to an arrangement, miss.—-Willum, you go and walk about in the garden and look at the stars.—l shall speak low, miss, that we mayn’t excite the -old gent. We don’t wan’t any giving into custody—not if you’re reasonable. If ye aren’t reasonable why, it must come to that. Now, look you here, miss : my friend Good is a two hundred thousand pounds man. There’s no mistake at all about it. I knowhis affairs, and I know where the money is—a deal of it. But Willum isn’t happy ; he wants to be a swell. Now I tell him he’s a fool for his pains. The job ain’t worth the money. But it’s no use my saying aught. It were that made him put up for bank director, thinking he’d get among gentlefolks. Five thousand pounds that job’ll cost him, if a penny. Now you see, miss, there, he is with all that brass, but with ne’er a bit of breeding about him. There you are without a meg, as I may say, but tip top gentlefolk. Now, why shouldn’t you put your horses together ? He looks a roughish sort o’ chap, miss, but you might handle him as you would a babby, miss. He’s biggest fool with women folk as ever I did see. I said he were a two-hundred-thousand-pound man; but happen he’s a deal more. There’s no saying what that chap’s worth. Brass ! he fairly smells o’ brass. —Now, miss,’ said Joe, raising his voice, ‘you’ve only got to say yes, and the matter’s settled. You’ll hear no more about brass till I bring you down a thundering good settlement agin your wedding day.’ * And if I say no ?’ * Then, miss jthis is our hortamatum : the fifteen, hundred pounds, the trust fund, replaced in the Bank of England, and two hundred pounds for expenses handed over. There’s been a deal o’ costs out o’ pocket about, this; why, cabs alone has come to a rare lot o’ money !’

‘ And how long do you give us ?’ * Till Monday.’ ‘And when do you expect my answer?’ ‘Look here, miss; we’ve not been asleep in the matter. We’ve filed a bill, and got a receiver appointed, and there’ll be a meeting at his office —it’s old Nails the lawyer, you know —there’ll be a meeting at his office a Monday at noon. Now your feyther—ax .your pardon, X mean your uncle—he must be there with t { brass. But if he can’t bring brass, he may bring a note ee your handwriting, 3ummat after this fashion : “ Dear Mr Good, I accept you as my husband S” and then we'll square it for you. Good’ll write a cheque for the money, and there’ll be an end of it.’ ‘ And if he brings neither note nor money? 5 ‘ Why, then, the law must take its course.’ ‘I think I understand. Then you’ll leave us now without more ado till Monday ?’ * Ay, miss.’ * Then why did you bring the constable?’ ‘ That were a bit of bounce, miss, more than aught else. Only we thought if th’ old gent turned nasty, why we’d be nasty too.—Here Good, come and say good night. 5 _ * What have you done, Joe?’ said Good, as they walked down to their carriage. I’ve settled that they’ll either find money or that the lass’ll marry thee.’ ‘Nay, but, Joe, thou should have consulted me about that. IS ot but what she’s a rare tidy lass, and they’re tip top gentlefolk ; but there should be a bit o’ cuddling and kissing afore a thing o’ that sort’s settled. 5 ‘ Thou hold thy tongue, Willurn : thou knows nought about high life. 5 chapter xvir. * He carries weight! ~ he rides a race ! s Tis for a thousand pounds. 5 The inquest was over, and the coroner was lunching in the breakfast parlor at the Bias. Jack was seated at the table too, pale and weak, his head bound up, his arm in a sling. The coroner was a jolly, rosy man ; he wore corduroy breeches, leather gaiters, and a Telveteen shooting coat. He didn’t make much play with his knife and fork, but drew largely upon the jug of bitter

beer. Lawyer Jones, too, was there, alert and bright. He had done a good piece of work the night before. After last night, he felt that he might almost count to a certainty on the legal agency of the Plas estate. Shackleblock had cut his own throat in that matter. ‘ That gregarious impulse which prompts men of fortune to put affairs into the hands of the traditional old fogies who habitually mismanage them,’ Jack had assured Lawyer Jones had* no influence with him. Now that he had come into his kingdom, he would be his own grand vizier ; but Jones should be his chief dervish: for Shackleblock, the bowstring. So Lawyer Jones was elate apjff joyful, indulging in many passages of arms with the jolly coroner. * Well, John Griffiths,’ said Jones, ‘our friend Gwen made a clean breast of it.’ ‘ That sort of woman always does; sure to break down when collared.’ ‘I wish you’d tell me what she said; it was all Hebrew to me,’ quoth Jack. ‘ I don’t half understand the business now. My aunt’s dead, aud I’m here ; and that’s about all I know of it.’ ‘ I’ll tell you all about it,’ said the coroner, settling himself in his chair, and taking a long preliminary pull at the tankard. ‘ Lady Lavinia, as you know, had for a long time given up herself almost entirely to making her soul; and she’d so far renounced the management of all her property, that she never saw anybody Lor months. Everything passed through the hands of Gwen' the housekeeper; and I must saw that I believe Gwen was faithful to her mistress. But having all this power and authority, and her mistress trusting her implicitly, it happened that her brother Tom, who was always a bumptious sort of fellow, not knowing his place, came homo from somewhere— Africa, I think, or Turkey, or elsewhere—quite out of elbows, and wanting a job. He was a clever fellow, no doubt; had taken a lot of prizes; and they tell me he’s one of the best operators ever turned out of St Diddlemus’ Hospital. Well, somehow or other, they persuaded the old gal—Lady Lavinia, I mean—they persuaded her that Tom could cure her of her ailments, and keep her alive till after the day of judgment; for that was her game, you see. . She’d been having things her own way so long, that she’d no idea of being snuffed out at last just like a common person. And Tom, no doubt, did her a deal of good at first. He’d got some curious drug from the places he’d been at, and he used to dose the old lady till she got as lively as a kitten, and would drive about the country looking as fresh as a rose. But after that she shut up all of a sudden —had a stroke, in fact, and it was all they could do to keep her alive. I ought to have told you that no sooner had the doctor got his foot in, than he made her take his brother as chaplain—his brother Eobert, I mean—who’d always been weak in the head, and had took to drinking and lost his gown. But he’d the gift; there was no mistake about that. Lawks! if you’d heard him prophesying sometimes, it would have made your hair stand on end. Well, he suited the old lady to a hair. He prophesied that every body else in the world would be—thin-gamy-bob’d, you know, and that the old lady would go to heaven in a fiery chariot, and after that there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. But when she got better from the stroke, there was a bit of an alteration in her. Morris the coachman says she used to talk to him abotit you on the sly, as it Were ; and she seemed to hate the Eoberts’ lot, and yet to be afraid of them too. If you’d been one of ourselves, now if you’d been a Cymro, I daresay you’d have had a hint to come down ; but you see after all, whatever these people might be up to, it wasn’t likely their own country folk would split upon them. Well, after a bit, the doctor got her under control again, and then it was, I suppose, that instructions for the will wer made up and sent to the lawyers in Lincoln’s Inn. Before the thing was signed, the old lady had another stroke which killed her ; and that was a bad look out for them. All their trouble had gone for nothing; so they got up a bit of a pious fraud, and determined to keep her alive for a week or two longer, till they could get the new will signed, and the rent audit over, which would put them in funds for the campaign. They knew our friend Jones here was nearly blind, and not very sharp, so they arranged with Shackleblock that the will should be sent down to him to be executed. The old lady had always latterly taken her drives propped up between Gwen and the doctor, and so they used to take her out for an airing every day after her death, just to show her off. I met her myself on the road to Pendffryn one day, and the old girl actually bobbed her head to me. I noticed it at the time, for she’d never been so civil to me before; but I’d no idea she was one of my subjects, else I’d have her out, and sat upon her then and there.’ Griffiths here assumed a ghoul like aspect, which frightened old Lawyer Jones out of his senses almost. * And what was there in the will, J ones ? We may as well have the whole story out,

and I absolve you from your professional reticence.’

‘ Well, indeed, Mr Lowther, it was a very nicely drawn will, I must say. Nearly all the personal property was left to charities, and all the real estate to Dr Tom. It was a very cunning will, because it didn t grasp at too much ; and it would have brought over to the doctor’s side a dozen powerful corporations, if you’d disputed it.’ ‘ It’s a pity he got away, the doctor ; I should have liked the job of conducting his examination,’ said the coroner. ‘You’ll have a reward offered for him, of course ?’

Not I, said Jack. ‘What a powerful fellow he was; I was like a child in his hands . I should have done better, perhaps, if I could have kept him from closing, being rather quicker with my hands ; but when once he got hold of me, it was all over. It wasn’t fair, though, to knock my head about with the butt of the pistol when I was down.’

* I don f see what his object was either,’ said the coroner. * They must have killed you both and hid your bodies, to do any good.’

‘ Oh, they could easily have put us both into my aunt’s coffin. But a man can’t calculate possibilities accurately just on the spur of the moment. They might have managed it very well, if the doctor hadn t fired his revolver at me. That brought the captain to help us, else we should both have been done for.’ ‘ Well, indeed, he’s too dangerous a fellow to be at large; he’ll be turning to garrotting or something of that kind.’ ‘Depend upon.it, he’ll fall on his legs wherever he goes. He’ll find out that honesty’s the best policy, and that there’s more to be made out of living old women than dead ones. I shouldn’t wonder to find him the manager of a public company before long.’ Here the butler entered with a telegram on a silver tray. ‘Came on horseback, sir, from Llanbedig.’ It was from his cousin, and contained only three words: ‘Help by Monday.’ ‘ Can anybody tell me the day of the week ?’ said Jack hastily after reading it; so much had happened that it seemed a year since he left town.’ ‘ It’s Saturday—Saturday, 2.80 p.m.’ ‘By Jove, how I’ve let the time slip through my fingers!—Jones, shall I be too late far the Dinorwich bank ?’ ‘ Mr Lowther of the Plas can never be too late,’ said Jones sententiously. ‘Then, come along, Jones; we’ll go round to the stables, and see a horse put into a trap ourselves. These lazy fellows will be an hour about it. Jones, I must have two thousand pounds this very day: how shall I get it ?’ ‘Well, indeed, Mr John, it’s a good deal of money. If. we’ve the luck to find Griffith and his partner at home, we’ll get it sure enough ; but I doubt if the clerks would take the responsibility. You can’t draw on your aunt’s account till the legal formalities have been completed/ The little town of Dinorwich lies upon the crest of one of the hills which dominate the valley of Llandanwg. It was out of the track of tourists, and had sprung up within the past twenty years, an entrepot for miners and quarrymen.

The bank was closed when Jack and the lawyer reached it. They gained admission, however, but found that both the partners were away. The resident one was expected to return that evening—in a few hours; and so the two wandered about the scattered dismal village, which seemed to have furtively edged it itself in among great banks of slate rubbish from the quarries.

The presence of two strangers in the village caused a little curiosity, and it was soon known that one of them was the new lord of the Plas, the owner of a great portion of the wealth of the slate mountains. This knowledge of course increased the excitement. The curate of the parish church and the manager of the largest quarry consulted as to the propriety of presenting an address. The leading beer house keepers overhauled their stores of bunting, which had lain idle since the last, club day. Fortunately, however, the address was unpresented, the flags'undisplayed. It was felt that, under the circumstances, rejoicing would be ill timed. The news, however, reached a little cottage which stood by the road side close to a dismal swamp, some three or four miles away on the road to Llanbedig. It didn’t cause any rejoicing there. An old woman—a very old woman—toothless, yellow, her face wrinkled and puckered, more like a crumpled piece of parchment than a human face, sat cower-* ing and shivering over a fire of a few lumps of peat. Gwen, her daughter, sat on the other side of the hearth gloomily stitching. The prophet was stretched in a lethargy across the one deal table of the cottage; and Thomas stood looking out of the' little low window on to the dismal morass which surrounded them. * The master’s come !’ shouted a quarryman on his way over the mountains to some distant village where his sweetheart lived. f What! is he at Dinorwich ?’

‘ Yes ; walking about there with Lawyer Jones.’ , '

‘ Eobert!’ shouted Thomas, shaking his brother by the shoulder, ‘ rouse up; there's work to be done. The cursed Sais # is at Dinorwich. Possible he’s on his way to London —will pass here. Go to the village—to the Dinorwich Arms find out his servant, and treat bim—make him drunk, if you can. When you know what he’s doing, and where he’s going, send the little lad of the blacksmith’s with the word, and then you may get as drunk as you like yourself. See, here is half-a-crown.’

The prophet snatched eagerly at the coin, put on his hat, and walked quickly off.

Some hours after, the little boy of the blacksmith made his appearance with a grimy scrawl— ‘ Come to bank for money. Go to Llanbedig for train.’ Meanwhile, the banker had returned, and was willing to supply the money. But there was a difficulty about remitting it.

‘ Impossible to get it to Lufftown by Monday. Post is gone ; there’s no mail to-morrow : and even if we sent a clerk to telegraph from Llanbedig, our London agents would only get the telegram on Monday morning, and the remittance couldn’t be advised at Lufftown before Tuesday.’ ‘ Give me a Bradshaw,’ said Jack. ‘ I can do it; there’s a train from Llanbedig at 9.15. I can get to Chester by that, and then’

‘ But to-morrow's Sunday,’ remonstrated the banker. * Still, there’s a train, Oh, I can do it, Mr Griffiths, if you will let me have the money—soon, please, as I have a long way to drive.’

‘ Come this way, Mr Lowther,’ said the banker, leading his customer from the private parlor into the bank itself. The shutters were all closed, and the room was dim. It was a dowdy little room, with a dull counter across it. There was a smouldering little fire in a minute grate, and a mouldy old clerk posting up a decrepit ledger, and a big safe in a corner, where all the securities were kept. * William Pugh,’ said the banker, ‘we want two thousand pounds in gold.’ ‘ Dear Anwyl, it will take a deal of time to count,’ said Pugh. He didn’t go to a drawer or till, but to the wooden mantel shelf of the little fire place, on which stood piles of sovereigns, forming a sort of chevaux defrise all round it.

He was so long counting the money that Jack grew impatient. He took them up in tens, and told them over twice, lingering lovingly over them, and dropping them finally into a canvas bag, which he at last handed ever to Jack. ‘Yery much obliged to you, indeed, Mr Griffiths.’ ‘ Only too glad to oblige you, the representative of such a valued customer as your late aunt. We all sympathise with you so much in the loss you have sustained.’ ‘ Now, J ones,’ said J ack, as they walked towards the Dinorwich Arms, ‘ I wish you to stay at the Plas and look after things there till I return on Tuesday. We’ll have the funeral on Wednesday, and I shall rely on you to make all arrangements,’ ‘ I must go.’ Presently the dogcart was at the door of the inn. It was a twenty miles’ drive to the Llanbedig station, over a very lonely, desolate country ; but the mare in the shafts was fresh and free, and Jack didn’t doubt that she would do the journey in a couple of hours at the furthest. He felt a great exhilaration of spirits as they darted forward through the soft evening air, as he looked back on the golden sunset, on the glowing molten sea behind him. But they hadn’t gone far when Jack noticed that his servant seemed to have lost the power of driving, went most recklessly round corners, scraping the rocks with the axle boxes, veered to and fro upon the road in a winding, serpentine track. At last, the danger became so imminent, that Jack plucked the reins from the man’s hands, and brought the mare to a standstill.

* Williams, you’re drunk.’ ‘ No, indeed, sir ; I’m not drunk ; not at all, sir. ‘ It’s the influenza, sir.’ ‘ Get out of the trap !’ Williams obeyed, nothing loath, curled himself up on the bank under the shelter of a loose stone wall, and fell asleep at once. Jack drove on. It was rather awkward only having one hand to use : but the mare didn’t want the whip, and went like the wind;- The road ran at the foot of a wild mountain slope, but on the other side of it was a desolate wilderness of rock and morass, stretching away to a black and dismal tarn, above which rock and precipice and mountain buttress gloomed in the shades of approaching night. But there was one rosy peak, the highest peak, glowing in the las Prays of the sun. All the soft, pinky, pearly hues, all the dying loveliness of light, rested on that bleak and sullen crag. ‘lf it were my last hour,’ cried Jack, * Saxon,, '

* I’d say : " Thank God for such a sight as that.” ’ .. And then he saw right before him, a few hundred yards away from him, the dark figure of a man, and he knew that his last hour had really come, for that this was his enemy, this his cruel and remorseless foe, the bad, black doctor. He looked about him on either side, looked eagerly and imploringly, if haply there were not some human creature who would help him in his need, or tell the story of his death. But there was no living human soul in all that wilderness except the man and him. The sheep stamped their feet at him, whistling defiance ere they scampered away from his track; the curlews shouted athim hoarsely; the gulls screamed over his. head. Ah, there was no help for him in the world ; he must surely die! Yet was not that the beat of hoofs behind him? Ho; it was only the throbbing of his own pulses in his ears.

That he, maimed and shaken, had any chance in a conflict with the man who barred his progress—who had been more than a match for him in his full health and vigor—he didn’t for a moment hope. He would do what he could, but of the end there was no doubt. There was one chance—to drive over him. Jack looped the reins into his damaged arm —his left —and with his right lashed desperately into the mare, which darted forward, maddened at the touch of the whip. If he only flinched, that man—if he only gave way a foot’s breadth, the horse would be over him, and Jack would be saved, but he didn’t flinch an inch. He stood with his arms folded, full front to the furiously galloping horse. Then the horse swerved, leaping madly over the high bank by the roadside. Jack felt himself flying through the air, felt a heavy shock, tried to rise, but was held down by something pressing upon his legs ; then he turned giddy and sick. After all, it was not very dreadful to die, if only he hadn’t to exert himself. Ah, there was that man come to torment him. There was a little comfort in that he hadn’t been beaten by him—that the fellow owed his victory to an accident. (Concluded in our next.)